The Biden administration will allow Ukraine to use American-supplied antipersonnel land mines to help it slow Russia’s battlefield progress in the war, the U.S. defence secretary said, in Washington’s second major policy shift in a week after its decision to let Ukraine strike targets on Russian soil with longer-range U.S.-made missiles.
ALSO:
• Israeli officials demanded the freedom to strike Lebanon’s Hezbollah as part of any ceasefire deal, raising a potential complication as a top U.S. envoy was in the region attempting to clinch an agreement.
• A U.S. border patrol intelligence agent recalled during testimony at the trial of two accused human smugglers feeling horrified when he realized a group of migrants from India were out in a freezing blizzard on a stretch of open prairie at the border between Manitoba and Minnesota.
• The trial of the illegal immigrant accused of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley earlier this year, a case that became a flashpoint in the national debate over immigration during this year’s presidential race, now awaits the judge's verdict.
• Governance in Yukon’s second-largest municipality has been at a standstill since its newly elected mayor and council refused to pledge allegiance to King Charles during their swearing-in ceremony.
• Pope Francis said he will canonize Carlo Acutis next April, setting the eagerly awaited date for the late Italian teenager to become the Catholic Church’s first millennial and digital-era saint.
• California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he won’t make a clemency decision on the murder convictions of Erik and Kyle Menendez until newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman reviews the nearly 35-year-old case.
