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A curated weekday guide to major news and developments over the last 24 hours. Here’s today’s news:
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR — U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet “within the next two weeks,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said after yesterday’s summit. President Trump, who, according to sources, interrupted his talks with European leaders yesterday to call Putin, also suggested he “began the arrangements for a meeting” between the two leaders. The Kremlin was more non-committal, with a foreign policy adviser suggesting that Putin and Trump discussed “the idea that it would be advisable to explore the possibility of raising the level of representatives of the Ukrainian and Russian sides.” Michael Birnbaum and Cat Zakrzewski report for the Washington Post; Barak Ravid and Dave Lawler report for Axios.
In a social media post, Trump yesterday said he had discussed the United States playing a “coordination” role in helping secure the peace in Ukraine. According to European officials, Trump and European leaders yesterday agreed that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will lead a task force of national security advisers and NATO officials to draft security assurances for Ukraine. The security guarantees will likely be “formalised on paper within the next week to 10 days,” Zelenskyy suggested during today. Michael R. Gordon, Bojan Pancevski, and Annie Linskey report for the Wall Street Journal; Yuliia Dysa and Lidia Kelly report for Reuters.
Zelenskyy yesterday offered to purchase $100 billion worth of U.S. weapons and equipment, with financing help from European partners, in a bid to obtain U.S. security guarantees, according to a document seen by the Financial Times. The document also suggests Kyiv and Washington would strike a $50bn deal to produce drones with Ukrainian companies under the proposals. Trump appeared to have a favorable response to the purchase proposal during yesterday’s meeting, according to European officials. Max Seddon, Christopher Miller, and Ben Hall report; Michael R. Gordon, Bojan Pancevski, and Annie Linskey report for the Wall Street Journal.
The “United States and some countries have said that they are against NATO membership for Ukraine” but there are discussions on “Article 5 type of security guarantees,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said yesterday. Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty postulates that an attack on any of its members is considered an attack on all. The Russian foreign ministry yesterday issued a lengthy statement rejecting the deployment of NATO troops in Ukraine as part of any security guarantees. Kanishka Singh reports for Reuters; Neil MacFarquhar reports for the New York Times.
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
While Zelenskyy and European leaders met with Trump yesterday, Russia launched its heaviest aerial attack on Ukraine since July, killing eight people and wounding 54 others, according to Ukrainian authorities. The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia launched 270 drones and 10 missiles overnight, with strikes recorded at 16 locations. Svitlana Vlasova and Victoria Butenko report for CNN; Reuters reports.
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
Hamas has accepted a new Gaza ceasefire proposal put forward by Qatar and Egypt, two diplomats and an Egyptian official said yesterday. According to the sources, while the latest terms are similar to those that Israel had previously accepted, it was unclear if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel would accede to the proposal. Adam Rasgon, Isabel Kershner, and Ronen Bergman report for the New York Times.
Israel’s former chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, has said that “the fact that there are already 50,000 dead in Gaza is necessary and required” and that 50 Palestinians should die for every Israeli killed in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, according to leaked audio recordings broadcast by Israel’s Channel 12 TV on Friday. It is unclear when Haliva made the remarks, which constitute the first recorded instance of a former senior Israeli military figure endorsing a high death toll in the war. Itay Stern reports for NPR; Oren Liebermann and Abeer Salman report for CNN.
Displacing Palestinians from Gaza is a “red line” for Egypt, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told CNN yesterday, adding that Cairo “will not accept it, participate in it, [or] allow it to happen.” Becky Anderson, Mostafa Salem, and Nadeen Ebrahim report.
Palestinian death toll from 22 months of war between Israel and Hamas has surpassed 62,000, with another 156,230 people wounded, the Hamas-run health ministry said yesterday. Victoria Eastwood, Samy Magdy, and Melanie Lidman report for AP News.
OTHER GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS
A record 383 aid workers were killed in the line of duty in 2024, with the 31% surge in deaths compared to 2023 driven by conflicts in Gaza and Sudan, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said yesterday. An additional 308 aid workers were wounded, 125 kidnapped, and 45 detained, according to the Office. UN News reports.
Islamic State-backed Allied Democratic Forces rebels have killed at least 52 civilians in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in recent days after suffering defeats by Congolese forces, according to the U.N. and local officials. Reuters reports.
Syria’s former Assad regime forced the disappearances of hundreds of children, conspiring with ministers and governors to place the children of political prisoners in orphanages, according to an investigation by the New York Times’ Shane Bauer. The regime sent children to at least nine care centers, six of which were part of SOS Children’s Villages International, according to Bauer’s documents and interviews.
U.S. FOREIGN DEVELOPMENTS
The Lebanese government “has done their part” in endorsing a U.S.-backed plan for the Hezbollah militant group to disarm, and “what we need is for Israel to comply with that equal handshake,” U.S. Special Envoy to Lebanon Tom Barrack said yesterday following months of trilateral shuttle diplomacy aiming at long-term cessation of Lebanon-Israel hostilities. Kareem Chehayeb reports for AP News.
Brazil’s Supreme Court yesterday ruled that Brazilian citizens cannot automatically be subject to foreign laws or decisions within Brazil’s territory. While issued in a dispute concerning compensation related to an environmental accident, the decision is likely to apply to sanctions imposed on Brazilian citizens, including U.S. sanctions on Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. The ruling drew criticism from the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, which said that “no foreign court can invalidate United States sanctions.” Reuters reports.
U.S. DOMESTIC DEVELOPMENTS
The Justice Department has agreed to begin handing over the Epstein files to Congress this Friday, in compliance with a subpoena the House Oversight Committee issued earlier this month, the Committee’s Chairman, Rep. James Comer (R-KY), said yesterday. Jeremy Roebuck reports for the Washington Post.
Texas Democrats returned home yesterday, ending a two-week boycott aimed at stalling a GOP effort to redistrict the Lone Star State’s congressional map and allowing the legislature to resume its business. State House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R) told the Democratic lawmakers that they needed to have a police escort for the next two days if they wanted to leave the state Capitol. Patrick Marley, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, and Molly Hennessy-Fiske report for the Washington Post.
Conservative-leaning news channel Newsmax on Friday agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $67 million to settle Dominion’s defamation lawsuit over the channel’s claims that the 2020 election was rigged, according to a filing from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Earlier this year, Fox News reached a $787 million settlement with Dominion over similar claims. Jacqueline Munis reports for POLITICO.
TECH DEVELOPMENTS
The Trump administration is considering buying a 10% stake in Intel, worth about $100 billion, in a bid to bolster domestic semiconductor manufacturing, sources say. Separately, Japan’s SoftBank Group and Intel yesterday announced the tech investment giant would invest $2 billion in Intel stock, taking an approximately 2% stake in the troubled U.S. chipmaker. Lauren Hirsch and Tripp Mickle report for the New York Times; Andrew Jeong reports for the Washington Post.
Nvidia is working on a new AI chip for China that would be more powerful than the H20 model it is currently allowed to sell there, sources say. The new model would be based on Nvidia’s latest Blackwell architecture, with the company hoping to deliver samples to Chinese clients for testing as early as next month. Liam Mo and Fanny Potkin report for Reuters.
FEDERALIZATION OF D.C. POLICING
The governors of Mississippi and Louisiana yesterday said they would send a total of 335 National Guard members to Washington. Combined with the deployments previously announced by the governors of Ohio, West Virginia, and South Carolina, the move brings the number of troops deployed to D.C. to approximately 1,800. Eduardo Medina reports for the New York Times.
U.S. IMMIGRATION DEVELOPMENTS
The State Department has revoked more than 6,000 student visas this year, a State Department official said yesterday, adding that most visas were revoked due to international students overstaying their visas or breaking the law, including by expressing “support for terrorism.” Jennifer Hansler reports for CNN.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ACTIONS
Gen. David Allvin will retire this autumn after serving two years as Air Force chief of staff, midway through his term as the service’s highest-ranking officer, Air Force announced yesterday. Allvin, set to become the fourth U.S. military service chief to depart since Trump took office, did not provide a specific reason for his decision. Audrey Decker reports for Defense One; Jack Detsch, Paul McLeary, and Connor O’Brien report for POLITICO.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel yesterday announced the appointment of Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey as a second FBI Deputy Director. Bailey will serve as co-Deputy Director with Dan Bongino, who last month clashed with Bondi over the administration’s handling of the Epstein files. Holmes Lybrand reports for CNN.
In a speech, the DOJ Antitrust Division’s former Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Roger Alford, yesterday accused two senior aides to Attorney General Pam Bondi of corrupting the DOJ’s law-enforcement process, including by dealing with antitrust lawsuits in relation to the Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)/Juniper Networks merger. Alford alleged that Bondi’s chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, favored “MAGA friends” in the merger control process, and, together with Stanley Woodward, another aide, played a significant role in how the DOJ settled with HPE. A DOJ spokesperson said that Alford is “pursuing blind self-promotion and ego, while ignoring reality.” Woodward has been nominated to serve as the Justice Department’s third-ranking official. Dave Michaels reports for the Wall Street Journal.
The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has a backlog of about 25,000 unresolved cases and is prioritizing cases that allege transgender students and students of color are getting unfair advantages, with staff cuts leaving thousands of other cases unresolved, according to current and former employees. Laura Meckler reports for the Washington Post.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION LITIGATION
Twenty Democratic states and the District of Columbia yesterday filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s decision to withhold grant money to “sanctuary” states over their refusal to cooperate with federal officials implementing Trump’s immigration policies. The lawsuit argues that the administration’s threat to withhold more than $1 billion in crime victim grants from “sanctuary” states would improperly block the disbursals of funds appropriated by Congress. Hannah Rabinowitz reports for CNN.
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