Missing commuter plane found crashed on Alaska sea ice and all 10 aboard died, authorities say
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A small commuter plane that crashed in western Alaska on its way to the hub community of Nome was located Friday on sea ice, and all 10 people on board died, authorities said. The crash appeared to be one of the deadliest in the state in the last 25 years.
Mike Salerno, a spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard, said rescuers were searching the aircraft's last known location by helicopter when the wreckage was spotted. Two rescue swimmers were lowered to investigate.
A photo provided by the Coast Guard showed the plane's splintered body and debris lying on the sea ice. Two people in brightly colored emergency gear circled the wreckage.
“It’s hard to accept the reality of our loss,” U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said during an evening news conference.
Nome Mayor John Handeland choked up as he discussed the deaths and the response effort.
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Federal prisons being used to detain people arrested in Trump’s immigration crackdown
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration is using federal prisons to detain some people arrested in its immigration crackdown, the federal Bureau of Prisons said Friday, returning to a strategy that drew allegations of mistreatment during his first term.
In a statement to The Associated Press, the prison agency said it is assisting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement “by housing detainees and will continue to support our law enforcement partners to fulfill the administration’s policy objectives.”
The Bureau of Prisons declined to say how many immigration detainees it is taking in, or which prison facilities are being used.
“For privacy, safety, and security reasons, we do not comment on the legal status of an individual, nor do we specify the legal status of individuals assigned to any particular facility, including numbers and locations,” the agency said.
Three people familiar with the matter told the AP that federal jails in Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia and federal prisons in Atlanta, Leavenworth, Kansas, and Berlin, New Hampshire, are among the facilities being used. The people were not authorized to speak publicly and did so on condition of anonymity. The Miami jail alone is set to receive up to 500 detainees, the people said.
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Judge says he will temporarily block Trump from placing thousands of USAID workers on paid leave
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday dealt President Donald Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk their first big setback in their dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, saying he will order a temporary halt to plans to pull thousands of agency staffers off the job.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, who was nominated by Trump, sided with two federal employee associations in agreeing to a pause in plans to put 2,200 employees on paid leave as of midnight Friday. Nichols stressed his order was not a decision on the employees' request to roll back the administration's swiftly moving destruction of the agency.
“CLOSE IT DOWN,” Trump said on social media of USAID before the judge’s ruling.
The American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government Employees argue that Trump lacks the authority to shut down the six-decade-old aid agency without approval from Congress. Democratic lawmakers have made the same argument.
Trump's administration moved quickly Friday to literally erase the agency's name. Workers on a crane scrubbed the name from the stone front of its Washington headquarters. They used duct tape to block it out on a sign and took down USAID flags. Someone placed a bouquet of flowers outside the door.
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Trump tells Ishiba at the White House that he wants to slash the US trade deficit with Japan
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday he wants to slash the U.S. trade deficit with Japan as he welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba to the White House for their first face-to-face meeting.
Trump added that he isn't taking the possibility of levying tariffs against Japan off the table, but believes the issue can be resolved without punitive action. The United States has a $68 billion trade deficit with Japan.
“I think it will be very easy for Japan,” Trump said at start of his Oval Office meeting with Ishiba. “We have a fantastic relationship. I don't think we'll have any problem. They want fairness also.”
Trump announced that Japan’s Nippon Steel’s was dropping its $14.1 billion acquisition of the Pittsburgh-headquartered U.S. Steel and would instead be making an “investment, rather than a purchase.” Trump said he would “mediate and arbitrate” as the companies negotiate the investment. The U.S. president mistakenly referred to Nippon Steel as “Nissan,” the Japanese automaker.
President Joe Biden, before leaving office last month, blocked the purchase, citing national security concerns. Trump in December said he was “totally against the once great and powerful U.S. Steel being bought by a foreign company.” Trump told reporters Friday that he remained opposed to the Japanese company buying U.S. Steel outright.
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Trump administration orders federal agencies to provide lists of underperforming employees
President Donald Trump's administration has ordered all federal departments and agencies to provide lists of employees who are underperforming, as it seeks to shrink the workforce and awaits a court ruling related to its deferred resignation offers.
A memo sent by the Office of Personnel Management on Thursday directs the agencies to submit names of every employee who has received less than a “fully successful” performance rating in the past three years and to note whether the workers have been on performance plans.
The memo, which was viewed by The Associated Press, also emphasized that the agencies report any obstacles to making sure they have “the ability to swiftly terminate poor performing employees who cannot or will not improve.”
The memo seeks the employee’s name, job title, pay plan and other details, as well as whether that employee is “under or successfully completed a performance improvement plan within the last 12 months."
The office also is asking if an agency has proposed or issued a decision in such cases, and whether any action is being appealed or challenged, as well as any outcome.
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19 states sue to stop DOGE from accessing Americans' personal data
Nineteen Democratic attorneys general sued President Donald Trump on Friday to stop Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Treasury Department records that contain sensitive personal data such as Social Security and bank account numbers for millions of Americans.
The case, filed in federal court in New York City, alleges the Trump administration allowed Musk's team access to the Treasury Department’s central payment system in violation of federal law.
The payment system handles tax refunds, Social Security benefits, veterans' benefits and much more, sending out trillions of dollars every year while containing an expansive network of Americans' personal and financial data.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE, was created to discover and eliminate what the Trump administration has deemed to be wasteful government spending. DOGE's access to Treasury records, as well as its inspection of various government agencies, has ignited widespread concern among critics over the increasing power of Musk, while supporters have cheered at the idea of reining in bloated government finances.
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How the slash-and-burn tactics Musk brought to Washington backfired at Twitter
When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he laid off thousands of employees, stopped paying rent and auctioned off coffee makers and office chairs in hopes of a big turnaround.
Now the world’s richest man has brought the same slash-and-burn strategy to the federal government, and some people who experienced Musk's takeover at Twitter have a warning: Expect chaos, cuts driven by ideology as much as by cost concerns, intimidation and plenty of lawsuits.
Since assuming leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk has consolidated control over large swaths of the government with President Donald Trump ’s blessing, sidelined career officials, gained access to sensitive databases and invited a constitutional clash over the limits of presidential authority.
Emily Horne, who was head of Twitter’s policy communications before joining the Biden administration, describes Musk’s modus operandi as: “Take it over, ruthlessly purge anyone who he sees as opposition and crash operations to remake it in his worldview.”
It's unclear whether his push for “extremely hardcore” changes at Twitter has paid off. Revenue at the company now called X has plunged, the number of users has dwindled and even Musk himself has expressed frustration at how long it is taking to turn around the company's finances.
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State Department lays out plans for $7 billion-plus arms sale to Israel as Netanyahu visits DC
WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department has formally told Congress that it plans to sell more than $7 billion in weapons to Israel, including thousands of bombs and missiles, just two days after President Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.
The massive arms sale comes as a fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas holds, even as Trump continues to tout his widely criticized proposal to move all Palestinians from Gaza and redevelop it as an international travel destination.
The sale is another step in Trump’s effort to bolster Israel’s weapons stocks. In late January, soon after he took office, he lifted the hold on sending 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. The Biden administration had paused a shipment of the bombs over concerns about civilian casualties, particularly during an assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Trump told reporters he released them to Israel “because they bought them.”
According to the State Department, two separate sales were sent to Congress on Friday. One is for $6.75 billion in an array of munitions, guidance kits and other related equipment. It includes 166 small-diameter bombs, 2,800 500-pound bombs, and thousands of guidance kits, fuses and other bomb components and support equipment. Those deliveries would begin this year.
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A mother and daughter were killed in tornadoes that struck eastern Tennessee
WARTBURG, Tenn. (AP) — Two tornadoes moved through eastern Tennessee, leaving a mother and daughter dead and injuring three other people, officials said Friday.
A mother and daughter from the same household were killed when the storm passed through the sparsely populated communities of Deer Lodge and Sunbright in Morgan County on Thursday night, according to a social media post by the county emergency management agency.
Further details about the three people injured weren't immediately released.
Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers were on site Friday morning helping to secure structures that were damaged or destroyed, Capt. Stacey Heatherly said in an email. Officials didn't believe anyone was still missing, Heatherly said.
Preliminary storm surveys released midday Friday determined that two tornados hit the region on Thursday, the National Weather Service office in Morristown said. The tornado in Deer Lodge in Morgan County had maximum winds of 135 mph (217 kph) and was rated as an EF2, which is considered “significant” on the Enhanced Fujita scale. The tornado in Thorn Hill in Grainger County had maximum winds of 115 mph (185 kph) and received an EF1 rating.
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Jim Becker, AP reporter who covered Jackie Robinson and an underdog Hawaii football team, dies at 98
HONOLULU (AP) — Jim Becker, a world-traveling journalist who covered Jackie Robinson’s big-league baseball debut and the U.S. Army’s retaking of Seoul during the Korean War, died Friday. He was 98.
He died of natural causes at a Honolulu hospital, said his goddaughter Carla Escoda Brooks.
Becker served as an Associated Press bureau chief in Manila, New Delhi and Honolulu and covered Margaret Thatcher as a freelance journalist in London. But he said his most important story was about an underdog Hawaii high school football team that won a league championship, a tale he told as a Honolulu Star-Bulletin columnist.
Becker joined the AP in 1946 fresh out of the Army when he walked into the wire service’s New York headquarters without an appointment and was hired to start the next day.
He watched Robinson become the first Black player on a Major League baseball team when editors sent him to the trailblazing athlete’s first game as a Brooklyn Dodger.
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