A shutdown for the Department of Homeland Security at the end of the day Friday appears certain as lawmakers in the House and Senate were set to leave Washington for a 10-day break and negotiations with the White House over Democrats’ demands for new restrictions have stalled.
Democrats and the White House have traded offers in recent days as the Democrats have said they want curbs on President Donald Trump’s broad campaign of immigration enforcement
following the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis last month. They have demanded better identification for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal law enforcement officers, a new code of conduct for those agencies and more use of judicial warrants, among other requests.
Unlike the record 43-day shutdown last fall, the closures will be narrowly confined, as only agencies under the DHS umbrella — like Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection — will be affected. Still, depending on how long the shutdown lasts, some federal workers could begin to miss paychecks and services like airport screening could suffer if the shutdown drags on for weeks.
The latest:
Trump on Friday reiterated his warnings against Iraq if its former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki returns to the job.
Al-Maliki has been nominated by Iraq’s dominant political bloc for the premiership. Once that happened last month, Trump said in a social media post that if he’s elected, the U.S. will no longer help Iraq, arguing that al-Maliki’s last tenure led Iraq into “poverty and total chaos.”
Trump, in response to a question Friday, said that “we’re looking at a prime minister.”
“We’re going to see what’s gonna happen,” he told reporters. “We’ve got some ideas on it, but in the end, everybody needs the U.S.”
As the 4th largest economy in the world by itself, California markets help drive the global market away from fossil fuels, California Gov. Gavin Newsom says.
He said California’s “regulation in this space” helped spur innovation, including developments that have helped make Elon Musk the world’s wealthiest person.
“Tesla exists for one reason — California’s regulatory market,” Newsom said of the EV automaker that Musk runs.
His argument is that such a populous state can drive the broader market with regulations on fossil fuels, tax policy and investments in infrastructure like EV charges.
Anything California does economically, Newsom said, it does “at scale.”
The AP has reached out to Tesla’s corporate communications for a response.
Newsom also said reversing climate change isn’t simply a moral issue, but an economic one.
He alluded to California wildfires — exacerbated by climate change — that have raised insurance rates and even made some properties uninsurable.
The Navy’s top uniformed officer said last month that keeping the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier longer at sea would be “highly disruptive” and that he was “a big non-fan of extensions.”
Adm. Daryl Caudle spoke to reporters in January ahead of a U.S. decision this week to send the world’s largest aircraft carrier from the Caribbean to the Middle East.
Carriers are typically deployed for six or seven months. “When it goes past that, that disrupts lives, it disrupts things ... funerals that were planned, marriages that were planned, babies that were planned,” Caudle said last month.
He also noted that extending the carrier would complicate its maintenance and upkeep by throwing off the schedule of repairs, adding more wear and tear on components, and increasing the equipment that will need attention.
Caudle told The Associated Press recently that his vision is deploying smaller, newer ships, when possible, instead of consistently turning to huge aircraft carriers.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a likely 2028 presidential candidate, told the Munich Security Conference audience in Munich that “never, in the history of the United States of America, has there been a more destructive president” for the planet than Trump.
Newsom blasted Trump’s environmental record, especially his action this week gutting U.S. regulations of carbon emissions.
Trump is “doubling down on stupid” by rejecting scientific realities, Newsom said, because he is a “wholly owned subsidiary” of the fossil fuels industry.
Newsom emphasized to the international audience, however, that “Donald Trump is temporary,” suggesting future U.S. administrations will reverse Trump’s policies.
The Trump administration is suing Harvard University, saying it has refused to provide admissions records that the Justice Department demanded 10 months ago.
In a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in Massachusetts, the Justice Department said Harvard has “thwarted” efforts to investigate potential discrimination.
The department asked Harvard to turn over admissions records last year to determine whether the university has continued considering applicants’ race in admissions decisions.
The Supreme Court barred affirmative action in admissions in 2023 after lawsuits challenged it at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
Trump officials have accused colleges of continuing the practice, which the administration says discriminates against white and Asian American students. Harvard did not immediately comment.
A statement from Attorney General Pam Bondi said she will “continue fighting to put merit over DEI across America.”
Another shutdown for parts of the federal government is expected this weekend as lawmakers debate new restrictions on Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda.
Funding for the Department of Homeland Security is set to expire Saturday. Democrats say they won’t help approve more funding until new restrictions are placed on federal immigration operations after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis last month.
The White House has been negotiating with the Democrats, but the two sides failed to reach a deal by the end of the week, guaranteeing that funding for the department will lapse.
Unlike the record 43-day shutdown last fall, the closures will be narrowly confined, as only agencies under the DHS umbrella — like Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection — will be affected.
Still, depending on how long the shutdown lasts, some federal workers could begin to miss paychecks and services like airport screening could suffer if the shutdown drags on for weeks.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called on the U.S. and Europe to “repair and revive trans-Atlantic trust together,” arguing that being part of NATO is also to America’s advantage.
Merz acknowledged a rift in trans-Atlantic relations over the past year as he opened the Munich Security Conference on Friday, an annual gathering of top global security figures.
Last year’s gathering set the tone for growing differences between the Trump administration and Europe. This year’s meeting brings together top European officials with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and many others.
Trump is heading to North Carolina on Friday to celebrate members of the special forces who stormed into Venezuela on the third day of the New Year and whisked away that country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, to face U.S. smuggling charges.
First lady Melania Trump will also be making the trip to Fort Bragg, one of the largest military bases in the world by population, to spend time with military families.
The president spoke at Fort Bragg in June at an event meant to recognize the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. But that celebration was overshadowed by his partisan remarks describing protesters in Los Angeles as “animals” and his defense of deploying the military there.
A new AP-NORC poll finds that Trump’s recent push to seize control of Greenland is divisive even within his own party.
The survey finds that about 7 in 10 U.S. adults disapprove of how Trump is handling the issue of Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark.
That’s higher than the share who dislike how he’s handling foreign policy generally, suggesting that Trump’s Greenland approach has created a particular weak spot for the administration.
Even Republicans aren’t thrilled. About half don’t like his attempt to turn the icebound landmass into American territory, something that Trump has insisted is critical for national security in the Arctic.
Taiwan has reached a trade deal with the United States that cuts almost all of its tariff barriers.
The U.S. Trade Representative’s office says the agreement covers 99% of Taiwan’s tariffs. The U.S. relies on Taiwan for computer chip production.
U.S. data shows chip exports from Taiwan help drive a large trade imbalance. The gap reached nearly $127 billion in the first 11 months of 2025.
U.S. officials attended the signing through the American Institute in Taiwan. The deal comes ahead of Trump’s planned visit to China in April and suggests a deepening economic relationship between the U.S. and Taiwan.
