The winners of this year’s Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge created innovative projects to improve their cities’ core services – many using some combination of artificial intelligence and the wisdom of their residents.
That’s what South Bend, Indiana, Mayor James Mueller did with his initiative that uses AI to interpret data about residents, like a family falling behind on paying its water bill, and to help offer them services and support that could prevent larger issues.
“Technology is not necessarily good or bad – it’s how it’s used and how you protect against abuses,” said Mueller, a Democrat who has been mayor since 2020. “We’re trying to use cutting edge tools to deliver city services in a proactive way that meets our residents’ needs.”
The twenty-four winners announced Tuesday range from Boise, Idaho, where they are using geothermal energy to lower residents' heating bills, to Beira, Mozambique, where they are relocating fishermen and their families from flood-prone coastal homes to safer inland houses. Each will receive $1 million to implement the program, as well as support from Bloomberg Philanthropies experts to help the new initiative succeed.
The hope, says former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies and Bloomberg L.P., is that successful programs from Mayors Challenge winners can be used in other cities.
“The most effective city halls are bold, creative, and proactive in solving problems and meeting residents’ needs – and we launched the Mayors Challenge to help more of them succeed,” Bloomberg said in a statement.
James Anderson, head of government innovation programs at Bloomberg Philanthropies, said many of this year’s winners are integrating AI technology into their work in sophisticated ways, bringing municipal governments closer to the residents they serve.
“Testing and learning and adapting new ideas don’t generally get funded with public dollars,” Anderson said. “It is up to philanthropy to support experimentation.”
Vico Sotto, mayor of Pasig City in the Philippines, said becoming one of this year’s Mayors Challenge winners will speed up his project to build floating parks in the Pasig River that will become new community space and reduce flooding threats in the area. Without the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies, Sotto said the initiative wouldn’t be able to start for another year or two.
“The government doesn’t have a great reputation when it comes to maintaining infrastructure,” Sotto said. “So we will be creating a governance council, including people who live in the area, so definitely they’re not going to abandon these parks. They’re going to take care of them because they’re using them as well.”
In Lafayette, Louisiana, the city-parish had the opposite problem. Lafayette wanted to update parts of its sewer system, but because some parts were on homeowners’ property the city wasn’t allowed to pay for it.
Mayor-President Monique Blanco Boulet said the Mayors Challenge encouraged her administration to figure out a solution that will now allow Lafayette to make the repairs and, as a result, encourage development in the city. The plan was also named a Mayors Challenge winner.
“Bloomberg Philanthropies, the staff, Michael Bloomberg – all of them – have such a global impact in ways that most people will never know,” said Boulet, a Republican elected in 2023. “They bring in a level of capacity and give you the space to really be creative and to come up with solutions that can change lives.”
South Bend’s Mueller said that the Mayors Challenge comes at a time when more and more global problems need to be solved at a local level.
“Trust in government is at an all-time low, but local governments consistently perform better in surveys about trust from their residents,” Mueller said. “It is critical for us to maintain that level of trust with our residents and build it even further. So that’s why we’re always looking at innovative ways of doing things better and making the city a better place to live.”
The winners of the 2026 Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge are: As-Salt, Jordan; Barcelona, Spain; Beira, Mozambique; Belfast, Northern Ireland; Benin City, Nigeria; Boise, Idaho, United States; Budapest, Hungary; Cape Town, South Africa; Cartagena, Colombia; Fez, Morocco; Fukuoka, Japan; Ghaziabad, India; Ghent, Belgium; Kanifing, The Gambia; Lafayette, Louisiana, United States; Medellín, Colombia; Netanya, Israel; Pasig, Philippines; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; South Bend, Indiana, United States; Surabaya, Indonesia; Toronto, Canada; Turku, Finland; Visakhapatnam, India.
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc.
The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
Programming used for an analysis of South Bend's 311 on a screen during a demonstration Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026, at City Hall in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/Michael Caterina)
A "Welcome to South Bend" sign is seen Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026, in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/Michael Caterina)
Mayor James Mueller poses for a portrait Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026, at City Hall in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/Michael Caterina)
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Prosecutors portrayed a Utah mother and children’s book author as a money-hungry killer Monday on the first day of a murder trial in her husband’s death, while her defense team urged jurors not to make judgments before hearing her side.
Kouri Richins, 35, faces a slew of felony charges for allegedly killing her husband, Eric Richins, with fentanyl in March 2022 at their home just outside the ski town of Park City. She has vehemently denied the allegations.
Prosecutors say she slipped five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid into a cocktail that he drank. She is also accused of trying to poison him a month earlier on Valentine's Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich that made him break out in hives and black out, according to court documents.
After her husband's death, Kouri Richins self-published a children’s book about grief to help her sons and other kids cope with the loss of a parent.
As arguments in the case got underway Monday, Richins sat next to her attorneys, taking notes and passing some to them. Her legal team has not said whether she will take the stand in her defense.
Summit County prosecutor Brad Bloodworth told jurors that Richins was $4.5 million in debt and wrongly believed that if her husband died she would inherit his estate worth more than $4 million. Prosecutors have argued she was planning a future with another man she was seeing on the side.
“The evidence will prove that Kouri Richins murdered Eric for his money and to get a fresh start at life,” Bloodworth said. “More than anything, she wanted his money to perpetuate her facade of privilege, affluence and success."
Defense attorney Kathryn Nester started her opening statement by playing the recording of Richins’ 911 call from the night of her husband’s death. Richins was sobbing on the call and seemed barely able to answer the dispatcher’s questions.
“Those were the sounds of a wife becoming a widow,” Nester said.
Eric Richins had Lyme disease and was addicted to painkillers, Nester argued. She suggested he may have overdosed.
However, in body camera footage shown later Monday, Richins tells police her husband had no history of illicit drug use.
Eric Richins’ sister, Katie Richins-Benson, also testified that their mother was a drug and alcohol counselor who had instilled in the siblings from an early age the dangers of drug use.
The trial is slated to run through March 26. A few dozen people hoping to watch camped outside the courthouse in lawn chairs starting at 4 a.m., four and a half hours before the trial began.
Richins faces nearly three dozen counts, including aggravated murder, attempted murder, forgery, mortgage fraud and insurance fraud. The murder charge alone carries a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
In the months before her arrest in May 2023, Richins self-published the children’s book “Are You with Me?” about a father with angel wings watching over his young son after passing away. The book could play a key role for prosecutors in framing Eric Richins’ death as a calculated killing with an attempted cover-up. Bloodworth told jurors Monday about how Richins promoted it on local TV and radio stations.
Years before her husband's death, Richins opened numerous life insurance policies on Eric Richins without his knowledge, with benefits totaling nearly $2 million, prosecutors alleged. Court documents also indicate she had a negative bank account balance and was being sued by a creditor.
Bloodworth showed the jury text messages between Kouri Richins and Robert Josh Grossman, the man with whom she was allegedly having an affair. She had texted Grossman about her dream of leaving her husband, gaining millions in the divorce and one day marrying Grossman.
Bloodworth also showed Richins’ internet search history, which included “luxury prisons for the rich America” and “Can cops force you to do a lie detector test?”
The body camera video shown in court from Summit County Sheriff’s Deputy Vincent Nguyen showed Richins distraught as she told police that her husband had chest pain before he went to sleep and may have taken a THC gummy.
“My husband’s active. He didn’t just die in his sleep. This is insane,” she said in the video.
Richins appeared to be in pajamas as paramedics worked to resuscitate her husband in a nearby room, the video showed. She held her head in her hands at times and paced around while talking to a deputy and family members who later arrived.
Richins-Benson testified that she entered the house that night to find Richins looking “well-put together” with her hair “all done up.”
Among the key witnesses expected to be called later in the trial is the family’s housekeeper, Carmen Lauber, who claims to have sold fentanyl to Kouri Richins on multiple occasions.
Defense attorneys argued Monday that Lauber did not give Richins fentanyl and was motivated to lie for legal protection. Lauber is not charged in connection with the case, and detectives have said she was granted immunity.
No fentanyl was found in Richins’ house, and the housekeeper’s dealer has said he was in jail and detoxing from drug use when he told detectives in 2023 that he sold fentanyl to Lauber. He later said in a sworn affidavit that he sold her only the opioid OxyContin.
Nester showed jurors photos of an empty pain pill bottle sitting on Eric Richins' bedside table the night of his death and bags of gummies he was known to use regularly. She said he had asked his wife to procure opioids for him.
Katie Richins-Benson, the sister of Eric Richins, testifies in the trial of Eric's wife, Kouri Richins, who is accused of fatally poisoning her husband, during her murder trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Internet searches recovered from the phone of Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, are displayed on a screen during her murder trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Kathy Nester, the defense attorney for Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, shows the jury an image of a pill bottle while delivering her opening statement in Richins' murder trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Brad Bloodworth, chief prosecutor for Summit County, motions toward Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, while delivering his opening statement in Richins' trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Judge Richard Mrazik, right, talks to Brad Bloodworth, chief prosecutor for Summit County, during the trial of Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, looks on during her murder trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, talks to her attorneys during her murder trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
FILE - Kouri Richins, a Utah mother of three who wrote a children's book about coping with grief after her husband's death and was later accused of fatally poisoning him, looks on during a court hearing on Aug. 27, 2024, in Park City, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool, File)
FILE - Kouri Richins, a Utah mother of three who wrote a children's book about coping with grief after her husband's death and was later accused of fatally poisoning him, looks on during a hearing on Aug. 26, 2024, in Park City, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool, File)
