ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Police have arrested six men following the funeral for a 19-year-old man who was shot at the Mall of America last month.

Johntae Hudson’s funeral was held Friday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported. Officers at the service noticed a man with a handgun and another man wanted for a nonfatal shooting Dec. 14 were in attendance.

The two men left the funeral in an SUV with five other men. According to police, the vehicle pulled into a gas station, where officers tried to stop it. One of the men jumped out of the SUV and tried to run away before officers captured him.

The SUV took off with the two men from the funeral still inside. Police gave chase but lost sight of the vehicle. They later found it abandoned. Four 19-year-old men and one 18-year-old man were found in the nearby area and arrested.

The 18-year-old was the man with the handgun at the funeral. Officers searched the area and found a bag containing a 9 mm handgun and clothes the man was wearing at the funeral, St. Paul Police Sgt. Mike Ernster said.

The Dec. 14 shooting suspect who was at the funeral wasn’t found and is still wanted, Ernster said.

Four other teenagers have been charged in Hudson’s death. He was shot on Dec. 23 in the Mall of America’s Nordstrom store.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s president is praising the United States for including tank-killing armored vehicles in its latest multibillion-dollar package of military aid, saying they are “exactly what is needed” for Ukrainian troops locked in combat against Russian forces.

Officials, meanwhile, said it was unclear whether Moscow was abiding by a unilateral 36-hour cease-fire for Orthodox Christmas that Ukraine has denounced as a ploy.

The latest multi-billion dollar package of U.S. military assistance announced Friday by the White House was the biggest to date for Kyiv. For the first time, it included Bradley armored vehicles — known as tank-killers because of the anti-tank missiles they fire.

In his nightly televised address on Friday, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it “a very powerful package.”

“For the first time, we will get Bradley armoured vehicles — this is exactly what is needed. New guns and rounds, including high-precision ones, new rockets, new drones. It is timely and strong,” he said.

He thanked U.S. President Joe Biden, U.S. lawmakers and “all the Americans who appreciate freedom, and who know that freedom is worth protecting.”

Ukrainian authorities on Saturday said that a Moscow-declared temporary truce for Orthodox Christmas appeared to have been ignored by some of its forces pressing ahead with the nearly 11-month invasion.

In the fiercely contested Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, regional Gov. Serhiy Haidai reported continued Russian shelling and assaults. Posting on Telegram, Haidai said that in the first three hours of the cease-fire’s supposed start Friday for Orthodox Christmas Eve, Russian forces shelled Ukrainian positions 14 times and stormed one settlement three times. The claim couldn’t be independently verified.

The Ministry of Defense in Britain, a leading supplier of military aid to Ukraine, said Saturday in its daily readout on the invasion that “fighting has continued at a routine level into the Orthodox Christmas period.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry alleged Friday that Ukrainian forces continued to shell its positions, and said its forces returned fire, although it wasn’t clear whether those reported exchanges occurred before or after the start of Moscow’s cease-fire.

Ukrainian officials dismissed Moscow’s unilateral order for a 36-hour pause as a ploy to buy its struggling invasion forces time to regroup. It was due to end Saturday night — at midnight Moscow time, which is 11 p.m. in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

Ukrainian and Western officials portrayed the announcement as an attempt by Putin to grab the moral high ground, while possibly seeking to snatch the battlefield initiative and rob the Ukrainians of momentum amid their counteroffensive of recent months.

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Packing Kyiv’s 1,000-year-old Lavra Cathedral for Orthodox Christmas, hundreds of worshippers heard the service in that church in the Ukrainian language for the first time in decades, a demonstration of independence from the Russian Orthodox Church.

Richly decorated with golden icons and panels, the cathedral — part of the complex known as the Monastery of the Caves and a UNESCO World Heritage Site — put up a video screen outside for the overflow of worshipers, despite the frigid temperatures of -10 Celsius (14 F).

Overlooking the right bank of the Dnieper River, the cathedral and monastery complex has been a pilgrimage site for centuries. And for the first time in the 31 years of Ukraine’s independence, the service there was held in the Ukrainian language. Ukrainian army troops in uniform were among those singing well-known Ukrainian carols.

Ukraine’s government on Thursday took over the administration of the revered Lavra complex from the Moscow patriarchate and allowed the Ukrainian church to use it for the Orthodox Christmas service. The move highlights the long-running tensions between the two churches exacerbated by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“It’s a first victory” for Ukraine, said Oksana Abu-Akel who hailed it as a significant step in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s efforts to cut ties with Russia after it started the war more than 10 months ago. “This is the first time in 300 years that there is really our own service here. Every person feels this joy. It is a victory for all Ukrainians.”

Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said Thursday that the Lavra complex had been taken over by the state after the lease of the Moscow-controlled church expired on Dec. 31. Tkachenko attended the service Saturday.

“It’s an amazing moment. Previously this place — on Ukrainian territory, within Kyiv — has been linked to Moscow. Now we feel this is ours, this is Ukrainian. This is part of the Ukrainian nation,” said Alex Fesiak, who attended the service.

The Metropolitan Epiphanius, the primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, spoke not just about Christmas but delivered a political message about the war.

“As a nation, we sought to live peacefully, having a good understanding with all our neighbors. But the enemy meanly and treacherously broke the peace and invaded our land, shedding blood, sowing death and wanting to destroy our statehood and our very Ukrainian identity,” he said during the service.

“Those who held us in captivity could not endure our achievements and our success,” he said. “The devil’s malice and envy prompted them to make war, but they are sure to be defeated. After all, the truth is on our side.”

Natalia Levshyna said her husband couldn’t come to the Christmas service as he is fighting on the front line, but she will send him photos of the service as it’s very important to him. Originally from Donbas, she said she stopped attending the church of the Moscow Patriarchate in 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and supported the conflict in the eastern part of Ukraine.

“Our emotions are running high,” she said, barely holding back tears, describing her conviction that the Ukrainian church on Ukrainian soil should be independent from the Russian Orthodox Church.

“Our church must be synchronized with state policy. They must be one,” Levshyna said.

Others in Ukraine have decided to distance themselves from the Russian Orthodox Church by celebrating Christmas on Dec. 25.

On Friday, the Church of Moscow Patriarchate condemned the Ukrainian plans to hold a service in the Lavra Cathedral as ”an attempt to forcefully seize … the cathedral by means of blackmail and misinformation of society.”

In 2019, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine received recognition from the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, but the Moscow’s patriarch refused to accept that.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church declared independence from Moscow’s Patriarchate after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, ending the Ukrainian church’s loyalty to the Moscow patriarch which dated back to the 17th century. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church removed Moscow Patriarch Kirill as its leader in public worship and now uses its own sacramental oil for blessings rather than oil supplied by Moscow.

But Ukrainian security agencies have claimed that some in the Ukrainian church have maintained close ties with Moscow. They’ve raided numerous holy sites of the church and later posted photos of rubles, Russian passports and leaflets with messages from the Moscow patriarch as proof that some church officials have been loyal to Moscow.

Prominent Ukrainian Orthodox Church leaders have rejected the allegations of ties with Moscow, insisting that they have loyally supported Ukraine from the start of the war and that a government crackdown will only hand a propaganda coup to Russia.

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NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — One adult was taken to a hospital following a shooting at an elementary school Friday in the Virginia city of Newport News, police said in a news release.

No students were injured at the shooting at Richneck Elementary School, police said. The extent of the adult’s injuries was not immediately known.

Police said there was no longer an active shooter and that they were beginning the process of reuniting parents with their children.

Newport News is a city of about 185,000 people in southeastern Virginia known for its shipyard, which builds the nation’s aircraft carriers and other U.S. Navy vessels.

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A school shooting that Virginia police said was committed by a 6-year-old student represents an extremely rare occurrence of a young child bringing a gun into school and wounding a teacher, according to experts who study gun violence.

The boy shot and wounded the teacher in a first-grade classroom on Friday at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, according to authorities. The police chief said the shooting was not accidental and was part of an altercation but didn’t elaborate further. No students were injured.

A school shooting involving a 6-year-old is extremely rare, although not unheard of, with at least one other high-profile example of a 6-year-old in Michigan shooting a fellow student in 2000, experts said. Meanwhile, Virginia law limits the ways in which a child that age can be punished for such a crime.

“There are students who killed teachers, more typically high school students,” said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Boston’s Northeastern University. “I don’t know of other cases where a 6-year-old shot a teacher.”

Fox said he was aware of only one other school shooting involving a student that age. In 2000, a 6-year-old boy fired a bullet from a .32-caliber gun inside Buell Elementary near Flint, Michigan, 60 miles (96 kilometers) from Detroit, striking a 6-year-old girl who later died from her wound.

Fox analyzed school shooting data going back to 1970 from the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, which is located at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He said the data listed school shootings involving children ages 7, 8, 9 and older, but not 6-year-olds.

From 2010 through 2021, there were more than 800 school-related shootings in K-12 schools that involved 1,149 victims. Thirty percent of those occurred in the school building, Fox said.

Daniel W. Webster, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who studies gun violence, agreed that a 6-year-old shooting a teacher in a school is extremely unusual. But he said his research shows that instances of young children accessing loaded guns and shooting themselves or others unintentionally in homes or other settings are rising.

“A 6 year old gaining access to a loaded gun and shooting him/herself or someone else, sadly, is not so rare,” he said in an email.

In the Newport News case, Police Chief Steve Drew said Friday that the teacher suffered life-threatening injuries but that her condition had improved somewhat by late Friday afternoon. He said the shooting didn’t appear to be an accident and that it was isolated to the single victim. He said the student and teacher had known each other in a classroom setting.

“We did not have a situation where someone was going around the school shooting,” Drew told reporters.

He said the boy had a handgun in the classroom, and investigators were trying to figure out where he obtained it.

Parents and students were reunited at a gymnasium door, Newport News Public Schools said via Facebook.

The police chief did not specifically address questions about whether authorities were in touch with the boy’s parents, but said members of the police department were handling that investigation.

“We have been in contact with our commonwealth’s attorney (local prosecutor) and some other entities to help us best get services to this young man,” Drew said.

Newport News is a city of about 185,000 people in southeastern Virginia known for its shipyard, which builds the nation’s aircraft carriers and other U.S. Navy vessels.

Richneck has about 550 students who are in kindergarten through fifth grade, according to the Virginia Department of Education’s website. School officials have already said that there will be no classes at the school on Monday.

“Today our students got a lesson in gun violence,” said George Parker III, Newport News schools superintendent, “and what guns can do to disrupt, not only an educational environment, but also a family, a community.”

Virginia law does not allow 6-year-olds to be tried as adults.

In addition, a 6-year-old is too young to be committed to the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice if found guilty.

A juvenile judge would have authority, though, to revoke a parent’s custody and place a child under the purview of the Department of Social Services.

___ Associated Press Writer Matthew Barakat in Falls Church contributed to this report.

Hive Ransomware just leaked 550gb of Consulate Health Care customer and employee PII data.

Negotiations fell apart and 3 days quickly turned into 3 hours.#cybersecurity #infosec @FBI pic.twitter.com/woI81Ek4kW

— Dominic Alvieri (@AlvieriD) January 6, 2023

COSTA MESA, Calif. (AP) — Donald Parham experienced his most satisfying moment of the season Sunday when he caught first touchdown pass in nearly 14 months.

One night later though, the Los Angeles Chargers tight end was feeling conflicted emotions when he saw Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin being loaded into an ambulance after suffering cardiac arrest in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Parham knows all too well what it is like being taken off the field on a stretcher after a frightening incident. During the fourth quarter of a Dec. 16, 2021, game against the Kansas City Chiefs, the back of Parham’s head slammed into the ground in the back of the end zone when he was trying to catch a pass from Justin Herbert.

The memories about that play came flooding back for Parham as he saw the situation unfold with Hamlin.

“Seeing him laid out on the field like that it definitely took something out of me a little bit because I’ve been there. It was very confusing just to collect my emotions and how I felt,” Parham said. “I caught myself feeling like that was me last year and feeling kind of hopeless. It was crazy overall. It really hurt seeing something like that.”

After the play, a camera zoomed in on Parham’s face, showing his eyes closed and mouth open. A teammate briefly tried to move Parham’s left arm, but it was frozen in a bent position.

Trainers and medical personnel removed Parham’s facemask from his helmet and placed him on a backboard. Parham’s arms were shaking while he was taken off the field as concerned players from both teams watched.

Parham was taken to the hospital for tests and was diagnosed with a concussion, which kept him out for the remainder of the 2021 seasons.

Parham returned to the team during the spring and participated in offseason drills. But he has been plagued by hamstring issues that have limited him to five games.

Since coming back Dec. 18 against Tennessee, Parham has five receptions for 46 yards.

Besides his 3-yard TD catch in the fourth quarter last Sunday against the Rams to put the Chargers up by three scores, Parham provided a key block on Austin Ekeler’s 72-yard touchdown run during the second quarter.

“Football has tested his patience. To see him go out like that and play a really complete game — I thought that he blocked extremely well and was a factor in the passing game. To score a touchdown, a big red-area touchdown for us, it was a big moment for him,” coach Brandon Staley said.

Offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi said that Parham’s attitude has been steady throughout the season despite being beset by injuries.

“Since I’ve been here, I’ve kind of felt like he’s a guy that’s just waiting to blow up and become a bigger part of our offensive and become a bigger star in the NFL,” Lombardi said. “Injuries and some bad luck is has kept him from doing that, so it’s good to see him get back on track. Hopefully, you can continue to see big things from him.”

The 6-foot-8, 237-pound Parham showed his first two seasons that he can be a dependable target for quarterback Justin Herbert. With Gerald Everett also having a solid season, Parham’s tall frame and ability to make big catches in the red zone make both tight ends important factors for Sunday’s regular-season finale at Denver and going into the playoffs.

The Chargers (10-6) should know by kickoff against the Broncos if they have secured the AFC’s fifth seed. If the Cincinnati Bengals beat the Baltimore Ravens, Los Angeles would be the fifth seed and the Ravens sixth seed regardless of what happens in Denver.

However, a Baltimore victory would mean the Chargers would also have to beat the Broncos to secure the fifth seed. Both teams would finish 11-6, but Los Angeles would win the tiebreaker by having a better conference record.

“It’s very important that we just stick to what we know, making sure that we’re taking each week as it is and preparing for the game ahead,” Parham said.

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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas’ recently reelected Democratic governor and Republican legislators are headed for a clash over how their financially flush state should cut taxes, and abortion opponents are wrestling with what ideas to pursue following last year’s decisive statewide vote favoring abortion rights.

Gov. Laura Kelly is scheduled to take the oath of office for her second four-year term in a ceremony at noon Monday. The Republican-controlled Legislature is set to convene in the afternoon for an annual session that’s expected to last into early May.

Both Kelly and leaders of the Republicans’ supermajorities in both chambers are making tax cuts a top priority but differ on what taxes to cut.

Besides abortion, almost a perennial issue for them, lawmakers expect to tackle education issues and water policy. Republicans also plan to pass another version of a bill to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s college and K-12 sports, despite two past vetoes from Kelly.

Here is a look at key issues before Kansas lawmakers:

VOTE SCRAMBLES NEARLY ANNUAL ABORTION DEBATE

Abortion opponents are constrained by a Kansas Supreme Court ruling in 2019 that abortion access is a “fundamental” right under the state constitution. GOP lawmakers pushed to amend the constitution to say it doesn’t grant a right to abortion — allowing lawmakers to ban it — but voters rejected the proposed change in August.

While key anti-abortion groups haven’t announced their plans, GOP lawmakers have floated several ideas, including an increase in the state’s minimal aid to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers or a largely symbolic law telling doctors they must do everything they can to prevent newborns from dying, even following a botched abortion.

Abortion opponents also are upset that abortion medications are becoming more accessible in Kansas. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently finalized a rule allowing more pharmacies to dispense the medications. In November a state court judge blocked enforcement of the state’s requirement that doctors providing the medication be in the same room when patients take it, allowing teleconferencing.

SURPLUS CASH PROMPTS NEW PUSH FOR TAX CUTS

Kansas garnered national attention for a 2012-13 slashing of income taxes and the persistent budget shortfalls that followed. But now, more than five years after lawmakers repealed most of the experiment, the state is headed toward ending June 2024 with $4.2 billion in surplus cash.

Kelly last year pushed to eliminate the sales tax on groceries last year, but lawmakers phased it out over three years, so that it dropped to 4% from 6.5% at the start of this year and doesn’t disappear until 2025. The Democratic governor wants to zero out the tax as of April, but many Republicans are resisting.

Kelly also has proposed lower taxes on incomes in retirement, but many Republicans are more ambitious, with some wanting to eliminate it altogether.

And Senate President Ty Masterson, a Wichita-area Republican, said he’d like to see Kansas move to a “flat” income tax, with one rate for all individual and corporate filers, instead of three for individuals and two for corporations. He argues that the simpler tax system would boost Kansas economically.

“I’m optimistic about a combination” that includes some version of what the governor has proposed, he said.

GOVERNOR, REPUBLICANS LIKELY TO CLASH ON EDUCATION

Conservative Republicans haven’t given up on proposals that they believe will make public K-12 schools more transparent and give parents more choices about where to educate their kids, despite Kelly’s veto last year of a “parental rights” measure. Critics, particularly Democratic lawmakers, see them as attacks on public schools.

GOP lawmakers expect again to pursue proposals that would require schools to post more information about what’s being taught online and to make it easier for parents to seek the removal of materials and books from classrooms and libraries that they find objectionable. It’s part of a push by Republicans across the U.S. to limit what’s taught about gender, sexuality and the role of racism in U.S. history and society.

REPUBLICANS TO PURSUE ELECTION LAW CHANGES

While voters across the U.S. last year rejected candidates promoting baseless election conspiracies, tightening up Kansas election laws remains a priority for many Republicans. They expect to pursue proposals to limit or eliminate ballot drop boxes and end the state’s three-day grace period for mail ballots to arrive after an election.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Scott Schwab, a Republican who vouches for the integrity of Kansas elections and defeated an election conspiracy promoter in last year’s GOP primary, says he will have his own package of proposals to prevent voter intimidation and protect their privacy, though he hasn’t made specific proposals public.

MARIJUANA, MEDICAID MEASURES ARE LIKELY NON-STARTERS

Kelly promised throughout her successful reelection campaign that she’ll push again to expand the state’s Medicaid health coverage to another 150,000 people, and she supports legalizing marijuana for medical uses.

Despite a perception that both ideas are widely popular among Kansas residents, neither appears likely to pass this year.

Kelly pushed Medicaid expansion throughout her first term and could put together working majorities for it in both chambers, but Republicans in key positions blocked it. Both Masterson and new Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, are vocal foes, as are the chairs of the chambers’ health committees.

As for medical marijuana, a measure passed the House in 2021. But it didn’t get even a committee vote in the Senate, where top GOP leaders are wary of such a law leading to pot’s legalization for recreational use.

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Follow John Hanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjdhanna