Valerie Hopkins

News Analysis Putin nears a prize, restoring ties with the U.S. while giving up nothing.

This story was written by Valerie Hopkins.

Last October, President Trump imposed significant sanctions on Russia's two largest oil companies, complaining that negotiations with President Vladimir V. Putin over ending the war in Ukraine just don't go anywhere.

A red carpet welcome for the Russian leader in Alaska had done nothing to bring peace.

Brought to you by a crowd of crowdsourced weather stations that a crowd crowdsources from around the world.

Valerie Hopkins and Ivan Nechiporenko at the World Desk of the New York Times brings us this first amuse-bouche here at The Chef's Table at West Coast Cookbook and Speakeasy Smothered Benedict Wednesdays.

Russia has detained a Japanese journalist for espionage, the country's main security agency said yesterday Tuesday, alleging that the journalist had been collecting intelligence on the country's military capabilities.

The agency, the Federal Security Service, said in a statement that the journalist working for the Japanese newspaper Hokkaido Shimbun was arrested in Yuzhenko-Shachalinsk on the Pacific island of Sakhalin in Russia's Far East.

They're sort of censoring what they can do, and I think, you know, their argument is that it's still worth being in the country and seeing what people think.

You know, Valerie Hopkins from The New York Times just reported a story about how she had to track receipts-

Mm

... to see how prices were changing in supermarkets 'cause people were too scared to talk to her, so it's even becoming more difficult to get information that way because people are scared.