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

The royal couple’s swing through the city comes midway through a four-day trip marking 250 years of American independence. It will be the first trip to New York by a reigning British monarch since Queen Elizabeth II visited in 2010.

They are expected to take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the National 9/11 Memorial, where they will meet with first responders and the families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other dignitaries are also expected to attend the ceremony, which comes ahead of the 25th anniversary of the attacks.

The queen is then scheduled to visit the New York Public Library, where she’ll deliver a new “Roo” doll to add to the library’s famed collection of Winnie-the-Pooh stuffed animals, as the beloved children’s character turns 100 this year.

The five dolls currently on display -- Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore and Kanga -- were the inspiration for the characters in A.A. Milne’s children’s books. They were owned by the English author’s son, the real-life Christopher Robin, in the 1920s. The dolls were donated to the library in 1987 and are a centerpiece of the library’s collection of children’s literature. Roo, in the books, was a small brown kangaroo and son of Kanga.

Supreme Court to weigh Trump administration push to end protections for Haitian, Syrian migrants

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday over the Trump administration’s push to end legal protections for migrants fleeing war and natural disaster, one in a series of immigration cases the high court is considering against the backdrop of the president’s far-reaching immigration crackdown.

The government is appealing lower court orders that blocked the Department of Homeland Security from quickly ending temporary protected status for people from Haiti and Syria. If the justices agree with the Trump administration, authorities could potentially strip protections from up to 1.3 million people from 17 countries, exposing them to possible deportation.

The court has sided with the administration before and allowed the end of the program for people from Venezuela as lawsuits continue to play out, though the justices did not detail their reasoning.

The Justice Department argues that the Homeland Security secretary has the power to end the program known as TPS, and the way the law is written bars judges from questioning those decisions. “’No judicial review’ means no judicial review,” federal attorneys wrote in court documents.

But lawyers for about 350,000 migrants from Haiti and 6,000 from Syria say judges can consider whether authorities followed all the steps laid out in the law. They contend that in both cases, the government short-circuited the process.

Hegseth will be grilled by Congress for the first time since the Iran war began

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will face questioning from lawmakers Wednesday for the first time since the Trump administration launched the war against Iran, which Democrats have contested as a costly conflict of choice waged without congressional approval.

The hearing before the House Armed Services Committee is being held to discuss the administration's 2027 military budget proposal, which would boost defense spending to a historic $1.5 trillion. Hegseth and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, are expected to stress the need for more drones, missile defense systems and warships.

Democrats are likely to pivot to the ballooning costs of the Iran war, huge drawdown of critical U.S. munitions and bombing of a school that killed children. Some lawmakers also may question how prepared the military was to shoot down swarms of Iranian drones, some of which penetrated U.S. defenses and killed or injured American troops.

While a ceasefire is now in place, the U.S. and Israel launched the war Feb. 28 without congressional oversight. House and Senate Democrats have failed to pass multiple war power resolutions that would have required President Donald Trump to halt the conflict until Congress authorizes further action.

Republicans have said they will keep faith in Trump’s wartime leadership, for now, citing Iran’s nuclear program, the potential for talks to resume and the high stakes of withdrawal. Still, GOP lawmakers are eager for the conflict to end, and some are eyeing future votes that could become an important test for the president if the war drags on.

Asian stocks mostly gain and oil rises after the UAE says it will exit OPEC

HONG KONG (AP) — Stocks mostly advanced in Asia on Wednesday despite losses on Wall Street, while oil prices gained on uncertainties over when the war in Iran will end and after the United Arab Emirates said it would leave OPEC in a blow to the powerful oil cartel.

U.S. futures edged higher.

Markets in Japan were closed for a holiday.

Elsewhere in Asia, South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.8% to 6,690.90 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong gained 1.5% to 26,050.90. The Shanghai Composite index traded 0.7% higher at 4,107.51.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.3%, to 8,687.00.

Rare earth mining is poisoning Mekong River tributaries, threatening 'the world's kitchen'

CHIANG SAEN, Thailand (AP) — Perched on the bow of his long-tail fishing boat, 75-year-old Sukjai Yana untangled a handful of small fish from his net, disappointed by his catch and fretting over whether he can sell them.

Some days Yana earns nothing: demand for fish is falling due to worries over contamination of the Mekong River and its tributaries by toxic runoff from rare earth mines upstream that is threatening millions who rely on those waters for farms and fisheries.

Chiang Saen, a fishing hub in northern Thailand, has been Yana's family's home for decades. “I don’t know where else I’d go,” he said.

Yana is one of 70 million people in mainland Southeast Asia who depend on the nearly 5,000-kilometer (3,100-mile) Mekong River. Rising demand for rare earth materials is driving an unregulated mining boom centered in war-torn Myanmar, to the west, that is spreading to Laos, in the east.

The Mekong has long faced mounting pressures, from plastic pollution to hydropower dams hemming it upstream and sand mining devouring its banks. But experts warn that the toxic runoff from the mines could pose an existential threat.

South Korean court sentences ex-President Yoon to 7 years for charges including resisting arrest

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A South Korean appeals court on Wednesday sentenced ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol to seven years in prison for resisting arrest and bypassing a legitimate Cabinet meeting before his brief imposition of martial law in December 2024.

The conviction for obstruction of justice and other charges comes on top of a life sentence he has already received on rebellion charges stemming from his baffling authoritarian push, which triggered the most serious crisis for the country’s democracy in decades.

Judge Yoon Sung-sik of the Seoul High Court said the conservative former president sidestepped a legally mandated full Cabinet meeting before declaring martial law, falsified documents to conceal the lapse, and deployed security officials “like a private army” to resist law enforcement efforts to arrest him in the weeks following his impeachment. Former President Yoon stood quietly as the verdict was delivered and made no comment.

Yoo Jeong-hwa, one of Yoon’s lawyers, called the verdict “very disappointing” and said the legal team would appeal to the Supreme Court. Yoon has also appealed his life sentence.

A lower court in January sentenced Yoon to five years in prison but partially cleared him of abuse-of-power charges tied to the Cabinet meeting ahead of the martial law declaration, finding he was not responsible for the failure to attend of two members who were invited.

Ex-FBI Director Comey indicted again, in a probe over an online post officials call a Trump threat

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted again Tuesday, this time over a social media photo of seashells arranged on a beach that officials said constituted a threat against President Donald Trump.

The criminal case is the second in months against Comey and is part of the Trump administration Justice Department's relentless effort to prosecute political opponents of the Republican president. The seashells photo was posted nearly a year ago, but the indictment was secured at a time when acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, a Trump loyalist who previously served as his personal lawyer, aims to prove to the president that he is the right person to hold the job permanently.

The fact that the Justice Department pursued a new case months after a separate and unrelated indictment was dismissed could expose the government to claims of a vindictive prosecution and to arguments that it is going out of its way to target Comey, who as FBI director had overseen the early months of an investigation into whether Trump's 2016 campaign had coordinated with Russia to sway the outcome of that year’s election.

Comey was fired by Trump months into the president’s first term as that investigation was underway, and they have openly feuded ever since.

The prosecution arises from a May post on Instagram in which Comey shared a photo of seashells he saw on a walk in the arrangement of “86 47.” He has said he assumed that the numbers reflected a political message, not a call to violence. Comey deleted the post shortly after it was made, writing: “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence” and “I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

United Arab Emirates will leave OPEC in a blow to the oil cartel

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates said Tuesday it will leave OPEC effective May 1, stripping the oil cartel of its third-largest producer and further weakening its leverage over global oil supplies and prices.

The UAE's decision had been rumored as a possibility for some time, as it pushed back in recent years against OPEC production quotas it felt had been too low — meaning it wasn't able to sell as much oil to the world as it had wanted.

“Having invested heavily in expanding energy production capacity in recent years, the bigger picture is that the UAE has been itching to pump more oil,” Capital Economics wrote in an analysis. “The ties binding OPEC members together have loosened,” it said, particularly after Qatar withdrew from the cartel in 2019.

Regional politics are also likely at play. The UAE has had increasingly frosty relations with Saudi Arabia, OPEC's largest producer, over political and economic matters in the Mideast, even after both came under attack by fellow OPEC member Iran during the war.

The UAE’s withdrawal from OPEC won’t necessarily have any immediate effects in markets. That’s because world oil supplies are sharply constrained by the war in Iran, which has closed off the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which one-fifth of global oil supplies — including much of the UAE's — is transported. On Tuesday, Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded above $111 a barrel, or more than 50% above its prewar price.

US soldier pleads not guilty to using intel on Maduro raid to win $400,000 on Polymarket

NEW YORK (AP) — A U.S. special forces soldier pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges that he used classified information about the mission to capture former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro to win more than $400,000 on the prediction market Polymarket.

Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, entered the plea in Manhattan federal court after he was charged with the unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud and making an unlawful monetary transaction.

He was released on $250,000 bail and his travel was restricted to portions of New York, North Carolina, California and points necessary to travel between.

Prosecutors said evidence in the case will include information resulting from grand jury subpoenas, cryptocurrency exchange records, search warrants and social media accounts.

Defense attorney Zach Intrater told Judge Margaret M. Garnett he doubts there will be many disputes arising from “the actual event,” but suspects the case will rise and fall on motions he will make on behalf of his client.

Elon Musk takes stand in trial vs. Sam Altman that could reshape AI's future

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO, world's richest man and OpenAI cofounder, took the stand Tuesday in a high-stakes trial revolving around a bitter feud with his former friend Sam Altman that could reshape the future development of artificial intelligence.

His testimony at the Oakland, California, federal courthouse kicked off a legal drama that is expected to brim with intrigue and potentially embarrassing details about the two tech moguls. Musk filed the lawsuit against Altman and his top lieutenant, Greg Brockman, along with Microsoft over its investments in OpenAI, in 2024.

“Fundamentally, I think they’re going to try to make this lawsuit ... very complicated, but it’s actually very simple,” Musk said. “Which is that it's not OK to steal a charity.”

The nine-person jury was selected Monday and the trial is scheduled to take three weeks.

In the civil lawsuit, Musk accuses Altman and Brockman of double-crossing him by straying from the San Francisco company’s founding mission to be a steward of a revolutionary technology. In his opening statement, Musk's attorney, Steven Molo, quoted OpenAI’s mission statement when it was created as a nonprofit for the benefit of humanity, not constrained by the need to generate financial enrichment for anyone.