Politics

Las Vegas (AP) — Following years of controversy, a former Las Vegas city councilwoman who moved to a rural Nevada county after losing a bid in November for statewide office was appointed unanimously Tuesday evening to a local judgeship.

Republican firebrand Michele Fiore, who does not have a law degree, will fill a seat on the Pahrump Justice Court in Nye County through 2024. Pahrump is located about 65 miles (100 kilometers) west of Las Vegas.

Her appointment to the bench over 17 other applicants marks the latest chapter in a decade-long political career marked by scandal – including reports of an FBI probe into her campaign finances and accusations of physical assault.

In a pitch to Nye County commissioners Tuesday night, Fiore said she would approach the judgeship with “integrity and honesty” because she has “been at the end of the political barrel.”

FBI agents subpoenaed records and searched Fiore’s home last year in northwest Las Vegas in connection with her campaign spending, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

Earlier this year, she was sued by Las Vegas Councilwoman Victoria Seaman, who accused Fiore of breaking her finger in a physical fight at City Hall in January. The two were once good friends and close political allies.

And while serving in the state Assembly from 2012 to 2016, Fiore gained national attention for her support of rancher Cliven Bundy and his family during armed standoffs between militiamen and federal law enforcement officers in Bunkerville, Nevada, in 2014 and Malheur, Oregon, in 2016.

Fiore said Tuesday that she moved to Pahrump a week after she lost to incumbent state treasurer Zach Conine, a Democrat, in the Nov. 8 general election. Fiore had joined the race on the penultimate day of Nevada’s candidacy filing period in March, after campaigning for months as a Republican gubernatorial hopeful.

After the last-minute jump, the race for control of Nevada’s government finances drew significant attention across the state as Fiore’s past issues with the Internal Revenue Service resurfaced. She was once on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax liens.

Fiore said Tuesday night that she is ready to start a new life as “a Pahrump girl.” She detailed plans of living on a 2-acre lot that she said she had purchased over the summer, as well as completing a bachelor’s degree and taking the Nevada State Bar exam in the future.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — An 800-page report set to be released Thursday by House investigators will conclude that then-President Donald Trump criminally plotted to overturn his 2020 election defeat and “provoked his supporters to violence” at the Capitol with false claims of widespread voter fraud.

The resulting Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection of Trump’s followers threatened democracy with “horrific” brutality toward law enforcement and “put the lives of American lawmakers at risk,” according to the report’s executive summary.

“The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed,” reads the report from the House Jan. 6 committee, which is expected to be released in full on Thursday. “None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”

Ahead of the report’s release, the committee on Wednesday evening released 34 transcripts from the 1,000 interviews it conducted over the last 18 months. Most of those released are of witnesses who invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

The report’s eight chapters of findings will largely mirror nine hearings this year that presented evidence from the private interviews and millions of pages of documents. They tell the story of Trump’s extraordinary and unprecedented campaign to overturn his defeat and his pressure campaign on state officials, the Justice Department, members of Congress and his own vice president to change the vote.

A 154-page summary of the report released Monday detailed how Trump, a Republican, amplified the false claims on social media and in public appearances, encouraging his supporters to travel to Washington and protest Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential election win. And how he told them to “fight like hell” at a huge rally in front of the White House that morning and then did little to stop the violence as they beat police, broke into the Capitol and sent lawmakers running for their lives.

It was a “multi-part conspiracy,” the committee concludes.

The massive, damning report comes as Trump is running again for the presidency and also facing multiple federal investigations, including probes of his role in the insurrection and the presence of classified documents at his Florida estate. A House committee is expected to release his tax returns in the coming days — documents he has fought for years to keep private. And he has been blamed by Republicans for a worse-than-expected showing in the midterm elections, leaving him in his most politically vulnerable state since he won the 2016 election.

It is also a culmination of four years of a House Democratic majority that has spent much of its time and energy investigating Trump and that is ceding power to Republicans in two weeks. Democrats impeached Trump twice — both times he was acquitted by the Senate — and investigated his finances, his businesses, his foreign ties and his family.

But the Jan. 6 probe has been the most personal for the lawmakers, most of whom were in the Capitol when Trump’s supporters stormed the building and interrupted the certification of Biden’s victory.

While the lasting impact of the probes remains to be seen — most Republicans have stayed loyal to the former president — the committee’s hearings were watched by tens of millions of people over the summer. And 44% of voters in November’s midterm elections said the future of democracy was their primary consideration at the polls, according to AP VoteCast, a national survey of the electorate.

“This committee is nearing the end of its work, but as a country we remain in strange and uncharted waters,” said the panel’s chairman, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, at the meeting Monday to adopt the report and recommend criminal charges against Trump. “We’ve never had a president of the United States stir up a violent attempt to block the transfer of power. I believe nearly two years later, this is still a time of reflection and reckoning.”

The “reckoning” committee members are hoping for is criminal charges against Trump and key allies. But only the Justice Department has the power to prosecute, so the panel sent referrals recommending the department investigate the former president on four crimes, including aiding an insurrection.

While its main points are familiar, the Jan. 6 report will provide new detail from the hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents the committee has collected. Transcripts and some video are expected to be released as well over the coming two weeks. Republicans take over the House on Jan. 3, when the panel will be dissolved.

“I guarantee there’ll be some very interesting new information in the report and even more so in the transcripts,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told “CBS Mornings.”

The transcripts released Wednesday include Jeffrey Clark, a senior official in the Trump Justice Department who worked to advance Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, and John Eastman, a conservative lawyer and an architect of Trump’s last-ditch efforts to stay in office. Each invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Also included in the release is testimony from witnesses associated with extremist groups that were involved in planning ahead of the attack. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was convicted last month of seditious conspiracy for his role in the planning, and former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio both spoke to the committee. Tarrio and four other members of the extremist group are in court on similar charges this month.

The summary of the report describes how Trump refused to accept the lawful result of the 2020 election and plotted to overturn his defeat. Trump pressured state legislators to hold votes invalidating Biden’s electors, sought to “corrupt the U.S. Department of Justice” by urging department officials to make false statements about the election and repeatedly, personally tried to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to upend democracy with unprecedented objections at the congressional joint session, it says.

Trump has tried to discredit the report, slamming members of the committee as “thugs and scoundrels” as he has continued to falsely dispute his 2020 loss.

In response to the panel’s criminal referrals, Trump said that “These folks don’t get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me. It strengthens me.”

The report will give minute-by-minute detail of what Trump was doing — and not doing — for around three hours as his supporters beat police and broke into the Capitol. Trump riled up the crowd at the rally that morning and then did little to stop his supporters for several hours as he watched the violence unfold on television inside the White House and ignored pleas from aides to stop it.

Lawmakers point out the evidence about Trump’s actions they still do not have from that time, including call logs, entries in the official daily diary or calls to any security officials.

“President Trump did not contact a single top national security official during the day. Not at the Pentagon, nor at the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the F.B.I., the Capitol Police Department, or the D.C. Mayor’s office,” the report says.

There is also a lack of official photographs of the president in those hours.

“President Trump appears to have instructed that the White House photographer was not to take any photographs,” the committee wrote in its summary, citing an interview with chief White House photographer Shealah Craighead.

The panel also raised questions about whether some aides were pressured by Trump or his remaining allies not to be forthcoming during their interviews with the committee.

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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker, Jill Colvin, Farnoush Amiri, Lisa Mascaro and Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the Capitol insurrection at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege.

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PHOENIX (AP) — Kari Lake has claimed for weeks that her loss in the race for Arizona governor was illegitimate.

The former television anchor gets her long-sought opportunity to make her case to a judge this week during a two-day trial scheduled to begin on Wednesday. She’ll have a chance to inspect ballots, call witnesses and introduce evidence in a bid to prove she was the rightful winner of the race, which Democrat Katie Hobbs won by just over 17,000 votes.

She faces extremely long odds. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson said she must prove not only that misconduct occurred, but also that it was intended to deny her victory and did in fact result in the wrong woman being declared the winner.

“We have a chance to show the world that our elections are truly corrupt and we won’t take it anymore,” Lake said Tuesday at an event for Turning Point USA, a conservative youth group.

There is no jury. Thompson will make a ruling on the evidence presented, which the losing side is likely to appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court. Lake is asking the judge to either declare her the winner or order a revote in Maricopa County. The new governor takes office Jan. 2.

Lawyers for Hobbs say the trial will be a spectacle and an opportunity for Lake to spread outlandish theories about election misconduct.

“The court should not indulge this kind of a show that plaintiffs want to put on,” Hobbs attorney Abha Khanna told the judge Monday, urging him to dismiss the case in its entirety before the trial. “The court is not a theater.”

Thompson on Monday dismissed eight of the 10 claims Lake raised in her lawsuit, including Lake’s allegation that Hobbs, in her capacity as secretary of state, and Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer engaged in censorship by flagging social media posts with election misinformation for possible removal by Twitter. He also dismissed her claims of discrimination against Republicans and that mail-in voting procedures are illegal.

Thompson, who was appointed to the bench by former Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, took no position on the merits of Lake’s two surviving claims, but he wrote that the law allows her to make her case.

Lake was among the most vocal 2022 Republicans promoting former President Donald Trump’s election lies, which she made the centerpiece of her campaign. While most of the other election deniers around the country conceded after losing their races, Lake has not.

She has zeroed in on problems with ballot printers at some polling places in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of voters. The defective printers produced ballots that were too light to be read by the on-site tabulators at polling places. Lines backed up in some areas amid the confusion.

Affected ballots were taken to the more sophisticated counters at the elections department headquarters in downtown Phoenix. County officials say everyone had a chance to vote and all ballots were counted. Officials have said they’re investigating why some of the Oki brand printers failed when used with the same settings as prior elections, but it appears to have been an issue with the fuser, which heats the toner to imprint it on the paper.

Lake’s second claim is that the chain of custody for ballots was broken at an off-site facility, where a contractor scans mail ballots to prepare them for processing. She claims that workers at the facility put their own mail ballots into the pile, rather than returning them through normal channels, and also that paperwork documenting the transfer of ballots is missing.

The county disputes the claim.

For both the printer and chain of custody claims, Lake will have to prove that people intentionally interfered to steal the election from her and succeeded. The Arizona Supreme Court ruled nearly a century ago that mistakes by election officials, even big ones, are not sufficient on their own to overturn an election; the losing candidate must show the mistakes affected the result.

Meanwhile, a judge in conservative Mohave County ruled Tuesday that Republican Abraham Hamadeh can proceed with his lawsuit challenging the results of the election for attorney general, which he lost to Democrat Kris Mayes by 511 votes. Hamadeh’s lawsuit raises the same printer issues from Lake’s suit and also alleges his race was affected by improper handling of ballots that were duplicated or adjudicated by humans because they could not be read by tabulators.

Judge Lee Jantzen said Hamadeh can inspect ballots in Maricopa, Pima and Navajo counties before a trial scheduled for Friday. The results of an automatic recount of the race were scheduled to be released on Thursday but will now be delayed until Hamadeh’s lawsuit is resolved.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy paid a defiant wartime visit to Washington on Wednesday to thank U.S. leaders and “ordinary Americans” for their support in fighting off Russia’s invasion and pledged there would be “no compromises” in trying to bring an end to the war. President Joe Biden and Congress responded with billions in new assistance and a pledge to help Ukraine pursue a “just peace.”

Biden welcomed Zelenskyy to the Oval Office, saying the U.S. and Ukraine would continue to project a “united defense” as Russia wages a “brutal assault on Ukraine’s right to exist as a nation.” Zelenskyy, on his first known trip outside his country since Russia invaded in February, said he wanted to visit earlier and his visit now showed the “situation is under control, because of your support.”

Pressed on how Ukraine would try to bring an end to the conflict, Zelenskyy rejected Biden’s framing of a “just peace,” saying, “For me as a president, ‘just peace’ is no compromises.” He said the war would end once Ukraine’s sovereignty, freedom and territorial integrity were restored, as well as the “payback for all the damages inflicted by Russian aggression.”

“There can’t be any ‘just peace’ in the war that was imposed on us,” he added.

The highly sensitive trip was taking place after 10 months of a brutal war that has seen tens of thousands of casualties on both sides and devastation for Ukrainian civilians. Zelenskyy’s visit was meant to reinvigorate support for his country in the U.S. and around the world, amid concerns that allies are growing weary of the costly war and its disruption to global food and energy supplies.

Russia, Biden said, is “trying to use winter as a weapon, but Ukrainian people continue to inspire the world.” Later, in a joint news conference, he said Russian President Vladimir Putin has “no intention of stopping this cruel war.”

The two leaders appeared to share a warm rapport, laughing at each others’ comments and patting each other on the back throughout the visit, though Zelenskyy made clear he will continue to press Biden and other Western leaders for ever more support.

He said that after the Patriot system was up and running, “we will send another signal to President Biden that we would like to get more Patriots.”

“We are in the war,” Zelenskyy added with a smile, as Biden chuckled at the direct request. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Biden said it is “important for the American people, and for the world, to hear directly from you, Mr. President, about Ukraine’s fight, and the need to continue to stand together through 2023.”

After the White House meeting, the Ukrainian president was scheduled to give an address to Congress, which Vice President Kamala Harris was attending.

Poland’s private broadcaster, TVN24, said Zelenskyy crossed into Poland early Wednesday on his way to Washington. The station showed footage of what appeared to be Zelenskyy arriving at a train station and being escorted to a motorcade of American SUVs. TVN24 said the video, partially blurred for security reasons, was shot in Przemysl, a Polish border town that has been the arrival point for many refugees fleeing the war.

Officials, citing security concerns, were cagey about Zelenskyy’s travel plans, but a U.S. official confirmed that Zelenskyy arrived on a U.S. Air Force jet that landed at Joint Base Andrews, just outside the capital, from the Polish city of Rzeszow.

Biden told Zelenskyy, who wore a combat-green sweatshirt and boots during their Oval Office meeting, that ”it’s an honor to be by your side.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in her invitation to Zelenskyy to speak to lawmakers, said “the fight for Ukraine is the fight for democracy itself” and that they were looking forward to “hearing your inspiring message of unity, resilience and determination.”

U.S. and Ukrainian officials have made clear they do not envision an imminent resolution to the war and are preparing for fighting to continue for some time. The latest infusion of U.S. money would be the biggest yet — and exceed Biden’s $37 billion request.

Biden has repeated that while the U.S. will arm and train Ukraine, American forces will not be directly engaged in the war.

Biden and Zelenskyy first discussed the idea of a visit during a telephone call on Dec. 11, with a formal invitation following three days later, according to a senior U.S. administration official. Zelenskyy accepted the invitation on Friday and it was confirmed on Sunday, when the White House began coordinating with Pelosi to arrange the congressional address.

The White House consulted with Zelenskyy on security, including the risk of Russian action while he was briefly out of the country, said the official, who declined to detail the measures taken to safeguard the Ukrainian leader. The official briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the visit.

“It’s a defensive system,” Biden said of sending the missile system. “It’s not escalatory — it’s defensive.”

It was unclear when the Patriot battery would arrive on the front lines in Ukraine, given that U.S. troops will have to train Ukrainian forces. The training, expected to be done in Germany, could take several months, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

The visit comes at an important moment, with the White House bracing for greater resistance when Republicans take control of the House in January and give more scrutiny to aid for Ukraine. GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of California has said his party will not write a “blank check” for Ukraine.

Biden and Zelenskyy frequently have talked by phone, with Biden praising Ukraine for remaining steadfast against the Russians and Zelenskyy thanking the U.S. president for support.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer opened the chamber’s session by saying that passage of the aid package and confirmation of the new U.S. ambassador to Russia, Lynne M. Tracy, would send a strong signal that Americans stand “unequivocally” with Ukraine. Tracy was confirmed later on a 93-2 vote.

Schumer, a New York Democrat, said Zelenskyy arrives not only as a president but an “ambassador to freedom itself.”

The Senate’s top Republican, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, said “the most basic reasons for continuing to help Ukraine degrade and defeat the Russian invaders are cold, hard, practical American interests.” He said “defeating Russia’s aggression will help prevent further security crises in Europe.”

With the fighting in the east at a stalemate, Moscow has used missiles and drones to attack Ukraine’s power equipment, hoping to leave people without electricity as freezing weather sets in.

In a video released by his office from the Bakhmut visit, Zelenskyy was handed a signed Ukrainian flag and alluded to delivering it to U.S. leaders. “We are grateful for their support, but it is not enough,” he said. “It is a hint — it is not enough.”

Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Kyiv-based Penta Center think tank, said Zelenskyy’s visit to the U.S. “should determine the course of the war — Zelenskyy for the first time dared to leave Ukraine and is counting on being able to maintain, and possibly even strengthen, U.S. military and economic assistance.”

Hanna Danylovych, 43, who lives in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, and works as a scientist, welcomed the prospect of additional military supplies, saying “there is a great desire and dream to speed up the removal of Russian evil from our land.”

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EL PASO, Texas (AP) — Tensions remained high at the U.S-Mexico border Tuesday amid uncertainty over the future of restrictions on asylum-seekers, with the Biden administration asking the Supreme Court not to lift the limits before Christmas.

The U.S. government made its plea in a filing a day after Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary order to keep the pandemic-era limits on migrants in place. Before Roberts issued that order, the restrictions had been slated to expire Wednesday.

The federal government acknowledged in its filing to the Supreme Court that ending the restrictions will likely lead to “disruption and a temporary increase in unlawful border crossings.” But the government asked the court to reject efforts by a group of conservative-leaning states to maintain a measure that allows officials to expel many but not all asylum-seekers.

Migrants have been denied rights to seek asylum under U.S. and international law 2.5 million times since March 2020 on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19 under a public-health rule called Title 42.

With the decision on what comes next going down to the wire, pressure is building in communities along both sides of the U.S-Mexico border.

In El Paso, Democratic Mayor Oscar Leeser warned that shelters across the border in Ciudad Juárez were packed to capacity with an estimated 20,000 migrants who are prepared to cross into the U.S.

The city rushed to expand its ability to accommodate more migrants by converting large buildings into shelters, as the Red Cross brings in 10,000 cots. Local officials also hope to relieve pressure on area shelters by chartering buses to other large cities in Texas or nearby states, bringing migrants a step closer to relatives and sponsors in coordination with nonprofit groups.

“We will continue to be prepared for whatever is coming through,” Leeser said.

Texas National Guard members, deployed by the state to El Paso this week, used razor wire on Tuesday to cordon off a gap in the border fence along a bank of the Rio Grande that became a popular crossing point in recent days for migrants who waded through shallow waters to approach immigration officials. They announced through a loudspeaker in Spanish that it’s illegal to cross there.

Texas said it was sending 400 National Guard personnel to the border city after local officials declared a state of emergency. Leeser said the declaration was aimed largely at protecting vulnerable migrants, while the deployment included forces used to “repel and turn-back illegal immigrants,” according to a Texas National Guard statement.

The federal government told the court Tuesday that it has marshaled more resources to the southern border in preparation for the end of Title 42. That includes more Border Patrol processing coordinators, more surveillance and increased security at ports of entry, according to President Joe Biden’s administration.

About 23,000 agents are currently deployed to the southern border, according to the White House.

“The government in no way seeks to minimize the seriousness of that problem. But the solution to that immigration problem cannot be to extend indefinitely a public-health measure that all now acknowledge has outlived its public-health justification,” the government wrote in its filing to the Supreme Court.

Yet the government also told the court to give it some time to prepare should it allow the restrictions to be lifted. Should the Supreme Court act before Friday, the government wants the restrictions in place until the end of Dec. 27. If the court acts on Friday or later, the government wants the limits to remain until the second business day following an order. Either timeline — if granted — would mean Title 42 would be in place until after Christmas.

States seeking to keep the restrictions in place have argued that the federal government has no plan to deal with an increase in migrants — while in Washington, Republicans are set to take control of the House and make immigration a key issue.

At a church-affiliated shelter a few blocks from the border, the Rev. Michael Gallagher said El Paso faith leaders have been trying to pool resources and open up empty space. On Tuesday, a gym at Sacred Heart Church gave shelter to 200 migrants — mostly women and children.

Outside the church Monday, Jose Natera, a 48-year-old handyman from the Venezuelan town of Guaicaipuro, said he traveled for three months to reach El Paso, sometimes on foot, with no money or sponsors to take him further.

“I have to stop here until I can get a ticket” out, he said.

Immigration advocates have said that the Title 42 restrictions, imposed under provisions of a 1944 health law, go against American and international obligations to people fleeing to the U.S. to escape persecution — and that the pretext is outdated as coronavirus treatments improve. They sued to end the use of Title 42; a federal judge in November sided with them and set the Dec. 21 deadline.

The Roman Catholic bishop of El Paso, Mark Seitz, expressed concern that the delay in ending the limits would keep migrants who had to flee their homes from even making a case for protection in the U.S., after years of pent-up need.

“What happens now with all those on their way?” he said.

Title 42 restrictions have applied to all nationalities but have fallen disproportionately on those from countries that Mexico has agreed to take back: Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and, more recently Venezuela, in addition to Mexico.

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EL PASO, Texas (AP) — Migrants along the U.S. border with Mexico sought shelter from the cold early Wednesday as restrictions that prevented many from seeking asylum in the U.S. remained in place beyond their anticipated end.

Pandemic-era limits on border crossings had been slated to expire Wednesday — and the federal government opposed an effort by some conservative-leaning states to keep them in place. But hours before they were about to lift, the Biden administration asked the Supreme Court not to remove them before Christmas.

Just after midnight, all was quiet on the banks of Rio Grande in El Paso where the Texas National Guard was posted — though thousands of people have filled shelters and otherwise sought refuge along the border while the legal wrangling unfolds. Hundreds of migrants initially gathered by the concertina wire put up by the guard but left after being told by U.S. officials to go to a gate to be processed in small groups.

First Sergeant Suzanne Ringle said one woman went into labor in the crowd on the riverbank and was assisted by Border Patrol agents. She added many children were among the crowd.

Jhorman Morey, a 38-year-old mechanic from Venezuela, said he was waiting for a decision on asylum restrictions before attempting to cross into the U.S. He warmed his hands by a campfire with a half-dozen other Venezuelan migrants on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, as other migrants waded through shallow waters toward a gate in the U.S. border fence.

“I want them to decide” on the public health rule known as Title 42, said Morey, who arrived in the Mexican city of Juarez, across the border from El Paso, six weeks ago. He now rarely eats after exhausting his savings.

Hundreds of migrants remained in line in Juarez, hoping that the restrictions would be lifted and they would be let through. Others slept along the concrete embankments of the Rio Grande. A nearby shelter reached its capacity Tuesday night, stranding many outside.

In Tijuana, which has an estimated 5,000 migrants staying in more than 30 shelters and many more renting rooms and apartments, the border was quiet Tuesday night as word spread among would-be asylum-seekers that nothing had changed. Layered, razor-topped walls rising 30 feet (9 meters) along the border with San Diego make the area daunting for illegal crossings.

Under the restrictions, officials have expelled asylum-seekers inside the United States 2.5 million times, and turned away most people who requested asylum at the border, on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19 under Title 42.

Immigration advocates have said that the restrictions go against American and international obligations to people fleeing to the U.S. to escape persecution, and that the pretext is outdated as coronavirus treatments improve. They sued to end the use of Title 42; a federal judge sided with them in November and set the Dec. 21 deadline.

Conservative-leaning states appealed to the Supreme Court, warning that an increase in migration would take a toll on public services and cause an “unprecedented calamity” that they said the federal government had no plan to deal with.

In response, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary order to keep the restrictions in place.

While the federal government then asked the Supreme Court to reject the states’ effort on Tuesday, it also acknowledged that ending the restrictions will likely lead to “disruption and a temporary increase in unlawful border crossings.”

Though the Wednesday expiration date had been set weeks ago, the U.S. government asked for more time to prepare — while saying that it has sent more resources to the border and maintaining that the solution is not to extend the rule indefinitely.

About 23,000 agents are currently deployed to the southern border, according to the White House. The Biden administration said it has sent more Border Patrol processing coordinators, more surveillance and increased security at ports of entry.

Should the Supreme Court act before Friday, the government wants the restrictions in place until the end of Dec. 27. If the court acts on Friday or later, the government wants the limits to remain until the second business day following such an order.

As the decision went down to the wire, pressure built in communities along both sides of the U.S-Mexico border.

In El Paso, Democratic Mayor Oscar Leeser warned that shelters across the border in Juarez were packed to capacity, with an estimated 20,000 migrants prepared to cross into the U.S.

The city has rushed to expand its ability to accommodate more migrants by converting large buildings into shelters, as the Red Cross brings in 10,000 cots.

“We will continue to be prepared for whatever is coming through,” Leeser said.

Texas National Guard members, deployed by the state to El Paso this week, used razor wire to cordon off a gap in the border fence along a bank of the Rio Grande that became a popular crossing point for migrants who waded through shallow waters to approach immigration officials in recent days. They used a loudspeaker to announce in Spanish that it’s illegal to cross there.

Texas said it was sending 400 National Guard personnel to the border city after local officials declared a state of emergency. Leeser said the declaration was aimed largely at protecting vulnerable migrants, while a statement from the Texas National Guard said the deployment included forces used to “repel and turn-back illegal immigrants.”

In San Diego, a sense of normalcy returned to the nation’s busiest border crossing despite uncertainty in recent days. The San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce said it learned from U.S. Customs and Border Protection that the more modern, western half of the airport-sized pedestrian crossing would reopen to U.S.-bound travelers Wednesday at 6 a.m. The lanes, which lead to an upscale outlet mall, have been closed to almost all migrants since early 2020 to accommodate Title 42 processing.

The reopening comes “just in time for last-minute shoppers, visiting family members and those working during the holidays,” the chamber wrote to members. It said it didn’t know when the area would reopen to travelers going to Mexico from the United States.

At a church-affiliated shelter in El Paso a few blocks from the border, the Rev. Michael Gallagher said local faith leaders have been trying to pool resources and open up empty space. On Tuesday, a gym at Sacred Heart Church gave shelter to 200 migrants — mostly women and children. Outside the church early Wednesday, dozens of people slept on the street.

Title 42 allows the government to expel asylum-seekers of all nationalities, but it’s disproportionately affected people from countries whose citizens Mexico has agreed to take: Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and, more recently, Venezuela, in addition to Mexico.

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Santana reported from Washington, D.C. Juan Lozano in Houston and Alicia Fernández in Ciudad Juarez contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional leaders unveiled a government-wide $1.7 trillion spending package early Tuesday that includes another large round of aid to Ukraine, a nearly 10% boost in defense spending and roughly $40 billion in emergency spending, mostly to assist communities across the country recovering from drought, hurricanes and other natural disasters.

The bill, which runs for 4,155 pages, includes about $772.5 billion for non-defense, discretionary programs and $858 billion for defense and would last through the end of the fiscal year at the end of September.

Lawmakers worked to stuff as many priorities as they could into the sprawling package, likely the last major bill of the current Congress. They are racing to complete passage before a midnight Friday deadline or face the prospect of a partial government shutdown going into the Christmas holiday.

Lawmakers leading the negotiations released the details of the bill shortly before 2 a.m. Tuesday.

The spending package includes about $45 billion in emergency assistance to Ukraine. It would be the biggest American infusion of assistance yet to Ukraine, above even President Joe Biden’s $37 billion emergency request, and ensure that funding flows to the war effort for months to come.

The U.S. has provided about $68 billion to Ukraine in previous rounds of military, economic and humanitarian assistance.

“The bitterness of winter has descended on Eastern Europe, and if our friends in Ukraine hope to triumph Russia, America must stand firmly on the side of our democratic friends abroad,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

The legislation also includes historic revisions to federal election law that aim to prevent any future presidents or presidential candidates from trying to overturn an election. The bipartisan overhaul of the Electoral Count Act is in direct response to former President Donald Trump’s efforts to convince Republican lawmakers and then-Vice President Mike Pence to object to the certification of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021.

“We are now one step closer to protecting our democracy and preventing another January 6th,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell had warned that if the fiscal year 2023 spending measure failed to gain bipartisan support this week, he would seek another short-term patch into next year, guaranteeing that the new Republican majority in the House would get to shape the package.

McConnell said the GOP’s negotiations were successful in the end. He framed the longer-term spending bill as a victory for the GOP, even as many Republicans will undoubtedly vote against it. He said Republicans succeeded in increasing defense spending far beyond Biden’s request while scaling back some of the increase Biden wanted for domestic spending.

“We’ve transferred huge sums of money away from Democrats’ spending wish list toward our national defense and armed forces, but without allowing the overall cost of the package to go higher,” McConnell said.

But a group of 13 current and incoming House Republicans has threatened to oppose the legislative priorities next year of any senators who vote for the bill, including McConnell. And the next likely speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., tweeted Tuesday that he agreed with them.

“When I’m Speaker, their bills will be dead on arrival in the House if this nearly $2T monstrosity is allowed to move forward over our objections and the will of the American people,” McCarthy tweeted.

Sen. John Thune, the No. 2-ranking Republican in the Senate, told reporters “tensions are high in the House. There’s a lot going on there right now, but in the end, I think when the dust settles and the smoke clears, Republicans in the House and Senate will have to figure out a way to work together next year.”

Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said in a statement that neither side got everything it wanted. But she praised the deal as “good for our economy, our competitiveness, and our country, and I urge Congress to send it to the President’s desk without delay.”

The spending on non-defense programs will increase by about 6%. That number includes a 22% increase for VA medical care to help pay for an expansion of health care services and benefits to veterans exposed to toxic burn pits during their service. Some environmental advocacy groups expressed frustration with the spending for agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Park Service, which they said doesn’t keep up with inflation.

A provision was included in the bill to ensure the General Service Administration would conduct “separate and detailed consultations” with people representing the Maryland and Virginia sites to get their perspectives before a decision is reached.

The spending bill contains scores of policy changes that lawmakers worked furiously to include to avoid having to start over in the new Congress next year.

Examples include a provision from Sen. Josh Hawley, D-Mo., that bans TikTok on government cell phones due to security concerns. Another provision added at the request of Maine lawmakers secured a six-year pause on regulations for the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries that were proposed to help save endangered North Atlantic right whales by reducing their risk of entanglement in fishing gear.

The lawmakers contend the regulations would threaten those industries without meaningfully protecting whales, but environmental advocacy groups assailed the pause.

“A hundred years from now, no one will remember or care about the trivial victories Democrats will try to claim in this legislation, but they’ll mourn the loss of the right whale,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a scathing response.

Some proposed policy changes failed to make the final cut after months of negotiations, disappointing those who saw the legislation, referred to as the omnibus, as their last, best chance for quick action.

Democrats fell short, for example, in their effort to expand the Child Tax Credit. Also omitted was bipartisan legislation that would have allowed tens of thousands of Afghans admitted to the U.S. to apply for lawful permanent residency after clearing additional background checks.

On the health care front, the bill requires states to keep children enrolled in Medicaid on coverage for at least a year, which advocates say increases access to preventative care, but the bill helps pay for that investment by allowing states to move more quickly to end Medicaid coverage for some of the millions of people who were extended that benefit when the federal government declared the COVID-19 pandemic a public health emergency.

Lawmakers are nearing completion of the 2023 spending package nearly three months late. It was supposed to be finished by Oct. 1, when the government’s fiscal year began.

The last time Congress enacted all its spending bills by then was in 1996, when the Senate finished its work on Sept. 30, the very last day of the budget year. Then-President Bill Clinton signed it that same day.

The Senate is expected to vote on the spending bill first, and support from at least 10 Republican senators will be needed to pass it before it is considered by the House.

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Democrats in a Richmond-based congressional district are voting Tuesday to select a nominee for the seat held by the late Donald McEachin.

The party is holding a firehouse primary at eight voting sites throughout the state’s 4th Congressional District.

The winner will be a heavy favorite in a Feb. 21 special election in a district where Democrats have a traditional advantage.

Four candidates are on the ballot: state senators Jennifer McClellan and Joe Morrissey, former legislator Joseph Preston and civil rights advocate Tavorise Marks.

The party’s establishment has coalesced around McClellan, who has received numerous endorsements. One formidable candidate, Del. Lamont Bagby withdrew from the race and endorsed McClellan.

Establishment Democrats did not want to see McClellan and Bagby split the vote and create an avenue for Morrissey, a populist and twice-disbarred former prosecutor-turned-defense attorney who’s proved remarkably resilient over a three-decade career in electoral politics.

McClellan, 49, a corporate attorney, has represented parts of the Richmond area in the General Assembly since 2006. She ran for governor in 2021 but lost the Democratic primary to Terry McAuliffe.

If she wins in February, she will become the first Black woman to represent Virginia in Congress.

Voting at the polling sites for the party-run primary are not the same locations voters use in November elections. Polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.

No winner will be declared Tuesday night. Party officials won’t begin counting the ballots until Wednesday morning.

The winner will face Republican Leon Benjamin in February. The GOP picked Benjamin, a Richmond native, pastor and Navy veteran who twice previously unsuccessfully challenged McEachin, as their nominee over the weekend.

VIrginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin called the special election after McEachin died Nov. 28 following a a battle with colon cancer.

The 4th District is based in Richmond and stretches south to the North Carolina border.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was making his way to Washington on Wednesday for a summit with President Joe Biden and to address Congress in his first known trip outside the country since Russia’s invasion began in February.

Zelenskyy said on his Twitter account that the visit was “to strengthen resilience and defense capabilities” of Ukraine and discuss cooperation between his country and the U.S with Biden.

The highly sensitive trip is taking place after 10 months of a brutal war that has seen tens of thousands killed and wounded on both sides of the conflict, along with devastation for Ukrainian civilians. It also comes as U.S. lawmakers are set to vote on a year-end spending package that includes about $45 billion in emergency assistance to Ukraine and as the Pentagon prepares to send Patriot surface-to-air missiles to the country to defend itself.

Zelenskyy headed abroad after making a daring and dangerous trip Tuesday to what he called the hottest spot on the 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) front line of the conflict, the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s contested Donetsk province. He praised Ukrainian troops for their “courage, resilience and strength” as artillery boomed in the background.

Poland’s private broadcaster TVN24 said Zelenskyy crossed into Poland early Wednesday on his way to the U.S. The station showed footage of what appeared to be Zelenskyy arriving at a train station and being escorted to a motorcade. TVN24 said the video, which was partially blurred for security reasons, was shot Wednesday morning in Przemysl, a Polish border town that has been the arrival point for many refugees fleeing the war.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, in a statement Tuesday night, said that Biden looks forward to Zelenskyy’s visit and that the address to Congress will demonstrate “the strong, bipartisan support for Ukraine.”

“The visit will underscore the United States’ steadfast commitment to supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes, including through the provision of economic, humanitarian, and military assistance,” she said.

Zelenskyy was scheduled to meet with Biden at the White House in the afternoon and then join Biden for a news conference in the East Room. He was expected to address Congress in the evening.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in her invitation to Zelenskyy to address a joint meeting of Congress at the U.S. Capitol, said that “The fight for Ukraine is the fight for democracy itself” and that lawmakers “look forward to hearing your inspiring message of unity, resilience and determination.”

U.S. and Ukrainian officials have made clear they don’t envision an imminent resolution to the war and are preparing for fighting to continue for some time. Biden has repeated that while the U.S. will arm and train Ukraine, American forces will not be directly engaged in the conflict.

Biden and Zelenskyy first discussed the idea of a visit to Washington during their most recent phone call, on Dec. 11, and a formal invitation followed three days later, said a senior U.S. administration official, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the visit. Zelenskyy accepted the invitation on Friday and it was confirmed on Sunday, when the White House began coordinating with Pelosi to arrange the congressional address.

The White House consulted with Zelenskyy on security for his departure from Ukraine and travel to Washington, including the risk of Russian action while Zelenskyy was briefly out of the country, the official added, declining to detail the measures taken to safeguard the Ukrainian leader. The official said the U.S. expected Russia to continue its attacks on Ukrainian forces and civilian infrastructure targets despite the trip.

The tranche of U.S. funding pending before Congress would be the biggest American infusion of assistance yet to Ukraine — even more than Biden’s $37 billion emergency request — and is meant to ensure that support flows to the war effort for months to come.

On Wednesday, the U.S. was also set to announce that it will send a major package of $1.8 billion in military aid to Ukraine that will for the first time include a Patriot missile battery and precision guided bombs for its fighter jets, U.S. officials said.

The aid signals an expansion by the U.S. in the kinds of advanced weaponry it will send to Ukraine to bolster its air defenses against what has been an increasing barrage of Russian missiles in recent weeks. The package will include about $1 billion in weapons from Pentagon stocks and $800 million in funding through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, officials said.

The decision to send the Patriot battery comes despite threats from Russia’s Foreign Ministry that the delivery of the advanced surface-to-air missile system would be considered a provocative step and that the Patriot battery and any crews accompanying it would be a legitimate target for Moscow’s military.

It’s unclear when the Patriot battery would arrive on the front lines in Ukraine, since U.S. troops will have to train Ukrainian forces on how to use the high-tech system. The training could take several weeks and is expected to be done in Germany. To date, all training of Ukraine’s forces by the U.S. and its Western allies has taken place in European countries.

The visit comes at an important moment as the White House braces for greater resistance when Republicans take control of the House in January and give more scrutiny to aid for Ukraine. GOP leader Kevin McCarthy has said his party’s lawmakers will not write a “blank check” for Ukraine.

Biden and Zelenskyy frequently have talked by phone as the White House arranges new tranches of military assistance for Ukraine. The calls have been mostly warm, with Biden praising Ukraine for remaining steadfast against the Russians and Zelenskyy thanking the U.S. president for support.

The one exception was a June phone call soon after Biden notified Zelenskyy that an additional $1 billion package was headed to Ukraine. Zelenskyy didn’t miss a beat in ticking off the additional assistance he said Ukraine needed.

That irked Biden, who underscored to Zelenskyy the American people’s generosity. But the brief moment of tension hasn’t caused any lasting difficulty, according to officials familiar with the episode.

Pelosi, who visited Zelenskyy earlier this year in Kyiv, encouraged lawmakers to be on hand for Wednesday evening’s address by the Ukrainian leader.

“We are ending a very special session of the 117th Congress with legislation that makes progress for the American people as well as support for our Democracy,” Pelosi wrote Tuesday in a letter to colleagues. “Please be present for a very special focus on Democracy Wednesday night.”

Later at the Capitol she said of Ukrainians, “They are fighting for democracy for all of us.”

Russia’s invasion, which began Feb. 24, has lost momentum. The illegally annexed provinces of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia remain fiercely contested.

With the fighting in the east at a stalemate, Moscow has used missiles and drones to attack Ukraine’s power equipment, hoping to leave people without electricity as freezing weather sets in.

In a video released by his office from the Bakhmut visit, Zelenskyy was handed a Ukrainian flag and alluded to delivering it to U.S. leaders.

“The guys handed over our beautiful Ukrainian flag with their signatures for us to pass on,” Zelenskyy said in the video. “We are not in an easy situation. The enemy is increasing its army. Our people are braver and need more powerful weapons. We will pass it on from the boys to the Congress, to the president of the United States. We are grateful for their support, but it is not enough. It is a hint — it is not enough.”

For his part, Putin on Tuesday hailed the “courage and self-denial” of his forces in Ukraine — but he did so at a ceremony in an opulent and glittering hall at the Kremlin in Moscow, not on the battlefield.

At the Kremlin ceremony, Putin presented awards to the Moscow-appointed heads of the four illegally annexed regions of Ukraine. In a video address honoring Russia’s military and security agencies, he praised the security personnel deployed to the four regions, saying that “people living there, Russian citizens, count on being protected by you.”

Putin acknowledged the challenges faced by the security personnel.

“Yes, it’s difficult for you,” he said, adding that the situation in the regions is “extremely difficult.”

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Castillo reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. AP writers Lolita C. Baldor, Tara Copp and Aamer Madhani in Washington and Andrew Katell in New York contributed to this report.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.

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The executive summary of the House Jan. 6 committee’s report documents how then-President Donald Trump was repeatedly warned by those closest to him — Cabinet members, campaign officials and even family members — that claims he had lost his reelection due to fraud were false. But Trump spread those lies anyway.

“This was not him hearing this from Joe Biden’s spokesman on MSNBC,” David Becker, co-author of “The Big Truth,” a book about the damage of Trump’s election lies, said in an interview.

Trump’s lies about his loss in the 2020 presidential election sparked the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and have helped fuel millions of dollars in donations to the Republican former president. Here are details showing he was told the truth about his loss and chose instead to lie about it.

PLANNING THE LIE AHEAD OF TIME

The Jan. 6 committee has made clear that Trump long planned to claim victory, whether he actually won or not. His allies were boasting of how they could try to fool the public to make it seem that he had won reelection. The committee cites correspondence from Tom Fitton of the conservative group Judicial Watch to the White House in October 2020 in which Fitton urges Trump to say after polls close: “We had an election. I won.”

The committee also obtained a recording of Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who told associates the week before the election that “what Trump’s gonna do is just declare victory, right? He’s gonna declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner. He’s just gonna say he’s a winner.”

Trump had spent months demonizing mail voting, which swelled in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. The then-president also insisted the only way he would lose the election would be by massive voter fraud. When Trump did declare victory early in the morning the day after Election Day, he exploited a quirk in vote counting in which in-person votes, which leaned GOP, were tallied first, putting him temporarily ahead. He demanded that local election officials stop counting outstanding ballots, which leaned Democratic.

“President Trump’s decision to declare victory falsely on election night and, unlawfully, to call for the vote counting to stop, was not a spontaneous decision,” the committee wrote in the executive summary for its report. “It was premeditated.”

LIES ABOUT VOTING MACHINES

By Nov. 7, when those outstanding Democratic votes had been tallied and most news organizations had called the race for Joe Biden, Trump’s own campaign knew he had lost.

“The group that went over there outlined, you know, my belief and chances for success at this point,” his campaign manager, Bill Stepien, testified before the committee. “And then we pegged that at, you know, 5, maybe 10 percent based on recounts.”

Stepien added that Trump believed him: “He was pretty realistic with our viewpoint, in agreement with our viewpoint of kind of the forecast and the uphill climb we thought he had.”

Still, Trump continued to insist he had won. His legal team largely walked away from the case, and was replaced by former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and litigator Sidney Powell, who began to make wild fraud allegations, to the dismay of White House attorneys, who warned Trump they were false.

The president grabbed hold of a development in a rural, conservative county in Michigan, where voting machines had initially undercounted his margin of victory. Human error turned out to be the cause. When the paper ballots were tallied and run back through the machine, they were counted correctly.

Trump knew this, the committee says, because Attorney General William Barr told him so on Dec. 1, 2020. Barr testified that he told the president that the paper ballot tally matched the final results. Yet the next day, Trump said in a speech: “In one Michigan county, as an example, that used Dominion systems, they found that nearly 6,000 votes had been wrongly switched from Trump to Biden, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Barr and others in the administration kept telling Trump that there was nothing suspicious in Michigan or with Dominion, a major vendor of voting machinery. Barr and Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen told Trump there were no apparent problems, and even Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, rebutted a wild conspiracy theory about Dominion being connected to hostile foreign governments. But, the committee said, between November 2020 and Jan. 6, 2021, Trump tweeted about Dominion nearly three dozen times.

LIES ABOUT DEAD VOTERS, NUMBERS

Trump fanned other conspiracy theories, too, despite being told they were false. He claimed that more than 5,000 dead people voted in Georgia, a state he lost by more than 11,000 votes. But Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, corrected him during a Jan. 2 phone call, saying local election officials had researched the question, cross-referencing obituaries and other data.

“The actual number were two,” Raffensperger told the president. “Two. Two people that were dead that voted. So that’s wrong.”

Four days later, during his speech at the Jan. 6 rally before his supporters stormed the Capitol, Trump declared: “Over 10,300 ballots in Georgia were cast by individuals whose names and dates of birth match Georgia residents who died in 2020 and prior to the election.”

Raffensperger also corrected other Trump claims about Georgia, including that 18,325 voters were registered at vacant addresses and that 4,925 voters from out of state cast ballots there. But Trump repeated them in the run-up to Jan. 6 and during his rally.

Trump put out more bad numbers after being told they were false.

“The President then continued, there are ‘more votes than voters,’” Richard Donoghue told the committee of a Dec. 27, 2020, conversation with Trump when Donoghue was the acting deputy attorney general. Donoghue said he told the president that he was comparing 2016 voter registration with 2020 voting numbers, which was inaccurate because more people were registered to vote during Trump’s reelection year. He later specifically warned against using a Pennsylvania number.

But on the ellipse on Jan. 6, Trump declared: “In Pennsylvania, you had 205,000 more votes than you had voters.”

FALSE ATTACKS ON ELECTION WORKERS

Trump also baselessly claimed election workers were committing fraud, despite warnings from his own law enforcement officers that they were doing nothing wrong. Rosen recounted to the committee a Dec. 15 conversation in which Trump asked about a video that purported to show Georgia election workers receiving a suitcase of ballots.

“We said, ‘It wasn’t a suitcase. It was a bin. That’s what they use when counting ballots,’” Rosen recalled. “It’s benign.”

One week later, the report says, Trump declared: “There is even security camera footage from Georgia that shows officials telling poll watchers to leave the room before pulling suitcases of ballots out from under the tables and continuing to count for hours.”

Trump complained about purported misbehavior by election workers in the security camera footage to Raffensperger during the Jan. 2 call. Raffensperger warned the president off the recording.

“I think that’s extremely unfortunate that Rudy Giuliani or his people, they sliced and diced that video and took it out of context,” the secretary of state told Trump.

Raffensperger offered to send Trump a link from a local television station that debunked the lies. “I don’t need a link,” Trump replied.

The next day, he complained that Raffensperger was “unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the ‘ballots under the table’ scam, ballot destruction, out of state ‘voters,’ dead voters and more. He has no clue!”

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