11 killed, 18 injured as Ukraine, Russia trade missile attacks
KYIV, Ukraine — A missile strike Thursday on the Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukraine border killed six people, including a child, and injured 18, a Russian official said. It was the latest in exchanges of long-range missile and rocket fire in Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Hours earlier, Russia fired two dozen cruise and ballistic missiles at a broad area of Ukraine, hitting multiple regions after a midnight strike in Ukraine’s northeast killed five people in an apartment building, authorities said.
Five of the 18 people injured in Belgorod, a city of around 340,000 people, are children, regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram. Tass news agency reported that 15 people were hospitalized.
A shopping center and a school stadium were hit in Belgorod. “There are many casualties: dead and wounded,” Roman Starovoit, the governor of Russia’s Kursk region, which is next to Belgorod, said on Telegram.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said air defense systems destroyed 14 missiles over the Belgorod region that were launched by Ukraine using a RM-70 Vampire multiple launch rocket system.
Belgorod, 25 miles north of the Ukraine border, has been a regular target of Ukrainian fire, putting its residents on edge. Dozens of people were killed and injured in an attack there over Russia’s New Year holiday weekend.
Frequent Russian longrange bombardments are occurring as the almost two-year war has become bogged down in mostly trench and artillery warfare, which is destructive but not bringing much change to the 930-mile front line.
Thursday’s salvos on Ukraine were notable for the geographic spread of its targets and the wide variety of missiles deployed by the Kremlin’s forces.
Putin talks US election:
President Vladimir Putin said Russia would prefer to see U.S. President Joe Biden win a second term, describing him as more experienced and predictable than former President Donald Trump — even though Moscow strongly disagrees with Biden’s policies.
Putin’s comments during an interview Wednesday with Russian state television were his first about the upcoming election, likely to pit Biden against Trump. They were rare praise for Biden, a fierce critic of the Russian leader who has frequently lauded Trump.
“Biden, he’s more experienced, more predictable, he’s a politician of the old formation,” Putin said when asked which candidate would be better for Russia. “But we will work with any U.S. leader whom the American people trust.”
Putin’s motives for saying Biden is a better choice for Russia were unclear. His apparent endorsement was not welcomed by the White House.
Asked during a briefing Thursday about Putin’s remarks, national security spokesman John Kirby responded: “I think Mr. Putin knows very well what this administration has been doing to counter Russia’s malign influence around the world. Mr. Putin should just stay out of our elections.”
New data on drug use:
Smoking has surpassed injecting as the most common way of taking drugs in U.S. overdose deaths, a new government
study suggests.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called its study, published Thursday, the largest to look at how Americans took the drugs that killed them.
CDC officials decided to study the topic after seeing reports from California suggesting that smoking fentanyl was becoming more common than injecting it. Potent, illicit versions of the painkiller — which increasingly has been cut into heroin or other drugs — are involved in more U.S. overdose deaths than any other drug.
Some early research has suggested that smoking fentanyl is somewhat less deadly than injecting it, and any reduction in injection-related overdose deaths is a positive, said the study’s lead author, Lauren Tanz.
CDC investigators studied the trend by using a national database built from death certificates, toxicology reports and reports from coroners and medical examiners.
Massacre delay defended:
Maine state police defended a delay in their October search for a gunman who had just killed 18 people, saying Thursday that after finding his abandoned car, they feared he could be planning an ambush.
It took police two days to find the body of former Army reservist Robert Card, who died by suicide, while tens of thousands of Maine residents were ordered to shelter in their homes.
Police have been criticized for not finding Card sooner, after they quickly identified him, found his car and twice searched a nearby recycling facility. They found his body there on a third search.
“We would essentially be asking a patrol officer, with their canine, to go into the woods without the ability to see at night” to face off against a man with military training, Maj. Lucas Hare told a panel investigating the Lewiston shooting.
Hare also described some of the confusion and
tension during the search as multiple police agencies descended on the area, including some officers who showed up on their own, and emergency calls flooded in.
Greece OKs gay marriage:
Greece became the first Orthodox Christian country to legalize same-sex civil marriage, despite opposition from the influential, socially conservative Greek Church.
A cross-party majority of 176 lawmakers in the 300-seat parliament voted late Thursday in favor of the bill drafted by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ center-right government. Seventy-six others rejected the reform, two abstained from the vote and 46 were not present in the house.
Mitsotakis tweeted after the vote that Greece “is proud to become the 16th (European Union) country to legislate marriage equality.”
Opinion polls suggest that most Greeks support the proposed reform by a narrow margin.
New charges in beheading:
The suburban Philadelphia man charged with decapitating his father and posting a video online in which he held up the severed head had a device with photos of federal buildings and apparent instructions for making explosives when he was arrested, authorities said Thursday.
Justin Mohn, 32, faces a dozen new charges, including terrorism and theft, in the death last month of Michael Mohn, the Bucks County district attorney’s office said Thursday.
A woman who answered the phone at the Bucks County public defender’s office, listed as Mohn’s attorney, declined to comment Thursday.
Prosecutors say Mohn fatally shot his father, 68, with a pistol he bought the day before and then used a kitchen knife and machete to decapitate him at the Levittown house where they lived.
A preliminary hearing is set for April 2.