Top US general visits training site for Ukrainian soldiers

GRAFENWOEHR TRAINING AREA, Germany (AP) — Monday was just Day Two for Ukrainian soldiers at the U.S. military’s new training program, but the message was coming through loud and clear.

These are urgent times. And the lessons they will get in the next five weeks on weapons, armored vehicles and more sophisticated combat techniques are critical as they prepare to defend their country against the Russian invasion.

“This is not a run of the mill rotation,” U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday afternoon as he met with commanders. “This is one of those moments in time where if you want to make a difference, this is it.”

Milley, who visited the sprawling Grafenwoehr training area to get his first look at the new, so-called combined arms instruction, has said it will better prepare Ukrainian troops to launch an offensive or counter any surge in Russian attacks.

He spent a bit less than two hours at “Camp Kherson” — a section of the base named after a city in Ukraine where Ukrainian troops scored a key victory against Russia last year. More than 600 Ukrainian troops began the expanded training program at the camp just a day before Milley arrived.

___

On King's holiday, daughter calls for bold action over words

ATLANTA (AP) — America has honored Martin Luther King Jr. with a federal holiday for nearly four decades yet still hasn’t fully embraced and acted on the lessons from the slain civil rights leader, his youngest daughter said Monday.

The Rev. Bernice King, who leads The King Center in Atlanta, said leaders — especially politicians — too often cheapen her father’s legacy into a “comfortable and convenient King” offering easy platitudes.

“We love to quote King in and around the holiday. ... But then we refuse to live King 365 days of the year,” she declared at the commemorative service at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her father once preached.

The service, organized by the center and held at Ebenezer annually, headlined observances of the 38th federal King holiday. King, gunned down in Memphis in 1968 as he advocated for better pay and working conditions for the city’s sanitation workers, would have celebrated his 94th birthday Sunday.

Her voice rising and falling in cadences similar to her father's, Bernice King bemoaned institutional and individual racism, economic and health care inequities, police violence, a militarized international order, hardline immigration structures and the climate crisis. She said she’s “exhausted, exasperated and, frankly, disappointed” to hear her father’s words about justice quoted so extensively alongside “so little progress” addressing society's gravest problems.

___

Flight data, voice recorders retrieved from Nepal crash site

POKHARA, Nepal (AP) — Search teams retrieved the flight data and cockpit voice recorders Monday of a passenger plane that plummeted into a gorge on approach to a new airport in the foothills of the Himalayas, officials said, as investigators looked for the cause of Nepal's deadliest plane crash in 30 years.

At least 69 of the 72 people aboard were killed, and officials believe the three missing are also dead. Rescuers combed through the debris, scattered down a 300-meter-deep (984-foot-deep) gorge, for them.

Many of the passengers on Sunday's flight were returning home to Pokhara, though the city is also popular with tourists since it's the gateway to the Annapurna Circuit hiking trail. On Monday evening, relatives and friends were still gathered outside a local hospital, some shouting at officials to speed up the post mortems so they could hold funerals for their loved ones. Later, some did receive the bodies of relatives.

It's still not clear what caused the crash, which took place less than a minute's flight from the airport on a mild day with little wind.

In footage taken by a passenger out of a window as the plane came in for a landing, buildings, roads and greenery are visible below. The video, by Sonu Jaiswal and verified by The Associated Press, then shows a violent jolt and a series of jerky images accompanied by yelling before flames fill the screen.

___

Ukraine strike deaths hit 40; Russia seen preparing long war

DNIPRO, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian emergency crews on Monday sifted through what was left of a Dnipro apartment building destroyed by a Russian missile, placing bodies from one of the war's deadliest single attacks in months in black bags and gingerly carrying them across steep piles of rubble.

Authorities said the death toll from Saturday's strike rose to 40 and that 30 people remained missing Monday. Tall cranes swung across the jagged gaps in a row of residential towers, the engines growling as residents of one of Ukraine's largest cities watched largely in silence under a gray sky.

About 1,700 people lived in the multistory building, and search and rescue crews have worked nonstop since the missile strike to locate victims and survivors in the wreckage. The regional administration said 39 people have been rescued and at least 75 were wounded.

The reported death toll put it among the deadliest attacks on Ukrainian civilians since before the summer, according to The Associated Press-Frontline War Crimes Watch project. Residents said the apartment tower did not house any military facilities.

Oleksander Anyskevych said he was in his apartment when the missile struck.

___

Elon Musk's next drama: a trial over his tweets about Tesla

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — While still grappling with the fallout from a company he did take private, beleaguered billionaire Elon Musk is now facing a trial over a company he didn't.

Long before Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in October, he had set his sights on Tesla, the electric automaker where he continues to serve as CEO and from which he derives most of his wealth and fame.

Musk claimed in a August 7, 2018 tweet that he had lined up the financing to pay for a $72 billion buyout of Tesla, which he then amplified with a follow-up statement that made a deal seem imminent.

But the buyout never materialized and now Musk will have to explain his actions under oath in a federal court in San Francisco. The trial, which begins on Tuesday with jury selection, was triggered by a class-action lawsuit on behalf of investors who owned Tesla stock for a 10-day period in August 2018.

Musk’s tweets back then fueled a rally in Tesla’s stock price that abruptly ended a week later, after it became apparent that he didn’t have the funding for a buyout after all. That resulted in him scrapping his plan to take the automaker private, culminating in a $40 million settlement with U.S. securities regulators that also required him to step down as the company’s chairman.

___

Baby, teen mom among 6 killed in shooting at California home

VISALIA, Calif. (AP) — Six people — including a 17-year-old mother and her 6-month-old baby — were killed in a shooting early Monday at a home in central California, and authorities are searching for at least two suspects, sheriff's officials said.

Deputies responded around 3:30 a.m. to reports of multiple shots fired at the residence in unincorporated Goshen, just east of Visalia, the Tulare County Sheriff's Office said.

“Actually the report was that an active shooter was in the area because of the number of shots that were being fired,” Sheriff Mike Boudreaux told reporters.

Deputies found two victims dead in the street and a third person fatally shot in the doorway of the residence, Boudreaux said.

Three more victims were found inside the home, including a man who was still alive but later died at a hospital, he said.

___

China records 1st recent population decline as births plunge

BEIJING (AP) — China has announced its first overall population decline in recent years amid an aging society and plunging birthrate.

The National Bureau of Statistics reported the country had 850,000 fewer people at the end of 2022 than over the previous year. It counts only the population of mainland China while excluding Hong Kong and Macao as well as foreign residents.

That left a total of 1.411.75 billion, with 9.56 million births against 10.41 million deaths, the bureau said at a briefing on Tuesday.

Men also continued to outnumber women by 722.06 million to 689.69 million, the bureau said, a result of the strict one-child policy that only officially ended in 2016 and a traditional preference for male offspring to carry on the family name.

Since abandoning the policy, China has sought to encourage families to have second or even third children, with little success. The expense of raising children in China's cities is often cited as a cause, reflecting attitudes in much of east Asia where birth rates have fallen precipitously.

___

More rain, snow in California from ninth in series of storms

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The ninth atmospheric river in a three-week series of major winter storms was churning through California on Monday, leaving mountain driving dangerous and the flooding risk high near swollen rivers even as the sun came out in some areas.

Heavy snow fell across the Sierra Nevada and the National Weather Service discouraged travel. Interstate 80, a key highway from the San Francisco Bay Area to Lake Tahoe ski resorts, reopened with chain requirements after periodic weekend closures because of whiteout conditions.

“If you must travel, be prepared for dangerous travel conditions, significant travel delays and road closures,” the weather service office in Sacramento said on Twitter.

The University of California Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab tweeted Monday morning that it had recorded 49.6 inches (126 cm) of new snow since Friday.

A backcountry avalanche warning was issued for the central Sierra, including the greater Tahoe area.

___

China’s economy grew 3% last year, not even half 2021's rate

BEIJING (AP) — China’s economic growth fell to its second-lowest level in at least four decades last year under pressure from anti-virus controls and a real estate slump, but activity but is reviving after restrictions that kept millions of people at home and sparked protests were lifted.

The world's No. 2 economy grew by 3% in 2022, less than half of the previous year's 8.1%, official data showed Tuesday. That was the second-lowest annual rate since at least the 1970s after 2020, when growth fell to 2.4% at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Consumer and business activity are reviving after the ruling Communist Party's severe “zero COVID” controls ended abruptly December. But wary consumers are returning only gradually to shopping malls and restaurants as China copes with a surge in infections that has flooded hospitals The government says the peak of that wave appears to have passed.

Economic growth sank to 2.9% over a year earlier in the three months ending in December from the previous quarter's 3.9%, the National Bureau of Statistics reported.

China’s slump has hurt its trading partners by reducing demand for oil, food, consumer goods and other imports. A rebound would be a boost to global suppliers who face a growing risk of recession in Western economies.

___

Economic woes, war, climate change on tap for Davos meeting

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — The World Economic Forum is back with its first winter meetup since 2020 in the Swiss Alpine town of Davos, where leaders are seeking to bridge political divisions in a polarized world, buttress a hobbling economy and address concerns about a climate change — among many other things.

Sessions will take up issues as diverse as the future of fertilizers, the role of sports in society, the state of the COVID-19 pandemic and much more. Nearly 600 CEOs and more than 50 heads of state or government are expected, but it's never clear how much concrete action emerges from the elite event.

Here’s what to watch as the four-day talkfest and related deal-making get underway in earnest Tuesday:

WHO’S COMING?

Back in the snows for the first time since the pandemic and just eight months after a springtime 2022 session, the event will host notables like European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, and the new presidents of South Korea, Colombia and the Philippines.

News from © The Associated Press, 2023