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Ukrainian strikes hit oil sites in Russia and Crimea
Separately, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has confirmed that Roman Abramovich acted as a go-between for messages between Kyiv and Moscow. Zelenskyy told Sky News that the former owner of Premier League team Chelsea traveled to Kyiv with a message from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Zelenskyy said Abramovich brought the message that the Russians “want to understand what we are ready to do,” and had offered to take a reply to Putin.
Meanwhile, the European Union’s foreign policy chief said a new proposed round of sanctions against Russia includes 80 listings targeting Russia’s “military industrial complex, human rights violators and propagandists.”
Kaja Kallas told a news conference after a meeting of EU defense ministers Monday that Western sanctions have already cost Moscow an estimated $1.2 to 1.5 trillion.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down 310 Ukrainian drones overnight into Monday, including over the Moscow region, western and southwestern Russia, Russian-occupied Crimea and the Black and Azov seas.
Russia targeted Ukraine with 155 drones, of which Ukrainian air defenses shot down or suppressed 124, according to its air force.
Ukraine strikes Russian energy sites
Ukraine’s General Staff said Ukrainian forces had struck Russia’s Krasnodar Krai region overnight, hitting the Grushovaya oil transshipment base near Novorossiysk. The complex is one of the largest transshipment hubs in southern Russia for oil and petroleum products.
Russian regional authorities confirmed a Ukrainian drone sparked a fire at the facility, adding that there were no casualties. While they did not comment on the extent of damage, they said 130 rescue workers were involved in putting out the blaze.
Asked whether the Kremlin is worried about the fuel crisis in Crimea, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Energy Ministry and other agencies are working on a set of measures to respond to the situation.
“There are indeed certain problems at the moment,” Peskov said. “Measures are being taken.”
The Krasny Yar “linear production and dispatching station” in the Volgograd region was also hit, the General Staff said. A fire broke out at the site, according to the statement. Russian Gov. Andrei Bocharov didn’t specify what the facility produces, but said there were no injuries.
Ukraine also carried out strikes overnight in the Semykolodezkaya oil base in the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula on Sunday night, sparking a fire at the facility. The base is used to store fuel reserves supplying the Russian military, according to the statement posted on Telegram.
Ukrainian forces also struck an oil depot near Feodosia in Crimea, the General Staff said.
Zelenskyy sent message to Putin
Zelenskyy said his message was that he would meet Putin “any time” in any location other than Russia or Belarus, and either bilaterally or with U.S. President Donald Trump and European leaders.
But he said Ukraine would not surrender the Donbas region, currently part-occupied by Russia.
“It was the key message. I said we will not leave and we will not go out from our territory,” Zelenskyy told Sky News.
Putin said last week that a Russian businessman, who he didn’t identify, traveled to Kyiv last month and met with Zelenskyy to hear his offer of a personal meeting. The Russian leader rejected the idea of a meeting, saying he saw no point in it.
Drone strikes civilians
Two people were killed and at least 18 injured, including four children aged 5, 10, 13 and 12, by a Russian drone attack in the central Zorizhzhia region that damaged residential buildings and vehicles and destroyed market kiosks, said the regional military administration head, Ivan Fedorov.
In Nikopol. a Russian attack killed a 49-year-old woman and injured four other people, according to the State Emergency Service.
The service also reported that four people were injured in the Dnipropetrovsk region when strikes hit residential buildings. In Odesa, three people were wounded after a Russian drone struck a public transport stop.
Russian drone strikes overnight also injured civilians and damaged buildings and businesses in the Kharkiv, Odesa and Chernihiv regions, regional authorities said.
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone overnight struck a passenger train traveling from Moscow to Simferopol in occupied Crimea, injuring the driver and killing the driver’s assistant, Kremlin-installed regional leader Sergei Aksyonov reported early Monday.
Akysyonov added that no passengers were hurt. But all passenger train traffic in Crimea was halted following the attack, with passengers evacuated and replacement buses provided, Russian operator Grand Service Express reported on Telegram that same morning.
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Business
Los Angeles trial to begin for man accused of sparking the deadly Palisades Fire
The Palisades Fire ultimately killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes as it incinerated hillside neighborhoods in Pacific Palisades and the city of Malibu. Rinderknecht faces at least five years in prison if convicted of charges that also include malicious destruction by means of a fire.
News of the trial drew mixed reactions from residents of the Pacific Palisades, who have spent the last year and a half tussling with insurance claims and red te for building permits as they try to regain normalcy in their lives.
“It drums up all of the emotions over this past year and makes me think about all of the suffering and chaos of all of our neighbors and friends’ lives,” said Meghan Wald, whose home was among the few left standing in her block.
Palisades streets are now crowded with construction vehicles and workers, and charred trees have recovered their luscious green. But vacant lots abound, filled with weeds and wildflowers and the skeletal frames of homes. Of the more than 450 construction projects, only 17 homes have been certified for occupancy.
Wald and her family now live in nearby Brentwood, but she visits weekly to support the handful of businesses that have reopened, including her hair salon, her usual CVS pharmacy and the Palisades Garden Cafe, where her kids used to grab snacks after school.
“It’s great to see the shops that we know and love coming back,” Wald said. “It’s also hard to imagine what it’s going to be like. It will never be the same.”
Haney said he also plans to argue that the government lacks solid evidence or witness testimony linking Rinderknecht to the first fire, and that first responders heard fireworks in the vicinity of where the blaze started.
Lena Loh, who opened a skin care clinic in the Palisades three months before the fire, said Rinderknecht’s prosecution gives her no sense of relief. She has been struggling to reopen and is looking to leave because she can’t sustain the business financially anymore.
“I don’t necessarily think putting him on trial is gonna fix anything,” she said. “This is a city issue. The city needed to manage that small speck of fire better.”
Business
Maverick Republican Sen. Bob Packwood of Oregon, who resigned after sexual harassment scandal, dies
PORTLAND, Ore. () — Former Sen. Bob Packwood, a moderate Oregon Republican whose reputation as a champion of abortion and women’s rights was spoiled at the end of his career by allegations of sexual harassment, has died. He was 93.
Packwood’s death on Saturday was announced in an obituary sent to media outlets by his family. The release didn’t include additional details.
Packwood was a political scrper who first refused to quit the chamber in which he had served for 27 years, saying he didn’t want to be remembered only for that controversy.
Before the #MeToo era, Packwood stood out as an example of private behavior undermining a man’s public image. He had been praised by Planned Parenthood and others.
The great-grandson of a member of the 1857 Oregon Constitutional Convention, Packwood established himself as a social moderate and fiscal conservative who often voted across party lines. He considered running for president in 1980.
Elected to the Senate in 1968, Packwood was best known as the leading Republican advocate of abortion rights and was widely admired by women’s groups throughout the country until the Senate Ethics Committee launched an investigation into the allegations of sexual and official misconduct in 1993.
More than two dozen women, former employees and acquaintances, accused him of making unwanted or uninvited sexual advances.
The allegations remained the target of an ethics probe that widened to include other alleged acts of official misconduct. He resigned in September 1995, then went to start a lucrative lobbying business in Washington.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, who replaced Packwood in 1996, said while he should be praised for his record on abortion rights and tax reform, how he treated women overshadows it all.
“His horrible history as documented in his own diaries will forever overshadow that public record. Simply put, historians’ first line about Bob Packwood must include those women who he abused and assaulted for years and years,” Wyden said in a statement.
As chairman and then ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Packwood was a master of cutting deals and forging compromises needed to pass tax legislation through Congress. He was most proud of the lead role he played in a sweeping tax reform of 1986 that lowered the top income tax bracket and eliminated many itemized deductions.
Over his career, he was described as a blunt, independent, outspoken politician who was a maverick, boat-rocker, loose cannon, skilled partisan, and, above all, political survivor.
“I think they probably all ring true,” Packwood told The Associated Press in December 1992.
“I would like to think that I am nobody’s lackey. I try to reach conclusions independently and then I’m willing to fight for those conclusions; if necessary, having to fight against my party or my party’s president,” he said.
Packwood won his first Senate election at age 36, narrowly defeating Democratic Sen. Wayne L. Morse, an Oregon legend who had held the seat for 23 years. He quickly grabbed attention as a rising star in the GOP. By 1980, he was elected chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
But he lost the seat when the White House backed a competitor after Packwood publicly accused President Ronald Reagan of alienating women, African Americans and Jews.
Just two weeks after Packwood’s reelection in 1992, The Washington Post printed allegations from former female employees and acquaintances that the senator had subjected them to uninvited sexual advances.
The Senate Ethics Committee also investigated allegations that Packwood solicited jobs from lobbyists for his ex-wife, used his staff to try to threaten the female accusers into keeping quiet and obstructed the investigation by altering his personal diaries.
The Senate held two days of extraordinary debate in 1993 over whether Packwood should have to comply with an ethics committee subpoena for his diaries, in which he reportedly made entries relevant to the investigation. The Senate voted 94-6 to enforce the subpoena.
Packwood took the case to federal courts and lost, ending when Chief Justice William Rehnquist refused Packwood’s request for the U.S. Supreme Court to intercede.
Packwood launched his lobbying business, Sunrise Research Corp., in 1997. By 1999, the firm was grossing $1.5 million a year. His business slowed in later years, but he told a City Club of Portland audience in 2010 that he was still spending about half his time in Washington lobbying for a number of clients.
It was interesting work, Packwood told the audience, according to The Oregonian, but “it is not as much fun as being in the Senate.”
As Congress became increasingly partisan following his departure, Packwood continued to advocate a centrist tact and called for Oregon to create nonpartisan elections in his 2010 City Club speech.
Packwood’s wife, Elaine Franklin, was his former chief of staff who became a political consultant in Portland. The couple had homes in the Portland area and Washington.
In a November 2002 interview with the Salem Statesman Journal, Packwood said he had gotten past the scandal that forced him out of office.
“People have told me it must have been tough on me, or it seems unfair,” he said. “But you cannot go through the rest of life and say look what hpened. Pretty soon you become a bore to your friends.
“I told myself I was not old enough to retire,” Packwood said, “so I have got to get at life and not complain about it.”
Business
Lawsuit seeks to stop the UFC fight on the White House South Lawn for Trumps birthday
“This is fundamentally a private, commercial, corrupt use of our most sacred national monuments for private gain,” said Brendan Ballou, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. “And that is what is motivating this lawsuit.”
The White House said in a statement that the legal challenge was “an obstructionist, baseless, and dilatory” attempt to prevent Trump from hosting the fight and that the event was “no different than the various other White House-hosted events on the South Lawn and properly permitted events on the Ellipse and National Mall throughout the year.”
UFC did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.
Crews are erecting an octagon-shed cage on the South Lawn. Trump has said the finished UFC project will feature “a 5,000-seat arena right outside the front door of the White House.” Additional large screens broadcasting the fights will be set up in a park at the nearby Ellipse, and the UFC has said it plans to issue as many as 85,000 free tickets to accommodate spectators at both locations.
The octagon and surrounding structures are the latest project in the White House building boom Trump is leading.
Business
At least 12 people shot at an Ohio festival and a search for suspects is still ongoing, police say
Gunfire erupted Saturday near a busy street festival in Ohio, wounding at least 12 people and sending some eventgoers scrambling for cover while others rushed to help the victims.
No suspects were in custody hours afterward, Toledo Deputy Police Chief Joe Heffernan said, and officials urged people who were at the festival to come forward with any photos or videos on their phones for possible leads.
The shooting hpened near the Old West End Festival, an annual gathering of live music and home tours.
Heffernan said it peared that at least two people fired weons and they were “probably shooting at each other.”
Two of the victims were in critical condition, Heffernan added. The ages of the victims ranged from 14 to 61, with most of them in their early 20s.
“I am deeply concerned about the situation in Toledo tonight,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement. “Summer festivals should be safe spaces for families to spend time together without fear of violence.”
Multiple videos posted to social media showed people running amid the sound of gunshots and emergency officials tending to others who peared wounded.
Fire Chief Allison Armstrong said it was difficult to get to the hospital due to closed roads and traffic from people leaving the festival, but emergency responders were able to transport all patients from the scene within an hour.
Kevin Berry was sitting in the neighborhood arboretum listening to live music with friends when he heard a handful of gunshots ring out.
“Everybody hit the deck,” he said.
When Berry looked back up, he saw a gun being tossed to the ground less than 50 feet (15 meters) away from him. Officers who were already on site for the festival responded immediately.
Berry, who has medical training and served in the Navy, walked around looking for anyone who might need help and saw at least five people with gunshot wounds.
“The folks who were hit were spread out around the arboretum area,” he said.
The Old West End Festival is a two-day celebration in Toledo’s historic district that includes live music, food vendors, home tours and shopping. Berry described it as the “kick-off to Toledo’s summer festival season.”
George Kral, safety director for the city, said officials were discussing with organizers whether it would continue through the weekend.
“This is one of the most iconic festivals in Toledo,” he said, “and it’s a shame that something like this had to ruin it.”
Business
Russian teen Mirra Andreeva says she had to overcome so many demons inside to win the French Open
“I’ve done a lot of visualizations before. Not just this tournament, but I’ve had dreams, I’ve had a lot of thoughts on how it’s going to hpen, if it’s going to hpen, when it’s going to hpen, where,” Andreeva said, still hardly breathing as she talked quickly in true teenage style. “The feeling in real life is so much better than in your dreams.
“I can call myself a Grand Slam champion,” Andreeva added.
The biggest challenges for Andreeva have not been on the court — she already has one of the best attacking baseline games in the sport — it’s been the mental side. And her stubbornness.
“Her attitude is difficult,” said Conchita Martinez, Andreeva’s coach and a former Wimbledon champion. “You tell her something, and maybe she’s not open to listening. … When she works hard and when she listens and she does everything, she has no limits.”
Andreeva acknowledged as much during the trophy ceremony.
“I know I can be a tough cookie sometimes and it’s pretty hard to put up with me,” Andreeva said.
The victory took Andreeva one step further than Martinez, who lost the 2000 French Open final to Mary Pierce.
Pierce presented the winner’s trophy to Andreeva, who became the youngest woman to win the clay-court Grand Slam since Monica Seles was 18 when she claimed her third straight French Open in 1992.
“You’re so young and talented. It’s so annoying,” the 24-year-old Chwalinska told Andreeva.
Andreeva took the unusual step of thanking herself “for believing in myself, always giving my 100%, even when it’s tough, trying every day to be better as a person and as a player, believing that I can do this, fighting so many demons inside of me.
“Only I know how tough it was for me,” Andreeva added. “How nervous I was throughout these two weeks.”
Andreeva also thanked her psychologist, who she said was watching from Florida: “Everything that you’ve told me I’ve been trying to use these two weeks.”
Chwalinska opens up about depression
Chwalinska was attempting to become the first qualifier to cture the Roland Garros title. She was a promising junior alongside four-time Roland Garros champion Iga Swiatek before she began struggling with depression in 2019.
“Tennis is such a tough sport. It’s so individual. We start so early. We are basically kids when we start,” Chwalinska said. “People are expecting that we are going to behave like adults already and we are just kids really. So the pressure is huge.”
Andreeva was born in Siberia and moved to Sochi and eventually France to develop her tennis career.
She drew a loud plause from the crowd on Court Philippe-Chatrier when she spoke a few words of French during the trophy presentation.
“Thanks for your support today and over these past two marvelous weeks here in Paris,” Andreeva said in French. “It was very important for me.”
Breakthrough at 15
Andreeva has been considered a Grand Slam contender since she burst onto the scene as a 15-year-old at the 2023 Madrid Open, where she became the third-youngest player to win a main draw match at a WTA 1000 tournament and made the quarterfinals.
Lately, Andreeva has had to contend with playing under neutral status and without her country’s flag because of the war with Ukraine.
When she beat Marta Kostyuk in the semifinals, Kostyuk refused to shake her hand, as has been the custom for Ukrainian players facing Russians ever since the war started in 2022.
“Every person doesn’t want to have a war in the world,” Andreeva said. “I never think about those things when I play.”
Mastering the wind
The final was played under a mostly sunny sky, though wind was a factor in the first Grand Slam final for both players.
Chwalinska double-faulted on the opening point of the match, but she was the first player to hold serve in the fifth game for a 3-2 lead.
But then Andreeva won nine stright games to take control as she found a way to hit through the wind and answer Chwalinska’s array of spins and drop shots.
Whereas Chwalinska would retreat to handle high balls in the wind, Andreeva often would move forward and take balls on the rise.
“She definitely handled wind much better than me,” Chwalinska said. “She was not running away from the ball.”
Andreeva produced 25 winners to Chwalinska’s 10 and also had fewer unforced errors: 26 to 29.
There was a strong Polish presence in the crowd.
When Chwalinska was introduced, fans held aloft red-and-white Polish flags and chanted her name: “Ma-ja, Ma-ja.”
Andreeva had little support from the crowd, although there was a shout of “Davai, Mirra!” (“Go, Mirra”) in Russian late in the match.
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Sports Writer Samuel Petrequin contributed to this report.
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