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Russia’s war against Ukraine has turned into terrorism

Russia’s war against Ukraine has turned into terrorism

Anne Applebaum writes: Red Cross packages are lined up along the sidewalk in Serhiivka, a small town in the southwestern corner of Ukraine. A man is unloading plastic bags stamped WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN from a truck whose front windshield has been completely shattered. On the other side of the plaza, people are sifting through used clothes provided by a Ukrainian charity. Someone points out a mother standing beside two young boys who, miraculously, were not at home the night that…

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Biden to visit a Saudi Arabia that is closer to Russia than ever

Biden to visit a Saudi Arabia that is closer to Russia than ever

The Wall Street Journal reports: As President Biden prepares to visit Saudi Arabia, the oil-rich kingdom is closer than ever to Russia and has no plans to disengage from Moscow or help Washington by pumping more crude, Saudi officials said. The burgeoning partnership between Russia and the Saudis, rooted in their vast petroleum production capacity, has upended an oil-for-security arrangement between Washington and Riyadh that has lasted nearly half a century and been a central fixture of the post-World War…

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Putin set to visit Iran next week

Putin set to visit Iran next week

The Associated Press reports: Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Iran next week, the Kremlin said Tuesday, a day after the U.S. warned that Tehran could provide Moscow with drones for its action in Ukraine. During a trip to Tehran next Tuesday, Putin will attend a trilateral meeting with the leaders of Iran and Turkey, the so-called Astana format of meetings for Syria-related talks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Putin’s visit to Iran will follow U.S. President Joe Biden’s trip…

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How Russia is profiting from climate change

How Russia is profiting from climate change

Courtney Dobson writes: On Feb. 24, the Yakov Gakkel, a 3-year-old, ice-class tanker, departed from Montoir Port, France, for Sabetta Port within the Arctic Circle in Russia. For as long as the war in Ukraine has raged on, the Yakov Gakkel has made four return trips to Montoir Port and has since moved on to ports in Spain and Belgium, delivering one of Russia’s principal revenue generators: liquefied natural gas, or LNG. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s former chief economic adviser,…

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Germany braces for ‘nightmare’ of Russia turning off natural gas for good

Germany braces for ‘nightmare’ of Russia turning off natural gas for good

The Guardian reports: Germany is bracing itself for a potentially permanent halt to the flow of Russian gas from Monday when maintenance work begins on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline that brings the fuel to Europe’s largest economy via the Baltic Sea. The work on the 759-mile (1,220km) pipeline is an annual event and requires the gas taps to be closed for 10 to 14 days. But never before in the pipeline’s decade-long history has Germany seriously been asking whether…

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Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina: ‘We have a new Hitler in Russia’

Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina: ‘We have a new Hitler in Russia’

The Guardian reports: When Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina left Russia in April this year, she went to Iceland, essentially a political refugee. She had been repeatedly arrested since early 2021, on specious charges – “violation of sanitary and epidemiological rules”, social media activity, attending a demonstration in support of the imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny. She is no longer in Iceland, and speaks to me, as her fellow Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova did earlier this year, from an unnamed…

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January 6 committee zeroes in on Trump’s ‘clarion call’ to extremists

January 6 committee zeroes in on Trump’s ‘clarion call’ to extremists

Politico reports: The Jan. 6 select committee plans to make its most complex case yet at its public hearing Tuesday: that Donald Trump’s words and actions influenced extremists and brought them to the steps of the Capitol. “Be there. Will be wild,” Trump tweeted on Dec. 19, 2020, barely two weeks before a mob seeded with members of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers besieged the Capitol and threatened the transfer of power to Joe Biden. That tweet will…

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Half Republican voters ready to dump Trump

Half Republican voters ready to dump Trump

The New York Times reports: As Donald J. Trump weighs whether to open an unusually early White House campaign, a New York Times/Siena College poll shows that his post-presidential quest to consolidate his support within the Republican Party has instead left him weakened, with nearly half the party’s primary voters seeking someone different for president in 2024 and a significant number vowing to abandon him if he wins the nomination. By focusing on political payback inside his party instead of…

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Can support for Democrats increase even while Biden’s popularity continues to fall?

Can support for Democrats increase even while Biden’s popularity continues to fall?

Ronald Brownstein writes: To avoid the worst-case scenario in November, Democrats must defy one of the most powerful trends shaping modern congressional elections. Recent polls have provided them a glimmer of optimism that they might do just that. That trend is the tightening correlation between voters’ attitudes toward a president and their support for US House, Senate and even gubernatorial candidates from his party. With President Joe Biden’s approval ratings falling to the lowest levels of his presidency, that traditional…

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Former Saudi official calls Mohammed bin Salman a ‘psychopath,’ says Saudi crown prince fears what he knows

Former Saudi official calls Mohammed bin Salman a ‘psychopath,’ says Saudi crown prince fears what he knows

  60 Minutes reports: Prince Mohammed is 36 and wields unlimited power on behalf of his ailing 86-year-old father, King Salman. The prince is admired by some for allowing women to drive, permitting movie theaters and disbanding the religious police who once assaulted couples for holding hands. Michael Morell: There’s two groups of people in Saudi Arabia. There are those who are very happy with Mohammed bin Salman. The 70% of the population that is under 30. He is not…

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Wars are won by people willing to fight for comrade and cause

Wars are won by people willing to fight for comrade and cause

Scott Atran writes: Even when defeated and annihilated, the heroism and martyrdom of those with the will to fight often become the stuff of legend. Consider the Judeans under Eleazar at Masada, the Alamo defenders under Travis, Bowie and Crockett (note: that these men supported slavery or other unacceptable positions is irrelevant to the point here), or the Group of Personal Friends who fought to the end, defending the Chilean president Salvador Allende against Pinochet’s putschists. Or take the last…

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Merrick Garland should investigate Trump’s 2020 election schemes as a ‘hub and spoke’ conspiracy

Merrick Garland should investigate Trump’s 2020 election schemes as a ‘hub and spoke’ conspiracy

Andrew Weissmann writes: The tenacious work of the Jan. 6 committee has transformed how we think about the Jan. 6 rebellion. It should also transform the Justice Department’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Before the hearings, federal agents and prosecutors were performing a classic “bottom up” criminal investigation of the Jan. 6 rioters, which means prosecuting the lowest-ranking members of a conspiracy, flipping people as it proceeds and following the evidence as high as it goes. It…

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Donald Trump’s impeachment lies to Congress

Donald Trump’s impeachment lies to Congress

Bob Bauer and Benjamin Wittes write: In the wake of Cassidy Hutchinson’s extraordinary testimony before the Jan. 6 Select Committee, a number of commentators have been considering how her account will and should affect judgments about the merits of any potential criminal prosecution of the former president. A preliminary question for prosecutors concerns the strength of the evidence of the president’s criminal intent as it affects the application of the relevant statutes, such as obstruction of a congressional proceeding or…

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MAGA preacher Sean Feucht rakes in millions from his Trump-loving flock

MAGA preacher Sean Feucht rakes in millions from his Trump-loving flock

Rolling Stone reports: As the Supreme Court was handing down its decision to end a constitutional right to abortion, worship leader Sean Feucht was on Twitter exalting his twin heroes: “VICTORY IN JESUS!!!!” he declared, soon adding, “THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP!!!!!” But even in this moment of conservative triumph, the 38-year-old praise singer flashed menace, torching, as satanists, the Americans who would soon be protesting Roe’s reversal: “When the devil’s sacrifice is no longer protected by our Supreme Court, watch…

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