October 12, 2022

UKRAINE | Today is day 231 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here are your updates:

• In a virtual address to leaders of Group of Seven nations yesterday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia has fired more than 100 missiles and conducted dozens of drone attacks across Ukraine in the past two days. The increased level of Russian strikes is seen as retaliation for a weekend explosion that damaged the Kerch Bridge between Russia and the annexed Crimean Peninsula. [more]
• Russia’s Federal Security Service says it has arrested five Russians and three citizens of Ukraine and Armenia in connection with the explosion that damaged the Kerch Bridge between Russia and the annexed Crimean Peninsula over the weekend. [more]
• International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi said today that Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has lost all external power needed for the proper operation of its safety systems for the second time in five days. Grossi repeated his call for a security protection zone around the site. [more]

ESPIONAGE | Former National Security Agency employee Jareh Sebastian Dalke, 30, was ordered yesterday to remain in prison while he is prosecuted on charges of trying to sell classified information to Russia. Dalke was arrested on September 28 in Denver when he provided classified information to an undercover FBI agent he believed to be a Russian agent. [more]

ABORTION | In response to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning of the Roe v. Wade abortion rights ruling, Hawaii Governor David Ige signed an executive order yesterday that says his state will not cooperate with investigations in other states of women who receive abortions, or healthcare workers who provide the procedure, in Hawaii. [more]

GIG ECONOMY | A new U.S. Labor Department proposal would require that workers who are economically dependent on a company be considered employees, and not independent contractors. A 45-day public comment period on the rules, which could significantly affect gig companies such as Uber, Lyft, and Doordash, opens tomorrow. [more]

ENVIRONMENT | The environmental group Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics filed a lawsuit yesterday against U.S. Forest Service officials, alleging that large volumes of chemical flame retardant toxic to wildlife are inadvertently dropped into streams during fights against wildfires. [more]

U.S. IMMIGRATION | Reports say the Biden administration is considering a plan under which Venezuelans with financial sponsors would be granted parole to enter the U.S. -- similar to a plan previously adopted for Ukrainian citizens fleeing the Russian invasion of their home country. [more]

U.S.-SAUDI RELATIONS | White House officials say President Joe Biden is reevaluating the U.S.' relationship with Saudi Arabia following the recent move by the Saudi-led OPEC+ oil alliance to cut production. [more]

CHINA | Jeremy Fleming, director of the U.K.’s Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, intelligence agency said yesterday that China’s growing economic and technological power is the “national security issue that will define our future.” [more]

EUROPEAN ECONOMY | European Union statistics agency Eurostat said today that industrial production in the 19 countries that use the euro rose significantly more than expected in August, with a 1.5% increase compared to the prior month and a 2.5% increase compared to the year-ago period. [more]

HAITI | Nonprofit medical organization Health through Walls called yesterday for the release of some inmates in Haitian prisons due to the rapid spread of cholera throughout the island nation’s prison system. Reports say more than 200 cases of the bacterial disease have been diagnosed in prisoners since October 4. [more]

GLOBAL ECONOMY | The International Monetary Fund yesterday cut its projection for 2023 global economic growth to 2.7% — down from the 2.9% it projected in July. [more]

SPACE | NASA said yesterday that its recent experiment in crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid to shift the asteroid’s orbit was successful. The DART spacecraft hit the asteroid Dimorphos on September 26 and, according to new NASA analyses, has shortened its orbit around its companion asteroid by 32 minutes — much more than the 10-minute change that had been predicted. [more]

NEW ZEALAND | Officials from New Zealand's Department of Conservation say some 477 pilot whales died in recent days after stranding themselves on two separate beaches on the Chatham Islands. [more]

BRITISH ROYALTY | Buckingham Palace announced yesterday that the coronation of King Charles III has been scheduled for May 6, 2023, at London’s Westminster Abbey. [more]

R.I.P. | Actress Angela Lansbury, best known for her role as Jessica Fletcher in the long-running TV series “Murder, She Wrote,” died yesterday in Los Angeles at the age of 96. Lansbury won five Tony Awards for her Broadway performances and was nominated for three Academy Awards. [more]

TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 2000, while preparing to refuel in the Yemeni port of Aden, the USS Cole, a U.S. naval destroyer, was attacked by suicide bombers associated with al-Qaeda; 17 sailors were killed and 39 wounded. [more history]