Happy Friday! Look, we’re willing to tolerate a lot of opinions from New Yorkers about the proper way to eat pizza, but former Mayor Bill De Blasio angrily dumping coconut on his New York slice is simply a bridge too far.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- The Ukrainian parliament voted on Thursday to approve the appointment of nine new cabinet-level ministers, including Andrii Sybiha—a former adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—as the country’s new foreign minister, replacing Dmytro Kuleba, who resigned from the position on Monday. “Government institutions must be set up in such a way that Ukraine will achieve all the results we need,” Zelensky said this week in defense of the reshuffle—the largest since the beginning of the war.
- The Nicaraguan government, led by authoritarian President Daniel Ortega, released 135 Nicaraguan citizens on Thursday who had been held as political prisoners. The group, whose release followed negotiations by the Biden administration, included 13 pastors and attorneys affiliated with Mountain Gateway—a Christian ministry headquartered in Texas—who, according to U.S. officials, had been unjustly detained since December. The White House arranged for the transportation of the freed political prisoners to nearby Guatemala, where they will then be able to apply as refugees for legal entry to the U.S. and other countries.
- Local law enforcement officials on Thursday arrested the father of the Barrow County, Georgia, high school shooting suspect. Colin Gray has been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter, charges that Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said resulted from Gray “knowingly allowing his son to possess a weapon.” An aunt of the shooting suspect told the Washington Post that the gunman had been struggling with mental health and “was begging for help from everybody around him.” Officials also released the names of the four victims killed in Wednesday’s shooting: 14-year-old students Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn, 39-year-old math teacher and high school football defensive coordinator Richard “Ricky” Aspinwall, and 53-year-old math teacher Christina Irimie.
- Boko Haram terrorists killed at least 170 people on Sunday in Mafa, a small village in northeastern Nigeria, government authorities confirmed on Wednesday. The terrorists arrived in the village aboard motorcycles before opening fire on residents and burning down buildings. Locals told the New York Times that, although most of the village’s population fled last month in response to Boko Haram threats, many of them returned two weeks later at the order of a local government official who assured residents they were safe to return. However, that official—Baba Umar Zubairu—denied issuing the order.
- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Thursday and met with Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille to discuss the country’s top priorities—including food scarcity, youth unemployment, and health insecurity—and ongoing efforts to clear Haiti of the gang violence plaguing its citizens. A United Nations-backed multinational task force led by Kenyan police officers began deploying to Haiti in June to help local authorities combat powerful gangs terrorizing the region. However, only a small share of that task force has arrived in Haiti thus far.
- Hunter Biden pleaded guilty on Thursday to all nine federal felony charges related to tax evasion—reversing his previous plea—but did not agree with federal prosecutors on a sentencing recommendation to offer the judge. The younger Biden initially sought to replace that plea with what’s known as an Alford plea, in which Biden would have pleaded guilty in light of the strength of the case against him while maintaining his innocence. Federal prosecutors, who are advised to oppose Alford pleas “except in the most unusual of circumstances,” objected to the move, and Biden entered an open guilty plea that leaves his sentencing up to the judge. Sentencing is scheduled for December 16, where Hunter could face up to 17 years in prison and more than $1 million in fines.
Free Speech Is Under Threat on College Campuses
‘It Just Feels Like Overt Shilling’
In early June 2023, the founder of a new media startup backed by a low-profile, Paris-based businessman was trying to convince a political commentator to come on board.
One of the founders of the Nashville-based Tenet Media and the assistant to the prospective employee were scheduled to have a meeting with Eduard Grigoriann, who was supposedly financially supporting the project.
Grigoriann had set the meeting for 5 p.m. France time.
At 3:58 p.m. in Paris, he sent an email telling the participants he was ready for the call. Though he was an hour early for a 5 p.m. meeting in France, he was right on time in Moscow, which was an hour ahead. After a quick Google search for “time in Paris,” Grigoriann emailed again: “Sorry, wrong hour,” he told them. “Didn’t sync the calendar.”
But Grigoriann—the elusive, deep-pocketed financial backer—was a total fabrication. Indeed, according to a Justice Department indictment unsealed on Wednesday, he was one of four made-up “personas” working with the founders of Tenet Media, in addition to two real-life Russians employed by RT, formerly Russia Today.
Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva—employees of the state-owned Russian broadcaster—were charged with conspiring to act as unregistered foreign agents and conspiring to launder nearly $10 million to Tenet to support a Russian malign influence operation via the right-wing website. The scheme was meant to …
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Worth Your Time
- Might some Medicare recipients not be as sick as the government claims? “The trick is lucrative,” Charles Silver and David Hyman reported in the Wall Street Journal. “The Journal recently reported that insurers took $50 billion from Medicare over three years by adding fake illnesses to patients’ diagnoses. Criminals and legitimate providers—hospitals, physician groups, drug manufacturers, pharmacy benefit managers and insurers—raid the Treasury in other ways too. Within the past few weeks, it was reported that crooked brokers and insurers are helping five million ObamaCare enrollees enjoy $20 billion a year in premium subsidies by misrepresenting their incomes, and that half or more of Medicaid’s annual $217 billion budget for long-term care goes to people wealthy enough to cover their bills,” they wrote. “The government can’t tell which claims are legitimate, so it pays them all and occasionally chases fraudsters after discovering it has been robbed. By failing to audit bills before paying them, the federal government squanders hundreds of billions of dollars every year. As long as it controls how healthcare dollars are spent, fraud will persist and services will cost more than they should.”
- Fishing is generally a leisurely, relaxing, serene activity. But not always, Tyler Austin Harper—a fisherman who swims out into rough seas at night to catch a big one—wrote in The Atlantic. “The wave comes, throat-high and hungry,” he wrote. “I manage to keep hold of my fishing rod, and I’m reeling in lost line and treading water and trying to forget all the stories I’ve heard about sharks as a second large wave begins sucking me up its face. … Wetsuiting is a form of saltwater fishing that involves wearing a wetsuit and wading or swimming out to offshore rocks—almost exclusively at night, often during storms—to access deeper water or faster currents than can be reached in traditional waders.” The secret to such gumption? “Wetsuiters are all mad, and they always have been. Spending sleepless night after sleepless night up to your chest in the riotous Atlantic, hunting fish the size of a preschooler, isn’t a hobby that people who are psychologically grounded pursue. … More than a few have lost marriages and jobs in their desperate quest for this fish. Some have lost their life.”
Presented Without Comment
Reuters: Trump Says He Will Tap [Elon] Musk To Lead Government Efficiency Commission If Elected
Also Presented Without Comment
The Hill: Putin Quips That He ‘Supports’ Harris, Citing ‘Infectious’ Laugh
Also Also Presented Without Comment
Washington Post: Water Buffalo Escapes Slaughter, Evades Police, Becomes Local Celebrity
In the Zeitgeist
In this world, nothing is certain except death, taxes, and a new Star Wars spin-off. Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, set to premiere on Disney+ in December, will follow four kids traveling the galaxy, searching for a way to their home—the perfect recipe for … checks years-old English literature notes … a bildungsroman space opera?
Toeing the Company Line
- In the newsletters: Mike and Sarah provided an update on Hunter Biden’s criminal tax evasion case, Will highlighted the troubling legal issues with California’s new bill regulating artificial intelligence, and Nick considered (🔒) just how motivated right-wing media is by cold hard cash.
- On the podcasts: Sarah, Steve, and Jonah are joined by Reason’s Nick Gillespie on The Dispatch Podcast roundtable to discuss whether conservatives (and libertarians) would be better off with a Trump or Harris win in November.
- On the site: Kevin revisits Trump’s role in the Biden administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal, and Alex Muresianu dives into Kamala Harris’ proposed tax policies.
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