Attention to the Unseen

Rolling Stone reports: In early September, Donald Trump welcomed a handful of Republican allies to Manhattan’s Trump Tower with an urgent message: He saw a “scam” happening with midterm election voting in Philadelphia and elsewhere in Pennsylvania, and he wanted conservatives to do something about it. “During our briefing, he was concerned that 2020 is going to happen again in 2022,” says former senior Trump administration official Michael Caputo, referencing Trump’s debunked assertion that voter fraud in Philadelphia helped win…

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Bob Woodward writes: In more than 50 years of reporting, I have never disclosed the raw interviews or full transcripts of my work. But after listening again to the 20 interviews I conducted with President Donald Trump during his last year as chief executive, I have decided to take the unusual step of releasing them. I was struck by how Trump pounded in my ears in a way the printed page cannot capture. In their totality, these interviews offer an…

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Alireza Eshraghi writes: On September 20, three days after the women-led protests erupted across Iran in response to the death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini, the state-run radio and television channels began airing a series of debate shows. In them, men—yes! dozens of men—were featured discussing women’s bodies and grievances. Meanwhile, on the street, according to leaked documents published by Amnesty International, state forces were being instructed to “mercilessly confront” demonstrators, even to the point of death. Two days later, when…

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Denise Dresser writes: When Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office four years ago, he promised to deliver what he branded a “Fourth Transformation,” the next in a series of defining junctures in Mexican history: the War of Independence in the early 1800s, the liberal movement of President Benito Juárez later that century, and the Revolution of 1910. To “make Mexico great again,” he said he would fight deeply ingrained corruption and eradicate persistent poverty. But in the name…

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Politico reports: On the Pacific side of the Panama Canal, a massive gray convention center built largely by Chinese contractors gleams in the sun, eagerly hosting visitors from a world emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic. A few miles north, colorful shipping containers lay stacked under the stern gaze of quay cranes at the Port of Balboa, a facility run by a Chinese-linked firm. A new bridge is supposed to rise in the same area. Various plans have called for it…

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James Palmer writes: Hu has been visibly frail during the Party Congress. His hair has also gone fully gray—which in a past era would itself have been a sign that he was eschewing power entirely, since China’s leaders universally dyed their hair, but under Xi signs of gray have been allowed to creep in. But it’s hard to see what condition could cause both an urgent need to remove him with cameras rolling and his deep reluctance to go. And…

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