AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EST

Israel and Hamas complete their latest exchange as ceasefire’s first phase has just 2 weeks left

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel and Hamas completed the sixth exchange of hostages and Palestinian prisoners on Saturday with just over two weeks remaining in their fragile Gaza ceasefire’s initial phase, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio landed in Israel to begin a Mideast tour.

Israelis expressed relief as the three hostages — Argentinian-Israeli Iair Horn, 46; American-Israeli Sagui Dekel Chen, 36; and Russian-Israeli Alexander Troufanov, 29 — seemed in better condition than the emaciated ones freed a week ago.

Troufanov was informed of his father’s death in the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the 16-month war. Chen was meeting his youngest daughter for the first time. Horn’s brother, Eitan, remains in captivity.

Armed militants made the pale, worn men speak to a crowd before handing them over to the Red Cross in the southern city of Khan Younis. The 369 Palestinian prisoners were later released.

A tense dispute had threatened to derail the ceasefire, but Hamas said Thursday it would move ahead with the planned exchange after it said mediators Egypt and Qatar pledged to “remove all hurdles” so Israel would allow more tents, medical supplies and other essentials into devastated Gaza.

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Zelenskyy calls for ‘armed forces of Europe’ as EU leaders bristle at new US policies on Ukraine

MUNICH (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that the time has come for the creation of an “armed forces of Europe,” because the U.S. may no longer be counted on to support the continent.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hit back at Americans for meddling in his country’s election after U.S. Vice President JD Vance scolded European leaders over their approach to democracy and met with the leader of a German far-right party.

Forceful speeches from Zelenskyy and Scholz on Day 2 of the Munich Security Conference underlined the impact of a blizzard of decisions by U.S. President Donald Trump that show a rapidly growing chasm in trans-Atlantic ties.

European leaders are reeling after Trump’s decision to upend years of U.S. policy by holding talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in hopes of ending the Russia-Ukraine war. Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia on Saturday all but ruled out that Europeans would be included in any Ukraine peace talks.

Ramping up his desire for a more muscular Europe, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine’s nearly three-year fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion has proved that a foundation exists for the creation of a European army — an idea long discussed among some leaders on the continent.

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US East endures flooding, with snow in the forecast for the Northeast. Frigid cold in the Plains

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Much of the U.S. East endured a renewed round of harsh, soggy weather Saturday, as water submerged cars and buildings in Kentucky and mudslides blocked roads in Virginia. Forecasters predicted snowstorms in the Northeast and the threat of tornadoes for the Mississippi Valley.

Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia and Arkansas were under flood warnings, and people were warned by the National Weather Service to stay off roads. Parts of western Kentucky could face up to 8 inches (20.3 centimeters) of rain.

The Kentucky River Medical Center in the city of Jackson said closed its emergency department and was transferring all patients to two other hospitals in the region. The hospital said it would re-evaluate conditions Sunday morning to determine when it can safely reopen. The north fork of the Kentucky River was forecast to crest nearly 14 feet (4.3 meters) above flood stage that afternoon, the weather service said.

Photos posted by authorities and residents on social media showed cars and buildings underwater in south-central and eastern Kentucky. In Buchanan County, Virginia, the sheriff’s office said multiple roads were blocked by mudslides.

Gov. Andy Beshear preemptively declared a state of emergency in Kentucky, where flash flooding was expected into Sunday. Flash flooding hit some roads in Bowling Green.

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A 23-year-old man stabbed 6 people in Austria killing 1 in what police describe as a random attack

VIENNA (AP) — A 23-year-old man stabbed six passersby in southern Austria on Saturday in what police said was a random attack that left a 14-year-old dead and five others injured.

The suspect was detained in the city of Villach, where the attack took place, police said. He is a Syrian national with legal residence in Austria, they said.

Police spokesperson Rainer Dionisio said a motive was not immediately known. He added that police were investigating the attacker’s personal background. “We have to wait until we get secure information,” he said.

A 42-year-old man who works for a food delivery company witnessed the incident from his car, police said. He drove toward the suspect and helped to prevent things from getting worse, Dionisio told Austria’s public broadcaster ORF.

The victims were all men, with two seriously injured and two sustaining minor injuries, police said. Later on Saturday, police said a fifth person, also a man, was injured in the attack.

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IRS will lay off thousands of probationary workers in the middle of tax season

WASHINGTON (AP) — The IRS will lay off thousands of probationary workers in the middle of tax season, according to two sources familiar with the agency’s plans, and cuts could happen as soon as next week.

This comes as the Trump administration intensified sweeping efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce, by ordering agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees who had not yet gained civil service protection.

It’s unclear how many IRS workers will be affected.

Previously, the administration announced a plan to offer buyouts to almost all federal employees through a “deferred resignation program” to quickly reduce the government workforce. The program deadline was Feb. 6, and administration officials said employees who accept will be able to stop working while still collecting a paycheck until Sept. 30.

However, IRS employees involved in the 2025 tax season were told they will not be allowed to accept a buyout offer from the Trump administration until after the taxpayer filing deadline, according to a letter sent recently to IRS employees.

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Doctors order ‘absolute rest’ for Pope Francis while he’s being treated for a respiratory infection

ROME (AP) — Doctors on Saturday prescribed “absolute rest” for Pope Francis and modified the treatment for his respiratory tract infection, the Vatican said, a day after the 88-year-old pope was admitted to a hospital following a weeklong bout of bronchitis.

On doctors’ orders, Francis won’t deliver his traditional Sunday noon blessing, which he could have done from his hospital room if he was well enough.

The Argentine pope, a known workaholic who keeps up a grueling pace despite his many ailments, was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on Friday after his bronchitis worsened. It was his fourth hospitalization since his 2013 election and raised questions about his increasingly precarious health.

Preliminary tests showed that he had a respiratory tract infection, which was confirmed Saturday. In a late afternoon bulletin, the Vatican said that Francis had no fever on Saturday and that tests showed improvement in some parameters.

Francis slept well during a quiet first night in the hospital, ate breakfast, read the newspapers and received the Eucharist on Saturday, alternating rest with prayer and reading during the afternoon, the Vatican said.

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Stampede kills 15 people at New Delhi train station, Indian official says

NEW DELHI (AP) — At least 15 people were killed in a stampede at a railway station in India’s capital of New Delhi, an official said Sunday.

Delhi’s caretaker chief minister Atishi, who uses only one name, said that the bodies were brought to the capital’s Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narain Hospital.

The stampede happened late Saturday while thousands of people were gathered at the New Delhi railway station and waiting to board a train to the site of the Maha Kumbh Hindu festival in northern India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that he was “distressed by the stampede.”

“My thoughts are with all those who have lost their loved ones. I pray that the injured have a speedy recovery. The authorities are assisting all those who have been affected by this stampede,” he said on X.

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Justice Department fires 20 immigration judges from backlogged courts amid major government cuts

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Trump administration fired 20 immigration judges without explanation, a union official said Saturday amid sweeping moves to shrink the size of the federal government.

On Friday, 13 judges who had yet to be sworn in and five assistant chief immigration judges were dismissed without notice, said Matthew Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers, which represents federal workers. Two other judges were fired under similar circumstances in the last week.

It was unclear if they would be replaced. The U.S. Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which runs the courts and oversees its roughly 700 judges, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.

Immigration courts are backlogged with more than 3.7 million cases, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, and it takes years to decide asylum cases. There is support across the political spectrum for more judges and support staff, though the first Trump administration also pressured some judges to decide cases more quickly.

The Trump administration earlier replaced five top court officials, including Mary Cheng, the agency’s acting director. Sirce Owen, the current leader and previously an appellate immigration judge, has issued a slew of new instructions, many reversing policies of the Biden administration.

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EEOC seeks to drop transgender discrimination cases, citing Trump’s executive order

Signaling a major shift in civil rights enforcement, the federal agency that enforces workplace anti-discrimination laws has moved to dismiss six of its own cases on behalf of workers alleging gender identity discrimination, arguing that the cases now conflict with President Donald Trump’s recent executive order, court documents say.

The requests by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission mark a major departure from its prior interpretation of civil rights law, and a stark contrast to a decade ago when the agency issued a landmark finding that a transgender civilian employee of the U.S. Army had been discriminated against because her employer refused to use her preferred pronouns or allow her to use bathrooms based on her gender identity.

Just last year, the EEOC updated its guidance to specify that deliberately using the wrong pronouns for an employee, or refusing them access to bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity, constituted a form of harassment. That followed a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that gay, lesbian and transgender people are protected from employment discrimination.

Nearly all workplace discrimination charges must pass through the EEOC — at least initially — and the agency’s decision to drop at least six of the cases raises serious questions about whether its protections will continue to extend to transgender and gender nonconforming people going forward.

The EEOC is seeking to dismiss three cases in Illinois as well as one in Alabama, New York and California. In each instance, the original complaints allege discrimination against transgender or gender nonconforming workers. The agency cites Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order declaring that the government would recognize only two “immutable” sexes — male and female — as the reason for why it no longer intends to pursue the cases.

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NAACP lists companies that dump DEI in its tactical spending guide for Black Americans

WASHINGTON (AP) — The NAACP wants Black Americans to steer their buying power toward companies that haven’t pulled back from diversity, equity and inclusion programs under conservative pressure, and the nation’s oldest civil rights organization is listing which brands have stood by — or reversed — past commitments to DEI.

The NAACP says the spending guide it published Saturday is needed because DEI initiatives promote the social and economic advancement of Black Americans, who are projected to consume nearly $2 trillion in goods and services in nominal dollars by 2030, according to the McKinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility.

“Diversity is better for the bottom line,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in an exclusive announcement to The Associated Press. “In a global economy, those who reject the multicultural nature of consumerism and business will be left in the past they are living in.”

Keisha Bross, an economic strategist at the NAACP, says they are not calling for a “boycott” of companies but instead encourage consumers to “buy-in” on companies that back their values. People of all backgrounds are encouraged to use the Black Consumer Advisory.

The NAACP is speaking with executives at companies named in the advisory for reversing their DEI policies — including Lowe’s, TargetWalmart, Amazon, Meta, McDonald’s, and Tractor Supply — and will update its guidance as companies roll back or reaffirm commitments to DEI.