WASHINGTON >> The United States is selling weapons to its NATO allies in Europe so they can provide them to Ukraine as it struggles to fend off a recent escalation in Russia’s drone and missile attacks, President Donald Trump and his chief diplomat said.

“We’re sending weapons to NATO, and NATO is paying for those weapons, 100%,” Trump said in an interview with NBC News late Thursday. “So what we’re doing is, the weapons that are going out are going to NATO, and then NATO is going to be giving those weapons (to Ukraine), and NATO is paying for those weapons.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that some of the U.S.-made weapons that Ukraine is seeking are deployed with NATO allies in Europe. Those weapons could be transferred to Ukraine, with European countries buying replacements from the U.S., he said.

“It’s a lot faster to move something, for example, from Germany to Ukraine than it is to order it from a (U.S.) factory and get it there,” Rubio told reporters during a visit to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Ukraine badly needs more U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems to stop Russian ballistic and cruise missiles. The Trump administration has gone back and forth about providing more vital military aid to Ukraine more than three years into Russia’s invasion.

After a brief pause in some weapons shipments, Trump said he would keep sending defensive weapons to Ukraine. U.S. officials said this week that some were on their way.

Administration cited over deportee’s case

GREENBELT, Md. >> A federal judge in Maryland scolded the Trump administration on Friday for its “utter refusal” to detail its deportation plans for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, including where the government plans to send him and whether he’ll get a chance to fight his expulsion before he’s whisked away.

The Salvadoran national could be released from a Tennessee jail as soon as next Wednesday to await trial on human smuggling charges. U.S. immigration officials have said they would immediately detain him and begin deportation proceedings.

“I’m deeply concerned that if there’s not some restraint on you, Mr. Abrego will be on another plane to another country,” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis told Justice Department lawyers on Friday.

Abrego Garcia became a flashpoint over Republican President Donald Trump’s immigration policies when he was wrongfully deported to his native El Salvador in March. That expulsion violated a U.S. immigration judge’s order in 2019 that shields him from deportation to El Salvador because he likely faces threats of gang violence there.

The administration claimed that Abrego Garcia was in the MS-13 gang, although he wasn’t charged and has repeatedly denied the allegation. Facing mounting pressure and a U.S. Supreme Court order, the Trump administration returned Abrego Garcia to the U.S. last month to face the smuggling charges, which his attorneys have called “preposterous.”

The administration argues now that Abrego Garcia is a danger to the community and can be deported before his trial to a country other than El Salvador.

Judge puts limits on immigration crackdown

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration on Friday from making indiscriminate immigration arrests in the Los Angeles area and denying detainees the right to consult with a lawyer, dealing a temporary blow to the president’s high-profile crackdown on immigration.

The judge, in California, granted two temporary restraining orders in response to a lawsuit filed last week by immigrant advocacy groups. A fuller hearing is expected in the coming weeks, but the initial rulings represent a sharp rebuke of the tactics that federal agents have employed in and around Los Angeles during raids, which have entered their second month.

In the orders, the judge, Maame E. Frimpong of U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, directed agents to stop racial profiling in the course of seeking out immigrants, and mandated that the federal government, which has deployed hundreds of agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies in Los Angeles County, ensure detainees have access to legal counsel.

“What the federal government would have this Court believe — in the face of a mountain of evidence presented in this case — is that none of this is actually happening,” the judge wrote.

She said that “roving patrols” without reasonable suspicion violated the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution and that denying access to lawyers violated the Fifth Amendment.

State Department lays off 1,300 staffers

WASHINGTON >> The U.S. State Department fired more than 1,300 employees Friday in line with a dramatic reorganization plan from the Trump administration that critics say will damage America’s global leadership and efforts to counter threats abroad.

The department sent layoff notices to 1,107 civil servants and 246 foreign service officers with assignments in the United States, according to a senior department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

Notices said positions were being “abolished” and the employees would lose access to State Department headquarters in Washington and their email and shared drives by 5 p.m., according to a copy obtained by The Associated Press.

Farmworker dies after injuries in raid

A Mexican farmworker died Friday from injuries sustained during a federal immigration raid the day before in an agricultural region north of Los Angeles, according to the United Farm Workers union.

The farmworker, Jaime Alanís, fell several stories to the ground from a greenhouse Thursday, when federal agents raided a state-licensed cannabis farm in Ventura County.

“During the chaos, he fell 30 feet or more, and experienced devastating spinal and skull injuries,” Elizabeth Strater, a United Farm Workers vice president, said in an interview.

An official familiar with the circumstances of the farmworker’s death said he was from the Mexican state of Michoacán, had been working at the farm for more than a decade and had been trying to flee from agents when he fell. He was in his late 50s.

Strater said that after the fall, he was transported to a hospital, where he was on life support for a time.

El Chapo’s son enters guilty plea

CHICAGO >> A son of notorious Mexican drug kingpin “El Chapo” pleaded guilty Friday to U.S. drug trafficking charges, becoming the first of the drug lord’s sons to enter a plea deal.

Prosecutors allege Ovidio Guzman Lopez and his brother, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, ran a faction of the Sinaloa cartel. They became known locally as the “Chapitos,” or “little Chapos,” and federal authorities in 2023 described the operation as a massive effort to send “staggering” quantities of fentanyl into the U.S.

As part of a plea agreement, Ovidio Guzman Lopez admitted to helping oversee the production and smuggling of large quantities of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana and fentanyl into the United States, fueling a crisis that has contributed to tens of thousands of overdose deaths annually.

Guzman Lopez pleaded guilty to drug trafficking, money laundering and firearms charges tied to his leadership role in the cartel. Terms of the deal, including sentencing recommendations or cooperation agreements, were not immediately disclosed.

Iran attack on Qatar struck key U.S. facility

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates >> An Iranian attack on an air base in Qatar that’s key to the U.S. military hit a geodesic dome housing equipment used by the Americans for secure communications, satellite images analyzed Friday by the Associated Press show.

Hours after the publication of this AP report, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell acknowledged that an Iranian ballistic missile had hit the dome. Qatar did not respond to requests for comment about the damage.

The Iranian attack on Al Udeid Air Base outside of Doha, Qatar’s capital, on June 23 came as a response to the American bombing of three nuclear sites in Iran — and provided the Islamic Republic a way to retaliate that quickly led to a ceasefire brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump ending the 12-day Iran-Israel war.

The Iranian attack otherwise did little damage — likely because of the fact that the U.S. evacuated its aircraft from the base, which is home to the forward headquarters of the U.S. military’s Central Command, before the attack.

Houthis sink cargo ship; 4 dead, 11 missing

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates >> Four people are presumed dead and 11 others are still missing after a Liberian-flagged cargo ship sank in the Red Sea following an attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, a European naval mission reported.

The update from the EU’s Operation Aspides came as private security forces continue to search for survivors from the Eternity C, a Greek-owned bulk carrier that sank on Wednesday.

Ten people were recovered alive from the attack.

— From news services