As Trump Fumbles, Putin Prepares to Invade Neighbours

Recent Russian actions suggest a new stage of the Russian threat to Ukraine—and potentially to the Caucasus, Belarus or the Baltic states as well—that could presage a new large-scale military operation.

First, in 2016, Russia created 25 division formations and 15 brigades, while raising manpower by only 10,000 men. This suggests the possibility that Russia may aim to wage protracted large-scale war using the Soviet model, with a Soviet-type army composed of “skeleton units” that existed solely on paper until they were called up as part of the process of mass mobilization.

Former Breitbart News reporter joins Russian propaganda news agency Sputnik

Former Breitbart News investigative reporter Lee Stranahan is launching a radio show for Sputnik, a news organization owned and operated by the Russian government, the Atlantic reports.

“I’m on the Russian payroll now, when you work at Sputnik you’re being paid by the Russians,” Stranahan told the Atlantic’s Rosie Gray. “That’s what it is. I don’t have any qualms about it. Nothing about it really affects my position on stuff that I’ve had for years now.”

The Minnesota Eight Don’t Want to Be Deported to a Country They’ve Never Lived In

The Minnesota Eight are a group of Cambodian men in their thirties and forties with a troubled history in common: each came to the U.S. legally as a child refugee in the nineteen-eighties but later lost his green card after being convicted of a crime. By law, legal permanent residents are automatically deportable if they've committed an aggravated felony, and thousands of people every year are deported after completing prison terms. But when these men got out of prison they found themselves in a strange situation. Because of a long-standing diplomatic dispute between the U.S. and Cambodia, they were released rather than deported. Several of them got married and started families; they took jobs, and settled down. Twice a year, they were required to check in at their local Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office, in St. Paul, Minnesota, but after a few years these visits became routine. Then, last summer, when they each showed up for their appointments with ICE, they were abruptly rearrested, and informed that their deportations were back on schedule.

Indiana House passes a bill designed to cripple the state’s growing rooftop solar industry

The Indiana House voted Tuesday for a bill that opponents say will cripple the state’s solar industry.

If enacted, the bill would reduce the amount solar power users are compensated for routing unused electricity back on the grid.

Over the next five years, utilities would reduce net metering — a policy that ensures homeowners are compensated for electricity they add to the grid from solar generation — before bottoming out in 2022. Solar owners will then be compensated at much-reduced level, roughly around the wholesale price for electricity. The bill would also put a legislative cap on the amount of non-utility solar in the state.

Cop ignored instructions before shooting at a man playing with a toy truck

Behavioral therapist Charles Kinsey made headlines last year when video circulated of him laying on his back —unarmed, hands raised in the air — before a North Miami police officer shot him in the leg.

Before he was shot and handcuffed, Kinsey pleaded with officers not to shoot him or his autistic patient, Arnaldo Rios, who was playing with a toy truck in the middle of the street. Within hours, a local police union chief reported that the shooting officer, Jonathan Aledda, had actually been aiming for Rios, who was believed to be carrying a firearm at the time.

States are misusing funds earmarked for cleaning up coal mines

Coal mines are not meant to last forever. When a mine’s natural resources are exhausted, or a coal company deems the mine no longer profitable, they close, often leaving behind scars of environmental degradation like disturbed land and polluted water. Today, there are more than five thousand abandoned coal mines that have yet to be cleaned up across the United States.

In 1977, Congress passed the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, which, among other things, sought to regulate the way abandoned mines were cleaned up. Part of the act gave states money to clean up mines that had been abandoned before 1977, through the creation of the Abandon Mine Land fund. According to the law, the money could be used for other projects, but coal reclamation projects were to be given priority, and the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation, and Enforcement — part of the Department of the Interior — was directed to make certain the funds were being properly used.

Putting a cop accused of homicide on ‘60 Minutes’ used to be considered crazy. It might be genius.

On September 16, 2016, Officer Betty Jo Shelby killed 40-year-old Terence Crutcher with a single gunshot to the chest.

On September 22, Tulsa District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler took the uncommon decision to charge Shelby with a homicide.

And on April 2, 2017 — more than a month before her manslaughter trial was scheduled to begin — 9.5 million Americans tuned in to 60 Minutes and heard Shelby explain that “I’d rather be tried by 12 than carried by six.”

The Twin Authoritarians Who Are Endangering American Democracy

Ever since Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2015, critics worried about his authoritarian tendencies. He’s done much to justify those fears. At his rallies, he whipped crowds into such a frenzy that protesters were beaten. As president, he’s flouted elementary rules about nepotism and conflict of interest; undermined the independence of the judiciary by impugning judges overseeing cases involving him or his administration; obstructed justice by firing James Comey after he refused to pledge loyalty to him; and arbitrarily limited media access by, for instance, replacing daily White House press briefings with off-camera gaggles where recording is banned.

Gorsuch's writings borrow from other authors

Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch copied the structure and language used by several authors and failed to cite source material in his book and an academic article, according to documents provided to POLITICO.

The documents show that several passages from the tenth chapter of his 2006 book, “The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia,” read nearly verbatim to a 1984 article in the Indiana Law Journal. In several other instances in that book and an academic article published in 2000, Gorsuch borrowed from the ideas, quotes and structures of scholarly and legal works without citing them.

Nikki Haley Says U.S. May ‘Take Our Own Action’ on Syrian Chemical Attack

UNITED NATIONS — Holding photographs of dead Syrian children after a chemical bomb attack, the United States ambassador to the United Nations warned on Wednesday that her country might take unilateral action if the Security Council failed to respond to the latest atrocity in the Syria war.

Facing her first serious Syria showdown at the Security Council, the ambassador, Nikki R. Haley, also used her remarks at an emergency session to blame Russia for blocking a robust response to the attack on Tuesday on a northern Syrian town, which has incited widespread condemnation. The death toll was reported to exceed 100.