Diario de Noticias

Ukraine is burning through ammunition faster than the US and NATO can produce it. Inside the Pentagon’s plan to close the gap – CNN

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Biden signs executive order on abortion, declares Supreme Court ‘out of control’ – Reuters.com

WASHINGTON, July 8 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden said the Supreme Court decision overturning the right to an abortion was an exercise in “raw political power” and signed an executive order on Friday to ease access to services to terminate pregnancies.

Biden, a Democrat, has been under pressure from his own party to take action after the landmark decision last month to overturn Roe v Wade, which upended roughly 50 years of protections for women’s reproductive rights.

The order directs the government’s health department to expand access to “medication abortion” – pills prescribed to end pregnancies – and ensure women have access to emergency medical care, family planning services and contraception. It also mentions protecting doctors, women who travel for abortions and mobile abortion clinics at state borders.

But it offered few specifics and promises to have limited impact in practice, since U.S. states can make laws restricting abortion and access to medication.

“What we’re witnessing wasn’t a constitutional judgment, it was an exercise in raw political power,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “We cannot allow an out of control Supreme Court, working in conjunction with extremist elements of the Republican party, to take away freedoms and our personal autonomy.”

The White House is not publicly entertaining the idea of reforming the court itself or expanding the nine-member panel.

Instead, Biden laid out how abortion rights could be codified into law by voters if they elected “two additional pro-choice senators, and a pro-choice House” and urged women to turn out in record numbers to vote. He said he would veto any law passed by Republicans to ban abortion rights nationwide.

Jen Klein, director of the president’s Gender Policy Council at the White House, did not name any specifics when asked what the order would change for women.

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Catalina Leona and Terri Chen, staff at Houston Women’s Reproductive Services, which no longer provides abortion care, watch a livestream of U.S. President Joe Biden delivering remarks before signing an executive order which seeks to safeguard abortion access although is expected to have a limited impact, in Houston, Texas, U.S., July 8, 2022. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

“You can’t solve by executive action what the Supreme Court has done,” she said.

‘FIRST STEPS’

Still, progressive lawmakers and abortion rights groups welcomed the directive. Senator Elizabeth Warren called it “important first steps,” and asked the administration to explore every available option to protect abortion rights.

The issue may help drive Democrats to the polls in the November midterm elections, when Republicans have a chance of taking control of Congress.

Protecting abortion rights is a top issue for women Democrats, Reuters polling shows, and more than 70% of Americans think the issue should be left to a woman and her doctor. read more

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said “Democrats are out of touch with the American people” after Biden’s remarks.

In June, Biden proposed that U.S. senators remove a legislative roadblock by temporarily lifting the Senate “filibuster” to restore abortion rights, but the suggestion was shot down by aides to key Democratic senators. read more

Earlier in June, sources told Reuters the White House was unlikely to take the bold steps on abortion access that Democratic lawmakers have called for, such as court reform or offering reproductive services on federal lands. read more

The Supreme Court’s ruling restored states’ ability to ban abortion. As a result, women with unwanted pregnancies face the choice of traveling to another state where the procedure remains legal and available, buying abortion pills online, or having a potentially dangerous illegal abortion.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-sign-executive-order-help-safeguard-access-abortion-contraception-2022-07-08/

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Homeless man ‘terrorized’ communities in 2 states after allegedly killing 3 family members during crime spree – Fox News

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Sheriff: Gunman kills 6, including ex-wife, in Mississippi – The Associated Press – en Español

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Far-right election denier beats Trump’s pick for Michigan GOP – The Washington Post

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Man charged in rape of Ohio 10-year-old who police say later traveled across state lines for abortion – ABC News

An Ohio man has been accused of raping and impregnating a 10-year-old girl who police said then sought an out-of-state abortion days after Roe v. Wade was overturned and more restrictive abortion laws went into effect in her home state.

A complaint filed in Franklin County Municipal Court on Tuesday alleges that the victim was raped in mid-May and that she identified her assailant to Columbus police earlier this month.

The suspect, 27-year-old Gerson Fuentes of Columbus, was arrested on Tuesday and allegedly confessed to the rape when detectives brought him to police headquarters for a saliva test, according to the complaint.

Fuentes was arraigned on Wednesday on a felony rape charge and was ordered held on $2 million bond. If convicted, he could face up to life in prison.

A public defender representing Fuentes did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.

Det. Jeffrey Huhn testified during Wednesday’s arraignment that DNA evidence is currently being processed and that the suspect’s confession was made in Spanish through an interpreter.

Huhn said Columbus police became aware of the alleged rape through a referral by the Franklin County Children Services on June 22 after the girl’s mother reported the pregnancy. The 10-year-old victim traveled to Indianapolis in neighboring Indiana to undergo a medical abortion on June 30, he said.

A ban on abortion about six weeks into pregnancy went into effect in Ohio on June 24, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe.

The Ohio law, which was first signed into law in 2019, has no exceptions in the case of rape or incest.

The case, which was first reported by the Columbus Dispatch, bears striking resemblance to a report by the Indianapolis Star earlier this month of a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio who, at over 6 weeks pregnant, traveled to Indianapolis for an abortion after the so-called heartbeat law went into effect.

President Joe Biden referenced the IndyStar report during remarks made while signing an executive order on abortion access on Friday.

“Imagine being that little girl,” he said. “Just imagine being that little girl. Ten years old.”

“Does anyone believe that it’s the highest majority view that that should not be able to be dealt with, or in any other state in the nation?” he continued. “A 10-year-old girl should be forced to give birth to a rapist’s child? I can tell you what: I don’t. I can’t think of anything as much more extreme.”

ABC News has not been able to confirm if the two incidents are the same.

The Franklin County Prosecutor’s office said it does not comment on pending cases. The Columbus Division of Police also declined comment to ABC Columbus affiliate WSYX.

The Franklin County Children Services told ABC News it is prohibited from sharing information on specific cases.

The White House declined to comment Wednesday following Fuentes’ arrest.

Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost had questioned the veracity of the IndyStar report, telling Fox News on Monday that he hadn’t heard “a whisper anywhere” about such a case.

Following Wednesday’s arraignment, Yost said that the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation “stands ready” to assist law enforcement.

“My heart aches for the pain suffered by this young child,” he said in a statement. “I am grateful for the diligent work of the Columbus Police Department in securing a confession and getting a rapist off the street.”

ABC News’ Ely Brown and Cheryl Gendron contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-charged-rape-ohio-10-year-police-traveled/story?id=86754013

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Mexico’s former public security head is convicted in the U.S. of taking cartel bribes – NPR

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As Biden digs in, some top Democrats want him out of the race this week – CNN

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Russia steps up attacks across Ukraine’s north, east, south – The Associated Press

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces fired missiles and shells at cities and towns across Ukraine on Saturday after Russia’s military announced it was stepping up its onslaught against its neighbor. Ukraine reported at least 17 more civilians killed.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu gave “instructions to further intensify the actions of units in all operational areas, in order to exclude the possibility of the Kyiv regime launching massive rocket and artillery strikes on civilian infrastructure and residents of settlements in the Donbas and other regions,” his ministry said Saturday.

Russia’s military campaign has been focusing on the eastern Donbas, but the new attacks hit areas in the north and south as well. Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has seen especially severe bombardments in recent days, with Ukrainian officials and local commanders voicing fears that a second full-scale Russian assault on the northern city may be looming.

At the same time, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Ukrainians not to fall for Russia’s attempts to scare them with warnings of horrendous missile attacks to come, which he said were aimed at dividing Ukrainian society.

“Sometimes, information weapons can do more than regular weapons,” he said in his nightly video address to the nation.

“It’s clear that no Russian missiles or artillery will be able to break our unity or lead us away from our path” toward a democratic, independent Ukraine,” he said. “And it is also clear that Ukrainian unity cannot be broken by lies or intimidation, fakes or conspiracy theories.”

In the Kharkiv region, at least three civilians were killed and three more were injured Saturday in a pre-dawn Russian strike on the city of Chuhuiv, which is only 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the Russian border, the police said.

Serhiy Bolvinov, the deputy head of the Kharkiv region’s police force, said four missiles presumably fired from the Russian city of Belgorod hit an apartment building, a school and administrative buildings at about 3:30 a.m. Writing on Facebook, he said the three bodies were found under the rubble.

Lyudmila Krekshina, who lives in the apartment building that was hit, said a husband and wife were killed, and also an elderly man who lived on the ground floor.

Another resident said she was lucky to have survived.

“I was going to run and hide in the bathroom. I didn’t make it and that’s what saved me,” said Valentina Bushuyeva. Pointing up at her destroyed apartment, she said: “There’s the bathroom — explosion. Kitchen — half a room. And I survived because I stayed put.”

In the neighboring Sumy region, one civilian was killed and at least seven were injured after Russians opened mortar and artillery fire on three towns and villages not far from the Russian border, regional governor Dmytro Zhyvytsky said Saturday.

In the embattled eastern Donetsk region, seven civilians were killed and 14 wounded in the last 24 hours in Russian attacks on cities, its governor said Saturday.

Later in the day, on the outskirts of Pokrovsk, a city in the Donetsk region, a woman said a neighbor was killed by a rocket attack Saturday afternoon. Tetiana Pashko said she herself suffered a cut on her leg and one of her family’s dogs was killed.

She said her 35-year-old neighbor, who was killed in her front yard, had evacuated earlier this year as authorities had requested but had returned home after being unable to support herself. Several homes on the quiet residential street were damaged, with doors and roofs ripped away.

“We can rebuild but we can’t bring her back,” said another neighbor, Olha Rusanova.

In the neighboring Luhansk region, however, Ukrainian troops repelled a Russian overnight assault on a strategic eastern highway, said Gov. Serhiy Haidai, adding that Russia had been attempting to capture the main road between the cities of Lysychansk and Bakhmut for more than two months.

The Luhansk and Donetsk regions make up the Donbas, an eastern industrial region that used to power Ukraine’s economy and has mostly been taken over by Russian and separatist forces.

In southern Ukraine, two people were wounded by Russian shelling in the town of Bashtanka, northeast of the Black Sea city of Mykolaiv, according the regional governor, Vitaliy Kim. He said Mykolaiv itself came under renewed Russian fire before dawn Saturday. On Friday, he posted videos of what he said was a Russian missile attack on the city’s two largest universities and denounced Russia as “a terrorist state.”

In Odesa, a key port city on the Black Sea, a Russian missile hit a warehouse, engulfing it in flames and sending up a plume of black smoke, but no injuries were reported, local officials said.

Two people were killed and a woman was hospitalized after a Russian rocket strike on the eastern riverside city of Nikopol, emergency services said. Dnipropetrovsk Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said a five-story apartment block, a school and a vocational school building were damaged.

On Friday, cruise missiles fired by Russian bombers struck Dnipro, a major city in southeastern Ukraine on the Dnieper River, killing at least three people and wounding 16, Ukrainian officials said. On Saturday, Russian defense officials claimed that strike had destroyed “workshops producing components for, and repairing, Tochka-U ballistic missiles, as well as multiple rocket launchers.”

The Ukrainian air force said Russian forces fired six more cruise missiles Saturday from strategic bombers in the Caspian Sea, and two hit a farm in the Cherkasy region along the Dnieper River. No one was hurt, but agricultural equipment was destroyed and some cattle were killed, regional Gov. Ihor Taburets said. The Ukrainian air force said the other four missiles were intercepted.

The deadliest Russian attack this week came Thursday, when a Russian missile strike killed at least 24 people — including three children — and wounded more than 200 in Vinnytsia, a city southwest of Kyiv, the capital, far from the front lines. Three of those missing after the attack were found alive in the rubble Saturday and one person remained missing, the emergency service said.

Russia claimed the Kalibr cruise missiles hit a “military facility” that was hosting a meeting between Ukrainian air force command and foreign weapons suppliers. Ukrainian authorities insisted the site, a concert hall, had nothing to do with the military.

Ukraine’s Interior Ministry says Russian forces have conducted more than 17,000 strikes on civilian targets during the war, killing thousands of fighters and civilians and driving millions from their homes.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also rippled through the world economy, hiking energy and food prices and crimping exports of key Ukrainian and Russian products such as grain, fuel and fertilizer.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-government-and-politics-9adeb7820eefbcc9ed466a89f01a13b9

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LA snow dusts Hollywood sign as winter storm tightens grip – BBC

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Britain confronts possibly hottest day on record – NBC News

“Temperatures didn’t fall below 25 C (77 F) in places, exceeding the previous highest daily minimum record of 23.9 C (75.02 F), recorded in Brighton on 3rd August 1990,” it said in a tweet.

The Met Office warned that Tuesday’s extreme heat could lead to “serious illness or danger to life.” As a result, it has said that “substantial changes in working practices and daily routines will be required.”

It also warned of a “high risk of failure” of heat-sensitive systems and equipment, which could lead to localized losses of power and other essential services, including water or cellphone services.

The soaring temperatures have already had a major impact on travel, with London Luton Airport on Monday forced to temporarily suspend flights to allow for a runway repair after it said high surface temperatures “caused a small section of the runway to lift.” The issue was fixed and the runway was fully operational within hours.

In the capital, London’s busy Oxford Circus station was evacuated Tuesday morning following reports of smoke from an escalator machine room.

The London Fire Brigade said the smoke was due to escalator brake pads overheating.

Network Rail, which runs most of the railway network in Britain, issued a “do not travel warning” for services traveling through the “red zone” Tuesday. Meanwhile, other rail and train services have been canceled or reduced due to the extreme heat warning.

The rail network also recorded its “hottest rail,” which clocked in at 144 F.

While the U.K. has experienced warm weather before, scientists have said these soaring temperatures are becoming increasingly common due to climate change propelled by the greenhouse gases that humans are pumping into the atmosphere.

Snell noted that this week’s hot weather came after scientists for decades predicted increasing heatwaves and other extreme weather due to climate change.

“We can’t directly link everything to climate change, but what we can probably say is that this heatwave has probably been enhanced by climate change,” he said.

In Britain, many homes and businesses are not equipped to deal with high temperatures, with air conditioning uncommon outside of offices and public spaces, while many homes were built in the 1800s and have thick brick walls that absorb heat in the day and retain it at night.

Politicians and government advisers have increasingly warned that homes and essential services in the U.K. must be adapted to prepare for rising temperatures in the years to come.

Swimmers on Moulleau beach in southwestern France watch as smoke rises from a forest fire at La Teste-de-Buch on Monday. Thibaud Moritz / AFP – Getty Images

“The planet is hotter than it’s been for 125,000 years. We’ve got 1 degree of warming so far, but I don’t want to be a doom-monger, but we’re going to get more than 1 degree of warming, that’s the average, and that will mean more extreme heat … and we are not ready as a country,” Ed Miliband, Britain’s shadow climate change secretary, told Sky News, which is owned by NBC News’ parent company, Comcast.

In the U.K., the “shadow cabinet” consists of opposition members who scrutinize the policies and practices of their corresponding government ministers and propose alternatives.

“We are not ready on this at all,” Miliband said. “Not by a long shot.”

In Spain, shocking video emerged this week of a man in the northwestern town of Tábara forced to jump from an excavator after trying to dig a trench to safeguard his town from a wildfire.

As the blaze closed in and started to engulf the digger, Angel Martin Arjona was forced to jump out and run for his life, Reuters reported.

Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/europe/britain-hottest-day-on-record-hot-sunlight-heat-soaring-temperatures-rcna38840

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Suspect in Buffalo supermarket massacre visited city in March, police say – Reuters

BUFFALO, N.Y., May 16 (Reuters) – The 18-year-old man accused of the deadly mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, visited the city in March and the day before the rampage, police said on Monday, as public figures decried the suspect’s racist ideology and the spread of white supremacy.

The FBI said Payton Gendron, 18, who is white, committed an act of “racially motivated violent extremism” when he opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle on Saturday at the Tops Friendly Market in a predominantly African-American neighborhood of Buffalo. Eleven of the 13 people struck by gunfire were Black.

Ten of the victims – nine shoppers and a retired police officer working as a store security guard who exchanged gunfire with the assailant – were killed in the rampage, part of which the gunman live-streamed on a social media platform.

Gendron, who police said surrendered to officers confronting him inside the store after he held the gun barrel to his own chin, has been jailed without bail on a charge of first-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty.

Investigators have said they are searching through phone records, computers and online postings, as well as physical evidence, as new details about Gendron’s past and meticulous planning emerged.

The Washington Post reported on Monday that Gendron, a resident of Conklin, New York, near the Pennsylvania border, roughly 200 miles from Buffalo, made an “apparent reconnaissance” trip to the Tops store in March to map out its layout and location in preparation for the attack.

He was confronted there by a store security guard, who thought he looked suspicious, according to the Post, citing an account of the visit that the newspaper said was posted online by an individual identifying himself as Gendron.

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said at a news briefing on Monday the suspect had visited Buffalo in early March, but he declined to confirm other details of the probe reported by the Washington Post or other news media.

Authorities said the suspect returned to Buffalo on Friday to undertake a final “reconnaissance” of the area.

Gendron came to the attention of local law enforcement last June, when police detained him after he made a threat at his high school, Gramaglia told reporters said. He was given a mental health evaluation and released after 1-1/2 days.

‘ADVANCE SURVEILLANCE?’

The Post said the trip to Buffalo in March was detailed in messages compiled in a 589-page document posted on an internet messaging platform but since removed.

The document referred to the Tops store as “attack area 1” and described two other nearby locations as targets to “shoot all blacks,” the Post reported. The writer said he counted 53 Black people in the Tops at the time of his visit, according to the account.

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A Buffalo Police officer stands at the scene of a shooting at a TOPS supermarket in Buffalo, New York, U.S. May 15, 2022. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Police confirmed that they are investigating Gendron’s online postings, including a 180-page manifesto he is believed to have written outlining the “Great Replacement Theory,” a racist conspiracy notion that white people are being replaced by minorities in the United States and elsewhere. read more

Experts say the trend of mostly young white men being inspired by previous racist gun massacres is on the rise, citing such incidents as the 2015 attack at a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, a 2018 shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, and a 2019 rampage at a Walmart in a Hispanic neighborhood of El Paso. read more

U.S. Representative Liz Cheney took to Twitter on Monday to call on fellow Republicans to reject white supremacy, saying the political rhetoric of her party’s leaders in the House of Representatives has “enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and anti-Semitism.” read more

Federal, state and local authorities said on Monday they were redoubling efforts to watch for threats of additional racially motivated violence propagating on social media.

Erie County District Attorney John Flynn announced that a 52-year-old Buffalo man had been charged on Monday with making a terroristic threat after placing menacing telephone calls on Sunday to a both a local pizzeria and a brewery in which he made reference to the Tops grocery shooting.

President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, plan to visit Buffalo on Tuesday.

ANOTHER TARGET

At a separate news conference on Monday, civil rights attorney Ben Crump called on officials to define Saturday’s attack as an “act of domestic terrorism.”

“We can’t sugarcoat it, we can’t try to explain it away talking about mental illness,” Crump said, surrounded by the weeping family of Ruth Whitfield, an 86-year-old woman who was among those slain at the Tops supermarket.

Other victims included a pharmacist, a church deacon, and a young man who pushed grocery carts and did other jobs.

If the suspect had not been stopped, authorities said he planned to continue the killings, possibly targeting another large store nearby.

Authorities said that Gendron on Saturday, wearing body armor, arrived at the Tops store and began his assault with the semi-automatic rifle, which he had bought legally but then modified. Law enforcement found an additional rifle and a shotgun in his car.

The gunman broadcast the attack in real time on the social media platform Twitch, a live video service owned by Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O). The video service said it removed the broadcast within minutes.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-york-supermarket-shooting-probe-weigh-if-warning-signs-were-missed-2022-05-16/

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Chris Mason: What can we learn from Starmer’s first day as PM? – BBC.com

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Purdue Pharma bankruptcy plan that shields Sackler family faces Supreme Court review – CBS News

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Tropical Storm Bret Could Become Lesser Antilles Threat | Weather.com – The Weather Channel

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Zelenskyy says Ukrainian special military units in Kherson – The Associated Press

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India’s Modi is getting a state visit with Biden, but the glitz is shadowed by human rights concerns – The Associated Press

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Elon Musk joined Trump call with Ukraine’s Zelensky after US election – CNN

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US warns Russian attack may be ‘imminent,’ Ukraine disagrees: Here’s why – ABC News

As the U.S. continues to warn that the threat of a Russian attack on Ukraine remains “imminent,” there is one dissenting voice that has grown stronger — Ukraine’s.

From President Volodymyr Zelenskyy down, the Ukrainian government has tried to urge calm, with senior officials making clear in recent days they don’t see the risks now as any more heightened than over the last eight years of Russian-stoked conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Hanna Malyar, for example, said the number of Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s borders “are not enough for a full-scale invasion.” Instead, Russian leader Vladimir Putin is using the troop build-up “primarily to politically blackmail the West and pressure Ukraine,” she wrote in a Facebook post.

“Russia’s tactical goal is provoke integral divisions in our society, sow fear and panic, to destabilize the internal situation,” she added.

Ukrainian concern that fear and panic could spread, sending Ukraine’s economy spiraling or creating political turmoil, has started to create divisions between the U.S. and Ukraine — despite efforts on both sides to make clear they stand united against any Russian aggression.

“All is under control. There are no reasons to panic,” Zelenskyy said in a televised address to his country Monday night — but the speech spent more time on COVID-19 than Russia.

Some of the steps the U.S. has taken in recent days, some in Kyiv fear, are playing into Moscow’s playbook — stoking fear and panic.

That includes the State Department’s decision to draw down the U.S. embassy, ordering diplomats’ families to evacuate and authorizing non-emergency staff to depart if they choose.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price called it a “prudent precaution,” but his Ukrainian counterpart, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko criticized it as “a premature one and an instance of excessive caution.”

“The Russian Federation is currently taking active efforts to destabilize the situation in Ukraine. A large amount of misinformation, manipulation, and fakes are spreading in Ukrainian and international media in order to cause panic among Ukrainians and foreigners, intimidate business, and undermine the economic and financial stability of our state. In this situation, it is important to soberly assess the risks and stay calm,” Nikolenko added.

Just four countries have followed the U.S., to varying degrees — the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Germany.

“We cannot allow ourselves for that to happen – that our economy falls. If people cross into a state of panic, that is a dangerous situation for our country, and it will be far easier to then manipulate us, and that is Russia’s goal,” warned Aleksey Danilov, a top Ukrainian national security official.

Some economic damage is already apparent. Yields on Ukrainian sovereign Eurobonds in U.S. dollars suddenly shot up to 11-14% on Jan. 14 and have risen even higher since — losing Ukraine access to the international financial market, according to Anders Åslund, a senior fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum.

“Ukraine’s emerging economic problems are entirely due to the shadow cast by the threat of a dramatic escalation in Russian military aggression,” Åslund wrote for the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank.

The White House and State Department defended the administration’s decisions and rhetoric, denying that drawing down the embassy, putting 8,500 U.S. troops on alert, and warning of an “imminent” threat have escalated the situation.

“I will let others assess, but there are 100,000 troops — Russian troops — on the border of Ukraine and no clarity that the leader of Russia doesn’t intend to invade. That sounds pretty dangerous to me,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday.

But 100,000 is not enough for an invasion, according to Malyar and the top commander for Ukraine’s forces on the frontlines. Lt. Gen. Oleksander Pavlyuk told ABC News last week that Ukraine had assessed Russian had 127,000 troops in total, although the U.S. still says approximately 100,000. Either way, Ukraine’s own army is approximately 200,000 strong now, and many more Russian troops would be needed to invade a country the size of Texas.

The number of Russian troops is also “not increasing in the way that today many are representing,” Danilov, who serves as secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, told the BBC in an interview Tuesday. “Is it unpleasant for us? Yes, but for us, it’s not news. If for someone in the West that has become news, well, I’m sorry.”

Still, Psaki denied there was daylight between Washington and Kyiv, adding, “We are in constant contact with Ukrainians to reiterate our support, to convey updates on shipments of supplies, military equipment — something that’s been happening over the last several days.”

Nikolenko too highlighted that military cooperation, praising “its proactive diplomatic position and for strengthening Ukraine’s defense capabilities, including the provision of weapons and equipment.”

Asked about the differences, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine Kristina Kvien denied there were any. In an exclusive interview Tuesday, she told ABC News, “President Zelenskyy is taking the threat very seriously, and he is being careful to make preparations as needed.”

The Ukrainian people have “been living with Russian threats for a long time, so I would say that they are just a bit more ‘sang-froid’ as they say in French. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t take them seriously,” added Kvien, the embassy’s chargé d’affaires.

In Kyiv, there is calm, if at least more talk now about the threat of a Russian attack — whether across the border, in cyber space, or through continued efforts to destabilize Ukraine’s government and economy.

“This looks and feels different … It certainly has people a lot more alert, especially if you watch the news all the time,” said Reno Domenico, an American businessman who has lived in Ukraine for 15 years. But he said the cafes remain full, and people are out shopping because, “People don’t panic, and panic is a bad thing. You make bad decisions when you panic.”

After the U.S. Embassy urged Americans to consider departing immediately, Domenico said more people started talking about the possibility. While everyone should have a plan, he added, his is to stay put for now.

ABC News’s Patrick Reevell contributed to this report from Kyiv, Ukraine, and Desiree Adib from New York.

Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-warns-russian-attack-imminent-ukraine-disagrees/story?id=82463780

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1 monkey recovered safely, 42 others still remain on the run from South Carolina lab – CBS News

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell being treated for a concussion after fall – NBC News

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