few week

MEXICO CITY — The United States slapped sanctions on Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Friday and said it was sending a massive aircraft carrier to the waters off South America, a new escalation of what the White House has described as a war against drug traffickers in the region. Also Friday, the U.S. military conducted its 10th strike on a suspected drug-running boat, killing six people in the Caribbean Sea.

The Treasury Department said it was sanctioning Petro, his wife, his son and a political associate for failing to stop the flow of cocaine to the United States, noting that cocaine production in Colombia has risen in recent years. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused Petro of “poisoning Americans.”

Petro denied those claims in a statement on X, saying he has fought to combat drug trafficking for decades. He said it was “quite a paradox” to be sanctioned by a country with high rates of cocaine consumption.

The sanctions put Petro in the same category as the leaders of Russia and North Korea and limit his ability to travel to the United States. They mark a new low for relations between Colombia and the United States, which until recently were strong allies, sharing military intelligence, a robust trade relationship and a multibillion-dollar fight against drug trafficking.

Elizabeth Dickinson, a senior analyst for the Andes region at the International Crisis Group, a think tank, said that while Petro and the U.S. government have had disagreements over how to tackle trafficking — with the Americans more interested in eradicating coca fields and Colombians focused on cocaine seizures — the two countries have been working for decades toward the same goal.

“To suggest that Colombia is not trying is false and disingenuous,” Dickinson said. “If the U.S. has a partner in counternarcotics in Latin America, it’s Colombia. Colombian forces have been working hand in hand with the Americans for literally four decades. They are the best, most capable and frankly most willing partner the U.S. has in the region.

“If the U.S. were to cut this relationship, it would really be the U.S. shooting themselves in the foot.”

Many viewed the sanctions as punishment for Petro’s criticism of Trump. In recent days, Petro has accused the U.S. of murder, saying American strikes on alleged drug boats lack legal justification and have killed civilians. He has also accused the U.S. of building up its military in South America in an attempt to topple Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The quickened pace of U.S. airstrikes in the region and the unusually large buildup of military force in the Caribbean Sea have fueled those speculations.

On Friday, a Pentagon official said the U.S. ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group to deploy to U.S. Southern Command to “bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States.”

The USS Ford is currently deployed to the Mediterranean Sea along with three destroyers. It would probably take several days for the ships to make the journey to South America.

The White House has increasingly drawn a direct comparison between the war on terrorism that the U.S. declared after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Trump administration’s crackdown on drug traffickers.

Trump this month declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and said the U.S. was in an “armed conflict” with them, relying on the same legal authority used by the Bush administration after 9/11.

When reporters asked Trump on Thursday whether he would request that Congress issue a declaration of war against the cartels, he said that wasn’t the plan.

“I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK? We’re going to kill them, you know? They’re going to be like, dead,” Trump said during a roundtable at the White House with Homeland Security officials.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

NEW YORK — A few weeks before his stunning loss to Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic mayoral primary, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo put forth a political calculus long accepted as fact in New York: “Being a Democrat,” he said, “it’s synonymous that you support Israel.”

Mamdani, who would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, could be on the cusp of shattering that convention.

An unstinting supporter of Palestinian rights, the 34-year-old democratic socialist has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, backed the movement to boycott the country’s goods and pledged to have Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested if he sets foot in New York.

In a city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, where mayors have long been expected to make the long pilgrimage to the Jewish state, Mamdani identifies proudly as an “anti-Zionist.”

While he says he supports Israel’s right to exist, he describes any state or social hierarchy that favors Jews over others as incompatible with his belief in universal human rights.

City officials, Mamdani often points out, have no say in American foreign policy. And he has consistently and emphatically rejected claims that his criticism of Israel amounts to antisemitism, promising to work closely with those whom he doesn’t agree with if elected.

But as Cuomo and others have framed the race as a referendum on Israel, political observers say a Mamdani victory could reverberate far beyond New York, offering permission for Democrats to speak out on an issue long seen as a third rail of politics.

“This race is a proxy for where the party goes from here in terms of support for Israel — and that’s causing a lot of consternation,” said Basil Smikle, a former chief executive of the state’s Democratic Party. “We’re treading in territory that we’ve not really dealt with before.”

The ‘most important’ issue in the race

From the beginning, Cuomo has staked much of his political comeback on painting himself as a defender of Jewish security, both in New York and the Middle East.

Shortly before launching his campaign, he announced that he had joined Netanyahu’s legal defense team to defend the prime minister against war crimes charges brought by the International Criminal Court. He cast antisemitism as the “most important” issue facing the city and himself as a “hyper aggressive supporter of Israel.”

Mamdani’s own views, he said, presented an “existential” threat to New Yorkers.

Other candidates quickly rushed to burnish their own pro-Israel credentials, including Mayor Eric Adams, who announced he would run on an “EndAntisemitism” ballot line.

As they competed for support among Brooklyn’s prominent rabbis and other Jewish voters, each equated protests for Palestinian rights with support for terrorism and backed a contentious definition of antisemitism that includes certain criticism of Israel.

Days before dropping out last month, Adams shared a smiling photo with Netanyahu.

The strategy appeared willfully ignorant of polls showing growing public disapproval in the U.S. of Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza, according to Alyssa Cass, a longtime Democratic strategist.

She said a handful of deep-pocketed campaign donors and some city news outlets “created an impression that you could not ever question Israel, and that impression was completely divorced from reality.”

“The unique dynamics in New York were masking a broader, larger migration in public opinion that had been brewing for some time,” Cass added. “They didn’t realize that the ground beneath them had shifted.”

Shifting political winds

Still, with less than two weeks to go before the election, Cuomo has only leaned into the issue, claiming at Wednesday’s debate that Mamdani had “stoked the flames of hatred against the Jewish people.”

The broadsides have won support from the Anti-Defamation League and pro-Israel donors, like the hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman. But there is little indication that the strategy is working among ordinary New Yorkers.

In a Quinnipiac University poll conducted in early October, 41% of likely voters in New York City said Mamdani’s views on Israel aligned closest with their own, compared to 26% for Cuomo.

A Fox News poll conducted in mid-October found that 50% of registered voters in New York said they identified more with the Palestinians in the Middle East conflict, compared to 44% who identified more with the Israelis.

Those numbers have alarmed some Jewish leaders, who have laid at least some of the blame at Mamdani’s feet. In an open letter circulated this week, 650 rabbis warned that his candidacy has contributed to “rising anti-Zionism and its political normalization.”

Amy Spitalnick, the chief executive of the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, cautioned against drawing a direct link between Mamdani’s popularity and his pro-Palestinian stance.

She noted that most Jewish voters remain strong supporters of Israel, lamenting the fact that neither Mamdani nor Cuomo had articulated “the liberal nuanced perspective that most New York Jews hold.”

“Mamdani’s views on Israel matter, but it’s not the issue on which the majority of New Yorkers are voting,” she added. “If he wins, it’s because he ran a compelling campaign on making this city more affordable.”

Weaponization and authenticity

In debates and interviews, where Mamdani often faces a barrage of questions about his views on the Israel-Hamas war, he is quick to shift the focus to his platform, which includes freezing the rent for regulated apartments, making buses free and lowering the cost of child care.

“I have denounced Hamas again and again,” an exasperated Mamdani said during a debate last week. “It will never be enough for Andrew Cuomo.”

At Wednesday’s debate, Mamdani again spoke of his proposal to increase funding for hate crime prevention and his recent outreach to Jewish voters about their fears of antisemitism.

“They deserve a leader who takes it seriously, who roots it out of these five boroughs, not one who weaponizes it as a means by which to score political points on a debate stage,” he added.

But despite months of vitriolic backlash, Mamdani has stood firm on his core criticism of Israel. In his statement marking the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, he condemned both Hamas’ “horrific war crimes” and Israel’s occupation, apartheid and “genocidal war” in Gaza.

Whether or not those views are shared by the broader electorate, the consistency of the message has served as “proxy for authenticity” in the minds of voters, according to Peter Feld, a progressive political consultant.

And it has offered a sharp contrast with not only Cuomo, but other pro-Israel Democrats in New York, including Sen. Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Both have spent weeks rebuffing questions about whether they will endorse Mamdani, indicating they were still meeting and speaking with the Democratic nominee.

“The allies divided up Europe in fewer meetings,” scoffed Cass. “At this point, they’re ignoring the majoritarian view of their voters, and there’s no way around that.”

In recent weeks, Feld said he had spoken to several potential candidates weighing primary challenges to other pro-Israel Democratic incumbents.

“Mamdani changed how candidates and donors think about what is politically possible,” Feld said. “We’ve seen that siding with Palestine over Israel doesn’t make you radioactive. It shows voters that you’ll stick to your principles.”

Offenhartz writes for the Associated Press.

Fesia Davenport, L.A. County’s chief executive officer, received a $2 million settlement this summer due to professional fallout from Measure G, a voter-approved ballot measure that will soon make her job obsolete, according to a letter she wrote to the county’s top lawyer.

Davenport wrote in the July 8 letter, which was released through a public record request Tuesday, that she had been seeking $2 million for “reputational harm, embarrassment, and physical, emotional and mental distress caused by the Measure G.”

“Measure G is an unprecedented event, and has had, and will continue to have, an unprecedented impact on my professional reputation, health, career, income, and retirement,” Davenport wrote to County Counsel Dawyn Harrison. “My hope is that after setting aside the amount of my ask, that there can be a true focus on what the real issues are here – measure G has irrevocably changed my life, my professional career, economic outlook, and plans for the future.”

The existence of the $2 million settlement, finalized in mid-August, was first reported Tuesday by the LAist. It was unclear what the settlement was for.

Davenport began a medical leave last week. She told staff she expects to be back early next year.

Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn first announced Measure G in July 2024, branding it as a long overdue overhaul to the county’s sluggish bureaucracy. Under the charter amendment, which voters approved this November, the number of supervisors increased to nine and the county chief executive, who manages the county government and oversees its budget, will be now be elected by voters instead of appointed by the board starting in 2028.

In August 2024, a few weeks after the announcement, Davenport wrote a letter to Horvath saying the measure had impugned her “professional reputation” and would end her career at least two years earlier than she expected, according to another letter released through a public records request.

“This has been a tough six weeks for me,” Davenport wrote in her letter. “It has created uncomfortable, awkward interactions between me and my CEO team (they are concerned), me and other departments heads (they are apologetic), and even County outsiders (they think I am being fired).”

This story will be updated.

About 200 people gathered on Paramount’s Melrose Avenue lot for a screening of “Red Alert,” a four-part scripted drama portraying the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel from the perspective of six victims.

The host of the Sept. 30 event was Paramount Chairman and Chief Executive David Ellison, who shared how he had chatted with Academy Award-nominated producer Lawrence Bender a few weeks earlier at a memorial service for legendary Hollywood power broker Skip Brittenham. That’s where Ellison learned that Bender’s Israeli-backed series, “Red Alert,” needed a home in the U.S.

Ellison quickly volunteered. “It was a fast ‘yes,’ ” he told the group.

On Tuesday, “Red Alert” debuted on the company’s streaming service, Paramount+, marking the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The initial Hamas assault left about 1,200 Israelis dead and more than 250 kidnapped.

The high-profile project comes two months after Ellison assumed control of Paramount in an $8-billion buyout by his family, led by billionaire and Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners.

Since the deal closed Aug. 7, David Ellison has moved to position the company slightly right of the political center, while also taking on polarizing issues. The scion has been unafraid to challenge those in Hollywood who’ve called for a boycott of Israel.

More than two years after the Oct. 7 attack, a deep divide remains in Hollywood over the subsequent Israel-Hamas war.

Last month, Paramount condemned an open letter in support of Palestinians, which has gained steam in Hollywood. More than 5,000 people have signed the Film Workers for Palestine letter, including such prominent filmmakers as Adam McKay, Ava DuVernay, Alex Gibney and Hannah Einbinder.

The effort called for a boycott of Israeli film festivals, institutions and projects to help spur an end to the war in Gaza. The campaign was designed in the vein of South African boycotts decades ago, which proved to be instrumental in ending apartheid, that country’s racial segregation.

No other major studio followed Paramount.

In its Sept. 12 statement, Paramount said it disagreed with the Film Workers call to avoid film screenings or to work with Israeli film institutions.

“At Paramount, we believe in the power of storytelling to connect and inspire people, promote mutual understanding, and preserve the moments, ideas, and events that shape the world we share,” the company said. “Silencing individual creative artists based on their nationality does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace.”

The Film Workers group accused Paramount of misrepresenting the intent of its pledge, saying it did not target individual filmmakers.

But critics counter that filmmakers who engage with Israeli cultural institutions would likely fall under the ban.

More than 1,200 industry players including actors Mayim Bialik and Liev Schreiber and Paramount board member Sherry Lansing signed an opposing open letter released by the nonprofit organization Creative Community For Peace that accuses the Film Workers for Palestine of advocating “arbitrary censorship and the erasure of art.”

The Palestinian supporters dismissed the characterization. “The Film Workers Pledge to End Complicity is an explicitly anti-racist and non-violent campaign that is grounded in international law and the moral clarity of a global majority opposed to genocide,” the group said in a statement this week. “It is the first major refusal of the international film industry at large that targets complicit Israeli film institutions and companies.”

“Red Alert” was co-produced by a prominent Israeli production company, Keshet Media Group, and received funding from the Jewish National Fund-USA and the Israel Entertainment Fund. The series premiered last weekend on Israel’s popular television channel Keshet 12. Keshet produced the Hebrew-language series “Prisoners of War” that Showtime later adapted into the award-winning American drama “Homeland.”

During the late September screening at Paramount, Ellison spoke of the need for such projects as “Red Alert” to remember the atrocities as well as stories of survival and heroism.

“We at Paramount, we are here to tell stories that last forever,” Ellison said. “We are not here to debate politics or platforms or to argue about east or west. And ‘Red Alert’ is the very embodiment of that mission, and I couldn’t be prouder to support this series.”

Critics note that Ellison’s father, Larry, the co-founder of Oracle, is a prominent supporter of Israel, contributing millions to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces.

Others in Hollywood have found fault with Israel’s government and its conduct in the Gaza war, which has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians or combatants.

The United Nations, rights groups, experts and many Western governments accuse Israel of committing genocide. Israel denies the charge.

During a May 2024 Simon Wiesenthal Center gala in his honor, WME Group Executive Chairman Ari Emanuel sharply denounced Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and called for his ouster. Emanuel’s remarks were met with cheers and jeers and some attendees walked out.

In his Oscar acceptance speech last year, Jonathan Glazer, director of the Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest,” asked “Whether the victims of October 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization — how do we resist?”

Weeks later, Steven Spielberg called out the rise of antisemitism as well as the ongoing war.

“We can rage against the heinous acts committed by the terrorists of October 7th and also decry the killing of innocent women and children in Gaza,” Spielberg said during an event celebrating the anniversary of the USC Shoah Foundation.

Paramount’s opposition to the Film Workers’ pledge and other recent moves, including buying the Free Press news site for $150 million and installing its founder, journalist Bari Weiss, as the editor in chief at CBS News, has rattled a small group of Paramount employees.

David Ellison recruited Weiss, who has been public about her support for Israel, for the prominent role.

The division was roiled by Paramount’s efforts to settle President Trump’s lawsuit over edits to a “60 Minutes” interview a year ago with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Paramount this summer agreed to pay $16 million to end Trump’s suit, which 1st Amendment experts viewed as a spurious shakedown.

Weeks later, Trump appointees on the Federal Communications Commission approved the Ellison family’s takeover of Paramount.

The employee group, which calls itself Paramount Employees of Conscience, said they have sent two letters to Paramount leaders in the last month to voice their concerns but have not received a reply. In a statement, the group noted that while Paramount+ was distributing “Red Alert,” the company had not offered “equivalent programming about Palestinian experiences of the genocide in Gaza.”

“How can a company with this supposed creative mission actively ignore, suppress, and silence internal calls for years to champion stories that shed a light on the reality that marginalized and excluded communities, particularly Palestinians, face every day?” the group asked in a Sept. 17 letter addressed to Paramount’s leadership.

Paramount declined to comment.

The group includes about 30 employees, according to one member who asked not to be identified out of fear of retribution.

Paramount employees separately are bracing for a steep round of layoffs, which is expected next month. Ellison’s firm Skydance Media and RedBird promised Wall Street that they would find more than $2 billion in cost cuts at Paramount.

“We know the Ellisons are formidable, powerful and have a lot of resources,” said the Paramount employee. “But we are here to interrupt a culture of silence…. Silence within the industry becomes complicity.”

Liam Hemsworth is ready to give marriage a second chance, now with Australian model Gabriella Brooks.

The “Hunger Games” actor and Brooks are engaged, the latter announced early Friday morning. Brooks revealed the news on Instagram, sharing photos of herself embracing Hemsworth — younger brother of “Thor” star Chris Hemsworth — and snaps of a shimmering seashore and her cushion-cut engagement ring. Brooks captioned her photos with an emoji of a white heart.

The ring featured in Brooks’ post is the same piece that sparked engagement rumors a few weeks back. People reported that the model was seen showing off the ring on her left-hand ring finger as she joined Hemsworth and his brothers for a getaway in Ibiza, where they celebrated Chris Hemsworth’s 42nd birthday.

Brooks, 29, and Hemsworth, 35, are engaged nearly six years after they began dating. They were first seen together in December 2019, just months after Hemsworth filed to divorce “Hannah Montana” star and singer Miley Cyrus. (The exes, who had been on-and-off since they started dating in 2009, got married in December 2018 and announced their separation in August 2019.)

“I wish her nothing but health and happiness going forward,” he said of Cyrus in a statement at the time. “This is a private matter and I have not made, nor will I be making, any comments to any journalists or media outlets.”

Since connecting, the pair of Australians have flaunted their relationship at public events including the Australian Open and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The couple has, of course, hit multiple red-carpet premieres over the years, including those for Liam Hemsworth’s film “Poker Face” and Chris Hemsworth’s “Limitless,” “Extraction 2” and “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.”

Matthew Stafford’s second day of practice lacked the anticipation and drama of the first.

But Tuesday’s performance was a milestone nonetheless for the star quarterback and a Rams team with designs on a Super Bowl title.

The biggest takeaway: Stafford’s injured back responded positively to Monday’s one-hour workout, enabling the 17th-year pro to play with even more confidence as the Rams prepare for their Sept. 7 opener against the Houston Texans.

“The reality is we’re trying to get our hands on this and get him to feel as good as possible,” coach Sean McVay said. “Backs can be a volatile thing. This is definitely positive progress. … It certainly is trending in a positive direction for us.”

Stafford, 37, had been sidelined since the start of training camp because of what McVay has described as an aggravated disc. McVay has said that Stafford received an epidural injection a few weeks ago, but on Tuesday he declined to specify if he had received another.

Stafford was not made available to reporters.

Rams players welcomed the return of a quarterback who ranks among the NFL’s otp 10 in several career passing categories.

“Any time that man walks into a huddle, he just brings presence,” veteran right tackle Rob Havenstein said Tuesday. “So it’s great to see him out there doing his thing.”

Stafford has plenty of experience. But “repetition is the mother of learning,” McVay said, so Stafford’s ability to read coverages, feel the pass rush and escape a collapsing pocket at full speed in practice helps him continue to develop.

“I don’t care whether you’re Matthew Stafford, whether you’re Steph Curry — whoever you are,” McVay said. “These guys get great at their sports by being able to play it.”

So McVay is eager for Stafford to take as many reps as possible before the opener.

“I’ll be just like, I think, a lot of fans and a lot of his teammates and coaches,” McVay said, “that you’re really hopeful that this is the direction … so we can build a good foundation and allow him to be the Matthew that we’re accustomed to seeing.”

Etc.

Left tackle Alaric Jackson, who is dealing with blood clot issues, continues to do individual work with trainers. “His focus and concentration is being ready to go for Week 1,” McVay said, “and that would be a great situation for us if that’s the case.” … Receiver Davante Adams had a veterans day off from practice.

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers have left Washington for the annual August recess, but a few weeks of relative quiet on the U.S. Capitol grounds can’t mask the partisan tensions that are brewing on government funding and President Trump’s nominees. It could make for a momentous September.

Here’s a look at what’s ahead when lawmakers return after the Labor Day holiday.

A bitter spending battle ahead

Lawmakers will use much of September to work on spending bills for the coming budget year, which begins Oct. 1. They likely will need to pass a short-term spending measure to keep the government funded for a few weeks while they work on a longer-term measure that covers the full year.

It’s not unusual for leaders from both parties to blame the other party for a potential shutdown, but the rhetoric began extra early this year, signaling the threat of a stoppage is more serious than usual.

On Monday, Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries sent their Republican counterparts a sharply-worded letter calling for a meeting to discuss “the government funding deadline and the health care crisis you have visited upon the American people.”

They said it will take bipartisanship to avert a “painful, unnecessary shutdown.”

“Yet it is clear that the Trump Administration and many in your party are preparing to go it alone and continue to legislate on a solely Republican basis,” said the letter sent to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Republicans have taken note of the warnings and are portraying the Democrats as itching for a shutdown they hope to blame on the GOP.

“It was disturbing to hear the Democrat leader threaten to shut down the government in his July 8 Dear Colleague letter,” Thune said on Saturday. “… I really hope that Democrats will not embrace that position but will continue to work with Republicans to fund the government.”

Different approaches from the House and Senate

So far, the House has approved two of the 12 annual spending bills, mostly along party lines. The Senate has passed three on a strongly bipartisan basis. The House is pursuing steep, non-defense spending cuts. The Senate is rejecting many of those cuts. One side will have to give. And any final bill will need some Democratic support to generate the 60 votes necessary to get a spending measure to the finish line.

Some Democratic senators are also wanting assurances from Republicans that there won’t be more efforts in the coming weeks to claw back or cancel funding already approved by Congress.

“If Republicans want to make a deal, then let’s make a deal, but only if Republicans include an agreement they won’t take back that deal a few weeks later,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., a veteran member of the House Appropriations committee, said the Democratic minority in both chambers has suffered so many legislative losses this year, “that they are stuck between a rock and their voting base.” Democrats may want to demonstrate more resistance to Trump, but they would rue a shutdown, he warned.

“The reality would be, if the government were shut down, the administration, Donald Trump, would have the ability to decide where to spend and not spend,” Fleischmann said. “Schumer knows that, Jeffries knows that. We know that. I think it would be much more productive if we start talking about a short-term (continuing resolution.)”

Republicans angry about pace of nominations

Republicans are considering changes to Senate rules to get more of Trump’s nominees confirmed.

Thune said last week that during the same point in Joe Biden’s presidency, 49 of his 121 civilian nominees had been confirmed on an expedited basis through a voice vote or a unanimous consent request. Trump has had none of his civilian nominees confirmed on an expedited basis. Democrats have insisted on roll call votes for all of them, a lengthy process than can take days.

“I think they’re desperately in need of change,” Thune said of Senate rules for considering nominees. “I think that the last six months have demonstrated that this process, nominations, is broken. And so I expect there will be some good robust conversations about that.”

Schumer said a rules change would be a “huge mistake,” especially as Senate Republicans will need Democratic votes to pass spending bills and other legislation moving forward.

The Senate held a rare weekend session as Republicans worked to get more of Trump’s nominees confirmed. Negotiations focused on advancing dozens of additional Trump nominees in exchange for some concessions on releasing some already approved spending.

At times, lawmakers spoke of progress on a potential deal. But it was clear that there would be no agreement when Trump attacked Schumer on social media Saturday evening and told Republicans to pack it up and go home.

“Tell Schumer, who is under tremendous political pressure from within his own party, the Radical Left Lunatics, to GO TO HELL!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

Freking writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.