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

CNN left off Air Force One for Trump’s upcoming trip, White House signals in new media restriction

The White House signaled Friday night that CNN would be left off Air Force One for President Donald Trump’s Saturday trip, the latest media restriction from the administration in an ongoing dispute with First Amendment implications.

The news organization was replaced by Real America’s Voice, a conservative network, for the president’s trip to Knoxville, Tennessee, according to White House guidance. Trump is scheduled to attend a college football game between the University of Tennessee and the University of Texas at midday Saturday.

The news came just after journalists from CNN, along with MS NOW and Politico, which Trump banned last week from the White House grounds, returned to the executive complex with TV cameras in hand after a judge handed the organizations a reprieve.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly temporarily struck down the ban in an overnight ruling early Thursday, but his decision addressed “hard passes” to the White House grounds and didn’t directly address pool duties.

The judge’s temporary order also said nothing directly about Air Force One.

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Supreme Court lets Trump administration use revamped federal voter eligibility database for now

NEW YORK (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday lifted restrictions on a controversial federal voter database before November’s elections, granting President Donald Trump a temporary win in his aggressive campaign against noncitizen voting.

The court’s three liberal-leaning justices publicly dissented from the decision.

The emergency order allows states, for now, to use the Trump administration’s revamped version of a Department of Homeland Security program, called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, in their efforts to verify the eligibility of voters on their rolls. It’s a program that has drawn scrutiny for its use of voters’ sensitive personal data and its tendency to wrongly flag some eligible voters as noncitizens.

States’ use of the SAVE program is voluntary, limiting the ruling’s impact on the midterm elections. Existing law also blocks most states from systematically purging voters from their rolls within 90 days of an election, said David Becker, an election law expert who leads the Center for Election Innovation and Research. He said DHS itself has admitted the data is not perfect.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat who has refused to participate in the SAVE program, said the ruling will have no effect in her state because it “does not force states to change the way we run our elections.”

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OpenAI says its models engaged with US government websites in new model misbehavior disclosure

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — OpenAI disclosed Friday that its artificial intelligence agents had interacted with several U.S. government websites in unexpected ways, discovered as part of an ongoing review into the company’s models’ unanticipated behavior.

The AI giant’s models accessed publicly available information on two websites operated by the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as U.S. Census Bureau data, the company revealed Friday. OpenAI did not find any use of SEC credentials, access to accounts or nonpublic information, changes to SEC data or systems, or evidence of a compromise or vulnerability, the company said.

The disclosure comes at a time of heightened global concerns about AI systems escaping human control and hacking into external websites, as well as industry calls for a slowdown on AI development, which OpenAI has said it supports.

OpenAI spokesperson Liz Bourgeois said in a statement that the lab is continuing to conduct a review of “misaligned model activity” — meaning when AI systems behave in undesired ways — and is notifying organizations when it identifies potential impacts to their systems.

OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman said on social media Friday that there is an “extensive and ongoing review related to our agents’ use of internet access during training and evaluation.”

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A month after Nepal floods, thousands are still missing and families face a long recovery

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — After spending five years working in Saudi Arabia, Narayan Prassan returned to his home in Nepal with savings, only to lose his house in the 2015 earthquake. He went abroad again, earned enough to rebuild his home and settled happily with his family.

Last month’s floods have destroyed everything once more.

With his home in a designated danger zone and no clear idea of where his family will resettle, Prassan is staying with his wife and children at a relative’s house and mulling another stint overseas.

“This flood has taken everything,” he said. “I don’t know what to do.”

A month after devastating floods swept through parts of Nepal, thousands are displaced like Prassan and rescuers continue searching for thousands others missing, including many believed trapped in six hydropower project tunnels. The disaster has left the government facing a long and costly recovery, with families confronting the loss of loved ones, homes and livelihoods.

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Where things stand after Iran’s new pitch for a deal to open the Strait of Hormuz

It’s been a busy week for Iranian diplomacy that may have come to nothing.

Iran’s president and foreign minister visited New York for the U.N. gathering of world leaders and proposed a deal with the Trump administration that would end the fighting and open the Strait of Hormuz in seven days. That’s if the U.S. ends its military blockade of Iranian ports, releases frozen Iranian assets and waives sanctions on Iranian oil sales, among other conditions — none of them new.

What’s different after past failed attempts is the speedier timeline. Iran’s pitch to President Donald Trump said a quick deal might help him in the midterm elections in November.

Trump early Saturday appeared to share the first indication of his thinking, posting a map on social media of the crucial waterway calling it the “Trump Strait.” Around the same time, Iran’s state media said President Masoud Pezeshkian was going home.

Here’s where things stand as Iran and the U.S. each try to outlast growing economic pain following seven months of war.

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Heavy rain and flooding in Bangkok disrupts traffic and prompts evacuations

BANGKOK (AP) — Incessant rain hammered several areas of Thailand ’s capital on Saturday, disrupting traffic and forcing hundreds to evacuate, as authorities declared the city a disaster area.

Thailand’s Meteorological Department warned that the deluge, which has been pouring since Thursday afternoon, would continue in most parts of the country through Sunday.

Accumulated rainfall in many areas of Bangkok since Thursday exceeded 30 centimeters (11.8 inches), officials said. Floodwaters spread across the city, particularly in the central and eastern parts, blocking roads and stopping traffic.

While not all parts of Bangkok were submerged, the city declared all of its 50 districts a flood disaster area to allow authorities to respond rapidly to the crisis.

More than 84,000 people in 21 provinces nationwide were affected by flooding as of Saturday, especially in the central region. Authorities sent emergency warning messages through the cellphones, the government said.

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Trump said he would campaign in midterm battlegrounds. He’s starting in deep red states instead

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — President Donald Trump vowed to campaign in 35 of the most competitive battleground races in the final sprint to November’s midterm elections.

Instead, he will begin October by stumping in Alabama and Oklahoma, two of the most Republican states in the nation. His events are sure to draw enthusiastic crowds of fans, but his choice of destinations is a reminder of his deep unpopularity in much of the country during a campaign season he’s sought to make all about himself.

Trump will hold rallies next week in Durant, Oklahoma, and Mobile, Alabama, where he is sure to draw crowds, but he has also raised eyebrows.

While organizers insist the rallies are in locations with media markets that span state lines and they will help bolster broader turnout, Trump’s itinerary is yet another sign of the uphill fight that his party faces. Republicans have already been pouring money into red states once considered safe as they try to shore up candidates facing an unhappy electorate that has soured on Trump and his policies.

Some Republicans have also been distancing themselves from the president in recent weeks as they try to appeal to voters beyond Trump’s “Make America Great Again” base. They have removed or downplayed references to the president on their websites and increasingly voiced opposition to his unpopular war with Iran.

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Pope encourages Catholics in deeply secular France to persevere as Paris shuts down for huge Mass

PARIS (AP) — Pope Leo XIV encouraged French Catholics on Saturday to persevere in their faith “even amid the thorns” of a secular world, rallying the faithful ahead of a huge Mass at the iconic Place de la Concorde that shut down central Paris.

Leo opened his second day in France by meeting with young converts, whose decision to join the Catholic Church has sparked optimism in the French hierarchy even amid an overall downward spiral of the practicing faithful in the once staunchly Catholic but now deeply secular country.

The church’s enduring influence in France has been visible with the throngs filling Paris avenues to see Leo’s motorcade pass by. On Friday night, some 80,000 young people filled the national stadium north of the French capital for a vigil extravaganza of fireworks and a theatrical retelling of French Catholic history.

Leo has clearly been impressed by their numbers and enthusiasm, especially at the vigil that kept the 71-year-old pope out until nearly 11 p.m. after a packed first day.

“Thank you for your courage! Thank you for your presence,” Leo told the crowd, speaking off the cuff in French. “Thank you for your faith. You are the saints of France!” he said to raucous cheers.

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Report finds many security deficiencies at Utah university where Charlie Kirk was killed

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Charlie Kirk’s political organization insisted he speak outdoors at the Utah university where he was assassinated, despite security concerns from campus officials who then failed to properly assess dangers including a potential rooftop shooter, according to a report released Friday.

An external review released by Utah Valley University found that the school failed to conduct a formal security assessment, did not create a written event action plan and deferred critical decision-making to Turning Point USA, the Kirk-led organization that scheduled his appearances on college campuses across the U.S.

A charismatic but polarizing figure, Kirk, 31, was killed on Sept. 10, 2025, by a sniper perched on a rooftop more than 400 feet (122 meters) away, authorities said. The conservative activist had been debating students before a crowd of thousands in an outdoor courtyard surrounded by tall buildings and elevated walkways on the campus in Orem, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Salt Lake City. His appearances often attracted protests, further complicating his security.

Tyler Robinson has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder in Kirk’s killing, a charge that could make him eligible for the death penalty if convicted. Prosecutors say the 23-year-old defendant wrote in a text message about Kirk: “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.” No trial date has been set.

Kirk’s killing was a watershed moment during a wave of political violence in the United States. President Donald Trump has survived multiple assassination attempts in the past three years, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was gunned down in 2024 and a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband were killed at their home in 2025.

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Far-right settlers divert West Bank spring water as Israel backs heritage site takeovers

PETZAEL, West Bank (AP) — The natural springs and ancient pools of the occupied West Bank have long provided a respite from the oppressive summer heat. They also have been a lifeline for Palestinian communities, which rely on them for tourism and irrigation for their farmland.

But for the 2.8 million Palestinians who live in the territory, those springs and the stone reservoirs they fill are increasingly out of reach as Israeli settlers — encouraged by a hard-line government facing reelection — have stepped up efforts both to seize the springs and other heritage sites.

In one case this summer, water from a natural spring to the Palestinian village of Fasayil was illegally diverted to an ancient pool nearby. Whoever siphoned the water used it to fill up that pool, declaring it a new tourist attraction named after Herod, the Roman-appointed king of Judea.

Agreements reached in the 1990s indicate the pool is located in Area C, meaning it is under full Israeli military control. Research by Dror Etkes, who runs the settlement watchdog group Kerem Navot, determined the land was privately owned.

Palestinian farmer Saad Nemer, from Fasayil, said the water being cut off has devastated his fields, adding that his family has documents that prove ownership of the land. COGAT, Israel’s military body that oversees civil issues in the West Bank, acknowledged the water was diverted “without authorization” and said it would investigate.