In talks on Ukraine, US and Russia deadlock over NATO expansion
The United States and Russia emerged from seven hours of urgent negotiations Monday staking out seemingly irreconcilable positions on the future of the NATO alliance and the deployment of troops and weapons in Eastern Europe. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei A. Ryabkov, Russia’s lead negotiator, insisted after the meeting that it was “absolutely mandatory” that Ukraine “never, never, ever” become a NATO member. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman reiterated that the United States could never make such a pledge. The talks will continue Wednesday in Brussels, when Russian officials meet with NATO allies, and on Thursday in Vienna.
NKorea launches 2nd ballistic missile in week, South says
North Korea launched a ballistic missile off its east coast Tuesday, its second weapons test in a week, as the United Nations Security Council met to discuss the country’s growing missile threat. The South Korean military said its analysts, as well as U.S. officials, were studying the trajectory and other flight data of the North Korean test to learn more about the missile. North Korea conducted its last missile test Wednesday, when it launched what it called a hypersonic missile off its east coast. But the South Korean military dismissed the claim, saying the weapon was a common ballistic missile.
More protests roil German cities as vaccine rules tighten across much of Europe
Tens of thousands of protesters in cities across Germany demonstrated again Monday to vent their anger at the country’s pandemic restrictions, as reports of rising coronavirus cases worsen frictions between public health officials in Europe and their populations. The turnout appeared to be smaller in some cities, but it was not clear whether that signaled any waning of anger or had more to do with the demonstrations spreading to more days of the week. In Rostock, a large port city on the Baltic coast, officers used tear gas to keep a group of protesters from breaking a police line.
Nation’s lightning deaths hit record low in 2021
Lightning deaths were a record low in the U.S. in 2021, and Florida led the nation in fatalities. Strikes killed 11 people last year, according to the National Lightning Safety Council. Florida had the most with four, lower than usual. In 2016, strikes killed 10 people statewide, a quarter of the national deaths. Florida’s lowest counts were one in 2011 and three each in 2019 and 2020. Eight of last year’s deaths nationally were related to leisure activities, and three with work-related activities. Five of the leisure fatalities were on beaches and three on golf courses.
Lawsuit: 16 Elite colleges part of price-fixing cartel
A lawsuit filed in federal court Monday accused 16 of the nation’s leading private universities and colleges of conspiring to reduce the financial aid they award to admitted students through a price-fixing cartel. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Chicago on behalf of five former undergraduates who attended some of the universities named in the suit, takes aim at a decades-old antitrust exemption granted to these universities for financial aid decisions and claims that the colleges have overcharged an estimated 170,000 students who were eligible for financial aid over nearly two decades. The allegations hinge on a methodology for calculating financial need.
In a first, man receives a heart from a genetically altered pig
A 57-year-old Maryland man with life-threatening heart disease has received a heart from a genetically modified pig, a groundbreaking procedure that offers hope to hundreds of thousands of patients with failing organs. It is the first successful transplant of a pig’s heart into a human being. The eight-hour operation took place in Baltimore on Friday, and the patient, David Bennett Sr., was doing well Monday, according to surgeons at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Last year, 41,354 Americans received a transplanted organ, more than half of them receiving kidneys, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, a nonprofit that coordinates the nation’s organ procurement efforts.
Haitian PM had close links with murder suspect
After Haiti’s president was assassinated, Ariel Henry became head of the government. But new evidence suggests that Henry maintained communications with a prime suspect in the case, Joseph Felix Badio — and that the two stayed in close contact even after the murder. Phone records seen by The New York Times, as well as interviews with Haitian officials and a principal suspect in the crime, reveal potentially incriminating details. Among them: Badio spoke to Henry before the killing and afterward. Then, when Badio was wanted by police, he visited Henry, according to two Haitian officials with knowledge of the investigation.
By wire sources
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