With Trump in a holding pattern on Iran war, allies and critics worry he risks getting boxed in
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is facing warnings from foes and allies alike that he’s getting boxed in on the Iran war, a conflict he sold as a brief military incursion but that has since settled into a holding pattern.
It's been nearly a week since U.S. and Iranian negotiators reached a tentative agreement to extend the ceasefire in the conflict by 60 days and start a new round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program that required Trump's sign off.
But Trump has called for unspecified changes to the agreement and Iranian officials — perhaps calculating that the Republican president is reluctant to restart the bombardment after burning through key weapons systems — are showing no signs they'll give in to new demands.
A series of strikes by the U.S. and Iran this week has raised fresh concern that the ceasefire could collapse. Trump on Wednesday downplayed the significance.
“It’s a different part of the world," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "You know, I’d say in that part of the world, a ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”
House approves war powers resolution to halt military action against Iran, in a rebuke of Trump
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House for the first time Wednesday approved a war powers resolution that would halt the U.S. military action against Iran, defying President Donald Trump as a handful of Republicans joined with Democrats to end the three-month-long conflict that has reordered politics at home and abroad.
House Speaker Mike Johnson had tried to prevent an outcome that would show the mounting opposition to the war, abruptly shutting down floor action two weeks ago when the resolution was on the verge of approval. But displeasure has only grown as the conflict drags on and as Trump struggles to negotiate a plan for peace.
“Enough is enough,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who led the effort.
“It is time for the president to do the right thing," he said. “The people are tired of suffering because of his war of choice — suffering at the gas pump, suffering at the supermarkets.”
The roll call Wednesday was 215-208, but next steps are uncertain. Trump would likely reject any measure from Congress to limit his commander-in-chief authority. Still, the tally, with four Republicans joining Democrats, was a rebuke of the president's war strategy, and cheers erupted in the House chamber.
Trump acknowledges calling Netanyahu 'crazy' and says Israel is complicating peace talks with Iran
BEIRUT (AP) — President Donald Trump acknowledged criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “crazy” in a phone call that involved expletives, saying he was “a little bit perturbed” that Israel’s fighting with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon was holding back peace talks with Iran.
But even as the U.S. president conceded the tensions in an interview released Wednesday, he insisted that his relationship with Netanyahu was solid and that they connected, in part, because they are both “wartime” leaders.
“We’ve worked very well together. I like Bibi a lot. And I work very well with him,” Trump told The New York Post’s “Pod Force One.”
In an interview on the American business-news channel CNBC, Netanyahu responded that he and Trump sometimes have “tactical disagreements” but have “common goals” and “agree on the main things.”
“He respects me. I respect him. We always find a way to work out our differences,” the prime minister said.
Senate begins voting on funding immigration enforcement after Trump's settlement fund is dropped
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-led Senate is moving forward with legislation to fund immigration enforcement agencies after forcing the Trump administration to say it will drop its settlement fund for political allies and stripping a separate proposal for White House security from the bill.
The Senate voted 53-46 on Wednesday to begin debate on the roughly $70 billion bill to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. The legislation was delayed for weeks as Republican senators navigated the various obstacles to passage created by President Donald Trump and the White House, but they are now moving quickly to pass it after paring it back to its original form.
“Right now, the goal is to get the base bill across the finish line,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.
Still, Republicans will need to find enough votes to beat back multiple amendments that Democrats — and some Republicans — say they will offer to permanently ban Trump’s $1.776 billion settlement fund.
After fierce Republican pushback, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told House lawmakers at a hearing on Tuesday that “we are not moving forward with the fund, period.” But shortly after the Senate voted to move forward with the bill on Wednesday, Trump repeatedly defended the settlement in response to reporters’ questions at the White House.
A garbage crisis engulfs Havana as fuel shortages stall trash pickup
HAVANA (AP) — On a recent afternoon in Cuba, the temperature climbed and anxiety grew among the residents of a Havana street.
Their focus was an improvised dump site on the sidewalk with rotting food scraps, torn bags, cardboard and rubble. Swarms of flies and stray cats gathered around the trash whose stench wafted on the breeze from the nearby sea.
“What you’re looking at is depressing,” lamented María Odalys Ramírez, a 63-year-old who lives across the street from the capital's iconic Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital. “The trash in this area, the flies, the rats, the filth — it’s completely unsanitary.”
For months, residents of Havana — home to 2 million of Cuba’s almost 10 million residents — have lived with piles of garbage accumulating on almost every street corner. The situation deteriorated after a U.S. energy blockade triggered power outages, water shortages and a fuel crisis that brought state-run garbage trucks to a standstill.
Without garbage collection, residents have begun burning waste in the streets, raising alarm among health officials over potentially toxic smoke.
Recommended for you
Ukraine's drone strikes set a gloomy tone for Putin's economic showcase
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — A massive black cloud rising above the St. Petersburg skyline from a Ukrainian drone strike set a gloomy tone for the opening of President Vladimir Putin's annual showcase of Russia's economic achievements.
With Putin set to arrive Thursday in his hometown that is hosting the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the Ukrainian attack a day earlier that set an oil terminal ablaze was another embarrassing blow to his efforts to minimize the impact of the 4-year-old conflict and cast it as a distant event with no effect on Russian daily life.
The attack, which also targeted a naval base near Russia's second-largest city on the Gulf of Finland, underlined Ukraine’s growing capability to hit deep inside its neighbor and demonstrated that even the heavily protected city where Putin was born is increasingly vulnerable.
Scores of flights were delayed or diverted at St. Petersburg’s airport and authorities cut cellphone internet service to try to prevent drone attacks.
Putin had scaled down Russia's annual Victory Day parade on May 9, fearing Ukrainian drone strikes. Days later, a massive drone attack on Moscow’s suburbs killed three and showed the capital’s vulnerability.
AI companies are barreling toward huge Wall Street debuts. A look at the biggest players
Some of the leading artificial intelligence companies are moving toward initial public offerings this year at eye-popping valuations. From Anthropic to SpaceX to OpenAI, tech giants are looking to take their shares public to access more capital in the race to shape the technology's future.
The amount of money involved in building and maintaining artificial intelligence models, the pursuit of artificial general intelligence that can surpass humans at many tasks, and widespread AI adoption all have led to an air of excitement around the technology that has helped lift the stock market to record highs.
“These companies are now burning through cash to win the AI race, and public equity is the cheapest source available, particularly in a rising interest rate environment,” said Michael Field, chief equity analyst at Morningstar.
But amid the billions — even trillions — at stake, worries about an AI bubble are looming in the background. Some experts fear tech companies and venture capitalists are pouring too much money into a still-nascent and unproven technology.
For now, though, the market shows no signs of a slowdown. Here's a look at some of the biggest AI-focused companies.
Trump administration has separated dozens of children from their parents for a second time, AP finds
Eleven-year-old Ederson Galicia Alva had just stepped off the plane and into the Miami airport’s dim hallways when federal agents pulled his mother aside for questioning. Again.
Panic welled up. His excitement at soon being back at recess with his Florida classmates fell away. Would the government take her away again?
This was not his first trauma. In 2018, when he was just 3 years old, Ederson was taken from his mother’s arms at the U.S.-Mexico border under the first Trump administration’s family separation policy and kept apart from her in a government facility for months. They were finally reunited after lawyers intervened. Then, in June of last year, he and his mother were separated a second time, despite legal protections meant to keep them and families like theirs together.
He later joined his mother in Guatemala. After a destitute, torturous 11 months in the indigenous highlands, Ederson’s family was allowed to return to Florida last week, following a federal judge’s order that the government had acted illegally.
Now, eight years after President Donald Trump’s forcible border separations came to an official halt following global outrage, an Associated Press investigation has found that the government has re-separated dozens of children from their families, despite a landmark legal settlement meant to keep them together. Some of their parents have been locked in immigration detention facilities for months, others deported back to their home countries after being taken from their families once again. In some cases, immigration officials conducting interior arrests deported people despite discovering they were legally off limits for removal, according to emails obtained by AP.
Women are the first caregivers in this Ebola outbreak and the most at risk
BUNIA, Congo (AP) — Every day for the past week, Aline Kasiwa has fed her sick mother, helped her drink and washed her clothes, all while fearing she could catch the Ebola virus as eastern Congo is plagued by one of the fastest-spreading outbreaks of the disease on record.
“She is the only family I have left. I cannot abandon her,” Kasiwa told The Associated Press, adding that she is too afraid to take her mother to the hospital where an infection could be confirmed. “These days we hear that many people are dying there, even nurses,” she said.
With no protective equipment beyond a cheap face mask, the 28-year-old in Bunia, a city at the heart of the outbreak, symbolizes the women in eastern Congo who are almost always the first caregiver, a role that health workers say is putting them at higher risk of contracting Ebola.
“It’s the woman who gives them a bath, it’s the woman who feeds them, and it’s the woman who’s there to wash the dirty clothes and everything else," said Dr. Furaha Elisabeth, director of the Karibuni Wa Maman gynecology and obstetrics clinic in Bunia.
Bundibugyo, the type of Ebola in this outbreak, has no approved treatment or vaccine. Even health workers have said they don’t have the masks, gloves and other gear to protect themselves.
Takeaways from the AP's report on children who have been separated from their parents a second time
In 2018, when he was just 3 years old, Ederson Galicia Alva was taken from his mother’s arms at the U.S.-Mexico border under the first Trump administration’s family separation policy and kept apart from her in a government facility for months. They were finally reunited after lawyers intervened. Then, in June of last year, he and his mother were separated a second time and ultimately sent back to Guatemala, despite legal protections meant to keep them and families like theirs together.
After nearly a year in the indigenous highlands of Guatemala, Ederson’s family was finally allowed to return to Florida last week, following a federal judge’s order that the government had acted illegally.
Now, eight years since President Donald Trump’s forcible border separations triggered global outrage and came to an official halt, an Associated Press investigation has found that the government has re-separated dozens of children from their families, despite a landmark legal settlement meant to keep them together. Some of their parents have been locked in immigration detention facilities for months, and others deported back to their home countries after being taken from their families once again. In some cases, immigration officials conducting interior sweeps deported people despite discovering they were legally off limits for removal, according to emails obtained by AP.
Here are highlights from the AP’s reporting:
Trump’s second administration has vowed to deport more than 1 million people per year. Federal agents have been plucking people from their communities so swiftly that, according to the Brookings Institution, now the parents of tens of thousands of children have been detained.

(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.