🔹Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and legislative leaders announced Thursday they plan to lift the state’s gas tax for 30 days to blunt fuel prices that have surged past $4 per gallon.

Hogan (R) and the Democratic-controlled General Assembly’s presiding officers said they will work to quickly suspend Maryland’s gas tax, which is roughly 37 cents per gallon. It is also tied to inflation and is set to rise this summer.

Democratic leaders said they would back a month-long reprieve and work with Hogan to get it quickly approved and implemented. A spokesman for Hogan said he has agreed to the deal.

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🇺🇸🇺🇦 Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) calls for pumping Ukraine with even more weapons 🤦‍♂️

"Send these MiGs...Enough talk. People are dying. Send them the planes that they need. They say they need MiGs...They want MiGs. Get them the MiGs."

Twitter users are calling him a warmonger

📲 U.S. authorities have broadly expanded the use of a smartphone app during the coronavirus pandemic to ensure immigrants released from detention will attend deportation hearings, a requirement that advocates say violates their privacy and makes them feel they’re not free.

More than 125,000 people — many of them stopped at the U.S.-Mexico border — are now compelled to install the app known as SmartLink on their phones, up from around 5,000 less than three years ago.

It allows officials to easily check on them by requiring the immigrants to send a selfie or make or receive a phone call when asked.

⚡️⚡️JUST IN: Actor Jussie Smollet has been sentenced to 150 days in the Cook County Jail, 30 months felony probation and $120,000 restitution to the city of Chicago for staging a hate crime attack against himself in order to boost his profile

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Smollett, who apparently lost it after the sentence was announced, shouted, “I am not suicidal, I am innocent! If anything happens to me in there I did not do it.”

📝US colleges cut partnerships, financial ties with Russia

Colleges across the U.S. are pulling students from study abroad programs in Russia, ending research partnerships, and cutting financial ties as part of a global wave of sanctions.

Last academic year, U.S. colleges hosted nearly 5,000 students from Russia, less than 1% of all international students. Advocates for international education say losing those students would forgo a chance to "expose them to western ideals."

Some in Congress have pushed for visa restrictions against Russian students.

What do you think of this discrimination?

⚡️🇺🇦 The World health Organization (WHO) told Ukraine to destroy "high-threat pathogens" in its public health laboratories to prevent potential spills, Reuters reports

The WHO has not specified the pathogens and has not clarified whether Ukraine had fulfilled the recommendation.

🇷🇺🇨🇦 The allegations by the Canadian government that Russia is behind an attack on a hospital ward in the city of Mariupol is based on a fabrication permeated by Kiev, the Russian Embassy in Ottawa says

❗️The Russian Embassy condemned the story saying it was staged and noted that Canadian media has not made an attempt to independently verify the veracity of Kiev’s claims.

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Ukrainian opposition lawmaker Ilya Kiva, who fled the country, also said he was confident that the story regarding the attack on the Mariupol maternity hospital was a false-flag.

"Ukraine is filled with lies and deception. The history of the tragedy in the hospital of Mariupol - another staging and fake," Kiva said on Telegram.

Mariupol is the site of an intense battle where surrounded Ukrainian troops and neo-Nazi and other extremist battalions have dug in against advancing Russian and allied troops from the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics. The latter have said are intending to end eight years of bloodshed in the area initiated by Ukrainian troops and assorted extremists.

🇺🇸🚘 A reporter is pressing White House press secretary Jen Psaki on whether Joe Biden owns an electric vehicle himself, as the US president has been actively pushing a green agenda

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❗️🇪🇺🇺🇦 Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said that leaders of the EU nations had given a green light to the European integration of Ukraine during the summit in Versailles

📲 Google Cloud to stop accepting new customers in Russia

The announcement is the latest action from Google and other tech companies who have sought to "punish" Moscow. Google Cloud’s action follows similar suspensions from other top cloud providers, including Microsoft and Amazon. 

Amazon on Tuesday said it would no longer be accepting new Amazon Web Services customers in Russia. Microsoft last week said it would suspend all sales of Microsoft products and services in Russia. 

The Silicon Valley giant also said last week it had suspended all advertising in the country. 

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😱🛢The world would need between five to ten years to match the millions of barrels of oil that Russia produces each day, former Texas industry regulator Ryan Sitton told Sputnik

"How long before the rest of the world can make the ten million barrels of oil that Russia produces? The answer is it is so far off it can't be done," Sitton says.

Read the full interview here and subscribe to @sputniknewsus !

⚡️🇺🇸🇷🇺 Joe Biden to propose on Friday to end normal trade relations with Russia, increase tariffs on Russian imports - reports

⚡️🇺🇸 The US Senate has approved the $1.5 trillion budget package that includes $13.6 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine (bipartisan vote, 68-31)

The bill now heads to Biden’s desk for his signature

❗️🇷🇺🇺🇸The Russian embassy in the United States has demanded that Washington hold Meta to account over extremist activities, after the company allowed calls for violence against Russians.

❗️🇺🇸🇺🇦More than 40 GOP lawmakers are demanding that Joe Biden aid “the transfer of aircraft and air defense systems” to Ukraine, after Washington snubbed Warsaw's MiG-29 jets offer

Are they really for "peace"?

❗️🇨🇳 Based on the principles of mutual respect and mutual benefit, China will "develop cooperation relations with all parties and ensure more stability in the world," Chinese Premier Li Keqiang says

❗️The anti-Russian sanctions will have a negative impact on the recovery of the global economy after the COVID-19 pandemic and will inflict damage on all the countries,Chinese Premier Li says

❗️ US President Biden will announce new measures against Russia on Friday in response to the operation in Ukraine, the White House said.

"At 10:15 a.m. EST (15:15 GMT), the president will announce actions to further hold Russia accountable", Biden's schedule for Friday reads

⚡️ Ukrainian forces fire 40 Grad rockets at Gorlovka in Donbass, DPR says