The Latest: Trump signs new executive actions on immigration

President Donald Trump on Monday signed executive orders related to immigration, including one that requires English-language proficiency for commercial motor drivers, such as truckers. That requirement already exists, but Trump said it “has not been enforced in years,” making roads less safe.

Another order will direct state and federal officials to publish lists of “sanctuary city” jurisdictions, or places where local authorities often don’t cooperate in enforcing federal immigration regulations. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says those cities “obstruct” enforcement.

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The Trump administration says officials have received reports of race-based discrimination in the policies and practices for the journal’s membership and article selection.

The investigations come amid an ongoing legal battle involving Harvard as the university fights a federal freeze on $2.2 billion in grants.

An email seeking comment from the university was sent to a Harvard spokesperson on Monday.

▶ Read more about the discrimination investigations

One of the orders signed by Trump orders states and federal officials to publish lists of jurisdictions often referred to as “sanctuary cities” that limit cooperation with federal officials’ efforts to arrest immigrants in the country illegally.

A second order signed by Trump calls for increasing access to excess military for state and local law enforcement. It also calls for bolstering legal support for officers accused of wrongdoing while carrying out their official duties.

Trump in the order directs the office of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “to create a mechanism to provide legal resources and indemnification to law enforcement officers who unjustly incur expenses and liabilities for actions taken during the performance of their official duties to enforce the law.” signs order on English-language rules for truckers

Trump has signed an executive order reinforcing an already existing federal law requiring English-language proficiency as a requirement for commercial motor drivers.

In the ordered issued Monday evening, Trump contends the “requirement has not been enforced in years, and America’s roadways have become less safe.”

“My Administration will enforce the law to protect the safety of American truckers, drivers, passengers, and others, including by upholding the safety enforcement regulations that ensure that anyone behind the wheel of a commercial vehicle is properly qualified and proficient in our national language, English,” the order states.

Washington’s NFL franchise is set to return to the nation’s capital.

Mayor Muriel Bowser says the District of Columbia and the Commanders reached an agreement to construct a new home for the football team in the city on the site of the old RFK Stadium.

Trump posted on social media that “the new Stadium Deal is a HUGE WIN for Washington, D.C.” and the fanbase.

▶ Read more about the deal

College Democrats at the University of Alabama are holding a rally to oppose Trump’s visit to campus on Thursday.

The University of Alabama College Democrats are holding an event titled “Tide Against Trump” — a play on the university’s “Crimson Tide” nickname — on the same day Trump is speaking on campus. The rally will be held at a Tuscaloosa park.

Trump is speaking at an event for graduating students ahead of commencement ceremonies over the weekend. All spring graduates at the university are invited to the event with Trump.

“UACD is shocked and disgusted to learn that our unpopular, divisive and authoritarian President will be involved in commencement for the graduating class of 2025,” the group wrote in a statement last week. “This insult will not go unanswered.”

Trump praised the team for their 14-3 regular season and playoff run behind running back Saquon Barkley and quarterback Jalen Hurts, who skipped Monday’s celebration.

“The Eagles have turned out to be an incredible team, an incredible group,” Trump said.

Trump attended the Philadelphia Eagles’ decisive Super Bowl victory in New Orleans over the Kansas City Chiefs. He predicted ahead of the game the Chiefs would win and offered lavish praise for quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

After the game, Trump mocked pop star Taylor Swift, who is dating Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. Swift faced boos from some fans at one point during the game when she appeared on the jumbotron.

Trump referenced the moment at Monday’s White House ceremony.

“I watched in person, I was there along with Taylor Swift,” Trump said. “How did that work out?” Swift endorsed Trump’s 2024 Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris.

The Rev. William Barber, a prominent minister and activist, was arrested alongside other faith leaders at a demonstration in the Capitol Rotunda.

The prominent minister was protesting against the proposed Republican-led federal budget, which would extend and expand broad tax cuts alongside cuts to social and environmental programs.

“If you can’t challenge your adversary with the hope that they change and to know that even if they don’t, at least they will have no excuse that they did not get told what is right. That is a powerful witness,” Barber said in remarks outside the Capitol shortly before his arrest.

The president, in a Monday post on Truth Social, held up a navy blue sweater emblazoned with the name of the New York school district and its logo of a Native American man wearing an elaborate feathered headdress.

The district in suburban Long Island has refused to comply with a state requirement that schools must stop using Native American references in mascots, team names and logos or face loss of state aid and other penalties.

Last week, Trump ordered the U.S. Department of Education to intervene in the dispute. The agency announced Friday it will investigate whether New York officials had violated federal laws and discriminated against the district.

▶ Read more about the investigation

Trump announced he’s forming a committee to review the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which the president has said he’s considered eliminating after critiquing the agency’s response to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina.

The new FEMA Review Council members will include Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley and others.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer says Trump’s first 100 days have been “the worst start of any president in modern times.”

He warned there’s only more to come and vowed Democrats will provide the resistance.

“It’s been 100 days of hell for American families, for our economy and for our democracy,” he said as senators returned from spring recess.

The Trump administration said Monday that the University of Pennsylvania illegally denied women equal opportunities by letting a transgender swimmer compete on the school’s women’s team and into team facilities.

The administration’s statement doesn’t name Lia Thomas, the transgender swimmer who last competed for the Ivy League school in 2022 and was the first openly transgender athlete to win a Division I title that year — an award Thomas now faces losing.

But the investigation opened in February by the U.S. Education Department focused on Thomas, who became a leading symbol of transgender athletes and a prominent political target of Republicans and President Donald Trump.

The department said Penn has 10 days to resolve the violations or risk prosecution.

It wants Penn to issue a statement saying that it will comply with Title IX, strip Thomas of any awards or records in Division I swimming and apologize to female swimmers. Penn had no immediate comment.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt hosted a briefing for influencers at the White House complex, and she told them that Trump would sign an executive order requiring truck drivers to know English.

“There’s a lot of communications problem between truckers on the road,” she said, which is “a public safety risk.”

“We’re going to ensure that our truckers, who are the backbone of our economy, are all able to speak English,” Leavitt said. “That’s a very common sense policy in the United States of America.”

Adam Schleifer was fired from his job as an assistant U.S. attorney last month after right-wing activist Laura Loomer called for his removal in a social media post. Loomer highlighted Schleifer’s past critical views about Trump while running in a Democratic primary for a New York congressional seat.

Schleifer argues in a complaint with the Merit Systems Protection Board that he was fired for “unprecedented partisan and political reasons.”

The filing obtained by The Associated Press says his removal undermines a “bedrock principle” of the justice system: “that the federal prosecutor is not a partisan political actor, but has a duty to prosecute without fear or favor.”

An email seeking comment was sent to the White House.

-By Alanna Durkin Richer

Jalen Hurts is one of several Philadelphia Eagles players who are expected to skip Monday’s White House celebration to honor the Super Bowl champs, according to a White House official.

Hurts and other players cited scheduling conflicts as the reasons for their absences, according to the official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Asked by a reporter on the red carpet of Time magazine gala last week whether he would visit, Hurts responded with an awkward “um” and long silence before walking away.

Eagles star running back Saquon Barkley visited Trump over the weekend at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, and caught a ride with the president to Washington on Air Force One.

-By Aamer Madhani

Personnel cuts across the Defense Department will delay plans to hire at least 1,000 more civilians to help prevent sexual assault, suicides and behavior problems within the military, senior defense officials said.

But they insist that crucial programs aimed at addressing sexual misconduct and providing help for victims are not affected so far.

The officials told The Associated Press that plans to have about 2,500 personnel in place to do this prevention work throughout the military services, combatant commands, ships and bases by fiscal year 2028 have been slowed due to the hiring freeze and cuts.

But they said they’re looking to spread out the roughly 1,400 people they have been able to hire to date and try to fill gaps as best they can until the additional staff can be hired.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel decisions.

-By Lolita C. Baldor

A former supervisor of the team that prosecuted the 1,500 plus people charged in the attack on the U.S. Capitol says he fears Trump’s pardons could embolden right-wing extremists and encourage future political violence.

Michael Romano resigned as a deputy chief of the now-disbanded Capitol Siege Section after 17 years in the Justice Department. In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, Romano said these defendants and other right-wing extremists got a clear message from Trump’s sweeping pardons:

“If you support the president and if you commit violence in support of the president, that he might insulate you from the consequences, that he might protect you from the criminal justice system,” Romano said. “And so that might encourage people to commit these sort of acts.”

▶ Read more from Romano’s AP interview

Trump has urged investors worried about his tariffs’ impact to “be cool.”

But retired and near-retired Americans are anxiously watching the turmoil his trade war has injected into financial markets, worried about outliving their savings or having to put off big purchases.

Though stocks rallied this week, the S&P 500 is down 10% from its all-time high in February. Losses in the Nasdaq and among small-cap stocks are steeper. Even bonds and the U.S. dollar have been volatile. Many economists are warning of a possible recession.

The Cboe Volatility Index, considered a “fear gauge” of investor pessimism, reached its highest level in five years this month.

▶ Read more about Trump tariffs feeding retiree worries

The U.S. House is ending a 17-day recess known as a district work period, when members of Congress typically return home to focus on their constituents.

The 10 most vulnerable House Republicans, as measured by their margins of victory last fall, were especially hard to find. None of these swing-district conservatives from across Arizona, Colorado, California, Iowa, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin hosted in-person events that were open to the public.

Just one planned a telephone town hall. Others favored invitation-only gatherings that weren’t promoted until after they were over.

GOP leaders have advised that there’s no benefit to creating more viral moments amid potential backlash over Trump’s first months in office.

“Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption, but I am now,” JB Pritzker said. Democrats “must castigate them on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box.”

The billionaire Hyatt heir has been laying the groundwork for a potential presidential campaign for years. He drew national attention in February when he drew a parallel between Trump’s rhetoric and the rise of Nazi Germany.

Pritzker invoked his Jewish faith again at the New Hampshire Democratic Party dinner Sunday night, drawing a standing ovation when he called on Trump to “stop tearing down the Constitution in the name of my ancestors.”

The U.S. president trolled Canadians on social media as they voted Monday for Liberal Party Prime Minister Mark Carney or Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. Trump suggested that he himself was on the ballot, repeating that Canada should become the 51st state and incorrectly claiming that the U.S. subsidizes Canada.

“It makes no sense unless Canada is a State!” Trump posted.

Canadians, infuriated, have canceled U.S. vacations, refused to buy American goods and voted early — a record 7.3 million Canadians cast ballots before their Election Day.

Beijing’s repeated denials on Monday were unequivocal: There have been no recent calls between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

President Donald Trump shakes hands with China’s President Xi Jinping during a meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

When asked about Trump’s claim in a recent TIME interview that the Chinese leader had called him, Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, said. “As far as I know, there have not been any calls between the two presidents recently.”

Guo went on and said: “Let me make it clear one more time that China and the U.S. are not engaged in any consultation or negotiation on tariffs.”

Trump has often raged against the Atlantic magazine and its editor, Jeffrey Goldberg. But he decided to grant them an interview anyways, talking extensively about his return to power and his plans for the presidency.

During the conversation, Trump compared his first and second terms.

“The first time, I had two things to do — run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys,” he said. “And the second time, I run the country and the world.”

Homan said “the numbers are good.”

He said total deportations haven’t been higher because the Trump administration has been so effective at increasing enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Homan also asserted that the Biden administration’s deportation totals were inflated by counting migrants who were turned away as they tried to cross the border illegally.

Under Trump, detentions at the border have plummeted while more people have been deported from around the country, Homan said.

“I don’t accept the term error and Abrego Garcia,” Homan told reporters at the White House. “There is an oversight.”

He acknowledged that a court order would have blocked Abrego Garcia’s deportation. The Supreme Court later ordered the administration to facilitate his return to the U.S.

But Homan said “things have changed” given accusations that he was a gang member.

Trump officials have argued they have no jurisdiction in El Salvador. And Leavitt said Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has no plans “to smuggle a designated foreign terrorist back into the United States.”

Leavitt said the administration “plans to comply” with what Bukele said.

Tom Homan was asked if Mexico is paying for construction on the U.S.-Mexico border, a Trump promise that didn’t happen during his first term.

He asserted that the U.S. is saving millions a day on detention and transportation costs because Mexico has troops patrolling their side of the border.

“We’ve more than made up for the cost of that wall,” he said.

The orders will:

— Expand law enforcement operations to make it easier to detain migrants

— Direct state and federal officials to publish lists of “sanctuary city” jurisdictions where local authorities often don’t concentrate on enforcing federal immigration regulations.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said “sanctuary” cities have worked to “obstruct” enforcement.

“We are in the beginning stages of carrying out the largest deportation campaign in American history,” Leavitt said during a Monday morning briefing with reporters.

“I believe that it’s up to China to de-escalate, because they sell five times more to us than we sell to them, and so these 120%, 145% tariffs are unsustainable,” Scott Bessent said during an interview Monday on the business channel CNBC.

Bessent moved markets last week when he said in a private speech to JPMorgan Chase that he expects a deescalation in the trade war because “Neither side thinks the status quo is sustainable.”

The first one will feature Tom Homan, the president’s top border adviser.

Officials set the stage by lining up posters with mug shots of migrants who have been accused of crimes. They’re positioned outside the West Wing to be in the background of correspondents’ television shots.

As Trump’s trade war locks the world’s two largest economies on a collision course, America’s unnerved allies and partners are cozying up with China to hedge their bets. It comes as Trump’s trade push upends a decade of American foreign policy — including his own from his first term — toward rallying the rest of the world to join the United States against China. And it threatens to hand Beijing more leverage in any eventual dialogue with the U.S. administration.

With Trump saying that countries are “kissing my ass” to negotiate trade deals on his terms or risk stiff import taxes, Beijing is reaching out to countries far and near. It portrays itself as a stabilizing force and a predictable trading partner, both to cushion the impact from Trump’s tariffs and to forge stronger trade ties outside of the U.S. market.

“America and China are now locked in a fierce contest for global supremacy,” Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said in an April 16 speech. “Both powers claim they do not wish to force countries to choose sides. But in reality, each seeks to draw others closer into their respective orbits.”

▶ Read more about the trade war between China and the U.S.

President Donald Trump waves as he arrives at Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, N.J., Saturday, April 26, 2025, upon returning from a trip to attend the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and White House border czar Tom Homan, speak with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, April 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

White House border czar Tom Homan walks to do a television interview at the White House, Monday, April 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

FILE - President Donald Trump, left, poses for a photo with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

President Donald Trump is in Michigan to promote his efforts to boost U.S. manufacturing, as he tries to counter fears about a weakening job market and worries that still-rising prices are taking a toll on Americans’ pocketbooks. The day trip includes a tour of a Ford factory in Dearborn that makes best-selling F-150 pickups, and an address to the Detroit Economic Club.

It comes as the Trump administration’s criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has sparked an outcry, with defenders of the U.S. central bank pushing back against Trump’s efforts to exert more control over it. Federal data from December released before the president left Washington showed Inflation declined a bit last month as prices for gas and used cars fell — a sign that cost pressures are slowly easing.

In their wake of off-year election losses for the GOP, the White House said Trump would put a greater emphasis on talking directly to the public about his economic policies after doing relatively few events around the country earlier in his term.

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The president opened with introductions and a few jokes, then immediately shifted to talking about his elections and voter ID laws, instead of the economy.

He then resumed recognizing some of the more notable people in the audience in Detroit.

The president stopped to speak to reporters while touring the auto factory and was indifferent to the idea of renegotiating the United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact, or USMCA, which is up for review this year.

“I think they want it,” he said of the other nations. “I don’t really care.”

Trump said the U.S. doesn’t need cars made in Canada or Mexico, but he wants to see them made in the U.S.

Beijing on Tuesday criticized President Donald Trump’s plan to impose an additional 25% tariff on Iran’s trading partners, which includes China, Iran’s largest trading partner.

“Tariff wars have no winners,” said Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry. “China will firmly protect its legitimate and lawful rights and interests.”

It’s not immediately clear if the tariff on Chinese goods will go up, because the two governments have agreed to a yearlong truce in their trade war following a summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in October in South Korea.

On Tuesday, the Chinese commerce ministry extended anti-dumping tariffs on U.S. solar polysilicon imports. The rates are 53.3% to 57%.

U.S. Health Secretary has added two more members to his controversial vaccine advisory panel.

Dr. Kimberly Biss and Dr. Adam Urato on Tuesday were named to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The committee recommends how vaccines should be used.

Kennedy — a leading antivaccine activist before becoming the nation’s top health official — last year fired all 17 of the panel’s previous members, replacing them now with 13 that includes several anti-vaccine voices.

Biss, based in Florida, has urged pregnant women not to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Urato, based in Massachusetts, has warned about medications taken during pregnancy — particularly antidepressants.

The Clintons, in a letter released on social media, are slamming a subpoena for their testimony as “legally invalid” even as Republican lawmakers prepared contempt of Congress proceedings against them.

The Clintons wrote that the chair of the House Oversight Committee, Republican Rep. James Comer, is on the cusp of a process “literally designed to result in our imprisonment” and vowed to “forcefully defend” ourselves.

After Bill Clinton failed to show up for scheduled deposition Tuesday morning, Comer says he will being contempt of Congress proceedings next week. That would start a complicated and politically messy process that Congress has rarely reached for and could result in prosecution from the Justice Department.

The change means EPA rules for fine particulate matter and ozone will focus only on the cost to industry.

It’s part of a broader realignment under Trump toward a business-friendly approach that has included the rollback of multiple policies meant to safeguard human health and the environment and slow climate change.

The agency said in a statement that it “absolutely remains committed to our core mission of protecting human health and the environment” but “will not be monetizing the impacts at this time.”

Environmental and public health advocates called the action a dangerous abdication of one of EPA’s core missions, to protect public health. They said the change could lead to more asthma attacks, heart disease and premature deaths.

Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican who has been outspoken against the Trump administration’s overseas military pursuits, said an attack on Iran would likely harm U.S. interests and could backfire.

“I hope they are able to rise up in sufficient force to actually topple the regime,” he said about the Iranian people protesting.

“But once we start dropping bombs on their government, I mean, it can create the opposite of the intended effect, because when people — no matter who they are, whether they’re pro or against the regime — tend to be unhappy when foreign bombs are dropping on them.”

“Temporary means temporary,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement to The Associated Press.

DHS told Fox News separately that Somalis with Temporary Protected Status must leave the U.S. by March 17, when existing protections expire. The TPS move comes amid Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, where many Somalis have U.S. citizenship. Trump has targeted Somali immigrants with racist rhetoric and accused them of defrauding federal programs.

A congressional report last year estimated the Somali TPS population at 705 people. Noem insisted that circumstances in Somalia “have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status.”

Located in the horn of Africa, Somalia is one of the world’s poorest nations and has for decades been beset by chronic strife and insecurity exacerbated by multiple natural disasters, including severe droughts.

A bill introduced by Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts would allow people to sue federal law enforcement officers for civil rights violations and remove their qualified immunity protections in such cases.

“When masked ICE agents are allowed to kill and harm people with impunity, we have crossed a dangerous threshold in our nation,” Markey said in a statement.

The bill “sends a powerful message to everyone in America — citizen or not — that when ICE agents break the law, they should and will be held accountable” Pressley said.

The bill stands little chance of passage in the GOP-controlled Congress.

Qualified immunity protects government agents from lawsuits unless they violate “clearly established” constitutional or statutory protections. Debates over the scope of the legal doctrine have held up bipartisan negotiations over policing reforms.

The Democratic National Committee will spend millions of dollars to cement control of voter registration efforts that have traditionally been entrusted to nonprofit advocacy groups and individual political campaigns. Party leaders hope the shift will increase their chances this year and cement successes for many elections to come.

The initiative being announced on Tuesday in Arizona and Nevada could become the DNC’s largest-ever push to sign up new voters. The focus is on young people, voters of color and people without college educations — demographics that drifted away from Democrats in the last presidential race, which returned Trump to the White House.

“It’s a crisis. And for our party to actually win elections, we have to actually create more Democrats,” DNC Chair Ken Martin said in an interview with The Associated Press. Party leaders want a more explicitly partisan approach like the one used by Republicans, who have relied less on outside groups to register and mobilize their voter base.

Trump said Tuesday he’s canceled talks with Iranian officials amid their protest crackdown and promised help to protesters in the country after human rights monitors said Tuesday that the death toll spiked to 2,000.

Trump did not offer any details about what the help would entail, but it comes after Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic. Trump’s latest message on social media appeared to make an abrupt shift about his willingness to engage with the Iranian government.

“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING - TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” Trump wrote in morning post on Truth Socia. “Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”

The Danish government official who confirmed the support on Tuesday was not authorized to comment publicly on the sensitive matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The official didn’t provide details about the support, which comes at a moment of tension between the NATO allies as Trump repeatedly calls for the U.S. to take over Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are set to meet Wednesday in Washington with Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt to discuss the matter.

Officials with Denmark and Greenland have repeatedly said the island is not for sale and expressed frustration that Trump isn’t ruling out military force to take the territory.

The White House and Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Danish support for the U.S. operation was first reported by Newsmax.

— By Aamer Madhani

In a social media post, Trump defended the aggressive immigration enforcement actions being carried out across Minneapolis as part of his deportation agenda.

Throngs of people have taken to the streets of Minneapolis to protest the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers after a woman was shot and killed during an operation last Wednesday.

The president asserted in the post that the anti-ICE activity is also shifting the spotlight away from alleged fraud in the state and said, “FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!”

Trump blames what he calls “professional agitators” for the protests. He has not provided evidence to support his claims.

“Michiganders are feeling the effects of Trump’s economy every day,” Michigan Democratic Party chair Curtis Hertel said in a statement, singling out Republican opposition to extending health care subsidies.

“After spending months claiming that affordability was a ‘hoax’ and creating a health care crisis for Michiganders, Donald Trump is now coming to Detroit — a city he hates — to tout his billionaire-first agenda while working families suffer,” Hertel said.

It won’t be easy for Big Tech companies to win the hearts and minds of Americans who are angry about massive artificial intelligence data centers sprouting up in their neighborhoods, straining electricity grids and drawing on local reservoirs.

Microsoft is trying anyway. The software giant’s president, Brad Smith, is meeting with federal lawmakers Tuesday, pushing for the industry, not taxpayers, to pay the full costs of the vast network of computing warehouses needed to power AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s own Copilot. Trump gave the effort a nod with a Truth Social post saying he doesn’t want Americans to “pick up the tab” for data centers and pay higher utility costs.

“Local communities naturally want to see new jobs but not at the expense of higher electricity prices or the diversion of their water,” Smith said in an interview with The Associated Press.

▶ Read more from the AP’s interview with Microsoft’s president

Central bankers from around the world said Tuesday they “stand in full solidarity” with U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, after Trump dramatically escalated his confrontation with the Fed with the Justice Department investigating and threatening criminal charges.

Powell “has served with integrity, focused on his mandate and an unwavering commitment to the public interest,” read the statement signed by nine national central bank heads including European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey.

They added that “the independence of central banks is a cornerstone of price, financial and economic stability in the interest of the citizens that we serve. It is therefore critical to preserve that independence, with full respect for the rule of law and democratic accountability.”

▶ Read more about the central bankers supporting Federal Reserve independence

Inflation declined a bit last month as prices for gas and used cars fell, a sign that cost pressures are slowly easing.

Consumer prices rose 0.3% in December from the prior month, the Labor Department said Tuesday, the same as in November. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 0.2%, also matching November’s figure.

Even as inflation has eased, the large price increases for necessities such as groceries, rent, and health care have left many American households feeling squeezed, turning “affordability” issues into high-profile political concerns.

▶ Read more about the latest data on U.S. consumer prices

Trump’s administration has made good on its pledge to label the Lebanese, Jordanian and Egyptian chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations, imposing sanctions on them and their members. The decision could please the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, but complicate U.S. relations with allies Qatar and Turkey.

The State Department designated the Lebanese branch a foreign terrorist organization, the most severe of the labels, which makes it a criminal offense to provide material support to the group. Treasury listed the Jordanian and Egyptian branches as specially designated global terrorists for providing support to Hamas.

Nathan Brown, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, said the sanctions may impact visa and asylum claims for people entering not just the U.S. but also Western European countries and Canada.

▶ Read more about the terrorist designations

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Tuesday over state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school athletic teams. Lower courts ruled for the transgender athletes in Idaho and West Virginia who challenged the state bans, but the conservative-dominated Supreme Court might not follow suit.

In just the past year, the justices ruled in favor of state bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youths and allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced.

The legal fight is playing out amid a broad effort by Trump to target transgender Americans, beginning on the first day of his second term and including the ouster of transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday that Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok will join Google’s generative AI engine in operating inside the Pentagon network, as part of a broader push to feed as much of the military’s data as possible into the developing technology.

“Very soon we will have the world’s leading AI models on every unclassified and classified network throughout our department,” Hegseth said in a speech at Musk’s space flight company, SpaceX, in South Texas.

The announcement comes just days after Grok — which is embedded into X, the social media network owned by Musk — drew global outcry and scrutiny for generating highly sexualized deepfake images of people without their consent.

Malaysia and Indonesia have blocked Grok, while the U.K.’s independent online safety watchdog announced an investigation Monday. Grok has limited image generation and editing to paying users.

Hegseth said Grok will go live inside the Defense Department later this month and announced that he would “make all appropriate data” from the military’s IT systems available for “AI exploitation.” He also said data from intelligence databases would be fed into AI systems.

▶ Read more about Grok’s new role in the Defense Department

Trump has arrived at a delicate moment as he weighs whether to order a U.S. military response against the Iranian government as it continues a violent crackdown on protests.

He has repeatedly threatened Tehran with military action if his administration found the Islamic Republic was using deadly force against antigovernment protesters. It’s a red line that Trump has said he believes Iran is “starting to cross” and has left him and his national security team weighing “very strong options.”

But the U.S. military — which Trump has warned Tehran is “locked and loaded” — appears, at least for the moment, to have been placed on standby mode as Trump ponders next steps, saying that Iranian officials want to have talks with the White House.

Trump announced Monday on social media that he would slap 25% tariffs on countries doing business with Tehran “effective immediately” — his first action aimed at penalizing Iran for the protest crackdown, and his latest example of using tariffs as a tool to force friends and foes on the global stage to bend to his will.

▶ Read more about Trump and Iran

The BBC plans to ask a court to throw out U.S. President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the British broadcaster, court papers show.

Trump filed a lawsuit in December over the way the BBC edited a speech he gave on Jan. 6, 2021. The claim, filed in a Florida federal court, seeks $5 billion in damages for defamation and $5 billion for unfair trade practices.

The broadcaster has apologized to Trump over the edit of the Jan. 6 speech. But the publicly funded BBC rejects claims it defamed him. The furor triggered the resignations of the BBC’s top executive and its head of news.

Papers filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Miami say the BBC will file a motion to dismiss the case on March 17 on the basis that the court lacks jurisdiction and Trump failed to state a claim.

The broadcaster’s lawyers will argue that the BBC did not create, produce or broadcast the documentary in Florida and that Trump’s claim the documentary was available in the U.S. on streaming service BritBox is not true.

▶ Read more about the lawsuit

Trump will travel to Michigan on Tuesday to promote his efforts to boost U.S. manufacturing, trying to counter fears about a weakening job market and worries that still-rising prices are taking a toll on Americans’ pocketbooks.

The day trip will include a tour of a Ford factory in Dearborn that makes F-150 pickups, the bestselling domestic vehicle in the U.S. The Republican president is also set to address the Detroit Economic Club at the MotorCity Casino.

November’s off-year elections showed a shift away from Republicans as public concerns about kitchen table issues persist. In their wake, the White House said Trump would put a greater emphasis on talking directly to the public about his economic policies after doing relatively few events around the country earlier in his term.

Trump’s Michigan swing follows economy-focused speeches he gave last month in Pennsylvania — where his gripes about immigrants arriving to the U.S. from “filthy” countries got more attention than his pledges to fight inflation — and North Carolina, where he insisted his tariffs have spurred the economy, despite residents noting the squeeze of higher prices.

▶ Read more about Trump’s trip to Michigan

FILE - Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, right, and President Donald Trump look over a document of cost figures during a visit to the Federal Reserve, July 24, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

A visitor stops to look at a photograph of President Donald Trump and a short plaque next to it are on display at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery's "American Presidents" exhibit on Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026 in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)