AP Top News at 9:45 p.m. EST

NEW YORK (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been given little more than 48 hours to explain what they accomplished over the last week, sparking confusion across key agencies as billionaire Elon Musk expands his drive to slash the size of federal government. Musk, who serves as President Donald Trump's cost-cutting chief, telegraphed the extraordinary request Saturday on his social media network. “Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” Musk posted on X, which he owns. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” Shortly afterward, federal employees — including some judges, court staff and federal prison officials — received a three-line email with this instruction: “Please reply to this email with approx.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said Sunday that it was placing all but a fraction of staffers at the U.S. Agency for International Development on leave worldwide and eliminating at least 1,600 U.S.-based jobs. The move was the latest and one of the biggest steps yet toward what President Donald Trump and cost-cutting ally Elon Musk say is their goal of gutting the six-decade-old aid and development agency in a broader campaign to slash the size of the federal government. The move comes after a federal judge on Friday allowed the administration to move forward with its plan to pull thousands of USAID staffers off the job in the United States and around the world.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz won a lackluster victory in a national election Sunday, while Alternative for Germany doubled its support in the strongest showing for a far-right party since World War II, projections showed. Chancellor Olaf Scholz conceded defeat for his center-left Social Democrats after what he called “a bitter election result.” Projections for ARD and ZDF public television showed his party finishing in third place with its worst postwar result in a national parliamentary election. Merz said he hopes to put a coalition government together by Easter. But that's likely to be challenging. The election took place seven months earlier than originally planned after Scholz’s unpopular coalition collapsed in November, three years into a term that was increasingly marred by infighting.

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis remained in critical condition Sunday and blood tests showed early kidney failure but he remains alert, responsive and attended Mass, the Vatican said, as the 88-year-old pontiff battles pneumonia and a complex lung infection. In a late update, the Vatican said Francis hadn’t had any more respiratory crises since Saturday night but was still receiving high flows of supplemental oxygen. Some blood tests showed “initial, mild, kidney failure,” but doctors said it was under control. “The complexity of the clinical picture, and the necessary wait for drug therapies to provide some feedback, dictate that the prognosis remains guarded,” Francis' doctors concluded.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A contentious Trump administration proposal to give the U.S. $500 billion worth of profits from Ukraine's rare earth minerals as compensation for its wartime assistance to Kyiv has been taken off the table, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday, indicating a more equitable deal is in the works. Zelenskyy had earlier declined a U.S. draft agreement on exploitation of his country's valuable minerals such as lithium used in the aerospace, defense and nuclear industries because it did not contain security guarantees and came with the $500 billion price tag. “The question of $500 billion is no longer there,” Zelenskyy told a news conference at a forum of government officials in Kyiv marking the three-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

JENIN, West Bank (AP) — Israeli tanks moved into the occupied West Bank on Sunday for the first time in decades in what Palestinian authorities called a “dangerous escalation,” after the defense minister said troops will remain in parts of the territory for a year and tens of thousands of Palestinians who have fled cannot return. Associated Press journalists saw several tanks move along unpaved tracks into Jenin, long a bastion of armed struggle against Israel. Israel is deepening its crackdown on the Palestinian territory and has said it is determined to stamp out militancy amid a rise in attacks. It launched the offensive in the northern West Bank on Jan.

YORK, Pa. (AP) — The man who authorities say entered a Pennsylvania hospital with zip ties and a pistol over the weekend had recent contact with the hospital's intensive care unit, where he took staff members hostage and was killed in a shootout that left a police officer dead and others injured. Investigators released no new information Sunday about a possible motive for the shooting at UPMC Memorial Hospital in York on Saturday, in which a doctor, nurse, custodian and two other officers were injured. But York County District Attorney Tim Barker said during a news conference Saturday that the man — identified as 49-year-old Diogenes Archangel-Ortiz — appeared to have had recent contact with the ICU “for a medical purpose involving another person.” He didn’t release any details or identify Archangel-Ortiz’s relationship to the person, citing privacy concerns.

For some famously progressive colleges in Ohio, a new state law designed to keep transgender women from using women’s restrooms at schools is bringing a moment of soul-searching for students, alumni and administrators. It’s one of many such laws adopted around the country, with the stated intent of protecting female students. The Ohio law — which applies fully to private colleges, unlike the others — allows individual institutions to decide how they will obey and enforce the measure. But navigating the law has become a challenge, especially at colleges like Antioch and Oberlin, campuses built on a bedrock of idealism and protest where many see the law as part of a wider attack on transgender students.

OXON HILL, Md. (AP) — At an annual gathering of conservative activists, the signature red “ Make America Great Again ” hats popularized by President Donald Trump were interspersed with a noticeable number of the black “Dark MAGA” hats made popular by Elon Musk. It was just one sign of Musk's emerging influence and how the world's wealthiest man — who once backed Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden — has become a conservative power center in his own right due to his connections to Trump. “He is an authentic and unique individual. I am glad he is on the team,” said Whitney Mason, a 62-year-old real estate agent who was traveling from Seattle.

The 31st Screen Actors Guild Awards showered yet more awards on “Shōgun," handed “A Real Pain” co-star Kieran Culkin another supporting actor win and featured a fiery moment of political resistance from Jane Fonda on Sunday. Host Kristen Bell introduced the ceremony, streaming live on Netflix from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, as an ode to both the aspirational spirit of actors who come to Los Angeles to make it, and to the city, itself. The SAG Awards unfolded against the backdrop of the aftermath of the devastating wildfires that began in early January. Those fires forced the guild to cancel its in-person nominations announcement and launch a disaster relief fund for SAG-AFTRA members affected.