Author: Reporter

“Scorched Earth” tactics: Russia accused of destroying Kakhovka dam in Kherson to submerge frontlines

A major dam in southern Ukraine collapsed on June 6, flooding villages, endangering crops, and threatening drinking water supplies as both sides in the war scrambled to evacuate residents and blamed each other for the destruction. Ukraine accused Russian forces of blowing up the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power station, which sits on the Dnieper River in an area Moscow has controlled for more than a year. Ukrainian officials used terms like “ecological disaster” and “terrorist act” to describe the torrent of water gushing through the broken dam and beginning to empty an upstream reservoir that is one of...

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A brutal invader: Ukraine aims to brand Russia as a “terrorist state” in hearings at top UN court

Lawyers for Ukraine told the United Nations’ top court on June 6 that Russia bankrolled a “campaign of intimidation and terror” by rebels in eastern Ukraine starting in 2014 and sought to replace Crimea’s multiethnic community with “discriminatory Russian nationalism” after its occupation and annexation of the region. The claims came at hearings at the International Court of Justice in a case brought by Kyiv against Russia linked to Moscow’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and the arming of rebels in eastern Ukraine in the years before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Ukraine wants the world court...

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Bipartisan lawmakers seek to fast-track federal funds for a Las Vegas-to-California bullet train

A bipartisan congressional group from Nevada and California asked the Biden administration in late April to fast-track federal funds for a private company to build a high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area. All six of Nevada’s elected federal lawmakers and four House members from California sent the letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. They said they were on board with a proposal from Brightline West to spend more than $10 billion to lay tracks along the Interstate 15 corridor. Traffic jams on the interstate often stretch for 15 miles (24 kilometers) near the...

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National Urban League says democracy for Black Americans is undermined by extremist political leaders

Extreme views adopted by some local, state and federal political leaders who try to limit what history can be taught in schools and seek to undermine how Black officials perform their jobs are among the top threats to democracy for Black Americans, the National Urban League said. Marc Morial, the former New Orleans mayor who leads the civil rights and urban advocacy organization, cited the most recent example: the vote this month by the Republican-controlled Tennessee House to oust two Black representatives for violating a legislative rule. The pair had participated in a gun control protest inside the chamber...

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Fort Bragg drops Confederate namesake for Fort Liberty in overdue effort to remove vestiges of slavery

Fort Bragg shed its Confederate namesake on June 2 to become Fort Liberty in a ceremony some veterans said was a small but important step in making the U.S. Army more welcoming to current and prospective Black service members. The change was part of a broad Department of Defense initiative, motivated by the 2020 George Floyd protests, to rename military installations that had been named after Confederate soldiers. The Black Lives Matter demonstrations that erupted nationwide after Floyd’s killing by a white police officer, coupled with ongoing efforts to remove Confederate monuments, turned the spotlight on the Army installations....

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Why social media is seen as the best platform to reach a younger generation with news content

If young people are spending so much time on social media, it stands to reason that is a good place to reach them with news. Operators of the News Movement are betting their business on that hunch. The company, which has been operating for more than a year, hopes to succeed despite journalism being littered with years of unsuccessful attempts to entice people in their 20s to become news consumers. The brainchild of former Dow Jones executives, the News Movement is using a staff of reporters with an average age of 25 to make tailored news content for sites...

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