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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...

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.

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) — 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...

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...

LOS FRESNOS, Texas — Leonardo Baez and Nora Avila-Guel’s bakery in the Texas community of Los Fresnos is a daily stop for many residents to share gossip over coffee and pick up cakes and pastries for birthdays, office parties or themselves. When Homeland Security Investigations agents showed up at Abby’s Bakery in February and arrested the owners and eight employees, residents of Los Fresnos were shocked. Abby’s Bakery doesn’t employ violent criminals and Baez and Avila-Guel are not the people who border czar Tom Homan calls the “worst of the worst” and says are the priority for mass deportations. “I...

“Liberal bias” or “Democrat bias” are deeply inadequate to describe the attitude among members of the mainstream media. The 'About Us' section on the Associated Press (AP) website declares the following: "Since 1846, we have been breaking news and covering the world’s biggest stories, always committed to the highest standards of accurate, unbiased journalism. We were founded as an independent news cooperative whose members are U.S. newspapers and broadcasters, steadfast in our mission to inform the world. To this day, AP remains independent, beholden only to the facts. "From delivering the news via pony express in 1846 to working with...

WASHINGTON (AP) — As congressional lawmakers scramble to respond to President Donald Trump’s slashing of the federal government, one group is already taking a front and center role: military veterans. From layoffs at the Department of Veterans Affairs to a Pentagon purge of archives that documented diversity in the military, veterans have been acutely affected by Trump’s actions. And with the Republican president determined to continue slashing the federal government, the burden will only grow on veterans, who make up roughly 30% of the federal workforce and often tap government benefits they earned with their military service. “At a moment...

WASHINGTON (AP) — His group spent nearly $1 million on ads opposing Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s pick to lead the nation’s health agencies. He’s delivering speeches urging the president to stand with longstanding foreign allies and lobbying members of Congress while aides write letters and opinion columns. This weekend, he posted an article he penned more than a decade ago on the limits of presidential power after Trump claimed that, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” Mike Pence is emerging as one of the last Republicans in Washington willing to publicly criticize the new...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States on Wednesday, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who refused to accept defeat four years ago, sparked a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts.</p>

Donald Trump has been elected the 47th president of the United States, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who refused to accept defeat four years ago, sparked a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump “resorted to crimes” in a failed bid to cling to power after losing the 2020 election, federal prosecutors said in a newly unsealed court filing that argues that the former president is not entitled to immunity from prosecution. The filing was unsealed Wednesday. It was submitted by special counsel Jack Smith’s team following a Supreme Court opinion that conferred broad immunity on former presidents and narrowed the scope of the prosecution. This is a developing story. Please check back for more updates.

At least three news outlets were leaked confidential material from inside the Donald Trump campaign, including its report vetting JD Vance as a vice presidential candidate. So far, each has refused to reveal any details about what they received. Instead, Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post have written about a potential hack of the campaign and described what they had in broad terms. Their decisions stand in marked contrast to the 2016 presidential campaign, when a Russian hack exposed emails to and from Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. The website Wikileaks published a trove of these...

Shots rang out at a rally for former President Donald Trump on Saturday, sending the Republican presidential nominee and the crowd scrambling for cover. Trump, with blood dripping down the side of his face, was whisked away by the Secret Service. Trump’s campaign says he is “fine” after being whisked off the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, after the apparent assassination attempt. Trump was treated at a local medical facility and has left the Butler area, according to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.