A top Russian general gave some of the most detailed public remarks to date on Russia's military strategy in Ukraine, claiming on Friday that the "first stage" of Russia's military plan is now complete, with their primary focus now centered on eastern Ukraine.

"In general, the main tasks of the first stage of the operation have been completed," Colonel General Sergei Rudskoy, first deputy chief of Russia's General Staff, said in a Friday briefing. "The combat potential of the armed forces of Ukraine has been significantly reduced, allowing us, I emphasize again, to focus the main efforts on achieving the main goal - the liberation of Donbas."

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To make up for the loss, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to temporarily raise water and wastewater rates 5% for retail customers starting April 1.

Already, some Bay Area water providers have enacted such drought surcharges. This month, the Alameda County Water District, which serves Fremont, Newark and Union City, began adding 79 cents to the price of every 100 cubic feet of water, or 748 gallons, consumed, meaning an increase of about $6 to the average monthly bill. Other suppliers in the region, including the East Bay Municipal Utility District, may consider similar surcharges in coming months.

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday announced he will not vote for Ketanji Brown Jackson's nomination to the Supreme Court, citing her responses this week to questions about "court packing." 

On Tuesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) sent a letter to the school district saying the celebrations constituted “sex education.” Without consent from parents, the district’s Pride Week is “breaking state law,” he said.

Prosecutor Mark Pomeranz, who investigated Donald J. Trump, believed that the former president was “guilty of numerous felony violations.”

Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, repeatedly pressed White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in a series of urgent text exchanges in the critical weeks after the vote, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News.

The messages — 29 in all — reveal an extraordinary pipeline between Virginia Thomas, who goes by Ginni, and President Donald Trump’s top aide during a period when Trump and his allies were vowing to go to the Supreme Court in an effort to negate the election results.

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President Biden said Thursday at a press conference in Brussels that NATO is united amid the conflict in Ukraine. 

Russian President Vladimir "Putin was banking on NATO being split," Mr. Biden said in the whirlwind press conference. "NATO has never, never been more united than it is today." 

Mr. Biden also said he supported expelling Russia from the G20, the group of the 20 biggest economies in the world, but conceded "that depends on the G20."

Mr. Biden's comments came only hours after an emotional plea by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who told NATO leaders that if there isn't more invention from Europe, the Russian invasion will spread to Poland, a NATO country. Zelenskyy asked that the alliance provide "effective and unrestricted" support to Ukraine, including any weapons the country needs to fend off the Russian onslaught.

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Madeleine K. Albright, a child of Czech refugees who fled from Nazi invaders and Communist oppressors and then landed in the United States, where she flourished as a diplomat and the first woman to serve as secretary of state, died on Wednesday in Washington. She was 84. The cause was cancer, her daughter Anne said.

Enveloped by a veil of family secrets hidden from her for most of her life, Ms. Albright rose to power and fame as a brilliant analyst of world affairs and a White House counselor on national security. Under President Bill Clinton, she became the country’s representative to the United Nations (1993-97) and secretary of state (1997-2001), making her the highest-ranking woman in the history of American government at the time.

Despite pledging to allow girls of all ages to attend classes when schools reopened this week, the Taliban’s Education Ministry issued a last-minute reversal that banned girls beyond the sixth grade from returning.

The Walt Disney Company, one of the world’s biggest media and entertainment empires, prides itself on a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) friendly culture. But today its reputation for inclusivity and tolerance is under scrutiny – as are its deep ties to the political establishment and the lack of LGBTQ representation in its films.

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Anatoly Chubais, a high-ranking Russian official who led the country’s post-Soviet economic reforms, has resigned from his post and fled the country in opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, news outlets reported Wednesday, making him the first high-level figure to officially distance himself from the Kremlin.

Chubais, 66, and his spouse have fled to Istanbul, according to Russian media outlet RBC. Late last month, Chubais posted a photo of Boris Nemtsov, a leading Russian opposition figure murdered on a Moscow bridge in 2015, on social media, which was interpreted as a sign of opposition to the war, according to media reports.

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Senator Lindsey Graham and Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson got into the most heated exchange of the morning after the senator revived a line of attack on the judge’s sentencing record in cases involving images of child sexual abuse. The flashes of temper were particularly striking coming from a senator who voted less than a year ago to confirm Judge Jackson to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Sen. Mike Braun told reporters that he didn’t want a justice who was an “activist,” and that the court’s decision on Roe v. Wade was an example of such activism. Braun argued that such issues should be left up to the states and that striking down Roe would bring “it back to a neutral point, to where that issue should never have been federalized.” This prompted the question about whether he felt the same way about interracial marriage, which the court legalized in 1967, to which Braun, again, said yes.

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