Families Traumatised By Thailand Attack Cling To Slain Children's Toys
Families Traumatised By Thailand Attack Cling To Slain Children's Toys https://digitalalaskanews.com/families-traumatised-by-thailand-attack-cling-to-slain-childrens-toys/
Ex-policeman killed 34 at daycare centre using knife and gun
After attack, he killed wife and son, turned weapon on himself
Police depict attacker as stressed by marital, money worries
Thai flags fly at half-mast on buildings to mourn attack
UTHAI SAWAN, Thailand, Oct 7 (Reuters) – Grief-stricken relatives sobbed and clutched toys at a children’s daycare centre on Friday, a day after a former policeman killed 34 people, most of them young children, in a knife and gun rampage there that has horrified Thailand.
Government buildings flew flags at half mast to mourn victims – 23 of them children – of the carnage in Uthai Sawan, a town 500 km (310 miles) northeast of Bangkok, the capital of the largely Buddhist country.
After leaving the daycare centre filled with dead, dying and wounded, the ex-officer went home and shot dead his wife and son before turning his weapon on himself.
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Police identified the attacker as Panya Khamrap, 34, a former police sergeant who had been discharged over drug allegations and who was facing trial on a drugs charge.
It was not clear if Panya still used drugs. An autopsy report indicated he had not used them on the day of the attack, national police chief Damrongsak Kittipraphat said on Friday.
“The reasons are probably unemployment, no money, and family issues,” he said, adding that the attacker and his wife had had “longstanding problems”.
One witness, Kittisak Polprakan, said he saw the attacker calmly walking out of the daycare centre – a pink, one-storey building surrounded by a lawn and small palm trees – after the massacre “as if he was just taking a normal stroll”.
“I don’t know (why he did this), but he was under a lot of pressure,” Panya’s mother told Nation TV, citing debts her son had run up and his drug taking.
Most of the children, aged between two and five, were slashed to death, while adults were shot, police said in the aftermath of one of the world’s worst child death tolls in a massacre by a single killer in recent history.
Police official Chakkraphat Wichitvaidya told Reuters autopsies showed the children had been slashed with a large knife, sometimes multiple times, and adults shot.
Three boys and a girl who survived were being treated in hospital, police said.
‘I IMMEDIATELY KNEW’
The aunt of a three-year old boy who died in the slaughter held a stuffed dog and a toy tractor in her lap as she recounted how she had rushed to the scene when the news first spread.
“I came and I saw two bodies in front of the school and I immediately knew that the kid was already dead,” said Suwimon Sudfanpitak, 40, who had been looking after her nephew, Techin, while his parents worked in Bangkok.
A woman prays at Wat Rat Samakee following a mass shooting in the town of Uthai Sawan, Nong Bua Lam Phu province, Thailand October 7, 2022. REUTERS/Jorge Silva
Another of the dead was Kritsana Sola, a chubby-cheeked two-year-old who loved dinosaurs and football and was nicknamed “captain”. He had just got a new haircut and was proudly showing it off, said his aunt, Naliwan Duangket, 27.
In the late afternoon, relatives wailed in pain as funerals were set to be held at Wat Rat Sammakhi. Some collapsed and had to be laid on straw mats and fanned by medical workers.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha met victims’ families in a sweltering compound crowded with police and media, after laying flowers and observing a moment of silence in front of the centre.
The government would try its best to take care of the families and the prime minister asked everyone to “be strong to get through this great loss,” said government spokesperson Anucha Burapachaisri.
Late on Friday, King Maha Vajiralongkorn visited the hospital where the injured were taken, according to photographs posted by the government’s public relations office.
Reuters Graphics
Photographs taken at the centre by rescuers and provided to Reuters showed the tiny bodies of the killed laid out on blankets. Abandoned juice boxes were scattered across the floor.
“He was heading towards me and I begged him for mercy, I didn’t know what to do,” one distraught woman told ThaiPBS, fighting back tears.
“He didn’t say anything, he shot at the door while the kids were sleeping,” said another woman, becoming distraught.
About 24 children were at the centre when the attack began, fewer than usual as heavy rain had kept many people away, said district official Jidapa Boonsom.
Hundreds of people posted condolences on the Facebook page of the Uthai Sawan Child Development Centre under its last post before the massacre, an account of a visit the children made to a Buddhist temple in September.
In a message, the Vatican said Pope Francis had been deeply saddened by the “horrific attack”, which he condemned as an “act of unspeakable violence against innocent children”.
The massacre was among the worst involving children killed by one person.
In Norway in 2011, Anders Breivik killed 69 people, mostly teenagers, at a summer camp, while the death toll in other cases includes 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut in 2012, 16 at Dunblane in Scotland in 1996 and 19 at a school in Uvalde, Texas, this year.
Gun laws are strict in Thailand, but gun ownership is high compared with some Southeast Asian countries, and illegal weapons are common, with many brought in from strife-torn neighbours.
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Additional reporting by Orathai Sriring, Panarat Thepgumpanat, Chayut Setboonsarng, Juarwee Kittisilpa in Bangkok, and Philip Pullella in Rome Writing by Ed Davies Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Clarence Fernandez, Gareth Jones and Frances Kerry
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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As Sky News noted, when the FBI raided Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in August 2022, the whole world was shocked, whether they supported him or not. Although Trump was already facing three high-profile criminal investigations at the time, the raid had nothing to do with any of them. Rather, officials learned that the former president took several boxes full of documents home to Florida with him after his term ended, rather than handing them over as required.
The National Archives and Records Administration, which handles the preservation of government and historical records, demanded the return of the boxes — which included classified information that likely carries a high security risk — before passing the case over to the Department of Justice to ascertain whether Trump had violated federal law.
Per The Guardian, the former “Apprentice” host didn’t take the raid well, branding the FBI “political monsters” at a rally. The search ultimately recovered 33 boxes with over 100 classified documents. Trump had already returned 200 other classified records following multiple requests, but that was only after he and his attorneys stymied the investigation at every turn, which ultimately forced the FBI to act.
Although sources maintain that Trump will get away with his reported crimes, particularly since he’s evaded capture until now, there’s reason to believe he hasn’t escaped the DOJ just yet.
The DOJ believes Donald Trump may not have handed over all the documents in his possession
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump isn’t off the hook just yet. The New York Times reports that the DOJ has informed Trump’s lawyers that they don’t believe he’s turned over everything he took from the White House. Their head of counterintelligence, Jay Bratt, was in touch over the past few weeks, which is the clearest signal yet that they reckon there’s more to be uncovered, even after the FBI raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
Trump was obligated to give everything back to the National Archives at the end of his tenure. His refusal to cooperate puts the department in a difficult position because it now must decide whether or not to pursue the case and how, keeping in mind the upcoming November elections.
In an interview with Fox News, the controversial politician suggested he was waiting until after they were done to confirm his plans for a 2024 presidential bid. “I am certainly thinking about it and we’ll see,” Trump said at the time. “I think a lot of people will be very happy, frankly, with the decision, and probably will announce that after the midterms.”
The DOJ could issue a subpoena or a search warrant or even force Trump to confirm under oath that he’s handed everything over. It could simply give up on him. Whatever the department decides, unfortunately, time isn’t on its side.
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Michael Flynn Is Recruiting An 'Army Of God' In Growing Christian Nationalist Movement
Michael Flynn Is Recruiting An 'Army Of God' In Growing Christian Nationalist Movement https://digitalalaskanews.com/michael-flynn-is-recruiting-an-army-of-god-in-growing-christian-nationalist-movement/
BATAVIA, N.Y. (AP) — By the time the red, white and blue-colored microphone had been switched off, the crowd of 3,000 had listened to hours of invective and grievance.
“We’re under warfare,” one speaker told them. Another said she would “take a bullet for my nation,” while a third insisted, “They hate you because they hate Jesus.” Attendees were told now is the time to “put on the whole armor of God.” Then retired three-star Army general Michael Flynn, the tour’s biggest draw, invited people to be baptized.
Scores of people walked out of the speakers’ tent to three large metal tubs filled with water. While praise music played in the background, one conference-goer after another stepped in. Pastors then lowered them under the surface, welcoming them into their movement in the name of Jesus Christ. One woman wore a T-shirt that read “Army of God.”
READ MORE: Former Trump adviser Michael Flynn ‘at the center’ of new movement based on conspiracies and Christian nationalism
Flynn warned the crowd that they were in the midst of a “spiritual war” and a “political war” and urged people to get involved.
ReAwaken America was launched by Flynn, a former White House national security adviser, and Oklahoma entrepreneur Clay Clark a few months after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol failed to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Attendees and speakers still insist — against all evidence and dozens of court rulings — that Donald Trump rightfully won.
Since early last year, the ReAwaken America Tour has carried its message of a country under siege to tens of thousands of people in 15 cities and towns. The tour serves as a traveling roadshow and recruiting tool for an ascendant Christian nationalist movement that’s wrapped itself in God, patriotism and politics and has grown in power and influence inside the Republican Party.
In the version of America laid out at the ReAwaken tour, Christianity should be at the center of American life and institutions. Instead, it’s under attack, and attendees need to fight to restore the nation’s Christian roots. It’s a message repeated over and over at ReAwaken — one that upends the constitutional ideal of a pluralist democracy. But it’s a message that is taking hold.
A poll by the University of Maryland conducted in May found that 61% of Republicans support declaring the U.S. to be a Christian nation.
“Christian nationalism, really undermines and attacks foundational values in American democracy. And that is a promise of religious freedoms for all,” said Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee, which advocates for religious freedom.
She said the ReAwaken cause is “a partisan political cause, and the cause here is to spread misinformation, to perpetuate the big lie and to have a different result next time in the next election.”
___
This story is part of an ongoing investigation from The Associated Press and the PBS series “Frontline” that includes the upcoming documentary “Michael Flynn’s Holy War,” premiering Oct. 18 on PBS and online.
___
ReAwaken acts as a petri dish for Christian nationalism and pushes the idea that there’s a battle underway between good and evil forces. Those who are considered evil include government officials and Democrats.
It’s “a pep rally on spiritual steroids” said Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a history professor at Calvin University in Michigan, who studies evangelicalism.
ReAwaken often appears in churches with speakers addressing attendees from the pulpit. The Batavia show was staged on the grounds of a church, after faith and community leaders in nearby Rochester told organizers they weren’t welcome.
Inside a revival tent set up outside, people sat in white folding chairs packed so tightly the rows between were nearly impassable. From the stage, speakers stirred up fear and hatred. Immigrants are rushing over the border “to take your place,” one said. Homosexuals and pedophiles are classified in the same category: sinful people who don’t honor God. Life-saving vaccines are creating “a damn genocide.”
“The enemy wants to muzzle you,” another speaker warned. “He wants to shut your mouth.”
Clark, the Tour’s principal organizer and emcee, opened the Batavia show bellowing: “Good morning, New York! And good morning, New York Attorney General Letitia James!” The greeting was a reference to a letter James’ sent to Flynn and Clark warning them against violent or unlawful conduct.
“I want you to look around and you’ll see a group of people that love this country dearly,” he said. “At this Reawaken America Tour, Jesus is King (and) President Donald J. Trump is our president.”
The AP and Frontline bought tickets for the Batavia event after Clark invited “Frontline” to attend one of the tour’s shows. Reporters spent two days listening to speakers and observing the events from inside. On the second day, security escorted a “Frontline” reporter from the grounds because, he was told, Flynn believed he intended to cover the event unfavorably. When an AP reporter began interviewing people attending the event at the end of the second day, she was also reported to security.
While smaller in scale, the ReAwaken shows are similar in tone to the rallies Trump holds. Grievance and contempt for government institutions are regular themes. ReAwaken speakers have included Trump’s sons, Eric and Don Jr., Trump confidant Roger Stone, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has spread anti-vaccine misinformation.
For a tour stop scheduled later this month in Pennsylvania, Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano is listed as a speaker.
In Batavia, Greg Locke, a Tennessee pastor, and Eric Trump declared in back-to-back remarks that the FBI’s court-authorized search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida for classified records showed how the U.S. government has been weaponized against its citizens.
“Third world Gestapo stuff,” said Eric Trump. After he finished speaking, a group gathered to pray over him.
Other speakers promoted bizarre theories. One claimed President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 because he threatened to expose a plot to enslave every man, woman and child in the U.S. Another said a Hebrew prophet foretold 2,500 years ago the exact date the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade, taking away the constitutional right to abortion.
There were frequent personal attacks on Democrats, with no remark apparently off limits. Clark questioned the gender of former first lady Michelle Obama. Locke called Democrats “baby-butchering mongrels.”
The volatile combination of politics, Christianity and conspiracy theory pushed at the ReAwaken tour could eventually tip into political violence, several political and religious scholars told AP.
Samuel Perry, a sociologist at the University of Oklahoma, has done numerous surveys measuring Christian nationalist ideology. In an August 2021 survey, about half of white Americans who most strongly identified with Christian nationalism said they believe things are getting so bad that “real patriots” may have to resort to violence.
“I think all of us believe that America is on the verge of ending,” Clark told AP.
___
Flynn is a constant presence at ReAwaken America events. He is painted as a martyr on the far right __ the retired general who paid a price for working for Trump. That status has made him the Tour’s star attraction. Offstage, people flock to Flynn to take photos, trade trinkets or tell him how much it means to them that he is there. He hops onstage frequently to speak or even bang a gong to welcome Eric Trump.
An AP/Frontline investigation published last month reported that Flynn has used public appearances to energize voters, political endorsements to build alliances, and a network of nonprofit groups — one of which has projected spending $50 million — to advance his movement.
The irony of Flynn’s aura as a populist warrior is glaring. He was the ultimate Washington insider before being fired by Trump in February 2017 for lying about contacts he had with Russians. Now, Flynn leads a crusade against the same government establishment that employed him for years and which gave him access to many of its deepest secrets.
“So now, he’s a spiritual general,” said Anthea Butler, a scholar of American religion and politics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Butler said that the way Flynn and ReAwaken join Christian nationalism to the idea of spiritual warfare is dangerous because it suggests there are “demonic” people in government, and Christians need to act to save the country. “If people are talking about spiritual warfare and are talking about taking up arms and stuff, then I think you should be very worried,” she said. Flynn’s battlefield experience, she added, enhances his credibility.
Who exactly the United States needs to be saved from is displayed on a huge monitor on the ReAwaken America stage. The show’s villains include former President Barack Obama and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, but the principal foe at the center of the monitor is less familiar. He’s an 84-year-old German economist and engineer named Klaus Schwab, who heads the World Economic Forum, a global think tank in Switzerland, that holds an annual gathering of the world’s business and political elites in Davos, Switzerland, to discuss ways of building a better future.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Schwab unveiled an initiative called The Great Reset that envisioned sweeping changes to how societies and economies work. Even though Schwab and The World Economic Forum have no policymaking power, ReAwaken America participants see his plan, which spoke of “greater government interference” and a “green economy,” as an assault on America’s foundations.
The other side of the...
People Power Can Still Win. Even In Media. https://digitalalaskanews.com/people-power-can-still-win-even-in-media/
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“Ralph who?” my teen asked the other day as I waited on hold to be connected with Ralph Nader. I wasn’t too surprised—it’s been a long time since Nader helped launch the modern consumer advocacy movement, starting with the revelation that the auto industry was cold-bloodedly prioritizing profits ahead of drivers’ lives. Nader was perhaps at his change-making peak about the time a small and scrappy magazine named Mother Jones was getting started, also aiming to expose corporate wrongs that were not getting scrutiny from the corporate media of the time.
By the 90s, when I was cutting my teeth in journalism, Nader had become the avatar for a whole movement fighting the influence of big money, and he was a hero to baby muckraker me. He’s become a more complicated figure since then, especially because of the 2000 presidential run that some blame for the tight result that produced Bush v. Gore. But at 88, he’s also someone who has a long, deep perspective on what it means to fight for change against powerful interests—and win.
“Let’s talk about empowerment,” he said when we finally got on. “I’ve noticed that the better you get at investigating corporate evil, the more you turn people off after a while. Not people like me”—he chuckled—“who have an endless appetite for corporate evil. But a lot of people want to know, is there any hope?”
This is a hard question for investigative journalists. We pride ourselves on finding out how the powerful manipulate the system and how self-proclaimed authorities lie. We expose corruption, dig into duplicity, and uncover inequities. We do it to make things better. But are we ultimately leaving people feeling that the system is so corrupt there’s no hope of changing it?
That’s what the data suggests. Confidence in authorities of almost every kind has declined, and few institutions have lost trust faster than the media—which probably helps explain why people are paying less attention to the news these days.
I wanted to talk to Nader to see if he could help me answer the question that’s always been at the core of Mother Jones: How can journalism actually earn trust and catalyze change? And, since my job as CEO is to keep this (still scrappy) nonprofit newsroom going, how can journalism do all of that and… survive? Yes, it’s our fall fundraising drive, and while many of us are laser-focused on the midterm elections and the endless barrage of important stories they bring, I wanted to look at the bigger picture as part of asking the MoJo community to support reporting that brings about accountability and change for the long run, and help us raise the $325,000 we need right now.
“It used to be that the Times, the Post, the Wall Street Journal, they would put out a story that we investigated,” Nader said. “Then television would pick it up, then there would be a congressional investigation, there would be legislation, and bingo—we had safer cars, safer products, a better country.”
It didn’t work every time, of course, and a lot of unglamorous organizing went into that “bingo,” but that was definitely the model I absorbed when I first got into journalism: Expose wrongdoing, get mainstream media gatekeepers to pay attention, and hope that institutional accountability mechanisms kick in.
But that transmission belt between truth and change has gotten pretty frayed. All you need to do, it seems, is lie big, and demonize those challenging you as “vicious monsters” and “fake news.” This way you inoculate your supporters against the truth; make targets of investigators and journalists; and even get the media—especially outlets with sympathetic owners and investors—to amplify your lies.
That’s the story of the Trump era, though of course he didn’t invent this style of propaganda: He stole it from corporate America. Big Tobacco executives famously declared that “doubt is our product.” So long as they could convince people that the truth about tobacco was just one side of a debate, they were winning.
So, too, for Trump. Mainstream networks are no longer airing his increasingly terrifying rallies live, and they do more often call a lie a lie. But they still far too often fall for the fallacy that truth is found in the precise middle between two “sides.” Even if one side is authoritarian extremists and the other is the vast majority of Americans. (Witness the pearl-clutching over “semi-fascism” or the fretting about how the FBI searching Mar-a-Lago might “re-elect Trump”).
Here’s where we get back to Nader’s warnings about corporate power. Media, in America, is a corporate business, dominated at the local level by predatory hedge funds, and by billionaires and their platforms on the national level. Corporate media produce a lot of damn good journalism. But when the going gets tough—and in an uncertain economy, the going gets tough fast—the owners’ financial goals win. It’s just simple math.
Case in point: CNN, whose corporate owners are in the process of reshaping its content. Back in 2016, CNN’s parent company, Warner Media, announced that it was merging with AT&T. The Trump administration sued to block the merger. AT&T stood its ground, and the merger went through, but the signal did not go unheeded in media executive circles. AT&T then turned around and sold Warner Media to Discovery, which is partly owned by cable billionaire John Malone. And Malone has let it be known that he would very much like CNN to be more like Fox News because Fox News has “actual journalism.”
What that meant became clear when CNN’s new CEO, Chris Licht, dumped Brian Stelter, host of the network’s longest-running show, Reliable Sources. Stelter is no partisan firebrand, but he has been one of the most prominent journalists to shine a light on attacks on democracy, urging his own network and others to rise in its defense. Conservatives cheered Stelter’s firing. So did Malone, who pointedly reiterated that he wants “the ‘news’ portion of CNN to be more centrist.”
In fact, Stelter’s show was very centrist, in the sense that it bent over backwards to present opposing points of view. When he recently invited MoJo‘s editor-in-chief, Clara Jeffery, on the show to talk about our decade-plus investigative reporting on gun violence, her counterpart was Stephen Gutowski of the gun-rights newsletter The Reload. An odd equivalence, but there it is.
The thing is, you can’t balance an unbalanced problem. Stelter’s reporting about attacks on democracy were focused on the right, because that’s where the attacks on democracy are coming from. Blaming him for that is like blaming a firefighter for dousing the burning house rather than turning the hose on the building across the street.
Yet that’s the direction CNN chief Licht seems to be heading in. He has told his staff to avoid the term “Big Lie” because it’s Democratic “branding.” He went on what conservatives gleefully called an “apology tour” among Republican US senators. Soon after firing Stelter, he dumped the network’s White House correspondent, John Harwood, to more right-wing gloating. In Harwood’s last on-air appearance, he issued a stark warning about he warned about media missing the true danger to democracy right now: “We’re brought up to believe there’s two different political parties with different points of view and we don’t take sides in honest disagreements between them… But these are not honest disagreements.”
Why does Licht feel a need to clean house? It’s not complicated: CNN, like every other news outlet, is struggling with declining viewership, and Warner Discovery has tasked him with turning the business around. That means drawing more corporate advertisers—and if there’s one thing advertisers hate, it’s being associated with “controversy.”
There’s a whole other column to be written, some day, about corporate politics in America—how companies make public statements supporting Black Lives Matter or reproductive freedom, only to turn around and fund politicians intent on destroying both. For now, suffice to say that even when it comes to a fundamental, violent challenge to democracy, the response from corner offices and board rooms seems mostly ¯_(ツ)_/¯. Less than two years after announcing that they could no longer support candidates embracing the Big Lie, many corporate political action committees are back throwing money at election deniers—because in the end, democracy matters less than the bottom line. Big money is the ultimate bipartisan constituency.
Corporate media, corporate power, corporate politics. It can feel like an overwhelming triad, and that was why Nader had called me up. He worries that people are losing sight of their own power because of what they see in the media. So much news, Nader complained, is journalists “dittoing each other. They are all going after the same stories. Don’t do that.”
Don’t worry, I thought. Mother Jones doesn’t have to cover the same headlines everyone else is going after—the stories most worth investigating are all about the forces behind the headlines. Like Noah Lanard’s in-depth profile of Blake Masters, the right-wing Senate candidate bankrolled by his former boss, Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel. Or the special reporting project we dedicated six months and a full issue of our magazine to, exploring one of the most powerful—but mostly hidden—forces in the global economy: private equity. No one yanked the chain to pull us back from these stories that get at how the powerful game the system.
But if all you do is expose the bad stuff, people can lose hope. And hope is what’s required to make things happen. So how can journalists—as cynical and hard-boiled as we often are—help make that change possible? I thought about that recently as I sat in a MoJo planning session where w...
How Do U.S. Marijuana Policies Compare Globally After Bidens Pardon?
How Do U.S. Marijuana Policies Compare Globally After Biden’s Pardon? https://digitalalaskanews.com/how-do-u-s-marijuana-policies-compare-globally-after-bidens-pardon/
President Biden offered pardons Thursday to thousands of people convicted of simple marijuana possession under federal law, as U.S. states and other governments around the world reconsider their approach toward the drug, with some moving to decriminalize or legalize it.
“No one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana,” Biden said. He called on senior administration officials to review how the drug is regulated under federal law and whether it should continue to be treated as a Schedule I substance along with drugs such as heroin, LSD and ecstasy.
On Oct. 6, President Biden pardoned thousands of people convicted of a federal crime for simply possessing marijuana and urged governors to do the same. (Video: Julie Yoon/The Washington Post)
Here’s what you need to know about how U.S. marijuana policies and laws compare to those of other countries.
What does Biden’s offer of mass pardons for people convicted of simple marijuana possession mean?
More than 600,000 people were arrested for marijuana possession in the United States in 2018, according to the latest available data from the American Civil Liberties Union. (Not all arrests lead to charges and convictions.) But Biden’s announcement applies only to federal prosecutions, a fraction of people affected by possession laws. His pardon power does not extend to those convicted under state law.
“Many if not most people serving time are in state systems,” said Griffen Thorne, an attorney at Harris Bricken, a law firm that works with cannabis companies. (Biden also called on state governors Thursday to offer similar pardons.)
No one is serving time in a federal prison solely for the crime of marijuana possession, White House officials said Thursday, though more than 6,500 people may have such convictions on their records.
How do the United States’ policies stack up against the rest of the world?
Possessing or consuming marijuana for any reason is illegal under federal law, but as of February, 37 states and the District of Columbia had authorized it for medical use, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In addition, at least 19 states and D.C. had legalized recreational marijuana for adults as of May.
Technically, “every state-level marijuana program is a complete violation of federal law,” Thorne said, but the federal government has “looked the other way.”
A handful of countries have legalized recreational use of marijuana, though there are many gray areas and caveats. Places where it is legal to recreationally use cannabis include Uruguay, Canada and Malta. In some cases, there are restrictions on age, quantities and transport of the drug.
South Africa decriminalized adult use of cannabis in private, although purchasing or selling it remains illegal. Thailand this year legalized growing and trading marijuana. However, government officials have warned that “nonproductive” use of the drug — such as smoking it outside — could lead to penalties such as short prison terms.
Germany’s coalition government pledged before taking office last year to legalize the recreational use of cannabis. Australia allows medical marijuana, but recreational use at home is only legal in the Australian Capital Territory, encompassing Canberra and surrounding townships. Personal use of limited quantities of cannabis is tolerated in the Netherlands, though it’s technically illegal.
“Certainly, there are other countries that have liberal policies and are more consistent about it,” said Robert Mikos, a professor at Vanderbilt University who specializes in drug law. “But because we have so many states that have legalized adult recreational or medical use, I would count the U.S. as one of the more progressive countries.”
Is the world moving toward legalizing marijuana for personal use?
Momentum toward legalizing marijuana is ramping up in Latin America and Africa, Thorne said.
A 2018 Constitutional Court decision paved the way for South Africa to decriminalize personal use, and President Cyril Ramaphosa said this year that his government would work on bolstering its domestic cannabis sector, Reuters reported. Peru legalized medical use in 2017, and Zimbabwe did so in 2018.
Marijuana is one of the world’s most widely consumed drugs, with roughly 147 million people — about 2 percent of the global population — using it annually, according to the World Health Organization. U.S. adults between the ages of 19 and 30 also used marijuana at record levels last year, the National Institutes of Health reported.
But there are pockets of opposition in parts of the world, particularly Asia. In a 2020 referendum, New Zealand voters narrowly rejected legalizing cannabis for nonmedicinal use. It is available there with a prescription. Singapore — whose tough drug laws extend to cannabis — also recently signaled that it would not move to permit medicinal marijuana in the near future.
Does the mass pardon for marijuana possession have global significance?
Maybe. U.S. drug policy has long influenced how the world treats marijuana. Since the 1960s, the United States has championed international conventions and treaties that required participating countries to ban recreational cannabis, said Mikos, the law professor.
But now that dozens of U.S. states have legalized cannabis for recreational or medicinal use, several countries “have taken that as a green light to go ahead and start experimenting,” he said.
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Post Politics Now: Biden To Contrast His Economic Agenda With GOP As Midterm Elections Loom
Post Politics Now: Biden To Contrast His Economic Agenda With GOP As Midterm Elections Loom https://digitalalaskanews.com/post-politics-now-biden-to-contrast-his-economic-agenda-with-gop-as-midterm-elections-loom/
Today, President Biden is focusing on manufacturing and the economy in a visit to a Volvo facility in Hagerstown, Md. His visit comes 32 days before midterm elections that will decide the balance of power in Congress.
Both parties understand that elections often are decided by the decades-old political argument, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Republicans have blamed Biden for record inflation in ads and campaign speeches. Biden is expected to argue in remarks during the visit that Republicans favor the wealthy and, if returned to power, would enact policies that jeopardize Social Security and Medicare.
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12:35 p.m. Biden tours Volvo Group Powertrain Operations in Hagerstown, Md.
1:35 p.m. Biden delivers remarks on the economy. Watch live here.
Got a question about politics? Submit it here. After 3 p.m. weekdays, return to this space and we’ll address what’s on the mind of readers.
Noted: Republican who opposes abortion wishes ‘women could make this decision’
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Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah), who opposes abortion rights and cheered the Supreme Court’s decision this summer overturning a constitutional right to an abortion, said Thursday that he wished “women could make this decision.”
Curtis made the comment, reported by the Deseret News, during a debate against his long-shot Democratic challenger in the solidly Republican district.
“If you’re a woman, it stinks” that legislators, many of whom are men, are making this decision, Curtis said, according to the outlet. “I wish it were other than that. I wish as a man I didn’t have to make this decision. I wish women could make this decision.”
The latest: Job growth slows in September after months of strong labor market expansion
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Job growth continued to slow in September, in another sign that the labor market is cooling from its red-hot peak earlier this year, while remaining an area of strength for the U.S. economy.
Employers added 263,000 jobs last month, the Department of Labor announced in its monthly jobs report Friday, ticking down from August, following months of strong job growth that has defined the pandemic recovery economy.
The unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent.
Even as other economic indicators soured in recent months, the labor market continued to boom. But the jobs outlook is shifting, with workers seeing moderated wage growth and employers slowing down hiring in anticipation of a slowdown in sales.
This is an excerpt from a full story.
The latest: RNC criticizes political affiliations of Phoenix-area poll workers
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Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel is casting doubt on the way elections are run in Arizona’s most populous county because the number of Democrats working at the polls was higher than the number of Republicans during the state’s primary elections.
County leaders say the 18 percent gap in Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located, was typical and legal. And McDaniel’s alleged concern for voter fraud despite there being no evidence that it has occurred has angered county officials, including many fellow Republicans, who fear that her words will spread misinformation and erode faith in the voting process.
Noted: Kemp, pressed on Walker and abortion, says he’s ‘supporting the ticket’
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) is declining to specifically address the report that Senate nominee Herschel Walker, an opponent of abortion in all cases, paid for a former girlfriend to have an abortion in 2009, focusing on the Republican slate.
“I’m going to vote like everyone else, but I’m supporting the ticket,” Kemp, who is running for reelection, told ABC News. “We’re working hard to help the whole ticket in this state. We’ve got a great team, especially the folks I’ve been serving with in the state.”
On our radar: Abrams raises more than $36 million in gubernatorial bid
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Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams has raised more than $36 million as she looks to unseat Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in a rematch that’s one of the most closely watched elections in the midterms.
The Kemp campaign announced this past week that it had raised nearly $29 million and had $19.6 million cash on hand. Polls show the incumbent with an advantage in what is expected to be a close race.
“Our campaign is tied with our opponent, gaining momentum, and is fueled by grassroots donors,” Abrams’s campaign manager, Lauren Groh-Wargo, said in a statement Friday. “Our fundraising includes donors from every corner of Georgia, who understand that Brian Kemp’s extreme and dangerous agenda puts Georgians’ lives and our economy at risk.”
Noted: Biden says Putin’s nuclear weapons threats amount to ‘prospect of Armageddon’
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Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons amount to the most serious “prospect of Armageddon” in 60 years, Biden said Thursday during a Democratic fundraiser in New York City.
Putin has issued several threats about using nuclear weapons since invading Ukraine — particularly as Russia’s military outlook has worsened.
The president spent much of his time warning those in attendance of the dangers that he said the GOP posed but stated that based on his familiarity with Putin, the Russian leader was “not joking” when discussing potentially using “tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons.”
Noted: Election denier Masters calls Biden ‘legitimate president’
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Arizona Republican nominee Blake Masters called President Biden the “legitimate president” Thursday after spending much of his campaign baselessly denying the results of the 2020 election.
While debating Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), the venture capitalist endorsed by Donald Trump admitted that he had seen no evidence that the vote count was rigged, despite continuing to spread unproven allegations of government interference in the outcome.
The Post’s Hannah Knowles reported:
The comments by Masters in a debate with Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), whom he trails in the polls, marked a stark shift from a campaign ad last year, in which the Republican said, “I think Trump won in 2020.” But even as Masters sought to de-emphasize that position, he groundlessly claimed the federal government “forced” big tech companies to censor information that would have propelled Donald Trump to victory.
Clashing at the first and perhaps only debate in a battleground Senate race that will help determine control of the chamber next year, Masters and Kelly often geared their pitches toward moderate voters. Masters, a first-time candidate and venture capitalist, has consistently lagged Kelly, a former astronaut, in polls and fundraising, showing particular weakness with political independents.
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Noted: McConnell calls Sasse ‘whip-smart’; Trump says good riddance
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Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) is widely expected to leave the Senate later this year and return to academics after the University of Florida named him the sole finalist for its presidency.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) praised the two-term senator as a “whip-smart and passionate leader.” In a statement late Thursday, he said Sasse “has been a tremendous Senator, a dogged advocate for his fellow Nebraskans, and a valuable member of our Republican Conference.”
McConnell described himself as “one of ninety-nine Senators who would be sorry to lose Ben as a colleague,” adding: “But I trust my friend to pursue continued public service in the way that he deems best.”
On our radar: Biden to cast GOP as party of the wealthy in Md. speech
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President Biden is marking National Manufacturing Day at a Volvo facility in Hagerstown, Md., where he will cast Democrats as the party of the working class and Republicans as the party of the wealthy.
Biden is using the bully pulpit of the presidency for a political speech 32 days ahead of midterm elections in which Republicans have a chance of capturing control of both houses of Congress.
The speech also comes as the Labor Department on Friday releases the latest jobs numbers for September.
The Biden administration has struggled with record inflation as Americans find higher prices for goods, gas and services. At the same time, the administration can point to millions of jobs created in a rebound from the pandemic.
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GOP Dives Deep On Crime Debate Ahead Of Midterm Elections
GOP Dives Deep On Crime Debate Ahead Of Midterm Elections https://digitalalaskanews.com/gop-dives-deep-on-crime-debate-ahead-of-midterm-elections/
WASHINGTON – With numerous polls showing Americans increasingly concerned about rising crime, Republican candidates nationwide are highlighting the issue in an effort to reach swing voters.
On Wednesday, Ohio GOP senate candidate J.D. Vance declared himself as a “law and order” candidate while campaigning with Donald Trump Jr.
“I think American citizens, whether they’re rich or poor, black or white, deserve to live in safe communities,” said Vance in an interview with Fox News following the back the blue event.
STRATEGISTS AND POLITICAL EXPERTS WEIGH EFFECT OF GOP’S FOCUS ON CRIME AHEAD OF MIDTERMS
J.D. Vance is the Republican Senate candidate in Ohio endorsed by Former President Donald Trump. (Tom E. Puskar)
The latest polls show Vance and his opponent, Ohio Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, in a close contest. Ryan, who held events in Columbus on Thursday, refused to cede the issue to the GOP.
PAIN AT THE PUMP COULD SHIFT MIDTERM OUTCOME: ‘THIS ELECTION IS LIKELY WON OR LOST AT THE PUMP’
“People want to pick up the phone and be able to have a police officer respond. Of course, you got to get rid of bad cops, but we need more good cops, and we need better paid cops,” Ryan told Fox in an interview.
Rep. Tim Ryan, US Democrat Senate candidate for Ohio, currently represents Ohio’s 13th Congressional District. (Gaelen Morse/Bloomberg )
Traditionally the crime issue has impacted races in larger communities. However, given the rise in crime since the pandemic, the issue has gained traction in the heartland. On Wednesday, crime was a key topic of Kansas gubernatorial debate. Incumbent Democratic candidate Gov. Laura Kelly vowed to address crime through boosting the state’s economy.
“We know that a lot of time crime results from poverty, and so as we develop our economy, and we get people good jobs, I think that will contribute to the law” said Gov. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., during the debate.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., is seeking re-election against GOP opponent Blake Masters who is fighting to take his seat this fall. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Brandon Bell)
A recent Fox survey, of registered voters, found voters give the GOP a more favorable rating on the crime debate by a 13 point margin.
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The poll was conducted from Sept. 9-12, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Mark Meredith currently serves as a Washington-based correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC). He joined the network in May 2019.
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Kyrgyzstan: The Dashed Dreams Of A Man Who Loved His Land
Kyrgyzstan: The Dashed Dreams Of A Man Who Loved His Land https://digitalalaskanews.com/kyrgyzstan-the-dashed-dreams-of-a-man-who-loved-his-land/
A disused army target-practice site was not an obvious place to build a poultry farm, but the spot suited Matisa Nadyrov and his family. It was flat and spacious, rare attributes in mountainous southern Kyrgyzstan, and out of the way.
The choice of location, on a height above the village of Ak-Sai, just adjacent to Tajikistan’s enclave of Vorukh, proved tragic, however.
A large section of a farm painstakingly built up over five years in a troubled area of Kyrgyzstan’s Batken province through hard work and funded with crippling loans now lies in ashes.
Nadyrov, born in May 1964, was killed on September 16, his son, Adilet, told Eurasianet.
His killers arrived from Tajikistan sometime late in the morning. They set one large barn ablaze. Nadyrov tried to escape by clambering up the scree above the farm, but he was struck by gunshots fired from a distance, Adilet said. No family members were able to come to his aid.
He left behind four children – one son, three daughters – and 14 grandchildren.
“He was a very good father, modest and compassionate,” said Adilet, who has tirelessly co-managed the family business.
Nadyrov’s son, Adilet
Eurasianet correspondents met Nadyrov in March 2022 while reporting an article on the hardships of trying to set up an enterprise in an area of Kyrgyzstan bedeviled by recurrent border conflicts.
And few places could be more precarious than Ak-Sai. The village lies on a slender corridor of land that separates the mainland of Tajikistan from the Vorukh enclave. When Kyrgyz motorists drive to Ak-Sai, it is common for them to cross paths with Tajik-plated cars making their way through no-man’s-land intersections used by both Kyrgyz and Tajik people.
Snipers from both armies, well-hidden in the rocky hills hanging overhead, have customarily kept a close eye on movements.
There is heightened paranoia among Tajiks that either Kyrgyz communities or their armed forces are able at any time to block the road to Vorukh. This card, they say, can always be played during border disputes.
That Ak-Sai was singled out for particularly brutal treatment last month – more than 80 homes there were torched – may have been intended to displace Kyrgyz communities permanently and create conditions on the ground for future negotiations. Exactly who was responsible for the attacks is not known. Although cross-border communities do often clash, there is persuasive evidence that much of the violence seen in September was perpetrated by armed irregulars with origins other than the conflict zone.
When he was interviewed by Eurasianet, Nadyrov insisted that he got on well with Tajiks. Although ethnically Kyrgyz, he was born in a village, Shurab, that is now inside Tajikistan. Latterly, he had had few dealings with Tajiks, because of the border tensions, but he nevertheless exchanged a few words when they met at grocery stores used by cross-border residents.
Asked about the main challenges facing businesspeople in Batken province, Nadyrov alluded only tangentially to the occasional flareups of unrest. He concentrated instead on the difficulties of securing bank loans and the smuggling that makes running an honest business unprofitable.
While hardliners, many of them far away from Batken province and its problems, insist on the need to keep the border with Tajikistan closed – as they have been since April 2021, the month that saw the last major cycle of violence – small-scale agriculture workers acknowledge that the status quo is hampering their growth.
“We are not developing,” Nadyrov told Eurasianet earlier this year. “I have about 30,000 chickens now, but I would like to increase that to 100,000. I’ve been in the poultry business for 27 years and I know all the secrets for how to make the eggs taste good. By now I should have fulfilled my plans and started exporting.”
Nadyrov in March 2022
After leaving school in Ak-Sai, where he grew up, Nadyrov enrolled in the Novosibirsk State Technical University in Russia to pursue studies in civil engineering. After leaving college, in the early 1990s, he returned to poultry-rearing, a line of work that his family has done for generations.
“It is in our blood, our ancestors all worked with birds,” Nadyrov told Eurasianet.
He met with some hostility to begin with.
“Before, when we had 500-1,000 chickens in our village, the neighbors did not like it,” he said.
But once Nadyrov and his son set up in their current site, away from where the homes in Ak-Sai stand, they were able to expand operations.
“Now 14 people work for me,” Nadyrov said, taking pride in his ability to provide employment in an area where jobs are sparse.
Nadyrov says he could have lived elsewhere. It would have been far easier, in fact, he told Eurasianet. Because Ak-Sai and similar villages are considered areas of high risk, even state-owned banks are reluctant to issue business loans. He persisted, nevertheless.
“We want to continue living here, to stay and work. I am not leaving, I’m in my 60s already. My children are here,” he said.
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U.S. Says Putin's Nuclear Threats Risk 'Armageddon'; Ukraine Recaptures Over 190 Square Miles In A Week
U.S. Says Putin's Nuclear Threats Risk 'Armageddon'; Ukraine Recaptures Over 190 Square Miles In A Week https://digitalalaskanews.com/u-s-says-putins-nuclear-threats-risk-armageddon-ukraine-recaptures-over-190-square-miles-in-a-week/
U.S. President Joe Biden warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat of using tactical nuclear weapons is the biggest since the Cuban missile crisis, delivering his most blunt assessment yet about the prospect of nuclear war.
Putin has repeatedly warned the West that any attack on Russia could provoke a nuclear response.
It comes as Ukrainian forces reclaim dozens of settlements in the south of Ukraine, adding to a growing list of military setbacks for the Kremlin.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the country’s forces have recaptured 500 square kilometers (193 square miles) in the Kherson region alone since the start of October.
Britain’s Defense Ministry says more than half of Ukraine’s fielded tank fleet could consist of captured Russian vehicles.
IAEA chief says Zaporizhzhia belongs to Ukraine, team of specialists set to visit plant
A. Russian serviceman guards an area of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in territory under Russian military control, southeastern Ukraine, May 1, 2022.
AP
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director Rafael Grossi asserted his organization’s position that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, belongs to Ukraine, two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the plant is now part of Russia.
“This is a matter that has to do with international law,” Grossi told a press conference while in Kyiv for meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“We want the war to stop immediately, and of course the position of the IAEA is that this facility is a Ukrainian facility.”
A team of four experts from the IAEA, which is the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, are set to arrive at the plant today.
Russian forces have been occupying the plant and the Zaporizhzhia region in Ukraine’s southeast since shortly after the invasion of Ukraine in late February. Its staff have continued working, though under extreme stress and frequent intimidation.
Putin illegally annexed the Zaporizhzhia region along with Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson in eastern Ukraine after Russian authorities conducted sham referendums in the territories on joining the Russian Federation. The international community has broadly refused to recognize the legitimacy of the votes or annexations.
— Natasha Turak
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un congratulates Putin on his 70th birthday
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un shake hands during their meeting in Vladivostok, Russia, Thursday, April 25, 2019.
Alexander Zemlianichenko | Pool | AP
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivered a message congratulating Russian President Vladimir Putin on his 70th birthday and praising their two countries’ growing ties.
Putin is “reliably defending the dignity of the state and its fundamental interests from the challenges and threats by the US and its vassal forces,” Kim said, adding that “Such reality is unthinkable without your distinguished leadership and strong will.”
Kim lauded Putin for “building powerful Russia” and described him as “enjoying high respects and support from the broad masses of people.” He added that Russian and North Korean cooperation had grown “as never before” and expressed hope for yet more closeness in the future.
North Korea and Syria are the only countries to have recognized the Russian-backed breakaway People’s Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
— Natasha Turak
Russia’s partial mobilization training in Rostov, Russia: in photos
Russian citizens drafted during the partial mobilization begin their military trainings after a military call-up for the Russia-Ukraine war in Rostov, Russia.
Russian citizens drafted during the partial mobilization begin their military trainings after a military call-up for the Russia-Ukraine war in Rostov, Russia on October 04, 2022.
Arkady Budnitsky | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Russian citizens drafted during the partial mobilization begin their military trainings after a military call-up for the Russia-Ukraine war in Rostov, Russia on October 04, 2022.
Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Russian citizens drafted during the partial mobilization begin their military trainings after a military call-up for the Russia-Ukraine war in Rostov, Russia on October 04, 2022.
Arkady Budnitsky | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Russian citizens drafted during the partial mobilization begin their military trainings after a military call-up for the Russia-Ukraine war in Rostov, Russia on October 04, 2022.
Arkady Budnitsky | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Russian citizens drafted during the partial mobilization begin their military trainings after a military call-up for the Russia-Ukraine war in Rostov, Russia on October 04, 2022.
Arkady Budnitsky | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Russian citizens drafted during the partial mobilization begin their military trainings after a military call-up for the Russia-Ukraine war in Rostov, Russia on October 04, 2022.
Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
— Arkady Budnitsky | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Ukrainian, Russian and Belarussian activists
A woman holds Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov’s 2021 Nobel Peace Prize medal in New York, on June 20, 2022.
Kena Betancur | AFP | Getty Images
Activists and organizations from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus were awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize for their work in documenting human rights abuses.
The winners are Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties, Russian organization Memorial and Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski. Bialiatski is currently in prison in Belarus.
“The Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to honor three outstanding champions of human rights, democracy and peaceful co-existence in the neighbor countries Belarus, Russia and Ukraine,” Nobel Committee Chair Berit Reiss-Andersen said in an announcement from Oslo. He also called for the release of the imprisoned Bialiatski.
Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties was founded in 2007 and has worked to advocate for democracy and human rights in the country. Since the start of the Russian invasion, it has been documenting Russian war crimes against civilians.
The group “has taken a stand to strengthen Ukrainian civil society and pressure the authorities to make Ukraine a full fledged democracy, to develop Ukraine into a state governed by rule of law,” Reiss-Andersen said.
Ales Bialiatski in 1996 founded Belarus’s most prominent human rights organization, Viasna, which seeks to help political prisoners and their families. The Russian group Memorial, one of the oldest civil rights groups in the country founded in 1987, focuses on uncovering human rights crimes committed during the Soviet era and currently. It was forced to dissolve in Russia in December 2021, but continues work at a new location.
The Nobel Peace prize is worth $900,000 and will be presented in Oslo on December 10.
— Natasha Turak
More than 500 bodies found in Kharkiv after Russians withdrew, Ukrainian official says
Investigators carry away a body bag in a forest near Izyum, eastern Ukraine, on September 23, 2022, where Ukrainian investigators have uncovered more than 440 graves after the city was recaptured from Russian forces, bringing fresh claims of war atrocities.
Sergey Bobok | Afp | Getty Images
The bodies of 534 civilians were found in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region after Ukrainian troops regained the territory from Russian forces, local National Police official Serhiy Bolvinov told press. That figure included the 447 bodies unearthed in the town of Izium in mid-September that Ukrainian authorities say were buried in mass graves left by Russian occupying forces.
Bolvinov also said that investigators found more than 20 facilities they believe were used as “torture rooms.” Russia has not commented on these latest charges, but previously rejected the findings from Izium, claiming that it was the work of Ukrainian forces.
— Natasha Turak
Ukrainian forces recapture over 190 square miles in a week, Zelenskyy says
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address that the country’s forces had recaptured significant areas of the southern Kherson region in recent days.
“Since October 1, more than half a thousand square kilometers of territory and dozens of settlements have been liberated from the Russian sham referendum and stabilized only in the Kherson region,” Zelenskky said.
“There are also successes in the eastern direction,” he added. “The day will surely come when we will report on successes in the Zaporizhzhia region as well — in those areas that are still under the control of the occupiers. The day will come when we will also talk about the liberation of Crimea.”
— Sam Meredith
Ukraine says death toll in Zaporizhzhia rocket attack has risen to 11
Ukrainian firefighters push out a fire after a strike in Zaporizhzhia on October 6, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Marina Moiseyenko | Afp | Getty Images
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said rescuers had found 11 bodies and rescued 21 people from the rubble of buildings destroyed in Thursday’s missile attacks in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, according to Reuters.
The State Emergency Service said rescuers continue working at the scene.
— Sam Meredith
Over half of Ukraine’s fielded tank fleet may consist of captured vehicles, UK says
Britain’s Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence update that repurposed captured Russian equipment now makes up a large proportion of Ukraine’s military hardware.
“Ukraine has likely captured at least 440 Russian Main Battle Tanks, and around 650 other armoured vehicles since the invasion. Over half of Ukrain...
Trump Says He https://digitalalaskanews.com/trump-says-he/
The latest Tweet by Bloomberg states, ‘Trump says he’s not responsible for classified material being found at Mar-a-Lago because a federal agency packed the boxes. That’s not true, newly released emails show …’
Socially Team Latestly| Oct 07, 2022 05:47 PM IST
Trump says he’s not responsible for classified material being found at Mar-a-Lago because a federal agency packed the boxes. That’s not true, newly released emails show https://t.co/Kgchb7m2Ax— Bloomberg (@business) October 7, 2022
(SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user’s social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)
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Justice Department Says Ex-Prez Donald Trump Still In Possession Of Classified Documents Requests Their Immediate Return
Justice Department Says Ex-Prez Donald Trump Still In Possession Of Classified Documents, Requests Their Immediate Return https://digitalalaskanews.com/justice-department-says-ex-prez-donald-trump-still-in-possession-of-classified-documents-requests-their-immediate-return/
Officials within the Justice Department have urged Donald Trump’s legal team to return any “outstanding” classified documents still in the ex-president’s possession, RadarOnline.com has learned.
The shocking and recent development suggests former President Trump is still in possession of classified documents improperly taken from the White House when he left office in January 2021.
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Source: Mega
Jay Bratt, a top lawyer within the DOJ’s national security division, indicated former President Trump has an obligation to return any documents marked classified, according to the New York Times.
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, it was first believed Trump was still in possession of allegedly stolen classified materials when the FBI found nearly 50 empty folders marked classified when the bureau raided Mar-a-Lago on August 8.
The FBI also found at least eleven sets of classified documents when they raided the Palm Beach, Florida property – including at least four sets of top-secret documents, three sets of secret documents and three sets of confidential documents.
Federal prosecutors have since expressed their concern regarding classified documents still potentially in Trump’s possession and the national security risk such a situation would undoubtedly create.
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Source: Mega
As RadarOnline.com also reported, the new development comes after a federal judge blocked the DOJ from using all but roughly 100 classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago in their criminal investigation against Trump – a decision the department argued would “impede efforts to identify the existence of any additional classified records that are not being properly stored – which itself presents the potential for ongoing risk to national security.”
Federal prosecutors within the DOJ also argued that the federal judge’s order was preventing the FBI from taking necessary and important steps that “could lead to identification of other records still missing.”
Trump has since requested the Supreme Court intervene to stop the DOJ from using the nearly 100 classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago in their criminal probe against him, although SCOTUS has yet to grant or deny the ex-president’s request.
Recent news Trump may still be in possession of stolen classified documents also comes just days after President Joe Biden’s administration refused to comment on whether ex-President Trump was still in possession of classified records.
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Source: Mega
“With respect to the issue concerning whether former President Trump has surrendered all presidential records, we respectfully refer you to the Department of Justice in light of its ongoing investigation,” the National Archives said after being pressed on the matter by the House Oversight Committee.
Former President Trump is currently under federal investigation for the alleged “removal or destruction of records, obstruction of an investigation, and violating the Espionage Act” connected to the government records he took with him when leaving office in 2021.
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Prominent Republicans Defend Kanye West https://digitalalaskanews.com/prominent-republicans-defend-kanye-west/
While Kanye West‘s controversial interview with Tucker Carlson has upset some, Republicans have come out in force to defend his appearance on Fox News.
After going on a social media tirade in which he called out celebrities, the Kardashians, and fashion critics, West sat down for an exclusive interview on Tucker Carlson Tonight.
Within their wide-ranging interview, West spoke about his support for Donald Trump, why he wore a “White Lives Matter” t-shirt at his Yeezy fashion show in Paris, and he also suggested that abortion and singer Lizzo’s weight were examples of the “genocide of the Black race.”
His appearance on Fox News was widely discussed online with thousands of people weighing in and discussing the rapper and fashion designer’s comments across social media. On Twitter, in particular, many right-wing verified users defended and praised West.
Prominent Republicans have come to Kanye West’s (L) defense after he appeared on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox News. West discussed why he wore a “White Lives Matter” shirt to his Yeezy show in Paris, and more with Carlson (R). SAUL LOEB / Janos Kummer/Getty Images / AFP via Getty Images
Lavern Spicer, who ran in the Republican primary for U.S. House in District 24 in Florida, called his interview “amazing” and applauded him for “spitting facts on Tucker!”
“I never thought I’d say this but I wish that half the Republican in Congress sounded more like Kanye West,” Spicer wrote on Twitter.
“Kanye West is giving a brilliant interview on Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Brigitte Gabriel, the founder of the anti-Muslim group ACT for America, tweeted. Quoting some of his statements on Tucker Carlson Tonight, she said West “is wise beyond his years.”
There are more Black babies being aborted than born in America right now.
Wow @KanyeWest is spitting facts on Tucker!
— Lavern Spicer (@lavern_spicer) October 7, 2022
The Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham was also impressed with West’s opinions.
“I know he’s a billionaire, but can we contribute to a Kanye protection fund?” She asked while retweeting a clip from the interview.
One of West’s statements involved his “good friend Lizzo,” whom he said received attacks from bots on social media when she announced she lost weight. West said that suggesting an “unhealthy” lifestyle was in fashion to sway Lizzo’s fans into being unhealthy too. He called this “a genocide of the black race.”
Benny Johnson, the host of The Benny Show podcast, praised West’s take with several tweets quoting him. “Kanye West is a cultural icon,” he wrote.
Political commentator Matt Walsh also shared West’s message to his 1 million Twitter followers by retweeting a clip of West explaining why he’s “pro-life.” The clip in question was shared by Live Action, a “global movement dedicated to ending abortion.”
Kanye West is a cultural icon.
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 7, 2022
Former Fox News journalist, now CEO of Becker News, Kyle Becker reacted with a “WOW” to West’s suggestion that Donald Trump helped him turn towards God in his music. West dropped the album Jesus is King in 2019.
Thousands of non-verified conservative users were also vocal in their support for West after his Fox News appearance.
Newsweek reached out to Kanye West and Lizzo’s representatives for comment.
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Ukraine Live Briefing: Biden Warns Of Nuclear Armageddon; Russian And Ukrainian Groups Win Nobel Prize
Ukraine Live Briefing: Biden Warns Of Nuclear ‘Armageddon’; Russian And Ukrainian Groups Win Nobel Prize https://digitalalaskanews.com/ukraine-live-briefing-biden-warns-of-nuclear-armageddon-russian-and-ukrainian-groups-win-nobel-prize/
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to human rights activists from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus who have demonstrated a “vision of peace and fraternity between nations — a vision most needed in the world today,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced. The prize will be shared by imprisoned Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski, Russian organization Memorial and Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties. The winners have each made an “outstanding effort to document war crimes, human right abuses and the abuse of power,” the committee said. The Nobel Committee said it was not intentionally sending a signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who celebrated his 70th birthday Friday.
President Biden has warned that the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” is at its highest since the Cuban missile crisis, saying that Putin is “not joking” about the potential use of nuclear weapons as his army struggles in Ukraine. Putin — who is under increased political pressure at home — may find himself without an “off-ramp,” prompting Moscow to deploy the weapons of mass destruction, Biden said Thursday. However, administration officials say there is no indication that Russia is preparing for an imminent strike.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
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Putin confronted by insider over Ukraine war, U.S. intelligence finds: Discontent is growing inside the Kremlin over what some insiders consider the mismanagement of the Ukraine war, according to information obtained by U.S. intelligence and reported by The Washington Post.
A member of Putin’s inner circle has expressed criticism directly to the president in recent weeks, illustrating the growing turmoil over battlefield losses, leadership and a highly unpopular military mobilization campaign.
As the war lurches into its eighth month, and a Russian victory remains elusive and ill-defined, the unquestioning loyalty that Putin has enjoyed may be slipping, intelligence officials said. But they cautioned that there is still no indication he is on the brink of being swept aside.
Beatriz Rios and Robyn Dixon contributed to this report.
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From Up Top To The Tap: Alaska Airlines Pulls Off Ultimate Beer Run In Multiple States
From Up Top To The Tap: Alaska Airlines Pulls Off Ultimate Beer Run In Multiple States https://digitalalaskanews.com/from-up-top-to-the-tap-alaska-airlines-pulls-off-ultimate-beer-run-in-multiple-states/
How we made fresh hops fly – and helped a seasonal beer take off beyond the Northwest
, /PRNewswire/ — This fall, Alaska Air Cargo delivered the industry’s first and biggest fresh hops run to breweries in Maui and Anchorage within 24 hours of harvest – this was a huge logistical hop-eration that brought a favorite seasonal beer beyond the Pacific Northwest.
Made from fresh-plucked, undried hops that are typically rushed straight from the fields to the breweries, Alaska went further than any U.S. commercial airline has before by delivering more than 1,200 pounds of fresh hops to Maui Brewing Co. in Hawaii and 49th State Brewing in Alaska.
Fresh hops.
Fresh hops at 49th State Brewing.
Bale Breakers Brewing Company at Alaska’s North Satellite Lounge in Sea-Tac.
“This is a potential game-changer for the craft beer industry and farm-to-glass collaboration at its finest,” says Adam Drouhard, cargo managing director for Alaska Airlines, noting that Washington state grows almost three-quarters of the U.S. hop crop. “This puts a Northwest agricultural product in places that don’t normally get it. With the size and scope we have in Seattle, we are really positioned to own this.”
It all started with a deep appreciation of fresh hops beer and connecting the dots that Alaska Airlines could be the key to sharing it with the world.
Jake Spotts, postal affairs manager on Alaska’s cargo team, has tried beers all over the world during his 20-year Air Force career – but says there’s nothing better than the taste of fresh hops during harvest. Packed with unique floral flavor, fresh hop beers are usually made during the late-summer harvest by breweries located near farms in Washington, Oregon and other places in the Northwest.
Spotts thought that because of our decades of expertise shipping perishable products like fresh Alaska salmon, we could find a way to ship fresh hops to breweries outside the Northwest. Something that hadn’t been done by a U.S. airline on a commercial scale – until now.
How we made fresh hops fly.
Craft brewers thrive on collaboration, and when the opportunity came to ship a large volume of fresh hops out of state, Yakima-based Bale Breaker Brewing Company helped us get the idea off the vine.
The brewers at Bale Breaker, Maui Brewing Co. and 49th State worked together on beer recipes to highlight the hops’ fresh flavor and coordinated logistics with the Alaska Air Cargo team and Yakima Chief Hops, a grower-owned organization that distributes hops for more than 50 farms across the Northwest.
“Scalability of shipping fresh hops has really been the challenge to overcome because you only have about 24 hours from harvest before the hops start to degrade,” said Bryan Pierce, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for Yakima Chief Hops.
To keep the hops fresh throughout their journey, the harvest was timed perfectly so that the just-picked hops could be bagged onsite at Loftus Ranches, one of Yakima’s longest running family-owned hop farms and the site of Bale Breaker Brewing.
From there, they were loaded into refrigerated trucks and driven to the Alaska Air Cargo offices at Sea-Tac International Airport just in time to load onto the aircraft. More than 1,200 pounds of hops were shipped nonstop to the brewers.
On Maui and in Anchorage, the brewers were ready to add the fresh hops to the “boil” – the first stage in beer – as soon as they arrived.
“When we added the fresh hops, it smelled amazing!” said Kim Brisson-Lutz, Maui Brewing Co.’s Vice President of Operations. “Making beer is a culinary art, and we’re all about making these ingredients really shine.”
“Using Alaska Air Cargo, we can guarantee the supply chain all the way from field to the kettle,” said David McCarthy, co-founder of 49th State Brewing. “Aficionados of beer are really looking for this flavor, and we’re excited we can now make the freshest beer in Anchorage and the whole Alaska market.”
Raise a glass of liquid gold.
This month, Alaska Lounge members and guests will have the chance to sip and savor fresh hop beers from the three breweries in this collaboration at our Lounges in Seattle, Portland and Anchorage airports.
Try them while you can: these unique brews will only be available in our lounges until they run out. All three breweries are located where we fly.
Bale Breaker Brewing Company Yakima, WA
The beers: Homegrown Fresh Hop IPA and Citra Slicker Wet Hop IPA
Where to try them:
On draft at Alaska Lounges in Sea-Tac International Airport in North Satellite and Concourse C. And at our Lounge in Portland International Airport.
On draft and in 16-ounce can 4-packs at Bale Breaker Brewery in Yakima on Loftus Ranches, the Smith family-owned hop farm is also celebrating its 90th anniversary this year – just like us!
On draft and in 16-ounce can 4-packs in Seattle’s Ballard Brewing District, as well as throughout Bale Breaker’s distribution footprint in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Use the beer finder on their website to locate their fresh hops near you.
49th State Brewing Anchorage, AK
The beer: Freshial Delivery Hazy Fresh Hop IPA
Where to try it:
On draft at the Alaska Lounge in Anchorage International Airport.
On draft and in 16-ounce can 4-packs at 49th State Brewing downtown in Anchorage and at select liquor stores and restaurants across the state of Alaska.
Hops flown: 454 pounds
Kegs brewed: Equivalent of 60 kegs (split between different sizes of kegs and cans)
Maui Brewing Co. Kihei, Maui
The beer: Hop Cargo Fresh Hop IPA
Where to try it:
Coming soon on draft to Alaska’s North Satellite Lounge in Sea-Tac International Airport.
Coming soon on draft to Maui Brewing Co. in Kihei, Maui.
Hops flown: 833 pounds
Kegs brewed: Equivalent of 140 kegs
Editor’s note: You can find B-Roll video here and still photography of the fresh hops journey on Alaska Air Cargo. Everything shot by Ingrid Barrentine (staff photographer at Alaska Airlines).
About Alaska Airlines
Alaska Airlines and our regional partners serve more than 120 destinations across the United States, Belize, Canada, Costa Rica and Mexico. We emphasize low fares and award-winning customer service. Alaska is a member of the oneworld global alliance. With the alliance and our additional airline partners, our guests can travel to more than 900 destinations on more than 20 airlines while earning and redeeming miles on flights to locations around the world. Learn more about Alaska at news.alaskaair.com. Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air are subsidiaries of Alaska Air Group.
Alaska Air Cargo: Alaska Air Cargo serves more than 100 destinations in North America with more than 1,200 daily flights, and provides a variety of reliable shipping services. Alaska Air Cargo has a long history of cold-chain innovations, utilizing a fleet of 737 freighters serving 20 communities in the state of Alaska – and offering belly cargo service on a fleet of over 300 passenger planes serving the Continental U.S., Canada, Hawaii, Mexico and Costa Rica.
Bale Breaker Brewing Company: Crafting fresh-off-the-farm brews from the middle of a hop field, Bale Breaker Brewing Company is a family-owned brewery located in Washington state’s Yakima Valley. Backed by four generations of hop farming experience, Bale Breaker started in 2013, and has grown to become the third largest independent craft brewery in Washington.
Loftus Ranches: Loftus Ranches is the Smith family’s farms that include hops, apples, and cherries. The family’s first hops were planted in 1932, and Loftus Ranches is now run by the fourth generation.
Yakima Chief Hops: Yakima Chief Hops is a 100% grower-owned global hop supplier with a mission to connect brewers with family hop farms. Yakima Chief also produces the new YCH Trial 301 product – a product derived from flash-frozen fresh hops that are pelleted and concentrated through their proprietary Cryo Hops® process to produce a stable fresh hop product that can be used year round.
Maui Brewing Co.: Maui Brewing Co. is Hawaii’s largest craft brewery, with four restaurants across Maui and Oahu.
49th State Brewing: 49th State Brewing started out in a bus barn next to Denali National Park in 2010, and now has brewpubs in Anchorage and Denali.
SOURCE Alaska Airlines
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2 Dead 6 Injured In 'unprovoked' Stabbings On Las Vegas Strip; Suspect Arrested
2 Dead, 6 Injured In 'unprovoked' Stabbings On Las Vegas Strip; Suspect Arrested https://digitalalaskanews.com/2-dead-6-injured-in-unprovoked-stabbings-on-las-vegas-strip-suspect-arrested/
Two people were killed and several others injured in a reportedly unprovoked stabbing attack Thursday morning near the Wynn hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip, authorities said.
Officers received a report of a stabbing with multiple victims in front of a casino in the 3100 block of South Las Vegas Boulevard around 11:42 a.m., the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said in a tweet.
Eight victims were identified, and a suspect has been taken into custody, authorities said. The suspect, identified as Yoni Barrios, 32, was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on suspicion of two counts of open murder with a deadly weapon and six counts of attempted murder with a deadly weapon, according to police.
“This was an isolated incident,” Las Vegas Metro Police Deputy Chief James LaRochelle said in a news release Thursday night. “All evidence indicates Barrios acted alone and there are no outstanding suspects at this time.”
The victims appeared to be a combination of tourists and locals, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said.
As of 2 p.m., two people were dead and three were in critical condition, Las Vegas Metro Police Capt. Dori Koren said during a news briefing in front of the Wynn casino.
A kitchen knife was recovered at the scene.
“The initial stabbing occurs on the sidewalk area [and] appears unprovoked,” LaRochelle said at a news conference. “There is no altercation beforehand.”
The suspect fled the scene southbound before heading east on Sands Avenue, pursued by “concerned citizens,” some of whom were contacting police.
The suspect was eventually stopped by a security guard and Las Vegas police officers.
Dewaun Turner, 47, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he saw five of the stabbings as he was walking home from his job at Resorts World, a hotel and casino just north of the crime scene.
Las Vegas stabbing attack suspect Yoni Barrios, who police allege killed two people and wounded six others.
(Las Vegas Police Department)
Turner said he saw a man with a knife chasing two showgirls who were screaming for help, according to the Review-Journal.
After one of the performers slipped and fell, the man stabbed her, Turner recounted. The man then jumped up and stabbed the other showgirl as she tried to run away, he said.
The first showgirl who was stabbed was bleeding abundantly, Turner told the Review-Journal, and the second appeared to be less seriously wounded as she tried to apply pressure to stop the first woman’s bleeding.
“He wasn’t saying anything,” Turner said to the Review-Journal of the suspect, whom he reportedly saw stab a man and two other women after the showgirls.
“We want to extend our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and to the victims themselves,” LaRochelle said. “This is clearly a very tragic and hard to understand, hard to comprehend murder investigation that deeply impacts our community.”
“It’s very difficult in one-off events such as this to prevent it from happening without any intelligence that it may occur,” Lombardo said.
The investigation is ongoing, police said.
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Musk Says Pepsi To Receive Tesla's First Semi Trucks In December
Musk Says Pepsi To Receive Tesla's First Semi Trucks In December https://digitalalaskanews.com/musk-says-pepsi-to-receive-teslas-first-semi-trucks-in-december/
Oct 6 (Reuters) – Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) is starting Semi electric commercial truck production and PepsiCo Inc will get the first deliveries on Dec. 1, the electric vehicle maker’s chief Elon Musk tweeted on Thursday.
When Musk unveiled the prototype of the futuristic, battery-powered Semi in 2017, he said the Class 8 truck would go into production by 2019.
However, the timeline has been pushed multiple times due to part shortages and Musk said the production would be delayed to next year. In August, he announced the planned production of the truck.
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In another tweet, Musk reiterated that the vehicle has a range of 500 miles (805 km). It was not immediately clear how many Semi trucks the electric vehicle maker plans to produce.
Tesla’s new electric semi truck is unveiled during a presentation in Hawthorne, California, U.S., November 16, 2017. REUTERS/Alexandria Sage/File Photo
The truck is expected to cost $180,000, although it would qualify for a tax break of up to $40,000 under a U.S. subsidy program approved by the Senate.
Back in 2017, PepsiCo reserved 100 of Tesla’s semi electric trucks as it sought to reduce fuel costs and fleet emissions.
In an interview with CNBC last year, PepsiCo’s top boss Ramon Laguarta had said transportation accounted for 10% of the company’s gas emissions.
The maker of Mountain Dew soda and Doritos chips had previously said it aims to use the trucks to ship snack foods and beverages between manufacturing and distribution centers as well as to retailers.
PepsiCo did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ request for comment.
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Reporting by Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Hyunjoo Jin and David Sheperdson; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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A Foot In Two Worlds | Anabaptist World https://digitalalaskanews.com/a-foot-in-two-worlds-anabaptist-world/
Sofia Samatar speaks at Goshen College on Sept. 30. — Julian Gonzalez/Goshen College
When Sofia Samatar took an American literature survey class at Goshen College more than 20 years ago, she wrote a paper about Walt Whitman, the “good grey poet.” Among the thousands of student papers I read, this one stands out in my memory.
What made it remarkable to me was the way she complicated the meanings of “good” and “grey,” showing an ability, much like the poet’s own, to read radically, viewing both words and their contexts through many prisms, or mirrors.
Like Whitman, one of her many literary mentors, Samatar is “large.” She “contains multitudes.” She sings the “body electric” this way: “My mother’s family are Swiss-German Mennonite, my father’s Somali Muslims. I stand amid this lightning.” She chooses to stand with both traditions, inviting one to critique the other, celebrating strengths and observing weaknesses in both.
She worships with Community Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Va., knows how to play the “Mennonite game,” has read Ben Goossen’s analysis of Mennonite susceptibility to racism and fascism and has studied Martyrs Mirror cover to cover. Few of us can match her education in contemporary Mennonite identity. None of us can make those issues more universal, poetic and prophetic.
For Mennonites, Samatar’s memoir, The White Mosque, published this month by Catapult, should be required reading. We need it even more because the author’s gaze is not solely on us: “I would not be spending my time on this subject, believe me, if I thought it only pertained to a certain offshoot of the Radical Reformation.”
The plot centers on a Great Trek by a group of Mennonite families from the Molotschna Colony (in present-day Ukraine) to Central Asia, influenced by Claas Epp Jr., who had read a novel about Christ’s return at the end of the world and constructed his own prophecy. He came up with March 8, 1889, as the day of the Second Coming and wrote his own book, The Unsealed Prophecy of the Prophet Daniel and the Meaning of the Revelation of Jesus.
Eventually he convinced scores of families to undertake a dangerous journey into alien territory. They were open to a trek in part because of Epp’s mesmerizing personality but also because the Russian government no longer promised exemption from military service.
On top of this backstory, Samatar layers her own participation, more than a century later, in a Mennonite and Uzbekistan history tour in 2016. What draws her? A photograph of a plain white cube building. Taken by the Swiss photographer and adventurer Ella Maillart in 1932, the photo depicts the church building of the Mennonite group that split off from Epp’s group and went on to live in the village of Ak Metchet for 50 years.
The name of the town where weary Trekkers found a welcome from the Khan means White Mosque, and the Mennonite church building was called by the obvious name in the local language: mosque. Here was a place where Muslims and Mennonites met in a rare and distinctive way. No wonder the white mosque called to a Somali-American Mennonite writer.
When she meets with a group of students of color in 2016 at Goshen College, they name feelings of isolation they experience in the presence of what they call The Mennonite Wall. She responds as an artist: “And when I heard this, I wanted to write something for those young people who came from the world where most Mennonites live. They were something that seemed very odd, at least at first: a minoritized majority. Among my notes, a scribbled line: Write something to answer their confusion.”
The White Mosque by Sofia Samatar
The White Mosque is her answer to the confusion about how a church, which globally has more Black and brown members than white ones, still identifies itself as a white ethnic group with 500-year-old origins in Switzerland and Holland. Implicitly, Samatar calls for a truly inclusive church that no longer minoritizes its majority.
What could be more relevant to a world filled with strife among many religions and races? Could Mennonites become radical again? If it happens, we must take a Great Trek, not to a specific place but to the great dream of the Mennonites, the place of peace.
When I read these words, I wept:
Let us recall the reason behind these struggles. The choice of Central Asia, it’s true, is based on prophetic visions, but the original reason for leaving Russia is peace: the refusal of violence, even in self-defense, the refusal to enable the violence of others. In this shining absolutism lies the great honor and dignity of Anabaptist life. This is their gift to the world, and it is the reason the world needs them: These travelers are not just a quaint German-speaking cult but the stewards of a precious ethic.
Samatar’s purpose is larger than the Mennonite church, yet she does not rush past the church to embrace the world. In fact, as in the paragraph above, she shines a light on the great vision of wholeness that leads a people to long for, search for and sometimes find, home.
At home in fiction, especially the bizarre and the fantastic (she’s published two award-winning fantasy novels), Samatar makes innovations in the field of memoir.
The first sentence breaks its own path. “Begin with the glow: the faint beam of a half-forgotten history.” The sentence structure counters our expectation that memoirs begin with “I.” Instead, the sentence is a command, an imperative: “Begin with the glow.” Is the author receiving dictation? Grammatically, the imperative mood implies the second person as the subject: “(You) begin with the glow.” The author could, theoretically, be summoned (by a muse?) to write.
Or she could be instructing on how to read the text. Don’t start with action. Start with atmosphere, the special atmosphere of light. Follow the light, the author suggests, don’t just follow me. The imagery of light suffuses this book from beginning to end, at times illuminating and luminous, at other times mingled with shadow and haunted by absence.
Soon, however, the persona of the author herself appears: “a fawn-colored radiance blooms against my arms.” We American readers have found ourselves in a light-drenched space on the other side of the world, Tashkent. We turn the page and enter new worlds with her. Included in her “I,” challenged by her “you” and intrigued by her “she,” we recognize a trinity of identity in her and in ourselves.
This book demands keen attention. Its structure is postmodern, moving from one place and time to another without explanation.
If it were fiction, we’d have to call much of this book fantasy. A fantasy instigated by an apocalyptic novel read and imbibed by Claas Epp Jr.: Johann Jung-Stilling’s Das Heimweh: Erster Band, 1794.
But this is memoir. We’ve traveled the path of a very particular life, our eyes wide with wonder and our hearts moved.
I think again about that class, that “child” who came to Goshen College years ago. Her perception of how a great artist, Whitman, constructed meaning out of his life. Her refusal to let a great poet be patronized. Her insistence that reality is not one thing but many, while also, even then, focusing on the light beyond the shattered fragments.
Samatar has bequeathed herself to grow from the grass she loves. Let us look under our boot-soles and behold the light of home.
Shirley Hershey Showalter taught at Goshen College from 1976 to 2004 and was president of the college from 1997 to 2004.
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Analysis | Seven Bleak Takeaways From Showtimes The Lincoln Project Miniseries
Analysis | Seven Bleak Takeaways From Showtime’s ‘The Lincoln Project’ Miniseries https://digitalalaskanews.com/analysis-seven-bleak-takeaways-from-showtimes-the-lincoln-project-miniseries/
Showtime’s “The Lincoln Project” is not for the faint of heart. The five-part miniseries, which debuts Friday, is an intimate, bare-knuckled take on the 2020 presidential campaign through the eyes of the Lincoln Project, a super PAC created by Republican political consultants to defeat Donald Trump. As an inside look at the world of political messaging, it’s fascinating. As an inside look at the future of democracy, it’s terrifying.
In the last two months before the election, filmmakers followed the key players of the organization as they created the viral ads that attracted millions of clicks, followers and dollars. The ads attacked Trump and his followers with a ferocity that liberals cheered. The goal was to persuade a tiny sliver of Republican voters to vote for Joe Biden.
And it worked — until it didn’t. The Lincoln Project won the battle and lost the war; instead of taking a victory lap, it was riddled with infighting, betrayals, financial disputes and charges of inappropriate sexual advances by one of the co-founders.
Even for political junkies, the documentary is revelatory for the way it depicts brutal truths of modern campaign warfare. It posits that anyone who thinks the election result battles were confined to 2020 hasn’t been paying attention to the dystopian ads for the midterms this year. Democracy is at risk, and no one knows that better than the founders of the Lincoln Project because they helped lay the groundwork. Now they’re frightened; as co-founder Stuart Stevens ominously put it: “I’ll never look at 1930s Germany and wonder how it happened again.”
Here are the takeaways from the series:
These guys are not liberals’ perfect heroes
The Lincoln Project was co-founded by longtime political consultants who worked for decades to elect Republican candidates. They developed, as they like to joke, a “particular set of skills” that they deployed to devastating effect.
Did they create Trump? No, but they freely admit that they manipulated the modern political landscape that made Trump a viable candidate — exploiting race and fear for political gain. They opened Pandora’s box and made elections not just about policy differences, but about motives, patriotism and loyalty.
Then Trump happened and they were horrified. The remorse is palatable, as is their determination to preserve whatever is left of democracy. Too little too late? Better late than never? Democrats embraced the Lincoln Project ads like long-lost friends; the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
“There’s nothing noble about us in the least; the cause is noble,” says Stevens. “You don’t have to think we’re good people. You don’t have to agree with us. You don’t have to like us. But we’re useful.”
Early on, the Lincoln Project understood that the best way to attack Trump was to get under his very thin skin, and it was ridiculously effective.
The group specifically targeted the president by buying ad time on Fox News, knowing that Trump watched the network incessantly. They knew he couldn’t stand being called a “loser,” and so that’s exactly what they did. A more sophisticated candidate might have rolled with the punches; Trump reflexively hit back.
The president went on Twitter calling them “losers” and repeated the insult to White House reporters. That free publicity resulted in $2 million in donations to the Lincoln Project in 24 hours.
And they didn’t just target the president. After debating the best way to use a prime billboard in Manhattan’s Time Square, the group decided to mock Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. The billboard depicted the smiling couple dismissing New Yorkers suffering from covid-19 — which Kushner waved off as “that’s their problem,” in a March 2020 meeting with business leaders, reported Vanity Fair.
Predictably, the couple threatened to sue the Lincoln Project, demanding that the billboard come down. The group responded with delight, pointed out that Kushner had, indeed, expressed that sentiment and they were White House officials. The Lincoln Project immediately raised $1.5 million, and put a copy of the billboard on a boat circling Mar-a-Lago. Said co-founder Rick Wilson: “It’s offensive that they think we’d be intimidated.”
The group was about more than viral ads
It was the social media ads — specifically “Mourning in America” — that catapulted the Lincoln Project into the national spotlight. Behind the scenes the operation functioned less like a media shop and more like a traditional campaign war room.
The staff — by then a combination of veteran consultants and young idealists — formed a rapid response team to react in real time to every twist in the final weeks of the campaign with the mantra “Look for the weak spot every day.” They calculated that Biden would need to flip 4 million GOP voters to win. It was a sophisticated numbers game, backed by polls and data that was overshadowed by viral ads that got more than 200 million views on YouTube.
There was no shortage of egos in the room
The Lincoln Project was a profane, testosterone-heavy workplace. There were egos, clashes, backstabbing — just like most political campaigns. Plus a pandemic. Staffers were exhausted, frustrated, excited, marginalized, hopeful and angry — the series shows them high-fiving one day, threatening to quit the next.
In short, the series is a crash course in modern political consulting. Cockeyed optimists need not apply.
One subtext: America’s campaign finance system is broken, and there’s no fix in sight.
Political consultants used to get a fee from the campaign; now they form political action committees and get a percentage from media buys — a multimillion enterprise with few rules. The Lincoln Project paid Facebook $450,000 for just seven days of advertising; the group raised a total of $90 million to defeat Trump. There was even talk that it would spin off into a high-powered media company after the election, which did not happen.
Trump supporters called the founders grifters and “self-serving RINOS” — charges they called ridiculous in light of Trump’s fundraising. But, inevitably, there were questions about where the Lincoln Project spent the money and who got rich — disputes that ended in accusations, denials and finger-pointing among the leadership. They were united when it came to Trump; they fell apart when it came to dividing the spoils.
John Weaver became a huge problem
John Weaver, one of the co-founders, is an offstage character in the miniseries, discussed but not followed by any cameras. When the series begins, he’s recovering from a heart attack and essentially ignored by the other principals who reject his request to pour $10 million into Texas. It isn’t until 2021 that the New York Times reported he had made online sexual overtures to a number of young men while offering help with their careers in politics. (Weaver issued an apology and stated that he believed his interactions were consensual; he left the organization.)
The other founders immediately disavowed him and any knowledge of his actions. Former staffers claim the founders must have known and buried it. There were more resignations; Weaver became the flash point for all the pent-up grievances within the organization.
The Lincoln Project staff recognized early on that Trump’s claims of a rigged vote — long before Election Day — was more than rhetoric. It was the groundwork for what in the series they repeatedly call a “coup.” So the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, was shocking but not surprising, but the ability for the group to weigh in was crippled by internal battles and the fact that the political team was dismissed after the election.
At its core, the miniseries is about Trumpism as much as it is about the Lincoln Project. A stripped down version of the organization still exists, fighting, say the founders, for the future of democracy. The political well has been poisoned; the digital age of misinformation may be the downfall of the American experiment, they warn. The pot calling the kettle black? Sure, but that doesn’t mean they’re wrong.
What it all means for 2022 — and 2024 — remains a question this documentary cannot answer.
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Heres What Elon Musk Will Likely Do With Twitter If He Buys It
Here’s What Elon Musk Will Likely Do With Twitter If He Buys It https://digitalalaskanews.com/heres-what-elon-musk-will-likely-do-with-twitter-if-he-buys-it/
By the end of this month, Elon Musk may finally own Twitter, after the mercurial billionaire changed his mind yet again this week about buying the social network for $44 billion.
On Thursday, a judge gave Musk and Twitter until Oct. 28 to close their deal, end a bitter months-long legal fight and avoid a high-profile trial. While there’s no certainty Musk may not have another change of heart, if he does assume control of Twitter, what would that look like? He has given hints but also left plenty of questions unanswered.
When it comes to speech, anything goes
When Musk agreed to buy Twitter back in April, he said he would “unlock” the company’s potential by advancing free speech and “defeating the spam bots.”
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” he said in the official deal announcement.
It’s a theme he reiterated both in public, telling Twitter employees at an all-staff meeting that the platform should allow all legal speech, and in private, texting investor Antonio Gracias that “Free speech matters most when it’s someone you hate spouting what you think is bull****.”
Musk has been loudly critical of Twitter’s rules aimed at curbing harassment, hate speech, extremism and misinformation about elections and public health, arguing that the company’s efforts to promote what it has long called “healthy conversations” are too restrictive.
His contacts and supporters egged on that view, according to text messages released in court filings last week.
“Are you going to liberate Twitter from the censorship happy mob?” podcast host Joe Rogan wrote to Musk the day Musk revealed his stake in Twitter. “I will provide advice, which they may or may not choose to follow,” Musk replied.
Experts who study social networks warn that overhauling Twitter to allow all legal speech would open the floodgates to toxicity, from misogynist, racist and transphobic abuse to false claims about the security of voting and the effectiveness of vaccines.
For a “keyhole view of what Twitter under Musk will look like,” just look at alternative platforms such as Parler, Gab and Truth Social that promise fewer restrictions on speech, said Angelo Carusone, president of the liberal nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters for America.
On those sites, he said, “the feature is the bug — where being able to say and do the kinds of things that are prohibited from more mainstream social media platforms is actually why everyone gravitates to them. And what we see there is that they are cauldrons of misinformation and abuse.”
Trump and other banned figures are likely to return
On top of loosening content moderation rules, a Musk-owned Twitter would also likely usher in the return of former President Donald Trump. After the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Twitter permanently banned Trump for breaking its rules against inciting violence.
In May, Musk said that the ban “was a morally bad decision, to be clear, and foolish in the extreme” and pledged to reverse the ban.
But it’s not just Trump — Musk has been vocally skeptical of the notion that anyone should be permanently banned from Twitter, with few exceptions.
“Would be great to unwind permanent bans, except for spam accounts and those that explicitly advocate violence,” he texted Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal shortly after agreeing to join the company’s board (a decision he soon backtracked).
That could mean lifting bans on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was kicked off for abusive behavior in 2018; Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., whose account was suspended in January for tweeting misleading and false claims about COVID-19 vaccines; and 2020 election deniers like Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell, who were all banned in early 2021.
One person who texted Musk in the days after his Twitter stake became public (whose name was redacted in court documents) advised the billionaire that “it will be a delicate game of letting right wingers back on Twitter and how to navigate that (especially the boss himself, if you’re up for that)” — an apparent reference to Trump.
The person urged Musk to hire “someone who has a savvy cultural/political view” to lead enforcement, suggesting “a Blake Masters type.” Masters is the Republican Senate candidate in Arizona who has been endorsed by Trump and has echoed his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
Allowing Trump and others to return could set a precedent for other social networks, including Meta-owned Facebook, which is considering whether to reinstate the former president when its own ban on him expires in January 2023.
“If Trump is replatformed on Twitter, it makes it easier for [Meta president of global affairs] Nick Clegg and [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg to say, ‘Well, he’s already back on Twitter. We might as well let him back on Facebook,’” said Nicole Gill, executive director of Accountable Tech, a progressive advocacy group.
Management shake-up, staff departures
Musk is also expected to shake things up internally at Twitter. Agrawal, who succeeded Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey in the CEO role less than a year ago, will likely head for the exit, potentially with a $42 million payout.
Musk’s texts reveal that an initially cautiously friendly relationship between the two men when Musk first invested quickly soured after Agrawal told Musk that his tweets criticizing the platform were “not helping me make Twitter better.”
“What did you get done this week?” Musk snapped, before telling Agrawal that he was not joining the board and would make an offer to buy Twitter instead.
After a video meeting a few weeks later with Agrawal and Musk, Dorsey tersely summed up the situation in a text to Musk: “At least it became clear that you can’t work together. That was clarifying.”
It’s unclear whom Musk might install in Twitter’s management ranks. His contacts floated various ideas in text messages, including a former Uber executive who once suggested spying on critical journalists, and investor Jason Calacanis, who volunteered himself for CEO, but Musk didn’t bite on any of the suggestions.
This has fueled speculation that Musk, who already runs multiple companies, could take the reins himself.
“Please send me anyone who actually writes good software,” Musk wrote to one investor. “I will oversee software development.”
Whoever is in charge of day-to-day operations will likely be faced with a smaller workforce. Hundreds of employees have reportedly left in the months since the Musk saga began, with many inside Twitter disheartened by Musk’s plans to overhaul the company.
That is likely welcome news to the billionaire, who has complained that Twitter’s costs outstrip revenues and has implied the company is overstaffed for its size.
An “everything” app?
Costs and staff cuts are only two pieces of the equation. In the spring, Musk pitched investors that he would quintuple Twitter’s annual revenue to $26.4 billion by 2028 and attract 931 million users by that same year, up from 217 million at the end of 2021, according to an investor presentation obtained by The New York Times.
Today, Twitter makes nearly all its money from advertising, but Musk wants to shift away from that business model to making money from charging users subscription fees, licensing data and building out a payments business, according to the presentation.
He may have little choice other than to find alternate sources of revenue besides advertising, given the weak state of the digital ad market and the changes he wants to make to content moderation.
“Advertisers want to know that their ads are not going to appear alongside extremists, that they’re not going to be subsidizing or associating with the types of things that would turn off potential customers,” Carusone said.
This week, after Musk said he wanted to go ahead with the deal after all, he tweeted, “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”
What exactly he meant is, as always, anyone’s guess. But this summer, Musk told Twitter staff that the company should emulate WeChat, the Chinese “super-app” that combines social media, messaging, payments, shopping, ride-hailing — basically, anything you might use your phone to do.
“You basically live on WeChat in China,” Musk said in June. “If we can re-create that with Twitter, we’ll be a great success.”
Other American tech companies, including Facebook and Uber, have tried this strategy, but so far Chinese-style super-apps haven’t caught on in the United States.
But Musk is optimistic. “Twitter probably accelerates X by 3 to 5 years,” he tweeted, “but I could be wrong.”
Editor’s note: Facebook parent Meta pays NPR to license NPR content.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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North American Morning Briefing: Jobs Report Eyed -2-
North American Morning Briefing: Jobs Report Eyed -2- https://digitalalaskanews.com/north-american-morning-briefing-jobs-report-eyed-2/
High inflation is proving to be more persistent than anticipated and has created a strong case for the Federal Reserve to lift and then hold interest rates at levels that will slow economic activity, a central bank official said Thursday.
The Fed will need to keep rates at restrictive levels “until we are confident that inflation is firmly on the path toward our 2% goal,” said Fed governor Lisa Cook in remarks at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, where she made her first speech since joining the central bank’s board this May.
U.S. Takes Aim at OPEC for Oil Production Cuts
WASHINGTON-OPEC’s decision to slash oil production has the U.S. considering responses that could include measures aimed at breaking the cartel’s hold on markets or limiting U.S. oil exports should shortages emerge.
The cutback by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its Russia-led allies is the latest dilemma for President Biden, who has sought to transition the U.S. away from fossil fuels while at the same time keeping consumer prices in check.
Elon Musk’s Revived Twitter Deal Could Saddle Banks With Big Losses
Banks that agreed to fund Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter Inc. are facing the possibility of big losses now that the billionaire has shifted course and indicated a willingness to follow through with the deal, in the latest sign of trouble for debt markets that are crucial for funding takeovers.
The $44 billion deal, which Mr. Musk had been trying to walk away from, would be paid for in part with some $13 billion of debt seven banks including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Corp. and Barclays PLC agreed to provide when the takeover was sealed in April.
EU Leaders Set to Clash Over Energy Prices at Prague Gathering
PRAGUE-European leaders who have been compromising on their response to Russia’s war in Ukraine all year now face a growing rift over how to offset the rising damage of high energy prices to their domestic economies.
Italy and several other countries will square off against Germany at a summit in Prague on Friday, in a spat that mirrors clashes from past crises. Heavily indebted countries fear that their wealthier neighbors will gain an unfair edge by supporting their businesses and consumers.
Higher Australian Interest Rates Pushing Some Borrowers Closer to Default, RBA Says
SYDNEY-The Reserve Bank of Australia said Friday that higher official interest rates are already hitting the ability of some borrowers to repay loans, identifying a small group of borrowers who run the risk of defaulting.
In its latest report card of financial stability, the RBA said “there is a small group of borrowers who could fail to meet debt payments due to low savings and high levels of debt.”
Glynn’s Take: RBA Has Stuck Its Neck Out by Slowing Rate Increases
SYDNEY-The Reserve Bank of Australia stuck its neck out a long way this week by slowing the pace of interest-rate increases despite global central banks continuing to tighten policy aggressively and warning of more to come.
For RBA Gov. Philip Lowe, raising the official cash rate by 25 basis points rather than the expected 50 basis points was a clear declaration that the RBA will set policy according to Australian conditions.
Higher Australian Interest Rates Pushing Some Borrowers Closer to Default, RBA Says
SYDNEY-The Reserve Bank of Australia said Friday that higher official interest rates are already hitting the ability of some borrowers to repay loans, identifying a small group of borrowers who run the risk of defaulting.
In its latest report card of financial stability, the RBA said “there is a small group of borrowers who could fail to meet debt payments due to low savings and high levels of debt.”
German Industry Contracted in August, Energy Intensive Branches Particularly Hurt
Germany’s industrial production fell in August as demand for goods moderated and factories grappled with high energy prices and supply bottlenecks.
Total industrial output–comprising production in manufacturing, energy and construction–decreased 0.8% on month in August, data from the German statistics office Destatis showed Friday. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected a 0.5% decline.
U.N. Nuclear Agency Warns of Increased Risk at Ukraine’s Largest Nuclear Plant
KYIV, Ukraine-The head of the United Nations’ nuclear agency warned on Thursday that staff at Europe’s largest nuclear-power plant are under increasing pressure after Russian authorities attempted this week to deepen their control over the plant, posing a heightened safety risk.
Russia’s capture of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear-power plant in southeastern Ukraine in March and a resulting struggle with Ukraine, along with shelling near the occupied facility, have raised global concern about the risk of an atomic catastrophe. The Ukrainian engineers staffing the plant have continued to operate it since Russia’s military took control of it.
Donald Trump PAC Jumps Into Ohio, Pennsylvania Senate Races
Donald Trump is jumping into the midterm-election ad wars with a pair of spots in the hotly contested Pennsylvania and Ohio Senate races, the first wave in what is expected to be millions of dollars in spending from the former president’s new political-action committee.
Mr. Trump, who has faced pressure to use his fundraising resources to help Republican candidates, had before this week spent modestly-and not on TV ads for candidates. He preferred instead to stage boisterous rallies in battleground states.
Appeals Court Allows Florida to Prohibit Businesses From Requiring Proof of Covid-19 Vaccination
A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Florida can bar businesses from requiring proof of Covid-19 vaccination of their customers.
The 2-1 ruling from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out a lower-court ruling that had found the state’s prohibition on proof of vaccination violated the speech rights of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd., which challenged it in court.
Prosecutors Hold Off Final Hunter Biden Case Decision Amid Talks With Defense Lawyers
Prosecutors are holding off on a final decision on whether to bring a case against President Biden’s son, Hunter, while they review defense evidence in the long-running investigation, people familiar with the matter said.
Investigators for months have believed there is enough evidence to charge the younger Mr. Biden with tax crimes and a false statement related to a gun he purchased, and had expected a case to be brought by the end of the summer, the people said.
Trump Hasn’t Returned All Documents, DOJ Officials Believe
A senior Justice Department official recently told Donald Trump’s legal team that law-enforcement officials don’t believe the former president returned all of the government documents he took with him when he left the White House, people familiar with the matter said.
The communication from Jay Bratt, chief of the Department of Justice’s counterintelligence and export-control section, was the latest indication that the government is still seeking some records it believes Mr. Trump should have relinquished at the end of his administration. The National Archives and Records Administration told Congress late last month that it hadn’t recovered all of the presidential records that were supposed to be turned over, adding that there was “no easy way to establish absolute accountability.”
Write to paul.larkins@dowjones.com TODAY IN CANADA
Earnings:
MTY Food 3Q
Tilray Brands 1Q
Economic Indicators (ET):
1230 Sep Labour Force Survey
Market Talk:
Bank of Canada Rate Peak Depends on Economy’s Evolution
Bank of Canada Gov. Tiff Macklem said interest rates will continue to rise and remain elevated until the central bank is satisfied that consumer demand has sufficiently cooled and inflation expectations are in check. His comments came in a Thursday night interview broadcast on Canada’s Global Television Network.
“How high rates go and for how long will depend on the evolution of the economy and the evolution of inflation,” Macklem said.
Earlier Thursday, he said in a speech that further rate rises are warranted as there’s little evidence underlying, or core, inflation has decelerated. He added in the broadcast interview that rate policy would also be contingent on how quickly or slowly there is a resolution to supply-chain constraints at the global and domestic level.
Expected Major Events for Friday
00:01/UK: Sep KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs
05:00/JPN: Aug Indexes of Business Conditions – Preliminary Release
06:00/GER: Aug Foreign trade price indices
06:00/GER: Aug Retail Trade
06:00/GER: Aug Industrial Production Index
06:00/UK: Sep Halifax House Price Index
06:00/UK: 3Q Halifax House Price Index: UK Regional Breakdown quarterly release
06:45/FRA: Aug Foreign trade
06:45/FRA: Aug Balance of Payments
08:00/ITA: Aug Retail Sales
08:59/JPN: Aug Provisional Labour Survey – Earnings, Employment & Hours Worked
12:30/US: Sep U.S. Employment Report
12:30/CAN: Sep Labour Force Survey
14:00/US: Aug Monthly Wholesale Trade
19:00/US: Aug Consumer Credit
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Expected Earnings for Friday
Enochian Biosciences Inc (ENOB) is expected to report for 4Q.
MTY Food Group Inc (MTY.T) is expected to report $0.96 for 3Q.
Matrix Service (MTRX) is expected to report $-0.14 for 4Q.
Nautilus (NLS) is expected to report $-0.50 for 2Q.
Tilray Inc (TLRY) is expected to report $-0.07 for 1Q.
bebe stores (BEBE) is expected to report for 4Q.
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ANALYST RATINGS ACTIONS
Adeia Cut to Buy From Top Pick by BWS Financial
Ally Financial Inc Cut to Market Perform From Outperform by Raymond James
AutoNation Cut to Neutral From Overweight by JP Morgan
BTRS Holdings Cut to Sector Weight Fr...
Credit Suisse Pays Down Debt To Calm Investors https://digitalalaskanews.com/credit-suisse-pays-down-debt-to-calm-investors/
Bank to buy back up to $3 billion of debt
Bid to reassure investors
Move comes weeks ahead of planned overhaul
ZURICH, Oct 7 (Reuters) – Credit Suisse (CSGN.S) will buy back up to 3 billion Swiss francs ($3 billion) of debt, an attempt by the Swiss bank to show its financial muscle and reassure investors concerned about the lender’s overhaul and how much it may cost.
Speculation about the bank’s future gathered pace on social media in the past week amid anticipation it may need to raise billions of francs in fresh capital, sending its stock and some bonds to new lows.
The buyback trims the bank’s debts and is an attempt to bolster confidence. But central questions about its restructuring – and whether or not it will need fresh capital to fund it – remain open.
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One of the largest banks in Europe, Credit Suisse is trying to recover from a string of scandals, including losing more than $5 billion from the collapse of investment firm Archegos last year, when it also had to suspend client funds linked to failed financier Greensill.
Bank executives spent last weekend reassuring large clients and investors about its financial strength. CEO Ulrich Koerner also told staff in a memo it had sufficient capital and liquidity. read more
Seeking to underscore this, the bank said the buyback would “allow us to take advantage of market conditions to repurchase debt at attractive prices”.
Investors took heart. Credit Suisse shares gained as much as 3% in early Friday trading, while the price of its euro-denominated bonds rose.
“It’s an opportunistic move to take advantage of market conditions that might be reassuring to some investors,” said Vontobel analyst Andreas Venditti. “If bought below par, a gain results that will increase capital slightly.”
TROUBLED CHAPTER
Earlier this week, in an unusual move, the Swiss National Bank, which oversees the financial stability of systemically important banks in Switzerland, said it was monitoring the situation at Credit Suisse.
Banks are deemed systemically important if their failure would undermine the Swiss economy and financial system.
Credit Suisse’s move is reminiscent of a multibillion-euro debt buyback by Deutsche Bank in 2016, when it faced a similar crisis and doubts over its future.
Dixit Joshi, a former Deutsche executive, has recently joined Credit Suisse as finance chief.
Zuercher Kantonalbank said the bonds were currently trading at a high discount, which allowed Credit Suisse to cut debt at a low cost. Analyst Christian Schmidiger said the move was also a “signal that Credit Suisse has sufficient liquidity”.
Credit Suisse said it was making a 1 billion euro cash tender offer in relation to eight euro- or sterling-denominated senior debt securities and another offer to buy back 12 U.S. dollar-denominated senior debt securities for up to $2 billion.
The developments unfolded after sources recently told Reuters that Credit Suisse was sounding out investors for fresh cash, approaching them for the fourth time in around seven years.
Under a restructuring launched by Chairman Axel Lehmann, the bank envisions shrinking its investment bank to focus even more on its flagship wealth management business.
Over the past three quarters alone, losses have added up to nearly 4 billion Swiss francs. Given the uncertainties, the bank’s financing costs have surged.
The bank is due to present its new business strategy on Oct. 27, when it announces third-quarter results.
Rating agency Moody’s Investors Service expects losses for Credit Suisse to swell to $3 billion by year-end, Moody’s lead analyst on the bank told Reuters on Thursday. read more
The bank has also said it is looking to sell its upmarket Savoy Hotel, one of the best-known hotels in Zurich. read more
($1 = 0.9897 Swiss francs)
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Writing by John Revill and John O’Donnell; additional reporting by Amanda Cooper in London; editing by Jason Neely and Mark Potter
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Thailand's Day Care Massacre Unites Families And A Country In Grief | CNN
Thailand's Day Care Massacre Unites Families And A Country In Grief | CNN https://digitalalaskanews.com/thailands-day-care-massacre-unites-families-and-a-country-in-grief-cnn/
01:59 – Source: CNN
‘I didn’t expect he would also kill the kids’: Nursery teacher describes horror of deadly massacre
Uthai Sawan, Thailand CNN —
Smears of dried blood still stained the wooden floor of a classroom in northern Thailand on Friday, a day after the country’s worst massacre unfolded in perhaps one of the most unlikely places.
At the Child Development Center Uthai Sawan, school bags sat uncollected on colored shelves, and photos of children smiled from the wall, clipped into place with pegs near cardboard cut-outs of ladybirds.
Outside, sobbing parents sat on blue plastic chairs in a makeshift shed, nursing their grief and clinging to each other and their children’s blankets and bottles, any reminder of life, as officials finalized plans for a visit from the country’s top leaders.
More than 20 young children ages 2-5 lost their lives in this classroom during nap time on Thursday when a former policeman armed with a knife and handgun forced his way inside and slashed them in their sleep.
In a strange mix of grief and grandeur, at the center’s front door, a red carpet had been rolled out for the delivery of a floral wreath, a gift from the Royal Highness Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana Rajakanya, the King’s youngest daughter.
Later Friday, King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida are due to fly north from the Grand Palace in Bangkok to meet the families of the dead and the six injured, still receiving medical care in Nong Bua Lamphu Hospital.
Their visit will follow that of the country’s prime minister, Prayut Chan-o-cha, who arrived earlier Friday to visit the hospital and meet with families at the relief center set up by the government.
Thailand is accustomed to the underlying tensions that come in a nation governed by leaders of a military coup, but violence of the type perpetrated on Thursday is rare. The last mass death in the southeast Asian country was two years ago, when a former soldier went on a rampage at a military site before targeting shoppers at a mall in Nakhon Ratchasima Province, known as Korat, further south.
In that case, the shooter was said to have erupted after an argument with another soldier over a land-selling commission fee. In this case, the motive is unclear but after terrorizing the childcare center, Panya Kamrab, a 34-year-old former policeman drove home and shot his wife and child, before taking his own life.
The total death toll was 36, including Panya’s wife and two-year-old stepson, who normally attended that day care center, but who wasn’t there when the officer came searching for him. The toddler’s death takes the number of children killed to 24.
Drugs may have played a role – officials said Panya had appeared in court that morning on drug possession charges – though blood tests are being carried out to determine if drugs were in his system at the time of the attack.
“Regarding the motivation, the police have not ruled out any possibilities, it could be from personal stress, or a hallucination from drugs, we have ordered a blood test,” Royal Thai Police said in a statement.
The results may give some answers as to why it happened – but they won’t put an end to the inconsolable grief felt throughout this small, close knit community, or solve the question of how to stop it from happening again.
Nopparat Phewdam sat outside the day care center on Friday with other parents, though she lost her brother in the attack. Unlike others there, Nopparat knew the killer. She said he was a frequent customer to her convenience store and often came in with his stepson. “He seemed polite and spoke softly,” she said.
Details of the massacre have been slow to emerge, but the accounts given so far describe a man armed to kill, who didn’t hesitate to attack innocent children, and even shot dead a pregnant staff member who was a month away from giving birth.
One staff member said Panya entered the center around noon, while two other staff members were having lunch. They heard sounds “like fire crackers” and saw two colleagues collapse on the floor. “Then he pulled another gun from his waist…I didn’t expect he would also kill the kids,” they said.
Most of the deaths were the result of “stabbing wounds,” local police chief Major General Paisan Luesomboon told CNN. First responders told CNN of the grim scene that awaited them – most injuries were to the head, they said.
In the any community, the loss of 36 people in one atrocity would be keenly felt, but the deaths of so many young children in a small rural area has shaken the village of around 6,300 people.
Distraught families sat side by side outside the center, united in grief, as they waited Friday for details of government support.
They included the heavily pregnant mother of four-year-old Thawatchai Siphu, also known as Dan, who was too distraught to speak. Dan’s grandmother, Oy Yodkhao, told CNN the family had been excited to welcome a new baby brother.
Now their joy is drowned in loss and disbelief that someone could murder innocent children.
“I couldn’t imagine there would be this kind of people,” said Oy. “I could not imagine he was this cruel to children.”
Also sitting in numb grief were Pimpa Thana and Chalermsilp Kraosai, the parents of talkative twin boys, Weerapat and Worapon, who were yet to celebrate their fourth birthday – with two children, their family had been complete.
Pimpa said her mother had phoned her to tell her there’d been a shooting at the day care center. “At that time I was not aware that my children were dead, my husband kept the news from me. I know it after I returned home.”
Rows of small toddler-sized coffins in white and pale pink were laid on the ground as police retrieved the bodies from the classroom Thursday.
Across the country on Friday, people wore black and flags flew at half-staff at government buildings, as thoughts turned to what lessons could be learned from a massacre within the walls of a classroom.
Gregory Raymond from Australian National University says he sees parallels between the mass shooting in 2020 and what happened Thursday at the day care center. Both perpetrators had served as officers in a country with a strong policing and military presence.
“These are young men. They appear to have become alienated in some way. And they had access to weapons,” he said.
It’s not known what mental issues Panya had been suffering, though it was believed he had a long-term drug problem – a growing issue in the country’s north, near the border and the Golden Triangle, a global hub for illicit drugs.
Last year, officials seized a record amount of methamphetamine – nearly 172 tons – in East and Southeast Asia in 2021, including the first haul of over 1 billion methamphetamine tablets.
“There’s a lot of manufacturing going on in the Mekong sub region, and there’s also a lot of trafficking through Thailand,” said Raymond. “So all of that means that there’s more people who are developing problems with methamphetamine, and I think that has to be seen as a pretty significant cause of what’s happened here.”
The mix of drugs and mental health issues among the forces is a problem Thailand needs to address, he added.
“Thailand might have to start to think more about how it manages mental health amongst professionals, particularly those who have access to guns, or who have become used to having used to having violence as a kind of tool for their occupation.”
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Police: 2 Dead 6 Injured In Stabbings Along Las Vegas Strip
Police: 2 Dead, 6 Injured In Stabbings Along Las Vegas Strip https://digitalalaskanews.com/police-2-dead-6-injured-in-stabbings-along-las-vegas-strip/
An attacker with a large kitchen knife killed two people and wounded six others in stabbings along the Las Vegas Strip before he was arrested Thursday, police said.Three people were hospitalized in critical condition and another three were in stable condition, according to Las Vegas police, who said they began receiving 911 calls about the stabbings around 11:40 a.m. across the street from the Wynn casino and hotel.Yoni Barrios, 32, was booked on two counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder late Thursday, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.Barrios, who is not a Las Vegas resident, was detained by Sands security guards and Metropolitan Police Department officers while running on a Strip sidewalk, police said.“This was an isolated incident,” Metro Police Deputy Chief James LaRochelle said in a statement. “All evidence indicates Barrios acted alone and there are no outstanding suspects at this time.”Police said they were continuing to investigate the motive but do not believe there was an altercation before the attacks.The Clark County coroner’s office identified the victims who were killed as Brent Allan Hallett, 47, and Maris Mareen Digiovanni, 30, both Las Vegas residents, the Review-Journal reported.The names of those wounded in the attack were not immediately released.Video below: Police provide update on Las Vegas stabbingsThe initial stabbing was unprovoked and on the eastern sidewalk of Las Vegas Boulevard. The suspect then headed south and stabbed others, LaRochelle said.The man fled and was followed by 911 callers before he was taken into custody, authorities said. Police recovered the “large knife with a long blade” believed to have been used, LaRochelle said, calling the case a “hard-to-comprehend murder investigation.”There were no other suspects in the case and “the Strip is secure,” Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said.“Locals and tourists are the victims of this crime,” Lombardo said.Witnesses told Las Vegas TV stations that some of the victims appeared to be showgirls or street performers who take pictures with tourists on the Strip.The suspect told a woman that he was a chef who wanted to take a picture with some of the showgirls with his knife, but he started stabbing people when the group declined the man’s offer, the woman told KTNV.Jason Adams told KLAS that he witnessed the attack on a showgirl.“This guy came, ran up, and started stabbing this lady in front of me and she ran around the escalators and she tried to get up under the bridge and her girlfriend was trying to help her,” Adams said, adding that the attack happened very quickly.Pierre Fandrich, a tourist from Canada, told KTNV that he did not see the stabbing suspect as he was walking along the Strip. But he said he thought he heard “three or four showgirls laughing,” and it turned out to be screaming.Fandrich said he saw “a lot of blood” as one woman ran across a bridge, one was on the ground, and another had a stab wound on her back as she tried to help the fallen woman.Fandrich also told KTNV that he thought one of the victims fell from the bridge because there was so much blood on the ground.Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak posted a message on social media saying, “Our hearts are with all those affected by this tragedy.”“At the State level, we will continue to work with partners in law enforcement to make resources available on the ground and ensure the Las Vegas Strip remains a safe and welcoming place for all to visit,” Sisolak said.
CLARK COUNTY, Nev. —
An attacker with a large kitchen knife killed two people and wounded six others in stabbings along the Las Vegas Strip before he was arrested Thursday, police said.
Three people were hospitalized in critical condition and another three were in stable condition, according to Las Vegas police, who said they began receiving 911 calls about the stabbings around 11:40 a.m. across the street from the Wynn casino and hotel.
Yoni Barrios, 32, was booked on two counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder late Thursday, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Barrios, who is not a Las Vegas resident, was detained by Sands security guards and Metropolitan Police Department officers while running on a Strip sidewalk, police said.
“This was an isolated incident,” Metro Police Deputy Chief James LaRochelle said in a statement. “All evidence indicates Barrios acted alone and there are no outstanding suspects at this time.”
Police said they were continuing to investigate the motive but do not believe there was an altercation before the attacks.
The Clark County coroner’s office identified the victims who were killed as Brent Allan Hallett, 47, and Maris Mareen Digiovanni, 30, both Las Vegas residents, the Review-Journal reported.
The names of those wounded in the attack were not immediately released.
Video below: Police provide update on Las Vegas stabbings
The initial stabbing was unprovoked and on the eastern sidewalk of Las Vegas Boulevard. The suspect then headed south and stabbed others, LaRochelle said.
The man fled and was followed by 911 callers before he was taken into custody, authorities said. Police recovered the “large knife with a long blade” believed to have been used, LaRochelle said, calling the case a “hard-to-comprehend murder investigation.”
There were no other suspects in the case and “the Strip is secure,” Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said.
“Locals and tourists are the victims of this crime,” Lombardo said.
Witnesses told Las Vegas TV stations that some of the victims appeared to be showgirls or street performers who take pictures with tourists on the Strip.
The suspect told a woman that he was a chef who wanted to take a picture with some of the showgirls with his knife, but he started stabbing people when the group declined the man’s offer, the woman told KTNV.
Jason Adams told KLAS that he witnessed the attack on a showgirl.
“This guy came, ran up, and started stabbing this lady in front of me and she ran around the escalators and she tried to get up under the bridge and her girlfriend was trying to help her,” Adams said, adding that the attack happened very quickly.
Pierre Fandrich, a tourist from Canada, told KTNV that he did not see the stabbing suspect as he was walking along the Strip. But he said he thought he heard “three or four showgirls laughing,” and it turned out to be screaming.
Fandrich said he saw “a lot of blood” as one woman ran across a bridge, one was on the ground, and another had a stab wound on her back as she tried to help the fallen woman.
Fandrich also told KTNV that he thought one of the victims fell from the bridge because there was so much blood on the ground.
Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak posted a message on social media saying, “Our hearts are with all those affected by this tragedy.”
“At the State level, we will continue to work with partners in law enforcement to make resources available on the ground and ensure the Las Vegas Strip remains a safe and welcoming place for all to visit,” Sisolak said.
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Billionaire Elon Musk’s on-again, off-again bid to acquire Twitter advanced this week after he agreed to pay the $44 billion he had originally offered for the social media site. Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images hide caption
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Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images
Billionaire Elon Musk’s on-again, off-again bid to acquire Twitter advanced this week after he agreed to pay the $44 billion he had originally offered for the social media site.
Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images
By the end of this month, Elon Musk may finally own Twitter, after the mercurial billionaire changed his mind yet again this week about buying the social network for $44 billion.
On Thursday, a judge gave Musk and Twitter until Oct. 28 to close their deal, end a bitter months-long legal fight and avoid a high-profile trial. While there’s no certainty Musk may not have another change of heart, if he does assume control of Twitter, what would that look like? He has given hints but also left plenty of questions unanswered.
When it comes to speech, anything goes
When Musk agreed to buy Twitter back in April, he said he would “unlock” the company’s potential by advancing free speech and “defeating the spam bots.”
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” he said in the official deal announcement.
It’s a theme he reiterated both in public, telling Twitter employees at an all-staff meeting that the platform should allow all legal speech, and in private, texting investor Antonio Gracias that “Free speech matters most when it’s someone you hate spouting what you think is bull****.”
Musk has been loudly critical of Twitter’s rules aimed at curbing harassment, hate speech, extremism and misinformation about elections and public health, arguing that the company’s efforts to promote what it has long called “healthy conversations” are too restrictive.
His contacts and supporters egged on that view, according to text messages released in court filings last week.
“Are you going to liberate Twitter from the censorship happy mob?” podcast host Joe Rogan wrote to Musk the day Musk revealed his stake in Twitter. “I will provide advice, which they may or may not choose to follow,” Musk replied.
Experts who study social networks warn that overhauling Twitter to allow all legal speech would open the floodgates to toxicity, from misogynist, racist and transphobic abuse to false claims about the security of voting and the effectiveness of vaccines.
For a “keyhole view of what Twitter under Musk will look like,” just look at alternative platforms such as Parler, Gab and Truth Social that promise fewer restrictions on speech, said Angelo Carusone, president of the liberal nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters for America.
On those sites, he said, “the feature is the bug — where being able to say and do the kinds of things that are prohibited from more mainstream social media platforms is actually why everyone gravitates to them. And what we see there is that they are cauldrons of misinformation and abuse.”
Trump and other banned figures are likely to return
On top of loosening content moderation rules, a Musk-owned Twitter would also likely usher in the return of former President Donald Trump. After the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Twitter permanently banned Trump for breaking its rules against inciting violence.
In May, Musk said that the ban “was a morally bad decision, to be clear, and foolish in the extreme” and pledged to reverse the ban.
But it’s not just Trump — Musk has been vocally skeptical of the notion that anyone should be permanently banned from Twitter, with few exceptions.
“Would be great to unwind permanent bans, except for spam accounts and those that explicitly advocate violence,” he texted Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal shortly after agreeing to join the company’s board (a decision he soon backtracked).
That could mean lifting bans on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was kicked off for abusive behavior in 2018; Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., whose account was suspended in January for tweeting misleading and false claims about COVID-19 vaccines; and 2020 election deniers like Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell, who were all banned in early 2021.
One person who texted Musk in the days after his Twitter stake became public (whose name was redacted in court documents) advised the billionaire that “it will be a delicate game of letting right wingers back on Twitter and how to navigate that (especially the boss himself, if you’re up for that)” — an apparent reference to Trump.
The person urged Musk to hire “someone who has a savvy cultural/political view” to lead enforcement, suggesting “a Blake Masters type.” Masters is the Republican Senate candidate in Arizona who has been endorsed by Trump and has echoed his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
Allowing Trump and others to return could set a precedent for other social networks, including Meta-owned Facebook, which is considering whether to reinstate the former president when its own ban on him expires in January 2023.
“If Trump is replatformed on Twitter, it makes it easier for [Meta president of global affairs] Nick Clegg and [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg to say, ‘Well, he’s already back on Twitter. We might as well let him back on Facebook,'” said Nicole Gill, executive director of Accountable Tech, a progressive advocacy group.
Musk says that if he buys Twitter, he’ll make major changes to its business model, which currently depends on advertising. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images hide caption
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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Musk says that if he buys Twitter, he’ll make major changes to its business model, which currently depends on advertising.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Management shake-up, staff departures
Musk is also expected to shake things up internally at Twitter. Agrawal, who succeeded Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey in the CEO role less than a year ago, will likely head for the exit, potentially with a $42 million payout.
Musk’s texts reveal that an initially cautiously friendly relationship between the two men when Musk first invested quickly soured after Agrawal told Musk that his tweets criticizing the platform were “not helping me make Twitter better.”
“What did you get done this week?” Musk snapped, before telling Agrawal that he was not joining the board and would make an offer to buy Twitter instead.
After a video meeting a few weeks later with Agrawal and Musk, Dorsey tersely summed up the situation in a text to Musk: “At least it became clear that you can’t work together. That was clarifying.”
It’s unclear whom Musk might install in Twitter’s management ranks. His contacts floated various ideas in text messages, including a former Uber executive who once suggested spying on critical journalists, and investor Jason Calacanis, who volunteered himself for CEO, but Musk didn’t bite on any of the suggestions.
This has fueled speculation that Musk, who already runs multiple companies, could take the reins himself.
“Please send me anyone who actually writes good software,” Musk wrote to one investor. “I will oversee software development.”
Whoever is in charge of day-to-day operations will likely be faced with a smaller workforce. Hundreds of employees have reportedly left in the months since the Musk saga began, with many inside Twitter disheartened by Musk’s plans to overhaul the company.
That is likely welcome news to the billionaire, who has complained that Twitter’s costs outstrip revenues and has implied the company is overstaffed for its size.
An “everything” app?
Costs and staff cuts are only two pieces of the equation. In the spring, Musk pitched investors that he would quintuple Twitter’s annual revenue to $26.4 billion by 2028 and attract 931 million users by that same year, up from 217 million at the end of 2021, according to an investor presentation obtained by The New York Times.
Today, Twitter makes nearly all its money from advertising, but Musk wants to shift away from that business model to making money from charging users subscription fees, licensing data and building out a payments business, according to the presentation.
He may have little choice other than to find alternate sources of revenue besides advertising, given the weak state of the digital ad market and the changes he wants to make to content moderation.
“Advertisers want to know that their ads are not going to appear alongside extremists, that they’re not going to be subsidizing or associating with the types of things that would turn off potential customers,” Carusone said.
This week, after Musk said he wanted to go ahead with the deal after all, he tweeted, “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”
What exactly he meant is, as always, anyone’s guess. But this summer, Musk told Twitter staff that the company should emulate WeChat, the Chinese “super-app” that combines social media, messaging, payments, shopping, ride-hailing — basically, anything you might use your phone to do.
“You basically live on WeChat in China,” Musk said in June. “If we can re-create that with Twitter, we’ll be a great success.”
Other American tech companies, including Facebook and Uber, have tried this strategy, but so far Chinese-style super-apps haven’t caught on in the United States.
But Musk is optimistic. “Twitter probably accelerates X by 3 to 5 years,” he tweeted, “but I could be wrong.”
Editor’s note: Facebook parent Meta pays NPR to license NPR content.
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Maryland Governor Race: Democrat Wes Moore Has Huge Lead Over Republican Dan Cox In Poll
Maryland Governor Race: Democrat Wes Moore Has Huge Lead Over Republican Dan Cox In Poll https://digitalalaskanews.com/maryland-governor-race-democrat-wes-moore-has-huge-lead-over-republican-dan-cox-in-poll/
Emmett Gartner | Capital News Service
Maryland Democratic gubernatorial nominee Wes Moore holds a 32-percentage-point lead over Republican opponent Dan Cox in the governor’s race, according to a University of Maryland-Washington Post poll.
The poll’s results follow the Goucher College Poll, released on Sept. 19, in which 53% of Marylanders polled said they would vote for Moore and 31% percent for Cox.
The University of Maryland poll sampled 810 registered voters in Maryland by phone from Sept. 22–27. The poll used information from a research firm in the state to find and call registered voters, according to Michael Hanmer, professor and research director for the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement.
Cox released a statement on Monday calling the survey a “fake push poll that is tainted towards MOORE” and that it withheld some results from publication. Cox says a news article that contains withheld information from the university’s poll states “50% (of participants) choose Dan Cox, while only 39% chose his opponent.”
“That doesn’t make any sense to me,” Hanmer said. “I’m not sure what he is referring to. I’m not aware of anything not being revealed related to the questions about the governor’s race.”
Some of the questions and answers from university poll were held from release, Hanmer said, because they were not related to the gubernatorial race.
“For example, we asked some questions about setting the voting age at 16 versus 18, which is something that happens in a number of Maryland communities … that has nothing to do with the governor’s race,” he said. “Those questions came at the end of the survey.”
Hanmer said all data will eventually be released.
Capital News Service did not find the news article Cox referenced in his statement. Capital News Service reached out to Cox’s press secretary, Lucy Kruse, regarding the article and did not receive a response.
Economy high in people’s minds
In both polls, participants were asked what issues matter most to them. Sixty-four percent of voters in Goucher’s poll said the economy and taxes was most important for them, and 24% in the university’s poll said the economy was most important, which was followed closely in the university’s poll by “Threats to democracy” at 20%.
Crime was the third most important issue in the university poll at 16%
Nearly 60% of poll participants said Cox’s ideas and policies are “very similar” or ”similar” to former President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Cox’s candidacy and is scheduled to hold a $1,776 per person fundraiser for Cox Oct. 17 at Trump’s Mar-a Lago estate.
In comparison, the poll asked voters how important Moore becoming the first African-American governor in Maryland was in their voting decisions. Thirty-nine percent said “not at all” and 26% said “somewhat.”
MORE:Dan Cox has a steep path, from small-town official to Trump-backed governor’s candidate
MORE:From City Hall intern to Democratic nominee, Wes Moore has former mayor Schmoke behind him
With only 34 days from election day, 70% of those polled by the university said they were “certain to vote.”
Quincy Gamble, a Democratic operative who worked with former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during their campaigns, said while polls are not determinative of end election results, they are important in seeing where candidates stand in the race.
“You have to appreciate polls for what they are,” Gamble said. “They are a snapshot in time. They are affected by the news cycle and things that are happening with every political campaign. Polling over time has given us a really good shot of what’s going on in Maryland.”
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