Buffalo Bills' Josh Allen, AP Most valuable player speaks during the NFL Honors award show ahead of the Super Bowl 59 football game, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)2025-02-07T09:35:01Z THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) The International Criminal Court on Friday called on its member states to stand up against sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump, saying the move was an attempt to harm its independent and impartial judicial work.The White House issued the executive order on Thursday in response to what it called illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel. It was referring to the arrest warrant the ICC issued last year for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza.The Hague-based court said it condemns the move. The Court stands firmly by its personnel and pledges to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world, the court said in a statement. We call on our 125 States Parties, civil society and all nations of the world to stand united for justice and fundamental human rights, it said. The order said the U.S. will impose tangible and significant consequences on those responsible for the ICCs transgressions. Actions may include blocking property and assets and not allowing ICC officials, employees and relatives to enter the United States. Human rights groups also criticized the decision. US sanctions against ICC officials would be a gift to those around the globe responsible for mass atrocities. Sanctions are for human rights violators, not those working to hold rights abusers to account, Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. Trumps executive order borrows a page out of Russias playbook, which has sought to obstruct the courts work through arrest warrants against its judges and prosecutor, Evenson said.

People stand around the vandalized residence of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh's former leader and the father of the country's ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)2025-02-07T08:56:31Z DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) Bangladeshs interim government headed by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus said Friday it will contain vandalism and arson taking place across the country amid concern from a major Bangladeshi opposition political party and neighboring India over attacks on a historic house linked to ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Mobs targeting supporters of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina have vandalized homes and businesses in various parts of the country since Wednesday night. Many of the establishments belonging to former lawmakers, Cabinet members and the leaders of Hasinas Awami League party were set on fire, apparently as part of a coordinated campaign involving the former home of Bangladeshs independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Hasinas father in Dhaka, the capital.Hasina fled the country to India on Aug. 5 amid a student-led mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. Early Friday, the Press Wing of Yunus in a brief statement warned that stern actions would be taken against such acts of violence.The interim government notes with deep concern that some individuals and groups are attempting to vandalize and torch various institutions and establishments across the country. The government will strongly contain such acts, the statement said. It said the government was ready to protect the safety of life and property of the people. The statement came more than 24 hours after the attack on the building from where Rahman declared Bangladeshs independence in 1971. The Wednesday night attack followed a daylong campaign on social media by Hasina critics and student leaders. They declared a bulldozer procession toward Rahmans house, which was turned into a museum by Hasina. As the protesters stormed the building, police stood by. A team of military soldiers later attempted to stop them but then left. An intelligence official in Dhaka told The Associated Press that there were reports of some 70 attacks across Bangladesh since Wednesday following the vandalism and arson in Rahmans home. The countrys leading English-language Daily Star reported Friday that acts of violence targeting Hasinas supporters took place in at least 20 districts. Channel 24 TV station in Dhaka reported violence in at least 35 districts across the country. The station said the village home of a veteran politician from Hasinas party and former Bangladesh president, Abdul Hamid, was one of the targets. In a statement early Friday, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party headed by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, Hasinas main political rival, urged the Yunus-led government to bring the situation under control.Otherwise, anarchy will spread across the country. It is a timely demand for us to urge the stringent implementation of law and order and to make the states and governments role more visible, the statement said.India, which aided Bangladesh to gain independence from Pakistan in a bloody war in 1971, in a statemen on Thursday condemned the demolition of Rahmans house, calling the site a symbol of a heroic resistance. It highlighted the role of Rahmans residence in the formation of Bangladeshs national identity.All those who value the freedom struggle that nurtured Bangla identity and pride are aware of the importance of this residence for the national consciousness of Bangladesh. This act of vandalism should be strongly condemned, the statement reads.Bangladeshi political analyst Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah said Thursday that such violence could pose a serious threat to the aspiration of a democratic transition through an election.The overlook by the state in preventing such acts of vandalism and anarchy from happening could ignite further chaos. These should not be ignored, he said.Yunus has said a new election will be held either in December or by June 2026.

People take part in a vigil near the scene of a shooting at an adult education center on the outskirts of Orebro, Sweden, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)2025-02-07T09:41:42Z OREBRO, Sweden (AP) Despite his gunshot wounds, sustained Tuesday in Swedens deadliest mass shooting, Salim Karim Iskef managed to video-call his fiancee to tell her he loved her one last time.The 28-year-old asked Kareen Alia to look after his mother and herself before the call ended. There was no answer when she called back, and she later found out hed died from his injuries. He was one of 10 people killed when a gunman opened fire at the adult education center in Orebro where Iskef was studying to become a nurse.The couple had recently bought a home and planned to marry this summer.He had all of these dreams in his heart. Now, unfortunately, all of these dreams are gone. Their light has been put out, Father Jacob Kasselia, priest of their local Orthodox Christian church, told Swedish broadcaster TV4.Authorities said the shooter, who has not yet been officially identified, was connected to the adult education center where he opened fire with at least one rifle-like weapon and may have attended school there previously. The shooter was found dead with three guns, 10 empty magazines and a large amount of unused ammunition next to his body. It was not clear how he died, but officials said police did not return his gunfire. Officers found at least five people, all over age 18, with serious gunshot wounds. A sixth person was treated for minor injuries.Investigators have not uncovered a definitive motive behind the bloodshed. Police said there were no warnings beforehand, and they believe the perpetrator acted alone. Authorities said there were no suspected connections to terrorism at this point. My whole life was with himThe school, Campus Risbergska, offers primary and secondary educational classes for adults age 20 and older, Swedish-language classes for immigrants, vocational training, and programs for people with intellectual disabilities. It is on the outskirts of Orebro, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from Stockholm.Iskef was studying nursing there after serving as a healthcare worker during the COVID-19 pandemic. His family fled Syria between 2014 and 2015 because of its long-running civil war.Weve lived together our entire lives, his sister Hanan Eskif told TV4. We worked together, and we studied together, we went to church together. My whole life was with him, how am I supposed to live without him? Their family held a memorial service at their Orthodox Christian church, although they hadnt received Iskefs body by late Thursday.We keep looking out the window thinking maybe hell return and knock on the door, and well have to open it. We dont sleep, we dont eat, dont drink. Nothing, we just sit and look out, Eskif told the broadcaster. Guns in SwedenThe government and Sweden Democrats on Friday planned to move forward with proposals to tighten gun laws, including restricting access to semi-automatic weapons such as the AR-15, Swedish news agency TT reported.Authorities said the shooter had licenses for four weapons, three of which were found next to his body. Police have seized the fourth. Officials have only said at least one gun was a rifle-like weapon.Currently, in order to possess a firearm legally in Sweden, applicants must obtain a weapon license and demonstrate that it will be used for an acceptable purpose, such as hunting or target shooting, and not be misused. Applicants must also submit previously obtained hunting or target shooting certificates. Hunting certificates require people to pass a training course, while target shooters must be certified as active and experienced members of clubs.In a country of roughly 10.5 million people, there were just over 660,000 registered gun owners at the beginning of 2024, according to the Swedish news agency TT. Those registered owners had some 2 million guns, objects that are considered firearms and weapon parts that require a permit.TT reported that 1.6 million of those guns are registered for hunting, and another 176,000 for target-shooting.All weapons must be stored in secure cabinets approved by the police. Applications for fully automatic weapons or one-handed weapons are only granted for exceptional reasons, and such permits are generally time-limited.Permits are revoked if the weapon is modified to be substantially different from its original function.___Dazio reported from Berlin. STEFANIE DAZIO Dazio covers Northern Europe from Berlin for The Associated Press. She previously covered crime and criminal justice from Los Angeles. RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., arrives to speak with reporters to discuss the Trump agenda following a closed-door strategy session, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)2025-02-07T05:03:35Z WASHINGTON (AP) House Republicans are working overtime after a lengthy White House meeting to meet President Donald Trumps demand for a big budget package that includes some $3 trillion in tax breaks, massive program cuts and a possible extension of the nations debt limit.Speaker Mike Johnson had GOP lawmakers working into the night ahead of a self-imposed Friday deadline to produce the package, after having blown past an earlier timeline to draft the contours of a bill that could begin making its long journey through Congress to the presidents desk. Trumps message as he popped in and out of the nearly five-hour meeting Thursday at the White House was simple: Get it done.What he does a really good job at is: Heres the end result that I want, Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., the House GOP Conference chair, said afterward. On the list for the emerging budget package from the House GOP: making tax cuts that expire at the end of this year permanent, cutting spending on federal programs and ensuring Trump has enough money to launch his deportation operation and finish building the U.S-Mexico border wall. The package could raise the nations debt ceiling to allow more borrowing and prevent a federal default. Its a heavy lift for Congress, and House and Senate GOP leaders have been desperately looking to Trump for direction on how to proceed, but so far the president has been noncommittal about the details only pushing Congress for results. The standoff is creating frustration for Republicans as precious time is slipping and they fail to make progress on what has been their top priority with their party in control in Washington. At the same time, congressional phone lines are being swamped with callers protesting cost-cutting efforts led by billionaire Elon Musk against federal programs, services and operations. Trump set the tone at the start of Thursdays session, lawmakers said, then left them to hammer out the details. Republican senators are heading Friday to Trumps private Mar-a-Lago club for their own meeting. Very positive developments today, Johnson said once he returned to the Capitol. Were really grateful to the president for leaning in and doing what he does best, and that is put a steady hand at the wheel and get everybody working.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters the president and lawmakers discussed tax priorities of the Trump administration, including Trumps promises to end federal taxation of tips, Social Security benefits and overtime pay. Renewing tax cuts Trump enacted in 2017 also was on the agenda, she said. The president is committed to working with Congress to get this done, Leavitt said.Johnson, R-La., needs almost complete unanimity from his ranks to pass any bill over objections from Democrats. In the Senate, Republicans have a 53-47 majority, with little room for dissent.House Republicans reconvened in the evening at the Capitol to make sure all the Republicans would be on board with the emerging plan, particularly the spending cuts that have the potential to cause angst among lawmakers as they slice into government services Americans depend on from coast to coast. The chair of the House Budget Committee, Texas Rep. Jodey Arrington, said his panel is preparing to hold hearings on the package next week.But as Johnsons timeline has slipped, the Senate is making moves to take charge. Republicans led by Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota have proposed a two-step approach, starting with a smaller bill that would include money for Trumps U.S.-Mexico border wall and deportation plans, among other priorities. They later would pursue the more robust package of tax break extensions before a year-end deadline.Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, announced that his panel, too, was pushing ahead next week with hearings to kickstart the process. The dueling approaches between the House and Senate are becoming something of a race to see which chamber will make the most progress toward the GOPs overall goals. The House GOP largely wants what Trump has called a big, beautiful bill that would extend some $3 trillion in tax cuts and include funding for the presidents mass deportation effort and border wall. It includes massive cuts from a menu of government programs from health care to food assistance to help offset the tax cuts.The smaller bill Graham is proposing would total some $300 billion and include border money and a boost in defense spending, largely paid for with a rollback of Biden-era green energy programs. House Republicans are deeply split over Grahams approach. But they are also at odds over their own ideas.House GOP leaders are proposing cuts that would bring $1 trillion in savings over the decade, lawmakers said, but members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus want at least double that amount. Trump has repeatedly said he is less wed to the process used in Congress than the outcome of achieving his policy goals.If the House GOPs initial meeting with Trump at the White House last month was a good first date, this one was whether we want kids or not, McClain told reporters.This was a very different meeting, she said. It was still positive, optimistic. But it was getting down to business.___ DARLENE SUPERVILLE Superville covers the White House for The Associated Press, with a special emphasis on first ladies and first families.

Hiring sign is displayed at a health service center in Chicago, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)2025-02-07T05:01:06Z WASHINGTON (AP) The U.S. labor market probably started 2025 the way it spent most of last year: Generating decent, but unspectacular, job growth.When the Labor Department releases January employment numbers Friday, theyre likely to show that companies, government agencies and nonprofits added 170,000 jobs last month, according to a survey of economists by the data firm FactSet. That would be a respectable performance but also a downshift from 2024 which averaged 186,000 new jobs a month, including a surge of 256,000 in December. The unemployment rate is expected to remain low at 4.1%.The first monthly jobs report of Donald Trumps second presidency is likely to confirm that he inherited a solid economy, one in which consumers enjoy job security and rising wages that give them the confidence and financial wherewithal to spend freely. The economy is kicking off 2025 in good shape, said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank.The future is cloudier.The federal hiring freeze that Trump imposed Jan. 20 is a negative for employment growth, Bradley Saunders, an economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a commentary last week. But it came after the Labor Department collected the January jobs numbers, so any impact wont show up in Fridays report. Likewise, a cold snap that probably increased seasonal layoffs in the Midwest and Northeast occurred late in January and wont register in government jobs data until the February numbers come out, Saunders wrote. Economists are also worried about Trumps threat to wage a trade war against other countries. Hes already imposed a 10% tax on imports from China. Canada and Mexico Americas two largest trading partners -- remain in his crosshairs though he gave them a 30-day reprieve from the 25% tariffs he was planning to sock them with on Tuesday, allowing time for negotiations. Trump says that Americas two neighbors and allies havent done enough to stem the flow of undocumented immigrants and fentanyl into the United States. Trump is also itching to slap tariffs on the European Union; pointing to Americas deficit in the trade of goods with the EU, which came to $236 billion last year, he says that Europe treats U.S. exporters unfairly. The tariffs, which are paid by U.S. importers who generally try to pass along the cost to customers, could rekindle inflation which has fallen from the four-decade high it reached in mid-2022 but is still stuck above the Feds 2% target. If the tariffs push prices higher, the Fed may cancel or postpone the two interest-rate cuts it had forecast for this year. And that would be bad for economic growth and job creation.The job market has already cooled from the red-hot days of 2021-2023. American payrolls increased by 2.2 million last year, down from 3 million in 2023, 4.5 million in 2022 and a record 7.2 million in 2021 as the economy roared back from COVID-19 lockdowns. The Labor Department also reports that employers are posting fewer jobs. Monthly job openings have tumbled from a record 12.2 million in March 2022, to 7.6 million in December still a decent number by historical standards. As the labor market cools, American workers are losing confidence in their ability to find better pay or working conditions by changing jobs. The number of people quitting has fallen from a record 4.5 million near the height of the hiring boom in April 2022, to Decembers 3.2 million, which is below pre-pandemic levels.Still, layoffs remain below pre-pandemic levels, creating an unusual situation: If you are employed, you probably enjoy job security. If youre looking for one, things have gotten tougher.The Labor Department is also expected to report annually released revisions Friday that will show job creation from April 2023 through March 2024 wasnt as strong as originally reported. A preliminary version of the revisions, released in August, showed that 818,000 fewer jobs were created over those 12 months lowering average monthly hiring during that span from 242,000 to 174,000. Because they are not final, the August estimates have not yet been added to the official government payroll numbers. The revisions out Friday will become official and part of the historic data.

Trains arrive and depart from a subway station in the Coney Island section of New York, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)2025-02-07T05:18:34Z NEW YORK (AP) KaVon Wooden loved trains. The 15-year-old had an encyclopedic knowledge of New York Citys subway system and dreamed of becoming a train operator.Instead, on a December morning in 2022, KaVon died after he climbed to the roof of a moving J train in Brooklyn and then fell onto the tracks as it headed onto the Williamsburg Bridge.He is one of more than a dozen New Yorkers, many young boys, who have been killed or badly injured in recent years while attempting to subway surf, a practice that dates back a century but has been supercharged by social media.Authorities have tried to address the problem with public awareness campaigns and by deploying drones to catch thrill-seekers in the act. But for some, a more fundamental question is not being addressed: Why are kids like KaVon able to climb on top of subway cars in the first place? When KaVon died ... literally two weeks later, another child died. And another one. That makes no sense, his mother, YVonda Maxwell, told The Associated Press, saying transit and law enforcement officials havent done enough. Why should my child have not been the end? Making trains harder to climb, and train surfers more easy to detect with cameras and sensors, could be part of the solution, some experts say. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the subway system, has said it is studying the issue. But it has yet to come forward with proposals to use technology or physical barriers that might make it harder for people to get on top of trains. Six people died surfing subway trains in the city last year, up from five in 2023.Tyesha Elcock, the MTA worker who operated the train KaVon rode the day he died, is among those who thinks more should be done to prevent deaths.The first sign of trouble that day was when the trains emergency brake kicked in, she said. Elcock discovered KaVons body between the trains seventh and eighth cars. A group of sad-faced teens on the train made it clear what had happened. Did yall leave your friend back there? she asked them.Elcock said another operator traveling in the opposite direction saw KaVon on the trains roof and reported it over a radio. Because of patchy radio service, she said, she didnt get the warning.But she thinks an even simpler solution could have saved KaVons life: locking the doors at the ends of subway cars. That would cut off access to the narrow gaps between train cars where subway surfers use handholds to hoist themselves onto the roof.Lock it when were in service so people cant climb up and be on top of the train, Elcock said.The MTAs leaders have said that they looking into possible ways to prevent subway surfing, including engineering solutions, but the agency declined to make any of its safety experts available for an interview.In 2023, Richard Davey, then the head of buses and subways for the MTA, said officials were weighing the option of locking doors between cars which is now done only on a handful of 1980s-era trains. But he said that locking doors brings its own risk. Some New Yorkers have complained that locking the passageways between train cars might prevent them from escaping to another part of the train during an emergency. Under questioning from City Council members and reporters last year, MTA officials ruled out some other physical interventions, including building more barriers to prevent access to tracks, or putting covers over the gaps between train cars to prevent would-be surfers from climbing up.Listen, you have to be able to do work on top of a train car, MTA CEO Janno Lieber said at a news conference, adding that you cant cover it with barbed wire.The MTA has asked social media companies to take down videos glamorizing subway surfing. Its also promoted public service announcements telling people to Ride inside, stay alive, in voices of local teens.More than 300,000 New York City school children use the subway to get to and from school each day.The NYPD reported that arrests of alleged subway surfers rose to 229 last year, up from 135 the year before. Most were boys, with an average age of around 14, according to police. The youngest was 9 years old. Branislav Dimitrijevic, an engineering professor of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said retrofitting trains to prevent roof access would be expensive.Theres so many stories in transportation where things can be fixed, but they cost a lot of money. And then you ask the public, Are you willing to (pay) for us to fix this? But your taxes would go up tremendously. And people say no, Dimitrijevic said.Dimitrijevic suggested the MTA might be able to install cameras and use artificial intelligence to detect riders trying to climb a train. Andrew Alpert, a non-voting member of the MTA board, said he has been asking the agency about the plausibility of physical sensors but hasnt gotten a response. The NYPD has patrolled popular subway surfing routes with drones, but the missions cant be everywhere at once.Trains in some other cities, such as Hong Kong and Dubai, arent easily climbable. They have streamlined bodies, lack handles on the outside and dont open between cars.Some rail systems have resorted to extreme tactics to keep people from riding on top of trains. In Indonesia, railway officials once installed hanging metal flails to try and deter passengers from riding atop train cars to avoid overcrowding. They also tried spraying riders with red paint and hitting them with brooms.The MTA recently purchased a few new subway cars that dont have the outdoor gaps exploited by subway surfers, but they represent just a sliver of the number currently in service, and wont be deployed on lines popular for surfing anytime soon. CEDAR ATTANASIO Attanasio covers New York City for The Associated Press with a focus on immigration and the ocean. He uses remote sensing to support the APs global coverage. twitter instagram facebook mailto

In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei listens to the national anthem as air force officers salute during their meeting in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)2025-02-07T08:08:42Z DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) Irans supreme leader said Friday that negotiations with America are not intelligent, wise or honorable after President Donald Trump floated nuclear talks with Tehran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also suggested that there should be no negotiations with such a government, but stopped short of issuing a direct order not to engage with Washington. Khameneis remarks upend months of signals from Tehran to the United States that it wanted to negotiate over its rapidly advancing nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of crushing economic sanctions worth billions of dollars. What happens next remains unclear, particularly as reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian campaigned on and promised as recently as Thursday entering into a dialogue with the West. Khameneis remarks to air force officers in Tehran appeared to contradict his own earlier remarks in August that opened the door to talks. However, the 85-year-old Khamenei has always been careful with remarks about negotiating with the West. That includes balancing the demands of reformists within the country who want the talks against hard-line elements within Irans theocracy, including the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. Khamenei noted that Trump unilaterally withdrew from the earlier nuclear deal under which Iran drastically limited its enrichment of uranium and overall stockpile of the material, in exchange for crushing sanctions being removed. The Americans did not uphold their end of the deal, Khamenei said. The very person who is in office today tore up the agreement. He said he would, and he did. He added: This is an experience we must learn from. We negotiated, we gave concessions, we compromised but we did not achieve the results we aimed for. And despite all its flaws, the other side ultimately violated and destroyed the agreement. Its not clear what sparked Khameneis remarks. However, they come after Trump suggested he wanted to deal with Tehran, even while signing an executive order to reimpose his maximum pressure approach to Iran on Tuesday.Im going to sign it, but hopefully were not going to have to use it very much, he said from the Oval Office. We will see whether or not we can arrange or work out a deal with Iran.We dont want to be tough on Iran. We dont want to be tough on anybody, Trump added. But they just cant have a nuclear bomb.Trump followed with another online message on Wednesday, saying: Reports that the United States, working in conjunction with Israel, is going to blow Iran into smithereens, ARE GREATLY EXAGGERATED.I would much prefer a Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement, which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper, he wrote on Truth Social. We should start working on it immediately, and have a big Middle East Celebration when it is signed and completed.Trump did not elaborate. Khamenei, like other Iranian leaders, uses elliptical comments to indirectly govern policy while not boxing himself into any one decision. As supreme leader, hes also created a vast bureaucracy that competes with itself for influence, including with its civilian leadership under Pezeshkian. As recently as Thursday, Pezeshkian suggested Iran could open itself up to even more inspections from the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. They (can) come and inspect one hundred times more since we are not supposed to go after a nuclear weapon, Pezeshkian told foreign diplomats. Iranian diplomats for years have pointed to Khameneis preachings as a binding fatwa, or religious edict, that Iran wont build an atomic bomb.Iran long has insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. However, it now enriches uranium to 60% purity a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Iranian officials increasingly suggest Tehran could pursue an atomic bomb. U.S. intelligence agencies assess that Iran has yet to begin a weapons program, but has undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so. Earlier in the week, Trump also said that displaced Palestinians in Gaza could be permanently resettled outside the war-torn territory and proposed the U.S. take ownership in redeveloping the area into the Riviera of the Middle East.While not directly linking Trumps comments on Gaza, Khamenei appeared to be referencing them in his remarks as well. The Americans sit, redrawing the map of the world but only on paper, as it has no basis in reality, Khamenei said. They make statements about us, express opinions and issue threats. If they threaten us, we will threaten them in return. If they act on their threats, we will act on ours. If they violate the security of our nation, we will, without a doubt, respond in kind.___Associated Press writers Amir Vahdat and Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report. JON GAMBRELL Gambrell is the news director for the Gulf and Iran for The Associated Press. He has reported from each of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Iran and other locations across the world since joining the AP in 2006. twitter instagram mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he signs executive orders in the White House on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)2025-02-07T05:23:14Z TALLINN, Estonia (AP) Rights groups, activists and independent media in Russia and Belarus endured increased government scrutiny, repressive laws and even being outlawed and forced to operate from exile abroad. Many survived despite the difficulties.Now some face a new challenge: the decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to freeze for 90 days the aid provided by Washington.The aid, which came directly from or via the partners of the U.S. Agency for International Development, as well as from other entities funded by the U.S. government, was a source for some of their grant money.Objectively, its a very bad thing, an activist with Center-T, a prominent Russian trans group, told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. Organizations could have done much more significant things if it werent for this situation. Members of Russian and Belarusian rights groups and independent media organizations described varying effects of the action, from bad to unpleasant. Many get funding elsewhere, like private donations or other grants, but some said they dont know which of their partners are linked to U.S. aid and whether more will withdraw support. Aid freeze means cutting expenses, scrapping plansSome Russian organizations said theyll still operate but will cut expenses and possibly plans, adding they knew of others in bigger jeopardy. OVD-Info, a Russian rights group that tracks political arrests and offers legal aid, is largely funded by private donations from a large number of people, so the freeze has little direct and immediate impact, said OVD-Info spokesman Dmitry Anisimov, but other groups that help it with certain activities are affected. Without their existence, our work will become significantly more difficult, he said, and those in need of assistance will be affected, too. An editor of an independent Russian news outlet operating in exile echoed Anisimov and also cited crowdfunding as one reliable revenue sources. The editor spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The outlet lost less than 10% of the budget in frozen grants, the editor said, adding: Yes, its hard, unpleasant, difficult, but were not on the brink of imminently shutting down. Were not even on the brink of laying people off. Center-T, whose core staff moved abroad after the Russian Supreme Court designated what it called the LGBTQ+ movement as extremist, effectively outlawing all LGBTQ+ activism, also lost only a fraction of funding, its staffer said. We are, possibly, in one of the luckiest positions, because we almost didnt have U.S. funding, they said.Kovcheg Russian for arc a group helping Russians fleeing abroad with shelter, legal and psychological support, training and other support, lost 30% of its budget after Trumps action, said its founder, Anastasia Burakova.The funds were allocated for future projects, as well as various improvements, she said. Its a shame they wont happen, but otherwise, Kovcheg is more or less stable, thanks to crowdfunding and advertising, Burakova added. Burakova, who formerly headed a legal aid group in St. Petersburg backed by exiled tycoon-turned-opposition-figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky, cited repressive laws and regulations that make it harder for critical and independent groups to get funding from Russians. Laws that drive Russian donors awayMost Russian rights groups and independent news outlets have been designated as foreign agents by the Russian authorities -- a label that turns potential donors away with its negative connotation. Russia has banned advertising with them. Others have also been labeled undesirable, a category that outlaws any dealings with groups so designated, exposing donors to prosecution.Many had to move their teams abroad after Russia invaded Ukraine to avoid the ever-widening crackdown. But, the more youre being beaten and banned, the more you adapt and stop counting on just one thing for your funding, Burakova said. In light of the aid freeze, Khodorkovsky and Russian philanthropist Boris Zimin this week offered $600,000 to affected Russian and Ukrainian projects. Its not clear how much U.S. aid Russian organizations were receiving and how much of that could be offset by Khodorkovskys and Zimins funding. Of course, it wouldnt be enough, Zimin said, but many of these projects are very important, especially, I think, media (projects). I consider it my duty to support them at least for some time.The U.S. Embassy in Moscow said it was unable to comment. Funding losses for Belarus pro-democracy forces Pro-democracy forces from Belarus told AP the frozen U.S. aid they were receiving - about $30 million - accounts for over half of all of their Western funding. It comes from both USAID, either directly or through partners, and entities like the U.S.-government funded National Endowment for Democracy. Dozens of nongovernmental organizations and several independent media groups are on the brink of closure, they said. Opposition leaders recently prepared a report for Western governments, outlining the effects of the freeze, according to a person close to Belarusian opposition leaders. The person spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.Without Western-supported independent media and pro-democracy forces, Belarus and Russia will likely fill the void by strengthening state propaganda and authoritarian control in Belarus, allowing pro-Kremlin narratives to dominate the minds of Belarusians, the person said. An activist from the Belarusian Association of Journalists said that out of 30 large Belarusian media groups working abroad, six said they lost funding completely and are on the brink of closing. The activist spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.According to the oppositions report, $1.7 million in U.S. aid is frozen - more than half of all foreign aid to independent media forced to flee Belarus after authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko unleashed a widespread crackdown on dissent in 2020. Now, small independent newsrooms are laying off employees to avoid closing, the activist said: If a newsroom stops operating, resuming later is almost impossible, which sets the media apart from other beneficiaries of U.S. aid, the activist said. A YouTube show, A Regular Morning, with videos regularly drawing over 100,000 views, said it was shutting down but asked for donations and said it would keep going through March. We have already found ourselves in situations where the continuation of the project was not obvious, but each time we found a way to continue the work, because we understood that Belarusians need to hear reasonable voices, its journalists said. The activist believes dozens of media projects will inevitably cease.Rights groups also are affected. According to the person close to opposition leaders, 60-80 groups face possible mass layoffs, ending programs or closing for good. The person expects that programs to support political prisoners will be drastically cut, Belarusian youth will lose access to alternative educational programs, and activists will lose their platforms.There are over 1,200 political prisoners in Belarus, according to Viasna, the countrys leading human rights group, whose imprisoned founder Ales Bialiatski won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.Thousands of activists, including some freed from prison, have moved abroad, and groups that received U.S. funding were helping them and their families.The freeze will significantly impair Viasnas work, according to activist Pavel Sapelka. But it wont stop human rights advocates entirely, he insisted.Franak Viaorka, a senior aide to opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, told AP the exiled activist is urgently looking for ways to keep afloat the independent media and the civil society of Belarus, which has run into a new challenge.There was no immediate response to a request for comment from the State Departments European and Eurasian Bureau. DASHA LITVINOVA Litvinova is an Associated Press correspondent covering Russia, Belarus, Central Asia and the Caucasus. She is part of the team that covers the Russia-Ukraine war. She has covered Russia and the region for over a decade. twitter mailto YURAS KARMANAU Karmanau is an Associated Press journalist covering Belarus and the CIS countries. He has worked in Belarus and Ukraine, as well as other countries in the region, for more than 20 years. He is part of the team that covers the Russia-Ukraine war. mailto

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he signs executive orders in the White House on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)2025-02-07T13:18:34Z WARTBURG, Tenn. (AP) Two people were killed in eastern Tennessee when severe storms with a possible tornado moved through the region.Local officials announced Friday morning that a mother and daughter from the same household were killed when the storm passed through the Deer Lodge and Sunbright areas of Morgan County on Thursday night.That is according to a social media post by the county emergency management agency. Three other injuries were also reported, officials said.The Tennessee Highway Patrol said on social media that troopers were in Morgan County ensuring resident safety and assessing and helping with structure damage.The Morgan County School District said on its website that schools would be closed Friday because of significant damage from tornadoes in parts of our county.

Demonstrators and lawmakers rally against President Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk as they disrupt the federal government, including dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers foreign aid approved by Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)2025-02-07T13:55:18Z WASHINGTON (AP) Forced leaves began in Washington and worldwide Friday for most employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development, as federal workers associations turned to the courts to try to roll back Trump administration orders that have dismantled most of the agency and U.S.- funded aid programs around the world.Under the administrations plan, the agency is to be left with fewer than 300 workers out of thousands.Two current USAID employees and one former senior USAID official told The Associated Press of the administrations plan, presented to remaining senior officials of the agency Thursday. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to a Trump administration order barring USAID staffers from talking to anyone outside their agency.The agency is being slashed back from more than 8,000 direct hires and contractors. They, along with an unknown number of 5,000 locally hired employees abroad, would run the few life-saving programs that the administration says it intends to keep going for now. It was not immediately clear whether the reduction to 300 would be permanent or temporary, potentially allowing more workers to return after what the Trump administration says is a review of which aid and development programs it wants to resume. The administration this week gave almost all USAID staffers posted overseas 30 days, starting Friday, to return to the U.S., with the government paying for their travel and moving costs. Workers who choose to stay longer, unless they received a specific hardship waiver, might have to cover their own expenses, a notice on the USAID website said late Thursday. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said during a trip to the Dominican Republic on Thursday that the U.S. government will continue providing foreign aid.But it is going to be foreign aid that makes sense and is aligned with our national interest, he told reporters. The Trump administration and billionaire ally Elon Musk, who is running a budget-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, have targeted USAID hardest so far in an unprecedented challenge of the federal government and many of its programs.Since President Donald Trumps Jan. 20 inauguration, a sweeping funding freeze has shut most of the agencys programs worldwide, and almost all of its workers have been placed on administrative leave or furloughed. Musk and the Republican president have spoken of eliminating USAID as an independent agency and moving surviving programs under the State Department.Democratic lawmakers and others call the move illegal without congressional approval.The same argument was made by the American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government Employees in their lawsuit, which asks the federal court in Washington to compel the reopening of USAIDs buildings, return its staffers to work and restore funding.Government officials failed to acknowledge the catastrophic consequences of their actions, both as they pertain to American workers, the lives of millions around the world, and to US national interests, the suit says.___AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee contributed from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. ELLEN KNICKMEYER Knickmeyer covers foreign policy and national security for The Associated Press. She is based in Washington, D.C. twitter RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Rev. Esteban Rodriguez, who leads Centro Cristiano El Pan de Vida, prays for congregants during a church service in Kissimmee, Fla. Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Alan Youngblood)2025-02-07T13:00:19Z Bishop Ebli De La Rosa says his motto right now is to prepare for the worst and pray for the best.De La Rosa, who oversees Church of God of Prophecy congregations in nine southeastern states, says he has had to respond quickly to the Trump administrations new orders, which have thrown out policies that restricted immigration enforcement in sensitive locations such as schools and houses of worship.This move has imperiled 32 of the Latino evangelical denominations 70 pastors who are here without legal status and serve in some of the regions most vulnerable communities, De La Rosa said. The bishop has instructed each congregation with endangered pastors to prepare three laypeople to take over, should their leader be deported. He has also told them to livestream every service, and to keep recording even if something happens.Some of my pastors are holding services with doors locked because they are scared that immigration agents will burst through the door at any moment, he said. I feel so bad and so helpless that I can do nothing more for them. De La Rosa echoes the sentiments of several other faith leaders representing thousands of Latino evangelical Christians in Florida and swaths of the Southeast. They worry about the sanctity of their sacred spaces, and the possibility of immigration raids and arrests. A statement from the Department of Homeland Security on Jan. 20 said the presidents executive order will empower officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection to enforce immigration laws and that criminals will no longer be able to hide in Americas schools and churches to avoid arrest. Agustin Quiles, a spokesperson for the Florida Fellowship of Hispanic Councils and Evangelical Institutions, said community members, including many who supported Donald Trump in the last election cycle, now feel devastated and abandoned. The messaging appears to be that anyone who is undocumented is a criminal, he said. Latino evangelicals for the most part voted Republican and hold conservative views on issues like abortion. We want to ask the president to reconsider because these actions are causing pain and trauma to so many families in and beyond our churches. Their suffering is great, and the church is suffering with them.Quiles said his organization will lobby legislators in Washington and Florida to reinstate laws that protected sensitive spaces like houses of worship.Our main focus is the unity of families and the many children who will be impacted or left behind without their parents, he said.Pastor Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, who advised President Trump on immigration during his first term, says he has been assured on multiple occasions by those in the know that houses of worship have nothing to fear.There should be zero angst as it pertains to churches because no one is going to come into a church with or without guns blazing, he said. That is never going to happen. However, Rodriguez said agents may surveil a church if they suspect someone engaged in criminal activity is seeking shelter there. And he said those who are here illegally even if they have lived in the United States for decades may be deported if they are living with or are around someone who is here illegally and has committed a crime.The National Association of Evangelicals, which says it represents 40 congregations and serves millions, expressed dismay at the executive order.Withdrawal of guidance protecting houses of worship, schools and health facilities from immigration enforcement is troubling, it said on Jan. 22, asserting that the move has deterred some from attending church.Pastors who are seeing the impact of these orders on the ground agree. The Rev. Esteban Rodriguez, who leads Centro Cristiano El Pan de Vida, a mid-size Church of God of Prophecy congregation in Kissimmee, Florida, said Latino evangelical churches are like a big family that is composed of families. In his community, those who are here without legal status have even been afraid to go to work, church and to food pantries to fulfill their basic needs, he said. Rodriguez said he has been helping some congregants with reference letters for their immigration applications and speaking with lawyers to see how the church can help proactively.The Rev. Ruben Ortiz, Latino field coordinator for Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, says Latino churches have spent decades creating these sacred spaces at great cost, without relying on government assistance. Ortiz said he was distressed to hear about an incident outside an Atlanta-area church where an individual was arrested while a service was being held inside.The Bible clearly states that a church is a place of refuge and these laws challenge that sacred belief, Ortiz said. We are getting calls from members who say they dont feel safe in our churches, he said. We are going to respond by giving shelter. We are going to embrace all regardless of their immigration status. Everyone can and should find refuge in our churches.Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said he does not expect immigration authorities to engage in raids on churches that violate peoples constitutional right to gather and worship.What they may do and have done is target a specific individual who might be attending church, he said. I would expect more of that.The law is murky as to whether churches can legally shelter those who are here illegally as part of their faith, but there are strong arguments to be made, Saenz said.People should know they have rights that protect them, and that they have allies inside and outside the church who will express their outrage if their constitutional rights are violated, he said.Latino evangelicals are in a unique spot because they are influenced by the theology of right-leaning white evangelical churches, whose pastors and leaders are also the strongest voices against immigration, said Lloyd Barba, assistant professor of religion at Amherst College in Massachusetts who studies Latino immigration and religion.Barba said the Latino evangelical community includes many independent churches and diverse organizations that lack a unified, central teaching on immigration unlike mainline denominations such as the United Methodist Church or the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.Even the Catholic Church has a robust doctrine and social teaching on immigration, he said. Without that, we tend to encounter a little more reluctance or uncertainty about whether Latino pastors should be engaging in this kind of sacred resistance.Bishop Abner Adorno with Assemblies of God in the Florida Multicultural District, said he leans into the Bible where he says the teaching on immigration is crystal clear. He points to Deuteronomy 10:19, which says: So you, too, must show love to foreigners for you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt.This verse describes a Judeo-Christian foundation of concern for immigrants and refugees, he said. While the concern of the government must be on enforcement, the role of the church must be compassion.___Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the APs collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. DEEPA BHARATH Bharath is a reporter with APs Global Religion team. She is based in Los Angeles. twitter mailto

Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba steps off the plane after arriving at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)2025-02-07T12:03:07Z WASHINGTON (AP) Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba didnt skimp on the legwork as he prepared for his first meeting with President Donald Trump.He huddled this week with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, two executives Trump recently hosted at the White House. He sought advice from his immediate predecessor, Fumio Kishida.Ishiba even called on the widow of Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister with whom Trump bonded over rounds of golf during his first term.It will be our first face-to-face talks, so I would like to focus on building a personal relationship of trust between the two of us, Ishiba told reporters before heading to Washington for his White House visit, taking place Friday.Its a tall order for Ishiba to replicate the presidents relationship with Abe, who resigned as prime minister in 2020 and was assassinated by a gunman as he delivered a campaign speech in 2022. Nevertheless, Ishiba is making it a priority to connect with Trump. Ishiba, who took office in October, will be just the second world leader to visit the White House during Trumps new term. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week was the first hosted by Trump. Ishiba arrived Thursday evening for his roughly 24-hour visit to Washington. Hes expected to spend a little more than two hours with Trump for a working lunch and a joint news conference before making the return trip to Tokyo. Still, making the whirlwind journey is essential for Ishiba as he looks to ensure that the U.S. and Japan stay on solid footing with the return of Trump and his America First worldview. Both countries have been challenged by Chinas growing economic and military assertiveness in the Pacific and concerns about a nuclear-armed North Korea.Trump in the talks intends to discuss joint training exercises, Japanese investment in the U.S. economy, improving cyber security capabilities, increasing space cooperation, and promoting joint business opportunities to develop critical technologies, including artificial intelligence and semiconductors, Trump administration officials said. Ishiba, for his part, will look to remind Trump who has proposed tariffs on both friends and foes in an effort to boost American manufacturing about the long-running U.S.-Japan alliance. Japanese companies employ nearly 1 million Americans and have held the top spot for cumulative foreign direct investment into the U.S. over the last five years.But the U.S. had a more than $68 billion trade deficit with Japan in 2024. Trump pays a lot of attention to the trade deficit as an indication of the economic fairness and strength of the relationship, said a senior administration official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House.Another sensitive issue Ishiba is prepared to address is Japans Nippon Steels efforts to win approval for a $14.1 billion acquisition of the Pittsburgh-headquartered U.S. Steel. President Joe Biden before leaving office last month blocked the deal, citing national security concern. Trump in December said he was totally against the once great and powerful U.S. Steel being bought by a foreign company. Ishiba isnt necessarily planning on bringing up the deal but has prepped to make a fulsome case for Nippon if Trump raises it, according to a Japanese government official who insisted on anonymity to discuss the leaders private deliberations. Nippon and U.S. Steel have filed a lawsuit aimed at overturning the blocking of the deal. And Nippon has stepped up its public push, arguing the transaction is in line with President Trumps focus on manufacturing and contributes to President Trumps goals promoting U.S. investment, creating U.S. jobs, and strengthening U.S. manufacturing.Defense spending is also expected to be on the leaders agenda. Japan has pledged to raise defense spending to 2% of GDP by 2027, or 60% over five years. That level of spending meets the benchmark set for members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Japan cooperates with the NATO alliance but is not a member. But Trump is pressing NATO and other allies to spend even more on defense, challenging them to raise spending to 5% of their overall economic output a benchmark that will be difficult for countries to reach.Ishiba could remind Trump that Japan is a big supporter of the U.S. defense industry, spending billions of dollars on fighter jets and missile defense systems to try to salve any concerns from the Republican president.President Trump is actually a good listener, too. Perhaps we (will) have a good chemistry, Ishiba told reporters earlier this week.Ishiba invited SoftBanks Son and OpenAIs Altman to his office this week as he prepped for his Trump meeting. The U.S. president last month brought Son, Altman and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison to the White House to spotlight a $500 billion investment for infrastructure tied to artificial intelligence by the three executives companies. Ishiba during his meeting told them that he wants Japan and the United States to deepen cooperation in AI to make the world a more peaceful and safer place.I think Prime Minister Ishiba certainly sees this is an important and critical opportunity for him to reestablish what were exceptional bonds between President Trump and Japan in the first Trump administration, said Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Tennessee Republican who served as Trumps ambassador to Japan during his first administration.Abe was among the few world leaders who developed a bond with Trump during his first term.Abe built a rapport with Trump over rounds of golf and dinners with their wives at the presidents Palm Beach, Florida, resort, Mar-a-Lago. During Trumps 2019 state visit to Japan, Abe took Trump to a sumo wrestling match and arranged for him to be the first leader to meet with Japans newly enthroned emperor.Abe and Trumps tight bond was all the more remarkable, because Trump early in his first White House term threatened a big border tax on Japanese automaker Toyota if it built a plant in Mexico and derided Japan for what he deemed insufficient defense spending.Hagerty, at an event at Washingtons Hudson Institute on Thursday, said it might not be a bad idea for Ishiba who golfed in high school but has since given up the sport to dust off his clubs as he looks to bond with Trump.I hope that he takes the golf lessons back up again, Haggerty said, because I found golf diplomacy to be a wonderful opportunity for us.___Yamaguchi reported from Tokyo. AP writer Didi Tang contributed to this report. AAMER MADHANI Aamer Madhani is a White House reporter. twitter mailto

This colorized electron microscope image released by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on March 26, 2024, shows avian influenza A H5N1 virus particles (yellow), grown in Madin-Darby Canine Kidney (MDCK) epithelial cells (blue). (CDC/NIAID via AP, File)2025-02-07T14:54:37Z NEW YORK (AP) New York on Friday ordered a weeklong shutdown of all live bird markets in New York City, Westchester and Long Island after seven cases of avian flu were detected at bird markets in the city. Gov. Kathy Hochul said there is no immediate threat to public health and that the temporary closure of bird markets comes out of an abundance of caution. No cases of avian flu have been detected among humans in New York, officials said. The order came after seven cases of bird flu were found in poultry during routine inspections of live bird markets in the New York City boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said the virus poses low risk to the general public. The agency said there have been 67 confirmed cases of bird flu in humans in the U.S., with illnesses mild and mostly detected among farmworkers who were exposed to sick poultry or daily cows. The first bird flu death in the U.S. was reported last month in Louisiana, with health officials saying the person was older than 65, had underlying medical problems and had been in contact with sick and dead birds in a backyard flock. In New York, live bird markets where the virus was detected have to dispose of all poultry in a sanitary manner, according to the order. Other bird markets that do not have cases will have to sell off remaining poultry, clean and disinfect and then remain closed for at least five days and be inspected by state officials before reopening. The H5N1 strain of bird flu has been spreading among wild birds, poultry, cows and other animals. Officials have urged people who come into contact with sick or dead birds to wear respiratory and eye protection and gloves when handling poultry.

The U.S. Department of Education building is seen in Washington, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)2025-02-07T16:24:16Z WASHINGTON (AP) Democrats are pushing back against Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency as it turns its attention to the Education Department, with lawmakers raising concerns about DOGEs access to internal systems containing personal information on tens of millions of Americans.In a letter to the acting education secretary, a group of Democrats is seeking to intervene as DOGE gains increasing access to student loan databases and other systems. Democrats fear it could lay the groundwork for a takeover akin to Musks attempt to close the U.S. Agency for International Development. The letter demanded details about DOGEs work and vowed to fight any attempt to close the Education Department.Democrats including California Rep. Mark Takano planned to show up at the departments Washington headquarters on Friday and demand a meeting with leaders appointed by President Donald Trump. The department has been in turmoil as Trump, a Republican, sets out to abolish it. The White House is considering an executive order that would tell the education secretary to slash the department as far as possible and urge Congress to fully terminate it. Dozens of employees have been placed on paid leave with little explanation, and workers from DOGE have begun scouring the departments records as they look to slash spending. Musks DOGE team already has gained access to a database housing personal information on millions of students and parents with federal student loans, according to two people with knowledge of the issue. One of them, a department employee, said a DOGE representative requested the access more than a week ago. A third person said DOGE would be given administrator access to the departments website on Friday, allowing Musks workers to change the text on any page or take the site offline. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. A federal lawsuit filed Friday seeks to block DOGEs access to student financial aid systems, saying it violates privacy rights of millions of federal student loan borrowers. It was filed by the advocacy group Student Defense on behalf of the University of California Student Association.It says DOGE could now have access to Social Security numbers, drivers license numbers, dates of birth and contact information for student loan borrowers. The database also houses information on the parents of dependent loan applicants, including citizenship status and income information.The suit says its an enormous and unprecedented invasion of privacy for more than 42 million people whose personal data is stored in Federal Student Aid systems. It says those people trusted the department with their information when they applied for federal loans and grants or filled out the FAFSA student aid form.The Education Department said DOGE is helping it return to in-person work, restoring accountability for employees and reforming the hiring process to focus on merit. It said there is nothing inappropriate or nefarious going on. The DOGE employees are federal employees, the department said in a statement. They have been sworn in, have the necessary background checks and clearances, and are focused on making the Department more cost-efficient, effective, and accountable to the taxpayers.Trump campaigned on a promise to close the department, claiming it has been infiltrated by radicals, zealots and Marxists. He nominated professional wrestling mogul Linda McMahon to be his education secretary and quipped at a Tuesday news conference that he wants her to put herself out of a job.But Trumps pledge is colliding with the reality that the departments existence and most of its spending is ordered by Congress. Its unclear if Trump could rally political support to abolish the department, which some Republicans have occasionally attempted but has never gained wide political popularity.The White House tempered its rhetoric on Thursday when press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump and his team are looking at options to reduce the size of the Department of Education, if not abolish it completely.___The Associated Press education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. COLLIN BINKLEY Binkley covers the U.S. Education Department and federal education policy for The Associated Press, along with a wide range of issues from K-12 through higher education. twitter mailto BIANCA VZQUEZ TONESS Vzquez Toness is an Associated Press reporter who writes about the continuing impact of the pandemic on young people and their education. twitter mailto

Elon Musk speaks at a presidential inauguration event on behalf of President-elect Donald Trump in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)2025-02-07T15:47:42Z When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he laid off thousands of employees, stopped paying rent and auctioned off coffee makers and office chairs in hopes of a big turnaround.Now the worlds richest man has brought the same slash-and-burn strategy to the federal government, and some people who experienced Musks takeover at Twitter have a warning: Expect chaos, cuts driven by ideology as much as by cost concerns, intimidation and plenty of lawsuits.Since assuming leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk has consolidated control over large swaths of the government with President Donald Trump s blessing, sidelined career officials, gained access to sensitive databases and invited a constitutional clash over the limits of presidential authority.Emily Horne, who was head of Twitters policy communications before joining the Biden administration, describes Musks modus operandi as: Take it over, ruthlessly purge anyone who he sees as opposition and crash operations to remake it in his worldview. Its unclear whether his push for extremely hardcore changes at Twitter has paid off. Revenue at the company now called X has plunged, the number of users has dwindled and even Musk himself has expressed frustration at how long it is taking to turn around the companys finances. It isnt working, said Ross Gerber, a minority stock holder at X who has written down his stake to zero and expects Musk to fail in Washington, too. The federal government is going to eat him up and spit him out. By some measures, X is still a success. The platform continues to attract hundreds of millions of users worldwide and has cemented Musks political influence. But exactly how it is faring financially is difficult to say because the company is private.The same week that Musks teams at DOGE were threatening to lay off tens of thousands of federal workers, bankers who loaned him billions of dollars to buy Twitter were bracing for losses and trying to unload the loans on others. Musk has apparently given up hope of attracting key advertisers back to the platform and has sued some of them. Examples of budget-minded business leaders who brought their skills to government work abound, but Musk made clear at both Twitter and DOGE that his priorities go beyond efficiency into rooting out a woke agenda.Long before fighting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts became a centerpiece of Trumps third presidential campaign, Musk eliminated Twitters DEI initiatives and the people administering them.The culture of Twitter died, said former employee Theodora Skeadas, whose job was cut in the weeks after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022. For a lot of these agencies and organizations, that may be in their future.Another tactic that Musk appears to be bringing to the government: performances of loyalty.That is how former Twitter executive Rumman Chowdhury describes Musks drive to make workers prove the value of their work in a way she says demonstrated fealty. For instance, engineers were told to print out code then line up to have an inexperienced engineer evaluate it. Its a fear and intimidation tactic, Chowdhury said. I dont know if its the best leadership style long term, as demonstrated by how abysmal Twitter/X is doing.Musk later sought to rehire some of the engineers he fired. His instinct to threaten also backfired with advertisers.Within months of Musks takeover, advertising revenue plunged by half as brands fled X over fears he was loosening content moderation too much. But instead of courting the companies, Musk took to X threatening to thermonuclear name & shame them for leaving his platform. Later at a conference, he used an expletive and urged them, Dont advertise.Talk about shooting yourself in the foot, said ad consultant Tom Hespos of Abydos Media, who told his clients at that point to avoid even posting on X because it could damage their brand. That is probably the worst comment he could have made. In August, Musk doubled down by suing Unilever, Mars, CVS Health and several other companies that had dropped Twitter, accusing them of engaging in an illegal boycott. On Saturday, he added more companies to the lawsuit, including Lego, Shell International, Tyson Food, Nestle and Colgate-Palmolive.His drawn-out legal battles with more than 2,000 former Twitter workers are also a sign of the kind of court fights that could await the government. A federal judge on Thursday put on hold a midnight deadline the same day for government workers to accept Musks deferred resignation offer promising pay through September without having to work.The email announcing the offer was titled Fork in the Road, echoing a similar email Musk sent to the Twitter workforce in 2022.More than two years later, Musks X is still spending an insane amount of money defending against allegations by former Twitter employees that they are owed money, said lawyer Shannon Liss-Riordan, who represents hundreds of the workers. She said it would have been cheaper just to pay them what they were owed. If that is the way decision making is being made for the federal government, Im very concerned about the finances of the federal government, she said.Neither X nor DOGE responded to requests for comment from The Associated Press.Along with gutting the companys workforce and auctioning off memorabilia and office furniture, Musks extreme cost-cutting strategy at Twitter included simply not paying its bills. Landlords of the social media companys headquarters in San Francisco as well as its British offices took the company to court for millions of dollars in unpaid rent.The British case settled for an undisclosed sum. The San Francisco case was dismissed last year; its not clear if a settlement was paid.Musk has also brought one of Xs real estate executives over to the government.Even if the X cuts were an unmitigated success, its unclear whether the same tactics would work for cutting costs and still delivering services at government agencies.Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan, said Musk and Trump are arrogating spending power that belongs to Congress, not the executive branch, and he predicts lawsuits over the moves will hamstring their efforts.All this is of dubious legality, and thats before you get to the civil service protections, Bagley said, referring to federal workforce rules preventing layoffs for political purposes. Youre going to see a lot of bombast and rhetoric, but I suspect its going to yield fewer things on the ground.A few in Musks orbit have tried to warn him against moving too rashly, including prominent tech investor Paul Graham, who in a recent X exchange asked Musk to take your time and do it carefully.The government isnt just a company. Companies are born and die within the system, and its OK. But this is the system itself were talking about here.Minority X stock owner Gerber, CEO of investment firm Gerber Kawasaki, praises Musk for instilling a sense of belonging to the special forces of business at his companies. But he thinks Musk will fail in Washington.The idea that you can fire all these people doesnt work, he said. Were about to see an epic battle. MATT OBRIEN OBrien covers the business of technology and artificial intelligence for The Associated Press. mailto BERNARD CONDON Condon is an Associated Press investigative reporter covering breaking news. He has written about the Maui fire, the Afghanistan withdrawal, gun laws, Chinese loans in Africa and Trumps business. twitter facebook mailto

This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss "staying out of politics" and what it means to be a tech news publication. EMANUEL: Im very proud of our output for the last few weeks. When we worked at Motherboard, I really felt like the site was firing on all cylinders when one story was dominating the news and our entire team could pivot, bringing its various areas of expertise to meet the moment and publish unique reporting that was valuable to readers, even if the story that was dominating the news was not something they imagined theyd be covering previously.I wasnt sure what that was going to look like with a team of just four people, but I think a look at 404 Medias site shows that its breaking a ton of news on one of the most important stories in the world right now, which is Elon Musks aggressive takeover of various government agencies and systems. Covering this story requires us to talk about Musk and Donald Trump, think about them, interview other people about them, and put images of them in our articles so someone who is scrolling their feeds can easily spot what our stories are about.

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw sits on the bench as the rest of his team watches the closing minutes of the XIII Super Bowl, in Miami, Fla, on Jan, 21, 1979. (AP Photp/Harry Cabluck, File)2025-02-07T17:28:37Z Terry Bradshaw always wondered what might have been if his Pittsburgh Steelers had reached the Super Bowl either of the times they had a chance to win three in a row.Ronnie Lott has long lamented just one bounce of the oblong ball that he believes could have helped send the San Francisco 49ers to the big game when they were in just about perfect position for a three-peat.Kansas City is the first team to reach the Super Bowl after winning the previous two, which means Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs have done what Tom Brady, Joe Montana, Troy Aikman and Bradshaw couldnt before them.Now theyll try to finish the job Sunday night against the Philadelphia Eagles in New Orleans.You got to have a lot of luck, Lott said. You got to find moments where you want the ball to bounce your way. And then the other thing is, youve just got to get over the idea that nobody thinks you can do it. There is one asterisk. Bart Starr led Green Bay to the 1965 NFL championship and the first two Super Bowl titles. Plus, John Elway retired after winning consecutive Super Bowls with the Denver Broncos.Bradshaw and those Steel Curtain teams lost to the Oakland Raiders, coached by the late Pro Football Hall of Famer John Madden, in the AFC championship game during Pittsburghs first run as the two-time defending champ. The Steelers didnt even make the playoffs the second time around, which was four years later. Had we gotten to the Super Bowl, then I would say the chances of a three-peat would have been very good because you are a defending champion and youve experienced a Super Bowl and winning a Super Bowl, Bradshaw said. Its that long, drawn out football season where youre just waiting to get to the playoffs. And its a difficult task.Roger Craigs late fumble is what most remember when the 49ers lost at home to the Giants 15-13 on New Yorks field goal on the final play of the NFC championship game during the 1990 season. Lott, however, recalls in vivid detail 34 years later an earlier play when the Hall of Fame safety says Jeff Hostetler lost control of the ball in the backfield with him blitzing, but the ball bounced the Giants quarterbacks way instead of his.A second consecutive 14-2 season with Montana, Jerry Rice and John Taylor amounted to nothing in the minds of the Niners. Besides the luck of the bounce, Lott was quick to bring up the health of the players as was Montana.The seasons are long. The offseasons are short, Montana said. Usually youre not at 100% strength, your body doesnt have its usual time to prepare itself during the offseason. When you compound that over the years ... it makes it even worse.Aikman, running back Emmitt Smith and receiver Michael Irvin also got the Cowboys back to an NFC title game as two-time champs, but the Hall of Fame trio lost at San Francisco during the 1994 season, when Steve Young had taken over for Montana at QB.Daryl Johnston, the fullback when Dallas became the first to win three Super Bowls in a span of four seasons, believes the Cowboys had an asterisk of their own. After beating Buffalo for the title in consecutive years, owner Jerry Jones and coach Jimmy Johnson had their infamous and acrimonious split. Barry Switzer coached the team that fell short of a three-peat.In the 38-28 loss to the Niners, the Cowboys turned over the ball the first three times they had it and trailed 21-0 halfway through the first quarter.So, you lose your head coach, Johnston said. Where would Kansas City be if they lost Andy Reid? And then to play the worst six minutes of football youve ever played as a group to start that game, it was just so unexpected.Coach Vince Lombardi left the Packers after winning the first two Super Bowls, and Green Bay didnt make the playoffs the year Joe Namath led the New York Jets to their famous upset of Baltimore in Super Bowl 3.The first of Miamis consecutive titles is still the only undefeated season of the Super Bowl era, the 17-0 run during the 1972 season. The Dolphins lost their playoff opener when they were two-time champs. The New England Patriots fell two victories short of a three-peat in 2005, the only chance they had to do that while winning six championships with Brady and coach Bill Belichick.Mahomes is well aware of the history as the Chiefs try to to shrug off talk of a three-peat. A victory Sunday over Philadelphia would be the 29-year-olds fourth Super Bowl title. Brady was 37 when he won the fourth of his record seven.I think you always want to leave a legacy and kind of make your imprint on history, but more than anything, you just want to accomplish a goal that you have with your teammates, Mahomes said. We know thats a hard process. We know its hard week-in and week-out. But Im proud of how our guys have kind of went about that process. Bradshaw still talks about how hard trying to three-peat was on him. As part of the Fox television crew covering the Super Bowl, the Hall of Famer will share the stage with the winning team, which could mean handing the Lombardi Trophy to Mahomes.The 76-year-old Bradshaw remembers having a similar chance at history with the Fox crew when Bradys 18-0 Patriots lost to the Giants in the Super Bowl to cap the 2007 season.So here I go again. Historical moment, Bradshaw said. I have no way that I could sit here and say Kansas City is going to lose. ___AP Pro Football Writer Rob Maaddi in New Orleans and AP Sports Writer Dave Skretta in Kansas City, Missouri, contributed.___AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Tim Andrews smiles as he leaves Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on Feb. 1, 2025. (Kate Flock/Massachusetts General Hospital via AP)2025-02-07T13:00:54Z A New Hampshire man fought for the chance at a pig kidney transplant, spending months getting into good enough shape to be part of a small pilot study of a highly experimental treatment.His effort paid off: Tim Andrews, 66, is only the second person known to be living with a pig kidney. Andrews is free from dialysis, Massachusetts General Hospital announced Friday, and recovering so well from the Jan. 25 transplant that he left the hospital a week later.When I woke up in the recovery room, I was a new man, Andrews told The Associated Press.Andrews surgery comes at a turning point in the quest to tell if animal-to-human transplants could help ease the shortage of donated human organs. The first four pig organ transplants two hearts and two kidneys were short-lived. But the fifth xenotransplant recipient, an Alabama woman not nearly as sick as prior patients, boosted the field thriving for now 2 months after a pig kidney transplant at NYU Langone Health in November. Doctors are moving from those one-off experiments to more formal studies. As they monitor Andrews recovery, doctors at Mass General Brigham have Food and Drug Administration permission to perform two additional transplants in their pilot study, using gene-edited pig kidneys supplied by biotech eGenesis. And United Therapeutics, another developer of gene-edited pig organs, just won FDA approval for the worlds first clinical trial of xenotransplantation. Initially, six patients will receive pig kidneys and if they fare well over six months, up to 50 additional patients will receive transplants. This is uncharted territory, said Mass Generals Dr. Tatsuo Kawai, who led both Andrews surgery and the worlds first pig kidney transplant last year. But with lessons from animal research and the prior human attempts, he said, Im very optimistic. And hopefully we can get to survival, kidney survival, for over two years. Scientists are genetically altering pigs so their organs are more humanlike to address the transplant shortage. More than 100,000 people are on the U.S. transplant list, most who need a kidney, and thousands die waiting.Andrews kidneys abruptly failed about two years ago, and the Concord, New Hampshire, grandfather struggled with fatigue and complications from dialysis. Hes on the transplant list but doctors warned it was a long shot. It can take seven years or more for people with Andrews blood type to find a matching kidney. Meanwhile, people slowly get sicker on dialysis five-year survival is about 50% and Andrews already had had a heart attack.I have seen my mortality and I was ready to fight, Andrews said. So he asked Mass General if he could get a pig kidney instead. I told them. Anything, Ill do anything. You give me a list of things you want me to do and Ill do it.Mass General transplant nephrologist Dr. Leonardo Riella said Andrews was weak and struggling with diabetes, including a slow-healing diabetic foot ulcer that hindered walking. Hed have to get more fit to be a candidate. Andrews started physical therapy and returned six months later about 30 pounds lighter and running down the hallway almost, Riella recalled. He was just, you know, a different person, so they started checking if hed qualify for the pilot study.One big question was cardiac fitness: Mass Generals first pig kidney recipient had underlying heart disease that killed him. But Riella said intense exams showed Andrews heart was in the best shape possible.Still, Andrews was a little nervous and sought advice from the only other person who knew what a pig kidney transplant was like the NYU patient, Towana Looney.We just prayed together and talked about how it would be, Andrews said of their phone calls before and after his transplant. He said Looney advised to just stay strong and thats what Im doing.Doctors said Andrews pig kidney turned pink and quickly began producing urine in the operating room, and since then has cleared waste normally with no signs of rejection. Andrews spent the week after his discharge in a nearby Boston hotel for daily checkups but is expected to return home to New Hampshire soon. NYU transplant surgeon Dr. Robert Montgomery said patients like those in Mass Generals pilot study could be the sweet spot for early xenotransplants not yet too sick from years of dialysis but unlikely to survive long enough for a human transplant.Those are the patients where it really makes sense for them to try something else, said Montgomery. His hospital is one of two that will be part of United Therapeutics clinical trial later this year, which will include similar patients.Its too early to know how Andrews will fare but if the pig kidney were to fail, Riella said hed still qualify for a human transplant and, now deemed inactive on the transplant list, wouldnt lose his waiting time that helps determine priority.Andrews now wants to return to his old dialysis clinic and tell these people theres hope, because no hope is not a good thing, he said. ___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Footage from a security camera at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va., shows an American Airlines jet colliding with an Army helicopter during landing, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. (Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport via AP)2025-02-07T18:24:36Z The spate of recent aviation disasters and close calls have people worried about the safety of flying.The midair collision that killed 67 near Washington, the fiery plane crash in Philadelphia and now a missing plane in Alaska are only the most high-profile disasters. There was also a Japan Airlines plane that clipped a parked Delta plane while it was taxiing at the Seattle airport earlier this week and a United Airlines plane caught fire during takeoff at the Houston airport Sunday after an engine problem sparked a fire on the wing.Thats not even to mention the security concerns that arose after stowaways were found dead inside the wheel wells of two planes and aboard two other flights. And dont forget about the time that a passenger opened an emergency exit door on a plane while it was taxiing for takeoff in Boston.So of course people are wondering whether their flight is safe? What happened in the worst incidents?The Jan. 29 collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army helicopter killed everyone aboard both aircraft. It was the deadliest plane crash in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when a jet slammed into a New York City neighborhood just after takeoff, killing all 260 people on board and five on the ground. There hadnt even been a deadly crash of any kind involving a U.S. airliner since February 2009.Crashes are more common involving smaller planes like the single-engine Cessna that went missing in Alaska on Thursday with 10 people aboard. Crews were searching for that plane Friday. A medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia on Jan. 31, killing the six people onboard and another person on the ground. That Learjet generated a massive fireball when it smashed into the ground in a neighborhood not long after taking off from a small airport nearby. How worried should I be?Fatal crashes attract extraordinary attention partly because they are rare. The track record of U.S. airlines is remarkably safe, as demonstrated by the long stretch between fatal crashes.But deadly crashes have happened more recently elsewhere around the world, including one in South Korea that killed all 179 people aboard in December. There were also two fatal crashes involving Boeings troubled 737 Max jetliner in 2018 and 2019. And last January, a door plug blew off a 737 Max while it was in flight, raising more questions about the plane. And federal officials have been raising concerns about an overtaxed and understaffed air traffic control system for years, especially after a series of close calls between planes at U.S. airports. Among the reasons they have cited for staffing shortages are uncompetitive pay, long shifts, intensive training and mandatory retirements.President Donald Trump added to those concerns Thursday when he blamed the midair collision on the obsolete air traffic control system that airports rely on and promised to replace it.But even with all that, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy went on Fox News earlier this week and tried to assure viewers that air travel is way safer than traveling in a car and train. This is the safest mode of transportation. And the statistics back that up. The National Safety Council estimates that Americans have a 1-in-93 chance of dying in a motor vehicle crash, while deaths on airplanes are too rare to calculate the odds. Figures from the U.S. Department of Transportation tell a similar story.What is being done?The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are investigating these recent crashes and close calls to determine what caused them and look for ways to prevent similar incidents.There have already been troubling revelations about the midair collision, but it will take more than a year to get the full report on what happened.The NTSB always recommends steps that could be taken to prevent crashes from happening again, but the agency has a long list of hundreds of previous recommendations that have been ignored by other government agencies and the industries it investigates.But Duffy said the public is right to say that crashes like the recent ones are unacceptable. That is why he plans to make sure safety is paramount as he leads the agency that regulates all modes of transportation.I feel really good about where were at and where were going and the plans we have in place to make sure we even make the system safer and more efficient than it is today, Duffy said in the Fox interview. JOSH FUNK Funk is an Associated Press reporter who covers all the major freight railroads including Union Pacific, BNSF, Norfolk Southern, CSX, Canadian National and CPKC. Funk also covers Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway and has been attending Buffetts Woodstock for Capitalists annual meeting every spring in Omaha, Nebraska, for 19 years. twitter mailto

A flu vaccine is displayed at a pharmacy in New York, on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Mary Conlon, File)2025-02-07T18:16:49Z NEW YORK (AP) The U.S. winter virus season is in full force, and by one measure is the most intense in 15 years.One indicator of flu activity is the percentage of doctors office visits driven by flu-like symptoms. Last week, that number was clearly higher than the peak of any winter flu season since 2009-2010, according to data posted Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Of course, other viral infections can be mistaken for flu. But COVID-19 appears to be on the decline, according to hospital data and to CDC modeling projections. Available data also suggests another respiratory illness, RSV, has been fading.The flu has forced schools to shut down in some states. The Godley Independent School District, a 3,200-student system near Fort Worth, Texas, last week closed for three days after 650 students and 60 staff were out Tuesday. Jeff Meador, a district spokesman, called it the worst flu season he could remember.So far this season, the CDC estimates, there have been at least 24 million flu illnesses, 310,000 hospitalizations and 13,000 deaths including at least 57 children. Traditionally, flu season peaks around February. Overall, 43 states reported high or very high flu activity last week. Flu was most intense in the South, Southwest and western states. The CDC declined to let an Associated Press reporter speak to an agency flu expert about the upswing. The Trump administration ordered a temporary pause on health agency communications and has continued to refuse interview requests that were routinely granted in the past. U.S. health officials recommends that everyone 6 months and older get an annual flu vaccination.About 44% of adults got flu shots this winter, the same as last winter. But coverage of children is way down, at about 45% this winter. Its usually around 50%, according to CDC data. About 23% of U.S. adults were up to date in their COVID-19 vaccinations as of late January, up from about 20% at the same point in time the year before. COVID-19 vaccination rates for kids were about the same, at around 12%. The government has not yet reported its estimates of how well this seasons flu vaccine is working.Testing results from patients indicate that two strains of seasonal flu that are causing most illnesses a Type A H1N1 and a Type A H3N2. Health officials are closely watching a third strain a bird flu known as Type A H5N1 that has sickened tens of millions of animals, but is known to have infected only 67 people in the U.S.To avoid seasonal viruses, doctors say you should avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth because germs can spread that way. You should also wash your hands with soap and water, clean frequently touched surfaces and avoid close contact with people who are sick.___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu take questions during a news conference in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)2025-02-07T19:28:18Z President Donald Trumps administration has ordered all federal departments and agencies to provide lists of employees who are underperforming, as it seeks to shrink the workforce and awaits a court ruling related to its deferred resignation offers.A memo sent by the Office of Personnel Management on Thursday directs the agencies to submit names of every employee who has received less than a fully successful performance rating in the past three years and to note whether the workers have been on performance plans. The memo, which was viewed by The Associated Press, also emphasized that the agencies report any obstacles to making sure they have the ability to swiftly terminate poor performing employees who cannot or will not improve.The memo seeks the employees name, job title, pay plan and other details, as well as whether that employee is under or successfully completed a performance improvement plan within the last 12 months. The office also is asking if an agency has proposed or issued a decision in such cases, and whether any action is being appealed or challenged, as well as any outcome. The data is due by March 7.Charles Ezell, the acting director of OPM who sent the memo, wrote that the office is developing new performance metrics for evaluating the federal workforce, a standard that aligns with the priorities and standards in the Presidents recent Executive Orders. To assist the office, Ezell wrote that all agencies should submit data regarding their performance management plans and policies, including those contained in collective bargaining agreements. So far, 65,000 federal workers have opted into the deferred resignation program, according to a White House official who wasnt authorized to disclose the latest figures and spoke on condition of anonymity.The program is being challenged in court, and a federal judge scheduled a hearing for Monday afternoon to consider arguments over whether the plan can proceed.___Associated Press writer Chris Megerian contributed to this report.

Vice President JD Vance speaks at the International Religious Freedom Summit at the Washington Hilton, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)2025-02-07T20:00:29Z WASHINGTON (AP) Vice President JD Vance said Friday that Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency should rehire a staff member who resigned after he was linked to social media posts that espoused racism, with President Donald Trump later endorsing his vice presidents view.Marko Elez resigned Thursday after The Wall Street Journal linked the 25-year-old DOGE staffer to a deleted social media account on X that posted last year, I was racist before it was cool and You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity, among other posts.The account in September included a post that said, Normalize Indian hate. The vice presidents wife, Usha Vance, is the daughter of Indian immigrants.Vance, in a post on Musk-owned X, said Elez should be brought back and blamed journalists who try to destroy people. I obviously disagree with some of Elezs posts, but I dont think stupid social media activity should ruin a kids life, Vance said. Im with the vice president, Trump told a news conference Friday.The vice president said Elez should be fired if hes a bad dude or a terrible member of the team. Vances posts came after Musk in another social media post began polling his followers on whether he should bring back Elez. The White House on Friday confirmed Elez resigned but did not answer a question about whether he had been asked to rejoin DOGE. Elez did not respond to a message seeking comment Friday.Elez was among two DOGE employees who were at the center of a controversy this week when they accessed the U.S. Treasury Departments payment system, prompting a court challenge and a judges decision to restrict their access.In its report, The Wall Street Journal found a since-deleted account under the handle @nullllptr with a user described as an employee at SpaceX and Starlink, two of Musks companies. The account previously went by the username @marko_elez. Elez, in archives of his personal website, said he worked for SpaceX and on its Starlink satellites, and at X.___Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C. contributed to this report. MICHELLE L. PRICE Price is a national political reporter for The Associated Press. She is based in New York. twitter mailto

President Donald Trump meets with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)2025-02-07T21:48:47Z WASHINGTON (AP) The State Department has formally told Congress that it plans to sell more than $7 billion in weapons to Israel, including thousands of bombs and missiles, just two days after President Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.The massive arms sale comes as a fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas holds, even as Trump continues to tout his widely criticized proposal to move all Palestinians from Gaza and redevelop it as an international travel destination.The sale is another step in Trumps effort to bolster Israels weapons stocks. In late January, soon after he took office, he lifted the hold on sending 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. The Biden administration had paused a shipment of the bombs over concerns about civilian casualties, particularly during an assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Trump told reporters that he released them to Israel, because they bought them.According to the State Department, two separate sales were sent to Congress on Friday. One is for $6.75 billion in an array of munitions, guidance kits and other related equipment. It includes 166 small diameter bombs, 2,800 500-pound bombs, and thousands of guidance kits, fuzes and other bomb components and support equipment. Those deliveries would begin this year.The other arms package is for 3,000 Hellfire missiles and related equipment for an estimated cost of $660 million. Deliveries of the missiles are expected to begin in 2028.__ LOLITA C. BALDOR Baldor has covered the Pentagon and national security issues for The Associated Press since 2005. She has reported from all over the world including warzones in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. twitter mailto

A bouquet of white flowers placed outside the headquarters of the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, is pictured, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)2025-02-07T20:56:01Z As the Trump administration moves to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, false and misleading information is being pushed on social media to support the change, much of it spread by the administration and Elon Musk.The posts raise questions about funding for certain projects and organizations, often claiming without evidence that the money was used inappropriately.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said to reporters Tuesday that USAID had spent $1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbias workplaces; $70,000 for the production of a DEI musical in Ireland; $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru. Those claims were picked up and spread widely on social media throughout the week. Only the grant to a Serbian organization called Grupa Izadji was awarded by USAID. Its stated aim is to to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in Serbias workplaces and business communities. The rest were awarded by the State Departments Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. In 2022, it granted $70,884 to an Irish company for a live musical event to promote the U.S. and Irish shared values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. A grant for $25,000 was awarded in 2021 to a university in Colombia to raise awareness and increase the transgender representation through the production of an opera, with an additional $22,020 coming from non-federal funding. And $32,000 awarded in 2022 to a Peruvian organization funded a tailored-made comic, featuring an LGBTQ+ hero to address social and mental health issues. The information environment about what USAID does and does not do has gotten to a very difficult place, where theres a lot of false and misleading information being circulated, said Rachel Bonnifield, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. And I would hope everybody could hew back to the facts, which are publicly available, and we can have a good faith discussion about what USAID should and should not be doing based on those. Sean Roberts, a professor of international affairs at George Washington University and director of the schools international development studies masters program, explained that it makes sense that these programs were funded by the under secretarys office. They do these small grant programs as outreach to local organizations and local communities and theyre generally supposed to reflect values of the United States and the friendship between the countries, he said. Sometimes theyre about democracy, in this case theyre about diversity. But they have nothing to do with USAID.Asked about the Trump administrations portrayal of USAID funding, including Leavitts statement earlier this week, White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said, This waste of taxpayer dollars underscores why the president paused foreign aid on day one to ensure it aligns with American interests. She did not address the misrepresented grants cited above. What about the media?Major media outlets are among the organizations that have been singled out with claims that are false and misleading, including The Associated Press.The BBC, for example, was said to have received approximately $3.2 million (2.6 million pounds) during the 2023-2024 financial year. But that money didnt go to its news operation. It went to BBC Media Action, an international charity that is part of the BBC family, but editorially and financially separate from BBC News, the charity said in a statement. It accounted for about 8% of BBC Media Actions budget that year.We follow the BBCs editorial standards and values in our support for public interest media, reads the statement. However, all of our funding goes to our own projects. These are completely separate from the journalism of BBC News. We have no influence over the editorial decision-making of BBC News. The BBC in the UK is mostly funded by a TV Licence fee.The BBC not including BBC Media Action, which is a separate entity also earns income from the organizations commercial subsidiaries. Posts shared widely across social media also falsely claimed that Politico received at least $8 million from USAID in 2024, with some posts putting that number as high as $34.3 million. That is incorrect. USAID did pay the news site $44,000 in subscription fees in financial years 2023 and 2024. But additional government payments came from other entities.Politico, in a statement to readers from CEO Goli Sheikholeslami and Editor-in-Chief John Harris, said Thursday that it is not getting a government subsidy.The Associated Press was among the media outlets said to receive USAID funding. Although the news wire has been paid $37.5 million by other government agencies since 2008, none of that came from USAID, according to a federal government website that tracks its spending. AP spokeswoman Lauren Easton said that the U.S. government has long been an AP customer through both Democratic and Republican administrations. It licenses APs nonpartisan journalism, just like thousands of news outlets and customers around the world. Its quite common for governments to have contracts with news organizations for their content. Values changeForeign aid experts say that it is normal for an incoming administration to examine how aid is allocated and make changes based on its values.For a new administration to come in and review aid to see if its in line with their view of the American interest and their policy priorities, their general orientation, in theory this is totally normal and appropriate. Elections have consequences, said Bonnifield.She added, however, that the information being spread on social media about USAID funding shows a lack of understanding of how the agency works.There are certain motivations being assigned to it that dont really seem to square with the facts and people are kind of reaching conclusions without understanding whats happening, she said. Thats not to say necessarily all those expenses are good or should continue, but theyre implying intent that isnt there.Roberts described the Trump administrations current approach to USAID as shoot now, ask questions later in which it is amplifying any funding data it can by using incendiary accusations based on nothing.They just tend to obscure any kind of rational discussion about whether this agency is worthwhile and what its goals are and whats the purpose of foreign aid, he said in reference to recent social media posts about USAID funding.Bonnifield and Roberts agreed that further research would be necessary to determine independently from political views whether there are instances of inappropriate or wasteful spending.USAID is an independent agency that has provided humanitarian and development assistance around the world for more than 60 years. According to its 2023 annual report, the agency worked in more than 100 countries worldwide guided by five areas of focus: promoting global health, support global stability, providing humanitarian assistance, catalyzing innovation and partnership, and empowering women and girls.___ MELISSA GOLDIN Goldin debunks, analyzes and tracks misinformation for The Associated Press. She is based in New York. twitter mailto

The Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)2025-02-07T16:55:19Z NEW YORK (AP) President Donald Trumps administration is using federal prisons to detain some people arrested in its immigration crackdown, the federal Bureau of Prisons said Friday, returning to a strategy that drew allegations of mistreatment during his first term.In a statement to The Associated Press, the prison agency said it is assisting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement by housing detainees and will continue to support our law enforcement partners to fulfill the administrations policy objectives.The Bureau of Prisons declined to say how many immigration detainees it is taking in, or which prison facilities are being used.For privacy, safety, and security reasons, we do not comment on the legal status of an individual, nor do we specify the legal status of individuals assigned to any particular facility, including numbers and locations, the agency said. Three people familiar with the matter told the AP that federal jails in Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia and federal prisons in Atlanta, Leavenworth, Kansas, and Berlin, New Hampshire, are among the facilities being used. The people were not authorized to speak publicly and did so on condition of anonymity. The Miami jail alone is set to receive up to 500 detainees, the people said. An influx of immigration detainees could put yet more strain on the Bureau of Prisons, which AP reporting revealed has been plagued by severe understaffing, violence and other problems. The agency is seeking to temporarily move employees from its other facilities to help with immigrant detention. The Bureau of Prisons is the Justice Departments biggest agency with more than 30,000 employees, 122 facilities, 155,000 inmates and an annual budget of about $8 billion. In December, the agency said it was closing one prison and idling six prison camps to address significant challenges, including a critical staffing shortage, crumbling infrastructure and limited budgetary resources. A message seeking comment was left for ICE.Trump has vowed to deport millions of the estimated 11.7 million people in the U.S. illegally. ICE currently has the budget to detain only about 41,000 people and the administration has not said how many detention beds it needs to achieve its goals.Many detainees are taken to ICE processing centers, privately operated detention facilities or local prisons and jails it contracts with. On Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said a second flight of detainees landed at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Immigrant rights groups sent a letter Friday demanding access to people who have been sent to Guantanamo Bay, saying the base should not be used as a legal black hole.White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that more than 8,000 people have been arrested in immigration enforcement actions since Trumps Jan. 20 inauguration. Of them, 461 were released for reasons that included medical conditions and lack of detention capacity, she said.ICE averaged 787 arrests a day from Jan. 23 to Jan. 31, compared to a daily average of 311 during a 12-month period that ended Sept. 30 during former President Joe Bidens administration. ICE has stopped publishing daily arrests totals. In 2018, during Trumps first term, the Bureau of Prisons reached an agreement with ICE and Customs and Border Protection to detain up to 1,600 immigrants at federal prison facilities in Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington and Texas.Six immigrants detained under that arrangement at a medium-security federal prison in Victorville, California, sued Trump, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and immigration and prison officials, alleging punitive and inhumane treatment.The men, who were seeking asylum in the U.S., accused the Bureau of Prisons of providing inedible meals and spoiled milk, infringing on their ability to practice their religious faith, allowing only a few hours a week of recreation in the hot sun, and failing to provide adequate medical care.Last October, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the Bureau of Prisons and immigration authorities under the Freedom of Information Act for records related to the use of federal prisons to detain immigrants during Trumps first term. A conference in that case is scheduled for Feb. 28. An ongoing AP investigation has exposed serious issues in the Bureau of Prisons, including rampant misconduct, sexual abuse by staff, dozens of escapes, chronic violence, and employees ill-equipped to respond to emergencies because of staffing limitations.Last week, El Salvadors President Nayib Bukele offered to put U.S. immigration detainees and other U.S. prisoners in his countrys massive CECOT prison even American citizens and legal residents. In a post on the social platform X, Bukele said he was offering the U.S. the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system in exchange for a relatively low fee. Trump says he was open to the idea, but acknowledged it could be legally problematic.Im just saying if we had a legal right to do it, I would do it in a heartbeat, Trump told reporters Tuesday in the Oval Office. I dont know if we do or not, were looking at that right now.___Associated Press reporter Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed to this report. MICHAEL R. SISAK Sisak is an Associated Press reporter covering law enforcement and courts in New York City, including former President Donald Trumps criminal and civil cases and problems plaguing the federal prison system. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, left, claps as Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk prepares to depart after speaking at a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show, on Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)2025-02-08T00:06:40Z Nineteen Democratic attorneys general sued President Donald Trump on Friday to stop Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Treasury Department records that contain sensitive personal data such as Social Security and bank account numbers for millions of Americans. The case, filed in federal court in New York City, alleges the Trump administration allowed Musks team access to the Treasury Departments central payment system in violation of federal law. The payment system handles tax refunds, Social Security benefits, veterans benefits and much more, sending out trillions of dollars every year while containing an expansive network of Americans personal and financial data.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Musks Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE, was created to discover and eliminate what the Trump administration has deemed to be wasteful government spending. DOGEs access to Treasury records, as well as its inspection of various government agencies, has ignited widespread concern among critics over the increasing power of Musk, while supporters have cheered at the idea of reining in bloated government finances. New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose office filed the lawsuit, said DOGEs access to the Treasury Departments data raises security problems and the possibility for an illegal freeze in federal funds. This unelected group, led by the worlds richest man, is not authorized to have this information, and they explicitly sought this unauthorized access to illegally block payments that millions of Americans rely on, payments for health care, child care and other essential programs, James said in a video message released by her office. James, a Democrat who has been one of Trumps chief antagonists, said the president does not have the power to give away Americans private information to anyone he chooses, and he cannot cut federal payments approved by Congress. Also on the lawsuit are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.The suit alleges that DOGEs access to the Treasury records could interfere with funding already appropriated by Congress, which would exceed the Treasury Departments statutory authority. The case also argues that the DOGE access violates federal administrative law and the U.S. Constitutions separation of powers doctrine. It also accuses Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent of changing the departments longstanding policy for protecting sensitive personally identifiable information and financial information to allow Musks DOGE team access to its payment systems.This decision failed to account for legal obligations to protect such data and ignored the privacy expectations of federal fund recipients, including states, veterans, retirees, and taxpayers, the lawsuit says.The Treasury Department has said the review is about assessing the integrity of the system and that no changes are being made. According to two people familiar with the process, Musks team began its inquiry looking for ways to suspend payments made by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which Trump and Musk are attempting to dismantle. The two people spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. Separately, Democratic lawmakers are seeking a Treasury Department investigation of DOGEs access to the governments payment system. Also, labor unions and advocacy groups have sued to block the payments system review over concerns about its legality. A judge in Washington on Thursday temporarily restricted access to two employees with read only privileges. ___Associated Press writer Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report. RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Jim Becker, a former Associated Press journalist, holds a book showing a 1945 photo of him as a Stars and Stripes correspondent in Shanghai, at his home in Kaneohe, Hawaii, May 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Audrey McAvoy)2025-02-07T23:03:53Z HONOLULU (AP) Jim Becker, a world-traveling journalist who covered Jackie Robinsons big-league baseball debut and the U.S. Armys retaking of Seoul during the Korean War, died Friday. He was 98.He died of natural causes at a Honolulu hospital, said his goddaughter Carla Escoda Brooks.Becker served as an Associated Press bureau chief in Manila, New Delhi and Honolulu and covered Margaret Thatcher as a freelance journalist in London. But he said his most important story was about an underdog Hawaii high school football team that won a league championship, a tale he told as a Honolulu Star-Bulletin columnist.Becker joined the AP in 1946 fresh out of the Army when he walked into the wire services New York headquarters without an appointment and was hired to start the next day.He watched Robinson become the first Black player on a Major League baseball team when editors sent him to the trailblazing athletes first game as a Brooklyn Dodger. Nearly half of Robinsons teammates had signed a petition because they didnt want to play with a Black man. But the stadium crowd was supportive of Robinson, Becker said, adding that half of Brooklyn was Jewish and they knew a little something about prejudice.Becker, who was just 20 at the time, got quotes from Robinson in the clubhouse and ran them up to the AP staffer writing the story. Becker, in an interview for this obituary, recalled seeing Robinson emerge from the first base dugout and begin to play catch with a player who unbeknownst to Robinson had signed the petition.And I thought, hes carrying the banner of decency and dignity and fair play and the American promise, Becker said. Hes carrying it for all of us in this room, in a stadium And I thought, hes carrying it alone. From the Korean War to the Dalai LamaBecker was part of APs Newsfeatures team, which covered the worlds major news stories from a feature perspective. In 1950, his editor sent him to Korea, where the U.S. and its allies deployed forces to repel an invasion of South Korea by North Koreas Korean Peoples Army.Becker embedded with the U.S. Marines. Communications were poor and the Marines used their limited radio connections for battlefield instructions. So Becker typed up his stories and put them in the breast pockets of wounded troops being evacuated for medical treatment. He attached notes asking nurses and doctors to call the nearest Associated Press office.I knew they would go at least to Tokyo and maybe even Honolulu. In fact, one of my stories emerged in Washington. They flew the kid to Bethesda, he said.Becker said all his stories made it out though not quite in order.He later embedded with the 3rd Army Division, which recaptured Seoul. He remembered crossing the Han River with seven or eight soldiers and other correspondents and walking around a city abandoned by opposing troops.A gifted storyteller, Becker delighted colleagues with his recounting of the Dalai Lamas 1959 entry into Indian exile. Few photos existed of the Tibetan spiritual leader at the time, and the AP and its then-archrival, United Press International, raced to transmit the first pictures of his arrival in the northern town of Tezpur. Both AP and UPI chartered planes to Kolkata to rush their photographs to a radiophoto machine that would send the pictures around the world. The UPI correspondent got there first after APs pilot took a more circuitous route to avoid East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) airspace due to India-Pakistan disputes. Soon Becker began receiving a series of increasingly alarmed cables from AP editors in London informing him that UPIs Dalai Lama photos were coming in and demanding to know the whereabouts of APs.Becker finally transmitted APs first photo and feared he was headed for a career change. I can see Im going to be on the night desk in Des Moines, Becker said. Then editors cabled again: URGENT BECKER UPI DALAI LAMA FULL HAIRED. OUR DALAI LAMA SHORN CLARIFY URGENTLY. AP PHOTOS LONDON.And I realized that God may have given me a chicken pilot, but he made up for it by assigning the only correspondent in Asia who was so stupid he didnt know what the Dalai Lama looked like and who had sent three radiophotos of the Indian interpreter, Becker said. The most important story I ever wroteIn the 1960s, the editor of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin lured Becker from AP to be a columnist, clearing the way for what Becker called the most important story I ever wrote.It depicted the football team from Farrington High School which served the hardscrabble Honolulu neighborhood of Kalihi as they triumphed over a wealthy private school rival, Kamehameha, in the 1965 league championship.The teams volunteer bus drivers all had day jobs driving city garbage trucks. Their trainer was a merchant seaman who missed ships during football season. Some players didnt have anything to eat for breakfast or lunch. When their coach found out, he had the school cafeteria save unused milk and bought players cereal. Becker tagged along to a Waikiki hotel where the coach put the team the night before the big game to get them away from gambling and distractions at home. Becker detailed the players carrying their dishes to the kitchen at a restaurant after they were done eating. And how the captain led the team in prayer, asking for guidance and for no one to be injured either on their own team or the opposing side.State Rep. Gregg Takayama, a 1970 graduate of Farrington and a former Star-Bulletin reporter, said the column was a source of pride for Kalihi. Back then and to some extent now news coverage of Kalihi focused on violence, drugs and gangs.The message of the story really was that, no matter your beginnings, as humble as they may be, you can do great things, Takayama said. And that is what was shown in the story through the team bonding, the fact that they worked as a real team in every sense of the word and made something great out of themselves.For decades afterward, people approached Becker to tell him how much the story meant to them or that they had a framed copy hanging in their home.Beckers wife of 60 years, Betty Hanson Becker, died in 2008. They didnt have children but became godparents to Brooks, her sister Cristina Escoda and her cousin Maria Teresa Roxas when they were children and Brooks and Escodas father was Beckers colleague in the Manila bureau. Becker is survived by Brooks and her husband Peter Brooks, Escoda and Roxas.

Donald Trump fired National Archives director Colleen Shogan Friday night, she said in a LinkedIn post and confirmed to 404 Media."It was an honor and privilege to serve as the 11th Archivist of the United States," Shogan told 404 Media. "I did so with integrity every day."Earlier on LinkedIn, Shogan wrote: This evening, President Trump fired me, Shogan wrote. No cause or reason was cited. It has been an honor serving as the 11th Archivist of the United States. I have zero regrets - I absolutely did my best every day for the National Archives and the American people.Earlier this week, ABC News reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been serving as the acting Archivist of the United States since shortly after President Trumps inauguration. Archives employees told me Thursday that there was no indication Rubio was involved in the Archives in any way, and Shogan gave an all-hands meeting at the National Archives Tuesday in which she said she had been working with the administration. At the time, National Archives and Records Administration officials told workers that they had not been approached by Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency, which has been gutting federal agencies.It remains unclear who is going to run the agency, which is in charge of record keeping for the entire federal government.This is a particularly important role considering that large parts of the federal government are currently being purged or shut down, and there is uncertainty about what will happen to their records."At the direction of@realDonaldTrumpthe Archivist of the United States has been dismissed tonight," Sergio Gor, the director of the Presidential Personnel Office, tweeted. "We thank Colleen Shogan for her service."A spokesperson for NARA declined to comment.

President Donald Trump waves after arriving on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Fla., Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)2025-02-08T01:05:38Z WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump said Friday that he is firing members of the board of trustees for the Kennedy Center and naming himself chairman.He also indicated that he would be dictating programming at one of the nations premier cultural institutions, specifically declaring that hed put an end to events featuring performers in drag. Trumps announcement came as the new president has bulldozed his way across official Washington during the first weeks of his second term, trying to shutter federal agencies, freeze spending and ending diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across the government.At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN. I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture, Trump wrote on his social media website. We will soon announce a new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!In a statement late Friday on its website, the Kennedy Center said it was aware of Trumps post. We have received no official communications from the White House regarding changes to our board of trustees, the statement said. We are aware that some members of our board have received termination notices from the administration. The statement continued: Per the Centers governance established by Congress in 1958, the chair of the board of trustees is appointed by the Centers board members. There is nothing in the Centers statute that would prevent a new administration from replacing board members; however, this would be the first time such action has been taken with the Kennedy Centers board. Unlike former President Joe Biden and other commanders in chief through the decades, Trump did not attend the annual Kennedy Center Honors ceremonies during his first term, held at the performing arts venue in Washingtons Foggy Bottom neighborhood that opened in 1971. Shortly after Trumps post, the Kennedy Center website began experiencing technical difficulties. Visitors got a message reading We are experiencing high traffic and were redirected to a waiting room that listed how many hundreds of people were trying to access the site ahead of them.Trump suggested in his post that he would be implementing some changes to the centers performance schedule, noting that last year the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth THIS WILL STOP.According to its website, the center in July hosted a preshow titled A Drag Salute to Divas and a November Drag Brunch. In his post, Trump did not clarify which board of trustee members he would be terminating besides the current chairman, philanthropist David Rubenstein. The board often features political powerbrokers and major donors, and is currently made up of members from both sides of the aisle.Rubenstein was first elected to the post in 2010 and reelected each year since that time. Also, the principal owner of the Baltimore Orioles, Rubenstein was originally appointed to the Kennedy Center board by President George W. Bush and subsequently reappointed by President Barack Obama and Biden. The current board features Bidens White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, as well as Mike Donilon, Bidens longtime ally, and Stephanie Cutter, a former Obama adviser. The treasurer of the centers board of trustees is television producer Shonda Rhimes, who hosted fundraisers for Biden before he abandoned his reelection bid last summer. But the current board also features Trump allies, including Pam Bondi, the new presidents recently confirmed attorney general, and Lee Greenwood, whose song God Bless the USA, was the unofficial anthem of Trumps presidential campaign. During his first term in 2019, Trump announced that he was tapping actor Jon Voight, a longtime supporter, to the board, along with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who hes picked as U.S. ambassador to Israel this time. ___ WILL WEISSERT Weissert covers national politics and the White House for The Associated Press. He is based in Washington. twitter mailto

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses a Canada-U.S. economic summit in Toronto, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (Frank Gunn /The Canadian Press via AP)2025-02-07T19:50:08Z VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday said President Donald Trumps talk of making Canada the 51st U.S. state is a real thing and is linked to the countrys rich natural resources, local media reported.Trudeaus comments to business and labor leaders in a closed-door session were mistakenly carried by a loudspeaker, Canadas public broadcaster CBC reported.Mr. Trump has it in mind that the easiest way to do it is absorbing our country and it is a real thing. In my conversations with him on, Trudeau said of making Canada a U.S. state before the microphone cut out, according to CBC.Theyre very aware of our resources, of what we have and they very much want to be able to benefit from those, Trudeau reportedly said. Trudeaus office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.In a post on social platform X, Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labor, confirmed what Trudeau said. Yes, I can confirm that Trudeau said his assessment is that what Trump really wants is not action on fentanyl or immigration or even the trade deficit, what he really wants is to either dominate Canada or take it outright, McGown wrote. Trump has repeatedly suggested Canada would be better off if it agreed to become the 51st U.S. state.In public comments Friday, Trudeau said Canada must think tactically and strategically on how to deal with Trumps threats to impose hefty tariffs on all Canadian imports. Speaking in Toronto at the opening of a one-day summit on the Canada-U.S. economic relationship, Trudeau said the country must work with the U.S. to avoid tariffs, adding that Canada needs to eliminate internal trade barriers and expand its trade with other nations.This is a moment, said Trudeau. This is a time in our countrys history that really matters.Trump on Monday agreed to a 30-day pause on threats to impose 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, with another 10% tariff on Canadian oil, natural gas and electricity. Trump had threatened the tariffs to ensure greater cooperation from the countries to stop illegal immigration and prevent fentanyl smuggling, but he has also pledged to use tariffs to boost domestic manufacturing and raise revenues for the federal government.Trudeau said Canada can use the 30-day extension to show U.S. officials the countrys increased spending on border security. Canada has announced a $1.3 billion Canadian dollars ($900 million) border security plan that includes drones, helicopters, more border guards and the creation of a joint task force.Trudeau also has promised to appoint a new fentanyl czar, who will serve as the primary liaison between the Canadian and U.S. governments, even though less than 1% of the fentanyl and illegal immigrant crossings into the U.S. come from Canada.We need to be very deliberate about how we continue to engage closely with the United States to make the case that Canada is responsible for a tiny part of the North American fentanyl problem, but that we are also bitterly touched by this tragedy, Trudeau said. He added that Canada needs to be prepared if Trump decides to go ahead with the tariffs after 30 days.We need to be ready to respond robustly, he said. We also have to be ready to support Canadians through the responses were giving and through a difficult time of tariffs.Canada had planned to retaliate to the U.S. action with 25% tariffs on $155 billion Canadian dollars ($109 billion) worth of American goods.Trudeau said its also time to have genuine free trade in Canada, while strengthening its trade relationships with other countries.Candace Laing, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said she is happy the meeting is focused on internal trade, trade diversification and responding to U.S. tariffs.Its clear that we cant just tinker around the edges with incremental steps right now, she said. Weve got to be bold so that businesses and communities can pivot to be more resilient and less reliant on what happens in the U.S., Laing said in a statement.

This combination of undated photos provided by Hostages Family Forum show Or Levy, Eli Sharabi and Ohad Ben Ami, all of whom were abducted and brought to Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. (Hostages Family Forum via AP)2025-02-07T21:12:33Z JERUSALEM (AP) Hamas identified three more Israeli hostages it plans to free as part of the fragile ceasefire agreement, a sign the deal was moving forward Friday even as U.S. and Israeli officials continued calls to relocate Gazas population after the war.The three men, captured by Hamas during its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, are set to be freed Saturday, in the fifth exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel.An Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive material, confirmed that the hostages scheduled for release are: Eli Sharabi, 52; Ohad Ben Ami, 56; and Or Levy, 34.Israel is set to release 183 Palestinian prisoners on Saturday to fulfill its side of the agreement, according to the Hamas-linked prisoners office in Gaza. The terms of the deals first six-week phase call for Hamas to gradually free a total of 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Sharabi was taken captive from Kibbutz Beeri, a communal farm that was one of the hardest hit in the Hamas attack. His wife, Lianne, and their teenage daughters were killed by militants. Ben Ami, a father of three, was taken hostage from the same community, where he was the kibbutz accountant. His wife, who was also captured, was released during a brief ceasefire in November 2023.Levy, a computer programmer from the city of Rishon Lezion, was pulled by militants from a bomb shelter near the Nova music festival in southern Israel. His wife was killed during the attack. The couples toddler son has been under the care of family members. Hamas has so far released 18 hostages, including five Thai citizens captured in Israel during the attack. Last week, Israel released 183 Palestinian prisoners in accordance with the deal.Details of the planned exchange came as U.S. President Donald Trump continued talking up his widely criticized proposal to move all Palestinians from Gaza and redevelop it as an international travel destination. The idea, which Trump characterized Friday as a real estate transaction, has been roundly rejected by the regions Arab governments and by Palestinians themselves, who say forcing them from their homes would constitute ethnic cleansing. But Trump insisted Friday that his idea had been very well received. After calling originally for permanent resettlement of the Palestinians, his newest comments left the question of duration unresolved.We dont want to see everybody move back and then move out in 10 years because of continued unrest, he said.Israeli forces have withdrawn from most of Gaza, as specified by the ceasefire agreement, but remain in border areas. The military has warned Palestinians to avoid areas where troops are operating and has opened fire on people accused of violating the terms of the agreement.Negotiators have yet to agree on terms for the deals second phase, in which Hamas would release dozens more hostages in return for more prisoners and a lasting ceasefire. The Palestinian prisoners office said that of those set for release Saturday, 18 are serving life sentences, 54 have long-term sentences, and 111 are Gazans who were detained after the Oct. 7 attack.A list of those expected to be released, distributed Friday by Palestinian authorities, included Iyad Abu Shakhdam, 49, who has been imprisoned for nearly 21 years over his involvement in Hamas militant attacks that killed dozens of Israelis in the early 2000s. He is serving 18 life sentences.Also on the list is Jamal al-Tawil, 61, a Hamas politician and former mayor of the West Bank city of Al-Bireh who has spent nearly two decades in and out of Israeli prisons. Since his most recent arrest in 2021, he has been held without trial for allegedly organizing violent riots.___AP reporter Isabel DeBre in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report. JULIA FRANKEL Frankel is an Associated Press reporter in Jerusalem. twitter mailto

President Donald Trump speaks at a dinner with Senate Republicans at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)2025-02-08T05:04:48Z ATLANTA (AP) Donald Trumps second administration has put forth an avalanche of policy changes and political pronouncements that have jolted Washington and the world.That agenda is taken largely from his Agenda 47 campaign proposals, the Heritage Foundations Project 2025 and other hard-right influencers with juice in Trumps White House. There is much more, however, that the president and those groups discussed on the campaign trail but have yet to attempt.Heres a look at some substantial proposals still pending. Shuttering the Department of EducationThe right has long targeted the Department of Education, which became a Cabinet agency in 1980 under President Jimmy Carter. Trump aides have prepared an executive order that would limit if not effectively shut down the department.I want Linda to put herself out of a job, Trump said of Education Secretary-designee Linda McMahon, who awaits Senate confirmation.The timing, though, remains uncertain as the White House grapples with how to unwind an agency that was established by law and involves billions in spending approved by Congress, including Title I money for low-income schools and college student loans. Tightening restrictions on abortion pills and other actionsTrump sidestepped and obfuscated on abortion during the campaign. He bragged that his Supreme Court nominees helped overturn the Roe v. Wade precedent and shifted control of abortion restrictions to state governments but said he would not sign a national ban. Then he changed course and said he would ban abortion later in pregnancy, though he did not specify when that would be.Project 2025 proposes a range of ideas, most of which would come under the purview of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. if the Senate confirms him as Health and Human Services secretary: It seeks tighter restrictions on abortion pills, demand for which rose after Trumps election. The document says the administration should revoke the Food and Drug Administrations approval of medication abortion drugs. Short of that, if the drugs remain on the market, the document urges Trump to reinstate earlier safety protocols for Mifeprex that were mostly eliminated in 2016 and apply these protocols to any generic version of mifepristone. Specifically, Project 2025 calls for a bare minimum deadline of the 49th day of gestation for dispensing the drugs (it is now 70 days), requiring in-person dispensing, and requiring prescribers to report all serious adverse events, not just deaths. During his confirmation hearings last month, Kennedy said Trump has asked him to study mifepristone, a drug used to terminate pregnancies and help women complete miscarriages. If those paths are not sufficient to limit medication abortions, it proposes invoking an 1873 anti-obscenity law, the Comstock Act, as justification to block the mailing of any abortion-related materials. When asked during an April 12, 2024, interview with Time magazine for his views on the Comstock Act and the mailing of abortion pills, Trump promised to make a statement on the issue in the next 14 days, saying: I feel very strongly about it. I actually think its a very important issue. He never made that statement. Project 2025 also calls to codify into law the Hyde and Weldon amendments, budget measures used to limit the use of federal money for abortion-related services. Dave Weldon, a former Republican lawmaker who sponsored the Weldon amendment, has been nominated to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And it calls for federal guidance declaring that emergency abortion care such as for complications that could lead to sepsis is not required under the 1986 law, signed by Republican President Ronald Reagan, that generally requires hospital emergency departments to meet a certain standard of care for all patients. Trump has been expected to pull back Biden administration guidance requiring emergency rooms to provide abortions when necessary to stabilize a womans health or life. Nationalizing school choice and dismantling teacher tenureOn the one hand, the 2024 Republican platform promised to return education to the states. But the document, boosted by Trumps statements, also promises universal school choice meaning to use the power of the federal government to implement private school tuition subsidies and ending teacher tenure, job protections usually defined at the state level. Additionally, Trump declared that parents of schoolchildren should be able to hire and fire principals, decisions typically made by local school superintendents and school boards.Trump did not detail how he would accomplish such national uniformity in K-12 schools. But, in general, his education ideas would make federal money conditional, and the administrations opening weeks suggest the White House believes it can use executive power to do that rather than go through Congress. Targeting universitiesIn Agenda 47 and at rallies, candidate Trump described U.S. colleges and universities as havens for Marxist maniacs and lunatics. Trump proposed taking over the independent accreditation process for higher education institutions, calling that his secret weapon to transform the system. He took aim at higher education endowments, promising to collect billions and billions of dollars from schools via taxing, fining and suing excessively large private university endowments at schools that do not comply with his edicts like his crackdowns on diversity initiatives.Trump did not name schools in Agenda 47. But many well-regarded private universities hold endowments exceeding $10 billion, and the oldest Ivy League institutions Harvard and Yale measure theirs in the tens of billions. Of course, trying to commandeer private endowments would invite court fights, since they are legally protected funds from donors.Agenda 47 calls for redirecting captured endowment money into an online American Academy offering college credentials to all Americans without a tuition charge. It will be strictly non-political, and there will be no wokeness or jihadism allowed none of thats going to be allowed, Trump said on Nov. 1, 2023.More tariffs and tax cutsTrump has imposed tariffs on China, which responded with its own levies. But there is a pause on border levies on goods from Mexico and Canada. Beyond that initial foray into the presidents promised protectionism, Trump promised as a candidate to pursue The Trump Reciprocal Trade Act in Congress, to reverse U.S. trade deficits and goose domestic production. He also called for baseline tariffs, without making clear whether he meant through executive action or legislation.Trump more recently hailed the late 19th and early 20th century era when the federal government relied heavily on tariff revenue, before the income tax era began with the 16th Amendments ratification in 1913. That era, however, also predates Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Pentagon being responsible for the worlds most expensive military. (Trump has explicitly promised to protect all those big-ticket items other than Medicaid.)The presidents talk of tariff revenue aside, he has pledged a return of policies in the Republicans sweeping 2017 overhaul. That package reached nearly every U.S. household but concentrated benefits among corporations and the wealthiest individual filers. Trump added 2024 campaign promises to exempt tips, Social Security benefits and overtime pay from income taxes.Congress is still contemplating tax changes.Rolling back federal labor lawsDespite Trumps promise on overtime wages, conservatives have separate ideas that would reduce the instances U.S. workers get overtime pay in the first place.Project 2025 calls for rescinding Biden administration rules that sought to expand qualifications for time-and-a-half overtime for about 4 million workers. The document also would curtail Biden-era rules that make it easier for gig economy workers rideshare drivers, for example to gain benefits as full-time employees rather than contract workers with fewer protections under labor law, including the standard 40-hour workweek threshold that triggers overtime pay.More broadly, Project 2025 calls for weakening the Fair Labor Standards Act and National Labor Relations Act seminal laws from Franklin Roosevelts presidency. The authors want Congress to authorize collective bargaining to treat national employment laws and regulations as negotiable defaults and allow waivers for states and local governments to encourage experimentation and reform efforts. Proposing looser safety rules, Project 2025 would make it easier for teenagers to work dangerous jobs and harder for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to investigate conditions and impose penalties on private-sector businesses.Trumps pick for labor secretary, meanwhile, is an organized labor ally. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., co-sponsored the PRO Act, a union-backed proposal that would make it easier for workers to organize. Trump, however, has offered no signs that he would support the law, and Republican leaders in the GOP-controlled House and Senate oppose the measure.Ending the wars in Ukraine and IsraelHyperbole or not, Trump insisted repeatedly as a candidate that he would quickly settle the war in Ukraine brought about by Russias invasion and the Israel-Hamas war spawned by Hamas slaughter of Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023.The Biden administration, with Trump transition team involvement, negotiated a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. But there is no permanent peace accord in place, and Trump has complicated matters with his musings about a U.S. takeover of Gaza.On Ukraine, Trump also said, I will ask Europe to reimburse us for the cost of rebuilding the stockpiles sent to Ukraine.He recently suggested Ukraine should reimburse the U.S. with access to its rare earth minerals as part of an agreement to continue military support against the Russian invasion.___ BILL BARROW Bill Barrow covers U.S. politics. He is based in Atlanta. twitter mailto

Mellow, a transgender woman, poses for a portrait, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025, outside of the Norfolk Circuit Court in Norfolk, Va., where she applied for a passport. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)2025-02-08T05:14:13Z The day after President Donald Trump returned to office, Lisa Suhay took her 21-year-old daughter, Mellow, to a passport office in Norfolk, Virginia, where they live.Getting a passport for Mellow, who is transgender, was urgent.In an executive order Trump signed the night before, the president used a narrow definition of the sexes instead of a broader conception of gender. The order says a person is male or female and it rejects the idea that someone can transition from the sex assigned at birth to another gender. The framing is in line with many conservatives views but at odds with major medical groups and policies under former President Joe Biden.Her family wants Mellow to be able to leave the country if things became unbearable for transgender people in the U.S. as the federal government increasingly moves not to recognize them. If the worst was to come to worst and things were to threaten my life, she said, I would have some way out.Trumps Jan. 20 order, which questions the existence of transgender and nonbinary people, created confusion and pain for Mellow and others seeking new, renewed or updated passports. A group of impacted people challenged the policy with a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in Boston. The State Department fell in line with Trumps orderThe State Department quickly stopped issuing travel documents with the X gender marker preferred by many nonbinary people, who dont identify as strictly male or female. The department also stopped allowing people to change the gender listed on their passport or get new ones that reflect their gender rather than their sex assigned at birth.Applications that had already been submitted seeking gender marker changes were put on hold. The State Department also replaced its webpage with information for LGBTQI+ travelers to just LGB, removing any reference to transgender or intersex people.Knowing about the policy change, Mellow checked the box for male, even though thats at odds with her life and her state-issued drivers license. We had to swear oath to the fact that the information that we presented was true, even if what we had to do was not truthful to ourselves Mellow said. It was emotional because it was in a way lying to yourself.Her mother worries that Mellow might not be granted a passport or that it could create legal problems if her documents dont match or because she swore to something thats not true.Trump has targeted transgender people on several frontsThe passport policy is among several actions Trump has taken since returning to office that could stifle rights and legal recognition of transgender, intersex and nonbinary people.The same order that seeks to define the sexes to exclude them would also require housing transgender women in prison in mens facilities. Additional orders could open the door to kicking transgender service members out of the military, barring the use of federal taxpayer money to provide gender-affirming care to transgender people under 19 and keeping transgender girls and women out of girls and womens sports competitions.The lawsuit filed Friday by ACLU lawyers challenging the passport change contends that the order discriminates against people based on their sex or transgender status, depriving them of their rights to equal protection, privacy and speech. It also contends the abrupt policy change violates the requirement for a 60-day notice and comment period. Trumps administration has said the policy would not affect existing unexpired passports.Groups such as New Jersey-based Garden State Equality warned transgender and nonbinary members that they could be at risk when returning to the U.S. after traveling abroad, particularly if their passport has the X gender marker.A family is in limbo over one sons applicationElise Flatland, a mother of four in the Kansas City suburb of Olathe, Kansas, is still waiting to hear about whether a passport has been approved for her 12-year-old transgender son.The family filled out the application in December at the same time they requested passports for two of their other children. The others have arrived, but his has not. Flatland said its essential to have the travel document so the family could go to another country for gender-affirming care if it becomes unavailable in the U.S. It would also help her son in other ways. A 2023 Kansas law left them unable to change his birth certificate, so he has no government-issued document that reflects his gender. Having one could help answer fellow sixth graders who question his identity, more so since Trump was elected in November.There is definitely a sense of everyone being emboldened in their anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ attitudes, and they have no need to act politely in public, Flatland said. Seeking a passport change means handing over documentsAnticipating a passport change, Ash Lazarus Orr, a West Virginia advocate for transgender people, sent in an expedited application to change the gender marker on his passport from F to M days before Trump took office.But it wasnt processed until after inauguration, and Orr doesnt expect the change will be made.A complication for Orr is that the State Department has his current passport, which doesnt expire for several years, his birth certificate and marriage license. That has put some upcoming international travel plans into question.He said he hopes his non-updated passport will be returned, so he can travel. Worst-case scenario, I could see this lost through the entire administration where I dont have a passport, Orr said.The State Department said it corrected a passport applicationZaya Perysian, a 22-year-old content creator who lives in Los Angeles, tried to change the gender mark on her passport once she heard about Trumps passport policy.She bought a plane ticket to Canada to serve as the basis for a request for expedited service. After an appointment at a passport office, she hoped the switch would be approved.Days later, her new passport arrived in the mail along with a letter explaining that the application had been corrected to male.She said the issue is bigger than the travel document.They dont want any trans person to feel validated, she said in an interview. They want it to go back to how it used to be, where we were seen as like these creatures, and that we were just like night stalkers.Both Orr and Perysian are among the plaintiffs in the lawsuit seeking to halt the policy. GEOFF MULVIHILL Mulvihill covers topics on the agendas of state governments across the country. He has focused on abortion, gender issues and opioid litigation. twitter mailto JOHN HANNA Hanna covers politics and state government in Kansas for The Associated Press. Hes worked for the AP in Topeka since 1986. twitter mailto

This photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard on Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, shows a small commuter plane that crashed in western Alaska on a flight that was bound for the hub community of Nome. (U.S. Coast Guard via AP)2025-02-08T05:48:56Z JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) Just hours after finding 10 people dead in western Alaska from one of the deadliest plane crashes in the state in 25 years, authorities raced to recover their remains and the wreckage of the small commuter plane from unstable sea ice before expected high winds and snow.The conditions out there are dynamic, so weve got to do it safely in the fastest way we can, Jim West, chief of the Nome Volunteer Fire Department, said Friday.The Bering Air single-engine turboprop plane was traveling from Unalakleet to the hub community of Nome when it disappeared Thursday afternoon. It was found the next day after an extensive search with all nine passengers and the pilot dead.As the community tried to process the deadly event, crews worked swiftly on unstable, slushy sea ice to recover the bodies and the wreckage with less than a day before bad weather was expected. Officials said a Black Hawk helicopter would be used to move the aircraft once the bodies were removed. Among those killed in the crash were Rhone Baumgartner and Kameron Hartvigson. They had traveled to Unalakleet to service a heat recovery system vital to the communitys water plant, according to the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. These two members of our team lost their lives serving others, David Beveridge, vice president of environmental health & engineering for the organization, said in a statement. The loss of these two incredible individuals and everyone else on board the plane will be felt all over Alaska. The other peoples names have not been released. All 10 people on board the plane were adults, and the flight was a regularly scheduled commuter trip, according to Lt. Ben Endres of the Alaska State Troopers.A photo provided by the Coast Guard showed the planes splintered body and debris lying on the sea ice. Two people in brightly colored emergency gear circled the wreckage. Its hard to accept the reality of our loss, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said during an evening news conference.Nome Mayor John Handeland choked up as he discussed the deaths and the response effort.Nome is a strong community, and in challenging times we come together and support each other. I expect the outpouring of support to continue in the coming days as we all work to recover from this tragic incident, Handeland said.The Cessna Caravan left Unalakleet at 2:37 p.m. Thursday, and officials lost contact with it less than an hour later, according to David Olson, director of operations for Bering Air. There was light snow and fog, with a temperature of 17 degrees (minus 8.3 Celsius), according to the National Weather Service. The Coast Guard said the aircraft went missing about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Nome.Radar forensic data provided by the U.S. Civil Air Patrol indicated that about 3:18 p.m., the plane had some kind of event which caused them to experience a rapid loss in elevation and a rapid loss in speed, Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Benjamin McIntyre-Coble said. What that event is, I cant speculate to. McIntyre-Coble said he was unaware of any distress signals from the aircraft. Planes carry an emergency locating transmitter. If exposed to seawater, the device sends a signal to a satellite, which then relays that message back to the Coast Guard to indicate an aircraft may be in distress. No such messages were received by the Coast Guard, he said. Rescuers were searching the aircrafts last known location by helicopter when the wreckage was spotted, said Mike Salerno, a spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard. Two rescue swimmers were lowered to investigate.Local, state and federal agencies had assisted in the search effort, combing stretches of ice-dotted waters and scouring miles of frozen tundra. The National Transportation Safety Board was sending nine people to the scene from various states.Flying is an essential mode of transportation in Alaska due to the vastness of the landscape and limited infrastructure. Most communities are not connected to the developed road system that serves the states most populous region, and its common to travel by small plane. Some high school teams fly to sporting events against rival high schools, and goods are brought to many communities by barge or by air. The planes crash marks the third major U.S. aviation mishap in eight days. A commercial jetliner and an Army helicopter collided near the nations capital on Jan. 29, killing 67 people. A medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia on Jan. 31, killing the six people on board and another person on the ground.Bering Air serves 32 villages in western Alaska from hubs in Nome, Kotzebue and Unalakleet. Most destinations receive twice-daily scheduled flights Monday through Saturday.Unalakleet is a community of about 690 people about 150 miles (about 240 kilometers) southeast of Nome and 395 miles (about 640 kilometers) northwest of Anchorage. The village is on the Iditarod trail, route of the worlds most famous sled dog race, during which mushers and their teams must cross the frozen Norton Sound.Nome, a Gold Rush town, is just south of the Arctic Circle and is known as the ending point of the 1,000-mile (1,610-kilometer) Iditarod. The city said prayer vigils would be held Friday for those on board the plane, friends and family and those involved in search efforts. ___Golden reported from Seattle. Martha Bellisle in Seattle and Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, contributed to this report. BECKY BOHRER Bohrer is a statehouse and political reporter based in Juneau, Alaska. twitter RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

This combination of undated photos provided by Hostages Family Forum show Or Levy, Eli Sharabi and Ohad Ben Ami, all of whom were abducted and brought to Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. (Hostages Family Forum via AP)2025-02-08T04:17:11Z DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) Hamas-led militants are set to free three more hostages, all Israeli civilian men, on Saturday, and Israel will release dozens of Palestinian prisoners as part of a fragile agreement that has paused the war in the Gaza Strip. This combination of undated photos provided by Hostages Family Forum show Or Levy, Eli Sharabi and Ohad Ben Ami, all of whom were abducted and brought to Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. (Hostages Family Forum via AP) This combination of undated photos provided by Hostages Family Forum show Or Levy, Eli Sharabi and Ohad Ben Ami, all of whom were abducted and brought to Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. (Hostages Family Forum via AP) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More President Donald Trumps stunning proposal to transfer the Palestinian population out of Gaza, welcomed by Israel but vehemently rejected by the Palestinians and most of the international community, does not appear to have affected the current phase of the truce, which runs until early March.But it could complicate talks over the second and more difficult phase, when Hamas is to release dozens more hostages in return for a lasting ceasefire. Hamas may be reluctant to free more captives and lose its main bargaining chip if it believes the U.S. and Israel are serious about depopulating the territory, which rights groups say would violate international law. The hostages to be released on Saturday, according to Hamas and Israel, are: Eli Sharabi, 52; Ohad Ben Ami, 56; and Or Levy, 34. All were abducted during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war. Dozens of masked and armed Hamas fighters, some driving white pickup trucks with guns mounted on them, gathered Saturday morning at the location of the exchange, near the territorys main north-south highway in Central Gaza. It will be the fifth swap of hostages for prisoners since the ceasefire began on Jan. 19. Eighteen hostages and more than 550 Palestinian prisoners have already been freed in that time.The first phase of the ceasefire calls for the release of 33 hostages and nearly 2,000 prisoners, the return of Palestinians to northern Gaza and an increase in humanitarian aid to the devastated territory. Last week, wounded Palestinians were allowed to leave Gaza for Egypt for the first time since May. Whos set to be released on Saturday?Sharabi and Ben Ami were both taken hostage from Kibbutz Beeri, one of the hardest-hit farming communities in the Hamas attack. Levy was abducted from the Nova music festival, where he was taking shelter in a saferoom when the militants arrived.The 183 Palestinian prisoners to be released by Israel on Saturday include 18 people serving life sentences for committing deadly attacks, 54 serving long-term sentences and 111 Palestinians from Gaza who were detained after the Oct. 7 attack. All are men, ranging in age from 20 to 61.While Israel considers them to be terrorists, Palestinians view them as heroes battling Israeli occupation. Virtually every Palestinian has a friend, relative or acquaintance who has been imprisoned.More than 100 hostages were released during a weeklong ceasefire in Nov. 2023. More than 70 are still in Gaza, and at least a third of them are believed to have been killed in the initial attack or to have died in captivity. Israel says Hamas has confirmed that eight of the 33 to be released in the first phase of the ceasefire are dead. Ceasefire is holding but next phase is uncertain Hamas fighters take up positions ahead of a hostage release in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025. Photo/Abdel Kareem, File) Hamas fighters take up positions ahead of a hostage release in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025. Photo/Abdel Kareem, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More It is not clear whether Israel and Hamas have begun negotiating a second phase of the ceasefire, which calls for releasing the remaining hostages and extending the truce indefinitely. The war could resume in early March if an agreement is not reached.Israel says it is still committed to destroying Hamas, even after the militant group reasserted its rule over Gaza within hours of the latest ceasefire. A key far-right partner in Netanyahus coalition is calling for the war to resume after the ceasefires first phase.Hamas says it wont release the remaining hostages without an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.In the Oct. 7 attack that started the war, some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed. More than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israels retaliatory air and ground war, over half of them women and children, according to Gazas Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were militants.The Israeli military says it killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because its fighters operate in residential neighborhoods. Senior militants among Palestinian prisoners set for releaseOf the 72 security prisoners being released Saturday, five hail from east Jerusalem, 14 from the Gaza Strip and the remaining 53 from the occupied West Bank. Seven are set to be transferred to Egypt ahead of further deportation. A total of 47 prisoners will be set free Saturday from Ofer prison, in the West Bank, and transferred to Palestinian custody at the Betunia crossing point near the administrative center of Ramallah where scores of relatives, friends and supporters were preparing a heros welcome for the returnees.The Palestinian security prisoners were detained over offenses ranging from bomb attacks to involvement in militant organizations, in some cases dating back decades. Palestinians purchase goods at a makeshift market set up amid widespread destruction caused by the Israeli military's ground and air offensive in Gaza City's Jabaliya refugee camp, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi) Palestinians purchase goods at a makeshift market set up amid widespread destruction caused by the Israeli military's ground and air offensive in Gaza City's Jabaliya refugee camp, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Pedestrians walk along a road lined with few stands selling goods, amid widespread destruction caused by the Israeli military's ground and air offensive in Gaza City's Jabaliya refugee camp, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi) Pedestrians walk along a road lined with few stands selling goods, amid widespread destruction caused by the Israeli military's ground and air offensive in Gaza City's Jabaliya refugee camp, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Among them is Iyad Abu Shakhdam, 49, who has been locked up for nearly 21 years over his involvement in Hamas militant attacks in crowded civilian areas that killed dozens of Israelis during the Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s. That included a notorious 2004 suicide bus bombing in Israels southern desert city of Beersheba that killed 16 people, including a 4-year-old child. Another is Jamal al-Tawil, a prominent Hamas politician in the occupied West Bank and former mayor of the village of al-Bireh, abutting Ramallah. He has spent nearly two decades in and out of Israeli jail, with the military reporting his last arrest in 2021 over his alleged participation in violent riots and efforts to entrench Hamas leadership in the West Bank. He was transferred to administrative detention, a repeatedly renewable six-month period in which suspects are held without charge or trial.Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.___Follow APs war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

President Donald Trump, from left, gestures as he walks with first lady Melania Trump to send off former President Joe Biden and Jill Biden to board a Marine helicopter en route to Joint Base Andrews after the 60th Presidential Inauguration, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)2025-02-07T23:41:21Z PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) President Donald Trump said Friday that hes revoking former President Joe Bidens access to government secrets and ending the daily intelligence briefings hes receiving in payback for Biden doing the same to him in 2021.Trump announced his decision in a post on his social media platform shortly after he arrived at his Mar-a-Lago home and private club in Palm Beach for the weekend.There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information. Therefore, we are immediately revoking Joe Bidens Security Clearances, and stopping his daily Intelligence Briefings, Trump wrote. He set this precedent in 2021, when he instructed the Intelligence Community (IC) to stop the 45th President of the United States (ME!) from accessing details on National Security, a courtesy provided to former Presidents. The move is the latest in a vengeance tour of Washington that Trump promised during his campaign. He has previously revoked security clearances from more than four dozen former intelligence officials who signed a 2020 letter saying that the Hunter Biden laptop saga bore the hallmarks of a Russian information operation. Hes also revoked security details assigned to protect former government officials who have criticized him, including his own former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, who faces threats from Iran, and former infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci. Biden didnt immediately comment on the move. Biden ended Trumps intelligence briefings after Trump helped spur efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and incited the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. At the time, Biden said Trumps erratic behavior should prevent him from getting the intel briefings.Asked in an interview with CBS News what he feared if Trump continued to receive the briefings, Biden said he did not want to speculate out loud but made clear he did not want Trump to continue having access to such information. I just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefings, Biden said. What value is giving him an intelligence briefing? What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?in 2022, federal agents searched Trumps Florida home and seized boxes of classified records. He was indicted on dozens of felony counts accusing him of illegally hoarding classified records and obstructing FBI efforts to get them back. He pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing. A judge dismissed the charges, ruling the special counsel who brought them was illegally appointed, and the Justice Department gave up appeals after Trump was elected in November. In a related matter, Trump dismissed Colleen Shogan as the archivist of the United States, White House aide Sergio Gor posted on X Friday night.Trump had said in early January that he would replace the head of the National Archives and Records Administration. The government agency drew his anger after it informed the Justice Department about issues with Trumps handling of classified documents. Shogan, the first woman in the post, wasnt the archivist of the United States at the time the issue emerged. In his post on Biden, Trump cited the special counsel report last year into his handling of classified documents, saying, The Hur Report revealed that Biden suffers from poor memory and, even in his prime, could not be trusted with sensitive information.He ended his post by saying, I will always protect our National Security JOE, YOURE FIRED. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!Special counsel Robert Hur investigated Bidens handling of classified information and found that criminal charges were not warranted but delivered a bitingly critical assessment of his handling of sensitive government records. The report described Bidens memory as hazy, fuzzy, faulty, poor and having significant limitations. It said Biden could not recall defining milestones in his own life such as when his son Beau died or when he served as vice president. Trump has the right to end the briefings for Biden because it is a sitting presidents decision on whether a past president should continue to have access to classified information.Steven Cheung, the presidents communications director, shared Trumps post on the X social media platform and said, Hit the road Jack and dont you come back no more! DARLENE SUPERVILLE Superville covers the White House for The Associated Press, with a special emphasis on first ladies and first families.

Camden Lee, 16, poses for a portrait at his family's apartment, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)2025-02-08T05:15:25Z NEW YORK (AP) Camden Lee was leaving high school football practice in September when he saw the photograph, splashed across the New York Police Departments social media accounts, that would soon upend his life. In a crisp surveillance image, the 15-year-old stands alone in a hoodie and shorts, eyes cast down on a Brooklyn street. The pictured individual, police declared in an accompanying caption, had discharged a firearm at the West Indian American Day parade, killing one person and wounding four others. Camden Lee, 16, gets in an Uber to go to school, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) Camden Lee, 16, gets in an Uber to go to school, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More I see the NYPD logo. I see me. I see suspect wanted for murder, Lee recalled. I couldnt believe what was happening. Then everything went blurry.In private, police backpedaled almost immediately. After meeting with Lee and his lawyer, they declined to bring charges, then quietly removed his photograph from their X and Instagram accounts. But they have not publicly acknowledged the retraction, ignoring the repeated pleas of Lee and his mother, who say their lives remain threatened by the falsehood. The familys search for answers has raised questions about the NYPDs policies for correcting misinformation at a time when the department is already facing scrutiny for other social media misrepresentations. I used to have a lot of trust in the NYPD and how they do things, said Lees mother, Chee Chee Brock, whose older son recently joined the force. But I raised my kids to admit when they made a mistake. If you can blame an innocent kid for murder, what else can you get away with? Camden Lee, 16, shows Instagram posts, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) Camden Lee, 16, shows Instagram posts, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More The departments newly appointed chief spokesperson, Deputy Commissioner for Public Information Delaney Kempner, said she would look into the matter but did not answer a list of questions or provide further information.It remains unclear why Lee was identified as a suspect. The day of the shooting, Lee said, he left football practice and stopped at the annual Labor Day celebration of Caribbean culture with a teammate at around 1 p.m. Minutes later, as gunfire erupted along the route, his friend was grazed in the shoulder. The surveillance image, Lee said, showed his stunned expression after hearing gunshots for the first time, then watching his bloodied friend carted away on a stretcher. Camden Lee, left, cooks breakfast while his mom Chee Chee Brock, right, gets ready for work, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) Camden Lee, left, cooks breakfast while his mom Chee Chee Brock, right, gets ready for work, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More When police published it, on Sept. 19, Lees mother immediately contacted an attorney, Kenneth Montgomery, who offered to set up a meeting with homicide detectives that night. But police told the lawyer to bring the teen to Brooklyns 77th precinct station the following week. At the meeting according to Montgomery, Lee and his mother the detectives said he was not a suspect.They conceded they got it wrong, Montgomery said. But these officers were so cavalier about it. It was like they were playing a game with a kids life.By then the NYPDs communications division had widely distributed the photograph of Lee to media outlets and TV stations, which urged people to come forward with tips about the unnamed suspect.In recent weeks a high-ranking department official has urged some outlets not to use the image in follow-up stories about the shooting, according to text messages shared with The Associated Press. But those conversations with reporters were off the record, preventing news sites from explaining why the photograph was removed. Camden Lee's report card hangs on the refrigerator in his family's apartment, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) Camden Lee's report card hangs on the refrigerator in his family's apartment, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Camden Lee, 16, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at his family's apartment, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) Camden Lee, 16, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at his family's apartment, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More In the absence of official clarification, the photo has continued to circulate online, triggering a barrage of death threats against Lee from online sleuths who tracked down his own social media accounts.As he got ready for school on a recent morning, Lee pulled up an Instagram page with 750,000 followers and scrolled through the comments below his photograph.He about to get found quick, one read. Another said simply: He done. Others tagged friends and family of Denzel Chan, 25, who was killed in the shooting. They deserve answers too, Lee said of Chans loved ones.At a news conference immediately following the shooting, NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell said the violence was gang-related. He described the suspect as a slim man in his 20s who wore a paint-stained brown shirt and bandana. Lee, who turned 16 in January, wore neither in the photograph released weeks later. Camden Lee, 16, shows Instagram posts, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) Camden Lee, 16, shows Instagram posts, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Fearing possible gang retaliation, Brock, a single mother who works at the post office, moved her son and two daughters to a relatives home outside the city. Lee missed weeks of school, hurting his grades, as evidenced by a report card hanging on the fridge. While the family has since returned to Brooklyn, Lee has been forbidden by his mother from moving around alone.As a mom, the No. 1 thing Im scared of is losing my kids to the streets or the jail system, said Brock. So he doesnt have freedom now. When he goes to the corner store, I time him.It has not escaped the familys attention that the mistaken identification came at a uniquely tumultuous time for city police. In the 17 days between the shooting and the release of the photo, federal agents seized phones from Police Commissioner Edward Caban, who then resigned, telling officers that the investigation created a distraction for the department. Theres tremendous pressure on the NYPD to serve up results in a high-profile shooting like this, said Wylie Stecklow, a civil rights attorney who is representing the family as they weigh a possible lawsuit. The fact that theyve failed to explain how this mistake was made, and how theyll avoid it in the future, is deeply troubling.As the department seeks to rehabilitate its image, its communications strategy has also come under fire. A recent report from the citys Department of Investigation faulted certain NYPD executives for irresponsible and unprofessional use of social media and called on the department to codify its policies around deleting public posts, as other city agencies have done.In an earlier social media post, Chell, who has since been promoted to chief of department, mistakenly identified a judge he accused of letting a predator back into the community. That post, too, was deleted.In December, just when the initial wave of attention around Lee began to subside, police announced they were upping the reward for information about the shooting to $10,000. This time they did not circulate Lees photo. But without official confirmation that Lee was no longer a suspect, many news stations and newspapers ran the old image of him anyway. It remains all over the internet, including atop some news stories. For the photo to come out again, it brought it all back to the start, Lee said. My mom was just thinking of letting me go on the train again.Lately, he said, he can sense people looking at him, whispering behind back, as he walks through his neighborhood or the hallways at school. He has considered cutting his hair or buying new clothes in the hopes of passing unrecognized. Some days he prefers not to leave home at all. It takes me to a dark place, Lee said. I dont feel like myself anymore. I dont have the opportunity to explain my side of the story. Everyone is so fixed on this one image of me: murderer. JAKE OFFENHARTZ Offenhartz is a general assignment reporter in the New York City bureau of The Associated Press. twitter mailto

Palestinian prisoners are greeted as they exit a Red Cross bus after being released from Israeli prison following a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Saturday Feb. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)2025-02-08T11:40:46Z RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) Israel on Saturday is releasing 183 Palestinian prisoners in the latest exchange for Israeli hostages held in Gaza, part of a ceasefire that has paused the war but whose future is uncertain.Israel views the security prisoners as terrorists, while Palestinians see them as freedom fighters resisting a decades-long military occupation. Nearly every Palestinian has a friend or family member who has been jailed by Israel at some point, for militant attacks or lesser offenses like rock-throwing, protesting or membership in a banned political group. Some are held for months or years without trial in what is known as administrative detention, which Israel says is needed to prevent attacks and avoid sharing sensitive intelligence.Eighteen of those released Saturday had been sentenced to life and 54 were serving long sentences for their involvement in deadly attacks against Israelis. Seven of those convicted of the most serious crimes will be transferred to Egypt ahead of further deportation. Among those being released are 111 Palestinians who were rounded up after Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, which triggered the war. They have been detained without trial.Heres a look at some prominent Palestinian prisoners released since the truce went into effect on Jan. 19. Iyad Abu ShakhdamAbu Shakhdam, 49, was sentenced to the equivalent of 18 life sentences over his involvement in Hamas attacks that killed dozens of Israelis during the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, between 2000 and 2005. Among the most infamous of those attacks was a double suicide bombing that blew up two buses in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba in 2004, killing 16 Israelis, including a 4-year-old, and wounding over 100 others. In interviews with Arabic media, he described his militancy as a desire for revenge stemming from his brothers killing by Israeli security forces in 2000. Abu Shakhdam was on the run for weeks before his arrest in his hometown of Hebron in the West Bank in November 2004, following a gunfight with Israeli security forces in which he was shot 10 times. During 21 years in prison, his family said, he finished high school and earned a certificate for courses in psychology.Jamal al-TawilAl-Tawil, 61, a prominent Hamas politician in the occupied West Bank, has spent nearly two decades in and out of Israeli prison, in part over allegations that he helped plot suicide bombings.Most recently, the Israeli military arrested al-Tawil 2021, saying that he had participated in violent riots and mobilized Hamas political activists in Ramallah, the seat of the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority and Hamas main rival. He had been held without charge or trial since then. After his arrest, he went on hunger strike for more than three weeks to protest his administrative detention. During one of al-Tawils stints in Israeli prison in the early 2000s, he ran a successful electoral campaign from custody to become mayor of Al-Bireh, a West Bank town abutting Ramallah. U.S. court documents from 2007, filed by the families of Israelis killed during the second intifada, show that al-Tawil had served for years as chairman of Al-Islah Charitable Society, a front organization to raise money for Hamas. The case accused al-Tawil of recruiting a Hamas militant to carry out a 2001 suicide bombing that targeted a crowded pedestrian mall in Jerusalem, killing 11 people. His daughter, 32-year-old journalist Bushra al-Tawil, was among the dozens of women and teenagers released in the first round of prisoner-for-hostage exchanges on Jan. 19.He and another prisoner were immediately taken to a hospital for medical treatment after their release on Saturday. Mohammed el-HalabiThe Palestinian manager of the Gaza branch of World Vision, a major Christian aid organization, was arrested in 2016 and accused of diverting tens of millions of dollars to Hamas in a high-profile case that drew criticism from rights groups. He was freed on Feb. 1. Both el-Halabi, 47, and World Vision vigorously denied the allegations and independent investigations found no proof of wrongdoing. One independent audit found that el-Halabi had enforced internal controls and ordered employees to avoid anyone suspected of Hamas ties.Rights groups say el-Halabi was denied a fair and transparent trial, as he and World Vision had no chance to review the evidence against them. U.N. experts say el-Halabi was questioned for 50 days without access to a lawyer. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison.Israel has attributed the closed hearings to sensitive security information being relayed. Shadi AmouriAmouri, 44, from the northern West Bank city of Jenin, was arrested for his alleged role in manufacturing the powerful car bomb that detonated beside an Israeli bus packed with passengers on June 5, 2002, killing 17 Israelis in what became known as the Megiddo Junction suicide bombing. The attack during the second intifada took place in northern Israel. The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.Amouri was sentenced to life in prison, plus 20 years. He was among those transferred to Egypt on Feb. 1 and released into exile.Zakaria ZubeidiZakaria Zubeidi is a prominent former militant leader and theater director whose dramatic jailbreak in 2021 thrilled Palestinians across the Middle East and stunned the Israeli security establishment.Zubeidi was a senior militant in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in the urban Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. After the second intifada in 2006, he co-founded a theater in Jenin to promote what he described as cultural resistance to Israel. The Freedom Theater has put on everything from Shakespeare to stand-up comedy to plays written by residents.In 2019, after Zubeidi had already served years in prison for attacks in the early 2000s, Israel arrested him again over his alleged involvement in shooting attacks that targeted buses of Israeli settlers but caused no injuries.Zubeidi, who was released on Jan. 30 into the West Bank, had been awaiting trial in prison. He denies the charges, saying that he gave up militancy to focus on his political activism after the intifada.In 2021, he and five other prisoners tunneled out of a maximum-security prison in northern Israel. All six were recaptured days later.Mohammed Abu WardaA Hamas militant during the second intifada, Abu Warda helped organize a series of suicide bombings that killed over 40 people and wounded more than a hundred others. Israel arrested him in 2002, and sentenced him to 48 terms of lifetime imprisonment, among the longest sentences it ever issued. As a young student, Abu Warda joined Hamas at the start of the intifada following Israels killing of Yahya Ayyash, the militant groups leading bomb maker, in 1996. Palestinian authorities said at the time that Abu Warda had helped to recruit suicide bombers, whose attacks targeting crowded civilian areas in Israeli cities killed scores of people in the early 2000s. Abu Warda was released and deported on Jan. 30. Mohammed Aradeh, 42An activist in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Aradeh was sentenced to life in prison for a range of offenses going back to the second intifada. Some of the charges, according to the Israeli Prison Service, included planting an explosive device and attempted murder.He was credited with plotting the extraordinary prison escape in 2021, when he and five other detainees, including Zubeidi, used spoons to tunnel out one of Israels most secure prisons. They remained at large for days before being caught.From an impoverished and politically active family in Jenin, in the northern occupied West Bank, Aradeh has three brothers and a sister who have all spent years in Israeli prisons.He was welcomed as a sort of cult hero in Ramallah on Jan. 25 as family, friends and fans swarmed him, some chanting The freedom tunnel! in reference to his jailbreak. Mohammed Odeh, 52, Wael Qassim, 54, and Wissam Abbasi, 48All three men hail from the neighborhood of Silwan, in east Jerusalem, and rose within the ranks of Hamas. Held responsible for a string of deadly attacks during the second intifada, the men were handed multiple life sentences in 2002. They were accused of plotting a suicide bombing at a crowded pool hall near Tel Aviv in 2002 that killed 15 people. Later that year, they were found to have orchestrated a bombing at Hebrew University that killed nine people, including five American students. Israel had described Odeh, who was working as a painter at the university at the time, as the architect of the attack.All three were transferred to Egypt on Jan. 25. Their families live in Jerusalem and said they will join them in exile.Mohammad al-Tous, 67The 67-year-old al-Tous had held the title of longest continuous Israeli imprisonment until his release last Saturday, Palestinian authorities said. First arrested in 1985 while fighting Israeli forces along the Jordanian border, the activist in the Fatah party spent a total of 39 years behind bars. Originally from the West Bank city of Bethlehem, he was among the prisoners exiled on Jan. 25. ___Follow APs war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war ISABEL DEBRE DeBre writes about Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay for The Associated Press, based in Buenos Aires. Before moving to South America in 2024, she covered the Middle East reporting from Jerusalem, Cairo and Dubai. twitter mailto

Former NFL head coach Bill Belichick and girlfriend Jordon Hudson, pose on the red carpet at the NFL Honors award show ahead of the Super Bowl 59 football game, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)2025-02-07T21:24:38Z NEW ORLEANS (AP) At 72 years old and out of the NFL, Bill Belichick still stole the show during Super Bowl week.Whats the former Patriots coach wearing on the red carpet?Try all of his Super Bowl rings.He was the the Bill of the ball at the NFL Honors, where Belichick not only flashed and flexed the gaudy bling earned from winning more Super Bowls over his vaunted career than any other coach in history, but earned a kindly roasting at the awards show social media was less kind for walking arm-in-arm with 24-year-old girlfriend Jordon Hudson.Belichick even dumped his trademark hoodie for a burgundy sports coat while Hudson stunned in a silver sequin dress.Stories about Belichick pop up these days about as often on TMZ as they do involving the NFL, or even his new gig as head coach at North Carolina. Hudson turned heads when she appeared to also sport one of Belichicks Super Bowl rings but on THAT finger that even fueled engagement rumors on social media and other publications. The Daily Mail posted photos of Hudson flaunting a stunning sparkler at a charity event Wednesday in New Orleans. Hang tight, paparazzi. Hudson posted on Instagram that the ring she wore at Honors was a Bridgewater State University Bearcats National Cheerleaders Association Collegiate Championship ring.Not even Tom Brady has one of those.Like any young couple well, OK, any couple with one young person in it they were spotted after the show hitting Bourbon Street bars looking for a good time. The grumpy coach who couldnt be bothered in New England with any meaningful quotes and conversation with reporters has turned into a bit of a media darling since his split with the Patriots. He clowns around and offers insights on The Pat McAfee Show and even hosted a pair of podcasts. He even appeared on the NFL Network on Thursday night where he refused to pick a Super Bowl winner between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles. Hes changed in a good way. I like it, retired Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski told The Associated Press. I like it big time. How hes been representing. Hows he swaggy. How hes been in a new world, not coaching in the NFL. Hes been spectacular. Everyone loves him now.Belichick, who won six Super Bowls as head coach at New England and two more as an assistant with the New York Giants, even seems to have a sense of humor about himself, at least when it comes to his relationship with Hudson.Honors host and rapper Snoop Dogg poked fun at the age gap between Belichick and Hudson during his monologue, joking he remembered the old days of the NFL when the Cowboys were good, the Chiefs were bad, and I remember, what was it, Bill Belichicks girlfriend wasnt even born yet.Belichick and Hudson politely laughed at the joke while the crowd awwwed at the punchline.On social media, the jokes flew faster than a Saquon Barkley 60-yard touchdown run. One person posted a picture of the two at the awards show and wrote, You can make fun of Bill Belichick all you want, but I think its really nice that he took his girlfriend to the NFL Awards even if it is a school night. Another posted a photo collage that included Napster and Toy Story 2, and wrote, All of these things are older than Bill Belichicks girlfriend. Date nights might be harder to come by once Belichick goes back to college.Belichick signed a five-year deal with North Carolina in December that pays him $10 million in base and supplemental salary per year though it is guaranteed only for the first three years, including for buyout purposes and there is also up to $3.5 million in annual bonuses.Thats enough scratch to buy all the rings Hudson could want to slip on just like her boyfriend all her fingers.___AP Pro Football Writer Rob Maaddi contributed to this report.___AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl DAN GELSTON Gelston is an an Associated Press sports writer covering major college and pro sports in Philadelphia, including the 76ers, Flyers, Eagles, Phillies and Villanova. twitter mailto

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Baltimore Field Officer director Matt Elliston listens during a briefing, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025, in Silver Spring, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)2025-02-08T05:21:41Z For years, the Hamilton County Sheriffs Office in suburban Indianapolis has wanted to partner with federal immigration authorities to identify and detain immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally and facing charges.President Joe Bidens administration never returned its calls, the sheriffs office said. But as President Donald Trump cracks down on illegal immigration, Hamilton County deputies soon could become the first in Indiana empowered to carry out federal immigration duties and one of many nationally that Trumps administration hopes to enlist.We definitely are joining, Chief Deputy John Lowes told The Associated Press. We want to collaborate with ICE to make sure we keep our community safe.Under Trump, U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement is reviving and expanding a decades-old program that trains local law officers to interrogate immigrants in their custody and detain them for potential deportation. The 287(g) program named for a section of the 1996 law that created it currently applies only to those already jailed or imprisoned on charges. But Trumps border czar, Tom Homan, recently told sheriffs that he wants to expand it to include local task forces that can make arrests on the streets, reviving a model that former President Barrack Obama discontinued amid concerns about racial profiling. Its unclear whether that could allow local officers to stop people solely to check their immigration status. On Friday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that the Florida Highway Patrol had struck an agreement with ICE to interrogate, arrest and detain immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally and deliver them to federal authorities. The arrangement will help fulfill the presidents mission to effectuate the largest deportation program in American history, DeSantis said. Advocates for immigrants, meanwhile, are raising alarm about new pacts that put local law officers on immigration enforcement. All of these agreements, in practice, have the same track record of racial profiling, of sweeping in U.S. citizens or people who have lawful status, of having a chilling effect in terms of communities reporting crime to local law enforcement agencies, said Nayna Gupta, policy director at the nonprofit American Immigration Council. A dormant program gets a jumpstartIn the early 2000s, many of the initial participants in the 287(g) program had agreements that allowed them to enforce immigration laws in their communities, not just their jails. But problems arose in several places, including Arizona.In 2011, a civil rights investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice found that deputies in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, had engaged in a pattern of racial profiling, unlawful stops and arrests of Latinos. The Department of Homeland Security ended its agreement with the county.The program became the hallmark of far-right, anti-immigrant sheriffs as a means to feed people on the basis of their ethnicity into the deportation machine, asserted Lena Graber, senior staff attorney at the nonprofit Immigrant Legal Resource Center. In recent years, ICE has offered two types of 287(g) agreements to law enforcement agencies. One model requires four weeks of training and allows local officers to question suspected noncitizens who are jailed on other charges and detain them for ICE. The other model, which Trump launched during his first term, requires just eight hours of training and only allows local officers to serve federal immigration warrants.As of December, ICE had 135 agreements with sheriffs offices, police departments and prison systems in 21 states, with requests pending from 35 others. Two-thirds of the agreements were in just three states Florida, Texas and North Carolina. But no agreements had been signed during Bidens four years as president, according to ICE data.On his first day back in office, Trump ordered the Department of Homeland Security to maximize 287(g) agreements for local law officers to investigate, apprehend and detain immigrants. At a recent National Sheriffs Association conference, Homan said the administration is looking to lighten detention facility regulations and shorten the training to encourage greater collaboration with federal immigration officials. The associations president, Kieran Donahue, applauded the announcement. Theres going to be local sheriffs offices throughout the country, no question, theyre going to sign onto this program, Donahue told the AP. But Donahue is not planning to sign up his own department in Canyon County, Idaho. I dont have that kind of manpower, he said, adding: I have no bed space in my facility. Zero. States push for mandatory ICE trainingThe Florida Department of Law Enforcement in 2002 was the first to sign a 287(g) agreement with the federal government, running a task force for immigration enforcement. Twenty years later, Florida became the first state to require all local agencies with county jails to join the program or inform the state why they couldnt. After a Venezuelan man who was illegally in the U.S. killed University of Georgia student Laken Riley, Georgia passed a law last year requiring local law enforcement agencies to apply for the program. This year, Republican lawmakers in about a dozen states are seeking to require or incentivize cooperative agreements with ICE. One measure is sponsored by Texas state Rep. David Spiller, a Republican who also authored a law allowing any law enforcement officer to arrest migrants suspected of entering the country illegally. That law is on hold amid a legal challenge. Spiller said mandatory participation in ICE programs is essential.President Trump and border czar Homan cannot remove and deport all the people that are a public safety threat to our state and our nation over the next year and a half without the help of our local law enforcement, Spiller said. Already this year, Florida lawmakers have passed legislation that would allot millions of dollars for local immigration enforcement efforts. Legislation passed in Tennessee would direct the state to apply for the 287(g) program and authorize grants for local agencies that join. Legislation creating a state grant program for 287(g) participants also passed the Indiana Senate this week and is pending in the House. Democratic state Sen. Rodney Pol called it a very, very dangerous and very, very disturbing proposal.Were putting too much on people, particularly police officers, that are going to be put into situations where theyre going to have to break up their communities, Pol said. But Lowes said Hamilton County deputies plan to focus only on people who are already in jail. Last year, he said, the jail booked over 500 people believed to be noncitizens on charges that included driving while intoxicated, drug possession, theft, burglary, sexual battery and other offenses. Its unclear how many were in the country illegally, but ICE became involved in 64 of those cases, he said.We believe that this program will help us see a reduction in some of those crimes and will help us get some of the people out of our community that are committing crimes that endanger our safety, Lowes said. DAVID A. LIEB Lieb covers issues and trends in state governments across the U.S. Hes reported about government and politics for The Associated Press for 30 years. twitter mailto

Welcome back to the Abstract!Since we are all super-chill and bereft of any existential dread these days, lets take a moment to envision the grand-daddy of all apocalyptic scenarios: Death by asteroid. We have a small rock potentially incoming in December 2032 and a big rock potentially incoming in September 2182. Pick your fighter!Then, want to make two Grand Canyons in ten minutes? I know a trick. Finally, time to calm down with some whale songs and a fish fry with libations. Weve earned it by surviving this long in a cosmic shooting gallery. Bottoms up!Sir Bennu the BummerDai, Lan et al. Climatic and ecological responses to Bennu-type asteroid collisions. Science Advances.We all know the tale of the giant dino-killing asteroid, a freak deathbringer that measured about 10 miles wide and delivered a TKO to most life on Earth. Fortunately, asteroid impacts of that scale are extremely rare, occurring once every 150 million years or so. Its far more likely that we will get roughed up by a medium-sized asteroid, measuring a half-mile or smaller, which crash into Earth once every 150,000 years on average.Indeed, recently scientists have been tracking 2024 YR4, a rock that is about 200 feet across and has roughly a 1 in 50 (2%) chance of hitting Earth on December 22, 2032 (Merry Christmas!). Those are very high odds for an asteroid impact, which is actually good news, because they are objectively low odds. Hazardous asteroids are extremely unlikely to hit Earth in the near term, and most never break 1% risk.In other words, 2024 YR4 will almost certainly NOT strike Earth in seven years. But if it did, it would explode in the atmosphere and produce a powerful airburst that could kill millions of people if it occurred near a populated area (it would be the Chelyabinsk meteor on roids). As terrifying as that is to imagine, a rock the size of 2024 YR4 would still only deal regional damage and casualties could be mitigated by evacuation efforts among other preparations.Scientists are more worried about asteroids the size of Bennu, a rock that measures a third of a mile and has a 0.037% chance of impacting Earth on September 24, 2182 (Save the date!). Obviously, that is just a teeny tiny sliver of a chance1 in 2,700 oddsbut a study this week outlines why we should take it seriously nonetheless.Depending on the collision parameters, an impact between a medium-sized asteroid and Earth could cause regional to large-scale devastation, including non-negligible threats to the habitability of our planet, said researchers led by Lan Dai of Pusan National University.Beyond immediate effects such as thermal radiation, earthquakes, and tsunamis, asteroid impacts would have long-lasting climatic effects by emitting large quantities of aerosols and gases into the atmosphere, the researchers continued.More specifically, the team used advanced climate simulations to predict that a run-in with Bennu would inject up to 400 million tons of dust into Earths atmosphere. Global temperatures would subsequently plummet by about 4C and precipitation rates would fall by about 15%. The ozone would be depleted by about 32%, exposing life on our world to high doses of harmful UV radiation.Bennu up close. Image: NASA/Goddard/University of ArizonaThe initial reductions in ecosystem productivity on land and in the ocean would disrupt food availability and threaten global food security. the researchers said. The abrupt cooling and ecosystem collapses caused by asteroid collisions would severely reduce the habitat suitability for humans, wildlife, and terrestrial ecosystems,In simpler terms: we ded (skull emoji). At least, a lot of people would perish in this scenario. Of course, by the year 2182, we are all going to be pushing daisies anyway, except the Peter Thiel types that have managed to subsist on the blood of the young.Still, I am not paying inordinate sums for daycare just to have my future descendents get whacked by some space rock. To that end, NASA has already visited Bennu with its OSIRIS-REx mission, which returned samples from the asteroid back to Earth in 2023 to get a better sense of its composition. NASA also memorably punched an asteroid in the face with the DART mission in 2022, which shifted the rocks orbit.These missions (among others) are building the know-how to knock dangerous asteroids off-course with spacecraft impactors, as part of a redirect strategy. If the odds of an impact with Bennu get higher, we may ultimately have to send a spacecraft out to give it an uppercut that will push it away from a collision course.Deadly impacts do not make for light reading, but they are a reminder that we only exist at the mercy of weird gravitational perturbations in the asteroid belt. We are in more or less the same bind as T-rex, and Triceratops, and Mosasaurus, and all the other fantastic beasts felled by an extraterrestrial rock 66 million years ago. We may share their fate, or perhaps take a cue from the intelligent hadrosaurs who escaped that extinction (source: Star Trek: Voyager).In any case, if youre interested in keeping tabs on deadly space rocks (including 2024 YR4), I recommend following Robin George Andrews, who is an expert on killer asteroids and killing asteroidsa double whammy.The Moon Has Grand Canyons to SpareKring, David et al. Grand Canyons on the Moon. Nature Communications.Hey, want a break from thinking about space rocks crashing into things and wreaking havoc? Hahaha, not a chance. Im a sadist and I have been given too much power!Dont worry, the next impact I want to bring to your attention happened a long time ago (about 3.8 billion years in the past) and affected a location where humans are only occasionally present: the Moon. A new study reconstructed the catastrophic backstory of the Schrdinger impact basin, which stretches across 200 miles of the lunar south pole.Schrdinger basin is the best analog surface expression for Earths buried Chicxulub impact crater, which is linked to the extinction of dinosaurs and most life at the end of the Cretaceous, said researchers led by David Kring of the Lunar and Planetary Institute. The Schrdinger impact basin is remarkable for streams of rocky debris that it ejected, carving two canyons that are comparable to Earths Grand Canyon in width and depth.Schrdingers basin and the two canyons. Image: Kring et al.Kring and his colleagues used photogeologic mapping of the canyons, Vallis Schrdinger and Vallis Planck, to reconstruct their catastrophic backstory. The teams models suggest that they were forged by rays of rocky ejecta traveling at about 2,800 miles per hour, which violently tore gashes into the lunar landscape within ten minutes of impact. Ten minutes! Imagine blasting out two Grand Canyons in the time it takes to boil an egg. You have to hand it to space rocks: They know how to make a lasting impression.Fun fact: Schrdinger crater is also the location of the fictional Schwarze Sonne, a Nazi Moon fortress that is literally shaped like a swastika, featured in the 2012 film Iron Sky. Now you know.Look Whos Talking Too (Its Whales)Youngblood, Mason. Language-like efficiency in whale communication. Science Advances.After all that rough-and-tumble, I shall offer you the best relief planet Earth can offer: Whale songs. Is there any better salve for a mind troubled by cosmic collisions than the choruses of our oceanic cousins? Its well-known that cetaceans, the group that includes whales and dolphins, have evolved complex acoustic repertoires that include clicks, whistles, screeches, serenades, and pulses. Often, they even have regional or familial dialects.Now, a researcher has shown that the vocalizations of some cetaceans obey two linguistic patterns, known as Menzeraths law and Zipfs law, that measure linguistic efficiency. By analyzing more than 65,000 sequences from 16 cetacean species, Mason Youngblood of Stony Brook University has now confirmed that many whale songs are as efficientif not more efficientthan human languages, revealing another layer of complexity to cetacean communication.Comparisons of human and cetacean communication. Image: Youngblood, Sci. Adv. 11, eads6014 (2025)One of the simplest ways to increase efficiency is by reducing vocalization time. Individuals who convey the same information in less time incur lower metabolic costs and are less likely to be detected by predators and potential prey, Youngblood said in a new study.On average, whales tend to shorten elements and intervals toward the end of sequences, although this varies by species, he noted. Overall, the results of this study suggest that the vocalizations of many cetacean species have undergone compression for increased efficiency in time.Whales: Theyre just like us! Well, mostly like us, except for living in the sea and being absolutely ginormous. But hey, weve all got lactation and linguistic efficiencies in common and thats a good start!Party at Patos LagoonAdmiraal, Marjolein et al. Feasting on fish. Specialized function of pre-colonial pottery of the Cerritos mound builders of southern Brazil. PLOS One.Last, time to go back in time 2,000 years to party with the pre-Columbian peoples of Patos Lagoon in southern Brazil. This coastal wetland region is one of many places where ancient communities built earthen mounds called Cerritos that are packed with pottery shards, human and animal remains, and agricultural byproducts like seeds and beans.A team has now analyzed residues preserved in 54 pottery shards recently retrieved from two cerritos dating back 1,200 and 2,300 years, which are affiliated with the Charrua and Minuano cultures. The results suggest that these pots held cooked fish and may have even been vessels for alcoholic beverages made from fermented crops, such as maize. The researchers speculate that these ancient peoples may have timed boozy festivals to coincide with seasonal runs of migrating fish, such as the Whitemouth croaker.Intriguinglyfood residues from Cerritos ceramics show that vessels were used for either cooking estuarine fish, or plant products, said researchers led by Marjolein Admiraal at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (the research was conducted during her previous position at the University of York).Microbial-derived lipids were predominantly associated with the latter, suggesting that plants were fermented, presumably to make alcoholic beverages, the team said. We suggest that these sites, at least in part, functioned as prominent monuments in a frequently flooded landscape conducive to seasonal mass capture of fish, and that social aggregation and ritual feasting were major activities.Theres nothing like social aggregation and ritual feasting around earthen mounds to start off the weekend. Let the good vibes drown out the bad.Thanks for reading! See you next week.

Kendra Dahmer, a postdoctoral researcher studying infectious disease, works in a laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, Calif., Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)2025-02-08T05:02:40Z BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) President Donald Trumps crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in programs receiving federal money has thrown into doubt the future of research Kendra Dahmer has been doing on intestinal parasites in India and Benin.Dahmer, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, has a grant from the National Institutes of Health, the single largest public funder of biomedical research in the world.The grant is supposed to cover her research through the summer of 2026, but now she wonders if that will be possible. She received diversity-based funding as the first college graduate in her family and a woman in science and, more broadly, she is uncertain how Trumps anti-DEI executive order could affect support for her areas of study.Theres also this aspect of research that funds specific studies in specific populations that are now being deemed DEI, Dahmer said. So, like HIV research in Africa may be deemed DEI, malaria research, which also happens in low and middle income countries, may be considered DEI. And these are really important diseases that kill hundreds of thousands of people every year. Two days after Trump signed the executive order on DEI on Jan. 21 researchers became even more alarmed when the White House called for a funding freeze to conduct an ideological review of all federal grants and loans. After days of chaos and legal wrangling, two judges intervened and the administration rescinded the freeze. The National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, which fund a large chunk of research in the country, this week began releasing grants.But that hasnt eased the fears of scientists and researchers whose work is funded by federal grants. The NSF said it is still conducting a review of projects, programs and activities to be compliant with the existing executive orders. Its not yet clear what may happen to new and existing NIH grants either. On Friday night, the NIH announced it was cutting payments toward overhead costs for research institutions that receive its grants, a policy that could leave universities with major budget gaps. Currently, some universities receive 50% or more of the amount of a grant to put toward support staff and other needs, but that would be capped at 15%. Universities, which received almost $60 billion for research in the 2023 fiscal year, have been mostly quiet, explaining in statements to their staff and students they are still trying to clarify the implications of the executive order on DEI. Meantime, they are navigating the orders impact on their own institutional policies supporting underrepresented students.The University of California said in a statement it is evaluating recent executive orders issued by President Trump and the subsequent agency guidance to understand their potential impact on our communities.Even though there is no clarity on the new policies yet, some projects already have been put on hold amid uncertainty over the future of research touching on issues related to diversity, said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors. Some of the studies already being halted include research on artificial intelligence and how racism can be coded into systems, he said. Other projects Wolfson has heard about getting stopped include research on health equity and studies on the urban literacy rate as it relates to class in places with large concentrations of Black people.I think the people who are making these decisions are very clear that they want to create a society thats based on deep-set inequities that are hard baked and dont transform whether thats around race, whether thats around class, whether thats around gender, he said. The Education Department did not respond to an email message seeking comment. Threats to funding for research related to DEI could eliminate a lifeline for historically Black colleges and universities, which are already significantly underfunded compared to predominantly white institutions. North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, the largest HBCU in the country, has been on a yearslong mission to become one of the first to reach R1 status a distinction from the Carnegie Foundation that denotes a university as having high research activity, but the presidents intervention on federal funding could slow that down, said Joseph Graves, a biology professor. As it is, biology department students have to conduct research in hats and gloves during the winter because of a lack of heat in the old building, he said. New scrutiny on federal research grants could also hurt students at HBCUs who have federally funded fellowships for research, Graves said. Those scholarships, which could be at risk, allow minority students to pursue opportunities they might not have been able to afford. The Trump administrations perception of diversity, equity and inclusion could make HBCUs a target because of its high population of minority students, Graves said.They will look at our excellence in doing work that is changing the demography of science, and they will attack it as DEI, Graves said. Whatever we do, were doing DEI whether they like it or not.___Rodriguez reported from San Francisco and Seminera from Raleigh, North Carolina. Associated Press writers Cheyanne Mumphrey in Phoenix and Adithi Ramakrishnan in New York contributed. MAKIYA SEMINERA Seminera is a state government reporter for The Associated Press. She is based in Raleigh, North Carolina. twitter mailto

President Donald Trump greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he arrives at the West Wing of the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)2025-02-08T15:23:57Z WASHINGTON (AP) Three weeks in, President Donald Trump keeps cranking out executive orders designed to remake the government while billionaire Elon Musk hunts for more ways to upend the federal workforce.Trump also provoked then called off trade wars with Canada and Mexico but allowed one with China to move forward. He seemingly made light of potentially thorny political issues while insisting he was serious about the United States seizing Gaza, emptying out its residents and redeveloping the area into the Riviera of the Middle East. It was an idea that friend and foe alike around the world rejected. Here are some Week 3 takeaways:So many executive ordersTrump has spent 20 days in office, and on nearly every one of them, he has signed executive orders often several.Just like Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden before him, Trump used Inauguration Day to put pen to paper on actions meant to wipe out large numbers of his predecessors policies. Trump also issued Day 1 orders to pardon most members of the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord and keep TikTok functioning. He hasnt stopped since, taking at least 92 presidential actions, including one marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. One that would ban paper straws is supposed to come soon. The president signed most of the orders in the Oval Office; some were done aboard Air Force One. At times, officials have carted around a mini desk, affixed with the presidential seal, for the signings. It was there in the White Houses East Room when Trump signed an order intended to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls and womens sports. Trump used a similar desk to sign executive orders during a rally at Capital One Arena after his inaugural address. Its a prop Trump loves. He even mused about incorporating a special desk into his presidential swearing-in ceremony before it happened. I may even have a very tiny little desk put on the 20th stair because I always like to sign with a desk, Trump said in Iowa on Nov. 18, referring to his Inauguration Day walk up the Capitol steps. Trade wars are off, for nowTrump temporarily backed away from his tariff threats against Canada and Mexico, staving off a possible North American trade war as the U.S. holds separate talks over the next 30 days with its two biggest trading partners. But Trump followed through on trade penalties against China, imposing a 10% tax on imports from that country.White House aides say that tariffs, and Chinese retaliations, are not the start of a trade war because Trumps executive orders said the taxes were meant to force countries to address drug smuggling and, in the case of Canada and Mexico, illegal immigration. Still, Trump asserted that he wants to fix the trade imbalance as part of the negotiations with Canada and Mexico. Trump posted on his social media site regarding Canada that the talks should produce a final Economic deal.The White House treated Canadas decision to create a fentanyl czar and Mexicos deployment of 10,000 National Guard troops to the border as wins for Trump. But by most economic analyses, this was also a near catastrophe averted. The tariffs, if put in place, could increase inflation and subtract from growth. DOGE access to vital federal payment system is challenged in courtThe week featured another avalanche of activity to disrupt the government.The Musk-led special commission known as the Department of Government Efficiency helped pull almost all U.S. Agency for International Development workers off the job worldwide, while a push to pressure millions of federal workers into resigning has engulfed even the CIA. Lieutenants for Musk, the Tesla and X owner, also temporarily got access to the Treasury Department payment information system, setting off concerns about transparency and accountability that led to a court challenge. A federal judge early Saturday blocked DOGE from accessing those records and set a hearing for Feb. 14.The payments system handles trillions of dollars annually. Its a hidden part of the government plumbing thats essential for paying income taxes, collecting tax refunds, distributing money to contractors and paying out Social Security and Medicare benefits and one of those parts of government that cannot afford to be broken. The Treasury Department tried to assuage Democratic lawmakers with a letter claiming that no changes were being made to the system. But people familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public, said Musks team had been looking for ways to block USAID payments. Half-jokingly, but also seriousWhite House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked on Fox News Channel why Trump nominated Linda McMahon as head of the Education Department when he had suggested shutting down the agency entirely. You heard the president say half-jokingly, but also serious, he wants Linda McMahon, who will lead that agency, to put herself out of a job, Leavitt said.Joking, but maybe not joking, is a favored Trump tactic going back to his first term. And hes been doing it again.Asked about data and other key information disappearing from government websites as federal officials scrambled to comply with new Trump administration rules, the president said he didnt know. But, he added, That doesnt sound like a bad idea. He has also repeatedly laughed about seeking a third term as president constitutional prohibitions be damned.It will be the greatest honor of my life to serve not once but twice or three times or four times, Trump said during a recent rally in Las Vegas. No, it will be to serve twice. At a House Republican meeting in Florida, Trump said he had leftover campaign funds that could go toward running for a third term. He joked that he assumed he could not use for myself, but Im not 100% sure. Am I allowed to run again? Trump asked House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. Mike, I better not get you involved in that.Gaza gobsmacker One area where it seemed like Trump might be joking but insists he wasnt is Gaza. Trump caused an uproar by suggesting that the U.S. could seize long-term control of the war-ravaged territory, force its Palestinian population to live elsewhere perhaps permanently and use a massive redevelopment project to make it a tourist destination along the Mediterranean Sea. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later repeatedly suggested that any resettlement would be on an interim basis, and even Leavitt insisted that such a relocation would be temporary. But that only made Trump double down, saying that the U.S. would slowly and carefully begin the construction of what would become one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind on Earth.___Associated Press writer Fatima Hussein contributed to this report. WILL WEISSERT Weissert covers national politics and the White House for The Associated Press. He is based in Washington. twitter mailto JOSH BOAK Boak covers the White House and economic policy for The Associated Press. He joined the AP in 2013. twitter mailto

The U.S. Capitol is seen, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)2025-02-08T14:58:04Z WASHINGTON (AP) Before President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress can enact much of their legislative agenda, they have to deal with some unfinished business completing work on the current budget years spending bills. Its a task that by all accounts is not going well.The current stopgap measure lasts through March 14. After that, without congressional action, there would be a partial government shutdown. Five weeks is an eternity when it comes to resolving spending bills in Washington. But Trumps first weeks in office have escalated tensions between the two parties as the new administration reshapes agency priorities and dismantles existing programs without congressional approval. A look at where the talks stand: Republicans accuse Democrats of abandoning negotiationsRepublican and Democratic leaders of the two appropriations committees in Congress were holding spending bill talks in late January; aides said the two sides were committed to getting a deal done. But optimism has faded in recent days.Obviously, the Democrats are not in a good place right now, so they walked away from talks. But itll have to resume, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said Thursday.House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., gave a similar assessment, contending that comments by House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York and some of his colleagues made it seem as though they are trying to set up some sort of government shutdown, which I think is very unfortunate. We were negotiating in good faith and trying to get the topline number, but so far as I know, theyve been sort of unresponsive the last two days or so. So I hope we can get back to it. Rep. Tom Cole, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said that he heard from Democratic lawmakers as recently as Thursday so he did not believe they were walking away from talks.But, were not making the progress I would hope, said Cole, R-Okla. Democrats dispute GOP leaderships characterizationConnecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the lead Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said that is false in response to the assertion that Democrats have withdrawn from negotiations.The Democrats have made their offer. We have not walked away from the table, DeLauro said.Jeffries told reporters that DeLauro has been trying to get Republicans to respond to her for weeks. Im hopeful that Republicans are actually willing now to sit down at the table and reach a spending agreement, in the best interest of the American people, not in the best interest of their billionaire donors, Jeffries said. Tensions over topline spending levelsUnder terms of an agreement that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., worked out with then-President Joe Biden, spending for defense and nondefense would increase by 1% for the current budget year, which began Oct. 1. That would bring the tallies to about $895.2 billion for defense and $780.4 billion for nondefense. Congress set the spending levels to grow below the rate of an inflation, at the insistence of Republicans, as part of a package that also suspended the debt limit so that the federal government could continue paying its bills. Democrats say an agreement is an agreement.That is the path forward that will allow everyone to come together to reach a spending agreement that meets the needs of the American people, Jeffries said.Republicans dont see it that way. Cole said Democrats are having a hard time adjusting to the reality of Trump being in the White House and Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress.We have to remember the deal they are trying to enforce is when we had a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate. We dont have those anymore, Cole said. And in particular, the president doesnt feel bound by an agreement made by another president that didnt go down on his watch.Cole said that theres only one signature that matters right now and its not Joe Bidens anymore. Democrats wary as Trump and Musk revamp federal governmentDemocrats are struggling to keep up and provide a unified response to Trumps first weeks in office as government workers are pushed to resign, entire agencies are dismantled and Elon Musks team from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency gains access to sensitive information of countless Americans.They are worried about how current government services are being affected, with Democrats accusing the administration of blocking hundreds of billions of dollars in previously approved funding. Those concerns are also swaying their thinking as they approach the spending bill negotiations. The level of trust is at the lowest I have ever seen it here in Congress, said Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. It is up to our Republican colleagues to stand up to this and assure us an agreement and a law is real.DeLauro said Democrats need assurances that Republicans will follow through on whatever spending agreement the negotiators reach.You won some. I won some. We lost some each. But we have a deal. And thats got to be it. Those assurances have to be made, DeLauro said. Plan BIf lawmakers fail to reach agreement on a full-year spending measure, then its possible that they could also pass another temporary measure to keep the government open for a few more weeks or months while they try to work out their differences.Such stopgap measures, called continuing resolutions or CRs in Washington parlance, generally fund government programs and agencies at current levels.I dont want a CR, Cole said. But I certainly prefer a CR to a shutdown.

President Donald Trump speaks at a dinner with Senate Republicans at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)2025-02-08T15:44:24Z CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) Groups representing some of South Africas white minority responded Saturday to a plan by President Donald Trump to offer them refugee status and resettlement in the United States by saying: thanks, but no thanks.The plan was detailed in an executive order Trump signed Friday that stopped all aid and financial assistance to South Africa as punishment for what the Trump administration said were rights violations by the government against some of its white citizens.The Trump administration accused the South African government of allowing violent attacks on white Afrikaner farmers and introducing a land expropriation law that enables it to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners agricultural property without compensation.The South African government has denied there are any concerted attacks on white farmers and has said that Trumps description of the new land law is full of misinformation and distortions. Afrikaners are descended from mainly Dutch, but also French and German colonial settlers who first arrived in South Africa more than 300 years ago. They speak Afrikaans, a language derived from Dutch that developed in South Africa, and are distinct from other white South Africans who come from British or other backgrounds. Together, whites make up around 7% of South Africas population of 62 million.On Saturday, two of the most prominent groups representing Afrikaners said they would not be taking up Trumps offer of resettlement in the U.S. Our members work here, and want to stay here, and they are going to stay here, said Dirk Hermann, chief executive of the Afrikaner trade union Solidarity, which says it represents around 2 million people. We are committed to build a future here. We are not going anywhere.At the same press conference, Kallie Kriel, the CEO of the Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum, said: We have to state categorically: We dont want to move elsewhere. Trumps move to sanction South Africa, a key U.S. trading partner in Africa, came after he and his South African-born adviser Elon Musk have accused its Black leadership of having an anti-white stance. But the portrayal of Afrikaners as a downtrodden group that needed to be saved would surprise most South Africans.It is ironic that the executive order makes provision for refugee status in the U.S. for a group in South Africa that remains amongst the most economically privileged, South Africas Foreign Ministry said. It also criticized the Trump administrations own policies, saying the focus on Afrikaners came while vulnerable people in the U.S. from other parts of the world are being deported and denied asylum despite real hardship.There was a campaign of misinformation and propaganda aimed at South Africa, the ministry said.Whites in South Africa still generally have a much better standard of living than Blacks more than 30 years after the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule in 1994. Despite being a small minority, whites still own around 70% of South Africas private farmland. A study in 2021 by the South Africa Human Rights Commission said 1% of whites were living in poverty compared to 64% of Blacks. Sithabile Ngidi, a market trader in Johannesburg, said she hadnt seen white people being mistreated in South Africa. He (Trump) should have actually come from America to South Africa to try and see what was happening for himself and not just take the word of an Elon Musk, who hasnt lived in this country for the longest of time, who doesnt even relate to South Africans, Ngidi said.But Trumps action against South Africa has given international attention to a sentiment among some white South Africans that they are being discriminated against as a form of payback for apartheid. The leaders of the apartheid government were Afrikaners.Solidarity, AfriForum and others are strongly opposed to the new land expropriation law, saying it will target land owned by whites who have worked to develop that land for years. They also say an equally contentious language law thats recently been passed seeks to remove or limit their Afrikaans language in schools, while they have often criticized South Africas affirmative action policies in business that promote the interests of Blacks as racist laws. This government is allowing a certain section of the population to be targeted, said AfriForums Kriel, who thanked Trump for raising the case of Afrikaners.The South African government says the laws that have been criticized are aimed at the incredibly difficult task of redressing the wrongs of colonialism and then nearly a half-century of apartheid, when Blacks were stripped of their land and almost all their rights.___Associated Press journalist Sebabatso Mosamo in Johannesburg contributed to this report.

This photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard on Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, shows a small commuter plane that crashed in western Alaska on a flight that was bound for the hub community of Nome. (U.S. Coast Guard via AP)2025-02-08T16:17:49Z JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) Authorities are working to recover the wreckage of a plane crash in western Alaska that killed 10 people while investigators are trying to determine what caused the small commuter aircraft to go down in the icy Bering Sea.The single-engine turboprop plane was traveling from Unalakleet to the hub community of Nome when it disappeared Thursday afternoon. The Bering Air plane was found the next day after an extensive search. Nine passengers and the pilot were killed.Crews on Saturday were racing to recover the wreckage and the remains of those killed in the crash before expected high winds and snow.Here are things to know about the plane crash, which is one of the deadliest plane crashes in the state in 25 years.The plane was reported missing near Nome Officials said contact with the Cessna Caravan was lost less than an hour after it left Unalakleet on Thursday. Authorities said the flight was a regularly scheduled commuter trip, and the aircraft went missing about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Nome.The wreckage was found Friday by rescuers who were searching by helicopter. Local, state and federal agencies scoured large stretches of icy waters and miles of frozen tundra before finding the plane.A Black Hawk helicopter will be used to move the aircraft once the bodies are removed, officials said. Unalakleet is a community of about 690 people about 150 miles (about 240 kilometers) southeast of Nome and 395 miles (about 640 kilometers) northwest of Anchorage. The village is on the Iditarod trail, route of the worlds most famous sled dog race.Nome is just south of the Arctic Circle and is known as the ending point of the 1,000-mile (1,610-kilometer) Iditarod. The cause of the crash is under investigationThe National Transportation Safety Board is sending people from various states to investigate the crash.Radar data provided by the U.S. Civil Air Patrol indicated the plane rapidly lost elevation and speed, but its not clear why that happened, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Benjamin McIntyre-Coble said he was unaware of any distress signals from the aircraft. If a plane is exposed to seawater, an emergency locating transmitter sends a signal to a satellite, which then relays that message to the Coast Guard. No such messages were received by the Coast Guard. Flying is an important mode of transportation in the largest U.S. stateAlaskas vast landscape and limited infrastructure makes traveling by plane a common thing. Most communities are not connected to the developed road system that serves the states most populous region.Some high school teams fly to sporting events against rival high schools, and goods are brought to many communities by barge or by air.Who was on the plane?Authorities said all 10 people on board the plane were adults.Among those killed were Rhone Baumgartner and Kameron Hartvigson. They had traveled to Unalakleet to service a heat recovery system vital to the communitys water plant, according to the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.Identities of the others killed in the crash have not been released. Other recent U.S. plane crashes also under investigationThe Alaska planes crash marks the third major U.S. aviation mishap in eight days. A commercial jetliner and an Army helicopter collided near the nations capital on Jan. 29, killing 67 people. A medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia on Jan. 31, killing the six people on board and another person on the ground.

In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, an aerial drone photo shows the site of a landslide in Jinping Village, Junlian County in the city of Yibin, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Saturday Feb. 8, 2025. (Zeng Li/Xinhua via AP)2025-02-08T10:44:31Z BEIJING (AP) Chinese rescuers searched for some 30 people after a landslide on Saturday in southwestern Sichuan province buried 10 houses and forced hundreds of residents to evacuate.The Ministry of Emergency Management deployed hundreds of rescuers including firefighters following the landslide in a village in Junlian county. Two people were pulled out alive and about 200 others were relocated, state broadcaster CCTV said. A villager told BeijingNews that rocks were frequently seen rolling down the mountain since the second half of 2024, in some cases making sounds similar to firecrackers. The villager said geologists had inspected the area late last year, the state-run newspaper reported.President Xi Jinping expressed his concern and urged authorities to make every effort to search for the missing people and minimize casualties, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Chinese Premier Li Qiang asked for an investigation and inspection of potential geological hazard risks in nearby areas. Li also said residents who were under threat should be evacuated to prevent another disaster, according to Xinhua. The National Development and Reform Commission has allocated 50 million yuan ($6.9 million) from the central budget to support the emergency restoration of infrastructure and public service facilities. RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

This photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard on Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, shows a small commuter plane that crashed in western Alaska on a flight that was bound for the hub community of Nome. (U.S. Coast Guard via AP)2025-02-08T16:10:59Z CONCORD, N.H. (AP) A strong storm is expected to bring moderate to heavy snowfall across parts of the Upper Great Lakes on Saturday before intensifying overnight across the Northeast.The National Weather Service said a storm over the central and southern plains will move northeastward Saturday, producing a swath of 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of snow across parts of Minnesota and the Great Lakes. Saturday night into Sunday, upstate New York and New England could see up to a foot (30 centimeters) of accumulation. Hazardous travel conditions were likely due to low visibility and snow-covered roads.Meanwhile, a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain from the Ohio Valley into the northern Mid-Atlantic region could result in significant icing in the Central Appalachians, forecasters said. Freezing rain on roadways was expected to make travel dangerous, and power outages were possible. RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce (87) participates during Super Bowl 59 Opening Night, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025, in New Orleans, ahead of the NFL football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs Sunday.(AP Photo/AJ Mast, File)2025-02-08T15:58:00Z For months, daring bands of thieves linked to South American gangs have been making off with piles of jewelry and cash from the homes of the biggest superstars in sports, targeting the likes of the NFLs Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce.Sophisticated pillagers have deployed drones and signal jamming devices, sometimes posing as delivery drivers or maintenance workers, to gain access to gated neighborhoods and thwart home security systems, according to warnings issued by the NFL and NBA. But in recent weeks, investigators across the U.S. have made a handful of arrests connected to at least one of the high-profile heists and discovered stolen sports memorabilia, jewelry and art stuffed into storage units in New Jersey.A group of Chilean men stopped in January while driving in Ohio were charged Monday with stealing nearly $300,000 worth of designer luggage, watches and jewelry from Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrows house. Photos showed one suspect wearing a sparkly necklace with Burrows jersey number that he had worn during interviews, according to a federal complaint unsealed Wednesday. These individuals seem to be the alleged tip of the iceberg, said Kenneth Parker, the U.S. Attorney in southern Ohio, who believes the men are working with South American theft rings that for years have been ransacking opulent homes from coast to coast. Some luxury watches and jewelry stolen from homes across the country not just those belonging to athletes ended up being sold at a pawnshop in Manhattans Diamond District and stashed away in nearby storage units, federal authorities said in court documents released Tuesday that accuse two men of fencing the items. Whether the entire string of burglaries targeting athletes are connected to the same crews from South America or if those groups are working together isnt clear. Federal authorities leading the investigations have been tight-lipped since the FBI warned in December that crime organizations were preying on professional athletes. Superstar athletes targeted in home burglariesInvestigators say international crime rings have looted high-end houses for years, but now theyre going after some of the biggest names in the NFL, NBA and NHL. Thieves broke into the homes of Kansas City Chiefs teammates Mahomes and Kelce within days of each other in October around the time they played New Orleans and Kelces superstar girlfriend Taylor Swift watched the game from the stands.Mahomes and Kelce on Sunday will try to lead the Chiefs to a record three straight Super Bowl titles.Jewelry valued at about $30,000 was stolen from NBA All-Star Luka Doncics home in Dallas in December. Pittsburgh Penguins star Evgeni Malkin reported a home invasion in January that happened while his team was playing at home. Similarities in the string of break-insLaw enforcement officials warned sports leagues last fall that thieves had been striking on game days when they knew the players would not be home, often smashing through rear windows. Some of the groups scoped out their targets by posing as home delivery drivers or joggers in secluded neighborhoods. Burrows home in Ohio, which sits on a gated street tucked along a wooded area, was broken into while he was in Dallas for a Monday Night Football game in December. The men charged in the invasion were found weeks later traveling with a Husky glass-breaking tool that one of them bought at Home Depot, an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit.Players have been advised to not only beef up their home security but also avoid posting their whereabouts on social media.Thieves targeting items that can be sold undergroundThe theft rings are focused on cash and items that can be resold on the black market, such as jewelry, watches and luxury bags, according to an NBA warning based on information from the FBI.The two men indicted this week in New York City were accused of buying stolen watches, jewelry and other expensive items from a variety of burglary crews and reselling them at their pawnshop in Manhattan since 2020.Court documents said the pair were tied to five separate burglary crews and linked one of the two suspects to the men accused of breaking into the residence of a high-profile athlete in Ohio on the same day that Burrows home was hit. A judge on Friday denied bail for the pawnshop owners, saying it would be ironic to release them just before the Super Bowl.This is one Super Bowl Defendants will have to watch from the sidelines, U.S. District Court Judge William Kuntz wrote in his decision. They will not be players this weekend. JOHN SEEWER Seewer covers state and national news for The Associated Press and is based in Toledo, Ohio. twitter mailto

Kendra Dahmer, a postdoctoral researcher studying infectious disease, works in a laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, Calif., Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)2025-02-08T14:02:40Z BEIRUT (AP) Lebanons new prime minister on Saturday formed the countrys first full-fledged government since 2022.President Joseph Aoun announced in a statement that he had accepted the resignation of the former caretaker government and signed a decree with new Prime Minister Nawaf Salam forming the new government.Salams cabinet of 24 ministers, split evenly between Christian and Muslim sects, was formed less than a month after he was appointed, and comes at a time where Lebanon is scrambling to rebuild its battered southern region and maintain security along its southern border after a devastating war between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group. A U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal ended the war in November.Lebanon is also still in the throes of a crippling economic crisis, now in its sixth year, which has battered its banks, destroyed its state electricity sector and left many in poverty unable to access their savings. Salam, a diplomat and former president of the International Court of Justice, has vowed to reform Lebanons judiciary and battered economy and bring about stability in the troubled country, which has faced numerous economic, political, and security crises for decades. Though Hezbollah did not endorse Salam as prime minister, the Lebanese group did engage in negotiations with the new prime minister over the Shiite Muslim seats in government, as per Lebanons power-sharing system. Lebanons new authorities also mark a shift away from leaders that are close to Hezbollah, as Beirut hopes to continue improving ties with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations that have been concerned by Hezbollahs growing political and military power over the past decade.In early January, former army chief Aoun was elected president, ending that positions vacuum. He was also a candidate not endorsed by Hezbollah and key allies.Aoun has shared similar sentiments to Salam, also vowing to consolidate the states right to monopolize the carrying of weapons, in an apparent reference to the arms of Hezbollah.