AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT

The president told reporters aboard Air Force One that the U.S. would lower tariffs implemented earlier this year as punishment on China for its selling of chemicals used to make fentanyl from 20% to 10%. That brings the total combined tariff rate on China down from 57% to 47%

“I guess on the scale from 0 to 10, with ten being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12,” Trump said. “I think it was a 12.”

Trump said that he would go to China in April and Xi would come to the U.S. “some time after that.” The president said they also discussed the export of more advanced computer chips to China, saying that Nvidia would be in talks with Chinese officials.

Trump said he could sign a trade deal with China “pretty soon.”

Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba pick up the pieces after Melissa's destruction

SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba (AP) — People across the northern Caribbean were digging out from the destruction of Hurricane Melissa on Thursday as deaths from the catastrophic storm climbed.

The rumble of large machinery, whine of chainsaws and chopping of machetes echoed throughout southeast Jamaica as government workers and residents began clearing roads in a push to reach isolated communities that sustained a direct hit from one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record.

Stunned residents wandered about, some staring at their roofless homes and waterlogged belongings strewn around them.

"I don’t have a house now,” said a distressed Sylvester Guthrie, a resident of Lacovia in the southern parish of St. Elizabeth, as he held onto his bicycle, the only possession of value left after the storm.

“I have land in another location that I can build back but I am going to need help,” the sanitation worker pleaded.

Federal Reserve cuts key rate yet Powell says future reductions are not locked in

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate Wednesday for a second time this year as it seeks to shore up economic growth and hiring, even as inflation stays elevated.

But Fed Chair Jerome Powell also cautioned that further rate cuts weren’t guaranteed, citing the government shutdown’s interruption of economic reports and sharp divisions among 19 Fed officials who participate in the central bank's interest-rate deliberations.

Speaking to reporters after the Fed announced its rate decision, Powell said there were “strongly differing views about how to proceed in December” at its next meeting and a further reduction in the benchmark rate is not “a foregone conclusion — far from it.”

The rate cut — a quarter of a point — brings the Fed's key rate down to about 3.9%, from about 4.1%. The central bank had cranked its rate to roughly 5.3% in 2023 and 2024 to combat the biggest inflation spike in four decades before implementing three cuts last year. Lower rates could, over time, reduce borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards, as well as for business loans.

The move comes amid a fraught time for the central bank, with hiring sluggish and yet inflation stuck above the Fed’s 2% target. Compounding its challenges, the central bank is navigating without the economic signposts it typically relies on from the government, including monthly reports on jobs, inflation, and consumer spending, which have been suspended because of the government shutdown.

US determined to prevent the collapse of the Gaza ceasefire after overnight airstrikes

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s intense bombardment of the Gaza Strip this week marked the most serious challenge yet for a fragile, U.S.-brokered ceasefire.

Over 100 Palestinians were killed, including dozens of civilians, according to Gaza health officials. One Israeli soldier was killed in an attack that helped prompt the fierce Israeli strikes.

But by early Wednesday, the ceasefire had been restored almost as quickly as it had unraveled. President Donald Trump defended Israel’s actions but also made it clear that the U.S. expects the broader ceasefire, which began Oct. 10, to hold.

The chain of events underscored the fragility of the truce between Israel and Hamas after two years of war, but also showed how intent the U.S. is on keeping it going.

Here are some takeaways from the tense two-day standoff.

5 more arrests made in Louvre jewel heist

PARIS (AP) — Five more people have been arrested in the investigation into the theft of crown jewels from the Louvre Museum, but the treasures remain missing, the Paris prosecutor announced Thursday.

The five were detained late Wednesday night in separate police operations in Paris and surrounding areas, including the Seine-Saint-Denis region, Prosecutor Laure Beccuau told RTL radio. She did not release their identities or other details.

One is suspected of being part of the four-person team that robbed the Louvre's Apollo Gallery in broad daylight Oct. 19, the prosecutor said. Two other members of the team were arrested Sunday and given preliminary charges Wednesday of criminal conspiracy and theft committed by an organized gang. Both partially admitted their involvement, according to the prosecutor.

“Searches last night and overnight did not allow us to find the goods,” Beccuau said.

It took thieves less than eight minutes to steal the jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million), shocking the world. The robbers forced open a window, cut into cases with power tools and fled with eight pieces of the French crown jewels.

Appeals court blocks order requiring Bovino to brief judge on Chicago immigration sweeps

CHICAGO (AP) — An appeals court intervened Wednesday and suddenly blocked an order that required a senior Border Patrol official to give unprecedented daily briefings to a judge about immigration sweeps in Chicago.

The one-page suspension by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came before Greg Bovino’s first late-afternoon meeting with U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis at the courthouse in downtown Chicago.

Ellis ordered the meetings Tuesday after weeks of tense encounters and increasingly aggressive tactics by government agents working Operation Midway Blitz, which has resulted in more than 1,800 arrests and complaints of excessive force.

Bovino told Fox News that he was eager to talk to Ellis. But government lawyers were appealing her decision at the same time, calling it “extraordinarily disruptive.”

“The order significantly interferes with the quintessentially executive function of ensuring the Nation’s immigration laws are properly enforced by waylaying a senior executive official critical to that mission on a daily basis,” the Justice Department argued.

Jurors convict Illinois deputy of killing Sonya Massey but can't agree on first-degree murder charge

PEORIA, Ill. (AP) — A jury on Wednesday convicted an Illinois sheriff’s deputy of second-degree murder, a lesser charge, in the shooting death of Sonya Massey, a Black woman who called 911 to report a suspected prowler.

Sean Grayson could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison or even probation. The jury did not convict him of first-degree murder, a crime that carries a sentence of 45 years to life.

Massey's supporters were angered by the result.

“I’m fueled by rage right now," said Massey's cousin, Sontae Massey. “You get an officer that says he’s going to shoot you in the face, and then he shoots you in the face, and you only get second-degree? The justice system did exactly what it’s designed to do today. It’s not meant for us.”

Massey’s killing raised new questions about U.S. law enforcement shootings of Black people in their homes, and prompted a change in Illinois law requiring fuller transparency on the background of candidates for law enforcement jobs.

World shares, oil prices fall back following Trump's meeting with Chinese leader Xi

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — World shares mostly retreated Thursday in choppy trading after President Donald Trump’s meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

While Trump said the meeting was “amazing” and had resolved many issues, investors appeared skeptical. U.S. futures were nearly flat.

In early European trading, Germany's Dax rose 0.1% to 24,155.02. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.5% to 9,705.49. In Paris, the CAC 40 slid 0.2% to 8,183.55.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index bounced lower and then inched up less than 0.1% to 51,325.61 after the Bank of Japan kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged.

Chinese markets gave up early gains, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng shedding 0.2% to 26,282.69. The Shanghai Composite index lost 0.7% to 3,986.90.

Russia blasts Ukraine's power grid again, causing outages across the country and killing 2

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The latest in a sustained Russian campaign of massive drone and missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure brought power outages and restrictions in all the country’s regions Thursday, officials said, with the Ukrainian prime minister describing Moscow’s tactic as “systematic energy terror.”

The strikes, which were the latest in Russia’s almost daily attacks on the Ukrainian power grid as bitter winter temperatures approach, killed at least two people and injured 17, including children between 2 and 16 years of age, according to authorities.

Russian launched more than 650 drones and more than 50 missiles of various types in the attack, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Ukrainian cities use centralized public infrastructure to run water, sewage and heating systems, and blackouts stop from them working. Months of attacks have aimed to erode Ukrainian morale as well as disrupt weapons manufacturing and other war-related activity almost four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor.

“Russia continues its systematic energy terror — striking at the lives, dignity, and warmth of Ukrainians on the eve of winter. Its goal is to plunge Ukraine into darkness; ours is to keep the light on,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko said.

Protests erupt after police raid in Brazil leaves 119 dead and draws accusations of excessive force

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A massive police raid on a drug gang embedded in low-income neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro that left at least 119 people dead drew protests for excessive force Wednesday and calls for the Rio’s governor to resign.

Dozens of favelas residents gathered in front of the state’s government headquarters shouting “assassins!” and waving Brazilian flags stained with red paint, a day after Rio's deadliest raid and hours after families and residents laid dozens of dead bodies on a street in one of the targeted communities to show the magnitude of the operation.

Questions quickly arose about the death count and the state of the bodies, with reports of disfigurement and knife wounds. Brazil's Supreme Court, prosecutors and lawmakers asked Rio state Gov. Claudio Castro to provide detailed information about the operation.

“This was a massacre,” said Barbara Barbosa, a domestic worker from the Penha complex of favelas, one of the two huge communities targeted in the police operation. She said her son was killed in a prior operation in Penha.

“Do we have a death sentence? Stop killing us,” said activist Rute Sales, 56. Many residents came Penha in Rio's poor, northern zone to the imposing Guanabara Palace on motorbikes.