Inside Stories

TITUSVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA — Shoehorned between the state line and the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania’s northwest corner, the city of Titusville is as red as America gets, a place where virtually every one of its 5,601 residents identified his or her race as “white” on the 2010 U.S. Census, and a few storefront windows, rather  bewilderingly, display Confederate flags and “Trump: Make America Great Again” campaign banners even now, more than a year after the 2016 presidential election.

BEIJING (Analysis) — Speaking to a group of students in September, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a bold proclamation. “Artificial intelligence is the future,” he said, stating that this is a fact “not only for Russia but for all humankind. It comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.”

BEIJING (Analysis) — Speaking to a group of students in September, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a bold proclamation. “Artificial intelligence is the future,” he said, stating that this is a fact “not only for Russia but for all humankind. It comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.”

NABI SALEH, PALESTINE — The struggle for Palestinian human rights and children abused under Israeli occupation has burst into the international spotlight with the help of 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi. Tamimi is no stranger to the Palestinian struggle or the spotlight — she has faced off with her oppressor far too many times in her short life.

WASHINGTON – The Washington Post reported that 2017 saw close to a thousand people killed by law enforcement in the U.S. — 987 people in total, an increase of 16 over the number killed in 2016.

KIEV, UKRAINE (Analysis) — Despite the mainstream media’s insistence that U.S. President Donald Trump is some sort of compromised Russian lackey, the fact is that at the end of last year, his administration approved the largest U.S. commercial sale of lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine since 2014.

ANKARA, TURKEY — Over the last decade or so, the West has been cheering for a rising Turkey as a nation that could set a positive example for other Western allies in the region. However, as Turkey has gained this new level of success under President Recep Erdogan, its plans have changed and Ankara has begun to establish its own path for the future, independent from other nations or blocs.

MILWAUKEE (Analysis) — The Donald Trump who addressed a small audience in Miami’s Little Haiti community, seven weeks before Election Day 2016, appeared to be an impostor.

Joel Whitney’s new book, “Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the World’s Best Writers,” explores how the CIA influenced acclaimed writers and publications during the Cold War to produce subtly anti-communist material. During the interview, Scheer and Whitney discuss these manipulations and how the CIA controlled major news agencies and respected literary publications (such as the Paris Review).

SAN FRANCISCO – The “new year” was barely 24 hours old when President Donald Trump did what President Donald Trump does: he tweeted something as inane and stupid as it was gratuitously provocative. This time, it was in response to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s declaration that he was now in possession of nuclear capabilities that could strike at the whole of the United States, symbolized by a button on his desk.