Court finds Trump’s tariffs an illegal use of emergency power, but leaves them in place for now

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court ruled Friday that President Donald Trump had no legal right to impose sweeping tariffs on almost every country on earth but left in place for now his effort to build a protectionist wall around the American economy.

The ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found Trump overstepped his authority under an emergency powers law, a major legal blow that largely upheld a May decision by a specialized federal trade court in New York.

“It seems unlikely that Congress intended to … grant the President unlimited authority to impose tariffs,” the judges wrote in a 7-4 ruling.

But they did not strike down the tariffs immediately, allowing his administration until mid-October to appeal to the Supreme Court.

The president vowed to do just that. “If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.

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Israeli airstrike kills Houthi rebel prime minister in Yemen’s capital

CAIRO (AP) — An Israeli airstrike killed the prime minister of the Houthi rebel-controlled government in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, the Houthis said Saturday. He was the most senior Houthi official killed in the Israeli-U.S. campaign against the Iranian-backed rebels.

Ahmed al-Rahawi was killed in Thursday’s strike in Sanaa along with a number of ministers, the rebels said in a statement. Other ministers and officials were wounded, the statement added without providing details.

The premier was targeted along with other members of his Houthi-controlled government during a “routine workshop held by the government to evaluate its activities and performance over the past year,” the Houthi statement said.

Thursday’s strike took place as the rebel-owned television station was broadcasting a speech by Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the secretive leader of the rebel group, in which he was sharing updates on the latest Gaza developments and vowing retaliation against Israel. Senior Houthi officials used to gather to watch al-Houthi’s prerecorded speeches.

Al-Rahawi wasn’t part of the inner circle around al-Houthi that runs the military and strategic affairs of the group. His government, like the previous ones, was tasked with running the day-to-day civilian affairs in Sanaa and other Houthi-held areas.

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Israel soon will halt or slow aid to northern Gaza as military offensive grows

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel will soon halt or slow humanitarian aid into parts of northern Gaza as it expands its military offensive against Hamas, an official said Saturday, a day after Gaza City was declared a combat zone.

The decision was likely to bring more condemnation of Israel’s government as frustration grows in the country and abroad over dire conditions for both Palestinians and remaining hostages in Gaza after nearly 23 months of war.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, told The Associated Press that Israel will stop airdrops over Gaza City in the coming days and reduce the number of aid trucks arriving as it prepares to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people south.

Israel on Friday ended daytime pauses in fighting to allow aid delivery, describing Gaza City as a Hamas stronghold and alleging that a tunnel network remains in use. The United Nations and partners have said the pauses, airdrops and other recent measures fell far short of the 600 trucks of aid needed daily in Gaza.

“We left because the area became unlivable,” Fadi Al-Daour, displaced from Gaza City, said as vehicles piled high with people and belongings rolled through a shattered landscape. “No one is searching, and there are no journalists to film. There is nothing.”

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Russian drone and missile attack on southern Ukraine kills 1 and wounds dozens

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched a large aerial attack on southern Ukraine, officials said Saturday, two days after a rare airstrike on central Kyiv killed 23 and damaged European Union diplomatic offices as U.S.-led efforts to end the three-year war staggered.

Among other locations hit, the assault overnight into Saturday struck a five-story residential building, killing at least one civilian and wounding 28 people, including children, in the Zaporizhzhia region, Gov. Ivan Fedorov reported.

Russia launched 537 strike drones and decoys, as well as 45 missiles, according to Ukraine’s air force. Ukrainian forces shot down or neutralized 510 drones and decoys and 38 missiles, it said.

The Kremlin on Thursday said Russia remained interested in continuing peace talks, despite the air attack on Kyiv that was one of the largest and deadliest since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

The attacks came less than two weeks after a presidential summit in Alaska between Donald Trump of the United States and Vladimir Putin of Russia that marked the end of Putin’s diplomatic isolation in the West but yielded few details on how the war might end.

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At least 3 dead after mob sets fire to Indonesian regional parliament building

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — An angry mob set fire to a local parliament building in an Indonesian provincial capital, leaving at least three people dead and five others hospitalized, officials said.

The blaze in Makassar, the capital city of South Sulawesi province, began late Friday. Television reports showed the provincial council building ablaze overnight, causing the area to turn an eerie orange color.

Rescuers retrieved three bodies on Saturday morning, while five people were hospitalized with burns or with broken bones after jumping from the building, said Fadli Tahar, a local disaster official.

Protesters in West Java’s Bandung city also set a regional parliament ablaze on Friday, but no casualties were reported. In Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, protesters stormed the regional police headquarters after destroying fences and torching vehicles. Security forces fired tear gas and used water cannons, but demonstrators fought back with fireworks and wooden clubs.

Foreign embassies in Jakarta, including the U.S., Australia and Southeast Asian countries, have advised their citizens in Indonesia to avoid demonstration areas or large public gatherings.

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Colleges face financial struggles as Trump policies send international enrollment plummeting

One international student after another told the University of Central Missouri this summer that they couldn’t get a visa, and many struggled to even land an interview for one.

Even though demand was just as high as ever, half as many new international graduate students showed up for fall classes compared to last year.

The decline represents a hit to the bottom line for Central Missouri, a small public university that operates close to its margins with an endowment of only $65 million. International students typically account for nearly a quarter of its tuition revenue.

“We aren’t able to subsidize domestic students as much when we have fewer international students who are bringing revenue to us,” said Roger Best, the university’s president.

Signs of a decline in international students have unsettled colleges around the U.S. Colleges with large numbers of foreign students and small endowments have little financial cushion to protect them from steep losses in tuition money.

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A walk through a Smithsonian museum reveals American genius and cruelty as Trump presses for change

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an afternoon’s walk through ground zero of Americana — the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History — objects around every corner invite one question: What could possibly be more American than this?

There’s the enormous Star-Spangled Banner in all its timeworn glory, Dorothy’s ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz” and totems of achievement throughout.

There are also testaments to pain and cruelty. What could be more American than a reckoning with the nation’s sins, as illustrated by shackles representing slavery and photos of Japanese Americans confined to detention camps in World War II?

In myriad ways, the museum explores “the complexity of our past,” in accord with its mission statement. President Donald Trump wants a simpler tale told. He wants this and the other Smithsonian museums to mirror American pride, power and accomplishment without all the darkness, and he threatens to hold back money if they don’t get with that program.

On social media, Trump complained that at the Smithsonian museums, which are free to visit and get most of their money from the government, “everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.”

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2 civilians indicted for their role in a Pearl Harbor fuel spill that sickened 6,000 people in 2021

HONOLULU (AP) — A grand jury has indicted two civilian workers on charges they caused the Navy to provide the Hawaii Department of Health with false information about jet fuel that spilled from a Pearl Harbor storage facility before it later seeped into drinking water and sickened 6,000 people over Thanksgiving in 2021.

The indictments are the first to result from the fuel spill that angered Hawaii residents, lawmakers and military service members and their families. The military decided to close the aging World War II-era fuel tanks after the spill.

A Navy investigation in 2022 found shoddy management and human error caused the leak at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility. The Defense Department’s inspector general last year found Navy officials lacked sufficient understanding of the risks of maintaining massive fuel storage tanks on top of a Pearl Harbor drinking water well. The Navy issued written reprimands to three retired military officers for their roles in the fuel spill.

The indictment returned Thursday alleges John Floyd and Nelson Wu provided the Navy with inaccurate information about a May 2021 spill that occurred six months before the fuel got in the drinking water. The indictment says they caused the Navy to mislead the Hawaii Department of Health about how much fuel leaked from one of the tanks and reassured officers that their information was accurate.

This caused the Navy to tell the department in the months after May that 1,618 gallons (6,125 liters) leaked instead of 20,000 gallons (75,700 liters) and failed to report that it was unable to find 18,000 gallons (68,000 liters), prosecutors say. The indictment alleges Floyd and Wu redacted data from records provided. Floyd and Wu were each indicted on one count of conspiracy and one count of making false statements.

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Federal judge issues order blocking Trump effort to expand speedy deportations of migrants

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from carrying out speedy deportations of undocumented migrants detained in the interior of the United States.

The move is a setback for the President Donald Trump’s efforts to expand the use of the federal expedited removal statute to quickly remove some migrants in the country illegally without appearing before a judge first.

Trump promised to engineer a massive deportation operation during his 2024 campaign if voters returned him to the White House. And he set a goal of carrying out 1 million deportations a year in his second term.

But U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb suggested the administration’s expanded use of the expedited removal of migrants is trampling on individuals’ due process rights.

“In defending this skimpy process, the Government makes a truly startling argument: that those who entered the country illegally are entitled to no process under the Fifth Amendment, but instead must accept whatever grace Congress affords them,” Cobb wrote in a 48-page opinion issued Friday night. “Were that right, not only noncitizens, but everyone would be at risk.”

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Trump is cutting 500-plus jobs at Voice of America and its parent agency despite legal challenges

WASHINGTON (AP) — The agency that oversees Voice of America and other government-funded international broadcasters is eliminating jobs for more than 500 employees, a Trump administration official said. The move could ratchet up a monthslong legal challenge over the news outlets’ fate.

Kari Lake, acting CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, announced the latest round of job cuts late Friday, one day after a federal judge blocked her from removing Michael Abramowitz as VOA director.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth had ruled separately that the Republican administration had failed to show how it was complying with his orders to restore VOA’s operations. His order Monday gave the administration “one final opportunity, short of a contempt trial” to demonstrate its compliance. He ordered Lake to sit for a deposition by lawyers for agency employees by Sept. 15.

On Thursday, Lamberth said Abramowitz could not be removed without the approval of the majority of the International Broadcasting Advisory Board. Firing Abramowitz would be “plainly contrary to law,” according to Lamberth, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President Ronald Reagan.

Lake posted a statement on social media that said her agency had initiated a reduction in force, or RIF, eliminating 532 jobs for full-time government employees. She said the agency “will continue to fulfill its statutory mission after this RIF— and will likely improve its ability to function.”