Morning Digest: Ukraine and U.S. agree on framework mineral deal, Ukrainian officials say; devotees rush to Sangam for Maha Kumbh’s final ‘snan’ on Mahashivratri, and more

The Hindu Morning Digest gives a select list of stories to start the day. Read the top news today on February 26, 2025

Ukraine and the U.S. have reached an agreement on a framework for a broad economic deal that would include the exploitation of rare earth minerals, three senior Ukrainian officials said Tuesday (February 25, 2025). 

The joint teams of multiple agencies participating in the rescue operation to find eight persons trapped 14 km inside the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) tunnel since Saturday morning have arrived at the conclusion that any attempt to cross the last 50 metres barrier completely filled with mud and debris from the tunnel boring machine (TBM) would be risky to the lives rescue teams.

Pilgrims began arriving at the Triveni Sangam in the early hours of Wednesday (February 26, 2025) for a holy dip on Mahashivratri, marking the culmination of the six-week-long Maha Kumbh, held once every 12 years and believed to grant ‘moksha’ or salvation.

Lebanese state media said that an Israeli air strike on Tuesday (February 25, 2025) killed at least two people in the country’s east, where the military said it targeted Hezbollah militants. “An enemy drone carried out an air strike on the town of Shaara... near the eastern Lebanon mountain range, killing two people and wounding two” others, said the state-run National News Agency.

A man revered by millions as the “doctor of the poor” will be the first saint from Venezuela after Pope Francis approved a decree Tuesday (February 25, 2025). A date for the canonisation of Dr. José Gregorio Hernández, who died in 1919, has not been set. The Vatican in a statement said Pope Francis also decided to convene a formal meeting of cardinals to set the dates for future canonisations, but it was not immediately scheduled.

A federal judge on Tuesday (February 25, 2025) gave the Trump administration less than two days to release billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid, saying the administration had given no sign of complying with his nearly two-week-old court to ease its funding freeze.

Podcaster Ranveer Allahbadia, whose crass remarks on a YouTube show kicked up a row, has said in his statement before the Maharashtra Cyber that he committed a mistake of passing controversial statements, officials said on Tuesday (February 25, 2025).