Schumer to advance GOP funding bill, unwilling to risk government shutdown as deadline nears

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer relented Thursday rather than risk a government shutdown, announcing he's ready to start the process of considering a Republican-led government funding bill that has fiercely divided Democrats under pressure to impose limits on the Trump administration.

Schumer told Democrats privately during a spirited closed-door lunch and then made public remarks ahead of voting Friday, which will be hours before the midnight deadline to keep government running. The New York senator said as bad as the GOP bill is, a shutdown would be worse, giving President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk “carte blanche” as they tear through the government.

“Trump has taken a blowtorch to our country and wielded chaos like a weapon,” Schumer said. “For Donald Trump, a shutdown would be a gift. It would be the best distraction he could ask for from his awful agenda.”

The move by Schumer brings a potential resolution to what has been a dayslong standoff. Senate Democrats have mounted a last-ditch protest over the package, which already passed the House but without slapping any limits they were demanding on Trump and billionaire Musk's efforts to gut federal operations.

The Democrats are under intense pressure to do whatever they can to stop the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, which is taking a wrecking ball to long-established government agencies and purging thousands of federal workers from jobs.

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Two judges in mass firings cases order Trump administration to rehire probationary workers for now

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Two federal judges handed down orders requiring President Donald Trump's administration to rehire thousands, if not tens of thousands, of probationary workers let go in mass firings across multiple agencies Thursday, slowing down for now the president's dramatic downsizing of the federal government.

Both judges separately found legal problems with the way the mass terminations were carried out and ordered the employees at least temporarily brought back on the job.

The Trump administration has already appealed the first ruling. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt cast it as an attempt to encroach on the president's power to hire and fire employees. “The Trump Administration will immediately fight back against this absurd and unconstitutional order," she said in a statement.

In San Francisco, U.S. District Judge William Alsup found Thursday morning that terminations across six agencies were directed by the Office of Personnel Management and an acting director, Charles Ezell, who lacked the authority to do so.

In Baltimore, U.S. District Judge James Bredar found that the administration did not follow laws set out for large-scale layoffs, including 60 days' advance notice. Bredar, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, ordered the firings temporarily halted and the workforce returned to the status quo before the layoffs began.

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A 10% drop for stocks is scary, but isn't that rare

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market has just dropped 10% from its high set last month, hurt by worries about the economy and a global trade war.

T he fall for the S&P 500 is steep enough that Wall Street has a name for it: a “correction.” Such drops have happened regularly for more than a century, and market pros often view them as potentially healthy wipeouts of overdone euphoria, which could send stock prices too high if unchecked.

But corrections are frightening in the moment, particularly for every new generation of investors that gets into the market at a time when it seems like stocks only go up.

The S&P 500 is coming off two straight years with gains of more than 20%. Such stellar gains left the market looking too expensive to critics, who pointed to how prices rose faster than corporate profits.

Culling too-high enthusiasm among day traders is one thing. The larger fear always accompanying a correction is that it could be a warning sign of a coming "bear market," which is what Wall Street calls a drop of at least 20%.

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Trump administration asks Supreme Court to partly allow birthright citizenship restrictions

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to allow restrictions on birthright citizenship to partly take effect while legal fights play out.

In emergency applications filed at the high court on Thursday, the administration asked the justices to narrow court orders entered by district judges in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington that blocked the order President Donald Trump signed shortly after beginning his second term.

The order currently is blocked nationwide. Three federal appeals courts have rejected the administration's pleas, including one in Massachusetts on Tuesday.

The order would deny citizenship to those born after Feb. 19 whose parents are in the country illegally. It also forbids U.S. agencies from issuing any document or accepting any state document recognizing citizenship for such children.

Roughly two dozen states, as well as several individuals and groups, have sued over the executive order, which they say violates the Constitution’s 14th Amendment promise of citizenship to anyone born inside the United States.

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Trump threatens retaliatory 200% tariff on European wine after EU proposes American whiskey tax

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened a 200% tariff on European wine, Champagne and spirits if the European Union goes forward with a planned tariff on American whiskey.

The European import tax, which was unveiled in response to steel and aluminum tariffs by the U.S. administration, is expected to go into effect April 1, just ahead of separate reciprocal tariffs that Trump plans to place on the EU.

But Trump, in a morning social media post, vowed a new escalation in his trade war if the EU goes forward with the planned 50% tax on American whiskey.

“If this Tariff is not removed immediately, the U.S. will shortly place a 200% Tariff on all WINES, CHAMPAGNES, & ALCOHOLIC PRODUCTS COMING OUT OF FRANCE AND OTHER E.U. REPRESENTED COUNTRIES,” Trump wrote. “This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday that the EU trade commissioner would be having a phone call Friday with his U.S. counterpart.

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Ukraine loses a ceasefire bargaining chip as its troops cede ground in Russia

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As momentum builds for a ceasefire with Russia, Ukraine has all but lost a valuable bargaining chip.

The Ukrainian army stunned Russia in August by attacking across the border and taking control of an estimated 1,300 square kilometers (500 square miles) of land. It was a much-needed morale boost for Ukraine — but more importantly, the country's leaders believed the capture of Russian territory might help in any future peace negotiations with its enemy.

Now, after months of intense pressure from Russian forces supported by troops from North Korea, Ukraine only holds about 30% of the Russian land it had seized and its forces are in retreat after a rapid near-defeat in the city of Sudzha.

The Ukrainian army on Thursday was trying to quickly build up defensive lines near the border to prevent Russia from turning its assault on Sudzha into a launchpad for advancing into northeastern Ukraine.

Politically speaking, the retreat from large parts of Russia’s Kursk region could be a moment of reckoning for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his military advisers. The invasion of Kursk was intended to redirect Russian forces from inside Ukraine — and the land gained was supposed to help Ukraine get back at least some of the 20% of its country taken by Russia since its full-scale invasion in February 2022

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Columbia University says it expelled some students who seized building last year

NEW YORK (AP) — Columbia University has expelled or suspended some students who took over a campus building during pro-Palestinian protests last spring and temporarily revoked the diplomas of others who have since graduated, officials said Thursday.

The university said in a campus-wide email that a judicial board brought a range of sanctions against students who occupied Hamilton Hall last spring to protest the war in Gaza.

Columbia did not provide a breakdown of how many students were expelled, were suspended or had their degrees revoked, but it said the outcomes were based on an “evaluation of the severity of behaviors.”

The culmination of the monthslong investigative process comes as the university is reeling from the arrest of a well-known Palestinian campus activist, Mahmoud Khalil, by federal immigration authorities last Saturday. President Donald Trump has said the arrest would be the “first of many” such detentions.

At the same time, the Trump administration has stripped the university of more than $400 million in federal funds over what it calls a failure to combat campus antisemitism. Congressional Republicans have pointed specifically to a failure to discipline students involved in the Hamilton Hall seizure as proof of inaction by the university.

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March megastorm may bring blizzards, tornadoes, flooding and even fires across much of US

More than 100 million people in the U.S. will be in the path of an intense March storm starting Friday as the sprawling multi-day system threatens fires, blizzards, tornadoes, and flooding as it tracks eastward across the Great Plains.

Scientists said the storm's strength and potential for far-reaching impacts is notable, but its timing isn't particularly unusual. Extreme weather can pop up in spring because storms feed on big temperature differences between the warmth that’s starting to show up and the lingering chill of winter.

“If there’s a time of the year where a storm like this can deliver these coast-to-coast impacts, we are in it," said Benjamin Reppert, meteorologist at Penn State University.

The National Weather Service forecast strong winds stretching Friday from the Canadian border to the Rio Grande, with gusts up to 80 mph (130 kph), which creates a significant fire risk in Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. Meanwhile, a winter blast was expected farther north in parts of the Rockies and Northern Plains, with possible blizzard conditions in the Dakotas and Minnesota.

The central region from the Gulf Coast to Wisconsin is at risk of severe thunderstorms that could spawn tornadoes and hail. On Saturday, severe storms are forecast to move toward Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and then into Florida. Potential flooding was a concern from the Central Gulf Coast through the upper Ohio Valley.

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American Airlines plane catches fire at Denver airport gate. Passengers evacuated on slides

DENVER (AP) — An American Airlines plane caught fire after landing at Denver International Airport on Thursday, prompting slides to be deployed so passengers could evacuate quickly.

Flight 1006, which was headed from the Colorado Springs Airport to Dallas Fort Worth, diverted to Denver and landed safely around 5:15 p.m. after the crew reported engine vibrations, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.

While taxiing to the gate, an engine on the Boeing 737-800 caught fire, the FAA added.

Photos and videos posted by news outlets showed passengers standing on a plane’s wing as smoke surrounded the aircraft. The FAA said passengers exited using the slides.

American said in a statement that the flight experienced an engine-related issue after taxiing to the gate. There was no immediate clarification on exactly when the plane caught fire.

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Gene Hackman's estate asks court to block release of death investigation records

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A representative for the estate of actor Gene Hackman is seeking to block the public release of autopsy and investigative reports — especially photographs and police body-camera video — related to the recent deaths of Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa after their partially mummified bodies were discovered at their New Mexico home last month.

Authorities last week announced that Hackman died at age 95 of heart disease with complications from Alzheimer’s disease as much as a week after a rare, rodent-borne disease — hantavirus pulmonary syndrome — took the life of his 65-year-old wife.

Hackman’s pacemaker last showed signs of activity on Feb. 18, indicating an abnormal heart rhythm on the day he likely died. The couple's bodies weren't discovered until Feb. 26 when maintenance and security workers showed up at the Santa Fe home and alerted police — leaving a mystery for law enforcement and medical investigators to unravel.

Julia Peters, a representative for the estate of Hackman and Arakawa, urged a state district court in Santa Fe to seal records in the cases to protect the family's right to privacy in grief under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — emphasizing the possibly shocking nature of photographs and video in the investigation and potential for their dissemination by media.

The request, file Tuesday, also described the couple's discrete lifestyle in Santa Fe since Hackman's retirement. The state capital city is known as a refuge for celebrities, artists and authors.

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