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

Russia cracks down on dissenting media, blocks Facebook

DUSSELDORF, Germany (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday intensified a crackdown on media outlets and individuals who fail to hew to the Kremlin line on Russia’s war in Ukraine, blocking Facebook and Twitter and signing into law a bill that criminalizes the intentional spreading of what Moscow deems to be “fake” reports.

The moves against the social media giants follow blocks imposed on the BBC, the U.S. government-funded Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and Latvia-based website Meduza. The government’s sweeping action against the foreign outlets that publish news in Russian seeks to establish even tighter controls over what information the domestic audience sees about the invasion of Ukraine.

The state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor said it cut access to Twitter and Facebook in line with a decision by the prosecutor general’s office. The watchdog has previously accused Twitter of failing to delete the content banned by Russian authorities and slowed down access to it.

Twitter said in a statement Friday afternoon that while the company is “aware of reports” that its platform is blocked in Russia, it has not been able to confirm whether this is the case.

The bill, quickly rubber-stamped by both houses of the Kremlin-controlled parliament and signed by Putin, imposes prison sentences of up to 15 years for those spreading information that goes against the Russian government’s narrative on the war.

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Attack on Ukrainian nuclear plant triggers worldwide alarm

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian troops Friday seized the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe after a middle-of-the-night attack that set it on fire and briefly raised worldwide fears of a catastrophe in the most chilling turn yet in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Firefighters put out the blaze, and no radiation was released, U.N. and Ukrainian officials said. Russian forces pressed on with their week-old offensive on multiple fronts, though they did not appear to gain significant ground in fighting Friday. The number of refugees fleeing the country eclipsed 1.2 million.

With world condemnation mounting, the Kremlin cracked down on the flow of information at home, blocking Facebook, Twitter, the BBC and the U.S. government-funded Voice of America. And President Vladimir Putin signed a law making it a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison to spread so-called fake news, including anything that goes against the official government line on the war. CNN announced that it would stop broadcasting in Russia and Bloomberg temporarily suspended the work of its journalists there, saying they were assessing the situation.

While the vast Russian armored column threatening Kyiv remained stalled outside the capital, Putin’s military has launched hundreds of missiles and artillery attacks on cities and other sites across the country, and made significant gains on the ground in the south in an apparent bid to cut off Ukraine’s access to the sea.

In the attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in the southeastern city of Enerhodar, the chief of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said a Russian “projectile” hit a training center, not any of the six reactors.

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Live updates: US Embassy calls power plant attack war crime

The latest developments on the Russia-Ukraine war:

KYIV, Ukraine — The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine is calling Russia’s attack on a nuclear plant a war crime.

“It is a war crime to attack a nuclear power plant,” the embassy statement said. “Putin’s shelling of Europe’s largest nuclear plant takes his reign of terror one step further.”

Russian troops seized the plant Friday in an attack that set it on fire and briefly raised fears of a nuclear disaster. The blaze was extinguished and no radiation was released.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Russia’s action “nuclear terrorism” and appealed to the U.N. Security Council for action to safeguard Ukraine’s endangered nuclear facilities.

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Russia’s nuke plant attack revives Chernobyl disaster fears

LONDON (AP) — Russia’s attack on a nuclear power plant in Ukraine has revived the fears of people across Europe who remember the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which killed at least 30 people and spewed radioactive fallout over much of the Northern Hemisphere.

The U.N nuclear energy watchdog said no radiation was released after Russian forces shelled the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in the early hours of Friday.

But that did little to ease growing concerns in Western Europe. Even before the attack, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had heightened concerns about the vulnerability of the nuclear reactors that provide about 50% of the country’s electricity. In addition to the danger of explosives damaging the reactors, plant managers and technicians must have unfettered access to the plants to ensure they operate safely, nuclear experts warned.

Pharmacies in some Eastern European and Scandinavian countries reported a surge in demand for iodine tablets, which can be used to protect children from radiation exposure. Politicians rushed to criticize Russia’s “reckless” actions, and Ukrainian authorities renewed calls for a no-fly zone to ensure Europe doesn’t face another nuclear disaster.

“I didn’t really sleep last night,’’ said Paul Dorfman, who led the European Environment Agency’s response to Chernobyl and was glued to the news from Ukraine on his phone. “The fact is that when things go really wrong with nuclear, you can begin to write off a lot of people’s lives.’’

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For families, $6B deal with OxyContin maker is just a start

For those who lost loved ones in the opioid crisis, making sure the family behind OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma paid a price was never just about money. What many wanted was a chance to confront the Sackler family face to face, to make them feel their pain.

While some may get that chance — at least by video — under a tentative settlement reached Thursdaythat also would force the Sacklers to pay out billions, the families still are coming away feeling empty, conflicted and angry yet again. There’s a bit of hope mixed in, too.

Nothing, though, will bring back any of the lives lost or hold the Sacklers fully accountable, in their eyes.

“I’d like to see the Sacklers bleed all they can, but the bigger picture for me is what they’re doing to clean up the mess,” said Vicki Meyer Bishop of Clarksburg, Maryland, who lost her 45-year-old son, Brian Meyer, in 2017. “We’re all so very worried about the next generation and the next child who will be lost.”

The Sacklers,whose wealth has been estimated in court filings at over $10 billion,will get to hang on to a chunk of their vast fortune and be protected from current and future civil lawsuits over opioids.

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Pence hits Trump: No room in GOP for ‘apologists for Putin’

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Vice President Mike Pence urged Republicans to move on from the 2020 election and declared that “there is no room in this party for apologists for Putin” as he further cemented his break from former President Donald Trump.

Pence, in a speech Friday evening to the party’s top donors in New Orleans, took on those in his party who have failed to forcefully condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin for his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

“Where would Russian tanks be today if NATO had not expanded the borders of freedom? There is no room in this party for apologists for Putin,” Pence said, according to excerpts from the speech, which was closed to reporters. “There is only room for champions of freedom.”

Pence did not directly reference the former president. But Trump has repeatedly used language that has been criticized as deferential to Putin, including calling the Russian leader “smart” while insisting the attack never would have happened on his watch.

Pence also continued to push back on Trump’s lies about the 2020 election as he lays the groundwork for a possible 2024 presidential run. Trump, who has been teasing his own comeback bid that could potentially put the two in direct competition, has continued to falsely insist that Pence had the power to overturn the 2020 election, which he did not.

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China cuts economic growth goal as it tries to reverse slump

BEIJING (AP) — China on Saturday cut its annual economic growth target to its lowest level in decades as Beijing struggles to reverse a slump at a time when Russia’s war on Ukraine is pushing up oil prices and roiling the global economy.

The ruling Communist Party will aim for “around 5.5%” growth this year, down from last year’s 8.1% expansion, the country’s No. 2 leader, Premier Li Keqiang, said in a report to the ceremonial legislature. It noted commodity prices are surging but made no mention of the reason: the attack by Beijing’s friend, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Achieving this goal will require arduous efforts,” Li said during a 55-minute speech in the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing.

Surging energy costs due to the war add to pressure from anti-coronavirus controls and a crackdown on debt in China’s vast real estate industry that caused economic growth to fall to 4% over a year earlier in the final quarter of 2021. This year’s growth forecasts by the International Monetary Fund and private sector analysts are as low as 4.3%.

Manufacturing has been disrupted by a “zero tolerance” COVID-19 strategy that has suspended access to some major cities, as well as weak demand for Chinese exports and shortages of power and processor chips. The premier gave no indication Beijing might relax its anti-virus strategy that has helped to keep infection numbers low but at a rising cost.

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Voter turnout sagging in troubled voting rights hub of Selma

SELMA, Ala. (AP) — Fewer and fewer people are voting in Selma, Alabama. And to many, that is particularly heartbreaking.

They lament that almost six decades after Black demonstrators on the city’s Edmond Pettus Bridge risked their lives for the right to cast ballots, voting in predominantly Black Selma and surrounding Dallas County has steadily declined. Turnout in 2020 was under 57%, among the worst in the state.

Rep. Terri Sewell, a Black Democrat whose district includes her hometown of Selma, said Friday she was shocked to learn of the decline, reported by The Associated Press.

“You would think that Selma and Dallas County, we, of all places, should know the importance of voting in every election,” Sewell said in an interview. Voter apathy is a problem, she said.

Thousands will gather March 6 for this year’s reenactment of the bridge crossing to honor the foot soldiers of that “Bloody Sunday” in 1965. Downtown will resemble a huge street festival during the event, known as the Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee, with thousands of visitors, blaring music and vendors selling food and T-shirts.

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Shane Warne, one of cricket’s iconic players, dies at 52

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Shane Warne, widely regarded as one of the greatest players, most astute tacticians and ultimate competitors in the long history of cricket, has died. He was 52.

Known around the cricket globe as “Warnie,” he revived and elevated the art of leg spin bowling when he emerged on the international scene in the 1990s and was a central character in one of Australia’s most successful eras in the sport. He also was one of cricket’s larger-than-life showmen.

Fox Sports television, which employed Warne as a commentator, quoted a family statement early Saturday as saying he died of a suspected heart attack in Koh Samui, Thailand.

“Shane was found unresponsive in his villa and despite the best efforts of medical staff, he could not be revived,” the statement said.

Cricket Australia described Warne as “a true cricketing genius.”

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Pulitzer winner Walter Mears dies, AP’s ‘Boy on the Bus’

WASHINGTON (AP) — Walter R. Mears, who for 45 years fluidly and speedily wrote the news about presidential campaigns for The Associated Press and won a Pulitzer Prize doing it, has died. He was 87.

“I could produce a story as fast as I could type,” Mears once acknowledged — and he was a fast typist. He became the AP’s Washington bureau chief and the wire service’s executive editor and vice president, but he always returned to the keyboard, and to covering politics.

Mears died Thursday at his apartment in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, eight days after being diagnosed with multiple forms of cancer, said his daughters Susan Mears of Boulder, Colorado, and Stephanie Mears of Austin, Texas, who were with him.

They said he was visited on his last night by a minister, with whom he discussed Alf Landon, the losing Republican presidential candidate in 1936, a year after his birth.

Mears’ ability to find the essence of a story while it was still going on and to get it to the wire — and to newspapers and broadcasters around the world — became legend among peers. In 1972, Timothy Crouse featured Mears in “The Boys on the Bus,” a book chronicling the efforts and antics of reporters covering that year’s presidential campaign.