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Almost 3,500 former convicts regain civil rights in Virginia

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) announced Friday that the state has restored civil rights to 3,496 formerly incarcerated individuals.

Following their release from prison, those convicted of felonies are eligible to request restoration of their civil rights, including the rights to vote, become a notary public, serve on a jury and run for public office, from the Virginia governor through the office of the secretary of the commonwealth.

“I am encouraged that over 3,400 Virginians will take this critical first step towards vibrant futures as citizens with full civil rights,” Youngkin said in a statement released Friday. “Individuals with their rights restored come from every walk of life and are eager to provide for themselves, their families and put the past behind them for a better tomorrow.”

The governor’s office works with the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office and the Virginia Department of Corrections to consider the restoration of formerly incarcerated people’s rights.

The individuals are also vetted by the Department of Elections, Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services and the Compensation Board.

“The restoration of rights process provides a fresh step forward for individuals who have made mistakes, but have done their duty to our community and wish to be full and productive citizens of our Commonwealth,” said Virginia Secretary Kay Coles James in a statement. “I look forward to their successful futures.”

Then-Gov. Ralph Northam (D) changed state policy to restore voting and other civil rights to convicted felons upon completion of their sentences in March 2021 through executive action.

Under Virginia law, people permanently lose such rights after being convicted of a felony and the governor has the sole discretion to restore them.

The governor is unable to restore their right to carry a firearm, however. To have that right restored, they must contact the appropriate local circuit court in Virginia.

Source: TEST FEED1

Global evidence on medical abortion shows how the US can protect reproductive rights

As the U.S. Supreme Court weighs whether to overturn Roe v. Wade, the next battle in reproductive rights is already heating up: access to abortion pills. 

Republican-controlled state legislatures, buoyed by the court’s leaked draft opinion, are rushing to pass a swathe of new laws that aim to criminalize what would otherwise be a lifeline — the distribution of abortion pills. There are already several states that have proposed or enacted laws banning “pills by mail.” In Texas, a recent law went into effect that also makes the provision of abortion pills after seven weeks of pregnancy a felony.

Options for women in a post-Roe world will be drastically different from those available pre-1973, thanks to medication abortion pills. 

It all began against the backdrop of restrictive abortion policies across Latin America in the 1980s, as women in Brazil started spreading the word about a pill invented to treat gastric ulcers that could also be used to end a pregnancy. Women who wanted abortions began to converge in droves on their local pharmacies to access the new drug, misoprostol. Today, misoprostol is taken as part of a two-step method for safely ending early pregnancy. The other pill, mifepristone, did not become available in the U.S. until 2000, because like with so many other advancements in abortion care, misinformation created unfounded concerns about its safety. 

The early pioneers in Brazil paved the way for women across the world, helping them to access abortion from the comfort, privacy and safety of their own homes. In the decades since, medication abortion has been proven to be one of the safest and most effective ways to end a pregnancy, accounting for more than half of all abortions in the United States.   

It was this data on the successful use of abortion pills along with a global medical consensus, including The World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommendation for the use of at-home abortion pills, that led to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decision to permanently allow abortion pills by mail.    

Despite the FDA’s decision and the increasing evidence supporting medication abortion since the 1980s, 19 states will seek to further restrict American women’s access to abortion by introducing legislation to stop these safe and necessary drugs from being shipped by mail.  

Medication abortion is not new. And during the pandemic, the evidence to support the safe self-management of medication abortion has only strengthened. With women’s access to reproductive health care affected by lockdowns and travel restrictions, several countries decided to support telemedicine and abortion-at-home to enable women to continue accessing abortion care. This included the UK, which changed its abortion regulations in March 2020 to allow early medication abortion at home via telemedicine.

In Nepal, the government introduced interim guidelines allowing women to access medication abortion at home. Nepal is a country which knows all too well the tragedy of maternal deaths. Before abortion was legalized in Nepal in 2002, over half of its maternal deaths were attributable to unsafe abortion — a number which has now dropped by a staggering 72 percent thanks to the steps it has taken to expand access to both abortion and contraception. 

Evidence shows that with the right support and information, the self-management of abortion is not only safe, more convenient and affordable for women, but often the preferred form of care when offered. A peer-reviewed study by MSI’s UK program revealed that at-home abortion care was the preferred choice of care during the pandemic for 83 percent of its clients. In addition, two-thirds shared that they would choose medication abortion at home again, even if COVID-19 were no longer an issue.  

Abortion has come a long way in the four decades that have passed since activists in Brazil changed the face of abortion access. The availability of medical abortion drugs has been pivotal in expanding reproductive rights across the globe. We urge lawmakers in the U.S. to listen to the global evidence on medical abortion and ensure that women can access this vital service.  

Amanda Seller is president of MSI United States, non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., supporting MSI Reproductive Choices’ family planning services across 37 countries, providing reproductive health care including contraception, safe abortion and post-abortion care.

Source: TEST FEED1

Judge blocks Biden from rolling back Title 42

A federal judge in Louisiana on Friday temporarily stopped the Biden administration from ending Title 42, the Trump-era border management policy that allowed officials to quickly expel foreign nationals at the border under pandemic conditions.

The policy was due to end Monday as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to restructure border and immigration policy after the Trump administration’s overhaul of the system.

U.S. District Court Robert Summerhays granted a nationwide preliminary injunction to a group of GOP state attorneys general challenging the policy change. Summerhays, who was appointed by former President Trump, ruled that the Biden administration cannot roll back the policy while the broader legal challenge plays out in court.

“The Court agrees with the Plaintiff States that a nation-wide injunction is necessary for complete relief given the ability of immigrants crossing the border to move freely from one state to another,” the judge wrote in his 47-page decision. “A preliminary injunction limited to the Plaintiff States will likely do nothing more than shift border crossings from the Plaintiff States to states not covered by the preliminary injunction.”

Summerhays ruled that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) improperly circumvented a process to allow for public input before issuing an order to terminate the program.

“The Plaintiff States have demonstrated harm that will result from the Termination Order and that, despite the impact of the order on the states, they were not able to protect their interest by participating in the notice-and-comment process,” the judge wrote.

That ruling reflects the tenor of rulings against the Trump administration’s immigration initiatives — notably the terminations of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Temporary Protected Status designations — issued after lawsuits by blue states against the federal government.

The injunction is a political victory for the GOP states that brought suit, but it could also help the Biden administration ease pressure on immigration, as high numbers of crossings are expected to continue throughout the summer.

The White House and CDC did not immediately respond when asked for comment.

Most border and immigration experts do not believe that Title 42 in itself was an effective border management tool, and its effectiveness as a public health policy was broadly questioned from its inception.

Still, Title 42 took on new life as the left called on the Biden administration to rescind the policy and the right uplifted the policy as a proxy for a Trumpist vision of border control.

Friday’s ruling by Summerhays was widely expected, and will likely maintain Title 42 in place until well after November’s midterm elections.

While that action alone is unlikely to be enough to redraw the battle lines on one of the election’s core issues, it will give the Biden administration some leeway to enforce Title 42 selectively without the option to fully lift the policy.

Over the policy’s two-year lifespan, more than half of which has been managed by the Biden administration, the policy has been primarily used to quickly expel Mexican, Guatemalan, Honduran, Salvadorean and Ecuadorian single men.

In 2020, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from using the policy to expel unaccompanied children, and the Biden administration has been reducing its usage against family units after initially taking a more aggressive approach in early 2021.

The Biden administration also exempted Ukrainians from Title 42, allowing more than 20,000 migrants from the war-torn nation to apply for asylum in April.

This story was updated at 5:46 p.m.

Source: TEST FEED1

Pennsylvania Senate GOP primary too close to call, recount likely

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s Republican primary for an open U.S. Senate seat is too close to call and is likely headed for a statewide recount to decide the winner of the contest between heart surgeon-turned-TV celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz and former hedge fund CEO David McCormick.

A recount would mean that the outcome of the race might not be known until June 8, the deadline for counties to report their results to the state.

The race is close enough to trigger Pennsylvania’s automatic recount law, with the separation between the candidates inside the law’s 0.5 percent margin. The Associated Press will not declare a winner in the race until the recount is complete.

Source: TEST FEED1

Keep the Chinese Communist Party out of college

This spring, as university graduates across the United States prepare to walk the stage, more than degrees will be handed out. Among the students and faculty of American universities sit spies—agents of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) —who have spent their years in college funneling research and stolen intellectual property (IP) back to the CCP. 

For years, the CCP has executed propaganda and espionage campaigns across the globe. In the United States, one of their methods of impacting the decisions of academic institutions and spying on activities inside the U.S. is through Confucius Institutes. 

These institutes are Chinese state-sponsored entities first established in America in 2005 under the guise of promoting Chinese language and culture, support local Chinese teaching internationally, and facilitating cultural exchanges.  

In reality, Confucius Institutes are used by the CCP to exploit the open, collaborative nature of American academia and conduct widespread industrial and military espionage inside the United States. Students and employees of these institutes infiltrate university campuses to steal intellectual property, intimidate Chinese dissidents, promote communist propaganda, and funnel information back to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). 

In May 2020, Zhihao Kong, a Chinese student at Purdue University, posted a letter online commemorating the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. What followed was a catastrophe. Officers of the Ministry of State Security (MSS), the primary Chinese civilian spy agency, visited his parents in China to pressure him to stop his activist activity in America. Other Chinese students at Purdue began to harass Kong, threatening to report him to the embassy. After his parents were repeatedly visited by MSS officers, Kong was silenced, rescinding his commitment to speak at a forum on the Tiananmen massacre. 

The fact that the CCP was able to suppress free speech and debate on U.S. campuses is gravely concerning. Purdue University is a school that receives DHS Science and Technology funding, hosted a Confucius Institute until 2018, and had extensive ties with Chinese schools promoting Military-Civil Fusion as recently as 2021.  

It is past time we take a strong stance against the CCPs violation of U.S. academia, and it starts with ensuring DHS funding only goes to institution that are free of China’s foreign influence. 

The United States government has taken some successful action against this encroachment in the last several years. The FY2021 National Defense Authorization Act prohibited DOD funding from funding institutions of higher education that host Confucius Institutes. The time is now for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to take similar action. Under no circumstances should a school in the United States be allowed to receive DHS funding while tacitly accepting money from the CCP.  

My bill, H.R. 7779, the “DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes Act”, ensures that schools prioritize the security of their scientific research and technological development efforts above a paycheck from the CCP. It restricts institutions of higher education from receiving DHS funding while hosting Confucius Institutes or continuing lucrative relationships with Chinese universities that promote Military-Civil Fusion—the CCP’s aggressive national strategy to help the People’s Republic of China develop the most technologically advanced military in the world, often through the theft of American intellectual property. 

This bill ensures taxpayer dollars are appropriately used and encourages universities to end relationships with partners who do not have America’s best interest in mind. More importantly, this bill ensures U.S. institution are free of foreign influence and safe from the theft of their research and development work.  

I am pleased that Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Ranking Member John Katko (R-N.Y.) brought the bill before the Homeland Security Committee, and that my colleagues supported the initiative. Under no circumstances should American taxpayer dollars be used to enrich the CCP or the PLA. My bill is a critical first step in confronting the national security challenges posed by the People’s Republic of China. Congress must ensure taxpayer dollars are cut off from these programs for good. 

August Pfluger represents the 11th Distict of Texas and is ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Intelligence and Counterterrorism. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Harry Styles on Roe v. Wade: 'It’s kind of scary to see how far backwards we’re going'

Harry Styles says the country would be moving “backwards” if the Supreme Court follows through with overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

“There’s a lot of people who are taking I think the right steps to try and make positive things happening,” the “As It Was” singer said Wednesday on SiriusXM’s “Howard Stern Show.”

“And I think obviously people who don’t like that are kind of clawing to grapple back any ground that they feel like lost, which never belonged to them in the first place,” Styles said.

“I just don’t think anyone should be able to make decisions about anyone else’s body. It doesn’t really make any sense to me,” the 28-year-old British performer added.

“I think there’s a level of obviously what’s happening here in the country at the moment is, I don’t really know where that ends,” Styles continued.

“Someone needs an operation and someone can decide that they can’t have it — just it makes no sense to me. I think it’s all backwards.”

Styles’s remarks came in response to a comment by host Howard Stern that there’s “some weird s— going down in this country right now.”

“A lot of rights — not just a women’s right to choose — there’s a weird vibe going on. There’s a backlash,” Stern said after a draft Supreme Court decision gutting U.S. abortion rights leaked earlier this month.

“I could see gay marriage going out the window. I could see a lot of this shit disappearing, some of the freedoms people have been enjoying,” Stern said.

“I think it’s we live in a world where we feel like we’re always making the right steps — and there’s a lot of people who are taking positive steps,” Styles told Stern.

“And I think it’s quite scary to see kind of like just how far backwards we’re going in a lot of ways,” Styles said.

Source: TEST FEED1

Unjustified industry pushback on EPA’s toxic chemical regulation

Recently, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) undercut its announcement of support for President Biden’s request to double fiscal year 2023 funding for the control of toxic substances, under the 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), with a “strings attached” demand that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) roll back six recent policy improvements that better protect people’s health. This was accompanied by claims that “EPA is implementing policy changes that are out of touch with regulatory and economic reality.” 

As former senior EPA scientists and managers, we applaud ACC’s support of a desperately needed increase in EPA’s resources, but we are dismayed by the industry’s push to reverse or modify policies that are essential to the success of the bipartisan 2016 TSCA amendments, which — ironically — industry supported. 

The lack of EPA resources is jeopardizing the law’s basic goal of accelerated risk reduction for substances posing known health and environmental threats. Instead of recognizing the need for more timely and effective protection against unsafe chemicals, ACC warns of harms to innovation and growth. While these are unfounded fears, instead industry recommends reinstating Trump-era EPA toxics policies that undermine the 2016 law and weaken health protections. 

First, it appears the industry wants EPA to ignore people’s exposure to chemicals from air emissions, water discharges, drinking water and waste disposal when evaluating the risks of existing chemicals. Failure to address these exposure pathways will result in incomplete risk evaluations and weak risk management. EPA is appropriately redoing several of the first 10 risk evaluations conducted under the amended law to account for environmental exposure in fenceline communities. This is a major step in strengthening protections for at-risk populations.

ACC next opposes making determinations of unreasonable risk that evaluate the chemical as a whole, and insists that EPA make separate risk determinations for each of the chemical’s uses. Under the “whole” chemical approach, EPA can consider whether and how a single use that does not pose an unreasonable risk in isolation may contribute to total risk in combination with other uses. This assures that the total risk to subpopulations —exposed on the job, at home and in the environment — is taken into account. In our view, ACC is wrong in predicting that this approach will lock EPA into unfairly branding all uses of a chemical as unsafe. EPA can regulate uses posing unreasonable risk while identifying uses that can continue without restrictions.  

ACC thirdly argues that, in evaluating risks to workers, EPA must assume they are wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). However, as EPA’s science advisers emphasized, this approach does not reflect reality. There are no PPE requirements for most chemicals. Even when required, small and medium sized enterprises often do not adopt or enforce PPE controls, and PPE such as respirators may be ill-fitting or used intermittently by workers. During the TSCA risk management process, EPA can make accommodations for situations in which health-protective, fully functional PPE will be employed throughout the workday.

Next, ACC claims that the Biden administration is failing to use the best available science and weight of evidence in risk evaluations. This is a stunning charge given the widely reported breaches of scientific integrity that occurred during the Trump administration. The science EPA now uses for TSCA risk evaluations follows recognized guidelines and is rigorously peer reviewed.  

ACC also asserts EPA must meet deadlines (90-days) to review new chemicals. The answer to addressing delays is to provide EPA with adequate resources to make safety determinations in an informed and science-based manner, not cut corners on safety reviews for the benefit of industry. 

Finally, industry complains EPA is increasing fees charged to chemical manufacturers for risk evaluations without any accountability or improvements in service. In passing the bipartisan 2016 amendments to TSCA, Congress expected EPA to collect up to 25 percent of TSCA costs from fees. The Trump-era EPA excluded the first 10 risk evaluations from any fees, and industry fee payments have been well below the statutory target. Clearly, manufacturers have not been unduly burdened by fees and would not suffer if required to pay more. 

The chemical industry, every member of Congress and the American people should support the president 2023 budget request for a functioning and effective toxic substances control program. Every one of us — and especially people living and working in frontline communities — is exposed to toxic chemicals daily, most of which are unregulated in the United States. Our health and welfare depend on their control. We must not let the chemical industry take us backward.

Elizabeth Southerland, Ph.D., is the former director of science and technology, EPA Office of Water.

Robert Sussman is former EPA senior policy counsel.

Linda Birnbaum is the former director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences.

Penny Pfenner-Crisp is a former senior science adviser for EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs.

Source: TEST FEED1

Why Texas, Florida won’t get more House seats from Census miscount

The U.S. Census Bureau this week said the decennial tabulation of every American resident had miscounted populations in 14 states by enough that a handful of seats in the House of Representatives should have gone to other states.

But even with evidence in hand that at least a few seats should have shifted between states — Texas and Florida, for example, may have deserved additional seats — there is nothing those states, the Census Bureau, the Commerce Department or Congress can do about it.

On Thursday, the Bureau released the results of its post-enumeration survey, an in-depth look at the accuracy of the decennial count that took place beginning in 2020.

The latest survey showed the decennial count missed, or undercounted, a statistically significant portion of the populations of six states: Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida, Texas and Illinois.

At the same time, the Census over-counted populations in eight states: Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island and Utah.

The statistical errors can happen for all sorts of reasons. People are undercounted when they refuse to engage with census-takers, or when public data from other databases that the Census Bureau uses to fill in gaps is incomplete or incorrect. People can be overcounted when they are tallied both at their permanent homes and in second homes, or when a child of divorced parents is counted in both homes.

The accuracy of the broader count may have been undermined too, when the Trump administration forced the Bureau to rush to its conclusions even in the midst of a global pandemic that slowed the counting process. And many of the states that suffered undercounts did not put substantial efforts into promoting participation in the Census, known in some states as complete count campaigns.

The resulting errors can mean the difference between a state winning an extra seat in Congress, or just missing out on deserved representation.

When the Census Bureau uses its results to allocate House seats, it does so through a mathematical formula called the Huntington-Hill method that prioritizes states by population. Every state begins with one seat in the House, and then the remaining 385 seats are allocated in order of what is called a state’s priority value.

In 2020, that meant California, the nation’s largest state, won the 51st seat in Congress. Texas, the second-largest state, took the 52nd seat. California is so large that it also took the 53rd seat, while Florida got seat number 54.

By the time the final seats are allocated, the difference in priority values are tiny. This decade, Minnesota won the 435^th and final seat in Congress by a difference of just 3.4 points over New York.

Put in real terms, according to calculations by the demographer Kimball Brace of Election Data Services, Inc., Minnesota would have lost its eighth seat in Congress if the Census Bureau had counted only 26 fewer people there. New York would have kept its 27th district if the Census had tallied just 89 more people there.

Farther down the list, Texas would have needed an additional 189,000 residents to gain a third new House seat; Florida needed 171,000 additional residents to pick up a second new seat; and Tennessee would have needed another 321,000 residents to add a new seat to its nine-member delegation.

The post-enumeration survey released this week appears to show that Texas and Florida may have actually deserved those seats. The decennial Census undercounted Texas’s population by 1.9 percentage points, or about half a million residents. Florida suffered an undercount of 3.5 percent, or about 700,000 residents. Tennessee, where the undercount was more than 4 percent, would have been right on the brink of adding a new seat as well.

But even with the new figures, Texas, Florida and Tennessee will not be getting a new seat in Congress, thanks to a two-decade old Supreme Court ruling authored by then-Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

That ruling, in a case called U.S. Department of Commerce v. U.S. House of Representatives, held that a clause in the Constitution relating to the Census and the Census Act of 1976 prohibited the Bureau from using statistical sampling to calculate apportionment of congressional seats.

Said another way, the Court held that only the decennial count of actual residents — rather than modeling aimed at producing a more accurate count — could be used to determine House seats. The decennial count is the actual enumeration that must be used; the post-enumeration survey is a statistical sample that cannot be used.

“The conventional understanding is that the Constitution requires use of the Census for apportionment,” said Michael Li, a redistricting and reapportionment expert at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice.

There is nothing stopping those states that missed out on a new seat from bringing a new suit. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (R) office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Census Bureau’s undercount.

Given that a new apportionment would likely reward Southern conservative states, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court may have a new interest in considering a challenge, said Michael McDonald, a political scientist and Census expert at the University of Florida.

But any challenge would likely take years to wind its way through the court system. Instead, those states will have to wait another decade — and hope their populations hold — to see their congressional delegations grow once again.

Source: TEST FEED1

Russia claims to have taken full control of Mariupol

POKROVSK, Ukraine (AP) — Russia claimed to have captured Mariupol on Friday in what would be its biggest victory yet in its war with Ukraine, following a nearly three-month siege that reduced much of the strategic port city to a smoking ruin, with over 20,000 civilians feared dead.

There was no immediate confirmation from Ukraine.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to President Vladimir Putin the “complete liberation” of the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol — the last stronghold of Ukrainian resistance — and the city as a whole, spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti quoted the ministry as saying that a total of 2,439 Ukrainian fighters who had been holed up at Azovstal had laid down their arms and surrendered since Monday, including over 500 on Friday.

The steelworks had been the site of fierce fighting for weeks. The dwindling group of outgunned fighters had held out in the plant, drawing Russian airstrikes, artillery and tank fire before their government ordered them to abandon its defense and save their lives.

The complete takeover of Mariupol gives Putin a badly needed military victory in the war he began on Feb. 24 — a conflict that was supposed to have been a quick and easy victory for the Kremlin but instead has seen the failure to take the capital of Kyiv, a pullback of its forces to refocus on battles in eastern Ukraine and even the sinking of Russia’s flagship of its Black Sea fleet, the Moskva.

Military analysts say the city’s capture at this point holds more symbolic importance than anything else, since Mariupol is already effectively under Moscow’s control and most of the Russian forces that were tied down by the drawn-out fighting have already left.

Russia had sought control of Mariupol, on the coast of the Sea of Azov, to complete a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and free up troops to join the growing battle for control of the wider industrial Donbas region, home to an 8-year-old Moscow-backed separatist rebellion. It would also deprive Ukraine of a vital port.

The city endured some of the worst suffering of the war. An estimated 100,000 people remained from a prewar population of 450,000, many trapped without food, water, heat or electricity. Constant bombardment has left behind shattered and charred buildings in row after row of destroyed apartment blocks and ruined neighborhoods.

A maternity hospital was hit with a lethal Russian airstrike on March 9, producing searing images of pregnant women being evacuated from the facility.

A week later, about 300 people were reported killed in a bombing of a theater where civilians were taking shelter, although the real death toll could be closer to 600. Officials had written the word “CHILDREN” in Russian on the pavement outside to try to forestall an aerial attack.

Long traffic jams of cars snaked out of the city, filled with evacuees fleeing past checkpoints of Russian soldiers with heavy weapons who didn’t have time to search inside each vehicle in the convoys.

Satellite images in April showed what appeared to be mass graves near Mariupol, where local officials accused Russia of concealing the slaughter by burying up to 9,000 civilians. The imagery showed rows of graves stretching away from an existing cemetery in the town of Manhush, outside the port city.

Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko accused the Russians of “hiding their military crimes” in the mass graves and labeled it “the new Babi Yar” — recalling the ravine in Kyiv where the Nazis massacred nearly 34,000 Ukrainian Jews during World War II.

It was not the first time Moscow has claimed to have captured Mariupol. At a joint appearance with his defense minister on April 21, Putin declared that “the completion of combat work to liberate Mariupol is a success.” Even though die-hard Ukrainian forces were still inside the Azovstal plant at that point, Putin ordered the military to seal off the complex “so that not even a fly comes through.”

After continued bombardment, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on May 16 the evacuation of his forces from the bunkers and tunnels beneath Azovstal was done to save the lives of the fighters.

“Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes to be alive. It’s our principle,” Zelenskyy said.

The Azovstal complex covers 11 square kilometers (4 square miles) and is threaded with about 24 kilometers (15 miles) of tunnels and bunkers. Earlier in May, hundreds of civilians were evacuated from the plant during humanitarian cease-fires.

One civilian evacuee from Azovstal, who made it to the Ukrainian controlled city of Zaporizhzhia on May 3, said she went to sleep at the plant every night afraid she wouldn’t wake up. “You can’t imagine how scary it is when you sit in the bomb shelter, in a damp and wet basement, and it is bouncing and shaking,” said Elina Tsybulchenko, 54.

While Russia described the troops leaving the steel plant as a mass surrender, the Ukrainians called it a fulfilled mission.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy, described the defense of Mariupol as “the Thermopylae of the 21st century” — a reference to one of history’s most glorious defeats, in which 300 Spartans held off a much larger Persian force in 480 B.C. before finally succumbing.

“The Azovstal defenders thwarted the enemy’s plans to seize eastern Ukraine, drew away enormous numbers of enemy forces, and changed the course of the war,” Podolyak said.

Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Mariupol’s defenders gave Ukraine “critically important time to form reserves and regroup forces and receive help from partners. And they fulfilled all their tasks.”

___

McQuillan reported from Lviv. Stashevskyi reported from Kyiv. Associated Press journalists Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Andrea Rosa in Kharkiv, Jamey Keaten in Geneva and other AP staffers around the world contributed.

Source: TEST FEED1