By AAMER MADHANI, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will hold talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House on Thursday as the Republican leader has indicated that the U.S. government’s hold on sales of advanced fighter jets to Ankara may soon be lifted.

During Trump’s first term, the United States kicked out Turkey, a NATO ally, from its flagship F-35 fighter jet program after it purchased an air defense system from Russia. U.S. officials worried that Turkey’s use of Russia’s S-400 surface-to-air missile system could be used to gather data on the capabilities of the F-35 and that the information could end up in Russian hands.

But Trump last week gave Turkey hope that a resolution to the matter is near as he announced plans for Erdogan’s visit.

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“We are working on many Trade and Military Deals with the President, including the large scale purchase of Boeing aircraft, a major F-16 Deal, and a continuation of the F-35 talks, which we expect to conclude positively,” Trump said in a social media post.

The visit will be Erdogan’s first trip to the White House since 2019. The two leaders forged what Trump has described as a “very good relationship” during his first White House go-around despite the U.S.-Turkey relationship often being complicated.

U.S. officials have cited concerns about Turkey’s human rights record under Erdogan and the country’s ties with Russia. Tensions between Turkey and Israel, another important American ally, over Gaza and Syria have at times made relations difficult with Turkey.

Erdogan has made clear he’s eager to see the hold on F-35s lifted.

“I don’t think it’s very becoming of strategic partnership, and I don’t think it’s the right way to go,” Erdogan said in an interview this week on Fox News Channel’s “Special Report with Bret Baier.”

Turkish officials say they have already made a $1.4 billion payment for the jets.

Past reluctance to engage with Turkey

President Joe Biden’s administration kept Erdogan, who has served as Turkey’s president since 2014 and was prime minister for more than a decade before that, at an arm’s length during the Democrat’s four years in office.

The reluctance to engage deeply was borne out of Turkey’s record of democratic backsliding as well as Ankara’s close ties to Moscow.

Opposition parties and human rights organizations have accused Erdogan of undermining democracy and curbing freedom of expression during his more than two decades in power. International observers say that baseless investigations and prosecutions of human rights activists, journalists, opposition politicians and others remain a persistent problem in Turkey.

But Trump sees Erdogan as a critical partner and credible intermediary in his effort to find ends to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. The Trump administration is also largely in sync with Turkey’s approach to Syria as both nations piece together their posture toward the once isolated country after the fall of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad last December.

Trump and European leaders have followed Erdogan in embracing Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who once commanded a rebel group that was designated a foreign terrorist organization.

Trump’s chief diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, met with al-Sharaa Monday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

Erdogan sees a key role for Turkey

Erdogan has sought to position his country as a point of stability in a tumultuous moment. He believes Turkey can play an essential role for European security and is able to span geopolitical divisions over Ukraine, Syria and U.S. tariffs that have sparked a global trade war.

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Turkey also believes it has emerged as a credible broker in the Black Sea region, preserving relations with both Ukraine and Russia.

Turkey is an influential actor in neighboring Syria as the rebel groups it supported during the civil war took power last December. However, the fall of Assad aggravated already tense relations between Turkey and Israel, with their conflicting interests pushing the relationship toward a possible collision course.

Trump, for his part, has urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be “reasonable” in his dealings with Ankara.

Erdogan on Tuesday took part in a group meeting hosted by Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. Trump gathered the leaders of eight Arab and Muslim countries to discuss the nearly two-year-old Gaza war.

The Turkish leader has been sharply critical of Israel’s handling of the war, which was launched after Hamas militants launched an Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel in which 1,200 were killed and 251 were taken captive. Over 65,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and about 90% of homes in the territory have been destroyed or damaged.

Erdogan in his Tuesday address at the U.N. once again laid into Israel, alleging its forces have committed genocide, an allegation rebutted by Israel and United States.

“This is not a fight against terrorism,” Erdogan said. “This is an occupation, deportation, exile, genocide and life destruction, mass destruction policy carried on by invoking the events of October the 7th.”

By PAUL WISEMAN, Associated Press Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — An uptick in consumer spending helped the U.S. economy expand at a surprising 3.8% from April through June, the government reported in a dramatic upgrade of its previous estimate of second-quarter growth.

U.S. gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — rebounded in the spring from a 0.6% first-quarter drop caused by fallout from President Donald Trump’s trade wars, the Commerce Department said Thursday. The department had previously estimated second-quarter growth at 3.3%, and forecasters had expected a repeat of that figure.

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The first-quarter GDP drop, the first retreat of the U.S. economy in three years, was mainly caused by a surge in imports — which are subtracted from GDP — as businesses hurried to bring in foreign goods before Trump could impose sweeping taxes on them. That trend reversed as expected in the second quarter: Imports fell at a 29.3% pace, boosting April-June growth by more than 5 percentage points.

Consumer spending rose at a 2.5% pace, up from 0.6% in the first quarter and well above the 1.6% the government previously estimated.

“The U.S. consumer remained a lot stronger than many thought, even in the midst of a stock market sell-off and a lot of trade uncertainty,” Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, posted on social media.

A category within the GDP data that measures the economy’s underlying strength came in stronger than previously reported as well, growing 2.9% from April-June, up from 1.9% in the first quarter and in the government’s previous estimate. This category includes consumer spending and private investment, but excludes volatile items like exports, inventories and government spending.

But private investment fell, including a 5.1% drop in residential investment. Declining business inventories took more than 3.4 percentage points off second-quarter growth.

Spending and investment by the federal government fell at a 5.3% annual pace on top of a 5.6% drop in the first quarter.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has overturned decades of U.S. policy in support of freer trade. He’s slapped double-digit taxes — tariffs — on imports from almost every country on earth and targeted specific products for tariffs, too, including steel, aluminum and autos.

Trump sees tariffs as a way to protect American industry, lure factories back to the United States and to help pay for the massive tax cuts he signed into law July 4.

But mainstream economists — whose views Trump and his advisers reject — say that his tariffs will damage the economy, raising costs and making protected U.S. companies less efficient. They note that tariffs are paid by importers in the United States, who try to pass along the cost to their customers via higher prices. Therefore, tariffs can be inflationary — though their impact on prices so far has been modest.

The unpredictable way that Trump has imposed the tariffs — announcing and suspending them, then coming up with new ones — has left businesses bewildered, contributing to a sharp deceleration in hiring.

From 2021 through 2023, the United States added an impressive 400,000 jobs a month as the economy bounded back from COVID-19 lockdowns. Since then, hiring has stalled, partly because of trade policy uncertainty and partly because of the lingering effects of 11 interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve’s inflation fighters in 2022 and 2023.

Labor Department revisions earlier this month showed that the economy created 911,000 fewer jobs than originally reported in the year that ended in March. That meant that employers added an average of fewer than 71,000 new jobs a month over that period, not the 147,000 first reported. Since March, job creation has slowed even more — to an average 53,000 a month.

On Oct. 3, the Labor Department is expected to report that employers added just 43,000 jobs in September, though unemployment likely stayed at a low 4.3%, according to forecasters surveyed by the data firm FactSet.

Seeking to bolster the job market, the Fed last week cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time since December and signaled that it expected two more cuts this year. But the surprisingly strong second-quarter GDP growth may give the central bank less reason to cut rates — despite intense pressure from Trump to do so.

Thursday’s GDP report was Commerce Department’s third and final look at second-quarter economic growth. It will release its initial estimate of July-September growth on Oct. 30.

Forecasters surveyed by the data firm FactSet currently expect the GDP growth to slow to an annual pace of just 1.5% in the third quarter.

By MATT OTT, Associated Press Business Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. jobless claim applications fell to their lowest level in two months last week as layoffs remain low despite mounting evidence of a softening labor market.

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The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the week ending Sept. 20 fell by 14,000 to 218,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet had forecast 235,000 new applications.

Though layoffs remain historically low, recent government data has raised concerns about the health of the American labor market, leading the Federal Reserve to cut its key interest rate by a quarter-point last week.

The rate cut is a sign that the central bank’s focus has shifted quickly from inflation to jobs as hiring has ground nearly to a halt in recent months. Lower interest rates can spur growth and hiring as individuals and businesses benefit from reduced borrowing costs. The catch is that it can also exacerbate inflation, which remains above the Fed’s 2% target.

Stubborn inflation could make future interest rate decisions tricky for the Fed, whose dual mandate is to support full employment in the labor market while keeping inflation at bay.

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued a massive preliminary revision of U.S. job gains for the 12 months ending in March, revealing that the labor market has not been as strong as previously thought.

The BLS’s revised figures showed that U.S. employers added 911,000 fewer jobs than originally reported in the 12 months ending in March 2025. Job gains were shown to be tapering long before President Donald Trump rolled out his far-reaching tariffs on U.S. trading partners in April.

The department issues the revisions every year, with final revisions due in February of 2026.

The updated figures came after the agency reported earlier this month that the economy generated just 22,000 jobs in August, well below the 80,000 economists were expecting.

Earlier this month, the government reported that U.S. employers advertised 7.2 million job openings at the end of July, the first time since April of 2021 that there were more unemployed Americans than job postings.

The July employment report, which showed job gains of just 73,000 and included huge downward revisions for June and May, sent financial markets spiraling and prompted Trump to fire the head of the BLS, which compiles the monthly data.

The various labor market reports have bolstered fears that Trump’s erratic economic policies, including the unpredictable taxes on imports, have created so much uncertainty that businesses are reluctant to hire.

The four-week average of claims, which softens some of the weekly volatility, declined by 2,750 to 237,500.

The total number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits for the previous week of Sept. 13 inched down by 2,000 to 1.93 million.

Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered representative of layoffs and have mostly settled in a historically low range between 200,000 and 250,000 since the U.S. began to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic nearly four years ago.

By JAMIE STENGLE and JACK BROOK, Associated Press

DALLAS (AP) — For the second time in two weeks a shooter on a rooftop inflicted death on the ground, this time at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas where a detainee was killed and two others were critically wounded by a gunman who then fatally shot himself.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that shots were fired early Wednesday “indiscriminately at the ICE building, including at a van in the sallyport,” a secure and gated entryway. The detainees were in the van. No ICE personnel were injured.

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The shooter was identified as 29-year-old Joshua Jahn by a law enforcement official who could not publicly disclose details of the investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Investigators were seeking to determine the motive.

FBI Director Kash Patel posted a photo on social media showing a bullet found at the scene with “ANTI-ICE” written on it. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered more security at ICE facilities across the U.S., according to a post by the DHS on the social platform X.

The attack was the latest high-profile targeted killing in the U.S., coming two weeks after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was killed by a shooter on the roof of a building at Utah Valley University and as heightened immigration enforcement has prompted backlash against ICE agents and fear in immigrant communities.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association called the shootings “a stark reminder that behind every immigration case number is a human being deserving of dignity, safety, and respect.”

“Whether they are individuals navigating the immigration process, public servants carrying out their duties, or professionals working within the system, all deserve to be free from violence and fear,” the group said in a statement.

‘Targeted violence’

Authorities have given few details about the shooting and did not publicly release the names of the victims or the gunman. The FBI said it was investigating the shooting as “an act of targeted violence.”

The gunman used a bolt-action rifle, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Edwin Cardona, an immigrant from Venezuela, said he was entering the ICE building with his son for an appointment around 6:20 a.m. when he heard gunshots. An agent took people who were inside to a more secure area and said there was an active shooter.

“I was afraid for my family, because my family was outside. I felt terrible, because I thought something could happen to them,” Cardona said, adding that they were later reunited.

The ICE facility is along Interstate 35 East, just southwest of Dallas Love Field, a large airport serving the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, and blocks from hotels.

Who was Joshua Jahn?

Hours after the shooting, FBI agents gathered at a suburban Dallas home that public records link to Jahn.

It sits on a tree-lined cul-de-sac in a neighborhood dotted with one- and two-story brick homes. The street was blocked by a Fairview police vehicle, and officials wearing FBI jackets could be seen in the front yard.

A spokesperson for Collin College in nearby McKinney, said via email that a Joshua Jahn studied there “at various times” between 2013 and 2018.

In late 2017, Jahn drove cross-country to work a minimum-wage job harvesting marijuana for several months, said Ryan Sanderson, owner of a legal cannabis farm in Washington state.

“He’s a young kid, a thousand miles from home, didn’t really seem to have any direction, living out of his car at such a young age,” Sanderson told the AP.

Calls for an end to political violence

Shortly after the shooting and before officials said at least one victim was a detainee, Vice President JD Vance posted on X that “the obsessive attack on law enforcement, particularly ICE, must stop.”

Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who represents Texas, continued in that direction, calling for an end to political violence.

The Catholic Legal Immigration Network, an advocacy group, said the shootings are “a heartbreaking reminder of the violence and fear that too often touch the lives of migrants and the communities where they live.”

Noem: ICE agents targeted

Noem noted a recent uptick in targeting of ICE agents.

On July 4, attackers in black, military-style clothing opened fire outside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, southwest of Dallas, federal prosecutors said. One police officer was injured. At least 11 people have been charged in connection with the attack.

Days later, a man with an assault rifle fired dozens of rounds at federal agents leaving a U.S. Border Patrol facility in McAllen. The man, identified as Ryan Louis Mosqueda, injured a responding police officer before authorities shot and killed him.

In suburban Chicago, federal authorities erected a fence around an immigration processing center after tensions flared with protesters. President Donald Trump’s administration has stepped up immigration enforcement in the Chicago area, resulting in hundreds of arrests.

Attacks, escapes concern at some ICE offices

Dozens of field offices across the country house administrative employees and are used for people summoned for check-in appointments and to process people arrested before they are transferred to long-term detention centers. They are not designed to hold people in custody.

Security varies by location, with some in federal buildings and others mixed with private businesses, said John Torres, a former acting director of the agency and former head of what is now called its enforcement and removals division.

Some, like Dallas, have exposed loading areas for buses, which pose risks for escape and outside attack, Torres said. Other vulnerabilities are nearby vantage points for snipers and long lines forming outside without protection.

Brook reported from New Orleans. Associated Press journalists Sarah Brumfield in Cockeysville, Maryland, Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, Jeff Martin and R.J. Rico in Atlanta, Sophia Tareen in Chicago, Mike Balsamo in New York, Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington, Julio Cortez in Dallas, and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.