AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EST

US hits hard at militias in Iraq and Syria, retaliating for fatal drone attack

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military launched an air assault on dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Friday, in the opening salvo of retaliation for the drone strike that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan last weekend.

The massive barrage of strikes hit more than 85 targets at seven locations, including command and control headquarters, intelligence centers, rockets and missiles, drone and ammunition storage sites and other facilities that were connected to the militias or the IRGC’s Quds Force, the Guard’s expeditionary unit that handles Tehran’s relationship with and arming of regional militias. And President Joe Biden made it clear in a statement that there will be more to come.

The U.S. strikes appeared to stop short of directly targeting Iran or senior leaders of the Revolutionary Guard Quds Force within its borders, as the U.S. tries to prevent the conflict from escalating even further. Iran has denied it was behind the Jordan attack.

It was unclear what the impact will be of the strikes. Days of U.S. warnings may have sent militia members scattering into hiding. With multiple groups operating at various locations in several countries, a knockout blow is unlikely.

Though one of the main Iran-backed militias, Kataib Hezbollah, said it was suspending attacks on American troops, others have vowed to continue fighting, casting themselves as champions of the Palestinian cause while the war in Gaza shows no sign of ending.

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Hamas says it’s studying Gaza cease-fire proposal, but appears to rule out key provisions

BEIRUT (AP) — Hamas officials said Friday that the group is studying a proposed cease-fire deal that would include prolonged pauses in fighting in Gaza and swaps of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, but the militants appeared to rule out some key components.

Hamas remains committed to its initial demands for a permanent cease-fire, the group’s top political leader Ismail Haniyeh and a senior Beirut-based official, Osama Hamdan, said. Hamdan also said the group seeks the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners being held for acts related to the conflict with Israel, including those serving life sentences.

He mentioned two by name, including Marwan Barghouti, a popular Palestinian uprising leader seen as a unifying figure. Hamdan’s comments on the prisoners were the most detailed demands yet raised by the group in public.

The insistence on large-scale prisoner releases and an end to the fighting in Gaza put the group at odds with the multi-stage proposal that officials from Egypt, Israel, Qatar and the United States put forth this week. That proposal does not include a permanent cease-fire.

After days of expressing optimism over progress toward a deal, mediators were still working to close wide gaps between Israel and Hamas. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken planned to fly to the region Sunday to help push the efforts, making stops in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and the West Bank, the State Department said.

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Senators reach a deal on border policy bill. Now it faces an uphill fight to passage

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate negotiators on Friday reached a deal on a proposal to overhaul the asylum system at the U.S. border with Mexico, clearing the way for Democratic and Republican Senate leaders to begin the difficult task of convincing Congress to pass a national security package that will include tens of billions of dollars for Ukraine and immigration enforcement, as well as funding for Israel and other American allies.

Sen. Chris Murphy, the lead Democratic negotiator, posted on social media Friday that a deal had been reached and that text of the bill would be released over the weekend. Senators are still working on finishing the rest of the package, which was initiated by a request from President Joe Biden for $110 billion for wartime aid for allies, domestic defense manufacturing, humanitarian assistance for conflicts around the world and managing the influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Senators are preparing for a key test vote on the package next week, but it already faces a steep climb through Congress. Republicans in both chambers have balked at compromises on border security policy. Senate Republicans had initially demanded that the package include border policy changes, but Donald Trump, the GOP’s likely presidential nominee, has become a vocal opponent of the legislation.

“Republicans said the border is a priority and we should craft a bipartisan bill to help control the border. We did that. We have a deal,” Murphy said on the platform X, formerly Twitter. He added: “It’s decision time.”

The core group of negotiators has been laboring for months to craft a package that can win support from a bipartisan coalition of moderates in Congress. As they prepared to allow the details of the bill to be scrutinized, it remained to be seen whether they could cobble together the requisite votes from both sides of the aisle.

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Fani Willis acknowledges a ‘personal relationship’ with prosecutor she hired in Trump’s Georgia case

ATLANTA (AP) — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis acknowledged in a court filing on Friday having a “personal relationship” with a special prosecutor she hired for the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump but argued there are no grounds to dismiss the case or to remove her from the prosecution.

Willis hired special prosecutor Nathan Wade in November 2021 to assist her investigation into whether the Republican ex-president and others broke any laws as they tried to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Since Trump and 18 others were indicted in August, Wade has led the team of lawyers Willis assembled to prosecute the case.

Among the acts listed in the indictment was a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump urged fellow Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to help “find” the 11,780 votes needed to overturn his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump has pleaded not guilty, and his attorneys have said he was within his rights to challenge election results.

The filing was the first time that Willis or Wade has directly addressed the allegations of a relationship in the nearly four weeks since they first surfaced in a filing by a defendant in the election case. In an affidavit accompanying the filing, Wade said that in 2022, he and the district attorney had developed a personal relationship in addition to their “professional association and friendship.”

But he also said that he had never lived with Willis or shared a financial account or household expenses with her. He said that none of the funds paid to him as part of the job have been shared with Willis, an attempt to undercut defense lawyer claims of a conflict of interest.

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Federal judge in DC postpones Trump’s March trial on charges of plotting to overturn 2020 election

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge in Washington formally postponed Donald Trump’s March trial on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election as a key legal appeal from the former president remains unresolved in the courts.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday vacated the March 4 trial date in the case brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith but did not immediately set a new date.

The move opens the door for a separate prosecution in New York, charging Trump in connection with hush money payments to a porn actor, to proceed first. That case has long been seen as arguably the least legally perilous of the four indictments Trump faces, with the alleged misconduct less grave than accusations of mishandling classified documents or plotting to subvert a presidential election.

The postponement in Washington comes as a federal appeals court has yet to resolve a pending appeal from Trump arguing that he is immune from prosecution for actions he took in the White House. It is not clear when the three-judge panel might rule, but a ruling in favor of prosecutors that permits the case to move forward is expected to be appealed by the Trump team, likely resulting in additional delays.

For both sides, timing is of the essence. Trump, who faces four indictments and 91 felony counts, is looking to push his criminal cases back as he enjoys front-runner status in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Smith’s team, meanwhile, is hoping to be able to prosecute Trump this year before the November election. If Trump is elected while the case is pending, he could presumably order the Justice Department to drop it and could potentially try to seek a pardon for himself.

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The US didn’t just avoid a recession — it’s adding hundreds of thousands of new jobs

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s employers delivered a stunning burst of hiring to begin 2024, adding 353,000 jobs in January in the latest sign of the economy’s continuing ability to shrug off the highest interest rates in two decades.

Friday’s government report showed that last month’s job gain — roughly twice what economists had predicted — topped the December gain of 333,000, a figure that was itself revised sharply higher. The unemployment rate stayed at 3.7%, just above a half-century low.

Wages rose unexpectedly fast in January, too. Average hourly pay climbed a sharp 0.6% from December, the fastest monthly gain in nearly two years, and 4.5% from January 2023. The strong hiring and wage growth could complicate or delay the Federal Reserve’s intention to start cutting interest rates later this year.

The latest gains showcased employers’ willingness to keep hiring to meet steady consumer spending. It comes as the intensifying presidential campaign is pivoting in no small part on views of President Joe Biden’s economic stewardship. Public polls show widespread dissatisfaction largely because even though inflation has sharply slowed, most prices remain well above pre-pandemic levels. Some recent surveys, though, show public approval gradually improving.

“America’s economy is the strongest in the world,” Biden said Friday. “Today, we saw more proof, with another month of strong wage gains and employment gains of over 350,000 in January, continuing the strong growth from last year. ‘’

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Biden is left with few choices as immigration takes center stage in American politics

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) — Almost immediately after he walked into the Oval Office on his first day as president, Joe Biden began rolling back his predecessor’s immigration policies, which he had assailed throughout the 2020 campaign as harsh and inhumane.

A lot has changed in three years.

Biden, now sounding increasingly like former President Donald Trump, is pressing Congress for asylum restrictions that would have been unthinkable when he took office. He’s doing it under pressure not just from Republicans but from Democrats, including elected officials in cities thousands of miles from the border who are feeling the effects of asylum seekers arriving in the United States in record numbers.

With the 2024 presidential campaign shaping up as a likely rematch between Biden and Trump, immigration has moved to the forefront as one of the president’s biggest potential liabilities. Biden, looking to neutralize it, has already embraced a sweeping bipartisan measure still being negotiated in the Senate that would expand his authority to put strict new limits on border crossings.

“If that bill were the law today, I’d shut down the border right now and fix it quickly,” Biden said last weekend.

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A fire set off by a gas explosion in Kenya kills at least 3 people and injures 280 others

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Liquid petroleum gas cylinders exploded in an illegal depot in a residential area of the Kenyan capital, officials said Friday, setting off a late-night inferno that killed at least three people and injured 280 others. The death toll was expected to rise.

The depot in Nairobi had twice been demolished, and the owner had been found guilty of operating an illegal gas refilling business in May, but continued to do business, officials said. That raised suspicions — in a country where corruption is endemic — that bribes were paid to ignore the operation.

At least 24 people were critically injured, the Kenya Red Cross said, after a huge fireball erupted from the gas depot and rapidly spread, burning homes and warehouses. Some gas cylinders were thrown hundreds of meters (yards), sparking separate fires in the neighborhood.

The Petroleum Institute of East Africa said a magistrates’ court sentenced the owner of the illegal depot to a year in prison or a fine of $3,076. That was despite a precedent set by Kenya’s High Court in which those found guilty of operating an illegal gas facility should be sentenced to a minimum of five years in prison or a fine of at least $61,500.

Despite the law providing for mandatory forfeiture, the magistrate also released all motor vehicles, including two liquid petroleum gas tankers, together with confiscated LPG that had a net weight of 4,660 kilograms (more than 10,000 pounds), the PIEA said.

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Towering over the Grammys is a Los Angeles high-rise tagged with 27 stories of graffiti

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Graffiti has risen to high art in downtown Los Angeles: Taggers have covered at least 27 stories of an unfinished high-rise development.

The vandalism is the latest twist in the saga of the three-tower project across the street from where the Grammy Awards will be hosted Sunday, the Crypto.com Arena — which is near the Los Angeles Convention Center and the L.A. Live dining and events complex in the city’s expanding entertainment district.

The towers were going to house a hotel and luxury condos, but the project stalled in 2019 when the Beijing-based developer ran out of money, the Los Angeles Times reported.

City officials say the graffiti is not there to stay.

The Police Department’s Central Division said in a social media post that officers met with the property management and representatives of the area’s City Council district to collaborate on efforts to better secure the property.

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Carl Weathers, linebacker-turned-actor who starred in ‘Rocky’ movies and ‘The Mandalorian,’ dies

NEW YORK (AP) — Carl Weathers, a former NFL linebacker who became a Hollywood action movie and comedy star, playing nemesis-turned-ally Apollo Creed in the “Rocky” movies, facing off against Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Predator” and teaching golf in “Happy Gilmore,” has died. He was 76.

Matt Luber, his manager, said Weathers died Thursday. His family issued a statement saying he died “peacefully in his sleep.”

“Carl Weathers will always be a legend,” Schwarzenegger wrote on Instagram. “An extraordinary athlete, a fantastic actor and a great person. We couldn’t have made ‘Predator’ without him. And we certainly wouldn’t have had such a wonderful time making it.”

Comfortable flexing his muscles on the big screen in “Action Jackson” as he was joking around on the small screen in such shows as “Arrested Development,” Weathers was perhaps most closely associated with Creed, who made his first appearance as the cocky, undisputed heavyweight world champion in 1976’s “Rocky,” starring Sylvester Stallone.

“It puts you on the map and makes your career, so to speak. But that’s a one-off, so you’ve got to follow it up with something. Fortunately those movies kept coming, and Apollo Creed became more and more in people’s consciousness and welcome in their lives, and it was just the right guy at the right time,” he told The Daily Beast in 2017.

The Associated Press