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

Gaza’s border crossing to Egypt reopens in a key step for truce but only few Palestinians can cross

CAIRO (AP) — Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt reopened on Monday for limited traffic, a key step in the Israel-Hamas ceasefire but a mostly symbolic development on the ground as few people will be allowed to travel in either direction and no goods will pass through it.

Within the first few hours of the opening, however, no one was seen crossing in or out of Gaza. An Egyptian official said 50 Palestinians were expected to cross in each direction on the first day of Rafah’s operation. About 20,000 Palestinian children and adults needing medical care hope to leave the devastated Gaza via the crossing, according to Gaza health officials.

Thousands of other Palestinians outside the territory hope to enter and return home.

State-run Egyptian media and an Israeli security official also confirmed the reopening. The officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Before the war, Rafah was the main crossing for people moving in and out of Gaza. The territory’s handful of other crossings are all shared with Israel. Under the terms of the ceasefire, which went into effect in October, Israel’s military controls the area between the Rafah crossing and the zone where most Palestinians live.

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Speaker Johnson faces tough choices as partial government shutdown drags and debate over ICE deepens

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Mike Johnson faces tough days ahead trying to muscle a federal funding package to passage and prevent a prolonged partial government shutdown as debate intensifies over the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration enforcement operations.

Johnson signaled he is relying on help from President Donald Trump to ensure passage. Trump struck a deal with senators to separate funding for the Department of Homeland Security from a broader package after public outrage over two shooting deaths during protests in Minneapolis against Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Under the plan approved by the Senate, DHS would be funded temporarily to Feb. 13, setting up a deadline for Congress to try to find consensus on new restrictions on ICE operations.

“The president is leading this,” Johnson, R-La., told “Fox News Sunday.”

“It’s his play call to do it this way,” the speaker said, adding that the Republican president has “already conceded that he wants to turn down the volume” on federal immigration sweeps and raids.

A first test will come Monday afternoon during a committee meeting when Johnson will need his own GOP majority to advance the package after Democrats refused to provide the votes for speedy consideration. Johnson said he is hopeful work can wrap up for a full House vote, at least by Tuesday.

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Kennedy Center to close for 2 years for renovations in July, Trump says, after performers’ backlash

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Sunday he will move to close Washington’s Kennedy Center performing arts center for two years starting in July for construction, his latest proposal to upturn the storied venue since returning to the White House.

Trump’s announcement on social media follows a wave of cancellations by leading performers, musicians and groups since the president ousted the previous leadership and added his name to the building. Trump made no mention in his post of the recent cancellations.

His proposal, announced days after the premiere of “Melania, ” a documentary of the first lady was shown at the center, he said was subject to approval by the board of the Kennedy Center, which has been stocked with his hand-picked allies. Trump himself chairs the center’s board of trustees.

“This important decision, based on input from many Highly Respected Experts, will take a tired, broken, and dilapidated Center, one that has been in bad condition, both financially and structurally for many years, and turn it into a World Class Bastion of Arts, Music, and Entertainment,” Trump wrote in his post.

Neither Trump nor Kennedy Center President Ric Grenell, a Trump ally, have provided evidence to back up their claims about the building being in disrepair, and last October, Trump had pledged the center would remain open during renovations. In Sunday’s announcement, Trump said the center will close on July 4th, when he said the construction would begin.

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5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and father return to Minnesota from ICE facility in Texas

Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, who were detained by immigration officers in Minnesota and held at an ICE facility in Texas, were released following a judge’s order and returned to Minnesota on Sunday, according to Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro.

The boy and his dad, Adrian Conejo Arias, who originally is from Ecuador, were detained in a Minneapolis suburb on Jan. 20. They were taken to a detention facility in Dilley, Texas.

Katherine Schneider, a spokesperson for the Democratic congressman, confirmed the two had arrived home. She said Castro picked them up from Dilley on Saturday night and escorted them home on Sunday to Minnesota.

Images of immigration officers surrounding the young boy in a blue bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack drew outrage about the Trump administration’s crackdown in Minneapolis.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not target or arrest the boy, and repeated assertions that his mother refused to take him after his father’s apprehension. His father told officers he wanted Liam to be with him, she said.

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Top Justice Department official plays down chance for charges arising from Epstein files revelations

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top Justice Department official played down the possibility of additional criminal charges arising from the Jeffrey Epstein files, saying Sunday that the existence of “horrible photographs” and troubling email correspondence does not “allow us necessarily to prosecute somebody.”

Department officials said over the summer that a review of Epstein-related records did not establish a basis for new criminal investigations, and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said that position remains unchanged even as a massive document dump since Friday has focused fresh attention on Epstein’s links to powerful individuals around the world and revived questions about what, if any, knowledge the wealthy financier’s associates had about his crimes.

“There’s a lot of correspondence. There’s a lot of emails. There’s a lot of photographs. There’s a lot of horrible photographs that appear to be taken by Mr. Epstein or people around him,” Blanche said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But that doesn’t allow us necessarily to prosecute somebody.”

He said victims of Epstein’s sex abuse “want to be made whole,” but that “doesn’t mean we can just create evidence or that we can just kind of come up with a case that isn’t there.”

President Donald Trump’s Justice Department said Friday that it would be releasing more than 3 million pages of documents and more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images under a law intended to reveal most of the material it collected during long-running investigations into Epstein.

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Son of Norway’s crown princess to go on trial on rape and other charges

OSLO, Norway (AP) — The eldest son of Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit will go on trial Tuesday on multiple charges including rape in a high-profile case that has been an embarrassment to the royal family, just as his mother said that she showed “poor judgment” in having contact with Jeffrey Epstein in the past.

Marius Borg Høiby is facing the Oslo district court after being indicted in August following a lengthy investigation. The indictment includes 38 counts, including rape, abuse in a close relationship against one former partner, acts of violence against another and transporting 3.5 kilos (7.7 pounds) of marijuana. Other charges include making death threats and traffic violations.

Prosecutors have said Høiby, 29, could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted at the trial, which is expected to last until mid-March.

Høiby is the son of Mette-Marit from a previous relationship and stepson of the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Haakon.

He has no royal title or official duties. He has been under scrutiny since he was repeatedly arrested in 2024 on various allegations of wrongdoing. He has remained free pending trial.

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US futures and world shares slip as worries over Trump’s Fed chief pick and AI weigh on markets

U.S. futures and world shares skidded on Monday as worries over President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the next Federal Reserve chair amplified jitters over a possible bubble in the artificial intelligence boom.

South Korea’s exchange, which is heavily influenced by tech-related developments, briefly suspended trading as its benchmark Kospi bounced, closing 5.3% lower at 4,949.67. Samsung Electronics gave up 6.3%, while chip maker SK Hynix sank 8.7%.

The Kospi has been forging records for weeks as big tech companies piggybacked on the AI craze with deals with major players like chip maker Nvidia and OpenAI.

In early European trading, Germany’s DAX edged less than 0.1% lower to 24,528.57. The CAC 40 in Paris shed 0.2% to 8,108.56, while Britain’s FTSE 100 declined 0.3% to 10,195.88.

The future for the S&P 500 sank 0.7%, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.4%.

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Iran summons EU ambassadors to protest Revolutionary Guard being listed as a terror group

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran said Monday it had summoned all of the European Union ambassadors in the Islamic Republic to protest the bloc’s listing of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard as a terror group.

The move came as Turkey tried to organize a meeting between the U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian officials, seeking to jump-start talks to ease the threat of U.S. military action against the Islamic Republic, two Turkish officials said.

The American military has moved the USS Abraham Lincoln and several guided-missile destroyers into the Mideast. It remains unclear whether President Donald Trump will decide to use force, though regional countries have engaged in diplomacy in an effort to halt a new Mideast war breaking out.

“Trump is trying to calibrate a response to Iran’s mass killing of protesters that punishes Iranian leaders without also embroiling the United States in a new, open-ended conflict in the region,” the New York-based Soufan Center think tank said Monday.

“Some Trump aides seek to exploit Tehran’s weakness to secure major concessions from the regime, but Trump has set conditions for a diplomatic resolution that Tehran cannot accept.”

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Texas stunner: Democrat Taylor Rehmet flips Republican state Senate district Trump won by 17 points

Democrat Taylor Rehmet flipped a reliably Republican state Senate district in Texas in Saturday’s special election, continuing a string of surprise victories for Democrats across the U.S. in the year since Donald Trump returned to the White House.

The Republican president immediately distanced himself from the loss in a district he’d won by 17 points in 2024.

“I’m not involved in that. That’s a local Texas race,” Trump told reporters Sunday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Yet just a day before the race, Trump had heaped praise on Republican contender Leigh Wambsganss, a conservative activist and entrepreneur, on his social media platform, declaring that she would be “a GREAT Candidate and has my Complete and Total Endorsement.” A longer post came later, in which he urged Texans to get out and vote, describing Wambsganss as a successful entrepreneur and “an incredible supporter” of his Make America Great Again movement.

Despite the plugs, Wambsganss was easily trounced in the Fort Worth-area district by Rehmet, a labor union leader and veteran, for a partial term ending in early January. With almost all votes counted, Rehmet was leading by more than 14 percentage points.

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The Latest: Groundhog Punxsutawney Phil will predict winter’s end or 6 more weeks of cold

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. (AP) — Tens of thousands of people are gathering for Punxsutawney Phil, a groundhog that lives in a tree stump, to predict if the already long and cold winter across much of the United States will go on for another six weeks or if an early spring is around the corner.

The meteorological marmot’s predictions on Monday are pretty straightforward, although his top-hatted handlers in the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club insist Phil’s “groundhogese” of winks, purrs, chatters and nods are also being interpreted.

When Phil is said to have seen his shadow upon emergence from a tree stump in rural Pennsylvania, that’s considered a forecast for six more weeks of winter. If he doesn’t see his shadow, an early spring is said to be on the way.

The Latest:

Lisa Gibson was in Punxsutawney to attend Groundhog Day for the 10th time, wearing a lighted hat that resembled the tree stump from which Phil would emerge shortly after daybreak.