Yuliya Talmazan

The audience comes at a fraught time between Washington and the Holy See, after weeks of presidential criticism and outspoken responses from the first American pontiff.

A three-day ceasefire has averted the Kremlin's fears that Ukraine could humiliate Putin with a drone attack on the parade in Moscow.

“No one wants to join,” one student at a university in Siberia told NBC News. “No one is interested. Everyone understands that it's not as they say it is.”

The arrest is the closest that the country's anti-corruption officials have come to the president's inner circle. It comes as Ukraine was hit by a new volley of Russian strikes Thursday.

In his remarks earlier today, Xi referred to the Thucydides Trap, a theory popularized by Harvard scholar Graham Allison that suggests a high risk of war between an emerging and an established power.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier Monday that an agreement could be finalized “today,” though he cautioned that if talks fail then Washington would fine “another way” to resolve the situation.

The warning came just days after the Ukrainian capital faced one of the heaviest bombardments since the start of the Russian invasion.

“There are no changes to our operations and reports otherwise are false,” the American embassy said in a post on X, dismissing a suggestion from the European Union's top diplomat that Washington had evacuated the Ukrainian capital.

Belarus' president has been accused of flagrant human rights violations and enabling Russia's war in Ukraine. That hasn't served as a barrier to his friendship with Donald Trump.

“Never before has an Ebola outbreak recorded so many cases so soon after its declaration,” Doctors without Borders said in a statement Saturday, calling for more testing and medics on the ground.