AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EST

The two traffic police officers were approaching a “suspicious individual” when an explosive device detonated, Investigate Committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement. The two officers, as well as another person standing nearby, died from their injuries.

Investigators and forensic experts are working at the scene, Petrenko said.

The incident took place in the same area of the Russian capital where Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov was killed by a car bomb on Monday morning.

Sarvarov, the head of the Operational Training Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, died when an explosive device detonated under his vehicle in southern Moscow.

Resilient US consumers drive strongest economic expansion in 2 years

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy grew at a surprisingly strong 4.3% annual rate in the third quarter, the most rapid expansion in two years, driven by consumers who continue to spend in the face of ongoing inflation.

U.S. gross domestic product from July through September — the economy’s total output of goods and services — rose from its 3.8% growth rate in the April-June quarter, the Commerce Department said Tuesday in a report delayed by the government shutdown. Economists surveyed by the data firm FactSet forecast growth of just 3% in the period.

As has been the case for most of this year, the consumer is providing the fuel that is powering the U.S. economy. Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70% of U.S. economic activity, rose to a 3.5% annual pace last quarter. That's up from 2.5% in the April-June period.

A number of economists, however, believe the growth spurt may be short-lived with the extended government shutdown dragging on the economy in the fourth quarter, as well as a growing number of Americans fatigued by stubbornly high inflation.

A survey published by the Conference Board Tuesday showed that consumer confidence slumped close to levels not seen since the U.S. rolled out broad tariffs on its trading partners in April.

Powerball’s $1.7B jackpot could make Christmas Eve unforgettable for a lucky winner

A Christmas Eve Powerball drawing could add new meaning to holiday cheer as millions of players hope to cash in on the $1.7 billion prize, which comes after months without a jackpot winner.

The United States' 4th-largest jackpot on record comes after 46 consecutive draws without someone claiming to have all six numbers. The last contest with a jackpot winner was on Sept. 6. The game’s long odds have people decking the halls and doling out $2 — and sometimes more — for tickets ahead of Wednesday night's live drawing.

It's a sign the game is operating as intended. Lottery officials made the odds tougher in 2015 as a mechanism for snowballing jackpots, all the while making it easier to win smaller prizes.

The Christmas holiday is not expected to impact the drawing process should there be a winning ticket, a Powerball spokesperson said.

Here is what to know about Wednesday’s drawing:

Voluminous new Epstein document release includes multiple Trump mentions, but little revelatory news

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department has released tens of thousands more documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, a tranche that included multiple mentions of President Donald Trump but added little new revelatory information to the long-anticipated public file on the late financier and convicted sex offender.

The release is the most voluminous so far and comes after a massive public campaign for transparency into the U.S. government’s Epstein investigations.

Many of the mentions of Trump in the file came from news clippings, though it includes an email from a prosecutor pointing out the flights that Trump took on Epstein’s private jet during the 1990s.

The two men were friends for years before a falling out. Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. The Justice Department issued a statement Tuesday that some documents contain “untrue and sensationalist claims” about Trump made shortly before the 2020 election — and said one document, purported to be a letter from Epstein to Larry Nassar, a sports doctor convicted of sexually abusing Olympic athletes, had been deemed fake.

Here are some takeaways:

Pro-Russian hackers claim cyberattack on French postal service

PARIS (AP) — A pro-Russian hacking group claimed responsibility for a major cyberattack that halted package deliveries by France’s national postal service just days before Christmas, prosecutors said Wednesday.

After the claim by the cybercrime group known as Noname057, French intelligence agency DGSI took over the investigation into the hacking attack, the Paris prosecutor’s office said in a statement to The Associated Press.

The group has been accused of other cyberattacks in Europe, including around a NATO summit in the Netherlands and French government sites. It was the target of a big European police operation earlier this year.

Central computer systems at French national postal service La Poste were knocked offline Monday in a distributed denial of service, or DDoS, cyberattack that still wasn’t fully resolved by Wednesday morning, the company said.

Postal workers couldn’t track package deliveries, and online payments at the company’s banking arm were also disrupted. It was a major blow to La Poste, which delivered 2.6 billion packages last year and employs more than 200,000 people, during the busiest season of the year.

US and Ukraine reach consensus on key issues aimed at ending the war but territorial disputes remain

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The United States and Ukraine have reached a consensus on several critical issues aimed at bringing an end to the nearly four-year conflict, but sensitive issues around territorial control in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, along with the management of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, remain unresolved, Ukraine’s president said.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke as the U.S. showed the 20-point plan, hammered out after marathon talks in Florida in recent days, to Russian negotiators. A response is expected from Moscow on Wednesday, Zelenskyy said.

The Ukrainian president briefed journalists on each point of the plan on Tuesday. His comments were embargoed until Wednesday morning. The draft proposal, which reflects Ukraine’s wishes, intertwines political and commercial interests to safeguard security while boosting economic potential.

At the heart of the negotiations lies the contentious territorial dispute concerning the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, known as the Donbas. This is “the most difficult point,” Zelenskyy said. He said these matters will be discussed at the leaders level.

Russia continues to assert maximalist demands, insisting that Ukraine relinquish the remaining territory in Donbas that it has not captured — an ultimatum that Ukraine has rejected. Russia has captured most of Luhansk and about 70% of Donetsk.

Medicaid paid more than $207 million for dead people. A new law could help fix that

WASHINGTON (AP) — Medicaid programs made more than $200 million in improper payments to health care providers between 2021 and 2022 for people who had already died, according to a new report from the independent watchdog for the Department of Health and Human Services.

But the department's Office of Inspector General said it expects a new provision in Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill requiring states to audit their Medicaid beneficiary lists may help reduce these improper payments in the future.

These kinds of improper payments are “not unique to one state, and the issue continues to be persistent,” Aner Sanchez, assistant regional inspector general in the Office of Audit Services told The Associated Press. Sanchez has been researching this issue for a decade.

The watchdog report released Tuesday said more than $207.5 million in managed care payments were made on behalf of deceased enrollees between July 2021 to July 2022. The office recommends that the federal government share more information with state governments to recover the incorrect payments — including a Social Security database known as the Full Death Master File, which contains more than 142 million records going back to 1899.

Sharing the Full Death Master File data has been tightly restricted due to privacy laws which protect against identity theft and fraud.

California drivers warned to reconsider Christmas travel plans ahead of storms

California officials and weather forecasters urged holiday travelers to avoid the roads on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day ahead of a series of powerful winter storms that threatened to slam the state with relentless rains, heavy winds and mountain snow through Friday.

Millions of people are expected to travel across the state. They will likely meet hazardous, if not impossible, traveling conditions as several atmospheric rivers were forecast to make their way through the state, the National Weather Service warned.

“If you’re planning to be on the roads for the Christmas holidays, please reconsider your plans,” said Ariel Cohen, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Los Angeles.

Forecasters said Southern California could see its wettest Christmas in years and warned about flash flooding, mudslides and debris flows in areas burned by last January's wildfires. Los Angeles County officials said Tuesday they were knocking on the doors of some 380 particularly vulnerable households to order them to leave.

Most areas saw scattered showers Tuesday morning, and the system was expected to pick up in the evening and intensify into Christmas Eve. Some regions will see rain and winds taper off Wednesday before another storm moves in.

Search teams probe wreckage after Libyan army chief and 7 others are killed in Turkey plane crash

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Search teams on Wednesday recovered the cockpit voice and flight data recorders from the jet that crashed and killed Libya’s military chief and other senior officers, while efforts to retrieve the victims' remains were still underway, Turkey's interior minister said.

The private jet carrying Gen. Muhammad Ali Ahmad al-Haddad, four other officers and three crew members crashed in Turkey on Tuesday after taking off from the capital, Ankara, killing everyone on board. Libyan officials said the cause of the crash was a technical malfunction on the plane.

The high-level Libyan delegation was on its way back to Tripoli after holding defense talks in Ankara aimed at boosting military cooperation between the two countries.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya told journalists at site of the crash that wreckage was scattered across an area covering three square kilometers (about 1.2 square miles), complicating recovery efforts. Authorities from the Turkish forensic medicine authority were working to recover and identify the remains, he said.

A 22-person delegation — including five family members — arrived from Libya early on Wednesday to assist in the investigation, he said.

Explosion at a Pennsylvania nursing home kills at least 2, governor says

BRISTOL, Pa. (AP) — A thunderous explosion Tuesday at a nursing home just outside Philadelphia killed at least two people, collapsed part of the building, sent fire shooting out and left people trapped inside, authorities said.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said in a later news conference that emergency responders braved the flames, a heavy odor of gas and a second explosion to evacuate residents and employees.

Fire officials said they were in “rescue mode” five hours later, with responders still digging by hand and using search dogs, earth-moving equipment and sonar to locate potential victims.

The explosion happened at Bristol Health & Rehab Center in Bristol Township, just as a utility crew had been on site looking for a gas leak.

Shapiro said a finding that a gas leak caused the explosion was preliminary.