📌 Putin’s Peace Plan, Airline Turbulence.

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed today that Ukraine be put under external governance led by the United Nations.

Putin reaffirmed his claim that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose term expired last year, lacks the legitimacy to sign a peace deal. Under Ukraine’s constitution, it is illegal to hold national elections while it is under martial law.

Putin claimed that any agreement signed with the Ukrainian government could be challenged by its successors and said new elections could be held under external governance.

Putin’s remarks came hours after the conclusion of a summit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron that considered plans to deploy troops to Ukraine to cement an eventual peace deal. Macron said “several” other nations want to be part of the force alongside France and Britain.

Russia launched 163 strike and decoy drones at Ukraine late Thursday, according to the Ukrainian Air Force, which said that 89 of them were downed and 51 more jammed.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that Ukrainian forces struck a gas metering station in Sudzha in the Kursk region with US-made HIMARS rockets, destroying the facility. It said another Ukrainian strike on an energy facility in Russia’s Bryansk region led to a power cutoff.

US airlines’ talk of a new golden age has taken a backseat to President Trump's tariffs and government spending cutbacks.

Tourists and companies have reduced spending amid rising economic uncertainty, forcing carriers to cut their first-quarter profit forecasts.

With travel a discretionary item for many consumers and businesses, the prospects for weak economic growth and high inflation have also clouded the outlook for the remainder of the year.

With demand slowing, airlines started culling flights to avoid lowering fares and to protect margins. Frontier, Delta, United, American Airlines, JetBlue and Allegiant all trimmed their April-June quarter capacity in the past two weeks. "There's going to be some type of slowdown," Frontier CEO Barry Biffle said.

Airlines are still backing their full-year earnings estimates. But that could change if demand remains weak during summer, usually the industry's most profitable season. Biffle said much depends on the labor market. "As long as the employment is good, the leisure customer will be fine," he said.

Colorado politicians are cracking down on rent algorithms that drive up housing prices.

A bill passed the Colorado House on Wednesday with a 43–22 vote. Lawmakers say it restricts the sale or distribution of an algorithmic device intended for use by two or more landlords in the same or related market when setting a rent price.

Colorado House Democrats cited a December 2024 report from former President Biden’s White House that said coordinated rents from algorithmic pricing increased Denver rent prices by about $136 per month.

Opposers argue the bill may be anti-landlord. ”Rent is supposed to be a function of the marketplace, and so a renter can go to a place and get one set of rents and then, in theory, go to another place and get an entirely different rent structure,” said MSU-Denver Affordable Housing Institute director Andy Proctor.

Bill sponsor Rep. Javier Mabrey, D-Denver, commented: ”What this bill does is it clarifies that if you are colluding with a competitor to set your prices using an algorithm, that is against the law.”

Virginia is set to become the first state to require reckless drivers to install devices on their cars to limit their speed.

Under the Virginia legislation, a judge can order drivers to install speed limiters instead of revoking their driving privileges or sending them to jail. It takes effect in July 2026. D.C. passed similar legislation last year. Several other states, including Maryland, are considering joining them.

Drivers must pay for the speed limiters themselves. However, low-income defendants are exempt from paying. Attempting to evade the speed limiter by tampering with it or driving a different car is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail. The limiters won’t be used in Virginia on commercial vehicles.

Ian Reagan, a researcher at the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, tried out an after-market speed limiter last summer, the kind Virginia will require for reckless drivers. He thought he would be stressed by drivers tailgating or passing him quickly, common experiences on his Annapolis-to-Arlington commute.

But, he said, ”once I shifted my mindset … I found it to be sort of relaxing compared to the way I drove previously.” The device caught changes in speed limits between jurisdictions before he did, something he said could help people avoid traffic camera tickets.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is slashing 20,000 jobs across the Department of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy said the HHS's sweeping overhaul is intended to improve efficiency and save money. The cuts represent about 24% of the HHS workforce. The HHS's 28 divisions will be reduced to 15, while five of the department's 10 regional offices will close.

Kennedy called the HHS a ”sprawling bureaucracy” and claimed the cuts would target excess administration. ”I want to promise you now that we are going to do more with less,” he said. Kennedy and HHS said the cuts will save $1.8 billion each year.

The downsizing includes significant cuts to the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health. Along with the cuts, Kennedy announced the creation of a new division: the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA).

”We aren't just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy said.

International experts argue banning smartphone and social media access for children stunts their healthy use of technology.

They say the focus should shift to a rights-based approach, underpinned by age-appropriate design and education, that protects children from harm while developing skills to help them participate in a digital society.

Bans on smartphone and social media access have been advocated in many countries to protect children from harm despite a lack of evidence on their effects, say experts.

A recent evaluation of school smartphone policies in England reported that restricted smartphone use in schools was not associated with benefits to adolescent mental health and well-being, physical activity and sleep, educational attainment, or classroom behavior.

The study found no evidence of school restrictions being associated with lower overall phone or media use or problematic social media use.

Blanket restrictions are ”stop-gap solutions that do little to support children's longer-term healthy engagement with digital spaces across school, home, and other contexts, and their successful transition into adolescence and adulthood in a technology-filled world,” the report says.

A German woman in her 60s who gave birth to her 10th child says she’s unfazed by people who question her late-age pregnancies.

Alexandra Hildebrandt, 66, gave birth to her son, Philipp, via cesarean section at Charité Hospital in Berlin on March 19. He weighed a healthy seven pounds and 13 ounces but remains on oxygen for respiratory treatment.

Hildebrandt said he was conceived naturally and without difficulty. Philipps’s eldest sibling, Svetlana, is 46 years his senior. She and Artjom, 36, are from a previous relationship.

Hildebrandt is a human rights advocate, artist and director of the Berlin Wall Museum at Checkpoint Charlie. Hildebrandt has had eight children since her 53rd birthday and says having a big family benefits all her offspring.

Wolfgang Henrich, the director of the department of obstetrics at the Charite Hospital, said Hildebrant’s strong physical health and mental fortitude enabled her to handle the pregnancy well and confirmed that her delivery went smoothly.

Hildebrant and her husband recently purchased a home in Berlin, where they plan to provide the eight children in their care with their own bedrooms. Renovations are currently underway, she said.