February 23, 2023

UKRAINE | Today is day 364 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here are your updates:

• The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports that more than 8 million refugees have fled Ukraine for other parts of Europe in the nearly one year since the Russian invasion began. [more]
• The U.N. General Assembly is expected to vote today on a resolution marking the one-year anniversary of the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and calling for the immediate and complete withdrawal of Russian forces. [more]
• Ukrainian officials refused to attend the opening of a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe today in Vienna, Austria, saying the attendance of delegates from Russia was “an affront to everything the OSCE stands for” and that the Russian delegates were attending to try to “justify the war crimes they have committed.” Both Ukraine and Russia are members of the 57-member OSCE. [more]
• European Union diplomats are meeting in Brussels today with the aim of finalizing a 10th round of sanctions against Russia to mark the one-year anniversary of the start of the invasion of Ukraine. Reports say the proposed sanctions package includes more than 10 billion euros in trade restrictions and would further limit technology and spare parts exports from the E.U. to Russia. [more]

WINTER WEATHER | Reports say more than 800,000 people across the U.S. were without power last night due to winter storms hitting large parts of the country this week. About 1,800 flights were cancelled, and another 6,000 delayed, yesterday across the country, and some 60 million people are under winter weather alerts today.  [more]

U.S. ECONOMY | Minutes released yesterday from a meeting of Federal Reserve policymakers earlier this month show that nearly all Fed board members favor slowing increases of their benchmark interest rate to a quarter-point in their ongoing efforts to reduce inflation to their 2% target. [more]

U.S. GUN VIOLENCE | Police in Orange County, Florida, say a television journalist and a nine-year-old girl were killed, and the girl’s mother and another journalist were wounded, yesterday in the Orlando suburb of Pine Hills. A suspect in the shootings, Keith Melvin Moses, 19, has been arrested. [more]

DOMESTIC EXTREMISM | A new report from the Anti-Defamation League says 164 people were killed in the U.S. in ideological extremist-related mass killings between 2010 and 2020 — far more than any other decade except the 1990s, during which the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City killed 168 people in one incident. [more]

ABORTION | In the wake of the Supreme Court's overturning of the Roe v. Wade abortion rights ruling and ongoing efforts to further limit abortions in many states, Democratic governors in 20 states announced the formation this week of the Reproductive Freedom Alliance, a consortium aimed at sharing best practices for language and executive orders protecting abortion access and affirming abortion rights. [more]

WIND POWER | Reports say the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will open a public comment period on Friday on a government proposal to offer the first-ever lease sale for offshore wind energy operations in the Gulf of Mexico. [more]

ISRAEL AND GAZA | Israeli airstrikes targeted at least two suspected weapons manufacturing and storage sites in the Gaza Strip today. The airstrikes came after five rockets were fired toward Israeli territory from Gaza earlier in the day and amidst an ongoing rise in tensions after an Israeli raid in the West Bank city of Nablus yesterday in which at least 11 Palestinians were killed and more than 100 injured. [more]

NORTHERN IRELAND | Three men believed to be linked to the New IRA Irish nationalist militant group have been arrested in connection with yesterday’s shooting of a police officer in Omagh, Northern Ireland. [more]

CHINA | Officials in China’s northern Inner Mongolia region say rescue efforts continue today at the site of a mine collapse that killed at least two people yesterday. Reports say 53 miners are still listed as missing at the site. [more]

CAMBODIA | The Cambodian Health Ministry says an 11-year-old girl died from bird flu yesterday in the country’s first known case of human H5N1 infection since 2014. [more]

SOCIAL MEDIA | Government, business, and regulatory delegates from around the world are taking part in the “Internet for Trust” meeting today in Paris, France, which aims to discuss a set of draft global guidelines for regulating digital platforms, to improve the reliability of information, and to protect freedom of expression and human rights online. The meeting is being hosted by UNESCO, the United Nations’ educational, scientific and cultural agency. [more]

TIKTOK | Joining similar moves by many other governments, corporations, and agencies, the European Commission announced today that it has banned use of the Chinese-owned short video-sharing app TikTok on its employees' corporate phones, citing potential privacy and cybersecurity threats. [more]

SOCCER | The U.S. Women’s National Team clinched their fourth-straight SheBelieves Cup tournament championship last night with a 2-1 win over Brazil. [more]

TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 1836, during the Texas war for independence, Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna began a siege of the Alamo, which was captured after 13 days and which became for Texans a symbol of heroic resistance. [more history]