EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Dozens of dairy cattle were on the moo-ve Monday at Michigan State University.
About 80 cows hoofed it to their new home, the Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center, a $75 million facility the East Lansing school says will allow agriculture, veterinary and other students to learn on a modern farm that’s equipped to replicate the most high-tech operations in the world.
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Cows walk around Michigan State University's new Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center on Monday, July 28, 2025, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Mike Householder)
A cow drinks water at Michigan State University's new Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center on Monday, July 28, 2025, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Mike Householder)
A cow sniffs at the camera inside Michigan State University's new Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center on Monday, July 28, 2025, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Mike Householder)
A cow stands in an enclosure at Michigan State University's new Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center on Monday, July 28, 2025, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Mike Householder)
Cows stand in an enclosure at Michigan State University's new Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center on Monday, July 28, 2025, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Mike Householder)
George Smith, who heads up Michigan State’s AgBioResearch department, called it a “21st century cattle drive.” Crews erected a fence between the two buildings and herded the animals via claps, calls and whistles.
The remaining 180 cows are expected to be herded to the new building on Tuesday.
Michigan’s dairy industry leads the nation in milk production per cow, according to Smith, adding dairy also is the No. 1 contributor to the state’s agricultural economy.
The new complex is significantly larger than the existing dairy farm, which was constructed in the 1960s and was so limited in space and equipment that researchers have a backlog of up to two years on funded projects.
The existing MSU Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center currently houses 250 dairy cattle and supports the research of faculty in the colleges of Agriculture and Natural Resources and Veterinary Medicine. The new facility features a 165,000-square-foot cattle barn that will expand research capacity by increasing herd size to 680. Those cows will arrive in batches in the coming weeks and months. The new space also includes modernized barns, feed centers, milking parlors and labs.
“Our old facility didn’t have the technical capabilities to be able to train our students for what to expect when they graduated, what dairy cattle production looks like today,” Kim Dodd, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, said Monday.
The new digs are opening at a time when other land grant universities in the agricultural Midwest are scrapping their dairy cattle teaching programs.
“While other institutions are disinvesting in dairy programs, we are investing in the future of the dairy industry in the state of Michigan, because it’s so critical to the state’s agricultural economy,” Smith said.
A $30 million investment by the State of Michigan provided the initial funding for the 18-month project, with the rest being contributed by alumni, donors and stakeholders in the dairy industry.
“Who doesn’t love ice cream,” Smith said. “Who can’t get excited about new opportunities in the field of dairy science?”
Cows walk around Michigan State University's new Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center on Monday, July 28, 2025, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Mike Householder)
A cow drinks water at Michigan State University's new Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center on Monday, July 28, 2025, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Mike Householder)
A cow sniffs at the camera inside Michigan State University's new Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center on Monday, July 28, 2025, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Mike Householder)
A cow stands in an enclosure at Michigan State University's new Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center on Monday, July 28, 2025, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Mike Householder)
Cows stand in an enclosure at Michigan State University's new Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center on Monday, July 28, 2025, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Mike Householder)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said he’s dropping — for now — his push to deploy National Guard troops in Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, a move that comes after legal roadblocks held up the effort.
“We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again - Only a question of time!" he said in a social media post Wednesday.
Governors typically control states' National Guardsmen, and Trump had deployed troops to all three cities against the wishes of state and local Democratic leaders. He said it was necessary as part of a broader crackdown on immigration, crime and protests.
The president has made a crackdown on crime in cities a centerpiece of his second term — and has toyed with the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act to stop his opponents from using the courts to block his plans. He has said he sees his tough-on-crime approach as a winning political issue ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Troops had already left Los Angeles after the president deployed them earlier this year as part of a broader crackdown on crime and immigration.
In his post, Trump said the troops' presence was responsible for a drop in crime in the three cities, though they were never on the streets in Chicago and Portland as legal challenges played out. When the Chicago deployment was challenged in court, a Justice Department lawyer said the Guard’s mission would be to protect federal properties and government agents in the field, not “solving all of crime in Chicago.”
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson’s office in a statement said the city’s reduction in crime was due to the efforts of local police and public safety programs. Chicago officials echoed the sentiment, saying in a release Tuesday that the city had 416 homicides in 2025 — the fewest since 2014.
Trump’s push to deploy the troops in Democrat-led cities has been met with legal challenges at nearly every turn.
The Supreme Court in December refused to allow the Trump administration to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area. The order was not a final ruling but was a significant and rare setback by the high court for the president’s efforts.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker wrote on X Wednesday that Trump “lost in court when Illinois stood up against his attempt to militarize American cities with the National Guard. Now Trump is forced to stand down.”
Hundreds of troops from California and Oregon were deployed to Portland, but a federal judge barred them from going on the streets. A judge permanently blocked the deployment of National Guard troops there in November after a three-day trial.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said in a statement Wednesday that her office had not yet received “official notification that the remaining federalized Oregon National Guard troops can return home. They were never lawfully deployed to Portland and there was no need for their presence. If President Trump has finally chosen to follow court orders and demobilize our troops, that’s a big win for Oregonians and for the rule of law.”
Trump's decision to federalize National Guard troops began in Los Angeles in June, when protesters took to the streets in response to a blitz of immigration arrests in the area. He deployed about 4,000 troops and 700 Marines to guard federal buildings and, later, to protest federal agents as they carried out immigration arrests.
The number of troops slowly dwindled until just several hundred were left. They were removed from the streets by Dec. 15 after a lower court ruling that also ordered control to be returned to Gov. Gavin Newsom. But an appeals court had paused the second part of the order, meaning control remained with Trump. In a Tuesday court filing, the Trump administration said it was no longer seeking a pause in that part of the order.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to return control of the National Guard to Newsom.
“About time (Trump) admitted defeat,” Newsom said in a social media post. “We’ve said it from day one: the federal takeover of California’s National Guard is illegal.”
Troops will remain on the ground in several other cities. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in December paused a lower court ruling that had called for an end to the deployment of National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., where they’ve been deployed since August after Trump declared a “crime emergency.”
Trump also ordered the deployment of the Tennessee National Guard to Memphis in September as part of a larger federal task force to combat crime, a move supported by the state’s Republican Gov. Bill Lee and senators. A Tennessee judge blocked the use of the Guard, siding with Democratic state and local officials who sued. However, the judge stayed the decision to block the Guard as the state appeals, allowing the deployment to continue.
In New Orleans, about 350 National Guard troops deployed by Trump arrived in the city's historic French Quarter on Tuesday and are set to stay through Mardi Gras to help with safety. The state's Republican governor and the city's Democratic mayor support the deployment.
Ding reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press reporters John O'Connor in Springfield, Illinois, Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, Jack Brook in New Orleans and Adrian Sanz in Memphis contributed.
FILE - A protester confronts a line of U.S. National Guard members in the Metropolitan Detention Center of downtown Los Angeles, Sunday, June 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer, File)
FILE - Protesters stand off against California National Guard soldiers at the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles, during a "No Kings" protest, June 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)
President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 29, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
