President Donald Trump says he wants the U.S. to take ownership of the Gaza Strip and redevelop it after Palestinians are resettled elsewhere. Trump said at the start of a news conference Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “We will own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site." Trump added the U.S. would level destroyed buildings and “create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.” The comments came after Trump earlier suggested that displaced Palestinians in Gaza be “permanently” resettled outside the war-torn territory.

The Senate is heading towards a confirmation vote for Pam Bondi as U.S. attorney general. Her confirmation would put a longtime ally of Donald Trump at the helm of a Justice Department that has already been rattled by the firings of career employees seen as disloyal to the Republican president. Bondi is a former Florida attorney general and corporate lobbyist. She is expected to oversee a radical reshaping of the department that has been the target of Trump’s ire over the criminal cases it brought against him. Bondi has sought to reassure Democrats that politics would play no part in her decision-making, but she has refused to rule out investigations into Trump’s adversaries.

When Donald Trump started the biggest trade war since the 1930s in his first term, his impulsive combination of threats and import taxes on U.S. trading partners created chaos, generated drama -- and drew criticism from mainstream economists who favor free trade. But it didn’t do much damage to the U.S. economy. Or much good. The trade war sequel that Trump has said he’s planned for his second term could likely be costlier. Trump seems to have grander ambitions and is operating in a far more treacherous economic environment, one in which his tariffs risk rekindling inflation.

FBI agents who participated in investigations related to President Donald Trump have sued over Justice Department efforts to develop a list of employees involved in those inquiries that agents fear could be a precursor to discipline or termination. The class-action complaint was filed Tuesday in federal court in Washington. The complaint seeks an immediate halt to the Justice Development’s plans to compile a list of investigators who participated in probes of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol as well as Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Vocal vaccine skeptic and activist lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears on track to become the nation’s health secretary after winning the crucial support of Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a doctor who says Kennedy has assured him he would not topple the nation’s childhood vaccination program. In a starkly partisan vote Tuesday, the Republican-controlled Senate Finance Committee advanced Kennedy’s nomination 14-13, sending his bid to oversee the U.S. Health and Human Services agency for a full vote on the Senate floor later. With Cassidy’s vote no longer in doubt, Kennedy’s nomination is likely to succeed absent any last-minute vote switches. Cassidy says Kennedy “will be the secretary.” All Democrats on the committee opposed Kennedy.

Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk posted on his social media site that he has “deleted” 18F, a government agency that worked on technology projects such as the IRS's Direct File program. This led to some confusion about whether Direct File is still available to taxpayers this season. While Musk’s tweet may have intimated that the group of workers had been eliminated, an individual with knowledge of the IRS workforce said the Direct File program was still accepting tax returns. The individual spoke anonymously with The Associated Press because they were not authorized to talk to the press. As of Monday evening, 18F’s website was still operational.

The Senate has confirmed fossil fuel executive Chris Wright to serve as energy secretary, a key post to promote President Donald Trump’s efforts to achieve U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market. Wright, CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, has been one of the industry’s loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change. He says more fossil fuel production can lift people out of poverty and has promised to help Trump “unleash energy security and prosperity.” The Senate on Monday approved his nomination, 59-38. Trump has promised to “drill, baby, drill,” boosting production of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal that emit planet-warming greenhouse gases.

Elon Musk is rapidly consolidating control over large swaths of the federal government with President Donald Trump’s blessing. The world's wealthiest man has sidelined career officials, gained access to sensitive databases and even shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development. All of this is happening without congressional approval. Musk is working for Trump as a "special government employee," which means he's not subject to the same ethics and disclosure rules that are typical of government workers. Democrats fear Musk is wielding power within the federal government without accountability and potentially against the law. Trump says Musk “is doing a good job.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — A judge in the nation's capital will likely keep a temporary block on a Trump administration plan for a freeze on federal fu…

In its first two weeks, President Donald Trump’s administration has made significant changes to the U.S. Agency for International Development. USAID is charged with delivering humanitarian assistance overseas. Its impending shutdown has left aid organizations agonizing over whether they can continue with programs such as nutritional assistance for malnourished infants and children. Former President John F. Kennedy established USAID during the Cold War. In the decades since, Republicans and Democrats have fought over the agency and its funding, though Elon Musk has escalated his attacks on the agency and vowed to kill it.

Early Monday, billionaire Trump advisor Elon Musk held a live session on X Spaces, previously known as Twitter Spaces, and said that he spoke in detail about USAID with the president.  The Trump administration has already placed two top security chiefs at the U.S. Agency for International Development on leave after they refused to turn over classified material in restricted areas to Musk’s government-inspection teams. That's according to a current and a former U.S. official with knowledge of the incident who spoke on condition of anonymity. The former official says members of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — known as DOGE — eventually did gain access Saturday to the agency’s classified information, which includes intelligence reports.

A U.S. Army captain who died in Wednesday’s midair collision of a Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines jet was “brilliant and fearless” and “meticulous in everything she did,” friends and fellow soldiers said. Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach was identified by the Army Saturday as one of three soldiers killed in the crash near Reagan National Airport just outside Washington, D.C. In all, 67 people died, including the jet’s 60 passengers and 4 crew members. Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, had served as an Army aviation officer since July 2019, earning an Army commendation medal and an achievement medal after graduating from the University of North Carolina as a distinguished military graduate in the top 20% of ROTC cadets nationwide, her family said.

President Donald Trump’s second week in office seemed to deliver a daily dose of deliberate jolts for the country. And there were chaotic reminders of his first term. The White House backtracked on its directive to freeze federal spending on grants and loans. Trump made unsubstantiated claims after a plane crash near Washington. He escalated his moves against institutions that he was elected to lead. His administration ousted prosecutors who worked on Capitol riot cases and laid the groundwork for purging FBI agents. And Elon Musk, Trump’s billionaire ally, began efforts to dramatically downsize the federal workforce.

From an ice cream parlor in California to a medical supply business in North Carolina to a T-shirt vendor outside Detroit, U.S. businesses are bracing to take a hit from the taxes President Donald Trump imposed Saturday on imports from Canada, Mexico and China, America’s three biggest trading partners. The levies — 25% on Canadian and Mexican and 10% on Chinese goods — will take effect Tuesday. Canadian energy, including oil, natural gas and electricity, will be taxed at a lower 10% rate. Trump’s tariffs threaten to raise prices for consumers and is already provoking retaliation from Canada and Mexico.

The Department of Government Efficiency, run by President Donald Trump’s billionaire adviser and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, has gained access to sensitive Treasury data including Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems. That's according to two people familiar with the situation. DOGE, which is assigned to find ways to reduce federal workers, cut programs and slash federal regulations, would have wide leeway to access important taxpayer data, among other things. Senate Finance Committee member Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday. He expressed concern that “officials associated with Musk may have intended to access these payment systems to illegally withhold payments to any number of programs.”

USAID’s website has dropped offline without explanation in the Trump administration's two-week-old funding freeze of U.S. foreign aid and development funding. Congressional Democrats are becoming increasingly vocal against the crackdown on the agency. They also are warning against any move by the Trump administration to end USAID as an independent agency, and absorb it into the larger State Department. Thousands of layoffs are continuing in the global aid community from the administration’s shutdown of billions of the United States’ humanitarian, development and security assistance.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Army on Saturday released the name of the third soldier who died Wednesday when an Army helicopter collided with an Amer…

President Donald Trump says he will put in place 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico and 10% tariffs on goods from China effective Saturday. That raises the specter of swift price increases for U.S. consumers, although Trump suggests he will try to blunt the impact on oil imports. Trump had been threatening the tariffs to ensure greater cooperation on stopping illegal immigration and the smuggling of chemicals used for fentanyl. He has also pledged to use tariffs to boost domestic manufacturing and raise revenues for the federal government. Both Canada and Mexico say they’ve prepared the option of retaliatory tariffs if necessary.

Trump administration officials are moving to fire at least some of the FBI agents engaged in investigations involving President Donald Trump. That's according to two people familiar with the plans. It was not clear how many agents might be affected, though scores of investigators were involved in various inquiries touching Trump. Officials acting at the direction of the administration have been working to identify individual employees who participated in politically sensitive investigations for possible termination, said the people who insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Schools and universities responding to complaints of sexual misconduct must return to policies created during President Donald Trump’s first term, with requirements for live hearings and more protections for accused students. In a memo to education institutions across the nation, the Education Department clarified that Title IX will be enforced according to a set of rules created by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. The rules govern how complaints of misconduct are investigated and how to settle cases where students present differing accounts. Colleges have already been returning to DeVos’ 2020 rules in recent weeks after a federal judge in Kentucky overturned the Biden administration’s Title IX rules.

An inflation gauge closely watched by the Federal Reserve rose slightly last month, the latest sign that some consumer prices remain stubbornly elevated, even as inflation is cooling in fits and starts. Friday’s report from the Commerce Department showed that consumer prices rose 2.6% in December from a year earlier, up from a 2.4% annual pace in November and the third straight increase. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, prices increased 2.8% compared with a year ago, the same as in November and October. The figures arrive just two days after Federal Reserve officials, led by Chair Jerome Powell, decided to pause their interest rate cuts.

The 25% tax that President Donald Trump plans to slap as soon as Saturday on imports from Canada and Mexico could drive up the price of everything from gasoline to pickup trucks to the guacamole dip that features so prominently at American Super Bowl parties. The tariffs would also invite retaliation. Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, has already vowed to counterpunch by pulling American alcohol off store shelves in the Canadian province. Trump’s tariffs  threaten to blow up the trade agreement he himself negotiated with America’s two neighbors in his first term.

The man who hopes to be President Donald Trump’s health secretary said he needed to see data showing vaccines are safe, but when an influential Republican senator did so, he dismissed it. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent two days this week insisting to senators that he’s not anti-vaccine. But Kennedy repeatedly refused to acknowledge scientific consensus that childhood vaccines don’t cause autism and that COVID-19 vaccines saved millions of lives, falsely asserted the government has no good vaccine safety monitoring and suggested Black people need different vaccines than whites.

A deadly midair collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter near the nation's capital is bringing renewed focus on the federal agency charged with investigating aviation disasters. National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Hommendy has described the investigation into Wednesday night's crash as an “all-hands-on-deck event” for her agency. She appeared at a news conference Thursday with members of the board and a senior investigator overseeing the probe. The NTSB is an independent federal agency responsible for investigating all civil aviation accidents and other serious incidents in the U.S. Authorities say 60 passengers and four crew died aboard the jet and three soldiers aboard the helicopter.

Trump administration changes have upended the U.S. agency charged with providing humanitarian aid overseas, with senior officials put on leave, contractors laid off and a sweeping freeze imposed on foreign assistance. Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the pause, saying “the U.S. government is not a charity.” Current and former officials at the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development say they were invited to submit requests to exempt certain programs from the freeze, which President Donald Trump imposed Jan. 20 and the State Department detailed how to execute on Jan. 24. Three days later, at least 56 senior career USAID staffers were abruptly placed on administrative leave.

President Donald Trump says his 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico are coming on Saturday. Trump also said he'll "probably” decide on Thursday night whether to include oil from those countries as part of his import taxes. Trump says his decision will be based on whether the price of oil charged by the two trading partners is fair, although the basis of his threatened tariffs pertains to stopping illegal immigration and the smuggling of chemicals used for fentanyl.

President Donald Trump’s most controversial Cabinet nominees have flooded the zone Thursday in back-to-back-to-back confirmation hearings. Conspiracy theories about vaccines. Secret meetings with dictators. An enemies list. It was a blockbuster showing like nothing the Senate has seen in modern memory. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel all faced grilling over their views and promises in testy exchanges. The whirlwind day — Day 10 of the new White House — unfolded as Trump himself was unloading racist theories about how diversity initiatives caused the tragic airplane-and-helicopter crash outside Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport.

U.S. officials have approved a new type of pain drug designed to eliminate the risks of addiction and overdose associated with opioids. The Food and Drug Administration approved the pill from Vertex Pharmaceuticals for acute pain that often occurs after surgery or injuries. It's the first new pharmaceutical approach to treating pain in 20 years. But the medication’s modest effectiveness shows just how challenging it is to find new ways of managing pain. Vertex's drug was better than a dummy pill at reducing pain after surgery, but it didn't outperform opioid treatment. Vertex is studying the drug for a number of other conditions, including chronic nerve pain.

President Donald Trump is questioning the actions of the army helicopter pilot and air traffic controller in Wednesday's deadly midair collision in Washington. At a news conference on Thursday, he quickly veered into politics to speculate that Democrats and diversity initiatives could be to blame for the deaths of 67 people in the incident. As Trump spoke, a federal investigation into the midair collision was just getting started and first responders were still working to recover bodies from the wreckage of the commercial jet and army helicopter from the Potomac River. Trump at points acknowledged it was premature to draw conclusions as he encouraged the nation to pray for the victims. But still he moved to assign blame.

The American economy ended 2024 on a solid note with consumer spending continuing to drive growth. The Commerce Department reported Thursday that gross domestic product — the economy’s output of goods and services — expanded at a 2.3% annual rate from October through December. For the full year, the economy grew a healthy 2.8%, compared to 2.9% in 2023.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has struggled answer questions at his Senate confirmation hearing about how he would reform Medicaid or Medicare, the government health care programs used by millions of disabled, poor and older Americans. Kennedy inaccurately claimed Medicaid is fully paid for by the federal government when states and federal taxpayers fund it. Kennedy's hearing Wednesday to be the nation's top health official quickly devolved into an argument over the questions he has raised for years about vaccine safety. Kennedy is seeking to lead a $1.7 trillion agency that will oversee vaccine recommendations as well as food inspections and health insurance for half the country in President Donald Trump's administration. Kennedy denies he's anti-vaccine.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was pressed to clarify his views on vaccines, abortion and public health priorities in the first of two senate hearings as he tries to make the case to become President Donald Trump’s health secretary. Kennedy is seeking to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, the $1.7 trillion agency that funds medical research, public health outreach, food and drug safety, Medicare and Medicaid. Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee expressed hope Kennedy could help reduce chronic diseases and health care costs. Democrats repeatedly used quotes and transcripts from his books to pin him down on several issues.

The Republican-controlled Senate has confirmed Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. It's a key role to help President Donald Trump fulfill his pledge to roll back major environmental regulations, including those aimed at slowing climate change and encouraging use of electric vehicles. The vote was 56-42 in Zeldin’s favor. Zeldin, a former Republican congressman from New York, is a longtime Trump ally. He has pledged to be a good steward of the environment and support career staff at EPA, but has declined to commit to specific policies. Trump led efforts to dismantle more than 100 environmental protections during his first term and has promised to do so again.

President Donald Trump has used a signing ceremony for the Laken Riley Act to announce that his administration plans to send the “worst criminal aliens” to detention in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The bipartisan Laken Riley Act was the first piece of legislation that Trump has signed into law. It is named for a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was slain last year by a Venezuelan man in the U.S. illegally. The law makes it easier to deport immigrants in the U.S. illegally who have been accused of crimes. But Trump said some of the immigrants can't be trusted to not return, necessitating their lockup at Guantanamo.

President Donald Trump’s budget office has rescinded a memo freezing spending on federal grants, less than two days after it sparked widespread confusion and legal challenges across the country. The White House said that Trump’s underlying executive orders targeting federal spending in areas like diversity, equity and inclusion and climate change, remained in place. The original Monday evening memo from the Office of Management and Budget sparked uncertainty over a crucial financial lifeline for states, schools and organizations that rely on trillions of dollars from Washington. The White House has been scrambling to explain what would and wouldn’t be subject to a pause in funding.

White House budget office rescinds order on federal grant freeze that sparked widespread confusion.