OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Republican leaders across the U.S. are encouraging chapters of the conservative political group Turning Point USA in all public high schools in the wake last year’s assassination of co-founder Charlie Kirk, an effort they describe as countering the oppression of conservative voices in education.
The group’s endorsement by Republican governors — at least eight so far — has stirred debate about free speech in America’s schools, with critics arguing many of the same conservative leaders have sought to silence others with measures to restrict what teachers can say on sex education, LGBTQ+ issues and other topics.
Adding to the divisions has been some governors’ invocation of Christian religion in their support of the clubs.
At her news conference last month announcing a partnership with Turning Point USA, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said God had worked through Kirk to grow the conservative group and that she hoped it would spark “the exact type of civic engagement that we want to see” among high school students.
“It’s never too early to learn the values of faith and freedom that power our country,” she said.
For Fayetteville High School student Lily Alderson in Arkansas, that crossed a line. Alderson, president of the school’s Young Democrats club, said the governor’s endorsement violates the requirement that governments not favor a particular religion.
“We’re a public school,” Alderson said. “We shouldn’t be a school — or a state, even — that is telling people what they should believe in.”
At the same high school, Lukas Klaus leads the local Turning Point USA chapter. As he sees it, the Republican governors are ensuring conservative voices like his are allowed to be heard.
“I’ve heard numerous other stories from around the states of Club America chapters trying to get started where they’re having serious problems with the administration straight-up saying ‘no,’ ” said Klaus. He said he has never heard of a public school disallowing a Young Democrats club.
In recent months, the Republican administrations of Nebraska, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Montana, Florida, Tennessee and Indiana have each announced partnerships with Turning Point USA to promote school chapters, called Club America, in every high school in those states.
Already, there are nearly 3,400 Club America chapters across the 50 states, according to Turning Point USA, which says it has more state partnerships in the works.
While the partnerships don’t require schools to establish the conservative clubs, they do make clear that efforts to start the clubs can’t be rejected by school administrators.
Turning Point USA got its start in 2012 on college campuses, promoting itself as a hub for young people committed to conservative values. Kirk was the co-founder and the face of the group, known best for his “ Prove Me Wrong ” events on college campuses where he invited students to challenge his conservative views on political and cultural issues. Kirk was killed by a sniper in early September while speaking on a college campus in Utah.
While Kirk was praised by conservatives as a champion of free speech, he was also criticized for comments that many other Americans found hateful toward LGBTQ+ communities, non-Christians, people of color and women.
Some of those critics faced a backlash from Republicans who saw them as dishonoring Kirk, leading to firings by universities, sports teams and media companies. Florida’s education commissioner also promised to investigate teachers over objectionable comments about Kirk. In Texas, a teachers union has sued the state’s education department, accusing it of an improper “wave of retaliation” against public school employees over their social media comments following the assassination.
The governors’ endorsements of Turning Point USA, to the exclusion of other student clubs, has come under criticism from teachers unions and civil liberties groups.
Tim Royers, president of the Nebraska State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said he could only imagine how Republican leaders would react if a Democratic governor announced they were calling for a democratic socialist club in every high school.
“They would be running to the press to talk about how awful that is,” Royers said. “How is this fundamentally any different?”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas said the state’s support for the clubs amount to “differential treatment based on the content or viewpoint of the clubs, and a problem under the First Amendment.”
Turning Point USA spokesman Matt Shupe called objections from the ACLU hypocritical, noting the civic organization’s mission to protect free speech rights.
“The state of Arkansas is not forming our chapters; they’re not doing our job or our students’ jobs for us, nor are they saying other groups can’t be formed,” Shupe said in an email. “They’re simply stating students cannot be blocked from forming a Club America or a TPUSA college chapter when students want to start one.”
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Fayetteville High senior Lily Alder, president of the Young Democrats of Arkansas, in front of Fayetteville High School Tuesday, April, 7, 2026 in Fayetteville, Ark. (AP Photo/Michael Woods)
Fayetteville High senior Lily Alder, center, president of the Young Democrats of Arkansas, talks to club officers including Miller Rawn, left, and Mira Brock, right, during an officers meeting Tuesday April, 7, 2026 in Fayetteville, Ark. (AP Photo/Michael Woods)
FILE - Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, center left, and Turning Point CEO Erika Kirk, center right, pose for a photo at the Governor's Mansion, in Little Rock, Ark., Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Katie Adkins,File)
PARIS (AP) — Europe has “maybe six weeks or so” of remaining jet fuel supplies, the head of the International Energy Agency said Thursday in a wide-ranging interview, warning of possible flight cancellations “soon” if oil supplies remain blocked by the Iran war.
IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol painted a sobering picture of the global repercussions of what he called “the largest energy crisis we have ever faced,” stemming from the pinch-off of oil, gas and other vital supplies through the Strait of Hormuz.
“In the past there was a group called ‘Dire Straits.’ It’s a dire strait now, and it is going to have major implications for the global economy. And the longer it goes, the worse it will be for the economic growth and inflation around the world,” he told The Associated Press.
The impact will be “higher petrol (gasoline) prices, higher gas prices, high electricity prices,” said Birol, speaking in his Paris office looking out over the Eiffel Tower.
Economic pain will be felt unevenly and “the countries who will suffer the most will not be those whose voice are heard a lot. It will be mainly the developing countries. Poorer countries in Asia, in Africa and in Latin America,” said the Turkish economist and energy expert who has led the IEA since 2015.
But without a settlement of the Iran war that permanently reopens the Strait of Hormuz, “Everybody is going to suffer,” he added.
“Some countries may be richer than the others. Some countries may have more energy than the others, but no country, no country is immune to this crisis,” he said.
Nearly 20% of the world’s traded oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz in peacetime. Birol warned that not reopening the waterway within weeks could compound the repercussions for global energy supplies.
“In Europe, we have maybe six weeks or so (of) jet fuel left,” he said. “If we are not able to open the Strait of Hormuz ... I can tell you soon we will hear the news that some of the flights from city A to city B might be canceled as a result of lack of jet fuel.”
Dutch airline KLM and London-based budget carrier easyJet said Thursday that they were not experiencing current fuel shortages, without commenting further on the IEA’s warning. Both airlines are among those that have already seen higher costs eat into their budgets.
KLM has already said it will cut 160 flights to and from Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport next month, accounting for about 1% of its total European routes. The airline cited “rising kerosene costs” and said that a limited number of flights are “no longer financially viable to operate.”
Travelers are already paying the consequences. Beyond flight cancellations, some other carriers are increasing ticket fares and add-on fees.
Birol added: “Many government leaders tell me that if Hormuz is not open until (the) end of May, many countries — starting from the weaker economies — are going to face huge challenges, and this will go from the high inflation numbers to coming close to slow growth or even to recession in some cases.”
Birol spoke out against the so-called “toll booth” system that Iran has applied to some ships, letting them travel through the strait for a fee. He said allowing that to become more permanent would run the risk of setting a precedent that could then be applied to other waterways, including the vital Malacca Strait in Asia.
“If we change it once, it may be difficult to get it back,” he said. “It will be difficult to have a toll system here, applied here, but not there.”
“I would like to see that the oil flows unconditionally from the point A to point B,” he said.
More than 110 oil-laden tankers and over 15 carriers loaded with liquefied natural gas are waiting in the Persian Gulf and could help ease the energy crisis if they could escape through the Strait of Hormuz to world markets, Birol said, adding: “But it is not enough.”
Even with a peace deal, war-damage to energy facilities means it could be many months before pre-conflict levels of production are restored, he said.
“Over 80 key assets in the region have been damaged. And out of these 80, more than one third are severely or very severely damaged,” he said.
“It will be extremely optimistic to believe that it will very quick,” Birol said. “It will take gradually, gradually, up to two years to come back where we were before the war.”
Birol said it is incomprehensible that “a couple of hundred men with guns” — apparently referring to Iranian forces — are able to hold hostage the global economy. He said his Paris-based agency, which advises governments on energy policy and helped coordinate a record release of emergency oil reserves earlier in the crisis, has warned for years about the critical importance of the Strait of Hormuz.
The global shock could spur the embrace of other energy technologies, including nuclear power, and “will reshape the global energy map for the next years to come,” he said.
On his office shelves, Birol has a couple of soccer balls — he's a devoted supporter of the Turkish club Galatasaray — and other memorabilia, including a photo of his late father playing soccer, and reams of books. One in particular stood out for its timely title: Oil, Power and War.
“Energy and geopolitics have been always interwoven,” Birol said. “But I have never, ever seen ... such a dark and long shadow of geopolitics.”
He added: "Unfortunately, energy is at the heart of many conflicts which, again, makes me, as an energy person, rather sad, to be honest.”
AP Business Writer Wyatte Grantham-Philips contributed from New York.
International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, at the IEA headquarters in Paris, Thursday, April 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, at the IEA headquarters in Paris, Thursday, April 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, at the IEA headquarters in Paris, Thursday, April 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol arrives for an interview with The Associated Press, at the IEA headquarters in Paris, Thursday, April 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, at the IEA headquarters in Paris, Thursday, April 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
