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

Government shutdown begins as nation faces new period of uncertainty

WASHINGTON (AP) — Plunged into a government shutdown, the U.S. is confronting a fresh cycle of uncertainty after President Donald Trump and Congress failed to strike an agreement to keep government programs and services running by Wednesday’s deadline.

Roughly 750,000 federal workers are expected to be furloughed, some potentially fired by the Trump administration. Many offices will be shuttered, perhaps permanently, as Trump vows to “do things that are irreversible, that are bad” as retribution. His deportation agenda is expected to run full speed ahead, while education, environmental and other services sputter. The economic fallout is expected to ripple nationwide.

“We don’t want it to shut down,” Trump said at the White House before the midnight deadline.

But the president, who met privately with congressional leadership this week, appeared unable to negotiate any deal between Democrats and Republicans to prevent that outcome.

This is the third time Trump has presided over a federal funding lapse, the first since his return to the White House this year, in a remarkable record that underscores the polarizing divide over budget priorities and a political climate that rewards hardline positions rather than more traditional compromises.

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Here are some effects of a government shutdown if Congress, Trump don’t reach a deal

The federal government is nearing a partial shutdown, with a range of effects on public services and the broader U.S. economy.

Employee furloughs and potential layoffs would halt some government activities. Other functions — like NASA’s space missions, President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and certain public health work at FDA and the USDA — would continue.

Here is a look at some of what’s expected across agencies:

Most Department of Homeland Security employees would continue to work, because much of the department’s workforce is connected to law enforcement or works in areas funded by user fees as opposed to Congressional appropriations.

DHS said in a plan published on its website that about 14,000 of the agency’s roughly 271,000 employees would be furloughed in the event of a government shutdown. That would include maintaining the vast majority of officers and employees at Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Transportation and Security Administration, Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among other divisions.

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How the government shutdown will affect student loans, FAFSA and the Education Dept.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Already diminished by cuts by the Trump administration, the U.S. Education Department will see more of its work come to a halt due to the government shutdown.

The department says many of its core operations will continue in the shutdown kicking off Wednesday. Federal financial aid will keep flowing, and student loan payments will still be due. But investigations into civil rights complaints will stop, and the department will not issue new federal grants. About 87% of its workforce will be furloughed, according to a department contingency plan.

Since he took office, President Donald Trump has called for the dismantling of the Education Department, saying it has been overrun by liberal thinking. Agency leaders have been making plans to parcel out its operations to other departments, and in July the Supreme Court upheld mass layoffs that halved the department’s staff.

In a shutdown, the administration has suggested federal agencies could see more positions eliminated entirely. In past shutdowns, furloughed employees were brought back once Congress restored federal funding. This time, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget has threatened the mass firing of federal workers.

Appearing before the House Appropriations Committee in May, Education Secretary Linda McMahon suggested this year’s layoffs had made her department lean — even too lean in some cases. Some staffers were brought back, she said, after officials found that the cuts went too deep.

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At least 69 people killed in a powerful earthquake that hit the Philippines

CEBU, Philippines (AP) — Rescuers used backhoes and sniffer dogs to look for survivors in collapsed houses and other damaged buildings in the central Philippines Wednesday, a day after an earthquake killed at least 69 people.

The death toll was expected to rise from the magnitude-6.9 earthquake that hit at about 10 p.m. Tuesday and trapped an unspecified number of residents in the hard-hit city of Bogo and outlying rural towns in Cebu province.

Sporadic rain and damaged bridges and roads have hampered the race to save lives, officials said.

“We’re still in the golden hour of our search and rescue,” Office of Civil Defense deputy administrator Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV said in a news briefing. “There are still many reports of people who were pinned or hit by debris.”

The epicenter of the earthquake, which was set off by movement in an undersea fault line at a dangerously shallow depth of 5 kilometers (3 miles), was about 19 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of Bogo, a coastal city of about 90,000 people in Cebu province where about half of the deaths were reported, officials said.

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Trump calls for using US cities as a ‘training ground’ for military in unusual speech to generals

QUANTICO, Va. (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday proposed using American cities as training grounds for the armed forces and spoke of needing U.S. military might to combat what he called the “invasion from within.”

Addressing an audience of military brass abruptly summoned to Virginia, Trump outlined a muscular and at times norm-shattering view of the military’s role in domestic affairs. He was joined by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who declared an end to “woke” culture and announced new directives for troops that include “gender-neutral” or “male-level” standards for physical fitness.

The dual messages underscored the Trump administration’s efforts not only to reshape contemporary Pentagon culture but to enlist military resources for the president’s priorities and for decidedly domestic purposes, including quelling unrest and violent crime.

“We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,” Trump said. He noted at another point: “We’re under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms.”

After calling hundreds of military leaders and their top advisers from around the world to the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Hegseth largely focused on long-used talking points that painted a picture of a military hamstrung by “woke” policies. He said military leaders should “do the honorable thing and resign” if they don’t like his new approach.

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Israeli strikes in Gaza kill at least 16 as the world awaits Hamas’ response to Trump’s peace plan

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel pressed its offensive in Gaza on Wednesday, with at least 16 Palestinians reported killed across the strip as the world awaited Hamas’ response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the embattled territory.

The dead included people who had sought refuge in a school sheltering the displaced in Gaza City. Al-Falah school in the city’s eastern Zeitoun neighborhood was hit twice, minutes apart, according to officials at Al-Ahli Hospital.

Among the casualties were first responders, they said. Five Palestinians were killed later on Wednesday morning, when a strike hit people gathered around a drinking water tank on the western side of Gaza City, the same hospital said.

Also in Gaza City, the Shifa Hospital said it received the body of a man killed in a strike on his apartment west of the city.

Israeli strikes also hit the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing a husband and wife, the Al-Awda hospital said. Another man was killed in a separate strike in the Bureij refugee camp, according to the same hospital.

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Turning Point, moving forward without Charlie Kirk, makes first return to Utah since his killing

LOGAN, Utah (AP) — Thousands of supporters came together to honor Charlie Kirk Tuesday night as Turning Point USA’s college tour returned to Utah for the first time since its founder was assassinated on a college campus in the state earlier this month.

The event at Utah State University in Logan was about two hours north of Utah Valley University, where Kirk was killed Sept. 10 by a gunman who fired a single shot through the crowd while Kirk was answering student questions.

Conservative podcast host Alex Clark kicked off the event, which she described as the the group’s largest on-campus tour stop.

“I’m not here to eulogize Charlie Kirk,” she said, but to “pass the torch on to every single one of you.”

Hours before the event, the Logan campus temporarily evacuated a building but later deemed it safe after a “non-explosive” device was found. Authorities are investigating but the university does not believe the package was a threat or related to the Turning Point event, school spokesperson Amanda DeRito told The Associated Press.

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Indonesian rescue workers ‘racing against time’ in search for dozens in rubble of collapsed school

SIDOARJO, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian rescue workers were racing against the clock on Wednesday in the search for survivors from a school collapse in the province of East Java, with at least 91 students still unaccounted for, along with three confirmed dead and about 100 injured.

The Islamic boarding school, which authorities said was undergoing an unauthorized expansion to add two new stories, collapsed during afternoon prayers on Monday, sending slabs of concrete and other heavy debris crashing onto the students below.

Most rescues typically happen within 24 hours after such a disaster, with chances of survival decreasing each day after that, and more than 300 workers continued to work desperately at the scene to try and reach those who have been detected to be still alive and trapped below.

“We hope that we can complete this operation soon,” Mohammad Syafii, head of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters.

“We are currently racing against time because it is possible that we can still save lives of those we have detected within the golden hours,” he said at the news conference.

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Trump says his administration is close to reaching a deal with Harvard University

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his administration is close to reaching a deal with Harvard University, which it has targeted with a series of investigations and billions of dollars in funding cuts as it presses for changes to its policies and governance.

A truce with the country’s oldest and wealthiest college would end a clash that has tested the independence of America’s colleges.

Trump came into office saying he would cut funding for schools that defied his agenda, vowing to eliminate “wokeness.” His pressure campaign zeroed in on the Ivy League institution after it rebuffed his demands.

Trump initially said a deal had been reached but then said officials were “close to finalizing” the agreement. “We haven’t done it yet,” he said at the White House.

Trump said the agreement includes a $500 million payment from Harvard that would be used to create “a giant trade school, a series of trade schools that would be run by Harvard.” Trump described it as an investment to revive trade schools and produce workers for American plants.

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Friends of the Michigan church shooting suspect say he long carried hatred toward Mormon faith

GRAND BLANC TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — The man who opened fire in a Michigan church and killed four people while setting it ablaze long harbored hatred toward the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to longtime friends, and told a stranger who showed up at his door days before that attack that Mormons were the “antichrist.”

The suspect, identified as 40-year-old Thomas Jacob Sanford, began making those sentiments known years ago following his return from Utah where he dated but later broke up with a girlfriend who was a member of the Mormon faith, two childhood friends said Tuesday. Sanford had moved to Utah after leaving the Marines and told his friends he had become addicted to methamphetamines.

No longer the happy-go-lucky kid who was voted class clown of their graduating class, Sanford routinely spouted off about his grievances against the church, his friends said. The first time they heard it was at a wedding thirteen years ago.

“We were like, ‘come on,’ we don’t want to hear this,” said Bobby Kalush, who grew up down the road from Sanford. “When he came back from Utah, he was a completely different person.”

Just six days before Sunday’s attack, those grudges were still boiling at the surface, said Kris Johns, a city council candidate who described a bizarre brush with Sanford while door knocking for his campaign.