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WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump started the week declaring a diplomatic breakthrough in his bid to prod Moscow and Kyiv closer to peace, announcing he had begun arranging for direct talks between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Four days later, the Republican president’s optimism has diminished. Russia’s top diplomat made it clear Friday that Putin won’t meet with Zelenskyy until the Ukrainians agree to some of Moscow’s longstanding demands to end the conflict. It’s a stinging setback for Trump, who had been touting his diplomatic blitz as resulting in indisputable momentum for a deal to halt...

Former President Barack Obama has waded into states’ efforts at rare mid-decade redistricting efforts, saying he agrees with California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s response to alter his state’s congressional maps, in the way of Texas redistricting efforts promoted by President Donald Trump aimed at shoring up Republicans’ position in next year’s elections. “I believe that Gov. Newsom’s approach is a responsible approach. He said this is going to be responsible. We’re not going to try to completely maximize it,” Obama said at a Tuesday fundraiser on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, according to excerpts obtained by The Associated Press. “We’re only going...

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Bryan Kohberger developed a reputation for being sexist and creepy while attending a criminal justice program in the months before he killed four University of Idaho students in 2022, fellow grad students told investigators. His behavior was so problematic that one Washington State University faculty member told co-workers that if he ever became a professor, he would likely stalk or sexually abuse his future students, according to the documents. She urged her co-workers to cut Kohberger’s funding to remove him from the program.“He is smart enough that in four years we will have to give him...

As President Donald Trump declared Washington, D.C., a crime-ridden wasteland in need of federal intervention this week and threatened similar federal interventions in other Black-led cities, several mayors compared notes.The president’s characterization of their cities contradicts what they began noticing last year: that they were seeing a drop in violent crime after a pandemic-era spike. In some cases the declines were monumental, due in large part to more youth engagement, gun buyback programs and community partnerships.Now members of the African American Mayors Association are determined to stop Trump from burying accomplishments that they already felt were overlooked. And they’re using...

U.S. wholesale inflation surged unexpectedly last month, signaling that President Donald Trump’s sweeping taxes on imports are pushing costs up and that higher prices for consumers may be on the way. The Labor Department reported Thursday that its producer price index — which measures inflation before it hits consumers— rose 0.9% last month from June, biggest jump in more than three years. Compared with a year earlier, wholesale prices rose 3.3%. The numbers were much higher than economists had expected. Prices rose faster for producers than consumers last month, suggesting that U.S. importers may, for now, be eating the cost...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed Saturday the planned summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, warning that any peace deal excluding Kyiv would lead to “dead solutions.”The Trump-Putin meeting, scheduled for Friday in Alaska, is seen as a potential breakthrough in the more than three-year war.Trump had previously agreed to meet with Putin even if the Russian leader would not meet with Zelenskyy, stoking fears Ukraine could be sidelined in efforts to stop the continent’s biggest conflict since World War II.In a statement posted to Telegram, Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s territorial integrity, enshrined...

In 2020, a disgruntled litigant posing as a deliveryman opened fire at the New Jersey home of District Judge Esther Salas, killing her 20-year-old son Daniel Anderl. Five years later, as President Donald Trump steps up hiscriticism of federal judges who have blocked some of his agenda, dozens of judges have had unsolicited pizzas delivered to their homes, often in Daniel Anderl’s name.District Judge John J. McConnell, Jr. of Rhode Island, who stalled Trump’s initial round of across-the-board spending cuts, is among those who received pizzas in Anderl’s name. His courtroom also has been flooded by threatening calls, including one...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Six months into his second term, President Donald Trump has gotten almost everything he has wanted from the Supreme Court that he reshaped during his first. The justices, three of whom were appointed by Trump, have cleared the way for stripping legal protections from more than 1 million immigrants, firing thousands of federal employees, ousting transgender members of the military, removing the heads of independent government agencies and more. The legal victories are noteworthy on their own, but how the president is achieving them is remarkable. Administration lawyers are harnessing emergency appeals, which were used sparingly under...

Eric Coomer, the security and product strategy director at Dominion Voting Systems, sued MyPillow founder Mike Lindell for defamation. Lindell called Coomer a traitor and accused him of stealing the 2020 election. Coomer is also a former employee of Lindell. Mike Lindell, founder of MyPillow, has been ordered to pay a former employee millions in damages after he was found liable for defamation. Lindell called the former employee, Eric Coomer, a traitor and accused him of stealing the 2020 presidential election on his online media platform.

WASHINGTON — (AP) — President Donald Trump's administration this week provided deportation officials with personal data -- including the immigration status -- on millions of Medicaid enrollees, a move that could make it easier to locate people as part of his sweeping immigration crackdown. An internal memo and emails obtained by The Associated Press show that Medicaid officials unsuccessfully sought to block the data transfer, citing legal and ethical concerns. Nevertheless, two top advisers to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered the dataset handed over to the Department of Homeland Security, the emails show. Officials at the Centers for...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Around 300 National Guard troops arrived in Los Angeles early Sunday on orders from President Donald Trump, staging outside a federal complex that remained largely quiet and without major protests following two days of clashes with immigration authorities.The deployment appeared to be the first time in decades that a state’s national guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration’s mass deportation efforts. On Sunday morning, some of the troops were stationed outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, dressed in tactical...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Homeland Security official during President Donald Trump’s first administration who authored an anonymous op-ed sharply critical of the president is calling on independent government watchdogs to investigate after Trump ordered the department to look into his government service.Miles Taylor, once chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, warned in an interview with The Associated Press of the far-reaching implications of Trump’s April 9 memorandum, “Addressing Risks Associated with an Egregious Leaker and Disseminator of Falsehoods,” when it comes to suppressing criticism of the president. That memo accused Taylor of concocting stories to sell...

The U.S. Department of Energy has ordered another power plant, this time an oil and gas plant in Pennsylvania, to keep its turbines running through the hottest summer months as a precaution against electricity shortfalls in the 13-state mid-Atlantic grid. The department’s order to the grid operator, PJM Interconnection, regarding the Eddystone power plant just south of Philadelphia on the Delaware River, is the department’s second use of federal power under President Donald Trump to require a power plant to keep operating on the mainland United States. Constellation Energy had planned to shut down Eddystone’s units 3 and 4 on...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge ruled late Tuesday that U.S. officials must retain custody and control of migrants apparently removed to South Sudan in case he orders their removals were unlawful. U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Massachusetts issued the ruling after an emergency hearing, after attorneys for immigrants said the Trump administration appears to have begun deporting people from Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan — despite a court order restricting removals to other countries. Murphy said the government must “maintain custody and control of class members currently being removed to South Sudan or to any other...

WASHINGTON (AP) — For months, American consumers and businesses have been hearing that President Trump’s massive import taxes – tariffs – would drive up prices and hurt the U.S. economy. But the latest economic reports don’t match the doom and gloom: Inflation actually eased last month, and hiring was solid in April. For now, the disconnect has businesses and consumers struggling to reconcile what they were told to expect, what the numbers say and what they are seeing on the ground. Trump and his supporters are quick to point out that the trade wars of his first term didn’t translate...

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — The Trump administration is bringing a small number of white South Africans to the United States as refugees next week in what it says is the start of a larger relocation effort for a minority group who are being persecuted by their Black-led government because of their race.The South Africans’ applications are being fast-tracked by the U.S. after President Donald Trump announced the relocation program in February. The Trump administration has taken an anti-migrant stance, suspending refugee programs and halting arrivals from other parts of the world, including Iraq, Afghanistan and most countries in...

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping sat for one-on-one talks over tea on Thursday as they continued meetings in Moscow. The Kremlin released a video of Putin serving the drink to Xi after wider talks with their delegations.

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump posted an artificial intelligence-generated image of himself dressed as pope as the mourning of Pope Francis continues and just days before the conclave to elect his successor is set to begin. Trump’s action drew rebukes from a group representing Catholic bishops in New York and among Italians.The image, shared Friday night on Trump’s Truth Social site and later reposted by the White House on its official X account, raised eyebrows on social media and at the Vatican, which is still in the period of nine days of official mourning following Francis’ death on...

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City’s police department provided federal immigration authorities with an internal record about a Palestinian woman who they arrested at a protest, which the Trump administration is now using as evidence in its bid to deport her, according to court documents obtained by The Associated Press.The report — shared by the NYPD in March — includes a summary of information in the department’s files about Leqaa Kordia, a New Jersey resident who was arrested at a protest outside Columbia University last spring. It lists her home address, date of birth and an officer’s two-sentence account...

DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday filed lawsuits against Hawaii and Michigan over their planned legal action against fossil fuel companies for harms caused by climate change, claiming the state actions conflict with federal government authority and President Donald Trump’senergy dominance agenda. The suits, which legal experts say are unprecedented, mark the latest of the Trump administration’s attacks on environmental work and raises concern over states’ abilities to retain the power to take climate action without federal opposition.In court filings, the DOJ said the Clean Air Act — a federal law authorizing the Environmental Protection Agency to...