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

The glove, discovered in a field beside a road, was sent for DNA testing. The FBI said in a statement that it received preliminary results Saturday and was awaiting official confirmation. The development comes as law enforcement gathers more potential evidence as the search for Guthrie’s mother heads into its third week. Authorities had previously said they had not identified a suspect.

Nancy Guthrie, 84, was last seen at her Arizona home on Jan. 31 and was reported missing the following day. Authorities say her blood was found on the front porch. Purported ransom notes were sent to news outlets, but two deadlines for paying have passed.

The discovery was revealed days after investigators had released surveillance videos of the masked person outside Guthrie’s front door. A porch camera recorded video of a person with a backpack who was wearing a ski mask, long pants, jacket and gloves.

On Thursday, the FBI called the person a suspect. It described him as a man about 5 feet, 9 inches tall with a medium build. The agency said he was carrying a 25-liter “Ozark Trail Hiker Pack” backpack.

Trump's border czar says 'small' security force will remain in Minnesota after enforcement drawdown

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House border czar Tom Homan said Sunday that more than 1,000 immigration agents have left Minnesota's Twin Cities area and hundreds more will depart in the days ahead as part of the Trump administration’s drawdown of its immigration enforcement surge.

A “small” security force will stay for a short period to protect remaining immigration agents and will respond “when our agents are out and they get surrounded by agitators and things got out of control,” Homan told CBS' “Face the Nation.” He did not define “small.”

He also said agents will keep investigating fraud allegations as well as the anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a service at a church service.

“We already removed well over 1,000 people, and as of Monday, Tuesday, we’ll remove several hundred more,” Homan said. “We’ll get back to the original footprint.”

Thousands of officers were sent to the Minneapolis and St. Paul area for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's “Operation Metro Surge.” The Department of Homeland Security said it was its largest immigration enforcement operation ever and proved successful. But the crackdown came under increasing criticism as the situation grew more volatile and two U.S. citizens were killed.

No clear path to ending the partial government shutdown as lawmakers dig in over DHS oversight

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Lawmakers and the White House offered no signs of compromise Sunday in their battle over oversight of federal immigration officers that has led to a pause in funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

A partial government shutdown began Saturday after congressional Democrats and President Donald Trump's team failed to reach a deal on legislation to fund the department through September. Democrats are demanding changes to how immigration operations are conducted after the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal officers in Minneapolis last month.

Congress is on recess until Feb. 23, and both sides appear dug into their positions. The impasse affects agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Coast Guard, the Secret Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The work at ICE and CBP goes on unabated because Trump’s tax and spending cut law from 2025 provided billions more to those agencies that can be tapped for deportation operations. About 90% of DHS employees were to continue working during the shutdown, but do so without pay — and missed paychecks could mean financial hardships. Last year there was a record 43-day government shutdown.

White House border czar Tom Homan said the administration was unwilling to agree to Democrats' demands that federal officers clearly identify themselves, remove masks during operations and display unique ID numbers.

US military boards another oil tanker in Indian Ocean after tracking it from the Caribbean

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. military forces boarded another sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea in an effort to target illicit oil connected to Venezuela, the Pentagon said Sunday.

Venezuela had faced U.S. sanctions on its oil for several years, relying on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. President Donald Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to pressure then-President Nicolás Maduro before Maduro was apprehended in January during an American military operation.

Several tankers fled the Venezuelan coast in the wake of the raid, including the ship that was boarded in the Indian Ocean overnight. The Defense Department said in a post on X that U.S. forces boarded the Veronica III, conducting “a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding.”

“The vessel tried to defy President Trump’s quarantine — hoping to slip away,” the Pentagon said. “We tracked it from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, closed the distance, and shut it down.”

Video posted by the Pentagon shows U.S. troops boarding the tanker.

Iran’s top diplomat to attend 'indirect' talks with US in Geneva, state-run IRNA news agency says

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s top diplomat was traveling Sunday from Tehran to Geneva, where the second round of nuclear negotiations with the U.S. will take place, Iranian state media reported.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his delegation left for the Swiss city after the first round of indirect talks took place in Oman last week. Oman will mediate the talks in Geneva, the IRNA state-run news agency reported on its Telegram channel.

Similar talks last year broke down after Israel launched what became a 12-day war on Iran, that included the U.S. bombing Iranian nuclear sites.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to use force to compel Iran to agree to constrain its nuclear program. Iran has said it would respond with an attack of its own. Trump has also threatened Iran over its deadly crackdown on recent nationwide protests.

Gulf Arab countries have warned that any attack could spiral into another regional conflict.

Europeans push back at US over claim they face 'civilizational erasure'

MUNICH (AP) — A top European Union official on Sunday rejected the notion that Europe faces “civilizational erasure,” pushing back at criticism of the continent by the Trump administration.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas addressed the Munich Security Conference a day after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a somewhat reassuring message to European allies. He struck a less aggressive tone than Vice President JD Vance did in lecturing them at the same gathering last year but maintained a firm tone on Washington's intent to reshape the trans-Atlantic alliance and push its policy priorities.

Kallas alluded to criticism in the U.S. national security strategy released in December, which asserted that economic stagnation in Europe “is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure." It suggested that Europe is being enfeebled by its immigration policies, declining birth rates, “censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition” and a “loss of national identities and self-confidence.”

“Contrary to what some may say, woke, decadent Europe is not facing civilizational erasure,” Kallas told the conference. “In fact, people still want to join our club and not just fellow Europeans,” she added, saying she was told when visiting Canada last year that many people there have an interest in joining the EU.

Kallas rejected what she called “European-bashing.”

Trump says Board of Peace will unveil $5 billion in Gaza reconstruction pledges at inaugural meeting

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump said Sunday that members of his newly created Board of Peace have pledged $5 billion toward rebuilding war-ravaged Gaza and will commit thousands of personnel to international stabilization and police forces for the territory.

The pledges will be formally announced when board members gather in Washington on Thursday for their first meeting, he said.

“The Board of Peace will prove to be the most consequential International Body in History, and it is my honor to serve as its Chairman,” Trump said in a social media posting announcing the pledges.

He did not detail which member nations were making the pledges for reconstruction or would contribute personnel to the stabilization force. But Indonesia’s military said Sunday that up to 8,000 of its troops are expected to be ready by the end of June for a potential deployment to Gaza as part of a humanitarian and peace mission. It's the first firm commitment that the Republican president has received.

Rebuilding the Palestinian territory will be a daunting endeavor. The United Nations, World Bank and European Union estimate that reconstruction of the territory will cost $70 billion. Few places in the Gaza Strip were left unscathed by more than two years of Israeli bombardment.

A storm system sweeps across the Southeast triggering tornado watches and damaging winds

ATLANTA (AP) — A weekend storm system sweeping across the Southeast brought tornado warnings to Mississippi and Louisiana, and then took aim at parts of Georgia and Florida, as people in the Northeast were finally getting a reprieve from weeks of bitterly cold temperatures.

Some of the fiercest weather in the South was reported near Lake Charles, Louisiana, where high winds from a thunderstorm overturned a horse trailer and a Mardi Gras float, damaged an airport jet bridge and flung the metal awning from a house into power lines. The damage was documented by National Weather Service employees who surveyed the area.

Power poles were snapped and toppled near the Louisiana towns of Jena, Cheneyville and Donaldsonville, the weather service reported.

No deaths or serious injuries were reported, but the damage reports came as the storm system continued into parts of south Georgia and the Florida Panhandle, which were under tornado watches on Sunday.

The storms led to some power outages across southern states, but nowhere near the massive number of outages caused by ice storms late last month in northern Mississippi and Nashville, Tennessee. By late Sunday afternoon, around 11,000 customers were without electricity in Texas and more than 9,000 had no service in northern Florida, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide.

Should people with autism and very high needs have a separate diagnosis? Takeaways from AP's report

As the definition of autism has widened, there’s been a growing push to create a new diagnosis, called profound autism, for those who need constant and lifelong care.

The reason? To ensure that they get the support and services they need.

Judith Ursitti, president of the Profound Autism Alliance, said people in this category now lack appropriate treatments, support and enough providers trained to handle their level of care. And the vast majority of clinical research doesn’t include them.

“If you don’t have research, you won’t have treatments. You won’t have achievable services and supports,” said Ursitti, whose adult son has profound autism. “There are people across the spectrum who have high support needs that are intermittent. The difference with our population is they’re constant.”

Autism rates have been rising for decades, and two of the main reasons for the increase have, in a strange twist, taken some of the focus off of helping people with round-the-clock needs. The diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder is now very broad, including many people with low support needs. Also, better awareness of the condition has helped many more children get diagnosed than in the past — and most of those cases are relatively mild.

Tyler Reddick wins the Daytona 500 for Michael Jordan-owned 23XI Racing

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Tyler Reddick won the Daytona 500 in a car owned by Michael Jordan when Chase Elliott crashed as he and Reddick were battling for the win.

Reddick, in a Toyota for 23XI Racing, led only one lap on Sunday: the one to the checkered flag for the team owned by the NBA Hall of Famer and three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin.

Hamlin, who drives for Joe Gibbs Racing, was involved in the final caution when he and teammate Christopher Bell collided with nine laps remaining. It set up the final push to the finish over the final four laps.

Elliott had control on the final lap after leader Carson Hocevar was spun off the track and it appeared the son of NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott would finally win his first Daytona 500.

Instead, Reddick made a huge surge, hit Elliott to cause Elliott to crash and sailed past to take Jordan to the Daytona International Speedway victory lane.