November 27, 2023

ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR | Updates from day 52 of the conflict:

• Today is the final day of an initial four-day ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict. A fourth round of prisoner and hostage exchanges is expected to take place today and international mediators are pressing for an extension of the ceasefire, which Israel says it will extend by one day for every 10 additional hostages released by Hamas. [more]
• Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is expected to chair a U.N Security Council meeting on the Israel-Hamas conflict Wednesday in New York City. According to China’s Foreign Ministry, topics of discussion for the meeting include relieving the civilian humanitarian crisis in Gaza, achieving a cessation of hostilities, and “promoting a comprehensive, just and lasting settlement of the Palestinian issue through a two-state solution.” [more]
• A new report from humanitarian group Human Rights Watch says an explosion at Gaza’s Al-Ahli hospital on October 17, which was widely blamed on Israeli airstrikes and shelling, was likely the result of “an apparent rocket-propelled munition, such as those commonly used by Palestinian armed groups.” [more]

UKRAINE | Today is day 641 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here are your updates:

• Ukrainian officials say Russia launched its most intense drone attack since the beginning of the invasion on Saturday, with at least 75 Iranian-made Shahed drones being used to target sites across Ukraine. Ukraine’s military says 74 of the drones were shot down and that at least five people were wounded by falling debris from downed drones. [more]
• Russian state news agency Tass reports that about half a million people in Russia-annexed Crimea are without power this morning following weekend storms that flooded roads and downed trees and power lines in the Black Sea region. [more]

U.S. GUN VIOLENCE | Three Palestinian-American college students attending a Thanksgiving gathering near the University of Vermont were shot and wounded Saturday evening. Police say Jason J. Eaton, 48, has been arrested in connection with the shooting, which is being investigated as a possible hate crime. [more]

U.S. SUPPLY CHAINS | Domestic production of critical medications, improved data sharing among federal agencies, and new assessment tools are among the 30 actions expected to be announced by President Biden today when he convenes the first meeting of his new supply chain resilience council. [White House fact sheet] [more]

OREGON | Classes are set to resume today in Portland, Oregon, as the city’s school district reached a tentative agreement with its teachers' union yesterday to end a nearly month-long strike over pay and working condition issues. [more]

YEMEN | U.S. Navy officials say five men have been detained in connection with the seizure of an Israel-linked tanker ship off the coast of Yemen yesterday and that two ballistic missiles were fired at U.S. ships from a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen after the tanker was freed. [more]

IRELAND | Reports say as many as 34 people were arrested in Dublin, Ireland, late last week following violent anti-immigrant protests sparked by rumors that a foreign national was responsible for a stabbing attack outside a Dublin school on Thursday in which three children and two adults were wounded. [more]

PERU | Researchers at Peru’s National Institute of Research of Mountain Glaciers and Ecosystems say their country lost more than half of its glacier surface over the past 60 years and that 175 glaciers became extinct between 2016 and 2020 due to climate change. [more]

SIERRA LEONE | A nationwide dusk-to-dawn curfew remains in place today in Sierra Leone following a weekend attack by armed gunmen on the West African nation’s main military barracks and on multiple prisons. Reports cite government officials as saying that many leaders of the attacks have been arrested. [more]

TURKEY | Reports say Turkish police arrested 98 people today over alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (or PKK) militant group. Most of those arrested were charged with spreading PKK propaganda on social media, according to the Turkish interior ministry. [more]

ASIA SUMMIT | Top diplomats from South Korea, Japan, and China met in Seoul yesterday and agreed to pursue increased cooperation and resume their countries’ leader’s trilateral summit. It was the first such meeting of top diplomats from the leading Asian economies in four years. [more]

INDIA | Rescue workers began drilling a new vertical shaft yesterday in the latest attempt to free 41 construction workers trapped in a collapsed mountain tunnel in India’s Uttarakhand state since November 12. [more]

U.K. ECONOMY | U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced more than 29 billion pounds in new private sector investment in Britain today at a London gathering of global business executives. Among the investments cited were 15 billion pounds from two Australian funds, a 7-billion-pound investment from Spanish power giant Iberdrola, and a 2.5-billion-pound investment from Microsoft for AI infrastructure. [more]

SOCIAL MEDIA | Citing newly unredacted legal filings, the Wall Street Journal and New York Times both report that internal company documents at Facebook parent company Meta suggest the company deliberately engineered its social media platforms to exploit shortcomings in youthful psychology such as impulsive behavior, susceptibility to peer pressure, and the underestimation of risks. The court documents are part of a lawsuit filed by the attorneys general of 33 states in October. [more]

CYBER MONDAY | Adobe Analytics says today’s Cyber Monday holiday shopping could add up to a record $12 billion in purchases – up 5.4% from last year – and that more than half of online purchases are likely to be made on mobile devices. [more]

COLLEGE FOOTBALL | Georgia remains No. 1 in the AP Top 25 college football poll after this weekend’s games, followed by Michigan, Washington, Florida State, and Oregon. [full AP poll] [more]

SKIING | American skier Mikaela Shiffrin won a record-extending 90th World Cup event yesterday with a victory in the women's slalom at Killington in Vermont. [more]

WORD OF THE YEAR | Merriam-Webster has chosen “authentic” as its 2023 word of the year. The dictionary maker says lookups for the word saw a substantial increase this year, driven by stories and conversations about AI, celebrity culture, identity, and social media. [more]

WEEKEND MOVIES | "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes" topped the North American box office over the weekend with an estimated $28.8 million in receipts, followed by "Napoleon" and "Wish." [more]

LITERATURE | Irish writer Paul Lynch won the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction yesterday for “Prophet Song” – a dystopian novel about a woman’s struggle to protect her family as Ireland collapses into totalitarianism and war, described by prize judges as a triumph of emotional storytelling. [more]

TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 1895, the Nobel Prizes were established through the will of Alfred Bernhard Nobel, the Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist who invented dynamite and other, more powerful, explosives. [more history]