AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

The 18-count indictment also suggests classified information was exposed when operatives believed to be linked to the Iranian regime hacked Bolton's email account and gained access to sensitive material he had shared. A Bolton representative told the FBI in 2021 that his emails had been hacked, prosecutors say, but did not reveal he had shared classified information through the account or that the hackers now had possession of government secrets.

The indictment sets the stage for a closely watched court case centering on a longtime fixture in Republican foreign policy circles who became known for his hawkish views on American power and who served for more than a year in Trump's first administration before being fired in 2019 and publishing a scathingly critical book about the president.

The case, the third against a Trump adversary in the last month, will also unfold against the backdrop of concerns that the Justice Department is pursuing the president's political enemies while at the same time sparing his allies from scrutiny. Bolton foreshadowed that argument in a defiant statement Thursday in which he denied the charges and called them part of an “intensive effort" by Trump to “intimidate his opponents.”

“Now, I have become the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department to charge those he deems to be his enemies with charges that were declined before or distort the facts,” he said.

Venezuela floated a plan for Maduro to slowly give up power, but was rejected by US, AP source says

WASHINGTON (AP) — Venezuelan government officials have floated a plan in which President Nicolás Maduro would eventually leave office, a bid aimed at easing mounting U.S. pressure on the government in Caracas, according to a former Trump administration official.

The proposal, which was rejected by the White House, calls for Maduro to step down from power in three years and hand over authority to his vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, who would complete Maduro's current six-year term that runs until January 2031, according to the official who was briefed on the plan but was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Rodriguez would not run for reelection under the plan, the official said, adding that the White House had rejected the proposal because it continues to question the legitimacy of Maduro's rule and accuse him of overseeing a narco-terrorist state.

The revelation of Maduro’s attempts to offer a plan to slowly ease himself out of power comes amid growing unease in the Venezuelan leader’s government that President Donald Trump could order military action to try to oust him.

Aspects of the Venezuelan effort were first reported by the Miami Herald earlier Thursday. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Many swings, few knockout hits as Cuomo and Mamdani trade jabs in heated first NYC mayoral debate

NEW YORK (AP) — Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo entered Thursday evening’s first New York mayoral debate trying to blunt Democratic front-runner Zohran Mamdani's momentum. Instead he spent much of the contentious face-off on defense, batting away criticisms over his long tenure in office from Mamdani and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

Cuomo, now running as an independent, continued to try to cast Mamdani's agenda as too extreme, saying he lacks the experience to lead America’s biggest city. Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, countered with attacks on the former governor's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and sexual harassment allegations that Cuomo denies.

But after two hours that touched on how the next mayor would deal with President Donald Trump, quality of life issues and affordability, it was unclear whether anyone did enough to move the needle.

For Cuomo the stakes of the face-off were especially high. The debate was one of his last chances to try to convince voters that going with Mamdani, who already defeated the once-powerful governor in the primary this summer, would be a mistake. The race is also Cuomo’s attempt at a political comeback after he resigned four years ago following the sexual harassment allegations.

Mamdani, who spent much of the debate smiling as he tried to maintain the hopeful, charming persona that has characterized his campaign, pushed his affordability agenda and sought to portray himself as a pragmatic liberal rather than a radical ideologue.

Trump says he'll meet with Putin in Hungary. He first meets Friday with Zelenskyy at the White House

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is redoubling his efforts to end the war in Ukraine, announcing a second meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin one day before sitting down with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House.

Trump's announcement came shortly after finishing a call with Putin on Thursday. A date has not been set, but Trump said the meeting would take place in Budapest, Hungary, and suggested that it could happen in about two weeks.

“I believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation,” Trump wrote on social media. The two leaders previously met in Alaska in August, which did not produce a diplomatic breakthrough, a source of frustration for the U.S. leader who had expected that his longstanding relationship with Putin could pave the way to resolving a conflict that began nearly four years ago.

Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, said the Russian president initiated the call, which he described as “very frank and trusting.” He said Putin emphasized to Trump that selling long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, something the U.S. president has publicly discussed, would “inflict significant damage to the relations between our countries.”

Trump was already scheduled to meet Friday with Zelenskyy, who has been seeking weapons that would allow Ukrainian forces to strike deeper into Russian territory. Zelenskyy has argued such strikes would help compel Putin to take Trump’s calls for direct negotiations to end the war more seriously.

Trump warns Hamas 'we will have no choice but to go in and kill them' if bloodshed persists in Gaza

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday warned Hamas “we will have no choice but to go in and kill them” if internal bloodshed persists in Gaza.

The grim warning from Trump came after he previously downplayed the internal violence in the territory since a ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas went into effect last week in the two-year war.

Trump later clarified he won’t send U.S. troops into Gaza after launching the threat against Hamas.

“It’s not going to be us,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters. “We won’t have to. There are people very close, very nearby that will go in and they’ll do the trick very easily, but under our auspices.”

The president did not specify if he was speaking of Israel, but action by Israeli forces could risk violating terms of the ceasefire agreement.

US prosecutors charge Smartmatic in alleged $1M Philippines bribery case

MIAMI (AP) — Federal prosecutors have charged voting technology firm Smartmatic with money laundering and other crimes arising from more than $1 million in bribes that several executives allegedly paid to election officials in the Philippines.

The payments, between 2015 and 2018, were made to obtain a contract with the Philippines government to help run that country’s 2016 presidential election and secure the timely payment for its work, according to a superseding indictment filed Thursday in a Florida federal court.

Three former executives of Smartmatic, including co-founder Roger Pinate, were previously charged in 2024 but at the time South Florida-based Smartmatic was not named as a defendant. Pinate, who no longer works for Smartmatic but remains a shareholder, has pleaded not guilty.

The criminal case is unfolding as Smartmatic is pursuing a $2.7 billion lawsuit accusing Fox News of defamation for airing false claims that the company helped rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election in which Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump.

Smartmatic in a statement denied the allegations and said it believed the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami had been misled and politically influenced by unnamed powerful interests.

Judge wants immigration agents in Chicago area to wear body cameras after clashes with public

CHICAGO (AP) — Troubled by clashes between agents and the public, a judge on Thursday said she will require federal immigration officers in the Chicago area to wear body cameras, and she also summoned a senior official to court next week to discuss an enforcement operation that has resulted in more than 1,000 arrests.

U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis said she was a “little startled” after seeing TV images of street confrontations that involved tear gas and other tactics during an immigration crackdown by President Donald Trump's administration.

“I live in Chicago if folks haven’t noticed,” Ellis said. “And I’m not blind, right?”

Separately, hours later, a federal appeals court ruled against the Trump administration and said a lower court's temporary ban on deploying the National Guard to assist immigration officers in Illinois would stay in place while the government pursues an appeal.

Community efforts to oppose U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have ramped up in Chicago, where neighborhood groups have assembled to monitor ICE activity and film incidents involving agents. More than 1,000 immigrants have been arrested since September.

Evacuees detail harrowing scenes of flooding in coastal Alaska villages as airlift continues

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The house rocked as if an earthquake had struck, and suddenly it was floating. Water seeped in through the front door, and waves smacked the big glass window.

From the lone dry room where Alexie Stone and his brothers and children gathered, he could look outside and see under the water, like an aquarium. A shed drifted toward them, threatening to shatter the glass, but turned away before it hit.

The house came to rest just a few feet away from where it previously stood, after another building blocked its path. But it remains uninhabitable, along with most of the rest of Stone's Alaska Native village of Kipnuk, following an immense storm surge that flooded coastal parts of western Alaska, left one person dead and two missing, and prompted a huge evacuation effort to airlift more than 1,000 residents to safety.

“In our village, we’d say that we’re Native strong, we have Native pride, and nothing can break us down. But this is the hardest that we went through,” Stone said Thursday outside the Alaska Airlines Center, an arena in Anchorage, where he and hundreds of others were being sheltered. “Everybody’s taking care of everybody in there. We’re all thankful that we’re all alive.”

The remnants of Typhoon Halong brought record high water to low-lying Alaska Native communities last weekend and washed away homes, some with people inside. Makeshift shelters were quickly established and swelled to hold about 1,500 people, an extraordinary number in a sparsely populated region where communities are reachable only by air or water this time of year.

A look at the Tomahawk, a US cruise missile that could come into play in the Ukraine war

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Tomahawk cruise missile has been in the U.S. military’s inventory since the 1980s. While slow by missile standards, the cruise missile flies around 100 feet (about 30 meters) off the ground, making it harder to detect by defense systems.

The missile also boasts an impressive range of around 1,000 miles and precision guidance systems that make it the go-to weapon for striking targets that are deep inland or in hostile territory. President Donald Trump has hinted that he might give Tomahawks to Ukraine, which could make a key difference for Kyiv in its war with Moscow.

Last year, The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, estimated that the Navy had roughly 4,000 Tomahawk missiles in its inventory in 2023. However, they noted that this estimate would have predated the significant military action against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

In defending from Houthi attacks and launching counterattacks, the Navy said ships from the Eisenhower Carrier Strike group launched 135 Tomahawk missiles. That figure has likely only grown after the strike group returned home in the summer of 2024 since Trump ordered a month-long campaign of strikes against the group in the spring of 2025.

Meanwhile, the US Navy has not been ordering many new Tomahawk missiles. Pentagon budget documents show that in 2023 the Navy and Marine Corps only bought 68 new missiles. The most recent budget documents show the Navy hadn’t purchased any new missiles in the following years and the Marine Corps only bought 22 missiles last year. Neither the Marines nor the Navy requested to buy any new Tomahawk missiles in the latest budget.

Ace Frehley, Kiss' original lead guitarist and founding member, dies at 74

Ace Frehley, the original lead guitarist and founding member of the glam rock band Kiss, who captivated audiences with his elaborate galactic makeup and smoking guitar, died Thursday. He was 74.

Frehley died peacefully surrounded by family in Morristown, New Jersey, following a recent fall, according to his agent.

Family members said in a statement that they are “completely devastated and heartbroken” but will cherish his laughter and celebrate the kindness he bestowed upon others.

Kiss, whose hits included “Rock and Roll All Nite” and “I Was Made for Lovin’ You," was known for its theatrical stage shows, with fire and fake blood spewing from the mouths of band members dressed in body armor, platform boots, wigs and signature black-and-white face paint.

Kiss' original lineup included Frehley, singer-guitarist Paul Stanley, tongue-wagging bassist Gene Simmons and drummer Peter Criss. Frehley’s is the first death among the four founding members.