Posts

The U.K. ministry in its daily intelligence update on the war in Ukraine on Monday gave an overview of the intensifying battle for the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. It claimed that Russia’s Wagner Group continues to take a major role in attritional combat. In recent months, the military proxy group founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has developed offensive tactics to make use of the large number of poorly trained convicts it has recruited, the report said....

Russian state-run news outlet Kommersant reported that Dmitry Zakharov, a 46-year-old politician from Novouralsk in the Sverdlovsk Oblast, was mobilized after President Vladimir Putin announced a “partial mobilization” of the population on September 21. He had won local elections on September 11, and Novouralsk’s military commissar, Alexei Verkhoturov, was his political rival. Zakharov was handed a summons to fight in Ukraine on October 20, and was sent to a training center the following day....

Speaking at the Global Space Exploration Conference in St. Petersburg on Tuesday, Rogozin told attendees that there’s no current technology to change the trajectory of celestial bodies. Without that technology, there’s no means of “warding off the danger” a potential collision poses to the Earth, according to Rogozin. While the head of Roscosmos sees the technology as necessary for the planet’s survival, he’s not confident one, single country has the capabilities to create it....

The running back - who appeared in three Pro Bowls during his career - played for both the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles before finishing up with the Tennessee Titans. The 30-year-old finishes with impressive figures, having rushed for 7,174 yards and 49 touchdowns while also catching 307 passes for 2,165 yards and six scores. After being cut by the Titans in March, Murray revealed his decision during an appearance on ESPN....

Brought to the forefront of the public’s mind in 1926 with American author Ernest Hemmingway’s The Sun Also Rises, the event dates back centuries. Celebrated annually from July 6 to the 14, this year, the festivities honoring Saint Fermin, the patron saint of Pamplona, will kick off on Saturday. The next morning, at 8:00 a.m. local time, bulls will be let loose in the streets of Pamplona, causing participants to run, quite literally, for their lives....

In the fourth episode of the show, Chris Chavez, Alex Lohr and Mitch Kastoff discuss the newly released LA Marathon fields, examine the field running in Tokyo, comment on the latest in Russian doping scandals and each make a case for someone deserving of a Topps Baseball Card like 50 Cent. Listen to the fourth episode of the Running Our Mouths podcast now: Episodes: 1 | 2 | 3 Subscribe and rate on iTunes....

Interest in the highly anticipated blockbuster pushed demand for tickets to levels not seen since before the pandemic. They were released at midnight on November 29 and many fans also reported lengthy waiting times before they were able to purchase tickets on websites. Others noted that tickets were already being resold on eBay at prices ranging from $200 to $25,000. The frenzy sparked a wave of jokes and memes on social media, as moviegoers laughed about trying and either failing or succeeding to get tickets at their local cinemas all over the U....

The exact financial contributions were not disclosed but it’s the largest donation by a former basketball player in UCLA history. Moving forward, the men’s practice court at the state-of-the-art facility will be named Russell Westbrook Court. MORE: Ranking UCLA’s all-time best players “When you have a letter-winner give back to your program, it’s always extremely meaningful,” UCLA coach Steve Alford said. “But when that individual is named Russell Westbrook, a familiar face here in the offseason who also happens to be one of the game’s greatest players — and he’s making the largest financial contribution of any basketball letter-winner in school history — that’s a game-changer....

Friday’s announcement that the reigning MVP would agree to a Designated Veteran extension is the actual earth-shaking commitment for the NBA and Thunder. While it was also the financially sound decision, Westbrook made a definitive choice to spend the remainder of his prime with the franchise that drafted him. DEVENEY: Thunder shrug off small-market excuses with major offseason While we will not know exact terms until after this season, Westbrook is line for five years and $205,030,000, according to the league’s just-released $101 million salary cap estimate for 2018-19, with a player option for the 2022-23 season worth an eye-popping $46....

MORE: What to remember about Week 1 That’s Seahawks coach Pete Carroll talking about his quarterback, who sprained his ankle late in their deadly-boring-until-the-last-minute 12-10 win over Miami. X-rays are negative, and Carroll said that it’s “nothing really serious.” Condolences to Wilson on escaping serious injury — though if he hadn’t, nanobubbles, or some other apocryphal product from a brand he endorses, would’ve had his back. MORE: Seahawks pull anthem ‘surprise’...

Wilson’s deal will tie him to the Broncos through the 2029 NFL season. It will also make him one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in the league. There had been questions about Wilson’s next contract given that he had just two years left on his deal at the time the Broncos acquired him from the Seahawks. MORE: QB Rankings | RB Rankings | WR Rankings | Buy NFL tickets The Walton/Penner ownership group, which officially bought the team in August of 2022, had been mum on the possibility of extending the talented veteran....

The two camps wanted to have a new deal in place before training camp begins Friday, but according to NFL.com’s Ian Rapport, there’s some “pessimism” surrounding discussions. MORE: Top 25 QBs for 2015 | Kam Chancellor a camp holdout threat Wilson is entering the final year of his rookie contract, which will pay him $1.54 million this season. If the two sides cannot come to an agreement, Seattle does have the option of placing a franchise tag on Wilson next year, which would pay the quarterback who helped Seattle reach the last two Super Bowls more than $20 million for one season....

Mutko was speaking after WADA in its latest report concluded that Russian athletes continued to fail drug tests and obstruct doping control officers. The report was the latest in a long line of setbacks for Russia which is trying to overturn a decision that could stop its athletes taking part in the Rio Olympics. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) suspended Russia last year and is due to decide on Friday whether Moscow has done enough to have the ban reversed....

“I think this is an absolutely reasonable approach,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at a press conference on Monday. “A representative of the Belarusian foreign ministry… stressed the readiness of the Belarusian authorities to act on the issue in a transparent manner and to follow all international rules.” On Sunday MiG-29 fighter jet intercepted the Ryanair flight traveling from Greece to Lithuania, forcing it to land in Minsk....

Russia’s armed forces claimed, without evidence, to have found proof that the Pentagon has been financing biological studies in the Eastern European country in order to carry out the “covert spread of deadly pathogens.” The speculation was presented (again, without any evidence) and arrived after Russia had already attempted to revive a years-old conspiracy that there exists U.S.-military labs in Ukraine developing germ warfare capabilities. “According to the documents, in Ukraine, in 2022, the American side planned to conduct works on bird, bat and reptile pathogens, then subsequently proceeding to researching the possibility of them transmitting African swine fever and anthrax,” Russian Defence Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov told reporters, via the Russian news agency TASS....

“Russia forces’ prior use of phosphorus munitions in the Donetsk Oblast raises the possibility of their future employment in Mariupol as fighting for the city intensifies,” the ministry said in its latest defense intelligence update issued on Twitter. “Russian shelling has continued in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, with Ukrainian forces repulsing several assaults resulting in the destruction of Russia tanks, vehicles and artillery equipment,” the update added. “Russia’s continued reliance on unguided bombs decreases their ability to discriminate when targeting and conducting strikes while greatly increasing the risk of further civilian casualties....

Moscow, Aug 6 Russian has made another cutback to the budget for the 2018 FIFA World Cup due to the harsh recession plaguing the national economy. A total of 151.4 million rubles (around $2.5 million) have been removed from the budget of the organising committee, after a previous budget reduction last June, when the Russian authorities took out 30 billion rubles (over $560 million), reports Efe. Russian Sport, Tourism and Youth Minister Vitaly Mutko, who announced earlier this year a 10 percent budget cut, said that the reduction will mainly affect hotels....

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said that their measures were a “retaliatory” response to how Poland recently expelled three Russian Embassy officials from their country as an act of solidarity with the U.S. over concerns of Russian cyberattacks. “The decision of the Russian side provides yet another example of aggressive policies and is a deliberate gesture meant to inflame relations with the neighbors and the entire international community,” a statement from Poland’s Foreign Ministry read....

Russia needs “to be prepared” for Kyiv’s forces to advance if the surface of the river freezes, as it has done in the past and may likely do again in the coming days, Vladimir Rogov, the head of the pro-Moscow We Stand With Russia movement, said on Monday, according Kremlin-controlled news agency Tass. Rogov told russian state TV that Kyiv’s forces had engineered the drop in water levels through the closing of hydraulic locks at various points along the Dnieper River....

Citing an unnamed senior Ukrainian security official, The New York Times (NYT) reported that on January 5, 18 people mostly from the families of Russian diplomats, had departed Kyiv and returned to Russia by bus. Over the following days, 30 more staff reportedly followed, some of whom returned from the Russian consulate in Lviv, in western Ukraine, the NYT reported. Last week, talks in Geneva, Brussels and Vienna between NATO, American and Russian officials over Moscow’s military presence by Ukraine ended in deadlock....