Colorado Supreme Court bans Trump from ballot, Giuliani files for bankruptcy, and more of the week's top news

TThis week's recipe roundup features even more holiday recipes. Some are great for a Christmas crowd, while others are the perfect fit for an intimate New Year gathering.

Roast Beef Tenderloin with Two Aiolis

The menu that follows serves six to eight guests with a modest portion of beef. Serve a hearty endive salad with a lemon vinaigrette as a first course while the meat rests on the cutting board.

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Christmas Waldorf Salad

The classic Waldorf salad is dressed-up for Christmas by swapping out the raisins for festive dried cranberries. A combination of Greek yogurt and mayonnaise makes the salad creamy while keeping it light.

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Pesto Lamb with Wild Mushroom Rice

Here’s an easy and quick dinner that’s perfect for the holiday season or any time you need a quick meal. Loin lamb chops are topped with a prepared pesto sauce, making this a special meal that takes only minutes to make. I used shiitake mushrooms to make wild mushroom rice. They’re quickly sauteed in a skillet with some garlic and then the same skillet is used to cook the lamb.

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Chateaubriand

Chateaubriand (pronounced shaa-tow-bree-aand) refers to a larger cut of meat that is the most center part of a beef tenderloin. Meant to serve at least two people, it has a high price tag because the meat is taken from the most expensive part of the animal. ( Cuts from high up on the animal get less exercise and are, therefore, very tender.)

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Cheesy Mexican Meatloaf

A cozy sweater and heated car seats help to ward off the chill. But now is also the time to warm up both the body and soul with winter comfort foods like this spiced-up, cheesy meatloaf.

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Stacker collected information from the Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database to rank the most destructive winter storms since 1980.

ROME — Pope Francis has formally approved allowing priests to bless same-sex couples, with a new document explaining a radical change in Vatican policy by insisting that people seeking God's love and mercy shouldn't be subject to "an exhaustive moral analysis" to receive it.

The document from the Vatican's doctrine office, released Monday, elaborates on a letter Francis sent to two conservative cardinals that was published in October. In that preliminary response, Francis suggested such blessings could be offered under some circumstances if they didn't confuse the ritual with the sacrament of marriage.

The new document repeats that rationale and elaborates on it, reaffirming that marriage is a lifelong sacrament between a man and a woman. And it stresses that blessings should not be conferred at the same time as a civil union, using set rituals or even with the clothing and gestures that belong in a wedding.

But it says requests for such blessings should not be denied full stop. It offers an extensive definition of the term "blessing" in Scripture to insist that people seeking a transcendent relationship with God and looking for his love and mercy should not be subject to "an exhaustive moral analysis" as a precondition for receiving it.

"Ultimately, a blessing offers people a means to increase their trust in God," the document said. "The request for a blessing, thus, expresses and nurtures openness to the transcendence, mercy, and closeness to God in a thousand concrete circumstances of life, which is no small thing in the world in which we live."

He added: "It is a seed of the Holy Spirit that must be nurtured, not hindered."

The Vatican holds that marriage is an indissoluble union between man and woman. As a result, it has long opposed same-sex marriage.

And in 2021, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said flat-out that the church couldn't bless the unions of two men or two women because "God cannot bless sin."

That document created an outcry, one it appeared even Francis was blindsided by even though he had technically approved its publication. Soon after it was published, he removed the official responsible for it and set about laying the groundwork for a reversal.

In the new document, the Vatican said the church must shy away from "doctrinal or disciplinary schemes, especially when they lead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying."

It stressed that people in "irregular" unions — gay or straight — are in a state of sin. But it said that shouldn't deprive them of God's love or mercy.

"Thus, when people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it," the document said.

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Photos: Pope Francis through the years

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday approved sweeping new powers that allow police to arrest migrants who illegally cross the U.S. border and give local judges authority to order them to leave the country, testing the limits of how far a state can go to enforce immigration laws.

Opponents have called the measure the most dramatic attempt by a state to police immigration since a 2010 Arizona law — denounced by critics as the “Show Me Your Papers” bill — that was largely struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, and Texas’ law is also likely to face swift legal challenges.

The law, which takes effect in March, allows any Texas law enforcement officer to arrest people who are suspected of entering the country illegally. Once in custody, they could either agree to a Texas judge’s order to leave the U.S. or be prosecuted on misdemeanor charges of illegal entry. Migrants who don’t leave could face arrest again under more serious felony charges.

Abbott, who signed the law in front of a section of border fence in Brownsville, predicted the number of people crossing illegally into Texas would drop by “well over 50%, maybe 75%." He did not offer evidence for that estimate.

“The consequences of it are so extreme that the people being smuggled by the cartels, they will not want to be coming into the state of Texas," he said.

The law adds another tension point over immigration amid a struggle between the White House and Senate negotiators to reach a deal on border security. Republicans in Congress are demanding changes to the immigration system in exchange for any help for Ukraine, Israel and other national security needs.

Texas Republicans have increasingly challenged the U.S. government’s authority over immigration, saying President Joe Biden's administration isn’t doing enough to control the 1,950-mile (3,149-kilometer) southern border. Texas has bused more than 65,000 migrants to cities across America since August 2022 and recently installed razor wire along the banks of the Rio Grande, which has snagged and injured some asylum-seekers.

The U.S. government on Monday temporarily shut down two railroad border crossings in Texas, a move that rail operators said would hamper trade ahead of Christmas. Troy Miller, U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s acting commissioner, said the closures at Eagle Pass and El Paso were a response to more migrants traveling on freight trains, particularly over the last week.

Miller said authorities are seeing “unprecedented” arrivals at the border, topping 10,000 crossings on some days this month.

Shortly after Abbott signed the new law, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas said it would challenge the measure in court. More than 20 congressional Democrats also signed a letter urging the U.S. Justice Department to sue to stop the law, known as Senate Bill 4.

“SB 4 is dangerous for the people of Texas and interferes with the federal government’s exclusive authority over immigration and foreign affairs," the letter read.

Mexico’s government also has rebuked the measure. Under bilateral and international agreements, Mexico is required to accept deportations of its own citizens, but not those of other countries. Under the Texas law, migrants ordered to leave would be sent to ports of entry along the border with Mexico, even if they are not Mexican citizens. In September and October, Venezuelans were the largest nationality arrested for illegally crossing the U.S. border.

During debate in the Texas House in November, GOP state Rep. David Spiller pushed back against concerns that the law would be used as a dragnet to arrest immigrants statewide. He said enforcement would mostly take place in border counties. But he also rebuffed several efforts by Democrats to narrow the law, including a proposed carve-out for police on college campuses.

Because the illegal entry charge is a misdemeanor, which has a statue of limitation of two years, Spiller has said the law will not be used to target immigrants who have long been settled in the U.S.

“This is not, ‘Round up everyone who is here illegally and ship them back to Mexico,’” he said during debate over the bill.

Opponents have accused Texas Republicans of using the law as a vehicle to force the Supreme Court’s new conservative majority to revisit its landmark 2012 Arizona decision. At the time, Justice Anthony Kennedy said Arizona may have “understandable frustrations” with immigrants who are in the country illegally but that it can’t pursue policies that “undermine federal law.”

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Weber contributed from Austin, Texas. Associated Press writers Mark Stevenson in Mexico City and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

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Photos: Migrants rush across US border in final hours before pandemic rule expires

LOS ANGELES — Matthew Perry died from the acute effects of the anesthetic ketamine, according to the results of an autopsy on the 54-year-old “Friends” actor released Friday.

The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner said in the autopsy report that Perry also drowned in “the heated end of his pool,” but that it was a secondary factor in his Oct. 28 death, deemed an accident.

People close to Perry told investigators that he was undergoing ketamine infusion therapy, an experimental treatment used to treat depression and anxiety. But the medical examiner said the levels of ketamine in Perry’s body were in the range used for general anesthesia during surgery, and that his last treatment 1½ weeks earlier wouldn’t explain those levels. The drug is typically metabolized in a matter of hours.

The report says coronary artery disease and buprenorphine, which is used to treat opioid use disorder, also contributed.

The amount of ketamine detected “would be enough to make him lose consciousness and lose his posture and his ability to keep himself above the water,” said Dr. Andrew Stolbach, a medical toxicologist with Johns Hopkins Medicine who reviewed the autopsy report at the request of The Associated Press.

“Using sedative drugs in a pool or hot tub, especially when you’re alone, is extremely risky and, sadly, here it’s fatal,” said Stolbach, who noted that both ketamine and buprenorphine can be used safely.

Perry was declared dead after being found unresponsive at his home in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles. Investigators performed the autopsy the following day.

The actor had taken drugs in the past but had been “reportedly clean for 19 months," according to the report.

Perry had played pickleball earlier in the day, the report says, and his assistant, who lives with him, found him face down in the pool after returning from errands.

The assistant told investigators Perry had not been sick, had not made any health complaints, and had not shown evidence of recent alcohol or drug use.

Postmortem blood tests showed “high levels” of ketamine in his system, which could have raised his blood pressure and heart rate and dulled his impulse to breathe.

Buprenorphine, commonly used in opioid addiction and found found in therapeutic levels in Perry’s blood, could have contributed to the breathing problem, the autopsy said. It would have been risky to mix the central nervous system depressant with ketamine “due to the additive respiratory effects when present with high levels of ketamine," according to the autopsy report.

The report said his coronary artery disease would have made him more susceptible to the drugs' effects.

Perry was among the biggest television stars of his generation when he played Chandler Bing alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004 on NBC's megahit sitcom “Friends.”

His castmates, like many of his friends, family and fans, were stunned by his death, and paid him loving tribute in the weeks that followed.

Perry was open about discussing his struggles with addiction dating back to his time on “Friends."

"I loved everything about the show but I was struggling with my addictions which only added to my sense of shame,” he wrote in his 2022 memoir. “I had a secret and no one could know.”

A woman whose name is redacted in the autopsy report told investigators that Perry had been in good spirits when she spoke to him a few days earlier, but had been taking testosterone shots which she said were making him “angry and mean.” She said he had quit smoking two weeks earlier.

The woman said he had been receiving the ketamine infusions for his mental health, and that his doctor had been giving them to him less often because he had been feeling well.

Ketamine is a powerful anesthetic approved by U.S. health regulators for use during surgery, but in the past decade it has emerged as an experimental treatment for a range of psychiatric and hard-to-treat conditions, including depression, anxiety and chronic pain.

While not approved by regulators, doctors are free to prescribe drugs for these alternate uses if they think their patients could benefit, and hundreds of clinics across the U.S. offer ketamine infusions and other formulations for various health conditions.

Photos: Notable Deaths in 2023

Matthew Perry

Rosalynn Carter

Henry Kissinger

Tina Turner

Jimmy Buffett

Tony Bennett

Jim Brown

Dick Butkus

Bob Barker

Dianne Feinstein

Raquel Welch

Suzanne Somers

Lisa Marie Presley

Harry Belafonte

Sinéad O’Connor

David Crosby

Steve Harwell

Lance Reddick

Richard Belzer

Cindy Williams

Paul Reubens

Jerry Springer

Michael Gambon

Burt Young

Mark Margolis

Jacklyn Zeman

John Beasley

Michael Lerner

Tom Sizemore

Charles Kimbrough

Willis Reed

Brooks Robinson

Betsy Rawls

Tim McCarver

Billy Packer

Gordon Lightfoot

Jeff Beck

Clarence Avant

Bobby Caldwell

Gary Rossington

Wayne Shorter

Angus Cloud

Michael Chiarello

Alan Arkin

Julian Sands

Cynthia Weil

Sheldon Harnick

Barrett Strong

The Iron Sheik

Treat Williams

Bill Richardson

Daniel Ellsberg

Pat Robertson

Robert Blake

Ted Kaczynski

Lloyd Morrisett

Chaim Topol

Len Goodman

Burt Bacharach

Stella Stevens

Barry Humphries

Annie Wersching

Dave Hollis

Christine King Farris

David Jude Jolicoeur

Robbie Knievel

Gina Lollobrigida

Lynette Hardaway ("Diamond")

Adam Rich

Bobby Hull

Charles White

Robbie Robertson

Ron Cephas Jones

Samuel “Joe” Wurzelbacher

Mohamed Al Fayed

Jerry Richardson

Sister André

Tatjana Patitz

Russell Banks

Cardinal George Pell

Ken Block

Walter Cunningham

Anton Walkes

Pat Schroeder

Seymour Stein

Klaus Teuber

Ginnie Newhart

Vida Blue

Martin Amis

Doyle Brunson

Hodding Carter III

Ray Stevenson

Astrud Gilberto

Tori Bowie

Silvio Berlusconi

John Goodenough

Coco Lee

Jane Birkin

William Friedkin

Michael McGrath

Fernando Botero

David McCallum

Tim Wakefield

Louise Glück

Piper Laurie

Bob Knight

Frank Borman

Maryanne Trump Barry

Ken Squier

A.S. Byatt

George Brown

Willie Hernandez

Jean Knight

Frances Sternhagen

Shane MacGowan

Norman Lear

Sandra Day O’Connor

Benjamin Zephaniah

Ryan O'Neal

TACOMA, Wash. — A jury has cleared three Washington state police officers of all criminal charges in the 2020 death of Manuel Ellis, a Black man who was shocked, beaten and restrained face down on a Tacoma sidewalk as he pleaded for breath.

Two of the officers — Matthew Collins, 40, and Christopher Burbank, 38 — had been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter, while Timothy Rankine, 34, was charged with manslaughter. The jury found the three not guilty on all counts.

There was a gasp from the gallery when the first not-guilty verdict was read. Rankine sat forward in his seat and wiped his eyes, while Collins hugged his lawyer.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, whose office prosecuted the case, said in a statement that he was grateful for the jury, the court and his legal team “for their extraordinary hard work and dedication.”

“I know the Ellis family is hurting, and my heart goes out to them,” he said.

The Ellis family immediately left the courtroom and planned to speak at a news conference later. The Washington Coalition for Police Accountability said in a statement that “the not guilty verdict is further proof the system is broken, failing the very people it should be serving.”

Roger Rogoff, director of the state’s recently created Office of Independent Investigations, which is tasked with investigating police shootings, said he did not want to comment directly on the verdict but expressed sympathy for the Ellis family.

“I continue to have empathy and sympathy for the family of Manny Ellis,” Rogoff said. “Anybody who loses a child in that way, it’s tragic, and they’re living with that forever. My heart and our office’s heart goes out to them. I also am aware that the law enforcement officers involved are also impacted significantly, and so I am glad that the trial is over for all people involved.”

The Pierce County medical examiner ruled Ellis’ death a homicide caused by oxygen deprivation, but lawyers for the officers said a high level of methamphetamine in Ellis’ system and a heart irregularity were to blame.

Witnesses — one of whom yelled for the officers to stop attacking Ellis — and a doorbell surveillance camera captured video of parts of the encounter the night of March 3, 2020. The video showed Ellis with his hands up in a surrender position as Burbank shot a Taser at his chest and Collins wrapped an arm around his neck from behind.

Crime-courts

Washington officers on trial in deadly arrest of Manny Ellis, a case reminiscent of George Floyd

• MARTHA BELLISLE Associated Press

The officers later told investigators that Ellis attacked them and was violent. Witnesses testified that they saw no such thing.

“When I saw Manuel not doing anything, and him get attacked like that, it wasn’t right,” witness Sara McDowell, 26, said at trial. “I’d never seen police do anything like that. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. It was scary. It wasn’t OK.”

Collins testified that he lamented Ellis’ death but wouldn’t have done anything differently. He said he never heard Ellis say, repeatedly, that he couldn’t breathe, and he maintained that Ellis started the confrontation by lifting Collins off the ground and throwing him onto his back, something no other witness reported seeing.

Another officer, Rankine, called Ellis’ death a tragedy. He was pressing his knees into Ellis’ back when Ellis pleaded for breath.

“The only response at that point that I could think of is, ‘If you can talk to me, you can still breathe,’” Rankine said in testimony.

Ellis’ death became a touchstone for racial justice demonstrators in the Pacific Northwest, but it also coincided with the first U.S. outbreak of COVID-19 at a nursing home in nearby Kirkland and did not garner the attention that the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis did nearly three months later.

The trial, which lasted more than two months, was the first under a 5-year-old state law designed to make it easier to prosecute police accused of wrongfully using deadly force.

Ellis was walking home with doughnuts from a 7-Eleven when he passed a patrol car stopped at a red light, with Collins and Burbank inside.

After what witnesses said appeared to be a brief conversation between Ellis and the officers, Burbank, in the passenger seat, threw open his door, knocking Ellis down. The officers, both white, tackled and punched Ellis, with one stunning him with a Taser as the other held him in a neck restraint.

Among the many other officers who responded was Rankine, who arrived after Ellis was already handcuffed face-down and knelt on the man’s upper back as he pleaded for breath.

Video captured Ellis addressing the officers as “sir” while telling them he couldn’t breathe. One officer is heard responding, “Shut the (expletive) up, man.”

Read more:

NEW YORK — A federal judge has ordered the public disclosure of the identities of more than 150 people mentioned in a mountain of court documents related to the late-financier Jeffrey Epstein, saying that most of the names were already public and that many had not objected to the release.

The people whose names are to be disclosed, including sex abuse victims, litigation witnesses, Epstein's employees — and even some people with only a passing connection to the scandal — have until Jan. 1 to appeal the order, signed Monday by Judge Loretta A. Preska.

For several years, Preska has reviewed documents sought by the Miami Herald from a civil case, filed by one of Epstein's victims, that eventually was settled.

Many of the records related to that lawsuit were publicly released in past years, but on Monday the judge made determinations about some portions of the records that were initially withheld on potential privacy grounds and what can be made public about certain people mentioned in the records.

In many instances, she noted that individuals had given media interviews or that their names had previously emerged publicly in various ways, including at a trial two years ago of Epstein's associate and former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Preska concluded that some portions of the records should remain confidential, including those identifying people who were children when they were sexually abused by Epstein and had tried to maintain their privacy.

The Epstein case has spawned countless conspiracy theories about the possible involvement of rich and powerful people in sex trafficking.

The three criminal cases brought by federal and state authorities, however, have focused on allegations about sexual abuse by Epstein himself and Maxwell.

Epstein took his own life in August 2019 in a federal lockup in Manhattan as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges. He was accused of luring numerous underage girls to his homes under the guise of giving him massages, and then sexually abusing them.

Maxwell, 61, is serving a 20-year prison sentence after she was convicted in December 2021 of helping Epstein recruit and sexually abuse underage girls.

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