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Category: Politics

Manhattan prosecutors move to jump-start criminal inquiry into Trump

Manhattan prosecutors move to jump-start criminal inquiry into Trump

The New York Times reports: The Manhattan district attorney’s office has moved to jump-start its criminal investigation into Donald J. Trump, according to people with knowledge of the matter, seeking to breathe new life into an inquiry that once seemed to have reached a dead end. Under the new district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, the prosecutors have returned to the long-running investigation’s original focus: a hush-money payment to a porn star who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump….

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Trump White House bid has hardly any Senate GOP support

Trump White House bid has hardly any Senate GOP support

The Hill reports: Only one Republican senator has announced publicly that he will support former-President Trump’s 2024 reelection bid, a sign of the uphill battle Trump faces in his quest to win the Republican presidential nomination and a second term in the White House. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) told reporters this week that he will support Trump’s candidacy for president and praised his track record in the Oval Office. The rest of the Senate GOP conference is holding back, skeptical…

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Republicans keep telling Trump to stay away from Georgia

Republicans keep telling Trump to stay away from Georgia

Rolling Stone reports: As Republicans pour party resources into the Georgia Senate runoff, Donald Trump is getting irritated at the idea that virtually no one of importance in the GOP wants him to campaign in Georgia. In the lead-up to the contest between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Trump-endorsed challenger Herschel Walker, several GOP figures and Trump allies have already implored him not to hold a Georgia rally ahead of the runoff, according to two people familiar with the matter…

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How Iran’s security forces use rape to quell protests

How Iran’s security forces use rape to quell protests

CNN reports: A trickle of people passes through a normally busy border crossing in the mountains of northern Iraq. “It’s a big prison over there,” one Iranian woman says, gesturing to the hulking gate that marks the border with Iran’s Islamic Republic, which has been convulsed by protest for over two months. A portrait of the founder of Iran’s clerical regime, Ruhollah Khomeini, looms against a backdrop of rolling hills studded with streetlights. Snatches of travelers’ muted conversations punctuate an…

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How the global rise of border walls is stifling wildlife

How the global rise of border walls is stifling wildlife

Fred Pierce writes: Pity the tiny band of lynx in the Polish half of Europe’s most ancient forest. In June, their home, the Białowieża Forest, was cut in half when the Polish government completed construction of a wall on its border with Belarus. The aim was to repel refugees from the Middle East and elsewhere being channeled to the border by the Belarus government. But the 115-mile wall — which towers 18 feet above the forest floor, stretching almost into…

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Shooting in Colorado Springs follows six brutal years of Republican anti-LGBTQ rhetoric

Shooting in Colorado Springs follows six brutal years of Republican anti-LGBTQ rhetoric

Robin Maril writes: This latest shooting, in which at least five people in Colorado were killed late Saturday night when a gunman once again opened fire inside an LGBTQ nightclub, follows six years in which far-right leaders have led American politics down a fearful blame spiral fueled by homophobia, xenophobia and racism. This past election, Republican candidates ran on a platform that characterized queer and transgender people as “groomers.” They targeted the families that support them as criminals. And many…

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How the Pelosi attack suspect plunged into online hatred

How the Pelosi attack suspect plunged into online hatred

The New York Times reports: Bitter over the end of a long relationship, estranged from his children and working carpentry jobs to keep a roof over his head after a time living on the streets, David DePape retreated into isolation, spending hours each day in the online worlds of gaming and chat rooms. Mr. DePape, the suspect in the brutal attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, had an obsession with video games as a boy, and at some point in…

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Trump snubs Twitter after Musk announces reactivation of ex-president’s account

Trump snubs Twitter after Musk announces reactivation of ex-president’s account

Reuters reports: Donald Trump on Saturday said he had no interest in returning to Twitter even as a slim majority voted in favor of reinstating the former U.S. president, who was banned from the social media service for inciting violence, in a poll organized by new owner Elon Musk. Slightly over 15 million Twitter users voted in the poll with 51.8% voting in favor of reinstatement. “The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated,” Musk tweeted. Trump’s Twitter account, which…

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Deglobalization is a threat to climate action

Deglobalization is a threat to climate action

Raghuram G. Rajan writes: The deliberations at this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) suggest that while policymakers realize the urgency of combating climate change, they are unlikely to reach a comprehensive collective agreement to address it. But there is still a way for the world to improve the chances of more effective action in the future: hit the brakes on deglobalization. Otherwise, the possibilities for climate action will be set back by the shrinkage of cross-border trade and…

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Ukraine confronts tougher fight in push to extend battlefield wins

Ukraine confronts tougher fight in push to extend battlefield wins

The Washington Post reports: Not far from this village on the east bank of the Oskil River, Ukrainian forces have hit a wall of Russian resistance as they try to extend a counteroffensive that just two months ago was sweeping across nearby lands at a stunning clip. Andriy, a soldier with Ukraine’s 92nd Mechanized Brigade, was not sure what to say on a recent day, when a group of Ukrainian intelligence officers showed up and asked about his unit’s push…

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Iranian protesters attack Khomeini’s childhood home as uprising spreads

Iranian protesters attack Khomeini’s childhood home as uprising spreads

The New York Times reports: Three months into a nationwide uprising, Iranian protesters have turned their fury against the founder of the Islamic revolution and of the country’s theocracy, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Protesters set ablaze the museum of childhood home of Mr. Khomeini, who died in 1989, in his hometown, Khomein, on Thursday night, videos showed. Crowds of men smashed and stomped on a street sign bearing his name in the town of Khash, according to a video posted online….

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How to pay for climate justice when polluters have all the money

How to pay for climate justice when polluters have all the money

Bill McKibben writes: The climate summit just concluding in Egypt ran hard into one of the world’s greatest structural problems: most of the money is in the Global North, but most of the need is in the Global South. Nearly three hundred years of burning fossil fuels have produced much of that northern wealth, and now the resulting greenhouse gases are heating the planet and producing much of that southern need. So is there some way to mobilize that money…

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Iran will help Russia build drones for Ukraine war, Western officials say

Iran will help Russia build drones for Ukraine war, Western officials say

The Washington Post reports: After weeks of savaging Ukrainian cities with Iranian-made drones, Moscow has quietly reached an agreement with Tehran to begin manufacturing hundreds of unmanned weaponized aircraft on Russian soil, according to new intelligence seen by U.S. and other Western security agencies. Russian and Iranian officials finalized the deal during a meeting in Iran in early November, and the two countries are moving rapidly to transfer designs and key components that could allow production to begin within months,…

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Kherson’s resistance fighters undermined Russian occupying forces

Kherson’s resistance fighters undermined Russian occupying forces

The Washington Post reports: Ihor didn’t even know the first name of the person who contacted him. The man said he was a member of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces and wanted to know if Ihor was interested in helping fight the Russians occupying his city of Kherson. “Sign me up,” Ihor responded. For months, the two kept up a coded communication over the Telegram messaging app. Sometimes Ihor would be asked to help pinpoint locations from which the Russians were…

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This week, billionaires made a strong case for abolishing themselves

This week, billionaires made a strong case for abolishing themselves

Anand Giridharadas writes: In recent years, a swelling chorus of Americans has grown critical of the nation’s bajillionaires. But in the extraordinary week gone by, that chorus was drowned out by a far louder and more urgent case against them. It was made by the bajillionaires themselves. One after another, four of our best-known billionaires laid waste to the image of benevolent saviors carefully cultivated by their class. It is a commendable sacrifice on their part, because billionaires, remember, exist…

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Ex-Russian spy flees to the NATO country that captured him, delivering another embarrassing blow to Moscow

Ex-Russian spy flees to the NATO country that captured him, delivering another embarrassing blow to Moscow

Michael Weiss reports: “The Russians have no idea,” Alexander Toots, the head of Estonian counterintelligence, tells me, laughing. “They have absolutely no idea he is here. You can be the one to tell them.” Toots was referring to the defection of a Russian spy to Estonia. But Artem Zinchenko isn’t just any spy. He was the first agent of Russia’s military intelligence arrested by Estonia, in 2017, then traded back to Moscow a year later for an Estonian citizen in…

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