Trump announces travel ban affecting a dozen countries set to go into effect Monday

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump is resurrecting the travel ban policy from his first term, signing a proclamation Wednesday night preventing people from a dozen countries from entering the United States.

The countries include Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

In addition to the ban, which takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday, there will be heightened restrictions on visitors from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

"I must act to protect the national security and national interest of the United States and its people," Trump said in his proclamation.

Ten of the 19 countries under the bans and restrictions are in Africa, nine of those from majority Black African countries. Several of those, including Sierra Leone, Togo, and Equatorial Guinea, are not known for hosting armed groups that pose a major threat to the West.

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Trump orders investigation of Biden´s use of an autopen, claiming White House cover-up

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered his administration to investigate former President Joe Biden's use of an autopen to sign pardons and other documents, increasing the pressure on his predecessor as House Republicans also requested interviews with members of Biden's inner circle.

An autopen is a mechanical device that is used to replicate a person´s authentic signature, and presidents have used them for decades. However, Trump has frequently suggested that some of Biden's actions are invalid because his aides were usurping presidential authority to cover up what Trump claims is Biden's cognitive decline.

"This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history," Trump wrote in a memo. "The American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden´s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts."

Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi and link alternatif hajitoto, White House Counsel David Warrington to handle the investigation.

Meanwhile, House Oversight Chairman James Comer of Kentucky, a Republican, requested transcribed interviews with five Biden aides, alleging they had participated in a "cover-up" that amounted to "one of the greatest scandals in our nation´s history."

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Trump says Putin told him that Russia will respond to Ukrainian attack on airfields

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. President Donald Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin told him "very strongly" in a phone call Wednesday that he will respond to Ukraine´s weekend drone attack on Russian airfields as the deadlock over the war drags on.

Trump said in a social media post that his lengthy call with Putin "was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate Peace."

It's the first time Trump has weighed in on Ukraine's daring attack inside Russia. The U.S. did not have advance notice of the operation, according to the White House, a point Trump emphasized during the call with Putin, according to Putin´s foreign affairs adviser.

The call comes as the U.S. leads a diplomatic push to broker a peace deal following nearly 3½ years of war.

Trump, in his post, did not say how he reacted to Putin's promise to respond to Ukraine's attack, but it showed none of the frustration that Trump has expressed with his Russian counterpart in recent weeks over his prolonging of the war.

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Trump tax bill will add $2.4 trillion to the deficit and leave 10.9 million more uninsured, CBO says

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump´s big bill in Congress would unleash trillions in tax cuts and slash spending, but also spike deficits by $2.4 trillion over the decade and leave some 10.9 million more people without health insurance, raising the political stakes for the GOP's signature domestic priority.

Republican leaders in Congress, determined to muscle the sweeping package forward, had little to say after the analysis released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. GOP senators spent more than an hour at the White House in what they called a robust afternoon discussion with Trump.

"We´re committed to making a law that will make the lives of the American people better," Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota said afterward. He vowed to "get this done one way or another."

But Democrats angling to halt the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, named after the president´s own catchphrase, piled on with relentless opposition.

"In the words of Elon Musk, this bill is a `disgusting abomination,´" said Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, reviving the billionaire former Trump aide´s criticism of the package.

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Judge says migrants sent to El Salvador prison must get a chance to challenge their removals

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration must give more than 100 migrants sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador a chance to challenge their deportations.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg said that people who were sent to the prison in March under an 18th-century wartime law haven´t been able to formally contest the removals or allegations that they are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. He ordered the administration to work toward giving them a way to file those challenges.

The judge wrote that "significant evidence" has surfaced indicating that many of the migrants imprisoned in El Salvador are not connected to the gang "and thus languish in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations."

Boasberg gave the administration one week to come up with a manner in which the "at least 137" people can make those claims, even while they're formally in the custody of El Salvador. It's the latest milestone in the monthslong legal saga over the fate of deportees imprisoned at El Salvador´s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center.

After Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in March and prepared to fly planeloads of accused gang members to El Salvador and out of the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, Boasberg ordered them to turn the planes around. This demand was ignored. Boasberg has found probable cause that the administration committed contempt of court after the flight landed. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele posted a taunting message on social media - reposted by some of Trump's top aides - that read "Oopsie, too late."

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A US judge halts the deportation of the Egyptian family of the Boulder firebombing suspect

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) - A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the government to immediately halt deportation proceedings against the family of a man charged in the firebombing attack in Boulder, Colorado, to ensure the protection of the family's constitutional rights.

U.S. District Judge Gordon P. Gallagher granted a request from the wife and five children of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who are Egyptian, to block their deportation. U.S. immigration officials took the family into custody Tuesday.

"The court finds that deportation without process could work irreparable harm and an order must issue without notice due to the urgency this situation presents," Gallagher wrote.

Soliman, 45, has been charged with a federal hate crime and state counts of attempted murder in the attack in downtown Boulder on Sunday. Witnesses say he threw two Molotov cocktails at a group demonstrating for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza, and he confessed to the attack in custody.

His family members have not been charged.

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Man charged with supplying explosive chemicals to bomber of Palm Springs fertility clinic

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Federal authorities arrested a man they say collaborated with the bomber of a fertility clinic in May, alleging that he supplied chemicals used to make explosives and traveled to California to experiment with them in the bomber´s garage months before the attack.

The two men connected in fringe online forums over their shared beliefs against human procreation, authorities told reporters Wednesday. The blast gutted the fertility clinic in Palm Springs and shattered the windows of nearby buildings, with officials calling the attack terrorism and possibly the largest bomb scene ever in Southern California. The clinic was closed, and no embryos were damaged.

Guy Edward Bartkus of California, the bomber, died in the May 17 explosion. Authorities arrested Daniel Park, 32, of Washington state on Tuesday after he was extradited from Poland, where he fled to four days after the attack. Park is charged with providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists.

Park spent years stocking up on ammonium nitrate, a chemical that can be used to make explosives, before shipping it to Bartkus and later visiting him in Twentynine Palms, California. He stayed for about two weeks earlier this year, and the two conducted bomb-making experiments in the detached garage of Bartkus´ family home, said Akil Davis, the FBI´s assistant director in charge.

Park, 32, was taken into custody at New York´s John F. Kennedy Airport, U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli told reporters. He appeared in federal court Wednesday in Brooklyn and, through his lawyer, waived his right to a detention hearing in New York.

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Trump promised to welcome more foreign students. Now, they feel targeted on all fronts

To attract the brightest minds to America, President Donald Trump proposed a novel idea while campaigning: If elected, he would grant green cards to all foreign students who graduate from U.S. colleges.

"It´s so sad when we lose people from Harvard, MIT, from the greatest schools," Trump said during a podcast interview last June. "That is going to end on Day One."

That promise never came to pass. Trump´s stance on welcoming foreign students has shifted dramatically. International students have found themselves at the center of an escalating campaign to kick them out or keep them from coming as his administration merges a crackdown on immigration with an effort to reshape higher education.

An avalanche of policies from the Trump administration - such as terminating students´ ability to study in the U.S., halting all new student visa interviews, moving to block foreign enrollment at Harvard - have triggered lawsuits, countersuits and confusion for international students who say they feel targeted on multiple fronts.

In interviews, students from around the world described how it feels to be an international student today in America. Their accounts highlight pervasive feelings of fear, anxiety and insecurity that have made them more cautious in their daily lives, distracted them from schoolwork and prompted many to cancel trips home because they fear not being allowed to return.

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Measles vaccination rates drop after COVID-19 pandemic in counties across the US

Childhood vaccination rates against measles fell in the years after the COVID-19 pandemic in nearly 80% of the more than 2,000 U.S. counties with available data - including in states that are battling outbreaks this year.

A Johns Hopkins University study, published in JAMA this week, illustrates where more vulnerable communities are located. The results mirror trends established at state and national levels: Routine childhood vaccination rates are dropping.

"When you look at the state level or national level ... you really don´t see those drastic drops. Those are there. They´re real and they´re really problematic," said Lauren Gardner, an expert in infectious disease modeling at Johns Hopkins University who is the paper´s senior author. Gardner also built the university´s COVID-19 database.

Most of the measles cases in the U.S. this year - 1,088 nationally as of Friday - are in unvaccinated people. It has been spreading among communities due to international and domestic travel. Three people have died from measles during this year's outbreaks, and 2025 is inching closer to becoming the worst for measles in more than three decades.

Measles was eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, and the vaccine is safe and highly effective. Public schools nationwide require two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine before kindergarten, but the number of children with non-medical exemptions from those requirements hit an all-time high in the 2023-2024 school year. Health experts say community-level vaccination needs to be at 95% or higher to prevent outbreaks.

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NBA working on plan for US-vs.-world format at All-Star Game next season, AP source says

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - The NBA is working on a plan to turn next season's All-Star Game into a U.S.-vs.-world competition, a person with knowledge of the situation said Wednesday.

It remains unclear how the format will work, said the person, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the league has not made any final determinations. Speaking to Fox Sports 1 earlier Wednesday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver - who has talked about such a game on multiple occasions - was asked if U.S. vs. the world is possible.

"Yes," Silver said.

Silver addressed the idea on March 27 as well at the league's most recent board of governors meeting, when he revealed that the NBA was scrapping the All-Star mini-tournament format that was used this season.

At that time, the AP reported that the 2026 game - to be played Feb. 15 in Inglewood, California, just past the midpoint of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics - will be moved from its traditional prime-time Sunday night slot to one that starts on Sunday afternoon. That's happening because the game will be aired on NBC under the terms of the new 11-year media rights deals that kick in next season. NBC is also the Olympic broadcaster in the U.S.