QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — The United States and Ecuador on Thursday signed a bilateral agreement aimed at strengthening their collaboration against transnational criminal networks.

The agreement, signed during a visit of U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to the South American country, facilitates the exchange of information on suspected criminal offenders and risk assessments of cargo and travelers. Noem told reporters the efforts are “crucial steps to improve security and ensure that migration is carried out within the framework of the law.”

The deal with Ecuador comes as the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump seeks to bolster regional cooperation in its clampdown against immigration and transnational criminal groups, including Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the White House earlier this year.

On Wednesday, Noem signed a similar agreement with Chile, which she visited as part of her latest tour of Latin America. That agreement allows Chilean officials to identify potentially dangerous migrants entering or exiting the country and share their fingerprints, iris scans and other biometric data with Homeland Security to prevent such individuals from traveling to the U.S.

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Thursday announced that construction on a $200 million ballroom will begin in September and be ready for guests “long before” President Donald Trump’s term ends in early 2029.

Trump has said for months that the White House doesn’t have enough space to hold large events and he does not like the idea of hosting heads of state and other guests in tents on the lawn, as past administrations have done for the hundreds of guests who attend state dinners.

The 90,000-square-foot ballroom will be built where the East Wing currently sits and hold 650 people, seated. The East Wing is home to several offices, including the first lady’s, and those offices will be relocated during construction.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Republican president and other donors have committed to raising the approximately $200 million in construction costs.

BOSTON (AP) — Lawmakers in Massachusetts have reached a deal to give public defenders a pay raise in hopes of ending a legal crisis that led to cases being dropped and defendants who couldn’t get lawyers being released from jail.

But the deal was widely criticized by private attorneys who handle a bulk of cases for indigent clients, raising doubts as to whether the pay raise will be enough to end a work stoppage public defenders launched in May.

The stoppage has led to more than 120 cases being dropped, including some for serious crimes such as domestic abuse and assaulting a police officer. Dozens more defendants were released from jail because they had no legal counsel. As many as 3,000 defendants have been without attorneys.

The deal lawmakers will vote on Thursday calls for spending $40 million to double the number of attorneys who work for the state Committee for Public Counsel Services and allows for hiring 320 more public defenders by the end of fiscal 2027. It also would raise the hourly rate paid to private attorneys who work as public defenders by $20 an hour over two years, a 30% increase.

The committee’s chief counsel, Anthony Benedetti, applauded the proposed funding increase and called it “the most significant progress ever made toward improving Bar Advocate pay and strengthening the statewide right to counsel.”

But Sean Delaney, speaking at press conference surrounded by private attorneys who handle a bulk of the cases, said the plan was inadequate and called on lawmakers to reject it. Many advocates, he said, would continue refusing new cases unless their rates are increased $35 an hour in fiscal year 2026 and $25 an hour the year after.

The challenges were on display in a Boston courtroom last week, when case after case was dropped due to the “Lavallee protocol.” It requires cases be dropped if a defendant hasn’t had an attorney for 45 days and that the defendants be released from custody if they haven’t had representation for seven days.

Several of those cases involved assaults on police officers and domestic violence. One suspect allegedly punched his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach and slapped her in the face. Another case involved a woman who was allegedly assaulted by the father of her child, who she said threatened to kill her and tried to strangle her.

Earlier this month, a judge in Lowell struggled to balance the need for public safety with the requirements of the Lavalle protocol. Judge John Coffey considered more than a dozen defendants for release, choosing to keep the most serious alleged offenders — including a man accused of running down and badly injuring a police officer — behind bars.

He released at least three suspects, including a woman jailed for a probation violation. The woman, Edith Otero, 52, of Boston, yelled out: “Thank you, your honor. God Bless you.”

Outside the court, Otero said she had been in jail since the end of June and that it had been “very, very depressing” to attend court hearings without legal representation. She said she had a litany of health issues and it was “wonderful” to finally be out.

“I thank the Lord,” Otero said, speaking to reporters from a wheelchair.

Several elite U.S. colleges have made deals with President Donald Trump’s administration, offering concessions to his political agenda and financial payments to restore federal money that had been withheld.

Ivy League schools Columbia, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania reached agreements to resolve federal investigations. The Republican administration is pressing for more, citing the deal it negotiated with Columbia as a “road map” for other colleges.

There is a freeze on billions of dollars of research money for other colleges including Harvard, which has been negotiating with the White House even as it fights in court over the lost grants.

Like no other president, Trump has used the government’s control over federal research funding to push for changes in higher education, decrying elite colleges as places of extreme liberal ideology and antisemitism.

Here’s a look at universities pressured by the administration’s funding cuts.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Columbia said July 23 it had a $200 million fine to restore federal funding.

The school was threatened with the potential loss of billions of dollars in government support, including more than $400 million in grants canceled earlier this year. The administration pulled the money because of what it described as Columbia’s failure to address antisemitism on campus during the Israel-Hamas war.

Columbia has agreed to administration demands such as overhauling its student disciplinary process and applying a federally backed definition of antisemitism to teaching and a disciplinary committee investigating students critical of Israel.

Federal officials said the fine will go to the Treasury Department and cannot be spent until Congress appropriates it. Columbia also agreed to pay $21 million into a compensation fund for employees who may have faced antisemitism.

The deal includes a clause that Columbia says preserves its independence, putting in writing that the government does not have the authority to dictate “hiring, admission decisions, or the content of academic speech.”

BROWN UNIVERSITY

An agreement Wednesday calls for Brown to pay $50 million to Rhode Island workforce development organizations. That would restore dozens of lost federal research grants and end investigations into allegations of antisemitism and racial bias in Brown admissions.

Among other concessions, Brown agreed to adopt the government’s definition of “male” and “female” and remove any consideration of race from the admissions process.

Like the settlement with Columbia, Brown’s does not include a finding of wrongdoing. It includes a provision saying the government does not have authority to dictate Brown’s curriculum or “the content of academic speech.”

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

Under a July agreement resolving a federal civil rights case, Penn modified a trio of school records set by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and said it would apologize to female athletes “disadvantaged” by Thomas’ participation on the women’s swimming team.

The Education Department investigated Penn as part of the administration’s broader attempt to remove transgender athletes from girls and women’s sports. As part of the case, the administration had suspended $175 million in funding to Penn.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

The administration has frozen more than $2.6 billion in research grants to Harvard, accusing the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university of allowing antisemitism to flourish. Harvard has pushed back with several lawsuits.

In negotiations for a possible settlement, the administration is seeking for Harvard to pay an amount far higher than Columbia.

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

The White House announced in April that it froze more than $1 billion of Cornell’s federal funding as it investigated allegations of civil rights violations.

The Ivy League school was among a group of more than 60 universities that received a letter from the Education Department on March 10 urging them to take steps to protect Jewish students or else face “potential enforcement actions.”

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

Like Cornell, Northwestern saw a halt in some of its federal funding in April. The amount was about $790 million, according to the administration.

DUKE UNIVERSITY

The administration this week froze $108 million in federal money for Duke. The hold on funding from the National Institutes of Health came days after the departments of Health and Human Services and Education sent a joint letter alleging racial preferences in Duke’s hiring and admissions.

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Dozens of research grants were suspended at Princeton without a clear rationale, according to an April 1 campus message from the university’s president, Christopher Eisgruber. The grants came from federal agencies such as the Department of Energy, NASA and the Pentagon.

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CHINCOTEAGUE, Va. (AP) — Thousands gathered in Virginia to watch the Chincoteague wild ponies make their annual swim across the Assateague Channel in the 100th anniversary of the popular tradition.

Foal No. 36 was the champion of the short channel swim on Wednesday and crowned “King Neptune,” the title given each year to the first to complete the swim, according to the Chincoteague Fire Department.

The horses were made famous in the 1947 classic children’s novel “Misty of Chincoteague” by author Marguerite Henry.

“Saltwater Cowboys” on horseback round up the ponies, who then swim the channel and come ashore on the east side of Chincoteague Island.

The event hosted by the Chincoteague Fire Department includes an auction of some of the foals to help control the size of the herd and maintain a healthy pony population on Assateague Island, where the ponies live most of the year. The auction is also the biggest annual fundraiser for the fire department, which manages the wild pony herd.

The tradition began in 1925 as a way to raise money for Chincoteague’s volunteer fire company. Interest in the pony swim grew, and visitors began coming from across the country for the annual event.

“Misty of Chincoteague” made the event famous around the world.