Oman mediates indirect US-Iran talks over Tehran's nuclear program

MUSCAT, Oman (AP) — Oman mediated indirect talks Friday between Iran and the United States over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, seeking to deescalate tensions between the nations after Washington bombed Iranian nuclear sites and Tehran launched a bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.

Oman issued a public statement acknowledging the talks after Associated Press journalists watched Iranian and American officials separately visit a palace on the outskirts of Muscat to speak to the sultanate's foreign minister, Badr al-Busaidi.

It wasn’t immediately clear if that was the end of the talks for the day. However, the palace stood empty after the convoys left.

The two countries returned Friday to Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, months after rounds of meetings turned to ash following Israel’s launch of a 12-day war against Iran back in June. The U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear sites during that war, likely destroying many of the centrifuges that spun uranium to near weapons-grade purity. Israel’s attacks devastated Iran’s air defenses and targeted its ballistic missile arsenal as well.

U.S. officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio believe Iran’s theocracy is now at its weakest point since its 1979 Islamic Revolution after nationwide protests last month represented the greatest challenge to 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s rule. Khamenei’s forces responded with a crackdown that killed thousands and reportedly saw tens of thousands arrested — and spurred new military threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to target the country.

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FACT FOCUS: Trump says tariffs have created an economic miracle. The facts tell a different story

WASHINGTON (AP) — Looking back on the first year of his second term, President Donald Trump boasts that he has resurrected the American economy by imposing big import taxes on foreign products. He made his case in a recent opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, chiding the paper and critics, including mainstream economists, who predicted that tariffs would backfire, raising prices and threatening growth. “Instead,'' he wrote, “they have created an American economic miracle.”

But the proof he offers is often off-base or wrong altogether.

Here's a look at the facts around Trump's assessment of tariffs.

CLAIM: “Just over one year ago, we were a ‘DEAD’ country. Now, we are the ‘HOTTEST” country anywhere in the world!’ ’’

THE FACTS: This is a standard statement from Trump. But the U.S. economy was hardly “dead’’ when Trump returned to office last year. And in Trump's second term, it's performed strongly — after getting off to a bumpy start.

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In Minnesota, sending a child to school is an act of faith for immigrant families

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — In some ways, 10-year-old Giancarlo is one of the lucky ones. He still goes to school.

Each morning, he and his family bundle up and leave their Minneapolis apartment to wait for his bus. His little brother hefts on his backpack, even though he stopped going to day care weeks ago because his mom is too afraid to take him.

As they wait behind a wrought-iron fence, Giancarlo’s mother pulls the boys into the shadow of a tree to pray. It’s the only time she stops scanning the street for immigration agents.

“God, please protect my son when he’s not at home,” she says in Spanish. She spoke with The Associated Press on condition of partial anonymity for the family, because she fears being targeted by immigration authorities.

For many immigrant families in Minnesota, sending a child to school requires faith that federal immigration officers deployed around the state won’t detain them. Thousands of children are staying home, often for lack of door-to-door transportation — or simply trust.

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Savannah Guthrie's demand for mom's 'proof of life' is complicated in this era of AI and deepfakes

When Savannah Guthrie made a heart-wrenching plea to the kidnapper of her 84-year-old mother to send “proof of life,” she addressed the possibility of people creating deepfakes.

"We live in a world where voices and images are easily manipulated,” she said.

Before artificial intelligence tools proliferated — making it possible to realistically impersonate someone, in photos, sound and video — “proof of life” could simply mean sending a grainy image of a person who's been abducted.

That's no longer true.

“With AI these days you can make videos that appear to be very real. So we can’t just take a video and trust that that’s proof of life because of advancements in AI," Heith Janke, the FBI chief in Phoenix, said at a news conference Thursday.

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Savannah Guthrie's family renews plea to mother's kidnapper, while sheriff says they have no suspect

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie's brother on Thursday renewed the family's plea for their mother's kidnapper to contact them, hours after an Arizona sheriff said investigators don't have proof Nancy Guthrie is alive but believe “she's still out there.”

“Whoever is out there holding our mother, we want to hear from you. We haven’t heard anything directly,” Camron Guthrie said in a video posted on social media.

“We need you to reach out and we need a way to communicate with you so we can move forward,” but first the family needs to know the kidnapper has their mother, he said, echoing a statement his famous sister read the day before.

Five days into the desperate search for 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, authorities have not identified any suspects or persons of interest, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said.

Authorities think she was taken against her will from her home in Tucson over the weekend. DNA tests showed blood found on Guthrie’s front porch was a match to her, the sheriff said.

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A deputy chief of Russian military intelligence was shot and wounded in Moscow

MOSCOW (AP) — A deputy chief of Russian military intelligence was shot and wounded in Moscow on Friday in an attack that follows a series of assassinations of senior military officers that Russia has blamed on Ukraine.

Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev, 64 was shot several time by an unidentified assailant at an apartment building in Moscow's northwest and hospitalized, Investigative Committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement.

Petrenko didn’t say who could be behind the attack on Alekseyev, who has served as the first deputy head of Russia’s military intelligence since 2011. He was decorated with the Hero of Russia medal for his role in Moscow's military campaign in Syria and in June 2023 was filmed speaking to mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin when his Wagner Group seized the military headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don during his botched mutiny,

The shooting came a day after Russian, Ukrainian and U.S. negotiators wrapped up two days of talks in Abu Dhabi aimed at ending the nearly four-year conflict in Ukraine. The Russian delegation was led by the military intelligence chief, Adm. Igor Kostyukov.

President Vladimir Putin was informed about the attack, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who added that law enforcement agencies need to step up protection of senior military officers during the conflict in Ukraine.

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US strikes another alleged drug-trafficking boat in Eastern Pacific

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military said Thursday that it has carried out another deadly strike on a vessel accused of trafficking drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

U.S. Southern Command said on social media that the boat “was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.” It said the strike killed two people. A video linked to the post shows a boat moving through the water before exploding in flames.

The strike was announced just hours after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared that “some top cartel drug-traffickers” in the region "have decided to cease all narcotics operations INDEFINITELY due to recent (highly effective) kinetic strikes in the Caribbean.” However, Hegseth did not provide any details or information to back up this claim, made in a post on his personal account on social media.

Neither U.S. Southern Command nor the Pentagon would answer follow-up questions about Hegseth’s claim.

The boat attacks, which began in September 2025, have slowed in frequency since January — a month that only saw one strike after the raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. By contrast, the Pentagon struck more than dozen boats in December 2025.

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Epstein emails show he helped arrange White House visit for Woody Allen

NEW YORK (AP) — In 2015, Woody Allen and his wife, Soon-Yi Previn, went on a trip to Washington, D.C. With the help of their friend Jeffrey Epstein, they were able to tour the White House.

Allen's friendship with Epstein has been known for years, but emails in the huge trove of records released by the Justice Department in recent days illustrate that relationship in new depth.

The filmmaker, his wife and Epstein were neighbors in New York City, and the three dined together often, records show. They offered each other emotional support during periods when they were being criticized in the media. They commiserated about being accused — unfairly, they told each other — of sexual misconduct.

And in 2015, Epstein used his connections to another friend who had been in President Barack Obama's administration to help the couple get a White House tour.

“Could you show soon yi the White House,” Epstein wrote in a May 2015 email to former White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler. “I assume woody would be too politically sensitive?”

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Man whose mother was found among 189 decaying bodies tells the story

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Derrick Johnson buried his mother’s ashes beneath a golden dewdrop tree with purple blossoms at his home on Maui’s Haleakala Volcano, fulfilling her wish of a final resting place looking over her grandchildren.

Then the FBI called.

It was Feb. 4, 2024, and Johnson was teaching an eighth grade gym class.

“'Are you the son of Ellen Lopes?'” a woman asked, Johnson recalled in an interview with The Associated Press.

There had been an incident, and an FBI agent would fly out to explain, the caller said. Then she asked: “'Did you use Return to Nature for a funeral home?'”

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Chairman of prominent law firm Paul Weiss resigns after release of emails linking him to Epstein

Brad Karp, chairman of one of the country’s most prestigious law firms, has resigned from his position after the release of emails revealing his exchanges with Jeffrey Epstein, a high-profile departure in the fallout among those with ties to the late convicted sex offender.

A statement Wednesday from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison did not explicitly mention any connection Karp had with Epstein, whom the firm has said it never represented. But Karp, who will remain at the firm where he has practiced for 40 years and served as chairman since 2008, said “recent reporting has created a distraction and has placed a focus on me that is not in the best interests" of Paul Weiss.

The Department of Justice last week released the largest batch of documents so far from its Epstein investigative files in compliance with a new law intended to reveal what the government knew about the millionaire financier’s sexual abuse of young girls, as well as his interactions with rich and powerful people.

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have agreed to testify before a House committee investigating Epstein after Republicans pressed for criminal contempt of Congress charges against them. Bill Clinton, like a number of other high-powered men including President Donald Trump, had a well-documented relationship with Epstein in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Neither Trump nor Clinton has been credibly accused of wrongdoing in their interactions with the late financier.

The fallout has spread beyond the United States. A top official in Slovakia resigned after photos and emails revealed he had met with Epstein in the years after Epstein was released from jail, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer issued an apology for appointing an ambassador to Washington who had ties to Epstein.

News from © The Associated Press, 2026