California hit by more storms, braces for potential floods

WORLD NEWS IN BRIEF

SAN FRANCISCO

California was hit with more turbulent weather Sunday as thunderstorms, snow and damaging winds swept into the northern part the state, preceding another series of incoming storms and raising the potential for road flooding, rising rivers and mudslides on soils already saturated after days of rain.

The National Weather Service warned of a "relentless parade of atmospheric rivers" - storms that are long plumes of moisture stretching out into the Pacific capable of dropping staggering amounts of rain and snow.

In the state capital, more than 215,000 customers were without electricity Sunday in the city of about 525,000 residents after gusts topping 60 mph (97 kph) knocked trees into power lines, according to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District.

Joey Kleemann was listening to the winds howling shortly after midnight, wondering whether she should move her car, when she heard a "gigantic, thumping, crashing sound" as a massive tree fell onto the Sacramento home where she's lived for 25 years.

The gusts were strong enough to rip the tree up from its roots, pulling the concrete sidewalk up with it.

Cracks in the roof meant rain streamed into her dining area throughout the night.

She's hoping to get a tarp over the damaged area in anticipation of more showers. "I just had a feeling with the winds. They were scary winds," she said. "Mostly I focused on: it could be so much worse."

The weather service's Sacramento office said the region should brace for an even more powerful storm system to move in late Sunday and early Monday.

RIO DE JANEIRO

Pro-Bolsonaro rioters storm Brazil's top government offices

Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro who refuse to accept his election defeat stormed Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential palace in the capital on Sunday, a week after the inauguration of his leftist rival, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Thousands of demonstrators bypassed security barricades, climbed on roofs, smashed windows and invaded all three buildings, which were believed to be largely vacant and sit on Brasilia's vast Three Powers Square.

Some of them called for a military intervention to either restore the far-right Bolsonaro to power, or oust Lula from the presidency.

In a news conference from Sao Paulo state, Lula said Bolsonaro had encouraged the uprising by those he termed "fascist fanatics," and he read a freshly signed decree for the federal government to take control of security in the federal district.

"There is no precedent for what they did and these people need to be punished," Lula said.

TV channel Globo News showed protesters wearing the green and yellow colors of the national flag that also have come to symbolize the nation's conservative movement, and were adopted by Bolsonaro's suppoerters.

The former president has repeatedly sparred with Supreme Court justices, and the room where they convene was trashed by the rioters.

They sprayed fire hoses inside the Congress building and ransacked offices at the presidential palace. Windows were broken in all of the buildings.

Bolsonaro, who flew to Florida ahead of Lula's inauguration, has not commented on Sunday's events.

KYIV, UKRAINE

Russia claims deadly attack, but Kyiv denies anyone killed

The Russian military claimed Sunday to have carried out deadly missile strikes on barracks used by Ukrainian troops in retaliation for the deaths of dozens of Russian soldiers in a rocket attack a week ago.

Ukrainian officials denied there were any casualties.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its missiles hit two temporary bases housing 1,300 Ukrainian troops in Kramatorsk, in the eastern Donetsk region, killing 600 of them. Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the strikes were retaliation for Ukraine's attack in Makiivka, in which at least 89 Russian soldiers died.

Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine's forces in the east, told The Associated Press that Russian strikes on Kramatorsk damaged only civilian infrastructure, adding: "The armed forces of Ukraine weren't affected."

The Donetsk regional administration said seven Russian missiles hit Kramatorsk and two more hit Kostyantynivka, without causing any casualties. It said an educational institution, an industrial facility and garages were damaged in Kramatorsk, and an industrial zone was hit in Kostyantynivka.

Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko said two school buildings and eight apartment houses were hit overnight. Photos he posted showed no indication that it had been an attack on the scale claimed by the Russians or that anyone had been in the buildings when they were struck.

"The world saw again these days that Russia lies even when it draws attention to the situation at the front with its own statements," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.

"Russian shelling of Kherson with incendiary ammunition right after Christmas.

The strikes on Kramatorsk and other cities of the Donbas - aimed right at civilian sites and right when Moscow was reporting the supposed 'silence' of its army."

WASHINGTON

McCarthy's next big task: Win GOP support for House rules

After an epic 15-ballot election to become House speaker, Republican Kevin McCarthy faces his next big test in governing a fractious, slim majority: passing a rules package to govern the House. The drafting and approval of a set of rules is normally a fairly routine legislative affair, but in these times, it's the next showdown for the embattled McCarthy.

To become speaker and win over skeptics, McCarthy had to make concessions to a small group of hard-liners who refused to support his ascension until he yielded to their demands.

Now those promises - or at least some of them - are being put into writing to be voted on when lawmakers return this week for their first votes as the majority party.

On Sunday, at least two moderate Republicans expressed their reservations about supporting the rules package, citing what they described as secret deals and the disproportionate power potentially being handed out to a group of 20 conservatives. The concessions included limits on McCarthy's power, such as by allowing a single lawmaker to initiate a vote to remove him as speaker and curtailing government spending, which could include defense cuts. They also give the conservative Freedom Caucus more seats on the committee that decides which legislation reaches the House floor.

They also raise questions about whether McCarthy can garner enough support from Republicans, who hold a 222-212 edge, on a critical vote in the coming months to raise the debt limit, given conservatives' demand that there first be significant spending cuts, over opposition from the White House and a Democratic- controlled Senate.

BERLIN

Germany: Iranians held in suspected poison plot after US tip

Two Iranian men have been detained in Germany following a tip from U.S. security officials that at least one of them could be planning an attack with deadly chemicals, officials said Sunday.

Police and prosecutors said the brothers, aged 32 and 25, were detained overnight in the town of Castrop-Rauxel, northwest of Dortmund.

The authorities said in a joint statement the men are suspected to have planned a serious attack motivated by Islamic extremism, for which they had allegedly sought to obtain the potent toxins cyanide and ricin.

Specialists wearing anti- contamination suits were seen carrying evidence out of the older man's home.

Duesseldorf prosecutors later said an initial search of the premises turned up no toxic substances.

It wasn't immediately clear how far advanced the plans for an attack were and whether the suspects had picked a specific target, but prosecutors said they would ask a court to keep the men jailed pending further investigation. If convicted of jointly arranging a deadly attack, the men - who were identified by prosecutors only as M.J. and J.J. due to German privacy rules - could face between three and 15 years imprisonment.

ROJ CAMP, SYRIA

Alabama woman who joined IS hopes to return from Syria camp

A woman who ran away from home in Alabama at the age of 20, joined the Islamic State group and had a child with one of its fighters says she still hopes to return to the United States, serve prison time if necessary, and advocate against the extremists.

In a rare interview from the Roj detention camp in Syria where she is being held by U.S.-allied Kurdish forces, Hoda Muthana said she was brainwashed by online traffickers into joining the group in 2014 and regrets everything except her young son, now of pre-school age.

"If I need to sit in prison, and do my time, I will do it. ...

I won't fight against it," the 28-year-old told U.S.-based outlet The News Movement.

"I'm hoping my government looks at me as someone young at the time and naive."

It's a line she's repeated in various media interviews since fleeing from one of the extremist group's last enclaves in Syria in early 2019.

But four years earlier, at the height of the extremists' power, she had voiced enthusiastic support for them on social media and in an interview with BuzzFeed News.

IS then ruled a self-declared Islamic caliphate stretching across roughly a third of both Syria and Iraq. In posts sent from her Twitter account in 2015 she called on Americans to join the group and carry out attacks in the U.S., suggesting drive-by shootings or vehicle rammings targeting gatherings for national holidays.

In her interview with TNM, Muthana now says her phone was taken from her and that the tweets were sent by IS supporters.

Muthana was born in New Jersey to Yemeni immigrants and once had a U.S. passport.

She was raised in a conservative Muslim household in Hoover, Alabama, just outside Birmingham. In 2014, she told her family she was going on a school trip but flew to Turkey and crossed into Syria instead, funding the travel with tuition checks that she had secretly cashed.

The Obama administration cancelled her citizenship in 2016, saying her father was an accredited Yemeni diplomat at the time she was born - a rare revocation of birthright citizenship. Her lawyers have disputed that move, arguing that the father's diplomatic accreditation ended before she was born.

The Trump administration maintained that she was not a citizen and barred her from returning, even as it pressed European allies to repatriate their own detained nationals to reduce pressure on the detention camps.

- The Associated Press