On this version of Hot off the Wire:
NEW YORK (AP) — A winter weather system moving through the U.S. is expected to wallop the East Coast this weekend with a mix of snow and freezing rain. But forecasters say it’s too soon to say which areas will get snow and which will get rain and how much. The Pacific system is moving through Western and Southern states before moving up the East Coast this weekend. Major U.S. cities accustomed to white winters didn’t receive much snow last year due to a lack of cold air. The National Weather Service in New York City said this week that 2023 would go down as the city’s “least snowiness” year, with just 2.3 inches measured in Central Park.
DENVER (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a Colorado ruling that bars him from the state’s ballot over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. The Republican presidential candidate on Wednesday appealed the Colorado Supreme Court’s finding that an insurrection clause in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment renders him ineligible. The Colorado court’s December ruling was the first time in history a court disqualified someone from running for the White House for having “engaged in insurrection.” Trump’s appeal comes a day after his legal team asked the Maine Superior Court to review a ruling by Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows that Trump cannot be on that state’s ballot.
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BAGHDAD (AP) — Officials say an airstrike on the logistical support headquarters of an Iran-backed militia in central Baghdad has killed a high-ranking militia commander. Thursday’s strike comes amid mounting regional tensions fueled by Israel-Hamas war and fears that it could spill over into surrounding countries. The Popular Mobilization Force – a coalition of militias that is nominally under the control of the Iraqi military – announced in a statement that its deputy head of operations in Baghdad, Mushtaq Taleb al-Saidi, or “Abu Taqwa,” had been killed “as a result of brutal American aggression.”
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A pilot accused of threatening to shoot a commercial airline captain who wanted to divert a flight to get medical attention for a passenger is set to make his first federal court appearance. Former Delta Air Lines pilot Jonathan J. Dunn was indicted Oct. 18. He is scheduled to appear in court on Thursday in Salt Lake City. Dunn was charged with interfering with a flight crew and could face up to 20 years in prison. The captain had proposed diverting to Colorado if a passenger’s condition worsened. Prosecutors say Dunn objected and threatened multiple times to shoot the captain. Delta says Dunn no longer works for the airline.
DETROIT (AP) — American consumers bought 15.6 million new vehicles last year. The numbers indicate car buyers were undeterred by high prices, rising interest rates, autoworker strikes and a computer-chip shortage that slowed assembly lines. The tally is 12% more than in 2022, and the biggest increase in more than a decade. Yet sales still haven’t returned to the 17 million rate in the years before the pandemic, and there are signs of a cooling market as supplies grow on dealer lots and prices start to fall. Average auto sales prices peaked in December of 2022 just over $47,300. Data from J.D. Power show that average prices in mid-December were down 2.7% from the peak to around $46,000. Analysts expect more discounts through the year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. has coordinated with Israel, Egypt and others in rescuing the mother of a U.S. serviceman and her American brother-in-law who were pinned down during heavy fighting in Gaza City. News of the rescue, in the only known operation of its kind, came Wednesday from a U.S. official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to confirm the rescue, which had been kept quiet for security reasons. The official said Zahra Sckak made it out of Gaza on New Year’s Eve, along with her brother-in-law. Her husband had been shot earlier as the family fled from a building hit by an airstrike. He died days later. One of her three American sons is an Army infantryman.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve’s policymakers concluded last month that inflationary pressures were easing and that the job market was cooling. In response, the officials chose to leave their key interest rate unchanged for the third straight time and signaled that they expected to cut rates three times in 2024. According to the minutes of their Dec. 12-13 meeting, Fed officials indicated in their own interest-rate forecasts that a lower benchmark rate “would be appropriate by the end of 2024″ given the steady progress toward taming inflation. But they ”stressed the importance″ of remaining vigilant and keeping rates high “until inflation was clearly moving down sustainably″ toward their 2% target.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Justice Department is suing Texas over a new law that would allow police in the state to arrest migrants who enter the U.S. illegally. The lawsuit filed Wednesday accuses Texas of violating the U.S. government’s authority over immigration enforcement. Under the Texas law, migrants could either agree to a Texas judge’s order to leave the U.S. or be prosecuted on misdemeanor charges of illegal entry. Migrants who don’t leave could face arrest again under more serious felony charges. The lawsuit asks a court in Austin to declare the Texas law unconstitutional, alleging that it would frustrate immigration operations and interfere with the federal government’s right to regulate foreign commerce. The law is set to take effect in March.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is starting the campaign year by evoking the Revolutionary War to mark the third anniversary of the deadly U.S. Capitol insurrection and visiting the South Carolina church where a white gunman massacred Black parishioners. The Democratic president is seeking to present in the starkest possible terms an election he argues could determine the fate of American democracy. Biden is kicking off 2024 in Pennsylvania by delving into some of the country’s darkest moments rather than an upbeat affirmation of his record. Former President Donald Trump is the heavy favorite to win the Republican nomination. Trump’s team argues Biden is threatening democracy because of the indictments brought against the former president.
EAGLE PASS, Texas (AP) — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has led about 60 fellow Republicans in Congress on a visit to the Mexican border. And Johnson is expressing serious doubts about whether he’d support a bipartisan compromise. He’s also suggesting he could use a looming government funding deadline as further leverage. Their trip Wednesday to Eagle Pass, Texas, comes as they are demanding hard-line immigration policies in exchange for backing President Joe Biden’s emergency wartime funding request for Ukraine. Senate negotiators in Washington are plugging away in hopes of a bipartisan deal. Johnson says he’s holding firmly to the policies of a bill passed by House Republicans in May without a single Democratic vote. Biden has threatened a veto
WASHINGTON (AP) — America’s employers posted 8.8 million job openings in November, down slightly from October and the fewest since March 2021. But demand for workers remains strong by historical standards. The number of job vacancies dipped from 8.9 million in October. And the number of people quitting their jobs — a sign of confidence in the labor market — fell to its lowest level since February 2021. The number of quits is now roughly where it stood before the pandemic erupted. Job openings dropped by 128,000 in transportation, warehousing and utilities and by 78,000 at hotels and restaurants. The federal government reduced job openings by 58,000. By contrast, openings in construction rose by 43,000 and in retail by 42,000.
Officials say a New Jersey imam was shot multiple times and killed outside his mosque Wednesday, and authorities continue to search for the shooter. Essex County Prosecutor Ted Stephens said Imam Hassan Sharif was in his car when he was shot more than once near the Masjid-Muhammad Mosque in Newark. Attorney General Matt Platkin says authorities are still searching for a shooter, but there’s no evidence indicating the shooting was related to anti-Muslim bias. Platkin says law enforcement has stepped up outreach to houses of worship, acknowledging the unfolding tensions amid the Israel-Hamas fighting in Gaza. Newark’s public safety director says Sharif had been a resident imam at the mosque for five years.
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A father and son in Texas have been charged in the killings of an 18-year-old pregnant woman who disappeared before Christmas and her boyfriend. The arrests announced Wednesday night by San Antonio police come more than a week after the bodies of 18-year-old Savanah Nicole Soto and 22-year-old Matthew Guerra were found in the parking lot of an apartment complex. San Antonio police say the couple was fatally shot over an apparent drug deal before their bodies were moved and left in a car. Police charged a 19-year-old with capital murder and his 53-year-old father with abuse of corpse for allegedly helping his son move the couple’s bodies.
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel is suing a police investigator and the town of Greenwich, Connecticut, more than five years after his murder conviction was overturned. Skakel was found guilty in 2002 of the killing of Martha Moxley in their Greenwich neighborhood in 1975 when they were both 15. He served more than 11 years in prison before the state Supreme Court overturned his conviction. Skakel’s lawsuit alleges malicious prosecution, civil rights violations and other wrongdoing. Skakel says the police investigator, Frank Garr, withheld key evidence that favored Skakel. The state attorney general’s office, which is representing Garr, declined to comment. A lawyer for Greenwich did not return a message seeking comment.
Plenty of offense in the NBA, Auston Matthews becomes the NHL’s first 30 goal scorer, nine Niners make the Pro Bowl rosters and two ranked teams play and lose in college basketball. Chiefs’ quarterback Patrick Mahomes will sit the regular-season finale, firefighters put out a large fire at the home of Miami Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill and Scottie Scheffler wins player vote as PGA Tour player of the year over Jon Rahm.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is confident Palestinian militant groups used Gaza’s largest hospital to hold hostages seized during their bloody Oct. 7, 2023, attack and to house command infrastructure. That’s according to an American intelligence assessment declassified Tuesday and shared by a U.S. official. The assessment offers the firmest U.S. support for Israeli claims about the Shifa hospital complex, which was raided by Israeli forces in November in an operation decried by global humanitarian organizations and some members of President Joe Biden’s party. Yet the information released doesn’t fully back some of Israel’s most significant allegations the hospital served as the central node for activities by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
JERUSALEM (AP) — The chief of Israel’s Mossad has vowed the intelligence agency will hunt down every Hamas member involved in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, no matter where they are. David Barnea spoke a day after the deputy head of the Palestinian militant group was killed in a suspected Israeli strike in Beirut. Israel has refused to comment on reports it carried out the killing, but Barnea’s comments appeared to be the strongest indication yet it was behind the blast. Israel was on high alert Wednesday for an escalation with Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah militia after the strike in the Lebanese capital killed Saleh Arouri, the most senior Hamas member slain since the war in Gaza erupted nearly three months ago.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Queen Margrethe rode through Denmark’s capital in a gilded, horse-drawn coach as she concluded her last New Year celebrations before her Jan. 14 abdication after 52 years on the throne. Thousands braved the biting cold Thursday to cheer the popular queen in what is to be her last public appearance as monarch. The 83-year-old Margrethe, who is Europe’s longest reigning monarch, will hand over the throne to her oldest son, Crown Prince Frederik in the first such resignation in Europe’s oldest ruling monarchy in nearly 900 years.
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war in the biggest single release of captives since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Ukrainian authorities say that 230 Ukrainian prisoners of war returned home in the first exchange in almost five months. Russia’s Defense Ministry says that 248 Russian servicemen have been freed under the deal sponsored by the United Arab Emirates. The Foreign Ministry in the UAE has attributed the successful swap to the country’s friendly ties to both Russia and Ukraine. The UAE has maintained close economic ties with Moscow despite Western sanctions and pressure on Russia after it launched its invasion in 2022.
—The Associated Press
About this program
Host Terry Lipshetz is managing editor of the national newsroom for Lee Enterprises. Besides producing the daily Hot off the Wire news podcast, Terry conducts periodic interviews for this Behind the Headlines program, co-hosts the Streamed & Screened movies and television program and is the former producer of Across the Sky, a podcast dedicated to weather and climate.
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