Boston Mayor Michelle Wu joined progressive allies and squad members U.S. Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to call for more federal funding for childcare amid cutbacks by the Trump administration.

Ocasio-Cortez, a New York congresswoman who traveled to Massachusetts this week, appeared Friday alongside Pressley and Wu at Horizons for Homeless Children in Roxbury for a story time classroom visit, roundtable discussion, and media availability, where they questioned the Trump administration’s priorities.

“We know that families are experiencing greater financial hardship and economic anxiety and vulnerabilities each and every day because of the hostilities of this administration that are not focused on the things that matter most, and that is affordability,” Pressley, a Massachusetts Democrat, said at the daycare center. “Increasingly, everything is through the roof and that includes the cost of childcare.

“We have an occupant in the Oval Office that says we have to fund a war that we don’t even know why we’re there, but we cannot afford to pay for childcare when that is our most important infrastructure,” Pressley added. “All the data bears out that investment is the greatest return on investment.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in January froze access to certain federal childcare and family assistance funds for California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York “following serious concerns about widespread fraud and misuse of taxpayer dollars in state-administered programs,” the federal agency said in a press release at the time.

Locally, the Massachusetts Head Start Association’s executive director, Michelle Haimowitz, issued a statement earlier this month in response to Trump’s federal budget proposal for fiscal year 2027 that she said was “making it more difficult for our Head Start programs in Massachusetts by flat-funding Head Start nationally.”

“The federal government’s failure to provide our programs with much-needed funding has led to workforce shortages and difficulties in providing education and services to our students,” Haimowitz said at the time.

Ocasio-Cortez said Friday, “Over the last year, between the president’s efforts on DOGE, cutting services across health care, childcare, education, we see the Department of Education itself under threat by this administration.

Crowds lined both sides of the Allegheny River on the second day of the NFL Draft Experience, as fans poured into Point State Park shortly after gates opened, filling the riverfront with a steady buzz and early arrivals.

While Point State Park grew crowded within the first hour Friday, the Draft Theater area near Acrisure Stadium built more slowly, with groups trickling in and the space still less than a quarter full well into the afternoon.

Attendees kept the energy high as festivities continued across Pittsburgh.

Stephanie Enz, 35, of Huntersville, said her family left the fan area Thursday night after exploring to watch the draft on television. She said Friday’s weather was too nice to skip the second day.

“I’m surprised how many Pittsburgh Steelers fans there are compared to everyone else from other teams,” Enz said. “I feel like watching the last few years, it was more of a mix of other fans.”

Crowds gathered in and around Downtown, with activities in full swing by 10 a.m. Rivers of Steel Heritage Corp. held live blacksmithing demonstrations in Market Square, classic cars were on display, and the city’s tourism company, Visit Pittsburgh, set up a wall for fans to write on.

Mike and Sue Hacke of Upper Merion Township in Montgomery County arrived in Pittsburgh Friday morning.

The couple grabbed sandwiches at the Original Oyster House in Market Square and soaked in the updated area while waiting for gates to open for the Draft Experience at noon.

Mike Hacke, 67, grew up in Homestead but said it had been about 40 years since he was last in Pittsburgh. He said he was impressed by the improvements made to the city in preparation for the draft.

“I was in Philly a couple years ago when it was there, and I think that this is much better than what Philly did,” Mike Hacke said.

Just before opening, football fans moved in droves from Market Square to line up at Point State Park, located just outside the Wyndham Grand Hotel.

The area inside the park was expanded from Thursday’s setup. The red carpet that had stretched across the entire space in front of the steps to the Point was split into two sections Friday, opening access to the Point State Park Fountain.

As groups moved through the park, many gravitated toward the newly opened space, eventually sitting to take in the view and posing for photos with the fountain and stadium in the background.

Rick Wilson, 65, and his wife Maureen, 62, took selfies in their Philadelphia Eagles jerseys while standing on the steps leading down to the fountain.

The couple, from Finleyville Borough in Washington County, said Steelers fans were generally friendly.

“I think everybody’s very nice and have been very polite,” Rick Wilson said, noting only a few lighthearted comments here and there.

“We kind of took their pick last night,” he added.

On Thursday night, the Philadelphia Eagles selected USC wide receiver Makai Lemon, who had been on the phone with representatives from the Steelers as Pittsburgh’s first-round pick approached.

Rick Wilson, 65, and his wife, Maureen, 62, take photos in their Philadelphia Eagles jersey at the Point State Park Fountain on Friday, April 24. (Megan Trotter | TribLive)

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Part of the red carpet at Point State Park was open to the public, allowing fans to walk it and take photos where draft prospects had strutted the night before.

On their second day at the draft experience, Jessica, 46, and Matthew Light of Hershey took a stroll down the carpet.

“I noticed it from yesterday, and I figured we’d get a photo opportunity and take a memory home with us,” said Matthew Light, 46.

Across the river, about a dozen people had nestled into the concrete with their backs against the draft stage barricade.

Hunter Enders, 30, and Meghan Crosby, 27, arrived at the area around 2 p.m. to be in the first row once the draft begins at 7 p.m.

The two were in the third row the night before and said that, despite record-breaking crowds, the atmosphere remained friendly, with no shoving or safety concerns around them.

While the stage area was far less crowded than the footprint across the way, smaller groups still gathered outside the elevator platform where media and commentators were broadcasting.

Rapper Wiz Khalifa, a Pittsburgh native, joined a sports broadcast, waving to the small crowd gathered below on the asphalt.

Wiz Khalifa was scheduled to perform at 5:15 p.m. Friday, ahead of the second round’s start.

Fans watch as Pat McAfee records his show Friday afternoon live from the NFL Draft Experience area on Pittsburgh’s North Shore. (Ember Duke | TribLive)

The Diocese of Bridgeport rolled out the new tool to a select number of donors ahead of a larger release.

The Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut, will be supplementing its fundraising activities with an AI tool meant in part to solicit donations from local Catholics in what the diocese is billing as the “worldʼs first virtual engagement officer.” 

The diocese announced the rollout of “Maria” this month. It describes the tool as a means of “thoughtfully exploring how new technologies can support more attentive listening, more consistent communication, and more personal engagement with those we serve.”

Bishop Frank Caggiano says on the programʼs website that the digital tool will “help us discern how technology may support deeper connection and accompaniment.”

“Maria will help us learn how digital tools can deepen our listening and foster more personal responses, while always keeping human relationships at the heart of the Church’s mission,” he said. 

Ethical safeguards, ‘huge potential’

On the April 15 edition of his weekly podcast, Let Me Be Frank, Bishop Caggiano jokingly described himself as “technologically a Neanderthal,” but he expressed excitement that the tool could be used “not just to raise money but to evangelize.” 

Speaking on the podcast to diocesan chancellor Deacon Patrick Toole, who spent years as an executive with the technology giant IBM, Bishop Caggiano asked if an AI agent can “ever get to the point where it could resist human control.”

Toole acknowledged that such a scenario was “possible,” though he noted that AI companies institute “huge safeguards” to ensure that AI personalities are trained properly. 

The deacon said that the diocesan chancery has been holding discussions about “how to use artificial intelligence for the good of the mission” and that diocesan fundraising “seemed like a good opportunity to try it in an area where we donʼt have the resources.”

“My primary motivation was that weʼre doing so many really exciting things and itʼs hard to get the message out,” he said. 

Emily Groccia, a vice president at the tech company Givzey, which helped design Maria, said on the podcast that the program was rolled out to 1,000 donors in late March. 

She said part of the toolʼs programming will be to “graduate” donors to actual human workers under some circumstances, such as when someone wants to significantly upgrade a donation, or if they raise intimate personal questions better addressed by a fellow human being. 

“We are very cautious on allowing our [AI] to engage in lines of conversation that are outside of those traditional fundraising conversations,” she said. 

The bishop said that AI fundraising represents “huge potential” for the nearly 200 dioceses in the United States. But he stressed the need for “guidelines” to ensure that AI agents do not take the place of human beings. 

“Just off the top of my head, if someone reveals a death, I would not want the assistant to respond at all,” he said. “I want a human person to respond. … Because again, as a Church, weʼre a unique reality.”

Diocesan spokeswoman Marie Oates shared with EWTN News several examples of Mariaʼs interactions with local Catholics. In one, a parishioner expresses interest in volunteering with immigrants, for which Maria was able to provide information on local Catholic Charities immigration services. 

In another, a mother asks Maria for opportunities to get involved in diocesan programs with “other moms like me.” Maria offers to connect the mother to parish programs with mothers’ groups and family ministries. 

Oates said both interactions “highlight our goal for the program,” which she said focuses on “using AI [not] as a way to replace human relationships but as a tool to help us connect more personally.”

“[We want to use] AI to bridge the gaps in our ability as a Church to communicate directly with everyone, with the goal of fostering more personal and human connection and interaction, so that we as humans can better accompany each other,” she said. 

On the bishopʼs podcast, meanwhile, Toole said that Catholics “have the opportunity to bear great fruit” with AI technology “as long as we align it to the One and make sure we stay true to that with Christ at the center.” 

Bishop Caggiano described AI innovation as representing “an epochal shift in human life” comparable to the development of the printing press. 

“Thereʼs no one on Earth alive — even these great architects of [AI] — who really know where all of this will go,” he said. “We need to answer the question, where should it go?”