Madam Speaker, Madam Vice President, our First Lady and Second Gentleman. Members of Congress and the Cabinet. Justices of the Supreme Court. My fellow Americans.
Oil prices soared and investors shifted more money into ultra-safe U.S. government bonds as Russia stepped up its war on Ukraine. The price of oil surged back above $100 a barrel after Russia, a major energy producer, faced further isolation and economic damage because of its invasion of Ukraine.
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, said that the European Union would close its airspace to Russian aircraft in response to the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine, ABC News reported.
As Russian forces march closer to the capital city of Kyiv, the international community is sending military aid to Ukraine. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is calling on nations to inflect financial punishments on Vladimir Putin for invading Ukraine.
A small group of conservative religious colleges is defying the national trend of declining enrollment in higher education and crediting their missions, as well as their handling of COVID-19, for the bump.
Within the next couple of months it is likely that there will be direct US military involvement in Ukraine, with Russia now openly supporting and recognizing separatist groups in the Donbass region on the eastern edge of the country and apparently moving to aid them militarily in separation.