President Donald Trump plans to announce in Saudi Arabia next week that the United States will now refer to the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf or the Gulf of Arabia, according to two U.S. officials. This weekend's meeting between
U.S. and Chinese delegations in Switzerland will be their first major talks since Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese imports. Trump said only 21 hostages held by Hamas are believed to be still alive. He spoke as Israel approved plans to seize the Gaza Strip and to stay in the Palestinian territory for an unspecified amount of time.
And a newly declassified intelligence assessment confirms that American spy agencies found no coordination between Tren de Aragua and the Venezuelan government, undercutting Trump's justification for invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan immigrants.
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Steve Witkoff is in New York on Wednesday to provide the unofficial briefing, according to a U.S. and a U.N. diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose private diplomatic meetings.
For more than two months, Israel has blocked any food, water, shelter or medication from being trucked into the Palestinian territory, where the U.N. says the vast majority of the population is reliant on humanitarian aid to survive. Israel alleges that Hamas was diverting supplies.
The U.S. is supporting a proposal for a new independent foundation to facilitate aid deliveries within the confines set by Israel, but it would not be an Israeli project, according to a person involved in the planning, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a plan not yet made public.
It’s unclear if Witkoff will be discussing this foundation in his briefing. The Security Council, with the exception of the U.S., has criticized Israel’s blockade.
— By Farnoush Amiri and Matthew Lee
Rep. Derrick Van Orden canceled a planned tele-town hall on Wednesday and will be missing votes in the House due to a “credible threat made against his wife, children, and grandchildren,” his office said.
The threat was delivered in a letter to his Washington office and has been reported to the authorities, his office said, blaming “increasingly radical and violent rhetoric fueled by far-left Democrats who encourage hatred rather than healthy discourse.”
The second-term, swing-district congressman called on both Democrats and Republicans to “fully condemn it when they see it.”
Trump's Education Department has frozen the last of the U.S. relief money meant to help schools recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The vast majority of the $189 billion in aid approved by Congress has been spent, but some districts received extensions on deadlines to spend the money, and some were using it for things like after-school tutoring.
On March 28, Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent a letter to schools saying she had moved the deadline up to that day. Several states and the District of Columbia sued in response, leading to the court order.
Pam Bondi is meeting privately at the Justice Department Wednesday with 10 families whose relatives were killed by people who were awaiting execution until President Joe Biden commuted their sentences to life in prison.
“They need closure,” Bondi told reporters at the White House. “And they do know that going forward, the Trump administration is seeking the death penalty again on future criminal defendants and keeping our streets safe.”
Bondi has lifted a moratorium on federal capital punishment and sharply criticized the Democratic president's decision to commute the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row.
The vice president spoke Wednesday at a meeting held in Washington by the Munich Security Conference, which also hosted a February summit in Germany where Vance ruffled feathers by declaring that free speech is “in retreat” across the continent.
Vance said Wednesday that his comments were not meant to imply “Europe bad, America good,” but that both Europe and the United States under Biden had gotten “a bit off track” when it comes to protecting free speech.
He said the administration’s next goals for brokering an end to the Russia-Ukraine war is to get both sides to start directly negotiating a long-term settlement.
Lawmakers in about a dozen states have advanced roughly 40 measures this year that would make it harder for citizen initiatives to get on ballots. Many already have been signed into law. The measures limit who can circulate petitions, add content requirements and in some cases raise thresholds needed for voter approval.
Republican lawmakers are making these moves in states where voters have been able to decide on initiatives proposed by progressive groups.
"This is not a bill to restrict. It is a bill to protect — to make sure that our constitutional system is one of integrity, and that it's free of fraud," said state Sen. Jennifer Bradley of Florida, where the new initiative requirements already have been challenged in court.
But Dane Waters, chair of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California, sees direct democracy on the retreat in many states. Lawmakers often perceive the initiative process as “an assault on their power and authority, and they want to limit it,” Waters said.
The theme park — Disney’s 7th — will be built on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, the company said Wednesday.
Trump has promised a series of business deals with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates during his trip to the region next week.
Disney posted solid quarterly profits and revenue from its theme parks and streaming service on Wednesday, boosting its annual profit expectations. But it's not immune from Trump's trade war, including his threat of a 100% tariff on films made outside the U.S., and Trump's Federal Communications Commission said it's scrutinizing the company's diversity practices.
Marco Rubio described it as a rescue operation of five members of Venezuela’s political opposition who had sheltered inside the Argentine diplomatic compound in Caracas for more than a year to avoid arrest.
“Following a precise operation, all hostages are now safely on U.S. soil,” Rubio said on X Tuesday night.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government had no immediate comment.
The group included the campaign manager and communications director of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who called it an “impeccable and epic operation for the Freedom of five heroes of Venezuela.”
The upcoming trade talks between the U.S. and China have been initiated by Washington, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Wednesday in Beijing.
“China’s position of firmly opposing the arbitrary imposition of tariffs by the U.S. has not changed,” said spokesperson Lin Jian. And while Beijing is open to dialogue, he repeated that any talks “must be based on equality, respect and mutual benefit.”
“Any form of pressure or coercion against China will not work,” Lin said. “China will firmly safeguard its legitimate interests and uphold international fairness and justice.”
The Trump administration removed the board’s vice-chairman, Alvin Brown, whose term ends in 2026. The White House didn’t say why and Brown has not publicly commented.
The NTSB is currently investigating nearly 1,250 active U.S. cases and supports more than 160 foreign investigations, according to NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy's congressional testimony, including the deadly midair collision between a passenger jet and Army helicopter that killed 67 people in January.
Jeff Guzzetti, a former NTSB and FAA accident investigator, said he has never seen an administration remove a member of the board.
By Tuesday evening, Brown’s photo and biography had been removed from NTSB’s website.
Futures for the S&P 500, Nasdaq composite and Dow Jones Industrial Average rose slightly before the bell Wednesday as the Federal Reserve wraps up a two-day policy meeting. The Fed will almost certainly leave interest rates unchanged despite Trump's pleas for a rate cut as he pursues a worldwide trade war.
Chair Jerome Powell and other Fed officials have signaled that they want to see how the duties — including 145% on all imports from China — impact consumer prices.
Uncertainty has made U.S. households more pessimistic, fueling a surge in imports ahead of potentially more severe tariffs that drove the U.S. trade deficit to a record $140.5 billion and shrank the U.S. economy at a 0.3% annual pace.
Columbia University said Tuesday that it will be laying off nearly 180 staffers in response to Trump's decision to cancel $400 million in funding over the Manhattan college's handling of student protests against the war in Gaza.
Those receiving non-renewal or termination notices Tuesday represent about 20% of the employees funded in some manner by the terminated federal grants, the university said in a statement Tuesday.
“We have had to make deliberate, considered decisions about the allocation of our financial resources,” the university said. “Those decisions also impact our greatest resource, our people. We understand this news will be hard.”
University spokesperson Jessica Murphy declined to say whether more layoffs were expected, but said Columbia is taking a range of steps to create financial flexibility, including maintaining current salary levels and offering voluntary retirement incentives.
▶ Read more about the layoffs at Columbia
A newly declassified U.S. intelligence assessment confirms that analysts at American spy agencies found no coordination between Tren de Aragua and the Venezuelan government, contradicting statements the Trump administration used to justify invoking the Alien Enemies Act and deporting Venezuelan immigrants.
The relatives of Venezuelan migrants in the U.S. who were flown to a prison in El Salvador by the U.S. government who alleged they were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, protest outside of the United Nations building in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
The redacted memo from the National Intelligence Council said there was no indication that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro or other senior government officials are directing the actions of Tren de Aragua, a gang that originated in a prison in Venezuela. That is even as some mid- to low-level Venezuelan officials may have ties to the gang for financial gain, the document says.
Trump has invoked the Alien Enemies Act to speed the deportations of people his administration has labeled members of the gang. The 18th century wartime law was created to give the president the power to imprison or deport noncitizens in a time of war. It has been used three times, most recently when Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
▶ Read more about the declassified document
Trump said Tuesday that three hostages held by Hamas in Gaza have died, leaving only 21 believed to be still living.
One American, Edan Alexander, had been among the 24 hostages believed to be alive, with the bodies of several other Americans also held by Hamas after its Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel.
The president's comments came as Israel approved plans Monday to seize the Gaza Strip and to stay in the Palestinian territory for an unspecified amount of time, in a bid to recover the hostages and try to fulfill its war aims of destroying Hamas. If implemented, the move would vastly expand Israel's operations there and likely draw fierce international opposition.
▶ Read more about Trump's comments on the hostages
Top U.S. officials are set to meet with a high-level Chinese delegation this weekend in Switzerland in the first major talks between the two nations since Trump sparked a trade war with stiff tariffs on imports.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will meet with their counterparts in Geneva in the most-senior known conversations between the two countries in months, the Trump administration announced Tuesday. It comes amid growing U.S. market worry over the impact of the tariffs on the prices and supply of consumer goods.
After plans for the talks had been announced, Bessent said on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” that as the U.S. has engaged in negotiations with various trading partners, “China has been the missing piece.”
Trump had claimed previously that the U.S. and China were holding negotiations on lowering tariffs, which Beijing has denied, saying Trump must first lower his stiff tariffs.
▶ Read more about the upcoming meeting
Trump plans to announce while on his trip to Saudi Arabia next week that the United States will now refer to the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf or the Gulf of Arabia, according to two U.S. officials.
Arab nations have pushed for a change to the geographic name of the body of water off the southern coast of Iran, while Iran has maintained its historic ties to the Gulf.
The Persian Gulf has been widely known by that name since the 16th century, although usage of “Gulf of Arabia” and “Arabian Gulf” is dominant in many countries in the Middle East. The government of Iran — formerly Persia — threatened to sue Google in 2012 over the company’s decision not to label the body of water at all on its maps.
The U.S. military for years has unilaterally referred to the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf in statements and images it releases.
▶ Read more about Trump's expected announcement
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