By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A plan to sell more than 2 million acres of federal lands has been ruled out of Republicans’ big tax and spending cut bill after the Senate parliamentarian determined the proposal by Senate Energy Chairman Mike Lee would violate the chamber’s rules.

Lee, a Utah Republican, has proposed selling public lands in the West to states or other entities for use as housing or infrastructure. The plan would revive a longtime ambition of Western conservatives to cede lands to local control after a similar proposal failed in the House earlier this year.

The proposal received a mixed reception Monday from the governors of Western states. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, called it problematic in her state because of the close relationship residents have with public lands.

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, voiced qualified support.

“On a piece-by-piece basis where states have the opportunity to craft policies that make sense … we can actually allow for some responsible growth in areas with communities that are landlocked at this point,” he said at a news conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where the Western Governors’ Association was meeting.

Lee, in a post on X Monday night, said he would keep trying.

“Housing prices are crushing families and keeping young Americans from living where they grew up. We need to change that,” he wrote, adding that a revised plan would remove all U.S. Forest Service land from possible sale. Sales of sites controlled by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management would be significantly reduced, Lee said, so that only land within 5 miles of population centers could be sold.

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Environmental advocates celebrated the ruling late Monday by Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, but cautioned that Lee’s proposal was far from dead.

“This is a victory for the American public, who were loud and clear: Public lands belong in public hands, for current and future generations alike,” said Tracy Stone-Manning, president of The Wilderness Society. “Our public lands are not for sale.”

Carrie Besnette Hauser, president and CEO of the nonprofit Trust for Public Land called the procedural ruling in the Senate “an important victory in the fight to protect America’s public lands from short-sighted proposals that would have undermined decades of bipartisan work to protect, steward and expand access to the places we all share.”

“But make no mistake: this threat is far from over,” Hauser added. “Efforts to dismantle our public lands continue, and we must remain vigilant as proposals now under consideration,” including plans to roll back the bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act and cut funding for land and water conservation, make their way through Congress, she said.

MacDonough, the Senate parliamentarian, also ruled out a host of other Republican-led provisions Monday night, including construction of a mining road in Alaska and changes to speed permitting of oil and gas leases on federal lands.

While the parliamentarian’s rulings are advisory, they are rarely, if ever, ignored. Lawmakers are using a budget reconciliation process to bypass the Senate filibuster to pass President Donald Trump’s tax-cut package by a self-imposed July Fourth deadline.

Lee’s plan revealed sharp disagreement among Republicans who support wholesale transfers of federal property to spur development and generate revenue, and other lawmakers who are staunchly opposed.

Land in 11 Western states from Alaska to New Mexico would be eligible for sale. Montana was carved out of the proposal after lawmakers there objected. In states such as Utah and Nevada, the government controls the vast majority of lands, protecting them from potential exploitation but hindering growth.

“Washington has proven time and again it can’t manage this land. This bill puts it in better hands,” Lee said in announcing the plan.

Housing advocates have cautioned that federal land is not universally suitable for affordable housing. Some of the parcels up for sale in Utah and Nevada under a House proposal were far from developed areas.

New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, the ranking Democrat on the energy committee, said Lee’s plan would exclude Americans from places where they fish, hunt and camp.

“I don’t think it’s clear that we would even get substantial housing as a result of this,” Heinrich said earlier this month. “What I know would happen is people would lose access to places they know and care about and that drive our Western economies.”

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.