border now away from ukraine. there is no question nato is relevant. it is effective. finland and sweden make nato stronger. the january 6 select committee once again has in its sights a republican member of congress. and republicans are now asking for the capitol police to release the video in question here. live from atlanta, this is cnn newsroom with kim brunhuber. minutes from now, u.s. president joe biden is expected to land in south korea to begin his very first az i sia trip as president, he will spend most of the weekend holding talks with the now south korea president and then heading to japan where he will meet with their prime minister and indian and australian leaders. this comes later in his presidency than he might have liked, but he says he hopes to, quote, confirm the importance of our indo-pacific alliances. paula hancock is live in seoul for us. so an unwelcome/welcome gifts of sorts with some kind of weapons tests expected to be conducted during o
republicans who might have settled his policies. good evening. today, the president let up on this, at least until he got in front of electrical union workers, and then, he really went off, talking about the economy and trying to tie the g.o.p. to this. he claimed that a republican-controlled congress would be worse for your wallet, but earlier today, he sent to cotv interviews to american saying that he knows how you feel. april s inflation data is out, worse than expected though slightly better than march. i m a little hesitant to call it good news. consumer prices accelerated 8.3% in april, down 8.5% the month prior. still higher than the 8.1% that was predicted. core inflation stripping out. volatile food and energy costs also higher, 6.2%. acutely aware of these challenges, why he has dispatched his economic team. we are on the case. speaking to farmers in illinois, announcing new plans, doubling funding for domestic fertilizer production and farming tools.
determined way. we have told allies that we will say no to finland and sweden s nato membership. meanwhile an enormous aid bill for ukraine is on its way to south korea to be signed into law by president biden. thursday the senate voted to pass the nearly $40 billion package, it would provide money for both military and humanitarian assistance to the war-torn nation. that same day the white house announced another security package worth $100 million for ukraine. and that includes additional artillery, radar and other equipment. ukraine s military is upbeat about the success of its recent counter offenses, russian seizes of kharkiv and mykolaiv have been broken and ukrainian forces are pressing on toward herkhers. but russian airstrikes and shelling killed at least a dozen
the unfortunate trade-off that has had to have been made. really, if you talk about a failure of policy, but really, it underscores just the cruelty, the brutality, the total disregard for human life that russia has in this war. and so, again, just for me, it really underscores that moral dilemma, where there s so much more that we wish that we could do, but it is imperative that we also risk or that we avoid the risk of direct confrontation with russia. as you this was a big battle field, general anderson. there appear to be some ukrainian gains in the north around kharkiv, for instance, gaining back some villages. sounds small, just a village, but territory that s key, because it s pushing russian thri thr artillery, for instance, out of range. if you look at the battlefield along the east, are ukrainian forces not just holding the line now, but carrying out successful counter offenses?
south and in from the east. ukrainian forces have also been launching a series of counter-offenses, particularly around the strategic town of izyum. so kharkiv is very close to a lot of the action, there are a lot of important supply routes for the russians to get more ammunition and weaponry to places like izyum and that s why it s strategically important not to mention of course the symbolic value and you can imagine the symbolism of this building. you talk to the locals, this was a place people came to pose for photographs, this was a place you would dress nicely to visit and now this is what s left of it. john, brianna? clarissa, kharkiv is just so emblematic of, i think, what vladimir putin expected and what the ukrainians were not going to go along with. like you said, it s so connected to russia, it s right there near the border and of course there s