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

Pelosi to step down from House leadership, stay in Congress

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she will not seek a leadership position in the new Congress, ending a historic run as the first woman with the gavel and making way for a new generation to steer the party after Democrats lost control of the House to Republicans in the midterm elections.

In a spirited speech on the House floor, Pelosi announced that she will step aside after leading Democrats for nearly 20 years and in the aftermath of the brutal attack on her husband, Paul, last month in their San Francisco home — and after having done “the people’s work.”

The California Democrat, a pivotal figure in U.S. history and perhaps the most powerful speaker in modern times, said she would remain in Congress as the representative from San Francisco, a position she has held for 35 years, when the new Congress convenes in January.

“I will not seek reelection to Democratic leadership in the next Congress,” she said. “For me, the hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus that I so deeply respect.”

Now, she said, “we must move boldly into the future.”

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Deadly missile strike adds to Ukraine war fears in Poland

PRZEWODOW, Poland (AP) — Since the invasion of Ukraine more than eight months ago, Poland has aided the neighboring country and millions of its refugees — both to ease their suffering and to help guard against the war spilling into the rest of Europe.

But a missile strike that killed two men Tuesday in a Polish village close to the Ukrainian border brought the conflict home and added to the long-suppressed sense of vulnerability in a country where the ravages of World War II are well remembered.

“The thing that I dread most in life is war. I don’t want to ever experience that,” said Anna Grabinska, a Warsaw woman who has extended help to a Ukrainian mother of two small children.

One of the men killed in Przewodow was actively helping refugees from Ukraine who had found shelter in the area.

NATO and Polish leaders say the missile was most likely fired by Ukraine in defense against a Russian attack.

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Lake refuses to concede in Arizona governor’s race she lost

PHOENIX (AP) — Refusing to concede, Kari Lake, the defeated Republican candidate for Arizona governor, said Thursday she is assembling lawyers and collecting evidence of voters having trouble casting ballots on Election Day as she considers her next move.

Lake, who was endorsed by Donald Trump, traveled to the former president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Thursday, her campaign spokesman told The Associated Press. The Washington Post first reported that she attended a luncheon held by the America First Policy Institute, an advocacy group created by former Trump advisers.

In a 2 1/2-minute video, Lake made no mention of giving up in her most extensive public comments since losing the election. Before the election, she had refused to say that she would concede if she lost the race to Democrat Katie Hobbs.

“Rest assured I have assembled the best and brightest legal team, and we are exploring every avenue to correct the many wrongs that have been done this past week,” Lake said. “I’m doing everything in my power to right these wrongs.”

She pointed to long lines at some polling places that were exacerbated by problems with ballot printers at about a third of the vote centers in Maricopa County, the largest county in the state. She said the problems disenfranchised voters who couldn’t wait at the polls.

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Biden admin to ask high court to take up student debt plan

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration plans to ask the Supreme Court to reinstate the president’s student debt cancellation plan, according to a Thursday legal filing warning that Americans will face financial strain if the plan remains stalled in court when loan payments are scheduled to restart in January.

The Justice Department is fighting to keep Biden’s plan alive after it was halted by two federal courts in recent weeks. The agency is asking for quick action to block both rulings and allow the plan to take effect even as it plays out in the nation’s courts.

In a legal filing Thursday, the administration announced plans to appeal one of those rulings, by a federal appeals court in St. Louis, to the nation’s highest court. And it says it’s prepared to appeal the other case if needed.

The White House has said it will prevail, but even some supporters of the plan worry about its chances before a conservative Supreme Court that has scaled back Biden’s authority in other ways, including in a June decision curbing the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to limit power plan emissions.

Biden’s plan promises $10,000 in federal student debt forgiveness to those with incomes of less than $125,000, or households earning less than $250,000. Pell Grant recipients, who typically demonstrate more financial need, are eligible for an additional $10,000 in relief.

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Pelosi’s big decision: ‘There’s a life out there, right?’

WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the attack on her husband, Paul, by an intruder in their family home made her think about staying on as the House Democratic leader because she “couldn’t give them that satisfaction” of intimidating her out of politics.

But Pelosi said Thursday she was ready to step aside and felt “balanced” about her decision to make way for a new generation of leaders.

She’s staying as the congresswoman of San Francisco but has no plans to endorse a successor or meddle with the new leaders.

“I have no intention of being the mother-in-law in the kitchen saying, ‘My son doesn’t like the stuffing that way,’” Pelosi said in a wide ranging interview with reporters at the Capitol.

“They will have their vision, they will have their plan.”

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Medical Examiner: Slain UVA students were shot in the head

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Three University of Virginia football players who were shot on a bus as they returned from a field trip each died of a gunshot wound to the head, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

The cause of death for Lavel Davis Jr., D’Sean Perry and Devin Chandler was released in response to a request from The Associated Press on Thursday. LaKeshia Johnson, Central District Administrator of the medical examiner’s office, also said in an email that the manner of death was homicide.

The students were shot late Sunday night as they returned to campus after traveling to Washington, where they saw a play and had dinner together. Authorities have said that Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., a UVA student and former member of the football team who was on the trip, began shooting students on the charter bus as it pulled to a stop at a campus parking garage.

Jones, 23, faces second-degree murder and other charges stemming from the shooting, which set off a manhunt and 12-hour campus lockdown before Jones was apprehended in suburban Richmond. Jones is being held without bond.

A witness told police the gunman targeted specific victims, shooting one as he slept, a prosecutor said Wednesday at Jones’ first court appearance. Two other students were wounded. Neither Jones nor his attorney addressed the charges in court.

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‘Momentous:’ US advances largest dam demolition in history

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — U.S. regulators approved a plan Thursday to demolish four dams on a California river and open up hundreds of miles of salmon habitat that would be the largest dam removal and river restoration project in the world when it goes forward.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s unanimous vote on the lower Klamath River dams is the last major regulatory hurdle and the biggest milestone for a $500 million demolition proposal championed by Native American tribes and environmentalists for years. The project would return the lower half of California’s second-largest river to a free-flowing state for the first time in more than a century.

Native tribes that rely on the Klamath River and its salmon for their way of life have been a driving force behind bringing the dams down in a wild and remote area that spans the California and Oregon border. Barring any unforeseen complications, Oregon, California and the entity formed to oversee the project will accept the license transfer and could begin dam removal as early as this summer, proponents said.

“The Klamath salmon are coming home,” Yurok Chairman Joseph James said after the vote. “The people have earned this victory and with it, we carry on our sacred duty to the fish that have sustained our people since the beginning of time.”

The dams produce less than 2% of PacifiCorp’s power generation — enough to power about 70,000 homes — when they are running at full capacity, said Bob Gravely, spokesperson for the utility. But they often run at a far lower capacity because of low water in the river and other issues, and the agreement that paved the way for Thursday’s vote was ultimately a business decision, he said.

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Judge wins AL MVP in runaway; Goldschmidt takes NL prize

NEW YORK (AP) — Aaron Judge’s record-setting season with the New York Yankees turned that AL MVP debate into a decisive verdict.

Paul Goldschmidt’s steady production for the St. Louis Cardinals made him the clear choice in the National League.

And after coming in second before, both prodigious sluggers powered their way to their first MVP awards Thursday night.

“It’s tough to put in words,” Judge said on MLB Network, surrounded by his beaming wife, parents and agents. “It’s an incredible, incredible moment. A lot of hard work throughout the years to get to this point.”

After hitting 62 home runs to break the American League record, Judge easily beat out Los Angeles Angels two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani in an MVP race some thought might be close.

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Western US cities to remove decorative grass amid drought

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A group of 30 agencies that supply water to homes and businesses throughout the western United States has pledged to rip up lots of decorative grass to help keep water in the over-tapped Colorado River.

The agreement signed Tuesday by water agencies in Southern California, Phoenix and Salt Lake City and elsewhere illustrates an accelerating shift in the American West away from well-manicured grass that has long been a totem of suburban life, having taken root alongside streets, around fountains and between office park walkways.

The grass-removal pledge targets turf that people don’t work on, like in front of strip malls, in street medians or at the entrance to neighborhoods. It doesn’t mean cities plan to rip up grass at golf courses, parks or in backyards, though some may pay homeowners to voluntarily replace their lawns with more drought-resistance landscaping.

Beyond reducing ornamental grass by 30%, the agencies say they’ll boost water efficiency, add more water recycling and consider actions like changing how people pay for water to encourage savings.

“Recognizing that a clean, reliable water supply is critical to our communities, we can and must do more to reduce water consumption and increase reuse and recycling within our service areas,” read the memo.

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Ticketmaster canceling next Taylor Swift concert ticket sale

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Ticketmaster says it is canceling Friday’s planned general public sale for Taylor Swift’s upcoming stadium tour because it doesn’t have enough tickets.

The decision came two days after a presale event caused the site to crash and left many fans without tickets. The ticketing company said in a statement Thursday two million tickets to The Eras tour next year were sold during presales on Tuesday, the most tickets ever sold on the platform in a single day.

Ticketmaster cited “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand” as a reason for calling off Friday’s sale.

Questions remain about how remaining tickets — and how many — would be sold. But Ticketmaster said about 1.5 million fans who had gone through an early verification process — called Verified Fan — were invited to purchase tickets and the remaining 2 million were placed on a waiting list.

A company representative said Ticketmaster is not involved in ticket resales for Swift’s shows.