Whelan, who denies spying on Russia, was arrested by the Federal Security Service (FSB) in a room in Moscow’s Metropol Hotel on Dec. 28, 2018. Investigators said he was caught red-handed with a flash drive containing sensitive information.

The United States has repeatedly denied that Whelan is a spy and repeatedly demanded his release, offering several different proposed deals to get Whelan home. Washington says he was “wrongfully detained”.

Whelan told the BBC he felt “abandoned” by the United States and said a previous swap which left him behind in Russia was a “serious betrayal”.

“I know the U.S. have all sorts of proposals, but it’s not what the Russians want. So they go back and forth, like throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks,” the BBC quoted him saying.

“The problem is, it’s my life that’s draining away while they do this. It’s been five years.”

The United States has repeatedly told its citizens to leave Russia immediately and warns that those who stay are at serious risk of arbitrary arrest or harassment by Russian law enforcement agencies.

Last December, U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner was released from a Russian penal colony as part of a prisoner swap with Russia. Whelan was not released in that swap.

President Vladimir Putin, when asked this month about a possible prisoner swap for the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Whelan, said he hoped an agreement would be reached, but that the U.S. had to listen to Russia’s conditions.

“It is not simple, I will not go into details now, but in general, it seems to me that we speak a language that is understandable to each other,” Putin said. “I hope we will find a solution. But, I repeat, the American side must hear us and make an appropriate decision, one that suits the Russian side.”

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said after the Putin remarks that discussions were ongoing but Russia had rebuffed a serious proposal. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the United States wanted a deal.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Michael Perry)

Whelan, who denies spying on Russia, was arrested by the Federal Security Service (FSB) in a room in Moscow’s Metropol Hotel on Dec. 28, 2018. Investigators said he was caught red-handed with a flash drive containing sensitive information.

The United States has repeatedly denied that Whelan is a spy and repeatedly demanded his release, offering several different proposed deals to get Whelan home. Washington says he was “wrongfully detained”.

Whelan told the BBC he felt “abandoned” by the United States and said a previous swap which left him behind in Russia was a “serious betrayal”.

“I know the U.S. have all sorts of proposals, but it’s not what the Russians want. So they go back and forth, like throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks,” the BBC quoted him saying.

“The problem is, it’s my life that’s draining away while they do this. It’s been five years.”

The United States has repeatedly told its citizens to leave Russia immediately and warns that those who stay are at serious risk of arbitrary arrest or harassment by Russian law enforcement agencies.

Last December, U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner was released from a Russian penal colony as part of a prisoner swap with Russia. Whelan was not released in that swap.

President Vladimir Putin, when asked this month about a possible prisoner swap for the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Whelan, said he hoped an agreement would be reached, but that the U.S. had to listen to Russia’s conditions.

“It is not simple, I will not go into details now, but in general, it seems to me that we speak a language that is understandable to each other,” Putin said. “I hope we will find a solution. But, I repeat, the American side must hear us and make an appropriate decision, one that suits the Russian side.”

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said after the Putin remarks that discussions were ongoing but Russia had rebuffed a serious proposal. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the United States wanted a deal.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Michael Perry)

California is planning to file an appeal of the decision, Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Wednesday, adding that “the court got this wrong.”

The law, among a series of gun control measures signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in September, applies to those with licenses to carry a concealed weapon.

US District Judge Cormac Carney granted a preliminary injunction, and indicated that provisions of Senate Bill 2 that were being challenged “unconstitutionally deprive” concealed carry holders of their rights to carry a handgun.

The judge called the coverage of California’s law “sweeping, repugnant to the Second Amendment, and openly defiant of the Supreme Court.”

“SB2 turns nearly every public place in California into a ‘sensitive place,’ effectively abolishing the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding and exceptionally qualified citizens to be armed and to defend themselves in public,” Carney wrote in his order.

The California Rifle and Pistol Association and Gun Owners of America were among the plaintiffs in the challenge to the law.

Gun rights groups quickly celebrated Carney’s decision Wednesday.  

“This is a great day for Californians and human liberty,” said Firearms Policy Coalition President Brandon Combs. “The court’s decision is both well-reasoned and the required result under the Constitution and binding Supreme Court precedent.”

The 67-year-old Amanda, Ohio, resident then does the same for her 5-year-old dilute tortoiseshell cat, Lola-Pearl, who is missing her left hind leg.

The duo is one of an estimated 200 therapy cat teams registered in the U.S. through Pet Partners. The nonprofit sets up owners and their pets as volunteer teams providing animal-assisted interventions, where they might visit hospitals, nursing homes or schools to aid in therapy and other activities to improve well-being in communities.

“A therapy animal is an animal who’s been assessed based on their ability to meet new people and not just tolerate the interaction, but actively enjoy it,” said Taylor Chastain Griffin, the national director of animal-assisted interventions advancement at the organization.

Pet Partners registers nine different species as therapy animals: dogs, cats, horses, rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, birds, mini pigs, and llamas and alpacas.

As part of her research, Chastain Griffin studies the impact of therapy cats and argues more research needs to be done. There’s abundant research on other therapy animals like dogs, she said, but there’s often a “shock factor” involved with therapy cats because many don’t know they exist.

“They go into a setting and people are like, ‘Whoa, there’s a cat on a leash. What’s happening?’” Chastain Griffin said. “It kind of inspires people to connect in a way we haven’t traditionally heard talked about in other therapy animal interventions.”

Mengel said she knew Lola-Pearl would be a good therapy cat after she brought her on a whim to an amputee coalition conference about a month after she adopted the domestic shorthair.

“She was so good with people I just knew she would be a good therapy cat,” Mengel said. “People really were attracted to her, too.”

During a recent visit to a limb loss support group meeting, Mengel pushed Lola-Pearl around in a stroller — labeled “Therapy Cat” — so attendees could pet the kitty as she woke up from a nap.

Whether she was sitting in the stroller, walking in between participants’ legs or cuddling on their laps, Lola-Pearl brought a smile to whoever she decided was worthy of her attention in that moment.

“She’s very intuitive of people,” Mengel said.

Lola-Pearl isn’t the only cat in Mengel’s life; the former traveling nurse who lost her left leg in 2006 after years of surgeries following a near-fatal car accident is a mother to seven felines, most of which have disabilities.

“They find you, you don’t find them,” she said.

Lola-Pearl was found at only a few weeks old with her back legs completely twisted together. She was unable to walk and brought to a friend of Mengel’s at an animal shelter in Missouri, where veterinarians could not help her. The shelter found specialists in Iowa who were able to splint Lola-Pearl’s legs as an attempt to save them, but they decided her left hind leg needed to be amputated.

Meanwhile, Mengel had been in talks with her friend in Missouri about adopting the cat, and after Lola-Pearl healed from surgery, Mengel officially adopted her.

Despite the obstacles Mengel has been through, she exudes a spirit of gratitude for Lola-Pearl and for the work they do together.

“It’s a really rewarding experience,” she said, “I get just as much out of it as the people that I visit.”

The 67-year-old Amanda, Ohio, resident then does the same for her 5-year-old dilute tortoiseshell cat, Lola-Pearl, who is missing her left hind leg.

The duo is one of an estimated 200 therapy cat teams registered in the U.S. through Pet Partners. The nonprofit sets up owners and their pets as volunteer teams providing animal-assisted interventions, where they might visit hospitals, nursing homes or schools to aid in therapy and other activities to improve well-being in communities.

“A therapy animal is an animal who’s been assessed based on their ability to meet new people and not just tolerate the interaction, but actively enjoy it,” said Taylor Chastain Griffin, the national director of animal-assisted interventions advancement at the organization.

Pet Partners registers nine different species as therapy animals: dogs, cats, horses, rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, birds, mini pigs, and llamas and alpacas.

As part of her research, Chastain Griffin studies the impact of therapy cats and argues more research needs to be done. There’s abundant research on other therapy animals like dogs, she said, but there’s often a “shock factor” involved with therapy cats because many don’t know they exist.

“They go into a setting and people are like, ‘Whoa, there’s a cat on a leash. What’s happening?’” Chastain Griffin said. “It kind of inspires people to connect in a way we haven’t traditionally heard talked about in other therapy animal interventions.”

Mengel said she knew Lola-Pearl would be a good therapy cat after she brought her on a whim to an amputee coalition conference about a month after she adopted the domestic shorthair.

“She was so good with people I just knew she would be a good therapy cat,” Mengel said. “People really were attracted to her, too.”

During a recent visit to a limb loss support group meeting, Mengel pushed Lola-Pearl around in a stroller — labeled “Therapy Cat” — so attendees could pet the kitty as she woke up from a nap.

Whether she was sitting in the stroller, walking in between participants’ legs or cuddling on their laps, Lola-Pearl brought a smile to whoever she decided was worthy of her attention in that moment.

“She’s very intuitive of people,” Mengel said.

Lola-Pearl isn’t the only cat in Mengel’s life; the former traveling nurse who lost her left leg in 2006 after years of surgeries following a near-fatal car accident is a mother to seven felines, most of which have disabilities.

“They find you, you don’t find them,” she said.

Lola-Pearl was found at only a few weeks old with her back legs completely twisted together. She was unable to walk and brought to a friend of Mengel’s at an animal shelter in Missouri, where veterinarians could not help her. The shelter found specialists in Iowa who were able to splint Lola-Pearl’s legs as an attempt to save them, but they decided her left hind leg needed to be amputated.

Meanwhile, Mengel had been in talks with her friend in Missouri about adopting the cat, and after Lola-Pearl healed from surgery, Mengel officially adopted her.

Despite the obstacles Mengel has been through, she exudes a spirit of gratitude for Lola-Pearl and for the work they do together.

“It’s a really rewarding experience,” she said, “I get just as much out of it as the people that I visit.”

Photographers chronicling life in North America in 2023 captured images that evoked all the emotions, from the giddy silliness of people racing in inflatable dinosaur costumes to the wrenching sorrow of a vigil for victims of a mass shooting.

This gallery from The Associated Press showcases a year that included unprecedented events — such as the first ever criminal indictment of a former president, Donald Trump, in connection to a hush money scheme from his 2016 campaign. Trump was photographed surrounded by security as he was escorted to a Manhattan courtroom in April.

Some of the images focused on issues that the country continues to wrestle with, like immigration at the southern border where people come from around the world in hope of seeking asylum in the United States: A grim-faced man waits while cradling a sleeping child, reminiscent of Dorothea Lange’s iconic 1936 “Migrant Mother”; a small child is passed under concertina wire by the Rio Grande.

A weeping child on a bus, leaving the site of a school shooting in Tennessee, shows the toll of another year of gun violence.

The impacts of climate change are present in a number of images. Canada’s worst wildfire season on record sent haze wafting down into the United States, turning skies as far away as New York City a post-apocalyptic orange. And a furious wildfire on the Hawaiian island of Maui destroyed much of the historic town of Lahaina.

But nature’s beauty is there, too, in a sea lion swimming in San Diego’s La Jolla Cove and a puffin carrying food to its chick off the coast of Maine.

Moments of fun and celebration had their place, such as dancers rehearsing for the “2023 Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes,” and the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights crowding together after winning their first Stanley Cup.

There were also those who inspired us: Simone Biles, soaring as she returned to competitive gymnastics and won the U.S. Classic, two years after withdrawing from the Tokyo Olympics to focus on her mental health.

And no gallery would be complete without the woman who may have had the most interesting 2023 of all. There she is, in all her sparkly, record-breaking, history-making glory — Taylor Swift.

___

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Photographers chronicling life in North America in 2023 captured images that evoked all the emotions, from the giddy silliness of people racing in inflatable dinosaur costumes to the wrenching sorrow of a vigil for victims of a mass shooting.

This gallery from The Associated Press showcases a year that included unprecedented events — such as the first ever criminal indictment of a former president, Donald Trump, in connection to a hush money scheme from his 2016 campaign. Trump was photographed surrounded by security as he was escorted to a Manhattan courtroom in April.

Some of the images focused on issues that the country continues to wrestle with, like immigration at the southern border where people come from around the world in hope of seeking asylum in the United States: A grim-faced man waits while cradling a sleeping child, reminiscent of Dorothea Lange’s iconic 1936 “Migrant Mother”; a small child is passed under concertina wire by the Rio Grande.

A weeping child on a bus, leaving the site of a school shooting in Tennessee, shows the toll of another year of gun violence.

The impacts of climate change are present in a number of images. Canada’s worst wildfire season on record sent haze wafting down into the United States, turning skies as far away as New York City a post-apocalyptic orange. And a furious wildfire on the Hawaiian island of Maui destroyed much of the historic town of Lahaina.

But nature’s beauty is there, too, in a sea lion swimming in San Diego’s La Jolla Cove and a puffin carrying food to its chick off the coast of Maine.

Moments of fun and celebration had their place, such as dancers rehearsing for the “2023 Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes,” and the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights crowding together after winning their first Stanley Cup.

There were also those who inspired us: Simone Biles, soaring as she returned to competitive gymnastics and won the U.S. Classic, two years after withdrawing from the Tokyo Olympics to focus on her mental health.

And no gallery would be complete without the woman who may have had the most interesting 2023 of all. There she is, in all her sparkly, record-breaking, history-making glory — Taylor Swift.

___

Get the best of The AP’s photography delivered to your inbox every Sunday. Sign up for The World in Pictures.

The global outage affected users in countries including the US, Canada, and India.

AT&T Fiber and Xfinity are the main options for internet in Clovis, but there are a couple of good wireless providers, too.

Aurora has more fixed wireless options than most cities, but you’ll probably want to stick with a cable or fiber connection for your home internet.

Fiber-optic coverage spans most of Greensboro, but is it the best internet for your home? Here’s a look at the best internet providers in Greensboro.

Getting solar panels adds up to more than just the cost of the panels themselves. Here are some of the…

Most of the new range also incorporates wireless Dolby Atmos.