New York Times admits no evidence linking Trump, Russia

UNITED STATES: The New York Times story confirming the Obama intelligence apparatus spied on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 underscores how blasé big media has been “about the fact that the Obama administration was actively spying on four affiliates of a rival political campaign weeks before an election.” Mollie Hemingway offers an important decoder to the story, including this (in paragraph 70): “A year and a half later, no public evidence has surfaced connecting Mr. Trump’s advisers to the hacking or linking Mr. Trump himself to the Russian government’s disruptive efforts.”

IRAQ: Civil defense forces have removed 640 bodies from the ruins of Mosul in the past two days.

AFGHANISTAN: Taliban insurgents have abandoned their efforts to take over the western city of Farah—but the sudden assault this week showed the militants’ ability to attack a well-entrenched government position backed up by both Afghan and American air power.

RAMADAN, the Muslim month of fasting commemorating the revelation of the Quran to Muhammad, began this week around the world, and here’s a good guide for praying for Muslims during this time.

RUSSIA: Richard Pipes has died. The Jewish Holocaust survivor and Harvard academic took a frontal assault on Soviet communism and became a leading intellectual opponent of the policy of “detente.” He insisted the West could not accommodate itself indefinitely to the Soviet Union’s communist state. Joining President Ronald Reagan’s national security team, Pipes helped to shape a confrontational policy that led eventually to the Soviet downfall.

VIETNAM: A fascinating look at the Vietnamese community in New Orleans reveals its religious faith, economic opportunity, and challenges more than 40 years after immigrants arrived following the fall of Saigon.

I’M READING Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn by Daniel Gordis.

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