April 2, 2024

ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR | Updates from day 179 of the conflict:

• The World Central Kitchen charity has suspended its operations in Gaza after six of its workers and their Palestinian driver were killed yesterday in an apparent Israeli airstrike after delivering food aid to a warehouse in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah. Israeli military officials say the incident is under investigation. [more]
• France has reportedly proposed a draft U.N Security Council resolution that would begin preparations for possible U.N. monitoring of any cease-fire in Gaza. [more]

UKRAINE | Today is day 768 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here are your updates:

• Reports say Ukraine launched drone attacks overnight that caused a fire at Russia’s third-largest oil refinery and damaged a Russian drone production facility in Tatarstan – a highly industrialized region south-east of Moscow. [more]
• Officials from dozens of countries are expected to attend a conference on justice and compensation for those affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine today in the Netherlands. Among the items to be addressed at the conference is the establishment of a process to allow people to submit claims for compensation for damages and injury caused by the invasion. [more]

FLORIDA | The Florida Supreme Court upheld the state's ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy yesterday, clearing the way for a subsequent 6-week ban to take effect later this year. Also yesterday, the Court approved a state-wide ballot measure for November that would enshrine abortion rights in Florida's constitution. [more]

OREGON | Gov. Tina Kotek signed a bill into law yesterday that re-criminalizes the possession of small amounts of drugs, ending Oregon’s four-year, first-in-the-nation policy of decriminalization. The new law is scheduled to take effect September 1. [more]

NEVADA | Las Vegas’ Tropicana casino and hotel – one of the oldest casinos in the city – is scheduled to close its doors today. The building is scheduled to be demolished in October to make room for a new Major League Baseball stadium. [more]

TRUMP HUSH-MONEY TRIAL | New York Judge Juan Merchan yesterday expanded the gag order imposed on former President Donald Trump to include a ban on comments about the family members of the judge and attorneys in Trump’s hush-money criminal trial. The order expansion came after Trump suggested last week that the judge’s rulings were being swayed by his daughter’s political consulting interests. [more]

U.S. POLITICS | Residents of Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin will vote in their states’ presidential primary elections today, with President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump expected to easily win their parties’ convention delegates. [more]

GLOBAL CLIMATE | According to a new study published in the journal Science Advances, heat waves experienced around the world are lasting longer, have higher peak temperatures, and affect larger areas than they did 40 years ago, with the changes being attributed to climate-related global warming. [full study] [more]

ISRAEL, IRAN, AND SYRIA | An Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital of Damascus yesterday killed at least seven people, including two Iranian generals. Iran said it will respond to the attack, but reports note that it is not clear if any such response would be conducted directly by Iran or by one of the militant groups it supports, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia and Yemen’s Houthi rebels. [more]

FINLAND | Police say a 12-year-old student who is now in police custody opened fire with a handgun at a school in Vantaa, Finland, today, killing one fellow student and seriously wounding two others. [more]

NORTH KOREA | U.S., Japanese, and South Korean authorities have condemned what they say was the firing of an intermediate-range ballistic missile into the sea by North Korea today. South Korean military officials say the missile was probably related to the testing of North Korea’s newly-developed solid-fuel missile engine. [more]

ONLINE PRIVACY | According to terms of an agreement released yesterday, internet giant Google has agreed to purge billions of files containing personal data collected from more than 136 million users of its Chrome browser in the U.S. as part of a settlement of a class-action lawsuit that accused the company of illegal surveillance. [more]

COLLEGE BASKETBALL | Participants in the women’s NCAA basketball tournament's Final Four are set after last night’s games in which Iowa defeated LSU and UConn beat Southern California. [full women’s bracket] [more]

BASEBALL | Pitcher Ronel Blanco threw the first no-hitter of the 2024 Major League Baseball season last night in the Houston Astros’ 10-0 win over the Toronto Blue Jays. [more]

R.I.P. | Louis Anthony Conter, the last living survivor of the USS Arizona battleship that was attacked by Japanese planes at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in December 1941, launching the U.S. entry into World War II, died yesterday at the age of 102. [more]

TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 1681, King Charles II of England officially proclaimed the charter he had granted in March to William Penn for the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania in North America. [more history]