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

Israeli military says one of the bodies handed over by Hamas is not that of a hostage

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The Israeli military said Wednesday that one of the bodies handed over by Hamas the previous day as part of the ceasefire deal is not that of a hostage who was held in Gaza, adding to tensions over the fragile truce in the two-year war.

Four bodies were handed over by Hamas on Tuesday to ease pressure on the ceasefire, following an earlier four on Monday — hours after the last 20 living hostages were released. In all, Israel was awaiting the return of the bodies of 28 deceased hostages.

The military said that “following the completion of examinations at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, the fourth body handed over to Israel by Hamas does not match any of the hostages.” There was no immediate word on whose body it was.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu demanded earlier Wednesday that Hamas fulfill the requirements laid out in the ceasefire deal — introduced by U.S. President Donald Trump — about the return of the hostages’ bodies.

“We will not compromise on this and will not stop our efforts until we return the last deceased hostage, until the last one,” he said.

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Trump and budget chief Vought are making this a government shutdown unlike any other

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is making this government shutdown unlike any the nation has ever seen, giving his budget office rare authority to pick winners and losers — who gets paid or fired, which programs are cut or survive — in an unprecedented restructuring across the federal workforce.

As the shutdown enters its third week, the Office and Management and Budget said Tuesday it’s preparing to “batten down the hatches” with more reductions in force to come. The president calls budget chief Russ Vought the “grim reaper,” and Vought has seized on the opportunity to fund Trump’s priorities, paying the military while slashing jobs in health, education, the sciences and other areas with actions that have been criticized as illegal and are facing court challenges.

Trump said programs favored by Democrats are being targeted and “they’re never going to come back, in many cases.”

Speaking during an event at the White House, Trump added, “We’re being able to do things that we were unable to do before.”

With Congress at a standstill — the Republican-led House refusing to return to session and the Senate stuck in a loop of failed votes to reopen government as Democrats demand health care funding — the budget office quickly filled the void.

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Russia makes more precise drones and is using them to attack Ukraine’s vital rail network

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — When Russian drones smashed into the Shostka train station in northeastern Ukraine earlier this month, they killed a 71-year-old man, injured at least eight people and left train cars buckled by fire and riddled with shrapnel holes.

It was one of the latest examples of what Ukrainian officials say has been a surge since mid-summer in attacks on railways, a critical artery for commercial and military logistics.

They are part of Russia’s broader targeting of infrastructure that now is being carried out with greater precision thanks to advances in long-range drone technology that include onboard video feed.

In the attack in Shostka, less than 70 kilometers (43 miles) from the Russian border, two explosives-laden drones struck two commuter trains in quick succession.

Russia has stepped up railway attacks over the past three months, seeking to sow unrest in Ukrainian regions it borders by depriving people there of rail connections, Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, the CEO of the Ukrainian state railway, told The Associated Press.

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Supreme Court takes up GOP-led challenge to Voting Rights Act that could affect control of Congress

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is taking up a major Republican-led challenge to the Voting Rights Act, the centerpiece legislation of the civil rights movement, that could gut a key provision of the law that prohibits racial discrimination in redistricting.

The justices on Wednesday are hearing arguments for the second time in a case over Louisiana’s congressional map, which has two majority Black districts. A ruling for the state could open the door for legislatures to redraw congressional maps across the South, potentially boosting Republican electoral prospects by eliminating majority Black and Latino seats that tend to favor Democrats.

A mid-decade battle over congressional redistricting already is playing out across the nation, after President Donald Trump began urging Texas and other Republican-controlled states to redraw their lines to make it easier for the GOP to hold its narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The court’s conservative majority has been skeptical of considerations of race, most recently ending affirmative action in college admissions. Twelve years ago, the court took a sledgehammer to another pillar of the landmark voting law that required states with a history of racial discrimination to get approval in advance from the Justice Department or federal judges before making election-related changes.

The court has separately given state legislatures wide berth to gerrymander for political purposes, subject only to review by state supreme courts. If the court now weakens or strikes down the law’s section 2, states would not be bound by any limits in how they draw electoral districts, a result that is expected to lead to extreme gerrymandering by whichever party is in power at the state level.

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Los Angeles County officials approve emergency declaration over immigration raids

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles County officials voted Tuesday to declare a state of emergency that gives them power to provide assistance for residents they say have suffered financially from ongoing federal immigration raids.

The move allows the LA County Board of Supervisors to provide rent relief for tenants who have fallen behind as a result of the crackdown on immigrants.

The immigration raids that ramped up over the summer have spread fear in immigrant communities, prompting many to limit their outings. Federal agents have rounded up immigrants without legal status to be in the U.S. from Home Depots, car washes, bus stops, and farms. Some U.S. citizens have also been detained.

The local state of emergency can also funnel state money for legal aid and other services.

Funds for rent will be available to people who apply via an online portal that would be launched within two months, Supervisor Lindsey Horvath’s office said. The motion could also be a first step toward an eviction moratorium, but that would require a separate action by the supervisors.

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Storm decimates 2 Alaskan villages and drives more than 1,500 people from their homes

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — More rain and wind were forecast Wednesday along the Alaskan coast where two tiny villages were decimated by the remnants of Typhoon Halong and officials were scrambling to find shelter for more than 1,500 people driven from their homes.

The weekend storm brought high winds and surf that battered the low-lying Alaska Native communities along the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in the southwestern part of the state, nearly 500 miles (800 km) from Anchorage. At least one person was killed and two were missing. The Coast Guard plucked two dozen people from their homes after the structures floated out to sea.

Hundreds were staying in school shelters, including one with no working toilets, officials said. The weather system followed a storm that struck parts of western Alaska days earlier.

Across the region, more than 1,500 people were displaced. Dozens were flown to a shelter set up in the National Guard armory in the regional hub city of Bethel, a community of 6,000 people, and officials were considering flying evacuees to longer-term shelter or emergency housing in Fairbanks and Anchorage.

The hardest-hit communities included Kipnuk, population 715, and Kwigillingok, population 380. They are off the state’s main road system and reachable this time of year only by water or by air.

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Trump’s approval on immigration drops among AAPI adults, new AAPI Data/AP-NORC poll finds

WASHINGTON (AP) — After months of aggressive immigration enforcement measures from the Trump administration, Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander adults are more likely to hold a negative view of President Donald Trump’s handling of immigration, a new AAPI Data/AP-NORC poll finds.

About 7 in 10 AAPI adults nationwide disapprove of Trump’s approach on immigration, according to the survey from AAPI Data and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, an increase from 58% in March. The new poll also finds that a solid majority of AAPI adults say the Republican president has overstepped on deporting immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, and most oppose several specific tactics used by the administration, such as using the military and National Guard to carry out arrests or deportations.

The findings come as federal immigration agents expand a crackdown in the Chicago area, where more than 1,000 immigrants have been arrested since last month. The escalation in Chicago is just part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to boost deportations, which has been a high priority for the president since he took office at the beginning of the year.

This approach does not seem to be landing well among AAPI adults, a diverse and rapidly growing group where many were born outside the U.S. Even among foreign-born AAPI adults, who tend to be more conservative, most disapprove of the president’s handling of immigration.

Joie Meyer, 25, was born in China and adopted as an infant. The Miami resident, who identifies as a Democrat, supports secure borders but Trump’s recent actions have made her wonder what would happen if she suddenly lost her citizenship.

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Trump threatens to pull support for Argentina if its politics move leftward

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to pull assistance for Argentina — led by a political kindred spirit whose philosophy is similar to that of the Republican administration — if the nation’s internal politics don’t align with his interests in upcoming elections.

The comments came during a meeting with Argentine President Javier Milei, whose country is set to hold midterm elections for its legislative body later this month. U.S. presidents typically do not weigh in on the candidates in other countries’ democratic elections.

Referring to an opponent who was “extremely far-left” and encompassed a “philosophy that got Argentina into this problem in the first place,” Trump warned that the United States wouldn’t “waste our time” with largesse toward Buenos Aires if Milei does not prevail. In addition to the midterms that will be a referendum on his policies, Milei himself is up for reelection in 2027.

“We’re not going to let somebody get into office and squander the taxpayer money from this country. I’m not gonna let it happen,” Trump said from the Cabinet Room as he prepared to eat lunch with Milei. “If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina.”

Even so, Trump insisted that the $20 billion assistance to Argentina, which administration officials strenuously deny is a bailout, was about helping “our neighbors” rather than any ties to the upcoming midterms.

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Pakistan reports a new clash with Afghan forces along border

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Clashes erupted Tuesday between Pakistani and Afghan forces in a remote northwestern border region, with state-run media in Pakistan accusing Afghan troops of opening “unprovoked fire” that was repulsed.

Pakistani forces responded, damaging Afghan tanks and military posts, according to Pakistan TV and two security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Tahir Ahrar, a deputy police spokesperson in Afghanistan’s Khost province, confirmed the clashes but provided no further details.

This is the second time this week that the two sides have traded fire along their long border.

According to Pakistan’s state-run media, Afghan forces and Pakistani Taliban jointly opened fire at a Pakistani post “without provocation,” prompting what the media described as a “strong response” from Pakistani troops in Kurram, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

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Florida judge temporarily blocks transfer of downtown Miami land for Trump’s presidential library

A Florida judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the planned transfer of prime downtown Miami land for President Donald Trump’s future presidential library.

The move by Circuit Judge Mavel Ruiz came after a Miami activist alleged that officials at a local college violated Florida’s open government law when they gifted the sizable plot of real estate to the state, which then voted to transfer it to the foundation for the planned library.

“This is not an easy decision,” Mavel said Tuesday when explaining her ruling from the bench, finding that the college didn’t give the public reasonable notice ahead of the vote last month.

“This is not a case, at least for this court, rooted in politics,” she added.

The nearly 3-acre (1.2-hectare) property is a developer’s dream and is valued at more than $67 million, according to a 2025 assessment by the Miami-Dade County property appraiser. One real estate expert wagered that the parcel — one of the last undeveloped lots on an iconic stretch of palm tree-lined Biscayne Boulevard — could sell for hundreds of millions of dollars more.