AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EST

GOP on cusp of retaking House control with slim majority

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans were on the cusp of retaking control of the House late Monday, just one victory shy of the 218 seats the party needs to secure a majority, narrowing the path for Democrats to keep the chamber and raising the prospect of a divided government in Washington.

Democrats have already won control of the Senate, securing 50 seats with a runoff in Georgia next month that could give President Joe Biden’s party an additional seat. The GOP came into the election needing to gain a net of just five seats for House control.

Nearly a week after the midterm elections, Republicans were closing in on the majority, giving conservatives leverage to blunt Biden’s agenda and spur a flurry of investigations. But a slim numerical advantage will pose immediate challenges for GOP leaders and complicate the party’s ability to govern.

The full scope of the party’s majority may not be clear for several more days — or weeks — as votes in competitive races are still being counted. Still, the party was on track to achieve 218 with seats in California and other states still too early to call.

Even barely achieving 218, though, means Republicans will likely have the narrowest majority of the 21st century. It could rival 2001, when Republicans had just a nine-seat majority, 221-212 with two independents. That’s far short of the sweeping victory Republicans predicted going into this year’s midterm elections, when the party hoped to reset the agenda on Capitol Hill by capitalizing on economic challenges and Biden’s lagging popularity.

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Hobbs wins Arizona governor’s race, flipping state for Dems

PHOENIX (AP) — Democrat Katie Hobbs was elected Arizona governor on Monday, defeating an ally of Donald Trump who falsely claimed the 2020 election was rigged and refused to say she would accept the results of her race this year.

Hobbs, who is Arizona’s secretary of state, rose to prominence as a staunch defender of the legitimacy of the last election and warned that her Republican rival, former television news anchor Kari Lake, would be an agent of chaos. Hobbs’ victory adds further evidence that Trump is weighing down his allies in a crucial battleground state as the former president gears up for an announcement of a 2024 presidential run.

She will succeed Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, who was prohibited by term limit laws from running again. She’s the first Democrat to be elected governor in Arizona since Janet Napolitano in 2006.

“For the Arizonans who did not vote for me, I will work just as hard for you — because even in this moment of division, I believe there is so much more that connects us,” Hobbs said in a statement declaring victory. “This was not just about an election — it was about moving this state forward and facing the challenges of our generation.”

Lake tweeted after the call, “Arizonans know BS when they see it.”

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Biden to press G-20 to hold tough on Russia over Ukraine war

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AP) — President Joe Biden was set to try to cajole the world’s largest economies to further isolate Russia diplomatically and economically over its invasion of Ukraine despite a souring global outlook that has tested other nations’ resolve.

In meetings Tuesday at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia, the U.S. leader is to continue a global tour pressing nations to stand up to Russia and defend Ukraine’s sovereignty in both symbolic and substantive ways. The effort comes as global inflation and slowing economies have put new pressures on countries that imposed penalties on Russia for the nine-month war that has sent food and energy prices soaring.

In opening the summit, Indonesian President Joko Widodo impressed on the gathering what’s at stake.

“If the war does not end, it will be difficult for the world to move forward,” Widodo said. “We should not divide the world into parts. We must not allow the world to fall into another cold war.”

A senior U.S. administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the summit, said Tuesday that the summit’s final communique will make clear that “most” of the nations condemn Russia’s invasion in Ukraine and the toll it has taken on global food and energy supplies.

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Suspect caught in fatal shooting of 3 U.Va. football players

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — A University of Virginia student and former member of the school’s football team fatally shot three current players as they returned from a field trip, authorities said, setting off panic and a 12-hour lockdown of the campus until the suspect was captured Monday.

Students who were told to shelter in place beginning late Sunday described terrifying hours in hiding. While police searched for the gunman through the night, students sought safety in closets, dorm rooms, libraries and apartments. They listened to police scanners and tried to remember everything they were taught as children during active-shooter drills.

“I think all of us were just really unsettled and trying to keep, you know, our cool and level heads during the situation,” student Shannon Lake said.

Officials got word during a morning news briefing that the suspect, 22-year-old Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., had been arrested.

“Just give me a moment to thank God, breathe a sigh of relief,” university Police Chief Timothy Longo Sr. said after learning Jones was in custody.

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DEA’s most corrupt agent: Parties, sex amid ‘unwinnable war’

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — José Irizarry accepts that he’s known as the most corrupt agent in U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration history, admitting he “became another man” in conspiring with Colombian cartels to build a lavish lifestyle of expensive sports cars, Tiffany jewels and paramours around the world.

But as he used his final hours of freedom to tell his story to The Associated Press, Irizarry says he won’t go down for this alone, accusing some long-trusted DEA colleagues of joining him in skimming millions of dollars from drug money laundering stings to fund a decade’s worth of luxury overseas travel, fine dining, top seats at sporting events and frat house-style debauchery.

The way Irizarry tells it, dozens of other federal agents, prosecutors, informants and in some cases cartel smugglers themselves were all in on the three-continent joyride known as “Team America” that chose cities for money laundering pick-ups mostly for party purposes or to coincide with Real Madrid soccer or Rafael Nadal tennis matches. That included stops along the way in VIP rooms of Caribbean strip joints, Amsterdam’s red-light district and aboard a Colombian yacht that launched with plenty of booze and more than a dozen prostitutes.

“We had free access to do whatever we wanted,” the 48-year-old Irizarry told the AP in a series of interviews before beginning a 12-year federal prison sentence. “We would generate money pick-ups in places we wanted to go. And once we got there it was about drinking and girls.”

All this revelry was rooted, Irizarry said, in a crushing realization among DEA agents around the world that there’s nothing they can do to make a dent in the drug war anyway. Only nominal concern was given to actually building cases or stemming a record flow of illegal cocaine and opioids into the United States that has driven more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths a year.

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Zelenskyy calls liberation of Kherson ‘beginning of the end’

KHERSON, Ukraine (AP) — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy triumphantly walked the streets of the newly liberated city of Kherson on Monday, hailing Russia’s withdrawal as the “beginning of the end of the war,” but also acknowledging the heavy price Ukrainian troops are paying in their grinding effort to push back the invaders.

The retaking of Kherson was one of Ukraine’s biggest successes in the nearly 9-month-old war, dealing another stinging blow to the Kremlin. It could serve as a springboard for more advances into occupied territory.

President Joe Biden called it a “significant victory” for Ukraine.

“I can do nothing but applaud the courage, determination and capacity of the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian military,” he said on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit in Indonesia. “They’ve really been amazing. … we’re going to continue to provide the capability for the Ukrainian people to defend themselves.”

Large parts of eastern and southern Ukraine are still under Russian control, and the city of Kherson itself remains within reach of Moscow’s shells and missiles. Heavy fighting continued elsewhere in Ukraine. Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti reported the town of Oleshky, in Russian-held territory across the Dnieper River from Kherson, came under heavy artillery fire.

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Cambodia’s Hun Sen has COVID-19 at G-20 after earlier summit

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AP) — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday he has COVID-19 and is leaving the Group of 20 meetings in Bali, just days after hosting President Joe Biden and other world leaders for a summit in his country’s capital.

The diagnosis came as the heads of the G-20 leading economies and other nations began a two-day meeting on the Indonesian resort island.

In a posting on his Facebook page, the Cambodian leader said he tested positive for the coronavirus Monday night and an Indonesian physician confirmed the diagnosis on Tuesday morning. He canceled his meetings at the G-20 as well as the upcoming APEC economic forum in Bangkok to return home.

The White House said Biden tested negative Tuesday morning and is not considered a close contact as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The two leaders spent considerable time together Saturday, and were at a joint meeting but not seated together as recently as Sunday.

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Across the US, a return to democratic order. Will it last?

WASHINGTON (AP) — There was no violence. Many candidates who denied the legitimacy of previous elections lost and quietly conceded. And few listened when former President Donald Trump tried to stoke baseless allegations of electoral fraud.

For a moment, at least, there’s a sense of normalcy in the U.S. The extremism that has consumed political discourse for much of the last two years has been replaced by something resembling traditional democratic order.

The post-election narrative was instead focused on each party’s electoral fate: Republicans were disappointed that sweeping victories didn’t materialize, while relieved Democrats braced for the possibility of a slim House GOP majority. At least for now, the serious threats that loomed over democracy heading into Election Day — domestic extremist violence, voter intimidation and Republican refusal to respect election outcomes — did not materialize in any pervasive way.

“What we saw was the strength and resilience of American democracy,” President Joe Biden said Monday at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia, even as the White House acknowledges that Democrats might lose one chamber of Congress.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, said midterm voters were concerned about Biden’s leadership but that they had a more urgent message: “Fix policy later, fix crazy now,” he told CNN.

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EXPLAINER: Where does student loan forgiveness stand?

A federal appeals court in St. Louis has created another roadblock for President Joe Biden’s plan to provide millions of borrowers with up to $20,000 apiece in federal student-loan forgiveness.

The court on Monday agreed to a preliminary injunction halting the program in one of several cases challenging the debt relief plan.

With the forgiveness program on hold, millions of borrowers have begun to wonder if they’ll get debt relief at all. The fate of the plan will likely eventually end up in the Supreme Court.

Here’s where things stand:

HOW THE FORGIVENESS PLAN WORKS

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Commanders end sloppy Eagles’ perfect season 32-21

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Philadelphia Eagles’ bid for an undefeated season is over.

The Washington Commanders turned methodical drives into scores and took advantage of turnover-prone Philadelphia, stunning the Eagles 32-21 on Monday night and sending them to their first loss in nine games this season.

Behind Jalen Hurts, the Eagles were 8-0 for the first time in franchise history and the last team in the NFL that could make a run at Miami’s 17-0 mark in 1972 and the lone perfect season. The 2007 New England Patriots came close, going 18-0 before a Super Bowl loss.

The Eagles had their shot at perfection slip out of their hands.

Trailing at halftime for the first time this season, Hurts seemed to have one more big play left in him to pull out a victory. He connected on a deep ball to wide receiver Quez Watkins on a 51-yard reception late in the fourth quarter down 26-21. Watkins hit the ground, popped up and took off running, only to fumble the ball and give Washington possession.

The Associated Press