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

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group to deploy to the U.S. Southern Command region to “bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States," Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said on social media.

The USS Ford, which has five destroyers in its strike group, is now deployed to the Mediterranean Sea. One of its destroyers is in the Arabian Sea and another is in the Red Sea, a person familiar with the operation told The Associated Press. As of Friday, the aircraft carrier was in port in Croatia on the Adriatic Sea.

The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations, would not say how long it would take for the strike group to arrive in the waters off South America or if all five destroyers would make the journey.

Deploying an aircraft carrier will surge major additional resources to a region that has already seen an unusually large U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean Sea and the waters off Venezuela. The latest deployment and the quickening pace of the U.S. strikes, including one Friday, raised new speculation about how far the Trump administration may go in operations it says are targeted at drug trafficking, including whether it could try to topple Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. He faces charges of narcoterrorism in the U.S.

Russian strikes on Ukraine kill at least 4 people and wound 16

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine overnight into Saturday killed at least four people and wounded 16 others, local officials said.

In the capital, Kyiv, two people were killed and nine were wounded in a ballistic missile attack in the early hours of Saturday, Timur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s city military administration, said.

A fire broke out in a non-residential building in one location, while debris from intercepted missiles fell in an open area at another site, damaging windows in nearby buildings, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service wrote on the message app Telegram.

“Explosions in the capital. The city is under ballistic attack,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on Telegram during the onslaught.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, two people were killed and seven wounded, acting regional Gov. Vladyslav Haivanenko said, adding that apartment buildings, private homes, an outbuilding, a shop and at least one vehicle were damaged in the strikes.

How Hispanics' views of Trump have changed since January, according to a new AP-NORC poll

President Donald Trump's favorability has fallen among Hispanic adults since the beginning of the year, a new AP-NORC poll shows, a potential warning sign from a key constituency that helped secure his victory in the 2024 election.

The October survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 25% of Hispanic adults have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of Trump, down from 44% in an AP-NORC poll conducted just before the Republican took office for the second time. The percentage of Hispanic adults who say the country is going in the wrong direction has also increased slightly over the past few months, from 63% in March to 73% now.

The shift could spell trouble for Republicans looking to cement support with this group in future elections. Many Hispanic voters were motivated by economic concerns in last year's election, and the new poll shows that despite Trump's promises of economic revitalization, Hispanic adults continue to feel higher financial stress than Americans overall. Hispanic voters made up 10% of the electorate in 2024, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of interviews with registered voters, and the number of eligible Hispanic voters has been growing rapidly in recent decades.

Alejandro Ochoa, 30, is a warehouse worker in Adelanto, California. He identifies as a Republican and voted for Trump last year, but he’s now unhappy with the president. He criticized some of Trump’s budget cuts, adding that the cost of groceries is too high and buying a home is still unattainable for him.

“He was kind of relying on essentially the nostalgia of, ‘Hey, remember, before COVID? Things weren’t as expensive,’” Ochoa said. “But now it’s like, OK, you’re in office. I’m still getting done dirty at the grocery store. I’m still spending an insane amount of money. I’m trying to cut corners where I can, but that bill is still insanely expensive.”

Trump ends trade talks with Canada over tariffs ad that Ontario premier now says he'll phase out

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced he’s ending “all trade negotiations” with Canada because of a television ad sponsored by one of its provinces that used the words of former President Ronald Reagan to criticize U.S. tariffs — prompting the province's leader to later pull the ad.

The post on Trump’s social media site Thursday night ratcheted up tensions with the U.S.'s northern neighbor after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he plans to double his country’s exports to countries outside the U.S. because of the threat posed by Trump’s tariffs. White House officials said Trump's reaction was a culmination of the administration's long, pent-up frustration about Canada’s strategy in trade talks.

Later Friday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose province had sponsored the ad, said it would be taken down, though it will still run this weekend.

Ford said after talking with Prime Minister Mark Carney he’s decided to pause the advertising campaign effective Monday so that trade talks can resume. Ford said they’ve achieved their goal, having reached U.S. audiences at the highest levels.

“Our intention was always to initiate a conversation about the kind of economy that Americans want to build and the impact of tariffs on workers and businesses," Ford said. “We’ve achieved our goal, having reached U.S. audiences at the highest levels.”

As Israel returns bodies, Palestinians face a grisly search through corpses for lost loved ones

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — In photos, Wahiba Shabat immediately recognized her son’s body. A mother’s heart knows, she said. But when she finally saw his decomposed corpse, she wasn't sure.

Israel had handed over her son's body naked, his hands tied behind his back with a zip tie. Scars around his ankles indicated he’d been bound there too, Shabat said. His jaw was broken, with caked blood in his mouth. She had to feel around for a scar on the back of his head to confirm it was him.

The body of Mahmoud Shabat was among the remains of 195 Palestinians released by Israel over the past 10 days. Their handover is part of an ongoing exchange of the dead, as Hamas gradually returns the remains of 28 hostages under the Gaza ceasefire deal that also brought the release of all living hostages and some 2,000 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.

Families flocked to Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, where the bodies were taken, trying to find out whether loved ones missing for much of the war are among them.

The Israeli military told The Associated Press that all bodies returned so far are those of combatants. AP couldn't verify the claim, based on examining photos of bodies and speaking to doctors, experts and families. Several relatives who identified bodies, including Shabat's, said they weren't fighters.

New York Attorney General Letitia James pleads not guilty in mortgage fraud case pushed by Trump

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — New York Attorney General Letitia James accused the Trump administration of using the justice system as a “tool of revenge” after she pleaded not guilty Friday in a federal mortgage fraud case the president pressed the Justice Department to bring.

James’ first court appearance in Virginia sets the stage for a high-stakes legal battle between the Republican administration and a longtime Democratic Trump foe who angered him with a major civil fraud case she brought against him. She's accused of lying on mortgage papers to get favorable loan terms when purchasing a modest house in Norfolk, where she has family.

James is the third Trump adversary to appear before a judge this month on federal charges, amplifying concerns that the president is using the government's law enforcement powers to seek retribution for his own legal troubles. Justice Department leaders have defended the cases and argue the Biden administration — which brought two indictments against him — was the one that weaponized the justice system.

The attorney general left the courthouse smiling to cheers from dozens of waiting supporters, who chanted, “We stand with Tish!” The indictment charging her with bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution, she declared, was about “a justice system which has been used as a tool of revenge … and a weapon against those individuals who simply did their job and who stood up for the rule of law.”

“My faith is strong, and I have this belief in the justice system and the rule of law, and I have a belief in America,” James said, adding, “There’s no fear today.”

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver 'deeply disturbed' by gambling arrests of Billups and Rozier

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, in his first public comments since the arrests of Portland coach Chauncey Billups and Miami guard Terry Rozier on gambling-related charges, said Friday night that he was stunned by the indictments that have rocked the league.

“My initial reaction was I was deeply disturbed,” Silver said on Amazon Prime Video, during the streaming service's first broadcast — Boston at New York. “There’s nothing more important to the league and its fans than the integrity of the competition. I had a pit in my stomach. It was very upsetting.”

Such was a sentiment shared by many around the league on Friday, one day after the indictments were unsealed and nearly three dozen people — most notably, Billups and Rozier — were arrested by federal officials.

Rozier was arrested because federal officials allege he conspired with associates to help them win bets based on his statistical performance. The charges are similar to what former Toronto player Jontay Porter faced before he was banned from the league by Silver in 2024.

Billups faces charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering for participating in what federal officials called Mafia-backed rigged poker games. He also matches the credentials of someone described only as Co-Conspirator 8 in an indictment detailing how some people gave bettors inside information on player health statuses.

Inspector Clouseau? The mystery man in an AP photo after the Louvre jewel heist creates a buzz

PARIS (AP) — It was shortly after the stunning heist of the crown jewels at the Louvre when Paris-based Associated Press photographer Thibault Camus caught in his frame a dapperly dressed young man walking by uniformed French police officers, their car blocking one of the museum gates.

Instinctively, he took the shot.

It wasn't a particularly great photo, with someone's shoulder obscuring part of the foreground, Camus told himself.

But it did the job — showing French police sealing off the world's most-visited museum after the brazen daylight robbery last Sunday.

Plus, Camus figured, the guy walking past the officers was unusually well dressed, in a coat, a jacket and tie and wearing a fedora, adding a touch of Paris couture to the scene.

Barger, Varsho and Kirk lead homer barrage as Blue Jays rout Dodgers 11-4 in World Series opener

TORONTO (AP) — Blue Jays fans waited 32 years to let loose cheering a World Series home run. They got to do it three times.

Addison Barger launched the first pinch-hit grand slam in Fall Classic history, Alejandro Kirk followed with a two-run homer in a nine-run sixth inning and Toronto overwhelmed the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers 11-4 in Friday night's opener.

“Just madness,” Barger said of the third-highest-scoring inning in Series annals.

Daulton Varsho, limited by injuries to 71 games during the season, started Toronto's comeback from a 2-0 deficit with a two-run drive in the fourth off two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell.

The longball barrage was fitting as the Fall Classic returned to Toronto for the first time since 1993, when Joe Carter hit the second walk-off homer to end a World Series. And in an unusual tie to that night, Varsho is named after Darren Daulton, the Philadelphia Phillies catcher Mitch Williams was throwing to when Carter connected.

Tropical Storm Melissa poised to become a hurricane and drop torrential rain on Caribbean

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Tropical Storm Melissa was expected to strengthen into a hurricane on Saturday as forecasters warned of massive rainfall and life-threatening flooding and landslides in the northern Caribbean, with an astounding 35 inches (89 centimeters) of rain anticipated in southwest Haiti.

The erratic and slow-moving storm has killed at least three people in Haiti and a fourth person in the Dominican Republic, where another person remains missing.

Up to 25 inches (64 centimeters) of rain was forecast for Jamaica and the southern regions of Haiti and the Dominican Republic through Monday, with up to 35 inches (89 centimeters) of rain possible across Haiti’s Tiburon Peninsula, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

“If those rains were to occur, you’re talking about catastrophic flooding potential,” said Jamie Rhome, the center’s deputy director.

Melissa was located about 180 miles (290 kilometers) southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, and about 245 miles (390 kilometers) southwest of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. It had maximum sustained winds of 65 mph (100 kph) and was moving northwest at 3 mph (6 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.