Russia says Ukrainian saboteurs launch cross-border attack
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) 鈥� Russian officials said Thursday that Ukrainian saboteurs crossed into western Russia and attacked local villages, as the war extended into its second year.
Amid conflicting initial reports, Russia鈥檚 Federal Security Service said fighting with the sabotage unit was taking place in the Bryansk region.
There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian officials, and the exact circumstances of the incident were unclear.
If confirmed, it would be another indication following drone attacks earlier this week that Kyiv could be taking the fight into Russian territory, exposing Russian defensive weaknesses, embarrassing the Kremlin and sowing unease among Russian civilians.
The Federal Security Service was quoted by the Russian state Tass news agency as saying that 鈥渁ctivities to eliminate armed Ukrainian nationalists who violated the state border鈥� were underway.
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Legal fight over student debt a prelude to political battle
WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥� Facing the possibility that the Supreme Court will reject President Joe Biden's plan for student loan forgiveness, the White House is aiming to turn the political heat toward Republicans while deflecting criticism from disappointed borrowers.
At stake is the loyalty of young, college-educated voters who are a critical part of the Democratic coalition that Biden is counting on to return him to the White House for a second term. And plenty of people are making sure he doesn't forget.
鈥淭he president still has the responsibility to ensure that we see this become a reality,鈥� said Wisdom Cole, national director of the NAACP Youth and College Division. 鈥淭here are folks that are still suffering, and we want to ensure that they have the opportunity to see relief.鈥�
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday the president would make it clear to borrowers that 鈥渨e have your back,鈥� but it's far from clear that the administration has a backup idea to cancel debt.
鈥淲e do not have another plan,鈥� she told reporters. 鈥淭his is our plan. This is it.鈥�
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Netanyahu denounces protesters after salon siege of his wife
JERUSALEM (AP) 鈥� Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies on Thursday denounced protesters as 鈥渁narchists鈥� after they massed outside a Tel Aviv salon where his wife was getting her hair done 鈥� a chaotic end to a day of demonstrations against the government's plan to overhaul the judiciary.
Sara Netanyahu has long been a polarizing figure in Israel, and the incident late Wednesday in a posh neighborhood in Tel Aviv reflected Israel's emotionally charged divide over the overhaul, seen by opponents as an existential threat to the country. Demonstrators outside the salon chanted, 鈥渟hame, shame鈥� 鈥� but did not try to force their way inside. Hundreds of police were sent to the scene and eventually escorted her into a limousine.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu and his political partners showed no signs of easing up on a push to pass a series of bills to overhaul Israel's judiciary. These moves have further inflamed an already deeply riven country and drawn the largest protests in over a decade.
Protest organizers planned more demonstrations Thursday, a day after their self-proclaimed 鈥渄ay of disruption鈥� turned violent when police used a heavy hand against participants at a Tel Aviv rally.
Thursday's demonstrations in Jerusalem are expected to include speeches by former government ministers and senior security officials. Former top economists, including two former Bank of Israel heads and a Nobel Prize laureate, were set to speak at a conference in Tel Aviv about the economic fallout from the overhaul.
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Greek rail workers strike over conditions after deadly crash
THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) 鈥� Rescuers using cranes and heavy machinery on Thursday searched the wreckage of trains involved in a deadly collision that sent Greece into national mourning and prompted strikes and protests over rail safety. The death toll from Wednesday's head-on crash involving a passenger train and freight carrier remained at 43 as crews continue to check the burned out and twisted rail car remains for more bodies. More than 50 people remained hospitalized, most in the central Greek city of Larissa, some in serious condition. Railway workers' associations called strikes, halting national rail services and the subway in Athens, to protest working conditions and what they described as a lack of modernization of the Greek rail system.
Wednesday's collision occurred near the small town of Tempe in northern Greece, when a freight train loaded with heavy construction equipment smashed into a passenger service on Greece's busiest line between Athens and the country's second largest city, Thessaloniki. More than 300 people were on board the train, many of them students returning from a holiday weekend and annual Carnival celebrations around Greece.
As Greece reeled from its deadliest ever train disaster, Pope Francis and European leaders sent messages of sympathy. Among them were the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, whose country is recovering from devastating earthquakes last month. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sent a message in Greek, writing 鈥淭he people of Ukraine share the pain of the families of the victims. We wish a speedy recovery to all the injured.鈥�
A stationmaster arrested following the rail disaster is due to appear in court Thursday as a judicial inquiry tries to establish why the two trains traveling in opposite directions were on the same track.
Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned following the crash, his replacement tasked with setting up an independent inquiry looking into the causes of the accident.
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Engagement vs entertainment: Murdaugh draws mass attention
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) 鈥� As the double murder trial of Alex Murdaugh wraps, the heaps of public attention poured on the case's many twists and turns are hardly waning.
Investigations stemming from the June 7, 2021 shooting deaths of the legal scion's wife and son revealed the prominent South Carolina lawyer stole millions of dollars from largely poor client's settlements and staged an attempt on his life to secure his surviving son a $12 million life insurance payout, according to authorities.
In the process, true crime enthusiasts, concerned onlookers and many others found the latest subject of their fascination in the yearslong unraveling of a mystery that jurors must now weigh.
Experts say the small town saga鈥檚 transformation into an international topic of intrigue highlights insights into the human psyche: People are wired to follow events that inform their perceptions of threat. And now, amid the commotion, some legal observers have found an important opportunity for education.
Coltan Scrivner, a researcher at the Recreational Fear Lab at Aarhus University in Denmark, said a human desire to avoid getting duped has developed into a natural curiosity for signs of danger. Those cues, he said, are especially strong when the schemes involve high-status circles with powerful and successful people 鈥� things the Murdaugh case taps into.
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Maui hate crime case spotlights Hawaii's racial complexity
HONOLULU (AP) 鈥� In a case that reflects Hawaii's nuanced and complicated relationship with race, two Native Hawaiian men are scheduled to be sentenced Thursday for a federal hate crime in the brutal beating of a white man who tried to move into their remote, traditional fishing village.
A jury convicted Kaulana Alo-Kaonohi and Levi Aki Jr. in November, finding that they were motivated by Christopher Kunzelman's race when they punched, kicked and used a shovel to beat him in 2014. His injuries included a concussion, two broken ribs and head trauma.
Local lawyers believe this is the first time the U.S. has prosecuted Native Hawaiians for hate crimes. The unique case highlights the struggles between Native Hawaiians who are adamant about not having their culture erased and people who move to Hawaii without knowing or considering its history and racial dynamics.
Tensions began over a dilapidated, oceanfront home in Kahakuloa, a small village off a narrow road of hairpin turns and sweeping ocean views at the end of a valley on Maui, an island known for luxurious resorts.
Growing up in the village, Alo-Kaonohi would 鈥渉unt, fish, farm, live off the land,鈥� he wrote in a letter to U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright. 鈥淭o make a little money, I would sell coconuts, mango, flowers, bananas on the side of the road to tourists who would be passing through to see the beautiful scenery of Kahakuloa.鈥�
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The Carters: What you know may be wrong (or not quite right)
PLAINS, Ga. (AP) 鈥� Exaggeration, misinformation and myth have always infected politics 鈥� even before social media took it to the extreme.
Misconceptions take especially strong hold where U.S. presidents are concerned: sometimes their advantage, sometimes not. Some claims relate to policy, others to their biographies and personal traits.
That George Washington story about the cherry tree? Apocryphal. And his teeth weren鈥檛 actually made of wood. (At least some of his 鈥渇alse teeth鈥� were taken from the mouths of enslaved persons.) There鈥檚 no evidence that William Howard Taft ever got stuck in a bathtub. (He was the heaviest president on record, though, at more than 300 pounds.)
James Monroe wasn鈥檛 the principal force behind the Monroe Doctrine. (That would be his secretary of state and future president John Quincy Adams.) And Richard Nixon wasn鈥檛 actually impeached. (He resigned before the full House could vote on the matter.)
As former President Jimmy Carter receives home hospice care at the age of 98, misconceptions about his life are coming into focus as well. Most are rooted in some truth but need more context:
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Tesla says it will cut costs of next generation cars in half
DETROIT (AP) 鈥� Tesla says it will cut the cost of its next generation of vehicles in half, largely by using innovative manufacturing techniques and smaller factories.
CEO Elon Musk and other executives outlined the goals during a 3 1/2-hour investor day presentation at Tesla's Austin, Texas, headquarters Wednesday as they presented the company's third master plan.
The changes could bring the cost of a new generation of vehicles to around $25,000. Many investors were hoping to catch a glimpse of the next generation vehicles, but Musk said they wouldn't be shown until a proper product unveiling.
鈥淲e'd be jumping the gun if we answer your question,鈥� about the new vehicles, he told an analyst.
Shares of Tesla fell nearly 6% in after-hours trading during the presentation that ended just after 8 p.m. Eastern time.
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Shoe polish stands lose some shine
NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� On a recent winter weekday at Penn Station Shoe Repair and Shoe Shine, men hop onto shoeshine chairs and pull out newspapers and phones to read while shoeshiners get to work applying polish and elbow grease to loafers, boots and other leather shoes. When finished, these customers hand over $8 in cash at a counter where a sign reads 鈥淲e鈥檙e not God, but we do save soles.鈥�
Shoeshining has a vaunted history in the U.S. In the 1860s, Horatio Alger popularized the 鈥渞ags-to-riches鈥� American narrative with his book 鈥淩agged Dick鈥� about a shoeshiner (or 鈥渂ootblack鈥�) who works his way up to wealth. 鈥淪hoeshine boys鈥� (and occasional girls) have subsequently been in countless movies and TV shows.
Today, the tradition of getting a quick polish from a rag-toting shoeshiner is greatly diminished, and many stands similar to the one in Penn Station have disappeared across the country. The decline has been exacerbated by the pandemic, remote working and the rise in popularity of more casual workwear when people did return to the office. SC Johnson, which makes the biggest shoe polish brand, Kiwi, even said in January that it had stopped selling the brand in the U.K. due to softening demand (they still sell it in the U.S.)
The last time the Census listed shoeshining as a discrete business was 2007, when only 30 establishments were counted. The more-encompassing shoe repair market has declined an estimated 23% between 2013 and 2023 to $307 million, according to market research firm IBISWorld. Shoe polish sales in 2022 totaled 27.3 million units, down 29% compared with 2019, according to figures from Nielsen, a sign of the changes brought on by the pandemic.
Nisan Khaimov, who owns the Penn Station stand, said his stand would shine 80 to 100 shoes each workday before the pandemic. Now it鈥檚 between 30 to 50 on Tuesday to Thursday, and even fewer on Mondays and Fridays. Hybrid work is hurting his business.
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SpaceX launches US, Russia, UAE astronauts to space station
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) 鈥� SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA on Thursday, including the first person from the Arab world going up for an extended monthslong stay.
The Falcon rocket bolted from Kennedy Space Center shortly after midnight, illuminating the night sky as it headed up the East Coast.
Nearly 80 spectators from the United Arab Emirates watched from the launch site as astronaut Sultan al-Neyadi 鈥� only the second Emirati to fly to space 鈥� blasted off on his six-month mission.
Half a world away in Dubai and elsewhere across the UAE, schools and offices broadcast the launch live.
Also riding the Dragon capsule that's due at the space station on Friday: NASA鈥檚 Stephen Bowen, a retired Navy submariner who logged three space shuttle flights, and Warren 鈥淲oody鈥� Hoburg, a former research scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and space newbie, and Andrei Fedyaev, a space rookie who鈥檚 retired from the Russian Air Force.
The Associated Press
