AP News in Brief at 12:03 a.m. EDT
Fires rage in several states as heat wave broils US West
Firefighters working in searing weather struggled to contain a Northern California wildfire that continued to grow Sunday and forced the temporary closure of a major highway, one of several large blazes burning across the U.S. West amid another heat wave that shattered records and strained power grids.
In Arizona, a small plane crashed Saturday during a survey of a wildfire in rural Mohave County, killing both crew members on board. The Beech C-90 aircraft was helping perform reconnaissance over the lightning-caused Cedar Basin Fire, near the tiny community of Wikieup northwest of Phoenix, when it went down around noon.
Officials on Sunday identified the victims as Air Tactical Group Supervisor Jeff Piechura, 62, a retired Tucson-area fire chief who was working for the Coronado National Forest, and Matthew Miller, 48, a pilot with Falcon Executive Aviation contracted by the U.S. Forest Service. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash.
"Our hearts go out to the families of our brave wildland firefighters," an Arizona Bureau of Land Management spokesperson said in a statement.
In California, officials asked all residents to reduce power consumption quickly after a major wildfire in southern Oregon knocked out interstate power lines, preventing up to 5,500 megawatts of electricity from flowing south into the state.
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Italy wins Euro 2020, beats England in penalty shootout
LONDON (AP) - Italian soccer´s redemption story is complete. England´s painful half-century wait for a major title goes on.
And it just had to be because of a penalty shootout.
Italy won the European Championship for the second time by beating England 3-2 on penalties on Sunday. The match finished 1-1 after extra time at Wembley Stadium, which was filled mostly with English fans hoping to celebrate the team's first international trophy since the 1966 World Cup.
"It's coming to Rome. It's coming to Rome," Italy defender Leonardo Bonucci shouted into a TV camera amid the celebrations, mocking the famous lyric "it's coming home" from the England team's anthem.
For England, it was utter dejection again - they know the feeling so well when it comes to penalties - after Gianluigi Donnarumma, Italy's imposing goalkeeper, dived to his left and saved the decisive spot kick by 19-year-old Londoner Bukayo Saka, one of the youngest players in England's squad.
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Billionaire Richard Branson reaches space in his own ship
TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. (AP) - Swashbuckling billionaire Richard Branson hurtled into space aboard his own winged rocket ship Sunday, bringing astro-tourism a step closer to reality and beating out his exceedingly richer rival Jeff Bezos.
The nearly 71-year-old Branson and five crewmates from his Virgin Galactic space-tourism company reached an altitude of 53.5 miles (86 kilometers) over the New Mexico desert - enough to experience three to four minutes of weightlessness and witness the curvature of the Earth - and then glided back home to a runway landing.
"The whole thing, it was just magical," a jubilant Branson said on his return aboard the gleaming white space plane, named Unity.
The brief, up-and-down flight - the space plane's portion took only about 15 minutes, or about as long as Alan Shepard's first U.S. spaceflight in 1961 - was a splashy and unabashedly commercial plug for Virgin Galactic, which plans to start taking paying customers on joyrides next year.
Branson became the first person to blast off in his own spaceship, beating Bezos, the richest person on the planet, by nine days. He also became the second septuagenarian to go into space. Astronaut John Glenn flew on the shuttle at age 77 in 1998.
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Biden backs Trump rejection of China's South China Sea claim
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Biden administration on Sunday upheld a Trump-era rejection of nearly all of China's significant maritime claims in the South China Sea. The administration also warned China that any attack on the Philippines in the flashpoint region would draw a U.S. response under a mutual defense treaty.
The stern message from Secretary of State Antony Blinken came in a statement released ahead of this week´s fifth anniversary of an international tribunal´s ruling in favor of the Philippines, against China´s maritime claims around the Spratly Islands and neighboring reefs and shoals. China rejects the ruling.
Ahead of the fourth anniversary of the ruling last year, the Trump administration came out in favor of the ruling but also said it regarded as illegitimate virtually all Chinese maritime claims in the South China Sea outside China's internationally recognized waters. Sunday´s statement reaffirms that position, which had been laid out by Trump's secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.
"Nowhere is the rules-based maritime order under greater threat than in the South China Sea," Blinken said, using language similar to Pompeo's. He accused China of continuing "to coerce and intimidate Southeast Asian coastal states, threatening freedom of navigation in this critical global throughway."
"The United States reaffirms its July 13, 2020 policy regarding maritime claims in the South China Sea," he said, referring to Pompeo's original statement. "We also reaffirm that an armed attack on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft in the South China Sea would invoke U.S. mutual defense commitments."
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Pfizer to discuss vaccine booster with US officials Monday
WASHINGTON (AP) - Pfizer says it plans to meet with top U.S. health officials Monday to discuss the drugmaker´s request for federal authorization of a third dose of its COVID-19 vaccine as President Joe Biden´s chief medical adviser acknowledged that "it is entirely conceivable, maybe likely" that booster shots will be needed.
The company said it was scheduled to have the meeting with the Food and Drug Administration and other officials Monday, days after Pfizer asserted that booster shots would be needed within 12 months.
Pfizer´s Dr. Mikael Dolsten told The Associated Press last week that early data from the company´s booster study suggests people´s antibody levels jump five- to 10-fold after a third dose, compared to their second dose months earlier - evidence it believes supports the need for a booster.
On Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci didn't rule out the possibility but said it was too soon for the government to recommend another shot. He said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FDA did the right thing last week by pushing back against Pfizer's assertion with their statement that they did not view booster shots as necessary "at this time."
Fauci said clinical studies and laboratory data have yet to fully bear out the need for a booster to the current two-shot Pfizer and Moderna vaccines or the one-shot Johnson & Johnson regimen.
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Trump lawyers might be penalized over Michigan election case
DETROIT (AP) - A federal judge is considering whether to order financial penalties or other sanctions against some of former President Donald Trump's lawyers who signed onto a lawsuit last year challenging Michigan's election results.
The lawsuit alleging widespread fraud was voluntarily dropped after a judge in December found nothing but "speculation and conjecture" that votes for Trump somehow were destroyed or switched to votes for Joe Biden, who won Michigan by 2.8 percentage points.
Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the city of Detroit now want the plaintiffs and a raft of attorneys, including Trump allies Sidney Powell and L. Lin Wood, to face the consequences of pursuing what they call frivolous claims.
"It was never about winning on the merits of the claims, but rather (the) purpose was to undermine the integrity of the election results and the people´s trust in the electoral process and in government," the attorney general's office said in a court filing.
U.S. District Judge Linda Parker in Detroit is holding a hearing by video conference Monday.
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Search in Florida collapse to take weeks; deaths reach 90
SURFSIDE, Fla. (AP) - Authorities searching for victims of a deadly collapse in Florida said Sunday they hope to conclude their painstaking work in the coming weeks as a team of first responders from Israel departed the site.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said 90 deaths have now been confirmed in last month's collapse of the 12-story Champlain Towers South in Surfside, up from 86 a day before. Among them are 71 bodies that have been identified, and their families have been notified, she said. Some 31 people remain listed as missing.
The Miami-Dade Police Department said three young children were among those recently identified.
Crews continued to search the remaining pile of rubble, peeling layer after layer of debris in search of bodies. The unrelenting search has resulted in the recovery of over 14 million pounds (about 6.4 million kilograms) of concrete and debris, Levine Cava said.
Miami-Dade Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said it was uncertain when recovery operations would be completed because it remains hard to know when the final body would be found.
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Gangs complicate Haiti effort to recover from assassination
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Gangs in Haiti have long been financed by powerful politicians and their allies - and many Haitians fear those backers may be losing control of the increasingly powerful armed groups who have driven thousands of people from their homes as they battle over territory, kill civilians and raid warehouses of food.
The escalation in gang violence threatens to complicate - and be aggravated by - political efforts to recover from last week's brazen slaying of President Jovenel Moïse. Haiti's government is in disarray; no parliament, no president, a dispute over who is prime minister, a weak police force. But the gangs seem more organized and powerful than ever.
While the violence has been centered in the capital of Port-au-Prince, it has affected life across Haiti, paralyzing the fragile economy, shuttering schools, overwhelming police and disrupting efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
"The country is transformed into a vast desert where wild animals engulf us," said the Haitian Conference of the Religious in a recent statement decrying the spike in violent crime. "We are refugees and exiles in our own country."
Gangs recently have stolen tens of thousands of bags of sugar, rice and flour as well as ransacking and burning homes in the capital. That has driven thousands of people to seek shelter at churches, outdoor fields and a large gymnasium, where the government and international donors struggle to feed them and find long-term housing.
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Demonstrators in Havana protest shortages, rising prices
HAVANA (AP) - Thousands of Cubans marched on Havana´s Malecon promenade and elsewhere on the island Sunday to protest food shortages and high prices amid the coronavirus crisis, in one of biggest anti-government demonstrations in memory.
Many young people took part in the afternoon protest in the capital, which disrupted traffic until police moved in after several hours and broke up the march when a few protesters threw rocks.
Police initially trailed behind as protesters chanted "Freedom," "Enough" and "Unite." One motorcyclist pulled out a U.S. flag, but it was snatched from him by others.
"We are fed up with the queues, the shortages. That´s why I´m here," one middle-age protester told The Associated Press. He declined to identify himself for fear of being arrested later.
Cuba is going through its worst economic crisis in decades, along with a resurgence of coronavirus cases, as it suffers the consequences of U.S. sanctions imposed by the Trump administration.
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Bucks blowout: Giannis has 41, Suns' NBA Finals lead now 2-1
MILWAUKEE (AP) - Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks made the NBA Finals' return to Milwaukee a slamming success.
The way the Greek Freak is going, the party might just be getting started.
Antetokounmpo had 41 points, 13 rebounds and six assists, and the Bucks pounded Phoenix 120-100 on Sunday night, cutting the Suns' lead to 2-1.
The first NBA Finals game in Milwaukee since 1974 went to the home team in a romp, with Antetokounmpo and the bigger Bucks overwhelming the smallish Suns to the tune of a 20-2 advantage in second-chance points.
"We knew what type of game it was going to be," Antetokounmpo said. "We knew we had to come here, play good basketball and compete as hard as possible."
