Russia renews strikes on Ukraine capital, hits other cities

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces accelerated scattered attacks on Kyiv, western Ukraine and beyond Saturday in an explosive reminder to Ukrainians and their Western supporters that the whole country remains under threat despite Moscow's pivot toward mounting a new offensive in the east.

Stung by the loss of its Black Sea flagship and indignant over alleged Ukrainian aggression on Russian territory, Russia's military command had warned of renewed missile strikes on Ukraine's capital. Officials in Moscow said they were targeting military sites, a claim repeated — and refuted by witnesses — throughout 52 days of war.

The toll reaches much deeper. Each day brings new discoveries of civilian victims of an invasion that has shattered European security. As Russia prepared for the anticipated offensive, a mother wept over her 15-year-old son’s body after rockets hit a residential area of Kharkiv, a city in northeast Ukraine. An infant and at least eight other people died, officials said.

In the towns and villages just outside Kyiv, authorities have reported finding the bodies of more than 900 civilians, most shot dead, since Russian troops retreated two weeks ago. Smoke rose from the capital again early Saturday as Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported a strike that killed one person and wounded several.

The mayor advised residents who fled the city earlier in the war not to return.

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US Army using lessons from Ukraine war to aid own training

FORT IRWIN, Calif. (AP) — In the dusty California desert, U.S. Army trainers are already using lessons learned from Russia's war against Ukraine as they prepare soldiers for future fights against a major adversary such as Russia or China.

The role-players in this month's exercise at the National Training Center speak Russian. The enemy force that controls the fictional town of Ujen is using a steady stream of social media posts to make false accusations against the American brigade preparing to attack.

In the coming weeks, the planned training scenario for the next brigade coming in will focus on how to battle an enemy willing to destroy a city with rocket and missile fire in order to conquer it.

If the images seem familiar, they are, playing out on televisions and websites worldwide right now as Russian forces pound Ukrainian cities with airstrikes, killing scores of civilians. The information war on social media has showcased impassioned nightly speeches by Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as Russian efforts to accuse Ukraine's forces of faking mass killings in towns such as Bucha — massacres that the West blames on Moscow's troops.

“I think right now the whole Army is really looking at what’s happening in Ukraine and trying to learn lessons,” said Army Secretary Christine Wormuth. Those lessons, she said, range from Russia's equipment and logistics troubles to communications and use of the internet.

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'Magic mushrooms' for therapy? Vets help sway conservatives

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Matthew Butler spent 27 years in the Army, but it took a day in jail to convince him his post-traumatic stress disorder was out of control.

The recently retired Green Beret had already tried antidepressants, therapy and a support dog. But his arrest for punching a hole in his father's wall after his family tried to stage an intervention in Utah made it clear none of it was working.

“I had a nice house, I had a great job, whatever, but I was unable to sleep, had frequent nightmares, crippling anxiety, avoiding crowds," he said. “My life was a wreck.”

He eventually found psychedelic drugs, and he says they changed his life. “I was able to finally step way back and go, ‘Oh, I see what’s going on here. I get it now,’” said Butler, now 52. Today his run-ins with police have ended, he’s happily married and reconciled with his parents.

Butler, who lives in the Salt Lake City suburbs, is among military veterans in several U.S. states helping to persuade lawmakers to study psychedelic mushrooms for therapeutic use.

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12 injured in shooting at South Carolina mall; 3 detained

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Ten people were shot and two others injured in a shooting at a busy shopping mall in South Carolina’s capital that authorities do not believe was a random attack.

Three people who had firearms have been detained in connection with the Saturday afternoon shooting at Columbiana Centre, Columbia Police Chief W.H. “Skip” Holbrook said. He said at least one of those three people fired a weapon.

“We don’t believe this was random,” Holbrook said. “We believe they knew each other and something led to the gunfire.”

Authorities said no fatalities have been reported but that eight of the victims were taken to the hospital. Of those eight, two were in critical condition and six were in stable condition, Holbrook said. The victims ranged in age from 15 to 73, he said.

Daniel Johnson said he and his family were visiting from Alabama and were eating in the food court when they first heard shots ring out and started seeing people running.

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DA: 3 of 6 dead in Sacramento shootout were in gang dispute

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Newly filed court documents in the downtown Sacramento shooting that killed six people and wounded a dozen others reveal that three of the dead had been involved in the gang dispute that led to the massive shootout, with at least one of them firing a weapon.

Documents filed Friday by Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert’s office show that the three deceased men affiliated with gangs were Joshua Hoye-Lucchesi, 32, Devazia Turner, 29, and Sergio Harris, 38, The Sacramento Bee reported Saturday.

Turner fired a weapon, but it was unclear if all three fired weapons. Police have said there were at least five suspects in the April 3 shooting.

Two of the suspects — brothers Smiley and Dandrae Martin — were wounded and are hospitalized or in jail. A third suspect, Mtula Payton, 27, remains at large.

In a social media clip posted hours before the shooting, the Martin brothers are seen posing with Hoye-Lucchesi and two handguns and a rifle. In the video, Hoye-Lucchesi and Smiley Martin, 27, talk about going downtown while armed to loiter outside nightclubs and “boast about shooting rival gang members,” according to a 13-page document.

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Unrest sparked by far-right demos continues in Sweden

HELSINKI (AP) — Unrest broke out in southern Sweden late Saturday despite police moving a rally by an anti-Islam far-right group, which was planning to burn a Quran among other things, to a new location as a preventive measure.

Scuffles and unrest were reported in the southern town of Landskrona after a demonstration scheduled there by the Danish right-wing party Stram Kurs party was moved to the nearby city of Malmo, some 45 kilometers (27 miles) south.

Up to 100 mostly young people threw stones, set cars, tires and dustbins on fire, and put up a barrier fence that obstructed traffic, Swedish police said. The situation had calmed down in Landskrona by late Saturday but remains tense, police said, adding no injuries were reported in the action.

On Friday evening, violent clashes between demonstrators and counter-protesters erupted in the central city of Orebro ahead Stram Kurs' plan to burn a Quran there, leaving 12 police officers injured and four police vehicles set on fire.

Video footage and photos from chaotic scenes in Orebro showed burning police cars and protesters throwing stones and other objects at police officers in riot gear.

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Crews fight New Mexico fires as some evacuations lift

RUIDOSO, N.M. (AP) — Authorities have lifted some evacuation orders for a mountain community in drought-stricken southern New Mexico as firefighters worked Saturday to contain a wind-driven blaze that killed two people and destroyed over 200 homes.

The evacuation orders lifted late Friday covered about 60% of the estimated 4,500 people ordered to leave their homes since the fire started Tuesday, Village of Ruidoso spokesperson Kerry Gladden told The Associated Press on Saturday. Evacuation estimates were previously reported to be around 5,000 people.

“The big story is we're in a re-population mode," Gladden said earlier during a media briefing.

Those evacuation orders remaining in effect may be lifted in coming days, officials said.

Those waiting to return included Barbara Arthur, the owner of a wooded 28-site RV park that had wind damage but didn’t burn.

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Suit seeks to overturn renewed Philadelphia mask mandate

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Several businesses and residents have filed suit in state court in Pennsylvania seeking to overturn Philadelphia's renewed indoor mask mandate scheduled to be enforced beginning Monday in an effort to halt a surge in COVID-19 infections.

The lawsuit, filed in Commonwealth Court on Saturday, said Philadelphia lacks the authority to impose such a mandate.

Philadelphia earlier this week became the first major U.S. city to reinstate its indoor mask mandate after reporting a sharp increase in coronavirus infections, with the city’s top health official saying she wanted to forestall a potential new wave driven by an omicron subvariant.

Attorney Thomas W. King III, who was among those involved in last year's successful challenge to the statewide mask mandate in schools, said the city's emergency order went against recommendations of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and “imposed a renegade standard unfound anywhere else in the world."

The suit accuses city health officials of having “usurped the power and authority" of state lawmakers, the state department of health and the state advisory health board.

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WNBA players say life in Russia was lucrative but lonely

For the elite athletes in the WNBA, spending the offseason playing in Russia can mean earning more money than they can make back home — sometimes even two or three times as much.

But those who have done that also describe the loneliness of being away from family and friends, of struggling with an unfamiliar language and culture, and of living in a place with only a few hours of sunlight in the winter and temperatures well below freezing.

Brittney Griner is one of those players who went to Russia in recent years to earn extra money. For the two-time Olympian, however, it has turned into a prolonged nightmare.

Since arriving at a Moscow airport in mid-February, she has been detained by police after they reported finding vape cartridges allegedly containing cannabis oil in her luggage. Still in jail, she is awaiting trial next month on charges that could bring up to 10 years in prison.

Her arrest came at a time of heightened political tensions over Ukraine. Since then, Russia has invaded Ukraine and remains at war.

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Art Rupe, pioneering record executive, dead at 104

NEW YORK (AP) — Music executive Art Rupe, whose Specialty Records was a premier label during the formative years of rock ‘n roll and helped launch the careers of Little Richard, Sam Cooke and many others, has died. He was 104.

Rupe, who was inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame in 2011, died Friday at his home in Santa Barbara, California, according to the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation. The foundation did not release his cause of death.

The Greensburg, Pennsylvania, native was a contemporary of Jerry Wexler, Leonard Chess and other white businessmen-producers who helped bring Black music to a general audience. He founded Specialty in Los Angeles in 1946 and gave early breaks to such artists as Cooke and his gospel group the Soul Stirrers, Little Richard, Lloyd Price, John Lee Hooker and Clifton Chenier.

“Specialty Records’ growth paralleled, and perhaps defined, the evolution of Black popular music, from the ‘race’ music of the 1940s to the rock n’ roll of the 1950s,” music historian Billy Vera wrote in the liner notes to “The Specialty Story,” a five-CD set that came out in 1994.

Rupe’s most lucrative and momentous signing was Little Richard, a rhythm ’n blues and gospel performer since his teens who had struggled to break through commercially. In a 2011 interview for the Rock Hall archives, Rupe explained that Little Richard (the professional name for the late Macon, Georgia, native Richard Penniman) had learned of Specialty through Price, sent a demo and for months called trying to find out if anyone had listened. He finally demanded to speak to Rupe, who dug out his tape from the reject pile.

News from © The Associated Press, 2022