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Western nations rush air-defense systems to Ukraine to counter Russian missiles

Western nations rush air-defense systems to Ukraine to counter Russian missiles

The New York Times reports: In just two days this week, Russian forces fired more than 100 cruise missiles and dozens of exploding drones at cities across Ukraine, far more than the nation’s aging air defenses were ever expected to encounter. And yet fewer than half made it to their targets, Ukrainian officials say. Ukraine’s success in knocking down those projectiles, and the death and destruction caused wherever missiles slipped through, has reinvigorated calls by officials in Kyiv for Western…

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How Moscow abducts Ukrainian children and forces them to become Russian

How Moscow abducts Ukrainian children and forces them to become Russian

The Associated Press reports: Olga Lopatkina paced around her basement in circles like a trapped animal. For more than a week, the Ukrainian mother had heard nothing from her six adopted children stranded in Mariupol, and she was going out of her mind with worry. The kids had spent their vacation at a resort in the port city, as usual. But this time war with Russia had broken out, and her little ones — always terrified of the dark —…

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Trump threatened to expose confidential sources from Russia investigation

Trump threatened to expose confidential sources from Russia investigation

Rolling Stone reports: Donald Trump in the final days of his presidency repeatedly threatened to out government sources involved in the Trump-Russia investigation, an anti-Deep State revenge fantasy he still obsesses over to this day, according to two former senior Trump aides and another person familiar with the matter. One of these sources tells Rolling Stone that in the days after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the then-president, sometimes while brandishing pieces of paper, would loudly complain that none of…

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More than half of U.S. bird populations are shrinking

More than half of U.S. bird populations are shrinking

Smithsonian Magazine reports: Interest in birds and birdwatching surged during the Covid-19 pandemic, with legions of birders, new and old, recording the details of their feathered sightings with apps such as eBird. In the process, these citizen scientists delivered a glut of high-resolution data that has been a boon to American ornithologists looking to better understand bird populations. Combined with decades of traditional biological surveys, this trove of data tells a story, and not a happy one. A new report…

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Long Covid plagues 1 in 20 people more than six months after infection

Long Covid plagues 1 in 20 people more than six months after infection

The Washington Post reports: A new long-covid study based on the experiences of nearly 100,000 participants provides powerful evidence that many people do not fully recover months after being infected with the coronavirus. The Scottish study found that between six and 18 months after infection, 1 in 20 people had not recovered and 42 percent reported partial recovery. There were some reassuring aspects to the results: People with asymptomatic infections are unlikely to suffer long-term effects, and vaccination appears to…

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How far would a Republican majority go?

How far would a Republican majority go?

Norm Ornstein writes: In 2011, the new House Republican majority, egged on by Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy and led by radical Tea Party rightists such as Jason Chaffetz, brought the U.S. to the brink of a default. The disaster was headed off by a last-minute compromise between Speaker John Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and President Barack Obama. A breach of the debt ceiling, meaning the loss of the full faith and credit of the United States, would…

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How to direct America toward fascism

How to direct America toward fascism

Jonathan Chait writes: In mid-September, I attended the National Conservatism Conference in Miami, where Republican politicians, right-wing thought leaders, and various party apparatchiks had gathered to articulate their vision of the conservative movement’s future. The National Conservatives are only one faction vying to define the Republican agenda, but in a short period of time, they have sharpened their focus and expanded their influence, and the conference gave them a forum to display the dominant position their ideas have achieved on…

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Leonard Leo pushed the courts right. Now he’s aiming at American society

Leonard Leo pushed the courts right. Now he’s aiming at American society

The New York Times reports: Millions of dollars in television advertisements blasting schools for teaching critical race theory and assailing corporations like BlackRock, Uber and American Airlines for catering to “woke politicians.” A lawsuit pending before the Supreme Court to radically reshape how federal elections are conducted. Complaints against President Biden for violating election law and against school districts that allow information to be withheld from parents about children’s gender identities. These initiatives were advanced in the past year or…

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Trump, was warned of violence on January 6, then sought to stoke it

Trump, was warned of violence on January 6, then sought to stoke it

The Washington Post reports: The probably final public hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is expected to highlight newly obtained Secret Service records showing how President Donald Trump was repeatedly alerted to brewing violence that day, and he still sought to stoke the conflict, according to three people briefed on the records. The committee plans to share in Thursday’s hearing new video footage and internal Secret Service emails that appear to…

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Lawyers group asks NY court to punish an author of Trump fake electors scheme

Lawyers group asks NY court to punish an author of Trump fake electors scheme

The New York Times reports: In the emerging history of how a small group of lawyers aided former President Donald J. Trump’s attempt to stay in power despite losing the 2020 election, Kenneth Chesebro has received far less attention than others like Rudolph W. Giuliani and John Eastman. But documents show that Mr. Chesebro played a central part in developing the idea of having Trump supporters pretend to be electors from states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr., then claiming…

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Baltic nations long warned about Russia. Now, maybe, the West is listening

Baltic nations long warned about Russia. Now, maybe, the West is listening

The Washington Post reports: Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv’s strongest allies against President Vladimir Putin have been the nations that know his Soviet playbook best: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, all invaded and brutalized by the Soviet Union and historically wary of Russia. Their warnings about Russian aggression and calls for stronger Western action to deter Putin were long brushed aside by many in Europe, even after Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia and the Kremlin’s…

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Protests in Iran spread, including to oil sector, despite regime’s violent crackdown

Protests in Iran spread, including to oil sector, despite regime’s violent crackdown

The New York Times reports: Defying a lethal crackdown in cities across Iran, protesters demanding the ouster of Iran’s Islamic Republic have driven their uprising into a fourth week, with workers from the country’s vital oil sector going on strike this week and activists calling for further work stoppages and protests on Wednesday. Despite efforts by Iran’s security forces, including the feared plainclothes Basij militias, to crush the protests, they have only widened. Some have turned into chaotic street battles,…

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‘Be brave like Ukraine’

‘Be brave like Ukraine’

David Ignatius writes: Many Ukrainians repeated the same defiant message during a two-day visit here last weekend: We’re not afraid of Russian nuclear threats; we’ve suffered too much to make concessions; we want the world’s help in ensuring the defeat of Putin. A wall mural downtown summarized the public mood: “Be brave like Ukraine.” What became clear after several dozen conversations here is that for Ukraine, there’s no middle ground. The resiliency and resolve I heard reminded me of Londoners…

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United States v. Donald Trump

United States v. Donald Trump

Franklin Foer writes: As an appellate judge, Merrick Garland was known for constructing narrow decisions that achieved consensus without creating extraneous controversy. As a government attorney, he was known for his zealous adherence to the letter of the law. As a person, he is a smaller-than-life figure, a dry conversationalist, studious listener, something close to the opposite of a raconteur. As a driver, his friends say, he is maddeningly slow and almost comically fastidious. And as the nation’s chief law-enforcement…

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