By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Diplomatic Writer

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — The State Department is firing more than 1,300 employees on Friday in line with a dramatic reorganization plan initiated by the Trump administration earlier this year.

The department is sending layoff notices to 1,107 civil servants and 246 foreign service officers with domestic assignments in the United States, said a senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters ahead of individual notices being emailed to affected employees.

Foreign service officers affected will be placed immediately on administrative leave for 120 days, after which they will formally lose their jobs, according to an internal notice obtained by The Associated Press. For most affected civil servants, the separation period is 60 days, it said.

“In connection with the departmental reorganization … the department is streamlining domestic operations to focus on diplomatic priorities,” the notice says. “Headcount reductions have been carefully tailored to affect non-core functions, duplicative or redundant offices, and offices where considerable efficiencies may be found from centralization or consolidation of functions and responsibilities.”

While lauded by President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and their Republican allies as overdue and necessary to make the department leaner, more nimble and more efficient, the cuts have been roundly criticized by current and former diplomats who say they will weaken U.S. influence and its ability to counter existing and emerging threats abroad.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio gives a media briefing during the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting at the Convention Centre in Kuala Lumpur Friday, July 11, 2025. (Mandel Ngan/Pool Photo via AP)

The Trump administration has pushed to reshape American diplomacy and worked aggressively to shrink the size of the federal government, including mass dismissals as part of moves to dismantle whole departments like the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Education Department.

A recent ruling by the Supreme Court cleared the way for the layoffs to start, while lawsuits challenging the legality of the cuts continue to play out. The department had formally advised staffers on Thursday that it would be sending layoff notices to some of them soon. The job cuts are large but considerably less than many had feared.

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Rubio said officials took “a very deliberate step to reorganize the State Department to be more efficient and more focused.”

“It’s not a consequence of trying to get rid of people. But if you close the bureau, you don’t need those positions,” he told reporters Thursday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where he’s attending the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum. “Understand that some of these are positions that are being eliminated, not people.”

He said some of the cuts will be unfilled positions or those that are about to be vacant because an employee took an early retirement.

The American Foreign Service Association, the union that represents diplomats, urged the State Department last month to hold off on job cuts.

Notices for a reduction in force, which would not only lay off employees but eliminate positions altogether, “should be a last resort,” association President Tom Yazdgerdi said. “Disrupting the Foreign Service like this puts national interests at risk — and Americans everywhere will bear the consequences.”

By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Donald Trump heads to Texas on Friday for a firsthand look at the devastation caused by catastrophic flooding, he has remained conspicuously quiet about his previous promises to do away with the federal agency in charge of disaster relief.

The Trump administration isn’t backing away from its pledges to shutter the Federal Emergency Management Agency and return disaster response to the states. But since the July 4 disaster, which has killed at least 120 people, the president and his top aides have focused on the once-in-a-lifetime nature of what occurred and the human tragedy involved rather than the government-slashing crusade that’s been popular with Trump’s core supporters.

Nancy Epperson, right, and Brooklyn Pucek, 6, visit a memorial for flood victims along the Guadalupe River on Thursday, July 10, 2025, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

“Nobody ever saw a thing like this coming,” Trump told NBC News on Thursday, adding, ”This is a once-in-every-200-year deal.” He’s also suggested he’d have been ready to visit Texas within hours but didn’t want to burden authorities still searching for the more than 170 people who are still missing.

Trump’s shift in focus underscores how tragedy can complicate political calculations, even though Trump has made slashing the federal workforce and charging ally-turned-antagonist Elon Musk with dramatically shrinking the size of government centerpieces of his administration’s opening months.

The president is expected to do an aerial tour of some of the hard-hit areas.

The White House also says he’ll visit the state emergency operations center to meet with first responders and relatives of flood victims. Trump will also get a briefing from officials. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Ted Cruz are joining the visit, with the GOP senators expected to fly to their state with Trump aboard Air Force One.

It’s relatively common for presidents visiting disaster sites to tour the damage by air, a move that can ease the logistical burdens on authorities on the ground.

Trump’s predecessor, President Joe Biden, observed the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina and Hurricane Milton in Florida last fall by air before meeting with disaster response officials and victims on the ground.

Trump, though, has also used past disaster response efforts to launch political attacks. While still a candidate trying to win back the presidency, Trump made his own visit to North Carolina after Helene last year and accused the Biden administration of blocking disaster aid to victims in Republican-heavy areas.

Kerrville residents Edgar Rojas, second from left, and his wife Perla, alongside daughters Emily, left, and Olivia, visit a memorial for flood victims along the Guadalupe River on Thursday, July 10, 2025, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

First lady Melania Trump will accompany the president Friday, marking the second time this term that she has joined her husband to tour a natural disaster site.

During his first weekend back in the White House, Trump again visited North Carolina to scope out Helene damage and toured the aftermath of devastating wildfires in Los Angeles. But he also used those trips to sharply criticize the Biden administration and California officials.

Trump has promised repeatedly — and as recently as last month — to begin “phasing out” FEMA and bring disaster response management “down to the state level.”

During Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, Trump didn’t mention those plans and instead praised the federal flooding response. Turning to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose department oversees FEMA, he said, “You had people there as fast as anybody’s ever seen.”

Pressed this week on whether the White House will continue to work to shutter FEMA, press secretary Karoline Leavitt wouldn’t say.

“The president wants to ensure American citizens always have what they need during times of need,” Leavitt said. “Whether that assistance comes from states or the federal government, that is a policy discussion that will continue.”

While the focus is on FEMA at the federal level, local officials have come under mounting scrutiny over how much they were prepared and how quickly they acted. But not everyone affected has been quick to point fingers.

Darrin Potter, a Kerr County, Texas, resident for 25 years who saw ankle-high flooding in his home and said he knew people killed, said, “As far as early warnings, I’m sure they can improve on that.”

But he said all the talk about evacuating was missing something important. The area where a wall of water ripped through was a two-lane road, he said.

“If you would have evacuated at 5 in the morning, all of those people would have been washed away on this road,” he said.

During the Cabinet meeting, Noem described traveling to Texas and seeing heartbreaking scenes, including around Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 people were killed.

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“The parents that were looking for their children and picking up their daughter’s stuffed animals out of the mud and finding their daughter’s shoe that might be laying in the cabin,” she said.

Noem said that “just hugging and comforting people matters a lot” and “this is a time for all of us in this country to remember that we were created to serve each other.”

But the secretary is also co-chairing a FEMA review council charged with submitting suggestions for how to overhaul the agency in coming months.

“We as a federal government don’t manage these disasters. The state does,” Noem told Trump on Tuesday.

She also referenced the administration’s government-reducing efforts, saying: ”We’re cutting through the paperwork of the old FEMA. Streamlining it, much like your vision of how FEMA should operate.”

Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim in Washington and Nadia Lathan in Ingram, Texas, contributed to this report.

Today is Friday, July 11, the 192nd day of 2024. There are 173 days left in the year.

Today in History:

On July 11, 1995, the U.N.-designated “safe haven” of Srebrenica (sreh-breh-NEET’-sah) in Bosnia-Herzegovina fell to Bosnian Serb forces, who subsequently carried out the killings of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

Also on this date:

In 1798, the U.S. Marine Corps was formally re-established by a congressional act that also created the U.S. Marine Band.

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In 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton during a pistol duel in Weehawken, New Jersey. (Hamilton died the next day.)

In 1859, Big Ben, the great bell inside the famous London clock tower, chimed for the first time.

In 1864, Confederate forces led by Gen. Jubal Early began an abortive invasion of Washington, D.C., and his raid was turned back the next day.

In 1914, Babe Ruth made his Major League baseball debut, pitching the Boston Red Sox to a 4-3 victory over Cleveland.

In 1921, fighting in the Irish War of Independence ended with a truce.

In 1960, Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” was published.

In 1972, the World Chess Championship opened as grandmasters Bobby Fischer of the United States and defending champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union began play in Reykjavik, Iceland. (Fischer won after 21 games.)

In 1979, the abandoned U.S. space station Skylab made a spectacular return to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere and showering debris over the Indian Ocean and Australia.

In 1991, a Nigeria Airways DC-8 carrying Muslim pilgrims crashed at the Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, international airport, killing all 261 people on board.

In 2006, eight bombs hit a commuter rail network during evening rush hour in Mumbai, India, killing more than 200 people.

In 2022, President Joe Biden revealed the first image from NASA’s new space telescope, the farthest humanity had ever seen in both time and distance, closer to the dawn of the universe and the edge of the cosmos.

Today’s Birthdays:

Fashion designer Giorgio Armani is 91.
Actor Susan Seaforth Hayes is 82.
Actor Bruce McGill is 75.
Actor Stephen Lang is 73.
Actor Mindy Sterling is 72.
Actor Sela Ward is 69.
Reggae singer Michael Rose (Black Uhuru) is 68.
Singer Peter Murphy (Bauhaus) is 68.
Actor Mark Lester is 67.
Saxophonist Kirk Whalum is 67.
Singer Suzanne Vega is 66.
Rock guitarist Richie Sambora (Bon Jovi) is 66.
Actor Lisa Rinna is 62.
Author Jhumpa Lahiri is 58.
Wildlife expert Jeff Corwin is 58.
Actor Justin Chambers (TV: “Grey’s Anatomy”) is 55.
Actor Michael Rosenbaum (TV: “Smallville”) is 53.
Rapper Lil’ Kim is 51.
Pro Football Hall of Famer Andre Johnson is 44.
Pop-jazz singer-musician Peter Cincotti is 42.
Actor Serinda Swan is 41.
Actor David Henrie is 36.
Actor Connor Paolo is 35.
R&B/pop singer Alessia Cara is 29.

When deputies responded to a call about a teenager in distress in a Mahtomedi parking lot, evidence at the scene and their “gut feelings” led them to call the sergeant in charge of the East Metro Human Trafficking Task Force.

The resident of the apartment building who made the call to law enforcement and the Washington County sheriff’s deputies’ quick actions helped get a 14-year-old out of a “terrible situation,” Washington County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Danelle Erickson said Thursday.

Two men were charged Thursday with sexual assault and one is also accused of sex trafficking.

“It’s heartbreaking to know these men brought a 14-year-old girl into our community and sexually assaulted her,” Washington County Attorney Kevin Magnuson said in a statement.

Investigators obtained surveillance video showing other incidents of the suspect bringing females “in various intoxicated states” to the Mahtomedi apartment over the prior weeks, the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

The trafficking task force is aware of two teenage victims and three adults victims, Erickson said. The suspects have been charged in connection with the 14-year-old and Erickson said additional charges are possible.

Teen found in apartment lot screaming ‘no’

Officers were called to the Piccadilly Square Apartments, a 62+ housing community near Wildwood and Stillwater roads, on June 30 on a report of a teenager dancing in the parking lot and screaming, “no no no,” said the criminal complaints. The person who called said an unknown man dropped her off about four hours earlier.

A man identified as 69-year-old Michael Lewis stepped out the front door of the apartment. The teen, later identified as the 14-year-old, pointed to him and said she was with Lewis and one of his friends.

Michael Lewis (Courtesy of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office)

Lewis said his veteran’s affairs counselor had just gone to his apartment to give him cigarettes and he believed the teen was with the counselor.

EMS took the teen to the hospital. East Metro Human Trafficking Task Force investigators met with her and asked how she knew the man who brought her to the apartment. She said he was a “friend,” who she referred to as “Billy,” and she said he often drove around her neighborhood.

“When asked what happened inside the Mahtomedi apartment, (the teen) said that ‘Billy’ walked her to the apartment where another man was inside,” the complaints said. She identified Lewis as the man inside the apartment after looking at a photo.

The teen said “Billy” gave her crack cocaine. She “nodded her head yes when asked if anything sexual happened in the apartment,” the complaints said.

Officers identified “Billy” as Billy Ray Wiley, 52, of Minneapolis. Surveillance footage showed he arrived at the apartment, where Lewis lives, with the teen. When she ran out of the building later, the surveillance video showed the girl’s “actions and movements were drastically different from when she arrived at the apartment.”

Billy Ray Wiley (Courtesy of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office)

Law enforcement spoke again with the teen on Monday, “who was noticeably in better condition than on June 30.” She said Wiley would find her walking around a grocery store by her house and “just pick her up. There was no time or location planned, Wiley would just find her,” the complaints said.

She “stated that when Wiley picked her up, she knew she would be expected to engage in sexual acts in exchange for money and drugs,” which is also what happened the day he brought her to Lewis’ apartment, the complaints said.

Another teen found in car with suspect

When Wiley drove by the Piccadilly apartments, officers pulled him over and arrested him.

“In a spontaneous statement, Wiley asked an officer if it was illegal to ‘pay for (expletive),’” the complaints said.

A 17-year-old girl was in the car with Wiley. She said that earlier in the day, in the area of Dale Street and University Avenue in St. Paul, Wiley “pulled up right next to her and asked her what she needed. He then gave her a cigarette and asked if she wanted to go for a ride,” the complaints said.

She said they drove around for several hours, and he “told her that she was pretty and had a nice body,” the complaints said. She said she told Wiley several times to drop her off, but he kept driving.

The teen also told officers “that many girls who are struggling with addiction hang around Dale and University” and “said that Wiley is known to pick up a lot of girls in the area,” the complaints said.

Officers searched Wiley’s car and found 13 unopened condoms and a white crystalline substance that is pending testing.

Law enforcement also arrested Lewis.

The Washington County Attorney’s Office charged Wiley with engaging in the sex trafficking of an individual under age 18 and first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Lewis is charged with two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Both men remained in the Washington County jail Thursday night. Attorneys for them weren’t listed in their court files.

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‘Old-school trafficking’

At the East Metro Human Trafficking Task Force, Erickson said usually they see people posting advertisements online for sex. “That’s how traffickers usually do this,” she said.

This case was more “old-school trafficking” because the suspect was “pulling girls who are vulnerable off the street” to traffic them, Erickson said.

For anyone in immediate danger of being trafficked, call 911, said the Washington County Sheriff’s Office. Suspected trafficking situations can be reported to the East Metro Human Trafficking Task Force at 651-430-7825.