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Results for " Thor " 9,772 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
Alan Lightman on his childhood in science
The story of the author’s extremely early career
As political power erodes, Black gay men seek key roles in Congress
As Republicans carve up Black voting districts, a record number of Black gay men could serve in Congress. What should representation look like?
Celebrate Juneteenth at these Brevard events
Looking to celebrate Juneteenth in Brevard? Here are the local events happening in Cocoa and Melbourne this week.
I spent 48 hours comparing Siri AI to Gemini — and Apple really impressed me
Apple’s new Siri AI finally delivers on its promise. After 48 hours of testing, here’s how it compares to Gemini.
Congress must reauthorize the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act
America’s next health emergency won’t wait for Washington, write W. Craig Vanderwagen and Jennifer B. Alton.
The board of directors of G5 Entertainment utilizes authorization of repurchase of own ordinary shares
The board of directors of G5 Entertainment AB (publ) (the “Company” or “G5 Entertainment”) has resolved to initiate repurchase of ordinary shares through authorization by the Annual General Meeting in the Company on June 15, 2026. The purpose with the authorization is to provide the Board with grea…
Best summer books of 2026: Environment, Science and Technology
Pilita Clark, Clive Cookson and John Thornhill select their best mid-year reads
NBA Finals 2026: Did Jalen Brunson just author the most clutch playoff run in NBA history?
Hillsborough county attorney clarifies commissioners can't remove sports authority members
The legal opinion was requested by Commissioner Christine Miller after TSA voted to draft a letter to elected leaders seeking to prioritize Raymond James Stadium renovations over a new Rays ballpark.
Cleveland County residents may soon be able to invest in the Rock Creek Entertainment District arena
The Cleveland County Recreational and Entertainment Facilities Authority unanimously approved a resolution naming a trustee bank and underwriters for anticipated bonds up to $230 million to finance the Rock Creek
No music, no TV: Later last call in Worcester doesn't allow later entertainment
The License Commission plans to hold a second vote on extending hours for entertainment.
No music, no TV: Later last call in Worcester doesn't allow later entertainment
The License Commission plans to hold a second vote on extending hours for entertainment.
Marian Ilitch: A Michigan billionaire in business, sports and family
The co-founder of Little Caesar's Pizza with her late husband, Marian Ilitch became one of America's wealthiest women.
IBX team wins first place at Google Code for the Cure Hackathon with AI prototype to make prior authorization clearer and fairer
A team of associates from Independence Blue Cross’s (IBX) Advanced Analytics and Data Science department won first place at a recent Google Code for the Cure Hackathon in New York City. The event, run by Google Cloud, brings together teams to build real-world AI solutions to health care challenges. In just four hours, the IBX team designed and built a fully functional prototype that shows how AI can make prior authorization decisions clearer, more consistent, and fair for patients and providers.
Wichita Falls board to tackle business prospects behind closed doors
The Wichita Falls Economic Development Corporation meets Thursday to discuss property deals and business incentives in private.
Mitch McConnell hospitalized. What we know about his health
Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced earlier this year that he is planning to retire at the end of his term.
City & Guilds bosses awarded themselves millions in bonuses, investigation finds
Report finds Kirstie Donnelly and Abid Ismail paid bonuses ‘without authorisation or knowledge’ of superiors
Big 12 pursues legal action against Texas Tech, Texas Attorney General in Brendan Sorsby case
The Big 12 seeks clarity in its authority to enforce bylaws after a previous judge granted the Texas Tech QB an injunction to play in 2026 despite gambling on his team's games
Iranian team has become political pawn at this World Cup
If you want the World Cup to promote peace and harmony, you have to actually let it do that, not toy with Iran football team and move them to Mexico.
Jay Shetty Says His 'Body Couldn't Keep Up with His Vision' Before Prioritizing This One Aspect in His Wellness Routine (Exclusive)
The global bestselling author and podcast host, 38, talks to PEOPLE about his health journey and latest partnership with BIOptimizers.
UNESCO Director-General reinforces strategic cooperation with Italy
UNESCO Director-General Khaled El-Enany carried out his official visit to Italy on 8 and 9 June 2026, travelling to Venice, Trieste and Rome to strengthen cooperation with national authorities, UNESCO
State names first round of projects funded by federal rural health program
The state this week announced its first round of federal rural health grant funding, which allocated $36 million to projects to help communities with one-time infrastructure improvements and improve technological gaps. The Nevada Health Authority on Monday named the 25 projects that were awarded funding as part of the $180 million part of the Rural […]
Vote for Section V's Boys Athlete of the Week for June 8-14 presented by Faber Builders
Your vote will determine who will be the Faber Builders Boys Sports Athlete of the Week for June 8-14.
D-FW Business Datebook: Fed interest rates and talking talent
Dallas-Fort Worth business datebook for the week of June 14 features World Cup matchups, exciting author visits and market-moving reports from the Census Bureau, Federal Reserve and more.
Google leaked its next Pixel Drop with Screen Reactions and paid features
Google's next Pixel Drop looks set to add Screen Reactions, Gemini Omni video tools, and AI music creation.
How Ohio State is helping the US men's World Cup players recover
Ohio State researchers are helping U.S. soccer players recover faster using data-driven methods.
Readers Pick Top Columbus Spots for Shopping and Entertainment
We asked, you answered—here are the places readers voted for in our Best of Columbus 2026 poll for shopping and entertainment.
More fouls, more frustration: What’s really going on with WNBA officiating?
There’s been an uptick in fouls in the WNBA due to an emphasis on freedom of movement, the result of an officiating task force.
Think you know Guy Fieri? Here are 6 facts you might have missed
From a childhood horse mishap to his aversion to eggs, discover what's beneath the rowdy, spiky-haired exterior of Guy Fieri.
MLB power rankings: Brewers and The Miz rise after conquering Philly
Milwaukee moves up to No. 2 in.USA TODAY Sports power rankings behind their ace phenom.
Community health screenings address obstacles to medical care
A local nonprofit has begun offering free clinics to screen vulnerable populations for potentially life-threatening conditions in Coastal Georgia.
Shreveport Chamber honors six minority business leaders
The Greater Shreveport Chamber of Commerce honored six local leaders and businesses for their contributions to the community.
Timeline: DuJuan McCoy's career led him from Indy to Texas and back
The Circle City Broadcasting owner recently acquired WRTV, his third Indy TV station. Here's a timeline of his 37 years in the business.
What your heart rate variability really says about you
Here’s what HRV is, how it works and what can cause it to rise or fall.
Don't mess with Texas. Longhorns are SEC's best thing going
Texas is the best thing going in the SEC — by far. Don’t believe us? Check out the Learfield Directors’ Cup standings.
Why Squeezing Big Business Harder Won’t Close the UK Tax Gap
The UK’s tax authority should use artificial intelligence to monitor small and medium-sized businesses the way it does large corporations to help close the nation’s tax gap, Ryan’s Jenny Batchelor says.
The Politics of the NBA Finals
Aside from basketball, this year’s NBA Finals showcased civic identity and political power. Shea Serrano, author of Expensive Basketball, once argued that
Zac Brown's UFC performance was about 'patriotism, not politics'
Before he took the stage to sing the national anthem outside the White House to kick off UFC Freedom 250, Zac Brown stood firm despite blowback.
This is a 'sad statement' about where we are in politics in America right now: Speaker Mike Johnson
House Speaker Mike Johnson discusses Congress's busy legislative agenda, including a new reconciliation package, the Save America Act, and the need to reauthorize FISA, on 'Sunday Night in America.'
Roy Hattersley: Labour politician who helped start the party's modernisation
Able Labour politician, often at odds with his party, who became a successful author and columnist.
Ebola cases in eastern Congo climb to 782 and deaths reach 181, authorities say
The Congolese Ministry of Health reports that confirmed Ebola cases in Congo have increased to 782, with 181 deaths
Photos from 2026 Cincinnati Concours d'Elegance at Ault Park
The 48th Annual Cincinnati Concours d'Elegance took place on June 14, 2026 at Ault Park. This year's event featured over 200 cars and motorcycles with the featured theme "100 Years of Mercedes-Benz."
Trump's rural support slips as fuel and food prices climb, poll shows
Rural disapproval of Trump rises, driven by concerns over cost of living and economy.
See photos of One Knox SC vs New York Cosmos at Covenant Health Park
One Knoxville SC takes on New York Cosmo at Covenant Health Park in the Old City in downtown Knoxville on June13, 2026.
Tom Pelissero Offers His 2 Cents on Top Vikings Issue
Tom Pelissero is a national insider who has strong connections to the Minnesota Vikings. He therefore brings some authority behind […]
Eating an apple offers this much fiber
Apples are a fast and tasty snack that pack a nutritious punch.
Meet Amanda Archer. She helps keep Canton healthy
In our latest "Five questions with" feature, meet Amanda Archer, health commissioner with Canton City Public Health.
Trump's milestone birthday and what happens to your body at 80
On June 14, President Donald Trump hit a milestone birthday. What does aging look like in your 80s?
Celebrating Columbus, quirks and all, on 614 Day
We're big (we really are!) and bold in a mild kind of way. June 14 is the day we celebrate Columbus, unless it's better to do it another day instead.
5 hidden features I didn't know my Samsung phone had
Compass, ruler, Wi-Fi analyzer, and more. These hidden Samsung features made me realize I don't know One UI as well as I thought.
Texas NTS AI, May business changes make Around the Hub Lubbock news
Business Reporter Alana Edgin reviews recent Lubbock area business news and hints at upcoming articles in the weekly Around the Hub column.
What can you expect at Neshoba County Fair political speaking?
Mississippi's preeminent political speaking event returns to Philadelphia in June, bringing candidates for the state's highest offices next year.
Middle-aged adults taking GLP-1s for obesity can save over $192K on lifetime medical costs, higher if they don’t have college degrees, new study finds
The National Bureau of Economic Research paper's lead author hopes putting a dollar value on the benefits of GLP-1s will lead to better access
Donald Trump's legacy rests in the hands of federal courts
From immigration policy to elections and more, courts are poised to decide what President Donald Trump can accomplish in office.
See photos from the 2026 Miss Mississippi pageant coronation
A new Miss Mississippi was crowned during the pageant's coronation at the Vicksburg Convention Center in Vicksburg, Miss., on Saturday, June 13, 2026.
Georgia man accused of forging check from local Iowa livestock business
Authorities said he forged a check for more than $14,000.
Journey brings Final Frontier tour to Heritage Bank Center. See photos
Journey performs at Heritage Bank Center in downtown Cincinnati for their Final Frontier tour.
Pipeline tax debacle threatening to Ohio's pro-business reputation
Ohio has worked hard to build a reputation as a pro-growth state. That progress is being jeopardized.
Businesses expected a boost from the World Cup. Instead, they're struggling.
During the World Cup's first week, business owners near Houston's fan festival are taking a hit from street closures and higher parking fees.
Bengals’ Myles Murphy understood tough business decision
A tough Bengals contract decision gets a reaction from a key player.
SBA moves to revise 8(a) rules while preserving tribal, ANC eligibility
Details By Brian Edwards Native Contracting June 13, 2026 The U.S. Small Business Administration has proposed changes to its 8(a) Business Development Program that would eliminate race-based presumptions of social disadvantage for individually owned businesses while leaving eligibility standards unchanged for tribally owned enterprises, Alaska Native corporations and other Native entity-owned participants. In both the title and summary of the proposed rule published in the Federal Register, SBA emphasized that the changes only apply to individually owned firms and “do not impact entity-owned firms,” including tribes, Alaska Native corporation, Native Hawaiian organizations and community development corporations. The proposed rule, announced June 11, would require all individual applicants seeking admission to the 8(a) program to submit evidence demonstrating social disadvantage. Membership in a racial or ethnic group alone would no longer establish eligibility, according to the SBA. For Indian Country, the agency said eligibility standards for businesses owned by federally recognized tribes, Alaska Native corporations, Native Hawaiian organizations and community development corporations would remain unchanged. The proposal comes after the Department of Defense reaffirmed that participation by tribes and Alaska Native corporations in the 8(a) program is based on their political status under federal law rather than diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. In a May 28 letter to Alaska's Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael P. Duffey wrote that participation by federally recognized tribes and Alaska Native corporations in federal programs is “grounded in their political status as Native Americans, not DEI initiatives.” The SBA proposal follows a 2023 federal court ruling that found unconstitutional the program's rebuttable presumption that members of certain racial and ethnic groups were socially disadvantaged. SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said the proposed rule would establish a single standard for individually owned applicants by requiring evidence of social disadvantage. The 8(a) Business Development Program provides participating firms with business development assistance and access to federal set-aside and sole-source contracting opportunities. The program remains a major source of federal contracting revenue for tribal enterprises and Alaska Native corporations. Native-owned firms received $16.1 billion of the program's approximately $26 billion in federal contract awards during fiscal 2024, according to data previously reported by Tribal Business News. The proposal also arrives amid ongoing concerns from Native contractors about SBA administration of the program. In May, the Native American Contractors Association and 53 Native-owned businesses urged SBA to address delays in processing 8(a) applications, saying some reviews had stretched beyond regulatory deadlines and appeared to have stalled since August 2025. The proposed rule is open for public comment through July 13. The Federal Register notice does not reference tribal consultation or indicate whether SBA determined consultation was unnecessary because tribal eligibility standards are unchanged. The SBA has not announced when the proposed rule would take effect. The agency is expected to accept public comments before issuing a final rule.About The AuthorAuthor: Brian EdwardsBrian Edwards is associate publisher and associate editor of Tribal Business News and Native News Online. He is a longtime publisher, editor, business reporter and serial entrepreneur. Subscribe Today!Other Articles by this authorDefense Department reaffirms tribal, ANC eligibility in SBA 8(a) programTribal heritage projects eligible for up to $100K in federal funding through NPS programIHS launches tribal long-term care construction initiative with three projectsIḷisaġvik College acquires site for long-planned Utqiaġvik campus This article is available to paid digital subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
Ohio State Fair 2026 tickets drop to $6.14 for 614 Day flash sale
The Ohio State Fair is offering a 12-hour flash sale on June 14 with tickets priced at just $6.14 for the 2026 event.
How parents can talk to their kids about vaping as FDA authorizes some flavored e-cigarettes
Nearly 6% of U.S. middle and high school students vape
'This might be the point of no return': Experts on the current measles outbreak and where we go from here
Live Science spoke with two authors of a "progress report" detailing America's ongoing measles outbreak.
Emboldened Senate Democrats block even bipartisan bills in hardball approach to counter Trump
The decision by Senate Democrats to let a key surveillance authority lapse comes as they’re increasingly emboldened in their legislative fights against President Donald Trump
Pat McAfee put Rocco's on blast, but business will boom on
ESPN's Pat McAfee issued a harsh review of Rocco's Pizza and Cantina, but business will boom on at the College World Series.
Trump's name removed from Kennedy Center in predawn operation
President Trump's name was taken off the Kennedy Center after a federal judge denied the administration's request that his order be put on hold.
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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