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Why Putin is itching to get his hands on Bill Browder

Why Putin is itching to get his hands on Bill Browder

The Daily Beast reports: Bill Browder was headed for breakfast at his Madrid hotel when two men with shirts reading “Policia Nacional” suddenly approached him and took him into custody on a Russian arrest warrant. Browder, a financier who had once been the largest foreign investor in Russia, had long been a thorn in Moscow’s side before he was detained that day in May 2018. Years earlier, Browder had discovered that many of the companies he had invested in were…

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How waste food can reduce our reliance on natural gas

How waste food can reduce our reliance on natural gas

Future Planet reports: At a large industrial facility not far south-west of Ireland’s capital Dublin, one man says old food waste and pig manure can help Europe fight climate change – and reduce its reliance on Russia for energy. Billy Costello explains that decaying organic matter releases biogas, which firms like Green Generation, the one he directs, can collect and purify to produce methane, or biomethane as it’s called when it comes from such sources. It’s an opportunity to find…

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Elon Musk’s vision for the internet is dangerous nonsense

Elon Musk’s vision for the internet is dangerous nonsense

Robert Reich writes: The Russian people know little about Putin’s war on Ukraine because Putin has blocked their access to the truth, substituting propaganda and lies. Years ago, pundits assumed the internet would open a new era of democracy, giving everyone access to the truth. But dictators like Putin and demagogues like Trump have demonstrated how naive that assumption was. At least the US responded to Trump’s lies. Trump had 88 million Twitter followers before Twitter took him off its…

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California pushing for 32-hour workweek at larger companies as part of pandemic-driven shift

California pushing for 32-hour workweek at larger companies as part of pandemic-driven shift

USA Today reports: California is trying to become the first state in the nation to make a four-day workweek a state law. The state introduced a bill that would make the official workweek 32 hours and no longer 40 hours for companies with 500 employees or more, giving higher raises and time-and-a-half pay to any worker who surpasses that cutoff. A typical workday would remain eight hours. The bill – AB 2932 – also states that 12 hours past the…

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Putin’s war shows autocracies and fossil fuels go hand in hand. Here’s how we can tackle both

Putin’s war shows autocracies and fossil fuels go hand in hand. Here’s how we can tackle both

Bill McKibben writes: At first glance, last autumn’s Glasgow climate summit looked a lot like its 25 predecessors. It had: A conference hall the size of an aircraft carrier stuffed with displays from problematic parties (the Saudis, for example, with a giant pavilion saluting their efforts at promoting a “circular carbon economy agenda”). Squadrons of delegates rushing constantly to mysterious sessions (“Showcasing achievements of TBTTP and Protected Areas Initiative of GoP”) while actual negotiations took place in a few back…

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Ukraine and Russia gear up for the war’s largest battles

Ukraine and Russia gear up for the war’s largest battles

The Wall Street Journal reports: Ukraine and Russia poured reinforcements into eastern Ukraine this weekend, preparing for what are likely to become the war’s biggest battles as refugees continued to flee the looming Russian assault. Russia’s main objective now is to seize the parts of the eastern Donbas region not yet controlled by Moscow. Unlike the first phase of the six-week-old conflict, that shift is forcing Ukraine into fighting conventional battles involving tanks, artillery and aircraft on flat, often barren…

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In Russia’s war on Ukraine, historians and history are on the front lines

In Russia’s war on Ukraine, historians and history are on the front lines

RFE/RL reports: Ukrainian military intelligence reported on March 24 that Russian occupying troops in the country were confiscating books and other materials that the Russian government has deemed “extremist” — primarily books about Ukraine’s Maidan revolution, the war against Russia-backed separatists in parts of eastern Ukraine, and studies of Ukraine’s struggle for independence. “The occupiers have a whole list of names that cannot be mentioned [in the titles of books],” the service wrote, listing such figures as 17th-century Cossack leader…

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‘Trump pulling a Putin’

‘Trump pulling a Putin’

The New York Times reports: Fiona Hill vividly recalls the first time she stepped into the Oval Office to discuss the thorny subject of Ukraine with the president. It was February of 2008, the last year of George W. Bush’s administration. Hill, then the national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia for the National Intelligence Council, was summoned for a strategy session on the upcoming NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania. Among the matters up for discussion was the possibility of…

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Potential payback: Before giving billions to Jared Kushner, Saudi investment fund had major doubts

Potential payback: Before giving billions to Jared Kushner, Saudi investment fund had major doubts

The New York Times reports: Six months after leaving the White House, Jared Kushner secured a $2 billion investment from a fund led by the Saudi crown prince, a close ally during the Trump administration, despite objections from the fund’s advisers about the merits of the deal. A panel that screens investments for the main Saudi sovereign wealth fund cited concerns about the proposed deal with Mr. Kushner’s newly formed private equity firm, Affinity Partners, previously undisclosed documents show. Those…

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How Joe Manchin knifed the Democrats — and bailed on saving democracy

How Joe Manchin knifed the Democrats — and bailed on saving democracy

Andy Kroll reports: “Giddy” is not a word people use to describe Jon Tester. The towering senior U.S. senator from Montana is blunt and pragmatic. In the halls of Congress, he’s one of the last surviving rural Democrats. When he’s not in Washington, D.C., Tester runs a dirt farm in Montana that’s been in his family for three generations. A dirt-farming rural Democrat knows better than to overhype. So it came as a surprise when, one day this winter, Tester…

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Hundreds of thousands of professionals are fleeing Putin’s Russia

Hundreds of thousands of professionals are fleeing Putin’s Russia

The Wall Street Journal reports: Hundreds of thousands of professional workers, many of them young, have left Russia since its invasion of Ukraine, accelerating an exodus of business talent and further threatening an economy targeted by Western sanctions. Those leaving the country include tech workers, scientists, bankers and doctors, according to surveys, economists and interviews with emigrants. They are departing for countries including Georgia, Armenia and Turkey. More are expected to follow. A mid-March survey by OK Russians, a nonprofit…

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Americans need to cure what ails our democracy, getting rid of our incipient Russification

Americans need to cure what ails our democracy, getting rid of our incipient Russification

George Packer writes: Ukraine’s survival requires the sustained support of its most important ally, the United States. Time will not be on Ukraine’s side. If the war drags on for months, it will grow murkier to Americans watching at a distance; its moral clarity will start to blur. Ukrainians’ justifiable rage at all things Russian will produce images that foreigners will find less easy to love than the picture of a string quintet performing in the ruins of a Kharkiv…

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Daily on-the-ground evidence makes it more straightforward to indict Vladimir Putin with war crimes

Daily on-the-ground evidence makes it more straightforward to indict Vladimir Putin with war crimes

The Guardian reports: No war crimes case is easy, but the task of indicting Vladimir Putin at the International Criminal Court (ICC) appears to be straightforward. There are two key elements necessary to charge a commander-in-chief with war crimes. First are the crimes themselves. Second, the chain-of-command to the top. In the case of Russia’s Ukraine invasion, both seem clear. The horrors of Bucha and a slew of towns north of Kyiv are gruesome and widespread. They are also, crucially,…

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