November 20, 2024

MIDDLE EAST | Update from regional conflicts:

• During a visit to Gaza yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Hamas would not be permitted to rule the Palestinian enclave after the war ends and that Israel has destroyed the Islamist group’s military capabilities. [more]

UKRAINE | Today is day 1000 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here are your updates:

• Reports say the Biden administration has approved at least $275 million in new U.S.  military aid for Ukraine as part of efforts to bolster Ukrainian defense capabilities before President-elect Donald Trump takes office [more]
• Reports cite South Korean lawmakers as saying that intelligence assessments show that North Korea has recently supplied additional artillery systems to Russia for use in Ukraine and that North Korean soldiers deployed to Russia have begun engaging in combat. [more]
• The BBC cites data from the Institute for the Study of War as indicating that Russia has gained almost six-times as much Ukrainian territory in 2024 as it did in 2023. [more]
• The U.S., Spain, Italy, and Greece are among the nations that have temporarily closed their embassies in Kyiv following what U.S. officials say was “specific information of a potential significant air attack” on the Ukrainian capital. [more]

U.S. BOMB CYCLONE | Hundreds of thousands of homes in Oregon, Washington, and northern California were without power overnight amidst high winds and heavy rainfall associated with the bomb cyclone storm system that is expected to affect the region through Friday. [more]

U.S. MILITARY PREPAREDNESS | Responding to a question yesterday at the Brookings Institution, Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, suggested that the level of ongoing provision of U.S. weapons and munitions to Ukraine and Israel could hamper the military’s ability to respond to any potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific. [more]

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION | Among newly announced selections for roles in the upcoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump are: former Small Business Administration chief Linda McMahon to serve as secretary of education, heart surgeon and talk show host Dr. Mehmet Oz to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, investment banker Howard Lutnick to be commerce secretary, and former congressman and Fox Business host Sean Duffy to lead the Department of Transportation. [more]

CALIFORNIA | Voters have rejected Proposition 32, a California state ballot measure that would have raised the state's minimum wage to a highest-in-the-nation $18 per hour by 2026. The measure failed despite proponents arguing it would benefit about 2 million low-wage workers, while opponents claimed it would increase costs and lead to job cuts. [more]

MPOX | Amidst ongoing outbreaks of the disease in Congo and other regions of Africa, the U.N.’s World Health Organization said yesterday that it has approved the first mpox vaccine for children. [more]

U.K. | According to new data from the Office for National Statistics, annualized consumer inflation in the U.K. rose to 2.3% in October – a six-month high and a sharp increase from the three-year low of 1.7% recorded in September. Economists say higher domestic energy bills were largely responsible for the October increase. [more]

SERBIA | Demonstrators clashed with police in the northern Serbia city of Novi Sad for a second straight day today during protests demanding arrests after a November 1 roof collapse at the city’s railway station in which 15 people were killed. [more]

GREECE | Various public and private sector industries, including transportation, hospitals, and schools, are being interrupted across Greece today as workers take part in a 24-hour general strike called by labor unions to protest the high cost of living and demand collective wage agreements. [more]

NIGERIA | Nigerian authorities say at least 50 Boko Haram fighters are dead and seven government security force members are missing following an attack by the militant group yesterday on a government convoy that was monitoring the African nation’s power grid installations. [more]

TENNIS | Rafael Nadal, who won 22 major championships between 2005 and 2022, has officially retired from professional tennis after Spain was eliminated by the Netherlands yesterday in the Davis Cup quarterfinals. [more]

BASKETBALL | The Cleveland Cavaliers season-opening 15-game winning streak, a franchise record, ended last night with a 120-117 loss to the Boston Celtics. [more]

LITERATURE | Australian writer Richard Flanagan, who won the 2014 Booker Prize for fiction for his novel “The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” has been named the winner of the 2024 Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction for his memoir “Question 7,” becoming, according to reports, the first person to have won the leading U.K. prizes for both fiction and non-fiction. [more]

TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 1969, Native American activists began an occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, protesting what they saw as the U.S. government's ongoing economic, social, and political neglect of indigenous peoples in the United States. The activists were forced off the island in June 1971. [more history]