Ukrainian troops keep up pressure on fleeing Russian forces
KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian troops piled pressure on retreating Russian forces Tuesday, pressing deeper into occupied territory and sending more Kremlin troops fleeing ahead of the counteroffensive that has inflicted a stunning blow on Moscow’s military prestige.
As the advance continued, Ukraine’s border guard services said the army took control of Vovchansk — a town just 3 kilometers (2 miles) from Russia seized on the first day of the war. Russia has acknowledged that it recently withdrew troops from areas in the northeastern region of Kharkiv.
Russian troops were also pulling out from Melitopol, the second largest city in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, the city’s pre-occupation mayor said. His claim could not immediately be verified.
Melitopol has been occupied since early March. Capturing it would give Kyiv an opportunity to disrupt Russian supply lines between the south and the eastern Donbas region, the two major areas where Moscow-backed forces hold territory.
Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram that the Russian troops were heading toward Moscow-annexed Crimea. He said columns of military equipment were reported at a checkpoint in Chonhar, a village marking the boundary between the Crimean peninsula and the Ukrainian mainland.
___
Casket of Queen Elizabeth II arrives at Buckingham Palace
LONDON (AP) — The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II returned to Buckingham Palace on Tuesday evening, making its way through a drizzly London as crowds lined the route for a glimpse of the hearse and to bid her a final farewell.
People parked their cars along a normally busy road, got out and waved as the hearse, with lights inside illuminating the flag-draped coffin, made its way into London. In the city, people pressed in on the road and held their phones aloft as it passed.
Thousands outside the palace cheered, shouted “God save the queen!” and clapped as the hearse swung around a roundabout in front of the queen's official London residence and through the wrought iron gates. Her son, King Charles III, and other immediate family members waited inside.
The coffin traveled to London from Edinburgh, where 33,000 people filed silently past it in the 24 hours at St. Giles’ Cathedral after it had been brought there from her cherished summer retreat, Balmoral. The queen — the only monarch many in the United Kingdom have ever known — died there Sept. 8 at age 96 after 70 years on the throne.
The military C-17 Globemaster carrying the casket touched down at RAF Northolt, an air force base in the west of London, about an hour after it left Edinburgh. U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and a military honor guard were among those at the base for the arrival.
___
Close New Hampshire Senate primary tests direction of GOP
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — The Republican contest for Senate in New Hampshire emerged Tuesday as a tight race between conservative Donald Bolduc and the more moderate Chuck Morse as the final primary night of the midterm season again tested the far right’s influence over the GOP.
Republicans see Democratic incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire as beatable in the general election, now just eight weeks away. But a strong competitor in the GOP contest is Bolduc, a retired Army brigadier general who some in the party believe is too far to the right for some swing voters in the general election. Morse, the president of the state Senate, has been backed by the Republican establishment.
New Hampshire's Senate seat could prove pivotal for whichever party controls the chamber after November. President Joe Biden carried the state by more than 7 percentage points and Bolduc has campaigned on a platform that includes lies that Donald Trump won the 2020 election and conspiracy theories about vaccines.
Hassan clinched her party’s nomination against only token opposition while Gov. Chris Sununu won the Republican party's nomination for another term. He's heavily favored against Democrat Tom Sherman, who was unopposed for his party's governor's nomination.
Sherman, a state senator and physician, was quick to remind voters that Sununu signed a late-term abortion ban into law last year. “As governor I will stand up for our freedoms and protect a woman’s right to choose, not cave to extremists like Chris Sununu,” he said.
___
GOP's Graham unveils nationwide abortion ban after 15 weeks
WASHINGTON (AP) — Upending the political debate, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced a nationwide abortion ban Tuesday, sending shockwaves through both parties and igniting fresh debate on a fraught issue weeks before the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.
Graham's own Republican Party leaders did not immediately embrace his abortion ban bill, which would prohibit the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy with rare exceptions, and has almost no chance of becoming law in the Democratic-held Congress. Democrats torched it as an alarming signal of where “MAGA” Republicans are headed if they win control of the House and Senate in November.
"America’s got to make some decisions," Graham said at a news conference at the Capitol.
The South Carolina Republican said that rather than shying away from the Supreme Court's ruling this summer overturning Roe v. Wade's nearly 50-year right to abortion access, Republicans are preparing to fight to make a nationwide abortion ban federal law.
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, we’re going nowhere,” the senator said while flanked by female advocates from the anti-abortion movement. “We welcome the debate. We welcome the vote in the United States Senate as to what America should look like in 2022.”
___
Ken Starr, whose probe led to Clinton impeachment, dies
Ken Starr, a former federal appellate judge and a prominent attorney whose criminal investigation of Bill Clinton led to the president’s impeachment and put Starr at the center of one of the country’s most polarizing debates of the 1990s, has died at age 76, his family said Tuesday.
Starr died at a hospital Tuesday of complications from surgery, according to his former colleague, attorney Mark Lanier. He said Starr had been hospitalized in an intensive care unit in Houston for about four months.
For many years, Starr’s stellar reputation as a lawyer seemed to place him on a path to the Supreme Court. At age 37, he became the youngest person ever to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also had served. From 1989-93, Starr was the solicitor general in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, arguing 25 cases before the Supreme Court.
Roberts said Tuesday: “Ken loved our country and served it with dedication and distinction. He led by example, in the legal profession, public service, and the community.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell remembered Starr Tuesday as “a brilliant litigator, an impressive leader, and a devoted patriot.”
___
Package explodes on Boston campus; 1 injured, FBI involved
BOSTON (AP) — A package exploded on the campus of Northeastern University in Boston late Tuesday, and the college said a staff member suffered minor injuries.
Authorities said another suspicious package was found near a prominent art museum and the FBI was assisting with the investigation.
The parcel that blew up was one of two that were reported to police early in the evening. Boston's bomb squad neutralized a second package near the city's Museum of Fine Arts, which is on the outskirts of the Northeastern campus.
NBC Boston reported that the package that exploded went off as it was being opened near the university's Holmes Hall, which is home to the university's creative writing program and its women's, gender and sexuality studies program. It said the FBI was assisting the investigation.
Authorities declined to elaborate, but Northeastern spokesperson Shannon Nargi said in a statement that an unidentified university staff member suffered minor injuries to his hand in the explosion.
___
Asian markets open lower after price data slam Wall Street
Asian markets skidded lower on Wednesday after Wall Street fell the most since June 2020 as a report showed inflation has kept a surprisingly strong grip on the U.S. economy.
Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost 2.8% in early trading Wednesday, to 27,816.58, while Sydney's S&P/ASX 200 declined 2.5% to 6,834.80. In Seoul, the Kospi lost 2.6% to 2,386.29.
U.S. futures edged higher, with the contracts for the Dow industrials and the S&P 500 up 0.1%. European futures also declined.
On Tuesday, the Dow lost more than 1,250 points and the S&P 500 sank 4.3%. Tuesday's hotter-than-expected report on inflation has traders bracing for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates still more, adding to risks for the economy.
The steep sell-off didn’t quite knock out the market’s gains over the past four days, but it ended a four-day winning streak for the major U.S. indexes and erased an early rally in European markets.
___
Judge unseals additional portions of Mar-a-Lago affidavit
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge Tuesday unsealed additional portions of an FBI affidavit laying out the basis for a search of former President Donald Trump's Florida home, showing that agents earlier obtained a hard drive after issuing a subpoena for surveillance footage recorded inside Mar-a-Lago.
A heavily redacted version of the affidavit was made public last month, but the Justice Department requested permission to show more of it after lawyers for Trump revealed the existence of a June grand jury subpoena that sought video footage from cameras in the vicinity of the Mar-a-Lago storage room.
“Because those aspects of the grand jury’s investigation have now been publicly revealed, there is no longer any reason to keep them sealed (i.e. redacted) in the filings in this matter,” department lawyers wrote.
The newly visible portions of the FBI agent’s affidavit show that the FBI on June 24 subpoenaed for the footage after a visit weeks earlier to Mar-a-Lago in which agents observed 50 to 55 boxes of records in the storage room at the property. The Trump Organization provided a hard drive on July 6 in response to the subpoena, the affidavit says.
The footage could be an important piece of the investigation, including as agents evaluate whether anyone has sought to obstruct the probe. The Justice Department has said in a separate filing that it has “developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”
___
Sandy Hook witnesses testify about Alex Jones' hoax claims
WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — A sister of a teacher killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre and an FBI agent who responded to the school shooting became overwhelmed with emotion Tuesday as they described what it has been like to be accused of being crisis actors by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and others.
Carlee Soto Parisi and FBI agent William Aldenberg were the first witnesses to testify as a Connecticut jury began hearing evidence in a trial to decide how much money Jones owes for spreading the lie that the 2012 mass shooting in Newtown that killed 20 first graders and six educators didn’t happen.
Soto Parisi said she has been hounded, both in Connecticut and after she moved to North Carolina, by those who believe she was acting. Some of the hoax believers went online and posted photos of grieving women, including an Associated Press photo of a distraught Soto Parisi outside Sandy Hook Elementary School after the shooting, saying they were the same actor.
“I frequently got threatening emails and messages on all social media," she testified, crying at times. "And it got to a point where they would use the gun emoji. And I spoke with cops in Connecticut and my husband ended up having to speak with cops in North Carolina, because we were scared for our lives.”
Aldenberg also broke down as he described being among the first law enforcement officers to enter the two classrooms where 20 children died. He described watching as the phone next to Vicki Soto's body lit up with messages from those trying to reach her.
___
Rapper PnB Rock fatally shot in Los Angeles restaurant
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Rapper PnB Rock was fatally shot during a robbery at a South Los Angeles restaurant where police believe a social media post may have tipped the assailant to his location.
The Philadelphia artist, whose real name is Rakim Allen, was gunned down Monday at a Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles restaurant while eating with his girlfriend. A robber approached their table and demanded items from the victim, according to Los Angeles police. A verbal exchange ended when the assailant opened fire, striking the rapper multiple times.
Rock's girlfriend had posted the location and tagged the rapper in an Instagram post that has since been deleted. Detectives are investigating whether the post prompted the attack, police Chief Michel Moore told the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday.
He “was with his family — with his girlfriend or some kind of friend of his -- and as they're there, enjoying a simple meal, (he) was brutally attacked by an individual who apparently (came) to the location after a social media posting,” Moore said.
The robber took some items from the victim and fled in a car that was waiting in the parking lot, said Officer Jeff Lee, a police spokesperson. No one else was injured in the shooting and the victim was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
