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Expert witness throws Jim Jordan’s NY clown show into disarray

Expert witness throws Jim Jordan’s NY clown show into disarray

The New Republic reports: On Monday, Jim Jordan brought the latest hearing of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government to Manhattan, where he and his fellow House Republicans attempted to paint New York City as a crime-ridden disaster. However, they instead managed to remind Americans that loose gun laws and Republican leadership have led to high crime rates and unlawful schemes that ship guns from red states to blue ones. Jordan’s New York City field trip…

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DA Bragg’s secret weapon may be a lawyer who’s dogged Trump for years

DA Bragg’s secret weapon may be a lawyer who’s dogged Trump for years

The Daily Beast reports: A little-known lawyer in New York has long been the thorn in Donald Trump’s side, pressing deeper with every passing year by taking down his scammy charity, blocking his presidential policies, investigating his finances, grilling his annoyed son with questions, and finally indicting the former president last month. Matthew Colangelo, after years of relentlessly aggressive work, is finally on Trump’s personal radar—and that of his most combative MAGA allies, who’ve painted a target on his back…

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FBI arrests two on charges tied to Chinese police outpost in New York City

FBI arrests two on charges tied to Chinese police outpost in New York City

The New York Times reports: For years, thousands of New Yorkers and tourists have walked past an unassuming office building in Lower Manhattan. On Monday, federal prosecutors unsealed criminal charges accusing two men of helping run an unauthorized Chinese police outpost there, one of more than 100 around the globe used to intimidate and control China’s citizens abroad, and to stamp out criticism of the ruling Communist Party. The two men were arrested on Monday and charged with conspiring to…

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Russia sentences Kara-Murza, Putin critic and Washington Post contributor, to 25 years

Russia sentences Kara-Murza, Putin critic and Washington Post contributor, to 25 years

The Washington Post reports: A Russian court sentenced Vladimir Kara-Murza, a longtime opposition politician and Washington Post Opinions contributor, to 25 years in prison Monday on charges of treason for criticizing Russia’s war against Ukraine. Amid a draconian crackdown on dissent, it was the harshest penalty yet for an opponent of the war, in a case that Kara-Murza condemned as “unfounded, illegal and politically motivated.” The closed trial further highlighted Russia’s isolationist path, as President Vladimir Putin has disregarded Western…

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The ‘diploma divide’ is the new fault line in American politics

The ‘diploma divide’ is the new fault line in American politics

Doug Sosnik writes: The legal imbroglios of Donald Trump have lately dominated conversation about the 2024 election. As primary season grinds on, campaign activity will wax and wane, and issues of the moment — like the first Trump indictment and potentially others to come — will blaze into focus and then disappear. Yet certain fundamentals will shape the races as candidates strategize about how to win the White House. To do this, they will have to account for at least…

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Why GOP culture warriors lost big in school board races this month

Why GOP culture warriors lost big in school board races this month

Politico reports: Amid all the attention on this month’s elections in Wisconsin and Illinois, one outcome with major implications for 2024 flew under the national radar: School board candidates who ran culture-war campaigns flamed out. Democrats and teachers’ unions boasted candidates they backed in Midwestern suburbs trounced their opponents in the once-sleepy races. The winning record, they said, was particularly noticeable in elections where conservative candidates emphasized agendas packed with race, gender identity and parental involvement in classrooms. While there’s…

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How Portland police blanketed parts of the city with toxic chemicals

How Portland police blanketed parts of the city with toxic chemicals

The Guardian reports: Investigators have created a 3D simulation of the Portland police bureau’s (PPB) extraordinary use of teargas during a major protest event on 2 June 2020. Forensic Architecture (FA), a research agency that investigates human rights violations, worked with weapons experts to analyze hundreds of videos from that evening, along with internal police files, invoice records, manufacturer data and photos of teargas canisters. The analysis reveals that the city’s downtown was blanketed with gas at more than 50 times the level federal regulators…

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Cold temperatures seem to have a mysterious effect on longevity

Cold temperatures seem to have a mysterious effect on longevity

Science Alert reports: Lower temperatures might not warm your heart, but they could make for a longer life. Past research has proposed a few reasons behind this intriguing phenomenon. Now scientists from the University of Cologne in Germany have used experiments on worms to identify another possible reason: coldness drives a process through which damaged proteins are removed from cells. Several neurodegenerative diseases that can take hold as we get older – including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s – are linked to…

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Social-media account overseen by former Navy noncommissioned officer helped spread secrets

Social-media account overseen by former Navy noncommissioned officer helped spread secrets

The Wall Street Journal reports: A social-media account overseen by a former U.S. Navy noncommissioned officer—a prominent online voice supporting Russia’s war on Ukraine—played a key role in the spread of intelligence documents allegedly leaked by Airman First Class Jack Teixeira, reposting files from obscure online chat rooms. A purported Russian blogger known as Donbass Devushka, which translates as Donbas Girl, is the face of a network of pro-Kremlin social-media, podcasting, merchandise and fundraising accounts. But the person who hosted…

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Russians boasted that just 1% of fake social profiles are caught, leak shows

Russians boasted that just 1% of fake social profiles are caught, leak shows

The Washington Post reports: The Russian government has become far more successful at manipulating social media and search engine rankings than previously known, boosting lies about Ukraine’s military and the side effects of vaccines with hundreds of thousands of fake online accounts, according to documents recently leaked on the chat app Discord. The Russian operators of those accounts boast that they are detected by social networks only about 1 percent of the time, one document says. That claim, described here…

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The military loved Discord for Gen Z recruiting. Then the leaks began

The military loved Discord for Gen Z recruiting. Then the leaks began

The Washington Post reports: For years, the U.S. military has pushed to meet prospective Generation Z recruits on Discord, the online group-chat tool where many spend their time. It even runs a 17,000-member chatroom there for service members to talk about first-person shooter games, meet with career counselors and participate in what one sergeant in 2019 called the “Army of tomorrow.” But Defense Department officials have also struggled to confront the risks of how Discord’s closed channels operate — and…

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As Ukraine’s LGBTQ soldiers fight on the front line, acceptance grows in the conservative country

As Ukraine’s LGBTQ soldiers fight on the front line, acceptance grows in the conservative country

NBC News reports: On a riotous Instagram profile featuring pole-dancing, cross-dressing and fierce makeup, a picture of Ivan Honzyk in high heels and stockings next to an image of him in military uniform has gotten the most likes by far. The junior sergeant’s posts are a bold statement in socially conservative Ukraine, where pride parades were often attacked before the war and swaths of the country are occupied by forces loyal to Russia, one of the world’s most conspicuously homophobic…

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Clarence Thomas has for years claimed income from a defunct real estate firm

Clarence Thomas has for years claimed income from a defunct real estate firm

The Washington Post reports: Over the last two decades, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has reported on required financial disclosure forms that his family received rental income totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a firm called Ginger, Ltd., Partnership. But that company — a Nebraska real estate firm launched in the 1980s by his wife and her relatives — has not existed since 2006. That year, the family real estate company was shut down and a separate firm was…

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Fox News is on trial, and so are lies about 2020

Fox News is on trial, and so are lies about 2020

The New York Times reports: A judge in Delaware Superior Court is expected to swear in the jury as soon as Monday in a defamation trial that has little precedent in American law. Fox News, one of the most powerful and profitable media companies, will defend itself against extensive evidence suggesting it told its audience a story of conspiracy and fraud in the 2020 election it knew wasn’t true. The jury will be asked to weigh lofty questions about the…

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