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

Iranian security use dragnet spanning the entire country to arrest protesters

CAIRO (AP) — The Iranian security agents came at 2 a.m., pulling up in a half-dozen cars outside the home of the Nakhii family. They woke up the sleeping sisters, Nyusha and Mona, and forced them to give the passwords for their phones. Then they took the two away.

The women were accused of participating in the nationwide protests that shook Iran a week earlier, a friend of the pair told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity for her security as she described the Jan. 16 arrests.

Such arrests have been happening for weeks following the government crackdown last month that crushed the protests calling for the end of the country’s theocratic rule. Reports of raids on homes and workplaces have come from major cities and rural towns alike, revealing a dragnet that has touched large swaths of Iranian society. University students, doctors, lawyers, teachers, actors, business owners, athletes and filmmakers have been swept up, as well as reformist figures close to President Masoud Pezeshkian.

They are often held incommunicado for days or weeks and prevented from contacting family members or lawyers, according to activists monitoring the arrests. That has left desperate relatives searching for their loved ones.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency has put the number of arrests at more than 50,000. The AP has been unable to verify the figure. Tracking the detainees has been difficult since Iranian authorities imposed an internet blackout, and reports leak out only with difficulty.

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Rubio’s speech to European allies takes softer tone but sticks to Trump’s firm stance

MUNICH (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a reassuring message to America’s allies on Saturday, striking a less aggressive but still firm tone about the administration’s intent to reshape the trans-Atlantic alliance and push its priorities after more than a year of President Donald Trump’s often-hostile rhetoric toward traditional allies.

Reminding his audience at the annual Munich Security Conference about America’s centuries-long roots in Europe, Rubio said the United States would remain forever tied to the continent even as it pushes for changes in the relationship and the international institutions that have been the bulwark of the post-World War II world order.

Rubio addressed the conference a year after Vice President JD Vance stunned the same audience with a harsh critique of European values. A series of statements and moves from the Trump administration targeting allies followed, including Trump’s short-lived threat last month to impose new tariffs on several European countries in a bid to secure U.S. control of Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark.

On Friday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz had opened this year’s gathering by calling for the U.S. and Europe to “repair and revive trans-Atlantic trust together,” saying that even the U.S. isn’t powerful enough to go it alone in an world whose old order no longer exists. But he and other European officials made clear that they will stand by their values, including their approach to free speech, climate change and free trade.

While offering a calmer and more reassuring tone than the one often heard over the past year, Rubio made clear that the Trump administration is sticking to its guns on policy. He denounced “a climate cult” and “an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies.”

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Drone strikes kill 2 in Ukraine and Russia ahead of US-brokered peace talks in Geneva

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Drone strikes killed one person in Ukraine and another in Russia, officials said Saturday, ahead of fresh talks next week aimed at ending the war.

An elderly woman died when a Russian drone hit a residential building in the Black Sea port city of Odesa, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.

In Russia, a civilian was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a car in the border region of Bryansk, regional Gov. Alexander Bogomaz said.

The attacks came a day after a Ukrainian missile strike on the Russian border city of Belgorod killed two people and wounded five, according to regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov.

Meanwhile, another round of U.S.-brokered talks between envoys from Russia and Ukraine will take place next week in Geneva, days ahead of the fourth anniversary of the all-out Russian invasion of its neighbor, officials in Moscow and Kyiv said on Friday.

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Prime Minister Carney and Canada’s main opposition leader hold hands during school shooting vigil

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and the country’s main opposition leader held hands Friday as they paid tribute to the victims of one of the worst mass shootings in the country’s history at a vigil in a devastated British Columbia town.

Carney and Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre joined hands as an Indigenous leader sang a prayer outside the town hall in Tumbler Ridge.

Carney and Poilievre also spoke. The prime minister named each of the six people killed at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and said the mother and brother of the shooter who were killed also “deserve to be mourned.”

Authorities said the 18-year-old alleged shooter, identified as Jesse Van Rootselaar, killed her 39-year-old mother, Jennifer Jacobs, and 11-year-old stepbrother, Emmett Jacobs, in their home on Tuesday before heading to the nearby Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and opening fire, killing five children and an educator before killing herself.

Carney said he sat with people who are “living through something no one should ever have to endure.”

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US military strikes another alleged drug boat in Caribbean, killing 3

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military said Friday that it has carried out another deadly strike on a vessel accused of trafficking drugs in the Caribbean Sea.

U.S. Southern Command said on social media that the boat “was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.” It said the strike killed three people. A video linked to the post shows a boat moving through the water before exploding in flames.

Friday’s attack raises the death toll from the Trump administration’s strikes on alleged drug boats to 133 people in at least 38 attacks carried out since early September in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared last week that “some top cartel drug-traffickers” in the region “have decided to cease all narcotics operations INDEFINITELY due to recent (highly effective) kinetic strikes in the Caribbean.” However, Hegseth did not provide any details or information to back up this claim, made in a post on his personal account on social media.

President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing “narcoterrorists.”

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Minneapolis left to decide future of streetside memorials to 2 people killed by federal officers

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — As the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota winds down, Minneapolis will need to decide how to manage makeshift memorial sites for two U.S. citizens killed by federal agents last month.

Piles of flowers, signs and artwork swiftly formed to commemorate the lives of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the locations where they were fatally shot. The memorials are the site of candlelight vigils and musical performances and draw a regular stream of visitors.

The public grieving spots echo the community-driven memorial to George Floyd, who was murdered in 2020 by a police officer less than one mile (1.61 kilometers) from Good’s killing. It took the city more than five years to figure out how to officially memorialize the site of George Floyd Square, and construction is set to begin this year.

Now, the city has two more high-profile memorials to manage.

A memorial for Good sprung up within hours of her Jan. 7 killing on a Minneapolis street.

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Trump says change in power in Iran ‘would be the best thing that could happen’

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday that a change in power in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen” as the U.S. administration weighs whether to take military action against Tehran.

Trump made the comments shortly after visiting with troops at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, and after he confirmed earlier in the day that he’s deploying a second aircraft carrier group to the Mideast.

“It seems like that would be the best thing that could happen,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters when asked about pressing for the ouster of the Islamic clerical rule in Iran. “For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking.”

The president has suggested in recent weeks that his top priority is for Iran to further scale back its nuclear program, but on Friday he suggested that’s only one aspect of concessions the U.S. needs Iran to make.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who traveled to Washington this week for talks with Trump, has been pressing for any deal to include steps to neutralize Iran’s ballistic missile program and end its funding for proxy groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

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Journalist Don Lemon pleads not guilty to civil rights charges in Minnesota church protest

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Former CNN host turned independent journalist Don Lemon pleaded not guilty to federal civil rights charges Friday, following a protest at a Minnesota church where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official is a pastor. Four others also pleaded not guilty in the case.

Lemon insists he was at the Cities Church in St. Paul to chronicle the Jan. 18 protest but was not a participant. The veteran journalist vowed to fight what he called “baseless charges” and protect his free speech rights.

“For more than 30 years, I’ve been a journalist, and the power and protection of the First Amendment has been the underpinning of my work. The First Amendment, the freedom of the press, are the bedrock of our democracy,” Lemon said outside the courthouse after his arraignment. “And like all of you here in Minnesota, the great people of Minnesota, I will not be intimidated, I will not back down.”

Dozens of supporters gathered outside the courthouse, chanting “Pam Bondi has got to go” and “Protect the press.”

Civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong was among the other defendants who pleaded not guilty Friday. The prominent local activist was the subject of a doctored photo posted on official White House social media that falsely showed her crying during her arrest. The picture is part of a deluge of AI-altered imagery that has circulated since the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers in Minneapolis amid President Donald Trump’s administration’s immigration crackdown.

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Behind the scenes sorting through tips in cases like the Nancy Guthrie disappearance

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — An Arizona sheriff’s department got more than 4,000 calls within 24 hours after the release of videos of a masked person on Nancy Guthrie’s porch. Many tips will be worthless. Others could have merit. Experts say one thing’s certain: They can’t be ignored.

Tips can solve crimes — big or small — and eerie images of a mysterious male covered head to toe have been the most significant clues shared with the public during Guthrie’s nearly two-week-old disappearance in the Tucson area.

Late Friday night, the investigation prompted officers to block off a road into a neighborhood about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from Guthrie’s house. A parade of sheriff’s and FBI vehicles were waved through the roadblock, including forensics vehicles. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said the activity is part of the Guthrie investigation.

Sorting through the tips is a tremendous amount of work, said Roberto Villaseñor, a former Tucson police chief.

“In a situation like this, you really cannot do what’s been done without tips and public input,” he said. “They have processed the scene. But once that’s done and exhausted, it’s hard to move forward without additional information coming in.”

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Memo says White House was ‘excellently preserved’ during East Wing demolition for Trump’s ballroom

The White House mansion’s eastern facade appears to have been “excellently preserved” when demolition crews tore down the East Wing to make way for President Donald Trump’s planned ballroom, an administration official said in a memo made public Friday.

Contractors took pains to protect the White House residence during demolition, keeping heavy equipment at a safe distance and removing some pieces by hand, Joshua Fisher, director of the White House Office of Administration, wrote to the commission charged with approving plans for Trump’s ballroom. Some sections of the building were stabilized ahead of time, and vibration and crack movement were monitored, he wrote.

The National Capital Planning Commission, which is led by a top Trump aide, had requested more details about the demolition that began with little advance notice last fall. The agency has jurisdiction over construction and major renovations to government buildings in the region.

The East Wing demolition prompted a public outcry when it began without the independent reviews, congressional approval and public comment that are typical for even relatively minor modifications to historic buildings in Washington. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has sued to halt construction of the ballroom.

The memo documents the history of the East Wing dating back to Thomas Jefferson’s presidency and lays out the White House’s justification for tearing it down, saying it was not feasible to preserve it while meeting Trump’s goals for the project. The completed ballroom will include an improved visitors center for security screening and will lessen the need for road closures during major events, Fisher wrote.