Plus, the costliest six months on record for climate disasters almost wasn't reported.

The White House hopes its new sanctions on Russia's oil industry push Putin into peace talks with Ukraine. Some new ICE recruits arrive to training without full vetting, revealing criminal backgrounds and underqualified candidates. And a non-profit reveals a large price tag on weather and climate disasters after federal cuts.

Here's what to know today.

The Treasury Department announced new sanctions targeting Russia's oil sector after President Donald Trump confirmed a planned meeting with his counterpart Vladimir Putin to discuss an end to the war in Ukraine was called off.

"Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. "Treasury is prepared to take further action if necessary to support President Trump's effort to end yet another war. We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions."

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The two companies being sanctioned are Rosneft and Lukoil and some of their subsidiaries, the statement said. Despite the war, Rosneft and Lukoil are worth more than $50 billion each and are two of the biggest companies listed on the Moscow Stock Exchange.

A senior White House official told NBC News that Trump was following his gut on the timing of the sanctions. Last week, relations between Washington and Moscow appeared to be warming after Trump held a call with Putin and did not approve Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's request for long-range Tomahawk missiles.

Trump's latest peace push hit a roadblock during a call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, according to senior figures on both sides.

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the military launched a second lethal strike in as many days against what he said were vessels involved in drug trafficking operations in the eastern Pacific.

The first strike, which Hegseth said happened Tuesday, was said to have killed two people. The second attack killed three men he called "narco-terrorists." The strikes are the first in the eastern Pacific since the Trump administration began attacking vessels that it has claimed are involved in drug trafficking.

Hegseth said in last night's statement that missions would continue, and he characterized the military action as similar to strikes against the terror group Al Qaeda.

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The entire East Wing of the White House will be demolished "within days," according to two Trump administration officials.

The demolition is a significant expansion of the ballroom construction project that Trump described over the summer, when he said it would not "interfere with the current building" and "pays total respect to the existing building."

The East Wing was constructed in 1942 during Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency and has typically been used by the first lady and her staff. Trump said the new construction will hold up to 900 people, and the total price would be about $300 million. Trump said he and private donors will pay for the project.

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement has placed new recruits into its training program before they have completed the agency's vetting process, a current and two former Department of Homeland Security officials told NBC News. The oversights come as ICE rushes to hire federal immigration officers to carry out Trump's mass deportation policy.

ICE officials later discovered that some recruits failed drug testing, have disqualifying criminal backgrounds or don't meet the physical or academic requirements to serve, the sources said.

Staff members at ICE's training academy in Georgia discovered one recruit had previously been charged with strong-arm robbery and battery stemming from a domestic violence incident, the current DHS official said. They've also found as recently as this month that some recruits going through the six-week training course hadn't submitted fingerprints for background checks, as ICE's hiring process requires, the current and former DHS officials said.

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The Trump administration has made big cuts to climate science. And while a lot of that work has simply disappeared, some researchers are trying to reproduce it outside of government.

After the administration stopped work on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's billion dollar weather and climate disaster database, the non-profit Climate Central hired the researcher who left the federal government in protest of that decision. Climate Central released a new version of the database yesterday, reproduced in full with new data collected since the project was scuttled.

The database showed that 14 weather events exceeded $1 billion in damages in the first six months of 2025. The Los Angeles fires topped the list, with a cost of $61 billion, making them the most expensive wildfire event on record. Added up, it's the most costly first six months in more than 40 years. The data release shows that weather and climate disasters continue to pose a significant economic cost and serves as a reminder that some projects have a chance to live on after they've been canceled. - Evan Bush, science reporter

Colder temperatures are here, and so are cracked lips and unexpected cold sores. The NBC Select team found the best dermatologist-recommended treatments for both.

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U.S. hits Russian oil sanctions and ICE recruits with checkered pasts make it to training: Morning Rundown