Trump administration hands over Medicaid recipients' personal data, including addresses, to ICE

WASHINGTON (AP) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials will be given access to the personal data of the nation’s 79 million Medicaid enrollees, including home addresses and ethnicities, to track down immigrants who may not be living legally in the United States, according to an agreement obtained by The Associated Press.

The information will give ICE officials the ability to find “the location of aliens” across the country, says the agreement signed Monday between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Homeland Security. The agreement has not been announced publicly.

The extraordinary disclosure of millions of such personal health data to deportation officials is the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, which has repeatedly tested legal boundaries in its effort to arrest 3,000 people daily.

Lawmakers and some CMS officials have challenged the legality of deportation officials’ access to some states’ Medicaid enrollee data. It's a move, first reported by the AP last month, that Health and Human Services officials said was aimed at rooting out people enrolled in the program improperly.

But the latest data-sharing agreement makes clear what ICE officials intend to do with the health data.

___

House gives final approval to Trump's $9 billion cut to public broadcasting and foreign aid

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House gave final approval to President Donald Trump's request to claw back about $9 billion for public broadcasting and foreign aid early Friday as Republicans intensified their efforts to target institutions and programs they view as bloated or out of step with their agenda.

The vote marked the first time in decades that a president has successfully submitted such a rescissions request to Congress, and the White House suggested it won't be the last. Some Republicans were uncomfortable with the cuts, yet supported them anyway, wary of crossing Trump or upsetting his agenda.

The House passed the bill by a vote of 216-213. It now goes to Trump for his signature.

“We need to get back to fiscal sanity and this is an important step,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

Opponents voiced concerns not only about the programs targeted, but about Congress ceding its spending powers to the executive branch as investments approved on a bipartisan basis were being subsequently canceled on party-line votes. They said previous rescission efforts had at least some bipartisan buy-in and described the Republican package as unprecedented.

___

Shutdowns of cellphone internet links sweep Russia, further limiting already-stifled net freedom

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A snappy tune by a blogger that mockingly laments his poor internet connection in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don has gotten over a half-million views on Instagram in two weeks.

“How to say you’re from Rostov without saying a word? Show one bar of cellphone service," Pavel Osipyan raps while walking around the city, smartphone in hand. "We have internet until 12 o'clock, and recently there’s been no connection at all. No need to be angry, just get used to it already.”

The complaints by Osipyan — unable to pay electronically for groceries, or having to use paper maps while driving — aren't isolated to Rostov-on-Don, which borders Ukraine and, as home to Russia's Southern Military District, is targeted frequently by drones.

In the last two months, cellphone internet shutdowns, which officials say are needed to foil Ukrainian drones, have hit dozens of Russian regions — from those near the fighting to parts of Siberia and even the Far East. Some Wi-Fi outages also have been reported.

Russians contacted by The Associated Press talked about card payments not going through, taxi and ride-sharing apps not working properly, ATMs that sometimes fail.

___

Trump mired in Epstein controversy as Wall Street Journal reports on 2003 letter

WASHINGTON (AP) — The controversy over President Donald Trump ’s handling of records from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation entered a new dimension Thursday as his administration struggles to make good on its promises to release details on the sex trafficking case involving a one-time friend of the now-president.

Trump promised a lawsuit after The Wall Street Journal described a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper says bore Trump’s name and was included in a 2003 album for Epstein’s 50th birthday. Trump denied writing the letter, calling it “false, malicious, and defamatory.”

It came after Trump in recent days has berated as “weaklings” supporters vying for more records from the Epstein probe, after years of courting political support from those who have stoked claims of a coverup in the case to protect wealthy friends of Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 awaiting trial on federal charges of trafficking of underage girls.

Trump has also shielded his attorney general from being questioned about the case after she walked back claims of the existence of a “client list” of elites who participated in Epstein’s crimes, and has even taken to claiming without evidence that files were doctored by Democrats.

In an administration that prides itself on changing the narrative on negative storylines, the Epstein saga has had remarkable staying power, thanks in part to infighting at high levels of government, Trump’s blistering criticism of his own base and the head-scratching mystery of why documents his own administration promised to unlock will remain buried — seemingly for good.

___

House Republicans grasp for response to demands for transparency in Epstein case

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans were grasping late Thursday to formulate a response to the Trump administration's handling of records in the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case, ultimately putting forward a resolution that carries no legal weight but nodded to the growing demand for greater transparency.

The House resolution, which could potentially be voted on next week, will do practically nothing to force the Justice Department to release more records in the case. Still, it showed how backlash from the Republican base is putting pressure on the Trump administration and roiling GOP lawmakers.

The House was held up for hours Thursday from final consideration of President Donald Trump’s request for about $9 billion in government funding cuts because GOP leaders were trying to respond to demands from their own ranks that they weigh in on the Epstein files. In the late evening they settled on the resolution as an attempt to simultaneously placate calls from the far-right for greater transparency and satisfy Trump, who has called the issue a “hoax” that his supporters should forget about.

Yet the House resolution was the latest demonstration of how practically no one is moving on from Attorney General Pam Bondi’s promises to publicly release documents related to Epstein. Since he was found dead in his New York jail cell in August 2019 following his arrest on sex trafficking charges, the well-connected financier has loomed large among conservatives and conspiracy theorists who have now lashed out at Trump and Bondi for declining to release more files in the case.

“The House Republicans are for transparency, and they’re looking for a way to say that they agree with the White House. We agree with the president. Everything he said about that, all the credible evidence should come out,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday afternoon.

___

Syria's Druze find bodies in the streets while searching for loved ones after days of clashes

JARAMANA, Syria (AP) — A Syrian Druze woman living in the United Arab Emirates frantically tried to keep in touch with her family in her hometown in southern Syria as clashes raged there over the past days.

Her mother, father and sister sent videos of their neighbors fleeing as fighters moved in. The explosions from shelling were non-stop, hitting near their house. Her family took shelter in the basement. When she reached them later in a video call, they said her father was missing. He had gone out during a lull to check the situation and never returned.

“Now I only pray. That’s all I can do," she told The Associated Press at the time.

Hours later, they learned he had been shot and killed by a sniper. The woman spoke on condition of anonymity fearing that using her name would put her surviving family and friends at risk.

A ceasefire went into effect late Wednesday, easing days of brutal clashes in Sweida. Now, members of its Druze community who fled or went into hiding are returning to search for loved ones and count their losses. They are finding homes looted and bloodied bodies of civilians in the streets.

___

Stephen Colbert's 'Late Show' canceled by CBS, ends May 2026

CBS is canceling “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” next May, shuttering a decades-old TV institution in a changing media landscape and removing from air one of President Donald Trump’s most prominent and persistent late-night critics.

Thursday's announcement followed Colbert's criticism on Monday of a settlement between Trump and Paramount Global, parent company of CBS, over a “60 Minutes” story.

Colbert told his audience at New York's Ed Sullivan Theater that he had learned Wednesday night that after a decade on air, “next year will be our last season. ... It's the end of ‘The Late Show’ on CBS. I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away.”

The audience responded with boos and groans.

“Yeah, I share your feelings," the 61-year-old comic said.

___

Trump is checked for lower leg swelling and diagnosed with a common condition in older adults

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump recently had a medical checkup after noticing “mild swelling” in his lower legs and was found to have a condition common in older adults that causes blood to pool in his veins, the White House said Thursday.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said tests by the White House medical unit showed that Trump has chronic venous insufficiency, which occurs when little valves inside the veins that normally help move blood against gravity gradually lose the ability to work properly.

Leavitt also addressed bruising on the back of Trump's hand, seen in recent photos covered by makeup that was not an exact match to his skin tone. She said the bruising was “consistent” with irritation from his “frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin.” Trump takes aspirin to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke.

She said during her press briefing that her disclosure of Trump's medical checkup was meant to dispel recent speculation about the 79-year-old president's health. Nonetheless, the announcement was notable given that the Republican president has routinely kept secret basic facts about his health.

Trump in April had a comprehensive physical exam with more than a dozen medical specialists. The three-page report released then by the White House did not include a finding of chronic venous insufficiency. At the time, Trump's doctor, Sean Barbabella, determined that the president’s joints and muscles had a full range of motion, with normal blood flow and no swelling.

___

North Korea bans foreign tourists to newly opened beach resort

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea is banning the entry of foreign tourists to a recently opened mega beach resort, a move that dims prospects for the complex that leader Kim Jong Un hailed it as “one of the greatest successes this year.”

DPR Korea Tour, a website run by North Korea’s tourism authorities, said in a notice Friday that the eastern coastal Wonsan-Kalma tourist complex “is temporarily not receiving foreign tourists.” It gave no further details including why a ban was established or how long it would last.

North Korea says the complex can accommodate nearly 20,000 guests. The resort opened to domestic tourists July 1 before receiving a small group of Russian tourists last week. Observers expected North Korea to open the resort to Chinese tourists while largely blocking other international tourists.

The announcement came after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov flew to the complex to meet Kim and Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui for talks last weekend.

North Korea and Russia have sharply expanded military and other cooperation in recent years, with North Korea supplying weapons and troops to back Russia’s war against Ukraine. During a meeting with Choe, Lavrov promised to take steps to support Russian travel to the zone.

___

Here's what to know about chronic venous insufficiency

Swollen legs led to President Donald Trump being diagnosed with what's called chronic venous insufficiency. It's a fairly common condition among older adults but requires a thorough checkup to rule out more serious causes of swelling in the legs. Here are some things to know.

Chronic venous insufficiency, or CVI, happens when veins in the legs can't properly carry blood back to the heart. That can lead to blood pooling in the lower legs. In addition to swelling, usually around the feet and ankles, symptoms can include legs that are achy, heavy feeling or tingly, and varicose veins. Severe cases could trigger leg sores known as ulcers.

Overcoming gravity to pump blood from the feet all the way up to the heart is a challenge, especially when someone is standing or sitting for long periods. So legs veins are lined with one-way valves that keep blood from sliding backward on that journey. Anything that damages those valves can lead to chronic venous insufficiency. Risk factors can include blood clots, vein inflammation known as phlebitis or being overweight.

Doctors must rule out serious causes of leg swelling, such as heart problems, kidney disease or blood clots. Ultrasound exams of the leg veins can help confirm chronic venous insufficiency. According to the Cleveland Clinic, treatment can include wearing compression stockings, elevating the legs and achieving a healthy weight. Also exercise, especially walking, is recommended — because strong leg muscles can squeeze veins in a way that helps them pump blood. Medications and medical procedures are available for more advanced cases.

___