The United States has shut down its embassy in Ukraine’s capital and ordered U.S. citizens in Kyiv to immediately seek shelter, citing a potential air attack by Russia. The warning came as Ukraine for the first time used U.S.-supplied long-range ATACMS missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia. This follows President Vladimir Putin’s warning that Russia had lowered its threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, in response to escalating U.S. and European support for Ukrainian counterattacks on Russian soil.

At the United Nations, Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador on Tuesday read a statement co-signed by 42 European Union members marking the 1,000th day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Serhii Kyslytsya: “We have to make the Russians sit down at the table of negotiations, and the only way to do it is by strength.”

In Moscow, a Kremlin spokesperson ruled out a freeze of the war in Ukraine along existing frontlines. Meanwhile, Russia’s military says it has seized another settlement in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

The Washington Post reports President Biden has quietly approved the provision of new anti-personnel landmines to Ukraine. Biden had already authorized the transfer of cluster munitions and a different type of anti-personnel mine to Ukraine. The latest transfers clearly violate the Mine Ban Treaty known as the Ottawa Convention. Neither Russia nor the United States is among the 164 parties who’ve agreed to the treaty.

On Tuesday, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines released its annual report, which finds there were more than 5,700 deaths and injuries from landmines worldwide last year — about 1,000 more than in 2022. In a statement, the group’s director wrote, “Any use of antipersonnel mines by any actor under any circumstances is unacceptable and must be condemned. All countries that have not yet done so should join the Mine Ban Treaty to turn back this tide and end the suffering caused by these vile weapons.”

In Gaza, the Palestinian Health Ministry reports Israeli attacks on Tuesday killed at least 50 Palestinians and wounded 110 others. Overnight, the director of the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza warned 85 injured Palestinians are at imminent risk of death after an Israeli attack damaged the hospital’s upper floors. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya said the hospital had received a large influx of children with signs of malnutrition and is facing an “extreme catastrophe.”

In the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian security forces have shot and killed 20 people accused of an organized effort to loot convoys delivering desperately needed aid into Gaza. Monday’s killings came two days after armed gangs violently looted nearly 100 trucks carrying food provided by the United Nations. A spokesperson for the U.N.’s agency for Palestinian refugees said Israeli authorities had instructed the convoy to use an unfamiliar route, on short notice, ahead of the ambush. Drop Site News reports the Israeli military has systematically targeted Palestinian security forces charged with protecting aid shipments, while allowing armed gunmen to attack aid convoys in areas under Israeli control.

On Tuesday, desperate Palestinians queued at a soup kitchen in Khan Younis, hoping for a meal, after a shortage of flour forced a main bakery in central Gaza to halt operations.

Tamam Abu Raddeh: “We’re all hungry. We’re all hungry. There’s no flour. It’s been a month that we don’t have flour, frying oil or sugar. We want some tea to drink. We want to make bread. We are hungry and need food and beverage. It is shameful what they are doing to the people.”

In more news from Gaza, Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Hossam Shabat was injured Tuesday in an Israeli attack on a home in Gaza City. Shabat had been covering the aftermath of an Israeli bombing when a second strike hit. He wrote on social media that the attack was deliberate adding, “The moment I stepped inside, the house was bombed again, and dismembered body parts of the wounded flew around me.” A first responder and civilians were killed in the strike.

On Capitol Hill, more than four dozen peace activists were arrested Tuesday as they held a protest inside the Hart Senate Office Building demanding an end to U.S. arms transfers to Israel. Protesters led by Jewish Voice for Peace wore red T-shirts demanding education, housing, healthcare and jobs, “not genocide.”

Separately, in Chicago, more than a dozen Jewish peace activists were arrested as they nonviolently blocked escalators and elevators to shut down business operations at Caterpillar’s Business and Analytics Hub. Caterpillar supplies Israel’s military with armored bulldozers used to demolish homes and businesses in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

The protests came ahead of an expected vote in the Senate today on resolutions authored by Vermont independent Bernie Sanders that would block the sale of U.S. tank rounds, bomb kits and other lethal weapons to Israel.

Sen. Bernie Sanders: “The truth of the matter is that from a legal perspective, these resolutions are not complicated. They’re cut and dry. The United States government is currently in violation of the law, and every member of the U.S. Senate who believes in the rule of law should vote for these resolutions.”

On Monday, one of the largest U.S. labor unions, the 2 million-strong Service Employees International Union, called on senators to approve Bernie Sanders’s resolution. Union President April Verrett said, ”SEIU members have made clear that they want an end to taxpayer dollars being used to fund military aid that enables attacks against innocent civilians in Gaza.”

President-elect Trump has picked TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Oz ran unsuccessfully for Senate in Pennsylvania in 2022. He is a backer of privatizing Medicare. Georgetown professor Lawrence Gostin criticized the selection of Oz, saying, “He peddles conspiracy theories on vaccines & fake cures. He profits from fringe medical ideas. By nominating RFK Jr & Mehmet Oz, Trump is giving his middle finger to science.”

Trump has also nominated Linda McMahon to head the Department of Education, which Trump has pledged to shut down. McMahon is the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment. She headed the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term. She gave at least $15 million to a pro-Trump PAC during this election. She and her husband Vince McMahon were recently sued for failing to stop a WWE ringside announcer from sexually assaulting young boys. Linda McMahon is the co-chair of Trump’s transition team with another billionaire, Howard Lutnick, the chief executive of the Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald. On Tuesday, Trump picked Lutnick to serve as commerce secretary.

In other transition news, ABC News is reporting the House Ethics Committee obtained records that appear to show Trump’s pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, sent over $10,000 to two women who claim he paid them for sex. Gaetz resigned his seat in Congress last week, putting an end to the House Ethics Committee probe. While House leaders are resisting calls to release the committee’s findings, a hacker has reportedly gained access to the sealed testimony in the probe.

The Texas General Land Office has offered the incoming Trump administration a 1,400-acre ranch near the U.S.-Mexico border as a construction site for immigration jails, after Trump promised to call up the military to carry out mass deportations. The offer came as the Los Angeles City Council approved a “sanctuary city” ordinance forbidding city employees and resources from being involved in federal immigration enforcement. The measure passed unanimously on Tuesday, the same day the Los Angeles Unified School District reaffirmed its status as a “sanctuary district” for immigrants. This is Shiu-Ming Cheer of the California Immigrant Policy Center.

Shiu-Ming Cheer: “We are extremely concerned. Given that this is a city where about a third of the population is immigrants, we are all extremely concerned, worried, panicked, afraid that the National Guard or other people are going to be forced to execute Trump’s mass deportation plans. But, you know, we’re also organized. We’ve been through this before. We know how to respond. We have a lot of tools at our disposal, including the legal system, including the strength in our communities. So we also know that we can fight back with power.”

Republican Congressmember Nancy Mace has introduced a resolution to ban transgender women from using women’s bathrooms in the U.S. Capitol following the historic election of Sarah McBride, who recently became the first openly transgender candidate elected to Congress. McBride will represent Delaware in the House beginning in January. McBride called the resolution “a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing.”

In Texas, a majority of the state Board of Education has voiced support for a new Bible-based curriculum for students in kindergarten through fifth grade. If approved, Texas public schools would be given financial incentives to use the optional curriculum. The president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers, Zeph Capo, criticized the new curriculum.

Zeph Capo: “We’ve had the same government, many of the same players behind it in the state of Texas, actually making accusations against our educators that we’re indoctrinating students, when, in fact, as this curriculum comes to development and is implemented in school districts, particularly because they are focusing on kids so young and so impressionable, that we will in fact have a state government that’s indoctrinating students.”