Monday morning news: March 27, 2023

Ukraine/Russia » Ukraine is calling for an emergency U.N. meeting.

PUTIN: [Speaking Russian]

After Vladimir Putin announced that he will station nuclear weapons in Belarus along Ukraine’s northern border.

U.S. officials call the move “disturbing.” Congressman Mike Gallagher serves on the House Intelligence Committee.

MIKE GALLAGHER - Putin has engaged in nuclear saber rattling since the start of this crisis. It's something to be concerned about but we should not allow his threats to deter us.

Meanwhile, Russian authorities claim they halted a Ukrainian drone attack, but that three civilians were injured as Russia brought down the drone about a hundred miles from Moscow. Ukraine did not comment on the incident. Ukraine is widely believed to have targeted military facilities in Russia in recent months. If Moscow’s claim is accurate, it’s unclear what the intended target may have been.  

McCaul on Russia-China, Taiwan » Meantime, on Capitol Hill, the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul sounded off Sunday on the Russia-China nexus.

MICHAEL MCCAUL: It’s a fight between tyranny and oppression vs democracy and freedom in the West. And you can’t dissect the two. They’re tied together.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping held three days of meetings with Vladimir Putin in Moscow last week. McCaul called it “an unholy alliance.”

He said Russia is buying weapons from Iran and North Korea, and it still hopes Beijing will agree to supply weapons to Moscow.

Mississippi storm » Relief workers and supplies are pouring into one of the poorest regions of the U-S after a deadly tornado ripped through a long swath of Mississippi.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told ABC’s This Week:

DEANNE CRISWELL: The biggest priority for me is, one, making sure that the local jurisdictions, those first responders, have all the resources that they need. And then second, that we start to take care of these families.

Volunteers are also showing up. This man drove in from neighboring Alabama.

MAN: I knew that there was going to be help needed, so I got in, drove here, and I didn’t hear about anything organized. I just decided to volunteer my work.

The EF-4 twister killed at least 25 people Friday night. When the sun rose on Saturday morning, it revealed the splintered remains of homes scattered among toppled trees.

President Biden called the images heartbreaking and declared a state of emergency for Mississippi. That makes federal funding available to hard-hit areas.

 Chocolate factory » Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, at least five people have now been confirmed dead… after a massive explosion at a chocolate factory …

The blast happened on Friday at the R.M. Palmer Company in the town of West Reading. Mayor Samantha Kaag:

SAMANTHA KAAG: For some people, even ourselves and all of these elected officials are here with you. It is still Friday, March 24. As we try to find the information that we can to give to those that are still desperately in need and waiting for family members to come home or just waiting for some sort of answers.

Officials have not determined the cause of the blast.

Migrant train deaths reaction » Authorities in Texas say deaths of two migrants inside a railroad car … could be another case of human smuggling.

GOP Congressman Tony Gonzales said Sunday:

GONZALES: Sadly, this isn’t a new issue for any of us who live in Texas’ 23rd District. So in Knippa it happens all the time. Hondo is another city where this happens regularly; Uvalde, Eagle Pass. This has been ongoing for a couple of years now.

The two deceased men were from Honduras.

They were part of a group of 17 people found Friday inside sweltering rail cars about 70 miles west of San Antonio.

Four of the survivors found in the cars were transported to local hospitals. 

Twenty-nine migrants drown » Meantime, in the Mediterranean, at least twenty-nine migrants are dead after two boats sank off the coast of Tunisia. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: Sunday’s incident was just the latest tragedy in the area involving migrants. Five migrant boats sank near Tunisia in the previous four days, killing almost 10 people and leaving nearly 70 others missing.

Tunisian authorities stopped roughly 80 other boats in the same time frame, detaining about 3,000 people.

The number of people trying to make the voyage from Tunisia to Italy has skyrocketed in recent months.

The United Nations says roughly 12,000 migrants have made the voyage in just the first few months of this year. Fewer than 1,500 made the same voyage during the same time frame last year.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

COVINGTON: I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: Chew toys at the Supreme Court. Plus, on the Monday Moneybeat, how to pick a good bank.

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