September 12, 2024

ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR | Updates from day 342 of the conflict:

• Palestinian health officials and U.N. representatives say an overnight Israeli airstrike hit a U.N. school used to shelter displaced families in Gaza's Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least 14 people, including six U.N. staff members. Israel says the strike targeted Hamas militants operating from within the school. [more]
• A statement released yesterday by the Palestinian militant group Hamas says the group is prepared to implement an immediate cease-fire with Israel in Gaza with no new conditions from either party. Reports cite negotiators as saying that a new cease-fire proposal will likely be proposed sometime in the next few days. [more]

UKRAINE | Today is day 931 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here are your updates:

• Meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy yesterday in Kyiv, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy pledged nearly $1.5 billion in new aid to Ukraine. [more]
• Reports say at least 14 people were injured, and energy infrastructure sustained significant damage, in an overnight Russian drone attack on the northern Ukraine city of Konotop. [more]

HURRICANE FRANCINE | After striking Louisiana as a Category 2 storm and causing hundreds of thousands of power outages late yesterday, Hurricane Francine weakened to a tropical storm overnight as it moved northeastward toward Mississippi. [more]

U.S. POLITICS | Ratings company Nielsen reports that 67.1 million people watched Tuesday night’s presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump – a marked increase from the 51.3 million that watched the June debate between Trump and then-candidate President Joe Biden. [more]

U.S. POPULATION AND IMMIGRATION | According to Census Bureau data released this week, the level of U.S. residents born outside the country rose to 14.3% in 2023 – up from 13.9% in 2022, but still lower than the record level of 14.7% set in 1910. Full data from the Bureau’s American Community Survey is scheduled to be released later today. [more]

U.S. ELECTIONS | Officials from the National Association of State Election Directors, the National Association of Secretaries of State, along with officials from about three dozen state and local election offices, sent a letter to the U.S. Postal Service yesterday expressing serious concerns about the Service’s ability to process and deliver millions of ballots and other election related materials in a timely manner in the upcoming election cycle. Reports note that about 46% of votes in the November 2020 election were cast by mail. [full letter] [more]

CALIFORNIA | Officials in Southern California say three large, ongoing wildfires in the mountains east of Los Angeles have burned dozens of homes and forced thousands of residents to evacuate. As of yesterday evening, the Line Fire had burned about 54 square miles, the Bridge fire had burned 75 square miles, and the Airport Fire had burned nearly 35 square miles. [more]

JANUARY 6 | According to court records unsealed yesterday, U.S. Army soldier Alexander Cain Poplin, 31, has been arrested at the Army’s Schofield Barracks post in Hawaii and charged with interfering with police during a civil disorder and assaulting, resisting, or impeding police with a dangerous weapon in connection with his actions during the January 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol. [more]

UTAH | A federal judge issued a temporary injunction yesterday, blocking a Utah law that would require social media companies to verify users’ ages and to limit access to some platform features by young users. In his ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shelby said that while the court recognized the desire to protect children from the “novel challenges associated with social media use,” the law appears to violate the First Amendment rights of social media companies. [more]

VIETNAM | The death toll associated with Typhoon Yagi continues to rise in Vietnam, with flooding and landslides affecting large parts of the country, including the capital Hanoi. Local media reports that at least 197 deaths have been blamed on the storm and that another 125 people remain missing. [more]

NORTH KOREA | Just days after leader Kim Jong Un pledged to strengthen his country’s nuclear forces, North Korea launched multiple short-range ballistic missiles into the waters off its east coast today. South Korea, the U.S., and Japan condemned the test launches as a threat to regional and international peace. [more]

E.U. AND HUNGARY | Hungarian government officials said today that their country is ready to sue the European Commission for reimbursement for the costs of protecting the European Union's Schengen border. Gergely Gulyas, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief of staff, said in a statement that the E.U. has reimbursed other E.U. nations’ costs associated with the bloc’s border security, but has not done so for Hungary. [more]

THAILAND | Military forces were deployed to northern Thailand’s Chiang Rai province today to assist in rescuing thousands of residents cut off by flooding that has affected large parts of the country since mid-August. [more]

AUSTRALIA | Defense Minister Richard Marles announced today that several current and former Australian military commanders have been stripped of medals over allegations of war crimes committed during the war in Afghanistan. [more]

PERU | Former President Alberto Fujimori, who is credited with successfully reforming Peru’s economy while in power from 1990 to 2000, but who was later convicted and imprisoned on charges of corruption and responsibility for the deaths of 25 people in crackdowns on an insurgency, died yesterday in Lima at the age of 86. [more]

BASKETBALL | Las Vegas Aces’ center A’ja Wilson scored 27 points in last night’s win over the Indiana Fever, passing 2023’s 939-point performance by Jewell Lloyd to set a new WNBA single-season scoring record. [more]

ENTERTAINMENT | Taylor Swift won a pack-leading seven awards at last night’s MTV Video Music Awards, including those for video of the year, along with Post Malone, for the collaboration “Fortnight" and artist of the year. Swift is now tied with Beyoncé for the most VMA awards with 30. [full list of winners] [more]

TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 1940, in Montignac, France, four teenage boys found the Lascaux cave, which is estimated to be about 17,300 years old and contains one of the most outstanding displays of prehistoric art ever discovered. [more history]