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

The police response to the Uvalde shooting was riddled with failures, a new DOJ report says

UVALDE, Texas (AP) — Police officials who responded to the deadly Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting waited far too long to confront the gunman, acted with “no urgency” in establishing a command post and communicated inaccurate information to grieving families, according to a Justice Department report released Thursday that identifies “cascading failures” in law enforcement’s handling of the massacre.

The report, the most comprehensive federal accounting of the maligned police response to the May 24, 2022, shooting at Robb Elementary School, catalogs a sweeping array of training, communication, leadership and technology problems that federal officials say contributed to the crisis lasting far longer than necessary. All the while, the report says, terrified students inside the classrooms called 911 and agonized parents begged officers to go in.

“Had law enforcement agencies followed generally accepted practices in active shooter situations and gone right after the shooter and stopped him, lives would have been saved and people would have survived,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday at a news conference in Uvalde after Justice Department officials briefed family members on their findings. The Uvalde victims, he said, “deserved better.”

Even for a mass shooting that has already been the subject of intense scrutiny and in-depth examinations — an earlier report by Texas lawmakers, for instance, faulted law enforcement at every level with failing “to prioritize saving innocent lives over their own safety” — the nearly 600-page Justice Department study adds to the public understanding of how officers failed to stop an attack that killed 19 children and two staff members.

The flawed initial response was compounded in the following days by an ineptitude that added to family members’ anguish, according to the report.

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What to know about the Justice Department’s report on police failures in the Uvalde school shooting

A Justice Department report released Thursday details a myriad of failures by police who responded to the shooting at a school in Uvalde, Texas, when children waited desperately for over an hour before officers stormed a classroom to take the gunman down.

The federal review, which was launched just days after the May 2022 shooting, provides a damning look at the missteps by police after a gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School. It was not a criminal investigation but one of the most exhaustive reviews of law enforcement’s failure to stop the attack. Nineteen students and two teachers died in the shooting.

“The victims and survivors of the shooting at Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022, deserved better,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters in Uvalde.

Local officials are still weighing whether to bring charges.

Here are some of the major takeaways from the report:

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Congress votes to avert a shutdown and keep the government funded into early March

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress sent President Joe Biden a short-term spending bill on Thursday that would avert a looming partial government shutdown and fund federal agencies into March.

The House approved the measure by a vote of 314-108, with opposition coming mostly from the more conservative members of the Republican conference. Shortly before the vote, the House Freedom Caucus announced it “strongly opposes” the measure because it would facilitate more spending than they support.

Nevertheless, about half of Republicans joined with Democrats in passing the third stopgap funding measure in recent months. The action came a few hours after the Senate had voted overwhelmingly to pass the bill by a vote of 77-18.

The measure extends current spending levels and buys time for the two chambers to work out their differences over full-year spending bills for the fiscal year that began in October.

The temporary measure will run to March 1 for some federal agencies. Their funds were set to run out Friday. It extends the remainder of government operations to March 8.

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Netanyahu says he has told US he opposes Palestinian state in any postwar scenario

JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday rejected U.S. calls to scale back Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip or take steps toward the establishment of a Palestinian state after the war, drawing an immediate scolding from the White House.

The tense back and forth reflected what has become a wide rift between the two allies over the scope of Israel’s war and its plans for the future of the beleaguered territory.

“We obviously see it differently,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.

Netanyahu spoke just a day after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel would never have “genuine security” without a pathway toward Palestinian independence. Earlier this week, the White House also announced that it was the “right time” for Israel to lower the intensity of its devastating military offensive in Gaza.

In a nationally televised news conference, Netanyahu struck a defiant tone, repeatedly saying that Israel would not halt its offensive until it realizes its goals of destroying Gaza’s Hamas militant group and bringing home all remaining hostages held by Hamas.

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After Taiwan’s election, its new envoy to the US offers assurances to Washington and Beijing

WASHINGTON (AP) — Taiwan’s top diplomat in Washington has a message for both the island’s Chinese adversaries and its American friends: Don’t worry that Taiwan’s new president-elect will worsen relations with Beijing and possibly draw the U.S. into a conflict.

President-elect Lai Ching-te plans to keep the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, Alexander Tah-Ray Yui told The Associated Press on Thursday in his first interview with an international news organization since he arrived in the U.S. in December.

The Chinese government has called Lai a troublemaker who will push Taiwan toward independence. But Yui said Lai is willing to engage with Beijing, even as the island seeks to strengthen its unofficial ties with Washington for stability in the region.

“We want the status quo. We want the way it is — neither unification, neither independence. The way it is is the way we want to live right now,” said Yui, Taiwan’s de-facto ambassador to the U.S., noting the stance is largely supported at home and will guide the new administration.

Yui spoke to the AP five days after Lai won the presidential election with more than 40% of the vote in a three-way race. Lai will succeed Tsai Ing-wen when he is inaugurated in May.

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Icy winter blast gripping US blamed for deaths from coast to coast

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A new layer of ice formed over parts of Tennessee on Thursday after a deadly storm blanketed the state in snow and sent temperatures plummeting earlier this week — part of a broader bout of bitter cold sweeping the country from Oregon to the Northeast.

Authorities said at least 14 deaths in Tennessee alone are blamed on the system, which dumped more than 9 inches (23 centimeters) of snow since Sunday on parts of Nashville, a city that rarely see such accumulations. Temperatures also plunged below zero (minus-18 Celsius) in parts of the state, creating the largest power demand ever across the seven states served by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Thursday’s freezing rain compounded problems, adding a thin glaze of ice in some areas ahead of another expected plunge in temperatures over the weekend. Many schools and government offices have closed, and the state Legislature also shut down, canceling in-person meetings all week.

Near Portland, Oregon, ice slowly began to melt in areas south of the city as warmer temperatures and rain arrived Thursday. But a National Weather Service advisory through Friday warned of freezing rain and gusting winds of up to 40 mph (65 kph) for parts of the state. Most Portland-area school districts canceled classes for a third straight day because of slick roads and water damage from burst frozen pipes.

On Wednesday, a power line fell on a parked car in northeastern Portland, killing three people and injuring a baby during an ice storm that made driving in parts of the Pacific Northwest treacherous.

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An Oregon teen saw 3 people die after they slid on ice into a power line. Then she went to help

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Majiah Washington noticed a flash outside her home this week in Portland, where a dangerous storm had coated the city with ice. Opening her blinds, she saw a red SUV with a downed power line on it. Her neighbor’s pregnant, 21-year-old daughter was screaming for her boyfriend to get their baby away from the car.

He scrambled up the icy driveway carrying the child, but before he made it halfway, he slid backward and his foot touched the live wire — “a little fire, then smoke,” Washington said. The mother, six months pregnant, tried to reach the baby, but she too slipped and was electrocuted — as was her 15-year-old brother when he came out to help.

Washington, 18, was on the phone with a dispatcher when she saw the baby, lying on top of his father, move his head — the 9-month-old was alive. Having just seen three people shocked to death, she decided to try to save the boy.

She kept a low crouch to avoid sliding into the wire as she approached, she said at a news conference Thursday, a day after the deaths. As she grabbed the baby she touched the father’s body, but she wasn’t shocked, she said.

“I was concerned about the baby,” Washington said. “Nobody was with the baby.”

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Fani Willis accuses estranged wife of special prosecutor of ‘interfering’ with Trump election case

ATLANTA (AP) — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is accusing the estranged wife of a special prosecutor she hired of trying to obstruct her criminal election-interference case against former President Donald Trump and others by seeking to question her in the couple’s divorce proceedings.

A motion filed last week by a defense attorney in the election case alleges that Willis was involved in a romantic relationship with attorney Nathan Wade. A lawyer for Willis wrote in a filing Thursday that lawyers for Wade’s wife, Joycelyn Wade, served a subpoena to the district attorney last week.

The filing says that the subpoena is being sought “in an attempt to harass and damage” Willis’ professional reputation and accuses Joycelyn Wade of having “conspired with interested parties in the criminal Election Interference Case to use the civil discovery process to annoy, embarrass, and oppress” the district attorney.

The attempt to question Willis is “obstructing and interfering” with an ongoing criminal case, lawyer Cinque Axam wrote in the court filing Thursday seeking to quash the subpoena.

Andrea Hastings, a lawyer for Joycelyn Wade, said they want to help her “resolve her divorce fairly and privately” and that any response to Willis’ motion will come in a filing with the court.

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Hunter Biden agrees to private deposition with Republicans after months of defiance

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hunter Biden has agreed to appear before House Republicans for a private deposition next month, ending months of defiance from the president’s son, who had insisted on testifying publicly.

The House Oversight Committee announced Thursday that the two parties have agreed for Hunter Biden to sit for a deposition on Feb. 28.

“The president’s son is a key witness in this investigation and he’s gonna be able to come in now and sit down and answer questions in a substantive, orderly manner,” Rep. James Comer, chair of the Oversight Committee, told reporters. He added that Hunter Biden will be able to testify publicly sometime after his deposition.

News of the agreement was confirmed by Hunter Biden’s legal team Thursday night.

Republicans had been set to advance a contempt resolution against him to the House floor this week but called it off Tuesday to give the attorneys additional time to negotiate. If they had voted on the contempt resolution, the referral would have been sent to the Justice Department where the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia would have had to decide whether to prosecute Hunter Biden.

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Largest deep-sea coral reef to date is mapped by scientists off the US Atlantic coast

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have mapped the largest coral reef deep in the ocean, stretching hundreds of miles off the U.S. Atlantic coast.

While researchers have known since the 1960s that some coral were present off the Atlantic, the reef’s size remained a mystery until new underwater mapping technology made it possible to construct 3D images of the ocean floor.

The largest yet known deep coral reef “has been right under our noses, waiting to be discovered,” said Derek Sowers, an oceanographer at the nonprofit Ocean Exploration Trust.

Sowers and other scientists, including several at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, recently published maps of the reef in the journal Geomatics.

The reef extends for about 310 miles (499 kilometers) from Florida to South Carolina and at some points reaches 68 miles (109 kilometers) wide. The total area is nearly three times the size of Yellowstone National Park.