Good morning.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has issued a strong statement urging international leaders to act after videos circulated on social media that appeared to show Ukrainian soldiers beheaded by Russian forces.
One video being circulated appears to show the headless corpses of two Ukrainian soldiers lying on the ground next to a destroyed military vehicle. A voice says: “They killed them. Someone came up to them. They came up to them and cut their heads off.”
A second clip, which may have been filmed last summer, judging by the appearance of foliage, claims to show a member of Russian forces using a knife to sever the head of a Ukrainian soldier. The Guardian has not independently verified the origins and veracity of the two videos but Ukrainian authorities are treating them as genuine.
Zelenskiy issued a video on his social media channels in which he said: “There is something that no one in the world can ignore. How easily these beasts kill. This video, the execution of a Ukrainian captive. This is a video of Russia as it is … This is not an accident. This is not an episode. This was the case earlier. This was the case in Bucha. Thousands of times. Everyone must react. Every leader.”
What is happening with the Pentagon leak? The US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, on Tuesday said the US would investigate the recent purported leak of classified documents until the source was found. “We will continue to investigate and turn over every rock until we find the source of this and the extent of it,” he said during a press conference at the state department.
What was revealed by the leaks? The materials assess Ukrainian war preparedness, Egypt’s and the UK’s involvement in the conflict, and other disclosures.
What did the CIA director, William Burns, say about Russia this week? He said Russia risked becoming an “economic colony” of China as its isolation from the west deepens. “Russia is becoming more and more dependent on China and, in some respects, runs the risk of becoming an economic colony of China over time, dependent for export of energy resources and raw materials.”
Fate of US abortion drug hangs in balance before Friday deadline
FDA authorization for a key abortion drug could be nullified after Friday, unless an appeals court acts on a Biden administration request to block last week’s ruling suspending approval of the drug. The drug, mifepristone, is used in more than half of all abortions in the US. The ruling, issued by a federal judge in Texas, applies across the country.
Writing that the ruling would “inflict grave harm on women, the medical system, and the public” if it went into effect, the Department of Justice on Monday requested that the fifth US circuit court of appeals temporarily block Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling while the appeals process plays out.
The issue may ultimately fall into the hands of the US supreme court and its conservative supermajority, which eradicated abortion rights last year by overturning Roe v Wade.
Kacsmaryk stayed his decision for seven days to allow the Biden administration time to appeal. Shortly after the ruling from Texas, the Obama-appointed Washington district judge Thomas Rice issued a contradictory ruling that directs the FDA to keep the drug available in 17 states. The dueling opinions set the stage for the supreme court to possibly intervene.
What do the experts say? “On one hand, you have a ruling that says to defer to the expertise of the FDA and keep the status quo while another says to second-guess the FDA with junk science,” says David S Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University who focuses on reproductive rights. “When you have different rulings from different federal courts it is more likely for the US supreme court to get involved.”
US considers imposing Colorado River water cuts to western states
The federal government yesterday laid out options for saving the Colorado River in an effort to prevent it from falling to critically low levels and put an end to months-long negotiations between the seven western states and Indigenous nations that rely on it as a dwindling resource.
As less and less water has been flowing through the river and its reservoirs fell to historic lows, the US Bureau of Reclamation, which manages water resources, called on the basin’s seven states – California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming – to find ways to cut as much as 30% of their river water allocation.
But despite numerous deadlines, the states have been unable to agree on how to reduce their usage to prevent deadpool – the point at which the waterline sits beneath intake pipes at the Hoover Dam and the river effectively ceases to flow. Last year, the Lake Mead reservoir sank to its lowest level since the 1930s.
The Department of the Interior said it would impose cuts to water allotments either according to the water-rights priority system or evenly across the board.
How will states reduce their usage? The interior department did not say how states should reduce water usage, but defended its authority to make sure basic needs such as drinking water and hydropower generated from the river are met – even if it means setting aside the priority system. The more than a century-old method of dividing up the water is based on a senior priority system among the states – basically, whichever one was there first – that puts California at the front of the line.
In other news …
Hyundai is being urged to prevent its heavy machinery products from being used in illegal mining and environmental destruction in the Brazilian Amazon. A report published by Greenpeace found the South Korean conglomerate’s excavators were precipitating the destruction of the rainforest and putting the survival of Indigenous populations at risk.
Harvard University will rename its graduate school of arts and sciences after the billionaire hedge fund executive and Republican megadonor Kenneth Griffin, the institution announced yesterday, after a $300m contribution brought Griffin’s total support of his alma mater to more than half a billion dollars.
The Biden administration will propose strict automobile pollution limits requiring that all-electric vehicles account for as many as two of every three new vehicles sold in the US by 2032 in a plan that would transform the US auto industry.
A judge said Fox News had a “credibility problem” as it prepares for a $1.6bn defamation trial after the company disclosed for the first time in nearly two years of litigation that Rupert Murdoch was an officer of the company. Murdoch is expected to testify during the trial which starts on Monday.
China’s military is reportedly planning to declare a no-fly zone in airspace north of Taiwan next week, following on from days of military drills targeting the island. Taiwan’s defence ministry said it was still “making checks” on the claims, reported by Reuters citing multiple unnamed Chinese officials.
Stat of the day: Michael Jordan’s Last Dance trainers fetch auction record $2.2m
A pair of trainers worn by the NBA star Michael Jordan have sold for $2.2m, setting a record price at auction for game-worn sports footwear, Sotheby’s has announced. The basketball great wore the “Bred” Air Jordan 13s during Game 2 of the 1998 NBA Finals on the way to his sixth and last NBA championship title. The online sale cements Jordan’s position as the most valuable athlete at auctions for sportswear memorabilia. It broke his own record of $1.5m for sneakers, set in September 2021. Last year, one of his jerseys sold for $10.1m, the most ever paid at auction for any game-worm collectibles. Jordan wore the sneakers for the second half of the Chicago Bulls’ 93-88 victory over Utah Jazz on 5 June 1998. Jordan scored a game-high 37 points as his Bulls side tied the series 1-1. The Finals featured in the hit 2020 ESPN/Netflix documentary The Last Dance, about Jordan’s final season with the Chicago side.
Don’t miss this: Inside the 3D-printed box in Texas where humans will prepare for Mars
Red sand shifts under the boots of the crew members. In the distance, it appears that a rocky mountain range is rising out of the Martian horizon. A thin layer of red dust coats the solar panels and equipment necessary for the year-long mission. This landscape isn’t actually 145m miles away, writes Charlie Scudder. We are in a corner of the Nasa Johnson Space Center in Houston, in a large white warehouse. Starting this June, four volunteer test subjects will spend a year locked inside, pretending to live on Mars. The four crew members will live in a small housing unit that was constructed using a massive 3D printer to simulate how Nasa may create structures on the Martian surface with Martian soil. They’ll conduct experiments, grow food and exercise – and be tested regularly so scientists can learn what a year on Mars could do to the body and mind.
Climate check: Climate models warn of possible ‘super El Niño’ before end of year
Climate models around the globe continue to warn of a potential El Niño developing later this year – a pattern of ocean warming in the Pacific that can increase the risk of catastrophic weather events around the globe. Some models are raising the possibility later this year of an extreme, or “super El Niño”, that is marked by very high temperatures in a central region of the Pacific around the equator. The last extreme El Niño in 2016 helped push global temperatures to the highest on record, underpinned by human-caused global heating that sparked floods, droughts and disease outbreaks. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said all seven models it had surveyed – including those from weather agencies in the UK, Japan and the US – showed sea surface temperatures passing the El Niño threshold by August.
Last Thing: ‘Small like a ball’ – Pearl the chihuahua named world’s shortest dog
What do you call a chihuahua dog that’s shorter than a popsicle stick and can fit in your pocket? The planet’s shortest living dog, Guinness World Records has announced. Pearl qualified for the title after a veterinarian at the Crystal Creek animal hospital in Orlando, Florida, where she was born, used a special dog-measuring wicket to determine she was just under 3.6in (9.14cm) tall and 5in (12.7cm) long. Those dimensions meant she was shorter than the standard television remote and about as long as a dollar bill, Guinness said in a statement. She succeeds the late “Miracle” Milly, an identical sister of Pearl’s mother, who held the record after being measured at 3.8in. Calling her dog “a bit of a diva”, Pearl’s owner, Vanesa Semler, said she was “small like a ball” and barely taller than a teacup.
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