"Piles of problems," but Russia calls 1st top-level meeting with Biden administration "positive"
CBSN
Moscow — Russia's government on Thursday called the first face-to-face meeting between senior Russian and U.S. diplomats under the Biden administration "positive." The Kremlin said the meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday bode well for a potential summit this summer between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden.
Both sides described the discussion, which went on for almost two hours, as constructive, but cautioned that there were a lot of issues still to address before bilateral relations — currently wallowing near Cold War lows — could be normalized. "Indeed, there are piles of problems. It will be difficult to clear this logjam," Lavrov told journalists after the meeting, which took place on the sidelines of an Arctic Council summit in Iceland. "But I felt that Antony Blinken and his team are willing to do it, and we are ready to work together."Strong storms with damaging winds and baseball-sized hail pummeled Texas on Tuesday, leaving more than one million businesses and homes without power as much of the U.S. recovered from severe weather, including tornadoes, that killed at least 24 people in seven states during the Memorial Day holiday weekend.
Actor Richard Dreyfuss is facing backlash for allegedly sharing remarks that audience members found sexist, homophobic and generally offensive at a Q&A event over the weekend tied to a Massachusetts theater's screening of "Jaws." Dreyfuss starred in the 1975 blockbuster that was filmed in Massachusetts and screened Saturday night at The Cabot, a performing arts center in the coastal community of Beverly.
Another American who was arrested in the Turks and Caicos Islands for possessing ammunition was sentenced to time served and a $9,000 fine on Tuesday, local media reported. Tyler Wenrich was facing a potential mandatory minimum sentence of 12 years in prison for ammunition charges in the British territory.