AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EST

Resilient US consumers drive strongest economic expansion in 2 years

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy grew at a surprisingly strong 4.3% annual rate in the third quarter, the most rapid expansion in two years, driven by consumers who continue to spend in the face of ongoing inflation.

U.S. gross domestic product from July through September — the economy’s total output of goods and services — rose from its 3.8% growth rate in the April-June quarter, the Commerce Department said Tuesday in a report delayed by the government shutdown. Economists surveyed by the data firm FactSet forecast growth of just 3% in the period.

As has been the case for most of this year, the consumer is providing the fuel that is powering the U.S. economy. Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70% of U.S. economic activity, rose to a 3.5% annual pace last quarter. That’s up from 2.5% in the April-June period.

A number of economists, however, believe the growth spurt may be short-lived with the extended government shutdown dragging on the economy in the fourth quarter, as well as a growing number of Americans fatigued by stubbornly high inflation.

A survey published by the Conference Board Tuesday showed that consumer confidence slumped close to levels not seen since the U.S. rolled out broad tariffs on its trading partners in April.

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Voluminous new Epstein document release includes multiple Trump mentions, but little revelatory news

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department has released tens of thousands more documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, a tranche that included multiple mentions of President Donald Trump but added little new revelatory information to the long-anticipated public file on the late financier and convicted sex offender.

The release is the most voluminous so far and comes after a massive public campaign for transparency into the U.S. government’s Epstein investigations.

Many of the mentions of Trump in the file came from news clippings, though it includes an email from a prosecutor pointing out the flights that Trump took on Epstein’s private jet during the 1990s.

The two men were friends for years before a falling out. Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. The Justice Department issued a statement Tuesday that some documents contain “untrue and sensationalist claims” about Trump made shortly before the 2020 election — and said one document, purported to be a letter from Epstein to Larry Nassar, a sports doctor convicted of sexually abusing Olympic athletes, had been deemed fake.

Here are some takeaways:

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Major Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine kills at least 3 people and cuts power

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia fired more than 650 drones and three dozen missiles at Ukraine in a large-scale attack that began during the night and stretched into daylight hours Tuesday, officials said. At least three people were killed, including a 4-year-old child, two days before Christmas.

The barrage struck homes and the power grid in 13 regions of Ukraine, causing widespread outages in bitter temperatures, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, a day after he described recent progress on finding a peace deal as “quite solid.”

The bombardment demonstrated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intention of pursuing the invasion of Ukraine, Zelenskyy said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. Ukrainian and European officials have complained that Putin is not sincerely engaging with U.S.-led peace efforts.

The attack “is an extremely clear signal of Russian priorities,” Zelenskyy said. “A strike before Christmas, when people want to be with their families, at home, in safety. A strike, in fact, in the midst of negotiations that are being conducted to end this war. Putin cannot accept the fact that we must stop killing.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has for months been pressing for a peace agreement, but the negotiations have become entangled in the very different demands from Moscow and Kyiv.

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Medicaid paid more than $207 million for dead people. A new law could help fix that

WASHINGTON (AP) — Medicaid programs made more than $200 million in improper payments to health care providers between 2021 and 2022 for people who had already died, according to a new report from the independent watchdog for the Department of Health and Human Services.

But the department’s Office of Inspector General said it expects a new provision in Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill requiring states to audit their Medicaid beneficiary lists may help reduce these improper payments in the future.

These kinds of improper payments are “not unique to one state, and the issue continues to be persistent,” Aner Sanchez, assistant regional inspector general in the Office of Audit Services told The Associated Press. Sanchez has been researching this issue for a decade.

The watchdog report released Tuesday said more than $207.5 million in managed care payments were made on behalf of deceased enrollees between July 2021 to July 2022. The office recommends that the federal government share more information with state governments to recover the incorrect payments — including a Social Security database known as the Full Death Master File, which contains more than 142 million records going back to 1899.

Sharing the Full Death Master File data has been tightly restricted due to privacy laws which protect against identity theft and fraud.

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Libya’s military chief and 7 others are killed in a plane crash after takeoff from Turkey

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A private jet carrying Libya’s military chief, four other officers and three crew members crashed on Tuesday after takeoff from Turkey’s capital, Ankara, killing everyone on board. Libyan officials said the cause of the crash was a technical malfunction on the plane.

The Libyan delegation was in Ankara for high-level defense talks aimed at boosting military cooperation between the two countries, Turkish officials said.

Libyan Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah confirmed the death of Gen. Muhammad Ali Ahmad al-Haddad and the four officers, saying in a statement on Facebook that the “tragic accident” took place as the delegation was returning home. The prime minister called it a “great loss” for Libya.

Al-Hadad was the top military commander in western Libya and played a crucial role in the ongoing, U.N.-brokered efforts to unify Libya’s military, which has split, much like Libya’s institutions.

The four other officers who died in the crash were Gen. Al-Fitouri Ghraibil, the head of Libya’s ground forces, Brig. Gen. Mahmoud Al-Qatawi, who led the military manufacturing authority, Mohammed Al-Asawi Diab, advisor to the chief of staff, and Mohammed Omar Ahmed Mahjoub, a military photographer with the chief of staff’s office.

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California drivers warned to reconsider Christmas travel plans ahead of storms

California officials and weather forecasters urged holiday travelers to avoid the roads on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day ahead of a series of powerful winter storms that threatened to slam California with relentless rains, heavy winds and mountain snow through Friday.

Millions of people are expected to travel across the state. They will likely meet hazardous, if not impossible, traveling conditions as several atmospheric rivers were forecast to make their way through the state, the National Weather Service warned.

“If you’re planning to be on the roads for the Christmas holidays, please reconsider your plans,” said Ariel Cohen, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Los Angeles.

Forecasters said Southern California could see its wettest Christmas in years and warned about flash flooding, mudslides and debris flows in areas burned by last January’s wildfires. County officials said Tuesday they were knocking on the doors of some 380 particularly vulnerable households to order them to leave.

Most areas saw scattered showers Tuesday morning, and the system was expected to pick up in the evening and intensify into Christmas Eve. Some regions will see rain and winds taper off Wednesday before another storm moves in.

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Explosion at a Pennsylvania nursing home traps people inside, authorities say

BRISTOL, Pa. (AP) — An explosion at a nursing home just outside Philadelphia collapsed part of the building and left people injured and trapped inside, authorities said.

A plume of black smoke rose from Silver Lake Healthcare Center in Bristol Township, as emergency responders across the region rushed there, joined by earthmoving equipment.

Authorities said there were injuries, but had yet to say whether there were any fatalities.

Police Lt. Sean Cosgrove said there were injuries, but that he wasn’t aware of any critical injuries.

“A lot of the details at this point are still unknown,” he told reporters at the scene.

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Former Nebraska US Sen. Ben Sasse reveals advanced pancreatic cancer diagnosis

Former Nebraska U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, a conservative who rebuked political tribalism and stood out as a longtime critic of President Donald Trump, announced Tuesday he was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer.

Sasse, 53, made the announcement on social media, saying he learned of the disease last week and is “now marching to the beat of a faster drummer.”

“This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase,” Sasse wrote. “Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.”

Sasse was first elected to the Senate in 2014. He comfortably won reelection in 2020 after fending off a pro-Trump primary challenger. Sasse drew the ire of GOP activists for his vocal criticism of Trump’s character and policies, including questioning his moral values and saying he cozied up to adversarial foreign leaders.

Sasse was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict the former president of “ incitement of insurrection ” after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. After threats of a public censure back home, he extended his critique to party loyalists who blindly worship one man and rejected him for his refusal to bend the knee.

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’60 Minutes’ segment on Trump immigration policy accidentally airs online

A news segment about the Trump administration’s immigration policy that was abruptly pulled from “ 60 Minutes ” was mistakenly aired on a TV app after the last minute decision not to air it touched off a public debate about journalistic independence.

The segment featured interviews with migrants who were sent to a notorious El Salvador prison called the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, under President Donald Trump’s aggressive crackdown on immigration.

The story was pulled from Global Television Network, one of Canada’s largest networks, but still ran on the network’s app. Global Television Network swiftly corrected the error, but copies of it continued to float around the internet and pop up before being taken down.

“Paramount’s content protection team is in the process of routine take down orders for the unaired and unauthorized segment,” a CBS spokesperson said Tuesday via email.

A representative of Global Television Network did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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A look at aging baby boomers in the United States

The oldest baby boomers — once the vanguard of an American youth that revolutionized U.S. culture and politics — turn 80 in 2026.

The generation that twirled the first plastic hula hoops and dressed up the first Barbie dolls, embraced the TV age, blissed out at Woodstock and protested and fought in the Vietnam War — the cohort that didn’t trust anyone over age 30 — now is contributing to the overall aging of America.

Boomers becoming octogenarians in 2026 include actor Henry Winkler and baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, singers Cher and Dolly Parton and presidents Donald Trump, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

America’s population swelled with around 76 million births from 1946 to 1964, a spike magnified by couples reuniting after World War Two and enjoying postwar prosperity.

Boomers were better educated and richer than previous generations, and they helped grow a consumer-driven economy. In their youth, they pushed for social change through the Civil Rights Movement, the women’s rights movement and efforts to end the Vietnam War.