February 11, 2025

MIDDLE EAST | Updates from regional conflicts:

• Israel and Hamas each accused the other yesterday of violating the parties’ tenuous cease-fire agreement, raising concerns about the viability of extending the cease-fire into a proposed second phase. [more]
• Following a Hamas announcement yesterday that it would delay a release of Israeli hostages planned for Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that if all hostages are not released by that day Israel should terminate the cease-fire agreement and resume its military actions in Gaza. [more]

UKRAINE | Today is day 1083 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here are your updates:

• Senior U.S. officials are expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later this week on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference to discuss potential pathways to ending the nearly three-year-old Russian invasion. Reports note that Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, the Trump administration’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, are among the U.S. officials expected to attend the Munich conference. [more]
• Ukrainian and Russian forces each targeted the others’ energy and gas infrastructure overnight in large-scale missile and drone attacks. [more]

PRESIDENTIAL PARDON | President Donald Trump issued a pardon yesterday to former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted in 2011 on corruption charges related to attempts to sell an appointment to then-President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat. [more]

U.S. BIRD FLU | Health authorities in Nevada say a recent case of bird flu in a person exposed to infected dairy cows involves a strain of the virus previously unseen in human patients. [more]

U.S. TARIFFS | President Donald Trump signed orders yesterday imposing 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imported into the United States, effective March 12. Numerous countries have condemned the planned tariffs and have indicated they will respond with their own economic actions. [more]

NEW YORK | Acting Deputy U.S. Attorney General Emil Bove ordered federal prosecutors to immediately drop corruption and bribery charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams yesterday, saying that the case against Adams was brought too close to his reelection campaign and that it was interfering with the mayor’s ability to aid the president’s crackdown on illegal immigration. [more]

U.S. MEDICAL RESEARCH FUNDING | A federal judge in Massachusetts yesterday temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s order to cut an estimated $4 billion in National Institutes of Health research funding by capping overhead costs associated with research grants to 15% of funding. A hearing on the issue has been scheduled for February 21. [more]

U.S. PAPER STRAWS | In an executive order signed yesterday, President Donald Trump mandated that the federal government end its “procurement and forced use of paper straws,” and ordered “the development of a National Strategy to End the Use of Paper Straws within 45 days. [White House fact sheet] [more]

U.S. BUSINESS LAW | President Donald Trump ordered the Justice Department yesterday to suspend enforcement of the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it illegal for companies that operate in the United States to pay foreign government officials to secure business deals. Trump said the law places American companies at a disadvantage in global business and that it has been “abused in a manner that harms the interests of the United States.” [more]

U.S. AND JORDAN | President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah II today at the White House, with Trump’s calls for Jordan, along with Egypt, to take in Palestinian refugees from Gaza expected to be among the main topics of discussion. [more]

GLOBAL CORRUPTION | In its annual report on worldwide public sector corruption, Transparency International ranks Denmark, Finland, and Singapore as the least corrupt countries, while South Sudan, Somalia, and Venezuela were rated as the most corrupt. The U.S. was ranked 28th, while Russia was ranked 154th and China was ranked 76th. [press release] [full report] [more]

GLOBAL CLIMATE | U.N. Climate Secretary Simon Stiell said yesterday that only about a dozen of the 195 nations that signed the 2015 Paris climate agreement met a Monday deadline to file their national plans for cutting emissions by 2035. Stiell said most countries have indicated they are working on the plans and that plan quality, rather than timeliness, is his priority. [more]

TURKEY | In what reports suggest is a continuation of government crackdowns on opposition-held districts in the city, Turkish police arrested 10 senior district municipality officials in Istanbul today over alleged links to Kurdish militants. [more]

AFGHANISTAN | Reports say at least five people were killed, and seven others were wounded, today in a suicide bombing outside a bank in the northern Afghanistan city of Kunduz. [more]

GUATEMALA | Authorities say at least 55 people died yesterday when a passenger bus crashed through a guardrail and fell into a ravine near the Guatemalan capital of Guatemala City. The cause of the crash remains under investigation. [more]

AI | Both the U.S. and U.K. refused to join some 60 countries in signing an international agreement on artificial intelligence at a global AI summit this week in Paris. U.K. officials said they were unable to agree to all parts of the leaders’ declaration, while U.S. Vice President JD Vance said too much regulation of AI  “could kill a transformative industry just as it's taking off.” [more]

FOOTBALL | Fox Sports says preliminary projections indicate that an average of 126 million U.S. viewers watched Sunday’s Super Bowl across television and streaming platforms, with viewership peaking at 135.7 million in the second quarter of the game. [more]

TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 2011, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down after nearly 30 years in power following mass demonstrations that were part of the pro-democracy uprisings known as the Arab Spring. [more history]