AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EST
McCarthy fails for 3rd day in bitter GOP House speaker fight
WASHINGTON — For a long and frustrating third day, divided Republicans kept the speaker’s chair of the U.S. House empty Thursday, as party leader Kevin McCarthy failed again and again in an excruciating string of ballots to win enough GOP votes to seize the chamber’s gavel.
Long after darkness, glimmers of a deal with far-right holdouts were emerging. But the day's tally was dismal: McCarthy lost seventh, eighth and then historic ninth, 10th and 11th rounds of voting, surpassing the number of 100 years ago in the last drawn-out fight to choose a speaker. By nightfall, despite raucous protests from Democrats, Republicans voted to adjourn and return Friday to try again.
The California Republican soaked up the moment without visible concern: “Apparently, I like to make history.”
The contours of an agreement with holdouts from the conservative Freedom Caucus began to take shape, including several of the key rules changes they have been seeking for months. Those changes would shrink the power of the speaker’s office and give rank-and-file lawmakers more influence in drafting legislation.
At the core is the reinstatement of a House rule that would allow a single lawmaker to make a motion to “vacate the chair,” essentially calling a vote to oust the speaker — a move McCarthy had resisted because it had been held over the head of past Republican Speaker John Boehner, chasing him to early retirement.
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Putin orders weekend truce in Ukraine; Kyiv won't take part
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered his armed forces to observe a unilateral 36-hour cease-fire in Ukraine this weekend for the Orthodox Christmas holiday, the first such sweeping truce move in the nearly 11-month-old war. Kyiv indicated it wouldn't follow suit.
Putin did not appear to condition his cease-fire order on Ukraine's acceptance, and it wasn’t clear whether hostilities would actually pause on the 1,100-kilometer (684-mile) front line or elsewhere. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed the Russian move as playing for time to regroup its invasion forces and prepare additional attacks.
At various points during the war that began Feb. 24, Russian authorities have ordered limited, local truces to allow civilian evacuations or other humanitarian purposes. Thursday's order was the first time Putin has directed his troops to observe a cease-fire throughout Ukraine.
“Based on the fact that a large number of citizens professing Orthodoxy live in the combat areas, we call on the Ukrainian side to declare a cease-fire and give them the opportunity to attend services on Christmas Eve, as well as on the Day of the Nativity of Christ,” Putin’s order said.
The order didn’t specify whether it would apply to both offensive and defensive operations. It wasn’t clear, for example, whether Russia would strike back if Ukraine kept fighting.
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Hawaii's Kilauea volcano erupts again, summit crater glows
HONOLULU — Hawaii's Kilauea began erupting inside its summit crater Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, less than one month after the volcano and its larger neighbor Mauna Loa stopped releasing lava.
The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory detected a glow in webcam images indicating Kilauea had begun erupting inside Halemaumau crater at the volcano's summit caldera, the agency said.
Kilauea’s summit is inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and away from residential communities.
Kilauea is one of the world's most active volcanoes. It last erupted for 16 months starting in September 2021. For about two weeks starting Nov. 27, Hawaii had two volcanoes spewing lava side by side when Mauna Loa erupted for the first time in 38 years. Both volcanoes stopped erupting at about the same time.
Earlier Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey raised the alert level for Kilauea due to signs that magma was moving below the summit surface, an indication that the volcano might erupt.
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Damar Hamlin asked who won Bills-Bengals when he woke up
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin has begun to communicate in writing with his family and others who have been at his bedside since he went into cardiac arrest three days ago — and his first question was, “Did we win?” his doctors said Thursday.
“The answer is yes, Damar, you won. You’ve won the game of life." Dr. Timothy Pritts told reporters in a conference call from the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where Hamlin was rushed after collapsing and being resuscitated on the field during the Bills' game against the Bengals on Monday night.
Hamlin remains critically ill and in the hospital's intensive care unit, but he began to wake up Wednesday night, and it appears his neurological function is intact, meaning he can follow commands and move, Pritts said.
"He still has significant progress he needs to make, but this marks a really good turning point in his ongoing care,” the doctor said.
“His first question that he wrote when he started to awaken was, 'Did we win?′" Pritts said. “So we know that it’s not only that the lights are on. We know that he’s home. And it appears that all the cylinders are firing within his brain, which is greatly gratifying for all of us.”
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Violence hits Mexico cartel stronghold as 'Chapo' son nabbed
MEXICO CITY — The sun wasn’t yet up in Culiacan when David Téllez and his family began making their way to the city’s airport for a return flight to Mexico after their vacation. But not long after they set out they encountered the first crude roadblock, an abandoned vehicle obstructing their way.
Téllez turned to social media to find out what was going on and saw that Sinaloa’s state capital, a stronghold of the cartel by the same name, was filled with roadblocks and gunfire.
It would be hours before Mexico’s defense secretary would confirm that the military had captured Ovidio Guzmán, a son of the notorious former Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, in a pre-dawn operation north of the city.
Just like that, Culiacan was thrust into a day of terror unlike any its residents had experienced since October 2019 — the last time authorities tried to capture the young Guzmán.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has railed against his predecessors’ aggressive efforts to capture drug lords, but his administration bagged the high-profile cartel figure just days before hosting U.S. President Joe Biden, and at least in the short term locals were paying the price.
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Police: Idaho slaying suspect's DNA found at crime scene
MOSCOW, Idaho — Idaho police pieced together DNA evidence, cellphone data and surveillance video to charge a criminology graduate student with the November slaying of four University of Idaho undergraduates, according to an affidavit unsealed Thursday.
The affidavit says DNA matching that of 28-year-old Bryan Kohberger was found on a knife sheath recovered at the crime scene, just a short drive across the state border where he is a criminal justice doctoral student at Washington State University.
The affidavit also says that a cellphone belonging to Kohberger was near the victims’ home on a dozen occasions prior to the killings, and that while it was apparently turned off around the time of the early-morning attack, cell tower data place his phone in that region of Idaho shortly afterward.
Kohberger made his first appearance Thursday in an Idaho court, where he faces four charges of first-degree murder. He did not enter a plea, and was ordered held without bail.
The affidavit details a chilling encounter between one of the victims' surviving roommates and a masked intruder the night of the stabbings in Moscow, Idaho. But many questions remain unanswered, including whether Kohberger and any of the victims knew each other, and why police weren’t alerted until nearly eight hours after the killings likely occurred.
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'Bomb cyclone' brings damaging winds, drenches California
CAPITOLA, Calif. — Hurricane-force winds, surging surf and heavy rains from a powerful “atmospheric river” pounded California on Thursday, knocking out power to tens of thousands, causing flooding, and contributing to the deaths of at least two people, including a toddler whose home was crushed by a falling tree.
Raging seas damaged two historic piers, rock and mudslides closed down highways, and deep snow piled up at ski resorts in the latest in a series of atmospheric rivers — long plumes of moisture stretching far over the Pacific — to reach the drought-stricken state. The “Pineapple Express” storm originated near Hawaii and was pulled toward the West Coast by a rotating area of rapidly falling air pressure known as a “bomb cyclone.”
Even as rains were expected to let up and some evacuation orders lifted Thursday, crews were assessing damage, trying to restore power and beginning the cleanup while bracing for more wet and wild weather this weekend that could be particularly troublesome for communities along swollen rivers.
The blustery tempest that came ashore Wednesday knocked out power to more than 180,000 homes and businesses, according to poweroutage.us.
In Sonoma County, Aeon Tocchini, a 2-year-old boy, was killed when a redwood tree crumpled a section of his family's mobile home where he had been sitting on a sofa, authorities said. His father and neighbors freed the boy — nicknamed “Goldie” because of his light hair and sunny personality — but he couldn't be revived.
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In memoir, Prince Harry says William attacked him during row
LONDON — Prince Harry says his brother William physically attacked him during a ferocious argument — one of many startling allegations in a new memoir that includes revelations about the estranged royal's drug-taking, first sexual encounter and role in killing people during his military service in Afghanistan.
In the ghostwritten memoir, titled “Spare,” Harry said that his brother Prince William lashed out during a furious argument over the siblings' deteriorating relationship. The Associated Press purchased a Spanish-language copy of the book ahead of its publication in 16 languages around the world on Tuesday.
Harry recounts a 2019 argument at his Kensington Palace home, in which he says William called Harry’s wife, the former actor Meghan Markle, “difficult,” “rude” and “abrasive.” Harry said William grabbed his brother by the collar and ripped his necklace before knocking him down.
“I landed on the dog’s bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me,” Harry says in the passage, first reported by The Guardian.
Harry says he had scrapes and bruises as a result of the tussle, for which William later apologized.
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Amazon, Salesforce jettison jobs in latest tech worker purge
E-commerce giant Amazon and business software maker Salesforce are the latest U.S. technology companies to announce major job cuts as they prune payrolls that rapidly expanded during the pandemic lockdown.
Amazon said Wednesday that it will be cutting about 18,000 positions. It's the largest set of layoffs in the Seattle-based company’s history, although just a fraction of its 1.5 million global workforce.
“Amazon has weathered uncertain and difficult economies in the past, and we will continue to do so,” CEO Andy Jassy said in a note to employees that the company made public. “These changes will help us pursue our long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure.”
He said the layoffs will mostly impact the company's Amazon Stores division — which a spokesman said encompasses its e-commerce business as well as company’s brick-and-mortar stores such as Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go — and its PXT organizations, which handle human resources and other functions.
In November, Jassy told staff that layoffs were coming due to the economic landscape and the company’s rapid hiring in the last several years. Wednesday's announcement included earlier job cuts that had not been numbered. The company had also offered voluntary buyouts and has been cutting costs in other areas of its sprawling business.
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CES 2023: Ram electric pickup joins crowded field next year
DETROIT — When a futuristic-looking electric Ram pickup truck goes on sale next year, it will hardly be the first in line.
By then, at least seven EV competitors are scheduled to be on sale, all of them vying for a share of the huge full-size truck market that now includes the three top-selling gasoline and diesel powered vehicles in the United States.
Four models — Ford's F-150 Lightning, Rivian's R1T, Lordstown Motors' Endurance and the GMC Hummer EV Pickup — already are on the road. And this year or next, three others — the Chevrolet Silverado EV, GMC Sierra EV and Tesla's Cybertruck — are scheduled to roll out.
Yet executives at Ram, which is Stellantis' truck and commercial vehicle brand, say it doesn't bother them to be following rather than leading their competitors.
“It’s actually an advantage for us,” Mike Koval Jr., CEO of the Ram brand, said in an interview. “Because we have full knowledge of what the other guys have announced.”
