By the end of the century, the U.S. population will be declining without substantial immigration, older adults will outnumber children and white, non- Hispanic residents will account for less than 50% of the population, according to projections released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The population projections offer a glimpse of what the nation may look like at the turn of the next century, though a forecast decades into the future can’t predict the unexpected like a global pandemic.

The projections can help the U.S. prepare for change, from anticipating the demands of health care for seniors to providing insight into the number of schools that need to be built over the coming decades, said Paul Ong, a public affairs professor at UCLA.

“As most demographers realize, population projection is not an inevitable destiny, just a glimpse into a possible future,” Ong said. “Seeing that possibility also opens up opportunities for action.”

Population changes due to births and deaths, which are more predictable, and immigration, which is more uncertain. Because of that, the Census Bureau offers three different projections through 2100 based on high, medium and low immigration.

Under the low-immigration scenario, the U.S. population shrinks to 319 million people by 2100 from the current population of 333 million residents. It grows to 365 million people at the end of the century under the medium immigration scenario and to 435 million residents with high immigration. In each immigration scenario, the country is on track to become older and more diverse.

Americans of college age and younger are already part of a majority-minority cohort.

Aliana Mediratta, a 20-year-old student at Washington University in St. Louis, welcomes a future with a more diverse population and believes immigration “is great for our society and our economy.”

But that optimism is tempered by existential worries that things seem to be getting worse, including climate change and gun violence.

“I feel like I have to be optimistic about the future since, if I’m pessimistic, it disables me from doing things that I want to do, that are hard, but morally right to do,” Mediratta said.

Here’s a look at how the U.S. population is expected to change through 2100, using the medium immigration scenario.

2020s

By 2029, older adults will outnumber children, with 71 million U.S. residents aged 65 and older and 69 million residents under age 18.

The numeric superiority of seniors will mean fewer workers. Combined with children, they’ll represent 40% of the population. Only around 60% of the population that is of working age — between 18 and 64 — will be paying the bulk of taxes for Social Security and Medicare.

2030s

“Natural increase” in the U.S. will go negative in 2038, meaning deaths outpacing births due to an aging population and declines in fertility. The Census projects 13,000 more deaths than births in the U.S., and that shortfall grows to 1.2 million more deaths than births by 2100.

2050s

By 2050, the share of the U.S. population that is white and not Hispanic will be under 50% for the first time.

Currently, 58.9% of U.S. residents are white and not Hispanic. By 2050, Hispanic residents will account for a quarter of the U.S. population, up from 19.1% today. African Americans will make up 14.4% of the population, up from 13.6% currently. Asians will account for 8.6% of the population, up from 6.2% today.

Also in the 2050s, Asians will surpass Hispanics as the largest group of immigrants by race or ethnicity.

2060s

The increasing diversity of the nation will be most noticeable in children. By the 2060s, non-Hispanic white children will be a third of the population under age 18, compared to under half currently.

2080s

Under that medium immigration scenario, the U.S. population peaks at more than 369 million residents in 2081. After that, the Census Bureau predicts a slight population decline, with deaths outpacing births and immigration.

2090s

By the end of the 2090s, the foreign population will make up almost 19.5% of U.S. residents, the highest share since the Census Bureau started keeping track in 1850. The highest rate previously was 14.8% in 1890. It currently is 13.9%.

FOREIGN BORN AND IMMIGRATION

Experts say that predicting immigration trends is more difficult than in the past when migration was tightly linked to the pull of economic opportunity in the U.S.

When immigration is instead driven by the push of climate change, social tensions exacerbated by authoritarian rulers and gangs, as well as fluctuating anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S., it is harder to predict, said Manuel Pastor, a professor of sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.

“In the past we would say we get immigration from economics, and you can make some reasonable projections,” Pastor said. “Now, we have these push pressures for people to come to the U.S., and we have a further racialized reaction to migration, we have a much wider band or error, or the potential to make mistakes.”

RELIABILITY

How reliable will the numbers be, especially as race and ethnic definitions change, and immigration levels are hard to predict?

While there is an extreme level of uncertainty projecting almost eight decades into the future, it is a good starting point, said Ong, the UCLA professor.

“Over 80 years, birth and death rates, fertility rates and migration rates can be changed through policies, programs and resources,” Ong said.

Mediratta, the college student, imagines that 20-year-olds like her two centuries ago were also concerned about the future, but they didn’t have TikTok or Instagram to amplify their worries.

“It seems like things are bad all the time,” Mediratta said. “I feel that things were probably bad all the time 200 years ago, but nobody could tell everyone about it.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Tamirat Tola wasn’t thinking about breaking the New York City Marathon course record as he was running by himself in Central Park for the last few miles of the race. He just was focused on trying to win.

The Ethiopian runner broke the 12-year old mark, finishing the 26.2-mile race in 2 hours, 4 minutes and 58 seconds on Sunday — eight seconds faster than Geoffrey Mutai in 2011.

“The people of New York is amazing to give me moral support every kilometer,” Tola said. “I’m happy for them. Thank you all people. It’s a long kilometers to do alone. … I’m not thinking about a lot. I’m thinking to win. So this is nice.”

Tola, who finished fourth in the race in 2018 and 2019, pulled away from countrymate Jemal Yimer when the pair were heading toward the Bronx at mile 20. By the time Tola headed back into Manhattan a mile later he was up by 19 seconds and left only chasing Mutai’s mark. The 32-year-old was a late add to the field, joining three weeks ago.

Albert Korir of Kenya, who won the 2021 NYC Marathon, finished second nearly two minutes behind Tola.

While there wasn’t much drama in the men’s race after Tola pulled away, the women’s competition came down to the final stretch. Hellen Obiri of Kenya pulled away in the final 400 meters to take the women’s title.

The 33-year-old Obiri ran New York for the first time last year and finished sixth.

“My first debut here was terrible for me, and I say like I don’t want to come back here next year,” Obiri said. “After that, I said, wow, I’m here again. So you know sometimes you learn from your mistakes, so I did a lot of mistakes last year, so I said I want to try to do my best.”

She sure did.

Obiri, Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia and defending champion Sharon Lokedi were all running together exchanging the lead. Obiri made a move as the trio headed back into Central Park for the final half-mile pulling away. She finished in 2:27:23. Gidey finished second, six seconds behind.

Lokedi was 10 seconds behind Obiri, who won the Boston Marathon in April. She’s the first woman to win those two marathons in the same year since Norwegian Ingrid Kristiansen did it in 1989.

This was a stellar women’s field that was expected to potentially take down the course record of 2:22:31 set by Margaret Okayo in 2003. Unlike last year when the weather was unseasonably warm with temperatures in the 70s, Sunday’s race was much cooler with it being in the 50s — ideal conditions for record breaking times and for the 50,000 runners.

Instead, the women had a tactical race with 11 runners, including Americans Kellyn Taylor and Molly Huddle in the lead pack for the first 20 miles. Taylor and Huddle both led the group at points before falling back and finishing in eighth and ninth.

“The first 20 miles, I was like what the heck was going on,” Taylor said. “It was super weird, one of the weirdest races I ever ran with the caliber of talent in the field. There were talks of breaking the course record and doing all the things, after a bit it was like that’s not going to happen. We’re running six-minute pace for no good reasons. Sometimes that’s how races play out. You can jump on board and do that or do your own thing. Today i just decide to jump onboard and try and hang on.”

Once the lead group came back into Manhattan for the final few miles, Obiri, Gidey and Lokedi pushed the pace.

As the trio entered Central Park they further distanced themselves from Kenya’s Brigid Kosgei, who finished fourth.

The men’s and women’s winners finished within a few minutes of each other. About an hour earlier, Marcel Hug won the men’s wheelchair race, finishing a few seconds short of his own course record by finishing in 1:25:29. It was the Swiss star’s record-extending sixth NYC Marathon victory.

“It’s incredible. I think it takes some time to realize what happened,” Hug said. “I’m so happy as well.”

He’s the most decorated champion in the wheelchair race at the event, breaking a tie with Tatyana McFadden and Kurt Fearnley for most wins in the division in event history.

Catherine Debrunner of Switzerland won her New York debut, shattering the course record in the women’s wheelchair race. She finished in 1:39:32, besting the previous mark by over 3 minutes, which was held by American Susannah Scaroni.

“It’s difficult to describe in words. I said to my coach if I win this race, it’s the best performance I ever showed,” she said. “Knew it’s the toughest marathon of all. It was the first time. I knew it was going to be so tough.”

Debrunner and Tola both earned a $50,000 bonus for topping the previous course records.

TICKETS TO PARIS

Daniel Romanchuk and Aaron Pike qualified for the 2024 Paris Games by finishing as the top Americans in the men’s wheelchair race. Scaroni and McFadden qualified on the women’s side for the Olympics.

NEW YORK (AP) — International aid groups have mobilized in Morocco, where a 6.8 magnitude earthquake Friday night has killed 2,681 and injured more than 2,500, and Libya, where thousands are reported dead and more than 10,000 still missing from weekend flooding. Donors, both big and small, are also mobilizing to support those relief efforts.

Experts say the most direct way to provide aid to those affected in both countries is to donate to organizations that already have operations on the ground in those countries.

In Morocco, where the earthquake was centered in the Atlas Mountains, that takes on additional importance because so far the Moroccan government has accepted governmental aid from only four nations — Spain, Qatar, Britain and the United Arab Emirates — as it tries to avoid a “counterproductive” lack of coordination.

In Libya, where Mediterranean storm Daniel dumped nearly 16 inches of rain on Eastern Libya and caused two dams near the city of Derna to fail, many worry the fact that the country has two governments supported by different countries may slow rescue and recovery efforts.

“We are just seeing the scale and severity of disasters from natural hazards increasing and that is putting a drain on resources — both financial and human resources — and also, I’ll be honest, empathy,” said Patricia McIlreavy, CEO of the Center for Disaster Philanthropy.

Recovery from these events could take years, McIlreavy said, and encouraged people to consider longer-term, unrestricted giving rather than rushing to give immediately when conditions are still rapidly changing.

Michael Thatcher, president and CEO of Charity Navigator, which evaluates and rates nonprofits, said getting aid into Libya may be challenging due to ongoing sanctions the United States has placed against the country. Generally, those sanctions are waived following a natural disaster, as they were for Syria earlier this year following a deadly earthquake there.

Thatcher said larger international nonprofits, like The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), will have an easier time navigating sanctions than a smaller, U.S. nonprofit with no previous interaction with the Libyan governments.

“Getting $100 into Libya is hard,” he said. “Getting $100 to Doctors Without Borders or World Vision or another one of those large, well-established charities to use in Libya is much easier because they already have third parties that are working with them there.”

Charity Navigator has assembled a list of nonprofits that work in Libya, Thatcher said.

Here are some groups that have responded and are looking for additional support:

— The IFRC quickly responded to both disasters. It released $1.1 million from its Disaster Response Emergency Fund to support Moroccan Red Crescent relief efforts in the country and on Tuesday launched an appeal to raise $112 million more. “We expect this initial release of money to make a difference on the ground,” said Dr. Hossam Elsharkawi, IFRC’s regional director of Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement. “It will be used to buy essential supplies locally in Morocco. The people in the Moroccan Red Crescent know their communities best, and know best what is needed.” Tamer Ramadan, Libya envoy for the IFRC, told a U.N. briefing in Geneva that the situation in Libya was “as devastating as the situation in Morocco.”

— World Central Kitchen is teaming with Moroccan volunteers to provide food and water in the remote areas hardest hit by the earthquake. However, World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres said the group’s helicopters are doing double duty, dropping off supplies in those areas and evacuating injured people on their return trips.

— Doctors Without Borders has sent 10 staff members to Morocco to assess what the local hospital needs are and how the organization can support the Moroccan government with supplies or logistics. Though Doctors Without Borders announced plans to end medical activities in Tripoli last month, it continues to provide medical care and humanitarian assistance in other parts of the country.

— CARE, which has been working in Morocco since 2008 to help people get access to basic services, has launched the Morocco Earthquake Emergency Fund, which it says will prioritize providing women and girls, youth, and disadvantaged groups food and shelter.

— GlobalGiving’s Morocco Earthquake Relief Fund had raised nearly $560,000 by Tuesday afternoon to provide food, water and shelter to those who have lost their homes in the earthquake, as well as supporting long-term recovery efforts.

— Islamic Relief has already pledged 100,000 British pounds ($125,000) for Libya relief efforts and has launched the Libya Floods Emergency Appeal to raise more funds to give local humanitarian organizations to use for affected communities.

Most Americans should get an updated COVID-19 vaccine, health officials said Tuesday.

Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention endorsed the new shots for everyone 6 months and older and the agency’s director quickly signed off Tuesday on the panel’s recommendation. That means doses should be available this week, some as early as Wednesday.

The severity of the COVID-19 pandemic has faded, but there are still thousands of hospitalizations and hundreds of deaths in the U.S. each week. Hospitalizations have been increasing since late summer, though the latest data indicate infections may be starting to level off, particularly in the South.

Still, experts worry that immunity from previous vaccinations and infections is fading in many people, and a new shot would save many lives.

According to a survey last month that CDC cited, about 42% said they would definitely or probably get the new vaccine. Yet only about 20% of adults got an updated booster when it was offered a year ago.

Doctors hope enough people get vaccinated to help avert another “tripledemic” like last year when hospitals were overwhelmed with an early flu season, an onslaught of RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, and yet another winter coronavirus surge.

Here is what you need to know about the new COVID-19 shots:

WHO SHOULD GET THE UPDATED VACCINE?

The Food and Drug Administration approved the updated shots from Pfizer and Moderna for adults and children as young as age 6 months. FDA said starting at age 5, most people can get a single dose even if they’ve never had a prior COVID-19 shot. Younger children might need additional doses depending on their history of COVID-19 infections and vaccinations.

The CDC decides how best to use vaccines and makes recommendations for U.S. doctors and the general public. The agency’s panel of outside exerts recommended the updated COVID-19 shots by a vote of 13-1. The no vote came from a panel member who had argued that the new shots should initially be recommended only for older people and others at greatest risk of severe illness. But other panel members said all ages could — and should — benefit.

“We need to make vaccination recommendations as clear as possible,” said one panel member, Dr. Camille Kotton, an infectious diseases doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital.

WHERE CAN I GET A SHOT?

The new vaccine will be available at pharmacies, health centers and some doctor offices. Locations will be listed on the government’s vaccines.gov website. The list price of a dose of each shot is $120 to $130, according to the manufacturers. But federal officials said the new COVID-19 shots still will be free to most Americans through private insurance, Medicare or Medicaid. For the uninsured or underinsured, the CDC is working with health departments, clinics and certain pharmacies to temporarily provide free shots.

On Tuesday, a Pfizer official said his company expected to have doses available at some U.S. locations as early as Wednesday.

WHY MORE COVID-19 SHOTS?

Similar to how flu shots are updated each year, the FDA gave COVID-19 vaccine makers a new recipe for this fall. The updated shots have a single target, an omicron descendant named XBB.1.5. It’s a big change. The COVID-19 vaccines offered since last year are combination shots targeting the original coronavirus strain and a much earlier omicron version, making them very outdated.

Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax all have brewed new supplies, and the FDA on Monday approved shots from Pfizer and Moderna. Novavax’s updated vaccine is still under review.

WILL THEY BE EFFECTIVE ENOUGH?

Health officials are optimistic, barring a new mutant. As expected, XBB.1.5 has faded away in the months it took to tweak the vaccine. Today, there is a soup of different coronavirus variants causing illness and the most common ones are fairly close relatives. Recent lab testing from vaccine makers and other research groups suggest the updated shots will offer crossover protection.

Earlier vaccinations or infections have continued to help prevent severe disease and death but protection wanes over time, especially against milder infections as the virus continually evolves. The FDA did allow seniors and others at high risk to get an extra booster dose last spring. But most Americans haven’t had a vaccination in about a year.

CAN I GET A FLU SHOT AND COVID-19 SHOT AT THE SAME TIME?

Yes. The CDC says there is no difference in effectiveness or side effects if people get those vaccines simultaneously, although one in each arm might be more comfortable. The CDC urges a yearly flu shot for pretty much everyone ages 6 months and up. The best time is by the end of October.

The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down affirmative action in college admissions, declaring race cannot be a factor and forcing institutions of higher education to look for new ways to achieve diverse student bodies.

The court’s conservative majority effectively overturned cases reaching back 45 years in invalidating admissions plans at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the nation’s oldest private and public colleges, respectively.

The decision, like last year’s momentous abortion ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, marked the realization of a long-sought conservative legal goal, this time finding that race-conscious admissions plans violate the Constitution and a law that applies to colleges that receive federal funding, as almost all do.

Those schools will be forced to reshape their admissions practices, especially top schools that are more likely to consider the race of applicants.

Chief Justice John Roberts said that for too long universities have “concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”

From the White House, President Joe Biden said he “strongly, strongly” disagreed with the court’s ruling and urged colleges to seek other routes to diversity rather than let the ruling “be the last word.”

Besides the conservative-liberal split, the fight over affirmative action showed the deep gulf between the three justices of color, each of whom wrote separately and vividly about race in America and where the decision might lead.

Justice Clarence Thomas — the nation’s second Black justice, who had long called for an end to affirmative action — wrote that the decision “sees the universities’ admissions policies for what they are: rudderless, race-based preferences designed to ensure a particular racial mix in their entering classes.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s first Latina, wrote in dissent that the decision “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress.”

Both Thomas and Sotomayor, the two justices who have acknowledged affirmative action played a role in their admissions to college and law school, took the unusual step of reading summaries of their opinions aloud in the courtroom.

In a separate dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — the court’s first Black female justice — called the decision “truly a tragedy for us all.”

Jackson, who sat out the Harvard case because she had been a member of an advisory governing board, wrote, “With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces ‘colorblindness for all’ by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.”

The vote was 6-3 in the North Carolina case and 6-2 in the Harvard case. Justice Elena Kagan was the other dissenter.

Biden, who quickly stepped before cameras at the White House, said of the nation’s colleges: “They should not abandon their commitment to ensure student bodies of diverse backgrounds and experience that reflect all of America,” He said colleges should evaluate “adversity overcome” by candidates.

In fact, an applicant for admission still can write about, and colleges can consider, “how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration or otherwise,” Roberts wrote.

But the institutions “may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today,” he wrote.

Presidents of many colleges quickly issued statements affirming their commitment to diversity regardless of the court’s decision. Many said they were still assessing the impact but would follow federal law.

“Harvard will continue to be a vibrant community whose members come from all walks of life, all over the world,” school President Lawrence Bacow said in a statement.

President Reginald DesRoches of Rice University in Houston said he was “greatly disappointed” by the decision but “more resolute than ever” to pursue diversity. “The law may change, but Rice’s commitment to diversity will not,” he said in a campus message.

Former Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama offered starkly different takes on the high court ruling. The decision marked “a great day for America. People with extraordinary ability and everything else necessary for success, including future greatness for our Country, are finally being rewarded,” Trump, the current Republican presidential frontrunner, wrote on his social media network.

Obama said in a statement that affirmative action “allowed generations of students like Michelle and me to prove we belonged. Now it’s up to all of us to give young people the opportunities they deserve — and help students everywhere benefit from new perspectives.”

The Supreme Court had twice upheld race-conscious college admissions programs in the past 20 years, including as recently as 2016.

But that was before the three Trump appointees joined the court. At arguments in late October, all six conservative justices expressed doubts about the practice, which had been upheld under Supreme Court decisions reaching back to 1978.

Lower courts also had upheld the programs at both UNC and Harvard, rejecting claims that the schools discriminated against white and Asian American applicants.

The college admissions disputes were among several high-profile cases focused on race in America, and were weighed by the conservative-dominated, but most diverse court ever. Among the nine justices are four women, two Black people and a Latina.

The justices earlier in June decided a voting rights case in favor of Black voters in Alabama and rejected a race-based challenge to a Native American child protection law.

The affirmative action cases were brought by conservative activist Edward Blum, who also was behind an earlier challenge against the University of Texas as well as the case that led the court in 2013 to end use of a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act.

Blum formed Students for Fair Admissions, which filed the lawsuits against both schools in 2014.

The group argued that the Constitution forbids the use of race in college admissions and called for overturning earlier Supreme Court decisions that said otherwise.

Roberts’ opinion effectively did so, both Thomas and the dissenters wrote.

The only institutions of higher education explicitly left out of the ruling were the nation’s military academies, Roberts wrote, suggesting that national security interests could affect the legal analysis.

Blum’s group had contended that colleges and universities can use other, race-neutral ways to assemble a diverse student body, including by focusing on socioeconomic status and eliminating the preference for children of alumni and major donors.

The schools said that they use race in a limited way, but that eliminating it as a factor altogether would make it much harder to achieve a student body that looks like America.

At the eight Ivy League universities, the number of nonwhite students increased from 27% in 2010 to 35% in 2021, according to federal data. Those men and women include Asian, Black, Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander and biracial students.

Nine states already prohibit any consideration of race in admissions to their public colleges and universities. The end of affirmative action in higher education in California, Michigan, Washington state and elsewhere led to a steep drop in minority enrollment in those states’ leading public universities.

The other states are: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, New Hampshire and Oklahoma.

In 2020, California voters easily rejected a ballot measure to bring back affirmative action.

A poll last month by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed 63% of U.S. adults say the court should allow colleges to consider race as part of the admissions process, yet few believe students’ race should ultimately play a major role in decisions. A Pew Research Center survey released last week found that half of Americans disapprove of considerations of applicants’ race, while a third approve.

The chief justice and Jackson received their undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard. Two other justices, Neil Gorsuch and Kagan, went to law school there, and Kagan was the first woman to serve as the law school’s dean.

Every U.S. college and university the justices attended, save one, urged the court to preserve race-conscious admissions.

Those schools — Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Notre Dame and Holy Cross — joined briefs in defense of Harvard’s and UNC’s admissions plans.

Only Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s undergraduate alma mater, Rhodes College, in Memphis, Tennessee, was not involved in the cases.

Gov. Tim Walz on Thursday vetoed a bill that would have mandated higher pay and job security for Lyft and Uber drivers in Minnesota, saying the legislation wasn’t ready to become law.

“Rideshare drivers deserve fair wages and safe working conditions,” Walz said in a statement announcing his first veto ever in his five-plus years as governor. “I am committed to finding solutions that balance the interests of all parties, including drivers and riders. This is not the right bill to achieve these goals.”

Uber threatened to offer only premium-priced service in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and cut off service altogether in the rest of Minnesota if Walz signed the legislation.

“This bill could make Minnesota one of the most expensive states in the country for rideshare, potentially putting us on par with the cost of rides in New York City and Seattle — cities with dramatically higher costs of living than Minnesota,” the Democratic governor said in a letter to legislative leaders.

Uber and Lyft drivers had staged noisy but peaceful demonstrations outside Walz’s office in the Capitol in recent days to demand that the governor sign the bill. They were clearly audible through closed doors earlier Thursday as he signed a bill creating a paid family and medical leave system.

Ride-hailing drivers, like other gig economy workers, are typically treated as independent contractors not entitled to minimum wages and other benefits, and have to cover their own gas and car payments. A California appeals court ruled in March that companies like Uber and Lyft could continue to treat their drivers there as independent contractors.

But most gig workers in Seattle became entitled to paid sick leave and safe time under a first-in-the-nation law enacted there in March. And the Biden administration proposed new standards last year that could make it more difficult to classify millions of workers as independent contractors and deny them minimum wage and benefits. Ride-hailing and delivery driving are among the deadliest occupations in the country, according to occupational fatalities and injury data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While Walz vetoed the bill, he also signed an executive order commissioning a study about the working conditions of ride-hail drivers and how potential changes could affect costs and access for riders.

His order also sets up a committee to make recommendations by Jan. 1 for legislation to ensure that drivers receive fair compensation, ensure due process before drivers are terminated, limit the impact on fairs and ensure continued operation of ride-hail services in Minnesota.

The bill was championed by Democratic Sen. Omar Fateh, of Minneapolis, who was lifted into the air by drivers outside the Senate chamber right after the bill passed Sunday. Fateh is the first Somali American to serve in the Minnesota Senate, and many Uber and Lift drivers come from the area’s large Somali and East African community.

The bill would have required that drivers be paid a minimum of $5 per ride, or at least $1.45 per mile and 34 cents per minute in the metropolitan area. Fares would have been slightly less in the rest of Minnesota. It also would have made it harder for the companies to “deactivate” drivers from their platforms because drivers said they could be terminated for no reason with no recourse.

But some Democrats complained as Fateh’s bill made its way through the process that it needed more work to address concerns.

Fateh tweeted that the veto showed “the power corporations hold on our government” despite Democrats controlling the “trifecta” of the governor’s office and both houses of the Legislature for the first time in eight years.

“The fight is not over, and I promise you I wont back down,” Fateh tweeted. “This will be my top priority going in to next session.”

DENVER (AP) — An independent candidate defeated a longtime Republican office holder to become the first elected Black mayor in Colorado Springs, Colorado’s second-largest city with a history of being a conservative stronghold.

The victory on Tuesday May 16  of Yemi Mobolade, a Nigerian immigrant and entrepreneur who has never held elected office before, is the latest political setback for Republicans in a state that was once a battleground state. But that doesn’t mean a shift to the left.

Mobolade, who picked up the endorsements of some prominent Republicans, focused on issues like hiring more police officers, creating affordable housing, conserving water and cutting red tape for businesses.

He said people he met while campaigning are interested in solutions to everyday problems that respond to their needs, not partisanship, and do not want special interest groups having too much influence.

“That same hunger is not only in Colorado Springs but it’s across the country,” Mobolade told The Associated Press on Wednesday. He has compared the political divisions and tribalism that plagued his homeland to those he now sees hurting the United States.

Mobolade, a father of three young children who is married to a nurse, moved to the city of nearly 485,000 residents known for its military bases and being a hub of evangelical Christianity to start a church just over a decade ago and went on to co-found a cafe and restaurant, according to his campaign website. He also worked in city government in posts promoting economic development and helping small businesses.

According to unofficial results posted Wednesday, Mobolade garnered 57.5% of the vote to beat former Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams, a Republican, in the officially non-partisan election. The election results will not be finalized until later this month after overseas and military ballots are counted.

But Williams, who has also served as a city councilor, county clerk and county commissioner, conceded the race Tuesday night. He urged the city council members who were attending his election party to work with Mobolade “to continue the progress we’ve been making.”

Mobolade will succeed John Suthers, Colorado’s former attorney general.

He will be the first mayor who is not a member of the Republican party to become mayor since the city started electing mayors 45 years ago, according to The Gazette. A Black man, Leon Young, who had been appointed vice mayor previously served as interim mayor after the elected mayor retired early, the newspaper reported.

The city’s population has been growing both larger and more diverse, with more than one-third of residents being nonwhite. After five people were killed at a gay club that was a sanctuary for the LBGTQ community last year, officials were careful to provide the preferred pronouns of the victims and unfurled a giant rainbow flag in front of city hall.

New results from a U.S. Census Bureau simulation indicate a significant number of noncitizens were missed in the 2020 census, a national head count during which the Trump administration tried to prevent people in the United States illegally from being tallied at all.

Some civil rights groups pointed to the bureau’s latest findings as evidence that, despite the Trump administration’s failure to exclude residents in the country illegally from the 2020 count altogether, the former president’s push contributed to an undercount for some racial and ethnic minorities.

A simulated head count by the statistical agency utilized 31 types of administrative records from government agencies and third-party sources to produce estimates of the U.S. population on April 1, 2020 that could be compared to the survey-like responses used in the last official tally of every U.S. resident. The simulation was an experiment which doesn’t change the results of the once-a-decade count of every U.S. resident that helps determine political power and the distribution of $1.5 trillion in federal funding in the U.S.

Almost a fifth of noncitizens found in the administrative records had addresses that couldn’t be matched in the 2020 census, suggesting that “a significant fraction of noncitizens” were missed, according to the U.S. Census Bureau report released Friday. By comparison, that same figure was 5.4% for citizens.

Using administrative records from government agencies that have records on immigration, welfare programs, motor vehicle registrations and other data, the test tallied 2.3% more people than in the actual census in 2020 that produced a head count of 331 million U.S. residents, primarily because the simulation captured more noncitizens residing in the U.S., the report said.

The simulation was a test to see how good a job administrative records perform in counting historically undercounted groups like racial and ethnic minorities, renters and young children. Its results actually bumped up the numbers for Hispanic and Black residents, two groups who were undercounted in the 2020 census, respectively, by 8.3 million people and 2.8 million people, the report said.

The administrative records census produced estimates of 11.6 million people in the U.S. with an unknown legal status.

Opponents have said Trump administration policies in 2019 and 2020 created a chilling effect which likely deterred immigrants, Hispanics and others from participating in the 2020 census.

In 2019, the Trump administration attempted to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census questionnaire, but the U.S. Supreme Court blocked it. In the middle of the 2020 census, President Donald Trump directed the Census Bureau to exclude people in the country illegally from numbers used for divvying up congressional seats among the states. An influential GOP adviser had advocated excluding them from the apportionment process in order to favor Republicans and non-Hispanic whites. Trump’s memo was rescinded when President Joe Biden arrived at the White House in January 2021, before the census figures were released.

The Black population in the 2020 census had a net undercount of 3.3%. The undercount was almost 5% for Hispanics, 5.6% for American Indians and Native Alaskans living on reservations and 0.84% for children under age 18. Those undercounts were higher than in the 2010 census, though only the Hispanic count and tally of children had statistically significant differences from 2010 to 2020.

“The Census Bureau simulation strongly indicates that Donald Trump’s attempt at a race-motivated manipulation of the decennial census, despite being largely blocked in court, had a significant impact on noncitizen participation, which also may explain, in significant part, the substantial Latino undercount in 2020,” said Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Saenz added that the simulation points to the need to study and confront the reputational harm to the Census Bureau in the Hispanic community due to the “manipulation” by the Trump administration.

“Failure to do so now risks long-term and serious damage to future Census data-collection efforts,” he said.

Using administrative records produced lower population estimates in rural areas, mainly because of the more common use of post office boxes and rural route addresses rather than physical addresses, according to the simulation results. Counts from administrative records also were lower than the 2020 census figures for people between ages 65 and 74, Asians and people who identified as being two or more races. Among the reasons is that these populations were more likely to be double counted in the 2020 census.

Along with noncitizens, Blacks and Hispanics, the administrative records produced higher counts for males, working-age adults, children under age 15 and non-Hispanic whites.

At the state level, Minnesota and several other Midwestern states had the highest match rates between a person identified in an administrative record and a 2020 census record, while Hawaii had the lowest. Minnesota also had the highest rate of residents who answered the census questionnaire on their own without needing prompting from a census taker visiting their home.