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

US, Ukraine top military chiefs meet in person for 1st time

A MILITARY BASE IN SOUTHEASTERN POLAND (AP) — The top U.S. military officer, Army Gen. Mark Milley, traveled to a site near the Ukraine-Poland border on Tuesday and talked with his Ukrainian counterpart face to face for the first time — a meeting underscoring the growing ties between the two militaries and coming at a critical time as Russia’s war with Ukraine nears the one-year mark.

Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met for a couple of hours with Ukraine’s chief military officer, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, at an undisclosed location in southeastern Poland. The two leaders have talked frequently about Ukraine’s military needs and the state of the war over the past year but had never met.

The meeting comes as the international community ramps up the military assistance to Ukraine, including expanded training of Ukrainian troops by the U.S. and the provision of a Patriot missile battery, tanks and increased air defense and other weapons systems by the U.S. and a coalition of European and other nations.

It also marks a key time in the war. Ukraine’s troops face fierce fighting in the eastern Donetsk province, where Russian forces — supplemented by thousands of private Wagner Group contractors — seek to turn the tide after a series of battlefield setbacks in recent months.

Army Col. Dave Butler, a spokesman for Milley, told two reporters traveling with the chairman that the two generals felt it was important to meet in person. The reporters did not accompany Milley to the meeting and, under conditions set by the military, agreed to not identify the military base in southeastern Poland where they were located.

___

White House defends its delayed, limited document disclosure

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House brushed aside criticism Tuesday of its fragmented disclosures about the discovery of classified documents and official records at President Joe Biden’s home and former office, saying it may withhold information to protect the Justice Department’s investigation.

Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House counsel’s office, told reporters that the White House was releasing information as it deemed it “appropriate.” Responding to criticism of the piecemeal disclosures, Sams said the White House was trying to be mindful of the “risk” in sharing information “that’s not complete.”

“We’re endeavoring to be as transparent and informative to you all in the media, to the public as we can consistent with respecting the integrity of an ongoing Justice Department investigation,” he said.

The discovery of the documents in Biden’s possession complicates a federal probe into former President Donald Trump, who the Justice Department says took hundreds of records marked classified with him upon leaving the White House in early 2021 and resisted months of requests to return them to the government.

While the two cases are different — Biden for example, willingly turned over the documents once found — it still has become a political headache for a president who promised a clean break from the operations of the Trump administration.

___

Drug trial starts for Mexico’s former top security official

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The man who was once Mexico’s top security official and in charge of fighting the drug cartels went on trial Tuesday on charges he accepted millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for helping the powerful Sinaloa Cartel move drugs and its members avoid capture.

Genaro García Luna was best known as the mumbling, tough-looking former security secretary under ex-President Felipe Calderón, who spearheaded the bloody war on cartels between 2006 and 2012.

Prosecutors say García Luna was so brazen he accepted tens of millions of dollars, often stuffed in briefcases. The evidence against him includes pay stubs, though whether they are from official jobs, private sector consultancy, cartel payments or other bribes is unclear.

They say he continued to live off his ill-gotten proceeds even after he moved to the United States, where he was arrested in 2019, though the defense says he was a legitimate businessman. Jury selection was scheduled to continue Wednesday in the trial scheduled to unfold over the next eight weeks.

In the end, the case could reveal the inner workings of how Mexican cartels have been able to operate so openly for so long: by bribing Mexican police and military right up to the top ranks.

___

Utah man who killed family faced 2020 abuse investigation

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah man who police say fatally shot his wife, her mother and their five kids before turning the gun on himself had been investigated two years prior for child abuse, but local police and prosecutors decided not to criminally charge him, new records released Tuesday show.

Police records obtained by The Associated Press shed light on warning signs and a previous police investigation into a violent pattern of behavior Michael Haight exhibited toward his family.

Authorities said they were aware of previous problems in the home but didn’t elaborate during a news conference following the Jan. 4 killings in the small town of Enoch, citing an ongoing investigation.

In a 2020 interview with authorities, Macie Haight, the family’s eldest daughter, detailed multiple assaults, including one where she was choked by her father and “very afraid that he was going to keep her from breathing and kill her.”

The child abuse investigation followed an Aug. 27, 2020, police call from a non-family member reporting potential child abuse. Macie, then 14, told investigators that her father’s violence started in 2017 and had included choking and shaking, including a recent incident where he grabbed her by the shoulders and banged her into a wooden piece along the back of the couch.

___

Nobel winner Maria Ressa, news outlet cleared of tax evasion

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa and her online news company were cleared Wednesday of tax evasion charges she said were among a slew of legal cases used by former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to try to muzzle critical reporting.

The Court of Tax Appeals ruled that prosecutors failed to prove “beyond reasonable doubt” that Ressa and Rappler Holdings Corp. evaded tax payments in four instances after raising capital through partnerships with two foreign investors. “The acquittal of the accused is based on the findings of the court…that respondents did not commit the crime charge,” the court said in its decision.

Rappler welcomed the court decision as “the triumph of facts over politics.”

“We thank the court for this just decision and for recognizing that the fraudulent, false, and flimsy charges made by the Bureau of Internal Revenue do not have any basis in fact,” Rappler said in a statement. “An adverse decision would have had far-reaching repercussions on both the press and the capital markets.”

“Today, facts win, truth wins, justice wins,” Rappler quoted Ressa as saying after the verdict was announced.

___

Greta Thunberg carried away by police at German mine protest

BERLIN (AP) — Police in western Germany carried Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and other protesters away Tuesday from the edge of an open coal pit mine where they demonstrated against the ongoing destruction of a village to make way for the mine’s expansion, German news agency dpa reported.

Thunberg was among hundreds of people who resumed anti-mining protests at multiple locations in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia a day after the last two climate activists holed up in a tunnel beneath the village of Luetzerath left the site.

The German government reached a deal with energy company RWE last year allowing it to destroy the village in return for ending coal use by 2030, rather than 2038. Both argue the coal is needed to ensure Germany’s energy security that’s squeezed by the cut in supply of Russian gas due to the war in Ukraine.

But environmentalists say bulldozing Luetzerath will result in vast greenhouse gas emissions. Germany is expected to miss its ambitious climate targets for the second year in a row.

Amid the heated coal debate in Germany, the European Union pushed forward on Tuesday with a major clean tech industrial project designed to boost its plans for a greener future as the 27-nation bloc pursues the goal of being climate neutral by 2050.

___

US won’t seek death penalty for alleged Texas Walmart gunman

Federal prosecutors will not seek the death penalty for a man accused of fatally shooting nearly two dozen people in a racist attack at a West Texas Walmart in 2019.

The U.S. Department of Justice disclosed the decision not to pursue capital punishment against Patrick Crusius in a one-sentence notice filed Tuesday with the federal court in El Paso.

Crusius, 24, is accused of targeting Mexicans during the Aug. 3 massacre that killed 23 people and left dozens wounded. The Dallas-area native is charged with federal hate crimes and firearms violations, as well as capital murder in state court. He has pleaded not guilty.

Federal prosecutors did not explain in their court filing the reason for their decision, though Crusius still could face the death penalty if convicted in state court.

The prosecutors’ decision could be a defining moment for the Justice Department, which has sent mixed signals on policies regarding the federal death penalty that President Joe Biden pledged to abolish during his presidential campaign. Biden is the first president to openly oppose the death penalty and his election raised the hopes of abolition advocates, who have since been frustrated by a lack of clarity on how the administration might end federal executions or whether that’s the objective.

___

Fugitive’s arrest like a ‘quake,’ but Mafia very resilient

ROME (AP) — Matteo Messina Denaro’s long record as a killer — turncoat mobsters said he’d boast of enough murders to fill a cemetery — greatly burnished his credentials among his peers as a major boss in the Sicilian Mafia.

After 30 years eluding capture while still running much of the Mafia’s affairs, he was arrested Monday at a Palermo clinic, where the convicted mobster was receiving chemotherapy. But while he was hustled off early Tuesday to a maximum-security prison on the Italian mainland, his capture is hardly expect to bring the demise of the Cosa Nostra, thanks to the syndicate’s more than century-old roots and rules.

“What will happen in detail, we can’t know,” Palermo Prosecutor General Lia Sava, said on Rai state radio about the future of the Mafia.

“But one thing is sure. Cosa Nostra is made up of rules. It has supported itself on these rules for 150 years, so certainly it will put into motion those rules to repair the damage, and thus create the new leadership structure needed after the arrest,” Sava said.

While Messina Denaro wielded great influence in the Mafia, for decades Cosa Nostra has lacked a supreme capo, investigators say.

___

Police arrest failed candidate in shootings at Democrats

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A 39-year-old felon who overwhelmingly lost a bid for the New Mexico statehouse as a Republican paid for four men to shoot at Democratic lawmakers’ homes in recent months, including one house where a 10-year-old girl was asleep, police said.

The case against Solomon Peña, who had posted photos of himself online with Donald Trump campaign material, is one of dozens across the United States where people have threatened, and in some cases attempted to carry out, violence against members of Congress, school board members and other election officials. In Kansas, a trial began this week for a man who prosecutors say threatened to kill a congressman.

Officials accuse Peña of paying $500 to four men to shoot at the homes of Democratic lawmakers. He went along for the final drive-by, his gun jamming as bullets ripped into the bedroom of the girl, police said.

The criminal complaint against the self-proclaimed “MAGA king” describes how anger over his landslide defeat in November led to attacks at the homes of four Democratic lawmakers in New Mexico’s largest city. A SWAT team arrested him Monday afternoon, police said.

Peña spent nine years behind bars after his arrest in April 2007 for stealing electronics and other goods from several retail stores as part of what authorities described as a burglary crew. He was released from prison in March 2016, and had his voting rights restored after completing five years probation in April 2021, corrections officials said.

___

Ex-Fox execs go on trial in soccer TV rights bribery case

NEW YORK (AP) — Two former Fox executives went on trial Tuesday, accused of bribing South American soccer officials for TV rights to one of the continent’s biggest annual tournaments and using information gathered in the process to help the network’s winning World Cup broadcast bid. It’s the latest case to go to court in the sprawling FIFA corruption scandal.

Hernan Lopez and Carlos Martinez are charged with paying bribes and kickbacks to South American Football Confederation officials to broadcast the Copa Libertadores, an annual club tournament akin to the Champions League in Europe, through a partnership with Torneos y Competencias, an Argentine production and marketing company.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Victor Zapana told jurors in an opening statement that the alleged bribes — totaling millions of dollars — fueled a system of secret, no-bid, below-market contracts and “allowed disloyal soccer executives to live a life of luxury, to buy Chanel, to buy Hermes,” referencing two popular luxury brands.

“Everyone won except for the game of soccer,” Zapana said at the trial in Brooklyn federal court, which is expected to last at least a month.

Prosecutors allege the payoffs enabled Lopez and Martinez to further Fox’s other soccer interests, including gaining confidential information from a high-ranking FIFA and confederation official about bidding for U.S. broadcast rights to the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.