By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The prosecution rested Tuesday at Sean “Diddy” Combs ’ sex trafficking trial, capping a more than six-week-long presentation of evidence against the hip-hop maven that confronted him with former employees and two former girlfriends who expressed regret at his treatment of them over the past two decades.

The move came after defense lawyer Teny Geragos finished questioning the government’s final witness: Joseph Cerciello, a Homeland Security Investigations agent.

Prosecutors have cited the “freak offs” as proof of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges that resulted in Combs’ arrest last September.

Defense lawyers, though, say they were consensual sexual encounters consistent with the swingers lifestyle.

Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty and has remained incarcerated without bail in a federal lockup in Brooklyn after multiple judges concluded last fall that he was a danger to the community.

FILE – This courtroom sketch depicts Sean “Diddy” Combs sitting at the defense table during his bail hearing in New York on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (Elizabeth Williams via AP, File)

The government’s case has consisted of 34 witnesses, including former employees of Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment companies, but the bulk of its proof has come from the testimony of two former girlfriends: Casandra “Cassie” Ventura and a model and internet personality known to jurors only by the pseudonym “Jane.”

Ventura, 38, testified for four days during the trial’s first week, saying she felt pressured to engage in hundreds of “freak offs” because the encounters would enable her to be intimate with Combs after performing sexually with male sex workers while he watched them slather one another with baby oil and sometimes filmed the encounters.

Jane testified for six days about the sexual performances she labeled “hotel nights,” saying that she was putting them into perspective after beginning therapy three months ago. She said she felt coerced into engaging in them as recently as last August, but did so because she loved and still loves Combs.

Ventura was in a relationship with Combs from 2007 to 2018, while Jane was frequently with him from 2021 until his arrest, which canceled her plan to meet him at the New York hotel where he was taken into custody.

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The Associated Press doesn’t generally identify people who say they are victims of sexual abuse unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie has done.

After prosecutors rest on Tuesday, a defense presentation is expected to be completed by the end of the day without any witnesses.

Throughout the trial, defense lawyers have made their case for exoneration through their questioning of witnesses, including several who testified reluctantly or only after they were granted immunity from any crimes they may have committed.

Combs has been active in his defense, writing notes to his lawyers and sometimes helping them decide when to stop questioning a witness.

He was admonished once by the judge for nodding enthusiastically toward jurors during a successful stretch of cross-examination by one of his lawyers. Prosecutors complained that his gestures were a form of testifying without being subject to cross-examination. The judge warned that he could be excluded from his trial if it happened again.

In the past week, prosecutors and defense lawyers have shown jurors over 40 minutes of recordings Combs made of the “freak offs” or “hotel nights.”

Several jurors occasionally seemed squeamish as they viewed and listened to audio of the encounters, but most did not seem to react.

In her opening statement, Geragos had called the videos “powerful evidence that the sexual conduct in this case was consensual and not based on coercion.”

Closing arguments were tentatively scheduled for Thursday.

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to clear the way for the deportation of several immigrants to South Sudan, a war-ravaged country where they have no ties.

The motion comes a day after the justices allowed immigration officials to restart quick deportations to third countries, halting a lower-court order that had allowed migrants to challenge removals to countries where they could be in danger.

But Judge Brian Murphy in Boston found the deportation flight diverted to Djibouti in May couldn’t immediately resume its path to South Sudan. While he acknowledged the Supreme Court decision pausing his broader order, he said his ruling on that flight remained in place. The migrants must still get a chance to argue in court that they’d be in danger of torture if sent there, he found.

The Trump administration pushed back in a court filing, calling the judge’s finding “a lawless act of defiance that, once again, disrupts sensitive diplomatic relations and slams the brakes on the Executive’s lawful efforts to effectuate third-country removals.”

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Attorneys for the migrants say they could face “imprisonment, torture and even death” if sent to South Sudan, the world’s newest and one of its poorest countries. South Sudan has endured waves of violence since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, and escalating political tensions in the African nation have threatened to devolve into another civil war.

The push comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by Trump’s Republican administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally. Because some countries do not accept their citizens deported from the U.S., the administration has reached agreements with other countries, including Panama and Costa Rica, to house immigrants.

Murphy, who was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, didn’t prohibit deportations to third countries. But he found migrants must have a real chance to argue they could be in serious danger of torture if sent to another country.

He ruled immigration officials violated his order with the South Sudan flight that left on short notice with eight men from countries including Myanmar, Vietnam and Mexico who had been convicted of serious crimes in the U.S.

The administration then appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing the judge had overstepped his authority. The high court’s conservative majority agreed to halt the order in a brief decision handed down without a detailed explanation, as is typical on the court’s emergency docket. All three liberal justices on the nine-member court joined a scathing dissent.

By MATT BROWN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Robert Garcia was elected the top Democrat on the powerful House Oversight Committee on Tuesday, charting a new direction for the party’s opposition to congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump’s administration.

Garcia, of California, won the job overwhelmingly in a closed-door vote of the House Democratic caucus. He beat out Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, 150-63.

Afterward, Garcia thanked colleagues who also sought the top job and promised the Democratic side of the committee would be focused on rooting out government corruption and increasing government efficiency.

“Efficiency is not DOGE,” Garcia said, referring to the Department of Government Efficiency. “Efficiency is actually making government work better for our constituents across the country, and that’s what we’re going to focus on.”

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House Oversight is among the most prominent committees in Congress — and one of its most consistently partisan. As the top Democrat, Garcia will be thrust into the spotlight as Republicans conduct several high-profile investigations, including the unfolding inquiry into Democratic President Joe Biden’s health in office.

Garcia said the committee’s Democratic staffers are “ready for consistent leadership” and promised “to get immediately to work.”

The ranking Democrat spot opened up after Rep. Gerry Connelly of Virginia died in late May following treatment for esophageal cancer. Other Democrats who ran for the job included Lynch, Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas and Rep. Kweisi Mfume of Maryland.

Crockett and Mfume dropped out of the race after Garcia on Monday won the support of the Democrats’ steering committee, which sets party priorities.

Garcia will be the first Latino and openly gay person to serve as the committee’s ranking member. His election comes at a time of generational change for Democrats, with internal debates raging over how to fix what went wrong in the elections last year.

Democrats made a different choice last December, when Connolly defeated Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, one of the party’s progressive stars, for the Oversight ranking member job in a race that also featured heavy debates over generational change. This time around, many senior Democratic lawmakers expressed openness to reassessing seniority as the main consideration for top committee posts.

Lynch has served on the Oversight panel for 14 years, while Garcia has served on it for two.

“I think what’s important is that this party and us at this moment is looking at expanding the tent,” Garcia told reporters. “And I think experience is incredibly important. I think I can bring that experience. I feel ready. But I also think it’s an opportunity to bring in newer voices to the leadership and to this committee.”

Garcia had pitched himself as a compromise candidate to colleagues. He emphasized his experience as mayor of Long Beach, California, as a reason that he would be skilled at steering the party’s conversation on government reform and efficacy. And he stressed to lawmakers that combating potential government corruption in the Trump administration would be both good governance and a winning political message.

Multiple Democratic members in competitive districts were persuaded by his pitch to not stake out positions that would hurt the party’s broader brand and thus chances of winning back the majority.

By ANTHONY IZAGUIRRE, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Democrats will decide Tuesday whether to reboot Andrew Cuomo’s political career, elevate liberal upstart Zohran Mamdani, or turn to a crowded field of lesser-known but maybe less-polarizing candidates in the party’s mayoral primary.

Their choice could say something about what kind of leader Democrats are looking for during President Donald Trump’s second term.

The vote takes place on a sweltering day about four years after Cuomo resigned as governor following a sexual harassment scandal. Yet the 67-year-old has been the favorite throughout the race, with his deep experience, nearly universal name recognition, strong political connections and juggernaut fundraising apparatus.

The party’s progressive wing, meanwhile, has coalesced behind Mamdani, a 33-year-old self-described democratic socialist. A relatively unknown state legislator when the contest began, Mamdani gained momentum by running a sharp campaign laser-focused on the city’s high cost of living and secured endorsements from two of the country’s foremost progressives, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

FILE- This combination photo shows on left, Democratic mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo speaking during a Democratic mayoral primary debate, Wednesday, June 4, 2025, in New York and on right, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani talking to people after the New York City Democratic Mayoral Primary Debate at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in the Gerald W. Lynch Theater on Thursday, June 12, 2025 in New York City. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, file and Vincent Alban/The New York Times via AP, Pool, file)

While preliminary returns will be released after the polls close at 9 p.m. Tuesday, a winner might not emerge for a week because of the city’s ranked choice voting system, which allows voters to list up to five candidates in order of preference. If a candidate is the first choice of a majority of voters, they win outright. If no candidate reaches that threshold, the tabulation of the rankings wouldn’t begin until July 1.

The primary winner will go on to face incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who decided to run as an independent amid a public uproar over his indictment on corruption charges and the subsequent abandonment of the case by Trump’s Justice Department. Republican Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, will be on the ballot in the fall’s general election.

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The mayoral primary’s two leading candidates — one a fresh-faced progressive and the other an older moderate — could be stand-ins for the larger Democratic Party’s ideological divide, though Cuomo’s scandal-scarred past adds a unique tinge to the narrative.

The rest of the pack has struggled to gain recognition in a race where nearly every candidate has cast themselves as the person best positioned to challenge Trump’s Republican agenda.

Comptroller Brad Lander, a liberal city government stalwart, made a splash last week when he was arrested after linking arms with a man federal agents were trying to detain at an immigration court in Manhattan. It was unclear if that episode was enough to jump-start a campaign that had been failing to pick up speed behind Lander’s wonkish vibe.

Among the other candidates are City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, hedge fund executive Whitney Tilson and former city Comptroller Scott Stringer.

Mamdani’s energetic run has been hard not to notice.

His army of young hipster canvassers relentlessly knocked on doors throughout the city seeking support. Posters of his grinning mug were up on shop windows. You couldn’t get on social media without seeing one of his well-produced videos pitching his vision — free buses, free child care, new apartments, a higher minimum wage and more, paid for by new taxes on the rich. He would be the city’s first Indian-American and first Muslim mayor.

Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani arrives at the NBC studios to participate in a Democratic mayoral primary debate, Wednesday, June 4, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, Pool)

Cuomo and some other Democrats have cast Mamdani as unqualified. They say he doesn’t have the management chops to wrangle the city’s sprawling bureaucracy or handle crises. Critics have also taken aim at Mamdani’s support for Palestinian human rights.

In response, Mamdani has slammed Cuomo over his sexual harassment scandal and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

In one heated debate exchange, Cuomo rattled off a long list of what he saw as Mamdani’s managerial shortcomings, arguing that his opponent, who has been in the state Assembly since 2021, has never dealt with Congress or unions and never overseen an infrastructure project. He added that Mamdani couldn’t be relied upon to go toe-to-toe with Trump.

Mamdani had a counter ready.

“To Mr. Cuomo, I have never had to resign in disgrace,” he said.

New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo, center, waves as he walks in the Puerto Rican Day Parade, Sunday, June 8, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Cuomo resigned in 2021 after a report commissioned by the state attorney general concluded that he had sexually harassed at least 11 women. He has always maintained that he didn’t intentionally harass the women, saying he had simply fallen behind what was considered appropriate workplace conduct.

During the campaign, he has become more aggressive in defending himself, framing the situation as a political hit job orchestrated by his enemies.

The fresh scandal at City Hall involving Mayor Eric Adams, though, gave Cuomo a path to end his exile.