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Alito draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade quotes infamous witch-trial judge

Alito draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade quotes infamous witch-trial judge

By Ken Armstrong, ProPublica When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, in a draft opinion obtained and published this week by Politico, detailed his justifications for overturning Roe v. Wade, he invoked a surprising name given the case’s subject. In writing about abortion, a matter inextricably tied to a woman’s control over her body, Alito chose to quote from Sir Matthew Hale, a 17th-century English jurist whose writings and reasonings have caused enduring damage to women for hundreds of years….

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Inside Elon Musk’s grand plans for Twitter

Inside Elon Musk’s grand plans for Twitter

The New York Times reports: Elon Musk has never been accused of dreaming small. He has reinvented at least two industries with Tesla, his electronic vehicle company, and SpaceX, the rocket company — and now his ambitions are carrying over to his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man, has presented a pitch deck to investors in recent days outlining his grand — some might say incredible — plans for Twitter and its financial targets. The…

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Jared Kushner’s new fund will invest Saudi money in Israel

Jared Kushner’s new fund will invest Saudi money in Israel

The Wall Street Journal reports: Jared Kushner’s new private-equity fund plans to invest millions of dollars of Saudi Arabia’s money in Israeli startups, according to people familiar with the investment plan, in a sign of warming ties between two historic rivals. Affinity Partners, which has raised more than $3 billion, including a $2 billion commitment from the kingdom’s sovereign-wealth fund, has already selected the first two Israeli firms to invest in, these people said. The decision marks the first known…

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How Victory Day became central to Putin’s idea of Russian identity

How Victory Day became central to Putin’s idea of Russian identity

Shaun Walker writes: In cities across Russia on Monday morning, tanks and missile trucks will growl their way along the main streets. Soldiers will march across central squares. Fighter jets will roar overhead. Victory Day, when Russians celebrate the 1945 endpoint of what they still call the “great patriotic war”, has gradually become the centrepiece of Vladimir Putin’s concept of Russian identity over his two decades in charge. This year, as the Russian army’s gruesome assault on Ukraine grinds on,…

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Talking with some of Russia’s richest power brokers

Talking with some of Russia’s richest power brokers

Yevgenia Albats writes: The government’s economic section has a special position today. Technocrats are in high demand because they are supposedly saving the economy from the endless stream of new sanctions. In actual fact, their task is hopeless. About 70% of goods manufactured in Russia have imported components, and it is impossible to replace them. There are endless meetings in the government, says a well-known financier and former high-ranking official. The director of a factory that makes Russian aircraft comes…

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Russian troops share tips on how to sabotage Russian tanks and disobey orders, says Ukrainian intelligence

Russian troops share tips on how to sabotage Russian tanks and disobey orders, says Ukrainian intelligence

The Daily Beast reports: Russian fighters have been sharing tips with one another about how to deliberately damage their own equipment and hamper Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war plans in Ukraine, according to recordings of alleged Russian troops’ phone calls that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) intercepted. In one regiment, one Russian soldier allegedly said they’ve been pouring sand into the tanks’ fuel systems to clog them up. “I don’t follow stupid orders, I simply refuse,” one fighter can…

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The demise of Roe is going to tear America apart

The demise of Roe is going to tear America apart

Michelle Goldberg writes: In his draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, Justice Samuel Alito blamed that 1973 abortion decision for sparking “a national controversy that has embittered our political culture for a half century.” He quoted Justice Antonin Scalia: “Roe fanned into life an issue that has inflamed our national politics in general, and has obscured with its smoke the selection of justices to this court in particular, ever since.” As a matter of history, the idea that Roe ignited…

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Vicious political disagreement is seeping into every corner of life

Vicious political disagreement is seeping into every corner of life

Quinta Jurecic writes: By now, the stories are familiar. Most, though not all, start on social media: a post on Facebook or Twitter identifies a name, and then the threats begin. Shortly after the 2020 presidential election, conspiracy theorists focused on a video of a voting-machine technician at work in Gwinnett County, Georgia. One Twitter user published the young man’s name, declaring him “guilty of treason,” along with, according to the Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling, an animation of a…

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Facebook deliberately caused havoc in Australia in pre-emptive strike against new law, whistleblowers say

Facebook deliberately caused havoc in Australia in pre-emptive strike against new law, whistleblowers say

The Wall Street Journal reports: Last year when Facebook blocked news in Australia in response to potential legislation making platforms pay publishers for content, it also took down the pages of Australian hospitals, emergency services and charities. It publicly called the resulting chaos “inadvertent.” Internally, the pre-emptive strike was hailed as a strategic masterstroke. Facebook documents and testimony filed to U.S. and Australian authorities by whistleblowers allege that the social-media giant deliberately created an overly broad and sloppy process to…

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The interdependence of all things

The interdependence of all things

Nicholas Cannariato writes: The nature of time. Black holes. Ancient philosophers. The struggle for democracy. Climate change. Buddhist philosophy. In his new collection of essays and articles, Carlo Rovelli, one of the world’s most renowned physicists, broadens his writing to include questions of politics, justice and how we live now. “I look at myself as much more than a physicist,” he said in an interview at his home in London, Ontario, on a cold, calm day in February. The new…

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U.S. intelligence helps Ukraine kill Russian generals, officials say

U.S. intelligence helps Ukraine kill Russian generals, officials say

The New York Times reports: The United States has provided intelligence about Russian units that has allowed Ukrainians to target and kill many of the Russian generals who have died in action in the Ukraine war, according to senior American officials. Ukrainian officials said they have killed approximately 12 generals on the front lines, a number that has astonished military analysts. The targeting help is part of a classified effort by the Biden administration to provide real-time battlefield intelligence to…

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Pope Francis tells pro-war Russian patriarch he ‘cannot transform himself into Putin’s altar boy’

Pope Francis tells pro-war Russian patriarch he ‘cannot transform himself into Putin’s altar boy’

CNN reports: Pope Francis warned the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, not to become “Putin’s altar boy,” he said in an interview this week. In his strongest words to date against the pro-war Patriarch, Francis also slammed Kirill for endorsing Russia’s stated reasons for invading Ukraine. “I spoke to him for 40 minutes via Zoom,” the Pope told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview published Tuesday. “The first 20 minutes he read to me, with…

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Four collisions to expect if Roe is repealed

Four collisions to expect if Roe is repealed

Rachel Rebouché, Greer Donley, and David S. Cohen write: If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, as a draft opinion suggests it will do, the impact on American law will have repercussions beyond Washington or the states set to ban most abortions. Some conservatives see the Roe opinion as a simple matter of returning the abortion issue to the states, and Justice Samuel Alito’s draft suggests he sees it the same way: “The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens…

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