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

US seeks to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda after he refused plea offer in his smuggling case

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Immigration officials said they intend to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda after he declined an offer to be sent to Costa Rica in exchange for remaining in jail and pleading guilty to human smuggling charges, his defense attorneys told a court Saturday.

The Costa Rica offer came late Thursday and included a requirement that he remain in jail for the time being and then serve whatever sentence he would receive for pleading guilty, according to a brief filed in Tennessee, where the criminal case was brought. After Abrego Garcia left jail on Friday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement notified his attorneys that he would be deported to Uganda and should report to immigration authorities on Monday.

Later on Friday, “the government informed Mr. Abrego that he has until first thing Monday morning — precisely when he must report to ICE’s Baltimore Field Office — to accept a plea in exchange for deportation to Costa Rica, or else that offer will be off the table forever,” his defense attorneys wrote.

They declined to say whether he is still considering the offer.

Filed along with the brief was a letter from the Costa Rican government stating that Abrego Garcia would be welcomed to that country as a legal immigrant and wouldn’t face the possibility of detention.

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Kilmar Abrego Garcia, free for now from jail, could be deported to Uganda. Here’s what to know

The Trump administration plans to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda after he declined a plea deal involving deportation to Costa Rica, his defense attorneys told a court Saturday.

He was released from a Tennessee jail on Friday after his case attracted significant attention amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown when he was mistakenly deported in March.

Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, only to detain him on human smuggling charges.

Abrego Garcia’s attorney’s court filings show the administration requested he appear at an immigration facility in Baltimore on Monday and could be deported again.

As his story takes yet another turn, here’s what to know:

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Doctors in Gaza say patients’ protruding ribs and bony limbs offer evidence of malnutrition

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Not long after Texas surgeon Mohammed Adeel Khaleel arrived at a Gaza City hospital in early August, a 17-year-old was brought in with gunshot wounds to both legs and one hand, sustained when he went to collect food at an aid site.

In the emergency room, Khaleel said he noted the ribs protruding from the teen’s emaciated torso, an indication of severe malnutrition. When doctors at Al-Ahli Hospital stabilized the patient, he raised his heavily bandaged hand and pointed to his empty mouth, Khaleel said.

“The level of hunger is really what’s heartbreaking. You know, we saw malnutrition before, back in November, already starting to happen. But now the level is just, it’s beyond imagination,” Khaleel, a spinal surgeon on his third volunteer stint in Gaza, said in an interview.

On Friday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, the leading authority on global hunger crises, said for the first time that parts of Gaza are in famine and warned that it is spreading. For months, U.N. agencies, aid groups and experts had warned that Israel’s blockade and ongoing offensive were pushing the territory to the brink.

In the 24 hours following the famine announcement, eight people in Gaza died of malnutrition-related causes, bringing the overall toll of such deaths during the war to 281, according Gaza’s Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. A U.S. medical nonprofit working in Gaza says one in six children under 5 is affected by acute malnutrition.

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Israeli strikes and gunfire kill 33 as Gaza City becomes focus of famine and a military offensive

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least 33 Palestinians in Gaza on Saturday, including people sheltering in tents or seeking scarce food, local hospitals said as a famine in Gaza’s largest city puts new pressure on Israel over its 22-month offensive.

Israel’s defense minister has warned that Gaza City could be destroyed in a new military operation perhaps just days away, even as famine spreads there.

Aid groups have long warned that the war, sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, and months of Israeli restrictions on food and medical supplies entering Gaza are causing starvation.

Israel has rejected the data-based famine declaration as “an outright lie.” Ceasefire efforts are on hold as mediators await Israel’s next steps.

Israeli strikes killed at least 17 people in southern Gaza, more than half of them women and children, according to morgue records and health officials at Nasser Hospital. The officials said the strikes targeted tents sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis.

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Trump ran on a promise of revenge. He’s making good on it

Donald Trump ran on a promise to use the powers of the government for revenge against those he believed wronged him. He now appears to be fulfilling that campaign promise while threatening to expand his powers well beyond Washington.

On Friday, the FBI searched the home of John Bolton, Trump’s first-term national security adviser-turned-critic, who last week in an interview called the administration “the retribution presidency.”

Trump’s team has opened investigations of Democrat Letitia James, the New York attorney general who sued Trump’s company over alleged fraud for falsifying records, and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who as a congressman led Trump’s first impeachment. The Republican administration has charged Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., over her actions at an immigration protest in Newark, New Jersey, after arresting Mayor Ras Baraka, also a Democrat. Under investigation, too, is former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a candidate for New York City mayor.

Trump has directed prosecutors to investigate two other members of his first administration: Miles Taylor, who wrote a book warning of what he said were Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, and Chris Krebs, who earned the president’s wrath for assuring voters that the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden, was secure.

The actions look like the payback Trump said he would pursue after being hit with four separate sets of criminal charges during his four years out of office. Those included an indictment for his effort to overturn the 2020 election that was gutted by the U.S. Supreme Court, which said presidents have broad immunity from prosecution for official acts while in office.

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Texas redistricting fight shakes up battle lines for both parties in key US Senate race

HOUSTON (AP) — Just as Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Colin Allred was holding a town hall near the Mexican border as part of an “unrig Texas” campaign tour, the state’s Democratic fundraising powerhouse Beto O’Rourke rallied support in Austin for lawmakers who left the state to delay a redistricting plan led by President Donald Trump. The next morning, one of those wayward lawmakers, James Talarico, stood in the pulpit at former President Barack Obama’s old church in Chicago to say he and his fellow legislators had simply taken a leap of faith.

All three Democrats are either declared or potential contenders for the Senate seat on the ballot in next year’s midterm elections. In what would typically be a quiet period in Texas politics, Republicans have roiled the state’s 2026 Senate campaign with their rush to redraw congressional maps to give Trump more allies in Congress. The turmoil impacts contenders in both parties and gives Democrats fresh hope that they can capture a long-elusive seat, where an upset would dramatically improve their chances of regaining Senate control in Washington.

For Democrats, the GOP power play offers a new way to stand out as fighters against Trump and his Make America Great Again movement.

For Republicans, including incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, it’s a Trump loyalty test. Cornyn publicly called for involving the FBI in rounding up the defiant Democrats. His main primary challenger, state Attorney General Ken Paxton, used his current office to ask state courts to remove departed lawmakers from office and to jail O’Rourke for raising funds to support the Democratic legislators. The clash has also been a welcome distraction from recent questions about Paxton’s private life.

Trump, meanwhile, had his eyes on the U.S. House when he openly prodded Texas Republicans this summer to give him five more GOP seats in a state he won handily last year. He hoped to avoid losing a slim House majority, as he did during his first term in 2018.

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Fed Chair Powell faces fresh challenges to Fed independence amid potential rate cuts

WASHINGTON (AP) — Now that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has signaled that the central bank could soon cut its key interest rate, he faces a new challenge: how to do it without seeming to cave to the White House’s demands.

For months, Powell has largely ignored President Donald Trump’s constant hectoring that he reduce borrowing costs. Yet on Friday, in a highly-anticipated speech, Powell suggested that the Fed could take such a step as soon as its next meeting in September.

It will be a fraught decision for the Fed, which must weigh it against persistent inflation and an economy that could also improve in the second half of this year. Both trends, if they occur, could make a cut look premature.

Trump has urged Powell to slash rates, arguing there is “no inflation” and saying that a cut would lower the government’s interest payments on its $37 trillion in debt.

Powell, on the other hand, has suggested that a rate cut is likely for reasons quite different than Trump’s: He is worried that the economy is weakening. His remarks on Friday at an economic symposium in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming also indicated that the Fed will move carefully and cut rates at a much slower pace than Trump wants.

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Pope affirms right of people to return home after unjust exile in meeting with Chagos refugees

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV strongly affirmed the right of people to return to their homes after an unjust exile, issuing the message during an audience Saturday with refugees from Chagos, the Indian Ocean archipelago that is home to the strategic U.S.-U.K. military base.

“No one can force them into exile,” history’s first American pope said.

Leo met with a delegation of about 15 refugees from Chagos, some 2,000 of whom who were evicted from their homes by Britain in the 1960s and 1970s so the United States could build a naval and bomber base on the largest of the islands, Diego Garcia.

Displaced islanders fought for years in U.K. courts for the right to go home. In May, Britain and Mauritius signed a treaty to hand sovereignty over the islands to Mauritius that allows resettlement, while still ensuring the future of the base.

Leo told the refugees he was “delighted” the treaty had been reached, saying it represented a “significant victory” in their long battle to “repair a grave injustice. He praised in particular the role of the Chagossian women in peacefully asserting their rights to go home.

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Texas Gov. Abbott says he’ll swiftly sign new maps on his desk that will boost GOP in 2026

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Saturday promised to quickly sign off on a new, Republican-leaning congressional voting map gerrymandered to help the GOP maintain its slim majority in Congress.

“One Big Beautiful Map has passed the Senate and is on its way to my desk, where it will be swiftly signed into law,” Abbott said in a statement.

Texas lawmakers approved the final plans just hours before, inflaming an already tense battle unfolding among states as governors from both parties pledge to redraw maps with the goal of giving their political candidates a leg up in the 2026 midterm elections.

In California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has approved a special election to take place in November for residents to vote on a redrawn congressional map designed to help Democrats win five more House seats next year.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has pushed other Republican-controlled states, including Indiana and Missouri, to also revise their maps to add more winnable GOP seats. Ohio Republicans were also already scheduled to revise their maps to make them more partisan.

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Texas lawmakers give final approval to redrawn congressional map favoring GOP, send to governor

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas Senate gave final approval to a new, Republican-leaning congressional voting map early Saturday, sending it to Gov. Greg Abbott for his signature.

President Donald Trump has pushed for the map to help the GOP maintain its slim majority in Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. It has five new districts that would favor Republicans.

Abbott, a Republican, is expected to quickly sign it into law, though Democrats have vowed to challenge it in court.

The effort by Trump and Texas’ Republican-majority Legislature prompted state Democrats to hold a two-week walkout and kicked off a wave of redistricting efforts across the country.

Democrats had prepared for a final show of resistance, with plans to push the Senate vote into the early morning hours in a last-ditch attempt to delay passage.