Author: Alfredo Fletcher

Ukraine’s attempt to reclaim Russia-annexed Crimea will be a red line for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Therefore, the United States does not encourage Kyiv’s plans to return the peninsula, State Department Secretary Anthony Blinken said during an online conversation with a group of experts on February 15. Politico writes about this, citing four sources familiar with the content of the conversation. However, Blinken emphasized that Kyiv independently makes decisions about its military plans. Washington is trying to help Ukrainian forces advance to “where the struggle is going on, mainly in the east.” According to two sources, Blinken hinted that the…

U.S. Capitol police officers stand outside the federal courthouse in Washington, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023, after attending the sentencing hearing for Julian Khater and co-defendant, George Tanio. Both men joined the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Michael Kunzelman)Michael Kunzelman WASHINGTON (AP) — A New Jersey man who joined a mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced Friday to more than six years in prison for using pepper spray to assault police officers, one of whom died a day after the siege. Julian Khater didn’t mention the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick or…

Harvard Medical School will no longer provide data to U.S. News & World Report for its surveys and rankings of best medical schools, its dean announced Tuesday, a decision that echoes that of prominent law schools in rejecting the influential ranking system in recent weeks. George Q. Daley, dean of the faculty of medicine at Harvard University, wrote in a message to the school that the ranking system creates “perverse incentives for institutions to report misleading or inaccurate data,” sets flawed policies or diverts financial aid from needy students to boost rankings. Harvard Medical School is ranked No. 1 in…

The United States must stop suppressing China’s development and should not continue the “old routine of unilateral bullying”, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. In the latest phone correspondence between the two leaders, Wang said the United States must pay attention to China’s legitimate concerns, stop curbing and suppressing its development, and not constantly challenge China’s red line in a “salami-slicing” way. He was referring to the tactic of using a series of small actions to achieve a much larger result that would be difficult to achieve with a single large action. The remarks…