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Category: Politics

Murdoch acknowledges Fox News hosts endorsed election fraud falsehoods

Murdoch acknowledges Fox News hosts endorsed election fraud falsehoods

The New York Times reports: Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the conservative media empire that owns Fox News, acknowledged in a deposition that several hosts for his networks promoted the false narrative that the election in 2020 was stolen from former President Donald J. Trump, court documents released on Monday showed. “They endorsed,” Mr. Murdoch said under oath in response to direct questions about the hosts Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, a legal filing by Dominion Voting…

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Putin’s existential fear

Putin’s existential fear

Reuters reports: President Vladimir Putin cast the confrontation with the West over the Ukraine war as an existential battle for the survival of Russia and the Russian people – and said he was forced to take into account NATO’s nuclear capabilities. A year since ordering the invasion of Ukraine, Putin is increasingly presenting the war as a make-or-break moment in Russian history – and saying that he believes the very future of Russia and its people is in peril. “They…

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Iranian women defiantly assert, ‘the era of the forced hijab is over’

Iranian women defiantly assert, ‘the era of the forced hijab is over’

The New York Times reports: An engineer strode onstage at an event in Tehran, wearing tight pants and a stylish shirt, and clutching a microphone in one hand. Her long brown hair, tied in a ponytail, swung freely behind her, uncovered, in open defiance of Iran’s strict hijab law. “I am Zeinab Kazempour,” she told the convention of Iran’s professional association of engineers. She condemned the group for supporting the hijab rules, and then she marched offstage, removing a scarf…

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Accidental lab leak more likely than other possible causes of Covid pandemic, Energy Department now says

Accidental lab leak more likely than other possible causes of Covid pandemic, Energy Department now says

The Wall Street Journal reports: The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, according to a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress. The shift by the Energy Department, which previously was undecided on how the virus emerged, is noted in an update to a 2021 document by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’s office. The new report highlights how different parts of the…

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Elon Musk defends Scott Adams’ racism

Elon Musk defends Scott Adams’ racism

The Washington Post reports: Twitter and Tesla chief Elon Musk defended Scott Adams, the under-fire creator of “Dilbert,” in a series of tweets Sunday, blasting media organizations for dropping his comic strip after Adams said that White people should “get the hell away from Black people.” Replying to tweets about the controversy, Musk said it is actually the media that is “racist against whites & Asians.” He offered no criticism of Adams’s comments, in which the cartoonist called Black people…

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In rural America, right-to-repair laws are the leading edge of a pushback against growing corporate power

In rural America, right-to-repair laws are the leading edge of a pushback against growing corporate power

Waiting for repairs can cost farmers time and money. VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images By Leland Glenna, Penn State As tractors became more sophisticated over the past two decades, the big manufacturers allowed farmers fewer options for repairs. Rather than hiring independent repair shops, farmers have increasingly had to wait for company-authorized dealers to arrive. Getting repairs could take days, often leading to lost time and high costs. A new memorandum of understanding between the country’s largest farm…

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Ukraine is the West’s war now

Ukraine is the West’s war now

Yaroslav Trofimov writes: Two days before the Russian invasion of his country, on Feb. 22, 2022, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was welcomed to the White House. As he greeted President Biden and senior administration officials, Mr. Kuleba later recalled, he felt like a patient surrounded by doctors presenting him with a diagnosis of stage-four cancer. The consensus among the U.S. and its European allies was that there was nothing they could do to prevent the inevitable. Their intelligence services…

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My year of living under constant attack in Kyiv

My year of living under constant attack in Kyiv

Mariia Shuvalova writes: At 5 a.m. on February 24, 2022, my husband woke me up in our Kyiv apartment. He had heard explosions. In complete darkness, I tried to dress and pack documents, a laptop, and cash into a backpack. Immediately I started experiencing nausea, diarrhea, and pain in the bottom of my stomach. My period began three weeks earlier than it normally would (something that also happened to many Ukrainian women with whom I’ve spoken). And I also had…

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China considers sending Russia artillery shells, U.S. officials say

China considers sending Russia artillery shells, U.S. officials say

The Washington Post reports: China is considering sending Russia lethal military aid in the form of artillery shells as President Vladimir Putin’s army rapidly depletes its supply of ammunition a year into his invasion of Ukraine, U.S. officials said, a prospect that has alarmed those in the Biden administration who believe Beijing has the ability to transform the war’s trajectory. There is no evidence that any weapons transfers have occurred, these officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to…

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Feminism taught me all I need to know about men like Trump and Putin

Feminism taught me all I need to know about men like Trump and Putin

Rebecca Solnit writes: As the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfolded, I was reminded over and over again of the behaviour of abusive ex-husbands and boyfriends. At first he thinks that he can simply bully her into returning. When it turns out she has no desire to return, he shifts to vengeance. Putin insisted that Ukraine was rightfully part of Russia and didn’t have a separate existence. He expected his army to grab and subjugate with ease, even be welcomed. Now…

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Alone and exploited, migrant children work brutal jobs across the U.S.

Alone and exploited, migrant children work brutal jobs across the U.S.

The New York Times reports: It was almost midnight in Grand Rapids, Mich., but inside the factory everything was bright. A conveyor belt carried bags of Cheerios past a cluster of young workers. One was 15-year-old Carolina Yoc, who came to the United States on her own last year to live with a relative she had never met. About every 10 seconds, she stuffed a sealed plastic bag of cereal into a passing yellow carton. It could be dangerous work,…

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Ukrainians fear ‘as long as it takes’ increases risk of another forever war

Ukrainians fear ‘as long as it takes’ increases risk of another forever war

Josh Rogin writes: As the Ukraine war enters its second year, the Biden administration is pledging to support Kyiv for “as long as it takes.” That language is calculated to send a message of resolve to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but it’s not what Ukrainians want to hear. Though they’re fighting valiantly, Ukrainians are also suffering greatly — and they are begging the West to help them speed up the war, not settle in for an endless slog. Just a…

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Key events that have defined Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Key events that have defined Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Michael Weiss and James Rushton report: A year ago today, Ukraine was under attack from three directions in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told his French counterpart, who was still not yet convinced that the invasion had begun, was a state of “total war.” Kyiv, we were confidently told by officials and analysts alike, had at most three days before it fell to Vladimir Putin’s invading army, airborne, special forces and naval troops and Russian tanks, accompanied perhaps by a…

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Confusion reigns when West talks postwar security for Ukraine

Confusion reigns when West talks postwar security for Ukraine

Politico reports: Western allies want to protect Ukraine from the next Russian war — but a year into this war, there’s still no agreement over how to do it, when to discuss it or what it even means. The allies’ muddled messaging has been on full display since British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak surprised some of his counterparts last weekend with a bold yet vague proposal for a new “charter” to assure Ukraine’s long-term security. “We must demonstrate that we’ll…

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How one Ukrainian woman made the switch from her native Russian tongue to Ukrainian

How one Ukrainian woman made the switch from her native Russian tongue to Ukrainian

Sasha Dovzhyk writes: My mother tongue tastes like ashes. Things scorched by enemy fire, then soaked with rain, touched with rot, smelling of death. I felt the taste of my mother tongue most acutely while driving through Borodianka, Bucha, and Irpin two months after these Ukrainian towns in the Kyiv region were liberated by the Ukrainian army from the Russians’ “brotherly” embrace. Russian is my mother tongue and liberation means ripping it out of my throat. I come from Zaporizhzhia,…

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How open-source information is increasing the value of declassifying intelligence

How open-source information is increasing the value of declassifying intelligence

The New York Times reports: A year ago, the United States did something extraordinary — it released previously classified intelligence that exposed Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine. Last week, Antony J. Blinken, the secretary of state, made a similar move when he warned China’s top foreign policy official, Wang Yi, against providing weapons to Russia. In a previous era, the warning might have remained private, at least for some time. But a new intelligence playbook honed just before and during…

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