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Saturday, October 31, 2026

The editor of one of Russia's last independent newspapers on Friday said the publication would cease operations under pressure from the Kremlin. Novaya Gazeta is shutting down after 30 years during which it was known as a source of investigative news that challenged the government.


Gas prices have barely budged for months. On Friday, America's two biggest oil companies showed just how much that's been worth to them: Chevron reported third-quarter earnings of $9.9 billion, nearly triple from the $3.5 billion in the third quarter of 2025. ExxonMobil posted a third-quarter profit of $15.4 billion, more than double the $7.5 billion it made a year earlier and just shy of its record quarterly profit from 2022.


The Trump administration has warned several states that their voter rolls include noncitizens, but many of those claims haven't held up to scrutiny. read more


News coverage of Trump misses the point. Sure, he is racist, cruel, ignorant, corrupt and a pawn of Russia. But the reason he's unfit to be president is that he is a loathsome human being.


Financial giant Bank of America is reminding customers to bank safely by kindly not sharing your banking credentials with your AI agent. read more


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More from the article ...

... "On November 9th, we will turn off the lights in the home where we have lived for 30 years, shut down our servers, and leave," the newspaper's leadership said in a statement. "The newspaper no longer exists.

"The Russian authorities and the Russian security services have forced our editorial team to cease its operations."

Novaya Gazeta was established in 1993. Its co-founder, Dmitri Muratov, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for defending press freedom.

Muratov was once attacked with acid paint thrown on his face and nearly lost his sight. The attackers were released by authorities.

Six of its journalists have been murdered. Others have been imprisoned, had their homes raided and were beaten by security forces.

Since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the publication has been under intense pressure from the government amid a larger crackdown of independent reporting in Russia.

"The information space in Russia has disappeared," editor in chief Sokolov told CNN. "People do not know, and have no way of finding out, even what is happening in the neighboring street, because the sources of news available to them are either stories about a Russia that does not exist or propaganda promoting the way of thinking the ruling elite wants to impose on the public."

Sokolov said his team has been able to work while "encircled by the security services" for five years.

"Now it's over," the newspaper said in the statement. "We have found ourselves in a 'kill zone.'" ...


More from the OpEd...

... No major newspaper of which I am aware has dared to lead a story with the obvious fact that he is unworthy of office " any office " not because of what he did yesterday, and the day before, but because he is a self-seeking crook, crooked as a spirochete, a gonorrheal bacterium in the swamp of Washington, D.C.

Back in the 1990s, the Republican Party used the slogan "Character Counts!" to attack President Bill Clinton, who " as the ancient Stoic philosophers used to say " couldn't keep his dick in his pants.

Whether possession of a "good character" is an asset or flaw in a U.S. president is an unanswerable question.

Surely our two greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, were of "good character," though Washington owned slaves.

The late Jimmy Carter was a man of sterling character, but a mediocre president.

John F. Kennedy was a sleazeball and a mediocre president. But Kennedy's mediocrity as a president had nothing to do with his character. He just got the job before he was ready for it.

Dick Nixon's rotten character cost him the job, though he did some good things as president: creating the Environmental Protection Agency and opening diplomatic relations with China among them.

LBJ? Another questionable character, ignorant of Vietnam, but he bullied Congress into passing three long-overdue Civil Rights acts, all of which Trump and John Roberts' court are dismantling, with malicious intent.

Whether or not you agree with what Harry Truman did (dropping atomic bombs, creating the CIA), he never passed the buck.

And Barack Obama? Pardon my prejudice, but he is the only president in my lifetime who was both a good president and a good man. In his case I think the two are related.

And the oozing pustule in office today? He has lost favor not just because of his incompetence and corruption, but because his relentless craving to be on top of Page 1, every day, has showed the United States, and the world, what a greedy, lying, fascist, egotistical crybaby he is. And those four adjectives and the one noun do not play well in Peoria. My mom would have swatted his butt. ...


@#76 ... Or have we already been facing such an assault? ...

To wit...

Map Shows States Hit By Cyberattacks on Water Systems (August 2026)
www.newsweek.com

... A wave of cyber incidents targeting water and wastewater infrastructure has put utilities across multiple states on high alert, as federal authorities investigate attacks that have disrupted operations and exposed vulnerabilities in critical public services. ...

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