Matthew Lee, Associated Press

U.S. officials said Blinken and Lavrov chatted for roughly 10 minutes, but there was no sign of progress and the conference ended with the group unable to reach consensus on the Ukraine war.

As a suspected Chinese spy balloon sailed over the nation Friday, the U.S. rejected China’s claims that it was being used for weather research. Officials said Biden was initially inclined to blow it out of the sky, before military leaders advised against such a move.

International reluctance to send tanks to the battlefront is beginning to erode.

Asked about what the U.S. sees as success, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that “we want to see Ukraine remain a sovereign country. ... We want to see Russia weakened to the point where it can’t do things like invade Ukraine.”

With security rapidly deteriorating in Afghanistan, the United States is sending in an additional 3,000 troops to help evacuate some personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, officials said Thursday.

As Russia assumed the rotating chairmanship of the Arctic Council on Thursday, the U.S. rallied other members to oppose Moscow’s plans to set maritime rules in the Northern Sea Route.

U.S. officials have played down chances of an imminent deal that would bring Washington and Tehran back into compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.

President Biden last month moved to expand the eligibility criteria for resettlements, removing one roadblock to refugees entering the U.S. put in place by Trump, but he had initially stopped short of lifting the annual cap,

With 386,452 new cases, India now has reported more than 18.7 million since the pandemic began, second only to the United States.

The order came as the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan told lawmakers that it no longer made sense to continue the 20-year deployment of American troops there.

His plan is to pull out all American forces — numbering 2,500 now — by this Sept. 11, the anniversary of the attacks, which were coordinated from Afghanistan.

The U.S. accused the Chinese delegation of “grandstanding” and Beijing fired back, saying there was a “strong smell of gunpowder and drama” that was entirely the fault of the Americans.

Top U.S. and Chinese officials are meeting again Friday after offering sharply different views of each other and the world in their first face-to-face talks since President Joe Biden took office.

Although the Biden administration has halted the ferocious rhetorical attacks and near daily announcements of new sanctions on China that had become commonplace under Trump, it has yet to back down on any of Trump’s actions against Beijing.

On his first full day on the job, Antony Blinken said Wednesday the administration has initiated a comprehensive review of the U.S. relationship with Russia and is examining details of a U.S.-Taliban peace deal signed nearly a year ago.