By JUSTIN SPIKE and ILLIA NOVIKOV

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Emergency workers pulled more bodies Wednesday from the rubble of a nine-story Kyiv apartment building demolished by a Russian missile, raising the death toll from the latest attack on the Ukrainian capital to 28.

The building in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district took a direct hit and collapsed during the deadliest Russian attack on Kyiv this year. Authorities said that 23 of those killed were inside the building. The remaining five died elsewhere in the city.

Workers used cranes, excavators and their hands to clear more debris from the site, while sniffer dogs searched for buried victims. The blast blew out windows and doors in neighboring buildings in a wide radius of damage.

The attack overnight on Monday into Tuesday was part of a sweeping barrage as Russia once again sought to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses. Russia fired more than 440 drones and 32 missiles in what Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said was one of the biggest bombardments of the war, now in its fourth year.

Russia has launched a summer offensive on parts of the roughly 620-mile front line and has intensified long-range attacks that have struck urban residential areas.

At the same time, U.S.-led peace efforts have failed to grain traction. Also, Middle East tensions and U.S. trade tariffs have drawn world attention away from Ukraine’s pleas for more diplomatic and economic pressure to be placed on Russia.

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv said the attack clashed with the attempts by the administration of President Donald Trump to reach a settlement that will stop the fighting.

“This senseless attack runs counter to President Trump’s call to stop the killing and end the war,” the embassy posted on social platform X.

Kyiv authorities declared Wednesday an official day of mourning. Mourners laid flowers on swings and slides at a playground across the street from the collapsed building. On Tuesday, a man had waited hours there for his 31-year-old son’s body to be pulled from the rubble.

Valentin Hrynkov, a 64-year-old handyman in a local school who lived on the seventh floor of a connected building that did not collapse, said he and his wife woke up to the sound of explosions followed by a pause, and then another blast that rattled their own building.

He said his wife had shrapnel injuries in her back and his legs and feet were cut by broken glass. The damage trapped them in their apartment for around 30 minutes before rescue workers could free them, he said.

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He felt an overwhelming sense of “helplessness and primal fear” during the attack, he told The Associated Press.

By dawn on Tuesday, residents of buildings in the densely populated neighborhood could be seen huddled in ground-floor entryways to seek shelter from the ongoing drone assault.

Drones were striking every few minutes within hundreds of meters of the building hit by the missile. The continuing attack forced firefighters and rescue teams to delay the rescue operation.

Relatives and friends of the destroyed building’s residents later gathered outside in shock, many crying and calling out names, hoping survivors might still be found beneath the rubble.

Vasilisa Stepanenko and Oleksandr Babenko contributed from Kyiv, Ukraine.

By STAN CHOE, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are holding nearly in place on Wednesday as Wall Street waits to hear where the Federal Reserve may be taking interest rates.

The S&P 500 was edging up by 0.1% in early trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 33 points, or 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% lower.

The quiet moves came as oil prices rose, but more modestly than the day before. They had been yo-yoing for days because of rising and ebbing fears that Israel’s fighting with Iran could disrupt the global flow of crude. A barrel of benchmark U.S. oil added 0.6% to $73.74.

The headline event for the day will likely arrive at 2 p.m. Eastern, when the Federal Reserve is set to announce its latest move on interest rates. The nearly unanimous expectation is that it will hold rates steady, as it’s been doing for all of this year after cutting through the end of 2024.

More important will be what the Fed says about the future. Officials will release projections for where they see the economy, inflation and interest rates heading in upcoming years. The widespread expectation on Wall Street is that the Fed will cut its main interest rate at least two times by the end of 2025, though that has been weakening a bit recently as oil prices have climbed and put upward pressure on inflation.

A cut in rates could make mortgages, credit-card payments and other loans cheaper for U.S. households and businesses, which in turn could give the overall economy a boost. But lower rates can also fan inflation higher.

Besides the threat of higher oil prices because of the fighting between Israel and Iran, the Fed has been concerned about the potential for President Donald Trump’s tariffs to both hurt the economy and to drive inflation higher. That’s been the main reason it’s been on hold with interest rates this year.

So far, inflation has remained relatively tame, and it’s near the Fed’s target of 2%. But economists have been saying it may take months more to feel the full effects of tariffs.

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A pair of reports on the U.S. economy came in mixed on Wednesday. One said fewer workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, which could be an indication of lightening layoffs. But a second report said that homebuilders broke ground on fewer homes last month than economists expected. That could be a sign that higher mortgage rates are chilling the industry.

In the bond market, Treasury yields edged a bit lower.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.36% from 4.39% late Tuesday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for what the Fed will do with its overnight interest rate, dipped to 3.93% from 3.94%.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.9%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.1% for two of the bigger moves.

AP Writer Jiang Junzhe contributed.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Hurricane Erick formed Wednesday in the Pacific Ocean on a forecast track to bring heavy rain, strong winds, storm surge and possible mudslides to southern coastal Mexico, forecasters said.

Up to 20 inches (51 centimeters) of rain could fall across the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Guerrero, with lighter amounts in Chiapas, Michoacan, Colima and Jalisco states, the Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center said in an advisory. The rainfall threatened flooding and mudslides, especially in areas with steep terrain.

The Category 1 storm on Wednesday morning was located about 160 miles (257 kilometers) south-southeast of Puerto Ángel, Mexico, and had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (121 kph). It was moving northwest at 7 mph (11 kph).

Erick is expected to be at or near major hurricane status Thursday as it approaches the Mexican coast on Thursday, where it could make landfall. A major hurricane is defined as Category 3 or higher and wind speeds of 111-129 mph (180-210 kph).

The storm’s projected path would take its center near the resort of Acapulco, which was devastated in October 2023 by Hurricane Otis, a Category 5 hurricane that rapidly intensified and caught many unprepared.

At least 52 people died in Otis and 32 were missing, after the storm severely damaged almost all of the resort’s hotels.

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Guerrero state Gov. Evelyn Salgado said Tuesday that lessons were learned from that storm. She said all schools in the state would close Wednesday and said 582 shelters were prepared to receive people who might evacuate their homes.

A hurricane warning was in effect for Acapulco to Puerto Ángel. A hurricane warning means hurricane conditions are expected in the area, and preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion, according to the hurricane center advisory.

Heavy rainfall up to 20 inches (51 centimeters) was forecast for parts of Oaxaca and Guerrero, with as much as 8 inches (20 centimeters) set to fall in Chiapas, Michoacan, Colima and Jalisco states.

By PAUL WISEMAN, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits dipped to 245,000 last week, hovering at historically low levels, the Labor Department said Wednesday.

U.S. jobless claims ticked down from 250,000 the week before. Economists had expected last week’s claims to match that at 250,000.

The four-week average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week volatility, rose to 245,500, the highest since August 2023.

The number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits the week of June 7 slid to 1.95 million.

Weekly unemployment claim are a proxy for layoffs and mostly have stayed within a healthy band of 200,000 to 250,000 since the economy recovered from a brief but painful COVID-19 recession in 2020, which temporarily wiped out millions of jobs.

In recent weeks, however, claims have stayed at the high end of range, adding to evidence that U.S. job market is decelerating after years of strong hiring. So far this year, employers are adding a decent but far from spectacular 124,000 jobs a month, down from an average 168,000 last year and an average of nearly 400,000 from 2021 through 2023.

The hiring slowdown is partly the drawn-out result of 11 interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve in 2022 and 2023. But Trump’s aggressive and often-erratic trade policies — including 10% taxes on imports from almost every country on earth — are also weighing on the economy, paralyzing businesses and worrying consumers who fear they’ll mean higher prices.

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Carl Weinberg of High Frequency Economics is worried that claims remain elevated compared with recent years, when employment has remained very low by historical standards.

“We believe firms have been ‘hoarding’ workers to ensure that they don’t lay off skilled and trained workers by mistake, especially with the labor market still very close to full employment,” Weinberg wrote. “With uncertainty still high … companies have remained hesitant about layoffs. That may be changing.”

The Fed, satisfied that an inflation was coming down, cut rates three times last year. But the central bank has turned cautious in 2025, worried that Trump’s tariffs will rekindle inflationary pressures. The Fed is expected to leave rates unchanged as it wraps up a two-day meeting Wednesday.