Belarus releases American woman who was detained last month "as gesture of goodwill"
CBSN
Belarus has "unilaterally" freed an American woman from detention, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Sunday, as the Kremlin-allied country held an orchestrated election poised to give strongman President Alexander Lukashenko yet another term on top of his three decades in power.
Rubio's post on the X social network identified the U.S. citizen as Anastassia Nuhfer. It said she was detained during former President Joe Biden's tenure, but did not specify when or why.
Rubio's statement came following waves of prisoner releases by Lukashenko, often dubbed "Europe's last dictator." Belarus' oldest rights group, Viasna, says that over 1,250 people remain in detention over their opposition to the authorities.
"To the victor belong the spoils." For decades in the 1800s, that phrase was more than a slogan; it was the official hiring policy of the U.S. government. "You win the election, you're entitled to put all your own people in there," said journalist and historian Scott Greenberger.
President Donald Trump descended on Washington last week weathering a cold front that pushed his inauguration indoors. But the winter winds were no match for the flurry of executive orders, pardons, and pens he let fly. Mr. Trump swept away Biden administration policies with each jagged stroke.
Washington — House Speaker Mike Johnson on Saturday invited President Trump to address a joint session of Congress in March, marking his first chance to address both chambers since he returned to office.
The following is the full transcript of an interview with Vice President JD Vance on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" that aired on Jan. 26, 2025.
It was a cold night in February 2021 when lead detective David Zaweski and his colleague Steven Cunningham arrived at the crime scene.
Kevin Jiang was a 26-year-old Yale graduate student, an Army veteran, and, his friends say, a man of faith who volunteered with the homeless. He seemed to have no enemies, and no one could figure out why someone may have targeted him on Feb. 6, 2021, when he was shot in the street not far from his fiancée's apartment in New Haven, Connecticut. Jiang had been driving down the street when his car was struck from behind, and when he got out, possibly to exchange information with the other driver police say, that driver opened fire, shooting him eight times.
At least 56 bodies have been discovered in unmarked mass graves in northern Mexico, not far from the border with the United States, local prosecutors said Saturday in a statement.
Washington — The Trump administration has directed refugee resettlement groups to stop using some federal funds in light of the president's suspension of American foreign aid, according to a U.S. State Department memo obtained by CBS News.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday the U.S. has not stopped military aid to Ukraine after newly sworn-in U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced he would pause foreign aid grants for 90 days.
The Senate confirmed Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary on Saturday by a 59-34 vote, putting the South Dakota governor in charge of a sprawling agency that is essential to national security and President Donald Trump's plans to clamp down on illegal immigration.
An Alabama woman passed a major milestone Saturday to become the longest-living recipient of a pig organ transplant – healthy and full of energy with her new kidney for 61 days and counting.
Paul McCartney urged the British government not to make a change to copyright laws that he says could let artificial intelligence companies rip off artists.
Kia is recalling more than 80,000 electric and hybrid vehicles in the United States because of improper airbag and seat belt deployment, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Saturday.
As Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary nominee, awaits his confirmation hearing, financial disclosures released Wednesday show that he is saddled with millions in debt, but is positioned to earn millions from book deals.
Washington — The Senate narrowly confirmed Pete Hegseth as the next secretary of defense, approving President Trump's pick to lead the Pentagon after a contentious battle over his nomination.
The Gulf of Mexico has been renamed to the Gulf of America, the Interior Department announced Friday, while the name of North America's highest peak, Alaska's Denali, has been changed back to Mount McKinley, both moves are in response to a controversial executive order signed by President Trump after he took office.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has sent an order to all U.S. diplomatic and consular posts instructing a pause on "all new obligations of funding, pending a review, for foreign assistance programs funded by or through the Department and USAID." The message was in line with the executive order President Trump signed on Monday to reevaluate U.S. foreign aid.
The federal judge who presided over the seditious conspiracy trial of far-right Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes is locked in a battle with Washington, D.C.'s new interim top federal prosecutor over whether Rhodes and his co-defendants should be allowed into Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Capitol following President Trump's commutation of their sentences.