Jamelle Bouie writes: We already know about — we already saw with our own eyes — the assault on the Capitol, the threats against the vice president and the heroism of the Capitol Police. And we know, or at least some of us know, that Jan. 6 was just the beginning and that Trump has continued to use all the power and influence at his disposal to put pro-coup Republicans on the ballot in as many states as possible. The…
The Washington Post reports: Former president Donald Trump’s supporters scrambled to defend him online in the hours after the Jan. 6 committee’s hearings began, seeking to sow doubt about his involvement via the same social media channels that had captured clear evidence linking him to the Capitol assault. In so doing, they reinforced the unmistakable role social media played in the 2021 insurrection and made clear that his supporters are determined to remain a major internet force, despite Trump’s ban…
Inside Climate News reports: A team of researchers and environmental advocates are urging governments and Big Tech companies to do far more to stop rampant online disinformation campaigns, which they say aim to delay action on the climate crisis by intentionally dragging the issue into the culture wars now dominating Western politics. Failing to stop such campaigns, the groups warned in a new report, could further splinter unity at November’s climate talks and jeopardize a global effort that has struggled…
NPR reports: A nonprofit aiming to defund disinformation online that has taken money out of the pockets of several prominent far-right websites now has its sights set on its most formidable target yet: Fox News. The group, Check My Ads, is hoping the success it has had in stripping advertising dollars from right-wing provocateurs including Steve Bannon, Glenn Beck and Dan Bongino will give it momentum as it attempts to confront a powerful media empire. On Thursday, the outfit announced…
The Guardian reports: Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence has said Ukraine is losing against Russia on the frontlines and is now reliant almost solely on weapons from the west to keep Russia at bay. “This is an artillery war now,” said Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence. The frontlines were now where the future would be decided, he told the Guardian, “and we are losing in terms of artillery”. “Everything now depends on what [the west] gives…
Dan Sabbagh writes: Any way you count it, the figures are stark: Ukrainian casualties are running at a rate of somewhere between 6oo and 1,000 a day. One presidential adviser, Oleksiy Arestovych, told the Guardian this week it was 150 killed and 800 wounded daily; another, Mykhaylo Podolyak, told the BBC that 100 to 200 Ukrainian troops a day were being killed. It represents an extraordinary loss of human life and capacity for the defenders, embroiled in a defence of…
Politico reports: The signs had been there for weeks, if not months: Russian forces were massing around Ukraine, painting Zs and Vs on their military vehicles; Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric was getting more and more bellicose; and Western intelligence agencies were warning that an invasion was imminent. But the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the world’s largest security body, was caught napping. For eight years, it had overseen a Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) on the ground in Ukraine,…
Jeff Greenfield writes: It is fitting that a giant television screen loomed over the members of the January 6 committee Thursday night. The core premise of this hearing was that the images from that day, accompanied by the comments and testimony of key players in Donald Trump’s orbit, would galvanize a national audience. It’s too easy — and more importantly, unfair — to dismiss the presentation as “political theater.” The interviews with insurrectionists, the blunt comments from former Attorney General…
Kate Shaw writes: John Eastman. Rudy Giuliani. Donald Trump himself. These people all bear some responsibility for the events of January 6, 2021. But there is another contributing factor—an institution, not a person—whose role is regularly overlooked, and that deserves a focus in the ongoing January 6 committee hearings: the Electoral College. The Electoral College isn’t responsible for President Trump’s efforts to remain in office despite his clear loss. But it was integral to Trump’s strategy, and it has everything…
The Wall Street Journal reports: Local prosecutor Rebecca McCoy used to think of her home in central Arkansas as a place where the worst crimes were usually stolen tractors and lawn mowers. In March 2020, she was called to the trailer of a 72-year-old man who had been bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat. It was White County’s first homicide in almost two years. By that December, there were 11 more. In Marion County, a swampy stretch of South…
Paloma de la Peña, Author provided By Amy Mosig Way, Australian Museum Humans are the only species to live in every environmental niche in the world – from the icesheets to the deserts, rainforests to savannahs. As individuals we are rather puny, but when we are socially connected, we are the most dominant species on the planet. New evidence from stone tools in southern Africa shows these social connections were stronger and wider than we had thought among our ancestors…
RFE/RL spoke with George Barros, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War: Barros: Moving forward, a major question is whether the Ukrainians will be capable of actually conducting counteroffensives to liberate the territory that the Russians have taken since the beginning of the war. I would say that we’ve not seen a Ukrainian capability to actually retake territory that the Russians are serious about defending. The territory that the Ukrainians recaptured in and around Kyiv and Kharkiv…
The Guardian reports: Wheat is on the verge of rotting in Ukraine’s warehouses. Piles of it have been stuck in storage since Russia invaded in February and imposed a blockade on Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea, from where the bulk of wheat is exported. This immediately disrupted global wheat exports from the two countries, which together provide 30% of world supply, and completely cut off Ukraine’s 9% share. The blockade sparked global panic about where to buy wheat, particularly…
Time reports: John Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate change, warned Tuesday that the war in Ukraine could undermine international progress to cut carbon emissions. “You have this new revisionism suggesting that we have to be pumping oil like crazy, and we have to be moving into long term [fossil fuel] infrastructure building, which would be absolutely disastrous,” Kerry said, speaking on June 7 at the TIME 100 Summit in New York City. “We have to push back,…