In The News

David A. Graham April 13, 2017
The US president, in office for less than 100 days, has reversed course on multiple campaign promises, as listed by David Graham for the Atlantic. The “most visible reversal” is on Syria – with Donald Trump rejecting foreign intervention in Syria, even after a 2013 chemical attack, before the election and as president ordering missile attacks. Trump’s praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin...
March 23, 2017
Donald Trump’s presidency has been marked with a series of claims, including a suggestion that British intelligence officials assisted former President Barack Obama in spying on Trump Tower. A Wall Street Journal editorial describes “the damage that Mr. Trump is doing to his Presidency with his seemingly endless stream of exaggerations, evidence-free accusations, implausible denials and other...
Sam Frizell March 21, 2017
The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation publicly confirmed an investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the November election. “Comey then contradicted several statements by the White House, including the president's incendiary claim that former President Obama had ‘tapped’ Trump's phone,” reports Sam Frizell for Time magazine. Democrats...
Robyn Dixon March 20, 2017
Proposed cuts to the US State Department and United Nations budgets coincide with severe famines underway. “Two years of drought and failed rains across much of Africa have affected 38 million people in 17 countries,” reports Robyn Dixon for the Los Angeles Times. “Without a massive donor injection of $4.4 billion, aid officials estimate, more than 20 million people face starvation and famine in...
Ben Brody, Jennifer Jacobs, and Justin Sink March 7, 2017
The essence of good surveillance requires those under observation not realizing an operation is underway. US President Donald Trump released social-media messages maintaining, without offering evidence, that he had just learned former President Barack Obama had ordered surveillance of Trump Tower in New York City. The messages force the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other security officials...
Abigail Tracy February 24, 2017
Questions continue about alleged connections between Russia and the US election. A report suggests that a Ukrainian official had tried to alert Paul Manafort, a former chairman of the Trump campaign, about compromising information, later revealed after a phone of Manafort’s daughter was hacked. The Ukrainian official denies that he was the source of the messages. “Manafort, however, confirmed the...
Evelyn Farkas December 13, 2016
In the United States, the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security and director of National Intelligence have concluded that Russia hacked email accounts, selectively releasing messages, to help Donald Trump win the presidency. “The American public doesn't have access to the data the intelligence community – all 16 agencies combined –have on the Russian government, its banks and oligarchs,...