North America

HAVANA (AP) — A powerful explosion apparently caused by a natural gas leak killed at least 22 people, including a child, and injured dozens Friday when it blew away outer walls from a luxury hotel in the heart of Cuba’s capital.

No tourists were staying at Havana’s 96-room Hotel Saratoga because it was undergoing renovations, Havana Gov. Reinaldo García Zapata told the Communist Party newspaper Granma.

“It’s not a bomb or an attack. It is a tragic accident,” President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who visited the site, said in a tweet.

07 May 2022; MEMO: The United Nations (UN) on Friday called for Israeli authorities to cancel the court's ruling to evict 1,300 Palestinians in the South Hebron Hills of the occupied West Bank.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — National park rangers in Alaska on Friday located the body of the year’s first registered climber on North America’s tallest peak.

Because it’s so early in the climbing season, Matthias Rimml, a 35-year-old professional mountain guide from Tirol, Austria, was alone on the upper part of Denali, a 20,310-foot (6,190-meter) mountain about 240 miles (386 kilometers) north of Anchorage. The climbing season usually runs from May through mid-July.

Other climbers and rangers are camped below the 14,000-foot (4,267-meter) level.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A man who pleaded guilty to a series of Southern California attacks that killed five men and injured seven others was sentenced Friday to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Ramon Escobar, 50, received multiple life sentences after entering guilty pleas to murder with special circumstances and attempted murder. In a Zoom call hearing, he also pleaded guilty to the 2018 killings of his aunt and uncle in Houston, Texas. He received additional life sentences for those slayings but will serve them consecutively in California.

Weather conditions described as potentially historic were on tap for New Mexico on Saturday and for the next several days as hundreds of firefighters and a fleet of airplanes and helicopters worked feverishly to bolster lines around the largest fire burning in the U.S.

Many families already have been left homeless and thousands of residents have evacuated due to flames that have charred large swaths of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northeastern New Mexico.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Federal labor officials filed a sweeping complaint Friday accusing Starbucks of unfair labor practices at its stores in Buffalo, New York, including retaliation against pro-union employees.

The National Labor Relations Board’s Buffalo regional director outlined a host of labor law violations in a filing seeking reinstatement and backpay for the employees.

There’s been a wave of unionization drives at Starbucks stores nationwide, with the first union votes coming in December at three stores in Buffalo.

05 May 2022; MEMO: A US Senate Committee passed a Bill on Thursday that could expose the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and partners to lawsuits for collusion on boosting crude oil prices, Reuters reports.

The No Oil Producing or Exporting Cartels (NOPEC) Bill sponsored by senators, including Republican Chuck Grassley and Democrat Amy Klobuchar, passed 17-4 in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Washington, May 6 (AFP/APP): NASA’s Crew-3 mission returned home to Earth on Friday after six months aboard the International Space Station.

The SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft with NASA astronauts Kayla Barron, Raja Chari and Tom Marshburn, as well as European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer, undocked from the orbital laboratory a day earlier.

Their 23.5 hour journey back saw them splash down off the coast of Florida at 12:43 am (0443 GMT).

UNITED NATIONS, May 5 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Thursday to end the "cycle of death and destruction" in Ukraine.

As he briefed the UN Security Council on his shuttle diplomacy last week in Russia and Ukraine, Guterres said that he "did not mince words" when he spoke with the presidents of Russia and Ukraine about ending the conflict.

LAS VEGAS, N.M. (AP) — Firefighters slowed the advance of the largest wildfire in the U.S. as heavy winds relented Wednesday, while President Joe Biden approved a disaster declaration that brings new financial resources to remote stretches of New Mexico devastated by fire since early April.