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Davidgrido

25 Apr 2025 - 11:40 pm

By Henry Austin
A Russian-American woman who was imprisoned for treason by Russia has been freed, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday.
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Former ballerina Ksenia Karelina was born in Russia but had built a new life as an aesthetician at a Los Angeles spa after immigrating to the United States over a decade ago. She “is on a plane back home to the United States,” having been “wrongfully detained by Russia for over a year,” Rubio said on in a post on X. He credited President Donald Trump with securing her release.
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Karolina’s lawyer, Mikhail Mushailov, confirmed her release in a statement on Instagram. “Two hours ago she was in touch with her relatives and took off from Abu Dhabi to the U.S.,” he wrote, adding that he had known about her release since Tuesday.
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Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) detained Karelina in January 2024 while she was visiting her parents and young sister in the city Yekaterinburg. It did not provide further details or evidence of her alleged crime.
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At the time, Russian legal group Perviy Otdel said it had information that Karelina had donated just over $51.80 from her U.S. bank account on Feb. 24, 2022 — the day that Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine — to a charity that sends aid to Ukraine. A spa where she had previously worked confirmed this in a statement on Facebook.

Although Russia’s FSB did not confirm that figure, it said Karelina’s donation “was subsequently used to purchase tactical medical supplies, equipment, weapons, and ammunition for the Ukrainian armed forces.”

She was sentenced in August to 12 years in a penal colony for “high treason,” having “fully admitted her guilt” at a closed trial in the southwestern Russian city of Yekaterinberg, Sverdlovsky Region Court said in a news release at the time.

The sentence came against the backdrop of Russia’s 3-year-long war with Ukraine during which President Vladimir Putin’s government has cracked down on dissent. Any perceived criticism of the military is banned.

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Michaelhoxia

25 Apr 2025 - 11:21 pm

How Trump changed his mind on tariffs

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Peter Nicholas, Garrett Haake and Carol E. Lee
Reporting from Washington
mgmarket4 at
“Liberation Day” gave way to Capitulation Day last night.

President Donald Trump pulled back yesterday on a series of harsh tariffs targeting friends and foes alike in an audacious bid to remake the global economic order.

Image: President Donald Trump
Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images
Trump’s early afternoon announcement followed a harrowing week in which Republican lawmakers and confidants privately warned him that the tariffs could wreck the economy. His own aides had quietly raised alarms about the financial markets before he suspended a tariff regime that he had unveiled with a flourish just one week earlier in a Rose Garden ceremony.
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The stock market rose immediately after the about-face, ending days of losses that have forced older Americans who’ve been sinking their savings into 401(k)s to rethink their retirement plans.

Read the full story here.

32m ago / 12:55 PM GMT+3
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China's foreign ministry calls the U.S. a '21st century barbarian'

Peter Guo

Reporting from Hong Kong

China's public language on its trade war with the U.S. has become increasingly bellicose and took a new turn today when Beijing's foreign ministry said the Trump administration's tariffs have made the U.S. a “barbarian of the 21st century.”

Trump’s tariffs will “never America great again” ministry of foreign affairs spokesperson Huang Jingrui, wrote in an open letter today in Hong Kong’s newspaper South China Morning Post.
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“A tariff-wielding barbarian who attempts to force countries to call and beg for mercy can never expect that call from China,” Huang said, adding that the U.S. is “obsessed with the art of bullying and blackmailing the entire world.”

47m ago / 12:40 PM GMT+3
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EU welcomes 90-day tariff pause

Peter Guo

The EU President Ursula von der Leyen said today that the region welcomes Trump’s announcement to pause tariffs for 90 days.

Von der Leyen said the EU remains “committed to constructive negotiations” with the U.S., according to a statement from her office.

Meanwhile, Europe continues to focus on diversifying their trade partnerships, engaging with countries that account for 87% of global trade, she said.

Trump’s tariffs have shown that the European internal market is the region’s “anchor of stability and resilience” in times of uncertainty, von der Leyen added.

1h ago / 12:27 PM GMT+3
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Trade war with China 'to spark a wave of smuggling'

Peter Guo

Reporting from Hong Kong
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Irregular trade including smuggling will most likely rise amid the U.S.' and China's tit-for-tat tariffs, an economist warns.

The cost of tariffs has become “prohibitive to almost every company,” Tianchen Xu, senior economist at Economist Intelligence Unit.

“As a result, trade flows in both directions will tumble, and irregular trade will proliferate, including smuggling, transshipment and systemic under-reporting of trade value during customs clearance,” Xu said in a note.

Xu said trade negotiations and a partial de-escalation in the ongoing trade war may ensue in the coming months, but those tensions are likely to worsen in the short term between the world’s two largest economies.

1h ago / 12:09 PM GMT+3
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California plant business owner says costs will double with tariffs

Gadi Schwartz and Phil Helsel
The owner of a California home decor and plant shop said that even in dealing locally, the sourcing of goods from China is impossible to avoid.
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Edwardtat

25 Apr 2025 - 08:13 pm

New design revealed for Airbus hydrogen plane
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In travel news this week: Bhutan’s spectacular new airport, the world’s first 3D-printed train station has been built in Japan, plus new designs for Airbus’ zero-emission aircraft and France’s next-generation high-speed trains.

Grand designs
European aerospace giant Airbus has revealed a new design for its upcoming fully electric, hydrogen-powered ZEROe aircraft. powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

The single-aisle plane now has four engines, rather than six, each powered by their own fuel cell stack.

The reworked design comes after the news that the ZEROe will be in our skies later than Airbus hoped.

The plan was to launch a zero-emission aircraft by 2035, but now the next-generation single-aisle aircraft is slated to enter service in the second half of the 2030s.

Over in Asia, the Himalayan country of Bhutan is building a gloriously Zen-like new airport befitting a nation with its very own happiness index.

Gelephu International is designed to serve a brand new “mindfulness city,” planned for southern Bhutan, near its border with India.

In rail travel, Japan has just built the world’s first 3D-printed train station, which took just two and a half hours to construct, according to The Japan Times. That’s even shorter than the whizzy six hours it was projected to take.

France’s high-speed TGV rail service has revealed its next generation of trains, which will be capable of reaching speeds of up to 320 kilometers an hour (nearly 200 mph).

The stylish interiors have been causing a stir online, as has the double-decker dining car.

Finally, work is underway in London on turning a mile-long series of secret World War II tunnels under a tube station into a major new tourist attraction. CNN took a look inside.

Kennethadess

25 Apr 2025 - 07:41 pm

Of course, he said yes to coming back to the series, which eventually required him to live in Italy for a few months for filming.
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During production, White revealed to Gries that Greg is “very sinister.” That became rather irrefutable by the season’s climax, which saw Tanya’s demise orchestrated by her now-husband.

Come Season 3, Gries had to rewrite Greg’s backstory again, this time drawing from some unlikely sources for inspiration, like HBO docuseries “The Jinx,” about late convicted killer Robert Durst, and the case involving the man who came to be known as the Tinder Swindler.

Gries said he was struck by Durst’s “kind of seemingly even keel personality,” which served as a model for where Greg was headed, someone “who doesn’t really show a great deal of emotion, doesn’t seem to get too angry, just gets a little bit irritated and is dangerous.”

“There’s a bridled rage underneath. And those kind of people I find – at least with respect to Gary, Greg, Gary – fascinating,” he said.

And yet, while searching for an empathetic way back to portraying his character, Gries kept wondering if there was anything still redeeming about Greg.
An important “wake up moment” came during a decisive conversation he had with White just before filming in Thailand, in which the show’s creator said of Greg, in no uncertain terms: “He’s a psychopath.”

“And that was it. It was like, ‘back to the drawing board.’ And it really did help me,” Gries said.

The penultimate episode of the series will air on Sunday, an evening that thanks to “Lotus” and other shows has again become a night of appointment viewing amid a general move away from binge watching. Gries said he appreciates the shift.

“We’re a society that in a weird way doesn’t understand the beauty of waiting. The beauty of the space between the notes,” he shared. “If I binged (‘White Lotus’) I’d feel like I just ate too many chocolates. It just wouldn’t be the same. You need to process this.”

“The White Lotus” airs Sundays at 9 p.m. EDT on HBO, with the episode available to stream on Max. HBO and Max, like CNN, are owned by the same parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.

Danielimith

25 Apr 2025 - 06:56 pm

‘White Lotus’ villain Jon Gries reveals the true crimes that inspired his twisty take on Greg/Gary
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When Season 3 of “The White Lotus” premiered last month, the shock was palpable when returning character Belinda recognized a familiar face at the resort in Thailand: Greg Hunt, the wily suitor of the late Tanya McQuoid.

As the season has unfolded, Greg (played by Jon Gries) has emerged as an antagonist, particularly after Belinda dove into the investigation surrounding Tanya’s death and learned that Greg, who now goes by Gary, evaded questioning by authorities.

On a show famous for reinventing itself, the same has been asked of the actor, who says that playing the ever-shifting character has been a welcome challenge and, like “White Lotus” itself, full of twists.

“In the beginning, I totally played him for a guy who was, you know, on his last legs,” Gries said in a recent interview with CNN, referencing Greg’s very apparent ill health in the first season of “White Lotus,” which premiered to rave reviews in summer 2021. He added: “When you play a character, you want to find his empathetic side, and you want to understand where they came from, and what got them to where they are.”

But when he was contacted by creator Mike White about appearing in Season 2, Gries realized he would have to adjust his framing of Greg, despite having previously imagined a “comprehensive history” for him on his own.

“(White) said, ‘I’m writing it right now, and I’m writing you, and I just need to know here and now: If you’re in, I’ll continue writing. If not, I’ll stop,’” Gries recalled.

Josephexpat

25 Apr 2025 - 03:47 pm

Greenland’s leader says US officials’ visit is ‘highly aggressive.’ Trump says it’s ‘friendliness, not provocation’
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Greenland’s prime minister said a planned visit to the island by US officials, including second lady Usha Vance, is “highly aggressive,” plunging relations to a new low after President Donald Trump vowed to annex the autonomous Danish territory.

But despite the backlash, Trump has insisted the visit is about “friendliness, not provocation” – and claims the US team was “invited.”

Vance, the wife of US Vice President JD Vance, will travel to Greenland this week to watch the island’s national dogsled race and “celebrate Greenlandic culture and unity,” according to a statement from the White House. National security adviser Mike Waltz is also expected to visit the territory this week, according to a source familiar with the trip.

Greenland Prime Minister Mute B. Egede called the US delegation’s trip to the island “highly aggressive” in an interview with Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq on Sunday, and raised particular objection to Waltz’s visit.

“What is the national security adviser doing in Greenland? The only purpose is to demonstrate power over us,” Egede said. “His mere presence in Greenland will no doubt fuel American belief in Trump’s mission — and the pressure will increase.”

Trump claimed on Monday that people in Greenland have responded warmly to the US’s recent interest in the territory. “They’re calling us. We’re not calling them. And we were invited over there,” he said.

“We’re dealing with a lot of people from Greenland that would like to see something happen with respect to them being properly protected and properly taken care of,” Trump told reporters following a meeting with his Cabinet.

“I think Greenland is going to be something that maybe is in our future,” Trump added.

The president said he believes Secretary of State Marco Rubio would be traveling to Greenland too.

Trump’s idea to annex Greenland has thrown an international spotlight on the territory, which holds vast stores of rare earth minerals critical for high-tech industries, and has raised questions about the island’s future security as the US, Russia and China vie for influence in the Arctic. Trump has repeatedly expressed interest in the US taking the island by force or economic coercion, even as Denmark and Greenland have firmly rejected the idea.

Kevindueby

25 Apr 2025 - 12:06 pm

Why there’s a huge collection of vintage cars stored in the middle of the desert
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Back at the turn of the 21st century, Qatar was a country with few cultural attractions to keep visitors and residents entertained. Yet the Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum — known as the FBQ Museum — was a place that most people visited as an alternative to the then-still rather ramshackle National Museum of Qatar.

You had to make an appointment, and drive out into the desert, getting lost a few times along the way, but then you were welcomed to the lush Al Samriya Farm with a cup of tea and some cake. The highlight was being allowed into a space crammed full with shelves and vitrines holding all sorts of eclectic artifacts from swords to coins — with the odd car and carriage standing in the grounds.

It wasn’t necessarily the kind of museum you’d find elsewhere in the world, but it was definitely a sight that needed seeing.

Today, it has grown and now claims to be one of the world’s largest private museums. It holds over 30,000 items, including a fleet of traditional dhow sailboats, and countless carpets. There’s also an entire house that once stood in Damascus, Syria.

There are archaeological finds dating to the Jurassic age, ancient copies of the Quran, a section that details the importance of pearling within Qatar’s history, and jewelry dating to the 17th century.

There are also items from 2022’s FIFA World Cup in Qatar including replica trophies, balls used in the games, entry passes, football jerseys and even shelves full of slightly creepy dolls and children’s plush animals.

Some of the more disturbing exhibits include various items of Third Reich paraphernalia in the wartime room, and, strangely enough, several showcases of birds’ legs with marking rings on them. Basically, whatever you can think of, you have a very good chance of finding it here.

Rumor even has it that behind a locked door is a room filled with the late Princess Diana’s dresses and other memorabilia, accessible only to a select few visitors. Another door hides a room, no longer open to the public, filled with collectibles of the late Saddam Hussein.

Johnnietab

25 Apr 2025 - 11:16 am

Curiosity rover makes ‘arguably the most exciting organic detection to date on Mars’
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The NASA Curiosity rover has detected the largest organic molecules found to date on Mars, opening a window into the red planet’s past. The newly detected compounds suggest complex organic chemistry may have occurred in the planet’s past — the kind necessary for the origin of life, according to new research.

The organic compounds, which include decane, undecane and dodecane, came to light after the rover analyzed a pulverized 3.7 billion-year-old rock sample using its onboard mini lab called SAM, short for Sample Analysis at Mars.

Scientists believe the long chains of molecules could be fragments of fatty acids, which are organic molecules that are chemical building blocks of life on Earth and help form cell membranes. But such compounds can also be formed without the presence of life, created when water interacts with minerals in hydrothermal vents.

The molecules cannot currently be confirmed as evidence of past life on the red planet, but they add to the growing list of compounds that robotic explorers have discovered on Mars in recent years. A study detailing the findings was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The detection of the fragile molecules also encourages astrobiologists that if any biosignatures, or past signs of life, ever existed on Mars, they are likely still detectable despite the harsh solar radiation that has bombarded the planet for tens of millions of years.

“Ancient life, if it happened on Mars, it would have released some complex and fragile molecules,” said lead study author Dr. Caroline Freissinet, research scientist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in the Laboratory for Atmospheres, Observations, and Space in Guyancourt, France. “And because now we know that Mars can preserve these complex and fragile molecules, it means that we could detect ancient life on Mars.”

Rogervag

25 Apr 2025 - 08:18 am

Siham Haleem, a private tour guide for 15 years, says that Doha now has many world-class, modern museums — the National Museum of Qatar being a firm personal favorite. And yet he says that visiting Sheikh Faisal’s museum should still be on everybody’s to-do list.
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“For those eager to learn about Qatar’s — and the region’s — heritage and beyond, the museum is an ideal destination,” he says. “Personally, I’m captivated by the car collection, the fossils, and especially the Syrian house, painstakingly transported and reassembled piece by piece.”

Stephanie Y. Martinez, a Mexican-American student mobility manager at Texas A&M University in Qatar likes the museum so much she includes it on all of her itineraries for students visiting from the main campus in Texas.

“The guided tours are very detailed, and the collections found at the museum have great variety and so many stories to unfold,” she says. “Truly, the museum has something to pique everyone’s interest. My favorites are the cars and the furniture exhibits showcasing wood and mother-of-pearl details. Definitely one of my favorite museums in Qatar, every time I visit I learn something new.”

Raynor Abreu, from India, also had praise for the unusual and immense collection.

“Each item has its own story, making the visit even more interesting,” he says. “It’s also impressive to know that Sheikh Faisal started collecting these unique pieces when he was very young. Knowing this makes the museum even more special, as it reflects his lifelong passion for history and culture.”

It takes time and dedication to truly examine the many collections within the museum — especially since most of them are simply on display without explanation.

Eclectic it may be, but it’s hard to fault the determination of Sheikh Faisal, who has brought together items that tell the story of Qatar and the Middle East.

Sarah Bayley, from the UK, says she visited the museum recently with her family, including 16 and 19-year-old teenagers, and was won over by its sheer eccentricity.

“Amazing. Loved it. It is a crazy place.”

Kevinmuh

25 Apr 2025 - 07:22 am

A long time in the making
Curiosity landed in Gale Crater on August 6, 2012. More than 12 years later, the rover has driven over 21 miles (34 kilometers) to ascend Mount Sharp, which is within the crater. The feature’s many layers preserve millions of years of geological history on Mars, showing how it shifted from a wet to a dry environment.
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Perhaps one of the most valuable samples Curiosity has gathered on its mission to understand whether Mars was ever habitable was collected in May 2013.

The rover drilled the Cumberland sample from an area within a crater called Yellowknife Bay, which resembled an ancient lake bed. The rocks from Yellowknife Bay so intrigued Curiosity’s science team that it had the rover drive in the opposite direction to collect samples from the area before heading to Mount Sharp.
Since collecting the Cumberland sample, Curiosity has used SAM to study it in a variety of ways, revealing that Yellowknife Bay was once the site of an ancient lake where clay minerals formed in water. The mudstone created an environment that could concentrate and preserve organic molecules and trapped them inside the fine grains of the sedimentary rock.

Freissinet helped lead a research team in 2015 that was able to identify organic molecules within the Cumberland sample.

The instrument detected an abundance of sulfur, which can be used to preserve organic molecules; nitrates, which are essential for plant and animal health on Earth; and methane composed of a type of carbon associated with biological processes on Earth.

“There is evidence that liquid water existed in Gale Crater for millions of years and probably much longer, which means there was enough time for life-forming chemistry to happen in these crater-lake environments on Mars,” said study coauthor Daniel Glavin, senior scientist for sample return at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a statement.