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

Election 2022: JD Vance wins Ohio’s GOP Senate primary

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Bestselling author JD Vance has won Ohio’s contentious and hyper-competitive GOP Senate primary, buoyed by Donald Trump’s endorsement in a race widely seen as an early test of the former president’s hold on his party as the midterm season kicks into high gear.

Vance’s win brings to a close an exceptionally bitter and expensive primary contest that, at one point, saw two candidates nearly come to blows on a debate stage. And it marks a major victory for Trump, who has staked his reputation as a GOP kingmaker on his ability to pull his chosen candidates across the finish line.

Vance had been behind in the polls before Trump waded into the race less than three weeks ago, endorsing the “Hillbilly Elegy” author and venture capitalist despite Vance’s history as a staunch Trump critic. Vance has since said he was wrong and, like most of his rivals, tied himself to the former president, eagerly courting his endorsement and running on his “America First” platform, underscoring the extent to which the GOP has transformed in his image.

Vance will face Democrat Tim Ryan, the 10-term Democratic congressman who easily won his three-way primary Tuesday night. But November’s general election to fill the seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Rob Portman is expected to be an uphill climb for Ryan in a state Trump won twice by an 8-point margin and in what is expected to be a brutal election year for Democrats trying to hold their congressional majorities.

Tuesday marks the first multistate contest of the 2022 campaign and comes the day after the leak of a draft U.S. Supreme Court opinionthat suggests the court could be poised to overturn the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. Such a decision could have a dramatic impact on the course of the midterms, when control of Congress, governors’ mansions and key elections offices are at stake.

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‘Still in shock.’ Abortion defenders, foes stunned by leak

The phones inside an Alabama abortion clinic were ringing off the hook: the callers wanted to know if abortion remains legal. And, if so, for how long?

A leaked Supreme Court draft opinion was ricocheting around the world.

As Dalton Johnson, the clinic’s owner, read it Monday night, he was struck by the bluntness of the language that would end the constitutional right to an abortion,closing clinics in about half of American states, including his.

“I’m still in shock,” Johnson said Tuesday as he scrambled to reassure his staff and patients they would continue providing abortions as long as they’re allowed in Alabama.

People on both sides of the abortion divide have been expecting the Supreme Court this summer to reverse the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade cas e that legalized abortion nationwide. But many said the draft opinion was nevertheless stunning, forcing them to reckon with the reality the nation is likely to enter soon.

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Primary takeaways: Trump passes test as kingmaker in Ohio

The primary elections in Ohio and Indiana on Tuesday stood as the first real test of former President Donald Trump’s status as the Republican Party kingmaker — and he passed.

Takeaways from the races:

TRUMP’S CLOUT

Trump’s chosen candidate, “Hillbilly Elegy” author and one-time investment banker JD Vance, won the crowded Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Ohio, giving Trump a strong beginning to primary season.

Vance, former State Treasurer Josh Mandel, businessman Mike Gibbons and former state GOP chair Jane Timken all vied for Trump’s endorsement, increasingly adopting language that mirrored the former president’s bombastic, populist style. In the end, Trump went with Vance, who in 2016 said the celebrity businessman could become “America’s Hitler” but has since become an avid supporter.

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Russia storms Mariupol plant as some evacuees reach safety

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces Tuesday began storming the steel mill containing the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol, Ukrainian defenders said, just as scores of civilians evacuated from the bombed-out plant reached relative safety and told of days and nights filled with dread and despair from constant shelling.

Osnat Lubrani, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said that thanks to the evacuation effort over the weekend, 101 people — including women, the elderly, and 17 children, the youngest 6 months old — were able to emerge from the bunkers under the Azovstal steelworks and “see the daylight after two months.”

One evacuee said she went to sleep at the plant every night afraid she wouldn’t wake up.

“You can’t imagine how scary it is when you sit in the bomb shelter, in a damp and wet basement, and it is bouncing and shaking,” 54-year-old Elina Tsybulchenko said upon arriving in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, about 140 miles (230 kilometers) northwest of Mariupol, in a convoy of buses and ambulances.

She said if the shelter were hit by a bomb like the ones that left the huge craters she saw on the two occasions she ventured outside, “all of us would be done.”

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Biden blasts ‘radical’ Roe draft, warns other rights at risk

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday blasted a “radical” Supreme Court draft opinion that would throw out the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights ruling t hat has stood for a half century. The court cautioned no final decision had been made, but Biden warned that other privacy rights including same-sex marriage and birth control are at risk if the justices follow through.

Chief Justice John Roberts said he had ordered an investigation into what he called the “egregious breach of trust” in leaking the draft document, which was dated to February. Opinions often change in ways big and small in the drafting process, and a final ruling has not been expected until the end of the court’s term in late June or early July.

Across the nation, Americans grappled with what might come next. The Democratic-controlled Congress and White House both vowed to try to blunt the impact of such a ruling, but their prospects looked dim.

A decision to overrule Roe would have sweeping ramifications, leading to abortion bans in roughly half the states, sparking new efforts in Democratic-leaning states to protect access to abortion, and potentially reshaping the contours of this year’s hotly contested midterm elections.

The draft was published by the news outlet Politico late Monday.

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Ohio Republican Gov. DeWine will face Nan Whaley this fall

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Republican Gov. Mike DeWine on Tuesday won his party’s nomination for a second term in office and will face Democrat Nan Whaley this fall after he overcame conservative anger of his strict pandemic policies and notable rifts with former President Donald Trump.

Whaley, a former Dayton mayor, became the first woman in state history to receive a major party’s backing for the governor’s office by defeating ex-Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley in a primary race that drew little attention.

DeWine fought off three far-right challengers in the GOP primary and will be a favorite again in November against Whaley, who has far less name recognition in a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic governor since 2006.

Whaley thinks having a woman at the top of the ticketwill be an advantage for Democrats this time, pointing out that the party has fared better with female voters in states that have nominated women for leadership roles.

She promised during the campaign to protect abortion rights, promote social justice and fight political corruption. She also wants the state to add a $15 minimum wage, universal preschool and better access to child care.

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Even as COVID cases rise, mask mandates stay shelved

NEW YORK (AP) — An increase in COVID-19 infections around the U.S. has sent more cities into new high-risk categories that are supposed to trigger indoor mask wearing, but much of the country is stopping short of bringing back restrictions amid deep pandemic fatigue.

For weeks, much of upstate New York has been in the high-alert orange zone, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention designation that reflects serious community spread. The CDC urges people to mask up in indoor public places, including schools, regardless of vaccination status. But few, if any, local jurisdictions in the region brought back a mask requirement despite rising case counts.

In New York City, cases are again rising and this week crossed the city’s threshold for “medium risk,” indicating the widening spread of the subvariant knowns as BA.2 that has swept the state’s northern reaches. But there appears to be little appetite from Mayor Eric Adams to do an about face just a few months after allowing residents to shed masks and put away vaccination cards that were once required to enter restaurants and concert halls. Adams has said the city could pivot and reimpose mandates but has stressed that he wants to keep the city open.

“I don’t anticipate many places, if any, going back to mask mandates unless we see overflowing hospitals — that’s what would drive mask mandates,” said Professor David Larsen, a public health expert at Syracuse University in upstate New York, whose own county is currently an orange zone.

“People are still dying, but not in the same numbers,” he said.

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EXPLAINER: What’s the latest in Russia’s dance with default?

Russia appeared to dodge defaulton its foreign debt by dipping into its scarce dollar reserves. But Moscow’s debt drama is far from over.

Russia’s finance ministry abandoned its proposal to use rubles instead of dollars to make overdue payments on two government bonds, saying Friday that it had transferred the money to an account at Citigroup: $564.4 million for a bond due in 2022, and $84.4 million for another due in 2042. A 30-day grace period on making the overdue payments was to expire Wednesday.

The government had claimed that U.S. sanctions freezing its massive currency reserves held abroad meant it couldn’t pay and that Russia wasn’t to blame for any default, the first on foreign debt since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

Even if Russia is found to have made the most recent payments, others are coming due. Plus, U.S. permission for American bondholders to accept payment on Russian bonds is set to expire May 25, so even if Russia tries to pay, investors would not legally be able to take the money.

Here are some of the issues surrounding Russian debt:

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New Mexico governor seeking US disaster status for wildfire

LAS VEGAS, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s governor on Tuesday asked President Joe Biden to declare a disaster as firefighters scrambled to clear brush, build fire lines and spray water to keep the largest blaze burning in the U.S. from destroying more homes in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

During a briefing on the fire burning across the state’s northeast, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a request for a presidential disaster declaration that will be sent to the White House in hopes of freeing up financial assistance for recovery efforts. She said it was important that the declaration be made on the front end rather than waiting until the fire is out.

“I’m unwilling to wait,” said Lujan Grisham, a first-term Democrat who is running for reelection. “I have 6,000 people evacuated, I have families who don’t know what the next day looks like, I have families who are trying to navigate their children and health care resources, figure out their livelihoods and they’re in every single little community and it must feel to them like they are out there on their own.”

In the small northeastern New Mexico city of Las Vegas, residents were already voicing concerns about grocery stores being closed as some people chose to leave ahead of the flames even though evacuations had not been ordered.

Fire managers told an evening briefing at the local community college that the spread slowed a bit on Tuesday, and put the amount of newly charred land up slightly, to about 231 square miles (598 square kilometers) of mountainsides, towering ponderosa pines and meadows.

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Norman Mineta, transportation secretary in 9/11 era, dies

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Norman Mineta, who broke racial barriers for Asian Americans serving in high-profile government posts and ordered commercial flights grounded after the 9/11 terror attacks as the nation’s federal transportation secretary, died Tuesday. He was 90.

John Flaherty, Mineta’s former chief of staff, said Mineta died peacefully at his home surrounded by family in Edgewater, Maryland, east of the nation’s capital.

“His cause of death was a heart ailment,” Flaherty added. “He was an extraordinary public servant and a very dear friend.”

Mineta broke racial barriers for Asian Americans in becoming mayor of San Jose, California early in his political career. He later became the first Asian American to become a federal Cabinet secretary, serving under both Democratic President Bill Clinton and Republican George W. Bush.

Bush went on to award Mineta the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In a statement, the former president said Mineta was “a wonderful American story about someone who overcame hardship and prejudice to serve in the United States Army, Congress, and the Cabinet of two Presidents.”