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

Enhanced role for immigration officers at US airports as shutdown frustrates travels and screeners

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s decision to order federal immigration agents to U.S. airports to help with security during a budget impasse is drawing concerns that their presence may escalate tensions among air travelers frustrated over hourslong waits and screeners angry about missed paychecks.

Trump made clear on Sunday that he was going ahead with the plan to have immigration enforcement officers assist the Transportation Security Administration starting Monday by guarding exit lanes or checking passenger IDs unless Democrats agreed to fund the Department of Homeland Security.

Democrats have been demanding major changes to federal immigration operations, while the president issued a new threat Sunday night that he would reject all deals with Democrats unless they agreed to a separate elections bill.

Hundreds of thousands of homeland security workers, including from the TSA, U.S. Secret Service and Coast Guard, have worked without pay since Congress failed to renew DHS funding last month.

“Bad idea,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, about the new airport security plan, which Trump said would start Monday.

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Iran threatens to ‘completely’ close Strait of Hormuz and hit power plants after Trump ultimatum

ARAD, Israel (AP) — The United States and Iran threatened to target critical infrastructure Sunday as the war in the Middle East, now in its fourth week, puts lives and livelihoods at risk throughout the region.

Iran said the Strait of Hormuz, crucial to oil and other exports, would be “completely closed” immediately if the U.S. follows up on President Donald Trump’s threat to attack its power plants. Trump late Saturday set a 48-hour deadline to open the strait.

Israeli leaders visited one of two southern communities near a secretive nuclear research site struck by Iranian missiles late Saturday, with scores of people wounded. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was a “miracle” no one was killed.

Netanyahu claimed Israel and the U.S. were well on their way to achieving their war goals. The aims have ranged from weakening Iran’s nuclear program, missile program and support for armed proxies to enabling the Iranian people to overthrow the theocracy.

There has been no sign of an uprising, nor of an end to the fighting that has shaken the global economy, sent oil prices surging and endangered some of the world’s busiest air corridors. The war, which the U.S. and Israel launched Feb. 28, has killed over 2,000 people.

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Trump’s changing course on Strait of Hormuz strategy raises questions about US war preparation

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — At war with Iran, President Donald Trump is cycling through an increasingly desperate list of options as he searches for a solution to the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. He has jumped from calls to secure the waterway through diplomatic means to lifting sanctions and now escalating to a direct threat against civilian infrastructure in the Islamic Republic.

Trump and his allies insist they were always prepared for Iran to block the strait, yet the Republican president’s erratic strategy has fueled criticism that he is grasping for answers after going to war without a clear exit plan. On Saturday came his latest attempt, via an ultimatum to Iran: Open the strait within 48 hours or the United States will “obliterate” the country’s power plants.

Trump’s aides defended the threat as a hard-edged tactic to press Iran into submission. Opponents framed it as the failure of a president who miscalculated what it would take to get out of a geopolitical mire.

“Trump has no plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, so he is threatening to attack Iran’s civil power plants,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass, adding: “This would be a war crime.”

“He’s lost control of the war and he is panicking,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., responding to Trump’s post.

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California sheriff running for governor seizes more than a half million ballots from 2025 election

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — A California sheriff running for governor has seized more than half a million ballots cast in a November special election from county election officials, saying he’s investigating a ballot count discrepancy.

County elections officials have disputed the claims by Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, called Bianco’s move unprecedented and says it is designed to sow distrust in elections.

Bianco held a news conference Friday saying his office had launched the investigation after receiving a complaint from a local citizens group about the ballot count from a November 2025 special election on redistricting.

In the special election, voters approved a measure to redraw congressional district lines to favor Democrats in the upcoming midterm election. The measure passed in the county by a margin of more than 80,000 votes.

Bianco seized ballots in Riverside County, the inland California county of 2.5 million people where he has twice been elected sheriff. He called the effort “a fact-finding mission.”

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Cast a ballot and wait for the plane. In Alaska, a grace period for ballots is seen as a necessity

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The tiny Alaska Native village of Beaver is about 40 minutes — by plane — from the nearest city. Its roughly 50 residents rely on weekday flights for mail and many of their basic supplies, from groceries to Amazon deliveries of everyday household items.

Air service plays an outsize role in the nation’s most expansive state, where most communities rely on flights for year-round access. Planes also play a critical role in elections, getting voting materials and ballots to and from rural precincts such as Beaver and in delivering ballots for thousands of Alaskans who vote by mail — some in places where in-person voting is not available.

The vast distances and relative isolation of so many communities make Alaska unique and are why its residents have a significant interest in arguments taking place Monday before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Many here worry that a case from Mississippi challenging whether ballots received after Election Day can be counted in federal elections could end Alaska’s practice of accepting late-arriving ballots. Alaska counts ballots if they are postmarked by Election Day and received within 10 days, or 15 days for overseas voters in general elections.

“These processes have been in place for a long time just to ensure that our ballots are counted,” said Rhonda Pitka, a poll worker and first chief in Beaver, which sits along the Yukon River 110 miles (177 kilometers) north of Fairbanks.

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Family appeals to Arizona community for clues in ongoing disappearance of Nancy Guthrie

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Savannah Guthrie is renewing pleas to neighbors, friends and residents of Tucson, Arizona, to jog their memories in the hopes of sparking new leads in the disappearance of her mother Nancy.

The “Today Show” co-host posted a new family statement on her Instagram account Sunday morning, hours after the show’s Instagram account shared it.

After expressing gratitude to the community, the family said in its statement that it believes someone in Tucson or in southern Arizona may “hold the key to finding the resolution in this case.”

“Someone knows something. It’s possible a member of this community has information that they do not even realize is significant.”

The family urged people to go back over their memories between Jan. 31 — when Nancy Guthrie was last seen — and Feb. 1 as well as the evening of Jan. 11.

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Democrats sharpen criticism of Vance as they look past Trump to the 2028 presidential campaign

FAIRFIELD, Ohio (AP) — Although President Donald Trump is the top Democratic nemesis, some of the party’s most ambitious leaders are increasingly looking past him and at Vice President JD Vance.

In the latest example, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear traveled to Vance’s home county in Ohio, where on Saturday night he said the vice president had abandoned the communities that he wrote about in the memoir that made him famous.

Beshear said “Hillbilly Elegy,” which detailed Vance’s hardscrabble upbringing, had “trafficked in tired stereotypes.”

“His book ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ was really hillbilly hate,” the governor said at a Democratic fundraiser in Butler County. “It is poverty tourism, because he ain’t from Appalachia.”

The broadside was not only a sign of Beshear’s own potential presidential aspirations, but a reflection of Vance’s status as the Republican heir apparent to the coalition that twice elected Trump to the White House.

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Socialist Grégoire becomes Paris mayor as the far right wins Nice in key municipal elections

PARIS (AP) — Socialist candidate Emmanuel Grégoire won the Paris race Sunday, succeeding fellow party member Anne Hidalgo as the French capital’s mayor, as results of the final round of municipal elections showed clear gains for the traditional left and right, and one major win for the far right in the French Riviera city of Nice.

French voters returned to the polls Sunday in about 1,500 communes. The vote is seen as a test of the balance of power on France’s local political map before the 2027 presidential race begins to take shape.

Definitive results were still pending Sunday evening in largest cities.

About 93% of 35,000 villages, towns and cities selected their mayors in the first round last week, with mostly one or two candidates, not associated with any party, competing.

Grégoire, who led a list uniting the traditional left, the Greens and the Communists, claimed victory after estimates based on partial results placed him well ahead of conservative rival Rachida Dati, who acknowledged defeat.

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Women farmworkers who built their own fight against sexual assault cope with Chavez allegations

NEW YORK (AP) — Almost two decades ago, legendary labor rights activist Dolores Huerta joined Mónica Ramírez at a Chicago event to promote the Bandana Project, a campaign Ramírez had launched to raise awareness about sexual violence against women farmworkers.

Huerta spoke there about the need to educate women farmworkers about their rights and empower them to speak out about sexual exploitation that is both widespread and underreported among agricultural field workers. Little did anyone know at the time that Huerta herself had been sexually abused at the hands of icon César Chavez, who in 1962 co-founded the organization now known the United Farm Workers with Huerta.

The allegations against Chavez by Huerta and other women and girls show that the culture of fear and intimidation that enables sexual abuse in agricultural fields had also for many years existed within top ranks of the male-dominated labor movement that fought for farmworker rights.

At the same time, advocates like Ramírez say the decision by Huerta and other women to speak out — first revealing their allegations to the New York Times — is a powerful sign that things have changed since Chavez’s time. In the three decades since Chavez died in 1993, the network of grassroots organizations led by women farmworkers has grown, pushing for federal and state investigations into sexual abuse on farms and laws mandating sexual harassment training, as well as securing commitments from growers and produce buyers to adopt policies for women, among other gains.

To Ramírez, Chavez’s alleged abuse feels like a betrayal because she and other advocates admired him and credited him with inspiring the movement that galvanized their own organizing efforts. But his shattered legacy does not erase the gains women farmworkers and advocates have made on their own.

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Dylan Darling hits driving layup at buzzer, St. John’s beats Kansas 67-65 in March Madness thriller

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Dylan Darling hadn’t made a shot all day when he got the ball at midcourt for St. John’s with 3.9 seconds left in a tied March Madness thriller.

Darling could have passed. He could have wilted. He could have missed yet again.

Instead, the Red Storm’s tenacious point guard ran the play he had called for himself moments earlier — attacking the basket, banking in a perfectly weighted shot and sending himself headlong into St. John’s lore.

He also sent the Johnnies back to the Sweet 16 after 27 long years away.

Darling hit a driving layup for his only bucket of the game, and St. John’s advanced to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1999 with a 67-65 victory over Kansas in on Sunday.