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WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the FBI’s Chicago field office is abruptly leaving his position, according to a resignation message he sent to colleagues and multiple people familiar with the situation who said he was told to retire.

Douglas DePodesta has served as special agent in charge in Chicago, one of the FBI’s largest offices, for nearly two years and has been with the bureau since 2002.

He told colleagues that his last day would be Monday, according to a message seen by The Associated Press. Multiple people familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel move, said DePodesta had been pushed to retire.

The events leading up to his departure were not immediately clear, but DePodesta alluded in his farewell note to a conflict that he suggested had precipitated it.

“I’ve never backed down from a fight, as long as it meant our personnel could continue serving the FBI’s mission,” DePodesta wrote in the message. “Unfortunately, that has proved unpopular over time and my departure is a consequence of that.”

The move is part of a broader upheaval in the FBI’s workforce as Director Kash Patel has sought to force out line agents and supervisors alike who are perceived as not supporting the Trump administration agenda. It also comes amid prolonged tumult in the law enforcement community in Chicago, whose top federal prosecutor, Andrew Boutros, described this week a sweeping review of more than 1,000 grand jury presentations made by Illinois prosecutors following the dismissal of a high-profile case over misconduct.

The FBI declined to comment Thursday, but the bureau’s “rapid response” social media account on X responded to a separate post about DePodesta’s departure by saying: “It’s simple: Anyone who is not on board with THIS FBI under the leadership of President Trump — which has achieved the lowest murder rate ever — is free to leave.”

DePodesta also quoted in his note from a farewell message from Patel’s predecessor, former Director Chris Wray, who reminded the workforce that “you have been who the American people have turned to in their darkest moments” and praised them for having “stayed true to the values that define who we are, and to the qualities for which we stand: Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity.”

DePodesta joined the FBI in Chicago in 2002 and worked drug investigations. He later held senior roles at FBI headquarters in Washington and in Detroit and Memphis before being named top agent in Chicago in August 2024.

NEW YORK (AP) — A skyscraper-scaling daredevil told police that he and his girlfriend climbed the Empire State Building’s antenna and unfurled a banner about love and peace because he wanted to “do something special” for their engagement, prosecutors said Thursday at the couple’s arraignment on felony reckless endangerment, burglary and other charges.

The couple, who go by Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, said little as they left court, though Beerkus responded to a journalist’s question about the stunt by saying: “We believe in love.”

Authorities said the two — who were the subject of the 2024 Netflix documentary “ Skywalkers: A Love Story ” about their “rooftopping” exploits and budding romance — created not only a spectacle but a danger by ascending the famed skyscraper’s broadcast antenna Wednesday.

After reaching the top, 1,454 feet (443 meters) above midtown Manhattan, the climbers displayed a black banner reading: “When the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace,” news helicopter video showed.

Then they collected the banner and descended to a slightly lower ledge, where an apparently successful marriage proposal unfolded. Nikolau posted images of the escapade on her social media accounts, including a photo that modeled an engagement-style ring above a bird’s-eye view of Manhattan.

Police waited about a half-hour for the antenna to be powered down before Emergency Services Unit officers started ascending and eventually intercepted the climbers on their way down, according to the complaint, which noted the danger to officers who climbed about 1,250 feet (381 meters) above the ground. The court document identified the two by their formal names, Angelina Nikolau and Ivan Kuznetsov.

“Skywalkers: A Love Story” follows Beerkus, now 32, and Nikolau, 33, as they make often unauthorized ascents of tall structures, sometimes posing as construction workers to sneak in.

The court complaint said police found a broken lock on a security door on the Empire State Building’s restricted-access 104th floor, which provides access to the antenna. The highest public floor is the 102nd, where there’s an observation deck. Going higher requires a key card, according to the court complaint.

The Empire State Building’s management has called the climb “unauthorized” but hasn’t answered questions about what interactions, if any, the daredevils had with security workers. Visitors to the skyscraper are screened and told not to bring large packages, sports equipment, costumes or masks, among other items.

Beerkus and Nikolau were released without bail, in accordance with New York laws that restrict when monetary bail can be set. Their attorney, Jason Krinsky, said outside court that once prosecutors provide evidence, he and his clients would assess it and determine next steps.

“What a way to propose — something you can only dream of,” Krinsky said. “So you’ve got to, you know, give him some credit for that.”

Other daredevils have climbed the antenna and other parts of the Empire State Building. Those ascents have largely been unauthorized, but actor and musician Jared Leto was allowed to climb up to the base of the antenna from the 86th floor in 2023 to promote a tour.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Across the United States, many Americans are celebrating their country’s 250th birthday by closing their ears to all the partisan shouting. All the fingernails-on-chalkboard screeching out of Washington. All the clamor of social media agitprop.

Instead, in varied ways, they are tuning into their own personal concepts of America the Beautiful.

In Associated Press interviews with citizens in the days before the Fourth, auto technician Joe Fuqua-Bejarano, in Topeka, Kansas, sized up “what makes us awesome” as a people. It’s clearly not the politics, in his view, but rather resilience.

“We’ve just all got to find unity somewhere, whether that’s in laughter or perseverance, and keep everybody cool,” he said from the fireworks stand where he’s doing a booming business as a side hustle.

The world’s long-running image of Americans as a brash and confident (if not boastful and jingoistic) lot did not square easily with the tempered enthusiasms and trepidations expressed by many of the people AP interviewed.

“There are lots of points of contention going around,” noted one of them, Christina Zhou, a 25-year-old research assistant from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Yet “there are still a lot of beautiful things that are happening.”

“What I’m trying to do is think about just things that are happening locally,” she added. “It feels a little bit more like within our own personal control.”

‘We’re just happy Americans’

In Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, farmer Mindy Dean, 50, and her family will be milking their goats Saturday and maybe taking in some local fireworks. Or maybe not. The 250th hoopla has been mostly lost on her. “We’re just happy Americans,” she said. “We kinda do our own thing and just enjoy our freedom as Americans.”

In contrast, the goat-free Neil Casey, an 81-year-old retiree from Nashua, New Hampshire, and his friend Maureen Regan, who lives in Cambridge, are free-range celebrants. They’re roaming Boston’s historical sites, like Paul Revere’s house, and as many of the city’s Fourth events as they can manage. They, too, are plugging their ears to discord.

“I’m very much aware of our country and what we’ve been through, you know, so I’m just trying to immerse myself in the atmosphere of the 250th,” Casey said. Regan took heart in all the soccer fans who poured into the country for the World Cup and praised what they experienced.

“They love everything we have,” she said, ”and I want people to not forget that and remember how lucky we are.” Her advice to compatriots: “Just enjoy the moment. Enjoy that we’ve been here for 250 years.”

Still, for some, it is nearly impossible to separate holiday patriotism from steps by President Donald Trump to bend the celebrations toward himself, as with the Fourth of July festivities on the National Mall that he said will culminate in a Trump rally Saturday.

When patriotism feels ‘Republican’

“When you’re celebrating the Fourth of July right now, it feels like that’s like a Republican thing to do,” said Madeline Capodilupo, 26, a special-education teacher who lives in Boston. She’ll spend the weekend with her fiancé’s family at their Maine beach house.

“It’s just hard to celebrate something when it doesn’t feel like we should be celebrating anything,” she said.

What celebrants are celebrating, exactly, is diverse and personal.

Ronald Hall spent 18 months in the Air Force toward the end of the Vietnam War. His wife, Karen, served two years in the Army and took part in Operation Desert Storm during the first Gulf War. While they shopped for vegetables at Detroit’s Eastern Market this week, Ronald said he’s spent a lifetime celebrating American ideals, which might be distinct from reality.

As a Black man, he said, America’s promise of freedom and equality was at the core. “I grew up remembering the promise,” he said. “That’s what we celebrated: the promise, not the country.”

Old warriors find their faith tested

Veterans are always front and center in America’s big occasions and the 250th is no different. At the New Hampshire Veterans Home in Tilton, residents are looking forward to a community celebration in the coming days that will feature a National Guard Black Hawk helicopter, a World War II ambulance, food trucks, music and even Uncle Sam on stilts.

The old warriors are keeping the faith. But that faith is being tested.

“I believe this country is the greatest that ever existed,” said Leo LeClerc, 83, an Air Force veteran who served in Vietnam. “Our democracy is strong and it will continue to be strong as long as people participate in it.”

But, he said. “I don’t like what’s going on in this country” and “I don’t feel very good about the 250th.” An independent who voted for Trump in 2016, he now believes a “cult of personality has taken over” around the president.

Tom Gaumont, 74, an Army veteran and former history teacher, remembered the 1976 bicentennial as a more hopeful time, despite the aftershocks of President Richard Nixon’s resignation under threat of impeachment.

“I’m kinda sad at this point with what I anticipate,” Gaumont said. “I’ve seen and taught about how these things kind of crumble, so I’m concerned.”

“We’ve lasted this long,” he added, “and this is a very existential time in our history.”

Allan Bailey, 83, a Republican who also served in Vietnam and later owned a motel, voiced similar pessimism.

“I’m worried about how the country is going, I really am,” he said. “I don’t know what we’re going to leave our children, and that bothers me a lot.”

A security guard works to ‘make the USA the greatest’

In Dearborn, Michigan, Nabeel Mawari, 38, sounded a more hopeful note. On Saturday, he’ll be working his security guard job while his wife and two young sons celebrate the holiday with relatives. An immigrant from Yemen, now a U.S. citizen, Mawari spoke from his backyard about life in the United States.

“My life is here,” Mawari said. “We try to make the U.S.A. the greatest. That’s why I’m here. I love this country. The Fourth of July, it is very important.”

Then there’s the man who, for perhaps very understandable reasons, wanted to stay far away from the political fray.

Gary MacGrath, 77, has been a caricaturist at a suburban Philadelphia fair for 14 years. This year, McGrath’s booth was sandwiched right between the local Democratic and Republican Party clubs. Talk about a rock and a hard place. He said he learned as a bartender earlier in life to “never talk about religion or politics” and was heeding that lesson now.

But he did permit himself this: “It’s 250 years,” he said. “Let’s keep democracy going.”

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Ramer reported from Bedford and Tilton, N.H. Associated Press writers John Hanna in Topeka, Kan., Mike Catalini in Southampton, Pa., Michael Casey in Cambridge, Mass., and Corey Williams in Detroit contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is proposing a new rule on Thursday to keep hospitals from charging markups on discounted drugs for Medicare patients and says that could save consumers $1.1 billion next year, according to estimates obtained by The Associated Press.

The rule would apply to hospitals that serve low-income patients under what is known as the 340B program, which lets hospitals buy outpatient prescription drugs at discounted prices. But in many cases, hospitals can bill insurers at rates that exceed those costs, allowing hospitals to keep the difference and resulting in higher costs to patients.

Under the proposed rule, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services would change the formula for what hospitals participating in the program can get reimbursed, in an effort to cut costs for patients.

The Republican administration has sought to show during an election year that it is tackling the challenges of affordability for U.S. families at a time when rising healthcare costs are driving financial strains for households and the government alike. While the administration has taken several steps it says will save money on medical treatment, it is unclear how much savings might ultimately materialize based on the complexity of the country’s healthcare system.

The American Hospital Association said the proposed rule would compound the financial pressures its members face.

“These proposals will undermine the ability of hospitals to maintain essential services and protect affordable access to care for those who depend on the 340B program,” said Ashley Thompson, the group’s senior vice president for public policy analysis and development.

There is the risk that hospital systems could see their revenues decrease, which could have consequences in the communities they serve. The 340B program was initially designed as a way for healthcare providers to stretch scarce federal resources to better serve more patients. But it has long been at the center of a lobbying battle between hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, with each side attempting to enlist lawmakers in maintaining or changing the benefit.

The agency estimates that the average older adult with Medicare Part B coverage who is administered one of these drugs would save $800 a year in co-payments. That would work out to a total savings of $1.1 billion for everyone with that coverage.

The savings over 10 years could total about $20 billion, according to a White House official who requested anonymity to discuss the rule before the official announcement. The official said the proposed rule was not previewed for hospital groups before the release.

In a policy draft of the rule, the administration gave a specific example of how the current system works for the prostate cancer drug Lupron Depot. Hospitals under the 340B program can acquire a dose for roughly $700, but they can receive about $4,000 in Medicare reimbursement for administering it and an additional $1,000 from the patient co-payment.

The proposed rule would cut by roughly 40% that amount that hospitals in the discounted drug program could be paid through Medicare programs. If approved, the rule would go into effect at the start of next year.

In 2018 during President Donald Trump’s first term, his administration tried to enact this same type of rule to reduce Medicare payments to hospitals. But the Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that the government could not provide a separate reimbursement plan for 340B hospitals.

The president signed an executive order in April 2025 to survey how much hospitals spend to buy drugs. The result of that survey led to the proposed rule, which would cap Medicare reimbursement for participating hospitals at the average sales prices, minus 33.4%. The reason why the average reimbursement rate would be cut is because the hospitals acquired the drugs at discounted prices.

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Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers slowed hiring last month and added only 57,000 jobs, less than half the previous month’s total and a sign companies still have a cautious economic outlook.

The Labor Department said Thursday that the unemployment rate declined to a low 4.2% from 4.3% in May, though the drop mostly occurred because many people out of work gave up looking and were no longer counted as unemployed.

The figures suggest businesses remain wary of the economy’s health, with inflation at a three-year high and consumer confidence near post-pandemic lows. The job market has been stuck in a “low-hire, low-fire” rut in which the employed enjoy some job security with layoffs low, but those out of work are struggling to get hired. Strong hiring in the spring raised hopes the economy was escaping that dynamic, but Thursday’s report suggests job gains are still muted.

“We are in a market that is still very fragile, and still susceptible to shocks happening,” Nicole Bachaud, labor economist at ZipRecruiter, an online job platform, said. “There is still a lot of hesitation on the part of employers and workers themselves to make any moves.” She noted that other government data shows companies are posting more jobs but not filling them.

Hiring has improved from last year, when employers added fewer than 10,000 jobs a month, on average. In this year’s first half the pace improved to 92,000. Yet healthy job gains that were initially reported in April and May were revised lower, from 172,000 down to 129,000 in May and from 179,000 to 148,000 in April.

Restaurants and bars cut jobs last month, despite the World Cup

Restaurants, bars, and hotels cut 61,000 jobs, a sharp disappointment for those who expected the World Cup tournament that is taking place in multiple U.S. cities would lead to at least temporary job gains. Retailers also shed 7,500 jobs.

Chad Moutray, chief economist at the National Restaurant Association, said member companies are seeing signs consumers are pulling back on eating out, particularly outside higher-income households. It reflects a “K-shaped” economy, where wealthier households pull ahead of middle- and lower-income ones.

“We continue to hear that a lot of Americans are struggling to make ends meet,” he said. “If you’re catering to the upper-end of the K, you’re doing fine. If you’re catering to the lower part of the K, you’re seeing some challenges in the last couple of months.”

Moutray’s group has forecast that restaurants will hire 450,000 seasonal workers this summer, slightly below last year’s 470,000.

Denise Beckson, a vice president at Morey’s Piers and Beachfront Water Parks in Wildwood, New Jersey, said her company has hired about 1,500 summer employees this year, roughly the same as last year. But she said many restaurants and hotels are struggling with higher food costs and minimum wage increases that have limited their ability to hire.

“Costs continue to rise, and one way to control that is to pull back on staffing,” she said.

Many Americans worry about the impact of artificial intelligence on employment, but for now AI may actually be adding jobs. Last month professional and business services, a category that includes architecture, engineering, and software development — occupations expected to be vulnerable to AI — added 36,000 jobs.

Construction firms added workers, possibly because of AI buildout

Blue-collar industries added a modest number of jobs, with manufacturers adding 3,000 positions and construction firms 11,000.

Scottsville, New York-based Power & Construction Group added some of those jobs as it seeks to keep up with the demand for greater electrical capacity in the state. Thomas “Murph” Murphy, the company’s vice president, said they are looking to hire another 15-20 workers after adding 47 in the past two months.

The company is seeking more electricians, laborers, and heavy equipment operators to join the 350 workers on staff, Murphy said.

Murphy said his company is competing for workers with firms building data centers in other states — not many are being built in New York — and he has to work to convince young people to choose construction as a career. The firm recently built a training center to bring newer, younger workers up to speed.

“The grid can’t handle all the new power that everybody’s using,” Murphy said, noting the increase in laptops, phones, and tablets in many Americans’ homes. “We need to continuously build the grid. But it does take time.”

Jobs data could keep Federal Reserve on sidelines

Thursday’s report suggests that hiring and wage gains aren’t accelerating enough to worsen inflationary pressures in the economy, which could allow the Federal Reserve to keep its key rate unchanged at its current level of about 3.6%.

Previously, many Wall Street investors had expected the central bank to lift its key rate this year as hiring appeared to be accelerating. The prospect of no rate cuts lifted the stock market in mid-morning trading, with the broad S&P 500 index up 0.7%.

“Today’s data hit the sweet spot for markets — strong enough to keep worries about growth at bay, but soft enough to reduce the probability of a rate hike,” said Eric Winograd, chief U.S. economist at AB Global, an asset management firm.

Fed chair Kevin Warsh in Portugal Wednesday reiterated that he would push inflation back to the Fed’s 2% target, though he wouldn’t comment on whether the Fed would raise rates at its next meeting, later this month.

Average paychecks, meanwhile, rose 3.5% from a year ago, a decent gain but one that still trailed inflation, leaving many Americans struggling to keep up with rising costs for necessities such as food, gas, and housing.

Historically, a job gain of just 57,000 would be seen as weak. Yet as more Americans retire and new immigration has dropped sharply, the U.S. workforce has shrunk in the past year. As a result, even gains at that level are enough to keep the unemployment rate unchanged over time.

Fewer Americans are working or seeking work

Last month, in fact, the workforce declined sharply, with the percentage of Americans working or looking for jobs falling to 61.5%, down from 61.8% in May. It’s the lowest level in five years.

Much of the decline reflected the aging of the population, as more than 10,000 Americans turn 65 every day and many retire. Yet the proportion of Americans aged 25 through 54 who are working or searching for jobs also fell last month.