WASHINGTON (AP) — A small U.S. federal agency that invests in African small businesses is expected in court on Tuesday to fight for control over its operations and existence.

The U.S. African Development Foundation last week tried to keep staff from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from entering their offices in Washington. DOGE staff managed to gain entry after returning with U.S. Marshals.

Ward Brehm, the president of USADF, last week sued the Trump administration, saying in a complaint that the attempted takeover was illegal and that neither President Donald Trump nor DOGE had the authority to shut down its operations or replace its board members and president.

Hours later, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon in Washington temporarily barred the administration from replacing USADF’s leadership. Leon will hear arguments Tuesday from government lawyers and attorney’s representing Brehm about whether the Trump administration can remove the board members and appoint new ones.

Trump last month in an executive order targeted USADF and three other agencies for closure in an effort to deliver on campaign promises to shrink the size of the federal government. The independent agency was created in 1980 by Congress and is controlled by board members, who must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

A primary question in the case is whether the Trump administration has the legal authority to remove the independent board members. Presidents are restricted from firing these members without cause, thanks to a nearly 90-year-old Supreme Court decision known as Humphrey’s Executer, which has been a backstop for advocates in court against the Trump administrations’ firings. More recent Supreme Court decisions have expanded the president’s removal power and legal experts say the high court’s conservative majority may be inclined to overturn that precedent.

In a filing on Monday, attorneys for the government claimed the Trump administration last month removed USADF’s board members by emails from the White House. USDAF challenged that account, saying that just one board member, Brehm, received a removal email.

The remaining board members made Brehm president on March 3. The previous USADF president resigned before the agency was targeted for elimination.

Attorneys for the Trump administration have argued that USADF’s board has, “done everything possible to avoid complying with the President’s clear directives,” and that “the President must be able to designate acting officials to fulfill his duty to enforce the laws.”

Congress in 2023 allocated $46 million to USADF to invest in relatively small agricultural projects and energy infrastructure projects among other economic development initiatives in 22 African countries. The agency employs around 50 people.

In court filings, USADF describes staff from DOGE demanding access to their systems, which staff denied citing privacy and security requirements. They also said DOGE emailed USADF’s staff last month announcing that Pete Marocco, the deputy administrator of USAID who has overseen its dismantling, would chair USADF’s board.

Marocco and some of the same DOGE staff have succeeded in shuttering another independent agency, the Inter-American Foundation. On Feb. 28, a White House official told IAF staff that Marocco would chair the agency’s board, according to a letter sent to Congress by Eddy Arriola, the chair of IAF’s board.

The same day, Marocco held an emergency board meeting outside of IAF’s offices because he was not able to gain entry to the building. In notes entered into the Federal Register, Marocco said he designated himself the acting CEO and president of IAF, seemingly firing the sitting president.

Since, IAF’s grants and contracts have been cancelled and most of its 37 staff members have been laid off. In 2024, IAF oversaw almost $350 million in investments in Latin American and the Caribbean, with a little more than half of that coming from outside funds, meaning from countries or private funders.

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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and non-profits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

Thalia Beaty, The Associated Press

In less than a month, TikTok could have one or a few new owners, be banned again, or simply receive another reprieve to continue operating in the United States.

Questions about the fate of the popular video sharing app have continued to linger since a law requiring its China-based parent company to divest or face a ban took effect on Jan. 19. After taking office, President Donald Trump gave TikTok a 75-day reprieve by signing an executive order that delayed enforcement of the statute until April 5.

As he returned to Washington from his Florida home on Sunday, Trump told reporters that a deal could come soon. He did not offer any details on the interested buyers, but said the administration was in talks with “four different groups” about TikTok.

“A lot of people want it and it’s up to me,” Trump said aboard Air Force One.

A TikTok spokesperson declined to comment.

What will happen on April 5?

If TikTok is not sold to an approved buyer by April 5, the original law that bans it nationwide would once again go into effect. However, the deadline for the executive order doesn’t appear to be set in stone and the president has reiterated it could be extended further if needed.

Trump’s order came a few days after the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a federal law that required TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to divest or be banned in January. The day after the ruling, TikTok went dark for U.S. users and came back online after Trump vowed to stall the ban.

During his first term, Trump tried to ban TikTok on national security grounds, which was halted by the courts before his administration negotiated a sale of the platform that eventually failed to materialize. He changed his position on the popular app during last year’s presidential election and has credited the platform with helping him win more young voters.

The decision to keep TikTok alive through an executive order has received some scrutiny, but it has not faced a legal challenge in court.

Who wants to buy TikTok?

Although it’s unclear if ByteDance plans to sell TikTok, several potential bidders have come forward in the past few months.

Aides for Vice President JD Vance, who was tapped to oversee a potential deal, have reached out to some parties, such as the artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI, to get additional details about their bids, according to a person familiar with the matter. In January, Perplexity AI presented ByteDance with a merger proposal that would combine Perplexity’s business with TikTok’s U.S. operation.

Other potential bidders include a consortium organized by billionaire businessman Frank McCourt, which recently recruited Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian as a strategic advisor. Investors in the consortium say they’ve offered ByteDance $20 billion in cash for TikTok’s U.S. platform. And if successful, they plan to redesign the popular app with blockchain technology they say will provide users with more control over their online data.

Jesse Tinsley, the founder of the payroll firm Employer.com, says he too has organized a consortium, which includes the CEO of the video game platform Roblox, and is offering ByteDance more than $30 billion for TikTok.

Trump said in January that Microsoft was also eyeing the popular app. Other interested parties include Trump’s former Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin and Rumble, the video site popular with some conservatives and far-right groups. In a post on X last March, Rumble said it was ready to join a consortium of parties interested in purchasing TikTok and serving as a tech partner for the company.

What could happen next?

Trump has said he is looking to have the U.S. government broker a deal for 50% control of TikTok. However, the administration hasn’t provided details on what exactly that would entail, or what role the U.S. government could play in the future of the short-form video app.

Some potential bidders have floated proposals that would allow the U.S. to invest or own a stake in the platform. Last month, Trump himself also said the U.S. could own part of TikTok through a new government-owned investment fund.

Chinese officials, who would have to approve the deal, appear to have softened their stance on the issue compared to last year when Beijing called the push for divestment a “robbers” act.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said in January that business operations and acquisitions “should be independently decided by companies in accordance with market principles.”

“If it involves Chinese companies, China’s laws and regulations should be observed,” Mao said.

If ByteDance sits down to negotiate, the company would likely need to iron out major details with the U.S. over the proprietary algorithm that populates TikTok feeds as well as the flow of content between the U.S. and the rest of the world.

_________

Associated Press reporters Michelle Price and Didi Tang contributed to this story from Washington.

Haleluya Hadero (), The Associated Press

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A special election in a Minnesota House district at the center of a post-election drama to control the chamber will decide whether control will be tied between Democrats and Republicans, or if the GOP locks in a narrow but workable majority.

The election in heavily Democratic House District 40B in the northern St. Paul suburbs of Roseville and Shoreview was scheduled after a state court ruled that Democratic state Rep.-elect Curtis Johnson failed to meet residency requirements. That disrupted an expected 67-67 tie in the House and led to the collapse of a power-sharing agreement between the two parties after Republicans decided to capitalize on their unexpected majority, prompting a three-week Democratic boycott of the chamber.

The election pits Democrat David Gottfried against Republican Paul Wikstrom, who also ran for the seat in 2024 and had challenged Johnson’s residency status in court.

The parties reached a new power-sharing agreement in February that assumed Democrats would win the special election and restore the 67-67 tie. Under the terms of the deal, Republican Lisa Demuth will remain House speaker for the next two years. If Gottfried wins, the two parties will have even strength on most committees, except for an oversight committee that Republicans will control to investigate fraud in government programs.

Democrats hold a one-seat majority in the Minnesota Senate. Given the tie in the House, where 68 votes are needed to pass most bills, some degree of bipartisan cooperation will be required to pass the big budget measures during the 2025 session and get them to Democratic Gov. Tim Walz for his signature. Updated budget projections released last Thursday suggested difficult negotiations ahead. The projected surplus for the next two-year budget slipped to $456 million, while the projected deficit for the two years after that grew to $6 billion.

As indicators of Democratic strength in the district, the ineligible Johnson received 65% of the vote in November, compared to about 35% for Wikstrom. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris carried the district with 68% of the vote, far better than the 51% she received statewide in her national loss to President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.

While Democrats had the “trifecta” of control over both chambers and the governor’s office in 2023 and 2024, GOP gains in the November elections returned the state to divided government, which has been the norm for most of the past three decades.

Steve Karnowski, The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former Democratic U.S. House member Katie Porter announced Tuesday that she is entering the 2026 contest for California governor, joining a crowded field of candidates that could be upended if former Vice President Kamala Harris joins the race.

Porter, who became a social media celebrity by brandishing a white board at congressional hearings while grilling CEOs, promised in a campaign launch video to be an aggressive counterweight to President Donald Trump’s administration at a time when the heavily Democratic state has clashed with the White House over issues from water management to immigrant rights.

“In Congress, I held the Trump administration’s feet to the fire when they hurt Americans. As governor, I won’t ever back down when Trump hurts Californians — whether he’s holding up disaster relief, attacking our rights or our communities, or screwing over working families to benefit himself and his cronies,” Porter said.

The contest to replace term-limited Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom already has lured a large scrum of announced and likely candidates that would be upended if Harris decides to seek the state’s top office.

Harris, a former state attorney general and U.S. senator, has not ruled out seeking the governorship since she left Washington in January after a failed presidential bid. Porter is friendly with the former vice president and has indicated she would step aside if Harris joins the race. In 2012, Harris, then California’s attorney general, appointed Porter to be the state’s independent bank monitor in a multibillion-dollar nationwide mortgage settlement.

If Harris gets in the race “there are very few politicians who would want to take her on,” said Claremont McKenna College political scientist Jack Pitney. “She’d be likely to win the Democratic nomination and Democrats are likely to win the governorship.”

Porter, who made an unsuccessful run for U.S. Senate last year and also is known for her small-dollar fundraising prowess, becomes one of the best known candidates, joining former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, among others, on the Democratic side.

Democrats are expected to easily hold the seat in a state where they outnumber registered Republicans by nearly 2-to-1. Republicans have not won a statewide election in California in nearly two decades.

On the GOP side, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco last month became the first major Republican to announce a bid to replace Newsom, whose term runs through early January 2027. He blamed Democrats for the ongoing homeless crisis and runaway housing prices.

Even if Harris gets in the race, the state’s open primary system can be unpredictable — all candidates appear on a single ballot, regardless of party, and only the top two vote-getters advance to the November general election. Trump-aligned candidates could enter on the GOP side, generating conservative interest, or a wealthy candidate could emerge with the funds to rattle the expected order.

“These open primaries are hard to handicap,” said Democratic consultant Andrew Acosta. “It just makes it harder to predict.”

Porter, a progressive favorite, created an online backlash after losing the 2024 Senate race, when she faulted “billionaires spending millions to rig this election.” She finished third in the primary — behind Democrat and now-Sen. Adam Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey — and did not advance to the November election.

Some likened her words to Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud in 2020. Porter later clarified her initial statement to say she didn’t believe the California vote count or election process had been compromised but she didn’t recant her earlier remarks. Rigged, she said in a follow-up, “means manipulated by dishonest means.”

She has been an active fundraiser since leaving her Southern California House district in January and returned to teaching at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law.

A consumer protection attorney before her election to the House, Porter became known in Congress for her unsparing interrogations of business leaders and other committee witnesses, often using her whiteboard to break down complex figures while using plainspoken language to assail corporate greed.

First elected to Congress in 2018, Porter said in her video that “I first ran for office to hold Trump accountable. I feel that same call to serve now to stop him from hurting Californians.”

Michael R. Blood, The Associated Press

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the Trump administration has finished its six-week purge of programs of the six-decade-old U.S. Agency for International Development, cutting 83% of them, and said he would move the remaining aid programs under the State Department.

Meanwhile, Republicans face a critical test of their unity when a spending bill that would avoid a partial government shutdown and keep federal agencies funded through September comes up for a vote. Speaker Mike Johnson is teeing up the bill for a vote as soon as Tuesday despite the lack of buy-in from Democrats, essentially daring them to oppose it and risk a shutdown that would begin Saturday if lawmakers fail to act.

Here’s the latest:

Trump says he’ll buy a Tesla to show support for Elon Musk

President Donald Trump says Musk, who’s effectively running the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has been “putting it on the line” for America and he’s going to show his support for the Tesla CEO by buying one of his electric vehicles.

Shares of Tesla slid again Monday as confidence in Musk’s electric car company continues to disintegrate following a post-election “Trump bump.”

Trump said on his social media platform that he was “going to buy a brand new Tesla” on Tuesday “as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American. Why should he be punished for putting his tremendous skills to work in order to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN???”

Musk has become the face of the Trump administration’s government downsizing efforts.

Analysts have said Musk’s shift to right-wing politics doesn’t appear to sit well with potential Tesla buyers, generally perceived to be wealthy, environmentally-conscious liberals.

Kentucky bourbon makers fear becoming ‘collateral damage’ in Trump’s trade war

The trade wars pose an immediate threat to an American-made success story, built on the growing worldwide taste for bourbon, Tennessee whiskey and other products.

Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear said the president’s zig-zagging tariff policy is hurting the American economy and will lead to higher consumer prices while disrupting business.

Trump on Thursday postponed 25% tariffs on some imports from Canada for a month amid fears of the economic fallout from a broader trade war. Yarbrough said his company’s expansion plans are still in limbo.

For an industry that has to plan well into the future, based on aging its whiskey products, such angst is widespread in Kentucky, which produces 95% of the world’s bourbon supply. At this point even a delay in tariffs wouldn’t alleviate the practical problems confronting U.S. whiskey makers.

▶ Read more about how Kentucky bourbon makers are being impacted

Ukraine-US talks on ending war with Russia start in Saudi Arabia as Kyiv launches huge drone attack

Senior officials from Ukraine and the United States opened talks Tuesday on how to end Moscow’s three-year war against Kyiv, hours after Russian air defenses shot down more than 300 Ukrainian drones in the biggest such attack since the Kremlin ordered the full-scale invasion of its neighbor.

Two people were killed and 18 were injured, including three children, in the massive drone attack that spanned 10 Russian regions, officials said. No large-scale damage was reported.

Meanwhile, Russia launched 126 Shahed and other drones and a ballistic missile at Ukraine on Tuesday, the Ukrainian air force said, as part of Moscow’s relentless pounding of civilian areas during the war.

In the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, journalists briefly entered a room where a senior Ukrainian delegation met with America’s top diplomat for talks on ending Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.

▶ Read more about the talks in Saudi Arabia

Rubio says purge of USAID programs complete, with 83% of agency’s programs gone

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday the Trump administration had finished its six-week purge of programs of the six-decade-old U.S. Agency for International Development, cutting 83% of them, and said he would move the remaining aid programs under the State Department.

Hours later, a federal judge said Trump had overstepped his authority in shutting down most foreign assistance, saying the administration could no longer simply sit on the billions of dollars that Congress had provided for foreign aid. But Judge Amir H. Ali stopped short of ordering Trump officials to use the money to revive the thousands of terminated program contracts.

Rubio made his announcement Monday in a post on X, in one of his few public comments on what has been a historic shift away from U.S. foreign aid and development, executed by Trump political appointees at State and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency teams.

Rubio in the post thanked DOGE and “our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform” in foreign aid.

▶ Read more about the dismantling of USAID

The Associated Press

After one of the worst single day sell-offs in Tesla’s history, President Donald Trump threw his support behind his advisor, billionaire Elon Musk, vowing to buy one of his cars on Tuesday.

Tesla has been pummeled this year under competition from rival electric vehicles, particularly out of China, as well as his close association with Trump and with far right causes globally.

Shares have plummeted 45% in 2025 and on Monday tumbled more than 15% to $222.15, the lowest since late October, reflecting newfound pessimism as sales crater around the globe.

In an overnight post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said Musk is “putting it on the line” to help the country. Trump claimed in the post that “Radical Left Lunatics” were attempting to “illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World’s great automakers, and Elon’s ‘baby.”

The stock climbed more than 3% before the market open on Tuesday.

Numerous auto industry analysts have attributed Tesla’s recent sagging stock — and auto sales — to Musk’s support of Trump and other far right candidates around the world. In recent days, Tesla showrooms in the U.S. have been besieged by protesters, its vehicles vandalized on the street. Tesla owners, perhaps in a bid to avoid being targeted, have placed bumper stickers on their cars with messages like, “I bought it before Elon went nuts.”

Federal prosecutors charged a woman in connection with a string of vandalism against a Colorado Tesla dealership, which included Molotov cocktails being thrown at vehicles and the words “Nazi cars” spray painted on the building.

Musk pumped $270 million into Trump’s campaign heading into the 2024 election, appeared on stage with him and cheered Trump’s victory over Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in November. Tesla stock soared to $479 per share by mid-December, but have since lost 45% of their value.

Musk has become the face of the Trump administration’s slash-and-burn government downsizing efforts, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The department has promised massive federal worker layoffs and aims to drastically reduce government spending.

Analysts have said Musk’s shift to right-wing politics doesn’t appear to sit well with potential Tesla buyers, generally perceived to be wealthy and progressive consumers.

Tesla sales are falling precipitously in California, the company’s biggest U.S. market, and the company recorded its first annual global sales decline last year. Similarly, Tesla sales plunged 45% in Europe in January, according to research firm Jato Dynamics, even as overall electric vehicle sales rose. The sales numbers were particularly bad in Germany and France.

The latest auto sales figure from China show that Tesla sales there have been nearly halved from February a year ago, although the decline is largely due increased competition from domestic EV companies.

But sales in the U.S. have fallen due to competition, and a country sharply divided about Trump.

U.S. Analysts at UBS Global Research expect deliveries to fall 5% in the first quarter and full year compared to the same periods for 2024.

“Our UBS Evidence Lab data shows low delivery times for the Model 3 and Model Y (generally within two weeks) in key markets which we believe is indicative of softer demand,” they wrote.

In addition to backing Trump, Musk has also shown support for the far-right, pro-Russian, anti-Muslim party in German y, called the British p rime minister an “evil tyrant” and called Canada — a major Tesla market —”not a real country.”

Tesla is not the only Musk-led company to run into trouble recently. His X social media platform crashed several times on Monday, which Musk claimed was a “massive” cyberattack. But like the clear-cutting he’s done with federal jobs, Musk slashed the number of employees at X and technology experts warned of increased vulnerability.

Last week, a rocket launched by Musk’s SpaceX exploded and broke apart over Florida, about two months after another of the company’s rockets failed.

Associated Press, The Associated Press

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Garlin Gilchrist II, a Democrat from Detroit who is Michigan’s first Black lieutenant governor, announced he’s jumping into the crowded 2026 race for governor on Tuesday.

A software engineer by trade, Gilchrist vaulted from relative political obscurity in 2018 to run alongside Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and his profile has been bolstered over the past six years by working closely with one of the nation’s most high-profile Democrats.

“When you have a problem, an engineer can fix that problem,” Gilchrist said in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of his announcement, saying he’s built up relationships in each of the state’s 83 counties. “That’s a story that I’m going to tell.”

As governor, he said he’ll focus on expanding affordable housing and improving access to health care, particularly mental health services.

He recognized that voters sent President Donald Trump back to the White House in part because of frustration with a “status quo that wasn’t serving them.” Trump notched a 1.5-point victory in Michigan last fall.

“That anger comes from not having results, from things not working,” said Gilchrist. He described moving to Washington state to work for Microsoft after graduating from the University of Michigan, but says that as governor, he’ll make sure residents can “be their best self here.”

“I want us to make good choices today so that the people of Michigan know that they can take their next step here,” he said. “They can build their careers and their families and their futures here.”

Still, Gilchrist will have to balance that narrative with his role near the top of the Democratic Party, which held full control of state government from 2022 to 2024. Gilchrist in his AP interview did not break from Whitmer, calling her an ally and said they have “laid a really good foundation for the future of the state of Michigan.”

Gilchrist is seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party. His hometown Detroit is the state’s largest Democratic stronghold and nearly 80% Black, bolstering his appeal. If elected, Gilchrist would be the first Black governor of the state. However, before joining Whitmer on the Democratic ticket, he ran for Detroit City Clerk in 2017 and narrowly lost to incumbent Janice Winfrey.

Lieutenant governors also don’t have a good track record in Michigan when trying to ascend to the governor’s office, with the most recent example being Republican Brian Calley, who was trounced in the party’s primary in 2018.

Gilchrist joins Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson in the 2026 Democratic primary. Whitmer has said she won’t endorse any candidate.

The primary winner could face an uphill battle in the general election. Along with a Republican opponent — Republican Senate Leader Aric Nesbitt is seen as the leading candidate currently — they may also contend with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, a former Democrat now running for governor as an independent.

Joey Cappelletti, The Associated Press