AP News in Brief at 9:04 p.m. EST

Debate underway: Bloomberg expecting fierce attacks

LAS VEGAS (AP) — New York billionaire Mike Bloomberg faced the biggest test of his political life Wednesday night in Las Vegas as the surging Democratic presidential contender confronted his rivals on the debate stage for the first time.

The 78-year-old former Republican was making his debate debut as one of the Democrats’ strongest six White House hopefuls -- as determined by national polls -- while the party’s moderate wing struggles to unify behind an alternative to polarizing progressive Bernie Sanders.

The primetime showdown began at 9 p.m. EST.

Bloomberg faced fierce attacks from Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders even before the debate began, raising the likelihood of a raucous affair just three days before Nevada voters decide the third contest of the Democratic Party's turbulent 2020 primary season. Bloomberg won't be on the ballot Saturday, yet he was expecting to face intense scrutiny on national television for the first time, having faced relatively little in his surprisingly swift rise from nonpartisan megadonor to top-tier contender.

“He is going to have a giant target on his back from all sides,” said Democratic strategist Brian Brokaw. “It’ll either all come together brilliantly or could fall apart very quickly.”

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Police say 8 killed in shootings in the German city of Hanau

HANAU, Germany (AP) — Eight people were killed in shootings in the German city of Hanau late Wednesday, officials said. A local broadcaster said the attacks took place at two hookah lounges.

Authorities were searching for the perpetrators early Thursday, hours after the shootings that police said also wounded about five people. Police said a dark vehicle was spotted leaving the location of the first attack at about 10 p.m. (2100 GMT), and another shooting was reported at a second site.

Police officers swarmed central Hanau, cordoning off the area of one of the shootings as a helicopter hovered overhead. A car covered in thermal foil also could be seen, with shattered glass next to it. Forensic experts in white overalls collected evidence.

A short police statement gave no information on the victims and said a motive was not immediately known.

"This was a terrible evening that will certainly occupy us for a long, long time and we will remember with sadness," Hanau Mayor Claus Kaminsky told the Bild newspaper.

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Finally let off cruise, passengers desperate for flight home

BANGKOK (AP) — The cheers of celebration have faded. The waving of roses has ceased. Having finally reached a friendly port in Cambodia willing to accept them after nearly two weeks of uncertainty at sea, hundreds of cruise ship passengers eyed warily over fears of a new virus are now simply trying to find a way home.

“We’re in this sort of surreal world,” said Lydia Miller, 55, of Orcas Island, Washington, who is camped out at a hotel in the capital, Phnom Penh, waiting for word on how she and her husband might be able to return to the U.S. “It’s a weird feeling to travel and go on a trip and you don’t know when you can come home.”

The Westerdam arrived Feb. 13 in Cambodia after repeatedly being denied entry to other ports. The thrill of the moment, complete with a visit from the country’s prime minister greeting passengers with hugs and flowers, has now evaporated for those still facing a logistical nightmare to get home.

Travel options already limited by the number of airlines serving Cambodia have been narrowed by a growing list of countries denying entry to passengers who were aboard the Westerdam.

A diplomat working with the passengers in Phnom Penh said getting people home remains complicated by individual countries’ travel restrictions and a dearth of available flights. That was echoed by Holland America Line, which operates the Westerdam and has been coordinating passengers’ flights.

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Lawyer: Assange was offered US pardon if he cleared Russia

LONDON (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange plans to claim during an extradition hearing that the Trump administration offered him a pardon if he agreed to say Russia was not involved in leaking Democratic National Committee emails during the 2016 U.S. election campaign, a lawyer for Assange said Wednesday.

Assange is being held at a British prison while fighting extradition to the United States on spying charges. His full court hearing is due to begin next week.

At a preliminary hearing held Wednesday in London, lawyer Edward Fitzgerald said that now-former Republican congressman, Dana Rohrabacher, visited Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in August 2017.

Fitzgerald said a statement from another Assange lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, recounted "Mr. Rohrabacher going to see Mr. Assange and saying, on instructions from the president, he was offering a pardon or some other way out, if Mr. Assange ... said Russia had nothing to do with the DNC leaks.”

Responding to the the lawyer's claims, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said, "This is absolutely and completely false."

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Plaintiffs' attorneys take aim at Boy Scouts' `dark history'

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Like millions of other Americans in the 1950s and '60s, Duane Ruth-Heffelbower spent his formative years learning to tie knots, build campfires and pitch tents with the Boy Scouts, whose wholesome, God-fearing reputation was burnished by Normal Rockwell's magazine-cover paintings of fresh-faced Scouts, brave, courteous and cheerful.

Though he's no longer involved in Scouting, the 70-year-old Mennonite minister from Fresno, California, has followed the slow deterioration of the Boy Scouts of America from afar and cringes to think what this week's bankruptcy filing over a blizzard of sex-abuse lawsuits might mean for an organization already grappling with a steep decline in membership.

“It's really sad. I'm afraid that people are going to be more skeptical than they were once about the organization and will be more inclined to look for other alternatives to Scouting,” said Ruth-Heffelbower, who grew up in Kansas. “Theses days there are so many things pulling at kids.”

With its finances and its vaunted reputation for moral rectitude damaged by scandal, the Scouts resorted to Chapter 11 bankruptcy Tuesday in hopes of pulling through the crisis by setting up a victims' compensation fund for thousands of men who were molested as boys by Scout leaders over the decades.

The fund could top $1 billion, but to raise the money, the national organization could be forced to sell some of its real estate holdings, which include its headquarters in Irving, Texas, and a huge campground in New Mexico.

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UN: Thousands fleeing Syrian offensive, kids dying in cold

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of people fleeing a Russian-backed Syrian offensive are being squeezed into ever smaller areas near Turkey’s border “under horrendous conditions” in freezing temperatures that are killing babies and young children, the U.N. humanitarian chief said Wednesday.

Mark Lowcock told the U.N. Security Council that “the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe” in northwest Idlib province, which is the last major rebel stronghold, has “overwhelmed” efforts to provide aid.

He said nearly 900,000 people have been displaced since Dec. 1 when the government offensive began, more than 500,000 of them children.

“Many are on foot or on the backs of trucks in below-freezing temperatures, in the rain and snow,” Lowcock said. “They are moving into increasingly crowded areas they think will be safer. But in Idlib, nowhere is safe.”

Lowock, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said almost 50,000 people have taken shelter under trees and in open spaces. “I am getting daily reports of babies and other young children dying in the cold,” he added.

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Trump clemency recipient links her case to Kardashian West

HIALEAH, Fla. (AP) — A Florida woman who got clemency from President Donald Trump while serving prison time for a $205 million Medicare fraud scam said Wednesday her case was brought to Trump's attention by a woman who herself got clemency at the urging of reality TV star Kim Kardashian West.

Judith Negron was eight years into a 35-year prison sentence that the FBI called one of the longest sentences ever imposed in a Medicare Fraud Strike Force case when Trump commuted her sentence Tuesday.

“I had some guardian angels as I call them, such as Alice Johnson, who had been advocating for me behind the scenes," Negron told The Associated Press in an interview at her home shortly after her release.

Johnson was serving life without parole for drug offenses when Trump granted her clemency in June 2018. She had been convicted in 1996 on eight criminal accounts related to a Memphis based cocaine trafficking operation. Johnson was featured in one of Trump's campaign ads during this year's Super Bowl. She told the AP that the president had been looking specifically for female candidates, and had asked her for a list of other women who deserved clemency.

Negron, who turns 50 next week, was among the 11 federal inmates around the nation who received clemency actions thanks to the president. The Hispanic woman was convicted as a first-time offender in 2011 in a case that made national headlines.

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80 is not the new 70: Age may bias heart care, study finds

People are more likely to buy things when prices end in 99 cents rather than rounded up to the next dollar, or cars with mileage under 1,000 instead of past that mark. Now researchers say something similar might be happening with age perception and heart surgery.

A U.S. study out Wednesday finds that heart attack patients who turned 80 within the previous two weeks were less likely to get bypass surgery than those who were two weeks shy of that birthday, even though the age difference is less than a month.

Guidelines do not limit the operation after a certain age, but doctors may be mentally classifying people as being "in their 80s" and suddenly much riskier than those "in their 70s," said the study leader, Dr. Anupam Jena of Harvard Medical School.

The reason may be "left-digit bias," or the tendency to focus on the first number.

"When you go to a store and the item is $4.99 you're more likely to buy it than if it's $5," but there's no similar effect when prices are $4.50 versus $4.51, Jena said.

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Label: Rapper Pop Smoke slain in Hollywood Hills shooting

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Pop Smoke, a rising Brooklyn rapper who had a breakout year of hit songs and albums that made some of the biggest names in hip-hop his fans and collaborators, was fatally shot during a break-in Wednesday at a Hollywood Hills home, his label said.

“We are devastated by the unexpected and tragic loss of Pop Smoke,” said a statement from Republic Records, the label of the 20-year-old whose legal name was Bashar Barakah Jackson. “Our prayers and thoughts go out to his family, friends and fans, as we mourn this loss together.”

Los Angeles police did not immediately confirm the identification and have not announced any arrests.

Police officers found a victim shortly before 5 a.m. after responding to a 911 call from someone who reported intruders, including one armed with a handgun, were breaking in, police Capt. Steve Lurie said.

Public listings show that the home is owned by Edwin Arroyave and his wife Teddi Mellencamp, daughter ofRock & Roll Hall-of-FamerJohn Mellencamp and a star of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”

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Passengers leave ship docked off Japan after quarantine ends

YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) — About 500 passengers left the Diamond Princess cruise ship Wednesday at the end of a much-criticized two-week quarantine that failed to stop the spread of the new virus among passengers and crew.

The quarantine's flop was underlined as Japanese authorities announced 79 more cases, bringing the total on the ship to 621. Results were still pending for some other passengers and crew among the original 3,711 people on board.

Japan's government has been questioned over its decision to keep people on the ship, which some experts have called a perfect virus incubator. The Diamond Princess has the most infections outside of China, where the illness known as COVID-19 emerged late last year.

Many foreign governments won't let passengers from the ship return unless they go through another quarantine period, so it was striking to see passengers disembark, get into taxis and disappear into Yokohama, where the ship is docked.

Japanese soldiers helped escort some passengers, including an elderly man in a wheelchair who wore a mask and held a cane. Some got on buses to be transported to train stations. Some people still in their cabins waved farewell from their balconies to those who had already been processed.