
Biden heads to India for G20 summit
CBSN
President Biden is on his way to India for the G20 summit, where he will pitch the message that America's economy is strong and seek to strengthen or navigate ties between the world's largest economies. The president departed Washington after he tested negative for COVID-19 on Thursday.
It wasn't certain that Mr. Biden would be able to make the trip, after first lady Jill Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday. The White House has said all week that the president has since taken multiple COVID-19 tests, all of which have been negative so far. As of Wednesday afternoon, he wasn't experiencing any symptoms, according to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Mr. Biden will wear a mask indoors for 10 days following exposure, and will test "regularly," Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday. The White House has not offered any contingency plans if the president tests positive en route to or in India.

Russia has released Ksenia Karelina, a dual U.S.-Russian national who was sentenced to 12 years in prison for treason in August last year, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a social media post early Thursday, offering no information about the terms of her release. The Wall Street Journal first reported Karelina's release, saying she was freed in a prisoner swap orchestrated by the two countries' intelligence agencies.

London — The British government's broadcasting regulator Ofcom announced Wednesday that it is investigating an online suicide forum reportedly linked to 50 deaths in the U.K. Ofcom said it was using new powers granted under British law to look into whether the site's service provider had "failed to put appropriate safety measures in place to protect its U.K. users from illegal content and activity."

Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo — Anthrax poisoning has killed about 50 hippos in Virunga, Africa's oldest national park, which is located in the Democratic Republic of Congo's troubled east, the head of the park told AFP on Tuesday. The toxin is caused by a spore-forming bacterium, Bacillus anthracis, which survives for decades in soil where animals that died of anthrax or were carriers were buried. It is transmissible to humans and potentially fatal in its inhaled form.

Moscow — An appellate court in Russia's far east on Monday reduced the prison sentence for an American soldier convicted of stealing and making threats of murder, Russia's state news agency RIA Novosti reported. Staff Sgt. Gordon Black, 34, flew to the Pacific port city of Vladivostok to see his girlfriend and was arrested in May 2024 after she accused him of stealing from her, according to U.S. officials and Russian authorities.