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

Zelenskyy hails Ukraine’s soldiers from a symbolic Black Sea island to mark 500 days of war

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy marked the 500th day of the war Saturday by hailing the country’s soldiers in a video from a Black Sea island that became the symbol of Ukraine’s resilience in the face of the Russian invasion.

Speaking from Snake Island, Zelenskyy honored the Ukrainian soldiers who fought for the island and all other defenders of the country, saying that reclaiming control of the island “is a great proof that Ukraine will regain every bit of its territory.”

“I want to thank — from here, from this place of victory — each of our soldiers for these 500 days,” Zelenskyy said. “Thank you to everyone who fights for Ukraine!”

It was unclear when the video was filmed. Zelenskyy was returning from Turkey on Saturday.

He announced that five commanders of the defense of the Azovstal steel plant, a grueling months-long siege early in the war, were returning on the plane with him.

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Biden is heading to Europe. A king and a war are on his agenda

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden leaves on Sunday for Europe, where he will spend time in three nations tending to alliances that have been tested by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

After arriving at night in London, Biden will meet the next day with King Charles III for the first time since he was crowned. Next is the centerpiece of the trip, the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. Alliance leaders will debate the war and revise plans for dealing with Russian aggression.

The final stop is in Helsinki, where Biden on Thursday is expected to celebrate the expanding alliance, with Finland as the newest member of NATO.

His national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the trip would “showcase the president’s leadership on the world stage.”

A look at Biden’s agenda and the issues he will face:

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Top Republicans are gearing up to investigate the Hunter Biden case. Here’s what to know.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republicans who lead three key House committees are joining forces to probe the Justice Department’s handling of charges against Hunter Biden after making sweeping claims about misconduct at the agency.

Leaders of the House Judiciary, Oversight and Accountability, and Ways and Means committees opened a joint investigation into the federal case into President Joe Biden’s youngest son days after it was announced last month that he will plead guilty to the misdemeanor tax offenses as part of an agreement with the Justice Department.

Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, James Comer of Kentucky and Jason Smith of Missouri have since issued a series of requests for voluntary testimony from senior officials at the Justice Department, FBI and Internal Revenue Service as they investigate what they claim is improper interference. Republicans have also requested a special counsel review of supposed retaliation against the whistleblowers who came forward with the claims.

The congressional inquiry was launched after the House Ways and Means Committee, led by Smith, voted last month to publicly disclose hundreds of pages of testimony from the IRS employees who worked on the Hunter Biden case.

The transcripts of Greg Shapley and an unidentified agent detail what they called a pattern of “slow-walking investigative steps” and delaying enforcement actions in the months before the 2020 election won by Joe Biden.

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Gunman on scooter shoots randomly in NYC, police say, killing an 87-year-old and wounding 3 others

NEW YORK (AP) — A scooter-riding gunman killed an 87-year-old man and wounded three others in a string of random shootings that stretched across two New York City boroughs, police said Saturday.

A 25-year-old man was taken into custody without incident and his identity was not revealed by police, Assistant Police Chief Joseph Kenny said at a news conference. A 9 mm handgun with an extended magazine and a scooter were recovered.

The New York Police Department pulled an image of the gunman from video and sent it to phones of officers, some of whom spotted the suspect about two hours after the first shooting.

“We don’t know the motive. It seems his acts were random,” Kenny said.

In all, the NYPD said there were five shootings carried out during the spree by someone on a scooter, one in Brooklyn and four in Queens. No one was injured in one of the shootings.

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Iowa GOP schedules Jan. 15 for leadoff presidential caucuses. It’s on Martin Luther King Jr. Day

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Republicans announced Saturday that the party’s presidential nominating caucuses will be held Jan. 15, on the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., putting the first votes of the 2024 election a little more than six months away as the GOP tries to reclaim the White House.

White House candidates have campaigned in Iowa since last winter, but there has been some uncertainty about the date for the caucuses that have by tradition kicked off the Republican selection process for a nominee. What’s changed is the Democratic National Committee’s election calendar, dropping Iowa as its first contest.

The Iowa Republican Party’s state central committee voted unanimously for the third Monday in January — a date that is earlier by several weeks than the past three caucuses, though not as early as 2008, when they were held just three days into the new year.

Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann, during a call with reporters later, reported that the vote was unanimous and that he “never sensed that there was anyone even thinking about voting no” to the proposed date.

“As Republicans, we can, I, we see this as honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King in terms of having a caucus here,” Kaufmann said, noting also that committee members hadn’t considered the possibility of the contest falling on the federal holiday before arriving at the date.

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An Iowa meteorologist started talking about climate change on newscasts. Then came the harassment

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The harassment started to intensify as TV meteorologist Chris Gloninger did more reporting on climate change during local newscasts — outraged emails and even a threat to show up at his house.

Gloninger said he had been recruited, in part, to “shake things up” at the Iowa station where he worked, but backlash was building. The man who sent him a series of threatening emails was charged with third-degree harassment. The Des Moines station asked him to dial back his coverage, facing what he called an understandable pressure to maintain ratings.

“I started just connecting the dots between extreme weather and climate change, and then the volume of pushback started to increase quite dramatically,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

So, on June 21, he announced that he was leaving KCCI-TV — and his 18-year career in broadcast journalism altogether.

Gloninger’s experience is all too common among meteorologists across the country who are encountering reactions from viewers as they tie climate change to extreme temperatures, blizzards, tornadoes and floods in their local weather reports. For on-air meteorologists, the anti-science trend that has emerged in recent years compounds a deepening skepticism of the news media.

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Climate change ratchets up the stress on farmworkers on the front lines of a warming Earth

Mily Trevino-Sauceda was 9 when her mother fell as she worked to move irrigation pipes along rows of potato and alfalfa on an Idaho farm. Mily’s 10-year-old brother splashed water over their mother’s face and body while her children looked on, scared and crying. Their mother had fainted from the heat, and could never again work as fast or as long in the sun.

Decades later, the memory remains sharp for Trevino-Sauceda, who says few systemic changes have been made to safeguard farmworkers from extreme heat.

“Knowing all this still happens, it angers,” said Trevino-Sauceda, now the executive director of Alianza de Campesinas, a women farmworkers’ organization based in Oxnard, California. “It angers because we know what it is to do this kind of work. And even though we want to be loyal to doing a good job, we don’t even think at the time that if we’re treated as human beings or not. We just want to survive it.”

As Earth this week set and then repeatedly broke unofficial records for average global heat, it served as a reminder of a danger that climate change is making steadily worse for farmworkers and others who labor outside. Heat advisories and excessive heat warnings rolled out across much of the U.S., and farms in Oregon, Texas and much of the southern and central regions of the country were expected to see highs pushing 100 next week.

Farm workers are 35 times more likely to die of heat exposure than workers in other industries, according to the National Institutes of Health, but there is no federal heat standard that ensures their health and safety.

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Airstrike in Sudanese city kills at least 22, officials say, amid fighting between rival generals

CAIRO (AP) — An airstrike in a Sudanese city on Saturday killed at least 22 people, health authorities said, in one of the deadliest air attacks yet in the three months of fighting between the country’s rival generals.

The assault took place in the Dar es Salaam neighborhood in Omdurman, the neighboring city of the capital, Khartoum, according to a brief statement by the health ministry. The attack wounded an unspecified number of people, it said.

The ministry posted video footage that showed dead bodies on the ground with sheets covering them and people trying to pull the dead from the rubble. Others attempted to help the wounded. People could be heard crying.

The attack was one of the deadliest in the fighting in urban areas of the capital and elsewhere in Sudan. The conflict pits the military against a powerful paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces. Last month, an airstrike killed at least 17 people including 5 children in Khartoum.

The RSF blamed the military for Saturday’s attack and other strikes on residential areas in Omdurman, where fighting has raged between the warring factions, according to residents. The military has reportedly attempted to cut off a crucial supply line for the paramilitary force there.

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Six killed when small plane crashes, bursts into flames in field near Southern California airport

MURRIETA, Calif. (AP) — Six people were killed when a small plane crashed in a field and burst into flames during the second of two landing attempts in fog just before dawn Saturday at a Southern California airport, authorities said.

The crash of the Cessna C550 business jet occurred around 4:15 a.m. in Murrieta, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

It took firefighters more than an hour to extinguish the flames, which charred about an acre of vegetation at the edge of French Valley Airport, said the Riverside County Fire Department.

The jet, which can seat up to 13 people, crashed about 500 feet (150 meters) short of the intended runway, said Elliott Simpson, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board.

“Most of the airplane, with the exception of the tail, was consumed by fire,” Simpson told reporters at an afternoon briefing. Investigators were combing through a debris field about 200 feet (60 meters) long, he said.

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Megan Rapinoe says she’ll retire after the NWSL season and her 4th World Cup

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — U.S. women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe is ready to retire after an illustrious career in which she won an Olympic gold medal, two World Cups and never shied away from using her platform to spotlight social issues.

Rapinoe, 38, announced Saturday her fourth World Cup will be her last and she’ll officially retire with the OL Reign at the end of the National Women’s Soccer League season.

Rapinoe and the U.S. team are aiming for a third consecutive title when the Women’s World Cup kicks off on July 20 in Australia and New Zealand. The U.S. plays Wales in a final tune-up match Sunday in California before leaving for the World Cup.

“I’m just really grateful to be able to do it in this way,” Rapinoe said in San Jose, California, ahead of the match. “I understand that it is incredibly rare for athletes of any stature to be able to go out in their own way, on their own terms, at the time that they want, in a way that feels really peaceful and settled for them.

“So just wanted to do it now and honestly kind of get it out of the way before we go down to New Zealand so we can focus on the task at hand, which is winning another World Cup.”