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

The dead were all adults, Margarida Castro Martins, head of Lisbon’s Civil Protection Agency, told reporters. She didn't provide their names or nationalities, saying that their families would be informed first.

Another 21 people were injured in Wednesday’s crash, she said. They included Portuguese people as well as two Germans, two Spaniards and one person each from France, Italy, Switzerland, Canada, Morocco, South Korea and Cape Verde, she said.

The range of nationalities reflected how big a draw the renowned streetcar was for tourists who are packing the Portuguese capital during the summer season.

Portugal observed a national day of mourning Thursday after the capital’s worst disaster in recent history.

300,000 more people evacuated in eastern Pakistan after a new Indian flood alert

SHER SHAH, Pakistan (AP) — Officials say nearly 300,000 people have been evacuated in the past 48 hours from flood-hit areas of Pakistan's Punjab province following the latest flood alerts by India, officials said Wednesday.

The evacuations bring the total number of people displaced since last month to 1.3 million.

Floodwaters have submerged dozens of villages in Punjab's Muzaffargarh district, after earlier inundating Narowal and Sialkot, both near the border with India.

Authorities are also struggling to divert overflowing rivers onto farmlands to protect major cities, as part of one of the largest rescue and relief operations in the history of Punjab, which straddles eastern Pakistan and northwestern India.

Thousand of rescuers using boats are taking part in the relief and rescue operations, while the military has also been deployed to transport people and animals from inundated villages, said Arfan Ali Kathia, director-general of Punjab's Provincial Disaster Management Authority.

Texas lawmakers approve letting private citizens sue abortion pill providers

Texas lawmakers on Wednesday approved letting private citizens sue abortion pill manufacturers, doctors and anyone who mails the medication, setting the state up to be the first to try to crack down on the most common abortion method.

The law would be the first of its kind in the U.S. and add another layer of abortion restrictions in Texas, which has some of the toughest in the country and already bans nearly all abortions.

The bill now goes to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, an abortion opponent who is expected to sign it into law. It would take effect in December, though it is nearly certain to spark legal challenges from abortion rights supporters.

Supporters of the proposal, which passed a final vote in the GOP-controlled Texas Senate, call it a key tool to enforce the state's ban and protect women and fetuses. Opponents see it as not only another way to rein in abortion but intimidate providers outside Texas who are complying with the laws in their states. They also say it would encourage a form of vigilantism.

Under the measure, Texas residents could sue those who manufacture, transport or provide abortion-inducing drugs to anyone in Texas for up to $100,000. Women who receive the pills for their own use would not be liable.

European leaders face tough choices as the UK and France host another meeting on Ukraine

LONDON (AP) — European countries are stuck between a rock and a hard place as a coalition of countries meets in Paris on Thursday to discuss security guarantees for a postwar Ukraine.

The war is raging unabated, with no ceasefire in sight — and the crucial question of American involvement in ensuring Ukraine’s future security remains unresolved.

For months, the so-called “coalition of the willing” has been meeting to discuss aid for Ukraine, including sketching out plans for military support in the event of a ceasefire to deter future Russian aggression.

The coalition leaders — French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K.Prime Minister Keir Starmer — have insisted that any European “reassurance” force in Ukraine needs the backing of the United States. But while U.S. President Donald Trump has hinted his country will be involved, he has moved away from calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine and refrained from implementing tough additional economic measures to punish Moscow.

Although Trump said he is “disappointed” in Russian President Vladimir Putin and issued several threats to try to cajole him into negotiating an end to hostilities, none has worked. At a meeting with Putin in Alaska in August, Trump failed to persuade the Russian leader to stop fighting and has not yet managed to broker talks between Putin and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Florida plans to become first state to eliminate all childhood vaccine mandates

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Florida plans to become the first state to eliminate vaccine mandates, a longtime cornerstone of public health policy for keeping schoolchildren and adults safe from infectious diseases.

State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who announced the decision Wednesday, cast current requirements in schools and elsewhere as “immoral” intrusions on people's rights that hamper parents' ability to make health decisions for their children.

“People have a right to make their own decisions, informed decisions,” Ladapo, who has frequently clashed with the medical establishment, said at a news conference in Valrico. “They don’t have the right to tell you what to put in your body. Take it away from them.”

Florida's move, a significant departure from decades of public policy and research that has shown vaccines to be safe and the most effective way to stop the spread of communicable diseases, especially among schoolchildren, is a notable embrace of the Trump administration's agenda led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist.

Dr. Rana Alissa, chair of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said removing vaccines puts students and school staff at greater risk.

Epstein survivors implore Congress to act as push for disclosure builds

WASHINGTON (AP) — Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse made their voices heard Wednesday on Capitol Hill, pressuring lawmakers to force the release of the sex trafficking investigation into the late financier and pushing back on President Donald Trump's effort to dismiss the issue as a “hoax.”

In a news conference on the Capitol lawn that drew hundreds of supporters and chants of “release the files,” the women shared — some publicly for the first time — how they were lured into Epstein's abuse by his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. They demanded that the Trump administration provide transparency and accountability for what they endured as teenagers.

It was a striking stand as the push for disclosure of the so-called Epstein files reaches a pivotal moment in Washington. Lawmakers are battling over how Congress should delve into the Epstein saga while the Republican president, after initially signaling support for transparency on the campaign trail, has been dismissing the matter as a “Democrat hoax.”

“No matter what you do it’s going to keep going,” Trump said Wednesday. He added, “Really, I think it’s enough."

But the survivors on Capitol Hill, as well as at least one of Trump's closest allies in Congress, disagreed. Some of the women pleaded for Trump to support their cause.

Trump asks Supreme Court to quickly take up tariffs case and reverse ruling finding them illegal

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration took the fight over tariffs to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, asking the justices to rule quickly that the president has the power to impose sweeping import taxes under federal law.

The government called on the court to reverse an appeals court ruling that found most of President Donald Trump’s tariffs are an illegal use of an emergency powers law.

It's the latest in a series of Trump administration appeals to a Supreme Court he helped shape, and one that is expected to put a centerpiece of the president's trade policy before the justices.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit left the tariffs in place for now, but the administration nevertheless called on the high court to intervene quickly in a petition filed electronically late Wednesday and provided to The Associated Press. It was expected to be formally docketed on Thursday.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the justices to take up the case and hear arguments in early November.

Trump says US strike targeting Venezuelan gang will cause cartels to think twice

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday justified the lethal military strike that his administration said was carried out a day earlier against a Venezuelan gang as a necessary effort by the United States to send an unmistakable message to Latin American cartels.

Asked why the military did not instead interdict the vessel and capture those on board, Trump said the operation would cause drug smugglers to think twice about trying to move drugs into the U.S.

“There was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people, and everybody fully understands that,” Trump said while hosting Polish President Karol Nawrocki at the White House. He added, “Obviously, they won’t be doing it again. And I think a lot of other people won’t be doing it again. When they watch that tape, they’re going to say, ‘Let’s not do this.’”

Tuesday's strike was an astonishing departure from typical U.S. drug interdiction efforts at a time when Trump has ordered a major Navy buildup in the waters near Venezuela.

Later Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that such operations “will happen again.”

Trump suggests National Guard could go into New Orleans, a blue city in a red state

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump suggested Wednesday that New Orleans could be his next target for deploying the National Guard to fight crime, potentially expanding the number of cities around the nation where he may send federal law enforcement.

Trump has already said he plans to send the National Guard into Chicago and Baltimore following his administration deploying troops and federal agents to patrol the streets of Washington, D.C., last month.

“So we’re making a determination now," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office during a meeting with Polish President Karol Nawrocki. “Do we go to Chicago? Do we go to a place like New Orleans, where we have a great governor, Jeff Landry, who wants us to come in and straighten out a very nice section of this country that’s become quite, you know, quite tough, quite bad."

Trump now frequently boasts about turning Washington into a “safe zone.” The White House reports more than 1,760 arrests citywide since the president first announced he was mobilizing federal forces on Aug. 7.

But Washington is a federal district subject to laws giving Trump power to take over the local police force for up to 30 days. The decision to use troops to attempt to quell crime in other Democratic-controlled cities around the country would represent an important escalation.

The president blamed AI and embraced doing so. Is it becoming the new 'fake news'?

Artificial intelligence, apparently, is the new “fake news."

Blaming AI is an increasingly popular strategy for politicians seeking to dodge responsibility for something embarrassing — among others. AI isn't a person, after all. It can't leak or file suit. It does make mistakes, a credibility problem that makes it hard to determine fact from fiction in the age of mis- and disinformation.

And when truth is hard to discern, the untruthful benefit, analysts say. The phenomenon is widely known as “the liar's dividend.”

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump endorsed the practice. Asked about viral footage showing someone tossing something out an upper-story White House window, the president replied, “No, that's probably AI” — after his press team had indicated to reporters that the video was real.

But Trump, known for insisting the truth is what he says it is, declared himself all in on the AI-blaming phenomenon.