Trump

Oct. 13 (UPI) — China vowed to retaliate if U.S. President Donald Trump makes good on his threat to impose a 100% tariff on goods from the Asian country, further straining fraught trade relations between the world’s largest economies.

“If the U.S. insists on going the wrong way, China will surely take resolute measures to protect its legitimate rights and interests,” a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce said Sunday in a statement.

The back and forth comes after representatives from Washington and Beijing held trade talks in Beijing last month with prospects of further negotiations continuing this month in South Korea.

However, whether those discussions will continue on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Gyeongju remains unclear.

U.S.-China trade relations have deteriorated under the Trump administration, which has repeatedly imposed tariffs on Chinese goods that are being challenged in U.S. courts are at the World Trade Organization.

Late last week, Beijing’s Commerce Ministry announced tighten export restrictions on rare earth items and materials. In response, Trump announced the 100% tariff threat on his Truth Social media platform. China imports are currently subject to a 30% tariff.

The American leader said the import tax would go into effect Nov. 1, along with additional export controls on so-called critical software.

“It is impossible to believe that China would take such an action, but they have, and the rest is History,” Trump said in the statement.

China’s commerce ministry on Sunday accused the United States of hypocrisy, saying Washington in the 20 days since their talks in Madrid has “introduced a string of new restrictive measures,” pointing to Washington putting multiple Chinese firms on the Entity List, expanded the scope of export controls affecting thousands of Chinese companies and other actions.

“The U.S. actions have severely harmed China’s interests and undermined the atmosphere of bilateral economic and trade talks, and China is resolutely opposed to them,” the ministry spokesperson said.

“China’s stance is consistent. We do not want a tariff war but we are not afraid of one.”

Former President Obama, speaking on stand-up comedian Marc Maron’s final podcast on Monday, said the Trump administration’s policies are a “test” of whether universities, businesses, law firms and voters — including Republicans — will take a stand for the nation’s founding principles and values.

“If you decide not to vote, that’s a consequence. If you are a Hispanic man and you’re frustrated about inflation, and so you decided, ah, you know what, all that rhetoric about Trump doesn’t matter. ‘I’m just mad about inflation,’” Obama said. “And now your sons are being stopped in L.A. because they look Latino and maybe without the ability to call anybody, might just be locked up, well, that’s a test.”

In a more than hourlong discussion with Maron on the wildly popular “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast, the former Democratic president said current events could jolt Americans.

“It’d be great if we weren’t tested this way, but you know what? We probably need to be shaken out of our complacency,” he said.

Obama also criticized some Democrats’ messaging as he touched on significant issues facing Californians and discussed the state of the nation’s democracy, core convictions and the weakening of institutional norms.

After Los Angeles-based Maron joked, “We’ve annoyed the average American into fascism,” Obama responded, “You can’t just be a scold all the time.

“You can’t constantly lecture people without acknowledging that you’ve got some blind spots too, and that life’s messy,” Obama said in the interview, which recently took place in the former president’s Washington, D.C., office.

Faulting language used by some liberals as “holier than thou,” Obama argued that Democrats could remain true to their principles while respecting those with whom they disagreed.

“Saying, ‘Right, I’ve got some core convictions [and] beliefs that I’m not going to compromise. But I’m also not going to assert that I am so righteous and so pure and so insightful that there’s not the possibility that maybe I’m wrong on this, or that other people, if they don’t say things exactly the way I say them or see things exactly the way I do, that somehow they’re bad people,’” he said.

Obama’s remarks come as the Democratic Party faces a reckoning after losing the presidential election in 2024, in part because of declining support from the party’s base, notably minority voters.

Maron, a comedian and actor, launched his “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast and radio show in 2009. Interviews with guests such as actor Robin Williams, comedian Louis C.K., filmmaker Kevin Smith and “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels often took place at his Highland Park home.

Obama’s 2015 interview in Maron’s garage became the podcast’s most popular episode at the time — downloaded nearly 740,000 times in the first 24 hours after it was posted.

On Monday, the former president criticized institutions for capitulating to President Trump’s demands. His words come as USC leaders are debating whether to agree to a White House proposal to receive favorable access to federal funding if they align with Trump’s agenda.

“If you’re a university president, say, well, you know what? This will hurt if we lose some grant money in the federal government, but that’s what endowments are for,” Obama said. “Let’s see if we can ride this out, because what we’re not going to do is compromise our basic academic independence.”

US President Donald Trump is considering sending Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, saying it would provide “a new step of aggression” in its war with Russia.

When asked on Air Force One if he would send Tomahawks to Ukraine, Trump replied “we’ll see… I may”.

It follows a second phone call at the weekend between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who pushed for stronger military capabilities to launch counter-attacks against Russia.

Moscow has previously warned Washington against providing long-range missiles to Kyiv, saying it would cause a major escalation in the conflict and strain US-Russian relations.

Tomahawk missiles have a range of 2,500 km (1,500 miles), which would put Moscow within reach for Ukraine.

Trump spoke to reporters as he flew to Israel. He said he would possibly speak to Russia about the Tomahawks requested by Ukraine.

“I might tell them [Russia] that if the war is not settled, that we may very well, we may not, but we may do it.”

“Do they [Russia] want Tomahawks going in their direction? I don’t think so,” the president said.

Kyiv has made multiple requests for long-range missiles, as it weighs up striking Russian cities far from the front lines of the grinding conflict.

In their phone calls Zelensky and Trump discussed Ukraine’s bid to strengthen its military capabilities, including boosting its air defences and long-range arms.

Ukrainian cities including Kyiv have come under repeated heavy Russian bombardment with drones and missiles. Russia has particularly targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, causing power cuts.

Last month, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg suggested the US president had authorised strikes deep into Russian territory, telling Fox News “there are no such things as sanctuaries” from attacks in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Russia, which launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, downplayed the chances of Tomahawks changing the course of the war.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said last month: “Whether it’s Tomahawks or other missiles, they won’t be able to change the dynamic.”

Families in Palestine and Israel await the return of their loved ones as the Israeli-Hamas truce continues to hold.

Oct. 12 (UPI) — Longtime Washington insider and political aide Dan Scavino has been selected to head the presidential personnel office.

Scavino will replace Sergio Gor, whom President Donald Trump nominated in August to serve as U.S. ambassador to India.

Scavino, a former deputy chief of staff, has been among Trump’s most trusted advisers.

“I am pleased to announce that the great Dan Scavino, in addition to remaining Deputy Chief of Staff to the Trump Administration, will head to the White House Presidential Personnel Office, replacing Sergio Gor, who did a wonderful job in that position, and will now become Ambassador to India,” Trump said in a social media post.

The personnel office has largely overseen administrative duties, but also has had significant influence, especially during the Trump administration, which has selected several candidates based on their loyalty to the president. The office is responsible for hiring and firing thousands of employees.

Scavino’s appointment comes amid a government shutdown, which led to the layoffs of more than 4,000 employees Friday. Trump has not been clear as to whether they will receive back pay, or whether they will have jobs when the government reopens.

Vice President JD Vance said Sunday there will be deeper cuts to the federal workforce the longer the government shutdown goes on, adding to the uncertainty facing hundreds of thousands who are already furloughed without pay amid the stalemate in Congress.

Vance warned that as the federal shutdown entered its 12th day, the new cuts would be “painful,” even as he said the Trump administration worked to ensure that the military is paid this week and some services would be preserved for low-income Americans, including food assistance.

Still, hundreds of thousands of government workers have been furloughed in recent days and, in a court filing Friday, the Office of Management and Budget said well over 4,000 federal employees would soon be fired in conjunction with the shutdown.

“The longer this goes on, the deeper the cuts are going to be,” Vance said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “To be clear, some of these cuts are going to be painful. This is not a situation that we relish. This is not something that we’re looking forward to, but the Democrats have dealt us a pretty difficult set of cards.”

Labor unions have already filed a lawsuit to stop the aggressive move by President Trump’s budget office, which goes far beyond what usually happens in a government shutdown, further inflaming tensions between the Republicans who control Congress and the Democratic minority.

The shutdown began Oct. 1 after Democrats rejected a short-term funding fix and demanded that the bill include an extension of federal subsidies for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. The expiration of those subsidies at the end of the year will result in monthly cost increases for millions.

Trump and Republican leaders have said they are open to negotiations on the health subsidies, but insist the government must reopen first.

For now, negotiations are virtually nonexistent. Dug in as ever, House leaders from both parties pointed fingers at each other in rival Sunday appearances on “Fox News Sunday.”

“We have repeatedly made clear that we will sit down with anyone, anytime, anyplace,” said House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York. “Republicans control the House, the Senate and the presidency. It’s unfortunate they’ve taken a my-way-or-the-highway approach.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) blamed Democrats and said they “seem not to care” about the pain the shutdown is inflicting.

“They’re trying their best to distract the American people from the simple fact that they’ve chosen a partisan fight so that they can prove to their Marxist rising base in the Democratic Party that they’re willing to fight Trump and Republicans,” he said.

Progressive activists, meanwhile, expressed new support for the Democratic Party’s position in the shutdown fight.

Ezra Levin, co-founder of the leading progressive protest group Indivisible, said he is “feeling good about the strength of Dem position.” He pointed to fractures in the GOP, noting that Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly warned last week that healthcare insurance premiums would skyrocket for average Americans — including her own adult children — if nothing is done.

“Trump and GOP are rightfully taking the blame for the shutdown and for looming premium increases,” Levin said. “Their chickens are coming home to roost.”

And yet the Republican administration and its congressional allies are showing no signs of compromise on Democratic demands or backing away from threats to use the opportunity to pursue deeper cuts to the federal workforce.

Thousands of employees at the departments of Education, Treasury, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services as well as the Environmental Protection Agency are set to receive layoff notices, according to spokespeople for the agencies and union representatives for federal workers.

“You hear a lot of Senate Democrats say, well, how can Donald Trump possibly lay off all of these federal workers?” Vance said. “Well, the Democrats have given us a choice between giving low-income women their food benefits and paying our troops on the one hand, and, on the other hand, paying federal bureaucrats.”

Democrats say the firings are illegal and unnecessary.

“They do not have to do this,” said Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “They do not have to punish people that shouldn’t find themselves in this position.”

Peoples writes for the Associated Press.

Last month, in a special election, voters in southern Arizona chose Adelita Grijalva to succeed her late father in Congress.

The outcome in the solidly Democratic district was never in doubt. The final tally wasn’t remotely close.

Grijalva, a Tucson native and former Pima County supervisor, crushed her Republican opponent, 69% to 29%.

The people spoke, loudly and emphatically, and normally that would have been that. Grijalva would have assumed office by now, allowing her to serve her orphaned constituents by filling a House seat that’s been vacant since her father died in March, after representing portions of Arizona for more than 20 years.

But these are not normal times. These are times when everything, including the time of day and state of the weather, has become politically charged.

And so Grijalva is residing in limbo. Or, rather, at her campaign headquarters in Tucson, since she’s been locked out of her congressional office on Capitol Hill — the one her father used, which now has her name on a plaque outside. She’s been denied entry by Speaker Mike Johnson.

“It’s pretty horrible,” Grijalva said in an interview, “because regardless of whether I have an official office or not, constituents elected me and people are reaching out to me through every social media outlet.

“‘I have a question,’” they tell Grijalva, or “‘I’m afraid I’m going to get fired’ or ‘We need some sort of assistance.’”

All she can do is refer them to Arizona’s two U.S. senators.

House members are scattered across the country during the partial government shutdown and Johnson said he can’t possibly administer the oath of office to Grijalva during a pro forma session, a time when normal business — legislative debate, roll call votes — is not being conducted. “We have to have everybody here,” Johnson said, “and we’ll swear her in.”

But, lo, dear reader, are you sitting down?

It turns out there were two Republican lawmakers elected this year in special elections, each, as it happens from Florida. Both were sworn in the very next day … during pro forma sessions!

Shocked? Don’t be. In the Trump era, rules and standards are applied in flagrantly different ways, depending on which political party is involved.

But partisanship aside, what possible reason would Johnson have to stall Grijalva’s swearing-in? Here’s a clue: It involves a convicted sex trafficker and former buddy of President Trump, whose foul odor trails him like the reeking carcass of a beached whale.

Yes, it’s the late Jeffrey Epstein!

“On my very first day in Congress, I’ll sign the bipartisan discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files,” Grijalva said on the eve of her landslide election. “This is as much about fulfilling Congress’ duty as a constitutional check on this administration as it is about demanding justice for survivors.”

Jeffrey Epstein. Gone but very much unforgotten.

For years, his perversions have been an obsession among those, mainly on the right, who believe a “deep state” cover-up has protected the rich and powerful who partnered with women procured by Epstein. After Trump’s marionette attorney general, Pam Bondi, suggested a client list was sitting on her desk, awaiting release, the Justice Department abruptly reversed course.

There was no such list, it announced, and Epstein definitely committed suicide and wasn’t, as the conspiracy-minded suggest, murdered by those wishing to silence him.

Trump, who palled around with Epstein, urged everyone to move along. Naturally, Johnson fell into immediate lockstep. (Bondi, for her part, tap-danced through a contentious Senate hearing last week, repeatedly sidestepping questions about the Epstein-Trump relationship, including whether photos exist of the president alongside “half-naked young women.”)

Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, a GOP lawmaker and persistent Trump irritant, and Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna have led the bipartisan effort to force the Justice Department to cough up the government’s unclassified records related to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his former girlfriend and fellow sex trafficker.

The discharge petition, overriding the objections of Trump and Johnson and forcing the House to vote on release of the files, needs at least 218 signatures, which constitutes a majority of the 435 members. The petition has been stalled for weeks, just one signature shy of ratification.

Enter Grijalva.

Or not.

Johnson, who may be simply delaying an inevitable House vote to curry Trump’s favor, insists the Epstein matter has “nothing to do with” his refusal to seat Grivalja.

Righto.

And planets don’t revolve around the sun, hot air doesn’t rise and gravity doesn’t bring falling leaves to Earth.

More than 200 Democratic House members have affixed their signatures to the petition, along with four Republicans — Massie and Reps. Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene. The latter three are all MAGA stalwarts who have bravely broken ranks with Trump to stand up for truth and the victims of Epstein’s ravages.

“Aren’t we all against convicted pedophiles and anyone who enables them?” Greene asked in an interview with Axios.

Most are, one would assume. But apparently not everybody.

Arguing that some places in the United States – primarily those governed by Democratic officials – are rampantly crime-infested, President Donald Trump has been deploying military forces to cities from Los Angeles to Washington, DC.

Former National Security Council official Kori Schake tells host Steve Clemons that Trump is trying to enlist the US military to get involved in his culture war issues, such as immigration and political dissent.

She warns that US forces should be kept out of politics “so that the American public continues to have confidence and trust in the military”.

Donald Trump is directing US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to pay military personnel despite the federal government shutdown.

The president said on Saturday that Hegseth must make sure troops do not miss out on their regular paycheque, scheduled for Wednesday. The directive comes as other government employees have already had some pay withheld and others are being laid off.

“I will not allow the Democrats to hold our Military, and the entire Security of our Nation, HOSTAGE, with their dangerous Government Shutdown,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

The Republican and Democratic parties blame each other for failing to agree on a spending plan to reopen the government.

Trump’s message asks Hegseth to “use all available funds to get our Troops PAID” on 15 October, when military personnel would see their pay withheld for the first time since the shutdown began on 1 October.

Many US military employees are considered “essential”, meaning they must still show up for duty without pay. Some 750,000 other federal employees – about 40% – have been furloughed, or sent home, also without pay.

Furloughed employees are legally supposed to receive back-pay after a shutdown ends and they return to work, but the Trump administration has insinuated this might not happen.

“The Radical Left Democrats should OPEN THE GOVERNMENT, and then we can work together to address Healthcare, and many other things that they want to destroy,” Trump posted on Saturday.

Democrats have refused to vote for a Republican spending plan that would reopen the government after nearly 12 days shut down, saying any resolution must preserve expiring tax credits that reduce health insurance costs for millions of Americans and reverse Trump’s cuts to Medicaid, the healthcare program for elderly and low-income people.

Republicans accuse Democrats of unnecessarily bringing the government to a halt, and blame them for the knock-on effects caused by the federal work stoppage.

Finding a way to pay for military salaries could help reduce some of the political risk for congressional leaders if the shutdown drags on.

In an effort to pressure Democrats, the Trump administration has also begun laying off thousands of government workers, an unprecedented move during a shutdown.

“The RIFs have begun,” White House Office of Management Director Russell Vought announced in a post on X on Friday morning, referring to an acronym for “reductions in force”.

The administration disclosed later on Friday that seven agencies had started firing more than 4,000 people, making good on the president’s repeated threats to use the shutdown to further his long-held goal of reducing the federal workforce.

The reductions included dozens of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to the BBC’s US partner CBS news, citing sources familiar with the situation.

The agency’s entire Washington DC office was laid off, the sources told CBS, adding that among the laid-off employees were those working on the CDC’s Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report, the agency’s Ebola response and immunisations. There were also reductions in the human resources department, they said.

Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, told CBS that the let-go workers were not essential, and that “HHS continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda”.

Employees at the Treasury Department and in the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the Department of Homeland Security were also among those laid off on Friday, those agencies confirmed.

The American Federation of Government Employees and AFL-CIO, two major unions representing federal workers, have filed a lawsuit in northern California, asking a judge to temporarily block the layoff orders.

“It is disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country,” AFGE president Everett Kelley said.

A spokesman from the White House budget office told the BBC on Saturday that the layoffs were just the beginning.

“These RIF numbers from the court filing are just a snapshot in time,” he said. “More RIFs are coming.”

In a court filing opposing the unions’ request for a temporary restraining order, the justice department revealed that agencies such as the Departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce and Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency could also see staff cuts.

The government lawyers said the labour unions had failed to establish that their members would be irreparably harmed by the layoffs, which is needed for the judge to grant the restraining order. But they said a restraining order would “irreparably harm the government”.

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Oct. 11 (UPI) — Former National Security adviser John Bolton might be charged with federal crimes next week for allegedly mishandling classified documents.

Federal prosecutors met on Saturday to weigh potential charges that would be filed in the U.S. District Court for Maryland, which is Bolton’s state of residence, according to CNN.

Bolton served as President Donald Trump‘s National Security adviser from April 9, 2018, to Sept. 10, 2019.

He has been under investigation for several years due to how he handled classified information, and Saturday’s meeting of federal prosecutors is to determine potential charges.

Bolton’s attorney Abbe Lowell dismissed claims that Bolton inappropriately handled classified documents, NBC News reported.

“An objective and thorough review will show nothing inappropriate was stored or kept by Amb. Bolton,” Lowell said in a prepared statement and referring to Bolton’s former position as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

She said the files in Bolton’s possession had been reviewed and closed, and he intended to use them while writing a book.

“These are the kinds of ordinary records, many of which are 20 years old or more, that would be kept by a longtime career official who served at the State Department, as an assistant attorney general, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and the National Security adviser,” Lowell said.

FBI agents in August searched Bolton’s home and his office in Washington as part of a national security investigation regarding classified documents.

Federal prosecutors are determining how they might pursue a federal grand jury indictment against him.

A grand jury indictment against Bolton would be the third secured by interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, whom Trump recently appointed after firing her predecessor for not pursuing such indictments.

Halligan recently obtained federal grand jury indictments against former FBI Director James Comey for allegedly lying to Congress in 2020.

Earlier this week, she also obtained a grand jury indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged bank fraud related to the purchase of a home in Alexandria, Va.

Ukraine’s president praises Trump’s efforts to secure Gaza ceasefire, says other wars ‘can be stopped as well’.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged Donald Trump to broker peace in Ukraine like in “the Middle East” during a phone call, saying if the United States president could stop one war, “others can be stopped as well.”

Saturday’s call came a day after Russia launched a large-scale attack on Ukraine’s energy grid, knocking out power to parts of the capital, Kyiv, and nine other Ukrainian regions, which have since been restored.

Diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have slowed in recent weeks, in part because global attention has shifted to brokering a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza, Kyiv said.

Trump, who announced the first phase of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas on Wednesday, met Russian President Vladimir Putin for talks in August but failed to secure progress on a ceasefire in the European war.

“I had a call with US President Donald Trump. A very positive and productive one,” Zelenskyy said on Facebook, congratulating Trump for his “outstanding” ceasefire plan in the Middle East.

“If a war can be stopped in one region, then surely other wars can be stopped as well, including the Russian war,” Zelenskyy added, calling for Trump to pressure the Kremlin into negotiations.

Relations between the two leaders have warmed dramatically since February when they sparred during a televised meeting at the White House.

Trump has since grown more hostile towards Moscow while expressing sympathy for Ukraine.

In September, he wrote on Truth Social that Kyiv should try to “take back” all its occupied territory with Europe’s and NATO’s help.

US first lady Melania Trump said on Friday that she had secured the release of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia after establishing an extraordinary back channel of communication with Putin.

Russian attacks on Ukraine killed at least five people on Saturday and cut power to parts of southern Ukraine’s Odesa region, according to Ukrainian officials.

Two of the people died inside a church in Kostyantynivka when it was hit by a strike, according to local authorities.

Using ‘Russian assets’

Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said “the main work to restore the power supply” was completed but some localised outages were still affecting the Ukrainian capital after Friday’s “massive” Russian attacks.

Ukrainian drone attacks, meanwhile, killed two people in Russia, according to regional officials.

In the Russian border region of Belgorod, a truck driver was killed by a Ukrainian strike, according to local officials.

Moscow has targeted Ukraine’s energy grid each winter since it launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, cutting power and heating to millions of households and disrupting water supplies in what Kyiv says is a brazen war crime.

Russia denies targeting civilians and says Ukraine uses the energy sites to power its military sector.

Both countries have accused each other in recent months of frustrating progress towards a peace deal.

Russia blames Kyiv and its European allies for the impasse, accusing them of undermining peace negotiations with Washington. Ukraine and Europe accuse Russia of playing for time so it can seize more Ukrainian territory.

Zelenskyy said in his nightly address on Friday that Russia was taking advantage of the world being “almost entirely focused on the prospect of establishing peace in the Middle East” and called for strengthening Ukraine’s air defence systems and placing tighter sanctions on Russia.

“Russian assets must be fully used to strengthen our defence and ensure recovery,” he said in the video, posted to X.

Donald Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi will chair an international summit to discuss the US president’s proposal to end Israel’s war on Gaza in Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday.

The meeting will involve leaders from more than 20 countries, the Egyptian presidency said in a statement on Saturday.

It will aim “to end the war in the Gaza Strip, enhance efforts to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East, and usher in a new era of regional security and stability”, the statement said.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer said they would attend, along with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Pedro Sanchez of Spain. French President Emmanuel Macron has also confirmed his attendance.

It was not immediately clear whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or any representatives of the Hamas Palestinian group, would attend.

The announcement comes as tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed north along the coast of Gaza, by foot, car and cart back, to their abandoned and mostly destroyed homes in the Strip, as a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas appeared to be holding.

Israeli troops partially pulled back under the first phase of a US-brokered agreement reached this week to end Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 67,000 people and left much of the famine-struck enclave in ruins.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said that the ceasefire “ended one form of violence, but the struggle continues”.

“People walk this exhausting, tiring journey back here [in the north] because they belong here. They keep telling us that they belong to this part of the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip, and they will never be uprooted from here,” Mahmoud said.

“But spending a night here is going to be very difficult,” he said. “The struggle to survive continues to present itself in the most aggressive way, not each day but each hour.”

Gaza’s Government Media Office has said that 5,000 public operations have been carried out after the ceasefire came into force to improve the lives of Palestinians in the enclave.

Among them are more than 850 rescue and relief missions carried out by the Gaza Civil Defence, police and municipal teams to recover bodies, remove rubble and secure destroyed areas.

About 150 bodies have been recovered from various areas across the enclave since Friday morning, the Civil Defence said. Separately, Nasser Hospital reported that 28 bodies were recovered from southern Gaza’s Khan Younis alone.

More than 900 service missions to restore water and sewage lines have also been carried out, the agency added.

These missions are being carried out with the bare minimum of resources as Israel’s blockade on Gaza remains in place, restricting the entry of fuel and equipment. During the genocide, Israeli attacks destroyed ambulances, fire trucks and civil defence centres, further crippling emergency and recovery efforts across the enclave.

The mayor of Khan Younis said that 85 percent of the southern Gaza governorate has been destroyed by Israeli attacks, adding that about 400,000 tonnes of rubble must be removed from the city’s streets.

Calls for crossings to open

Aid groups have also urged Israel to reopen more crossings to allow aid into Gaza.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said it was ready to restore 145 food distribution points across the territory, once Israel allows for expanded deliveries. Before Israel completely sealed off Gaza in March, United Nations agencies provided food at 400 distribution points.

“What is most important now for us to reach the north is crossings to be opened,” Antoine Renard, a WFP representative and the country director for Palestine, told Al Jazeera from Deir el-Balah.

He explained that in a previous ceasefire in January, the WFP had enabled “practically a third of all the different goods that managed to enter into Gaza”.

“The conditions should be the same 1760225956. We expect that the good practices that we had in January 2025 will be again applied in this ceasefire,” Renard said.

Izzat al-Risheq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said the group is working with “friendly countries” to ensure the entry of aid into Gaza, “despite the massive destruction caused by the war”.

UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram said on Saturday that the children’s agency expects to significantly scale up supplies of high-energy food for malnourished children, menstrual hygiene supplies and tents, starting on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Israeli captives held in Gaza by Hamas and other armed groups are expected to “come back” on Monday, US President Trump said, with 20 living captives and the bodies of 28 others due to be handed over as part of the ceasefire deal.

In exchange, Israel is due to release some 250 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, as well as about 1,700 people detained from Gaza over the past two years of war and held without charge. The Israel Prison Service said that detainees have been transferred to deportation facilities at Ofer and Ktzi’ot prisons, “awaiting instructions from the political echelon”.

In past exchanges, Israel has delayed the release of Palestinian prisoners and subjected them to harsh treatment, including physical abuse, humiliation and restrictions on family contact, before eventually releasing them. Rights groups have documented numerous cases of Palestinians arriving in dire health conditions after prolonged interrogation and detention without charge or trial.

In Tel Aviv, tens of thousands of people gathered in Hostages Square after two years of protests led by family members of captives calling for their return.

Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his daughter, Ivanka Trump, took the stage in the square with the US Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, who played a key role in the ceasefire negotiations.

“I dreamed of this night. It’s been a long journey,” Witkoff said. Some yelled, “Thank you, Trump, thank you Witkoff”, and booed when the envoy mentioned Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Turning to the captives, Witkoff said: “As you return to the embrace of your families and your nation, know that all of Israel and the entire world stands ready to welcome you home with open arms and endless love.”

Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said that Israeli captives’ families credit Trump for the deal, not Netanyahu.

“The family members of captives have no faith in their government, no faith in the Israeli prime minister, whom they accused of prolonging the war for his own personal and political gain,” Salhut said.

“The cheers for [Trump] and for Steve Witkoff come because the family members and those who are protesting say this happened because of the Americans.”

Oct. 11 (UPI) — The Trump administration on Friday announced it had begun laying off more than 4,000 federal workers but will pay troops as the government shutdown continues at least until Tuesday.

President Donald Trump on Saturday announced his administration has located funds to pay the military on Wednesday.

“We have identified funds,” and the president will order Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth to “use all available funds to get our troops paid,” Trump said, as reported by CNN.

The president did not say what funds would be used to pay the troops, and his announcement came as thousands of federal workers have received lay-off notices, with thousands more expected.

Administration officials are planning to lay off a total of 4,100 federal employees until the current budget impasse ends, Axios reported.

Layoff notices have been sent to between 1,100 and 1,200 Health and Human Services workers, 1,446 in the Treasury Department and another 466 in the Department of Education, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

“The situation involving the lapse in appropriations is fluid and rapidly evolving,” OMB adviser Stephen Billy said in a response to a federal union workers’ court challenge to the layoffs.

“These numbers reflect the most current information made available to me at this time and are subject to change,” Billy added.

Additional layoff notices are planned for 442 workers in the Housing and Urban Development agency, 315 in the Commerce Department, 187 in the Department of Energy, 176 in Homeland Security and up to 30 in the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has had an unknown number of workers laid off

The American Federation of Government Employees and the AFL-CIO have filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration to end the layoffs and have all workers returned to their jobs despite the lack of funding to pay them, the BBC reported.

OMB Director Russell Vought on Friday announced the Trump administration was beginning a reduction in force of the federal government amid the shutdown.

Senate Republicans are trying to get enough support from Senate Democrats to pass a House-approved continuing resolution that would fund the federal government for seven weeks while continuing to negotiate a bipartisan budget bill for the 2026 fiscal year.

Senate Democrats have proposed an alternative funding resolution that would fund the federal government through Oct. 31 but would add $1.5 trillion in spending over the next 10 years.

That measure would require passage in the House of Representatives, which is on recess until Oct 20.

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Rebecca Ellis with an assist from Julia Wick, giving you the latest on city and county government.

Los Angeles County’s Board of Supervisors met for hours in closed session with attorneys Tuesday to ponder a legal quandary about as thorny as they come.

What do you do with a $4-billion sex abuse settlement when some plaintiffs say they were paid to sue?

On one hand, the supervisors emphasized, they want victims to get the compensation they’re owed for abuse they suffered at the hands of county employees. That’s why they green-lighted the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history this April.

But the allegations of paid plaintiffs, surfaced by The Times last week, have also raised concerns about potential misconduct. The supervisors stated the obvious Tuesday: They do not want taxpayer money set aside for victims going to people who were never in county facilities.

“The entire process angers and sickens me,” said Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who first called for the investigation into the payout, at the meeting Tuesday. “We must ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.”

A Times investigation last week found seven people who said they were paid by recruiters to sue L.A. County for sex abuse. Two of them said they were explicitly told to fabricate claims. All the people who said they were paid had lawsuits filed by Downtown LA Law Group, or DTLA, which has about 2,700 clients in the settlement.

DTLA has denied paying anyone to file a lawsuit and said no representative of the firm had been authorized to make payments. The Times could not reach any of the representatives who allegedly made the payments for comment.

“We have always worked hard to present only meritorious claims and have systems in place to help weed out false or exaggerated allegations,” the firm said in a statement.

The allegations dropped a bomb on the nearly finalized legal settlement, leaving county attorneys and plaintiffs lawyers scrambling to figure out the best path forward.

Some have called for the county to get out of the settlement half a year after announcing it. Technically, it can. The settlement agreement, reviewed by The Times, has a clause that allows the county to pull out unless all but 120 of the plaintiffs agree to the terms — a number attorneys could almost certainly surpass with more than 11,000 plaintiffs.

But the county does not appear to be relishing the thought of blowing up a settlement that took months of negotiations, countless hours in a courtroom and one can only guess how much in billable attorney hours. Many of these cases, attorneys for the county warn, could cost tens of millions in a trial. Clearing them all at once for $4 billion could, believe it or not, end up sounding like a bargain.

No decision was made Tuesday after hours in closed session. The only news out of it was the announcement that Fesia Davenport, the chief executive, would be going on medical leave for the next few months. She will be temporarily replaced by Joe Nicchitta, the office’s second-in-command.

Davenport emphasized the reasons for her absence were personal and had nothing to do with the settlement after rumors immediately swirled connecting the two.

“I am deeply disappointed that I have to address baseless allegations that my leave is somehow related to the County’s AB 218 settlement — which it is not,” she said in a statement. “I am on medical leave and expect to return to work in early 2026.”

Next Tuesday, the supervisors plan to meet again in closed session to grapple with the settlement, according to the board agenda.

In the aftermath of the investigation, some county watchdogs have called for the government to better screen the claims it’s poised to pay out.

“There was a lack of the basics,” said Eric Preven, a local government observer, who said he’s worried about the effect of unvetted lawsuits on the government. “What have we done?”

“We’re glad the supervisors are finally doing their jobs, but what took them so long?” said the Daily News editorial board.

County counsel says they’re working on it. They’ve demanded “evidentiary statements” for each victim and search for whatever documentation exists, the office said in a statement.

“But the simple truth is this: Los Angeles County is facing more than 11,000 claims, most of which are decades old, where evidence is scarce or nonexistent,” the statement read. “Survivors and taxpayers deserve a process with integrity, not one that rewards coercion, shortcuts, or abuse of the system.”

Some victims say they’re concerned the allegations of paid plaintiffs will taint the settlement and delay justice for legitimate survivors.

Tanina Evans, 47, said she spent her childhood bouncing around county-run juvenile halls and group homes. She sued the county after she said she was sexually abused multiple times, including once at Eastlake Juvenile Hall, where she says she was forced to give a staff member oral sex in the shower. When she refused, she said, the staff member had the teenagers she was incarcerated with beat her up.

She said she worries experiences like hers will now be looked at with new skepticism.

“People are so quick to justify not penalizing anyone. Are they looking for a loophole?” Evans said. “And it’s like, no, you guys know it’s real.”

State of play

— PALISADES ARREST AND FALLOUT: Federal prosecutors filed charges Wednesday in the Palisades fire, accusing Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, of starting the initial fire on New Year’s Day that rekindled to become the devastating blaze days later. This latest revelation is fueling debate over whether the city of L.A. or the state of California can be found civilly liable for its role in the fire, our colleague Jenny Jarvie reports.

—NEW FINDINGS: With the federal investigation tied up, Mayor Karen Bass’ office released a long-awaited after-action report finding that firefighters were hampered by an ineffective process for recalling them back to work, as well as poor communication, inexperienced leadership and a lack of resources.

—2022 NEVER ENDS, SCREENTIME EDITION: Speaking at Bloomberg’s Screentime conference Wednesday, Bass characterized her former mayoral opponent and frequent critic Rick Caruso as “sad and bitter.” Earlier in the day, Caruso had put out a statement in response to the charges filed against Rinderknecht that called the Palisades fire “a failure of government on an epic level, starting with Mayor Bass.” During a separate appearance at the Screentime conference, Caruso shot back at Bass, saying anger was an appropriate response to the contents of the report. Caruso still hasn’t said whether he plans to run for mayor or governor next year, or sit out the 2026 election.

—BUT THEY WEREN’T JUST FIGHTING! A day later, Bass called on the City Council to adopt an ordinance that would help establish a one-time exemption to Measure ULA, the city’s so-called “mansion tax,” for Palisades fire-affected properties, to speed up sales and spur rebuilding and rehabilitation of the area. Bass’ office said her letter to the council followed a meeting with Caruso, who had “proposed ideas to help address this issue.”

—FAREWELL, FORKISH: LAPD public information director Jennifer Forkish resigned Thursday at the request of Chief Jim McDonnell, amid accusations from the region’s top federal prosecutor that her office was leaking information. But Forkish vehemently denied the “baseless allegation” that she had leaked anything.

—GARBAGE MONEY: City Council voted Tuesday to finalize a dramatic fee increase for residential trash collection, after giving the fee hike preliminary approval back in April. This is the first time the fees have been raised in 17 years and the city was heavily subsidizing the program, at the cost of roughly $500,000 a day.

—PAYOUT IN SPOTLIGHT: The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to launch an investigation into possible misconduct by “legal representatives” involved in sex abuse litigation. The county auditor’s office also will set up a hotline dedicated to tips from the public related to the lawsuits.

— MUSICAL CHAIRS: Former FBI agent Erroll Southers plans to step down from the L.A. Police Commission, my colleague Libor Jany reported Friday. Southers has been a member of the panel since 2023, when Bass picked him to serve out the term of a departing commissioner. His appointment to a full five-year term was supposed to come before the City Council a few weeks ago, but instead the council continued the matter — setting off a bizarre bureaucratic chain of events that led to Southers essentially being confirmed by default due to city rules and the council’s inaction (too complicated to fully summarize here, but Libor explained it all in his story at the time).

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? Bass’ initiative addressed an encampment on Lincoln Boulevard in Westchester, in partnership with Councilmember Traci Park’s office.
• On the docket next week: The board will vote on a state of emergency over recent federal immigration actions to provide the supervisors with more power to assist those affected by the flood of deportations. And, over in City Hall, the council’s public safety committee will consider the mayor’s appointment of Jeffrey Skobin to the police commission on Wednesday.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to [email protected]. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Marc Benioff has become the latest Silicon Valley tech leader to signal his approval of President Trump, saying that the president is doing a great job and ought to deploy the National Guard to deal with crime in San Francisco.

The Salesforce chief executive’s comments came as he headed to San Francisco to host his annual Dreamforce conference — an event for which he said he had to hire hundreds of off-duty police to provide security.

“We don’t have enough cops, so if they [National Guard] can be cops, I’m all for it,” he told The New York Times from aboard his private plane.

The National Guard is generally not allowed to perform domestic law enforcement duties when federalized by the president.

Last month, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s use of National Guard soldiers in Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act — which restricts use of the military for domestic law enforcement — and ordered that the troops not be used in law enforcement operations within California.

Trump has also ordered the National Guard to deploy to cities such as Portland, Ore., and Chicago, citing the need to protect federal officers and assets in the face of ongoing immigration protests. Those efforts have been met with criticism from local leaders and are the subject of ongoing legal battles.

President Trump has yet to direct troops to Northern California, but suggested in September that San Francisco could be a target for deployment. He has said that cities with Democratic political leadership such as San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles “are very unsafe places and we are going to straighten them out.”

“I told [Defense Secretary] Pete [Hegseth] we should use some of these dangerous cities as training for our military, our national guard,” Trump said.

Benioff’s call to send National Guard troops to San Francisco drew sharp rebukes from several of the region’s elected Democratic leaders.

San Francisco Dist. Atty. Brooke Jenkins said she “can’t be silent any longer” and threatened to prosecute any leaders or troops who harass residents in a fiery statement on X.

“I am responsible for holding criminals accountable, and that includes holding government and law enforcement officials too, when they cross the bounds of the law,” she said. “If you come to San Francisco and illegally harass our residents, use excessive force or cross any other boundaries that the law prescribes, I will not hesitate to do my job and hold you accountable just like I do other violators of the law every single day.”

State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) also took to X to express indignation, saying “we neither need nor want an illegal military occupation in San Francisco.”

“Salesforce is a great San Francisco company that does so much good for our city,” he said. “Inviting Trump to send the National Guard here is not one of those good things. Quite the opposite.”

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office offered a more muted response, touting the mayor’s efforts to boost public safety in general, but declining to directly address Benioff’s remarks.

Charles Lutvak, a spokesperson for the mayor, noted that the city is seeing net gains in both police officers and sheriff’s deputies for the first time in a decade. He also highlighted Lurie’s efforts to bring police staffing up to 2,000 officers.

“Crime is down nearly 30% citywide and at its lowest point in decades,” Lutvak said. “We are moving in the right direction and will continue to prioritize safety and hiring while San Francisco law enforcement works every single day to keep our city safe.”

When contacted by The Times Friday night, the office of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who vociferously opposed the deployment of National Guard troops in Los Angeles, did not issue a comment in response to Benioff.

Benioff and Newsom have long been considered friends, with a relationship dating back to when Newsom served as San Francisco’s mayor. Newsom even named Benioff as godfather to one of his children, according to the San Francisco Standard.

Benioff has often referred to himself as an independent. He has donated to several liberal causes, including a $30-million donation to UC San Francisco to study homelessness, and has contributed to prior political campaigns of former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Hillary Clinton.

However, he has also donated to the campaigns of former House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sen. John McCain, both Republicans, and supported tougher-on-crime policies and reducing government spending.

Earlier this year, Benioff also praised the Elon Musk-led federal cost-cutting effort known as the Department of Government Efficiency.

“I fully support the president,” Benioff told the New York Times this week. “I think he’s doing a great job.”

Oct. 10 (UPI) — The Trump administration has canceled the proposed Esmeralda 7 Solar Project in Nevada that would have been among the world’s largest solar power facilities.

Officials with the Bureau of Land Management on Thursday announced an environmental impact review of the proposed renewable energy facility has been canceled, which in turn cancels the project, Politico reported.

The canceled project would have built seven solar power-generation projects within the Esmeralda site that would have occupied 118,000 acres of land in Nevada’s Esmeralda County and about 30 miles west of Tonopah and 270 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The project would have generated up to 6.2 gigawatts of energy over its service life, which is enough energy to power up to 2 million homes, according to Heatmap.

The proposed solar power project generally enjoyed smooth sailing through the Biden administration and would have included the NextEra Energy utility firm and Invenergy among its developers, The New York Times reported.

Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican, in August expressed his concerns that the solar power project was being delayed or canceled unnecessarily in a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

Lombardo said the project’s completion would help Nevada to better support the nation’s energy needs for mining projects and data centers, according to The New York Times.

President Donald Trump previously criticized solar- and wind-power projects as insufficient and costly compared to natural gas and coal power-generation facilities.

Since Trump took office in January, the Interior Department has added new review requirements for wind and solar projects, which have slowed their development and have stopped some from moving forward.

The Interior Department also has begun investigating bird deaths and other impacts on wildlife and plant life by large solar and wind projects.

While the Esmeralda 7 project appears to be canceled, another Nevada solar power project called Dodge Flat II is still in progress, according to the BLM.

United States President Donald Trump has unveiled a second deal with a major pharmaceutical company to offer lower-cost prescription drugs direct to American consumers.

This time, the agreement concerned AstraZeneca, a multinational based in the United Kingdom.

Trump hosted the company’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, in the Oval Office on Friday to publicly cement the deal, which he described as “another historic achievement in our quest to lower drug prices for all Americans”.

“Americans can expect discounts, and as I said, it could be, in many cases, way over a hundred percent,” Trump said.

As in previous press appearances, he pledged US consumers would see impossible discounts on popular medications.

Inhalers to treat asthma, for example, would be discounted by 654 percent, Trump said, calling the device a “drug that’s hot, very hot”. He also reiterated past claims that some medications could see “a thousand percent reduction”.

Trump has long pushed to reduce prescription drug costs to what he has billed as “most-favoured nations prices”.

That would bring prices down to the same level as in other developed countries, though Trump, with typical hyperbole, has said the policy would equate to “the  lowest price anywhere in the world”.

AstraZeneca is the second major pharmaceutical company after Pfizer to strike such a bargain. Last month, Pfizer announced a “voluntary agreement” to price its products “at parity with other key developed markets”.

Like AstraZeneca, it also agreed to participate in an online, direct-to-consumer marketplace the Trump administration plans to launch, called TrumpRx.

But in a news release on its website, Pfizer made clear that the agreement would help it dodge the high tariffs that Trump threatened against overseas pharmaceutical manufacturers.

“We now have the certainty and stability we need on two critical fronts, tariffs and pricing, that have suppressed the industry’s valuations to historic lows,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said.

At Friday’s Oval Office ceremony, officials like Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr openly celebrated the power Trump had wielded through his tariff threats.

“ The president saw something that we didn’t see, which is we had leverage, and that came through Howard [Lutnick] and the tariffs,” Kennedy said, giving a nod to Trump’s commerce secretary. “We had extraordinary leverage to craft these deals.”

The deals with both AstraZeneca and Pfizer came after Trump threatened in September to impose a 100-percent tariff on pharmaceutical companies unless they started to build manufacturing plants in the US.

“There will, therefore, be no Tariff on these Pharmaceutical Products if construction has started,” Trump wrote on his platform, Truth Social.

Those tariffs were slated to come into effect on October 1. But Pfizer unveiled its deal with the Trump administration on September 30, and the tariffs were subsequently postponed.

In Friday’s Oval Office appearance, Soriot acknowledged that, like Pfizer, he had negotiated a delay for any tariffs against AstraZeneca. In exchange, he pledged to increase US investments to $50bn by 2030.

“I appreciate very much Secretary Lutnick granting us a three-year tariff exemption to localise the remainder of our products,” Soriot said. “Most of our products are locally manufactured, but we need to transfer the remaining part to this country.”

Just one day earlier, AstraZeneca had revealed it would construct a “multi-billion-dollar drug substance manufacturing centre” in Virginia, with a focus on chronic diseases, a top priority for the Trump administration.

Trump himself touted his tariff threat as the impetus for the recent string of drug deals. When asked by a reporter if he could have brought the pharmaceutical companies to the negotiating table any other way, Trump was blunt.

“ I would never have been able to bring him,” he replied, with a gesture to Soriot. “ Now, I’m not sure that Pascal would like to say, but behind the scenes, he did say tariffs were a big reason he came here.”

Since returning for a second term as president, the Republican leader has relied heavily on tariffs – and the threats of tariffs – as a cudgel to bring foreign governments and businesses in line with his administration’s priorities.

He has called the term “tariff” the “most beautiful word” in the dictionary and repeatedly labelled the dates he unveiled such import taxes as “Liberation Day”.

But earlier this year, it was unclear if his sabre-rattling would pay dividends. In May, for instance, Trump issued an executive action calling on his government to take “all necessary and appropriate action” to penalise countries whose policies he understood as driving up US drug costs.

He also called on Secretary Kennedy to lay the groundwork for “direct-to-consumer” purchasing programmes where pharmaceutical companies could sell their products at a discount.

Trump, however, lacked a legal mechanism to force participation in such a programme.

In July, he upped the pressure, sending letters to major pharmaceutical manufacturers. The letters warned the drug-makers to bring down prices, or else the government would “deploy every tool in our arsenal” to end the “abusive drug pricing practices”.

He also openly mused that month about hiking tariffs on imported medications.

“We’ll be announcing something very soon on pharmaceuticals,” Trump told a July cabinet meeting. “We’re going to give people about a year, a year and a half, to come in, and after that, they’re going to be tariffed if they have to bring the pharmaceuticals into the country, the drugs.”

“They’re going to be tariffed at a very, very high rate, like 200 percent,” he added.

The “most-favoured nation” pricing scheme is an idea that Trump tried but failed to initiate during his first term as president, from 2017 to 2021.

How that project might shape up in his second term remains to be seen. The TrumpRx website – which the president insists he did not name himself – has yet to offer any services.

Those are expected in 2026.

PORTLAND, Maine — Maine’s two-term Democratic Gov. Janet Mills will run for the U.S. Senate seat held by veteran Republican Sen. Susan Collins next year, two people familiar with Mills’ plans said Friday.

The development sets up a potential showdown between the parties’ best-known figures in a state where Democrats see a chance to gain a seat in their uphill quest for the Senate majority.

Mills is tentatively expected to announce her candidacy Tuesday, according to the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss plans they were not authorized to share publicly.

Mills was the top choice of national Democrats who have long tried to unseat Collins, who has held the seat since 1997. She was urged to run by party leaders including New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader. And though she met only once with Schumer to discuss the race early this year, her decision is viewed as a recruiting win for Democrats, who also have well-known figures with statewide experience running for seats held by Republicans in North Carolina and Ohio.

Democrats see the Maine seat as especially important, considering it is the only one on the 2026 Senate election calendar where Republicans are defending an incumbent in a state carried last year by Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

Still, a Democratic majority in the 100-member Senate remains a difficult proposition.

The party would need to gain a net of four seats, while most of the states with Senate elections next year are places where Republican Donald Trump beat Harris. Maine is an exception, while in North Carolina, where Trump narrowly won, Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper is viewed as a contender, and Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown is running in Ohio, where Trump won comfortably and Brown was defeated in November.

Mills gained national attention in February during a White House meeting of governors with Trump when she announced to him, “We’ll see you in court,” over her opposition to his call for denying states federal funding over transgender rights.

In April, Maine officials sued the Trump administration in an effort to stop the federal government from freezing federal funding to the state in light of its decision to defy a federal ban on allowing transgender students to participate in sports.

Mills stoked Democratic enthusiasm in April when she said of the lawsuit, “I’ve spent the better part of my career listening to loud men talk tough to disguise their weaknesses.”

Mills, 77, is a former state attorney general who won the governorship in 2018 and again in 2022. Maine governors are barred from seeking a third term and, while Mills early this year seemed to dismiss a Senate campaign, she said she had rethought the notion and was “seriously considering” running.

She had set a November deadline for making a decision, though as of mid-September, she was interviewing prospective senior campaign staffers.

A campaign against Collins would pit her against a senator who has built a reputation as a moderate but who was a key supporter of Trump’s Cabinet and judicial nominations. A spokesperson for Collins declined to comment on the expected upcoming Mills announcement.

Collins, 72, has won all of her four reelection campaigns by double-digit percentages, except in 2020.

That year, Collins defeated Democratic challenger Sara Gideon, the former speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, by more than 8 percentage points in a race Democrats felt confident could help them gain a seat in the Senate. Collins won in a year Democrats gained a net of three seats in the chamber. She won despite Trump losing Maine to Democrat Joe Biden by 9 percentage points.

Like Collins, Mills was born in rural Maine. She became Maine’s first female criminal prosecutor in the mid-1970s, and she would later become the state’s first elected female district attorney as well as its first female attorney general and governor. She served as attorney general twice, from 2009 to 2011 and from 2013 to 2019.

A few other challengers have declared candidacies for the Democratic nomination, including oyster farmer Graham Platner, who has launched an aggressive social media campaign. Platner has the backing of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who posted on social media on Thursday that Platner is “a great working class candidate for Senate in Maine who will defeat Susan Collins” and that it’s “disappointing that some Democratic leaders are urging Gov. Mills to run.”

Whittle and Beaumont write for the Associated Press and reported from Portland and Des Moines, respectively. AP writer Seung Min Kim in Washington contributed to this report.

The US president told reporters that the bodies of Israelis who died in captivity in Gaza are ‘being unearthed’.

Israelis held in Gaza by Hamas and other armed groups are slated to “come back” on Monday, United States President Donald Trump said, with 20 living captives and the bodies of 28 others who died in captivity due to be handed over as part of the US-backed ceasefire deal.

Speaking to reporters at the White House late on Friday, Trump said Monday will be “big” as Hamas exchanges all 48 Israeli captives, both living and deceased, for roughly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

“Some of those bodies are being unearthed right now, as we speak. They’re working on it right now,” Trump said.

“It’s a tragedy. It’s a tragedy,” he said.

Of the living captives still held in Gaza, the US president added, “they’re in some pretty rough places, where only some people know where they are”.

Trump said he plans to travel to Cairo this weekend and separately speak at the Israeli Knesset before returning to the US.

Under the terms of the US-brokered peace deal for Gaza, Hamas agreed to release all captives within 72 hours following the start of a ceasefire.

Israel’s government ratified the ceasefire in the early hours of Friday, and it came into force later in the day. Israeli troops then began to withdraw from areas in Gaza to designated locations, and the countdown began on the 72 hours for Hamas to release captives.

Reports surfaced earlier this week that Hamas may struggle to locate and gather the remains of all the deceased captives, potentially complicating the planned exchange on Monday.

As Palestinians began to return to their war-torn homes on Friday amid the Israeli pullback, key questions about Gaza’s future remain uncertain – including plans for a future Palestinian state.

Trump, however, maintained an optimistic tone about both the first and later phases of his unfolding ceasefire plan.

Both Hamas and Israel, he said, are “all tired of fighting”.

“There is consensus on most of it and some of the details, like anything else, will be worked out,” Trump said.

“Because, you’ll find out that when you’re sitting in a beautiful room in Egypt, you know, it’s easy to work something out,” he said.

“But then sometimes it doesn’t work from a practical standpoint. But for the most part, there’s consensus,” he added.

The US president also appeared to be pleased with support for the deal from the European Union, Iran and Russia, saying that the peace plan will extend “beyond Gaza”.

“This is peace in the Middle East, and it’s a beautiful thing,” he said.