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Monkey Business: Wild rhesus macaque spotted at Mount Dora hotel
A wild rhesus macaque was spotted at the historic Lakeside Inn in Mount Dora, Florida, spending about 45 minutes roaming the property and attracting attention from guests and staff. The hotel and local businesses responded with humorous, monkey-themed social media content, engaging the community. Wildlife officials cautioned the public not to approach or feed wild monkeys due to potential health risks and encouraged reporting sightings to authorities. The monkey has not returned to the hotel but has been seen elsewhere in downtown Mount Dora.
Lucky the Bull Gets a Transformation
A local artist has been working for weeks on restoring a historic landmark that will soon be making a public appearance.
Scientists uncover terrifying 19-meter sea monster that once ruled ancient oceans - Futura-Sciences
When the Deep Was Ruled by Monsters For decades, Hollywood has served us ferocious tyrannosaurs and sneaky raptors on a silver screen. But let’s not forget: the oceans of the prehistoric world had their own undisputed terrors lurking below. So move over, land-based giants—it’s time for a real-life kraken to...
Esquire First Look: Robert Eggers Reveals Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Werwulf
The filmmaker behind ‘Nosferatu’ and ‘The VVitch ‘explores the historical inspiration behind his tale of a man struggling with his inner beast.
Liverpool signs find a way to support business
EAST LIVERPOOL-As part of the revitalization process for the historic downtown area in East Liverpool, two wayfinding signs have just been installed in the downtown area to help direct people walking through downtown to businesses located in the area. The wayfinding signs, which have smaller directional signs on them pointing out the locations of multiple […]
Black Business Expo 2026 in Pensacola
Looking for meaningful connections, community engagement, and a chance to support local Black businesses? Join us for the Black Business Expo 2026, Sunday, June 28th, from 2 to 6 p.m. in the historic Belmont-DeVilliers District in Pensacola.
455 people including doctors charged in historic $6.5B health care schemes
Over 450 people, including 90 medical professionals, are facing charges in global health care fraud schemes totaling $6.5 billion.
‘We’re witnessing the end of the America that made our lives possible’: author Eddie Glaude on US’s 250th birthday
Glaude’s new book shows political turmoil historically reaching its boiling point around Fourth of July celebrations
Bengals News (6/24): Will Cincinnati have Patriots-like turnaround?
A favorable schedule helped the Patriots make a historic turnaround.
To age better, we need to rethink health itself
Challenging conventional thinking has historically brought new ways to maximize health and improve quality of life while ageing. Here's what's needed now.
FBI adds 2 fugitives to 'Most Wanted Fraudsters' list amid historic $6.5B healthcare takedown: Patel
FBI adds Khalid Ahmed Satary and Emylee Thai to Most Wanted Fraudsters list as historic healthcare fraud crackdown charges 455 suspects for $6.5B.
MARIANNETTE MILLER-MEEKS: Iowa First — A Historic Investment in Rural Health Care
Read Congresswoman Miller-Meeks' Latest Op-ed Published in the Indianola Advocate!
This four-winged dinosaur may have terrorized Earth's earliest birds
A newly discovered feathered dinosaur called Jian changmaensis may be the missing predator responsible for mysterious piles of crushed prehistoric bird bones in China. The four-winged glider, a close cousin of Velociraptor, helps reveal how early birds and their dinosaur relatives shared the same ancient landscape.
How CVS Health is helping America celebrate its 250th anniversary
CVS Health is helping people capture, commemorate and share the moments that define this historic milestone.
Brittney Griner's historic night came with an expensive consequence
The Sun star will be punished.
WNBA to Fine Brittney Griner $500 After Historic Game
Brittney Griner became the WNBA's all-time leader in blocks on Monday, but she also got a tech during the game.
Sail 250 puts spotlight on Baltimore's local businesses and community organizations
As Baltimore prepares to welcome ships from around the world for Sail 250, local veterans are taking part in the historic celebration.
Lancaster General Health sells downtown Lititz office building for $8.1M
The new owners of a historic mill that most recently served as Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health’s administrative offices will look to revitalize the building as a mix of retail,
Business Monday: Kona Brewing’s historic Kona Pub creating beer garden entrance to make waiting enjoyable
With several renovation phases planned for the entire pub, the first is an estimated $2 million project focusing on the eatery’s curb appeal.
Sports Daily: Recapping busy holiday weekend
A busy holiday weekend saw another impressive World Cup performance from Team USA, a split pair of games in a college national championship series and an historic finish for a professional golfer from Wichita.
Opinion: Grievance, Bewilderment and Ethnic Amnesia: Poland, Ukraine and the Politics of Historical Memory
An explainer from a Ukrainian perspective to warn against a black-and-white approach to historical issues that serves politicians’ purposes but divides neighbors.
Oklahoma Historical Society book talk examines peyote history, making of the Native American Church
The Native American Church was legally incorporated more than 100 years ago to protect peyote use. The early history of the church is chronicled in Peyote Politics, a book at the center of an Oklahoma Historical Society discussion happening this week.
P-pop kings SB19 to headline Bay Area show this summer
(KRON) — Widely considered the “Kings of P-pop” (pop music from the Philippines), SB19 is having a historic year. The group is set to become the first Filipino act to perform at t…
High-Priced Acquisition Paying Historic Dividends For Toronto Blue Jays
Signed to a $60 million deal in the offseason, Kazuma Okamoto has helped bolster the Jays offense.
Poland PM Tusk says political row with Ukraine is a 'strategic mistake'
A conflict between politicians in Poland and Ukraine is a strategic mistake that will harm both sides, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Sunday on X, as he sought to defuse a row sparked by a historical dispute.
Seahawks' Jaxon Smith-Njigba Overlooked in Calvin Johnson's Record Prediction
Megatron snubbed the reigning Offensive Player of the Year, favoring Puka Nacua to break his receiving record despite JSN’s historic 1,793-yard season and Super Bowl title run.
Beyond the World Cup... 5️⃣ stories shaping Sunday
Spanish football is experiencing a day of high emotion, with the offices and the pitch sharing the spotlight.While the Costa del Sol celebrates a historic return to the top flight after an agonizing j...
The soccer metric that proves the 2026 World Cup is providing historic levels of entertainment
It's still early days, but players at the 2026 World Cup are finishing chances at an exceptional rate
From The Sports Desk: Our reporters take you behind the scenes of a historic stretch in sports
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen the Knicks win the NBA title, the UFC host an event on the White House lawn, and the World Cup kick into gear. We were there for it all.
Angels blow seven-run lead in historic fashion to Athletics
The Los Angeles Angels seemed to be on their way to a much-needed, loud victory against the Athletics on Friday night.
Historical cricket club celebrates bicentenary
The club is the oldest in its county and has a history spanning 200 years.
3 generations of Knicks fans watch parade from Business Insider office
Winston Lord, 88, and family watched the Knicks parade from Business Insider's office, celebrating a historic NBA championship in New York.
The Politics Hour: A historic D.C. primary election and Montgomery County voting on new leadership
We break down D.C. primary elections with Democratic nominee for D.C. Delegate Robert White, At-Large Councilmember-elect Elissa Silverman, and WAMU's D.C. politics reporter Alex Koma. Plus, we preview Maryland's primaries with WAMU's Maryland reporter Jenny Abamu.
Why I Use a Business School Model to Teach History (Opinion)
Students who can see themselves in historical figures learn how to debate respectfully.
Mayo Clinic Q&A: Block some time out for health screenings
DEAR MAYO CLINIC: Since I turned 40, my clinic has been sending me a slew of reminders about men's health screenings. Are they really necessary? ANSWER: Yes! Blocking out some time for these important health screenings is one of the most important things you can do for yourself. Historically, men have been hesitant to seek […]
Happy Hour and humor with a local historian
Join the Key West Art & Historical Society for the next installment of Happy Hour with the Historian series at 5 p.m. on Thursday, June 18, featuring Cori Convertito at
The Science Behind Lionel Messi’s Viral Moment of Tears
After watching the soccer icon tear up following a historic goal, we try to understand the science of why human beings wait until the moment of triumph to let it all out.
FOX Sports' BIG NOON KICKOFF Heads Across the Pond for Inaugural Union Jack Classic From Wembley Stadium
LOS ANGELES – As announced on FOX’s FIFA WORLD CUP LIVE ahead of this afternoon’s England-Croatia matchup on FOX, BIG NOON KICKOFF heads overseas for the first time in the program’s history, broadcasting live from historic Wembley Stadium in London ahead of the inaugural Union Jack Classic on Saturday, Sept. 19.
Merchants of Doubt and the attacks on Extreme Event Attribution science
Last week, I attended a meeting at Columbia University on attribution science and climate law, hosted by the Sabin Center. It was a fantastic event, bringing together scientists and legal experts working at the intersection of extreme event attribution and climate law. Subscribe For those unfamiliar with it, extreme event attribution attempts to quantify the contribution of climate change to an extreme event. For example, several groups analyzed the impact of climate change on Hurricane Harvey’s enormous rainfall totals over Houston, Texas and they found that climate change increased rainfall by 15 to 38%. One thing that came up again and again was how terrified fossil-fuel interests are of extreme event attribution science. They are acutely aware that this research could land them in court. And losing those cases would leave them legally liable for billions of dollars in climate damages. Because the legal stakes are so high, the blowback has turned ugly. I spoke with several scientists at the meeting who are facing ongoing harassment over their work. This blowback is a coordinated campaign to make the entire field look suspect. The goal is to create the impression that attribution science is too uncertain, too political, or too conflicted to be useful in court or in public policy. The strategy is not based on actual science or evidence of misconduct, but on the generation of doubt. The new Merchants of Doubt We’ve seen this before. In fact, not that long ago: We only have to go back a year to the Department of Energy (DOE) Climate Working Group (CWG) report to see an example of using doubt as the tool to push back against well-established science. This strategy is laid out in an email from a member of the CWG, Dr. Roy Spencer, that was released during litigation over the Climate Working Group process. The key quote is: About all I can hope is that what we write will provide sufficient “reasonable scientific doubt” regarding the science claims in the 2009 TSD [technical support document], based upon almost 2 decades of new science, to call into question the original reasoning for the EPA Administrator’s decision that CO2 presents a threat to human health and welfare. This statement is strong evidence that at least some members of the committee were working to support a particular policy outcome: revoking the Endangerment Finding. The email also explains how they planned to do it: by attempting to generate “reasonable doubt”. This is going to be hard, Spencer implies. Despite falsely claiming that “2 decades of new science” weakens the case, Spencer explicitly acknowledges that the actual peer-reviewed science of climate change overwhelmingly rejects his position: But if the science argument is decided upon by a vote, or by the number of published citations, we lose the science argument. We can go back even further: This CWG email shares unmistakable DNA with the infamous 1969 tobacco memo that declared: “Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.” The tobacco memo also acknowledges the limit of this strategy: Like the CWG, they knew the science was not on their side. Share The new new Merchants of Doubt The people attacking the IPCC chapter on extreme event attribution are the newest iteration of the Merchants of Doubt. Their goal, like all Merchants before them, is to introduce doubt into the process. Because the report is not even out yet, they cannot attack its conclusions. So they are attacking the authors instead. Here is a press release from the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee: In the letter, the Chairmen express concerns about potential conflicts of interest involving members of the Attribution Committee, stating that “publicly available information suggests a troubling pattern” in which committee members are affiliated with nonprofits that support climate accountability lawsuits, “raising the appearance of impropriety and member bias.” To be clear, this is just innuendo. There is no actual evidence of bias. And given the robust process that these reports go through, including multiple lines of peer review, it seems very unlikely that significant bias can survive into the report. When the report comes out, critics will have the opportunity to make legitimate criticisms of the report — if any exist. If none do, however, they’ll still make criticisms, but they’ll be bogus, simply designed to generate doubt. We’ll see. A note to the press: Fix your frame To any journalists reading this: The public debate over extreme event attribution science is not going away. The science is simply too dangerous to fossil-fuel interests for them to stop fighting it. You very well might be assigned to write an article about this area of research in the future. When you do, do not automatically adopt the framing that climate misinformers want you to use. They want you to frame the story around questions like: Are climate scientists trying to put their thumb on the scale to achieve a predetermined, politically motivated result? Are climate scientists improperly letting their politics invade the science of the IPCC? That frame is a trap. Instead, you need to view this through the historical lens of the Merchants of Doubt. How does the ecosystem of doubt operate? Who funds it? What methods do they use to misrepresent science and slime researchers? What scientific results are they trying to keep people from understanding are legitimate? Ultimately, you instead need to focus your article on the generation of doubt as a way to maintain the fossil fuel industry’s social and legal license to keep burning oil, gas, and coal. If you treat the misinformers’ frame as a legitimate, good-faith scientific critique, you are helping them produce doubt. Don’t do it. Don’t be a Merchant of Doubt. Thanks for reading The Climate Brink! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe other stuff The Staying Curious Substack has an interesting post about the different flavors of climate sensitivity. This is crucial information if you want to understand how scientists think about how much warming the Earth will experience. I’d be grateful if you could hit the like button ❤️ below! It helps more people discover these ideas and lets me know what’s connecting with readers.
A historical look at the Cowboys big moves
What trade history tells us about the Cowboys moves
MEDELLÍN GEARS UP TO HOST A HISTORIC PAN AMERICAN ATHLETICS CHAMPIONSHIP WITH DIRECT QUALIFICATION TO LIMA 2027
The Pan American Athletics Championship is set to transform Medellín into the […]
Arman Tsarukyan urges UFC to cut former title challenger
Arman Tsarukyan is urging the UFC not to allow one of its former title challengers to step into the octagon again. As the dust settles on a historic night at the White House, several key talking points have surfaced. Most are directed toward fighters at the top of the bill, with questions being ...
Judge orders historical signs to be reinstalled
In response, an Interior Department spokesperson told Spectrum News that the decision was issued by “a Biden appointed judge.”
The enduring legacy of 'Sirius,' the Chicago Bulls' entrance anthem
Thirty years after Chicago's historic run, the story of "Sirius" is also the story of how music helped build one of the most iconic brands in sports.
Putting Cape Verde’s Historic Draw Against Spain In Historical Context
Cape Verde pulled off a stunning upset to shut out heavily favored Spain in a 0-0 draw. How shocking was the upset? Here are the numbers.
Our New Study Shows That The Science Of Cannabis And Sleep Extends Beyond THC (Op-Ed)
“We found that the strongest evidence for improving sleep was associated with cannabidiol (CBD), cannabinol (CBN) and combinations of the two—but not primarily THC.” By Andrea Efre, University of South Florida College of Nursing The cannabis sleep market represents a shift away from traditional pharmaceuticals toward a natural alternative. Historically, cannabis products marketed for sleep […]
Topeka Renaissance Festival closes out weekend of entertainment
TOPEKA (KSNT) – The Topeka Renaissance Festival wrapped up its three-day run Sunday, bringing together performers, vendors and visitors for a weekend of costumes, live entertainment and historical-…
Here Are Monday’s Best Wall Street Analyst Research Calls: Accenture, Caesars Entertainment, Datadog, Dupont, Epam Systems, Ferrari, Paychex, Rocket Lab, TeraWulf, and More
Pre-Market Stock Futures: Futures are exploding higher on news of a peace deal with Iran expected to be signed this Friday. This follows a historic Friday that saw the coming-out party of Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX), widely known as Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The record-breaking size of the offering, raising $75 billion, the company’s debut ... Here Are Monday’s Best Wall Street Analyst Research Calls: Accenture, Caesars Entertainment, Datadog, Dupont, Epam Systems, Ferrari, Paychex, Rocket Lab, TeraWulf, and More
Here Are Monday’s Best Wall Street Analyst Research Calls: Accenture, Caesars Entertainment, Datadog, Dupont, Epam Systems, Ferrari, Paychex, Rocket Lab, TeraWulf, and More
Pre-Market Stock Futures: Futures are exploding higher on news of a peace deal with Iran expected to be signed this Friday. This follows a historic Friday that saw the coming-out party of Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX), widely known as Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The record-breaking size of the offering, raising $75 billion, the company’s debut ... Here Are Monday’s Best Wall Street Analyst Research Calls: Accenture, Caesars Entertainment, Datadog, Dupont, Epam Systems, Ferrari, Paychex,
Trump puts himself at center of birthday spectacle
Trump marked his 80th birthday with a UFC fight staged on White House grounds — a spectacle that underscored how he has sought to turn sports, historically an escape from politics, into another front in America's divisions.
PETA Helps Drive Historic NIH Shift Toward Humane Science
The new office aims to advance reliable and human-relevant non-animal science.
Paging Olivia Benson: Jalen Brunson wants “SVU ”role after New York Knicks win historic NBA championship
"SVU" star Mariska Hargitay sat courtside at the Knicks' fourth game in the finals, hugging and congratulating players after their win.
Jalen Brunson seeks a role on 'SVU' after New York Knicks win historic NBA championship
Jalen Brunson is ready for his close-up: The Knicks' star point guard and captain wants to appear on 'Law & Order: SVU' after leading his team to a historic victory in the NBA championships.
Historic Basila Frocks building transforms into hub for small businesses, art
South Carolina's Oldest Mall Is A Century-Old Hub Of Shops, Boutiques, And Entertainment
Explore Columbia’s historic Arcade Building, South Carolina’s oldest indoor mall, with unique shops, art galleries, restaurants and Main Street attractions.
After 207 years, Cincinnati's oldest business moving to historic Tri-State mansion
Bromwell's Fireplace Specialists, founded in 1819, announced plans to relocate from downtown Cincinnati to the historic Hauck summer home in Sharonville.
First-ever historical marker in Tift County honoring Black business legacy to be dedicated
The Georgia Historical Society will dedicate a historical marker honoring Frank T. Nixon and Solomon Nixon Sr.
Exhibit at Griffin Museum of Science and Industry re-creates Anne Frank's hidden annex
A historical exhibit at Chicago's Griffin Museum of Science and Industry is giving visitors a chance to walk through a re-creation of Anne Frank's hidden annex.
Artemis II crew captures rare double auroras on the dark side of Earth as they zoom toward the moon — Space photo of the week
The four astronauts on NASA’s Artemis II mission captured more than they bargained for when they photographed the nightside of Earth, right after starting their historic journey to the moon.
How Redistricting Pit Wasserman Schultz Against Black Democrats in Florida
Four candidates running in a historically Black district risk dividing the Black vote and losing to Ms. Wasserman Schultz, who is white.
UFC Freedom 250 Final Face-Offs
During Saturday's UFC Freedom 250 Ceremonial Weigh-In at the Lincoln Memorial, the fighters competing on Sunday's historic event at The White House faced off with their opponents a final time. The event takes place on the South Lawn of the White House and is headlined by a lightweight title ...
Curaçao embraces historic World Cup debut against Germany
Curaçao is preparing for its historic World Cup debut against four-time champion Germany with a sense of excitement and pride. On Sunday, the island nation of 150,000 people will become the smallest country ever to compete at the World Cup. Coach Dick Advocaat has done his best to keep his players focused and relaxed as they navigate this unprecedented experience.
Knicks vs. Spurs score, live updates, where to watch: NBA Finals head back to San Antonio for Game 5 after Knicks' historic 29-point comeback
Judge orders Trump administration to restore National Park changes at sites
The order comes in response to a lawsuit by conservation and historical organizations over National Park Service policies.
Judge orders Trump administration to restore National Park changes at sites
The order comes in response to a lawsuit by conservation and historical organizations over National Park Service policies.
Judge orders Trump administration to restore National Park changes at sites
The order comes in response to a lawsuit by conservation and historical organizations over National Park Service policies.
‘The Odyssey’ Has Been Plagued By Controversy. We Break Down Every Criticism Surrounding The Film.
From casting choices to “historical inaccuracies,” the star-studded film has caused widespread uproar.
In Retrospect: Poland, Russia, Europe
In April I spent a few days with Zryw, a Polish non-profit organization that recruits young people to enter politics and public life. Their aim is to build a new generation of civic leaders in Poland. I’ve followed their evolution from the beginning; my son is one of the founders. (“Zryw” means “impulse” or “burst of speed” in Polish). Julie Chmielewska, one of Zryw’s leaders, interviewed me at the event. Here is the conversation, lightly edited for grammar and context: Julia Chmielewska: Assuming that culture shapes institutions, could we conclude that some cultures are more prone to authoritarianism? Anne Applebaum: I don’t think so. Every culture, every nation, and every country has the potential for change. When we look at history, we can see that nations do change. Poland has changed, for example, from the 1980s to today. There’s a completely different mentality here than the one I encountered when I first visited, in 1988. The current generation sees the world through a different frame. So no, I don’t believe that certain nations are doomed to authoritarianism, or to anything. Of course, there are political and cultural traditions, but they can always be challenged. JC: So do you think there’s something intrinsic in human nature that pushes people to democracy, freedom? AA: I think there is something in human nature, a deep instinct, that pushes people towards freedom, yes. People who live in authoritarian countries – and I’ve heard this from them over and over again – sooner or later find themselves angered by a feeling of helplessness. They can see the unfairness of crooked courts, irrational political decisions. They naturally dislike the fact that somebody has all the power while they have none. In those circumstances, people who have no political background at all sometimes are politicized just by that frustration. I’m thinking of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, for example, who was a Belarusian housewife, until the circumstances of her husband’s arrest forced her to become a politician. I met a woman who is a Uyghur from China, and who had come to live in Turkey. After several of her family members were arrested, she too was propelled into a political role. These kinds of experiences make people interested in democracy or political reform, even if they thought they didn’t care. I also think that the opposite is true: some people instinctively prefer homogeneity, order, hierarchy. They don’t like the confrontation of opinions or the noise of debate, and they lean towards a single leader or a unified regime. I think that most of modern history is shaped by the clash between those two different sides of human nature. JC: Which force do you find more powerful today? AA: I think they both have a lot of power and there’s no way of predicting who wins. Even in countries that seem very shut off or stuck in an authoritarian system can change. We’ve seen that happen. And vice versa, I think democracies can also begin to fail and slide into authoritarianism. So it’s very important not to be complacent in either direction. JC: I want to go into your history and your experiences. You’ve lived in Russia during a time of incredible change in the late 80s, and then you came back to do research in post-Soviet Russia. AA: I was a student in Russia just before the collapse of the Soviet Union. I then traveled and worked there extensively in the 1990s, and I met people who really were full of hope. They hoped that Russia could become a democracy, or at least a place that guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of the press. These weren’t ideas that came from Washington. Although now the narrative in the Kremlin is different, I met many people who were working towards exactly that kind of transformation. A friend of mine ran a series of seminars – once a year, and then later several times a year, in cities all over Russia – designed to get people to discuss politics in new ways. She invited young politicians and journalists, as well as foreigners. I went to many of them, in Moscow as well as Volgograd and Novosibirsk. Over two decades, hundreds of people came to these seminars, and all of them wanted Russia to be different. I remain convinced that many Russians still want Russia to be different. It’s just that the old system, in the form of Putin, a representative of that system, returned. The KGB reimposed their power. And this wasn’t because of something to do with culture, this was to do with money and politics, and who was in charge. JC: You’ve partially answered my question... I wanted to ask whether that excitement of the 1990s was an exception from the Russian historical norm which has been rather authoritarian? AA: Of course, if you look at the history of Russia since the 18th century, there have always been liberal groups, reformers and revolutionaries. There were the Decembrists, in the early 19th century, and the rural populists later on, who tried to organize the peasantry. A significant group of liberal Russians appeared at the turn of the 20th century, people like the father of the writer Vladimir Nabokov, who was a Russian politician before the revolution. These groups were small in number, but sometimes had a broader significance. The Russian dissident movement in the 1950s and 1960s actually invented the modern human rights movement. It was their idea to hold the leaders of the Soviet Union accountable for the language they used, to remind them of the treaties they had signed and the promised they had made. They created the Helsinki group, for example, that held Soviet leadership to the language of the Helsinki Treaty, which formally ended the Second World War and which contained guarantees of human rights, at least on paper. That idea spread to Eastern Europe, and similar tactics were used here in Poland. (Benjamin Nathans recently wrote a great book about the Soviet dissidents, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause) JC: But seemingly, even if they do ever get power, they could never hold on to it. AA: We don’t know, because they have never really had power. But in any case, we also don’t know what will happen in the future. There is no reason to assume that Russia will forever be condemned to totalitarianism. Even during the first fifteen years of Putin’s regime there was some form of democratic politics. Only when the full-scale war began did he bring everything to an end: he shut down all remaining independent organizations and killed his most important opponent, Alexi Navalny. But does that mean he is popular, that he enjoys legitimacy? Even now, we don’t really know what Russians think about him, or about the war. There is no way of doing real polling in Russia because nobody will answer an independent pollster over the phone. JC: Do you think that the flock of young people, especially young men, who fled Russia after the start of the war represent a continuation of liberal movements that refuse to partake in the authoritarian state, or do you think they are moving for the sake of self-preservation – “I don’t want to go to the army, so I leave”? AA: I’m sure it’s both. I actually know many people who left Russia for political reasons either in the very last years before the war, or else just after the war began. JC: And do you see a change in the young generation versus the old one that have fled? AA: It’s hard for me to say because the people who I know were mostly already politicized. I do know some younger people who left, but most of them were already either active in the opposition, or working as journalists. Many of them very self-consciously think of themselves as maintaining Russian culture abroad, just as in the 20th century the Soviet dissidents or the anti-communist White Russians once thought of themselves as people who maintained the true Russian culture, outside of Bolshevik Russia. JC: Let’s move on to Poland. One of your first experiences with Poland was reporting on Margaret Thatcher’s first state visit, in the autumn of 1988. You followed her around the farmers’ market. AA: She was making a symbolic gesture. She wanted to welcome free markets, but the only one she could really visit was the farmers’ market at Hala Mirowska. JC: And I want to talk about this area because today you can look out of any window in that district, Mirów, and see rows and rows of skyscrapers. How does it feel to see a country built from the ground in such a short time, both politically and economically? AA: You know, when you’re living in a period of dramatic change, it’s always hard to know whether the change is positive or negative. The transformation in Poland created winners and losers, as well as new classes of people, new political movements of different kinds. At the time, it sometimes just felt like turbulence. Now, we can look back at the 1990s and early 2000s in Poland and see in retrospect that the country was headed in towards prosperity and European integration. In around 2009 or 2010, I remember speaking to a woman who worked cleaning government offices, and who asked me if her daughter should study in Amsterdam or in London. This seemed to me to be a real transformation, and it happened very fast: within a few years, Poles stopped feeling like second-class Europeans, and a generation of younger Poles appeared who had no qualms about crossing borders. JC: We again live in turbulent times. Do you think we’re heading towards positive outcomes? AA: I can’t make predictions, because everything that happens tomorrow depends on what people do today. Also, history doesn’t have a trajectory. It doesn’t move in a particular direction. You only think it does afterwards. As I said, you can look afterwards at Poland in the 1990s and you could say this was a period of great progress. But not everybody at the time saw that. Sometimes people are very wrong about a given country’s trajectory. I remember people writing about Ukraine in the 1990s, about how dangerous it was that Ukraine was independent, that this was going to be an anti-semitic state, that Ukrainian nationalism was going to come back... and although you can say many bad things about Ukraine, the country made many bad choices, actually it became a pretty tolerant state which now has a Jewish president and until recently a Muslim defense minister. JC: In the 1990s Poland’s and Ukraine’s GDP were roughly similar. Ukraine was even a bit richer. So the starting point was similar for both of these countries, but they’ve turned out very, very differently. Even if we stop in 2014. Why do you think Ukraine “chose East”? Was it external influence? AA: No, I think Ukraine was in a different position. First of all, central and eastern Ukraine had been part of the Soviet Union since the 1920s, and had therefore experienced a longer period of occupation, repression, Sovietization and even Russification. Ukraine did not have, as Poland did, an alternative elite: a large cadre of economists and politicians, who already had some experience in opposition politics and in independent thinking. In Poland, the transformative finance minister, Leszek Balcerowicz, had already thought about how an economy might be decentralized before he took office. We can argue about how successful he was, but at least he was prepared to try something new. In Ukraine, people weren’t prepared. For one, there hadn’t been much space even for an illegal opposition in the previous couple of decades. Ukraine was also in many ways still emerging from colonial occupation. For the previous couple of centuries, many of the most capable Ukrainians had moved to Russia, and the first generation of leaders in independent Ukraine tended to be former Soviet apparatchiks. They didn’t immediately seek to become closer to western Europe. Instead, they looked for some kind of economic and political “third way” and an accomodation with Russia. Ukraine became stuck in this position, half-in, half-out and became pretty profoundly corrupt. JC: The Polish alternative elite had a vision of where they wanted the country to go. I think the general perception now is that this vision ends with the next election, right? Is this a natural process of gaining power? AA: Their vision, and it was shared by the time by politicians who now call themselves both left and right, was that Poland should join the EU and NATO, as fast as possible. My husband (Radek Sikorski) was in the very first government that said it wanted to join NATO. At the time this was taken very badly in Washington: the demand for NATO membership absolutely came from Poland, not from the US. But even then, in the early 1990s, many Poles already understood that the Russian sphere of influence would grow once again, that it was important to become part of the transatlantic alliance and an integrated Europe as fast as possible: NATO, the EU, the Council of Europe, all of the trading and security alliances. That consensus lasted through several different governments and over many years, even governments containing former communists. For twenty years, right, left and center disagreed about many things, but they all agreed on the direction that the country should go. In retrospect, that consensus created the basis for prosperity in Poland. JC: And regarding the Polish-Ukrainian relations. We know that antagonisms, e.g. the myth of Wołyń [a massacre of Poles that took place in what is now Western Ukraine, in 1943] are increasingly used in Polish political discourse today. In Ukraine, nationalist historians make heroes out of UPA, the Ukrainian revolutionary army, which is held responsible for this tragedy. Where do you see a start for burying the hatchet? Is the reconciliation of our nations possible? AA: So here’s a strange thing: For more than a decade after they both gained independence, Poland and Ukraine participated in a number of projects that were designed to solve exactly these kinds of Polish-Ukrainian differences. Books were published that were jointly written by Polish and Ukrainian historians, monuments were built. These projects were successful: If you’d asked me this question in 2010, I would have said that there are no real historical issues between Poland and Ukraine, that the two countries had mostly reconciled. For a number of reasons, this began to shift. In Poland, children and grandchildren of victims of the Wołyń massacre felt their tragedy hadn’t been fully recognized. In Ukraine, nationalist groups wanted the UPA partisans who had fought against the Soviet Union recognized for their heroism, despite the fact that some in this broad and not well-defined group were also linked to Wołyń. In both eastern Poland and western Ukraine, the memory of the ethnic cleansing that took place there in the late 1940s - Poles were moved West, Ukrainians East - to accomodate new borders has left feelings of displacement and bitterness. The wave of Ukrainian immigration, which started before the war, may have provoked some of this. But don’t underestimate the role played by Russia, which has always wanted to create discord between Poland and Ukraine, and pumps out propaganda to that effect in both countries. Vandalism on both sides of the border, damage done to cemeteries and monuments, is sometimes carried out by provacateurs working for Russia, just to create bad feelings. The Polish-Ukrainian conflict also hides a different reality: although there are real grievances and bad memories, the truth is that the biggest tragedies both nations experienced in the twentieth century were inflicted by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. That should unite these two countries, not divide them. JC: This week (19.04.2026 – Ed.) in Hungary we saw that using historical narratives to create grievance has no longer worked. Are you optimistic about the direction after Orban’s loss? AA: The Hungarian election was really important because it shows that people can actually resist powerful, dominant propaganda. The ruling party Fidesz controlled all of the TV, 90% of the newspapers, the constitutional court, the bureaucracy... and yet people had the nerve to vote against it and resist it. It’s also an important election because Hungary created a huge network of well-funded think tanks and foundations that were funding other far right groups and projects. So that loss is going to have a knock-on effect in other places too, maybe even in Poland. JC: What you’ve said about resisting propaganda reminds me of one of the interviews you did about talking to Russians in the post-Soviet era who claimed that people knew that the system was lying. Why do people choose to believe in these regimes anyway? AA: Because it’s useful. Stephen Kotkin, an American historian, once described how people would learn how to “speak Bolshevik”: It was just a language that you needed to use in order to get by in society. If you didn’t talk the way the regime wanted you to talk, then you might have problems, or lose your job, or your kids would not get into university. It was a way of getting along. Communist Poland was similar, at least in the early years. When I was writing a book about the Sovietization of Eastern Europe after World War II, I met a lot of people who wanted to talk a lot about the war, when many of them had done really heroic things. But almost nobody wanted to talk about the decade afterwards, between 1945 and 1956. This was when you had the short period of terror, violence and Polish Stalinism. To stay safe, people felt the need to just go along with what others were saying, or stay out of politics, or use communist jargon without necessarily believing it. I don’t judge them for it, and I wouldn’t describe all of those people as collaborators. It’s easy to feel moral certainty in retrospect, because we know that communism ended. But if you were living in 1949, it might not have been clear to you that communism was going to end. In very repressive societies, maybe about 10% of people who are really evil – collaborators, torturers. Maybe 10% of people are really brave and who find ways to resist. And then around 80% of people have kids, they have parents, they have to have jobs and they’ve had to get through it somehow. Strange though it may sound, I’ve found that the work I did on that book is now very useful in explaining some of what’s going on in the United States today. There are plenty of members of the Republican Party in Congress who know perfectly well that Donald Trump says many things that aren’t true. But they avoid criticizing him because it’s inconvenient, because they would get in trouble, because someone would attack them on the internet. So actually you don’t even need mass terror to get people to conform. JC: Is Gen Z reinventing agency? AA: We’ll see. In any generation you can find groups of people who want agency. If you live in a society that’s unfair, for example where a tiny number of people have captured most of the wealth, then at a certain point people rebel. This is always easier for younger people, who have you have less to lose. The question now is how the internet will affect the relationships between citizens and the state, and how it will change organizations. The “Twitter revolutions” people spoke about as early as 2008-9, mass protests organized online, have often proved to be very superficial. Although you can easily join something just by clicking, the work of creating a real movement requires physical participation. Successful mass movements of the past, for example the Civil Rights movement in the United States, were built by people who had spent many years together. They had participated in non-violent workshops together. They practiced and prepared. Just using the you can get everybody to show up at a certain moment, but then when the protest is broken up, nothing happens. It’s also true that the repressive regimes have more recently learned how to use the internet to undermine leaders and movements. Most of all, they now understand how to make people cynical. The form of propaganda that most modern authoritarians use - and I think the Russians really pioneered this - deploys sneering cynicism. Instead of praising the rulers, the regime propagandists mock the opposition movement leadership for being supposedly corrupt or sexually degenerate, with the goal of undermining any kind of idealism. JC: MAGA grew on the internet? AA: MAGA is a real grassroots movement. They had symbols, red hats, they showed up at rallies. But you’re right that the cynicism, the sarcasm and the distrust that the movement embodies came originally from the internet, and this is different. Fifty years ago, most European political parties had a social base in real organizations, in trade unions for Social Democrats, in church groups for Christian Democrats. As people stopped going to church and as the trade unions became smaller, the social base of these parties disappeared. Now people who wouldn’t have known one another in the past meet on the internet and create new movements, many of which don’t last. JC: Is history ending? Going in stale circles? AA: History never ends. In truth, human beings want contradictory things at the same time: order and freedom, stability and change. These things are never resolved, and when a society swings too far in one direction, people always push it the other way. But each time that happens, the result is different. Certainly it is true that we are now in a period when old philosophers and ideas from the 1930s are undergoing a revival. Carl Schmitt, who was a philosopher who was very influential on the Nazis, is back as an influence on both the far left and the far right, once again inspiring people to think that all politics has to be existential, that all politics is about defining and defeating enemies. In the US, some are also bringing back dominionism, the idea that we need a Christian and not a secular state. It’s also true that we are living through a more fundamental shift. The old left-right divide, which was mostly about the size of the state, is much less important now. Instead, we are arguing about more fundamental things: what are our rights, what protects our freedom. Or how much power do we want to give small elites, versus how much power to give ordinary people. In America a small group of very wealthy people now control information, because they control the social media platforms and AI, which means they determine what people will read and learn. Finding a way to preserve preserve zones of autonomy and independent thinking, this is going to be the main task for the next generation. JC: What is the one book that a person interested in Central Europe should read? AA: You could read my book “Iron Curtain: the Crushing of Eastern Europe” which tells the story of how the Soviet Union imposed its culture on the region. Or read Tim Snyder’s history of the region, “The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus 1569-1999.” And everyone should read “The Captive Mind” by Czesław Miłosz, which describes exactly the phenomenon we were talking about: why do people collaborate? I joined Scott Galloway and the brilliant Fiona Hill in a discussion about the wars in Ukraine and Iran, the future of global power, and what these conflicts reveal about America's role in the world. Scott told us that this was the 400th edition of his podcast, which is quite a number: My friend Francesco Chiamulera runs a brilliant series of literary events, Una Colline di Libri, A Hill of Books, in the Prosecco Hills, a region of vineyards and elegant hill towns in the Veneto, north of Venice. We did an event in Vittorio Veneto and also drove and biked around the countryside. Buy Autocracy Inc Buy Iron Curtain Open Letters, from Anne Applebaum is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe
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