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WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans voted to dismiss a war powers resolution Wednesday that would have limited President Donald Trump’s ability to conduct further attacks on Venezuela after two GOP senators reversed course on supporting the legislation.

Trump put intense pressure on five Republican senators who joined with Democrats to advance the resolution last week and ultimately prevailed in heading off passage of the legislation. Two of the Republicans — Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana — flipped under the pressure.

Vice President JD Vance had to break the 50-50 deadlock in the Senate on a Republican motion to dismiss the bill.

The outcome of the high-profile vote demonstrated how Trump still has command over much of the Republican conference, yet the razor-thin vote tally also showed the growing concern on Capitol Hill over the president’s aggressive foreign policy ambitions.

Democrats forced the debate after U.S. troops captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid earlier this month

“Here we have one of the most successful attacks ever and they find a way to be against it. It’s pretty amazing. And it’s a shame,” Trump said at a speech in Michigan Tuesday. He also hurled insults at several of the Republicans who advanced the legislation, calling Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky a “stone cold loser” and Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine “disasters.” Those three Republicans stuck to their support for the legislation.

Trump’s latest comments followed earlier phone calls with the senators, which they described as terse. The president’s fury underscored how the war powers vote had taken on new political significance as Trump also threatens military action to accomplish his goal of possessing Greenland.

The legislation, even if it had cleared the Senate, had virtually no chance of becoming law because it would eventually need to be signed by Trump himself. But it represented both a test of GOP loyalty to the president and a marker for how much leeway the Republican-controlled Senate is willing to give Trump to use the military abroad. Republican angst over his recent foreign policy moves — especially threats of using military force to seize Greenland from a NATO ally — is still running high in Congress.

Two Republicans reconsider

Hawley, who helped advance the war powers resolution last week, said Trump’s message during a phone call was that the legislation “really ties my hands.” The senator said he had a follow-up phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio Monday and was told “point blank, we’re not going to do ground troops.”

The senator added that he also received assurances that the Trump administration will follow constitutional requirements if it becomes necessary to deploy troops again to the South American country.

“We’re getting along very well with Venezuela,” Trump told reporters at a ceremony for the signing of an unrelated bill Wednesday.

As senators went to the floor for the vote Wednesday evening, Young also told reporters he was no longer in support. He said that he had extensive conversations with Rubio and received assurances that the secretary of state will appear at a public hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Young also shared a letter from Rubio that stated the president will “seek congressional authorization in advance (circumstances permitting)” if he engaged in “major military operations” in Venezuela.

The senators also said his efforts were also instrumental in pushing the administration to release Wednesday a 22-page Justice Department memo laying out the legal justification for the snatch-and-grab operation against Maduro.

That memo, which was heavily redacted, indicates that the administration, for now, has no plans to ramp up military operations in Venezuela.

“We were assured that there is no contingency plan to engage in any substantial and sustained operation that would amount to a constitutional war,” according to the memo signed by Assistant Attorney General Elliot Gaiser.

Trump’s shifting rationale for military intervention

Trump has used a series of legal arguments for his campaign against Maduro.

As he built up a naval force in the Caribbean and destroyed vessels that were allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, the Trump administration tapped wartime powers under the global war on terror by designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations.

The administration has claimed the capture of Maduro himself was actually a law enforcement operation, essentially to extradite the Venezuelan president to stand trial for charges in the U.S. that were filed in 2020.

Paul criticized the administration for first describing its military build-up in Caribbean as a counternarcotics operation but now floating Venezuela’s vast oil reserves as a reason for maintaining pressure.

“The bait and switch has already happened,” he said.

Trump’s foreign policy worries Congress

Lawmakers, including a significant number of Republicans, have been alarmed by Trump’s recent foreign policy talk. In recent weeks, he has pledged that the U.S. will “run” Venezuela for years to come, threatened military action to take possession of Greenland and told Iranians protesting their government that ” help is on its way.”

Senior Republicans have tried to massage the relationship between Trump and Denmark, a NATO ally that holds Greenland as a semi-autonomous territory. But Danish officials emerged from a meeting with Vance and Rubio Wednesday saying a “fundamental disagreement” over Greenland remains.

“What happened tonight is a roadmap to another endless war,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said at a news conference following the vote.

More than half of U.S. adults believe President Donald Trump has “gone too far” in using the U.S. military to intervene in other countries, according to a new AP-NORC poll.

How Republican leaders dismissed the bill

Last week’s procedural vote on the war powers resolution was supposed to set up hours of debate and a vote on final passage. But Republican leaders began searching for a way to defuse the conflict between their members and Trump as well as move on quickly to other business.

Once Hawley and Young changed their support for the bill, Republicans were able to successfully challenge whether it was appropriate when the Trump administration has said U.S. troops are not currently deployed in Venezuela.

“We’re not currently conducting military operations there,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune in a floor speech. “But Democrats are taking up this bill because their anti-Trump hysteria knows no bounds.”

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who has brought a series of war powers resolutions this year, accused Republicans of burying a debate about the merits of an ongoing campaign of attacks and threats against Venezuela.

“If this cause and if this legal basis were so righteous, the administration and its supporters would not be afraid to have this debate before the public and the United States Senate,” he said in a floor speech.

Kaine vowed to force votes on war powers resolutions that would apply to a number of potential military conflicts, including Greenland. House Democrats have also filed a similar war powers resolution and can force a vote on it as soon as next week.

WASHINGTON — The United States said Wednesday that it is moving into the next phase of a Gaza ceasefire plan that involves disarming Hamas, rebuilding the war-ravaged territory and establishing the group of Palestinian experts that will administer daily affairs in Gaza under American supervision.

President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in a post on X that the deal that the Republican president helped broker was entering its second phase following two years of war between Israel and Hamas, including the establishment of a technocratic government in Gaza.

While Wednesday’s announcement indicates a key step forward, a new government in Gaza and the ceasefire agreement face a number of huge challenges — including the deployment of an international security force to supervise the deal and the difficult process of disarming Hamas.

Witkoff did not offer any details about who would serve on the new transitional Palestinian administration that would govern Gaza. The White House did not immediately offer any more information, either.

The other mediators of the ceasefire deal — Egypt, Turkey and Qatar — welcomed the establishment of the Palestinian technocratic committee and said it would be led by Ali Shaath, a former deputy minister in the Palestinian Authority.

In a joint statement, the three countries called it an “important development … aimed at consolidating stability and improving the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.”

Shaath is a Gaza native who served as a deputy minister for transportation with the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority. Shaath, an engineer, is an expert in economic development and reconstruction, according to his biography on the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute’s website.

Witkoff said the U.S. expects Hamas to immediately return the final Israeli hostage as part of its obligations under the deal, noting that “failure to do so will bring serious consequences.”

A Hamas spokesperson, Hazem Qassem, told Al-Jazeera Live on Wednesday that Witkoff’s announcement is an important and positive development, adding that the group is ready to hand over the administration of Gaza to the independent technocratic committee and facilitate its work.

“Hamas is ready to engage in internal Palestinian approaches to discuss the issue of the resistance weapons,” said Qassem in the statements that he shared on his Telegram channel.

The last hostage, Ran Gvili, was a 24-year-old police officer who was killed while fighting Hamas militants during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that started the war in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke Wednesday evening to Gvili’s parents, Tali and Itzik Gvili, and told them that the return of their son’s remains a top priority, his office said in a statement.

“The declarative move to establish a technocratic committee will not affect efforts to return Ran to Israel’s grave,” the statement said.

The statement added that Israel will act on any information the mediators receive and said Hamas is required under the ceasefire agreement to do all it can to return each and every hostage.

The ceasefire reached under Trump’s 20-point plan took effect in October and stopped much of the fighting. Under the first phase of the three-phase deal, Hamas released all but one hostage it was holding in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians who were held by Israel.

Appointees to a technocratic committee that Witkoff said would be established under the second phase are part of a broader plan to end Hamas’ 18-year rule of Gaza. The appointees will run day-to-day affairs in Gaza, under the oversight of a Trump-led “Board of Peace,” whose members have also not yet been named.

The technocratic committee will be tasked with providing public services to the more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, but it faces towering challenges and unanswered questions, including about its operations and financing.

The United Nations has estimated that reconstruction will cost more than $50 billion. The process is expected to take years, and little money has been pledged so far.

There also is the more immediate challenge of figuring out how to take over basic services after nearly two decades of Hamas-led rule in Gaza and repeated rounds of conflict with Israel.

BOSTON — The Trump administration apologized in court for a “mistake” in the deportation of a Massachusetts college student who was detained trying to fly home to surprise her family for Thanksgiving, but still argued the error should not affect her case.

Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, 19, a Babson College freshman, was detained at Boston’s airport on Nov. 20 and flown to Honduras two days later. Her removal came despite an emergency court order on Nov. 21 directing the government to keep her in Massachusetts or elsewhere in the United States for at least 72 hours.

Lopez Belloza, whose family emigrated from Honduras to the U.S. in 2014, is currently staying with grandparents and studying remotely. She is not detained and was recently visiting an aunt in El Salvador.

Her case is the latest involving a deportation carried out despite a court order. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador despite a ruling that should have prevented it. The Trump administration initially fought efforts to bring him back to the U.S. but eventually complied after the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in. And last June, a Guatemalan man identified as O.C.G. was returned to the U.S. after a judge found his removal from Mexico likely “lacked any semblance of due process.”

At a federal court hearing Tuesday in Boston, the government argued the court lacks jurisdiction because lawyers for Lopez Belloza filed their action several hours after she arrived in Texas while en route out of the country. But the government also acknowledged it violated the judge’s order.

In court filings and in open court, government lawyers said an Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation officer mistakenly believed the order no longer applied because Lopez Belloza had already left Massachusetts. The officer failed to activate a system that alerts other ICE officers that a case is subject to judicial review and that removal should be halted.

“On behalf of the government, we want to sincerely apologize,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Sauter told the judge, saying the employee understands “he made a mistake.” The violation, Sauter added, was “an inadvertent mistake by one individual, not a willful act of violating a court order.”

In a declaration filed with the court Jan. 2, the ICE officer also admitted he did not notify ICE’s enforcement office in Port Isabel, Texas, that the removal mission needed to be canceled. He said he believed the judge’s order did not apply once Lopez Belloza was no longer in the state.

The government maintains her deportation was lawful because an immigration judge ordered the removal of Lopez Belloza and her mother in 2016, and the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed their appeal in 2017. Prosecutors said she could have pursued additional appeals or sought a stay of removal.

Her lawyer, Todd Pomerleau, countered that she was deported in clear violation of the Nov. 21 order and said the government’s actions deprived her of due process. “I was hoping the government would show some leniency and bring her back,” he said. “They violated a court order.”

U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns said he appreciated the government acknowledging the error, calling it a “tragic” bureaucratic mistake. But appeared to rule out holding the government in contempt, noting the violation did not appear intentional. He also questioned whether he has jurisdiction over the case, appearing to side with the government in concluding the court order had been filed several hours after she had been sent to Texas.

“It might not be anybody’s fault, but she was the victim of it,” Stearns said, adding at one point that Lopez Belloza could explore applying for a student visa.

Pomerleau said one possible resolution would be allowing Lopez Belloza to return to finish her studies while he works to reopen the underlying removal order.

WASHINGTON — A top Danish official said Wednesday that a “fundamental disagreement” over Greenland remains with President Donald Trump after talks in Washington with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The two sides, however, agreed to create a working group to discuss ways to work through differences as Trump continues to call for a U.S. takeover of the Denmark’s Arctic territory of Greenland.

“The group, in our view, should focus on how to address the American security concerns, while at the same time respecting the red lines of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told reporters after joining Greenland’s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, for the talks.

Trump is trying to make the case that NATO should help the U.S. acquire the world’s largest island and says anything less than it being under American control is unacceptable.

Denmark has announced plans to boost the country’s military presence in the Arctic and North Atlantic as Trump tries to justify his calls for a U.S. takeover of the vast territory by repeatedly claiming that China and Russia have their designs on Greenland.

Vance and Rubio met with Løkke Rasmussen and Greenlandic Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt for roughly an hour to discuss Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark.

But a few hours before the officials sat down, Trump reiterated on his social media site that the U.S. “needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security.” He added that “NATO should be leading the way for us to get it” and that otherwise Russia or China would — “AND THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!”

“NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES,” Trump wrote. “Anything less than that is unacceptable.”

Løkke Rasmussen told reporters that it remains “clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland.”

“And we made it very, very clear that this is not in the interest of the kingdom,” he said after the meeting, citing a “fundamental disagreement” with the Trump administration but willing to keep talking.

Both Løkke Rasmussen and Motzfeldt offered measured hope that the talks were beginning a conversation that would lead to Trump dropping his demand of acquiring the territory and create a path for tighter cooperation with the U.S.

“We have shown where our limits are and from there, I think that it will be very good to look forward,” Motzfeldt said.

Denmark bolstering presence in Arctic

In Copenhagen, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen announced an increase in Denmark’s “military presence and exercise activity” in the Arctic and the North Atlantic, “in close cooperation with our allies”.

Poulsen said at a news conference the stepped-up military presence was necessary in a security environment in which “no one can predict what will happen tomorrow.”

“This means that from today and in the coming time there will be an increased military presence in and around Greenland of aircraft, ships and soldiers, including from other NATO allies,” Poulsen said.

Other NATO allies were arriving in Greenland along with Danish personnel, he said. Poulsen declined to name the other countries contributing to increased Arctic presence, saying that it is up to the allies to announce their own participation.

Earlier, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson wrote on X that “some officers from the Swedish Armed Forces are arriving in Greenland today” as part of a group from several allied countries. “Together, they will prepare events within the framework of the Danish exercise Operation Arctic Endurance,” Kristersson said. Two Norwegian military personnel also will be sent to Greenland to map out further cooperation with allies, the country’s Defense Minister Tore O. Sandvik told newspaper VG.

Greenlanders want the U.S. to back off

Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said Tuesday that “if we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark. We choose NATO. We choose the Kingdom of Denmark. We choose the EU.”

Asked about those comments, Trump replied: “I disagree with him. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know anything about him. But, that’s going to be a big problem for him.”

Greenland is strategically important because, as climate change causes the ice to melt, it opens up the possibility of shorter trade routes to Asia. That also could make it easier to extract and transport untapped deposits of critical minerals which are needed for computers and phones.

Trump says Greenland is also “vital” to the United States’ Golden Dome missile defense program. He also has said he wants the island to expand America’s security and has repeatedly cited what he says is the threat from Russian and Chinese ships as a reason to control it.

But experts and Greenlanders question that claim.

“The only Chinese I see is when I go to the fast food market,” heating engineer Lars Vintner said. He said he frequently goes sailing and hunting and has never seen Russian or Chinese ships.

His friend, Hans Nørgaard, agreed, adding “what has come out of the mouth of Donald Trump about all these ships is just fantasy.”

Denmark has said the U.S, which already has a military presence, can boost its bases on Greenland. The U.S. is party to a 1951 treaty that gives it broad rights to set up military bases there with the consent of Denmark and Greenland.

For that reason, “security is just a cover,” Vintner said, suggesting Trump actually wants to own the island to make money from its untapped natural resources.

Mikaelsen, the student, said Greenlanders benefit from being part of Denmark, which provides free health care, education and payments during study, and “I don’t want the U.S. to take that away from us.”

Løkke Rasmussen and Motzfeldt, along with Denmark’s ambassador to the U.S., met Wednesday with senators from the Arctic Caucus, a bipartisan delegation of U.S. lawmakers is also heading to Copenhagen this week to see Danish and Greenlandic officials.

MINNEAPOLIS — Federal officers dropped tear gas and sprayed eye irritant at activists Tuesday during another day of confrontations in Minneapolis, while students miles away walked out of a suburban school to protest the Trump administration’s bold immigration sweeps.

Meanwhile, the fallout from the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman by an immigration agent reached the local U.S. Attorney’s Office: At least five prosecutors have resigned amid controversy over how the U.S. Justice Department is handling the investigation, according to people familiar with the matter.

Separately, a Justice Department official said Wednesday there’s no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation. An FBI probe of Renee Good’s death is ongoing.

Strife between federal agents and the public continues to boil, six days since Good was shot in the head while driving off in her Honda Pilot. At one scene, gas clouds filled a Minneapolis street near where she died. A man scrubbed his eyes with snow and screamed for help after agents in a Jeep sprayed an orange irritant and drove off.

It’s common for people to boo, taunt and blow orange whistles when they spot heavily armed immigration agents passing through in unmarked vehicles or walking the streets, all part of a grassroots effort to warn the neighborhood and remind the government that they’re watching.

“Who doesn’t have a whistle?” a man with a bag of them yelled.

Brita Anderson, who lives nearby and came to support neighborhood friends, said she was “incensed” to see agents in tactical gear and gas masks, and wondered about their purpose.

“It felt like the only reason they’d come here is to harass people,” Anderson said.

In Brooklyn Park, Minn., students protesting the immigration enforcement operation walked out of school, as students in other communities have done this week.

Good’s death has ripple effect

The departures in the U.S. Attorney’s Office include First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, who had been leading the sprawling prosecution of public fraud schemes in the state, according to people who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

With the Department of Homeland Security pledging to send more than 2,000 immigration officers into Minnesota, the state, joined by Minneapolis and St. Paul, sued President Donald Trump’s administration Monday to halt or limit the surge.

The lawsuit says Homeland Security is violating the First Amendment and other constitutional protections by focusing on a progressive state that favors Democrats and welcomes immigrants.

“What we are seeing is thousands — plural — thousands of federal agents coming into our city. And, yeah, they’re having a tremendous impact on day-to-day life,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said.

A judge set a status conference for Wednesday.

Homeland Security says it has made more than 2,000 arrests in the state since early December and is vowing to not back down. Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, responding to the lawsuit, accused Minnesota officials of ignoring public safety.

Trump defiant

In a social media post, Trump defended the aggressive immigration enforcement actions being carried out across Minneapolis as part of his deportation agenda.

The president asserted in the post that the anti-ICE activity is also shifting the spotlight away from alleged fraud in the state and said, “FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!”

Trump blames what he calls “professional agitators” for the widespread protests. He has not provided evidence to support his claims.

In response, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz posted on X: “Trump admits that this is nothing but political retribution. Minnesota voted against him three times and now he’s punishing us – putting lives at risk and wasting enormous resources in the process.”

ICE tactics on docket

In a different lawsuit, a judge said she would rule by Thursday or Friday on a request to restrict the use of force, such as chemical irritants, on people who are observing and recording agents’ activities. Government attorneys argued that officers must protect themselves.

The Trump administration has repeatedly defended the immigration agent who shot Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, saying he acted in self-defense. But that explanation has been widely panned by Frey, Walz, and others based on videos of the confrontation.

State and local authorities are urging the public to share video and any other evidence as they seek to separately investigate Good’s death after federal authorities insisted they would approach it alone and not share information.

In Wisconsin, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez is proposing that the state ban civil immigration enforcement around courthouses, hospitals, health clinics, schools, churches and other places. She is hoping to succeed Gov. Tony Evers, a fellow Democrat, who is not running for a third term.

“We can take a look at that, but I think banning things absolutely will ramp up the actions of our folks in Washington, D.C.,” Evers said, referring to the Trump administration. “They don’t tend to approach those things appropriately.”