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This is our daily newsletter Worldcrunch Today, a rapid tour of the news of the day from the world's best journalism sources, regardless of language or geography.

🌎  7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

• “Massive missile attack” kills ten in Zelensky’s hometown: A Russian missile strike has killed at least 10 people and injured 28 in Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's hometown. Meanwhile the death toll in the wake of last week's Kakhovka dam breach has risen to 17, as more bodies have been found after the flooding. Russian media also reports that an experienced Russian general, Sergei Goryachev, was killed in a Ukrainian missile strike near southern Zaporizhzhia.

• Trump in Miami for court appearance: Former U.S. President Donald Trump has landed in Florida ahead of his court appearance, staying at the Trump Doral resort near Miami. He is facing federal charges for mishandling national security files. Trump has denied all wrongdoing, and has been encouraging his supporters to protest against the case, which he has called “the final battle.”

• Three murdered in central Nottingham: British police have arrested a 31-year-old man on suspicion of murder, after three people were found dead on city center streets earlier today. Roads have been closed and the tram network suspended. Police suspect that the deaths are related to another incident this morning, where a van tried to run over three people, who are now hospitalized.

• Palestinian President arrives in China for state visit: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas landed in Beijing this morning for a four-day state visit. China is looking to help with Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and Abbas will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang during what is his fifth official visit to China.

• U.S. to rejoin UNESCO, to counter China: UNESCO announced yesterday that the U.S. plans to rejoin the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, more than a decade after they stopped financing the institution. If they are voted back in by UNESCO’s member states in the coming weeks, the U.S. will pay more than $600 million in back dues to the agency, of which it used to be the biggest financier. U.S. representatives have said the move comes from concern over China’s influence in the UN, particularly surrounding technology regulation.

• Pakistan demands evacuation of 80,000 people ahead of cyclone: Pakistani authorities have begun evacuating more than 80,000 people, who are at risk as Cyclone Biparjoy is expected to make landfall later this week. A state of emergency has been declared before the cyclone hits western India and southern Pakistan, and at least 2000 people have already been evacuated.

🗞️  FRONT PAGE

Turin-based daily La Stampa joined Italian newspapers and others around the world, in devoting its front page to the death of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at the age of 86.

#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS

7,748

After 40 seasons and 7,748 episodes, long-time Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak has announced that he will retire next year. The show has remained a constant in American popular culture and attracts almost 8 million viewers every night. In 1981, Sajak was chosen to take over for Chuck Woolery, the show’s first host. Sajak became the longest-running host of any game show, surpassing Bob Barker, who hosted The Price Is Right from 1972 to 2007.

📰 STORY OF THE DAY

“The Aragua Train” — How Venezuelan beauty pageants feed a global sex trafficking ring

Venezuela's Aragua Train, which began smuggling women into jails a decade ago, has become an international forced prostitution and people-smuggling operation. A special investigation by Colombia's El Espectador.

👑 Venezuela is famous for its beauty pageants and boasts seven Miss Universe and six Miss World winners among a generous handful of other contest queens. Today, beauty contests have become a tool to lure hundreds of Venezuelan girls and women into the continental sex trade. A leading gang in this murky business is "El Tren de Aragua" or the Aragua Train, named after the Aragua prison in the district of Tocorón, that has held several of its members.

📱 In the district of Güiria in the eastern state of Sucre, it catches them online and in beauty contests, where the first three winners are given cell phones, money and gifts. Then they're invited to parties, including some held in jail for gangsters. Emerging as an organization in 2014, the Train soon became the purveyor of young women to gangsters jailed in Aragua including its own chief, Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero. Now it has expanded across Latin America.

🚨 Even before the Train, Venezuela was a haven of sex trading barely checked by the authorities. The U.S. State Department's 2004 Trafficking in Persons report put Venezuela in Tier 3 of its Watch List, for failing to enforce minimal international norms against trafficking. It hasn't budged since. Perhaps in a sign of the state's increasing concern, police have in recent years formed a special department dealing with sex trafficking in September 2022.

➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com

📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO

➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED

📣 VERBATIM

“That’s not an empty promise.”

— Twitter's new CEO Linda Yaccarino pledged a Twitter 2.0 as the world's most accurate source of real-time information and a global public square for communication, a week after taking over from Elon Musk. The troubled platform will undergo major transformations after numerous complaints about identity theft, propaganda, misinformation and hate speech, especially after Elon Musk fired 80% of Twitter's staff and removed content moderation.

👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH

• A How-To Guide To Make Sense Of Ukraine's Counteroffensive — FRANCE INTER

• Memories Of ‘B’: A Personal And National Obsession Named Silvio Berlusconi — LA STAMPA

• The World’s Southernmost Wine Is Also Deliciously Sustainable — REDACCIÓN