ADVERTISEMENT

View in Browser

Policy changes, but facts endure. AP delivers accurate, fact-based journalism to keep the world informed in every administration. Support independent reporting today. Donate.

Hello, I’m Donna Edwards, filling in for Sarah Naffa.

In the news today: U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi says DEA head Terry Cole will be Washington, D.C.’s “emergency police commissioner"; U.S. President Donald Trump later today will meet face-to-face with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska; and Japan pays tribute to more than 3 million war dead 80 years after its WWII surrender. Also, a new whale species is identified from a 25-million-year-old fossil in Australia. 

Drug Enforcement Agency Administrator Terry Cole outside the White House on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

POLITICS

Bondi names DEA head as DC’s ‘emergency police commissioner,’ but capital leaders push back

The Trump administration, stepping up its crackdown on policing in the nation’s capital, on Thursday named the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration to be Washington’s “emergency police commissioner” with all the powers of the police chief — a significant move that increases national control over the city as part of the federal government’s law-enforcement takeover. Read more.

Why this matters:

• Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a directive issued Thursday evening that DEA boss Terry Cole will assume “powers and duties vested in the District of Columbia Chief of Police.” The Metropolitan Police Department “must receive approval from Commissioner Cole” before issuing any orders, Bondi said. It was not immediately clear where the move left Pamela Smith, the city’s current police chief, who works for the mayor.  
  
  

• D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb responded late Thursday that Bondi’s directive was “unlawful,” arguing that it could not be followed by the city’s police force. “Therefore, members of MPD must continue to follow your orders and not the orders of any official not appointed by the Mayor,” Schwalb wrote in a memo to Smith, setting up a potential legal clash between the heavily Democratic district and the Republican administration.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

• Profile: DEA boss Terry Cole named to take over DC police

• Federal agents and National Guard take on new tasks in Washington police takeover

• WATCH: DC residents react to increased police presence

• 126 civil rights groups request Congress investigate and intervene in Trump’s federalization of DC police

• Trump’s ‘safe and beautiful’ move against DC homeless camps looks like ugliness to those targeted

• Pam Bondi fires Justice Department employee accused of throwing sandwich at federal agent

• Supreme Court allows enforcement of Mississippi social media age verification law

• Louisiana sues Roblox alleging the popular gaming site fails to protect children

• Judge orders RFK Jr.'s health department to stop sharing Medicaid data with deportation officials

• RFK Jr. relaunches panel to investigate childhood vaccine safety

• Judge strikes down Trump administration guidance against diversity programs at schools and colleges

• Federal court orders Department of Agriculture to restore grants to farming organizations

• Judge strikes down key parts of Florida law that led to removal of books from school libraries

• California pushes left, Texas to the right, with US House control and Trump agenda in play

• Texas Democrats set plan to end nearly 2-week walkout over Republicans’ redraw of US House maps

• As Canada wildfires choke US with smoke, Republicans demand action
  

• WATCH: Prosecutor describes shooting of Minnesota lawmakers in new state charges
  

• Judge dismisses 2 counts against US Rep. Cuellar of Texas, moves bribery trial to next year
  

• Pentagon says Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth supports women’s right to vote

• Trump moves official White House portraits of Obama and the Bushes out of the public’s view

RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR

Trump and Putin to meet in Alaska for high-stakes summit on Russia-Ukraine war

U.S. President Donald Trump will meet face-to-face with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday for a high-stakes summit that could determine not only the trajectory of the war in Ukraine but also the fate of European security. Read more.

Why this matters:

• There are significant risks for Trump. By bringing Putin onto U.S. soil, the president is giving Russia’s leader the validation he desires after his ostracization following his invasion of Ukraine 3 1/2 years ago. The exclusion of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from the summit also deals a heavy blow to the West’s policy of “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” and invites the possibility that Trump could agree to a deal that Ukraine does not want.
  
  

• Any success is far from assured, especially as Russia and Ukraine remain far apart in their demands for peace. Putin has long resisted any temporary ceasefire, linking it to a halt in Western arms supplies and a freeze on Ukraine’s mobilization efforts, which were conditions rejected by Kyiv and its Western allies. 

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

• Ukrainian defenses face a challenge as Russian troops make gains ahead of the Putin-Trump summit
  
  
• Summit on Ukraine is latest chapter in Alaska’s long history — and tension — with Russia

WORLD

Japan pays tribute to more than 3 million war dead 80 years after its WWII surrender

In a national ceremony Friday in Tokyo, about 4,500 officials and bereaved families and their descendants observed a moment of silence at noon, the time when the then-emperor's surrender speech began on Aug. 15, 1945. Read more.

Why this matters:

• Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba expressed remorse over the war, which he called a mistake, but did not mention Japan’s aggression across Asia or apologize.
  
  

• Just a block away, dozens of Japanese right-wing politicians prayed at a shrine that honors convicted war criminals, among about 2.5 million war dead. Victims of Japanese aggression, especially China and the Koreas, see visits to the shrine as a lack of remorse.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

• Japan and China commemorate World War II anniversary on different dates
  
  
• Powerful AP photos show the scars of a survivor of the Nagasaki atomic bombing
  
  
• Genshitsu Sen, Japanese tea master and former Kamikaze pilot trainee, dies at 102