AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EST

Immigration enforcement surge begins in Charlotte, North Carolina, officials confirm

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Federal officials confirmed Saturday that a surge of immigration enforcement in North Carolina’s largest city has begun, as agents were seen making arrests in multiple locations.

“Americans should be able to live without fear of violent criminal illegal aliens hurting them, their families, or their neighbors,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “We are surging DHS law enforcement to Charlotte to ensure Americans are safe and public safety threats are removed.”

Local officials including Mayor Vi Lyles criticized such actions, saying in a statement that they “are causing unnecessary fear and uncertainty.”

“We want people in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County to know we stand with all residents who simply want to go about their lives,” the statement said. It was also signed by Mecklenburg County Commissioner Mark Jerrell and Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board member Stephanie Sneed.

Crime is down in the city this year through August, compared with the same months in 2024. Homicides, rapes, robberies and motor vehicle thefts fell by more than 20%, according to AH Datalytics.

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Trump says stopping suspected drug boats doesn’t work. But the US reports record cocaine seizures

MIAMI (AP) — In justifying American military strikes on boats suspected of smuggling drugs, President Donald Trump has asserted that the longtime U.S. strategy of interdicting such vessels at sea has been a major failure.

“We’ve been doing that for 30 years,” he said last month, “and it’s been totally ineffective.”

Trump’s comments came around the same time that the U.S. Coast Guard announced it had set a record for cocaine seizures — a haul of 225 metric tons of the drug over the previous year. That milestone, however, has not dissuaded the Republican president from upending decades of U.S. counternarcotics policy.

Under Trump, the U.S. military has blown up 20 suspected drug boats, resulting in 80 deaths, in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea. Trump and other top officials have contended that such boats are being operated by narco-terrorists and cartel members with deadly drugs bound for America.

The strikes have generated international pushback from foreign leaders, human rights groups, Democrats and some Republicans who have raised concerns that the United States is engaging in extrajudicial killings that undermine its stature in the world.

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Trump, like Biden before him, finds there’s no quick fix on inflation

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s problems with fixing the high cost of living might be giving voters a feeling of déjà vu.

Just like the president who came before him, Trump is trying to sell the country on his plans to create factory jobs. The Republican wants to lower prescription drug costs, as did Democratic President Joe Biden. Both tried to shame companies for price increases.

Trump is even leaning on a message that echoes Biden’s claims in 2021 that elevated inflation is simply a “transitory” problem that will soon vanish.

“We’re going to be hitting 1.5% pretty soon,” Trump told reporters Monday. ”It’s all coming down.”

Even as Trump keeps saying an economic boom is around the corner, there are signs that he has already exhausted voters’ patience as his campaign promises to fix inflation instantly have gone unfulfilled.

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Voters in Virginia and New Jersey send a message: It’s Trump’s economy now

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. (AP) — Virginia Democrat Nicole Cole and her team spent much of their 2025 campaign for the state legislature standing in places like Weis Markets in Spotsylvania County, railing against prices that she said were too high: at least $3.79 for a dozen eggs, up to $7.99 for a pound of ground beef, $9.39 for coffee beans.

Her effort paid off when she ousted a 36-year Republican from his state House seat. She was one of 13 Virginia Democrats to flip competitive House seats and contribute to big election wins in her state and New Jersey, the only ones with governor’s races this year.

“We would greet them at the point of purchase,” Cole said. “That’s when it hurts most.”

The cost of living also may have led voters to signal that this is President Donald Trump’s economy now. Some prices have stabilized or even declined, and costs tend to be higher in New Jersey than Virginia. But economic concerns, which helped Trump return to power in 2024, appeared to weigh Republicans down in the two contests for governor in the first major election after they took control of the White House and Congress, according to the AP Voter Poll.

Democrats Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill, who won those races in Virginia and New Jersey, respectively, campaigned hard on economic issues and led a sweep for their party in both states.

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First strong winter rains soak Gaza’s makeshift shelters

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Winter’s first strong rainfall sent water cascading through parts of Gaza’s sprawling Muwasi tent camp on Saturday, as the territory struggles to cope with flooding and devastated infrastructure after two years of war.

Residents attempted to dig trenches to keep the water from flooding their tents, as intermittent rain that began on Friday dripped through tears in tarpaulins and makeshift shelters. The bursts soaked families’ scant belongings. Strong winds can also topple tents and hamper attempts to gather scarce food and supplies.

Two weeks ago, Bassil Naggar bought a new tent on the black market for the equivalent of about $712, because the summer sun had worn his old tent thin. Still, rainwater was leaking through.

“I spent all (Friday) pushing water out of my tent,” Naggar said, adding that his neighbors’ tents and belongings were wrecked. “Water puddles are inches high, and there is no proper drainage.”

Barefoot children splashed in puddles as women made tea outside under dark clouds. Some people tried to shelter in destroyed buildings, even those at risk of collapse, with gaping holes covered by pieces of plastic.

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The unpopular and politically weak 90-year-old Palestinian leader struggles for a role in Gaza

CAIRO (AP) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas turns 90 on Saturday, still holding authoritarian power in tiny pockets of the West Bank, but marginalized and weakened by Israel, deeply unpopular among Palestinians, and struggling for a say in a postwar Gaza Strip.

The world’s second-oldest serving president — after Cameroon’s 92-year-old Paul Biya — Abbas has been in office for 20 years, and for nearly the entire time has failed to hold elections. His weakness has left Palestinians leaderless, critics say, at a time when they face an existential crisis and hopes for establishing a Palestinian state, the centerpiece of Abbas’ agenda, appear dimmer than ever.

Palestinians say Israel’s campaign against Hamas that has decimated Gaza amounts to genocide, a view echoed by many international legal experts, organizations and other countries. Israel vehemently denies the accusation and has tightened its lock on the West Bank, where Jewish settlements are expanding and attacks by settlers on Palestinians are increasing. Right-wing allies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are pressing for outright annexation, a step that would doom any remaining possibility for statehood.

For now, the U.S. has bent to Israel’s refusal to allow Abbas’ Palestinian Authority to govern postwar Gaza. With no effective leader, critics fear Palestinians in the territory will be consigned to live under an international body dominated by Israel’s allies, with little voice and no real path to statehood.

Abbas “has put his head in the sand and has taken no initiative,” said Khalil Shikaki, head of the People’s Company for Polls and Survey Research, a Palestinian pollster.

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Trump pardons Jan. 6 rioter for gun offense and woman convicted of threatening to shoot FBI agents

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has issued two pardons related to the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 riot, including for a woman convicted of threatening to shoot FBI agents who were investigating a tip that she may have been at the Capitol, officials said Saturday.

In a separate case, Trump issued a second pardon for a Jan. 6 defendant who had remained behind bars despite the sweeping grant of clemency for Capitol rioters because of a separate conviction for illegally possessing firearms.

It’s the latest example of Trump’s willingness to use his constitutional authority to help supporters who were scrutinized as part of the Biden administration’s massive Jan. 6 investigation that led to charges against more than 1,500 defendants.

Suzanne Ellen Kaye was released last year after serving an 18-month sentence in her threats case. After FBI contacted her in 2021 about a tip indicating she may have been at the Capitol on Jan. 6, she posted a video on social media citing her Second Amendment right to carry a gun and she threatened to shoot agents if they came to her house. In court papers, prosecutors said her words “were part of the ubiquity of violent political rhetoric that causes serious harm to our communities.”

An email seeking comment was sent to a lawyer for Kaye on Saturday. Kaye testified at trial that she didn’t own any guns and didn’t intend to threaten the FBI, according to court papers. She told authorities she was not at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and wasn’t charged with any Capitol riot-related crimes.

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Disability rights activist and author Alice Wong dies at 51

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Alice Wong, a disability rights activist and author whose independence and writing inspired others, has died. She was 51.

Wong died of an infection Friday at a hospital in San Francisco, said Sandy Ho, a close friend who has been in touch with Wong’s family.

Ho called her friend a “luminary of the disability justice movement” who wanted a world in which people with disabilities, especially ones of marginalized demographics who were people of color, LGBTQ and immigrants, could live freely and have full autonomy over their lives and decisions.

The daughter of Hong Kong immigrants, Wong was born with muscular dystrophy. She used a powered wheelchair and an assistive breathing device.

Ho shared a statement on social media that Wong wrote before her death in which she said she never imagined her trajectory would turn out as it did, to writing, activism and more.

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Homeland Security agents surge into North Carolina’s largest city. Here’s what to know

U.S. immigration agents are targeting Charlotte, North Carolina, despite objections from local leaders, prompting activists, elected officials and community groups to monitor any sweeps and support vulnerable residents.

President Donald Trump’s administration confirmed Saturday that a surge of immigration enforcement in North Carolina’s largest city had begun. Agents were seen making arrests in multiple locations.

It is the latest step in the Trump administration’s strategy of putting immigration agents or the military on the streets of several large, Democratic-run cities. The push has caused fear and anxiety, especially among people who lack legal status to be in the country, and sparked a number of lawsuits.

Here’s what to know:

Charlotte is a racially diverse city of more than 900,000 residents, including more than 150,000 who are foreign-born, according to local officials. It is run by a Democratic mayor, though North Carolina’s two U.S. senators are Republican and Trump won the state in the last three presidential elections.

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Naturalized US citizens thought they were safe. Trump’s immigration policies are shaking that belief

NEW YORK (AP) — When he first came to the United States after escaping civil war in Sierra Leone and spending almost a decade in a refugee camp, Dauda Sesay had no idea he could become a citizen. But he was told that if he followed the rules and stayed out of trouble, after some years he could apply. As a U.S. citizen, he would have protection.

It’s what made him decide to apply: the premise — and the promise — that when he became a naturalized American citizen, it would create a bond between him and his new home. He would have rights as well as responsibilities, like voting, that, as he was making a commitment to the country, the country was making one to him.

“When I raised my hand and took the oath of allegiance, I did believe that moment the promise that I belonged,” said Sesay, 48, who first arrived in Louisiana more than 15 years ago and now works as an advocate for refugees and their integration into American society.

But in recent months, as President Donald Trump reshapes immigration and the country’s relationship with immigrants, that belief has been shaken for Sesay and other naturalized citizens. There’s now fear that the push to drastically increase deportations and shift who can claim America as home, through things like trying to end birthright citizenship, is having a ripple effect.

What they thought was the bedrock protection of naturalization now feels more like quicksand.