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It has taken three weeks, but the world is slowly confirming the details and coming to grips with a shocking atrocity in Africa’s second most populous nation. In the Ethiopian village of Merawi, government soldiers massacred civilians in door-to-door house raids, then dumped the victims’ corpses in the street.

Government human-rights officials have now confirmed that at least 80 civilians were killed during the late-January onslaught in the northern region of Amhara, where troops loyal to the regime of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmad have been quelling an uprising. But the actual toll is likely much higher. Some reports estimate that as many as 150 were murdered by troops, including women and children, and at least one pregnant woman.

The U.S. is imposing more than 500 new sanctions targeting Russia, marking two years since President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and responding to the death of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny.

“If Putin does not pay the price for his death and destruction, he will keep going,” President Biden said in a statement announcing the sanctions. “And the costs to the United States—along with our NATO Allies and partners in Europe and around the world—will rise.”

The U.S., along with international partners, have sought to use sanctions to financially squeeze Putin’s ability to wage war on Ukraine — pairing them with military, economic and humanitarian support to Ukraine to help the country push back against the Russian invading forces.

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Secretary of State Tony Blinken said on Friday that Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank is "inconsistent with international law," reversing a Trump-era decision that had overturned decades of U.S. policy on the issue.

Why it matters: Blinken's decision to reverse what has been known as the "Pompeo doctrine" comes as a response to the Israeli government's announcement on Thursday that it plans to expand the settlements in the West Bank, a U.S. official told Axios. The move has been considered by the State Department for the last three years.

What they're saying: "We are disappointed with the announcement [of new settlements]. It has been a long-standing policy of both Democratic and Republican administrations that new settlements are counterproductive to achieving enduring peace. They are also inconsistent with international law," Blinken said.

• "Our administration maintains firm opposition to settlement expansion, In our judgment it only weakens, not strengthens Israel's security," he added.

Israeli strikes killed at least 48 people in southern and central Gaza overnight, half of them women and children, health officials said Thursday, as European foreign ministers and U.N. agencies called for a cease-fire, with alarm rising over the worsening humanitarian crisis and potential starvation in the territory.

Tensions were also rising in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where three Palestinian gunmen on Thursday opened fire on morning traffic at a highway checkpoint, killing one person and wounding five others, Israeli police said.

A member of Israel’s War Cabinet said late Wednesday that new attempts are underway to reach a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas that could pause the war in Gaza and bring the release of around 130 Israeli hostages held by the militants since their Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. It was the first Israeli indication of new efforts since negotiations stalled a week ago.

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As I stood watching Russians laying flowers in memory of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, a young man shared his reaction to Mr Navalny's death in prison.

"I'm in shock," he told me, "just like two years ago on 24 February: when the war started."

It made me think about everything that has happened in Russia these last two years, since President Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

24 February 2022 was a watershed moment.

Even before a communications blackout hit Sudan two weeks ago, few were watching a war that has killed thousands of people and displaced more – almost 8 million – than any other current conflict. “It’s not a forgotten crisis. It’s a wholly ignored crisis,” Kitty van der Heijden of Unicef told a meeting at the Munich Security Conference last week.

Eighteen million people in Sudan are acutely food insecure, and around 3.8 million children are malnourished. At the Zamzam camp in Darfur, a child dies every two hours. There have been widespread atrocities including massacres and sexual violence. Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, warns that “textbook ethnic cleansing” in Darfur – by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied Arab militias – has forced almost 700,000 to flee. Yet while the region’s genocidal violence became a global cause two decades ago, it barely registers now.