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

Dozens more civilians rescued from Ukrainian steel plant

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — Dozens more civilians were rescued Friday from the tunnels under the besieged steel mill where Ukrainian fighters in Mariupol have been making their last stand to prevent Moscow’s complete takeover of the strategically important port city.

Russian and Ukrainian officials said 50 people were evacuated from the Azovstal plant and handed over to representatives of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Russian military said the group included 11 children.

Russian officials and Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said evacuation efforts would continue Saturday. The latest evacuees were in addition to roughly 500 other civilians who got out of the plant and city in recent days.

The fight for the last Ukrainian stronghold in a city reduced to ruins by the Russian onslaughtappeared increasingly desperate amid growing speculation that President Vladimir Putin wants to finish the battle for Mariupol so he can present a triumph to the Russian people in time for Monday’s Victory Day, the biggest patriotic holiday on the Russian calendar.

As the holiday commemorating the Soviet Union’s World War II victory over Nazi Germany approached, cities across Ukraine prepared for an expected increase in Russian attacks, and officials urged residents to heed air raid warnings.

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‘We’re so sorry’: Mariupol plant evacuees feel relief, grief

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — When the moist concrete walls deep below ground and the mold and the cold and the weeks without fresh fruit or vegetables became too much to bear, some in the bunker underneath Elina Tsybulchenko’s office decided to visit the sky.

They made their way, through darkness lit by flashlights and lamps powered by car batteries, to a treasured spot in the bombarded Azovstal steel plant, the last Ukrainian holdout in the ruined city of Mariupol. There, they could look up and see a sliver of blue or smoky gray. It was like peering from the bottom of a well. For those who could not, or dared not, climb to the surface, it was as distant as peace.

But seeing the sky meant hope. It was enough to make Elina’s adult daughter, Tetyana, cry.

The Tsybulchenko family was among the first to emerge from the steel plant in a tense, days-long evacuationnegotiated by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross with the governments of Russia, which now controls Mariupol, and Ukraine, which wants the city back. A brief cease-fire allowed more than 100 civilians to flee the plant.

They arrived safely in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia this week. There, they described for The Associated Press their two months at the center of hell, and their escape.

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In abortion fight, conservatives push to end all exceptions

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Angela Housley was halfway through her pregnancy when she learned the fetus was developing without parts of its brain and skull and would likely die within hours or days of birth, if it survived that long.

The news came during her 20-week ultrasound.

“The technician got a really horrible look on her face,” Housley said. “And we got the really sad news that our baby was anencephalic.”

It was 1992 and abortion was legal in Idaho, though she had to dodge anti-abortion protesters outside the Boise hospital after the procedure. If the same scenario were to happen later this year, she would likely be forced to carry to term.

That’s because Idaho, which bans abortion after six weeks, is one of at least 22 states with laws banning abortion before the 15th week, many of them lacking exceptions for fetal viability, rape or incest, or even the health of the woman. Several of those bans would take effect if the U.S. Supreme Court issues a ruling overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, as a leaked draft of the opinion suggests.

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Nearly 1 million COVID-19 deaths: A look at the US numbers

Doug Lambrecht was among the first of the nearly 1 million Americans to die from COVID-19. His demographic profile — an older white male with chronic health problems — mirrors the faces of many who would be lost over the next two years.

The 71-year-old retired physician was recovering from a fall at a nursing home near Seattle when the new coronavirus swept through in early 2020. He died March 1, an early victim in a devastating outbreak that gave a first glimpse of the price older Americans would pay.

The pandemic has generated gigabytes of data that make clear which U.S. groups have been hit the hardest. More than 700,000 people 65 and older died. Men died at higher rates than women.

White people made up most of the deaths overall, yet an unequal burden fell on Black, Hispanic and Native American people considering the younger average age of minority communities. Racial gaps narrowed between surges then widened again with each new wave.

With 1 million deaths in sight, Doug’s son Nathan Lambrecht reflected on the toll.

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Rangers locate climber’s body on Alaska’s Denali

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — National park rangers in Alaska on Friday located the body of the year’s first registered climber on North America’s tallest peak.

Because it’s so early in the climbing season, Matthias Rimml, a 35-year-old professional mountain guide from Tirol, Austria, was alone on the upper part of Denali, a 20,310-foot (6,190-meter) mountain about 240 miles (386 kilometers) north of Anchorage. The climbing season usually runs from May through mid-July.

Other climbers and rangers are camped below the 14,000-foot (4,267-meter) level.

Rimml hadn’t been considered overdue compared to his planned return date and food and fuel supply, according to Denali National Park and Preserve officials. However, a friend who had been receiving periodic check-ins from Rimml contacted mountaineering rangers Tuesday after not receiving a call for days, officials said in a statement.

Park officials said Rimml was already acclimated to the altitude because of recent climbs. He had planned to climb Denali “alpine style,” or traveling fast with light gear. His goal was to make the summit in five days even though he carried enough fuel and food to last 10 days.

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Man gets life for killings in California, Texas

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A man who pleaded guilty to a series of Southern California attacks that killed five men and injured seven others was sentenced Friday to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Ramon Escobar, 50, received multiple life sentences after entering guilty pleas to murder with special circumstances and attempted murder. In a Zoom call hearing, he also pleaded guilty to the 2018 killings of his aunt and uncle in Houston, Texas. He received additional life sentences for those slayings but will serve them consecutively in California.

Prosecutors said Escobar fled Texas after killing his relatives and was homeless when he began attacking people in Los Angeles and Santa Monica over the course of about two weeks in September 2018.

Prosecutors said Escobar bludgeoned victims with bolt cutters or a baseball bat as they lay sleeping on streets or the beach. All but one were homeless.

In an interview with police, Escobar said he killed some of the victims because they “irritated him, they were disrespectful to law enforcement, or he robbed them because he needed money,” according to a prosecution sentencing memorandum.

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Explosion at luxury Havana hotel kills 22, injures dozens

HAVANA (AP) — A powerful explosion apparently caused by a natural gas leak killed at least 22 people, including a child, and injured dozens Friday when it blew away outer walls from a luxury hotel in the heart of Cuba’s capital.

No tourists were staying at Havana’s 96-room Hotel Saratoga because it was undergoing renovations, Havana Gov. Reinaldo García Zapata told the Communist Party newspaper Granma.

“It’s not a bomb or an attack. It is a tragic accident,” President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who visited the site, said in a tweet.

Dr. Julio Guerra Izquierdo, chief of hospital services at the Ministry of Health, told reporters that at least 74 people had been injured. Among them were 14 children, according to a tweet from Díaz-Canel’s office.

Díaz-Canel said families in buildings near the hotel affected by the explosion had been transferred to safer locations.

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Feds accuse Starbucks of unfair labor practices in Buffalo

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Federal labor officials filed a sweeping complaint Friday accusing Starbucks of unfair labor practices at its stores in Buffalo, New York, including retaliation against pro-union employees.

The National Labor Relations Board’s Buffalo regional director outlined a host of labor law violations in a filing seeking reinstatement and backpay for the employees.

There’s been a wave of unionization drives at Starbucks stores nationwide, with the first union votes coming in December at three stores in Buffalo.

The coffee chain called the allegations “false” and vowed to fight them at an upcoming hearing.

“Starbucks does not agree that the claims have merit, and the complaint’s issuance does not constitute a finding by the NLRB,” spokesman Reggie Borges wrote in an email. “It is the beginning of a litigation process that permits both sides to be heard and to present evidence.”

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Fire-ravaged New Mexico villages cling to faith, ‘querencia’

Eileen Celestina Garcia raced down the mountain that overlooks her parents’ ranch home in northern New Mexico where friends and family have gathered for decades and where she has sat countless times among the stillness of the Ponderosa pines.

A wildfire was raging and Garcia knew she had just minutes to reach her parents and ensure they evacuated in time. Her hands grazed the trees as she spoke to them, thinking the least she could do is offer them gratitude and prayer in case they weren’t there when she returned.

“You’re trying not to panic — maybe it’s not real — just asking for miracles, asking for it not to affect our valley and stop,” she said.

Like many New Mexico families, Garcia’s is deep-rooted not only in the land but in their Catholic faith. As the largest wildfire burning in the U.S. marches across the high alpine forests and grasslands of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, many in its path have pleaded with God for intervention in the form of rain and calm winds, and protection for their neighbors and beloved landscape.

They’ve invoked St. Florian, the patron saint of firefighters, the Virgin Mary as the blessed mother and the various patron saints of scattered villages. The fire has marched for several weeks across more than 262 square miles (678 square kilometers), destroying dozens of homes and forcing thousands of families to evacuate.

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Palestinians facing eviction by Israel vow to stay on land

JINBA, West Bank (AP) — Everything here is makeshift, a result of decades of uncertainty. Homes are made from tin and plastic sheets, water is trucked in and power is obtained from batteries or a few solar panels.

The lives of thousands of Palestinians in a cluster of Bedouin communities in the southern West Bank have been on hold for more than four decades, ever since the land they cultivated and lived on was declared a military firing and training zone by Israel.

Since that decision in early 1981, residents of the Masafer Yatta region have weathered demolitions, property seizures, restrictions, disruptions of food and water supplies as well as the lingering threat of expulsion.

That threat grew significantly this week after Israel’s Supreme Court upheld a long-standing expulsion order against eight of the 12 Palestinian hamlets forming Masafer Yatta — potentially leaving at least 1,000 people homeless.

On Friday, some residents said they are determined to stay on the land.