World
Trump's family circle has a different look as he returns to the White House
WASHINGTON (AP) — When Donald Trump returns to the White House on Monday, his family circle will look a little different than it did when he first arrived eight years ago.
His youngest son, Barron, was in fifth grade back then. He’s now a college freshman who towers over his 6-foot-plus (1.8-meter-plus) dad. Granddaughter Kai, who was 9 in 2017, is now an aspiring social media influencer and impressive golfer. Grandson Joseph, who posed in Trump’s lap with a Lego model of the White House last time, is 11 now.
The most prominent relatives in Trump’s political sphere, daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared, are in Florida this time around after working in his first administration.
Family members can provide presidents with a ready source of moral and sounding-board support, companionship and even relief from the world’s problems. Not to mention creating headaches for the president at times, too.
“Family can do things that other people can’t, and they can be trusted in a way that other people also can’t,” said Tevi Troy, a former George W. Bush administration official and author of several books about the presidency. “Everyone needs someone they can talk to late at night when you let your hair down, so to speak.”
The president-elect has five children — three of whom are married — from his marriages to Ivana Trump, Marla Maples and current wife Melania Trump. He has 10 grandkids, with an 11th on the way.
A look at Trump’s family circle, then and now:
Former first lady Melania Trump speaks at a campaign rally, Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
His wife:
THEN: She spent the opening months of Trump’s term at the family’s Manhattan penthouse so that 11-year-old Barron wouldn’t have to switch schools in the middle of the year. After moving to the White House, she traveled around the United States and to other countries, alone and with Trump, partly to promote her “Be Best” children’s initiative while fiercely guarding her privacy.
NOW: She avoided active campaigning during Trump’s 2024 run, limiting her public appearances to key moments, such as the campaign’s launch, the Republican National Convention and election night. She released a self-titled memoir late last year and will be the subject of a documentary distributed by Amazon Prime Video that is expected to be released later this year. While some doubt that Trump’s 54-year-old wife will spend much time at the White House, she said on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” that she has already packed and picked out the furniture she wants to take to the executive mansion.
Donald Trump Jr. attends a rally for his father, Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, at Madison Square Garden, Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
THEN: Trump’s eldest son, now 46, campaigned for his father in 2016 and 2020.
NOW: Trump Jr.’s influence has grown to the point that he lobbied his father to choose close friend JD Vance for vice president. He also pushed for former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the president-elect’s picks for director of national intelligence and health and human services, respectively. Trump Jr. helps run the family real estate business and is an honorary chairman of Trump’s transition. He has a podcast and has said his role is to prevent “bad actors” from getting into the administration. He recently flew on his father’s airplane to Greenland; the president-elect has expressed a desire to take control of the mineral-rich Danish territory.
Trump Jr. has five children — or “smurfs,” as he sometimes refers to them — with his former wife, Vanessa Trump. They are Kai Madison, 17; Donald John III, 15; Tristan Milos, 13; Spencer Frederick, 12; and Chloe Sophia Trump, 10.
Ivanka Trump exits the courtroom for a lunch break during a civil fraud trial against her father, former President Donald Trump, at New York Supreme Court, Nov. 8, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
THEN: Ivanka, 43, campaigned for her father in 2016 and moved her family from New York City to Washington to work in his White House as a senior adviser. She was on the campaign trail in 2020, too, but she and her family moved to Florida and retreated from the spotlight after his loss.
NOW: As Trump geared up for the 2024 run, Ivanka announced that she loved and supported him but was getting out of politics to focus on her husband and their three kids. She did, however, join her father and other family members on election night and when he rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange in early December after Time magazine named him Person of the Year. She told “The Skinny Confidential” podcast that this time around she just wanted to “show up for him as a daughter” and be there to watch a movie or a sports game.
Ivanka and her husband have three children: Arabella Rose, 13; Joseph Frederick, 11; and Theodore James Kushner, 8.
Eric Trump appears in the spin room after a presidential debate, Sept. 10, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)
THEN: The 40-year-old helped run the family business and participated in his father’s campaigns.
NOW: Eric is also an honorary chair of the transition and a close adviser to his father. But he continues to focus more on running the family business. In September, he and his brother started a crypto platform called World Liberty Financial, and their father helped launch it in an interview on the X social media platform.”
Eric and his wife, Lara, have two children: Eric Luke, 7, and Carolina Dorothy Trump, 5.
Tiffany Trump and her husband, Michael Boulos, listen as Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Williams Arena at Mignes Coliseum, Oct. 21, 2024, in Greenville, N.C. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
THEN: Trump’s daughter with second wife Marla Maples was 23 and a recent University of Pennsylvania graduate who kept a low profile when Trump was first elected.
NOW: She was more present in the 2024 campaign but still largely avoids the spotlight. Tiffany, 31, and her husband, Michael Boulos, are expecting their first child this year. Boulos is a businessman who traveled with Trump in the final stretch of the campaign. His father is Massad Boulos, a Lebanese American businessman who helped Trump with the influential Arab American community in the swing state of Michigan. Trump has named Massad Boulos to be a senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.
Barron Trump stands on the South Lawn of the White House on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention in Washington, Aug. 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
THEN: At the start of Trump’s first term, Barron and his mother stayed at the family’s Trump Tower penthouse in Manhattan so he could finish his school year. When they got to Washington, his soccer net appeared in what’s known as the first lady’s garden.
NOW: Barron, 18, is a freshman New York University business student. His parents and Trump campaign officials credit him for recommending podcasts popular with young men that the president-elect appeared on during the campaign. Barron will have a bedroom in the White House, Melania Trump said on “Fox & Friends.”
“I’m very proud of him, about his knowledge, even about politics and giving an advice to his father,” his mother said on the program. “He brought in so many young people. He knows his generation.”
Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump walks onstage at a campaign event for Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, in Monroe, N.C., Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Nell Redmond, File)
Other family members in the spotlight:Lara Trump
THEN: Trump’s daughter-in-law, 42, campaigned for him during all his runs. After Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, she considered running for a U.S. Senate seat from her home state of North Carolina but ultimately decided against it. She became a Fox News commentator.
NOW: As Trump revved up his 2024 campaign, he installed his daughter-in-law as co-chair of the Republican National Committee, where she was a TV-ready advocate overseeing fundraising, voter outreach and the party’s “election integrity” initiative. She stepped down from the RNC after the election and removed her name from consideration as a possible successor to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Trump’s choice for secretary of state.
Lara Trump is passionate about fitness and has her own line of activewear. She also has explored a side venture as a singer and has released some songs. Daughter Carolina is named after her home state.
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are seen during the final day of the Republican National Convention, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)
THEN: Kushner, 44, was also a key figure in Trump’s 2016 campaign. He joined his wife in the White House as a senior adviser, a role that included working on U.S. policy toward Israel and the broader Middle East.
NOW: Kushner has stepped out of the political spotlight — but his father could soon step in. Trump announced after the election that he intends to nominate Charles Kushner, a real estate developer, to be U.S. ambassador to France. The elder Kushner was pardoned by Trump in December 2020 after he pleaded guilty years earlier to tax evasion and making illegal campaign contributions.
Kai Trump, granddaughter of former President Donald Trump, walks on the 18th green during the ProAm of the LIV Golf Team Championship at Trump National Doral Golf Club, Oct. 27, 2022, in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)
Kai Trump
THEN: Kai was in elementary school when her grandfather became president.
NOW: Donald Trump Jr.’s 17-year-old granddaughter is an aspiring social media influencer. Her behind-the-scenes video from election night garnered 3.7 million views on YouTube. Other posts related to her grandfather have been watched millions more times on TikTok. Kai delivered her first public speech at the Republican convention and is an avid golfer who sometimes plays with her grandfather.
“If I’m not on his team, he’ll try to get inside of my head, and he’s always surprised that I don’t let him get to me,” she said at the convention. “But I have to remind him, I’m a Trump, too.”
Arabella Kushner
THEN: Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s daughter was 6 when her grandfather showed China’s Xi Jinping a video of her, in a traditional Chinese dress, belting out Chinese-language songs.
“It’s very good, right? She’s very smart,” Trump said. Xi responded that Arabella was her grandfather’s “little angel” and a “messenger of China-U.S. relations.”
NOW: Arabella is 13 and enjoys singing, playing the piano, horseback riding and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, according to a social media post from her mother.
___
Gomez Licon reported from West Palm Beach, Florida.
Japan’s population fell by more than 3 million over the past five years, according to official statistics released on Friday, a drop that underscores the depths of the country’s accelerating demographic crisis.
The population stood at 123 million in 2025, according to preliminary census results, down from 126.1 million in 2020. It is the biggest decrease since the government began collecting census data in 1920.
Change in population every five years
Japan’s population loss is accelerating
Japan’s population peaked in 2008 at 128 million, and it is projected to fall to 87 million by 2070. The country is now roughly the same size it was in 1989.
For decades, the Japanese authorities have tried to make up for the rapidly aging population by encouraging young people to have more children. But the effort has fallen short, leaving the country with one of the world’s lowest birth rates. For each new birth, there are two deaths.
Japan is a harbinger of the demographic headwinds that will soon buffet other developed countries. The shrinking population is already constraining Japan’s economic growth, putting pressures on its health care system and causing labor shortages.
The census data shows that the demographic crisis has now reached almost every part of Japan. All but two of the country’s 47 prefectures reported population decreases in 2025, and the rate of decline is accelerating.
Among the hardest hit areas were the northern prefectures of Akita and Aomori, where the population shrank by about 8 percent from 2020 to 2025. Those areas are home to some of Japan’s oldest residents, and young people have left at a rapid rate because of stagnant wages and harsh winters.
Most of Japan is losing population
The Japanese countryside is hollowing out as the population ages and young people leave to seek jobs in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and other cities. In some rural areas, schools are being converted into nursing homes and community centers. Millions of homes are vacant; government offices and hospitals are downsizing; and train lines are shutting down.
Opening Japan’s doors more widely to foreigners could help offset the declines. But the government has long taken a cautious approach to immigration, and nationalist politicians and commentators have gained influence recently with a “Japan First” agenda.
“Japan has now reached a level where this kind of decline is not reversible in the short- or medium-run,” said James Raymo, a professor of sociology at Princeton University who studies Japan. “It simply will not happen in the absence of mass immigration.”
There were a few bright spots in the census, including Okinawa, a subtropical chain of islands in the south, where the population grew slightly. Okinawa has Japan’s highest fertility rate, with women there giving birth to an average of 1.5 children in their lifetimes, compared with 1.1 nationally.
Japan’s biggest cities are managing to stave off demographic decline — for now. The population of the Tokyo metropolitan area, which includes Tokyo and the surrounding prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba, rose slightly to 37 million in 2025. The area now accounts for roughly 30 percent of Japan’s total population.
Tokyo, a vibrant hub of business, politics and culture, is now about 20 times denser than the rest of Japan — and one of the world’s densest cities. (Tokyo’s population rose more than 1 percent to 14.2 million in 2025.) The growth has been fueled in large part by an influx of students and young workers looking for jobs and educational opportunities.
Japan’s woes are likely to worsen in the coming decades. It will probably become increasingly difficult to find workers to staff schools, hospitals, police departments and train stations. And the country could lack enough young people to pay the taxes necessary to support retirees.
Professor Raymo said the Japanese government’s efforts to promote fertility had “not really moved the needle.” He said that ultimately Japan could provide lessons for other governments.
“More and more countries in Asia and elsewhere will experience similar levels of demographic decline,” he said. “Japan is just at the forefront and has been at it much longer.”
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A drone struck an apartment building Friday in Romania, a NATO member, causing an explosion and fire that injured multiple people, local authorities said.
According to Romania’s Ministry of Defense, the incident occurred as Russia carried out an overnight drone attack in neighboring Ukraine near the Romanian border.
“A drone entered Romanian airspace, was tracked by radar systems as far as the Southern area of Galați municipality, and crashed onto the roof of a residential apartment building,” the ministry said.
Romania — a member of both NATO and the European Union — has reported more than two dozen incidents involving Russian drones entering its airspace since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine.
NATO SCRAMBLES WARPLANES AS RUSSIA HITS NEAR ROMANIAN BORDER IN UKRAINE
A fire burns on the roof of a 10-story block of flats after a drone crashed into the building, causing an explosion and injuring two people, near the border with Ukraine, in Galati, Romania. (Romanian Department for Emergency Situations/Handout via REUTERS)
Friday’s incident marked the first time a drone struck a populated area in Romania, resulting in injuries.
Romania’s state news agency reported that a woman and her child were hospitalized with minor injuries, while two other people were treated at the scene for panic attacks.
Following the incident, Romania requested additional anti-drone capabilities from NATO and described the drone’s flight path as a serious violation of international law, according to The Associated Press.
RUSSIAN DRONES TEST NATO’S ARTICLE 5 DEFENSE GUARANTEE AHEAD OF FRIDAY SANCTIONS DEADLINE
Russian servicemen prepare to launch an interceptor drone for an action in an undisclosed location in Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
Romania’s emergency response agency said the drone struck the apartment building and exploded, sparking a fire on the 10th floor.
The agency said the drone’s entire explosive payload detonated upon impact.
Seventy people were evacuated from the building, authorities said. The fire has since been brought under control.
NEW ROMANIAN LAW MAY HAVE AVERTED NATO CLASH WITH RUSSIA AFTER BORDER STRIKES
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged the United States and its allies to provide additional air defense systems as Russia intensifies drone and missile attacks. (Javier SORIANO / AFP via Getty Images)
The defense ministry said two F-16 fighter jets and a military helicopter were deployed to monitor the Russian attack. The pilots were authorized to shoot down any drones that posed a threat.
The incident came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this week that he was pressing the United States to provide additional Patriot air defense missiles to help counter Russian attacks.
He warned that deliveries to Ukraine were falling dangerously short as the conflict with Iran strains U.S. military resources and stockpiles.
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“I believe [the U.S.] must act quicker. We are being very persistent,” Zelenskyy told reporters during a visit to Sweden.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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