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

Chief: No evidence parade-crash suspect knew anyone on route

WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) — The SUV driver who plowed into a Christmas parade in suburban Milwaukee, killing at least five people and injuring 48, was leaving the scene of a domestic dispute that had taken place just minutes earlier, Waukesha’s police chief said Monday.

Police Chief Dan Thompson said that there was no evidence the bloodshed Sunday was a terrorist attack or that the suspect, Darrell Brooks Jr., knew anyone in the parade. Brooks acted alone, the chief said.

Brooks, 39, of Milwaukee, had left the site of the domestic disturbance before officers arrived, and was not being chased by police at the time of the crash, according to the chief, who gave no further details on the dispute.

Police said they were drawing up five charges of intentional homicide against Brooks.

He has been charged with crimes 16 times since 1999 and had two outstanding cases against him at the time of the parade disaster — including one in which he was accused of deliberately running down a woman with his vehicle.

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Attorneys make final case to jurors in Ahmaud Arbery’s death

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — Attorneys made a final push Monday to persuade the jury in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, with the prosecution saying that three white men chased him solely “because he was a Black man running down the street” and defense attorneys repeatedly blaming Arbery for his own death.

In closing arguments, a defense attorney for the man who fired the fatal gunshots said the 25-year-old Arbery was killed as he violently resisted a legal effort to detain him to answer questions about burglaries in a neighborhood just outside the port city of Brunswick, Georgia.

“It is absolutely, horrifically tragic that this has happened,” attorney Jason Sheffield said. “This is where the law is intertwined with heartache and tragedy. You are allowed to defend yourself.”

The attorneys made their appeals to the disproportionately white jury after 10 days of testimony that concluded last week. Closing arguments were to resume Tuesday. Prosecutors will get the final word because they carry the burden of proving their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Arbery’s killing became part of a larger national reckoning on racial injustice after a graphic video of his death leaked online two months later. Though prosecutors did not argue that racism motivated the killing, federal authorities have charged all three men with hate crimes, alleging that they chased and killed Arbery because he was Black.

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Alex Jones, Roger Stone subpoenaed by House Jan. 6 committee

WASHINGTON (AP) — A committee investigating the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection issued subpoenas Monday to five more individuals, including former President Donald Trump’s ally Roger Stone and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, as lawmakers deepened their probe of the rallies that preceded the deadly attack.

The subpoenas include demands for documents and testimony from Stone and Jones as well as three people accused of organizing and promoting the two rallies that took place on Jan. 6.

“The Select Committee is seeking information about the rallies and subsequent march to the Capitol that escalated into a violent mob attacking the Capitol and threatening our democracy,” said Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman of the panel. “We need to know who organized, planned, paid for, and received funds related to those events, as well as what communications organizers had with officials in the White House and Congress.”

The subpoenas issued Monday are the latest in a wide net the House panel has castin an effort to investigate the deadly day when a group of Trump’s supporters, fueled by his false claims of a stolen election, brutally assaulted police and smashed their way into the Capitol to interrupt the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.

The committee has already interviewed more than 150 people across government, social media and law enforcement, including some former Trump aides who have been cooperative. The panel has subpoenaed more than 20 witnesses, and most of them, including several associates who helped plan the massive “Stop the Steal” rally the morning of Jan. 6, have signaled they will cooperate.

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Ex-South Korean strongman Chun Doo-hwan dies at age 90

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Former South Korean military strongman Chun Doo-hwan, who took power in a 1979 coup and brutally crushed pro-democracy protests before going to prison for misdeeds in office, died on Tuesday. He was 90.

Emergency officials said Chun died at his home. Police earlier said Chun suffered a cardiac arrest and emergency officials rushed to his Seoul residence.

Hundreds of pro-democracy protesters were killed and tens of thousands were imprisoned during Chun’s presidency in the 1980s, but he allowed some liberalization after years of authoritarian rule. Under public pressure, he allowed the first direct and free election in the nation’s history.

Facing massive criticism after he left office in 1988, Chun took refuge for two years in a Buddhist temple before being arrested. He was tried for corruption, mutiny and treason and was sentenced to death upon conviction. He was pardoned in 1997 in a bid for national reconciliation.

Chun was an army major general when he seized power in December 1979 with his military cronies. Tanks and troops rolled into Seoul in a coup that came less than two months after his mentor, President Park Chung-hee, was assassinated by the intelligence chief during a late-night drinking party.

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Milwaukee’s ‘Dancing Grannies’ devastated by parade crash

The short skirts. The sparkly pompoms. The sassy hip sways. The grandchildren.

They are the Milwaukee Dancing Grannies, a marching, dancing holiday fixture in Wisconsin for nearly 40 years, and a joyful twist on America’s expectations that parades are supposed to feature mainly school-age dance troupes.

But tragedy struck the group when, as they marched down yet another Main Street on Sunday, holiday music blaring around them, three grandmothers were killed.

“Our group was doing what they loved, performing in front of crowds in a parade,” the group said in a statement Monday morning. “Putting smiles on faces of all ages, filling them with joy and happiness.”

Late Sunday afternoon, the driver of a red SUV roared through a Christmas parade in the suburban Milwaukee town of Waukesha, killing at least five people and leaving 48 injured, according to authorities. Police said he had left the scene of a domestic dispute and didn’t appear to know anyone in the parade when he drove into the route.

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Rittenhouse tells Fox News ‘not a racist person,’ backs BLM

NEW YORK (AP) — Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted on charges stemming from killing two men and wounding another during the unrest that followed the shooting of a Black man by a white police officer, said in a wide-ranging interview that aired Monday night he’s “not a racist person” and supports the Black Lives Matter movement.

“This case has nothing to do with race. It never had anything to do with race. It had to do with the right to self-defense,” the 18-year-old told Fox News host Tucker Carlson in an interview that aired Monday night. Rittenhouse is white, as were the men he shot.

Rittenhouse was 17 last year when he traveled 20 miles (32 kilometers) from his home in Antioch, Illinois, to Kenosha, Wisconsin, which had been racked with protests in the wake of the Aug. 23 shooting of Jacob Blake. That shooting and the response in Kenosha — protests that turned destructive — became part of the national reckoning over police use of force against Black peoplefollowing George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis the previous May at the hands of police.

Rittenhouse, armed with an AR-style semiautomatic rifle, joined others who said they were intent on protecting private property from potential damage on Aug. 25. During his trial, prosecutors argued that the teenager was a “wannabe soldier” who went looking for trouble that night. Rittenhouse countered that he fired in self-defense after he was attacked and in fear for his life.

“I thought they came to the correct verdict because it wasn’t Kyle Rittenhouse on trial in Wisconsin — it was the right to self defense on trial,” Rittenhouse said in the interview. “And if I was convicted… no one would ever be privileged to defend their life against attackers.”

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How COVID shots for kids help prevent dangerous new variants

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Cadell Walker rushed to get her 9-year-old daughter Solome vaccinated against COVID-19 — not just to protect her but to help stop the coronavirus from spreading and spawning even more dangerous variants.

“Love thy neighbor is something that we really do believe, and we want to be good community members and want to model that thinking for our daughter,” said the 40-year-old Louisville mom, who recently took Solome to a local middle school for her shot. “The only way to really beat COVID is for all of us collectively to work together for the greater good.”

Scientists agree. Each infection — whether in an adult in Yemen or a kid in Kentucky — gives the virus another opportunity to mutate. Protecting a new, large chunk of the population anywhere in the world limits those opportunities.

That effort got a lift with 28 million U.S. kids 5 to 11 years old now eligible for child-sized doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Moves elsewhere, like Austria’s recent decision to require all adults to be vaccinated and even the U.S. authorizing booster shots for all adults on Friday, help by further reducing the chances of new infection.

Vaccinating kids also means reducing silent spread, since most have no or mild symptoms when they contract the virus. When the virus spreads unseen, scientists say, it also goes unabated. And as more people contract it, the odds of new variants rise.

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Elizabeth Holmes makes her case to the jury in fraud trial

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Elizabeth Holmes, the one-time medical entrepreneur now charged with building a fraudulent company based on promises of a revolutionary technology, returned to the witness stand Monday.

Her testimony, which focused largely on her enthusiasm based on positive early tests of that blood-testing technology, may be her best shot to avoid conviction on charges of criminal fraud. Prosecutors alleged she duped investors and patients into believing she had invented a breakthrough in blood-testing technology.

Monday’s proceedings resumed after a roughly 90-minute delay, with Holmes again at the witness stand wearing a cobalt dress with a black blazer. She spent most of her time describing clinical studies and other records extolling the effectiveness of a small blood-testing device made by Theranos, a startup she founded in 2003 after dropping out of Stanford University at 19.

U.S. District Judge Edward Davila didn’t explain why he met with lawyers from both sides of the case behind closed doors while a masked — and befuddled — audience sat in a packed courtroom.

Holmes’ latest round of testimony came after her lawyers called her to the standduring the final hour of Friday’s proceedings in what has been the most dramatic moment of a high-profile trial that began in early September.

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LeBron suspended 1 game, Stewart 2 games for altercation

LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers has been suspended for one game and Detroit’s Isaiah Stewart was suspended two games for their roles in an ugly incident during Sunday’s Lakers-Pistons game.

The NBA announced the suspensions Monday, and both will affect games on Tuesday. James will not play when the Lakers visit Madison Square Garden to play the New York Knicks. Stewart will miss the Pistons’ home game against Miami on Tuesday and their game Wednesday at Milwaukee.

James will forfeit about $284,000 in salary, while Stewart will lose about $45,000. It is the first suspension in the 19-year career of James, who has won four NBA titles with three teams.

The Lakers and Pistons meet again Sunday in Los Angeles, and James and Stewart will both be eligible to play.

Stewart, the NBA said, was disciplined for “escalating an on-court altercation by repeatedly and aggressively pursuing … James in an unsportsmanlike manner.” James merited the suspension “for recklessly hitting Stewart in the face and initiating an on-court altercation,” the NBA said.

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Police tie car used in Young Dolph’s killing to 2nd shooting

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Police in Tennessee have tied a car used in the killing of rapper Young Dolph to a shooting that left a woman dead and wounded another person days before the ambush on the hip-hop artist, authorities said Monday.

Two men exited a white Mercedes-Benz and fired shots into a Memphis bakery where Young Dolph was buying cookies Wednesday and killed him, Memphis police said. Police have released photos taken from surveillance video that captured the shooting, but no suspect information has been released and no arrests have been made.

The same car was used in a Nov. 12 shooting in the city of Covington, located about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of Memphis, Capt. Jack Howell of the Covington Police Department told The Associated Press.

Howell said the Mercedes followed another vehicle out of a nighttime high school football game. At an intersection, two people got out of the Mercedes and fired about 40 rounds from high-powered rifles into the other car, Howell said.

Two women were shot. One woman died of her wounds, and the other woman remains hospitalized, Howell said. Covington police are working with Memphis authorities and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation on the search for the suspects, who are believed to be from the Memphis area, Howell said.