AP News In Brief At 6:04 A.m. EDT
Indian court urges government action as hospitals cry help
NEW DELHI (AP) - With Indian hospitals struggling to secure a steady supply of oxygen, and more COVID-19 patients dying amid the shortages, a court in New Delhi said it would start punishing government officials for failing to deliver the life-saving items.
On Sunday, India recorded a slight drop in new infections with 392,488 from a high of 401,993 in the previous 24 hours.
It also reported 3,689 additional deaths, bringing the total to 215,542. Experts believe both figures are an undercount.
The government has been using the railroad, the air force and the navy to rush oxygen tankers to worst-hit areas where overwhelmed hospitals are unable to cope with an unprecedented surge in patients gasping for air.
Twelve COVID-19 patients, including a doctor, on high-flow oxygen, died Saturday at a hospital in New Delhi after it ran out of the supply for 80 minutes, said S.C.L.
Gupta, director of Batra Hospital.
The Times of India newspaper reported another 16 deaths in two hospitals in southern Andhra Pradesh state, and six in a Gurgaon hospital on the outskirts of New Delhi because of the oxygen shortage.
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2 killed in shooting at Wisconsin casino; gunman slain
GREEN BAY, Wis.
(AP) - A gunman killed two people at a Wisconsin casino restaurant and seriously wounded a third before he was killed by police late Saturday, in what authorities said appeared to be a targeted attack.
Brown County Sheriff's Lt. Kevin Pawlak said investigators believe the gunman was seeking a specific person he was angry at.
"He was targeting a specific victim who was not there, but he decided to still shoot some of the victim's friends or co-workers, it appears," Pawlak said.
Neither the gunman nor the shooting victims were immediately identified.
Pawlak wasn´t sure if the shooter was a former employee of the restaurant, but said "it appears there´s some relationship that had to do with employment."
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SpaceX returns 4 astronauts to Earth; rare night splashdown
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.
(AP) - SpaceX safely returned four astronauts from the International Space Station on Sunday, making the first U.S. crew splashdown in darkness since the Apollo 8 moonshot.
The Dragon capsule parachuted into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Panama City, Florida, just before 3 a.m., ending the second astronaut flight for Elon Musk´s company.
It was an express trip home, lasting just 6 1/2 hours.
The astronauts, three American and one Japanese, flew back in the same capsule - named Resilience - in which they launched from NASA´s Kennedy Space Center in November.
"We welcome you back to planet Earth and thanks for flying SpaceX," SpaceX's Mission Control radioed moments after splashdown. "For those of you enrolled in our frequent flyer program, you've earned 68 million miles on this voyage."
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Republican Susan Wright makes US House runoff in Texas
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Republican Susan Wright of Texas, the widow of the first member of Congress to die after contracting COVID-19, advanced to a U.S.
House runoff for her late husband´s seat Saturday night.
But who she will face remained too early to call. With nearly all votes counted, Republican Jake Ellzey led Democrat Jana Lynne Sanchez by 354 votes in the race for the second runoff spot in Texas´ 6th Congressional District, which has long been GOP territory.
Ellzey is a state lawmaker who narrowly lost the GOP nomination for the seat in 2018 and carried the backing of former Texas Gov.
Rick Perry. It is the second time Sanchez has run for the seat after losing to Ron Wright in 2018.
The date of the runoff has not yet been announced.
Just weeks into his second term, Rep. Ron Wright died in February after being diagnosed with COVID-19.
He was 67 and had also been battling lung cancer. Susan Wright, a GOP activist, was quickly seen as a favorite after entering the race and was endorsed by former President Donald Trump days before the election. She led with more than 19% of the vote.
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Black candidate challenges political status quo in Spain
MADRID (AP) - Two young Senegalese men met on a Europe-bound migrant boat in 2006, a year that saw a record influx of Africans to Spain's Canary Islands.
Since then, one died of a heart attack running away from Spanish police and the other is running in a polarized election Tuesday for a seat in Madrid's regional assembly.
Serigne Mbaye not only wants to fight what he considers to be "structural racism" against African migrants but also to defy a history of underrepresentation of the Black community and other people of color in Spanish politics.
"That´s where all discrimination begins," the 45-year-old told The Associated Press.
In 2018, having failed to secure legal work and a residence permit, the man he met on the boat - Mame Mbaye, no relation - died of a heart attack eluding a police crackdown on street vendors.
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Roaring tanker fire kills 7, injures 14 in Afghan capital
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A searing blaze that roared through dozens of fuel tankers on the northern edge of the Afghan capital of Kabul killed seven people and bandar sbobet injured 14 others, the Interior Ministry said Sunday.
Investigators were combing through the tankers that lay in smoldering ruins and a gas station caught in the flames that lit up the area late Saturday, said ministry spokesman Tariq Arian.
There was no immediate indication of whether it was an accident or sabotage.
It came on the same day the U.S. and NATO officially began the final phase of a withdrawal from Afghanistan, ending a nearly 20-year military engagement.
All 2,500-3,500 American soldiers and about 7,000 NATO allied forces will be out of Afghanistan at the latest by Sept.
11, the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks in the United States that first brought them into the country.
Arian said the fire began when a spark set a fuel tanker ablaze. Nearby tankers were quickly engulfed, sending giant flames and plumes of smoke into the night sky.
The fire in the northern edge of the city engulfed several homes and a nearby gas station. Several structures were destroyed and electricity to much of Kabul, which usually has only sporadic power, was knocked out.
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Olympia Dukakis, Oscar-winning 'Moonstruck' star, dies at 89
MAPLEWOOD, N.J.
(AP) - Olympia Dukakis, the veteran stage and screen actor whose flair for maternal roles helped her win an Oscar as Cher´s mother in the romantic comedy "Moonstruck," has died. She was 89.
Dukakis died Saturday morning in her home in New York City, according to Allison Levy, her agent at Innovative Artists.
A cause of death was not immediately released, but her family said in a statement that she had been in failing health for months.
Dukakis won her Oscar through a surprising chain of circumstances, beginning with author Nora Ephron´s recommendation that she play Meryl Streep´s mother in the film version of Ephron´s book "Heartburn." Dukakis got the role, but her scenes were cut from the film.
To make it up to her, director Mike Nichols cast her in his hit play "Social Security." Director Norman Jewison saw her in that role and cast her in "Moonstruck."
Dukakis won the Oscar for best supporting actress and Cher took home the trophy for best actress.
She referred to her 1988 win as "the year of the Dukakii" because it was also the year Massachusetts Gov.
Michael Dukakis, her cousin, was the Democratic Party´s presidential nominee. At the ceremony, she held her Oscar high over her head and called out: "OK, Michael, let´s go!"
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Bid to censure Romney for Trump impeachment votes fails
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Utah Republicans booed Sen. Mitt Romney but ultimately rejected a motion to censure him Saturday for his votes at President Donald Trump´s impeachment trials.
The measure narrowly failed, 798 to 711, in a vote by delegates to the state GOP convention, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
Romney drew heavy boos when he came to the podium earlier in the day.
Davis County delegate Don Guymon, who authored the resolution, said Romney´s votes to remove Trump from office "hurt the Constitution and hurt the party."
"This was a process driven by Democrats who hated Trump," Guymon said.
"Romney´s vote in the first impeachment emboldened Democrats who continued to harass Trump."
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Medina Spirit gives Baffert record 7th Kentucky Derby win
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - John Velazquez was in a familiar place, in the lead aboard Medina Spirit in the Kentucky Derby and holding off the stretch bid of three challengers.
This time, Bob Baffert couldn't believe what he was seeing.
Medina Spirit won by a half-length on Saturday, giving Baffert his seventh victory, the most of any trainer in the race's 147-year history.
The jockey and trainer - both Hall of Famers - teamed up eight months ago to win a pandemic-delayed Derby in September with Authentic, who raced to an early lead and hung on. That wasn't so surprising.
This one was.
Sent off at 12-1 - astronomical odds for a colt trained by the white-haired, two-time Triple Crown winner - Medina Spirit was in a street fight thundering down the stretch.
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India launches effort to inoculate all adults against COVID
NEW DELHI (AP) - In hopes of taming a monstrous spike in COVID-19 infections, India opened vaccinations to all adults Saturday, launching a huge inoculation effort that was sure to tax the limits of the federal government, the country's vaccine factories and the patience of its 1.4 billion people.
The world's largest maker of vaccines was still short of critical supplies - the result of lagging manufacturing and raw material shortages that delayed the rollout in several states.
And even in places where the shots were in stock, the country´s wide economic disparities made access to the vaccine inconsistent.
The country's ambitious effort was also partly overshadowed Saturday by a fire in a COVID-19 ward in western India that killed 18 patients, and the death of 12 COVID-19 patients at a hospital in New Delhi after the facility ran out of oxygen for 80 minutes.
Only a fraction of India´s population will be able to afford the prices charged by private hospitals for the shot, experts said, meaning that states will be saddled with immunizing the 600 million Indian adults younger than 45, while the federal government gives shots to 300 million health care and front-line workers and people older than 45.
So far, government vaccines have been free, and private hospitals have been permitted to sell shots at a price capped at 250 rupees, or around $3.
That practice will now change: Prices for state governments and private hospitals will be determined by vaccine companies. Some states might not be able to provide vaccines for free since they are paying twice as much as the federal government for the same shot, and prices at private hospitals could rise.