The Philippines' most active volcano was gently spewing lava down its slopes Monday, alerting tens of thousands of people they may have to quickly flee a violent and life-threatening explosion. More than 12,600 people have left the mostly poor farming communities within a 6-kilometer (3.7-mile) radius of Mayon Volcano's crater in mandatory evacuations since volcanic activity increased last week. But thousands more remain within the permanent danger zone below Mayon, an area long declared off-limits to people but where generations have lived and farmed because they have nowhere else to go. With the volcano beginning to expel lava Sunday night, the high-risk zone around Mayon may be expanded should the eruption turn violent, said Teresito Bacolcol, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology. Bacolcol said if that happens, people in any expanded danger zone should be prepared to evacuate to emergency shelters. Also Read: Philippines evacuates people near Mayon Volcano, where more unrest indicates eruption may be coming  

The government has taken measures to bring back Bangladeshi citizens stranded in Sudan, through Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Seheli Sabrin said that at first the Bangladeshi nationals will be taken to Port Sudan from Khartoum, and from there they will be taken to Jeddah. Later, they will be brought to Bangladesh by several flights of Biman Bangladesh Airlines. The Bangladesh Embassy in Khartoum has already arranged nine buses to take the Bangladeshi nationals to Port Sudan from Khartoum and adjacent cities and a team from Bangladesh’s Consulate General in Jeddah will reach there to assist them. All the Bangladeshis, stranded in Sudan, will be taken to Port Sudan by May 2. Also read: Bangladeshis stuck in Sudan to be repatriated: MoFA The Bangladeshi nationals are likely to reach Jeddah by May 3 or May 4. Two Bangladeshi schools in Jeddah are providing food, drink, medicine and temporary accommodation for the Bangladeshi nationals being brought from Sudan. Earlier, on April 25, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam said a decision has been made to evacuate Bangladeshi nationals from Sudan through other countries. “The Bangladesh Embassy in Khartoum has already started spreading this message among the Bangladeshis living there,” he wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday. Read More: Heavy clashes rock Sudan’s capital despite truce extension The state minister urged the Bangladeshi nationals in Sudan to follow the instructions provided by the embassy and complete registration. Meanwhile, a number of Bangladeshi nationals were evacuated by the Royal Saudi Naval Forces. More than 420 people, including at least 291 civilians, have been killed and over 3,700 wounded since the fighting erupted between Sudanese military and the country’s largest paramilitary force last week, AP reports. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the situation in Sudan a “catastrophic conflagration” that could engulf the whole region. Read More: Sudan conflict: 187 more people including Bangladeshis evacuated

Chargé d'affaires at Bangladesh Mission in Sudan, Tareq Ahmed, has said the safety and security situation in the area where the Bangladesh Embassy and Bangladesh House are located, is still volatile. "Our staff were unable to get access to the embassy premises as of today," he told UNB early today. The chief of Bangladesh mission said they are organising evacuation of expatriate Bangladeshis in Sudan. Also Read: Bangladesh to evacuate nationals from Sudan through other countries: Shahriar Alam "Nothing is final though, we are expecting it to be carried out by this month or early next month. We are compiling information of our expatriates interested to be evacuated now," he said. Also Read: MoFA advisory out against travelling to Sudan Responding to a question, the envoy said all the western countries have relocated their embassy officials, but embassies of India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia and a few others, including Bangladesh, are still operational. Also Read: Sudan conflict: 91 including Bangladeshis evacuated "We, all the officials and their families, are outside capital at a safe place," he said, adding that the situation remains unpredictable in Khartoum, although they are receiving some information of some improvement in a few areas.  

Military bases that housed tens of thousands of Afghan refugees in the U.S. incurred almost $260 million in damages that in some cases rendered buildings unusable for troops until significant repairs to walls and plumbing are made, the Pentagon’s inspector general found. Over the last two weeks of August 2021, the U.S. Air Force managed the largest humanitarian evacuation in its history, airlifting 120,000 people from Afghanistan in just 17 days. The bulk of those passengers were Afghans fleeing Taliban rule, and U.S. aircraft delivered tens of thousands of those Afghans initially to bases in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, Italy, Bahrain and Germany. After processing, many of the refugees were flown to eight military bases in the U.S., where many were housed for months as they awaited visa processing and resettlement; the last Afghan refugee left military housing in February. The refugees were housed at Fort Bliss, Texas; Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey; Fort McCoy, Wisconsin.; Camp Atterbury, Indiana; Fort Pickett, Fort Lee, and Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia; and Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. The sheer volume of people in the temporary housing left those barracks and buildings with significant wear and tear, the inspector general found. Read more: Afghan survivors of US drone strike: Sorry ‘is not enough’ In one case, training for the Indiana National Guard was relocated from Camp Atterbury to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, due to damages caused during “Operation Allies Welcome.” The facilities need to be restored “to a condition that enables them to conduct trainings, prepare for future events, and return to normal base operations,” the IG found. For example, of the $260 million in approved restoration costs, the Defense Department approved about $16 million for Camp Atterbury “to replace mattresses and furniture and repair floors, doors, windows, plumbing, fire alarm systems, and landscaping.” But the inspector general questioned whether all the repair work requested by the eight bases was connected to the refugees’ stay. For example, Fort McCoy, which housed 12,706 refugees, was approved for $145.6 million to repair buildings and plumbing, an amount that was more than three times the combined restoration needs of Fort Bliss and Fort Pickett, which had housed similar numbers of refugees. Read more: US says drone kills IS bombers targeting Kabul airport

More than 30,000 residents of Sydney and its surrounds have been told to evacuate or prepare to abandon their homes on Monday as Australia’s largest city braces for what could be its worst flooding in 18 months. Parts of the city of 5 million people are facing a fourth flooding emergency in a year and a half after torrential rain since Friday caused dams to overflow and waterways to break their banks. “The latest information we have is that there’s a very good chance that the flooding will be worse than any of the other three floods that those areas had in the last 18 months,” Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt told Australian Broadcasting Corp. Read: 500,000 people on flood alert as rain lashes Sydney The current flooding might affect areas that managed to stay dry during the previous floods, Watt added. New South Wales state Premier Dominic Perrottet said 32,000 people were impacted by evacuation orders and warnings. “You’d probably expect to see that number increase over the course of the week,” Perrottet said. Emergency services had made 116 flood rescues in recent days, 83 of them since 9 p.m. Sunday, he said. Hundreds more requests for help were made by Monday morning. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology manager Jane Golding said some areas between Newcastle, north of Sydney, and Wollongong, south of Sydney had received more than a meter (39 inches) of rain in the previous 24 hours. Some has received more than 1.5 meters (59 inches). “The system that has been generating this weather does show signs that it will ease tomorrow, but throughout today, expect more rain,” Golding said. Rain was forecast across New South Wales's coast, including Sydney, all week, she said. The flooding danger was highest along the Hawkesbury River, in northwest Sydney, and the Nepean River in Sydney’s west. “The water is flowing really quickly,” Golding said. “It’s dangerous out on the rivers and we do have some more rain to fall which means the flash-flood risk is not over yet.” State Emergency Services Commissioner Carlene York said strong winds had toppled trees, damaging rooves and blocking roads. She advised against unnecessary travel. Theresa Fedeli, mayor of the Camden municipality on the Nepean River southwest of Sydney, said the repeated flooding was taking a toll on members of her community. “It's just devastating. They just keep on saying ‘devastating, not again,'” Fedeli said. “I just keep on saying ... ‘We've got to be strong, we will get through this.” But you know deep down it's really hitting home hard to a lot of people," she added. Read:Australia commits to reducing greenhouse emissions by 43% Perrottet said government and communities needed to adapt to major flooding becoming more common across Australia’s most populous state. “We’re seeing these flood events more regularly, there’s no doubt about that,” Perrottet said. "To see what we’re seeing right across Sydney, there’s no doubt these events are becoming more common. And governments need to adjust and make sure that we respond to the changing environment that we find ourselves in,” he added.

Ukrainian officials and the United Nations held out hope for more evacuations from the bombed-out steel mill in Mariupol as scores of civilians reached relative safety after enduring weeks of shelling that targeted city's last pocket of resistance. While the evacuees savored hot food, clean clothing and other comforts that were denied to them while underground, Russian forces on Tuesday began storming the plant, where some Ukrainian fighters were still holed up. Thanks to the evacuation effort over the weekend, 101 people — including women, the elderly, and 17 children, the youngest 6 months old — emerged from the bunkers under the Azovstal steelworks to “see the daylight after two months,” said Osnat Lubrani, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine. Also read: Civilians rescued from Mariupol steel plant head for safety One evacuee 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,” 54-year-old Elina Tsybulchenko said upon arriving in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, about 140 miles (230 kilometers) northwest of Mariupol, in a convoy of buses and ambulances. She said if the shelter were hit by a bomb like the ones that left the huge craters she saw on the two occasions she ventured outside, “all of us would be done.” Evacuees, a few of whom were in tears, made their way from the buses into a tent offering food, diapers and connections to the outside world. Some of the evacuees browsed racks of donated clothing, including new underwear. The news for those left behind was more grim. Ukrainian commanders said Russian forces backed by tanks began storming the sprawling plant, which includes a maze of tunnels and bunkers spread out over 11 square kilometers (4 square miles). Also read: US official: Russia plans to annex parts of eastern Ukraine It was unclear how many Ukrainian fighters were still inside, but the Russians put the number at about 2,000 in recent weeks, and 500 were reported to be wounded. A few hundred civilians also remained there, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said. “We’ll do everything that’s possible to repel the assault, but we’re calling for urgent measures to evacuate the civilians that remain inside the plant and to bring them out safely,” Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, said on the messaging app Telegram. He added that throughout the night, the plant was hit with naval artillery fire and airstrikes. Two civilian women were killed and 10 civilians wounded, he said. The U.N.‘s Lubrani expressed hope for further evacuations but said none had been worked out. In his nightly video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that by storming the steel mill, Russian forces violated agreements for safe evacuations. He said the prior evacuations are “not a victory yet, but it’s already a result. I believe there’s still a chance to save other people." In other battlefield developments, Russian troops shelled a chemical plant in the eastern city of Avdiivka, killing at least 10 people, Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said. “The Russians knew exactly where to aim — the workers just finished their shift and were waiting for a bus at a bus stop to take them home,” Kyrylenko wrote in a Telegram post. “Another cynical crime by Russians on our land.” Explosions were also heard in Lviv, in western Ukraine, near the Polish border. The strikes damaged three power substations, knocking out electricity in parts of the city and disrupting the water supply, and wounded two people, the mayor said. Lviv has been a gateway for NATO-supplied weapons and a haven for those fleeing the fighting in the east. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Russian aircraft and artillery hit hundreds of targets in the past day, including troop strongholds, command posts, artillery positions, fuel and ammunition depots and radar equipment. Ukrainian authorities said the Russians also attacked at least a half-dozen railroad stations around the country. The assault on the Azovstal steelworks began almost two weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his military not to storm the plant to finish off the defenders but to seal it off. The first — and so far only — civilians to be evacuated from the shattered plant got out during a brief cease-fire in an operation overseen by the U.N. and the Red Cross. At a reception center in Zaporizhzhia, stretchers and wheelchairs were lined up, and children's shoes and toys awaited the convoy. Medical and psychological teams were on standby. Some of the elderly evacuees appeared exhausted as they arrived. Some of the younger people, especially mothers comforting babies and other young children, appeared relieved. “I’m very glad to be on Ukrainian soil,” said a woman who gave only her first name, Anna, and arrived with two children, ages 1 and 9. “We thought we wouldn’t get out of there, frankly speaking.” A small group of women held up signs in English asking that fighters also be evacuated from the steel plant. The arrival of the evacuees was a rare piece of good news in the nearly 10-week conflict that has killed thousands, forced millions to flee the country, laid waste to towns and cities, and shifted the post-Cold War balance of power in Eastern Europe. In addition to the 101 people evacuated from the steelworks, 58 joined the convoy in a town on the outskirts of Mariupol, Lubrani said. About 30 people who left the plant decided to stay behind in Mariupol to try to find out whether their loved ones were alive, Lubrani said. A total of 127 evacuees arrived in Zaporizhzhia, she said. The Russian military said earlier that some of the evacuees chose to stay in areas held by pro-Moscow separatists. Tsybulchenko rejected Russian allegations that the Ukrainian fighters wouldn’t allow civilians to leave the plant. She said the Ukrainian military told civilians that they were free to go but would be risking their lives if they did so. “We understood clearly that under these murder weapons, we wouldn’t survive, we wouldn’t manage to go anywhere,” she said. Mariupol has come to symbolize the human misery inflicted by the war. The Russians’ two-month siege of the strategic southern port has trapped civilians with little or no food, water, medicine or heat, as Moscow’s forces pounded the city into rubble. The plant in particular has transfixed the outside world. After failing to take Kyiv in the early weeks of the war, Russia withdrew from around the capital and announced that its chief objective was the capture of Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, known as the Donbas. Mariupol lies in the region, and its fall would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and free up troops for fighting elsewhere in the Donbas. But so far, Russia’s troops and their allied separatist forces appear to have made only minor gains in the eastern offensive.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has signed emergency declarations as 20 wildfires continued to burn Sunday in nearly half of the state’s drought-stricken 33 counties. One wildfire in northern New Mexico that started April 6 merged with a newer fire Saturday to form the largest blaze in the state, leading to widespread evacuations in Mora and San Miguel counties. That fire was at 84 square miles (217 square kilometers) Sunday and 12% contained. An uncontained wind-driven wildfire in northern New Mexico that began April 17 had charred 81 square miles (209 square kilometers) of ponderosa pine, oak brush and grass by Sunday morning north of Ocate, an unincorporated community in Mora County. Meanwhile in Arizona, some residents forced to evacuate due to a wildfire near Flagstaff were allowed to return home Sunday morning. In Nebraska, authorities said wind-driven wildfires sweeping through parts of the state killed a retired Cambridge fire chief and injured at least 11 firefighters. Also read: Wind will be a force to reckon with on Southwest wildfires Winds and temperatures in New Mexico diminished Saturday but remained strong enough to still fan fires. Dozens of evacuation orders remained in place. Fire officials were expecting the northern wildfires to slow Sunday as cloud and smoke cover moves in, allowing the forests to retain more moisture. But they added that the interior portions of the fires could show moderate to extreme behavior, which could threaten structures in those areas. More than 200 structures have been charred by the wildfires thus far and an additional 900 remain threatened, Lujan Grisham said. Fire management officials said an exact damage count was unclear because it’s still too dangerous for crews to go in and look at all the homes that have been lost. “We do not know the magnitude of the structure loss. We don’t even know the areas where most homes made it through the fire, where homes haven’t been damaged or anything like that,” said operation sections chief Jayson Coil. Some 1,000 firefighters were battling the wildfires across New Mexico, which already has secured about $3 million in grants to help with the fires. Lujan Grisham said she has asked the White House for more federal resources and she’s calling for a ban of fireworks statewide. “We need more federal bodies for firefighting, fire mitigation, public safety support on the ground in New Mexico,” she said. “It’s going to be a tough summer. So that’s why we are banning fires. And that is why on Monday I will be asking every local government to be thinking about ways to ban the sales of fireworks.” Wildfire has become a year-round threat in the West given changing conditions that include earlier snowmelt and rain coming later in the fall, scientist have said. The problems have been exacerbated by decades of fire suppression and poor management along with a more than 20-year megadrought that studies link to human-caused climate change. In Arizona, two large wildfires continued to burn Sunday 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of Prescott and 14 miles (22 kilometers) northeast of Flagstaff. Coconino County authorities lifted the evacuation order Sunday morning for residents living in neighborhoods along Highway 89 after fire management officials determined the Flagstaff-area wildfire no longer posed a threat. The fire near Flagstaff was at 33 square miles (85 square kilometers) as of Sunday with 3% containment. It forced the evacuation of 766 homes and burned down 30 homes and two dozen other structures since it began a week ago, according to county authorities. Also read: 5,000 under evacuation orders as New Mexico wildfire rages Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey declared the fire a state of emergency Thursday for Coconino County to free up recovery aid to affected communities. The wildfire near Prescott began last Monday and was at 4.8 square miles (12.4 square kilometers) and 15% contained as of Sunday morning as helicopters and air tankers dropped water and retardant to slow the fire’s growth. The cause of the wildfires in New Mexico and Arizona remain under investigation. Nebraska Emergency Management Agency officials said John P. Trumble, of Arapahoe, was overcome by smoke and fire after his vehicle left the road Friday night because of poor visibility from smoke and dust. Trumble, 66, was working with firefighters as a spotter in Red Willow County in the southwestern corner of the state and his body was found early Saturday, authorities said. Wildfires were still burning Saturday night in five Nebraska counties. The Nebraska National Guard deployed three helicopters and several support trucks to help battle the blazes.

Douglas Siddens’ mother was among those who made it out with just the clothes on her back when a deadly, wind-fueled wildfire ripped through a mountain community in southern New Mexico. The RV park where she lived was reduced to “metal frame rails and steel wheels,” said Siddens, who managed the site “I had like 10 people displaced. They lost their homes and everything, including my mom,” he said. The fire has destroyed more than 200 homes and killed two people since it broke out Tuesday near the village Ruidoso, a vacation spot that draws thousands of tourists and horse racing fans every summer. Hundreds of homes and summer cabins dot the surrounding mountainsides. The RV park that Siddens managed is near where an elderly couple was found dead this week outside their charred residence. Also read: 2 dead, more than 200 homes charred in New Mexico wildfire Elsewhere in the U.S., crews have been battling large fires this week in Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado, where a new blaze forced evacuations Friday along the Rocky Mountain's eastern front near Lyons about 18 miles (29 kilometers) north of Boulder. That fire was burning in the Blue Mountains near the Larimer-Boulder county line about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southeast of Estes Park, the east entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. In New Mexico, power was restored to all but a few hundred customers, but evacuation orders for close to 5,000 people remained in place. Donations poured in from surrounding communities all too familiar with just how devastating wildfires can be. It was a decade ago that fire ripped through part of the village of Ruidoso, putting the vacation spot on the map with the most destructive wildfire in New Mexico’s recorded history when more than 240 homes burned and nearly 70 square miles (181 square kilometers) of forest were blackened by a lightning-sparked blaze. On Friday, Mayor Lynn Crawford was rallying heartbroken residents once again as firefighters tried to keep wind-whipped flames from making another run at the village. She said the response from their neighbors has been amazing.   “So we have plenty of food, we have plenty of clothes, those kinds of things but we still appreciate and need your prayers and your thoughts,” the mayor said during a briefing. “Again, our hearts go out to the family of the deceased, to those that have lost their homes.” Authorities have yet to release the names of the couple who died. Their bodies were found after worried family members contacted police, saying the couple had planned to evacuate Tuesday when the fire exploded but were unaccounted for later that day. Also read: Firefighters increase containment on Colorado wildfire While many older residents call Ruidoso home year round, the population of about 8,000 people expands to about 25,000 during the summer months as Texans and New Mexicans from hotter climates seek respite. Fans also flock to Ruidoso Downs, home to one of the sport’s richest quarter-horse competitions. The racing season was expected to start May 27, and horses that board there aren’t in any danger as fire officials use the facility as a staging ground. Part-time residents have taken to social media over the last few days, pleading with fire officials for updates on certain neighborhoods, hoping their family cabins weren’t among those damaged or destroyed. The hotlines lit up Friday afternoon as people in the village called in to report more smoke. Fire information officer Mike DeFries said that was because there were flare-ups within the interior of the fire as the flames found pockets of unburned fuel. While the fire didn’t make any runs at the lines crews had established, he said it was still a tough day for firefighters due to single-digit humidity, warmer temperatures and the wind. Authorities reiterated that it was still too early to start letting people in to see the damage. They asked for patience as fire crews put out hot spots and tried to build a stronger perimeter around the blaze. “It’s still an active fire area in there and it’s not a safe place,” DeFries said. “It’s going to require patience. At the same time, every step that we’re taking is designed to suppress this fire and to get people back home as soon as possible.” New Mexico authorities said they suspect the fire, which has torched more than 9.5 square miles (24 square kilometers) of forest and grass, was sparked by a downed power line and the investigation continued Friday. Hotter and drier weather coupled with decades of fire suppression have contributed to an increase in the number of acres burned by wildfires, fire scientists say. The problem is exacerbated by a more than 20-year Western megadrought that studies link to human-caused climate change.

Efforts are ongoing to coordinate safe routes of escape for Ukrainian civilians out of besieged cities as the Russian invasion rounds out its second week. In the time since Russian forces swept into the country, some 2 million people have fled Ukraine, nearly half of them children with most people fleeing to neighboring Poland. Russian troops have captured swaths of territory in the south, but have faced fierce Ukrainian resistance in other regions. Ukrainian officials say pregnant women, women with children and others will be able to leave the city of Sumy on Wednesday through a humanitarian corridor Russia and Ukraine agreed to. Some 5,000 civilians, including many foreign students, were able to flee the city on Tuesday in buses marked with a red cross logo. Life has become increasingly desperate in cities cut from electricity and facing food and medicine shortages. In the port city of Mariupol, which has been without water, heat, sanitary systems and phone service for several days, bodies laid uncollected in the streets. Read:With Ukraine war, Europe's geopolitical map is moving again Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed that his country would fight Russia’s invasion in its cities, fields and riverbanks. ARE CIVILIANS BEING SAFELY EVACUATED? Civilian evacuations are expected Wednesday during a 12-hour-long window from the northeastern border city of Sumy to the city of Poltava. Nearly two dozen buses carrying aid to the city will pick up people seeking to flee, Ukrainian officials say. A senior Ukrainian official says 5,000 people, including 1,700 foreign students were evacuated from Sumy on Tuesday. Ukrainian officials say they will not accept Moscow’s offer to establish safe corridors for civilians to head toward Russia, saying they will only agree to the safe exits leading westward. Other evacuation efforts stalled or were thwarted by Russian shelling on Tuesday. The planned evacuation of civilians from Mariupol failed because Russian troops fired on a Ukrainian convoy carrying humanitarian cargo to the city on Tuesday, according to Ukraine’s deputy prime minister. Russia insists it is ready to provide humanitarian corridors for civilians to leave five Ukrainian cities. The two sides blame one another for previous failed attempts. Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers are meeting in Turkey on Wednesday on the sidelines of a forum. WHAT HAS THE AP DIRECTLY WITNESSED OR CONFIRMED ELSEWHERE IN UKRAINE? In the encircled port city of Mariupol, women and children gathered in a basement shelter as outgoing artillery fire blazed in the distance. A Ukrainian soldier is seen telling people to remain united as a store is raided for essential items. “You don’t need to panic. Please don’t steal everything. You will live here together. This is your home,” he's heard saying. In the capital, Kyiv, families with small children continue to seek refuge inside a subway station to escape chaos and the sounds of war above. One university student told the AP that people go home from time to time to shower and get food only. Russian artillery has pounded the outskirts of Kyiv for days, destroying homes and other buildings. WHAT ARE UKRAINIAN OFFICIALS SAYING? Ukrainian officials say two people, including a child, were killed by Russian firepower in the town of Chuhuiv just east of the country's second largest city of Kharkiv late Tuesday. In the city of Malyn, to the west of Kyiv, at least five people, including two children, were killed in a Russian air strike, according to Ukrainian officials. Ukrainian officials say Russian shelling made it impossible to evacuate the bodies of five people who died when their vehicle was fired upon near Kyiv and the bodies of 12 patients of a psychiatric hospital there, where around 200 patients remain without food and medicine. In the northern city of Chernihiv, Russian forces are placing military equipment among residential buildings, a top Ukrainian military official said. He said Russians dressed in civilian clothes are advancing on the city of Mykolaiv in the south. Ukraine’s energy minister says Ukrainian staff at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the largest in Europe, are physically and emotionally exhausted. He said about 500 Russian soldiers and 50 pieces of heavy equipment are inside the station, which the Russians took control of in an attack last week. WHAT IS THE VIEW FROM INSIDE RUSSIA? Increasingly isolated, Russia has cracked down on independent reporting and blocked access to Russian-language journalism by multiple foreign news outlets. Scattered protests against the war continue in the country, but sources of information about what is happening are diminishing for Russian audiences. U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday the U.S. would ban all Russian oil imports, even if it will mean rising costs for Americans, particularly at the gas pump. Shell also said it will stop buying Russian oil. McDonald’s, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and General Electric all announced Tuesday they’re temporarily suspending business in Russia. Some companies, such as McDonald’s, say they will keep paying wages for now to their workers in Russia. Read:Air alert declared in Kyiv as fighting continues Russia’s Central Bank sharply tightened currency restrictions in ways not seen since Soviet times. It ordered the country’s commercial banks to cap the amount clients can withdraw from their hard currency deposits at $10,000 in U.S. dollars. Any withdrawals above that amount would be converted to rubles at the current exchange rates. A senior Russian diplomat overseeing North American issues at the Foreign Ministry slammed U.S. actions against Russia, saying it had brought relations between the two nations “to the point of no return”. CIA Director William Burns testified before Congress Monday, saying some 13,000-14,000 Russians have been arrested since the start of the invasion for opposing the war and that it will be “an ugly next few weeks” as Putin doubles down in Ukraine.

A Ukrainian official says a second attempt to evacuate civilians from a southern city under siege for a week has failed due to continued Russian shelling. Evacuations from the port city of Mariupol were scheduled to begin at noon local time (10 a.m. GMT) during a 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. local ceasefire, Ukrainian military authorities said earlier Sunday. Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko said the planned evacuations along designated humanitarian corridors were halted because of an ongoing assault. Also read: Ukraine tries to evacuate city under weeklong Russian attack “There can be no ‘green corridors’ because only the sick brain of the Russians decides when to start shooting and at whom,“ he said on Telegram. A similar cease-fire planned for Mariupol and the nearby city of Volnovakha collapsed Saturday, trapping residents under more shelling and aerial bombardment by Russian forces. Separately, Ukraine’s national security service says Russian forces are firing rockets at a physics institute in the city of Kharkiv that contains nuclear material and a reactor. The security service said a strike on the nuclear facility could lead to “large-scale ecological disaster.” The service said on Facebook Sunday that the Russians were firing from Grad launchers. Those missiles do not have precise targeting, raising concern that one would go astray. Also read: China tells US don’t fuel flames in Ukraine Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelenskyy reiterated a request for foreign protectors to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which NATO so far has ruled out because of concerns such an action would draw the West into the war. “The world is strong enough to close our skies,” Zelenskyy said in a video address on Sunday. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Saturday that Moscow would consider a third-party declaration to close Ukrainian airspace to be a hostile act.