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

Earthquake response strains Colombia’s new government and rescuers as they race against the clock

PEREIRA, Colombia (AP) — Tons of aid from regional partners began to roll into Colombia on Wednesday, as the search for survivors in the rubble of a powerful earthquake grew more desperate after the temblor razed buildings, buckled roads and crushed cars.

The devastation has tested Colombia’s new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, and his government as it scrambles to respond to the disaster and civil society as it pushes to provide aid to the most affected communities.

De la Espriella said Wednesday evening that at least 265 people died in the 7.4 magnitude earthquake that struck the country’s west on Monday. The president said nearly 500 people were reported missing, though civilian-run databases put that number at more than 4,100. In total, more than 25,800 families were impacted, de la Espriella said.

“Our efforts are focused on the disappeared,” he told journalists in Colombia’s capital.

Teams continued to pick through the rubble in the hardest-hit cities of Cali, Pereira, Manizales and Quibdo, as time ticked away for victims to be found — and rescued — alive. Aid agencies consider the first 48 to 72 hours crucial for retrieving survivors, though that threshold can be extended if those trapped have access to food and water.

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Colombia’s earthquake is déjà vu for Venezuelans. The government response is anything but

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — For the second time in two months, the ground was shaking in South America. Once again, families flooded social media with pleas for help finding missing loved ones under flattened buildings. Once again, governments across political divides and continents pledged aid.

But in many ways, the contrast between Colombia’s 7.4-magnitude earthquake on Monday and Venezuela’s back-to-back temblors on June 24 could not have been more stark.

In Venezuela, acting President Delcy Rodríguez waited nearly four hours before addressing the nation. In Colombia, newly inaugurated President Abelardo de la Espriella announced an emergency command post to oversee rescue efforts barely an hour after the earthquake struck. For weeks, Venezuelan civilians were clawing through rubble by hand. Hours after the earthquake in Colombia, rescue teams were searching for survivors with cranes and excavators.

In Venezuela, Rodríguez relied on rescuers from around the world to fill critical gaps in the state’s response. Colombia has so far declined foreign crews except for those from the United States, saying it has enough personnel and has requested humanitarian supplies instead.

The contrast is a reminder of the differences between the neighboring nations — their political systems, resources and the strength of their institutions — and a demonstration of how those can take on life-or-death importance in catastrophes.

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Settler siege of Palestinian homes in West Bank a ‘horrific act of terror,’ US ambassador says

JERUSALEM (AP) — The U.S. Ambassador to Israel condemned the actions of Jewish settlers who are besieging the home of an American Palestinian family in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee called the siege a “horrific act of terror.”

Since Sunday, according to local officials and family members, settlers have gathered near the home in the village of Qusra and harassed those inside, defying efforts by the Israeli military to defuse the situation.

A group that has included up to dozens of men has thrown stones, attempted to bring down a stone wall nearby, and prevented the occupants from leaving despite dwindling supplies.

Speaking to The Associated Press by phone from his home in Ohio, the home’s owner Lou Ridi said his 48-year-old brother and nephew, who have been holed up in the home to defend it, had been unable to leave the house and did not have access to food or water for several days.

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Britain and France swelter again as western Europe is hit by another heat wave

LONDON (AP) — Large parts of western Europe were sweltering once again on Thursday, with Britain and France entering their fifth heat waves of an exceptional summer that’s threatening to break even more records.

Forecasters in the U.K. are predicting the mercury will rise as high as 38 Celsius (100 Fahrenheit) in central and southeast England, potentially making it the hottest day of the year. The highest temperature this year was recorded on June 26 when the temperature hit 38 C in eastern England.

The U.K.’s Met Office said earlier this week that only average conditions were needed for the rest of August to beat last year’s record for the hottest year.

Temperatures in France, meanwhile, are forecast to go even higher, reaching 40 degrees C (104 F) in central and southern areas and 38 C in Paris.

This summer has shown that both Britain and France are ill-equipped to deal with these levels of heat. Air conditioning is a rarity outside of shops and offices, for example.

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USAID fallout: In Nepal, when the aid workers stopped coming, the women and babies started dying

GAUR, Nepal (AP) — The young mother’s breath had grown ragged. Inside her mud home in rural Nepal, she hunched over in agony, pain pummeling her pregnant belly, her swollen legs scarcely able to support her.

Kabita Mukhiya was in the midst of an emergency, but didn’t know it. For weeks, she’d suffered at home, because there was nobody around to tell her to rush to a hospital. The aid workers who once regularly visited her village to help pregnant women had stopped coming, after foreign aid cuts by the United States shuttered a program aimed at saving mothers’ and babies’ lives.

Kabita was uneducated and impoverished, and she did not know what was happening to her body. In desperation, she turned at last to her aunt for help, who hauled her off to the hospital, where both women wept as the doctors said things neither could understand.

Which is why Kabita — confused and confined to her hospital bed — turned to something she could understand: prayer.

“Please save the baby,” she begged God through her tears. “Please save me.”

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Mission Improbable: A onetime Republican is trying to prove Democrats can win in Florida

LEESBURG, Fla. (AP) — Cyn Doyle is a self-described political cynic. So when David Jolly, the Republican-turned-independent who is now running for Florida governor as a Democrat, swung through this town dotted by lakes and Spanish moss, she had doubts.

“How can you assure us,” the 71-year-old pressed, “that you won’t become another John Fetterman?”

As the crowd in the clubhouse of a manufactured home community for seniors jeered the mention of the contrarian Pennsylvania Democratic senator, Jolly, who once critiqued politicians as an MSNBC pundit, made the case for himself.

“Change is part of my journey,” he responded. “What I can tell you is that the values I speak of — that the economy should work, that government can do a little bit to improve our lives and that everyone should have the right to be protected — those are the guideposts for how I’ll serve as governor.”

Doyle, an independent who said she’s a registered Democrat mostly to participate in primaries, left impressed.

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Nigel Farage faces off against Count Binface in special election that’s been denounced as a stunt

LONDON (AP) — Tens of thousands of voters are heading to the polls Thursday in a special election in a small seaside resort just outside London that will pit a potential candidate to be the next U.K. prime minister against a collection of independents, jokers and single-issue candidates, led by a man who wears a trash can on his head.

That’s not what Nigel Farage, the man who arguably did more than anyone to get Britain to vote to leave the European Union a decade ago, intended when he triggered Thursday’s special election in Clacton by quitting his seat in the House of Commons last month. When doing so, he expected to run again against candidates from Britain’s main political parties, including the governing Labour Party and the main opposition Conservative Party.

Farage, who is the leader of anti-immigration party Reform UK, stood down in the hope the election could put to bed awkward questions about his finances. Farage said he would let voters judge him in a “people versus the establishment” contest. His political foes described the move as a stunt and opted against standing a candidate.

Instead, Farage’s main opponent is Count Binface, a political satirist posing as a comic space alien, with a keen interest in earthly matters, including the positioning of a hand dryer in the men’s toilet in a pub in west London.

The special election is a novelty, if not quite a circus, with a record 34 candidates standing, including Howling Laud Hope of The Official Monster Raving Loony Party and Marcus White from the Everyone is God Party. They have pounded the streets of Clacton over the past few weeks as they seek to win the support of around 80,000 voters.

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Rubio and Bessent stayed on decoy flight from Turkey as Trump switched planes, official says

WASHINGTON (AP) — The two most senior members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, flew out of last month’s NATO summit in Turkey on what was effectively a decoy plane following an Iranian threat, while Trump was secretly moved to a smaller military jet, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.

The official, who was briefed on the situation and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details of presidential travel, said Rubio was aware of the switch and details of the threat behind it but could or would not say why he had stayed on the plane. The official said Bessent was likely aware but did not know for sure.

The official, however, noted that security precautions for the president — especially one who has been the target of several assassination attempts — are more robust than those for even top members of the Cabinet.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the secretaries of State and Treasury follow the vice president and the highest ranking member of each chamber of Congress in the presidential line of succession.

Trump had flown to the annual gathering of NATO country leaders in Ankara, Turkey, in a new Qatari-gifted and retrofitted red, white and navy blue jet. But ahead of departing Turkey, he said he would fly partway home on an older-model baby blue Air Force One plane instead.

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Kennedy Center board set to vote on whether to move forward with closure

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Kennedy Center’s board is expected to meet Thursday to consider plans for the performing arts venue’s future after a federal judge blocked an earlier move for a two-year closure that would allow for substantial renovations.

Ahead of the meeting, the Kennedy Center’s management said it would present the board with three approaches for consideration.

The options would include a complete closure or a partial closure that would allow “some continued public access and limited programming in spaces unaffected” by the work. A third option would “consider a highly limited series of phased closures to address only the Center’s most serious infrastructure needs while scheduling and maintaining a full slate of programming.”

In blocking earlier plans for closure, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled the board’s March 16 vote backing the move appeared “ill-informed and seemingly preordained.” In moving forward, the board, which is largely made up of President Donald Trump’s allies, may face pressure to prove they’ve thoroughly considered their options.

During Trump’s second term, the Kennedy Center has become an unlikely — and highly visible — metaphor of presidential power. While he largely ignored the institution during his first round in Washington, Trump moved quickly to oust the institution’s leadership when he returned to office in January 2025 and replaced it with a board of trustees that named him chairman. His name was quickly added to the building, a move that Cooper also declared illegal.

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Judge will hear whether Tate brothers should stay in custody as they fight extradition to the UK

MIAMI (AP) — A federal judge in Miami will hear arguments Thursday over whether social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate should remain in custody as they fight extradition to the United Kingdom, where the brothers are accused of rape and sex trafficking.

U.S. Magistrate Lauren Louis will have a chance to question both sides before determining if the brothers, who have repeatedly denied wrongdoing, should stay in jail or be released during what could be a monthslong extradition process.

The Tates have remained in a federal detention center in Miami since making a brief court appearance two days after their July 18 arrest. Their attorneys have argued the Tates’ high profile makes it nearly impossible for them to flee and that they regularly post updates about their locations on social media.

The Tates have become among the world’s most polarizing internet personalities with their promotion of wealth, male dominance and misogyny through their social media empire. The new allegations are the latest in the Tates’ long-running international legal saga spanning the U.S., Britain and Romania.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office filing, the Tates should be detained pending their extradition hearing because they cannot overcome the strong presumption against bail in international extradition cases.