April 14, 2023

UKRAINE | Today is day 414 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here are your updates:

• In its latest daily intelligence update, the British military says Ukrainian forces have been forced to withdraw from some areas of the eastern city of Bakhmut amidst renewed Russian offensives in the region. [more]
• Amidst concerns about possible Chinese exports of weapons to Russia, Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang said today that his country would not sell weapons to any party involved in the war in Ukraine and that it would regulate the export of products with dual civilian and military use. [more]
• A Russian court fined online encyclopedia Wikipedia 2 million rubles (about $24,464) yesterday for refusing to remove a Russian-language article about the occupation of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region. The fine was the latest in a series of actions against Wikipedia by Russia’s state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor seeking to remove what it calls "false information" about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the site. [more]

PENTAGON LEAK | U.S. federal authorities have arrested 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, an Air National Guard intelligence unit IT specialist, in connection with the recent leaks of highly classified Department of Defense documents online. The leaked documents include intelligence estimates on the war in Ukraine and internal Russian conditions, as well as sensitive information on a number of U.S. allies. [more]

ABORTION | Florida Governor Ron DeSantis yesterday signed into law a ban on abortions in the state after six weeks of pregnancy, which was passed by the state’s Republican-majority legislature earlier in the day. Reports note that the measure will only go into effect if the state’s current 15-week ban is upheld in a case currently under consideration by the Florida Supreme Court. [more]

TRUMP INVESTIGATIONS | Former U.S. President Donald Trump was questioned by New York investigators for about seven hours yesterday in connection with the ongoing fraud lawsuit against Trump and his associates claiming that they misled investors and banks by giving them false information about Trump's net worth and the value of his assets. [more]

MINNESOTA | The city of Minneapolis agreed yesterday to pay nearly $9 million to settle lawsuits by two people who claimed that former police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into their necks years before he used the same move in actions that led to the death of George Floyd. [more]

U.S. ECONOMY | The Labor Department reported yesterday that initial claims for unemployment benefits rose by 11,000 to 239,000 in the week ended April 8. [more]

MORE U.S. ECONOMY | The U.S. producer price index — a key measure of wholesale prices — fell 0.5% from February to March, according to the Labor Department. On a year-over-year basis, wholesale prices were up 2.7% in March — the smallest 12-month increase since January 2021. [more]

TEXAS | As many as 18,000 cows were killed in an explosion and resulting fire at the Southfork Dairy Farms in Texas’ Castro County earlier this week — the deadliest such farm fire incident ever in the U.S., according to reports. [more]

NORTH KOREA | North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency confirmed today that a missile launch by the country yesterday was its first test of a new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile. [more]

FRANCE | The French Constitutional Council is expected to rule today on the constitutionality of President Emmanuel Macron's controversial plan to increase France’s retirement age from 62 to 64, which was pushed through without a parliamentary vote and has been the focus of months of protests across the country. [more]

AUSTRALIA | Emergency services officials in Australia say Cyclone Ilsa struck the country’s western Pilbara coast this morning as a Category 5 storm with winds gust speeds of up to 180 miles per hour. Reports say the storm did not affect any largely populated areas and that it has weakened to Category 2 after moving inland. [more]

MIGRATION | Reports say the U.N. agencies for refugees and migration estimate that as many as 400,000 migrants could attempt to cross the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama this year as part of efforts to reach the United States through Central America and Mexico. The agencies estimate that about 250,000 migrants crossed the route last year. [more]

TIKTOK | Legislators in the U.S. state of Montana are scheduled to hold a final vote today on a bill that would completely ban the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok from operating in the state. The ban would apply to all usage of the app in Montana, not just on government devices, as has been implemented in multiple states. [more]

FOOTBALL | The Associated Press cites unnamed sources as saying that Washington Commanders NFL franchise owner Dan Snyder has agreed to sell the team to a group led by Josh Harris and Mitchell Rales for a record $6.05 billion. [more]

BASEBALL | The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Boston Red Sox, 9-3, last night, tying Major League Baseball’s post-1900 record for consecutive season-opening wins at 13. [more]

TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 1865, just after the effective end of the American Civil War, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending a production at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., and died the next morning. [more history]