December 8, 2022

UKRAINE | Today is day 287 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here are your updates:

• Speaking at a televised meeting with the Russian Human Rights Council yesterday, President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that his country’s “special military operation” in Ukraine is taking longer than expected and that he considers nuclear weapons a valid deterrent against Western aggression. [more]
• The Associated Press cites unnamed U.S. National Security Council officials as saying that Russia is seeking to acquire additional weapons, including drones and surface-to-surface missiles, from Iran for use in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. [more]
• Following the release of a new U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine report that documents the deaths of 441 civilians in multiple Ukrainian cities under Russian control, U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk warned against normalizing deaths and suffering taking place in Ukraine. [more]

MARRIAGE LEGISLATION | The House is expected to give final approval today to a bill aimed at protecting same-sex and interracial marriage under federal law. The Respect for Marriage Act would not mandate that states legalize such marriages, but would require them to recognize all marriages that were legal where they were performed. [more]

PENSION FUNDING | U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to announce the release today of nearly $36 billion in funding today to stabilize the Central States Pension Fund and prevent significant cuts to the retirement incomes of an estimated 350,000 Teamster workers and retirees across the United States. The funds for the initiative are being provided from 2021’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. [more]

OREGON | The Oregon Supreme Court yesterday denied an emergency motion to intervene in the matter of a lower court ruling that blocked the state’s new voter-approved gun laws from taking effect this week. A hearing is scheduled for December 13 in the Harney County court on Measure 114, which would ban the sale and transfer of high-capacity magazines and require permits for the purchase of firearms. [more]

TRUMP INVESTIGATIONS | Citing anonymous sources, the Washington Post reported yesterday that at least two items marked as classified were found in a storage unit in West Palm Beach, Florida, after attorneys for former President Donald Trump arranged for a search for such materials at his properties, and that the materials were turned over to the FBI. [more]

DEFENSE COMPUTING | The U.S. Department of Defense announced yesterday that it will split the awarding of a $9 billion cloud computing infrastructure contract between four companies: Google, Oracle, Microsoft, and Amazon. The department’s Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability project is intended to provide access to classified and unclassified data to U.S. military forces worldwide. [more]

WIND POWER | Five companies submitted winning bids totaling $757 million yesterday in the first-ever U.S. auction of leases to develop commercial floating wind turbine farms off the West Coast. [more]

TIMES STRIKE | Some 1,100 newsroom employees at the New York Times and other members of The NewsGuild of New York are on strike today over failed contract negotiations. The 24-hour strike is the first of its kind at the newspaper in more than 40 years. [more]

IRAN | Iran’s state-run Mizan news agency reports that the first execution of a prisoner convicted for crimes committed during the country’s ongoing protests was carried out today. Reports say Tehran’s Revolutionary Court convicted Mohsen Shekari of “waging war against God” after he blocked a road in Tehran during a protest and attacked a member of the national security forces with a machete. [more]

PERU | The Peruvian Congress voted to remove President Pedro Castillo from office yesterday for “permanent moral incapacity” after he attempted to dissolve the legislature to avoid impeachment. Vice President Dina Boluarte was installed as the country’s new president, becoming Peru’s first female leader. [more]

GUATEMALA | A court in Guatemala yesterday convicted the country’s former president, Otto Pérez Molina, and his vice president, Roxana Baldetti, on fraud and conspiracy charges and sentenced each of them to 16 years in prison. [more]

ONLINE SEARCH | The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled today that online search engines, including tech giant Google, must remove data from online search results if users provide reasonable proof that information about them in search results is false or inaccurate. [more]

YEAR IN SEARCH | According to Google’s 2022 Year in Search report, the most searched-for terms on the platform this year in the United States were: Wordle, Election results, Betty White, Queen Elizabeth, and Bob Saget. [full report] [more]

BASEBALL | Reports say American League MVP Aaron Judge agreed yesterday to a new $360 million, nine-year contract to stay with the New York Yankees. [more]

TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev signed a nuclear weapons reduction treaty. [more history]