WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has confirmed 48 of President Donald Trump’s nominees at once, voting for the first time under new rules to begin clearing a backlog of executive branch positions that had been delayed by Democrats.

Frustrated by the stalling tactics, Senate Republicans moved last week to make it easier to confirm large groups of lower-level, non-judicial nominations. Democrats had forced multiple votes on almost every one of Trump’s picks, infuriating the president and tying up the Senate floor.

The new rules allow Senate Republicans to move multiple nominees with a simple majority vote — a process that would have previously been blocked with just one objection. The rules don’t apply to judicial nominations or high-level Cabinet posts.

“Republicans have fixed a broken process,” Thune said ahead of the vote.

The Senate voted 51-47 to confirm the four dozen nominees. Thune said that those confirmed on Thursday had all received bipartisan votes in committee, including deputy secretaries for the Departments of Defense, Interior, Energy and others.

Among the confirmed are Jonathan Morrison, the new administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and Kimberly Guilfoyle as U.S. ambassador to Greece. Guilfoyle is a former California prosecutor and television news personality who led the fundraising for Trump’s 2020 campaign and was once engaged to Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.

Thune’s move is the latest salvo after a dozen years of gradual changes by both parties to weaken the filibuster and make the nominations process more partisan. Both parties have obstructed each other’s nominees for years, and senators in both parties have advocated for speeding up the process when they are in the majority.

Republicans first proposed changing the rules in early August, when the Senate left for a monthlong recess after a breakdown in bipartisan negotiations over the confirmation process and Trump told Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to “GO TO HELL!” on social media.

Democrats have blocked more nominees than ever before as they have struggled to find ways to oppose Trump and the GOP-dominated Congress, and as their voters have pushed them to fight Republicans at every turn. It’s the first time in recent history that the minority party hasn’t allowed at least some quick confirmations.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has said Democrats are delaying the nominations because Trump’s nominees are “historically bad.” And he told Republicans that they will “come to regret” their action — echoing a similar warning from GOP Leader Mitch McConnell to then-Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in 2013, when Democrats changed Senate rules for executive branch and lower court judicial nominees to remove the 60-vote threshold for confirmations. At the time, Republicans were blocking President Barack Obama’s picks.

Republicans took the Senate majority a year later, and McConnell eventually did the same for Supreme Court nominees in 2017 as Democrats tried to block Trump’s nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch.

“What Republicans have done is chip away at the Senate even more, to give Donald Trump more power and to rubber stamp whomever he wants, whenever he wants them, no questions asked,” Schumer said last week.

Republicans will move to confirm a second tranche of nominees in the coming weeks, gradually clearing the list of more than 100 nominations that have been pending for months.

“There will be more to come,” Thune said Thursday. “And we’ll ensure that President Trump’s administration is filled at a pace that looks more like those of his predecessors.”

Mary Clare Jalonick, The Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A veteran water expert from Arizona says the Trump administration withdrew his nomination to lead the federal agency that oversees water management in the western U.S., leaving the Bureau of Reclamation without permanent leadership this year.

Ted Cooke told The Associated Press late Wednesday that he was preparing for a Senate confirmation hearing early this month but his name was removed from the agenda. He wasn’t told until this week that there was an unspecified issue with his background check. Cooke said the White House didn’t offer any details and asked only that he withdraw himself from consideration.

“The real story here is that I’ve been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency because of party politics and maybe Colorado River basin intrigues,” Cooke said, adding that he believes he was given a fabricated excuse “to avoid having any discussion on what the real issue is.”

Cooke said he didn’t know what the issue was.

The shift comes as the bureau and seven states face a deadline to decide how to share the Colorado River amid ongoing drought and shrinking water supplies.

The Interior Department, which oversees the bureau, referred questions about Cooke to the White House, which did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment.

Trump’s announcement in June that he had tapped Cooke, the former general manager of the Central Arizona Project, drew praise from many who said Cooke’s experience delivering water to the state’s most populous communities would be a plus for the bureau.

Still, officials in other Western states had concerns that Cooke would give deference to his home state as negotiations over the future of the Colorado River come to a head. Water managers have been grappling with the prospect of painful cuts in water supplies as the river dwindles.

The Colorado River is a critical lifeline to seven U.S. states, more than 20 Native American tribes, and two Mexican states. It provides electricity to millions of homes and businesses, irrigates vast stretches of desert farmland and reaches faucets in cities throughout the Southwest, including Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

In Mesa, Arizona, Mayor Mark Freeman had celebrated Cooke’s nomination back in June in a social media post. On Wednesday, the Republican told the AP he was disappointed to learn the nomination wouldn’t move forward.

“Mr. Cooke has dedicated his career to managing Arizona’s water resources, and his deep knowledge of the Colorado River system would have provided valuable insight during this critical time. Although his nomination was not confirmed, the challenges before us remain,” Freeman said, highlighting the need to ensure reliable water supplies.

Anne Castle, former chair of the Upper Colorado River Commission, said in an email that withdrawal of the nomination “looks like backroom politics at a time when what we really need is straightforward leadership on western water issues.”

Cooke said he heard from some people that his knack for being fair and even-handed might have worked against him. He theorized that some officials might have been pushing to find a “more ruthless” nominee since Colorado River negotiations have been anything but easy.

Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, said that while Cooke’s withdrawal is a lost opportunity to have a highly qualified person in the job, it’s not likely to disrupt ongoing negotiations. She said the bureau’s acting leadership has been working assiduously to figure out a way forward for river management.

She also doubted that having Cooke lead the bureau would have given Arizona a leg up, saying “there are too many other decision-makers and significant stakeholders involved for that to ever be a real possibility. And they know that Ted would have tried hard to rise above all that.”

It’s unclear whether the Trump administration is considering other candidates for the top post at the bureau.

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Associated Press writers Felicia Fonseca in New York City, Matthew Daly in Washington, D.C., and Dorany Pineda in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Susan Montoya Bryan, The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — ABC has pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show off the air, indefinitely — an unprecedented move that followed backlash from affiliated broadcasters and the head of the Federal Communications Commission over the comic’s remarks about last week’s killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Kimmel’s comments did not extensively focus on Kirk, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump. He instead took aim at Trump and his “MAGA Gang” supporters for their response to the assassination, which he said included “finger-pointing” and attempts to characterize the alleged shooter as “anything other than one of them.”

Ahead of ABC’s suspension, broadcasters Nexstar and Sinclair had said they would be pulling Kimmel’s show from their affiliated stations. The FCC had also warned that the network and its local affiliates could face repercussions if Kimmel was not punished.

Kimmel, whose contract with The Walt Disney Co.-owned network expires in May 2026, did not immediately comment on the suspension.

Here’s what we know:

Why was Kimmel’s show suspended?

ABC, which has aired “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” since 2003, did not immediately explain why it suspended the show on Wednesday. Its announcement came after both Nexstar Communications Group and Sinclair Broadcasting Group said they would stop airing Kimmel’s show on their ABC-affiliated stations.

In a statement shared on social media, Sinclair cited “problematic comments regarding the murder of Charlie Kirk” in its decision. Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar’s broadcasting division, called Kimmel’s comments “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse.”

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, whom Trump appointed last November, had called Kimmel’s comments “truly sick.” He later applauded the decisions to stop airing Kimmel’s show.

What did Kimmel say after Kirk’s death?

Kimmel called Kirk’s death a “senseless murder” a day after the fatal Utah shooting, and he condemned those who appeared to celebrate it.

He later talked about the aftermath during his show both Monday and Tuesday, targeting the response from both Trump himself and the president’s supporters, whom he accused of “working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk.”

The comic focused particularly on the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson.

“The MAGA Gang (is) desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said in his Monday evening monologue. “In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”

Kimmel said that Trump’s response “is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish, OK?” He also said that FBI chief Kash Patel has handled the investigation into the killing “like a kid who didn’t read the book, BSing his way through an oral report.”

On Tuesday night, Kimmel mocked Vice President JD Vance’s performance as guest host for Kirk’s podcast.

How has Trump responded?

Kimmel’s suspension comes alongside wider efforts by Trump and other conservatives to police speech following Kirk’s killing. It also marks the Trump administration’s latest effort to influence the U.S. media landscape.

In a post on his Truth Social platform Wednesday night, Trump applauded ABC for “finally having the courage to do what had to be done” and claimed that Kimmel “has ZERO talent” — focusing on what he said were bad ratings, while also lambasting other names in late-night TV.

At a news conference Thursday during his state visit to Britain, the president also said that ABC should have fired the comedian long ago. “You can call that free speech or not, he was fired for lack of talent,” he said.

How have others responded?

Kimmel’s suspension has drawn both condemnation and praise.

Former President Barack Obama wrote in a social media post on Thursday that the current administration had reached a “new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like” — and that media companies needed to stand up to the “government coercion” rather than capitulate to it.

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, a Biden administration appointee, wrote in a social media post that, “We cannot allow an inexcusable act of political violence to be twisted into justification for government censorship and control.”

Conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly, a former Fox News and NBC personality, maintained that Kimmel’s suggestion that Kirk’s killer may have been a Trump supporter was a “vile, disgusting lie.”

Others expressed shock and concern over what the move meant for free speech, including actors Wanda Sykes and Jean Smart.

“What Jimmy said was FREE speech, not hate speech. People seem to only want to protect free speech when it suits THEIR agenda,” Smart wrote on social media, noting that she was still “sickened” by Kirk’s death.

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AP Media Writer David Bauder contributed to this report.

Wyatte Grantham-philips, The Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) — As encounters with federal immigration agents around Chicago increase, tactics used by activists and immigrant leaders to fight back are also escalating.

The Trump administration has singled out Chicago as its latest mark for immigration enforcement, using traffic stops in immigrant-heavy areas and targeting day laborers outside hardware stores.

“We will not back down,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted Thursday on X, recirculating dramatic footage of arrests at a suburban Chicago home days earlier.

Activists and local leaders are also defiant, trying to deter agents, warn residents and keep attention on a man killed by an immigration officer last week.

Focusing on day laborers

As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched a new operation this month, the focus appeared to be on traffic stops in largely immigrant and Latino neighborhoods and suburbs. This week, activists say arrests of day laborers are also on the rise, echoing what immigration agents have done elsewhere.

Federal agents were spotted at roughly half a dozen Home Depot and Menards stores in the city and suburbs resulting in individual arrests, according to activists.

“Our neighbors who build, paint, fix and beautify this city have been the target of these unwarranted attacks,” said Miguel Alvelo Rivera with the Latino Union, which advocates for day laborers.

He spoke Thursday near a Home Depot in the heavily Latino and immigrant Brighton Park neighborhood where ICE agents were spotted a day earlier. The Chicago area has roughly 300 such workers, according to the Latino Union.

In immigrant and activist circles, the arrests are commonly referred to as abductions because many agents wear masks, drive unmarked vehicles and don’t have insignia on their clothes.

Giselle Maldonado, 23, said two of her uncles — Gabriel Soto-Rivera, 40, and Eder Nicolas Jimenez Barrios, 37 — were detained Monday by ICE on Chicago’s west side as they were driving to work as HVAC technicians. Her uncles have since told other family members that they believed they were being pulled over for a routine traffic stop.

Maldonado found out her uncles had been detained when her mother sent her videos of the encounter posted to TikTok. In the videos, an agent wearing a vest with the words “Police Federal Agent” can be seen speaking to someone in a vehicle.

Maldonado said she immediately thought of Gabriel’s two young children.

“Who’s going to be there for them?” she said. “They’re babies.”

Bike patrols and whistles

Known for organizing, Chicago’s activists have quickly dispatched volunteers to sightings of immigration agents. They record video and gather other information to notify the family of arrestees.

Activists circulate the license plates of suspected ICE vehicles on social media and take part in disruptive demonstrations outside hotels where agents are believed to be staying. Bike patrols look out for agents, while some follow vehicles on foot and yell to warn those in the vicinity.

One neighborhood on Chicago’s southwest side is making a lot of noise, literally.

When word of increased enforcement in Chicago ramped up, Baltazar Enriquez started buying orange emergency whistles so people could warn others of nearby ICE agents. He said they are reliable even when technology fails.

“If they hear that sound, they immediately start closing their doors, locking their gates,” he said of neighbors. “This has worked for us here. People are asking us, ‘Can I get a whistle?’ ”

Arrests in Chicago

The number of arrests in Chicago is difficult to track. The Department of Homeland Security has offered details on only a few dozen, while an Illinois congresswoman briefed by ICE this week said the number was 250.

However, skepticism remains as some information circulated by ICE included out-of state-arrests. In at least one instance, a U.S. citizen was taken into custody.

Before dawn on Tuesday morning, federal agents, Noem and Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol agent central to a Los Angeles operation, stormed a home in suburban Elgin. They blew open a door as helicopters hovered.

Elected officials criticized the move as a stunt. DHS said five people were arrested. They were filmed in handcuffs for videos later posted to Noem’s social media accounts.

Joe Botello, who was born in Texas, told Chicago media outlets he was among the men kept in handcuffs until he showed identification. DHS confirmed he was in custody, but disputed the characterization as an arrest.

“No U.S. citizen was arrested, they were briefly held for their and officers’ safety while the operation in the house was underway,” DHS said.

Another man arrested at the same home was ordered released without bond Thursday as his case continues, with Magistrate Judge Keri Holleb Hotaling noting Carlos Augusto Gonzalez-Leon “has a criminal history of nothing.” In court records, federal officials said he was previously arrested and deported to Mexico at least three times between 2013 and 2022.

His lawyer, Daniel J. Hesler, described Gonzalez-Leon as a hard worker who is providing for his family in Mexico and his wife, who is in hospice care.

Criticism over fatal shooting grows

The death of a Mexican man at the hands of ICE agents has drawn questions from the president of Mexico and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.

Authorities say immigration agents were pursuing a man with a history of reckless driving who had entered the country illegally. They have said Silverio Villegas Gonzalez evaded arrest and dragged an officer with his vehicle. DHS said the officer fired because he feared for his life.

Noem praised the unnamed officer as brave, referring to Gonzalez as “a criminal illegal alien” who resisted arrest.

Many in the suburb of Franklin Park doubt authorities’ claims, remembering him at a vigil as a kind family man.

Gonzalez, who worked as a cook, had dropped off one of his children at day care that morning.

“He took the time to talk to the teachers about anything going on in the classroom. He was easy to get a hold of. He was always very respectful to the staff,” said Mary Meier, director of Small World Learning Center in Franklin Park.

The 38-year-old was from the state of Michoacan in western Mexico, according to the Consulate General of Mexico in Chicago, which said it would “closely monitor” the investigation.

Sophia Tareen And Christine Fernando, The Associated Press