In Russia, at least three people were killed and more than a dozen others injured earlier today as a Ukrainian drone struck a meat warehouse in Moscow. The deadly strike was part of what Russian officials called Ukraine’s largest-ever drone attack on the capital region, which also damaged apartment buildings and forced the closure of Moscow’s four international airports. Ukrainian drones also struck Russia’s Kursk region, parts of which have been occupied by Ukraine since last August. Meanwhile, Russia’s relentless bombardment continued overnight, with at least one person killed when a Russian drone struck a warehouse in Kharkiv. Seventeen others were wounded by Russian attacks.

The violence came hours before a high-level delegation from Kyiv met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Saudi Arabia for talks hosted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The talks are focused on a ceasefire. Ukraine is seeking security guarantees from the U.S., while Trump administration officials are looking to secure a minerals deal giving the U.S. access to Ukraine’s rare earth elements and other resources. They’re the highest-level talks between the U.S. and Ukraine since February 28, when President Trump and Vice President Vance publicly berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office. On Monday, Trump’s Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff said Zelensky had apologized to Trump in a letter.

Israel is continuing to blockade fuel and humanitarian aid from entering Gaza after it cut off the territory’s electricity on Sunday. Qatar and Jordan accused Israel of “imposing starvation” on Gaza as Israel repeatedly violates the ceasefire agreement. This is the head of UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.

Philippe Lazzarini: “Whatever the intent is, it’s clearly a weaponization of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Basically, we are back to a situation which prevailed at the beginning of the war, when there was a total siege imposed on Gaza. And we have seen the situation deteriorating very, very quickly.”

Meanwhile, Israel’s Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich has called for expelling “5,000 Palestinians a day” from Gaza as part of an illegal plan, proposed by President Trump, to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. Israeli soldiers have killed at least four people in Gaza over the past day.

In the occupied West Bank, Israel has killed at least three Palestinians in Jenin as it continues its deadly raids throughout the occupied territory.

Here in New York, a federal judge on Monday blocked the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia graduate who was arrested over the weekend by immigration authorities for helping organize campus solidarity protests with Gaza last year. Khalil is a permanent legal resident and has a green card. His wife is a U.S. citizen who is eight months pregnant. President Trump boasted of Khalil’s arrest, posting on social media, “Following my previously signed Executive Orders, ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University. This is the first arrest of many to come.” The case has triggered widespread outrage, with protests erupting Monday. Faculty of Columbia and Barnard were joined by rabbis and immigrant rights advocates for an emergency press conference.

On Monday, the news outlet Zeteo reported Mahmoud Khalil emailed Columbia one day before he was detained by ICE, asking for protection after he was targeted in a doxxing and smear campaign. Khalil pleaded with Columbia administration, “I haven’t been able to sleep, fearing that ICE or a dangerous individual might come to my home. I urge you to intervene and provide the necessary protections to prevent further harm.” Protests also took place in Lower Manhattan Monday. This is Nas Issa of Palestinian Youth Movement.

Nas Issa: “Columbia administrators have a responsibility to protect their students, to protect institutions of higher education that Trump and his administration are committed to systematically dismantling. And by making concessions to this right-wing agenda, they’re only laying the groundwork for further repression. And it’s not going to stop at Palestine, and we have very good reason to believe it won’t stop at green card holders. If they’re targeting undocumented immigrants, if they’re targeting student visas, if they’re targeting green card holders and legal residents, what’s to stop them from targeting citizens next?”

In related news, Trump’s new Education Secretary Linda McMahon has issued a warning to 60 universities they’re being investigated for antisemitism on their campuses and could face penalties. On Friday, the Trump administration withdrew $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University.

Syria’s new government announced an agreement Monday to integrate the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, into Syria’s new state institutions. The U.S.-backed SDF has controlled a semi-autonomous region in Syria’s oil-rich northeast since 2015. This comes as Syria is reeling from the worst outbreak of violence since the ouster of former authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad in December, with nearly 1,000 civilians killed since last Thursday in Latakia and Tartus provinces, most of them in massacres by fighters loyal to the new government. We’ll have more on this story later in the broadcast.

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested in Manila today for crimes against humanity on an International Criminal Court warrant. The ICC has been investigating Duterte since 2018 over his extrajudicial so-called war on drugs. The U.N. estimates over 8,600 people were killed during Duterte’s rule, with some estimates suggesting the true toll could be three times higher. Last year, Duterte admitted under oath that he oversaw a “death squad” of gangsters while he served as mayor of the southern city of Davao.

Rodrigo Duterte: “I have a death squad. A death squad. Seven of them. But they are [not] the police. They were gangsters. I command one of the gangsters, 'Kill that, because if you don't, I will kill you.’”

Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter, Sara Duterte, is currently serving as vice president of the Philippines. She is the first vice president of the Philippines to be impeached.

On Wall Street, U.S. stocks dropped sharply on Monday, erasing all of their gains since Donald Trump’s election. The slide came as China began implementing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. meat and produce and as Canada’s Ontario province added a 25% surcharge to electricity exports, affecting three states. Trump also triggered investor panic when he twice refused to rule out a recession during an interview that aired Sunday on Fox News.

Maria Bartiromo: “Are you expecting a recession this year?”

President Donald Trump: “I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big.”

Elon Musk has proposed slashing up to $700 billion from Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and programs for the poor, including unemployment insurance and food stamps. Musk proposed the sweeping cuts during an interview with Fox Business Network on Monday.

Elon Musk: “Most of the federal spending is entitlements. So, that’s like the big one to eliminate. You know, that’s the sort of half-trillion, maybe six, seven hundred billion a year.”

Musk has repeatedly used his social media site X to promote false and baseless claims alleging widespread fraud and abuse in federal benefit programs. This comes after Tiffany Flick, a 30-year veteran of the Social Security Administration who resigned in February, submitted a declaration to a federal court in Maryland alleging that efforts by Musk’s DOGE operation to undermine the agency “could result in benefits payments not being paid out or delays in payments.”

President Trump has signed an executive order targeting the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, a popular student debt relief mechanism. The order restricts participation for borrowers and employers that the White House deems in violation of its agenda, including working with immigrants and the transgender community. It’s also expected to target groups that defend Palestinian rights. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a legal expert with the American Immigration Council, said, “This is shockingly unlawful and a clear First Amendment violation. The PSLF program provides the president no authority to restrict it to only those people who work for nonprofits whose work he supports. Expect lawsuits within short periods of time.”

In Houston, Texas, police arrested eight climate activists Monday as they held a nonviolent protest and briefly blocked a street near the CERAWeek Energy Conference. Protesters demanded an end to oil and gas drilling and limits on petrochemical and plastics production. Inside the conference, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that climate change was a “side effect of building the modern world.” Wright said oil, gas, coal and nuclear power are essential, and he promoted a proposed $44 billion, 800-mile pipeline to carry natural gas from the Arctic Circle to Alaska’s southern coast, where it would be liquefied for export.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright: “During the last administration, there were far more restrictions on Alaska producing oil, gas and minerals than there were on Iran. We’ve sanctioned Alaska more than we’ve sanctioned Iran. So, that, of course, is just nuts.”

A coalition of nonprofits is suing the Environmental Protection Agency in federal court, seeking to end the Trump administration’s freeze on a $20 billion clean energy finance program created under the Inflation Reduction Act and signed into law by President Biden. In related news, the Coalition for Green Capital has sued Citibank, alleging the Wall Street giant has unlawfully refused to disburse the grant funds awarded by the EPA to finance tens of thousands of climate and environmental justice projects.

President Trump has withdrawn the United States from a United Nations-negotiated loss and damage fund aimed at partly compensating poorer countries from the irreversible effects of the climate crisis. Nearly 200 countries agreed to establish the fund at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai in 2023. As of January, the U.S. had pledged just $17.5 million out of about $740 million in pledges from wealthy nations. Mohamed Adow, climate analyst and founding director of Power Shift Africa, wrote in response, “This regrettable decision risks undermining collective progress and erodes the trust necessary for effective international cooperation.”

Washington Post columnist and associate editor Ruth Marcus has resigned after more than four decades at the newspaper, alleging censorship. Marcus wrote in a resignation note that CEO and publisher Will Lewis barred publication of her column critical of billionaire owner Jeff Bezos and his announcement that opinion pieces in the Post would henceforth focus on “personal liberties and free markets.” Marcus’s resignation comes just weeks after Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Ann Telnaes quit to protest a rejected cartoon showing billionaires — including Jeff Bezos — genuflecting to Trump.

Work crews in Washington, D.C., have begun dismantling and repainting the Black Lives Matter Plaza. The words “Black Lives Matter” were painted on the pavement in large yellow letters on a street just north of the White House as a tribute to the nationwide uprising following George Floyd’s 2020 murder. The street mural was meant to be permanent until Republicans last week introduced a bill threatening to withdraw federal funding for D.C. unless it painted over the words and renamed the area Liberty Plaza. Area residents stopped by the street mural Monday for a final look before construction crews destroyed it.

Kristy McDowell: “I felt it was important to come down here and just see it one last time before it went away, since, you know, the president put a mandate on her [the Washington mayor] to get rid of it or he would take funding away from the district.”