The Boy Scouts of America announced on Wednesday that girls will soon be allowed to become Cub Scouts and to earn the coveted rank of Eagle Scout, the organization’s highest honor.

“We believe it is critical to evolve how our programs meet the needs of families interested in positive and lifelong experiences for their children,” said Michael Surbaugh, chief executive of the Boy Scouts.

The scouting board of directors voted unanimously to make the historic change in an organization that has been primarily for boys since its founding more than 100 years ago.

Starting next year, young girls can join Cub Scout units, known as dens. Local scouting organizations can choose to have dens for girls and dens for boys. “Cub Scout dens will be single-gender — all boys or all girls,” the organization said in a statement.

A separate program for older girls will be available in 2019, the Boy Scouts said, enabling them to earn the rank of Eagle Scout.

The Boy Scouts said the moves reflect the changing nature of American life, adding to the appeal of a scouting program that can serve the entire family.

BSA said it commissioned two nationwide surveys that showed parents not involved in scouting had high interest in getting their daughters signed up for both Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts.

Girls are now part of four scouting programs — Venturing and Sea Scouting, geared toward outdoor activities; Exploring, a career-oriented mentoring program; and STEM, focusing on science and math. But those programs have not offered a path to Eagle Scout for girls.

Earlier this year, the National Organization for Women urged the Boy Scouts to admit girls to the entire program, supporting the efforts of a New York teenager, Sydney Ireland, to attain the rank of Eagle Scout, as her older brother did.

“I just want to do what the Boy Scouts do — earn the merit badges and earn the Eagle Award,” she told NBC News. “The Girl Scouts is a great organization, but it’s just not the program that I want to be part of. I think girls should just have the opportunity to be a member of any organization they want regardless of gender.”

In the past, the Girl Scouts have been cool to the idea of admitting girls into the Boy Scouts, citing research that showed many girls learn best in an all-female environment.

“We are unparalleled in our ability to build great female leaders who contribute to society at every level,” said Andrea Bastiani Archibald, a psychologist who helps guide the Girl Scouts.

“No deal was made last night on DACA. Massive border security would have to be agreed to in exchange for consent. Would be subject to vote,” Trump tweeted in a series of posts.

“The WALL, which is already under construction in the form of new renovation of old and existing fences and walls, will continue to be built,” he wrote.

“Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military? Really! …They have been in our country for many years through no fault of their own — brought in by parents at young age. Plus BIG border security,” Trump posted about DACA recipients.

Trump, in his series of tweets Thursday, did not deny reports that he would support a deal on DACA that didn’t include the wall.

 

 Trump Claims Ryan, McConnell on Board With Potential DACA Fix 1:00

And, in brief comments to reporters later Thursday, Trump said “the wall will come later” and that Republican congressional leaders were “on board” with the talks.

“We’re working on a plan, we’ll see how it works out,” he said as he was departing to tour the hurricane damage in Florida. “We’re going to get massive border security as part of that.”

“The wall will come later,” he added of his plan to build a wall along the Mexico border. “The wall is going to be built, it will be funded a little bit later.”

“If the wall is going to be obstructed…then we’re not doing anything,” the president said later in Florida.

And when asked by a reporter if he supported amnesty, Trump cupped his hands to his lips and said, “DACA — the word is DACA.”

After arriving in Florida, Trump told reporters that he is “not looking at citizenship” or “amnesty” for Dreamers but instead the discussion is about “taking care of people.”

Earlier, the president said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., backed the plan.

Two aides to Ryan, however, told NBC News that the Speaker had not talked to Trump since the the president dined Wednesday night with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Following that dinner, Pelosi and Schumer said they’d reached a deal with the president “to enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly, and to work out a package of border security, excluding the wall, that’s acceptable to both sides.”

 Trump disputes Democrats’ account of dinner deal on DACA, border wall 3:20

Schumer and Pelosi, in a joint statement Thursday morning, added that Trump’s tweets “are not inconsistent with the agreement reached last night.”

The pair said “there was no final deal” but that “both sides agreed that the wall would not be any part of this agreement.”

“The President made clear he intends to pursue it at a later time, and we made clear we would continue to oppose it,” they said.

Related: Trump, Dems Close to Deal on DACA

Dropping the demand for a border wall could make it easier for Republicans and Democrats to reach an agreement on DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which protects undocumented immigrants brought into the country as children.

Following the Wednesday night joint statement from Schumer and Pelosi, however, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted that, “While DACA and border security were both discussed, excluding the wall was certainly not agreed to.”

But earlier Wednesday, White House legislative affairs director Marc Short told an industry trade group that the border wall does not have to be a part of an agreement on DACA, one attendee at the meeting said.

The Trump administration announced last week that the Obama-era program would end in six months. The president said as part of the announcement that, “I am not going to just cut DACA off, but rather provide a window of opportunity for Congress to finally act.”

Ending DACA — a program allows undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children to remain and get work permits in the country — could affect as many as an estimated 800,000 people.

Sources told NBC News Wednesday night that Schumer and Pelosi told Trump they are prepared to deliver votes on a measure that would pair the existing DREAM Act text with additional border security that does not include the border wall funding. Specifics on what type and level of border security were not disclosed.

DACA deal? Trump & Dems differ over potential border wall funds 9:56

The DREAM Act would have offered those who came to the U.S. as children the opportunity to potentially gain permanent legal residency. The act was first introduced in August 2001 by Sen. Orin Hatch, R-Utah, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill. It has resurfaced several times, always failing to get through Congress.

Discussion of a possible deal marked the second time in as many weeks that Trump spurned his own party to pursue an agreement with Democrats. Last week, Trump struck a deal with Schumer and Pelosi that combined disaster aid for those affected by Hurricane Harvey with measures to keep the government open and extend the debt ceiling for three months, leaving some Republicans reeling.

News of another potential deal was met immediately with criticism from conservative Republicans.

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, an anti-immigration hardliner tweeted Wednesday that, if there was an agreement, “Trump base is blown up, destroyed, irreparable, and disillusioned beyond repair. No promise is credible.”

A potential deal would also go against the views of former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, who as a White House aide was credited with helping Trump emphasize a message centered on economic nationalism.

Bannon, who following his White House exit returned as the head of Breitbart News, told CBS’ “60 Minutes” last week he didn’t agree with Trump’s decision to give Congress a window to save DACA legislatively, and that “the guys in the far-right” and “on the conservative side” were “not happy” with it either.

By 6 a.m. ET Tuesday, Irma was about 65 miles southwest of Atlanta. Its top winds were down to 25 mph, and it was charging across the Southeast toward Tennessee and the Ohio Valley as a nasty thunderstorm system. The National Hurricane Center reclassified it as a tropical depression and canceled all tropical storm warnings late Monday.

 Hyperlapse Video Shows Hurricane Irma’s Entire Destructive Path 0:23

Still, Irma was producing very heavy rain across the Southeast, leading to flash floods and rapid rises in creeks, streams and rivers. The hurricane center said that significant river flooding would persist over the Florida peninsula for several days and that parts of Georgia, South Carolina and north-central Alabama remained vulnerable to flash floods.

Related: Mobile Home Residents Return to Find Paradise Is Not Lost

In Irma’s wake, meanwhile, lay a trail of devastation from the Cape Verde Islands to Georgia.

Irma was a full-fledged hurricane in less than 24 hours. It was so strong and so robust that it seemingly set a record for the number of records it set.

According to Phil Klotzbach, a noted atmospheric research scientist at Colorado State University:

• When Irma reached Category 5 — the strongest there is — it stayed there for more than three days, the longest run since forecasters began using satellites to monitor tropical storms more than a half-century ago.
• Irma kept blowing 185-mph maximum sustained winds for 37 hours — the longest any cyclone has ever maintained that intensity anywhere on Earth since records started being kept.
• Irma generated the most accumulated energy by any tropical cyclone in the Atlantic tropics on record.

But if there’s one statistic that sums Irma up, it’s this one: It generated enough accumulated cyclone energy — the total wind energy generated over a storm’s lifetime — to meet the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s definition of an average full Atlantic hurricane season. All by itself, it was more powerful than 18 of the 51 full hurricane seasons since 1966, according to Klotzbach’s calculations (PDF).

“The next couple of days and couple of weeks — probably months, in a lot of spots — are going to be very busy for a lot of people rebuilding,” Ari Sarsalari, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel, said Monday night.

Irma is confirmed to have killed 10 people in the United States so far: four in the U.S. Virgin Islands, three in Puerto Rico, two in Georgia and one in Florida.

About 7.5 million customers remained without power in Florida late Monday. Almost 1½ million had no power in Georgia, which experienced the oddity of tropical storm warnings over Atlanta, more than 800 miles from where Irma made its first U.S. landfall.

Related: Floridians Take Stock and Begin Recovery as Irma Exits

“This will be the largest ever mobilization of [electric] line restoration workers in this country, period, end of story,” Tom Bossert, President Donald Trump’s homeland security adviser, told reporters Monday.

Irma killed 10 people in Cuba, 8 people on the French-Dutch island of St. Martin and St. Maarten, 5 people in the French Caribbean territories, 4 people in the British Virgin Islands and 1 person each on Anguilla and Barbuda.

Widespread Damage Paralyzes the Caribbean 1:38

Nine out of 10 government and business structures were estimated to have been damaged or destroyed on Anguilla. The French government estimated damage at almost $1.5 billion just on St. Bart’s and French St. Martin. The prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, described his country as “barely habitable,” saying 90 percent of all vehicles and buildings had been damaged.

The U.S. military spread far and wide in what Bossert called “the largest-ever mobilization of our military in a naval and marine operation.”

PHOTOS: Floridians Awake to Damage and Darkness

“We have the largest flotilla operation in our nation’s history to help not only the people of Puerto Rico, the people of the U.S. Virgin Islands, but also St. Martin and other non-U.S. islands affected,” he said.

Moody’s Analytics, the research arm of the financial services giant Moody’s Corp., estimated Monday that Irma would end up having caused $64 billion to $92 billion of damage in the United States. It stressed that that’s just a preliminary estimate.

The Cost of Irma: Billions of Dollars in Damage 1:51

Insurance losses, meanwhile, are projected to reach as high as $40 billion, the risk modeling firm AIR Worldwide said Monday.

Trump said Sunday, “Right now, we’re worried about lives.” Still, he acknowledged, recovery from Irma is “going to cost a lot of money.”