Tag: business

US Marine veteran Trevor Reed is on his way home after being released from Russia, where officials said he was wrongfully detained since 2019.

“Today, our prayers have been answered and Trevor is safely on his way back to the United States,” his family said in a statement.

Reed’s release came as part of a prisoner swap with Russia, with the US sending back Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot sentenced in 2011 to a 20-year prison term for importing more than $100 million of cocaine.

The surprise prisoner exchange was the result of long and difficult negotiations between the US and Russia, according to both countries. The fraught diplomacy was made all the more extraordinary because of the utter collapse of relations between Washington and Moscow over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

President Joe Biden, who met with the Reed family last month, said in a statement on Wednesday that the negotiations to release him “required difficult decisions that I do not take lightly.”

“I heard in the voices of Trevor’s parents how much they’ve worried about his health and missed his presence,” Biden said. “And I was delighted to be able to share with them the good news about Trevor’s freedom.”

Reed, 30, was imprisoned for allegedly assaulting a police officer while he was drunk, but his family and US diplomats said he was innocent, describing the evidence against him at trial as “preposterous” and “absurd.” Instead, they said he was being held as a bargaining chip.

In recent

“I think it’s quite a mark of respect, the amount of people that are committed to being patient and queuing,” one volunteer queue steward told BuzzFeed News of the massive line. “Even if it rained, I think they’d still be here.”

Kate Fryer, a National Health Service worker who traveled from Kent, braved the queue for five hours on her own and with a bad hip.

The 44-year-old, who was supported with a walking stick, recommended organizers for making the grueling process as accessible as possible for those with mobility issues.

“They’ve been so good. It’s so well organized,” she told BuzzFeed News.

When they reach the end of the line, mourners enter the solemn scene at Westminster Hall, where the Queen’s coffin is lying in state, surrounded by ceremonial guards with a glittering crown lying on top.

A livestream from the BBC shows those queuing quietly stopping beside the coffin. Some bow, some cry, but all feel a sense of history that seems hard to describe for those in line.

Key Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives have signed onto a bill that would bar the US government from funding international conservation groups that finance or support human rights violations.

The proposed law would require federal agencies to monitor international projects they support for abuses and, if any are discovered, to stop sending money. And every year, agencies would have to submit to Congress a report on human rights abuses that have occurred at US-funded projects.

The House Committee on Natural Resources has been looking into the issue in response to a 2019 BuzzFeed News investigation that found that the World Wide Fund for Nature, a beloved wildlife conservation charity and a longtime partner of the US government, had closely backed anti-poaching forces who tortured and killed people in national parks in Asia and Africa.

Villagers living near the parks had been whipped with belts, attacked with machetes, beaten unconscious with bamboo sticks, sexually assaulted, and shot, according to reports and documents obtained by BuzzFeed News. Rangers at WWF-supported parks committed several alleged unlawful killings.

In 2019, now-retired Republican member of Congress Rob Bishop of Utah, then the committee’s ranking member, proposed a law covering similar ground. Bishop’s bill stalled, but since then lawmakers in both parties have picked the issue back up.

This year’s bill has bipartisan support. Its sponsors are committee chair Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, Democrat of Arizona, and ranking member of Rep. Bruce Westerman, Republican of Arkansas. The rest of the committee will now