U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday announced new sanctions against Russian oligarchs and others in President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle as Russian forces continue to pummel Ukraine.
Those targeted by the new sanctions include Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, and Alisher Burhanovich Usmanov, one of Russia’s wealthiest individuals and a close ally of Putin. The U.S. State Department also announced it was imposing visa bans on 19 Russian oligarchs and dozens of their family members and close associates.
“These individuals and their family members will be cut off from the U.S. financial system; their assets in the United States will be frozen and their property will be blocked from use,” the White House said in a statement announcing the new penalties.
The White House described Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, as a "top purveyor of Putin’s propaganda.”
The property of Usmanov and the others will be blocked from use in the U.S. and by Americans. His assets include his superyacht, one of the world’s largest. Usmanov’s private jet, one of Russia’s largest privately-owned aircraft, is also covered by the sanctions.
Frederico Klein, a former State Department official, was sentenced to nearly six years in prison after being found guilty on several counts including assault of multiple police officers at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
President Joe Biden and First lady Jill Biden are traveling to Lewiston Maine to pay their respects to the people who were killed there in a mass shooting last week.
The House approved a nearly $14.5 billion military aid package Thursday for Israel, a muscular U.S. response to the war with Hamas but also a partisan approach by new Speaker Mike Johnson that poses a direct challenge to Democrats and President Joe Biden.
The U.S. Senate, circumventing holds by Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, on Thursday confirmed the nominations of two senior military leaders, including the first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Using sidewalks as exam rooms and heavy red duffle bags as medical supply closets, volunteer medics spend their Saturdays caring for the growing number of migrants arriving in Chicago without a place to live.
Israeli troops advanced toward Gaza City on Thursday, as the Palestinian death toll rose above 9,000. With no end in sight after weeks of heavy fighting, U.S. and Arab mediators intensified efforts to ease Israel's siege of the Hamas-ruled enclave and called for at least a brief halt to the hostilities in order to aid civilians.
