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The Daily Briefing

YOUR MORNING NEWS ROUNDUP

Mon Nov 18 2024

Nicole Fallert | Newsletter Writer

@nicolefallert

A new phase of the Russia-Ukraine war. A wildfire on the New York-New Jersey border broke a containment line and prompted more than 160 homes to be evacuated over the weekend. As President Joe Biden heads to the G20 Summit, foreign leaders are more interested in building rapport with the incoming Donald Trump administration.

🙋🏼‍♀️ I'm Nicole Fallert, Daily Briefing author. Can't wait for my Spotify Wrapped 2024.

Biden lifts ban on Ukraine using US weapons

President Joe Biden's administration has lifted restrictions that had blocked Ukraine from using U.S.-provided weapons to strike deep into Russian territory, said three sources familiar with the matter.

The move marks a significant change to U.S. policy in the Ukraine-Russia conflict: The change comes two months before President-elect Donald Trump takes office and after months of requests by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to allow Ukraine's military to use U.S. weapons to hit Russian military targets far from its border.

•	Ukraine plans to conduct its first long-range attacks in the coming days, the sources said, without revealing details due to operational security concerns. The change also follows Russia's deployment of North Korean ground troops to supplement its own forces.
•	Zelenskyy says Ukraine must do everything to end the war next year. Moscow's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva said on Thursday that Russia would be open to negotiations on an end to the conflict if they were initiated by Trump.
•	What has Trump said about Ukraine? Trump says he can bring Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table with a view to ending the three-year war "in a day." He hasn't said how. Ukraine and much of the international community are skeptical.

New York wildfire breaks through

Fire personnel confronted the Jennings Creek Wildfire overnight and will remain in place until later Monday as those efforts continue, local officials say. Officials have said the blaze, which began Nov. 8 and has burned more than 5,000 acres across New York and New Jersey, is about 90% contained. But the jump over the containment line required an emergency response that involved asking hundreds of Warwick, New York, residents to voluntarily leave their homes and opening a shelter at a local middle school. Read more

More news to know now

•	Neo-Nazis carrying swastika flags and using racial slurs marched through Columbus, Ohio.
•	A family searches for Hannah Kobayashi, who disappeared after missing a connecting flight at LAX.
•	Pope Francis has suggested a probe into a possible genocide in Gaza.
•	An mpox strain was identified for first time in the U.S.

What's the weather today? Check your local forecast here.

Biden in the background at G20

President Joe Biden heads to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Monday to make his final appearance at the Group of 20 Summit, where the prospect for substantive deliverables looked grim for the president. The transition period in the U.S. is longer than in most other countries, making for some awkward maneuvering as new and old leaders juggle their need to continue working with Biden, while they try to avoid the appearance of favoritism and sidestep a possible retaliation from President-elect Donald Trump. The incoming president, who cannot officially set U.S. foreign policy for two more months, has been fielding calls with world leaders — a violation of established norms in U.S. diplomacy. Read more

•	A source of international contention: As Trump retakes White House, climate-change experts gird for another four-year fight.

How forensic science failures undermine justice

Many crime labs across the country have come under fire in recent years as the ripple effects of misconduct and lab errors come to light. It has been 15 years since a scathing report blasted scattershot practices at forensic labs across the country, including shoddy analysis of bite marks and blood splatter, and five years since federal researchers began issuing exacting new standards designed to make forensic science more reliable. But only half of the more than 400 largest crime labs across the country have publicly adopted the standards. And experts told USA TODAY many labs are understaffed and cash-strapped.

Today's talkers

•	Miss Universe has been crowned.
•	"Landman" is the worst of "Yellowstone" without any of the good stuff.
•	Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Karla Sofía Gascón feted at Netflix's Latinas in Hollywood event.
•	Here are 32 things we learned in NFL Week 11.
•	ICYMI: Here's our round-by-round recap of the Paul-Tyson fight.

Being polyamorous is different for people of color

Family is everything for Chaneé Jackson Kendall. But her family doesn't look like what society has told us it should. That's because she's Black and polyamorous. The influencer space and mass media might make you think most polyamorous people – like families – look the same: White . Many BIPOC polyamory advocates are fed up with what they say is a lack of acknowledgment from the wider nonmonogamy community. USA TODAY spoke with the members of the BIPOC polyamory community about how their experience isn't a monolith.

Photo of the day: 'Starships were meant to fly'

The Nicki Minaj lyric fits the moment: SpaceX's Starship megarocket is set to take off on its sixth uncrewed flight test as early as Monday evening following a historic test last month that included a booster grab.

People look at the SpaceX Starship as it sits on the launch pad ahead of its sixth flight test from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, on November 17, 2024.

CHANDAN KHANNA, AFP via Getty Images

Nicole Fallert is a newsletter writer at USA TODAY, sign up for the email here. Want to send Nicole a note? Shoot her an email at NFallert@usatoday.com.