The Biden administration barely pretends to care about Syria anymore

The Biden administration barely pretends to care about Syria anymore

Josh Rogin writes: The Biden administration seems to have forgotten about Syria these days. The only moves it has made recently were responses to February’s devastating earthquake or a recent attack on U.S. troops by an apparent Iranian drone. The administration has abdicated diplomatic leadership to Moscow and is turning a blind eye as Gulf states welcome the Assad regime back into the diplomatic fold. Privately, many Biden officials tell me they just don’t see any good U.S. policy options….

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Will Jeff Zients destroy Joe Biden’s presidency?

Will Jeff Zients destroy Joe Biden’s presidency?

Jeet Heer writes: When Jeff Zients took over as White House chief of staff on February 8, 2023, he could be grateful that his predecessor, Ron Klain, left him a smoothly running operation. Under Klain’s watch, the first two years of Biden’s presidency were considerably more successful than anyone could have expected. This was especially true given that Biden faced the headwinds of a turbulent economy, international turmoil from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a polarized polity at home. Despite…

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Chinese spy balloon gathered intelligence from sensitive U.S. military sites, despite U.S. efforts to block it

Chinese spy balloon gathered intelligence from sensitive U.S. military sites, despite U.S. efforts to block it

NBC News reports: The Chinese spy balloon that flew across the U.S. was able to gather intelligence from several sensitive American military sites, despite the Biden administration’s efforts to block it from doing so, according to two current senior U.S. officials and one former senior administration official. China was able to control the balloon so it could make multiple passes over some of the sites (at times flying figure-eight formations) and transmit the information it collected back to Beijing in…

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Melting Antarctic ice predicted to cause rapid slowdown of deep ocean current by 2050

Melting Antarctic ice predicted to cause rapid slowdown of deep ocean current by 2050

The Guardian reports: Melting ice around Antarctica will cause a rapid slowdown of a major global deep ocean current by 2050 that could alter the world’s climate for centuries and accelerate sea level rise, according to scientists behind new research. The research suggests if greenhouse gas emissions continue at today’s levels, the current in the deepest parts of the ocean could slow down by 40% in only three decades. This, the scientists said, could generate a cascade of impacts that…

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Saudis, other oil giants announce surprise production cuts

Saudis, other oil giants announce surprise production cuts

The Associated Press reports: Saudi Arabia and other major oil producers on Sunday announced surprise cuts totaling up to 1.15 million barrels per day from May until the end of the year, a move that could raise prices worldwide. Higher oil prices would help fill Russian President Vladimir Putin’s coffers as his country wages war on Ukraine and force Americans and others to pay even more at the pump amid worldwide inflation. It was also likely to further strain ties…

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Russian author Mikhail Shishkin’s letter to an unknown Ukrainian

Russian author Mikhail Shishkin’s letter to an unknown Ukrainian

Mikhail Shishkin writes: My dearest one, They stole the language from us. We spoke and corresponded with you in the language of great Russian literature. Now, for the whole world, Russian is the language of those who bomb Ukrainian cities and kill children, the language of war criminals, the language of murderers. They will be tried for crimes against humanity. I would like to believe that all those who prepared and participated in this war, who supported it in one…

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Pro-Russian propagandist killed in blast in St. Petersburg

Pro-Russian propagandist killed in blast in St. Petersburg

Michael Weiss and James Rushton write: An infamous pro-Russian combatant turned propagandist, known by the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarsky, was killed in a St. Petersburg cafe on Sunday, in an explosion that injured at least 25 others, according to the Russian government. Footage captured on a cellphone just before the explosion showed Tatarsky examining a statuette of a miner. Tatarsky was himself formerly a miner, and his Ukrainian hometown is in a region known for its coal mining and heavy industry….

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The rule of law now depends on Republicans

The rule of law now depends on Republicans

David French writes: To fully understand the Trumpist threat to the rule of law, it’s necessary to discuss what the rule of law means. A nation truly governed by the rule of law isn’t going to have a perfect legal system — no human system can be perfect — but it will have a double check against injustice. The rule of law depends on both substance and process, just laws and just processes, and respect for the rule of law…

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Norfolk Southern’s push for profits compromised safety, workers say

Norfolk Southern’s push for profits compromised safety, workers say

The New York Times reports: Norfolk Southern once had so few accidents and injuries that it won the rail industry’s prestigious E.H. Harriman safety award for 23 years in a row until it was retired in 2012. But in the last decade, the company has gone from an industry leader to a laggard. The rate at which its trains are involved in accidents and its workers are injured on the job has soared, putting it at or near the bottom…

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Archaeology and genomics together with Indigenous knowledge revise the human-horse story in the American West

Archaeology and genomics together with Indigenous knowledge revise the human-horse story in the American West

Horses are an active part of life for the Lakota and many other Plains nations today. Jacquelyn Córdova/Northern Vision Productions By William Taylor, University of Colorado Boulder and Yvette Running Horse Collin, Université de Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier Few places in the world are more closely linked with horses in the popular imagination than the Great Plains of North America. Romanticized stories of cowboys and the Wild West figure prominently in popular culture, and domestic horses are embedded in…

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Trump’s legal problems are putting the GOP in a vise

Trump’s legal problems are putting the GOP in a vise

Ronald Brownstein writes: The dilemma for the Republican Party is that Donald Trump’s mounting legal troubles may be simultaneously strengthening him as a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination and weakening him as a potential general-election nominee. In the days leading up to the indictment of the former president, which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced two days ago, a succession of polls showed that Trump has significantly increased his lead over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, his closest competitor in…

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Trump lashes out against New York judge who will hear his criminal case

Trump lashes out against New York judge who will hear his criminal case

The Washington Post reports: Former president Donald Trump is quite familiar with New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, the judge who oversaw the grand jury that indicted Trump this week and will preside over the criminal proceedings that follow. Merchan, 60, who has sat on the New York bench since 2009, also presided over the jury trial last year of Trump’s namesake real estate company, which resulted in a conviction in December, and the prosecution of the company’s longtime…

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Global network aims to sue Wagner as a ‘terrorist’ organisation

Global network aims to sue Wagner as a ‘terrorist’ organisation

Al Jazeera reports: Last January, an escaped mercenary of the Wagner private military company crossed into Norway by walking over a frozen river marking the border with Russia, pursued by Russian police. Andrei Medvedev told the rights group Gulagu.net that his life was in danger, after a soldier under his command attempted to flee the Ukraine war, in which Wagner is playing a leading role, and was murdered with a sledgehammer blow to the head. Medvedev said this was standard…

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As Israelis protest mounting authoritarianism, apartheid regime over Palestinians goes unchallenged

As Israelis protest mounting authoritarianism, apartheid regime over Palestinians goes unchallenged

Alice Speri writes: On very clear days, you can follow the rolling hills surrounding the Palestinian city of Yatta all the way to the Dead Sea on one side, the Negev desert on the other. The windswept landscape offers idyllic views, with clusters of olive trees alternating with narrow rows of cultivated land, patches of shrubs, and the occasional grazing sheep. This is also a unique observation point to watch the reality of Israeli apartheid take hold of the land….

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