“US and Ukrainian officials were set to meet in Geneva on Thursday for fresh talks, hours after Russia launched a fresh barrage of missiles and drones at its neighbour overnight. The meeting will bring together Ukraine’s lead negotiator Rustem Umerov and US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, with further trilateral talks involving Russia expected to take place in early March. The United States is pushing for an end to the war — the deadliest in Europe since World War II — but has so far failed to broker a compromise between Moscow and Kyiv on key issues, including territory.” (02/26/26)
“The Trump administration announced Wednesday it is pausing more than a quarter-billion dollars in Medicaid payments to Minnesota over alleged fraud, a move state officials called the latest act of political retribution against a Democratic-led state. … Since returning to office in January, President Donald Trump has escalated federal scrutiny of the state led by Gov. Tim Walz, who ran on the Democratic ticket against Trump in the 2024 election. … The Trump administration has focused on fraud in the state in recent months that it ties to the state’s Somali community amid its aggressive immigration crackdown.” (02/26/26)
“A Hong Kong court sentenced the father of a U.S.-based activist to eight months in prison Thursday for attempting to withdraw some funds from his daughter’s insurance policy, in the first case against a family member of a pro-democracy advocate wanted by the city’s authorities brought under a national security [sic] law. Kwok Yin-sang, 69, was found guilty earlier this month of attempting to deal with financial assets belonging to an ‘absconder’ under the 2024 security [sic] law, locally known as Article 23 legislation. His daughter Anna Kwok, who is the executive director of the Washington-based Hong Kong Democracy Council, slammed his conviction as ‘transnational repression.'” (02/26/26)
“The United Nations has approved the first credits to be issued under a carbon market established by the Paris climate accord, aimed at reducing emissions – a mechanism that has faced scrutiny over greenwashing concerns. The UN-run market allows companies and countries to offset their excess emissions by financing projects that cut greenhouse gases in other nations. The UN Climate Change announced on Thursday that the new initiative involves a clean cooking project in Myanmar, which distributes efficient cookstoves that reduce pressure on local forests. Implemented in partnership with a South Korean company, the project will generate credits that will count towards the climate targets of South Korea and Myanmar.” (02/26/26)
“A grand jury in Texas has rejected indictments against a federal immigration agent following the fatal shooting of a US citizen during a traffic encounter last year. Ruben Ray Martinez was killed on March 15, 2025, by an agent from Homeland Security Investigations. The Department of Homeland Security had not publicly disclosed the incident until The Associated Press and other media outlets reported it last week. Prosecutors confirmed the grand jury’s decision on Wednesday, stating that indictments were declined after the case was presented.” (02/26/26)
“Cuba said its forces fatally shot four heavily armed people attempting to ‘infiltrate’ its territory on a Florida-registered speedboat on Wednesday, amid simmering tensions between the communist island and the US. Cuban border guard troops approached the boat after it entered their territorial waters in Falcones Cay, Villa Clara province, just over 100 miles from Florida, the country’s interior ministry said in a statement. A passenger on the speedboat shot at the Cuban vessel, wounding its commander, and prompting Cuban forces to return fire, according to the statement. Six other people aboard the speedboat were wounded and are in custody and receiving medical attention. The passengers were Cuban residents of the US and were armed with assault rifles, handguns and Molotov cocktails, and had ‘intended to carry out an infiltration for terrorist purposes,’ according to a later statement from the ministry.” (02/25/26)
“The vast trove of documents released by the Justice Department from its investigations into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein failed to include some key materials related to a woman who made an accusation against President Trump, according to a review by The New York Times. The materials are F.B.I. memos summarizing interviews the bureau did in connection to claims made in 2019 by a woman who came forward after Mr. Epstein’s arrest to say she had been sexually assaulted by both Mr. Trump and the financier decades earlier, when she was a minor. The existence of the memos was revealed in an index listing the investigative materials …. According to that index, the F.B.I. conducted four interviews in connection with her claims and wrote summaries about each one. But only one summary of the four interviews, which describes her accusations against Mr. Epstein, was released by the Justice Department. The other three are missing.” (02/25/26)
“A record 129 journalists and media workers were killed in the course of their work in 2025, two-thirds of them by Israeli forces, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). It was the second consecutive year in which killings of members of the press reached unprecedented levels, and the second year running in which Israel was responsible for roughly two-thirds of the total, the New York-based independent organisation, which documents attacks on journalists worldwide, said in its annual report published on Wednesday. … Israel was responsible for 81% of the 47 killings that the CPJ classified as intentionally targeted, or ‘murder.’ It said the actual figure was probably higher, owing to access restrictions that made verification difficult in Gaza.” (02/25/26)
“The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled against a private prison company facing a lawsuit alleging immigration [abductees] were forced to work and paid only $1 a day in Colorado. The unanimous ruling is a procedural defeat for the GEO Group, but it’s not a final decision. The company is fighting a lawsuit from 2014 alleging detainees in Aurora had to perform unpaid janitorial work and other jobs for little pay to supplement meager meals. GEO defended its practices and argued that the case should be tossed out because it’s immune from lawsuits as a government contractor. After a judge disagreed, the company asked the Supreme Court to allow it to quickly appeal the ruling. But the justices refused.” (02/25/26)
“Iceland will hold a referendum ‘in the coming months’ on restarting European Union accession talks, Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir said on Wednesday during a visit to Poland. Reykjavik abandoned EU membership talks in 2013 after four years of negotiations, but a rise in the cost of living and the war in Ukraine have helped rekindle the island nation’s interest in joining the bloc, opinion polls have shown. Repeated threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to annex Greenland, which is located between Iceland and the United States, have also made the question of EU membership more pressing for Iceland, which is home to almost 400,000 people. … Iceland’s centre-left government, which came to power after a snap election in 2024, had promised to hold a referendum no later than next year on restarting talks with the EU.” (02/25/26)
