AP News in Brief at 12:09 a.m. EST

Poland: Russian-made missile fell on our country, killing 2

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland said early Wednesday that a Russian-made missile fell in the country’s east, killing two people, though U.S. President Joe Biden said it was “unlikely” it was fired from Russia.

The blast, which Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy decried as “a very significant escalation,” prompted Biden to call an emergency meeting of G-7 and NATO leaders. A deliberate, hostile attack on NATO member Poland could trigger a collective military response by the alliance.

But key questions around the circumstances of the missile launch remained amid the confusion caused by a blistering series of Russian airstrikes across the nearby border in Ukraine, none larger than who fired it. Russia denied any involvement in the Poland blast.

Three U.S. officials said preliminary assessments suggested the missile was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian one amid the crushing salvo against Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure Tuesday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

That assessment and Biden’s comments at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia contradict information earlier Tuesday from a senior U.S. intelligence official who told the AP that Russian missiles crossed into Poland.

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Trump seeks White House again amid GOP losses, legal probes

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday launched his third campaign for the White House just one week after a disappointing midterm showing for Republicans, forcing the party to again decide whether to embrace a candidate whose refusal to accept defeat in 2020 sparked an insurrection and pushed American democracy to the brink.

“In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump said before an audience of several hundred supporters in a chandeliered ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago club, where he stood flanked by American flags and banners bearing his “Make America Great Again” slogan.

“America’s comeback starts right now,” he said, formally beginning the 2024 Republican primary.

Another campaign is a remarkable turn for any former president, much less one who made history as the first to be impeached twice and whose term ended with his supporters violently storming the Capitol in a deadly bid to halt the peaceful transition of power on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump also enters the race in a moment of deep political vulnerability. He hoped to launch his campaign in the wake of resounding GOP midterm victories, fueled by candidates he elevated during this year’s primaries. Instead, many of those candidates lost, allowing Democrats to keep the Senate and leaving the GOP with a path to only a bare majority in the House.

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Florida’s Scott takes on McConnell in bid for Senate leader

WASHINGTON (AP) — Florida Sen. Rick Scott said Tuesday that he will mount a long-shot bid to unseat Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, opening the latest front in an intraparty battle between allies of McConnell and former President Donald Trump over the direction of the GOP following a disappointing showing in last week’s midterm elections.

The announcement by Scott, who was urged to challenge McConnell by Trump, came hours before the former president was expected to launch a comeback bid for the White House. It escalated a long-simmering feud between Scott, who led the Senate Republican’s campaign arm this year, and McConnell over the party’s approach to reclaiming a Senate majority.

“If you simply want to stick with the status quo, don’t vote for me,” Scott said in a letter to Senate Republicans offering himself as a protest vote against McConnell in leadership elections on Wednesday.

Restive conservatives in the chamber have lashed out at McConnell’s handling of the election, as well as his iron grip over the Senate Republican caucus. The leadership vote was scheduled for Wednesday morning, though it could be postponed if Texas Sen. Ted Cruz succeeds with his effort to delay it until after a Georgia runoff election in December.

A delay could give leverage to Trump-aligned conservatives who are hoping their clout will grow after the outcome of races in Georgia, where former NFL star Herschel Walker is challenging Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, and Alaska, where moderate Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski faces a conservative challenger.

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Fresh leak erupts as NASA fuels moon rocket for launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA managed to plug a fuel leak late Tuesday night while fueling its new moon rocket for a middle-of-the-night launch, its third try to put an empty capsule around the moon for the first time in 50 years.

Hydrogen sprouted from a valve on the launch pad — a different location than leaks during previous launch attempts. Two technicians and a safety official rushed into the blast zone to tighten the valve, with emergency rescue workers on standby.

The quick repair appeared to fix the leak, allowing hydrogen to resume flowing into the rocket, but then a Space Force radar tracking site went down because of a bad ethernet switch, leading to yet another scramble. NASA’s countdown clocks kept ticking, with officials indicating the problems would likely push the launch into Wednesday’s two-hour window.

“No slip yet, but we’re monitoring their work,” said NASA launch commentator Derrol Nail.

Fuel leaks plagued the first two attempts in late summer, then a pair of hurricanes caused more delays. While engineers never pinpointed the cause of the escaping hydrogen, they altered the fueling process to minimize leakage and expressed confidence that all the plumbing in the 322-foot (98-meter) rocket would remain tight and intact.

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Judge orders end to Trump-era asylum restrictions at border

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Biden administration to lift Trump-era asylum restrictions that have been a cornerstone of border enforcement since the beginning of COVID-19.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled in Washington that enforcement must end immediately for families and single adults, calling the ban “arbitrary and capricious.” The administration has not applied it to children traveling alone.

Within hours, the Justice Department asked the judge to let the order take effect Dec. 21, giving it five weeks to prepare. Plaintiffs including the American Civil Liberties Union didn’t oppose the delay.

“This transition period is critical to ensuring that (the Department of Homeland Security) can continue to carry out its mission to secure the Nation’s borders and to conduct its border operations in an orderly fashion,” government attorneys wrote.

Sullivan, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, wrote in a 49-page ruling that authorities failed to consider the impact on migrants and possible alternatives.

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Earth at 8 billion: Consumption not crowd is key to climate

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — The world is getting hotter and more crowded and the two issues are connected, but not quite as much as people might think, experts say.

On Tuesday somewhere a baby will be born that will be the globe’s 8 billionth person, according to a projection by the United Nations and other experts. The Earth has warmed almost 0.9 degrees Celsius (1.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since the world hit the 4 billion mark in 1974.

Climate and population is a touchy subject for scientists and officials.

While more people consuming energy, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels, is warming the planet, the key issue isn’t the number of people as much as how a small fraction of those people are causing way more than their share of carbon pollution, several climate and population experts told The Associated Press.

“We do have a population problem and we do have a population issue,” said Vanessa Perez-Cicera, director of the Global Economics Center at the World Resources Institute. “But I think most importantly, we have an overconsumption issue.”

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Mormon church voices support for same-sex marriage law

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Tuesday it would back proposed federal legislation to safeguard same-sex marriages, marking the latest show of support for the measure from conservative-leaning groups.

The nearly 17-million member, Utah-based faith said in a statement that church doctrine would continue to consider same-sex relationships to be against God’s commandments. Yet it said it would support rights for same-sex couples as long as they didn’t infringe upon religious groups’ right to believe as they choose.

“We believe this approach is the way forward. As we work together to preserve the principles and practices of religious freedom together with the rights of LGBTQ individuals much can be accomplished to heal relationships and foster greater understanding,” the church said in a statement posted on its website.

Support for the Respect for Marriage Act under consideration in Congress is the church’s latest step to stake out a more welcoming stance toward the LGBTQ community while holding firm to its belief that same-sex relationships are sinful. Still, its stance toward LGBTQ people — including those who grow up in the church — remains painful for many.

Patrick Mason, a professor of religious studies at Utah State University, said the church’s position was both a departure from and continuation of its past stances — respecting laws yet working to safeguard religious liberty and ensuring they won’t be forced to perform same-sex marriages or grant them official church sanction.

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Beyoncé ties Grammy record after leading nominations with 9

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Beyoncé has propelled herself into the highest Grammy echelon: The star singer claimed a leading nine nominations Tuesday, making her tied — with her husband Jay-Z — as the most nominated music act in the history of the awards show.

Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul” reeled in record and song of the year nominations, while “Renaissance” — which ventured into the world of dancehall music — netted an album of the year nod. With Jay-Z also earning five nods this year, each spouse now holds the record for the most-ever Grammy nominations at 88 apiece.

Kendrick Lamar came away with the second-most nominations, with eight. Adele and Brandi Carlile both received seven nods. Harry Styles, Mary J. Blige, Future, DJ Khaled, The-Dream and mastering engineer Randy Merrill each picked up six.

Nearly half of this year’s leading nominees — announced by the likes of Olivia Rodrigo, John Legend, Machine Gun Kelly and Smokey Robinson —are women and more than half are people of color, according to the recording academy. The ceremony will be held Feb. 5 in Los Angeles.

“This makes me feel very proud, but it makes me conscious of the fact that we have to maintain the work we have done,” said Harvey Mason jr., the Recording Academy’s CEO. He said there have been strides in the peer-driven voting system and increased membership, but he still believes more progress can be made.

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Killer who stabbed 4 Idaho students to death still at large

MOSCOW, Idaho (AP) — The killer — or killers — who stabbed four University of Idaho students to death remained at large Tuesday, prompting many students to leave the campus in the idyllic small town despite police assurances that there was no imminent risk to the community.

So many students had left the scenic tree-lined campus in Moscow, Idaho, by Tuesday that university officials said a candlelight vigil scheduled for the next day would instead be held after the Thanksgiving break.

The students, all close friends, were found dead in an off-campus rental home around noon on Sunday, and officials said they likely were killed several hours earlier. Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt told the Spokane, Washington-based television station KXLY that her preliminary investigation showed the students were stabbed to death. There is no indication that substance use was involved in the deaths, Mabbutt said.

The Moscow Police Department has not said whether investigators have identified any suspects, but maintained in a statement that the killings came in “an isolated, targeted attack and there is no imminent threat to the community at large.” Police also said evidence from the scene indicates there is no broader risk, but provided no information about that evidence nor why they believe the victims were targeted.

Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson said he understands that the police claims that the public isn’t at imminent risk seems contradictory to the facts that have been released so far about the killings.

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Virginia students were prepared for shooting, not aftermath

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Students huddled inside laboratory closets and darkened dorm rooms across the University of Virginia while others moved far away from library windows and barricaded the doors of its stately academic buildings after an ominous warning flashed on their screens: “RUN. HIDE. FIGHT.”

Responding to the immediate threat of an on-campus shooting was a moment they had prepared for since their first years of elementary school. But dealing with the emotional trauma of an attack that killed three members of the school’s football team late Sunday left students shaken and grasping to understand.

“This will probably affect our campus for a very, very long time,” said Shannon Lake, a third-year student from Crozet, Virginia.

For 12 hours, she hid with friends and other students, much of that time in a storage closet, while authorities searched into Monday morning for the suspect before he was taken into custody.

When Lake and the others heard someone might be right outside the business school building, they all decided to go into the closet, turn off the lights and barricade the door.

The Associated Press