AP News Summary at 12:19 am EST

Massive winter storm brings rolling blackouts, power outages

MISSION, Kan. (AP) — Winter weather is blanketing the US as a massive storm sent temperatures crashing and created whiteout conditions. More than 200 million people — about 60% of the US population — were under some form of winter weather advisory or warning on Friday. The National Weather Service says its warning map “depicts one of the greatest extents of winter weather warnings and advisories ever.” Nearly 5,000 flights within, into or out of the US were canceled Friday. At one point, power outages left about 1.4 million homes and businesses in the dark.

Jan 6 report blames Trump, aims to prevent return to power

WASHINGTON (AP) — A massive final report released by the House Jan. 6 committee late Thursday places the blame for the 2021 Capitol insurrection on one person: Former President Donald Trump. The dense, 814-page document details the findings of the panel’s 18-month investigation, drawing on more than 1,000 witness interviews and more than a million pages of source material. The committee found a “multi-part conspiracy” orchestrated by Trump and his closest allies, all with the aim of overturning his 2020 election defeat. By laying out the extraordinary details the committee is trying to prevent anything similar from ever happening again.

Packed ICUs, crowded crematoriums: COVID roils Chinese towns

BAZHOU, China (AP) — As China grapples with its first-ever national COVID wave, emergency wards in small cities and towns southwest of Beijing are overwhelmed. Intensive care units are turning away ambulances, relatives of sick people are searching for open beds, and patients are slumped on benches in hospital corridors and lying on floors for a lack of beds. Even as the young go back to work and lines at fever clinics shrink, many of Hebei’s elderly are falling into critical condition. As they overrun ICUs and funeral homes, it could be a harbinger of what’s to come for the rest of China.

LA jury convicts Tory Lanez of shooting Megan Thee Stallion

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jurors in Los Angeles have found rapper Tory Lanez guilty of three felonies in the 2020 shooting of hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion. The verdict was announced in Los Angeles Superior Court Friday after the jury deliberated for a day. Megan was wounded with bullet fragments in her feet after getting out of an SUV she was riding in with Lanez in the Hollywood Hills and tested that Lanez shot her. Lanez’ attorneys argued she was shot by another woman. Lanez could get more than 20 years in prison and faces deportation to his native Canada. Lanez’s father leapt up in court and condemned what he called a “wicked” verdict.

After Jan. 6: Congress born of chaos ends in achievement

WASHINGTON (AP) — The 117th Congress opened with the unfathomable Jan. 6, 2021, mob siege of the Capitol. But it’s closing as one of the most consequential legislative sessions in recent memory. Lawmakers are wrapping up the two-year session having found surprisingly common ground. Bills to fund infrastructure, protect same-sex and interracial marriages and stem gun violence all became law. Congress rallied the US to support Ukraine in the war against Russia. Senators confirmed the nation’s first Black woman justice to the Supreme Court. In many ways, the chaos of the Capitol attack forged a new coalition in Congress — lawmakers who want to show America can govern.

Police: 19-year-old killed in shooting at Mall of America

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (AP) — Police say a 19-year-old man was killed during a shooting at the Mall of America that sent frightened customers at the nation’s largest shopping center racing into a lockdown just before the holiday weekend. The Bloomington Police Department said Friday that police and emergency medical crews were on the scene of a shooting around 8:15 pm Police Chief Booker Hodges said the entire incident lasted about 30 seconds. The lockdown lasted for about an hour before the mall tweeted that shoppers were being sent outside. Videos posted on social media showed shoppers hiding in stores. The reported shooting comes as shopping centers and malls across the US see an influx of shoppers just days before Christmas.

Cubans search for holiday food amid deepening crisis

HAVANA (AP) — Scarcity and economic turmoil are nothing new to Cuba, but soaring inflation and deepening shortages have made holiday shopping even more difficult for Cubans this year. In October, the Cuban government reported that inflation had risen 40% over the past year and had a significant impact on the purchasing power for many on the island. Basic goods such as chicken, beef, eggs, milk, flour and toilet paper are difficult and often impossible to find in state-run stores. In an address to lawmakers last week, President Miguel Díaz-Canel acknowledged the government’s shortcomings in handling the country’s complex mix of compounding crises, particularly food shortages.

Georgia special grand jury wraps up probe of Trump, allies

ATLANTA (AP) — A special grand jury investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election in Georgia appears to be wrapping up its work, but many questions remain. The investigation is one of several that could result in criminal charges against the former president as he asks voters to return him to the White House in 2024. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has said she will go where the facts lead. It would be an extraordinary step if she chooses to bring charges against Trump himself.

Judge kept FTX execs’ plea deals secret to get founder to US

NEW YORK (AP) — A judge kept secret that two of Sam Bankman-Fried’s executive associates were cooperating with investigators so the cryptocurrency entrepreneur wouldn’t get spooked and fight extradition from the Bahamas to the United States. Federal Judge Ronnie Abrams’ decision in Manhattan was revealed Friday with the unsealing of transcripts of guilty pleas by Bankman-Fried’s top fellow executives in the collapsed cryptocurrency empire. The 30-year-old Bankman-Fried was brought to New York Wednesday. A Manhattan judge freed him on $250 million bail to live with his parents in California until trial. Later Friday, Abrams recalled herself from the case, saying her husband’s law firm advised FTX in 2021.

Facebook parent Meta will pay $725M to settle user data case

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook’s corporate parent has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the world’s largest social media platform allowed millions of its users’ personal information to be fed to Cambridge Analytica. That’s a firm that supported Donald Trump’s victorious presidential campaign in 2016. Terms of the settlement reached by Meta Platforms, the holding company for Facebook and Instagram, were disclosed in court documents filed late Thursday. It will still need to be approved by a judge in a San Francisco federal court hearing set for March.