‼️ Texas judge temporarily blocks state effort to investigate parents of transgender children

🙏 Emilio Delgado passed away in his Manhattan residence on Thursday due to multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer, which he had been battling since December 2020, his wife, Carole Delgado, told The New York Times.

“We are saddened by the news of Emilio’s passing. Emilio was an immense talent who brought so much joy and smiles to his fans," Robert Attermann, CEO of A3 Artists Agency, said in a statement to Changing America.

Delgado was a trailblazing Mexican-American actor who helped pave the way to reform Latino representation in television by playing 'Luis' in the early years of the iconic children’s program ‘Sesame Street’. “He really lived biculturally,” his wife told the publication. “Because he was an American citizen, he would walk to Calexico every day for school. It wasn’t the border politics of today.”

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‼️Instagram head condemns Russian decision to block social network

🗣️"On Monday, Instagram will be blocked in Russia. This decision will cut 80 million in Russia off from one another, and from the rest of the world as ~80% of people in Russia follow an Instagram account outside their country. This is wrong," Mosseri wrote on his Twitter page.

One of biggest German banks, Deutsche Bank, has announced the closure of its business in Russia amid the latter's military operation in Ukraine.

🗣️"Like some of our international competitors, we are currently closing our remaining business [in Russia] in line with the legal and regulatory requirements," the bank said in a statement on late Friday.

Deutsche Bank added that it would not join new projects in Russia.

⚡The United States has imposed sanctions on four board members of Russia's Novikombank as well as four board members of AO ABR Management, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced in a late Friday statement.

"The Department of State is imposing sanctions on four board members of Novikombank, including its Chairwoman Elena Aleksandrovna Georgieva. The State Department is also imposing sanctions on AO ABR Management and four of its board members," Blinken said.

❄️A powerful late-winter storm combining rivers of moisture and frigid temperatures is expected to dump snow on the US from the Deep South all the way north to the Canadian border over the weekend, forecasters said Friday.

With snowfall totals ranging from about 4 inches (10 centimeters) in northern parts of Alabama and Mississippi to about 13 inches (33 centimeters) in northern Maine, the storm could cause travel problems and power outages across a wide part of the eastern United States, from late Friday through early next week.

The fast-moving weather system has been referred to by some as an ominous-sounding “bomb cyclone.”

“With this bomb cyclone, maybe what’s the biggest concern is how late in the season it’s coming and that it’s traveling over inland areas,” said Judah Cohen, a winter storm expert for Atmospheric Environmental Research, a commercial firm outside of Boston.

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🔎Yale University has begun removing the Sackler name from its campus, several years after announcing it would no longer accept donations from the family that owns OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma.

The Ivy League university, about 40 miles from Purdue headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, is the latest institution to distance itself from the family amid outrage over its role in the opioid crisis.

Yale, which received over $1 million in donations from the family, last month reassigned an employee from the David A. Sackler Professorship of Pharmacology and has no plans to fill academic posts named for the Sacklers, university spokesperson Karen Peart said Friday.

“In 2021, the university made a decision to pursue separation from the Sackler name and has been actively working on specific plans consistent with that decision which we expect to announce soon. No Yale faculty member currently holds a Sackler chair,” Peart said.

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‼️Colgate-Palmolive says it will sell only essential health and hygiene products in Russia

‼️Kazakhstan's Qazaq Air airline said on Saturday it had suspended the flights to Russia and over its territory over the termination of the insurance coverage.

"Qazaq Air has received a notification from an insurance organization about the decision not to provide insurance coverage on the territory of Russia and in its airspace. Due to this situation, the airline is not able to operate flights to Russia until the issue of insurance coverage over the territory of Russia is resolved. In this regard, today's flight - March 12 - to Novosibirsk has been canceled," the airline said in a statement.

The insurance issues are likely to be linked to the massive sanctions against Russia over its military operation in Ukraine.

⚡️ US claims that Russia could use chemical weapons in Ukraine are an attempt at demonising Moscow - Russian Ambassador to the United States

Russian Ambassador to the United States: "Our country, unlike the United States, eliminated all available stocks of chemical warfare agents in 2017. This fact has been documented by the OPCW. It is pointless to argue with this fact."

⚡️ Biden signs stopgap funding bill to avert shutdown

🐫 Two people were killed Thursday afternoon after a camel escaped its enclosure on a Tennessee farm and went on a rampage.

Officials said police responded to a call about a loose camel that was attacking people at Shirley Farms in Obion, a rural town in the northwestern corner of the state.

The victims, identified as 42-year-old Bobby Matheny and 67-year-old Tommy Gunn, were pronounced dead at the scene.

It is unclear how the camel managed to escape its enclosure, what provoked the attacks, and what type of injuries the men sustained.

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⚡️ Roscosmos sent ISS partner countries demands to lift illegal sanctions, agency head Rogozin says

📸 The Russian MoD has published a video showing the destruction of a convoy of Ukrainian military equipment by Ka-52 attack helicopters

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⚡️ Russian forces have destroyed 3,491 targets of Ukrainian military infrastructure - MoD

⚡️ The Russian MoD's latest statements about the Ukrainian crisis:

▪️ The Russian armed forces have disabled 3,491 Ukrainian military infrastructure objects since the beginning of the special operation.

▪️ The Russian Army disabled the main radio intelligence centre of the Ukrainian armed forces with a precision strike on Saturday.

▪️ Aviation and air defence of the Russian Aerospace Forces shot down five drones in Ukraine within 24 hours, including two Bayraktars, as well as a Tochka-U tactical missile.

▪️ The DPR and LPR together with the Russian armed forces continue to advance, new settlements are being blocked and taken under control.

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📸 The Russian MoD has published a video depicting the destruction of a Ukrainian infantry vehicle by a Krasnopol guided missile.

High-precision artillery ammunition, guided by a laser beam, hits an armoured object with pinpoint accuracy, destroying the firing position of the Ukrainian military.

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⚡️ Turkey does not want to be a party to sanctions against Russia, Ankara is on the side of diplomacy - Ministry of Energy