A drone struck a Turkish-flagged tanker and set it ablaze on Monday in southern Ukraine’s Odesa region, officials said, a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a deal to import U.S. liquefied natural gas through the area. The MT Orinda was hit during the offloading of liquefied petroleum gas at Izmail port, Turkey’s Directorate for Maritime Affairs said. All 16 crew on board evacuated and no one was hurt, it said.

Border regions of Romania have repeatedly recorded the wreckage of drones, believed to have been launched by Russia towards Ukraine. A drone struck a Turkish-flagged tanker and set it on fire in southern Ukraine’s Odesa region on Monday, officials said, a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a deal to import US liquefied natural gas through the area. The MT Orinda was hit during the offloading of liquefied petroleum gas at Izmail port, Turkey’s Directorate for Maritime Affairs said. All 16 crew on board evacuated and no one was hurt, it said. Russia has used drones, missiles and artillery to repeatedly batter the Odesa region, especially its Black Sea ports, since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas is calling a federal judge’s order a “win for religious freedom” after Judge Orlando L. Garcia issued a preliminary injunction requiring certain Texas public school districts to remove displays of the Ten Commandments. The order comes in response to a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a state law that requires public schools in Texas to post the Ten Commandments — a move that has sparked ongoing legal battles. It is the latest victory in a series of legal challenges to laws requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments. Arkansas and Louisiana have similar laws, and court challenges to those measures have also resulted in favorable rulings. Legal experts have said it’s likely the cases will eventually reach the US Supreme Court.

A federal judge ruled that a Texas law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom in the state is unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Orlando L. Garcia found that Senate Bill 10 violates the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which prevents the government from establishing or favoring a religion. "I am relieved that as a result of today's ruling, my children, who are among a small number of Jewish children at their schools, will no longer be continually subjected to religious displays," plaintiff Lenee Bien-Willner said in a statement. "The government has no business interfering with parental decisions about matters of faith."

We media types obsess about America's problems. But we should acknowledge that today, life in America is better than life has been anywhere, ever. For most of history, the norm was hunger, disease, illiteracy, slavery, and war. There were a few exceptions (from some of those problems) -- so-called golden ages, Ancient Athens, Rome, the Renaissance, etc.

Former US treasury secretary Larry Summers is stepping down from the board at OpenAI, a week after a tranche of emails between him and late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was released. Summers said in a statement to the BBC that he was "grateful for the opportunity to have served, excited about the potential of the company, and look forward to following their progress". Summers, who was also once the president of Harvard University, said on Monday that he would be stepping back from public commitments over his ties to Epstein.

Three hundred days into U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, how is the world faring? According to the president and his supporters, the answer is clear: never better — at least as far as the U.S. is concerned. This isn’t a judgement I personally share, but let’s take a closer look at the case that Trump and his defenders are making for the success of his foreign policy to date — and whether it tells the whole story.

The Department of Education announced it will offload billions of dollars in grant programs to other federal agencies, moving the Trump administration closer to its goal of shuttering the department. Officials said Tuesday that they had signed agreements empowering the Labor Department to administer most K-12 and higher education grants and the State Department to oversee foreign language education programs. The Interior Department will operate education programs for American Indians. The Department of Health and Human Services will oversee child care grants for college students and accreditation for foreign medical schools.