JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A deadly car crash in Nigeria involving former heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua and two minibus accidents in South Africa days apart that killed at least 25 people have underlined Africa's poor road safety record.
The continent has the highest road fatality rate in the world despite having only about 3% of the world's vehicles. Here's what to know:
Road crashes and fatality rates are disproportionately high in Africa, with 26 road deaths per 100,000 people on the continent compared with a global average of around 18, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. The rate in Europe is less than 10.
More than 300,000 people a year are killed in road crashes in Africa.
A 2024 World Health Organization report said road deaths had decreased globally but increased in Africa, which is home to some 1.5 billion people. The U.N. health agency called road accidents “a serious public health concern for African countries, with hundreds of thousands of lives being lost unnecessarily.”
Africa has low car numbers comparatively because of the need for cheaper options, but that sometimes creates a packed and chaotic picture on African roads, with pedestrians, bicycles and motorbikes vying for space with cars, buses and trucks. Many countries don't have separate spaces for pedestrians or bikes.
Around 40% of road deaths in Africa are pedestrians — twice as many as the global average — and the figure is almost 50% in some African countries.
The 2024 WHO report said few countries in Africa have made progress to establish transport systems that cater to those alternative modes of transport.
Limited public transport systems give millions of Africans no choice but to travel in overloaded buses that may not be roadworthy or on other dangerous forms of transport like motorcycle taxis.
In South Africa, around 70% of commuters travel to and from work in minibus taxis, translating to more than 10 million people a day out of a population of 62 million using the minibuses. Authorities often struggle to properly regulate the minibuses and ensure the drivers are licensed and obey road laws, and to establish that their vehicles are roadworthy.
Enforcement of road laws is generally weak, while WHO said road infrastructure safety ratings are also notably low in Africa, with only a small percentage of the continent's road network meeting acceptable standards.
The December to January holiday period is a notoriously dangerous time when large numbers of people travel on strained road systems.
Authorities in South Africa, which has one of the continent's better road systems, reported this month that they had seen a welcome but small decrease in their holiday season road deaths.
But for the period Dec. 1, 2025, to Jan. 11, 2026, Africa's most advanced economy still recorded 1,427 road deaths at an average of more than 30 a day.
AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa
In this photo provided by ALS Paramedics on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, rescue personnel inspect the site of a collision involving a minibus taxi and a truck, near Durban, South Africa. (ALS Paramedics via AP Photo)
Relatives of school children who died when the minibus they were riding in collided with a truck, weep at the scene of the crash in Vanderbijlpark, South of Johannesburg, South Africa, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026. (AP Photo)
Police inspects the scene of a collision between a truck and a minibus carrying school children in Vanderbijlpark, South of Johannesburg, South Africa, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026. (AP Photo)
Senate Democrats are threatening to block legislation Thursday to fund the Department of Homeland Security and several other agencies, potentially bringing the government a step closer to a partial shutdown Friday if Republicans and the White House don’t agree to restrict President Donald Trump’s surge of immigration enforcement.
As the country reels from the killings of two protesters by federal agents in Minneapolis, irate Senate Democrats are demanding that officers take off their masks, identify themselves and obtain judicial warrants showing probable cause for arrests. If those are not met, Democrats say they are prepared to block the wide-ranging spending bill, denying Republicans the votes they need to pass it and triggering a shutdown at midnight on Friday.
Meanwhile, FBI raid in Georgia highlights Trump’s 2020 election obsession and hints at possible future actions. A federal appeals court ruled that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem acted illegally when she chose to end legal protections that gave Venezuelans permission to live and work in the U.S. And Sen. Amy Klobuchar says she's running for governor of Minnesota as a unifier who will take on Trump.
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Majority Leader John Thune opened the Senate as Republicans and Democrats eye an emerging deal to consider immigration enforcement changes and prevent a federal shutdown.
“We’re getting closer,” the GOP leader said.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said immigration changes must be included in any deal to fund the government.
“This is a moment of truth,” Schumer said.
Democrats want an end to roving patrols and a requirement that federal agents use body cameras and unmask themselves.
Schumer decried the “thugs roaming our streets” during immigration enforcement.
“Enough is enough,” he said.
Kevin Couch confirmed in an email to The Associated Press on Thursday that he resigned Wednesday, without providing an explanation. It’s the latest sign of turmoil at the iconic performing arts venue.
The Kennedy Center’s Trump-appointed president, Ric Grenell, had welcomed Couch to the role “as we expand our commonsense programming.”
Couch’s exit comes as Trump and first lady Melania Trump are expected to walk the red carpet at the Kennedy Center on Thursday for the premiere of “Melania,” a documentary she produced.
The center is navigating a wave of artist cancellations in protest of Trump ’s new leadership, which added his name to the venue. In just the past week, composer Philip Glass called off a world premiere of a symphony about Abraham Lincoln, and Grammy-winning soprano Renée Fleming withdrew from two scheduled appearances.
Homan vowed to hold ICE and CBP officers accountable for their actions but didn’t go into specifics of the Saturday shooting or indicate anything he thought they’d done wrong during the course of the operation.
“For decades, ICE and CBP have carried out their duties with integrity, professionalism and compassion. That remains the expectation under President Trump. And we will, I will, hold our agents and officers to that standard,” Homan said.
Homan also blamed “hateful rhetoric” for ratcheting up attacks on his officers who he called “American patriots.”
The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee wants to know why Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard joined an FBI search of a Georgia election office that was featured in bogus conspiracy theories over Trump’s 2020 election loss.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia said that if Gabbard believes a foreign intelligence service tried to swing the election she is obligated to inform his committee. Otherwise, “she is simply attempting to inject the non-partisan intelligence community into a domestic political stunt designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy,” Warner said at a committee hearing Thursday.
Gabbard’s office did not immediately respond to questions about Wednesday’s action, which involved the FBI executing a search warrant and taking away many boxes of ballots cast by voters. Trump’s claims of a stolen election have been repeatedly rejected by courts and state and federal officials, who found no evidence of fraud that would have altered the outcome.
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ICE has historically relied on cooperation from local and state jails and prisons with immigrants in custody who’ve committed or are accused of crimes to alert ICE so that agents can pick them up before they’re released.
Many urban areas don’t have such cooperation agreements, saying that keeping detainees beyond their release dates or otherwise working with ICE makes victims or witnesses to crimes more reluctant to support prosecutions. The Hennepin County Jail, which serves Minneapolis, and the Ramsey County jail, which serves St. Paul, don’t honor such “detainers,” but both do hand over prisoners if there is an arrest warrant signed by a judge.
ICE argues that arresting immigrants while they’re still in custody is safer and better for immigrant communities by avoiding street operations that might result in detentions of other people who are in the country illegally but haven’t committed any crimes.
Homan said he appreciates that Minnesota’s state prisons honor ICE detainers, “and we’re going to expand upon that.”
Trump and his Cabinet have a meeting set for 11 a.m. Eastern. Anyone planning on tuning in should be prepared for a long haul.
The most recent Cabinet meeting ran past the two-hour mark — long enough that the president was caught closing his eyes. While officials defended this as a sign of the president’s active listening, he recently suggested in an interview with New York Magazine that he did so because the meeting was boring. December’s still fell short of an August meeting that went more than three hours and 15 minutes.
Since returning to office, Trump has used his cabinet meetings to review his administration’s accomplishments and provide Cabinet members with an opportunity to shower him with superlatives. Past meetings have also included questions from reporters.
Mayor Frey’s office says he’ll attend the U.S. Conference of Mayors on Thursday to advocate for an end to the immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis. He’ll also meet with federal lawmakers as Senate Democrats threaten to hold up this year’s Homeland Security budget unless the Trump administration agrees to limit ICE arrests to the targets of judicial warrants.
“Minneapolis may be where we’ve seen one of the largest ICE deployments in the country, but it will not be the last if we fail to act,” Frey said in the statement. “I’m going to Washington to make the case for ending this strategy and replacing it with approaches that build trust, improve safety, and put our residents first.”
“I’m staying until the problem’s gone,” Homan said.
He said he’s made some progress while meeting with elected officials and law enforcement leaders across the city and state, seeking common ground.
More agreements are now in place between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local jails to hand over immigrants in their custody, and he said this means fewer officers will be needed in the streets, which in turn will allow the Trump administration to draw down staff.
Homan also seemed to suggest a renewed focus on what Immigration and Customs Enforcement calls “targeted operations” designed to focus their arrest efforts on apprehending immigrants who’ve committed crimes.
Homan said they would conduct “targeted strategic enforcement operations” where they would prioritize “public safety threats.”
He also called on local jails to alert immigration enforcement when they have someone in their custody who is an immigrant about to be released, saying that transferring people over to ICE while they’re still in jail is safer for the officers and means they aren’t out on the streets.
“Give us access to illegal aliens, public safety threats in the safety and security of a jail,” Homan said.
The Trump administration is looking at basing Trump’s new international Board of Peace in the Washington building that formerly housed the U.S. Institute of Peace, according to four administration officials.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the subject has been a matter of serious discussion but stressed that a final decision has not yet been made about where the board’s administrative staff will be located.
The building is the subject of litigation brought by former USIP employees and executives after the administration seized the facility last year and fired almost its entire staff. The building has since been renamed the Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace, but its name and status remains in legal limbo.
Trump unveiled the board last week in Davos, Switzerland, and it currently has 27 “founding members,” whose first task is to oversee the Gaza peace plan.
— By Matthew Lee
The judge’s temporary restraining order, which aims to prevent federal officers from arresting and detaining resettled refugees in Minnesota, responded to a lawsuit challenging a new Homeland Security operation to to reevaluate the refugee status of nearly 5,600 people.
The order calls for the immediate release of refugees detained in Minnesota and release within five days of those transferred to Texas.
Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s quick social media response: “The judicial sabotage of democracy is unending.”
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Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz warned the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that it had violated 96 court orders in 74 cases this month.
“This list should give pause to anyone — no matter his or her political beliefs — who cares about the rule of law,” he wrote. “ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”
It was Schiltz who ordered ICE’s acting director Todd Lyons to personally appear in his courtroom Friday after the agency failed to obey an order to release an Ecuadorian man from detention in Texas. The judge canceled the order after the agency freed the man, but warned ICE that future noncompliance may result in orders requiring the personal appearances of top government officials.
ICE didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
Trump’s border czar says the administration is open to a drawdown of agents in Minneapolis but only after he sees cooperation from state officials.
Trump sent Tom Homan to Minneapolis after the shooting of two U.S. citizens by federal immigration officers.
At a Thursday news conference, Homan doubled down on the need for local jails to alert Immigration and Customs Enforcement to people in their custody who ICE can remove from the country. Homan said that means that fewer agents have to actually be out on the streets looking for people.
He acknowledged that immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota haven’t been perfect but was adamant that the administration isn’t surrendering.
If there’s been a soundtrack to life in Minneapolis, it’s the shrieking whistles and honking horns of thousands of people following immigration agents across the city. They are the ever-moving shadow of the Trump administration’s Operation Metro Surge.
They are teachers, scientists and stay-at-home parents. They own small businesses and wait tables. Their network is sprawling, often anonymous and with few overall objectives beyond helping immigrants, warning of approaching agents or filming videos to show the world what is happening.
And it’s clear they’ll continue despite the White House striking a more conciliatory tone after the killing of Alex Pretti, including the transfer of Gregory Bovino, the senior Border Patrol official who was the public face of the immigration crackdown.
“I don’t think the threat that we’re under will change because they change out the local puppets,” said Andrew Fahlstrom, who helps run Defend the 612, a hub for volunteer networks.
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Sen. Susan Collins said Thursday that immigration officials have ceased their “enhanced operations” in the state after more than 100 arrests in an enforcement surge.
She made the announcement after saying she had several direct communications with Noem.
“There are currently no ongoing or planned large-scale ICE operations here,” Collins said in a statement. “I have been urging Secretary Noem and others in the Administration to get ICE to reconsider its approach to immigration enforcement in the state.”
Collins said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and border patrol officials “will continue their normal operations that have been ongoing here for many years.”
Jeff Landry, Trump’s envoy to Greenland, says in a New York Times op-ed that the framework of an agreement on Arctic security that Trump and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte agreed upon last week builds on existing defense agreements between the U.S. and Denmark.
“It would expand America’s operational freedom, support new bases and infrastructure, facilitate deployment of advanced missile-defense systems like the Golden Dome and crowd out hostile Chinese and Russian influence,” Landry writes.
U.S., Danish and Greenland officials held their first technical talks on Wednesday aimed at securing an Arctic security deal.
The talks follow Trump’s repeated calls for the U.S. to take over Greenland for security reasons.
As a continuation of Trump’s pitch to Americans on affordability and the economy under his administration, the U.S. Treasury and White House are celebrating the upcoming launch of a program they view as a key milestone: Trump Accounts.
A provision of Trump’s tax legislation, Trump Accounts are meant to give $1,000 to every newborn, so long as their parents open an account. That money is then invested in the stock market by private firms, and the child can access the money when they turn 18.
A U.S. Treasury event brought together an assortment of politicians and celebrities — from Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz to rapper Nicki Minaj and NBC’s “Shark Tank” judge Kevin O’Leary — to discuss the program and its potential impact on the economy. Backers of Trump Accounts have said they’re a way to help children from low-income households build wealth.
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Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar blamed Trump for threats to her safety on Wednesday, one day after she was accosted and squirted with liquid at an event in Minneapolis by a man who posted online in support of the Republican president.
“Every time the president of the United States has chosen to use hateful rhetoric to talk about me and the community that I represent, my death threats skyrocket,” Omar said during a press conference. Asked if she's nervous about appearing in public, she said, “Fear and intimidation doesn’t work on me.”
Tuesday's attack came during a perilous political moment in Minneapolis, where two people have been fatally shot by federal agents during the White House’s aggressive immigration crackdown. Omar, a refugee from Somalia, has long been a fixture of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.
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Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Thursday she is running for governor of Minnesota, promising to take on President Donald Trump while unifying a state that has endured a series of challenges even before the federal government’s immigration crackdown.
Klobuchar’s decision gives Democrats a high-profile candidate and proven statewide winner as their party tries to hold onto the office occupied by Gov. Tim Walz. The 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, Walz abandoned his campaign for a third term earlier this month amid criticism over the mismanagement of taxpayer funding for child care programs.
Klobuchar cited Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, federal officers killing two Minnesotans who protested, the assassination of a state legislative leader and a school shooting that killed multiple children — all within the last year. She avoided direct mention of ongoing fraud investigations into the child care programs that Trump has made a political cudgel.
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A federal appeals court ruled late Wednesday that the Trump administration acted illegally when it ended legal protections that gave hundreds of thousands of people from Venezuela permission to live and work in the United States.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that found Noem exceeded her authority when she ended temporary protected status for Venezuelans. The decision, however, will not have any immediate practical effect after the U.S. Supreme Court in October allowed Noem’s decision to take effect pending a final decision by the justices.
The 9th Circuit panel also upheld the lower court’s finding that Noem exceeded her authority when she decided to end TPS early for hundreds of thousands of people from Haiti. A federal judge in Washington is expected to rule any day now on a request to pause the termination of TPS for Haiti while a separate lawsuit challenging it proceeds. The country’s TPS designation is scheduled to end on February 3.
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Senate Democrats are threatening to block legislation that would fund the Department of Homeland Security and several other agencies, potentially bringing the government a step closer to a partial shutdown if Republicans and the White House do not agree to new restrictions on Trump’s surge of immigration enforcement.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that Democrats won’t provide needed votes until U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is “reined in and overhauled.”
“The American people support law enforcement, they support border security, they do not support ICE terrorizing our streets and killing American citizens,” Schumer said.
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Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, left, and FBI Deputy Director Andrew Bailey, enter a command vehicle as the FBI takes Fulton County 2020 Election ballots, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Union City, Ga., near Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., stands during a press conference on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
People gather during a vigil where Alex Pretti was shot and killed by federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
A protester yells at a vehicle at Bishop Whipple Federal building in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Laura Bargfeld)
Law enforcement officers prepare to make arrests after declaring an unlawful assembly during a noise demonstration outside the Graduate by Hilton Minneapolis hotel on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
President Donald Trump gestures during the launch of a program known as Trump Accounts at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
