Our picksCalifornia’s Wildfires | The Next Syrian Refugee Crisis | WhatsApp & Spying, and more
· ISIS Lost Its Land. Then It Began to Lose Its Ability to Inspire.
· Los Angeles Fire Spreads, Underscores City’s Inherent Dangers
· California’s Wildfires Are the Doom of Our Own Making
· Nunes Aide Is Leaking the Ukraine Whistleblower’s Name, Sources Say
· WhatsApp Sues an Israeli Tech Firm Whose Spyware Targeted Human-Rights Activists and Journalists
· How the Pittsburgh shooting changed American Jews
· The Next Syrian Refugee Crisis Will Break Europe’s Back
· EU to Help Fund Colombia Peace Process for Additional 4 Years
ISIS Lost Its Land. Then It Began to Lose Its Ability to Inspire. (Graeme Wood, Defense One)
As with Osama bin Laden, the most intriguing fact about Baghdadi’s assassination was its location, deep in what was considered enemy territory.
Los Angeles Fire Spreads, Underscores City’s Inherent Dangers (Brittny Mejia, Matthew Ormseth, Hannah Fry, Joe Mozingo, Los Angeles Times)
The Getty fire broke out along a freeway Monday and blew up to more than 600 acres under Santa Ana winds, destroying eight homes and damaging five in Brentwood. Thousands of people were ordered to evacuate.
California’s Wildfires Are the Doom of Our Own Making (Matt Simon, Wired)
The state is being squeezed by uber-wildfires and rising seas—climate change’s twin agents of chaos. It’s a struggle that will define us.
Nunes Aide Is Leaking the Ukraine Whistleblower’s Name, Sources Say (Spencer Ackerman, Sam Brodey, and Adam Rawnsley, Daily Beast)
A top aide to Rep. Devin Nunes has been providing conservative politicians and journalists with information—and misinformation—about the anonymous whistleblower who triggered the biggest crisis of Donald Trump’s presidency, two knowledgeable sources tell The Daily Beast.
Derek Harvey, who works for Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee, has provided notes for House Republicans identifying the whistleblower’s name ahead of the high-profile depositions of Trump administration appointees and civil servants in the impeachment inquiry. The purpose of the notes, one source said, is to get the whistleblower’s name into the record of the proceedings, which committee chairman Adam Schiff has pledged to eventually release. In other words: it’s an attempt to out the anonymous official who helped trigger the impeachment inquiry.
“Exposing the identity of the whistleblower and attacking our client would do nothing to undercut the validity of the complaint’s allegations,” said Mark Zaid, one of the whistleblower’s attorneys. “What it would do, however, is put that individual and their family at risk of harm. Perhaps more important, it would deter future whistleblowers from coming forward in subsequent administrations, Democratic or Republican.”
