Traders on the floor of the NYSE, August 24, 2022.
Source: NYSE
U.S. stock futures were flat on Wednesday night after all three major averages ended higher during the daily trading session.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose by 8 points, or 0.02%. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 0.14% and 0.13%, respectively. Shares of Nvidia slid more than 2% on the heels of a quarterly report that missed Wall Street's expectations. Salesforce fell more than 4% after the company provided a disappointing forecast for fiscal 2023. Snowflake jumped 16% after posting a beat on revenue.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 59.64 points, or 0.18%, and the S&P 500 rose 0.29% Wednesday. For both averages, the gains snapped three-day long losing streaks. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite also ticked up 0.41%.
The market action occurs as investors await the start of the Jackson Hole economic symposium, which begins Thursday with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell scheduled to speak the following morning. Traders will be listening for more information about how the central bank will combat high inflation and if policymakers may cut rates when the current hiking cycle is over.
"It's steady as it goes, it's way too early for the Fed to consider a pivot," said Jim Bianco, president of Bianco Research, on CNBC's "Fast Money."
Investors are also waiting for key economic reports scheduled to come out later in the week, including jobless claims Thursday and the personal consumption expenditures Friday. The PCE report is one of the Fed's favorite inflation measures, and it could influence its actions going forward.
Peloton reports quarterly earnings Thursday before the bell, along with Gap, Dollar Tree and Dollar General. Ulta Beauty, Workday and Affirm Holdings will release their own results after markets close Thursday.
The saga of WNBA star Brittney Griner continued Monday after her attorneys filed an appeal over her conviction and nine-year Russian prison sentence for drug possession.
The move comes as U.S. officials continue to seek a prisoner transfer for her and fellow captive American Paul Whelan.
ABC News Live spoke with Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., who has been a frequent emissary in hostage negotiations through the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, about the latest developments.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Let's start with the news of Griner's team filing an appeal. I'm curious, does that have any impact, you think, on diplomatic talks for a prisoner exchange to bring Griner and fellow detained American Paul Whelan home?
RICHARDSON: Well, indirectly, it basically says the legal process is over except for the appeal, and it's reasonable to have this appeal [for a] nine-year sentence in a penal conflict. Now, there can be negotiations between the United States and Russia. Both seem disposed.
There's been a prisoner exchange about two months ago, Trevor Reed, that I was indirectly involved in. I think the legal team of Brittney Griner has been effective [in] showing contrition, acknowledgment of the mistake and now the appeal. And I think…this potential return date from the American side is very important to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. So I think both sides are moving in the right direction and I'm optimistic.
Bill Richardson, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., speaks to ABC News Live about the latest developments in the cases of Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, who are detained in Russia.
ABC News
ABC NEWS LIVE: All right. You've just described yourself as a catalyst in these talks that are taking place at a government-to-government level between the U.S. and Russia. We know you traveled to Russia ahead of the release, as you mentioned, of American Trevor Reed earlier this spring. Have you or can you say or will you be traveling to Russia ahead of any release, potential release of Griner and Whelan?
RICHARDSON: Well, no, I can't get into that information. But what I can tell you is that I talked to both sides. I talked to the White House. I talked to the Russians. I have contacts in the Russian government. When I was U.N. ambassador, for instance, the foreign minister [Sergey] Lavrov was my counterpart. I have others that I dealt with as secretary of energy. So I'm not a replacement for the negotiations, [or] some kind of an interlocutor indirectly.
So I don't want to get into too many of these facets, but I've had experience. And I think…both sides are moving in the right direction because they've done it before, despite the fact that the relationship between the United States and Russia is toxic. Totally toxic.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Yeah, we understand that, and of course, appreciate it and would not want to jeopardize any future release. But I am curious about this. Russian officials have criticized the U.S. for openly discussing the offers on the table, but they did confirm this weekend that detained Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout is the name at the center of negotiations. You spoke to our George Stephanopoulos about this a little bit -- a week or so ago. [Is there] any concern here that these talks could break down for any reason, including the U.S. being too public with that information? In other words, would you [have] preferred that America didn't throw his name out there?
RICHARDSON: Well, I question that because I think private diplomacy is a lot better, but obviously the negotiations weren't going too well. So what the U.S. did was when things aren't going well, you kind of throw a little bit of a bomb. And so far, I think it's moved in the right direction. Now, eventually, I think it's not going to be a two-for-one deal. I think it's going to be a two-for-two.
The Russians obviously probably will want more, but you never know. Again, humanitarian issues like prisoner exchanges, like this agreement on grain and fertilizer that the U.N. broke…are steps in the right direction on the humanitarian front that eventually might help in a very toxic relationship between us and the Russians.
U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner looks through bars as she listens to the verdict standing in a cage in a courtroom in Khimki, outside Moscow, on Aug. 4, 2022.
Evgenia Novozhenina, Pool via AP
ABC NEWS LIVE: So you just used the word optimistic. I'm going to see if I can push a little bit further. Are you confident that a deal can get done here? And if so, any idea about a timeline without giving anything away? Or are we talking weeks, months, [a] year?
RICHARDSON: Well, you don't want to get into a timeline. I know the families are suffering. I think it was a great effort to combine them. An American Marine, a basketball star. We want both, but I think the Russians will want parity. So I'm optimistic because it was done before.
And I think Brittney Griner's attorneys have handled this well. And lastly, I think both sides want it. Obviously, the president wants to get his prisoners back and Putin wants to get his prisoner back, especially Bout, who was politically very important. So there's [a] political reality here. So I'm optimistic.
ABC NEWS LIVE: You mentioned the families. Let's touch on that a little bit. I think when people talk about situations like this, they want to know what each government is doing. But I think sometimes lost in the translation are the families that have been dealing with this for however long they have been in each individual case. You've written books on it. Obviously, there's an empathy there that you have. How do you tell the families to have patience in any kind of meaningful way during these negotiations?
RICHARDSON: Well, first, Mickey Bergman, who specializes in dealing with the families, handles that for our foundation.
We worked for the families, my foundation. We don't work for the government. We don't take orders from the government, either. The families work closely with us. We help them. We advise them. We don't try to lift their spirits when there's little, but then we move in directly into negotiation.
So that's different from other groups that do very excellent in hostage diplomacy. But we get right in there and try to make things happen. We're not replacing the government. Eventually, the U.S. government has to make the decision. The president, who I think [is] handling this well for a prisoner exchange. And as you know, prisoner exchanges have been criticized in the media and in the public.
In this June 15, 2020, file photo, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who was detained and accused of espionage, holds a sign as he stands inside a defendants' cage during his verdict hearing in Moscow.
Maxim Shemetov/Reuters, FILE
ABC NEWS LIVE: You mentioned this a little earlier on that, of course, this is happening with the backdrop of this Russia-Ukraine war. How does that complicate negotiations? You've done this time and time again, but now there's a war involved in this one, [and] Russia is not happy with America for supplying aid and weapons to Ukraine. So how does that complicate this?
RICHARDSON: Well, it complicates things a lot because the relationship between our leaders or secretary of states or presidents is almost nonexistent. But there are channels like our private channels, like our embassy in Moscow. So there are ways that we talk, but it complicates things. But usually, governments before, they better the relationship.
In this case [it's] a very toxic relationship. Sometimes humanitarian efforts like a prisoner exchange, like the release of human rights prisoners, like the spring deal, the fertilizer deal between Russia [and] Ukraine brokered by the U.N., are steps that might lessen the tension and improve a very bad relationship.
In this photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from left, U.S. Democratic House member Alan Lowenthal from California, Democratic House members John Garamendi, Donald Yu-Tien Hsu, Director-General, dept. of North American Affairs, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Democratic House member Don Beyer from Virginia and Republican Rep. Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, a delegate from American Samoa pose for a photo after arriving on a U.S. government plane at Songshan airport in Taipei, Taiwan on Sunday, Aug 14, 2022.
Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs | via AP
A delegation of U.S. lawmakers arrived in Taiwan on Sunday for a two-day trip during which they will meet President Tsai Ing-wen, the second high-level group to visit while there are military tensions between the self-ruled island and China.
Beijing, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has conducted military drills around the island to express its anger over U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taipei in early August.
The de facto U.S. embassy in Taipei said the delegation is being led by Senator Ed Markey, who is being accompanied by four House lawmakers on what it described as part of a larger visit to the Indo-Pacific region.
Taiwan's presidential office said the group would meet Tsai on Monday morning.
"Especially at a time when China is raising tensions in the Taiwan Strait and the region with military exercises, Markey leading a delegation to visit Taiwan once again demonstrates the United States Congress' firm support for Taiwan," it said in a statement.
Markey chairs the Senate Foreign Relations East Asia, Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Subcommittee. The co-leaders of the visit are Representative John Garamendi of the congressional Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group and Representative Don Beyer, a spokesperson for Markey said.
Markey's office said the lawmakers "will reaffirm the United States' support for Taiwan as guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, U.S. - China Joint Communiques, and Six Assurances, and will encourage stability and peace across the Taiwan Strait."
The group will meet "with elected leaders and members of the private sector to discuss shared interests including reducing tensions in the Taiwan Strait and expanding economic cooperation, including investments in semiconductors," Markey's office said.
Taiwan's Foreign Ministry published pictures of four of the group being met at Taipei's downtown Songshan airport having arrived on a U.S. air force transport jet, while Markey arrived at the Taoyuan international airport.
"The delegation will meet with senior Taiwan leaders to discuss U.S.-Taiwan relations, regional security, trade and investment, global supply chains, climate change, and other significant issues of mutual interest," the de facto U.S embassy said.
While China's drills around Taiwan have abated, it is still carrying out military activities.
Eleven Chinese military aircraft crossed the Taiwan Strait's median line or entered Taiwan's air defense zone on Sunday, Taiwan's Defence Ministry said. Thirteen planes crossed the strait on Saturday, the ministry said.
Russia said Monday it was suspending U.S. on-site inspections under a strategic arms reduction treaty with Washington, pointing to Western sanctions and coronavirus infections.
The Russian foreign ministry said facilities that are subject to inspections under the New START treaty will be "temporarily" exempt from such inspections.
The announcement comes as ties between Russia and the United States unravel over Moscow's intervention in Ukraine and debilitating Western sanctions.
New START is the last remaining arms reduction pact between the former Cold War rivals and caps to 1,550 the number of nuclear warheads that can be deployed by Moscow and Washington.
"Russia is now forced to resort to this measure as a result of Washington's persistent desire to implicitly achieve a restart of inspections on conditions that do not take into account existing realities," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Moscow also accused Washington of seeking "to create unilateral advantages" and deprive Russia of "the right to carry out inspections on American soil."
The statement indicated it had become hard for Moscow to carry out inspections on American soil due to Western sanctions including the closure of air space for Russian planes and visa restrictions.
Moscow also pointed to a new spike in coronavirus cases in the United States.
"We believe that in the current circumstances, the parties should abandon patently counterproductive attempts to artificially speed up the resumption of START inspection activities and focus on a thorough study of all existing problems in this area," the foreign ministry said.
Last year, the United States and Russia extended New START by the maximum allowed time of five years.
Moscow's announcement came after U.S. President Joe Biden called on Russia and China to demonstrate their commitment to limiting nuclear arms.
Russia should demonstrate its willingness to renew the nuclear arms reduction pact when it expires in 2026, Biden said.
In an emailed comment, a U.S. State Department spokesman said that Washington is committed to the New START treaty, "but we keep discussions between the parties concerning treaty implementation confidential."
"The principles of reciprocity, mutual predictability, and mutual stability will continue to guide the U.S. approach to implementation of the New START Treaty," the official said.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) holds his weekly news conference after the Democratic caucus party luncheon at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, August 2, 2022.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
The $430 billion climate change, health-care and tax bill passed by the U.S. Senate on Saturday delivers a major win for Democrats, and will help reduce the carbon emissions that drive climate change while also cutting costs for the elderly.
Democrats hope the bill, which they pushed through the Senate over united Republican opposition, will boost their chances in the Nov. 8 midterm elections, when Republicans are favored to recapture the majority in at least one chamber of Congress.
The package, called the Inflation Reduction Act, is a dramatically scaled-back version of a prior bill backed by Democratic President Joe Biden that was blocked by maverick Senate Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema as too expensive.
"It's what the American people want," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters. "We're prioritizing the middle class, working families, those struggling to get to the middle class, instead of what Republicans do: prioritize those at the very top."
The Senate's partisan 51-50 vote, with the tiebreaking vote coming from Vice President Kamala Harris, sends the legislation on to the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, which is expected to pass it on Friday, after which Biden could sign it into law.
Republicans blasted the bill as a spending "wish list" that they argued would hurt an economy weighed down by inflation, saying it would kill jobs, raise energy costs and undermine growth at a time when the economy is facing a potential recession.
"Senate Democrats are misreading the American people's outrage as a mandate for yet another reckless taxing-and-spending spree," top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell said on Saturday. "Democrats want to ram through hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes and hundreds of billions of dollars in reckless spending -- and for what?"
About half of Americans -- some 49% -- support the bill, including 69% of Democrats and 34% of Republicans, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted Aug. 3 and 4. The most popular element of the bill is giving Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices, which 71% of respondents support, including 68% of Republicans.
Economists, who say the legislation could help the Federal Reserve combat inflation, do not expect a sizeable impact on the economy in the coming months.
Climate focus
With $370 billion in climate-focused spending, it would become the most consequential climate change bill ever passed by Congress.
The bill offers businesses and families billions in incentives to encourage purchases of electric vehicles and energy-efficient appliances, as well as to spur new investments in wind and solar power that would double the amount of new, clean electricity-generating capacity coming online in the United States by 2024, according to modeling by the Repeat Project at Princeton University.
That would help put the U.S. on course to meet its pledge to slash its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 below 2005 levels, made at last year's Glasgow climate summit.
While environmental groups largely embraced the bill, they noted that compromises secured by Manchin, who represents coal-producing West Virginia, would prolong U.S. use of fossil fuels.
Those provisions include rules that would only allow the federal government to authorize new wind and solar energy developments on federal land when it is also auctioning rights to drill for oil and natural gas.
Drug costs
The legislation would lower drug costs for the government, employers and patients, said Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the Medicare program at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
"Perhaps the biggest effect would be for people with prescription drug coverage through Medicare," she said.
A key change is the provision allowing the federal Medicare health plan for older and disabled Americans to negotiate lower prescription drug prices.
The pharmaceutical industry says price negotiation would stifle innovation. Negotiated prices for 10 of the costliest drugs for Medicare would apply starting in 2026, with that number rising until it caps at 20 a year in 2029.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates Medicare would save $101.8 billion over 10 years by negotiating drug prices.
The provision also introduces a $2,000 annual cap on out-of-pocket costs for the elderly through the Medicare program.
Tax provisions
The bill also imposes a new excise tax on stock buybacks, a late change after Sinema raised objections over another provision that would have imposed new levies on carried interest, currently a tax loophole for hedge fund and private equity financiers. The provision was dropped.
The excise tax is expected to raise an additional $70 billion in tax revenue per year, lawmakers said. That is more than the carried interest provision had been forecast to raise.
A report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released prior to that last change estimated the measure would reduce the federal deficit by a net $101.5 billion over the next decade.
That was about one-third of the $300 billion in deficit reduction predicted by Senate Democrats, but excluded a projected $204 billion revenue gain from increased Internal Revenue Service enforcement.
Russia is "ready" to discuss a prisoner swap with Washington at the presidential level, its foreign minister said on Friday, a day after the drug conviction of U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner.
"We are ready to discuss this subject, but only within the framework of the [communication] channel established by presidents Putin and Biden," Sergei Lavrov told a press conference on a visit to Cambodia.
"There is a special channel established by the presidents and despite certain public declarations, it is still functional," he said.
"If the Americans again decide to engage in public diplomacy and make thundering declarations... that's their business and their problem," he said, adding that Washington "can't" work "in a professional and calm manner."
Lavrov spoke a day after a Russian court sentenced Griner to nine years in a penal colony on a drug smuggling charge.
The United States blacklisted Russian President Vladimir Putin's purported girlfriend and the tycoon owner of the second-largest estate in London on Tuesday in the latest round of sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.
Also hit with U.S. business bans were several other oligarchs believed to be close to Putin, four officials Russia has named to administer occupied territories in Ukraine, and around two dozen high technology institutes and companies, including key state-backed electronics entities.
The U.S. Treasury announced sanctions on Putin associate and billionaire Andrey Grigoryevich Guryev, who owns the Witanhurst estate, the second-largest estate in London after Buckingham Palace.
Guryev is the founder and former deputy chairman of PhosAgro, a major supplier to global fertilizer markets.
He and his son were hit with financial sanctions, which ban U.S. businesses — including banks with U.S. branches — from transactions with them, and freeze their assets under U.S. jurisdictions.
The Treasury also blacklisted Guryev's Caribbean-based 81-meter (267 feet) yacht Alfa Nero, which puts it at risk of seizure.
However, the Treasury said Alfa Nero "has reportedly shut off its location tracking hardware in order to avoid seizure."
The Treasury also imposed sanctions on Alina Kabaeva, a former Olympic gymnast widely described as Putin's girlfriend, and Natalya Popova, the wife of Kirill Dmitriev, the manager of the Russian government's massive sovereign wealth fund.
The Treasury said Popova works for the technology firm Innopraktika, which is run by one of Putin's daughters.
"As innocent people suffer from Russia's illegal war of aggression, Putin's allies have enriched themselves and funded opulent lifestyles," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.
"The Treasury Department will use every tool at our disposal to make sure that Russian elites and the Kremlin's enablers are held accountable for their complicity in a war that has cost countless lives," Yellen said.
Viktor Filippovich Rashnikov, one of Russia's largest taxpayers, and two subsidiaries of his MMK, which is among the world's largest steel producers, also were hit with sanctions.
In a joint action, the State Department imposed sanctions, including visa restrictions, on oligarchs "running massive revenue-generating companies," including Dmitry Aleksandrovich Pumpyanskiy, Andrey Igorevich Melnichenko and Alexander Anatolevich Ponomarenko.
In addition, nearly 900 Russian officials were placed on a U.S. visa ban list, as were 31 unnamed non-Russian officials who have supported Russia's occupation of Crimea, the State Department said.
"Today, the United States is taking additional actions to ensure that the Kremlin and its enablers feel the compounding effects of our response to the Kremlin's unconscionable war of aggression," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
Reuters exclusively reported dozens of former Republican and Democratic officials announced a new national political third party yesterday to appeal to millions of voters they say are dismayed with what they see as America’s dysfunctional two-party system.
The new party, called Forward, will initially be co-chaired by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey. The new party is being formed by a merger of three political groups that have emerged in recent years as a reaction to America’s increasingly polarized and gridlocked political system.
An American teacher jailed on drug charges in Russia is being kept from communicating to his family freely, his family told CNN on Wednesday.
Marc Fogel, 61, was last month found guilty of large-scale drug acquisition, manufacture, smuggling and possession and sentenced to 14 years in a maximum-security penal colony. Fogel’s family says he was carrying cannabis for medical reasons to treat chronic back pain.
He was detained passing through customs at a Moscow airport in August 2021, when 11 grams of marijuana and eight grams of hash oil was reportedly found in his luggage.
Fogel’s sister Anne Fogel said no one has heard his voice since his detention and only received Russian-language letters translated by his cell mates.
“Everything goes through the censors. It’s harrowing,” she told CNN.
“He says what he wants in English, someone translates for him, one of his cellmates, and depending on how good their English is is how accurate of a picture we get of what is happening,” Fogel added.
“It’s very convoluted and it’s incredibly worrisome because we can’t really have an honest conversation.”
Fogel’s family is now pushing the U.S. State Department to declare him wrongfully detained, a designation applied to basketball star Brittney Griner, who is on trial on similar drug charges in Moscow.
“We are always weighing those developments against the criteria to determine whether an American is wrongfully held or not,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said, adding that the agency is continuing to learn more about the circumstances of his detention.
Fogel had worked at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow until May 2021, acccording to the Russian authorities. He then apparently took up a teaching job at the Anglo-American School of Moscow.
“This is a person who has served the American diplomatic community in schools all over the world for well over the majority of his career,” Anne Fogel told CNN. “I need my president and first lady to stand up for him. He needs to come home.”
Fogel is among several Americans currently held in Russian prisons amid bilateral tensions, with Griner and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan most prominent among them.
Another ex-Marine, Trevor Reed, was in April exchanged for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was convicted in the U.S. on drug smuggling charges.
The United States has made a "substantial proposal" to Russia to free Americans including basketball star Brittney Griner, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday, as he announced he will speak to his Moscow counterpart for the first time since the Ukraine war.
Blinken said he expected a telephone call "in the coming days" with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the offer to free former Marine Paul Whelan as well as Griner — who told a court earlier Wednesday that she had brought in banned drugs unintentionally.
The pair "have been wrongfully detained and must be allowed to come home," Blinken told reporters.
"We put a substantial proposal on the table weeks ago to facilitate their release. Our governments have communicated repeatedly and directly on that proposal and I'll use the conversation to follow up personally," he said.
Citing the sensitivity, Blinken declined to go into detail or confirm reports that the United States was offering to trade them for Viktor Bout, a convicted Russian arms smuggler.
The United States and Russia already engaged in one prisoner swap in the heat of the Ukraine war: In April Washington exchanged former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed for convicted drug smuggler Konstantin Yaroshenko.
President Joe Biden has faced growing pressure to free Griner, who faces up to 10 years in prison and whose wife earlier accused the administration of doing too little.
Whelan, a security official at an auto parts company, was arrested in Moscow in December 2018 and in 2020 sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage, which he denies.
Whelan's family in a statement voiced appreciation for the Biden administration's efforts and hoped that Russia "accepts this or some other concession" for his freedom.
No negotiation on Ukraine
The telephone conversation will be the first between Blinken and Lavrov since Feb. 15 when the top U.S. diplomat warned Russia against invading Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin went ahead and attacked nine days later, leading the United States and its allies to impose sweeping sanctions and to seek to isolate Russia on the world stage.
The conversation "will not be a negotiation about Ukraine," Blinken told reporters.
"Any negotiation regarding Ukraine is for its people and people to determine," he said.
Blinken said the United States — which has been pouring billions in military aid into Ukraine — was "under no illusion" that Russia was ready to engage "meaningfully and constructively" to end the war.
"In the meantime, we'll continue to do all that we can to strengthen Ukraine's position on the battlefield," he said.
Blinken said he would urge Russia to fulfill a breakthrough agreement reached last week in Turkey to allow the release of Ukrainian grain after a blockade has sent global food prices soaring.
"Hundreds of millions of people are waiting for these ships to set forth from Ukraine's ports," Blinken said.
He also said he would warn of further consequences if Russia annexes more Ukrainian territory. Moscow in 2014 seized Crimea and declared the peninsula to be part of Russia, a decision not recognized by most of the world.
The White House recently said that Russia was laying the groundwork for "sham referenda" in areas it seized, possibly as early as September.
Blinken pointedly declined to meet Lavrov when they both attended Group of 20 talks earlier this month in Bali, with the United States rallying its allies in criticizing Russia in the closed-door sessions.
Griner says no intention to break law
Griner, a two-time Olympic basketball gold medalist and Women's NBA champion who had played in Russia, was detained just days before Moscow launched its offensive.
She has pleaded guilty to drug charges over possessing vape cartridges with cannabis oil.
Speaking at her trial in Khimki, just outside Moscow, Griner said she still did not know how the cartridges ended up in her bag and had no intention to use them.
"I did not think of or plan to bring banned substances into Russia," said Griner, wearing a Phoenix Mercury T-shirt and black basketball trousers.
"I did not intend to break Russian law," she added, saying that she was in a rush packing and tired after a recovery from Covid.
Mr. Zeldin is running for state governor against Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul in November's election
Mr. Zeldin is running for state governor against Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul in November's election
United States Congressman Lee Zeldin was attacked on July 21 during a campaign speech in upstate New York, the local sheriff's office said.
The Republican member from New York's First District said his attacker tried to stab him, but he managed to fend him off.
Mr. Zeldin is running for state governor against Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul in November's election.
He was addressing a crowd in the town of Perinton at about 8:00 pm (0000 GMT) when a 43-year-old man later identified as David Jakubonis climbed the stage and attacked him, according to a statement by the office of the Monroe County sheriff.
The attacker "had a weapon in his hand, swung it towards Mr. Zeldin's neck, and told him, 'You're done,'" the statement said.
"Members of the audience and Rep. Zeldin's campaign restrained the male until deputies arrived and took him into custody. There were no injuries."
Footage of the attack posted online showed Mr. Zeldin, a former soldier, speaking in front of a military helicopter at a veterans' center, on a stage decorated by hay bales.
The attacker, wearing shorts, a T-shirt and a baseball cap, approached slowly and got within touching distance of Mr. Zeldin before the candidate or his team recognised anything was awry.
When the attacker made a swing for Mr. Zeldin, the pair grappled for a few seconds before people nearby intervened.
"Someone tried to stab me on stage during this evening's rally, but fortunately, I was able to grab his wrist and stop him for a few moments until others tackled him," Zeldin wrote on Twitter.
The father of two, a staunch ally of former president Donald Trump, said he was "ok" after the attack.
"Relieved to hear that Congressman Zeldin was not injured and that the suspect is in custody," his rival Hochul wrote on Twitter.
"I condemn this violent behavior in the strongest terms possible - it has no place in New York," added the incumbent, who replaced former governor Andrew Cuomo last year after he quit over sexual harassment allegations.
The sheriff's office said Jakubonis had been charged with attempted assault in the second degree and was released on bail.
