AP Top News at 3:31 a.m. EDT

Fuel to Air India plane was cut off moments before crash, investigation report says

NEW DELHI (AP) — Fuel control switches for the engines of an Air India flight that crashed last month were moved from the “run” to the “cutoff” position moments before impact, starving both engines of fuel, a preliminary investigation report said early Saturday. The report, issued by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, also indicated that both pilots were confused over the change to the switch setting, which caused a loss of engine thrust shortly after takeoff. The Air India flight — a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner — crashed on June 12 and killed at least 260 people, including 19 on the ground, in the northwestern city of Ahmedabad.

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.

Wyoming’s first new coal mine in decades to extract rare earths

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The developer of what would be the first new coal mine in Wyoming in decades is launching a potentially half-billion-dollar effort to extract rare earth metals from the fossil fuel that are crucial for tech products and military hardware. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, and Wyoming’s congressional delegation took part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday for Ramaco Resources, Inc.'s Brook Mine outside Ranchester in northeastern Wyoming. “Not only do we get coal here, we are going to get those rare earth elements that are going to break our dependence on China,” Wright told Fox News from the mine site Friday.

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.”

US sanctions Cuban President Díaz-Canel and other officials for human rights violations

HAVANA (AP) — The United States government announced Friday it was sanctioning Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and other top officials for human rights violations and restricting access to visas on the anniversary of the biggest protests on the island in recent decades. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on social media platform X that the State Department also would impose visa restrictions on Cuban judicial and prison officials “responsible for, or complicit in, the unjust detention and torture of the July 2021 protesters.” The protests, which were not led by an opposition group, developed July 11 and 12, 2021, drawing attention to the depths of Cuba’s economic crisis.

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.