Syrian forces withdraw from Sweida after ceasefire goes into effect
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syrian government forces largely withdrew from the southern province of Sweida Thursday following days of vicious clashes with militias of the Druze minority.
Under a ceasefire agreement reached the day before, which largely halted the hostilities, Druze factions and clerics have been appointed to maintain internal security in Sweida, Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa said in an address broadcast early Thursday.
The dayslong fighting threatened to unravel Syria’s postwar political transition and brought in further military intervention by its powerful neighbor Israel, which on Wednesday struck the Syrian Defense Ministry headquarters in the heart of Damascus. Israel said it was acting to protect the Druze religious minority.
Druze leaders and Syrian government officials reached a ceasefire deal mediated by the United States, Turkey and Arab countries.
Convoys of government forces started withdrawing from the city of Sweida overnight as Syrian state media said the withdrawal was in line with the ceasefire agreement and the military operation against the Druze factions had ended.
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Senate passes $9 billion in spending cuts to public broadcasting, foreign aid requested by Trump
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has passed about $9 billion in federal spending cuts requested by President Donald Trump, including deep reductions to public broadcasting and foreign aid, moving forward on one of the president's top priorities despite concerns from several Republican senators.
The legislation, which now moves to the House, would have a tiny impact on the nation's rising debt but could have major ramifications for the targeted spending, from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to U.S. food aid programs abroad.
It also could complicate efforts to pass additional spending bills this year, as Democrats and even some Republicans have argued they are ceding congressional spending powers to Trump with little idea of how the White House Office of Management and Budget would apply the cuts.
The 51-48 vote came after 2 a.m. Thursday after Democrats sought to remove many of the proposed rescissions during 12 hours of amendment votes. None of the Democratic amendments were adopted.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Republicans were using the president’s rescissions request to target wasteful spending. He said it is a “small but important step for fiscal sanity that we all should be able to agree is long overdue.”
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A fire at a shopping center in eastern Iraq kills more than 60 people
BAGHDAD (AP) — A fire engulfed a newly opened shopping center in eastern Iraq, killing more than 60 people, including children, Iraqi officials said Thursday.
Civil defense teams rescued more than 45 people who became trapped when the fire broke out late Wednesday in the city of Kut, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. Others are still missing, according to the state-run Iraqi News Agency.
Photographs and videos on local media showed the Corniche Hypermarket Mall, a five-story shopping center that had opened only a week earlier, fully engulfed in flames.
Poor building standards have often contributed to tragic fires in Iraq. In July 2021, a blaze at a hospital in the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah that killed between 60 to 92 people was determined to have been fueled by highly flammable, low-cost type of “sandwich panel” cladding that is illegal in Iraq.
In 2023, more than 100 people died in a fire at a wedding hall in the predominantly Christian area of Hamdaniya in Nineveh province after the ceiling panels above a pyrotechnic machine burst into flames..
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Trump says he's 'highly unlikely' to fire Fed's Powell after floating that idea in private
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he was “highly unlikely” to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, a public statement made less than 24 hours after suggesting in a private meeting that he was leaning in favor of dismissing the head of the nation's central bank.
Trump confirmed that in a White House meeting Tuesday night with about a dozen House Republicans he had discussed the “concept” of dismissing Powell, long a target because of his refusal to lower interest rates as Trump wants.
“Almost every one of them said I should,” Trump said about the lawmakers who had come to talk to him about crypto legislation.
He indicated he was leaning in that direction, according to a White House official. During that session, Trump waved a letter about firing Powell, but a person familiar with the matter said it was essentially a prop drafted by someone else and that the Republican president has not drafted such a letter.
Neither source was authorized to publicly discuss the private meeting and they spoke only on condition on anonymity.
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In their own words: Trump, Patel, Bongino and Bondi on the Epstein scandal
PHOENIX (AP) — When Jeffrey Epstein died in prison, then-President Donald Trump speculated that authorities might be wrong in ruling it a suicide.
Many of his allies in the pro-Trump media went further, casting Epstein’s death as a murder meant to continue a decades-long coverup of pedophilia by elites.
Now back in the White House, Trump has elevated prominent proponents of Epstein conspiracies to senior law enforcement roles, and they're struggling to contain a fire that they spent years stoking. Much of Trump's base is choosing to believe the president's earlier claims about Epstein over his latest contention that there's nothing of substance in government files.
Here’s a look at how Trump and his aides, including the attorney general and FBI leadership, fanned the flames of the Epstein conspiracy theories over the years, and how they're now trying to extinguish them.
In their own words:
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Zelenskyy shakes up Ukrainian Cabinet, appointing a new prime minister to reinvigorate war effort
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s economy minister and the key negotiator in the mineral deal with the U.S, Yuliia Svyrydenko, was appointed as its new prime minister Thursday, becoming the country's first new head of government since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
Svyrydenko is one of a group of officials taking on new roles in Ukraine’s government, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reshuffles the Cabinet in a bid to energize a war-weary nation and boost domestic weapons production in the face of Russia’s grinding invasion.
At home, however, the Cabinet recalibration has not been seen as a major shift, as the Ukrainian leader continues to rely on officials who have proven their effectiveness and loyalty during the war, now in its fourth year.
Zelenskyy submitted nominations on Thursday to shuffle top government positions, including the replacement of Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, the longest-serving head of government in Ukraine’s history.
Shmyhal now moves to become defense minister, according to the parliamentary website.
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Army veteran and US citizen arrested in California immigration raid warns it could happen to anyone
A U.S. Army veteran who was arrested during an immigration raid at a Southern California marijuana farm last week said Wednesday he was sprayed with tear gas and pepper spray before being dragged from his vehicle and pinned down by federal agents who arrested him.
George Retes, 25, who works as a security guard at Glass House Farms in Camarillo, said he was arriving at work on July 10 when several federal agents surrounded his car and — despite him identifying himself as a U.S. citizen — broke his window, peppered sprayed him and dragged him out.
“It took two officers to nail my back and then one on my neck to arrest me even though my hands were already behind my back,” Retes said.
The Ventura City native was detained during chaotic raids at two Southern California farms where federal authorities arrested more than 360 people, one of the largest operations since President Donald Trump took office in January. Protesters faced off against federal agents in military-style gear, and one farmworker died after falling from a greenhouse roof.
The raids came more than a month into an extended immigration crackdown by the Trump administration across Southern California that was originally centered in Los Angeles, where local officials say the federal actions are spreading fear in immigrant communities.
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Republican senators caution Trump against firing Fed chair Jerome Powell
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is gaining some key backing on Capitol Hill from GOP senators who fear the repercussions if President Donald Trump follows through with threats to try and remove the politically independent central banker.
As Trump seemingly waffled back and forth this week on trying to dismiss the Fed chair, some Republicans in Congress began to speak up and warn that such a move would be a mistake. Trump would potentially obliterate the Fed’s independence from political influence and inject uncertainty into the foundations of the U.S. economy if he fires Powell.
“If anybody thinks it would be a good idea for the Fed to become another agency in the government subject to the president, they’re making a huge mistake,” GOP North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said in a floor speech.
The measure of support from GOP members of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs showed how traditional Republicans are carefully navigating a presidency in which Trump often flirts with ideas — like steep tariffs or firing the Fed chair — that threaten to undermine confidence in the U.S. economy.
Tillis, who recently decided not to seek reelection after clashing with Trump, later told The Associated Press that the economic fallout from Powell's firing would mostly hurt “little guys like me that grew up in trailer parks that may have a few thousand dollars in a 401k.”
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Judge won't rule this week on releasing Kilmar Abrego Garcia from jail
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Wednesday tried to poke holes in the human smuggling case the government is pursuing against him in Tennessee, while a federal judge said he won’t rule this week on freeing Abrego Garcia from jail, a decision that could precipitate his deportation.
Abrego Garcia became a flashpoint in the debate over President Donald Trump’s immigration policies when he was wrongfully deported to his native El Salvador in March. That expulsion violated a U.S. immigration judge’s 2019 order that shields Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador because he likely faces threats of gang violence there.
Facing mounting pressure and a U.S. Supreme Court order, the Republican administration returned Abrego Garcia to the U.S. last month to face the smuggling charges, which his attorneys have called “preposterous.” That case relies on the testimony of cooperating witnesses, several of whom have either requested or received help with immigration and criminal matters in return for their statements, according to earlier testimony.
Under questioning on Wednesday, Homeland Security special agent Peter Joseph said he was unaware that a lead witness against Abrego Garcia was calling other witnesses from jail. Asked whether there was reason to believe they might have coordinated their testimony, Joseph noted that three of the witnesses are related.
“That’s always a possibility,” he said.
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An Alaska tsunami warning had residents scrambling for high ground after 7.3 magnitude earthquake
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Communities along a 700-mile (1,127-km) stretch of Alaska’s southern coast ordered residents to higher ground after a powerful offshore earthquake Wednesday, but officials quickly downgraded and then canceled a tsunami warning for the region. There were no reports of significant damage.
The earthquake, with a preliminary magnitude of 7.3, struck at 12:37 p.m. local time south of Sand Point, a community of about 600 people on Popof Island, in the Aleutian chain, according to the Alaska Earthquake Center.
There were 40 aftershocks detected within the first three hours, the center said.
“We have seen other earthquakes in the area that have not generated significant tsunami waves, but we’re treating it seriously and going through our procedures, making sure communities are notified so they can activate their evacuation procedures,” said Jeremy Zidek, a spokesperson for Alaska's emergency management division.
The quake was felt as far away as Anchorage, almost 600 miles (966 km) to the northeast.
The Associated Press
