Checkpoints on Finland’s border with Russia could be opened to passenger transport after the adoption of a new migration law, Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen told the media outlet Etela-Saimaa on Tuesday. The ‘border exception law’ could be approved later this month, the official said. Finland, which joined NATO last year, closed its eastern land border in late November and banned shipping from several ports after more than 1,300 asylum seekers – primarily from Africa and the Middle East –...

Vladimir Putin was sworn in for his fifth term as Russia's leader Tuesday, renewing his dominance over the country in a glittering Kremlin ceremony as his army advances in Ukraine at the height of Moscow’s worst confrontation with the West since the Soviet era. Putin, 71, extended his rule in an effectively uncontested election in March, having crushed any political opposition and launched the invasion of Ukraine that set Russia on its path to unprecedented...

On the menu today: Everyone likes to believe that if they had been alive in the 1930s and 1940s, they would have stood up to the Nazis, that if they had been in those circumstances, they would have acted like some combination of Winston Churchill, Oskar Schindler, Captain America, and the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. And yet, here we are in 2024, seven months after a well-armed, well-funded terrorist group/quasi-governmental entity — which has never renounced its desire to “annihilate the...

Hamas says it has informed Qatari and Egyptian mediators that it has accepted their proposal for a new Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal with Israel. "The ball is now in Israel's court," an official in the Palestinian group said. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said the proposal accepted by Hamas was "far from Israel's basic requirements" but negotiations would continue. Earlier Israel carried out air strikes on Rafah after warning Palestinians to evacuate parts of the city. It...

The latest twists and turns in negotiations to end the war in Gaza appear labyrinthine and confusing. But it’s really not that complicated. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, must compromise on the outstanding details of the proposed ceasefire deal and Hamas’s weekend counter-offer – and immediately halt Israel’s criminal bombing of Gaza and reckless military incursions into refugee-populated areas around Rafah. For its part, Hamas must honour previous understandings about the...

The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed on Tuesday the arrest of an American soldier, identified by multiple news agencies as Staff Sgt. Gordon Black, in Vladivostok, stating that he faces charges of “household crime” and is not suspected of being a spy. “The case has no relation to politics or espionage,” the Foreign Ministry office in Vladivostok told the Russian news agency Tass. The office stated that the Foreign Ministry had little interest in the case because it did not seem to...

A U.S. soldier has been detained in Russia on charges of criminal misconduct, the U.S. Army said on Monday, that country's latest high-profile detention of an American. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the soldier had been based in South Korea. Another U.S. official said the soldier was accused of stealing from a woman. The Army did not offer details on the charges, citing the sensitivity of the matter. It said Moscow notified the U.S. State Department of the...

The U.S. Army soldier arrested in Russia last week is being held in a pretrial detention facility waiting for a hearing, the Army said Tuesday. Staff Sgt. Gordon Black flew to Russia to see his girlfriend, according to U.S. officials, and the Army confirmed Tuesday that he had not sought clearance for the international travel and it was not authorized by the Defense Department. Under Pentagon policy, service members must get clearance for any international travel from a security manager...

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential running mate Nicole Shanahan hit out at “cowardly” Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg for allegedly censoring a new documentary about the independent candidate. “Mark Zuckerberg, are you kidding me?! No amount of MMA fighting will make you look strong if you continue to behave so cowardly,” Shanahan, the Bay Area lawyer and ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, wrote on her X account on Sunday. Zuckerberg is CEO of Meta, the parent...

The judge at Donald Trump’s hush money trial scolded prosecutors about the “degree of detail” Stormy Daniels went into as she delivered racy, animated testimony in Manhattan court Tuesday. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan sustained an objection by Trump’s lawyers to the graphic testimony from Daniels — born Stephanie Clifford — noting “the degree of detail” was “unnecessary.” Jurors struggled to keep a straight face as Daniels described once spanking the former...