Russia’s Governor to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mikhail Ulyanov, attends the IAEA Board of Governors meeting at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria, on March 7. (Askin Kiyagan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Moscow welcomes the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) planned trip to Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeast Ukraine, which is occupied by Russian forces, a Russian diplomat said according to state media.
Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, said that Russia understands the IAEA will leave several representatives at the plant on a permanent basis, state media RIA Novosti reported.
“As far as we understand, it is the director general’s intention to leave several people at the station on a permanent basis,” Ulyanov said, according to RIA.
Ulyanov added that the mission consists “of about a dozen employees of the agency’s secretariat dealing with safeguards and nuclear safety issues” as well as a large team of UN staff dealing with logistics and security RIA reported.
“Russia has made a significant contribution to the preparation of this mission. We hope that the visit of the plant by the IAEA mission will dispel numerous speculations about the unfavorable state of affairs at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” Ulyanov added.
What’s happening? Early on Monday, the head of the IAEA, Rafael Mariano Grossi, tweeted that the delegation would arrive in Zaporizhzhia — home to Europe’s biggest nuclear facility — “later this week.”
The Kremlin said Monday that the IAEA’s mission will enter the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant from the Ukrainian side, but Russia will ensure its safety on the territory occupied by the Russian army.
“[The mission] will enter the [nuclear plant] territory from the zone controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. There, security will be provided by the Ukrainians,” Peskov added.
When asked about the possibility of creating a demilitarized zone around the plant, Peskov said it was “not under discussion.”
Peskov added that Russia welcomes the long-awaited IAEA mission.
“We have been waiting for this mission for a long time. We consider it necessary,” Peskov said.
The department indicated that the privilege review — conducted by a “filter team” designed to screen attorney-client information from investigators probing potential criminal violations related to national-security-related documents stored at Trump’s Florida residence — has been completed.
The review appears to have only sought to isolate any potential attorney-client privileged documents and left unaddressed Trump’s claims that some of the documents are covered by executive privilege.
The details came in a brief filing prosecutors submitted to U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, who is handling a motion Trump filed last week asking for a so-called special master to oversee the government’s handling of the documents and to segregate and return any privileged materials. Trump’s delay in filing the motion — he waited nearly two weeks after the Aug. 8 search of his property — appears to have given the Justice Department time to finish its review.
Cannon issued an order Saturday indicating she was inclined to grant Trump’s request for an outside review and instructing the government to give Trump a more detailed list of the property taken from Mar-a-Lago in the Aug. 8 search.
But the filing Monday from Justice Department attorney Jay Bratt and U.S. Attorney for Southern Florida Juan Antonio Gonzalez suggests at least part of what Trump sought may be moot.
“Before the Court issued its Preliminary Order, and in accordance with the judicially authorized search warrant’s provisions, the Privilege Review Team (as described in paragraphs 81-84 of the search warrant affidavit) identified a limited set of materials that potentially contain attorney-client privileged information, completed its review of those materials, and is in the process of following the procedures set forth in … the search warrant affidavit to address potential privilege disputes, if any,” the prosecutors wrote.
Bratt and Gonzalez noted that the filter-team procedures had been approved in the search warrant, granted on Aug. 5 by Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart. They referred Cannon to the recently unsealed affidavit underlying the search, which laid out the process.
“[T]he Privilege Review Team will search the ‘45 Office’ and conduct a review of the seized materials from the “45 Office” to identify and segregate documents or data containing potentially attorney-client privileged information,” the affidavit indicates.
When the privilege team discovers potential attorney-client information, the procedures offer three options: to ask Reinhart for a determination, to withhold the documents from the investigative team or to ask Trump to waive privilege to permit investigators to review the documents. DOJ indicated those procedures had been followed.
Similarly, the procedures permit the filter team to transmit any records they deem unprivileged to investigators. It’s unclear if the team has already done so in this case.
The prosecutors also noted that the intelligence community is conducting a separate review of the records to determine their classification level and to assess the national security concerns implicated by the documents. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines separately has told congressional Democrats that her team was in the process of making that assessment.
The filing Monday did not say explicitly whether Justice Department investigators have actually reviewed the records seized on Aug. 8, including any flagged in the privilege process. A more detailed filing from the Justice Department is expected by Tuesday night.
Cannon has set a hearing for Thursday in West Palm Beach to address Trump’s request for a special master, typically a retired judge, to oversee the process. While Trump has claimed that many of the records are covered by executive privilege, legal experts have raised doubts about how that would apply in this context.
Under the Presidential Records Act, ownership of official White House records transfers to the National Archives when a presidency ends. There are procedures for assertions of executive privilege after a president leaves office, but Trump’s authority to make such a claim without the backing of President Joe Biden is murky.
Police Chief Mike Krantz said at a news conference Sunday night that investigators believe the shooter accessed the shopping center from an adjacent residential neighborhood, crossing the parking lot and then entering the store. Krantz said the shooter was a male but didn’t didn’t name him. He also didn’t provide the names of the deceased.
The preliminary investigation revealed that the gunman first entered the west entrance of the store and immediately shot someone who was later taken to a hospital and declared dead, Krantz said. The gunman continued to fire rounds, sending shoppers scrambling and killing a second person and injuring one person, police said.
When officers arrived on scene, the gunman was still firing shots, said Krantz, adding that police didn’t fire any shots.
Police later found the suspected shooter on the ground dead next to an AR-15-style rifle and a handgun.
The injured individual was brought to a local hospital and Lisa Goodman, a spokesperson for St. Charles Health System, told Oregon Live the person is in good condition.
“We know this is a frightening thing for our community,” Krantz said. “And something we would never want to happen in our city. We are following up on every lead.
Krantz said a witness said there could be a second shooter at large, but the department hasn’t found any evidence of this.
This is still an active investigation.
This is a developing story and will be updated as details become available.
(Update: Police hold news conference; Safeway shopper tells of terrifying moments getting kids out of store)
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – A gunman armed with a rifle and shotgun fired several shots in the parking lot of a northeast Bend shopping center Sunday evening, then entered a Safeway and fired numerous more shots, killing two people and sending shoppers scrambling for the exits. Officers also found the shooter dead inside the store.
Police Chief Mike Krantz told reporters at a late-night news conference they believe the man entered the shopping center parking lot from a neighborhood behind it.
An AR-15-style rifle and shotgun were found “in close proximity to the shooter” when police arrived, Krantz said, adding that police fired no shots after arriving at the store.
There was a witness who believed there was a second gunman, but Krantz said their investigation has turned up “no evidence of a second shooter anywhere in the area.”
Krantz said close to 100 officers from several agencies were involved in the investigation of the “very large crime scene,” so it will take time to process the scene, including obtaining search warrants.
“Our hearts go out to the victims and their families,” Krantz said. “We know this is frightening for our community and something we would never want to happen in our city,” he said, promising that they are “following up on every lead.”
Krantz said police are aware of “information floating around social media” said to be postings by the gunman and are investigating them as well.
There also have been reports of shootings elsewhere in the city, the police chief said, but officers checking on those reports found “no evidence of other shootings in our community.” Specifically, he said, there was a report of shots fired in the area of Southeast Ninth Street and Reed Market Road, but police “found no evidence of a shooting there as well.”
“We ask the community to be patient as we work through” the investigation and to call in with any leads, to 911 if it’s an emergency, Krantz said. He also said he’d just learned of the one injured person and had no details.
Officers and medics rushed to the Forum Shopping Center just after 7 p.m. after numerous reports of gunshots and one or more victims and/or suspects.
The livestreamed news conference was held shortly before 11 p.m. (it begins about 2 minutes into the YouTube video):
Just before 8:30 p.m., St. Charles spokeswoman Lisa Goodman confirmed that they had received two people, one who was dead on arrival and another reported to be in good condition. A short time later, she said the hospital had been placed in a lockout.
Minutes later, Bend Police Communications Manager Sheila Miller told reporters three people had been shot and killed, including the alleged gunman.
Police responded to numerous calls just after 7 p.m. reporting shots fired at the Forum Shopping Center, she said.
Miller said at the gunman fired shots in the parking lot near the Costco and Big Lots stores, then entered the west entrance of Safeway.
“One person was shot inside the entrance,” she said, and was reported dead on arrival at St. Charles Bend.
“Police believe the shooter continued firing through the store, shooting and killing an additional person” toward the back, produce area, Miller said.
Police found the shooter, dead in the store.
The police spokeswoman said that a “shelter in place” warning was still in effect in the area “out of an abundance of caution.” Police planned a media briefing around 10:30 p.m. at police headquarters they said would be livestreamed on the city’s YouTube page, https://www.youtube.com/user/cityofbendoregon.
Goodman said shortly before 9 p.m. that “the hospital is on lockout and we are encouraging people to stay away unless they are experiencing a medical emergency.”
Still “shook up” two hours later, Safeway shopper Josh Caba told NewsChannel 21 about several terrifying minutes on a grocery run.
The Bend resident said his wife had stayed in the car, as she was not feeling well, while he went shopping with their four children.
“About 10 minutes later, we started heading to the front. Then we heard I don’t know how many shots out front – six or seven. I immediately turned to my children and said, ‘Run!’ People were screaming. … it was a horrifying experience.”
Worried about his wife, as it turned out, “by the grace and provision of God,” when he and three of their kids burst through the big black exit doors by the produce department, his wife had driven around back and “is sitting in the car, saying ‘Get in the car! Get in the car!’”
Caba said he went back in and found their fourth child, rushing her out of the store and to the car as well. He wanted to praise police for their actions.
“When I got out of that store and the kids were rounded up, they (officers) are running into the store. They are wonderful people. They deserve all the praise and credit in the world. It is absolutely more terrifying than you can imagine to have someone shooting at your kids. They are rock stars!”
Deschutes County 911 dispatchers received numerous calls just after 7 p.m. reporting multiple gunshots heard in the area of the shopping center, at Highway 20 and Northeast 27th Street.
Some callers reportedly said they saw someone dressed all black, while others said a male subject holding two duffel bags who may have entered the grocery store.
Others heard gunshots from the nearby Costco, to the east.
Bend police said in a tweet that there was “an active investigation in the area of The Forum Shopping Center. Please avoid the area. More updates to come as the investigation continues.”
Bend police, Oregon State Police, Deschutes County sheriff’s deputies, Oregon State Police and Bend Fire & Rescue medics converged on the scene, including numerous armed officers and armored vehicles, amid reports one or more suspects may have left the area.
Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, was captured by Moscow soon after the war began six months ago. Russia also holds adjacent territory along the left bank of the wide Dnieper River, while Ukraine maintains control of the right bank, including two cities, Nikopol and Marhanets, which are each about six miles from the plant.
“There are risks of hydrogen leakage and sputtering of radioactive substances, and the fire hazard is high,” Energoatom said Saturday.
Residential homes destroyed by Russian shelling in the town of Orikhiv near the Zaporizhzhia power plant on August 27, 2022.REUTERS/Dmytro Smolienko
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba claimed the entire continent is at risk over Russia turning the plant into a military base.
“For decades, nuclear safety has remained Ukraine’s top priority, especially given our tragic past. Russian invaders turned Zaporizhzhya NPP into a military base putting the entire continent at risk,” he said on Twitter. “Russian military must get out of the plant — they have nothing to do there!”
Residents who live near the plant began receiving iodine tablets last week in case they are exposed to dangerous radiation.
Russia captured Zaporizhzhia nucelar power plant at the beginning of the invasion.Planet Labs PBC via AP
If the plant’s cooling system for the nuclear reactors fail, it could lead to a nuclear meltdown. The plant was briefly knocked offline Thursday due to fire damage to a transmission line, officials said.
The US State Department said Sunday that Moscow refused to acknowledge the risk at the plant and blocked a nuclear non-proliferation draft agreement because that risk was mentioned.
While Russia occupies the plant complex, Ukraine workers have continued to run it. Both countries have pointed the finger at each other for sustained attacks near the complex.
A man clearing rubble from his home in Nikopol, Ukraine after Russian bombing on August 22, 2022.AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka
Igor Konashenkov, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson, said Sunday that Ukraine shelled the plant twice over the last day, with some of the shells falling near buildings that store reactor fuel and radioactive waste.
Meanwhile, fighting in the area overnight led to parts of the Ukrainian city of Nikopol without electricity, said Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region.
Rockets also damaged roughly a dozen homes in Marhanets, said Yevhen Yevtushenko, the administration head for the district that includes the city.
A building damaged by Russian shelling in Slovyansk in the Donetsk region of Ukraine on August 28, 2022.REUTERS/Ammar Awad
About 25 miles upriver from the nuclear plant, the city of Zaporizhzhia also faced fire during the night, leaving two people injured, according to Anatoliy Kurten, a city council member.
Downriver from the plant, the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant and nearby city were struck by Ukrainian rockets three times Sunday, according to Vladimir Leontyev, a Russia-installed local administration head.
The plant’s dam is a crucial roadway across the river and possibly a key supply route for Russian forces.
Shelling hit the cities of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk in eastern Ukraine as Russian and separatist forces are trying to take over that area. No casualties were reported, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region.
One Slovyansk resident told the Associated Press as he was falling asleep, an explosion blew out his apartment windows.
“I opened my eyes and saw how the window frame was flying over me, the frame and pieces of broken glass,” said Konstiantyn Daineko.
Much of the Donetsk region is held by Russian and separatist forces. It is one of two regions in Ukraine that Russia sees as sovereign states.
(CNN)Severe rains and flooding have killed at least 1,033 people, including 348 children, and left 1,527 more injured in Pakistan since mid-June, officials said on Sunday.
New Hampshire Gov. Sununu said on CNN’s State of the Union that he opposes student loan forgiveness.
He called education debt relief is “inherently unfair” and Biden’s loan cancellation “fairly illegal.”
New Hampshire residents have among the highest rates of student loan indebtedness in the country.
New Hampshire GOP Gov. Chris Sununu said on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday that he opposes loan forgiveness measures, despite the benefits the financial relief could offer to his constituents.
Sununu’s home state is ranked as having the highest rate of student loan indebtedness this year by personal finance site WalletHub, with an average of $34,085 in outstanding loans, according to the Education Data Initiative.
“I take kind of exception with individuals, especially out of Washington, saying, this is a student loan crisis,” Sununu told CNN’s Dana Bash. “What’s the crisis? Folks get a degree. They get a job. We have more high-paying jobs than ever before for young people. They’re low-interest loans. They have been deferred for a couple of years.”
Nationwide, the average federal student loan debt balance is $37,667, an amount that 83% of non-homeowners say is preventing them from buying a home, according to the National Association of Realtors. Prior to the moratorium on student loan payments implemented during the pandemic, the average monthly loan payment was $300.
“The average loan is — it’s high,” Sununu told CNN. “It’s about $43,000 in America. That’s a lot of money. But you can write that $200 or $300 check a month and pay it. One thing I looked at which was kind of interesting, we have — the average home loan in America is about $240,000, right, five times — four or five times what the student loan is. Do we have a home loan crisis, right? How about auto loans? Are we going to pay off auto loans next?”
Just under 10% of mortgage loans in 2020 were backed by Federal Housing Administration loans, while about 92% of student loans are held by the Department of Education.
Prior to the administration of Bill Clinton, the federal government owned zero student loans, but the debts now account for nearly 20% of all US government assets, according to a 2020 financial report. In the event of defaulting on a loan, the government has wide-reaching abilities to get their funds back, including garnishing wages and tax returns. Student loans are also more difficult to discharge in bankruptcy than other types of loans.
“[I]t’s inherently unfair, right?” Sununu told CNN. “It’s arbitrarily picking a group of individuals, and we’re going to arbitrarily just cancel their debt with a stroke of a pen, which, again, not even going through Congress. That’s fairly illegal. It adds hundreds of billions of dollars at a time where we’re trying to bring inflation under control. That’s exacerbating the inflationary crisis.”
While some lawmakers, largely Republican, have questioned the legality of President Biden’s action this week to forgive between $10,000 and $20,000 in debt for federal borrowers making under $125,000, the White House argued the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (“HEROES”) Act of 2003 — first enacted in the wake of the September 11 attacks to grant relief from student loan requirements during specific periods of national emergency — “grants the Secretary [of Education] authority that could be used to effectuate a program of targeted loan cancellation directed at addressing the financial harms of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Representatives for Sununu did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
DETROIT (AP) — Four people were shot, three fatally, by a man who appeared to be firing at people randomly over a roughly 2 1/2-hour period Sunday morning in Detroit, police said.
Police arrested the unidentified suspect Sunday evening after and hourslong manhunt with help from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Detroit Police Chief James White said tips led officers to the suspect, but did not release further information.
“Thank you to the hard working men and women of the DPD that put themselves in harm’s way each day. Also, a big thank you to our law enforcement partners,” the department said on its Facebook page Sunday night.
White said police traced all four shootings to one firearm and believe there is one shooter. He said investigators don’t believe there was any connection between the victims, noting one person was walking a dog and another waiting for a bus when they were shot.
He said police discovered a woman in her 40s who had been shot multiple times around 4:45 a.m. on Sunday. While officers were investigating that fatal shooting, a witness reported a 28-year-old man had been shot multiple times nearby, White said.
A third victim, a woman in her 40s, was found in the area around 6:50 a.m. She died after being shot multiple times, police said.
Around 7:10 a.m., an elderly man reported he saw a man peering into vehicles. When the elderly man told the person to get away from the cars, the gunman fired at the elderly man, who was shot once and survived, police said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday warned of “riots in the streets” if former President Trump is prosecuted for his handling of classified materials found when the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago home.
“If there’s a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information, after the Clinton debacle… there’ll be riots in the streets,” Graham told former South Carolina congressman Trey Gowdy, who now hosts Fox News’ “Sunday Night in America.”
Trump shared a clip of the interview on Truth Social later Sunday evening.
Gowdy was chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, which probed the 2012 terror attacks in Libya that left four Americans dead and uncovered a private email server used by Clinton.
Graham expressed concern that Trump is treated with “a double standard” and repeated his warning of riots regarding the Georgia special grand jury investigating attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.
Graham himself has been subpoenaed in that probe in connection with phone calls made to Georgia election officials seeking to change the election results in the state.
The South Carolina senator on Sunday also talked about claims that the FBI was told to “back off” investigating Hunter Biden’s laptop to keep stories about the president’s son out of headlines ahead of the 2020 election.
“Most Republicans, including me, believes when it comes to Trump, there is no law. It’s all about getting him,” Graham said.
“I’ve never been more worried about the law and politics as I am right now,” he added.
SAN ANTONIO — Texas Democratic gubernatorial nominee Beto O’Rourke said Sunday that he had cleared his campaign schedule after receiving treatment at a San Antonio hospital for an unspecified bacterial infection.
In a statement tweeted Sunday by his campaign, O’Rourke said he sought treatment at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio after feeling ill Friday.
Intravenous antibiotic infusions improved his symptoms, O’Rourke said.
“While my symptoms have improved, I will be resting at home in El Paso in accordance with the doctors’ recommendations,” he said. “I am sorry to have had to postpone events because of this, but (I) promise to be back on the road as soon as I am able.”
O’Rourke continues to trail Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in opinion polls before the Nov. 8 general elections.
It is not clear how much the appointment of a special master would slow or complicate the government’s review of the material. Mr. Trump’s team has suggested that it would be a first step toward challenging the validity of the search warrant; but it also gives the Justice Department, which is expected to respond this week, an opportunity to air new details in public through their legal filings.
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The release on Aug. 26 of a partly redacted affidavit used by the Justice Department to justify its search of former President Donald J. Trump’s Florida residence included information that provides greater insight into the ongoing investigation into how he handled documents he took with him from the White House. Here are the key takeaways:
The government tried to retrieve the documents for more than a year. The affidavit showed that the National Archives asked Mr. Trump as early as May 2021 for files that needed to be returned. In January, the agency was able to collect 15 boxes of documents. The affidavit included a letter from May 2022 showing that Trump’s lawyers knew that he might be in possession of classified materials and that the Justice Department was investigating the matter.
Prosecutors are concerned about obstruction and witness intimidation. To obtain the search warrant, the Justice Department had to lay out possible crimes to a judge, and obstruction of justice was among them. In a supporting document, the Justice Department said it had “well-founded concerns that steps may be taken to frustrate or otherwise interfere with this investigation if facts in the affidavit were prematurely disclosed.”
Some of the Trump lawyers’ efforts have also appeared ineffective or misdirected. Mr. Corcoran, in his May 25 letter, made much of Mr. Trump’s powers to declassify material as president, and cited a specific law on the handling of classified material that he said did not apply to a president. The search warrant, however, said federal agents would be seeking evidence of three potential crimes, none of which relied on the classification status of the documents found at Mar-a-Lago; the law on the handling of classified material cited by Mr. Corcoran in the letter was not among them.
Two lawyers who are working with Mr. Trump on the documents case — Mr. Corcoran and Jim Trusty — have prosecutorial experience with the federal government. But the team was put together quickly.
Mr. Trusty was hired after Mr. Trump saw him on television, people close to the former president have said. Mr. Corcoran came in during the spring, introduced by another Trump adviser during a conference call in which Mr. Corcoran made clear he was willing to take on a case that many of Mr. Trump’s other advisers were seeking to avoid, people briefed on the discussion said.
What we consider before using anonymous sources. How do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.
Mr. Trump’s allies have reached out to several other lawyers, but have repeatedly been turned down.
Mr. Corcoran in particular has raised eyebrows within the Justice Department for his statements to federal officials during the documents investigation. People briefed on the investigation say officials are uncertain whether Mr. Corcoran was intentionally evasive, or simply unaware of all the material still kept at Mar-a-Lago and found during the Aug. 8 search by the F.B.I.
Mr. Corcoran did not respond to a request for comment. Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said only that Mr. Trump and his legal team “continue to assert his rights and expose the Biden administration’s misuse of the Presidential Records Act, which governs all pertinent facts, has been complied with and has no enforcement mechanism.”
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“We need supplies. We need a road,” Abdul Rasheed, 60, tells us while speaking of his ordeal. He has lost his wagon to the flood – his only means of earning money to feed his family.
Washington (CNN)Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke announced Sunday that he has been diagnosed with a “bacterial infection” and after receiving care at the hospital, he will be “resting at home,” postponing events in his campaign against GOP Gov. Greg Abbott.
KYIV, Ukraine — Artillery barrages along a section of the front line near an imperiled nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine struck towns, ammunition dumps and a Russian military base in intense fighting overnight, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday.
Reports of fighting all along the southern front suggested that neither side was pausing hostilities, even amid complex negotiations to allow for a team of scientists from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which has been repeatedly damaged by recent shelling. The plant is controlled by the Russian military but operated by Ukrainian engineers.
The I.A.E.A. said Sunday that talks were ongoing with the goal of sending a team to the plant “in the next few days,” noting that the latest shelling “once again underlined the risk of a potential nuclear accident.”
The team would assess physical damage to the plant, determine whether the main and backup safety and security systems were functional and evaluate the staff’s working conditions, the I.A.E.A. said in a statement.
Russian forces fired rocket artillery and howitzers overnight at the Ukraine-controlled town of Nikopol, across from the plant on the opposite side of the Dnipro River, which separates the two armies in the area, a local military official, Valentin Reznichenko, said. The strikes damaged several houses and cars and knocked out electricity for 1,500 residents, he said in a post on the Telegram social networking site.
In a separate assault on the town, Russian helicopters fired rockets, according to the Ukrainian military, which reported damage to a house but no casualties.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its Air Force had hit Ukrainian workshops where helicopters were being repaired in the surrounding Zaporizka region, according to the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. The claim could not be independently verified.
Artillery shells have already hit the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, damaging auxiliary equipment and power lines but not the reactors. The strikes — for which each side blames the other — have stirred fears of a radiation release if combat rages on in this area, an expanse of farm fields along the banks of the Dnipro.
After fighting severed one high-tension electrical line last week, operators in the control rooms implemented emergency procedures to cool the reactor cores with pumps powered by diesel generators. The electrical line has since been repaired.
In a sign of mounting worry over a possible radiation release in a country still haunted by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, a Ukrainian official announced on Saturday that the government would distribute a drug, potassium iodide, that can protect against some radiation poisoning, to people within 35 miles of the plant.
Plant employees and outside experts say an artillery strike would not penetrate the yard-thick reinforced concrete of the containment vessels over the sites’ six reactors, but could damage the reactors’ complex supporting equipment or spark fires that could burn out of control. Artillery strikes could also breach less robust containers used to store spent nuclear fuel.
Ukrainian forces also reported striking targets behind Russian lines in occupied areas of southern Ukraine. The Ukrainian military claimed to have hit two Russian ammunition dumps in Kherson Province.
On the east bank of the Dnipro, a massive explosion early on Sunday shook windows and caused plaster to rain down from ceilings in the Russia-controlled city of Melitopol, according to the city’s exiled Ukrainian mayor, Ivan Fedorov.
Mr. Fedorov said the explosion had destroyed “one of the largest enemy military bases,” although the claim could not be verified. The base, he said, had been set up on the grounds of a factory complex.
Mississippi’s governor, Tate Reeves, declared a state of emergency on Saturday as the state braces itself for massive flooding that was predicted for Monday.
“If predictions prove accurate, the Pearl River is expected to crest on Monday, August 29th, at 36 feet,” several feet over what is considered a major flood stage, Reeves said. “This is 24 hours sooner than originally predicted.”
Usually, a flood stage is considered “major” at 26ft, CNN reports. However, the state’s current flood warnings estimate floods to reach 34ft in certain areas, while others are likely to see 35.8ft of water, threatening homes and businesses in areas that were damaged by severe flooding in 2020 as the global climate crisis continues fueling extreme weather.
“If your home flooded in 2020, there is a high probab[ility] it will happen again,” Reeves said. The governor added: “I want to strongly encourage everyone to remain calm. Be aware, but don’t panic. I encourage individuals in the flood zones to be cautious, take appropriate precautions and evacuate if necessary.”
So far, the state has deployed 126,000 sandbags and put search and rescue teams on standby. Additionally, the Mississippi emergency management agency has drones in the air to assess water levels along the Pearl River.
The mayor of Mississippi’s capitol of Jackson, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, has urged residents in flood zones to pack enough belongings to get them through an evacuation that is several days long. He said law enforcement officers will increase patrols to protect property.
“Don’t allow that to be an impediment for you saving your life and saving the lives of those other individuals in your home,” Lumumba said during a news conference Friday.
Suzannah Thames, who owns a rental home in Jackson that was filled with dirty, snake-infested flood water when the Pearl River overflowed its banks in 2020, spoke with the Associated Press.
Thames on Friday pointed to a column on the front porch to show how deep the water was then – about up to her waist. She’s now getting ready for another inundation, days after storms dumped torrential rainfall in Mississippi and other parts of the deep south.
Hydrologists predict the Pearl River near Jackson will crest – or reach its peak level before subsiding – by Tuesday somewhat short of the levels it reached two years ago. But emergency officials are telling people in low-lying areas to prepare for homes and businesses to be flooded after river levels increased dramatically as a result of those torrential rains.
Thames hired a crew to move furniture, appliances and other belongings out of the three-bedroom home that she now rents to a newly married couple – a medical student and engineer who plans to stay in a short-term vacation rental.
“We’re fortunate that we have two trailers,” Thames said as she oversaw the move. “There’s people who don’t have anything. There’s people who are going to lose everything.”
Second-year medical student Emily Davis and her husband, engineer Andrew Bain, rent the white-brick home from Thames in north-east Jackson. Davis said the couple knew they were moving into a flood zone, but this is the first time she’s ever had to prepare for high water.
“I’ve felt really stressed because there’s so much to do – so much more than I realized,” Davis said as workers hoisted items into moving vans.
Thames said the rental home is covered by flood insurance, and she lives in an elevated house nearby. She said her house is built 4ft (1.2 meters) above the line of a massive 1979 flood.
Thames said she wants officials to move forward with a long-discussed plan to build another lake near Jackson to control flooding in the capital city’s metro area. The project has stalled amid funding problems and opposition from people downstream along the Pearl River.
The Mississippi floods come amid a summer of extreme weather events that occurred across the country. Over a dozen people died in Kentucky last month as historic floods in the eastern parts of the state left behind a trail of devastation. Record flooding and mudslides in June forced Yellowstone national park – which spans parts of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho – to close as numerous roads and bridges were washed out.
Meanwhile, a triple-digit heatwave in the Pacific north-west last month caused at least four deaths as climate change continues to fuel longer heat spells in a region where such occurrences are rare.
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