U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as "a humanitarian" following the release of U.S. citizen Stephen Hubbard on Wednesday. During a meeting in St. Petersburg, Witkoff thanked Putin for freeing the American — whom the U.S. government had declared wrongfully detained — and lauded the Russian autocrat, who ordered the ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost five years ago. Witkoff was in Russia as Trump administration and Russian officials were set to have talks focused on the Ukraine war.

Hegseth on Afghanistan: I was a captain in Afghanistan, and we would go to the headquarters in Kabul, and there would be 50 flags at the headquarters. It was a beautiful thing to see 50 different countries contributing to the NATO alliance and the ISAF mission there. Except there were like maybe five that contributed. It was actually closer to one or two that, by the end, were actually involved in kinetic operations. In fact, the ISAF patch, we would joke that it meant "I Saw Americans Fighting."

Football is for the people. UEFA are right to take a stand and Gianni Infantino must resign.