Author: The Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — For three years, Juan Guaidó led the Venezuelan opposition’s efforts to bring about new elections and remove socialist President Nicolás Maduro.

But on Friday, dozens of politicians who once backed Guaidó voted in favor of removing the 39-year-old engineer and replacing his U.S.-supported “interim government” with a committee to oversee presidential primaries next year and protect the nation’s assets abroad.

The vote reflects a changing balance of power within the opposition, which is trying to find new ways to connect with voters ahead of the nation’s 2024 presidential election.

Three of Venezuela’s four main opposition parties backed the proposal to remove Guaidó, who was supported only by his own Popular Will party.

After the vote, Guaidó said the move would create a “power vacuum” that could encourage more foreign nations to recognize the Maduro administration.

“If there is no interim government, who will they recognize in its place,” he said. “Today we have jumped into the abyss. And given up on an important tool in our struggle.”

Guaido’s opponents said new ways of connecting with voters should be found. The interim government has no sway over local institutions and is unable to provide basic services, with some Venezuelans mocking it as a “fake” government.

“It’s with a heavy heart that I make this vote,” said Luis Silva, a member of the Democratic Action party who participated in the online session for the vote. “We haven’t been able to come up with a unanimous decision, but we need to look for new strategies.”

Daniel Varnagy, a political science professor at Simon Bolivar University in Caracas, said the opposition had generated high expectations under Guaidó’s leadership but then failed to keep its promises to people yearning for a change in Venezuela’s governance.

“He promised to cease (Maduro’s) usurpation, lead a transition and organize fair elections, and none of that happened,” Varnagy said.

Guaidó rose to leadership of the opposition in 2019 when he was president of the then opposition-controlled legislature, which had begun its five-year term in 2015 after what many observers considered Venezuela’s last fair elections. It was the last instution not controlled by Maduro’s socialists.

The National Assembly argued Maduro won his second presidential term illegally in 2018 because his main rivals were banned from running. So the opposition legislators created an “interim government,” headed by Guaidó, that was meant to last until Maduro stepped down and free elections could be held.

Guaidó organized protests in Venezuela, snuck out of the country for an international tour and was recognized as the nation’s legitimate leader by the United States and dozens of European and Latin American governments that rejected Maduro’s rule.

His interim administration was also given control of Venezuelan government assets abroad that had been frozen, including Citgo, the Houston-based oil refiner.

But the Guaidó-led opposition failed to win over the Venezuelan military or the nation’s courts to its side, while Maduro’s administration faced down street demonstrations and tightened its grip even more on the South American nation.

The failure to drive out Maduro frustrated Venezuelans, who are struggling with high inflation, food shortages and the lowest wages in South America — hardships that prodded millions of people to migrate in recent years.

In a poll taken by Venezuela’s Andres Bello University in November, only 6% of Venezuelans said they would vote for Guaidó if he participated in presidential primaries next year while a few other opposition leaders got bigger numbers.

Guaidó’s influence has also diminished since late 2020, when the National Assembly that elected him as interim president was replaced by new legislators chosen in elections boycotted by opposition parties.

Many members of the 2015 National Assembly are now in exile, but they continue to claim to be Venezuela’s legitimate legislative branch and hold online meetings in which they make decisions on issues involving the “interim government.”

On Friday, 72 of the 109 former legislators who participated in the online session voted in favor of a measure calling for replacing Guaidó’s interim administration with a committee made up of several opposition leaders.

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Rueda reported from Bogota, Colombia.

The first Mega Millions drawing of the new year will be a big one after no one won an estimated $685 million jackpot.

No ticket purchased for the lottery matched all six numbers drawn Friday night, Mega Millions said in a statement early Saturday. The top prize increased to $785 million ahead of the next drawing Tuesday night.

The numbers selected Friday were: 1, 3, 6, 44, 51 and gold Mega Ball 7.

The jackpot has grown so large thanks to long odds of one in 302.6 million that have resulted in 22 straight drawings without a big winner.

The estimated $785 million prize is for a winner who chooses to be paid through an annuity, with annual checks over 29 years. Nearly all winners opt for cash, which for the next drawing would be an estimated $395 million.

The jackpot is the largest since a $2.04 billion Powerball prize was won Nov. 8 in California. A winner hasn’t been announced for that record-setting payout.

“On only three previous occasions has the Mega Millions jackpot gone beyond $700 million, and all three times those rolls continued on past $1 billion,” Mega Millions said.

Mega Millions is played in 45 states as well as Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A provision in the recently signed defense spending bill mandates that the United States work to ease Ukraine’s debt burden at the International Monetary Fund, which could create tensions at the world’s lender-of-last-resort over one of its biggest borrowers.

The National Defense Authorization Act requires American representatives to each global development bank, including the IMF, where the U.S. is the largest stakeholder, to use “ the voice, vote, and influence ” of the U.S. in seeking to assemble a voting bloc of countries that would change each institution’s debt service relief policy regarding Ukraine.

Among other things, the U.S. is tasked with forcing the IMF to reexamine and potentially end its surcharge policy on Ukrainian loans. Surcharges are added fees on loans imposed on countries that are heavily indebted to the IMF.

The U.S. interest in changing the policy comes as it has distributed tens of billions for Ukrainian military and humanitarian aid since the Russian invasion began in February. Most recently, Ukraine will receive $44.9 billion in aid from the U.S. as part of a $1.7 trillion government-wide spending bill.

Inevitably, some U.S. grant money is spent servicing IMF loans.

“I can see why the Senate would want to relax the surcharge for Ukraine,” Peter Garber, an economist who most recently worked at the global markets research division of Deutsche Bank, wrote in an email. “As the principal bankroller of economic aid for Ukraine, the US would not want to deliver funds only to have them go right to the coffers of the IMF.”

Economists Joseph Stiglitz at Columbia University and Kevin P. Gallagher at Boston University wrote in February about surcharges, saying that “forcing excessive repayments lowers the productive potential of the borrowing country, but also harms creditors” and requires borrowers “to pay more at exactly the moment when they are most squeezed from market access in any other form.”

Other economists say the fees provide an incentive for members with large outstanding balances to repay their loans promptly.

Even with the aid, the beleaguered Ukrainian economy is expected to shrink by 35 percent, according to the World Bank, and the country will owe roughly $360 million in surcharge fees alone to the IMF by 2023.

The effort to wrangle the IMF’s 24 directors, who are elected by member countries or by groups of countries, to end the surcharges may not be so easy.

Just before Christmas, the directors decided to maintain the surcharge policy. They said in a Dec. 20 statement that most directors “were open to exploring possible options for providing temporary surcharge relief,” but others “noted that the average cost of borrowing from the Fund remains significantly below market rates.”

Prominent economists studying the war’s impacts pointed out in a December report — “Rebuilding Ukraine: Principles and Policies,” by the Paris- and London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research — that “some significant voting members may have interests that are not aligned with having Ukraine succeed economically.”

Securing consistent financing to Ukraine could become harder as the war rages on. There are growing fears of a global recession and concerns that European allies are struggling to deliver on their financing promises. In addition, the GOP is set this coming week to take control of the House, with the top Republican, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, saying his party will not write a “blank check” for Ukraine.

Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, said the surcharge issue affects not just Ukraine, but also other countries facing debt crises. Among them: Pakistan, hit by flooding and humanitarian crises, as well as Argentina, Ecuador, and Egypt, who together are on the hook for billions in surcharges.

“There is no logic to the IMF imposing surcharges on countries already in crisis,” Weisbrot said, “which inevitably happens because the surcharges are structured to hit countries already facing financial problems.”

He said the issue will become more urgent as Ukraine’s debt grows and the war drags on.

Jeffrey Sachs, an economist and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, said “these surcharges should certainly be eliminated,” adding: “The IMF undercuts its core lender-of-last-resort role.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Black voters have been a steady foundation for Democratic candidates for decades, but that support appeared to show a few cracks in this year’s elections.

Republican candidates were backed by 14% of Black voters, compared with 8% in the last midterm elections four years ago, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive national survey of the electorate.

In Georgia, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp more than doubled his support among Black voters to 12% in 2022 compared with 5% four years ago, according to VoteCast. He defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams both times.

If that boost can be sustained, Democrats could face headwinds in 2024 in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where presidential and Senate races are typically decided by narrow margins and turning out Black voters is a big part of Democrats’ political strategy.

It’s too early to tell whether the 2022 survey data reflects the beginnings of a longer-term drift of Black voters toward the GOP or whether the modest Republican gains from an overwhelmingly Democratic group will hold during a presidential year. Former President Donald Trump, who has announced his third run for the presidency, received support from just 8% of Black voters in 2020, according to VoteCast.

The survey from this year’s midterms also found that Republican candidates in some key states improved their share of Latino voters, so any sustained growth in the share of Black voters would be critical.

A variety of factors might play into the findings, including voter turnout and candidate outreach. Yet some Black voters suggest they will be sticking with Republicans because they said the party’s priorities resonate with them more than those of Democrats.

Janet Piroleau, who lives in suburban Atlanta, left the Democratic Party in 2016, during Trump’s first run for office, and now votes Republican. That includes this year, when she voted for Kemp in his victory over Abrams.

Piroleau said she felt Democrats were pushing for more reliance on government programs. “That bothered me,” she said.

“For me, it was about being accountable and responsible and making your own decisions, and not depending on the government to bail you out,” Piroleau said.

April Chapman, who lives in metro Atlanta, is among the Black voters who favored Kemp and other Republican candidates.

Like Piroleau, Chapman cited issues such as immigration, border security and the economy as important in deciding to become a Republican a decade ago. But the 43-year-old mother said her main break with the party is over education.

She said she felt Democrats were trying to control what her children should be exposed to and how they should be educated.

“For our family, the government educational system was not the best option,” Chapman said.

Camilla Moore, chair of the Georgia Black Republican Council, said a large percentage of the voters Kemp won in the Black community “were actually Black Democrats.” Those voters made decisions based on Kemp’s performance in addressing issues they care about, Moore said.

Her group also suggested that the Kemp campaign advertise on Black radio and “expend a little more effort in some areas that were a little uncomfortable.”

The results in Georgia, she said, could be replicated elsewhere with the right candidates.

“It’s not going to work for everybody,” Moore said. “It does work for those Republicans who have demonstrated that they truly are a senator for all or a governor for all.”

Abrams’ campaign office and Fair Fight Action, which was founded by Abrams, did not answer repeated phone or email messages.

The VoteCast findings underscore a dynamic that Black activists and community leaders have long sought to convey — that Black voters are not a monolith and that the Democratic Party should not take them for granted.

Nationally, Republicans worked during the midterms cycle to try to shift a share of Black voters to their side. The GOP conducted business roundtables, prayer gatherings, food drives and school choice events to hear the kinds of priorities in Black communities that might influence their voting, said Janiyah Thomas, a communications strategist and former Black media affairs manager at the Republican National Committee.

Thomas, who recently voted Republican, added that her disagreement with the Black Lives Matter movement encouraged her switch.

Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and the author of a book on the voting rights movement, said Black voters need to hear from Democrats about why their vote is important and what the party will do for them.

She said the message is particularly important for younger voters, who “went out in the street and risked their lives for police reform” after the killing of George Floyd in 2020. They also want voting rights protected but got neither at the federal level during President Joe Biden’s first two years in office.

“Instead, we get Juneteenth, and I don’t remember who asked for Juneteenth,” Browne-Marshall said, referring to the new federal holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in America.

W. Franklyn Richardson, chair of the board of trustees of the Conference of National Black Churches, acknowledged that not all Black community priorities are met by Democrats but said the party is more likely to address those needs than Republicans.

“We have to pick the best of the two,” and continue pushing, he said.

For James W. Jackson, the choice was to switch to the Republican Party after he decided its values better aligned with his.

The pastor at Fervent Prayer Church in Indianapolis said he was a Democrat initially because it was the party of his father and many prominent Black leaders.

Not everyone sees a noteworthy shift of Black voters away from Democrats and toward Republicans. Ron Daniels, president of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century, said his question isn’t about what Democrats have failed to do, but rather what they have accomplished and not been more vocal about.

The agenda Biden has pursued since taking office “was fairly explicit about a number of key issues that relate to Black people. The problem is that because there is a hesitancy and a concern about whether or not white voters will be turned off,” Democrats have not promoted those moves, Daniels said.

Biden, he noted, named Kamala Harris as vice president, nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court and appointed Lisa Cook to the Federal Reserve. He also noted the impact of the American Rescue Plan on Black business owners.

“The fact of the matter is, they’re not talking about the tangible things that happened,” Daniels said.

The higher percentages of Black voters casting ballots for Republicans this year also may not suggest greater and more durable support for the GOP, said Derrick Johnson, NAACP president and CEO.

He noted that African Americans are a diverse voting group with varying concerns and priorities, and are attracted to specific candidates because of that. NAACP focus groups found that inflation, student loan debt and violence prevention were among Black voters’ top concerns. Candidates who speak to those concerns will be heard, he said.

“That’s what democracy should be — an opportunity to have choices among candidates,” Johnson said. “But that is not to suggest the national (Republican) party platform is more reflective of the needs and interests of African Americans as a whole.”

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Associated Press writer Hannah Fingerhut in Washington contributed to this report.

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Associated Press coverage of race and voting receives support from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

LONDON (AP) — Queen guitarist Brian May is now a “Sir.”

May, who also has a doctorate in astrophysics and is an animal welfare advocate, received a knighthood Friday as part of the U.K.’s annual New Year’s Honors list. The Queen guitarist, who was honored for services to music and charity, said he hopes the knighthood will give him “a little bit more clout.”

“Maybe a few more people will listen to me than would otherwise, you know, if it’s Sir Brian on the phone,” said May, who spoke to The Associated Press via Zoom from his house in Windlesham, Surrey.

He was among hundreds of artists, community leaders and athletes who were recognized on the first such list to be signed off by King Charles III.

May has campaigned against badger culling and fox hunting through an animal welfare group he founded in 2010 — named Save Me after the 1980 Queen song. Some animals he’s rescued over the years were released onto his land.

“I’ve felt for a long time that we had this false idea that humans are the only important species on the planet, and I don’t think an alien visitor would view it that way. I think every species and every individual has the right to a decent life and a decent death. That’s kind of where I come from,” he said.

He acknowledged that he already had “a certain amount of power in the world, mainly because of music, obviously,” which allowed him to go into other areas, such as astrophysics and do work in stereoscopy, or 3D imaging. He received his doctorate from Imperial College, London in 2007.

“I do a lot in that area now, which I think is in its way a great service to mankind,” May said. “I give them stereoscopy and they give me the chance to play in nice observatories all around the world, you know — but also the animals.”

Knights are addressed as “sir” or “dame,” followed by their name. It also means May’s wife of 22 years, Anita Dobson, may use the title of Lady May.

“She’s thrilled to bits. Yes, yes, she’s very happy about that. Yes, Lady Anita will be enjoying it,” said May, “and it’s a thrill to me to be able to kind of confer that on her. It makes me feel proud that she gets an honor beside me because God knows I wouldn’t be here without her.”

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The story has been corrected to reflect that Queen is still active and May is still the band’s guitarist.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. General Assembly has asked the U.N.’s highest judicial body to give its opinion on the legality of Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.

The Assembly voted by a wide margin, but with over 50 countries abstaining, on Friday evening to send one of the world’s longest-running and thorniest disputes to the International Court of Justice, a request promoted by the Palestinians and opposed vehemently by Israel.

While the court’s rulings are not binding, they influence international opinion. It last addressed the conflict in 2004, when the Assembly asked it to consider the legality of an Israeli-built separation barrier.

Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour thanked countries that backed the measure.

“We trust that regardless of your vote today, if you believe in international law and peace, you will uphold the opinion of the International Court of Justice, when delivered,” Mansour said, going on to urge countries to “stand up” to Israel’s new, hard-line government.

Israel didn’t speak at the Assembly, which voted during the Jewish Sabbath. In a written statement beforehand, Ambassador Gilad Erdan called the measure “outrageous,” the U.N. “morally bankrupt and politicized” and any potential decision from the court “completely illegitimate.”

Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three areas for an independent state.

Israel considers the West Bank to be disputed territory and has built dozens of settlements that are now home to roughly 500,000 Jewish settlers.

It also has annexed east Jerusalem and considers the entire city to be its capital. An additional 200,000 Israelis live in settlements built in east Jerusalem that Israel considers to be neighborhoods of its capital. Palestinian residents of the city face systematic discrimination, making it difficult for them to build new homes or expand existing ones.

The international community overwhelmingly considers the settlements to be illegal. Israel’s annexation of east Jerusalem, home to the city’s most sensitive holy sites, also is not internationally recognized.

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Two years later, the Hamas militant group seized control of the territory from the forces of internationally recognized President Mahmoud Abbas.

Friday’s resolution asked the International Court of Justice, commonly known as the world court, to issue an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of

It also asked the court to look at the legal consequences of Israeli measures it said are “aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem.”

And it asks for an opinion on how all Israeli policies affect the legal status of its occupation, “and what are the legal consequences that arise for all states and the United Nations from this status.”

The vote was 87-26, with 53 abstentions. It followed approvals of the draft resolution in the assembly’s budget committee earlier Friday and in the Special Political and Decolonization Committee on Nov. 11.

Israel carried out widespread behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts against the measure and decried the Assembly for voting after the Sabbath began Friday evening.

Ahead of the vote, outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid personally contacted about 60 world leaders while figurehead President Isaac Herzog spoke to many counterparts, according to an Israeli diplomatic official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing private diplomatic efforts.

The United Nations has a long history of passing resolutions critical of Israel, and Israel and the U.S. accuse the world body of being unfairly biased.

Israel has accused the Palestinians, who have nonmember observer state status at the United Nations, of trying to use the U.N. to circumvent peace negotiations and impose a settlement.

The Palestinians say that Israeli officials, especially incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are not serious about seeking peace as they continue to expand settlements on occupied lands. The last round of substantive peace talks broke down in 2009.

Before the Nov. 11 committee vote, Erdan told U.N. diplomats that approving the resolution would destroy “any hope for reconciliation” with the Palestinians and perpetuate the conflict.

He warned that involving the court “in a decades-old conflict only to dictate one side’s demands on the other ensures many more years of stagnation” and give the Palestinians “the perfect excuse to continue boycotting the negotiating table to perpetuate the conflict.”

After that committee vote, Mansour said “our people are entitled to freedom,” stressing that “nothing justifies standing with Israeli occupation and annexation, its displacement and dispossession of our people.”

The court is expected to solicit opinions from dozens of countries before issuing its opinion months from now. Israel has not said whether it will cooperate.

It is not the first time the world court has been asked to weigh in on the conflict.

In 2004, the court said that a separation barrier Israel built was “contrary to international law” and called on Israel to immediately halt construction.

Israel has said the barrier is a security measure meant to prevent Palestinian attackers from reaching Israeli cities. The Palestinians say the structure is an Israeli land grab because of its route through east Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank.

Israel has ignored the 2004 ruling, and Friday’s resolution demands that Israel comply with it, stop construction of the wall and dismantle it. It says Israel should also make reparations for all damage caused by the wall’s construction, “which has gravely impacted the human rights” and living conditions of Palestinians.

The request for the court’s advisory opinion is part of a wide-ranging resolution titled “Israeli practices and settlement activities affecting the rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the occupied territories.”

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Associated Press journalists Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Landslides of rock and mud closed roadways Friday across California as heavy rains kicked off what will be a series of storms poised to usher in the new year with downpours and potential flooding across much of the state and multiple feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada.

The atmospheric river storm, a long and wide plume of moisture pulled in from the Pacific Ocean, began sweeping across the northern part of the state Friday and was expected to bring more rain through Saturday, according to the National Weather Service in Sacramento.

A winter storm warning was in effect into Sunday for the upper elevations of the Sierra from south of Yosemite National Park to north of Lake Tahoe, where as much as 5 feet (1.5 meters) of snow is possible atop the mountains, the National Weather Service said in Reno, Nevada.

A flood watch was in effect across much of Northern California through New Year’s Eve. Officials warned that rivers and streams could overflow and urged residents to get sandbags ready.

Landslides already had closed routes in the San Francisco Bay Area, between Fremont and Sunol, as well as in Mendocino County near the unincorporated community of Piercy and in the Mendocino National Forest, where crews cleared debris into Friday night.

Humboldt County, where a 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck on Dec. 20, also saw roadways begin to flood, according to the National Weather Service’s Eureka office. A bridge that was temporarily closed last week due to earthquake damage may be closed again if the Eel River, which it crosses, gets too high, officials said.

It was the first of several storms expected to roll across California over the next week. The current system is expected to be warmer and wetter, while next week’s storms will be colder, lowering snow levels in the mountains, said Hannah Chandler-Cooley, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Sacramento.

The Sacramento region could receive a total of 4 to 5 inches (10 to 13 centimeters) of rain over the span of the week, Chandler-Cooley said.

The California Highway Patrol reported some local roads in eastern Sacramento were under water and impassable at times on Friday. By nightfall, nearly 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) of rain had fallen over the past 24 hours in the Sierra foothills at Blue Canyon about 70 miles (112 kilometers) northeast of Sacramento, the weather service said.

Sacramento’s fire officials planned to broadcast evacuation announcements from a helicopter and a boat along the American River — a spot where many unhoused people live in encampments — to warn of flooding.

A winter storm warning was in effect through 4 a.m. Sunday for much of the Sierra, including the highest elevations around Lake Tahoe where more than a foot of snow was expected near the shores at an elevation of about 6,200 feet (1,889 meters) and up to 5 feet (1.5 meters) above 8,000 feet (2,438 meters) with winds gusting up to 100 mph (160 kph) over ridgetops.

“Strong winds could cause tree damage and lead to power outages and high waves on Lake Tahoe may capsize small vessels,” the weather service in Reno said.

Avalanche warnings were issued in the backcountry around Lake Tahoe and Mammoth Lakes south of Yosemite.

On the Sierra’s eastern front, flood watches and warnings continue into the weekend north and south of Reno, Nevada, where minor to moderate flooding was forecast along some rivers and streams into the weekend.

At Susanville, California about 85 miles (137 kilometers) north of Reno, the Susan River was forecast to rise from about 5 feet (1.5 meters) Friday to a foot (30 centimeters) above the flood stage of 12 feet (3.6 meters) by Saturday morning, causing moderate flooding that could affect some homes, roads and bridges, the National Weather Service said.

In Southern California, moderate-to-heavy rain was forecast for Saturday. The region will begin drying out on New Year’s Day and the Jan. 2 Rose Parade in Pasadena should avoid rainfall.

Heavy showers are forecast for Tuesday or Wednesday, the National Weather Service in Oxnard said.

The rain was welcomed in drought-parched California, but much more precipitation is needed to make a significant difference. The past three years have been California’s driest on record.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — With countdowns and fireworks, revelers in major city centers across the Asia-Pacific region ushered in the first new year without COVID-19 restrictions since the pandemic began in 2020.

While COVID-19 continues to cause death and dismay, particularly in China, which is battling a nationwide surge in infections after suddenly easing anti-epidemic measures, countries had largely lifted quarantine requirements, restrictions for visitors and relentless testing that had limited travel and places people can go to.

Celebrations are being held at the Great Wall in Beijing, while in Shanghai authorities said traffic will be stopped along the waterfront Bund to allow pedestrians to gather on New Year’s Eve. Shanghai Disneyland will also hold a special fireworks show to welcome 2023.

On the last day of the year marked by the brutal war in Ukraine, many in the country returned to capital Kyiv to spend New Year’s Eve with their loved ones. As Russia attacks continue to target power supplies leaving millions without electricity, no big celebrations are expected and a curfew will be in place as the clock rings in the new year. But for most Ukrainians being together with their families is already a luxury.

Still wearing his military uniform, Mykyta gripped a bouquet of pink roses tightly as he waited for his wife Valeriia to arrive from Poland on platform 9. He hadn’t seen her in six months. “It actually was really tough, you know, to wait so long,” he told The Associated Press after hugging and kissing Valeriia.

The couple declined to share their family name for security reasons as Mykyta has been fighting on the frontlines in both south and east Ukraine. Valeriia first sought refuge from the conflict in Spain but later moved to Poland. Asked what their New Year’s Eve plans were, Valeriia answered simply: “Just to be together.”

Concerns about the Ukraine war and the economic shocks it has spawned across the globe were felt in Tokyo as well, where Shigeki Kawamura has seen better times but said he needs a free hot meal this New Year’s.

“I hope the war will be over in Ukraine so prices will stabilize,” he said. “Nothing good has happened for the people since we’ve had Mr. Kishida,” he said, referring to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

“Our pay isn’t going up, and our condition is worsening. The privileged may be doing well, but not those of us, who are working so hard,” Kawamura said.

He was one of several hundred people huddled in the cold in a line circling a Tokyo park to receive free New Year’s meals of sukiyaki, or slices of beef cooked in sweet sauce, with rice.

“I hope the new year will bring work and self-reliance,” said Takaharu Ishiwata, who lives in a group home and hasn’t found lucrative work in years.

Besides the sukiyaki box lunches, volunteers were handing out bananas, onions, cartons of eggs and small hand-warmers at the park. Booths were set up for medical and other consultations.

Kenji Seino, who heads the meal program for the homeless Tenohasi, which means “bridge of hands,” said people coming for meals were rising, with jobs becoming harder to find after the coronavirus pandemic hit, and prices going up.

More than 1 million crowded along along Sydney’s waterfront for a multi-million dollar celebration based around the themes of diversity and inclusion.

New South Wales police issued an advisory before 7 p.m. stating that only people with tickets to attend the celebrations should head into the city because all vantage points were full.

More than 7,000 fireworks were launched from the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and a further 2,000 from the nearby Opera House.

It was the “party Sydney deserves,” the city’s producer of major events and festivals Stephen Gilby told The Sydney Morning Herald.

“We have had a couple of fairly difficult years; we’re absolutely delighted this year to be able to welcome people back to the foreshores of Sydney Harbor for Sydney’s world-famous New Year’s Eve celebrations,” he said.

In Melbourne, Australia’s second largest city, a family-friendly fireworks display along the Yarra River as dusk fell preceded a second session at midnight.

The Pacific nation of Kiribati was the first country to greet the new year, with the clock ticking into 2023 one hour ahead of neighbors including New Zealand.

In Auckland, large crowds gathered below the Sky Tower, where a 10-second countdown to midnight preceded fireworks. The celebrations in New Zealand’s largest city were well-received after COVID-19 forced them to be canceled a year ago.

There was a scare in the North Island coastal city of Tauranga, about 225 kilometers (140 miles) from Auckland, when a bouncing castle was blown 100 meters (yards). Tauranga City Council reported one person was hospitalized and four people were treated on site.

In December 2021, five children were killed and four were injured in Devonport, Australia, when a gust of wind lifted a bouncing castle into the air at a school fair.

Authorities in military-ruled Myanmar announced a suspension of its normal four-hour curfew in the country’s three biggest cities so residents can celebrate New Year’s Eve. However, opponents of army rule are urging people to avoid public gatherings, claiming that security forces might stage a bombing or other attack and blame it on them.

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Associated Press journalists Henry Hou in Beijing, Renata Brito in Kyiv, Yuri Kagayema in Tokyo and Grant Peck in Bangkok contributed to this report.

BEIJING (AP) — China “stands on the right side of history,” the country’s leader Xi Jinping said Saturday in a New Year’s address that came as questions swirl over his government’s handling of COVID-19 and economic and political challenges at home and abroad.

Speaking on national television from behind a desk in a wood-paneled office, Xi largely avoided directly addressing issues confronting the country, pointing instead to successes in agricultural production, poverty elimination and its hosting of the Winter Olympics in February.

However, he later turned somewhat obliquely to the challenges facing the world’s most populous country and second-largest economy, saying, “The world is not at peace.”

China will “always steadfastly advocate for peace and development … and unswervingly stands on the right side of history,” he said.

Recent weeks have seen street protests against Xi’s government, the first facing the ruling Communist Party in more than three decades.

Xi’s speech follows a stunning U-turn on China’s hard-line COVID-19 containment policy that has sparked a massive surge in infections and demands from the U.S. and others for travelers from China to prove they aren’t infected.

Meanwhile, the economy is fighting its way out of the doldrums, spurring rising unemployment, while ties with the U.S. and other major nations are at historic lows.

Setting aside their uncertainty, people in Beijing and other cities have returned to work, shopping areas and restaurants, with consumers preparing for January’s Lunar New Year holiday, the most significant in the Chinese calendar.

Xi, who is also head of the increasingly powerful armed forces, was in October given a third five-year term as head of the almost 97 million-member Communist Party.

Having sidelined potential rivals and eliminated all limits on his terms in office, he could potentially serve as China’s leader for the rest of his life.

China has also come under pressure for its continued support for Russia, and on Friday, Xi held a virtual meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which he was quoted as describing the events in Ukraine as a “crisis.”

The term marked a departure from China’s usual references to the “Ukraine situation,” and the change may reflect growing Chinese concern about the direction of the conflict.

Still, in his remarks to Putin, Xi was careful to reiterate Chinese support for Moscow. China has pledged a “no limits” friendship with Russia and hasn’t blamed Putin for the conflict, while attacking the U.S. and NATO and condemning punishing economic sanctions imposed on Russia.

Democrats in Congress released thousands of pages of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns Friday, providing the most detailed picture to date of his finances over a six-year period, including his time in the White House, when he fought to keep the information private in a break with decades of precedent.

The documents include individual returns from Trump and his wife, Melania, along with Trump’s business entities from 2015-2020. They show how Trump used the tax code to lower his tax obligation and reveal details about foreign accounts, charitable contributions and the performance of some of his highest-profile business ventures, which had largely remained shielded from public scrutiny.

The disclosure marks the culmination of a yearslong legal fight that has played out everywhere from the presidential campaign to Congress and the Supreme Court as Trump persistently rejected efforts to share details about his financial history — counter to the practice of transparency followed by all his predecessors in the post-Watergate era. The records release comes just days before Republicans retake control of the House and weeks after Trump announced another campaign for the White House.

The records show how Trump limited his tax liability by offsetting his income against corporate losses as well as millions of dollars in business expenses, asset depreciation and other deductions.

While Trump paid $641,931 in federal income taxes in 2015, the year he began his campaign for president, he paid just $750 in 2016 and 2017, according to a report released last week by Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. He paid nearly $1 million in 2018, but only $133,445 in 2019 and nothing in 2020, the year he unsuccessfully sought reelection.

The records also detail Trump’s foreign holdings.

Trump, according to the filings, reported having bank accounts in China, Ireland and the United Kingdom in 2015 through 2017, even as he was commander in chief. Starting in 2018, however, he only reported an account in the U.K. The returns also show that Trump claimed foreign tax credits for taxes he paid on various business ventures around the world, including licensing arrangements for use of his name on development projects and his golf courses in Scotland and Ireland.

In several years, Trump appears to have paid more in foreign taxes than he did in net U.S. federal income taxes, with income reported in countries including Azerbaijan, China, India, Indonesia, Panama, the Philippines, St. Martin, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

The documents also show that Trump’s charitable donations often represented only a sliver of his income. In 2020, the year the coronavirus ravaged the economy, Trump reported no charitable donations at all. In 2019 and 2018 he reported writing checks for about $500,000 in donations. In earlier years the numbers were higher — $1.8 million in 2017 and $1.1 million in 2016.

It’s unclear whether the reported sums included Trump’s $400,000 annual presidential salary, which he had said, as a candidate, that he would forgo and which he claimed he donated to various federal departments.

Jeff Hoopes, an accounting professor at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, described Trump’s returns as “large and complicated” with “hundreds of entities scattered all over the globe.”

He noted that many of those entities are slightly unprofitable, which he described as “pretty magical as far as the tax code.”

“It’s hard to know if someone’s really bad at business or really good at tax planning, because they both look like the same thing,” he said.

Daniel Shaviro, a taxation professor at New York University, cited the large financial losses from so many of Trump’s businesses, despite their often healthy sales, as something that should raise suspicions from auditors. “There’s fishy looking stuff here.”

Shaviro also cited examples of suspicious or sloppy math even in smaller businesses, such as an aviation firm dubbed “DT Endeavor I LLC,” which in 2020 reported both sales and expenses of $160,144. Such exact matches are unusual, Shaviro said. Yet the form also reported an $18,923 loss.

“The return doesn’t say, ‘Guess what? I’m committing fraud,’” Shaviro said, “but there are red flags.”

The release marks the latest setback for Trump, who has been mired in investigations, including federal and state inquiries into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The Department of Justice also has been investigating reams of classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago club and possible efforts to obstruct the investigation.

In a statement Friday, Trump lashed out at Democrats and the Supreme Court for the release.

“It’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people,” he said. “The radical, left Democrats have weaponized everything, but remember, that is a dangerous two-way street!”

He said the returns demonstrated “how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions” to build his businesses.

The returns were released by the House Ways and Means Committee, which held a party-line vote last week to make the returns public after years of legal wrangling.

The returns detail how Trump used tax law to minimize his liability, including carrying forward massive losses from previous years. Trump said during his 2016 campaign that paying little or no income tax in some years “makes me smart.”

In 2020, more than 150 of Trump’s business entities listed negative qualified business income, which the IRS defines as “the net amount of qualified items of income, gain, deduction and loss from any qualified trade or business.” In total for that tax year, combined with nearly $9 million in carryforward loss from previous years, Trump’s qualified losses amounted to more than $58 million.

Another of Trump’s money losers: the ice rink his company operated until last year in New York City’s Central Park. Trump reported a total of $2.6 million in losses from Wollman Rink over the six years made public. The rink, an early Trump Organization jewel run through a contract with New York City’s government, reported a loss of $1.3 million in 2015 despite taking in $9.3 million in revenue, according to the tax returns. The rink turned a $298,000 profit in 2016, but was back to melting cash in each of the next four years.

“Trump seems to be creating huge losses that are suspicious or questionable under current law,” said Steven Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, who said he had spent 20 years preparing taxes for corporations and wealthy individuals and “never saw anyone lose money as regularly and as large as Trump lost money year after year.”

“To me, Trump’s business operations were phenomenally unsuccessful and I struggle to figure out how much of it is attributable to Trump’s unluckiness as a businessman and how much of it is attributable to Trump’s inflation,” he said.

Aspects of Trump’s finances had been shrouded in mystery since his days as an up-and-coming Manhattan real estate developer in the 1980s.

Trump, known for building skyscrapers and hosting a reality TV show before winning the White House, did offer limited details about his holdings and income on mandatory disclosure forms and financial statements he provided to banks to secure loans and to financial magazines to justify his ranking on lists of billionaires.

Trump’s longtime accounting firm has since disavowed the statements, and New York’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit alleging Trump and his Trump Organization fraudulently inflated asset values on the statements. Trump and his company have denied wrongdoing.

In October 2018, The New York Times published a Pulitzer Prize-winning series based on leaked tax records that contradicted the image Trump had tried to sell of himself as a self-made businessman. It showed that Trump received a modern-day equivalent of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate holdings, with much of that money coming from what the Times called “tax dodges” in the 1990s.

A second series in 2020 showed that Trump paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years because he generally lost more money than he made.

In its report last week, the Ways and Means Committee indicated the Trump administration may have disregarded a requirement mandating audits of a president’s tax filings.

The IRS only began to audit Trump’s 2016 tax filings on April 3, 2019 — more than two years into his presidency — when the Ways and Means chairman, Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., asked the agency for information related to the returns.

Every president and major-party candidate since Richard Nixon has voluntarily made at least summaries of their tax information available to the public.

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Associated Press writers Gary Fields, Paul Wiseman and Farnoush Amiri in Washington, Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.