CNN Exclusive: Biden administration offers convicted Russian arms dealer in exchange for Griner, Whelan
CNN
After months of internal debate, the Biden administration has offered to exchange Viktor Bout, a convicted Russian arms trafficker serving a 25-year US prison sentence, as part of a potential deal to secure the release of two Americans held by Russia, Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, according to people briefed on the matter.
These sources told CNN that the plan to trade Bout for Whelan and Griner received the backing of President Joe Biden after being under discussion since earlier this year. Biden's support for the swap overrides opposition from the Department of Justice, which is generally against prisoner trades.
"We communicated a substantial offer that we believe could be successful based on a history of conversations with the Russians," a senior administration official told CNN Wednesday. "We communicated that a number of weeks ago, in June."
The announcement Saturday night signaled an unusually direct effort by the White House to influence college football scheduling and television programming.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric announced a state of catastrophe in two regions in the south of the country early on Sunday as raging wildfires forced at least 20,000 people to evacuate and left at least 16 people dead.
The Pentagon has ordered about 1,500 active-duty soldiers to prepare for deployment to Minnesota, according to defense officials cited by The Washington Post and ABC News, as Minnesota officials have also mobilized the National Guard.
The Democratic Party has a deeply motivated base and a clear advantage on the generic congressional ballot ahead of this fall’s midterms despite dismal impressions of its current leaders in Congress, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.
American Battleground: Demolition Man – How Trump’s first year back is changing the nation’s capital
On a breezy autumn morning beneath skittering clouds, the demolition crew strikes quicker than almost anyone expected. Working seemingly under the sole command of President Donald J. Trump, who has long fashioned himself the Builder-in-Chief, they take only days to reduce the 123-year-old East Wing of the White House to rubble. No drawn-out debate. No approval by independent preservationists.
What was once a place of worship filled with precious objects packed with meaning now sits in heavy layers of dark soot, burdened by the pungent smell of smoke after someone set fire to Mississippi’s largest and oldest synagogue.
Dos semanas después del derrocamiento de Nicolás Maduro, los ciudadanos venezolanos que viven en diferentes países de la región siguen con atención lo que ocurre en la tierra que los vio nacer. Jimena de la Quintana visitó Gamarra, el emporio comercial más grande de Perú y uno de los más importantes de Latinoamérica, que es fuente de empleo de muchos venezolanos. ¿En qué condiciones regresarían esos migrantes venezolanos a su país? ¿Para ellos es suficiente que Maduro ya no esté en el poder?
The US on Saturday announced it conducted a lethal strike in Syria on an al Qaeda affiliate leader it says had direct ties to an ISIS attacker who killed three Americans in early December.
President Donald Trump has leaned into his presidential clemency powers much more aggressively in his second term –in fact, he’s pardoned one woman twice.
The Pentagon has ordered the military command that oversees new recruits’ enlistment to hold off on initial training for people who are HIV-positive and recently enlisted in the military, CNN has learned, saying that a decision on reinstating a Defense Department ban on their joining the military was “expected in the next few weeks.”
Democrat Abigail Spanberger was sworn into office Saturday as Virginia’s first female governor, amid a cold drizzle outside the state Capitol after centuries of men holding the commonwealth’s top office.
The European Union and the Mercosur bloc of South American countries formally signed a long-sought landmark free trade agreement on Saturday, capping more than a quarter-century of torturous negotiations to strengthen commercial ties in the face of rising protectionism and trade tensions around the world.
Judge restricts federal response to Minnesota protests amid outrage over immigration agents’ tactics
Immigration agents carrying out a sweeping operation in Minnesota can’t deploy certain crowd-control measures against peaceful protesters or arrest them, a federal judge ruled Friday. The order follows widespread outrage over a fatal shooting, reports of US citizens getting detained and Minnesotans getting asked for documents for no clear reason.