Axios

The white gunman suspected of killing 10 Black people in a mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket earlier this year will plead guilty to all state charges on Monday, a lawyer for families of the victims said Thursday.

Driving the news: Payton Gendron, 19, was indicted on 25 counts, including 10 first-degree murder charges, attempted murder as a hate crime and domestic terrorism motivated by hate. He could face a mandatory life sentence.

The Biden administration is preparing for the possibility of mass migration from Haiti by expanding a migrant center on Guantanamo Bay and looking into the Bahamas or Turks and Caicos for temporary new holding sites, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Haiti has been beset by gang violence, fuel shortages and a recent cholera outbreak. For months, the administration has held informal planning meetings on how to hold potentially hundreds of migrants at a time, before quickly returning them to the beleaguered island.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent was killed and two other agents were wounded in a gunfight with two alleged smugglers near Puerto Rico on Thursday, CBP said in a statement.

The big picture: The gunfight took place about 14 miles off Puerto Rico's west coast along Mona Passage, a major drug smuggling corridor for cocaine from South America, according to AP.

The Uvalde police officer who served as acting police chief during the Robb Elementary School shooting has stepped down, AP reports.

Driving the news: Lt. Mariano Pargas, who had been suspended with pay since July, faced renewed backlash after CNN published audio showing that he knew there were children alive and begging for rescue but walked away from the locked classroom without taking action.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chair of the Jan. 6 select committee, on Thursday said he has created a four-member subcommittee to handle "outstanding issues" as the panel looks to wrap up its work before the end of the year.

Why it matters: The full select committee is focused on its sprawling final report, which Thompson said is expected to be released by "early December," but it still has several loose threads to tug on.

Kari Lake, the Republican candidate who was defeated in Arizona's gubernatorial election, said she's "still in this fight" and indicated that she's planning to challenge the results of her loss to Democrat Katie Hobbs.

State of play: Lake has not conceded since the Associated Press called the race for Hobbs on Monday night.

• Hobbs maintains a lead of more than 17,000 votes as of Thursday.
• Lake had repeatedly refused to commit to accepting the general election results if she lost to Hobbs, and indicated before the Aug. 2 primary election that she would refuse to concede if she lost the GOP nomination.

Driving the news: In a video posted on social media Thursday morning, Lake referenced problems with printers and tabulation machines at 70 of Maricopa County's 223 voting centers.

• According to officials in Maricopa County, home to the Phoenix metro area and more than 60% of Arizona's population, printer settings resulted in some tabulation machines not reading ballots.
• Voters were still able to put their ballots in a separate day drop box to be transported to the central election center, where more advanced tabulators were able to read them in subsequent days, which about 17,000 ballots did.
• In-person voters on Election Day heavily favored Republican candidates.

What she's saying: "I am busy here collecting evidence and data. Rest assured, I have assembled the best and brightest legal team, and we are exploring every avenue to correct the many wrongs that have been done this past week. I'm doing everything in my power to right these wrongs," Lake said in her video.

• Lake's campaign spokesperson did not respond to a question from Axios about whether she's planning a legal challenge to the results.
• Any challenge would likely need to be filed before the Nov. 28 deadline for counties to certify its election results and transmit them to the Arizona secretary of state's office.

Of note: The Lake campaign did not provide any evidence that any voters were deprived of their ability to cast ballots due to the printer problems.

Lake also said the results confirmed the concerns about Arizona's election system she's raised over the past two years.

• She's repeatedly promoted the false claims that the 2020 election was rigged against Donald Trump, who was the first Republican presidential candidate to lose Arizona since 1996.
• Lake noted that she filed an unsuccessful lawsuit attempting to ban the use of tabulation machines to count ballots in Arizona, and that she'd called on Hobbs, who's served as the secretary of state since 2019, to recuse herself from duties related to the administration of the election.
• Hobbs has signaled no interest in doing so, saying last week she will do the job required by her office under state law.
• "I took an oath of office to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the state of Arizona," Hobbs said. "I have upheld that oath and I will continue to do (so) until I leave office on Jan. 2."

Yes, but: Machines at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Elections Center (MCTEC) were able to process the ballots that couldn't be read at voting centers, and the secretary of state's office had no role in running the election in Maricopa County, which was split between the county's recorder and Board of Supervisors.

The other side: "Governor-elect Katie Hobbs is laser-focused on her transition, building a team that is ready to hit the ground running on Day One. Arizonans made their voices heard on November 8th, and we respect the will of the voters," Hobbs campaign manager Nicole Demont said in a statement to Axios.

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to reflect that the Arizona governor's race was called by the AP on Monday, not Tuesday.

Reactions from lawmakers are pouring in to honor House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) reign as Democratic leader — after she announced Thursday that she will be stepping down from her post and giving way a new era of leadership.

The big picture: Pelosi, 83, made history as the first woman House speaker. Current and former lawmakers from both sides of the aisle praised her as a "historic leader" and "icon."

Speaker Nancy Pelosi's reign over the House Democratic Party is officially coming to a close, and she's passing the baton to a new generation of leaders.

Why it matters: Those who have served loyally by her side for nearly two decades — Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Whip Jim Clyburn — have said they are ready to step aside to allow for the new guard to ascend to power. That's given way to the rise of Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.).

Top oversight Republicans said Thursday they want bank records detailing suspicious transfers of funds from Hunter Biden's business dealings.

Driving the news: Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, said at a news conference that Republicans on the committee are aware of approximately 150 “suspicious activity reports” by banks — forwarded to the Treasury Department — that involve a member of the Biden family, but they have been able to review details of only two.

Minnesota U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar is publishing another memoir.

Driving the news: "The Joy of Politics: Surviving Cancer, a Campaign, a Pandemic, an Insurrection, and Life's Other Unexpected Curveballs" will be released next May.

ZAATARI REFUGEE CAMP, JORDAN — A whole generation of Syrian refugees are living out their lives — working, getting married, having children — in a camp that was supposed to be a temporary refuge while they fled their country’s civil war.

Why it matters: This camp is not a sustainable long-term option. It was never designed to be one, and the makeshift facilities here are nearing the end of their lifespan — but there are still roughly 80,000 Syrians with nowhere else to call home.

North Korea's military fired a short-range ballistic missile into the sea on Thursday and warned of a "fiercer" response to U.S. efforts to bolster defense ties with South Korea and Japan.

Driving the news: The warning was in response to President Biden's trilateral meeting last week in Cambodia with leaders of South Korea and Japan, whereafter a joint statement pledging deeper ties and condemning Pyongyang for its recent missile tests was issued.

Republicans will flip control of the U.S. House after four years out of power in the chamber, winning a narrow majority as Democrats will keep control of the Senate.

Driving the news: Republican wins in California and New York helped the party clinch the 218 seats needed for a House majority, the AP reported Wednesday.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will announce her "future plans" to House Democratic colleagues on Thursday, her spokesperson said Wednesday evening.

Driving the news: Control of the House in the 2022 elections was called for Republicans on Wednesday.

The Uvalde, Texas, school board appointed an interim police chief Wednesday for the district to replace his predecessor, who was fired in August for his handling of May's mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.

Driving the news: The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District unanimously appointed Josh Gutierrez as interim chief at a meeting. He'll start in the role on Thursday.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said Wednesday he's investigating Ticketmaster for possible antitrust violations after ticket demand for Taylor Swift's concert tour led to site outages and other technical problems, per Bloomberg.

Why it matters: Some consumers groups say Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, dominate the ticketing and live events industry and have called on the government to break up what they consider a near-monopoly.

Former Vice President Mike Pence said in an interview with AP Wednesday that voters are "looking for new leadership" after key Republican losses in the midterms.

Driving the news: Pence and his family will consider over the holidays "what our role might be in the days ahead," he said in the interview, one day after former President Trump launched his 2024 presidential campaign.

The House Jan. 6 select committee slammed former Vice President Mike Pence Wednesday for saying he's "closing the door" on testifying in their investigation of the U.S. Capitol riot.

Driving the news: "Congress has no right to my testimony," Pence said in a preview for an interview airing on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that House Democrats will explore how to seat a nonvoting U.S. House delegate promised to the Cherokee Nation nearly two centuries ago.

Why it matters: Republicans will flip control of the U.S. House after four years out of power in the chamber and could stall attempts by the Cherokee Nation to seat promised delegate.

The driver of an SUV that plowed through a Milwaukee-area Christmas parade last year, killing six people and wounding dozens of others, was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday, per AP.

The big picture: Darrell Brooks Jr., 40, was sentenced in the Waukesha County Circuit court on 76 charges, including six counts of first-degree intentional homicide and 61 others of reckless endangerment.

• Brooks' sentence does not include the possibility of parole, WTMJ-TV notes.

The Republican Governors Association has elected Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds to serve as chair and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to serve as vice chair for the 2023 cycle, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Reynolds and Lee, who both cruised to re-election in last week's midterms, will assume control of the organization at a critical moment for the direction of the Republican Party. Both governors were endorsed by former President Trump, whose role as the GOP's de facto leader is being strongly questioned as he launches his 2024 comeback bid.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) private deliberations on whether to run for minority leader have — for now — frozen a potentially ugly fight that could pull back the curtain on the party's ideological and generational divides.

Driving the news: Pelosi's longtime deputy, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), is keeping his options open regardless of her decision, Axios has learned. If Pelosi leaves but Hoyer tries to stay in leadership, there would be a cut-throat game of musical chairs, with only three leadership seats for four lawmakers.