The prisoners at the penal colony in St. Petersburg were expecting a visit by officials, thinking it would be some sort of inspection. Instead, men in uniform arrived and offered them amnesty — if they agreed to fight alongside the Russian army in Ukraine.

Over the following days, about a dozen or so left the prison, according to a woman whose boyfriend is serving a sentence there. Speaking on condition of anonymity because she feared reprisals, she said her boyfriend wasn't among the volunteers, although with years left on his sentence, he "couldn't not think about it."

An Iranian operative has been charged in a plot to murder former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton in presumed retaliation for a U.S. airstrike that killed the country's most powerful general, offering $300,000 to "eliminate" the Trump administration official, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

Shahram Poursafi, identified by U.S. officials as a member of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, is currently wanted by the FBI on charges related to the murder-for-hire plot.

Jill Biden is helping National Geographic promote its upcoming documentary series on U.S. national parks.

The first lady introduces each installment of "America's National Parks," a five-night series scheduled for broadcast on consecutive nights beginning Aug. 29.

Spider-Man fandom is in Tyler Scott Hoover's blood — but not because he was bitten by an irradiated arachnid. His father had collected Marvel comic books featuring the character since the 1970s.

"He passed down a ton of comics to me," says Hoover, 32, of Glen Burnie, Maryland. "It kind of makes it almost like a religion. It would have been hard for me not to become a fan of Spider-Man."

Houshang Ebtehaj, a distinguished Iranian poet whose small but influential body of work made him a major figure in his own country and in world literature, died on Wednesday in Cologne, Germany. He was 94.

His death was confirmed by his daughter, Yalda Ebtehaj, who said on Instagram that her father, known by his pen name "Sayeh," or Shadow, had "joined the other world." In the post, she quoted a verse written by her father in the style of the great mystic poet Rumi: "Roam, roam roam ... There are strangers in this home, so you strangely roam."

Climate hazards such as flooding, heat waves and drought have worsened more than half of the hundreds of known infectious diseases in people, including malaria, hantavirus, cholera and anthrax, a study says.

Researchers looked through the medical literature of established cases of illnesses and found that 218 out of the known 375 human infectious diseases, or 58%, seemed to be made worse by one of 10 types of extreme weather connected to climate change, according to a study in Nature Climate Change journal.

Falling gas prices gave Americans a slight break from the pain of high inflation last month, though the surge in overall prices slowed only modestly from the four-decade high it reached in June.

Consumer prices jumped 8.5% in July compared with a year earlier, the government said Wednesday, down from a 9.1% year-over-year jump in June. On a monthly basis, prices were unchanged from June to July, the smallest such rise more than two years.

Serena Williams said it plainly: It isn't really fair. A male athlete would never have to make the same choice.

But after a trailblazing career that both transformed and transcended her sport, Williams, who turns 41 next month, has told the world she'll soon step away from tennis to focus on having a second child and making her daughter, Olympia, a big sister. Her explanation in a lengthy Vogue essay resonated with women in sports and well beyond, many of whom could relate only too well to her words, "Something's got to give." And to the idea that, no, you really can't have it all — at least, not all at the same time.

Real Madrid wants to start the new season the same way it ended the last one — winning a trophy.

Madrid won the Champions League in its final match last season, and on Wednesday it begins the new season by taking on Europa League winner Eintracht Frankfurt in the UEFA Super Cup in Helsinki, Finland.

Oil shipments from Russia through a critical pipeline to several European countries should resume soon after a problem over payments for the transit was resolved, Slovakia's economy minister said on Wednesday.

Russian state pipeline operator Transneft said Tuesday it halted shipments through the southern branch of the Druzhba oil pipeline, which flows through Ukraine to the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.