Attention to the Unseen

The New York Times reports: Over informal, private meals with American leaders, China’s Xi Jinping let his guard down a little. It was a decade ago, relations were less strained, and Mr. Xi, still cementing his power, hinted he worried about the Chinese Communist Party’s grip. Speaking privately with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, Mr. Xi suggested that China was a target of “color revolutions,” a phrase the party adopted from Russia for popular unrest in the…

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BBC News reports: Sanctioned Russian oligarchs from Vladimir Putin’s inner circle exploited a UK secrecy loophole left open by the government. Arkady and Boris Rotenberg – judo partners of the Russian president – used a type of company that was not required to identify its real owners. Ministers have acknowledged concerns that these companies, known as English Limited Partnerships (ELPs), have also been abused by criminals. A joint investigation by the BBC and Finance Uncovered has discovered evidence linking a…

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Jane Mayer writes: As the Supreme Court anticipated when it overturned Roe v. Wade, the battle over abortion rights is now being waged state by state. Nowhere is the fight more intense than in Ohio, which has long been considered a national bellwether. The state helped secure the Presidential victories of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, then went for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. Its residents tend to be politically moderate, and polls consistently show that a majority…

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Rolling Stone reports: Ashley All wasn’t sure she wanted her three young daughters — 12, 10 and seven years old — to come to Tuesday’s election night watch party. There was a chance it could be a deeply depressing night. For the last eight months, All had been working, as part of Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, to defeat an effort to strip the right to abortion from the state constitution. Hard-right lawmakers in the Kansas legislature passed the amendment back…

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John J. Pitney, Jr. writes: In a typical midterm election, the party not holding the presidency casts itself as a check on the incumbent administration, even more so when the president’s party controls both chambers of Congress. The elections of 1994, 2006, 2010, and 2018 all started with unified government and all ended with the out-party winning control of the House (and the Senate in 1994). The in-party has never been able to wear the “check and balance” mantle—until this…

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The Guardian reports: China’s military has pressed ahead with its largest ever military drills, targeting Taiwan with what the island’s government called a simulated attack, including further incursions over the median line and drone flights over Taiwan’s outlying islands. Global pushback on China’s live-fire drills, launched in response to a visit by the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan earlier in the week, also continued, with condemnation from senior US officials and foreign ministers from Australia and Japan. Beijing…

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The Associated Press reports: China announced Friday it was ending all contact with the United States on major issues — including crucial climate cooperation that led to the international 2015 Paris accord — as tensions and public rebukes ratcheted higher over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. China’s move to freeze key lines of communication adds to a rapid souring of relations from Pelosi’s visit and from the Chinese response with military exercises off Taiwan, including firing missiles that…

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The New York Times reports: Republican candidates, facing a stark reality check from Kansas voters, are softening their once-uncompromising stands against abortion as they move toward the general election, recognizing that strict bans are unpopular and that the issue may be a major driver in the fall campaigns. In swing states and even conservative corners of the country, several Republicans have shifted their talk on abortion bans, newly emphasizing support for exceptions. Some have noticeably stopped discussing details at all….

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White nationalist Dylann Roof appears in court on June 19, 2015, after his arrest in the mass shootings at a Black church in South Carolina. Grace Beahm-Pool/Getty Images By Sophie Bjork-James, Vanderbilt University White nationalists keep showing up in the hearings of the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Evidence is mounting that white nationalist groups who want to establish an all-white state played a significant role in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol that left…

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Politico reports: There are some crimes that come to define a moment in history. The brutal killing of a Nigerian street vendor in Italy may be one. The public discourse over the murder of Alika Ogorchukwu, beaten to death in front of bystanders in the coastal town of Civitanova Marche, has laid bare the divisions in society as Italians prepare to vote in a snap election next month. For some, the killing is the fault of years of hate-stoking anti-immigrant…

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