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Tag: Local governments

  • Major Hurricane Roslyn heads for hit on Mexico’s coast

    Major Hurricane Roslyn heads for hit on Mexico’s coast

    MEXICO CITY — Hurricane Roslyn grew to Category 4 force on Saturday as it headed for a collision with Mexico’s Pacific coast, likely north of the resort of Puerto Vallarta.

    The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Roslyn’s maximum sustained winds stood at 130 mph (215 kph) early Saturday evening.

    The storm was centered about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southwest of Cabo Corrientes — the point of land jutting into the Pacific south of Puerto Vallarta — and moving north at 10 mph (17 kph).

    The forecast called for Roslyn to begin shifting to a northeast movement, putting it on path that could take it close to Cabo Corrientes and the Puerto Vallarta region late Saturday before making landfall in Nayarit state early Sunday.

    Hurricane Orlene made landfall Oct. 3 a little farther north in roughly the same region, about 45 miles (75 kilometers) southeast of the resort of Mazatlan.

    Hurricane-force winds extended out 30 miles (45 kilometers) from Roslyn’s core, while tropical storm-force winds extended out to 80 miles (130 kilometers), the U.S. hurricane center said.

    Mexico issued a hurricane warning covering a stretch of coast from Playa Perula south of Cabo Corrientes north to El Roblito and for the Islas Marias.

    Seemingly oblivious to the danger just hours away, tourists ate at beachside eateries around Puerto Vallarta and smaller resorts farther north on the Nayarit coast, where Roslyn was expected to hit.

    “We’re fine. Everything is calm, it’s all normal,” said Jaime Cantón, a receptionist at the Casa Maria hotel in Puerto Vallarta. He said that if winds picked up, the hotel would gather up outside furniture “so nothing will go flying.”

    While skies began to cloud up, waves remained normal, and few people appeared to be rushing to take precautions; swimmers were still in the sea at Puerto Vallarta

    “The place is full of tourists,” said Patricia Morales, a receptionist at the Punta Guayabitas hotel in the laid-back beach town of the same name, farther up the coast.

    Asked what precautions were being taken, Morales said, “They (authorities) haven’t told us anything.”

    The Nayarit state government said the hurricane was expected to make landfall Sunday around the fishing village of San Blas, about 90 miles (150 kilometers) north of Puerto Vallarta.

    The head of the state civil defense office, Pedro Núñez, said, “Right now we are carrying out patrols through the towns, to alert people so that they can keep their possession safe and keep themselves safe in safer areas.”

    In the neighboring state of Jalisco, Gov. Enrique Alfaro wrote that 270 people had been evacuated in a town near the hurricane’s expected path and that five emergency shelters had been set up in Puerto Vallarta.

    Alfaro said on Twitter that any school activities in the region would be cancelled Saturday and he urged people to avoid touristic activities at beaches and in mountainous areas over the weekend.

    The National Water Commission said rains from Roslyn could cause mudslides and flooding. and the U.S. hurricane center warned of dangerous storm surge along the coast, as well as 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 centimeters) of rain.

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  • Russian authorities advise civilians to leave Ukraine region

    Russian authorities advise civilians to leave Ukraine region

    KYIV, Ukraine — Russian-installed authorities in Ukraine told all residents of the city of Kherson to leave “immediately” Saturday ahead of an expected advance by Ukrainian troops waging a counteroffensive to recapture one of the first urban areas Russia took after invading the country.

    In a post on the Telegram messaging service, the pro-Kremlin regional administration strongly urged civilians to use boat crossings over a major river to move deeper into Russian-held territory, citing a tense situation on the front and the threat of shelling and alleged plans for “terror attacks” by Kyiv.

    Kherson has been in Russian hands since the early days of the nearly 8-month-long war in Ukraine. The city is the capital of a region of the same name, one of four that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and put under Russian martial law on Thursday.

    On Friday, Ukrainian forces bombarded Russian positions across the province, targeting pro-Kremlin forces’ resupply routes across the Dnieper River and preparing for a final push to reclaim the city. Ukraine has retaken some villages in the region’s north since launching its counteroffensive in late August.

    Russian-installed officials were reported as trying desperately to turn Kherson city — a prime objective for both sides because of its key industries and ports — into a fortress while attempting to relocate tens of thousands of residents.

    The Kremlin poured as many as 2,000 draftees into the surrounding region to replenish losses and strengthen front-line units, according to the Ukrainian army’s general staff.

    The wide Dnieper River figures as a major factor in the fighting, making it hard for Russia to supply its troops defending the city of Kherson and nearby areas on the west bank after relentless Ukrainian strikes rendered the main crossings unusable.

    Taking control of Kherson has allowed Russia to resume fresh water supplies from the Dnieper to Crimea, which were cut by Ukraine after Moscow’s annexation of the Black Sea peninsula. A big hydroelectric power plant upstream from Kherson city is a key source of energy for the southern region. Ukraine and Russia accused each other of trying to blow it up to flood the mostly flat region.

    Kherson’s Kremlin-backed authorities previously announced plans to evacuate all Russia-appointed officials and as many as 60,000 civilians across the river, in what local leader Vladimir Saldo said would be an “organized, gradual displacement.”

    Another Russia-installed official estimated Saturday that around 25,000 people from across the region had made their way over the Dnieper. In a Telegram post, Kirill Stremousov claimed that civilians were relocating willingly.

    “People are actively moving because today the priority is life. We do not drag anyone anywhere,” he said, adding that some residents could be waiting for the Ukrainian army to reclaim the city.

    Ukrainian and Western officials have expressed concern about potential forced transfers of residents to Russia or Russian-occupied territory.

    Ukrainian officials urged Kherson residents to resist attempts to relocate them, with one local official alleging that Moscow wanted to take civilians hostage and use them as human shields.

    Elsewhere in the invaded country, hundreds of thousands of people in central and western Ukraine woke up on Saturday to power outages and periodic bursts of gunfire. In its latest war tactic, Russia has intensified strikes on power stations, water supply systems and other key infrastructure across the country.

    Ukraine’s air force said in a statement Saturday that Russia had launched “a massive missile attack” targeting “critical infrastructure,” adding that it had downed 18 out of 33 cruise missiles launched from the air and sea.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later said that Russian launched 36 missiles, most of which were shot down.

    “Those treacherous blows on critically important facilities are characteristic tactics of terrorists,” Zelenskyy said. “The world can and must stop this terror.”

    Air raid sirens blared across Ukraine twice by early afternoon, sending residents scurrying into shelters as Ukrainian air defense tried to shoot down explosive drones and incoming missiles.

    “Several rockets” targeting Ukraine’s capital were shot down Saturday morning, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging service.

    The president’s office said in its morning update that five suicide drones were downed in the central Cherkasy region southeast of Kyiv. Similar reports came from the governors of six western and central provinces, as well as of the southern Odesa region on the Black Sea.

    Ukraine’s top diplomat said the day’s attacks proved Ukraine needed new Western-reinforced air defense systems “without a minute of delay.”

    “Air defense saves lives,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter.

    Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said on Telegram that almost 1.4 million households lost power as a result of the strikes. He said some 672,000 homes in the western Khmelnytskyi region were affected and another 242,000 suffered outages in the Cherkasy region.

    Most of the western city of Khmelnytskyi, which straddles the Bug River and had a pre-war population of 275,000, was left with no electricity, shortly after local media reported several loud explosions.

    In a social media post on Saturday, the city council urged local residents to store water “in case it’s also gone within an hour.”

    The mayor of Lutsk, a city of 215,000 in far western Ukraine, made a similar appeal, saying that power in the city was partially knocked out after Russian missiles slammed into local energy facilities and damaged one power plant beyond repair.

    The central city of Uman, a key pilgrimage center for Hasidic Jews with about 100,000 residents before the war, also was plunged into darkness after a rocket hit a nearby power plant.

    Ukraine’s state energy company, Ukrenergo, responded to the strikes by announcing that rolling blackouts would be imposed in Kyiv and 10 Ukrainian regions to stabilize the situation.

    In a Facebook post on Saturday, the company accused Russia of attacking “energy facilities within the principal networks of the western regions of Ukraine.” It claimed the scale of destruction was comparable to the fallout earlier this month from Moscow’s first coordinated attack on the Ukrainian energy grid.

    Both Ukrenergo and officials in Kyiv have urged Ukrainians to conserve energy. Earlier this week, Zelenskyy called on consumers to curb their power use between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. and to avoid using energy-guzzling appliances such as electric heaters.

    Zelenskyy said earlier in the week that 30% of Ukraine’s power stations have been destroyed since Russia launched the first wave of targeted infrastructure strikes on Oct. 10.

    In a separate development, Russian officials said two people were killed and 12 others were wounded by Ukrainian shelling of the town of Shebekino in the Belgorod region near the border.

    ———

    Kozlowska reported from London.

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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  • Community with Confederate monument gets Emmett Till statue

    Community with Confederate monument gets Emmett Till statue

    JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi community with an elaborate Confederate monument plans to unveil a larger-than-life statue of Emmett Till on Friday, decades after white men kidnapped and killed the Black teenager for whistling at a white woman in a country store.

    The 1955 lynching became a catalyst for the civil rights movement after Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted on an open-casket funeral in Chicago so the world could see the horrors inflicted on her 14-year-old son. Jet magazine published photos of his mutilated body, which had been pulled from the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi.

    The 9-foot (2.7-meter) bronze statue in Greenwood is a jaunty depiction of the living Till in slacks, a dress shirt and a tie with one hand on the brim of a hat.

    The Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., the last living witness to the kidnapping of his cousin Till from a family home, said he won’t be able to travel from Illinois to attend Friday’s dedication ceremony. But he told The Associated Press on Wednesday: “We just thank God someone is keeping his name out there.”

    The Till statue at Greenwood’s Rail Spike Park is a short drive from an elaborate Confederate monument outside the Leflore County Courthouse and about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the crumbling remains of the store, Bryant’s Grocery & Meat Market in the hamlet of Money.

    The unveiling of the statue coincides with the release this month of “Till,” a movie focusing on Till-Mobley’s private trauma over her son’s death and her development into a civil rights activist.

    A life-sized bronze statue of Till-Mobley is planned in the Chicago suburb of Summit. An Oct. 28 groundbreaking is set for a plaza outside Argo Community High School, where she was an honor student. The statue is scheduled to be in place by late April.

    Some wrongly thought Till got what he deserved for breaking the taboo of flirting with a white woman and many people didn’t want to talk about the case for decades, Parker said.

    “Now there’s interest in it, and that’s a godsend,” Parker said. “You know what his mother said: ‘I hope he didn’t die in vain.’”

    Greenwood and Leflore County are both more than 70% Black and officials have worked for years to bring the Till statue to reality. Democratic state Sen. David Jordan of Greenwood secured $150,000 in state funding and the community commissioned a Utah artist, Matt Glenn, to create the statue.

    Jordan said he hopes it will entice tourists to visit Greenwood and learn more about the history of the area.

    “So much has been said about this case,” Jordan said this week. “Hopefully, it will bring all of us together.”

    Till and Parker had traveled from Chicago to spend the summer of 1955 with relatives in the deeply segregated Mississippi Delta. On Aug. 24, the two teens joined other young people in a short trip to the store in Money. Parker said he heard Till whistle at shopkeeper Carolyn Bryant.

    Four days later, Till was abducted in the middle of the night from his uncle’s home. The kidnappers tortured and shot him, weighted his body down with a cotton gin fan and dumped him into the river.

    Jordan, who is Black, was a college student in September 1955 when he drove to the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner to watch the murder trial of two white men charged with killing Till — Carolyn’s husband Roy Bryant and his half brother, J.W. Milam.

    An all-white, all-male jury acquitted the two men, who later confessed to Look magazine that they had killed Till.

    Nobody has ever been convicted in the lynching. The U.S. Justice Department has opened multiple investigations starting in 2004 after receiving inquiries about whether charges could be brought against anyone still living.

    In 2007, a Mississippi prosecutor presented evidence to a grand jury of Black and white Leflore County residents after investigators spent three years re-examining the killing. The FBI exhumed Till’s body to prove he, and not someone else, was buried at his gravesite in the Chicago suburb of Alsip. The grand jury declined to issue indictments.

    The Justice Department reopened an investigation in 2018 after a 2017 book quoted Carolyn Bryant — now remarried and named Carolyn Bryant Donham — saying she lied when she claimed Till grabbed her, whistled and made sexual advances. Relatives have publicly denied Donham, who is in her 80s, recanted her allegations. The department closed that investigation in late 2021 without bringing charges.

    This year, a group searching the Leflore County Courthouse basement found an unserved 1955 arrest warrant for “Mrs. Roy Bryant.” In August, another Mississippi grand jury found insufficient evidence to indict Donham, causing consternation for Till relatives and activists.

    Although Mississippi has dozens of Confederate monuments, some have been moved in recent years, including one that was relocated in 2020 from a prominent spot on the University of Mississippi campus to a cemetery where Confederate soldiers are buried.

    The state has a few monuments to Black historical figures, including one honoring civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer.

    A historical marker outside Bryant’s Grocery has been knocked down and vandalized. Another marker near the site where Till’s body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River has been vandalized and shot. The Till statue in Greenwood will be watched by security cameras.

    “Anytime they take it down,” Jordan said, “we’ll just place it back up.”

    ———

    Follow Emily Wagster Pettus on Twitter at http://twitter.com/EWagsterPettus.

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  • Community with Confederate monument gets Emmett Till statue

    Community with Confederate monument gets Emmett Till statue

    JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi community with an elaborate Confederate monument plans to unveil a larger-than-life statue of Emmett Till on Friday, decades after white men kidnapped and killed the Black teenager for whistling at a white woman in a country store.

    The 1955 lynching became a catalyst for the civil rights movement after Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted on an open-casket funeral in Chicago so the world could see the horrors inflicted on her 14-year-old son. Jet magazine published photos of his mutilated body, which had been pulled from the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi.

    The 9-foot (2.7-meter) bronze statue in Greenwood is a jaunty depiction of the living Till in slacks, a dress shirt and a tie with one hand on the brim of a hat.

    The Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., the last living witness to the kidnapping of his cousin Till from a family home, said he won’t be able to travel from Illinois to attend Friday’s dedication ceremony. But he told The Associated Press on Wednesday: “We just thank God someone is keeping his name out there.”

    The Till statue at Greenwood’s Rail Spike Park is a short drive from an elaborate Confederate monument outside the Leflore County Courthouse and about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the crumbling remains of the store, Bryant’s Grocery & Meat Market in the hamlet of Money.

    The unveiling of the statue coincides with the release this month of “Till,” a movie focusing on Till-Mobley’s private trauma over her son’s death and her development into a civil rights activist.

    A life-sized bronze statue of Till-Mobley is planned in the Chicago suburb of Summit. An Oct. 28 groundbreaking is set for a plaza outside Argo Community High School, where she was an honor student. The statue is scheduled to be in place by late April.

    Some wrongly thought Till got what he deserved for breaking the taboo of flirting with a white woman and many people didn’t want to talk about the case for decades, Parker said.

    “Now there’s interest in it, and that’s a godsend,” Parker said. “You know what his mother said: ‘I hope he didn’t die in vain.’”

    Greenwood and Leflore County are both more than 70% Black and officials have worked for years to bring the Till statue to reality. Democratic state Sen. David Jordan of Greenwood secured $150,000 in state funding and the community commissioned a Utah artist, Matt Glenn, to create the statue.

    Jordan said he hopes it will entice tourists to visit Greenwood and learn more about the history of the area.

    “So much has been said about this case,” Jordan said this week. “Hopefully, it will bring all of us together.”

    Till and Parker had traveled from Chicago to spend the summer of 1955 with relatives in the deeply segregated Mississippi Delta. On Aug. 24, the two teens joined other young people in a short trip to the store in Money. Parker said he heard Till whistle at shopkeeper Carolyn Bryant.

    Four days later, Till was abducted in the middle of the night from his uncle’s home. The kidnappers tortured and shot him, weighted his body down with a cotton gin fan and dumped him into the river.

    Jordan, who is Black, was a college student in September 1955 when he drove to the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner to watch the murder trial of two white men charged with killing Till — Carolyn’s husband Roy Bryant and his half brother, J.W. Milam.

    An all-white, all-male jury acquitted the two men, who later confessed to Look magazine that they had killed Till.

    Nobody has ever been convicted in the lynching. The U.S. Justice Department has opened multiple investigations starting in 2004 after receiving inquiries about whether charges could be brought against anyone still living.

    In 2007, a Mississippi prosecutor presented evidence to a grand jury of Black and white Leflore County residents after investigators spent three years re-examining the killing. The FBI exhumed Till’s body to prove he, and not someone else, was buried at his gravesite in the Chicago suburb of Alsip. The grand jury declined to issue indictments.

    The Justice Department reopened an investigation in 2018 after a 2017 book quoted Carolyn Bryant — now remarried and named Carolyn Bryant Donham — saying she lied when she claimed Till grabbed her, whistled and made sexual advances. Relatives have publicly denied Donham, who is in her 80s, recanted her allegations. The department closed that investigation in late 2021 without bringing charges.

    This year, a group searching the Leflore County Courthouse basement found an unserved 1955 arrest warrant for “Mrs. Roy Bryant.” In August, another Mississippi grand jury found insufficient evidence to indict Donham, causing consternation for Till relatives and activists.

    Although Mississippi has dozens of Confederate monuments, some have been moved in recent years, including one that was relocated in 2020 from a prominent spot on the University of Mississippi campus to a cemetery where Confederate soldiers are buried.

    The state has a few monuments to Black historical figures, including one honoring civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer.

    A historical marker outside Bryant’s Grocery has been knocked down and vandalized. Another marker near the site where Till’s body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River has been vandalized and shot. The Till statue in Greenwood will be watched by security cameras.

    “Anytime they take it down,” Jordan said, “we’ll just place it back up.”

    ———

    Follow Emily Wagster Pettus on Twitter at http://twitter.com/EWagsterPettus.

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  • Police: North Carolina rampage began when teen shot brother

    Police: North Carolina rampage began when teen shot brother

    RALEIGH, N.C. — Police believe the shooting rampage that left five dead in North Carolina’s capital city last week began when the 15-year-old suspect shot his older brother, according to a report released Thursday.

    More details about the shootings emerged from the four-page preliminary report that Raleigh’s police chief delivered to the city manager. Such summaries are written within five business days of an officer-involved shooting.

    The victims in the Oct. 13 shooting included an off-duty city police officer who, like all the other victims, lived in the Hedingham neighborhood where the shootings began, according to police. Two others were wounded, one of whom remains in critical but stable condition, the report said.

    Witnesses had described a shooter wearing camouflage clothing, which the report confirmed, and firing a shotgun in the subdivision and along a nearby walking trail.

    Police said the suspect — still not named in the report because he is a juvenile but identified by his parents this week as Austin Thompson — was captured in a barnlike structure more than four hours after the first emergency call. The report said the teen had traveled nearly 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from where his brother was found shot and stabbed. Police exchanged gunfire with the teen and one officer was injured. The officer was treated at a hospital and released that evening.

    The report said officers gave repeated commands for the suspect to surrender and special officers worked to figure out his exact location. Police ultimately decided to advance toward the building where he was found.

    When officers arrested the teen, he appeared to have a single gunshot wound and had a handgun in his waistband. A shotgun and shells were lying nearby, according to the report. It didn’t describe how he obtained the weapons or how he was wounded.

    Thompson was hospitalized in critical condition after his arrest and was moved to a pediatric ICU unit, his parents said. The top local prosecutor has said he will be charged as an adult.

    The teen had a backpack that contained several types of rifle and shotgun ammunition, the report said, and the sheath of a large hunting knife clipped to his belt. A knife was found at the front of the outbuilding where he was captured, police said.

    Based on the teen’s estimated direction of travel, police believe 16-year-old James Thompson, identified by his parents as the suspect’s brother, was shot first last week, the report said.

    “The collective motive for these attacks is still unknown,” the report from Chief Estella Patterson said. “There does not appear to be any connection between the victims that were shot by the suspect prior to his encounter with the police other than that they lived in the same neighborhood,”

    According to the report, emergency communications received a 5:09 p.m. call for service based on multiple shots fired near the neighborhood’s golf course.

    A few minutes later, a 911 caller a few minutes later reported hearing shots and saw two shooting victims in front of a house. Police believe the teen shot Marcille Lynn Gardner, who was found wounded in the driveway, then fired at Nicole Connors, 52, who lived in the house. Connors was shot on her porch and later died. Gardner, 60, remains hospitalized.

    Soon after, off-duty Raleigh police Officer Gabriel Torres was shot inside his car on another street in the neighborhood as he was about to leave for work, the report said. Torres, 29, later died at the hospital.

    That’s when the teen fled toward the Neuse River Greenway Trail, the report said, where a couple of minutes later a 911 caller found two more victims along the trail who died at the scene. They were Mary Marshall, 34, and Susan Karnatz, 49.

    Officers who had swarmed the area located the teen a little over an hour later in an area with two barn-like structures. That’s when police said they believe he fired shots at officers from one of the buildings and multiple officers returned fire. Two Raleigh officers who discharged their firearms have been placed on administrative duty.

    A service was scheduled Thursday evening for James Thompson. The parents of the two teenagers released a statement earlier this week saying they are “overcome with grief” and saw no warning signs that “Austin was capable of doing anything like this.”

    An attorney for the family didn’t immediately respond to a phone call or email asking whether the Thompsons had a comment on the report.

    Services were set for Saturday for Torres and Karnatz. A citywide “Raleigh Healing Together” vigil was planned for Sunday downtown.

    The Associated Press generally does not name people under 18 who are accused of crimes, but is identifying Austin Thompson because of the severity and publicity of the shootings and because his parents voluntarily named him.

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  • Small-town Missouri police chief charged in overdose death

    Small-town Missouri police chief charged in overdose death

    LOUISIANA, Mo. — The police chief in a small Missouri town has been charged with felony drug crimes after his girlfriend’s brother was found dead from an apparent overdose in the police chief’s apartment.

    William Jones, 50, was charged Wednesday with second-degree drug trafficking, possession of a controlled substance and tampering with evidence. He was jailed on $150,000 cash-only bond.

    Jones is the police chief in Louisiana, Missouri, a town of 3,200 residents along the Mississippi River, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) north of St. Louis.

    Jones’ girlfriend, Alexis Thone, 25, also was charged with second-degree drug trafficking and possession of a controlled substance. She was jailed on $100,000 cash-only bond.

    Pike County Sheriff Stephen Korte said an off-duty police officer called authorities just before 10 p.m. Tuesday to report a death at the apartment occupied by Jones and Thone. Responders found Gabriel Thone, 24, dead.

    Gabriel Thone was the brother of Alexis Thone. Their 21-year-old brother was at the home in respiratory distress, the sheriff said, but was revived with naloxone, a drug that reverses opioid overdoses.

    A probable cause statement from Deputy Genia Calvin said investigators found what was suspected to be fentanyl. The Missouri State Highway Patrol will test the material.

    The probable cause statement said Jones “attempted to destroy, suppress and conceal physical evidence” by throwing narcotics test kits in a dumpster before deputies arrived.

    Jones was arrested Wednesday afternoon during a traffic stop.

    It wasn’t immediately clear if Jones was still police chief. The mayor did not respond to phone and email messages on Thursday, and a woman answering the phone at City Hall declined to answer questions.

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  • Today in History: October 20, the “Saturday Night Massacre”

    Today in History: October 20, the “Saturday Night Massacre”

    Today in History

    Today is Thursday, Oct. 20, the 293rd day of 2022. There are 72 days left in the year.

    Today’s Highlight in History:

    On Oct. 20, 2011, Moammar Gadhafi, 69, Libya’s dictator for 42 years, was killed as revolutionary fighters overwhelmed his hometown of Sirte (SURT) and captured the last major bastion of resistance two months after his regime fell.

    On this date:

    In 1803, the U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase.

    In 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee opened hearings into alleged Communist influence and infiltration in the U.S. motion picture industry.

    In 1967, a jury in Meridian, Mississippi, convicted seven men of violating the civil rights of slain civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner; the seven received prison terms ranging from 3 to 10 years.

    In 1973, in the so-called “Saturday Night Massacre,” special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox was dismissed and Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William B. Ruckelshaus resigned.

    In 1976, 78 people were killed when the Norwegian tanker Frosta rammed the commuter ferry George Prince on the Mississippi River near New Orleans.

    In 1977, three members of the rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd, including lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, were killed along with three others in the crash of a chartered plane near McComb, Mississippi.

    In 1979, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum was dedicated in Boston.

    In 1990, three members of the rap group 2 Live Crew were acquitted by a jury in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., of violating obscenity laws with an adults-only concert in nearby Hollywood the previous June.

    In 2001, officials announced that anthrax had been discovered in a House postal facility on Capitol Hill.

    In 2004, a U.S. Army staff sergeant, Ivan “Chip” Frederick, pleaded guilty to abusing Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison. (Frederick was sentenced to eight years in prison; he was paroled in 2007.)

    In 2018, Saudi Arabia announced that U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi (jah-MAHL’ khahr-SHOHK’-jee) had been killed in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul; there was immediate international skepticism over the Saudi account that Khashoggi had died during a “fistfight.” (A U.S. intelligence report later concluded that Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman had likely approved Khashoggi’s killing by a team of Saudi security and intelligence officials.)

    In 2020, two weeks before Election Day, President Donald Trump called on Attorney General William Barr to immediately launch an investigation into unverified claims about Democrat Joe Biden and his son Hunter, effectively demanding that the Justice Department abandon its historic resistance to getting involved in elections.

    Ten years ago: Heading into the campaign’s final weeks, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney upped his criticism of President Barack Obama’s plans for a second term, accusing the Democrat of failing to tell Americans what he would do with four more years; the Obama campaign aggressively disputed the notion, claiming it was Romney who hadn’t provided specific details to voters.

    Five years ago: The U.S. government said 24 of its workers had now been confirmed to be victims of invisible attacks in Cuba. Suicide bombers struck two mosques in Afghanistan during Friday prayers, killing more than 60 people.

    One year ago: Nikolas Cruz pleaded guilty to murdering 17 people during a February, 2018, rampage at his former high school in Parkland, Florida. (A jury would spare Cruz from the death penalty, instead sending him to prison for life.) Nine months after being expelled from social media for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, former President Donald Trump said he was launching a new media company with its own social media platform. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city would require its entire municipal workforce to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or be placed on unpaid leave. Netflix employees staged a walkout from the company’s office-studio complex in Los Angeles in protest of a Netflix special in which comedian Dave Chappelle made anti-transgender comments. A federal court filing revealed that the NFL and lawyers for thousands of retired players had reached an agreement to end race-based adjustments in dementia testing in a $1 billion settlement of concussion claims.

    Today’s Birthdays: Japan’s Empress Michiko is 88. Rockabilly singer Wanda Jackson is 85. Former actor Rev. Mother Dolores Hart is 84. Actor William “Rusty” Russ is 72. Actor Melanie Mayron is 70. Retired MLB All-Star Keith Hernandez is 69. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., is 67. Movie director Danny Boyle is 66. Former Labor Secretary Hilda Solis is 65. Actor Viggo Mortensen is 64. Vice President Kamala Harris is 58. Rock musician Jim Sonefeld (Hootie & The Blowfish) is 58. Rock musician Doug Eldridge (Oleander) is 55. Journalist Sunny Hostin (TV: “The View”) is 54. Political commentator and blogger Michelle Malkin is 52. Actor Kenneth Choi is 51. Rapper Snoop Dogg is 51. Singer Dannii Minogue is 51. Singer Jimi Westbrook (country group Little Big Town) is 51. Actor/comedian Dan Fogler is 46. Rock musician Jon Natchez (The War on Drugs) is 46. Actor Sam Witwer is 45. Actor John Krasinski is 43. Rock musician Daniel Tichenor (Cage the Elephant) is 43. Actor Katie Featherston is 40. Actor Jennifer Nicole Freeman is 37.

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  • LA City Council elects new president amid the fallout from leaked racist audio | CNN

    LA City Council elects new president amid the fallout from leaked racist audio | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    In a unanimous decision, the Los Angeles City Council voted for Paul Krekorian to take over as its president Tuesday following the resignation of Nury Martinez, who was heard making racist comments in a leaked audio recording that drew the nation’s attention to the city government.

    Krekorian, who represents Council District 2, an area stretching from Toluca Lake to the edge of Verdugo Mountain Park in Sun Valley, was elected in 2009 and served for years as chairman of the city’s Budget and Finance Committee. Previously, Krekorian was a California State Assembly member, according to his website.

    While Krekorian thanked his fellow city council members for their faith in him, he noted the serious conditions in which this vote occurred.

    “The city is not celebrating now, the city is grieving. And we are working overwhelmingly together to try to overcome what we experienced over the last week,” Krekorian said during the meeting.

    His predecessor, Martinez, resigned from her seat on Council District 6 last week, two days after stepping down from her post as president after the recording came to light, igniting outrage across the city.

    Krekorian said he plans to reduce the powers of the council president in light of recent events, and “the era of unilateral decision making and consolidating power – that ends today.”

    Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement Tuesday that Krekorian has his full support.

    “Paul is a committed and conscientious leader who can bring a smart, collaborative, and effective approach to a painful moment when Angelenos deserve steady leadership on the City Council,” Garcetti said. “I am confident that he’ll assemble a leadership team of bridge builders, and I’ll work closely with the Council to help heal the wounds caused by the hateful words of a few.”

    The leaked audio, which was posted anonymously on Reddit and obtained by The Los Angeles Times, details a year-old conversation between Martinez, council members Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera.

    Much of the conversation focused on maps proposed by the city’s redistricting commission and the council members’ frustration with them. But it also featured racist remarks about a fellow council member’s Black son and about Oaxacans.

    Herrera apologized in a statement released by the union and resigned last week. Cedillo apologized in a statement and said he should have stepped in during the conversation. De León called comments made during the conversation “wholly inappropriate,” and said he should have acted differently.

    Cedillo and de León, who both face mounting calls to resign, weren’t at Tuesday’s city council meeting.

    In addition to voting for a new president, the council on Tuesday also unanimously voted to look into the next steps to add a ballot measure to amend the city charter and create an independent redistricting commission.

    They are also looking into possible steps to add more city council member seats based on population and ethics reform legislation.

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  • California city rests easier after serial killings arrest

    California city rests easier after serial killings arrest

    STOCKTON, Calif. — Residents of Stockton, California, were able to rest easier following the weekend arrest of a man suspected of killing six men and wounding a woman in a series of shootings over a period of three months in Northern California, the city’s mayor said Sunday.

    Mayor Kevin Lincoln said he shed tears of relief when he was informed that the suspect who police believe had terrorized Stockton since July was taken into custody around 2 a.m. Saturday.

    Wesley Brownlee was dressed in black, wore a mask around his neck, had a handgun and “was out hunting” for another possible victim when he was arrested while driving around the Central Valley city, where five of the shootings took place, Police Chief Stanley McFadden said at a Saturday news conference.

    “The city was able to sleep a little bit better last night,” Lincoln said Sunday morning. “No resident of this city should have to walk around town looking over their shoulder in fear.”

    The mayor credited residents of Stockton who called in hundreds of tips to investigators that eventually led to the arrest of the 43-year-old suspect.

    It wasn’t immediately clear on Sunday whether Brownlee, of Stockton, had an attorney to speak on his behalf. He was expected to be arraigned Tuesday on murder charges.

    “This person caused a lot of hurt, caused a lot of trauma,” Lincoln said. “My prayer, my hope, as mayor is that our community begins the process of healing as a result of the serial killings.”

    Police had been searching for a man clad in black who was caught on video at several of the crime scenes in Stockton, where five men were ambushed and shot to death between July 8 and Sept. 27. Four were walking, and one was in a parked car.

    Police believe the same person was responsible for killing a man 70 miles (113 kilometers) away in Oakland in April 2021 and wounding a homeless woman in Stockton a week later.

    Investigators have said ballistics tests and video evidence linked the crimes. A police photo showed the black-and-gray weapon allegedly carried by the suspect. It appeared to be a semi-automatic handgun containing some nonmetallic materials.

    At Saturday’s news conference, a moment of silence was held for the victims.

    Juan Vasquez Serrano, 39, was killed in Oakland on April 10, 2021, and Natasha LaTour, 46, was shot in Stockton on April 16 of that year but survived. The five men killed in Stockton this year were Paul Yaw, 35, who died July 8; Salvador Debudey Jr., 43, who died Aug. 11; Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez, 21, who died Aug. 30; Juan Cruz, 52, who died Sept. 21; and Lawrence Lopez Sr., 54, who died Sept. 27.

    Police said Brownlee has a criminal history and is believed to have also lived in several cities near Stockton, but they did not give further details.

    After receiving hundreds of tips, investigators located and watched the place where Brownlee was living.

    “Based on tips coming into the department and Stockton Crime Stoppers, we were able to zero in on a possible suspect,” McFadden said. “Our surveillance team followed this person while he was driving.”

    Investigators watched his patterns and determined that he was out searching for another victim, the chief said.

    “We are sure we stopped another killing,” he said.

    McFadden added that Brownlee was detained after engaging in what appeared to be threatening behavior, including going to parks and dark places, stopping and looking around before driving on.

    Investigators were still processing evidence and trying to identify a motive for the attacks, Officer Joseph Silva, a police spokesperson, said Sunday. Police said some victims were homeless, but not all. None were beaten or robbed, and the woman who survived said her attacker didn’t say anything.

    The police chief thanked various local, state and federal agencies that took part in the investigation, including the FBI, U.S. Marshals and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

    Local investigators had also worked with police in Chicago to determine whether the killings might be linked to two 2018 murders in that city’s Rogers Park neighborhood. Authorities said videos of suspects showed a man in black with a distinctive walk.

    However, Chicago police said Friday that there didn’t appear to be any link.

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  • Lessons from Hurricane Michael being applied to Ian recovery

    Lessons from Hurricane Michael being applied to Ian recovery

    FORT MYERS, Fla. — Four years before Category 4 Ian wiped out parts of southwest Florida, the state’s Panhandle had its own encounter with an even stronger hurricane, Michael. The Category 5 storm all but destroyed one town, fractured thousands of homes and businesses and did some $25 billion in damage.

    With damage from Ian estimated at several times that and the Fort Myers area beginning a cleanup that will be even larger than after Michael, the two areas are collaborating on a way forward as south Florida residents wonder what their area will look like in a few years.

    Mayor Greg Brudnicki and other leaders from a rebuilt Panama City traveled to the southwestern coast this week at the request of Gov. Ron DeSantis to help officials plan a way forward. Keeping crews and trucks in the area to remove mountains of debris is job No. 1 because all other progress hinges on that, Brudnicki said, and that can mean obtaining loans as a bridge until federal reimbursement money shows up.

    “You can’t fix anything until you get it cleaned up,” Brudnicki said.

    Tiny Mexico Beach, which was nearly leveled by Michael in 2018, still has fewer structures and people than it did before the storm. The town’s mayor, Al Cathey, said one of the biggest challenges recovering from a natural disaster is fundamental: looking ahead, not back.

    With little left in town after Michael, Cathey said, residents gathered daily at a portable kitchen to map out the way forward after the hurricane, and there was an unwritten rule.

    “When we had our afternoon meetings at the food truck, all we talked about is, ‘What are we going to do tomorrow?’ — not what didn’t get done four days ago,” Cathey said.

    Michael was blamed for more than 30 deaths. With more than 100 fatalities, Ian was the third-deadliest storm to hit the U.S. mainland this century behind Hurricane Katrina, which left about 1,400 people dead, and Hurricane Sandy, which killed 233 despite weakening to a tropical storm just before landfall.

    Recovery will be more complicated in southwest Florida than it was in the Panhandle because of population, Cathey said. Bay County, which includes Panama City and Mexico Beach, has only 180,000 residents, while Lee County, where the Fort Myers area is located, is home to almost 790,000 people, many of whom are retirees.

    Simply removing the boats that were thrown onto land around Lee County could take months, and there are the remains of homes and businesses scattered by 155 mph (250 kph) winds or flooded by seawater that surged miles inland along creeks and canals.

    One of the damaged vessels and waterlogged homes belongs to Mike Ford, who is braced for a prolonged recovery that could change the character of the area.

    The flooded-out mobile home park where Ford lives — one of hundreds of such communities in the region — would be better off as an RV park where people can come and go than as a permanent neighborhood, he said. Residents might be ripe for a buyout or conversion after Ian, particularly since he and others had to repair damage after Hurricane Irma in 2017.

    “I’ve got enough money to rebuild, but I can’t see it because what I’ve (already) done is rebuild, and now this happened,” said Ford, who lost a valuable collection of guitars and Beatles records to Ian. “It kind of takes the wind out of you.”

    A neighbor of Ford’s, Chuck Wagner, said some people already are getting frustrated after Ian. Many southwest Florida residents are retirees who only live in the area half the year, spending the hot summers in the north, and they’re hearing that aid might not be available to part-time residents.

    “Everything is up in the air,” he said. “It might take years. Who knows?”

    In Mexico Beach, Tom Wood, 82, is proof that progress will happen — slowly and painfully.

    His beachfront business, the Driftwood Inn, was blown apart and filled with ocean water when Michael made landfall with sustained winds of 160 mph (258 kph) on Oct. 10, 2018. Initially, he said, the only logical step seemed to be giving up.

    But the storm passed and the Gulf still beckoned, Wood said, so he decided to rebuild. The new Driftwood Inn reopened in June with 24 rooms at its original location after a $13 million outlay and a lot headaches from insurance, government regulations and contractors.

    Mexico Beach still desperately needs a grocery store to avoid the more than 10-mile (16-kilometer) drive to the nearest one, he said, and a pharmacy and more restaurants would be good. But looking back, Wood said, he believes he made the right decision to rebuild and hopes people in Fort Myers Beach do the same.

    “I am so glad that we did it, not only us but for the town,” he said. “It just makes the town better, I think.”

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  • Ukraine: Rockets strike mayor’s office in separatist Donetsk

    Ukraine: Rockets strike mayor’s office in separatist Donetsk

    KYIV, Ukraine — Pro-Kremlin officials on Sunday blamed Ukraine for a rocket attack that struck the mayor’s office in a key Ukrainian city controlled by the separatists as Russia’s war nears the eight-month mark.

    Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said Russian rockets struck a city across from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, wounding six people.

    The attacks on both sides came as Russia has lost ground in the nearly seven weeks since Ukraine’s armed forces opened their southern counteroffensive.

    Last week, in retaliation, the Kremlin launched what is believed to be its largest coordinated air and missile raids on Ukraine’s key infrastructure since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.

    The municipal mayor’s building in separatist-controlled Donetsk was seriously damaged by the rocket attack. Plumes of smoke swirled around the building, which had rows of blown-out windows and a partially collapsed ceiling. Cars nearby were burned out.

    There were no immediate reports of casualties. Kyiv didn’t immediately claim responsibility or comment on the attack.

    Kremlin-backed separatist authorities have previously accused Ukraine of numerous strikes on infrastructure and residential targets in the occupied regions, often employing the U.S.-supplied long-range HIMARS rockets, without providing corroborating information.

    Separately, Ukrainian authorities on Sunday reported that at least six people were wounded as a result of Russian rocket attacks across from Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, where Russia has stationed its troops.

    Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said two residents of Nikopol had been hospitalized following the strikes, which also damaged five power lines, gas pipelines, and a raft of civilian businesses and residential buildings.

    Russia and Ukraine have repeatedly accused each other of firing at and around the plant, which continues to be run by its pre-occupation Ukrainian staff under Russian oversight.

    Ukrainian officials have also regularly reported attacks on civilian communities across the Dnieper river from the plant, including in Nikopol and nearby Marhanets.

    The presidential office and regional authorities said Russian rockets destroyed two schools, a park and private houses in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia, which has seen sustained Russian shelling since Moscow illegally annexed it along with three other Ukrainian provinces last month.

    The annexation announcement came despite the fact that some 20% of Zaporizhzhia remains under Ukrainian military control, with some analysts painting the recent large-scale strikes as part of the Kremlin’s strategy to subdue the region.

    The Ukraine presidential office also said that Moscow continued to shell civilian settlements along the front line in the eastern Kharkiv and Luhansk regions, where Kyiv has also been pressing a counteroffensive. It added that “active hostilities” continued in the southern Kherson region, another key focus of the ongoing Ukrainian advance, with repeated Russian strikes on a series of villages recently retaken by Kyiv.

    Russian officials, meanwhile, said their air defenses in the southern Belgorod region bordering Ukraine shot down “a minimum” of 16 Ukrainian missiles, Ria Novosti reported.

    The regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, wrote on Telegram that three members of the same family were wounded as a result of shelling.

    He later added that an older local resident was a fourth victim.

    “The old man is in shell shock. All necessary medical assistance is being provided to him,” Gladkov said. He said two other men with shrapnel wounds had been hospitalized. He presented no evidence for his report.

    Russian authorities in border regions have repeatedly accused Kyiv of firing at their territory, and claimed that civilians were being wounded in the attacks. Ukraine hasn’t claimed responsibility for or commented on the alleged attacks.

    Russia has long used Belgorod as a staging ground for shelling and missile attacks on Ukrainian territory.

    On Saturday, two men from a former Soviet republic who were training at a Russian military firing range in Belgorod fired at volunteer soldiers during target practice, killing 11 and wounding 15 before being slain themselves. The Russian Defense Ministry, which reported the killings, called the incident a terrorist attack.

    This week’s wide-ranging retaliatory attacks by Russia, which included the use of self-destructing explosive drones from Iran, killed dozens of people.

    On Sunday, the French government confirmed it’s pledging air defense missiles to protect Ukrainian cities against drone strikes and stepped-up training for Ukrainian soldiers as it seeks to puncture perceptions that France has lagged in supporting Ukraine.

    Up to 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers will be embedded with military units in France, rotating through for several weeks of combat training, more specialized training in logistics and other needs, and training on equipment being supplied by France, the French defense minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said in an interview published Sunday in Le Parisien.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow didn’t see a need for additional widespread strikes, but that his military would continue selective ones. He said that of 29 targets the Russian military planned to knock out in this week’s attacks, seven weren’t damaged and would be taken out gradually.

    The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank based in Washington, interpreted Putin’s remarks as intended to counter criticism from pro-war Russian bloggers who “largely praised the resumption of strikes against Ukrainian cities, but warned that a short campaign would be ineffective.”

    ISW, in an online update late Saturday, accused Moscow of conducting “massive, forced deportations of Ukrainians,” which it said likely amount to ethnic cleansing.

    The update referenced statements made this week by Russian authorities, which claimed that “several thousand” children from a southern region occupied by Moscow had been placed in rest homes and children’s camps in Russia amid an ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive. The original remarks by Russia’s deputy prime minister, Marat Khusnullin, were reported by RIA Novosti agency on Friday.

    Russian authorities have previously openly admitted to placing children from Russian-held areas of Ukraine, who they said were orphans, for adoption with Russian families, in a potential breach of a key international treaty on genocide prevention.

    Elsewhere, the Ukrainian military on Sunday morning accused pro-Kremlin fighters of evicting civilians in occupied territories in order to accommodate officers in their homes, an act it also described as a violation of international humanitarian law.

    The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in its regular Facebook update that the evictions were happening in the Russian-held city of Rubizhne, in the eastern Luhansk region where Kyiv has been pressing a counteroffensive. It didn’t provide corroborating evidence for its claim.

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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  • Blaze, shots heard from prison in Iran capital amid protests

    Blaze, shots heard from prison in Iran capital amid protests

    BAGHDAD — A huge fire blazed at a notorious prison where political prisoners and anti-government activists are kept in the Iranian capital. Online videos and local media reported gunshots, as nationwide protests entered a fifth week.

    Iran’s state-run IRNA reported that there were clashes between prisoners in one ward and prison personnel, citing a senior security official. The official said prisoners had set fire to a warehouse full of prison uniforms, which caused the blaze. He said the “rioters” were separated from the other prisoners to de-escalate the conflict.

    The official said the “situation is completely under control” and that firemen were extinguishing the flames. But footage of the blaze continued to circulate online. Videos showed shots ringing out as plumes of smoke engulfed the sky in Tehran amid the sound of an alarm.

    The U.S.-based Center for Human Rights in Iran reported that an “armed conflict” broke out within the prison walls. It said shots were first heard in Ward 7 of the prison. This account could not immediately be verified.

    The prison fire occurred as protesters intensified anti-government demonstrations along main streets and at universities in some cities across Iran on Saturday. Human rights monitors reported hundreds dead, including children, as the movement concluded its fourth week.

    Demonstrators chanted “Down with the Dictator” on the streets of Ardabil in the country’s northwest. Outside of universities in Kermanshah, Rasht and Tehran, students rallied, according to videos on social media. In the city of Sanandaj, a hotspot for demonstrations in the northern Kurdish region, school girls chanted, “Woman, life, freedom,” down a central street.

    The protests erupted after public outrage over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody. She was arrested by Iran’s morality police in Tehran for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. Iran’s government insists Amini was not mistreated in police custody, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beating after she was detained.

    At least 233 protesters have been killed since demonstrations swept Iran on Sept. 17, according to U.S.-based rights monitor HRANA. The group said 32 among the dead were below the age of 18. Earlier, Oslo-based Iran Human Rights estimated 201 people have been killed.

    Iranian authorities have dismissed the unrest as a purported Western plot, without providing evidence.

    Public anger in Iran has coalesced around Amini’s death, prompting girls and women to remove their mandatory headscarves on the street in a show of solidarity. Other segments of society, including oil workers, have also joined the movement, which has spread to at least 19 cities, becoming one of the greatest challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the country’s 2009 Green Movement.

    Riots have also broken out in prisons, with clashes reported between inmates and guards in Lakan prison in the northern province of Gilan recently.

    Commercial strikes resumed Saturday in key cities across the Kurdish region, including Saqqez, Amini’s hometown and the birthplace of the protests, Bukan and Sanandaj.

    The government has responded with a brutal crackdown, arresting activists and protest organizers, reprimanding Iranian celebrities for voicing support, even confiscating their passports, and using live ammunition, tear gas and sound bombs to disperse crowds, leading to deaths.

    In a video widely distributed Saturday, plainclothes Basij, a paramilitary volunteer group, are seen forcing a woman into a car and firing bullets into the air amid a protest in Gohardasht, in northern Iran.

    Widespread internet outages have also made it difficult for protesters to communicate with the outside world, while Iranian authorities have detained at least 40 journalists since the unrest began, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

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  • Racist remarks: Hurt, betrayal among LA’s Indigenous people

    Racist remarks: Hurt, betrayal among LA’s Indigenous people

    LOS ANGELES — Bricia Lopez has welcomed people of all walks to dine at her family’s popular restaurant on the Indigenous-influenced food of her native Mexican state of Oaxaca — among them Nury Martinez, the first Latina elected president of the Los Angeles City Council.

    The restaurant, Guelaguetza, has become an institution known for introducing Oaxaca’s unique cuisine and culture to Angelenos, attracting everyone from immigrant families to Mexican stars to powerful city officials such as Martinez.

    But now after a scandal exploded over a recording of Martinez making racist remarks about Oaxacans such as Lopez, the 37-year-old restaurateur and cookbook author said she feels a tremendous sense of betrayal.

    Martinez resigned from her council seat Wednesday and offered her apologies. But the disparaging remarks still deeply hurt the city’s immigrants from Oaxaca, which has one of Mexico’s large indigenous populations. Sadly, many said, they are not surprised. Both growing up in their homeland and after reaching the U.S., they say they’ve become accustomed to hearing such stinging comments — not only from non-Latinos but from lighter skinned Mexican immigrants and their descendants.

    “Every time these people looked at me in my face, they were all lying to me,” Lopez said. “We should not let these people continue to lie to us and tell us we are less than, or we are ugly, or allow them to laugh at us.”

    Following Martinez’ departure, two other Latino City Council members also are facing widespread calls to resign since the year-old recording surfaced of them mocking colleagues while scheming to protect Latino political strength in council districts. Martinez used a disparaging term for the Black son of a white council member and called immigrants from Oaxaca ugly.

    “I see a lot of little short dark people,” Martinez said on the recording, referring to an area of the largely Hispanic Koreatown neighborhood. “I was like, I don’t know where these people are from, I don’t know what village they came (from), how they got here.”

    Lopez said she heard such racist comments growing up in California but had hoped they would be a thing of the past and that young Oaxacan immigrants would not have to hear them.

    “I want people to look at themselves in the mirror every day and see the beauty,” she said.

    Oaxaca has more than a dozen ethnicities, including Mixtecos and Zapotecs. The southern Mexican state is known for famously hand-dyed woven rugs, pristine Pacific tourist beaches, a smoky alcohol called Mezcal and sophisticated cuisine including moles — thick sauces crafted from more than two dozen ingredients.

    Los Angeles is home to the country’s largest Mexican population and nearly half the city of 4 million people is Latino, census figures show. Informal studies indicate that several hundred thousand Oaxacan immigrants live in California, with the largest concentration in Los Angeles, said Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, director of the University of California, Los Angeles Center for Mexican Studies.

    Demeaning language is often used against Mexico’s Indigenous people. It is“the legacy of the colonial period,” Rivera-Salgado said of Spanish rule long ago.

    Racism, and colorism — discrimination against darker-skinned people within the same ethnic group — run centuries deep in Mexico and other neighboring Latin American countries. A few years ago, Yalitza Aparicio, the Oscar-nominated actress in “Roma” who is from Oaxaca, faced racist comments in her country and derogatory tirades online over her Indigenous features after she appeared on the cover of Vogue México.

    Odilia Romero said the scandal doesn’t surprise her. The Oaxacan community leader is among many who had been pressing for the resignation of Martinez, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, and the two other councilmembers on the recorded conversation.

    Romero said she’s also fielded calls since the scandal broke, including from someone urging her not to let the hurtful remarks distract from critical working aiding the immigrant community.

    “That is a very paternalist comment,” said Romero, executive director of the group Comunidades Indigenas en Liderazgo or CIELO and a Zapotec interpreter. “How dare you tell us Indigenous people that we are not understanding. Of course we understand — we see this every day.”

    Lynn Stephen, an anthropology professor at University of Oregon who researches Mexican migration and Indigenous peoples, said the concept of mestizaje — or being a mixed-race and non-racial unified nation — intended to erase Indigenous communities, not uplift them, and the discrimination persists to this day. It is carried to the United States with those who migrate, she said, while similar divisions also exist in other Latin American countries.

    “These kinds of comments directed toward Indigenous people from non-Indigenous people from Mexico, Guatemala, etc., it’s a different kind of layer of racism,” Stephen said. “Folks from Oaxaca they have to contend with anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican backlash and racism often from non-Latino Americans, white Americans, sometimes other folks, and then within that, often where they’re living or in school.”

    Ofelia Platon, a tenant organizer, went to the Los Angeles city council chambers recently to demand the officials step down. She said she hasn’t experienced discrimination from within the Latino community as much as from outside it, but there’s no place for such — especially coming from elected leaders the poor count on to help improve their lives.

    “They think they have the power to step on people,” she said. “They’re two-faced.”

    It’s not just the hurtful remarks that sting Xóchitl M. Flores-Marcial, a Zapotec scholar and professor of Chicana/o Studies at California State University, Northridge. She called it very telling about the officials who make decisions affecting her community. She said she grew up in the United States hearing hurtful words and still faces similar rejection whenever she travels to Oaxaca and people there are surprised she’s the research team leader.

    “It’s so painful because those are consequential people,” she said. “This is hurting us — not just our emotions, but our actual life in terms of our jobs and our opportunities.”

    Still she said she has hope for future generations in “Oaxacalifornia” — the tight-knit community that has maintained traditions while embracing life in Los Angeles.

    ————

    This story was corrected to reflect that Martinez is not a Mexican immigrant, but the daughter of Mexican immigrants.

    ———

    Taxin reported from Orange County, California.

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  • Live Updates: Russia-Ukraine-War

    Live Updates: Russia-Ukraine-War

    MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Moscow is ready to resume gas supplies to Europe via a link of Germany-bound Nord Stream 2 pipeline under the Baltic Sea which has never been in use.

    The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has never brought natural gas to Europe because Germany prevented the flows from ever starting just before Russia invaded Ukraine.

    Russia has cut off the parallel Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which has been at the center of an energy standoff with Europe. Russia has blamed technical problems for the stoppage, but European leaders call it an attempt to divide them over their support for Ukraine.

    Speaking at a Moscow energy forum, Putin again claimed Wednesday that the U.S. was likely behind the explosions that ripped through both links of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline and one of the two links of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, causing a massive gas leak and taking them out of service.

    The U.S. has previously rejected similar allegations by Putin.

    ———

    KEY DEVELOPMENTS:

    — Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant loses external power

    — Belarus army would likely have little impact in Ukraine war

    — Bodies exhumed from mass grave in Ukraine’s liberated Lyman

    — EU countries turn to Africa in bid to replace Russian gas

    — Leak detected in pipeline that brings crude oil to Germany

    — Worried UN meets on Ukraine hours after Russian strikes

    — Follow all AP stories on the war in Ukraine at https:/ /apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

    ———

    OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian authorities say a Russian attack on a market in the eastern Donetsk region has killed seven people and wounded eight.

    The deputy head of the Ukraine president’s office says the attack happened early Wednesday morning in Avdiivka.

    “The Russian military needs more blood, more death and more destruction,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko said on Telegram. “This is a hunt for the lives of peaceful citizens.”

    Photos attached to the post showed dead people lying in line near one of kiosks that had potatoes and bread on the counter.

    ———

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine government’s energy minister says Russian attacks in the past two days have damaged about one third of the country’s energy infrastructure.

    “For the first time since the start of the war, Russia is targeting energy infrastructure,” German Galushchenko said on Wednesday. He says this is because Ukraine is exporting energy to Europe.

    ———

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s presidential office says Russian shelling in the past 24 hours has affected eight regions in the southeast, while strikes on central and western areas have eased for the moment.

    Russian forces used drones, heavy artillery and missiles, according to the presidential office’s Wednesday morning update.

    Three people have been rescued alive from the rubble in Zaporizhzhia after over a dozen missiles rained on the city, the report said. A six-year-old girl and two more people were wounded in the shelling of Nikopol, where the attacks damaged some three dozen residential buildings, private houses, kindergartens, a school, two plants and several shops, the report added.

    Ukrainian forces say they shot down nine Iranian Shahed-136 drones and destroyed eight Kalibr cruise missiles near Mykolaiv, leaving the southern city without power.

    “Russian shelling intensifies and subsides, but doesn’t stop, not for a day the city lives in tension, and the Russians’ main goal appears to be keeping us in fear,” Mykolaiv regional governor Vitali Kim said.

    ———

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian officials and military analysts say Kyiv’s counteroffensive in the occupied regions in the south and east of the country has slowed down significantly despite Ukraine retaking five towns and villages in the Kherson area.

    Russian troops have been re-enforcing the front lines and regrouping following Ukrainian successes, which has forced the Ukrainian forces to ease their advances.

    Regional administrator in the eastern Luhansk region says Russian forces there have been building a multi-layered defense line and mining the front line’s first section.

    Serhiy Haidai says people in the Luhansk region are moving from the Russia-occupied cities to villages, where they have been settling down in empty houses to “spend the winter in warm.”

    Luhansk is among the four region that Russia unlawfully annexed following referendums dismissed as sham by both Ukraine and the West.

    “In the south, the Ukrainian army is slowing down the pace of the counteroffensive, because the Russians managed to regroup and put forward paratrooper units, and unexpected issues arose,” Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov told The Associated Press.

    ———

    MOSCOW — The Kremlin says there are no plans for Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden during a Group of 20 summit in Indonesia next month.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday said “neither the Russian, nor American side put forward any initiatives about organizing bilateral contacts” during the summit in Bali.

    Asked about Biden’s comments in an interview with CNN in which he warned that the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine would lead to a “horrible outcome,” Peskov said the remarks were part of “harmful and provocative” Western nuclear rhetoric.

    Putin has said he wouldn’t hesitate to use “all means available” to protect Russian territory in a clear reference to Russian nuclear arsenals, a statement that was broadly seen as an attempt to force Ukraine to halt its offensive to reclaim control of the four regions that were illegally absorbed by Russia.

    ———

    BRUSSELS — A Belarus opposition leader says Russia is now de facto occupying her country by deploying its troops there and using authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko as its puppet.

    Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya urged more support from EU leaders during a two-day visit to European Union headquarters in Brussels. She says “we face an enemy who denies the very existence of our country as a free and independent nation.”

    The exiled opposition leader fears that Lukashenko could force the Belarus army to join Russian forces in Moscow’s war against Ukraine. Russia has already used Belarus as a staging ground to send troops and missiles into Ukraine earlier in the war.

    Tsikhanouskaya adds the situation has become “dramatic” in Belarus, which has become totally subservient to the wishes of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin and Lukasenko, she says, have “tried to increase and legalize the constant deployment of Russian troops on Belarus territory.”

    “It’s an occupation,” adds Tsikhanouskaya. “Our position is clear, Belarus must officially withdraw from participation in Russian war, and the Russian soldiers must leave Belarus unconditionally.”

    Tsikhanouskaya fled to Lithuania after Lukashenko claimed victory in disputed August 2020 elections that many thought she won.

    ———

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine Southern Operational Command says its forces have recaptured five settlements in the Kherson region.

    The villages of Novovasylivka, Novohryhorivka, Nova Kamianka, Tryfonivka and Chervone in the Beryslav district were retaken as of Oct. 11, according to the speaker of the southern command Vladislav Nazarov.

    The settlements are in one of the four regions recently illegally annexed by Russia.

    ———

    MOSCOW — Russia’s top KGB successor agency said Wednesday that it has arrested eight people on charges of involvement in the attack on the bridge linking Russia to Crimea.

    The Federal Security Service (FSB) said it arrested five Russians and three citizens of Ukraine and Armenia on charges of involvement in Saturday’s attack on the bridge.

    A truck loaded with explosives blew up while driving across the bridge, killing four and causing two sections of one of the two automobile links to collapse.

    The FSB charged that the arrested suspects were working on orders of Ukraine’s military intelligence to secretly move the explosives into Russia and forge the accompanying documents.

    It said the explosives were moved by sea from the Ukrainian port of Odesa to Bulgaria before being shipped to Georgia, driven to Armenia and then back to Georgia before being transported to Russia in a complex scheme to secretly deliver them to the target.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the attack on the bridge as an “act of terrorism” and responded by ordering a barrage of missile strikes on Ukraine.

    Ukrainian officials have lauded the explosion on the bridge, but stopped short of directly claiming responsibility for it.

    ———

    KYIV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian official says a Russian attack blew up windows and doors on residential buildings in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia.

    City council Secretary Anatoliy Kurtev on Wednesday warned the residents of possible follow-up attacks. There were no reports of injuries from the initial shelling.

    Zaporizhzhia, which sits fairly near the front line, has been repeatedly struck with often deadly attacks in recent weeks. It is part of a larger region, including Europe’s largest nuclear power plant now in Russian control, that Moscow has said it has annexed in violation of international law. The city itself remains in Ukrainian hands.

    Another powerful blast struck Melitopol, which is in the same region, sending a car flying into the air, said mayor Ivan Fedorov. There was no word on casualties. Also Wednesday, air raid sirens sounded in the capital Kyiv.

    ———

    WARSAW, Poland — A leak has been detected in an underground oil pipeline in Poland which is the main route through which Russian crude oil reaches Germany.

    Polish operator, PERN, on Wednesday said it detected a leak in the Druzhba pipeline, which originates in Russia, on Tuesday evening about 70 kilometers (45 miles) form the the central Polish city of Plock. It said the cause of the leak wasn’t known.

    The Druzhba pipeline, which in Russian means “Friendship,” is one of the world’s longest oil pipelines, and after leaving Russia it branches out to bring crude to points including Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Austria and Germany.

    The incident follows leaks late last month in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines running along the Baltic seabed.

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  • Millions in federal grants awarded for rural Alaska internet

    Millions in federal grants awarded for rural Alaska internet

    ANCHORAGE, Alaska — More than $100 million in grants have been announced by the federal government as part of a major effort to close the digital divide in parts of rural Alaska.

    The projects will improve upon an existing system of internet service that is a series of microwave transmitters with limited data transmission and vulnerability to bad weather, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

    The grants include $73 million for a partnership between the Alaska Native village corporation for Bethel, Bethel Native Corporation, and telecommunications company GCI. That partnership, announced Monday, is aimed at delivering fiber cable to 10 villages and more than 10,000 people. The project has been dubbed the Airraq Network, with Airraq translating to “string that tells the story,” according to a press release.

    The project includes $42 million from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to build a fiber network to the regional hub community of Bethel and villages of Eek, Oscarville, Napaskiak and Platinum, according to the statement. A $31 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service program will bring fiber service to the villages of Atmautluak, Kasigluk, Nunapitchuk, Quinhagak and Tuntutuliak.

    The statement said the project would bring “2 gigabit internet speeds and affordable plans to more than 10,000 Alaskans.”

    Separately, another telecommunications company, Alaska Communications and Calista Corp., the Alaska Native regional corporation for much of southwest Alaska, will receive a grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to bring high-speed fiber internet to more than 2,300 Alaskans in seven other villages in the Bethel region, the organizations announced recently. Those communities are Lower Kalskag, Upper Kalskag, Tuluksak, Akiak, Akiachak, Kwethluk and Napakiak.

    Calista Corp. and Alaska Communications applied for about $52 million but a specific funding award had not been announced by the federal government as of Monday, said Thom Leonard, a Calista spokesperson.

    Funding from last year’s federal infrastructure bill and other sources has been lauded by political leaders and officials with Alaska Native organizations and telecommunications companies as providing a unique opportunity to improve telecommunications in many parts of the state.

    Earlier this year, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced a $50 million grant to provide fiber-optic cable to about 20 villages in Alaska’s Interior as part of a collaboration between Doyon Inc., an Alaska Native corporation, and Alaska Communications.

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  • Hong Kong nixes US sanctions on Russian-owned superyacht

    Hong Kong nixes US sanctions on Russian-owned superyacht

    HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s leader John Lee said Tuesday he will only implement United Nations sanctions, after the U.S. warned the territory’s status as a financial center could be affected if it acts as a safe haven for sanctioned individuals.

    Lee’s statement Tuesday came days after a luxury yacht connected to Russian tycoon Alexey Mordashov docked in the city.

    Mordashov, who is believed to have close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, was sanctioned by the U.S., U.K. and the European Union in February after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Hong Kong authorities have said that they do not implement unilateral sanctions imposed by other governments.

    “We cannot do anything that has no legal basis,” Lee told reporters. “We will comply with United Nations sanctions, that is our system, that is our rule of law,” he said.

    A U.S. State Department spokesperson said in a statement Monday that “the possible use of Hong Kong as a safe haven by individuals evading sanctions from multiple jurisdictions further calls into question the transparency of the business environment.”

    The State Department spokesperson also said the city’s reputation as a financial center “depends on its adherence to international laws and standards.”

    The $500-million superyacht Nord, allegedly owned by Mordashov, moored in Hong Kong’s harbor on Wednesday following a weeklong journey from the Russian city of Vladivostok.

    Mordashov is one of Russia’s richest men, with an estimated wealth of about $18 billion. He also is the main shareholder and chairman of Severstal, Russia’s largest steel and mining company. Mordashov has tried to challenge the sanctions against him in European courts.

    U.S. and European authorities have seized over a dozen yachts belonging to sanctioned Russian tycoons to prevent them from sailing to other ports that are not affected by the sanctions.

    Russian oligarchs have begun docking their yachts at ports in places like Turkey, which has maintained diplomatic ties with Russia since the war began.

    The Nord measures 141.6 meters (464.6 feet), has two helipads, a swimming pool and 20 cabins. The yacht is currently sailing under a Russian flag.

    Britain handed control over its colony Hong Kong to China in 1997, promising to respect its semi-autonomous status as a separate economic and customs territory. The semi-autonomous city’s status as an international business hub and financial center has suffered in recent years after Beijing imposed a tough national security law on the city, aimed primarily at stamping out dissent following months of antigovernment protests in 2019.

    Critics say the security law, which in certain cases allows for suspects to be transferred to mainland China for trial in its opaque legal system, could threaten Hong Kong’s rule of law.

    Beijing also sets foreign policy and has demurred from participating in sanctions against Russia for its attack on Ukraine.

    The State Department spokesperson said U.S. companies “increasingly view Hong Kong’s business environment with wariness” amid Beijing’s undermining of Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy and its freedoms.

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  • Mayor helps mom and 3 kids escape before train hits vehicle

    Mayor helps mom and 3 kids escape before train hits vehicle

    VIENNA, Ga. — A Georgia mayor helped a mother and three children escape from a sport utility vehicle that was stalled on railroad tracks with a train fast approaching.

    Vienna Mayor Eddie Daniels was on his way to work Saturday morning when he saw the SUV in the dangerous position.

    “I couldn’t let those babies sit there and get slaughtered by a train,” Daniels told WALB-TV.

    He helped the mom out first, then saw three children in the backseat — a 6-year-old, a 3-year-old and a 1-year old. He said he got the two younger children out and was helping the 6-year-old when the train hit the vehicle.

    Daniels said he remembers being caught between the train and the SUV but still managed to get the last child out. The smashed vehicle landed a few feet from where it was hit.

    Daniels has a broken ankle and eight stitches on his head. He said he’s thankful the family is alive.

    The second-term mayor also said he would have never imagined this happening in the south central Georgia city of 4,000 residents.

    “I’m out here just doing God’s work. That’s what we’re supposed to do,” Daniels said. “And they told me I was a hero. I said I don’t feel like a hero, just feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to do, what the people elected me to do.”

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  • Los Angeles Council president resigns after racist remarks

    Los Angeles Council president resigns after racist remarks

    LOS ANGELES — The president of the Los Angeles City Council resigned from the post Monday after she was heard making racist comments and other coarse remarks in a leaked recording of a conversation with other Latino leaders.

    Council President Nury Martinez issued an apology and expressed shame.

    “In the end, it is not my apologies that matter most; it will be the actions I take from this day forward. I hope that you will give me the opportunity to make amends,” she said in a statement. “Therefore, effective immediately I am resigning as President of the Los Angeles City Council.”

    The statement did not say she would resign her council seat. There was no immediate response to a call and email sent to her spokesperson.

    Martinez said in the recorded conversation that white Councilman Mike Bonin handled his young Black son as if he were an “accessory” and described the son as behaving “Parece changuito,” or “like a monkey,” the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.

    Martinez also referred to Bonin as a “little bitch” and at another point mocked Oaxacans, the Times said.

    “I see a lot of little short dark people,” Martinez said in reference to a particular area of the largely Hispanic Koreatown neighborhood.

    “I was like, I don’t know where these people are from, I don’t know what village they came (from), how they got here,” Martinez said, adding “Tan feos” — “They’re ugly.”

    The recording’s content rocked the political establishment just weeks before elections for the mayor’s office and several council seats.

    Bonin and his husband, Sean Arian, issued a statement calling on Martinez, De León and Herrera to resign.

    “The entirety of the recorded conversation … displayed a repeated and vulgar anti-Black sentiment, and a coordinated effort to weaken Black political representation in Los Angeles,” they said.

    The conversation was recorded in October 2021, and other participants were Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera, the Times reported. The overall discussion was about frustrations with redistricting maps produced by a city commission.

    The Times reported that the approximately hourlong audio was posted on Reddit by a now-suspended user, and that it was unclear who recorded the audio and whether anyone else was present at the meeting.

    Martinez initially issued an apology after the Times article appeared online.

    “In a moment of intense frustration and anger, I let the situation get the best of me and I hold myself accountable for these comments. For that I am sorry,” she said.

    “The context of this conversation was concern over the redistricting process and concern about the potential negative impact it might have on communities of color,” she said. “My work speaks for itself. I’ve worked hard to lead this city through its most difficult time.”

    Martinez, whose district website describes her as “a glass-ceiling shattering leader who brings profound life experience as the proud daughter of working-class immigrants,” was elected to the council in 2013 and became the council’s first Latina president in 2020.

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  • Live Updates: Russia-Ukraine War

    Live Updates: Russia-Ukraine War

    BRUSSELS — The European Union joined an international chorus of criticism and condemnation following the Russian missile attacks across Ukraine early Monday.

    “Russia once again has shown to the world what it stands for. It is terror and brutality,” said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “I know Ukrainians will not be intimidated. And Ukrainians know that we will stand by your side, their side as long as it takes.”

    EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders had to be rushed to an underground shelter as he was visiting the Ukraine capital Kyiv to assess evidence of possible war crimes with local officials.

    EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said such acts have “no place” in the 21st century.

    European Parliament President Roberta Metsola called the attacks “sickening. It shows the world, again, the regime we are faced with: One that targets indiscriminately. One that rains terror & death down on children.”

    ———

    KEY DEVELOPMENTS:

    Putin calls Kerch Bridge attack “a terrorist act” by Kyiv

    ‘War crime:’ Industrial-scale destruction of Ukraine culture

    Indian minister says Ukraine war serves no one’s interests

    Singer driven from Belarus for speaking out tries to rebuild

    Follow all AP stories on the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.

    ———

    MOSCOW — Russian war bloggers and political commentators lauded Monday’s attacks but and argued that the strikes on energy infrastructure should incur lasting damage to Ukraine.

    The hawkish Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, who has long pushed for ramping up strikes on Ukraine, said he is now “100 percent happy.” He taunted Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying “we warned you that Russia hasn’t even started it in earnest.”

    Margarita Simonyan, the head of the state-funded RT television, cheered the strikes on her messaging app channel and said Ukraine had crossed a red line that by attacking the bridge to Crimea.

    Andrei Kots, a war correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda, the top Russian tabloid, voiced hope that Monday’s strikes were “a new mode of action to the entire depth of the Ukrainian state until it loses its capacity to function.”

    “It was just one massive attack on Ukraine’s infrastructure,” noted Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin Moscow-based political analyst. “The Russian public wants massive attacks and the full destruction of the infrastructure that could be used by the Ukrainian army.”

    ———

    TALLINN, Estonia — Several thousand Russian troops will be stationed in Belarus, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced Monday.

    Speaking at a meeting with defense and security officials, Lukashenko said Belarus will host the Russian soldiers. He did not give a specific number, but said they would not number a mere one thousand.

    “Be prepared to take in these people in the nearest future and place them where necessary, in accordance to our plan,” Lukashenko told them.

    Russia used the territory of Belarus as a staging ground to send troops into Ukraine. Moscow and Minsk have maintained close economic and military ties.

    Ukrainian military analysts worry that the Belarusian military could invade Ukraine from the north in order to draw Kyiv’s forces from the east and south.

    ———

    MOSCOW — A top Russian official said Monday that Moscow will try to oust Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government.

    Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council chaired by President Vladimir Putin, said that Russia, along with protecting its people and borders, should “aim for the complete dismantling of Ukraine’s political regime.”

    He alleged that “the Ukrainian state in its current configuration with the Nazi political regime will continue to pose a permanent, direct and clear threat to Russia.”

    Russia has repeatedly sought to cast the government of the Ukrainian president, who is Jewish, of Nazi inclinations, claims which have been mocked by Ukraine and its allies.

    ———

    MOSCOW — Russia’s Defense Ministry said that strikes waged against Ukraine on Monday hit all the designated targets.

    The ministry spokesman, Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said the Russian military launched “massive strikes on military command and communication facilities and energy infrastructure of Ukraine.”

    “The goals behind the strikes have been fulfilled, all the designated facilities have been struck,” he said. Konashenkov didn’t offer any details, and his statement couldn’t be independently confirmed.

    ———

    BERLIN — Germany has condemned a barrage of Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities and promised help in repairing damage to civilian infrastructure.

    Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, said the German leader assured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the solidarity of the Group of Seven industrial powers in a phone call on Monday.

    He said that “Germany will do everything to mobilize additional help and, in particular, to help with the repair and rebuilding of damaged and destroyed civilian infrastructure, for example electricity and heating supplies.”

    Germany currently chairs the G-7. Hebestreit said the group’s leaders will hold a video conference Tuesday on the situation, which Zelenskyy will join.

    Germany said in June that it would provide IRIS-T air defense systems to Ukraine. Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said Monday that the first of four systems will be ready “in the coming days.”

    She said Monday’s attacks underlined the importance of the quick delivery of air-defense systems.

    ———

    MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin said that a series of strikes Monday across Ukraine came in retaliation against the Ukrainian attack on a bridge to Crimea and other attacks in Russia that he described as “terrorist” actions.

    Putin said the Russian military launched precision weapons from the air, sea and ground to target key energy and military command facilities.

    He warned that if Ukraine continues to mount “terrorist attacks” on Russia, Moscow’s response will be “tough and proportionate to the level of threats.”

    The intense, hours-long attack marked a sudden military escalation by Moscow. It came a day after Putin called the explosion Saturday on the huge bridge connecting Russia to its annexed territory of Crimea a “terrorist act” masterminded by Ukrainian special services.

    The missile strikes across Ukraine marked the biggest and most widespread Russian attacks in months. Putin, whose partial mobilization order earlier this month triggered an exodus of hundreds of thousands of men of fighting age from Russia, stopped short of declaring martial law or a counter-terrorist operation as many expected.

    ———

    Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to create a joint “regional grouping of troops,” but offered no details as to where or when such a grouping might be deployed.

    Lukashenko’s statement follows his repeated claims that Ukraine is plotting an attack on Belarus. At a meeting with military and security officials on Monday, the Belarusian leader reiterated that “carrying out strikes on the territory of Belarus is not just being discussed, it is being planned in Ukraine.”

    Lukashenko added that the Belarusian government was warned “through unofficial channels” about the alleged plans to attack.

    In more than seven months since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there has been no indication that Kyiv’s forces are planning an attack on Belarus.

    ———

    Moldova’s deputy prime minster says three cruise missiles launched Monday morning from Russian ships in the Black Sea on Ukraine crossed Moldova’s airspace.

    Nicu Popescu, who is also the minster of foreign affairs and European integration, said he had summoned the Russian ambassador for an explanation.

    Moldova’s defense ministry said the three missiles crossed over the northern part of the country, and that they “posed a danger to the infrastructure (of Moldova) and, in particular, to civil aircraft flying over the country’s airspace.”

    Moldova, a former Soviet republic which shares a border with Ukraine to the south, has been a strong supporter of Ukraine during the war.

    Russian troops have occupied its breakaway Transnistria region since 1991, when the region fought a brief war for independence from Moldova with Moscow’s support.

    ———

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces launched dozens of missiles and Iranian-built drones against Ukraine.

    “They want panic and chaos. They want to destroy our energy system,” Zelenskyy said in a video address on Telegram.

    He also said that Russia is “trying to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the earth.”

    The General Staff of the Ukraine Armed Forces said 75 missiles were fired against Ukrainian targets, with 41 of them neutralized by air defenses.

    Zelenskyy said that the attacks Monday morning were clearly timed to inflict the most damage.

    ———

    KYIV, Ukraine — At least eight people were killed and 24 were injured in one of the strikes in Kyiv, said Rostyslav Smirnov, an advisor to the Ukrainian ministry of internal affairs.

    Explosions on Monday rocked multiple cities across Ukraine, including missile strikes on the capital Kyiv for the first time in months.

    The attacks came hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin called a Saturday explosion on the huge bridge connecting Russia to its annexed territory of Crimea a “terrorist act” masterminded by Ukrainian special services.

    ———

    DNIPRO, Ukraine — A telecommunications building was hit in the central city of Dnipro, one of several strikes that caused at least three deaths.

    Bystanders said that two rockets hit the building in the western end of the city. A heavily damaged bus could be seen on the street in front of the building, which was strewn with rubble and broken glass.

    Oleksandr Shuklin, a construction worker who was working on a site just adjacent to the strike, said he’d seen one person who had died and another that was taken away by ambulance with injuries. He said he believed the strikes across Ukraine on Monday were Russian retaliation for the explosion on the Kerch bridge on Saturday.

    ———

    KYIV, Ukraine — Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko says that there are casualties and damage to several objects of critical infrastructure as a result of strikes on the Ukrainian capital on Monday.

    The strikes on Kyiv injured several residents who were seen on the streets with blood on their clothes and hands. A young man wearing a blue jacket was sitting on the ground as a medic wrapped a bandage around his head.

    A woman with bandages wrapped around her head had blood all over the front of her blouse. Several cars were also damaged or completely destroyed.

    ———

    KHARKIV, Ukraine — The eastern city of Kharkiv was struck multiple times Monday morning, knocking out power in parts of the city.

    Mayor Ihor Terekhov said that the energy infrastructure building was hit. There is no electricity and water in some of the districts of the city.

    The strikes come two days after a series of explosions rocked the city on Saturday, sending towering plumes of illuminated smoke into the sky and triggering a series of secondary explosions.

    ———

    KYIV, Ukraine — Multiple explosions rocked Kyiv early Monday following months of relative calm in the Ukrainian capital as other cities across Ukraine also came under attack.

    Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported explosions in the city’s Shevchenko district, a large area in the center of Kyiv that includes the historic old town as well as several government offices.

    Lesia Vasylenko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, posted a photo on Twitter showing that at least one explosion occurred near the main building of the Kyiv National University in central Kyiv.

    The spokesperson for Emergency Service in Kyiv told the AP that there are killed and wounded people. Rescuers are now working in different locations, said Svitlana Vodolaga.

    Ukrainian media reported explosions in a number of other locations, including the western city of Lviv that has been a refuge for many people fleeing the fighting in the east, as well as Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, Zhytomyr and Kropyvnytskyi.

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  • Russia strikes Kyiv, multiple Ukrainian cities; many dead

    Russia strikes Kyiv, multiple Ukrainian cities; many dead

    KYIV, Ukraine — Russia unleashed a lethal barrage of strikes against multiple Ukrainian cities Monday, smashing civilian targets including downtown Kyiv where at least eight people were killed.

    The intense, hours-long attack marked a sudden military escalation by Moscow. It came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin called a Saturday explosion on the huge bridge connecting Russia to its annexed territory of Crimea a “terrorist act” masterminded by Ukrainian special services.

    At least eight people were killed and 24 were injured in just one of the Kyiv strikes, according to preliminary information, said Rostyslav Smirnov, an adviser to the Ukrainian ministry of internal affairs.

    The sustained barrage on major cities hit residential areas and critical infrastructure facilities alike, portending a major surge in the war amid a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive in recent weeks. It came a few hours before Putin was due to hold a meeting with his security council, as Moscow’s war in Ukraine approaches its eight-month milestone and the Kremlin reels from humiliating battlefield setbacks in areas it is trying to annex.

    Blasts struck in the capital’s Shevchenko district, a large area in the center of Kyiv that includes the historic old town as well as several government offices, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

    Some of the strikes hit near the government quarter in the symbolic heart of the capital, where Parliament and other major landmarks are located. A glass tower housing offices was significantly damaged, most of its blue-tinted windows blown out.

    Residents were seen on the streets with blood on their clothes and hands. A young man wearing a blue jacket sat on the ground as a medic wrapped a bandage around his head. A woman with bandages wrapped around her head had blood all over the front of her blouse. Several cars were also damaged or completely destroyed. Air raid sirens sounded repeatedly across the country and in Kyiv.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces launched dozens of missiles and Iranian-built drones against Ukraine.

    The General Staff of the Ukraine Armed Forces said 75 missiles were fired against Ukrainian targets, with 41 of them neutralized by air defenses.

    The targets were civilian areas and energy facilities in 10 cities, Zelenskyy said in a video address. “(The Russians) chose such a time and such targets on purpose to inflict the most damage,” Zelenskyy said.

    The morning strikes sent Kyiv residents back into bomb shelters for the first time in months. The city’s subway system stopped train services and made the stations available once more as bomb shelters.

    While air raid sirens have continued throughout the war in Ukraine’s major cities across the country, in Kyiv and other areas where there have been months of calm many Ukrainians had begun to ignore their warnings and go about their normal business.

    That changed on Monday morning. The attacks arrived in Kyiv at the start of the morning rush hour, when commuter traffic was beginning to pick up. At least one of the vehicles struck near the Kyiv National University appeared to be a commuter minibus, known as a “marshrutka,” and a popular albeit often crowded alternative to the city’s bus and metro routes.

    Nearby, at least one strike landed in the popular Shevchenko Park, leaving a large hole near a children’s playground.

    Lesia Vasylenko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, posted a photo on Twitter showing that at least one explosion occurred near the main building of the Kyiv National University in central Kyiv.

    Elsewhere, Russia targeted civilian areas and energy infrastructure as air raid sirens sounded in every region of Ukraine, except Russia-annexed Crimea, for four straight hours.

    Associated Press journalists in Dnipro city saw the bodies of multiple people killed at an industrial site on the city’s outskirts. Windows in the area had been blown out and glass littered the street. A telecommunications building was hit.

    Ukrainian media also reported explosions in a number of other locations, including the western city of Lviv that has been a refuge for many people fleeing the fighting in the east, as well as in Kharkiv, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, Zhytomyr and Kropyvnytskyi.

    Kharkiv was hit three times, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. The strikes knocked out the electricity and water supply. Energy infrastructure was also hit in Lviv, Regional Governor Maksym Kozytskyi said.

    Three cruise missiles launched against Ukraine from Russian ships in the Black Sea crossed Moldova’s airspace, the country’s Foreign Affairs Minister Nicu Popescu complained.

    A day earlier, Putin had called the attack on the Kerch Bridge to Crimea a terrorist act carried out by Ukrainian special services. In a meeting Sunday with the chairman of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Putin said “there’s no doubt it was a terrorist act directed at the destruction of critically important civilian infrastructure.”

    The Kerch Bridge is important to Russia strategically, as a military supply line to its forces in Ukraine, and symbolically, as an emblem of its claims on Crimea. No one has claimed responsibility for damaging the 12-mile (19-kilometer) -long bridge, the longest in Europe.

    Amid the onslaught, Zelenskyy said on his Telegram account that Russia is “trying to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the earth.”

    The attacks appeared set to bring a fresh bout of international condemnation for Russia.

    German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, said the Group of Seven industrial powers will hold a videoconference Tuesday on the situation which Zelenskyy will address. Germany currently chairs the G-7.

    Ukrainian Foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba broke off his Africa tour and headed back to Ukraine, saying on Twitter the attacks represented “terror on peaceful Ukrainian cities.”

    Some feared Monday’s attacks may just be the first salvo in a renewed Russian offensive. Ukraine’s Ministry of Education announced that all schools in Ukraine must switch to online classes at least until the end of this week.

    ———

    Sabra Ayres in Kyiv, Vasilisa Stepanenko in Kharkiv, and Justin Spike and Yesica Fisch in Dnipro contributed to this story.

    ———

    Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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