Ukraine great Andrii Shevchenko failed to win election to the UEFA executive committee on Thursday, the day Russia formally ceded its seat on the decision-making body of European soccer.
Shevchenko, the former AC Milan star and 2004 Ballon d'Or winner, got just 15 votes from the 55 national federations — a shockingly low total for such a high-profile candidate — as one of five candidates for two vacant seats through 2027 on the UEFA ruling committee.
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UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin, left, speaks with UEFA general secretary Theodoros Theodoridis after a press conference after the 49th ordinary UEFA congress, in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin speaks during a press conference after the 49th ordinary UEFA congress, in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
FIFA president Gianni Infantino speaks to delegates at the 49th ordinary UEFA congress in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin shakes hands with delegates during the 49th UEFA congress in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
FIFA president Gianni Infantino speaks to delegates at the 49th ordinary UEFA congress in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
UAF President Andriy Shevchenko of Ukraine is pictured during the 49th ordinary UEFA congress, in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Those two seats were previously held by officials elected from Ukraine and Spain — Shevchenko’s predecessor leading the national federation, Andrii Pavelko, and disgraced former UEFA vice president Luis Rubiales.
Though Spain retained its seat, with Rafael Louzán getting 32 votes, Ukraine’s old seat went to Israel, whose federation president Moshe Zuares got 31 votes.
At the 2024 UEFA congress in Paris, Ukraine was among a handful of member federations who did not fully support a vote allowing UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin to extend his time in office to 2027.
Asked on Thursday if he would uphold his previous pledge to leave in 2027 after 11 years in a job that paid him, Čeferin replied, "It’s not the time to speak about that.”
Russia lost its seat on the 22-member UEFA ExCo because its most senior soccer official, Alexander Dyukov, the chief executive of Russian oil firm Gazprom Neft, did not stand as a candidate to retain his place for the next four years.
A key pending issue for UEFA is when and how to reintegrate Russia teams into international competitions like the World Cup and Champions League and end a ban imposed within days of the military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In 2022, UEFA and FIFA successfully argued at the Court of Arbitration for Sport that continuing to let Russian teams play would invite chaos in their competitions when some countries in Europe refused to play opponents from the country.
"When the war stops they (Russia) will be readmitted,” Čeferin said, restating UEFA's position on Russian senior teams. A failed UEFA push in 2023 toward letting Russian under-17 teams return provoked a rift in the UEFA executive committee.
Before the voting on Thursday, FIFA President Gianni Infantino told European soccer officials in a keynote speech he hoped Russia would soon be back in international soccer.
“Because this would mean that everything is solved” with peace in the war, Infantino said.
In a separate election for UEFA ExCo seats with four-year mandates, candidates from Estonia and Armenia won.
UEFA also now has a second woman on the ruling committee, electing Norwegian soccer president Lise Klaveness by acclamation to a new seat protected for female candidates.
UEFA pays executive committee members a taxable stipend of 160,000 euros ($178,000) each year with vice presidents getting 250,000 euros ($277,000). Those sums are unchanged since 2017, UEFA said in its financial report published on Thursday.
Čeferin got a taxable salary of 3,250,000 Swiss francs ($3.78 million) in the 2023-24 year, the report said. He also gets $300,000 from FIFA as one of its vice presidents.
UEFA secretary general Theodore Theodoridis got a taxable salary and bonus package of 1.9 million euros ($2.11 million), plus benefits.
UEFA redistributes most of the billions in annual revenue from its club competitions as prize money to the teams taking part, and uses profit from its national team competitions to pay its running costs, pay grants to its 55 member federations and maintain reserves of around 500 million euros ($550 million).
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin, left, speaks with UEFA general secretary Theodoros Theodoridis after a press conference after the 49th ordinary UEFA congress, in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin speaks during a press conference after the 49th ordinary UEFA congress, in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
FIFA president Gianni Infantino speaks to delegates at the 49th ordinary UEFA congress in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin shakes hands with delegates during the 49th UEFA congress in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
FIFA president Gianni Infantino speaks to delegates at the 49th ordinary UEFA congress in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
UAF President Andriy Shevchenko of Ukraine is pictured during the 49th ordinary UEFA congress, in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday, becoming the first foreign leader to visit Trump since he unleashed tariffs on countries around the world.
Whether Netanyahu’s visit succeeds in bringing down or eliminating Israel’s tariffs remains to be seen, but how it plays out could set the stage for how other world leaders try to address the new tariffs.
Here's the latest:
The confusion — which was amplified on social media and by some traditional media outlets — lasted less than a half hour but reflected a jittery mood on Wall Street as stocks plunged over worries that Trump’s tariffs could torpedo the global economy.
The origin of the false report was unclear but it appeared to be a misinterpretation of comments made by Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, during a Fox News interview Monday morning. Asked whether Trump would consider a 90-day tariff pause suggested by a prominent hedge fund manager, Hassett said “I think the president is going to decide what the president is going to decide.”
Nearly two hours later, multiple user accounts on social media platform X posted identical messages claiming Hassett said Trump is considering a pause for all countries except China.
The White House initially appeared as confused as everyone else. But after 20 minutes, a government account rejected the report as “fake news.”
▶ Read more about how the bogus report affected the markets
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in a 25 minute call with Trump on Monday raised concerns that the tariffs by the U.S. could weaken investment capacity among Japanese companies.
“The recent tariff measures by the United States are extremely regrettable,” Ishiba told reporters following the call. “I told the president that Japan has been the world’s largest investor in the U.S. for five consecutive years, and I also strongly expressed concern that the U.S. tariffs will reduce the investment capacity of Japanese companies.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says it’s ending a half-century of partnerships with the federal government to serve refugees and children, saying the “heartbreaking” decision follows the Trump administration’s abrupt halt to funding for refugee resettlement.
The break will inevitably result in fewer services than what Catholic agencies were able to offer in the past to the needy, the bishops said.
“As a national effort, we simply cannot sustain the work on our own at current levels or in current form,” said Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the USCCB. “We will work to identify alternative means of support for the people the federal government has already admitted to these programs. We ask your prayers for the many staff and refugees impacted.”
The decision means the bishops won’t be renewing existing agreements with the federal government, the bishops said. The announcement didn’t say how long current agreements were scheduled to last.
▶ Read more about the U.S. bishops’ partnership with the government
Beijing has issued several strongly-worded rebukes to Trump’s tariffs, including one entirely in the words of late-President Ronald Reagan.
“High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars,” the Republican president said in a video clip dated 1987, as posted on the X social media site Monday by the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. The embassy wrote that the decades-old speech “finds new relevance in 2025.”
“The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trader barriers, and less and less competition,” Reagan said in the speech, in which he warned of the worst from tariff wars: markets should collapse, businesses shut down, and millions of people lose jobs.
Trump greeted the Israeli prime minister with the firm handshake as he arrived for talks.
Trump ignored shouted questions from reporters about the tumbling global markets and whether he would lift tariffs on Israel.
Family and friends of the first Black Republican woman elected to Congress gathered in Salt Lake City on Monday to honor her life. Love died of brain cancer at age 49.
Hundreds of mourners attended the service at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Institute of Religion at the University of Utah.
Love’s sister Cyndi Brito shared childhood memories, including how Love used to rehearse all day and night for starring roles in her school plays.
“Sis, we will always, always look up to you,” Brito said. “Keep being the best.”
The former lawmaker had undergone treatment for an aggressive brain tumor called glioblastoma. She died at her home in Saratoga Springs, Utah, weeks after her daughter announced she was no longer responding to treatment.
Love, born Ludmya Bourdeau, represented Utah on Capitol Hill from 2015 to 2019.
The White House did not offer any immediate explanation for why the news conference was canceled, but Trump and Netanyahu were expected to make comments to reporters at the start of their scheduled Oval Office meeting.
President Trump threatened to raise the tariffs if Beijing doesn’t withdraw its retaliatory tariffs.
“At this point, it is extremely unlikely for China to back down,” said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Washington-based think tank Stimson Center, adding any leadership summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping “doesn’t appear likely in the near future.”
“China is increasingly convinced that the tariff is not negotiable because Trump’s eventual goal is to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.,” Sun said.
Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at another Washington-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, called Trump’s threat Monday “a blunt ultimatum to Beijing that sharply raises the takes in the U.S.-China tariff war.” He said Beijing’s rigid system and fear of looking weak prevent Xi from opening back channels with the Trump administration that could offer relief.
A member of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team has terminated some of the last remaining life-saving programs for refugees and others in the Middle East, two U.S. and U.N. officials tell The Associated Press.
The AP viewed some of the new contract termination notices, sent late last week by Jeremy Lewin, a DOGE associate now overseeing the dismantling of USAID. A USAID official and an official with the U.N. spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak.
The move severs U.S. funding for some key projects by the World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid. Another notice viewed by the AP terminated funding for sending Afghan women overseas for education. An administrator for the program, which is a project of Texas A & M University, said the women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives may be in danger from the Taliban. That administrator also spoke on condition of anonymity because that person wasn’t authorized to speak.
— Ellen Knickmeyer and Sam Magdy
The Monday visit was to congratulate the baseball team for winning the World Series last season.
Trump singled out several Los Angeles Dodgers for their achievements last season, praising Ohtani for becoming baseball’s first 50/50 player, Japanese pitcher Yoshi Yamamoto and NL Championship Series MVP Tommy Edman.
Trump praised Betts for his play — and took a dig at the Boston Red Sox for trading him to the Dodgers — and they shook hands at the ceremony.
Trump also boasted that egg prices have dropped “73%” on his watch and he refused to introduce some senators at the ceremony, because “I just don’t particularly like them, so I won’t introduce (them).”
Trump campaigned last year in opposition of the deal, saying a Japanese company’s acquisition of the company would hurt American manufacturing. But shortly after becoming president, Trump said he’d reached an agreement for Nippon Steel to instead invest in U.S. Steel without providing details.
The directive signed Monday by Trump would give the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, CFIUS, 45 days to review the proposed purchase.
It raises fresh concerns that Trump’s drive to rebalance the global economy could lead to a trade war.
The threat, which Trump delivered Monday on social media, came after China said it would retaliate against U.S. tariffs announced last week.
“If China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated!”
Trump has remained defiant as the stock market continued plunging and fears of a recession grew.
▶ Read more about Trump’s tariffs
The Trump administration has notified the World Food Program and other partners that it’s terminated some of the last remaining lifesaving humanitarian programs across the Middle East, a U.S. and U.N. official told The Associated Press.
An official with USAID says about 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week, including to the World Food Program.
An official with the United Nations says WFP received termination letters for Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
The USAID official says U.S. funding for key programs in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe also were affected, including those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war.
▶ Read more about the canceled USAID contracts
— Ellen Knickmeyer and Sam Magdy
The Justice Department argued in an emergency appeal to the justices that U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis overstepped her authority when she ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to the United States.
Abrego Garcia is no longer in U.S. custody and the government has no way to get him back, the administration argued.
Xinis gave the administration until just before midnight Tuesday to “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return.
The federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, denied the administration’s request for a stay.
▶ Read more about Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s deportation
Wilmer Escaray left Venezuela in 2007 and enrolled at Miami Dade College, opening his first restaurant six years later.
Today, he has a dozen businesses that hire Venezuelan migrants like he once was, workers who are now terrified by what could be the end of their legal shield from deportation.
Since the start of February, the Trump administration has ended two federal programs that together allowed more 700,000 Venezuelans to live and work legally in the U.S. along with hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans.
In the largest Venezuelan community in the United States, people dread what could face them if lawsuits that aim to stop the government fail. It’s all anyone discusses in “Little Venezuela” or “Doralzuela,” a city of 80,000 people surrounded by Miami sprawl, freeways and the Florida Everglades.
▶ Read more about fears in Miami’s ‘Little Venezuela’
The Monday meeting will make Netanyahu the first foreign leader to visit Trump since he unleashed tariffs on countries around the world.
Whether Netanyahu’s visit succeeds in bringing down or eliminating Israel’s tariffs remains to be seen, but how it plays out could set the stage for how other world leaders try to address the new tariffs.
Netanyahu’s office has put the focus of his hastily organized Washington visit on the tariffs, while stressing that the two leaders will discuss major geopolitical issues including the war in Gaza, tensions with Iran, Israel-Turkey ties and the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant against the Israeli leader last year. Trump in February signed an executive order imposing sanctions on the ICC over its investigations of Israel.
▶ Read more about Trump’s meeting with Netanyahu
The stock market briefly spiked on a report that Kevin Hassett, a top White House economic adviser, said the president was considering a 90-day pause on tariffs.
The supposed remark from Hassett circulated on social media, but no one could pinpoint where it came from even as the market flashed from red to green.
Hassett had spoken to Fox News earlier in the morning, when he was asked about a potential pause. However, he was noncommittal.
“I think the president is going to decide what the president is going to decide,” he said.
▶ Read more updates on the financial markets
Vance’s mother, Beverly Aikins’ on Friday received a 10-year sobriety medallion in the Roosevelt Room at a ceremony with friends and family.
Vance described Aikins’ past drug addiction in his bestselling book “Hillbilly Elegy.”
The cases are likely headed to a Supreme Court showdown on the president’s power over independent agencies.
A divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued the ruling in the lawsuits separately brought by Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris and National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox.
The ruling reverses, at least for now, a judgement from a three-judge panel from the same appellate court.
▶ Read more about Trump and the board members
The dispute over tariffs has caused some fracturing within Trump’s political coalition.
Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman said the president was “launching a global economic war against the whole world at once” and urged him to “call a time out.”
“We are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter,” he wrote on X on Sunday.
Top White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told Fox News on Monday morning that Ackman should “ease off the rhetoric a little bit.”
Hassett said critics were exaggerating the impact of trade disputes and talk of an “economic nuclear winter” was “completely irresponsible rhetoric.”
The president showed no interest in changing course despite turmoil in global markets.
He said other countries had been “taking advantage of the Good OL’ USA” on international trade.
“Our past ‘leaders’ are to blame for allowing this, and so much else, to happen to our Country,” he wrote on Truth Social. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump criticized China for increasing its own tariffs and “not acknowledging my warning for abusing countries not to retaliate.”
On a day when stock markets around the world dropped precipitously, Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl led a celebration of the president whose global tariffs sparked the sell-off.
With no mention of the Wall Street roller coaster and global economic uncertainty, Wahl declared his state GOP’s “Trump Victory Dinner” — and the broader national moment — a triumph. And for anyone who rejects Trump, his agenda and the “America First” army that backs it all, Wahl had an offer: “The Alabama Republican Party will buy them a plane ticket to any country in the world they want to go to.”
Wahl’s audience — an assembly of lobbyists and donors, state lawmakers, local party officials and grassroots activists — laughed, applauded and sometimes roared throughout last week’s gala in downtown Birmingham.
Yet beyond the cheerleading, there were signs of a more cautious optimism and some worried whispers over Trump’s sweeping tariffs, the particulars of his deportation policy and the aggressive slashing by his Department of Government Efficiency.
▶ Read more about Trump’s support in Alabama
This morning, at 11 a.m., World Series Champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers, will visit the White House and meet the president. Later, at 1 p.m., Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the White House and meet with Trump. At 2 p.m., Netanyahu and Trump will participate in a Bilateral Meeting in the Oval Office. At 2:30 p.m., they will hold a joint news conference.
Trump said Sunday that he won’t back down on his sweeping tariffs on imports from most of the world unless countries even out their trade with the U.S.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said he didn’t want global markets to fall, but also that he wasn’t concerned about the massive sell-off either, adding, “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”
His comments came as global financial markets appeared on track to continue sharp declines once trading resumes Monday, and after Trump’s aides sought to soothe market concerns by saying more than 50 nations had reached out about launching negotiations to lift the tariffs.
The higher rates are set to be collected beginning Wednesday. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said unfair trade practices are not “the kind of thing you can negotiate away in days or weeks.” The United States, he said, must see “what the countries offer and whether it’s believable.”
▶ Read more about the global impact of Trump’s tariffs
Pedestrian are reflected on a brokerage house's window as an electronic board displays shares trading index, in Beijing, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
Shipping containers are stored at Bensenville intermodal terminal in Franklin Park, Ill., Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
President Donald Trump arrives at the White House on Marine One, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
