January 10, 2023

UKRAINE | Today is day 320 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here are your updates:

• In an interview published today, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev — a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin — said the war in Ukraine is not a confrontation between Moscow and Kyiv, but between Russia and NATO. [more]
• Reports cite British military officials as saying that forces of the Russian mercenary group Wagner appear to be in control of much of the industrial Donbas region town of Soledar, which has been a center of intense fighting over the past several days. [more]

CALIFORNIA | Much of California is being affected by road closures, flooding, and evacuation orders as the state deals with a series of rainstorms that have dumped up to 14 inches of rain in some regions. President Joe Biden approved a federal emergency declaration for the state yesterday to support storm response and relief efforts. [more]

BIDEN DOCUMENTS | According to the White House, an unspecified number of classified documents were found in November of last year in the offices of the Penn Biden Center in Washington, DC, where President Joe Biden kept an office after he left the vice presidency in 2017. The documents were turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration the day after they were discovered by Biden staff members. Reports say Attorney General Merrick Garland has asked U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch to review the matter. [more]

NEW MEXICO | Police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, say a yet-unnamed suspect believed to be linked to a series of shootings at or near the homes of multiple elected officials is in custody on unrelated charges and that investigations are ongoing into the shootings and the suspect. [more]

NAVAJO NATION | Buu Nygren is scheduled to be sworn in today as the next president of the Navajo Nation in Fort Defiance, Arizona. The Navajo Nation encompasses some 27,000 square miles in parts of New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, and has a population of about 350,000. [more]

U.S. TRAFFIC DEATHS | National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data released yesterday estimates that 31,785 people were killed in motor vehicle crashes in the U.S. in the first nine months of 2022 — down 0.2% from the same period in 2021. During the same periods, cyclist deaths rose 8%, motorcyclist deaths rose 5%, and pedestrian deaths rose 2% year-over-year. [full NHTSA report] [more]

TRUMP INVESTIGATIONS | A Georgia special grand jury investigating possible crimes associated with efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia by then-President Donald Trump and others concluded its work yesterday and submitted a final report. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will be responsible for deciding if an indictment from a regular grand jury will be sought against any of those persons investigated. [more]

U.S. ECONOMY | The National Federation of Independent Business said today that its Small Business Optimism Index fell 2.1 points to 89.8 in December — the lowest level since June 2022 and the 12th straight month that the index was below the 49-year average of 98. [more]

PAKISTAN | Pakistani Deputy Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said yesterday that dozens of countries and international institutions have pledged more than $9 billion to help Pakistan recover from last year’s flooding that killed more than 1,700 people and destroyed more than 2 million homes. [more]

MEXICO | Speaking at a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden yesterday in Mexico City, Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador said the U.S. must “do away with this abandonment, this disdain, and this forgetfulness for Latin America and the Caribbean.” In response, Biden highlighted the billions of dollars that the U.S. provides in aid around the world and said that the U.S.’s responsibility “doesn’t end in the Western Hemisphere.” [more]

BRAZIL | Officials in Brazil say up to 1,000 people are expected to be charged with crimes associated with Sunday’s storming of the country’s Congress, Supreme Court, and presidential palace in the capital Brasilia. [more]

FRANCE | Details of a French government plan to increase the full pension retirement age in France from 62 to 65 are scheduled to be released by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne today in Paris. [more]

CHINA | Responding to a recently imposed South Korean requirement that visitors from China be tested for COVID-19, China today suspended issuing entry visas for South Korean visitors. [more]

OZONE LAYER | A new United Nations report says that decades of international efforts to reduce the use of chemicals that deplete the Earth’s ozone layer continue to have slow, but positive effects and that the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica could fully heal by 2066. [more]

COLLEGE FOOTBALL | Georgia defeated TCU, 65-7, last night to win the team’s second straight College Football Playoff National Championship. Georgia’s Stetson Bennett and Javon Bullard were named the offensive and defensive most valuable players of the game, respectively. [more]

WOMEN’S SOCCER | Four former National Women’s Soccer League coaches were permanently banned from coaching in the league yesterday as part of disciplinary action taken against individuals and teams by the NWSL following investigations into alleged abuse and misconduct. [more]

TIKTOK | New Jersey and Ohio yesterday became the latest U.S. states to ban the use of TikTok on government-owned devices over security and privacy concerns associated with the Chinese-owned social media app and platform. [more]

R.I.P. | Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former U.S. poet laureate Charles Simic has died at the age of 84. The Serbian-born Simic won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 for his book “The World Doesn’t End.” [more]

TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, a 50-page pamphlet that sold more than 500,000 copies within a few months and called for a war of independence that would become the American Revolution. [full text of Common Sense] [more history]