AP Top News at 11:03 p.m. EDT

Trump tours Texas flood sites and defends officials as questions mount about response

KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday toured the devastation from catastrophic flooding in Texas and lauded state and local officials, even amid mounting criticism that they may have failed to warn residents quickly enough that a deadly wall of water was coming their way. Trump has repeatedly promised to do away with the Federal Emergency Management Agency as part of his larger pledges to dramatically shrink the size of government, and he’s fond of decrying officials in Democrat-run states hit by past natural disasters and tragedy. But the president struck a far more somber and sympathetic tone while visiting America’s most populous Republican state — highlighting the heartbreak of what happened while effusively praising elected officials and first responders alike.

US is selling weapons to NATO allies to give to Ukraine, Trump says

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is selling weapons to its NATO allies in Europe so they can provide them to Ukraine as it struggles to fend off a recent escalation in Russia’s drone and missile attacks, President Donald Trump and his chief diplomat said. “We’re sending weapons to NATO, and NATO is paying for those weapons, 100%,” Trump said in an interview with NBC News late Thursday. “So what we’re doing is, the weapons that are going out are going to NATO, and then NATO is going to be giving those weapons (to Ukraine), and NATO is paying for those weapons.”

Trump administration has floated deporting third-party nationals to Africa. Here’s what we know

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — South Sudan has accepted eight third-country deportees from the U.S. and Rwanda says it’s in talk with the administration of President Donald Trump on a similar deal, while Nigeria says it’s rejecting pressure to do the same. Although few details are known, these initiatives in Africa mark an expansion in U.S. efforts to deport people to countries other than their own. The United States has sent hundreds of Venezuelans and others to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama but has yet to announce any major deals with governments in Africa, Asia or Europe. While proponents see such programs as a way of deterring what they describe as unmanageable levels of migration, human rights advocates have raised concerns over sending migrants to countries where they have no ties or that may have a history of rights violations.

Appeals court throws out plea deal for alleged mastermind of Sept. 11 attacks

WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided federal appeals court on Friday threw out an agreement that would have allowed accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to plead guilty in a deal sparing him the risk of execution for al-Qaida’s 2001 attacks. The decision by a panel of the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., undoes an attempt to wrap up more than two decades of military prosecution beset by legal and logistical troubles. It signals there will be no quick end to the long struggle by the U.S. military and successive administrations to bring to justice the man charged with planning one of the deadliest attacks ever on the United States.

State Department lays off over 1,300 employees under Trump administration plan

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. State Department fired more than 1,300 employees Friday in line with a dramatic reorganization plan from the Trump administration that critics say will damage America’s global leadership and efforts to counter threats abroad. The department sent layoff notices to 1,107 civil servants and 246 foreign service officers with assignments in the United States, according to a senior department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters. Notices said positions were being “abolished” and the employees would lose access to State Department headquarters in Washington and their email and shared drives by 5 p.m., according to a copy obtained by The Associated Press.

Boeing settles with a man whose family died in a 737 Max crash in Ethiopia

CHICAGO (AP) — Boeing reached a settlement Friday with a Canadian man whose wife and three children were killed in a deadly 2019 crash in Ethiopia, averting the first trial connected to a devastating event that led to a worldwide grounding of Max jets. The jury trial at Chicago’s federal court had been set to start Monday to determine damages for Paul Njoroge of Canada. His family was heading to their native Kenya in March 2019 aboard Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 when it malfunctioned and plummeted to the ground. The wreck killed all 157 people on board. Njoroge, 41, had planned to testify about how the crash affected his life.

Furor over Epstein files sparks clash between Bondi and Bongino at the Justice Department

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department and FBI are struggling to contain the fallout and appease the demands of far-right conservative personalities and influential members of President Donald Trump’s base after the administration’s decision this week to withhold records from the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation. The move, which included the acknowledgment that one particular sought-after document never existed in the first place, sparked a contentious conversation between Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino at the White House earlier this week that threatened to permanently shatter relations between the two officials and centered in part on a news story that described divisions between the FBI and the Justice Department.

Adult son convicted, sentenced to life for shooting and beheading father in Pennsylvania

A Pennsylvania man who posted a video of his father’s severed head on YouTube was convicted of murder Friday and sentenced to life without parole. Bucks County Judge Stephen A. Corr found Justin D. Mohn, 33, guilty in the January 2024 shooting death of his father at their home in the Philadelphia suburb of Levittown. After the sentencing, Bucks County District Attorney Jennifer Schorn told reporters Mohn had exhibited a “complete and utter lack of remorse,” calling it an “unimaginable, unfathomable crime.” “We are satisfied that this was the right outcome to guarantee that the community at large is safe from Justin Mohn,” Schorn said.

Flash floods once again hit Vermont, damaging homes and roads

SUTTON, Vt. (AP) — Communities in rural parts of Vermont on Friday woke up once again to damaged homes and washed-out roads due to heavy rainfall and flash flooding, making it the third consecutive summer that severe floods have inundated parts of the state. Up to 5 inches (13 centimeters) of rain fell in just a few hours on Thursday, prompting rapid flooding as local waterways began to swell, said Robert Haynes, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Burlington office. Nearly 20 homes were cut off in the small town of Sutton as a local brook quickly rose from its banks and surrounded buildings, Fire Chief Kyle Seymour said.

Son of ‘El Chapo’ pleads guilty in US drug case, promising cooperation for lighter sentence

CHICAGO (AP) — A son of notorious Mexican drug kingpin “El Chapo” pleaded guilty Friday to U.S. drug trafficking charges, becoming the first of the drug lord’s sons to enter a plea deal. Prosecutors allege Ovidio Guzman Lopez and his brother, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, ran a faction of the Sinaloa cartel. They became known locally as the “Chapitos,” or “little Chapos,” and federal authorities in 2023 described the operation as a massive effort to send “staggering” quantities of fentanyl into the U.S. As part of a plea agreement, Ovidio Guzman Lopez admitted to helping oversee the production and smuggling of large quantities of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana and fentanyl into the United States, fueling a crisis that has contributed to tens of thousands of overdose deaths annually.