With headlines like "Ukraine readies for an invasion by Russia" and "PM says Ukraine on the brink of disaster," media outlets in the U.S. and Western Europe have largely condemned Putin's military intervention in the Crimea. But Russians are hearing a very different story.

That's from Russia Today, the Kremlin's English-language news site, which went on to say that "contrary to expectations, security in Crimea has actually become more stable" since Russia invaded. For those of us who don't read Cyrillic, RT can give a taste of what Russians are seeing and hearing.

Here's a selection of other headlines from the site:

- "Ukrainian troops dispatched in Crimea switch to region's side - sources"

- "675,000 Ukrainians pour into Russia as 'humanitarian crisis' looms"

- "Will be a war crime to use force against Ukraine civilians, Russia warns self-proclaimed president"

- "Russia's UN envoy: Radical forces destabilising Ukraine must be stopped"

RT also has been running live footage of a pro-Russian rally in Simferopol, a city in southeastern Ukraine.

As Reuters outlines, the Russian press — which research organization Freedom House has simply labeled "not free" due to Putin's stranglehold on it — has been swamped with the Kremlin's messaging of the invasion.

On Russian television, weeks of footage of wounded policemen and burning tyres have given way to sober pictures of politicians and Ukrainians predicting Ukraine will split after opposition forces took control in Kiev and the president fled.

In a sign the Kremlin is shaken by losing a struggle for influence with the West in its neighbor, the language has been set against the us-or-them background of the Soviet victory against Adolf Hitler — a source of national pride. [Reuters]

Of course, Putin's critics have also been quick to invoke comparisons to World War II, with one calling the invasion his "Sudetenland," a reference to Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia. Nico Lauricella

Hillary Clinton has maintained her lead over Donald Trump in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, released Friday. In the poll's first iteration since the two candidates debated for the first time Monday, Clinton leads Trump 43 percent to 38 percent in a head-to-head race. When third-party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein are factored in, Clinton's lead shrinks by a point, 42 percent to 38 percent.

Clinton's lead in the Reuters poll has held fairly steady all month, though it is slightly higher than the RealClearPolitics average, which shows Clinton's lead at 2.9 percent in a two-way race. Both candidates did get a bump in approval ratings, however, as 48 percent of respondents said they held a favorable view of Clinton, up from 45 percent last week. For Trump, 46 percent saw him favorably, up from 44 percent.

The Reuters poll was conducted online from Sept. 23-29 in all 50 states; there were 2,501 respondents, all considered likely voters, and there is a margin of error of 2 points. Kimberly Alters

Anyone who has ever waited hours for an appointment at the Apple store will probably get a cathartic pleasure out of watching this man attack iPhones with an iron ball at a mall in Dijon, France:

The anti-iPhone crusader shouts that Apple "violated my rights and refused to refund me in accordance to the European consumer protection law," BuzzFeed reports. "I warned them, I told them 'give me my money back,' but they said no. So what happens then? This is what happens." The man was promptly arrested by mall security.

The video of the Thursday incident has gotten a lot of traction in France, already prompting a parody by a French comedy troupe: "In their version, a man goes into an iron ball store and tries to smash them with his phone," BuzzFeed writes.

Well played. Jeva Lange

Hillary Clinton wanted an answer, and she got it in Donald Trump's latest campaign ad. The Republican presidential candidate's new ad, titled "Why?", starts off with a clip of Clinton's video speech last week in which she asked: "Why aren't I 50 points ahead?"

While Clinton might be stumped as to why her lead isn't ballooning, Trump, it turns out, is not. Watch the Trump campaign's response, below. Becca Stanek

A cluster of more than 200 small earthquakes beneath the Salton Sea in Southern California earlier this week has scientists waiting to see if the slumbering San Andreas fault nearby could be the next to move. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that following the quake swarm at the Salton Sea on Monday and Tuesday, the likelihood of a magnitude-7 or greater earthquake being triggered is as high as 1 in 100 over the next seven days, though the odds will lower as time goes on.

But for now, local seismologists might feel their hearts racing. "When there's significant seismicity in this area of the fault, we kind of wonder if [the San Andreas] is somehow going to go active," Caltech seismologist Egill Hauksson told the Los Angeles Times. "So maybe one of those small earthquakes that's happening in the neighborhood of the fault is going to trigger it, and set off the big event."

And by big event, they mean big:

A San Andreas earthquake starting at the Salton Sea has long been a major concern for scientists. In 2008, USGS researchers simulated what would happen if a magnitude-7.8 earthquake started at the Salton Sea and then barreled up the San Andreas fault, sending shaking waves out in all directions.

By the time the San Andreas fault becomes unhinged in San Bernardino County's Cajon Pass, Interstate 15 and rail lines could be severed. Historic downtowns in the Inland Empire could be awash in fallen brick, crushing people under the weight of collapsed buildings that had never been retrofitted.

Los Angeles could feel shaking for a minute — a lifetime compared with the seven seconds felt during the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Shaking waves reach as far as Bakersfield, Oxnard, and Santa Barbara. About 1,600 fires spread across Southern California. And powerful aftershocks larger than magnitude-7 pulverize the region, sending shaking into San Diego County and into the San Gabriel Valley. [Los Angeles Times]

Scientists say major earthquakes happen in Southern California about once every 150 or 200 years; the last big quake at the Salton Sea-tip of the San Andreas fault was 330 years ago. Read the full chilling report at the Los Angeles Times. Jeva Lange

When Ivanka Trump was 17 years old, she reportedly set an age limit for the women that dad Donald Trump was allowed to date. "I have a deal with her," Trump said of his daughter during a taping of The Howard Stern Show in June 1999. "She's 17 and doing great — Ivanka. She made me promise, swear to her, that I would never date a girl younger than her." The New York Daily News pointed out that 17 is the age of consent in New York, "so Trump essentially told Ivanka that he wouldn't violate statutory rape law."

Trump then proceeded to joke with Stern that his deal with Ivanka meant "as she grows older, the field is getting very limited." "The nerve of her," Stern said in response. "Now you can't go out with 16-year-olds." At the time of the interview, Trump was already dating his current wife Melania, who is 24 years younger than him — but 12 years older than Ivanka.

Of course, Trump was no stranger to Stern's show, having called in repeatedly throughout the 1990s. In another interview no less cringe-inducing, Trump in 1995 discussed with Stern how annoying women's accents could be — or, as Stern phrased it, how "one day the accent is cute and the next you're married to Dracula's sister." "You know what I like most about Marla [Maples, Trump's second wife]? And this is not lewd," Stern said. "No accent. Because that can make you bonkers after a while. Isn't that true?"

Yes, Trump agreed: "Especially when they're asking for money." Becca Stanek

Footage of Donald Trump testifying under oath about his comments concerning Mexicans and Latinos could be released to the public as early as Friday, potentially providing valuable fodder for Democratic ad-makers in the short weeks before election day. While Trump's lawyers had argued that the tapes of Trump's deposition, as well as those of his son Donald Jr. and daughter Ivanka, be kept sealed, D.C. Superior Court Judge Brian Holeman denied their request, Politico reports.

"This Court finds that Plaintiff has not demonstrated that any subject video deposition contains scandalous, libelous, or other unduly prejudicial material warranting denial of media access. The public shall not be held captive by the suggested eventuality of partisan editing in a manner unfavorable to Plaintiff or the deponents," Holeman wrote.

Trump's testimony comes from lawsuits he filed last year in relation to two chefs pulling out of restaurant deals for his D.C. hotel after Trump called Mexicans "rapists" and made other remarks about Latinos. In transcripts from the deposition, which have already been released, Trump claimed that his comments could have helped business: "If he had the restaurant, it would have helped," Trump said of one of the restaurateurs, Geoffrey Zakarian. "I've tapped into something. And I've tapped into illegal immigration."

In a separate case concerning a lawsuit over Trump University, U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel ruled against the media's request for video of Trump's depositions, saying there was not substantial public interest in their release. Jeva Lange

Health officials in Thailand announced Friday that two babies have tested positive for Zika-related microcephaly, the birth defect that causes abnormally small heads and malformed brains. Though Thailand has confirmed 349 cases of the mosquito-borne illness since January — with 33 of those cases in pregnant women — this marks the first time cases of microcephaly tied to Zika have been reported in Southeast Asia.

Thailand's announcement came just a day after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised pregnant women against non-essential travel to 11 Southeast Asian countries, including Brunei, Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Philippines, Thailand, East Timor, and Vietnam. The CDC has already issued a "travel notice" for Singapore, where 393 cases of Zika have been recorded.

U.S. officials have determined that if women contract the Zika virus while pregnant, it can cause microcephaly and potentially other birth defects in their babies. At this point, there is no treatment for Zika. On Wednesday, U.S. lawmakers passed a spending bill that allotted $1.1 billion to the fight against the Zika virus. Becca Stanek