AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EST

UK police release 1 of 2 men arrested over train stabbings and laud ‘heroic’ rail worker

LONDON (AP) — British police said Sunday that one of two men arrested in connection with a mass stabbing attack that spread fear and panic on a London-bound train a day earlier has been released without charge, and that one person, a “heroic” member of the railway staff, remains in a life-threatening condition.

In a statement Sunday evening, police said the only remaining suspect is a 32-year-old British man who remains in custody on suspicion of attempted murder. A second man initially arrested as a suspect was released without charge after it was determined the 35-year-old was not involved.

Police said they are not treating the stabbings as an act of terror and are confident they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the attack. They have not disclosed a possible motive or the type of knife used.

“Our investigation is moving at pace and we are confident we are not looking for anyone else in connection to the incident,” said Deputy Chief Constable Stuart Cundy of the British Transport Police.

“As would be expected, specialist detectives are looking into the background of the suspect we have in custody and the events that led up to the attack,” he added.

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Shutdown stalemate set to drag into sixth week as Trump pushes Republicans to change Senate rules

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans and Democrats remained at a stalemate on the government shutdown over the weekend as it headed into its sixth week, with food aid potentially delayed or suspended for millions of Americans and President Donald Trump pushing GOP leaders to change Senate rules to end it.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Sunday that Trump has spoken to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., as he has publicly and repeatedly pushed for an end to the Senate filibuster. But Republicans have strongly rejected Trump’s calls since his first term, arguing that the rule requiring 60 votes to overcome any objections in the Senate is vital to the institution and has allowed them to stop Democratic policies when they are in the minority.

Leavitt said Sunday that the Democrats are “crazed people” who haven’t shown any signs of budging.

“That’s why President Trump has said Republicans need to get tough, they need to get smart, and they need to use this option to get rid of the filibuster, to reopen the government and do right by the American public,” Leavitt said on “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News.

Democrats have voted thirteen times against reopening the government, denying Republicans the votes in the 53-47 Senate as they insist on negotiations to extend government health care subsidies that will be cut off at the end of the year. Republicans say they won’t negotiate until the government is reopened.

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The end of federal food aid could hit Black Americans hardest

NEW YORK (AP) — In one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the nation, a line stretched along the side of the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen and Pantry.

Willy Hilaire is homeless, unemployed and 63. He lives in a New York shelter with his two grandchildren and often goes hungry so that they can eat the food he gets from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

On many days, Hilaire’s only food is a hot meal he gets from Holy Apostles in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. With SNAP at risk, he worries there won’t be enough for him and the children, forcing more sacrifice.

“I always tell them, ‘Grandpa is there for you,’” he said. “‘Whatever I have, I’ll give it to you.’”

Two federal judges ruled nearly simultaneously on Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration must continue to fund SNAP, the nation’s biggest food aid program, using contingency funds during the government shutdown. But officials said it was too late to stop recipients from losing benefits on Saturday and that restoring them could likely take at least one week.

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2 people killed in Ukraine’s Odesa region as Russia continues to target power grid

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — At least two people were killed in a drone attack in Ukraine’s southwestern Odesa region, authorities said Sunday. Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine continued to target each other’s infrastructure.

A Russian drone attack on a car park in the Odesa region, on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, in the early hours of Sunday killed two people, according to the State Emergency Service. Odesa regional head Oleh Kiper said that three others were wounded.

Tens of thousands of homes were left without power after Russia attacked the front-line Zaporizhzhia region overnight with drones and missiles.

Zaporizhzhia regional head Ivan Fedorov said nearly 60,000 people faced power outages and that two people were wounded in the attacks. He posted photos on Telegram of buildings reduced to rubble.

As a result of attacks on Ukraine’s power grid, several regions faced rolling power cuts on Sunday, Ukraine’s national energy operator, Ukrenergo, said.

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Israel says it received the remains of 3 hostages from Gaza as fragile ceasefire holds

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel on Sunday announced that the remains of three hostages had been handed over from Gaza and would be examined by forensic experts, as a fragile month-old ceasefire held.

A Hamas statement earlier said the remains were found Sunday in a tunnel in southern Gaza.

Since the ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10, Palestinian militants had released the remains of 17 hostages, with 11 remaining in Gaza, before Sunday’s handover.

Militants have released one or two bodies every few days. Israel has urged faster progress, and in certain cases it has said the remains aren’t of any hostage. Hamas has said the work is complicated by widespread devastation.

Israel’s military said official identification of these remains would be provided to families first.

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Trump’s testing plans for US nuclear weapons won’t include explosions, energy secretary says

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — New tests of the U.S. nuclear weapons system ordered up by President Donald Trump will not include nuclear explosions, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday.

It was the first clarity from the Trump administration since the president took to social media last week to say he had “instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis.”

“I think the tests we’re talking about right now are system tests,” Wright said in an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Briefing.” “These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call noncritical explosions.”

Wright, whose agency is responsible for testing, added that the planned testing involves “all the other parts of a nuclear weapon to make sure they deliver the appropriate geometry and they set up the nuclear explosion.”

The confusion over Trump’s intention started minutes before he held a critical meeting in South Korea with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump took to his Truth Social platform and appeared to suggest he was preparing to discard a decades-old U.S. prohibition on testing the nation’s nuclear weapons.

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Tariffs are Trump’s favorite foreign policy tool. The Supreme Court could change how he uses them

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump sees tariffs — or the threat of them — as a powerful tool to bend nations to his will.

He has used them in an unprecedented way, not only as the underpinning of his economic agenda, but also as the cornerstone of his foreign policy in his second term.

He has wielded the import taxes as a threat to secure ceasefiresfrom countries at war. He has used them to browbeat nations into promising to do more to stop people and drugs from flowing across their borders. He has used them, in Brazil’s case, as political pressure because its judicial system prosecuted a former leader who was a Trump ally, and in a recent blowup with Canada, as punishment for a television ad.

This week, the Supreme Court hears arguments on whether the Republican president has overstepped federal law with many of his tariffs. A ruling against him could limit or even take away that swift and blunt leverage that much of his foreign policy has relied on.

Trump increasingly has expressed agitation and anxiety about the looming decision in a case he says is one of the most important in U.S. history.

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Trump says China’s Xi has assured him that he won’t take action on Taiwan during Republican’s term

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump says that Chinese President Xi Jinping has given him assurances that Beijing would take no action toward its long-stated goal of unifying Taiwan with mainland China while the Republican leader is in office.

Trump said that the long-contentious issue of Taiwan did not come up in his talks with Xi on Thursday in South Korea that largely focused on U.S.-China trade tensions. But the U.S. leader expressed certainty that China would not take action on Taiwan, while he’s in office.

“He has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, ‘We would never do anything while President Trump is president,’ because they know the consequences,” Trump said in an excerpt of an interview with the CBS’ program “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday.

U.S. officials have long been concerned about the possibility of China using military force against Taiwan, the self-ruled island democracy claimed by Beijing as part of its territory.

The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which has governed U.S. relations with the island, does not require the U.S. to step in militarily if China invades but makes it American policy to ensure Taiwan has the resources to defend itself and to prevent any unilateral change of status by Beijing.

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North Macedonia holds second round of local election with ruling conservatives leading

SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — Voters in North Macedonia cast ballots Sunday in local election runoffs that are expected to cement the ruling conservatives’ landslide victory in the first round.

VMRO-DPMNE candidates won 33 out of 44 mayoral contests decided in the Oct. 19 first round, including a majority of city councilors, leaving opposition Social Democrats trailing and dashing hopes of an early general election.

There are 81 municipalities in North Macedonia and runoffs are taking place in 37, including the capital, Skopje. Conservative candidates are leading in almost all contests.

Candidates’ promises about the economy, jobs and education in Skopje are likely to take a backseat to problems linked to garbage collection. Until Sunday, trash had been accumulating for weeks due to operational and financial problems faced by the garbage collection company.

The garbage has attracted rats, flies and stray cats and dogs. A child was recently bitten by a rat and was treated at a clinic.

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BYU, Texas Tech give Big 12 two top 10 teams for 1st time in 2 years ahead of their Top 25 showdown

The Big 12 had two teams in the top 10 of The Associated Press Top 25 college football poll for the first time in two years Sunday, Notre Dame was back in the top 10 after a two-month absence and Oklahoma and Texas made the biggest upward moves.

The top seven teams were unchanged in the final poll before the College Football Playoff committee releases its first rankings Tuesday night to kick off the run-up to the CFP bracket release Dec. 7.

No. 1 Ohio State, which pulled way in the second half to beat Penn State, is at the top of the AP poll for a 10th straight week. Indiana, which scored 50-plus points against a Big Ten opponent for the third time while hammering Maryland, is No. 2 for a third straight week.

The Buckeyes and Hoosiers again were followed by Texas A&M, Alabama, Georgia, Oregon and Mississippi. Losses by Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt and Miami shuffled the Nos. 8, 9 and 10 spots, now held by BYU, Texas Tech and Notre Dame.

The distribution of first-place votes was the same as last week. Ohio State received 54, Indiana got 11 and Texas A&M one.