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Hacked Russian files reveal propaganda agreement with China

Hacked Russian files reveal propaganda agreement with China

The Intercept reports: Russian officials pushed the lies first. Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine, a Russian defense ministry spokesperson resuscitated debunked claims about a U.S.-funded bioweapons program in the region, accusing Ukrainian labs of experimenting with bat coronaviruses in an attempt to spark “the covert spread of deadliest pathogens.” Disinformation is an old Russian government tactic. But this time Russia had help. Within days, Chinese officials and media outlets had picked up the lies and were amplifying and expanding on…

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The IRS really, really should have audited Trump

The IRS really, really should have audited Trump

Noah Bookbinder writes: Six years after Donald Trump should have disclosed his tax returns to the public, they have finally been released. This took advocacy, congressional action, and litigation that went to the Supreme Court—all to obtain basic financial transparency from a president. But the House Ways and Means Committee’s report on its investigation, released last week in conjunction with the committee’s vote to disclose Trump’s tax returns, revealed new information that may be as astonishing as anything in the…

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What’s gone at Twitter? A data center, janitors, some toilet paper

What’s gone at Twitter? A data center, janitors, some toilet paper

The New York Times reports: Elon Musk’s orders were clear: Close the data center. Early on Christmas Eve, members of the billionaire’s staff flew to Sacramento — the site of one of Twitter’s three main computing storage facilities — to disconnect servers that had kept the social network running smoothly. Some employees were worried that losing those servers could cause problems, but saving money was the priority, according to two people who were familiar with the move but not authorized…

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A local paper suggested Santos was a ‘fabulist’ before the election, but no one paid attention

A local paper suggested Santos was a ‘fabulist’ before the election, but no one paid attention

The Washington Post reports: Months before the New York Times published a December article suggesting Rep.-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) had fabricated much of his résumé and biography, a tiny publication on Long Island was ringing alarm bells about its local candidate. The North Shore Leader wrote in September, when few others were covering Santos, about his “inexplicable rise” in reported net worth — from essentially nothing in 2020 to as much as $11 million two years later. The story noted…

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George Santos’ massive campaign loans may not be legal

George Santos’ massive campaign loans may not be legal

The Daily Beast reports: Even as Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY) embarks on his apology tour, admitting he lied to voters for years about some of the most fundamental facts of his life, there’s been one mystery that Santos has been less than clear about: where his purported millions came from. The Daily Beast now has at least part of the answer—the identities of four Santos corporate clients. And while this new revelation might put Santos in even more hot water,…

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Trump and MAGA misfits turn on ‘Trump’s bitch’ Sean Hannity

Trump and MAGA misfits turn on ‘Trump’s bitch’ Sean Hannity

The Daily Beast reports: Sean Hannity, once the most important mouthpiece for Donald Trump, seems to be increasingly on the MAGAworld outs. And a new revelation that Hannity doesn’t buy the Big Lie isn’t helping. In a just-released deposition surrounding Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit, the Fox News star said he’d never believed—not “for one second”—baseless election fraud claims stemming from the 2020 election. That stance, directly at odds with many of his primetime segments and the beliefs of many…

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Inside the Ukrainian counteroffensive that shocked Putin and reshaped the war

Inside the Ukrainian counteroffensive that shocked Putin and reshaped the war

The Washington Post reports: After weeks of fighting for scraps of territory on the war’s bloodiest front, Oleh, a 21-year-old Ukrainian company commander, was summoned suddenly last August, along with thousands of other soldiers, to an obscure rendezvous point in the Kharkiv region. At his last position, relentless Russian artillery fire had stalked his men’s every step. But here, in a patch of villages, farmland and streams in Ukraine’s northeast, the quiet was deeply alarming. “The silence bothered me the…

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Sudden Russian Death Syndrome

Sudden Russian Death Syndrome

Elaine Godfrey writes: Here is a list of people you should not currently want to be: a Russian sausage tycoon, a Russian gas-industry executive, the editor in chief of a Russian tabloid, a Russian shipyard director, the head of a Russian ski resort, a Russian aviation official, or a Russian rail magnate. Anyone answering to such a description probably ought not stand near open windows, in almost any country, on almost every continent. Over the weekend, Pavel Antov, the aforementioned…

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The end of the Silicon Valley myth

The end of the Silicon Valley myth

Brian Merchant writes: The dramatic, multidimensional implosion of Meta; the nuclear train wreck of Elon Musk’s Twitter; the momentous labor uprising against Amazon—it wasn’t just an unusually disastrous year for America’s biggest tech companies. It was a reckoning. The tech giants that have shaped our lives, online and off, over the course of the 21st century have at last hit a wall. Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, and Apple all saw their valuations fall, sometimes precipitously. Many slashed their workforces; at…

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An ancient partnership has helped both plants and fungi thrive over much of Earth

An ancient partnership has helped both plants and fungi thrive over much of Earth

Science reports: As a motley medley of mycologists climbed the basalt slopes of the Lanín volcano earlier this year, the green foliage at lower elevations gave way to autumnal golds and reds. Chile’s famed Araucaria—commonly called monkey puzzle trees—soon appeared, their spiny branches curving jauntily upward like so many cats’ tails. Beneath the majestic trees, the scientists were focused on something far less glamorous—indeed, mostly invisible: mycorrhizal fungi, tiny organisms that intertwine with roots of the Araucaria and nearly all…

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Epidemics that weren’t: How countries shut down recent outbreaks

Epidemics that weren’t: How countries shut down recent outbreaks

The New York Times reports: When Ebola swept through the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 2018, it was a struggle to track cases. Dr. Billy Yumaine, a public health official, recalls steady flows of people moving back and forth across the border with Uganda while others hid sick family members in their homes because they feared the authorities. It took at least a week to get test results, and health officials had difficulty isolating sick people while they waited….

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How George Santos defrauded my old congressional district

How George Santos defrauded my old congressional district

Steve Israel writes: The media’s failure to dig into Santos shows the predicament that local newsrooms face in 2022. Newsday dominates the media landscape on Long Island. And its reporters do quality work—they turned out an important investigation just a few years ago that exposed racism in the local real-estate industry. But they don’t have the resources to cover everything—not even everything in their political backyard—and they appear to have written off NY-3 as low priority given the district’s Democratic…

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Republicans step up attacks on FBI as it investigates Trump

Republicans step up attacks on FBI as it investigates Trump

The New York Times reports: When George Piro learned that some of his former colleagues were spreading unfounded rumors about him, he was stunned. Mr. Piro, 55, was a highly decorated agent in the F.B.I. During his 23-year career, he earned a national intelligence medal for the months he spent interrogating Saddam Hussein, supervised several high-profile shooting investigations and consistently earned reviews that were among the highest for agents who ran field offices. Now, he stood accused of misconduct by…

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The Kurdish roots of a global slogan

The Kurdish roots of a global slogan

Shukriya Bradost writes: If I had been killed, would I have had the same impact on the Iranian people as what we have witnessed since the killing in September of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman Jina-Mahsa Amini? Definitely not. The use of heavy military weaponry to crack down on protests in Kurdish cities in Iran, which has shocked the world and led to mass killings and arrests of Kurds during the current uprising, is nothing new for Kurds. What is new…

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