November 27, 2022: In this issue, Jesse Barron on the San Francisco judge whose ruling in juvenile court came back to haunt him; Caity Weaver on her stay in the “world’s quietest room”; Jon Mooallem on the director Noah Baumbach and his new movie, “White Noise”; and more.
In 1981, Anthony Kline helped send a juvenile offender to prison for four decades. This year, in a twist of fate, he had a chance to decide her case again.
When the world shut down in 2020, the filmmaker found solace in Don DeLillo’s supposedly unadaptable novel — and turned it into a film that speaks to our deepest fears.
Russia’s latest strikes in Kyiv cause more power cuts, as the European Parliament votes to declare Moscow a state sponsor of terrorism. Turkey threatens to launch a land operation against Kurdish militants in Syria and the European Space Agency wants to send more people to the moon.
Missile attacks on Ukraine’s battered power grid are an “obvious crime against humanity,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told the UN Security Council. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appealed to the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday to take action to stop Russian airstrikes targeting vital infrastructure that have once again plunged Ukrainian cities into darkness and cold as winter sets in.
“Today is just one day, but we have received 70 missiles. That’s the Russian formula of terror,” Zelenskyy said via video link to the Council chamber in New York. He said hospitals, schools, transport infrastructure and residential areas had all been hit. “When we have the temperature below zero, and millions of people without energy supplies, without heating, without water, this is an obvious crime against humanity,” he told the meeting in New York. In his speech,
Zelenskyy called for the adoption of a UN resolution condemning energy terror. Ukraine is waiting to see “a very firm reaction” to Wednesday’s airstrikes from the world, he added. The Council is unlikely to take any action in response to the appeal since Russia is a member with veto power. However, Zelenskyy called for Russia to be denied a vote on any decision concerning its actions.
“We cannot be hostage to one international terrorist,” he said. “Russia is doing everything to make an energy generator a more powerful tool than the UN Charter.” Russia’s UN ambassador Vasily Nebenzya responded by complaining that it was against Council rules for Zelenskyy to appear via video and rejected what he called “reckless threats and ultimatums” by Ukraine and its supporters in the West.
Prosecutors want to speak with the former vice president as a witness to former President Donald Trump’s efforts to remain in power, and he is said to be considering how to respond.
Cop27 ended in a now-traditional blur of last-minute horse-trading, resulting in the welcome agreement of a finance deal for developing countries affected by global heating. But progress on eliminating fossil fuel usage – the key to slowing climate change – again seemed beyond the international community.
As winter descends on Ukraine, we focus on some of the war’s ripples around Europe. Jennifer Rankin reports from Antwerp, where the continued trade in Russian diamonds shines a light on loopholes in EU sanctions on Moscow. And Emma Graham-Harrison is in eastern Poland, where people’s proximity to the war is helping people to put aside past differences.
Then, in features, Luke Harding speaks to the Ukrainian defenders of Snake Island – who famously sent an expletive-laden rebuttal to a Russian warship at the start of the conflict – and finds out what happened next.
Even the country’s de facto leader had downplayed expectations. After a win over Lionel Messi’s Argentina, one of the most shocking results in World Cup history, Wednesday will be a national holiday.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci said the administration was optimistic that “we’re not going to see a repeat of what we saw last year,” when the Omicron variant swept through the country.
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