The Latest: Federal vaccine advisors say not all babies need a hepatitis B shot at birth

And the Trump administration has instructed U.S. embassies and consulates around the world to prioritize visa applications for foreign investors or 2026 World Cup ticket holders, a mixed message amid Trump's expanding immigration crackdown. Trump is taking center stage at Friday's FIFA draw.

The Latest:

US judge temporarily blocks layoffs of about 250 State Department workers

Unions say the State Department notified the employees on Monday that they would be fired on Friday.

But U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ruled Thursday that the union representing the employees is likely to prevail on its argument that the government funding bill that ended the shutdown prohibits the cuts.

A message to the department was not immediately returned.

The administration argued that the funding bill only prevented layoffs initiated during the shutdown. It had notified the 250 or so foreign and civil service employees of their terminations well before the shutdown started.

Illston, nominated to the bench in San Francisco by President Bill Clinton, said nothing in the “plain text” of the funding bill’s layoff prohibition supports that interpretation.

Melania Trump cheers hospitalized children for Christmas

Two patients escorted her into the festively decorated atrium at Children’s National Hospital in Washington.

The first lady sat in a big red chair in front of a large Christmas tree and read, “How Does Santa Go Down the Chimney,” by Mac Barnett.

She told the children she hopes Santa visits and “gives you a lot of toys.”

“I wish you a lot of strength,” she said.

She made small talk with the children in the audience before departing with a “Merry Christmas.” She also was to make private visits with children in the hematology/oncology wing.

Miami mayoral runoff tests GOP’s strength in Florida

Sen. Ruben Gallego is joining Democrat Eileen Higgins in Miami this weekend for early voting events. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also supported her in a video shared by her campaign on Friday. If she wins the mayoral runoff, she could become the first Democrat to lead Miami in over 25 years.

Emilio Gonzalez has received endorsements from Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and is rallying voters with Sen. Rick Scott on Friday. A loss for the Republican in the nonpartisan race could be perceived as a setback for the GOP in Florida, given how much Miami has moved to the right over the years.

Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, has been campaigning for fellow party members in Latino areas, helping New Jersey Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill and Virginia Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger. Both off-year election results last month showed signs of a Hispanic shift away from Republicans.

Armed services committees asking for briefing from retiring commander of U.S. Southern Command

The House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee want to hear from Navy Adm. Alvin Holsey, who is retiring as the commander of U.S. forces in Central and South America, according to a person with knowledge of the request who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

The committees are scrutinizing an attack in September when U.S. forces killed two survivors of an initial attack on an alleged drug boat. They have already heard from the Navy admiral who commanded the special forces unit that carried out the attack, but also want to hear from Holsey. He has been commanding the campaign to destroy boats in international waters near Venezuela that are allegedly carrying drugs, but Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last month that Holsey would be retiring early from his command post.

It was not clear whether the Pentagon will comply with the request, and Holsey will be retiring in the coming week.

Louisiana immigration crackdown enters Day 3

Several hundred federal agents are scouring the greater New Orleans metro area in a Border Patrol-led enforcement operation that seeks at least 5,000 arrests.

The Department of Homeland Security has already touted dozens of arrests since the operation began Wednesday, saying it is targeting people with criminal records and highlighting the arrest of a convicted sex offender. But the agency has shared only limited details of who was detained.

Immigrant rights groups have accused federal agents of racial profiling, and some New Orleans officials say 5,000 arrests is unrealistic.

In the Hispanic enclave of Kenner, a city just outside New Orleans, restaurants like Carmela Diaz’s taco joint have closed down because staff and customers are afraid to leave their homes.

US vaccine advisers recommend not all babies get the hepatitis B shot at birth

A federal vaccine advisory committee voted on Friday to end the longstanding recommendation that all U.S. babies get the hepatitis B vaccine on the day they’re born.

For decades, the government has advised that all babies be vaccinated against the liver infection right after birth. The shots are widely considered to be a public health success for preventing thousands of illnesses. But U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s committee voted to recommend the birth dose only for babies whose mothers test positive or whose infection status is unknown.

A loud chorus of medical and public health leaders decried the decision, which marks a return to a public health strategy abandoned more than three decades ago.

▶ Read more about the vaccine panel’s recommendation, and reaction to it

Arkansas offers the kind of help ICE wants nationwide

The area in and around Bentonville, Arkansas, best known as home to the Walmart headquarters, has emerged as a little-known hot spot in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Based on an Associated Press review of ICE arrest data, jail records, police reports and interviews with residents, immigration lawyers and watchdogs, the county offers a window into what the future may hold for places where local and state law enforcement authorities cooperate broadly with ICE.

The Department of Homeland Security now has cooperation agreements with 1,180 state and local agencies and is offering some financial incentives for local help making arrests. Records show the partnership in Arkansas has led to the detention and deportation of some violent criminals but also repeatedly used misdemeanor arrests to move people toward deportations, splitting apart families, sparking protests and spreading fear.

▶ Read more about how one county jail produces hundreds of ICE arrests under a program surging across the US

Trump raises specter of Democrat-packed Supreme Court

In his latest broadside against the Senate’s filibuster rule, Trump said Democrats would pack the Supreme Court with “21 Justices” if they win back power.

“They will do this on their very first day in office, through the simple Termination of the Filibuster, SHOULD THEY WIN THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

While more Democrats in recent years have embraced the idea of expanding the Supreme Court, it is by no means a broadly held position among lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Trump has repeatedly pushed to end the filibuster and its 60-vote threshold that encourages a bipartisan approach to lawmaking.

White House sets up a ‘hall of shame’ for news outlets

Trump’s White House is asking for help from “everyday Americans” for a web portal it says will spotlight news bias, targeting the Boston Globe, CBS News and The Independent as its inaugural “media offender of the week.”

It’s the latest wrinkle in Trump’s fight against what he labeled “fake news.” The Republican president has taken CBS News and The Wall Street Journal to court over their coverage, is litigating against The Associated Press over media access and has moved to dismantle the Voice of America among other government-run outlets. Trump has also engaged in personal attacks, particularly against female reporters, telling one to be “quiet, piggy.”

“It’s honestly overwhelming to keep up with it all and to constantly have to defend against this fake news and these attacks,” said press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who called the new web portal an attempt to hold journalists accountable.

▶ Read more about Trump’s new media “hall of shame”

Trump’s ‘America First’ security strategy slams European allies and asserts US power

The White House released a new national security strategy on Friday that paints European allies as weak and aims to reassert America’s dominance in the Western Hemisphere. The document includes scathing critiques of the migration and free speech policies of longstanding allies, suggesting they face the “prospect of civilizational erasure” and raising doubts about their long-term reliability as American partners.

It sometimes chilly and bellicose terms, it reinforces Trump’s “America First” philosophy, which favors nonintervention overseas, questions decades of strategic relationships and prioritizes U.S. interests above all.

This is the first national security strategy, a document the administration is required by law to release, since Trump’s return to office. It is a stark break from the course set by President Joe Biden, who sought to reinvigorate alliances rattled by Trump’s first term and to check a more assertive Russia.

▶ Read more about Trump’s new national security strategy

Refugees around the world are shut out by Trump

About 600,000 people were being processed to come to the U.S. as refugees when Trump suspended the program. Many had already sold their homes and possessions after submitting reams of documents, passing interviews by U.S. officials and even buying airline tickets.

Trump resumed the program in October with a historically low cap of 7,500 people — mostly white South Africans. A litany of new restrictions was announced after an Afghan national was arrested in the shooting of two National Guard members.

▶ The Associated Press spoke to three families whose lives have been thrown into disarray.

Trump’s immigration message is colliding with his welcome to World Cup fans

Trump will take center stage at Friday’s World Cup draw in Washington, rolling out the welcome mat for teams and fans from around the globe at a time when his administration is expanding restrictions on travel to the United States for people from 19 countries and he has hardened his rhetoric against immigrants.

The administration is betting that its push to expedite visa processing for visitors and the excitement about the matchups for next summer’s tournament — hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico — will outweigh concerns that Trump’s immigration messaging undercuts the theme of global unity that the World Cup is meant to represent.

In the past week, Trump has said he wants to permanently pause immigration from poor countries and he has singled out Afghans and Somalis for particular contempt. The Republican president is also overseeing the signing a peace agreement between Rwanda and Congo on Thursday at an event with leaders from a host of foreign countries and he is expected to be honored for his peacemaking efforts by FIFA, international soccer’s governing body, during the World Cup draw.

Critics say the dueling messages are jarring.

▶ Read more about Trump’s messaging

White House to submit plans for new ballroom to planning commission

The White House is expected to submit plans for Trump’s new ballroom to a federal planning commission before the year ends, about three months after construction began.

Will Scharf, named by Trump as chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, said Thursday that White House colleagues told him the long-awaited plans will be filed sometime in December.

“Once plans are submitted, that’s really when the role of this commission, and its professional staff, will begin,” said Scharf, who is also a top White House aide. He said the review process would happen at a “normal and deliberative pace.”

Separately, the White House confirmed Thursday that a second architectural firm has been added to the project. Spokesperson Davis Ingle said architect Shalom Baranes of Washington, D.C., was needed as construction moves into a new phase.

▶ Read more about the proposed plans

Another boat is sunk amid probe into the first strike

The U.S. Southern Command said the strike on the small boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean Thursday was the 22nd strike so far, killing four people and raising the death toll to at least 87.

The strike was announced as Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley appeared for classified briefings as lawmakers began an investigation into the very first strike. Bradley told them there was no “kill them all” order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Democrats are pushing for the release of video they say shows a war crime, or murder.

▶ Read more about the strike

Supreme Court allows Texas to use redistricted map favorable to GOP

A divided Supreme Court on Thursday came to the rescue of Texas Republicans, allowing next year’s elections to be held under the state’s congressional redistricting plan favorable to the GOP and pushed by President Donald Trump despite a lower-court ruling that the map likely discriminates on the basis of race.

With conservative justices in the majority, the court acted on an emergency request from Texas for quick action because qualifying in the new districts already has begun, with primary elections in March. Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the three liberal justices that her colleagues should not have intervened.

▶ Read more about the ruling

Trump calls people from Somalia ‘garbage’

He said it four times in seven seconds. In fact, Trump’s rhetorical attacks on immigrants have been building since he said Mexico was sending “rapists” across the border during his presidential campaign announcement a decade ago.

But with one flourish closing a two-hour Cabinet meeting Tuesday, Trump amped up his anti-immigrant rhetoric even further and ditched any claim that his administration was only seeking to remove people without legal status.

It was a riveting display in a nation that prides itself as being founded and enriched by immigrants, alongside an ugly history of enslaving millions of them and limiting who can come in.

Trump’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and deportations have reignited an age-old debate — and widened the nation’s divisions — over who can be an American,.

▶ Read more about Trump’s recent comments

Appeals court: Trump must release school mental health grants

A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected the Trump administration’s bid to halt an order requiring it to release millions of dollars in grants meant to address the shortage of mental health workers in schools.

The program was funded by Congress after the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, included grants meant to help schools hire more counselors, psychologists and social workers, with a focus on rural and underserved areas of the country.

▶ Read more about the decision

Trump to direct more water to California farms

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on Thursday announced a new plan for operating the Central Valley Project, a vast system of pumps, dams and canals that direct water southward from the state’s wetter north.

It follows an executive order Trump signed in January calling for more water to flow to farmers, arguing the state was wasting the precious resource in the name of protecting endangered fish species.