Our daily voyage around the world

🇷🇺 Russia arrested a WSJ reporter yesterday, accusing him of espionage on behalf of the US. The detention of 31-year-old Evan Gershkovich marks the first case of Moscow charging an American journalist with spying since the Cold War ended in 1991. Russian officials are claiming that Gershkovich tried to obtain classified information about the country’s military-industrial complex, with the intention of reporting back to the US government. The White House and WSJ have denied the allegations and demanded that Gershkovich be released immediately.

🔊 A newly-declassified US gov’t report concluded that “Havana Syndrome” may be caused by a weapon – contradicting officials’ previous claims. A federal report published earlier this month said the wide range of symptoms – including severe headaches, fatigue, and memory loss – that were reported by 1,500+ US federal employees over the past six years were “probably” caused by a combination of natural factors. But a different federal report, obtained this week by Salon via a public records request, concluded that some of the Havana Syndrome cases can’t be easily explained by known environmental or medical conditions, and could have come from an electromagnetic weapon.

🇻🇦 The Vatican has officially rejected its 15th-century “Doctrine of Discovery,” which was used to justify European colonialism. The doctrine authorized colonial powers like Spain and Portugal to seize lands and subjugate people in Africa and the "New World” for the sake of spreading Christianity. It was previously invoked in an 1823 US Supreme Court ruling that found Indigenous Americans had only rights of "occupancy," not ownership, over lands they had lived on for centuries. In a statement published yesterday, the Vatican said the doctrine “did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples” and has never been considered an expression of the Catholic faith.