The United States and Russia are squaring off at the UN Security Council over Ukraine. While Washington called Moscow’s actions a threat to international peace and security, a Kremlin envoy ridiculed today’s meeting as a “PR stunt.”

The session kicks off more high-level diplomacy this week, although talks between the U.S. and Russia have so far failed to ease tensions in the crisis. Russia has massed an estimated 100,00 troops near Ukraine’s borders, stoking fears in the west of an invasion.

Russia denies it intends to launch an attack but demanded that NATO promises to never allow Ukraine to join the alliance, halt the deployment of NATO weapons near Russian borders, and roll back its forces from Eastern Europe. NATO and the U.S. call those demands impossible.

Stocks are mixed today as wall street heads for its worst month since the early days of the pandemic, weighed by worries that imminent hikes in interest rates will make everything in markets more challenging.

The S&P 500 is down 7.5% and is on track for a loss of 7% this month. That would be its worst since falling 12.5% in March 2020, after the pandemic suddenly shut down the global economy.

Evidence about Minneapolis police department policies and training is expected to be the focus today as testimony resumes for a second week in the federal trial of three former Minneapolis police officers charged with violating George Floyd’s civil rights.

Federal prosecutors say former officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao didn’t follow their training when they failed to act to save Floyd’s life on May 25, 2020.

Scout Mason can be reached at maso7275@stthomas.edu.