Dating has evolved at such an electric pace over the past few years it can be difficult to keep up. In fact the English language itself, for all its famed versatility, is struggling to maintain pace with all the strange ways people are finding to hook up with and dump one another. A new one I came across recently is “wokefishing”, which is when someone — usually but not necessarily a bloke — pretends to be more politically progressive than they are, to lure do-gooders under the sheets.

Popular narratives about Russia are infused with the idea that Putin sits atop a highly centralised system that he controls manually. While Putin is certainly Russia’s most important decision-maker, the political system is not his personal well-oiled machine. Instead, the system has a set of operating principles – chief among them a lack of the rule of law – and perverse accountability, which sometimes produce outcomes that are less than optimal for the Kremlin. We often see evidence of this during elections when some regions in Russia report official results that strain credulity as local poll workers strive to please superiors with a good showing for pro-regime candidates. The problem, of course, is that while these results get the job done, they cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election and provide ammunition for critics. We also sometimes see actors on the periphery of the system try to act independently on behalf of the Kremlin. Boris Nemtsov, a deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin and long-time Putin critic, was assassinated outside the Kremlin’s walls in early 2015. His murder, which deeply shocked many in Russia, was eventually attributed to a group of hired killers. However, his family and others are convinced that it was ordered by Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic who has a close relationship with Putin. Journalists and critics can also be caught up in disputes that have little to do with the Kremlin but illustrate how the corrupt machinery of the state can be used against almost anyone. Last summer, Ivan Golunov, a journalist in Moscow, was arrested for drug possession. Trumped-up charges with questionable evidence are not uncommon in Russia where the acquittal rate in criminal cases is just 0.25%. Golunov’s case, which sparked large protests and was eventually dismissed, was probably the result of a dispute between local actors, but it brought unwelcome critical attention to the system at a time when authorities were trying to conduct a tough electoral campaign in Moscow. These examples and many others complicate widely held ideas about how Russia is governed, and they also suggest that the country is more dangerous for opponents than we may assume. The same day that he was flown to Germany, an article appeared in a Russian newspaper detailing how closely Navalny was being surveilled on his trip to Siberia. The source for the article seems to be the security services and it describes how difficult it would have been to poison the activist: Navalny does not use his own credit cards, his staff reserve different hotel rooms, and he does not publicise his agenda. Read alongside unfounded rumours about Navalny’s alcoholism, drug use and blood sugar imbalances that began to circulate from regime-aligned sources late last week, the surveillance report suggests the Kremlin is working hard to signal that it had nothing to do with his illness. Although Navalny is a thorn in the side of the Kremlin, his death would certainly galvanise the opposition. This is probably the last thing that the regime would want at a time when Russia’s closest neighbour, Belarus, is engulfed in anti-regime protests and the far eastern region of Khabarovsk is also in its second month of mass protest. And yet, despite what the Kremlin would presumably want, Navalny is gravely ill.

A narcotics agent recently resigned from the Spalding County Sheriff’s Office after the GBI completed an investigation — but before the sheriff could determine if any disciplinary action was warranted. Within three days, he had landed a job with the Butts County Sheriff’s Office, which Sheriff Gary Long defended in an emailed statement.

Professional wrestler Marty Jannetty, best known for his time in WWE as a member of the legendary tag team “The Rockers” with Shawn Michaels, confessed to committing murder when he was 13 years old in a rambling, bizarre Facebook post.

Breaking news: Scott Adams has uncovered the truth about Joe Biden as a disciple of Satan! From Right Wing Watch: “Build back better—BBB. If you were going to imagine ‘666’ and you wanted to show i…

Three socialists ran in this month’s Tennessee primaries. With endorsements from the Memphis chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, all three of them won.

Arson is suspected as the cause of a July 12 fire that left extensive damage to the USS Bonhomme Richard docked off San Diego, and a U.S. Navy sailor was being questioned as a potential suspect, a senior defense official said Wednesday. The sailor was being questioned as part of the investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the official said, adding that defense department leaders were notified of the development. The official, with knowledge of the investigation, spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public. The sailor was not detained. The amphibious assault ship burned for more than four days and was the Navy’s worst U.S. warship fire outside of combat in recent memory.

POSTED AT 8:20 PM CT WEDNESDAY: Hurricane Laura has made its turn to the north in earnest late this afternoon and evening, and is likely heading for landfall on the Louisiana coast, possibly near Calcasieu Pass, south of Lake Charles.

UPDATED with Seattle game postponed: The Milwaukee Brewers’ scheduled home game against the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday was postponed after Brewers’ players met earlier in the afternoon and decided to boycott the game in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Later in the afternoon, the Seattle Mariners-San Diego Padres game scheduled for 6:10 p.m. PT at Petco Park was also postponed. The MLB news, reported by multiple outlets, follows earlier in the day the NBA having to postpone its three scheduled playoff games tonight in Orlando, a move prompted by players on the Milwaukee Bucks not taking the floor for pregame warmups for their game against the Orlando Magic.

Shortly after 9 PM on December 30, 2007, Mwai Kibaki held a Bible in his right hand and was sworn in for a third term as Kenya’s president. It was a hurried, late-night provocation that even the most authoritarian administrations had never before attempted. Just a few hours earlier, the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) had declared Kibaki the winner of the election held on December 27. The ECK did this knowing the opposition had accused the government of rigging the vote. In hindsight, the swearing-in was the culmination of events that constitute an inflection point for Kenya—one with lessons for any fragile democracy, but especially for the United States under President Donald Trump. Election day had been marred by protest. Junior officers at the ECK had even gone on national television and radio to warn the public that the results were being manipulated. Then, in the early hours of the next morning, Kibaki suddenly and rapidly reversed a nearly 1 million-vote deficit against his main challenger, Raila Odinga. Some constituencies recorded voter turnouts of over 100 percent. The opposition disputed the results, and the contest of wills between Kibaki and Odinga, the kingpins of the two major political camps, triggered protests and police crackdowns, which were followed by outbreaks of ethnic violence that killed more than 1,500 people and displaced hundreds of thousands over the next four months. Eventually, after regional and international intervention, Kibaki agreed to a coalition government, where he remained president.

Armed citizens have been taking to the streets of Kenosha during unrest in the city following the police shooting of Jacob Blake and some have even asked the county sheriff to deputize them, Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth said. Beth, speaking during a press conference Wednesday, said he declined to do so, noting that if he did, those members would become "a liability to me and the county and the state of Wisconsin." "There's no way. There's no way I would deputize people," he said. Beth, who said his initial response was "oh hell no," added that such groups don't actually help police. "Part of the problem with this group is they create confrontation," he said. "People walking around with guns - if I walk in my uniform with a gun all of you probably wouldn't be too intimated by it because you're used to officers having guns, but if I put out my wife with an AR-15 or my brother with a shotgun or whatever it would be walking through the streets you guys would probably wonder what the heck was going on."

Up until recently, sexual assault survivors were free to share their experiences with the world. Changes to the Judicial Proceedings Reports Act now make this impossible in Victoria - otherwise, survivors risk spending months in jail or copping thousands of dollars in fines. The laws apply to sexual assault survivors whose abusers have been found guilty of their crimes, or whose cases are still before the courts.

The collection of information about your use of the content, and combination with previously collected information, used to measure, understand, and report on your usage of the service. This does not include personalisation, the collection of information about your use of this service to subsequently personalise content and/or advertising for you in other contexts, i.e. on other service, such as websites or apps, over time.

U.S. adults are more inclined now than in 1988 to say nonviolent protest, violent protest and economic boycotts, in particular, can help improve the situation of Black Americans.

Justin Townes Earle likely died from a “probable drug overdose,” a spokesperson at the Metro Nashville Police Department confirmed to Rolling Stone on Tuesday. Police conducted a welfare check at the 38-year-old songwriter’s Nashville apartment on Sunday after one of Earle’s friends said they hadn’t heard from him since Thursday. MNPD spokesperson Don Aaron told Rolling Stone that the Nashville Fire Department entered the residence and found Earle dead. An autopsy is pending.

When federal agent Jim Reed drove in to a small airport in the East Texas city of Athens mid-morning on September 15, 2014, he was expecting to find a straightforward case of arson—an easy case for the new guy. He introduced himself to the Athens Jet Center’s co-owners, two brothers in their seventies named Wayne and Gaylon Addkison, who led Reed to a small jet, a 1971 Cessna 500 Citation I, that looked like it had been barbecued on a rotisserie. “It was burned in half,” Wayne Addkison recalled. “The nose tipped on the ground and the back half was on the ground too.” For two weeks the Citation had just been sitting on the tarmac at Athens Municipal Airport, next to the Jet Center, they told Reed. But two days before Reed’s visit, they’d come into work after receiving a call: the plane was in flames. Reed, a fit 29-year-old who was as careful with his clean-cut brown hair and clean-shaven face as he was with his deposition-ready phrasing, was only six months into his job as an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). Reed didn’t doubt that the fire was the result of arson: A mechanical failure on an inactive Citation was about as unlikely as a lightning strike. As one pilot would later say, “Planes don’t just catch fire in a hangar. They don’t spontaneously combust.” Driving out from Tyler, where he was based, Reed considered the typical arsonists who might be involved. Was this a teen vandal? A local troublemaker? Later, when he reviewed the airport’s surveillance footage, he could see a shadow of a man thrown from the plane in a ball of fire when it exploded. He checked the area burn centers, hospitals, and morgues. Nobody had turned up with burns. Whoever set fire to the plane had somehow walked away in one piece.

Hurricane Laura, a major Category 4 storm, is set to hit near the Texas-Louisiana border on Thursday morning as local officials scramble to evacuate thousands of residents.  The storm’s rapid intensification shocked scientists and prompted forecasters to issue warnings of “unsurvivable storm surge” in Texas and Louisiana. “Unsurvivable storm surge with large and destructive waves will cause catastrophic damage from Sea Rim State Park, Texas, to Intracoastal City, Louisiana, including Calcasieu and Sabine Lakes,” the National Hurricane Center said on Wednesday. “This surge could penetrate up to 30 miles inland from the immediate coastline.”  Laura could bring storm surge of nearly 13 feet to the coastline as well as flash flooding and tornadoes on land. The storm battered the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Haiti over the weekend, knocking out power for more than 1 million people, collapsing some homes and killing at least 23 people. 

Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip and a popular pro-Trump commentator online, is not a religious believer​, but he told followers Tuesday that he couldn’t help but notice how many “satanic coincidences there are with the Joe Biden campaign.”

Beyond wildfire smoke, the air quality in Denver has deteriorated to exceptionally poor conditions with residents barraged by infusions of multiple lung-irritating pollutants — including ozone, which has spiked in recent days to levels 28% above federal health limits. Ground-level ozone levels in metro Denver this week reached as high as 90 parts per billion, exceeding the health limit of 70 ppb, state monitoring data shows. Ozone levels at 11 of the 15 air-testing sites broke that health limit. Ozone causes acute respiratory problems and triggers asthma attacks. Colorado public health officials issued a special “multiple pollutants” alert through at least 4 p.m. Tuesday. Health authorities focused most urgently on the harm from inhaling tiny “particulates” spreading in the smoke from burning forests and grasslands. California’s big fires brought more smoke, thickening the haze from the four major fires still burning across more than 193,000 acres in western Colorado.

Mental disorders are routinely treated by medication under the medical model. So why are the anthropologists who wrote this study claiming that these disorders might not be medical at all? They point to a few key points. First, that medical science has never been able to prove that anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are inherited conditions. Second, the study authors note that despite widespread and increasing use of antidepressants, rates of anxiety and depression do not seem to be improving. From 1990-2010 the global prevalence of major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders held at 4.4% and 4%. At the same time, evidence has continued to show that antidepressants perform no better than placebo. Third, worldwide rates of these disorders remain stable at 1 in 14 people. Yet “in conflict‐affected countries, an estimated one in five people suffers from depression, PTSD, anxiety disorders, and other disorders,” they write. Taken together, the authors posit that anxiety, depression and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity. “Defense systems are adaptations that reliably activate in fitness‐threatening situations in order to minimize fitness loss,” they write. It’s not hard to see how that could be true for anxiety; worry helps us avoid danger. But how can that be true for depression? They argue that the “psychic pain” of depression helps us “focus attention on adverse events... so as to mitigate the current adversity and avoid future such adversities.”