The request for a call on Thursday came from the Kremlin. The White House said, "It will take a high level of engagement to address this and to try to find a path to de-escalation."

The seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases topped 280,000 this week as the omicron variant spreads rapidly across the country, according to Johns Hopkins University's tracker.

Kevin Dawes describes how a fellow prisoner in Syria kept a promise that called attention to Dawes' detention. Now, five years after his release, Dawes is suing the Syrian regime.

The deployment of the shade on the $10 billion telescope began Tuesday with the successful lowering of two arms known as Unitized Pallet Structures.