A deeper look at the talks between US and Russian officials as Trump suggests Ukraine is to blame

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Top U.S. and Russian officials had their most extensive high-level engagement since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine almost three years ago, meeting for four hours Tuesday before President Donald Trump suggested that Kyiv was to blame for the conflict.

Trump showed little patience for Ukraine’s objections to being excluded from the talks in Saudi Arabia. He said repeatedly that Ukraine’s leaders never should have allowed the conflict to begin, indicating Kyiv should have been willing to make concessions to Russia before it sent troops into Ukraine in 2022.

“Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you been there for three years. You should have ended it three years” ago, Trump told reporters at his Florida residence. “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”

Such comments and Trump's goal of mending ties with Moscow may come at a cost to the transatlantic alliance of the U.S. and Europe and significantly damage Washington’s standing with Ukraine as well as with other nations counting on U.S. leadership in NATO and elsewhere for their security and protection.

During former President Joe Biden's administration, the U.S. and Europe focused on isolating Russia and defending the post-World War II international order.

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Brazil’s former President Bolsonaro charged over alleged coup that included a plan to poison Lula

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil's prosecutor-general on Tuesday formally charged former President Jair Bolsonaro with attempting a coup to stay in office after his 2022 election defeat, in a plot that included a plan to poison his successor and current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and kill a Supreme Court judge.

Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet alleges that Bolsonaro and 33 others participated in a plan to remain in power. The alleged plot, he wrote, included a plan to poison Lula and shoot dead Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, a foe of the former president.

“The members of the criminal organization structured a plan at the presidential palace to attack institutions, aiming to bring down the system of the powers and the democratic order, which received the sinister name of ‘Green and Yellow Dagger,’" Gonet wrote in a 272-page indictment. “The plan was conceived and taken to the knowledge of the president, and he agreed to it.”

Bolsonaro is often seen in Brazil's yellow-and-green national soccer jersey and the colors have become associated with his political movement.

Bolsonaro's defense team said it met the accusations with “dismay and indignation," adding in a statement that the former “President has never agreed to any movement aimed at deconstructing the democratic rule of law or the institutions that underpin it.”

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Trump signs order to study how to expand IVF and calls for 'radical transparency' from government

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order meant to expand access to and reduce costs of in vitro fertilization and issued a presidential memorandum calling for “radical transparency requirements” from the government, which he suggested could reduce wasteful spending.

On the campaign trail, Trump called for universal coverage of IVF treatment after his Supreme Court nominees helped to overturn Roe v. Wade, leading to a wave of restrictions in Republican-led states, including some that have threatened access to IVF by trying to define life as beginning at conception.

Trump, who was at his Florida residence and club Mar-a-Lago, also signed another executive order as well as a presidential memorandum. The second executive order outlined the oversight functions of the Office of Management and Budget, while the memo requires the government to detail the “waste, fraud and abuse” that’s found as the Department of Government Efficiency, overseen by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, looks to cut government spending.

DOGE has often fallen short of the administration’s promises of transparency. Musk has taken questions from journalists only once since becoming Trump’s most powerful adviser, and he’s claimed it’s illegal to name people who are working for him. Sometimes DOGE staff members have demanded access to sensitive government databases with little explanation.

Trump took more than 30 minutes of questions Tuesday on a range of topics and bashed the Biden administration throughout, highlighting issues such as its handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, Venezuela policy and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

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Hamas says it will free 6 living hostages and hand over 4 bodies, accelerating Gaza releases

CAIRO (AP) — A top Hamas official says the militant group will free six living Israeli hostages on Saturday and return the bodies of four others on Thursday, a surprise acceleration in releases apparently in trade for Israel’s allowing mobile homes and construction equipment into the devastated Gaza Strip.

The six are the last living hostages set to be freed during the ceasefire’s first phase in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

The announcement by Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, in prerecorded remarks released Tuesday, said the dead would include the “Bibas family” — two young boys and their mother who for many Israelis have come to symbolize the plight of those taken captive. Israel has not confirmed their deaths, and the prime minister's office urged the public not to distribute “photos, names and rumors” after the announcement by Hamas.

"In the past few hours, we have been in turmoil,” surviving members of the Bibas family said in a statement released Tuesday by a group representing the relatives of hostages. “Until we receive definitive confirmation, our journey is not over.”

Israel has long expressed grave concern about Shiri Bibas and her sons, Kfir and Ariel, who Hamas claimed had been killed in an Israeli airstrike early in the war. Husband and father Yarden Bibas was kidnapped separately and released this month.

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A$AP Rocky dives into Rihanna's arms as not guilty verdict is read at felony assault trial

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A$AP Rocky dove into the arms of Rihanna Tuesday as a clerk read the not guilty verdict at his trial on two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm.

The Los Angeles courtroom, full of fans of the hip-hop performer and his singing superstar partner, exploded into screaming glee as Rocky leapt from the defense table into the gallery, where Rihanna sat between his mother and sister. They embraced and sobbed.

After a three-week trial, the jury deliberated for just three hours to reach the verdict that spared Rocky, whose legal name is Rakim Mayers, a prison sentence that could have run more than two decades.

"Thank y’all for saving my life," he told the jurors as they left.

Amid the chaos, it took the clerk a while to read the second not guilty verdict, though it was very unlikely the jury would split on the counts.

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Questions emerge about what may have caused Delta plane to burst into flames and flip over

TORONTO (AP) — Investigators will consider the weather conditions, as well as the possibility of human error or an aircraft malfunction as they try to determine why a Delta Air Lines jet burst into flames and flipped upside down as it tried to land in Toronto, aviation experts said Tuesday.

Witnesses and video from the scene Monday afternoon shows the plane landing so hard that its right wing is sheared off. It bursts into flames before sliding down the runway and flipping over. Miraculously, all 80 people on board the flight from Minneapolis to Toronto’s Pearson International Airport survived.

“It appears from the video that the plane landed so hard that the right main gear collapsed. The tail and right wing began skidding causing the plane to roll over to the right,” Ella Atkins, the head of Virginia Tech’s aerospace and ocean engineering department and a pilot. “During the rollover, the right wing and tail sheared off, and a fire ignited, likely due to skidding and fuel leakage at least from a right wing tank.”

All but two of the 21 people injured on the fligh t have been released from hospitals, the airport CEO said Tuesday.

”How grateful we are there was no loss of life or life threatening injuries," Deborah Flint, CEO of Greater Toronto Airports Authority, said during a news conference. “The crew heroically led passengers to safety.”

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Federal judge won't immediately block Elon Musk or DOGE from federal data or worker layoffs

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge refused Tuesday to immediately block billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing government data systems or participating in worker layoffs.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan found that there are legitimate questions about Musk's authority but said there isn't enough evidence of grave legal harm to justify a temporary restraining order.

The decision came in a lawsuit filed by 14 Democratic states challenging DOGE’s authority to access sensitive government data. The attorneys general argued that Musk is wielding the kind of power that the Constitution says can be held only by those elected or confirmed by the Senate.

The Trump administration has maintained that layoffs are coming from agency heads and asserted that despite his public cheering of the effort, Musk isn't running DOGE's day-to-day operations himself.

DOGE has tapped into computer systems across multiple agencies with the blessing of President Donald Trump, digging into budgets and searching for what he calls waste, fraud and abuse, even as a growing number of lawsuits allege DOGE is violating the law.

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Arctic air sweeping south over Plains shatters record temperatures in North Dakota

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — More than 95 million people are facing gripping cold Tuesday as a polar vortex sends temperatures plunging to record levels, closing schools, bursting pipes and forcing communities to set up more temporary shelters for the homeless.

“Some of the coldest temperatures of the entire winter season right now across the central United States,” said Andrew Orrison, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

The harsh cold descended on the nation’s midsection Monday on the heels of weekend storms that pummeled the Eastern U.S. killing at least 17 people. Some areas in the Midwest have wind chills as cold as -50 to -60 degrees, Orrison said.

It is so dangerous that hundreds of public school districts canceled classes or switched to online learning Tuesday in Oklahoma, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Kansas and Missouri. And in Kansas City, Kansas, dozens of tents were set up in one building to house the homeless.

The biggest batch of record-setting cold temperatures are likely to hit early Thursday and Friday, Orrison said. But North Dakota already felt more like the North Pole on Tuesday as Bismarck hit minus 39, breaking the record of minus 37 (minus 38.3 C) set in 1910 for the same date.

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The pope has pneumonia in both lungs but remains in good spirits, the Vatican says

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has developed pneumonia in both lungs, the Vatican said Tuesday, after new tests showed a further complication in the condition of the 88-year-old pontiff that raised concerns about his ability to fight off the infection.

The Vatican said Francis’ respiratory infection also involves asthmatic bronchitis, which requires the use of cortisone antibiotic treatment. “Laboratory tests, chest X-ray, and the Holy Father’s clinical condition continue to present a complex picture,” the Vatican said.

Nevertheless the pope, who had the upper lobe of his right lung removed as a young man, is in good spirits and is grateful for the prayers for his recovery, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a late update.

Francis was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital in a “fair” condition on Friday after a weeklong bout of bronchitis worsened. On Monday, medical personnel determined that he was suffering from a polymicrobial respiratory tract infection, meaning a mix of viruses, bacteria and possibly other organisms had colonized in his respiratory tract.

“The follow-up chest CT scan which the Holy Father underwent this afternoon ... demonstrated the onset of bilateral pneumonia, which required additional drug therapy,” Bruni said.

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Kennedy says panel will examine childhood vaccine schedule after promising not to change it

WASHINGTON (AP) — To earn the vote he needed to become the nation's top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made a special promise to a U.S. senator: He would not change the nation's current vaccination schedule.

But on Tuesday, speaking for the first time to thousands of U.S. Health and Human Services agency employees, he vowed to investigate the childhood vaccine schedule that prevents measles, polio and other dangerous diseases.

“Nothing is going to be off limits,” Kennedy said, adding that pesticides, food additives, microplastics, antidepressants and the electromagnetic waves emitted by cellphones and microwaves also would be studied.

Kennedy's remarks, which circulated on social media, were delivered during a welcome ceremony for the new health secretary at the agency's headquarters in Washington as a measles outbreak among mostly unvaccinated people raged in West Texas. The event was held after a weekend of mass firings of thousands of HHS employees. More dismissals are expected.

In his comments Tuesday, Kennedy promised that a new “Make America Healthy Again” commission would investigate vaccines, pesticides and antidepressants to see if they have contributed to a rise in chronic illnesses such as diabetes and obesity that have plagued the American public. The commission was formed last week in an executive order by Donald Trump immediately after Kennedy was sworn in as the president’s new health secretary.

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