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

Just days to spare, Senate gives final approval to debt ceiling deal, sending it to Biden

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fending off a U.S. default, the Senate gave final approval late Thursday to a debt ceiling and budget cuts package, grinding into the night to wrap up work on the bipartisan deal and send it to President Joe Biden’s desk to become law before the fast-approaching deadline.

The compromise package negotiated between Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy leaves neither Republicans nor Democrats fully pleased with the outcome. But the result, after weeks of hard-fought budget negotiations, shelves the volatile debt ceiling issue that risked upending the U.S. and global economy until 2025 after the next presidential election.

Approval in the Senate on a bipartisan vote, 63-36, reflected the overwhelming House tally the day before, relying on centrists in both parties to pull the Biden-McCarthy package to passage.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the bill’s passage means “America can breathe a sigh of relief.”

He said, “We are avoiding default.”

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New details of Jeffrey Epstein’s death and the frantic aftermath revealed in records obtained by AP

NEW YORK (AP) — Two weeks before ending his life, Jeffrey Epstein sat in the corner of his Manhattan jail cell with his hands over his ears, desperate to muffle the sound of a toilet that wouldn’t stop running.

Epstein was agitated and unable to sleep, jail officials observed in records newly obtained by The Associated Press. He called himself a “coward” and complained he was struggling to adapt to life behind bars following his July 2019 arrest on federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges — his life of luxury reduced to a concrete and steel cage.

The disgraced financier was under psychological observation at the time for a suicide attempt just days earlier that left his neck bruised and scraped. Yet, even after a 31-hour stint on suicide watch, Epstein insisted he wasn’t suicidal, telling a jail psychologist he had a “wonderful life” and “would be crazy” to end it.

On Aug. 10, 2019, Epstein was dead.

Nearly four years later, the AP has obtained more than 4,000 pages of documents related to Epstein’s death from the federal Bureau of Prisons under the Freedom of Information Act. They include a detailed psychological reconstruction of the events leading to Epstein’s suicide, as well as his health history, internal agency reports, emails, memos and other records.

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Senate passes GOP bill overturning student loan cancellation, teeing it up for Biden veto

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican measure overturning President Joe Biden’s student loan cancellation plan passed the Senate on Thursday and now awaits an expected veto.

The vote was 52-46, with support from Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana as well as Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an independent. The resolution was approved last week by the GOP-controlled House by a 218-203 vote.

Biden has pledged to keep in place his commitment to cancel up to $20,000 in federal student loans for 43 million people. The legislation adds to Republican criticism of the plan, which was halted in November in response to lawsuits from conservative opponents.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in February in a challenge to Biden’s move, with the conservative majority seemingly ready to sink the plan. A decision is expected in the coming weeks.

“The president’s student loan schemes do not ‘forgive’ debt, they just shift the burden from those who chose to take out loans onto those who never went to college or already fulfilled their commitment to pay off their loans,” said Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, lead sponsor of the Senate push.

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Trump and DeSantis jab at each other on campaign trail in 1st dueling appearances as 2024 candidates

GRIMES, Iowa (AP) — Former President Donald Trump kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism of his chief rival Ron DeSantis on Thursday, jumping immediately on remarks by the Florida governor on the campaign trail to try to highlight his own strength as the leading GOP presidential candidate.

Trump, appearing in Iowa as DeSantis campaigned in New Hampshire, made a point of telling about 200 members of a conservative club gathered at a Des Moines-area restaurant that they could ask him questions — an offer that came not long after DeSantis snapped at an Associated Press reporter who asked him why he wasn’t taking questions from voters at his events.

“A lot of politicians don’t take questions. They give a speech,” Trump said to audience members, many of whom wore red “Make America Great Again” hats espousing his political movement.

Trump, throughout the day, also repeatedly pushed back against DeSantis’ argument that it will take two terms in the White House to implement an agenda — a veiled reference to Trump, who can only serve one additional term.

“Who the hell wants to wait eight years?” Trump said, claiming it would only take him six months to unwind President Joe Biden’s policies.

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Biden says he got ‘sandbagged’ after he tripped and fell onstage at Air Force graduation

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — President Joe Biden quipped that he got “sandbagged” Thursday after he tripped and fell — but was uninjured — while onstage at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation.

Biden had been greeting the graduates in Colorado Springs, Colorado, at the front of the stage with salutes and handshakes, and turned to jog back toward his seat when he fell. He was helped up by an Air Force officer as well as two members of his U.S. Secret Service detail.

Onlookers, including some members of the official delegation onstage, watched in concern before Biden, who at age 80 is the oldest president in U.S. history, returned to his seat to view the end of the ceremony.

“I got sandbagged,” the president told reporters with a smile when he arrived back at the White House on Thursday evening before pretending to jog into the residence. Two small black sandbags had been onstage supporting the teleprompter used by Biden and other speakers at the graduation.

“He’s fine,” White House communications director Ben LaBolt tweeted after the incident. “There was a sandbag on stage while he was shaking hands.”

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Dev Shah wins National Spelling Bee, going out on top after up-and-down spelling career

OXON HILL, Md. (AP) — Soft-spoken but brimming with confidence, Dev Shah asked precise questions about obscure Greek roots, rushed through his second-to-last word and rolled to the Scripps National Spelling Bee title Thursday night.

Dev, a 14-year-old from Largo, Florida, had his spelling career interrupted by the pandemic, then didn’t make it out of his regional bee last year. He got through his highly competitive regional this year for a third and final try at the national title, and he ended up holding the trophy over his head as confetti fell.

His winning word was “psammophile,” a layup for a speller of his caliber.

“Psammo meaning sand, Greek?” he asked. “Phile, meaning love, Greek?”

He soaked up the moment by asking for the word to be used in a sentence, something he described a day earlier as a stalling tactic. Then he put his hands over his face as he was declared the winner.

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Drought, water overuse prompt Arizona to limit construction in some fast-growing parts of Phoenix

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona will not approve new housing construction on the fast-growing edges of metro Phoenix that rely on groundwater thanks to years of overuse and a multi-decade drought that is sapping its water supply.

In a news conference Thursday, Gov. Katie Hobbs announced the restrictions that could affect some of the fastest-growing areas of the nation’s fifth-largest city.

Officials said developers could still build in the affected areas but would need to find alternative water sources to do so — such as surface or recycled water.

Driving the state’s decision was a projection that showed that over the next 100 years, demand in metro Phoenix for almost 4.9 million acre-feet of groundwater would be unmet without further action, Hobbs said. An acre-foot of water is roughly enough for two to three U.S. households per year.

Despite the move, the governor said the state isn’t running out of water. “Nobody who has water is going to lose their water,” Hobbs said.

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Jokic gets triple-double, Nuggets roll past Heat 104-93 in Game 1 of NBA Finals

DENVER (AP) — Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets were facing some questions going into their first NBA Finals, and their answers came in resounding fashion.

No, a week and a half off didn’t hurt them.

And no, the NBA’s biggest stage isn’t too big, either.

Jokic got a triple-double in his finals debut, Jamal Murray scored 26 points and the Nuggets had little trouble with the cold-shooting Miami Heat on the way to a 104-93 win in Game 1 on Thursday night.

The two-time NBA MVP finished with 27 points, 14 assists and 10 rebounds for the Nuggets, who waited 47 years to make the finals and didn’t disappoint.

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Former Playboy model accuses Bill Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting her in 1969

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former Playboy model who alleges Bill Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her and another woman at his home in 1969 sued him Thursday under a new California law that suspends the statute of limitations on sex abuse claims.

In her lawsuit, Victoria Valentino, 80, says she was an actress and singer 54 years ago, when she met Cosby, now 85. The comedian and actor later approached her at a Los Angeles café, where he spotted her crying over the recent drowning death of her 6-year-old son.

The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly.

Cosby offered to pay for a spa treatment for Valentino and a friend, and then sent a chauffeured car to pick the women up for dinner. That evening at a steakhouse, Cosby gave them each a pill, she said in the court filing.

“Here! Take this!” the lawsuit alleges Cosby said to them. “It will make you feel better. It will make us ALL feel better.”

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Soaring rhetoric: NASA mission will carry Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s words to Jupiter

NEW YORK (AP) — A new work by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, written for an upcoming NASA mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, is a glance at outer space that returns back to Earth.

Limón’s “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa,” which she read Thursday night during a ceremony at the Library of Congress, is part of NASA’s “ Message In a Bottle Campaign ” as the aeronautics and space administration prepares for a years-long journey. The Europa Clipper is expected to launch in October 2024, with “In Praise of Mystery” engraved on the spacecraft.

“Writing this poem was one of the greatest honors of my life, but also one of the most difficult tasks I’ve ever been assigned,” Limón said in a statement released through the Library of Congress. “Eventually, what made the poem come together was realizing that in pointing toward other planets, stars and moons, we are also recognizing the enormous gift that is our planet Earth. To point outward is also to point inward.”

During a recent interview with The Associated Press, Limón said she struggled at first with the poem, explaining that because of its official nature she couldn’t rely on her usual instincts. After working on more than a dozen drafts, she received invaluable advice from her husband, Lucas Marquardt, who urged her to write the poem is if it were personal, a “poem that you would write anyway.”

“I think of all the times as a child that I would look down and find a whole universe in the grass, or in a small, watery wedge from the creek across the street from my house,” she said. “But than I also think that that was in tandem with looking up at the moon.”