By MATT OTT, Associated Press Business Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits jumped last week but remains in the same historically low range of the past few years.

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Applications for jobless aid for the week ending Jan. 31 rose by 22,000 to 231,000 from the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s significantly more than the 211,000 new applications that analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet had forecast.

Applications for unemployment benefits are seen as representative of U.S. layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.

A number of high-profile companies have announced job cuts in the past year, including UPS, Amazon and Dow just last week.

On Wednesday, the Washington Post laid off one-third of its staff, eliminating its sports section, several foreign bureaus and its books coverage in a widespread purge at the storied newspaper owned by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. A private company, the Post did not disclose how many people it has on staff, making it impossible to estimate how many people were laid off.

Mounting layoff announcements in the past year, combined with the government’s own sluggish labor market reports, has left Americans increasingly pessimistic about the economy.

Last month, the government reported that hiring remained subdued in December, capping a year of weak employment gains that have frustrated job seekers even though layoffs and unemployment remained historically low.

Employers added just 50,000 jobs last month, nearly unchanged from a downwardly revised figure of 56,000 in November, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate slipped to 4.4%, its first decline since June.

January’s jobs report, which was scheduled for release Friday, has been delayed due to the partial government shutdown earlier this week.

The U.S. economy gained just 584,000 jobs in 2025, an average of around 50,000 per month. That’s sharply lower than that more than 2 million added in 2024, which amounts to an average of nearly 170,000 per month.

The 2025 numbers represent the smallest annual job gains since the COVID-19 pandemic decimated the job market in 2020. Outside of recessions, it’s the slimmest annual increase since 2003.

The Labor Department also recently reported that businesses posted far fewer jobs in November than the previous month, a sign that employers aren’t yet ramping up hiring even as growth has picked up.

Businesses and government agencies posted 7.1 million open jobs at the end of November, down from 7.4 million in October.

The data has revealed a labor market in which hiring has clearly slowed, hobbled by uncertainty raised by President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the lingering effects of the high interest rates the Fed engineered in 2022 and 2023 to tamp down a spike of pandemic-induced inflation.

The Federal Reserve, in an attempt to shore up a softening labor market, trimmed its benchmark lending rate by a quarter-point three straight times at the end of last year. However, last week the U.S. central bank left its benchmark lending rate unchanged in the midst of a broadly improving economic outlook and what officials called a stabilizing labor market.

Thursday’s report from the Labor Department also showed that the four-week moving average of jobless claims, which balances out some of the week-to-week gyrations, rose by 6,000 to 212,250.

The total number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the previous week ending Jan. 24 grew by 25,000 to 1.84 million, the government said.

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is taking direct aim at the financial lifelines of Mexico’s most violent drug cartels, targeting money brokers who prosecutors say have adapted to intensified enforcement by increasingly routing drug profits through cryptocurrency from American cities to cartel leaders in Mexico.

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The cases of four defendants recently sent from Mexico to the U.S. for prosecution provide a glimpse into shadowy money laundering networks that allow the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and other violent groups to continue pumping dangerous drugs into American communities. The prosecutions underscore the Justice Department’s efforts to turn up the pressure on cartels and stay ahead of their sophisticated and ever-evolving tactics to launder money across the border without detection.

By targeting alleged money brokers — rather than street-level traffickers — prosecutors say they are aiming at a choke point they believe is essential to the cartels sustaining their operations as law enforcement pressure mounts on more visible drug routes.

“If you cut off the money, you hurt the cartels, and that’s what we’re trying to do,” A. Tysen Duva, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second administration, the Mexican government has turned over more than 90 high-level defendants with ties to cartels in three transfers now at the center of a legal debate in Mexico. The defendants were wanted by U.S. prosecutors for crimes including drug trafficking, human smuggling and money laundering.

Senior Justice Department officials say bringing cartel figures to the United States is designed to do more than be a deterrent message. It could also lead to indictments against other high-level leaders if defendants cooperate, allowing prosecutors to reach higher into cartel leadership. Under Trump’s Republican administration, the Justice Department has restructured the Criminal Division to integrate narcotics prosecutors with anti-money laundering experts to better target cartels and to reflect a broader shift toward targeting the financial systems that sustain their operations.

The latest transfers to the U.S. include alleged Mexico-based money brokers, who authorities say oversee the movement of drug proceeds and pocket a percentage of the money that returns to the cartels as a commission, according to court papers. The brokers arrange for cash to be picked up in cities across the U.S. and conceal the money to get it across the border, often through digital assets as law enforcement has cut off other methods.

Prosecutors “want to hear on the distribution side how it works, who is involved, and seek additional indictments, and on the money laundering side, exactly the methods that they are using to get the money out of the United States through the U.S. banks,” Duva said. “There’s bulk cash smuggling that has been going on since the beginning of time, and then also sort of the newer trend of taking the cash, buying cryptocurrency, and then trading that cryptocurrency.”

Eduardo Rigoberto Velasco Calderon, Eliomar Segura Torres, Manuel Ignacio Correa and Cesar Linares-Orozco face money laundering conspiracy charges in indictments filed in Kentucky’s federal court. An attorney for Linares-Orozco declined to comment in an email to the AP, and no attorneys were listed in court papers for the other defendants.

The January transfer of 37 defendants from Mexico to the U.S. marked the third of its kind under Trump’s second term. Observers have described the transfers as an offering by Mexican authorities to offset mounting threats by Trump to take military action against cartels.

A group of lawyers and family members of cartel figures have accused Mexico of breaking the law by sending them without an extradition order. Mexico’s government has maintained the transfers were legal, carried out in the name of national security.

By KAMILA HRABCHUK, Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The U.S. and Russia agreed on Thursday to reestablish high level military-to-military dialogue following a meeting between senior Russian and American military officials in Abu Dhabi, the United States European Command said in a statement.

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The agreement was reached following meetings between Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, the Commander of U.S. European Command — who is also NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe — and senior Russian and Ukrainian military officials, the statement said.

The channel “will provide a consistent military-to-military contact as the parties continue to work towards a lasting peace,” the statement said. High level military communication was suspended in 2021, just before Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine.

Grynkewich was in the capital of the United Arab Emirates where talks between American, Russian and Ukrainian officials on ending the war in Ukraine entered a second day and as Moscow escalated its attacks on Ukraine’s power grid.

Russia continues to target Ukraine’s electricity network, aiming to deny civilians power and weaken their appetite for the fight, while fighting continues along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line snaking along eastern and southern parts of Ukraine.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy revealed that 55,000 Ukrainian troops have died since Russia’s invasion almost four years ago. “And there is a large number of people whom Ukraine considers missing,” he added in an interview broadcast by French TV channel France 2 late Wednesday.

The last time Zelenskyy gave a figure for battlefield deaths, in early 2025, he said 46,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed.

The delegations from Moscow and Kyiv were joined Thursday in the capital of the United Arab Emirates by U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, according to Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council chief, who was present at the meeting.

They were also at last month’s talks in the same place as the Trump administration tries to steer the two countries toward a settlement. At the time, Zelenskyy described the issue of who would control the Donbas industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine as “key.”

Officials have provided no information about any progress in the discussions.

Zelenskyy has repeatedly said his country needs security guarantees from the U.S. and Europe to deter any postwar Russian attacks.

Ukrainians must feel that there is genuine progress toward peace and “not toward a scenario in which the Russians exploit everything to their advantage and continue their strikes,” Zelenskyy said on social media late Wednesday.

Last year saw a 31% increase in Ukrainian civilian casualties compared with 2024, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch said in a report published Wednesday.

Almost 15,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and just over 40,000 injured since the start of the war through last December, according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk arrived in Kyiv on an official visit Thursday.

Two people were injured in the Ukrainian capital as a result of overnight Russian drone strikes, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. In the wider Kyiv region, a man suffered a shrapnel chest wound, authorities said.

Russia fired 183 drones and two ballistic missiles at Ukraine overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force.

Russian air defenses downed 95 Ukrainian drones overnight over several regions, the Azov Sea and Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2016, Russia’s Defense Ministry said.

Emma Burrows in London contributed to this report.

By JOEY CAPPELLETTI, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan is refusing to voluntarily comply with a Justice Department investigation into a video she organized urging U.S. military members to resist “illegal orders” — escalating a dispute that President Donald Trump has publicly pushed.

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In letters first obtained by The Associated Press, Slotkin’s lawyer informed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro that the senator would not agree to a voluntary interview about the video. Slotkin’s legal team also requested that Pirro preserve all documents related to the matter for “anticipated litigation.”

Slotkin’s lawyer separately wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi, declining to sit for an FBI interview about the video and urging her to immediately terminate any inquiry.

The refusal marks a potential turning point in the standoff, shifting the burden onto the Justice Department to decide whether it will escalate an investigation into sitting members of Congress or retreat from an inquiry now being openly challenged.

“I did this to go on offense,” Slotkin said in an interview Wednesday. “And to put them in a position where they’re tap dancing. To put them in a position where they have to own their choices of using a U.S. attorney’s office to come after a senator.”

‘It’s not gonna stop unless I fight back’

Last November, Slotkin joined five other Democratic lawmakers — all of whom previously served in the military or at intelligence agencies — in posting a 90-second video urging U.S. service members to follow established military protocols and reject orders they believe to be unlawful.

The lawmakers said Trump’s Republican administration was “pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens” and called on troops to “stand up for our laws.”

The video sparked a firestorm in Republican circles and soon drew the attention of Trump, who accused the lawmakers of sedition and said their actions were “punishable by death.”

The Pentagon later announced it had opened an investigation into Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, a former Navy pilot who appeared in the video. The FBI then contacted the lawmakers seeking interviews, signaling a broader Justice Department inquiry.

Slotkin said multiple legal advisers initially urged caution.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., talks during a breakout session during the 94th Winter Meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026 in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

“Maybe if you keep quiet, this will all go away over Christmas,” Slotkin said she was told.

But in January, the matter flared again, with the lawmakers saying they were contacted by the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia.

Meanwhile, security threats mounted. Slotkin said her farm in Michigan received a bomb threat, her brother was assigned a police detail due to threats and her parents were swatted in the middle of the night.

Her father, who died in January after a long battle with cancer, “could barely walk and he’s dealing with the cops in his home,” she said.

Slotkin said a “switch went off” in her and she became angry: “And I said, ‘It’s not gonna stop unless I fight back.’”

Democratic senators draw a line

The requests from the FBI and the Justice Department have been voluntary. Slotkin said that her legal team had communicated with prosecutors but that officials “keep asking for a personal interview.”

Slotkin’s lawyer, Preet Bharara, in the letter to Pirro declined the interview request and asked that she “immediately terminate any open investigation and cease any further inquiry concerning the video.” In the other letter, Bharara urged Bondi to use her authority to direct Pirro to close the inquiry.

Bharara wrote that Slotkin’s constitutional rights had been infringed and said litigation is being considered.

“All options are most definitely on the table,” Slotkin said. Asked whether she would comply with a subpoena, she paused before responding: “I’d take a hard look at it.”

Kelly has similarly pushed back, suing the Pentagon last month over attempts to punish him for the video. On Tuesday, a federal judge said that he knows of no U.S. Supreme Court precedent to justify the Pentagon’s censuring of Kelly as he weighed whether to intervene.

Slotkin said she’s in contact with the other lawmakers who appeared in the video, but she wouldn’t say what their plans were in the investigations.

A rising profile

Trump has frequently and consistently targeted his political opponents. In some cases, those attacks have had the unintended consequence of elevating their national standing.

In Kelly’s case, he raised more than $12.5 million in the final months of 2025 following the “illegal orders” video controversy, according to campaign finance filings.

Slotkin, like Kelly, has been mentioned among Democrats who could emerge as presidential contenders in 2028.

She previously represented one of the nation’s most competitive House districts before winning a Senate seat in Michigan in 2024, even as Trump carried the state.

Slotkin delivered the Democratic response to Trump’s address to Congress last year and has since urged her party to confront him more aggressively, saying Democrats had lost their “alpha energy” and calling on them to “go nuclear” against Trump’s redistricting push.

“If I’m encouraging other people to take risk, how can I not then accept risk myself?” Slotkin said. “I think you’ve got to show people that we’re not going to lay down and take it.”