Trump announces travel ban and restrictions on 19 countries set to go into effect Monday

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday resurrected a hallmark policy of his first term, announcing that citizens of 12 countries would be banned from visiting the United States and those from seven others would face restrictions.

The ban takes effect Monday at 12:01 a.m., a cushion that may avoid the chaos that unfolded at airports nationwide when a similar measure took effect with virtually no notice in 2017. Trump, who signaled plans for a new ban upon taking office in January, appears to be on firmer ground this time after the Supreme Court sided with him.

Some, but not all, 12 countries also appeared on the list of banned countries in Trump's first term. The new ban includes Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

There will be heightened restrictions on visitors from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

In a video released on social media, Trump tied the new ban to Sunday's terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, saying it underscored the dangers posed by some visitors who overstay visas. The suspect in the attack is from Egypt, a country that is not on Trump’s restricted list. The Department of Homeland Security says he overstayed a tourist visa.

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Russian strike kills 5 in Ukraine, including a 1-year-old, hours after Trump-Putin call

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — At least five people, including a 1-year-old child, his mother and grandmother, were killed Thursday in a nighttime Russian drone strike that hit the northern Ukrainian city of Pryluky, officials said.

Six drones hit a residential area in the city shortly before dawn, according to authorities. The child killed was the grandson of an emergency responder, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

“One of the rescuers arrived to respond to the aftermath right at his own home,” Zelenskyy said in a post on Telegram. “It turned out that a Shahed drone hit his house.”

The attack came just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to Trump, Putin said “very strongly” that Russia will retaliate for Ukraine’s weekend stunning drone attacks on Russian military airfields.

U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to stop the more than 3-year-long war have delivered no significant progress, and the grinding war of attrition has continued unabated.

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Israel says it has recovered the bodies of 2 Israeli-American hostages from the Gaza Strip

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel has recovered the bodies of two Israeli-American hostages taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war in the Gaza Strip. Israeli strikes overnight and into Thursday meanwhile killed at least 13 people, including three local journalists, according to health officials in the territory.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the remains of Judih Weinstein and Gad Haggai were recovered and returned to Israel in a special operation by the army and the Shin Bet internal security agency.

“Together with all the citizens of Israel, my wife and I extend our heartfelt condolences to the dear families. Our hearts ache for the most terrible loss. May their memory be blessed,” he said in a statement.

Kibbutz Nir Oz announced the deaths of Weinstein, 70, and Haggai, 72, both of whom had Israeli and U.S. citizenship, in December 2023.

The military said they were killed in the Oct. 7 attack and taken into Gaza by the Mujahideen Brigades, the small armed group that it said had also abducted and killed Shiri Bibas and her two small children. The army said it recovered the remains of Weinstein and Haggai overnight into Thursday from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

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Trump orders investigation into Biden's actions as president, ratcheting up targeting of predecessor

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday directed his administration to investigate Joe Biden’s actions as president, alleging aides masked his predecessor’s “cognitive decline” and casting doubts on the legitimacy of his use of the autopen to sign pardons and other documents.

The order marked a significant escalation in Trump’s targeting of political adversaries and could lay the groundwork for arguments by the Republican that a range of Biden’s actions as president were invalid.

Biden responded in a statement Wednesday night: “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”

The Justice Department under Democratic and Republican administrations has recognized the use of an autopen to sign legislation and issue pardons for decades, Trump presented no evidence that Biden was unaware of the actions taken in his name, and the president’s absolute pardon power is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg said that people who were sent to the prison in March under an 18th-century wartime law haven’t been able to formally contest the removals or allegations that they are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. He ordered the administration to work toward giving them a way to file those challenges.

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

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

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

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Vigil held for victims of Boulder firebombing attack as suspect's family fights deportation

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — Hundreds of people squeezed into the Jewish Community Center in Boulder, Colorado, for a vigil that featured prayer, singing and emotional testimony from a victim and witnesses of the firebombing attack in the city's downtown, while a federal judge has blocked the deportation of the suspect's family.

Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, has been charged with a federal hate crime and state counts of attempted murder in Sunday’s attack on a group demonstrating for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza. He is being held in a county jail on a $10 million cash bond and is scheduled to make an appearance in state court on Thursday.

Witnesses say Soliman threw two Molotov cocktails at the group and authorities say he confessed to the attack that injured 15 people.

Rachelle Halpern, who has been walking with the group since 2023, said during Wednesday evening's vigil that she remembers thinking it was strange to see a man with a canister looking like he was going to spray pesticide on the grass. Then she heard a crash and screams and saw flames around her feet.

“A woman stood one foot behind me, engulfed in flames from head to toe, lying on the ground with her husband,” she said. “People immediately, three or four men immediately rushed to her to smother the flames.”

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David Jolly, a Trump critic and former GOP congressman, to run for Florida governor as a Democrat

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A former Republican congressman and vocal critic of Donald Trump says he wants to become governor in the president’s adopted home state of Florida, and that he’s running as a Democrat.

David Jolly formally announced his bid Thursday, becoming the latest party convert hoping to wrest back control of what had been the country’s premier swing state that in recent years has made a hard shift to the right. Under state law, term-limited Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis can’t run for reelection in 2026.

Even as Florida serves as a place for the Trump administration to poach staff and test policies, Jolly says he’s confident that issues such as affordability, funding public schools, and strengthening campaign finance and ethics laws will resonate with all voters in 2026. He predicts elections next year will herald nationwide change.

“I actually think Republicans in Tallahassee have gone too far in dividing us. I think we should get politicians out of the classrooms, out of the doctor’s offices,” Jolly said.

“I think enough people in Florida, even some Republicans, now understand that. That the culture wars have gone too far,” he said.

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Global shares mostly rise after Wall Street’s rally stalls on U.S. economic data

TOKYO (AP) — Global shares were mostly higher Thursday, after Wall Street’s big recent rally lost some momentum following a pair of potentially discouraging reports on the American economy.

France's CAC 40 added 0.3% in early trading to 7,826.43, while the German DAX rose 0.5% to 24,378.64. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.1% to 8,811.29. The future for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.2%. The future for the S&P 500 gained nearly 0.1%.

In Asian trading, Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 shed 0.5% to finish at 37,554.49, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was little changed at 8,538.90.

In South Korea, the Kospi jumped 1.5% to 2,812.05 after the country's new president and leading liberal politician Lee Jae-myung began his term, vowing to restart talks with North Korea and beef up a trilateral partnership with the U.S. and Japan.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 1.1% to 23,906.97, while the Shanghai Composite rose 0.21% to 3,384.10.

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Nintendo Switch 2 launch draws eager fans

TOKYO (AP) — Eager customers lined up outside electronics stores in Tokyo hours in advance to collect their pre-ordered Nintendo Switch 2 video game consoles.

The much anticipated Switch 2, being released around the world Thursday, is an upgrade to its eight-year-old predecessor with new social features meant to draw players into online gaming. Nintendo is counting on the Switch 2 to boost sagging sales.

In the U.S., a chaotic pre-order process in April left some fans frustrated after the consoles quickly sold out.

In Japan, the new consoles were sold through a competitive lottery system that Nintendo said got about 2.2 million applications.

Outside the official draw, some retailers offered their own lotteries to pre-order the devices.