curated news excerpts & citations
Yaroslav Trofimov @ WSJ: Putin’s Strongman Image Is Fading as Ukraine Brings War Home to Russia
Russian president’s ‘Victory Day’ cult backfires as conflict drags on longer than Soviet battle against Nazis
Ever since coming to power more than a quarter-century ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin has built a state religion around May 9, the anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany and the holiest day in the Russian calendar.
AP: Russia to hold a Victory Day parade without military equipment for the 1st time in nearly 2 decades
Irina Tsukerman @ Small Wars Journal: How America’s Adversaries Learned to Weaponize Reality
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Who is actually winning the wars in Ukraine and Iran, and what would victory even look like if neither battlefield momentum nor economic punishment produces political collapse? How much territory would Ukraine have to recover before Russia could be said to have lost? How much damage would Iran have to suffer before its regional position is truly weakened? If both regimes continue to function, mobilize support, and persuade their populations that the struggle remains necessary, then the more uncomfortable question will begin to surface: whether the real contest has already shifted away from terrain and toward something far less visible but ultimately more decisive.
Wars today increasingly turn on whether governments can control how reality itself is interpreted. …
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Christine Drews Sieger @ Dagens: Epstein document raises new questions about the final weeks in prison
An old document from Jeffrey Epstein’s time in prison has now been made public.
The case is not only about the note itself, but also about the chaotic events in the weeks before his death.
(Christine Drews Sieger @ Dagens more…)
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Paul Waldman: The Confederacy rises again
Undoing the 1960s isn’t enough. They’re even taking aim at the 1860s.
When the Supreme Court smashed the last meaningful vestiges of the Voting Rights Act last week, it took literally a matter of hours before the reigning political powers in one state of the old Confederacy after another began moving to eliminate Black representation in Congress.
Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, and Tennessee all look like they’ll get rid of some or all of their substantially Black districts, and other Southern states could follow. There was no hesitation, no deliberation, and no doubt about it: If the Court is going to let them eliminate any chance for Black representatives to get elected from their states, they’re going to do it.
And that’s just Congress; with the VRA effectively overturned, many will likely redraw their state legislative maps to rid themselves of Black political influence as well.
… The right never lost their faith that if they were patient and determined enough, the 1960s could be undone — and maybe some of the 1860s as well.
(Paul Waldman more…)Joyce Vance: The New Jim Crow
Jay Kuo: The DOJ Just Came For Virginia’s L. Louise Lucas
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – May 7, 2026
Today Tennessee state representative Justin Jones burned a Confederate battle flag in the rotunda of the Tennessee State Capitol in protest of the legislature’s redrawing of the state’s congressional district maps to erase the majority-Black 9th Congressional District. By cracking the city of Memphis into three pieces and joining them to white suburbs, the legislature turned all the state’s districts into Republican seats.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Shanelle Kaul, Costanza Maio, Suvro Banerji, Elli Fitzgerald @ CBS: Texas mother of 4 says “no one is safe” after spending more than 6 weeks in ICE custody
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Louise Nordstrom, Simon Feisthauer Fournet @ France24: Tehran says fired missiles after Iranian oil tanker came under US attack
Warren P. Strobel, John Hudson, Ellen Nakashima @ Washington Post: U.S. intelligence says Iran can outlast Trump’s Hormuz blockade for months
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Iran retains about 75 percent of its prewar inventories of mobile launchers and about 70 percent of its prewar stockpiles of missiles, a U.S. official said. The official said there is evidence that the regime has been able to recover and reopen almost all of its underground storage facilities, repair some damaged missiles and even assemble some new missiles that were nearly complete when the war began.Trump painted a rosier picture in Oval Office remarks on Wednesday, saying of Iran: “Their missiles are mostly decimated, they have probably 18, 19 percent, but not a lot by comparison to what they had.”
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Cassandra Swart @ People’s World: Hondurasgate: Recordings reveal alleged scheme to restore Trump ally to presidency
A leak of supposedly private audio recordings from Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegram—speculated to come from a source close to former Honduran president and convicted drug trafficker Juan Orlando Hernández—has unmasked an alleged plot to force regime change in Honduras and other Latin American countries.
Said to be spearheaded by U.S. President Donald Trump and supported by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Argentine President Javier Milei, and current Honduran President Nasry Asfura, the scheme involves an effort to engineer Hernández’s return to power and undermine left-led governments in other countries.
(Cassandra Swart @ People’s World more…)
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Catherine Armecin Martin @ International Business Times: Trump Reportedly ‘Gutted the CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program’ After Firing Cruise Ship Inspectors Before Hantavirus Outbreak
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Emily Atkin @ Heated: Trump’s NOAA cuts would save less than a day and a half of Iran War spending
There’s always money for war. But when it comes to protecting people from climate disasters, suddenly we’re told the cupboard is bare.
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Liz Dye: Trump Never Stopped Harassing E. Jean Carroll
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James Eagle: Wall Street has turned panic into muscle memory
(James Eagle more…)
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Joseph Cox @ 404 Media: ‘HELLO BOSS’: Inside the Chinese Realtime Deepfake Software Powering Scams Around the World
404 Media has obtained a copy of ‘Haotian AI’, a popular piece of realtime deepfake software marketed to scammers. It can turn a fraudster’s face into anyone else’s on WhatsApp, Zoom, and Teams.
(Joseph Cox @ 404 Media more…)
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Dean Blundell: Canada’s Quiet Boycott Is Crippling American Industries
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Antonia Mufarech, Selcuk Gokoluk @ Bloomberg: Chile Solar Panel Thefts Threaten Energy Infrastructure
The green technology has become more valuable as solar power goes mainstream.
(Antonia Mufarech, Selcuk Gokoluk @ Bloomberg more…)
Apocalypse Early Warning System
Al Jazeera Death toll and injuries live tracker
ICE Accountability Project
Sergio Martínez-Beltrán, Ximena Bustillo, Jasmine Garsd @ NPR: Deaths of migrants in ICE custody hit record high under Trump
- April 16: Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt
- March 25: Jose Guadalupe Ramos-Solano
- March 16: Royer Perez-Jimenez
- March 14: Naseer Paktiawil
- February 25: Nurul Amin Shah Alam
April 1 – Jennifer Peltz and Jake Offenhartz @ AP: Death of a refugee left at a Buffalo doughnut shop by Border Patrol is ruled a homicide - January 24: Alex Pretti
- January 14: Heber Sanchaz Dominguez
- January 14: Victor Manuel Diaz
- January 9: Parady La
- January 7: Renée Good
- January 6: Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz
- January 5: Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres
- January 3: Geraldo Lunas Campos
- December 31, 2025: Keith Porter
Suffering Under President Obama
NACDL Criminal Case Tracker
Texas Tribune: A Walk for Peace: photos of Fort Worth monks’ journey to Washington
Walk for Peace – Dhammacetiya – The Ancient Sacred Buddhist Scripture Stupas
Margaret Chase Smith: Declaration of Conscience
NPR: January 6, 2021: A visual archive
Accountability Initiative ICE List
GriftMatrix
Trump Action Tracker
Timeline: Tracking the Trump Justice Department’s Anti-Voting Shift
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
Trump Pardons Database
Project 2025 Tracker
DOGE Tracker
ProPublica: Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew
Wired: 6 Tools for Tracking the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Civil Liberties
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