Rachel Maddow on Wednesday drew a line between the scattered details emerging about Russia’s targeting of individual precincts in the 2016 election and the voter data gathered by Donald Trump’s team and the GOP.

Maddow pointed to Homeland security officials’ testimony Wednesday that at least 21 states were targeted by Russian hacking during the 2016 election.

Russia Cancels Diplomatic Meeting With U.S. in Wake of Latest Sanctions

MOSCOW — The Kremlin voiced displeasure Wednesday about new United States sanctions against Russia and called off much-anticipated talks with a senior U.S administration official in response.

The Trump administration announced Tuesday that it had imposed sanctions on 38 Russian individuals and firms over Russian activities in Ukraine. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the penalties were designed to “maintain pressure on Russia to work toward a diplomatic solution.”

A Lesson From My Hospital Bed: For-Profit Health Care Is a Merciless Sham

I came out of it for the first time in near darkness, couldn't lift my arms, couldn't lift my legs, couldn't rise to a sitting position, and there was a breathing mask over my nose and mouth methodically forcing air down my throat. I quickly learned to inhale with its rhythm. I had no idea where or when I was. Suddenly there was a bright light in my eyes and then faces, faces, barely visible, hands touching and voices murmuring too low to comprehend. Someone fiddled with the IV in my left hand and I floated away again.

Natural Born Buddies: The Shared Ideology of Oliver Stone and Vladimir Putin

“Have you ever been beaten?”

This is the question Vladimir Putin, barely suppressing a mischievous smile, asks Oliver Stone at the conclusion of The Putin Interviews, Stone’s ambitious, illuminating, and often bonkers series of conversations with the Russian strongman.

“Beaten?” Stone responds. “Oh yes, I’ve been beaten.”

“So it’s not going to be something new,” Putin says, now openly chuckling, “because you are going to suffer for what you are doing!”

“I know,” Stone says, nodding. “But it’s worth it.”

Vladimir Putin’s man in the Balkans

MOSCOW — If appearances are to be believed, Vladimir Putin has a new point man in the Balkans.

Nikolai Patrushev, a Kremlin hawk, career intelligence officer and close associate of the Russian president, is the head of Russia’s Security Council, known for his fiery nationalism, conspiratorial world view and extensive espionage experience.

The UN Just Called Out New York for Its Dangerous Anti-Abortion Policy

On Tuesday, the United Nations took a rare step and weighed in on a reproductive rights bill currently languishing in the New York state Senate and urged legislators to pass the legislation before the session ends tomorrow.

The bill, called the Reproductive Health Act, would remove language from New York law that makes getting an abortion after 24 weeks a criminal act—even when the pregnancy is a threat to the woman’s health or when the fetus is not viable—and another statute that criminalizes self-induced abortion. The two statutes in question, which have been on the books since before Roe v. Wade made abortion legal, make New York one of only a handful of states that explicitly make it illegal for a woman to end her own pregnancy.

Theresa May Wants To Fight Islamophobia in the U.K.? You Must Be Joking.

“There has been far too much tolerance of extremism,” declaimed Theresa May, standing outside Downing Street on Monday morning, “… and that means extremism of any kind, including Islamophobia.”

The British prime minister was speaking in the aftermath of a brutal terror attack near a London mosque in which a man drove a van into a group of Muslim worshippers. The alleged attacker, according to eyewitnesses, shouted: “I want to kill all Muslims.”

Jill Stein Isn’t Sorry

Had a few thousand votes in key Midwestern states gone to Hillary Clinton instead of Jill Stein, many on the left believe, America might be having a very different conversation today.

Instead, Democrats are still fuming about the role the Green Party nominee may have played in electing Donald Trump—who as president has celebrated the coal industry, promised to pull the United States out of the world’s most important climate agreement and refused to even say whether he believes global warming is real. All of that should be anathema to a party whose founding principles include a commitment to “ecological wisdom.”

European disunion

LONDON — As EU leaders meet this week, they will do so with a spring in their step. Economic growth is returning, pro-European candidates won out in the Netherlands and France, and Brexit looks like it could become a source of unity on the Continent rather than division. Among core EU members, there’s talk of a once-in-a-generation opportunity to spark genuine political and economic renewal. But as the focus turns to where the Union goes next, a new Chatham House report shows there is no consensus among the public or Europe’s elites about integration, and important divides remain in how different groups view the Union’s future.

Australia suspends air missions over Syria amid US-Russia tensions

Australia has suspended air combat missions over Syria after Russia threatened that it would treat any plane from the US-led coalition flying west of the Euphrates river as a potential target.

Russia said it was responding to US planes shooting down a Syrian air force jet on Sunday. The US said its planes had acted to defend US-backed forces seeking to capture Raqqa, the Islamic State (Isis) stronghold in north-east Syria.