March 21, 2022

UKRAINE | Today is day 26 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here are your updates [more]:

• Ukraine has rejected a Russian offer of safe passage out of the southern port city of Mariupol for soldiers and civilians in exchange for turning the city over to Russian forces.
• A report released Friday by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that nearly 6.5 million people have been displaced within Ukraine, in addition to the 3.2 million who have fled the country, since the beginning of the Russian invasion.
• Officials in the southeastern port city of Mariupol say Russian bombers hit a school yesterday in which more than 400 people were sheltering.
• South African President Cyril Ramaphosa suggested late last week that the war in Ukraine could have been avoided if NATO had heeded warnings in recent years that its eastward expansion would lead to greater instability in the region.
• NATO leaders are scheduled to meet on Thursday in Brussels to discuss strengthening the alliance's deterrence and defense capabilities in light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
• Reports say federal bond trading on the Moscow Exchange will resume today -- the first action on the exchange since it was closed following the start of the invasion of Ukraine. No details of a full resumption of trading on the exchange have been announced.
• Reuters cites Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin as saying that the Chinese Red Cross will offer 10 million yuan ($1.57 million) of humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.

SUPREME COURT  | The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to begin hearings today on the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. [more]

SUPREME COURT | U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the longest-serving member of the Court, was hospitalized Friday for a non-COVID-related infection. Reports say Thomas is responding well to treatment and is expected to be released from the hospital within a few days. [more]

CONSUMER FINANCE | The three major U.S. credit reporting agencies — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — announced on Friday that they will be removing most medical debt from from consumers' credit reports starting this summer. [more]

R.I.P. | Don Young, the longest-serving member of the U.S. House of Representatives, died Friday while traveling home to his office in Alaska. Young was first elected to Congress in 1973. [more]

CHINA | Officials from China’s Civil Aviation Administration say a China Eastern airlines Boeing 737 with 132 people aboard crashed this morning in the southern province of Guangxi. No details on the number of deaths and injuries have been released. [more]

ISRAEL | An estimated 750,000 attended the funeral of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky in Bnei Brak, Israel, yesterday. Kanievsky, who died Friday at the age of 94,  was a well-known leader and scholar of the non-Hasidic Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox community. [more]

HONG KONG | In the midst of the territory’s worst ever COVID-19 outbreak, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced significant easing of COVID-related restrictions yesterday. Lam said both residents and financial institutions were losing patience with the city’s isolationist approach to COVID mitigation. [more]

MYANMAR | U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to announce today that the U.S. will will designate Myanmar’s repression of the minority Rohingya Muslim population a genocide. [more]

NORWAY | Four U.S. Marines died Saturday in the crash of an MV-22B Osprey aircraft taking part in NATO training exercises in Norway. [more]

COVID-19 | China’s National Health Commission on Saturday reported what it says were the first two COVID-19-related deaths in the country since January 2021. Both deaths took place in the northeastern province of Jilin. [more]

BELGIUM | At least six people were killed in the southern Belgium city of Strépy-Bracquegnies when a car drove into a crowd of carnival revelers yesterday. Two local men have been arrested in connection with the incident. [more]

TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 1965, American civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King, Jr., began a protest march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. [more history]