By DASHA LITVINOVA, Associated Press

The U.S.-Russia summit in Alaska is happening at a site where East meets West — quite literally — in a place familiar to both countries as a Cold War front line of missile defense, radar outposts and intelligence gathering.

Whether it can lead to a deal to produce peace in Ukraine more than 3 1/2 years after Moscow’s invasion remains to be seen.

Here’s what to know about the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, the first summit in four years:

When and where is it taking place?

The summit will take place Friday in Alaska, although where in the state is still unknown.

It will be Putin’s first trip to the United States since 2015, for the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Since the U.S. is not a member of the International Criminal Court, which in 2023 issued a warrant for Putin on war crimes accusations, it is under no obligation to arrest him.

FILE – Ukrainian soldiers from air-defense unit fire at Russian drones in the Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine, Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)

Is Zelenskyy going?

Both countries confirmed a meeting between only Putin and Trump, even though there were initial suggestions that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy might be part of it. But the Kremlin has long pushed back against Putin meeting Zelenskyy -– at least until a peace deal is reached by Russia and Ukraine and was ready to be signed.

Putin said last week he wasn’t against meeting Zelenskyy “but certain conditions need to be created” for it to happen and were “still a long way off.”

That raised fears about excluding Ukraine from negotiations. Ukrainian officials last week talked with European allies, who stressed that peace cannot be achieved without Kyiv’s involvement.

What’s Alaska’s role in Russian history?

It will be the first visit by a Russian leader to Alaska, even though it was part of the czarist empire until 1867, the state news agency Tass said.

Alaska was colonized by Russia starting from the 18th century until Czar Alexander II sold it to the United States in 1867 for $7.2 million. When it was found to contain vast resources, it was seen as a naïve deal that generated remorse and self-reproach.

FILE – Municipal workers unveil the monument to Czar Alexander II in Moscow on June 7, 2005. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

After the USSR’s collapse, Alaska was a subject of nostalgia and jokes for Russians. One popular song in the 1990s went: “Don’t play the fool, America … give back our dear Alaska land.”

Sam Greene of King’s College London said on X the symbolism of Alaska as the site of a summit about Ukraine was “horrendous — as though designed to demonstrate that borders can change, land can be bought and sold.”

What’s the agenda?

Trump has appeared increasingly exasperated with Putin over Russia’s refusal to halt the bombardment of Ukrainian cities. Kyiv has agreed to a ceasefire, insisting on a truce as a first step toward peace.

Moscow presented ceasefire conditions that are nonstarters for Zelenskyy, such as withdrawing troops from the four regions Russia illegally annexed in 2022, halting mobilization efforts, or freezing Western arms deliveries. For a broader peace, Putin demands Kyiv cede the annexed regions, even though Russia doesn’t fully control them, and Crimea, renounce a bid to join NATO, limit the size of its armed forces and recognize Russian as an official language along with Ukrainian.

Zelenskyy insists any peace deals must include robust security guarantees for Ukraine to protect it from future Russian aggression.

Putin has warned Ukraine it will face tougher conditions for peace as Russian troops forge into other regions to build what he described as a “buffer zone.” Some observers suggested Russia could trade those recent gains for territory still under Ukrainian control in the four annexed regions annexed by Moscow.

Zelenskyy said Saturday that “Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier.”

But Trump said Monday: “There’ll be some land swapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody. To the good, for the good of Ukraine. Good stuff, not bad stuff. Also, some bad stuff for both.”

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What are expectations?

Putin sees a meeting with Trump as a chance to cement Russia’s territorial gains, keep Ukraine out of NATO and prevent it from hosting any Western troops so Moscow can gradually pull the country back into its orbit.

He believes time is on his side as Ukrainian forces are struggling to stem Russian advances along the front line amid swarms of Moscow’s missiles and drones battering the country.

The meeting is a diplomatic coup for Putin, isolated since the invasion. The Kremlin sought to portray renewed U.S. contacts as two superpowers looking to resolve various global problems, with Ukraine being just one.

Ukraine and its European allies are concerned a summit without Kyiv could allow Putin to get Trump on his side and force Ukraine into concessions.

“Any decisions that are without Ukraine are at the same time decisions against peace,” Zelenskyy said. “They will not bring anything. These are dead decisions. They will never work.”

European officials echoed that.

“As we work towards a sustainable and just peace, international law is clear: All temporarily occupied territories belong to Ukraine,” European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said. “A sustainable peace also means that aggression cannot be rewarded.”

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said Sunday he believed Trump was “making sure that Putin is serious, and if he is not, then it will stop there.”

“If he is serious, then from Friday onwards, the process will continue. Ukraine getting involved, the Europeans being involved,” Rutte added.

Since last week, Putin spoke to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as well as the leaders of South Africa, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan, the Kremlin said.

That suggested Putin perhaps wanted to brief Russia’s most important allies about a potential settlement, said pro-Kremlin analyst Sergei Markov.

Associated Press writer Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed.

Visitors are being warned to avoid Lake Alice in William O’Brien State Park in northern Washington County after a dam failure over the weekend caused a “significant drawdown” of the lake level, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources officials said.

The swimming beach at the lake is closed, and there has been a fish kill in the lake, according to an alert posted on the park’s website.

DNR officials are “responding to the issue, but visitors should be aware that only a stream remains on Lake Alice at this time, impacting water recreation on Lake Alice for at least four to six weeks,” the alert states.

The level of Lake Alice, which is a manmade lake, had been rising over the last month due to precipitation, and DNR crews on Friday opened the lake’s 65-year-old water-control structure’s valve to release excess water into the St. Croix River, said Lauren Peck, a spokeswoman for the agency.

“Unfortunately, the valve had a mechanical issue, which has caused it to be stuck open when staff attempted to close it on Saturday, thus causing the lake to drain,” Peck said. “We are working on next steps to get this fixed and restore the lake.”

It was not immediately clear how many fish were killed.

According to the DNR, Lake Alice normally covers about 26 acres and is about 9 feet deep. “(It) is a great fishing resource where you can catch a wide variety of fish,” the post on the DNR’s website states. “This beautiful lake is a great place to canoe and enjoy spectacular scenery while wetting a line.” Species generally present in the lake include bluegill, black crappie, largemouth bass, northern pike, walleye, yellow perch and bullhead.

Fishing, boating and paddling is available on the St. Croix River, and rentals of canoes, kayaks and paddleboards continue to be available for use on the river, DNR officials said.

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By REGINA GARCIA CANO

MARACAIBO, Venezuela (AP) — The hands of Yosbelin Pérez have made tens of thousands of the aluminum round gridles that Venezuelan families heat every day to cook arepas. She takes deep pride in making the revered “budare,” the common denominator among rural tin-roofed homes and city apartments, but she owns nothing to her name despite the years selling cookware.

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Pérez, in fact, owes about $5,000 because she and her family never made it to the United States, where they had hoped to escape Venezuela’s entrenched political, social and economic crisis. Now, like thousands of Venezuelans who have voluntarily or otherwise returned to their country this year, they are starting over as the crisis worsens.

“When I decided to leave in August, I sold everything: house, belongings, car, everything from my factory — molds, sand. I was left with nothing,” Pérez, 30, said at her in-laws’ home in western Venezuela. “We arrived in Mexico, stayed there for seven months, and when President (Donald Trump) came to power in January, I said, ‘Let’s go!’”

She, her husband and five children returned to their South American country in March.

COVID-19 pandemic pushed migrants to the U.S.

More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have migrated since 2013, when their country’s oil-dependent economy unraveled. Most settled in Latin America and the Caribbean, but after the COVID-19 pandemic, migrants saw the U.S. as their best chance to improve their living conditions.

Many Venezuelans entered the U.S. under programs that allowed them to obtain work permits and shielded them from deportation. But since January, the White House has ended immigrants’ protections and aggressively sought their deportations as U.S. President Donald Trump fulfills his campaign promise to limit immigration to the U.S.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro had long refused to take back deported Venezuelans but changed course earlier this year under pressure from the White House. Immigrants now arrive regularly at the airport outside the capital, Caracas, on flights operated by either a U.S. government contractor or Venezuela’s state-owned airline.

The U.S. government has defended its bold moves, including sending more than 200 Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador for four months, arguing that many of the immigrants belonged to the violent Tren de Aragua street gang. The administration did not provide evidence to back up the blanket accusation. However, several recently deported immigrants have said U.S. authorities wrongly judged their tattoos and used them as an excuse to deport them.

Maduro declared ‘economic emergency’

Many of those returning home, like Pérez and her family, are finding harsher living conditions than when they left as a currency crisis, triple-digit inflation and meager wages have made food and other necessities unaffordable, let alone the vehicle, home and electronics they sold before migrating. The monthly minimum wage of 130 bolivars, or $1.02 as of Monday, has not increased in Venezuela since 2022. People typically have two, three or more jobs to cobble together money.

This latest chapter in the 12-year crisis even prompted Maduro to declare an “economic emergency” in April.

David Rodriguez migrated twice each to Colombia and Peru before he decided to try to get to the U.S. He left Venezuela last year, crossed the treacherous Darien Gap on foot, made it across Central America and walked, hopped on a train and took buses all over Mexico. He then turned himself in to U.S. immigration authorities in December, but he was detained for 15 days and deported to Mexico.

Broke, the 33-year-old Rodriguez worked as a mototaxi driver in Mexico City until he saved enough money to buy his airplane ticket back to Venezuela in March.

“Going to the United States … was a total setback,” he said while sitting at a relative’s home in Caracas. “Right now, I don’t know what to do except get out of debt first.”

He must pay $50 a week for a motorcycle he bought to work as a mototaxi driver. In a good week, he said, he can earn $150, but there are others when he only makes enough to meet the $50 payment.

Migrants seek loan sharks

Some migrants enrolled in beauty and pastry schools or became food delivery drivers after being deported. Others already immigrated to Spain. Many sought loan sharks.

Pérez’s brother-in-law, who also made aluminum cookware before migrating last year, is allowing her to use the oven and other equipment he left at his home in Maracaibo so that the family can make a living. But most of her earnings go to cover the 40% monthly interest fee of a $1,000 loan.

If the debt was not enough of a concern, Pérez is also having to worry about the exact reason that drove her away: extortion.

Pérez said she and her family fled Maracaibo after she spent several hours in police custody in June 2024 for refusing to pay an officer $1,000. The officer, Pérez said, knocked on her door and demanded the money in exchange for letting her keep operating her unpermitted cookware business in her backyard.

She said officers tracked her down upon her return and already demanded money.

“I work to make a living from one day to the next … Last week, some guardsmen came. ‘Look, you must support me,’” Pérez said she was told in early July.

“So, if I don’t give them any (money), others show up, too. I transferred him $5. It has to be more than $5 because otherwise, they’ll fight you.”

By NASSER KARIMI and KAREEM CHEHAYEB

TEHRAN (AP) — Talks between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency will be “technical” and “complicated,” the Islamic Republic’s Foreign Ministry said Monday ahead of a visit by the nuclear watchdog for the first time since Tehran cut ties with the organization last month.

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Relations between the two soured after a 12-day air war was waged by Israel and the U.S in June, which saw key Iranian nuclear facilities bombed. The IAEA board said on June 12 Iran had breached its non-proliferation obligations, a day before Israel’s airstrikes over Iran that sparked the war.

The IAEA did not immediately issue a statement about the visit by the agency’s deputy head, which will not include any planned access to Iranian nuclear sites.

Esmail Baghaei, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, told reporters there could be a meeting with Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi, “but it is a bit soon to predict what the talks will result since these are technical talks, complicated talks.”

Baghaei also criticized the IAEA’s “unique situation” during the June war with Israel.

“Peaceful facilities of a country that was under 24-hour monitoring were the target of strikes and the agency refrained from showing a wise and rational reaction and did not condemn it as it was required,” he said.

Aragchi had previously said that cooperation with the agency, which will now require approval by Iran’s highest security body, the Supreme National Security Council, would be about redefining how both sides cooperate. The decision will likely further limit inspectors’ ability to track Tehran’s program that had been enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on July 3 ordered the country to suspend its cooperation with the IAEA, after the U.S. bombed three major Iranian nuclear sites as Israel waged an air war with Iran, killing nearly 1,100 people, including many military commanders. Retaliatory Iranian strikes killed 28 in Israel.

Iran has had limited IAEA inspections in the past as a pressure tactic in negotiating with the West, and it is unclear how soon talks between Tehran and Washington for a deal over its nuclear program will resume.

U.S. intelligence agencies and the IAEA had assessed Iran last had an organized nuclear weapons program in 2003, though Tehran had been enriching uranium up to 60% — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.

Chehayeb reported from Beirut.