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Judge warns of Justice Department’s gift to Trump that could keep on giving

Judge warns of Justice Department’s gift to Trump that could keep on giving

The Daily Beast reports: A judge has warned that former President Donald Trump is building a legal shield that could block him from being held accountable for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, pointing to the bizarre move by the Department of Justice to side with Trump in a rape defamation case last year. The DOJ’s legal stance—that anything a president does is part of his official duties, and therefore makes him a federal employee immune to lawsuits—was widely criticized…

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The ‘Talibanization’ of Iran has sparked a revolutionary feminist backlash

The ‘Talibanization’ of Iran has sparked a revolutionary feminist backlash

Nader Hashemi writes: The story of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was killed by Iran’s morality police for improperly wearing her hijab, has gone global. No one could have predicted when she left her home in Iran’s northern Kurdistan province earlier this month to visit relatives in Tehran that her death would lead to national protests, rocking the Islamic Republic to its core while generating massive international media coverage. The fact that Amini’s death occurred during the annual meeting of heads…

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Four years after Khashoggi’s murder, assaults on press freedom are getting worse

Four years after Khashoggi’s murder, assaults on press freedom are getting worse

David Ignatius writes: On the fourth anniversary of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, we should demand accountability from Saudi Arabia, louder than ever. But we should also denounce, as Khashoggi would have, the assaults against press freedom in so many other countries that continue unabated — and often go unremarked. Khashoggi’s last column, received by The Post the day after he went missing, was about the need for “free expression,” not just in Saudi Arabia but everywhere that authorities try to suppress…

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How the CIA failed Iranian informants in its secret war with Tehran

How the CIA failed Iranian informants in its secret war with Tehran

Reuters reports: The spy was minutes from leaving Iran when he was nabbed. Gholamreza Hosseini was at Imam Khomeini Airport in Tehran in late 2010, preparing for a flight to Bangkok. There, the Iranian industrial engineer would meet his Central Intelligence Agency handlers. But before he could pay his exit tax to leave the country, the airport ATM machine rejected his card as invalid. Moments later, a security officer asked to see Hosseini’s passport before escorting him away. Hosseini said…

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How a single Texas ruling could change the web forever

How a single Texas ruling could change the web forever

Charlie Warzel writes: Occasionally, something happens that is so blatantly and obviously misguided that trying to explain it rationally makes you sound ridiculous. Such is the case with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’s recent ruling in NetChoice v. Paxton. Earlier this month, the court upheld a preposterous Texas law stating that online platforms with more than 50 million monthly active users in the United States no longer have First Amendment rights regarding their editorial decisions. Put another way, the…

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Russia poised to annex occupied Ukraine after sham vote

Russia poised to annex occupied Ukraine after sham vote

The Associated Press reports: Russia positioned itself Wednesday to formally annex parts of Ukraine where occupied areas held a Kremlin-orchestrated “referendum” on living under Moscow’s rule that the Ukrainian government and the West denounced as illegal and rigged. Armed troops had gone door-to-door with election officials to collect ballots in five days of voting. The suspiciously high margins in favor were characterized as a land grab by an increasingly cornered Russian leadership after embarrassing military losses in Ukraine. Moscow-installed administrations…

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Nord Stream blasts could herald new phase of hybrid war, say EU politicians

Nord Stream blasts could herald new phase of hybrid war, say EU politicians

The Guardian reports: Norway’s prime minister has said its military will be more visible at oil and gas installations as politicians across Europe warned the suspected sabotaging of the two Nord Stream pipelines could herald a new stage of hybrid warfare targeting vulnerable energy infrastructure in order to undermine support of Ukraine. Jonas Gahr Støre told a news conference Norway would step up its military presence at Norwegian installations after the country had become Europe’s largest supplier of natural gas….

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Putin’s empire starts to crumble

Putin’s empire starts to crumble

Mac William Bishop reports: Vladimir Putin spent decades modernizing his army and building his empire, ruthlessly asserting control over Russia’s border states through force, intrigue and economic might. Now the cream of his military has been destroyed or is bogged down in Ukraine: hundreds of his once-parade-worthy tanks rusting away as burned-out hulks in wheat fields while thousands of his best soldiers will never return home. Beset by sanctions, his economy survives mainly through energy exports: Putin’s enemies continue to…

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As Russian men flee, some find draft notices waiting at the border

As Russian men flee, some find draft notices waiting at the border

The New York Times reports: The Kremlin has dispatched still more forces to shore up its faltering war effort, but the units are headed not to Ukraine but to Russia’s borders with other countries, where on Tuesday they were confronting young Russian men trying to join an exodus out of the country. As the avenues for Russians to escape a draft order issued last week narrowed, the Federal Security Service sent armored vehicles to the frontiers, where some men waiting…

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Giorgia Meloni’s win will make her a new Republican favorite

Giorgia Meloni’s win will make her a new Republican favorite

Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes: “Of course I do not want women to be slaves, but if I proposed to give our women the vote, I would be laughed at,” Italian dictator Benito Mussolini told the German journalist Emil Ludwig in 1932. “She must not count in political life.” Ninety years later, the top figure in Italian politics will finally be female: Giorgia Meloni, head of the neo-fascist Brothers of Italy party, is set become prime minister after her party received 26%…

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Giorgia Meloni is neither as popular nor as powerful as her electoral victory may suggest

Giorgia Meloni is neither as popular nor as powerful as her electoral victory may suggest

Yascha Mounk writes: The prospect that a far-right party with fascist roots may soon lead Italy has understandably spooked international observers. “Giorgia Meloni May Lead Italy, and Europe Is Worried,” read a recent New York Times headline. “Is Italy on the Verge of Returning to Fascism?” a Foreign Policy podcast asked. But things aren’t always what they seem in Italy. Although there are strong grounds for dismay at the prospect of Prime Minister Meloni, the actual likelihood that Italy will…

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Rebuke from IMF is a global embarrassment for British government

Rebuke from IMF is a global embarrassment for British government

Larry Elliot writes: Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng have taken on the economic orthodoxy. They have announced extra borrowing to pay for tax cuts. They have sacked the Treasury’s top mandarin. They have insisted they will press on with their dash for growth despite a hostile reaction in the markets. Now the economic orthodoxy has struck back – and in the most high-profile way possible: a public and stinging rebuke from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It is hard to…

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Women take center stage in protests against Iran’s repressive regime

Women take center stage in protests against Iran’s repressive regime

The New York Times reports: For Yasi, the news felt too close to ignore: A young woman, Mahsa Amini, had died in the custody of Iran’s morality police, days after being arrested for failing to cover her hair modestly enough. When protests broke out after Ms. Amini’s death, 20-year-old Yasi — the first woman in her immediate family to reject the hijab — ran into the streets, waving the thin shawl she usually wears over her blond hair in public,…

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Judge decries GOP leaders who back Trump election claims because they are ‘afraid of losing their power’

Judge decries GOP leaders who back Trump election claims because they are ‘afraid of losing their power’

Politico reports: A federal judge delivered a blistering rebuke of Republican Party leaders Tuesday for what she said was a cynical attempt to stoke false claims of election fraud of the kind that fueled the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson said former President Donald Trump had turned his lies about the election into a litmus test for Republican candidates and that “high-ranking members of Congress and state officials” are “so afraid of…

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