The Globalist Podcast (December 20, 2023) – We have the latest on the Red Sea shipping crisis and the decision of Colorado’s Supreme Court to kick Donald Trump off the ballot.
Also, the day’s newspapers, the latest business news and a look at Christmas in Lapland.
The decision, the first by a court to find that Donald Trump is ineligible to hold office again because he engaged in insurrection, is likely to put a monumental case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
A man was abducted by a Chinese gang and forced to work in a scam operation. He gathered financial information, photos and videos and shared the material with The New York Times.
In Iceland, a Fiery Show of Lava and Smoke
Icelanders had been girding for an eruption. When it happened, they wanted to see it.
The American defense secretary reiterated “unshakable” support for Israeli security, but said protecting Palestinians was a “moral duty and a strategic imperative.”
If companies want to leave Russia, the president is setting the terms — in ways that benefit his government, his elites and his war.
Pope Francis Allows Priests to Bless Same-Sex Couples
A church official said the blessings amounted to “a real development” that nevertheless did not amend “the traditional doctrine of the church about marriage.”
Chimps Can Still Remember Faces After a Quarter Century
Long-term memories may have been vital to our own evolution, suggests a new study of chimpanzees and bonobos.
The Globalist Podcast (December 18, 2023) – Yossi Mekelberg discusses the weekend developments in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Plus: the latest on Egypt’s presidential election results, the Wagner group’s gold trade operations in Africa, a flip through the papers with Vincent McAviney and theatre news with Matt Wolf, a critic at ‘The New York Times’.
Agents worried as millions poured in. Hamas bought weapons and plotted an attack. The authorities now say the money helped lay the groundwork for the Oct. 7 assault on Israel.
This is the inside story of how the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion — shooting down compromise and testing the boundaries of how the law is decided.
Six million have died, and more than six million are displaced after decades of fighting and the ensuing humanitarian crisis in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, drawing in neighbors, mercenaries and militias. An upcoming election is inflaming tempers.
The European Union’s willingness to open accession talks will lift morale, but the more immediate prospects for financial support from allies is sobering.
In lawsuits, five women say eXp Realty long ignored complaints that two male agents were preying on their female peers at alcohol-fueled work events.
Private Gun Ownership in Israel Spikes After Hamas Attacks
In a country already bristling with armed soldiers and reservists, a new sense of insecurity is pushing civilians to seek more personal weapons.
Jury Orders Giuliani to Pay $148 Million to Election Workers He Defamed
Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, wrongfully accused by Rudolph W. Giuliani of having tried to steal votes from Donald J. Trump in Georgia, were awarded the damages by a federal court in Washington.
The Globalist Podcast (December 15, 2023) –The latest on the battle for the White House as Donald Trump surges in key swing-state polls and Joe Biden grapples with inflation, as well as a looming impeachment investigation.
Then: Moncole’s Tokyo bureau chief, Fiona Wilson, discusses the political fallout from Japan prime minister Fumio Kishida’s latest scandal. Plus: Vladimir Putin’s Year of the Family 2024 agenda, a flip through the papers and Andrew Mueller’s take on the news of the week.
The call for a more targeted phase in the war appeared to be the most definitive effort yet by the United States to restrain Israel in its retaliation against Hamas for the attacks it led on Oct. 7.
The Bronx Defenders is one of the most influential public defense organizations in the United States. But allegations of antisemitism have dogged it and have grown louder since Oct. 7.
Who Gets the Water in California? Whoever Gets There First.
As the world warms, the state is re-examining claims to its water that have gone unchallenged for generations.
Losing Hair, Gaining Followers
Hair-loss influencers on TikTok say they are destigmatizing a common insecurity. Critics say they are cashing in on a vulnerable audience.
The Economist Magazine (December 14, 2023): The latest issue features ‘The media and the message’ – Journalism and the 2024 presidential election; ‘Can you have a healthy democracy without a common set of facts?; Iran’s regime is weaker than it looks, and therefore more pliable, and more…
America’s presidential election is a test of that proposition
Journalists should not spend much of their time writing about journalism. The world is more interesting than the inky habits of the people who report on it. But this week we are making an exception, because the discovery and dissemination of information matters a lot to politics. Don’t take our word for it: “A popular government,” wrote James Madison in 1822, “without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both.” Were Thomas Jefferson offered a choice between a government without newspapers and newspapers without a government, he said that he would choose the press (though that is probably going a bit far).
America should deter it from escalating the Gaza war, but also engage with it
Twelve months ago Iran was reeling from protests sparked by the death in custody of a young woman who had been arrested for showing too much hair. Its theocratic regime was increasingly isolated, as Arab states forged closer ties with its enemy, Israel. The economy was a mess, adding to popular anger at Iran’s ageing supreme leader and inept president. The Islamic Republic had not seemed so vulnerable in decades.
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