Donald Trump stopped by Versailles in Miami and worked the room. See photos and video

Associated Press
The Year of the Snake is underway with the Lunar New Year in Asia and around the world
Lunar New Year festivals and prayers marked the start of the Year of the Snake around Asia and farther afield on Wednesday — including in Moscow. Hundreds of people lined up in the hours before midnight at the Wong Tai Sin Taoist temple in Hong Kong in a bid to be among the first to put incense sticks in the stands in front of the temple’s main hall. The snake, one of 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac, follows the just-ended Year of the Dragon.
Associated Press
Tiger poachers use fishing boats to smuggle body parts out of Malaysia, study shows
Commercial fishing fleets have been playing a key role in trafficking parts of tigers poached in Malaysia, according to research released Wednesday that could help enforcement efforts to save the critically endangered cat. The fishing boats are part of a network of routes used by sophisticated teams of poachers to move parts of illegally killed Malayan Tigers and other poached animals to Vietnam, according to the study by conservation organizations Panthera and ZSL in conjunction with Malaysia's Sunway University. Through interviews with more than four dozen people involved in the operations, including poachers and those who brokered sales of the illicit goods, researchers found that fishing boats were able to carry larger consignments, cheaper, and less likely to be checked by customs than land or air routes.
Associated Press
Stock market today: Asian stocks advance ahead of the Fed's rate decision as panic over AI fades
Asian stocks advanced Wednesday in thin Lunar New Year trading following a rebound on Wall Street driven by tech stocks as the panic over Chinese AI company DeepSeek faded. Investors were focusing on the Federal Reserve’s rate decision due later in the day. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.7% to 8,455.70 after data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed the Consumer Price Index increased by 0.2% in the December 2024 quarter, marking the smallest rise since the June 2020 quarter, when inflation declined during the COVID-19 outbreak.
NBC News
Autism community fears RFK Jr. would set back decades of progress
Advocates worry that as HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could undermine years of work to unlink autism and vaccines.
TODAY
Google says it plans to use Trump’s new names for Denali and Gulf of Mexico
Google said Monday its maps will use names for Denali and the Gulf of Mexico favored by President Donald Trump — Mount McKinley and Gulf of America — when federal maps make the switch.
Reuters
Bangladesh train services resume after strike called off
Train services in Bangladesh resumed on Wednesday after railway workers ended their indefinite strike, which had brought the country’s rail network to a halt. "Train services across the country have returned to normal as Bangladesh Railway running staff have withdrawn their strike," a Railway Ministry spokesman said. The strike affected around 400 passenger trains, including more than 100 inter-city services, as well as over 30 freight trains.
Reuters
Thailand expects high-speed rail link to China to operate from 2030
Thailand expects its 609-km (378 miles) portion of a high-speed railway that will connect it with China through Laos to begin operations in 2030, its government said on Wednesday, nearly a decade later than originally planned. More than a third of construction has been completed in the segment connecting the capital Bangkok to the city of Nakhon Ratchasima, about 220 km away and the whole line to Nong Khai at the border with Laos would be ready by 2030, said Thai government spokesperson Jirayu Houngsub.
Associated Press
Israeli father says even in Hamas captivity, his daughter heard his pleas to come home alive
For more than 470 days, Eitan Gonen publicly pleaded with his daughter to stay alive while in Hamas captivity. "She said, ’Dad, I came home alive,'” Eitan Gonen told The Associated Press on Tuesday in his first interview with an international news outlet since her release. “I know that my interview back then gave Romi a lot of strength, a lot of hope, something to cling on,” he said.
TODAY
Where is flu surging in the US? Some hospitals are overwhelmed in states with high rates
Flu activity has surged to high levels in many states, overwhelming some hospitals. Experts discuss what to expect for the 2024-25 flu season and how to stay safe.
AFP
Sony names new CEO in management reshuffle
Japanese electronics and entertainment giant Sony Group said Wednesday that it has promoted Hiroki Totoki to chief executive officer as part of a wider management reorganisation.It also announced "changes to its management structure to clarify management roles according to their responsibilities for the management of the entire Group or of each business".
AFP
Rwanda, DR Congo leaders in crisis summit as Goma's fate hangs in balance
The president of crisis-hit Democratic Republic of Congo was set to meet his Rwandan counterpart at an emergency summit on Wednesday, as fighters backed by Kigali appeared on the brink of seizing the key city of Goma. The security source said "more than 1,200 Congolese soldiers have surrendered and are confined" to the airport base of the UN's mission in the DRC. Congolese leader Felix Tshisekedi was to meet Wednesday with Rwandan President Paul Kagame at an "extraordinary" summit of the East Af
Associated Press
Migrants describe flights aboard US military planes carrying out Trump's swift deportations
Margarita Raymundo walked down the ramp of the U.S. Air Force cargo jet and onto the tarmac of Guatemala City’s airport, barely three days after a U.S. Border Patrol agent had apprehended her, along with three other migrants. The swift deportation Monday was disorienting for her and the 63 other migrants aboard and only possible because the Trump administration has enlisted the military to quickly scale up its deportation capacity, which usually relies on chartered flights. In the first week of U.S. President Donald Trump's second term, the Department of Homeland Security reported deporting some 7,300 people of various nationalities.
AFP
15 dead in India stampede at Hindu mega-festival
A stampede at the world's largest religious gathering killed at least 15 people with many more injured, a doctor at the Kumbh Mela festival in northern India told AFP Wednesday."At least 15 people" were killed, a doctor at a hospital tending to survivors told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to talk to media.
CNN
US children fall further behind in reading, make little improvement in math on national exam
America’s children have continued to lose ground on reading skills in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and have made little improvement in math, according to the latest results of an exam known as the nation’s report card.
Associated Press
Trump plans to sign the Laken Riley Act into law as his administration's first piece of legislation
President Donald Trump on Wednesday will sign the Laken Riley Act into law as his administration's first piece of legislation. It mandates the detention and potential deportation of people in the U.S. illegally who are accused of theft and violent crimes before they've actually been convicted. The measure swiftly passed the Republican-controlled Congress with some Democratic support, despite immigrants rights advocates decrying it as extreme enough to possibly trigger mass roundups of people for offenses as minor as shoplifting.
Reuters
Alibaba releases AI model it claims surpasses DeepSeek-V3
Chinese tech company Alibaba on Wednesday released a new version of its Qwen 2.5 artificial intelligence model that it claimed surpassed the highly-acclaimed DeepSeek-V3. The unusual timing of the Qwen 2.5-Max's release, on the first day of the Lunar New Year when most Chinese people are off work and with their families, points to the pressure Chinese AI startup DeepSeek's meteoric rise in the past three weeks has placed on not just overseas rivals, but also its domestic competition. "Qwen 2.5-Max outperforms ... almost across the board GPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3 and Llama-3.1-405B," Alibaba's cloud unit said in an announcement posted on its official WeChat account, referring to OpenAI and Meta's most advanced open-source AI models.
Associated Press
After talking tough during campaign, Trump appears to ease up on China at start of presidency
On the campaign trail last year, President Donald Trump talked tough about imposing tariffs as high as 60% on Chinese goods and threatened to renew the trade war with China that he launched during his first term. “We look forward to doing very well with China and getting along with China,” Trump said Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in comments that suggested Beijing could help end the war in Ukraine and reduce nuclear arms.
Associated Press
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation hearing to be health secretary: Five things to look for
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s famous name, populist stances and loyal following have earned him President Donald Trump's support, but will that get him the votes he needs from the Republican-controlled Senate to become the nation's top health official? If approved, Kennedy will control a $1.7 trillion agency that oversees food and hospital inspections, hundreds of health clinics, vaccine recommendations and health insurance for roughly half the country. Here's what to watch during his confirmation hearings: How will he explain his vaccine views?
Associated Press
A $4B settlement for Hawaii wildfire victims is in legal limbo as an unusual trial starts
When Hawaii Gov. Josh Green announced a $4 billion settlement about a year after the deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century devastated Lahaina in 2023, he touted the speed of the deal to “avoid protracted and painful lawsuits.” Five months later, however, an unusual trial starting Wednesday will delve into difficult questions about survivors’ losses as a judge decides how to divide the settlement. Defendants blamed for the blaze including the state, power utility Hawaiian Electric and large landowners have already agreed to the settlement amount.
Reuters
German election frontrunner risks breaking taboo on working with far-right
Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany's CDU/CSU conservative bloc which is leading polls ahead of the Feb. 23 vote, is keen to seize the initiative on migration policy, which has shifted sharply back into focus after an Afghan asylum seeker was arrested over deadly stabbings last week. The opposition leader has said he will present on Wednesday two motions in parliament calling for heightened security measures and the closure of German land borders to irregular migration. With Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens opposed to the motions, however, Merz will have to rely on support of the AfD, among other smaller parties, to pass them - and has explicitly welcomed the support of any party.

Donald Trump stopped by Versailles in Miami and worked the room. See photos and video

Trump outside Versailles

People await Trump at restaurant

Video of Trump inside Versailles

Trump greeting his supporters in Little Havana

A traffic alert involving Versailles

Latest Stories

The Year of the Snake is underway with the Lunar New Year in Asia and around the world

Tiger poachers use fishing boats to smuggle body parts out of Malaysia, study shows

Stock market today: Asian stocks advance ahead of the Fed's rate decision as panic over AI fades

Autism community fears RFK Jr. would set back decades of progress

Google says it plans to use Trump’s new names for Denali and Gulf of Mexico

Bangladesh train services resume after strike called off

Thailand expects high-speed rail link to China to operate from 2030

Israeli father says even in Hamas captivity, his daughter heard his pleas to come home alive

Where is flu surging in the US? Some hospitals are overwhelmed in states with high rates

Sony names new CEO in management reshuffle

Rwanda, DR Congo leaders in crisis summit as Goma's fate hangs in balance

Migrants describe flights aboard US military planes carrying out Trump's swift deportations

15 dead in India stampede at Hindu mega-festival

US children fall further behind in reading, make little improvement in math on national exam

Trump plans to sign the Laken Riley Act into law as his administration's first piece of legislation

Alibaba releases AI model it claims surpasses DeepSeek-V3

After talking tough during campaign, Trump appears to ease up on China at start of presidency

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation hearing to be health secretary: Five things to look for

A $4B settlement for Hawaii wildfire victims is in legal limbo as an unusual trial starts

German election frontrunner risks breaking taboo on working with far-right