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

The development risked further imperiling a politically charged prosecution already subject to multiple challenges and demands for its dismissal. It came during a hearing in which Comey's lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff to throw out the case on grounds that the government was being vindictive and as a separate challenge to Lindsey Halligan, the hastily appointed and inexperienced prosecutor who secured the indictment, is pending.

The Justice Department's acknowledgment under questioning from a judge that the full grand jury did not review a copy of the final indictment is the latest indication of its seemingly disjointed pursuit of a criminal case against one of President Donald Trump's political enemies. Comey was fired by Trump in May 2017 while overseeing an FBI investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign. The two have been publicly at odds ever since, with Trump deriding Comey as “a weak and untruthful slime ball” and calling for his prosecution.

Concerns about the legal process came into focus earlier in the week when a different judge in the case raised questions about what he said were “profound investigative missteps,” including misstatements of law to the grand jury. The Justice Department denies that the process was tainted by irregularities.

Halligan initially asked the grand jury to return a three-count indictment against Comey. But after the grand jurors rejected one of the proposed counts, the Justice Department subsequently secured a second two-count indictment that accused Comey of making a false statement and obstructing Congress. Comey has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.

What's next now that Trump has signed bill releasing the Epstein files

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has signed a bill to compel the Justice Department to make public its case files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a potentially far-reaching development in a yearslong push by survivors of Epstein's abuse for a public reckoning.

Both the House and Senate passed the bill this week with overwhelming margins after Trump reversed course on his monthslong opposition to the bill and indicated he would sign it. Now that the bill has been signed by the president, there's a 30-day countdown for the Justice Department to produce what's commonly known as the Epstein files.

“This bill is a command for the president to be fully transparent, to come fully clean, and to provide full honesty to the American people,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Wednesday.

Schumer added that Democrats were ready to push back if they perceive that the president is doing anything but adhering to “full transparency.”

In a social media post Wednesday as he announced he had signed the bill, Trump wrote, “Democrats have used the ‘Epstein’ issue, which affects them far more than the Republican Party, in order to try and distract from our AMAZING Victories.”

Larry Summers takes leave from teaching at Harvard after release of Epstein emails

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers abruptly went on leave Wednesday from teaching at Harvard University, where he once served as president, over recently released emails showing he maintained a friendly relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, Summers' spokesperson said.

Summers had canceled his public commitments amid the fallout of the emails being made public and earlier Wednesday severed ties with OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. Harvard had reopened an investigation into connections between him and Epstein, but Summers had said he would continue teaching economics classes at the school.

That changed Wednesday evening with the news that he will step away from teaching classes as well as his position as director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government with the Harvard Kennedy School.

“Mr. Summers has decided it’s in the best interest of the Center for him to go on leave from his role as Director as Harvard undertakes its review," Summers spokesperson Steven Goldberg said, adding that his co-teachers would finish the classes.

Summers has not been scheduled to teach next semester, according to Goldberg.

Arrests now top 250 in immigration crackdown across North Carolina

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Federal agents have now arrested more than 250 people during a North Carolina immigration crackdown centered around Charlotte, the state’s largest city, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday.

The operation that began over the weekend is the latest phase of Republican President Donald Trump's aggressive mass deportation efforts that have sent the military and immigration agents into Democratic-run cities — from Chicago to Los Angeles.

Immigration officials have blanketed the country since January, pushing detention counts to all-time highs above 60,000. Big cities and small towns across the country are targeted daily amid higher-profile pushes in places such as Portland, Oregon, where more than 560 immigration arrests were made in October. Smaller bursts of enforcement have popped up elsewhere.

The push to carry out arrests in North Carolina expanded to areas around the state capital of Raleigh on Tuesday, spreading fear in at least one immigrant-heavy suburb.

Late Wednesday, Raleigh Mayor Janet Cowell said via the social platform X that “border patrol enforcement appears to have been suspended” in the city. DHS did not announce a change to its presence and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Labor Department won't release full October jobs report, a casualty of the 43-day federal shutdown

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Labor Department said Wednesday that it will not be releasing a full jobs report for October because the 43-day federal government shutdown meant it couldn't calculate the unemployment rate and some other key numbers.

Instead, it will release some of the October jobs data — most importantly the number of jobs that employers created last month — along with the full November jobs report, now due a couple of weeks late on Dec. 16.

The department's "employment situation'' report usually comes out the first Friday of the month. But the government shutdown disrupted data collection and delayed the release of the reports. For example, the September jobs report, now coming out Thursday, was originally due Oct. 3.

The monthly jobs report consists of two parts: a survey of households that is used to determine the unemployment rate, among other things; and the "establishment'' survey of companies, nonprofits and government agencies that is used to track job creation, wages and other measurements of labor market health.

The Labor Department said Wednesday that the household survey for October could not be conducted because of the shutdown and could not be done retroactively. But it was able to collect the hiring numbers from employers, and those will come out with the full November report.

As infant botulism cases climb to 31, recalled ByHeart baby formula is still on some store shelves

As cases of potentially deadly botulism in babies who drank ByHeart infant formula continue to grow, state officials say they are still finding the recalled product on some store shelves.

Meanwhile the company reported late Wednesday that laboratory tests confirmed that some samples of formula were contaminated with the type of bacteria that has sickened more than 30 babies in the outbreak.

Tests by an independent food safety laboratory found Clostridium botulinum, a bacterium that produces toxins that can lead to potentially life threatening illness in babies younger than 1, the company said on its website. ByHeart officials said they notified the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of the findings but did not specify how many samples were tested or how many were positive.

“We are working to investigate the facts, conduct ongoing testing to identify the source, and ensure this does not happen to families again,” ByHeart said on its website.

The FDA did not immediately respond to questions about the findings.

Israel's military carries out strikes in Lebanon and Gaza, killing dozens of people

SIDON, Lebanon (AP) — The Israeli military carried out barrages of airstrikes in southern Lebanon Wednesday on what it said were Hezbollah sites, including weapons storage facilities, after a drone strike earlier in the day killed one person and wounded several others, including students on a bus.

The new wave of strikes came a day after an airstrike killed 13 people in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, the deadliest of Israeli attacks on Lebanon since a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war a year ago.

Meanwhile, after Israel reported its soldiers were fired on in southern Gaza, health officials in the territory said Israeli strikes killed at least 25 Palestinians in one of the deadliest days in Gaza since the Oct. 10 ceasefire agreement took effect. Separately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to a buffer zone in Syrian territory that Israel seized last year.

Israel's military warned Wednesday it would strike targets in several villages in southern Lebanon, describing them as Hezbollah infrastructure, and called on people to move away from the locations. More than an hour later, strikes began in the villages of Shehour and Deir Kifa.

Israel's military said Hezbollah was working to reestablish itself and rebuild its capacity in southern Lebanon, without providing evidence. It said the weapons' facilities targeted were embedded among civilians and violated understandings between Israel and Lebanon. Israel agreed to a ceasefire and withdraw from southern Lebanon last year and Lebanon agreed to quell Hezbollah activity in the area.

NASA unveils close-up pictures of the comet popping by from another star

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA unveiled close-up pictures on Wednesday of the interstellar comet that’s making a quick one-and-done tour of the solar system.

Discovered over the summer, the comet known as 3I/Atlas is only the third confirmed object to visit our corner of the cosmos from another star. It zipped harmlessly past Mars last month.

Three NASA spacecraft on and near the red planet zoomed in on the comet as it passed just 18 million miles (29 million kilometers) away, revealing a fuzzy white blob. The European Space Agency's two satellites around Mars also made observations.

Other NASA spacecraft will remain on the lookout in the weeks ahead, including the Webb Space Telescope. At the same time, astronomers are aiming their ground telescopes at the approaching comet, which is about 190 million miles (307 million kilometers) from Earth. The Virtual Telescope Project's Gianluca Masi zoomed in Wednesday from Italy.

The comet is visible from Earth in the predawn sky by using binoculars or a telescope.

Brazil's Lula joins negotiators at UN climate talks, but no deal yet on major issues

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — The arrival of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at U.N. climate talks on Wednesday was hoped to spur nations to meet a self-imposed early deadline for progress on tough issues. For now, it hasn't worked.

In a news conference late Wednesday, Lula skipped over any update on the status of talks. Instead, he renewed his earlier calls for action, making the case to delegates that the world must reduce its use of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal.

"We haven’t found another place to live,” Lula, flanked by Brazilian negotiators and his wife, said.

Lula and several other leaders are pushing to create a road map toward transition to renewable energies. But in his remarks Wednesday, he was careful to say there's no intention to “impose anything on anybody,” that countries could transition at their own pace and count on financial help to do so.

Lula's return to the talks, along with the presence of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, had stirred some optimism that COP30, as the talks are known, would move forward more quickly ahead of Friday's scheduled wrap up. Host Brazil had pushed for progress on some key issues Wednesday, but it's routine for negotiators at these talks to miss deadlines.

Lainey Wilson wins entertainer of the year at 2025 CMA Awards

NEW YORK (AP) — The top prize of entertainer of the year at the 2025 Country Music Association Awards went to none other than Lainey Wilson, who hosted, performed and barely left the stage Wednesday night.

“It takes a village,” she said in her acceptance speech. “We about to party.” She beat out Luke Combs, Cody Johnson, Chris Stapleton and Morgan Wallen, last year’s winner in the category.

Earlier in the night, she won album of the year for “Whirlwind” — marking her second career win in the category — and earned the trophy for female vocalist of the year. It was her fourth time winning that title.

She celebrated other women in country music — and had a few choice words for those who don’t.

“For the folks that are sitting at home, in your mama’s basement, eating your Cheetos, trying to pit women against each other,” she concluded her speech. “Y’all need to find something better to do.”