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

Rather than simply furlough employees, as is usually done during any lapse of funds, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said layoffs were “imminent.” The Office of Management and Budget announced it was putting on hold roughly $18 billion of infrastructure funds for New York's subway and Hudson Tunnel projects — in the hometown of the Democratic leaders of the U.S. House and Senate.

Trump has marveled over the handiwork of his budget director.

“He can trim the budget to a level that you couldn’t do any other way," the president said at the start of the week of OMB Director Russ Vought, who was also a chief architect of the Project 2025 conservative policy book.

"So they're taking a risk by having a shutdown,” Trump said during an event at the White House.

Democrats voted for a shutdown. Now they have to find a way out

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats kept their promise to reject any Republican spending bill that didn’t extend or restore health care benefits, choosing instead to force a government shutdown. Now they have to figure out how to get out of it.

Just hours after the shutdown began, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said that if the Republicans work with them, “the shutdown could go away very quickly.”

But that won’t be easy. Republican leaders — Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Speaker Mike Johnson and President Donald Trump — have said that they won’t negotiate or be “held hostage ” by Democrats demanding concessions to reopen the government. The bill Democrats voted against was a simple extension of funding for 45 days, legislation they say should be noncontroversial.

While that uncompromising Republican position may not last long — there were some early, informal talks on the Senate floor Wednesday — reaching a deal would be difficult. It’s deeply uncertain, for now, if the two sides could find common ground on health care policy or sow enough trust for the Democrats to change their position.

At the same time, an extended shutdown could be increasingly painful for Democrats. The Trump administration has threatened to lay off thousands of workers and target Democratic-leaning states. On Wednesday, the White House announced it was putting a hold on subway and tunnel projects in Schumer’s home state of New York.

Bondi and Hegseth rally federal agents and troops in Memphis as part of crime task force

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller on Wednesday rallied members of a federal law enforcement task force that has begun operating in Memphis as part of President Donald Trump's crime-fighting plan for the city.

The officials met with Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican who has supported the project, before touring a staging area for the Memphis Safe Task Force and then speaking to a group of federal, state and local law enforcement officers and Tennessee National Guard members.

Miller called the task force an “all of government, unlimited support operation” that would make the city “safer than any of you could ever possibly imagine.” He predicted that “businesses and investment are going to pour in, and Memphis will be richer than ever before.”

“We’re not here to second guess you,” Hegseth told them. “We’re here to have your back — to unleash you to do your jobs so you come home safely.”

Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, who represents Memphis in Congress, said he was disappointed to learn about the visit in the media. In a letter to Hegseth and Bondi, he urged them to be more collaborative and expressed concern about the “wartime rhetoric” coming from the Trump administration.

Rescuers turn to heavy machinery as hope fades of finding survivors of Indonesia school collapse

SIDOARJO, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian rescue authorities made the tough decision on Thursday to start using heavy machinery to move large sections of a collapsed school, with no more signs of life from beneath the rubble and nearly 60 teenage students still unaccounted for three days after the building caved in.

Indonesia's Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Cultural Affairs Pratikno told reporters on the scene in Sidoarjo that the decision had been made in consultation with the families of those still missing.

Five students were rescued Wednesday by workers who tunneled into the rubble using only hand tools. Pratikno said on Thursday work would proceed with extreme caution even though no more signs of life could be detected.

“In any case, we will be very, very careful when using the heavy machines,” said Pratikno, who only goes by one name as is common in Indonesia.

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

Police say four people injured after car ramming and stabbing outside synagogue in Manchester

LONDON (AP) — Police say four people have been injured after a car was driven at members of the public and a man was stabbed outside a synagogue in the north of Manchester.

In a series of posts on X, Greater Manchester Police said they were called to the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Crumpsall shortly after 9:30 a.m. by a member of the public. The caller said he witnessed a car being driven towards members of the public and that one man had been stabbed.

It said that minutes later shots were fired by firearms officers.

“One man has been shot, believed to be the offender,” it added.

It said that four members of the public were being treated for injuries caused by both the vehicle and stab wounds.

Israeli navy intercepts most flotilla boats and arrests activists. A single boat stops nears Gaza

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli navy forces boarded most of the vessels and detained dozens of activists aboard a flotilla attempting to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza. The organizers said one boat had managed to sail on but stopped near Gaza's coast on Thursday morning before contact with the vessel was lost.

The Global Sumud Flotilla said that 39 of their boats were intercepted — or assumed intercepted as communication with the activists was lost — by Thursday morning in an Israeli operation that began the night before.

Unlike previous sea attempts, this flotilla was the largest yet to try and break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. The activists said they believed that with the sheer number of boats, it would be more difficult for Israeli authorities to intercept them all.

The organizers remained in contact with two vessels, though one was expecting that Israeli troops would board it imminently. They also lost contact with one remaining boat whose last coordinates showed it to be only a few miles from Gaza's shores, inside territorial waters.

Supporters of the flotilla took to the streets in several major cities late Wednesday, after news of the interception broke — including Rome, Naples, Istanbul, Athens and Buenos Aires — to decry Israeli actions and the ongoing Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip. More protests were expected Thursday around the world. Italy’s largest union called for a one-day general strike on Friday.

Israel orders Palestinians to leave Gaza City, saying those who stay will be considered militants

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel's defense minister on Wednesday ordered all remaining Palestinians to leave Gaza City, saying it was their “last opportunity” and that anyone who stayed would be considered a militant supporter and face the “full force” of Israel's latest offensive.

At least 21 Palestinians were killed across the territory, according to local hospitals, as Hamas weighed a new proposal from U.S. President Donald Trump aimed at ending the war and returning the remaining captives taken in Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered it.

A senior Hamas official told The Associated Press that there are some points in the proposal that are unacceptable and must be amended, without elaborating. He said the official response will only come after consultations with other Palestinian factions.

Around 400,000 Palestinians have fled famine-stricken Gaza City since Israel launched a major offensive last month aimed at occupying it, but hundreds of thousands remain, many because they cannot afford to leave or are too weak to make the journey to tent camps in the south.

“This is the last opportunity for Gaza residents who wish to do so to move south,” Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X. “Those who remain in Gaza will be (considered) terrorists and terror supporters.”

Rescuers desperately search for survivors of earthquake in the Philippines that killed at least 72

BOGO, Philippines (AP) — Rescuers used backhoes and sniffer dogs to look for survivors in collapsed houses and other damaged buildings in the central Philippines after an earthquake killed at least 72 people and injured more than 200 others.

The death toll was expected to rise from the 6.9 magnitude quake that hit about 10 p.m. Tuesday and trapped an unspecified number of residents in the hard-hit city of Bogo and outlying rural towns in Cebu province. Sporadic rain and damaged bridges and roads have hampered the race to save lives.

On Wednesday night, rescuers in orange and yellow hard hats used spotlights, a backhoe and bare hands to sift through the rubble of concrete slabs, broken wood and twisted iron bars for hours in a collapsed building in Bogo city. No survivor was found.

“We’re still in the golden hour of our search and rescue,” Office of Civil Defense deputy administrator Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV said in a Wednesday morning news briefing in Manila, the country's capital. “There are still many reports of people who were pinned or hit by debris.”

The earthquake occurred at a dangerously shallow depth of 5 kilometers (3 miles) and was centered about 19 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of Bogo, a coastal city of about 90,000 people in Cebu province where officials reported about half of the known deaths.

Florida was a top destination for immigrants who came to the US under Biden

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — After Paola Freites was allowed into the U.S. in 2024, she and her husband settled in Florida, drawn by warm temperatures, a large Latino community and the ease of finding employment and housing.

They were among hundreds of thousands of immigrants who came to the state in recent years as immigration surged under former President Joe Biden.

No state has been more affected by the increase in immigrants than Florida, according to internal government data obtained by The Associated Press. Florida had 1,271 migrants who arrived from May 2023 to January 2025 for every 100,000 residents, followed by New York, California, Texas and Illinois.

The data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which must verify addresses of everyone who is allowed to enter the U.S. and stay to pursue an immigration case, shows Miami was the most affected metropolitan area in the U.S. with 2,191 new migrants for every 100,000 residents. Orlando ranked 10th with 1,499 new migrants for every 100,000 residents. Tampa ranked 17th, and Fort Myers was 30th.

Freites and her husband, who had fled violence in Colombia with their three children, moved to Apopka, an agricultural city near Orlando, where immigrants could find cheaper housing than in Miami as they spread throughout a community that already had large populations of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. Her sister-in-law owned a mobile home that they could rent.

How Syria's first elections since autocrat Assad's ouster are expected to unfold

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria is set to hold parliamentary elections on Sunday for the first time since the fall of the country’s longtime autocratic leader, Bashar Assad, who was unseated in a rebel offensive in December.

Under the 50-year rule of the Assad dynasty, Syria held regular elections in which all Syrian citizens could vote. But in practice, the Assad-led Baath Party always dominated the parliament, and the votes were widely regarded as sham elections.

Outside election analysts said the only truly competitive part of the process came before election day — with the internal primary system in the Baath Party, when party members jockeyed for positions on the list.

The elections to be held on Sunday, however, will not be a fully democratic process either. Rather, most of the People’s Assembly seats will be voted on by electoral colleges in each district, while one third of the seats will be directly appointed by interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa.

Despite not being a popular vote, the election results will likely be taken as a barometer of how serious the interim authorities are about inclusivity, particularly of women and minorities.