By Tom Balmforth and Olena Harmash

KYIV (Reuters) -Russia rained down scores of missiles on Ukraine’s power grid on Friday, killing at least three people, damaging nine energy facilities and forcing Kyiv to introduce emergency blackouts across the country as winter bites.

Many people headed for shelters during the morning rush hour to take cover from the latest big attack on vital infrastructure since October, which a Kyiv official described as one of the largest missile barrages since Russia invaded in February.

The mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, reported “colossal” damage, threatening to leave many people without heating in freezing winter temperatures. The governor of the central region of Dnipropetrovsk reported “serious damage”.

Air defences took out 60 out of 76 incoming missiles fired at critical infrastructure, Ukraine’s top general said. Moscow deliberately tried to distract the air defences by flying warplanes near Ukraine, Air Force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said.

“They want to destroy us, and make us slaves. But we will not surrender. We will endure,” said Lidiya Vasilieva, 53, as she headed for shelter at a Kyiv railway station. “I want the war over and soon. But I am ready to wait as long as needed.”

Three people were killed in the central city of Kryvyi Rih, authorities said, and a fourth died in a fire in the southern Kherson region after an apartment block was hit by shelling before the missile strike.

The attack in Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s hometown, also wounded at least 13 people, including four small children, a senior official said.

Grid operator Ukrenergo warned that repair times would be longer compared with previous ones and that it would take longer to restore power.

“What we already see is damage to about nine (power) generating facilities. Now we are still verifying the damage,” Energy Minister German Galushchenko told national television.

The central city of Poltava and parts of Kyiv were among areas where power was knocked out. Critical infrastructure was hit in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, the Black Sea region of Odesa and in Vinnytsia in west central Ukraine.

Three loud blasts were heard in Kyiv and smoke wafted overhead, Reuters witnesses said. Some railway lines were left without power.

“There is colossal damage to infrastructure, primarily the energy system,” Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. “I ask you to be patient with what is happening now. I know that in your houses there is no light, no heating, no water supply.”

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of Zelenskiy’s office, said emergency power shutdowns had been introduced nationwide to enable repairs.

UKRAINE REMAINS DEFIANT

The initial air alert in Kyiv was lifted four hours after it was announced as children made their way to school and people travelled to work.

The cavernous Kyiv metro system, which has one of the deepest stations in the world, stopped functioning and was used as a bomb shelter.

Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February, Moscow says attacks on basic infrastructure are militarily legitimate. Ukraine says attacks intended to cause civilian misery are a war crime.

“The goal of the Russian Federation is for Ukrainians to be constantly under pressure, to go down into bomb shelters almost every day, to feel discomfort due to power outages or water interruptions,” Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko wrote on Facebook.

“But Ukraine’s position is unchanged: let it be without light, but #withoutyou. We will endure. We will win. We will rebuild.”

(Additional reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic and Pavel Polityuk, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s president condemned on Friday an apparent assassination attempt on a prominent news anchor he has often clashed with, prompting calls for better security for media workers as journalist slayings hit record levels in the country.

Television and radio presenter Ciro Gomez Leyva said two unidentified people on a motorcycle shot at him when he was in his car some 200 meters (660 feet) from his home on Thursday night.

He shared images of bullet impacts on the car on Twitter, saying he survived because of the vehicle’s armor. Gomez was back on the air on his morning radio show on Friday.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has repeatedly lambasted Gomez and other journalists critical of his policies, but opened his daily morning conference by denouncing the attack.

“He’s a journalist, a human being, but he’s also a leader of public opinion. Hurting a figure like Ciro creates a lot of political instability,” Lopez Obrador said.

On Wednesday, Gomez was singled out for criticism during a regular section of a news conference dedicated to identifying what Lopez Obrador calls the media’s “lies of the week.”

“Imagine if you just listened to Ciro or Loret de Mola or Sarmiento,” Lopez Obrador said, naming Gomez and other leading journalists. “It’s even bad for your health, I mean if you listen to them a lot, you could even develop a brain tumor.”

The assassination attempt underscored “even in Mexico City, journalists are not safe,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, Mexico representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar condemned the attack.

“Journalist security in Mexico must be guaranteed, which is of paramount importance to fully exercise democracy and freedom of expression,” Salazar wrote on Twitter.

Eleven journalists were killed in 2022 in Mexico, making it the deadliest country for the profession, according to Reporters Without Borders. Other groups have documented even more murders.

Tony Payan, director of the Center for the United States and Mexico at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, urged Lopez Obrador to use the “opportunity to acknowledge his own responsibility given his constant attacks on the press and specific journalists.”

(Reporting by Brendan O’Boyle; Additional reporting by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Dave Graham, Alistair Bell and Bill Berkrot)

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The family of an activist who died in the custody of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces called on the International Criminal Court on Thursday to investigate, in what they say is the first communication to the court from Palestinians against their leadership.

Nizar Banat, an outspoken critic of President Mahmoud Abbas’s PA, died in June 2021 after security forces arrested him at a house in the West Bank city of Hebron.

An autopsy conducted by a Palestinian rights groups said Banat was struck in the head and body, leading to his “unnatural death” within an hour of his arrest.

In front of the ICC, the activist’s brother, Ghassan Banat, told Reuters he had come to The Hague to hand over the evidence gathered by his family about the incident.

“The International Criminal Court is our last hope to achieve justice for Nizar Banat,” he said, adding his brother was only demanding an end to financial and political corruption in the Palestinian territories.

The PA, which has limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment on the case. It has charged 14 low-ranking officers with various offences in connection with Banat’s death. All have pleaded not guilty.

Amnesty International has called the trial “flawed” and said those who gave the orders to arrest Banat must also be held accountable.

Stoke White Lawyers, the firm that filed the communication with the ICC, said in a tweet that the “grotesque” release of the 14 suspects for a nine-day holiday in June was among factors motivating the family.

The ICC has been investigating possible war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Israeli military or Palestinian groups in the Palestinian territories since March 2021.

Banat’s death heightened criticism of the PA under Abbas, whose popularity has plummeted since he assumed office in 2005, opinion polls show. The incident sparked days of protests in the West Bank that were violently suppressed by Palestinian forces.

(Reporting by Henriette Chacar; Additional reporting by Ismail Khader and Stephanie van den Berg in The Hague; editing by John Stonestreet, Alexandra Hudson)

By Gram Slattery

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland instructed federal prosecutors on Friday to end disparities in the way they charge offenses involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine.

The change, outlined in a pair of internal memos released by the Justice Department on Friday, is a win for criminal justice reform advocates, who point out that the current sentencing regime has led to the disproportionate incarceration of Black Americans since the policy was adopted nearly 40 years ago.

Some lawmakers and congressional aides warned, however, that the memo could complicate ongoing legislative efforts to address the issue.

Mandatory minimum sentences for crack-related offenses are currently 18 times lengthier than those for powder cocaine. The Justice Department has supported eliminating that disparity and a bipartisan group of lawmakers is working on legislation that would significantly reduce it.

In the memos, Garland instructs prosecutors to treat “crack cocaine defendants no differently than for defendants in powder cocaine cases” when they are charging defendants and making sentencing recommendations.

They also instruct prosecutors to reserve charges involving mandatory minimums to situations in which there are certain aggravating factors, such as leadership of an organized crime group.

Advocates welcomed the move, but added that codifying the change into law was key.

“Today’s announcement recognizes this injustice and takes steps to finally strike parity between powder and crack cocaine sentences when there is no pharmacological differences in the substances,” Democratic Senator Cory Booker, a sponsor of legislation regarding cocaine sentencing, said in a statement.

Some lawmakers expressed concern the announcement could trip up a deal to tuck a measure narrowing sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine into a year-end spending bill. 

“A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including myself, just recently came to an agreement on statutory changes that could possibly be included in the year-end funding bill,” Grassley said in a statement. “That hard-won compromise has been jeopardized because the attorney general inappropriately took lawmaking into his own hands.”

In 1986, Congress passed a law to establish mandatory minimum sentences for drug trafficking offenses, which treated crack and powder cocaine offenses using a 100-to-1 ratio. Under that formula, a person convicted for selling 5 grams of crack cocaine was treated the same as someone who sold 500 grams of powder cocaine. That proportion was narrowed to 18 to 1 in 2010.

The guidance from Garland goes into effect in 30 days. It does not apply retroactively.

(Reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Scott Malone and Aurora Ellis)