HAVANA (AP) — Relatives of the missing in Cuba’s capital desperately searched Saturday for victims of an explosion at one of Havana’s most luxurious hotels that killed at least 27 people. They checked the morgue, hospitals and if unsuccessful, they returned to the partially collapsed Hotel Saratoga, where rescuers used dogs to hunt for survivors.

A natural gas leak was the apparent cause of Friday’s blast at the 96-room hotel. The 19th-century structure in the Old Havana neighborhood did not have any guests at the time because it was undergoing renovations ahead of a planned Tuesday reopening after being closed for two years during the pandemic.

On Saturday evening, Dr. Julio Guerra Izquierdo, chief of hospital services at the Ministry of Health, raised the death toll to 27 with 81 people injured. The dead included four children and a pregnant woman. Spain’s President Pedro Sánchez said via Twitter that a Spanish tourist was among the dead and that another Spaniard was seriously injured.

Cuban authorities confirmed the tourist’s death and said her partner was injured. They were not staying at the hotel. Tourism Minister Dalila González said a Cuban-American tourist was also injured.

Representatives of Grupo de Turismo Gaviota SA, which owns the hotel, said during a news conference Saturday that 51 workers had been inside the hotel at the time, as well as two people working on renovations. Of those, 11 were killed, 13 remained missing and six were hospitalized.

González said the cause of the blast was still under investigation, but a large crane hoisted a charred gas tanker from the hotel’s rubble early Saturday.

Search and rescue teams worked through the night and into Saturday, using ladders to descend through the rubble and twisted metal into the hotel’s basement as heavy machinery gingerly moved away piles of the building’s façade to allow access. Above, chunks of drywall dangled from wires, desks sat seemingly undisturbed inches from the void where the front of the building cleaved away.

At least one survivor was found early Saturday in the shattered ruins, and rescuers using search dogs clambered over huge chunks of concrete looking for more. Relatives of missing people remained at the site while others gathered at hospitals where the injured were being treated.

A desperate Yatmara Cobas stood outside the perimeter waiting for word of her daughter, 27-year-old housekeeper Shaidis Cobas.

“My daughter is in the Saratoga; she’s been there since 8 a.m. (Friday), and at this time I don’t know anything about her,” Cobas said. “She’s not at the morgue, she’s not in the hospital.” The mother said she had gone everywhere seeking answers from authorities, but coming up empty.

“I’m tired of the lies,” she said.

Gov. Reinaldo García Zapata said Saturday evening that 19 families have reported loved ones missing and that rescue efforts would continue.

Lt. Col. Enrique Peña briefed Comandante Ramiro Valdés, who fought alongside Fidel Castro, on the search efforts at the site. Peña said the presence of people had been detected on the first floor and in the basement and four teams of search dogs and handlers were working. He did not know if the victims were alive or dead.

“I don’t want to move from here,” Cristina Avellar told The Associated Press near the hotel.

Avellar was waiting for news of Odalys Barrera, a 57-year-old cashier who has worked at the hotel for five years. She is the godmother of Barrera’s daughters and considers her like a sister.

Neighbors were still in shock a day after the explosion.

“I thought it was a bomb,” said Guillermo Madan, a 73-year-old retiree, who lives just meters from the building, but was not injured. The three-decade resident of the neighborhood was cooking and watching television when he heard the blast. “My room moved from here to there. My neighbor’s window broke, the plates, everything.”

Katerine Marrero, 31, was shopping at the time. “I left the store, I felt the explosion,” she said. “Everyone started to run.”

The explosion is another blow to the country’s crucial tourism industry.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic kept tourists away from Cuba, the country was struggling with tightened sanctions imposed by former U.S. President Donald Trump and kept in place the Biden administration. Those limited visits by U.S. tourists to the islands and restricted remittances from Cubans in the U.S. to their families in Cuba.

Tourism had started to revive somewhat early this year, but the war in Ukraine deflated a boom of Russian visitors, who accounted for almost a third of the tourists arriving in Cuba last year.

A 300-student school next to the hotel was evacuated.

The emblematic hotel had a stunning view of Cuba’s center, including the domed Capitol building about 110 yards (100 meters) away. The Capitol suffered broken glass and damaged masonry from the explosion.

The hotel was renovated in 2005 as part of the Cuban government’s revival of Old Havana and is owned by the Cuban military’s tourism business arm, Grupo de Turismo Gaviota SA. The company said it was investigating the cause of the blast and did not respond to an email from the AP seeking more details about the hotel and the renovation it was undergoing.

In the past, the Hotel Saratoga has been used by visiting VIPs and political figures, including high-ranking U.S. government delegations. Beyoncé and Jay-Z stayed there in 2013.

García Zapata said structures adjacent to the hotel were being evaluated, including two badly damaged apartment buildings. Díaz-Canel said families in affected buildings had been transferred to safer locations.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador arrived in Havana for a visit late Saturday. He was scheduled to meet with Diaz Canel Sunday morning and return to Mexico Sunday night.

Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/covid-health-business-caribbean-havana-0f378e6e8c2dbe98f4401e995d4f9b2a

  • The latest US military aid package to Ukraine, announced by president Joe Biden on Friday, is worth $150m, the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, confirmed. The latest tranche of assistance includes 25,000 155mm artillery rounds as well as counter-artillery radars, jamming equipment, field equipment and spare parts. It brought Washington’s military assistance to Kyiv since the Russian invasion began to around $3.8bn, Blinken said.

  • Source Article from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/08/russia-ukraine-war-what-we-know-on-day-74-of-the-invasion

    LIVE UPDATES

    This is CNBC’s live blog tracking Saturday’s developments on the war in Ukraine. See below for the latest updates.

    Ukrainian forces are pursuing a counteroffensive near the northeast Kharkiv region, which the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War says could soon free the city from the artillery range of Russian forces.

    Russia’s Defense Ministry has claimed to have destroyed a large stockpile of military equipment from the U.S. and European countries in the Kharkiv region.

    Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said all women and children have been evacuated from the Azovstal iron and steel works plant in Mariupol.

    A dress rehearsal for Russia’s annual “Victory Day” is underway on Saturday. May 9 will mark the anniversary of the then-Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

    Senior Russian lawmaker says U.S. directly involved in Ukraine fighting

    Russia’s most senior lawmaker on Saturday accused Washington of coordinating military operations in Ukraine, which he said amounted to direct U.S. involvement in military action against Russia.

    “Washington is essentially coordinating and developing military operations, thereby directly participating in military actions against our country,” Vyacheslav Volodin wrote on his Telegram channel.

    Washington and European members of the transatlantic NATO alliance have supplied Kyiv with heavy weapons to help it resist a Russian offensive that has resulted in the occupation of parts of eastern and southern Ukraine but failed to take Kyiv.

    However, the United States and its NATO allies have repeatedly said they will not take part in fighting themselves, in order to avoid becoming parties to the conflict.

    U.S. officials have said the United States has provided intelligence to Ukraine to help counter the Russian assault, but have denied that this intelligence includes precise targeting data.

    Volodin, speaker of the lower house of parliament, the Duma, is a prominent advocate of what Moscow calls its “special operation” in Ukraine to degrade its southern neighbor’s military capabilities and root out what it calls fascist elements holding sway over the government and military.

    Ukraine and the West say the fascist allegation is baseless, and that Russia has carried out an unprovoked act of aggression. The conflict has killed thousands in Ukraine, and more than five million people have fled the country.

    Volodin said foreign advisers had been working in Ukraine since what he called the “coup d’etat”, in an apparent reference to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s democratic election in 2019.

    — Reuters

    WHO says it stands with people of Ukraine, urges Russia to end the war

    The chief of the World Health Organization is appealing to Russia to end its offensive on Ukraine.

    “We continue to call on the Russian Federation to stop this war,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a live media briefing on Saturday.

    Tedros said the WHO stands with “all the people of Ukraine” and vowed to support the government in its efforts to treat the injured, maintain health services, and repair and strengthen Ukraine’s health systems.

    Thus far, the organization has verified 200 attacks on health-care facilities in Ukraine since the war began.

    “These attacks must stop. Health care is never a target,” Tedros said.

    Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the WHO has delivered trauma and emergency supplies, which they say have been put to use in over 15,000 surgeries. The medicines and health-care equipment donated to the cause have served 650,000 people, and the group will donate over 20 ambulances on Sunday, according to the WHO.

    The organization has also provided 15 diesel generators to provide electricity to hospitals and health facilities, including in some of the newly accessible regions of the country, including Kyiv.

    — MacKenzie Sigalos

    Russia says its missiles hit airfields in Odesa region, U.S. equipment near Kharkiv

    Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday said high-precision missiles had destroyed Ukrainian aircraft at airfields in the Artsyz, Odesa and Voznesensk regions, and that its Iskander missiles had hit U.S. and European equipment near Kharkiv.

    Ukraine earlier said four missiles had hit the Odesa region on Saturday, without causing casualties.

    Other missiles striking Odesa on Saturday had hit a furniture factory in a residential area, while the other two struck an already damaged runway strip, it said.

    — Reuters

    CIA director: Putin believes he can’t afford to lose, may double down to gain an edge in Ukraine war

    The Director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency warns that Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t want to lose — and he may dial up the offensive on Ukraine to tip the balance in his favor.

    “He’s in a frame of mind in which he doesn’t believe he can afford to lose,” CIA chief William Burns said at a Financial Times event in Washington on Saturday.

    “I think he’s convinced right now that doubling down still will enable him to make progress,” continued Burns.

    — MacKenzie Sigalos

    Ukraine says all women, children and elderly evacuated from Mariupol steel plant

    Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk says all women, children and elderly have been evacuated from a Mariupol steel mill long besieged by Russian forces.

    “The president’s order has been carried out: all women, children and the elderly have been evacuated from Azovstal. This part of the Mariupol humanitarian operation has been completed,” she said.

    The Russian news agency Tass had reported that 50 civilians were evacuated from the plant on Saturday. A similar number left on Friday.

    The civilians had been holding up in the plant with Ukrainian fighters making a final stand to prevent a complete takeover of Mariupol.

    — Associated Press

    Retired Gen. Wesley Clark says war in Ukraine will draw out over the summer

    Retired U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark said the Biden administration isn’t moving fast enough to help Ukraine defeat Russia, threatening to prolong the conflict over the summer.

    “The administration is saying the right things, but it’s not given the right equipment soon enough to the Ukrainians is my personal view,” Clark told CNN. Clark was NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe from 1997 to 2000, commanding Operation Allied Force during the Kosovo War.

    Clark said there was “no long-war strategy possible for Ukraine.” He said the country has a window of opportunity over the summer to eject the Russians, he said.

    If Ukraine doesn’t get the right support by that time, China will be freed up to do more to assist Russia after Chinese President Xi Jinping is approved for a third term.

    “Missile strikes are bit by bit chewing up Ukraine’s infrastructure,” Clark said. “The United States need to redouble its efforts to get military equipment into Ukraine right now, the kind they can use to eject the Russians now, over the summer.”

    — Annie Nova

    Russian oligarch Abramovich reaches deal to sell Chelsea soccer club

    Chelsea soccer club will be sold to a consortium fronted by Los Angeles Dodgers part-owner Todd Boehly, ending 19 years of ownership and lavish investment by Roman Abramovich until the Russian oligarch was sanctioned and forced to offload the Premier League club over the war in Ukraine.

    The sale price of 2.5 billion pounds ($3.1 billion) for the reigning FIFA Club World Cup winners and 2021 European champions is the most lucrative-ever for a sports team worldwide but Abramovich cannot receive the proceeds, which he hopes will go to a foundation for the victims of the war. A further 1.75 billion pounds ($2.2 billion) has been committed to invest in Chelsea’s teams and stadiums after two months of rapid negotiations to sell the west London club since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.

    After several rival bids were rejected, Chelsea said Saturday that buyout terms had been agreed with a consortium that features Boehly along with Dodgers principal owner Mark Walter, Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss and funding from private equity firm Clearlake Capital.

    The Premier League must approve them as the new ownership and the government has to sign off under the terms of the license that allows Chelsea to continue operating as a business through May 31 while being one of Abramovich’s frozen assets.

    — Associated Press

    Jill Biden meets with U.S. troops, Ukranian refugees in Romania and Slovakia

    U.S. first lady Jill Biden traveled to Romania and Slovakia, meeting with U.S. troops and Ukrainian refugees.

    Biden made multiple stops with Romanian first lady Carmen Iohannis, who’s also an English teacher. Nearly 900,000 refugees have come through the nation so far, a UNICEF official told Biden, who praised the resilience of the women in fleeing Ukraine and appeared to get emotional listening to their accounts.

    Anastasia Konovalvoa, a Ukrainian teacher who fled to Romania in March with her three-year-old son, was among those who shared her story with the first lady at a public school in Bucharest.

    “Everything I was thinking about was how to save my child from a city that was bombed,” she said. “Thank god the Romanian people were here. I think even the Romanian didn’t expect that they could be so wonderful because you don’t expect that from people.”

    Biden finished her first stop in Romania by dishing out mac & cheese and potatoes to U.S. service members and then mingling in the mess hall for about an hour. She endeared herself to troops by bringing 5 gallons of Heinz Ketchup on the plane after hearing there was a shortage on base.

    — Annie Nova

    More than 200 homes in Kyiv destroyed

    More than 200 houses have been damaged in the Ukranian capital of Kyiv, according to the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko.

    Shelling in the capital has also destroyed 46 schools, 30 kindergartens and more than 70 urban infrastructure facilities, Klitschko said.

    Officials are inspecting the damage and developing estimates to determine how much work will be needed and what it will cost to rebuild the city.

    “We will rebuild everything!” the mayor said. “Kyiv will survive, Ukraine will win!”

    — Annie Nova

    West underestimated ‘brutality and ambitions’ of Russia’s Putin, former NATO chief says

    Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former NATO Secretary General, told CNBC that Russian President Vladimir Putin is the “big loser” from Moscow’s unprovoked onslaught in Ukraine and says the West made mistakes in the run-up to the Kremlin’s invasion.

    Pro-Russian forces say 50 more people evacuated from besieged Azovstal plant

    Pro-Russian forces said 50 more people were evacuated from the besieged Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, where scores of civilians have been trapped for weeks alongside Ukrainian fighters holed up in the Soviet-era plant.

    The territorial defense headquarters of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said on Telegram that a total of 176 civilians had now been evacuated from the steelworks.

    “Today, May 7, 50 people were evacuated from the territory of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol,” the DPR said.

    Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

    President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a late-night video address on Friday that Ukraine was working on a diplomatic effort to save defenders barricaded inside the steelworks. It was unclear how many Ukrainian fighters remained there.

    “Influential intermediaries are involved, influential states,” he said, but provided no further details.

    The defenders have vowed not to surrender. Ukrainian officials fear Russian forces want to wipe them out by Monday, in time for Moscow’s commemorations of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

    Reuters

    Images show Moscow’s dress rehearsal of ‘Victory Day’ parade

    The Kremlin’s preparations are underway for the country’s annual “Victory Day” commemorations on May 9.

    The 77th anniversary of the then-Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II comes more than two months after the Kremlin launched its unprovoked onslaught on Ukraine.

    — Sam Meredith

    Ukraine’s counteroffensive around Kharkiv enters decisive phase, think tank says

    Ukrainian forces have secured further gains north and east of the city of Kharkiv in the last 24 hours, according to the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War.

    The respected think tank says the counteroffensive could soon see Ukrainian forces push Russian forces out of the artillery range of Kharkiv.

    “This Ukrainian operation is developing into a successful, broader counteroffensive—as opposed to the more localized counterattacks that Ukrainian forces have conducted throughout the war to secure key terrain and disrupt Russian offensive operations,” the Institute for the Study of War said in an update.

    — Sam Meredith

    Russia claims it destroyed U.S., European military equipment in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region

    Russia’s Defense Ministry claims it destroyed a large stockpile of military equipment from the U.S. and European countries in Ukraine’s northeast Kharkiv region, according to Reuters.

    The ministry reportedly said 18 military facilities had been struck overnight, including three ammunition depots.

    CNBC has not been able to independently verify these claims.

    — Sam Meredith

    Ukraine conflict ‘taking a heavy toll’ on Russia’s most capable units, UK’s Defence Ministry says

    The Ukraine conflict is heavily affecting some of Russia’s most capable units, said the U.K.’s Defence Ministry in its daily intelligence update.

    “The conflict in Ukraine is taking a heavy toll on some of Russia’s most capable units and most advanced capabilities,” the ministry said in its update, posted on Twitter.

    “It will take considerable time and expense for Russia to reconstitute its armed forces following this conflict,” it added.

    At least one T-90M, Russia’s most advanced tank, has been destroyed in fighting, the update said.

    “It will be particularly challenging to replace modernised and advanced equipment due to sanctions restricting Russia’s access to critical microelectronic components,” the ministry added.

    — Weizhen Tan

    Russia must pull back forces to pre-invasion position before any peace deal can happen, Zelenskyy says

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told London think-tank Chatham House that any peace deal with Moscow would be dependent on Russian forces pulling back to their positions before the war, the BBC reported.

    Zelenskyy said that was the minimum that Ukraine could accept, according to the report. He added that there could be no question of Russia holding on to territory it has taken since the invasion started.

    “I was elected by the people of Ukraine as president of Ukraine, not as president of a mini Ukraine of some kind. This is a very important point,” he said, according to the BBC report.

    — Weizhen Tan

    Read CNBC’s previous live coverage here:

    Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/07/russia-ukraine-live-updates.html

    Republicans say their restraint on the issue makes sense. A near-total abortion ban has been in place in Texas for eight months, and seemingly no political price has been paid so far.

    State Representative Gene Wu, a Houston Democrat, said he worries that in Republican states that have been living with steadily rising restrictions on reproductive rights, the response to overturning Roe could be as muted as it has been in Texas, and that in Democratic states, voters will be reassured that their rights are safe.

    “This has been done so incrementally, it’s like there’s a learned helplessness. We’ve taken so much abuse; what’s a little more?” he said, likening women in states like Texas to the frog in the boiling pot of water. “I hope that’s not the case.”

    Another factor mitigating the backlash might be the rising popularity of long-term contraception, such as IUDs, and the increased access to birth control in general, which has helped lower the nation’s abortion rate in recent years and given more women a sense of reproductive security.

    A decade-old study by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists found that the percentage of women in childbearing years using long-acting, reversible contraception had risen steadily, from 2.4 percent in 2002 to 8.5 percent in 2009 to 11.6 percent in 2012. The figure is about 12 percent now, said Dr. Nisha Verma, a fellow at the college and a gynecologist in Washington, D.C.

    “The need for abortion will never go away,” Dr. Verma said, but, she added, “We’ve definitely seen that people have been able to take more control in their reproductive health.”

    Another study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found a 21.6 percent jump in the use of such contraception in the months after the 2016 election of Mr. Trump, with his vows to install justices who would overturn Roe.

    Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.

    Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/06/us/politics/republicans-abortion.html

    KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on Saturday ordered all Afghan women to wear head-to-toe clothing in public — a sharp, hard-line pivot that confirmed the worst fears of rights activists and was bound to further complicate Taliban dealings with an already distrustful international community.

    The decree says that women should leave the home only when necessary, and that male relatives would face punishment — starting with a summons and escalating up to court hearings and jail time — for women’s dress code violations.

    It was the latest in a series of repressive edicts issued by the Taliban leadership, not all of which have been implemented. Last month for example the Taliban forbade women to travel alone, but after a day of opposition, that has since been silently ignored.

    The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said it was deeply concerned with what appeared to be a formal directive that would be implemented and enforced, adding that it would seek clarifications from the Taliban about the decision.

    “This decision contradicts numerous assurances regarding respect for and protection of all Afghans’ human rights, including those of women and girls, that had been provided to the international community by Taliban representatives during discussions and negotiations over the past decade,” it said in a statement.

    The decree, which calls for women to only show their eyes and recommends they wear the head-to-toe burqa, evoked similar restrictions on women during the Taliban’s previous rule between 1996 and 2001.

    “We want our sisters to live with dignity and safety,” said Khalid Hanafi, acting minister for the Taliban’s vice and virtue ministry.

    The Taliban previously decided against reopening schools to girls above grade 6, reneging on an earlier promise and opting to appease their hard-line base at the expense of further alienating the international community. But this decree does not have widespread support among a leadership that’s divided between pragmatists and the hardliners.

    That decision disrupted efforts by the Taliban to win recognition from potential international donors at a time when the country is mired in a worsening humanitarian crisis.

    “For all dignified Afghan women wearing Hijab is necessary and the best Hijab is chadori (the head-to-toe burqa) which is part of our tradition and is respectful,” said Shir Mohammad, an official from the vice and virtue ministry in a statement.

    “Those women who are not too old or young must cover their face, except the eyes,” he said. “Islamic principles and Islamic ideology are more important to us than anything else,” Hanafi said.

    Senior Afghanistan researcher Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch urged the international community to put coordinated pressure on the Taliban.

    “(It is) far past time for a serious and strategic response to the Taliban’s escalating assault on women’s rights,” she wrote on Twitter.

    The Taliban were ousted in 2001 by a U.S.-led coalition for harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and returned to power after America’s chaotic departure last year. The White House did not have immediate comment on the Taliban’s latest decree.

    Since taking power last August, the Taliban leadership has been squabbling among themselves as they struggle to transition from war to governing. It has pit hard-liners against the more pragmatic among them.

    A spokeswoman from Pangea, an Italian non-governmental organization that has assisted women for years in Afghanistan, said the new decree would be particularly difficult for them to swallow since they had lived in relative freedom until the Taliban takeover.

    “In the last 20 years, they have had the awareness of human rights, and in the span of a few months have lost them,” Silvia Redigolo said by telephone. “It’s dramatic to (now) have a life that doesn’t exist,” she said.

    Infuriating many Afghans is the knowledge that many of the Taliban of the younger generation, like Sirajuddin Haqqani, are educating their girls in Pakistan, while in Afghanistan women and girls have been targeted by their repressive edicts since taking power.

    Girls have been banned from school beyond grade 6 in most of the country since the Taliban’s return. Universities opened earlier this year in much of the country, but since taking power the Taliban edicts have been erratic. While a handful of provinces continued to provide education to all, most provinces closed educational institutions for girls and women.

    The religiously driven Taliban administration fears that going forward with enrolling girls beyond the the sixth grade could alienate their rural base, Hashmi said.

    In the capital, Kabul, private schools and universities have operated uninterrupted.

    Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-taliban-49b17d77d03022ad4817eeecf4f5da93

    The Michigan State Capitol building is seen on Oct. 8, 2020, in Lansing. A Michigan law from 1931 would make abortion a felony in the state if the Roe v. Wade decision is overturned.

    Rey Del Rio/Getty Images


    hide caption

    toggle caption

    Rey Del Rio/Getty Images

    The Michigan State Capitol building is seen on Oct. 8, 2020, in Lansing. A Michigan law from 1931 would make abortion a felony in the state if the Roe v. Wade decision is overturned.

    Rey Del Rio/Getty Images

    When Stephanie Mejia Arciñiega drove her friend to the Planned Parenthood in Ann Arbor, Mich., they were surrounded by anti-abortion protestors as soon as they tried to pull in to the clinic.

    “They come up to your car super fast,” Mejia Arciñiega said. “You don’t want to run their feet over, so we had to stop and be like, ‘OK, no thank you.’ But then they started throwing a bunch of papers and resources at us. We tried to go inside, but we couldn’t.”

    The clinic, which offers abortion care as well as birth control, cancer screenings, and STD treatment, has long been the target of anti-abortion protestors. Protestors’ efforts to limit abortions in the state may soon get a huge boost, if the Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade.

    In Michigan, this would have an immediate impact. Overnight, nearly all abortions would become a felony carrying a penalty of up to four years, even in the cases of rape and incest. That’s under an old state law, last updated in 1931, that was never repealed, even after Roe made it unenforceable in 1973.

    Mejia Arciñiega is only 18. She’s never imagined a world where abortion is illegal. “You wouldn’t think that in 2022, we’d be worrying about women’s rights, reproduction rights,” she said. “You wouldn’t want someone young that isn’t ready [to] have to have a baby because the law says ‘No.’ It’s not fair.”

    Michigan Attorney General, Dana Nessel has a similar concern. The Democrat said she won’t enforce the law if it springs back into effect. But Michigan has 83 local county prosecutors, and Nessel said they could do whatever they want. “I don’t think that I have the authority to tell the duly elected county prosecutors what they can and what they cannot charge,” Nessel said at a press conference earlier this week.

    The way the law’s written, Nessel said it’s possible that prosecutors could go after anyone who provides an abortion, as well as the person who takes medications to end their own pregnancy.

    That could potentially “create a scenario where if a woman has self-aborted and she seeks medical care after that, will the doctor then have to report that to law enforcement?”

    Speaking to reporters, Nessel also discussed the abortion she’d had years ago — one that would be illegal in the state if Roe falls. She was pregnant with triplets and doctors told her the embryos weren’t growing in utero, she said.

    “And I was told very, very specifically that there was no way that all three would make it to term…But if I aborted one, that it was possible that the other two might live. …I took my doctor’s advice… And you know what? It turned out that he was right. And now I have two beautiful sons.”

    Under the 1931 law, there’s just one exemption: for abortions that are “to preserve the life” of the woman. Yet doctors say they have no idea how to interpret that. Say a woman has severe heart disease, and her chance of dying in pregnancy is around 20% to 30%.

    “Is that enough of a chance?” asked Dr. Lisa Harris, a University of Michigan professor and OB-GYN, speaking this week on Michigan Radio’s Stateside. “I hate to even put it that way, but is that enough of a chance of dying that that person would qualify under Michigan’s ban for a lifesaving abortion? Or would their risk of dying need to be 50% or 100%?”

    Or what if a pregnant person has cancer, and needs to end the pregnancy to begin chemo? “There’s not an imminent risk of dying, but there might be a risk of dying years later if they didn’t have chemotherapy…immediately. So these are the kind of situations doctors are wondering about.”

    It’s also unclear whether a woman whose pregnancy would only become life threatening in its later stages, would be required to delay termination until then.

    “We see people with things like kidney disease or other problems, where they’re actually okay during early pregnancy. But if the pregnancy were to continue and they were to give birth, then they would have a very high chance of dying,” Harris explained.

    The state legislature is controlled by Republicans, but Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, filed a preemptive lawsuit last month seeking to block the 1931 law from going into effect. Planned Parenthood filed a similar suit as well. And there’s a campaign to collect enough signatures to put abortion on the ballot in November. But that would be long after the US Supreme Court makes its final ruling on Roe.

    Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer attends a White House event with President Joe Biden on March 9. Whitmer and Planned Parenthood filed lawsuits seeking to invalidate the 1931 law that remains on the books.

    Patrick Semansky/AP


    hide caption

    toggle caption

    Patrick Semansky/AP

    Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer attends a White House event with President Joe Biden on March 9. Whitmer and Planned Parenthood filed lawsuits seeking to invalidate the 1931 law that remains on the books.

    Patrick Semansky/AP

    In the meantime, the confusion and uncertainty caused by the 1931 law could be enough for some health care professionals to simply stop offering abortions, Nessel said.

    “I think that this will have the kind of chilling effect that doctors just simply will not perform this procedure really under any set of circumstances, because they don’t want to get dragged into court,” she said. “They don’t want to face the possibility of being prosecuted and the possibility of going to jail or prison. So I think that that honestly, you’ll have doctors that really have to violate their Hippocratic oath and just say, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you.'”

    Source Article from https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/05/07/1097205107/a-michigan-law-from-1931-would-make-abortion-a-felony-if-roe-falls

    In another sign of trouble for California’s scarce water supplies, Arizona’s top water officials said the worsening depletion of the Colorado River’s reservoirs will require serious action to combat the effects of a 22-year megadrought that shows no sign of letting up.

    Federal projections show Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the country’s two largest reservoirs, will keep on declining in the coming months, reaching a shortage level likely to trigger larger water cuts in 2023 for Arizona, Nevada and Mexico — and which could also eventually force similar reductions in California.

    “The gravity of the immediate situation is serious,” said Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources. “We expect further significant actions to reduce water use will be required.”

    The Colorado River supplies water to nearly 40 million people, flowing to cities, farmlands and tribal nations from the Rocky Mountains to Southern California. The river has for decades been chronically overused. So much water is diverted that the river’s delta in Mexico largely dried up decades ago, leaving only scattered natural wetlands in an otherwise dry river channel that runs through farmland.

    The added heat from global warming has made drought-stricken lands extra-dry. It will take more precipitation than usual to end it.

    State and federal officials spoke at a meeting in Phoenix on Friday, three days after the federal Bureau of Reclamation announced plans to reduce the amount of water released from Lake Powell this year to reduce risks of the reservoir’s water level falling too low at Glen Canyon Dam. Last year, the dam generated enough power to meet the needs of more than 300,000 homes — something it would not be able to do if the water levels plummet so badly that it can no longer generate electricity.

    Buschatzke added that more needs to be done to protect water levels in Lake Mead, which releases water that flows to Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico.
    Lake Powell, which straddles the Arizona-Utah state line, has declined to just 24% of full capacity, the lowest point since it was filled in the 1960s following the construction of Glen Canyon Dam.

    The water that is released from Lake Powell flows through the Grand Canyon and reaches Lake Mead near Las Vegas. Lake Mead has dropped to 30% of full capacity, its lowest level since it was filled in the 1930s during the Great Depression.

    The latest projections, Buschatzke said, show the reduced releases of water from Lake Powell will result in a roughly 22-foot drop in Lake Mead’s level.

    “It’s about maintaining flows in the Colorado River, including through the Grand Canyon,” Buschatzke said. Because if the flows were to be severely restricted, the declines in Lake Mead would accelerate.

    Buschatzke noted that the surface of Lake Mead now sits just under 1,054 feet above sea level. If the reservoir were to drop to 895 feet, he pointed out, it would reach “dead pool” — the point at which water would no longer pass through Hoover Dam.

    The federal government’s latest plan will involve releasing about 500,000 acre-feet of water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir, which is located upstream, and holding back an additional 480,000 acre-feet in Lake Powell.

    The West is experiencing its most severe megadrought in a millennium, according to a new study. Scientists say climate change is playing a major role.

    California, Arizona and Nevada used 6.8 million acre-feet of Colorado River water in 2020. (Each acre-foot is enough water to cover a football field about 1 foot deep.)

    If Lake Powell were to drop to lower levels, below elevation 3,490 feet, water could still be routed through four 8-foot-wide pipes, the dam’s river outlet works.

    “However, if the lake were to decline, that capacity to release water lessens,” said Daniel Bunk, chief of the Boulder Canyon Operations Office for the federal Bureau of Reclamation. “There’s a lot of uncertainty with operating below that level.”

    Over the last several years, state and federal officials have repeatedly negotiated deals to try to reduce risks of the Colorado River’s reservoirs falling to critically low levels.

    In 2019, representatives of the seven states in the Colorado River Basin signed a set of agreements called the Drought Contingency Plan, which included a pact between California, Arizona and Nevada to take less water from the river. Mexico has agreed under a separate deal to contribute by leaving some of its water in Lake Mead.

    With the reservoirs continuing to drop, water officials from California, Arizona and Nevada signed another deal in December to again take less water from the river.

    New drought rules in Southern California aim to cut daily water use to 80 gallons per person. Water managers say hitting this number is critical.

    Despite those efforts, the reservoirs have continued to drop.

    Scientists have found that higher temperatures caused by climate change are making the drought much worse than it would otherwise be in the watershed. They say the warmer atmosphere is effectively “thirstier,” drying out the soils and evaporating moisture off the landscape, reducing flows in streams and the Colorado River.

    “We’re getting way less runoff than we’re getting precipitation, which is a very disturbing trend, and something that will be challenging for us managing the river moving forward,” Buschatzke said.

    Last year, the amount of inflow into the reservoirs was the second lowest on record, just 32% of average. This year, the snow was just a little below average but the inflow from it is projected to be just 62% of average, Bunk said.

    “We do seem to be getting the precipitation, but other factors such as warmer temperatures, the dry soil conditions … they all seem to be conspiring, to some extent, against the actual runoff,” he said.

    Buschatzke said the Southwest needs to adapt.

    “Our future is probably what we would now call living with shortages,” he said. “We all have to come together to help solve these Colorado River issues.”

    Arizona gets an estimated 36% of its water from the Colorado. Farmers in parts of the state are coping with drastic cutbacks in Colorado River water, drilling wells to try to partially make up for the shortfall.

    This year, the reductions in water deliveries in Arizona total more than 800,000 acre-feet, about one-fourth of the state’s total apportionment.

    So far, the cutbacks largely haven’t affected Arizona’s cities, but officials said the state could eventually seek to reduce outdoor water use.

    “We need to dig a little deeper, be even more innovative and creative,” said Ted Cooke, general manager of the Central Arizona Project. “Additional voluntary conservation is necessary and may delay larger mandatory shortages.”

    Buschatzke said the state is preparing to deal with additional cuts next year, and even larger cuts could come across the region in 2024.

    He noted that California is on track to use more than its apportionment of 4.4 million acre-feet this year because the state’s agencies are withdrawing some water that they have saved in Lake Mead, as allowed under the 2019 drought agreement.

    California has stored 1.3 million acre-feet in Mead, and will take out about 250,000 acre-feet of that water this year to help as the state’s other supplies have shrank during the drought, said Bill Hasencamp, manager of Colorado River resources for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

    “We’re only taking a small portion of the water that we put in Lake Mead,” he said.

    “We’re asking our customers to increase conservation this year. But despite the increased conservation, we need that extra Colorado River water,” Hasencamp added. “We put it in there for a dry day, a dry year like this year, and that’s why we’re having to take it out.”

    Nearly two weeks ago, the water district declared a shortage emergency and ordered restrictions on outdoor watering to conserve limited supplies from Northern California that are delivered via the State Water Project. The restrictions, which will vary for each water agency, are set to take effect June 1 in parts of Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties.

    Other areas of Southern California that rely mainly on Colorado River water aren’t subject to the restrictions. But the Metropolitan Water District has urged everyone across the region to reduce water use by 20%.

    Buschatzke, the Arizona water official, said his state wants to avoid the severe restrictions currently being implemented in California.

    “We don’t want to be living on health and safety allocations of water in our state. And we may be in that place at some point in the future,” Buschatzke said. “We’re committed to doing everything we can to avoid that outcome.”

    Source Article from https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-06/colorado-rivers-california-arizona-powell-mead-risks

    Intelligence provided by the U.S. helped the Ukrainians sink the Russian Moskva in April, according to a senior defense official. The U.S. shared the location of the Moskva in the Black Sea with the Ukrainians but had no role in the decision to strike it, the official said. 

    The role the U.S. played in the sinking of the Moskva comes after reports on Thursday detailed how intelligence the U.S. has provided helped Ukrainian forces kill Russian generals. 

    Without providing specifics, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters Thursday that the U.S. has been providing Ukraine useful battlefield intelligence throughout the war as Ukraine defends itself – but Kirby said the Pentagon does not provide intelligence on the location of senior military leaders on the battlefield or participate in the targeting decisions of the Ukrainian military.

    “Ukraine combines information that we and other partners provide with the intelligence that they themselves are gathering on the battlefield, and then they make their own decisions and take their own actions,” Kirby said. 

    Overnight Thursday, Kirby issued another statement emphasizing that the U.S. had no involvement in and no knowledge of Ukraine’s plans to hit the Moskva.

    “We did not provide Ukraine with specific targeting information for the Moskva. We were not involved in the Ukrainians’ decision to strike the ship or in the operation they carried out,” Kirby said. “We had no prior knowledge of Ukraine’s intent to target the ship. The Ukrainians have their own intelligence capabilities to track and target Russian naval vessels, as they did in this case.”

    The Russian guided missile cruiser “Moskva,” flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, is seen anchored near Mumbai, India in a May 21, 2003 file photo.

    Roy Madhur/REUTERS


    Ukrainian forces struck the Moskva with two Neptune anti-ship missiles. The strike caused a large fire and the eventual sinking of the ship on April 14.

    Kirby said in April that the cruiser was about 600 feet long and had a crew of roughly 500 sailors. The Pentagon assessed that at least some of the crewmembers evacuated to other Russian naval ships but it’s unclear how many Russians suffered casualties. 

    The sinking of the Moskva was another embarrassment for Russian forces, who have shown an inability so far to reach their goals in the war in Ukraine. More than 70 days into the invasion, the Russian progress is still described by the Pentagon as slow, incremental, and uneven. 

    The lack of progress is in part due to the stiff Ukrainian resistance, the aid flowing from Western countries like the U.S,and the incorporation of  intelligence the U.S. and allies are providing. 

    The Ukrainians also have their own intelligence collection mechanisms that are proving effective. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley told a congressional committee on Tuesday that the Ukrainian people themselves are a built-in intelligence system. 

    “The Russians have walked into an area that is clearly unwelcome to them, and the people have provided a massive amount of intelligence,” Milley said. “Plus we have opened up the pipes which I’m not going to go into detail here in an open hearing, but there’s a significant amount of intelligence flowing to Ukraine from the United States.”

    Sara Cook contributed to this report.

    Source Article from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/moskva-ship-sink-russia-ukraine-us-intelligence/

    In his 98-page draft opinion, Alito looked to the history of abortion policies in the U.S. to bolster his conclusion that Roe and Casey “must be overruled.”

    Abortion is not a constitutionally protected right, Alito wrote, pointing out that the Constitution itself makes no reference to abortion. While he acknowledged that the court has interpreted the 14th Amendment to guarantee some rights that are not explicitly spelled out, Alito cited precedent stating that those rights must be deeply rooted in U.S. traditions and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.”

    “The right to abortion does not fall within this category,” Alito’s draft said. “Up until the latter part of the 20th century, there was no support in American law for a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. Zero. None.”

    The justice wrote that abortion was outlawed in three-fourths of the states at the time the 14th Amendment was adopted in the 1860s, and that 30 states had banned the procedure at all stages of pregnancy at the time Roe was argued before the court.

    But the American Historical Association, which boasts of being the world’s largest organization of its kind, argued in a 2021 court brief that “American history and tradition under the common law undergirds Roe v. Wade’s holding that women have a constitutional right” to choose to have an abortion.

    The group said that early Americans followed English common law, which did not regulate abortion prior to the detection of fetal movement — known at the time as “quickening.” That was the point at which the fetus was legally acknowledged to exist separately from a pregnant woman, the group said, adding that that common-law reasoning on abortion persisted in a majority of states up to the Civil War.

    Abortion laws grew harsher in many states in the mid-1800s, aided by physicians in the American Medical Association. They were driven in part by fears about the reproduction rates of Catholic immigrants and women avoiding motherhood, according to the group.

    The American Society for Legal History in a separate brief told the high court that abortions continued after those laws were passed, and accelerated during the Great Depression. That led some hospitals to craft reasons for abortions to be allowed, which “destabilized an already contentious status quo,” the organization said.

    Medical advances in the mid-20th century made pregnancy and delivery much safer for women, diminishing the prevalence of abortion as a life-saving procedure. That, in turn, increased the risk of prosecution for abortion-performing physicians. It prompted many doctors in the 1960s to call for relaxing abortion regulations, the group said.

    By the early 1970s, “both pro-life and pro-choice groups began advancing arguments rooted in the Constitution,” according to the brief.

    Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/06/how-supreme-court-went-from-roe-v-wade-to-drafting-opinion-to-overturn-it.html

    Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/06/yacht-putin-italy-scheherazade/

    A man who left a shelter in the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol walks to a bus between Russian army servicemen and Donetsk People’s Republic militia on Friday.

    Alexei Alexandrov/AP


    hide caption

    toggle caption

    Alexei Alexandrov/AP

    A man who left a shelter in the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol walks to a bus between Russian army servicemen and Donetsk People’s Republic militia on Friday.

    Alexei Alexandrov/AP

    As Friday draws to a close in Kyiv and in Moscow, here are the key developments of the day:

    Ukrainian forces inside Mariupol’s besieged Azovstal steel works continue resistance. United Nations aid workers are pushing to evacuate more people from the bunkers and tunnels inside the plant, saying that 50 more civilians — including 11 children — were rescued in the latest operation.

    The United Nations Security Council issued its first statement on Ukraine since Russia invaded on Feb. 24. The Security Council members, which include Russia, reached an agreement to express “deep concern regarding the maintenance of peace and security of Ukraine” as well as “strong support” for efforts to find “a peaceful solution.”

    Global human rights group Amnesty International said it has documented war crimes by Russian troops in Ukraine. In a new report based on an “extensive on-the-ground investigation,” the group cited unlawful attacks and willful, extrajudicial killings of civilians in the region northwest of Kyiv. Russia has denied all such accusations. Amnesty alleged that shootings, torture and other crimes were “part of a pattern” for areas controlled by Russian forces.

    Blocked ports and transport disruptions have trapped almost 25 million tons of grain exports in Ukraine, according to a U.N. food agency official. This is one of the key reasons behind global food prices hitting an all-time high in March, though new data show they eased slightly in April.

    First lady Jill Biden will spend Mother’s Day along the Slovakia-Ukraine border, meeting with Ukrainian mothers and children who fled their country after Russia’s invasion. During a four-day visit to Romania and Slovakia, she will also tour schools that have taken in Ukrainian refugees and will meet with U.S. troops stationed along NATO’s eastern flank.

    In-depth

    How a massive steel plant became the center of Ukraine’s resistance in Mariupol.

    What’s a good word for the reception and medical care given to Ukrainian refugees in Europe? “Generous.”

    Ukrainian farmers struggle as Russian forces wreak havoc, mining fields and stealing equipment.

    Earlier developments

    You can read more daily recaps here. For context and more in-depth stories, you can find NPR’s full coverage here. Also, listen and subscribe to NPR’s State of Ukraine podcast for updates throughout the day.

    Loading…

    Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/05/06/1097190889/russia-ukraine-war-what-happened-today-may-6

    Ms. Greene’s critics argued that her reference to the gathering of Trump supporters on the National Mall as “our 1776 moment” had been a code word that was used to incite violence. Judge Beaudrot disagreed, writing that he was “unpersuaded” that the comment was a “coded call” for a violent insurrection.

    “Heated political rhetoric? Yes,” the judge said. “Encouragement to supporters of efforts to prevent certification of the election of President Biden? Yes. Encouragement to attend the Save America Rally or other rallies and to demonstrate against the certification of the election results? Yes. A call to arms for consummation of a pre-planned violent revolution? No.”

    James Bopp Jr., a lawyer for Ms. Greene, said on Friday that he hoped the ruling would put an end to widespread efforts to discredit Republican officials as engaging in an insurrection.

    “The Democrat lawyers and their allies who wanted to use First Amendment-protected speech — hyperbole — by Representative Greene to prove that she participated in an insurrection were sternly rebuffed by the judge,” Mr. Bopp said. “That’s good news for the First Amendment and good news for our democracy.”

    Free Speech for People, the legal advocacy organization that pursued the case against Ms. Greene, panned the decision and urged Georgia’s secretary of state to defy Judge Beaudrot’s ruling.

    “This decision betrays the fundamental purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause and gives a pass to political violence as a tool for disrupting and overturning free and fair elections,” the group said in a statement.

    A spokesman for Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican who is Georgia’s top elections official, said in an email on Friday that Mr. Raffensperger had received Judge Beaudrot’s ruling and would be reaching a decision soon.

    Mr. Raffensperger is facing a primary challenge from Representative Jody Hice, a Republican endorsed by Mr. Trump. The former president has criticized Mr. Raffensperger for rebuffing his attempts to overturn the election results in the state. Georgia holds its primary elections on May 24.

    Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/06/us/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-insurrection.html

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration sought Friday to downplay the role of American intelligence in the high-profile sinking of the Russian missile cruiser Moskva, distancing itself from any direct role in one of the greatest embarrassments for Russia since it attacked Ukraine.

    A day after an American official confirmed that the U.S. provided Ukraine with information on the location of the ship, the White House and Pentagon described a limited role in last month’s attack and said the Ukrainians make their own decisions.

    The effort reflected the fine line President Joe Biden walks as he touts increasing support for Ukraine while fighting off criticism he isn’t doing enough and simultaneously trying to avoid dragging the U.S. into a direct conflict with Russia.

    “We had no prior knowledge of Ukraine’s intent to target the ship,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. “The Ukrainians have their own intelligence capabilities to track and target Russian naval vessels, as they did in this case. “

    Amid strong, bipartisan support for Ukraine, the administration has provided more than $3.4 billion in military assistance, and U.S. forces are actively training Ukrainian troops in the use of howitzers, drones and other hardware in a war now focused on the eastern Donbas region of the country.

    The White House announced an addition $150 million in military support Friday that included artillery rounds, radar systems capable of detecting artillery projectiles, and other equipment.

    Asked about reports that the U.S. provided intelligence on the Moskva, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Ukraine receives “relevant and timely” intelligence from the U.S., but also gets assistance from other nations and makes its own decisions about how to use it.

    “And if they do decide to do something with that intelligence, then they make the decisions about acting on it,” Kirby said.

    American officials insist this is a fight launched by President Vladimir Putin against Ukraine, not a proxy war with the U.S., and the intelligence assistance stays within these limits.

    The Pentagon spokesman said the U.S. had no advanced knowledge of the attack on the ship, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

    “We provide them what we believe to be relevant and timely information about Russian units that will allow them to adjust and execute their self-defense to the best of their ability,” Kirby said. “The kind of intelligence that we provide them, it’s legitimate, it’s lawful, and it’s limited.”

    An American official said Thursday that Ukraine alone decided to target and sink the Moskva using its own anti-ship missiles. But given Russia’s attacks on the Ukrainian coastline from the sea, the U.S. has provided “a range of intelligence” that includes locations of those ships, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

    The Biden administration has ramped up intelligence sharing with Ukraine alongside the shipment of arms and missiles to help it repel Russia’s invasion. The disclosure of U.S. support in the Moskva strike comes as the White House is under pressure from Republicans to do more to support Ukraine’s resistance and as polls suggest some Americans question whether Biden is being tough enough on Russia.

    Since Putin ordered the invasion in February, the White House has tried to balance supporting Ukraine, a democratic ally, against not doing anything that would seem to provoke a direct war between Putin and the U.S. and NATO allies. As the war has gone on, the White House has ramped up its military and intelligence support, removing some time and geographic limits on what it will tell Ukraine about potential Russian targets.

    The official who spoke Thursday said the U.S. was not aware that Ukraine planned to strike the Moskva until after they conducted the operation.

    Speaking earlier Thursday after a New York Times report about the U.S. role in supporting Ukraine’s killing of Russian generals, Kirby said American agencies “do not provide intelligence on the location of senior military leaders on the battlefield or participate in the targeting decisions of the Ukrainian military.”

    “Ukraine combines information that we and other partners provide with the intel that they themselves are gathering and then they make their own decisions and they take their own actions,” Kirby said.

    —-

    Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed.

    Source Article from https://apnews.com/f500930a03ccdfdd32c2ca82082582f0

    The Saratoga, which was built in the 1930s and renovated in 2005, has 96 rooms, two bars, two restaurants, a spa and a rooftop pool with panoramic view of the Cuban capital, according to its website. Guests have reportedly included Beyoncé and Madonna.

    Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/06/cuba-explosion-hotel-saratoga-havana/