AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EST
Posted Feb 5, 2025 01:04:44 AM.
Last Updated Feb 6, 2025 12:16:13 AM.
With Gaza rehab and other global policy ideas, Trump goes from America First to America Everywhere
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump promised voters an administration that wouldn’t waste precious American lives and taxpayer treasure on far-off wars and nation building.
But just weeks into his second go-around in the White House, the Republican leader laid out plans to use American might to “take over” and reconstruct Gaza, threatened to reclaim U.S. control of the Panama Canal and floated the idea that the U.S. could buy Greenland from Denmark, which has shown no interest in parting with the island.
The rhetorical shift from America First to America Everywhere is leaving even some of his allies slack-jawed — and wondering if he’s really serious.
“The pursuit for peace should be that of the Israelis and the Palestinians,” a flummoxed Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican and Trump ally, posted Wednesday on social media. “I thought we voted for America First. We have no business contemplating yet another occupation to doom our treasure and spill our soldiers’ blood.”
The president’s shocking declaration Tuesday that he wants to remove roughly 1.8 million Palestinians from Gaza and redevelop the war-scarred territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East” with “long-term” American ownership raises anew questions about the direction of Trump’s foreign policy during his norm-breaking second term.
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‘I won’t leave. Put that in your brain.’ Palestinians reject Trump’s call to expel them from Gaza
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Saeed Abu Elaish’s wife, two of his daughters and two dozen others from his extended family were killed by Israeli airstrikes over the past 15 months. His house in northern Gaza was destroyed. He and surviving family now live in a tent set up in the rubble of his home.
But he says he will not be driven out, after President Donald Trump called for transferring all Palestinians from Gaza so the United States could take over the devastated territory and rebuild it for others. Rights groups said his comments were tantamount to a call for “ethnic cleansing” and forcible expulsion.
“We categorically reject and will resist any plans to deport and transfer us from our land,” he said from the Jabaliya refugee camp.
Trump’s call for depopulating Gaza has stunned Palestinians. Hundreds of thousands in the territory rushed to return to their homes – even if destroyed – as soon as they could following the ceasefire reached last month between Israel and Hamas.
Though some experts speculated that Trump’s proposal might be a negotiating tactic, Palestinians across the region saw in it an effort to erase them completely from their homeland, a continuation of the expulsion and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation.
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In their own words: What Trump said about Gaza and how top administration officials contradicted him
WASHINGTON (AP) — Top Trump administration voices on Wednesday contradicted some of the comments the president made a day earlier about the U.S. taking long-term control of war-shattered Gaza, the possibility of sending in American troops and the area’s residents being permanently resettled.
President Donald Trump ‘s remarks Tuesday set off alarm in Arab countries and even among some of his Republican allies before Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to walk them back.
Here’s a look at what Trump, Rubio and Leavitt said, and the key areas in which they disagree:
Trump: “I hope we can do something where they wouldn’t want to go back.”
“If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people, permanently, in nice homes where they can be happy and not be shot and not be killed and not be knifed to death like what’s happening in Gaza.”
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The US is freezing and La Nina usually eases warming. Earth just set another heat record anyway
WASHINGTON (AP) — The world warmed to yet another monthly heat record in January, despite an abnormally chilly United States, a cooling La Nina and predictions of a slightly less hot 2025, according to the European climate service Copernicus.
The surprising January heat record coincides with a new study by a climate science heavyweight, former top NASA scientist James Hansen, and others arguing that global warming is accelerating. It’s a claim that’s dividing the research community.
January 2025 globally was 0.09 degrees Celsius (0.16 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than January 2024, the previous hottest January, and was 1.75 C (3.15 F) warmer than it was before industrial times, Copernicus calculated. It was the 18th month of the last 19 that the world hit or passed the internationally agreed upon warming limit of 1.5 C (2.7 F) above pre-industrial times. Scientists won’t regard the limit as breached unless and until global temperatures stay above it for 20 years.
Copernicus records date to 1940, but other U.S. and British records go back to 1850, and scientists using proxies such as tree rings say this era is the warmest in about 120,000 years or since the start of human civilization.
By far the biggest driver of record heat is greenhouse gas buildup from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, but the natural contributions to temperature change have not been acting quite as expected, said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate for the European weather agency.
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Justice Dept. official accuses FBI chief of ‘insubordination,’ tamps down talk of revenge on agents
WASHINGTON (AP) — A top Justice Department official accused the FBI’s acting leaders of “insubordination” in a Wednesday memo in which he sought to soothe anxiety inside the bureau over the potential for a broad purge of agents involved in investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The memo from acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said agents “who simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner” while investigating the Capitol attack face no risk of being fired.
But the memo also provided no reassurances for any agents found to have “acted with corrupt or partisan intent” and suggests those employees, if there are any, are at risk of discipline or even termination as part of a highly unusual review process the Trump administration is embarking upon to identify what it says is potential misconduct.
The scrutiny of career FBI agents being undertaken by the department is highly unusual given that rank-and-file agents do not select the cases they are assigned to work on and are not generally disciplined because of their participation in matters seen as politically sensitive. There’s also been no evidence any FBI agents or lawyers who investigated or prosecuted the cases did anything wrong.
The message from Bove is aimed at providing a measure of clarity after days of turmoil and uncertainty at the FBI as a result of an extraordinary Justice Department demand on Friday for the names of agents who participated in the investigations so that officials could determine whether additional personnel action was merited.
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Trump signs executive order intended to bar transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday intended to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports.
The order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” gives federal agencies wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX in alignment with the Trump administration’s view, which interprets “sex” as the gender someone was assigned at birth.
“With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over,” Trump said at a signing ceremony in the East Room that included lawmakers and female athletes who have come out in support of a ban, including former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the order “upholds the promise of Title IX” and will require “immediate action, including enforcement actions, against schools and athletic associations” that deny women single-sex sports and single-sex locker rooms.
The timing of the order coincided with National Girls and Women in Sports Day, and is the latest in a string of executive actions from the Republican president aimed at transgender people.
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Google scraps its diversity hiring goals as it complies with Trump’s new government contractor rules
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google is scrapping some of its diversity hiring targets, joining a lengthening list of U.S. companies that have abandoned or scaled back their diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
The move, which was outlined in an email sent to Google employees on Wednesday, came in the wake of an executive order issued by President Donald Trump that was aimed in part at pressuring government contractors to scrap their DEI initiatives.
Like several other major tech companies, Google sells some of its technology and services to the federal government, including its rapidly growing cloud division that’s a key piece of its push into artificial technology.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, also signaled the shift in its annual 10-K report it filed this week with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In it, Google removed a line included in previous annual reports saying that it’s “committed to making diversity, equity, and inclusion part of everything we do and to growing a workforce that is representative of the users we serve.”
Google generates most of Alphabet’s annual revenue of $350 billion and accounts for almost all of its worldwide workforce of 183,000.
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Second type of bird flu detected in US dairy cows
Dairy cattle in Nevada have been infected with a new type of bird flu that’s different from the version that has spread in U.S. herds since last year, Agriculture Department officials said Wednesday.
The detection indicates that distinct forms of the virus known as Type A H5N1 have spilled over from wild birds into cattle at least twice. Experts said it raises new questions about wider spread and the difficulty of controlling infections in animals and the people who work closely with them.
“I always thought one bird-to-cow transmission was a very rare event. Seems that may not be the case,” said Richard Webby, an influenza expert at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
A version of the H5N1 bird flu virus known as B3.13 was confirmed in March after being introduced to cattle in late 2023, scientists said. It has infected more than 950 herds in 16 states. The new version, known as D1.1, was confirmed in Nevada cattle on Friday, according to USDA. It was detected in milk collected as part of a surveillance program launched in December.
“Now we know why it’s really important to test and continue testing,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virus expert at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, who helped identify the first spillover.
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Oscar presenters will include Emma Stone and Cillian Murphy. Here’s what to know about the show
After devastating wildfires tore through Los Angeles, the 97th Academy Awards are going forward.
Like the Grammys and other awards shows this year, the ceremony will be transformed by the fires and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has pledged to help its members and the broader film community recover.
Here’s everything you need to know about this year’s show:
The Academy Awards will be held on Sunday, March 2 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. The show, to be broadcast live by ABC, is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT.
For the first time, the Oscars will be streamed live on Hulu. You can also watch via Hulu Live TV, YouTubeTV, AT&T TV and FuboTV. With authentication from your provider, you can watch on ABC.com and the ABC app.
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Jimmy Butler is headed to the Golden State Warriors, AP source says
Jimmy Butler has gotten his wish. He’s being traded out of Miami.
The Heat and the Golden State Warriors have agreed on a deal that sends Butler to the Bay Area, a person with knowledge of the talks said Wednesday. The trade ends a Miami era for Butler that will be remembered first for two trips to the NBA Finals and then three suspensions toward the end of a hostile breakup.
Golden State is making it happen by moving Andrew Wiggins, Dennis Schroder, Kyle Anderson and first-round draft compensation out in the deal, said the person, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the trade has not gotten league approval.
Wiggins is staying in Miami and, for now, Anderson is as well, the source said. Schroder is getting moved to Utah — where the Warriors, coincidentally, were Wednesday night — and Josh Richardson is heading from Miami to Detroit as part of the deal. Also on the move: PJ Tucker, who hasn’t played yet this season, was just traded from the Los Angeles Clippers to Utah and now is set to rejoin the Heat.
The Heat will get a protected first-rounder from Golden State; for now, that is a pick in this year’s draft though that could change based on final terms. And ESPN reported that Butler has already agreed on a two-year extension with the Warriors, one that would be worth around $120 million.
The Associated Press