Russian Strikes, Venezuela Democracy Crisis, California Flooding
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Russian strikes killed more than 20 people in the Ukrainian city of Uman yesterday. Three of them were children. We will have the latest on the conflict and the reaction of the Ukrainian army. I'm Aisha Roscoe. And I'm Scott Simon, and this is Up First from NPR News.

Venezuela's leading opposition member planned to attend a summit in Colombia aimed at restoring democracy in his country. But then he was forced to leave. What does that mean for the Venezuelan political crisis? And in California, a springtime heat

wave could have some wet and dangerous consequences. Problem is with warmer temperatures this week, it is melting and posing a serious flooding threat to central California. We'll have a report from the ground. Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your weekend.

The deadliest Russian airstrikes in months struck two Ukrainian cities Friday. Most of the fatalities occurred when a missile slammed into an apartment building in the central city of Uman. Joining us now from Kyiv is NPR's Ukraine correspondent, Joanna Kakisis. Welcome. Thank you for having me. Joanna, you were in Uman yesterday at the scene of the attacks. Tell us what happened.

So Aisha, imagine a very well-maintained apartment complex with this freshly mowed lawn, a garden, a big garden of blooming red and yellow tulips, a playground, a school nearby, a place for families.

And at 4:30 a.m. early Friday morning, when most of these families were sleeping, a Russian cruise missile slammed into one of the apartment buildings. When we arrived, smoke was still billowing from the remains of the building and the air was thick with the smell of burning plastic. We met Oksana Voitovska and her sister Ina, who were sobbing as they watched emergency workers walk by with body bags. Oksana told me and my translator Polina Litvinova that they were looking for

Ina's eight-year-old daughter, Ulia. She's very positive. She's very smiley. She's a blonde-haired girl. She was so positive. Oksana said Ulia was with her father and grandmother on the second floor of the building that had been hit.

You can see what's left from the apartments. Can you imagine the temperature inside when it blew up? It just completely burned. The bodies of Ulia's grandmother and father had already been found burned so badly that Oksana said that they looked like coal.

She kept holding out hope that Ulia would somehow be alive. But when we called her last night, she told us Ulia was dead and that her mother recognized the little earrings and necklace on Ulia's body. It's unimaginable. It's horrible. Why this city, Oman? Any insight on why it might have been targeted like this?

So that's a good question because Oman is not a big city and it's like 200 miles from the front line. Oman is known as a pilgrimage site for Hasidic Jews. Thousands come here every year to celebrate Rosh Hashanah and they have even come during the war.

But Ihor Tabudets, who's the regional military administrator here, he said that Russia did target the area around Uman early in the war to hit Ukrainian military installations like an airfield. And Tabudets says Russians may have been trying to hit something military related again, but that the missile just lost its course.

And then he shook his head and said with a lot of anger in his voice that this seems to happen a lot. He's saying, look, Russians are sending these missiles, each of them massive, each weighing half a metric ton, and they're hitting our neighborhoods. It's hard for me to see this as anything other than a war crime.

So this attack is a reminder, once again, that no part of Ukraine is safe from Russian attacks. Did Russian missiles hit any other part of Ukraine? Yeah, a missile struck a residential area in another central Ukrainian city, Dnipro, killing a mother and her two-year-old child. Dnipro has been hit before. A missile strike killed 46 civilians there in January.

Now, Russia's Ministry of Defense has said in a statement that the goal of Friday's attack has been reached. That was a statement, a quote from the statement that Kremlin said it had used high precision, long range missiles in places where Ukrainian reservists gather, but didn't really give much more information than that. Like, where are these reservists?

I should add, though, that Russians launched 23 missiles on Friday and that Ukraine's Armed Forces commander says 21 were intercepted. So Ukraine's air defenses aren't perfect, but they have worked well enough so far to keep Ukraine safe, and that's happened because of ammunition and weapons supplied by the West. NATO says its member states have sent most of the promised weapons to Ukraine ahead of a planned counteroffensive,

But military analysts we spoke to said they're concerned Russian attacks may try to target these new weapons and instead hit more civilians. That's NPR's Ukraine correspondent, Joanna Kakisis. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you.

An international summit earlier this week in Colombia aimed at restoring democracy in neighboring Venezuela began on a troubling note. Venezuela's most prominent opposition leader wanted to attend, but then he was forced to leave Colombia. Reporter John Otis has been following the story and joins us now from Bogota. Thanks for being with us, John. Good morning, Scott. So I gather almost as soon as Juan Guaido, the Venezuelan opposition leader, left,

he was put on a plane. Yeah, it was really bizarre. Guaido, as you may recall, was until recently considered by about 50 countries as Venezuela's legitimate head of state. That was because President Nicolás Maduro has turned into a dictator and basically destroyed Venezuela's democracy. But efforts to remove Maduro have failed. And in the meantime, Guaido has lost a lot of his initial support.

He's also been banned from leaving Venezuela, but he wanted to make a splash at the Colombia conference, so he crossed the border on foot. That took Colombia by surprise. The president here, Gustavo Petro, is a leftist who wants to improve relations with the Maduro regime and has always dismissed Guaido as a bit of a fraud. In fact, Guaido was not invited to the conference, and his sneaking into Colombia gave the Petro government the excuse to escort him to the airport for a flight to Miami.

So did that blow up the summit meeting? Pretty much. But, you know, Colombia had to try something because there's a lot riding on Venezuela getting back to normal. Government corruption and Maduro's mishandling of the economy have led to food shortages and massive poverty. That's prompted more than seven attacks.

million Venezuelans to flee the country, and about 2.5 million have settled here in Colombia, and that's put a huge strain on the country's social services. And so Colombian President Petro is trying to take a bigger role in searching for a solution. He invited delegates from the U.S. and 19 other countries to Bogota for a one-day conference, but it was pretty badly organized, and the truth is nothing much came out of it. Are there also ongoing talks in Mexico?

Yeah, that's right. Negotiations between Maduro and the political opposition have been going on for the past two years in Mexico City. The opposition is trying to convince Maduro to hold a free and fair presidential election next year. Now, should that happen, the U.S. has said it would lift sanctions on Venezuela's vital oil industry. But, you know, the talks keep getting stalled. And so far, you know, there's just been very little progress.

How do we put a handle on how the crisis in Venezuela has affected people who decided to leave, many of them trying to get into the U.S.?

Yeah, that's correct. And a big problem is that many of these Venezuelans on their way north are opting for the very dangerous land route across the Darien jungle. I've been up there. It's a remote roadless region separating Colombia from Panama. Hundreds of migrants have been lost in the rainforest. Some have been raped and robbed and others have been killed by bandits.

And so earlier this week, the Biden administration announced new measures to try to stop this flow. First, they've announced a 60-day so-called surge campaign to try to stop humans smuggling through the Darien jungle. They're also setting up migrant processing centers in Colombia and Guatemala. And finally, the U.S. says it's going to double the number of migrants it will accept from Venezuela and other Western Hemisphere nations. Reporter John Otis in Bogota, thanks so much for being with us.

Thanks for having me.

In the northern part of the U.S. and in the western mountains, this winter's snow is beginning to melt. It's already led the upper Mississippi River to reach major flood stage. It is now closed to barge traffic. And in California, summertime temperatures are about to hit the massive snowpack in the Sierra Nevadas. KVPR's Joshua Yeager has been keeping an eye on the situation and joins us now from Bakersfield. Welcome. Hey there.

So what's expected to happen this weekend? Well, a lot of snow is going to melt. That's the short answer. Yosemite National Park is closed through Wednesday due to flood concerns. And the world's largest tree in Sequoia National Park will be off limits through summer after all the damage winter storms did. And that's a big deal, not only for the park, but for the communities that rely on tourism here.

In the San Joaquin Valley where I am, the snowpack broke all-time records this year. In some spots, there was four times more snow than average. Today, the high here on the valley floor is pushing triple digits.

Up in the mountains where all that snow is, temperatures will be around 60 degrees. More concerningly, lows up there will stay above freezing. Yeah, so that sounds like that means a lot more melting, right? Exactly. But the good news is dam managers have been shooting torrents of water out of reservoirs to make room for that coming snow melt. So things are expected to be good this weekend at least.

But this heat wave is only the first chip in the snowpack's armor. We have at least four more months of warm weather ahead of us.

So you've been out in the area. Like, what have you seen? Well, it's hard to overstate just how different the landscape looks. I mean, eight months ago, this region was experiencing severe drought. And now there's a sprawling lake. Thousands of acres of farmland are underwater. And that water stretches out like an ocean as far as the eye can see. Only the occasional, you know, silo or power pole pokes out from the water.

There's literal waves lapping at the dirt. Seagulls are chirping. You know, people are even going boating. Towns near the formerly dry Tulare Lake are in a mad dash to set up sandbags, shore up levees, and protect themselves from the encroaching water. And the window of time that they have to complete those projects is rapidly closing.

How are the people that are living there coping with all of this? Yeah, I've spent some time in the small town of Corcoran that's in between L.A. and San Francisco. About 22,000 people live there, along with a whole lot of orchards and row crops. There's a 14-mile-long levee that protects the town. It's really the only thing that separates Corcoran from the lake, and crews are working frantically to raise it.

So the town is understandably on edge. You know, people look up and see those beautiful snow-capped mountains, but they have a pit in their stomachs. I met Lucia Solis outside City Hall, and there was some music coming over the PA. She's lived in Corcoran for 30 years, but she's prepared to jump in her car and go. Well, you know what? We got some things ready, like important documents I keep in my trunk, you know, in case we have to do that. I make sure that my tank is full, you know, and...

And just wait, you know, wait and pray. And there's a kicker here. More snow could be headed to the Sierra in May. And that means we could potentially see even more flooding. Oh, my goodness. That's KVPR's Joshua Yeager. Thanks for joining us. Thank you.

And that's Up First for Saturday, April 29th, 2023. I'm Aisha Roscoe. And I'm Scott Simon. Tomorrow on Up First, the incarceration of Jacob Weidman and the questions it raises about punishment, forgiveness, and the American parole system.

Today's episode of Up First was edited by Don Clyde, Tara Neal, Denise Rios, Adil El-Shalchi, Fernando Narro, and Matthew Sherman. It was produced by Andrew Craig and Danny Hensel and directed by Michael Radcliffe with engineering support from Hannah Glovna. Evie Stone is our senior supervising editor. Our executive producer is Sarah Lucy Oliver and our deputy managing editor is Jim Kane. And

For more news and interviews, books and music, you know, turn on that radio dial or whatever you do every Sunday and Saturday morning for Week in Edition from NPR News. Find your NPR stations at stations.npr.org.