Former Vice President Pence urged the Senate on Thursday to pass a major sanctions bill against Russia, arguing that the hefty tariffs, along with continued military aid to Ukraine, provide the best “pathway” to reaching peace in Eastern Europe. 

“He’s fully capable of doing the diplomatic thing and being friendly and shaking hands and at the same time saying, here’s the economic consequences that are going to happen, unless you step forward,” Pence said of President Trump during his appearance on NewsNation’s show “The Hill.”

“If we pass those secondary sanctions, Vladimir Putin will understand that we could literally break their economy and by providing continued military support for Ukraine, that combination of efforts, I think, is the best pathway to peace,” the former vice president told host Blake Burman. 

The sanctions bill, which has been pushed by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), would impose 500 percent tariffs on countries purchasing Russian oil and gas. The measure has over 85 co-sponsors in the upper chamber, but the Senate left for recess before advancing the bill, deferring to Trump to give the green light. 

“We propose in our bill 500 percent. If it’s 250 percent, I could live with it. Even if it’s 100 percent, possibly. But you ought to impose bone-crushing sanctions that will stop them from fueling Russia’s war machine,” Blumenthal said earlier this month.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said on Monday that Trump should be “commended” for his efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war and signaled the Senate is “ready” to provide the president “any economic leverage needed to keep Russia at the table to negotiate a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.” 

Trump has pushed to end the three-and-a-half-year war, meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, along with seven European leaders, on Monday at the White House.

Since then, Russian officials have expressed doubt about the possibilities of a speedy peace deal with Ukraine, including agreeing on security guarantees for Kyiv and scheduling a bilateral meeting between Putin and Zelensky, for which the president has advocated for some time. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov questioned Zelensky’s legitimacy on Thursday and stated the security guarantees under ongoing talks are “hopeless.”

Lavrov claimed that Putin is ready to meet with the Ukrainian president with the “understanding that all issues that require consideration at the highest level will be well worked out.” 

Trump said Thursday that “interesting times [are] ahead” and slammed his predecessor, former President Biden, over his administration’s policy of barring Ukraine from using U.S. long-range weapons to strike deep inside Russia. 

“It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invaders country. It’s like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but is not allowed to play offense. There is no chance of winning! It is like that with Ukraine and Russia,” the president said on Truth Social. 

Pence, in the interview with NewsNation, argued that one of the reasons why Putin did not invade Ukraine during Trump’s first White House term is that the Trump-Pence administration “had the credible threat of the use of force.”  

“He saw us take action, unleashing our military to take down the ISIS caliphate,” Pence said on Thursday. “Send cruise missiles into Syria to take down Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard leader.” 

A federal judge in Florida ordered late Thursday that some of “Alligator Alcatraz” be shut down and barred the Sunshine State from bringing in more detainees to the migrant detention facility in a blow to the administration as it ramps up its immigration crackdown. 

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, an appointee of former President Obama, ruled that Florida must halt the expansion of “Alligator Alcatraz” and the installation of more lighting. She also ordered the removal of all “generators, gas, sewage, and other waste and waste receptacles that were installed to support this project” within 60 days. 

Williams, in her 82-page ruling, said that the government must remove temporary fencing to allow Miccosukee “Tribe members access to the site consistent with the access they enjoyed before the erection of the detention camp.” 

The ruling is a win for environmental organizations that have argued the detention facility, which opened last month, poses a danger to the Florida Everglades and the surrounding wildlife.   

Williams said the project creates “irreparable harm in the form of habitat loss and increased mortality to endangered species in the area.” 

She also barred Florida from detaining any additional people at the facility “not already being detained at the site at the time of this Order going into effect.” 

The Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said earlier this month that “Alligator Alcatraz” is a model for state-run immigrant detention facilities.

The Hill reached out to DHS for comment on Thursday’s ruling.

The facility utilizes tents with chain-link fences as cells to house migrants. Detainees at the facility have complained about poorly functioning air conditioning, insects and maggot-filled food. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who said the facility would be able to house up to 5,000 detainees, argued that “Alligator Alcatraz” would have “zero environmental impacts.”

Williams’ ruling came the same day as her previous temporary order to suspend construction at the facility for two weeks expired. In June, environmental groups sued, alleging that the detention center does not comply with environmental regulations.

Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz dismissed parts of a suit brought by detainees, who alleged they were not being given sufficient access to lawyers. 

Wildfires may be responsible for raising local deaths by about 67 percent in a given month, a new study has found.

Scientists linked 82 “excess deaths” to the devastating blazes that struck Maui, Hawaii, in August 2023 — or two-thirds more fatalities than they would have otherwise expected for that month, per the study, published on Friday in Frontiers in Climate.

During the most intense week of the infernal event, the death toll was 367 percent greater than they would have anticipated for that period, the researchers observed.

“Wildfires can cause a measurable, population-wide increase in mortality, beyond what is captured in official fatality counts,” co-lead author Michelle Nakatsuka, of New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, said in a statement.

“This suggests the true toll of the Lahaina wildfire was even broader than previously understood,” Nakatsuka added.

To understand the fatal impacts of the blaze, the authors first calculated the “all-cause excess death rate,” which refers to how many deaths took place that August beyond what they would have expected. They did so by training a model on Maui County demographic data from August 2018 to July 2023 and by weighting the analysis to eliminate deaths caused by COVID-19.

Ultimately, the researchers found that 82 deaths more than anticipated occurred in August 2023, amounting to an excess death rate of 67 percent.

About 80 percent of these deaths did not occur in a medical context — 12 percent more than in other months — which the authors said could suggest that some people never reached healthcare facilities.

At the same time, they found that the proportion of deaths caused by a non-medical issue leaped from 68 percent to 80 percent.

“Wildfires can cause death in a variety of ways,” co-lead author Kekoa Taparra, of the University of California Los Angeles, said in a statement.

Recognizing that many deaths in the Lahaina case likely occurred due to direct fire exposure, smoke inhalation and burns, Taparra noted that healthcare disruptions and lack of access to medications may have also played a sizable role.

“Wildfires can also exacerbate pre-existing conditions,” he added.

While the total excess count of 82 deaths was less than the region’s official August 2023 fatality count of 102, it was close to the 88 fire-related deaths reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, per the study.

Nakatsuka attributed the discrepancy to a possible “temporary drop in other causes of death, like car accidents, during the fire period, similar to what we saw during COVID-19.”

“It’s also possible that some deaths occurred after the August time window we studied, for example from missed treatments or worsening of chronic conditions,” she said.

Other limitations, Nakatsuka acknowledged, included a lack of access to detailed death certificate data, such as toxicology reports or autopsy findings.

Nonetheless, she stressed the importance of harnessing the public health insights available from this type of post-disaster analysis.

To protect Hawaii from such tragic events in the future, the researchers called for major policy changes — ranging from removing flammable vegetation to improving preparedness.

As native Hawaiians, Nakatsuka said that she and her co-lead author, hoped that wildfire mitigation strategies would focus on indigenous Kanaka Maoli practices, including the revival of traditional agro-ecological systems.

Such an approach, the authors contended, could reduce the odds of destructive wildfires and would also involve removing dry, non-native grasses and restoring pre-colonial water infrastructure.

But in the short term, Nakatsuka said, those exposed to wildfires must be able to access immediate medical treatment.

“Fast, accessible emergency care can save lives,” she added.