By MATTHEW LEE and JAMEY KEATEN

GENEVA (AP) — The United States and Russia sought to lower the temperature in a heated standoff over Ukraine, even as they reported no breakthroughs in high-level, high-stakes talks on Friday aimed at preventing a feared Russian invasion.

Armed with seemingly intractable and diametrically opposed demands, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met in Geneva for roughly 90 minutes at what the American said was a “critical moment.”

But there was no apparent movement on either side, and Blinken said the U.S. and its allies remain resolute in rejecting Russia’s most important demands.

Nonetheless, Blinken told Lavrov that the U.S. would present Russia with written responses to its proposals next week and suggested the two men would likely meet again shortly after that.

With an estimated 100,000 Russian troops massed near Ukraine, many fear Moscow is preparing an invasion although Russia denies that. The U.S. and its allies are scrambling to present a united front to prevent that or coordinate a tough response if they can’t.

“We didn’t expect any major breakthroughs to happen today, but I believe we are now on a clearer path to understanding each other’s positions,” Blinken told reporters after the meeting.

Blinken said Lavrov repeated Russia’s insistence that it has no plans to invade Ukraine but stressed that the U.S. and its allies were not convinced of that.

“We’re looking at what is visible to all, and it is deeds and actions and not words that make all the difference,” he said, adding that Russia should remove its troops from the Ukrainian border if it wanted to prove its point.

Lavrov, meanwhile, called the talks “constructive and useful” and said the U.S. agreed to provide written responses to Russian demands on Ukraine and NATO next week. That could at least delay any imminent aggression for a few days.

But Lavrov declined to characterize the U.S. pledge.

“I can’t say whether we are on the right track or not,” he told reporters. “We will understand that when we receive the U.S. written response to all of our proposals.”

Moscow has demanded that the NATO alliance promise that Ukraine — a former Soviet republic — never be allowed to join. It also wants the allies to remove troops and military equipment from parts of eastern Europe.

The U.S. and its NATO allies have flatly rejected those demands and say that Russian President Vladimir Putin knows they are nonstarters. They have said they’re open to less dramatic moves.

Blinken said the U.S. would be open to a meeting between Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden, if it would be “useful and productive.” The two leaders have met once in person, in Geneva, and have had several virtual conversations on Ukraine that have proven largely inconclusive.

Washington and its allies have repeatedly promised “severe” consequences such as biting economic sanctions — though not military action — against Russia if an invasion goes ahead.

Blinken repeated that warning Friday. He said the U.S. and its allies were committed to diplomacy, but also committed “if that proves impossible, and Russia decides to pursue aggression against Ukraine, to a united, swift and severe response.”

But he said he also wanted to use the opportunity to share directly with Lavrov some “concrete ideas to address some of the concerns that you have raised, as well as the deep concerns that many of us have about Russia’s actions.”

Ukraine is already beset by conflict. Russia’s Putin seized control of Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula in 2014 and backed a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, part of a simmering but largely stalemated conflict with Ukrainian forces that has taken more than 14,000 lives. Putin faced limited international consequences for those moves, but the West says a new invasion would be different.

Ahead of his meeting with Lavrov, Blinken met Ukraine’s president in Kyiv and top diplomats from Britain, France and Germany in Berlin this week.

Adding to its repeated verbal warnings to Russia, the United States stepped up sanctions on Thursday. The U.S. Treasury Department slapped new measures on four Ukrainian officials. Blinken said the four were at the center of a Kremlin effort begun in 2020 to damage Ukraine’s ability to “independently function.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry reaffirmed its demands Friday that NATO not expand into Ukraine, that no alliance weapons be deployed near Russian borders and that alliance forces pull back from Central and Eastern Europe.

The State Department, meanwhile, put out three statements – two on Russian “disinformation,” including specifically on Ukraine, and another entitled “Taking Action to Expose and Disrupt Russia’s Destabilization Campaign in Ukraine.” The documents accused Russia and Putin of trying to reconstitute the former Soviet Union through intimidation and force.

The Russian Foreign Ministry mocked those statements, saying they must have been prepared by an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth,” and Lavrov caustically dismissed them.

“I do hope that not everyone in the State Department was working on those materials and there were some who were working on the essence of our proposals and their substance,” he said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry also rejected Western claims that Moscow was trying to rebuild the Soviet empire and carve out its zone of influence in eastern Europe, charging that it’s the West that thinks in categories of zones of influence.

Blinken has taken pains to stress U.S. unity with its allies in opposition to a possible Russian invasion, something that took an apparent hit earlier this week when Biden drew widespread criticism for saying retaliation for Russian aggression in Ukraine would depend on the details and that a “minor incursion” could prompt discord among Western allies.

On Thursday, Biden sought to clarify his comments by cautioning that any Russian troop movements across Ukraine’s border would constitute an invasion and that Moscow would “pay a heavy price” for such an action.

“I’ve been absolutely clear with President Putin,” Biden said. “He has no misunderstanding: Any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion.”

Russia on Thursday accused the West of plotting “provocations” in Ukraine, citing the delivery of weapons to the country by British military transport planes in recent days.

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Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Voting legislation that Democrats and civil rights leaders say is vital to protecting democracy collapsed when two senators refused to join their own party in changing Senate rules to overcome a Republican filibuster after a raw, emotional debate.

The outcome Wednesday night was a stinging defeat for President Joe Biden and his party, coming at the tumultuous close to his first year in office.

Despite a day of piercing debate and speeches that often carried echoes of an earlier era when the Senate filibuster was deployed by opponents of civil rights legislation, Democrats could not persuade holdout senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia to change the Senate procedures on this one bill and allow a simple majority to advance it.

“I am profoundly disappointed,” Biden said in a statement after the vote.

However, the president said he is “not deterred” and vowed to “explore every measure and use every tool at our disposal to stand up for democracy.”

Voting rights advocates are warning that Republican-led states nationwide are passing laws making it more difficult for Black Americans and others to vote by consolidating polling locations, requiring certain types of identification and ordering other changes.

Vice President Kamala Harris briefly presided over the Senate, able to break a tie in the 50-50 Senate if needed, but she left before the final vote. The rules change was rejected 52-48, with Manchin and Sinema joining the Republicans in opposition.

The nighttime voting brought an end, for now, to legislation that has been a top Democratic priority since the party took control of Congress and the White House.

“This is a moral moment,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga.

The Democrats’ bill, the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act, would make Election Day a national holiday, ensure access to early voting and mail-in ballots — which have become especially popular during the COVID-19 pandemic — and enable the Justice Department to intervene in states with a history of voter interference, among other changes. It has passed the House.

Both Manchin and Sinema say they support the legislation, but Democrats fell far short of the 60 votes needed to push the bill over the Republican filibuster. It failed to advance 51-49 on a largely party-line vote. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., cast a procedural vote against so the bill could be considered later.

Next, Schumer put forward a rules change for a “talking filibuster” on this one bill. It would require senators to stand at their desks and exhaust the debate before holding a simple majority vote, rather than the current practice that simply allows senators to privately signal their objections.

But that, too, failed because Manchin and Sinema were unwilling to change the Senate rules a party-line vote by Democrats alone.

Emotions were on display during the floor debate.

When Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky whether he would pause for a question, McConnell left the chamber, refusing to respond.

Durbin said he would have asked McConnell, “Does he really believe that there’s no evidence of voter suppression?”

The No. 2 Republican, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, said at one point, “I am not a racist.”

McConnell, who led his party in doing away with the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold for Supreme Court nominees during Donald Trump’s presidency, warned against changing the rules again.

McConnell derided the “fake hysteria” from Democrats over the states’ new voting laws and called the pending bill a federal takeover of election systems. He admonished Democrats in a fiery speech and said doing away with filibuster rules would “break the Senate.”

Manchin drew a roomful of senators for his own speech, upstaging the president’s news conference and defending the filibuster. He said changing to a majority-rule Senate would only add to the “dysfunction that is tearing this nation apart.”

Several members of the Congressional Black Caucus walked across the Capitol for the proceedings. “We want this Senate to act today in a favorable way. But if it don’t, we ain’t giving up,” said Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., the highest-ranking Black member of Congress.

Manchin did open the door to a more tailored package of voting law changes, including to the Electoral Count Act, which was tested during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. He said senators from both parties are working on that and it could draw Republican support.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said a bipartisan coalition should work on legislation to ensure voter access, particularly in far-flung areas like her state, and to shore up Americans’ faith in democracy.

“We don’t need, we do not need a repeat of 2020 when by all accounts our last president, having lost the election, sought to change the results,” said Murkowski.

She said the Senate debate had declined to a troubling state: “You’re either a racist or a hypocrite. Really, really? Is that where we are?”

At one point, senators broke out in applause after a spirited debate between Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, among the more experienced lawmakers, and new Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., over the history of the Voting Rights Act.

Sinema sat in her chair throughout much of the day’s the debate, largely glued to her phone, but rose to her feet to deliver her vote against the rules change.

In a statement, Sinema said the outcome “must not be the end of our work to protect our democracy.” But she warned, “these challenges cannot be solved by one party or Washington alone.”

Schumer contended the fight is not over and he ridiculed Republican claims that the new election laws in the states will not end up hurting voter access and turnout, comparing it to Trump’s “big lie” about the 2020 presidential election.

Democrats decided to press ahead despite the potential for high-stakes defeat as Biden is marking his first year in office with his priorities stalling out in the face of solid Republican opposition and the Democrats’ inability to unite around their own goals. They wanted to force senators on the record — even their own party’s holdouts — to show voters where they stand.

Once reluctant himself to change Senate rules, Biden has stepped up his pressure on senators to do just that. But the push from the White House, including Biden’s blistering speech last week in Atlanta comparing opponents to segregationists, is seen as too late.

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Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri and Brian Slodysko contributed to this report.

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This story has been corrected to show the name of the act tested by Jan. 6 events is the Electoral Count Act, not the Electoral College Act.

By MARTA FIORIN and RAF CASERT

KORTRIJK, Belgium (AP) — The 19-year-old Belgian-British pilot Zara Rutherford set a world record as the youngest woman to fly solo around the world, touching her small airplane down in western Belgium on Thursday — 155 days after she departed.

Rutherford will find herself in the Guinness World Records book after setting the mark that had been held by 30-year-old American aviator Shaesta Waiz since 2017.

The overall record will remain out of Rutherford’s grasp, since Briton Travis Ludlow set that benchmark last year as an 18-year-old.

Her global flight in her ultralight Shark plane was supposed to take three months, but relentless bad weather and visa issues kept her grounded sometimes for weeks on end, extending her adventure by about two months.

On Thursday, rain, drizzle, sunshine and even a rainbow over Kortrijk airport exemplified the changing, often bad weather she had been facing all too often.

After she was escorted by a four-plane formation in a huge V across much of Belgium, she did a flyby of the airport before finally landing. After waving to the jubilant crowds, she embraced her parents and draped herself both in the Union Jack and Belgian tricolor flag.

“Winter in Europe poses a lot of challenges,” she said as she was held back for days on the last few legs of the trip. Then again, she had had to deal with -35 C (-31 F) in Siberia and 32 C (90 F) in Indonesia. Fog, smoke from wildfires and even typhoons also held her back.

In her trek of more than 52,000 kilometers (28,000 nautical miles), she stopped over in five continents and visited 41 nations.

“The people were incredible, everywhere,” she said.

Rutherford’s flight saw her steer clear of wildfires in California, deal with biting cold over Russia and narrowly avoid North Korean airspace. She flew by Visual Flight Rules, basically going on sight only, often slowing down progress when more sophisticated systems could have led her through clouds and fog.

Sometimes she feared for her life, and at other times she simply yearned for the simple comforts of home. Flying runs in her blood since both her parents are pilots and she has been traveling in small planes since she was 6. At 14, she started flying herself.

With the final touchdown, the teenager wants to infuse young women and girls worldwide with the spirit of aviation — and an enthusiasm for studies in the exact sciences, mathematics, engineering and technology.

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Raf Casert reported from Brussels.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York attorney general’s office late Tuesday told a court its investigators have uncovered evidence that former President Donald Trump’s company used “fraudulent or misleading” asset valuations to get loans and tax benefits.

The court filing said state authorities haven’t yet decided whether to bring a lawsuit in connection with the allegations, but that investigators need to question Trump and his two eldest children as part of the probe.

The Trump Organization issued a statement Wednesday calling the civil investigation “baseless” and politically motivated.

In the court documents, Attorney General Letitia James’ office gave its most detailed accounting yet of a long-running investigation of allegations that Trump’s company exaggerated the value of assets to get favorable loan terms, or misstated what land was worth to slash its tax burden.

The Trump Organization, it said, had overstated the value of land donations made in New York and California on paperwork submitted to the IRS to justify several million dollars in tax deductions.

When giving estimates of Trump’s wealth, the company misreported the size of his Manhattan penthouse, saying it was nearly three times its actual size — a difference in value of about $200 million, James’ office said, citing deposition testimony from Trump’s longtime financial chief Allen Weisselberg, who was charged last year with tax fraud in a parallel criminal investigation.

James’ office detailed its findings in a court motion seeking to force Trump, his daughter Ivanka Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. to comply with subpoenas seeking their testimony.

Investigators, the court papers said, had “developed significant additional evidence indicating that the Trump Organization used fraudulent or misleading asset valuations to obtain a host of economic benefits, including loans, insurance coverage, and tax deductions.”

In its statement, the Trump Organization said “the only one misleading the public is Letitia James.”

“She defrauded New Yorkers by basing her entire candidacy on a promise to get Trump at all costs without having seen a shred of evidence and in violation of every conceivable ethical rule,” they wrote. “Three years later she is now faced with the stark reality that she has no case.”

Trump’s legal team has sought to block the subpoenas, calling them “an unprecedented and unconstitutional maneuver.” They say James is improperly attempting to obtain testimony that could be used in the parallel criminal investigation, being overseen by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Trump sued James in federal court last month, seeking to put an end to her investigation. In the suit, his lawyers claimed the attorney general, a Democrat, had violated the Republican’s constitutional rights in a “thinly-veiled effort to publicly malign Trump and his associates.”

In the past, the Republican ex-president has decried James’ investigation and Bragg’s probe as part of a “witch hunt.”

In a statement late Tuesday, James office said that it hasn’t decided whether to pursue legal action, but said the evidence gathered so far shows the investigation should proceed unimpeded.

“For more than two years, the Trump Organization has used delay tactics and litigation in an attempt to thwart a legitimate investigation into its financial dealings,” James said. “Thus far in our investigation, we have uncovered significant evidence that suggests Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization falsely and fraudulently valued multiple assets and misrepresented those values to financial institutions for economic benefit.”

Although James’ civil investigation is separate from the criminal investigation, her office has been involved in both, dispatching several lawyers to work side-by-side with prosecutors from the Manhattan D.A.’s office.

James’ office said that under state law, it could seek ”a broad range of remedies” against companies found to have committed commercial fraud, “including revoking a license to conduct business within the state, moving to have an officer or director removed from board of directors, and restitution and disgorgement of ill-gotten gains.”

In the court papers, James’ office said evidence shows that Trump’s company:

— Listed his Seven Springs estate north of New York City as being worth $291 million, based on the dubious assumption that it could reap $161 million from building nine luxury homes.

— Added a “brand premium” of 15% to 30% to the value of some properties because they carried the Trump name, despite financial statements explicitly stating they didn’t incorporate brand value.

— Inflated the value of a suburban New York golf club by millions of dollars by counting fees for memberships that weren’t sold or were never paid.

— Valued a Park Avenue condominium tower at $350 million, based on proceeds it could reap from unsold units, even though many of those apartments were likely to sell for less because they were covered by rent stabilization laws.

— Valued an apartment being rented to Ivanka Trump at as high as $25 million, even though she had an option to buy it for $8.5 million.

— Said in documents that its stake in an office building, 40 Wall Street, was worth $525 million to $602 million — between two to three times the estimate reached by appraisers working for the lender Capital One.

One judge has previously sided with James on an earlier request to question another Trump son, Trump Organization executive Eric Trump, who ultimately sat for a deposition but declined to answer some questions.

Last year, the Manhattan district attorney brought tax fraud charges against the Trump Organization and Weisselberg, its longtime chief financial officer.

Weisselberg pleaded not guilty to charges alleging he and the company evaded taxes on lucrative fringe benefits paid to executives.

Both investigations are at least partly related to allegations made in news reports and by Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, that Trump had a history of misrepresenting the value of assets.

The disclosures about the attorney general’s investigation came the same day as Trump ally Rudy Giuliani and other members of the legal team that had sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election were subpoenaed by a House committee investigating the U.S. Capitol insurrection.