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

Pentagon leaders cite military tactics to show destruction from US attacks on Iran

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pentagon leaders laid out new details Thursday about military tactics and explosives to bolster their argument that U.S. attacks had destroyed key Iranian nuclear facilities, but little more emerged on how far back the bombing had set Tehran’s atomic program.

In a rare Pentagon news briefing, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, worked to shift the debate from whether the nuclear targets were “obliterated,” as President Donald Trump has said, to what they portrayed as the heroism of the strikes as well as the extensive research and preparation that went into carrying them out.

“You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated — choose your word. This was an historically successful attack,” Hegseth said in an often combative session with reporters.

It was the latest example of how Trump has marshaled top administration officials to defend his claims about the effectiveness of the U.S. strikes. At stake is the legacy of the Republican president’s intervention in the brief war between Israel and Iran, as well as the future of American foreign policy toward Iran.

Hegseth appeared less confident that the strikes got all of Iran’s highly enriched nuclear material.

___

Iran’s Khamenei resurfaces to warn against future US attacks in first statement since ceasefire

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Thursday that his country had delivered a “slap to America’s face” by striking a U.S. air base in Qatar and warned against further attacks in his first public comments since a ceasefire agreement with Israel.

Khamenei’s prerecorded speech that aired on Iranian state television, his first appearance since June 19, was filled with warnings and threats directed toward the United States and Israel, the Islamic Republic’s longtime adversaries.

The 86-year-old, a skilled orator known for his forceful addresses to the country’s more than 90 million people, appeared more tired than he had just a week ago, speaking in a hoarse voice and occasionally stumbling over his words.

The supreme leader downplayed U.S. strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites Sunday using bunker-buster bombs and cruise missiles, saying that U.S. President Donald Trump — who said the attack “completely and fully obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program — had exaggerated its impact.

“They could not achieve anything significant,” Khamenei said. Missing from his more than 10-minute video message was any mention of Iran’s nuclear program and the status of their facilities and centrifuges after extensive U.S. and Israeli strikes.

___

Senators diverge sharply on damage done by Iran strikes after classified briefing

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators emerged from a classified briefing Thursday with sharply diverging assessments of President Donald Trump’s bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites, with Republicans calling the mission a clear success and Democrats expressing deep skepticism.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came to Capitol Hill to give the classified briefings, originally scheduled for Tuesday.

Many Republicans left satisfied, though their assessments of how much Iran’s nuclear program was set back by the bombing varied. Sen. Tom Cotton said a “major blow” and “catastrophic damage” had been dealt to Iran’s facilities.

“Their operational capability was obliterated. There is nobody working there tonight. It was highly effective. There’s no reason to hit those sites anytime soon,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Democrats remained doubtful and criticized Trump for not giving Congress more information. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said the briefing “raised more questions than it answered.”

___

Justice Department says Kilmar Abrego Garcia will face US trial before any move to deport him again

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department said Thursday that it intends to try Kilmar Abrego Garcia on federal smuggling charges in Tennessee before it moves to deport him, addressing fears that he could be expelled again from the U.S. within days.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville, Tennessee, recently ruled that Abrego Garcia has a right to be released from jail while awaiting trial on the smuggling charges. But she decided Wednesday to keep him in custody for at least a few more days over concerns that U.S. immigration officials would swiftly detain him and try to deport him again.

But DOJ spokesperson Chad Gilmartin told The Associated Press that Abrego Garcia will first be tried in court on the charges.

“This defendant has been charged with horrific crimes, including trafficking children, and will not walk free in our country again,” Gilmartin said.

Abrego Garcia became a flashpoint over President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies when he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March. Facing mounting pressure and a Supreme Court order, the Trump administration returned him this month to face the smuggling charges, which Abrego Garcia’s attorneys characterized as an attempt to justify his erroneous deportation.

___

What to know about states blocking Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that states can bar Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider.

The federal government and many states already block using Medicaid funds to cover abortion. But the state-federal health insurance program for lower-income people does pay for other services from Planned Parenthood, including birth control, cancer screenings and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections.

The ruling comes at a moment when Congress is considering blocking Planned Parenthood from receiving any federal Medicaid funding, a move that the group says would force hundreds of clinic closings — most of them in states where abortion remains legal.

Here are things to know about the situation:

This legal dispute goes back to a 2018 executive order from South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster that barred abortion providers from receiving Medicaid money in the state, even for services unrelated to abortion.

___

Kennedy’s advisers back flu vaccination, but not shots with a rarely used preservative

ATLANTA (AP) — The Trump administration’s new vaccine advisers on Thursday endorsed this fall’s flu vaccinations for just about every American — but only if they use certain shots free of an ingredient antivaccine groups have falsely tied to autism.

What is normally a routine step in preparing for the upcoming flu season drew intense scrutiny after U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. abruptly fired the influential 17-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and handpicked replacements that include several vaccine skeptics.

The seven-member panel bucked another norm Thursday as it discussed the safety of a preservative used in less than 5% of U.S. flu vaccinations: It deliberated based only on a presentation from an antivaccine group’s former leader — without allowing the usual public airing of scientific data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The preservative, thimerosal, has long been used in certain vaccines that come in multi-dose vials, to prevent contamination as each dose is withdrawn. But it has been controversial because it contains a small amount of a particular form of mercury.

Study after study has found no evidence that thimerosal causes autism or other harm. Yet since 2001, all vaccines routinely used for U.S. children age 6 years or younger have come in thimerosal-free formulas — including single-dose flu shots that account for the vast majority of influenza vaccinations.

___

Key Medicaid provision in Trump’s bill is found to violate Senate rules. The GOP is scrambling

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate parliamentarian has advised that a Medicaid provider tax overhaul central to President Donald Trump’s tax cut and spending bill does not adhere to the chamber’s procedural rules, delivering a crucial blow as Republicans rush to finish the package this week.

Guidance from the parliamentarian is rarely ignored and Republican leaders are now forced to consider difficult options. Republicans were counting on big cuts to Medicaid and other programs to offset trillions of dollars in Trump tax breaks, their top priority. Additionally, the parliamentarian, who is the Senate’s chief arbiter of its often complicated rules, advised against various GOP provisions barring certain immigrants from health care programs.

Republicans scrambled Thursday to respond, with some calling for challenging, or ever firing, the nonpartisan parliamentarian, who has been on the job since 2012. GOP leaders dismissed those views and instead worked to revise the various proposals.

“We have contingency plans,” said Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota.

Friday’s expected votes appeared to be slipping, but Thune insisted that “we’re plowing forward.”

___

Prosecutor tells jury ‘it’s time’ to convict Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs as sex trafficking trial near end

NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs “committed crime after crime” for two decades but thought his “fame, wealth and power” put him above the law, a prosecutor told jurors Thursday as the hip-hop mogul’s sex trafficking trial shifted to closing arguments.

“That stops now,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik said. “It’s time to hold him accountable. It’s time for justice. It’s time to find the defendant guilty.”

Combs, 55, sat with his head down as Slavik highlighted testimony and evidence from the seven-week trial that she said proved sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and other charges. Wearing a sweater and khakis, he sometimes scribbled notes to his lawyers and shook his head as Slavik played one of his audio messages for the jury.

“Over the last several weeks, you’ve learned a lot about Sean Combs,” Slavik said, launching into a nearly five-hour presentation. “He’s the leader of a criminal enterprise. He doesn’t take no for an answer. And now you know about many crimes he committed with members of his enterprise.”

Among the proof, Slavik argued, was evidence that Combs kidnapped an employee, was involved in setting rapper Kid Cudi’s convertible ablaze, bribed a hotel guard and carried out “brutal crimes at the heart of this case — sex trafficking.”

___

Bill Moyers, the former White House press secretary turned acclaimed TV journalist, dead at 91

NEW YORK (AP) — Bill Moyers, the former White House press secretary who became one of television’s most honored journalists, masterfully using a visual medium to illuminate a world of ideas, died Thursday at age 91.

Moyers died in a New York City hospital, according to longtime friend Tom Johnson, the former CEO of CNN and an assistant to Moyers during Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. Moyers’ son William said his father died at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York after a “long illness.”

Moyers’ career ranged from youthful Baptist minister to deputy director of the Peace Corps, from Johnson’s press secretary to newspaper publisher, senior news analyst for “The CBS Evening News” and chief correspondent for “CBS Reports.”

But it was for public television that Moyers produced some of TV’s most cerebral and provocative series. In hundreds of hours of PBS programs, he proved at home with subjects ranging from government corruption to modern dance, from drug addiction to media consolidation, from religion to environmental abuse.

In 1988, Moyers produced “The Secret Government” about the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration and simultaneously published a book under the same name. Around that time, he galvanized viewers with “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth,” a series of six one-hour interviews with the prominent religious scholar. The accompanying book became a best-seller.

___

Tampa Bay Rays’ Wander Franco convicted of sexually abusing a child and gets a suspended sentence

PUERTO PLATA, Dominican Republic (AP) — Suspended Tampa Bay Rays shortstop Wander Franco was convicted of sexually abusing a child and handed a two-year suspended sentence Thursday.

Franco was arrested last year after being accused of having a four-month relationship with a girl who was 14 at the time, and of transferring thousands of dollars to her mother to consent to the illegal relationship.

Franco, now 24, was found not guilty of charges of sexual and commercial exploitation against a minor and human trafficking.

Judge Jakayra Veras García said Franco made a bad decision as she addressed him during the ruling.

“Look at us, Wander,” she said. “Do not approach minors for sexual purposes. If you don’t like people very close to your age, you have to wait your time.”