Trump targets more news outlets, saying he will ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday that he was barring CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House due to what he called unfavorable coverage and “fake news,” and threatened that more such media bans could be coming — the latest salvo in the president's increasingly aggressive response to media coverage he finds unfavorable.

Like many of Trump's other confrontations with news organizations — some of which are playing out in the legal arena — this one has potential First Amendment implications.

The president wrote on his social media site that effective immediately, “I am banning” CNN, MS NOW and Politico “from the White House as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” Minutes later, speaking at an event in the Oval Office, Trump was asked to explain his statement.

“Because they’re fake news,” he said. “You get so tired of reading and seeing fake news. When you look at CNN, it’s just fake. That’s why their ratings are no good. When you look at MS NOW … , it’s fake news.”

“And when you look at Politico ... the stories they wrote are fake. So there’s a lot of news and there may be others to join them, and maybe they can get better," he said. "But our country has to have honest news.”

Trump announces all 50 states joining Medicaid drug pricing model

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced Friday that all 50 states will join in on a program set to provide Most Favored Nation pricing to some drugs within the Medicaid program, bringing the net price of selected drugs down to prices paid in certain other countries.

The Trump administration claims that Medicaid will save billions on prescription drug costs as a result of the plan, dubbed the Medicaid “GENEROUS” model. Experts say the savings are unclear since the content of the deals isn't public.

“This one thing alone should win us the midterms,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Friday, flanked by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz and others.

Friday's announcement comes as cost-of-living issues are at the forefront of voters’ concerns ahead of the midterm elections in November. In a way to address affordability concerns, Trump has cut deals with pharmaceutical companies so that the cost of some drugs in the U.S. would not be dramatically higher than in other affluent nations. But critics say his administration has not presented a viable plan for broadly addressing rising health costs, especially after Republicans let expire Affordable Care Act subsidies earlier this year that sent plan costs soaring.

Last year, Trump signed an executive order instituting a “Most Favored Nations” policy, where the U.S. would commit to paying the same price for medications as the nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the world.

Early voting begins in US midterm elections that could flip control of Congress

HENRICO, Va. (AP) — In-person voting for this year’s midterm elections began Friday, ushering in the final six weeks for Americans to decide which party they trust to lead Congress through a cost-of-living crisis, a prolonged war in Iran and other pressing issues.

Election administrators say they are prepared and confident the vote will be accurate and secure. Nevertheless, President Donald Trump has continued efforts to denigrate certain voting methods and reshape how elections are run, through court challenges, a federal hunt for noncitizen voters and a pressure campaign to force election officials to share sensitive voter data.

Friday was the start of early voting in Virginia. Voters in a few other states, including Minnesota and South Dakota, can cast absentee ballots in person, typically at a local election office or voting center. More expansive early voting is scheduled to begin in those and other states in the coming weeks.

At a voting location in Fairfax, Virginia, 18-year-old college student Sanya Singhal was among the first to vote early in person Friday morning, arriving well before the site opened to get in line.

“Why not just have a little fun in life, you know, try to be the first early voter?” she asked. “I really want to participate in my democracy.”

Warren Buffett gives up chairman title at Berkshire Hathaway in the next step of his succession plan

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Warren Buffett is stepping down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway in the next step of the transition at the top of the $1 trillion conglomerate he led for more than six decades.

Buffett, 96, will become chairman emeritus and will take on his new role immediately, the company said Friday. His oldest son, Howard, will become Berkshire Hathaway’s new chairman, part of a long-planned succession. Howard Buffett has been on the Berkshire Hathaway board since 1993.

Warren Buffett, known by a legion of financial market followers as the Oracle of Omaha, will remain a director. He had been Berkshire Hathaway’s chairman since 1970, but he took control of the struggling New England textile company in 1965.

Greg Abel took over for Buffett as the CEO of the $1 trillion conglomerate at the start of this year though Buffett continued to come into the office each day to look for new investments and deals and offer Abel any advice. It's not clear whether Buffett will change his routine at all now.

“I have served Berkshire since 1965," Buffett said in a letter to shareholders. “Sixty-plus years in, I still have the best job in the world. That is not something many people my age can say, and I have never felt better about what comes next.”

Trump pushes his $5,000 'dividend' pledge if GOP wins midterms. Republican candidates, not as much

President Donald Trump came to battleground North Carolina doubling down on a tantalizing and implausible midterm promise. “If we win," he said, “we’re going to get you $5,000. So that’s it. Very simple.”

The Republican candidates who spoke at the rally had nothing to say about it.

Their silence reflects a broader pattern. About a week after the president unveiled his “ Trump dividend ” pledge at the party’s unusual midterm convention in Dallas, there is little evidence that Republicans in competitive races have incorporated it into their campaigns.

The pledge hasn't been a staple of television advertising, whether from Trump's own political operation or his party's candidates. It usually only comes up when reporters ask about it, prompting most Republicans to sidestep the idea.

The Republican National Committee considers the proposed payments part of Trump’s broader economic vision and says candidates should get behind it.

Vance blasts Democrats as 'lunatics' in Iowa rally push for GOP candidates

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — Vice President JD Vance on Friday mounted a vigorous defense of the Trump administration's policies and Iowa GOP candidates on the November ballot, arguing that the Democrats had turned into the party of “lunatics," in his second trip to the politically consequential state this year.

While in Iowa, Vance tried to nationalize the elections, invoking Democratic candidates in other states such as Kansas, Texas and New York at a time when the state's Democratic ticket has tried to keep its focus local. But he took plenty of swings at Iowa Democrats, saying their candidate for governor, Rob Sand, was a “career politician" and not a moderate, despite his public persona.

“Let's send the crazy packing and get them out of Washington, D.C., and get them out of Des Moines,” Vance told the crowd at the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, located on the western edge of the once-Republican stronghold state. Iowa has found itself with competitive races for the Senate and the governor’s mansion this year.

Zach Lahn, the GOP nominee for governor, campaigned alongside Vance, who showered him with effusive praise. But missing was Republican U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, the party’s Senate candidate, who did not attend the rally Friday due to previously scheduled events, according to her campaign.

Council Bluffs is home to Josh Turek, the Democratic nominee for the Senate who represents the area in the Statehouse.

Trump administration begins building border wall in Texas’ Big Bend region

COMSTOCK, Texas (AP) — The Trump administration has started building the border wall through a west Texas section of the Big Bend region, marking the first major construction in an area of the U.S.-Mexico border where the administration's plans have met with heavy opposition.

The start of construction marks an important milestone in the administration's $46 billion plan to line the border with walls, barriers, roads and technology as it seeks to make good on a key campaign promise by President Donald Trump to finish the wall. And it comes as Customs and Border Protection says it has doubled the pace at which it is building the wall across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Customs and Border Protection said in a statement to The Associated Press that “border wall panel installation is underway” in a 47-mile stretch of Hudspeth County in west Texas known as Big Bend 1. There are a total of five project areas that make up the roughly 500-mile Big Bend region stretching from an area of Hudspeth County south of El Paso to Lake Amistad.

The agency did not say when the panels had been installed. On a map on the agency’s website where it posts updates of wall construction across the entire southern border, a photo showed a crane lifting one of the 30-foot tall steel wall panels into place while construction workers looked on.

The new activity was separate from a border infrastructure project in the nearby Big Bend National Park, where the administration has temporarily suspended construction in an attempt at outreach to opponents.

Fatal building collapse highlights dangers plaguing Gaza nearly a year after ceasefire

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The deadly collapse of a multistory building in Gaza has drawn new attention to the hardships facing Palestinians there nearly a year after a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas promised to kickstart reconstruction.

But as talks faltered, plans for rebuilding stalled. Israel bars entry of almost all construction materials, making even repairs difficult. Many residents have since moved back into some of the hundreds of thousands of homes damaged by the war despite the risk of weakened foundations and unstable walls suddenly giving way.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 21 people were killed in the collapse in Gaza City on Wednesday. The roof of another building in Gaza City caved in on Friday after a brief period of rain, the local civil defense force said, lightly injuring four children.

Um Mohammad Adas, whose relatives were among those killed on Wednesday, said the fallen building had become a shelter of last resort.

“Now, they are lying in the street homeless and with absolutely nothing,” she said of her family members who survived the collapse. “Even the clothes they are wearing were borrowed.”

Iran war’s cost grows to $43.6 billion in new US military estimate

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military's price tag for the Iran war has grown to $43.6 billion as of Sept. 3, according to a new estimate provided this week to lawmakers.

The figure from U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, offers the most up-to-date cost for the conflict since it was launched by the United States and Israel on Feb. 28. A Congressional Budget Office report released Tuesday said the war had cost $38 billion through Aug. 1 and will continue to rack up expenses of around $3 billion a month depending on the conflict's intensity.

The new breakdown, seen by The Associated Press and reported earlier by Bloomberg and Punchbowl News, also showed the continued use of expensive munitions by American forces. Weapons costs jumped by more than $6 billion in just over a month, from $21.7 billion listed in the CBO report to $28.1 billion in U.S. Central Command’s estimate.

The financial cost is just one measure of the impact of the Iran war, which also is affecting oil prices and the stock market and has led to deaths and injuries of American troops. The political costs will be calculated in November's midterm congressional elections, with Republicans facing increasing headwinds from the war's unpopularity.

The latest cost estimate has emerged as the Trump administration pushes for a historic $1.5 trillion military budget proposal. The White House also is asking Congress to approve a $95 billion package that would help fund the Iran war and other priorities.

Holdout juror in Clancy trial didn't have 'any doubts' that she was responsible for killing her kids

BOSTON (AP) — The lone juror who wanted to convict Lindsay Clancy of murder for killing her three children said he was certain of her guilt, but that other jurors wouldn't listen to him, according to a statement released by his lawyer Friday in his first public comments on the case.

Eleven of 12 jurors were ready to clear Clancy of criminal responsibility, with the majority feeling that the Massachusetts mom was in the grip of a rare condition called postpartum psychosis when she strangled her kids. But juror Michael Desronvil sided with the prosecutors, who had argued that Clancy knew what she was doing.

“I didn’t have any doubts,” Desronvil said in a statement released on X by his lawyer, Edward Paltzik.

The jury's foreperson had claimed in an earlier media interview that Desronvil had admitted having “reasonable doubt” about Clancy's guilt, but wanted to convict her anyway. Desronvil said that wasn't true.

“As I tried to explain different possible theories during deliberation, I kept getting cut off as if I had doubts based on the evidence presented,” he wrote. “Based on all the physical evidence, key witnesses, and what the prosecution presented, I thought it was enough proof that she (Clancy) knew exactly what she was doing and planned.”