PUTIN SIGNS EXTENSION OF RUSSIA-U.S. ARMS TREATY

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed a bill extending the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between Russia and the United States a week before the pact was to expire.

Both houses of the Russian parliament voted unanimously Wednesday to extend the New START treaty for five years. Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden had discussed the nuclear accord a day earlier, and the Kremlin said they agreed to complete the necessary extension procedures.

New START expires Feb. 5. The pact’s extension doesn’t require congressional approval in the U.S., but Russian lawmakers had to ratify the move. Russian diplomats said the extension will be validated by exchanging diplomatic notes once all the procedures are completed.

Moscow court puts Navalny’s allies under house arrest.

A Moscow court on Friday put the brother and several allies of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny under house arrest for two months as authorities sought to stymie more protests over the jailing of the top Kremlin foe.

Navalny’s supporters called for rallies on Sunday to demand his release. Tens of thousands of people demonstrated across Russia last weekend to protest his Jan. 17 arrest and 30-day detention.

Moscow police announced that pedestrian movement would be restricted in the city center on Sunday and that subway stations in the vicinity of the planned protest site would be closed.

The 44-year-old Navalny, the anti-corruption investigator and the bestknown critic of President Vladimir Putin’s government was arrested upon returning from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin.

Canada to quarantine travelers, suspend flights south.

TORONTO» Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday announced stricter restrictions on travelers in response to new, likely more-contagious variants of the novel coronavirus — including making it mandatory for travelers to quarantine in a hotel at their own expense when they arrive in Canada and suspending airline service to Mexico and all Caribbean destinations until April 30.

Trudeau said in addition to the preboarding test Canada already requires, the government will be introducing mandatory PCR testing for people returning to Canada. “Travelers will then have to wait for up to three days at an approved hotel for their test results, at their own expense, which is expected to be more than $2,000,” Trudeau said.

U.S. airstrike kills top Islamic State leader in Iraq.

BAGHDAD » U.S. airstrikes in a joint mission with Iraqi forces have killed the top Islamic State leader in Iraq, an attack aimed at stemming the group’s resurgence and exacting retribution for a double-suicide bombing in Baghdad last week.

The Islamic State commander, Jabbar Salman Ali Farhan al-Issawi, 43, known as Abu Yasser, was killed Wednesday near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, U.S.-led military coalition and Iraqi officials said Friday.