AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EST

Officials: Russia at 70 percent of Ukraine military buildup

WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia has assembled at least 70 percent of the military firepower it likely intends to have in place by mid-month to give President Vladimir Putin the option of launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, U.S. officials say.

The officials, who discussed internal assessments of the Russian buildup on condition they not be identified, sketched out a series of indicators suggesting Putin intends an invasion in coming weeks, although the size and scale are unclear. They stressed that a diplomatic solution appears to remain possible.

Among those military indicators: an exercise of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces that usually is held each fall was rescheduled for mid-February to March. That coincides with what U.S. officials see as the most likely window for invasion. The officials made no suggestion that a prospective conflict would involve the use of nuclear weapons, but the Russian exercise — likely involving the test-launching of unarmed long-range missiles on Russian territory — could be used as a message aimed at deterring the West from intervening in Ukraine.

U.S. officials have said in recent weeks that a Russian invasion could overwhelm Ukraine’s military relatively quickly, although Moscow might find it difficult to sustain an occupation and cope with a potential insurgency.

The ongoing Russian buildup comes as the Biden administration has been disclosing intelligence in hopes of preemptively countering Russian disinformation and blocking Putin’s plans for creating a pretext for an invasion. But it has come under criticism for not providing evidence to back up many of its claims.

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Olympics Live: 2 Aussie curlers out of Games due to COVID

BEIJING (AP) — The Latest on the Beijing Winter Olympics:

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Australia’s first-ever Olympic mixed doubles curling team has pulled out of the Beijing Games after Tahli Gill returned a series of positive COVID-19 tests.

The Australian Olympic Committee said it was trying to make arrangements to have Gill and Dean Hewitt fly home rather than having Gill remain in an isolation hotel. They will miss their final two games and finish 0-7 in round robin play.

Gill contracted COVID-19 prior to the games. Ongoing testing alternated between negative and positive. She had been allowed to compete under the close contact arrangements after discussions with the IOC and games organizers.

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Trump’s GOP: Party further tightens tie to former president

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — In 2016, Donald Trump overtook the Republican National Committee through a shock and awe campaign that stunned party leaders. In 2020, the party was obligated to support him as the sitting Republican president.

Heading into 2024, however, the Republican Party has a choice.

The RNC, which controls the party’s rules and infrastructure, is under no obligation to support Trump again. In fact, the GOP’s bylaws specifically require neutrality should more than one candidate seek the party’s presidential nomination.

But as Republican officials from across the country gathered in Utah this week for the RNC’s winter meeting, party leaders devoted considerable energy to disciplining Trump’s rivals and embracing his grievances. As the earliest stages of the next presidential contest take shape, their actions made clear that choosing to serve Trump and his political interests remains a focus for the party.

“If President Trump decides he’s running, absolutely the RNC needs to back him, 100%,” said Michele Fiore, an RNC committeewoman who has represented Nevada since 2018. “We can change the bylaws.”

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Olympic teams raise concerns over quarantine hotels

BEIJING (AP) — Not enough food. Inedible meals. No training equipment. Some Olympic athletes unlucky enough to test positive for the coronavirus at the Beijing Olympics feel their quarantine conditions are making a bad situation much worse.

“My stomach hurts, I’m very pale and I have huge black circles around my eyes. I want all this to end. I cry every day. I’m very tired,” Russian biathlon competitor Valeria Vasnetsova posted on Instagram from one of Beijing’s so-called quarantine hotels.

Her problem wasn’t with any symptoms of the virus. It was the food.

Vasnetsova posted a picture Thursday of what she said was “breakfast, lunch and dinner for five days already” — a tray with food including plain pasta, an orange sauce, charred meat on a bone, a few potatoes and no greens.

She said she mostly survived on a few pieces of pasta because it was “impossible” to eat the rest, “but today I ate all the fat they serve instead of meat because I was very hungry.” She added she lost a lot of weight and “my bones are already sticking out.”

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Morocco’s king says boy, 5, trapped in deep well has died

IGHRAN, Morocco (AP) — A 5-year-old boy who was trapped for four days in a deep well in Morocco has died, the royal palace said Saturday.

Moroccan King Mohammed VI expressed his condolences to the boy’s parents in a statement released by the palace.

The boy, Rayan, was pulled out Saturday night by rescuers after a lengthy operation that captivated global attention.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw the boy wrapped in a yellow blanket after he emerged from a tunnel dug specifically for the rescue.

His parents, Khaled Oram and Wassima Khersheesh had been escorted to an ambulance before the boy emerged. His plight had captured worldwide attention.

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Looking for evidence? Trust us, Biden administration says

WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Biden’s administration was asked for evidence to back up dramatic claims about national security developments this past week, it demurred with a simple rejoinder: You’ll have to trust us on that.

No, they would not reveal what led them to say they knew that Russia was plotting a false flag operation as a pretext to invade Ukraine. No, they would not explain their confidence that civilian casualties were caused by a suicide bombing rather than U.S. special forces during a raid in Syria.

The administration’s response took a particularly caustic turn as spokespeople suggested that reporters were buying into foreign propaganda by even asking such questions.

The lack of transparency strained already depleted reserves of credibility in Washington, a critical resource diminished over the decades by instances of lies, falsehoods and mistakes on everything from extramarital affairs to the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The exchanges were also a sign of increased skepticism of the Biden administration when it comes to intelligence and military matters, particularly after officials failed to anticipate how swiftly the Afghan government would fall to the Taliban last year and initially defended a U.S. missile attack in Kabul as a “righteous strike” before the Pentagon confirmed the action had killed several civilians but no terrorists.

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Queen backs plan to one day call son’s wife “Queen Camilla”

LONDON (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II offered her support Saturday to have the Duchess of Cornwall become Queen Camilla — using a special Platinum Jubilee message to make a significant decision in shaping the future of the British monarchy.

In remarks delivered on the eve of the 70th anniversary of her accession to the throne, the monarch expressed a “sincere wish’’ that Camilla be known as “Queen Consort” when her eldest son Charles, the Prince of Wales, succeeds her as expected to the throne. In giving her blessing, the popular and respected sovereign is placing significant heft behind the move.

‘’When, in the fullness of time, my son Charles becomes king, I know you will give him and his wife Camilla the same support that you have given me,’’ the monarch wrote. “And it is my sincere wish that, when that time comes, Camilla will be known as Queen Consort as she continues her own loyal service.”

The message ties up a loose end that has hung over the House of Windsor since Charles’ divorce from the popular Princess Diana.

It took years for many in Britain to forgive Charles, the man whose admitted infidelity brought such pain to “the people’s princess” before she died in a Paris car crash in 1997. But the public mood softened after Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005 and she became the Duchess of Cornwall.

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Joe Rogan apologizes for racial slur after video surfaces

NEW YORK (AP) — Spotify’s popular U.S. podcaster Joe Rogan apologized Saturday after a video compilation surfaced that showed him using a racial slur in clips of episodes over a 12-year span.

In a video posted on his Instagram account, Rogan, who hosts a podcast called “The Joe Rogan Experience,” said his use of the slur was the “most regretful and shameful thing that I’ve ever had to talk about publicly.” But he said the clips were “taken out of context.”

“It’s not my word to use. I am well aware of that now, but for years I used it in that manner,” he said during the six-minute video on his Instagram account. “I never used it to be racist because I’m not racist.”

Rogan’s mea culpa follows Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter India.Arie’s announcement on Thursday that she was removing her music from the Spotify streaming service because of the racial slur that Rogan had made during his podcasts. She posted the video montage of Rogan’s clips on her Instagram account. Rogan, who launched his podcast in late 2009, didn’t specify which years he used the racial slur.

In her video, Arie said even if some of Rogan’s conversations were taken out of context, “he shouldn’t be uttering the word.”

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Mass swarm of dead fish in Atlantic prompts European inquiry

PARIS (AP) — France and the European Union are investigating why a massive swarm of dead fish was released by a huge trawler in the Atlantic Ocean off France, after an environmental group released dramatic video and photos of the incident.

The images by the group Sea Shepherd show a blanket of dead blue whiting fish floating on the surface of the Bay of Biscay, off the coast of southwest France. The group estimates it held some 100,000 dead fish.

Struck by the “shocking” images, French Maritime Minister Annick Girardin tweeted Friday that she ordered the National Center for Fishing Surveillance to investigate what happened.

The European commissioner for the environment, oceans and fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevicius, announced an inquiry into “national authorities of the fishing area and presumed flag state of the vessel, to get exhaustive information and evidence about the case.”

The Pelagic Freezer-Trawler Association, which represents the Lithuania-registered trawler Margiris, which caught the fish, said in a statement that the fish were “involuntarily released into the sea” on Thursday because of a tear in the trawler’s net.

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EXPLAINER: How to stage Olympics in a snow-challenged city

BEIJING (AP) — Dry Beijing barely gets any winter precipitation, making this year’s Winter Games the first to rely almost entirely on artificial snow. Organizers are touting the event’s green credentials, but experts do worry about the environmental impact of such a massive snowmaking operation given the huge amounts of water and electricity it takes.

At Yanqing north of Beijing, where organizers built the alpine ski venue from scratch, the slopes stand out as ribbons of white contrasting starkly against the surrounding brown hillsides. Snowmakers have also been deployed farther north in Zhangjiakou, which is hosting freestyle skiing, ski jumping and biathlon.

All of it is the product of months of snowmaking using sophisticated European equipment.

Here’s a closer look at the Olympic snowmaking operation:

HOW IT WORKS