By AAMER MADHANI and SEUNG MIN KIM, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — With a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage deal holding, President Donald Trump says he’s now turning his attention to bringing Russia’s war on Ukraine to an end and is weighing providing Kyiv long-range weaponry as he looks to prod Moscow to the negotiating table.

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Ending the wars in Ukraine and Gaza was central to Trump’s 2024 reelection pitch, in which he persistently pilloried President Joe Biden for his handling of the conflicts. Yet, like his predecessor, Trump also has been stymied by President Vladimir Putin as he’s unsuccessfully pressed the Russian leader to hold direct talks with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy to end the war that is nearing its fourth year.

But fresh off the Gaza ceasefire, Trump is showing new confidence that he can finally make headway on ending the Russian invasion. He’s also signaling that he’s ready to step up pressure on Putin if he doesn’t come to the table soon.

“Interestingly we made progress today, because of what’s happened in the Middle East,” Trump said of the Russia-Ukraine war on Wednesday evening as he welcomed supporters of his White House ballroom project to a glitzy dinner.

Earlier this week in Jerusalem, in a speech to the Knesset, Trump predicted the truce in Gaza would lay the groundwork for the U.S. to help Israel and many of its Middle East neighbors normalize relations. But Trump also made clear his top foreign policy priority now is ending the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II.

“First we have to get Russia done,” Trump said, turning to his special envoy Steve Witkoff, who has also served as his administration’s chief interlocutor with Putin. “We gotta get that one done. If you don’t mind, Steve, let’s focus on Russia first. All right?”

Trump weighs Tomahawks for Ukraine

Trump is set to host Zelenskyy for talks Friday, their fourth face-to-face meeting this year.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a joint press conference with European Parliament President Roberta Metsola in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Ahead of the meeting, Trump has said he’s weighing selling Kyiv long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, which would allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory — if Putin doesn’t settle the war soon. Zelenskyy, who has long sought the weapons system, said it would help Ukraine put the sort of pressure on Russia needed to get Putin to engage in peace talks.

Putin has made clear that providing Ukraine with Tomahawks would cross a red line and further damage relations between Moscow and Washington.

But Trump has been undeterred.

“He’d like to have Tomahawks,” Trump said of Zelenskyy on Tuesday. “We have a lot of Tomahawks.”

Agreeing to sell Ukraine Tomahawks would be a splashy move, said Mark Montgomery, an analyst at the conservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. But it could take years to supply and train Kyiv on the Tomahawk system.

Montgomery said Ukraine could be better served in the near term with a surge of Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM) missiles and Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS. The U.S. already approved the sale of up to 3,350 ERAMs to Kyiv earlier this year.

The Tomahawk, with a range of about 995 miles, would allow Ukraine to strike far deeper in Russian territory than either the ERAM (about 285 miles) or ATACMS (about 186 miles).

“To provide Tomahawks is as much a political decision as it is a military decision,” Montgomery said. “The ERAM is shorter range, but this can help them put pressure on Russia operationally, on their logistics, the command and control, and its force disbursement within several hundred kilometers of the front line. It can be very effective.”

Signs of White House interest in new Russia sanctions

Zelenskyy is expected to reiterate his plea to Trump to hit Russia’s economy with further sanctions, something the Republican, to date, has appeared reluctant to do.

Congress has weighed legislation that would lead to tougher sanctions on Moscow, but Trump has largely focused his attention on pressuring NATO members and other allies to cut off their purchases of Russian oil, the engine fueling Moscow’s war machine. To that end, Trump said Wednesday that India, which became one of Russia’s biggest crude buyers after the Ukraine invasion, had agreed to stop buying oil from Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin leads a cabinet meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. (Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Waiting for Trump’s blessing is legislation in the Senate that would impose steep tariffs on countries that purchase Russia’s oil, gas, uranium and other exports in an attempt to cripple Moscow economically.

Though the president hasn’t formally endorsed it — and Republican leaders do not plan to move forward without his support — the White House has shown, behind the scenes, more interest in the bill in recent weeks.

Administration officials have gone through the legislation in depth, offering line edits and requesting technical changes, according to two officials with knowledge of the discussions between the White House and the Senate. That has been interpreted on Capitol Hill as a sign that Trump is getting more serious about the legislation, sponsored by close ally Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., along with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.

A White House official said the administration is working with lawmakers to make sure that “introduced bills advance the president’s foreign policy objectives and authorities.” The official, who was granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations, said any sanctions package needs to give the president “complete flexibility.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday the administration is waiting for greater buy-in from Europe, which he noted faces a bigger threat from Russian aggression than the U.S. does.

“So all I hear from the Europeans is that Putin is coming to Warsaw,” Bessent said. “There are very few things in life I’m sure about. I’m sure he’s not coming to Boston. So, we will respond … if our European partners will join us.”

AP writers Fatima Hussein, Chris Megerian and Didi Tang contributed to this report.

By WILL WEISSERT and JILL COLVIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was telling a Rose Garden audience about his efforts to quell violence in the nation’s capital when, as if on cue, his words were drowned out by the wail of sirens from passing vehicles.

“Listen to the beauty of that sound,” Trump said, grinning. “They’re not politically correct sirens.”

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Coming as it did during an otherwise somber event to posthumously award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the moment encapsulated how Trump’s law-and-order-at-all-costs push has become a centerpiece of his second term.

He’s deployed troops to Democrat-majority cities and directed federal officials, often with their faces obscured by masks, to round up people living in the country illegally. He’s suggested urban areas could become military “training grounds” and toyed with invoking the Insurrection Act so political opponents can’t use the courts to foil his plans.

Now settled into his second term, Trump has embraced the kind of tough-on-crime approach he has always campaigned on but was unable to achieve with the naysayers who often checked his most extreme instincts during his first four years in office. In the process, his Republican administration has sometimes trampled law enforcement norms and critics say Trump has weaponized the Justice Department, using it to go after political opponents.

On Wednesday, he touted the results of a crackdown named “Operation Summer Heat.” Flanked by FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi in the Oval Office, Trump said the FBI made 8,000-plus arrests.

Trump said he’d talked about crime during his campaign last year but never expected it to be such a major second-term focus.

“Now it’s like a passion for me,” he said, and his actions were “many, many steps above” what he’d pledged and “we’re just at the start.”

FBI Director Kash Patel speaks during an event with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)

It’s in some ways the full realization of the mindset Trump has had since his early days as a real estate mogul back in the gritty days of 1970s and ’80s New York, when crime was rampant and residents clamored for crackdowns.

Trump’s efforts have drawn resistance from local leaders. His plans to send soldiers to Chicago and Portland, Oregon, have been thwarted by legal challenges. He has said he’s confident he’ll win on appeal but hasn’t ruled out using the Insurrection Act as a workaround, if needed.

But elsewhere, his moves have dramatically altered day-to-day lives. Earlier this year, he took control of the California National Guard in response to protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles and sent the National Guard into Washington, D.C., and Memphis, Tennessee.

Trump also has mused about taking similar action in Baltimore, New Orleans and New York and threatened Boston, suggesting World Cup games set to be played in nearby Foxborough next year could be moved if law enforcement actions aren’t intensified.

‘Bring Back Our Police’

Trump’s eagerness to embrace the hardest possible line against crime suspects — guilty or not — burst into public view more than 30 years ago. He stirred racial tensions by calling for the execution of the Central Park Five, a group of Black and Hispanic teenagers wrongly convicted of rape in 1989.

Trump took out full-page newspaper ads under the headlines: “Bring Back The Death Penalty. Bring Back Our Police!” Those convictions were vacated in 2002, after evidence linked a serial rapist to the crime. Today, the case is remembered by activists as evidence of a criminal justice system prejudiced against defendants of color.

“That’s the very same spirit that’s at work now,” said the Rev. J. Lawrence Turner of the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis. Turner said Trump had “demonized” and “targeted” Memphis, which is 62% African American and has a Black mayor and county leader.

Trump “seems like he is bent on seeing us in the way he has seen other persons of color throughout his first term, and possibly, I would say, throughout his public-facing life,” Turner said. “We have this president unleashed in this second term.”

First-term flirtations

Trump covered some of the same political ground in his first term during the protests over racism and police brutality sparked by the 2020 killing of George Floyd, when he sent troops to the streets of Washington and to Portland. But his advisers at the time staunchly opposed many of his calls to more broadly deploy the military to beat back unrest.

Trump’s former defense secretary Mark Esper later told CBS’ “60 Minutes” that Trump had asked during the protests whether the National Guard could be tougher on demonstrators. “’Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs, or something,’” Esper said he recalled Trump saying.

However, a Trump signature bipartisan achievement in his first term was a 2018 criminal justice reform measure meant to reduce federal prison populations and address disparities in sentencing, after lobbying from advocates including Kim Kardashian.

Trump was attacked from the right for that policy, though, during the 2024 Republican primary and rarely spoke about his criminal justice reform bill while campaigning. He instead drew cheers with calls for the death penalty for drug dealers and those who kill police officers and railed against cashless bail and other measures aimed at reversing systematic bias in the justice system.

‘We’re going to save all our cities’

Trump now sees getting tough on crime as a winning political issue that only gets stronger for him the more he pushes.

Cities where President Donald Trump has ordered or publicly talked about ordering the deployment of National Guard troops. (AP Digital Embed)

“We’re going to save all of our cities, and we’re going to make them essentially crime-free,” he said Wednesday.

The shift also reflects a Trump no longer encumbered by chiefs of staff, generals and others who saw their duty as reining in his most extreme impulses and have long been replaced by loyalists.

“This time around, he has people around him that are not simply supporting what he’s doing, they’re encouraging him,” said Patrick G. Eddington, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute. “It’s completely terrifying that any of this stuff is going on.”

As a political issue, Trump’s tough-on-crime approach has benefits for his party heading into next year’s midterm elections. Recent polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found his administration’s tough-on-crime approach has emerged as one of his best issues, amid frustrations over his handling of the economy and immigration.

The vast majority of Americans, 81%, see crime as a “major problem” in large cities, even as statistics show violent crime is down across the nation following a coronavirus pandemic-era spike.

‘Making all Americans safer’

The White House rejects suggestions Trump’s crackdown on crime has anything to do with race. It says the National Guard is being utilized in different cities for different reasons.

Washington is a crime-fighting push that Republican state leaders in Tennessee asked be replicated in Memphis, it argues. In Portland and Chicago, as in Los Angeles previously, the goal is protection of federal authorities working on priorities like immigration enforcement.

FILE – With the White House in the distance, National Guard troops patrol the Mall as part of President Donald Trump’s order to impose federal law enforcement in the nation’s capital, in Washington, Aug. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

“The president’s bold actions in cities across the country are making all Americans safer,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said, describing Trump’s actions as the fulfillment of a campaign promise.

Still, deploying troops to cities gives Trump the opportunity to paint Democratic opponents as soft on crime while overstating — often in apocalyptic terms — how bad the problem really is. He then exaggerates the results his crackdowns get.

He spent weeks suggesting Portland is “on fire” and declared, about Washington: “When I got here, this place was a raging hellhole.” Trump now suggests Washington crime has fallen to zero, which also isn’t true.

Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said the administration’s efforts are an extension of Trump’s brand, which she described as “using race overtly to drive division, to consolidate a base and to use that to usurp power a president does not have, or should not be deemed to have.”

Indeed, Trump now routinely speaks of criminals as people without redemption.

“They’re sick,” he said recently, “and we’re taking them out.”

Colvin reported from New York.

By JONEL ALECCIA, Associated Press Health Writer

For the first time in more than a decade, the number of states with rates of obesity of 35% or more has dropped, an encouraging sign that America’s epidemic of excess weight might be improving. But cuts to federal staff and programs that address chronic disease could endanger that progress, according to a new report released Thursday.

Nineteen states had obesity rates of 35% or higher in 2024, down from 23 states the year before, according to an analysis of the latest data collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC data was analyzed by the nonprofit group Trust for America’s Health.

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The group’s analysis follows a CDC report last year that found that the overall rate of obesity in the U.S. is high but holding steady, affecting about 40% of the population.

While the decline is positive, “it’s too soon to call it a trend,” said Dr. J. Nadine Gracia, president and chief executive for TFAH.

And with recent federal funding cuts, staff layoffs and eliminated programs, “this potential progress is also at risk,” Gracia said.

A U.S. Health and Human Services Department spokesman said in an email that the administration is “encouraged by the new data showing progress in the fight against obesity.”

“We are restructuring public health programs to eliminate waste, reduce bureaucracy, and redirect resources toward real prevention,” said spokesman Andrew Nixon.

The latest report analyzed data from the CDC’s 2024 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which uses annual telephone surveys to collect data on health behaviors and chronic conditions in U.S. states and territories.

It showed that 19 states had obesity rates among adults of 35% or higher, 22 states had rates between 30% and 35% and nine states had obesity rates of below 30%. The rates varied from a low of 25% in Colorado to a high of more than 40% in West Virginia.

Between 2023 and 2024, no state had statistically significant increases or decreases in their obesity rates, after 18 states saw significant increases in the previous five years, the report found.

Before 2013, no state had an adult obesity prevalence at or above 35%, By 2019, a dozen states had rates that high — and the number continued to climb.

In adults, obesity is defined as having a body mass index of 30 or higher. Body mass index is a calculation based on height and weight. Obesity is a chronic disease linked to a host of serious health problems including diabetes, stroke, cancer and heart disease.

It’s not clear exactly what may be driving the apparent improvements in obesity. Wider use of drugs such as Wegovy and Zepbound — which target appetite and slow digestion — could be starting to show up in reported data, said Aviva Musicus, a science director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group. Increased support for nutrition assistance programs during the COVID-19 pandemic might also be a factor, she suggested.

The report also details a broad range of federal, state and local efforts that focus on improving nutrition and boosting physical activity, said Solveig Cunningham, an Emory University global health expert who specializes in obesity.

“I think the report would argue that some of these interventions may actually be successful,” said Cunningham, who was not involved with the research. “That would suggest that there are possibly ways in which we could prevent obesity at the population level, which would be a really, really big deal.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By ALI SWENSON and KENDRIA LAFLEUR, Associated Press

TYLER, Texas (AP) — Celia Monreal worries every day about the cartilage loss in her husband’s knees. Not just because it’s hard for her to see him in pain but also because she knows soon their health care costs could skyrocket.

Monreal, 47, and her husband, Jorge, 57, rely on the Affordable Care Act marketplace for health coverage. If Congress doesn’t extend certain ACA tax credits set to expire at the end of the year, their fully subsidized plan will increase in cost, putting it out of reach. Without insurance, they won’t be able to afford his expected knee replacement surgeries, much less the treatment they need for other issues, like her chronic high blood pressure and his high cholesterol.

Celia Monreal and her husband Jorge, left, pose for a photo at her in the entry way of their home Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025, in Tyler, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

“It worries me sometimes, because if you’re not healthy, then you’re not here for your kids,” Monreal said. “It’s a difficult decision, because, OK, do I spend $500 on a doctor’s visit or do I buy groceries?”

Those are the types of choices facing the millions of Americans whose state or federal marketplace health insurance plans will be up for renewal in November. The enhanced premium tax credits that have made coverage more affordable for low- and middle-income enrollees for the last four years will expire this year if Congress doesn’t extend them. On average, that will more than double what subsidized enrollees currently pay for premiums next year, according to an analysis by health care research nonprofit KFF.

The tax credits are at the heart of the federal government shutdown, in its third week with no end in sight. Democrats have demanded the subsidies be extended as part of any funding deal they sign, while Republicans say they’ll only negotiate on the issue once the government is funded.

With Congress deadlocked and the open enrollment period for ACA plans approaching on Nov. 1 in most states, Americans like Monreal are left to navigate the unknown.

No extension will mean higher premiums for millions

More than 24 million people have ACA health insurance, a group including farmers, ranchers, small business owners and other self-employed people who don’t have other health insurance options through their work.

The enhanced premium tax credits set to expire this year have made costs far more manageable for many of them, allowing some lower-income enrollees to get health care with no premiums and higher earners to pay no more than 8.5% of their income.

FILE – Pages from the U.S. Affordable Care Act health insurance website healthcare.gov are seen on a computer screen in New York, Aug. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison, File)

If the tax credits expire, annual out-of-pocket premiums are estimated to increase by 114% — an average of $1,016 — next year, according to the KFF analysis.

While some premium tax credits will remain, the level of support will decrease for most enrollees. Anyone earning more than 400% of the poverty level — or around $63,000 per year for a single person — won’t be eligible for the remaining tax credits.

As a result, especially hard-hit groups will include a small number of higher earners who’ll have to pay a lot more without the extra subsidies and a large number of lower earners who’ll have to pay a small amount more, said Cynthia Cox, a vice president and director of the ACA program at KFF.

With higher premiums, some people will drop out of health insurance altogether, Cox said. When many younger, healthier people inevitably forgo coverage, insurance companies will increase costs for members of the covered population to account for them being older and sicker.

The change may also strain hospitals, since more uninsured people will need emergency care they can’t afford. That could lead to hospital closures or cost increases.

“If you have less subsidies for people getting health insurance, you’re going to have less health coverage and less health care,” said Jason Levitis, a senior fellow in the health policy division at the Urban Institute. “People are going to be sicker and die more.”

A caregiver braces for the worst. A filmmaker considers a new job

Erin Jackson-Hill has allergies, asthma and searing hip pain she’s managing with prescribed medications until she can get a hip replacement. But even with all those conditions, the 56-year-old in Anchorage, Alaska, doesn’t think she can pay for health insurance next year if the ACA subsidies aren’t extended.

The executive director of two nonprofits, who also cares for her 89-year-old father full time, already pays nearly $500 a month for her premiums. If the subsidies disappear, she plans to forgo health insurance and pay for her asthma and allergy medications out of pocket.

Jackson-Hill said she worries about what will happen if her hip worsens and she can’t make it up the stairs in her father’s two-story home without treatment.

“I will have to go to the emergency room, or I’ll have to go bankrupt in order to pay for it,” she said.

Another ACA enrollee, Salt Lake City freelance filmmaker and adjunct professor Stan Clawson, said he’ll find a way to pay for health insurance next year — even if it means he must buy cheaper groceries or get a new job that provides it.

Clawson, 49, has lived with paralysis below his abdomen since falling while rock climbing when he was 20. He’s active and generally healthy, but his spinal cord injury has resulted in tendonitis in his shoulders and frequent urinary tract infections.

He also has to buy catheters to use every time he urinates — a cost he said would add up to around $1,400 a month without insurance.

“I don’t think a lot of people realize how expensive it is to have a disability,” Clawson said, adding that trying to live without health insurance would be “financially devastating.”

Chrissy Meehan, a hair stylist in Upper Chichester, Pennsylvania, has a neck condition that may require surgery. She says if ACA subsidies expire, she’ll further delay the procedure.

Local hair stylist Christine Meehan sits in front of her medication while talking about the possible increase in her health insurance fee at her home in Upper Chichester, Pa., Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Tassanee Vejpongsa)

The 51-year-old voted for Republican Donald Trump for president last year, something she said she’s almost embarrassed about now that the Republican-led government hasn’t renewed the subsidies that help her afford her coverage through the state marketplace.

“I work hard, and I’m trying to survive and do it the right way and pay my way,” Meehan said. “I don’t want free. I just want affordable for my income.”

Even if Congress does extend, the delay could have consequences

Health policy analysts note that even if the subsidies are extended, insurance rate hikes for 2026 are already higher because insurers had to factor in their potential expiration when they set premium prices earlier this year.

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There are also concerns the delay will cause chaos, confusion and stress for Americans, some of whom have already started receiving notices that their premiums will skyrocket next year.

“Once those people say, ’Oh, wait, forget it, I’m out,’ it’s going to be hard to get a lot of them back,” said the Urban Institute’s Levitis.

Monreal’s husband will likely need both knees replaced, which will force him to take time off his job filling concrete. On their already tight $45,000 joint annual income, budgeting for themselves and their five children will become that much harder.

The concern over their budget and the uncertainty over their health care coverage send her thoughts into yet another worrisome spiral with just two weeks until open enrollment begins.

“They haven’t told us nothing,” she said of her insurance provider. “And you know what? At the end, you end up with no health care.”

Swenson reported from New York. Associated Press video journalist Tassanee Vejpongsa contributed to this report.