AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT
Ukraine slams Kyiv attack amid efforts for new Mariupol evac
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) - Ukraine's leader accused Russia of trying to humiliate the United Nations by raining missiles on Kyiv during a visit by Secretary-General António Guterres, an attack that shattered the capital's tentative return to normality as the focus of the war moved east.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine's forces were holding off Russia's attempted advance in the south and east, as efforts continued to secure safe passage for residents of Mariupol, which has been largely reduced to rubble in a 2-month-long siege.
Russia pounded targets all over Ukraine on Thursday, including the attack on Kyiv that struck a residential high-rise and another building. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Friday that one body was found in the rubble of the attack. Ten people were wounded, including at least one who lost a leg, according to Ukraine's emergency services.
In an apparent reference to the same strike, Russia's Defense Ministry said Friday that it had destroyed 'œproduction buildings'ť at the Artem defense factory in Kyiv.
The boldest Russian bombardment of the capital since Moscow's forces retreated weeks ago came barely an hour after Zelenskyy held a news conference with Guterres, who toured some of the destruction in and around Kyiv and condemned attacks on civilians.
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An Oval Office visit and a Moscow trip: Inside the Reed deal
WASHINGTON (AP) - The worst possible moment for bringing Trevor Reed home turned out to be the best.
With U.S.-Russian relations at their lowest point in decades, it seemed an improbable time to hope for the release of Reed, a former Marine detained in Russia for almost three years. Yet this week the Biden administration completed the type of transaction it had earlier seemed resistant to, exchanging Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot and convicted drug trafficker serving a 20-year prison sentence in Connecticut.
A series of events and considerations in the last two months helped facilitate the swap, including escalating concerns over Reed's health, a private Oval Office meeting between his parents and President Joe Biden and a secretive Moscow trip by a former diplomat on the cusp of Russia's war with Ukraine.
'œAll those three forced the White House to make a decision that they hadn't made before," said Mickey Bergman, vice president at the Richardson Center for Global Engagement.
How the war - and the breakdown in U.S.-Russian relations - affected the deal isn't clear. U.S. officials stressed that the negotiations for Reed's release were narrow in scope, focused squarely on the prisoners and not on Russia's war and not reflective of any broader diplomatic engagement. But while the timing of the deal was startling, it's also clear that the groundwork for it had been laid before the conflict had begun
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Political stakes high as Beijing responds to virus outbreak
BEIJING (AP) - Classes suspended. Buildings and communities sealed off. Mass testing of residents. A rush to stock up on food, just in case.
Beijing, China's sprawling capital, is starting to resemble other Chinese cities grappling with the latest wave of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Authorities are moving quickly to try to prevent a massive COVID-19 outbreak that could trigger a citywide lockdown like the one that has paralyzed Shanghai for more than three weeks. The political stakes are high as the ruling Communist Party prepares for a major congress this fall at which President Xi Jinping is seeking a third five-year term to reassert his position as China's unquestioned leader.
Xi and the party's main policymaking body, the Politburo, reaffirmed their commitment to a 'œzero-COVID'ť policy on Friday, putting China at odds with much of the world. While many countries are dropping restrictions and trying to live with the virus, China is keeping its international borders largely shut and closing off entire cities to all but essential travel.
The Politburo acknowledged the economic cost of lockdowns, saying efforts must be made to 'œminimize the impact of the epidemic on economic and social development,'ť the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
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Racial split on COVID-19 endures as restrictions ease in US
Black and Hispanic Americans remain far more cautious in their approach to COVID-19 than white Americans, recent polls show, reflecting diverging preferences on how to deal with the pandemic as federal, state and local restrictions fall by the wayside.
Despite majority favorability among U.S. adults overall for measures like mask mandates, public health experts said divided opinions among racial groups reflect not only the unequal impact of the pandemic on people of color but also apathy among some white Americans.
Black Americans (63%) and Hispanic Americans (68%) continue to be more likely than white Americans (45%) to say they are at least somewhat worried about themselves or a family member being infected with COVID-19, according to an April poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Throughout the pandemic, Black and Hispanic communities have experienced higher rates of illness and death from COVID, said Amelia Burke-Garcia, public health program area director at NORC. Those experiences have resulted in greater levels of stress, anxiety and awareness of the risks of catching COVID-19, she said, which means people of color are more likely to feel measures like mask mandates are needed.
'œWe've seen these trends endure throughout the entire pandemic,'ť Burke-Garcia said. 'œWhat we're seeing now as mitigation measures are being rolled back is there's still great concern amongst Black Americans and Hispanic Americans around the risk of getting sick."
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An algorithm that screens for child neglect raises concerns
Inside a cavernous stone fortress in downtown Pittsburgh, attorney Robin Frank defends parents at one of their lowest points '“ when they risk losing their children.
The job is never easy, but in the past she knew what she was up against when squaring off against child protective services in family court. Now, she worries she's fighting something she can't see: an opaque algorithm whose statistical calculations help social workers decide which families should be investigated in the first place.
'œA lot of people don't know that it's even being used,'ť Frank said. 'œFamilies should have the right to have all of the information in their file.'ť
From Los Angeles to Colorado and throughout Oregon, as child welfare agencies use or consider tools similar to the one in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, an Associated Press review has identified a number of concerns about the technology, including questions about its reliability and its potential to harden racial disparities in the child welfare system. Related issues have already torpedoed some jurisdictions' plans to use predictive models, such as the tool notably dropped by the state of Illinois.
According to new research from a Carnegie Mellon University team obtained exclusively by AP, Allegheny's algorithm in its first years of operation showed a pattern of flagging a disproportionate number of Black children for a 'œmandatory'ť neglect investigation, when compared with white children. The independent researchers, who received data from the county, also found that social workers disagreed with the risk scores the algorithm produced about one-third of the time.
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New gas pipeline boosts Europe's bid to ease Russian supply
ATHENS, Greece (AP) - Mountainous and remote, the Greek-Bulgaria border once formed the southern corner of the Iron Curtain. Today, it's where the European Union is redrawing the region's energy map to ease its heavy reliance on Russian natural gas.
A new pipeline - built during the COVID-19 pandemic, tested and due to start commercial operation in June - will ensure that large volumes of gas will flow between the two countries in both directions to generate electricity, fuel industry and heat homes.
The energy link takes on greater importance following Moscow's decision this week to cut off natural gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria over a demand for ruble payments stemming from Western sanctions over the war of Ukraine.
The 180-kilometer (110-mile) project is the first of several planned gas interconnectors that will allow eastern European Union members and countries hoping to join the 27-nation bloc access to the global gas market.
In the short term, it's Bulgaria's backup.
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Musk sells $4B in Tesla shares, presumably for Twitter deal
DETROIT (AP) - Elon Musk has sold 4.4 million shares of Tesla stock worth roughly $4 billion, most likely to help fund his purchase of Twitter.
Musk reported the sale in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. The shares were sold over the past few days, at prices ranging from $872.02 to $999.13.
The world's richest man, who is the CEO of Tesla, tweeted that he doesn't plan any further sales of the company's shares.
Most of the sales took place on Tuesday, when Tesla shares closed down 12%, a huge single-day drop.
Analysts said Tesla investors fear Musk will be distracted by Twitter and less engaged in running the electric car company. Twitter agreed to be acquired by Musk on Monday for $44 billion.
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EXPLAINER: Why are foes Turkey and Saudi Arabia fixing ties?
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - The killing of columnist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul sent an already tense and shaky relationship between Turkey and Saudi Arabia into complete free fall.
Fast-forward 3 1/2 years later and it appears Turkey and Saudi Arabia are attempting to build a bridge and move on.
In his first trip to Saudi Arabia in five years, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan embraced Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and sipped traditional Arabic coffee with King Salman before a state dinner and direct talks that ran into the early hours of Friday.
Here's a look at what's underpinning rapprochement between the two Sunni Muslim powerhouses:
WHAT'S BEHIND TURKEY'S DIPLOMATIC PIVOT?
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Lawmaker: Sri Lanka president agrees to remove brother as PM
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - Sri Lanka's president has agreed to replace his older brother as prime minister in a proposed interim government to solve a political impasse caused by the country's worst economic crisis in decades, a prominent lawmaker said Friday.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa agreed that a national council will be appointed to name a new prime minister and Cabinet comprised of all parties in Parliament, lawmaker Maithripala Sirisena said after meeting with the president.
Sirisena, who was president before Rajapaksa, was a governing party lawmaker before defecting earlier this month along with nearly 40 other legislators.
Sri Lanka is near bankruptcy and has announced it is suspending payments on its foreign loans. It has to repay $7 billion in foreign debt this year, and $25 billion by 2026. Its foreign reserves stand at less than $1 billion.
The foreign exchange shortage has severely limited imports, forcing people to wait in long lines to buy essentials such as food, fuel, cooking gas and medicine.
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Inflation hits record high of 7.5% in countries using euro
BRUSSELS (AP) - Inflation hit a new record for the 19 countries that use the euro as skyrocketing fuel prices boosted by the war in Ukraine add new burdens to household finances and weigh on a slowing economic recovery from the latest outbreaks of COVID-19.
Annual inflation hit 7.5% for April, the highest since statistics started in 1997 and the sixth record in a row, topping the old record of 7.4% from March, the European Union's statistics agency Eurostat reported Friday.
Energy prices jumped a startling 38%, a testimony to how the war and the accompanying global energy crunch are affecting the eurozone's 343 million people.
Fears that the war may lead to an interruption of oil or gas supplies from Russia, the world's largest oil exporter, have pushed prices for oil and natural gas higher. That comes on top of rebounding global demand amid recovery from the pandemic downturn and a cautious approach to increasing production from oil cartel OPEC and allied countries including Russia.
High inflation is reverberating through politics and the economy, as governments enact cash support for hard hit households. Germany is dropping a charge for supporting renewable energy on electric bills, saving a family of four around 300 euros ($317) a year. Germany's IG Metall industrial union is proposing an 8.2% annual increase for the country's steelworkers going into wage talks.