LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Louisville coach Pat Kelsey added another fifth-year player to the roster Monday with forward LJ Wells now available this season for the Cardinals.
Kelsey said he is friends with Northern Kentucky coach Darrin Horn, who gushes about Wells' character, work ethic and coachability. Wells spent the past four seasons at Northern Kentucky and started 33 games for the Norse as a senior averaging 15 points and 7.3 rebounds.
“He was arguably NKU’s best and most valuable player,” Kelsey said. "We are excited to add someone like LJ that fits our culture perfectly. He’s one of us before he even arrives.”
The Cardinals also have guard Seth Trimble, who transferred from North Carolina by taking advantage of the recent preliminary injunction from a Colorado judge giving student-athletes who graduated from high school in 2022 a fifth season of eligibility for the upcoming year.
Trimble and Wells both are among a group of athletes that sought the right to play a fifth season from a Kentucky county court.
A 6-foot-8, 220-pound forward, Wells also was named to the Horizon League tournament team after scoring 22.3 points and grabbing 8.7 rebounds over three tournament games in March. He started 16 of 32 games as a junior, 27 of 33 as a sophomore and played in 18 games as a freshman.
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FILE - Northern Kentucky forward LJ Wells (5) goes for a shot as he's defended by Tennessee center Felix Okpara (34) during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game Nov. 8, 2025, in Knoxville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Wade Payne, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Democratic-led states and cities filed lawsuits Monday challenging a federal rule set to begin Friday that they say gives President Donald Trump’s administration broad discretion to deny green cards to immigrants who rely on public assistance for food, healthcare, housing and other basic needs.
The lawsuits challenge the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s plan to revive a “public charge” rule the Republican originally imposed during his first term, only to have it reversed under his successor, Democratic President Joe Biden.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading a coalition of 21 other states in one of the suits, said the rule would force needy immigrant families to choose between seeking assistance and seeking legal status in the country.
“This rule preys on that fear and counts on families forfeiting the food assistance, health care coverage, and other public benefits to which they are legally entitled,” she said Monday at a news conference in City Hall alongside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and immigrant advocates.
California, Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico and Wisconsin are among the states involved in the legal challenge.
Mamdani filed a separate suit with leaders of other U.S. cities, including Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle. He said the rule would have a “chilling effect” not just on immigrants seeking legal status but other residents of the nation’s largest city.
“The new public charge rule seeks to push immigrant families away from the programs that have kept people fed and healthy for decades,” the mayor said. “New Yorkers will be afraid to see a doctor or ask for help they are legally entitled to. That fear will not stop at the families that the federal government is targeting.”
The Homeland Security Department, which is named in the lawsuits, dismissed the dire warnings.
“Let’s get this straight, sanctuary states are terrified they will lose federal funds because hundreds of thousands of illegals and noncitizens might remove themselves from American welfare programs,” the agency said in a statement. “We’re shaking in our boots over this supposedly terrible outcome.”
The lawsuits, which were both filed in federal court in Manhattan, argue the forthcoming rule is “arbitrary and capricious,” exceeds the Department of Homeland Security’s statutory authority, and departs from the longstanding meaning of the federal government’s public charge provision.
Specifically, James said, the rule unlawfully gives immigration officials broad discretion to consider a wide range of public benefits when making their decisions on immigrants seeking legal status in the country.
She said the rule lets immigration officers count nearly any public benefit, used for any length of time, against a green card applicant -- even if it’s a U.S. citizen family member who is taking advantage of the benefit.
That means a parent’s green card application could be at risk simply because their U.S. citizen child used state-provided health insurance or participated in a school’s free lunch program, James said.
“This new rule sweeps away more than a century of settled law to unlawfully broaden the definition of ‘public charge’ in a way that Congress never intended,” added Steve Banks, the city’s corporation counsel.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta called the forthcoming rule a “cruel policy.”
Federal law already requires those seeking permanent residency or legal status to demonstrate that they will not become a public charge.
The Trump administration’s new rule does not describe or specify by name the benefits and programs that could be considered a public charge.
It simply says officers, “using good judgment and discretion,” will make “individualized, fact-specific public charge inadmissible determinations, based on a totality of the alien’s circumstances.”
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Associated Press reporters Sophie Austin in Sacramento, Calif. and Cybele Mayes-Osterman in Chicago contributed to this story.
Follow Philip Marcelo at https://x.com/philmarcelo
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during an announcement of a lawsuit filed by New York and 21 other states challenging the federal government's new public charge rule, on Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during an announcement of a lawsuit filed by New York and 21 other states challenging the federal government's new public charge rule, on Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Attorney General Letitia James announce a lawsuit filed by New York and 21 other states challenging the federal government's new public charge rule, on Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during an announcement of a lawsuit filed by New York and 21 other states challenging the federal government's new public charge rule, on Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during an announcement of a lawsuit filed by New York and 21 other states challenging the federal government's new public charge rule, on Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
