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Crimea attacks point to Ukraine’s newest strategy, official says

Crimea attacks point to Ukraine’s newest strategy, official says

The Washington Post reports: Ukrainian forces are pursuing a new strategy of attacking key military targets deep inside Russian-occupied territory in hopes of undermining Moscow’s ability to hold the front lines ahead of an eventual Ukrainian counteroffensive to reclaim territory, Ukraine’s defense minister said Wednesday. Ukraine’s conventional forces lack the weapons and ammunition needed to launch a full-scale ground offensive to retake territory from the Russians, Oleksii Reznikov said in an interview. He said he expects that sufficient quantities will…

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Corruption is the glue that sustains Putin’s grip on power

Corruption is the glue that sustains Putin’s grip on power

Oleg Kashin writes: What’s easier to imagine — Vladimir Putin suddenly declaring an end to the war on Ukraine and withdrawing his troops or a Russia without Mr. Putin that revises his policies, ends the war and begins to build relations with Ukraine and the West on a peaceful new foundation? It’s a hard one to answer. The war in Ukraine is, to a significant degree, the result of Mr. Putin’s personal obsession, and it’s hardly likely that he will…

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Home appraised with a Black owner: $472,000. Same home with a white owner: $750,000

Home appraised with a Black owner: $472,000. Same home with a white owner: $750,000

The New York Times reports: Last summer, Nathan Connolly and his wife, Shani Mott, welcomed an appraiser into their house in Baltimore, hoping to take advantage of historically low interest rates and refinance their mortgage. They believed that their house — improved with a new $5,000 tankless water heater and $35,000 in other renovations — was worth much more than the $450,000 that they paid for it in 2017. Home prices have been on the rise nationwide since the pandemic;…

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Octopus brains are nothing like ours — yet we have much in common

Octopus brains are nothing like ours — yet we have much in common

James Bridle writes: It turns out there are many ways of “doing” intelligence, and this is evident even in the apes and monkeys who perch close to us on the evolutionary tree. This awareness takes on a whole new character when we think about those non-human intelligences which are very different to us. Because there are other highly evolved, intelligent, and boisterous creatures on this planet that are so distant and so different from us that researchers consider them to…

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Trump is rushing to hire seasoned lawyers — but ‘everyone is saying no’

Trump is rushing to hire seasoned lawyers — but ‘everyone is saying no’

The Washington Post reports: Former president Donald Trump and close aides have spent the eight days since the FBI searched his Florida home rushing to assemble a team of respected defense lawyers. But the answer they keep hearing is “no.” The struggle to find expert legal advice puts Trump in a bind as he faces potential criminal exposure from a records dispute with the National Archives that escalated into a federal investigation into possible violations of the Espionage Act and…

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Trump’s CFO Allen Weisselberg to implicate Trump companies in guilty plea

Trump’s CFO Allen Weisselberg to implicate Trump companies in guilty plea

Rolling Stone reports: Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s finance chief, will say in Manhattan court Thursday that he conspired with several of the ex-president’s companies when he pleads guilty to state tax crimes, two sources familiar with the case tell Rolling Stone. As part of Weisselberg’s plea deal, he has agreed to testify against The Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation at trial, which is scheduled for October. If called to the witness stand during trial, Weisselberg will provide…

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What Liz Cheney’s lopsided loss says about the state of the GOP

What Liz Cheney’s lopsided loss says about the state of the GOP

The New York Times reports: Representative Liz Cheney’s martyr-like quest to stop Donald J. Trump has ensured her place in Republican Party history. But her lopsided defeat in Wyoming on Tuesday also exposed the remarkable degree to which the former president still controls the party’s present — and its near future. Ten House Republicans voted to impeach Mr. Trump in early 2021 for his role inciting the mob that stormed the Capitol. Only two have survived the 2022 Republican primaries,…

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Did the U.S. failure in Afghanistan lead to the war in Ukraine?

Did the U.S. failure in Afghanistan lead to the war in Ukraine?

Carl Bildt writes: Why did the West’s Afghanistan policy fail so spectacularly? Was it doomed from the very beginning, and have any lessons been learned? More to the point, did the end of one 20-year war pave the way for another? One year after the fall of Kabul and the Taliban’s return to power, these and other questions are hanging in the air. They remain unanswered, partly because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and renewed Sino-American tensions have consumed much of…

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Ukraine war: Thousands of Jews quit Russia amid fears of persecution

Ukraine war: Thousands of Jews quit Russia amid fears of persecution

BBC News reports: Russia is facing the mass migration abroad of large numbers of its Jewish population, with at least one in eight leaving the country since its war with Ukraine began. The Jewish Agency helps Jews around the world move to Israel. It says an astonishing 20,500 of Russia’s estimated total of 165,000 Jews have gone since March. Thousands more have moved to other countries. Undoubtedly the spectre of historical Jewish persecution has loomed large in the minds of…

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Scientists warn of dire effects as Mediterranean heats up

Scientists warn of dire effects as Mediterranean heats up

The Associated Press reports: While vacationers might enjoy the Mediterranean Sea’s summer warmth, climate scientists are warning of dire consequences for its marine life as it burns up in a series of severe heat waves. From Barcelona to Tel Aviv, scientists say they are witnessing exceptional temperature hikes ranging from 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit) to 5 degrees Celsius (9 Fahrenheit) above the norm for this time of year. Water temperatures have regularly exceeded 30 C (86 F) on some…

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The problems of seeing evolution as a ‘March of Progress’

The problems of seeing evolution as a ‘March of Progress’

Alexander Werth writes: Herschel Walker, the former football star–turned–U.S. Senate candidate from Georgia, made headlines when he recently asked at a church-based campaign stop, if evolution is true, “Why are there still apes?” This chestnut continues to be echoed by creationists, despite being definitively debunked. Anthropologists have repeatedly explained that modern humans did not evolve from apes; rather, both evolved from a shared ancestor that fossil and DNA evidence indicates lived 7 to 13 million years ago. But Walker’s question…

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Fani Willis’s experience using RICO to prosecute Atlanta teachers offers clues to how she may charge Trump

Fani Willis’s experience using RICO to prosecute Atlanta teachers offers clues to how she may charge Trump

Insider reports: The Georgia prosecutor pursuing one of the most high-stakes investigations in US history built her career by successfully using racketeering charges, typically employed against organized crime, to convict Atlanta public school teachers for conspiring to alter student test scores. Those RICO cases, and a key hire of a racketeering law expert to her staff, offer a window into how experts believe she is likely to build any criminal case against Donald Trump and his allies in connection with…

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Does it matter what (if anything) Trump declassified?

Does it matter what (if anything) Trump declassified?

Scott R. Anderson writes: No criminal charges have yet been filed against Trump or anyone else in relation to the Mar-a-Lago files. But if and when that happens, Trump’s declassification defense is unlikely to solve his or his associates’ legal problems. While Trump could have declassified whatever he liked while president, his apparent inability to produce any credible evidence that he actually did so is a genuine problem—particularly against the backdrop of an incumbent president who clearly sees the documents…

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Iranian regime’s continued incitement for killing Salman Rushdie is integral to its identity

Iranian regime’s continued incitement for killing Salman Rushdie is integral to its identity

Arash Azizi writes: In April 2001, Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie was among the guests of honor at the Prague Writers’ Festival. Having only recently come out of years of hiding, Rushdie was clearly frustrated with the massive security detail that followed him everywhere. “To be here and to find a large security operation around me has actually felt a little embarrassing,” he told the reporters. “I spent a great deal of time before I came here saying that I…

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