July 25, 2023

UKRAINE | Today is day 516 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here are your updates:

• Amidst global food security concerns following the Russian withdrawal from a deal that allowed the export of Ukrainian grain from Black Sea ports, European Union agriculture ministers are meeting today in Brussels to discuss ways to move grain from Ukraine to the E.U. and other areas of the world. [more]
• International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said yesterday that IAEA staff at Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant report seeing anti-personnel landmines in place around the facility and that such explosive devices are “inconsistent with the IAEA safety standards and nuclear security guidance.” Grossi noted, however, that the explosives are near the site’s external perimeter and their detonation “should not affect the site’s nuclear safety.” [more]

TEXAS | The U.S. Justice Department yesterday sued Texas Governor Gregg Abbott over his state’s placement of floating barriers on the Rio Grande River as an anti-migration measure. The lawsuit seeks to force the removal of the buoys, which the Biden administration says raise humanitarian, environmental, and navigation concerns, and which the Mexican government says violate international treaties. [more]

JANUARY 6 | Peter Francis Stager, 44, of Conway, Arkansas, was sentenced to four years and four months in prison yesterday for beating a police officer with a flagpole during the January 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol. Stager, who pleaded guilty to charges of assaulting a police officer in February, was captured on video following the January 6 attacks saying, “Every single one of those Capitol law enforcement officers, death is the remedy.” [more]

NEW MEXICO | The U.S. Forest Service acknowledged yesterday that a prescribed burn of forest debris it commissioned in 2022 was responsible for starting the Cerro Pelado wildfire that burned more than 60 square miles of land and forced evacuations and school closures in and around the city of Los Alamos. [more]

IRS | The U.S. Internal Revenue Service announced yesterday that, in a move aimed at keeping its workers safe and combating scammers who pose as IRS agents, it is ending its decades-old practice of making unannounced visits to taxpayers’ homes and businesses. [more]

ISRAEL AND WEST BANK | Israeli military officials say three Palestinian gunmen were killed today after they opened fire on security forces in the West Bank city of Nablus. [more]

BELGIUM | A Brussels jury is expected to return a verdict today in the trial of 10 defendants charged with roles in the subway and airport suicide bombings that killed 32 people in the city in March 2016, for which the Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility. [more]

SPAIN | Reports say Spain’s maritime rescue service rescued a boat carrying 84 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa today near the island of Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands — a main destination for migrants trying to reach Spain. [more]

NORTH KOREA | South Korean and Japanese military officials say North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast yesterday. The missile launches followed the docking of a nuclear-powered U.S. submarine at South Korea's southern Jeju Island earlier in the day. [more]

TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 1898, U.S. forces under General Nelson A. Miles invaded Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War.  [more history]