Supreme Court will consider Trump’s executive order suspending asylum access at the southern border
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider President Donald Trump’s ban on asylum at the southern border, a pillar of the Republican president’s far-reaching crackdown on immigration.
The Trump administration is asking the justices to overturn lower court decisions that found it was illegal to block asylum applications following an executive order that called the situation at the southern border an “invasion.” The suit is the latest in a series of immigration cases before the high court.
Federal law allows people to seek asylum if they fear persecution in their home countries, no matter how they arrived in the U.S.
At the same time, it also lets the executive branch decide whether people are granted asylum. The Trump administration argues it can categorically deny asylum to migrants covered by the order and should not have to accept applications destined to be rejected.
Federal attorneys say yearslong processing times had previously contributed to a major influx of migrants at the southern border as many were released into the country while awaiting a decision.
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Bessent blames Lutnick's Commerce Department for not restricting Nvidia chip exports
WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday he was frustrated with the Commerce Department’s delay in placing restrictions on Nvidia chip exports to a company led by an alleged Chinese spy.
Bessent said on CNBC that his department, along with the departments of State and Defense and the U.S. Trade Representative, were in favor of adding Singapore-based Megaspeed International to an export control list for months but that the Commerce Department was in charge of the matter.
“Commerce has the pen, and you will have to ask them about their internal processes,” Bessent said. “My deputy has been pushing this for months.”
Bessent's comments were an unusually public rebuke of a fellow Cabinet member, in this case Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Commerce oversees U.S. government controls over exports of sensitive, high-tech goods. The comments come as Nvidia’s ties to Megaspeed are prominent in the resignation of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Huang allegedly had an affair with the CEO of Megaspeed, Alice Huang, who U.S. intelligence suspects is a Chinese spy, The New York Times has reported. China has denied allegations of spying.
Lutnick has come under increasing scrutiny because of his reportedly close relationship with Huang. The ex-Nvidia CEO is also close to President Donald Trump and recently visited the White House Sept. 29 to discuss AI safety. The Times reported Thursday that Lutnick resisted placing greater limits on the sale of Nvidia's more advanced chips to China. Chinese firms have accessed Nvidia's chips through companies like Megaspeed, which has reportedly purchased more than $4 billion worth of Nvidia's advanced semiconductors.
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Rubio says further US military action is not needed against economically weakened Iran
The U.S. military said it intercepted two Iranian attack drones headed toward Bahrain, as Iran's Revolutionary Guard claimed it struck a U.S. early warning radar system in the kingdom. Iran also said a tanker struck a naval mine while attempting to sail through the Strait of Hormuz.
Here is the latest news from the Middle East on Friday. Read our full coverage here.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that further U.S. military action against Iran is unnecessary because the economic pain the U.S. is inflicting on a weakened Islamic Republic is so great.
Rubio's comment in a speech to the Federalist Society reinforced a statement by U.S. President Donald Trump earlier in the week that the war “militarily is effectively over.”
“And right now, frankly, the economic pain that we are inflicting on that regime is so great that there’s no need for military action because we’ve weakened them so much,” Rubio said. “But I think victory is ensuring that they never have a nuclear weapon.”
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'TrumpCare' and commemorative plaques — how Democrats are pitching dealmaking with the president
WASHINGTON (AP) — Abdul El-Sayed has proposed “TrumpCare,” a golden insurance card providing universal healthcare, dangling the president's name on the ambitious Democratic plan.
James Talarico has suggested Donald Trump could become a man of history like Lyndon B. Johnson, who was seen as a master of congressional dealmaking.
And even Hakeem Jeffries, in line to become the House speaker in January, has left the door open to working with the other side of the aisle “wherever and whenever possible” to deliver for the American people.
Some Democrats who swept into power by riding voter backlash to Trump are now pitching ways to collaborate with the president, playing to his vanity and his love of making deals to propel their own agenda.
Not everyone in the party is on the same page, but the offers represent one strategy for showing that the party is serious about the hard work of legislating and acknowledging that Trump's signature is needed for new laws.
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Republicans acknowledge voters rejected them but show little appetite for breaking with Trump
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Richard Hudson wanted a triumphant return to Capitol Hill this week after steering Republicans to another majority. Instead, the North Carolina Republican is facing the reality that he and dozens of colleagues will soon clear out their offices.
“It was really people coming out to send a message,” Hudson, the chair of the House GOP's campaign arm, said in a brief interview. “They, rightly so, felt gas was too high, things were too expensive.”
“The mistake Republicans made,” he said, “is we didn't convey to them that we cared about that and cared about them.”
Back in Washington this week for the first time since the GOP’s sweeping midterm losses, Republicans were in something of a daze. Even as they acknowledged the depth of their defeat, there was little appetite for a wholesale break from President Donald Trump.
Instead, they met behind closed doors to talk about what went wrong. And they scrutinized the calendar to figure out how to push through as much of their agenda as possible before Democrats assume control of the House and the Senate in January.
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Who is Chris Van Hollen, the senator challenging Chuck Schumer to be majority leader?
Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who became an early face of Democratic resistance to President Donald Trump in the Republican's second term in the White House, has emerged as a challenger to New York Sen. Chuck Schumer as their party picks a Senate majority leader.
Van Hollen, a two-term incumbent who previously represented the state in the House and in the legislature, launched his bid Thursday, casting himself as a new face that reflects the public's desire for change after the midterm campaign delivered Democrats control of the Senate and the House.
“It’s now on us to meet this moment, and to do that we need new leadership. This is not about any one person — it’s about answering the call of the American people,” he said in a statement.
The election is set for early December and will be held behind closed doors, with voting done through secret ballot. Schumer, a five-term incumbent, has been the longtime leader of the caucus and serves as minority leader. He was majority leader from 2021 to 2025, during Democrat Joe Biden's presidency, and has projected confidence he has the votes to prevail.
Van Hollen has gotten support from a few high-profile members of the Democratic caucus. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, has backed him, saying he leads with courage and experience, as has Michigan’s incoming senator, Abdul El-Sayed. Schumer had backed El-Sayed's primary challenger, Haley Stevens, who at the end of the general election campaign backed Republican Mike Rogers.
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Pope says it's a 'joy' to be home as Peru's Chiclayo welcomes back its former shepherd
CHICLAYO, Peru (AP) — Pope Leo XIV returned Friday to his beloved former diocese of Chiclayo and said it was a “joy” to be home, as he visited some of his old stomping grounds and highlighted the social justice-minded mark he left behind.
The pontiff, known here as “Padre Robert,” celebrated his first Mass on Peruvian soil on a vast, dusty field outside Chiclayo. The Vatican estimated 1 million people had lined his motorcade route to the Mass and that 500,000 attended.
“What a joy it is to return to Chiclayo! It is a blessing for me to be with you once again,” he said. Recalling the lung cancer surgery he underwent a month ago Friday, Leo said he was recovering “with God’s help."
Chiclayo, population 700,000, is the commercial hub of Peru’s northern Pacific coast. But much of the world heard about it on the night of Leo’s election, May 8, 2025, when he gave Chiclayo a shoutout in Spanish from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica.
And on Friday, Chiclayo welcomed its former shepherd home.
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Alex Murdaugh wants murder indictments dismissed, saying agent lied to grand jury
LEXINGTON, S.C. (AP) — Attorneys for Alex Murdaugh asked a judge Friday to throw out the original murder indictments for killing his wife and son, saying the chief investigator in the case lied to the grand jury.
Murdaugh is facing a retrial on the murder charges after the South Carolina Supreme Court threw out his convictions and life sentence, ruling that a court clerk improperly influenced jurors against him during his 2023 trial.
Even if the request to dismiss the indictments is granted, it may not stop or even postpone an April retrial for the disgraced lawyer. Prosecutors can seek another set of grand jury indictments, and defense attorneys said they won’t stop them.
Judge Debra McCaslin did not immediately decide on the defense request, promising a written ruling next week. But one of her last comments at the hearing may have indicated where she is going.
“If you had to go back to the grand jury, could you have it all done and ready to go by April 5th?” she asked prosecutor Creighton Waters.
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SpaceX’s Starship soars into orbit after booster explosion prevents an unprecedented double catch
SpaceX's attempt to recover its entire Starship back at the launch pad was thwarted when the booster fell into the Gulf of Mexico and exploded Friday, but the spacecraft still soared into orbit in its boldest test yet.
Instead of returning to its Texas pad following liftoff, the first-stage booster was diverted to a point offshore. Despite the setback, the spacecraft continued on its way. It will steer toward the pad Saturday, barring further trouble. The flight could last as long as 22 hours.
It’s the first time that Starship will try to return to the pad from orbit, to be plucked in midair by mechanical arms secured to the launch tower. The loss of the booster meant Elon Musk's company missed out on a double catch.
The original goal was to retrieve every single piece of the rocket for the purpose of future recycling, something yet to be achieved anywhere in the world. Musk sees this leading to the kind of fast and consistent launch rates necessary for building moon bases and sending people to Mars.
Shortly after reaching orbit, Starship dropped off 26 of the company’s most advanced Starlink satellites. The plan is for Starship to complete 15 laps around the world at an altitude of around 170 miles (275 kilometers) before heading back to the launch site for Saturday’s grand finale.
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UK police launch sex offense investigation into children’s author and TV personality David Walliams
LONDON (AP) — British children’s author and TV personality David Walliams is under investigation for serious sex offense allegations made after news outlets reported that he used his fame to groom girls and young women for sex, London police said Friday.
The Metropolitan Police said it had received a number of allegations of past abuse following the joint investigation this week by ITV News and the Guardian newspaper.
One woman said in the reports that she was sexually assaulted by Walliams at his London home when she was 15, while others accused him of grooming them when they were teens.
Police said the allegations made in recent days are different from those reported by the news outlets. Investigators, however, will look into the news stories for evidence of other crimes.
Walliams, 55, has denied the allegations, saying he had not broken any laws and was not a sexual predator.
