America reportedly refused to support a UN resolution that called Russia the aggressor in the war in Ukraine. According to Reuters, the statement, which marks three years since Russia’s invasion, demands the Kremlin withdraw its troops from Ukraine. American officials also opposed similar language in a statement by the G7. It is a further sign that Donald Trump intends to rehabilitate Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.
Meanwhile Mike Waltz, America’s national security adviser, urged Volodymyr Zelensky to stop criticising Mr Trump and take a “hard look” at a proposed deal that would hand $500bn-worth of Ukraine’s natural resources to America. Mr Waltz also defended the decision to exclude Ukraine and European allies from talks with Russia, calling it routine “shuttle diplomacy”.
Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, vowed to make Hamas “pay the full price” for the “cruel and evil” violation of the ceasefire agreement after one of the bodies Hamas returned on Thursday was not that of Shiri Bibas. The militant group handed over four hostages’ remains, including her two young children, but failed to return hers.
Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, said the Securities and Exchange Commission will drop its lawsuit over whether crypto assets should be regulated as securities. American regulators had argued that certain crypto tokens traded on the exchange functioned like investment contracts and should be regulated as such. Coinbase disagreed. The move follows a policy shift under the SEC’s Republican leadership to deregulate the crypto industry.
Tesla, a maker of electric-vehicles, said it would recall nearly 380,000 cars in America due to a power-steering assist failure that makes turning harder at low speeds, increasing the risk of a crash. The recall follows a federal probe into such failures. Tesla issued a software update recently to fix the issue, but problems persisted.
Swedish police said they were investigating the suspected sabotage of an undersea cable in the Baltic Sea after Cinia, a Finnish company, detected minor damage on a fibre-optic link. A Swedish coast-guard vessel was deployed near Gotland, an island. The EU said that it planned to increase surveillance. Attacks on undersea infrastructure have risen since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Airlines rerouted flights between Australia and New Zealand after China conducted live-fire naval drills off Australia’s east coast. A Chinese task group, including two warships and a supply vessel, had earlier operated within 150 nautical miles of Sydney. While the drills were legal in international waters, Australia criticised China for failing to provide sufficient prior notification.
Figure of the day: $18bn, the amount America’s biggest consultancies received from the federal government last year, up from $5bn a decade ago. Read the full story.
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