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

The stark contrast in tone underscored just how far apart the leaders remain on thorny issues including the war in Iran, trade disputes and Washington’s relationship with Taiwan — and suggested that Trump and Xi’s highly anticipated meetings are likely to be longer on pageantry and symbolism than major breakthroughs.

In remarks before their meeting at the Great Hall of the People moved behind closed doors, Trump was full of platitudes, saying of Xi, “You’re a great leader. Sometimes people don’t like me saying it, but I say it anyway, because it’s true.”

“It’s an honor to be with you. It’s an honor to be your friend,” Trump said before promising that “the relationship between China and the USA is going to be better than ever before.”

Xi was darker, expressing hope that the U.S. and China can avoid conflict while saying that history, and the world were asking “whether the two countries can transcend the ‘Thucydides Trap’ and forge a new model for relations between major powers.”

Netanyahu's secret visit to UAE during the Iran war leads to a breakthrough, his office says

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secretly visited the United Arab Emirates during the Israeli-US war with Iran, further strengthening ties with a Gulf nation that normalized relations with Israel in 2020, his office said Wednesday.

Netanyahu met with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in a gathering that “resulted in a historic breakthrough in relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates,” according to the statement.

The announcement came just a day after the U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee revealed that Israel had sent Iron Dome air-defense weapons and personnel to operate them to the UAE. The publicly acknowledged deployment of Israel’s military to the Emirates underlined the growing relationship between the two countries.

The UAE, which has not commented on the reported visit by the Israeli leader, has faced Iranian missile and drone fire even after the ceasefire was reached last month. It has been trying to signal to nervous investors that it remains open for business and safe.

Last week, the United Arab Emirates state news agency WAM reported that Netanyahu was among the leaders who called the Emirati president to condemn Iranian attacks and express their solidarity with the Gulf federation.

Prosecutors to retry Alex Murdaugh in deaths of wife and son after high court overturned convictions

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Alex Murdaugh’s murder convictions and life sentence for the deaths of his wife and son were overturned Wednesday by the South Carolina Supreme Court because the court clerk at his trial suggested he was guilty.

But the disgraced lawyer won’t be leaving prison anytime soon.

Prosecutors say they plan to retry Murdaugh, which likely means there will be another lengthy trial for the case that because of the combination of money, power, Southern accents and treachery has become a true crime sensation with several streaming miniseries, best selling books and dozens of true crime podcasts.

Murdaugh, 57, will remain in prison. He pleaded guilty to stealing around $12 million from his clients and currently is serving a 40-year federal sentence at the same time as a 27-year state sentence for his financial crimes.

Prosecutors haven't closed the door on appealing the ruling, but said Wednesday they are concentrating on aggressively seek to try Murdaugh again on the murder charges preferably sometime in 2026. State Attorney General Alan Wilson saying he respected the court's decision but no one is above the law.

Drug counselor who delivered 'Friends' star Matthew Perry ketamine that killed him gets 2 years

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A licensed drug addiction counselor who delivered Matthew Perry the doses of ketamine that killed him, and later became a key informant in the investigation, was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison.

At a federal court in Los Angeles, Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett handed down the sentence to 56-year-old Erik Fleming for his role in the death of the “Friends” star.

“It’s truly a nightmare I can’t wake up from,” Fleming said in a deep, somber voice from the podium before his sentencing. “I’m haunted by the mistakes I made.”

The judge ordered Fleming, who has been free on bond, to turn himself in to serve his term in 45 days. He was also sentenced to three years of probation.

Fleming was the fourth defendant sentenced of the five who have pleaded guilty in prosecutions over the actor’s 2023 death in the Jacuzzi at his Los Angeles home. Fleming connected Perry to Jasveen Sangha, the convicted drug who prosecutors called “The Ketamine Queen.” He delivered drugs from her house to Perry's, and marked them up to make a profit.

Kouri Richins, author of a children’s book on grief, gets life sentence for killing her husband

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — A Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband will serve a life sentence without the possibility of parole for his murder, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Kouri Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing her husband Eric Richins’ cocktail with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich.

Judge Richard Mrazik said Richins is “simply too dangerous to ever be free” when handing down the sentence on the day that her husband would have turned 44.

Her attorneys said they will appeal the conviction and sentence. Richins has been adamant in maintaining she is innocent, saying Wednesday that the verdict was “an absolute lie.”

Richins stood at the podium in a lime green jail uniform as she asked her sons, who were not present in court, “Please just don’t give up on me.” She encouraged them to always “be like your dad.”

Senate confirms Trump pick Warsh as chairman of the Federal Reserve, following Powell

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, bringing new leadership to the world's most powerful central bank at a fraught moment for the global economy.

Warsh, 56, a former top Fed official, was confirmed Wednesday in a largely party-line 54-45 vote and will replace Jerome Powell as chair at an unusually difficult time for the independent agency.

Inflation has topped the Fed’s 2% target for five years and is now rising faster because of spiking gas prices. The Fed’s interest rate-setting committee is divided and saw the most dissenting votes in more than three decades last month. And Powell, after years of personal attacks from Trump and an unprecedented Justice Department investigation, plans to remain on the Fed’s board even after his term as chair ends, potentially creating a competing power center.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a floor speech that it's critical that a Fed chair “understand not only the macro” but also “appreciate the microeconomy: and that’s the hardworking Americans, their jobs and their livelihoods.”

“Kevin Warsh is just such a person,” Thune said.

Doctor on ship who helped care for passengers with hantavirus leaves medical isolation unit

An oncologist traveling on the cruise ship at the center of a hantavirus outbreak has been cleared to leave a special biocontainment unit in Nebraska, where he was the lone American placed in isolation after he helped care for fellow passengers who became sick on board.

Dr. Stephen Kornfeld of Bend, Oregon, was among more than 120 passengers and crew evacuated from the ship and flown to different countries to enter quarantine. Kornfeld was brought to the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha with 15 other Americans, but he was the only one taken to an isolated biocontainment unit after a nasal swab he took on the ship produced inconclusive results about whether he had the virus.

On Wednesday, the hospital announced that Kornfeld will now join the 15 other Americans who were taken for monitoring at the National Quarantine Unit, instead of the biocontainment unit, according to hospital spokesperson Kayla Thomas.

Kornfeld appeared on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront” on a video call from his hospital room Tuesday, saying, “I feel wonderful, 100%."

He said there was a period on the ship when he came down with flu-like symptoms including night sweats, chills and fatigue but he said he has no symptoms now.

Officials say $1.3 billion in Medicaid money to California will be deferred over suspicions of fraud

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday announced new steps in the Trump administration's initiative to root out fraud in federal health programs, including a $1.3 billion deferral in Medicaid funding to California.

“How long are people going to pay into programs if they know that that money doesn’t go to a low-income kid who needs healthcare, but that money goes into a fraudster getting rich?” Vance said during an event at the White House, adding that taxpayers and program beneficiaries are victimized by such fraud.

The Republican administration also is imposing a six-month freeze on some new Medicare enrollments and warning states to investigate Medicaid fraud or risk losing funding, officials said.

The moves are part of Vance’s anti-fraud task force, which has been taking more aggressive steps to investigate states before the November elections. The panel set up by President Donald Trump seeks to crack down on potential misuse of public money.

Vance, a potential 2028 White House hopeful, has used the high-profile assignment from Trump to remind Americans struggling with high costs that he is trying to claw back taxpayer dollars. Vance has promoted the task force’s work during campaign stops for Republican candidates and is expected to focus on the effort Thursday in Maine, which has closely watched primary races scheduled for June 9.

Survivors of plane crash off Florida were on a life raft for hours with no idea if help was coming

For five hours, the 11 survivors of a plane crash off the coast of Florida floated on a life raft, with no means of calling for help and no idea if anyone was coming to save them. As a thunderstorm approached, they gathered under a tarp for whatever protection it might offer.

Then, search and rescue crews from the U.S. military appeared overhead, members of those crews recounted during a news conference Wednesday.

“You could tell just by looking at them that they were in distress — physically, mentally and emotionally,” said Air Force Capt. Rory Whipple, a combat rescue specialist who jumped into the water and swam to the survivors. “You have to imagine the emotional injuries that they sustained out there, not knowing if someone was going to rescue them.”

The plane, a Beechcraft 300 King Air turboprop, was on its way from Marsh Harbour, on the Bahamian island of Great Abaco, to Grand Bahama International Airport in Freeport when it suffered engine failure Tuesday, authorities said. The pilot ditched the plane in the water about 50 miles (80 km) off Vero Beach, Florida, and managed to get its 10 passengers, three with minor injuries, onto a yellow life raft.

Air Force Reserve Maj. Elizabeth Piowaty credited those efforts, saying the pilot would have been concerned about ocean swells and slowing the plane as much as safely possible before impact.

Foreign ticket holders from World Cup qualifying countries won't have to pay bonds to enter US

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is suspending a requirement that foreign visitors from countries that have qualified for the World Cup and have bought tickets for the soccer tournament pay as much as $15,000 in bonds to enter the United States, the State Department said Wednesday.

The department imposed the bond requirement last year for countries that it said had high rates of people overstaying their visas and other security issues as part of the Republican administration’s broader crackdown on immigration.

Travelers to the United States from 50 countries are required to pay the new bond, and five of those countries have qualified for the World Cup — Algeria, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Tunisia.

Citizens from those five countries who have purchased tickets from FIFA are now exempt from the visa bond requirement. World Cup team players, coaches and some staff already had been exempt from the bond requirement as part of the administration’s orders to prioritize the processing of visas for the tournament.

“The United States is excited to organize the biggest and best FIFA World Cup in history," Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Mora Namdar said. “We are waiving visa bonds for qualified fans who bought World Cup tickets" and opted in to the FIFA Pass system that allows expedited visa appointments as of April 15.