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The arrest of an American journalist in Russia is awful. For me, it’s also painfully personal

The arrest of an American journalist in Russia is awful. For me, it’s also painfully personal

Margaret Sullivan writes: His face stared out from news stories on Thursday morning, accompanied by headlines like this one in the Guardian: “Russia arrests reporter and accuses him of espionage.” Oh, that’s awful, I thought at first, reflecting that we really are involved in some kind of new cold war, and there is no end to the toll that authoritarian governments will take on journalists. The imprisonment of journalists is at a historic high worldwide; I’ve written columns about that….

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Kushner firm got hundreds of millions from UAE and Qatar

Kushner firm got hundreds of millions from UAE and Qatar

The New York Times reports: Wealth funds in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have invested hundreds of millions of dollars with Jared Kushner’s private equity firm, according to people with knowledge of the transactions, joining Saudi Arabia in backing the venture launched by former President Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law as he left the White House. The infusion of money from interests in the two rival Persian Gulf monarchies reflects the continued efforts by Mr. Trump and his aides and…

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Newly declassified report suggests Havana Syndrome might be caused by directed energy, contradicting officials

Newly declassified report suggests Havana Syndrome might be caused by directed energy, contradicting officials

Gizomondo reports: Several weeks after the intelligence community very publicly disavowed claims that “Havana Syndrome”—the bizarre rash of neurological disorders plaguing U.S. foreign service officials—was the result of a directed energy weapon, a newly declassified report alleges that may very well be what it is. The group behind the report, the Intelligence Community Experts Panel on Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs), was established by the government to figure out just what the heck had happened to the 1,000-ish American officials who claim to…

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Evan Gershkovich’s arrest means no journalist can feel safe in Russia today

Evan Gershkovich’s arrest means no journalist can feel safe in Russia today

The Moscow Times reports: Russia on Thursday arrested Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on espionage charges in a major escalation of the Kremlin’s wartime crackdown on independent journalism. After being detained in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg, Gershkovich was formally arrested by a Moscow court in a hearing held behind closed doors. Russia’s State Security Service (FSB) alleged that Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen, was involved in the collection of “secret information” about a Russian defense company, state-run news…

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He came to D.C. as a Brazilian student. The U.S. says he was a Russian spy

He came to D.C. as a Brazilian student. The U.S. says he was a Russian spy

The Washington Post reports: Like anyone who gets into his dream college, Victor Muller Ferreira was ecstatic when he was admitted to Johns Hopkins University’s graduate school in Washington in 2018. “Today we made the future — we managed to get in one of the top schools in the world,” he wrote in an email to those who had helped him gain entry to the elite master’s program in international relations. “This is the victory that belongs to all of…

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‘This is like a movie’: Ukraine’s secret plan to convince 3 Russian pilots to defect with their planes

‘This is like a movie’: Ukraine’s secret plan to convince 3 Russian pilots to defect with their planes

Michael Weiss reports: At first, the Russian pilots all thought it was a scam. But they agreed to go along with it anyway, especially after the initial payments came through. Last summer, a group of Ukrainian volunteers, working closely with their country’s intelligence service, apparently came close to persuading three Russian aviators who were in the midst of bombing Ukraine to defect with their warplanes in exchange for $1 million a piece. It was a bold, months-long operation, “like a…

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Ukrainian commanders say that Russia exhausted all its reserves on Bakhmut

Ukrainian commanders say that Russia exhausted all its reserves on Bakhmut

The New York Times reports: Hidden in the bowels of an unmarked building, set well back from the fighting, a command center directing operations in the city of Bakhmut was high-tech and humming. Soldiers monitored video screens with live feeds of destroyed buildings and a cratered battlefield. Six weeks after coming to help defend Bakhmut, the men of the Adam Tactical Group, one of Ukraine’s most effective battle units, were quietly confident they had turned the tide against Russian troops…

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The Vulkan Files: Secret trove offers rare look into Russian cyberwar ambitions

The Vulkan Files: Secret trove offers rare look into Russian cyberwar ambitions

The Washington Post reports: Russian intelligence agencies worked with a Moscow-based defense contractor to strengthen their ability to launch cyberattacks, sow disinformation and surveil sections of the internet, according to thousands of pages of confidential corporate documents. The documents detail a suite of computer programs and databases that would allow Russia’s intelligence agencies and hacking groups to better find vulnerabilities, coordinate attacks and control online activity. The documents suggest the firm was supporting operations including both social media disinformation and…

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Who’s afraid of ChatGPT?

Who’s afraid of ChatGPT?

Jack Shafer writes: The basest complaint in newsrooms is that AI will “steal” publishing jobs by deskilling work that “belongs” to people. Without a doubt, technology has been pilfering newsroom jobs for more than a century. The telephone increased reporter efficiency by allowing journalists to remain in the newsroom instead of wasting time traveling to collect stories. Photographs replaced newspaper and magazine illustrators. Computer typography displaced make-up room artists, typesetters and pressmen. Answering machines displaced telephone operators and secretaries. Word…

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‘QBism’: quantum mechanics is not a description of objective reality – it reveals a world of genuine free will

‘QBism’: quantum mechanics is not a description of objective reality – it reveals a world of genuine free will

In a cubist painting, reality is more than a single perspective can capture. wikipedia, CC BY-SA By Ruediger Schack, Royal Holloway University of London What does quantum mechanics, the most successful theory ever proposed by physics, teach us about reality? The starting point for most philosophers of physics is that quantum mechanics must somehow provide a description of the world as it is independently of us, the users of the theory. This has led to a large number of incompatible…

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How Russia turned America’s helping hand to Ukraine into a vast lie

How Russia turned America’s helping hand to Ukraine into a vast lie

An editorial in the Washington Post says: Information is the world’s lifeblood. It pulsates in torrents of facts and images. We are swamped with it. But information can be poison, a dangerous weapon. Disinformation, or organized lying, can be used to wage political warfare. As the historian Thomas Rid wrote in “Active Measures,” his book on the subject, disinformation can weaken a political system that places its trust in truth. “Disinformation operations, in essence, erode the very foundations of open…

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The only realistic answer to Putin

The only realistic answer to Putin

David J. Kramer, John Herbst, and William Taylor write: Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine last year and, for that matter, its first invasion of its neighbor eight years before are impossible to justify. Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to convince his public that this war is existential, but with little success. Russia’s existence as a strong, sovereign state is not dependent on its control of Ukraine or even parts of the Donbas or Crimea. That’s why, since Putin implemented…

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Xi Jinping says he is preparing China for war. The world should take him seriously

Xi Jinping says he is preparing China for war. The world should take him seriously

John Pomfret and Matt Pottinger write: Chinese leader Xi Jinping says he is preparing for war. At the annual meeting of China’s parliament and its top political advisory body in March, Xi wove the theme of war readiness through four separate speeches, in one instance telling his generals to “dare to fight.” His government also announced a 7.2 percent increase in China’s defense budget, which has doubled over the last decade, as well as plans to make the country less…

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Our democracy is ‘under vicious, unsustainable, and unendurable attack — from within,’ says Judge Luttig

Our democracy is ‘under vicious, unsustainable, and unendurable attack — from within,’ says Judge Luttig

Charlie Sykes writes: It was called the “tweet heard round the world.” On the morning before the January 6th attack on the Capitol, one of the nation’s most prominent conservative jurists, former Federal Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig, posted a message aimed at Vice President Mike Pence. A close friend of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, Luttig had frequently been mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee, and when he spoke, conservatives paid close attention. That day his message was…

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