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Category: Law/Crime

Judge holds Trump in contempt over documents in New York attorney general’s inquiry

Judge holds Trump in contempt over documents in New York attorney general’s inquiry

The New York Times reports: A New York judge on Monday held Donald J. Trump in contempt of court for failing to turn over documents to the state’s attorney general, an extraordinary rebuke of the former president. The judge, Arthur F. Engoron, ordered Mr. Trump to comply with a subpoena seeking records and assessed a fine of $10,000 per day until he satisfied the court’s requirements. In essence, the judge concluded that Mr. Trump had failed to cooperate with the…

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How London became the world’s laundromat for dirty money

How London became the world’s laundromat for dirty money

  Russian oligarchs and companies have been investing in London for two decades, encouraged by British politicians of all stripes, but critics say the ‘London laundromat’ cleans dirty money from Russia and across the globe. The FT examines why it took Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to put the issue in the spotlight and whether new sanctions and measures to tackle the problem go far enough. Read more at Financial Times

New EU law takes aim at social media’s harms

New EU law takes aim at social media’s harms

The New York Times reports: The European Union reached a deal on Saturday on landmark legislation that would force Facebook, YouTube and other internet services to combat misinformation, disclose how their services amplify divisive content and stop targeting online ads based on a person’s ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. The law, called the Digital Services Act, is intended to address social media’s societal harms by requiring companies to more aggressively police their platforms for illicit content or risk billions of…

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GOP gives up on the free market and puts its faith in vindictive governance

GOP gives up on the free market and puts its faith in vindictive governance

Robert Schlesinger writes: “The market is rational and government is dumb,” Dick Armey, one of the leaders of the 1994 Republican Revolution, liked to say. That used to be a cornerstone of conservatism. Today, it’s increasingly the reverse. While they still mouth free-market platitudes, Republicans fulminate against corporate America for taking political positions that they oppose—without any apparent awareness, or a refusal to recognize, that such decisions reveal the free market in action: Conservatives’ culture-war positions are broadly toxic to…

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The U.S. can prosecute Russian leaders for war crimes

The U.S. can prosecute Russian leaders for war crimes

Tom Nachbar writes: Since April 4, when President Biden accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being a war criminal, many commentators have focused on how Russian leaders might be subject to international war crimes trials. But there is another option that should be on the table: a U.S. prosecution. It is a remarkable thing for the president of the United States to personally accuse a foreign leader of being a war criminal. Such an allegation should not be made unless…

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The Wagner Group: Putin’s doppelgänger army

The Wagner Group: Putin’s doppelgänger army

Joana de Deus Pereira writes: The German word doppelgänger literally translates as ‘walking double’ and alludes to paranormal ‘duplicates’ that can manifest in many ways: you can see them in your peripheral vision, meet them somewhere on a lonely road, or see them while looking in the mirror – you see them, but they do not exist. This description very much applies to the Wagner Group, the largely invisible, officially non-existent, unregistered, mighty and resourceful private army with obscure ties…

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Fossil fuels v. our future — young Montanans wage historic climate fight

Fossil fuels v. our future — young Montanans wage historic climate fight

The Guardian reports: When Grace Gibson-Snyder was 13, she launched an independent project in her home town of Missoula, Montana, to encourage restaurants not to use single-use plastic containers. She found that youth activism enabled her to press the adults in her life to take the climate crisis seriously. Even if she was too young to vote, she could still be heard. Three years later Gibson-Snyder upped the ante by teaming up with 15 other young people on a novel…

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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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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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Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmed as Supreme Court justice: 4 essential reads

Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmed as Supreme Court justice: 4 essential reads

The votes are there. Ketanji Brown Jackson will become the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. AP Photo/Susan Walsh By Matt Williams, The Conversation The phrase “in a historic vote” gets thrown around a lot in journalism – and it isn’t always warranted. But shortly after 2 p.m. EDT on April 7, 2022, a Senate roll call confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson as the next U.S. Supreme Court justice – the first Black woman to sit on the…

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German intelligence intercepted Russian military radio traffic from suspected perpetrators of Bucha atrocities

German intelligence intercepted Russian military radio traffic from suspected perpetrators of Bucha atrocities

Der Spiegel reports: The Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s foreign intelligence service, has acquired gruesome new insights into the atrocities committed by Russian military forces. DER SPIEGEL has learned that the BND has new satellite images and has intercepted incriminating radio traffic from Russian military personnel in the region north of Kyiv, where Bucha is located. Some of the intercepted radio traffic might be linked to dead bodies that have been photographed in Bucha. Following the withdrawal of the Russian military from…

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Five Supreme Court justices used the shadow docket to revive a Trump-era pro-pollution rule

Five Supreme Court justices used the shadow docket to revive a Trump-era pro-pollution rule

Mark Joseph Stern writes: On Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued a 5–4 shadow docket order reviving a Trump-era ruling that radically limited the ability of states and tribes to restrict projects, like pipelines, that will damage the environment. With their decision, the majority upended decades of settled law recognizing states’ authority to protect their own waters without bothering to issue a single sentence of reasoning. Just two days earlier, Justice Amy Coney Barrett once again declared that the Supreme Court…

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Russian invaders are now treating the whole Ukrainian population as combatants, as dirt to be cleansed

Russian invaders are now treating the whole Ukrainian population as combatants, as dirt to be cleansed

Franklin Foer writes: On the morning of March 4, a teacher was sheltering in a basement in Bucha, an old railroad stop northwest of Kyiv that over the centuries had grown into a verdant suburb. The town lay along the Russian military’s intended path of conquest, leading into the Ukrainian capital. And while the invaders struggled to realize their overarching plan, they gained a toehold in Bucha. At 7 a.m., the teacher, huddled alone with her two dogs, heard a…

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Is Trump criminal referral by January 6 panel actually necessary?

Is Trump criminal referral by January 6 panel actually necessary?

Politico reports: Should the Jan. 6 committee ask the Justice Department to pursue a criminal case against Donald Trump? It’s a question with political heft but no practical effect — and some panel members are increasingly skeptical. After all, as multiple lawmakers on the select committee noted in recent interviews, the Justice Department is aware of the volume of evidence pointing to violations of the law by Trump. That evidence got underscored emphatically last week, when a federal judge ruled…

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January 6 panel puts Garland in ‘precarious’ spot, ups pressure

January 6 panel puts Garland in ‘precarious’ spot, ups pressure

The Associated Press reports: Lawmakers investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol are increasingly going public with critical statements, court filings and more to deliver a blunt message to Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice. President Donald Trump and his allies likely committed crimes, they say. And it’s up to you to do something about it. “Attorney General Garland, do your job so we can do ours,” prodded Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia. “We are upholding…

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Trump used White House phone for call on January 6 that was not on official log

Trump used White House phone for call on January 6 that was not on official log

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump used an official White House phone to place at least one call during the Capitol attack on January 6 last year that should have been reflected in the internal presidential call log from that day but was not, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The former president called the phone of a Republican senator, Mike Lee, with a number recorded as 202-395-0000, a placeholder number that shows up when a call is incoming…

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