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Crew Hops 6-Hour Flight— to International Space Station

Trip usually takes 2 days

(Newser) - Typically, a voyage to the International Space Station is a two-day affair. Though it's just 250 miles from the Earth, it's constantly moving, complicating the trip. But a team of three astronauts—two Russian, one from NASA—arrived at 10:28pm last night after just a five-hour, 45-minute...

Putin Orders War Games in Black Sea

Military exercises could make Georgia, Ukraine uneasy

(Newser) - Vladimir Putin ordered surprise military exercises in the Black Sea today, in a move that could make neighboring Ukraine and Georgia a little uneasy, Reuters reports. Thirty-six warships and an unspecified number of warplanes will take part in the previously unannounced exercises, a Putin spokesman said. "The main goal...

Olympic Planners Hoarding Snow for Sochi Games

'Odd winter' has been warm in Sochi

(Newser) - It's been a warm winter in Sochi, Russia, and Olympic planners are worried about next year's Games. So they're hoarding 450,000 cubic meters of snow in a local mountain range, Reuters reports. "I want to assure all the competitors that there won't be any...

Rich Russians Take Ambulances to Dodge Traffic

Moscow police say they're looking for fakers

(Newser) - Running late for a meeting in Moscow? You can go online and hire an "ambulance taxi" for $200 an hour or more—a savvy way to cut through the city's notorious traffic jams, the National Post reports. According to a Russian paper, police discovered the ruse when they...

Exiled Russian Tycoon Berezovsky Dead at 67

Putin critic had gotten rich after collapse of Soviet Union

(Newser) - One of Russia's famed "oligarchs" who became unimaginably rich after the collapse of the Soviet Union has been found dead in his London home at age 67, reports the BBC . The cause of Boris Berezovsky's death remains unclear, but the news is drawing lots of attention because...

Bolshoi Ballet Pimped Out Its Dancers: Claim

Fired soloist says girls were forced to sleep with wealthy patrons

(Newser) - If you thought the Bolshoi Ballet scandals would be confined to a single acid attack , well, you'd be wrong. A soloist who last danced with the company a decade ago alleged this weekend that the Bolshoi was "a giant brothel" during her time there, the BBC reports. Anastasia...

3 Return From 5-Month Mission on Space Station

NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts are home again

(Newser) - A Soyuz space capsule carrying an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts landed this morning on the foggy steppes of Kazakhstan, safely returning the three men to Earth after a 144-day mission to the International Space Station. NASA's Kevin Ford and Russians Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin were smiling...

Steven Seagal, Putin Latest Bizarre BFFs

Action star helping Russian prez promote physical fitness plan

(Newser) - How convenient: New BFFs Kim Jong Un and Dennis Rodman are probably looking for another pair to vacation with , and now they have one ... because Vladimir Putin and Steven Seagal have a similar world leader-washed-up celebrity friendship going on. Putin wants to reinstate a Stalin-era national physical fitness program, and...

Ballet Villain Cops to Bolshoi Acid Attack

'Ivan the Terrible' plotted attack on director, police say

(Newser) - Did playing Ivan the Terrible go to the head of one of the Bolshoi ballet's star dancers? Russian authorities say Pavel Dmitrichenko, a soloist who danced the title role in the ballet about the ruthless tsar, has confessed to masterminding the acid attack on the Moscow troupe's artistic...

Kerry: Time for Iran Nuke Talks Is 'Finite'

UN watchdog prevented from entering Iran military site

(Newser) - Talks with Iran on its nuclear program can't simply drag on forever, John Kerry and the Saudi foreign minister are warning. "There is a finite amount of time," Kerry said during a Riyadh press conference on his first overseas trip as secretary of state. Diplomacy, he said,...

Russian Officials Harass Pussy Riot Play Director

Immigration enforcers barge in on play based on band's trial

(Newser) - In a raid that was "more Kafka than Stalin," Russian immigration officials barged into a Moscow theater yesterday during a play based on the trial of punk band Pussy Riot, Swiss theater director Milo Rau says. The performance was interrupted but the raid quickly petered out when it...

Scientists Figure Out Russia Meteor's Origin

As biggest piece yet found in Ural Mountains

(Newser) - Turns out there is a cool use for trigonometry: Scientists in Colombia have been able to calculate the trajectory of the meteor that injured 1,000 in Russia this month using data gleaned from local camera footage and a lake landing spot. Once they had determined the meteor's path...

Russia Gets Tough New Smoking Law

No more lighting up in bars, offices, playgrounds

(Newser) - Life is about to get tougher for smokers in a country with one of the world's highest rates of tobacco use. Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed tough new anti-smoking measures into law, banning smoking in workplaces, restaurants, long-distance trains, and other public places like beaches and playgrounds, the...

Russian 'Ghost Ship' Turns Up Off Irish Coast

It's an environmental danger: French group

(Newser) - An empty Russian cruise ship lost at sea for weeks has turned up some 1,300 nautical miles off Ireland's west coast, reports AFP via PhysOrg. The Lyubov Orlova was being towed from Canada to the Dominican Republic when a tug line broke in late January, setting it adrift....

Russia: Adopted Boy Died of Negligence, Not Murder

American investigators say no action planned before autopsy results

(Newser) - Russian authorities are backing away from murder accusations in the Jan. 21 death of Max Shatto, a 3-year-old adopted by Laura and Alan Shatto of Texas in November, reports the New York Times . Russia's federal commissioner for children’s rights, Pavel Astakhov, is still upset about the death, but...

Outraged Russia: US Mom Beat Adopted Boy to Death

But Max Shatto's death still under investigation in US

(Newser) - Max Shatto's new life began in November, when he and his younger brother left a Russian orphanage with adoptive parents Laura and Alan Shatto. It ended just a few months later on Jan. 21, when the 3-year-old boy died amid accusations of abuse. Texas child welfare authorities are still...

Russian Politician Found in Cement Barrel Owed $80M

Yevgeny Kharitonov thought to be behind murder of Mikhail Pakhomov

(Newser) - The Russian politician who was found dead in a cement barrel Sunday was in debt—to the tune of $80 million. Police say Mikhail Pakhomov, 36, was tortured and killed over the outstanding loan, the New York Times reports. In addition to being a city legislator, Pakhomov was also the...

Biggest Piece of 55-Foot Meteor Found So Far: 7mm

And 7mm happens to be just .26 inches

(Newser) - The numbers are pretty staggering: The meteor that rocked Russia last week was the biggest since 1908 , at 55 feet in diameter, estimates NASA. But the largest meteorite found to date by scientists with Ural Federal University measures just 0.26 inches in diameter, reports the Wall Street Journal . And...

Missing Russian Politician Found in Barrel of Cement

Ruling party member Mikhail Pakhomov said to have been killed over debts

(Newser) - Nearly a week after he was declared missing, a Russian lawmaker's body has turned up near Moscow—in an unidentified person's garage, squeezed into a barrel of cement. Mikhail Pakhomov, of the ruling United Russia party, was a member of the Lipetsk city parliament. "The nature of...

After Meteor, Russian Politician Blames ... John Kerry

He says it was an American weapons test

(Newser) - One of the conspiracy theories getting the most attention after yesterday's spectacular meteor show in Russia comes not from a basement blogger but from one of the nation's most well-known, if outlandish, politicians, reports the Voice of Russia . “Those were not meteorites, it was Americans testing their...

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