The Russia-Ukraine war has exacerbated over the past year and a half since when the war first started on February 2022. Almost 9000 people have died and over 15000 are injured. Although the war has been consistently getting worse, recently, Russia launched the largest drone attack since the beginning of the war. Russia launched this drone attack on Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. These drone strikes were a part of Russia’s broader campaign of shelling and artillery attacks against targets in 12 regions across Ukraine. Russia deployed 54 drones against infrastructure and military objects in Ukraine but Ukraine shot down 52 of them. These drones came in several waves, making it quite challenging to attempt to shoot all of them down. Of those shot down, lots of debris came down and caused damage in several parts of Kyiv. Many emergency workers had to rush to combat blazes at high-rise apartment blocks struck by falling drones and debris. Russia plans to continue to launch many drone attacks to damage Ukraine infrastructure and military.

To battle this, Kyiv has been pushing its Western allies for extra weapon supplies to help combat Russia’s campaigns. Kyiv desires F-16 jet fighter planes the most as they could then go “toe-toe” with Russia’s air attacks. A public policy approach to these conflicts is that international allies could support Ukraine by providing them the supplies they desire and need. Other countries could also provide Ukraine with medical support to alleviate the amount of people dying and being injured.

Throughout history there has been a lot of conflict between Israel and Syria. This originates from their hostile conditions of Syria never recognizing Israel as a legitimate state and does not accept Israeli passports as legally valid for entry into Syrian territory. Likewise, Israel regards Syria as a hostile state and generally prohibits its citizens from traveling there. More recently though, these conflicts have been escalated. In the past year alone, Israel has attacked Syria nearly 20 times and have killed at least 44 people and left more than 50 wounded. Israel is targeting positions not just belonging to the Syrian government but Iranian forces as well. In this month of April, 2023, there has been 4 attacks.

April 2, 2023- Israel launched air raids that left 5 wounded in the Homs province in Syria. However, Syrian air defenses intercepted some of the missiles.

April 4, 2023- Israel launches another air raid but on the capital Damascus that results in two killed civilians. There were many damages to the area as well.

April 8, 2023- More attacks with blasts heard from Masyaf city in Syria’s western Hama province. This attack was in the purpose of targeting an Iranian presence in this city.

April 9, 2023- This attack has a different side with Israel acting in response to Syria fired six rockets towards northern Israel. Although there were no casualties or damage caused, Israel military retaliated with artillery fire and fighter jets attacking Syrian army sites.

In response to these conflicts, some public policy responses could be used to approach. For example, to aid either Syria from these Israeli attacks, other countries could provide foreign aid and support. This could go directly into supporting Syria and help prevent any further deaths. However, there are many complications with this approach. First, a major global alliance known as NATO does not have Syria as a member, but they have Israel. This indicates that these many countries apart of NATO cannot help Syria as Israel is a part of their alliance.

Overall, these conflicts in Israel and Syria have been long term but have escalated recently with Israel launching numerous attacks. Public policy approaches could be helpful towards supporting Syria, but it is hard to tell on what is the best possible action.

Recently, a judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of Texas said that the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) made a series of legal errors in approving the abortion pill, mifepristone, for sale. He has delayed the impact of his decision for a week while President Biden’s administration appeals. However, if this ruling goes into effect, it could block sales across the country of the abortion pill. This pill is the most common method for ending a pregnancy as due to the overturned Roe vs Wade case last year, the Supreme Court withdrew constitutional protections for an abortion. With the overturning of this case, clinics have stopped offering abortion in about a third of all of the states. Access to abortion medication has become extremely challenging. Some states have banned the prescription of abortion pills and have imposed many other restrictions. Even with this already tight control on abortion, this new ruling that started from Kacsmaryk will lead to a national suspension of abortion-pill sales. This would impact states where the procedure has remained widely available since the overturned Roe vs Wade such as New York, California and Colorado the most by tightening the access to abortion intensely. Overall, this possible ruling will further the complications in todays day and age of accessing an abortion. There is already intense control through the overturned Roe vs Wade, but more can possibly come. This case will be handled by the Supreme Court leaving the future to be unpredicted.

To think that all Cold War spying efforts were over is something that President Vladmir Putin of Russia could never believe. Evan Gershkovich, a 31 year old American journalist and reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was recently arrested on March 29, 2023 by the FSB (Russian successor to the Soviet KGB) on a charge of espionage, the practice of spying, with no real evidence. Espionage is a serious crime and in Russia can lead to an imprisonment of up to 20 years. Gershkovich becomes the first American journalist to be arrested on this charge since the Cold War.

Gershkovich moved to Moscow in October 2017 and for the past almost 6 years, he has been living peacefully working for various news outlets and in January 2022, he started working for the Wall Street Journal. He was arrested while on his reporting trip to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, he was simply just doing his job. He is currently being held in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison with little to none access to the outside world. This arrest represents an assault on freedom of press.

Due to this false charged arrest, the United States Senate’s Democratic and Republican leaders called for Russia to free Gershkovich. President Joe Biden and other senior officials in the administration have also been heavily pushing and calling for Gershkovich’s release.

In further response to this, there are some policy-based approaches that could be made. For example, the United States could use diplomatic pressure or international legal action. For diplomatic pressure, the US could include public statements, private meetings, and other forms of communication to pressure the Russian government. For the international legal action, the US government could work with other international organizations such as the United Nations to bring legal action to the Russian government for violating international laws related to freedom of the press and human rights.

Overall, this false charged arrest of Evan Gershkovich is a big topic in current events through him being falsely charged with espionage and the representation of the assault on the freedom of press. Although there are some policy responses being made currently with President Biden calling Russia for his release, there are some others that could be taken into account that could be helpful as well.

Former President Donald Trump was charged in an indictment with 34 felony counts of falsification of business records in the first degree on March 30, 2023. Trump became the first president ever to be indicted on criminal charges. He pleads not guilty to all these accusations. These charges are the culmination of an investigation of many “hush money” payments that Trump paid before the 2016 election to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to cover up an alleged affair. He wrote these “hush money” payments as business expenses, falsifying the money books. Overall, Trump is facing severe accusations based on previous actions and it is still to be determined on whether he will be convicted of his crimes.