U.S. and Russia to Name Teams for Talks on Ending Ukraine War
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Here's your midday brief for Tuesday, February 18th. I'm Alex Ocele for The Wall Street Journal.

Trump administration officials said that the U.S. and Russia have agreed to appoint high-level teams who would work together to try to end the conflict in Ukraine. The two sides stopped short of announcing a summit meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which Trump had signaled he hoped to hold soon. The initiatives that the U.S. announced raised fresh questions about the broader process for halting a war that has already led to more than a million casualties.

The Trump administration is directing federal agencies to no longer consider a company's diversity, equity and inclusion practices when deciding whether to procure its goods or services. That's according to an announcement from the General Services Administration.

The new policy reverses a Biden administration initiative that asked the government to weigh a company's internal DEI practices as one of many factors when considering whether to purchase that company's products or services. A spokesman for the GSA said companies won't be penalized for continuing internal DEI programs under the new policy, but those programs won't be considered as a factor in contract awards.

And Hamas said today it would release six living hostages, three more than originally stipulated by the ceasefire deal, as Israel agreed to begin negotiations to permanently end the war in Gaza. Hamas is also handing over the bodies of dead hostages for the first time on Thursday. In exchange for the four bodies, Israel will release all Palestinian women and minors under the age of 19 who were detained in Gaza after October 8, 2023, and who weren't involved in the fighting.

We'll have more coverage of the day's news on the WSJ's What's News podcast. You can add it to your playlist on your smart speaker or listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.