GEOFF BENNETT: In the day's other headlines: Top European officials followed Washington's lead today in approving new economic measures aimed at pressuring Russia to end its war in Ukraine.

The latest round of sanctions targets key sectors of Russia's economy.

That's as violence on the ground continues with new attacks reported in several regions.

In Southeastern Ukraine this morning, the charred remains of a Russian drone strike, two journalists killed in what Ukraine's Human Rights Office is calling a war crime.

Miles away in Brussels, European leaders took a major step toward using frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, Ukrainian President: We need to use any kind of Russian money for Ukrainian production.

GEOFF BENNETT: The more than $200 billion would help Ukraine purchase additional weapons and begin the long process of rebuilding.

Sanctions the European Union imposed today ban imports of Russian liquefied natural gas, add port bans on over 100 new Russian ships, and for the first time sanctioning Chinese and Indian banks accused of supporting Russia's war economy.

Those moves come on the heels of President Donald Trump's new punitive measures against Russia's oil industry.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Look, these are tremendous sanctions.

These are very big.

GEOFF BENNETT: The U.S.

sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia's two largest oil companies, mark a major policy shift for the Trump administration.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called this step an unfriendly act.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russian President (through translator): It does not strengthen Russian-American relations, which have just begun to recover.

With such actions, the U.S.

administration damages Russian-American relations.

GEOFF BENNETT: Oil and gas remain the backbone of Russia's economy, a crucial source of revenue funding its war in Ukraine.

But two nations continue to buy it, India and China.

Today, Beijing rejected what it called unilateral sanctions that lack legal basis.

GUO JIAKUN, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson (through translator): Dialogue and negotiation remain the only viable path to resolving the Ukraine crisis.

Coercion and pressure will not solve any problem.

GEOFF BENNETT: As Ukrainians awake to the aftermath of drone strikes, the impact of these new sanctions on Moscow's war machine yet to be felt.

Also at that E.U.

summit in Brussels today, Lithuania's president said Russian military planes violated his country's airspace, calling it a blatant breach of territorial integrity.

Moscow says it carried out a training flight over Russian territory and that no borders were violated.

Turning now to the Middle East, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is now the latest senior U.S.

official to visit Israel to try and preserve the fragile Gaza cease-fire deal.

Rubio met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just a day after Vice President J.D.

Vance did the same.

Both U.S.

officials joined Netanyahu in criticizing a preliminary vote in Israel's Parliament yesterday in favor of annexing parts of the occupied West Bank.

Before he left the region, the vice president called the vote an insult and a political stunt.

J.D.

VANCE, Vice President of the United States: The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel.

The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel.

That will continue to be our policy.

And if people want to take symbolic votes, they can do that, but we certainly weren't happy about it.

GEOFF BENNETT: U.S.

officials say they are still optimistic about the nearly two-week truce, even as Israel and Hamas have accused each other of cease-fire violations in recent days.

Here at home, President Trump says he's calling off plans for now to send federal agents into San Francisco.

He planned a surge as soon as this weekend, but changed course after talking to the city's Democratic mayor.

DONALD TRUMP: That's why with San Francisco, I wish him luck.

GEOFF BENNETT: The president said he decided to give Mayor Daniel Lurie more time.

That's after conversations with major tech leaders based in the area.

On social media, Mr.

Trump mentioned Marc Benioff, the head of Salesforce, and Jensen Huang, CEO of the A.I.

giant Nvidia.

President Trump has pardoned the billionaire founder of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance.

Changpeng Zhao served four months in prison after pleading guilty back in 2023 to charges related to allowing criminals and terrorists to move money on his platform.

He and Binance have been supporters of some of the Trump family's recent crypto ventures.

Zhao's pardon comes amid a broader Trump administration rollback of a Biden era crackdown on the crypto industry.

At the White House today, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt criticized what she called an overly prosecuted case by the Biden administration.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, White House Press Secretary: The previous administration was very hostile to the cryptocurrency industry.

So the president wants to correct this overreach of the Biden administration's misjustice, and he exercised his constitutional authority to do so.

GEOFF BENNETT: Following his pardon, Zhao wrote on social media that he's deeply grateful to President Trump, adding that he wants to -- quote - - "help make America the capital of crypto."

The Trump administration is moving to open up a large chunk of Alaskan wilderness to oil and gas drilling that had been largely protected during the Biden administration.

It's the latest twist in the long-running fight over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and specifically the area's Northern Coastal Plain.

Its 1.5 million acres are believed to be rich in oil, but also a critical habitat for polar bears, caribou, and migratory birds.

Conservationists and tribal groups have long opposed drilling in the region.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum says it will create jobs and support economic growth.

On Wall Street today, stocks ended higher after a batch of strong corporate results.

The Dow Jones industrial average added more than 140 points.

The Nasdaq climbed around 200 points.

The S&P 500 also closed in positive territory.

And Misty Copeland has officially hung up her point shoes after 25 years with the American Ballet Theatre.

(CHEERING) GEOFF BENNETT: The 43-year-old took her final bow at New York's Lincoln Center last night, where she danced a farewell and received a bouquet of flowers from her 3-year-old son.

Back in 2015, she made history as the company's first Black female principal dancer.

She achieved crossover fame and used her platform to advocate for diversity in the art form.

Copeland says she plans to focus on her family and her namesake foundation, and as for whether she will ever dance again, she has said, never say never.

Still to come on the "News Hour": President Trump demolishes the entire White House East Wing to construct a new ballroom; Pentagon efforts to ban certain books face backlash from military families and now the courts; and a posthumous memoir tells the story of Virginia Giuffre, one of the most prominent accusers of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.