Politics

Paul Whelan was given the opportunity to speak with White House staffers on Wednesday. The phone call was arranged by Elizabeth Whelan, the sister of Paul Whelan, after Whelan criticized the White House's handling of her case against her brother. Elizabeth Whelan's comments to CNN came after the White House released a readout of a phone call Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris held with Cherelle Griner, the wife of WNBA star Brittney Griner, the American basketball star who is also being held in Russia. Whelan said she was angry that her brother's case was not receiving the same level of attention from the White House. A National Security Council spokesman said Thursday that her concerns are being addressed through ongoing efforts. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national secur...

For less than a fortnight, Maxym and his friends have been sleeping in earthen dugouts, eating food heated over campfires, and hearing the news of the Russians advancing in the vicinity of just one mile. "Of course they are going to come," he says. "They are far more numerous than we are." They are dug deep into this dense eastern Ukrainian forest, near Slovyansk, and are part of Ukraine's territorial defense -- non-professional soldiers who signed up in the opening days of Russia's February invasion. So far, they have avoided contact with the enemy by hiding beneath camouflage nets next to giant pyramids of bottled water. But every moment of every day they live with the thud of artillery and are showered with cluster munitions. Their wooded encampment is regularly struck by anti-tank w...

For over a century, the Amur River has divided modern China and Russia -- its waters cutting through nearly 1,000 miles of their roughly 2,500 border miles. But the bridge connecting its banks has been a constant pipe dream. As Russia's economic isolation due to its invasion of Ukraine pushes it closer to China, the two countries are working on new infrastructure links. Last Friday, Beijing and Moscow opened another bridge between them -- what state media on both sides have called the first highway bridge over the Amur River. Rockets trailed colorful smoke bursting overhead, and local officials applauded from the riverbanks, while their superiors beamed in from Moscow and Beijing on giant television screens specially brought in for the day. A second crossing — only a railway bridge conn...

Local police drive us to a remote section of a Utah valley where they say a unit of foreign fighters is stationed. The region resembles the one in some parts of Ukraine that were recently struck by shelling. The structures are leveled and bomb craters are visible all over the place. The distant rumble of outgoing artillery can be heard as we walk under the cover of trees. A small snake slithers by and quickly disappears. We walk up a small ramp and into a courtyard where soldiers are hurriedly packing up a vehicle in which they plan to head for the front lines. American accents are heard back and forth on their radio comms. Surprised and baffled to see a group of journalists, they wave us away. Clearly, they have other pressing matters. But after some calls with their commander, we're t...