AP Top News at 10:38 p.m. EST
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is keeping pandemic-era limits on asylum in place for now, dashing hopes of migrants who have been fleeing violence and inequality in Latin America and elsewhere to reach the United States. Tuesday’s ruling preserves a major Trump-era policy that was scheduled to expire under a judge’s order on Dec. 21. The case will be argued in February and a stay imposed last week by Chief Justice John Roberts will remain in place until the justices make a decision. The limits, often known as Title 42 in reference to a 1944 public health law, were put in place under then-President Donald Trump at the beginning of the pandemic, but unwinding it has taken a torturous route through the courts.
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — State and military police were sent Tuesday to keep people off Buffalo’s snow-choked roads, and officials kept counting fatalities three days after western New York’s deadliest storm in at least two generations. Even as suburban roads and most major highways in the area reopened, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz warned that police would be stationed at entrances to Buffalo and at major intersections because some drivers were flouting a ban on driving within New York’s second-most populous city. More than 30 people are reported to have died in the region, officials said, including seven storm-related deaths announced Tuesday by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown’s office.
DALLAS (AP) — Southwest Airlines scrubbed thousands of flights again Tuesday in the aftermath of the massive winter storm that wrecked Christmas travel plans across the U.S., and the federal government said it would investigate why the company lagged so far behind other carriers. A day after most U.S. airlines had recovered from the storm, Southwest called off about 2,600 more flights on the East Coast by late afternoon. Those flights accounted for more than 80% of the 3,000 trips that got canceled nationwide Tuesday, according to tracking service FlightAware. And the chaos seemed certain to continue. The airline also scrubbed 2,500 flights for Wednesday and nearly 1,400 for Thursday as it tried to restore order to its mangled schedule.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — The co-leader of a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was sentenced Tuesday to 16 years in prison for conspiring to abduct the Democrat and blow up a bridge to ease an escape. Adam Fox’s sentence is the longest of anyone convicted in the plot so far, though it’s significantly shorter than the life sentence that prosecutors sought. Fox, 39, returned to federal court four months after he and Barry Croft Jr. were convicted of conspiracy charges at a second trial in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They were accused of organizing a wild plot to whip up anti-government extremists just before the 2020 presidential election.
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (AP) — The ghostly form floating in a large jar had been the robust reddish-brown of a healthy organ just hours before. Now it’s semitranslucent, white tubes like branches on a tree showing through. This is a pig liver that’s gradually being transformed to look and act like a human one, part of scientists’ long quest to ease the nation’s transplant shortage by bioengineering replacement organs. The first step for workers in this suburban Minneapolis lab is to shampoo away the pig cells that made the organ do its work, its color gradually fading as the cells dissolve and are flushed out.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep.-elect George Santos, R-N.Y., admitted Monday that he lied about his job experience and college education during his successful campaign for a seat in the U.S. House. In an interview with the New York Post, Santos said: “My sins here are embellishing my resume. I’m sorry.” He also told the newspaper: “I campaigned talking about the people’s concerns, not my resume” and added, “I intend to deliver on the promises I made during the campaign.” The New York Times raised questions last week about the life story that Santos, 34, had presented during his campaign. The Queens resident had said he had obtained a degree from Baruch College in New York, but the school said that couldn’t be confirmed.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s largest medical center and health care workers from hospitals around the country have spoken out against remarks by allies of Benjamin Netanyahu calling for a law to allow discrimination against LGBTQ people in hospitals and businesses. It was part of a broader blowback against remarks made this week by Religious Zionism politicians calling for legal discrimination against LGBTQ people. Netanyahu’s new government — the most religious and hard-line in Israel’s history — is made up of ultra-Orthodox parties, an ultranationalist religious faction and his Likud party. It is to be sworn in on Thursday. Earlier this week, two Netanyahu allies from the ultranationalist Religious Zionism party said that their faction seeks to change an anti-discrimination law in a way that would permit businesses and doctors to deny service to LGBTQ people on the basis of religious belief.
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Jair Bolsonaro told supporters that the future could only bring him three possibilities: arrest, death or a second term as Brazil’s president. None of those outcomes came to pass. And his Oct. 30 loss to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva set off two months of relative silence for the self-styled standard-bearer of the Brazilian conservative movement. Bolsonaro’s oft-cited motto is “God, Family, Country,” and as president he handed more power to the armed forces and loosened gun restrictions. Many of Bolsonaro’s far-right supporters remain in his thrall and have camped outside military buildings, pleading futilely for army intervention that would keep the president in power.
KINGSHILL, U.S. Virgin Islands (AP) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday traveled to a place very familiar to him — the U.S. Virgin Islands — to enjoy some downtime and warmer weather and to ring in a new year with family. The president and his wife, first lady Jill Biden, flew from Washington on Tuesday to St. Croix, one of three islands that make up the U.S. territory in the Caribbean. St. John and St. Thomas are the other two islands. The Bidens were joined by their daughter Ashley and her husband, Howard Krein, as well as grandchildren Natalie and Hunter, whose father was the president’s late son, Beau.
South Carolina coach Dawn Staley has been around women’s basketball long enough to see the growing pains of a young WNBA league gradually shifting to increased interest in the sport at all levels. “We probably are bursting at the seams for the people that are decision-makers in our game to allow us to be just that,” said Staley, who led the Gamecocks to their second women’s hoops title this year. Popularity across women’s sports has grown steadily over the past few years, but 2022 marked a pivotal moment as several sports saw increases in viewership and ratings, sponsorship deals and prime-time coverage.