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

NYC sightseeing helicopter plunges into river, killing 6, including family of Spanish tourists

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City sightseeing helicopter broke apart in midair Thursday and crashed upside-down into the Hudson River, killing the pilot and a family of five Spanish tourists in the latest U.S. aviation disaster, officials said.

The victims included Siemens executive Agustin Escobar, his wife, Merce Camprubi Montal, and three children, in addition to the pilot, a person briefed on the investigation told The Associated Press. The person could not discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Photos posted on the helicopter company’s website showed the couple and their children smiling as they boarded just before the flight took off.

Mayor Eric Adams said the flight began at a downtown heliport around 3 p.m. and the bodies — had been recovered and removed from the water. The flight north along the Manhattan skyline and then back south toward the Statue of Liberty lasted less than 18 minutes.

Video of the crash showed parts of the aircraft tumbling through the air into the water near the shoreline of Jersey City, New Jersey. A witness there, Bruce Wall, said he saw it “falling apart” in midair, with the tail and propeller coming off. The propeller was still spinning without the helicopter as it fell.

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Asian shares sink, with Japan’s Nikkei down 5.6% as China-US trade war escalates

BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares sank Friday after U.S. stocks gave up much of their historic gains from the day before.

The deepening worries over President Donald Trump’ s trade war initially helped pull Japan’s Nikkei 225 share index down 5.6%.

By mid-morning in Tokyo, it was down 4.7% at 32,969.95.

The yen surged against the U.S. dollar, which also lost value against the euro.

One dollar bought 143.48 Japanese yen, down from about 146 yen a day earlier. The euro rose to $1.1305 from $1.1195.

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Supreme Court says Trump administration must work to bring back mistakenly deported Maryland man

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday said the Trump administration must work to bring back a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to prison in El Salvador, rejecting the administration’s emergency appeal.

The court acted in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who had an immigration court order preventing his deportation to his native country over fears he would face persecution from local gangs.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis had ordered Abrego Garcia, now being held in a notorious Salvadoran prison, returned to the United States by midnight Monday.

“The order properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,” the court said in an unsigned order with no noted dissents.

It comes after a string of rulings on the court’s emergency docket where the conservative majority has at least partially sided with Trump amid a wave of lower court orders slowing the president’s sweeping agenda.

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Social Security lists thousands of living immigrants as dead to prompt them to leave, AP sources say

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has moved to classify more than 6,000 living immigrants as dead, canceling their Social Security numbers and effectively wiping out their ability to work or receive benefits in an effort to get them to leave the country, according to two people familiar with the situation.

The move will make it much harder for those affected to use banks or other basic services where Social Security numbers are required. It’s part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump to crack down on immigrants who were allowed to enter and remain temporarily in the United States under programs instituted by his predecessor, Joe Biden.

The Trump administration is moving the immigrants’ names and legally obtained Social Security numbers to a database that federal officials normally use to track the deceased, according to the two people familiar with the moves and their ramifications. They spoke on condition of anonymity Thursday night because the plans had not yet been publicly detailed.

The officials said stripping the immigrants of their Social Security numbers will cut them off from many financial services and encourage them to “self-deport” and abandon the U.S. for their birth countries.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the 6,000-plus immigrants were chosen. But the Trump White House has targeted people in the country temporarily under Biden-era programs, including more than 900,000 immigrants who entered the U.S. using that administration’s CBP One app.

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Judge allows requirement that everyone in the US illegally must register to move forward

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to move forward with a requirement that everyone in the U.S. illegally must register with the federal government and carry documentation, in a move that could have far-reaching repercussions for immigrants across the country.

Judge Trevor Neil McFadden — a Trump appointee — sided with the administration, which had argued that officials were simply enforcing a requirement that already existed for everyone who is in the country but isn’t an American citizen. McFadden’s ruling didn’t go into the substance of those arguments but rested largely on the technical issue of whether the groups pushing to stop the requirement had standing to pursue their claims. He ruled they didn’t.

The requirement goes into effect Friday.

Immediately after the ruling, Department of Homeland Security officials emphasized in a news release that the deadline to register for those who’ve already been in the country for 30 days or more is Friday and that going forward, the registration requirement would be enforced to the fullest.

“President Trump and I have a clear message for those in our country illegally: leave now. If you leave now, you may have the opportunity to return and enjoy our freedom and live the American dream,” Secretary Kristi Noem said in the statement. “The Trump administration will enforce all our immigration laws — we will not pick and choose which laws we will enforce. We must know who is in our country for the safety and security of our homeland and all Americans.”

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House approves budget framework for Trump’s ‘big’ bill after intense wrangling sways GOP holdouts

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans narrowly approved their budget framework Thursday, a political turnaround after Speaker Mike Johnson worked into the night to satisfy GOP holdouts who had refused to advance trillions of dollars in tax breaks without deeper spending cuts.

Johnson stood with Senate Majority Leader John Thune early in the morning at the Capitol to shore up President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” and they committed to seeking at least $1.5 trillion in cuts to federal programs and services. The speaker had abruptly halted voting Wednesday night.

“I told you not to doubt us,” Johnson, R-La., said afterward.

He acknowledged the week’s economic turmoil with the financial markets “a little unstable.” But he said the House vote was a ”big day.”

The 216-214 vote pushed the budget plan forward, one more milestone for Johnson, and next step in a lengthy process to unlock the centerpiece to the president’s domestic agenda of tax cuts, mass deportations and a smaller federal government. A failed vote, particularly as the economy was convulsing over Trump’s trade wars, would have been a major setback for the party in power in Washington. Two conservative Republicans voted against it, as did all Democrats.

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Burials begin as the search ends for victims in the Dominican nightclub collapse that killed 221

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — A merengue icon, a baseball star and others killed when a cement roof collapsed at a popular nightclub in the Dominican Republic were buried Thursday, as authorities called off the search for bodies with the death toll at 221.

Mourners clad in black and white streamed into Santo Domingo’s National Theater, where the body of singer Rubby Pérez lay inside a closed coffin. Pérez had been performing on stage at the packed Jet Set club early Tuesday when dust began falling from the ceiling and, seconds later, the roof caved.

President Luis Abinader and first lady Raquel Arbaje arrived at the theater and stood beside Pérez’s coffin for several minutes. Some mourners doubled over in tears as a recording of Pérez singing the national anthem played. Renowned Dominican musician Juan Luis Guerra was among those gathered to pay their respects.

Pérez, 69, had turned to music after a car accident left him unable to pursue his dream of becoming a professional baseball player. He was known for hits including “Volveré,” which he sang with Wilfrido Vargas’s orchestra, and “Buscando tus besos” as a solo artist.

After a five-hour memorial, mourners released dozens of white balloons outside the theater and spontaneously sang “Volveré” in unison. One woman put her hand over her heart and patted it as she cried.

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A video shows men identified as Russian troops holding Ukrainian POWs. Then the killing begins

ROME (AP) — The Ukrainian soldiers clambered from the ruined house at gunpoint — one with arms raised in surrender to the Russian troops — and lay face-down in the early spring grass.

Two drones — one Ukrainian and one Russian — recorded the scene from high above the southern Ukrainian village of Piatykhatky. The Associated Press managed to get both videos. They offer very different versions of what happened next.

The Ukrainian drone video, which AP obtained from European military officials, shows soldiers with Russian uniform markings raising their weapons and shooting each of the four Ukrainians in the back with such ferocity that one man was left without a head.

“Out of all the executions that we’ve seen since late 2023, it’s one of the clearest cases,” said Rollo Collins of the Center for Information Resilience, a London group that specializes in visual investigations and reviewed the video at AP’s request. “This is not a typical combat killing. This is an illegal action.”

The Russian drone video, which AP located on pro-Kremlin social media, cuts off abruptly with the men lying on the ground — alive. “As a result of the work done by our guys, the enemy decided not to be killed and came out with their hands up,” wrote a Russian military blogger who posted the video.

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Justin Rose steals the Masters show and builds 3-shot lead over Scottie Scheffler

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Justin Rose did more than just match his best score at the Masters.

With a round that was nearly nine shots better than the field Thursday, the 44-year-old Rose managed to steal the spotlight from the Masters dominance of Scottie Scheffler and the endless quest of Rory McIlroy to complete the career Grand Slam.

Rose felt his 7-under 65 had the potential to be something special. And even with a bogey on the final hole, it was every bit of that.

He opened with three straight birdies. He ran off three in a row around the turn. And he wound up with a three-shot lead over Scheffler, Ludvig Aberg and Corey Conners.

“When I have been playing well, I feel like I have been competing at a high level,” Rose said. “My consistency maybe has not been as high this year. But my good is good again. So I’m excited about that.”

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Cannes Film Festival sets lineup with Ari Aster, Wes Anderson and, yes, Spike Lee

PARIS (AP) — New films from Wes Anderson, Ari Aster, and Richard Linklater will compete for the Palme d’Or at the 78th Cannes Film Festival, organizers announced Thursday.

Coming off a 2024 edition that produced the Academy Award best-picture winner “Anora,” as well as a number of Oscar contenders in “Emilia Pérez,” “The Substance” and “The Apprentice,” the French film festival responded with a 2025 lineup full of big-name auteurs.

Thierry Frémaux, Cannes’ artistic director, announced the selections in a news conference in Paris with festival president Iris Knobloch.

Asked if he was under pressure after producing so many Oscars contenders last year, Frémaux said the festival organizers feel like an athlete putting his title back on the line.

“What happened last year was great,” he said. “And what happened the year before was great. The last seven, eight years, Cannes and the films of Cannes were great.”