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Category: Politics

The #WomanLifeFreedom uprising has brought Iran to a turning point

The #WomanLifeFreedom uprising has brought Iran to a turning point

Robin Wright writes: The girls and women of Iran are just bitchin’ brave, flipping the bird at its Supreme Leader in a challenge to one of the most significant revolutions in modern history. Day after dangerous day, on open streets and in gated schools, in a flood of tweets and brazen videos, they have ridiculed a theocracy that deems itself the government of God. The average age of the protesters who have been arrested is just fifteen, the Revolutionary Guard’s…

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Why little-noticed state legislative races could be hugely consequential for American democracy

Why little-noticed state legislative races could be hugely consequential for American democracy

The New York Times reports: The conversation started with potholes. Veronica Klinefelt, a Democratic candidate for State Senate in suburban Detroit, was out knocking on doors as she tries to win a seat her party sees as critical for taking back the chamber. “I am tired of seeing cuts in aging communities like ours,” she told one voter, gesturing to a cul-de-sac pocked with cracks and crevasses. “We need to reinvest here.” What went largely unspoken, however, was how this…

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In Trump case, Texas court creates a headache for Georgia prosecutors

In Trump case, Texas court creates a headache for Georgia prosecutors

The New York Times reports: Witnesses called to testify in a Georgia criminal investigation into former President Donald J. Trump and his allies have not always come willingly. A number of them have fought their subpoenas in their home-state courts, only to have local judges order them to cooperate. That was the case with Trump-aligned lawyers John Eastman in New Mexico, Jenna Ellis in Colorado and Rudolph W. Giuliani in New York; Mr. Giuliani was also told by an Atlanta…

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Team Putin wakes up: We never should have laughed at Ukraine

Team Putin wakes up: We never should have laughed at Ukraine

Julia Davis reports: Russia experienced a number of embarrassing setbacks on the battlefield in Ukraine, but none of them were as humiliating as an explosion that rocked the Crimean Bridge, also known as Kerch Strait Bridge or Kerch Bridge, early Saturday morning. During his Saturday broadcast on Solovyov Live, Russian state TV host Sergey Mardan opened his show with heavy sighs. He noted, “All day long we’ll be talking about how this happened and what will come of it. I…

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‘Ukraine is going to win’: Estonia’s departing spy chief opens up on Putin’s war

‘Ukraine is going to win’: Estonia’s departing spy chief opens up on Putin’s war

Michael Weiss reports: “Early retirement” is a strange way to describe a 44-year-old’s acceptance of a new government role, but for Mikk Marran, Estonia’s spymaster, it feels a lot like that. As of next month he will no longer helm Välisluureamet, the Baltic state’s foreign intelligence service, which, long before Vladimir Putin’s faltering invasion of Ukraine, was at the forefront of assessing the threats and capabilities of a resurgent and revanchist Russia. “Seven years, it’s a long time,” Marran tells…

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In Russian-occupied Izyum, she was raped and tortured

In Russian-occupied Izyum, she was raped and tortured

The Washington Post reports: Soon after Russian forces took her prisoner, the 52-year-old woman picked up a nail and carved her name into a brick wall. A-L-L-A, she wrote. Below, she scratched how many days she had been held in the shed outside a medical clinic in her hometown. Above, she wrote in simple words what she had endured in captivity: ELECTRICAL SHOCK. UNDRESS. PAINFUL. She hoped the markings would one day serve as clues for her son about what…

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Trump says Spain’s far-right Vox party is doing a ‘great job’; blames U.S. for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, interview

Trump says Spain’s far-right Vox party is doing a ‘great job’; blames U.S. for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, interview

The Associated Press reports: Former U.S. President Donald Trump threw his weight behind Spain’s far-right Sunday in a video shown at a rally in Madrid that also featured messages by the leading stars of Europe’s populist right like Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Hungary’s Viktor Orban. In a recording that lasted under 40 seconds made while Trump was on a plane, Trump thanked Spain’s far-right Vox party and its leader Santiago Abascal for what he called the “great job” they do….

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Judge narrows trial of analyst who reported salacious claims about Trump

Judge narrows trial of analyst who reported salacious claims about Trump

The New York Times reports: John H. Durham, the Trump-era special counsel, set off political reverberations last year when he unveiled a lengthy indictment of an analyst he accused of lying to the F.B.I. about sources for the so-called Steele dossier, a discredited compendium of political opposition research about purported ties between Donald J. Trump and Russia. But the trial of the analyst, Igor Danchenko, which opens on Tuesday with jury selection in federal court in Alexandria, Va., now appears…

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How the U.S. can block China from getting microchips made abroad

How the U.S. can block China from getting microchips made abroad

Henry Farrell writes: On Friday, the Biden administration issued aggressive new regulations, aimed at making it harder for China to access and build high-end semiconductors. Monday saw the publication of “Chip War,” a new book on global fights over semiconductors, written by Chris Miller, an associate professor of history at Tufts University’s Fletcher School and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. I interviewed Chris by email over what the new developments mean and how they reflect a longer…

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Why some countries are leading the shift to green energy

Why some countries are leading the shift to green energy

Berkeley News reports: Oil and gas prices skyrocketed following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in spring 2022, creating a global energy crisis similar to the oil crisis of the 1970s. While some countries used the price shock to accelerate the transition to cleaner sources of energy, such as wind, solar and geothermal, others have responded by expanding the production of fossil fuels. A new study appearing today in the journal Science identifies the political factors that allow some countries to…

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Putin appoints notorious general to lead Ukraine offensive

Putin appoints notorious general to lead Ukraine offensive

The Guardian reports: Russia has appointed a notorious general who opened fire on pro-democracy protesters in the 1990s as its first overall commander for the war in Ukraine, as the Kremlin struggles to halt a Ukrainian counteroffensive that has left its forces in disarray. The appointment of Gen Sergei Surovikin came on the same day as Vladimir Putin was dealt a humiliating blow after an explosion on the Kerch bridge sank a section of the motorway into the Kerch Strait…

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Crimea bridge explosion disrupts crucial supply route for Russian forces

Crimea bridge explosion disrupts crucial supply route for Russian forces

The Wall Street Journal reports: A major explosion on Saturday severely damaged the bridge connecting Russia’s mainland to the occupied Crimean Peninsula, disrupting traffic on a crucial artery for the supply of fuel, military equipment and food to Russian troops fighting to hold ground in southern Ukraine. The bridge, opened by President Vladimir Putin to great fanfare in 2018, was meant to symbolize the might of the Russian state and the permanence of Russia’s annexation of the peninsula four years…

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Kremlin, shifting blame for war failures, axes military commanders

Kremlin, shifting blame for war failures, axes military commanders

The Washington Post reports: Russian Ground Forces Gen. Alexander Dvornikov, who over a 44-year military career was best-known for scorched-earth tactics in campaigns he led in Syria and Chechnya, was named overall operational commander of the war in Ukraine in April. He lasted about seven weeks before being dismissed as part of what appeared to be a wider shake-up in response to heavy losses and strategic failures. Around the same time, Col. Gen. Andrey Serdyukov, another four-decade serviceman, the commander…

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How Hitler’s enablers undid democracy in Germany

How Hitler’s enablers undid democracy in Germany

Christopher R. Browning writes: The short-lived Weimar Republic—which spanned the years after Germany’s defeat in World War I until 1933, when Hitler came to power—has become a paradigmatic example of democratic collapse. That has brought it renewed attention at this moment in America, when democracy is under threat from illiberal, would-be-authoritarian forces. We should rightly be suspicious of facile comparisons, especially the casual use of fascism as an imprecise epithet, yet Weimar’s fate provides us with some instructive parallels and…

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Ex-business partner of fake Mar-a-Lago ‘Rothschild’ heiress shot in Quebec

Ex-business partner of fake Mar-a-Lago ‘Rothschild’ heiress shot in Quebec

Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project: A Russian businessman whose affairs were the subject of a recent OCCRP investigation was shot and badly injured in a parking lot in a small town in Quebec, Canada, on Friday afternoon. His shooting is expected to widen a cross-border investigation into a fake charity and a woman who masqueraded as a Rothschild at former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Police in Estėrel, a sleepy resort town in the French-speaking province, continue investigating…

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How Trump deflected demands for documents, enmeshing aides

How Trump deflected demands for documents, enmeshing aides

The New York Times reports: Late last year, as the National Archives ratcheted up the pressure on former President Donald J. Trump to return boxes of records he had taken from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago club, he came up with an idea to resolve the looming showdown: cut a deal. Mr. Trump, still determined to show he had been wronged by the F.B.I. investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia, was angry with the National Archives and…

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