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

“We received your message, and we understand. We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her,” she said in a video posted on social media, flanked by her siblings. “This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.”

The “Today” show host was referencing a message that was sent to the Tucson-based television station KOLD on Friday afternoon, according to Kevin Smith, a spokesperson for the FBI office in Phoenix.

KOLD said it received an email related to the Guthrie case on social media that day but declined to share specific details about its contents as the FBI conducted its review.

The station was one of multiple press outlets that received alleged ransom letters during the week. At least one letter made monetary demands and established Thursday evening and the following Monday evening as deadlines.

Washington Post publisher Will Lewis says he's stepping down, days after big layoffs at the paper

Washington Post publisher Will Lewis said Saturday that he’s stepping down, ending a troubled tenure three days after the newspaper said that it was laying off one-third of its staff.

Lewis announced his departure in a two-paragraph email to the newspaper's staff, saying that after two years of transformation, “now is the right time for me to step aside.” The Post's chief financial officer, Jeff D'Onofrio, was appointed temporary publisher.

Neither Lewis nor the newspaper's billionaire owner Jeff Bezos participated in the meeting with staff members announcing the layoffs on Wednesday. While anticipated, the cutbacks were deeper than expected, resulting in the shutdown of the Post's renowned sports section, the elimination of its photography staff and sharp reductions in personnel responsible for coverage of metropolitan Washington and overseas.

They came on top of widespread talent defections in recent years at the newspaper, which lost tens of thousands of subscribers following Bezos' order late in the 2024 presidential campaign pulling back from a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, and a subsequent reorienting of its opinion section in a more conservative direction.

Martin Baron, the Post’s first editor under Bezos, condemned his former boss this week for attempting to curry favor with President Donald Trump and called what has happened at the newspaper “a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.”

Trump turns to US military leaders for diplomatic efforts on Iran and Ukraine

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has taken the unusual step of tapping military leaders for high-level diplomacy, sending the top U.S. commander in the Middle East to talks over Iran’s nuclear program and positioning the Army secretary as a key negotiator on ending the Russia-Ukraine war.

Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, for the first time joined indirect U.S.-Iran talks Friday in Oman, appearing in his dress uniform as a reminder of the American buildup of military might in the region. As Army Secretary Dan Driscoll reprised his role at Russia-Ukraine talks this week, he worked to keep the conversation going with Ukrainian officials in the downtime between sessions, according to a person familiar with the negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks.

With special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner balancing both sets of thorny negotiations, the choice to bring in military leaders — whether for their expertise, connections or to signal potential tougher options — reflects how the Republican administration has upended traditional U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy.

Elisa Ewers, who served in national security positions in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, said placing active-duty military leaders like Cooper in diplomatic roles shows how the Trump administration has devalued skilled diplomats and the tools of diplomacy in favor of an overreliance on the military to try to solve foreign policy challenges.

“It often takes an enormous amount of time, investment and hard work to get to the point where you can say diplomacy has succeeded,” said Ewers, now a Middle East scholar at the Center for a New American Security, quoting the idiom that "not every nail needs a hammer."

Republicans rarely criticize Trump in his second term. A racist post briefly changed that

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump received rare blowback from Republican lawmakers over a video posted to social media that included a racist image of former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, depicted as primates.

Since Trump’s return to the White House, Republican lawmakers have treaded carefully when disagreeing with the president, often communicating their concerns in private for fear of suffering his wrath.

But the swift calls to remove the post, which also echoed false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, represented a rare moment of bipartisan backlash to Trump's actions from lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Multiple GOP members of the Senate and House joined their Democratic colleagues in voicing disgust and criticism at the post and urged the president to remove it.

Trump declined to apologize, saying he did not see the racist portion of the video when he passed it on to staff.

US gave Ukraine and Russia a June deadline to reach agreement to end war, Zelenskyy says

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The U.S. has given Ukraine and Russia a June deadline to reach a deal to end the nearly four‑year war, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters, as Russian strikes on energy infrastructure forced nuclear power plants to cut output on Saturday.

If the June deadline is not met, the Trump administration will likely put pressure on both sides to meet it, he added.

“The Americans are proposing the parties end the war by the beginning of this summer and will probably put pressure on the parties precisely according to this schedule,” Zelenskyy said, speaking to reporters on Friday. Zelenskyy’s comments were embargoed until Saturday morning.

“And they say that they want to do everything by June. And they will do everything to end the war. And they want a clear schedule of all events,” he said.

He said the U.S. proposed holding the next round of trilateral talks next week in their country for the first time, likely in Miami, Zelenskyy said. “We confirmed our participation,” he added.

Israel says Netanyahu will meet with Trump on Wednesday about Iran talks

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Wednesday about American talks with Iran, his office said Saturday, while Iran's foreign minister threatened U.S. military bases in the region a day after the discussions.

“The prime minister believes that all negotiations must include limiting the ballistic missiles, and ending support for the Iranian axis,” Netanyahu’s office said in a brief statement, referring to Tehran's support for militant groups, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories. Trump and Netanyahu last met in December.

There was no immediate White House comment.

The U.S. and the Islamic Republic of Iran held indirect talks on Friday in Oman that appeared to return to the starting point on how to approach discussions over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Trump called the talks “very good” and said more were planned for early next week. Washington was represented by Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

Epstein revelations have toppled top figures in Europe while US fallout is more muted

LONDON (AP) — A prince, an ambassador, senior diplomats, top politicians. All brought down by the Jeffrey Epstein files. And all in Europe, rather than the United States.

The huge trove of Epstein documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice has sent shock waves through Europe’s political, economic and social elites — dominating headlines, ending careers and spurring political and criminal investigations.

Former U.K. Ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson was fired and could go to prison. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces a leadership crisis over the Mandelson appointment. Senior figures have fallen in Norway, Sweden and Slovakia. And, even before the latest batch of files, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, brother of King Charles III, lost his honors, princely title and taxpayer-funded mansion.

Apart from the former Prince Andrew, none of them faces claims of sexual wrongdoing. They have been toppled for maintaining friendly relationships with Epstein after he became a convicted sex offender.

“Epstein collected powerful people the way others collect frequent flyer points,” said Mark Stephens, a specialist in international and human rights law at Howard Kennedy in London. “But the receipts are now in public, and some might wish they’d traveled less.”

Health costs are fueling voter stress and powering Democratic campaigns

COLLEGE PARK, Ga. (AP) — President Donald Trump's second term has presented an array of opportunities for political opponents, from immigration crackdowns and lingering inflation to attacks on independent institutions and friction with overseas allies.

Many Democrats, however, are staying focused on health care, an issue that was once a political liability but has become foundational for the party in recent elections. They insist their strategy will help the party regain control of Congress in the November elections and fare better than chasing headlines about the latest outrages out of the White House.

Republicans last year cut about $1 trillion over a decade from Medicaid and declined to extend COVID-era subsidies that had lowered the cost of health plans under the Affordable Care Act.

Democrats are filming campaign spots outside struggling hospitals, spotlighting Americans facing spiking insurance premiums and sharing their own personal health care stories.

U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, one of the party's most endangered incumbents this year, said at a rally Saturday attended by more than 1,000 people in an Atlanta suburb that health care is part of Trump's abandonment of working people.

Immigrant whose skull was broken in eight places during ICE arrest says beating was unprovoked

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Alberto Castañeda Mondragón says his memory was so jumbled after a beating by immigration officers that he initially could not remember he had a daughter and still struggles to recall treasured moments like the night he taught her to dance.

But the violence he endured last month in Minnesota while being detained is seared into his battered brain.

He remembers Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulling him from a friend’s car on Jan. 8 outside a St. Paul shopping center and throwing him to the ground, handcuffing him, then punching him and striking his head with a steel baton. He remembers being dragged into an SUV and taken to a detention facility, where he said he was beaten again.

He also remembers the emergency room and the intense pain from eight skull fractures and five life-threatening brain hemorrhages.

“They started beating me right away when they arrested me,” the Mexican immigrant recounted this week to The Associated Press, which recently reported on how his case contributed to mounting friction between federal immigration agents and a Minneapolis hospital.

Savannah Guthrie's mother may have been kidnapped. How does law enforcement handle negotiations?

Experts say abductions for ransom are rare, despite the prevalence of dramatic hostage crises on television. But the apparent kidnapping of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie’s mother has raised questions about how law enforcement handles hostage negotiations in real life, and the risks of media attention for victims.

In the days since Nancy Guthrie, 84, was taken from her home outside Tucson, Arizona, a local television station received two messages that appear to be in connection with the case. One demanded money in exchange for Guthrie's return and contained information about her Apple watch and floodlights on her property.

While law enforcement hasn't named a suspect — or even confirmed definitively that the ransom note is authentic — Guthrie's children have released two videos appealing to her apparent kidnappers, begging for proof that their mother is still alive.

Professional hostage negotiators from around the world say that kidnappings depicted on television — where police shout through a bullhorn at heavily armed hostage-takers inside a bank — often misrepresent the delicate touch required for real-world negotiations.

There are three types of hostage situations, according to Scott Tillema, a retired SWAT hostage negotiator in Illinois. The least common kind in the U.S., he said, are ones that involve kidnapping for ransom.