CNN

By Tim Lister and Darya Tarasova

(CNN) — The Kremlin has dismissed calls to provide evidence to support its claim that Ukraine launched an attack using dozens of drones against one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residences.

But on Tuesday, it repeated that the drone assault took place in the Novgorod region, south of St. Petersburg, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying ⁠the alleged operation was a “terrorist attack” aimed at “sabotaging President Trump’s efforts to facilitate a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian conflict.”

US President Donald Trump has been trying to advance peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, but there are still wide differences between the two sides.

Trump said Putin told him of the alleged attack in a phone call early Monday. Trump indicated that he took Putin at his word before acknowledging that the attack may not have occurred.

Some Western governments and independent analysts have cast doubt on the claim.

There have been no reports from residents of the area, in the Novgorod region of northwestern Russia, of drone activity at the time the attack was alleged to have taken place.

The heavily fortified Valdai presidential residence is situated on the shores of Lake Valdai.

Nor has any social media video been posted, which is unusual when a substantial attack is carried out far from Russia’s border with Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky immediately rejected the claimed drone attack as “a complete fabrication” by Russia.

“Russia is at it again, using dangerous statements to undermine all achievements of our shared diplomatic efforts with President Trump’s team. We keep working together to bring peace closer,” Zelensky posted on X.

“Almost a day passed and Russia still hasn’t provided any plausible evidence to its accusations of Ukraine’s alleged ‘attack on Putin’s residence,’” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Tuesday.

“And they won’t. Because there’s none. No such attack happened,” Sybiha posted on X.

Asked Tuesday if Ukraine had spoken with the Trump administration following Russia’s claims, Zelensky told CNN in a news briefing: “Our negotiating team got in touch with the American team. They talked through the details, and we understand that it’s fake. And, of course, our partners can always use their tech to check that it was fake.”

He also told reporters that “there have already been several calls” between Ukrainian negotiators led by Rustem Umerov and US negotiators, including special envoy Steve Witkoff.

Zelensky indicated Tuesday that talks are continuing on other aspects of a potential agreement, including future security guarantees. He said Ukraine has discussed the possibility of an American troop deployment with Trump and with representatives of the Coalition of the Willing. He stressed that any dec

By Devan Cole, CNN

(CNN) — Internal Justice Department files “suggest” that top officials in Washington, DC, worked with federal prosecutors in Nashville to prosecute Kilmar Abrego Garcia after he fought his wrongful deportation to El Salvador, a federal judge said in a newly unsealed ruling.

The December 3 opinion from US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw made public on Tuesday is the latest sign that the Justice Department is increasingly on the defense in the case. Abrego Garcia is seeking to have the charges dismissed based on his claim that he’s the victim of a selective and vindictive prosecution that is the result of meddling by officials in Washington

Such bids are extremely hard to win, but the ruling underscored the seriousness with which Crenshaw is scrutinizing Abrego Garcia’s claims. The judge ordered prosecutors to turn the documents over to Abrego Garcia’s team for review.

“The court recognizes the government’s assertion of privileges, but Abrego’s due process right to a non-vindictive prosecution outweighs the blanket evidentiary privileges asserted by the government,” Crenshaw said in the ruling.

The documents, he wrote in the nine-page decision, “suggest” that Robert McGuire, the top federal prosecutor in the Middle District of Tennessee, “was not a solitary decision-maker” in his office’s decision to bring human smuggling charges against Abrego Garcia, as the government has argued, but instead worked with others in DC “who may or may not have acted with an improper motivation” earlier this year when the case was brought together.

“The documents that must be produced connect back to (Deputy Attorney General Todd) Blanche because the documents suggest that (Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash) Singh had a leading role in the government’s decision to prosecute and Singh works in Blanche’s office,” the opinion read.

“The government’s documents may contradict its prior representations that the decision to prosecute was made locally and that there were no outside influences,” Crenshaw wrote, pointing to several communications between Singh and McGuire this spring, when Abrego Garcia was still being held in the mega-prison in El Salvador he was deported to from Maryland in mid-March.

Those communications were taking place as the government resisted a Maryland judge’s order to work to return Abrego Garcia from El Salvador. At that time, his case grabbed national attention and came to symbolize the administration’s hardline immigration policies and approach to adverse court rulings.

CNN has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.

Abrego Garcia is arguing that the criminal charges, which stemmed from a Tennessee traffic stop years earlier, were brought in retaliation after he challenged his unlawful removal to El Salvador earlier this year. Though he’s a Salvadoran national, an immigration judge said in 2019 that he could not be sent back to his home country because he feared gang violence there.

In one email sent by Singh in late April to McGuire, “Singh made clear that Abrego’s criminal prosecution was a ‘top priority’ for the Deputy Attorney

SUMMERLAND, Calif. (KEYT) - The November and December rains, stronger than most forecasters saw coming, have left behind worries on the South Coast.

Before the year can even come to a close, the hills are saturated and the magnitude of the rains have filled and spilled three reservoirs including Cachuma Lake.

Hillsides are soaking in water like a sponge and some are coming close to crumbling.

In Summerland, there's already been a slide on Greenwell Ave. that has closed the street from Asegra to Ortega Ridge Road. Santa Barbara County Public Works is watching it closely, and advisories have gone out.

In Ventura County, the Sheriff's Department has alerted residents in the tiny town of La Conchita on the coast about a possible slide. Rainfall totals have matched those that preceded the slides in 1995 and 2005 that took ten lives and crushed homes. The freeway in the same area had flooding impacts last weekend.

Residents in La Conchita were advised to relocate during the last storm. It is unclear if any did.

On both Santa Barbara and Ventura beaches, boats have come ashore. One, a 50-footer in Ventura has been crushed by the TowBoatUS - Ventura crew after it began coming apart on the beach.

A sailboat that broke down or came from its anchorage, was tipping into the shoreline and coastal waves where it plowed into East Beach last week.

San Marcos Pass has held up well, even after taking in 14 inches of rain this month.

(More details, photos and video will be added here later today.)

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Por Michael Williams, CNN

Tatiana Schlossberg, periodista ambiental y nieta del presidente John F. Kennedy, murió este martes, según anunció su familia. Tenía 35 años.

“Nuestra querida Tatiana falleció esta mañana. Siempre estará en nuestros corazones”, declaró la familia en un comunicado publicado en redes sociales por la Biblioteca y Museo Presidencial John F. Kennedy.

El fallecimiento de Schlossberg ocurre un mes después de que anunciara que padecía leucemia terminal en un ensayo publicado en The New Yorker. Comentó que los médicos le diagnosticaron el cáncer poco después del nacimiento de su hija en mayo de 2024.

Schlossberg, también autora publicada, había escrito anteriormente sobre ciencia y cambio climático para The New York Times. Era la segunda hija de la exembajadora estadounidense Caroline Kennedy y del diseñador Edwin Schlossberg.

Le sobreviven su esposo, George Moran, y sus dos hijos.

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Arlette Saenz y Veronica Stracqualursi de CNN contribuyeron con este reporte.

The post Tatiana Schlossberg, periodista ambiental y nieta de JFK, muere a los 35 años tras ser diagnosticada con cáncer terminal appeared first on News Channel 3-12.