The top photos of the week by AP photojournalists

Jan. 23 - 29, 2026

This photo gallery, curated by photo editor Eloy Martin, highlights some of the most compelling images worldwide published by The Associated Press in the past week.

See last week’s top photos of the week

FILE - A man walks through tents sheltering displaced Palestinians amid the ruins left by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Gaza City, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi, File)

FILE - A woman from Hong Kong visits the Holocaust memorial on the eve of the International Holocaust Memorial Day in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

FILE - A vendor waits for customers at Tajrish Square in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

FILE - Seattle Seahawks defensive tackle Leonard Williams (99) celebrates after a win over the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship NFL football game Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez, File)

FILE - A woman sits for a moment by chairs with photos of Ran Gvili, the final hostage in Gaza who was killed while fighting Hamas militants during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, on the same day his remains were recovered, in a plaza known as Hostages Square, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty, File)

FILE - People look over the partial frozen Great Falls in Paterson, N.J., Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

FILE - Inmates get ready backstage to sing in the Voice of Freedom rehabilitation program event at the Djanira Dolores de Oliveira women's penitentiary in Rio de Janeiro, Friday, Jan. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo, File)

FILE - Coco Gauff of the U.S. plays a forehand return to Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic during their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake, File)

FILE - Jammu and Kashmir Special Operation Group (SOG) personnel question local residents during a house-to-house search operation as part of heightened security measures ahead of India's Republic Day in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan, File)

FILE - The sun sets behind the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky, File)

FILE - A plow clears snow in front of the U.S. Capitol, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

FILE - An acrobat performs at the Stephane Rolland Spring/Summer 2026 Haute Couture collection presented in Paris, Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, File)

FILE - Federal immigration officers deploy tear gas after a shooting Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr, File)

FILE - People wait to cross the street in Times Square during a winter storm, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa, File)

FILE - Milwaukee Bucks' Ryan Rollins, right, goes up for a shot against Philadelphia 76ers' Kelly Oubre Jr. during the second half of an NBA basketball game Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

FILE - Rock climber Alex Honnold, of the U.S., performs a free solo climb of the Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taipei, Taiwan, Sunday, Jan. 25. 2026. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)

FILE - A man takes a selfie with a street artist in a costume, in London, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026.(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, File)

FILE - A canister of pepper spray launched by Texas troopers flies towards protesters outside the South Texas Family Residential Center detention facility where Liam Ramos and his father are being detained in Dilley, Texas, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

FILE - A federal agent points a weapon at a person outside a hotel during a noise demonstration protest in response to federal immigration enforcement operations in the city Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray, File)

FILE - A Syrian bride displaced from the town of Al-Tabqa in northern Syria attends her wedding ceremony inside a classroom at a school being used as a shelter following clashes between Syrian government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in Qamishli, northeastern Syria, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats voted to block legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security and several other agencies Thursday, threatening a partial government shutdown as they continued to negotiate with Republicans and the White House on new restrictions for President Donald Trump’s surge of immigration enforcement.

As the country reels from the deaths of two protesters at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis, Republicans and the White House have indicated they are open to separating the Homeland Security funding out of a larger spending bill and continuing it at current levels for a short time while they debate Democratic demands for curbs on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

“We don’t want a shutdown,” President Donald Trump said as he began a Cabinet meeting Thursday morning.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told The Associated Press on Thursday that he had been “vehemently opposed” to breaking up the funding package, but "if it is broken up, we will have to move it as quickly as possible. We can’t have the government shut down.”

Negotiations were ongoing Thursday afternoon, ahead of the deadline at midnight Friday. Democrats have asked for a short extension — two weeks or less — and say they are prepared to block the wide-ranging spending bill if their demands aren't met, denying Republicans the votes they need to pass it and triggering a shutdown.

Republicans were pushing for a longer extension of the Homeland Security funding, but the two sides were “getting closer,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.

The rare bipartisan talks between Trump and his frequent adversary, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, came after the fatal shooting of 37 year-old Alex Pretti in Minnesota over the weekend and calls by senators in both parties for a full investigation. Schumer called it “a moment of truth.”

“The American people support law enforcement. They support border security. They do not support ICE terrorizing our streets and killing American citizens,” Schumer said.

With no final agreement yet and an uncertain path ahead, the standoff threatened to plunge the country into another shutdown, just two months after Democrats blocked a spending bill over expiring federal health care subsidies. That dispute that closed the government for 43 days as Republicans refused to negotiate.

The fall shutdown ended when a small group of moderate Democrats broke away to strike a deal with Republicans, but Democrats are more unified this time after the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal agents.

Democrats have laid out several demands, asking the White House to “end roving patrols” in cities and coordinate with local law enforcement on immigration arrests, including requiring tighter rules for warrants.

They also want an enforceable code of conduct so agents are held accountable when they violate rules. Schumer said agents should be required to have “masks off, body cameras on” and carry proper identification, as is common practice in most law enforcement agencies.

The Democratic caucus is united in those “common sense reforms” and the burden is on Republicans to accept them, Schumer said.

“Boil it all down, what we are talking about is that these lawless ICE agents should be following the same rules that your local police department does," said Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota. "There has to be accountability.”

Earlier Thursday, Tom Homan, the president's border czar, said during a press conference in Minneapolis that federal immigration officials are working on a plan to begin drawing down the number of agents in Minnesota but that it would depend on cooperation from state authorities.

As the two sides narrowed in on a spending deal, the length of a temporary extension for Homeland Security funding emerged as a sticking point. Thune said Thursday that two weeks wasn’t enough time to negotiate a final compromise.

“We’ll see where discussions are going between (Democrats) and the White House on that,” Thune said.

Even if the two sides strike a deal, negotiations down the road on a final agreement on the Homeland Security bill are likely to be difficult.

Democrats want Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown to end. “If the Trump administration resist reforms, we shut down the agency,” said Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal.

“We need to take a stand,” he said.

But Republicans are unlikely to agree to all of the Democrats' demands.

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said he is opposed to requiring immigration enforcement officers to show their faces, even as he blamed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for decisions that he said are “tarnishing” the agency’s reputation.

“You know, there’s a lot of vicious people out there, and they’ll take a picture of your face, and the next thing you know, your children or your wife or your husband are being threatened at home," Tillis said.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said some of the Democratic proposals “make sense,” such as better training and body cameras. Still, he said he was putting his Senate colleagues “on notice” that if Democrats try to make changes to the funding bill, he would insist on new language preventing local governments from resisting the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

“I think the best legislative solution for our country would be to adopt some of these reforms to ICE and Border Patrol,” Graham posted on X, but to also end so-called “sanctuary city” policies.

Across the Capitol, House Republicans have said they do not want any changes to the bill they passed last week. In a letter to Trump on Tuesday, the conservative House Freedom Caucus wrote that its members stand with the Republican president and ICE.

“The package will not come back through the House without funding for the Department of Homeland Security,” they wrote.

Speaker Johnson appeared open to the changes, albeit reluctantly, and told the AP he would want to approve the bills “as quickly as possible” once the Senate acts.

“The American people will be hanging in the balance over this,” Johnson said. "A shutdown doesn’t help anybody.”

Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Stephen Groves, Joey Cappelletti and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., speaks with reporters following a closed-door meeting with fellow Republicans on spending legislation that funds the Department of Homeland Security and a swath of other government agencies, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

With a partial government shutdown looming by week's end, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is surrounded by reporters following a closed-door Republican meeting on spending legislation that funds the Department of Homeland Security and a swath of other government agencies as the country reels from the deaths of two people at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

President Donald Trump speaks during the launch of a program known as Trump Accounts at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., waits to speak to reporters following a closed-door meeting with fellow Democrats at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)