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

Live updates: Zelenskyy mum on specifics of new US aid

LVIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was thankful to U.S. President Joe Biden for the additional military aid but said he would not say specifically what the new package included because he didn’t want to tip off Russia.

“This is our defense,” he said in his nighttime video address to the nation. “When the enemy doesn’t know what to expect from us. As they didn’t know what awaited them after Feb. 24,” the day Russia invaded. “They didn’t know what we had for defense or how we prepared to meet the blow.”

Zelenskyy said Russia expected to find Ukraine much as it did in 2014, when it seized Crimea without a fight and backed separatists as they took control of the eastern Donbas region. But Ukraine is now a different country, with much stronger defenses, he said.

He said it also was not the time to reveal Ukraine’s tactics in the ongoing negotiations with Russia. “Working more in silence than on television, radio or on Facebook,” Zelenskyy said. “I consider it the right way.”

___

___

Rescuers search theater rubble as Russian attacks continue

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Rescue workers searched for survivors Thursday in the ruins of a theater blown apart by a Russian airstrike in the besieged city of Mariupol, while scores of Ukrainians across the country were killed in ferocious urban attacks on a school, a hostel and other sites.

Hundreds of civilians had been taking shelter in the grand, columned theater in central Mariupol after their homes were destroyed in three weeks of fighting in the southern port city of 430,000.

More than a day after the airstrike, there were no reports of deaths. With communications disrupted across the city and movement difficult because of shelling and other fighting, there were conflicting reports on whether anyone had emerged from the rubble.

“We hope and we think that some people who stayed in the shelter under the theater could survive,” Petro Andrushchenko, an official with the mayor’s office, told The Associated Press. He said the building had a relatively modern basement bomb shelter designed to withstand airstrikes. Video and photos provided by the Ukrainian military showed that the at least three-story building had been reduced to a roofless shell, with some exterior walls collapsed.

Other officials had said earlier that some people had gotten out. Ukraine’s ombudswoman, Ludmyla Denisova, said on the Telegram messaging app that the shelter had held up.

___

Moderna seeks FDA authorization for 4th dose of COVID shot

WASHINGTON (AP) — Drugmaker Moderna asked the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday to authorize a fourth shot of its COVID-19 vaccine as a booster dose for all adults.

The request is broader than rival pharmaceutical company Pfizer’s request earlier this week for the regulator to approve a booster shot for all seniors.

In a press release, the company said its request for approval for all adults was made “to provide flexibility” to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and medical providers to determine the “appropriate use” of a second booster dose of the mRNA vaccine, “including for those at higher risk of COVID-19 due to age or comorbidities.”

U.S. officials have been laying the groundwork to deliver additional booster doses to shore up the vaccines’ protection against serious disease and death from COVID-19. The White House has been sounding the alarm that it needs Congress to “urgently” approve more funding for the federal government to secure more doses of the COVID-19 vaccines, either for additional booster shots or variant-specific immunizations.

U.S. health officials currently recommend a primary series of two doses of the Moderna vaccine and a booster dose months later.

___

EXPLAINER: Driver in Texas crash was 13; is that legal?

From the logging roads of the Pacific Northwest to the farm country of the Great Plains and beyond, it’s not uncommon for people in rural parts of the U.S. to learn to drive when they’re young, sometimes even before they reach their teens.

But the news that a 13-year-old was behind the wheel of a pickup truck that blew a tire and struck a van on a dark, two-lane road in West Texas on Tuesday night,killing nine people — including six members of a New Mexico college’s golf teams and their coach — put a renewed focus on the practice.

At a news conference in Odessa, Texas, on Thursday, National Transportation Safety Board Vice Chairman Bruce Landsberg said the dangers of underage driving put it on the agency’s “most-wanted list.”

Along with drunk and distracted driving, Landsberg said “youthful driving” and excessive speed on rural roads are among the problems that make highway driving the most dangerous form of transit in the United States.

“Every two days we are killing the equivalent of a Boeing 737 crashing,” he said, referring to highway fatalities from multiple causes. “It’s long overdue that we start to do something about it.”

___

Saint Peter’s shocks No. 2 seed Kentucky 85-79 in OT

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Saint Peter’s acted like it had been there before.

After the 15th-seeded Peacocks bounced storied Kentucky from the NCAA Tournament on Thursday night, they calmly exchanged handshakes with the Wildcats before heading over to the opposite sideline to celebrate with a small contingent of true believers.

The tiny Jesuit school from Jersey City, New Jersey, got 27 points from Daryl Banks III as it took down basketball royalty, beating second-seeded Kentucky 85-79 in overtime and sending countless brackets into the digital wastebasket.

“It was an amazing feeling,” Banks said. “You grow up you watching March Madness, the tournament, so to let that sink in — knowing the game was over — it felt really good.”

The Peacocks became the 10th No. 15 seed to win a first-round game since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985 and handed Kentucky its first opening-round loss under coach John Calipari.

___

The AP Interview: Health chief warns of COVID funds shortage

WASHINGTON (AP) — With the nation yearning for a new normal after its long struggle with the coronavirus, U.S. Health Secretary Xavier Becerra warned Thursday that vaccines, tests and treatments will be “stuck on the ground” unless Congress provides the additional funds the White House has demanded.

“We have reached a pivot point,” Becerra said in an interview with The Associated Press. “How well we pivot is on us.”

Omicron variant BA.2, which is causing a virus rebound in Europe and Asia, is gaining ground in the U.S., although overall cases here are still in decline. And Becerra said a funding impasse with Capitol Hill could hamper theBiden administration’ s promising new strategy called “Test to Treat.”

Under that plan, people could go to their local drugstore for a COVID test, and if they were positive, receive medication they could then take at home. A “one-stop shop,” he called it.

But “if you don’t have the dollars to let it fly, you’re stuck,” Becerra said. “You’re stuck on the ground.”

___

Peru court orders ex-President Fujimori freed from prison

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru’s Constitutional Court on Thursday approved the release from prison of former President Alberto Fujimori, who is serving a 25-year sentence for murder and corruption charges.

The decision restored a humanitarian pardon granted to Fujimori on Christmas Eve in 2017 by then President Pablo Kuczynski, a court official told The Associated Press. The official couldn’t be quoted by name because the person was not authorized to speak on the matter.

The country’s Supreme Court overturned the medical pardon in 2018 and ordered the former strongman returned to jail to serve out his sentence for human rights abuses, which was supposed to run until Feb. 10, 2032.

Kuczynski had said he pardoned Fujimori because he suffered a heart condition made worse by prison conditions, though the move was widely seen as an attempt to stave off impeachment by courting favor with Fujimori’s allies in Congress. Kuczynski resigned three months after the pardon.

People gathered outside the prison hoping to see the 83-year-old Fujimori exit, though authorities gave no indication his release was imminent. Fujimori’s lawyer, Cesar Nakazaki, said the former leader was not expected to leave prison until Monday or Tuesday after some legal procedures are completed.

___

Hope, hard reality mix in Japanese town wrecked by disaster

FUTABA, Japan (AP) — Yasushi Hosozawa returned on the first day possible after a small section of his hometown, Futaba, reopened in January — 11 years after the nuclear meltdown at the nearby Fukushima Daiichi plant.

It has not been easy.

Futaba, which hosts part of the plant, saw the evacuation of all 7,000 residents because of radiation after the March 11, 2011, quake and subsequent tsunami that left more than 18,000 people dead or missing along Japan’s northeastern coast.

Only seven have permanently returned to live in the town.

“Futaba is my home … I’ve wanted to come back since the disaster happened. It was always in my mind,” Hosozawa, 77, said during an interview with The Associated Press at his house, which is built above a shed filled with handcrafted fishing equipment.

___

Biden’s St. Patrick’s Day scrambled by Irish PM’s COVID case

WASHINGTON (AP) — Call him a disappointed extrovert. President Joe Biden had to settle for meeting virtually Thursday with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin after the visiting leader’s positive test for COVID-19 scrambled plans to mark St. Patrick’s Day at the White House.

“I’m really deeply sorry for the inconvenience that we have to meet virtually this year,” Biden said to Martin, who dialed in by video link while isolating at Blair House across the street from the White House. The traditional crystal bowl of shamrocks gifted to the U.S. president was displayed next to the television monitor set up next to Biden’s chair in the Oval Office.

“I’m doing good, and I think that reminds of the vaccines and that the vaccines prevent severe illness,” Martin told Biden.

Biden and Martin joined to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has jolted the world and brought the U.S. and its European allies to unite in condemnation and in placing stiff sanctions on Russia.

“We have to be united,” Biden said. “We certainly are. But Putin’s brutality and what his troops are doing in Ukraine is just inhumane.”

___

Oscar Predictions: Will ‘Power of the Dog’ reign supreme?

Ahead of the 94th Academy Awards, Associated Press Film Writers Lindsey Bahr and Jake Coyle share their predictions for a ceremony with much still up in the air.

BEST PICTURE

The Nominees: “Belfast”; “CODA”; “Don’t Look Up”; “Drive My Car”; “Dune”; “King Richard”; “Licorice Pizza”; “Nightmare Alley”; “The Power of the Dog”; “West Side Story.”

BAHR: At this point it really feels like the award will go to “The Power of the Dog.” It is paradoxically both a safe choice and a game changer in that it would be a first best picture win for Netflix after years of trying. Jane Campion’s last major shot at picture (and director) was with “The Piano,” but in 1994 that basically stood no chance against “Schindler’s List.” This time, it’s her film that has the leg up on the Spielberg. And yet there is a distant possibility that “CODA” could “Little Miss Sunshine”/”Green Book” its way in there as the feel-good alternative (which was what “Belfast” was supposed to be).

COYLE: I’m calling the “CODA” upset. The smart money is on Campion’s film. But the win for “CODA” at the Screen Actors Guild — where “The Power of the Dog” failed to get nominated for best ensemble — suggests strong passion for the film, and maybe a crowd-pleasing advantage on the academy’s preferential ballot. Either film, though, will symbolize the ascent of streaming in Hollywood. It would hand a streaming service — Netflix or Apple — Hollywood’s most prestigious honor for the first time. Maybe that’s a big deal, maybe it’s belated confirmation of what everyone has known for some time.