EU closes airspace to Russian planes, bans Russian media outlets and pledges arms to Ukraine
CBSN
Brussels — The European Union's chief executive says the 27-nation bloc will close its airspace to Russian airlines, fund supplies of weapons to Ukraine and ban some pro-Kremlin media outlets in response to Russia's invasion.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Sunday that "for the first time ever, the European Union will finance the purchase and delivery of weapons and other equipment to a country that is under attack."
Von der Leyen added that "we are shutting down the EU airspace for Russians. We are proposing a prohibition on all Russian-owned, Russian registered or Russian-controlled aircraft. These aircraft will no more be able to land in, take off or overfly the territory of the EU."
An Israeli attack on Iran damaged facilities at a secretive military base southeast of the Iranian capital that experts in the past have linked to Tehran's onetime nuclear weapons program and at another base tied to its ballistic missile program, satellite photos analyzed Sunday by The Associated Press show.
A Northern Ireland man was sentenced Friday to a minimum of 20 years in prison after being found guilty by a U.K. court in what has been described as the biggest criminal "catfishing" case in the country. Alex McCartney, 26, had pleaded guilty earlier this year to a charge of manslaughter in a Northern Ireland court after a young American girl who was among the thousands of alleged victims he blackmailed online died by suicide.
Kazan, Russia — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday presided at the closing session of a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, praising its role as a counterbalance to what he called the West's "perverse methods." The three-day summit in the city of Kazan covered the deepening of financial cooperation, including the development of alternatives to Western-dominated payment systems, efforts to settle regional conflicts and expansion of the BRICS group of nations.
Gisele Pelicot, the woman at the center of the mass-rape trial that's shocked her own country of France and the world, told her husband in court on Wednesday that she still "did not understand why" he had drugged and raped her for nearly a decade, along with dozens of other men he invited into their home.