Editor's Choice: Scroll below for our monthly blend of mainstream and alternative March 2023 news and views

Note: Excerpts are from the authors' words except for subheads and occasional "Editor's notes" such as this. 

March 26

Top Headlines

• Associated Press, Biden declares emergency as crews dig through storm wreckage
• Washington Post, Netanyahu’s political touch eludes him as Israel spirals into chaos
• Associated Press, Netanyahu fires defense minister for urging halt to overhaul
• New York Times, A Trump Rally Comes to Waco, 30 Years After Its Darkest Hour
• The Warning with Steve Schmidt, Commentary: How Donald Trump is using the January 6 playbook to incite violence, Steve Schmidt
• New York Times, Trump Puts His Legal Peril at Center of First Big Rally for 2024
• New York Times, Donald Trump and the Sordid Tradition of Suppressing October Surprises
• Going Deep with Russ Baker, Investigative Commentary: The Iran Hostages, Carter, Reagan, and Bush: What the NY Times ‘Scoop’ Missed, Russ Baker
• Washington Post, Trump warns of ‘potential death & destruction’ if he is charged in hush-money case
• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Recognizing symbols of hate and right-wing rebellion in the United States
• New York Times, Former Trump Officials Must Testify in 2020 Election Inquiry, Judge Says

Global News, Migration, Human Rights

• Washington Post, Harris heads to Africa amid Biden’s urgent courtship of the continent
• Associated Press via Politico, Israeli defense minister calls for halt to judicial overhaul 
• New York Times, Crisis in Israel Tests the Complicated Ties Between Biden and Netanyahu
• Washington Post, Putin, charged with war crimes, must limit travel to avoid arrest
• New York Times, In Blow to Taiwan, Honduras Switches Relations to China
• New York Times, Conflict in Syria Escalates After Attack That Killed a U.S. Contractor
• New York Times, Man Pleads Guilty in Case Related to Assassination of Haiti’s President
• New York Times, Who Will Take Care of Italy’s Older People? Robots, Maybe
• Washington Post, Bolsonaro’s return poses risks for the former president — and Brazil
• Washington Post, Rwanda to release Paul Rusesabagina, inspiration for ‘Hotel Rwanda’ movie
• Politico, Twitter’s plan to charge researchers for data access puts it in EU crosshairs
• Washington Post, Biden warns Iran after U.S. forces clash with proxy groups in Syria
• New York Times, U.S. and Canada Reach an Agreement on Turning Away Asylum Seekers
• Washington Post, In visit to Canada, Biden affirms close ties between two nations

U.S. Politics, Elections, Governance

• Politico Magazine, Q&A: How Pro Wrestling Explains Today’s GOP, Michael Kruse
• New York Times, Florida Moves to Shield DeSantis’s Travel Records From the Public
• Palmer Report, Opinion: George Santos pleads guilty, Bill Palmer
• Washington Post, She lost her trans son to suicide. Can a Kentucky lawmaker make her colleagues care?
• Washington Post, The untold story of Jimmy Carter, his best friend and a murder charge
• Associated Press, Biden’s pick to lead FAA withdraws amid shaky Senate support
• Washington Post, Three-day L.A. school district strike ends in deal addressing pay, benefits
• Politico, Sinema Trashes Dems: ‘Old Dudes Eating Jell-O,’ Jonathan Martin

More On Trump Probes, Prospects, Allies

• Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: The SECRETS of Trump’s New Lawyer EXPOSED, Ben Meiselas
• New York Times, Lawmakers Tour D.C. Jail Where Jan. 6 Defendants Are Held
• Washington Post, Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran appears before Mar-a-Lago grand jury in D.C.
• New York Times, Court Action Underscores Peril for Trump in Documents Investigation
• New York Times, Prosecutor in Trump Hush-Money Case Fires Back at House Republicans
• New York Times, Former President Trump is facing several investigations. See where they stand
• Meidas Touch Network, Insurrectionist GETS HIT with DEVASTATING News she DESERVES, Michael Popok

Ukraine War

• Washington Post, Kyiv doctor killed in Russian airstrike shows war’s fallout far from front
• New York Times, Putin Says He Could Put Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Belarus by Summer
• New York Times, Stolen Valor: The U.S. Volunteers in Ukraine Who Lie, Waste and Bicker
• New York Times, Thousands of Ukrainians are enduring dire conditions around Bakhmut as the fighting shows no signs of letting up, aid groups say
• New York Times, Support Grows to Have Russia Pay for Ukraine’s Rebuilding
• New York Times, Famed Antiwar Protester Was Once Cog in Russia’s Propaganda Machine
• Washington Post, Zelensky visits Bakhmut; China’s Xi leaves Russia with no clear progress on ending war
• Politico, Turkey’s Erdoğan urges end of Ukraine war in call with Putin

U.S. Courts, Crime, Immigration, Guns

• New York Times, The Largest Source of Stolen Guns? Parked Cars
• New York Times, 2 Migrants Found Dead and 13 Others Ill on Train in Texas, Officials Say
• New York Times, 1 Dead and Multiple Hostages Rescued in Houston F.B.I. Operation

U.S. Banks, Economy, Jobs, CryptoCurrency

• Washington Post, Hundreds of banks would be vulnerable in SVB-style runs, researchers say
• New York Times, Republicans Say Spending Is Fueling Inflation. The Fed Chair Disagrees

 Disasters, Climate, Environment, U.S. Transportation, Energy

• New York Times, Chocolate Factory Explosion in Pennsylvania Leaves Five Dead and Six Missing
• Washington Post, World is on brink of climate calamity, definitive U.N. climate report warns
• New York Times, Opinion: I Am Haunted by What I Have Seen at Great Salt Lake, Terry Tempest Williams, Photographs by Fazal Sheikh
• New York Times, A Water System So Broken That One Pipe Leaks 5 Million Gallons a Day
• New York Times, In Montana, It’s Youth vs. the State in a Landmark Climate Case

U.S. Abortion, #MeToo, Stalking, Rape Laws, Politics

• Washington Post, This Texas teen wanted an abortion. She now has twins
• Washington Post, Opinion: Senate Democrats should be holding oversight hearings of their own, Jennifer Rubin
• Washington Post, Oklahoma must allow abortion if mother’s life is threatened, court rules

Pandemics, Public Health, Privacy

• Washington Post, Analysis: The White House covid response team is winding down, Rachel Roubein and McKenzie Beard
• New York Times, Tennessee’s Rejection of Federal Funds Alarms H.I.V. Prevention Groups
• New York Times, Biden Plan to Cut Billions in Medicare Fraud Ignites Lobbying Frenzy

U.S. Media, Education, Arts, Sports

• New York Times, Commentary: The Privilege of a New Start
• New York Times, TikTok Chief Faces Scathing Questions From Both Parties in Congress
• Washington Post, America’s online privacy problems are much bigger than TikTok, Will Oremus

Top Stories

Charlie Weissinger, tosses away the paneling from one of the desks in his father's demolished law office in Rolling Fork, Miss., Saturday, March 25, 2023. Emergency officials in Mississippi say several people have been killed by tornadoes that tore through the state on Friday night, destroying buildings and knocking out power as severe weather produced hail the size of golf balls moved through several southern states. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

Associated Press, Biden declares emergency as crews dig through storm wreckage, Leah Willingham, March 26, 2023. President Joe Biden early Sunday issued an emergency declaration for Mississippi, making federal funding available to Carroll, Humphreys, Monroe and Sharkey counties, the areas hardest hit Friday night by a deadly tornado that ripped through the Mississippi Delta, one of the poorest regions of the U.S.

At least 25 people were killed and dozens of others were injured in Mississippi as the massive storm ripped through several towns on its hour-long path. One man was killed after his trailer home flipped several times in Alabama.

Search and recovery crews on Sunday resumed the daunting task of digging through the debris of flattened and battered homes, commercial buildings and municipal offices after hundreds of people were displaced.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell was scheduled to visit the state on Sunday to evaluate the destruction.

FEMA Coordinating Officer John Boyle has been appointed to oversee federal recovery operations. Following Biden’s declaration, federal funding can be used for recovery efforts including temporary housing, home repairs, loans covering uninsured property losses and other individual and business programs, the White House said in a statement.

The twister flattened entire blocks, obliterated houses, ripped a steeple off a church and toppled a municipal water tower. Even with recovery just starting, the National Weather Service warned of a risk of more severe weather Sunday — including high winds, large hail and possible tornadoes — in eastern Louisiana, south central Mississippi and south central Alabama.

Based on early data, the tornado received a preliminary EF-4 rating, the National Weather Service office in Jackson said late Saturday in a tweet. An EF-4 tornado has top wind gusts between 166 mph and 200 mph (265 kph and 320 kph), according to the service. The Jackson office cautioned it was still gathering information on the tornado.

The tornado devastated a swath of the 2,000-person town of Rolling Fork, reducing homes to piles of rubble, flipping cars on their sides and toppling the town’s water tower. Other parts of the Deep South were digging out from damage caused by other suspected twisters. One man died in Morgan County, Alabama, the sheriff’s department there said in a tweet.

Washington Post, Netanyahu’s political touch eludes him as Israel spirals into chaos, Steve Hendrix, March 26, 2023. Little about his government’s sudden push to remake the courts, or its response to the international backlash, bears the hallmark of a Netanyahu production.

Few figures have stood astride the Israeli public arena like Benjamin Netanyahu, right, the longest-serving prime minister in the country’s history.

Over a record six terms, the leader known as “Bibi” has honed an image that is more puppet-master than politician, so often has he eluded scandal, bounced back from defeat and outwitted opponents (and more than a few allies).

But his government’s move to overhaul the judicial system has created a paralyzing political crisis — setting off mass protests, sending the currency plummeting and sparking warnings of “civil war” from Israel’s president. As the upheaval nears its fourth month with no sign of easing, and even spreads into the ranks of Israel’s revered military, the prime minister seems unable, or unwilling, to apply his vaunted touch.

“Where is he in all this? That’s what we’ve all been talking about,” said a former senior member of Netanyahu’s government, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so he could talk candidly about his old boss.

Israel’s military joins nationwide protests over judicial overhaul

Little about the new government’s sudden push to dramatically remake the courts, or its response to the enormous international backlash, bears the hallmark of a Netanyahu production, according to political observers.

“It really is a mystery,” said Anshel Pfeffer, a Jerusalem-based columnist and author of a Netanyahu biography. “It seems almost impossible that this guy who is Israel’s master tactician, political strategist, the maestro of presentation, how did he misread this so badly?”

Netanyahu did not campaign on overhauling the courts in last fall’s election, which resulted in a four-seat parliamentary majority for his coalition of conservative, ultra-Orthodox and nationalist parties. He did not mention judicial changes in his inaugural address, which focused on pledges to counter Iran, befriend Saudi Arabia and modernize infrastructure.

Associated Press, Netanyahu fires defense minister for urging halt to overhaul, Staff Report, March 26, 2023. The move signals the prime minister will move ahead with thorny plans to overhaul Israel’s judiciary.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired his defense minister on Sunday, a day after the minister, Yoav Gallant, shown at right in 2016 photo, called for a halt to the planned overhaul of Israel’s judiciary that has fiercely divided the country.

Netanyahu’s office did not provide further details. The move signals the prime minister will move ahead this week with plans to overhaul Israel’s judiciary, which has sparked widespread opposition. Tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets, military and business leaders have spoken out against it and leading allies of Israel have voiced concerns.

Gallant, a former army general, is a senior member of Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party. On Saturday, he called for a pause in the controversial legislation until after next month’s Independence Day holidays, citing the rift’s threat to Israel’s national security.

Meanwhile, an Israeli good governance group on Sunday asked the country’s Supreme Court to punish Netanyahu for allegedly violating a conflict of interest agreement meant to prevent him from dealing with the country’s judiciary while he is on trial for corruption.

The request by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel intensifies a brewing showdown between Netanyahu’s government and the judiciary,

Netanyahu’s government is pushing ahead for a parliamentary vote this week on a centerpiece of the overhaul — a law that would give the governing coalition the final say over all judicial appointments.

Outgoing Defense Minister Gallant was the first to break ranks late Saturday by calling for the legislation to be frozen. Gallant cited the turmoil in the ranks of the military over the plan. But it was unclear whether others would follow him.

On Sunday, the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a fierce opponent of the overhaul, asked the court to force Netanyahu to obey the law and sanction him either with a fine or prison time for not doing so. It said he was not above the law.

“A prime minister who doesn’t obey the court and the provisions of the law is privileged and an anarchist,” said Eliad Shraga, the head of the group, echoing language used by Netanyahu and his allies against protesters opposed to the overhaul. “The prime minister will be forced to bow his head before the law and comply with the provisions of the law.”

The prime minister responded saying the appeal should be dismissed and said that the Supreme Court didn’t have grounds to intervene.

New York Times, Trump Puts His Legal Peril at Center of First Big Rally for 2024, Michael C. Bender and Shane Goldmacher, March 25, 2023. Facing a potential indictment, the former president devoted much of his speech in Waco, Texas, to criticizing the justice system.

Former President Donald J. Trump spent much of his first major political rally of the 2024 campaign portraying his expected indictment by a New York grand jury as a result of what he claimed was a Democratic conspiracy to persecute him, arguing wildly that the United States was turning into a “banana republic.”

As a crowd in Waco, Texas, waved red-and-white signs with the words “Witch Hunt” behind him, Mr. Trump devoted long stretches of his speech to his own legal jeopardy rather than his vision for a second term, casting himself as a victim of “weaponization” of the justice system.

“The abuses of power that we’re currently witnessing at all levels of government will go down as among the most shameful, corrupt and depraved chapters in all of American history,” he said.

The speech underscored how Mr. Trump tends to frame the nation’s broader political stakes heavily around whatever issues personally affect him the most. Last year, he sought to make his lies about fraud in his 2020 election defeat the most pressing issue of the midterms. On Saturday, he called the “weaponization of our justice system” the “central issue of our time.”

Lamenting all the investigations he has faced in the last eight years that have — to date — not resulted in charges, Mr. Trump claimed that his legal predicament “probably makes me the most innocent man in the history of our country.”

Former President Trump faces varied legal and political threats, including an escalating New York criminal investigation into purported campaign finance crimes involving payments in 2016 to hide his alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels, shown above left on the cover of her memoir "Full Disclosure."

New York Times, Donald Trump and the Sordid Tradition of Suppressing October Surprises, Jonathan Weisman, March 25, 2023. The payoff to Stormy Daniels that has a Manhattan grand jury weighing criminal charges can trace its lineage to political skulduggery in 1968 and 1980.

Secretive talks in the waning days of a campaign. Furtive phone calls. Ardent public denials.

American history is full of October surprises — late revelations, sometimes engineered by an opponent, that shock the trajectory of a presidential election and that candidates dread. In 1880, a forged letter ostensibly written by James A. Garfield claimed he wanted more immigration from China, a position so unpopular it nearly cost him the election. Weeks before the 1940 election, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s press secretary kneed a Black police officer in the groin, just as the president was trying to woo skeptical Black voters. (Roosevelt’s response made history: He appointed the first Black general and created the Tuskegee Airmen.)

But the scandal that has ensnared Donald J. Trump, the paying of hush money to a pornographic film star in 2016, is in a rare class: an attempt not to bring to light an election-altering event, but to suppress one.

The payoff to Stormy Daniels that has a Manhattan grand jury weighing criminal charges against Mr. Trump can trace its lineage to at least two other episodes foiling an October surprise. The first was in 1968, when aides to Richard M. Nixon pressed the South Vietnamese government to thwart peace talks in the closing days of that election. The second was in 1980. Fresh revelations have emerged that allies of Ronald Reagan may well have labored to delay the release of American hostages from Iran until after the defeat of Jimmy Carter.

The tortured debate over precisely which election law might have been violated in 2016 is missing the broader point — all three events might have changed the course of history.

“There have been three cases at a minimum,” said Gary Sick, a former national security aide to President Carter who for more than two decades has been pursuing his case that the Reagan campaign in 1980 delayed the release of the hostages from Iran. “And if you had the stomach for it, you’d have to say it worked.”

The potential criminal charges against Mr. Trump for his role in the passing of hush money to Ms. Daniels — falsifying business records to cover up the payment and a possible election law violation — may seem trivial when compared to the prior efforts to fend off a history-altering October surprise.

This month, a former lieutenant governor of Texas came forward to say that he accompanied a Reagan ally to the Middle East to try to delay the release of American hostages from Iran until after the 1980 election. And notes discovered in 2016 appeared to confirm that senior aides to Mr. Nixon worked through back channels in 1968 to hinder the commencement of peace talks to end the war in Vietnam — and secure Mr. Nixon’s victory over Hubert H. Humphrey.

New York Times, A Trump Rally Comes to Waco, 30 Years After Its Darkest Hour, Charles Homans, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). For some, it’s no accident that former President Trump will speak in a city where a fiery raid symbolizes government overreach to the far right. Thirty years ago, a fiery federal raid on a doomsday sect turned the city into a symbol of government overreach. Donald Trump will speak there on Saturday, and some supporters — and critics — say it’s no accident.

In the chapel at Mount Carmel, the longtime home of the Branch Davidian sect outside Waco, Tex., the pastor preaches about the coming apocalypse, as the sect’s doomed charismatic leader David Koresh did three decades ago.

But the prophecies offered by the pastor, Charles Pace, are different from Mr. Koresh’s. For one thing, they involve Donald J. Trump.

“Donald Trump is the anointed of God,” Mr. Pace said in an interview. “He is the battering ram that God is using to bring down the Deep State of Babylon.”

Mr. Trump, embattled by multiple investigations and publicly predicting an imminent indictment in one, announced last week that he would hold the first rally of his 2024 presidential campaign on Saturday at the regional airport in Waco.

The date falls in the middle of the 30th anniversary of the weekslong standoff involving federal agents and followers of Mr. Koresh that left 82 Branch Davidians and four agents dead at Mount Carmel, the group’s compound east of the city.

Mr. Trump has not linked the rally to the anniversary, and his campaign did not respond to requests for comment on whether the rally — his first ever in the city of 140,000 — was an intentional nod to the most infamous episode in Waco’s history. And there are other reasons for the former president to open his campaign in Texas, a state rich in electoral votes where he trailed Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida by double digits in a state Republican Party poll late last year.

But the historical resonance has not been lost on some of Mr. Trump’s most ardent followers. “Waco was an overreach of the government, and today the New York district attorney is practicing an overreach of the government again,” said Sharon Anderson, a retiree from Etowah, Tenn., who is traveling to Waco for Saturday’s event, her 33rd Trump rally.

Mr. Pace said he believed it was “a statement — that he was sieged by the F.B.I. at Mar-a-Lago and that they were accusing him of different things that aren’t really true, just like David Koresh was accused by the F.B.I. when they sieged him.”

The Warning with Steve Schmidt, Commentary: How Donald Trump is using the January 6 playbook to incite violence, Steve Schmidt (former Republican and now independent national political strategist, shown above in a screenshot), March 24, 2023 (10:21 min. video). Steve Schmidt breaks down Donald's Trump's latest Truth social post where the former President infers that charging him will lead to "potential death and destruction." Steve describes how Trump uses a similar playbook inciting the riots on January 6th, and condemns the Republican Party for not standing up to Trump.

Washington Post, Trump warns of ‘potential death & destruction’ if he is charged in hush-money case, John Wagner, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Former president Donald Trump warned early Friday of “potential death & destruction” if he is charged in Manhattan in a criminal case related to alleged hush-money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to conceal an affair.

The posting after midnight on Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform, was his latest — and most explicit — allusion to violence that could follow an indictment stemming from an investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), whom Trump called a “degenerate psychopath.”

Trump wrote: “What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country?”

In a post on Thursday, Trump criticized those who have called for his supporters to remain peaceful. Over the weekend, Trump urged a “PROTEST” over his potential arrest in the case, which he wrongly predicted would happen Tuesday.

The messages have all had echoes of the days leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a violent pro-Trump mob. Trump had urged his followers to assemble in Washington that day, saying “Be there, will be wild!” as he pushed to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s win.

Five people died in the attack or in its aftermath, and 140 police officers were injured. The House impeached Trump on a charge of inciting an insurrection; the Senate acquitted him.

Trump has been commenting frequently on the hush-money case as a Manhattan grand jury weighs evidence against him. The panel is not scheduled to meet again until at least Monday, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss proceedings that are secret.

Going Deep with Russ Baker, Investigative Commentary: The Iran Hostages, Carter, Reagan, and Bush: What the NY Times ‘Scoop’ Missed, Russ Baker, right, author, widely published journalist and founder of the WhoWhatWhy investigative project, March 25, 2023. A seemingly stolen election in 1980 led to the US of today, where the richest one percent hold power over the rest of the population.

Recently, The New York Times published an article with a stunning new claim that seemingly verifies a long-alleged plot by Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign to prevent Jimmy Carter, below left, from winning reelection.

The fact of the Times publishing the scoop was significant, since the paper has generally dismissed the so-called October Surprise theory, relying on a congressional investigation that I and many believe was a whitewash.

In fact, though I have come to believe there’s enough evidence to conclude that the Reagan campaign did carry out this outrageous and illegal operation, I also have doubts about the new material.

But my big beef is how the Times, following a familiar pattern, presents something in isolation as if completely unaware of, or unwilling to discuss, the much vaster criminality of which it is part. That larger framework is required for anyone trying to understand the political corruption and immorality that has long afflicted America, and the profound consequences still being felt 43 years later.

Carter Election Mystery

The article recounts the story of a former Texas politician, Ben Barne (shown at left in a 2019 photo), who says he accompanied his friend and business partner John Connally, a former Democratic Texas governor turned Republican (shown at right on a 1979 Time Magazine cover), on a trip to the Middle East in 1980. During the trip, Barnes says, they met a slew of Arab leaders. Barnes now says he suspects the real purpose of the trip was to help Reagan steal the election:

Mr. Barnes said he was certain the point of Mr. Connally’s trip was to get a message to the Iranians to hold the hostages until after the election. “I’ll go to my grave believing that it was the purpose of the trip,” he said.

This is a new wrinkle on a topic that has confounded investigators and researchers for decades.

The background: 52 Americans were taken hostage in the 1979 Iranian revolution led by exiled Muslim cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. This was the long-festering blowback from the CIA-orchestrated 1953 Iranian coup d’état, which put the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, back into power. His puppet government spent two decades torturing and murdering Iranian dissenters. The US media’s nightly drumbeat of coverage about the hostages’ plight reminded audiences of Carter’s complete failure. It was such a hot topic that it led to the launching of the first new network news program in a decade, Nightline with Ted Koppel.

The Reagan campaign was panicked that Carter would succeed in negotiations to get the American hostages released prior to the election — and, some believe, they endeavored to block any deal. Although that is every bit as treasonous as it sounds, we now know that this is not the first time a Republican presidential candidate negotiated against the interests of America to enhance his career. Richard Nixon’s campaign worked aggressively to block Democratic peace negotiations to end the Vietnam War in 1968 for the same reason.

CIA Director William Casey, left, and Vice President George H.W. Bush, below right, President Ronald Reagan portraits published in the Michael Evans Portrait Project in 1985 from the Reagan Library

According to some accounts, William Casey, Reagan’s campaign manager and a future director of the CIA, met with Iran’s representatives in Madrid in July and August of 1980. Then, in October, according to these accounts, Casey was joined by George H.W. Bush, Reagan’s vice presidential candidate and a former director of the CIA, in a Paris meeting with the Iranians, where they nailed a deal to sell arms to Iran if Iran held the hostages until Reagan could beat Carter. Of course, it would have been most unusual for private citizens to meet with any foreign government, let alone one with whom the US was in a de facto war. Most striking, of course, is the purported treachery at the heart of the matter.

Much of the recent Times article is devoted to showing that the paper has an authentic, historic scoop about Carter’s presidency, at a time when the country stands vigil during the 98-year-old’s final days.

I’ll share what insights I can offer here, since I know Ben Barnes, the Times’s source — and since I have some experience investigating the issue years ago. My main objective, though, is to do what I always do: provide missing context.

Part of a Pattern

All the focus on the Reagan campaign and its alleged connivance to gain power misses this point: In many fundamental ways, Reagan was a figurehead president, while George H.W. Bush, the man he beat in a heated nomination battle, was deeply involved with seismic US policy operations, highly sensitive and often illegal covert activities, including, it appears, blocking the hostages’ release.

Connally himself is a fascinating character deserving of more attention, for more reasons than I can give here — including his suppressed assertion that during the Dallas motorcade on November 22, 1963, he and John F. Kennedy, riding together, one in front of the other, were hit by volleys from different shooters.

***

It is impossible to overstate the importance of the “October Surprise” and how things would be different today if Jimmy Carter had been able to get the hostages released.

Many believe the president’s popularity would have surged, and that Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush would never have been elected president and vice president.

Imagine how things might look today if Reagan — the author of today’s “rule by the rich” government — had not unseated Carter.

Global News, Migration, Human Rights

Washington Post, Harris heads to Africa amid Biden’s urgent courtship of the continent, Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Katharine Houreld, March 25, 2023. The United States seeks to counter efforts by China, Russia and others to woo the continent after the turbulent Trump years.

As Vice President Harris on Saturday launches her first trip to Africa since taking office — part of an all-out push by the Biden administration to show African leaders it is committed to bolstering ties — she will confront widespread suspicions on the continent that the effort reflects a drive to counter China and Russia, not a deeper desire to improve relations with Africans for their own sake.

Harris’s week-long trip includes stops in Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia, chosen because they are striving to maintain democracy in the face of economic pressures roiling the continent, White House officials said. Harris met with the leaders of all three countries during the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in December, and she sees the nine-day journey as an extension of those dialogues, the officials said.

“The message is the same that the president delivered when we had the African leaders summit here in December,” said White House spokesman John Kirby. “And that’s that Africa matters, the continent matters, and our relationships across the continent all matter. So this is very much about Africa — African leaders, African nations — and not about anybody else.”

President Vladimir Putin of Russia, seen in this photograph from a state-run media organization, addressed a cheering crowd of tens of thousands at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, the city's largest, on Friday, March 18, 2022 (Photo by Ramil Sitdikov of Sputnik via AFP and Getty Images).

Washington Post, Putin, charged with war crimes, must limit travel to avoid arrest, Francesca Ebel, Robyn Dixon and Lauren Tierney, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). The war crimes charges against Vladimir Putin brought by the International Criminal Court mean that the Russian leader, in theory, is unable to travel to two-thirds of the globe without risking arrest in the 123 countries that are parties to the United Nations treaty underpinning the court’s operations and therefore obligated to detain him.

In practice, the situation is more complex — with some ICC member states condemning the arrest warrant, and others having set a precedent of flouting the court’s orders.

Already, the ICC’s arrest warrant, which accuses Putin, along with his children’s rights commissioner, of illegally deporting Ukrainian children to Russia, may be weighing on the Kremlin’s travel plans.

Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Friday that “no decision has yet been made” on whether Putin will travel to Durban, South Africa, in August for a planned summit with Cyril Ramaphosa, the country’s president, as well as the leaders of Brazil, India and China.

Associated Press via Politico, Israeli defense minister calls for halt to judicial overhaul, Staff Report, March 25, 2023. The government’s plan to increase its control over the judiciary has sparked the largest protest movement in Israeli history. Israel’s defense minister became the first ally in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to break ranks on Saturday as he called for an immediate halt to the far-right government’s contentious plan to overhaul the country’s judiciary.

In a televised address, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant expressed concern over the turmoil within Israel’s military that he said posed a threat to the country’s security. Citing the need for dialogue with the opposition, Gallant asked that Netanyahu’s coalition wait until after Parliament reconvenes from its holiday break next month before pushing ahead with its divisive plan to weaken the Supreme Court.

“For the sake of Israel’s security, for the sake of our sons and daughters, the legislative process must be stopped at this time,” Gallant, a top official in Netanyahu’s Likud party, said.

The government’s plan to increase its control over the judiciary has sparked the largest protest movement in Israeli history and triggered a grave national crisis, including even warnings from the president of civil war.

On Saturday, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets as they have every week since the start of the year — in many cases bringing parts of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to a standstill. It has also raised the hackles of Israel’s closest allies, testing its ties with the United States.

Police unleashed water cannons on masses of protesters who whistled and waved Israeli flags as they marched down Ayalon highway in Tel Aviv on Saturday night. “Shame! Shame!” they chanted in Hebrew. As the protesters advanced, officers on horseback violently rammed into the crowds. “Haven’t the Jewish people suffered enough?” read one protester’s sign.

The judicial proposal has drawn intensifying criticism from across Israeli society — including from former prime ministers and defense officials, high-tech business leaders, Israel’s attorney general and American Jews.

New York Times, Crisis in Israel Tests the Complicated Ties Between Biden and Netanyahu, Katie Rogers, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). President Biden, who has known Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for decades, has stressed that democratic values must anchor a U.S.-Israel relationship.

New York Times, Conflict in Syria Escalates After Attack That Killed a U.S. Contractor, Eric Schmitt, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Iran-backed militias launched rocket and drone attacks against coalition bases following American reprisals after a drone attack killed a U.S. contractor.

The conflict in northeast Syria escalated on Friday as Iran-backed militias launched a volley of rocket and drone attacks against coalition bases after American reprisals for a drone attack that killed a U.S. contractor and injured six other Americans.

President Biden, speaking at a news conference in Canada, sought to tamp down fears that tit-for-tat strikes between the United States and militant groups could spiral out of control, while at the same time warning Tehran to rein in its proxies.

“Make no mistake, the United States does not, does not, I emphasize, seek conflict with Iran,” Mr. Biden said in Ottawa, where he was making a state visit. “But be prepared for us to act forcefully to protect our people. That’s exactly what happened last night.”

The fighting, among the most serious in the area since 2019, threatens to upend recent efforts to de-escalate tensions across the wider Middle East, whose rival powers, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, have made steps toward rapprochement in recent days after years of turmoil.

Rodolphe Jaar, above, a dual Haitian and Chilean citizen, pled guilty to the assassination of Haiti's president, saying he had provided money to buy weapons and a location to stage the 2021 attack.

New York Times, Man Pleads Guilty in Case Related to Assassination of Haiti’s President, Zach Montague, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). A businessman and former drug trafficker with dual Haitian and Chilean citizenship pleaded guilty in Florida on Friday to three charges related to his role in the assassination of former President Jovenel Moïse of Haiti, right, who was killed in a nighttime raid on his residence in Port-au-Prince, the capital, in July 2021.

The man, Rodolphe Jaar, provided funds to purchase weapons and allowed at least five other men charged in the plot to conduct staging for the operation at a property he owned, according to a plea agreement Mr. Jaar signed on Friday.

Mr. Jaar also provided food and lodging to the others involved, along with money to bribe the Haitian officials guarding Mr. Moïse before the group attempted to kidnap him, according to the agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. With the turmoil in Haiti, the United States has taken a leading role in investigating and prosecuting the case.

The night before the raid, when he was hosting the conspirators, Mr. Jaar was informed by James Solages, an American man who helped plan the operation, that the plan would result in Mr. Moïse’s death, court documents said.

After the assassination, Mr. Jaar was at large for more than six months before he was arrested in January.

While on the run from the authorities, Mr. Jaar admitted in an interview with The New York Times that he had helped finance and plan the attack and revealed that others involved had believed they could wield some influence over the country’s politics after Mr. Moïse’s death.

Mr. Jaar is scheduled to be sentenced on June 2. The charges carry a statutory maximum term of life imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000.

New York Times, Who Will Take Care of Italy’s Older People? Robots, Maybe, Jason Horowitz, March 25, 2023. The Western world’s oldest population is facing a crisis of caregivers. Some people are looking for a little helping hand — made of plastic.

Italy, which has one of Europe’s lowest birthrates, is bracing for an elderly population boom. Already, more than seven million of Italy’s nearly 60 million people are over 75. And 3.8 million are considered non-self-sufficient. Diseases such as dementia and chronic illnesses weigh on the health system, and families.

“The revolution,” said Olimpia Pino, a professor of psychology at the University of Parma, who designed the robot project, would be if a “social robot can assist in care.”

Washington Post, Bolsonaro’s return poses risks for the former president — and Brazil, Terrence McCoy and Marina Dias, March 25, 2023. For weeks, Brazil has enjoyed a relative calm. Following the most divisive election in its history, which culminated in thousands of rioters seizing and vandalizing the capital’s most important federal buildings, the country has celebrated weeks of Carnival revelry and quiet news cycles.

New President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, left, has busied himself with budgetary questions, the central bank, and a gaffe here and there. And election loser Jair Bolsonaro, whose supporters assaulted the Presidential Palace, the Supreme Court and Congress after his defeat, has been uncharacteristically quiet from his seclusion thousands of miles away in Kissimmee, Fla.

But now Bolsonaro, right, who rose to power by exploiting a succession of culture war battles and spent his four years as president deepening those divisions, says he’ll return soon to the country he polarized like few politicians before. His reappearance carries grave risks not only for Bolsonaro, who is facing multiple criminal inquiries and the possibility of arrest on a wide range of alleged wrongdoing, but also for Brazil, whose barely salved political wounds Bolsonaro’s inflammatory politicking could reopen.

“Bolsonaro’s return will swell the belligerence and polarization in society that is already polarized,” said political scientist David Magalhães, coordinator of Brazil’s independent Observatory of the Extreme Right. “He’s not coming back to talk about high interest rates and the central bank. He will go the ideological path.”

Washington Post, Rwanda to release Paul Rusesabagina, inspiration for ‘Hotel Rwanda’ movie, Katharine Houreld, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Rwandan authorities will release human rights activist Paul Rusesabagina, a former hotel manager whose life inspired the Hollywood film “Hotel Rwanda” about the country’s 1994 genocide, a Rwandan government spokeswoman said Friday.

He was sentenced to 25 years on terrorism charges in 2021 after authorities tricked him into boarding a plane that secretly took him to Kigali, Rwanda’s capital.

Spokeswoman Yolande Makolo said Rusesabagina, shown at left in a 2005 photo, would be released Saturday. She said the sentences of Callixte Nsabimana and 18 others convicted in the same case had been commuted after requests for clemency.

“Serious crimes were committed, for which they were convicted. Under Rwandan law, commutation of sentence does not extinguish the underlying conviction,” she said.

Rusesabagina’s case thrust a spotlight on growing opposition to Rwandan President Paul Kagame, shown at right in a 2014 photo, once praised for ending Rwanda’s genocide and for his focus on developing the tiny East African nation, but increasingly criticized for his authoritarian rule, the abduction of Rusesabagina, and accusations of support for rebels in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo — something the government has denied.

New York Times, U.S. and Canada Reach an Agreement on Turning Away Asylum Seekers, Michael D. Shear and Ian Austen, updated March 25, 2023. The deal allows both countries to turn away people who cross their borders without authorization at a time when migration has surged.

The deal, announced Friday by President Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, left, after the two leaders meet in Ottawa, will allow Canada to turn back immigrants at Roxham Road, a popular unofficial crossing point from New York for migrants seeking asylum in Canada.

In exchange, Canada has agreed to provide a new, legal refugee program for 15,000 migrants who are fleeing violence, persecution and economic devastation in South and Central America, the official said, lessening the pressure of illegal crossings into the United States from Mexico.

Mr. Biden was due to arrive in Ottawa on Thursday evening for a 24-hour visit meant to underscore the unity of purpose between the United States and Canada after four years of frosty and even openly hostile exchanges between Mr. Trudeau and former President Donald J. Trump.

• New York Times, Migration Tops Agenda as President Biden Visits Canada, Ian Austen and Vjosa Isai

Washington Post, In visit to Canada, Biden affirms close ties between two nations, Matt Viser and Amanda Coletta, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Biden made his first visit to Canada as president at a time of growing international tensions, seeking to set the stage for joint efforts to confront the alliance between Russia and China, tighten the U.S.-Canada border and combat climate change.

President Biden used his first trip to Canada as president Friday to reaffirm the close ties between the two nations, seeking to solidify a key relationship with America’s northern neighbor at a time when the world appears increasingly divided between democratic and authoritarian blocs.

During a whirlwind 24-hour trip, Biden addressed the Canadian Parliament, receiving several standing ovations, and met one-on-one with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who repeatedly referred to him as a personal friend. Trudeau also cited recent “challenging times in our relationship as a country, as two friends and countries,” an apparent reference to the Trump years.

Biden signaled that those times were over. “Today I say to you and to all the people of Canada that you will always, always, be able to count on the United States of America — I guarantee you,” Biden told a boisterous Parliament. “Together, we have built a partnership that is an incredible advantage to both our nations.”

Washington Post, Biden warns Iran after U.S. forces clash with proxy groups in Syria, Dan Lamothe and Missy Ryan, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). President Biden said that while the U.S. wants to avoid a wider confrontation with Iran, indiscriminate attacks on U.S. troops would be met with force.

A burst of deadly violence between U.S. forces and suspected Iranian proxies in Syria has reignited long-smoldering tensions between Washington and Tehran, as President Biden warned Iran on Friday that violent attacks on American troops would be met with retribution.

“The United States does not — emphasize does not — seek conflict with Iran,” said Biden, speaking in Ottawa alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, after U.S. warplanes carried out retaliatory airstrikes for the death of an American contractor. “But be prepared for us to act forcefully to protect our people. That’s exactly what happened last night.”

Defense Department spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters at the Pentagon that the operation, conducted overnight at Biden’s direction, was intended “to send a very clear message that we will take the protection of our personnel seriously, and that we will respond quickly and decisively if they are threatened.”

The violence that erupted in Syria in recent days highlights the risk for escalation at a moment when Washington and Tehran remain sharply at odds over issues including Iran’s nuclear program, the country’s support for militants across the Middle East and, since last year, its provision of military technology to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

The president’s remarks underscored his attempt to avoid further violence while also containing attacks by proxy forces that have long posed a threat to Americans in Iraq, Lebanon and beyond.

The bloodshed began Thursday when a self-detonating drone struck a U.S. facility in northeast Syria, where hundreds of American troops remain stationed in a counterterrorism mission begun years ago to dismantle the Islamic State. Beyond the contractor’s death, five U.S. troops and a second contractor were wounded in the attack, which Biden administration officials promptly linked to militias trained and armed by Tehran.

American F-15 fighter jets carried out two airstrikes in response, Ryder said. The jets targeted facilities associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite Iranian force that, via its network of proxies, has targeted U.S. troops in Syria on and off.

Hours later, Ryder said, 10 rockets were launched at Green Village, a U.S. military position about 100 miles south of Thursday’s assault. The Pentagon also linked those attacks to militias backed by Iran but said there were no injuries to U.S. or coalition personnel nor any damage to U.S. equipment.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Recognizing symbols of hate and right-wing rebellion in the United States, Wayne Madsen, left, March 22-23, 2023. Nazi and other far-right symbology (samples shown above) spreading across America.

The transformation of the Republican Party into a Donald Trump cult and platform advocating fascism has resulted in the mushrooming of symbols of hate across the United States. In some cases, flags and banners proclaim loyalty to Trump even though they deface the U.S. flag, thus violating the U.S. Flag Code. Other banners, such as the "Don't Tread on Me" or Gadsden Flag misuse and misrepresent historical flags in being adopted as hate symbols. Nazi swastikas and symbols of the Confederacy have also been resurrected by the Trumpist cult.

Absent a domestic terrorism law, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are hard-pressed to conduct systematic and uniform surveillance of far-right insurrectionists, but many far-right groups make no effort to hide themselves. In fact, actual and potential seditionists like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Boogaloo Bois shamefully fly from their vehicles and on their front lawns their symbols of rebellion and hate.

Spotting symbols of insurrection and hate should be a top priority for every American who abides by the rule of law and the Constitution. The black "No Quarter Given" flag is an extremely dangerous symbol. Those who fly it are sovereign citizens who are giving warning that they will shoot to kill anyone on their property.

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A photograph released by Russian state media showing Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting at the Kremlin (Photo by Sergei Karpukhin of Sputnik).

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• Washington Post, Opinion: Here’s the real lesson from the showy Xi-Putin meeting, David Ignatius
• New York Times, Analysis: In a Brother Act With Putin, Xi Reveals China’s Fear of Containment, Chris Buckley
• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary, Finland in NATO will be a gateway to the subjugated Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia, Wayne Madsen
• New York Times, Israel’s Attorney General: Netanyahu Broke Law With Judicial Intervention
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• New York Times, American Contractor Killed in Drone Attack on Base in Syria
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• New York Times, King Charles Postpones Trip to France Amid Unrest
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More On Probes of Trump, Allies 

Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: The SECRETS of Trump’s New Lawyer EXPOSED, Ben Meiselas, March 26, 2023. MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas delivers this exposé on Donald Trump’s new lawyer, Jennifer Little (shown in a screenshot from a CBS News appearance), who was just compelled to testify under the crime fraud exception by federal judge Beryl Howell in DC Federal Court.

Washington Post, Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran appears before Mar-a-Lago grand jury in D.C., Perry Stein, Josh Dawsey, Devlin Barrett and Jacqueline Alemany, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Appearance follows an appeals court victory for prosecutors seeking evidence from the former president’s lawyer in the classified-documents case.

A key lawyer for Donald Trump appeared Friday before a federal grand jury investigating whether the former president sought to keep top-secret documents in his home — testimony that capped an ultimately losing effort by Trump’s legal team to prevent prosecutors from reviewing the lawyer’s notes and other documents in the case.

Shortly before 9 a.m., Evan Corcoran, right, strode into the federal courthouse in D.C., where judges had previously ruled he could not use attorney-client privilege to shield his material from investigators. He left about 12:20 p.m. Both Corcoran and his lawyer, Michael Levy — who accompanied his client to the courthouse but is not allowed to enter the grand jury room with him — declined to comment to waiting reporters.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled last week that there was evidence suggesting Trump misled his lawyers in the course of the classified-documents investigation, and therefore prosecutors were allowed to review the evidence, according to people familiar with the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive legal issues.

Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.

New York Times, Court Action Underscores Peril for Trump in Documents Investigation, Maggie Haberman, Alan Feuer, Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). Prosecutors are building a case that former President Trump obstructed efforts to reclaim classified files and that he may have misled his lawyer.

The behind-the-scenes legal fight over obtaining evidence from a lawyer who represented former President Donald J. Trump in the investigation into his handling of classified documents has brought into sharper view where the Justice Department might be headed with the case.

According to the wisps of information that have seeped out of sealed court filings and closed-door hearings, prosecutors believe they have compelling evidence that Mr. Trump obstructed the government’s efforts to reclaim the sensitive records and may have even misled his own lawyers.

This theory of the case has not changed much since federal agents obtained a search warrant in August based on three possible crimes, obstruction being one of them. The search turned up hundreds of sensitive government records being kept at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s heavily trafficked compound in Florida, after his lawyers had earlier assured the Justice Department that all such documents had been returned.

Still, the more recent developments stemming from efforts to force testimony and other evidence from the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, in Federal District Court in Washington, indicate that prosecutors have continued to build a case and that the inquiry remains a serious threat to Mr. Trump.

New York Times, Prosecutor in Trump Hush-Money Case Fires Back at House Republicans, Luke Broadwater, Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). The grand jury examining the former president’s role in a hush-money payment typically does not hear testimony about the inquiry on Thursdays, making an indictment unlikely before next week.

The Manhattan district attorney on Thursday responded to House Republicans who have scrutinized his office’s criminal investigation into Donald J. Trump, pushing back forcefully against what the office called an inappropriate attempt by Congress to impede a local prosecution.

The office of the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, right, was responding to a Monday letter demanding that he provide communications, documents and testimony about his investigation — an extraordinary request by three Republican committee chairmen to involve themselves in an inquiry that is expected to result in criminal charges against the former president.

The response from the district attorney’s office, signed by its general counsel, Leslie Dubeck, called the Republicans’ request “an unprecedented inquiry into a pending local prosecution.”

Mr. Bragg’s office is investigating the role Mr. Trump played in a hush-money payment to a porn star and there have been several signals that the prosecutors are nearing an indictment. Still, the exact timing remains unknown.

Meidas Touch Network, Insurrectionist GETS HIT with DEVASTATING News she DESERVES, Michael Popok, March 25, 2023 (9:52 min. video). Michael Popok of Legal AF reports on this week’s sentencing of Jan6 insurrectionist and alleged white supremacist/neo-Nazi supporter Riley June Williams, right, for her role in breaking into Nancy Pelosi’s office and coordinating the theft of her laptop.

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 Ray Epps and his wife, Robyn Epps. A letter from their lawyer noted the costs that the couple had faced by being the target of a Jan. 6 conspiracy theory (New York Times photo by Alan Feuer).

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U.S. Politics, Elections, Economy, Governance

New York Times, Florida Moves to Shield DeSantis’s Travel Records From the Public, Nick Corasaniti, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). A bill advanced by state legislators would exempt the governor, as well as other officials, their families and staff members, from having records of their trips released to the public.

Members of the Florida Legislature moved this week to shield Gov. Ron DeSantis’s travel records from the public, proposing to change the state’s public information laws just as the governor ramps up what is expected to be a 2024 presidential campaign.

The bill, which was advanced by state senators in both parties, includes a sweeping retroactive clause that would block the release of many records of trips already taken by Mr. DeSantis and other officials, as well as their families and staff members. The sealed information would include who accompanied officials like Mr. DeSantis on trips within Florida and around the country. In recent months, he has traveled widely as he promotes a new book and moves toward a White House bid.

Florida has long had expansive public information laws, known as sunshine laws, codified in the State Constitution. They allow the public to gain access to a variety of government records, including criminal files, tax documents and travel logs. These laws have exposed abuses of state resources by Florida officials: In 2003, for example, Jim King, the president of the State Senate, was found to have used a state plane to fly home on the weekends.

On Wednesday, Republicans and Democrats unanimously passed the new bill out of the State Senate’s committee on governmental oversight and accountability. A similar bill moving through the House is currently before the subcommittee on ethics, elections and open government. Republicans have supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature.

It was unclear why Democrats joined Republicans in voting the bill out of committee, and whether they would support it in the vote on the floor.

One Democratic state senator who voted in favor, Tina Polsky, said that she had initially thought the bill was solely about security and that she had now changed her mind and would not support the bill. She said she thought others might change their minds, too. The Florida Democratic Party roundly denounced the bill, saying Republicans were trying to hide Mr. DeSantis’s connections with wealthy donors.

Jonathan Martin, a Republican state senator from Fort Myers and the sponsor of his chamber’s bill, said in an interview with The Tampa Bay Times that the main impetus for the legislation was the heightened interest in Mr. DeSantis.

Politico Magazine, Q&A: How Pro Wrestling Explains Today’s GOP, Michael Kruse, March 25, 2023. The battle between Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump could split the party with surprising results, argues Abraham Josephine "Josie" Riesman’, the author of a new Vince McMahon.

You can’t fully understand Donald Trump and the current state of American politics without also understanding Vince McMahon and the history of professional wrestling.

Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America, due out Tuesday, is first and foremost a reported biography of the former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO. Embedded, though, within Riesman’s more than 400 pages based on more than 150 interviews is an analysis, too, of the roots of today’s twisted political climate.

“Wrestling,” writes Riesman, “has metastasized into the broader world, especially since the inauguration of the 45th president. There’s little difference between Trumpism and Vince’s neokayfabe, each with their infinite and indistinguishable layers of irony and sincerity. Each philosophy approaches life with one goal: to remake reality in such a way as to defeat one’s enemies and sate one’s insecurities.”

Perhaps even more apropos, Riesman offers a fresh way to consider current dramas, especially within the Republican Party, including the most compelling conflict — Trump versus Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Many observers of politics tend to think about candidates who are at odds in terms of lanes, but at this point it might be more useful, Riesman suggests, to think in terms of roles: heroes and villains — in industry lingo, faces and heels — and the fluidity of such positioning within the twists and turns of storylines that can see similar combatants giving rise to new contestants and surprising results.

“The point of this book is to connect dots that people have been just seeing in plain sight and not connecting, or in some cases dots that were completely invisible to mainstream eyes but were very, very bold and apparent to wrestling fans,” said Riesman, previously the author of True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee and now at work on a book about the musician Beck.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Kruse: Since the summer of 2015 when Donald Trump came down the escalator to announce he was running for president, plenty of people, of course, have noted this relationship that he’s had with Vince McMahon and his links to professional wrestling — the body slam, the shaved head, WrestleMania 23, the WWE Hall of Fame, etc. But it’s sometimes, I think, seen as this goofy, campy bit of his backstory. Why is it more serious than that?

Associated Press, Biden’s pick to lead FAA withdraws amid shaky Senate support, David Koenig and Seung Min Kim, March 26, 2023. President Joe Biden’s choice to run the Federal Aviation Administration has withdrawn his nomination, a setback for the administration that comes after Denver International Airport CEO Phillip Washington appeared to lack enough support in the closely divided Senate.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, left, confirmed Washington’s withdrawal in a tweet Saturday night, calling him “an excellent nominee” and blaming undeserved and partisan attacks.

Republicans were united in opposition to Washington, calling him unqualified because of limited aviation experience. Democrats and allied independents still might have pushed the nomination through, but key senators on their side balked at supporting Biden’s pick.

Washington’s fate appeared settled when Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., abruptly called off a scheduled vote last Wednesday — a sign that she lacked enough votes to move the nomination out of committee. She said some senators wanted more information about Washington.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who was a Democrat until switching to independent in December, and moderate Democrat Jon Tester of Montana declined to say how they would have voted. A person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that Sinema was holding up the nomination and had indicated her opposition. The person was not authorized to discuss the process publicly and insisted on anonymity.

Politico, Sinema Trashes Dems: ‘Old Dudes Eating Jell-O,’ Jonathan Martin, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). The Arizona senator courts GOP donors by ridiculing her former Democratic colleagues.

Ever since Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, right, became an independent in December, her Democratic colleagues have been restrained about the shift, careful not to alienate the Arizona lawmaker when they only have a single-seat majority and need her support on legislation and nominees.

Hoping to get through this year, and then gain clarity about whether Sinema will even seek reelection in 2024 let alone continue to caucus with her old party, Senate Democrats have dodged questions about the mercurial marathoner who’s still barely in their ranks.

But Sinema may be making the Democrats’ deliberations easier.

As she races to stockpile campaign money and post an impressive, statement-making first-quarter fundraising number, Sinema has used a series of Republican-dominated receptions and retreats this year to belittle her Democratic colleagues, shower her GOP allies with praise and, in one case, quite literally give the middle finger to President Joe Biden’s White House.

Speaking in private, whether one-on-one or with small groups of Republican senators, she’s even more cutting, particularly about Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, whom she derides in harshly critical terms, according to senior Republican officials directly familiar with her comments.

Washington Post, The untold story of Jimmy Carter, his best friend and a murder charge, Danielle Paquette, March 25, 2023. History remembers Alonzo “A.D.” Davis as Jimmy Carter’s closest childhood friend. His family says history missed a chapter: The former president helped get him out of prison.

History remembers him as Jimmy Carter’s closest childhood friend.

In his best-selling memoirs and poetry, the former president detailed his adventures with Alonzo “A.D.” Davis, the nephew of Black tenant farmers who labored on Carter family land in Depression-era southwest Georgia.

At a time of violently enforced racial segregation, the boys grew up together, the 39th president wrote: They wrestled, hunted rabbits, caught catfish and slipped off to the movies, forging a bond that led a 14-year-old Carter to question the Jim Crow norms that barred his “primary playmate” from joining his family at the dinner table.

Davis, who died in 1985, is immortalized as a “timid little Black boy with kinky hair, big eyes and a tendency to mumble” in “An Hour Before Daylight,” Carter’s book about his rural upbringing.

But according to Davis’s family, that narrative omits a climactic chapter of their story. The ex-leader never spoke publicly of what happened after his companion grew up and ran into trouble, mentioning the adult Davis only glancingly in his autobiographical work.

Washington Post, Three-day L.A. school district strike ends in deal addressing pay, benefits, Kelsey Ables, March 25, 2023. A union representing nearly 30,000 Los Angeles school workers reached a tentative agreement with the Los Angeles Unified School District on Friday, after a three-day strike this week that kept 420,000 students in the United States’ second-largest school district out of the classroom.

The deal “addresses historical pay inequities,” “significantly” increases salaries, expands health-care benefits for part-time employees and invests in professional development for workers, LAUSD said in a statement.

Service Employees International Union Local 99 — whose members include bus drivers, custodians and cafeteria workers — said the agreement “addresses our key demands and sets us on a clear pathway to improving our livelihoods and securing the staffing we need to improve student services.” Members still need to vote on the agreement, the union noted.

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More On Ukraine War

New York Times, Thousands of Ukrainians are enduring dire conditions around Bakhmut as the fighting shows no signs of letting up, aid groups say, Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Victoria Kim, March 25, 2023. The battle for the city has been the most violent of recent months, creating an increasingly dire humanitarian crisis for the few remaining civilians.

Ukrainian forces could be close to stabilizing the front lines in Bakhmut, the commander of the country’s armed forces said, as international aid workers warned that civilians remaining in the war-ravaged eastern city faced a dire humanitarian situation.

The battle for Bakhmut, which began in the summer, has become one of Russia’s longest-running and deadliest confrontations in the 13 months of war. The fighting in and around the city has been the most violent of recent months and does not appear to be letting up, with both Russian and Ukrainian officials expressing this past week an unwillingness to yield.

The Ukrainian commander, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, said in a post on the Telegram messaging app on Friday that, thanks to the “titanic efforts” of the city’s defenders, the situation “could be stabilized,” though he acknowledged the ferocity of the battle.

Other Ukrainian officials, backed by a report from British intelligence, maintained that the overall pace of Russian attacks in eastern Ukraine was subsiding, indicating that Moscow’s winter offensive may be running out of steam after heavy losses.

• New York Times, Support Grows to Have Russia Pay for Ukraine’s Rebuilding, March 25, 2023.

Washington Post, Kyiv doctor killed in Russian airstrike shows war’s fallout far from front, Missy Ryan, Kostiantyn Khudov and Alice Martins, Oksana Leontieva was late for work. The 36-year-old doctor was due at Ukraine’s top children’s hospital, where she treated patients with cancer and other serious diseases. But first she had to get her son to kindergarten.

An air raid siren was blaring across Kyiv, which meant, according to school rules, that Oksana, a widow and single mom, could not drop him off. It was Oct. 10. The alerts had been sounding for months, but there had been no strikes in the Ukrainian capital since the early weeks of Russia’s invasion. Most people went on with their lives. “I may be late for the morning meeting,” Oksana texted her colleagues at 7:25 a.m. “Issues with accepting kids."

Finally, the school staff relented. Oksana told Hrysha, a blond, dark-eyed boy, goodbye. She put the car in gear and pulled out.

By October, more than seven months after Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a column of tanks rumbling toward Kyiv in a failed takeover attempt, an easy calm had settled over the city. Businesses reopened. After a quiet summer, displaced families flocked back from abroad, hoping to restart their lives.

That morning, as people bustled through their routines, dozens of Russian missiles streaked low and fast across a clear sky, tracking west across Ukraine from the Caspian Sea and other launch sites.

A little after 8 a.m., two missiles hurtled downward toward Kyiv’s leafy Shevchenkivskyi district. One slammed into a busy intersection, ripping a massive crater in the concrete as it erupted in a ball of fire. In an instant, the blast incinerated Oksana Leontieva’s car. She was just a mile from the hospital.

New York Times, Putin Says He Could Put Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Belarus by Summer, Vivek Shankar and Anton Troianovski, March 26, 2023. The proposal from President Vladimir Putin of Russia, talked of since last year, would be provocative without changing the West’s calculus in Ukraine.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, right, said he would be able to position tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus by the summer, a move that threatened to increase tensions with the United States and Europe while his forces wage war in Ukraine.

The Russian leader has repeatedly raised the specter of using nuclear weapons since ordering the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. While U.S. officials have said they have seen no effort by Russia to move or employ its nuclear weapons and believe the risk of their use is low, worries have lingered.

Mr. Putin’s remarks about stationing weapons in Belarus — a prospect he first floated last year — could again be saber rattling. It would not necessarily change the battlefield calculus: Any targets that Moscow can strike from Belarus, which borders three NATO members, it can already strike from Russian territory.

American officials indicated that they did not immediately sense an escalation.

In an interview with state media released online on Saturday, Mr. Putin said that construction on a storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus would be completed by July 1, according to the Tass news agency, though it was not immediately clear if or when nuclear weapons would be moved there.

New York Times, Famed Antiwar Protester Was Once Cog in Russia’s Propaganda Machine, Constant Méheut, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). For 20 years, Marina Ovsyannikova (shown above in an AFP photo via Getty Images) worked for Russian state TV. What compelled her, shortly after Ukraine was invaded, to storm a live broadcast and tell viewers they were being lied to?

Her feet stuck in muddy soil on a pitch black October night, Marina Ovsyannikova stopped in despair. For four hours, she and her 11-year-old daughter had been trudging through plowed fields leading to Russia’s border, trying to escape the country.

With no phone signal, they had been navigating by the stars, diving to the ground when the headlights of border guards’ cars approached. They were lost.

“It was real hell,” Ms. Ovsyannikova said, recalling how she sat down in the mud and moaned, “Take me back to Moscow. I’d rather go to jail.”

And prison was a very real possibility for her if she did return.

Her antiwar protest a few months earlier had rattled the Kremlin and earned headlines around the world. In March of 2022, just a few weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had begun, she stormed a live broadcast of Russia’s most-watched TV news program, holding up a sign reading: “They’re lying to you.”

She was able to access the program’s live studio because Ms. Ovsyannikova herself had long been a cog in Russia’s propaganda machine. For two decades, she had worked as a journalist at Channel 1, a state-run television station whose flagship news program parrots the Kremlin’s views.

“I was well aware that we were creating a parallel reality,” Ms. Ovsyannikova, 44, said of her time spent working for state media. “The war simply became a point of no return. It was no longer possible to keep quiet.”

New York Times, Stolen Valor: The U.S. Volunteers in Ukraine Who Lie, Waste and Bicker, Justin Scheck and Thomas Gibbons-Neff, March 25, 2023. People who would not be allowed anywhere near the battlefield in a U.S.-led war are active on the Ukrainian front, with ready access to American weaponry.

They rushed to Ukraine by the thousands, many of them Americans who promised to bring military experience, money or supplies to the battleground of a righteous war. Hometown newspapers hailed their commitment, and donors backed them with millions of dollars.

Now, after a year of combat, many of these homespun groups of volunteers are fighting with themselves and undermining the war effort. Some have wasted money or stolen valor. Others have cloaked themselves in charity while also trying to profit off the war, records show.

One retired Marine lieutenant colonel from Virginia is the focus of a U.S. federal investigation into the potentially illegal export of military technology. A former Army soldier arrived in Ukraine only to turn traitor and defect to Russia. A Connecticut man who lied about his military service has posted live updates from the battlefield — including his exact location — and boasted about his easy access to American weapons. A former construction worker is hatching a plan to use fake passports to smuggle in fighters from Pakistan and Iran.

And in one of the more curious entanglements, one of the largest volunteer groups is embroiled in a power struggle involving an Ohio man who falsely claimed to have been both a U.S. Marine and a LongHorn Steakhouse assistant manager. The dispute also involves a years-old incident on Australian reality TV.

Politico, Turkey’s Erdoğan urges end of Ukraine war in call with Putin, Louise Guillot, March 25, 2023. Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Saturday called for the "immediate cessation" of the war in Ukraine during a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Erdoğan also "thanked President Putin for his positive stance regarding the extension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative" and added that the two countries "could take further steps" when it comes to economic cooperation, the Turkish presidency's communications directorate said in a statement on Saturday.

The Black Sea grain deal, which allowed the export of foodstuffs from Ukraine to resume after Moscow's unlawful invasion of the country blocked several ports, was extended last weekend. The grain agreement was originally signed last summer by Kyiv and Moscow under the auspices of the United Nations.

The Kremlin said in a statement following the Putin-Erdoğan phone call that the two leaders also discussed the situation in Syria.

They emphasized "the need to continue the process of normalizing relations between Turkey and Syria" and "Russia’s constructive role as a mediator," according to the statement.

Turkish president says the two countries ‘could take further steps’ on economic cooperation.

Washington Post, Zelensky visits Bakhmut, Rachel Pannett and Adela Suliman, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, shown above at right, made a visit to the front line in Bakhmut, where Russian forces have almost encircled Ukrainian troops, cutting off major transport and supply lines. His office said in a statement Wednesday that Zelensky heard operational updates and presented service men with awards. Controlling Bakhmut is unlikely to tip the war’s outcome but would give Russia a symbolic victory after months of battlefield setbacks.

New York Times, Zelensky Tours Kherson as Ukraine Tries to Pressure Russian Forces, Enjoli Liston, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). President Volodymyr Zelensky toured areas affected by Russian strikes, a day after he met with troops near the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visited the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, touring areas affected by Russia’s full-scale invasion and its monthslong campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, he said on Thursday.

“We have to ensure full restoration and protection of our energy sector!” Mr. Zelensky said in a post on Telegram, the social messaging app. “I am grateful to everyone who works for this and returns the light to our people!”

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visited the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, touring areas affected by Russia’s full-scale invasion and its monthslong campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, he said on Thursday.

“We have to ensure full restoration and protection of our energy sector!” Mr. Zelensky said in a post on Telegram, the social messaging app. “I am grateful to everyone who works for this and returns the light to our people!”

The visit was Mr. Zelensky’s second to a frontline area in two days. On Wednesday, he made a defiant trip to the area around the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut, which has become a potent symbol of Ukrainian resistance as Kyiv’s forces battle to hold off a relentless Russian onslaught.

Mr. Zelensky’s travels to regions partly occupied by Russia come as Western allies ramp up supplies of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, which is preparing for an anticipated counteroffensive that could include a push to retake captured territory.

Though Ukraine recaptured the city of Kherson, the regional capital, from Russian forces last November in one of its most significant victories of the yearlong war, Moscow still controls territory in the wider Kherson province. Russian forces have used positions on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River to shell the city of Kherson on the opposite side of the waterway, preventing Kyiv from being able to restore a sense of normality in the city.

Relevant Recent Headlines

• New York Times, Russia reprised brutal tactics to attack the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka
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U.S. Courts, Crime, Immigration, Guns

New York Times, The Largest Source of Stolen Guns? Parked Cars, Richard Fausset, March 25, 2023. The growing number of firearms kept in vehicles has become a new point of contention in the debate over gun safety.

On a Sunday in January 2022, a Glock 9mm pistol, serial number AFDN559, disappeared from a Dodge Charger parked near a Midtown Nashville bank after someone smashed in the rear driver’s side window.

Ten months later, Nashville police officers arrested three teenagers suspected in a series of shootings, and discovered a cache of weapons in a nearby apartment. Among them was AFDN559. Forensic analysts would later tie the Glock to three shootings, including an attack in August that wounded four youths and another that wounded a 17-year-old girl in September.

In a country awash with guns, with more firearms than people, the parked car, or in many cases the parked pickup truck, has become a new flashpoint in the debates over how and whether to regulate gun safety.

There is little question about the scope of the problem. A report issued in May by the gun-control group Everytown for Gun Safety analyzed FBI crime data in 271 American cities, large and small, from 2020 and found that guns stolen from vehicles have become the nation’s largest source of stolen firearms — with an estimated 40,000 guns stolen from cars in those cities alone.

New York Times, 2 Migrants Found Dead and 13 Others Ill on Train in Texas, Officials Say, Edgar Sandoval, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). The migrants were found trapped inside a sweltering shipping container that was stopped near a town in Uvalde County, according to officials.

The bodies of two people believed to be migrants who had crossed into Texas from Mexico were found on Friday, along with 13 more people, including at least five who were in critical condition, inside a shipping container on a train in Uvalde County, officials said.

The train, which was stopped by U.S. Border Patrol agents, was traveling near the town of Knippa through an area of Texas known for frequent immigration crossings.

At 3:50 p.m., a person called 911 and told dispatchers that about 12 to 15 people were experiencing severe symptoms of dehydration and were trapped inside a sweltering shipping container in an area where spring temperatures have hovered in the 80s in recent days, said Daniel Rodriguez, the chief of police for the city of Uvalde, about 11 miles west of Knippa. “The way they said it was, they were suffocating — they were having trouble breathing” he said.

It was unclear if the call had come from inside the container or if one of the people trapped inside had managed to call a relative and ask for help, said the mayor of Uvalde, Don McLaughlin Jr., who was briefed by the authorities.

The local police immediately contacted U.S. Border Patrol agents, who were able to stop the train about three miles east of Knippa, a town of fewer than 1,000 people, the chief said. When the Border Patrol agents arrived, the container was locked and “wired shut,” Mr. McLaughlin said.

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U.S. Banks, Economy, Jobs, CryptoCurrencies

Washington Post, Hundreds of banks would be vulnerable in SVB-style runs, researchers say, Erica Werner, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Hundreds of banks in the United States would be in danger of failing if they were hit by runs similar to the one that recently brought down Silicon Valley Bank, according to a study published Friday.

Economists at Stanford, University of Southern California, Columbia and Northwestern found that because of rising interest rates hurting the value of certain assets such as bonds, U.S. banks hold $2 trillion less in assets than they appear to have on paper. As a result, the study found, some banks would not survive a scenario in which many customers withdrew some or all of their uninsured deposits. These banks would find themselves in the position of Silicon Valley Bank, unable to cover mass withdrawals and subject to government takeover, researchers warn.

The study, which is based on data covering more than 4,800 U.S. banks, found that 1,619 banks would be at risk of failing if all their uninsured deposits were withdrawn. In a scenario where half of uninsured depositors withdraw their funds, 186 banks would be at risk, the study concluded.

Washington Post, Recent banking turmoil is spurring many to move their money, Abha Bhattarai, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). An estimated $500 billion in funds have moved out of smaller banks to big institutions and money market funds, JPMorgan says.

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• Washington Post, Fed raises benchmark rate by 0.25 point despite bank turmoil
• New York Times, Double-Barreled Economic Threat Puts Congress on Edge
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• New York Times, Yellen Says U.S. Ready to Protect Smaller Banks if Necessary
• New York Times, Opinion: How Big a Deal Is the Banking Mess? Paul Krugman

U.S. Abortion, #MeToo, LGBQT,  Rape Laws 

Washington Post, She lost her trans son to suicide. Can a Kentucky lawmaker make her colleagues care? William Wan, March 25, 2023. Eight weeks after the death of Karen Berg’s son, Henry, she’s fighting a flood of anti-transgender bills in the Kentucky Senate.

Washington Post, This Texas teen wanted an abortion. She now has twins, June 20, 2022, updated and featured on March 25, 2023. Brooke Alexander found out she was pregnant days before the abortion ban took effect.

Brooke Alexander found out she was pregnant late on the night of Aug. 29, two days before the Texas Heartbeat Act banned abortions once an ultrasound can detect cardiac activity, around six weeks of pregnancy. It was the most restrictive abortion law to take effect in the United States in nearly 50 years.

For many Texans who have needed abortions since September, the law has been a major inconvenience, forcing them to drive hundreds of miles, and pay hundreds of dollars, for a legal procedure they once could have had at home. But not everyone has been able to leave the state. Some people couldn’t take time away from work or afford gas, while others, faced with a long journey, decided to stay pregnant. Nearly 10 months into the Texas law, they have started having the babies they never planned to carry to term.

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• New York Times, Wyoming Becomes First State to Outlaw Abortion Pills
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Climate, Environment, Weather, Energy, Disasters, U.S. Transportation

New York Times, A Water System So Broken That One Pipe Leaks 5 Million Gallons a Day, Sarah Fowler, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). As a water shortage ballooned into a crisis in Jackson, Miss., the leak grew bigger and bigger, gouging out a swimming pool-size crater in the earth.

because their faucets were dry, the break at the old Colonial Country Club squandered an estimated five million gallons of drinking water a day in a city that had none to spare.

It is enough water to serve the daily needs of 50,000 people, or a third of the city residents who rely on the beleaguered water utility.

No one knows for sure when the leak reached its current size. But newly appointed water officials say the city discovered the broken mainline pipe in 2016 and left it to gush, even as the water gouged out a swimming pool-size crater in the earth and city residents were forced to endure one drinking water crisis after another.

Jackson’s water system has been flirting with collapse for decades thanks to a combination of mismanagement, crumbling infrastructure and a series of ill-fated decisions that cost the utility money that it did not have. In 2022, the Justice Department reached an agreement with the city requiring it to bring in an outside manager to run the water department.

New York Times, Chocolate Factory Explosion in Pennsylvania Leaves Five Dead and Six Missing, Michael Levenson, Updated March 25, 2023. Seven people were also taken to a hospital after the explosion at the R.M. Palmer Company chocolate factory in West Reading, Pa., on Friday, officials said.

The explosion at around 5 p.m. destroyed one building and damaged another at the R.M. Palmer Company chocolate factory in West Reading, about 60 miles northwest of Philadelphia.

New York Times, In Montana, It’s Youth vs. the State in a Landmark Climate Case, David Gelles, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Sixteen young Montanans have sued their state, arguing that its support of fossil fuels violates its constitution.

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Pandemics, Public Health, Privacy

New York Times, Tennessee’s Rejection of Federal Funds Alarms H.I.V. Prevention Groups, Ava Sasani, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Some organizations are concerned they will be cut off from state funding if they don’t align with Gov. Bill Lee’s conservative politics.

After offering free H.I.V. testing at a drive-through event last year, staff members at Nashville CARES, a nonprofit sexual health clinic, made an alarming discovery: a cluster of positive tests from a single neighborhood.

“There was one person who had unknowingly passed it to multiple partners, and we were able to intervene quickly before it became a full-blown outbreak,” said Lisa Binkley, who leads the clinic’s H.I.V. prevention team.

For this work and other efforts to try to curb the spread of H.I.V. in the Nashville region, Ms. Binkley and her colleagues have relied heavily on federal grant money. So they were stunned when Tennessee’s health commissioner announced earlier this year that the state would no longer accept $8.8 million in federal grant money, which for more than a decade has been distributed among nonprofit groups, county health departments and health care organizations.

Tennessee is the only state to have rejected the funding; Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, instead plans to allocate $9 million in new state funding for H.I.V. prevention and monitoring in July. The governor said the move would offer the state greater independence in its decision-making. But some organizations say they are concerned that the state will not offer them funding if they do not align with the governor’s conservative positions on issues like transgender rights, and his opposition to abortion access.

The state has not announced which groups will receive the funds, or the rules on how they can be used, but the governor’s office has indicated that its priorities include “vulnerable populations, such as victims of human trafficking, mothers and children, and first responders.”

Public health experts say Mr. Lee’s listed examples are at odds with the reality on the ground, as those groups represent only a tiny fraction of new H.I.V. cases in Tennessee, according to a recent report from the AIDS charity amfAR. Some of the highest-risk groups in the state are sexually active gay men, transgender women and those who inject drugs, according to Greg Millett, the director of amfAR and an epidemiologist.

New York Times, China Approves an mRNA Covid Vaccine, Its First, Nicole Hong and Alexandra Stevenson, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). The homegrown shot is a crucial tool that China has been lacking — a vaccine based on a technology considered among the most effective the world has to offer.

China has for the first time approved a Covid-19 vaccine based on mRNA technology, greenlighting a homegrown shot months after the ruling Communist Party eliminated its strict pandemic restrictions.

China has long refused to use the foreign-made mRNA shots that were crucial in easing the pandemic in many parts of the world and that the United States first authorized for emergency use in December 2020. Beijing chose instead to promote its own pharmaceutical firms, first in rolling out a more traditional but less effective Covid vaccine, and later, in the pursuit of a homegrown mRNA, or messenger RNA, vaccine.

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Tik Tok, Social Media, Artificial Intelligence

New York Times, TikTok Chief Faces Scathing Questions From Both Parties in Congress, Sapna Maheshwari, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). The Chinese-owned video app has become a battleground as the U.S. and China duel for tech leadership; Shou Chew’s first appearance before U.S. lawmakers comes as their distrust of the video app’s Chinese ownership has escalated; China said on Thursday that it would “firmly oppose” a forced sale of TikTok.

Shou Chew, the chief executive of TikTok, will testify before Congress for the first time on Thursday, in an appearance that is expected to reflect U.S. lawmakers’ escalating distrust of the short-form video app’s Chinese ownership.

The hearing, which will begin at 10 a.m. before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, will give lawmakers a rare opportunity to ask Mr. Chew questions directly about TikTok’s relationship with its Chinese owner, ByteDance, as well as about the app’s handling of sensitive U.S. user data and the risks it may pose to teens and children.

TikTok is working to secure its future in the United States, one of its biggest markets, where it says it has 150 million users and where it has become a culture-making machine. But lawmakers have questions about ByteDance’s links to the Chinese government and whether those could put TikTok’s U.S. user data into the hands of Beijing officials. U.S. intelligence officials like the director of the F.B.I., Christopher A. Wray, have also warned that the Chinese government could use TikTok’s algorithm for “influence operations.”

TikTok, which was initially hailed as China’s first global internet success story, has come to represent the growing divide between the United States and China over tech leadership and national security. The app has become a battleground in a technological Cold War between the two countries, with U.S. threats of a TikTok ban recalling how China has long blocked many American platforms.

Washington Post, Analysis: America’s online privacy problems are much bigger than TikTok, Will Oremus, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Concerns of Chinese data access highlight Congress’s own failure to protect Americans’ personal information.

For a brief moment in a five-hour House hearing on Thursday, TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew let his frustration show. Asked if TikTok was prepared to split off from its Chinese parent company if ordered to do so by the U.S. government, to safeguard Americans’ online data, Chew went on offense.
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“I don’t think ownership is the issue here. With a lot of respect: American social companies don’t have a great record with privacy and data security. I mean, look at Facebook and Cambridge Analytica,” Chew said, referring to the 2018 scandal in which Facebook users’ data was found to have been secretly harvested years earlier by a British political consulting firm.

He’s not wrong. At a hearing in which TikTok was often portrayed as a singular, untenable threat to Americans’ online privacy, it would have been easy to forget that the country’s online privacy problems run far deeper than any single app. And the people most responsible for failing to safeguard Americans’ data, arguably, are American lawmakers.

U.S. government issues historic $5 billion fine against Facebook for repeated privacy violations

The bipartisan uproar over TikTok’s Chinese ownership stems from the concern that China’s laws could allow its authoritarian government to demand or clandestinely gain access to sensitive user data, or tweak its algorithms to distort the information its young users see. The concerns are genuine. And yet the United States has failed to bequeath Americans most of the rights it now accuses TikTok of threatening.

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Media, Education, Arts, High Tech

New York Times, Commentary: The Privilege of a New Start, Rhonda Garelick, March 24, 2023. What does it look like to thrive in the second half of one’s life? That may depend on whether you’re a man or a woman.

The Australian media mogul and Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch, 92 (recently divorced from fourth wife, the supermodel Jerry Hall), has announced his engagement to Ann Lesley Smith, 66, whose past careers include police chaplain, model and singer-songwriter.

Even if he admits to “falling in love,” as he told The New York Post, why rush back into marriage, especially considering all the legal and financial complications that surely attend a union in which one party is a nonagenarian billionaire?

A cynical explanation would be that a love story offers an ideal distraction for Mr. Murdoch. It could deflect media attention from the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought against his company Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems, which may go to trial next month.

But there may be another reason Mr. Murdoch would trouble himself to marry again at this stage of life: Because he can.

Getting married is one of life’s big signposts. It brings a sense of adventure and possibilities. Every wedding is a frontier, dividing one’s life into a before and an after. And that creation of a new “after” imbues all weddings, no matter the age of the participants, with an aura of youth.

Everyone has a right to pursue such pleasures, but the playing field is hardly level. To become a newlywed at 92, having found a highly accomplished partner 26 years one’s junior, surely counts among the world’s rarest privileges — for which it obviously helps to be a billionaire, and, crucially, a man.

Let’s face it, few women who reach their 90s can expect to find suitors, and certainly not suitors young enough to be their own children. Women of elder years do not circulate easily in the dating and marriage market

Rhonda Garelick writes the Face Forward column for The Times’s Style section. She is the D.E. Hughes Jr. Distinguished Chair for English and Professor of Journalism by courtesy at Southern Methodist University.

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March 25

Top Headlines

• Washington Post, Biden warns Iran after U.S. forces clash with proxy groups in Syria
• New York Times, A Trump Rally Comes to Waco, 30 Years After Its Darkest Hour
• The Warning with Steve Schmidt, Commentary: How Donald Trump is using the January 6 playbook to incite violence, Steve Schmidt
• New York Times, Trump Puts His Legal Peril at Center of First Big Rally for 2024
• New York Times, Donald Trump and the Sordid Tradition of Suppressing October Surprises
• Going Deep with Russ Baker, Investigative Commentary: The Iran Hostages, Carter, Reagan, and Bush: What the NY Times ‘Scoop’ Missed, Russ Baker
• Washington Post, Trump warns of ‘potential death & destruction’ if he is charged in hush-money case
• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Recognizing symbols of hate and right-wing rebellion in the United States
• New York Times, Former Trump Officials Must Testify in 2020 Election Inquiry, Judge Says
• Associated Press via Politico, Mississippi tornadoes kill 23, injure dozens overnight
• Washington Post, Hundreds of banks would be vulnerable in SVB-style runs, researchers say
• New York Times, The Largest Source of Stolen Guns? Parked Cars
• New York Times, Florida Moves to Shield DeSantis’s Travel Records From the Public
• Palmer Report, Opinion: George Santos pleads guilty, Bill Palmer 

Global News, Migration, Human Rights

• New York Times, U.S. and Canada Reach an Agreement on Turning Away Asylum Seekers
• Washington Post, In visit to Canada, Biden affirms close ties between two nations
• Washington Post, Harris heads to Africa amid Biden’s urgent courtship of the continent
• Associated Press via Politico, Israeli defense minister calls for halt to judicial overhaul 
• New York Times, Crisis in Israel Tests the Complicated Ties Between Biden and Netanyahu
• Washington Post, Putin, charged with war crimes, must limit travel to avoid arrest
• New York Times, In Blow to Taiwan, Honduras Switches Relations to China
• New York Times, Conflict in Syria Escalates After Attack That Killed a U.S. Contractor
• New York Times, Man Pleads Guilty in Case Related to Assassination of Haiti’s President
• New York Times, Who Will Take Care of Italy’s Older People? Robots, Maybe
• Washington Post, Bolsonaro’s return poses risks for the former president — and Brazil
• Washington Post, Rwanda to release Paul Rusesabagina, inspiration for ‘Hotel Rwanda’ movie
• Politico, Twitter’s plan to charge researchers for data access puts it in EU crosshairs

U.S. Banks, Economy, Jobs, CryptoCurrency

• New York Times, Republicans Say Spending Is Fueling Inflation. The Fed Chair Disagrees

U.S. Politics, Elections, Governance

• Politico Magazine, Q&A: How Pro Wrestling Explains Today’s GOP, Michael Kruse
• Washington Post, She lost her trans son to suicide. Can a Kentucky lawmaker make her colleagues care?
• Washington Post, The untold story of Jimmy Carter, his best friend and a murder charge
• Washington Post, Three-day L.A. school district strike ends in deal addressing pay, benefits
• Politico, Sinema Trashes Dems: ‘Old Dudes Eating Jell-O,’ Jonathan Martin

More On Trump Probes, Prospects, Allies

• New York Times, Lawmakers Tour D.C. Jail Where Jan. 6 Defendants Are Held
• Washington Post, Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran appears before Mar-a-Lago grand jury in D.C.
• New York Times, Court Action Underscores Peril for Trump in Documents Investigation
• New York Times, Prosecutor in Trump Hush-Money Case Fires Back at House Republicans
• New York Times, Former President Trump is facing several investigations. See where they stand
• Meidas Touch Network, Insurrectionist GETS HIT with DEVASTATING News she DESERVES, Michael Popok

Ukraine War

• New York Times, Stolen Valor: The U.S. Volunteers in Ukraine Who Lie, Waste and Bicker
• New York Times, Thousands of Ukrainians are enduring dire conditions around Bakhmut as the fighting shows no signs of letting up, aid groups say
• New York Times, Support Grows to Have Russia Pay for Ukraine’s Rebuilding
• New York Times, Famed Antiwar Protester Was Once Cog in Russia’s Propaganda Machine
• Washington Post, Zelensky visits Bakhmut; China’s Xi leaves Russia with no clear progress on ending war
• Politico, Turkey’s Erdoğan urges end of Ukraine war in call with Putin

U.S. Courts, Crime, Immigration, Guns

• New York Times, 2 Migrants Found Dead and 13 Others Ill on Train in Texas, Officials Say
• New York Times, 1 Dead and Multiple Hostages Rescued in Houston F.B.I. Operation

Disasters, Climate, Environment, U.S. Transportation, Energy

• New York Times, Chocolate Factory Explosion in Pennsylvania Leaves Five Dead and Six Missing
• Washington Post, World is on brink of climate calamity, definitive U.N. climate report warns
• New York Times, Opinion: I Am Haunted by What I Have Seen at Great Salt Lake, Terry Tempest Williams, Photographs by Fazal Sheikh
• New York Times, A Water System So Broken That One Pipe Leaks 5 Million Gallons a Day
• New York Times, In Montana, It’s Youth vs. the State in a Landmark Climate Case

U.S. Abortion, #MeToo, Stalking, Rape Laws, Politics

• Washington Post, This Texas teen wanted an abortion. She now has twins
• Washington Post, Opinion: Senate Democrats should be holding oversight hearings of their own, Jennifer Rubin
• Washington Post, Oklahoma must allow abortion if mother’s life is threatened, court rules

Pandemics, Public Health, Privacy

• Washington Post, Analysis: The White House covid response team is winding down, Rachel Roubein and McKenzie Beard
• New York Times, Tennessee’s Rejection of Federal Funds Alarms H.I.V. Prevention Groups
• New York Times, Biden Plan to Cut Billions in Medicare Fraud Ignites Lobbying Frenzy

U.S. Media, Education, Arts, Sports

• Washington Post, Gordon Moore, Silicon Valley pioneer who co-founded Intel, dies at 94
• Washington Post, NPR cancels 4 podcasts in biggest wave of layoffs in decades

Tik Tok, Social Media, Artificial Intelligence

• New York Times, TikTok Chief Faces Scathing Questions From Both Parties in Congress
• Washington Post, America’s online privacy problems are much bigger than TikTok, Will Oremus

Top Stories

Washington Post, Biden warns Iran after U.S. forces clash with proxy groups in Syria, Dan Lamothe and Missy Ryan, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). President Biden said that while the U.S. wants to avoid a wider confrontation with Iran, indiscriminate attacks on U.S. troops would be met with force.

A burst of deadly violence between U.S. forces and suspected Iranian proxies in Syria has reignited long-smoldering tensions between Washington and Tehran, as President Biden warned Iran on Friday that violent attacks on American troops would be met with retribution.

“The United States does not — emphasize does not — seek conflict with Iran,” said Biden, speaking in Ottawa alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, after U.S. warplanes carried out retaliatory airstrikes for the death of an American contractor. “But be prepared for us to act forcefully to protect our people. That’s exactly what happened last night.”

Defense Department spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters at the Pentagon that the operation, conducted overnight at Biden’s direction, was intended “to send a very clear message that we will take the protection of our personnel seriously, and that we will respond quickly and decisively if they are threatened.”

The violence that erupted in Syria in recent days highlights the risk for escalation at a moment when Washington and Tehran remain sharply at odds over issues including Iran’s nuclear program, the country’s support for militants across the Middle East and, since last year, its provision of military technology to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

The president’s remarks underscored his attempt to avoid further violence while also containing attacks by proxy forces that have long posed a threat to Americans in Iraq, Lebanon and beyond.

The bloodshed began Thursday when a self-detonating drone struck a U.S. facility in northeast Syria, where hundreds of American troops remain stationed in a counterterrorism mission begun years ago to dismantle the Islamic State. Beyond the contractor’s death, five U.S. troops and a second contractor were wounded in the attack, which Biden administration officials promptly linked to militias trained and armed by Tehran.

American F-15 fighter jets carried out two airstrikes in response, Ryder said. The jets targeted facilities associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite Iranian force that, via its network of proxies, has targeted U.S. troops in Syria on and off.

Hours later, Ryder said, 10 rockets were launched at Green Village, a U.S. military position about 100 miles south of Thursday’s assault. The Pentagon also linked those attacks to militias backed by Iran but said there were no injuries to U.S. or coalition personnel nor any damage to U.S. equipment.

New York Times, Trump Puts His Legal Peril at Center of First Big Rally for 2024, Michael C. Bender and Shane Goldmacher, March 26, 2023 (print ed.). Facing a potential indictment, the former president devoted much of his speech in Waco, Texas, to criticizing the justice system.

Former President Donald J. Trump spent much of his first major political rally of the 2024 campaign portraying his expected indictment by a New York grand jury as a result of what he claimed was a Democratic conspiracy to persecute him, arguing wildly that the United States was turning into a “banana republic.”

As a crowd in Waco, Texas, waved red-and-white signs with the words “Witch Hunt” behind him, Mr. Trump devoted long stretches of his speech to his own legal jeopardy rather than his vision for a second term, casting himself as a victim of “weaponization” of the justice system.

“The abuses of power that we’re currently witnessing at all levels of government will go down as among the most shameful, corrupt and depraved chapters in all of American history,” he said.

The speech underscored how Mr. Trump tends to frame the nation’s broader political stakes heavily around whatever issues personally affect him the most. Last year, he sought to make his lies about fraud in his 2020 election defeat the most pressing issue of the midterms. On Saturday, he called the “weaponization of our justice system” the “central issue of our time.”

Lamenting all the investigations he has faced in the last eight years that have — to date — not resulted in charges, Mr. Trump claimed that his legal predicament “probably makes me the most innocent man in the history of our country.”

Former President Trump faces varied legal and political threats, including an escalating New York criminal investigation into purported campaign finance crimes involving payments in 2016 to hide his alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels, shown above left on the cover of her memoir "Full Disclosure."

New York Times, Donald Trump and the Sordid Tradition of Suppressing October Surprises, Jonathan Weisman, March 26, 2023 (print ed.). The payoff to Stormy Daniels that has a Manhattan grand jury weighing criminal charges can trace its lineage to political skulduggery in 1968 and 1980.

Secretive talks in the waning days of a campaign. Furtive phone calls. Ardent public denials.

American history is full of October surprises — late revelations, sometimes engineered by an opponent, that shock the trajectory of a presidential election and that candidates dread. In 1880, a forged letter ostensibly written by James A. Garfield claimed he wanted more immigration from China, a position so unpopular it nearly cost him the election. Weeks before the 1940 election, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s press secretary kneed a Black police officer in the groin, just as the president was trying to woo skeptical Black voters. (Roosevelt’s response made history: He appointed the first Black general and created the Tuskegee Airmen.)

But the scandal that has ensnared Donald J. Trump, the paying of hush money to a pornographic film star in 2016, is in a rare class: an attempt not to bring to light an election-altering event, but to suppress one.

The payoff to Stormy Daniels that has a Manhattan grand jury weighing criminal charges against Mr. Trump can trace its lineage to at least two other episodes foiling an October surprise. The first was in 1968, when aides to Richard M. Nixon pressed the South Vietnamese government to thwart peace talks in the closing days of that election. The second was in 1980. Fresh revelations have emerged that allies of Ronald Reagan may well have labored to delay the release of American hostages from Iran until after the defeat of Jimmy Carter.

The tortured debate over precisely which election law might have been violated in 2016 is missing the broader point — all three events might have changed the course of history.

“There have been three cases at a minimum,” said Gary Sick, a former national security aide to President Carter who for more than two decades has been pursuing his case that the Reagan campaign in 1980 delayed the release of the hostages from Iran. “And if you had the stomach for it, you’d have to say it worked.”

The potential criminal charges against Mr. Trump for his role in the passing of hush money to Ms. Daniels — falsifying business records to cover up the payment and a possible election law violation — may seem trivial when compared to the prior efforts to fend off a history-altering October surprise.

This month, a former lieutenant governor of Texas came forward to say that he accompanied a Reagan ally to the Middle East to try to delay the release of American hostages from Iran until after the 1980 election. And notes discovered in 2016 appeared to confirm that senior aides to Mr. Nixon worked through back channels in 1968 to hinder the commencement of peace talks to end the war in Vietnam — and secure Mr. Nixon’s victory over Hubert H. Humphrey.

New York Times, A Trump Rally Comes to Waco, 30 Years After Its Darkest Hour, Charles Homans, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). For some, it’s no accident that former President Trump will speak in a city where a fiery raid symbolizes government overreach to the far right. Thirty years ago, a fiery federal raid on a doomsday sect turned the city into a symbol of government overreach. Donald Trump will speak there on Saturday, and some supporters — and critics — say it’s no accident.

In the chapel at Mount Carmel, the longtime home of the Branch Davidian sect outside Waco, Tex., the pastor preaches about the coming apocalypse, as the sect’s doomed charismatic leader David Koresh did three decades ago.

But the prophecies offered by the pastor, Charles Pace, are different from Mr. Koresh’s. For one thing, they involve Donald J. Trump.

“Donald Trump is the anointed of God,” Mr. Pace said in an interview. “He is the battering ram that God is using to bring down the Deep State of Babylon.”

Mr. Trump, embattled by multiple investigations and publicly predicting an imminent indictment in one, announced last week that he would hold the first rally of his 2024 presidential campaign on Saturday at the regional airport in Waco.

The date falls in the middle of the 30th anniversary of the weekslong standoff involving federal agents and followers of Mr. Koresh that left 82 Branch Davidians and four agents dead at Mount Carmel, the group’s compound east of the city.

Mr. Trump has not linked the rally to the anniversary, and his campaign did not respond to requests for comment on whether the rally — his first ever in the city of 140,000 — was an intentional nod to the most infamous episode in Waco’s history. And there are other reasons for the former president to open his campaign in Texas, a state rich in electoral votes where he trailed Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida by double digits in a state Republican Party poll late last year.

But the historical resonance has not been lost on some of Mr. Trump’s most ardent followers. “Waco was an overreach of the government, and today the New York district attorney is practicing an overreach of the government again,” said Sharon Anderson, a retiree from Etowah, Tenn., who is traveling to Waco for Saturday’s event, her 33rd Trump rally.

Mr. Pace said he believed it was “a statement — that he was sieged by the F.B.I. at Mar-a-Lago and that they were accusing him of different things that aren’t really true, just like David Koresh was accused by the F.B.I. when they sieged him.”

The Warning with Steve Schmidt, Commentary: How Donald Trump is using the January 6 playbook to incite violence, Steve Schmidt (former Republican and now independent national political strategist, shown above in a screenshot), March 24, 2023 (10:21 min. video). Steve Schmidt breaks down Donald's Trump's latest Truth social post where the former President infers that charging him will lead to "potential death and destruction." Steve describes how Trump uses a similar playbook inciting the riots on January 6th, and condemns the Republican Party for not standing up to Trump.

Washington Post, Trump warns of ‘potential death & destruction’ if he is charged in hush-money case, John Wagner, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Former president Donald Trump warned early Friday of “potential death & destruction” if he is charged in Manhattan in a criminal case related to alleged hush-money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to conceal an affair.

The posting after midnight on Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform, was his latest — and most explicit — allusion to violence that could follow an indictment stemming from an investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), whom Trump called a “degenerate psychopath.”

Trump wrote: “What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country?”

In a post on Thursday, Trump criticized those who have called for his supporters to remain peaceful. Over the weekend, Trump urged a “PROTEST” over his potential arrest in the case, which he wrongly predicted would happen Tuesday.

The messages have all had echoes of the days leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a violent pro-Trump mob. Trump had urged his followers to assemble in Washington that day, saying “Be there, will be wild!” as he pushed to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s win.

Five people died in the attack or in its aftermath, and 140 police officers were injured. The House impeached Trump on a charge of inciting an insurrection; the Senate acquitted him.

Trump has been commenting frequently on the hush-money case as a Manhattan grand jury weighs evidence against him. The panel is not scheduled to meet again until at least Monday, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss proceedings that are secret.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Recognizing symbols of hate and right-wing rebellion in the United States, Wayne Madsen, left, March 22-23, 2023. Nazi and other far-right symbology (samples shown above) spreading across America.

The transformation of the Republican Party into a Donald Trump cult and platform advocating fascism has resulted in the mushrooming of symbols of hate across the United States. In some cases, flags and banners proclaim loyalty to Trump even though they deface the U.S. flag, thus violating the U.S. Flag Code. Other banners, such as the "Don't Tread on Me" or Gadsden Flag misuse and misrepresent historical flags in being adopted as hate symbols. Nazi swastikas and symbols of the Confederacy have also been resurrected by the Trumpist cult.

Absent a domestic terrorism law, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are hard-pressed to conduct systematic and uniform surveillance of far-right insurrectionists, but many far-right groups make no effort to hide themselves. In fact, actual and potential seditionists like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Boogaloo Bois shamefully fly from their vehicles and on their front lawns their symbols of rebellion and hate.

Spotting symbols of insurrection and hate should be a top priority for every American who abides by the rule of law and the Constitution. The black "No Quarter Given" flag is an extremely dangerous symbol. Those who fly it are sovereign citizens who are giving warning that they will shoot to kill anyone on their property.

New York Times, Former Trump Officials Must Testify in 2020 Election Inquiry, Judge Says, Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). The ruling paves the way for testimony from Mark Meadows and others. Separately, a Trump lawyer appeared before a grand jury for the Mar-a-Lago documents case.

A federal judge has ruled that a number of former officials from President Donald J. Trump’s administration — including his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows — cannot invoke executive privilege to avoid testifying to a grand jury investigating Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The recent ruling by Judge Beryl A. Howell, left, paves the way for the former White House officials to answer questions from federal prosecutors, according to two people briefed on the matter.

Judge Howell ruled on the matter in a closed-door proceeding in her role as chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington, a job in which she oversaw the grand juries taking testimony in the Justice Department’s investigations into Mr. Trump. Judge Howell’s term as chief judge ended last week.

The existence of the sealed ruling was first reported by ABC News.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers had tried to rebuff the grand jury subpoenas issued to more than a half-dozen former administration officials in connection with the former president’s efforts to remain in office after his defeat at the polls. The lawyers argued that Mr. Trump’s interactions with the officials would be covered by executive privilege.

Prosecutors are likely to be especially eager to hear from Mr. Meadows, who refused to be interviewed by the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Mr. Meadows was a central player in various efforts to help Mr. Trump reverse the election outcome in a number of contested states.

Going Deep with Russ Baker, Investigative Commentary: The Iran Hostages, Carter, Reagan, and Bush: What the NY Times ‘Scoop’ Missed, Russ Baker, right, author, widely published journalist and founder of the WhoWhatWhy investigative project, March 25-26, 2023. A seemingly stolen election in 1980 led to the US of today, where the richest one percent hold power over the rest of the population.

Recently, The New York Times published an article with a stunning new claim that seemingly verifies a long-alleged plot by Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign to prevent Jimmy Carter, below left, from winning reelection.

The fact of the Times publishing the scoop was significant, since the paper has generally dismissed the so-called October Surprise theory, relying on a congressional investigation that I and many believe was a whitewash.

In fact, though I have come to believe there’s enough evidence to conclude that the Reagan campaign did carry out this outrageous and illegal operation, I also have doubts about the new material.

But my big beef is how the Times, following a familiar pattern, presents something in isolation as if completely unaware of, or unwilling to discuss, the much vaster criminality of which it is part. That larger framework is required for anyone trying to understand the political corruption and immorality that has long afflicted America, and the profound consequences still being felt 43 years later.

Carter Election Mystery

The article recounts the story of a former Texas politician, Ben Barne (shown at left in a 2019 photo), who says he accompanied his friend and business partner John Connally, a former Democratic Texas governor turned Republican (shown at right on a 1979 Time Magazine cover), on a trip to the Middle East in 1980. During the trip, Barnes says, they met a slew of Arab leaders. Barnes now says he suspects the real purpose of the trip was to help Reagan steal the election:

Mr. Barnes said he was certain the point of Mr. Connally’s trip was to get a message to the Iranians to hold the hostages until after the election. “I’ll go to my grave believing that it was the purpose of the trip,” he said.

This is a new wrinkle on a topic that has confounded investigators and researchers for decades.

The background: 52 Americans were taken hostage in the 1979 Iranian revolution led by exiled Muslim cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. This was the long-festering blowback from the CIA-orchestrated 1953 Iranian coup d’état, which put the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, back into power. His puppet government spent two decades torturing and murdering Iranian dissenters. The US media’s nightly drumbeat of coverage about the hostages’ plight reminded audiences of Carter’s complete failure. It was such a hot topic that it led to the launching of the first new network news program in a decade, Nightline with Ted Koppel.

The Reagan campaign was panicked that Carter would succeed in negotiations to get the American hostages released prior to the election — and, some believe, they endeavored to block any deal. Although that is every bit as treasonous as it sounds, we now know that this is not the first time a Republican presidential candidate negotiated against the interests of America to enhance his career. Richard Nixon’s campaign worked aggressively to block Democratic peace negotiations to end the Vietnam War in 1968 for the same reason.

CIA Director William Casey, left, and Vice President George H.W. Bush, below right, President Ronald Reagan portraits published in the Michael Evans Portrait Project in 1985 from the Reagan Library

According to some accounts, William Casey, Reagan’s campaign manager and a future director of the CIA, met with Iran’s representatives in Madrid in July and August of 1980. Then, in October, according to these accounts, Casey was joined by George H.W. Bush, Reagan’s vice presidential candidate and a former director of the CIA, in a Paris meeting with the Iranians, where they nailed a deal to sell arms to Iran if Iran held the hostages until Reagan could beat Carter. Of course, it would have been most unusual for private citizens to meet with any foreign government, let alone one with whom the US was in a de facto war. Most striking, of course, is the purported treachery at the heart of the matter.

Much of the recent Times article is devoted to showing that the paper has an authentic, historic scoop about Carter’s presidency, at a time when the country stands vigil during the 98-year-old’s final days.

I’ll share what insights I can offer here, since I know Ben Barnes, the Times’s source — and since I have some experience investigating the issue years ago. My main objective, though, is to do what I always do: provide missing context.

Part of a Pattern

All the focus on the Reagan campaign and its alleged connivance to gain power misses this point: In many fundamental ways, Reagan was a figurehead president, while George H.W. Bush, the man he beat in a heated nomination battle, was deeply involved with seismic US policy operations, highly sensitive and often illegal covert activities, including, it appears, blocking the hostages’ release.

Connally himself is a fascinating character deserving of more attention, for more reasons than I can give here — including his suppressed assertion that during the Dallas motorcade on November 22, 1963, he and John F. Kennedy, riding together, one in front of the other, were hit by volleys from different shooters.

***

It is impossible to overstate the importance of the “October Surprise” and how things would be different today if Jimmy Carter had been able to get the hostages released.

Many believe the president’s popularity would have surged, and that Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush would never have been elected president and vice president.

Imagine how things might look today if Reagan — the author of today’s “rule by the rich” government — had not unseated Carter.

Associated Press via Politico, Mississippi tornadoes kill 24, injure dozens overnight, Staff Report, Updated March 26, 2023. Emergency officials in Mississippi said 23 people have been killed by tornadoes that tore through the state on Friday night, destroying buildings and knocking out power as severe weather that produced hail the size of golf balls moved through several southern states.

The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency confirmed there had been 23 deaths as of 6:20 a.m. Saturday with dozens of injuries and four people missing throughout the state. The agency said in a Twitter post that search and rescue teams from numerous local and state agencies were deployed along with personnel to assist those impacted by the tornadoes.

The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado caused damage about 60 miles northeast of Jackson, Mississippi. The rural towns of Silver City and Rolling Fork reported destruction as the tornado swept northeast at 70 mph without weakening, racing towards Alabama through towns including Winona and Amory into the night.

The National Weather Service issued an alert as the storm was hitting that didn’t mince words: “To protect your life, TAKE COVER NOW!”

“You are in a life-threatening situation,” it warned. “Flying debris may be deadly to those caught without shelter. Mobile homes will be destroyed. Considerable damage to homes, businesses, and vehicles is likely and complete destruction is possible.”

Cornel Knight told The Associated Press that he, his wife and their 3-year-old daughter were at a relative’s home in Rolling Fork when the tornado struck. He said the sky was dark but “you could see the direction from every transformer that blew.”

Washington Post, Hundreds of banks would be vulnerable in SVB-style runs, researchers say, Erica Werner, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Hundreds of banks in the United States would be in danger of failing if they were hit by runs similar to the one that recently brought down Silicon Valley Bank, according to a study published Friday.

Economists at Stanford, University of Southern California, Columbia and Northwestern found that because of rising interest rates hurting the value of certain assets such as bonds, U.S. banks hold $2 trillion less in assets than they appear to have on paper. As a result, the study found, some banks would not survive a scenario in which many customers withdrew some or all of their uninsured deposits. These banks would find themselves in the position of Silicon Valley Bank, unable to cover mass withdrawals and subject to government takeover, researchers warn.

The study, which is based on data covering more than 4,800 U.S. banks, found that 1,619 banks would be at risk of failing if all their uninsured deposits were withdrawn. In a scenario where half of uninsured depositors withdraw their funds, 186 banks would be at risk, the study concluded.

New York Times, The Largest Source of Stolen Guns? Parked Cars, Richard Fausset, March 26, 2023 (print ed.). The growing number of firearms kept in vehicles has become a new point of contention in the debate over gun safety.

On a Sunday in January 2022, a Glock 9mm pistol, serial number AFDN559, disappeared from a Dodge Charger parked near a Midtown Nashville bank after someone smashed in the rear driver’s side window.

Ten months later, Nashville police officers arrested three teenagers suspected in a series of shootings, and discovered a cache of weapons in a nearby apartment. Among them was AFDN559. Forensic analysts would later tie the Glock to three shootings, including an attack in August that wounded four youths and another that wounded a 17-year-old girl in September.

In a country awash with guns, with more firearms than people, the parked car, or in many cases the parked pickup truck, has become a new flashpoint in the debates over how and whether to regulate gun safety.

There is little question about the scope of the problem. A report issued in May by the gun-control group Everytown for Gun Safety analyzed FBI crime data in 271 American cities, large and small, from 2020 and found that guns stolen from vehicles have become the nation’s largest source of stolen firearms — with an estimated 40,000 guns stolen from cars in those cities alone.

Palmer Report, Opinion: George Santos pleads guilty, Bill Palmer, March 25, 2023. George Santos is reportedly pleading guilty to charges in Brazil in order to avoid serving prison time there. That’s not a huge surprise. Santos is under investigation for far worse crimes in the U.S. where he’s looking at a lengthy prison sentence, so Brazil would have had a difficult time extraditing him anyway.

Santos committed petty fraud totaling $1,300 in Brazil. But in the United States he’s under state and federal criminal investigation for a number of far bigger crimes, including allegedly funneling nearly a million dollars in Ponzi scheme money through his campaign and such. It’s easy to see why Brazil essentially decided to just let the U.S. punish him.

Of course House Republicans are perhaps wishing Brazil had dragged George Santos away, so he wouldn’t be their problem anymore. As much as they don’t want to lose that seat in a special election, Santos, right, has become such an enduring headache that they’ve had to reluctantly agree to a bipartisan ethics probe just to try to get the media off their backs.

While Donald Trump’s indictment process is eating up all the headlines right now, the George Santos problem will be there waiting for House Republicans on the other side of this. More ugly Santos headlines are surely coming soon enough. And each of those new Santos scandals also ends up being a scandal for House Republicans, because they’re still afraid to expel him and take their chances in a special election.

Global News, Migration, Human Rights

New York Times, U.S. and Canada Reach an Agreement on Turning Away Asylum Seekers, Michael D. Shear and Ian Austen, updated March 25, 2023. The deal allows both countries to turn away people who cross their borders without authorization at a time when migration has surged.

The deal, announced Friday by President Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, left, after the two leaders meet in Ottawa, will allow Canada to turn back immigrants at Roxham Road, a popular unofficial crossing point from New York for migrants seeking asylum in Canada.

In exchange, Canada has agreed to provide a new, legal refugee program for 15,000 migrants who are fleeing violence, persecution and economic devastation in South and Central America, the official said, lessening the pressure of illegal crossings into the United States from Mexico.

Mr. Biden was due to arrive in Ottawa on Thursday evening for a 24-hour visit meant to underscore the unity of purpose between the United States and Canada after four years of frosty and even openly hostile exchanges between Mr. Trudeau and former President Donald J. Trump.

• New York Times, Migration Tops Agenda as President Biden Visits Canada, Ian Austen and Vjosa Isai

Washington Post, In visit to Canada, Biden affirms close ties between two nations, Matt Viser and Amanda Coletta, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Biden made his first visit to Canada as president at a time of growing international tensions, seeking to set the stage for joint efforts to confront the alliance between Russia and China, tighten the U.S.-Canada border and combat climate change.

President Biden used his first trip to Canada as president Friday to reaffirm the close ties between the two nations, seeking to solidify a key relationship with America’s northern neighbor at a time when the world appears increasingly divided between democratic and authoritarian blocs.

During a whirlwind 24-hour trip, Biden addressed the Canadian Parliament, receiving several standing ovations, and met one-on-one with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who repeatedly referred to him as a personal friend. Trudeau also cited recent “challenging times in our relationship as a country, as two friends and countries,” an apparent reference to the Trump years.

Biden signaled that those times were over. “Today I say to you and to all the people of Canada that you will always, always, be able to count on the United States of America — I guarantee you,” Biden told a boisterous Parliament. “Together, we have built a partnership that is an incredible advantage to both our nations.”

Associated Press via Politico, Israeli defense minister calls for halt to judicial overhaul, Staff Report, March 25, 2023. The government’s plan to increase its control over the judiciary has sparked the largest protest movement in Israeli history. Israel’s defense minister became the first ally in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to break ranks on Saturday as he called for an immediate halt to the far-right government’s contentious plan to overhaul the country’s judiciary.

In a televised address, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant expressed concern over the turmoil within Israel’s military that he said posed a threat to the country’s security. Citing the need for dialogue with the opposition, Gallant asked that Netanyahu’s coalition wait until after Parliament reconvenes from its holiday break next month before pushing ahead with its divisive plan to weaken the Supreme Court.

“For the sake of Israel’s security, for the sake of our sons and daughters, the legislative process must be stopped at this time,” Gallant, a top official in Netanyahu’s Likud party, said.

The government’s plan to increase its control over the judiciary has sparked the largest protest movement in Israeli history and triggered a grave national crisis, including even warnings from the president of civil war.

On Saturday, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets as they have every week since the start of the year — in many cases bringing parts of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to a standstill. It has also raised the hackles of Israel’s closest allies, testing its ties with the United States.

Police unleashed water cannons on masses of protesters who whistled and waved Israeli flags as they marched down Ayalon highway in Tel Aviv on Saturday night. “Shame! Shame!” they chanted in Hebrew. As the protesters advanced, officers on horseback violently rammed into the crowds. “Haven’t the Jewish people suffered enough?” read one protester’s sign.

The judicial proposal has drawn intensifying criticism from across Israeli society — including from former prime ministers and defense officials, high-tech business leaders, Israel’s attorney general and American Jews.

In recent weeks, discontent over the overhaul has even surged from within Israel’s army — the country’s most popular and respected institution, which has historically been an apolitical unifier. A growing number of Israeli reservists have threatened to withdraw from voluntary duty in the past weeks, posing a broad challenge to Netanyahu, right, as he defiantly plows ahead with the judicial changes while on trial for corruption.

“The events taking place in Israeli society do not spare the Israel Defense Forces — from all sides, feelings of anger, pain and disappointment arise, with an intensity I have never encountered before,” Gallant said. “I see how the source of our strength is being eroded.”

New York Times, Crisis in Israel Tests the Complicated Ties Between Biden and Netanyahu, Katie Rogers, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). President Biden, who has known Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for decades, has stressed that democratic values must anchor a U.S.-Israel relationship.

In February 2021, when President Biden sat down at the Resolute Desk for a phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, he was in the mood to reminisce about their decades-long relationship: Who would have thought, the new president mused from his Oval Office perch, that they would both end up where they did?

Their relationship has been tested in the two years since that call.

Mr. Netanyahu has been removed from power only to be re-elected, stood trial for corruption charges, and moved to change the makeup of his country’s judiciary branch, supporting legislation, passed on Thursday, that would make it more difficult to remove him from office.

Mr. Netanyahu has vowed to move further with a plan to give the government greater control over the Supreme Court, which could allow his far-right administration to end the corruption trial against him. On Thursday, the White House issued a statement that emphasized what the president recently told the prime minister privately: “Democratic values have always been, and must remain, a hallmark of the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

The crisis in Israel, which has set off mass protests, shows the limits of Mr. Biden’s influence on Mr. Netanyahu. But it also highlights how Mr. Biden, who has warned that democracies around the world are vulnerable to an uprising of populist and authoritarian forces, now faces not only a foreign policy challenge — but a domestic one, as well.

Washington Post, Harris heads to Africa amid Biden’s urgent courtship of the continent, Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Katharine Houreld, March 26, 2023 (print ed.). The United States seeks to counter efforts by China, Russia and others to woo the continent after the turbulent Trump years.

As Vice President Harris on Saturday launches her first trip to Africa since taking office — part of an all-out push by the Biden administration to show African leaders it is committed to bolstering ties — she will confront widespread suspicions on the continent that the effort reflects a drive to counter China and Russia, not a deeper desire to improve relations with Africans for their own sake.

Harris’s week-long trip includes stops in Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia, chosen because they are striving to maintain democracy in the face of economic pressures roiling the continent, White House officials said. Harris met with the leaders of all three countries during the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in December, and she sees the nine-day journey as an extension of those dialogues, the officials said.

“The message is the same that the president delivered when we had the African leaders summit here in December,” said White House spokesman John Kirby. “And that’s that Africa matters, the continent matters, and our relationships across the continent all matter. So this is very much about Africa — African leaders, African nations — and not about anybody else.”

President Vladimir Putin of Russia, seen in this photograph from a state-run media organization, addressed a cheering crowd of tens of thousands at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, the city's largest, on Friday, March 18, 2022 (Photo by Ramil Sitdikov of Sputnik via AFP and Getty Images).

Washington Post, Putin, charged with war crimes, must limit travel to avoid arrest, Francesca Ebel, Robyn Dixon and Lauren Tierney, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). The war crimes charges against Vladimir Putin brought by the International Criminal Court mean that the Russian leader, in theory, is unable to travel to two-thirds of the globe without risking arrest in the 123 countries that are parties to the United Nations treaty underpinning the court’s operations and therefore obligated to detain him.

In practice, the situation is more complex — with some ICC member states condemning the arrest warrant, and others having set a precedent of flouting the court’s orders.

Already, the ICC’s arrest warrant, which accuses Putin, along with his children’s rights commissioner, of illegally deporting Ukrainian children to Russia, may be weighing on the Kremlin’s travel plans.

Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Friday that “no decision has yet been made” on whether Putin will travel to Durban, South Africa, in August for a planned summit with Cyril Ramaphosa, the country’s president, as well as the leaders of Brazil, India and China.

New York Times, Conflict in Syria Escalates After Attack That Killed a U.S. Contractor, Eric Schmitt, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Iran-backed militias launched rocket and drone attacks against coalition bases following American reprisals after a drone attack killed a U.S. contractor.

The conflict in northeast Syria escalated on Friday as Iran-backed militias launched a volley of rocket and drone attacks against coalition bases after American reprisals for a drone attack that killed a U.S. contractor and injured six other Americans.

President Biden, speaking at a news conference in Canada, sought to tamp down fears that tit-for-tat strikes between the United States and militant groups could spiral out of control, while at the same time warning Tehran to rein in its proxies.

“Make no mistake, the United States does not, does not, I emphasize, seek conflict with Iran,” Mr. Biden said in Ottawa, where he was making a state visit. “But be prepared for us to act forcefully to protect our people. That’s exactly what happened last night.”

The fighting, among the most serious in the area since 2019, threatens to upend recent efforts to de-escalate tensions across the wider Middle East, whose rival powers, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, have made steps toward rapprochement in recent days after years of turmoil.

Rodolphe Jaar, above, a dual Haitian and Chilean citizen, pled guilty to the assassination of Haiti's president, saying he had provided money to buy weapons and a location to stage the 2021 attack.

New York Times, Man Pleads Guilty in Case Related to Assassination of Haiti’s President, Zach Montague, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). A businessman and former drug trafficker with dual Haitian and Chilean citizenship pleaded guilty in Florida on Friday to three charges related to his role in the assassination of former President Jovenel Moïse of Haiti, right, who was killed in a nighttime raid on his residence in Port-au-Prince, the capital, in July 2021.

The man, Rodolphe Jaar, provided funds to purchase weapons and allowed at least five other men charged in the plot to conduct staging for the operation at a property he owned, according to a plea agreement Mr. Jaar signed on Friday.

Mr. Jaar also provided food and lodging to the others involved, along with money to bribe the Haitian officials guarding Mr. Moïse before the group attempted to kidnap him, according to the agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. With the turmoil in Haiti, the United States has taken a leading role in investigating and prosecuting the case.

The night before the raid, when he was hosting the conspirators, Mr. Jaar was informed by James Solages, an American man who helped plan the operation, that the plan would result in Mr. Moïse’s death, court documents said.

After the assassination, Mr. Jaar was at large for more than six months before he was arrested in January.

While on the run from the authorities, Mr. Jaar admitted in an interview with The New York Times that he had helped finance and plan the attack and revealed that others involved had believed they could wield some influence over the country’s politics after Mr. Moïse’s death.

Mr. Jaar is scheduled to be sentenced on June 2. The charges carry a statutory maximum term of life imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000.

New York Times, Who Will Take Care of Italy’s Older People? Robots, Maybe, Jason Horowitz, March 26, 2023 (print ed.). The Western world’s oldest population is facing a crisis of caregivers. Some people are looking for a little helping hand — made of plastic.

Italy, which has one of Europe’s lowest birthrates, is bracing for an elderly population boom. Already, more than seven million of Italy’s nearly 60 million people are over 75. And 3.8 million are considered non-self-sufficient. Diseases such as dementia and chronic illnesses weigh on the health system, and families.

“The revolution,” said Olimpia Pino, a professor of psychology at the University of Parma, who designed the robot project, would be if a “social robot can assist in care.”

Washington Post, Bolsonaro’s return poses risks for the former president — and Brazil, Terrence McCoy and Marina Dias, March 25, 2023. For weeks, Brazil has enjoyed a relative calm. Following the most divisive election in its history, which culminated in thousands of rioters seizing and vandalizing the capital’s most important federal buildings, the country has celebrated weeks of Carnival revelry and quiet news cycles.

New President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, left, has busied himself with budgetary questions, the central bank, and a gaffe here and there. And election loser Jair Bolsonaro, whose supporters assaulted the Presidential Palace, the Supreme Court and Congress after his defeat, has been uncharacteristically quiet from his seclusion thousands of miles away in Kissimmee, Fla.

But now Bolsonaro, right, who rose to power by exploiting a succession of culture war battles and spent his four years as president deepening those divisions, says he’ll return soon to the country he polarized like few politicians before. His reappearance carries grave risks not only for Bolsonaro, who is facing multiple criminal inquiries and the possibility of arrest on a wide range of alleged wrongdoing, but also for Brazil, whose barely salved political wounds Bolsonaro’s inflammatory politicking could reopen.

“Bolsonaro’s return will swell the belligerence and polarization in society that is already polarized,” said political scientist David Magalhães, coordinator of Brazil’s independent Observatory of the Extreme Right. “He’s not coming back to talk about high interest rates and the central bank. He will go the ideological path.”

Washington Post, Rwanda to release Paul Rusesabagina, inspiration for ‘Hotel Rwanda’ movie, Katharine Houreld, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Rwandan authorities will release human rights activist Paul Rusesabagina, a former hotel manager whose life inspired the Hollywood film “Hotel Rwanda” about the country’s 1994 genocide, a Rwandan government spokeswoman said Friday.

He was sentenced to 25 years on terrorism charges in 2021 after authorities tricked him into boarding a plane that secretly took him to Kigali, Rwanda’s capital.

Spokeswoman Yolande Makolo said Rusesabagina, shown at left in a 2005 photo, would be released Saturday. She said the sentences of Callixte Nsabimana and 18 others convicted in the same case had been commuted after requests for clemency.

“Serious crimes were committed, for which they were convicted. Under Rwandan law, commutation of sentence does not extinguish the underlying conviction,” she said.

Rusesabagina’s case thrust a spotlight on growing opposition to Rwandan President Paul Kagame, shown at right in a 2014 photo, once praised for ending Rwanda’s genocide and for his focus on developing the tiny East African nation, but increasingly criticized for his authoritarian rule, the abduction of Rusesabagina, and accusations of support for rebels in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo — something the government has denied.

Politico, Twitter’s plan to charge researchers for data access puts it in EU crosshairs, Mark Scott, March 22, 2023. Elon Musk’s social media giant plans to charge academics to access its data — in potential violation of Europe’s content rules.

Elon Musk pledged Twitter would abide by Europe's new content rules — but Yevgeniy Golovchenko is not so convinced.

The Ukrainian academic, an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen, relies on the social network's data to track Russian disinformation, including propaganda linked to the ongoing war in Ukraine. But that access, including to reams of tweets analyzing pro-Kremlin messaging, may soon be cut off. Or, even worse for Golovchenko, cost him potentially millions of euros a year.

Under Musk's leadership, Twitter is shutting down researchers' free access to its data, though the final decision on when that will happen has yet to be made. Company officials are also offering new pay-to-play access to researchers via deals that start at $42,000 per month and can rocket up to $210,000 per month for the largest amount of data, according to Twitter's internal presentation to academics that was shared with POLITICO.

Relevant Recent Headlines

A photograph released by Russian state media showing Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting at the Kremlin (Photo by Sergei Karpukhin of Sputnik).

•  Washington Post, Xi and Putin showcase alliance but offer no path to peace in Ukraine
• Washington Post, Opinion: Here’s the real lesson from the showy Xi-Putin meeting, David Ignatius
• New York Times, Analysis: In a Brother Act With Putin, Xi Reveals China’s Fear of Containment, Chris Buckley
• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary, Finland in NATO will be a gateway to the subjugated Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia, Wayne Madsen
• New York Times, Israel’s Attorney General: Netanyahu Broke Law With Judicial Intervention
• New York Times, American Contractor Killed in Drone Attack on Base in Syria
• New York Times, Leader of Indian Party Opposing Modi Is Sentenced in Defamation Case
• New York Times, King Charles Postpones Trip to France Amid Unrest
• New York Times, Leader of Indian Party Opposing Modi Is Sentenced in Defamation Case

More On Probes of Trump, Allies 

Washington Post, Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran appears before Mar-a-Lago grand jury in D.C., Perry Stein, Josh Dawsey, Devlin Barrett and Jacqueline Alemany, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Appearance follows an appeals court victory for prosecutors seeking evidence from the former president’s lawyer in the classified-documents case.

A key lawyer for Donald Trump appeared Friday before a federal grand jury investigating whether the former president sought to keep top-secret documents in his home — testimony that capped an ultimately losing effort by Trump’s legal team to prevent prosecutors from reviewing the lawyer’s notes and other documents in the case.

Shortly before 9 a.m., Evan Corcoran, right, strode into the federal courthouse in D.C., where judges had previously ruled he could not use attorney-client privilege to shield his material from investigators. He left about 12:20 p.m. Both Corcoran and his lawyer, Michael Levy — who accompanied his client to the courthouse but is not allowed to enter the grand jury room with him — declined to comment to waiting reporters.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled last week that there was evidence suggesting Trump misled his lawyers in the course of the classified-documents investigation, and therefore prosecutors were allowed to review the evidence, according to people familiar with the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive legal issues.

Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.

New York Times, Court Action Underscores Peril for Trump in Documents Investigation, Maggie Haberman, Alan Feuer, Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). Prosecutors are building a case that former President Trump obstructed efforts to reclaim classified files and that he may have misled his lawyer.

The behind-the-scenes legal fight over obtaining evidence from a lawyer who represented former President Donald J. Trump in the investigation into his handling of classified documents has brought into sharper view where the Justice Department might be headed with the case.

According to the wisps of information that have seeped out of sealed court filings and closed-door hearings, prosecutors believe they have compelling evidence that Mr. Trump obstructed the government’s efforts to reclaim the sensitive records and may have even misled his own lawyers.

This theory of the case has not changed much since federal agents obtained a search warrant in August based on three possible crimes, obstruction being one of them. The search turned up hundreds of sensitive government records being kept at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s heavily trafficked compound in Florida, after his lawyers had earlier assured the Justice Department that all such documents had been returned.

Still, the more recent developments stemming from efforts to force testimony and other evidence from the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, in Federal District Court in Washington, indicate that prosecutors have continued to build a case and that the inquiry remains a serious threat to Mr. Trump.

New York Times, Prosecutor in Trump Hush-Money Case Fires Back at House Republicans, Luke Broadwater, Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). The grand jury examining the former president’s role in a hush-money payment typically does not hear testimony about the inquiry on Thursdays, making an indictment unlikely before next week.

The Manhattan district attorney on Thursday responded to House Republicans who have scrutinized his office’s criminal investigation into Donald J. Trump, pushing back forcefully against what the office called an inappropriate attempt by Congress to impede a local prosecution.

The office of the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, right, was responding to a Monday letter demanding that he provide communications, documents and testimony about his investigation — an extraordinary request by three Republican committee chairmen to involve themselves in an inquiry that is expected to result in criminal charges against the former president.

The response from the district attorney’s office, signed by its general counsel, Leslie Dubeck, called the Republicans’ request “an unprecedented inquiry into a pending local prosecution.”

Mr. Bragg’s office is investigating the role Mr. Trump played in a hush-money payment to a porn star and there have been several signals that the prosecutors are nearing an indictment. Still, the exact timing remains unknown.

Meidas Touch Network, Insurrectionist GETS HIT with DEVASTATING News she DESERVES, Michael Popok, March 25, 2023 (9:52 min. video). Michael Popok of Legal AF reports on this week’s sentencing of Jan6 insurrectionist and alleged white supremacist/neo-Nazi supporter Riley June Williams, right, for her role in breaking into Nancy Pelosi’s office and coordinating the theft of her laptop.

Relevant Recent Headlines

 Ray Epps and his wife, Robyn Epps. A letter from their lawyer noted the costs that the couple had faced by being the target of a Jan. 6 conspiracy theory (New York Times photo by Alan Feuer).

• New York Times, Man at Center of Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theory Demands Retraction From Fox
• Proof, Going Deep, Investigative Commentary: A Primer for the Imminent Indictment of Former President Trump, Seth Abramson
• Washington Post, Opinion: Trump makes suckers of House Republicans. Again, Dana Milbank
• New York Times, That Missing Trump Portrait? Found, Next to Some Old Yoga Mats
• New York Times, Opinion: Trump Faces Prosecution. America Faces a Test, Charles M. Blow
• MeidasTouch Network, Commentary: Trump gets HUMILIATED after demand for protests GOES BUST, Kristofer Goldsmith
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• Politico, Judge sentences Jan. 6 defendant who breached Pelosi’s office to 36 months in prison

U.S. Politics, Elections, Economy, Governance

New York Times, Florida Moves to Shield DeSantis’s Travel Records From the Public, Nick Corasaniti, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). A bill advanced by state legislators would exempt the governor, shown above, as well as other officials, their families and staff members, from having records of their trips released to the public.

Members of the Florida Legislature moved this week to shield Gov. Ron DeSantis’s travel records from the public, proposing to change the state’s public information laws just as the governor ramps up what is expected to be a 2024 presidential campaign.

The bill, which was advanced by state senators in both parties, includes a sweeping retroactive clause that would block the release of many records of trips already taken by Mr. DeSantis and other officials, as well as their families and staff members. The sealed information would include who accompanied officials like Mr. DeSantis on trips within Florida and around the country. In recent months, he has traveled widely as he promotes a new book and moves toward a White House bid.

Florida has long had expansive public information laws, known as sunshine laws, codified in the State Constitution. They allow the public to gain access to a variety of government records, including criminal files, tax documents and travel logs. These laws have exposed abuses of state resources by Florida officials: In 2003, for example, Jim King, the president of the State Senate, was found to have used a state plane to fly home on the weekends.

On Wednesday, Republicans and Democrats unanimously passed the new bill out of the State Senate’s committee on governmental oversight and accountability. A similar bill moving through the House is currently before the subcommittee on ethics, elections and open government. Republicans have supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature.

It was unclear why Democrats joined Republicans in voting the bill out of committee, and whether they would support it in the vote on the floor.

One Democratic state senator who voted in favor, Tina Polsky, said that she had initially thought the bill was solely about security and that she had now changed her mind and would not support the bill. She said she thought others might change their minds, too. The Florida Democratic Party roundly denounced the bill, saying Republicans were trying to hide Mr. DeSantis’s connections with wealthy donors.

Jonathan Martin, a Republican state senator from Fort Myers and the sponsor of his chamber’s bill, said in an interview with The Tampa Bay Times that the main impetus for the legislation was the heightened interest in Mr. DeSantis.

Politico Magazine, Q&A: How Pro Wrestling Explains Today’s GOP, Michael Kruse, March 25, 2023. The battle between Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump could split the party with surprising results, argues Abraham Josephine "Josie" Riesman’, the author of a new Vince McMahon.

You can’t fully understand Donald Trump and the current state of American politics without also understanding Vince McMahon and the history of professional wrestling.

Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America, due out Tuesday, is first and foremost a reported biography of the former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO. Embedded, though, within Riesman’s more than 400 pages based on more than 150 interviews is an analysis, too, of the roots of today’s twisted political climate.

“Wrestling,” writes Riesman, “has metastasized into the broader world, especially since the inauguration of the 45th president. There’s little difference between Trumpism and Vince’s neokayfabe, each with their infinite and indistinguishable layers of irony and sincerity. Each philosophy approaches life with one goal: to remake reality in such a way as to defeat one’s enemies and sate one’s insecurities.”

Perhaps even more apropos, Riesman offers a fresh way to consider current dramas, especially within the Republican Party, including the most compelling conflict — Trump versus Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Many observers of politics tend to think about candidates who are at odds in terms of lanes, but at this point it might be more useful, Riesman suggests, to think in terms of roles: heroes and villains — in industry lingo, faces and heels — and the fluidity of such positioning within the twists and turns of storylines that can see similar combatants giving rise to new contestants and surprising results.

“The point of this book is to connect dots that people have been just seeing in plain sight and not connecting, or in some cases dots that were completely invisible to mainstream eyes but were very, very bold and apparent to wrestling fans,” said Riesman, previously the author of True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee and now at work on a book about the musician Beck.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Kruse: Since the summer of 2015 when Donald Trump came down the escalator to announce he was running for president, plenty of people, of course, have noted this relationship that he’s had with Vince McMahon and his links to professional wrestling — the body slam, the shaved head, WrestleMania 23, the WWE Hall of Fame, etc. But it’s sometimes, I think, seen as this goofy, campy bit of his backstory. Why is it more serious than that?

Politico, Sinema Trashes Dems: ‘Old Dudes Eating Jell-O,’ Jonathan Martin, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). The Arizona senator courts GOP donors by ridiculing her former Democratic colleagues.

Ever since Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, right, became an independent in December, her Democratic colleagues have been restrained about the shift, careful not to alienate the Arizona lawmaker when they only have a single-seat majority and need her support on legislation and nominees.

Hoping to get through this year, and then gain clarity about whether Sinema will even seek reelection in 2024 let alone continue to caucus with her old party, Senate Democrats have dodged questions about the mercurial marathoner who’s still barely in their ranks.

But Sinema may be making the Democrats’ deliberations easier.

As she races to stockpile campaign money and post an impressive, statement-making first-quarter fundraising number, Sinema has used a series of Republican-dominated receptions and retreats this year to belittle her Democratic colleagues, shower her GOP allies with praise and, in one case, quite literally give the middle finger to President Joe Biden’s White House.

Speaking in private, whether one-on-one or with small groups of Republican senators, she’s even more cutting, particularly about Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, whom she derides in harshly critical terms, according to senior Republican officials directly familiar with her comments.

Washington Post, The untold story of Jimmy Carter, his best friend and a murder charge, Danielle Paquette, March 26, 2023 (print ed.). History remembers Alonzo “A.D.” Davis as Jimmy Carter’s closest childhood friend. His family says history missed a chapter: The former president helped get him out of prison.

History remembers him as Jimmy Carter’s closest childhood friend.

In his best-selling memoirs and poetry, the former president detailed his adventures with Alonzo “A.D.” Davis, the nephew of Black tenant farmers who labored on Carter family land in Depression-era southwest Georgia.

At a time of violently enforced racial segregation, the boys grew up together, the 39th president wrote: They wrestled, hunted rabbits, caught catfish and slipped off to the movies, forging a bond that led a 14-year-old Carter to question the Jim Crow norms that barred his “primary playmate” from joining his family at the dinner table.

Davis, who died in 1985, is immortalized as a “timid little Black boy with kinky hair, big eyes and a tendency to mumble” in “An Hour Before Daylight,” Carter’s book about his rural upbringing.

But according to Davis’s family, that narrative omits a climactic chapter of their story. The ex-leader never spoke publicly of what happened after his companion grew up and ran into trouble, mentioning the adult Davis only glancingly in his autobiographical work.

Washington Post, Three-day L.A. school district strike ends in deal addressing pay, benefits, Kelsey Ables, March 26, 2023 (print ed.). A union representing nearly 30,000 Los Angeles school workers reached a tentative agreement with the Los Angeles Unified School District on Friday, after a three-day strike this week that kept 420,000 students in the United States’ second-largest school district out of the classroom.

The deal “addresses historical pay inequities,” “significantly” increases salaries, expands health-care benefits for part-time employees and invests in professional development for workers, LAUSD said in a statement.

Service Employees International Union Local 99 — whose members include bus drivers, custodians and cafeteria workers — said the agreement “addresses our key demands and sets us on a clear pathway to improving our livelihoods and securing the staffing we need to improve student services.” Members still need to vote on the agreement, the union noted.

Tallahassee Democrat, Tallahassee principal ousted after complaints about Michelangelo's 'David' in art lesson, Ana Goñi-Lessan, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). “It saddens me that my time here had to end this way,” Hope Carrasquilla told the Tallahassee Democrat.

A local charter school principal said she was forced to resign after a parent complained a Renaissance art lesson was pornographic.

Hope Carrasquilla had been principal for less than a year at Tallahassee Classical School in Leon County before she resigned from her position during an emergency board meeting Monday.

“It saddens me that my time here had to end this way,” Carrasquilla told the Tallahassee Democrat.

Carrasquilla said last week she was told by the school’s board chair, Barney Bishop, shown above left with photos of the statue and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, that she would have to resign or she would be fired. She believes the catalyst for the ultimatum was complaints about an art lesson on the Renaissance period.

Bishop, who confirmed he did give Carrasquilla that ultimatum, said he could not say why he asked her to resign because of the school’s employment lawyer’s advice.

An email sent to parents Monday evening stated the new principal would be Cara Wynn, formerly of North Florida Christian School. She will be the school’s third principal since it opened three years ago, according to Bishop. “It’s not unusual in new charter schools to go through several principals,” Bishop said.

Tallahassee Classical, a Hillsdale College curriculum school, is required to teach about Renaissance art in sixth grade.

But three parents complained that the lesson’s content, which included learning about Michelangelo’s sculpture, “David,” upset their children.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Resistance to DeSantis: Woke African-American History Lesson Sheet #18, Jackie "Moms" Mabley, Wayne Madsen, March 23-24, 2023.

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•  Tallahassee Democrat, Tallahassee principal ousted after complaints about Michelangelo's 'David' in art lesson
• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Resistance to DeSantis: Woke African-American History Lesson Sheet #18, Jackie "Moms" Mabley, Wayne Madsen
• Insider, The ex-prosecutor in the "Rust" case suggested it may help her political campaign, the NYT reported
• Washington Post, Lindsey Graham publicly admonished for fundraising on Capitol grounds
• Washington Post, Father of Parkland victim arrested at congressional hearing on guns, Ellie Silverman, March 24, 2023.
• New York Times, A Four-Decade Secret: One Man’s Story of Sabotaging Carter’s Re-election, Peter Baker
• New York Times, Former Iran Hostages Are Divided on Jimmy Carter and a Sabotage Claim, Michael Levenson
• Greg Palast Investigates, Commentary: Reagan’s Treason, Two Bushes and the $23 Million Payoff, Greg Palast
• New York Times, Book Review: Ron DeSantis Has a Secret Theory of Trump, Carlos Lozada
• New York Times, At a retreat for House Republicans in Florida, the focus remained on former President Trump
• New York Times, Here’s a rough guide to the electoral fallout if former President Trump is indicted, Nate Cohn
• New York Times, Opinion: Trump Could Stand in the Middle of Fifth Avenue and Not Lose Mike Pence, Jamelle Bouie

U.S. Banks, Economy, Jobs, CryptoCurrencies

Washington Post, Recent banking turmoil is spurring many to move their money, Abha Bhattarai, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). An estimated $500 billion in funds have moved out of smaller banks to big institutions and money market funds, JPMorgan says.

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• Washington Post, Fed raises benchmark rate by 0.25 point despite bank turmoil
• New York Times, Double-Barreled Economic Threat Puts Congress on Edge
• Washington Post, Weighing bank distress and inflation, Fed faces next rate hike
• New York Times, Yellen Says U.S. Ready to Protect Smaller Banks if Necessary
• New York Times, Opinion: How Big a Deal Is the Banking Mess? Paul Krugman

More On Ukraine War

New York Times, Thousands of Ukrainians are enduring dire conditions around Bakhmut as the fighting shows no signs of letting up, aid groups say, Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Victoria Kim, March 26, 2023 (print ed.). The battle for the city has been the most violent of recent months, creating an increasingly dire humanitarian crisis for the few remaining civilians.

Ukrainian forces could be close to stabilizing the front lines in Bakhmut, the commander of the country’s armed forces said, as international aid workers warned that civilians remaining in the war-ravaged eastern city faced a dire humanitarian situation.

The battle for Bakhmut, which began in the summer, has become one of Russia’s longest-running and deadliest confrontations in the 13 months of war. The fighting in and around the city has been the most violent of recent months and does not appear to be letting up, with both Russian and Ukrainian officials expressing this past week an unwillingness to yield.

The Ukrainian commander, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, said in a post on the Telegram messaging app on Friday that, thanks to the “titanic efforts” of the city’s defenders, the situation “could be stabilized,” though he acknowledged the ferocity of the battle.

Other Ukrainian officials, backed by a report from British intelligence, maintained that the overall pace of Russian attacks in eastern Ukraine was subsiding, indicating that Moscow’s winter offensive may be running out of steam after heavy losses.

• New York Times, Support Grows to Have Russia Pay for Ukraine’s Rebuilding, March 25, 2023.

Washington Post, Kyiv doctor killed in Russian airstrike shows war’s fallout far from front, Missy Ryan, Kostiantyn Khudov and Alice Martins, Oksana Leontieva was late for work. The 36-year-old doctor was due at Ukraine’s top children’s hospital, where she treated patients with cancer and other serious diseases. But first she had to get her son to kindergarten.

An air raid siren was blaring across Kyiv, which meant, according to school rules, that Oksana, a widow and single mom, could not drop him off. It was Oct. 10. The alerts had been sounding for months, but there had been no strikes in the Ukrainian capital since the early weeks of Russia’s invasion. Most people went on with their lives. “I may be late for the morning meeting,” Oksana texted her colleagues at 7:25 a.m. “Issues with accepting kids."

Finally, the school staff relented. Oksana told Hrysha, a blond, dark-eyed boy, goodbye. She put the car in gear and pulled out.

By October, more than seven months after Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a column of tanks rumbling toward Kyiv in a failed takeover attempt, an easy calm had settled over the city. Businesses reopened. After a quiet summer, displaced families flocked back from abroad, hoping to restart their lives.

That morning, as people bustled through their routines, dozens of Russian missiles streaked low and fast across a clear sky, tracking west across Ukraine from the Caspian Sea and other launch sites.

A little after 8 a.m., two missiles hurtled downward toward Kyiv’s leafy Shevchenkivskyi district. One slammed into a busy intersection, ripping a massive crater in the concrete as it erupted in a ball of fire. In an instant, the blast incinerated Oksana Leontieva’s car. She was just a mile from the hospital.

New York Times, Putin Says He Could Put Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Belarus by Summer, Vivek Shankar and Anton Troianovski, March 26, 2023. The proposal from President Vladimir Putin of Russia, talked of since last year, would be provocative without changing the West’s calculus in Ukraine.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, right, said he would be able to position tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus by the summer, a move that threatened to increase tensions with the United States and Europe while his forces wage war in Ukraine.

The Russian leader has repeatedly raised the specter of using nuclear weapons since ordering the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. While U.S. officials have said they have seen no effort by Russia to move or employ its nuclear weapons and believe the risk of their use is low, worries have lingered.

Mr. Putin’s remarks about stationing weapons in Belarus — a prospect he first floated last year — could again be saber rattling. It would not necessarily change the battlefield calculus: Any targets that Moscow can strike from Belarus, which borders three NATO members, it can already strike from Russian territory.

American officials indicated that they did not immediately sense an escalation.

In an interview with state media released online on Saturday, Mr. Putin said that construction on a storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus would be completed by July 1, according to the Tass news agency, though it was not immediately clear if or when nuclear weapons would be moved there.

New York Times, Famed Antiwar Protester Was Once Cog in Russia’s Propaganda Machine, Constant Méheut, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). For 20 years, Marina Ovsyannikova (shown above in an AFP photo via Getty Images) worked for Russian state TV. What compelled her, shortly after Ukraine was invaded, to storm a live broadcast and tell viewers they were being lied to?

Her feet stuck in muddy soil on a pitch black October night, Marina Ovsyannikova stopped in despair. For four hours, she and her 11-year-old daughter had been trudging through plowed fields leading to Russia’s border, trying to escape the country.

With no phone signal, they had been navigating by the stars, diving to the ground when the headlights of border guards’ cars approached. They were lost.

“It was real hell,” Ms. Ovsyannikova said, recalling how she sat down in the mud and moaned, “Take me back to Moscow. I’d rather go to jail.”

And prison was a very real possibility for her if she did return.

Her antiwar protest a few months earlier had rattled the Kremlin and earned headlines around the world. In March of 2022, just a few weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had begun, she stormed a live broadcast of Russia’s most-watched TV news program, holding up a sign reading: “They’re lying to you.”

She was able to access the program’s live studio because Ms. Ovsyannikova herself had long been a cog in Russia’s propaganda machine. For two decades, she had worked as a journalist at Channel 1, a state-run television station whose flagship news program parrots the Kremlin’s views.

“I was well aware that we were creating a parallel reality,” Ms. Ovsyannikova, 44, said of her time spent working for state media. “The war simply became a point of no return. It was no longer possible to keep quiet.”

New York Times, Stolen Valor: The U.S. Volunteers in Ukraine Who Lie, Waste and Bicker, Justin Scheck and Thomas Gibbons-Neff, March 26, 2023 (print ed.). People who would not be allowed anywhere near the battlefield in a U.S.-led war are active on the Ukrainian front, with ready access to American weaponry.

They rushed to Ukraine by the thousands, many of them Americans who promised to bring military experience, money or supplies to the battleground of a righteous war. Hometown newspapers hailed their commitment, and donors backed them with millions of dollars.

Now, after a year of combat, many of these homespun groups of volunteers are fighting with themselves and undermining the war effort. Some have wasted money or stolen valor. Others have cloaked themselves in charity while also trying to profit off the war, records show.

One retired Marine lieutenant colonel from Virginia is the focus of a U.S. federal investigation into the potentially illegal export of military technology. A former Army soldier arrived in Ukraine only to turn traitor and defect to Russia. A Connecticut man who lied about his military service has posted live updates from the battlefield — including his exact location — and boasted about his easy access to American weapons. A former construction worker is hatching a plan to use fake passports to smuggle in fighters from Pakistan and Iran.

And in one of the more curious entanglements, one of the largest volunteer groups is embroiled in a power struggle involving an Ohio man who falsely claimed to have been both a U.S. Marine and a LongHorn Steakhouse assistant manager. The dispute also involves a years-old incident on Australian reality TV.

Politico, Turkey’s Erdoğan urges end of Ukraine war in call with Putin, Louise Guillot, March 25, 2023. Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Saturday called for the "immediate cessation" of the war in Ukraine during a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Erdoğan also "thanked President Putin for his positive stance regarding the extension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative" and added that the two countries "could take further steps" when it comes to economic cooperation, the Turkish presidency's communications directorate said in a statement on Saturday.

The Black Sea grain deal, which allowed the export of foodstuffs from Ukraine to resume after Moscow's unlawful invasion of the country blocked several ports, was extended last weekend. The grain agreement was originally signed last summer by Kyiv and Moscow under the auspices of the United Nations.

The Kremlin said in a statement following the Putin-Erdoğan phone call that the two leaders also discussed the situation in Syria.

They emphasized "the need to continue the process of normalizing relations between Turkey and Syria" and "Russia’s constructive role as a mediator," according to the statement.

Turkish president says the two countries ‘could take further steps’ on economic cooperation.

Washington Post, Zelensky visits Bakhmut, Rachel Pannett and Adela Suliman, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, shown above at right, made a visit to the front line in Bakhmut, where Russian forces have almost encircled Ukrainian troops, cutting off major transport and supply lines. His office said in a statement Wednesday that Zelensky heard operational updates and presented service men with awards. Controlling Bakhmut is unlikely to tip the war’s outcome but would give Russia a symbolic victory after months of battlefield setbacks.

New York Times, Zelensky Tours Kherson as Ukraine Tries to Pressure Russian Forces, Enjoli Liston, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). President Volodymyr Zelensky toured areas affected by Russian strikes, a day after he met with troops near the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visited the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, touring areas affected by Russia’s full-scale invasion and its monthslong campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, he said on Thursday.

“We have to ensure full restoration and protection of our energy sector!” Mr. Zelensky said in a post on Telegram, the social messaging app. “I am grateful to everyone who works for this and returns the light to our people!”

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visited the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, touring areas affected by Russia’s full-scale invasion and its monthslong campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, he said on Thursday.

“We have to ensure full restoration and protection of our energy sector!” Mr. Zelensky said in a post on Telegram, the social messaging app. “I am grateful to everyone who works for this and returns the light to our people!”

The visit was Mr. Zelensky’s second to a frontline area in two days. On Wednesday, he made a defiant trip to the area around the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut, which has become a potent symbol of Ukrainian resistance as Kyiv’s forces battle to hold off a relentless Russian onslaught.

Mr. Zelensky’s travels to regions partly occupied by Russia come as Western allies ramp up supplies of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, which is preparing for an anticipated counteroffensive that could include a push to retake captured territory.

Though Ukraine recaptured the city of Kherson, the regional capital, from Russian forces last November in one of its most significant victories of the yearlong war, Moscow still controls territory in the wider Kherson province. Russian forces have used positions on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River to shell the city of Kherson on the opposite side of the waterway, preventing Kyiv from being able to restore a sense of normality in the city.

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New York Times, 2 Migrants Found Dead and 13 Others Ill on Train in Texas, Officials Say, Edgar Sandoval, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). The migrants were found trapped inside a sweltering shipping container that was stopped near a town in Uvalde County, according to officials.

The bodies of two people believed to be migrants who had crossed into Texas from Mexico were found on Friday, along with 13 more people, including at least five who were in critical condition, inside a shipping container on a train in Uvalde County, officials said.

The train, which was stopped by U.S. Border Patrol agents, was traveling near the town of Knippa through an area of Texas known for frequent immigration crossings.

At 3:50 p.m., a person called 911 and told dispatchers that about 12 to 15 people were experiencing severe symptoms of dehydration and were trapped inside a sweltering shipping container in an area where spring temperatures have hovered in the 80s in recent days, said Daniel Rodriguez, the chief of police for the city of Uvalde, about 11 miles west of Knippa. “The way they said it was, they were suffocating — they were having trouble breathing” he said.

It was unclear if the call had come from inside the container or if one of the people trapped inside had managed to call a relative and ask for help, said the mayor of Uvalde, Don McLaughlin Jr., who was briefed by the authorities.

The local police immediately contacted U.S. Border Patrol agents, who were able to stop the train about three miles east of Knippa, a town of fewer than 1,000 people, the chief said. When the Border Patrol agents arrived, the container was locked and “wired shut,” Mr. McLaughlin said.

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U.S. Abortion, #MeToo, LGBQT,  Rape Laws 

Washington Post, She lost her trans son to suicide. Can a Kentucky lawmaker make her colleagues care? William Wan, March 26, 2023 (print ed.). Eight weeks after the death of Karen Berg’s son, Henry, she’s fighting a flood of anti-transgender bills in the Kentucky Senate.

Washington Post, This Texas teen wanted an abortion. She now has twins, June 20, 2022, updated and featured on March 25, 2023. Brooke Alexander found out she was pregnant days before the abortion ban took effect.

Brooke Alexander found out she was pregnant late on the night of Aug. 29, two days before the Texas Heartbeat Act banned abortions once an ultrasound can detect cardiac activity, around six weeks of pregnancy. It was the most restrictive abortion law to take effect in the United States in nearly 50 years.

For many Texans who have needed abortions since September, the law has been a major inconvenience, forcing them to drive hundreds of miles, and pay hundreds of dollars, for a legal procedure they once could have had at home. But not everyone has been able to leave the state. Some people couldn’t take time away from work or afford gas, while others, faced with a long journey, decided to stay pregnant. Nearly 10 months into the Texas law, they have started having the babies they never planned to carry to term.

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• Washington Post, Opinion: Senate Democrats should be holding oversight hearings of their own, Jennifer Rubin
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Climate, Environment, Weather, Energy, Disasters, U.S. Transportation

New York Times, A Water System So Broken That One Pipe Leaks 5 Million Gallons a Day, Sarah Fowler, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). As a water shortage ballooned into a crisis in Jackson, Miss., the leak grew bigger and bigger, gouging out a swimming pool-size crater in the earth.

because their faucets were dry, the break at the old Colonial Country Club squandered an estimated five million gallons of drinking water a day in a city that had none to spare.

It is enough water to serve the daily needs of 50,000 people, or a third of the city residents who rely on the beleaguered water utility.

No one knows for sure when the leak reached its current size. But newly appointed water officials say the city discovered the broken mainline pipe in 2016 and left it to gush, even as the water gouged out a swimming pool-size crater in the earth and city residents were forced to endure one drinking water crisis after another.

Jackson’s water system has been flirting with collapse for decades thanks to a combination of mismanagement, crumbling infrastructure and a series of ill-fated decisions that cost the utility money that it did not have. In 2022, the Justice Department reached an agreement with the city requiring it to bring in an outside manager to run the water department.

New York Times, Chocolate Factory Explosion in Pennsylvania Leaves Five Dead and Six Missing, Michael Levenson, Updated March 25, 2023. Seven people were also taken to a hospital after the explosion at the R.M. Palmer Company chocolate factory in West Reading, Pa., on Friday, officials said.

The explosion at around 5 p.m. destroyed one building and damaged another at the R.M. Palmer Company chocolate factory in West Reading, about 60 miles northwest of Philadelphia.

New York Times, In Montana, It’s Youth vs. the State in a Landmark Climate Case, David Gelles, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Sixteen young Montanans have sued their state, arguing that its support of fossil fuels violates its constitution.

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Pandemics, Public Health, Privacy

New York Times, Tennessee’s Rejection of Federal Funds Alarms H.I.V. Prevention Groups, Ava Sasani, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Some organizations are concerned they will be cut off from state funding if they don’t align with Gov. Bill Lee’s conservative politics.

After offering free H.I.V. testing at a drive-through event last year, staff members at Nashville CARES, a nonprofit sexual health clinic, made an alarming discovery: a cluster of positive tests from a single neighborhood.

“There was one person who had unknowingly passed it to multiple partners, and we were able to intervene quickly before it became a full-blown outbreak,” said Lisa Binkley, who leads the clinic’s H.I.V. prevention team.

For this work and other efforts to try to curb the spread of H.I.V. in the Nashville region, Ms. Binkley and her colleagues have relied heavily on federal grant money. So they were stunned when Tennessee’s health commissioner announced earlier this year that the state would no longer accept $8.8 million in federal grant money, which for more than a decade has been distributed among nonprofit groups, county health departments and health care organizations.

Tennessee is the only state to have rejected the funding; Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, instead plans to allocate $9 million in new state funding for H.I.V. prevention and monitoring in July. The governor said the move would offer the state greater independence in its decision-making. But some organizations say they are concerned that the state will not offer them funding if they do not align with the governor’s conservative positions on issues like transgender rights, and his opposition to abortion access.

The state has not announced which groups will receive the funds, or the rules on how they can be used, but the governor’s office has indicated that its priorities include “vulnerable populations, such as victims of human trafficking, mothers and children, and first responders.”

Public health experts say Mr. Lee’s listed examples are at odds with the reality on the ground, as those groups represent only a tiny fraction of new H.I.V. cases in Tennessee, according to a recent report from the AIDS charity amfAR. Some of the highest-risk groups in the state are sexually active gay men, transgender women and those who inject drugs, according to Greg Millett, the director of amfAR and an epidemiologist.

New York Times, China Approves an mRNA Covid Vaccine, Its First, Nicole Hong and Alexandra Stevenson, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). The homegrown shot is a crucial tool that China has been lacking — a vaccine based on a technology considered among the most effective the world has to offer.

China has for the first time approved a Covid-19 vaccine based on mRNA technology, greenlighting a homegrown shot months after the ruling Communist Party eliminated its strict pandemic restrictions.

China has long refused to use the foreign-made mRNA shots that were crucial in easing the pandemic in many parts of the world and that the United States first authorized for emergency use in December 2020. Beijing chose instead to promote its own pharmaceutical firms, first in rolling out a more traditional but less effective Covid vaccine, and later, in the pursuit of a homegrown mRNA, or messenger RNA, vaccine.

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Tik Tok, Social Media, Artificial Intelligence

New York Times, TikTok Chief Faces Scathing Questions From Both Parties in Congress, Sapna Maheshwari, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). The Chinese-owned video app has become a battleground as the U.S. and China duel for tech leadership; Shou Chew’s first appearance before U.S. lawmakers comes as their distrust of the video app’s Chinese ownership has escalated; China said on Thursday that it would “firmly oppose” a forced sale of TikTok.

Shou Chew, the chief executive of TikTok, will testify before Congress for the first time on Thursday, in an appearance that is expected to reflect U.S. lawmakers’ escalating distrust of the short-form video app’s Chinese ownership.

The hearing, which will begin at 10 a.m. before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, will give lawmakers a rare opportunity to ask Mr. Chew questions directly about TikTok’s relationship with its Chinese owner, ByteDance, as well as about the app’s handling of sensitive U.S. user data and the risks it may pose to teens and children.

TikTok is working to secure its future in the United States, one of its biggest markets, where it says it has 150 million users and where it has become a culture-making machine. But lawmakers have questions about ByteDance’s links to the Chinese government and whether those could put TikTok’s U.S. user data into the hands of Beijing officials. U.S. intelligence officials like the director of the F.B.I., Christopher A. Wray, have also warned that the Chinese government could use TikTok’s algorithm for “influence operations.”

TikTok, which was initially hailed as China’s first global internet success story, has come to represent the growing divide between the United States and China over tech leadership and national security. The app has become a battleground in a technological Cold War between the two countries, with U.S. threats of a TikTok ban recalling how China has long blocked many American platforms.

Washington Post, Analysis: America’s online privacy problems are much bigger than TikTok, Will Oremus, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Concerns of Chinese data access highlight Congress’s own failure to protect Americans’ personal information.

For a brief moment in a five-hour House hearing on Thursday, TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew let his frustration show. Asked if TikTok was prepared to split off from its Chinese parent company if ordered to do so by the U.S. government, to safeguard Americans’ online data, Chew went on offense.
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“I don’t think ownership is the issue here. With a lot of respect: American social companies don’t have a great record with privacy and data security. I mean, look at Facebook and Cambridge Analytica,” Chew said, referring to the 2018 scandal in which Facebook users’ data was found to have been secretly harvested years earlier by a British political consulting firm.

He’s not wrong. At a hearing in which TikTok was often portrayed as a singular, untenable threat to Americans’ online privacy, it would have been easy to forget that the country’s online privacy problems run far deeper than any single app. And the people most responsible for failing to safeguard Americans’ data, arguably, are American lawmakers.

U.S. government issues historic $5 billion fine against Facebook for repeated privacy violations

The bipartisan uproar over TikTok’s Chinese ownership stems from the concern that China’s laws could allow its authoritarian government to demand or clandestinely gain access to sensitive user data, or tweak its algorithms to distort the information its young users see. The concerns are genuine. And yet the United States has failed to bequeath Americans most of the rights it now accuses TikTok of threatening.

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Media, Education, Arts, High Tech

Washington Post, Gordon Moore, Silicon Valley pioneer who co-founded Intel, dies at 94, Kathleen Day, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). His innovations in semiconductor chips helped launch Silicon Valley and transform the computer into the ubiquitous tool of modern life.

Intel Corp. co-founder Gordon E. Moore, whose innovations in the design and manufacture of semiconductor chips helped launch Silicon Valley and transform the computer into the ubiquitous, defining tool of modern life, died March 24 at his home in Hawaii. He was 94.

Intel announced the death but did not provide further details.

A central figure in the history of electronics, Dr. Moore famously predicted in 1965 that computer power would double each year for a decade, a forecast he modified in the mid-1970s to every two years. His prophecy that computing capacity would grow exponentially — and with decreasing costs — was dubbed Moore’s Law and became the standard that scientists for decades raced successfully to meet.

Making computers smaller, faster and cheaper meant integrating ever more circuitry onto slivers of silicon. Dr. Moore envisioned that these integrated circuits would “lead to such wonders as home computers — or at least terminals connected to a central computer — automatic controls for automobiles and personal portable communications equipment,” as he put it in the 1965 magazine article where he made his signature prediction.

Washington Post, NPR cancels 4 podcasts in biggest wave of layoffs in decades, Paul Farhi, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). ‘Invisibilia,’ an early hit when the public-radio giant moved into podcasting, is among the cancellations.

NPR said it would stop production on a series of podcasts, including “Invisibilia,” an early hit, as part of a broad cutback it signaled was coming last month.

Faced with a projected $30 million decline in revenue, the Washington-based audio and digital-news organization began laying off about 100 employees, or 10 percent of its staff, this week — among the largest reductions in its 53-year history. Managers have set aside three days this week to notify those affected across a number of departments; Thursday was the newsroom’s turn to get the bad news.

The programming cutbacks disclosed Thursday appear to reflect NPR’s decision to protect its core news programs that remain highly popular on its national network of public-radio affiliates, including its two daily newsmagazines, “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.”

But it comes at the expense of its once-booming podcast arm, which until recently had been a growing source of ad revenue and the means for noncommercial NPR to attract new and younger listeners.

NPR said last month that it expected its overall ad revenue to fall about $30 million short of projections this year amid a general tightening of ad spending. Podcasting is the area that has seen the steepest revenue decline.

“Invisibilia,” which debuted with the advent of the podcast boom in early 2015, focused on psychology and the social sciences. At one point, it was the most popular podcast on the Apple Podcasts Charts, though it has slipped in more recent years with intensifying competition.

NPR said it would close out “Invisibilia” and the podcasts “Rough Translation” (which reported about foreign perspectives on common issues) and “Louder Than a Riot” (which explored hip-hop culture) when their current seasons end.

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March 24

Top Headlines

• Washington Post, Biden warns Iran after U.S. forces clash with proxy groups in Syria
• New York Times, U.S. and Canada Reach an Agreement on Turning Away Asylum Seekers
• New York Times, A Trump Rally Comes to Waco, 30 Years After Its Darkest Hour
• The Warning with Steve Schmidt, Commentary: How Donald Trump is using the January 6 playbook to incite violence, Steve Schmidt
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• New York Times, Prosecutor in Trump Hush-Money Case Fires Back at House Republicans
• New York Times, Court Action Underscores Peril for Trump in Documents Investigation
• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Recognizing symbols of hate and right-wing rebellion in the United States
• New York Times, Republicans Say Spending Is Fueling Inflation. The Fed Chair Disagrees
• New York Times, Former Iran Hostages Are Divided on Jimmy Carter and a Sabotage Claim, Michael Levenson
• Greg Palast Investigates, Commentary: Reagan’s Treason, Two Bushes and the $23 Million Payoff, Greg Palast
• Washington Post, Ukraine Live Updates: Zelensky visits Bakhmut; China’s Xi leaves Russia with no clear progress on ending war

Tik Tok, Social Media, Artificial Intelligence

• New York Times, TikTok Chief Faces Scathing Questions From Both Parties in Congress
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• New York Times, TikTok Claims It’s Limiting Teen Screen Time. Teens Say It Isn’t
• New York Times, Meet the lonely New York progressive who says TikTok is the victim of anti-China “hysteria”
• New York Times, Commentary: The A.I. Chatbots Have Arrived. Time to Talk to Your Kids, Christina Caron

 More On Trump Probes, Prospects, Allies

• Washington Post, Opinion: Trump makes suckers of House Republicans. Again, Dana Milbank
• New York Times, That Missing Trump Portrait? Found, Next to Some Old Yoga Mats
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• New York Times, Opinion: Trump Faces Prosecution. America Faces a Test, Charles M. Blow
• MeidasTouch Network, Commentary: Trump gets HUMILIATED after demand for protests GOES BUST, Kristofer Goldsmith
• Palmer Report, Opinion: Donald Trump’s violent new social media post about Alvin Bragg is going to come with consequences he doesn’t like, Bill Palmer

More On U.S. Election Deniers, Insurrectionists

• New York Times, Arizona Supreme Court Turns Down Kari Lake’s Appeal in Her Election Lawsuit
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Top Global News

• New York Times, Israel’s Attorney General: Netanyahu Broke Law With Judicial Intervention
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More On Russia-China-West Rivalries

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U.S. Banks, Economy, Jobs, CryptoCurrency

• New York Times, The Younger Brother Caught in the Middle of the FTX Investigation
• Washington Post, Recent banking turmoil is spurring many to move their money
• New York Times, The cryptocurrency entrepreneur Do Kwon was charged with fraud by federal prosecutors in New York
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• Washington Post, Fed raises benchmark rate by 0.25 point despite bank turmoil
• New York Times, Double-Barreled Economic Threat Puts Congress on Edge

U.S. Politics, Elections, Governance

• Politico, Sinema Trashes Dems: ‘Old Dudes Eating Jell-O,’ Jonathan Martin
• Tallahassee Democrat, Tallahassee principal ousted after complaints about Michelangelo's 'David' in art lesson
• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Resistance to DeSantis: Woke African-American History Lesson Sheet #18, Jackie "Moms" Mabley, Wayne Madsen
• Insider, The ex-prosecutor in the "Rust" case suggested it may help her political campaign, the NYT reported
• Washington Post, Lindsey Graham publicly admonished for fundraising on Capitol grounds
• Washington Post, Father of Parkland victim arrested at congressional hearing on guns, Ellie Silverman, March 24, 2023.

More On Ukraine War

• New York Times, Zelensky Tours Kherson as Ukraine Tries to Pressure Russian Forces
• New York Times, From Rockets to Ball Bearings, Pentagon Struggles to Feed War Machine
• New York Times, Ukraine Live Updates: The International Criminal Court will open an office in Ukraine, after indicting President Vladimir Putin
• New York Times, Combat in Ukraine to Rehab in Minnesota, With No Time to Waste, Photographs by David Guttenfelder, Eric Nagourney
• New York Times, A Refuge for Russians and Ukrainians, Bali Rethinks Its Open-Door Policy
• New York Times, Ukrainian Tank Commanders Grow Impatient: ‘Give Me an Abrams!’
• New York Times, She Posted About the War in Ukraine. Then She Faced a Prison Term

U.S. Courts, Crime, Immigration, Guns

• New York Times, 1 Dead and Multiple Hostages Rescued in Houston F.B.I. Operation
• New York Times, In Memphis, Car Seizures Are a Lucrative and Punishing Police Tactic
• New York Times, Video Shows Virginia Man’s Death in Custody

Disasters, Climate, Environment, U.S. Transportation, Energy

• Washington Post, World is on brink of climate calamity, definitive U.N. climate report warns
• New York Times, A Water System So Broken That One Pipe Leaks 5 Million Gallons a Day
• New York Times, In Montana, It’s Youth vs. the State in a Landmark Climate Case

U.S. Abortion, #MeToo, Stalking, Rape Laws, Politics

• Washington Post, Opinion: Senate Democrats should be holding oversight hearings of their own, Jennifer Rubin
• Washington Post, Oklahoma must allow abortion if mother’s life is threatened, court rules

Pandemics, Public Health, Privacy

• Washington Post, Analysis: The White House covid response team is winding down, Rachel Roubein and McKenzie Beard
• New York Times, Another Mental Illness Tragedy Spurs Questions About Health System
• New York Times, Tennessee’s Rejection of Federal Funds Alarms H.I.V. Prevention Groups
• New York Times, Biden Plan to Cut Billions in Medicare Fraud Ignites Lobbying Frenzy

U.S. Media, Education, Arts, Sports

• Washington Post, Jake Paul, Lindsay Lohan among 8 charged in SEC cryptocurrency case
• Washington Post, NPR cancels 4 podcasts in biggest wave of layoffs in decades

Top Stories

Washington Post, Biden warns Iran after U.S. forces clash with proxy groups in Syria, Dan Lamothe and Missy Ryan, March 24, 2023. President Biden said that while the U.S. wants to avoid a wider confrontation with Iran, indiscriminate attacks on U.S. troops would be met with force.

A burst of deadly violence between U.S. forces and suspected Iranian proxies in Syria has reignited long-smoldering tensions between Washington and Tehran, as President Biden warned Iran on Friday that violent attacks on American troops would be met with retribution.

“The United States does not — emphasize does not — seek conflict with Iran,” said Biden, speaking in Ottawa alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, after U.S. warplanes carried out retaliatory airstrikes for the death of an American contractor. “But be prepared for us to act forcefully to protect our people. That’s exactly what happened last night.”

Defense Department spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters at the Pentagon that the operation, conducted overnight at Biden’s direction, was intended “to send a very clear message that we will take the protection of our personnel seriously, and that we will respond quickly and decisively if they are threatened.”

The violence that erupted in Syria in recent days highlights the risk for escalation at a moment when Washington and Tehran remain sharply at odds over issues including Iran’s nuclear program, the country’s support for militants across the Middle East and, since last year, its provision of military technology to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

The president’s remarks underscored his attempt to avoid further violence while also containing attacks by proxy forces that have long posed a threat to Americans in Iraq, Lebanon and beyond.

The bloodshed began Thursday when a self-detonating drone struck a U.S. facility in northeast Syria, where hundreds of American troops remain stationed in a counterterrorism mission begun years ago to dismantle the Islamic State. Beyond the contractor’s death, five U.S. troops and a second contractor were wounded in the attack, which Biden administration officials promptly linked to militias trained and armed by Tehran.

American F-15 fighter jets carried out two airstrikes in response, Ryder said. The jets targeted facilities associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite Iranian force that, via its network of proxies, has targeted U.S. troops in Syria on and off.

Hours later, Ryder said, 10 rockets were launched at Green Village, a U.S. military position about 100 miles south of Thursday’s assault. The Pentagon also linked those attacks to militias backed by Iran but said there were no injuries to U.S. or coalition personnel nor any damage to U.S. equipment.

New York Times, U.S. and Canada Reach an Agreement on Turning Away Asylum Seekers, Michael D. Shear and Ian Austen, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). The deal allows both countries to turn away people who cross their borders without authorization at a time when migration has surged.

The deal, which is set to be announced Friday by President Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, left, after the two leaders meet in Ottawa, will allow Canada to turn back immigrants at Roxham Road, a popular unofficial crossing point from New York for migrants seeking asylum in Canada.

In exchange, Canada has agreed to provide a new, legal refugee program for 15,000 migrants who are fleeing violence, persecution and economic devastation in South and Central America, the official said, lessening the pressure of illegal crossings into the United States from Mexico.

Mr. Biden was due to arrive in Ottawa on Thursday evening for a 24-hour visit meant to underscore the unity of purpose between the United States and Canada after four years of frosty and even openly hostile exchanges between Mr. Trudeau and former President Donald J. Trump.

• New York Times, Migration Tops Agenda as President Biden Visits Canada, Ian Austen and Vjosa Isai

Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.

New York Times, Court Action Underscores Peril for Trump in Documents Investigation, Maggie Haberman, Alan Feuer, Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). Prosecutors are building a case that former President Trump obstructed efforts to reclaim classified files and that he may have misled his lawyer.

The behind-the-scenes legal fight over obtaining evidence from a lawyer who represented former President Donald J. Trump in the investigation into his handling of classified documents has brought into sharper view where the Justice Department might be headed with the case.

According to the wisps of information that have seeped out of sealed court filings and closed-door hearings, prosecutors believe they have compelling evidence that Mr. Trump obstructed the government’s efforts to reclaim the sensitive records and may have even misled his own lawyers.

This theory of the case has not changed much since federal agents obtained a search warrant in August based on three possible crimes, obstruction being one of them. The search turned up hundreds of sensitive government records being kept at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s heavily trafficked compound in Florida, after his lawyers had earlier assured the Justice Department that all such documents had been returned.

Still, the more recent developments stemming from efforts to force testimony and other evidence from the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, in Federal District Court in Washington, indicate that prosecutors have continued to build a case and that the inquiry remains a serious threat to Mr. Trump.

New York Times, A Trump Rally Comes to Waco, 30 Years After Its Darkest Hour, Charles Homans, March 24, 2023. For some, it’s no accident that former President Trump will speak in a city where a fiery raid symbolizes government overreach to the far right. Thirty years ago, a fiery federal raid on a doomsday sect turned the city into a symbol of government overreach. Donald Trump will speak there on Saturday, and some supporters — and critics — say it’s no accident.

In the chapel at Mount Carmel, the longtime home of the Branch Davidian sect outside Waco, Tex., the pastor preaches about the coming apocalypse, as the sect’s doomed charismatic leader David Koresh did three decades ago.

But the prophecies offered by the pastor, Charles Pace, are different from Mr. Koresh’s. For one thing, they involve Donald J. Trump.

“Donald Trump is the anointed of God,” Mr. Pace said in an interview. “He is the battering ram that God is using to bring down the Deep State of Babylon.”

Mr. Trump, embattled by multiple investigations and publicly predicting an imminent indictment in one, announced last week that he would hold the first rally of his 2024 presidential campaign on Saturday at the regional airport in Waco.

The date falls in the middle of the 30th anniversary of the weekslong standoff involving federal agents and followers of Mr. Koresh that left 82 Branch Davidians and four agents dead at Mount Carmel, the group’s compound east of the city.

Mr. Trump has not linked the rally to the anniversary, and his campaign did not respond to requests for comment on whether the rally — his first ever in the city of 140,000 — was an intentional nod to the most infamous episode in Waco’s history. And there are other reasons for the former president to open his campaign in Texas, a state rich in electoral votes where he trailed Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida by double digits in a state Republican Party poll late last year.

But the historical resonance has not been lost on some of Mr. Trump’s most ardent followers. “Waco was an overreach of the government, and today the New York district attorney is practicing an overreach of the government again,” said Sharon Anderson, a retiree from Etowah, Tenn., who is traveling to Waco for Saturday’s event, her 33rd Trump rally.

Mr. Pace said he believed it was “a statement — that he was sieged by the F.B.I. at Mar-a-Lago and that they were accusing him of different things that aren’t really true, just like David Koresh was accused by the F.B.I. when they sieged him.”

The Warning with Steve Schmidt, Commentary: How Donald Trump is using the January 6 playbook to incite violence, Steve Schmidt (former Republican and now independent national political strategist, shown above in a screenshot), March 24, 2023 (10:21 min. video). Steve Schmidt breaks down Donald's Trump's latest Truth social post where the former President infers that charging him will lead to "potential death and destruction." Steve describes how Trump uses a similar playbook inciting the riots on January 6th, and condemns the Republican Party for not standing up to Trump.

Washington Post, Trump warns of ‘potential death & destruction’ if he is charged in hush-money case, John Wagner, March 24, 2023. Former president Donald Trump warned early Friday of “potential death & destruction” if he is charged in Manhattan in a criminal case related to alleged hush-money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to conceal an affair.

The posting after midnight on Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform, was his latest — and most explicit — allusion to violence that could follow an indictment stemming from an investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), whom Trump called a “degenerate psychopath.”

Trump wrote: “What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country?”

In a post on Thursday, Trump criticized those who have called for his supporters to remain peaceful. Over the weekend, Trump urged a “PROTEST” over his potential arrest in the case, which he wrongly predicted would happen Tuesday.

The messages have all had echoes of the days leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a violent pro-Trump mob. Trump had urged his followers to assemble in Washington that day, saying “Be there, will be wild!” as he pushed to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s win.

Five people died in the attack or in its aftermath, and 140 police officers were injured. The House impeached Trump on a charge of inciting an insurrection; the Senate acquitted him.

Trump has been commenting frequently on the hush-money case as a Manhattan grand jury weighs evidence against him. The panel is not scheduled to meet again until at least Monday, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss proceedings that are secret.

New York Times, Prosecutor in Trump Hush-Money Case Fires Back at House Republicans, Luke Broadwater, Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). The grand jury examining the former president’s role in a hush-money payment typically does not hear testimony about the inquiry on Thursdays, making an indictment unlikely before next week.

The Manhattan district attorney on Thursday responded to House Republicans who have scrutinized his office’s criminal investigation into Donald J. Trump, pushing back forcefully against what the office called an inappropriate attempt by Congress to impede a local prosecution.

The office of the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, right, was responding to a Monday letter demanding that he provide communications, documents and testimony about his investigation — an extraordinary request by three Republican committee chairmen to involve themselves in an inquiry that is expected to result in criminal charges against the former president.

The response from the district attorney’s office, signed by its general counsel, Leslie Dubeck, called the Republicans’ request “an unprecedented inquiry into a pending local prosecution.”

Mr. Bragg’s office is investigating the role Mr. Trump played in a hush-money payment to a porn star and there have been several signals that the prosecutors are nearing an indictment. Still, the exact timing remains unknown.

Though the special grand jury hearing evidence about Mr. Trump meets on Thursdays, it typically does not hear evidence about the Trump case that day, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Special grand juries, which unlike regular grand juries sit for months at a time and hear complex cases, routinely consider multiple cases simultaneously.

Republicans have rushed to the former president’s side this week, following a Saturday post from Mr. Trump inaccurately predicting that he would be arrested Tuesday and calling on his supporters to protest in charged language reminiscent of his social media posts in the weeks before the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

On Saturday, following Mr. Trump’s post, the speaker of the House, Representative Kevin McCarthy, called for investigations into whether federal funds were being used for “politically motivated prosecutions,” an act clearly intended as a threat to Mr. Bragg.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Recognizing symbols of hate and right-wing rebellion in the United States, Wayne Madsen, left, March 22-23, 2023. Nazi and other far-right symbology spreading across America.

The transformation of the Republican Party into a Donald Trump cult and platform advocating fascism has resulted in the mushrooming of symbols of hate across the United States. In some cases, flags and banners proclaim loyalty to Trump even though they deface the U.S. flag, thus violating the U.S. Flag Code. Other banners, such as the "Don't Tread on Me" or Gadsden Flag misuse and misrepresent historical flags in being adopted as hate symbols. Nazi swastikas and symbols of the Confederacy have also been resurrected by the Trumpist cult.

Absent a domestic terrorism law, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are hard-pressed to conduct systematic and uniform surveillance of far-right insurrectionists, but many far-right groups make no effort to hide themselves. In fact, actual and potential seditionists like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Boogaloo Bois shamefully fly from their vehicles and on their front lawns their symbols of rebellion and hate.

Spotting symbols of insurrection and hate should be a top priority for every American who abides by the rule of law and the Constitution. The black "No Quarter Given" flag is an extremely dangerous symbol. Those who fly it are sovereign citizens who are giving warning that they will shoot to kill anyone on their property.

New York Times, Republicans Say Spending Is Fueling Inflation. The Fed Chair Disagrees, Jim Tankersley, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). Jerome Powell has said that snarled supply chains, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and shifts among American consumers are primarily behind rapid price growth.

The chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome H. Powell, right, has repeatedly undercut a central claim Republicans make as they seek sharp cuts in federal spending: Government spending is driving the nation’s still-hot inflation rate.

Republican lawmakers say spending programs signed into law by President Biden are pumping too much money into the economy and fueling an annual inflation rate that was 6 percent in February — a decline from last year’s highs, but still well above historical norms. Mr. Powell disputed those claims in congressional testimony earlier this month and in a news conference on Wednesday, after the Fed announced it would once again raise interest rates in an effort to bring inflation back toward normal levels.

Asked whether federal tax and spending policies were contributing to price growth, Mr. Powell pointed to a decline in federal spending from the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“You have to look at the fiscal impulse from spending,” Mr. Powell said on Wednesday, referring to a measure of how much tax and spending policies are adding or subtracting to economic growth. “Fiscal impulse is actually not what’s driving inflation right now. It was at the beginning perhaps, but that’s not the story right now.”

• Washington Post, Fed raises benchmark rate by 0.25 point despite bank turmoil

Washington Post, Ukraine Live Updates: Zelensky visits Bakhmut; China’s Xi leaves Russia with no clear progress on ending war, Rachel Pannett and Adela Suliman, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, shown above at right, made a visit to the front line in Bakhmut, where Russian forces have almost encircled Ukrainian troops, cutting off major transport and supply lines. His office said in a statement Wednesday that Zelensky heard operational updates and presented service men with awards. Controlling Bakhmut is unlikely to tip the war’s outcome but would give Russia a symbolic victory after months of battlefield setbacks.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping departed Russia on Wednesday, wrapping up a three-day trip that underscored Beijing and Moscow’s desire to reshape the global order against Western power but that offered little concrete progress on China’s pledge to promote peace in the Ukraine conflict. Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a series of agreements to expand trade and deepen strategic ties. Xi reiterated that China has an “impartial position” on the war in Ukraine. The United States later accused China of “parroting the Russian propaganda.”

China’s 12-point proposal does not address the withdrawal of Russian troops from occupied areas of Ukraine and is vague about key issues such as Ukraine’s sovereignty. U.S. officials say any impending cease-fire would only buy Russian troops more time to regroup and would effectively ratify much of the illegal annexation of large swaths of Ukraine. Xi is expected to hold talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky following his return from Moscow, although the timing of those discussions is not confirmed.

Ben Barnes, left, with Lady Bird Johnson and her husband, former President Lyndon B. Johnson, in Austin, Tex., on Aug. 29, 1970 (Associated Press photo by Ted Powers). The New York Times reported this week that Barnes revealed to the newspaper that he had played a role, largely unwittingly, in helping Republicans delay the release by Iran of U.S. hostages in 1980 in order to hurt President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and help the election campaign of Republican Ronald Reagan. President Carter is shown below in a 1980 Associated Press photo telling the American public that a rescue attempt he had authorized had failed, with resulting in U.S. military rescuers' deaths.

New York Times, Former Iran Hostages Are Divided on Jimmy Carter and a Sabotage Claim, Michael Levenson, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). A report about a covert effort to delay their release until after the 1980 presidential election drew anger, resignation and disbelief from the survivors of the crisis.

They are the last survivors of an international crisis that hobbled Jimmy Carter’s presidency and may have cost him re-election. Many are now in their 80s.

With the former president gravely ill in hospice care, some of the 52 Americans who were held hostage in Iran for 444 days are looking back on Mr. Carter’s legacy with a mix of frustration, sadness and gratitude.

Many feel neglected by the government, which has paid them only about a quarter of the $4.4 million that they were each promised by Congress in 2015, after decades of lobbying for compensation, said their lawyer, V. Thomas Lankford. Some endured physical and mental abuse, including mock executions, during the hostage crisis. About half have died.

Last week, their ordeal was thrust back into the news with the account of a covert effort to delay their release until after the 1980 presidential election in a bid to help the campaign of Mr. Carter’s Republican challenger, Ronald Reagan.

A former Texas politician, Ben Barnes, told The New York Times that he had toured the Middle East that summer with John B. Connally Jr., the former Texas governor, who told regional leaders that Mr. Reagan would win and give the Iranians a “better deal.” Mr. Connally, a former Democrat turned Republican, was angling for a cabinet position.

Mr. Barnes, 84, said that he was speaking out now because “history needs to know that this happened.”

He told The Times that he did not know if the message that Mr. Connally gave to Middle Eastern leaders ever reached the Iranians, or whether it influenced them. Mr. Connally died in 1993. Nor was it clear if Mr. Reagan knew about the trip. Mr. Barnes said Mr. Connally had briefed William J. Casey, the chairman of Mr. Reagan’s campaign and later the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in an airport lounge after the trip.

The account stirred anger among some of the former hostages, while others dismissed his story of election sabotage as not credible. They are a diverse group that includes former diplomats, retired military officers and academics, and members of both major political parties.

“It’s nice that Mr. Barnes is trying to soothe his soul during the last years of his life,” said Barry Rosen, 79, who was press attaché at the embassy in Tehran when it was overrun on Nov. 4, 1979. “But for the hostages who went through hell, he has not helped us at all. He has made it just as bad or worse.”

Mr. Rosen, who lives in New York, said that Mr. Barnes should have come forward 43 years ago, given the decades of speculation about political interference.

“It’s the definition of treason,” he said, “knowing that there was a possibility that the Carter administration might have been able to negotiate us out of Iran earlier.”

A Four-Decade Secret:

But Kevin Hermening, a certified financial planner in Mosinee, Wis., who was a Marine Corps sergeant guarding the embassy, said that he did not believe Mr. Barnes’s account and that, even if it were true, the effort would not have influenced his captors.

“The Iranians were very clear that they were not going to release us while President Carter was in office,” said Mr. Hermening, 63. “He was despised by the mullahs and those people who followed the Ayatollah.”

The Barnes account cast a new light on these long-ago events, troubling David M. Roeder, a retired colonel who was the deputy Air Force attaché at the embassy. Mr. Roeder said that he had repeatedly told his captors that if Mr. Reagan won, they would be dealing with a “much tougher person.”

“I have come to the conclusion — perhaps because I want to — that hopefully President Reagan was unaware that this was going on,” said Mr. Roeder, 83, of Pinehurst, N.C. But, he added, “I gained a great deal more respect for President Carter because I’ve seen what he went through with us in captivity.”

Greg Palast Investigates, Commentary: Reagan’s Treason, Two Bushes and the $23 Million Payoff, Greg Palast, March 23-24, 2023. This week, a Texas pol, Ben Barnes, confessed that he was personally involved—and therefore an eyewitness to–high treason: The Ronald Reagan campaign’s successful secret deal with the Iranian government to hold 52 Americans hostages so that Reagan could defeat Jimmy Carter.

Reagan’s skanky deal worked. In 1980, Carter’s failure to bring home the hostages destroyed his chance of reelection. Reagan, right, ultimately would repay the favor from Iran’s murder-crats with weapons and even, for the Ayatollah Khomeini, a birthday cake from Reagan advisor Oliver North.

The question is, why now? Why did Barnes suddenly blow the whistle on this crime—and a crime it is—four decades late? His cute excuse, reported without question by the New York Times, is that, “History needs to know that this happened.”

Wrong. “History” doesn’t need to know—American voters needed to know about Reagan’s treason before the 1980 election.

So, then, why did Barnes squirrel away the truth for decades? Follow the money.

It’s a money trail that leads to two Bushes who would not have become president if not for Barnes’ silence about Iran—and Barnes’ omertà about another creepy Bush scheme.

In 1999, for The Guardian, I discovered that Barnes, in his previous role as Lt. Governor of Texas, used his political juice to get Congressman George Bush Sr.’s son, “Dubya” into the Texas Air Guard—over literally thousands of far-more-qualified applicants. (Little Bush scored 25 out of 100 on the test, just one point above “too dumb to fly.”)

And so, Dubya, shown at left, dodged the draft and Vietnam.

Barnes hid the truth despite pleas from Texas Gov. Ann Richards, who, in 1994, lost a squeaker of an election too.

In Austin, Texas, I received unshakeable evidence that Barnes was the fixer who got Congressman Bush’s son out of the Vietnam draft. (This, while Bush Sr. was voting to send other men’s sons to Vietnam.)

What did Barnes get for his burial of Reagan’s deal with Iran and Bush Jr.’s draft dodging? Did $23 million do it?

In 1999, I was investigating a company, GTech, which ran both the British and Texas lotteries. Texas had disqualified GTech from operating the state lottery based on strong evidence of corruption. But oddly, the new Governor of Texas, George W. Bush, fired the lottery director who banned GTEch. Then Bush’s new lottery commissioner gave GTech back its multi-billion-dollar contract, no bidding.

Notably, Bush’s firing of the state’s lottery director came two days after a meeting with GTech’s lobbyist—Ben Barnes.

Barnes’ fees from GTech? $23 million.

I wasn’t in the Bush-Barnes little tête-à-tête: the info came from a confidential memo from the lottery director that was well buried inside Justice Department files.

In a civil suit, Barnes supposedly denied any quid pro quo with Gov. Bush. Maybe. A nice payment from GTech to the wronged lottery director sealed Barnes’ testimony from the public.

• Maybe Bush met with Barnes just to reminisce. But if Barnes had the Bush family’s entire political fortune in his pocket, did he really need to remind Dubya of the consequences if the Governor did not take care of Barnes’ client?
• Secretly conspiring with a foreign power to keep Americans imprisoned, secretly negotiating with and providing weapons to a foreign enemy is the definition of treason—and so would a cover-up for cash.
• This was another example, I wrote in The Guardian, how the Bushes turned America into “the best democracy money can buy.”
• I then wrote a book of that title and made a film, Bush Family Fortunes, detailing the Bush Family crime-wave, for BBC Television.

Today, you can download that documentary, Bush Family Fortunes, free of charge. (If you want to throw in a tax-deductible donation, hey, we won’t say ‘no.’ Our nvestigations continue: The cast of characters has changed, but not the crimes.)

And a word about the creeps, cowards and conmen who call themselves “journalists.” Let’s start with a trivia question: Who is Dan Rather? He’s a former TV star and one-time reporter who took my story of Bush’s draft dodging, stuck it on 60 Minutes and, in violation of any sense of ethics and decency, exposed a whistleblower, Texas Air Guard Col. Bill Burkett, a man of inestimable courage and integrity.

Rather’s exposure ruined Burkett. No Texan would sell him feed. His cattle were dying, so he lost his ranch.

Dan Rather was fired by CBS for getting the network in hot water with the Bush White House. Then, by his own admission, Rather agreed to backtrack on the story of Bush the draft dodger in return for a promise of a return to the CBS airwaves. CBS screwed Rather—but that often happens to feckless recreants.

Neither I nor the BBC nor The Guardian retracted a single word of our story of Dubya the Draft Dodger nor the tale of the $23 million questionable payment.

There are zeroes—and there are heroes. The story of Reagan and his “October Surprise” was first busted open by Robert Parry – who also uncovered the Iran-Contra scandal. Instead of getting a Pulitzer, Parry’s career was destroyed. For uncovering too many uncomfortable truths, he was bounced from the Associated Press, Newsweek, Bloomberg, and The Nation.

Parry died in 2018, in journalistic exile.

Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" and "Billionaires & Ballot Bandits," out as major motion non-fiction movie: "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Case of the Stolen Election," available on Amazon and Amazon Prime.

Tik Tok, Social Media, Artificial Intelligence

New York Times, TikTok Chief Faces Scathing Questions From Both Parties in Congress, Sapna Maheshwari, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). The Chinese-owned video app has become a battleground as the U.S. and China duel for tech leadership; Shou Chew’s first appearance before U.S. lawmakers comes as their distrust of the video app’s Chinese ownership has escalated; China said on Thursday that it would “firmly oppose” a forced sale of TikTok.

Shou Chew, the chief executive of TikTok, will testify before Congress for the first time on Thursday, in an appearance that is expected to reflect U.S. lawmakers’ escalating distrust of the short-form video app’s Chinese ownership.

The hearing, which will begin at 10 a.m. before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, will give lawmakers a rare opportunity to ask Mr. Chew questions directly about TikTok’s relationship with its Chinese owner, ByteDance, as well as about the app’s handling of sensitive U.S. user data and the risks it may pose to teens and children.

TikTok is working to secure its future in the United States, one of its biggest markets, where it says it has 150 million users and where it has become a culture-making machine. But lawmakers have questions about ByteDance’s links to the Chinese government and whether those could put TikTok’s U.S. user data into the hands of Beijing officials. U.S. intelligence officials like the director of the F.B.I., Christopher A. Wray, have also warned that the Chinese government could use TikTok’s algorithm for “influence operations.”

TikTok, which was initially hailed as China’s first global internet success story, has come to represent the growing divide between the United States and China over tech leadership and national security. The app has become a battleground in a technological Cold War between the two countries, with U.S. threats of a TikTok ban recalling how China has long blocked many American platforms.

Washington Post, Analysis: America’s online privacy problems are much bigger than TikTok, Will Oremus, March 24, 2023. Concerns of Chinese data access highlight Congress’s own failure to protect Americans’ personal information.

For a brief moment in a five-hour House hearing on Thursday, TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew let his frustration show. Asked if TikTok was prepared to split off from its Chinese parent company if ordered to do so by the U.S. government, to safeguard Americans’ online data, Chew went on offense.
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“I don’t think ownership is the issue here. With a lot of respect: American social companies don’t have a great record with privacy and data security. I mean, look at Facebook and Cambridge Analytica,” Chew said, referring to the 2018 scandal in which Facebook users’ data was found to have been secretly harvested years earlier by a British political consulting firm.

He’s not wrong. At a hearing in which TikTok was often portrayed as a singular, untenable threat to Americans’ online privacy, it would have been easy to forget that the country’s online privacy problems run far deeper than any single app. And the people most responsible for failing to safeguard Americans’ data, arguably, are American lawmakers.

U.S. government issues historic $5 billion fine against Facebook for repeated privacy violations

The bipartisan uproar over TikTok’s Chinese ownership stems from the concern that China’s laws could allow its authoritarian government to demand or clandestinely gain access to sensitive user data, or tweak its algorithms to distort the information its young users see. The concerns are genuine. And yet the United States has failed to bequeath Americans most of the rights it now accuses TikTok of threatening.

New York Times, TikTok Claims It’s Limiting Teen Screen Time. Teens Say It Isn’t, Sapna Maheshwari, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). This month, the company announced a 60-minute cap for users under 18. But for some, staying on the app takes just a few taps.

New York Times, Meet the lonely New York progressive who says TikTok is the victim of anti-China “hysteria,” Nicholas Fandos and David McCabe, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York, above, says the drive to ban TikTok stems from anti-China “hysteria.” His Democratic colleagues disagree.

Of TikTok’s 150 million American users, there may be none more valuable to the embattled platform right now than Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York.

A backbench Democrat, Mr. Bowman commands neither TikTok’s largest following (he has about 159,000 fans) nor exceptional legislative clout. But in recent days, he has gone where almost no one else on Capitol Hill would, appointing himself the platform’s unofficial defender in face of a bipartisan race to target what President Biden sees as a national security threat.

“Why the hell are we whipping ourselves into a hysteria to scapegoat TikTok?” Mr. Bowman asked in a telephone interview as he traveled by train to Washington on Wednesday.

Hours later, he held a news conference outside the House touting the platform’s virtues, alongside dozens of influencers brought in by TikTok for a day of lobbying ahead of Thursday’s congressional hearing with its chief executive. Only two other Democrats attended, while some of the congressman’s most outspoken allies declined to weigh in, like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a fellow member of the group of left-leaning lawmakers known as the squad.

New York Times, Commentary: The A.I. Chatbots Have Arrived. Time to Talk to Your Kids, Christina Caron (a reporter for the Well section and a mother of two who experimented with ChatGPT for hours to help fellow parents better understand how it works), March 24, 2023 (print ed.).  Artificial intelligence can make adults nervous, but experts say exploring it as a family is the best way to understand its pros and cons.

New York Times, Opinion: Our New Promethean Moment, Thomas L. Friedman, right, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). I had a most remarkable but unsettling experience last week.

Craig Mundie, the former chief research and strategy officer for Microsoft, was giving me a demonstration of GPT-4, the most advanced version of the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI and launched in November. Craig was preparing to brief the board of my wife’s museum, Planet Word, of which he is a member, about the effect ChatGPT will have on words, language and innovation.

“You need to understand,” Craig warned me before he started his demo, “this is going to change everything about how we do everything. I think that it represents mankind’s greatest invention to date. It is qualitatively different — and it will be transformational.”

Large language modules like ChatGPT will steadily increase in their capabilities, Craig added, and take us “toward a form of artificial general intelligence,” delivering efficiencies in operations, ideas, discoveries and insights “that have never been attainable before across every domain.”

Then he did a demonstration. And I realized Craig’s words were an understatement.

Top Global News

New York Times, U.K. Lawmakers Approve Key Measure of Northern Ireland Trade Deal, Megan Specia, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). An important element of the agreement known as the Windsor Framework, a Brexit provision negotiated with the European Union, was roundly endorsed in the British Parliament.

British lawmakers on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly in favor of a key component of a long-awaited deal on Northern Ireland trade rules, an emphatic victory for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, shown above, as he tries to resolve one of the most vexing legacies of Britain’s exit from the European Union.

Despite the strong backing of the agreement, the leading unionist party in the North, which seeks to remain part of the United Kingdom, said that it did not accept the deal and would refuse to form a local government, signaling more political turmoil ahead.

Several prominent members of the governing Conservative Party also broke ranks with the government and voted against the part of the deal that was under debate, including Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, two former prime ministers. Nonetheless, the measure passed in a landslide, 515 to 29.

The vote on Wednesday was on just one element of the agreement, known as the Stormont Brake, which would allow Northern Ireland to block the implementation of any “significantly different” new European rules on goods. The measure was aimed at addressing the North’s concerns that Brussels would have too much control over its trade rules. But the leading unionist party, the D.U.P. (whose leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, is shown at left) rejected the Stormont Brake as insufficient.

The lopsided nature of the vote was good news for Mr. Sunak, who has championed the broader trade deal, known as the Windsor Framework, that was negotiated with the European Union last month.

The vote on the Stormont Brake on Wednesday was the first time that British lawmakers had had a chance to weigh in on the deal, so it had been seen as a measure of their approval.

The D.U.P. said this week that it would not vote for the Windsor Framework agreement, and as the vote on the Stormont Brake approached, its leaders confirmed that they had no plans either to enter into a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland’s devolved local assembly, known as Stormont. Northern Ireland’s other largest parties, including a different unionist party, have said that they support the framework.

New York Times, Leader of Indian Party Opposing Modi Is Sentenced in Defamation Case, Karan Deep Singh, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). Rahul Gandhi, who leads the main opposition party, received a two-year sentence for a comment in 2019 criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right.

Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the main party opposing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, was convicted of defamation and sentenced to prison on Thursday, the latest blow to the beleaguered opposition party just a year before national elections.

Mr. Gandhi was immediately granted 30 days’ bail. His party, the Indian National Congress, said he would appeal the conviction.

A court in Gujarat, Mr. Modi’s home state, sentenced Mr. Gandhi to two years in prison. He was convicted in connection with a 2019 speech in which he linked the prime minister’s family name to that of two Indian fugitives accused of swindling millions of dollars, Nirav Modi and Lalit Modi.

“How come all the thieves have Modi as the common name?” Mr. Gandhi said while campaigning during the 2019 elections.

Washington Post, Rwanda to release Paul Rusesabagina, inspiration for ‘Hotel Rwanda’ movie, Katharine Houreld, March 24, 2023. Rwandan authorities will release human rights activist Paul Rusesabagina, a former hotel manager whose life inspired the Hollywood film “Hotel Rwanda” about the country’s 1994 genocide, a Rwandan government spokeswoman said Friday.

He was sentenced to 25 years on terrorism charges in 2021 after authorities tricked him into boarding a plane that secretly took him to Kigali, Rwanda’s capital.

Spokeswoman Yolande Makolo said Rusesabagina would be released Saturday. She said the sentences of Callixte Nsabimana and 18 others convicted in the same case had been commuted after requests for clemency.

“Serious crimes were committed, for which they were convicted. Under Rwandan law, commutation of sentence does not extinguish the underlying conviction,” she said.

Rusesabagina’s case thrust a spotlight on growing opposition to Rwandan President Paul Kagame, once praised for ending Rwanda’s genocide and for his focus on developing the tiny East African nation, but increasingly criticized for his authoritarian rule, the abduction of Rusesabagina, and accusations of support for rebels in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo — something the government has denied.

Relevant Recent Headlines

• New York Times, Israel’s Parliament Passes Law Making It Harder to Remove Prime Minister
• New York Times, Migration Tops Agenda as President Biden Visits Canada
• New York Times, U.K. Lawmakers Approve Key Measure of Northern Ireland Trade Deal
• New York Times, As Haiti’s Police Retreat, Gangs Take Over Much of the Capital
• New York Times, Uganda Passes Strict Anti-Gay Bill That Imposes Death Penalty for Some
• New York Times, Saudi Arabia Releases U.S. Dual Citizen Jailed in Crackdown on Dissent
• New York Times, Macron Plots Next Move After Bitter Victory in Pensions Dispute
• Washington Post, Macron defends move to raise retirement age as protests roil France
• Associated Press via Washington Post, 11 killed as strong earthquake rattles Pakistan, Afghanistan

More On Probes of Trump, Allies 

Washington Post, Opinion: Trump makes suckers of House Republicans. Again, Dana Milbank, March 24, 2023. Be honest: Who among us has not had an extramarital affair with a porn star?

It is the rare person who can truthfully say he or she has not. And that is why I admonish you: Let he who has not lied about using campaign funds to pay hush money cast the first stone!

In the race by MAGA World to circle the wagons around Donald Trump in the Stormy Daniels case, a special prize must go to those who not only attack those investigating the former president but also defend his behavior with the adult-film actress as totally and completely normal.

“Settlements like this, whatever you think of them, are common both among famous people, celebrities and in corporate America,” one of our winners, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, misinformed his viewers. “Paying people not to talk about things, hush money, is ordinary in modern America.”

A couple of weeks ago, old text messages came out in which Carlson called Trump “a demonic force, a destroyer” and said “I hate him passionately.” Now he’s back to defending some of Trump’s seediest behavior as utterly routine.

It would never be just Carlson, of course. Elected Republican officials also collectively decided this week that it was in their interest to bring Trump back from the political dead. Once again, Trump used a fabrication to revive his flagging standing. And once again, congressional Republicans fell for it.

Just a week ago, leading Republicans were daring to hope that Trump’s sway was ebbing, as Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence took him on directly. Then Trump changed all that with just one post on his social media site Saturday morning. He announced his expectation that he “WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY.” He wrote: “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”

In reality, he wasn’t arrested Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Or the rest of the week. Maybe he’ll yet be indicted in New York, Georgia or Washington. Maybe he won’t. Regardless, he already notched a significant victory. House Republicans didn’t wait to see whether Trump was speaking the truth about his imminent arrest. They did as he commanded, leaping to his defense — and, in the process, returning him to his previous place of dominance atop the Republican Party. It’s all about Donald Trump — again.

Within just a few hours of Trump’s claim that he was about to be arrested, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced that House Republicans were launching investigations into the “outrageous abuse of power” by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his attempt “to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions.”

On Monday, three House committee chairmen fired off a letter to Bragg summoning him to testify before Congress and demanding that he produce six years’ worth of documents — all because he was “reportedly about to engage” in “the indictment of a former president.” Never mind that Bragg hadn’t (yet) done so.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) put it best when she told Punchbowl News: “The House is gonna do what the House is gonna do.”

And what it did this week was to put Trump back in unquestioned command of the Republican Party.

New York Times, That Missing Trump Portrait? Found, Next to Some Old Yoga Mats, Maria Abi-Habib and Ana Maria Hanssen, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). After a tip, The Times found a painting of former President Trump that Democrats were looking for. It was propped up in an obscure spot in a Trump hotel.

In the bowels of the Trump National Doral hotel in Miami, in a small space leading to electrical rooms, an enormous portrait of the 45th president of the United States rests on a piece of deteriorating purple-colored foam.

Stored next to a stack of old yoga mats, the former president’s portrait sits underneath a halogen light and the metal sheen of air ducts, propped between two doors with placards that read “ELECTRICAL ROOM No Storage.”

The tiny room is overwhelmed by the grandiose portrait, standing about eight feet tall and featuring a grinning Donald J. Trump.

While the portrait has apparently sat there ignored for months, back in Washington, it is at the center of a debate over the laws and ethics covering presidential gifts.

New York Times, Appeals Court Orders Trump Lawyer to Hand Over Records in Documents Inquiry, Alan Feuer, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). The ruling compelling the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, to turn over documents came after a lightning round of appeals court filings overnight.

A federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that a lawyer representing former President Donald J. Trump in an inquiry into his handling of classified materials had to give prosecutors what are likely to be dozens of documents related to his legal work for Mr. Trump.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia came after a lightning round of filings that began on Tuesday evening when Mr. Trump sought an order to stop the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, right, from handing over documents to investigators.

The pitched behind-the-scenes legal fight continued overnight and into early Wednesday morning, with prosecutors responding to Mr. Trump’s request for a stay in the case with papers submitted before dawn. It played out as a separate legal proceeding involving Mr. Trump — the Manhattan district attorney’s consideration of whether to seek an indictment of the former president on charges related to a hush-money payment to a porn actress — remained unresolved.

The fight in Washington over Mr. Corcoran’s level of compliance in the documents case suggests that the prosecutors are working to assemble evidence that Mr. Trump could have committed a crime in defying the government’s efforts to reclaim the classified materials he took with him after leaving the White House.

New York Times, Former President Trump is facing several investigations. See where they stand, Ben Protess, Alan Feuer and Danny Hakim, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). The Manhattan district attorney’s office appears to be nearing a potential indictment of the former president, as federal and state prosecutors bear down on Mr. Trump in a number of inquiries.

After avoiding indictment for years, former President Donald J. Trump now appears closer than ever to facing criminal charges in Manhattan.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office recently signaled to Mr. Trump’s lawyers that he could face criminal charges for his role in a hush-money payment to a porn star, the strongest indication yet that prosecutors are nearing an indictment of the former president, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

The district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, impaneled a grand jury in January to hear evidence in the longest-running criminal inquiry facing the former president. Since then, his prosecutors have questioned at least nine witnesses before the panel, though it is unclear whether they have completed their presentation of evidence.

Any case would mark the first indictment of a former American president. Yet Mr. Bragg might not be the last prosecutor to seek charges against Mr. Trump. Several federal and state prosecutors are scrutinizing him as well.

Here is where the notable inquiries involving the former president stand.

• Proof, Going Deep, Investigative Commentary: A Primer for the Imminent Indictment of Former President Trump, Seth Abramson

New York Times, Trump Inquiries Present a Stress Test for Justice in a Polarized Nation, Glenn Thrush and Adam Goldman, March 24, 2023 (print ed.).On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, Merrick B. Garland was busy typing away in his upstairs office at home, finalizing remarks he planned to deliver the following day when he was to be introduced as Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s nominee to be attorney general.

The speech was originally a summons to restore the Justice Department “norms” of independence after political meddling during the Trump administration that depleted morale and sapped public confidence. Then, after protesters burst through the barricades at the Capitol, Mr. Garland, right, began a major rewrite that referenced the attack, and fortified his pledge to hold anyone who threatened democracy to account, from bottom to top.

The department would impartially investigate the attack, without “one rule for the powerful and one for the powerless,” Mr. Garland said during his somber introduction on Jan. 7.

Mr. Garland’s conjoined promises — restoring broad confidence in the department’s impartiality while investigating without favor the politically powerful — were not mutually exclusive. But achieving both simultaneously is proving to be an elusive goal as prosecutors at the federal and local level investigate former President Donald J. Trump on multiple fronts.

Palmer Report, Opinion: Donald Trump’s violent new social media post about Alvin Bragg is going to come with consequences he doesn’t like, Bill Palmer, right, March 23, 2023. After he briefly began expressing the delusional hope that he might not be criminally indicted in Manhattan, Donald Trump is now back to making defeatist social media posts about how he expects to be indicted. One of Trump’s new posts disturbingly depicts him as swinging a baseball bat in the direction of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

This was predictable. Trump has a long history of trying to incite violence among his supporters in the hope of achieving political gain. So of course he was going to try it again in this instance. He’s a creature of habit who only knows one way of doing things. He’s forever under the belief that if a tactic has worked for him in the past, it should work again, whether or not it’s the same situation.

The trouble for Trump is that this is not the same situation as any he’s ever been in. He has past experience in the circuses that are civil court cases. He has experience trying to pressure the courts to uphold executive orders that he’s signed and such. But he does not have any prior experience as a defendant in the criminal justice system, because he’s never been charged or indicted before.

Starting with his arraignment hearing, Trump is about to find out the hard way that criminal defendants have a reduced set of rights while awaiting trial. Even if Trump gets out on bail or recognizance, the judge will surely tell him about the behaviors he’ll need to avoid if he wants to remain under minimal restriction. If Trump tries to run his mouth publicly about the prosecutor, the judge will at some point hit him with a gag order. If Trump defies the gag order, the judge will start applying incrementally severe punishment, up to and potentially including pretrial detention.

Trump is off to a bad start by posting this image of himself getting violent against the District Attorney. This post will no doubt be submitted as evidence at his arraignment, and the judge will not take kindly to it. This is the kind of thing that could result in Trump getting hit with an immediate gag order about the case instead of being allowed some rope first. The judge could also use this violent post as a basis for imposing travel restrictions and such on Trump while he’s awaiting trial. And that’s just the beginning of what the judge in the case can do to Trump in order to keep him under control ahead of trial.

If Donald Trump had any sense at all, he’d be on his best behavior – at least for the moment – in the hope of getting the most lenient pretrial conditions possible. Instead he’s handing the judge in the case every excuse to impose more restrictive conditions on Trump, all of which could get in the way of Trump’s ability to keep carrying out his “2024 campaign” pipe dream.

The judge doesn’t get assigned to the case until the indictment comes down, so perhaps Trump is under the mistaken impression that he can still magically get away with anything he wants. But when Alvin Bragg submits Trump’s baseball post to the judge at arraignment, and the judge gives Trump a harsher initial set of pretrial conditions as a result, perhaps Trump will start to figure out that he’s not in charge of anything that happens from here on in.

 Relevant Recent Headlines

• New York Times, A Massive Trump Painting Has Mysteriously Gone Missing
• New York Times, ‘The Circus Continues’: For Trump, Legal Woes Resurrect Old Habits
• New York Times, Opinion: Trump Faces Prosecution. America Faces a Test, Charles M. Blow
• Politico, Trump, Pence urge judge to reject special counsel bid to obtain former VP’s testimony
• New York Times, Appeals Court Orders Trump Lawyer to Hand Over Records in Documents Inquiry
• Emptywheel, Analysis: Barbara Jones Rules Project Veritas Was Not Engaged in Journalism When Brokering Ashley Biden's Stolen Diary, Emptywheel
• Washington Post, Opinion: ‘An indictment would help Trump!’ is wholly premature, Jennifer Rubin
• Washington Post, RetropolisThe Past, Rediscovered, No president or former president has ever been indicted. But a sitting president was arrested once
• New York Times, DeSantis, Breaking Silence on Trump, Criticizes Manhattan Prosecutor
• New York Times, Robert Costello, once an adviser to Michael Cohen, appeared before the grand jury to assail the former fixer’s credibility

More On U.S. Election Deniers, Insurrectionists

New York Times, Arizona Supreme Court Turns Down Kari Lake’s Appeal in Her Election Lawsuit, Neil Vigdor, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). The justices refused to hear Ms. Lake’s claims disputing her loss in the governor’s race, but sent one part of her lawsuit back to a trial court for review.

Arizona’s Supreme Court on Wednesday denied a request from Kari Lake to hear her lawsuit disputing her loss last year in the governor’s race. The lawsuit was based on what the court said was a false claim by Ms. Lake, left, a Republican, that more than 35,000 unaccounted ballots were accepted.

In a five-page order written by Chief Justice Robert Brutinel, the court determined that a vast majority of Ms. Lake’s legal claims, which had earlier been dismissed by lower courts, lacked merit.

“The Court of Appeals aptly resolved these issues,” Chief Justice Brutinel wrote, adding that the “petitioner’s challenges on these grounds are insufficient to warrant the requested relief under Arizona or federal law.”

But the justices on Wednesday ordered a trial court in Arizona’s most populous county, Maricopa, to conduct an additional review of that county’s procedures for verifying signatures on mail-in ballots, keeping one part of her lawsuit alive.

Politico, Trump, Pence urge judge to reject special counsel bid to obtain former VP’s testimony, Kyle Cheney, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). It’s one of the weightiest constitutional fights for the special counsel.

It’s one of the weightiest constitutional fights that Smith is likely to undertake, one that could shape the balance of power between all three branches of government in unpredictable ways. Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Windom, one of Smith’s lead investigators, was seen entering the courtroom as well.

It’s also an early test for Chief U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, who took the chief’s gavel last week after his predecessor Beryl Howell’s seven-year term as chief expired. The chief judge is tasked with overseeing all grand jury matters in the district, which include Smith’s special counsel probes.

Pence’s fight to block the subpoena is not the only way Smith’s inquiry could have far-reaching constitutional consequences. A three-judge appeals court panel is expected to rule imminently on his separate effort to access the cellphone data of Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), a key ally in Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election results. Perry, like Pence, left, is arguing that his communications should be shielded by the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, which grants Congress sweeping immunity from compelled testimony — if it pertains to lawmakers’ official duties.

The Perry dispute drew intervention from the House of Representatives, which filed a sealed amicus brief in the matter that raised concerns about the implications for the institution should the appeals court adopt a narrow view of “speech or debate” immunity.

The hearing also underscored the extraordinary confluence of acute legal and criminal matters Trump is facing.

Corcoran himself has been ordered by a federal judge to testify as soon as Friday in Smith’s other ongoing criminal probe of Trump’s handling of sensitive national security records discovered at his Mar-a-Lago estate. And while Corcoran was waiting in the cafeteria Thursday, an attorney for Joseph Biggs — one of five Proud Boys facing seditious conspiracy charges for actions on Jan. 6 — approached him to attempt to serve a subpoena on Trump.

The attorney, Norm Pattis, said Corcoran told him he was ”not authorized” to accept service on Trump’s behalf.

Politico, Judge sentences Jan. 6 defendant who breached Pelosi’s office to 36 months in prison, Kyle Cheney, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). A jury convicted Riley Williams of civil disorder and resisting police but deadlocked on a charge that Williams, right, obstructed Congress and abetted the theft of Pelosi’s laptop.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s sentence was the close of one of the earliest sagas to emerge after the Jan. 6 attack. Williams was one of the first felony defendants charged, and she was suspected at the time of stealing Nancy Pelosi’s laptop, in part because she told friends that she did.

A jury convicted Williams in December of civil disorder and resisting police but deadlocked on a charge that Williams obstructed Congress and abetted the theft of Pelosi’s laptop. Williams is on tape entering Pelosi’s conference room while other rioters took the laptop, and she encouraged them to steal it, but Williams’ lawyers contended that it was unclear if the other rioters heard her comment.

Jackson spent much of her sentencing colloquy dismantling the defense’s claim that Williams was too young or too small to be responsible for the grave offenses the government charged. The defense team leaned on Williams’ youthful demeanor and the fact that she seemed briefly confused about which building was being stormed — calling it the White House as she approached. But Jackson said any momentary confusion Williams expressed was clarified by her repeated acknowledgment of why she was there.

It was not, Jackson emphasized, “because her dizzy little head was confused about which building in Washington was which.”

Fuentes, she noted, was born the same year as Williams. People can sign up for the military at 18, she added, noting that Williams was old enough on Jan. 6 to have completed a tour of duty. John Lewis was 21 when he became a freedom fighter, Jackson added.

“She was old enough to be one of the police officers she resisted,” Jackson said.

Jackson also took on the defense’s repeated assertions about Williams’ diminutive stature, noting that figures like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Liz Cheney and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had all achieved prominence despite their size.

“Riley June Williams was old enough and tall enough to be held accountable for her actions,” Jackson said.

 Ray Epps and his wife, Robyn Epps. A letter from their lawyer noted the costs that the couple had faced by being the target of a Jan. 6 conspiracy theory (New York Times photo by Alan Feuer).

New York Times, Man at Center of Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theory Demands Retraction From Fox, Alan Feuer, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). A lawyer for Ray Epps has demanded that the Fox host Tucker Carlson publicly apologize for “false and defamatory statements” that Mr. Epps served as a federal agent during the Capitol attack.

A lawyer for Ray Epps, the man at the center of a prominent conspiracy theory about the Capitol riot, sent a letter on Thursday to the Fox News host Tucker Carlson demanding that he publicly retract his “false and defamatory statements” that Mr. Epps had worked as a government provocateur on Jan. 6, 2021, and helped to instigate the mob attack.

The letter to Mr. Carlson from the lawyer, Michael Teter, also demanded a “formal on-air apology for the lies” that have been “spread about Mr. Epps” by others at Fox.

“The fanciful notions that Mr. Carlson advances on his show regarding Mr. Epps’s involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection are demonstrably (and already proven to be) false,” Mr. Teter wrote. “And yet Mr. Carlson persists with his assault on the truth.”

Letters seeking retractions and apologies are often sent when lawyers are preparing to file a defamation lawsuit. As Mr. Teter noted, Mr. Epps’s demands come as Mr. Carlson and other top figures at Fox are already under pressure from a $1.6 billion defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems accusing them of amplifying lies that the voting machine company was involved in a bizarre plot to steal votes from President Donald J. Trump during the 2020 election.

In a series of recent filings, Dominion revealed embarrassing text messages and emails swapped by several leading Fox employees showing that in private they dismissed the idea that the company was involved in voting fraud, even though they supported the notion in public. The internal communications also suggested that Fox’s corporate leadership permitted lies about the election to be spread on the network in order to keep ratings high and viewers watching.
Fox News v. Dominion Voter Systems

Documents from a lawsuit filed by the voting machine maker Dominion against Fox News have shed light on the debate inside the network over false claims related to the 2020 election.

“Recent revelations from the Dominion Voting lawsuit may help explain why Fox News has allowed the falsehoods about Mr. Epps to continue to spread, and be amplified, through its network,” Mr. Teter wrote. “But fear of losing viewers by telling them the truth is not a defense to defamation and false light.”

A spokeswoman for Fox did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Mr. Epps, a former Marine, traveled to Washington from his home in Arizona to support Mr. Trump and was videotaped on the night before the attack urging people to go inside the Capitol. He was also in the crowd on Jan. 6 moving past barricades outside the building, although he never went inside and ultimately sought to de-escalate tensions in the mob.

Still, he became the face of the conspiracy theory that the federal government had instigated the Capitol attack for a single reason: He was never charged for what he did on Jan. 6. In reality, prosecutors declined to file charges against thousands of people who had breached the barricades outside the Capitol but never entered the building.

Mr. Carlson was one of the first major figures in the news media to give the stories about Mr. Epps a wide audience. Ultimately, they were also echoed by Republican members of Congress like Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.

Mr. Carlson featured Mr. Epps on his show on Fox again this month in a segment based on tens of thousands of hours of Capitol surveillance video footage, to which Speaker Kevin McCarthy granted him exclusive access. Mr. Epps appeared only briefly on the show, which broadly sought to play down the events of Jan. 6 and falsely paint the Capitol attack as a largely peaceful gathering of “sightseers.”

Mr. Teter mocked Mr. Carlson in his letter, suggesting that the TV host was trying to have it both ways.

“Oddly, Mr. Carlson now also espouses the view that those rioters were akin to peaceful tourists,” Mr. Teter wrote. “This leads to the obvious question: Is Mr. Carlson now accusing Mr. Epps of provoking peaceful protests?”

U.S. Politics, Elections, Economy, Governance

Politico, Sinema Trashes Dems: ‘Old Dudes Eating Jell-O,’ Jonathan Martin, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). The Arizona senator courts GOP donors by ridiculing her former Democratic colleagues.

Ever since Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, right, became an independent in December, her Democratic colleagues have been restrained about the shift, careful not to alienate the Arizona lawmaker when they only have a single-seat majority and need her support on legislation and nominees.

Hoping to get through this year, and then gain clarity about whether Sinema will even seek reelection in 2024 let alone continue to caucus with her old party, Senate Democrats have dodged questions about the mercurial marathoner who’s still barely in their ranks.

But Sinema may be making the Democrats’ deliberations easier.

As she races to stockpile campaign money and post an impressive, statement-making first-quarter fundraising number, Sinema has used a series of Republican-dominated receptions and retreats this year to belittle her Democratic colleagues, shower her GOP allies with praise and, in one case, quite literally give the middle finger to President Joe Biden’s White House.

Speaking in private, whether one-on-one or with small groups of Republican senators, she’s even more cutting, particularly about Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, whom she derides in harshly critical terms, according to senior Republican officials directly familiar with her comments.

Tallahassee Democrat, Tallahassee principal ousted after complaints about Michelangelo's 'David' in art lesson, Ana Goñi-Lessan, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). “It saddens me that my time here had to end this way,” Hope Carrasquilla told the Tallahassee Democrat.

A local charter school principal said she was forced to resign after a parent complained a Renaissance art lesson was pornographic.

Hope Carrasquilla had been principal for less than a year at Tallahassee Classical School in Leon County before she resigned from her position during an emergency board meeting Monday.

“It saddens me that my time here had to end this way,” Carrasquilla told the Tallahassee Democrat.

Carrasquilla said last week she was told by the school’s board chair, Barney Bishop, shown above left with photos of the statue and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, that she would have to resign or she would be fired. She believes the catalyst for the ultimatum was complaints about an art lesson on the Renaissance period.

Bishop, who confirmed he did give Carrasquilla that ultimatum, said he could not say why he asked her to resign because of the school’s employment lawyer’s advice.

An email sent to parents Monday evening stated the new principal would be Cara Wynn, formerly of North Florida Christian School. She will be the school’s third principal since it opened three years ago, according to Bishop. “It’s not unusual in new charter schools to go through several principals,” Bishop said.

Tallahassee Classical, a Hillsdale College curriculum school, is required to teach about Renaissance art in sixth grade.

But three parents complained that the lesson’s content, which included learning about Michelangelo’s sculpture, “David,” upset their children.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Resistance to DeSantis: Woke African-American History Lesson Sheet #18, Jackie "Moms" Mabley, Wayne Madsen, March 23-24, 2023.

New Mexico State Rep. Andrea Reeb (R), left, emailed the New Mexico DA saying her involvement "might help," the report said. Reeb was part of the team that brought charges against movie star Alex Baldwin for a film set shooting death.

Insider, The ex-prosecutor in the "Rust" case suggested it may help her political campaign, the NYT reported, Natalie Musumeci, March 22, 2023. The ex-special prosecutor who helped charge Alec Baldwin in the "Rust" movie set shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins emailed her boss that the high-profile case could "help" her GOP campaign for the New Mexico state legislature, according to a report from The New York Times.

Andrea Reeb, a former district attorney and Republican lawmaker who won a seat in the New Mexico House of Representatives last November, was brought on as a special prosecutor in the "Rust" case in June 2022 while she was running for office.

New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies appointed Reeb to the case, and Reeb emailed the DA that she did not plan to tell the press about her involvement, the Times reported on Tuesday, citing from correspondence the news outlet obtained under the state's Inspection of Public Records Act.

"At some point though," Reeb said in the June 9 email, according to the Times, "I'd at least like to get out there that I am assisting you … as it might help in my campaign lol."

Carmack-Altwies responded to Reeb, saying, "I am intending to either introduce you or send it in a press release when we get the investigation!" according to the Times.

The DA and Reeb wound up bringing charges of involuntary manslaughter against Baldwin and an armorer in connection to the October 2021 shooting of 42-year-old Hutchins on the Santa Fe, New Mexico, film set.

Reeb stepped down from her role as special prosecutor last week after Baldwin's camp argued that her appointment was unconstitutional.

Baldwin's legal team referenced the Times report about the emails in a new court filing on Tuesday, calling it "yet another troubling development regarding the State's prosecution of this case."

"Representative Reeb's prosecution of this case against Mr. Baldwin to advance her political career is a further abuse of the system and yet another violation of Mr. Baldwin's constitutional rights," the actor's lawyers argued.

Reeb and Carmack-Altwies' office did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Insider on Wednesday.

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More On Russia-China-West Conflicts

A photograph released by Russian state media showing Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting at the Kremlin (Photo by Sergei Karpukhin of Sputnik).

New York Times, Analysis: In a Brother Act With Putin, Xi Reveals China’s Fear of Containment, Chris Buckley, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). Instead of focusing on Ukraine, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin’s meetings in Moscow reinforced their shared opposition to American dominance.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, flew into Moscow this week cast by Beijing as its emissary for peace in Ukraine. His summit with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, however, demonstrated that his priority remains shoring up ties with Moscow to gird against what he sees as a long campaign by the United States to hobble China’s ascent.

Talk of Ukraine was overshadowed by Mr. Xi’s vow of ironclad solidarity with Russia as a political, diplomatic, economic and military partner: two superpowers aligned in countering American dominance and a Western-led world order. The summit showed Mr. Xi’s intention to entrench Beijing’s tilt toward Moscow against what he recently called an effort by the United States at the full-fledged “containment” of China.

Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin used the pomp of the three-day state visit that ended on Wednesday to signal to their publics and to Western capitals that the bond between their two countries remained robust and, in their eyes, indispensable, 13 months after Mr. Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine. They laid out their vision for the world in a nine-point joint statement that covered everything from Taiwan to climate change and relations with Mongolia, often depicting the United States as the obstacle to a better, fairer world.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary, Finland in NATO will be a gateway to the subjugated Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia, Wayne Madsen, left, author of 22 books and former U.S. Navy intelligence officer based in Finland, March 21-22, 2023. With Türkiye's announcement that it will ratify Finland's membership in NATO, as well as holdout Hungary's signaling that it will soon move ratification of Finland's and Sweden's accession to NATO through its parliament, there is renewed hope among the beleaguered colonized Finno-Ugric nations colonized by Russia that their cause will soon receive greater international attention.

Finland is slated to become a full NATO member at the NATO Summit scheduled for July 11-12 in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Finland has maintained "soft power" contacts with the Finno-Ugric bloc of formerly autonomous republics in Russia. They are Karelia, which was once part of Finland; Komi, Mari-El, Mordovia, Udmurtia, and Komi Permiak. Putin has curtailed contacts between the Finno-Ugric nations and Finland. These relations will be further hampered by the Kremlin after Finland becomes a full member of NATO.

Putin's war in Ukraine has emboldened some Finno-Ugric leaders in Russia to resurrect their calls for independence from Russia. In December 2022, many of these leaders were joined by representatives of other captive nations within Russia at the Forum of Free Peoples of Post-Russia (FSNPR) held in Helsingborg, Sweden. There, Finno-Ugric representatives were joined by Tatars, Chechens, Bashkirs, Nogais, Circassians, Cossacks, and others in calling for the "end of the existence of the Russian Federation.”

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U.S. Banks, Economy, Jobs, CryptoCurrencies

Washington Post, Recent banking turmoil is spurring many to move their money, Abha Bhattarai, March 24, 2023. An estimated $500 billion in funds have moved out of smaller banks to big institutions and money market funds, JPMorgan says.

Washington Post, Weighing bank distress and inflation, Fed faces next rate hike, Rachel Siegel, March 23, 2023 (print ed.).There’s much more uncertainty this time around as to whether the Fed will hike by a quarter of a percentage point, or hit pause until the banking fiasco is truly over.

The Federal Reserve faces a pivotal decision Wednesday — whether to push ahead with its urgent fight against inflation or ease up in the aftermath of bank failures that forced a sweeping government intervention earlier this month.

Financial markets expect an increase of a quarter of a percentage point, which would bring the Fed’s base policy rate to between 4.75 and 5 percent. But nothing is guaranteed, and some Fed experts are urging policymakers to hit pause. Their argument is that it is too soon to know if the banking fiasco is over, and that the financial system may still be too fragile to absorb another hike right now, even though inflation remains too high.

The central bank, led by Jerome Powell, right, is also facing questions about its regulatory oversight of Silicon Valley Bank, as Washington tries to figure out whether the government could have prevented the turmoil in the banking sector.

New York Times, Double-Barreled Economic Threat Puts Congress on Edge, Carl Hulse, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). Republicans and Democrats disagree over how recent bank closures should affect the debt limit stalemate, and have taken divergent lessons from past crises.

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More On Ukraine War

New York Times, Zelensky Tours Kherson as Ukraine Tries to Pressure Russian Forces, Enjoli Liston, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). President Volodymyr Zelensky toured areas affected by Russian strikes, a day after he met with troops near the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visited the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, touring areas affected by Russia’s full-scale invasion and its monthslong campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, he said on Thursday.

“We have to ensure full restoration and protection of our energy sector!” Mr. Zelensky said in a post on Telegram, the social messaging app. “I am grateful to everyone who works for this and returns the light to our people!”

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visited the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, touring areas affected by Russia’s full-scale invasion and its monthslong campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, he said on Thursday.

“We have to ensure full restoration and protection of our energy sector!” Mr. Zelensky said in a post on Telegram, the social messaging app. “I am grateful to everyone who works for this and returns the light to our people!”

The visit was Mr. Zelensky’s second to a frontline area in two days. On Wednesday, he made a defiant trip to the area around the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut, which has become a potent symbol of Ukrainian resistance as Kyiv’s forces battle to hold off a relentless Russian onslaught.

Mr. Zelensky’s travels to regions partly occupied by Russia come as Western allies ramp up supplies of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, which is preparing for an anticipated counteroffensive that could include a push to retake captured territory.

Though Ukraine recaptured the city of Kherson, the regional capital, from Russian forces last November in one of its most significant victories of the yearlong war, Moscow still controls territory in the wider Kherson province. Russian forces have used positions on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River to shell the city of Kherson on the opposite side of the waterway, preventing Kyiv from being able to restore a sense of normality in the city.

On Thursday, Ukraine’s Armed Forces said they were escalating artillery strikes against Russian positions east of the Dnipro. “We are working to make the enemy feel our presence, our pressure,” Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military’s southern command, said on national television.

Russia has sought to toughen its defenses, and there was no immediate indication that shelling of the city of Kherson had lessened. Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-appointed governor of Kherson, said on Russian television this week that Moscow’s forces had “strengthened by a factor of three the line of defense” on the eastern side of the river.

Over the winter months, parts of the Kherson region endured weeks without access to electricity and water, as Russian forces rained missiles, rockets and drones down on energy infrastructure targets in an apparent bid to freeze residents.

During the trip on Thursday, Mr. Zelensky said he visited Posad-Pokrovske, a farming village that was largely destroyed during the fight for the city of Kherson, which is about 20 miles away. “Currently, the restoration of electricity and water supply is underway here, the medical clinic is being rebuilt, and people are returning,” Mr. Zelensky said on Telegram.

His visits near the frontline have come days after Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, visited the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, now occupied by Russian forces after one of Moscow’s most brutal campaigns of the war.

Mr. Putin’s trip to Mariupol, about 50 miles southeast of the Ukrainian-controlled town of Vuhledar — where Russian forces sustained heavy losses just weeks ago and where fighting continues — is believed to be the closest the Russian leader has come to the front line since his forces’ invasion last year.

New York Times, Ukrainian Tank Commanders Grow Impatient: ‘Give Me an Abrams!’ Carlotta Gall, Photographs by Daniel Berehulak, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). For now, they are holding on with inferior Soviet-era tanks, but relish the idea of taking on the Russians with modern Western equipment.

New York Times, She Posted About the War in Ukraine. Then She Faced a Prison Term, Valerie Hopkins, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). The case of Olesya Krivtsova, a Russian student who ended up on the Kremlin’s terrorist list, has underscored the perils of criticizing the invasion.

Sitting in a small courtroom flanked by her two lawyers last month, Olesya Krivtsova was facing a stiff penalty for her fondness for posting on social media. Barely 20 and until this year a university student in northern Russia, she was accused of “justifying terrorism” and “discrediting the Russian armed forces,” and was facing up to a decade in prison.

Her apparent crime? An Instagram post asking why Ukrainians had rejoiced when the main bridge to Russian-occupied Crimea was attacked in October.

The post eventually landed Ms. Krivtsova on the Kremlin’s official list of terrorists and extremists. She was placed under house arrest and forbidden from using the phone or the internet.

Ms. Krivtsova did not wait for a courtroom verdict: Last week, she fled the country.

“I decided to leave because I was desperate,” Ms. Krivtsova said by telephone on Friday from Vilnius, Lithuania. “It is impossible to prove anything to the Russian court.”

As the Kremlin intensifies its crackdown on free speech, social media platforms have become a more frequent target for punishment. The government is increasingly penalizing people for posts it considers critical of the fighting in Ukraine — with fines, imprisonment and, in extreme cases, temporarily losing custody of their children.

In the Ryazan region south of Moscow, for instance, investigators opened a criminal case against a man who posted a joke about the Russian retreat from Kherson, in southern Ukraine. A student who ran an antiwar channel on the messaging app Telegram was denounced by the rector of his university for posts that criticized the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine as well as alleged Russian atrocities in Bucha and Mariupol. This month, he was sentenced to eight and a half years in a penal colony.

New York Times, Russia reprised brutal tactics to attack the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, Marc Santora, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Russian forces have stepped up their assaults on the Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine, making limited and costly gains in a furious attempt to encircle the long-battered city.

Ukrainian officials have said in recent days that Avdiivka is turning into another Bakhmut, the eastern city that Russian forces have sought to capture by sending waves of lightly trained recruits on near-suicidal attacks of Ukrainian defensive lines. In Avdiivka, as in Bakhmut, Ukraine says that Russian advances are also threatening key supply lines while bombardments are killing civilians.

Local officials said on Tuesday that a woman had been killed and two more civilians injured when a shell fired from a tank blasted the city center.

“Russians are intensively attacking from both sides, from the south and the north,” Maj. Maksym Morozov, a member of the Special Forces regiment fighting in the area, told the Ukrainian news media on Monday night. He added that the Russian tactic of using waves of soldiers — dubbed “cannon fodder” by the Ukrainians — was having some success.

“First, cannon fodder goes to expose our firing positions, and then professionals behind them quickly and accurately try to extinguish our firing lines,” he said. But he said that Ukrainian artillery and tanks were firing back at the Russian forces, who “have to pay a rather high price for this advance.”

Avdiivka is about 15 miles west of the city of Donetsk, which Russian proxy forces took over in 2014. But Avdiivka had not experienced violence on the scale unleashed in Russia’s full-scale invasion last year.

By last April, Russian artillery had destroyed more than 800 homes and scores of businesses, according to local officials. Only about 2,300 of the city’s 30,000 prewar residents remain, according to Vitaliy Barabash, the head of the Ukrainian military administration in the city.

Washington Post, U.S. will speed transfer of Abrams tanks to Ukraine, Pentagon says, Dan Lamothe, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). The new plan calls for refurbishing tank hulls already in the U.S. arsenal rather than procuring new vehicles, which had been expected to take up to two years.

The Pentagon, in a significant shift, said Tuesday that it will send M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine by the fall, after facing scrutiny for initially saying it could take a year or two to procure the powerful weapons and get them to the battlefield.

The new plan calls for refurbishing tank hulls already in the U.S. arsenal, officials said. President Biden, under intensifying pressure from Ukrainian officials, agreed in January to pledge 31 M1 tanks as part of a long-term arrangement that afforded German leaders political cover so that they could approve the immediate provision of Leopard battle tanks.

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U.S. Courts, Crime, Immigration, Guns

New York Times, 1 Dead and Multiple Hostages Rescued in Houston F.B.I. Operation, Christine Hauser, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). One person died and several hostages were rescued during an operation that lasted several days and involved federal and local law enforcement officials in North Houston, the F.B.I. said in a statement on Thursday.

All of the hostages had been “safely rescued” by Thursday morning, the F.B.I. said. The agency said one person had died after “an agent-involved shooting,” and that none of its personnel were injured.

The F.B.I. released few other details and did not answer questions about the shooting or the nature of the hostage situation. The agency’s Houston office said on Twitter that “no additional information” would be provided for now, and that no news conferences were planned.

New York Times, In Memphis, Car Seizures Are a Lucrative and Punishing Police Tactic, Jessica Jaglois and Mike Baker, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). It has been used to combat street racing and other crimes, but critics said that vehicles have been kept for months from people not even convicted.

As he drove to work on a summer afternoon in Memphis last year, Ralph Jones saw a woman on the sidewalk flagging him down. Thinking she was in distress or needed a ride, Mr. Jones said, he pulled over.

After a brief conversation in which she tried to lure him to a nearby motel, Mr. Jones said, he drove away but was soon stopped by the police and yanked from his truck. The 70-year-old welder said that with just 86 cents in his pocket, he had neither the intent nor the money to solicit a prostitute, as the officers were claiming.

His protests were to no avail. Mr. Jones was cited, and his truck, along with the expensive tools inside, was seized. The charges were eventually dropped, but the truck and his work equipment remained corralled in a city impound lot for six weeks, when prosecutors finally agreed to return it in exchange for a $750 payment.

“It’s nothing but a racket,” Mr. Jones said.

Police departments around the country have long used asset forfeiture laws to seize property believed to be associated with criminal activity, a tactic intended to deprive lawbreakers of ill-gotten gains, deter future crimes and, along the way, provide a lucrative revenue source for police departments.

But it became a favored law-enforcement tactic in Memphis, where the elite street crime unit involved in the death of Tyre Nichols on Jan. 7, known as the Scorpion unit, was among several law enforcement teams in the city making widespread use of vehicle seizures.

Like Mr. Jones, some of the people affected by the seizures had not been convicted of any crime, and defense lawyers said they disproportionately affected low-income residents, and people of color.

Over the past decade, civil rights advocates in several states have successfully pushed to make it harder for the police to seize property, but Tennessee continues to have some of the most aggressive seizure laws in the country.

While some states now require a criminal conviction before forfeiting property, Tennessee’s process can be much looser, requiring only that the government show, in a civil process, that the property was more likely than not to have been connected to certain types of criminal activity — a less rigorous burden of proof. Tennessee allows local law enforcement agencies to keep the bulk of the proceeds of the assets they seize.

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More On U.S. Abortion, #MeToo, Stalking, Rape Laws

Washington Post, Opinion: Senate Democrats should be holding oversight hearings of their own, Jennifer Rubin, right, March 22, 2023. House Republicans have given oversight a bad name. Oversight should not be about baseless fishing expeditions (e.g., political pressure on Twitter), political payback (e.g., Hunter Biden), or obstruction of the Justice Department or local prosecutors (for instance, wholly overstepping congressional authority and violating states’ policing authority in harassing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg).

For starters, oversight hearings must have a legitimate legislative purpose. Done properly, an information-gathering and public-education process can provide the basis for thoughtful legislation. But when it comes to necessary oversight, Senate Democrats have done precious little despite an array of topics crying out for congressional investigation.

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Climate, Environment, Weather, Energy, Disasters, U.S. Transportation

New York Times, A Water System So Broken That One Pipe Leaks 5 Million Gallons a Day, Sarah Fowler, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). As a water shortage ballooned into a crisis in Jackson, Miss., the leak grew bigger and bigger, gouging out a swimming pool-size crater in the earth.

because their faucets were dry, the break at the old Colonial Country Club squandered an estimated five million gallons of drinking water a day in a city that had none to spare.

It is enough water to serve the daily needs of 50,000 people, or a third of the city residents who rely on the beleaguered water utility.

No one knows for sure when the leak reached its current size. But newly appointed water officials say the city discovered the broken mainline pipe in 2016 and left it to gush, even as the water gouged out a swimming pool-size crater in the earth and city residents were forced to endure one drinking water crisis after another.

Jackson’s water system has been flirting with collapse for decades thanks to a combination of mismanagement, crumbling infrastructure and a series of ill-fated decisions that cost the utility money that it did not have. In 2022, the Justice Department reached an agreement with the city requiring it to bring in an outside manager to run the water department.

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Pandemics, Public Health, Privacy

New York Times, Another Mental Illness Tragedy Spurs Questions About Health System, Campbell Robertson and Neelam Bohra, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). Irvo Otieno’s death after sheriff’s deputies pinned him to the floor shows that changes in Virginia have not solved deep problems, critics say.

One evening in May 2018, a 24-year-old high school biology teacher crashed his car at a highway exit in Richmond, Va. He got out of the car, naked and apparently in mental distress, and for several moments writhed on the ground. Then, with nothing in his hands, he stood, strode toward a police officer and lunged. The officer shot and killed him.

The death of the young man, Marcus-David Peters, has come up again and again in Virginia since Irvo Otieno died on March 6, after he was pinned to the floor by sheriff’s deputies for nearly 12 minutes at a psychiatric hospital in Petersburg. To his family and many others across the state, the death of Mr. Otieno, a 28-year-old musician with a history of mental illness, proves that despite incremental signs of improvement, Virginia’s mental health system is still profoundly flawed in how it responds to people in acute distress, especially when law enforcement agencies are involved.

“Having a mental health crisis cannot be a death sentence,” said Princess Blanding, Mr. Peters’s sister, who pushed for improvements to the system but believes that the changes that resulted from her brother’s death were still inadequate. “When a person’s kidneys fail them or their heart stops functioning, we don’t throw them in jail. Why are we doing that when their brains are not functioning the way they normally would?”

Mr. Otieno’s death minutes after sheriff’s deputies brought him to Central State Hospital falls into a bleak pattern that goes back years, in which a tragedy involving someone with mental illness inspires pledges of change until the next tragedy reveals how short the changes have fallen.

New York Times, Tennessee’s Rejection of Federal Funds Alarms H.I.V. Prevention Groups, Ava Sasani, March 24, 2023. Some organizations are concerned they will be cut off from state funding if they don’t align with Gov. Bill Lee’s conservative politics.

After offering free H.I.V. testing at a drive-through event last year, staff members at Nashville CARES, a nonprofit sexual health clinic, made an alarming discovery: a cluster of positive tests from a single neighborhood.

“There was one person who had unknowingly passed it to multiple partners, and we were able to intervene quickly before it became a full-blown outbreak,” said Lisa Binkley, who leads the clinic’s H.I.V. prevention team.

For this work and other efforts to try to curb the spread of H.I.V. in the Nashville region, Ms. Binkley and her colleagues have relied heavily on federal grant money. So they were stunned when Tennessee’s health commissioner announced earlier this year that the state would no longer accept $8.8 million in federal grant money, which for more than a decade has been distributed among nonprofit groups, county health departments and health care organizations.

Tennessee is the only state to have rejected the funding; Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, instead plans to allocate $9 million in new state funding for H.I.V. prevention and monitoring in July. The governor said the move would offer the state greater independence in its decision-making. But some organizations say they are concerned that the state will not offer them funding if they do not align with the governor’s conservative positions on issues like transgender rights, and his opposition to abortion access.

The state has not announced which groups will receive the funds, or the rules on how they can be used, but the governor’s office has indicated that its priorities include “vulnerable populations, such as victims of human trafficking, mothers and children, and first responders.”

Public health experts say Mr. Lee’s listed examples are at odds with the reality on the ground, as those groups represent only a tiny fraction of new H.I.V. cases in Tennessee, according to a recent report from the AIDS charity amfAR. Some of the highest-risk groups in the state are sexually active gay men, transgender women and those who inject drugs, according to Greg Millett, the director of amfAR and an epidemiologist.

New York Times, In Montana, It’s Youth vs. the State in a Landmark Climate Case, David Gelles, March 24, 2023. Sixteen young Montanans have sued their state, arguing that its support of fossil fuels violates its constitution.

New York Times, Biden Plan to Cut Billions in Medicare Fraud Ignites Lobbying Frenzy, Reed Abelson and Margot Sanger-Katz, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). The Biden administration has proposed changes to how it would pay private Medicare Advantage plans, setting off a lobbying frenzy.

The multimillion dollar ad buy is part of an aggressive campaign by the health insurance industry and its allies to stop the Biden proposal. It would significantly lower payments — by billions of dollars a year — to Medicare Advantage, the private plans that now cover about half of the government’s health program for older Americans.

The change in payment formulas is an effort, Biden administration officials say, to tackle widespread abuses and fraud in the increasingly popular private program. In the last decade, reams of evidence uncovered in lawsuits and audits revealed systematic overbilling of the government. A final decision on the payments is expected shortly, and is one of a series of tough new rules aimed at reining in the industry. The changes fit into a broader effort by the White House to shore up the Medicare trust fund.

New York Times, China Approves an mRNA Covid Vaccine, Its First, Nicole Hong and Alexandra Stevenson, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). The homegrown shot is a crucial tool that China has been lacking — a vaccine based on a technology considered among the most effective the world has to offer.

China has for the first time approved a Covid-19 vaccine based on mRNA technology, greenlighting a homegrown shot months after the ruling Communist Party eliminated its strict pandemic restrictions.

China has long refused to use the foreign-made mRNA shots that were crucial in easing the pandemic in many parts of the world and that the United States first authorized for emergency use in December 2020. Beijing chose instead to promote its own pharmaceutical firms, first in rolling out a more traditional but less effective Covid vaccine, and later, in the pursuit of a homegrown mRNA, or messenger RNA, vaccine.

China’s new mRNA vaccine, developed by CSPC Pharmaceutical Group Ltd., based in the northern Chinese city of Shijiazhuang, was approved for emergency use by China’s health regulator, according to a statement from the company on Wednesday.

Among the vaccines currently available in China, the most widely known are made by the companies Sinopharm and Sinovac. Like other traditional vaccines, they rely on a century-old method for inoculation, which use an inactivated virus to trigger a response by the immune system, and have since proven to be less effective in protecting against symptomatic disease.

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Media, Education, Arts, High Tech

Washington Post, NPR cancels 4 podcasts in biggest wave of layoffs in decades, Paul Farhi, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). ‘Invisibilia,’ an early hit when the public-radio giant moved into podcasting, is among the cancellations.

NPR said it would stop production on a series of podcasts, including “Invisibilia,” an early hit, as part of a broad cutback it signaled was coming last month.

Faced with a projected $30 million decline in revenue, the Washington-based audio and digital-news organization began laying off about 100 employees, or 10 percent of its staff, this week — among the largest reductions in its 53-year history. Managers have set aside three days this week to notify those affected across a number of departments; Thursday was the newsroom’s turn to get the bad news.

The programming cutbacks disclosed Thursday appear to reflect NPR’s decision to protect its core news programs that remain highly popular on its national network of public-radio affiliates, including its two daily newsmagazines, “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.”

But it comes at the expense of its once-booming podcast arm, which until recently had been a growing source of ad revenue and the means for noncommercial NPR to attract new and younger listeners.

NPR said last month that it expected its overall ad revenue to fall about $30 million short of projections this year amid a general tightening of ad spending. Podcasting is the area that has seen the steepest revenue decline.

“Invisibilia,” which debuted with the advent of the podcast boom in early 2015, focused on psychology and the social sciences. At one point, it was the most popular podcast on the Apple Podcasts Charts, though it has slipped in more recent years with intensifying competition.

NPR said it would close out “Invisibilia” and the podcasts “Rough Translation” (which reported about foreign perspectives on common issues) and “Louder Than a Riot” (which explored hip-hop culture) when their current seasons end.

Washington Post, Jake Paul, Lindsay Lohan among 8 charged in SEC cryptocurrency case, Bryan Pietsch, March 24, 2023 (print ed.). The Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday it had charged a handful of celebrities — including the internet provocateur-turned-professional boxer Jake Paul and actress Lindsay Lohan — with promoting cryptocurrencies without disclosing that they were compensated for doing so.

Paul, Lohan, the former teen heartthrob Austin Mahone and the rapper Soulja Boy (whose legal name is DeAndre Cortez Way) were among eight celebrities the SEC said had illegally promoted cryptocurrencies Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT).

The SEC also charged entrepreneur Justin Sun and three of his companies for “the unregistered offer and sale” of TRX and BTT.

The complaint, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, also alleged that Sun “directed the manipulative wash trading of TRX to create the artificial appearance of legitimate investor interest and keep TRX’s price afloat,” referring to a scheme in which securities are essentially traded at the same time between associated entities, making the asset “appear actively traded without an actual change in beneficial ownership.”

Sun — a Chinese entrepreneur who became a citizen of Grenada, the small island nation in the West Indies that grants citizenship to those who make large investments in the country — gained worldwide attention in 2019 after he paid $4.6 million to have lunch with Warren Buffett, but then canceled it, apologizing for “excessive self-promotion.”

Instead of lunch with Warren Buffett, Chinese entrepreneur Justin Sun eats humble pie

The celebrities’ promotional messages about the cryptocurrencies were posted on social media, according to the SEC. Lohan, who has more than 8 million Twitter followers, tweeted on Feb. 11, 2021 that she was “already liking” three of Sun’s cryptocurrencies, including TRX. “Super fast and 0 fee,” she wrote. “Good job @justinsuntron.”

In March 2021, she promoted an auction — in TRX — for an NFT, or non-fungible token, of one of her songs. “Just over 9 hours left to bid!” she tweeted on April 1, 2021.

Washington Post, Judge sounds skeptical of some Fox arguments in Dominion lawsuit, Jeremy Barr, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Judge Eric M. Davis pushed back on assertions from both sides in Dominion’s libel lawsuit against Fox News, but he seemed particularly skeptical of the network’s claims

New York Times, Inside the 3 Months That Could Cost Fox $1.6 Billion, Jeremy W. Peters, March 21, 2023 (print ed.). The decision by Fox News executives in November 2020 to treat the more hard-right Newsmax as a mortal threat spawned a possibly more serious danger.

Since 2002, when Fox News first overtook CNN as the most-watched cable news channel, one thing has been as certain and predictable as its dominance: Every time a Democrat wins the White House, the right-leaning network’s ratings take a momentary dip.

That happened after the election of President Biden in 2020, too. But the reaction inside Fox was far different than before.

There was panic. From the chairman of Fox Corporation on down, executives scrambled as they tried to keep viewers tuned in, believing they were facing a crisis. Now, because of the decisions made after former President Donald J. Trump’s loss, Fox News is reckoning with a threat that could prove far more serious.

A $1.6 billion defamation suit from Dominion Voting Systems claims Fox knowingly spread false information about the role of the firm’s election technology in a made-up conspiracy to flip votes. On Tuesday, the two sides will present oral arguments before a judge in Delaware state court as they prepare for a trial next month.

Fox has insisted that it wasn’t presenting claims about Dominion as fact but was reporting and opining on them as any news organization would.

She says lawyers made her give misleading Dominion testimony.

As part of the suit, Dominion obtained thousands of internal Fox emails and text messages and deposed dozens of Fox employees. That evidence shows in extraordinary detail how the network lost its way in the weeks after the election. Here is a timeline of that fateful period, as told in court filings. Some of these exchanges have been lightly condensed for clarity.

New York Times, A Fox News producer sued the network, saying she was coerced into giving misleading testimony in the Dominion case, Nicholas Confessore and Katie Robertson, March 21, 2023 (print ed.). The producer, Abby Grossberg, said in a pair of lawsuits that the effort to place blame on her and Maria Bartiromo, the Fox Business host, was rooted in rampant misogyny and discrimination at the company.

A Fox News producer who has worked with the hosts Maria Bartiromo, right, and Tucker Carlson filed lawsuits against the company in New York and Delaware on Monday, accusing Fox lawyers of coercing her into giving misleading testimony in the continuing legal battle around the network’s coverage of unfounded claims about election fraud.

The producer, Abby Grossberg, said Fox lawyers had tried to position her and Ms. Bartiromo to take the blame for Fox’s repeated airing of conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems and its supposed role in manipulating the results of the 2020 presidential election. Dominion has filed a $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox. Ms. Grossberg said the effort to place blame on her and Ms. Bartiromo was rooted in rampant misogyny and discrimination at the network.

The new lawsuits, coupled with revelations from the Dominion legal fight, shed light on the rivalries and turf battles that raged at Fox News in the wake of the 2020 election, as network executives fought to hold on to viewers furious at the top-rated network for accurately reporting on President Donald J. Trump’s defeat in Arizona, a crucial swing state.

The lawsuits also include details about Ms. Grossberg’s work life at Fox and on Mr. Carlson’s show. Ms. Grossberg says she and other women endured frank and open sexism from co-workers and superiors at the network, which has been dogged for years by lawsuits and allegations about sexual harassment by Fox executives and stars.

The network’s disregard for women, Ms. Grossberg alleged, left her and Ms. Bartiromo understaffed — stretched too thin to properly vet the truthfulness of claims made against Dominion on the air. At times, Ms. Grossberg said, she was the only full-time employee dedicated solely to Ms. Bartiromo’s Sunday-morning show.

In her complaints, Ms. Grossberg accuses lawyers for Fox News of coaching her in “a coercive and intimidating manner” before her September deposition in the Dominion case. The lawyers, she said, gave her the impression that she had to avoid mentioning prominent male executives and on-air talent to protect them from any blame, while putting her own reputation at risk.

On Monday afternoon, Fox filed its own suit against Ms. Grossberg, seeking to enjoin her from filing claims that would shed light on her discussions with the company’s lawyers. A judge has not yet ruled on Fox’s suit. Later on Monday, according to her lawyer, Parisis G. Filippatos, Fox also placed Ms. Grossberg on forced administrative leave.

Ms. Grossberg’s lawsuits were filed in the Southern District of New York and in Superior Court in Delaware, where a pretrial hearing in the Dominion defamation lawsuit is scheduled for Tuesday.

In a statement, a Fox spokeswoman said: “Fox News Media engaged an independent outside counsel to immediately investigate the concerns raised by Ms. Grossberg, which were made following a critical performance review. We will vigorously defend these claims.”

According to the lawsuits filed by Ms. Grossberg, Fox superiors called Ms. Bartiromo a “crazy bitch” who was “menopausal” and asked Ms. Grossberg to cut the host out of coverage discussions.

Last year, she began working as a senior booking producer at “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” On her first full day, according to the lawsuit, Ms. Grossberg discovered that the show’s Manhattan work space was decorated with large pictures of Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, then the House speaker, wearing a plunging swimsuit.

Later that fall, it said, before an appearance on the show by Tudor Dixon, the Republican candidate for Michigan governor, Mr. Carlson’s staff held a mock debate about whether they would prefer to have sex with Ms. Dixon or her Democratic opponent, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

After Ms. Grossberg complained about harassment from two male producers on the show, she was pulled into a meeting with human resources and told that she was not performing her duties, according to the complaint.

New York Times, DNA From Beethoven’s Hair Unlocks Medical and Family Secrets, Gina Kolata, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). By analyzing samples of hair said to have come from Ludwig van Beethoven, researchers debunked myths about the revered composer while raising new questions.

It was March 1827 and Ludwig van Beethoven was dying. As he lay in bed, wracked with abdominal pain and jaundiced, grieving friends and acquaintances came to visit. And some asked a favor: Could they clip a lock of his hair for remembrance?

The parade of mourners continued after Beethoven’s death at age 56, even after doctors performed a gruesome craniotomy, looking at the folds in Beethoven’s brain and removing his ear bones in a vain attempt to understand why the revered composer lost his hearing.

Within three days of Beethoven’s death, not a single strand of hair was left on his head.

Ever since, a cottage industry has aimed to understand Beethoven’s illnesses and the cause of his death.

Now, an analysis of strands of his hair has upended long held beliefs about his health. The report provides an explanation for his debilitating ailments and even his death, while also raising new questions about his genealogical origins and hinting at a dark family secret.

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March 23

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• New York Times, Appeals Court Orders Trump Lawyer to Hand Over Records in Documents Inquiry
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Pandemics, Public Health, Privacy

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Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.

New York Times, Appeals Court Orders Trump Lawyer to Hand Over Records in Documents Inquiry, Alan Feuer, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). The ruling compelling the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, to turn over documents came after a lightning round of appeals court filings overnight.

A federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that a lawyer representing former President Donald J. Trump in an inquiry into his handling of classified materials had to give prosecutors what are likely to be dozens of documents related to his legal work for Mr. Trump.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia came after a lightning round of filings that began on Tuesday evening when Mr. Trump sought an order to stop the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, right, from handing over documents to investigators.

The pitched behind-the-scenes legal fight continued overnight and into early Wednesday morning, with prosecutors responding to Mr. Trump’s request for a stay in the case with papers submitted before dawn. It played out as a separate legal proceeding involving Mr. Trump — the Manhattan district attorney’s consideration of whether to seek an indictment of the former president on charges related to a hush-money payment to a porn actress — remained unresolved.

The fight in Washington over Mr. Corcoran’s level of compliance in the documents case suggests that the prosecutors are working to assemble evidence that Mr. Trump could have committed a crime in defying the government’s efforts to reclaim the classified materials he took with him after leaving the White House.

As a legal matter, the litigation — all of which has taken place behind closed doors or under seal — involves a balancing act between attorney-client privilege, which generally protects lawyers from divulging private communications with their clients to the government, and a special provision of the law known as the crime-fraud exception. That exception allows prosecutors to work around attorney-client privilege when they have reason to believe that legal advice or legal services have been used in furthering a crime.

The spat began last month when the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, sought to pierce assertions of attorney-client privilege that Mr. Corcoran and Mr. Trump had made in the documents inquiry. In an initial appearance before a grand jury investigating the case, Mr. Corcoran had asserted the privilege as a way to limit the scope of the questions he would have to answer as well as the number of legal records he would have to turn over.

 Understand the Trump Documents Inquiry: The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s handling of classified files after he left office.

• Special Counsel: Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith, a longtime prosecutor, to take over the inquiry. Here is what Smith’s role entails.
• Trump Lawyer: The special counsel’s investigation into Trump has prompted a pitched legal battle over whether prosecutors have sufficient evidence to force one of his lawyers to testify to a grand jury and provide documents related to his work for the former president.
• Passing the Gavel: James Boasberg will take over from Beryl Howell as the chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington, a post that plays a key role in the federal special counsel investigations into Trump’s handling of the documents and the events surrounding Jan. 6.
• Comparison With Biden Case: The discovery of classified documents from President Biden’s time as vice president prompted comparisons to Trump’s hoarding of records. But there are key differences.

New York Times, Prosecutor in Trump Hush-Money Case Fires Back at House Republicans, Luke Broadwater, Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess, March 23, 2023. The grand jury examining the former president’s role in a hush-money payment typically does not hear testimony about the inquiry on Thursdays, making an indictment unlikely before next week.

The Manhattan district attorney on Thursday responded to House Republicans who have scrutinized his office’s criminal investigation into Donald J. Trump, pushing back forcefully against what the office called an inappropriate attempt by Congress to impede a local prosecution.

The office of the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, right, was responding to a Monday letter demanding that he provide communications, documents and testimony about his investigation — an extraordinary request by three Republican committee chairmen to involve themselves in an inquiry that is expected to result in criminal charges against the former president.

The response from the district attorney’s office, signed by its general counsel, Leslie Dubeck, called the Republicans’ request “an unprecedented inquiry into a pending local prosecution.”

Mr. Bragg’s office is investigating the role Mr. Trump played in a hush-money payment to a porn star and there have been several signals that the prosecutors are nearing an indictment. Still, the exact timing remains unknown.

Though the special grand jury hearing evidence about Mr. Trump meets on Thursdays, it typically does not hear evidence about the Trump case that day, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Special grand juries, which unlike regular grand juries sit for months at a time and hear complex cases, routinely consider multiple cases simultaneously.

Republicans have rushed to the former president’s side this week, following a Saturday post from Mr. Trump inaccurately predicting that he would be arrested Tuesday and calling on his supporters to protest in charged language reminiscent of his social media posts in the weeks before the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

On Saturday, following Mr. Trump’s post, the speaker of the House, Representative Kevin McCarthy, called for investigations into whether federal funds were being used for “politically motivated prosecutions,” an act clearly intended as a threat to Mr. Bragg.

Washington Post, Fed raises benchmark rate by 0.25 point despite bank turmoil, Rachel Siegel, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). Central bank officials have said they’ll keep trying to slow the economy until inflation eases back to normal levels. But Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse weighed heavily on the latest decision.

The Federal Reserve, led by Jerome Powell, right, raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, moving forward with its fight against high inflation despite concern that its rate hikes may be fueling instability in the banking system.

Financial markets expected the move, which brings the Fed’s base policy rate to between 4.75 and 5 percent.

Less than two weeks after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank jarred the nation’s financial stability, policymakers said the banking system is “sound and resilient” in a statement released at the end of the Fed’s two-day meeting. Still, events from the past few weeks could hamper the economy, which the central bank is still trying to slow down to control price increases.

“Recent developments are likely to result in tighter credit conditions for households and businesses and to weigh on economic activity, hiring and inflation,” the statement read. “The extent of these effects is uncertain.”

The central bank is also facing questions about its regulatory oversight of SVB, as Washington tries to figure out whether the government could have prevented the turmoil in the banking sector.

“There is risk for the Fed here,” Tim Duy, a Fed expert at the University of Oregon and chief economist at SGH Macro Advisors, wrote in an analyst note. “If the Fed hikes, it must be reasonably confident that regulators have ringfenced the banking problems. If the Fed hikes rates and bank failures multiply, the political fallout will be intense.”

Fighting inflation, rescuing banks: The Fed’s sprawling jobs collide

In a fresh crop of economic projections, officials penciled in one more quarter-point rate increase this year, though future moves depend heavily on how the economy behaves. Officials otherwise made small tweaks to their previous estimates from December. They now expect the unemployment rate to end the year at 4.5 percent (down from 4.6 percent the last time the bank made projections) and that the economy will grow by 0.4 percent this year (down from 0.5 percent they projected in December). Inflation will remain above normal levels through the end of 2023.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Recognizing symbols of hate and right-wing rebellion in the United States, Wayne Madsen, left, March 22-23, 2023. Nazi and other far-right symbology spreading across America.

The transformation of the Republican Party into a Donald Trump cult and platform advocating fascism has resulted in the mushrooming of symbols of hate across the United States. In some cases, flags and banners proclaim loyalty to Trump even though they deface the U.S. flag, thus violating the U.S. Flag Code. Other banners, such as the "Don't Tread on Me" or Gadsden Flag misuse and misrepresent historical flags in being adopted as hate symbols. Nazi swastikas and symbols of the Confederacy have also been resurrected by the Trumpist cult.

Absent a domestic terrorism law, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are hard-pressed to conduct systematic and uniform surveillance of far-right insurrectionists, but many far-right groups make no effort to hide themselves. In fact, actual and potential seditionists like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Boogaloo Bois shamefully fly from their vehicles and on their front lawns their symbols of rebellion and hate.

Spotting symbols of insurrection and hate should be a top priority for every American who abides by the rule of law and the Constitution. The black "No Quarter Given" flag is an extremely dangerous symbol. Those who fly it are sovereign citizens who are giving warning that they will shoot to kill anyone on their property.

New York Times, Former President Trump is facing several investigations. See where they stand, Ben Protess, Alan Feuer and Danny Hakim, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). The Manhattan district attorney’s office appears to be nearing a potential indictment of the former president, as federal and state prosecutors bear down on Mr. Trump in a number of inquiries.

After avoiding indictment for years, former President Donald J. Trump now appears closer than ever to facing criminal charges in Manhattan.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office recently signaled to Mr. Trump’s lawyers that he could face criminal charges for his role in a hush-money payment to a porn star, the strongest indication yet that prosecutors are nearing an indictment of the former president, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

The district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, impaneled a grand jury in January to hear evidence in the longest-running criminal inquiry facing the former president. Since then, his prosecutors have questioned at least nine witnesses before the panel, though it is unclear whether they have completed their presentation of evidence.

Any case would mark the first indictment of a former American president. Yet Mr. Bragg might not be the last prosecutor to seek charges against Mr. Trump. Several federal and state prosecutors are scrutinizing him as well.

Here is where the notable inquiries involving the former president stand.

New York Times, Republicans Say Spending Is Fueling Inflation. The Fed Chair Disagrees, Jim Tankersley, March 23, 2023. Jerome Powell has said that snarled supply chains, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and shifts among American consumers are primarily behind rapid price growth.

The chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome H. Powell, has repeatedly undercut a central claim Republicans make as they seek sharp cuts in federal spending: Government spending is driving the nation’s still-hot inflation rate.

Republican lawmakers say spending programs signed into law by President Biden are pumping too much money into the economy and fueling an annual inflation rate that was 6 percent in February — a decline from last year’s highs, but still well above historical norms. Mr. Powell disputed those claims in congressional testimony earlier this month and in a news conference on Wednesday, after the Fed announced it would once again raise interest rates in an effort to bring inflation back toward normal levels.

Asked whether federal tax and spending policies were contributing to price growth, Mr. Powell pointed to a decline in federal spending from the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“You have to look at the fiscal impulse from spending,” Mr. Powell said on Wednesday, referring to a measure of how much tax and spending policies are adding or subtracting to economic growth. “Fiscal impulse is actually not what’s driving inflation right now. It was at the beginning perhaps, but that’s not the story right now.”

New York Times, U.S. and Canada Reach an Agreement on Turning Away Asylum Seekers, Michael D. Shear and Ian Austen, March 23, 2023. The deal allows both countries to turn away people who cross their borders without authorization at a time when migration has surged.

The deal, which is set to be announced Friday by President Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after the two leaders meet in Ottawa, will allow Canada to turn back immigrants at Roxham Road, a popular unofficial crossing point from New York for migrants seeking asylum in Canada.

In exchange, Canada has agreed to provide a new, legal refugee program for 15,000 migrants who are fleeing violence, persecution and economic devastation in South and Central America, the official said, lessening the pressure of illegal crossings into the United States from Mexico.

Mr. Biden was due to arrive in Ottawa on Thursday evening for a 24-hour visit meant to underscore the unity of purpose between the United States and Canada after four years of frosty and even openly hostile exchanges between Mr. Trudeau and former President Donald J. Trump.

Washington Post, Ukraine Live Updates: Zelensky visits Bakhmut; China’s Xi leaves Russia with no clear progress on ending war, Rachel Pannett and Adela Suliman, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, shown above at right, made a visit to the front line in Bakhmut, where Russian forces have almost encircled Ukrainian troops, cutting off major transport and supply lines. His office said in a statement Wednesday that Zelensky heard operational updates and presented service men with awards. Controlling Bakhmut is unlikely to tip the war’s outcome but would give Russia a symbolic victory after months of battlefield setbacks.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping departed Russia on Wednesday, wrapping up a three-day trip that underscored Beijing and Moscow’s desire to reshape the global order against Western power but that offered little concrete progress on China’s pledge to promote peace in the Ukraine conflict. Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a series of agreements to expand trade and deepen strategic ties. Xi reiterated that China has an “impartial position” on the war in Ukraine. The United States later accused China of “parroting the Russian propaganda.”

China’s 12-point proposal does not address the withdrawal of Russian troops from occupied areas of Ukraine and is vague about key issues such as Ukraine’s sovereignty. U.S. officials say any impending cease-fire would only buy Russian troops more time to regroup and would effectively ratify much of the illegal annexation of large swaths of Ukraine. Xi is expected to hold talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky following his return from Moscow, although the timing of those discussions is not confirmed.

Ben Barnes, left, with Lady Bird Johnson and her husband, former President Lyndon B. Johnson, in Austin, Tex., on Aug. 29, 1970 (Associated Press photo by Ted Powers). The New York Times reported this week that Barnes revealed to the newspaper that he had played a role, largely unwittingly, in helping Republicans delay the release by Iran of U.S. hostages in 1980 in order to hurt President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and help the election campaign of Republican Ronald Reagan. President Carter is shown below in a 1980 Associated Press photo telling the American public that a rescue attempt he had authorized had failed, with resulting in U.S. military rescuers' deaths.

New York Times, Former Iran Hostages Are Divided on Jimmy Carter and a Sabotage Claim, Michael Levenson, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). A report about a covert effort to delay their release until after the 1980 presidential election drew anger, resignation and disbelief from the survivors of the crisis.

They are the last survivors of an international crisis that hobbled Jimmy Carter’s presidency and may have cost him re-election. Many are now in their 80s.

With the former president gravely ill in hospice care, some of the 52 Americans who were held hostage in Iran for 444 days are looking back on Mr. Carter’s legacy with a mix of frustration, sadness and gratitude.

Many feel neglected by the government, which has paid them only about a quarter of the $4.4 million that they were each promised by Congress in 2015, after decades of lobbying for compensation, said their lawyer, V. Thomas Lankford. Some endured physical and mental abuse, including mock executions, during the hostage crisis. About half have died.

Last week, their ordeal was thrust back into the news with the account of a covert effort to delay their release until after the 1980 presidential election in a bid to help the campaign of Mr. Carter’s Republican challenger, Ronald Reagan.

A former Texas politician, Ben Barnes, told The New York Times that he had toured the Middle East that summer with John B. Connally Jr., the former Texas governor, who told regional leaders that Mr. Reagan would win and give the Iranians a “better deal.” Mr. Connally, a former Democrat turned Republican, was angling for a cabinet position.

Mr. Barnes, 84, said that he was speaking out now because “history needs to know that this happened.”

He told The Times that he did not know if the message that Mr. Connally gave to Middle Eastern leaders ever reached the Iranians, or whether it influenced them. Mr. Connally died in 1993. Nor was it clear if Mr. Reagan knew about the trip. Mr. Barnes said Mr. Connally had briefed William J. Casey, the chairman of Mr. Reagan’s campaign and later the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in an airport lounge after the trip.

The account stirred anger among some of the former hostages, while others dismissed his story of election sabotage as not credible. They are a diverse group that includes former diplomats, retired military officers and academics, and members of both major political parties.

“It’s nice that Mr. Barnes is trying to soothe his soul during the last years of his life,” said Barry Rosen, 79, who was press attaché at the embassy in Tehran when it was overrun on Nov. 4, 1979. “But for the hostages who went through hell, he has not helped us at all. He has made it just as bad or worse.”

Mr. Rosen, who lives in New York, said that Mr. Barnes should have come forward 43 years ago, given the decades of speculation about political interference.

“It’s the definition of treason,” he said, “knowing that there was a possibility that the Carter administration might have been able to negotiate us out of Iran earlier.”

A Four-Decade Secret:

But Kevin Hermening, a certified financial planner in Mosinee, Wis., who was a Marine Corps sergeant guarding the embassy, said that he did not believe Mr. Barnes’s account and that, even if it were true, the effort would not have influenced his captors.

“The Iranians were very clear that they were not going to release us while President Carter was in office,” said Mr. Hermening, 63. “He was despised by the mullahs and those people who followed the Ayatollah.”

The Barnes account cast a new light on these long-ago events, troubling David M. Roeder, a retired colonel who was the deputy Air Force attaché at the embassy. Mr. Roeder said that he had repeatedly told his captors that if Mr. Reagan won, they would be dealing with a “much tougher person.”

“I have come to the conclusion — perhaps because I want to — that hopefully President Reagan was unaware that this was going on,” said Mr. Roeder, 83, of Pinehurst, N.C. But, he added, “I gained a great deal more respect for President Carter because I’ve seen what he went through with us in captivity.”

Greg Palast Investigates, Commentary: Reagan’s Treason, Two Bushes and the $23 Million Payoff, Greg Palast, March 23, 2023. This week, a Texas pol, Ben Barnes, confessed that he was personally involved—and therefore an eyewitness to–high treason: The Ronald Reagan campaign’s successful secret deal with the Iranian government to hold 52 Americans hostages so that Reagan could defeat Jimmy Carter.

Reagan’s skanky deal worked. In 1980, Carter’s failure to bring home the hostages destroyed his chance of reelection. Reagan, right, ultimately would repay the favor from Iran’s murder-crats with weapons and even, for the Ayatollah Khomeini, a birthday cake from Reagan advisor Oliver North.

The question is, why now? Why did Barnes suddenly blow the whistle on this crime—and a crime it is—four decades late? His cute excuse, reported without question by the New York Times, is that, “History needs to know that this happened.”

Wrong. “History” doesn’t need to know—American voters needed to know about Reagan’s treason before the 1980 election.

So, then, why did Barnes squirrel away the truth for decades? Follow the money.

It’s a money trail that leads to two Bushes who would not have become president if not for Barnes’ silence about Iran—and Barnes’ omertà about another creepy Bush scheme.

In 1999, for The Guardian, I discovered that Barnes, in his previous role as Lt. Governor of Texas, used his political juice to get Congressman George Bush Sr.’s son, “Dubya” into the Texas Air Guard—over literally thousands of far-more-qualified applicants. (Little Bush scored 25 out of 100 on the test, just one point above “too dumb to fly.”)

And so, Dubya, shown at left, dodged the draft and Vietnam.

Barnes hid the truth despite pleas from Texas Gov. Ann Richards, who, in 1994, lost a squeaker of an election too.

In Austin, Texas, I received unshakeable evidence that Barnes was the fixer who got Congressman Bush’s son out of the Vietnam draft. (This, while Bush Sr. was voting to send other men’s sons to Vietnam.)

What did Barnes get for his burial of Reagan’s deal with Iran and Bush Jr.’s draft dodging? Did $23 million do it?

In 1999, I was investigating a company, GTech, which ran both the British and Texas lotteries. Texas had disqualified GTech from operating the state lottery based on strong evidence of corruption. But oddly, the new Governor of Texas, George W. Bush, fired the lottery director who banned GTEch. Then Bush’s new lottery commissioner gave GTech back its multi-billion-dollar contract, no bidding.

Notably, Bush’s firing of the state’s lottery director came two days after a meeting with GTech’s lobbyist—Ben Barnes.

Barnes’ fees from GTech? $23 million.

I wasn’t in the Bush-Barnes little tête-à-tête: the info came from a confidential memo from the lottery director that was well buried inside Justice Department files.

In a civil suit, Barnes supposedly denied any quid pro quo with Gov. Bush. Maybe. A nice payment from GTech to the wronged lottery director sealed Barnes’ testimony from the public.

• Maybe Bush met with Barnes just to reminisce. But if Barnes had the Bush family’s entire political fortune in his pocket, did he really need to remind Dubya of the consequences if the Governor did not take care of Barnes’ client?
• Secretly conspiring with a foreign power to keep Americans imprisoned, secretly negotiating with and providing weapons to a foreign enemy is the definition of treason—and so would a cover-up for cash.
• This was another example, I wrote in The Guardian, how the Bushes turned America into “the best democracy money can buy.”
• I then wrote a book of that title and made a film, Bush Family Fortunes, detailing the Bush Family crime-wave, for BBC Television.

Today, you can download that documentary, Bush Family Fortunes, free of charge. (If you want to throw in a tax-deductible donation, hey, we won’t say ‘no.’ Our nvestigations continue: The cast of characters has changed, but not the crimes.)

And a word about the creeps, cowards and conmen who call themselves “journalists.” Let’s start with a trivia question: Who is Dan Rather? He’s a former TV star and one-time reporter who took my story of Bush’s draft dodging, stuck it on 60 Minutes and, in violation of any sense of ethics and decency, exposed a whistleblower, Texas Air Guard Col. Bill Burkett, a man of inestimable courage and integrity.

Rather’s exposure ruined Burkett. No Texan would sell him feed. His cattle were dying, so he lost his ranch.

Dan Rather was fired by CBS for getting the network in hot water with the Bush White House. Then, by his own admission, Rather agreed to backtrack on the story of Bush the draft dodger in return for a promise of a return to the CBS airwaves. CBS screwed Rather—but that often happens to feckless recreants.

Neither I nor the BBC nor The Guardian retracted a single word of our story of Dubya the Draft Dodger nor the tale of the $23 million questionable payment.

There are zeroes—and there are heroes. The story of Reagan and his “October Surprise” was first busted open by Robert Parry – who also uncovered the Iran-Contra scandal. Instead of getting a Pulitzer, Parry’s career was destroyed. For uncovering too many uncomfortable truths, he was bounced from the Associated Press, Newsweek, Bloomberg, and The Nation.

Parry died in 2018, in journalistic exile.

Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" and "Billionaires & Ballot Bandits," out as major motion non-fiction movie: "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Case of the Stolen Election," available on Amazon and Amazon Prime.

Tik Tok, Social Media, Artificial Intelligence

New York Times, TikTok Chief Faces Scathing Questions From Both Parties in Congress, Sapna Maheshwari, March 23, 2023. The Chinese-owned video app has become a battleground as the U.S. and China duel for tech leadership; Shou Chew’s first appearance before U.S. lawmakers comes as their distrust of the video app’s Chinese ownership has escalated; China said on Thursday that it would “firmly oppose” a forced sale of TikTok.

Shou Chew, the chief executive of TikTok, will testify before Congress for the first time on Thursday, in an appearance that is expected to reflect U.S. lawmakers’ escalating distrust of the short-form video app’s Chinese ownership.

The hearing, which will begin at 10 a.m. before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, will give lawmakers a rare opportunity to ask Mr. Chew questions directly about TikTok’s relationship with its Chinese owner, ByteDance, as well as about the app’s handling of sensitive U.S. user data and the risks it may pose to teens and children.

TikTok is working to secure its future in the United States, one of its biggest markets, where it says it has 150 million users and where it has become a culture-making machine. But lawmakers have questions about ByteDance’s links to the Chinese government and whether those could put TikTok’s U.S. user data into the hands of Beijing officials. U.S. intelligence officials like the director of the F.B.I., Christopher A. Wray, have also warned that the Chinese government could use TikTok’s algorithm for “influence operations.”

TikTok, which was initially hailed as China’s first global internet success story, has come to represent the growing divide between the United States and China over tech leadership and national security. The app has become a battleground in a technological Cold War between the two countries, with U.S. threats of a TikTok ban recalling how China has long blocked many American platforms.

New York Times, TikTok Claims It’s Limiting Teen Screen Time. Teens Say It Isn’t, Sapna Maheshwari, March 23, 2023. This month, the company announced a 60-minute cap for users under 18. But for some, staying on the app takes just a few taps.

New York Times, Meet the lonely New York progressive who says TikTok is the victim of anti-China “hysteria,” Nicholas Fandos and David McCabe, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York, above, says the drive to ban TikTok stems from anti-China “hysteria.” His Democratic colleagues disagree.

Of TikTok’s 150 million American users, there may be none more valuable to the embattled platform right now than Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York.

A backbench Democrat, Mr. Bowman commands neither TikTok’s largest following (he has about 159,000 fans) nor exceptional legislative clout. But in recent days, he has gone where almost no one else on Capitol Hill would, appointing himself the platform’s unofficial defender in face of a bipartisan race to target what President Biden sees as a national security threat.

“Why the hell are we whipping ourselves into a hysteria to scapegoat TikTok?” Mr. Bowman asked in a telephone interview as he traveled by train to Washington on Wednesday.

Hours later, he held a news conference outside the House touting the platform’s virtues, alongside dozens of influencers brought in by TikTok for a day of lobbying ahead of Thursday’s congressional hearing with its chief executive. Only two other Democrats attended, while some of the congressman’s most outspoken allies declined to weigh in, like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a fellow member of the group of left-leaning lawmakers known as the squad.

New York Times, Commentary: The A.I. Chatbots Have Arrived. Time to Talk to Your Kids, Christina Caron (a reporter for the Well section and a mother of two who experimented with ChatGPT for hours to help fellow parents better understand how it works), March 23, 2023. Artificial intelligence can make adults nervous, but experts say exploring it as a family is the best way to understand its pros and cons.

New York Times, Opinion: Our New Promethean Moment, Thomas L. Friedman, right, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). I had a most remarkable but unsettling experience last week.

Craig Mundie, the former chief research and strategy officer for Microsoft, was giving me a demonstration of GPT-4, the most advanced version of the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI and launched in November. Craig was preparing to brief the board of my wife’s museum, Planet Word, of which he is a member, about the effect ChatGPT will have on words, language and innovation.

“You need to understand,” Craig warned me before he started his demo, “this is going to change everything about how we do everything. I think that it represents mankind’s greatest invention to date. It is qualitatively different — and it will be transformational.”

Large language modules like ChatGPT will steadily increase in their capabilities, Craig added, and take us “toward a form of artificial general intelligence,” delivering efficiencies in operations, ideas, discoveries and insights “that have never been attainable before across every domain.”

Then he did a demonstration. And I realized Craig’s words were an understatement.

New York Times, Commentary: The A.I. Chatbots Have Arrived. Time to Talk to Your Kids, Christina Caron (a reporter for the Well section and a mother of two who experimented with ChatGPT for hours to help fellow parents better understand how it works), March 23, 2023. Artificial intelligence can make adults nervous, but experts say exploring it as a family is the best way to understand its pros and cons.

Pandemics, Public Health, Privacy

New York Times, Biden Plan to Cut Billions in Medicare Fraud Ignites Lobbying Frenzy, Reed Abelson and Margot Sanger-Katz, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). The Biden administration has proposed changes to how it would pay private Medicare Advantage plans, setting off a lobbying frenzy.

The multimillion dollar ad buy is part of an aggressive campaign by the health insurance industry and its allies to stop the Biden proposal. It would significantly lower payments — by billions of dollars a year — to Medicare Advantage, the private plans that now cover about half of the government’s health program for older Americans.

The change in payment formulas is an effort, Biden administration officials say, to tackle widespread abuses and fraud in the increasingly popular private program. In the last decade, reams of evidence uncovered in lawsuits and audits revealed systematic overbilling of the government. A final decision on the payments is expected shortly, and is one of a series of tough new rules aimed at reining in the industry. The changes fit into a broader effort by the White House to shore up the Medicare trust fund.

New York Times, China Approves an mRNA Covid Vaccine, Its First, Nicole Hong and Alexandra Stevenson, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). The homegrown shot is a crucial tool that China has been lacking — a vaccine based on a technology considered among the most effective the world has to offer.

China has for the first time approved a Covid-19 vaccine based on mRNA technology, greenlighting a homegrown shot months after the ruling Communist Party eliminated its strict pandemic restrictions.

China has long refused to use the foreign-made mRNA shots that were crucial in easing the pandemic in many parts of the world and that the United States first authorized for emergency use in December 2020. Beijing chose instead to promote its own pharmaceutical firms, first in rolling out a more traditional but less effective Covid vaccine, and later, in the pursuit of a homegrown mRNA, or messenger RNA, vaccine.

China’s new mRNA vaccine, developed by CSPC Pharmaceutical Group Ltd., based in the northern Chinese city of Shijiazhuang, was approved for emergency use by China’s health regulator, according to a statement from the company on Wednesday.

Among the vaccines currently available in China, the most widely known are made by the companies Sinopharm and Sinovac. Like other traditional vaccines, they rely on a century-old method for inoculation, which use an inactivated virus to trigger a response by the immune system, and have since proven to be less effective in protecting against symptomatic disease.

Washington Post, Troubled U.S. organ transplant system targeted for overhaul, Lenny Bernstein, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). The government’s plan, which would break up the monopoly power of the nonprofit organization that runs the system, would leave little unaffected in the sprawling, multibillion-dollar network.

The government announced plans Wednesday to overhaul the troubled U.S. organ transplant system, including breaking up the monopoly power of the nonprofit organization that has run it for the past 37 years.

If successful, the proposal would leave little unaffected in the sprawling, multibillion-dollar network that sends kidneys, livers and other organs from deceased donors to severely ill recipients. That system has long been criticized as inadequate: Nearly 104,000 people are on waiting lists for organs, most of them kidneys; 22 people die each day awaiting transplants, with poor and minority patients generally faring worse than affluent and White people.

Carole Johnson, administrator of the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, the agency responsible for the network, is proposing to break up responsibility for some of the functions performed by its nonprofit manager, the United Network for Organ Sharing. UNOS is the only entity ever to operate the U.S. transplant system.

She said in an interview that she would invite other organizations to take over those areas. They would bid for separate contracts, creating the first competitive environment in the history of the transplant system.

“Our goal is to get best in class for all the functions we think are essential to running the transplant network,” Johnson said.

A spokeswoman for UNOS did not respond to an email seeking comment on the proposal Tuesday evening.

Under UNOS, which holds a $6.5 million annual contract with HRSA, the network has been plagued by problems: Too many organs are discarded, damaged in transit or simply not collected, faulty technology sometimes jeopardizes transplants, and poor performers face little accountability.

The proposal also aims to install a strong board of directors independent of UNOS, create a public dashboard for the voluminous data the system generates and bring more transparency to the sometimes opaque process of how patients and organs are matched.

• Washington Post, New liver transplant rules yield winners, losers as wasted organs reach record high, Malena Carollo and Ben Tane, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). The number of lifesaving liver transplants has plummeted in some Southern and Midwestern states that struggle with higher death rates from liver disease.

Washington Post, Idaho hospital to stop delivering babies, partly due to ‘political climate,’ Brittany Shammas and Marisa Iati, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Brooke Macumber planned to have her fourth child in the same small hospital where two of her older children were born — the same place her husband had been delivered decades earlier.

But at 23 weeks pregnant, she found out that the facility, Bonner General Health in rural Sandpoint, Idaho, was shuttering its obstetrics unit after almost 75 years. Now, the closest hospital able to deliver her baby is more than an hour’s drive from her home.

“I’ve just had nightmares of making my husband pull off and delivering in the front seat of our car,” said Macumber, 25, who lives on the outskirts of a 500-resident town near the Montana border.

The closure of Bonner’s labor and delivery department follows a national trend that researchers have associated with potentially dangerous out-of-hospital and preterm births. Access to obstetric services has been on the decline for years in rural areas, with at least 89 obstetrics units in rural U.S. hospitals closing their doors between 2015 and 2019, according to the American Hospital Association. More than half of rural counties — home to 2.2 million women of childbearing age — are now maternity-care deserts.

Some obstetricians say the problem has been exacerbated by the recent passage of laws criminalizing abortion, which can make recruiting and retaining physicians all the more difficult.

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Top Global News

New York Times, Israel’s Parliament Passes Law Making It Harder to Remove Prime Minister, Isabel Kershner, March 23, 2023. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, is also expected to speak soon, leading to speculation that he might delay parts of his divisive legislative program.

Israel’s Parliament passed legislation early Thursday that would make it more difficult to declare prime ministers incapacitated and remove them from office, a move that critics said was aimed at protecting the country’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption.

Under the legislation, the latest in a series of divisive bills pursued by the government, a sitting prime minister could only be declared incapacitated on physical or mental health grounds.

The bill, passed by a bare majority of 61 in the 120-seat Parliament, came just before tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets for another stormy day of protest against the government plan for a broad overhaul of the judiciary.

Opponents of the plan, which would give the government more control over judicial appointments and weaken the Supreme Court by severely restricting judicial review of legislation, say that it would subvert the country’s democratic system.

A black-and-white image shows a crowd of people waving small American flags as people disembark from a jet with “United States of America” written on its side.

New York Times, Migration Tops Agenda as President Biden Visits Canada, Ian Austen and Vjosa Isai, March 23, 2023. Canada is seeking a renegotiation of an agreement with the U.S. that binds it to accept asylum seekers at unofficial crossing points.

Nearly every day at Roxham Road, people cross over from the United States into the arms of the Canadian police and ask for asylum.

When President Biden arrives in Canada’s capital on Thursday for his first visit to the country since taking the Oval Office, the influx of migrants at that road, an unofficial border crossing on a country lane in Quebec, will be near the top of the agenda for his meetings with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, below left.

Mr. Trudeau’s government has welcomed refugees from Syria and elsewhere, and has pledged striking increases in immigration to the country, earning Canada a reputation as being more open to migrants than many other Western nations. But over the past year, as migration has swelled at Canada’s border, with a surge of asylum seekers walking into Roxham Road from a sleepy village in New York State, there are signs that Canada’s famed hospitality toward migrants may be fraying.

The surge of nearly 40,000 migrants who crossed into the country last year — more than double the number in 2019 — has given Canada a small taste of the challenges that other Western countries have faced in settling refugees and has prompted Mr. Trudeau’s opponents to call for him to renegotiate a key agreement on asylum seekers with the United States. The number arriving each month has spiked, with almost 5,000 people arriving in January.

with the United States that his political opponents say is fueling the surge. On Wednesday, Mr. Trudeau suggested that a deal may be announced before Mr. Biden returns to Washington on Friday evening.

“We’ve been working very closely with the Americans for many months, and we hope to have an announcement soon,” he told reporters.

A Canadian government official, who spoke about the talks on the condition that he not be identified, said that the United States was interested in reworking the agreement because it is facing a growing number of people headed the other way, from Canada into the United States.

New York Times, U.K. Lawmakers Approve Key Measure of Northern Ireland Trade Deal, Megan Specia, March 22, 2023. An important element of the agreement known as the Windsor Framework, a Brexit provision negotiated with the European Union, was roundly endorsed in the British Parliament.

British lawmakers on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly in favor of a key component of a long-awaited deal on Northern Ireland trade rules, an emphatic victory for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, shown above, as he tries to resolve one of the most vexing legacies of Britain’s exit from the European Union.

Despite the strong backing of the agreement, the leading unionist party in the North, which seeks to remain part of the United Kingdom, said that it did not accept the deal and would refuse to form a local government, signaling more political turmoil ahead.

Several prominent members of the governing Conservative Party also broke ranks with the government and voted against the part of the deal that was under debate, including Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, two former prime ministers. Nonetheless, the measure passed in a landslide, 515 to 29.

The vote on Wednesday was on just one element of the agreement, known as the Stormont Brake, which would allow Northern Ireland to block the implementation of any “significantly different” new European rules on goods. The measure was aimed at addressing the North’s concerns that Brussels would have too much control over its trade rules. But the leading unionist party, the D.U.P. (whose leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, is shown at left) rejected the Stormont Brake as insufficient.

The lopsided nature of the vote was good news for Mr. Sunak, who has championed the broader trade deal, known as the Windsor Framework, that was negotiated with the European Union last month.

The vote on the Stormont Brake on Wednesday was the first time that British lawmakers had had a chance to weigh in on the deal, so it had been seen as a measure of their approval.

The D.U.P. said this week that it would not vote for the Windsor Framework agreement, and as the vote on the Stormont Brake approached, its leaders confirmed that they had no plans either to enter into a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland’s devolved local assembly, known as Stormont. Northern Ireland’s other largest parties, including a different unionist party, have said that they support the framework.

New York Times, Leader of Indian Party Opposing Modi Is Sentenced in Defamation Case, Karan Deep Singh, March 23, 2023. Rahul Gandhi, who leads the main opposition party, received a two-year sentence for a comment in 2019 criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right.

Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the main party opposing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, was convicted of defamation and sentenced to prison on Thursday, the latest blow to the beleaguered opposition party just a year before national elections.

Mr. Gandhi was immediately granted 30 days’ bail. His party, the Indian National Congress, said he would appeal the conviction.

A court in Gujarat, Mr. Modi’s home state, sentenced Mr. Gandhi to two years in prison. He was convicted in connection with a 2019 speech in which he linked the prime minister’s family name to that of two Indian fugitives accused of swindling millions of dollars, Nirav Modi and Lalit Modi.

“How come all the thieves have Modi as the common name?” Mr. Gandhi said while campaigning during the 2019 elections.

New York Times, A ‘New Cold War’ Looms in Africa as U.S. Pushes Against Russian Gains, Declan Walsh, March 19, 2023. The U.S. is reprising its playbook in Ukraine, where it has used classified information to expose plans by Russia. The next target: Chad.

Fueled by guns, gold and social media, the rivalry between Russia and the West in Africa is rapidly escalating. The latest flashpoint is Chad, a sprawling desert nation at the crossroads of the continent, now a plum target for Russia’s expanding effort.

The United States recently warned Chad’s president that Russian mercenaries were plotting to kill him and three senior aides and that Moscow was backing Chadian rebels massing in the neighboring Central African Republic. At the same time, Moscow is courting sympathizers inside Chad’s ruling elite, including cabinet ministers and a half brother of the president.

New York Times, As Haiti’s Police Retreat, Gangs Take Over Much of the Capital, Andre Paultre and Chris Cameron, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). Even wealthier areas in the capital, Port-au-Prince, are no longer immune to violence as gangs attack police officers and destroy police stations.

One by one, schools and hospitals have closed. Kidnappings are an everyday risk and gang warfare rages openly on the streets. But now, the chaos that has long consumed many parts of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, has spread: The national police, outgunned, outnumbered, underpaid and demoralized, have ceded control of most of the city to gangs.

Almost no one is safe anymore, analysts and residents say. Even the wealthy who have long looked down at the gang-ridden city from their homes in the mountains above Port-au-Prince are no longer immune.

Gangs operate with impunity across Port-au-Prince and increasingly in wealthy enclaves above the city, analysts say, tightening their grip by attacking police officers and destroying police stations.

“Today, security in Haiti is not a matter of means,’’ said Youri Mevs, the managing partner of an industrial park who lives in the mountains overlooking the city. “It is a matter of avoiding the wrong place at the wrong time. And, the wrong place is almost everywhere, just as the wrong time is literally all the time.”

New York Times, Uganda Passes Strict Anti-Gay Bill That Imposes Death Penalty for Some, Abdi Latif Dahir, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). The legislation also calls for life in prison for anyone engaging in gay sex. Policies to stifle gay rights have been on the rise in several African nations.

Lawmakers in Uganda have passed a sweeping anti-gay law that can bring punishments as severe as the death penalty — the culmination of a long-running campaign to criminalize homosexuality and target L.G.B.T.Q. people in the conservative nation in East Africa.

The law, which was passed late on Tuesday night after more than seven hours of discussion and amendments, calls for a life sentence for anyone engaging in gay sex. Even attempting to have same-sex relations would be met with a seven-year prison term.

The death penalty would be applied to people convicted of “aggravated homosexuality,” a sweeping term defined in the law as homosexual acts committed by anyone infected with H.I.V. or involving children, disabled people or anyone drugged against their will.

The parliamentary vote in Uganda caps a struggle over gay rights in Uganda that has drawn international attention for nearly 15 years. It comes as anti-gay policies and discrimination have been on the rise in several African nations, including Kenya, Ghana and Zambia.

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 More On Probes of Trump, Allies 

Proof, Going Deep, Investigative Commentary: A Primer for the Imminent Indictment of Former President Trump, Seth Abramson, left, best-selling author, attorney and journalism professor, March 20-23, 2023. A man who presents as a malignant-narcissist sociopath—having already incited an insurrection and stoked far-right fantasies of a Second U.S. Civil War—is about to be indicted. Here’s what to expect.

Introduction: The pieces are all in place.

Donald Trump’s cultish followers are on social media promising en masse to launch a violent civil war against the rest of us if their leader is finally treated the same way the rest of us would be if we’d repeatedly committed state and federal crimes over a span of decades.

Current and future Trumpist insurrectionists are being goaded on by far-right media—which falsely assures them that Mr. Trump is being mistreated via an overcharged case in New York City—and by Trump himself, who’s lately added to his repertoire of regularly calling the Black prosecutors investigating him “racists” and falsely alleging that they’re part of a vast left-wing conspiracy the further libels that (a) he’s a victim of Extortion by adult-film actress Stormy Daniels (he is not), (b) the prosecutors in his case are engaged in prosecutorial misconduct because they’re well aware that the statute of limitations has run on the crimes he’s about to be charged with (they are not and it has not), and (c) his prospective indictment in a Manhattan courthouse is a response to his nascent presidential campaign (it is not, as anyone old enough to remember Trump’s co-conspirator Michael Cohen getting a lengthy federal prison sentence in 2018 over the exact same sequence of facts will readily understand).

Trump’s scurrilous claims are being echoed not just by Fox News and, in even more aggressive terms, OANN and Newsmax and Breitbart and Trump whisperer Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, but also by rogue attorneys like Alan Dershowitz who sagely assure Trumpists who know nothing about U.S. criminal law that their emotionalized overreaction to someone they personally like staring down a criminal indictment isn’t just psychologically or socioculturally but legally warranted (it is not).

Fox News in particular has been trying to use the coming Trump indictment in New York to regain the viewership it lost after many Trumpists abandoned it in the wake of January 6, citing—at the time—its allegedly soft commitment to the devolution of the United States into an autocratic hellscape run by America’s first unabashed tyrant. If you’ve been following Fox News in recent days you’re seeing the same signals you saw when the network was spreading the “Big Lie” about the 2020 presidential election, a course of astonishly premeditated corporate malfeasance that is currently the subject of a civil lawsuit that could cataclysmically effect the far-right propaganda organ.

Fox News anchors are repeatedly misstating the law, giving Trump agents and aides and advisers and allies and attorneys free reign to misstate the facts of the allegations against him and recklessly malign career public servants, and in what may be an even more sinister maneuver than either of those easily clocked gambits is carpeting its airwaves with the notion that just because America has never before had a President of the United States as corrupt as Trump—and therefore has never needed to indict a former president before—it must actually be the case that anyone who wants to see our rule of law adapt to upsetting new circumstances is in fact seeking to demolish America from within.

Here’s the truth: (1) We knew years ago that Trump was “Individual-1” in a criminal conspiracy that violated federal law and has already landed one of its flunkies, Cohen—not a ringleader like Trump—in federal prison, and (2) while many in media may call the state case Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is apparently about to bring against Trump a “hush-money” case, it is actually a case about Trump trying to steal the 2016 presidential election under the noses of American voters and doing so successfully.

Steve Bannon, then Trump’s campaign CEO, would later say that for Trump to run for president “a hundred” women had to be shut up so that American voters wouldn’t learn (or, charitably, come to fully appreciate) that Trump was and has always been a serial philanderer and sexual assailant who treats women like disposable property. (Keep in mind, here, that women make up more than half of the American electorate.)

We would even later learn that Trump pal and fixer David Pecker, a sleazy magazine publisher, had an entire “vault” in his office full of “catch-and-kill” stories he had purchased from former Trump mistresses just so that he could bury them on Trump’s behalf. And as discussed and substantiated in the 2019 New York Times bestseller Proof of Conspiracy (Macmillan, 2019), there is every reason to think Pecker got at least some of the money for these clandestine payoffs from infamous murderer and U.S. election-tamperer, Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.

(You may recall, too, that per the Mueller Report, Michael Cohen—the same Trump friend, fixer, attorney, and employee who subsequently went to prison for paying to keep Stormy Daniels quiet—spent October 2016 trying to keep quiet evidence that both he and Trump believed existed of Trump carrying himself in Russia, on several occasions, like a man who is a serial philanderer and sexual assailant who treats women like disposable property.)

So when, just days after the Access Hollywood tape dropped, Trump set in motion the series of state and federal crimes that ended with an illegal payoff to Stormy Daniels, he was trying to hide from U.S. voters a series of facts that he personally believed, as did everyone else in his inner circle, would cost him the presidency (if his own thus-far inept campaign hadn’t done that already; little did Trump know—yet—that the actions of his unscrupulous attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Joseph diGenova would soon help convince the FBI to needlessly reopen a closed criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton, which ultimately was the reason Trump won election to the White House).

.... [Several thousand words of discussion and analysis]

Conclusion:

America is in the position it is in right now for three primary reasons: the persistent criminality of Donald Trump; the cowardice of Republican leadership in not standing up to such misconduct and advocating for its punishment; and the reticence of federal and state officials of all political stripes—across decades and jurisdictions—to do the hard work of ensuring that criminal statutes are applied equally to all Americans regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, wealth, fame, or political clout.

This is, without a doubt, a time of testing for America. We can come out stronger than we were before if we remember what it is that made America and being an American so important to us in the first place. The goal of Trump and his sycophants is to get us to forget all we know—or, alternatively, ignore all that experts have learned and come forward to disseminate publicly—about criminal law, free and fair elections, basic civic responsibility, religious morality and secular ethics, and simple human decency.

If we can hold fast to these truths in a time of crisis, we can endure here in the United States for another quarter millennium. If we can’t, America may cross a tipping point sometime during the next 18 months from which there simply isn’t any way back.

• MeidasTouch Network, Commentary: Trump gets HUMILIATED after demand for protests GOES BUST, Extremism expert Kristofer Goldsmith reports, March 22, 2023 (4:59 min. video). Donald Trump’s calls for supporters to protest his possible indictment fell flat on their face as barely anybody showed up to come to the disgraced ex-president's defense.

New York Times, Trump Lawyer in Mar-a-Lago Case Must Hand Over Records, Appeals Court Says, Alan Feuer, Ben Protess and Maggie Haberman, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). The ruling compelling the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, to turn over dozens of documents came after a lightning round of appeals court filings overnight.

A federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that a lawyer representing former President Donald J. Trump in the investigation into his handling of classified material had to answer a grand jury’s questions and give prosecutors documents related to his legal work.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia was a victory for the special counsel overseeing the investigation and followed Mr. Trump’s effort to stop the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, from handing over what are likely to be dozens of documents to investigators.

The behind-the-scenes fight shed new light on the efforts by prosecutors to assemble evidence about whether Mr. Trump committed a crime in defying the government’s efforts to reclaim classified materials he took after leaving the White House.

The litigation — all of which has taken place behind closed doors or under seal — centers on whether prosecutors can force Mr. Corcoran to provide information on who knew what about the continued presence of classified material at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s residence and private club in Florida, after the government had demanded its return last spring.

New York Times, Trump Inquiries Present a Stress Test for Justice in a Polarized Nation, Glenn Thrush and Adam Goldman, March 23, 2023. On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, Merrick B. Garland was busy typing away in his upstairs office at home, finalizing remarks he planned to deliver the following day when he was to be introduced as Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s nominee to be attorney general.

The speech was originally a summons to restore the Justice Department “norms” of independence after political meddling during the Trump administration that depleted morale and sapped public confidence. Then, after protesters burst through the barricades at the Capitol, Mr. Garland, right, began a major rewrite that referenced the attack, and fortified his pledge to hold anyone who threatened democracy to account, from bottom to top.

The department would impartially investigate the attack, without “one rule for the powerful and one for the powerless,” Mr. Garland said during his somber introduction on Jan. 7.

Mr. Garland’s conjoined promises — restoring broad confidence in the department’s impartiality while investigating without favor the politically powerful — were not mutually exclusive. But achieving both simultaneously is proving to be an elusive goal as prosecutors at the federal and local level investigate former President Donald J. Trump on multiple fronts.

New York Times, Opinion: Trump Faces Prosecution. America Faces a Test, Charles M. Blow, right, March 23, 2023. Of course, Donald Trump went to social media to speculate that he’d be arrested on Tuesday of this week and — big surprise — that turned out not to be true.

Of course, he’s trying to incite his followers with the prospect of their beloved leader facing criminal charges, and simultaneously using that to squeeze them for more money.

Of course, many Republicans are not only rushing to Trump’s defense, armed with a quiver of false equivalencies, but also seeking any opportunity to bash Democrats and call them hypocrites for seeking to hold Trump accountable.

Of course, many Democrats are, on the one hand, relishing the idea that charges may begin sticking to Slick Donald, but on the other hand, twisting themselves into knots worrying whether an indictment will actually strengthen his standing with his base.

If a former president is indicted, it will be unprecedented. But the atmospherics will be all-too-familiar, a kind of political déjà vu, as we remain trapped in a repeating cycle of Trump-era truisms: the defense of hardcore political acolytes, the rapid erosion of norms and a paralyzing reticence among those who could check his abuses of power.

It’s impossible to completely game out the legal and political ramifications of a Trump indictment, but because the public is hungry for theories and pundits are champing at the bit to provide them, we’re awash in takes about what happens next.

But I challenge you to tune all of that out.

We know Trump and how he operates. He tries — often successfully — to spin his negatives into positives, to deny his misdeeds while charging that those trying to hold him accountable are the real culprits.

Trump’s strategy from the very beginning of his political foray has been to discredit or destroy the gatekeepers, in politics and the media, who might one day be called upon to expose him. (“Low-energy” Jeb Bush, anyone?) He continues to brand them as weak, dishonest and out to get anyone who supports him.

And every time an attempt to hold him accountable falls short of delivering the most fitting consequences, he counts that as a victory, and the effort’s “failure” as proof of its illegitimacy. Then he rolls all this together in his rhetoric to bolster his contention that all investigations of him and members of his inner circle amount to a campaign of political harassment.

In a video Trump released early Tuesday morning, he railed that the “horrible, radical left, Democrat investigations of your all-time-favorite president, me, is just a continuation of the most disgusting witch hunt in the history of our country,” adding: “It’s gone on forever.”

He goes on to call Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation, which explored his campaign’s communications with Russia during the 2016 election, “a hoax,” and contends that investigators “even spied on my campaign.” He then ties in new investigations — the classified documents probe, the Georgia election interference investigation and the allegations about hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.

Trump will never not be this guy. He’s never going to concede or show contrition in the face of any accusation. He’s going to fight. And that’s precisely why his people adore him. That’s why they’ll continue to support and defend him. They want to be like him: not forced to back down, even when they are wrong.

Republicans will accuse prosecutors of partisanship and overreach. Let them.

Trump will scream like a baby. Let him.

We’re at a point in the nation’s history where we are called to endure what I call the inconvenience of the necessary, a point at which something is morally right — and morally unavoidable — but the political timing is problematic.

Washington Post, RetropolisThe Past, Rediscovered, No president or former president has ever been indicted. But a sitting president was arrested once, Michael S. Rosenwald, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Donald Trump’s claim that he will be arrested imminently has sparked political maneuvering and a debate about the implications of indicting an ex-president.

In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant was arrested at the corner of 13th and M streets NW in Washington. This was not a high crime, but it was — at least theoretically speaking — a misdemeanor.

The man who led the North to victory in the Civil War was busted for speeding in his horse-drawn carriage.

Palmer Report, Opinion: Donald Trump’s violent new social media post about Alvin Bragg is going to come with consequences he doesn’t like, Bill Palmer, right, March 23, 2023. After he briefly began expressing the delusional hope that he might not be criminally indicted in Manhattan, Donald Trump is now back to making defeatist social media posts about how he expects to be indicted. One of Trump’s new posts disturbingly depicts him as swinging a baseball bat in the direction of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

This was predictable. Trump has a long history of trying to incite violence among his supporters in the hope of achieving political gain. So of course he was going to try it again in this instance. He’s a creature of habit who only knows one way of doing things. He’s forever under the belief that if a tactic has worked for him in the past, it should work again, whether or not it’s the same situation.

The trouble for Trump is that this is not the same situation as any he’s ever been in. He has past experience in the circuses that are civil court cases. He has experience trying to pressure the courts to uphold executive orders that he’s signed and such. But he does not have any prior experience as a defendant in the criminal justice system, because he’s never been charged or indicted before.

Starting with his arraignment hearing, Trump is about to find out the hard way that criminal defendants have a reduced set of rights while awaiting trial. Even if Trump gets out on bail or recognizance, the judge will surely tell him about the behaviors he’ll need to avoid if he wants to remain under minimal restriction. If Trump tries to run his mouth publicly about the prosecutor, the judge will at some point hit him with a gag order. If Trump defies the gag order, the judge will start applying incrementally severe punishment, up to and potentially including pretrial detention.

Trump is off to a bad start by posting this image of himself getting violent against the District Attorney. This post will no doubt be submitted as evidence at his arraignment, and the judge will not take kindly to it. This is the kind of thing that could result in Trump getting hit with an immediate gag order about the case instead of being allowed some rope first. The judge could also use this violent post as a basis for imposing travel restrictions and such on Trump while he’s awaiting trial. And that’s just the beginning of what the judge in the case can do to Trump in order to keep him under control ahead of trial.

If Donald Trump had any sense at all, he’d be on his best behavior – at least for the moment – in the hope of getting the most lenient pretrial conditions possible. Instead he’s handing the judge in the case every excuse to impose more restrictive conditions on Trump, all of which could get in the way of Trump’s ability to keep carrying out his “2024 campaign” pipe dream.

The judge doesn’t get assigned to the case until the indictment comes down, so perhaps Trump is under the mistaken impression that he can still magically get away with anything he wants. But when Alvin Bragg submits Trump’s baseball post to the judge at arraignment, and the judge gives Trump a harsher initial set of pretrial conditions as a result, perhaps Trump will start to figure out that he’s not in charge of anything that happens from here on in.

 Francisco Antonio López Benavides, a Salvadoran artist, showing part of a life-size portrait of former President Donald J. Trump that he was commissioned to paint in 2020 (New York Times photo by Daniele Volpe).

New York Times, A Massive Trump Painting Has Mysteriously Gone Missing, Maria Abi-Habib, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). A portrait of former President Donald J. Trump by a Salvadoran painter is one of several gifts to the presidential family that is now unaccounted for.

It was the commission of a lifetime for this artist, who grew up poor in El Salvador with no formal training: Paint a portrait of the 45th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

His personal mission? Make it larger than life, to show a great man, doing great things, with God on his side. Now, Democrats want to know where the eight-foot portrait of the former president disappeared to, but that is anybody’s guess.

Nearly three years after the painting was delivered to Mr. Trump, the artist says he is honored that the artwork is one of several gifts given to the former president and his family during his presidency that are unaccounted for, according to a report released Friday by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

“I’m flattered that he cherished it. Because he’s a billionaire,” said the artist, Francisco Antonio López Benavides, 59. “He can have a thousand paintings of him. But if he took my painting, it’s because he loves and values the art. I’m happy.”

Other missing gifts include a piece of ornate jewelry gifted by officials in Saudi Arabia and an expensive golf putter from the former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, the report said.

The portrait is one of about 100 gifts worth more than $250,000 that were given to the presidential family, but were never disclosed, according to the Democrats’ report.

Every U.S. government department and agency is required to notify the State Department of gifts received from foreign governments worth more than $415, a measure intended to prevent bribery or undue influence. Officials can keep those gifts if they reimburse the government the appraised value.

Departing presidential administrations are expected to report the gifts they received in their final year to ensure they have followed the law. The Trump White House failed to do this, the report charges, leaving Democrats and watchdogs asking questions about where they ended up.

Mr. López said he does not understand why Democrats are looking for the painting, a “great gift” from Mr. Trump’s friend, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele.

 Relevant Recent Headlines

• Washington Post, Trump campaign prepares for ‘new normal’: Running while in legal peril
• Washington Post, The porn star, the checks and the president: Trump’s tawdry path to legal trouble
• New York Times, Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, has waded into treacherous political waters
• New York Times, Opinion: Make No Mistake, the Investigation of Donald Trump and the Stormy Daniels Scheme Is Serious, Ryan Goodman and Andrew Weissmann
• Washington Post, N.Y. grand jury weighing possible Trump indictment not expected to meet
• New York Times, Trump’s Call for Protests of Pending Arrest Splits G.O.P.
• Emptywheel, Analysis: Lordy, There Are [Transcribed] Tapes, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler)
• Emptywheel, Analysis: Barbara Jones Rules Project Veritas Was Not Engaged in Journalism When Brokering Ashley Biden's Stolen Diary, Emptywheel
• Washington Post, Opinion: ‘An indictment would help Trump!’ is wholly premature, Jennifer Rubin
• Washington Post, RetropolisThe Past, Rediscovered, No president or former president has ever been indicted. But a sitting president was arrested once
• New York Times, DeSantis, Breaking Silence on Trump, Criticizes Manhattan Prosecutor
• New York Times, Robert Costello, once an adviser to Michael Cohen, appeared before the grand jury to assail the former fixer’s credibility

More On U.S. Election Deniers, Insurrectionists

New York Times, Arizona Supreme Court Turns Down Kari Lake’s Appeal in Her Election Lawsuit, Neil Vigdor, March 23, 2023. The justices refused to hear Ms. Lake’s claims disputing her loss in the governor’s race, but sent one part of her lawsuit back to a trial court for review.

Arizona’s Supreme Court on Wednesday denied a request from Kari Lake to hear her lawsuit disputing her loss last year in the governor’s race. The lawsuit was based on what the court said was a false claim by Ms. Lake, a Republican, that more than 35,000 unaccounted ballots were accepted.

In a five-page order written by Chief Justice Robert Brutinel, the court determined that a vast majority of Ms. Lake’s legal claims, which had earlier been dismissed by lower courts, lacked merit.

“The Court of Appeals aptly resolved these issues,” Chief Justice Brutinel wrote, adding that the “petitioner’s challenges on these grounds are insufficient to warrant the requested relief under Arizona or federal law.”

But the justices on Wednesday ordered a trial court in Arizona’s most populous county, Maricopa, to conduct an additional review of that county’s procedures for verifying signatures on mail-in ballots, keeping one part of her lawsuit alive.

Politico, Trump, Pence urge judge to reject special counsel bid to obtain former VP’s testimony, Kyle Cheney, March 23, 2023. It’s one of the weightiest constitutional fights for the special counsel.

It’s one of the weightiest constitutional fights that Smith is likely to undertake, one that could shape the balance of power between all three branches of government in unpredictable ways. Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Windom, one of Smith’s lead investigators, was seen entering the courtroom as well.

It’s also an early test for Chief U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, who took the chief’s gavel last week after his predecessor Beryl Howell’s seven-year term as chief expired. The chief judge is tasked with overseeing all grand jury matters in the district, which include Smith’s special counsel probes.

Pence’s fight to block the subpoena is not the only way Smith’s inquiry could have far-reaching constitutional consequences. A three-judge appeals court panel is expected to rule imminently on his separate effort to access the cellphone data of Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), a key ally in Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election results. Perry, like Pence, is arguing that his communications should be shielded by the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, which grants Congress sweeping immunity from compelled testimony — if it pertains to lawmakers’ official duties.

The Perry dispute drew intervention from the House of Representatives, which filed a sealed amicus brief in the matter that raised concerns about the implications for the institution should the appeals court adopt a narrow view of “speech or debate” immunity.

The hearing also underscored the extraordinary confluence of acute legal and criminal matters Trump is facing.

Corcoran himself has been ordered by a federal judge to testify as soon as Friday in Smith’s other ongoing criminal probe of Trump’s handling of sensitive national security records discovered at his Mar-a-Lago estate. And while Corcoran was waiting in the cafeteria Thursday, an attorney for Joseph Biggs — one of five Proud Boys facing seditious conspiracy charges for actions on Jan. 6 — approached him to attempt to serve a subpoena on Trump.

The attorney, Norm Pattis, said Corcoran told him he was ”not authorized” to accept service on Trump’s behalf.

Politico, Judge sentences Jan. 6 defendant who breached Pelosi’s office to 36 months in prison, Kyle Cheney, March 23, 2023. A jury convicted Riley Williams of civil disorder and resisting police but deadlocked on a charge that Williams, right, obstructed Congress and abetted the theft of Pelosi’s laptop.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s sentence was the close of one of the earliest sagas to emerge after the Jan. 6 attack. Williams was one of the first felony defendants charged, and she was suspected at the time of stealing Nancy Pelosi’s laptop, in part because she told friends that she did.

A jury convicted Williams in December of civil disorder and resisting police but deadlocked on a charge that Williams obstructed Congress and abetted the theft of Pelosi’s laptop. Williams is on tape entering Pelosi’s conference room while other rioters took the laptop, and she encouraged them to steal it, but Williams’ lawyers contended that it was unclear if the other rioters heard her comment.

Jackson spent much of her sentencing colloquy dismantling the defense’s claim that Williams was too young or too small to be responsible for the grave offenses the government charged. The defense team leaned on Williams’ youthful demeanor and the fact that she seemed briefly confused about which building was being stormed — calling it the White House as she approached. But Jackson said any momentary confusion Williams expressed was clarified by her repeated acknowledgment of why she was there.

It was not, Jackson emphasized, “because her dizzy little head was confused about which building in Washington was which.”

Fuentes, she noted, was born the same year as Williams. People can sign up for the military at 18, she added, noting that Williams was old enough on Jan. 6 to have completed a tour of duty. John Lewis was 21 when he became a freedom fighter, Jackson added.

“She was old enough to be one of the police officers she resisted,” Jackson said.

Jackson also took on the defense’s repeated assertions about Williams’ diminutive stature, noting that figures like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Liz Cheney and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had all achieved prominence despite their size.

“Riley June Williams was old enough and tall enough to be held accountable for her actions,” Jackson said.

 Ray Epps and his wife, Robyn Epps. A letter from their lawyer noted the costs that the couple had faced by being the target of a Jan. 6 conspiracy theory (New York Times photo by Alan Feuer).

New York Times, Man at Center of Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theory Demands Retraction From Fox, Alan Feuer, March 23, 2023. A lawyer for Ray Epps has demanded that the Fox host Tucker Carlson publicly apologize for “false and defamatory statements” that Mr. Epps served as a federal agent during the Capitol attack.

A lawyer for Ray Epps, the man at the center of a prominent conspiracy theory about the Capitol riot, sent a letter on Thursday to the Fox News host Tucker Carlson demanding that he publicly retract his “false and defamatory statements” that Mr. Epps had worked as a government provocateur on Jan. 6, 2021, and helped to instigate the mob attack.

The letter to Mr. Carlson from the lawyer, Michael Teter, also demanded a “formal on-air apology for the lies” that have been “spread about Mr. Epps” by others at Fox.

“The fanciful notions that Mr. Carlson advances on his show regarding Mr. Epps’s involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection are demonstrably (and already proven to be) false,” Mr. Teter wrote. “And yet Mr. Carlson persists with his assault on the truth.”

Letters seeking retractions and apologies are often sent when lawyers are preparing to file a defamation lawsuit. As Mr. Teter noted, Mr. Epps’s demands come as Mr. Carlson and other top figures at Fox are already under pressure from a $1.6 billion defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems accusing them of amplifying lies that the voting machine company was involved in a bizarre plot to steal votes from President Donald J. Trump during the 2020 election.

In a series of recent filings, Dominion revealed embarrassing text messages and emails swapped by several leading Fox employees showing that in private they dismissed the idea that the company was involved in voting fraud, even though they supported the notion in public. The internal communications also suggested that Fox’s corporate leadership permitted lies about the election to be spread on the network in order to keep ratings high and viewers watching.
Fox News v. Dominion Voter Systems

Documents from a lawsuit filed by the voting machine maker Dominion against Fox News have shed light on the debate inside the network over false claims related to the 2020 election.

“Recent revelations from the Dominion Voting lawsuit may help explain why Fox News has allowed the falsehoods about Mr. Epps to continue to spread, and be amplified, through its network,” Mr. Teter wrote. “But fear of losing viewers by telling them the truth is not a defense to defamation and false light.”

A spokeswoman for Fox did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Mr. Epps, a former Marine, traveled to Washington from his home in Arizona to support Mr. Trump and was videotaped on the night before the attack urging people to go inside the Capitol. He was also in the crowd on Jan. 6 moving past barricades outside the building, although he never went inside and ultimately sought to de-escalate tensions in the mob.

Still, he became the face of the conspiracy theory that the federal government had instigated the Capitol attack for a single reason: He was never charged for what he did on Jan. 6. In reality, prosecutors declined to file charges against thousands of people who had breached the barricades outside the Capitol but never entered the building.

Mr. Carlson was one of the first major figures in the news media to give the stories about Mr. Epps a wide audience. Ultimately, they were also echoed by Republican members of Congress like Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.

Mr. Carlson featured Mr. Epps on his show on Fox again this month in a segment based on tens of thousands of hours of Capitol surveillance video footage, to which Speaker Kevin McCarthy granted him exclusive access. Mr. Epps appeared only briefly on the show, which broadly sought to play down the events of Jan. 6 and falsely paint the Capitol attack as a largely peaceful gathering of “sightseers.”

Mr. Teter mocked Mr. Carlson in his letter, suggesting that the TV host was trying to have it both ways.

“Oddly, Mr. Carlson now also espouses the view that those rioters were akin to peaceful tourists,” Mr. Teter wrote. “This leads to the obvious question: Is Mr. Carlson now accusing Mr. Epps of provoking peaceful protests?”

U.S. Politics, Elections, Economy, Governance

Politico, Sinema Trashes Dems: ‘Old Dudes Eating Jell-O,’ Jonathan Martin, March 23, 2023. The Arizona senator courts GOP donors by ridiculing her former Democratic colleagues.

Ever since Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, right, became an independent in December, her Democratic colleagues have been restrained about the shift, careful not to alienate the Arizona lawmaker when they only have a single-seat majority and need her support on legislation and nominees.

Hoping to get through this year, and then gain clarity about whether Sinema will even seek reelection in 2024 let alone continue to caucus with her old party, Senate Democrats have dodged questions about the mercurial marathoner who’s still barely in their ranks.

But Sinema may be making the Democrats’ deliberations easier.

As she races to stockpile campaign money and post an impressive, statement-making first-quarter fundraising number, Sinema has used a series of Republican-dominated receptions and retreats this year to belittle her Democratic colleagues, shower her GOP allies with praise and, in one case, quite literally give the middle finger to President Joe Biden’s White House.

Speaking in private, whether one-on-one or with small groups of Republican senators, she’s even more cutting, particularly about Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, whom she derides in harshly critical terms, according to senior Republican officials directly familiar with her comments.

Tallahassee Democrat, Tallahassee principal ousted after complaints about Michelangelo's 'David' in art lesson, Ana Goñi-Lessan, March 23, 2023. “It saddens me that my time here had to end this way,” Hope Carrasquilla told the Tallahassee Democrat.

A local charter school principal said she was forced to resign after a parent complained a Renaissance art lesson was pornographic.

Hope Carrasquilla had been principal for less than a year at Tallahassee Classical School in Leon County before she resigned from her position during an emergency board meeting Monday.

“It saddens me that my time here had to end this way,” Carrasquilla told the Tallahassee Democrat.

Carrasquilla said last week she was told by the school’s board chair, Barney Bishop, that she would have to resign or she would be fired. She believes the catalyst for the ultimatum was complaints about an art lesson on the Renaissance period.

Bishop, who confirmed he did give Carrasquilla that ultimatum, said he could not say why he asked her to resign because of the school’s employment lawyer’s advice.

An email sent to parents Monday evening stated the new principal would be Cara Wynn, formerly of North Florida Christian School. She will be the school’s third principal since it opened three years ago, according to Bishop.
“It’s not unusual in new charter schools to go through several principals,” Bishop said.

Tallahassee Classical, a Hillsdale College curriculum school, is required to teach about Renaissance art in sixth grade.

But three parents complained that the lesson’s content, which included learning about Michelangelo’s sculpture, “David,” upset their children.

New Mexico State Rep. Andrea Reeb (R), left, emailed the New Mexico DA saying her involvement "might help," the report said. Reeb was part of the team that brought charges against movie star Alex Baldwin for a film set shooting death.

Insider, The ex-prosecutor in the "Rust" case suggested it may help her political campaign, the NYT reported, Natalie Musumeci, March 22, 2023. The ex-special prosecutor who helped charge Alec Baldwin in the "Rust" movie set shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins emailed her boss that the high-profile case could "help" her GOP campaign for the New Mexico state legislature, according to a report from The New York Times.

Andrea Reeb, a former district attorney and Republican lawmaker who won a seat in the New Mexico House of Representatives last November, was brought on as a special prosecutor in the "Rust" case in June 2022 while she was running for office.

New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies appointed Reeb to the case, and Reeb emailed the DA that she did not plan to tell the press about her involvement, the Times reported on Tuesday, citing from correspondence the news outlet obtained under the state's Inspection of Public Records Act.

"At some point though," Reeb said in the June 9 email, according to the Times, "I'd at least like to get out there that I am assisting you … as it might help in my campaign lol."

Carmack-Altwies responded to Reeb, saying, "I am intending to either introduce you or send it in a press release when we get the investigation!" according to the Times.

The DA and Reeb wound up bringing charges of involuntary manslaughter against Baldwin and an armorer in connection to the October 2021 shooting of 42-year-old Hutchins on the Santa Fe, New Mexico, film set.

Reeb stepped down from her role as special prosecutor last week after Baldwin's camp argued that her appointment was unconstitutional.

Baldwin's legal team referenced the Times report about the emails in a new court filing on Tuesday, calling it "yet another troubling development regarding the State's prosecution of this case."

"Representative Reeb's prosecution of this case against Mr. Baldwin to advance her political career is a further abuse of the system and yet another violation of Mr. Baldwin's constitutional rights," the actor's lawyers argued.

Reeb and Carmack-Altwies' office did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Insider on Wednesday.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Resistance to DeSantis: Woke African-American History Lesson Sheet #18, Jackie "Moms" Mabley, Wayne Madsen, March 23, 2023.

New York Times, At a retreat for House Republicans in Florida, the focus remained on former President Trump, Annie Karni, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). For the third year since he left office, former President Donald J. Trump continued to dominate an annual G.O.P. gathering in Florida, underscoring his grip on the party.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy arrived at an upscale resort here this week eager to use a Republican retreat to promote the party’s policy agenda and achievements so far, working to paper over the divisions that nearly sank his bid for his job and talk about anything but former President Donald J. Trump.

“I’m always optimistic,” a sunny Mr. McCarthy, dressed in a pair of trendy sneakers, jeans and a zip-up vest, told reporters of the prospect for resolving debt ceiling negotiations without an economy-crushing default. “I went 15 rounds to get speaker!”

But it was not long before Mr. Trump came to dominate the proceedings. With the former president expected to be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury, House Republicans rallied around him. They blasted the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, as a pawn of George Soros, a longtime boogeyman of the right, and they vowed to open a remarkable congressional investigation into his active criminal inquiry.

It was the third year in a row that Mr. Trump has effectively taken over House Republicans’ annual gathering, underscoring how central the former president has remained to his party’s existence. Years after leaving office, Mr. Trump is still here, blotting out attempts to talk about any Republican agenda that does not involve him and making it all but impossible for the House G.O.P. to define itself as anything other than his frontline defenders.

It was true two years ago, when House Republicans headed to Florida desperate to talk about anything but Mr. Trump, who only weeks before had been impeached for inciting a deadly insurrection at the Capitol.

Instead, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, then the No. 3 Republican, made several statements firmly repudiating Mr. Trump, and the retreat’s subtext was the ire of her fellow party leaders at her refusal to keep silent about the former president.

New York Times, Here’s a rough guide to the electoral fallout if former President Trump is indicted, Nate Cohn, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). It would be uncharted territory, but the F.B.I. search of Mar-a-Lago offers at least some precedent.

A lot of people believe I make political predictions, but that’s not really true. Instead, I try to marshal history, data, polling, reporting and more to help make sense of the political landscape. It usually amounts to one of those old, yellowish, distorted maps from the age of exploration. It offers only a rough guide of what lies ahead.

This week, we’re approaching uncharted waters. The front-runner for a major party nomination for president may soon be indicted. This is the blurry corner of the map where we can’t do much more than draw fantastical sea creatures. We know this part of the world is probably ocean, but we don’t know much else. We’re sure it’s dangerous.

Here’s the outline of the map as we edge toward a possible indictment:

• The F.B.I. search of Mr. Trump’s property for classified records in August is probably the best precedent. While not an indictment, it represented a judgment by a court that there was probable cause to believe he committed a crime. The allegation was more serious than the Stormy Daniels case, as it carried potential implications for national security. But the search did not have a discernible effect on Mr. Trump’s standing among Republicans. Conservatives circled the wagons and argued that the search of a former president was an unjust act of partisan politics. There was no effect on his standing in the polls. In our Times/Siena polling last summer and fall, the Republican primary race was essentially unchanged after the F.B.I. search.
• An indictment is still uncharted territory, so it’s worth being cautious about any potential fallout. A new legal line would be crossed, even if this story is already playing out much like the F.B.I. search.
• But seriously, this indictment would seem particularly unlikely to hurt Mr. Trump’s base of support. The public already knows about Ms. Daniels. His supporters decided, long ago, that they did not especially care about the case’s underlying facts. An illegal cover-up of a private affair is more like the perjury accusation against Bill Clinton than Richard Nixon’s tapes.
• The upside for Mr. Trump seems fairly limited. Yes, there really could be short-term gains for Mr. Trump if Republicans rally to his defense. Still, it’s a little much to argue that many Republicans who don’t support him for the nomination today would be far likelier to back him after an indictment. It could certainly energize his base, but an indictment would reinforce some of the reasons other Republicans are reluctant to back him in the first place. It’s not as if Mr. Trump became a juggernaut after the F.B.I. search of Mar-a-Lago.

New York Times, Los Angeles Enters Second Day Without Classes for 420,000 Students, Staff Report, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). Workers in the nation’s second-largest school district are holding a three-day walkout. Teachers have joined in solidarity.

The union representing teachers’ aides, custodians, bus drivers and other workers in the nation’s second-largest school district is holding a three-day walkout that teachers joined in solidarity.

New York Times, John Jenrette Jr., Congressman Nabbed in Abscam Sting, Dies at 86, Richard Sandomir, March 22, 2023 (print ed.).. Once a rising star of the Democratic Party, he served 13 months in prison for bribery after being targeted in an F.B.I. scam involving a phony sheikh.

New York Times, Trump Could Stand in the Middle of Fifth Avenue and Not Lose Mike Pence, Jamelle Bouie, right, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Mike Pence wants to have it both ways.

He wants to be the conservative hero of Jan. 6: the steadfast Republican patriot who resisted the MAGA mob and defended the institutions of American democracy. “Make no mistake about it,” Pence said at the Gridiron Club Dinner in Washington, D.C., this month. “What happened that day was a disgrace, and it mocks decency to portray it in any other way. President Donald Trump was wrong. I had no right to overturn the election and his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day.”

But Mike Pence also wants to be president. And he can’t fully repudiate the previous Republican president if he hopes to win the Republican presidential nomination, especially when that president is still on the stage, with a commanding role in Republican politics.

The result is that Mike Pence has to talk out of both sides of his mouth. With one breath, he takes a righteous stand against the worst dysfunction of the Trump years. “We have to resist the politics of personality, the lure of populism unmoored by timeless conservative values,” Pence said last week while speaking to an audience of Republican donors in Keene, N.H.

With his next breath, however, Pence rejects any effort to hold Trump accountable, especially when it asks him to do something more than give the occasional sound bite.

New York Times, Book Review: Ron DeSantis Has a Secret Theory of Trump, Carlos Lozada, March 20, 2023 (print ed.). Ron DeSantis has an enemies list, and you can probably guess who’s on it.

There’s the “woke dumpster fire” of the Democratic Party and the “swamp Republicans” who neglect their own voters. There’s the news media, with modifiers like “legacy” or “corporate” adding a nefarious touch. There’s Big Tech, that “censorship arm of the political left,” and the powerful corporations that cave to the “leftist-rage mob.” There are universities like Harvard and Yale, which DeSantis attended but did not inhale. There’s the administrative state and its pandemic-era spinoff, the “biomedical security state.” These are the villains of DeSantis’s recently published book, “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival,” and its author feels free to assail them with a fusillade of generically irate prose.

There is one more antagonist — not an enemy, perhaps, but certainly a rival — whom DeSantis does not attack directly in his book, even as he looms over much of it. The far-too-early national polls for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination show a two-person contest with Donald Trump and DeSantis (who has yet to announce his potential candidacy) in the lead, and the Haleys, Pences and Pompeos of the world fighting for scraps. During his 2018 governor’s race, DeSantis aired an obsequious ad in which he built a cardboard border wall and read Trump’s “Art of the Deal” with his children, one of whom wore a MAGA onesie. Now DeSantis no longer bows before Trump. Instead, he dances around the former president; he is respectful but no longer deferential, critical but mainly by implication.

Yes, there is a DeSantis case against Trump scattered throughout these pages. You just need to squint through a magnifying glass to find it.

In the 250-plus pages of The Courage to Be Free, for instance, there is not a single mention of the events of Jan. 6, 2021. DeSantis cites Madison, Hamilton and the nation’s founding principles, but he does not pause to consider a frontal assault on America’s democratic institutions encouraged by a sitting president. The governor does not go so far as to defend Trump’s lies about the 2020 election; he just ignores them.

However, DeSantis does write that an energetic executive should lead “within the confines of a constitutional system,” and he criticizes unnamed elected officials for whom “perpetuating themselves in office supersedes fulfilling any policy mission.” Might DeSantis ever direct such criticisms at a certain former president so willing to subvert the Constitution to remain in power? Perhaps. For the moment, though, such indignation exists at a safe distance from any discussion of Trump himself.

New York Times, Republicans’ Investigative Chief Embraces Role of Biden Antagonist, Jonathan Swan and Luke Broadwater, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). The fourth-term Kentuckian and chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee has become an aggressive promoter of sinister-sounding claims about the president and his family.

Steering his S.U.V. through pounding rain on his way to the state capital on a recent Thursday, Representative James R. Comer, the chairman of the Oversight and Accountability Committee, reflected on the pressure he often faced from constituents to investigate unhinged claims about President Biden and Democrats.

“You know, the customer’s always right,” Mr. Comer said wryly, of his approach to the people who elected him and now brandish conspiracy theories, vulgar photographs featuring the president and his son, Hunter, and other lies they expect him to act upon.

“I say, ‘Let me see it,’ because I want to see where the source is,” Mr. Comer said. “They don’t know that it’s QAnon, but it’s QAnon stuff.”

Yet in his new role leading the Republican Party’s chief investigative committee in the House, Mr. Comer, 50, has himself become a promoter of sinister-sounding allegations against Mr. Biden and his family. This pursuit has propelled him to stardom in a party whose best customers — vengeful, hard-right voters — are bent on bringing down the Democratic president.

This month, Mr. Comer joined a panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference titled “The Biden Crime Family,” where he asserted that Mr. Biden and his family’s business activities with China posed “a threat to national security.”

Appearing on Fox News in January, Mr. Comer implied, without evidence, that there was a connection between Mr. Biden improperly holding on to classified documents when he was a private citizen and his son, Hunter, receiving a diamond from a Chinese tycoon. In another segment Mr. Comer lamented that Beau Biden, the president’s other son, who died of cancer in 2015, was never investigated.

His embrace of such statements reflects how Mr. Comer, who voted to certify Mr. Biden’s victory and was a favorite among Democrats in Kentucky’s Legislature, has transformed himself to command the Republican war machine in Congress — becoming a high-profile example of what it takes to rise and thrive in the Fox News-fed MAGA universe.

It also underscores the cutthroat instincts of Mr. Comer, who presents himself as an affable country boy of limited abilities, but who has proved to be a methodical and transactional political operator, willing to go to great lengths to crush his adversaries.

During his campaign for governor in 2015, facing allegations of abuse from an ex-girlfriend who also said he had taken her to get an abortion, Mr. Comer worked to discredit a blogger reporting on the claims and a campaign rival he believed was behind them, leaking private emails between the two. Mr. Comer denied the woman’s charges but lost the race anyway.

Politico, The 2024 GOP 2024 Presidential Election field: How they win, how they lose, Steven Shepard, March 21, 2023 (print ed.). The race for the GOP presidential has a set of historic firsts: a former president seeking an Oval Office comeback, a vice president who refused to go along with a plot to steal the last election, the most politically accomplished woman ever to run as a Republican — and an already-popular governor waiting in the wings.

Who ultimately wins out will take on President Joe Biden in a likely reelection bid — and potentially secure the White House.

There are also other candidates and would-be candidates, too. We've put the entire field into three categories — based roughly on their chances to capture the nod — along with full scouting reports for everything that could go right or wrong along the road to the 2024 convention in Milwaukee.

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More On Russia-China-West Conflicts

A photograph released by Russian state media showing Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting at the Kremlin (Photo by Sergei Karpukhin of Sputnik).

New York Times, As Xi and Putin Resume Talks, Japan’s Leader Visits Ukraine, Staff Reports, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). On the second day of his visit to Moscow, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, said he had invited President Vladimir Putin of Russia to Beijing; In a competing display of support, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan made an unannounced visit to Ukraine.

As China’s leader, Xi Jinping, met for a second day with President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow, Japan’s prime minister made an unannounced visit to Kyiv on Tuesday in a show of support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.

With his surprise foray into an active war zone, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan (shown at right in a Manichi photo) highlighted his nation’s unusually swift and proactive allegiance with Ukraine and set the stage for competing displays of diplomacy from two East Asian neighbors.

On the war in Ukraine, China has been trying to maintain a nearly impossible position, presenting itself as an impartial observer while maintaining close ties with Russia. Beijing has had practice: its balancing act predates President Vladimir V. Putin’s full-scale invasion. For decades it tried to build ties with Russia while also keeping Ukraine close.

In 1992, China was among the first countries to establish ties with a newly independent Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It turned to Ukraine as a major supplier of corn, sunflower and grapeseed oil, as well as arms technology.

As Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan visits Kyiv, it’s worth remembering that Japan has its own territorial dispute with Russia dating back to World War II over islands off the coast of Hokkaido. Talks on the issue broke down last March over Tokyo’s support for international sanctions against Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.

Washington Post, Xi and Putin showcase alliance but offer no path to peace in Ukraine, Robyn Dixon and Lily Kuo, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping on Tuesday proclaimed their plans to deepen Sino-Russian political and economic cooperation for years to come — sending a strong message to the West about their determination to push back against the global domination of the United States.

But as the leaders wrapped up two days of formal discussions in Moscow, there was no visible progress on China’s cease-fire plan for Ukraine.

Washington Post, Opinion: Here’s the real lesson from the showy Xi-Putin meeting, David Ignatius, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). A strong China is bolstering a weak Russia. That’s the real headline that describes the showy meetings in Moscow this week between the two countries’ leaders.

The Chinese aren’t providing weapons (yet), but Xi certainly offered moral and psychological support in what might be described as a get-well visit to an ailing relative. White House spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday rightly called Putin a “junior partner.”

New York Times, Analysis: In a Brother Act With Putin, Xi Reveals China’s Fear of Containment, Chris Buckley, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). Instead of focusing on Ukraine, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin’s meetings in Moscow reinforced their shared opposition to American dominance.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, flew into Moscow this week cast by Beijing as its emissary for peace in Ukraine. His summit with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, however, demonstrated that his priority remains shoring up ties with Moscow to gird against what he sees as a long campaign by the United States to hobble China’s ascent.

Talk of Ukraine was overshadowed by Mr. Xi’s vow of ironclad solidarity with Russia as a political, diplomatic, economic and military partner: two superpowers aligned in countering American dominance and a Western-led world order. The summit showed Mr. Xi’s intention to entrench Beijing’s tilt toward Moscow against what he recently called an effort by the United States at the full-fledged “containment” of China.

Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin used the pomp of the three-day state visit that ended on Wednesday to signal to their publics and to Western capitals that the bond between their two countries remained robust and, in their eyes, indispensable, 13 months after Mr. Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine. They laid out their vision for the world in a nine-point joint statement that covered everything from Taiwan to climate change and relations with Mongolia, often depicting the United States as the obstacle to a better, fairer world.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary, Finland in NATO will be a gateway to the subjugated Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia, Wayne Madsen, left, author of 22 books and former U.S. Navy intelligence officer based in Finland, March 21-22, 2023. With Türkiye's announcement that it will ratify Finland's membership in NATO, as well as holdout Hungary's signaling that it will soon move ratification of Finland's and Sweden's accession to NATO through its parliament, there is renewed hope among the beleaguered colonized Finno-Ugric nations colonized by Russia that their cause will soon receive greater international attention.

Finland is slated to become a full NATO member at the NATO Summit scheduled for July 11-12 in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Finland has maintained "soft power" contacts with the Finno-Ugric bloc of formerly autonomous republics in Russia. They are Karelia, which was once part of Finland; Komi, Mari-El, Mordovia, Udmurtia, and Komi Permiak. Putin has curtailed contacts between the Finno-Ugric nations and Finland. These relations will be further hampered by the Kremlin after Finland becomes a full member of NATO.

Putin's war in Ukraine has emboldened some Finno-Ugric leaders in Russia to resurrect their calls for independence from Russia. In December 2022, many of these leaders were joined by representatives of other captive nations within Russia at the Forum of Free Peoples of Post-Russia (FSNPR) held in Helsingborg, Sweden. There, Finno-Ugric representatives were joined by Tatars, Chechens, Bashkirs, Nogais, Circassians, Cossacks, and others in calling for the "end of the existence of the Russian Federation.”

New York Times, China is supplying drones to Russia, a sign of quiet collaboration between the two, Paul Mozur, Aaron Krolik and Keith Bradsher, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). China has shipped more than $12 million in drones to Russia since it invaded Ukraine, in an indication of quiet collaboration between the two.

The Biden administration vowed last month to crack down on companies that sell critical technologies to Russia as part of its efforts to curtail the country’s war against Ukraine. But the continued flow of Chinese drones to the country explains why that will be hard.

While drone sales have slowed, American policies put in place after Russia’s invasion have failed to stanch exports of the unmanned aerial vehicles that work as eyes in the sky for frontline fighters. In the year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China has sold more than $12 million in drones and drone parts to the country, according to official Russian customs data from a third-party data provider.

It is hard to determine whether the Chinese drones contain American technologies that would violate the U.S. rules or whether they are legal. The shipments, a mix of products from DJI, the world’s best-known drone maker, and an array of smaller companies, often came through small-time middlemen and exporters.

Complicated sales channels and vague product descriptions within export data also make it hard to definitively show whether there are U.S. components in the Chinese products, which could constitute a violation of the American export controls. And the official sales are likely only one part of a larger flow of technologies through unofficial channels and other nations friendly to Russia, like Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Belarus.

The result is a steady supply of new drones to Russia that make their way to the front lines of its war with Ukraine. On the battlefield, the hovering quadcopters often last only a few flights before they are blown out of the skies. Refilling stockpiles of even the most basic unmanned aerial vehicles has become as critical as other basic necessities, such as procuring artillery shells and bullets.

Militarily, diplomatically and economically, Beijing has become an increasingly important buttress for Russia in its war effort. China has remained one of the largest buyers of Russian oil, helping finance the invasion. The two sides have also held joint military exercises and jointly assailed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

As China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, meets this week with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, U.S. officials have warned that China is still considering selling lethal weapons for use in Ukraine.

Washington Post, Xi arrives in Russia to stand with Putin against West amid Ukraine war, Francesca Ebel and Lily Kuo, March 21, 2023 (print ed.). Russian analysts skeptical Putin-Xi talks will make progress on peace; Ukraine ‘ready’ for ‘closer dialogue with China.’

Chinese leader Xi Jinping landed in Russia on Monday for a much-anticipated three-day state visit, taking a joint stand with President Vladimir Putin against the West even as the Russian leader stands accused by the International Criminal Court of war crimes in Ukraine.

The two men, each positioned as “leader for life” of a nuclear power, celebrated their “no limits” relationship in Beijing together in early 2022, just weeks before Putin ordered his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and they have met about 40 times. But Monday’s visit, the first by Xi since the invasion, represents a display of tacit support by China for the war and a personal triumph for Putin, who is eager to show he is not isolated on the international stage.

Xi’s plane arrived at Vnukovo International Airport just southwest of the Russian capital at approximately 1 p.m. local time Monday. The presidential motorcade then made its way to the center of Moscow, where dozens of people waving Chinese and Russian flags greeted the delegation outside his hotel, the Soluxe Hotel in the north of the city. Initial talks were scheduled to begin in the afternoon, followed by a dinner later with Putin.

Relevant Recent Headlines

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More Global News, Migration, Human Rights Issues

Washington Post, Macron defends move to raise retirement age as protests roil France, Ellen Francis and Claire Parker, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). French President Emmanuel Macron forcefully defended Wednesday his move to push through legislation to raise the retirement age, which has ignited angry protests and strikes around the country.

In his most direct comments to the nation since ramming the legislation through last week, Macron, right, described the plan that has roiled France for weeks as a necessity the people must bear together.

“We must advance because it is in the ultimate interest of the nation,” he said in a live interview with TF1 and France 2 TV from the Elysee Palace.

He said the pension reform plan should be in effect by the end of the year, but that it was now awaiting a decision from the Constitutional Council before moving forward.

The government’s use of executive powers to pass the pension bill without a vote from the parliament’s lower house plunged French politics into upheaval and escalated a simmering crisis.

Associated Press via Washington Post, 11 killed as strong earthquake rattles Pakistan, Afghanistan, Munir Ahmed and Rahim Faiez, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). A magnitude 6.5 earthquake rattled much of Pakistan and Afghanistan on Tuesday, sending panicked residents fleeing from homes and offices and frightening people in remote villages. At least nine people died in Pakistan and two in Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday.

Released Saudi-American critic Saad Almadi of Florida, right, with his son Ibrahim Almadi (family photo via Getty Images).

New York Times, Saudi Arabia Releases U.S. Dual Citizen Jailed in Crackdown on Dissent, ivian Nereim, March 21, 2023. Saad Almadi, 72, a Florida resident, was one of several Americans and hundreds of Saudis caught up in the crackdown under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He still cannot fly home, his son said.

Saudi-American dual citizen who spent more than a year in a Saudi prison over Twitter posts critical of the kingdom’s government was released from detention on Tuesday, but will not be able to leave the country, according to his son.

Saad Almadi, a 72-year-old Florida resident, is staying with family members in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, his son, Ibrahim Almadi, said by telephone from Washington. The younger Mr. Almadi said he would continue to campaign to overturn a Saudi bar on his father leaving the kingdom.

“The fight will continue and hopefully we’ll have him back soon,” he said.

Mr. Almadi, a retired project manager, was one of several U.S. citizens and hundreds of Saudis caught up in a deepening crackdown on dissent under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He was arrested during a visit to Saudi Arabia in 2021.

Prosecutors cited Twitter posts he wrote that were critical of the Saudi government and an “insulting picture” of Prince Mohammed saved on his phone as proof that he had “adopted a terrorist agenda by defaming symbols of the state,” according to court documents. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison, lengthened on appeal last month to 19 years.

New York Times, Ferraris and Hungry Children: Venezuela’s Socialist Vision in Shambles, Isayen Herrera and Frances Robles, Photographs by Adriana Loureiro Fernandez, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). After years of extreme scarcity, some Venezuelans lead lives of luxury as others scrape by.

In the capital, a store sells Prada purses and a 110-inch television for $115,000. Not far away, a Ferrari dealership has opened, while a new restaurant allows well-off diners to enjoy a meal seated atop a giant crane overlooking the city.

“When was the last time you did something for the first time?” the restaurant’s host boomed over a microphone to excited customers as they sang along to a Coldplay song.

This is not Dubai or Tokyo, but Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, where a socialist revolution once promised equality and an end to the bourgeoisie.

Venezuela’s economy imploded nearly a decade ago, prompting a huge outflow of migrants in one of worst crises in modern Latin American history. Now there are signs the country is settling into a new, disorienting normality, with everyday products easily available, poverty starting to lessen — and surprising pockets of wealth arising.

New York Times, Macron’s Government Survives but Faces Wrath of France Over Pension Overhaul, Roger Cohen, March 21, 2023 (print ed.). Two no-confidence votes failed to oust the cabinet of President Emmanuel Macron over a bill that proposes to raise the retirement age to 64 from 62.

The French National Assembly rejected a no-confidence motion against the government of President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, ensuring that a fiercely contested bill raising the retirement age to 64 from 62 becomes the law of the land.

The first of two motions received 278 votes, nine short of the 287 needed to pass. The close result reflected widespread anger at the pension overhaul, at Mr. Macron for his apparent aloofness and at the way the measure was rammed through Parliament last week without a full vote on the bill itself. The Senate, France’s upper house of Parliament, passed the pension bill this month.

A second no-confidence motion, filed by the far-right National Rally, failed on Monday, as well, with only 94 lawmakers voting in favor.

The change, which Mr. Macron has sought since the beginning of his first term in 2017, has provoked two months of demonstrations, intermittent strikes and occasional violence. It has split France, with polls consistently showing two-thirds of the population opposing the overhaul.

Washington Post, American hostage freed 6 years after being taken captive by militants in Africa, John Hudson, March 21, 2023 (print ed.). Jeffery Woodke, a Christian aid worker, was abducted in Niger in 2016. An American aid worker who was taken captive by militants in West Africa more than six years ago has been freed, his family and the Biden administration said Monday, but officials shared little about his years in captivity or the identity of the group that held him.

Jeffery Woodke, a Christian aid worker, was abducted in Niger in 2016 and believed to have been later taken to Mali. He is undergoing a medical evaluation in Niamey, the capital of Niger, then will return home to be reunited with his family, said Bob Klamer, a spokesman for the Woodke family.

“I’m gratified & relieved to see the release of U.S. hostage Jeff Woodke after over 6 years in captivity,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Twitter. President Biden also praised the release and told reporters that the United States “will continue our work to bring home all Americans held hostage or unjustly detained.”

Woodke’s wife, Els Woodke, spoke to her husband Monday. “He was in great spirits and thrilled to be free,” she said. She expressed her “profound thanks to the many people in governments and others around the world who have worked so hard to see this result.”

Sullivan thanked the government of Niger for helping secure Woodke’s return. Secretary of State Antony Blinken just returned from Niger on Friday, in the first visit to the West African country by a sitting secretary of state. Blinken reaffirmed the United States’ interest in securing Woodke’s release, said a senior administration official, but no ransom or concessions were given. No direct negotiations were held between the U.S. government and the group that held him, said the official, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity surrounding the long-sought release.

The official declined to identify the group that held Woodke but noted that his capture happened as a result of an “overlapping and intersecting network in that part of West Africa — operating in an area that includes Mali and Burkina Faso — who see kidnapping and hostage-taking as part of their business model, frankly, and as a source of revenue and support.”

Relevant Recent Headlines 

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• New York Times, Sunak’s Pivot Away From ‘Global Britain’ Makes Friends on World Stage
• Washington Post, American hostage freed 6 years after being taken captive by militants in Africa
• New York Times, Criminal Court’s Arrest Warrant Pierces Putin’s Aura of Impunity
• New York Times, Xi Jinping to Visit Russia Next Week
• New York Times, Casting Himself as Peacemaker, Xi Jinping Is Wading Into the War In Ukraine
• New York Times, In the U.S.-Led Iraq War, Iran Was the Big Winner
• New York Times, 20 Years After U.S. Invasion, Iraq Is a Freer Place, but Not a Hopeful One, Alissa J. Rubin

U.S. Banks, Economy, Jobs

Washington Post, Weighing bank distress and inflation, Fed faces next rate hike, Rachel Siegel, March 23, 2023 (print ed.).There’s much more uncertainty this time around as to whether the Fed will hike by a quarter of a percentage point, or hit pause until the banking fiasco is truly over.

The Federal Reserve faces a pivotal decision Wednesday — whether to push ahead with its urgent fight against inflation or ease up in the aftermath of bank failures that forced a sweeping government intervention earlier this month.

Financial markets expect an increase of a quarter of a percentage point, which would bring the Fed’s base policy rate to between 4.75 and 5 percent. But nothing is guaranteed, and some Fed experts are urging policymakers to hit pause. Their argument is that it is too soon to know if the banking fiasco is over, and that the financial system may still be too fragile to absorb another hike right now, even though inflation remains too high.

The central bank, led by Jerome Powell, right, is also facing questions about its regulatory oversight of Silicon Valley Bank, as Washington tries to figure out whether the government could have prevented the turmoil in the banking sector.

New York Times, Double-Barreled Economic Threat Puts Congress on Edge, Carl Hulse, March 23, 2023. Republicans and Democrats disagree over how recent bank closures should affect the debt limit stalemate, and have taken divergent lessons from past crises.

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More On Ukraine War

New York Times, Zelensky Tours Kherson as Ukraine Tries to Pressure Russian Forces, Enjoli Liston, March 23, 2023. President Volodymyr Zelensky toured areas affected by Russian strikes, a day after he met with troops near the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visited the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, touring areas affected by Russia’s full-scale invasion and its monthslong campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, he said on Thursday.

“We have to ensure full restoration and protection of our energy sector!” Mr. Zelensky said in a post on Telegram, the social messaging app. “I am grateful to everyone who works for this and returns the light to our people!”

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visited the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, touring areas affected by Russia’s full-scale invasion and its monthslong campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, he said on Thursday.

“We have to ensure full restoration and protection of our energy sector!” Mr. Zelensky said in a post on Telegram, the social messaging app. “I am grateful to everyone who works for this and returns the light to our people!”

The visit was Mr. Zelensky’s second to a frontline area in two days. On Wednesday, he made a defiant trip to the area around the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut, which has become a potent symbol of Ukrainian resistance as Kyiv’s forces battle to hold off a relentless Russian onslaught.

Mr. Zelensky’s travels to regions partly occupied by Russia come as Western allies ramp up supplies of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, which is preparing for an anticipated counteroffensive that could include a push to retake captured territory.

Though Ukraine recaptured the city of Kherson, the regional capital, from Russian forces last November in one of its most significant victories of the yearlong war, Moscow still controls territory in the wider Kherson province. Russian forces have used positions on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River to shell the city of Kherson on the opposite side of the waterway, preventing Kyiv from being able to restore a sense of normality in the city.

On Thursday, Ukraine’s Armed Forces said they were escalating artillery strikes against Russian positions east of the Dnipro. “We are working to make the enemy feel our presence, our pressure,” Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military’s southern command, said on national television.

Russia has sought to toughen its defenses, and there was no immediate indication that shelling of the city of Kherson had lessened. Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-appointed governor of Kherson, said on Russian television this week that Moscow’s forces had “strengthened by a factor of three the line of defense” on the eastern side of the river.

Over the winter months, parts of the Kherson region endured weeks without access to electricity and water, as Russian forces rained missiles, rockets and drones down on energy infrastructure targets in an apparent bid to freeze residents.

During the trip on Thursday, Mr. Zelensky said he visited Posad-Pokrovske, a farming village that was largely destroyed during the fight for the city of Kherson, which is about 20 miles away. “Currently, the restoration of electricity and water supply is underway here, the medical clinic is being rebuilt, and people are returning,” Mr. Zelensky said on Telegram.

His visits near the frontline have come days after Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, visited the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, now occupied by Russian forces after one of Moscow’s most brutal campaigns of the war.

Mr. Putin’s trip to Mariupol, about 50 miles southeast of the Ukrainian-controlled town of Vuhledar — where Russian forces sustained heavy losses just weeks ago and where fighting continues — is believed to be the closest the Russian leader has come to the front line since his forces’ invasion last year.

New York Times, Ukrainian Tank Commanders Grow Impatient: ‘Give Me an Abrams!’ Carlotta Gall, Photographs by Daniel Berehulak, March 23, 2023. For now, they are holding on with inferior Soviet-era tanks, but relish the idea of taking on the Russians with modern Western equipment.

New York Times, She Posted About the War in Ukraine. Then She Faced a Prison Term, Valerie Hopkins, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). The case of Olesya Krivtsova, a Russian student who ended up on the Kremlin’s terrorist list, has underscored the perils of criticizing the invasion.

Sitting in a small courtroom flanked by her two lawyers last month, Olesya Krivtsova was facing a stiff penalty for her fondness for posting on social media. Barely 20 and until this year a university student in northern Russia, she was accused of “justifying terrorism” and “discrediting the Russian armed forces,” and was facing up to a decade in prison.

Her apparent crime? An Instagram post asking why Ukrainians had rejoiced when the main bridge to Russian-occupied Crimea was attacked in October.

The post eventually landed Ms. Krivtsova on the Kremlin’s official list of terrorists and extremists. She was placed under house arrest and forbidden from using the phone or the internet.

Ms. Krivtsova did not wait for a courtroom verdict: Last week, she fled the country.

“I decided to leave because I was desperate,” Ms. Krivtsova said by telephone on Friday from Vilnius, Lithuania. “It is impossible to prove anything to the Russian court.”

As the Kremlin intensifies its crackdown on free speech, social media platforms have become a more frequent target for punishment. The government is increasingly penalizing people for posts it considers critical of the fighting in Ukraine — with fines, imprisonment and, in extreme cases, temporarily losing custody of their children.

In the Ryazan region south of Moscow, for instance, investigators opened a criminal case against a man who posted a joke about the Russian retreat from Kherson, in southern Ukraine. A student who ran an antiwar channel on the messaging app Telegram was denounced by the rector of his university for posts that criticized the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine as well as alleged Russian atrocities in Bucha and Mariupol. This month, he was sentenced to eight and a half years in a penal colony.

New York Times, Russia reprised brutal tactics to attack the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, Marc Santora, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Russian forces have stepped up their assaults on the Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine, making limited and costly gains in a furious attempt to encircle the long-battered city.

Ukrainian officials have said in recent days that Avdiivka is turning into another Bakhmut, the eastern city that Russian forces have sought to capture by sending waves of lightly trained recruits on near-suicidal attacks of Ukrainian defensive lines. In Avdiivka, as in Bakhmut, Ukraine says that Russian advances are also threatening key supply lines while bombardments are killing civilians.

Local officials said on Tuesday that a woman had been killed and two more civilians injured when a shell fired from a tank blasted the city center.

“Russians are intensively attacking from both sides, from the south and the north,” Maj. Maksym Morozov, a member of the Special Forces regiment fighting in the area, told the Ukrainian news media on Monday night. He added that the Russian tactic of using waves of soldiers — dubbed “cannon fodder” by the Ukrainians — was having some success.

“First, cannon fodder goes to expose our firing positions, and then professionals behind them quickly and accurately try to extinguish our firing lines,” he said. But he said that Ukrainian artillery and tanks were firing back at the Russian forces, who “have to pay a rather high price for this advance.”

Avdiivka is about 15 miles west of the city of Donetsk, which Russian proxy forces took over in 2014. But Avdiivka had not experienced violence on the scale unleashed in Russia’s full-scale invasion last year.

By last April, Russian artillery had destroyed more than 800 homes and scores of businesses, according to local officials. Only about 2,300 of the city’s 30,000 prewar residents remain, according to Vitaliy Barabash, the head of the Ukrainian military administration in the city.

Washington Post, U.S. will speed transfer of Abrams tanks to Ukraine, Pentagon says, Dan Lamothe, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). The new plan calls for refurbishing tank hulls already in the U.S. arsenal rather than procuring new vehicles, which had been expected to take up to two years.

The Pentagon, in a significant shift, said Tuesday that it will send M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine by the fall, after facing scrutiny for initially saying it could take a year or two to procure the powerful weapons and get them to the battlefield.

The new plan calls for refurbishing tank hulls already in the U.S. arsenal, officials said. President Biden, under intensifying pressure from Ukrainian officials, agreed in January to pledge 31 M1 tanks as part of a long-term arrangement that afforded German leaders political cover so that they could approve the immediate provision of Leopard battle tanks.

Relevant Recent Headlines

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U.S. Courts, Crime, Immigration, Guns

New York Times, 1 Dead and Multiple Hostages Rescued in Houston F.B.I. Operation, Christine Hauser, March 23, 2023. One person died and several hostages were rescued during an operation that lasted several days and involved federal and local law enforcement officials in North Houston, the F.B.I. said in a statement on Thursday.

All of the hostages had been “safely rescued” by Thursday morning, the F.B.I. said. The agency said one person had died after “an agent-involved shooting,” and that none of its personnel were injured.

The F.B.I. released few other details and did not answer questions about the shooting or the nature of the hostage situation. The agency’s Houston office said on Twitter that “no additional information” would be provided for now, and that no news conferences were planned.

New York Times, In Memphis, Car Seizures Are a Lucrative and Punishing Police Tactic, Jessica Jaglois and Mike Baker, March 23, 2023. It has been used to combat street racing and other crimes, but critics said that vehicles have been kept for months from people not even convicted.

As he drove to work on a summer afternoon in Memphis last year, Ralph Jones saw a woman on the sidewalk flagging him down. Thinking she was in distress or needed a ride, Mr. Jones said, he pulled over.

After a brief conversation in which she tried to lure him to a nearby motel, Mr. Jones said, he drove away but was soon stopped by the police and yanked from his truck. The 70-year-old welder said that with just 86 cents in his pocket, he had neither the intent nor the money to solicit a prostitute, as the officers were claiming.

His protests were to no avail. Mr. Jones was cited, and his truck, along with the expensive tools inside, was seized. The charges were eventually dropped, but the truck and his work equipment remained corralled in a city impound lot for six weeks, when prosecutors finally agreed to return it in exchange for a $750 payment.

“It’s nothing but a racket,” Mr. Jones said.

Police departments around the country have long used asset forfeiture laws to seize property believed to be associated with criminal activity, a tactic intended to deprive lawbreakers of ill-gotten gains, deter future crimes and, along the way, provide a lucrative revenue source for police departments.

But it became a favored law-enforcement tactic in Memphis, where the elite street crime unit involved in the death of Tyre Nichols on Jan. 7, known as the Scorpion unit, was among several law enforcement teams in the city making widespread use of vehicle seizures.

Like Mr. Jones, some of the people affected by the seizures had not been convicted of any crime, and defense lawyers said they disproportionately affected low-income residents, and people of color.

Over the past decade, civil rights advocates in several states have successfully pushed to make it harder for the police to seize property, but Tennessee continues to have some of the most aggressive seizure laws in the country.

While some states now require a criminal conviction before forfeiting property, Tennessee’s process can be much looser, requiring only that the government show, in a civil process, that the property was more likely than not to have been connected to certain types of criminal activity — a less rigorous burden of proof. Tennessee allows local law enforcement agencies to keep the bulk of the proceeds of the assets they seize.

Brennan Center for Justice, NYU Law School, Analysis: Constitution watchers brace for upcoming Supreme Court rulings on the Voting Rights Act, affirmative action, and the “independent state legislature theory,” Michael Waldman, March 21-22, 2023. The Marble Palace on First Street gets most of the attention. In the meantime, federal judges across the country are showing us what happens when the lower courts are stuffed with right-wing ideologues.

After a hearing last week, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, Texas, is expected to soon rule on an outlandish demand to ban the use of the abortion pill mifepristone — medication used for more than half of all abortions in the United States. If the judge rules to revoke the decades-old FDA approval for the pill, he will affect not just women in Texas, but women in every state.

How can a single federal judge have such power over the medical decisions of more than 167 million people? Believe it or not, the Supreme Court has never ruled on whether nationwide injunctions are constitutional. Liberals used this tactic on occasion to block the Trump administration’s policies, such as the single judge who blocked the “Muslim ban” in 2017. But conservatives have undeniably perfected it.

In Texas, a quirk of the rules lets people choose where they bring a federal lawsuit and essentially handpick the judge who will hear their case — judge shopping to boost the chances of a favorable ruling. When a plaintiff files a federal suit in Amarillo, they are 100 percent guaranteed to get Kacsmaryk, a judge with a reputation as a Federalist Society militant. His sister recently told reporters it was his mission to end abortion in the United States. He has called homosexuality “disordered.” He made the government reinstate the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy, which was later overturned by the Supreme Court.

Such a track record would make him the ideal judge for anti-abortion groups seeking someone sympathetic to their case.

Worse, Kacsmaryk may be readying his abortion pill ruling based on the brand-new “major questions doctrine,” which is all of nine months old. First articulated in a case last year that slashed the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory power, the doctrine claims federal agencies need clear congressional authorization to act on issues that have “major” economic or political significance. This conveniently flexible legal theory is poised to be the go-to reasoning for right-wing judges to block any policies they don’t like.

The Texas case isn’t the only evidence of the impact of skewed lower courts. The Supreme Court’s sweeping decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, which held that gun laws must pass the test of “history and tradition” rather than public safety, has led to judicial rulings that verge on satirical. One federal judge in western New York blocked most of the state’s new gun law, declaring he could find no colonial-era law banning guns in summer camps, which, of course, did not exist at the time. And surprise, surprise, he found no trace of 18th-century prohibitions on guns in subways, either. Though he let the ban on guns in churches stand, another New York judge ruled shortly afterward that this restriction, too, was ahistorical.

Other examples abound, and there will no doubt be many more to come. Trump isn’t only responsible for appointing three Supreme Court justices — he appointed 226 federal judges during his presidency. They were overwhelmingly pre-vetted by the Federalist Society.

These appointments have left a lasting impact, and there is an urgent need to rebalance the scales of the federal judiciary. Last week, the Judicial Conference of the United States, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, recommended adding 68 federal judges to the courts to meet demanding new workloads. This would be a good step toward countering the partisanship plaguing the courts. But most importantly, we need to understand the significance of what has happened with the federal courts.

We cannot let one judge with a gavel and a grudge govern our country.

New York Times, Trial of 2016 Twitter Troll to Test Limits of Online Speech, Colin Moynihan and Alan Feuer, March 21, 2023 (print ed.).  Douglass Mackey tried to trick Black people into thinking they could vote for president by text, prosecutors said.

The images appeared on Twitter in late 2016 just as the presidential campaign was entering its final stretch. Some featured the message “vote for Hillary” and the phrases “avoid the line” and “vote from home.”

Aimed at Democratic voters, and sometimes singling out Black people, the messages were actually intended to help Donald J. Trump, not Hillary Clinton. The goal, federal prosecutors said, was to suppress votes for Ms. Clinton by persuading her supporters to falsely believe they could cast presidential ballots by text message.

The misinformation campaign was carried out by a group of conspirators, prosecutors said, including a man in his 20s who called himself Ricky Vaughn. On Monday he will go on trial in Federal District Court in Brooklyn under his real name, Douglass Mackey, after being charged with conspiring to spread misinformation designed to deprive others of their right to vote.

“The defendant exploited a social media platform to infringe one of the most basic and sacred rights guaranteed by the Constitution,” Nicholas L. McQuaid, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said in 2021 when charges against Mr. Mackey were announced.

Prosecutors have said that Mr. Mackey, who went to Middlebury College in Vermont and said he lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, used hashtags and memes as part of his deception and outlined his strategies publicly on Twitter and with co-conspirators in private Twitter group chats.

“Obviously we can win Pennsylvania,” Mr. Mackey said on Twitter, using one of his pseudonymous accounts less than a week before the election, according to a complaint and affidavit. “The key is to drive up turnout with non-college whites, and limit black turnout.”

That tweet, court papers said, came a day after Mr. Mackey tweeted an image showing a Black woman in front of a sign supporting Ms. Clinton. That tweet told viewers they could vote for Ms. Clinton by text message.

Prosecutors said nearly 5,000 people texted the number shown in the deceptive images, adding that the images stated they had been paid for by the Clinton campaign and had been viewed by people in the New York City area.

Mr. Mackey’s trial is expected to provide a window into a small part of what the authorities have described as broad efforts to sway the 2016 election through lies and disinformation. While some of those attempts were orchestrated by Russian security services, others were said to have emanated from American internet trolls.

People whose names may surface during the trial or who are expected to testify include a man who tweeted about Jews and Black people and was then disinvited from the DeploraBall, a far-right event in Washington, D.C., the night before Mr. Trump’s inauguration; a failed congressional candidate from Wisconsin; and an obscure federal cooperator who will be allowed to testify under a code name.

As the trial has approached, people sympathetic to Mr. Mackey have cast his case as part of a political and cultural war, a depiction driven in part by precisely the sort of partisan social media-fueled effort that he is accused of engineering.

Mr. Mackey’s fans have portrayed him as a harmless prankster who is being treated unfairly by the state for engaging in a form of free expression. That notion, perhaps predictably, has proliferated on Twitter, advanced by people using some of the same tools that prosecutors said Mr. Mackey used to disseminate lies. Mackey supporters have referred to him on social media as a “meme martyr” and spread a meme showing him wearing a red MAGA hat and accompanied by the hashtag “#FreeRicky.”

Some tweets about Mr. Mackey from prominent figures have included apocalyptic-sounding language. The Fox personality Tucker Carlson posted a video of himself on Twitter calling the trial “the single greatest assault on free speech and human rights in this country’s modern history.”

New York Times, Video Shows Virginia Man’s Death in Custody, Campbell Robertson and Christine Hauser, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Seven deputies in Henrico County have been charged with second-degree murder in the death of Irvo Otieno at a hospital.

Surveillance video from a state psychiatric hospital in Virginia shows a group of sheriff’s deputies and medical staff piling on a handcuffed man, Irvo Otieno, and pinning him for nearly 11 minutes until his death on March 6.

The video, which was obtained by The Washington Post before its expected release on Tuesday, shows at least seven deputies from the Henrico County sheriff’s office enter a room at Central State Hospital in Dinwiddie County dragging Mr. Otieno, who is shirtless and in handcuffs and leg shackles. The deputies push him into a small couch and then force him to the floor, where they pinion him until his death while medical staff stand aside, the video shows.

The Dinwiddie County prosecutor, Ann Cabell Baskervill, has charged seven sheriff’s deputies and three employees of the hospital with second degree murder. She had announced that she was publicly releasing the video on Tuesday, though some defense lawyers had filed motions to block its release. However, The Post accessed the video through a court filing and published it.

Mr. Otieno, who had long been struggling with mental health and had been taken from his home three days earlier, had been moved to the hospital by sheriff’s deputies from a county jail earlier that day. In the video, people who seem to be part of the medical staff walk in and out of the room as the deputies pile on Mr. Otieno, 28, pinning his legs and arms and pushing his body down to the floor.

Washington Post, Gladys Kessler, federal judge in landmark tobacco lawsuit, dies at 85, Emily Langer, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). In a major ruling in 2006, she found that cigarette makers had conspired for decades to deceive the public about the deadly threat posed by smoking.

Judge Kessler, a former public-interest lawyer who served for 17 years on the D.C. Superior Court, was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994 to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Politico, Fear, burnout and insubordination: Insiders spill details about life at the highest levels of FBI, Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney, March 21, 2023 (print ed.).  A discrimination case has pulled back the curtain on the tense atmosphere at the bureau’s legal office; FBI employees and guests listen at an installation ceremony for FBI Director Chris Wray, right.

A gender discrimination trial in Washington, D.C., shined a harsh spotlight on one of the most important legal offices in the U.S. government, portraying it as a hotbed of dysfunction, turf wars, mismanagement and paranoia.

The lawsuit, which came to a head earlier this month in federal court in the nation’s capital, centered on claims of gender discrimination in the FBI’s general counsel’s office, where some of the most powerful attorneys in the country are charged with helping safeguard Americans from terrorism, cyber threats, organized crime and corruption.

A federal jury ultimately sided with the FBI, but not before a parade of witnesses testified to startling revelations about the bureau, exposing dysfunction and management woes that at times have been exploited by the bureau’s detractors — most notably amid Donald Trump’s crusade against investigations into his activities.

The trial drew little notice inside the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., where numerous high-profile Jan. 6 defendants were simultaneously standing trial, and grand juries probing potential crimes by Trump and his allies remain active. But the proceedings offered a peek inside the secretive confines of the FBI — describing degrees of dysfunction that are rarely aired, particularly by the FBI insiders themselves.

The list of trial witnesses included Jim Baker, who testified that when he took over as FBI general counsel in 2014, his staff of about 200 lawyers were burned out, locked in bureaucratic turf battles and wracked by fear of their own colleagues. Baker said that in the early part of his tenure, some employees were so afraid to raise concerns in front of others that they “frequently” slipped anonymous notes under his door overnight — typewritten to conceal handwriting.

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More On U.S. Abortion, #MeToo, Stalking, Rape Laws 

Washington Post, Oklahoma must allow abortion if mother’s life is threatened, court rules, Andrew Jeong, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). The Oklahoma Supreme Court overturned part of the state’s near-total abortion ban, ruling in a 5-to-4 decision that the procedure would be lawful if there is a reasonable chance that a pregnancy could threaten a pregnant person’s life.

Oklahoma’s constitution protects the right to an abortion if “the woman’s physician has determined to a reasonable degree of medical certainty” that continuing “the pregnancy will endanger the woman’s life,” the court’s justices said in Tuesday’s ruling. “Absolute certainty” that the pregnancy will be life-threatening isn’t required, but “mere possibility or speculation” is insufficient, they added.

Previously, the state allowed abortions only in cases of medical emergencies, requiring the patient to “be in actual and present danger in order for her to obtain a medically necessary abortion,” the justices wrote.

Washington Post, Opinion: Senate Democrats should be holding oversight hearings of their own, Jennifer Rubin, right, March 22, 2023. House Republicans have given oversight a bad name. Oversight should not be about baseless fishing expeditions (e.g., political pressure on Twitter), political payback (e.g., Hunter Biden), or obstruction of the Justice Department or local prosecutors (for instance, wholly overstepping congressional authority and violating states’ policing authority in harassing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg).

For starters, oversight hearings must have a legitimate legislative purpose. Done properly, an information-gathering and public-education process can provide the basis for thoughtful legislation. But when it comes to necessary oversight, Senate Democrats have done precious little despite an array of topics crying out for congressional investigation.

Abortion: The Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has triggered a slew of abortion bans, with devastating consequences for women and their families. The lawsuit filed in Texas by five women and two doctors documents the danger and suffering the state’s abortion ban has inflicted on women, the dire consequences for women who need appropriate care for miscarriages, and the impact on the medical profession.

A new report from the National Center for Health Statistics documents that even before Dobbs, the United States’ already-high maternal death rate was rising (32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021 compared with 23.8 in 2020 and 20.1 in 2019), especially for Black women (2.6 times that of White women). After Dobbs, that figure can be expected to soar.

Where are the Senate hearings on this health crisis? Senators should bring in a variety of health-care specialists, hospital officials, medical ethicists, women, families of female victims, sociologists and statisticians (to highlight the economic, emotional and family impact when women are forced to give birth against their will), and legal scholars (to, among other things, explain the inherent vagueness and unworkability of state statutes). Senate Republicans who have cheered these bans should see evidence of the harm they support.

Relevant Recent Headlines

• Associated Press via Politico, Wyoming governor signs measure prohibiting abortion pills
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Climate, Environment, Weather, Energy, Disasters, U.S. Transportation

New York Times, Storm-Ravaged California Prepares for More Rain and Snow, Jesus Jiménez, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Some in the central part of the state were being urged to evacuate, though the latest system was not expected to be as powerful as previous weather events this year.

California is bracing for yet another storm system, one that is expected to bring heavy rain and snow on Tuesday and into Wednesday to a state that has been battered by storm after storm over the past few weeks.

The latest storm system is forecast to bring up to four inches of rain to parts of Southern and Central California, and up to four feet of snow in elevations above 6,000 feet, according to the National Weather Service. The merging threats of rain, snow and gusty winds up to 75 miles per hour may lead to downed trees and power lines, as well as flooding and a “significant threat of avalanches” at higher elevations, the Weather Service said.

By Tuesday morning, it was already raining in many parts of the state. Some areas had received nearly an inch of rain since midnight. Meteorologists with the Weather Service in Hanford, Calif., were keeping an eye on water levels on rivers, creeks and steams, which they said were “extremely high,” and that heavy rain below 4,000 feet could cause flooding. The heaviest rain was expected in the afternoon and evening

New York Times, A Water System So Broken That One Pipe Leaks 5 Million Gallons a Day, Sarah Fowler, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). As a water shortage ballooned into a crisis in Jackson, Miss., the leak grew bigger and bigger, gouging out a swimming pool-size crater in the earth.

because their faucets were dry, the break at the old Colonial Country Club squandered an estimated five million gallons of drinking water a day in a city that had none to spare.

It is enough water to serve the daily needs of 50,000 people, or a third of the city residents who rely on the beleaguered water utility.

No one knows for sure when the leak reached its current size. But newly appointed water officials say the city discovered the broken mainline pipe in 2016 and left it to gush, even as the water gouged out a swimming pool-size crater in the earth and city residents were forced to endure one drinking water crisis after another.

Jackson’s water system has been flirting with collapse for decades thanks to a combination of mismanagement, crumbling infrastructure and a series of ill-fated decisions that cost the utility money that it did not have. In 2022, the Justice Department reached an agreement with the city requiring it to bring in an outside manager to run the water department.

New York Times, A Different Kind of Pipeline Project Scrambles Midwest Politics, Mitch Smith, Photographs by Alyssa Schukar, March 21, 2023 (print ed.).  Plans that would bury carbon underground rather than release it in the air have stoked debate over climate and property rights, creating unlikely alliances.

For more than a decade, the Midwest was the site of bitter clashes over plans for thousand-mile pipelines meant to carry crude oil beneath cornfields and cattle ranches.

Now high-dollar pipeline fights are happening again, but with a twist.

Instead of oil, these projects would carry millions of tons of carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to be injected into underground rock formations rather than dispersed as pollutants in the air.

What is playing out is a very different kind of environmental battle, a huge test not just for farmers and landowners but for emerging technologies promoted as ways to safely store planet-warming carbon.

The technology has generated support from powerful politicians in both parties, as well as major farming organizations, ethanol producers and some environmental groups.

Supporters, including some farmers who have signed agreements to have a pipeline buried on their property, frame the ideas being proposed by two companies as a win for both the economy and environment. They say the pipelines, boosted by federal tax credits, including from the Inflation Reduction Act that President Biden signed last year, would lower carbon emissions while aiding the agricultural economy through continued ethanol production.

But opponents are concerned about property rights and safety, and are not convinced of the projects’ claimed environmental benefits. They have forged unlikely alliances that have blurred the region’s political lines, uniting conservative farmers with liberal urbanites, white people with Native Americans, small-government Republicans with climate-conscious Democrats.

The result, both sides agree, is a high-stakes economic and environmental struggle pitting pipeline advocates against opponents who honed their political and legal strategies over nearly 15 years of fighting the Dakota Access oil pipeline, which has been in operation since 2017, and the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which was never built.

There is no question that technology exists to remove carbon from industrial sites and to transport and store it underground. Less clear: Is carbon capture really an effective counterweight to the overheating planet? And, if so, at what cost?

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Media, Education, Arts, High Tech

Washington Post, Jake Paul, Lindsay Lohan among 8 charged in SEC cryptocurrency case, Bryan Pietsch, March 23, 2023. The Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday it had charged a handful of celebrities — including the internet provocateur-turned-professional boxer Jake Paul and actress Lindsay Lohan — with promoting cryptocurrencies without disclosing that they were compensated for doing so.

Paul, Lohan, the former teen heartthrob Austin Mahone and the rapper Soulja Boy (whose legal name is DeAndre Cortez Way) were among eight celebrities the SEC said had illegally promoted cryptocurrencies Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT).

The SEC also charged entrepreneur Justin Sun and three of his companies for “the unregistered offer and sale” of TRX and BTT.

The complaint, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, also alleged that Sun “directed the manipulative wash trading of TRX to create the artificial appearance of legitimate investor interest and keep TRX’s price afloat,” referring to a scheme in which securities are essentially traded at the same time between associated entities, making the asset “appear actively traded without an actual change in beneficial ownership.”

Sun — a Chinese entrepreneur who became a citizen of Grenada, the small island nation in the West Indies that grants citizenship to those who make large investments in the country — gained worldwide attention in 2019 after he paid $4.6 million to have lunch with Warren Buffett, but then canceled it, apologizing for “excessive self-promotion.”

Instead of lunch with Warren Buffett, Chinese entrepreneur Justin Sun eats humble pie

The celebrities’ promotional messages about the cryptocurrencies were posted on social media, according to the SEC. Lohan, who has more than 8 million Twitter followers, tweeted on Feb. 11, 2021 that she was “already liking” three of Sun’s cryptocurrencies, including TRX. “Super fast and 0 fee,” she wrote. “Good job @justinsuntron.”

In March 2021, she promoted an auction — in TRX — for an NFT, or non-fungible token, of one of her songs. “Just over 9 hours left to bid!” she tweeted on April 1, 2021.

Washington Post, Judge sounds skeptical of some Fox arguments in Dominion lawsuit, Jeremy Barr, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Judge Eric M. Davis pushed back on assertions from both sides in Dominion’s libel lawsuit against Fox News, but he seemed particularly skeptical of the network’s claims

New York Times, Inside the 3 Months That Could Cost Fox $1.6 Billion, Jeremy W. Peters, March 21, 2023 (print ed.). The decision by Fox News executives in November 2020 to treat the more hard-right Newsmax as a mortal threat spawned a possibly more serious danger.

Since 2002, when Fox News first overtook CNN as the most-watched cable news channel, one thing has been as certain and predictable as its dominance: Every time a Democrat wins the White House, the right-leaning network’s ratings take a momentary dip.

That happened after the election of President Biden in 2020, too. But the reaction inside Fox was far different than before.

There was panic. From the chairman of Fox Corporation on down, executives scrambled as they tried to keep viewers tuned in, believing they were facing a crisis. Now, because of the decisions made after former President Donald J. Trump’s loss, Fox News is reckoning with a threat that could prove far more serious.

A $1.6 billion defamation suit from Dominion Voting Systems claims Fox knowingly spread false information about the role of the firm’s election technology in a made-up conspiracy to flip votes. On Tuesday, the two sides will present oral arguments before a judge in Delaware state court as they prepare for a trial next month.

Fox has insisted that it wasn’t presenting claims about Dominion as fact but was reporting and opining on them as any news organization would.

She says lawyers made her give misleading Dominion testimony.

As part of the suit, Dominion obtained thousands of internal Fox emails and text messages and deposed dozens of Fox employees. That evidence shows in extraordinary detail how the network lost its way in the weeks after the election. Here is a timeline of that fateful period, as told in court filings. Some of these exchanges have been lightly condensed for clarity.

New York Times, A Fox News producer sued the network, saying she was coerced into giving misleading testimony in the Dominion case, Nicholas Confessore and Katie Robertson, March 21, 2023 (print ed.). The producer, Abby Grossberg, said in a pair of lawsuits that the effort to place blame on her and Maria Bartiromo, the Fox Business host, was rooted in rampant misogyny and discrimination at the company.

A Fox News producer who has worked with the hosts Maria Bartiromo, right, and Tucker Carlson filed lawsuits against the company in New York and Delaware on Monday, accusing Fox lawyers of coercing her into giving misleading testimony in the continuing legal battle around the network’s coverage of unfounded claims about election fraud.

The producer, Abby Grossberg, said Fox lawyers had tried to position her and Ms. Bartiromo to take the blame for Fox’s repeated airing of conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems and its supposed role in manipulating the results of the 2020 presidential election. Dominion has filed a $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox. Ms. Grossberg said the effort to place blame on her and Ms. Bartiromo was rooted in rampant misogyny and discrimination at the network.

The new lawsuits, coupled with revelations from the Dominion legal fight, shed light on the rivalries and turf battles that raged at Fox News in the wake of the 2020 election, as network executives fought to hold on to viewers furious at the top-rated network for accurately reporting on President Donald J. Trump’s defeat in Arizona, a crucial swing state.

The lawsuits also include details about Ms. Grossberg’s work life at Fox and on Mr. Carlson’s show. Ms. Grossberg says she and other women endured frank and open sexism from co-workers and superiors at the network, which has been dogged for years by lawsuits and allegations about sexual harassment by Fox executives and stars.

The network’s disregard for women, Ms. Grossberg alleged, left her and Ms. Bartiromo understaffed — stretched too thin to properly vet the truthfulness of claims made against Dominion on the air. At times, Ms. Grossberg said, she was the only full-time employee dedicated solely to Ms. Bartiromo’s Sunday-morning show.

In her complaints, Ms. Grossberg accuses lawyers for Fox News of coaching her in “a coercive and intimidating manner” before her September deposition in the Dominion case. The lawyers, she said, gave her the impression that she had to avoid mentioning prominent male executives and on-air talent to protect them from any blame, while putting her own reputation at risk.

On Monday afternoon, Fox filed its own suit against Ms. Grossberg, seeking to enjoin her from filing claims that would shed light on her discussions with the company’s lawyers. A judge has not yet ruled on Fox’s suit. Later on Monday, according to her lawyer, Parisis G. Filippatos, Fox also placed Ms. Grossberg on forced administrative leave.

Ms. Grossberg’s lawsuits were filed in the Southern District of New York and in Superior Court in Delaware, where a pretrial hearing in the Dominion defamation lawsuit is scheduled for Tuesday.

In a statement, a Fox spokeswoman said: “Fox News Media engaged an independent outside counsel to immediately investigate the concerns raised by Ms. Grossberg, which were made following a critical performance review. We will vigorously defend these claims.”

According to the lawsuits filed by Ms. Grossberg, Fox superiors called Ms. Bartiromo a “crazy bitch” who was “menopausal” and asked Ms. Grossberg to cut the host out of coverage discussions.

Last year, she began working as a senior booking producer at “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” On her first full day, according to the lawsuit, Ms. Grossberg discovered that the show’s Manhattan work space was decorated with large pictures of Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, then the House speaker, wearing a plunging swimsuit.

Later that fall, it said, before an appearance on the show by Tudor Dixon, the Republican candidate for Michigan governor, Mr. Carlson’s staff held a mock debate about whether they would prefer to have sex with Ms. Dixon or her Democratic opponent, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

After Ms. Grossberg complained about harassment from two male producers on the show, she was pulled into a meeting with human resources and told that she was not performing her duties, according to the complaint.

New York Times, DNA From Beethoven’s Hair Unlocks Medical and Family Secrets, Gina Kolata, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). By analyzing samples of hair said to have come from Ludwig van Beethoven, researchers debunked myths about the revered composer while raising new questions.

It was March 1827 and Ludwig van Beethoven was dying. As he lay in bed, wracked with abdominal pain and jaundiced, grieving friends and acquaintances came to visit. And some asked a favor: Could they clip a lock of his hair for remembrance?

The parade of mourners continued after Beethoven’s death at age 56, even after doctors performed a gruesome craniotomy, looking at the folds in Beethoven’s brain and removing his ear bones in a vain attempt to understand why the revered composer lost his hearing.

Within three days of Beethoven’s death, not a single strand of hair was left on his head.

Ever since, a cottage industry has aimed to understand Beethoven’s illnesses and the cause of his death.

Now, an analysis of strands of his hair has upended long held beliefs about his health. The report provides an explanation for his debilitating ailments and even his death, while also raising new questions about his genealogical origins and hinting at a dark family secret.

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March 22

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• Washington Post, Ukraine Live Updates: Zelensky visits Bakhmut; China’s Xi leaves Russia with no clear progress on ending war
• New York Times, Appeals Court Orders Trump Lawyer to Hand Over Records in Documents Inquiry
• Washington Post, Fed raises benchmark rate by 0.25 point despite bank turmoil
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• New York Times, Former President Trump is facing several investigations. See where they stand
• New York Times, Opinion: Our New Promethean Moment, Thomas L. Friedman
• New York Times, As Haiti’s Police Retreat, Gangs Take Over Much of the Capital
• New York Times, Uganda Passes Strict Anti-Gay Bill That Imposes Death Penalty for Some
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 More On Probes, Prospects of Trump, Allies

• Proof, Going Deep, Investigative Commentary: A Primer for the Imminent Indictment of Former President Trump, Seth Abramson
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• Washington Post, The porn star, the checks and the president: Trump’s tawdry path to legal trouble
• New York Times, Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, has waded into treacherous political waters
• New York Times, Opinion: Make No Mistake, the Investigation of Donald Trump and the Stormy Daniels Scheme Is Serious, Ryan Goodman and Andrew Weissmann
• Washington Post, N.Y. grand jury weighing possible Trump indictment not expected to meet
• New York Times, Trump’s Call for Protests of Pending Arrest Splits G.O.P.
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• Emptywheel, Analysis: Lordy, There Are [Transcribed] Tapes, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler)
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• Washington Post, Opinion: ‘An indictment would help Trump!’ is wholly premature, Jennifer Rubin
• Washington Post, RetropolisThe Past, Rediscovered, No president or former president has ever been indicted. But a sitting president was arrested once

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• New York Times, Analysis: In a Brother Act With Putin, Xi Reveals China’s Fear of Containment, Chris Buckley
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U.S. Banks, Economy, Jobs

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U.S. Politics, Elections, Governance

• New York Times, Book Review: Ron DeSantis Has a Secret Theory of Trump, Carlos Lozada
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U.S. Courts, Crime, Immigration, Guns

• Brennan Center for Justice, NYU Law School, Analysis: Constitution watchers brace for upcoming Supreme Court rulings on the Voting Rights Act, affirmative action, and the “independent state legislature theory,” Michael Waldman
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Disasters, Climate, Environment, U.S. Transportation, Energy

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U.S. Media, Education, Arts, Sports

• New York Times, DNA From Beethoven’s Hair Unlocks Medical and Family Secrets
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Top Stories

Washington Post, Ukraine Live Updates: Zelensky visits Bakhmut; China’s Xi leaves Russia with no clear progress on ending war, Rachel Pannett and Adela Suliman, March 22, 2023. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, shown above at right, made a visit to the front line in Bakhmut, where Russian forces have almost encircled Ukrainian troops, cutting off major transport and supply lines. His office said in a statement Wednesday that Zelensky heard operational updates and presented service men with awards. Controlling Bakhmut is unlikely to tip the war’s outcome but would give Russia a symbolic victory after months of battlefield setbacks.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping departed Russia on Wednesday, wrapping up a three-day trip that underscored Beijing and Moscow’s desire to reshape the global order against Western power but that offered little concrete progress on China’s pledge to promote peace in the Ukraine conflict. Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a series of agreements to expand trade and deepen strategic ties. Xi reiterated that China has an “impartial position” on the war in Ukraine. The United States later accused China of “parroting the Russian propaganda.”

China’s 12-point proposal does not address the withdrawal of Russian troops from occupied areas of Ukraine and is vague about key issues such as Ukraine’s sovereignty. U.S. officials say any impending cease-fire would only buy Russian troops more time to regroup and would effectively ratify much of the illegal annexation of large swaths of Ukraine. Xi is expected to hold talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky following his return from Moscow, although the timing of those discussions is not confirmed.

Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.

New York Times, Appeals Court Orders Trump Lawyer to Hand Over Records in Documents Inquiry, Alan Feuer, March 22, 2023. The ruling compelling the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, to turn over documents came after a lightning round of appeals court filings overnight.

A federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that a lawyer representing former President Donald J. Trump in an inquiry into his handling of classified materials had to give prosecutors what are likely to be dozens of documents related to his legal work for Mr. Trump.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia came after a lightning round of filings that began on Tuesday evening when Mr. Trump sought an order to stop the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, right, from handing over documents to investigators.

The pitched behind-the-scenes legal fight continued overnight and into early Wednesday morning, with prosecutors responding to Mr. Trump’s request for a stay in the case with papers submitted before dawn. It played out as a separate legal proceeding involving Mr. Trump — the Manhattan district attorney’s consideration of whether to seek an indictment of the former president on charges related to a hush-money payment to a porn actress — remained unresolved.

The fight in Washington over Mr. Corcoran’s level of compliance in the documents case suggests that the prosecutors are working to assemble evidence that Mr. Trump could have committed a crime in defying the government’s efforts to reclaim the classified materials he took with him after leaving the White House.

As a legal matter, the litigation — all of which has taken place behind closed doors or under seal — involves a balancing act between attorney-client privilege, which generally protects lawyers from divulging private communications with their clients to the government, and a special provision of the law known as the crime-fraud exception. That exception allows prosecutors to work around attorney-client privilege when they have reason to believe that legal advice or legal services have been used in furthering a crime.

The spat began last month when the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, sought to pierce assertions of attorney-client privilege that Mr. Corcoran and Mr. Trump had made in the documents inquiry. In an initial appearance before a grand jury investigating the case, Mr. Corcoran had asserted the privilege as a way to limit the scope of the questions he would have to answer as well as the number of legal records he would have to turn over.

 Understand the Trump Documents Inquiry: The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s handling of classified files after he left office.

• Special Counsel: Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith, a longtime prosecutor, to take over the inquiry. Here is what Smith’s role entails.
• Trump Lawyer: The special counsel’s investigation into Trump has prompted a pitched legal battle over whether prosecutors have sufficient evidence to force one of his lawyers to testify to a grand jury and provide documents related to his work for the former president.
• Passing the Gavel: James Boasberg will take over from Beryl Howell as the chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington, a post that plays a key role in the federal special counsel investigations into Trump’s handling of the documents and the events surrounding Jan. 6.
• Comparison With Biden Case: The discovery of classified documents from President Biden’s time as vice president prompted comparisons to Trump’s hoarding of records. But there are key differences.

Washington Post, Fed raises benchmark rate by 0.25 point despite bank turmoil, Rachel Siegel, March 22, 2023. Central bank officials have said they’ll keep trying to slow the economy until inflation eases back to normal levels. But Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse weighed heavily on the latest decision.

The Federal Reserve, led by Jerome Powell, right, raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, moving forward with its fight against high inflation despite concern that its rate hikes may be fueling instability in the banking system.

Financial markets expected the move, which brings the Fed’s base policy rate to between 4.75 and 5 percent.

Less than two weeks after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank jarred the nation’s financial stability, policymakers said the banking system is “sound and resilient” in a statement released at the end of the Fed’s two-day meeting. Still, events from the past few weeks could hamper the economy, which the central bank is still trying to slow down to control price increases.

“Recent developments are likely to result in tighter credit conditions for households and businesses and to weigh on economic activity, hiring and inflation,” the statement read. “The extent of these effects is uncertain.”

The central bank is also facing questions about its regulatory oversight of SVB, as Washington tries to figure out whether the government could have prevented the turmoil in the banking sector.

“There is risk for the Fed here,” Tim Duy, a Fed expert at the University of Oregon and chief economist at SGH Macro Advisors, wrote in an analyst note. “If the Fed hikes, it must be reasonably confident that regulators have ringfenced the banking problems. If the Fed hikes rates and bank failures multiply, the political fallout will be intense.”

Fighting inflation, rescuing banks: The Fed’s sprawling jobs collide

In a fresh crop of economic projections, officials penciled in one more quarter-point rate increase this year, though future moves depend heavily on how the economy behaves. Officials otherwise made small tweaks to their previous estimates from December. They now expect the unemployment rate to end the year at 4.5 percent (down from 4.6 percent the last time the bank made projections) and that the economy will grow by 0.4 percent this year (down from 0.5 percent they projected in December). Inflation will remain above normal levels through the end of 2023.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Recognizing symbols of hate and right-wing rebellion in the United States, Wayne Madsen, left, March 22, 2023.  Nazi and other far-right symbology spreading across America.

The transformation of the Republican Party into a Donald Trump cult and platform advocating fascism has resulted in the mushrooming of symbols of hate across the United States. In some cases, flags and banners proclaim loyalty to Trump even though they deface the U.S. flag, thus violating the U.S. Flag Code. Other banners, such as the "Don't Tread on Me" or Gadsden Flag misuse and misrepresent historical flags in being adopted as hate symbols. Nazi swastikas and symbols of the Confederacy have also been resurrected by the Trumpist cult.

Absent a domestic terrorism law, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are hard-pressed to conduct systematic and uniform surveillance of far-right insurrectionists, but many far-right groups make no effort to hide themselves. In fact, actual and potential seditionists like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Boogaloo Bois shamefully fly from their vehicles and on their front lawns their symbols of rebellion and hate.

Spotting symbols of insurrection and hate should be a top priority for every American who abides by the rule of law and the Constitution. The black "No Quarter Given" flag is an extremely dangerous symbol. Those who fly it are sovereign citizens who are giving warning that they will shoot to kill anyone on their property.

New York Times, Former President Trump is facing several investigations. See where they stand, Ben Protess, Alan Feuer and Danny Hakim, March 22, 2023. The Manhattan district attorney’s office appears to be nearing a potential indictment of the former president, as federal and state prosecutors bear down on Mr. Trump in a number of inquiries.

After avoiding indictment for years, former President Donald J. Trump now appears closer than ever to facing criminal charges in Manhattan.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office recently signaled to Mr. Trump’s lawyers that he could face criminal charges for his role in a hush-money payment to a porn star, the strongest indication yet that prosecutors are nearing an indictment of the former president, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

The district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, impaneled a grand jury in January to hear evidence in the longest-running criminal inquiry facing the former president. Since then, his prosecutors have questioned at least nine witnesses before the panel, though it is unclear whether they have completed their presentation of evidence.

Any case would mark the first indictment of a former American president. Yet Mr. Bragg might not be the last prosecutor to seek charges against Mr. Trump. Several federal and state prosecutors are scrutinizing him as well.

Here is where the notable inquiries involving the former president stand.

New York Times, Opinion: Our New Promethean Moment, Thomas L. Friedman, right, March 22, 2023. I had a most remarkable but unsettling experience last week.

Craig Mundie, the former chief research and strategy officer for Microsoft, was giving me a demonstration of GPT-4, the most advanced version of the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI and launched in November. Craig was preparing to brief the board of my wife’s museum, Planet Word, of which he is a member, about the effect ChatGPT will have on words, language and innovation.

“You need to understand,” Craig warned me before he started his demo, “this is going to change everything about how we do everything. I think that it represents mankind’s greatest invention to date. It is qualitatively different — and it will be transformational.”

Large language modules like ChatGPT will steadily increase in their capabilities, Craig added, and take us “toward a form of artificial general intelligence,” delivering efficiencies in operations, ideas, discoveries and insights “that have never been attainable before across every domain.”

Then he did a demonstration. And I realized Craig’s words were an understatement.

New York Times, As Haiti’s Police Retreat, Gangs Take Over Much of the Capital, Andre Paultre and Chris Cameron, March 22, 2023. Even wealthier areas in the capital, Port-au-Prince, are no longer immune to violence as gangs attack police officers and destroy police stations.

One by one, schools and hospitals have closed. Kidnappings are an everyday risk and gang warfare rages openly on the streets. But now, the chaos that has long consumed many parts of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, has spread: The national police, outgunned, outnumbered, underpaid and demoralized, have ceded control of most of the city to gangs.

Almost no one is safe anymore, analysts and residents say. Even the wealthy who have long looked down at the gang-ridden city from their homes in the mountains above Port-au-Prince are no longer immune.

Gangs operate with impunity across Port-au-Prince and increasingly in wealthy enclaves above the city, analysts say, tightening their grip by attacking police officers and destroying police stations.

“Today, security in Haiti is not a matter of means,’’ said Youri Mevs, the managing partner of an industrial park who lives in the mountains overlooking the city. “It is a matter of avoiding the wrong place at the wrong time. And, the wrong place is almost everywhere, just as the wrong time is literally all the time.”

New York Times, Uganda Passes Strict Anti-Gay Bill That Imposes Death Penalty for Some, Abdi Latif Dahir, March 22, 2023. The legislation also calls for life in prison for anyone engaging in gay sex. Policies to stifle gay rights have been on the rise in several African nations.

Lawmakers in Uganda have passed a sweeping anti-gay law that can bring punishments as severe as the death penalty — the culmination of a long-running campaign to criminalize homosexuality and target L.G.B.T.Q. people in the conservative nation in East Africa.

The law, which was passed late on Tuesday night after more than seven hours of discussion and amendments, calls for a life sentence for anyone engaging in gay sex. Even attempting to have same-sex relations would be met with a seven-year prison term.

The death penalty would be applied to people convicted of “aggravated homosexuality,” a sweeping term defined in the law as homosexual acts committed by anyone infected with H.I.V. or involving children, disabled people or anyone drugged against their will.

The parliamentary vote in Uganda caps a struggle over gay rights in Uganda that has drawn international attention for nearly 15 years. It comes as anti-gay policies and discrimination have been on the rise in several African nations, including Kenya, Ghana and Zambia.

Washington Post, Troubled U.S. organ transplant system targeted for overhaul, Lenny Bernstein, March 22, 2023. The government’s plan, which would break up the monopoly power of the nonprofit organization that runs the system, would leave little unaffected in the sprawling, multibillion-dollar network.

The government announced plans Wednesday to overhaul the troubled U.S. organ transplant system, including breaking up the monopoly power of the nonprofit organization that has run it for the past 37 years.

If successful, the proposal would leave little unaffected in the sprawling, multibillion-dollar network that sends kidneys, livers and other organs from deceased donors to severely ill recipients. That system has long been criticized as inadequate: Nearly 104,000 people are on waiting lists for organs, most of them kidneys; 22 people die each day awaiting transplants, with poor and minority patients generally faring worse than affluent and White people.

Carole Johnson, administrator of the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, the agency responsible for the network, is proposing to break up responsibility for some of the functions performed by its nonprofit manager, the United Network for Organ Sharing. UNOS is the only entity ever to operate the U.S. transplant system.

She said in an interview that she would invite other organizations to take over those areas. They would bid for separate contracts, creating the first competitive environment in the history of the transplant system.

“Our goal is to get best in class for all the functions we think are essential to running the transplant network,” Johnson said.

A spokeswoman for UNOS did not respond to an email seeking comment on the proposal Tuesday evening.

Under UNOS, which holds a $6.5 million annual contract with HRSA, the network has been plagued by problems: Too many organs are discarded, damaged in transit or simply not collected, faulty technology sometimes jeopardizes transplants, and poor performers face little accountability.

The proposal also aims to install a strong board of directors independent of UNOS, create a public dashboard for the voluminous data the system generates and bring more transparency to the sometimes opaque process of how patients and organs are matched.

Washington Post, New liver transplant rules yield winners, losers as wasted organs reach record high, Malena Carollo and Ben Tane, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). The number of lifesaving liver transplants has plummeted in some Southern and Midwestern states that struggle with higher death rates from liver disease.

More On Probes of Trump, Allies 

Proof, Going Deep, Investigative Commentary: A Primer for the Imminent Indictment of Former President Trump, Seth Abramson, left, best-selling author, attorney and journalism professor, March 20-22, 2023. A man who presents as a malignant-narcissist sociopath—having already incited an insurrection and stoked far-right fantasies of a Second U.S. Civil War—is about to be indicted. Here’s what to expect.

Introduction: The pieces are all in place.

Donald Trump’s cultish followers are on social media promising en masse to launch a violent civil war against the rest of us if their leader is finally treated the same way the rest of us would be if we’d repeatedly committed state and federal crimes over a span of decades.

Current and future Trumpist insurrectionists are being goaded on by far-right media—which falsely assures them that Mr. Trump is being mistreated via an overcharged case in New York City—and by Trump himself, who’s lately added to his repertoire of regularly calling the Black prosecutors investigating him “racists” and falsely alleging that they’re part of a vast left-wing conspiracy the further libels that (a) he’s a victim of Extortion by adult-film actress Stormy Daniels (he is not), (b) the prosecutors in his case are engaged in prosecutorial misconduct because they’re well aware that the statute of limitations has run on the crimes he’s about to be charged with (they are not and it has not), and (c) his prospective indictment in a Manhattan courthouse is a response to his nascent presidential campaign (it is not, as anyone old enough to remember Trump’s co-conspirator Michael Cohen getting a lengthy federal prison sentence in 2018 over the exact same sequence of facts will readily understand).

Trump’s scurrilous claims are being echoed not just by Fox News and, in even more aggressive terms, OANN and Newsmax and Breitbart and Trump whisperer Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, but also by rogue attorneys like Alan Dershowitz who sagely assure Trumpists who know nothing about U.S. criminal law that their emotionalized overreaction to someone they personally like staring down a criminal indictment isn’t just psychologically or socioculturally but legally warranted (it is not).

Fox News in particular has been trying to use the coming Trump indictment in New York to regain the viewership it lost after many Trumpists abandoned it in the wake of January 6, citing—at the time—its allegedly soft commitment to the devolution of the United States into an autocratic hellscape run by America’s first unabashed tyrant. If you’ve been following Fox News in recent days you’re seeing the same signals you saw when the network was spreading the “Big Lie” about the 2020 presidential election, a course of astonishly premeditated corporate malfeasance that is currently the subject of a civil lawsuit that could cataclysmically effect the far-right propaganda organ.

Fox News anchors are repeatedly misstating the law, giving Trump agents and aides and advisers and allies and attorneys free reign to misstate the facts of the allegations against him and recklessly malign career public servants, and in what may be an even more sinister maneuver than either of those easily clocked gambits is carpeting its airwaves with the notion that just because America has never before had a President of the United States as corrupt as Trump—and therefore has never needed to indict a former president before—it must actually be the case that anyone who wants to see our rule of law adapt to upsetting new circumstances is in fact seeking to demolish America from within.

Here’s the truth: (1) We knew years ago that Trump was “Individual-1” in a criminal conspiracy that violated federal law and has already landed one of its flunkies, Cohen—not a ringleader like Trump—in federal prison, and (2) while many in media may call the state case Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is apparently about to bring against Trump a “hush-money” case, it is actually a case about Trump trying to steal the 2016 presidential election under the noses of American voters and doing so successfully.

Steve Bannon, then Trump’s campaign CEO, would later say that for Trump to run for president “a hundred” women had to be shut up so that American voters wouldn’t learn (or, charitably, come to fully appreciate) that Trump was and has always been a serial philanderer and sexual assailant who treats women like disposable property. (Keep in mind, here, that women make up more than half of the American electorate.)

We would even later learn that Trump pal and fixer David Pecker, a sleazy magazine publisher, had an entire “vault” in his office full of “catch-and-kill” stories he had purchased from former Trump mistresses just so that he could bury them on Trump’s behalf. And as discussed and substantiated in the 2019 New York Times bestseller Proof of Conspiracy (Macmillan, 2019), there is every reason to think Pecker got at least some of the money for these clandestine payoffs from infamous murderer and U.S. election-tamperer, Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.

(You may recall, too, that per the Mueller Report, Michael Cohen—the same Trump friend, fixer, attorney, and employee who subsequently went to prison for paying to keep Stormy Daniels quiet—spent October 2016 trying to keep quiet evidence that both he and Trump believed existed of Trump carrying himself in Russia, on several occasions, like a man who is a serial philanderer and sexual assailant who treats women like disposable property.)

So when, just days after the Access Hollywood tape dropped, Trump set in motion the series of state and federal crimes that ended with an illegal payoff to Stormy Daniels, he was trying to hide from U.S. voters a series of facts that he personally believed, as did everyone else in his inner circle, would cost him the presidency (if his own thus-far inept campaign hadn’t done that already; little did Trump know—yet—that the actions of his unscrupulous attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Joseph diGenova would soon help convince the FBI to needlessly reopen a closed criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton, which ultimately was the reason Trump won election to the White House).

.... [Several thousand words of discussion and analysis]

Conclusion:

America is in the position it is in right now for three primary reasons: the persistent criminality of Donald Trump; the cowardice of Republican leadership in not standing up to such misconduct and advocating for its punishment; and the reticence of federal and state officials of all political stripes—across decades and jurisdictions—to do the hard work of ensuring that criminal statutes are applied equally to all Americans regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, wealth, fame, or political clout.

This is, without a doubt, a time of testing for America. We can come out stronger than we were before if we remember what it is that made America and being an American so important to us in the first place. The goal of Trump and his sycophants is to get us to forget all we know—or, alternatively, ignore all that experts have learned and come forward to disseminate publicly—about criminal law, free and fair elections, basic civic responsibility, religious morality and secular ethics, and simple human decency.

If we can hold fast to these truths in a time of crisis, we can endure here in the United States for another quarter millennium. If we can’t, America may cross a tipping point sometime during the next 18 months from which there simply isn’t any way back.

New York Times, ‘The Circus Continues’: For Trump, Legal Woes Resurrect Old Habits, Michael C. Bender, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Trump strengthened his political position in recent weeks, but his response to a potential indictment could alienate key voters.

Donald J. Trump, the former prime-time reality TV star known for his love of big stages and vast crowds, has embraced a more humbling and traditional style on the campaign trail in recent months.

He held intimate events in New Hampshire and South Carolina. He fielded questions from voters in Iowa. And in multiple cities, he surprised diners with unannounced visits to restaurants where, with his more familiar Trumpian flair, he made a dramatic show of sliding a wad of cash from his pocket to buy everyone a bite to eat.

This strategy has highlighted the billionaire’s counterintuitive political strength at connecting with voters on a personal level — while also underscoring the chief weakness of his main potential Republican rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who can often come across as snappish or uncomfortable.

But now Mr. Trump faces a likely indictment in New York in the coming days, and how he responds to this moment could determine whether he continues to stabilize his standing as the Republican presidential front-runner or whether he further alienates the voters he will need to return to the White House.

The result will help answer a pressing question about his candidacy for many Republican primary voters: Can Mr. Trump show enough restraint to persuade moderate Republicans and independent swing voters to choose him over President Biden in 2024?

Washington Post, Trump campaign prepares for ‘new normal’: Running while in legal peril, Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey, Michael Scherer and Hannah Knowles, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). The former president’s team is pressuring other Republicans to show support, basking in favorable coverage from right-wing media and collecting checks. But advisers privately acknowledge many potential risks.

Washington Post, The porn star, the checks and the president: Trump’s tawdry path to legal trouble, Rosalind S. Helderman, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). The first indictment of a former president may result from an episode with a long, rippling tail of criminal consequence

Washington Post, Opinion: ‘An indictment would help Trump!’ is wholly premature, Jennifer Rubin, right, March 22, 2023. With a decision looming from a New York grand jury and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) regarding an indictment of Donald Trump, likely for keeping false business records, media coverage has repeated ad nauseam speculation that such an indictment would “only help” the former president.

One cannot discount the potential for a temporary Republican rally-around-the-flag reaction if Trump is indeed arrested on charges related to alleged payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to stop her from revealing, ahead of the 2016 election, their sexual relationship. (He denies the affair.) But an indictment’s long-term impact might be anything but positive.

Washington Post, RetropolisThe Past, Rediscovered, No president or former president has ever been indicted. But a sitting president was arrested once, Michael S. Rosenwald, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Donald Trump’s claim that he will be arrested imminently has sparked political maneuvering and a debate about the implications of indicting an ex-president.

In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant was arrested at the corner of 13th and M streets NW in Washington. This was not a high crime, but it was — at least theoretically speaking — a misdemeanor.

The man who led the North to victory in the Civil War was busted for speeding in his horse-drawn carriage.

Washington Post, N.Y. grand jury weighing possible Trump indictment not expected to meet today, John Wagner and Mariana Alfaro, March 22, 2023. Today, a grand jury in New York hearing evidence in a case involving alleged hush-money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels is not meeting as expected, leaving open the question of whether former president Donald Trump will be indicted.

Trump, who had previously predicted incorrectly he would be arrested Tuesday, shared on social media a news report suggesting that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg could take a pass on prosecuting him — while he continued to attack Bragg.

In Washington, it’s a busy hearing day on Capitol Hill. Among those testifying: Norfolk Southern chief executive Alan Shaw and several senior Biden administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen.

 Francisco Antonio López Benavides, a Salvadoran artist, showing part of a life-size portrait of former President Donald J. Trump that he was commissioned to paint in 2020 (New York Times photo by Daniele Volpe).

New York Times, A Massive Trump Painting Has Mysteriously Gone Missing, Maria Abi-Habib, Updated March 22, 2023. A portrait of former President Donald J. Trump by a Salvadoran painter is one of several gifts to the presidential family that is now unaccounted for.

It was the commission of a lifetime for this artist, who grew up poor in El Salvador with no formal training: Paint a portrait of the 45th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

His personal mission? Make it larger than life, to show a great man, doing great things, with God on his side. Now, Democrats want to know where the eight-foot portrait of the former president disappeared to, but that is anybody’s guess.

Nearly three years after the painting was delivered to Mr. Trump, the artist says he is honored that the artwork is one of several gifts given to the former president and his family during his presidency that are unaccounted for, according to a report released Friday by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

“I’m flattered that he cherished it. Because he’s a billionaire,” said the artist, Francisco Antonio López Benavides, 59. “He can have a thousand paintings of him. But if he took my painting, it’s because he loves and values the art. I’m happy.”

Other missing gifts include a piece of ornate jewelry gifted by officials in Saudi Arabia and an expensive golf putter from the former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, the report said.

The portrait is one of about 100 gifts worth more than $250,000 that were given to the presidential family, but were never disclosed, according to the Democrats’ report.

Every U.S. government department and agency is required to notify the State Department of gifts received from foreign governments worth more than $415, a measure intended to prevent bribery or undue influence. Officials can keep those gifts if they reimburse the government the appraised value.

Departing presidential administrations are expected to report the gifts they received in their final year to ensure they have followed the law. The Trump White House failed to do this, the report charges, leaving Democrats and watchdogs asking questions about where they ended up.

Mr. López said he does not understand why Democrats are looking for the painting, a “great gift” from Mr. Trump’s friend, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele.

Emptywheel, Analysis: With Friends Like These: A rough start to testimony from defense witnesses at Proud Boys sedition trial, Brandi Buchman, March 21, 2023.  A new phase of the Proud Boys seditious conspiracy trial has started out rough with defense witnesses fumbling through testimony.

Emptywheel, Analysis: Lordy, There Are [Transcribed] Tapes, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler), March 21, 2023. Among the things that then-Chief Judge Beryl Howell ordered Evan Corcoran to turn over on Friday were "transcriptions of personal audio recordings" involving his representation of Donald Trump. Lordy, there are [transcribed] tapes!

ABC News reports that among the things Beryl Howell ordered Trump’s lawyer, Evan Corcoran, to turn over were “transcriptions of personal audio recordings” involving his representation of Donald Trump.

Sources added that Howell also ordered Corcoran to hand over a number of records tied to what Howell described as Trump’s alleged “criminal scheme,” echoing prosecutors. Those records include handwritten notes, invoices, and transcriptions of personal audio recordings.

It also reported that Howell ordered Jennifer Little, an Atlanta attorney who signed a big challenge to Fani Willis’ investigation into Trump’s attempts to cheat in Georgia, to testify further as well.

Sources told ABC News that Howell ordered Little’s testimony as well, with the exception of one of the topics for which she sought to assert attorney-client privilege.

CNN reports that Trump is appealing this decision.

Emptywheel, Analysis: Barbara Jones Rules Project Veritas Was Not Engaged in Journalism When Brokering Ashley Biden's Stolen Diary, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, right), March 21, 2023. In the investigation of the Ashley Biden diary theft, Barbara Jones has ruled against Project Veritas on most issues.

After 16 months, Barbara Jones has submitted her Special Master report in the Project Veritas (PV) investigation to Judge Analisa Torres.

Much of the decision builds off the guilty pleas that Miles Kerlander and Aimee Harris entered into last August. Having already identified PV’s sources and established a crime had been committed, many of the questions regarding journalistic equities were far more limited.

Jones never mentioned that this case arose — and the first warrants against journalists obtained — under the Trump Administration. Though she does scoff at PV’s claims of malice.

Perhaps the most significant part of this ruling pertains to how she applies Bartnicki, which protects the publication of illegally obtained materials that the journalist had no role in obtaining. Not only does she except the case of PV, who are subjects of the investigation, but she seems to distinguish between investigative protection and criminal protection.

The judge in this case will now decide whether to accept this report. But the case against James O’Keefe and others would still take some time for resolution.

In another case where a search warrant originally appeared abusive but turned out to be tied to something beyond journalism, NPR reports on how Rolling Stone protected James Meek in its story breaking the story of the search targeting him in child sexual abuse material case.

New York Times, Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, has waded into treacherous political waters, Jonah E. Bromwich, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, appears poised to indict former President Donald J. Trump, and the political firestorm has already begun.

Alvin L. Bragg, right, the Manhattan district attorney, has insisted that he does not pay attention to politics when deciding whether to charge someone with a crime.

But Mr. Bragg’s stated reluctance to consider the political ramifications of his office’s decisions has not quelled the storm brewing around him: He now appears poised to become the first prosecutor to indict a former president.

Charging former President Donald J. Trump in connection with a hush-money payment to a porn star would catapult Mr. Bragg onto the national stage. Already he faces second-guessing, even from putative allies, about the strength of the case and the wisdom of bringing it. And Mr. Trump, who has denied all wrongdoing, has begun attacking Mr. Bragg, a Democrat, as the latest in a string of politically-motivated prosecutors determined to bring him down. The ex-president has marshaled the support of his Republican allies in Congress and beyond.

It is unlikely that Mr. Bragg entered the race for district attorney expecting to indict Mr. Trump. When he announced his campaign in June 2019, there was little sign that the office’s then-dormant investigation would lead to criminal charges. And Mr. Bragg, 49, who has lived in New York nearly his entire life, had a vision for the office that had nothing to do with the president.

But the Trump question came to dominate the Democratic primary as the race entered its final stretch in 2021. As the district attorney’s investigation against the former president began to heat up, Mr. Bragg and his opponents started to signal to prospective voters that they had the bona fides to lead a potential prosecution of Mr. Trump.

Mr. Bragg had some history to draw on. In 2017 and 2018 he served as a senior official in the New York attorney general’s office, which at the time brought a bevy of lawsuits against Mr. Trump’s administration. One of them, filed in June 2018, accused the Donald J. Trump Foundation and the Trump family of “a shocking pattern of illegality.” That lawsuit was successful, leading to the foundation’s dissolution.

Still, as a candidate, Mr. Bragg was mostly focused elsewhere. His fundamental campaign promise was to balance public safety and fairness, following in the footsteps of a wave of recently elected prosecutors who pledged a new approach to crime. They argued that cracking down on minor infractions only led to recidivism, and that taking a more merciful approach to defendants made cities safer.

“When you look at who he defined himself to be, it wasn’t about Trump. It was an approach to the justice system that was fair, balanced and equitable,” said Kim Foxx, the state’s attorney of Cook County, which includes Chicago, who campaigned on a platform similar to that of Mr. Bragg.

When Mr. Bragg took office, and his prosecutors were presenting evidence about Mr. Trump and his businesses to a grand jury, the new district attorney stopped them, concerned that the case, which centered on whether Mr. Trump fraudulently inflated the value of his properties, was not strong enough to move forward. The public backlash was swift.

In much the way that Mr. Trump shifted the conversation in Mr. Bragg’s campaign, the former president has shifted the focus of the district attorney’s administration. And Mr. Bragg will likely find that his tenure is now intertwined with the former president.

In an appearance on the Rev. Al Sharpton’s MSNBC show earlier this month, Mr. Bragg, who declined to grant an interview for this article, was asked what figured into his decision to bring a case against any defendant.

“We’re looking at the facts and the law,” Mr. Bragg said, adding, “Yes we live in this world where we may hear what this pundit says and we may hear all the commentary but our focus is on the evidence and the law.”

That emphasis on the law is in part informed by Mr. Bragg’s time as a federal prosecutor in New York, where he focused on public corruption and white collar crime, and then at the New York attorney general’s office, where he led a unit focused on police accountability. He has long been uncomfortable with the more political aspects of his job.

Porn star Stormy Daniels and former President Donald J. Trump, who allegedly hid hush payments to her via The National Enquirer newspaper during the 2016 presidential campaign to hide their affair from election finance officials and the public.

New York Times, Opinion: Make No Mistake, the Investigation of Donald Trump and the Stormy Daniels Scheme Is Serious, Ryan Goodman and Andrew Weissmann (Mr. Goodman and Mr. Weissmann, right, are professors at N.Y.U. School of Law), March 22, 2023 (print ed.).

Though it may be tempting to do so, it is a mistake to assess the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation of Donald Trump by comparing its relative severity with those of myriad other crimes possibly committed by him. That is not how state and federal prosecutors will — or should — be thinking about the issue of charging Mr. Trump, or for that matter, any other defendant.

Prosecutors are trained to consider whether a case can be brought — in other words, is there proof beyond a reasonable doubt to support a conviction? They also consider whether a case should be brought — principally, is the crime one that is typically charged by the office in like circumstances? Put another way: Is bringing the charge consistent with the rule of law that requires treating likes alike?

Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, would be well within his discretion in determining that the answer to those questions is yes and therefore supports charging Mr. Trump in connection with any crimes arising from an effort to keep Stormy Daniels from disclosing an alleged affair to the electorate before the 2016 election.

This case is just one of a few ongoing criminal investigations into Mr. Trump’s conduct — including potentially a much larger financial investigation by the Manhattan district attorney — and the hush money scheme is no doubt the least serious of the crimes. It does not involve insurrection and undermining the peaceful transfer of power fundamental to our democracy, nor the retention of highly classified documents and obstruction of a national security investigation.

But does that mean the Manhattan criminal case is an example of selective prosecution — in other words, going after a political enemy for a crime that no one else would be charged with? Not by a long shot.

 Relevant Recent Headlines

• Washington Post, The Jan. 6 investigation is the biggest in U.S. history. It’s only half done, Spencer S. Hsu, Devlin Barrett and Tom Jackman
• Washington Post, Trump returns to YouTube and Facebook for the first time since 2021
• New York Times, Four Convicted of Obstruction on Jan. 6 in Final Oath Keepers Trial
• Palmer Report, Analysis: Federal judge gives Jack Smith the greenlight against Donald Trump, Bill Palmer
• New York Times, DeSantis, Breaking Silence on Trump, Criticizes Manhattan Prosecutor
• New York Times, Robert Costello, once an adviser to Michael Cohen, appeared before the grand jury to assail the former fixer’s credibility

More On Russia-China-West Conflicts

A photograph released by Russian state media showing Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting at the Kremlin (Photo by Sergei Karpukhin of Sputnik).

New York Times, As Xi and Putin Resume Talks, Japan’s Leader Visits Ukraine, Staff Reports, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). On the second day of his visit to Moscow, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, said he had invited President Vladimir Putin of Russia to Beijing; In a competing display of support, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan made an unannounced visit to Ukraine.

As China’s leader, Xi Jinping, met for a second day with President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow, Japan’s prime minister made an unannounced visit to Kyiv on Tuesday in a show of support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.

With his surprise foray into an active war zone, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan (shown at right in a Manichi photo) highlighted his nation’s unusually swift and proactive allegiance with Ukraine and set the stage for competing displays of diplomacy from two East Asian neighbors.

On the war in Ukraine, China has been trying to maintain a nearly impossible position, presenting itself as an impartial observer while maintaining close ties with Russia. Beijing has had practice: its balancing act predates President Vladimir V. Putin’s full-scale invasion. For decades it tried to build ties with Russia while also keeping Ukraine close.

In 1992, China was among the first countries to establish ties with a newly independent Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It turned to Ukraine as a major supplier of corn, sunflower and grapeseed oil, as well as arms technology.

As Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan visits Kyiv, it’s worth remembering that Japan has its own territorial dispute with Russia dating back to World War II over islands off the coast of Hokkaido. Talks on the issue broke down last March over Tokyo’s support for international sanctions against Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.

Washington Post, Xi and Putin showcase alliance but offer no path to peace in Ukraine, Robyn Dixon and Lily Kuo, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping on Tuesday proclaimed their plans to deepen Sino-Russian political and economic cooperation for years to come — sending a strong message to the West about their determination to push back against the global domination of the United States.

But as the leaders wrapped up two days of formal discussions in Moscow, there was no visible progress on China’s cease-fire plan for Ukraine.

Washington Post, Opinion: Here’s the real lesson from the showy Xi-Putin meeting, David Ignatius, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). A strong China is bolstering a weak Russia. That’s the real headline that describes the showy meetings in Moscow this week between the two countries’ leaders.

The Chinese aren’t providing weapons (yet), but Xi certainly offered moral and psychological support in what might be described as a get-well visit to an ailing relative. White House spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday rightly called Putin a “junior partner.”

New York Times, Analysis: In a Brother Act With Putin, Xi Reveals China’s Fear of Containment, Chris Buckley, March 22, 2023. Instead of focusing on Ukraine, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin’s meetings in Moscow reinforced their shared opposition to American dominance.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, flew into Moscow this week cast by Beijing as its emissary for peace in Ukraine. His summit with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, however, demonstrated that his priority remains shoring up ties with Moscow to gird against what he sees as a long campaign by the United States to hobble China’s ascent.

Talk of Ukraine was overshadowed by Mr. Xi’s vow of ironclad solidarity with Russia as a political, diplomatic, economic and military partner: two superpowers aligned in countering American dominance and a Western-led world order. The summit showed Mr. Xi’s intention to entrench Beijing’s tilt toward Moscow against what he recently called an effort by the United States at the full-fledged “containment” of China.

Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin used the pomp of the three-day state visit that ended on Wednesday to signal to their publics and to Western capitals that the bond between their two countries remained robust and, in their eyes, indispensable, 13 months after Mr. Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine. They laid out their vision for the world in a nine-point joint statement that covered everything from Taiwan to climate change and relations with Mongolia, often depicting the United States as the obstacle to a better, fairer world.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary, Finland in NATO will be a gateway to the subjugated Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia, Wayne Madsen, left, author of 22 books and former U.S. Navy intelligence officer based in Finland, March 21-22, 2023. With Türkiye's announcement that it will ratify Finland's membership in NATO, as well as holdout Hungary's signaling that it will soon move ratification of Finland's and Sweden's accession to NATO through its parliament, there is renewed hope among the beleaguered colonized Finno-Ugric nations colonized by Russia that their cause will soon receive greater international attention.

Finland is slated to become a full NATO member at the NATO Summit scheduled for July 11-12 in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Finland has maintained "soft power" contacts with the Finno-Ugric bloc of formerly autonomous republics in Russia. They are Karelia, which was once part of Finland; Komi, Mari-El, Mordovia, Udmurtia, and Komi Permiak. Putin has curtailed contacts between the Finno-Ugric nations and Finland. These relations will be further hampered by the Kremlin after Finland becomes a full member of NATO.

Putin's war in Ukraine has emboldened some Finno-Ugric leaders in Russia to resurrect their calls for independence from Russia. In December 2022, many of these leaders were joined by representatives of other captive nations within Russia at the Forum of Free Peoples of Post-Russia (FSNPR) held in Helsingborg, Sweden. There, Finno-Ugric representatives were joined by Tatars, Chechens, Bashkirs, Nogais, Circassians, Cossacks, and others in calling for the "end of the existence of the Russian Federation.”

New York Times, China is supplying drones to Russia, a sign of quiet collaboration between the two, Paul Mozur, Aaron Krolik and Keith Bradsher, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). China has shipped more than $12 million in drones to Russia since it invaded Ukraine, in an indication of quiet collaboration between the two.

The Biden administration vowed last month to crack down on companies that sell critical technologies to Russia as part of its efforts to curtail the country’s war against Ukraine. But the continued flow of Chinese drones to the country explains why that will be hard.

While drone sales have slowed, American policies put in place after Russia’s invasion have failed to stanch exports of the unmanned aerial vehicles that work as eyes in the sky for frontline fighters. In the year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China has sold more than $12 million in drones and drone parts to the country, according to official Russian customs data from a third-party data provider.

It is hard to determine whether the Chinese drones contain American technologies that would violate the U.S. rules or whether they are legal. The shipments, a mix of products from DJI, the world’s best-known drone maker, and an array of smaller companies, often came through small-time middlemen and exporters.

Complicated sales channels and vague product descriptions within export data also make it hard to definitively show whether there are U.S. components in the Chinese products, which could constitute a violation of the American export controls. And the official sales are likely only one part of a larger flow of technologies through unofficial channels and other nations friendly to Russia, like Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Belarus.

The result is a steady supply of new drones to Russia that make their way to the front lines of its war with Ukraine. On the battlefield, the hovering quadcopters often last only a few flights before they are blown out of the skies. Refilling stockpiles of even the most basic unmanned aerial vehicles has become as critical as other basic necessities, such as procuring artillery shells and bullets.

Militarily, diplomatically and economically, Beijing has become an increasingly important buttress for Russia in its war effort. China has remained one of the largest buyers of Russian oil, helping finance the invasion. The two sides have also held joint military exercises and jointly assailed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

As China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, meets this week with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, U.S. officials have warned that China is still considering selling lethal weapons for use in Ukraine.

Washington Post, Xi arrives in Russia to stand with Putin against West amid Ukraine war, Francesca Ebel and Lily Kuo, March 21, 2023 (print ed.). Russian analysts skeptical Putin-Xi talks will make progress on peace; Ukraine ‘ready’ for ‘closer dialogue with China.’

Chinese leader Xi Jinping landed in Russia on Monday for a much-anticipated three-day state visit, taking a joint stand with President Vladimir Putin against the West even as the Russian leader stands accused by the International Criminal Court of war crimes in Ukraine.

The two men, each positioned as “leader for life” of a nuclear power, celebrated their “no limits” relationship in Beijing together in early 2022, just weeks before Putin ordered his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and they have met about 40 times. But Monday’s visit, the first by Xi since the invasion, represents a display of tacit support by China for the war and a personal triumph for Putin, who is eager to show he is not isolated on the international stage.

Xi’s plane arrived at Vnukovo International Airport just southwest of the Russian capital at approximately 1 p.m. local time Monday. The presidential motorcade then made its way to the center of Moscow, where dozens of people waving Chinese and Russian flags greeted the delegation outside his hotel, the Soluxe Hotel in the north of the city. Initial talks were scheduled to begin in the afternoon, followed by a dinner later with Putin.

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Global News, Migration, Human Rights Issues

Washington Post, Macron defends move to raise retirement age as protests roil France, Ellen Francis and Claire Parker, March 22, 2023. French President Emmanuel Macron forcefully defended Wednesday his move to push through legislation to raise the retirement age, which has ignited angry protests and strikes around the country.

In his most direct comments to the nation since ramming the legislation through last week, Macron described the plan that has roiled France for weeks as a necessity the people must bear together.

“We must advance because it is in the ultimate interest of the nation,” he said in a live interview with TF1 and France 2 TV from the Elysee Palace.

He said the pension reform plan should be in effect by the end of the year, but that it was now awaiting a decision from the Constitutional Council before moving forward.

The government’s use of executive powers to pass the pension bill without a vote from the parliament’s lower house plunged French politics into upheaval and escalated a simmering crisis.

Associated Press via Washington Post, 11 killed as strong earthquake rattles Pakistan, Afghanistan, Munir Ahmed and Rahim Faiez, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). A magnitude 6.5 earthquake rattled much of Pakistan and Afghanistan on Tuesday, sending panicked residents fleeing from homes and offices and frightening people in remote villages. At least nine people died in Pakistan and two in Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday.

Released Saudi-American critic Saad Almadi of Florida, right, with his son Ibrahim Almadi (family photo via Getty Images).

New York Times, Saudi Arabia Releases U.S. Dual Citizen Jailed in Crackdown on Dissent, ivian Nereim, March 21, 2023. Saad Almadi, 72, a Florida resident, was one of several Americans and hundreds of Saudis caught up in the crackdown under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He still cannot fly home, his son said.

Saudi-American dual citizen who spent more than a year in a Saudi prison over Twitter posts critical of the kingdom’s government was released from detention on Tuesday, but will not be able to leave the country, according to his son.

Saad Almadi, a 72-year-old Florida resident, is staying with family members in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, his son, Ibrahim Almadi, said by telephone from Washington. The younger Mr. Almadi said he would continue to campaign to overturn a Saudi bar on his father leaving the kingdom.

“The fight will continue and hopefully we’ll have him back soon,” he said.

Mr. Almadi, a retired project manager, was one of several U.S. citizens and hundreds of Saudis caught up in a deepening crackdown on dissent under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He was arrested during a visit to Saudi Arabia in 2021.

Prosecutors cited Twitter posts he wrote that were critical of the Saudi government and an “insulting picture” of Prince Mohammed saved on his phone as proof that he had “adopted a terrorist agenda by defaming symbols of the state,” according to court documents. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison, lengthened on appeal last month to 19 years.

New York Times, Ferraris and Hungry Children: Venezuela’s Socialist Vision in Shambles, Isayen Herrera and Frances Robles, Photographs by Adriana Loureiro Fernandez, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). After years of extreme scarcity, some Venezuelans lead lives of luxury as others scrape by.

In the capital, a store sells Prada purses and a 110-inch television for $115,000. Not far away, a Ferrari dealership has opened, while a new restaurant allows well-off diners to enjoy a meal seated atop a giant crane overlooking the city.

“When was the last time you did something for the first time?” the restaurant’s host boomed over a microphone to excited customers as they sang along to a Coldplay song.

This is not Dubai or Tokyo, but Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, where a socialist revolution once promised equality and an end to the bourgeoisie.

Venezuela’s economy imploded nearly a decade ago, prompting a huge outflow of migrants in one of worst crises in modern Latin American history. Now there are signs the country is settling into a new, disorienting normality, with everyday products easily available, poverty starting to lessen — and surprising pockets of wealth arising.

New York Times, Macron’s Government Survives but Faces Wrath of France Over Pension Overhaul, Roger Cohen, March 21, 2023 (print ed.). Two no-confidence votes failed to oust the cabinet of President Emmanuel Macron over a bill that proposes to raise the retirement age to 64 from 62.

The French National Assembly rejected a no-confidence motion against the government of President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, ensuring that a fiercely contested bill raising the retirement age to 64 from 62 becomes the law of the land.

The first of two motions received 278 votes, nine short of the 287 needed to pass. The close result reflected widespread anger at the pension overhaul, at Mr. Macron for his apparent aloofness and at the way the measure was rammed through Parliament last week without a full vote on the bill itself. The Senate, France’s upper house of Parliament, passed the pension bill this month.

A second no-confidence motion, filed by the far-right National Rally, failed on Monday, as well, with only 94 lawmakers voting in favor.

The change, which Mr. Macron has sought since the beginning of his first term in 2017, has provoked two months of demonstrations, intermittent strikes and occasional violence. It has split France, with polls consistently showing two-thirds of the population opposing the overhaul.

Washington Post, American hostage freed 6 years after being taken captive by militants in Africa, John Hudson, March 21, 2023 (print ed.). Jeffery Woodke, a Christian aid worker, was abducted in Niger in 2016. An American aid worker who was taken captive by militants in West Africa more than six years ago has been freed, his family and the Biden administration said Monday, but officials shared little about his years in captivity or the identity of the group that held him.

Jeffery Woodke, a Christian aid worker, was abducted in Niger in 2016 and believed to have been later taken to Mali. He is undergoing a medical evaluation in Niamey, the capital of Niger, then will return home to be reunited with his family, said Bob Klamer, a spokesman for the Woodke family.

“I’m gratified & relieved to see the release of U.S. hostage Jeff Woodke after over 6 years in captivity,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Twitter. President Biden also praised the release and told reporters that the United States “will continue our work to bring home all Americans held hostage or unjustly detained.”

Woodke’s wife, Els Woodke, spoke to her husband Monday. “He was in great spirits and thrilled to be free,” she said. She expressed her “profound thanks to the many people in governments and others around the world who have worked so hard to see this result.”

Sullivan thanked the government of Niger for helping secure Woodke’s return. Secretary of State Antony Blinken just returned from Niger on Friday, in the first visit to the West African country by a sitting secretary of state. Blinken reaffirmed the United States’ interest in securing Woodke’s release, said a senior administration official, but no ransom or concessions were given. No direct negotiations were held between the U.S. government and the group that held him, said the official, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity surrounding the long-sought release.

The official declined to identify the group that held Woodke but noted that his capture happened as a result of an “overlapping and intersecting network in that part of West Africa — operating in an area that includes Mali and Burkina Faso — who see kidnapping and hostage-taking as part of their business model, frankly, and as a source of revenue and support.”

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U.S. Banks, Economy, Jobs

Washington Post, Weighing bank distress and inflation, Fed faces next rate hike, Rachel Siegel, March 22, 2023. There’s much more uncertainty this time around as to whether the Fed will hike by a quarter of a percentage point, or hit pause until the banking fiasco is truly over.

The Federal Reserve faces a pivotal decision Wednesday — whether to push ahead with its urgent fight against inflation or ease up in the aftermath of bank failures that forced a sweeping government intervention earlier this month.

Financial markets expect an increase of a quarter of a percentage point, which would bring the Fed’s base policy rate to between 4.75 and 5 percent. But nothing is guaranteed, and some Fed experts are urging policymakers to hit pause. Their argument is that it is too soon to know if the banking fiasco is over, and that the financial system may still be too fragile to absorb another hike right now, even though inflation remains too high.

The central bank, led by Jerome Powell, right, is also facing questions about its regulatory oversight of Silicon Valley Bank, as Washington tries to figure out whether the government could have prevented the turmoil in the banking sector.

New York Times, Yellen Says U.S. Ready to Protect Smaller Banks if Necessary, Alan Rappeport, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pledged that the Biden administration would take additional steps as needed to support the banking system.

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, right, expressed confidence in the nation’s banks on Tuesday but said that she is prepared to take additional actions to safeguard smaller financial institutions as the Biden administration and federal regulators work to contain fallout from fears over the stability of the banking system.

Ms. Yellen, seeking to calm nerves as the U.S. financial system faces its worst turmoil in more than a decade, said that the steps the administration and federal regulators have taken so far have helped restore confidence but that policymakers remain focused on making sure that the broader banking system remains secure.

“Our intervention was necessary to protect the broader U.S. banking system,” Ms. Yellen said in prepared remarks to be delivered to the Washington meeting of the American Bankers Association, the industry’s leading lobbying group. “And similar actions could be warranted if smaller institutions suffer deposit runs that pose the risk of contagion.”

She added: “The situation is stabilizing. And the U.S. banking system remains sound.”

The comments come as government officials contemplate additional options to stem the flows of deposits out of small and medium-size banks, and as concerns grow that more will need to be done.

New York Times, Opinion: How Big a Deal Is the Banking Mess? Paul Krugman, right, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). A murky economic outlook just got even murkier.

So as everyone knows, Silicon Valley Bank — not a huge institution, but an integral part of the tech industry’s financial ecosystem — has been taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation after facing a classic bank run. Signature Bank soon followed; First Republic Bank is under severe pressure. Swiss authorities have arranged a takeover of Credit Suisse, a major bank, by its rival UBS. And everyone is wondering what other land mines may be about to go off.

There will and should be many inquests into how and why these banks managed to get into so much trouble. In the case of S.V.B. it appears that regulators had known for some time that the bank was a problem case, but for some reason didn’t or couldn’t rein it in.

But the more pressing question is forward-looking. How much does the banking mess change economic conditions? How much should it change economic policy?

Some commentators — mainly, as far as I can tell, cryptocurrency enthusiasts — are issuing apocalyptic warnings about hyperinflation and the imminent collapse of the dollar. But that’s almost certainly the opposite of the truth. When depositors pull their money out of banks, the effect is disinflationary, even deflationary.

What this probably means in practice is that the Fed should pause its rate hikes until there’s more clarity about both the inflation picture and the effects of the banking mess — and it should be clear that that’s what it is doing.

New York Times, Strains Emerge Inside the Union That Beat Amazon, Noam Scheiber, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Nearly a year after its victory on Staten Island, the Amazon Labor Union is grappling with election losses and internal conflict.

One year after its surprise victory at a Staten Island warehouse, the only union in the country representing Amazon workers has endured a series of setbacks and conflicts that have caused longtime supporters to question if it will survive.

In interviews, a dozen people who have been closely involved with the Amazon Labor Union said the union had made little progress bringing Amazon to the bargaining table, to say nothing of securing a contract. Many cited lopsided losses at two other warehouses, unstable funding and an internal feud that has made it difficult for the union to alter a strategy that they considered flawed.

At the heart of the feud is a dispute between the union’s president, Christian Smalls, and several longtime organizers.

Mr. Smalls’s former allies complain that he has pursued elections at other warehouses without strong support from workers or a plan to ensure victory. They say he has focused on travel and public appearances while neglecting the contract fight at the Staten Island warehouse, known as JFK8, where Amazon is still contesting the election result.

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U.S. Politics, Elections, Economy, Governance

New York Times, At a retreat for House Republicans in Florida, the focus remained on former President Trump, Annie Karni, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). For the third year since he left office, former President Donald J. Trump continued to dominate an annual G.O.P. gathering in Florida, underscoring his grip on the party.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy arrived at an upscale resort here this week eager to use a Republican retreat to promote the party’s policy agenda and achievements so far, working to paper over the divisions that nearly sank his bid for his job and talk about anything but former President Donald J. Trump.

“I’m always optimistic,” a sunny Mr. McCarthy, dressed in a pair of trendy sneakers, jeans and a zip-up vest, told reporters of the prospect for resolving debt ceiling negotiations without an economy-crushing default. “I went 15 rounds to get speaker!”

But it was not long before Mr. Trump came to dominate the proceedings. With the former president expected to be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury, House Republicans rallied around him. They blasted the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, as a pawn of George Soros, a longtime boogeyman of the right, and they vowed to open a remarkable congressional investigation into his active criminal inquiry.

It was the third year in a row that Mr. Trump has effectively taken over House Republicans’ annual gathering, underscoring how central the former president has remained to his party’s existence. Years after leaving office, Mr. Trump is still here, blotting out attempts to talk about any Republican agenda that does not involve him and making it all but impossible for the House G.O.P. to define itself as anything other than his frontline defenders.

It was true two years ago, when House Republicans headed to Florida desperate to talk about anything but Mr. Trump, who only weeks before had been impeached for inciting a deadly insurrection at the Capitol.

Instead, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, then the No. 3 Republican, made several statements firmly repudiating Mr. Trump, and the retreat’s subtext was the ire of her fellow party leaders at her refusal to keep silent about the former president.

New York Times, Here’s a rough guide to the electoral fallout if former President Trump is indicted, Nate Cohn, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). It would be uncharted territory, but the F.B.I. search of Mar-a-Lago offers at least some precedent.

A lot of people believe I make political predictions, but that’s not really true. Instead, I try to marshal history, data, polling, reporting and more to help make sense of the political landscape. It usually amounts to one of those old, yellowish, distorted maps from the age of exploration. It offers only a rough guide of what lies ahead.

This week, we’re approaching uncharted waters. The front-runner for a major party nomination for president may soon be indicted. This is the blurry corner of the map where we can’t do much more than draw fantastical sea creatures. We know this part of the world is probably ocean, but we don’t know much else. We’re sure it’s dangerous.

Here’s the outline of the map as we edge toward a possible indictment:

• The F.B.I. search of Mr. Trump’s property for classified records in August is probably the best precedent. While not an indictment, it represented a judgment by a court that there was probable cause to believe he committed a crime. The allegation was more serious than the Stormy Daniels case, as it carried potential implications for national security. But the search did not have a discernible effect on Mr. Trump’s standing among Republicans. Conservatives circled the wagons and argued that the search of a former president was an unjust act of partisan politics. There was no effect on his standing in the polls. In our Times/Siena polling last summer and fall, the Republican primary race was essentially unchanged after the F.B.I. search.
• An indictment is still uncharted territory, so it’s worth being cautious about any potential fallout. A new legal line would be crossed, even if this story is already playing out much like the F.B.I. search.
• But seriously, this indictment would seem particularly unlikely to hurt Mr. Trump’s base of support. The public already knows about Ms. Daniels. His supporters decided, long ago, that they did not especially care about the case’s underlying facts. An illegal cover-up of a private affair is more like the perjury accusation against Bill Clinton than Richard Nixon’s tapes.
• The upside for Mr. Trump seems fairly limited. Yes, there really could be short-term gains for Mr. Trump if Republicans rally to his defense. Still, it’s a little much to argue that many Republicans who don’t support him for the nomination today would be far likelier to back him after an indictment. It could certainly energize his base, but an indictment would reinforce some of the reasons other Republicans are reluctant to back him in the first place. It’s not as if Mr. Trump became a juggernaut after the F.B.I. search of Mar-a-Lago.

New York Times, Los Angeles Enters Second Day Without Classes for 420,000 Students, Staff Report, March 22, 2023. Workers in the nation’s second-largest school district are holding a three-day walkout. Teachers have joined in solidarity.

The union representing teachers’ aides, custodians, bus drivers and other workers in the nation’s second-largest school district is holding a three-day walkout that teachers joined in solidarity.

New York Times, John Jenrette Jr., Congressman Nabbed in Abscam Sting, Dies at 86, Richard Sandomir, March 22, 2023. Once a rising star of the Democratic Party, he served 13 months in prison for bribery after being targeted in an F.B.I. scam involving a phony sheikh.

New York Times, Trump Could Stand in the Middle of Fifth Avenue and Not Lose Mike Pence, Jamelle Bouie, right, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Mike Pence wants to have it both ways.

He wants to be the conservative hero of Jan. 6: the steadfast Republican patriot who resisted the MAGA mob and defended the institutions of American democracy. “Make no mistake about it,” Pence said at the Gridiron Club Dinner in Washington, D.C., this month. “What happened that day was a disgrace, and it mocks decency to portray it in any other way. President Donald Trump was wrong. I had no right to overturn the election and his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day.”

But Mike Pence also wants to be president. And he can’t fully repudiate the previous Republican president if he hopes to win the Republican presidential nomination, especially when that president is still on the stage, with a commanding role in Republican politics.

The result is that Mike Pence has to talk out of both sides of his mouth. With one breath, he takes a righteous stand against the worst dysfunction of the Trump years. “We have to resist the politics of personality, the lure of populism unmoored by timeless conservative values,” Pence said last week while speaking to an audience of Republican donors in Keene, N.H.

With his next breath, however, Pence rejects any effort to hold Trump accountable, especially when it asks him to do something more than give the occasional sound bite.

New York Times, Book Review: Ron DeSantis Has a Secret Theory of Trump, Carlos Lozada, March 20, 2023 (print ed.). Ron DeSantis has an enemies list, and you can probably guess who’s on it.

There’s the “woke dumpster fire” of the Democratic Party and the “swamp Republicans” who neglect their own voters. There’s the news media, with modifiers like “legacy” or “corporate” adding a nefarious touch. There’s Big Tech, that “censorship arm of the political left,” and the powerful corporations that cave to the “leftist-rage mob.” There are universities like Harvard and Yale, which DeSantis attended but did not inhale. There’s the administrative state and its pandemic-era spinoff, the “biomedical security state.” These are the villains of DeSantis’s recently published book, “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival,” and its author feels free to assail them with a fusillade of generically irate prose.

There is one more antagonist — not an enemy, perhaps, but certainly a rival — whom DeSantis does not attack directly in his book, even as he looms over much of it. The far-too-early national polls for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination show a two-person contest with Donald Trump and DeSantis (who has yet to announce his potential candidacy) in the lead, and the Haleys, Pences and Pompeos of the world fighting for scraps. During his 2018 governor’s race, DeSantis aired an obsequious ad in which he built a cardboard border wall and read Trump’s “Art of the Deal” with his children, one of whom wore a MAGA onesie. Now DeSantis no longer bows before Trump. Instead, he dances around the former president; he is respectful but no longer deferential, critical but mainly by implication.

Yes, there is a DeSantis case against Trump scattered throughout these pages. You just need to squint through a magnifying glass to find it.

In the 250-plus pages of The Courage to Be Free, for instance, there is not a single mention of the events of Jan. 6, 2021. DeSantis cites Madison, Hamilton and the nation’s founding principles, but he does not pause to consider a frontal assault on America’s democratic institutions encouraged by a sitting president. The governor does not go so far as to defend Trump’s lies about the 2020 election; he just ignores them.

However, DeSantis does write that an energetic executive should lead “within the confines of a constitutional system,” and he criticizes unnamed elected officials for whom “perpetuating themselves in office supersedes fulfilling any policy mission.” Might DeSantis ever direct such criticisms at a certain former president so willing to subvert the Constitution to remain in power? Perhaps. For the moment, though, such indignation exists at a safe distance from any discussion of Trump himself.

New York Times, Republicans’ Investigative Chief Embraces Role of Biden Antagonist, Jonathan Swan and Luke Broadwater, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). The fourth-term Kentuckian and chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee has become an aggressive promoter of sinister-sounding claims about the president and his family.

Steering his S.U.V. through pounding rain on his way to the state capital on a recent Thursday, Representative James R. Comer, the chairman of the Oversight and Accountability Committee, reflected on the pressure he often faced from constituents to investigate unhinged claims about President Biden and Democrats.

“You know, the customer’s always right,” Mr. Comer said wryly, of his approach to the people who elected him and now brandish conspiracy theories, vulgar photographs featuring the president and his son, Hunter, and other lies they expect him to act upon.

“I say, ‘Let me see it,’ because I want to see where the source is,” Mr. Comer said. “They don’t know that it’s QAnon, but it’s QAnon stuff.”

Yet in his new role leading the Republican Party’s chief investigative committee in the House, Mr. Comer, 50, has himself become a promoter of sinister-sounding allegations against Mr. Biden and his family. This pursuit has propelled him to stardom in a party whose best customers — vengeful, hard-right voters — are bent on bringing down the Democratic president.

This month, Mr. Comer joined a panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference titled “The Biden Crime Family,” where he asserted that Mr. Biden and his family’s business activities with China posed “a threat to national security.”

Appearing on Fox News in January, Mr. Comer implied, without evidence, that there was a connection between Mr. Biden improperly holding on to classified documents when he was a private citizen and his son, Hunter, receiving a diamond from a Chinese tycoon. In another segment Mr. Comer lamented that Beau Biden, the president’s other son, who died of cancer in 2015, was never investigated.

His embrace of such statements reflects how Mr. Comer, who voted to certify Mr. Biden’s victory and was a favorite among Democrats in Kentucky’s Legislature, has transformed himself to command the Republican war machine in Congress — becoming a high-profile example of what it takes to rise and thrive in the Fox News-fed MAGA universe.

It also underscores the cutthroat instincts of Mr. Comer, who presents himself as an affable country boy of limited abilities, but who has proved to be a methodical and transactional political operator, willing to go to great lengths to crush his adversaries.

During his campaign for governor in 2015, facing allegations of abuse from an ex-girlfriend who also said he had taken her to get an abortion, Mr. Comer worked to discredit a blogger reporting on the claims and a campaign rival he believed was behind them, leaking private emails between the two. Mr. Comer denied the woman’s charges but lost the race anyway.

Politico, The 2024 GOP 2024 Presidential Election field: How they win, how they lose, Steven Shepard, March 21, 2023 (print ed.). The race for the GOP presidential has a set of historic firsts: a former president seeking an Oval Office comeback, a vice president who refused to go along with a plot to steal the last election, the most politically accomplished woman ever to run as a Republican — and an already-popular governor waiting in the wings.

Who ultimately wins out will take on President Joe Biden in a likely reelection bid — and potentially secure the White House.

There are also other candidates and would-be candidates, too. We've put the entire field into three categories — based roughly on their chances to capture the nod — along with full scouting reports for everything that could go right or wrong along the road to the 2024 convention in Milwaukee.

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More On Ukraine War

New York Times, She Posted About the War in Ukraine. Then She Faced a Prison Term, Valerie Hopkins, March 22, 2023. The case of Olesya Krivtsova, a Russian student who ended up on the Kremlin’s terrorist list, has underscored the perils of criticizing the invasion.

Sitting in a small courtroom flanked by her two lawyers last month, Olesya Krivtsova was facing a stiff penalty for her fondness for posting on social media. Barely 20 and until this year a university student in northern Russia, she was accused of “justifying terrorism” and “discrediting the Russian armed forces,” and was facing up to a decade in prison.

Her apparent crime? An Instagram post asking why Ukrainians had rejoiced when the main bridge to Russian-occupied Crimea was attacked in October.

The post eventually landed Ms. Krivtsova on the Kremlin’s official list of terrorists and extremists. She was placed under house arrest and forbidden from using the phone or the internet.

Ms. Krivtsova did not wait for a courtroom verdict: Last week, she fled the country.

“I decided to leave because I was desperate,” Ms. Krivtsova said by telephone on Friday from Vilnius, Lithuania. “It is impossible to prove anything to the Russian court.”

As the Kremlin intensifies its crackdown on free speech, social media platforms have become a more frequent target for punishment. The government is increasingly penalizing people for posts it considers critical of the fighting in Ukraine — with fines, imprisonment and, in extreme cases, temporarily losing custody of their children.

In the Ryazan region south of Moscow, for instance, investigators opened a criminal case against a man who posted a joke about the Russian retreat from Kherson, in southern Ukraine. A student who ran an antiwar channel on the messaging app Telegram was denounced by the rector of his university for posts that criticized the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine as well as alleged Russian atrocities in Bucha and Mariupol. This month, he was sentenced to eight and a half years in a penal colony.

New York Times, Russia reprised brutal tactics to attack the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, Marc Santora, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Russian forces have stepped up their assaults on the Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine, making limited and costly gains in a furious attempt to encircle the long-battered city.

Ukrainian officials have said in recent days that Avdiivka is turning into another Bakhmut, the eastern city that Russian forces have sought to capture by sending waves of lightly trained recruits on near-suicidal attacks of Ukrainian defensive lines. In Avdiivka, as in Bakhmut, Ukraine says that Russian advances are also threatening key supply lines while bombardments are killing civilians.

Local officials said on Tuesday that a woman had been killed and two more civilians injured when a shell fired from a tank blasted the city center.

“Russians are intensively attacking from both sides, from the south and the north,” Maj. Maksym Morozov, a member of the Special Forces regiment fighting in the area, told the Ukrainian news media on Monday night. He added that the Russian tactic of using waves of soldiers — dubbed “cannon fodder” by the Ukrainians — was having some success.

“First, cannon fodder goes to expose our firing positions, and then professionals behind them quickly and accurately try to extinguish our firing lines,” he said. But he said that Ukrainian artillery and tanks were firing back at the Russian forces, who “have to pay a rather high price for this advance.”

Avdiivka is about 15 miles west of the city of Donetsk, which Russian proxy forces took over in 2014. But Avdiivka had not experienced violence on the scale unleashed in Russia’s full-scale invasion last year.

By last April, Russian artillery had destroyed more than 800 homes and scores of businesses, according to local officials. Only about 2,300 of the city’s 30,000 prewar residents remain, according to Vitaliy Barabash, the head of the Ukrainian military administration in the city.

Washington Post, U.S. will speed transfer of Abrams tanks to Ukraine, Pentagon says, Dan Lamothe, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). The new plan calls for refurbishing tank hulls already in the U.S. arsenal rather than procuring new vehicles, which had been expected to take up to two years.

The Pentagon, in a significant shift, said Tuesday that it will send M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine by the fall, after facing scrutiny for initially saying it could take a year or two to procure the powerful weapons and get them to the battlefield.

The new plan calls for refurbishing tank hulls already in the U.S. arsenal, officials said. President Biden, under intensifying pressure from Ukrainian officials, agreed in January to pledge 31 M1 tanks as part of a long-term arrangement that afforded German leaders political cover so that they could approve the immediate provision of Leopard battle tanks.

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U.S. Courts, Crime, Immigration, Guns

Brennan Center for Justice, NYU Law School, Analysis: Constitution watchers brace for upcoming Supreme Court rulings on the Voting Rights Act, affirmative action, and the “independent state legislature theory,” Michael Waldman, March 21-22, 2023. The Marble Palace on First Street gets most of the attention. In the meantime, federal judges across the country are showing us what happens when the lower courts are stuffed with right-wing ideologues.

After a hearing last week, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, Texas, is expected to soon rule on an outlandish demand to ban the use of the abortion pill mifepristone — medication used for more than half of all abortions in the United States. If the judge rules to revoke the decades-old FDA approval for the pill, he will affect not just women in Texas, but women in every state.

How can a single federal judge have such power over the medical decisions of more than 167 million people? Believe it or not, the Supreme Court has never ruled on whether nationwide injunctions are constitutional. Liberals used this tactic on occasion to block the Trump administration’s policies, such as the single judge who blocked the “Muslim ban” in 2017. But conservatives have undeniably perfected it.

In Texas, a quirk of the rules lets people choose where they bring a federal lawsuit and essentially handpick the judge who will hear their case — judge shopping to boost the chances of a favorable ruling. When a plaintiff files a federal suit in Amarillo, they are 100 percent guaranteed to get Kacsmaryk, a judge with a reputation as a Federalist Society militant. His sister recently told reporters it was his mission to end abortion in the United States. He has called homosexuality “disordered.” He made the government reinstate the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy, which was later overturned by the Supreme Court.

Such a track record would make him the ideal judge for anti-abortion groups seeking someone sympathetic to their case.

Worse, Kacsmaryk may be readying his abortion pill ruling based on the brand-new “major questions doctrine,” which is all of nine months old. First articulated in a case last year that slashed the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory power, the doctrine claims federal agencies need clear congressional authorization to act on issues that have “major” economic or political significance. This conveniently flexible legal theory is poised to be the go-to reasoning for right-wing judges to block any policies they don’t like.

The Texas case isn’t the only evidence of the impact of skewed lower courts. The Supreme Court’s sweeping decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, which held that gun laws must pass the test of “history and tradition” rather than public safety, has led to judicial rulings that verge on satirical. One federal judge in western New York blocked most of the state’s new gun law, declaring he could find no colonial-era law banning guns in summer camps, which, of course, did not exist at the time. And surprise, surprise, he found no trace of 18th-century prohibitions on guns in subways, either. Though he let the ban on guns in churches stand, another New York judge ruled shortly afterward that this restriction, too, was ahistorical.

Other examples abound, and there will no doubt be many more to come. Trump isn’t only responsible for appointing three Supreme Court justices — he appointed 226 federal judges during his presidency. They were overwhelmingly pre-vetted by the Federalist Society.

These appointments have left a lasting impact, and there is an urgent need to rebalance the scales of the federal judiciary. Last week, the Judicial Conference of the United States, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, recommended adding 68 federal judges to the courts to meet demanding new workloads. This would be a good step toward countering the partisanship plaguing the courts. But most importantly, we need to understand the significance of what has happened with the federal courts.

We cannot let one judge with a gavel and a grudge govern our country.

New York Times, Trial of 2016 Twitter Troll to Test Limits of Online Speech, Colin Moynihan and Alan Feuer, March 21, 2023 (print ed.).  Douglass Mackey tried to trick Black people into thinking they could vote for president by text, prosecutors said.

The images appeared on Twitter in late 2016 just as the presidential campaign was entering its final stretch. Some featured the message “vote for Hillary” and the phrases “avoid the line” and “vote from home.”

Aimed at Democratic voters, and sometimes singling out Black people, the messages were actually intended to help Donald J. Trump, not Hillary Clinton. The goal, federal prosecutors said, was to suppress votes for Ms. Clinton by persuading her supporters to falsely believe they could cast presidential ballots by text message.

The misinformation campaign was carried out by a group of conspirators, prosecutors said, including a man in his 20s who called himself Ricky Vaughn. On Monday he will go on trial in Federal District Court in Brooklyn under his real name, Douglass Mackey, after being charged with conspiring to spread misinformation designed to deprive others of their right to vote.

“The defendant exploited a social media platform to infringe one of the most basic and sacred rights guaranteed by the Constitution,” Nicholas L. McQuaid, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said in 2021 when charges against Mr. Mackey were announced.

Prosecutors have said that Mr. Mackey, who went to Middlebury College in Vermont and said he lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, used hashtags and memes as part of his deception and outlined his strategies publicly on Twitter and with co-conspirators in private Twitter group chats.

“Obviously we can win Pennsylvania,” Mr. Mackey said on Twitter, using one of his pseudonymous accounts less than a week before the election, according to a complaint and affidavit. “The key is to drive up turnout with non-college whites, and limit black turnout.”

That tweet, court papers said, came a day after Mr. Mackey tweeted an image showing a Black woman in front of a sign supporting Ms. Clinton. That tweet told viewers they could vote for Ms. Clinton by text message.

Prosecutors said nearly 5,000 people texted the number shown in the deceptive images, adding that the images stated they had been paid for by the Clinton campaign and had been viewed by people in the New York City area.

Mr. Mackey’s trial is expected to provide a window into a small part of what the authorities have described as broad efforts to sway the 2016 election through lies and disinformation. While some of those attempts were orchestrated by Russian security services, others were said to have emanated from American internet trolls.

People whose names may surface during the trial or who are expected to testify include a man who tweeted about Jews and Black people and was then disinvited from the DeploraBall, a far-right event in Washington, D.C., the night before Mr. Trump’s inauguration; a failed congressional candidate from Wisconsin; and an obscure federal cooperator who will be allowed to testify under a code name.

As the trial has approached, people sympathetic to Mr. Mackey have cast his case as part of a political and cultural war, a depiction driven in part by precisely the sort of partisan social media-fueled effort that he is accused of engineering.

Mr. Mackey’s fans have portrayed him as a harmless prankster who is being treated unfairly by the state for engaging in a form of free expression. That notion, perhaps predictably, has proliferated on Twitter, advanced by people using some of the same tools that prosecutors said Mr. Mackey used to disseminate lies. Mackey supporters have referred to him on social media as a “meme martyr” and spread a meme showing him wearing a red MAGA hat and accompanied by the hashtag “#FreeRicky.”

Some tweets about Mr. Mackey from prominent figures have included apocalyptic-sounding language. The Fox personality Tucker Carlson posted a video of himself on Twitter calling the trial “the single greatest assault on free speech and human rights in this country’s modern history.”

New York Times, Video Shows Virginia Man’s Death in Custody, Campbell Robertson and Christine Hauser, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Seven deputies in Henrico County have been charged with second-degree murder in the death of Irvo Otieno at a hospital.

Surveillance video from a state psychiatric hospital in Virginia shows a group of sheriff’s deputies and medical staff piling on a handcuffed man, Irvo Otieno, and pinning him for nearly 11 minutes until his death on March 6.

The video, which was obtained by The Washington Post before its expected release on Tuesday, shows at least seven deputies from the Henrico County sheriff’s office enter a room at Central State Hospital in Dinwiddie County dragging Mr. Otieno, who is shirtless and in handcuffs and leg shackles. The deputies push him into a small couch and then force him to the floor, where they pinion him until his death while medical staff stand aside, the video shows.

The Dinwiddie County prosecutor, Ann Cabell Baskervill, has charged seven sheriff’s deputies and three employees of the hospital with second degree murder. She had announced that she was publicly releasing the video on Tuesday, though some defense lawyers had filed motions to block its release. However, The Post accessed the video through a court filing and published it.

Mr. Otieno, who had long been struggling with mental health and had been taken from his home three days earlier, had been moved to the hospital by sheriff’s deputies from a county jail earlier that day. In the video, people who seem to be part of the medical staff walk in and out of the room as the deputies pile on Mr. Otieno, 28, pinning his legs and arms and pushing his body down to the floor.

Washington Post, Gladys Kessler, federal judge in landmark tobacco lawsuit, dies at 85, Emily Langer, March 22, 2023. In a major ruling in 2006, she found that cigarette makers had conspired for decades to deceive the public about the deadly threat posed by smoking.

Judge Kessler, a former public-interest lawyer who served for 17 years on the D.C. Superior Court, was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994 to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Politico, Fear, burnout and insubordination: Insiders spill details about life at the highest levels of FBI, Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney, March 21, 2023 (print ed.).  A discrimination case has pulled back the curtain on the tense atmosphere at the bureau’s legal office; FBI employees and guests listen at an installation ceremony for FBI Director Chris Wray, right.

A gender discrimination trial in Washington, D.C., shined a harsh spotlight on one of the most important legal offices in the U.S. government, portraying it as a hotbed of dysfunction, turf wars, mismanagement and paranoia.

The lawsuit, which came to a head earlier this month in federal court in the nation’s capital, centered on claims of gender discrimination in the FBI’s general counsel’s office, where some of the most powerful attorneys in the country are charged with helping safeguard Americans from terrorism, cyber threats, organized crime and corruption.

A federal jury ultimately sided with the FBI, but not before a parade of witnesses testified to startling revelations about the bureau, exposing dysfunction and management woes that at times have been exploited by the bureau’s detractors — most notably amid Donald Trump’s crusade against investigations into his activities.

The trial drew little notice inside the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., where numerous high-profile Jan. 6 defendants were simultaneously standing trial, and grand juries probing potential crimes by Trump and his allies remain active. But the proceedings offered a peek inside the secretive confines of the FBI — describing degrees of dysfunction that are rarely aired, particularly by the FBI insiders themselves.

The list of trial witnesses included Jim Baker, who testified that when he took over as FBI general counsel in 2014, his staff of about 200 lawyers were burned out, locked in bureaucratic turf battles and wracked by fear of their own colleagues. Baker said that in the early part of his tenure, some employees were so afraid to raise concerns in front of others that they “frequently” slipped anonymous notes under his door overnight — typewritten to conceal handwriting.

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More On U.S. Abortion, #MeToo, Stalking, Rape Laws 

Washington Post, Oklahoma must allow abortion if mother’s life is threatened, court rules, Andrew Jeong, March 22, 2023. The Oklahoma Supreme Court overturned part of the state’s near-total abortion ban, ruling in a 5-to-4 decision that the procedure would be lawful if there is a reasonable chance that a pregnancy could threaten a pregnant person’s life.

Oklahoma’s constitution protects the right to an abortion if “the woman’s physician has determined to a reasonable degree of medical certainty” that continuing “the pregnancy will endanger the woman’s life,” the court’s justices said in Tuesday’s ruling. “Absolute certainty” that the pregnancy will be life-threatening isn’t required, but “mere possibility or speculation” is insufficient, they added.

Previously, the state allowed abortions only in cases of medical emergencies, requiring the patient to “be in actual and present danger in order for her to obtain a medically necessary abortion,” the justices wrote.

Washington Post, Opinion: Senate Democrats should be holding oversight hearings of their own, Jennifer Rubin, right, March 22, 2023. House Republicans have given oversight a bad name. Oversight should not be about baseless fishing expeditions (e.g., political pressure on Twitter), political payback (e.g., Hunter Biden), or obstruction of the Justice Department or local prosecutors (for instance, wholly overstepping congressional authority and violating states’ policing authority in harassing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg).

For starters, oversight hearings must have a legitimate legislative purpose. Done properly, an information-gathering and public-education process can provide the basis for thoughtful legislation. But when it comes to necessary oversight, Senate Democrats have done precious little despite an array of topics crying out for congressional investigation.

Abortion: The Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has triggered a slew of abortion bans, with devastating consequences for women and their families. The lawsuit filed in Texas by five women and two doctors documents the danger and suffering the state’s abortion ban has inflicted on women, the dire consequences for women who need appropriate care for miscarriages, and the impact on the medical profession.

A new report from the National Center for Health Statistics documents that even before Dobbs, the United States’ already-high maternal death rate was rising (32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021 compared with 23.8 in 2020 and 20.1 in 2019), especially for Black women (2.6 times that of White women). After Dobbs, that figure can be expected to soar.

Where are the Senate hearings on this health crisis? Senators should bring in a variety of health-care specialists, hospital officials, medical ethicists, women, families of female victims, sociologists and statisticians (to highlight the economic, emotional and family impact when women are forced to give birth against their will), and legal scholars (to, among other things, explain the inherent vagueness and unworkability of state statutes). Senate Republicans who have cheered these bans should see evidence of the harm they support.

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Climate, Environment, Weather, Energy, Disasters, U.S. Transportation

New York Times, Storm-Ravaged California Prepares for More Rain and Snow, Jesus Jiménez, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Some in the central part of the state were being urged to evacuate, though the latest system was not expected to be as powerful as previous weather events this year.

California is bracing for yet another storm system, one that is expected to bring heavy rain and snow on Tuesday and into Wednesday to a state that has been battered by storm after storm over the past few weeks.

The latest storm system is forecast to bring up to four inches of rain to parts of Southern and Central California, and up to four feet of snow in elevations above 6,000 feet, according to the National Weather Service. The merging threats of rain, snow and gusty winds up to 75 miles per hour may lead to downed trees and power lines, as well as flooding and a “significant threat of avalanches” at higher elevations, the Weather Service said.

By Tuesday morning, it was already raining in many parts of the state. Some areas had received nearly an inch of rain since midnight. Meteorologists with the Weather Service in Hanford, Calif., were keeping an eye on water levels on rivers, creeks and steams, which they said were “extremely high,” and that heavy rain below 4,000 feet could cause flooding. The heaviest rain was expected in the afternoon and evening.

Washington Post, Senate hearing to focus on Norfolk Southern’s safety record, Ian Duncan, Luz Lazo, Michael Laris and Scott Dance, March 22, 2023. Norfolk Southern chief executive Alan Shaw will return Wednesday to the Senate, where he is expected to face questions on the railroad’s safety record following the derailment of one of its trains last month in East Palestine, Ohio.

New York Times, A Different Kind of Pipeline Project Scrambles Midwest Politics, Mitch Smith, Photographs by Alyssa Schukar, March 21, 2023 (print ed.).  Plans that would bury carbon underground rather than release it in the air have stoked debate over climate and property rights, creating unlikely alliances.

For more than a decade, the Midwest was the site of bitter clashes over plans for thousand-mile pipelines meant to carry crude oil beneath cornfields and cattle ranches.

Now high-dollar pipeline fights are happening again, but with a twist.

Instead of oil, these projects would carry millions of tons of carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to be injected into underground rock formations rather than dispersed as pollutants in the air.

What is playing out is a very different kind of environmental battle, a huge test not just for farmers and landowners but for emerging technologies promoted as ways to safely store planet-warming carbon.

The technology has generated support from powerful politicians in both parties, as well as major farming organizations, ethanol producers and some environmental groups.

Supporters, including some farmers who have signed agreements to have a pipeline buried on their property, frame the ideas being proposed by two companies as a win for both the economy and environment. They say the pipelines, boosted by federal tax credits, including from the Inflation Reduction Act that President Biden signed last year, would lower carbon emissions while aiding the agricultural economy through continued ethanol production.

But opponents are concerned about property rights and safety, and are not convinced of the projects’ claimed environmental benefits. They have forged unlikely alliances that have blurred the region’s political lines, uniting conservative farmers with liberal urbanites, white people with Native Americans, small-government Republicans with climate-conscious Democrats.

The result, both sides agree, is a high-stakes economic and environmental struggle pitting pipeline advocates against opponents who honed their political and legal strategies over nearly 15 years of fighting the Dakota Access oil pipeline, which has been in operation since 2017, and the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which was never built.

There is no question that technology exists to remove carbon from industrial sites and to transport and store it underground. Less clear: Is carbon capture really an effective counterweight to the overheating planet? And, if so, at what cost?

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Media, Education, Arts, High Tech

Washington Post, Judge sounds skeptical of some Fox arguments in Dominion lawsuit, Jeremy Barr, March 22, 2023 (print ed.). Judge Eric M. Davis pushed back on assertions from both sides in Dominion’s libel lawsuit against Fox News, but he seemed particularly skeptical of the network’s claims

New York Times, Inside the 3 Months That Could Cost Fox $1.6 Billion, Jeremy W. Peters, March 21, 2023 (print ed.). The decision by Fox News executives in November 2020 to treat the more hard-right Newsmax as a mortal threat spawned a possibly more serious danger.

Since 2002, when Fox News first overtook CNN as the most-watched cable news channel, one thing has been as certain and predictable as its dominance: Every time a Democrat wins the White House, the right-leaning network’s ratings take a momentary dip.

That happened after the election of President Biden in 2020, too. But the reaction inside Fox was far different than before.

There was panic. From the chairman of Fox Corporation on down, executives scrambled as they tried to keep viewers tuned in, believing they were facing a crisis. Now, because of the decisions made after former President Donald J. Trump’s loss, Fox News is reckoning with a threat that could prove far more serious.

A $1.6 billion defamation suit from Dominion Voting Systems claims Fox knowingly spread false information about the role of the firm’s election technology in a made-up conspiracy to flip votes. On Tuesday, the two sides will present oral arguments before a judge in Delaware state court as they prepare for a trial next month.

Fox has insisted that it wasn’t presenting claims about Dominion as fact but was reporting and opining on them as any news organization would.

She says lawyers made her give misleading Dominion testimony.

As part of the suit, Dominion obtained thousands of internal Fox emails and text messages and deposed dozens of Fox employees. That evidence shows in extraordinary detail how the network lost its way in the weeks after the election. Here is a timeline of that fateful period, as told in court filings. Some of these exchanges have been lightly condensed for clarity.

New York Times, A Fox News producer sued the network, saying she was coerced into giving misleading testimony in the Dominion case, Nicholas Confessore and Katie Robertson, March 21, 2023 (print ed.). The producer, Abby Grossberg, said in a pair of lawsuits that the effort to place blame on her and Maria Bartiromo, the Fox Business host, was rooted in rampant misogyny and discrimination at the company.

A Fox News producer who has worked with the hosts Maria Bartiromo, right, and Tucker Carlson filed lawsuits against the company in New York and Delaware on Monday, accusing Fox lawyers of coercing her into giving misleading testimony in the continuing legal battle around the network’s coverage of unfounded claims about election fraud.

The producer, Abby Grossberg, said Fox lawyers had tried to position her and Ms. Bartiromo to take the blame for Fox’s repeated airing of conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems and its supposed role in manipulating the results of the 2020 presidential election. Dominion has filed a $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox. Ms. Grossberg said the effort to place blame on her and Ms. Bartiromo was rooted in rampant misogyny and discrimination at the network.

The new lawsuits, coupled with revelations from the Dominion legal fight, shed light on the rivalries and turf battles that raged at Fox News in the wake of the 2020 election, as network executives fought to hold on to viewers furious at the top-rated network for accurately reporting on President Donald J. Trump’s defeat in Arizona, a crucial swing state.

The lawsuits also include details about Ms. Grossberg’s work life at Fox and on Mr. Carlson’s show. Ms. Grossberg says she and other women endured frank and open sexism from co-workers and superiors at the network, which has been dogged for years by lawsuits and allegations about sexual harassment by Fox executives and stars.

The network’s disregard for women, Ms. Grossberg alleged, left her and Ms. Bartiromo understaffed — stretched too thin to properly vet the truthfulness of claims made against Dominion on the air. At times, Ms. Grossberg said, she was the only full-time employee dedicated solely to Ms. Bartiromo’s Sunday-morning show.

In her complaints, Ms. Grossberg accuses lawyers for Fox News of coaching her in “a coercive and intimidating manner” before her September deposition in the Dominion case. The lawyers, she said, gave her the impression that she had to avoid mentioning prominent male executives and on-air talent to protect them from any blame, while putting her own reputation at risk.

On Monday afternoon, Fox filed its own suit against Ms. Grossberg, seeking to enjoin her from filing claims that would shed light on her discussions with the company’s lawyers. A judge has not yet ruled on Fox’s suit. Later on Monday, according to her lawyer, Parisis G. Filippatos, Fox also placed Ms. Grossberg on forced administrative leave.

Ms. Grossberg’s lawsuits were filed in the Southern District of New York and in Superior Court in Delaware, where a pretrial hearing in the Dominion defamation lawsuit is scheduled for Tuesday.

In a statement, a Fox spokeswoman said: “Fox News Media engaged an independent outside counsel to immediately investigate the concerns raised by Ms. Grossberg, which were made following a critical performance review. We will vigorously defend these claims.”

According to the lawsuits filed by Ms. Grossberg, Fox superiors called Ms. Bartiromo a “crazy bitch” who was “menopausal” and asked Ms. Grossberg to cut the host out of coverage discussions.

Last year, she began working as a senior booking producer at “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” On her first full day, according to the lawsuit, Ms. Grossberg discovered that the show’s Manhattan work space was decorated with large pictures of Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, then the House speaker, wearing a plunging swimsuit.

Later that fall, it said, before an appearance on the show by Tudor Dixon, the Republican candidate for Michigan governor, Mr. Carlson’s staff held a mock debate about whether they would prefer to have sex with Ms. Dixon or her Democratic opponent, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

After Ms. Grossberg complained about harassment from two male producers on the show, she was pulled into a meeting with human resources and told that she was not performing her duties, according to the complaint.

New York Times,