Former President Carter out of surgery, no complications

Former President Jimmy Carter was recovering Tuesday following surgery to relieve pressure from brain bleeding linked to recent falls.

A statement from a spokeswoman said there were no complications from the procedure, performed at Emory University Hospital for a subdural hematoma, or blood on the brain surface.

Carter, 95, will remain in the hospital for observation, said Deanna Congileo, his spokeswoman at the Carter Center.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter, left, sit as guests of Maranatha Baptist Church come and go to have their photo made with them, after Jimmy taught Sunday school there, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2019, in Plains, Ga. (AP PhotoJohn Amis)

The statement said the Carters thank everyone for the many well-wishes they have received, and Congileo doesn't anticipate making more announcements until he's released.

It was unclear how long Carter might be hospitalized, said his pastor, the Rev. Tony Lowden.

"If anybody can make it through this Jimmy Carter can. His will to serve is greater than his will to give up," said Lowden.

The Carter Center said the bleeding was related to Carter's recent falls. He used a walker during his most recent public appearance.

The first fall, in the spring, required hip replacement surgery. He hit his head falling again on Oct. 6 and received 14 stitches, but still traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, to help build a Habitat for Humanity home shortly thereafter. And he was briefly hospitalized after fracturing his pelvis on Oct. 21.

Carter's wife of 73 years, Rosalynn Carter, is with him at the hospital, Lowden said. "She won't leave his side," Lowden said.

Carter has been through a series of health problems in recent years.

He received a dire cancer diagnosis in 2015, announcing that melanoma had spread. After partial removal of his liver, treatment for brain lesions, radiation and immunotherapy, he said he was cancer-free.

Despite being increasingly frail health, the nation's oldest-ever ex-president still teaches Sunday school about twice monthly at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains in southwest Georgia.

The church asked for prayers for Carter and his family in a message on its Facebook page. The church has announced that Carter will not be teaching his Sunday school class this week.

Carter candidly discussed his own mortality on Nov. 3, during his most recent appearance at their church. Referring to his cancer diagnosis, Carter said he assumed he'd die quickly after finding out the extent of his illness.

"Obviously I prayed about it. I didn't ask God to let me live, but I just asked God to give me a proper attitude toward death. And I found that I was absolutely and completely at ease with death," he said.

Since then, Carter said he's been "absolutely confident" in the Christian idea of life after death, and hasn't worried about his own death.

Reeves contributed to this story from Birmingham, Alabama.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn’t order the death of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February, according to an official familiar with the determination.

While U.S. officials believe Putin was ultimately responsible for the death of Navalny, who endured brutal conditions during his confinement, the intelligence community has found “no smoking gun” that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death — which came soon before the Russian president's reelection — or directly ordered it, according to the official.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

Soon after Navalny’s death, U.S. President Joe Biden said Putin was ultimately responsible but did not accuse the Russian president of directly ordering it.

At the time, Biden said the U.S. did not know exactly what had happened to Navalny but that “there is no doubt” that his death “was the consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”

Navalny, 47, Russia’s best-known opposition politician and Putin’s most persistent foe, died Feb. 16 in a remote penal colony above the Arctic Circle while serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges that he rejected as politically motivated.

He had been behind bars since January 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.

Russian officials have said only that Navalny died of natural causes and have vehemently denied involvement both in the poisoning and in his death.

In March, a month after Navalny’s death, Putin won a landslide reelection for a fifth term, an outcome that was never in doubt.

The Wall Street Journal first reported about the U.S. intelligence determination.

FILE - Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny gestures while speaking during his interview to the Associated Press in Moscow, Russia on Dec. 18, 2017. U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn't order the death of Navalny, the imprisoned opposition leader, in February of 2024. An official says the U.S. intelligence community has found "no smoking gun" that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death or directly ordered it. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)