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

A Ukrainian delegation, bolstered by representatives from France, Germany and the U.K., is preparing for direct talks with Washington in Switzerland on Sunday.

The 28-point blueprint drawn up by the U.S. to end the nearly four-year war sparked alarm in Kyiv and European capitals, with Zelenskyy saying his country could face a stark choice between standing up for its sovereign rights and preserving the American support it needs.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Saturday, President Donald Trump said the U.S. proposal was not his “final offer.”

“I would like to get to peace. It should have happened a long time ago. The Ukraine war with Russia should have never happened,” Trump said. “One way or the other, we have to get it ended.”

Trump paints Zelenskyy into a corner with his new plan to end Russia's war on Ukraine

WASHINGTON (AP) — With his new 28-point plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, President Donald Trump is resurfacing his argument that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy doesn't “have the cards” to continue on the battlefield and must come to a settlement that heavily tilts in Moscow's favor.

Trump, who has demonstrated low regard for Zelenskyy dating back to his first term, says he expects the Ukrainian leader to respond to his administration's new plan to end the war by next Thursday.

The president said Friday of Zelenksyy, “He’s going to have to approve it,” though he was more reconciliatory a day later, saying, “I would like to get to peace.”

“We’re trying to get it ended. One way or the other, we have to get it ended,” Trump told reporters outside the White House on Saturday.

Buffeted by a corruption scandal in his government, battlefield setbacks and another difficult winter looming as Russia continues to bombard Ukraine's energy grid, Zelenskyy says Ukraine is now facing perhaps the most difficult choice in its history.

Israel launches strikes in Gaza ceasefire's latest test as hospitals say 24 killed

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel’s military on Saturday launched airstrikes against Hamas militants in Gaza in the latest test of the ceasefire that began on Oct. 10, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said five senior Hamas members were killed. Health officials in Gaza reported at least 24 people killed and another 54 wounded, including children.

The strikes, which Israel said were in response to gunfire at its troops, came after international momentum on Gaza, with the U.N. Security Council on Monday approving the U.S. blueprint to secure and govern the territory. It authorizes an international stabilization force to provide security, approves a transitional authority to be overseen by President Donald Trump and envisions a possible future path to an independent Palestinian state.

Israel has previously carried out similar waves of strikes after reported attacks on its forces during the ceasefire. At least 33 Palestinians were killed over a 12-hour period Wednesday and Thursday, mostly women and children, health officials said.

One of Saturday's strikes targeted a vehicle, killing 11 and wounding over 20 Palestinians in Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood, said Rami Mhanna, managing director of Shifa Hospital, where the casualties were taken. The majority of the wounded were children, director Mohamed Abu Selmiya said.

Associated Press video showed children and others inspecting the blackened vehicle, whose top was blown off.

Epstein's accusers grapple with complex emotions about promised release of Justice Department files

For Marina Lacerda, the upcoming publication of U.S. government files on Jeffrey Epstein represent more than an opportunity for justice: Lacerda says she was just 14 when Epstein started sexually abusing her at his New York mansion, but she struggles to recall much of what happened because it is such a dark period in her life.

Now, she’s hoping that the files will reveal more about the trauma that distorted so much of her adolescence.

“I feel that the government and the FBI knows more than I do, and that scares me, because it’s my life, it’s my past,” she told The Associated Press.

President Donald Trump signed legislation Wednesday that will force the Justice Department to release documents from its voluminous files on Epstein.

“We have waited long enough. We’ve fought long enough,” Lacerda said.

Republicans hyped the Epstein files for years. Now Trump is under pressure to deliver

WASHINGTON (AP) — What began as a campaign-trail promise to release the Jeffrey Epstein files has become one of the most fraught tests of President Donald Trump’s second term — opening a rift in his political coalition and raising the stakes for an administration now under intense pressure to produce documents that may fall far short of public expectations.

The issue came to a head this week. After months of efforts by the Trump administration to quash it, both chambers of Congress passed a measure forcing the release of the Epstein files with near-unanimous support. Trump, who changed course days before the vote to bless the effort, signed the legislation Wednesday, starting a 30-day window for the Justice Department to deliver the records.

Expectations are sky-high, fueled by years of conspiracy theories promoted by many now in Trump’s orbit. Yet with some claims — such as a rumored “client list” of prominent men linked to Epstein — already deemed nonexistent by federal officials, the antiestablishment coalition Trump built in part by elevating those theories is showing cracks that may widen with the anticipated release.

“Watching this actually turn into a fight has ripped MAGA apart,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said this week, flanked by Epstein survivors ahead of the House vote.

“The only thing that will speak to the powerful, courageous women behind me is when action is actually taken to release these files,” said Greene, who announced late Friday that she will resign from Congress in January. “And the American people won’t tolerate any other bulls—-.”

Trump pledge to 'immediately' end protections for Minnesota Somalis sparks fear and legal questions

President Donald Trump’s pledge to terminate temporary legal protections for Somalis living in Minnesota is triggering fear in the state’s deeply-rooted immigrant community, along with doubts about whether the White House has the legal authority to enact the directive as described.

In a Truth Social post late Friday, Trump said he would “immediately” strip Somali residents in Minnesota of Temporary Protected Status, a legal safeguard against deportation for immigrants from certain countries.

The announcement drew immediate pushback from some state leaders and immigration experts, who characterized Trump’s declaration as a legally dubious effort to sow fear and suspicion toward Minnesota’s Somali community, the largest in the nation.

“There’s no legal mechanism that allows the president to terminate protected status for a particular community or state that he has beef with,” said Heidi Altman, policy director at the National Immigrant Justice Center.

“This is Trump doing what he always does: demagoguing immigrants without justification or evidence and using that demagoguery in an attempt to take away important life-saving protections,” she added.

Number of children abducted in Nigerian school attack raised to more than 300

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — A total of 303 schoolchildren and 12 teachers were abducted by gunmen during an attack on St. Mary’s School, a Catholic institution in north-central Nigeria’s Niger state, the Christian Association of Nigeria said Saturday, updating an earlier tally of 215 schoolchildren.

The tally was changed “after a verification exercise and a final census was carried out,” according to a statement issued by the Most. Rev. Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, chairman of the Niger state chapter of CAN, who visited the school on Friday.

He said 88 other students “were also captured after they tried to escape” during the attack. The students were both male and female and ranged in age from 10 to 18.

The school kidnapping in Niger state’s remote Papiri community happened four days after 25 schoolchildren were seized in similar circumstances in neighboring Kebbi state’s Maga town, which is 170 kilometers (106 miles) away.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the abductions and authorities have said tactical squads have been deployed alongside local hunters to rescue the children.

Brazil's ex-president Bolsonaro arrested over alleged plot to escape and avoid 27-year prison term

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil's federal police on Saturday arrested former president Jair Bolsonaro over suspicion he was plotting to escape and avoid starting a 27-year prison sentence for leading a coup attempt. The decision laid bare some of the country's divisions, with many uncorking Champagne outside the far-right leader's prison to celebrate as his supporters prepared a religious act in his favor.

In a dramatic and unexpected twist in the final stage of a long and divisive criminal trial, federal agents entered Bolsonaro's house early Saturday under the order of a Supreme Court Justice to take the former president to the headquarters of the country’s federal police in the capital, Brasilia.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw the case on Bolsonaro’s attempt to keep the presidency after his defeat to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022, ordered the preemptive arrest after saying the far-right leader’s ankle monitor was violated at 12:08 a.m. on Saturday. His lawyers claimed in a statement that did not take place.

A report by custody agents released later in the day — and reviewed by The Associated Press — said Bolsonaro admitted using a soldering iron to try to open the device. In a court video also seen by the AP, Bolsonaro is heard admitting such attempt. The footage shows the ankle monitor’s cap heavily damaged.

Bolsonaro, 70, who had been under house arrest, was ordered to wear the device after being deemed a flight risk. His aide Andriely Cirino confirmed that the arrest took place around 6 a.m. on Saturday.

UN climate deal increases money to countries hit by climate change, but no explicit fossil fuel plan

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — United Nations climate talks in Brazil reached a subdued agreement Saturday that pledged more funding for countries to adapt to the wrath of extreme weather. But the catch-all agreement doesn’t include explicit details to phase out fossil fuels or strengthen countries' inadequate emissions cutting plans, which dozens of nations demanded.

The Brazilian hosts of the conference said they’d eventually come up with a road map to get away from fossil fuels working with hard-line Colombia, but it won’t have the same force as something approved at the conference called COP30. Colombia responded angrily to the deal after it was approved, citing the absence of wording on fossil fuels.

The deal, which was approved after negotiators blew past a Friday deadline, was crafted after hours of late night and early morning meetings in COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago’s office.

Do Lago said the tough discussions started in Belem will continue under Brazil’s leadership until the next annual conference “even if they are not reflected in this text we just approved.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the deal shows "that nations can still come together to confront the defining challenges no country can solve alone.” But he added: “I cannot pretend that COP30 has delivered everything that is needed. The gap between where we are and what science demands remains dangerously wide.”

Babies who drank ByHeart formula got sick months before botulism outbreak, parents say

As health officials investigate more than 30 cases of infant botulism linked to ByHeart baby formula since August, parents who say their children were sickened with the same illness months before the current outbreak are demanding answers, too.

California public health officials confirmed late Friday that six babies in that state who consumed ByHeart formula were treated for botulism between November 2024 and June 2025, up to nine months before the outbreak that has sickened at least 31 babies in 15 states.

At the time, there was “not enough evidence to immediately suspect a common source," the California Department of Public Health said in a statement.

Even now, "we cannot connect any pre-August 1 cases to the current outbreak,” officials said.

Parents of at least five babies said that their infants were treated for the rare and potentially deadly disease after drinking ByHeart formula in late 2024 and early 2025, according to reports shared with The Associated Press by Bill Marler, a Seattle food safety lawyer representing the families.