AP News in Brief at 9:04 p.m. EDT

The president on Friday, with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick by his side, signed a proclamation that will require the new fee for what are known as H-1B visas — meant for high-skilled jobs that tech companies find hard to fill.

“Those who already hold H-1B visas and are currently outside of the country right now will NOT be charged $100,000 to re-enter," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a posting on X. “This applies only to new visas, not renewals, and not current visa holders.”

The fee takes effect at 12:01 a.m. ET Sunday. It is scheduled to expire after a year. But it could be extended if the government determines that is in the interest of the United States to keep it.

The White House in a social media post also sought to make clear the new rule “does not impact the ability of any current visa holder to travel to/from the U.S.”

Democratic leaders in Congress demand a meeting with Trump as government shutdown looms

WASHINGTON (AP) — As a possible federal shutdown looms, the Democratic leaders of Congress are demanding a meeting with President Donald Trump to negotiate an end to what they call “your decision” to shutter government offices if no action is taken by the end-of-the month deadline.

Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries said Saturday that Republicans, at Trump's insistence, have refused to enter talks. Democrats are pushing to preserve health care programs as part of any deal to keep government running past the Sept. 30 funding deadline.

"We write to demand a meeting in connection with your decision to shut down the federal government because of the Republican desire to continue to gut the healthcare of the American people," the two New York Democrats wrote.

“Democrats have been clear and consistent in our position,” they said. “We are ready to work toward a bipartisan spending agreement that improves the lives of American families and addresses the Republican healthcare crisis.”

Trump, in an exchange with reporters on Saturday evening, suggested that he remains open to a potential meeting but was dismissive of the Democratic leadership.

Israeli strikes kill 14 in Gaza City as some countries prepare to recognize Palestinian state

CAIRO (AP) — Scores of Palestinians, many pushing carts of belongings or carrying their possessions on their backs, fled Gaza City on Saturday as Israel ramped up its offensive, including with strikes that health officials said killed at least 14 people overnight.

Later in Israel, thousands joined the families of hostages still being held by Hamas to demand that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu negotiate an end to the war.

There were protests in Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv, where a large black banner was unfurled imploring U.S. President Donald Trump to help end the war, with “SAVE THEM!” in yellow letters.

The latest military strikes come as some prominent Western countries prepare to recognize Palestinian statehood at the gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly next week. They include the U.K., France, Canada, Australia, Malta, Belgium and Luxembourg.

In a statement Friday, Portugal’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said it will recognize a Palestinian state on Sunday. The Iberian country had previously announced its plans to do so but now set an official date.

Russia launches a large-scale attack on Ukraine, killing 3 and wounding dozens

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched a large-scale missile and drone attack targeting regions across Ukraine early Saturday, killing at least three people and wounding dozens more, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attacks took place across nine regions, including Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava, Kyiv, Odesa, Sumy and Kharkiv.

“The enemy’s target was our infrastructure, residential areas and civilian enterprises,” he said, adding that a missile equipped with cluster munitions struck a multistory building in the city of Dnipro.

“Each such strike is not a military necessity but a deliberate strategy by Russia to intimidate civilians and destroy our infrastructure,” Zelenskyy said in a statement on his official Telegram account.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian drones overnight slammed into an energy facility in Samara, southwestern Russia, according to the local governor and Ukraine’s General Staff.

Trump's peace efforts falter as conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza escalate

WASHINGTON (AP) — A month after an Alaskan summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump still seems surprised that his gambit did not pay off with peace in Ukraine.

"He’s let me down,” Trump said this week. “He really let me down.”

There has been no more progress in the Middle East, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is beginning a new offensive in Gaza City and lashing out across the region.

“They have to be very, very careful,” Trump said after Israel targeted Hamas inside Qatar, a U.S. ally that has been hosting diplomatic negotiations.

Trump's disappointment and frustration is much different from the confidence and dominance he tries to project on the international stage, especially as he trumpets his diplomatic efforts and campaigns for the Nobel Peace Prize. Asked about his goals for the upcoming U.N. General Assembly, the president said “world peace." But the most high-profile conflicts appear to be escalating instead of winding down.

Trump's economic promises to Black voters fall short after a modest shift in support for him in 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — At one of his final rallies before the 2024 election, then-candidate Donald Trump warned that Black Americans were losing their jobs in droves and that things would get even worse if he did not return to the White House.

“You should demand that they give you the numbers of how many Black people are going to lose their job,” Trump said. “The African American population, they’re getting fired at numbers that we have never seen before."

But with Trump back in office since January, an already fragile financial situation for Black Americans has worsened. Upset by inflation and affordability issues, Black voters had shifted modestly toward the Republican last year on the promise that he could boost the economy by stopping border crossings and challenging foreign factories with tariffs. Yet a recent spate of economic data instead shows a widening racial wealth gap.

Black unemployment has climbed from 6.2% to 7.5% so far in 2025, the highest level since October 2021. Black homeownership has fallen to the lowest level since 2021, according to an analysis by the real estate brokerage Redfin. Earlier this month, the Census Bureau said the median Black household income fell 3.3% last year to $56,020, which is roughly $36,000 less than what a white household earns and evidence of a bad situation becoming worse.

That creates a major political risk for the president as well as an economic danger for the nation because job losses for Black Americans have historically foreshadowed a wider set of layoffs across other groups.

Members of Congress take steps to tighten their own security after Kirk's killing

WASHINGTON (AP) — As House Speaker Mike Johnson gathered lawmakers this week to mourn Charlie Kirk, he summed up the grief felt by many on Capitol Hill — and the pervasive fear.

“For so many of us, it has felt as if the ground was shaken,” said Johnson, R-La.

The killing of Kirk, the prominent conservative activist and Turning Point USA founder, has unnerved lawmakers in both parties, amplifying their long-standing concerns about safety in a heated political climate where threats against political rivals and calls to violence have become frighteningly common.

Responding to those concerns, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on Thursday night engineered unanimous passage of a measure that will allow senators to use money designated for their offices and staff for security purposes. Members of the House are pushing for increased security funding as well.

It's all part of significant shift for lawmakers who increasingly feel that their engagement in public life requires the same kinds of security precautions long reserved for the president and members of the Cabinet.

In battles over free speech, comedians are often center stage

NEW YORK (AP) — Bassem Youssef, the Egyptian satirist whose “Daily Show”-like program was canceled after the military seized the once pro-democracy government, watched the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel with an immediate sense of familiarity.

“My Fellow American Citizens,” Youssef wrote on X. “Welcome to my world.”

Youssef's show skewering public figures led to a criminal investigation in 2013 after complaints that he had insulted then-President Mohammed Morsi. When a military coup followed, pressure on Youssef intensified. He announced that the climate in Egypt was “not suitable for a political satire program.” Youssef fled the country and resettled in the United States.

In all the stunning things about ABC’s swift removal of Kimmel, its longtime late-night host and Oscars-hosting face of the network, perhaps the least surprising was that a comedian was at the center of a battle over free speech.

As long as jokes have been told, comedians have drawn the ire of the powerful. That has often put comedians on the front lines of free-speech battles, from George Carlin violating obscenity laws to a satirical puppet show trying to exist in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In authoritarian regimes, crackdowns on speech usually make comedy a target.

Emerging TikTok deal with China ensures US control of board and crucial algorithm, White House says

WASHINGTON (AP) — An emerging TikTok deal with China will ensure that U.S. companies control the algorithm that powers the app's video feed and Americans will hold a majority of seats on a board overseeing U.S. operations, the White House said Saturday.

A central question to the tug of war between Washington and Beijing has been whether the popular social video platform would keep its algorithm after the potential divestment of Chinese parent company ByteDance.

Congress passed legislation calling for a TikTok ban to go into effect in January, but President Donald Trump has repeatedly signed orders that have allowed TikTok to keep operating in the United States as his administration tries to reach agreement for ByteDance to sell its U.S. operations.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said tech giant Oracle would be responsible for the app’s data and security and that Americans will control six of the seven seats for a planned board. Oracle did not respond to a request for comment.

“We have great American patriots that are buying it — very, very substantial people, people that love our country,” Trump told reporters on Saturday evening, the day after discussing the TikTok deal with China’s Xi Jinping in a lengthy phone call. “And they’re very smart technologically, and they will not let anything bad happen to TikTok.”

Luigi Mangione's lawyers want death penalty off the table in UnitedHealthcare CEO murder case

NEW YORK (AP) — Luigi Mangione’s lawyers urged a judge on Saturday to bar federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, arguing that authorities prejudiced his case by turning his arrest into a “Marvel movie” spectacle and by publicly declaring their desire to see him executed.

Fresh from a legal victory that eliminated terrorism charges in Mangione’s state murder case, his lawyers are now fighting to have his federal case dismissed, seizing on U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s declaration prior to his April indictment that capital punishment is warranted for a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”

Bondi’s statements and other official actions — including a highly choreographed perp walk that saw Mangione led up a Manhattan pier by armed officers, and the Trump administration’s flouting of established death penalty procedures — “have violated Mr. Mangione’s constitutional and statutory rights and have fatally prejudiced this death penalty case," his lawyers argued in a court filing.

Mangione’s defense team, led by former Manhattan prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo, implored U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett, an appointee of President Joe Biden, ”to correct the errors made by the government and prevent this case from proceeding as a death penalty prosecution."

Bondi announced in April that she was directing Manhattan federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Mangione. It was the first time the Justice Department said it was bringing a capital case after President Donald Trump returned to office Jan. 20 with a pledge to revive federal executions, which his predecessor Biden had put on hold.