By MIKE PESOLI and MICHELLE L. PRICE

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday despite jockeying from his fellow Republicans, various world leaders and — most vocally — himself.

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Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it was honoring Machado “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”

Machado, however, said she wanted to dedicate the win to Trump, along with the people of her country, as she praised the president for support of her cause.

The White House responded bitterly to the news of the award Friday, with communications director Steven Cheung saying members of “the Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace” because they didn’t recognize Trump, especially after the Gaza ceasefire deal his administration helped strike this week.

“He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will,” Cheung wrote on social media.

The White House did not comment on Machado’s recognition, but Trump on social media shared Machado’s post praising him.

Her opposition to President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela aligns with the Trump administration’s own stance on Venezuela, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously praised her as “the personification of resilience, tenacity, and patriotism.”

Trump, who has long coveted the prestigious prize, has been outspoken about his desire for the honor during both of his presidential terms, particularly lately as he takes credit for ending conflicts around the world. The Republican president had expressed doubts that the Nobel committee would ever grant him the award.

“They’ll have to do what they do. Whatever they do is fine. I know this: I didn’t do it for that. I did it because I saved a lot of lives,” Trump said Thursday.

Although Trump received nominations for the prize, many of them occurred after the Feb. 1 deadline for the 2025 award, which fell just a week and a half into his second term. His name was, however, put forward in December by Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney of New York, her office said in a statement, for his brokering of the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states in 2020.

A long history of lobbying for the prize

Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the committee has seen various campaigns in its long history of awarding the peace prize.

FILE – Activists carry signs during a protest against President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of policing of the District of Columbia, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

“We receive thousands and thousands of letters every year of people wanting to say what for them leads to peace,” he said. “This committee sits in a room filled with the portraits of all laureates, and that room is filled with both courage and integrity. So we base only our decision on the work and the will of Alfred Nobel.”

The peace prize, first awarded in 1901, was created partly to encourage ongoing peace efforts. Alfred Nobel stipulated in his will that the prize should go to someone “who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Three sitting U.S. presidents have won the Nobel Peace Prize: Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, Woodrow Wilson in 1919 and Barack Obama in 2009. Jimmy Carter won the prize in 2002, a full two decades after leaving office. Former Vice President Al Gore received the prize in 2007.

Obama, a Democrat who was a focus of Trump’s attacks well before the Republican was elected, won the prize early in his tenure as president.

“They gave it to Obama for doing absolutely nothing but destroying our country,” Trump said Thursday.

Wars in Gaza and elsewhere

As one of his reasons for deserving the award, Trump often says he has ended seven wars, though some of the conflicts the president claims to have resolved were merely tensions and his role in easing them is disputed.

But while there is hope for the end to Israel and Hamas’ war, with Israel saying a ceasefire agreement with Hamas came into effect Friday, much remains uncertain about the aspects of the broader plan, including whether and how Hamas will disarm and who will govern Gaza. And little progress seems to have been made in the Russia-Ukraine war, a conflict Trump claimed during the 2024 campaign that he could end in one day.

As Trump pushes for peaceful resolutions to conflicts abroad, the country he governs remains deeply divided and politically fraught. Trump has kicked off what he hopes to be the largest deportation program in American history to remove immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. He is using the levers of government, including the Justice Department, to go after his perceived political enemies. He has sent the military into U.S. cities over local opposition to stop crime and crack down on immigration enforcement.

He withdrew the United States from the landmark Paris climate agreement, dealing a blow to worldwide efforts to combat global warming. He touched off global trade wars with his on-again, off-again tariffs, which he wields as a threat to bend other countries and companies to his will. He asserted presidential war powers by declaring cartels to be unlawful combatants and launching lethal strikes on boats in the Caribbean that he alleged were carrying drugs.

The full list of people nominated is secret, but anyone who submits a nomination is free to talk about it. Trump’s detractors say supporters, foreign leaders and others are submitting Trump’s name for nomination for the prize — and announcing it publicly — not because he deserves it but because they see it as a way to manipulate him and stay in his good graces.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who this summer said he was nominating Trump for the prize, on Friday reposted Cheung’s response with the comment: “The Nobel Committee talks about peace. President @realDonaldTrump makes it happen.”

“The facts speak for themselves,” Netanyahu’s office said on X. “President #Trump deserves it.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who sent troops to Ukraine in 2022 and has sought to show alignment with Trump, told reporters in Taijikistan on Friday that it’s not up to him to judge whether Trump should have received the prize, but he praised the ceasefire deal for Gaza.

He also criticized the Nobel Committee’s prior decisions, saying it has in the past awarded the prize to those who have done little to advance global peace.

Putin’s remarks nearly echoed the comments Trump made about Obama, and the U.S. leader responded to his Russian counterpart’s praise by posting on social media: “Thank you to President Putin!”

Others who formally submitted a nomination for Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize — but after this year’s deadline — include Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Pakistan’s government, all citing his work in helping end conflicts in their regions.

Rubio, who has played a starring role in Trump’s peacemaking efforts this year, was among a group of U.S. officials who nominated Machado for the Nobel Peace Prize, according to a nominating letter released Friday by one of the other nominators, U.S. Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez, a Florida Republican.

Associated Press writers Chris Megerian in Washington, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.

By CHAN HO-HIM

HONG KONG (AP) — China has hit U.S.-owned vessels docking in the country with tit-for-tat port fees, in response to the American government’s planned port fees on Chinese ships, expanding a string of retaliatory measures before trade talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

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Vessels owned or operated by American companies or individuals, and ships built in the U.S. or flying the American flag, would be subjected to a 400 yuan ($56) per net ton fee per voyage if they dock in China, China’s Ministry of Transport said on Friday.

The fees would be applied on the same ship for a maximum of five voyages each year, and would rise every year until 2028, when it would hike to 1,120 yuan ($157) per net ton, the ministry said. They would take effect on Oct. 14, the same day when the United States is due to start imposing port fees on Chinese vessels.

China’s Ministry of Transport said on Friday in a statement that its special fees on American vessels are “countermeasures” in response to “wrongful” U.S. practices, referring to the planned U.S. port fees on Chinese vessels.

The ministry also slammed the United States’ port fees as “discriminatory” that would “severely damage the legitimate interests of China’s shipping industry” and “seriously undermine” international economic and trade order.

China has announced a string of trade measures and restrictions before an expected meeting between Trump and Xi on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in South Korea that begins at the end of October. On Thursday, Beijing unveiled new curbs on exports of rare earths and related technologies, as well as new restrictions on the export of some lithium battery and related production equipment.

The port fees announced by Beijing on Friday mirrors many aspects of the U.S. port fees on Chinese ships docking in American ports. Under Washington’s plans, Chinese-owned or -operated ships will be charged $50 per net ton for each voyage to the U.S., which would then rise by $30 per net ton each year until 2028. Each vessel would be charged no more than five times per year.

China’s new port fee is “not just a symbolic move,” said Kun Cao, deputy chief executive at consulting firm Reddal. “It explicitly targets any ship with meaningful U.S. links — ownership, operation, flag, or build — and scales steeply with ship size.”

The “real bite is on U.S.-owned and operated vessels,” he said, adding that North America accounts for roughly 5% of the world fleet by beneficial ownership, which is still a meaningful figure although not as huge as compared to Greek, Chinese and Japanese ship owners.

However, the United States has only about 0.1% of global commercial shipbuilding market share in recent years and built fewer than 10 commercial ships last year, Reddal added.

While shipping analysts have said that the U.S. port fees on Chinese vessels would likely have limited impact on trade and freight rates as some shipping companies have been redeploying their fleets to avoid the extra charge, shipping data provider Alphaliner warned last month in a report that the U.S. port fees could still cost up to $3.2 billion next year for the world’s top 10 carriers.

This story has been corrected to show that the Alphaliner report was from last month, not this month.

By SEUNG MIN KIM, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House budget office said Friday that mass firings of federal workers have started in an attempt to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the government shutdown continues.

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Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said on the social media site X that the “RIFs have begun,” referring to reduction-in-force plans aimed at reducing the size of the federal government.

A spokesperson for the budget office, said the reductions are “substantial” but did not offer more immediate details.

The White House previewed that it would pursue the aggressive layoff tactic shortly before the government shutdown began on Oct. 1, telling all federal agencies to submit their reduction-in-force plans to the budget office for its review. It said reduction-in-force could apply for federal programs whose funding would lapse in a government shutdown, are otherwise not funded and are “not consistent with the President’s priorities.”

This goes far beyond what usually happens in a government shutdown, which is that federal workers are furloughed but restored to their jobs once the shutdown ends.

Democrats have tried to call the administration’s bluff, arguing the firings could be illegal, and seemed bolstered by the fact that the White House had yet to carry out the firings.

But Trump had said earlier this week that he would soon have more information about how many federal jobs would be eliminated.

“I’ll be able to tell you that in four or five days if this keeps going on,” he said Tuesday in the Oval Office as he met with Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister. “If this keeps going on, it’ll be substantial, and a lot of those jobs will never come back.”

Meanwhile, the halls of the Capitol were quiet on Friday, then 10th day of the shutdown, with both the House and the Senate out of Washington and both sides digging in for a protracted shutdown fight. Senate Republicans have tried repeatedly to cajole Democratic holdouts to vote for a stopgap bill to reopen the government, but Democrats have refused as they hold out for a firm commitment to extend health care benefits.

There was no sign that the top Democratic and Republican Senate leaders were even talking about a way to solve the impasse. Instead, Senate Majority Leader John Thune continued to try to peel away centrist Democrats who may be willing to cross party lines as the shutdown pain dragged on.

“It’s time for them to get a backbone,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said during a news conference.

By MELINA WALLING

Arctic seals are being pushed closer to extinction by climate change and more than half of bird species around the world are declining under pressure from deforestation and agricultural expansion, according to an annual assessment from the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

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One bright spot is green sea turtles, which have recovered substantially thanks to decades of conservation efforts, the IUCN said Friday as it released its latest Red List of Threatened Species.

While many animals are increasingly at risk of disappearing forever, the updated list shows how species can come back from the brink with dedicated effort, Rima Jabado, deputy chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, told The Associated Press.

“Hope and concern go hand in hand in this work,” Jabado wrote by email. “The same persistence that brought back the green sea turtle can be mirrored in small, everyday actions — supporting sustainable choices, backing conservation initiatives, and urging leaders to follow through on their environmental promises.”

The list is updated every year by teams of scientists assessing data on creatures around the world. The scope of the work is enormous and important for science, said Andrew Farnsworth, a visiting scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology who studies bird migration and wasn’t involved with the IUCN report.

“Every time one is done and every time there’s revision, there’s more information, and there’s more ability to answer questions” on species, some of which are still largely a mystery to researchers, Farnsworth said.

FILE – A hooded seal is released March 30, 2008, by the University of New England’s Marine Animal Rehabilitation Center in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Joel Page, File)

Sea ice loss

Because all the marine mammals native to the Arctic — seals, whales and polar bears — rely on the habitat provided by sea ice, they’re all at risk as it diminishes because of human-caused climate change, said Kit Kovacs, co-chair of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission Pinniped Specialist Group, which focuses on seals.

The three species highlighted in the latest IUCN report — harp, hooded and bearded seals — have been moved up to a designation of greater concern in the latest update, indicating they are increasingly threatened by extinction, Kovacs said.

The same melting of glaciers and sea ice destroying seal habitats also “generally will bring escalation in extreme weather events, which are already impacting people around the globe,” wrote Kovacs.

“Acting to help seals is acting to help humanity when it comes to climate change,” Kovacs said.

Global bird decline

The update also highlighted Madagascar, West Africa and Central America, where Schlegel’s asity, the black-casqued hornbill and the tail-bobbing northern nightingale-wren were all moved to near-threatened status. Those are three specific birds in trouble, but numbers are dropping for around three-fifths of birds globally.

Deforestation of tropical forests is one of a “depressing litany of threats” to birds, a list that includes agricultural expansion and intensification, competition from invasive species and climate change, said Stuart Butchart, chief scientist at BirdLife International.

“The fact that 61% of the world’s birds are declining is an alarm bell that we can’t afford to ignore,” Butchart said.

The annual U.N. climate summit will be held in November in Belem, Brazil, with much attention on the Amazon and the value of tropical forests to humans and animals. But Farnsworth, of Cornell, said he was “not so confident” that world’s leaders would take decisive action to protect imperiled bird species.

“I would like to think things like birds are nonpartisan, and you can find common ground,” he said. “But it’s not easy.”

Green sea turtles

One success story is the rebound of green sea turtles in many parts of the world’s oceans. Experts see that as a bright spot because it shows how effective human interventions, like legal protections and conservation programs, can be.

Still, “it’s important to note that conservation efforts of sea turtles can take decades before you realize the fruits of that labor,” said Justin Perrault, vice president of research at Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, Florida, who wasn’t involved with the IUCN report.

The overall success with green sea turtles should be celebrated and used as an example with other species, some of which, like hawksbills and leatherbacks, aren’t doing nearly as well, said Nicolas Pilcher, executive director of the Marine Research Foundation.

And even for green sea turtles, areas still remain where climate change and other factors like erosion are damaging habitats, Pilcher said, and some of those are poorer communities that receive less conservation funding.

But in the places where they have recovered, it’s “a great story of, actually, we can do something about this,” Pilcher said. “We can. We can make a difference.”

Follow Melina Walling on X at @MelinaWalling and on Bluesky at @melinawalling.bsky.social.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.