AP News in Brief at 10:58 pm EDT
Kyiv, Moscow pitch differing narratives after OSCE observers held in eastern Ukraine released
MOSCOW (AP) – European military observers who were held more than a week by insurgents in eastern Ukraine walked free Saturday, with Kyiv insisting the release proves Russia is fomenting unrest in Ukraine – as Moscow touted the insurgents as courageous humanists.
The latest battling narratives came a day after dozens of protesters died while trapped in a horrifying fire in Odessa, hundreds of miles away. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the deaths show Ukraine’s acting leaders are “are up to their elbows in blood,” while authorities in Kyiv blamed pro-Russia provocateurs.
The incidents highlight the intractability of Ukraine’s crisis, in which pro-Russia insurgents have seized government buildings in about a dozen cities and towns in the east and Ukrainian forces have tried to regain control in a limited military offensive. Looming on the other side of the border are tens of thousands of Russian troops, whom Kyiv fears are waiting for a pretext to invade.
A pact struck between Russia, Ukraine, the European Union and the United States in mid-April aimed to resolve the crisis emphasized the importance of an observer mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. But the mission’s prospects became clouded a week later, when eight of its military observers and five accompanying Ukrainians were detained by insurgents in the city of Slovyansk, the crucible of unrest in the east. The insurgents alleged the observers were spying for NATO and carrying suspicious material; one from non-NATO member Sweden was released two days later, but the rest remained in custody until Saturday.
The insurgents’ leader in Slovyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomarev, was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying he ordered the release because of increasing insecurity in the city. In recent days, at least four Ukrainian soldiers were killed on the city’s outskirts – two of them when helicopters were shot down – and at least 10 civilians have been killed, according to Ponomarev.
‘That will be their cemetery:’ Rescuers struggle to help Afghans hit by landslide in northeast
ABI BARIK, Afghanistan (AP) – Afghan rescuers and volunteers armed with shovels and little more than their bare hands dug through the mud Saturday after a massive landslide swept through a village the day before, turning it into an earthen tomb holding hundreds of bodies, officials said.
The government and aid groups rushed to bring food, water and shelter to the survivors as the government tried to ascertain just how many people were killed in the latest natural disaster to hit a country already reeling from nearly three decades of war.
Figures on the number of people killed and missing in the disaster Friday varied from 255 to 2,700. Fears of a new landslide complicated rescue efforts, as homes and residents sat buried under meters (yards) of mud.
“That will be their cemetery,” said Mohammad Karim Khalili, one of the country’s two vice presidents, who visited the scene Saturday. “It is not possible to bring out any bodies.”
Though figures on the death toll varied, residents knew the toll the tragedy had taken on their own families.
Obama joins politicians, journalists and media celebrities for annual correspondents’ dinner
WASHINGTON (AP) – On at least one night a year President Barack Obama and the journalists who cover him try to find something nice – and something funny – to say about each other.
The annual dinner of the White House Correspondents’ Association has become an annual tradition in the nation’s capital, promising a black-tie evening of humor and celebrity gazing. The dinner attracts an array of journalists, government officials, politicians and media personalities as it raises money for college scholarships.
Obama and first lady Michelle Obama arrived Saturday evening at the Washington Hilton Hotel. The president was expected to speak after dinner but ahead of the featured entertainer, comic actor Joel McHale, the star of the NBC series “Community.”
The correspondents’ dinner has often come at key moments of Obama’s presidency. In 2011, Obama showed up the day before special operations troops killed Osama bin Laden. Last year’s dinner came nearly two weeks after the deadly Boston Marathon.
This time, the U.S. and Europe are anxiously watching Ukraine and Russia’s role in the turbulence in the eastern region of the former Soviet state.
With Derby win, California Chrome rises from humble beginnings to become a champion
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) – A horse with a humble pedigree. A couple of working stiff owners. A 77-year-old trainer with his first Kentucky Derby horse.
Even Hollywood couldn’t have made this up.
California Chrome made it look easy on Saturday, pulling away down the stretch to win the Derby by 1 3/4 lengths.
In a sport dominated by wealthy owners and regally bred horses from Kentucky’s bluegrass country, this was a victory for the little guys. Owners Perry Martin and Steve Coburn bred an $8,000 mare to a $2,500 stallion to produce the winner of the world’s most famous race with their one-horse stable.
“This is just a dream come true and a great birthday present,'” said Coburn, who turned 61 on Saturday.
AP PHOTOS: Wild hats fast horses at Ky. Derby
Bold hats, big bets and thundering hooves were the order of the day at the Kentucky Derby, where the 140th run for the roses took place Saturday evening at Churchill Downs.
California Chrome made it look easy on Saturday, pulling away down the stretch to win the Derby by 1 3/4 lengths.
People-watching remained a popular activity when the horses weren’t running on a mild, breezy Derby Day. Colorful plumed hats – a Derby fashion staple – were plentiful as tens of thousands of fans filed into the famed racetrack.
Here are some images from Churchill Downs.
Condoleezza Rice backs out of delivering Rutgers commencement address after student protests
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) – Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has backed out of delivering the commencement address at Rutgers University following protests by some faculty and students over her role in the Iraq War.
Rice said in a statement Saturday that she informed Rutgers President Robert Barchi that she was declining the invitation to speak at the graduation.
“Commencement should be a time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families,” Rice said. “Rutgers’ invitation to me to speak has become a distraction for the university community at this very special time.”
The school’s board of governors had voted to pay $35,000 to the former secretary of state under President George W. Bush and national security adviser for her appearance at the May 18 ceremony. Rutgers was also planning to bestow Rice with an honorary doctorate.
But some students and faculty at New Jersey’s flagship university had protested, staging sit-ins and saying Rice bore some responsibility for the Iraq War as a member of the Bush administration. Barchi and other school leaders had resisted the calls to disinvite Rice, saying the university welcomes open discourse on controversial topics.
Charge: Alaska man fatally shot troopers from behind as they attempted to arrest his father
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – As two state troopers struggled to arrest his father, a 19-year-old man armed himself with an assault rifle and shot them seven times, killing them outside his home in a remote Alaska village, authorities said in charges filed Saturday.
Nathanial Lee Kangas appeared in a Fairbanks court two days after Trooper Gabriel “Gabe” Rich and 45-year-old Sgt. Patrick “Scott” Johnson were shot to death. He was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and a count of third-degree assault. Bail was set at $2 million.
After bail was set, the judge asked Kangas if he had anything to say regarding the bail.
After a long pause, Kangas replied only, “I’m sorry,” the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.
Kangas, wearing an orange jumpsuit, was escorted by officers into the court. Every seat was full, and the walls were lined with law enforcement officers of several agencies as Kangas faced his charges. Officers hugged and consoled each other at the hearing, the newspaper reported.
White House correspondents to honor black reporter once barred by their predecessors
WASHINGTON (AP) – Harry McAlpin was standing outside the Oval Office, moments away from becoming the first black reporter to attend a presidential news conference, when one of his contemporaries approached with a deal.
Stay out here, the reporter told McAlpin. The other White House correspondents would share their notes, and McAlpin would have a chance to become an official member of the correspondents association. McAlpin marched into the Oval Office anyway. Afterward, President Franklin Roosevelt shook McAlpin’s hand and said, “I’m glad to see you, McAlpin, and very happy to have you here.”
McAlpin, who became a fixture at the White House during the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, never got a White House Correspondents’ Association membership. But now, in its centennial year, the WHCA is honoring McAlpin with a scholarship bearing his name. First lady Michelle Obama helped present the scholarship Saturday night during the WHCA’s annual dinner with McAlpin’s son Sherman, who lives in Maryland, on hand.
“Harry McAlpin is someone who should be recognized and shouldn’t be forgotten,” National Journal correspondent George Condon, the association’s unofficial historian, said this week during a panel discussion about diversity and the White House press corps.
WHCA President Steven Thomma noted that the correspondents group is much more diverse now than in the days when it refused membership to blacks, thus excluding them from presidential press conferences.
Northern Ireland police casting wide net for evidence of Adams’ IRA past as detention persists
BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) – Northern Ireland police are casting a wider net in their efforts to prove that Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams once commanded the outlawed Irish Republican Army and ordered the 1972 killing of a Belfast mother of 10, according to party colleagues and retired militants.
Details of an expanding trawl for evidence emerged Saturday as detectives spent a fourth day questioning Adams about the IRA’s abduction, killing and secret burial of Jean McConville 42 years ago – an investigation that has infuriated his IRA-linked party.
Adams had been scheduled to be charged or released by Friday night but a judge granted police a 48-hour extension of his detention. Adams, 65, took part in the court hearing via a video link from the police interrogation center west of Belfast.
Sinn Fein’s deputy leader, Martin McGuinness, said he had been told by Adams’ legal team that detectives were questioning him about many of his speeches, writings and public appearances going back to the 1970s, when he was interned without trial as an IRA suspect and wrote a newspaper column from prison using the pen name “Brownie.”
McGuinness, a former IRA commander who today is the senior Catholic in Northern Ireland’s unity government, told a street rally in Catholic west Belfast that police would fail to prove IRA membership claims against Adams, as last happened in 1978, when Adams was arrested in the wake of a hotel firebomb that burned 12 Protestants to death.
Pacers leaves no doubt in Game 7 by rolling past Hawks 92-80 for series win
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Indiana salvaged its season Saturday by reverting to form: its first-half form.
Paul George scored a career playoff-high 30 points, Lance Stephenson added 19 and Roy Hibbert finally came up big against the more nimble Atlanta Hawks as the Pacers survived a first-round scare with a 92-80 victory in the decisive seventh game.
Two days after staving off elimination in Atlanta, the top-seeded Pacers did it again and advanced to a second-round series against Washington that starts Monday in Indiana.
“We know what we want to get to and we know what our journey is,” George said.
Though they have a quick turnaround, at least the Pacers get a brief respite from the problems and distractions that lingered during the series.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.