THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A portrait of a young Palestinian boy who lost both arms as a result of an Israeli attack in Gaza was honored Thursday as World Press Photo of the year.
The photo, taken by Qatar-based Palestinian photographer Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times shows 9-year-old Mahmoud Ajjour with his arms missing just below each shoulder.
“One of the most difficult things Mahmoud’s mother explained to me was how when Mahmoud first came to the realization that his arms were amputated, the first sentence he said to her was, ‘How will I be able to hug you?’” Abu Elouf said in a statement released by the World Press Photo organization.
The winner of the 68th edition of the prestigious photojournalism contest was selected from 59,320 entries submitted by 3,778 photographers from 141 countries.
“This is a quiet photo that speaks loudly. It tells the story of one boy, but also of a wider war that will have an impact for generations," said World Press Photo Executive Director Joumana El Zein Khoury.
In a statement, the organization said that Ajjour was injured while fleeing an Israeli attack in March 2024.
“After he turned back to urge his family onward, an explosion severed one of his arms and mutilated the other,” according to the World Press Photo citation.
"This young boy’s life deserves to be understood, and this picture does what great photojournalism can do: provide a layered entry point into a complex story, and the incentive to prolong one’s encounter with that story,” said jury chair Lucy Conticello, who is Director of Photography for French newspaper Le Monde's weekend magazine.
Winning photographer Abu Elouf was evacuated from Gaza in December 2023 and she now lives in the same apartment complex as Ajjour in Qatar's capital, Doha.
Israel launched its devastating attack on Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack, in which thousands of militants stormed into southern Israel from Gaza, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza says over 51,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive. It does not differentiate between civilians and militants, but says that over half of the dead were women and children, including at least 876 infants under 1. It says over 116,000 people have been wounded.
Israel blames Hamas for the heavy civilian toll because the group carries out attacks and other military activities from residential areas and civilian buildings.
Competition organizers also named two World Press Photo finalists that highlighted the issues of migration and climate change.
A dark photo by John Moore for Getty Images shows Chinese migrants warming themselves after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, and a picture by Musuk Nolte for Panos Pictures, Bertha Foundation, of a young man carrying food across a dried up river bed in Brazil's Amazon basin region.
In regional results announced earlier by the World Press Photo Foundation, The Associated Press was among winners in the Asia-Pacific and Oceania region. Photographer Jae C. Hong won in the Singles category with an image titled Korea Adoption Fraud and Noel Celis won in the Stories category for photos from the Philippines titled Four Storms, 12 Days.
This image taken by Jae C. Hong. Of The Associated Press, was one of three winners in the Singles category of the Asia-Pacific and Oceania region of the the World Press Photo Award of the Year and shows Adoptee Nicole Motta, left, and her birth father, Jang Dae-chang, wipe tears after an emotional reunion at the Eastern Social Welfare Society in Seoul, Friday, May 31, 2024. The moment they hugged, Motta, adopted to the United States in 1985, didn't need DNA test results, she knew she'd come from this man. "I am a sinner for not finding you," he said. "I think I have your nose," Motta said softly. They both sobbed. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
The White House is planning on Friday to unveil President Donald Trump’s 2026 budget, a sweeping framework that's expected to propose steep reductions, if not a wholesale zeroing out, of various federal programs as part of his administration’s priorities.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to strip temporary legal protections from 350,000 Venezuelans, potentially exposing them to being deported.
Here's the latest:
“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status,” he wrote on his social media site Friday morning. “It’s what they deserve!”
Trump and his White House have repeatedly gone after Harvard. In addition to threatening its tax-exempt status, the administration has halted more than $2 billion in grants to Harvard and wants to block the school from being able to enroll international students.
The detailed Army plans for a potential military parade on Trump’s birthday in June call for more than 6,600 soldiers, at least 150 vehicles, 50 helicopters, seven bands and possibly a couple thousand civilians, The Associated Press has learned.
The planning documents, obtained by the AP, are dated April 29 and 30 and have not been publicly released. They represent the Army’s most recent blueprint for its long-planned 250th anniversary festival on the National Mall and the newly added element — a large military parade that Trump has long wanted but is still being discussed.
The Army anniversary just happens to coincide with Trump’s 79th birthday on June 14.
While the slides do not include any price estimates, it would likely cost tens of millions of dollars to put on a parade of that size.
▶ Read more about the Army’s military parade plans
As Trump faces significant pushback from federal judges, a new poll shows U.S. adults are more likely to believe the president is the one overstepping his power rather than the courts -- although Republicans largely think the opposite.
According to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, about half of Americans say the president has “too much” power in the way government operates these days. On the other hand, Americans are more likely to believe the federal courts have an appropriate amount of authority. Only about 3 in 10 U.S. adults say that federal judges have “too much” power.
Republicans see it the other way: Roughly half say the federal judiciary has too much power, and only about 2 in 10 say the president does.
▶ Read more about the latest AP-NORC poll
When the Justice Department lifted a school desegregation order in Louisiana this week, officials called its continued existence a “historical wrong” and suggested that others dating to the Civil Rights Movement should be reconsidered.
The end of the 1966 legal agreement with Plaquemines Parish schools announced Tuesday shows the Trump administration is “getting America refocused on our bright future,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said.
Inside the Justice Department, officials appointed by Trump have expressed a desire to withdraw from other desegregation orders they see as an unnecessary burden on schools, according to a person familiar with the issue who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Dozens of school districts across the South remain under court-enforced agreements dictating steps to work toward integration, decades after the Supreme Court struck down racial segregation in education. Some see the court orders’ endurance as a sign the government never eradicated segregation, while officials in Louisiana and at some schools see the orders as bygone relics that should be wiped away.
▶ Read more about the end to the desegregation order
— Collin Binkley
Trump on Thursday signed an executive order aiming to slash public subsidies to PBS and NPR as he alleged “bias” in the broadcasters’ reporting.
The order instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies “to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS” and further requires that that they work to root out indirect sources of public financing for the news organizations. The White House, in a social media posting announcing the signing, said the outlets “receive millions from taxpayers to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news.’”
It’s the latest move by Trump and his administration to utilize federal powers to control or hamstring institutions whose actions or viewpoints he disagrees with. Since taking office, Trump has ousted leaders, placed staff on administrative leave and cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to artists, libraries, museums, theaters and others, through takeovers of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
▶ Read more about the executive order
Rubio has been thrown into two top national security jobs at once as Trump presses forward with his top-to-bottom revamp of U.S. foreign policy, upending not only longstanding policies that the former Florida senator once supported but also the configuration of the executive branch.
Trump’s appointment of Rubio to temporarily replace Mike Waltz as national security adviser is the first major leadership shake-up of the nascent administration, but Waltz’s removal had been rumored for weeks — ever since he created a Signal group chat and accidentally added a journalist to the conversation where top national security officials shared sensitive military plans.
So, just over 100 days into his tenure as America’s top diplomat, Rubio now becomes just the second person to hold both positions. He follows only the late Henry Kissinger, who served as both secretary of state and national security adviser for two years under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford in the 1970s.
▶ Read more about Rubio’s new role
The Justice Department asked the high court to put on hold a ruling from a federal judge in San Francisco that kept in place Temporary Protected Status for the Venezuelans that would have otherwise expired last month.
The status allows people already in the United States to live and work legally because their native countries are deemed unsafe for return due to natural disaster or civil strife.
A federal appeals court had earlier rejected the administration’s request.
Trump’s administration has moved aggressively to withdraw various protections that have allowed immigrants to remain in the country, including ending TPS for a total of 600,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitians. TPS is granted in 18-month increments.
The emergency appeal to the high court came the same day a federal judge in Texas ruled illegal the administration’s efforts to deport Venezuelans under an 18th-century wartime law. The cases are not related.
▶ Read more about the Trump administration’s request
President Donald Trump gives a commencement address at the University of Alabama, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala.(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Donald Trump gives a commencement address at the University of Alabama, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Donald Trump arrives to give a commencement address at the University of Alabama, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala.(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
