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

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt offered the justification for the Sept. 2 strike after lawmakers from both parties on Sunday announced support for congressional reviews of U.S. military strikes against vessels suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea and 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 in that September incident.

Leavitt in her comments to reporters did not dispute a Washington Post report that there were survivors after the initial strike in the incident. Her explanation came after President Donald Trump a day earlier said that 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, referring to U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Frank Bradley, who at the time was the commander of Joint Special Operations Command. “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.”

The lawmakers said they did not know whether last week’s Post report was true, and some Republicans were skeptical. Still, they said the reports of attacking survivors of an initial missile strike posed serious legal concerns and merited further scrutiny.

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.

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:

Why Cyber Monday could break spending records despite economic uncertainty

NEW YORK (AP) — After four days of deal-fueled spending sprees that kicked off on Thanksgiving, shoppers shifted their focus on Cyber Monday, which is again expected to be the biggest sales day of the year for online retailers.

Walmart was promoting up to 50% off on fashion on its website among some of the deals, while online juggernaut Amazon was hoping to ply customers with discounts of up to 55%.

It's no secret that buying things online is now a staple of many people's everyday routines. And year after year, those purchases mount during the gift-giving holiday rush. Experts expect consumers to drive record Cyber Monday spending this year, despite wider economic uncertainty.

Adobe Analytics estimates that U.S. shoppers will spend $14.2 billion online Monday, or 6.3% more than in 2024. Spending is expected to peak between the hours of 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. local time, when Adobe expects $16 million to pass through online shopping carts every minute nationwide.

U.S. consumers already spent $11.8 billion online for Black Friday, $6.4 billion on Thanksgiving Day and another $11.8 billion over the weekend — exceeding Adobe's forecasts. Purchases made across Cyber Week — the five major shopping days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday — provides a strong indication of how much shoppers are willing to spend for the holidays.

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

Nearly 44% of the 16,000 truck driving schools in the U.S. 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 government requirements.

The Transportation Department said Monday that it plans to revoke the accreditation 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 accreditation is in jeopardy. Another 4,500 schools are being warned they may face similar action.

Schools that lose accreditation will no longer be able to issue the certificates showing a driver completed training that are required to get a license, so students are likely to abandon those schools.

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. Duffy has threatened to pull federal funding from California and Pennsylvania over the issue, and he proposed significant new restrictions on which immigrants can get a commercial driver's license but a court put those new rules on hold.

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.

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.

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,” Joaquin Guzman Lopez and brother Ovidio Guzman Lopez 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.

Joaquin Guzman Lopez, 39, pleaded guilty to two counts of drug trafficking and continuing criminal enterprise after acknowledging 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 Guzman Lopez's dramatic arrest with another longtime Sinaloa leader on U.S. soil in July 2024.

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

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.

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.