On This Day, Aug. 20: Augusta National Golf Club admits women for 1st time
Aug. 20 (UPI) -- On this date in history:
In 1741, Danish navigator Vitus Jonas Bering became the first European to reach what is now called Alaska.
In 1858, theories by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace regarding evolution were published in a British scholarly journal.
In 1968, about 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague Spring" -- a brief period of efforts to democratize socialism in the country.
In 1977, the second U.S. Voyager spacecraft -- one of two launched in 1977 -- left Cape Canaveral, Fla., bound for Jupiter and Saturn. The two Voyager space probes are still transmitting data.
In 1986, postal worker Patrick Henry Sherrill killed 14 fellow workers and wounded six others in the Edmond, Okla., post office before killing himself.
File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI
In 1989, 18-year-old Eric Menendez and 21-year-old Lyle Menendez -- the Menendez brothers -- killed their parents with a gun. The brothers were arrested in March and in 1996, both were convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
In 1996, U.S. President Bill Clinton signed into law an increase in the minimum wage in two steps from $4.25 to $5.15 an hour.
In 1998, U.S. missiles struck sites in Afghanistan and Sudan said to be linked with terrorists. The attacks were in response to the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania 13 days earlier.
In 2003, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was suspended after refusing to comply with a federal court order to remove a rock inscribed with the Ten Commandments from the lobby of the state Supreme Court building.
File Photo by Morris Abernathy/UPI
In 2008, a Spanair jetliner crashed on takeoff in Madrid, killing 154 people and injuring many others. Observers said the left jet engine was on fire as the plane took off.
In 2009, the Libyan convicted of the 1968 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Scotland killing 270 people, was freed from prison on compassionate grounds. Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, who had been sentenced to life in prison in 2001, had prostate cancer. He died in May 2012.
In 2011, two U.S. hikers who said they had wandered into Iran by mistake were sentenced to eight years in an Iranian prison for espionage. They were freed one month later and returned to the United States.
In 2012, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and businesswoman Darla Moore became the first female members of Georgia's Augusta National Golf Club, site of the Masters, one of golf's most prestigious events. The club had long been under attack by women's rights groups, and others, for its all-male membership.
In 2014, mudslides caused by heavy rains killed about 70 people in residential areas on the outskirts of Hiroshima, Japan.
In 2020, former senior adviser to President Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, was arrested and charged for allegedly bilking political donors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. He was later pardoned by Trump and the charges were dismissed.
File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI
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Newsweek
8 minutes ago
- Newsweek
For Putin, 'Security Guarantees' on Ukraine Mean Something Different
Based on factual reporting, incorporates the expertise of the journalist and may offer interpretations and conclusions. Russia, Ukraine and European powers have all emerged from meetings with President Donald Trump in support of establishing security guarantees as part of a broader agreement to put an end to the bloody war between Moscow and Kyiv. Trump vowed to commit to Ukraine's postwar defense during his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders on Monday, a move welcomed by his visitors. He said Russian President Vladimir Putin had also agreed to accept guarantees on Ukraine during their meeting in Alaska on Friday in what the U.S. leader described as a "very significant step." What such guarantees look like, however, remains a core sticking point among the parties to the conflict, and efforts to find a common definition may be crucial to achieving a breakthrough. "The key issue with security guarantees lies in the differing understandings of their modalities," Alexander Chekov, lecturer at Moscow State Institute of International Relations' Department of International Relations and Foreign Policy of Russia, told Newsweek. On one hand, Chekov said that "Ukraine and Western European countries view these guarantees as Western security commitments to Ukraine, supported by a range of measures such as arms sales and military assistance to the Ukrainian army, increased military-technical cooperation, and potentially even the stationing of some European troops in Ukraine." "Russia, however, interprets security guarantees differently: not as unilateral Western commitments to Ukraine, but as a multilateral system of commitments that includes not only the West but also Russia itself and probably some major non-Euro-Atlantic powers," Chekov said. As such, he argued that "one of the determining factors for the success of future negotiations will be the ability to reconcile the Western perspective on guarantees with the Russian one." Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a joint news conference with U.S. President Donald Trump (out of frame) after participating in a U.S.-Russia summit on Ukraine at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on August... Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a joint news conference with U.S. President Donald Trump (out of frame) after participating in a U.S.-Russia summit on Ukraine at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025. More ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images The 'Root Causes' Since the beginning of the conflict, launched full-scale by Russia in February 2022 after eight years of aiding allied separatists in eastern Ukraine and occupying Crimea, Putin has argued that the "root causes" for the war would need to be addressed in any settlement. Such language is key to the Russian narrative surrounding the conflict, portrayed not as a "war of aggression" as it is often styled in the West, but as a "special military operation" dedicated to safeguarding Russian-speaking minorities and, perhaps most importantly, blocking further NATO expansion near Russia's borders. Even prior to Putin coming to power at the dawn of the 21st century, Moscow, having green-lit the newly unified Germany's admission into NATO, opposed further states within the former Soviet sphere, such as the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, which joined the alliance in 1999. Six more rounds of expansion would follow, bringing the bloc to its current strength of 32 nations, including all of Russia's Eastern European neighbors with the exceptions of Belarus and Ukraine. Many entered for fear of a resurgent Russia looking to reassert its influence on the continent. Moscow has broadcast an opposing view—that it was NATO threatening Russian security. And Kyiv's ambitions to join the bloc, which predate the 2014 revolution that brought to power a pro-West government and set the conditions for the current crisis, have long drawn particular scorn from the Kremlin. Joshua Shifrinson, associate professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, cited a cable sent in 2008 by then-U.S. ambassador to Russia Bill Burns (later President Joe Biden's CIA chief) to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warning that "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite (not just Putin)." "And it's not hard to understand why," Shifrinson told Newsweek. "No country wants a military alliance on its borders and that it doesn't have a handle on. We have to remember Ukraine has been historically important, and even empirically, just as a reality, important to the Russian economy, important to Russian national security." "We have to remember, too, that NATO was founded as an anti-Soviet Alliance. Large parts of it seen coming up to the Russian border is highly concerning," he added. "You don't need to believe in Russian imperial ambitions to say to one's self that, 'Look, the possibility of NATO including Ukraine could be highly detrimental to Russian security.'" After Moscow first began preparing for war in 2021 with a military buildup surrounding Ukraine on the pretext of conducting training exercises, Russia issued demands to the U.S. and NATO for "security guarantees" that would include the bloc pull back its post-Cold War presence in Eastern Europe. The conditions were dismissed after brief talks early the following year, with then-President Joe Biden's administration releasing intelligence concluding that Putin was on the precipice of ordering a large-scale invasion. Three and a half years later, Russian and Ukrainian forces remain locked in the deadliest combat the continent has seen since World War II. Meanwhile, NATO has only further expanded, counting Finland and Sweden as members in 2023 and 2024, respectively, and European states are undergoing a historic rearmament plan. A New Order for Europe While much focus has centered on the amount of territory seized by Russia—nearly a fifth of Ukraine—Chekov pointed out that the issue of land, along with economic measures, would need to be addressed as part of a broader agreement that also included security guarantees. "From the meeting in Alaska and the subsequent conference in Washington, we observed the institutionalization of several venues for negotiations on the Ukraine crisis," Chekov said. "These include security guarantees, territorial issues, and relief of Western sanctions imposed on Russia," he added. "All these topics are interdependent, and a final resolution of the Ukrainian crisis seems most promising if they are addressed together." Artem Kvartalnov, a former research fellow at the Russian Center for Policy Research now at the University of Texas at Austin, outlined what Moscow may desire in terms of reshaping the European security architecture in a way that neutralizes NATO entry into future conflicts, thus achieving Putin's long-held vision. "The key issue with a potential exchange involving security guarantees, as seen by many on both sides, is that Russia likely wants a multilateral arrangement in which Russia itself would have a say before any external guarantees could be triggered," Kvartalnov told Newsweek. "If there is a council of guarantors involving Russia itself that must authorize any use of force in response to external aggression against Ukraine, Russia will be able to block such authorizations, defeating the purpose of security guarantees," he added. Shifrinson echoed this view on Russia's aims, while noting that Europe would continue to seek a lasting U.S. role not just in this conflict but across the continent at a time when the Trump administration was increasingly pushing to shift the burden to allies. "Russia wants the ability to prevent Western intervention the future," he said. "So, if it's party part of the security guarantee, it can block a response, in some way, to a crisis in the future should a crisis occur." "I mean, look, the Europeans don't want to have to fight Russia for the future of Ukraine," he added, "but they are desperate, I think, to keep the U.S. involved in European security affairs." Moscow's position on the issue was voiced in a Telegram post Monday by Russian Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov. "Many EU leaders emphasize that the future peace agreement should provide reliable security guarantees for Ukraine," Ulyanov wrote. "Russia agrees with this. But it has every right to expect that Moscow will also receive effective security guarantees." (Left to right) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks as French President Emmanuel Macron and U.S. President Donald Trump listen during a meeting with European leaders in the East Room of the White House in Washington,... (Left to right) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks as French President Emmanuel Macron and U.S. President Donald Trump listen during a meeting with European leaders in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on August 18, 2025. More ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images The Trump Factor Between Russia's calls for a greater say on European security and U.S. allies demanding strict commitments enshrining Ukraine's defense lies Trump, who has issued both praise and criticism for both sides of the conflict. Trump has repeatedly expressed his belief that Putin was sincere in engaging in talks to end the war, following a period of heated rhetoric toward the Russian leader. Trump's latest meeting with Zelensky was also far more amicable than the explosive episode that erupted in the White House during their previous meeting in February. But there are key areas where Trump, who has positioned himself as the primary power broker in the peace talks, has broken with Kyiv and European allies, namely in eschewing efforts to seek a ceasefire prior to a final settlement, reiterating the necessity of "land swaps" as part of a deal and emphasizing Ukraine would not join NATO. As such, Trump's definition of security guarantees also appears to differ from those expressed by the European leaders who recently departed Washington, D.C. "There is a kind of underlying tension that has yet to be resolved, and that is, Trump has said no to NATO enlargement, no membership for Ukraine, and this is an administration that has a history of looking with skepticism at aid to Ukraine," Charles Kupchan, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relation and professor at Georgetown University, told Newsweek. "The vice president goes around saying, 'We're done, we're not sending any more arms to Ukraine,' and the idea that, somehow, we're going to give them a security guarantee that would obligate us to defend them, it doesn't really add up," he added. "And so, there are some internal contradictions here that have to be worked out." Also significant is the backlash Trump has received for considering security guarantees for Ukraine from influential voices in his "Make America Great Again" support base, many of whom have sought to push the president toward extracting the U.S. from the conflict. Trump on Tuesday clarified his stance, offering his "assurance" during an interview with Fox & Friends that any guarantees would not include the deployment of U.S. troops to Ukraine. He also revealed, however, that European allies may be willing to send soldiers and that the U.S. is "willing to help them with things," including air support. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated this stance during a press briefing that same day. "The president has definitively stated U.S. boots will not be on the ground in Ukraine, but we can certainly help in the coordination and perhaps provide other means of security guarantees to our European allies," Leavitt said. "The president understands security guarantees are crucially important to ensure a lasting peace," she added, "and he has directed his national security team to coordinate with our friends in Europe and also to continue to cooperate and discuss these matters with Ukraine and Russia as well." Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics (second from right) tours near the construction of a fence, concrete and armored barriers that are being erected to fortify and secure the border with Russia and Belarus in Zaborje, Latvia.... Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics (second from right) tours near the construction of a fence, concrete and armored barriers that are being erected to fortify and secure the border with Russia and Belarus in Zaborje, Latvia. More Alexander Welscher/Picture-Alliance/DPA/AP The Limits of Guarantees But some experts have cast doubt as to the extent to which even a "coalition of the willing" among European powers may truly be willing to commit to such a task. As Franz-Stefan Gady, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, recently told Newsweek, "the hardest question that remains unanswered for Europe" boils down to "what does Ukraine really mean for Europe's security architecture, and what is Europe prepared to risk to ensure that Ukraine will remain an independent, pro-Western country?" "Are European countries prepared to go to war against Russia? If the answer is no, then any sort of European reassurance force in Ukraine, integrated with Ukrainian forces, will not be able to deter future Russian aggression," he said at the time. Kupchan also raised questions regarding the concept of a future European deployment to Ukraine, asking, "How much of a guarantee are these guarantees?" He wondered whether or not the U.S. and European allies would actually go to the lengths of ratifying defense treaties for Ukraine as they have with NATO's Article 5. "If the answer to that is no, and these agreements do not have parliamentary ratification, they may be Article 5-like, but the operative word there is 'like' in the sense that you might want to think about them more as assurances than guarantees," he said. And even if a deal were to manifest to end the war in Ukraine, he felt Europe was likely to remain "a divided continent" for some time to come, and that any progress in improving the tense security environment that exists between NATO and Russia would be incremental at best. "I could imagine, if this war comes to an end, some level of economic reintegration, some lowering of the sanctions, some progress on getting arms control, both nuclear and conventional, back up and running," Kupchan said, "but I think that the overall relationship will be highly distrustful, and you're going to see NATO on guard along its eastern flank for the foreseeable future." "Might there be a reallocation of U.S. military assets? Yes, especially if the war comes to an end, I think you'll definitely see a drawdown of the U.S. presence in Europe, not a departure, but a drawdown," he added. "But other than that, I think that if there is a sort of broader repair in the relationship between NATO and Russia, it will be glacial."
San Francisco Chronicle
9 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
NATO defense chiefs hold virtual meeting on Ukraine security guarantees
NATO defense chiefs were due to hold a virtual meeting Wednesday, a senior alliance official said, as countries pushing for an end to Russia's war on Ukraine devise possible future security guarantees for Kyiv that could help forge a peace agreement. Italian Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chair of NATO's Military Committee, said that 32 defense chiefs from across the alliance would hold a video conference as a U.S.-led diplomatic push seeks to end the fighting. U.S. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, NATO's supreme allied commander Europe, will take part in the talks, Dragone said on social platform X. U.S. President Donald Trump met last Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska and on Monday hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and prominent European leaders at the White House. Neither meeting delivered concrete progress. Trump is trying to steer Putin and Zelenskyy toward a settlement more than three years after Russia invaded its neighbor, but there are major obstacles. They include Ukraine's demands for Western-backed military assurances to ensure Russia won't mount another invasion in coming years. 'We need strong security guarantees to ensure a truly secure and lasting peace,' Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post Wednesday after Russian missile and drone strikes hit six regions of Ukraine overnight. Kyiv's European allies are looking to set up a force that could backstop any peace agreement, and a coalition of 30 countries, including European nations, Japan and Australia, have signed up to support the initiative. Military chiefs are figuring out how that security force might work. The role that the U.S. might play in is unclear. Trump on Tuesday ruled out sending U.S. troops to help defend Ukraine against Russia. Attacks on civilian areas in Sumy and Odesa overnight into Wednesday injured 15 people, including a family with three small children, Ukrainian authorities said. Zelenskyy said the strikes 'only confirm the need for pressure on Moscow, the need to introduce new sanctions and tariffs until diplomacy works to its full potential.'
USA Today
40 minutes ago
- USA Today
MSNBC's name change won't help. MS NOW will still peddle the same liberal lies.
MSNBC's new name is the product of a divorce from NBC, but no amount of alimony can save the network from its leftist bias. It might have a new name soon, but it will still be the same nonsense. When I saw that MSNBC is changing its name to MS NOW, which stands for My Source News Opinion World, I had to chuckle. The new acronym is the product of a divorce from NBC, but no amount of alimony can save the news network from its leftist bias. It might have a new name soon, but it will still be the same nonsense. I'm not the only one to see the mainstream media's penchant for obfuscation and gaslighting. "Real Time" host Bill Maher recently made some profound remarks about the media that reinforce what I've seen for years. During his Aug. 15 show on HBO, Maher spoke with a panel of guests about President Donald Trump's meeting earlier that day with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Maher ticked off positive things about Trump, like how effective tariffs have been and how anti-war Trump is. Maher scolds news media about 'zombie lie' Then Maher scolded the media: "But again, let's not have the 'zombie lie' that (Trump) is still backing Putin. Because first of all, he bombed Iran, that was a Putin ally. He didn't get out of NATO. He mended fences with NATO. So, and he put sanctions back on Russia, so, ya know." One of his panelists, County Highway editor-at-large Walter Kirn, remarked, "You're really coming around Bill." "There's no coming around. There's just what's true," Maher said. A zombie lie has been defined as a falsehood that has been repeatedly debunked or proven false, yet continues to be believed and spread, influencing people's thoughts and actions. I can think of several zombie lies that the mainstream media have perpetuated about Trump and conservativism. Take the latest peace talks over Russia's war against Ukraine. Trump didn't persuade Putin on Aug. 15 to agree to a ceasefire, so the meeting was immediately dubbed a failure. Three days later, however, Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders to continue discussing how to end a war that has raged for more than three years and that has killed and injured nearly a million for the Russian military and 400,000 for Ukraine. Coverage out of the Aug. 18 meeting was much more positive. So, was Trump's summit with Putin really a failure or was the news media's rush to judgment driven by bias against the president? And has the news media learned nothing from a decade of covering Trump as a political figure? I'd wait before smearing Trump's style of negotiations based on, oh, I don't know, the positive success of the past four months of trade deals and tariffs, but that's me. The 2024 election is another obvious example. In hindsight, we can see that Trump consistently led the presidential race, but thanks to inaccurate polls and partisan news sources who suggested he was behind, the country was flabbergasted when Trump won reelection easily. Trump won all the swing states, the popular vote and the Electoral College, but the tsunami caught the media by surprise because they were so committed to attacking Trump and promoting Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Zombie lies have had serious consequences for the American people and for our nation's image in the world. A Pew Research Center poll released in June found that America's image had declined among dozens of nations amid "low confidence in Trump." Trump's successes have been underreported That poll was published just days before Trump ordered stealth bombers to cripple Iran's nuclear sites, ending the threat of widespread war in the Middle East. Trump also is attempting to broker peace between Israel and Hamas as well as Ukraine and Russia. He forced NATO allies to pay for more of their self-defense. And he's helped negotiate an end to lower profile conflicts involving India and Pakistan and Cambodia and Thailand. On the domestic side, Trump has secured the southern border, the economy is doing better than many expected, stock markets continue to set record highs and in the second quarter, gross domestic product showed healthy growth. Trump has made more progress in seven months than President Joe Biden did in four years. But most news coverage doesn't reflect that reality. And that is why Maher is scolding the media for telling zombie lies. It's also why a name change won't help MSNBC. The network could rebrand 100 times and still not be any more relevant or truthful. Until the zombie lies are finally put to rest, Americans will be fed a skewed perception of what's actually happening. As Maher said, "There's no coming around. There's just what's true." Hear that MS NOW? Nicole Russell is a columnist at USA TODAY and a mother of four who lives in Texas. Contact her at nrussell@ and follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @russell_nm. Sign up for her weekly newsletter, The Right Track, here.
