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

The Republican president’s Thursday night post was deleted Friday and blamed on a staffer after widespread backlash, from civil rights leaders to veteran Republican senators, for its treatment of the nation’s first Black president and first lady. The deletion, a rare admission of a misstep by the White House, came hours after press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed “fake outrage” over the post. After calls for its removal for being racist -- including by Republicans -- the White House said a staffer had posted the video erroneously and it had been taken down.

The post was part of a flurry of social media activity on Trump's Truth Social account that amplified his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, despite courts around the country and a Trump attorney general from his first term finding no evidence of fraud that could have affected the outcome.

Trump has a record of intensely personal criticism of the Obamas and of using incendiary, sometimes racist, rhetoric — from feeding the lie that Obama was not a native-born U.S. citizen to crude generalizations about majority Black countries.

The post came in the first week of Black History Month and days after a Trump proclamation that cited “the contributions of black Americans to our national greatness and their enduring commitment to the American principles of liberty, justice, and equality.”

Accused militant is taken into custody in the deadly 2012 Benghazi attack

WASHINGTON (AP) — An alleged participant in the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, has been taken into custody to face prosecution for the rampage that killed four Americans and emerged as a divisive political issue, the Justice Department said Friday.

Zubayar Al-Bakoush, identified by officials as a member of an extremist militia in Libya, had been wanted by the United States for more than a decade. He is accused in a newly unsealed indictment of joining a mob that crashed the front gates of the diplomatic mission with assault rifles and explosives, setting off hours of violence that also included deadly fires.

Al-Bakoush arrived early Friday at an airfield in Virginia after what FBI Director Kash Patel described as a “transfer of custody” and will face charges in Washington, including murder, attempted murder, arson and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.

Al-Bakoush, 58, appeared Friday afternoon in federal court in Washington, wearing a gray hoodie and using a wheelchair. He did not enter a plea and answered routine questions from a federal magistrate through an interpreter who appeared remotely. He was ordered detained until a hearing tentatively set for next week.

“I have complete trust in the court and the jury,” Al-Bakoush said through the interpreter. He added that he has “complete confidence” there will be justice in his case.

Iran and US hold indirect talks in Oman. America's military leader in the Mideast joins the talks

MUSCAT, Oman (AP) — Iran and the United States held indirect talks in Oman on Friday, negotiations that appeared to return to the starting point on how to approach discussions over Tehran’s nuclear program. But for the first time, America brought its top military commander in the Middle East to the table.

The presence of U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of the American military’s Central Command, in his dress uniform at the talks in Muscat, the Omani capital, served as a reminder that the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and other warships were now off the coast of Iran in the Arabian Sea.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to use force to compel Iran to reach a deal on the program after earlier sending the carrier to the region over Tehran's bloody crackdown on nationwide protests that killed thousands and saw tens of thousands of others detained in the Islamic Republic.

Gulf Arab nations fear an attack could spark a regional war that would drag them in as well.

That threat is real — U.S. forces shot down an Iranian drone near the Lincoln and Iran attempted to stop a U.S.-flagged ship in the Strait of Hormuz just days before Friday's talks in this sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula.

US stocks soar to their best day since May as the Dow tops 50,000 and bitcoin stops plunging

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market roared back on Friday, as technology stocks recovered much of their losses from earlier in the week and bitcoin halted its plunge, at least for now.

The S&P 500 rallied 2% for its best day since May. The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 1,206 points, or 2.5%, and topped the 50,000 level for the first time, while the Nasdaq composite leaped 2.2%.

Chip companies helped drive the widespread rally, and Nvidia jumped 7.8% to trim its loss for the week, which came into the day at just over 10%. Broadcom climbed 7.1% and erased its drop for the week.

They were the two strongest forces lifting the S&P 500, and they benefited from hopes for continued spending by customers diving into artificial-intelligence technology. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, for example, said late Thursday it expects to spend about $200 billion on investments this year to take advantage of “seminal opportunities like AI, chips, robotics, and low earth orbit satellites.”

Such immense spending, similar to what Alphabet announced a day earlier, is creating concerns of its own, though. The question is whether all those dollars will create big enough profits to make the investments worth it. With doubt remaining about that, Amazon’s stock dropped 5.6%.

UK police search two properties linked to Peter Mandelson as part of Epstein probe

LONDON (AP) — British police on Friday searched two properties linked to ex-ambassador Peter Mandelson as part of a probe into potential misconduct stemming from his ties to the late Jeffrey Epstein.

Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hayley Sewart said that “officers from the Met’s Central Specialist Crime team are in the process of carrying out search warrants at two addresses, one in the Wiltshire area, and another in the Camden area.

“The searches are related to an ongoing investigation into misconduct in public office offenses, involving a 72-year-old man.”

Mandelson, 72, has homes in Wiltshire in Western England and the Camden area of London.

Two people believed to be police officers were seen entering Mandelson's London home near Regents Park on Friday afternoon.

The Milan Cortina Olympics officially open with a multi-site ceremony for a spread-out Winter Games

MILAN (AP) — Featuring tributes to da Vinci and Dante, Puccini and Pausini, Armani and Fellini, pasta and vino, and other iconic tastes of Italian culture — plus Mariah Carey hitting all the high notes in “Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu” aka “Volare” — an unprecedented four-site, dual-cauldron opening ceremony got the Milan Cortina Olympics officially started Friday.

Allowing athletes to participate in the Parade of Nations at the mountain locales for the most spread-out Winter Games in history created what perhaps was an unintended consequence: Zero competitors from any of the first five countries announced actually showed up at the main hub, Milan’s San Siro soccer stadium.

While signs bearing the names of Greece — which always leads the procession as the birthplace of the Olympics — Albania, Andorra, Saudi Arabia and Argentina were carried into the home of Serie A soccer titans AC Milan and Inter Milan, there were no athletes from those places around. Instead, they were participating at simultaneous festivities held at Cortina d’Ampezzo in the heart of the Dolomites, Livigno in the Alps, and Predazzo in the autonomous province of Trento.

The first country with athletes at San Siro was Armenia — and their entrance drew raucous cheers from a crowd filled with 61,000 ticket-holders plus others.

Later, a smattering of boos met Israel’s four representatives at the Milan ceremony. There have been some calls for Israel to be banned from the Olympics over the war in Gaza, which began with Hamas’ deadly attack in October 2023.

US births dropped last year, suggesting the 2024 uptick was short-lived

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. births fell a little in 2025, according to newly posted provisional data.

Slightly over 3.6 million births have been reported through birth certificates, or about 24,000 fewer than in 2024. The decline seems to confirm predictions by some experts, who doubted a slight increase in births in 2024 marked the start of an upward trend.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its provisional birth data late last week, filling in two months of missing data and offering the first good look at last year's tally.

The posted numbers account for nearly all of the babies born in 2025, according to the CDC. Data is still being compiled and analyzed, but the final tally might only add “a few thousand additional births,” said Robert Anderson, who oversees birth and death tracking at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

Experts say people are marrying later and also worry about their ability to have the money, health insurance and other resources needed to raise children in a stable environment.

Actor Timothy Busfield indicted in New Mexico on 4 counts of sexual contact with a child

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — “West Wing” and “Field of Dreams” actor Timothy Busfield has been indicted by a grand jury on four counts of criminal sexual contact with a child under age 13, a New Mexico prosecutor announced Friday.

The allegations are tied to Busfield's work as a director on the set of the TV series “The Cleaning Lady” from 2022 to 2024.

Busfield has denied the allegations, initially filed in court by police, and a defense attorney on Friday said he would “fight these charges at every stage.”

Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman announced the indictment in a social media post.

Busfield had turned himself in to authorities in January on related charges by police and was released from jail by a judge who found no pattern of criminal conduct or similar allegations involving children in Busfield's past. The grand jury indictment allows the case against Busfield to proceed toward possible trial without a preliminary courtroom hearing on evidence.

Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show: Here's some things to expect and what they mean

NEW YORK (AP) — There are stages, and then there is the Super Bowl halftime show.

On Sunday, fresh off his historic win at the Grammys for his love letter to Puerto Rico, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” Bad Bunny will once again surprise audiences with a performance that is gearing up to be a landmark moment for Latino culture.

But what can you expect from his set?

Apple Music's Zane Lowe mentioned that Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime performance is 13 minutes long during an interview with the superstar on Thursday. Historically, they run 12 to 15 minutes.

In the same conversation, Bad Bunny offered few specifics about what viewers will see Sunday.

In unusual move, Republican chairman scrutinizes companies tied to husband of Rep. Ilhan Omar

WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the House Oversight Committee on Friday requested records related to firms partially owned by the husband of Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, taking the extraordinary step of scrutinizing the spouse of a sitting House member.

Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, released a letter to Timothy Mynett, a former Democratic political consultant who is married to Omar, requesting records related to a pair of companies that had a substantial jump in value between 2023 and 2024, according to financial disclosures filed by the congresswoman.

Comer's request marked a highly unusual move by the chair of a committee with a history of taking on politically-charged investigations, but almost always focused on government officials outside of Congress. The House Ethics Committee, which is comprised of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans and tries to stay away from political fights, typically handles allegations involving lawmakers and their family members.

Yet since her 2018 election as one of the first Muslim women in the House, Omar has received nearly-nonstop attacks from the right. She has dismissed allegations around her finances as “misleading" and based on conspiracy theories.

A spokesperson for Omar, Jackie Rogers, said in a statement that Comer’s letter was “a political stunt” and part of a campaign “meant to fundraise, not real oversight.”