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Legislation to protect same-sex and interracial marriages crossed a major Senate hurdle Wednesday, putting Congress on track to take the historic step of ensuring that such unions are enshrined in federal law.

Twelve Republicans voted with all Democrats to move forward on the legislation, meaning a final vote could come as soon as this week, or later this month. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the bill ensuring the unions are legally recognized under the law is chance for the Senate to "live up to its highest ideals" and protect marriage equality for all people.

"It will make our country a better, fairer place to live," Schumer said, noting that his own daughter and her wife are expecting a baby next year.

Senate Democrats are quickly moving to pass the bill while the party still controls the House. Republicans are on the verge of winning the House majority and would be unlikely to take up the issue next year.

The bill has gained steady momentum since the Supreme Court's June decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and the federal right to an abortion. An opinion at that time from Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that an earlier high court decision protecting same-sex marriage could also come under threat.

SEE MORE: Senate Majority Leader Schumer Seeks 10 GOP Votes On Marriage Equality

The legislation would repeal the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act and require states to recognize all marriages that were legal where they were performed. The new Respect for Marriage Act would also protect interracial marriages by requiring states to recognize legal marriages regardless of "sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin."

Congress has been moving to protect same-sex marriage as support from the general public — and from Republicans in particular — has sharply grown in recent years, as the Supreme Court's 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalized gay marriage nationwide. Recent polling has found more than two-thirds of the public supports same-sex unions.

Still, many Republicans in Congress have been reluctant to support the legislation. Democrats delayed consideration until after the midterm elections, hoping that would relieve political pressure on some GOP senators who might be wavering.

A proposed amendment to the bill, negotiated by supporters to bring more Republicans on board, would clarify that it does not affect rights of private individuals or businesses that are already enshrined in law. Another tweak would make clear that a marriage is between two people, an effort to ward off some far-right criticism that the legislation could endorse polygamy.

Three Republicans said early on that they would support the legislation and have lobbied their GOP colleagues to support it: Maine Sen. Susan Collins, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman.

SEE MORE: House Passes Bill Protecting Same-Sex Marriage Rights

"Current federal law doesn't reflect the will or beliefs of the American people in this regard," Portman said ahead of the vote. "It's time for the Senate to settle the issue."

The growing GOP support for the issue is a sharp contrast from even a decade ago, when many Republicans vocally opposed same-sex marriages. The legislation passed the House in a July vote with the support of 47 Republicans — a larger-than-expected number that gave the measure a boost in the Senate.

On Tuesday, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints became the most recent conservative-leaning group to back the legislation. In a statement, the Utah-based faith said church doctrine would continue to consider same-sex relationships to be against God's commandments, but it would support rights for same-sex couples as long as they didn't infringe upon religious groups' right to believe as they choose.

Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat who is the first openly gay senator and has been working on gay rights issues for almost four decades, said the newfound openness from many Republicans on the subject reminds her "of the arc of the LBGTQ movement to begin with, in the early days when people weren't out and people knew gay people by myths and stereotypes."

Baldwin said that as more individuals and families have become visible, hearts and minds have changed.

"And slowly laws have followed," she said. "It is history."

Schumer said the issue is personal to him, as well.

"Passing the Respect for Marriage Act is as personal as it gets for many senators and their staffs, myself included," Schumer said. "My daughter and her wife are actually expecting a little baby in February. So it matters a lot to so many of us to get this done."

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

The holiday season is a time for nostalgia and traditions. For many of us, "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" is a TV special that instantly connects us with our childhood and gives us those warm, cozy vibes in the lead up to Thanksgiving. But unless you already own this 1973 favorite on DVD or Blu-ray, finding a way to watch this holiday classic can be a yearly hassle — especially since Apple secured the streaming rights to the Peanuts specials in 2020.

After a backlash from viewers, Apple agreed to let PBS air the holiday specials in 2020 so fans could watch them on network television. But this year, the only way to watch "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" is on Apple TV+.

However, if you don't have a subscription to Apple TV+, you can still stream "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" for free by signing up for the service's seven-day free trial. Just remember to cancel your subscription before your free trial period is up, unless you decide you love the streaming service and want to keep it at $6.99 a month. (If you've bought a new Apple device recently, you might be able to get three months of Apple TV+ with your purchase as well.)

SEE MORE: Get A Christmas Tree For $5-$20 With U.S. Forest Service Permit

Apple TV+ also has many other Peanuts holiday favorites, including "A Charlie Brown Christmas," "It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown" and "Snoopy Presents: Auld Lang Syne. " If you're traveling for the holidays, you can access Apple TV+ programs offline, provided you download them while you have a connection, so you can enjoy these classic holiday specials even when you're in the car or on an airplane.

With your trial to Apple TV+, you will also be able to watch the new Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell musical remake of "A Christmas Carol," "Spirited." It debuts Nov. 18 and offers a funny take on the classic Charles Dickens tale of Scrooge and the ghosts who visit him on Christmas Eve. The star-packed cast also includes Octavia Spencer, Tracy Morgan, Rose Bryne and Sunita Mani, and the funny musical is sure to put you and the family in the holiday spirit, especially if you have older kids. It's rated PG-13.

Apple TV+ also features family-friendly content that includes nature programs like "Tiny World" (narrated by Paul Rudd) or "Prehistoric Planet." You can also watch "Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock," which is the new remake of the 1980s cult classic television show.

You can download the Apple TV app on most streaming devices. To sign up for Apple TV+, you will need to sign with your Apple ID and password, or create an Apple account if you don't have one already.

Simple rockets have shaped the history of war, from Chinese projectiles in the thirteenth century, to a famous battle during the War of 1812 — to today’s nuclear warheads, which the government says can travel more than 9,000 miles. 

Conventional threats on the modern battlefield, including in Ukraine, involve rockets which follow curved trajectories and missiles, that fly lower and are powered for their full flight. Armies have gradually improved techniques to defend against both. 

In World War II, Germany fired about 7,000 V1 missiles at Britain. The British government says it downed about half using anti-aircraft guns. During the Gulf War in 1991, American Patriot missiles were fired at Iraqi long range missiles, though experts questioned how effectively the patriots’ knocked them out of the air. 

Modern battlefield air defenses appear to be more reliable. The system destroyed a test missile fired more than 2,500 miles away. The Iron Dome System in Israel has destroyed hundreds of rockets, missiles and mortars fired by Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south. When the system detects an incoming rocket, sirens alert Israeli citizens who head to shelters. Then missiles launch and destroy the incoming threats, allowing citizens to return to normal life.

Retired Israeli Air Force General Amos Yadlin said, "thanks to Iron Dome, the army doesn’t have to rush toward entering Gaza with ground forces to attack rocket launchers, which Hamas places next to civilians. This change certainly reduces casualties on the Palestinian side, as well as saving Israelis." 

In October Russian missiles began targeting more Ukraine water and energy facilities. Ukraine has downed some of them using anti-aircraft missiles.  

"When we talk about Ukraine's need for air and missile defense, we are talking about real lives that are being taken by terrorists. We managed to shoot down some of the missiles and drones," said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The U.S. is sending a few of its advanced missile systems to help. But experts warn it won’t be enough since Russia is targeting infrastructure all over the country with fast, evasive missiles.

SEE MORE: Ukraine's Capital Hit By Iranian-Made Kamikaze Drones

Anthony Cordesman is the emeritus chair in strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

"If you want effective defenses, you're almost talking national defenses, or at least the coverage of most key major targets," said Cordesman. 

Protecting against the ultimate weapon, a nuclear missile, requires a much more sophisticated system. According to one estimate, over six decades the U.S. has spent $280 billion on nuclear missile defense.

And to defend against the Russian or Chinese nukes we don’t rely on traditional missile defense. Instead the strategy is deterrence — the threat of total retaliation. Ground-based missile defense is meant instead to defend against an attack from a state with a limited number of nukes, like North Korea or Iran. 44 interceptor missiles sit in Alaska and California.

If North Korea were to fire missiles at the U.S. the system would launch into action, aimed at tracking and striking the missiles in space before they could land and detonate. The Missile Defense Agency says it has tested the system 20 times and it has worked 11 times. 

But critics say these tests aren’t realistic. And they add that they provoke adversaries who think missile defense could give the U.S. an advantage in a nuclear war. 

"What freaks China and Russia out is our missile defense program. Even though it’s very limited right now and in my view very ineffective, it’s enough to worry China and Russia right now, not so much about what it can do today but what it might do down the road," said Tom Collins, the director of policy at Ploughshares Fund. "Missile defense is probably the most important issue that no one ever talks about."

But nuclear missile defense enjoys bipartisan support, as both presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden have sought to expand the system. 

Here's the sitch, Scrabble stans. Your convos around the board are about to get more interesting with about 500 new words and variations added to the game's official dictionary: stan, sitch, convo, zedonk, dox and fauxhawk among them.

Out this month, the add-ons in the seventh edition of "The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary" join more than 100,000 words of two to eight letters. The book was last updated in 2018 through a longstanding partnership between Hasbro and Merriam-Webster.

The new words include some trademarks gone generic — dumpster for one — some shorthand joy like guac, and a delicious display of more verb variations: torrented, torrenting, adulted, adulting, atted, atting (as in don't at me, bro).

"We also turned verb into a verb so you can play verbed and verbing," said Merriam-Webster's editor at large, Peter Sokolowski, a smile on his face and a word-nerd glitter in his eye during an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.

Fauxhawk, a haircut similar to a Mohawk, is potentially the highest scoring newbie, he said. Embiggen, a verb meaning to increase in size, is among the unexpected. (Sample sentence: "I really need to embiggen that Scrabble dictionary.")

Compound words are on the rise in the book with deadname, pageview, fintech, allyship, babymoon and subtweet. So are the "uns," such as unfollow, unsub and unmute. They may sound familiar, but they were never Scrabble official, at least when it comes to the sainted game's branded dictionary.

Tournament play is a whole other matter, with a broader range of agreed-upon words.

Sokolowski and a team of editors at Merriam-Webster have mined the oft-freshened online database at Merriam-Webster.com to expand the Scrabble book. While the official rules of game play have always allowed the use of any dictionary that players sanction, many look to the official version when sitting down for a spot of Scrabble. Some deluxe Scrabble sets include one of the books.

In the last year or two, the Scrabble lexicon has been scrubbed of 200-plus racial, ethnic and otherwise offensive words — despite their presence in some dictionaries. That has prompted furious debate among tournament players. Supporters of the cleanup called it long overdue. Others argued that the words, however heinous in definition, should remain playable so long as points are to be had.

Despite home play rules that never specifically banned offensive words, you won't find the notorious 200 in the Scrabble dictionary, with rare exceptions for those with other meanings.

The new Scrabble book includes at least one old-fashioned word that simply fell under the radar for years: yeehaw.

"Yeehaw is like so many of the older, informal terms. They were more spoken than written, and the gold standard for dictionary editing was always written evidence. So a term like yeehaw, which we all know from our childhood and in movies and TV, was something you heard. You didn't read it that often," Sokolowski said.

SEE MORE: The Board Game Industry Is Booming

Yeehaw, meet bae, inspo, vibed and vibing, all new additions to the Scrabble dictionary. Ixnay, which was already in the book, has been promoted to a verb, so ixnayed, ixnaying and ixnays are now allowed.

Welp, thingie, roid, skeezy, slushee and hygge (the Danish obsession with getting cozy) also made the cut. So did kharif, the Indian subcontinent's fall harvest.

The Merriam-Webster wordsmiths have added a slew of food-related words: iftar, horchata, kabocha, mofongo, zuke, zoodle, wagyu, queso and marg, for margarita, among them. Many Scrabble players couldn't care less about definitions — only points — but informatively:

Iftar is a meal taken by Muslims at sundown to break the daily fast during Ramadan. Mofongo is a traditional Puerto Rican dish made of fried or boiled plantains. Horchata is a sweet drink and kabocha is a winter squash.

Zonkey joins zedonk among new words using a Z, one of the highest scorers in Scrabble along with Q (each has a face value of 10 points). The difference between those two wacky-sounding animals, you ask? A zonkey is sired from a male zebra and a female donkey. The parentage of a zedonk is the other way around. Zedonk even has a playable variation: zeedonk.

Zoomer, for a member of GenZ, is also new. Familiar with the Middle Eastern spice blend za'atar? A less common variant, zaatar, is now in the Scrabble dictionary. Words with apostrophes aren't allowed.

And there's more where all of that came from:

Oppo, jedi, adorbs, dox variant doxxed, eggcorn (a misheard slip of the ear), fintech, folx (inclusive alternative to folks), grawlix, hangry, matcha, onesie, spork, swole, unmalted, vaquita, vax and vaxxed were added.

Yes, jedi need not be capitalized. Wondering what grawlix means? It's this: $%!(asterisk)#, a series of typographical symbols used to replace words one doesn't want to write, usually those that got you into trouble as a kid.

Among other new eight-letter words, the kind that help players clear their seven-tile racks for 50 extra points: hogsbane, more commonly known as giant hogweed. Another: pranayam, a breath technique in yoga.

Sokolowski wouldn't reveal all 500 of the new words, challenging players to hunt them down on their own. Are your Scrabble senses scrambled, so to speak?

"All of these are words that have already been vetted and defined and added to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, and now we've determined they're playable in Scrabble," Sokolowski said. "You've got some fun new words."

So which new entry is the word master's favorite? It's the one that sounds like the way acorn is pronounced.

"I like eggcorn," Sokolowski said, "because it's a word about words."

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

SEE MORE: From The Archives: Scrabble's New Dictionary Words Go All Trendy

A Texas inmate seeking to stop his execution over claims of religious freedom violations and indifference to his medical needs is scheduled to die Wednesday evening for killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend and her 7-year-old son more than 17 years ago.

Stephen Barbee, 55, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for the February 2005 deaths of Lisa Underwood, 34, and her son Jayden. Both were suffocated at their home in Fort Worth. They were later found buried in a shallow grave in nearby Denton County.

Barbee’s attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay his execution, arguing his religious rights are being violated because the state prison system, in the wake of a ruling by the high court on what spiritual advisers can do while in the execution chamber, did not create a written policy on the issue.

SEE MORE: Up For Debate: Should The US Abolish The Death Penalty?

In March, the U.S. Supreme Court said states must accommodate the wishes of death row inmates who want to have their faith leaders pray and touch them during their executions. Texas prison officials didn’t formally update their policy but said they would review inmates’ petitions on a case-by-case basis and would grant most reasonable requests.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt in Houston issued a preliminary injunction, saying the state could only execute Barbee after it had published a clear policy on spiritual advisers that protects an inmate's religious rights. Last week, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Hoyt’s injunction, saying it was overbroad.

On Tuesday, Hoyt issued a new injunction focused specifically on protecting Barbee's rights. The Texas Attorney General's Office immediately appealed to the 5th Circuit, which would have to make a ruling before the Supreme Court could take up the issue.

The Texas Attorney General’s Office said in a previous court filing that Barbee’s claims are moot as state prison officials are allowing his spiritual adviser to touch him and pray aloud during his execution.

Also Tuesday, Hoyt denied a separate request by Barbee’s attorneys for an execution stay over claims the inmate’s right to avoid cruel and unusual punishment would be violated. His lawyers say Barbee has physical constraints that limit the movement of his shoulders and arms and he would experience “intolerable pain and suffering” if he is executed in the normal manner with his arms outstretched on the gurney so that IV lines can be placed to deliver the lethal injection.

SEE MORE: Without Media Witness, Texas Executes First Inmate In 10 Months

In a court filing from earlier this month, lawyers with the Texas Attorney General’s Office assured Hoyt that prison officials would make accommodations for Barbee and allow his arms to remain bent and if needed would find another location to place the IV lines.

On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously declined to commute Barbee’s death sentence to a lesser penalty or to grant a four-month reprieve.

Prosecutors said Barbee killed his ex-girlfriend and her son because he didn’t want his wife to know Underwood was seven months pregnant, presumably by him. DNA evidence later revealed Barbee wasn’t the father. Underwood owned a Fort Worth bagel shop, which was named after her son. She and her son were reported missing after failing to show up at a baby shower.

Barbee confessed to police he killed Underwood and her son but later recanted. Barbee said the confession was coerced and has since maintained he is innocent and was framed by his business partner.

His trial, including sentencing, took less than three days to complete in February 2006.

Barbee is set to receive a lethal injection on the same day that Arizona executed Murray Hooper for killing two people during a home robbery in Phoenix on New Year’s Eve 1980. Hooper received a lethal injection Wednesday morning.

The executions come despite waning support in recent years for the death penalty across all political parties. About 6 in 10 Americans favor the death penalty, according to the General Social Survey, a major trends survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. While a majority continue to express support for the death penalty, the share has declined steadily since the 1990s, when nearly three-quarters were in favor.

So far, 14 people have been executed across the U.S. in 2022, all by lethal injection.

If Barbee is executed, he would be the fifth inmate put to death this year in Texas. He is the last inmate scheduled for execution this year in the state.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Sen. Mitch McConnell was reelected as Republican leader Wednesday, quashing a challenge from Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, the Senate GOP campaign chief criticized over his party's midterm election failures.

Retreating to the Capitol's Old Senate Chamber for the private vote, Republicans had faced public infighting following a disappointing performance in last week's elections that kept Senate control with Democrats.

McConnell, of Kentucky, easily swatted back the challenge from Scott in the first-ever attempt to oust him after many years as GOP leader. The vote was 37-10, senators said, with one other senator voting present. Senators first rejected an attempt by McConnell's detractors to delay the leadership choice until after the Senate runoff election in Georgia next month.

"I'm not going anywhere," McConnell said after the vote that leaves him poised to become the Senate's longest-serving leader when the new Congress convenes next year.

McConnell said he was "pretty proud" of the outcome as he acknowledged the work ahead.

"I think everybody in our conference agrees we want to give it our best shot," McConnell said.

The unrest is similar to the uproar among House Republicans in the aftermath of the midterm elections that left the party split over former President Donald Trump's hold on the party. House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy won the nomination from colleagues to run for House speaker, with Republicans on the cusp of seizing the House majority, but he faces stiff opposition from a core group of right-flank Republicans unconvinced of his leadership.

On Wednesday, the senators first considered a motion by a Scott ally, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, to delay the leadership votes until after the Dec. 6 runoff election in Georgia between Republican Herschel Walker and incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock that will determine the final makeup of the Senate. Walker was eligible to vote in the leadership election but wasn't expected to be present.

Cruz said it was a "cordial discussion, but a serious discussion" about how Republicans in the minority can work effectively.

In all, 48 GOP new and returning senators voted. Retiring Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska missed the vote to be home after his office said his wife was recovering from a nonthreatening seizure.

The 10 Republican senators joining in the revolt against McConnell and voting for Scott included some of the most conservative figures and those aligned with Trump.

"Why do I think he won?" said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., among McConnell's detractors. "Because the conference didn't want to change course."

Senators were also electing others in the Republican leadership. Democrats have postponed their internal elections until after Thanksgiving.

McConnell's top leadership ranks are expected to remain stable, with Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., as GOP whip, and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., in the No. 3 spot as chairman of the GOP conference. Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines was expected take over the campaign operation from Scott.

The challenge by Scott, who was urged by Trump to confront McConnell, escalated a long-simmering feud between Scott, who led the Senate Republican's campaign arm this year, and McConnell over the party's approach to try to reclaim the Senate majority.

"If you simply want to stick with the status quo, don't vote for me," Scott said in a letter to Senate Republicans offering himself as a protest vote against McConnell.

SEE MORE: Congress Returns For Not-So-Lame 'Lame-Duck' Session

Restive conservatives in the chamber have lashed out at McConnell's handling of the election, as well as his iron grip over the Senate Republican caucus.

Trump has been pushing for the party to dump McConnell ever since the Senate leader gave a scathing speech blaming then-President Trump for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Still, it represented an unusual direct challenge to McConnell's authority. He would become the longest-serving Senate leader in history when the new Congress convenes next year.

Scott and McConnell traded what colleagues said were "candid" and "lively" barbs during a lengthy private GOP senators lunch Tuesday that dragged for several hours. They sparred over the midterms, the quality of the GOP candidates who ran and their differences over fundraising.

During the luncheon, some 20 senators made their individual cases for the two men. Some members directly challenged Scott in McConnell's defense, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who questioned the Florida senator's management of the campaign arm, according to a person familiar with the meeting and granted anonymity to discuss it.

Among the many reasons Scott listed for mounting a challenge is that Republicans had compromised too much with Democrats in the last Congress — producing bills that President Joe Biden has counted as successes and that Democrats ran on in the 2022 election.

The feud between Scott and McConnell has been percolating for months and reached a boil as election results trickled in showing there would be no Republican Senate wave, as Scott predicted, according to senior Republican strategists who were not authorized to discuss internal issues by name and insisted on anonymity.

The feuding started not long after Scott took over the party committee after the 2020 election. Many in the party viewed his ascension as an effort to build his national political profile and donor network ahead of a potential presidential bid in 2024. Some were irked by promotional materials from the committee that were heavy on Scott's own biography, while focusing less on the candidates who are up for election.

Then came Scott's release of an 11-point plan early this year, which called for a modest tax increase for many of the lowest-paid Americans, while opening the door for cutting Social Security and Medicare, which McConnell swiftly repudiated even as he declined to offer an agenda of his own.

The feud was driven in part by the fraying trust in Scott's leadership, as well as poor finances of the committee, which was $20 million in debt, according to a senior Republican consultant.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Chinese authorities locked down a major university in Beijing on Wednesday after finding one COVID-19 case as they stick to a "zero-COVID" approach despite growing public discontent.

Peking University students and faculty were not allowed to leave the grounds unless necessary and classes on the main campus — where the case was found — were moved online through Friday, a university notice said. Still, some people could be seen entering and leaving the main campus Wednesday in the Chinese capital's Haidian district.

Beijing reported more than 350 new cases in the latest 24-hour period, a small fraction of its 21 million population but enough to trigger localized lockdowns and quarantines under China's "zero-COVID" strategy. Nationwide, China reported about 20,000 cases, up from about 8,000 a week ago.

Authorities are steering away from citywide lockdowns to try to minimize the impact on freedom of movement and a sagging economy. They want to avoid a repeat of the Shanghai lockdown earlier this year that paralyzed shipping and prompted neighborhood protests. Revised national guidelines issued last week called on local governments to follow a targeted and scientific approach that avoids unnecessary measures.

SEE MORE: Shanghai, Beijing Order New Round Of Mass COVID-19 Testing

Peking University has more than 40,000 students on multiple campuses, most in Beijing. It was unclear how many were affected by the lockdown. The 124-year-old institution is one of China's top universities and was a center of student protest in earlier decades. Its graduates include leading intellectuals, writers, politicians and businesspeople.

Lockdowns elsewhere have sparked scattered protests. Earlier this week, videos posted online showed crowds pulling down barriers in the southern city of Guangzhou in a densely built area that is home to migrant workers in the clothing industry.

Guangzhou, an industrial export hub near Hong Kong, reported more than 6,000 new cases in what is the nation's largest ongoing outbreak. The pandemic led the Badminton World Federation to move next month's HSBC World Tour Finals from Guangzhou to Bangkok, the federation announced this week.

SEE MORE: China Eases Some Quarantine For Travelers Even As Cases Rise

Other cities with major outbreaks include Chongqing in the southwest, Zhengzhou in Henan province and Hohhot, the capital of the Inner Mongolia region in the north.

In Zhengzhou late last month, workers fled their dormitories at a sprawling iPhone factory, some climbing over fences to get out. Apple subsequently warned that customers would face delays in deliveries of iPhone14 Pro models.

Chinese officials and state media have stressed that the government is fine-tuning but not abandoning what it calls a "dynamic" zero-COVID policy, after rumors of an easing sparked a stock market rally earlier this month.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Biden administration to lift Trump-era asylum restrictions that have been a cornerstone of border enforcement since the beginning of COVID-19.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled in Washington that enforcement must end immediately for families and single adults, calling the ban “arbitrary and capricious.” The administration has not applied it to children traveling alone.

Within hours, the Justice Department asked the judge to let the order take effect Dec. 21, giving it five weeks to prepare. Plaintiffs including the American Civil Liberties Union didn't oppose the delay.

SEE MORE: What Is Title 42, And What Does It Mean For U.S. Immigration?

“This transition period is critical to ensuring that (the Department of Homeland Security) can continue to carry out its mission to secure the Nation’s borders and to conduct its border operations in an orderly fashion,” government attorneys wrote.

Sullivan, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, wrote in a 49-page ruling that authorities failed to consider the impact on migrants and possible alternatives.

The ruling appears to conflict with another in May by a federal judge in Louisiana that kept the asylum restrictions.

If Sullivan's ruling stands, it would upend border enforcement. Migrants have been expelled from the United States more than 2.4 million times since the rule took effect in March 2020, denying migrants rights to seek asylum under U.S. and international law on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

The practice was authorized under Title 42 of a broader 1944 law covering public health.

SEE MORE: Border Crossings To U.S. From Mexico Hit Annual High

Before the judge in Louisiana kept the ban in place in May, U.S. officials said they were planning for as many as 18,000 migrants a day under the most challenging scenario, a staggering number. In May, migrants were stopped an average of 7,800 times a day, the highest of Joe Biden's presidency.

Immigration advocacy groups have pressed hard to end Title 42, but more moderate Democrats, including U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, wanted it to stay when the administration tried to lift it in May.

The ban has been unevenly enforced by nationality, falling largely on migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — in addition to Mexicans — because Mexico allows them to be returned from the United States. Last month, Mexico began accepting Venezuelans who are expelled from the United States under Title 42, causing a sharp drop in Venezuelans seeking asylum at the U.S. border.

Nationalities that are less likely to be subject to Title 42 have become a growing presence at the border, confident they will be released in the United States to pursue their immigration cases. In October, Cubans were the second-largest nationality at the border after Mexicans, followed by Venezuelans and Nicaraguans.

The Homeland Security Department said it would use the next five weeks to “prepare for an orderly transition to new policies at the border.”

"We continue to work with countries throughout the Western Hemisphere to take enforcement actions against the smuggling networks that entice migrants to take the dangerous and often deadly journey to our land borders and to address the root causes of irregular migration that are challenging our hemisphere as a whole,” the department said.

ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said Sullivan's decision renders the Louisiana ruling moot.

“This is an enormous victory for desperate asylum seekers who have been barred from even getting a hearing because of the misuse of public laws," Gelernt said. "This ruling hopefully puts an end to this horrendous period in U.S. history in which we abandoned our solemn commitment to provide refuge to those facing persecution.”

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel for the American Immigration Council, an immigrant advocacy group, distinguished Sullivan's ruling from the one by U.S. District Judge Robert Summerhays in Louisiana, an appointee of President Donald Trump, which applied only to how the Biden administration tried to end Title 42. Sullivan found the entire rule invalid.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

A judge overturned Georgia’s ban on abortion starting around six weeks into a pregnancy, ruling Tuesday that it violated the U.S. Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court precedent when it was enacted three years ago and was therefore void.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney's ruling took effect immediately statewide, though the state attorney general's office said it filed an appeal. The ban had been in effect since July.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, which represented doctors and advocacy groups that had asked McBurney to throw out the law, said it expects abortions past six weeks of pregnancy to resume Wednesday at some clinics.

Their lawsuit, filed in July, sought to strike down the ban on multiple grounds, including that it violates the Georgia Constitution’s right to privacy and liberty by forcing pregnancy and childbirth on women in the state. McBurney did not rule on that claim.

Instead, his decision agreed with a different argument made in the lawsuit — that the ban was invalid because when it was signed into law in 2019, U.S. Supreme Court precedent under Roe. v. Wade and another ruling allowed abortion well past six weeks.

SEE MORE: How Abortion Became A Focus Of Midterm Elections

Kara Richardson, a spokesperson for Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, said in an email that the office filed a notice of appeal and "will continue to fulfill our duty to defend the laws of our state in court.”

Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia, said Tuesday was a “great day for Georgia women and for all Georgians.”

“Today their right to make decisions for their own bodies, health, and families is vindicated,” Young said in a statement.

Andrew Isenhour, a spokesperson for Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, said McBurney’s ruling placed “the personal beliefs of a judge over the will of the legislature and people of Georgia."

“The state has already filed a notice of appeal, and we will continue to fight for the lives of Georgia’s unborn children,” he said in a statement.

Rep. Ed Setzler, the Republican from Atlanta suburb of Acworth who sponsored the law, said he was confident the state Supreme Court would overrule McBurney and reinstate the ban.

SEE MORE: Georgia Governor Signs Controversial Abortion Bill

The law prohibited most abortions once a “detectable human heartbeat” was present. Cardiac activity can be detected by ultrasound in cells within an embryo that will eventually become the heart around six weeks into a pregnancy. That means most abortions in Georgia were effectively banned at a point before many people knew they were pregnant.

Georgia’s law was passed by state lawmakers and signed by Kemp in 2019 but had been blocked from taking effect until the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which had protected the right to an abortion for nearly 50 years.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed Georgia to begin enforcing its abortion law just over three weeks after the high court’s decision in June.

Abortion clinics remained open, but providers said they were turning many people away because cardiac activity had been detected. They could then either travel to another state for an abortion or continue with their pregnancies.

During a two-day trial in October, abortion providers told McBurney the ban was distressing women denied the procedure and confusing doctors.

McBurney wrote in his ruling that when the law was enacted, “everywhere in America, including Georgia, it was unequivocally unconstitutional for governments — federal, state, or local — to ban abortions before viability.”

Therefore, the state’s law “did not become the law of Georgia when it was enacted and it is not the law of Georgia now,” he wrote.

The state had argued that the Roe decision itself was wrong and that the Supreme Court ruling wiped it out of existence.

McBurney did leave the door open for the legislature to revisit the ban.

Now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, the prohibition on abortions provided for in the 2019 law “may someday become the law of Georgia,” he wrote.

But, he wrote, that can happen only after the General Assembly “determines in the sharp glare of public attention that will undoubtedly and properly attend such an important and consequential debate whether the rights of unborn children justify such a restriction on women’s right to bodily autonomy and privacy.”

Georgia's ban included exceptions for rape and incest, as long as a police report was filed, and allowed for later abortions when the woman’s life was at risk or a serious medical condition rendered a fetus unviable.

At the October trial, witnesses for the state disputed the claim that the law was unclear about when doctors could intervene to perform a later abortion. They also argued that abortions themselves could harm women.

Abortion was a central issue in Georgia's U.S. Senate contest between Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker, which is now headed to a runoff in December. Two women accused Walker, who opposes abortion, of paying for them to have the procedure. Walker vehemently denied that.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

The University of Virginia canceled its final home football game of the season Wednesday, the same day a student accused of killing three members of the team and wounding two other students in an on-campus shooting was due in court for his first hearing.

University officials and police have said Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., 22, joined a group of about two dozen others on a field trip Sunday from the Charlottesville campus to see a play in the nation's capital, about 120 miles away. When their bus arrived back on campus, authorities have said the suspect opened fire, killing Lavel Davis Jr., D'Sean Perry and Devin Chandler, and wounding two others, one of them also a football player.

The suspect — who police have said was able to flee the shooting scene, setting off a manhunt and 12-hour campus lockdown — faces three counts of second-degree murder, two counts of malicious wounding and additional gun-related charges.

SEE MORE: University Of Virginia Shooting Suspect Taken Into Custody

The violence at the state's flagship public university has set off days of mourning among students and faculty, the broader Charlottesville community and other supporters. Classes resumed Wednesday, though the school announced it was canceling what would have been UVA's final home football game of the 2022 season against Coastal Carolina.

No decision has been made yet about whether UVA will participate in its final game of the season on Nov. 26 against Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.

On Wednesday, the suspect was expected to appear by video link from a local jail, according to the prosecutor handling the case, Albemarle Commonwealth's Attorney James Hingeley.

Online records do not list an attorney for the suspect. If he is financially eligible for court-appointed counsel, an attorney will be appointed Wednesday, Hingeley wrote in an email, adding there also could be a preliminary bail review at the hearing.

The suspect has been in custody since he was arrested in suburban Richmond late Monday morning.

University President Jim Ryan said Monday that authorities did not have a "full understanding" of the motive behind the shooting. Court documents filed so far in the matter have offered no additional insight.

The suspect was a member of the football team during the 2018 season, a one-semester walk-on, according to athletics director Carla Williams.

In interviews, his father has expressed confusion and astonishment and apologized to the victims' families.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.