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

Greater Manchester Police said local residents Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66, died in the attack on the Heaton Park Congregation Synagogue in the Manchester suburb of Crumpsall. Three other people are hospitalized in serious condition.

Police shot and killed a suspect seven minutes after he rammed a car into pedestrians outside the synagogue on Thursday morning and then attacked them with a knife. He wore what appeared to be an explosives belt, which was found to be fake.

The assault took place as people gathered at the Orthodox synagogue on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement and the most solemn day in the Jewish calendar.

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, the head of Orthodox Judaism in Britain, said the attack was the result of “an unrelenting wave of Jew hatred” on the streets and online.

Trump no longer distancing himself from Project 2025 as he uses shutdown to further pursue its goals

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump is openly embracing the conservative blueprint he desperately tried to distance himself from during the 2024 campaign, as one of its architects works to use the government shutdown to accelerate his goals of slashing the size of the federal workforce and punishing Democratic states.

In a post on his Truth Social site Thursday morning, Trump announced he would be meeting with his budget chief, “Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”

The comments represented a dramatic about-face for Trump, who spent much of last year denouncing Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation's massive proposed overhaul of the federal government, which was drafted by many of his longtime allies and current and former administration officials.

Both of Trump's Democratic rivals, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, made the far-right wish list a centerpiece of their campaigns, and a giant replica of the book featured prominently onstage at the Democratic National Convention.

“Donald Trump and his stooges lied through their teeth about Project 2025, and now he’s running the country straight into it,” said Ammar Moussa, a former spokesperson for both campaigns. “There’s no comfort in being right — just anger that we’re stuck with the consequences of his lies.”

Trump says US is in 'armed conflict' with drug cartels after ordering strikes in the Caribbean

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and says the United States is now in an "armed conflict” with them, according to a Trump administration memo obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday, following recent U.S. strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The memo appears to represent an extraordinary assertion of presidential war powers, with Trump effectively declaring that trafficking of drugs into the United States amounts to armed conflict requiring the use of military force — a new rationale for past and future actions.

“The President determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations,” the memo says. Trump directed the Pentagon to “conduct operations against them pursuant to the law of armed conflict.”

“The United States has now reached a critical point where we must use force in self-defense and defense of others against the ongoing attacks by these designated terrorist organizations,” the memo says.

Besides signaling a potential new moment in Trump's stated “America First” agenda that favors non-intervention overseas, the declaration raises stark questions about how far the White House intends to use its war powers and if Congress will exert its authority to approve — or ban — such military actions.

Massive fire erupts at Chevron refinery just outside of Los Angeles

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (AP) — A fire broke out at a Chevron oil refinery just outside Los Angeles on Thursday night, sending towering flames into the air that were visible for miles.

Officials in El Segundo, California, urged people to stay indoors. By early Friday, the fire was contained and there was no threat to public safety, the city said in a statement. No evacuations had been ordered.

“There is still an active fire and road closures remain in place,” it said.

There were no injuries at the Chevron El Segundo Refinery and all personnel were accounted for, the company said in a statement late Thursday, adding that a monitoring system indicated the fire did not move beyond the facility’s fence line. The statement did not say what caused the fire.

The El Segundo police and fire departments did not immediately comment on the fire, which appeared to have erupted suddenly.

Trump uses government shutdown to dole out firings and political punishment

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has seized on the government shutdown as an opportunity to reshape the federal workforce and punish detractors, saying he planned to meet with budget director Russ Vought to talk through “temporary or permanent” spending cuts that could set up a lose-lose dynamic for Democratic lawmakers.

Trump announced the meeting on social media Thursday morning, saying he and Vought would determine "which of the many Democrat Agencies” would be cut — continuing their efforts to slash federal spending by threatening mass firings of workers and suggesting “irreversible” cuts to Democratic priorities. The White House declined to comment on the timing or details of the meeting, despite the importance placed on it by the president.

“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” Trump wrote on his social media account. “They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Trump has been very direct about his intentions in saying that he believes the Democrats would get the blame if he chooses to fire people or cut spending as part of the shutdown.

“There could be firings and that’s their fault," the president said in an interview with One America News that was released Thursday. "I mean, we could cut projects that they wanted, favorite projects, and they’d be permanently cut.”

The blame game is on at federal agencies, where political messages fault Democrats for the shutdown

NEW YORK (AP) — Army veteran Samuel Port couldn’t believe what he was reading in his latest weekly newsletter emailed from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

It blamed Senate Democrats for the federal shutdown, saying they were blocking a stopgap bill to fund the government “due to unrelated policy demands.” It then listed various disruptions to veterans’ resources.

In Port’s view, the finger-pointing was inappropriate from a federal agency and lacked the context that Republicans, too, could have taken steps to keep the government funded. He said it wore away any trust he had left in the VA to offer services without a political agenda.

“This blatant propaganda being spat out was astonishing,” said Port, a Virginia-based volunteer for the progressive advocacy organization Common Defense. “Then the astonishment turned into just anger that we’re being politicized like this.”

Port is among a growing number of Americans whose routine interactions with the federal government this week have been met with partisan messaging. As a Senate deadlock keeps the federal government unfunded, with no end in sight, some traditionally apolitical federal agencies are using their official channels to spread a coordinated political message: It’s the Democrats’ fault.

Indonesian crews pull 3 bodies from rubble of collapsed school with more than 50 boys still missing

SIDOARJO, Indonesia (AP) — The bodies of three boys were pulled early Friday from beneath the rubble of a school that collapsed in Indonesia and with more than 50 students still unaccounted for the death toll was expected to rise, authorities said.

Rescue crews had been working by hand since the collapse of the school Monday as they searched for survivors, but with no more signs of life detected by Thursday they turned to heavy excavators equipped with jackhammers to help them progress more rapidly.

The structure fell on top of hundreds of people in a prayer hall at the century-old al Khoziny Islamic boarding school in Sidoarjo on the eastern side of Indonesia’s Java island.

The students were mostly boys in grades seven to 12, between the ages of 12 and 19. Female students were praying in another part of the building and managed to escape, survivors said.

Eight students have been confirmed dead and about 105 injured, many with head injuries and broken bones, and 55 remain unaccounted for.

Sean 'Diddy' Combs' is set to be sentenced and faces the possibility of years in prison

NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs faces sentencing Friday in a sordid criminal case that could keep him locked up for years.

The hip-hop mogul was convicted in July of flying people around the country for sexual encounters, including his girlfriends and male sex workers, in violation of the federal Mann Act.

A jury acquitted Combs, 55, of more serious racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges that could have put him away for life.

Prosecutors say he should spend more than 11 years in prison for his conviction on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. Combs' lawyers want him freed now, saying the long sentence sought by prosecutors is “wildly out of proportion” to the crime.

U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, who will decide the sentence, has signaled that Combs is unlikely to be freed soon. He twice rejected bail for the rapper, who has been jailed at a federal detention center in Brooklyn since his arrest a year ago.

Sarah Mullally named the first female Archbishop of Canterbury in history of Church of England

LONDON (AP) — Sarah Mullally, the bishop of London, was announced Friday as Archbishop of Canterbury, the first time a woman has been chosen as the spiritual leader of the Church of England.

Mullally, 63, a former chief nursing officer for England, will face serious challenges including divisions over the treatment of women and LGBTQ people. She will also have to confront concerns that church leaders haven’t done enough to stamp out the sexual abuse scandals that have dogged the church for more than a decade.

Naming a woman to the position is a major milestone for a church that ordained its first female priests in 1994 and its first female bishop in 2015. Mullally follows 105 men who have led Anglicans worldwide.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed the appointment of Mullally to the role and wished her success.

“The Church of England is of profound importance to this country," Starmer said. "Its churches, cathedrals, schools, and charities are part of the fabric of our communities. The Archbishop of Canterbury will play a key role in our national life.'

Munich Airport temporarily shut after drone sightings, another mysterious overflight in EU airspace

MUNICH (AP) — Munich Airport was temporarily shut down overnight after several drone sightings in the area, the latest mysterious drone overflights in the airspace of European Union member countries, officials said.

Germany's air traffic control restricted flights at the airport shortly after 10 p.m. on Thursday and then halted them altogether, airport operators said in a statement. Seventeen flights were unable to take off, affecting almost 3,000 passengers, while 15 arriving flights were diverted to three other airports in Germany and one in Vienna, Austria.

Flights in and out of the airport resumed at 5 a.m. (0300 GMT), said Stefan Bayer, a spokesman for Germany's federal police at Munich airport. Authorities were not immediately able to provide any information about who was responsible for the overflights.

A statement from the airport early Friday said there had been “several drone sightings,” without elaborating. Bayer said it wasn't immediately clear how many drones might have been involved. He said police, airline employees and “regular people around the airport” were among witnesses who reported the drone sightings.

After the closure of the runways, federal police deployed helicopters and other means to try to track down the drones, but no signs of them could be found, Bayer said.