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Why Putin will never give in or give up on Ukraine
Many analyses, including my own, have focused on how the war has backfired on the Kremlin. Putin had undertaken the invasion motivated by a desire to secure his place in history as an imperial conqueror. Instead, his military has been exposed as weak, unmotivated, and plagued by institutionalized lying (when no one dares to tell the truth to the leader, leading to poor decision-making). Russian troops are ill-fed, inadequately clothed, and equipped with dated and inferior weapons. Russia is a kleptocracy, and the military has been ravaged by corruption and theft no less than other state institutions.
Autocrats view their people as assets to exploit, and they don't care how many of their people die on or off the battlefield. That's why hundreds of thousands of young men have fled Russia —they know Putin would send them to their deaths without a second thought. This brutal mentality is partly why Putin can play a long game in this conflict.
Putin also has no interest in shortening the conflict because his war against Ukraine is not just about occupying territory. It is a war of annihilation that is meant to suppress Ukraine's sovereignty, identity, and culture. To the autocrat, every day spent killing the enemy and reducing his cities to rubble furthers the cause.
So does forcing millions to flee. Depopulation does the autocrats' job for him if the goal is to rid the occupied territory of any trace of the enemy. Since the war started, almost six million Ukrainians have been internally displaced and other eight million have gone into exile as refugees. At least 7,100 Ukrainian civilians have been killed, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and as of December 2022, up to 13,000 Ukrainian combatants had perished. All of this is excellent news for Putin; why would he stop his war now?
Finally, waging war abroad has strengthened Putin's position at home. The Kremlin disinformation machine has sold the war as a patriotic vindication of a threat on Russia's border. It builds on well-established narratives that express "grievances, paranoia, and [an] imperialist mind-set" to frame the invasion of Ukraine as continuing the redemptive trajectory opened by the 2014 annexation of Crimea. Putin's personality cult propaganda presents it all as part of a master plan.
Authoritarians engaged in wartime crackdowns also welcome the departure of domestic critics and “defeatists.” So what if between 500,000 and 1 million Russians have left their country due to the war —an exodus comparable only to the outflows during the 1917 Russian Revolution and the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union? Good riddance to them, says the autocrat. Their departure merely speeds up the "self-purification of society" as Putin calls it.
That hygienic action seems to include bumping off Russian elites who have criticized Putin or turned against him. Dozens of important individuals have died in suspicious circumstances in 2022, giving rise to "Sudden Russian Death Syndrome," as Elaine Godfrey terms it. "The longer this war lasts, the more Russian society is cleansing itself from liberalism and the Western poison," said the pro-Putin business magnate Konstantin Malofeyev, articulating the authoritarian logic.
"The collapse of Western hegemony that has begun is irreversible," Russian President Vladimir Putin told his people in September 2022 when he annexed four Ukrainian territories. "And I repeat again —nothing will be the same as before. Fate and history called us onto the battlefield for our people, for great historical Russia!"
We may like to think that Putin may abandon this grandiose mission or "come to his senses” because he is being humiliated every day on the battlefield, but that is not how autocrats operate. Until the United States and its allies give Ukraine the weapons it needs to repel the Russian invader, Putin will consider it worth his while to continue a war he thinks will put him on par with Peter the Great.
Authoritarianism is about having the power to get away with crime. Waging a genocidal war against another country without other nations forcing a cessation of conflict counts as a big win in the autocratic world. Far from standing down, look for Putin to escalate hostilities as this tragic war enters its second year.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaking at a rally on Nov. 6, 2022 endorsing ballot proposition 1 — to add abortion protections to the state's constitution — at Long Beach City College. (photo: Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images)
Led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Reproductive Freedom Alliance creates a formal structure for governors "to strengthen reproductive freedom in the face of an unprecedented assault on abortion access and other forms of reproductive health care," according to a joint statement from the governors.
These efforts include sharing strategies to protect abortion providers from prosecution and maximize federal funding for reproductive health care. The group also aims to create a more coordinated response to efforts to limit abortion access, including a Texas lawsuit threatening FDA approval of a key abortion drug.
'DREAM BIGGER':How weekend marches keep advocates' fight for Roe v. Wade alive on 50th anniversary
Who is in the Reproductive Freedom Alliance?
The group calls itself nonpartisan but only Democratic governors have joined so far. These governors include:
- California Gov. Gavin Newsom
- Colorado Gov. Jared Polis
- Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont
- Delaware Gov. John Carney
- Hawai’i Gov. Josh Green
- Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker
- Maine Gov. Janet Mills
- Maryland Gov. Wes Moore
- Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey
- Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
- Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz
- New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy
- New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham
- New York Gov. Kathy Hochul
- North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper
- Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek
- Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro
- Rhode Island Gov. Daniel McKee
- Washington Gov. Jay Inslee
- Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers
'IT'S TIME FOR US TO BE BOLD':Why six religious leaders are fighting to expand abortion access
Advocates: Alliance needed 'now more than ever'
In a joint statement, the governors pledged to work together "to strengthen abortion firewalls across America."
"As governors representing nearly 170 million people across every region of the country, we are standing with all people who believe in reproductive freedom and health care," the group said. "We are standing with them to say, 'enough.'"
Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement that the alliance is needed "now more than ever" as medication abortion and other forms of abortion access are threatened.
"It will be more important than ever for elected leaders to be bold and invest in health care services, patients, and abortion providers," Johnson said.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky takes part in a ceremony in Kyiv to commemorate the 105th anniversary of the Battle of Kruty against Bolshevik Red Army on Jan. 29, 2023. (photo: Ukrainian Presidential Press/AFP)
Volodymyr Zelensky came into office thinking peace with Putin was possible. He now believes victory is the only answer.
Alexander Lukashenko, one of the Kremlin’s key allies, was inviting a delegation of officials to Minsk to negotiate an end to the war that Russia had launched just three days earlier, according to Andriy Sybiha, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, who was in the room for the call.
Zelensky was incensed at the invitation to another negotiation — recalling talks over the conflict in Ukraine’s east, known as “Minsk 1” and “Minsk 2,” that took place in the Belarusian capital in 2014 and 2015 — in which Kyiv was forced to make concessions to the Kremlin under the threat of battlefield losses.
“There will be no Minsk,” Zelensky said, according to Sybiha. “There will be no Minsk 3.”
Zelensky’s refusal to entertain another Minsk negotiation — despite Russian attack helicopters, fighter jets and tanks descending on Kyiv — showed how the Ukrainian leader was hardening in the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat, a process that began many months before the invasion and accelerated as the war unfolded.
The comedian turned president refused offers to be spirited away to safety and emerged as a far fiercer foe than Moscow has expected, part of a broader transformation that has cemented his global reputation as a hard-bitten wartime leader.
“Of course, we all have changed, including the president,” said Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential office. “The ordeals that have marked his tenure — they can’t but change a person. Has he become harder? Of course, he has. Has he become stronger? From my point of view, he was always strong.”
In the past year, Zelensky has risen to global renown, fashioning himself as the brash conscience of Western democracies, as he pushes for more weapons to bolster Ukrainian forces. With the savvy of a professional entertainer, he has delivered hundreds of speeches presenting the war as a Manichaean struggle between democracy and autocracy, freedom and tyranny, fairness and injustice — and most recently, at last week’s Munich Security Conference, David and Goliath. In a distracted Western world, he has kept the Ukrainian cause alive.
All the while, Zelensky himself has changed, hardening into a more uncompromising leader strained by the exigencies of war. His positions, particularly on how to deal with Russia, have grown stauncher with every attack, mirroring a broader defiance toward Moscow that has welled up in Ukrainian society, even as millions of Ukrainians find themselves exhausted after nearly a year of total war.
Where Zelensky as a presidential candidate in 2019 held out Russia as a prospective partner with whom he could negotiate peace, he now regularly brands Russia a terrorist state that must be vanquished to save the West, completing a transformation that has made him arguably Putin’s most vocal and determined global opponent.
He derided Putin in an interview with Sky News last month. “Who is he now?” Zelensky asked. “After the full-scale invasion, for me he is nobody. Nobody.”
Zelensky’s transformation became particularly apparent in September, when he stood in front of Ukraine’s government complex in his army-green T-shirt and fleece — the same day Putin “annexed” four regions in eastern Ukraine — and closed the door to any possible discussions with the Russian leader.
Ukraine, Zelensky said, had tried through negotiations to find a peaceful coexistence with Russia “based on equal, honest, dignified and just terms.”
“It is clear that with this Russian president, that is impossible,” Zelensky declared. “He doesn’t know what honesty and dignity are. Therefore, we are ready for a dialogue with Russia — but already with a different Russian president.”
Zelensky would later moderate his position under pressure from Washington, but the thrust of his message remained clear: The Ukrainian leader had reached a point of no return with Putin.
The metamorphosis into hardened wartime leader was complete.
Gone was the boyish, turtlenecked comedian who campaigned for Ukraine’s presidency in 2019 on idealistic promises to find a way to make peace with Russia. Gone, too, was the eager young president jumping through hoops in his first year in office to land a meeting with Putin in search of elusive common ground. Gone was the wartime leader of the early weeks who sent emissaries to talks in Belarus and Turkey in the hope that reason might prevail.
Experience and tragedy had washed over him. Cynicism battled with idealism inside him. He had seen the aftermath of atrocities and grasped the hands of the loved ones of Ukraine’s dead soldiers. He coldly fired a childhood friend who had served as his intelligence chief. His style of management toughened to fit the circumstances of war. So did his positions toward both Russia and the West.
David Arakhamia, the leader of Zelensky’s faction in parliament, said the Ukrainian leader had grown more cynical due to Russia’s perfidy but also after seeing “how the international community plays games.”
“It often happens that they tell you, ‘We are for democracy’ and such and then do something with the Russians,” Arakhamia said. “I don’t want to name countries, but there are statistics. You can see who has what trade balance with them. It’s clear that is simply cynicism.”
Convinced there is no deal with Russia to be had, Zelensky now faces increasing pressure to sustain and extend Western support for a prolonged fight against Moscow that Kyiv is unable to win on its own. Both Ukraine and Russia are preparing new offensive operations ahead of a spring fighting season that could prove decisive in the trajectory of the war.
Zelensky, in the Sky News interview, warned that Ukraine was just a “first step” for Putin and that the Russian leader could “move further.”
“They don’t want any talks, and this was the case before the invasion. President Putin decided so,” Zelensky said. “He doesn’t want negotiations because he doesn’t want peace.”
The comedian and the spy
Zelensky took power in 2019 brimming with youthful sincerity about building a new European Ukraine and espousing idealism about making peace with Russia — positions that helped him defeat his more nationalist, hard-line opponent, Petro Poroshenko, with a resounding 73 percent of the vote.
As an entertainer, Zelensky had long articulated pro-European views through his skits and characters and often imbued his jokes with a skepticism of Moscow. At the same time, he primarily spoke Russian, grew up in a Russian-speaking family in the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih and enjoyed significant fame across Russia as an actor. He was seen as the candidate more pragmatic about Moscow.
In between navigating a U.S. impeachment scandal, Zelensky spent much of his first year in office trying to make progress with the Kremlin, arranging prisoner swaps, pulling forces back from the front line and working to tee up an in-person meeting with Putin mediated by Germany and France.
William B. Taylor Jr., the top official at the U.S. Embassy at the time, recalled finding Zelensky in his office in the summer of 2019 expressing curiosity about the “Steinmeier Formula,” an interpretation of the Minsk accords named after Germany’s former foreign minister that the Ukrainian president hoped might lead to a deal with the Kremlin.
“No one knows what it is,” Taylor recalled replying. “Steinmeier doesn’t know what it is.”
Zelensky, according to Taylor, grabbed his phone and pointed to a document explaining the formulation, thinking that somewhere in the details of the legalese a workable compromise with Moscow might be found.
“It’s a terrible idea,” Taylor replied, though Zelensky went on to endorse it in the coming months, trying to land a face-to-face with Putin.
When that meeting materialized in Paris in December 2019, Putin treated Zelensky as an actor who wandered accidentally onto the set of a diplomatic negotiation, at one point instructing the Ukrainian leader to turn around and smile for the cameras, when they sat down with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Still, Zelensky departed Paris hopeful.
Within weeks, Russia agreed to a broader prisoner exchange and offered Ukraine a $3 billion gas arbitration settlement as well as a new gas transit deal.
“But when it came to the details, when the exchanges started and they started to cheat, he already started to say, ‘They don’t seem to keep their word at all and most likely will lie,’” Arakhamia said. “The first changes in the relationship for him already started then.”
“I saw the man who said one thing and then did another,” Zelensky told Sky News.
As Putin and Zelensky sized up one another, views began to evolve.
“The Russians initially thought Zelensky getting elected was going to play into their hands — a Ukrainian nationalist sort of government was defeated by a Russian-speaking candidate talking about the need for peace and to talk to the Russians,” said Henry E. Hale, a political science professor at George Washington University and co-author of “The Zelensky Effect.” “Soon, it became clear to the Kremlin that he wasn’t going to hand over the farm, that in fact he was just as European-oriented as the other side had been in Ukraine. Therefore, their only action was going to have to be military, if they were going to have hopes of reintegrating Ukraine into Russia’s orbit.”
During a year of negotiations following the Paris meeting, the Ukrainians came to understand that Russia “didn’t sincerely want to end the war,” Yermak said. “The process had reached a dead end.”
By early 2021, Zelensky believed that negotiations wouldn’t work and that Ukraine would need to retake the Donetsk and Luhansk regions “either through a political or military path,” Arakhamia said.
The Kremlin disengaged.
“Zelensky came to realize what Russian intentions were about, at least Kremlin intentions,” Hale said. “And the Kremlin came to realize what he was about.”
Russia built up forces on Ukraine’s border in the spring of 2021 and rebuffed Kyiv’s calls for talks.
“What’s the use of meeting with Zelensky if he has handed over his country to complete outside management?” Putin said in June 2021. “Key questions in Ukrainian life are being solved not in Kyiv but in Washington and partially in Berlin and in Paris. What’s there to talk about?”
Soon after, Putin published a treatise saying that sovereignty for Ukraine was possible only “in partnership with Russia” and warning that he would not allow Moscow’s “historical territories and people close to us living there to be used against Russia.”
By then, Ukrainian authorities had placed Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician who was friends with Putin, under house arrest. U.S. intelligence later in the year began to warn that Russia was preparing for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“When they realized they couldn’t steamroll us, they went to the extreme and made this historically tragic mistake for everyone, including for Russia, and attacked us,” Yermak said.
The day before, Zelensky again tried to talk to Putin.
“Today I initiated a phone call with the president of the Russian Federation,” Zelensky said in a direct address to the Russian people he gave on the eve of the war. “The result was silence.”
Toughened by tragedy
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, watched as Zelensky morphed from a peacetime president into a wartime leader almost overnight. “He led. He gave orders. He kept people in their places because some felt panicked. And he did all of this by his own example,” Kuleba said.
“He became more resolute in making decisions. … He became more uncompromising on the behavior of people,” Kuleba added.
Arakhamia, the head of Zelensky’s parliamentary faction, said the Ukrainian leader became “10 times tougher compared to when he took office in 2019,” understanding that mistakes — though perhaps understandable in peacetime — were no longer acceptable and would cost Ukrainian lives.
Zelensky remained adamant that Ukraine would not enter another Minsk-type negotiation with Russia, but emissaries from the Ukrainian government still held talks with the Russians in Belarus and Turkey throughout March, until the discovery of Russian atrocities in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. When Zelensky visited Bucha on April 4, he looked visibly stricken, telling reporters it was “very difficult to talk when you see what they have done here.”
Arakhamia said he called the leader of the Russian negotiating team and explained that Ukraine could no longer participate in any negotiations. “How can I fly in and sit down at a table and speak to them?” Arakhamia said. “I simply don’t understand.”
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, recalled having dinner with Zelensky the following evening in Kyiv’s equivalent of the White House Situation Room. Danilov said he and a group of 10 other top advisers had a frank conversation with Zelensky about the prospect of negotiations with Russia and the likelihood that “even if you agree with them on something, they will definitely break their word.”
As he ate, Zelensky listened to everyone carefully, Danilov said.
“I think he made a decision for himself that it is extremely dangerous to negotiate with the Russians,” Danilov said. “Moreover, it is absolutely not in favor of our country, despite the difficult situation, despite the fact that we are suffering losses.”
On the eve of Russia’s orchestrated “annexations” of four regions in eastern Ukraine, Zelensky again met with his top advisers to decide on a response. Sybiha, the deputy head of the presidential office, said the team made the decision to rule out any negotiations with Putin, “noting everyone was unanimous in their opinion.”
Zelensky’s interactions with other leaders and staff are now squarely focused on how to achieve victory on the battlefield, not how to reach an agreement with Moscow.
“The challenge of any country at war is you want complete vanquishment of the enemy, but in reality, it is probably going to be something short of that. The question is what,” Hale said. “My sense is that he has to just fight for everything that he can right now and cross the bridge of how to settle and when to settle when it comes.”
Kuleba, the foreign minister, said Zelensky’s team believes only in victory.
“He is leading the country to the victory that he personally, sincerely believes in — and it’s take it or leave it. It’s true. There is nothing in between for him,” Kuleba said. “And this is also how I feel, because if we imply there is something in between, we are not going to win.”
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Abortion rights supporters hold signs of U.S. Supreme Court Justices as they participate in a rally and march on May 14, 2022 in New York City. (photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
ALSO SEE: At Least 10 Palestinians Killed During Israeli Raid in West Bank
Anti-boycott law provides model for legislation to protect oil companies, gun makers and contentious industries from protest
The supreme court declined to hear an appeal from the editor of the Arkansas Times, Alan Leveritt, after a federal court upheld a law requiring him to sign a commitment not to boycott Israel in order to receive advertising contracts from the state.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) asked the supreme court to overturn the Arkansas law on the grounds it is in conflict with the court’s own ruling 40 years ago that popular boycotts have a long tradition in American history and are protected speech under the first amendment.
The law is one of more than 30 passed by states in recent years, backed by both Republicans and Democrats, that require individuals or companies to pledge not to boycott Israel or its settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories in order to do business with the state.
The laws, pushed by groups such as American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) and the American Jewish Committee with the backing of the Israeli government, are primarily aimed at the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. But they have also provided the template for legislation to curb boycotts of companies over the climate crisis, gun control, factory farming and others issues.
Leveritt said he had no intention of boycotting Israel, with which his newspaper does no business, but he refused to sign the commitment because it “requires the Arkansas Times to take a political position in return for advertising”.
The editor said he was disappointed that the supreme court declined to take the case but it will not change his position.
“We’re not going to sign any political pledges in return for advertising. The supreme court can ignore our our first amendment rights but we’ll continue to exercise them vigorously,” he said.
Although a federal court upheld the Arkansas legislation, courts in other jurisdictions have ruled against similar laws and forced some states to weaken their provisions.
Kansas revised its law in 2018 in the face of a lawsuit by a Wichita teacher told to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel in order to keep her job. Texas narrowed its law to exclude individuals, and to apply only to larger companies, after a school speech pathologist sued when she lost her contract for refusing to sign a similar commitment. The ACLU and other groups also won judgements in Arizona and Georgia that anti-boycott laws intruded on free speech rights.
Leveritt warned that letting the Arkansas law stand will lead to further supression of legitimate political protest against corporate interests.
“This is simply a template. It doesn’t stop here. We now have in the Arkansas legislature bills introduced to deny state contracts to financial and banking institutions that have ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) policies that prohibit them from investing in fossil fuels or firearms companies,” he said.
“In other states they’ve introduced laws to deny state contracts to any company that subsidises their employees transportation costs if they go out of state for an abortion. So this is just going to be used time after time after time, eventually, the supreme court is going to have to deal with it, or else it’s going to be open season on the first amendment.”
Several states have passed the the Energy Discrimination Elimination Act to shield big oil from share selloffs and other measures to protest against the fossil fuel industry’s role in the climate crisis. Other legislation is designed to prevent banks from “denying financing to creditworthy companies solely for the purpose of marketing their environmental or social justice credentials”.
The ACLU’s chief litigator in the case, Brian Hauss, described the supreme court’s decision not to take up the case as a “missed opportunity” to clarify the law.
“From the Boston tea party to the Montgomery bus boycott to the boycott of apartheid South Africa, Americans have proudly exercised that right to make their voices heard. But if states can suppress boycotts of Israel, then they can suppress boycotts of the National Rifle Association or Planned Parenthood. While we are disappointed with the result in this case, the ACLU will continue to defend the right to boycott in courts and legislatures throughout the country,” he said.
Hauss said that given the conflicting rulings from different jurisdictions over the legality of the anti-boycott legislation, he believes the supreme court will have to confront the issue eventually.
“Sooner or later they are going to have to address this because already the anti-boycott statutes are proliferating, and I’m sure that is going to continue over the next several years,” he said.
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Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan speaks during a news conference in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 21. (photo: Matt Freed/AP)
Crews are still working to respond to the freight disaster in East Palestine as community members worry about possible adverse health effects from the toxic materials released when dozens of cars derailed after a likely mechanical failure.
Under the legally binding order, Norfolk Southern must identify and clean up contaminated soil and water resources, pay for the costs of work performed by the EPA and reimburse the agency for additional cleaning services offered to residents and businesses.
The agency's move comes as the emergency response effort has now morphed into an environmental cleanup that is the responsibility of the railroad, EPA Administrator Michael Regan said during a Tuesday press conference.
"Norfolk Southern will pay for cleaning up the mess that they created and the trauma that they inflicted," Regan said. "In no way, shape or form will Norfolk Southern get off the hook for the mess that they created."
The company will also have to attend and participate in public meetings requested by the EPA, he said.
If Norfolk Southern fails to act, Regan said, the EPA can do the work itself and recoup triple the cost of any remediation efforts.
In statement to NPR on Tuesday, Norfolk Southern said it has already been paying for the cleanup in East Palestine and will continue to do so.
"We recognize that we have a responsibility, and we have committed to doing what's right for the residents of East Palestine," the railroad said. "We are committed to thoroughly and safely cleaning the site, and we are reimbursing residents for the disruption this has caused in their lives."
The company has committed more than $6 million to date in East Palestine, it said, including $3.8 million in direct financial assistance to families impacted by the accident.
Norfolk Southern also vowed to work with regulators and elected officials to improve railroad safety in light of the crash.
In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, CEO Alan Shaw responded to criticism from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, saying the company invests more than $1 billion a year in "science-based" safety solutions, including maintaining tracks, equipment and technology.
"It's pretty clear that our safety culture and our investments in safety didn't prevent this accident," Shaw said. "We need to take a look at this and see what we can do differently and what we can do better."
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro praised the EPA for taking charge of the cleanup from the crash, which took place less than a mile from the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.
"It is my view that Norfolk Southern wasn't going to do this out of the goodness of their own heart. There's not a lot of goodness in there," Shapiro said. "They needed to be compelled to act."
Hazardous chemicals were in 11 derailed train cars
On Feb. 3, about three dozen Norfolk Southern freight cars derailed near East Palestine, a town of roughly 4,800. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board have indicated that the derailment was likely caused by a wheel bearing failure; a preliminary report is expected next week.
Shaw declined to comment in the CNBC interview on potential causes, citing the investigation. He also said Norfolk Southern is fully cooperating with the NTSB and the Federal Railroad Administration to determine the cause.
Eleven of the derailed cars were carrying hazardous chemicals such as butyl acrylate and vinyl chloride, which is used to make the hard plastic resin PVC.
Authorities responding to the crash grew concerned that cars carrying vinyl chloride were at risk of a catastrophic explosion. Officials ultimately evacuated the area to conduct a "controlled explosion" instead, sending a black plume of smoke into the sky above the small town.
The evacuation order was lifted on Feb. 8. Since then, some residents in the area have complained of health problems, such as headaches and nausea, and many have expressed concerns over possible contamination of the air and water supply.
The EPA says East Palestine's air quality and municipal water supply quality is normal
The derailment caused the release of hazardous chemicals into the air and surface water. But more recent air monitoring and water sample tests have shown no concerns with air quality or water quality in East Palestine's municipal water supply, the EPA said Monday. The agency added that it would publish more detailed data "as it becomes available."
Ohio state officials have opened a health clinic in East Palestine for residents who believe they may have health issues as a result of the derailment, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said.
"This is really in response to the concerns that we have heard, that people want to be able to go someplace and get some answers about any kind of medical problems that they believe that they are, in fact, having," he said.
DeWine added that the remediation effort near the crash site was ongoing. About 4,600 cubic yards of soil and 1.1 million gallons contaminated water have been removed so far.
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Migrants at the border. (photo: Getty Images)
US President Joe Biden's administration has unveiled a plan that would make it harder for migrants to claim asylum once Covid border controls lift in May.
Failure to comply would make migrants ineligible if they subsequently reach the border.
Human rights groups likened the plan to Trump-era policies.
The proposed measure is the toughest yet introduced by Mr Biden, who came into office promising a more humane approach to the border crisis.
The proposed rule would apply to adults and families but not to unaccompanied children.
Under the plan, migrants would have to use a phone app to make an appointment to speak with a US immigration official when they arrive at the border.
Those who failed to make the appointment would be presumed to have been found ineligible for asylum in the other countries they passed through.
The proposal - issued jointly by the US Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice - allows for those undocumented migrants to be swiftly deported.
If approved, it would be enacted on 11 May, when Title 42 - a Trump-era health emergency provision allowing migrants to be expelled back to Mexico - is due to expire.
The Biden policy would remain in place for two years with the option of extending it.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said it would sue to block the rule from ever taking effect.
The organisation compared the plan to actions previously taken by former President Donald Trump that were ruled unconstitutional in the courts.
Oxfam America said: "This sweeping asylum ban will shut the door to countless refugees seeking safety and protection in the United States."
But an unnamed Biden administration official told AFP news agency: "This administration will not allow mass chaos and disorder at the border because of Congress's failure to act."
The public has 30 days to comment on the draft proposal.
About 200,000 undocumented migrants attempt to enter the US each month, recent government records show.
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Snow in northern Minnesota on 15 December 2022. As much as 25in of snow may pile up in parts of the state in the coming days. (photo: Holden Law/AP)
Storm system expected to affect about 43 million people, first in the northern US plains and then on the east coast later this week
Schools throughout the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin were called off for Wednesday. Offices closed and so did the Minnesota legislature. Emergency management leaders warned people to stay off the roads or face potential “whiteout” conditions.
The storm will make its way toward the east coast later in the week. Places that do not get snow may get dangerous ice. Forecasters expect up to a half-inch of ice in areas of southern Michigan, northern Illinois and some eastern states.
The snowfall could be historic. As much as 25in may pile up, with the heaviest amounts falling across east-central Minnesota and west-central Wisconsin, the National Weather Service (NWS) said. Wind gusts could reach 50mph and wind chills are expected to hit -50F (-46C) in some parts of the Dakotas and Minnesota.
The Minneapolis-St Paul area could see 2ft of snow or more for the first time in over 30 years.
The weather service said the blizzard would involve two rounds. For the Minneapolis-St Paul area, the first blast arrives on Wednesday afternoon with up to 7in of snow. Round two extending into Thursday is the real whopper, “with an additional 10 to 20in expected”.
An NWS meteorologist, Frank Pereira, said the system was expected to affect about 43 million people.
Temperatures could plunge to -15F to -20F (-26C to -29C) on Thursday and to -25F (-32C) on Friday in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Wind chills may fall to -50F (-46C), said Nathan Rick, a meteorologist in Grand Forks.
Wind gusts of 35mph will be common in western and central Minnesota, with some reaching 50mph. That will result in “significant blowing and drifting snow with whiteout conditions in open areas”, the NWS said.
According to the NWS, the biggest snow event on record in the Twin Cities was 28.4in from 31 October to 3 November 1991 – known as the Halloween Blizzard.
“They’re not going to get them in time for this snow,” VandenBos said.
Forecasters at AccuWeather said the same storm system could result in icing across a 1,300-mile band from near Omaha, Nebraska, to New Hampshire on Wednesday and Thursday, creating potential travel hazards in or near cities such as Milwaukee, Detroit, Chicago and Boston.
At the same time, record warmth is expected in the mid-Atlantic and south-east – 30F to 40F above normal in some places. Record highs are expected from Baltimore to New Orleans and in much of Florida, Pereira said.
Washington DC could hit 80F on Thursday, which would top the record of 78F set in 1874.
California was also preparing for a winter storm. A “major snow event” was possible in foothills and mountains near Los Angeles, with several inches predicted even for elevations as low as 1,000ft, the NWS said.
“Nearly the entire population of California will be able to see snow from some vantage point later this week,” a UCLA climate scientist, Daniel Swain, wrote on Twitter.
Daytime temperatures in southern California were unlikely to get out of the low to mid-50sF and potentially damaging winds reaching 50mph were predicted along the central coast, with gusts of 70mph possible in mountains.
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