April 27, 2022

UKRAINE | Today is day 63 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here are your updates:

• In a face-to-face meeting in Moscow yesterday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to establish a plan under which civilians could be safely evacuated from the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. [more]
• Russia has announced that the state-owned energy giant Gazprom is cutting its supply of natural gas to Poland and Bulgaria over their refusal to pay for the gas in rubles. [more]
• Ukraine and Russia have blamed each other for a series of blasts in Moldova's pro-Russia breakaway region of Transdniestria. Ukrainian officials say the blasts were a false-flag operation by Russia aimed at expanding the war into Moldova. [more]
• Russian officials say explosions occurred this morning in three Russian provinces bordering Ukraine, and that an ammunition depot in the Belgorod province caught fire around the same time. No direct claims of responsibility for the blasts have been made. [more]

SYRIA | Officials say four Syrian soldiers were killed this morning when an Israeli missile hit an arms depot near Damascus. [more]

PAKISTAN | Officials in Pakistan say a female suicide bomber associated with the Baloch Liberation Army separatist group was responsible for the explosion that killed her and four others yesterday at Karachi University. [more]

MYANMAR | Former national leader Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to five years in prison by a court in military-ruled Myanmar today after being convicted in the first of several corruption cases against her. [more]

COVID-19 | The World Health Organization said yesterday that the global number of COVID-related deaths fell last week to the lowest level since March 2020, with 15,668 deaths reported. [more]

MORE COVID-19 | A new U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report concludes that 60% of Americans overall, and 75% of children, have been infected with the coronavirus through February of this year. [more]

UNITED NATIONS | The U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution yesterday that would require a General Assembly session and debate after a veto power is used by any of the permanent members of the body's Security Council -- the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom. [more]

CIVIL RIGHTS | Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin filed an appeal this week seeking to overturn his conviction for the 2020 murder of George Floyd. The filing cites extensive pretrial publicity and the announcement of a financial settlement to Floyd's family during the trial among the reasons for the appeal. [more]

ECONOMY | Economists at Germany's Deutsche Bank predicted yesterday that the U.S. will suffer a more serious recession than it had expected over the next two years. The bank's report suggested that the U.S. Federal Reserve will need to raise interest rates so aggressively to curb inflation that it will hurt the general U.S. economy, and that the situation would begin to resolve by mid-2024. [more]

CALIFORNIA | The board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California declared a water shortage emergency yesterday and ordered a reduction in outdoor water use by the approximately 19 million people the district serves. [more]

NFL | Attorneys general in Washington, DC, and Virginia are reported to have launched investigations into the NFL's Washington Commanders and team owner Daniel Snyder regarding financial misconduct allegations related to refundable security deposits owed to fans and concealed revenues that were owed to the NFL. [more]

TENNIS | Organizers of the Wimbledon tennis tournament say players who are unvaccinated against COVID-19 will be able to take part in this year's tournament. The decision means that defending champion Novak Djokovic, who was not allowed to play in the Australian Open due to his not being vaccinated, will be able to defend his Wimbledon title this summer. [more]

TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 1865, the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history occurred when the overloaded steamship SS Sultana exploded on the Mississippi River, killing some 1,800 people, most of whom were former Union POWs returning home from the Civil War. [more history]