AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EST

White House says admiral ordered follow-up strike on alleged drug boat, insists attack was lawful

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House said Monday that a Navy admiral acted “within his authority and the law” when he ordered a second, follow-up strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean Sea in a September U.S. military operation that has come under bipartisan scrutiny.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt offered the justification for the Sept. 2 strike as lawmakers announced there will be congressional review of the U.S. military strikes against vessels suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific Ocean. The lawmakers cited a published report that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order for a second strike that killed survivors on the boat.

Navy Vice Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who Leavitt said ordered the second strike, is expected to provide a classified briefing Thursday to lawmakers overseeing the military.

Leavitt in her comments to reporters did not dispute a Washington Post report that there were survivors after the initial strike. Her explanation came after President Donald Trump a day earlier said he “wouldn’t have wanted that — not a second strike” when asked about the incident.

“Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes,” said Leavitt. “Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.”

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Former Trump lawyer Alina Habba is disqualified as top New Jersey prosecutor, US appeals court rules

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Alina Habba is disqualified from serving as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor despite his administration’s maneuvers to keep her in the role, an appeals court said Monday.

A panel of judges from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sitting in Philadelphia sided with a lower-court judge’s ruling after hearing oral arguments at which Habba was present on Oct. 20.

“It is apparent that the current administration has been frustrated by some of the legal and political barriers to getting its appointees in place. Its efforts to elevate its preferred candidate for U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba, to the role of Acting U.S. Attorney demonstrate the difficulties it has faced — yet the citizens of New Jersey and the loyal employees in the U.S. Attorney’s Office deserve some clarity and stability,” the court wrote in a 32-page opinion.

It concluded: “We will affirm the District Court’s disqualification order.”

The ruling comes amid the push by Trump’s Republican administration to keep Habba as the acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey, a powerful post charged with enforcing federal criminal and civil law. It also comes after the judges questioned the government’s moves to keep Habba in place after her interim appointment expired and without her getting Senate confirmation.

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Federal review finds 44% of US trucking schools don’t comply with government rules

Nearly 44% of the 16,000 truck driving programs listed nationwide by the government may be forced to close if they lose their students after a review by the federal Transportation Department found they may not be complying with minimum requirements.

The Transportation Department said Monday that it plans to revoke the certification of nearly 3,000 schools unless they can comply with training requirements in the next 30 days. The targeted schools must notify students that their certification is in jeopardy. Another 4,500 schools are being warned they may face similar action.

Schools that lose certification will no longer be able to issue the certificates showing a driver completed training that’s required to get a license, so students are likely to abandon those schools. It’s not clear how many of those schools have been actively teaching students.

Separately, the Department of Homeland Security is auditing trucking firms in California owned by immigrants to verify the status of their drivers and whether they are qualified to hold a commercial driver’s license.

This crackdown on trucking schools and companies is the latest step in the government’s effort to ensure that truck drivers are qualified and eligible to hold a commercial license. This began after a truck driver that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says was not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people.

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Luigi Mangione fights to exclude evidence from his trial in the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO

NEW YORK (AP) — Luigi Mangione watched stoically in court Monday as prosecutors played surveillance videos showing the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a New York City sidewalk last year and Mangione’s arrest five days later at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania.

The videos, including footage from the restaurant previously unseen by the press or the public, kicked off a hearing on Mangione’s fight to bar evidence from his state murder trial, including the gun prosecutors say matches the one used in the Dec. 4, 2024, attack. Thompson was killed as he walked to a Manhattan hotel for his company’s annual investor conference.

Mangione, 27, pressed a finger to his lips and a thumb to his chin as he watched footage of two police officers approaching him as he ate breakfast at the McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.

He gripped a pen in his right hand, making a fist at times, as prosecutors played a 911 call from a McDonald’s manager relaying concerns from customers that Mangione looked like the suspect in Thompson’s killing. The manager said she searched online for photos of the suspect and that as Mangione sat in the restaurant, she could only see his eyebrows because he was wearing a beanie and a medical face mask.

Before he was flown to New York City to face murder charges, Mangione was held under constant watch in an otherwise empty special housing unit at a Pennsylvania state prison.

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A California family was about to cut the cake when gunfire erupted at a toddler’s birthday party

STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) — Family members were getting ready to cut the cake at a toddler’s birthday party when the gunfire started inside a banquet hall packed with relatives and friends over the weekend in California.

“I actually thought it was my balloons popping. It was gunshots,” said Patrice Williams, the birthday girl’s mother.

Her daughter, who turned 2, was uninjured. But Williams told The Associated Press on Monday that her sister, a cousin and three of her friends were shot in the burst of gunfire Saturday evening in Stockton.

Three children ages 8, 9 and 14 and a 21-year-old were killed in the hall where at least 100 people were gathered, San Joaquin County Sheriff Patrick Withrow said. Detectives believe the gunfire continued outside and there may have been multiple shooters.

Eleven people were wounded, and at least one is in critical condition, Withrow said. No one is in custody.

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Son of drug kingpin ‘El Chapo’ pleads guilty in US drug trafficking case in a plea deal

CHICAGO (AP) — One of the sons of notorious Mexican drug kingpin “El Chapo” pleaded guilty on Monday to U.S. drug trafficking charges, months after his brother entered a plea deal.

Known locally in Mexico as the “Chapitos” — or “little Chapos” — Joaquín Guzmán López and brother Ovidio Guzmán López are accused of running a faction of the Sinaloa cartel. Federal authorities in 2023 described the operation as a massive effort to send “staggering” quantities of fentanyl into the U.S.

Joaquín Guzmán López, 39, pleaded guilty to two counts of drug trafficking and continuing criminal enterprise after admitting his role in overseeing the transport of tens of thousands of kilograms (pounds) of drugs to the U.S., mostly through underground tunnels. With the plea deal, his attorney said, he is expected to avoid life in prison.

Security was tight at Chicago’s federal court ahead of the hearing in which prosecutors detailed events leading up to Guzmán López’s dramatic arrest with another longtime Sinaloa leader on U.S. soil in July 2024.

Wearing an orange jumpsuit and matching shoes, Guzmán López spoke little in court Monday. At the outset of the hearing, U.S. District Judge Sharon Coleman asked him what he did for work.

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USA Gymnastics and Olympic sports watchdog failed to stop coach’s sexual abuse, lawsuits allege

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Two gymnasts who say they were sexually abused at an elite academy in Iowa filed lawsuits Monday against the sport’s oversight bodies, alleging they failed to stop Sean Gardner from preying on girls despite repeated complaints about the coach’s behavior.

The lawsuits allege USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Center for SafeSport were told about “inappropriate and abusive behaviors” in December 2017, including that Gardner was hugging and kissing girls and engaging in other grooming behaviors while coaching at a Mississippi gym.

The organizations failed to properly investigate, revoke Gardner’s coaching credentials, report him to law enforcement or take other actions to protect athletes, the lawsuits allege. They claim the inaction enabled Gardner to get a job at Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute in West Des Moines, Iowa, in 2018, where the gymnasts say they and other preteen and teenage girls were abused despite additional complaints about Gardner.

The institute was founded by prominent coach Liang “Chow” Qiao, who is known for producing Olympic champions and was also named as a defendant in the lawsuits.

The lawsuits, filed in Polk County, Iowa, are the first civil cases brought in an abuse scandal that came to light in a series of reports by The Associated Press after the FBI arrested Gardner in August. They allege USA Gymnastics and SafeSport, the watchdog created by Congress to investigate misconduct in Olympic sports in the aftermath of the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal, missed repeated opportunities to stop Gardner.

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Land and security are the main sticking points as Russia and Ukraine mull Trump’s peace proposal

Diplomats face an uphill battle to reconcile Russian and Ukrainian “red lines” as a renewed U.S.-led push to end the war gathers steam, with Ukrainian officials attending talks in the U.S. over the weekend and Washington officials expected in Moscow early this week.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan became public last month, sparking alarm that it was too favorable to Moscow. It was revised following talks in Geneva between the U.S. and Ukraine a week ago.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the revised plan could be “workable.” Russian President Vladimir Putin called it a possible “basis” for a future peace agreement. Trump said Sunday “there’s a good chance we can make a deal.”

Still, officials on both sides indicated a long road ahead as key sticking points — over whether Kyiv should cede land to Moscow and how to ensure Ukraine’s future security — appear unresolved.

Here is where things stand and what to expect this week:

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Shoppers scoured for deals online on Cyber Monday and delivered strong sales for retailers

NEW YORK (AP) — Shoppers scoured for deals online on Cyber Monday, delivering strong sales for retailers and capping a five-day spending spree that kicked off on Thanksgiving.

Adobe Analytics reported that as of 6:30 p.m. EST on Monday, U.S. consumers had already spent $9.1 billion online for Cyber Monday, up 4.5% from the same day a year ago.

Adobe expects that when the final tally is in, consumers will spend between $13.9 billion and $14.2 billion for the day, making Cyber Monday the biggest online shopping day of the year— and setting records for that day.

Online spending is expected to peak between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. local time, with $16 million to pass through online shopping carts every minute nationwide, Adobe said

Electronics and apparel are leading the charge for Cyber Monday, Adobe reported.

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Michigan up to No. 3 in AP Top 25 men’s basketball poll, Michigan State and Iowa State into top 10

Michigan jumped to No. 3 in the Associated Press Top 25 men’s basketball poll on Monday as rival Michigan State and Iowa State both climbed into the top 10.

No. 1 Purdue and No. 2 Arizona remained atop the rankings. The Boilermakers received 40 first-place votes from a 61-person media panel, Arizona got six and Michigan got 15 after its dominating run through the Players Era Championship.

Duke and UConn held their positions from last week to round out the top five. Louisville remained No. 6, followed by Michigan State, which moved up four spots and No. 8 Houston, which dropped five places after losing to then-No. 17 Tennessee at Players Era.

Michigan made a run to the Sweet 16 in coach Dusty May’s first season a year ago and is looking like a title contender. The Wolverines opened the Las Vegas tournament with a 94-54 win over San Diego State, crushed then-No. 21 Auburn 102-72 and handed Gonzaga coach Mark Few his worst loss in 902 career games with a 101-61 win over the 12th-ranked Zags.

That’s three wins by a combined 110 points and four straight wins by at least 20 points, the last two over ranked teams.