The Latest: Hamas accepts some elements of Trump’s peace plan for Gaza, others require negotiation

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Hamas responded Friday to President Donald Trump ’s proposed plan to end the war in the Gaza Strip, agreeing to give up power and release all remaining hostages, but the group said that other elements require further consultations among Palestinians.

Trump’s peace plan has been accepted by Israel and was welcomed internationally after it was unveiled alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week.

Hamas reiterated its longstanding openness to handing power over to a politically independent Palestinian body. But it said aspects of the proposal touching on the future of the Gaza Strip and Palestinian rights should be decided on the basis of a “unanimous Palestinian stance” reached with other factions and based on international law.

The statement also made no mention of Hamas disarming, a key Israeli demand included in Trump’s proposal.

The latest:

Native Americans are bracing for damage to their health care, education, infrastructure and other services funded by Washington under treaties struck more than a century ago.

Tribal nations with casinos, oil and gas leases and other independent revenue sources expect to sustain operations for several months. But tribes more dependent on government money are already furloughing workers.

Many tribal leaders say they fear the administration could use the shutdown to lay off federal workers responsible for ensuring that trust and treaty responsibilities are honored.

The Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe in Nevada furloughed at least 25 employees starting Oct. 1 and closed its museum and cultural center; higher education department; and services for Native children in public schools.

It said the closures would be temporary but more could come if the shutdown endures.

Chairman Steven Wadsworth said the furloughs were necessary to ensure operation of critical operations such as police, EMS and the food bank.

▶ Read more about tribes and the shutdown

In what appeared to be the first major challenge to the new $100,000 fee required for H-1B visa applications, a coalition of health care providers, religious groups, university professors and others filed suit Friday, saying the plan has “thrown employers, workers and federal agencies into chaos.”

Trump signed a proclamation Sept. 19 requiring the new fee, saying the H-1B visa program “has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.”

The lawsuit says the H-1B program is a critical pathway to hiring health care workers and educators; drives innovation and economic growth; and allows employers to fill jobs in specialized fields.

Messages seeking comment were left with the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which are named as defendants along with Trump and the State Department.

▶ Read more about the lawsuit

The announcement came in a statement from the office of Prime Minister Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

It also said Israel would work “in full cooperation” with the U.S. president to end the war in accordance with its principles.

Mark Carney ’s visit comes ahead of a review of a free trade agreement, and as the U.S. president is engaging in 51st-state talk again and Canada asks to be included in his future Golden Dome missile defense program.

Carney’s office said in a statement that he will travel to Washington on Monday and meet with Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday.

Carney won Canada’s election earlier this year fueled by Trump’s annexation threats and trade war, but he has tried to improve relations ahead of a review of a free trade deal next year.

After out-of-office email messages for the department were reset Wednesday with language blaming Democrats for the government shutdown, the largest U.S. federal worker union sued Friday.

The American Federation of Government Employees’ lawsuit, filed Friday in a federal court in Washington, D.C., says the Trump administration violated workers’ First Amendment rights “by replacing their out-of-office email messages with partisan political language without the employees’ consent,” union president Everett Kelley said in a statement

The federal appeals court in Boston held that the administration cannot withhold citizenship from children born to people in the country illegally or temporarily.

A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday became the fifth federal court since June to either issue or uphold orders blocking the president’s order. which would end automatic citizenship such children.

The court concluded that plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claims that the children described in the order are entitled to birthright citizenship under the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.

The issue is expected to move quickly back to the Supreme Court, which restricted the power of lower-court judges to issue nationwide injunctions in a ruling in June.

A second appeals court ruling on Friday also found in favor of several organizations that challenged the birthright citizenship order.

▶ Read more about the cases

The president released a video Friday evening from the Oval Office in which he credited allies for working to achieve a deal between Israel and Hamas for the return of hostages taken in the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.

“This is a big day,” Trump said. “We’ll see how it all turns out. We have to get the final word down in concrete.”

Trump said he looked forward to having the hostages, including those who were killed, be returned to their families. He thanked Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and “so many others.”

The president said “we’re very close to achieving” peace in the Middle East.

He ended the video by saying, “Everybody will be treated fairly.” It was unclear what Trump meant by that.

The two organizations for decades have tracked domestic extremism and racial and religious bias. The decision to cut ties follows complaints about the groups from some conservatives and prominent Trump allies.

FBI Director Kash Patel alleged that the Southern Poverty Law Center has been turned into a “partisan smear machine” and criticized it for its “hate map” documenting alleged anti-government and hate groups. A statement earlier in the week from Patel said the FBI would end ties with the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish advocacy organization that fights antisemitism.

The announcements amount to a dramatic rethinking of longstanding FBI partnerships with prominent civil rights groups at a time when Patel is moving rapidly to reshape the bureau. The organizations have long provided research on hate crime and domestic extremism, law enforcement training and other services, but have also been criticized by some conservatives for what they say is an unfair maligning of their viewpoints.

▶ Read more about the FBI, the SPLC and the ADL, including what those two groups have to say

The president isn’t letting the government shutdown get in the way of a trip to Norfolk, Virginia, to salute the Navy as it celebrates 250 years.

“I believe, ‘THE SHOW MUST GO ON!’” Trump posted on his social media site, Truth Social. “This will be the largest Celebration in the History of the Navy. Thousands of our brave Active Duty Servicemembers and Military Families will be in attendance, and I look forward to this special day with all of them.”

In the post the president again blamed Democratic leaders for the shutdown and said by doing so they were trying “to destroy this wonderful celebration of the U.S. Navy’s Birthday.”

Trump said he would be joined at the event by his wife, Melania, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of the Navy John Phelan.

Hung Cao is tasked with tackling “the issues that affect the daily lives of Sailors and Marines,” Navy Secretary John Phelan said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Cao, a retired Navy captain and former Republican congressional candidate, will handle quality-of-service issues, recruiting, suicide prevention and other aspects of personnel policy. Not included are some of the biggest topics facing the service, such as a shipbuilding crisis and developing policy around drone warfare.

Cao briefly rose to national prominence when he challenged Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine for his Senate seat last year.

While debating Kaine, Cao said the Navy needed “alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat them and ask for seconds. Those are young men and women that are going to win wars.”

The offers are a new incentive in the administration’s efforts to persuade people to self-deport.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not say how much migrants would get or when the offer would take effect, but The Associated Press obtained an email to migrant shelters saying children 14 years of age and older would get $2,500 each. Children were given 24 hours to respond.

The notice to shelters from the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s Administration for Families and Children did not indicate any consequences for declining the offer.

ICE said in a statement that it would initially be for 17-year-olds.

“Any payment to support a return home would be provided after an immigration judge grants the request and the individual arrives in their country of origin,” ICE said. “Access to financial support when returning home would assist should they choose that option.”

The president gave that directive after Hamas said it had accepted some elements of his plan to end the nearly two-year war and return all remaining hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

“I believe they are ready for a lasting PEACE,” Trump said via social media. “Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly! Right now, it’s far too dangerous to do that. We are already in discussions on details to be worked out.”

Hamas said Friday that it accepts elements of Trump’s plan including giving up power and releasing all remaining hostages, but that others require further consultations among Palestinians.

The statement came hours after Trump said Hamas must agree to the deal by Sunday evening, threatening an even greater military onslaught. There was no immediate response from Israel, which was largely shut down for the Jewish Sabbath.

Shutdown disruptions have reached the gridiron, as some high school football teams on Army posts have had to postpone games.

Two schools in Kentucky, at Fort Knox and Fort Campbell, rescheduled games meant to be played Friday night. In fact all extracurricular activities have been paused, though classes remain in session.

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell attempted to intervene, writing to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to ask that athletics and extracurriculars at the schools be designated as activities allowed to proceed despite the shutdown.

Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, said the shutdown is causing severe pain in the sector across dozens of states.

“Over 300 Department of Energy project awards have been canceled, and major transportation projects are now also threatened in major hubs like New York and Illinois,” he said in a statement. “These are not headlines or talking points; these targeted actions attack the jobs of blue-collar workers and create deeper construction industry market instability in both red and blue states.”

“Real jobs and real paychecks are in jeopardy from these devastating blows to American workers and their families.”

McGarvey highlighted two projects in particular, the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub and California’s ARCHES Hub, which he said would have created more than 135,000 construction jobs.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said that Republicans have “wasted a week” after the Senate rejected for the fourth time on Friday two bills that would open up the government.

“Republicans thought they could scare us,” Schumer said. “It ain’t working.”

The government shut down at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday after the Senate was not able to pass legislation to keep it open. Democrats are demanding an extension in health care subsidies, among other asks, in exchange for their votes for a House-passed bill that would keep the government open until Nov. 21.

Republicans say they will not negotiate on the “clean” bill, which they argue should be non-controversial.

The Senate has also repeatedly rejected a Democratic bill that would extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire at the end of the year and reverse Republican cuts to Medicaid.

Schumer, D-N.Y., has blamed Republicans for the shutdown. “Republicans hold the House, the Senate and the White House,” he said. “They’re in charge.”

The Supreme Court on Friday allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to strip legal protections from more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants.

The justices issued an emergency order, which will last as long as the court case continues, putting on hold a lower-court ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco that found the administration had wrongly ended temporary protected status for the Venezuelans.

Trump’s Republican administration has moved to withdraw various protections that have allowed immigrants to remain in the United States and work legally, including ending TPS for a total of 600,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitians who were granted protection under President Joe Biden, a Democrat. TPS is granted in 18-month increments.

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Sen. Jim Risch said he was meeting with the president at the White House before the strikes on the boat in the Caribbean was announced.

The Republican from Idaho said Trump had authority to go after the cartels without further authorization from Congress under his powers as the commander in chief.

Risch said, “What could be a bigger defense of this country than keeping out this poison that’s killing thousands of Americans every year?”

But GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has consistently criticized the strikes, said only Congress, not the president, has the authority to wage war.

“Blowing them up without knowing who’s on the boat is a terrible policy, and it should end,” he told AP.

“If they want to declare war, come to Congress and say they want to declare war,” he said. “But you can’t just say it yourself and say, Oh, well, we sent them on note and now we’re at war with unnamed people who we won’t even identify before we kill.”

Hamas said it was willing to release hostages according to the plan’s “formula,” likely referring to the release of Palestinian prisoners. It also reiterated its longstanding openness to handing power over to a politically independent Palestinian body.

But it said aspects of the proposal touching on the future of the Gaza Strip and Palestinian rights should be decided on the basis of a “unanimous Palestinian stance” reached with other factions and based on international law.

The statement also made no mention of Hamas disarming, a key Israeli demand included in Trump’s proposal.

Hamas said Friday that it has accepted some elements of U.S. President Trump’s plan to end the war in the Gaza Strip, including giving up power and releasing all remaining hostages, but that others require further consultations among Palestinians.

The statement came hours after Trump said that Hamas must agree to the deal by Sunday evening, threatening an even greater military onslaught nearly two years into the war sparked by the Oct. 7 attack into Israel. It was unclear how the U.S. and Israel would respond to partial acceptance.

Trump appears keen to deliver on pledges to end the war and return dozens of hostages ahead of the second anniversary of the attack on Tuesday. His peace plan has been accepted by Israel and welcomed internationally, but key mediators Egypt and Qatar have said some elements need further negotiation, without elaborating.