Police find bag carried by gunman who killed UnitedHealthcare's CEO, say he likely fled NYC on bus

NEW YORK (AP) — The gunman who killed the CEO of the largest U.S. health insurer likely left New York City on a bus soon after the brazen ambush that has shaken corporate America, police officials said Friday. But he left something behind: a backpack that was discovered in Central Park.

Three days after the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, police still did not know the gunman's name or whereabouts or have a motive for the killing, Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told reporters. Investigators were looking at whether the shooter may have been a disgruntled employee or client of the insurer, he said.

The FBI announced Friday night it was offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

Video of the gunman fleeing Wednesday's shooting showed him riding a bicycle into Central Park and later taking a taxi to a bus terminal that offers commuter service to New Jersey and Greyhound routes to Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, D.C, according to Kenny.

Police have video of the man entering the bus station but no video of him exiting, leading them to believe he left the city, Kenny said.

Investigators on Friday found a backpack in the park that had been worn by the gunman during the shooting, police said, following a massive sweep to find it in a vast area with lakes and ponds, meadows, playgrounds and woods.

Police didn’t immediately reveal what, if anything, it contained but said it would be analyzed for clues.

The gunman made sure to conceal his identity with a mask during almost all of his time in the city, including during the attack and while he ate, yet left a trail of evidence in view of the nation’s biggest city and its network of security cameras.

The gunman arrived in New York City on Nov. 24 and shot Thompson 10 days later outside his company’s annual investor conference at a hotel just blocks from Radio City Music Hall and Rockefeller Center.

The gunman got off a bus that originated in Atlanta and made several stops along the way, Kenny said. Police have not determined where he got on the bus. Investigators have a list of passengers, but none of them would have had to provide an ID when they climbed aboard, Kenny said.

Investigators believe the suspect used a fake identification card and paid cash, Kenny said, when he checked in at the hostel, which has a café along with shared and private rooms and is blocks from Columbia University.

Investigators have tested a discarded water bottle and protein bar wrapper in a hunt for his DNA. They also were trying to obtain additional information from a cellphone found along the gunman's escape route.

Photos of the suspected shooter that were taken in the lobby of a hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side appear to from the only time he removed his mask, Kenny said. The images, showing a man smiling in the lobby of the HI New York City hostel. They are among a collection of photos and video circulated since the shooting — including footage of the attack, as well as images of the suspected gunman at a Starbucks beforehand.

"From every indication we have from witnesses, from the Starbucks, from the hostel, he kept his mask on at all times except for the one instance where we have him photographed with the mask off,” Kenny said.

His roommates at the hostel also said he didn't speak to them. Nothing of investigative value was found in a search of the suspected shooter's hotel room.

Asked how close he felt police were to making an arrest, Kenny said, “This isn’t ‘Blue Bloods.’ We’re not going to solve this in 60 minutes. We’re painstakingly going through every bit of evidence that we can come across. Eventually, when an apprehension is made, we will have to present all of these facts to a judge and jury, so we’re taking our time, doing it right and making sure we’re going to get justice for this victim and closure for his family.”

Security video of the shooting shows the killer approaching Thompson from behind, firing several shots with a gun equipped with a silencer, barely pausing to clear a jam while the executive fell to the sidewalk.

Police were looking into the possibility that the weapon was a veterinary pistol, which is a weapon commonly used on farms and ranches if an animal has to be euthanized quietly, Kenny said — though he stressed that hadn't been confirmed.

The words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were scrawled on the ammunition, one word on each of three bullets, Kenny said. A law enforcement official previously told The Associated Press the words were “deny,” “defend” and “depose." The messages mirror the phrase “delay, deny, defend,” which is commonly used by lawyers and critics about insurers that delay payments, deny claims and defend their actions.

Thompson, a father of two sons who lived in a Minneapolis suburb, had been with Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare since 2004 and served as CEO for more than three years.

The insurer’s parent company, UnitedHealth Group Inc., was holding its annual meeting in New York for investors. The company abruptly ended the conference after Thompson’s death.

UnitedHealth Group said it was focused on supporting Thompson’s family, ensuring the safety of employees and assisting investigators. “While our hearts are broken, we have been touched by the huge outpouring,” the company said.

UnitedHealthcare provides coverage for more than 49 million Americans. It manages health insurance coverage for employers and state and federally funded Medicaid programs.

In October, UnitedHealthcare was named along with Humana and CVS in a Senate report detailing how its denial rate for prior authorizations for some Medicare Advantage patients has surged in recent years.

The shooting has rocked the health insurance industry in particular, causing companies to reevaluate security plans and delete photos of executives from their websites. A different Minnesota-based health care company said Friday it was temporarily closing its offices out of an abundance of caution, telling employees to work from home.

Balsamo reported from Washington. Jake Offenhartz, Cedar Attanasio and Karen Matthews in New York, John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed to this story.

Traffic rolls past the George Washington Bridge Bus Station in New York, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024, where the gunman fleeing Wednesday's shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson took a taxi to, according to surveillance video. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Pedestrians cross the road outside George Washington Bridge Bus Station in New York, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024, where the gunman fleeing Wednesday's shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson took a taxi to, according to surveillance video. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Pedestrian walk outside George Washington Bridge Bus Station in New York, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024, where the gunman fleeing Wednesday's shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson took a taxi to, according to surveillance video. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Traffic rolls past the George Washington Bridge Bus Station in New York, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024, near where the gunman fleeing Wednesday's shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson took a taxi to, according to surveillance video. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Commuters wait inside the George Washington Bridge Bus Station in New York, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024, where the gunman fleeing Wednesday's shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson took a taxi to, according to surveillance video. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

A New York City Police officer walks through brush and foliage in Central Park near 64th Street and Central Park West, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024, in New York, while searching for a backpack police believe was dropped in the park by the person suspected of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

Commuters wait for buses at the George Washington Bridge Bus Station in New York, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024, where the gunman fleeing Wednesday's shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson took a taxi to, according to surveillance video. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

A New York City Police officer walks through brush and foliage in Central Park near 64th Street and Central Park West, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024, in New York, while searching for a backpack police believe was dropped in the park by the person suspected of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

This still image from surveillance video obtained by the Associated Press shows the suspect, left, sought in the the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, center, outside a Manhattan hotel where the health insurer was holding an investor conference, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (AP Photo)

A woman crosses Amsterdam Avenue outside the HI New York City hostel, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024, in New York, where police say the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson may have stayed.(AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

A man crosses the street outside the HI New York City hostel, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024, in New York, where police say the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson may have stayed.(AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Members of the media line a sidewalk outside the HI New York City hostel, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024, in New York, where police say the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson may have stayed. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

New York Police investigators exit the HI New York City Hostel, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024, in New York, where police say the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson may have stayed. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

New York Police investigators arrive at the HI New York City Hostel, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024, in New York, where police say the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson may have stayed. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

This image provided by the New York City Police Department shows a man wanted for questioning in connection to the investigation of the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (New York City Police Department via AP)

This image provided by the New York City Police Department shows a man wanted for questioning in connection to the investigation of the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (New York City Police Department via AP)

Donald Trump is remaking the traditional boundaries of Washington, unleashing unprecedented executive orders and daring anyone to stop him.

Here's the latest:

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, the far-right extremist group leader convicted of seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, visited Capitol Hill on Wednesday after President Donald Trump commuted his 18-year prison sentence.

Rhodes’ appearance came the day after he was released from prison as a result of Trump’s order of clemency benefitting the more than 1,500 people charged with federal crimes in the Jan. 6 attack.

Rhodes was convicted in one of the most serious cases brought by the Justice Department over the riot that left more than 100 police officers injured.

As Trump cracks down on immigrants in the U.S. illegally, some families are wondering if it is safe to send their children to school.

In many districts, educators have sought to reassure immigrant parents that schools are safe places for their kids, despite the president’s campaign pledge to carry out mass deportations. But fears intensified for some when the Trump administration announced Tuesday it would allow federal immigration agencies to make arrests at schools, churches and hospitals.

“What has helped calm my nerves is knowing that the school stands with us and promised to inform us if it’s not safe at school,” said Carmen, an immigrant from Mexico who took her two grandchildren, ages 6 and 4, to school Wednesday in the San Francisco Bay Area. She spoke on condition that only her first name be used, out of fear she could be targeted by immigration officials.

▶Read more about how immigrant families are reacting

Trump took office eight years ago pledging to “drain the swamp” and end the domination of Washington influence peddlers.

Now, he’s opening his second term by rolling back prohibitions on executive branch employees accepting major gifts from lobbyists and ditching bans on lobbyists seeking executive branch jobs, or vice versa, for at least two years.

The new president also has been benefiting personally in the runup to his inauguration by launching a new cryptocurrency token that is soaring in value while his wife, first lady Melania Trump, has inked a deal to make a documentary with Amazon.

▶Read more about Trump’s actions

Republican Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, the new chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a military veteran, told the AP that the Trump administration had intentionally paused the planned U.S. arrival of more than 1,600 Afghans already cleared for resettlement in the United States.

Mast cited “questions about the vetting of these individuals.”

The Trump administration in its first days announced it was suspending overall U.S. refugee admissions for at least three months, while it considered whether to resume or end the program.

The pause includes the U.S. travel of remaining Afghans who worked alongside American soldiers during the two-decade U.S. war in Afghanistan as well as family members of active-duty U.S. military personnel.

“Not everybody that was in Afghanistan is somebody that we want to come to the United States of America," and “just because they necessarily claim something, that doesn’t make it true,” Mast said Wednesday. “So you know, for the administration and the purpose of being judicious, for our No. 1 responsibility, protecting Americans, there’s a pause on this until there’s an assurance that the proper vetting has taken place.”

“This is something President Trump campaigned on. The American people have been waiting for such a time as this--for our Department of Defense to actually implement homeland security seriously,” said Press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

U.S. officials confirmed earlier Wednesday that the Pentagon will begin deploying as many as 1,500 active duty troops to help secure the southern border in the coming days, putting in motion plans Trump laid out in executive orders shortly after he took office to crack down on immigration.

The active duty forces would join the roughly 2,500 U.S. National Guard and Reserve forces already there.

President Donald Trump and his team are monitoring the deadly shooting at a school in Nashville, Tennessee.

“The White House offers its heartfelt thoughts and prayers to those impacted by this senseless tragedy and thank the brave first responders responding to the incident.”

Police say a 17-year-old shooter killed a female student at the school before turning the gun on himself.

Elon Musk has openly questioned the feasibility of a big AI project that Donald Trump championed in an unusual public break with the president.

Trump on Tuesday announced the AI joint venture -- the Stargate Project --planned to spend up to $500 billion over four years building data centers with the hope of securing U.S. leadership in the new technology. Trump promised to clear a regulatory path so the companies involved, Softbank, OpenAI, and Oracle, could move fast.

Musk slammed the deal in a public forum.

“They don’t have the money,” the Tesla CEO and self-described “first buddy” of the president posted on his social media platform X. “Softbank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”

Musk was one of the founders of OpenAI but has since split with its CEO, Sam Altman, suing the company and its leader for antitrust violations. He has since formed his own AI company, xAI.

Altman responded Wednesday to say Musk was “wrong, as you surely know” and inviting Musk to come visit the first site that is already under construction.

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said he believes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Washington to meet newly elected President Donald Trump “in a few weeks.”

He told a briefing for invited reporters Wednesday: “I’m sure he would be one of the first foreign leaders invited to the White House.”

Danon said he expects their discussions to include the current ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and the release of hostages taken during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack in southern Israel.

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog will be coming to the United Nations on Monday to attend the U.N. commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the Jan. 27, 1945 liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp 80 years ago, Danon said. He will meet with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

His executive orders cover issues that range from trade, immigration and U.S. foreign aid to demographic diversity, civil rights and the hiring of federal workers. Some have an immediate policy impact. Others are more symbolic. And some already are being challenged by federal lawsuits.

▶Read more about Trump’s policy actions

In a post on X, Murkowski of Alaska said Capitol Police officers “are the backbone of Congress — every day they protect and serve the halls of democracy.”

“I strongly denounce the blanket pardons given to the violent offenders who assaulted these brave men and women in uniform,” Murkowski wrote.

Murkowski is one of a few Republicans who’ve criticized Trump’s pardons of more than 1,500 rioters who attacked the Capitol and interrupted the certification of former President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory. More than 200 pleaded guilty to assaulting police.

On Tuesday, Murkowski pointed to a police officer as she told reporters she fears “the message that is sent to these great men and women that stood by us.”

President Donald Trump’s mass pardons for rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol “will not change the truth of what happened” in the nation’s capital four years ago, a federal judge wrote Wednesday as she dismissed one of nearly 1,600 cases stemming from the attack by a mob of Trump supporters.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said evidence of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol is preserved through the “neutral lens” of riot videos, trial transcripts, jury verdicts and judicial opinions.

“Those records are immutable and represent the truth, no matter how the events of January 6 are described by those charged or their allies,” she wrote.

Kollar-Kotelly is one of more than 20 judges to handle the hundreds of cases produced by the largest investigation in the Justice Department’s history. She issued her written remarks in an order dismissing the case against Dominic Box, a Georgia man who was among the first group of rioters to enter the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

▶ Read more about the Jan. 6 pardons

Miller told GOP senators at their closed door luncheon at the Capitol about next steps — including the administration’s push to invoke so-called Title 42 authority to close down the U.S.-Mexico border to new arrivals, once they land on a legal rationale to support the action, senators said.

“We talked about some of the deportations, what would happen… what is the administration going to do next,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican.

Miller also described in more detail other Trump actions on domestic energy production, senators said.

It’s not just criminal prosecutions that worry those who’ve crossed President Donald Trump. There are more prosaic kinds of retaliation: having difficulty renewing passports, getting audited by the IRS and losing federal pensions.

For the many people who’ve made an enemy of Trump, his return to the presidency this week sparked anxiety. Some are concerned they could go bankrupt trying to clear their names.

Less than 24 hours after taking office, Trump fired an opening shot, ordering the revocation of security clearances held by dozens of former intelligence officers he believes sided with Joe Biden in the 2020 campaign or have turned against him. The loss of such clearances can be costly for former officials who work for defense contractors and require ongoing access to classified information to do their private sector jobs.

“Anybody who ever disagrees with Trump has to worry about retribution,” said John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser and has become a vocal critic of the president. “It’s a pretty long list. I think there are a lot of people who are very worried.”

▶ Read more about Trump’s perceived enemies

Abortion was largely absent from the stack of dozens of executive actions in Trump’s first days of office. This includes common abortion policy moves Republican presidents often make after taking office such as reinstating the global gag rule, which limits funding for family planning services, said Mary Ruth Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law.

But there still may be more to come in terms of actions on abortion, Ziegler said. And there have already been quieter moves, including slipping the phrase “at conception” into an executive order rolling back protections for transgender people. This language is reminiscent of “fetal personhood” laws passed in some conservative states that declare a fetus should have the same rights as a person.

While including the phrase won’t directly affect abortion rights, it may have an effect down the line in legal cases related to fetal personhood by “creating a precedent for anti-abortion groups to say, ‘Look how many places in the law already recognizes life as beginning at conception,’” Ziegler said.

The phrase may be the Trump administration’s attempt at “throwing a bone to abortion opponents” without directly affecting abortion policy — or it could prelude more consequential decisions to come, Ziegler said.

President Donald Trump’s threat to impose stiff taxes, tariffs and sanctions on Russia if an agreement isn’t reached to end the war in Ukraine is likely fall on deaf ears in the Kremlin as virtually all Russian products are already prohibited from import into the United States and the country has faced many U.S. and European sanctions since the invasion began nearly three years ago.

In a post to his Truth Social site Wednesday, Trump urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to “settle now and stop this ridiculous war.”

He said he had no desire to hurt Russia and has a good relationship with Putin, but warned of penalties if the war isn’t stopped soon.

“If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries.”

The problem with the threat is that other than a small amount of fertilizer, animal feed and machinery, Russia currently exports almost no goods to the U.S. And, Russia is one of the world’s most heavily sanctioned nations. Many of those sanctions relate to Russia’s Feb. 2022 invasion of Ukraine and were imposed by the Biden administration, but others predate Biden and some were imposed during Trump’s first term in office.

Kobie Flowers is a Washington, D.C., defense lawyer and co-chair of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ Anti-Racism Task Force.

Flowers said diversity among lawyers is necessary in the criminal justice system. In an email, Flowers said anti-discrimination laws provide safeguards but “equal justice for all demands more than simply the absence of overt bias. DEI in the criminal defense bar isn’t just about compliance; it’s about cultivating a culture where every voice, regardless of background, is heard, valued, and empowered.”

Flowers said diversity fosters a deeper understanding of clients and helps in building a stronger criminal justice system. “DEI and similar programs are created to end discrimination. Ending discrimination is always the right thing to do in the criminal legal system, specifically, and our country, generally.”

The former president revealed his wish in a traditional note to his successor.

Fox News was first to report on the contents of the hand-written note. It says:

“Dear President Trump,

“As I take leave of this sacred office, I wish you and your family all the best in the next four years. The American people — and people around the world — look to this house for steadiness in the inevitable storms of history, and my prayer is that in the coming years will be a time of prosperity, peace, and grace for our nation. May God bless you and guide you as He has blessed and guided our beloved country since our founding.”

Fox News says it was signed, “Joe Biden 1/20/2025.”

Philadelphia City Council members heard testimony on Wednesday about how the city and the school district are preparing to protect immigrants from efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to detain or deport them.

One council member suggested the hearing was necessary in part because of the “lack of information” coming from Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker.

Renee Garcia, Parker’s solicitor, told City Council the administration will continue a policy of not recognizing a detainer request from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents when the city is releasing someone from a city jail. The city will only recognize a warrant signed by a judge, Garcia told council members.

Jayme Banks, the chief of student support services for the Philadelphia school district, said a request by immigration agents to enter a school will be sent to the district’s office of general counsel to ensure it’s legal. The district is training principals and staff on how to respond to immigration enforcement actions in school buildings and how to protect the well-being of students who are affected, Banks said.

Philadelphia is one of the nation’s largest school districts and reports one-fifth of its students are English-language learners, with 168 languages spoken by students or families.

The Pentagon will begin deploying as many as 1,500 active duty troops to help secure the southern border in the coming days, U.S. officials said Wednesday, putting in motion plans President Donald Trump laid out in executive orders shortly after he took office to crack down on immigration.

Acting Defense Secretary Robert Salesses was expected to sign the deployment orders Wednesday, but it wasn’t yet clear which troops or units will go, and the total could fluctuate. It remains to be seen if they will end up doing law enforcement, which would put American troops in a dramatic new role, not done in recent history.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement has not yet been made. The forces are expected to be used to support border patrol agents, with logistics, transportation and construction of barriers.

— Lolita C. Baldor and Tara Copp

▶ Read more about troops and the US-Mexico border

The Trump administration has put a freeze on many federal health agency communications with the public through at least the end of the month.

In a memo obtained by The Associated Press, acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Dorothy Fink told agency staff leaders Tuesday that an “immediate pause” had been ordered on — among other things — regulations, guidance, announcements, press releases, social media posts and website posts until such communications had been approved by a political appointee.

The pause also applies to anything intended to be published in the Federal Register, where the executive branch communicates rules and regulations, and the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientific publication.

▶ Read more about federal health agency communications

President Donald Trump ’s national security adviser is sidelining roughly 160 career government employees on temporary duty at the White House National Security Council, telling them to work from home for the time-being as the administration reviews staffing for the White House arm that provides national security and foreign policy advice to the president, Trump administration officials told The Associated Press.

The career employees, commonly referred to as detailees, were summoned Wednesday to an all-staff meeting in which they were to be told they’ll be expected to be available to the NSC’s senior directors but would not need to report to the White House, the officials said.

Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz had signaled before Inauguration Day that he would look to move holdover civil servants that served in the NSC during President Joe Biden’s administration back to their home agencies. The move is meant to ensure the council is staffed by those who support Trump’s agenda.

▶ Read more about the National Security Council

Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette D. Clarke said President Donald Trump promised to try to lower costs and improve the economy for all communities.

“Instead of working to create economic opportunities that will allow Americans to get ahead, build generational wealth and achieve the American dream, President Trump on day one of his administration signed an executive order to systematically dismantle all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives within the federal government,” she said in a statement.

Clarke added that MAGA Republicans had set their sights on “cutting off access to economic opportunity for Black and minority communities in the federal government, on college campuses and in corporate America” since the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision that said race could not be a factor in college admissions.

She called the executive order “nothing short of an attempt to take our country backward.”

Trump is heading back to Florida next week to speak at a private retreat for House Republicans.

Republicans are gathering for their annual conference retreat in Doral where Trump has a resort.

House Speaker Mike Johnson says Trump will come to speak to the lawmakers as they plan priorities on taxes, spending cuts and others.

Trump pardoned and commuted the sentences of some 1,500 people in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol siege.

“The president’s made his decision — I don’t second guess those,” Johnson said at a Wednesday news conference.

Rhode Island Democrat Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, said new allegations of drunkenness and potential violent behavior by Trump Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth toward his second wife Samantha Hegseth should be disqualifying. And he called into question the thoroughness of the FBI’s background check into Hegseth’s past.

The allegations — including one that Hegseth was drunk in public in uniform at a Minneapolis strip club during a former drill weekend — were part of a signed affidavit by Hegseth’s former sister-in-law, Danielle Hegseth, that detailed many encounters she said she had with the nominee that left her deeply concerned.

Those also included that Samantha Hegseth had a “safe word” she communicated in 2015 or 2016 to Danielle Hegseth that indicated she needed help to get away from her husband. Hegseth’s full Senate confirmation vote could come in a matter of days.

Hegseth, through his attorney, has denied the allegations.

Refugees who had been approved to travel to the United States before a Jan. 27 deadline suspending America’s refugee resettlement program have had their travel plans canceled by the Trump administration.

Thousands of refugees are now stranded at various locations around the globe.

The suspension was in an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Monday. It left open the possibility that people who had undergone the lengthy process to be approved as refugees and permitted to come to the U.S., and had flights booked before that deadline, might still be able to get in under the wire.

But in an email reviewed Wednesday by The Associated Press, the U.S. agency overseeing refugee processing and arrival told staff and stakeholders that “refugee arrival to the United States have been suspended until further notice.”

▶ Read more about the refugee resettlement program

Within hours of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the new administration took down the Spanish-language version of the official White House website.

The site — currently https://www.whitehouse.gov/es/ — now gives users an “Error 404” message. It also included a “Go Home” button that directed viewers to a page featuring a video montage of Trump in his first term and on the campaign trail. The button was later updated to read “Go To Home Page”.

Hispanic advocacy groups and others expressed confusion at the abrupt change and frustration at what some called the administration’s lack of efforts to maintain communication with the Latino community, which helped propel him to the presidency.

The Spanish profile of the White House’s X account, @LaCasaBlanca, and the government page on reproductive freedom also were disbanded.

▶ Read more about the White House Spanish-language page

That wobbly faith in the criminal justice system under Trump’s watch appears to mirror the American public’s perspective.

About half of Americans are “not very” or “not at all” confident that the Justice Department, the FBI or the Supreme Court will act in a fair and nonpartisan manner during Trump’s second term. In each instance, roughly 3 in 10 are “somewhat” confident and about 2 in 10 are “extremely” or “very” confident, according to an AP-NORC poll from January.

A day that began with the outgoing president’s pardon of lawmakers and his own family ended with the incoming president’s pardon of supporters who violently stormed the U.S. Capitol four years ago.

The clemency grants by Biden and Trump are vastly different in scope, impact and their meaning for the rule of law.

But the remarkable flex of executive authority in a 12-hour span also shows the men’s deeply rooted suspicion of one another, with both signaling to their supporters that the tall pillars of the criminal justice system — facts, evidence and law — could not be trusted as foundational principles in each other’s administrations.

Russell Vought, nominated to lead the Office of Management and Budget, is scheduled for a hearing before the Budget Committee at 10 a.m. ET.

Vought was OMB director during Trump’s first term. He already had a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Vought was closely involved with Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for Trump’s second term that the Republican nominee tried to distance himself from during the campaign. The budget director oversees the building of the president’s budget and reviews proposed regulations.

“The Panama Canal belongs to Panama and will continue to belong to Panama. The Panama Canal is not a concession or a gift from the United States,” José Raul Mulino said Wednesday while appearing on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The Panama Canal came into being in 1914, following a bilateral treaty in 1903. At the dawn of our independence with Colombia.”

Trump falsely claimed during his inaugural address that China runs the canal, a critical trade route. He said the U.S. “gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”

Mulino said Trump’s “misinformed” remarks don’t worry him because “that in strict law is an impossibility.”

“Panama is not distracted by this type of pronouncements,” he said.

The Justice Department is directing its federal prosecutors to investigate any state or local officials who stand in the way of beefed-up enforcement of immigration laws under the Trump administration, according to a memo to the entire workforce obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Written by Emil Bove, the acting deputy attorney general, the memo also says the department will return to the principle of charging defendants with the most serious crime it can prove, a staple position of Republican-led departments meant to remove a prosecutor’s discretion to charge a lower-level offense.

Much of the memo is centered on immigration enforcement. Bove wrote that prosecutors shall “take all steps necessary to protect the public and secure the American border by removing illegal aliens from the country and prosecuting illegal aliens for crimes” committed in U.S. jurisdiction.

▶ Read more about the Justice Department and immigration enforcement

The Right Rev. Mariann Budde asked President Trump during her sermon Tuesday to have mercy on the LGBTQ+ community and migrants here illegally. Trump has promised mass deportations of undocumented migrants. And he’s signed an executive order recognizing only two sexes, male and female.

In an angry overnight post on his social media site, Trump sharply criticized Budde as a “so-called Bishop” who’s a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater.” Trump said she was “nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.” He said she and her church “owe the public an apology.

Many U.S. adults are on board with the idea of beefing up security at the southern border and undertaking some targeted deportations, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. But findings also suggest his actions may quickly push the country beyond its limited consensus on the issue.

Half of U.S. adults think increasing security at the border should be a high priority for the federal government, according to the poll, and about 3 in 10 say it should be a moderate priority. Just 2 in 10, roughly, consider it a low priority.

President Donald Trump is swiftly breaching the traditional boundaries of presidential power, bringing to bear a lifetime of bending the limits in courthouses, boardrooms and politics to forge an expansive view of his authority.

He’s already unleashed an unprecedented wave of executive orders, with actions intended to clamp down on border crossings, limit the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship and keep the popular Chinese-owned TikTok operational despite a law shutting down the social media platform.

Trump is drafting a new blueprint for the presidency, one that demonstrates the primacy of blunt force in a democratic system predicated on checks and balances between the branches of government.

▶ Read more about Trump’s first days in office

President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

FILE - Then Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference on July 27, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)

President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)