More classified documents found at Biden’s home by lawyers
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says lawyers for President Joe Biden found more classified documents at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, than previously known. White House lawyer Richard Sauber says in a statement that a total of six pages of classified documents were found during a search of Biden’s private library. The White House had said previously that only a single page was found there. The latest disclosure is in addition to the discovery of documents found in December in Biden’s garage and in November at his former offices at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, from his time as vice president.
China reports 60,000 COVID-related deaths, says peak passed
BEIJING (AP) — China has reported nearly 60,000 deaths in people who had COVID-19 since early December following complaints it was failing to release data about the status of the pandemic. An official says the “emergency peak” of its latest surge appears to have passed. The death toll included 5,503 deaths due to respiratory failure caused by COVID-19 and 54,435 fatalities from other ailments combined with COVID-19. The National Health Commission said Saturday that those deaths occurred in hospitals, which left open the possibility more people also might have died at home. The report would more than double China’s official COVID-19 death toll to 10,775. A health official says the daily number of patients going to fever clinics has fallen by 83% since late December.
Violence soars in Mali in the year after Russians arrive
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Western officials say violence against civilians in Mali has risen in the year since hundreds of Russian mercenaries have started working alongside the West African country’s armed forces to stem a decade-long insurgency by Islamic extremists. Diplomats, analysts and human rights groups say extremists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have only gotten stronger and there’s concern the Russian presence will further destabilize the already troubled region. One report says more than 2,000 civilians have been killed since December 2021, compared with about 500 in the previous 12 months, with at least a third of those deaths last year stemming from attacks involving Russia’s shadowy Wagner Group of military contractors.
UK to supply tanks; Russian missiles hit across Ukraine
LONDON (AP) — U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has promised to provide tanks and artillery systems to Ukraine amid renewed missile attacks by Moscow targeting multiple Ukrainian cities for the first time in nearly two weeks. Five people were killed and 39 wounded in the southeastern city of Dnipro. The regional governor says a Russian missile strike destroyed a section of an apartment building. Photos showed a large gap in the nine-story building. Infrastructure facilities were also hit in the western Lviv region and northeastern Kharkiv. Kyiv was also targeted. The British leader’s Downing Street office said in a statement on Saturday that Sunak made the pledge to provide Challenger 2 tanks and other artillery systems after speaking to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Biden welcomed back to Georgia after lying low in midterms
ATLANTA (AP) — During the 2022 midterm campaign, President Joe Biden steered clear of Georgia as Sen. Raphael Warnock, like other battleground-state Democrats, sought to distance himself from the White House amid an inflationary economy and the president’s lagging approval ratings. Now, with Warnock having secured his first full term and Biden buoyed by Democrats’ better-than-expected election results, the senator is welcoming the president back to Georgia and to America’s most famous Black church. The president is set to speak Sunday at Ebenezer Baptist Church as part of Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.
Buttigieg finds himself in the spotlight for better or worse
WASHINGTON (AP) — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has been in the national spotlight a lot lately, and not always for positive reasons. The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and onetime mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has been the public face of a string of transportation-related mishaps, including this past week’s temporary ground of air traffic in the United States. All that increased scrutiny has come amid rising speculation about his political prospects. During his tenure as transportation chief, there have been widespread global supply chain issues and logjams at major ports as well as multiple instances of mass flight cancellations by airlines. Also, a nationwide strike by railroad workers was only averted by an eleventh-hour intervention from Congress.
In Alabama, tornadoes rattle historic civil rights community
As a deadly storm system that spawned tornadoes across parts of the U.S. South, Zakiya Sankara-Jabar’s cellphone buzzed relentlessly. Text messages and calls from loved ones in Alabama, many of them hysterical, provided her with devastating updates. In Selma, family members’ homes were damaged but were structurally sound. But just one town over, other relatives lost everything. Her family has called the area home for generations and they have deep connections to Selma, a city etched in the history of the civil rights movement. Now, Selma is a majority-Black working class city recovering from a natural disaster, in a region that has suffered for decades from economic depression and lacking public resources.
Iran hangs former defense ministry official over spy claim
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran says it has executed a dual Iranian-British national who once worked for its defense ministry. That’s despite an international outcry over his death sentence and those of others held amid nationwide protests. Iran’s Mizan news agency, associated with the country’s judiciary, announced Ali Reza Akbari’s hanging on Saturday. It didn’t say when it happened. However, there are rumors he had been executed days ago. Iran accused Akbari, without offering evidence, of being a spy for Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency. It aired a highly edited video of Akbari discussing the allegations resembling others that activists have described as coerced confessions. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the execution “a callous and cowardly act carried out by a barbaric regime.”
Prince Harry: Memoir is about saving royals from themselves
LONDON (AP) — Prince Harry has said he had enough material for two memoirs. But Harry said in an interview published in British newspaper The Telegraph on Saturday that he held back because he didn’t think his father and brother would “ever forgive him.” He said that releasing his memoir wasn’t “trying to collapse the monarchy. This is about trying to save them from themselves.” Harry also revealed that he worries about Prince William’s children. He said he felt “a responsibility knowing that out of those three children at least one will end up like me. The spare.” Harry’s candid autobiography “Spare” sold 1.4 million English-language copies on the first day it was published this week.
Lisa Marie carved her musical path as she bore Elvis’ legacy
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Lisa Marie Presley may have been dubbed a “rock princess,” but she staked claim as a singer-songwriter, even as she bore the legacy of her father. Presley, who died Thursday at the age of 54, was the daughter of musical royalty and the face of the Elvis estate. But through her own songwriting and singing, her own truth came out in dark and honest lyrics. Over three albums, she worked with a variety of co-writers and collaborators, proving that she could do more than replicate Elvis. Her music even foretold what would her happen wen she died — she will be be buried at Graceland, her father’s mansion in Memphis, Tennessee.
