By SAM MEDNICK, SAMY MAGDY and WAFAA SHURAFA, Associated Press

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Two of U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoys traveled to Israel Monday to shore up the tenuous ceasefire that’s holding in Gaza, a day after the fragile deal faced its first major flareup as Israel threatened to halt aid transfers and killed dozens in strikes after it accused Hamas of killing two soldiers.

The Israeli military announced it resumed enforcing the ceasefire late Sunday. Aid deliveries will resume Monday through multiple crossings after Israeli inspection, in line with the agreement, according to an Israeli security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorized to speak to the media.

By early afternoon, it was not immediately clear if the flow of aid had restarted.

Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian said on Monday that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about developments in the region.

She said U.S. Vice President JD Vance and the second lady, Usha Vance, would also be visiting the country and meeting with Netanyahu, but didn’t provide a timeline.

There was no immediate confirmation from Washington regarding the vice president’s visit.

A fragile truce

More than a week has passed since the start of the U.S.-proposed truce aimed at ending two years of war. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday that Hamas has been “quite rambunctious” and “they’ve been doing some shooting.”

He also suggested that the violence might be the fault of “rebels” within the organization rather than its leadership.

Since the ceasefire started, Hamas security forces have returned to the streets in Gaza, clashing with armed groups and killing alleged gangsters in what the militant group says is an attempt to restore law and order in areas where Israeli troops have withdrawn.

On Sunday, Israel’s military said militants had fired at troops in areas of Rafah city that are Israeli-controlled according to agreed-upon ceasefire lines.

Retaliatory strikes by Israel killed 45 people in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry, which says a total of 80 people have been killed since the ceasefire took effect on Oct. 11.

Hamas, which continued to accuse Israel of multiple ceasefire violations, said communication with its remaining units in Rafah had been cut off for months and “we are not responsible for any incidents occurring in those areas.”

The next stage of ceasefire

The next stage is expected to focus on disarming Hamas, Israeli withdrawal from additional areas it controls in Gaza, and future governance of the devastated territory. The U.S. plan proposes the establishment of an internationally backed authority.

In an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” news program on the weekend, Kushner said the success or failure of the deal would depend on whether Israel and the international mechanism could create a viable alternative to Hamas.

“If they are successful, Hamas will fail, and Gaza will not be a threat to Israel in the future,” he said.

A Hamas delegation led by chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya was in Cairo to follow up on the implementation of the ceasefire deal with mediators and other Palestinian groups.

Fears ceasefire may not hold up

Palestinians in Gaza are wary that the deal may fall apart after Sunday’s flare-up.

Funeral services were held Monday for some of the dozens of people killed earlier by Israeli strikes across the strip. Associated Press footage showed mourners lining up for funeral prayers behind bodies draped in white sheets.

“There should be concerns as long as the matters have yet to be settled,” said Hossam Ahmed, a displaced person from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

There is also concern about how much aid Israel is letting into Gaza, which is part of the agreement.

In their Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel that sparked the war, Hamas killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people as hostages.

The Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. Israel has disputed them without providing its own toll.

Thousands more people are missing, according to the Red Cross.

Magdy reported from Cairo and Shurafa from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip.

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said on Monday that it will consider whether people who regularly smoke marijuana can legally own guns, the latest firearm case to come before the court since its 2022 decision expanding gun rights.

President Donald Trump’s administration asked the justices to revive a case against a Texas man charged with a felony because he allegedly had a gun in his home and acknowledged being a regular pot user. The Justice Department appealed after a lower court largely struck down a law that bars people who use any illegal drugs from having guns.

The Republican administration favors Second Amendment rights, but government attorneys argued that this ban is a justifiable restriction.

They asked the court to reinstate a case against Ali Danial Hemani. His lawyers got the felony charge tossed out after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the blanket ban is unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s expanded view of gun rights. The appellate judges found it could still be used against people accused of being high and armed at the same time, though.

Hemani’s attorneys argue the broadly written law puts millions of people at risk of technical violations since at least 20% of Americans have tried pot, according to government health data. About half of states legalized recreational marijuana, but it’s still illegal under federal law.

The Justice Department argues the law is valid when used against regular drug users because they pose a serious public safety risk. The government said the FBI found Hemani’s gun and cocaine in a search of his home as they probed travel and communications allegedly linked to Iran. The gun charge was the only one filed, however, and his lawyers said the other allegations were irrelevant and were mentioned only to make him seem more dangerous.

The case marks another flashpoint in the application of the Supreme Court’s new test for firearm restrictions. The conservative majority found in 2022 that the Second Amendment generally gives people the right to carry guns in public for self-defense and any firearm restrictions must have a strong grounding in the nation’s history.

The landmark 2022 ruling led to a cascade of challenges to firearm laws around the country, though the justices have since upheld a different federal law intended to protect victims of domestic violence by barring guns from people under restraining orders.

By SAMYA KULLAB, Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his reportedly tense meeting with U.S President Donald Trump last week was “positive” — even though he did not secure the Tomahawk missiles for Ukraine — and emphasized what he said is continued American interest in economic deals with Kyiv.

Zelenskyy said Trump reneged on the possibility of sending the long-range missiles to Ukraine, which would have been a major boost for Kyiv, following his phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin hours before the Ukrainian leader and American president were to meet on Friday.

“In my opinion, he does not want an escalation with the Russians until he meets with them,” Zelenskyy told reporters on Sunday. His comments were embargoed until Monday morning.

Ukraine is hoping to purchase 25 Patriot air defense systems from American firms using frozen Russian assets and assistance from partners, but Zelenskyy said procuring all of these would require time because of long production queues. He said he spoke to Trump about help procuring these quicker, potentially from European partners.

According to Zelenskyy, Trump said during their meeting that Putin’s maximalist demand — that Ukraine cede the entirety of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions — was unchanged.

Zelenskyy was diplomatic about his meeting with Trump despite reports that he faced pressure to accept Putin’s demands — a tactic he has kept up since the disastrous Oval Office spat on Feb. 28 when the Ukrainian president was scolded on live television for not being grateful for continued American support.

Zelenskyy said that because Trump ultimately supported a freeze along the current front line his overall message “is positive” for Ukraine.

He said Trump was looking to end the war and hopes his meeting in the coming weeks with Putin in Hungary — which does not support Ukraine — will pave the way for a peace deal after their first summit in Alaska in August failed to reach such an outcome.

So far, Zelenskyy said he has not been invited to attend but would consider it if the format for talks were fair to Kyiv.

“We share President Trump’s positive outlook if it leads to the end of the war. After many rounds of discussion over more than two hours with him and his team, his message, in my view, is positive — that we stand where we stand on the line of contact, provided all sides understand what is meant,” Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy expressed doubts about Hungary’s capital of Budapest being a suitable location for the next Trump-Putin meeting.

“I do not consider Budapest to be the best venue for such a meeting. Obviously, if it can bring peace, it will not matter which country hosts the meeting,” he added.

Zelenskyy took a stab at Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, saying he does not believe that a prime minister “who blocks Ukraine everywhere can do anything positive for Ukrainians or even provide a balanced contribution.”

Zelenskyy also expressed skepticism about Putin’s proposal to swap some territory it holds in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions if Ukraine surrenders all of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

“We wanted to understand exactly what the Russians meant. So far, there is no clear position,” he said.

Zelenskyy said he thinks that all parties have “moved closer” to a possible end to the war.

“That doesn’t mean it will definitely end, but President Trump has achieved a lot in the Middle East, and riding that wave he wants to end Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Zelenskyy added.

He said the United States is interested in bilateral gas projects with Ukraine, including the construction of an LNG terminal in the southern port city of Odesa. Other projects of interest to the U.S. include those related to nuclear energy and oil.

By CHRISTOPHER MEGERIAN, Associated Press

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (AP) — President Donald Trump said the United States could buy Argentine beef in an attempt to bring down prices for American consumers.

“We would buy some beef from Argentina,” the Republican president told reporters aboard Air Force One during a flight from Florida to Washington on Sunday. “If we do that, that will bring our beef prices down.”

Trump promised days earlier to address the issue as part of his efforts to keep inflation in check.

U.S. beef prices have been stubbornly high for a variety of reasons, including drought and reduced imports from Mexico due to a flesh-eating pest in cattle herds there.

Trump has been working to help Argentina bolster its collapsing currency with a $20 billion credit swap line and additional financing from sovereign funds and the private sector ahead of midterm elections for his close ally President Javier Milei.

The post MichMash: How are Michigan’s 2026 congressional races looking? appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

While much of the media’s attention on November’s elections has been on Detroit’s mayoral race, there are many other political contests happening outside the city. 

One of them is in Madison Heights. That’s where a one-term city council member is running for mayor against the current Eastpointe police chief. 

If elected, the council member would be the city’s first Black mayor. But what’s also interesting about this race is that he — not the police chief — won the endorsement of the Michigan Fraternal Order of Police.

How did City Councilor Quinn Wright do it? And, why does he want to be mayor? 

Last week, Producer Sam Corey spoke with Wright about that and more. 

The Metro reached out multiple times to Wright’s opponent, Chief Corey Haines. We still have not heard back from him.

 

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or NPR or wherever you get your podcasts.

 

Trusted, accurate, up-to-date.

WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.

Donate today »

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Even though violent crime has been falling fast in Detroit over the last decade, the city still has a crime rate that’s one of the highest in the nation.  

Every year, police recover about 6,000 illegal guns in Detroit. Yet legal gun ownership is also common in the city, a reflection of how deeply concerns about safety and self-protection run through daily life.

To try to prevent crime before it happens, Detroit police end up stopping people for nonviolent offenses. A Detroit Free Press investigation found that about 20% of those stops ended in foot chases and police shootings. 

Those findings stress the question: what is the police’s obligation to stop crime before it happens in a place where many don’t feel safe and guns are plentiful?

To explore this, Detroit Free Press investigative reporter Violet Ikonomova spoke with Robyn Vincent about her recent reporting on police shootings that began with stops for nonviolent offenses.

 

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Detroit’s candidates for mayor are in the final weeks of their respective campaigns.  City Council President Mary Sheffield and the Reverend Solomon Kinloch are working to get out their visions for the future of the city. 

Jeremy Allen is the executive editor for the Michigan Chronicle.  WDET’s Jerome Vaughn spoke with him about the upcoming mayoral election.   

Allen says this year is unusual because Detroit voters seem to have largely made up their minds already. 

“It’s pretty clear that people are either for Mary Sheffield or for Solomon Kinloch.  And there are—there’s really no in-between.  And so, what I’m seeing from the community is folks who are invested in this race are fully invested on one side or the other, and there’s no in-between.” 

Allen says residents aren’t saying they want to read more and learn more about a candidate before making a decision about who they’ll vote for.   

Key issues

As far as key issues in the race, Allen says he’s found Detroiters have a wide range of concerns about the city moving forward.  Overarching issues that need solving are crime—or the perception of crime—and the tension between downtown development and development in city neighborhoods remain near the top of the list.   

The future of Detroit’s school system is also something residents are keeping an eye on.  While education isn’t under the purview of the city’s mayor, Allen says the next mayor should set up some sort of task force should be set up to work more closely with Detroit Public Schools Community District. 

“…to ensure that the city of Detroit can educate its children to be better citizens down the road, because all research points to the fact that a better educated community has impacts down the road and all measurables for quality of life.”          

Black leadership

No matter which candidate wins on November 4, Detroit will have its first Black mayor in more than a decade.  Allen says that will make a difference when dealing with Detroit residents—and when dealing with the federal government. 

“I think once a Black mayor assumes leadership of the city of Detroit, I think the gloves are going to come off for how the federal government looks at and talks about the city of Detroit.  There will be more room for scrutiny.  I think there will be much more room for just this negative tone towards the city that we haven’t seen in the last few months.” 

The Michigan Chronicle has endorsed Mary Sheffield for mayor.  The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press have also given their endorsements to Sheffield.  Election Day is Tuesday, November 4.  Early voting begins Saturday, October 25. 

Trusted, accurate, up-to-date.

WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.

Donate today »

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By JULIE WATSON

When the corroded pipeline burst in 2015, inky crude spread along the Southern California coast, becoming the state’s worst oil spill in decades.

More than 140,000 gallons (3,300 barrels) of oil gushed out, blackening beaches for 150 miles from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles, polluting a biologically rich habitat for endangered whales and sea turtles, killing scores of pelicans, seals and dolphins, and decimating the fishing industry.

Plains All American Pipeline in 2022 agreed to a $230 million settlement with fishers and coastal property owners without admitting liability. Federal inspectors found that the Houston-based company failed to quickly detect the rupture and responded too slowly. It faced an uphill battle to build a new pipeline.

Three decades-old drilling platforms were subsequently shuttered, but another Texas-based fossil fuel company supported by the Trump administration purchased the operation and is intent on pumping oil through the pipeline again.

Sable Offshore Corp., headquartered in Houston, is facing a slew of legal challenges but is determined to restart production, even if that means confining it to federal waters, where state regulators have virtually no say. California controls the 3 miles nearest to shore. The platforms are 5 to 9 miles offshore.

The Trump administration has hailed Sable’s plans as the kind of project the president wants to increase U.S. energy production as the federal government removes regulatory barriers. President Donald Trump has directed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to undo his predecessor’s ban on future offshore oil drilling on the East and West coasts.

Environmentalist sue to stop the project

“This project risks another environmental disaster in California at a time when demand for oil is going down and the climate crisis is escalating,” said Alex Katz, executive director of Environmental Defense Center, the Santa Barbara group formed in response to a massive spill in 1969.

The environmental organization is among several suing Sable.

“Our concern is that there is no way to make this pipeline safe and that this company has proven that it cannot be trusted to operate safely, responsibly or even legally,” he said.

Actor and activist Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who lives in the area, has implored officials to stop Sable, saying at a March protest: “I can smell a rat. And this project is a rat.”

The California Coastal Commission fined Sable a record $18 million for ignoring cease-and-desist orders over repair work it says was done without permits. Sable said it has permits from the previous owner, Exxon Mobil, and sued the commission while work continued on the pipeline. In June, a state judge ordered it to stop while the case proceeds through the court. The commission and Sable are due back in court Wednesday.

“This fly-by-night oil company has repeatedly abused the public’s trust, racking up millions of dollars in fines and causing environmental damage along the treasured Gaviota Coast,” a state park south of Santa Barbara, said Joshua Smith, the commission’s spokesman.

Sable keeps moving forward

So far, Sable is undeterred.

The California Attorney General’s office sued Sable this month, saying it illegally discharged waste into waterways, and disregarded state law requiring permits before work along the pipeline route that crosses sensitive wildlife habitat.

“Sable placed profits over environmental protection in its rush to get oil on the market,” the agency said in its lawsuit.

Last month, the Santa Barbara District Attorney filed felony criminal charges against Sable, also accusing it of polluting waterways and harming wildlife.

Sable said it has fully cooperated with local and state agencies, including the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and called the district attorney’s allegation “inflammatory and extremely misleading.” It said a biologist and state fire marshal officials oversaw the work, and no wildlife was harmed.

The company is seeking $347 million for the delays, and says if the state blocks it from restarting the onshore pipeline system, it will use a floating facility that would keep its entire operation in federal waters and use tankers to transport the oil to markets outside California. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, the company updated its plan to include the option.

Fulfilling the president’s energy promise

The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said in July it was working with Sable to bring a second rig online.

“President Trump made it clear that American energy should come from American resources,” the agency’s deputy director Kenny Stevens said in a statement then, heralding the “comeback story for Pacific production.”

The agency said there are an estimated 190 million barrels (6 billion gallons) of recoverable oil reserves in the area, nearly 80% of residual Pacific reserves. It noted advancements in preventing and preparing for oil spills and said the failed pipeline has been rigorously tested.

“Continuous monitoring and improved technology significantly reduce the risk of a similar incident occurring in the future,” the agency said.

CEO says project could lower gas prices

On May 19 — the 10th anniversary of the disaster — CEO Jim Flores announced that Sable “is proud to have safely and responsibly achieved first production at the Santa Ynez Unit” — which includes three rigs in federal waters, offshore and onshore pipelines, and the Las Flores Canyon Processing Facility.

State officials countered that the company had only conducted testing and not commercial production. Sable’s stock price dropped and some investors sued, alleging they were misled.

Sable purchased the Santa Ynez Unit from Exxon Mobil in 2024 for nearly $650 million primarily with a loan from Exxon. Exxon sold the shuttered operation after losing a court battle in 2023 to truck the crude through central California while the pipeline system was rebuilt or repaired.

Flores said well tests at the Platform Harmony rig indicate there is much oil to be extracted and that it will relieve California’s gas prices — among the nation’s highest — by stabilizing supplies.

“Sable is very concerned about the crumbling energy complex in California,” Flores said in a statement to The Associated Press. “With the exit of two refineries last year and more shuttering soon, California’s economy cannot survive without the strong energy infrastructure it enjoyed for the last 150 years.”

California has been reducing the state’s production of fossil fuels in favor of clean energy for years. The movement has been spearheaded partly by Santa Barbara County, where elected officials voted in May to begin taking steps to phase out onshore oil and gas operations.

Associated Press writer Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana contributed to this report.

By Churchill Ndonwie, Miami Herald

Lawyers for the federal government say the government shutdown prevents them from working and are requesting that an appellate court pause a lawsuit over the controversial detention center in the Florida Everglades, the so-called Alligator Alcatraz.

In a filing Friday, Department of Justice lawyers asked the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to pause proceedings in the appeal filed by the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis to overturn a lower-court decision siding with environmental groups who said the government had circumvented federal environmental regulations when building the makeshift facility.

“Absent an appropriation, Department of Justice attorneys are prohibited from working, even on a voluntary basis, except in very limited circumstances, including “emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property,” the federal government lawyers stated.

The environmental groups disagreed with the request. They argued that if the appeals case is paused, the site’s operations and construction — which were allowed to continue after the appellate court overturned the lower court’s injunction — could cause more harm to the surrounding Everglades wetlands during the shutdown, the length of which is unknown.

“The balance of harms favors denying an indefinite stay in this case, which would cause Plaintiffs ongoing and irreversible harm,” the lawyers for the environmental group said. Any further construction and operation of the facility “imperils sensitive wetlands, endangered Species, and communities in the area,” they added.

The federal government shutdown has now added another obstacle to one of the multiple lawsuits challenging the legality of the tent detention facility built on the airstrip of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport.

Environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe sued this summer, accusing the federal and state governments of failing to adhere to the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires a federal environmental impact assessment for large federal projects. A lower district judge agreed with the environmental groups and ordered the site effectively shut down within 60 days.

The state and federal governments argued that NEPA does not apply to the state, and the appellate court agreed with them, suspending the lower court’s decision pending arguments on the merits of the appeal and wresting the case from District Judge Kathleen Williams until the appeal is resolved.

The appellate court expedited the case, and the state’s opening brief was due to be filed on Oct. 24, with oral arguments scheduled for January.

The federal government lawyers told the court in their Friday filing that they would resume “as soon as Congress has appropriated funds for the Department.”

Lawyers for the environmental groups said, “It is indeed regrettable that the lapse in appropriations has disrupted the Department of Justice,” but maintained that there was an urgency to address the “irreversible harms” to the environment, given the ongoing construction at the facility.

On Tuesday, the environmental groups filed a related lawsuit against the Florida Division of Emergency Management for failing to disclose records regarding its agreements with the federal government to receive reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for expenses related to Alligator Alcatraz.

On Sept. 30, FEMA approved the DeSantis administration’s $608 million grant request to cover the cost of operations at Alligator Alcatraz and other immigration detention facilities, including Deportation Depot.

The transfer of funds between the federal government and the state was a key point in the appeal judges’ decision to support the government’s claim that NEPA does not apply to states.

“When the Court of Appeals issued its order pausing the trial court’s order halting operations at the detention center, the Court of Appeals said more than once that the Florida Department of Emergency Management had not applied for federal funding,” Paul Schwiep of Coffey Burlington, the lawyer for the environmental groups, said in a statement.

“We now know this was wrong.”

©2025 Miami Herald. Visit miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Recently fired Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees on Tuesday called the Trump administration’s recent mass layoffs an “intentional attack” on the agency and Americans’ health.

More than 1,300 CDC employees were abruptly terminated Friday, with about half reinstated within 24 hours. About 600 staffers remain dismissed, according to internal estimates, fulfilling the administration’s threats to slash government jobs during the ongoing shutdown.

Unions and court filings over the weekend indicate that an estimated 4,200 federal workers across at least seven agencies began receiving reduction-in-force notices on Friday. In addition to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the CDC’s parent agency, which lost more than 1,100 staffers, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Education, Treasury, Commerce, Energy, and Homeland Security departments also faced significant cuts.

The Tuesday press briefing was hosted by the National Public Health Coalition, a group of terminated CDC workers and public health allies founded by former CDC public health adviser Abigail Tighe. During the briefing, an anonymous CDC scientist who was terminated Friday described the day’s events as stressful but unsurprising.

“It’s been emotionally and mentally and physically exhausting. It’s like being in a strange game where there’s no rules and we don’t know what’s going to happen next,” she said. “At this point … I’m pretty numb to it. I saw it coming. I wanted to stay as long as I could, but I knew they’d get me at some point.”

Tighe said many HHS employees were told the mass firing and rehiring stemmed from a technical coding error, but she and other former federal workers maintain that the terminations were deliberate. “These terminations were not a glitch,” she said. “It was not an innocent error.”

Former CDC officials John Brooks and Karen Remley warned that the cuts, especially to CDC, have eroded coordination between federal and state health departments, leaving the nation dangerously unprepared for future public health emergencies.

Tighe noted that about one-quarter of the agency’s workforce has been lost since the 2025 reduction-in-force process began, leaving few medical or public health professionals in leadership roles.

Among the CDC programs affected are the Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), as well as the agency’s Washington office, human resources and library divisions.

Maryland impact, building on earlier cuts

The CDC division of the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, which runs the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), lost all its staff on Friday, according to media reports. The office conducts research that guides public health policies on nutrition, oral health, and environmental risks.

NHANES is the nation’s main source of information on Americans’ health and nutrition, including birth and death rates, according to the National Library of Medicine. Brooks said it would be “very worrisome if these areas of vital statistics were lost.”

NCHS Director Brian Moyer did not respond to requests for comment. The National Public Health Coalition could not provide exact numbers of workers affected in this office or elsewhere in Maryland.

Remley warned that the local impact of cuts could be serious. “It has a significant ripple effect … you don’t know you need [public health] until you need it because it’s in the background,” she said. “All of those are eroded, and so I think at a state and local level, it’s very, very scary.”

Maryland had already lost about 12,700 federal jobs since the beginning of the second Trump administration, according to a state labor department spokesperson. HHS, which includes the CDC, accounted for the most layoffs in the first half of the year, primarily in Montgomery, Prince George’s and Baltimore counties, along with Baltimore City.

Have a news tip? Contact Mennatalla Ibrahim at mibrahim@baltsun.com.

The Texas National Guard sent home seven soldiers whose fitness levels seemingly “did not meet mission requirements” for their deployment to Illinois, a Texas Military Department spokesperson confirmed Tuesday.

In a statement provided to the Tribune, the spokesperson said the service members were replaced “during the pre-mission validation process” at the U.S. Army Reserve training center in suburban Elwood, where the troops have been garrisoned since last week.

“These service members were returned to home station,” according to the statement.

The decision comes after some soldiers were ridiculed on social media for their physical appearance upon their arrival in Illinois. Widely circulated media photographs showed heavier guardsmen at the Elwood base, prompting critics to question how the troops fit in with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insistence that all military members must meet height and weight standards.

Hegseth — who told top military leaders last month that it was “tiring” to see “fat troops” — signaled his support for the soldiers’ removal on social media Monday.

“Standards are back at The @DeptofWar,” he posted on X, along with a screenshot of a story about the Texas National Guard’s decision.

The Texas Military Department did not specify which standards the seven Guard members did not meet, but the statement said the department “echoes Secretary Hegseth’s message to the force: ‘Our standards will be high, uncompromising, and clear.’”

A federal judge in Chicago last week blocked the Trump administration from deploying National Guard troops to Chicago and the rest of Illinois as part of its ongoing immigration enforcement push. In response, the Trump administration requested an emergency stay of the order, which was denied by a federal appeals court in Chicago on Saturday.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, did allow National Guard members already in Illinois to remain here during the appeal.

“Members of the National Guard do not need to return to their home states unless further ordered by a court to do so,” the court order said.

In her oral ruling from the bench, U.S. District Judge April Perry, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, said National Guard troops are “not trained in de-escalation or other extremely important law enforcement functions that would help to quell these problems,” and that allowing troops to come into Chicago “will only add fuel to the fire that the defendants themselves have started.”

The Department of Justice argued in a filing Friday night that Perry’s order “improperly impinges on the Commander in Chief’s supervision of military operations, countermands a military directive to officers in the field, and endangers federal personnel and property.”

There has been no visible presence of the Texas National Guard since last week’s ruling. Before the judge’s ruling, the troops were spotted at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in west suburban Broadview, but they did not interact with protesters.

The Pentagon has not clarified what the Guard members will be doing while the appeal plays out. Uniformed troops have been spotted a U.S. Army Reserve Center in recent days, with a few appearing to be carrying rifles as they walked around the 3,600-acre property about 50 miles southwest of Chicago.

ostevens@chicagotribune.com

By PATRICK WHITTLE

BOOTHBAY HARBOR, Maine (AP) — Republican lawmakers are targeting one of the U.S.’s longest standing pieces of environmental legislation, credited with helping save rare whales from extinction.

Conservative leaders feel they now have the political will to remove key pieces of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, enacted in 1972 to protect whales, seals, polar bears and other sea animals. The law also places restrictions on commercial fishermen, shippers and other marine industries.

A GOP-led bill in the works has support from fishermen in Maine who say the law makes lobster fishing more difficult, lobbyists for big-money species such as tuna in Hawaii and crab in Alaska, and marine manufacturers who see the law as antiquated.

Conservation groups adamantly oppose the changes and say weakening the law will erase years of hard-won gains for jeopardized species such as the vanishing North Atlantic right whale, of which there are less than 400, and is vulnerable to entanglement in fishing gear.

Here’s what to know about the protection act and the proposed changes.

Why does the 1970s law still matter

“The Marine Mammal Protection Act is important because it’s one of our bedrock laws that help us to base conservation measures on the best available science,” said Kathleen Collins, senior marine campaign manager with International Fund for Animal Welfare. “Species on the brink of extinction have been brought back.”

It was enacted the year before the Endangered Species Act, at a time when the movement to save whales from extinction was growing. Scientist Roger Payne had discovered that whales could sing in the late 1960s, and their voices soon appeared on record albums and throughout popular culture.

The law protects all marine mammals, and prohibits capturing or killing them in U.S. waters or by U.S. citizens on the high seas. It allowed for preventative measures to stop commercial fishing ships and other businesses from accidentally harming animals such as whales and seals. The animals can be harmed by entanglement in fishing gear, collisions with ships and other hazards at sea.

The law also prevents the hunting of marine mammals, including polar bears, with exceptions for Indigenous groups. Some of those animals can be legally hunted in other countries.

Changes to oil and gas operations — and whale safety

Republican Rep. Nick Begich of Alaska, a state with a large fishing industry, submitted a bill draft this summer that would roll back aspects of the law. The bill says the act has “unduly and unnecessarily constrained government, tribes and the regulated community” since its inception.

The proposal states that it would make changes such as lowering population goals for marine mammals from “maximum productivity” to the level needed to “support continued survival.” It would also ease rules on what constitutes harm to marine mammals.

For example, the law currently prevents harassment of sea mammals such as whales, and defines harassment as activities that have “the potential to injure a marine mammal.” The proposed changes would limit the definition to only activities that actually injure the animals. That change could have major implications for industries such as oil and gas exploration where rare whales live.

That poses an existential threat to the Rice’s whale, which numbers only in the dozens and lives in the Gulf of Mexico, conservationists said. And the proposal takes specific aim at the North Atlantic right whale protections with a clause that would delay rules designed to protect that declining whale population until 2035.

Begich and his staff did not return calls for comment on the bill, and his staff declined to provide an update about where it stands in Congress. Begich has said he wants “a bill that protects marine mammals and also works for the people who live and work alongside them, especially in Alaska.”

Fishing groups want restrictions loosened

A coalition of fishing groups from both coasts has come out in support of the proposed changes. Some of the same groups lauded a previous effort by the Trump administration to reduce regulatory burdens on commercial fishing.

The groups said in a July letter to House members that they feel Begich’s changes reflect “a positive and necessary step” for American fisheries’ success.

Restrictions imposed on lobster fishermen of Maine are designed to protect the right whale, but they often provide little protection for the animals while limiting one of America’s signature fisheries, Virginia Olsen, political director of the Maine Lobstering Union, said. The restrictions stipulate where lobstermen can fish and what kinds of gear they can use. The whales are vulnerable to lethal entanglement in heavy fishing rope.

Gathering more accurate data about right whales while revising the original law would help protect the animals, Olsen said.

“We do not want to see marine mammals harmed; we need a healthy, vibrant ocean and a plentiful marine habitat to continue Maine’s heritage fishery,” Olsen said.

Some members of other maritime industries have also called on Congress to update the law. The National Marine Manufacturers Association said in a statement that the rules have not kept pace with advancements in the marine industry, making innovation in the business difficult.

Environmentalists fight back

Numerous environmental groups have vowed to fight to save the protection act. They characterized the proposed changes as part of the Trump administration’s assault on environmental protections.

The act was instrumental in protecting the humpback whale, one of the species most beloved by whale watchers, said Gib Brogan, senior campaign director with Oceana. Along with other sea mammals, humpbacks would be in jeopardy without it, he said.

“The Marine Mammal Protection Act is flexible. It works. It’s effective. We don’t need to overhaul this law at this point,” Brogan said.

What does this mean for seafood imports

The original law makes it illegal to import marine mammal products without a permit, and allows the U.S. to impose import prohibitions on seafood products from foreign fisheries that don’t meet U.S. standards.

The import embargoes are a major sticking point because they punish American businesses, said Gavin Gibbons, chief strategy officer of the National Fisheries Institute, a Virginia-based seafood industry trade group. It’s critical to source seafood globally to be able to meet American demand for seafood, he said.

The National Fisheries Institute and a coalition of industry groups sued the federal government Thursday over what they described as unlawful implementation of the protection act. Gibbons said the groups don’t oppose the act, but want to see it responsibly implemented.

“Our fisheries are well regulated and appropriately fished to their maximum sustainable yield,” Gibbons said. “The men and women who work our waters are iconic and responsible. They can’t be expected to just fish more here to make up a deficit while jeopardizing the sustainability they’ve worked so hard to maintain.”

Some environmental groups said the Republican lawmakers’ proposed changes could weaken American seafood competitiveness by allowing imports from poorly regulated foreign fisheries.

This story was supported by funding from the Walton Family Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By ALI SWENSON and JONEL ALECCIA

NEW YORK (AP) — Hundreds of federal employees working on mental health services, disease outbreaks and disaster preparedness were among those hit by the Trump administration’s mass firings over the weekend, current and laid-off workers said Monday, as the administration aimed to pressure Democratic lawmakers to give in and end the nearly two-week-long government shutdown.

The government-wide reduction-in-force initiative that began Friday roiled the massive U.S. Department of Health and Human Services just six months after it went through an earlier round of cuts and as many staffers already were disconnected from work because of the shutdown.

The situation turned even more chaotic over the weekend, when more than half of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees who’d gotten layoff notices learned they received them in error and were still employed with the agency.

HHS, through its agencies, is responsible for tracking health trends and disease outbreaks, conducting and funding medical research, and monitoring the safety of food and medicine, as well as for administering health insurance programs for nearly half the country. Among the HHS agencies facing staff cuts were the CDC, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, or ASPR, according to current and laid-off employees who spoke with The Associated Press.

Former staffers and health professionals said they were concerned the layoffs could have negative health impacts and make it difficult for HHS agencies to fulfill their obligations set by Congress.

HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said the laid off employees were deemed nonessential. He added the agency is working to “close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.”

Nixon declined to share which HHS agencies saw layoffs or how many HHS employees were affected. However, a Friday court filing from the Trump administration gave an estimate, saying about 1,100 to 1,200 of the nearly 80,000 staffers at HHS were receiving dismissal notices.

CDC is hit with layoffs — and reversals

About 600 workers at the CDC remained fired Monday in conjunction with the federal government shutdown after hundreds more had originally been targeted, according to the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2883, which represents CDC employees in Atlanta.

Of more than 1,300 CDC employees who received reduction-in-force notices Friday, about 700 later received emails revoking their terminations, the union said.

The AFGE Local 2883 called the action a “politically-motivated stunt” to illegally fire agency workers.

“These reckless actions are disrupting and destroying the lives of everyday working people, who are constantly being used as bargaining chips,” AFGE President Yolanda Jacobs said in a statement Monday.

A federal health official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media said the incorrect RIF notices resulted from a glitch in the system.

Among those targeted for dismissal and then reinstated were the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service officers, the “disease detectives” who are deployed to respond to outbreaks that threaten public health, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, former principal deputy director of the CDC, who said she was in touch with EIS officers in that situation.

“These are people who go into really scary places,” Schuchat said. “Usually you think it’s nature that’s going to be giving you a hard time, the viruses, not the government.”

Mental health services cut in sweeping dismissals at agency

SAMHSA, an agency within HHS devoted to addressing mental illness and addiction, also saw cuts, according to two employees of the agency with knowledge of the layoffs who weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

While the full scope of the firings wasn’t clear, some of the departments affected included the agency’s Office of Communications and the Center for Mental Health Services, where dozens were let go from multiple areas, according to one of the employees.

Within CMHS, one of two branches that oversaw millions of dollars in grants for community health clinics was mostly terminated, the employees said.

Dakota Jablon, a public health analyst and former employee of SAMHSA, said the loss of more staff at SAMHSA, primarily a grantmaking agency, would have “devastating ripple effects across the behavioral health field.”

“Even if the grants continue, the loss of experienced staff means those who remain will be stretched far too thin, often outside their areas of expertise,” she said.

Dr. Eric Rafla-Yuan, a psychiatrist and the chair of the Committee to Protect Public Mental Health, said staff cuts at SAMHSA could put state safety nets for people with mental illness at risk, because the agency provides significant funding and support to state programs.

Latest layoffs build on earlier cuts as HHS looks to restructure

The mass layoffs come six months after thousands of researchers, scientists, doctors, support staff and senior leaders were either laid off from HHS or took early retirement or volunteer separation offers.

The department’s staff was listed at just under 80,000 employees in a contingency plan before the government shutdown began, down more than 2,000 from its staffing level earlier in the year.

The cuts are part of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s sweeping effort to remake the department by consolidating agencies that oversee billions of dollars for addiction services and community health centers under a new office called the Administration for a Healthy America. The plan has been delayed amid ongoing legislation and congressional pushback.

Aleccia reported from Southern California. AP medical writer Mike Stobbe contributed to this report.

CHICAGO (AP) — Latino leaders expressed dismay Saturday over recent immigration enforcement operations in Chicago that resulted in a fatal shooting during a traffic stop, the arrest of an immigrant at a barbershop and a tense standoff between protesters and agents at an immigration processing facility.

An Immigration, Customs and Enforcement officer fatally shot a man who tried to evade arrest Friday by driving his car at officers and dragging one of them, officials said. The man, Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, was pronounced dead at a hospital.

On the same day, Willian Gimenez was pulled over while driving in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood and detained by ICE agents. Kevin Herrera, Gimenez’s attorney, said he believes it was retaliation for his involvement in a lawsuit against Chicago leaders, Home Depot and an off-duty police officer for their actions toward immigrant workers.

Herrera said Gimenez has a work permit and is going through the process of pursuing an asylum claim.

In a statement Saturday, immigration authorities said Gimenez was arrested for being in the country illegally.

“No one is above the law. Gimenez Gonzalez is an illegal alien with charges for criminal trespassing and a history of not showing up to court, including when he failed to appear in immigration court in April of last year, after which an immigration judge ordered him removed from the country,” the statement said.

During a morning news conference outside an ICE facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, Rep. Chuy Garcia, a Democrat, said the incidents are troubling.

“These incidents make us all ask, if ICE can kill one of our neighbors in broad daylight … if they can arrest someone for joining a lawsuit or simply for being Latino, what’s to stop them from getting any one of us?” Garcia said.

A planned 12-hour protest Friday outside the facility included several clashes between participants and officers wearing face coverings, helmets and later gas masks. The facility has seen regular demonstrations in response to increased immigration enforcement.

Rep. Delia Ramirez, also a Democrat, said she will demand a thorough investigation of the traffic stop that led to Villegas-Gonzalez’s fatal shooting and called for community unity.

The Department of Homeland Security’s campaign, labeled “ Operation Midway Blitz,” targets so-called sanctuary laws in the state.

“This ICE operation will target the criminal illegal aliens who flocked to Chicago and Illinois because they knew Governor Pritzker and his sanctuary policies would protect them and allow them to roam free on American streets,” DHS said in a statement.

Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker has been one of the most vocal opponents of the Trump administration’s immigration operations in Chicago.

The recent incidents have also raised fears in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods about celebrations for Mexican Independence Day on Sept. 16.

By DAVID BAUDER

News organizations including The New York Times, The Associated Press and the conservative Newsmax television network said Monday they will not sign a Defense Department document about its new press rules, making it likely the Trump administration will evict their reporters from the Pentagon.

Those outlets say the policy threatens to punish them for routine news gathering protected by the First Amendment. The Washington Post and The Atlantic on Monday also publicly joined the group that says it will not be signing.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reacted by posting the Times’ statement on X and adding a hand-waving emoji. His team has said that reporters who don’t acknowledge the policy in writing by Tuesday must turn in badges admitting them to the Pentagon and clear out their workspaces the next day.

The new rules bar journalist access to large swaths of the Pentagon without an escort and say Hegseth can revoke press access to reporters who ask anyone in the Defense Department for information — classified or otherwise — that he has not approved for release.

Newsmax, whose on-air journalists are generally supportive of President Donald Trump’s administration, said that “we believe the requirements are unnecessary and onerous and hope that the Pentagon will review the matter further.”

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the rules establish “common sense media procedures.”

“The policy does not ask for them to agree, just to acknowledge that they understand what our policy is,” Parnell said. “This has caused reporters to have a full blown meltdown, crying victim online. We stand by our policy because it’s what’s best for our troops and the national security of this country.”

Hegseth also reposted a question from a follower who asked, “Is this because they can’t roam the Pentagon freely? Do they believe they deserve unrestricted access to a highly classified military installation under the First Amendment?”

Hegseth answered, “yes.” Reporters say neither of those assertions is true.

Pentagon reporters say signing the statement amounts to admitting that reporting any information that hasn’t been government-approved is harming national security. “That’s simply not true,” said David Schulz, director of Yale University’s Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic.

Journalists have said they’ve long worn badges and don’t access classified areas, nor do they report information that risks putting any Americans in harm’s way.

“The Pentagon certainly has the right to make its own policies, within the constraints of the law,” the Pentagon Press Association said in a statement on Monday. “There is no need or justification, however, for it to require reporters to affirm their understanding of vague, likely unconstitutional policies as a precondition to reporting from Pentagon facilities.”

Noting that taxpayers pay nearly $1 trillion annually to the U.S. military, Times Washington bureau chief Richard Stevenson said “the public has a right to know how the government and military are operating.”

Trump has applied pressure on news organizations in several ways, with ABC News and CBS News settling lawsuits related to their coverage. Trump has also filed lawsuits against The New York Times and Wall Street Journal and moved to choke off funding for government-run services like the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

David Bauder writes about the media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social

By JEANNE KUANG/CalMatters

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday signed a bill allowing a broad range of relatives to step in as children’s caregivers if their parents are deported, a measure that had provoked a firestorm of conservative criticism.

Assembly Bill 495 will also bar daycare providers from collecting immigration information about a child or their parents, and allow parents to nominate a temporary legal guardian for their child in family court.

“We are putting on record that we stand by our families and their right to keep their private information safe, maintain parental rights and help families prepare in case of emergencies,” Newsom said in a press release.

It was one of several measures the Democratic-dominated Legislature pushed this year in response to the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation crackdown in Los Angeles and across California. Newsom, a Democrat, signed several of those other bills — banning Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from wearing masks in the state and requiring schools and hospitals to require warrants when officers show up — in a ceremony in L.A. last month.

He left AB 495 undecided for weeks, prompting a flurry of advocacy by immigrants’ rights groups to secure Newsom’s signature in the face of intense pushback from conservative activists. The governor announced his decision the day before his deadline to sign or veto the over 800 bills lawmakers sent to his desk last month.

The most controversial aspect of the bill concerns an obscure, decades-old form called a caregiver’s authorization affidavit. Relatives of a child whose parents are temporarily unavailable, and with whom the child is living, can attest to being the child’s caregiver; the designation allows the adult to enroll the child in school, take them to the doctor and consent to medical and dental care.

The new law will broaden who is allowed to sign the caregiver affidavit, from more traditional definitions of relatives to any adult in the family who is “related to the child by blood, adoption, or affinity within the fifth degree of kinship,” which includes people like great aunts or cousins. Parents can cancel the caregiver designation, which is intended to be a temporary arrangement and does not give that person custody.

Proponents said parents at risk of deportation should get to choose someone trusted to care for their children if ICE detains them. Expanding who is eligible for the caregiver form, they said, gives immigrant parents more options because they may not have close relatives in the country but benefit from strong ties with extended family or informal community networks.

The legislation was backed by immigrants’ rights groups and children’s advocates such as the Alliance for Children’s Rights and First 5 California.

“I introduced this bill so children do not have to wonder what will happen to them if their parents are not able to pick them up from school,” bill author Assemblymember Celeste Rodriguez, an Arleta Democrat, said at a recent press conference.

Critics claim strangers could get custody

But Republicans, the religious right and parental rights’ activists argued the bill would instead endanger children.

They claimed it would allow strangers to sign the affidavit and claim the child into their care. Hundreds of opponents showed up at the Capitol by busload to rally against the legislation, organized by Pastor Jack Hibbs of the Calvary Chapel Chino Hills megachurch, who called it “the most dangerous bill we’ve seen” in Sacramento. Some of the blowback stemmed from false claims that the bill would allow strangers to get custody of children to whom they’re not related.

Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, a San Diego Republican, called the legislation “a human trafficker’s dream.”

In an email, Greg Burton, vice president of the California Family Council, took issue with the fact that parents might not be there when the affidavit form is signed.

“What are parental rights?” he wrote. “These rights are nothing if someone else can claim them by simply signing a form.”

Over the summer Rodriguez narrowed the legislation to exclude “nonrelative extended family members” but it was not enough to quell the controversy. The legislation passed along party lines.

In comparison to a fairly progressive Legislature, the governor has often positioned himself as a moderating force on child custody and protection issues, which regularly galvanize conservative activists and put California Democrats on the defensive. In 2023 he vetoed a bill that would have required family court judges to consider a parent’s support of a child’s gender transition in custody disputes.

At a press conference last week where activists urged Newsom to sign the bill, Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrants’ Rights Los Angeles, asked the governor “to not listen to the lies, to not listen to all the other stuff that’s being said about this bill.”

Newsom, announcing his decision, quietly acknowledged the controversy in a press release. He included statements he said were “correcting the record” on mischaracterizations and said the new law does not change the fact that parental rights and legal guardianships must be decided by family court judges.

This story was originally published by CalMatters and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

By GARY ROBERTSON, Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Republican legislative leaders announced plans Monday to vote next week on redrawing the state’s U.S. House district map, taking up President Donald Trump’s call to secure more GOP seats nationwide and resist rival moves by Democrats.

The push to retool already right-leaning boundaries for the ninth-largest state comes amid a major party battle spanning several states to revamp district lines to partisan advantage ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

North Carolina Republicans created a map in 2023 that resulted in GOP candidates winning 10 of the state’s 14 U.S. House seats in 2024. That compared to a 7-7 seat split between Democrats and the GOP under the map used in 2022.

Now only one of the House districts –- the 1st District currently represented by Democratic Rep. Don Davis –- is considered a true swing district and could be targeted by the GOP for an 11th seat. Davis won a second term last year by less than 2 percentage points, so shifting slightly portions of the district covering more than 20 northeastern counties could help a Republican candidate in a strong GOP year. But it could weaken districts held by GOP incumbents.

The state’s top Republican legislators said their planned action follows Trump’s “call urging legislatures across the country to take action to nullify Democrat redistricting efforts.” Davis wasn’t mentioned by name in their news release.

Trump “earned a clear mandate from the voters of North Carolina and the rest of the country, and we intend to defend it by drawing an additional Republican Congressional seat,” House Speaker Destin Hall said in the release. Trump has won North Carolina’s electoral votes all three times that he’s been on the presidential ballot.

But state House Democratic leader Robert Reives said Monday his GOP colleagues “are stealing a congressional district in order to shield themselves from accountability at the ballot box.”

Redistricting fight started in Texas, then spread

Trump kickstarted the national redistricting battle over the summer by urging Republican-led Texas to reshape its U.S. House districts so the GOP could win more seats next year. After overcoming a Democratic walkout, Texas lawmakers redrew the districts to give Republicans a shot at five more seats.

California Democrats reciprocated by passing their own redistricting plan aimed at helping their party win five additional seats, a plan needing voter approval in November to be implemented.

And lawmakers in Republican-led Missouri have approved revised U.S. House districts intended to help Republicans pick up an additional seat there. Other states also are considering redistricting, including Republican-led Indiana and Kansas.

Some North Carolina GOP lawmakers focused complaints Monday on California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who advanced his state’s redistricting effort.

“Picking up where Texas left off, we will hold votes in our October session to redraw North Carolina’s congressional map to ensure Gavin Newsom doesn’t decide the congressional majority,” Senate leader Phil Berger said.

Responding on X, Newsom called Berger “another lap dog Republican” and accused the GOP of “rigging elections and trying to cover it up with lies.”

Democratic governor lacks veto power on district lines

North Carolina lawmakers already had planned for a multiday session starting Oct. 20. Republicans hold majorities in both General Assembly chambers and redistricting plans aren’t subject to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s veto stamp. Candidate filing for 2026 is supposed to begin Dec. 1.

Addressing voters, Stein said in a statement that “shameless politicians are abusing their power to take away yours” with a redraw.

An intensely competitive midterm election looms in which Democrats need to gain just three seats to take control of the House. The president’s party historically has lost seats in midterm elections, something Trump is trying to avoid. A Democratic takeover could impede Trump’s agenda and lead to investigations of his actions, as occurred during his first term in office.

Litigation could alter, derail some map changes

If and how North Carolina legislators create a more favorable redraw may depend on pending litigation filed by the state NAACP, Common Cause and voters challenging several current congressional districts, including the one represented by Davis, one of three Black representatives from North Carolina. The plaintiffs accuse Republican lawmakers of racially discriminating against Black voters by splitting or packing their voting blocs to help GOP candidates win. The trial ended in July without an immediate ruling.

U.S. House districts typically are redrawn once a decade, after a census. But some states have no prohibition on doing it more frequently. And the U.S. Supreme Court has said there is no federal prohibition on political gerrymandering, in which districts are intentionally drawn to favor one party.

Opponents have filed lawsuits alleging Texas’ latest redistricting unconstitutionally dilutes the votes of minority residents and that Missouri’s mid-decade redistricting isn’t allowed under the state constitution. Meanwhile, Utah’s Republican-led Legislature recently endorsed an altered congressional map — though in response to a court order, not Trump’s demands.

This story has been corrected to show North Carolina’s 1st District covers more than 20 counties, not less than 20.

Associated Press writers David Lieb in Jefferson City, Missouri and Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Michigan contributed to this report.

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE and CHRIS MEGERIAN, Associated Press

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — President Donald Trump arrived in Egypt on Monday for a global summit on Gaza’s future as he tries to advance peace in the Middle East after visiting Israel to celebrate a U.S.-brokered ceasefire with Hamas.

The whirlwind trip, which included a speech at the Knesset in Jerusalem earlier in the day, comes at a fragile moment of hope for ending two years of war between Israel and Hamas.

More than two dozen countries are expected to be represented at the summit, which Trump is hosting along with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited but declined, with his office saying it was too close to a Jewish holiday.

Despite unanswered questions about next steps in Gaza, which has been devastated during the conflict, Trump is determined to seize an opportunity to chase an elusive regional harmony.

“You’ve won,” he told Israeli lawmakers at the Knesset, which welcomed him as a hero. “Now it is time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East.”

Trump promised to help rebuild Gaza, and he urged Palestinians to “turn forever from the path of terror and violence.”

“After tremendous pain and death and hardship,” he said, “now is the time to concentrate on building their people up instead of trying to tear Israel down.”

Trump even made a gesture to Iran, where he bombed three nuclear sites during the country’s brief war with Israel earlier this year, by saying “the hand of friendship and cooperation is always open.”

Trump is on a whirlwind trip to Middle East

Trump arrived in Egypt hours late because speeches at the Knesset continued longer than expected.

“They might not be there by the time I get there, but we’ll give it a shot,” Trump joked after needling Israeli leaders for talking so much.

Twenty hostages were released Monday as part of an agreement intended to end the war that began on Oct. 7, 2023, with a terrorist attack by Hamas. Trump talked with some of their families at the Knesset.

“Your name will be remembered to generations,” a woman told him.

Israeli lawmakers chanted Trump’s name and gave him standing ovation after standing ovation. Some people in the audience wore red hats that resembled his “Make America Great Again” caps, although these versions said “Trump, The Peace President.”

Netanyahu hailed Trump as “the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House,” and he promised to work with him going forward.

“Mr. President, you are committed to this peace. I am committed to this peace,” he said. “And together, Mr. President, we will achieve this peace.”

Trump, in an unexpected detour during his speech, called on the Israeli president to pardon Netanyahu, whom he described as “one of the greatest” wartime leaders. Netanyahu faces corruption charges, although several hearings have been postponed during the conflict with Hamas.

The Republican president also used the opportunity to settle political scores and thank his supporters, criticizing Democratic predecessors and praising a top donor, Miriam Adelson, in the audience.

Trump pushes to reshape the region

The moment remains fragile, with Israel and Hamas still in the early stages of implementing the first phase of Trump’s plan.

The first phase of the ceasefire agreement calls for the release of the final hostages held by Hamas; the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel; a surge of humanitarian aid to Gaza; and a partial pullback by Israeli forces from Gaza’s main cities.

Trump has said there’s a window to reshape the region and reset long-fraught relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

“The war is over, OK?” Trump told reporters traveling with him aboard Air Force One.

“I think people are tired of it,” he said, emphasizing that he believed the ceasefire would hold because of that.

He said the chance of peace was enabled by his Republican administration’s support of Israel’s decimation of Iranian proxies, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The White House said momentum is also building because Arab and Muslim states are demonstrating a renewed focus on resolving the broader, decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, in some cases, deepening relations with the United States.

In February, Trump had predicted that Gaza could be redeveloped into what he called “the Riviera of the Middle East.” But on Sunday aboard Air Force One, he was more circumspect.

“I don’t know about the Riviera for a while,” Trump said. “It’s blasted. This is like a demolition site.” But he said he hoped to one day visit the territory. “I’d like to put my feet on it, at least,” he said.

The sides have not agreed on Gaza’s postwar governance, the territory’s reconstruction and Israel’s demand that Hamas disarm. Negotiations over those issues could break down, and Israel has hinted it may resume military operations if its demands are not met.

Much of Gaza has been reduced to rubble, and the territory’s roughly 2 million residents continue to struggle in desperate conditions. Under the deal, Israel agreed to reopen five border crossings, which will help ease the flow of food and other supplies into Gaza, parts of which are experiencing famine.

Roughly 200 U.S. troops will help support and monitor the ceasefire deal as part of a team that includes partner nations, nongovernmental organizations and private-sector players.

Megerian reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.