By CHANNI ANAND and RIAZ KHAN, Associated Press

CHOSITI, India (AP) — Flash floods triggered by torrential rains have killed over 200 people and left scores others missing in India and Pakistan over the past 24 hours, officials said Friday, as rescuers brought to safety some 1,600 people from two mountainous districts in the neighboring countries.

Sudden, intense downpours over small areas known as cloudbursts are increasingly common in India’s Himalayan regions and Pakistan’s northern areas, which are prone to flash floods and landslides. Cloudbursts have the potential to wreak havoc by causing intense flooding and landslides, impacting thousands of people in the mountainous regions.

Experts say cloudbursts have increased in recent years partly because of climate change, while damage from the storms also has increased because of unplanned development in mountain regions.

Dozens missing in remote Himalayan village

In India-controlled Kashmir, rescuers searched for missing people in the remote Himalayan village of Chositi on Friday after flash floods a day earlier left at least 60 people dead and at least 80 missing, officials said.

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Officials halted rescue operations overnight but rescued at least 300 people Thursday after a powerful cloudburst triggered floods and landslides. Officials said many missing people were believed to have been washed away.

Harvinder Singh, a local resident, joined the rescue efforts immediately after the disaster and helped retrieving 33 bodies from under mud, he said.

At least 50 seriously injured people were treated in local hospitals, many of them rescued from a stream filled with mud and debris. Disaster management official Mohammed Irshad said the number of missing people could increase.

Weather officials forecast more heavy rains and floods in the area.

Chositi, in Kashmir’s Kishtwar district, is the last village accessible to motor vehicles on the route of an ongoing annual Hindu pilgrimage to a mountainous shrine at an altitude of 9,500 feet.

Officials said the pilgrimage, which began July 25 and was scheduled to end on Sept. 5, was suspended.

The devastating floods swept away the main community kitchen set up for the pilgrims, as well as dozens of vehicles and motorbikes. More than 200 pilgrims were in the kitchen at the time of the flood, which also damaged or washed away many of the homes clustered together in the foothills, officials said.

Sneha, who gave only one name, said her husband and a daughter were swept away as floodwater gushed down the mountain. The two were having meals at the community kitchen while she and her son were nearby. The family had come for pilgrimage, she said.

Photos and videos on social media show extensive damage with household goods strewn next to damaged vehicles and homes in the village. Authorities made makeshift bridges Friday to help stranded pilgrims cross a muddy water channel and used dozens of earthmovers to shift boulders, uprooted trees and electricity poles and other debris.

Kishtwar district is home to multiple hydroelectric power projects, which experts have long warned pose a threat to the region’s fragile ecosystem.

Hundreds of tourists trapped by floods in Pakistan

In northern and northwestern Pakistan, flash floods killed at least 164 people in the past 24 hours, including 78 people who died in the flood-hit Buner district in northwest Pakistan on Friday.

Dozens were injured as the deluge destroyed homes in villages in Buner, where authorities declared a state of emergency Friday. Ambulances have transported 56 bodies to local hospitals, according to a government statement.

Rescuers evacuated 1,300 stranded tourists from a mountainous Mansehra district hit by landslides on Thursday. At least 35 people were reported missing in these areas, according to local officials.

Rescuers backed by boats and helicopters worked to reach stranded residents. Dozens of villages were still missing and the death toll is likely to rise, Kashif Qayyum said.

More than 477 people, mostly women and children, have died in rain-related incidents across the country since June 26, according to National Disaster Management Authority.

Deaths were reported from different parts of Pakistan on Thursday. Bilal Faizi, a provincial emergency service spokesman in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said rescuers worked for hours to save 1,300 tourists after they were trapped by flash flooding and landslides in the Siran Valley in Mansehra district on Thursday.

The Gilgit-Baltistan region has been hit by multiple floods since July, triggering landslides along the Karakoram Highway, a key trade and travel route linking Pakistan and China that is used by tourists to travel to the scenic north. The region is home to scenic glaciers that provide 75% of Pakistan’s stored water supply.

Pakistan’s disaster management agency has issued fresh alerts for glacial lake outburst flooding in the north, warning travelers to avoid affected areas.

A study released this week by World Weather Attribution, a network of international scientists, found rainfall in Pakistan from June 24 to July 23 was 10% to 15% heavier because of global warming. In 2022, the country’s worst monsoon season on record killed more than 1,700 people and caused an estimated $40 billion in damage.

Khan reported from Peshawar, Pakistan. Contributors from Pakistan include Anwarullah Khan in Bajur, Abdul Rehman in Gilgit, Rasool Dawar in Peshawar and Ishfaq Hussain in Muzaffarabad.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Rapper Sean Kingston is scheduled to be sentenced in South Florida on Friday after being convicted of a $1 million fraud scheme.

Kingston, whose legal name is Kisean Paul Anderson, and his mother, Janice Eleanor Turner, were each convicted by a federal jury in March of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and four counts of wire fraud. U.S. Judge David Leibowitz sentenced Turner last month to five years in prison, but Kingston’s sentencing was rescheduled.

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Kingston, 35, and his mother were arrested in May 2024 after a SWAT team raided Kingston’s rented mansion in suburban Fort Lauderdale. Turner was taken into custody during the raid, while Kingston was arrested at Fort Irwin, an Army training base in California’s Mojave Desert, where he was performing.

According to court records, Kingston used social media from April 2023 to March 2024 to arrange purchases of high-end merchandise. After negotiating deals, Kingston would invite the sellers to one of his high-end Florida homes and promise to feature them and their products on social media.

Investigators said that when it came time to pay, Kingston or his mother would text the victims fake wire receipts for the luxury merchandise, which included a bulletproof Escalade, watches and a 19-foot (6-meter) LED TV, investigators said.

When the funds never cleared, victims often contacted Kingston and Turner repeatedly, but were either never paid or received money only after filing lawsuits or contacting law enforcement.

Kingston shot to fame at age 17 with the 2007 hit “Beautiful Girls,” which laid his lyrics over Ben E. King’s 1961 song “Stand By Me.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday named the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Terry Cole, as Washington’s “emergency police commissioner” as she carries out President Donald Trump’s unprecedented decision to take over the Washington police department.

Bondi said she’s giving Cole the powers of police chief and the Metropolitan Police Department must receive Cole’s approval before issuing any orders. The capital city’s attorney general swiftly countered with a memo saying Bondi’s action was “unlawful,” setting up a potential legal battle.

Cole’s assignment comes less than a month after the U.S. Senate conformed him to be the DEA’s leader and he was sworn in as head of the agency.

Here’s what to know about Cole:

Three decades in law enforcement

Cole was most recently Virginia’s secretary of public safety and homeland security under Gov. Glenn Youngkin, according to his biography on the DEA’s website.

Drug Enforcement Agency Administrator Terrance Cole listens as President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

He’s spent more than 31 years as a law enforcement officer, including 22 at the DEA. At the agency, he worked in Oklahoma, New York and Washington. He spent time overseas in Colombia, Afghanistan and the Middle East. The agency said he fought drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations.

He was the DEA’s acting regional director of Mexico, Canada and Central America when he retired from the federal government in 2020.

Prior to joining the DEA, he was a police officer in New York State.

Bachelor’s in criminal justice

Cole graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. He has certificates in leadership from the University of Virginia and the University of Notre Dame Mendoza School of Business.

Late-night announcement of a new job

Bondi announced Cole’s new role in a directive Thursday evening. It said Cole would assume “powers and duties vested in the District of Columbia Chief of Police.”

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Smith, the police chief, had hours earlier directed Washington police to share information with immigration agencies regarding people not in custody — such as someone involved in a traffic stop or checkpoint.

But the Justice Department said Bondi disagreed with the police chief’s directive because it allowed for continued enforcement of “sanctuary policies.”

Bondi said she was rescinding that order as well as other department policies limiting inquires into immigration status and preventing arrests based solely on federal immigration warrants. All new directives must now receive approval from Cole, the attorney general said.

District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s memo, written for Smith, said local officers must continue to follow her orders over Bondi’s. It said the Trump administration doesn’t have the right to “alter the chain of command” within the police department and all directives must be routed through the mayor.

By MICHELLE L. PRICE and WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump is meeting 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.

The sit-down offers Trump a chance to prove to the world that he is both a master dealmaker and a global peacemaker. He and his allies have cast him as a heavyweight negotiator who can find a way to bring the slaughter to a close, something he used to boast he could do quickly.

For Putin, a summit with Trump offers a long-sought opportunity to try to negotiate a deal that would cement Russia’s gains, block Kyiv’s bid to join the NATO military alliance and eventually pull Ukraine back into Moscow’s orbit.

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.

Members of the media stand outside Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025, ahead of a meeting between President Donald Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

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.

“HIGH STAKES!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social as his motorcade idled outside the White House shortly after sunrise in Washington.

Trump on Thursday said there was a 25% chance that the summit would fail, but he also floated the idea that if the meeting succeeds he could bring Zelenskyy to Alaska for a subsequent, three-way meeting, a possibility that Russia hasn’t agreed to.

When asked in Anchorage about Trump’s estimate of a 25% chance of failure, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters that Russia “never plans ahead.”

“We know that we have arguments, a clear, understandable position. We will state it,” he said in footage posted to the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Telegram channel.

Trump said in a Fox News radio interview Thursday that he didn’t know if they would get “an immediate ceasefire” but he wanted a broad peace deal done quickly. That seemingly echoes Putin’s longtime argument that Russia favors a comprehensive deal to end the fighting, reflecting its demands, not a temporary halt to hostilities.

The Kremlin said Trump and Putin will first sit down for a one-on-one discussion, followed by the two delegations meeting and talks continuing over “a working breakfast.” They are then expected to hold a joint press conference.

Trump has offered shifting explanations for his meeting goals

In the days leading up to the summit, set for a military base near Anchorage, Trump described it as “ really a feel-out meeting.” But he’s also warned of “very severe consequences” for Russia if Putin doesn’t agree to end the war and said that though Putin might bully other leaders, “He’s not going to mess around with me.”

Trump’s repeated suggestions that a deal would likely involve “some swapping of territories” — which disappointed Ukraine and European allies — along with his controversial history with Putin have some skeptical about what kind of agreement can be reached.

Ian Kelly, a retired career foreign service officer who served as the U.S. ambassador to Georgia during the Obama and first Trump administrations, said he sees “no upside for the U.S., only an upside for Putin.”

“The best that can happen is nothing, and the worst that can happen is that Putin entices Trump into putting more pressure on Zelenskyy,” Kelly said.

George Beebe, the former director of the CIA’s Russia analysis team who is now affiliated with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said there’s a serious risk of blown expectations or misunderstandings for a high-level summit pulled together so quickly.

“That said, I doubt President Trump would be going into a meeting like this unless there had been enough work done behind the scenes for him to feel that there is a decent chance that something concrete will come out of it,” Beebe said.

Zelenskyy has time and again cast doubts on Putin’s willingness to negotiate in good faith. His European allies, who’ve held increasingly urgent meetings with U.S. leaders over the past week, have stressed the need for Ukraine to be involved in any peace talks.

Political commentators in Moscow, meanwhile, have relished that the summit leaves Ukraine and its European allies on the sidelines.

Dmitry Suslov, a pro-Kremlin voice, expressed hope that the summit will “deepen a trans-Atlantic rift and weaken Europe’s position as the toughest enemy of Russia.”

The summit could have far-reaching implications

On his way to Anchorage Thursday, Putin arrived in Magadan in Russia’s Far East, according to Russian state news agency Interfax.

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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the visit would include meetings with the regional governor and stops at several key sites, including a stop to lay flowers at a WWII-era memorial honoring Soviet-American aviation cooperation.

Foreign governments will be watching closely to see how Trump reacts to Putin, likely gauging what the interaction might mean for their own dealings with the U.S. president, who has eschewed traditional diplomacy for his own transactional approach to relationships.

The meeting comes as the war has caused heavy losses on both sides and drained resources.

Ukraine has held on far longer than some initially expected since the February 2022 invasion, but it is straining to hold off Russia’s much larger army, grappling with bombardments of its cities and fighting for every inch on the over 600-mile (1,000-kilometer) front line.

Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a senior fellow and director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, said U.S. antagonists like China, Iran and North Korea will be paying attention to Trump’s posture to see “whether or not the threats that he continues to make against Putin are indeed credible.”

“Or, if has been the past track record, he continues to back down and look for ways to wiggle out of the kind of threats and pressure he has promised to apply,” said Kendall-Taylor, who is also a former senior intelligence officer.

While some have objected to the location of the summit, Trump has said he thought it was “very respectful” of Putin to come to the U.S. instead of a meeting in Russia.

Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin Moscow-based analyst, observed that the choice of Alaska as the summit’s venue “underlined the distancing from Europe and Ukraine.”

Being on a military base allows the leaders to avoid protests and meet more securely, but the location carries its own significance because of its history and location.

Alaska, which the U.S. purchased from Russia in 1867, is separated from Russia at its closest point by just 3 miles (less than 5 kilometers) and the international date line.

Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson was crucial to countering the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It continues to play a role today, as planes from the base still intercept Russian aircraft that regularly fly into U.S. airspace.

Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington, Elise Morton in London and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.