“They don’t want to talk to us,” Maksim Savin, 32, said in an interview about the quest to find the whereabouts of his youngest brother Leonid, 20, a conscript. “We are grieving; they drafted our little brother and most likely will never give him back.”
At least 10 families have publicly voiced their frustration about getting conflicting reports about whether their sons are alive, missing or dead. Their demands, made on social media or to news organizations, could hurt public support for the war effort ordered by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
The official silence on the fate of the Moskva’s crew is part of a larger campaign by the Kremlin to suppress bad news about the invasion and control the narrative that Russians receive on its progress. Mr. Putin has blocked access to Facebook and many foreign news outlets, and enacted a law to imprison anyone spreading “false information” about the war.
The cause of the sinking was disputed, with Russia claiming that an ammunition magazine exploded and then the damaged ship sank while under tow in rough seas. Ukraine said it hit the vessel with two Neptune missiles, an assertion that U.S. officials corroborated. Whatever the case, the loss of one of the biggest warships since World War II has been an embarrassment for Russia.
Independent Russian news outlets based outside the country have reported that about 40 men died and another 100 were injured when the warship was damaged and sank. Those reports quoted an unidentified official and the mother of one sailor who died. In addition, the wife of an older midshipman confirmed his death to Radio Liberty, a U.S. government network based outside Russia.
A satellite image released by Maxar Technologies showed the warship Moskva docked at a port in Sevastopol, Crimea, earlier this month.Credit…Maxar Technologies, via Associated Press
Many of the missing crew members were conscripts, a sensitive subject in Russia since the war in Chechnya, when young soldiers with little training were often thrown into battles and died in droves, souring public support for the war. “A few hundred” soldiers are still not accounted for from the first Chechen war in the mid-1990s, said Alexander Cherkasov, the former chairman of the Memorial Human Rights Center, a group based in Moscow that was disbanded this month because of a court order.
“No one cares about the soldiers,” he said, and the restrictions put on nongovernmental organizations means it is now virtually impossible for them to do the tracing work, he said.
Mr. Putin said repeatedly that conscripts who had to serve a year in the military would not be deployed in Ukraine, a statement contradicted by battlefield casualties.
The Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia, which dates back to the Chechen wars, confirmed that it is receiving requests to search for missing soldiers. The organization declined to comment further, citing a law against sharing information about soldiers with foreign organizations.
Parents of crewmen on the Moskva, named after Russia’s capital, have expressed outrage at what they described as an official runaround.
“We, the parents, are interested only in the fate of our children: Why did they —being conscripted soldiers — end up in this military operation?” said Dmitry Shkrebets, whose son Yegor, 19, worked as a cook on the Moskva.
Russia’s President Vladimir V. Putin, left, leaving the Moskva at the Black Sea port of Sochi, in 2014.Credit…Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik, via Reuters
In an interview, Mr. Shkrebets was reluctant to talk further, but on Sunday he posted far harsher statements on VKontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook.
Initially, officers told him that Yegor was among the missing, he said.
“Guys, went missing on the high seas?!!!” he wrote. “I asked directly why you, the officers, are alive, and my son, a conscript soldier, died?”
Mr. Shkrebets has since started collecting testimony from other families who cannot locate their sons. “The more we write, the harder it will be for them to remain silent about what is happening,” he wrote on Wednesday.
Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said on Tuesday he that he was not authorized to release any information about missing sailors, and referred questions to the Defense Ministry.
The ministry did not respond to requests for comment. It released a video on Saturday that purported to show Adm. Nikolai Yevmenov, the commander of the Russian Navy, meeting with men described as the crew of the Moskva lined up in formation and wearing uniforms. It was not clear how many survivors of the attack were there and nothing was stated about any casualties either in the video or in accompanying social media posts.
One indication of the official position came on Sunday night, during Vesti Nedeli, the weekly news summary on state television. The three-hour show dedicated about 30 seconds to the sinking, without mentioning casualties.
Not all Kremlin mouthpieces have been quite so reticent, however. One talk-show host, Vladimir Solovyev, demanded an explanation on Saturday on how the ship was lost.
Leonid Savin, third right, in a family photo provided by his brother.Credit…
Maksim Savin said that the family could not reach any officers from his brother’s unit by phone. His mother texted one number and got a response that her son Leonid was missing.
Later the family received a series of calls from a man who seemed to have served with Leonid and who kept changing his story. First, the man said that Leonid had died while dashing to save a friend, Maksim Savin said. On the second call, he said that there had been no rescue involved, but that Leonid had been caught at the site of an explosion. The third time, he called to say that he had been mistaken, and that Leonid was missing.
“It looks like the officers are trying to make everyone shut their mouths,” Maksim Savin said.
Numerous reports of missing conscripts first emerged on social media. One woman wrote that her brother had been at work in the engine room and was listed as missing, but she was certain that he was dead.
Anna Syromaysova, the mother of a missing conscript, told the independent Russian news agency Meduza that she had been unable to see any official documents related to casualties. “There are no lists,” she said. “We’re looking for them ourselves. They don’t tell us anything.” Reached by telephone, she declined to speak with a foreign news organization.
Tamara Grudinina told the Russian language service of the BBC that her son, Sergei Grudinin, 21, had been assigned to the ship right after basic training.
A screengrab from a video released by the Russian Defense Ministry showed Nikolai Yevmenov, the Commander in Chief of the Russian Navy, left, purportedly meeting with crew members of the Moskva in Sevastopol in Crimea.Credit…Russian Defense Ministry, via Shutterstock
When she heard that the ship had sunk, Ms. Grudinina said, she called a Defense Ministry hotline for relatives and was told that her son was “alive and healthy and would get in touch at the first opportunity.”
Soon afterward, a man who identified himself as the Moskva’s commander got in touch and told her that her son had “basically sunk together with the ship,” according to the BBC.
After the war started on Feb. 24, the family contacted naval officers to inquire about the ship and were told that it was not taking part in military actions and was due back in port soon, Maksim Savin said.
Calls from Leonid had stopped, but after speaking with the officers, they got a letter from him saying that he anticipated coming home soon, his brother said.
He said that his younger brother, who trained as an auto mechanic in a vocational school, had been reluctant to go into the military and had not supported the war. A family picture shows a lanky young man in a sailor’s uniform with a rifle slung across his chest, surrounded by his parents and three brothers.
Leonid Savin was much more comfortable hiking in the Crimean hills with the family dog, reading a book or tending to his plants, according to his brother. He had planted a palm tree and an avocado tree before heading off on his military service.
“In his letter home, he asked how his plants were doing,” Maksim Savin said. “He was worried about them.”
WASHINGTON, April 20 (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday appealed a judge’s ruling ending a mask mandate on public transportation and airplanes after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the measure was still needed.
A U.S. district judge ruled on Monday that the mandates, which apply to planes, trains and other public transportation, were unlawful. The Justice Department said it would appeal the ruling if the CDC determined the 14-month-old mandate was still needed. read more
The Justice Department filed notice appealing the ruling to the 11th Circuit Court, but did not detail if it intended to seek an emergency order to reinstate the requirement or detail the grounds for the appeal.
The CDC said on Wednesday it had asked the Justice Department to proceed with the appeal and that “an order requiring masking in the indoor transportation corridor remains necessary for the public health.”
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Travellers wearing masks and not wearing masks wait in line at a Delta Airlines counter, after a federal judge in Florida struck down the CDC’s public transportation masking order due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) prevention efforts, at Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., April 19, 2022. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Airlines quickly dropped the mandate Monday evening soon after the White House informed reporters and industry officials that the government would no longer enforce the mandate. Social media users posted videos of airline employees on some trips announcing the mandate had ended mid-flight with many cheering the news, while some expressed anger that the mask rules were abruptly dropped.
The mandate applied to planes, trains, ride-share vehicles and other public transportation and, prior to Monday’s ruling, had been due to expire on May 3 unless the CDC sought a new extension.
The U.S. Travel Association said Wednesday that “masks were critically important during the height of the pandemic” but in the current environment “required masking on public transportation is simply out of step with the current public health landscape.”
The ruling followed other court judgments against Biden administration directives to fight the infectious disease that has killed nearly 1 million Americans, including vaccination or COVID testing mandates for employers.
The CDC also lost court battles on COVID-19 mandates, notably when the Supreme Court in August ended the pandemic-related federal moratorium on residential evictions.
Craig Robinson and his wife, Kelly Robinson, have filed a lawsuit against a Milwaukee-area private school over issues of inclusiveness and alleged racism. Here, they arrive at a state dinner at the White House in 2016.
Yuri Gripas/AFP via Getty Images
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Craig Robinson and his wife, Kelly Robinson, have filed a lawsuit against a Milwaukee-area private school over issues of inclusiveness and alleged racism. Here, they arrive at a state dinner at the White House in 2016.
Yuri Gripas/AFP via Getty Images
The brother and sister-in-law of former first lady Michelle Obama have filed a lawsuit against a Milwaukee private school over issues of inclusiveness and alleged racial bias.
In a 25-page lawsuit filed Monday in a Wisconsin circuit court, Craig and Kelly Robinson argue that the University School of Milwaukee (USM) expelled their two sons, who were 11 and 9 years old, despite the two being “model, high-achieving students.”
In the lawsuit, the Robinsons say USM terminated their sons’ enrollment in 2021 following concerns the couple raised about the school’s treatment of its students of color.
Additionally, the parents say they raised concerns to the school about what they say was USM’s failure to “provide the supportive, inclusive” learning environment that was promised, according to the lawsuit.
Shortly after their complaints to USM, the Robinsons say, their children were dismissed from the school.
In an interview with Milwaukee TV station TMJ4, Craig Robinson said that he and his wife raised their concerns to USM after their two sons started attending school virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“That opened up a window into the classroom, and what we saw was a repeated use of racial and ethnic stereotypes in actual assignments, a disregard for children who weren’t physically in the classroom and an insensitivity to socioeconomic status,” Craig told TMJ4.
According to Craig Robinson, he and his wife raised their concerns about the alleged biases but did not think that the matter would escalate as severely as it did.
In the suit, the Robinsons argue they alerted USM faculty and staff in November 2020 that some of the language included in their children’s various worksheets and projects was “offensive to persons of color, persons with disabilities, indigenous Americans and other underrepresented students.”
In January 2021, Kelly Robinson submitted a bias incident report through USM’s “Bias Incident Reporting System” about assignments that included “harmful content toward underrepresented students,” according to the suit.
Kelly Robinson filed a second report two months later about “similarly concerning language” in a different class assignment.
The lawsuit argues that USM acknowledged receipt of the reports but that school officials did not take further action to address them. The Robinsons’ oldest son was denied reenrollment in April 2021, while the youngest was denied reenrollment in June 2021, according to the lawsuit.
The Robinsons told TMJ4 they originally chose USM for their sons due to the school’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. However, after this incident, they feel as though it was lip service.
“I thought their bias incident reporting system was a way for them to help in changing the culture and understanding that there are biases, because there are people who are reporting them,” Craig Robinson told TMJ4. “It was actually turned against us in the end, and now I’ve learned that there is no longer a bias incident reporting system at [USM].”
“This is an important and unfortunate lawsuit to have to file. One would have hoped that USM would have taken the concerns from the Robinsons, who have been great allies, and try to make corrections that work for the benefit of all the students,” Kimberley Motley, the attorney representing the Robinsons, told NPR.
The University School of Milwaukee said in a statement to the school community that it could not comment on the specifics related to the lawsuit. However, the school said the Robinson children’s removal was not because of their parents’ complaints of bias:
“We cannot and will not tolerate persistently disrespectful, bullying, or harassing behavior directed at our devoted and hardworking teachers and administrators. Such conduct that makes faculty feel unsafe not only violates our Common Trust pledge and Parent-School Partnership, but also interferes with USM’s operations and precludes a positive and constructive working relationship between the school and the families we proudly serve. When such parental conduct threatens the educational environment we have created, we have no choice but to take action.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his forces not to storm the last remaining Ukrainian stronghold in the besieged city of Mariupol on Thursday, but instead to block it “so that not even a fly comes through.”
His defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, said the rest of the city beyond the sprawling Azovstal steel mill where Ukrainian forces were holed has been “liberated” — as Russian officials refer to areas of Ukraine they have seized. Putin hailed that as a “success.” Shoigu said the steel plant was “securely blocked.”
But leaving the plant in Ukrainian hands robs the Russians of the ability to declare complete victory in Mariupol, which has seen some of the most dramatic fighting of the war and whose capture has both strategic and symbolic importance.
Putin and Shoigu’s comments appeared to reflect a change in strategy in Mariupol, where the Russians previously seemed determined to take every last inch of the city. But it was not clear what it would mean in practical terms.
About 1,000 civilians, including women and children, were still trapped in the steel mill along with Ukrainian soldiers, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday.
Zelenskyy said Russia has stonewalled Ukraine’s attempts to negotiate a safe exit for them. “We are open to different formats of exchange of our people for Russian people, Russian military that they have left behind,” he said.
Ukraine also has tried to get Russia to agree on a humanitarian corridor to evacuate the 120,000 people who Zelenskyy said remain under siege in Mariupol.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk added the planned evacuation had failed because of Russia wouldn’t observe a cease-fire. “The humanitarian corridor didn’t work as planned,” she said.
Vereshchuk also charged that “due to the sloppiness” of the Russian military, it has failed to timely deliver those who were willing to evacuate to an area where Ukrainian buses were waiting for them.
She said that efforts to evacuate civilians from Mariupol will resume Thursday.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told CNN Wednesday that another round of security assistance would be announced “in very short order.”
Four flights of U.S. arms, including howitzers, arrived in eastern Europe in the last 24 hours, part of the $800 million aid package approved last week, according to a senior Defense Department official.
U.S. troops have begun training about 50 Ukrainians to use the howitzers, said the official who was not authorized to speak publicly about military operations. The training will take about a week and is occurring outside Ukraine. Those Ukrainians will then train their own forces on the equipment.
Meanwhile, Russia continues attacks in eastern Ukraine and to reinforce its troops in the region for a broader offensive. The Russians have moved artillery units, headquarters staffs and helicopter units into the eastern Ukraine to support
In the last 24 hours, four additional Russian battalion tactical groups have been sent into Ukraine, the official said. The battalions, of about 800 to 1,000 troops, have been built up over the last few weeks. They include infantry, artillery and logistics units.
►The U.S. unveiled another round of sanctions Tuesday targeting Russian officials and organizations tied to the Kremlin. One batch announced by the Secretary of State targeted more than 600 individuals involved in suppressing dissent, media and democracy in the region. Another announced by the Treasury Department targeted banks and networks being used to evade U.S. sanctions.
►Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Wednesday the country would supply protective equipment like helmets and vests to Ukrainian rescue forces and civilian organizations. Though it has provided humanitarian aid, Israel has refused to supply Ukraine with weapons and other direct military assistance.
►Nuclear regulators have regained phone contact with operators of the Chernobyl power plant more than a month after contact was lost, the International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement.
The Luhansk governor said Russian forces now control 80% of the region, which is one of two regions that make up the Donbas in eastern Ukraine.
One of Russia’s stated goals is to expand the territory in the Donbas under the control of Moscow-backed separatists.
Before Russia invaded on Feb. 24, the Kyiv government controlled 60% of the Luhansk region.
Gov. Serhiy Haidai said the Russians, who renewed their offensive this week in eastern and southern Ukraine, have strengthened their attacks in the Luhansk region.
After seizing Kreminna, Haidai said the Russians now are threatening the cities of Rubizhne and Popasna and he has urged all residents to evacuate immediately.
The Donetsk region, also part of the Donbas, has seen extremely heavy fighting as well — particularly around the port city of Mariupol.
-The Associated Press
Putin tests ICBM missile, Pentagon says no ‘threat’ to U.S. or allies
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby is downplaying Russia’s launch of a new intercontinental ballistic missile that the Kremlin is counting on as the center of its nuclear strategy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin calls the Sarmat missile uniquely capable of penetrating anti-missile defenses. And Russia’s space agency chief Dmitry Rogozin provocatively called Wednesday’s test flight “a present to NATO.”
But Kirby said “Russia properly notified the United States under its New START obligations that it planned to test this ICBM. Such testing is routine. It was not a surprise. We did not deem the test to be a threat to the United States or its allies.”
Holocaust survivor dies in basement of besieged Mariupol
A 91-year-old Holocaust survivor has died in a basement in the besieged Ukrainian port of Mariupol.
The Auschwitz Memorial announced the death of Vanda Semyonovna Obiedkova.
The Jewish organization Chabad.org reported that her daughter shared the news after arriving with the rest of her family at a safe location, saying she died April 4, pleading for water in a freezing basement.
She was 10 years old when the Nazis occupied Mariupol and killed thousands of Jews in a single day, including her mother. She survived in a basement then, and died in a basement in the same city 81 years later.
Russians who seized Chernobyl likely exposed themselves to radiation
Workers at the Chernobyl nuclear power facility, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986, say Russian troops dug trenches in contaminated soil and even stole radioactive materials after seizing control of the plant last month, likely exposing themselves to harmful levels of radiation.
Thousands of tanks and troops rumbled into the forested Chernobyl exclusion zone in the earliest hours of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, churning up highly contaminated soil.
For more than a month, some Russian soldiers bunked in the earth within sight of the massive structure built to contain radiation from the damaged Chernobyl nuclear reactor. A close inspection of their trenches was impossible because even walking on the dirt is discouraged.
Some soldiers even stole highly radioactive materials as souvenirs or possibly to sell.
“I think from movies they have the imagination that all dangerous small things are very valuable,” Valerii Semenov, the plant’s main security engineer, told The Associated Press.
Ukraine foreign ministry says four-day ‘humanitarian pause’ is necessary
The Ukrainian foreign ministry on Wednesday said a four-day “humanitarian pause” was necessary to evacuate civilians after the United Nations chief called for a brief halt to hostilities for Easter.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday called for the four-day pause beginning Thursday to observe Holy Week in the Orthodox Christian tradition. Guterres said it was even more necessary given the intensified attacks in eastern Ukraine this week
“We fully share the view that the humanitarian pause is necessary for the safe evacuation of thousands of civilians who wish to leave the dangerous zones of ongoing and possible hostilities, especially from the long-suffering Mariupol,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday.
– Ryan Miller
Yellen, Ukraine official walk out of Russia’s G-20 remarks
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Ukraine’s Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko walked out of a Group of 20 meeting Wednesday as Russia’s representative started talking.
Several finance ministers and central bank governors also left the room, according an official familiar with the meetings, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the event was not public. Some ministers and central bank governors who attended the meeting virtually turned their cameras off when the Russia representative spoke, the person said.
The incident came amid the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings, in which finance heads gather to tackle the world’s most pressing issues. The brutal effects of Russia’s war against Ukraine have taken center stage, and Treasury officials said earlier this week that Yellen would try to avoid contact with Russian officials who plan to attend some Group of 20 events virtually.
President Joe Biden has said that Russia should not remain a member of the G-20, an international body of the world’s biggest economies that promotes economic cooperation between countries.
What a new phase of war means for Ukrainian citizens in the east
Elina Miliushnikova watched her 7-month-old son sleep in his crib late Tuesday in her darkened Kharkiv apartment, hours after Russian rockets blasted the district where her parents live.
“Today we are really sad and depressed,” Miliushnikova, 31, told USA TODAY via WhatsApp before retreating to the building’s basement for the night. “All day we hear the sound of rockets.”
Nearly two months into the war, Russian forces are escalating attacks on eastern Ukraine in what officials from both nations say marks a new phase of the invasion. Civilians concerned about the renewed assaults this week are stocking up on supplies, preparing exit plans and calling out to the world for assistance. Read more about their efforts here.
– Grace Hauck
Kremlin: Ukraine given draft of Russia’s demands
MOSCOW – The Kremlin’s spokesman says Russia has presented Ukraine with a draft document outlining its demands as part of peace talks and is now awaiting a response from Kyiv.
Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters Wednesday that Russia has passed on a draft document containing “absolutely clear, elaborate wording” to Ukraine and now “the ball is in their court, we’re waiting for a response.”
Peskov didn’t give further details. He blamed Ukraine for the slow progress in negotiations, and claimed that Kyiv constantly deviates from previously confirmed agreements. “The dynamic of work on the Ukrainian side leaves much to be desired, the Ukrainians do not show a great inclination to intensify the negotiation process,” he said.
Ukraine presented Russia with its own draft last month in Istanbul, where the two sides held talks aimed at ending the conflict. It has been unclear how regularly the two sides have spoken to each other since then.
US considering new Ukraine military aid package, including artillery
U.S. officials are considering a new military aid package for Ukraine that includes American artillery cannons while working with allies in eastern Europe to send them Soviet-era long-range rockets to reach deeper into Russian lines, a Defense Department official said Wednesday.
The new arms would follow an $800 million package approved last week that included howitzers. It comes as Russia has focused its forces in eastern Ukraine, where artillery and armored vehicles are expected to play a central role in the fighting.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said that more military aid will likely be sent to Ukraine in coming months. The U.S. artillery will come from existing stocks and not affect readiness, the official said.
When asked by a reporter Tuesday whether his administration would be sending more artillery to Ukraine, President Joe Biden responded, “yes,” but did not elaborate.
– Tom Vanden Brook
Estonia will ban Russian flags, symbols in public meetings on May 9
Estonia says it is prohibiting public meetings where people display Russian flags and military symbols during the Victory Day celebrations on May 9, which is traditionally celebrated by the Baltic country’s sizable ethnic-Russian population to mark the end of World War II.
Among the banned symbols are the flags of the Soviet Union and Russia, USSR military uniforms and the black-orange Ribbon of Saint George worn in Russia to mark the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in WWII. The ban is valid until May 10 and applies to the capital, Tallinn, and its surrounding areas.
Russia advancing in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukrainian officials say
Russian troops were advancing toward Zaporizhzhia with battles occurring within the region, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday.
The head of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration, Oleksandr Starukh, described the new advance as “a massive offensive,” according to state news agency Ukrinform. The city’s regional council also warned of the Russian advance, CNN reported.
Starukh said the area around the town of Polohy had worsened with daily attacks, Ukrinform reported, while the regional council said Russian troops were making advances in the direction of nearby Huliaipole and Pokrovske, CNN reported.
The city of Zaporizhzhia is part of a humanitarian evacuation route from Mariupol that deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said would take take place Wednesday.
Mariupol mayor tells residents to leave besieged city
Remaining residents in the port city of Mariupol should leave as Russian forces encircle the last pocket of Ukrainian defense inside the Azovstal steel mill, Mayor Vadym Boychenko said Wednesday.
Ukrainian deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Facebook a humanitarian corridor for women, children and older people had been agreed upon. Boychenko said buses, including one that that would pick up residents near the steel mill, would be used in the evacuation. Prior attempts relied on private cars as buses were unable to access to besieged city on the Sea of Azov.
“Do not be frightened and evacuate to Zaporizhzhia, where you can receive all the help you need — food, medicine, essentials — and the main thing is that you will be in safety,” Boychenko wrote in a statement issued by the city council.
The Justice Department has filed an appeal that seeks to reverse a judge’s recent ruling that ended the nation’s mask mandate on public transit. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had asked the department to appeal the decision, issuing a statement Wednesday that said the mandate “remains necessary for the public health.”
“CDC continues to recommend that people wear masks in all indoor public transportation settings,” the CDC’s statement continued. “CDC’s number one priority is protecting the public health of our nation. As we have said before, wearing masks is most beneficial in crowded or poorly ventilated locations, such as the transportation corridor.”
The Justice Department said Tuesday it would appeal U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle’s decision only if the CDC said the mandate was still necessary. The department said Tuesday that it disagreed with the district court’s decision, and upon filing the appeal, Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley issued a statement Wednesday saying, “In light of today’s assessment by the CDC that an order requiring masking in the transportation corridor remains necessary to protect the public health, the Department has filed a notice of appeal in Health Freedom Defense Fund, Inc., et al., v. Biden, et al.“
The judge’s decision came days after the CDC had extended the mask mandate, which had been set to expire Monday, by two weeks to give researchers more time to study the Omicron subvariant BA.2.
However, the response to the ruling has been varied. Some cities, including New York City and Philadelphia, still require masks to be worn in airports and on public transportation, while others, such as Houston and Atlanta, do not. Even airlines now have differing rules for masking, although most now say masks are optional for passengers. Amtrak has also said masks are no longer required on trains or in stations.
Asked Tuesday if people should still wear masks on planes, President Biden replied: “That’s up to them,” according to The Associated Press.
Dr. Céline Gounder, an infectious disease expert and editor-at-large for Kaiser Health News, told “CBS Mornings” that the CDC’s extension was the “appropriate” and “cautious” approach.
“We know that this virus mutates. In fact, it’s mutating very rapidly,” she said. “We will see more variants, and we will see other pandemics after COVID. So I do think the idea of stripping ourselves of an essential tool and toolbox is a really bad idea.”
Victoria Albert and Robert Legare contributed reporting.
Ukraine is ready to offer unconditional talks on Mariupol and has proposed a “special round” of negotiations with Russia in the besieged city, the Ukrainian negotiator and presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted. Another key Ukrainian negotiator, David Arakhamia, said he and Podolyak were ready to arrive in Mariupol to hold talks and “a proposal was put forward to hold direct negotiations, on site, on the evacuation of our military garrison”.
Meanwhile, local officials in Central Florida sounded the alarm, warning the repeal could leave them with a burdensome tax bill. Currently, Disney is responsible for everything including road maintenance, building inspections, 911 emergency calls and sewage treatment at the theme park, which straddles two counties and covers 40 square miles.
According to publicly available flight data, a U.S. Army parachute plane took off from Joint Base Andrews outside Washington and was circling the area around the Capitol. The plane was part of a parachute stunt at Wednesday night’s Nationals baseball game, just south of the Capitol.
The Capitol Police had issued its evacuation alert around 6:32 p.m. and said there was no threat at 6:49 p.m. An all-clear notice was sent over an hour later. The initial notice had caused alarm among Hill staffers, though both the House and Senate are out of town, leaving the buildings mostly empty by the evening.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a statement, criticized the Federal Aviation Administration’s “apparent failure” to notify Capitol Police of the Nationals Stadium flyover, calling it “outrageous and unacceptable.”
“The unnecessary panic caused by this apparent negligence was particularly harmful for Members, staff and institutional workers still grappling with the trauma of the attack on their workplace on January 6th,” Pelosi said, vowing an “after-action review.”
The FAA offered its own statement later in the evening.
“The FAA takes its role in protecting the national airspace seriously and will conduct a thorough and expeditious review of the events this evening and share updates. We know our actions affect others, especially in our nation’s capital region, and we must communicate early and often with our law enforcement partners,” the agency stated.
A spokesperson for NORAD, which has partnership jurisdiction over D.C.’s airspace along with the FAA, said that the flight was coordinated through FAA channels and that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
It’s not the first time in recent years an aircraft rattled Capitol Hill. In a now-notorious 2015 incident, a Florida mail carrier landed a gyrocopter on the West Lawn of the Capitol in protest of campaign finance laws.
Andrew Desiderio and Oriana Pawlyk contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON, April 20 (Reuters) – The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on dozens of people and entities, including a Russian commercial bank and a virtual currency mining company, hoping to target Moscow’s evasion of existing sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The U.S. Treasury Department said it designated a virtual currency mining company for the first time, alongside more than 40 people and entities led by U.S.-designated Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev.
“Treasury can and will target those who evade, attempt to evade, or aid the evasion of U.S. sanctions against Russia, as they are helping support Putin’s brutal war of choice,” Treasury under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Brian Nelson, said in a statement.
The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The United States and its allies have imposed several rounds of sanctions on Moscow since its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, including targeting the country’s largest lenders and Putin himself.
Wednesday’s move targets Russia’s virtual currency mining industry, reportedly the third largest in the world, sanctioning the holding company of Moscow-based bitcoin miner BitRiver, which operates data center in Siberia, and 10 of the holding company’s Russia-based subsidiaries.
The Treasury also put sanctions on Russian commercial bank Transkapitalbank, whose representatives it said serve several banks in Asia, including in China, and the Middle East, and have suggested options to evade international sanctions.
Its subsidiary, Investtradebank, was also designated.
Wednesday’s action freezes any U.S. assets of those designated and generally bars Americans from dealing with them.
But Washington issued two general licenses related to Transkapitalbank alongside the sanctions, authorizing the wind down of dealings with the bank until May 20 and certain transactions destined for or originating from Afghanistan until Oct. 20 “in support of efforts to address the humanitarian crisis.”
The United States also imposed additional sanctions on Russian oligarch Malofeyev, whom U.S. authorities have long accused of being one of the main sources of financing for Russians promoting separatism in Crimea. He was first designated under the Obama administration in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Justice Department charged Malofeyev with violating sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. read more
“The United States will work to ensure that the sanctions we have imposed, in close coordination with our international partners, degrade the Kremlin’s ability to project power and fund its invasion,” Nelson said.
The U.S. State Department is also imposing visa restrictions on over 600 people in a bid to promote accountability for human rights abuses and violations, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement, barring them from traveling to the United States.
Three Russian officials were also hit with visa restrictions over “gross violations of human rights” alongside 17 others hit with restrictions over accusations of undermining democracy in Belarus.
“We will use every tool to promote accountability for human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law in Ukraine,” Blinken said.
Former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has been ordered to pay nearly $1.3 million in legal fees to former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman by a New York court arbitrator.
The award, handed down on Tuesday, comes after Trump filed a complaint against Manigault Newman over her 2018 book, “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House,” in which she called Trump a racist and suggested that he was in “real and serious” mental decline.
A source with the Trump campaign told ABC News that Trump intends to appeal the ruling.
Trump’s arbitration complaint against Manigault Newman, with the American Arbitration Association in New York City in 2018, alleged that she was in breach of a 2016 confidentiality agreement.
In September, arbitrator T. Andrew Brown ruled that the former president’s nondisclosure agreement with Manigault Newman was “unenforceable.”
Brown said in the ruling that the terms of the nondisclosure agreement were “highly problematic” because it did not adhere to typical legal standards — describing it as “vague, indefinite, and therefore void and unenforceable.”
In Tuesday’s decision, Brown said that Manigault Newman was “defending herself in a claim which was extensively litigated for more than three years, against an opponent who undoubtedly commanded far greater resources than did Respondent.”
Following the order, Manigault Newman’s attorney tweeted, “$1.3 Million Attorney Fee and Cost Order Against the Trump Campaign Issued! (Highest known prevailing party attorney fee assessment against a President or Presidential Campaign).”
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Manigault Newman served as a liaison to the Black community. In her subsequent role as director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison, she was the highest-ranking African American woman in the White House.
She resigned from the position in December 2017 after reports of tension between her and then-Chief of Staff John Kelly.
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday in an interview with Chris Wallace of CNN+ that the appeal was important not only to preserve the mask requirement but also “to ensure the C.D.C.’s authority and ability to put in mandates in the future remains intact.”
But Tori Emerson Barnes, an official with the U.S. Travel Association, a trade group, said the mandate had outlived its usefulness.
“With low hospitalization rates and multiple effective health tools now widely available, from boosters to therapies to high-quality air ventilation aboard aircraft, required masking on public transportation is simply out of step with the current public health landscape,” she said in a statement.
In the 59-page decision she issued on Monday, Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump, voided the transportation mandate on several grounds, including that the agency had exceeded its legal authority under the Public Health Service Act of 1944.
On Tuesday, after a day of deliberations inside the White House, the Department of Justice announced that it intended to appeal the ruling — but only if the C.D.C. decided that the mandate was still necessary. On Wednesday evening, the C.D.C. made its position clear.
“C.D.C. believes this is a lawful order, well within C.D.C.’s legal authority to protect public health,” the agency said in a statement, adding that it “continues to recommend that people wear masks in all indoor public transportation settings.”
LONDON, April 20 (Reuters) – In a show of strength two months into its assault on Ukraine, Russia test-launched a new nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile which President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday would make Moscow’s enemies stop and think.
Putin was shown on TV being told by the military that the long-awaited Sarmat missile had been test-launched for the first time from Plesetsk in northwest Russia and hit targets in the Kamchatka peninsula, nearly 6,000 km (3,700 miles) away.
The test of the Sarmat, under development for years, did not surprise the West, but came at a moment of extreme geopolitical tension. Russia has yet to capture any major cities since it sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Ukraine’s defence ministry was not immediately available for comment.
“The new complex has the highest tactical and technical characteristics and is capable of overcoming all modern means of anti-missile defence. It has no analogues in the world and won’t have for a long time to come,” Putin said.
“This truly unique weapon will strengthen the combat potential of our armed forces, reliably ensure Russia’s security from external threats and provide food for thought for those who, in the heat of frenzied aggressive rhetoric, try to threaten our country.”
Announcing the invasion eight weeks ago, Putin made a pointed reference to Russia’s nuclear forces and warned the West that any attempt to get in its way “will lead you to such consequences that you have never encountered in your history.”
Days later, he ordered Russia’s nuclear forces to be put on high alert. “The prospect of nuclear conflict, once unthinkable, is now back within the realm of possibility,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last month.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday the Sarmat was fired from a silo launcher at 1512 Moscow time (1212 GMT).
Russia’s nuclear forces will start taking delivery of the new missile “in the autumn of this year” once testing is complete, Tass quoted Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Roscosmos space agency, as saying on Wednesday.
SYMBOLIC TIMING
Jack Watling of the RUSI think-tank in London said there was an element of posturing and symbolism involved, less than three weeks before the annual Victory Day parade where Russia shows off its latest weapons.
“The timing of the test reflects the Russians wanting to have something to show as a technological achievement in the lead-up to Victory Day, at a time when a lot of their technology has not delivered the results they would have liked,” Watling said.
Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the launch was an important milestone after years of delays caused by funding issues and design challenges.
He said more tests would be needed before Russia could actually deploy it in place of ageing SS-18 and SS-19 missiles that were “well past their sell-by date”.
Barrie said the Sarmat’s ability to carry 10 or more warheads and decoys, and Russia’s option of firing it over either of the Earth’s poles, posed a challenge to ground and satellite-based radar and tracking systems.
Igor Korotchenko, editor in chief of Russia’s National Defence magazine, told RIA news agency it was a signal to the West that Moscow was capable of meting out “crushing retribution that will put an end to the history of any country that has encroached on the security of Russia and its people”.
Ukraine has mounted stiff resistance and the West has imposed sweeping sanctions to try to force Russia to withdraw forces Moscow says are on a special operation to degrade its southern neighbour’s military capabilities and root out people it calls dangerous nationalists.
The Biden administration also is preparing a new package of security assistance to provide Ukrainian forces with the types of weapons that will better help them fend off the Russian attacks in the Donbas. Biden told reporters on Tuesday that he would authorize the delivery of more artillery to Ukraine.
In its announcement on Wednesday, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said it had designated Public Joint Stock Company Transkapitalbank, a Russian privately owned commercial bank that has operated since 1992.
The OFAC designated Malofeyev again on Wednesday, as well as Malofeyev’s son and 40 individuals and entities affiliated with Malofeyev’s networks — “including organizations whose primary mission is to facilitate sanctions evasion for Russian entities.”
Finally, the OFAC for the first time designated a virtual-currency mining company, targeting an industry in Russia that is reportedly the third-largest of its type in the world.
Specifically, the OFAC targeted virtual-currency mining company Bitriver, designating its Switzerland-based holding company, Bitriver AG, and 10 Russia-based subsidiaries of Bitriver AG.
“The United States is committed to ensuring that no asset, no matter how complex, becomes a mechanism for the Putin regime to offset the impact of sanctions,” the Treasury Department said.
In addition to the Treasury’s announcement, Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday announced that the State Department had imposed visa restrictions on hundreds of Russian individuals, among other measures, to “promote accountability for human rights abuses and violations” during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The idea was presented to Florida lawmakers in a movie house outside Orlando 55 years ago, with Walt Disney, who had died less than two months earlier, helping make the pitch from the screen: Let Disney form its own government and in exchange it would create a futuristic city of tomorrow.
That city never materialized, but Walt Disney World became an economic juggernaut with four theme parks and two dozen hotels, while its government retained unprecedented powers in deciding what and how to build, issuing bonds and holding the ability to build its own nuclear plant if it wanted.
Now, five decades later, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is asking lawmakers to end Disney’s government in a move that jeopardizes the symbiotic relationship between the state and company. The high-profile attack by a politician from a GOP party that has historically championed its ties to business follows the company’s opposition to what critics have dubbed the “ Don’t Say Gay ” law barring instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.
Republican Rep. Randy Fine, sponsor of the bill to scrap the Reedy Creek Improvement District, as the Disney government entity is known, said it is time for a change.
“You kick the hornet’s nest, things come up. And I will say this: You got me on one thing — this bill does target one company. It targets the Walt Disney Co.,” Fine said. “You want to know why? Because they are the only company in the state that has ever been granted the right to govern themselves.”
In an email fundraising pitch Wednesday, DeSantis, a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2024, put it this way:
“Disney has gotten away with special deals from the state of Florida for way too long. It took a look under the hood to see what Disney has become to truly understand their inappropriate influence,” the governor’s email said.
“If Disney wants to pick a fight, they chose the wrong guy,” the email added.
Disney, based in Burbank, California, had more than $67 billion in revenue in 2021 and has declined comment on the Florida legislation, which passed the state Senate on Wednesday and is being considered by the House in a special session of the Republican-dominated Legislature. The effective date of the measure would be June 2023, leaving time to develop a compromise short of completely abolishing the district.
Before Reedy Creek became Disney’s government, it was a drainage district created to help manage the 27,000 acres (10,926 hectares) that the company secretly acquired parcel by parcel in the mid-1960s.
At first, news accounts speculated that “a new and large industrial complex” might be coming to the area. Some reports linked it to the Kennedy Space Center about an hour’s drive away in Cape Canaveral. Finally, on Oct. 21, 1965, the Orlando Sentinel broke a story with this headline: “We Say: ‘Mystery Industry’ is Disney.’”
A few days later, then-Gov. Haydon Burns confirmed the Disney plan, saying it would be “the greatest attraction in the history of Florida.”
That would prove true over the decades as metro Orlando became the most visited destination in the U.S., attracting 75 million tourists annually before the pandemic. The metro area, which added Universal and SeaWorld theme park resorts, grew from 305,000 residents in 1970, the year before Disney World opened, to almost 2.7 million residents last year.
In some ways, the Reedy Creek Improvement District was built on a misrepresentation when company officials came to Florida lawmakers with their plans to build an East Coast Disneyland. After the company’s first theme park in southern California was built in the 1950s, motels and tourist shops encroached around the property, and Walt Disney wanted to make sure the same thing didn’t happen in Florida.
Along with a theme park, Disney officials led by Roy Disney, Walt’s brother, told Florida lawmakers in 1967 that they planned to build a futuristic city — the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, also known as Epcot.
The proposed city would include a rapid transit system and urban planning innovations, so Disney needed autonomy in the district for building and deciding how to use the land, they said. The futuristic city never materialized, and instead Epcot morphed into a second theme park that opened in 1982.
“They said they were going to do one thing and they did another,” said retired Rollins College political scientist Richard Foglesong, whose book, “Married to the Mouse” recounted the formation of Reedy Creek. “In that respect, it was legally infirm. I think that is a factual argument.”
Reedy Creek was allowed to build its own roads, run its own wastewater treatment plants, operate its own fire department, set its own building codes and inspect Disney buildings for safety. In the current budget year, the district had $169 million in revenues and $178 million in expenditures.
Reedy Creek essentially runs a midsize city. On any given day, as many as 350,000 people are on Disney World property as theme park visitors, overnight hotel guests or employees. The district has to manage the traffic, dispose of the waste and control the plentiful mosquitoes in a territory once called Mosquito County.
Even though Reedy Creek’s primary task is to operate Disney World, it is home to less than 50 residents living in manufactured homes in two tiny communities, Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista. The two municipalities were formed to support the legal framework of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which is governed by a five-member Board of Supervisors with four-year terms. The supervisors must be landowners within Reedy Creek, and to qualify, Disney gives them a small piece of land that they must give back once they leave the board.
That’s not the only thing Disney has given out over the decades.
Disney has been a major political player in Florida and the country. The Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political campaign spending, reported that in the 2020 campaign cycle, Walt Disney Co. and affiliates made more than $20 million in political contributions to both Republicans and Democrats.
That year, the most recent in which figures are available, Disney-related entities funneled $10.5 million to the America First Action committee, which supports former President Donald Trump. Disney also contributed $1.2 million to support President Joe Biden’s campaign.
“I think Disney is stuck a bit,” Foglesong said. “They had tried to play it both ways, making contributions to what you can only call right-wing Republicans. They thought they could have it both ways — be the company of motherhood and apple pie and fund these reactionary Republican politicians.”
Stillwater Middle School parent Riley Flack on fighting back against transgender bathroom rule in daughter’s middle school.
The Florida Department of Health on Wednesday released guidance that advised doctors in the state not to assist transgender teenagers and children with gender reassignment surgery or prescribe them puberty blockers and hormone treatments.
Citing medical studies that brought into question the safety and psychological impact hormone treatments may have on adolescents, the department said there was a “lack of conclusive evidence” and warned of a “potential for long-term, irreversible effects.”
Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo speaks during a press conference at Neo City Academy in Kissimmee, Fla. (Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Distancing itself from federal guidance on the subject, the guidelines from the department stated that “social gender transition should not be a treatment option for children or adolescents” and that anyone under the age of 18 “should not be prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy.” In addition, the department said children or teens should not undergo gender reassignment as a treatment option.
Instead, the department suggested that those looking for treatment options should “be provided social support by peers and family and seek counseling from a licensed provider.”
“The federal government’s medical establishment releasing guidance failing at the most basic level of academic rigor shows that this was never about health care,” Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said in a statement. “It was about injecting political ideology into the health of our children.
“Children experiencing gender dysphoria should be supported by family and seek counseling, not pushed into an irreversible decision before they reach 18.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at a press conference May 28, 2021. (Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Last month, the Department of Justice sent a letter to all state attorneys general reminding them of federal protections that “protect transgender youth against discrimination.”
“The department and the federal government more generally have a strong interest in protecting the constitutional rights of individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, nonbinary or otherwise gender-nonconforming, and in ensuring compliance with federal civil rights statutes,” Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the DOJ, wrote in the letter.
The Florida guidance comes weeks after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law the Parental Rights in Education bill, which bans teachers from giving classroom instruction on “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” in kindergarten through third grade.
Last June, DeSantis also signed a measure preventing transgender athletes from participating in female sports at public schools.
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