AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EDT

Trump announced his decision in a social media post saying he wanted to quickly stop the “Chaos at the Airports.”

With pressure mounting, the White House and senators, who have been engaged in on-again, off-again talks to resolve the stalemate over Department of Homeland Security funding, appeared to be narrowing in on a endgame in the final hours before TSA workers miss another paycheck Friday.

Trump’s order will pay TSA agents using money from his 2025 tax bill, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss it publicly. They compared the move to actions Trump took during a past shutdown to pay troops. The rationale is that Democrats have created an emergency by declining to approve funding, the official said.

The White House had floated the extraordinary move of invoking a national emergency to pay the TSA agents, a politically and legally fraught approach.

Iran and the US harden their positions over talks to end the nearly month-old war

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran and the United States appeared at an impasse Thursday, hardening their positions over ceasefire talks and setting the stage for more potential escalation in the Middle East war as thousands more U.S. troops neared the region.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump extended his deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz to April 6, and Tehran tightened its grip on the crucial strait while Israel poured more troops into southern Lebanon to fight the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

Sirens over Israel warned of barrages of incoming Iranian missiles, and Gulf nations worked to intercept fire. Heavy strikes were reported in Iran’s capital and other cities.

In a war that appears defined by who can take the most pain, the U.S. has offered shifting objectives, including ensuring Iran’s missile and nuclear programs are no longer a threat and ending Tehran’s support for armed groups in the region. Washington at one point also pushed for the overthrow of Iran’s theocracy.

While the U.S.-Israeli campaign has hit Iran’s military and government hard, killing top leaders and striking scores of targets, Iran continues to fire missiles, and there is no sign of an uprising against the government.

Wall Street falls to its worst drop since the Iran war as the Nasdaq sinks 10% below its record

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks fell sharply Thursday, and oil prices rose as doubt took over again from hope on Wall Street about a possible end to the war with Iran.

The S&P 500 slumped 1.7% for its worst day since January and is back on track for a fifth straight losing week. That stretches back to before the Iran war began, and it would be the longest such losing streak in nearly four years.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 469 points, or 1%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 2.4% to fall more than 10% below its all-time high set early this year. That's a steep enough drop that professional investors have a name for it: a “correction.”

Stock markets likewise tumbled across much of Asia and Europe. They’re the latest flip - flops for financial markets in a week that began with big hopes after President Donald Trump said productive talks had taken place about ending the war. But Iran denied direct talks were underway and then dismissed a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire that was delivered via Pakistan.

On Thursday, the fighting continued, and thousands more U.S. troops neared the region. Iran, meanwhile, tightened its grip on the crucial Strait of Hormuz. It may be creating something like a “toll booth” for tankers to get past the narrow waterway, which typically sees a fifth of the world’s oil exit the Persian Gulf through it to customers worldwide.

Judge weighs whether Venezuela can pay Maduro's legal costs in US drug trafficking case

NEW YORK (AP) — A U.S. judge pressed the Trump administration Thursday about its basis for barring Venezuela’s government from paying former President Nicolás Maduro's legal fees in the drug trafficking case that has put him behind bars in New York.

As Maduro and Cilia Flores, his wife and co-defendant, looked on in beige jail uniforms, his lawyers argued that the U.S. is violating the deposed leader’s constitutional rights by blocking Venezuelan government money from being used for the couple's legal costs. The U.S. government hasn't let the funds flow because of sanctions against the South American country.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein questioned why the prosecution's argument still stands, now that U.S. and Venezuelan relations have warmed. Since Maduro's capture by U.S. military forces in January, Venezuela and the U.S. have reestablished diplomatic relations, Washington has eased economic sanctions on Venezuela’s crucial oil industry, and the U.S. has dispatched a chargé d’affaires to Caracas.

“We have changed the situation in Venezuela,” Hellerstein observed, suggesting that the argument for continuing to block the defense funds has changed with it: “The current paramount goal and need and constitutional right is the right to defense.”

He didn't issue a ruling, however, nor say when he will.

LaGuardia Airport runway reopens, days after crash on tarmac killed 2 Canadian pilots

NEW YORK (AP) — The runway where two pilots were killed in a collision between a jet and a fire truck reopened Thursday morning at New York's LaGuardia Airport, which had been operating at limited capacity all week as investigators examined the wreckage and work crews cleaned up debris.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said the tarmac resumed operations at around 10 a.m. after the runway and its associated infrastructure were “repaired, inspected, and confirmed” to meet Federal Aviation Administration regulations for safe operation.

The agency, which oversees the region’s airports, said reopening the second of two runways at LaGuardia, one of the busiest airports in the nation, will help “restore full operational capacity,” though it advised travelers to still check with their airline for flight status.

LaGuardia continues to register the most delays and cancellations among airports in the country with more than 300 canceled in the last 24 hours, according to Flight Aware, a flight tracking website.

The bodies of the two Air Canada pilots, meanwhile, were being repatriated to Canada.

FACT FOCUS: Only some driver's licenses usable for voter registration under the SAVE America Act

As the Senate debates the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE America Act, misleading claims about the bill's impact on voter registration are spreading on social media, with elected officials on both sides of the aisle putting their own spin on it.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois, wrote in an X post: “Under the SAVE Act, you cannot use your driver’s license to register to vote. Republicans want you to buy a passport instead. If you can afford one. This is a modern-day poll tax.” Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, replied in his own X post, which included Duckworth's, “this is a lie” and cited a section of the legislation that requires states to establish their own processes for voter registration applicants who cannot provide the required proof of U.S. citizenship.

But the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Here's a closer look at the facts.

CLAIM: People would not be allowed to use their driver's license when registering to vote under the SAVE America Act.

California renames César Chavez Day following sexual abuse allegations

SACRAMENTO, Calif (AP) — California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Thursday to rename César Chavez Day as Farmworkers Day in an effort to reconcile the Latino labor icon’s legacy with explosive sexual abuse allegations before the state holiday on March 31.

The state Senate approved the legislation earlier in the day with bipartisan support.

The change comes after allegations became public last week that Chavez had sexually abused girls and women during his days building a major farmworker labor rights movement in the 1960s in California’s agricultural heartland. Among those who accused him was Dolores Huerta, who co-led the movement that eventually became the United Farm Workers.

The state’s effort to rename the holiday is part of a wave of other moves to alter memorials honoring the man who, in the 1960s and 1970s, helped secure better wages and working conditions for farmworkers and had been admired by many Democratic leaders. The swift and sweeping effort to erase Chavez’s name from public life was previously unthinkable, as his status had only grown more iconic since his death in 1993.

Republican Sen. Suzette Valladares said Thursday that her family built a life in California by working the fields and that the movement brought together workers from different backgrounds.

Brother and sister are charged after an explosive device was found outside a Florida Air Force base

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A man who fled to China after leaving an explosive device outside MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa has been indicted along with his sister in Florida on federal charges, and their mother has been detained pending deportation for overstaying her visa, a federal prosecutor said Thursday.

Alen Zheng, 20, and Ann Mary Zheng, 27, were charged Wednesday in separate federal indictments. The sister was arrested upon her return from China, where she had flown with her brother after the threat. Both have U.S. citizenship, U.S. Attorney Gregory Kehoe said during a news conference.

The device didn’t detonate, but “could have potentially been very deadly,” Kehoe said.

Alen Zheng faces 40 years in prison if convicted of attempting to damage government property and unlawfully making and possessing the explosive device. Ann Mary Zheng faces 30 years if found guilty of witness tampering and being an accessory after the fact to the crime, by allegedly selling the car he used to drop off the package, Kehoe said.

A federal public defender declined to comment on the charges against the siblings.

Dash Crofts of Seals & Crofts, known for hits 'Summer Breeze' and 'Diamond Girl,' dies at 87

NEW YORK (AP) — Singer-songwriter Darrell “Dash” Crofts, who teamed with childhood friend Jim Seals for such 1970s soft-rock hits as “Summer Breeze,” “Diamond Girl” and “Get Closer,” has died. He was 87.

Crofts died Wednesday of heart failure at the Heart Hospital of Austin in Austin, Texas, said his daughter, Lua Crofts Faragher. She said her father had been suffering heart issues for several years and had been hospitalized for about a month.

Seals and Crofts were native Texans who had known each other since high school and played together in various groups before becoming a duo, Seals & Crofts, in the late 1960s. Blending pop, country, folk and jazz, they were part of a wave of million-selling soft-rock (or “easy listening”) bands that included America, Bread and Loggins and Messina.

“Summer Breeze,” “Diamond Girl” and “Get Closer” all reached the Top 10, while their other popular singles included “I’ll Play for You,” “Hummingbird” and “We May Never Pass This Way (Again).” The wide-eyed sentiments of the latter made it a favorite for high school yearbooks:

“Life / So they say / Is but a game and they’d let it slip away / Love / Like the autumn sun / Should be dyin’ / But it’s only just begun.”

Transgender women athletes banned from female Olympic events by new IOC policy

GENEVA (AP) — Transgender women athletes are now excluded from women's events at the Olympics after the IOC agreed to a new eligibility policy on Thursday which aligns with U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order on sports ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

“Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females,” the International Olympic Committee said, to be determined by a mandatory gene test once in an athlete's career.

It is unclear how many, if any, transgender women are competing at an Olympic level. No woman who transitioned from being born male competed at the 2024 Paris Summer Games, though weightlifter Laurel Hubbard did at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 without winning a medal.

The eligibility policy that will apply from the L.A. Olympics in July 2028 “protects fairness, safety and integrity in the female category,” the IOC said.

“It is not retroactive and does not apply to any grassroots or recreational sports programs,” said the IOC, whose Olympic Charter states that access to play sport is a human right.