Rukmini Callimachi
@rcallimachi
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New York Times journalist covering housing. Previously, 7 years covering ISIS & al-Qaeda, 7 years in West Africa. Ex-AP bureau chief. Ex-refugee.
New York, New York
Joined April 2009
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1. Hello everyone, I wanted to share what I learned from the more than 15,000 pages of ISIS documents that my team and I unearthed over five different trips to Iraq. We recovered the records in 11 different cities and towns. First up, how we found them.
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1. I’ve had a chance to check in with sources, including two US officials who had intelligence briefings after the strike on Suleimani. Here is what I’ve learned. According to them, the evidence suggesting there was to be an imminent attack on American targets is “razor thin”.
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After years of paperwork, in the midst of a pandemic, my husband became a US citizen today. There are now *three* Americans in this photo:
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17. Before I go back to the pool let me just say the obvious: No one’s trying to downplay Suleimani’s crimes. The question is why now? His whereabouts have been known before. His resume of killing-by-proxy is not a secret. Hard to decouple his killing from the impeachment saga.
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For 7 years, I covered dictators and strongmen in West and Central Africa. The No. 1 move of an incumbent who thinks he’s going to lose an upcoming election, is to delay the ballot citing security concerns or else technical issues - “oops, ballots couldn’t be printed in time!”
Lincoln did not delay elections during the Civil War.
FDR did not delay elections during World War II.
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I don’t like the word hero. It’s overused. But my god is it applicable here. French gendarme Arnaud Beltrame handed himself over to an ISIS-inspired gunman yesterday to save a hostage’s life. In the ensuing raid, he was shot & spent the night fighting for his life. He just passed
Le lieutenant-colonel Arnaud Beltrame nous a quittés.
Mort pour la patrie.
Jamais la France n’oubliera son héroïsme, sa bravoure, son sacrifice.
Le coeur lourd, j’adresse le soutien du pays tout entier à sa famille, ses proches et ses compagnons de la
@Gendarmerie
de l’Aude.
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5. But as one source put it a) + b) + c) is hardly evidence of an imminent attack on American interests that could kill hundreds, as the White House has since claimed. The official describes the reading of the intelligence as an illogical leap.
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2. In fact the evidence pointing to that came as three discrete facts: a) A pattern of travel showing Suleimani was in Syria, Lebanon & Iraq to meet with Shia proxies known to have an offensive position to the US. (As one source said that’s just “business as usual” for Suleimani)
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6. One official described the planning for the strike as chaotic. The official says that following the attack on an Iraqi base which killed an American contractor circa Dec. 27, Trump was presented a menu of options for how to retaliate. Killing Suleimani was the “far out option”
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This is what happens when you spend a significant chunk of your career working for a propaganda outlet. Please check out the live briefing on the Coronavirus, updated hourly at
@nytimes
.
I’m so frustrated right now ... that we can’t trust the media to tell us the truth without inflaming it to hurt Trump ... that Trump has misled so many times we no longer know when to trust his word ... that even I as a journalist am not sure where to turn for real info on COVID.
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1. Two sources have confirmed to the New York Times that Baghdadi’s location in Idlib was confirmed as far back as early July, so 3.5 months ago. I spent months working on his obituary. Here’s what I can share now:
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3. More intriguing was b) information indicating Suleimani sought the Supreme Leader’s approval for an operation. He was told to come to Tehran for consultation and further guidance, suggesting the operation was a big deal - but again this could be anything.
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1. Last night, I found myself in tears at the news. I do not recognize the America that welcomed my family so many years ago.
#IAmARefugee
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10. Since the strike, Iran has convened its national security chiefs. Chatter intercepted by American intelligence indicates they’re considering a range of options. Cyberattacks, attacks on oil facilities and American personnel and diplomatic outposts have all been cited so far.
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4. And finally, a) and b) were read in the context of c) Iran’s increasingly bellicose position towards American interests in Iraq, including the attack that killed a U.S. contractor and the recent protest outside the American embassy.
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11. But among the “menu options” that I had not heard before were: (1) kidnapping and execution of American citizens. (This might explain why the State Department has ordered the evacuation of all US citizens in Iraq, not just government and embassy employees).
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8. It was after the embassy protests that the president, according to one US official, chose the Suleimani option, but the problem at that point in time is that American intelligence did not know his precise whereabouts. They scrambled to locate him, says the official.
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12. Another is attacks on American diplomatic and military outposts not just in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, but as far afield as UAE and Bahrain. The official I spoke to was particularly concerned for American troops stationed in Iraq, some of whom are co-located with Shia militias
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7. Trump chose a more moderate option which involved the Dec. 29 strikes on the positions of an Iranian-backed militia. Then came the protest at the gates of the US embassy in Baghdad:
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13. How does this impact the war against ISIS? I turned to
@Mikeknightsiraq
for insight. He’s studied Iraq since the 1990s. What he told me is that months before the strike that killed Suleimani, the tensions with Iran had already degraded America’s ability to fight ISIS in Iraq:
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9. According to the official, the strike on Suleimani was pulled together so quickly that initially the US was not sure PMF leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was in the convoy. He was also killed and is also viewed as an Iranian proxy:
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16. A likely outcome of the recent strike is that small, out-of-the-way outposts for special operations forces will be deemed too vulnerable and will be eliminated. Fighting ISIS is no longer the priority if the outer wall of the US embassy is being attacked.
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14. In 2019, America has been denied airspace and access to operations in Iraq to go after ISIS at the behest of Iran-backed groups. The US has also been told to stop communicating with Sunni tribes. These are important setbacks that have already weakened the US’ posture in Iraq
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My son was baptized yesterday in a centuries-old Orthodox monastery in Romania. In the cemetery just outside under a plum tree is my grandmother’s grave. How she’d have loved to meet him. After the ceremony, I took him to her and he placed his little hand on her gravestone.
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15. “It’s all been downhill,”
@Mikeknightsiraq
told me, in terms of America’s access to the ISIS battlespace in recent months due to Iranian pressure on Iraqi officials. One upshot? US special operations forces have been on the offensive in Diyala, Nineveh and Kirkuk provinces
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1. Now for something non-ISIS’ey: Six days ago, our baby boy was born. I wanted to share my love for my amazing doctor, Jacqueline Worth, of Village Obstetrics.
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1. Hello world, today I bring you a piece I've been working on for months about how ISIS "remote-controls" attacks:
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Just an example of how well the New York Times is able to keep things under wraps: This bombshell story was produced by colleagues on my desk, and I had no clue it was even in the works.
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This story has slipped through the news cycle with barely a peep: An American Airlines mechanic who used a piece of foam to sabotage a Miami flight’s air landing module had ISIS videos on his phone and a brother who may have joined the terror group:
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An SDF commander has confirmed to me that the Ain Issa camp has fallen and all the detainees (a population of thousands that includes ISIS supporters, ISIS relatives and civilians) have fled. “An unbelievable mess,” the commander said. Latest message:
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A Turkish airstrike hit a convoy of civilians in northeastern Syria. Numerous journalists were with them and several are reported killed. We don’t yet know their identities. This is the France 2 team letting colleagues know that they are okay.
#Awful
.
Syrie. Nous étions ds le convoi de civils kurdes pris pour cible par les forces turques ou leurs alliés à Ras Al Ain. Notre équipe va bien mais des confrères sont morts. Notre récit ds le
@20hFrance2
ce soir avec
@AuerNicolas
et Yan Kadouch
@franceinfo
@france2tv
#Rojava
#Turquie
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Actually when
@realDonaldTrump
became president, half the territorial caliphate had been wiped out under a policy begun by the Obama administration. Hard part was brokering the alliances that created the mosaic of local armed groups, which did the heavy lifting of battling ISIS
....going to be there for three months, and that was seven years ago - we never left. When I became President, ISIS was going wild. Now ISIS is largely defeated and other local countries, including Turkey, should be able to easily take care of whatever remains. We’re coming home!
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My son - the only member of my family who is American by birth - did his best to be quiet during his dad’s citizenship ceremony, which is not easy when you’re all of 1 years old. But then he had a couple of very pressing questions for the US flag:
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For 6 minutes, radio logs, 911 calls and witness statements indicate that Breonna Taylor was still alive after she was shot, but no aid was rendered. Officials including the coroner say her time of death is not exact and that her injurries were lethal:
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The White House requested an off-the-record meeting with the
@nytimes
publisher, meaning that we couldn’t storify
@realDonaldTrump
’s comments. Then the president violated that agreement & Tweeted his version of what was said. The statement below summarizes what was actually said:
Statement of A.G. Sulzberger, Publisher, The New York Times, in response to President Trump’s tweet about their meeting
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It’s one thing that many of our readers and staff disagree with
@bariweiss
’ views - fine. But the fact that she has been openly bullied, not just on social media, but in internal slack channels is not okay.
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I can think of only one terror attack that the media has single-handedly & unanimously ignored & that's the tragic massacre at Bowling Green
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1. Days after Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis resigns, Brett McGurk, the top diplomat leading the fight against ISIS, turns in his resignation letter, saying he cannot carry out Trump’s policy of withdrawing from Syria.
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For 7 years, I lived in a country that is included in the s***hole category. Without exageration, it was the best quality of life I have ever had in terms of my housing, leisure opportunities, spa treatments, access to healthcare etc. I’m roughing it in New York, by comparison.
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Among the dirty little secrets of how Turkey wages war in Syria is that it’s not just Turkish soldiers poring over the border. It’s also allied rebels whose behavior isn’t so different from ISIS. This horrific video shows how they kill Kurds: via
@NYTimes
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Earlier this summer, I got on my first plane in months to go to Louisville in order to piece together one of the saddest stories I’ve worked on: The killing of Breonna Taylor, and the path that led police to her door that night.
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Winners: ISIS, Assad, Russia. Losers: Kurds and other ethnic minorities, America, women
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You know that game kids play on the beach? The one where they spend all day building an elaborate sand castle only to then stomp it to the ground? That’s our ISIS strategy. While the group was not defeated, we had made significant gains. 1000s were detained. Not after today
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My journalist friends currently in Syria are heading to the border to cross back into Iraq. Word is that Assad’s forces will be taking control of the border today and foreign journalists are no longer safe. Is this the end of the Kurdish experiment in self governance?
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9. Why are they calling it a "Blessed Ban?" Because ISIS sees this as *their* doing. They succeeded in scaring the daylight out of America
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1. Our baby boy was born Saturday, but I’m breaking my self-imposed Twitter silence because this news is big: ISIS has just released a video of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the first time he’s appeared in a video in 5 years, since his 2014 televised sermon declaring the caliphate:
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I am fiercely proud of the stories I have broken on the ISIS beat. But as journalists, we demand transparency from our sources, so we should expect it from ourselves. Please see my full statement below regarding our Caliphate podcast:
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1. All over liberated areas of Mosul, 1 of the 1st things people are doing is painting over ISIS graffiti. Some are being artistic about it:
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1. Last month, I was about to get on a flight to Africa for an ISIS story when our world fell apart. Now I've been asked to cover another kind of war - the one on COVID. My first story looks at the backlog in testing which in some parts of the country is getting worse not better:
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I worry about what is happening here. A piano prodigy is being dropped from concerts in Canada because he’s Russian — even though he opposed the invasion of Ukraine. This creates a dangerous us-vs-them, where Russian civilians are being canceled even if they did the right thing:
Montreal Symphony Orchestra drops Russian piano prodigy from concerts amid backlash...though he has been outspoken against the war in Ukraine.
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1. A US official with direct knowledge of events tells me that the US has knowledge that Turkey transported Arab militiamen from one part of Syria west of Manbij into Turkey, to then cross back into Syria alongside the Turkish military in order to fight Kurds.
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1. This is a big deal: The US-led Coalition has suspended operations against ISIS in Iraq, as resources are reassigned to protect American facilities and personnel:
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1. Happy Easter everyone. I am attending service in one of the hardest-hit Christian towns in Iraq, which looks like a ghost town:
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After everything I’ve read about immigrant children separated from their parents, this paragraph in today’s
@nytimes
piece is still shocking. The children in some facilities are “heavily dosed with psychiatric drugs” in order to treat their depression and anxiety?
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Remember this story next time you read an account of an innocent ISIS wife. The only reason we know this German woman tied up a 5 -year-old girl & left her to die of thirst is because she blabbed to an informant and the Yazidi mother survived = rare
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1. Good morning all. Late last night, I got a call from a source briefed on the Barcelona inquiry. What I learned:
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1. After ISIS claimed Vegas, I was waiting for them to release Naba, their weekly newsletter, to see if anything new emerged. Naba is out:
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Little-known-detail that I just learned from
@NickKristof
‘s column: In Tiananmen Square, when Chinese troops opened fire on their own people, they were roundly condemned. But there was one man who praised the crackdown: Donald Trump.
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1. On the topic of the "defeat" of ISIS: Today, the Norwegian government confirmed the authenticity of a brutal execution video showing a man decapitating a Scandinavian tourist in Morocco. The men who killed the tourists pledged allegiance to ISIS:
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8. The resident said ISIS has been openly celebrating the ban. They've even coined a phrase for it: الحظر المبارك
Or "The Blessed Ban"
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1. The Islamic State’s news agency has claimed responsibility for the string of bombings in Sri Lanka which left 321 people dead. It’s taken them more than 2 days to do so, which is unusually long for ISIS:
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Strikingly similar to the language of the Rwandan genocide:
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To grasp the extent of the crimes the Arab militias fighting for Turkey are carrying out in Syria, read the autopsy of the Kurdish politician executed a few days ago. Her legs & jaw were broken, she was dragged by her hair until the skin of her scalp came out & repeatedly shot:
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15. When you're standing in the liberated streets of (eastern) Mosul, it's clear who this ban is hurting: The people who helped us.
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1. Some news today: A study by
@F_reinares
and
@carolagc13
on the Barcelona attack reveals that the terrorists planned a far larger and more catastrophic event, including possibly a hit on the Eiffel Tower
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1 For the last 2 days, I've been reporting from eastern Mosul, now under Iraqi control. It's amazing to finally be able to walk freely here
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2. The bodies of the tourists - 24-year-old Louisa Jespersen of Denmark & 28-year-old Maren Ueland of Norway - were found at the head of a trail in Morocco's Atlas Mountains. I watched the horrific video and it's hard to even find words to describe the brutality it contained.
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Listen and weep:
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1. Adventures in American parenting: My son’s daycare sent him home with a list of the other babies in his class entitled “For Valentine’s Day.” My son can’t yet speak much less write so the implication is that I, his mom, will fill out cards for a bunch of babies all under age 1
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19. It truly is the only place where *anyone* from anywhere can arrive and can belong/thrive. I am American far more than I am Romanian
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1. Guys, ready for another Tweetstorm? I wanted to share with you how the ISIS documents we recovered in Iraq help answer the question of how a group, which revolted the world with its spectacles of violence, held on to so much territory for for so long?
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Unsurprisingly, the viral image of a Muslim man being beaten by a Hindu mob in Delhi has now been repurposed by ISIS, in a poster justifying retaliatory violence in “Wilayat al-Hind,” the Caliphate’s “Indian Province.”
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1. Two years ago, when we published our story on how ISIS governs, we made a promise to readers: We would find a way to make the more than 15,000 pages of internal ISIS records we found available to the general public. Today we made good on that promise:
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You know how they say be grateful for what you have because your life can change on a dime? A week ago I was feeling sorry for myself because my overseas assignment was scuttled. Now my husband has lost his job. We’re better off than many ppl, but it’s still very, very stressful.
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This Tweet is something else. “In case the Kurds or Turkey lose control....” Lose control of what? The prisons & camps in northern Syria currently hold 10s of 1000s of ISIS members & their families. Out of this pool, the US is making sure that exactly 2 detainees stay behind bars
In case the Kurds or Turkey lose control, the United States has already taken the 2 ISIS militants tied to beheadings in Syria, known as the Beetles, out of that country and into a secure location controlled by the U.S. They are the worst of the worst!
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Honored to be named a Pulitzer Finalist today, my 4th time, for the ISIS Files, based on 15,000 pages of terrorist records we pulled from the rubble & for
#Caliphate
. Enormous thanks to my editors
@meslackman
@samdolnick
& my team
@AndyMillsNYT
@larissaluu
@SchwendyDorr
@Pasthaaa
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6. The one he chose for this wall says, "In life, be like a cube of sugar, so that when you are gone you leave a sweet taste."
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10. ISIS, according to this resident of Western Mosul, thinks their terror tactic worked. They frightened the most powerful man in the world
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1. A Kurdish official with the SDF has shared a video with reporters which he says shows a small group of ISIS prisoners escaping from the Navkur prison in Qamishlo. I’m not on the ground so this needs further confirmation, but if true this is not good news.
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1. I'm Tweeting today from Mosul to say I was wrong: When the operation to free the city began 4 months ago, I thought it'd be a disaster
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13. According to the phone logs, police called the driver of 1 of the vans at 3 pm on the day of the attack. At that point, he was 1 hour outside the Barcelona city center. By 430 ppm the same van was careening into tourists on Las Ramblas. Call appears to have set off attack
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Not a great look for Weinstein’s lawyer. Her interview on The Daily may have violated the judge’s gag-order. So she lied and said it had been recorded before the start of the trial.
@nytimes
had to issue a statement clarifying that, nope, she spoke to us on Jan. 28:
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1/ Three million. That's the estimate of how many children have dropped out of school as a result of the pandemic. To see in slow motion what it's like when a child falls behind,
@tamirbenkalifa
& I spent a week with 11-year-old Jordyn as he tried to learn
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2. In an email that brought his staff to tears, McGurk said: “The recent decision by the president came as a shock and was a complete reversal of policy that was articulated to us. It left our coalition partners confused and our fighting partners bewildered....”
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1. Today, a prominent al-Qaeda-linked jihadist issued a series of Tweets, calling
@realDonaldTrump
's electoral win a victory for their cause
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First wild pigs in Barcelona now a queue of deer in a city in Poland. How quickly nature comes back when the planet’s biggest predator (us) stays indoors:
Scene from the town of Zakopane, Poland. Due to residents staying indoors, the streets have been taken over by deer
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1. I’m seeing uninformed commentary online from people who think that the use of a fake suicide vest in the London attack today must mean this wasn’t a terrorist attack. In fact ISIS has pushed this very tactic, sharing tips on how to make fake vests.
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4.
@BrettMcGurk
was considered by many to be the glue holding together the sprawling, 79-nation coalition battling ISIS. A veteran of 3 administrations, he was a rare holdover from the Obama White House, a sign of the crucial role he played in helping mount the war against ISIS
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"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job....."
Residents asked to register via internet for FEMA assistance, says San Juan mayor.
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Huge news in Mali: One of the longest-held al-Qaeda hostages, South African Stephan McGowan, grabbed in Timbuktu in 2011, is finally free.
BREAKING: South African Stephan McGowan - held hostage for 6 years by Al Qaeda - has been released.
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5. Sources we’ve spoken to indicate that the mission had to be rushed, because America was losing its visibility due to the pullout of US forces. Many are surprised Baghdadi was hiding in Idlib. But there were data points leading up to the raid indicating an ISIS presence there.
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1. Today, President Trump declared ISIS “defeated” in Syria and signaled that he might begin the drawdown of American troops stationed there. Follow along for a walk down memory lane, starting with the last time ISIS was declared vanquished.
We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.
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Felt down today. I forced myself to go for a run, using the jogging stroller to bring my bundled-up son along. It started pouring midway through our run. Feel so much better & baby fell asleep with 0 fuss. Exercise is the medicine I need to remember to reach for in this new world
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Honored that
#Caliphate
won this year’s inaugural Best Audio Documentary award:
The inaugural winner of our Best Audio
#Documentary
category is
@nytimes
's Caliphate 🎙️🎙️🎙️🎙️
#IDADocAwards
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1. Four days ago I flew back from Niger, where I went to ask: How did four American soldiers lose their lives in an ambush in a remote & forgotten corner of the world? Working with the A-team of
@helenecooper
@EricSchmittNYT
@alanblinder
@Tmgneff
@malachybrowne
, here’s our answer
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1. It's been nearly a year since an American couple was stabbed to death in Tajikistan in an attack claimed by ISIS. Since then, I've gone to Tajikistan twice to piece together what happened in an investigation for
#TheWeeklyNYT
that premieres Sunday:
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3. “.... I worked this week to help manage some of the fallout but — as many of you heard in my meetings and phone calls — I ultimately concluded that I could not carry out these new instructions and maintain my integrity,” he said.
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1. For 5+ years,
@adamgoldmanNYT
and I were privy to a terrible secret: Louisa Akavi, a nurse from New Zealand had been kidnapped by ISIS. Her employer asked us not to publish her name for fear it could endanger her. Finally we can share her story:
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