US and Iran have agreed to wording of a deal to end their war, Pakistan's prime minister says

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s prime minister said Friday the United States and Iran have agreed to wording of an agreement aimed at ending their war in the Middle East and that mediators were working with both sides to finalize a deal.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the U.S. and Iran have reached a “final, agreed upon text.” He said Pakistan, which has taken the lead in mediation efforts, was working with the warring countries on next steps.

“Peace has never been this close as it is now,” Sharif said in a post on X.

The apparent breakthrough in negotiations comes after Iran exchanged fire with the U.S. and Israel over three days this week, threatening to return the Middle East to full-scale war.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Friday an agreement “has never been closer” in a post on X. U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said multiple times in recent weeks the countries are on the cusp of a deal, shared Araghchi's post on his own social media.

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SpaceX stock soars in debut and makes Elon Musk the first trillionaire

NEW YORK (AP) — Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire after shares of his rocket company SpaceX soared in Wall Street's biggest initial public offering of stock.

Shares in SpaceX jumped more than 19% after opening for trading Friday, a sign that investors are looking past the billions the company is losing and instead betting that its massive investments in satellites, orbital data centers and artificial intelligence will pay off in the future.

SpaceX opened around midday at $150 a share, then rose to around $168, before finishing the day just below $161. That price gave the company a market value of $2.1 trillion, making it the sixth largest public U.S. company — larger even than its founder and CEO's other big business, the electric vehicle maker Tesla.

Between his holdings in SpaceX and Tesla, where he is also CEO, Musk is now worth an estimated $1.1 trillion, according to Forbes.

Musk says SpaceX, founded in 2002, is going public now because it needs money to fund its ambitions of putting satellites and data centers in space and eventually establishing a colony of people on Mars.

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Shooter kills 1 and injures 10 in Texas days after firing at a police officer, officials say

A man who opened fire in the West Texas city of Midland in an attack Friday morning that left one person dead and 10 injured had shot at a police officer just days earlier during a chase, authorities said.

The suspect, 45-year-old Victor Mata Villarreal, already was being sought by authorities when he began firing at police and bystanders in Midland on Friday before barricading himself in an abandoned veterinary clinic, where he was eventually found dead, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Police have provided limited details about how the shooting unfolded. Police arrived in the area after receiving reports of an active shooter, and Mata Villarreal started firing at officers, said Midland Police Chief Greg Snow. Several officers were pinned down behind their patrol cars and had to be rescued by an armored vehicle, Snow said, but no officers were shot.

Police then got everyone out of the area. “We moved to deny more targets for this active shooter,” Snow said.

A few hours after the shooting began, authorities used robot and drone footage from inside the building to confirm the shooter was dead, Midland Mayor Lori Blong. Police did not say how he died.

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Trump says US military strike killed leader of Tren de Aragua gang with help from Venezuela

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday that a “swift and lethal kinetic” U.S. strike has killed Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, whom he called “the infamous leader” of the Tren de Aragua gang.

Tren de Aragua has been labeled by the United States as a terrorist organization. Guerrero Flores was charged in a New York federal court with racketeering conspiracy and other crimes, including lending support to terrorists in crimes that stretched more than a decade, authorities announced in December.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X that the strike occurred earlier in the week on a Tren de Aragua compound in Venezuela.

U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said at the time that the gang is responsible for countless acts of violence, extortion and drug trafficking in North America, South America and Europe. Trump nominated Clayton on Thursday to be director of national intelligence.

The U.S. State Department had offered rewards of up to $5 million for information leading to Guerrero Flores’ arrest.

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AP exclusive: Doctors Without Borders report found cases of abuse and exploitation by staff in Chad

The international aid group Doctors Without Borders found a pattern of abuse and sexual exploitation by some local and foreign staff working in Chad along the Sudanese border, in some cases targeting underage girls or trading food or jobs for sex with refugees, according to a confidential internal memo obtained by The Associated Press.

The Doctors Without Borders report — completed in July and first reported Saturday by The Associated Press — found 59 allegations of abuse and said 18 staff members were dismissed and barred from future employment. In some cases, the group told AP, the allegations couldn't be verified or the perpetrators identified. The report also said some of the repeated exploitation suggested potentially organized "sexual trafficking.”

The organization said it launched the monthslong investigation in response to AP reporting that women had accused staff of sexually exploiting them in displacement sites in Chad, where hundreds of thousands fled from Sudan's devastating civil war, now in its fourth year. The report credited AP as playing “a fundamental role as an external whistleblower.”

The findings by Doctors Without Borders — one of the largest employers and biggest aid organizations in the refugee camps in eastern Chad — indicate the abuse was more widespread than previously reported.

Sexual exploitation has repeatedly surfaced during humanitarian crises despite years of efforts by aid organizations to prevent abuse.

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Workers begin removing Trump's name from the Kennedy Center, hours after a court-ordered deadline

WASHINGTON (AP) — Workers began removing President Donald Trump's name from the facade of the Kennedy Center early Saturday, hours after a court-ordered Friday deadline to remove references to Trump from the building and other aspects of the iconic performing arts venue’s operations.

Scaffolding was erected Friday around a section of the building that includes Trump’s name, but shortly after midnight, the Kennedy Center asked a judge to extend the deadline until noon Eastern Time on Saturday because of thunderstorms that had swept through the Washington area, causing a delay.

In the filing, the Kennedy Center offered assurance that the “removal work is presently ongoing” and would “conclude in the early hours of the morning.”

A few hours later, workers began covering the scaffolding with tarps before they eventually started taking down Trump's name. They packed up and left the site around 3:30 a.m., though the tarps remained, leaving it impossible to determine if all the letters had been removed.

Dozens of people spent hours Friday on the plaza in front of the Kennedy Center taking pictures and cheering occasionally as they broke into chants of “take it down.” Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex-officio board member who sued to have Trump's name removed from the building, was spotted at one point on the plaza.

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Anthropic says it has taken its latest AI models offline to comply with new export controls

WASHINGTON (AP) — AI giant Anthropic said Friday it has taken its latest artificial intelligence models, known as Fable 5 and Mythos 5, offline to comply with a directive from the Trump administration to prevent their use by foreign nationals.

The export controls mark the U.S. government’s most significant step to date to restrict access to the most advanced AI models. Anthropic released Fable widely this week. That model is a limited version of the even more advanced Mythos, to which the company has tightly limited access due to cybersecurity fears.

In a statement, Anthropic said it disagrees with the government’s handling of the matter, saying it received the directive from the U.S. government Friday afternoon and it did not specify the national security concerns. “We believe the government should have the ability to block unsafe deployments, as part of a statutory process that is transparent, fair, clear, and grounded in technical facts,” the company said. “This action does not adhere to those principles.”

Anthropic called it a “misunderstanding” and said it hopes to restore access to the models “as soon as possible.”

The Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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How Americans celebrated the bicentennial — with fireworks, a Freedom Train and Farrah

WASHINGTON (AP) — In 1976's “ Rocky,” heavyweight champion Apollo Creed arrives for the title fight dressed as George Washington, reenacting the crossing of the Delaware as models costumed as the Statue of Liberty lead the way.

After entering the ring, Apollo switches into an Uncle Sam costume. “I want YOU!” he roars as he points to Rocky Balboa, the far less flamboyant palooka he's chosen for this bicentennial bout in Philadelphia.

Then the two boxers pound the daylights out of each other.

It's as accurate a representation of the American bicentennial vibe as has ever been put on film — plenty of fireworks, but not much thought about how 200 years of independence led to this.

I was 13 years old in 1976. Kids my age — the tail end of the Baby Boom, or the vanguard of Generation X — grew up skeptical of the government. We had outlasted the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, with the occasional moment of joy — the moon landing, say — to break the gloom. The state of the union was intact, even if many Americans were still on edge.

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AP Was There: 1975 summit at French castle plants seed for future G7 club of wealthy nations

EDITOR’S NOTE: When U.S. President Gerald Ford and leaders of five other leading democracies gathered for talks at a castle outside Paris on Nov. 15, 1975, they planted the seed for what subsequently became the Group of Seven nations.

The initial six industrial powers that huddled at the Château de Rambouillet for three days of brainstorming about fixes for the global economy became the G7 the following year when Canada joined the elite club.

During and after the Cold War, the G7 became a powerful tool of influence, enabling Western allies and Japan to hammer out common positions not only on economic issues but also their foreign policy and security priorities.

The combined economic, industrial, military, and diplomatic strength of G7 nations ensures the summits they hold annually, rotating hosting duties, are always major news events.

The next G7 summit is in France next week.

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Gene Shalit, longtime 'Today' show movie critic with bushy hair and massive mustache, dies at 100

NEW YORK (AP) — Gene Shalit, a movie critic and arts reporter for the “Today” show over four decades who was known for his puffy hair, oversized handlebar mustache and affection for groan-inducing puns, has died. He was 100.

Shalit's family announced the death Friday to NBC News, saying in a statement that he “passed away peacefully today after 100 years of an amazing life.”

Shalit joined “Today” as a contributor in 1970 and became arts editor in 1973, later settling in for his segment, “Critic’s Corner.” When he left the show in 2010, he was one of the last high-profile film critics on a major network.

“What resonated above his unusual appearance was his incredible wit, his remarkable intelligence. But he didn’t pound you over the head with it. He amused you. He enlightened and amused whatever subject he was on,” Guy Ludwig, Shalit’s producer for more than 20 years, wrote in an essay at the time of Shalit's retirement.

It was no coincidence that Chicago critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel’s local “thumbs-up, thumbs-down” movie-review program, “Sneak Previews,” went national on PBS in the late 1970s and that “Today” show's ABC rival, “Good Morning America,” hired Joel Siegel to be its movie critic in 1981.

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