11 Russian troops slain at shooting range as fighting rages

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — At least 11 Russian soldiers were killed Saturday in a shooting incident that underlined the challenges posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin's hasty mobilization, just as Ukrainian troops pressed an offensive to reclaim the areas in the country's south that were illegally annexed by Moscow.

The Russian Defense Ministry said two men opened fire at volunteer soldiers during a target practice session in western Russia, killing 11 of them and wounding 15 others before being killed themselves. The ministry called it a terror attack.

Russia has lost ground in the nearly seven weeks since Ukraine’s armed forces opened their southern counteroffensive. This week, the Kremlin launched what is believed to be its largest coordinated air and missile raids on Ukraine's key infrastructure since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.

In the continuation of those attacks, a missile strike Saturday seriously damaged a key energy facility in Ukraine's capital region, the country's grid operator said. Following mounting setbacks, the Russian military has worked to cut off power and water in far-flung populated areas while also fending off Ukrainian counterattacks in occupied areas.

In the Zaporizhzhia region, Gov. Oleksandr Starukh said the Russian military carried out strikes with suicide drones from Iran and long-range S-300 missiles. Some experts said the Russian military’s use of the surface-to-air missiles may reflect shortages of dedicated precision weapons for hitting ground targets.

Raleigh shooting rampage shatters quiet neighborhood's peace

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — For Hedingham resident Marvin Judd, Nicole Connors and her beloved wire-haired dog, Sami, were as much a fixture of his routine as his daily drive to get an egg-and-cheese biscuit for breakfast.

“I’d see her walking that dog,” said Judd, 76, who’s lived in the densely developed neighborhood in Raleigh's eastern outskirts for 20 years. “And I’d stop and talk to her on my way out and on my way back in.”

Judd would talk to the human resources specialist “about the Lord.” When she had microsurgery on her left shoulder, he offered the 52-year-old former Catholic schoolgirl spiritual comfort.

“I would tell her that God is going to heal her,” he said.

Connors recently told Judd she was almost finished with rehabilitation. And, then, she was gone — and the peace of Hedingham was shattered.

Violent week a grim sign as targeted killings of police rise

SEATTLE (AP) — The shooting deaths of two Connecticut officers and wounding of a third punctuated an especially violent week for police across the U.S. and fit into a grim pattern: Even as more officers left their jobs in the past two years, the number targeted and killed rose.

According to organizations that track violence against police, 56 officers have been killed by gunfire this year — 14% more than this time last year and about 45% ahead of 2020's pace. The country is on track for the deadliest year since 67 officers were killed in 2016.

While the figures include a few officers killed by accidental gunfire, the number of ambushes in which police were injured or killed in surprise attacks with little chance to defend themselves has soared since 2020 and accounts for nearly half the officers killed this year.

Such an attack apparently struck Wednesday in Bristol, Connecticut, where the state police said Bristol Police Sgt. Dustin Demonte and Officer Alex Hamzy were killed and Officer Alec Iurato was wounded when they responded to a 911 call that appears to have been “a deliberate act to lure law enforcement to the scene.”

At least 11 police officers were shot around the country this week, including one fatally in Greenville, Mississippi, and another in Las Vegas.

Blaze, shots heard from prison in Iran capital amid protests

BAGHDAD (AP) — A huge fire blazed Saturday at a notorious prison where political prisoners and anti-government activists are kept in the Iranian capital. Online videos and local media reported gunshots, as nationwide protests entered a fifth week.

Iran's state-run IRNA reported that there were clashes between prisoners in one ward and prison personnel, citing a senior security official. The official said prisoners set fire to a warehouse full of prison uniforms, which caused the blaze. He said the “rioters” were separated from the other prisoners to de-escalate the conflict.

The official said that the “situation is completely under control" and that firefighters were extinguishing the flames. Later, Tehran prosecutor Ali Salehi said that “peace” had returned to the prison and that the unrest was not related to the protests which have swept the country for four weeks.

Footage of the blaze circulated online. Videos showed shots ringing out as plumes of smoke engulfed the sky in Tehran amid the sound of an alarm.

Witnesses said that police blocked roads and highways to Evin prison and that at least three strong explosions were heard coming from the area. Traffic was heavy along major motorways near the prison, which is in the north of the capital, and many people honked to show their solidarity with protests.

New UK Treasury chief: Mistakes were made, tax rises coming

LONDON (AP) — Britain's new Treasury chief on Saturday acknowledged mistakes made by his predecessor and suggested that he may reverse much of Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss' tax-cutting plans in order to bring stability to the country after weeks of economic and political turbulence.

Jeremy Hunt, who was brought in Friday to replace Kwasi Kwarteng as Treasury chief and restore order in Truss' administration, warned of “difficult decisions” to come. He said taxes could rise and public spending budgets would likely be squeezed further in the coming months.

Truss on Friday fired Kwarteng and ditched her pledge to scrap a planned increase in corporation tax as she sought to hang on to her job — after just six weeks in office.

Truss, a free-market libertarian, had previously insisted that her tax-cutting plans were what Britain needs to boost economic growth. But a “mini-budget” that she and Kwarteng unveiled three weeks ago, which promised 45 billion pounds ($50 billion) in tax cuts without explaining how the government would pay for them, sent the markets and the British pound tumbling and left her credibility in tatters.

The policies, which included cutting income tax for those on the highest incomes, were also widely criticized for being tone-deaf in the face of Britain's cost-of-living crisis.

Biden’s late push across West aims to deliver votes for Dems

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — President Joe Biden strode into the telephone bank at a crowded union hall and eagerly began making calls and eating doughnuts — one frosted, one glazed — as he tries every page in the political playbook to deliver votes for Democrats.

"What a governor does matters,” Biden said in a pep talk to volunteers who were making Friday night calls for Oregon gubernatorial hopeful Tina Kotek and other candidates. “It matters! It matters, it matters, it matters!”

Before leaving Portland on Saturday, the president attended a union hall reception for Kotek as he tried to boost her chances in a three-way race that could cost Democrats a reliably blue governor's seat. He also gave a speech at a community center, warning that his administration's progress “goes away, gone” if Republicans take control of Congress in the midterm elections.

Portland was the final stop on a four-day swing through Oregon, California and Colorado that has encapsulated Biden's strategy for turning out voters on Election Day, Nov. 8: flex the levers of government to help boost candidates, promote an agenda aimed at strengthening an uncertain economy and haul in campaign cash.

And this: show up for candidates when Biden can be helpful, steer clear of places where a visit from a president with approval ratings under 50% isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Musk has a 'super app' plan for Twitter. It's super vague

Elon Musk has a penchant for the letter “X.” He calls his son with the singer Grimes, whose actual name is a collection of letters and symbols, “X.” He named the company he created to buy Twitter "X Holdings." His rocket company is, naturally, SpaceX.

Now he also apparently intends to morph Twitter into an “everything app” he calls X.

For months, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has expressed interest in creating his own version of China’s WeChat — a “super app” that does video chats, messaging, streaming and payments — for the rest of the world. At least, that is, once he's done buying Twitter after months of legal infighting over the $44 billion purchase agreement he signed in April.

There are just a few obstacles. First is that a Musk-owned Twitter wouldn't be the only global company in pursuit of this goal, and in fact would probably be playing catch-up with its rivals. Next is the question of whether anyone really wants a Twitter-based everything app— or any other super app — to begin with.

Start with the competition and consumer demand. Facebook parent Meta has spent years trying to make its flagship platform a destination for everything online, adding payments, games, shopping and even dating features to its social network. So far, it's had little success; nearly all of its revenue still comes from advertising.

Death toll rises to 41 in Turkey coal mine explosion

AMASRA, Turkey (AP) — Funerals for miners killed in a coal mine explosion in northern Turkey began Saturday as officials raised the death toll to at least 41 people.

Desperate relatives had waited all night in the cold outside the state-owned Turkish Hard Coal Enterprise's (TTK) mine in the town of Amasra, in the Black Sea coastal province of Bartin, hoping for news. There were 110 miners working several hundred meters below ground at the time of the explosion on Friday evening.

Their wait turned to devastation by Saturday noon. Women cried at the funeral of miner Selcuk Ayvaz, whose coffin was wrapped in the red and white Turkish flag. Another miner, 28-year-old Aziz Kose, held his newborn baby just days ago. They mostly came from working-class families and went underground to the coal mines to make a living.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived at the scene and said the body of one missing miner had finally been reached, confirming 41 were dead. Erdogan was flanked by officials, miners and rescuers, as he vowed to bring an end to mining disasters, while saying he believes in “fate.”

“We don’t want to see deficiencies or unnecessary risks,” Erdogan said, and added that an investigation would reveal if anyone is responsible for the blast. He then joined funeral prayers for Rahman Ozcelik, 22, at a village where Turkish media said three other miners were also being mourned.

California baker creates life-sized Han Solo out of bread

BENICIA, Calif. (AP) — Han Solo may be a hunk. But “Pan Solo" is a hunk of bread.

That's what a bakery in the San Francisco Bay Area has dubbed its 6-foot (1.8 meter) bread sculpture of the “Star Wars" character as he appeared after being frozen in carbonite in “The Empire Strikes Back."

Hanalee Pervan and her mother, Catherine Pervan, co-owners of One House Bakery in Benicia, California, spent weeks molding, baking and assembling the life-sized sculpture using wood and two types of dough, including a type of yeastless dough with a higher sugar content that will last longer.

The two worked at night, after the day's business was done. The lovingly crafted details show Han Solo's anguished face and his hands straining to reach out.

Hanalee said she might have gotten a bit obsessed.

In France, fuel crisis frays nerves and workers' resilience

VERSAILLES, France (AP) — Even close to midnight on a school night, the tipoff was too important to ignore: A nearby gas station had just been resupplied.

So Aicha Far scooped up her 6-year-old and set off into the night. The home carer needed to refuel her car so she could continue looking after the vulnerable people on the outskirts of Paris who rely on her to keep them fed, clean and safe. The prospect of a full tank was worth dragging the kid out of bed for.

“I wrapped him in a blanket and put him in the back,” Far recalled on Saturday, as she gently coaxed an older woman she looks after to drink her breakfast hot chocolate.

Chronic fuel shortages in France sparked by strikes and panic buying are fraying nerves and testing both the resilience and ingenuity of millions of French workers who depend on their vehicles to do their jobs.

More than a quarter of gas stations nationwide were still without one type of fuel or more on Saturday, the French energy minister said. In the Paris region, the number was above a third.

Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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