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2 men arrested after breaking into a business and stealing Pokémon cards, Webster police say
Webster police said they arrested two men for stealing thousands of dollars worth of Pokémon cards and led them on a chase.
Fans protest decision to exclude O.J. Simpson from new stadium's Wall of Fame
His legacy is overshadowed by his arrest in the 1994 stabbing deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
Man accused of robbing a North Charleston business
The North Charleston Police Department arrested a man Friday morning after he allegedly robbed a business.
North Haven man arrested after stabbing, robbery at Groton business
GROTON, Conn. (WTNH) — A North Haven man was arrested Thursday in connection with a combined stabbing and robbery incident at a business in April, according to the Town of Groton Police Department.…
Police in UK arrest suspect in killing of former Parliament member Ann Widdecombe
The killing was not believed to be an act of terror and there was no information to suggest it was politically motivated, Devon and Cornwall Police Assistant Chief Constable Matt Longman said.
New Mitch McConnell Ambulance Video Adds to Health Mystery
The footage appears to show McConnell being loaded into an ambulance on a stretcher after EMS was called for a cardiac arrest.
ICE arrested a nun on her way to church. Does MAGA care?
Trump says he’s defending religious liberty. Not when it comes to immigration.
AZ doctor accused of sex crime; CDC warns of dust storm health risks
Chandler doctor arrested amid serious allegations; more Cyclosporiasis cases are being reported in the U.S.; and more - here's a look at your top stories this evening.
Fourth suspect arrested in April shooting at Howard Street business
Evanston police have arrested a fourth man in connection with the April 21 shooting at Howard Street and Custer Avenue. He is now charged with a felony
Jackson County Sheriff: Federal search at Kansas City business was 'not an immigration raid'
A federal criminal search warrant executed at a northeast Kansas City food manufacturing business led to the arrest of an unregistered sex offender. The Jackson County Sheriff's Office says the operation was not an immigration raid.
Two arrested in Gouverneur business theft; suspect found hiding under blankets
Two people have been arrested in connection with the theft of nearly $4,500 worth of merchandise from a Gouverneur business.
SLED charges business owner with forgery after alleged fake bond
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division has arrested a man after he allegedly submitted a fake performance and payment bond to land a construction job.
UF Health doctor arrested for transmitting child sexual abuse material
Arrest happened Wednesday.
Arrest report details child porn allegations against UF Health doctor
An investigation that began with a cyber tip led authorities to arrest UF Health doctor Chintan Shah on felony child sexual abuse material charges.
‘Born This Way’ star Cristina Sanz dies at 36 after cardiac arrest
Cristina Sanz, one of the subjects of A&E’s ‘Born This Way,’ has died at 36 after going into cardiac arrest.
UF Health doctor arrested on child porn charges, Alachua County deputies say
Alachua County Sheriff’s deputies arrested a University of Florida assistant professor and UF Health doctor on child porn charges
Questions surround Mitch McConnell’s health, return to Senate
Emergency dispatch audio indicating that someone at Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) home in Washington, D.C., suffered “cardiac arrest” earlier this month has raised questions about when the former …
Rochester business owner fights July 4 arrest charges: 'I was targeted'
Doug Robbins disputes Rochester police claims that led to his July 4 arrest, saying he was targeted and plans to fight felony riot and other charges.
Meriden Business Owner Arrested After Worksite Visit, Officials Say
The business owner was arrested following an investigation by the CT Department of Labor and the Workers' Compensation Fraud Control Unit.
15 arrested for breaking into Gwinnett County entertainment parks, police say
Fifteen young people have been arrested after they allegedly broke into several entertainment parks in Gwinnett County as part of a social media trend, according to police.
Andrew Gillum arrested on drug charges in Alabama, could face prison time
He faces 3 counts, including a felony.
McConnell’s health emergency sparks questions on whether he will return to Senate
Emergency dispatch audio indicating that someone at Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) home in Washington, D.C., suffered “cardiac arrest” earlier this month has raised questions about when the former …
Douglas police arrest suspect linked to multiple business burglaries
The Douglas Police Department arrested a suspect following burglaries at two businesses, according to police. The first incident occurred July 4 at a business on South Peterson Avenue. Officers responded to an alarm after the business owner reported seeing a suspect on surveillance cameras attempting to force entry into the building.
Douglas police arrest suspect linked to multiple business burglaries
The Douglas Police Department arrested a suspect following burglaries at two businesses, according to police.
Science & Medicine: Training health care workers to save lives in Texas maternity care deserts
In the nearly half of Texas counties considered maternity care deserts, few health care workers are trained to handle a pregnancy emergency like maternal cardiac arrest. A simulation-based training program from an expert at UT San Antonio's Kate Marmion School of Public Health aims to change that, and reduce preventable deaths in the process.
Science & Medicine: Training health care workers to save lives in Texas maternity care deserts
In the nearly half of Texas counties considered maternity care deserts, few health care workers are trained to handle a pregnancy emergency like maternal cardiac arrest. A simulation-based training program from an expert at UT San Antonio's Kate Marmion School of Public Health aims to change that, and reduce preventable deaths in the process.
3 arrested, guns and drugs seized after Birmingham Police shut down ‘illegal business’
Birmingham Police announced they conducted a coordinated operation that resulted in the shutdown of an “illegally operating business.”
3 arrested at Birmingham business known as “The Money Club”
Three Birmingham residents were taken into custody Thursday after police say "The Man Cave" was operating without a license and outside the law.
FSU Health nurse practitioner arrested on drug fraud, falsifying medical records charges
A Tallahassee-based nurse practitioner is accused of obtaining prescription medications by prescribing them to her receptionists for her to pick up.
Air Force Detains Officer Who Called for Trump’s Impeachment at Capitol
Maj. Jason Watson, who was in uniform, was arrested during a protest that followed a news conference on Wednesday.
West Hartford business owner taken by ICE released
ICE agents reportedly drew guns and arrested Cecunjanin June 20 at the Dunkin’ Donuts on Park Road without warning.
Two Women Arrested in Millcreek Township Illicit Massage Business Raid - The Institute to Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation
On June 16, law enforcement executed a search warrant on Magic Health Massage Spa in Millcreek Township in an ongoing effort targeting illicit massage businesses in Erie County. Law enforcement arrested two New York women who allegedly lived at the … Read more about Two Women Arrested in Millcreek Township Illicit Massage Business Raid »
Exclusive: Trump administration plans to boost worksite immigration enforcement after increase in criminal probes
The Trump administration is planning for an increase in worksite enforcement operations, with multiple federal agencies involved in determining how to boost the number of immigration arrests and placate the president’s base, according to five sources familiar with the discussions.
Medics Responded To ‘Cardiac Arrest’ At Mitch McConnell’s Home Last Month—What We Know About His Health
The 84-year-old senator has been hospitalized twice this year.
Former Olympic canoeist indicted by a grand jury after arrest at the Reflecting Pool
David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist, has been indicted by a grand jury in Washington, DC, Superior Court, after being arrested last month when he reached into the Reflecting Pool, a source familiar with the charges told CNN.
US service member arrested at Capitol after calling for Trump’s impeachment
A US Air Force major was arrested on the steps of the US Capitol on Wednesday after delivering a speech calling for the impeachment and removal of President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
Opelika business owners arrested on hemp product charges
Two Opelika business owners have been arrested following a joint investigation into alleged illegal operations at several local vape and CBD businesses, the Opelika Police Department said.
Undercover investigation leads to arrest at Jasper massage business
An undercover investigation into a massage business in Jasper ended Wednesday with one arrest after authorities said they found evidence of illegal activity. The investigation began after the Jasper ...
Just in: Ex-Science minister Uche Nnaji arrested at Abuja Airport
Former Minister of Science and Technology, Uche Nnaji, was on Wednesday arrested at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, shortly after arriving from Enugu aboard a chartered flight.
UNC basketball champion arrested after illegal sports betting scheme
Former Tar Heel Ed Davis was one of six arrested in the latest betting sting.
Columbus man arrested following massage business investigation
The Columbus Police Department has arrested a man following an investigation into allegations of inappropriate conduct at a local massage business.
Terrion Arnold released: Where Lions go from here after secondary suffers loss, plus potential replacements
The Lions cut ties with their former first-round pick after his arrest on kidnapping and armed robbery charges, leaving a void in Detroit's secondary.
Iraqi Officials Arrested in Green Zone Corruption Raid, Deepening Political Tensions
Iraqi security forces arrested several senior political figures in a series of overnight raids inside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
Vallejo: Armed Suspect Arrested After Allegedly Making Death Threats At Business
Police have arrested a man after he allegedly brandished a gun and made death threats to customers at a business in Vallejo, police said Sunday.
Business owner helps police identify coin thief
Williamsport, Pa. — Neighbors and a business owner helped Williamsport police identify and arrest a man accused of stealing coins and a sorting machine from a laundromat.
Iraq detains politicians, officials in anti-corruption crackdown
Iraqi security forces arrested politicians and senior officials early on Sunday as part of a broader anti-corruption campaign ordered by Prime Minister Ali al‑Zaidi, a government spokesperson said.
Could Ennis Rakestraw Save the Lions’ Secondary?
Terrion Arnold’s arrest has left a major hole in Detroit’s secondary. Could this finally be Ennis Rakestraw’s chance to prove he belongs?
Black Canyon City business defrauded by GM
A woman was arrested Tuesday for allegedly stealing $40,000 from the Black Canyon City business for which she was the general manager.
How Domo went from a $2.8 billion darling to fighting for its survival
Domo has been rocked by executive departures, new competition from AI agents, and the drunken-driving arrest of its founder and CEO, Josh James.
General manager arrested for stealing over $40,000 from Black Canyon City business
An investigation found that financial records had been deleted, documentation was incomplete and deposits were missing.
Sheriff’s office releases body-cam video after viral arrest at Augusta business
The Richmond County Sheriff’s Office has issued a statement after a video has been circulating social media of a woman’s arrest.
Business owner in South Carolina arrested, officials say
A business owner in South Carolina was arrested Friday and is accused of operating without a retail license, according to the South Carolina Department of Revenue.
5 free agent cornerback options for the Detroit Lions
Five cornerback additions the Detroit Lions should consider after Terrion Arnold’s arrest.
‘Disgusting and vile’: Locals react to arrest of Tampa business owner on AI child porn charges
A Tampa business owner is behind bars facing more than 100 felony charges. He’s accused of making child pornography using Artificial Intelligence.
12 arrested in South Florida in nationwide investigation into $6.5B health care fraud
Investigators say Medicaid and Medicare thieves in South Florida bilked taxpayers for $27 million for everything from fake therapy to medical equipment patients never received. Officials seized the stolen taxpayer money from Key West to Fort Pierce.
Suspect in $5,000 Academy Sports theft arrested
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A man accused of stealing over $5000 worth of merchandise from Academy Sports and Outdoor over a span of two days earlier this month is now in jail. Carltrell Taylor, 39, is …
South Korea arrests Shincheonji church leader for meddling in politics, media report
A South Korean court ordered the arrest of Lee Man-hee, the founder of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, over allegations he orchestrated an illegal scheme for followers to join a political party, news reports said.
Dorchester County man charged for operating business without retail license
A Dorchester County man was arrested Wednesday and charged with operating a business without a retail license, according to the South Carolina Department of Revenue.
Summerville man charged with operating business without a retail license
A Summerville man was arrested Wednesday and charged with operating a business without a retail licenese
Business owner in South Carolina arrested, officials say
A business owner in South Carolina was arrested Wednesday for not having a retail license, according to the South Carolina Department of Revenue.
10 SoCal residents arrested in health care fraud takedown
The U.S. Department of Justice launched its massive 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown, charging 455 individuals nationwide over $6.5 billion in fraudulent claims.
Dozens in Florida among hundreds charged in a DOJ crackdown on healthcare fraud
The two-week operation uncovered more than $6.5 billion in false claims submitted to insurers, according to the Department of Justice. Nearly two dozen arrests were made by state authorities.
Two teens accused of theft at Cape Coral business
Two teenagers were arrested on Sunday after they were accused of theft at a business in Cape Coral.
Federal judge blocks Trump policy of making arrests at immigration courts nationwide
A federal judge in California on Tuesday issued a nationwide block against the Trump administration’s policy of making arrests at immigration courts, putting an end to a practice that garnered national attention.
Arrests of immigrant parents create mental health crisis for children
An estimated hundreds of thousands of kids, most of them U.S. citizens, have been separated from a parent by the Trump administration’s deportation policies.
Capital Region individuals arrested in connection to nationwide healthcare fraud crackdown
Clayton man arrested for burglary of a business
Clayton man arrested for burglary of a business
Man arrested 9 years after business manager killed outside Charlotte shop
The deadly shooting happened on Fugate Avenue in August 2017.
NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst Pediatric Residents and Newtown High School Train Students and Teachers to Handle Cardiac Arrest
NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst today announced its pediatric residents trained nearly 200 students and staff at Newtown High School in cardiac arrest
Five people reportedly arrested after Trump claims Washington reflecting pool was ‘vandalized’
CBS News report says administration official told her arrests were made for vandalizing pool and another five federal citations issued
Trump claims vandals damaged D.C. Reflecting Pool, and says it will be drained again
The president posted on Truth Social claiming vandals slashed the pool's lining and poured chemicals into the water, saying arrests have been made. He provided no evidence for his claims.
Suspect arrested after shooting, standoff at north Charlotte business
A suspect is facing charges after shooting into an occupied vehicle and barricading himself inside a local business.
‘A child goes to bed and doesn’t wake up’: the families left in shock after the sudden death of their healthy children
Sudden cardiac arrest is statistically rare but among the leading causes of death for children and young people. And families often have no idea of the risk until it’s too late
Trump claims multiple people arrested for vandalizing Reflecting Pool
(CNN) — Earlier this year, President Donald Trump described the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool as “absolutely filthy,” vowing to clean up the iconic landmark and make it “look gorgeous, beautiful”
France arrests 20 after banning rally against political executions in Iran
Paris protest goes ahead despite the ban, which French foreign ministry insists isn't linked to FM's call with his Iranian counterpart
Guinea-Bissau: Opposition leader house arrest raises stakes
Opposition leader Domingos Simoes Pereira remains under house arrest months after the Guinea-Bissau coup, deepening a political crisis and raising tensions with international partners.
Bend Police: Restaurant employee arrested for sexually abusing minors at downtown business
BEND, Ore - (KTVZ) -- A 35-year-old Bend resident, Davis Allen Kellar, was arrested on Thursday, June 18, on suspicion of sexually abusing minor co-workers at a local downtown Bend restaurant. The arrest took place at his home in the 400 block of NE Kearney Avenue in Bend. The arrest followed a month-long investigation by
Comedian Carlos Mencia arrested on 12 tax-related felony charges in Los Angeles
'Mind of Mencia' star Carlos Mencia is accused of being 'one of California's biggest tax scofflaws,' after allegedly failing to report over $8 million in income.
Comic Carlos Mencia arrested on suspicion of felony tax evasion
Comedian Carlos Mencia, who broke out in the early 2000s with his Comedy Central series 'Mind of Mencia,' was arrested Thursday morning in Los Angeles on suspicion of a dozen felony tax evasion counts.
L.A. Just Launched a Business Tax Fraud Unit. Its First Arrest? A Famous TV Comedian
The case gives Los Angeles County prosecutors a high-profile opening act for a new unit focused on business tax fraud.
Arrests of immigrant parents create mental health crisis for children
'Elf' actor Faizon Love arrested in Florida amid paternity case
"Elf" and "Friday" actor Faizon Love has been arrested in Florida for contempt of court.
Lil Nas X shares update after getting mental health care: ‘There’s less fear in my heart’
Musician says on Instagram he is ‘doing much better’ and receiving treatment and therapy after 2025 arrest
Lil Nas X shares mental health update
Lil Nas X tells fans he's "doing better and creating freely" after his 2025 arrest and bipolar diagnosis.
Local healthcare executive to lead 2026 Kern County Heart and Stroke Walk and county-wide push for CPR readiness
Bakersfield, Calif., June 17, 2026 — According to the American Heart Association, 9 in 10 people who suffer cardiac arrest outside of the hospital die, and more than half don’t receive bystander CPR. CPR — especially if performed immediately — can double...
Miami-Dade commissioners vote unanimously for new mental health center
Steven Leifman, a judge and finance chair of the Homeless Trust, has been on a quest to help address a societal problem he has experienced in his Miami-Dade courtroom, defendants with untreated mental health issues leading to what he says is a revolving door of arrest and release.
Suspect arrested following suspicious death at Sonora Behavioral Health
He was booked into the Pima County Adult Detention Complex based on an active arrest warrant for manslaughter.
Report: Tiger Woods Prioritizing Vanessa Trump's Health After Completing Rehab Stint
It appears Tiger Woods is changing his priorities for the rest of 2026. Woods was arrested on suspicion of DUI with property damage and refusal to submit to a lawful test after being involved in a rollover accident on March 27. The Martin County Sheriff’s Office reported that he had pain pills in ...
Supreme Court will decide if 'criminal aliens' can be held indefinitely while they fight deportation
The case could give the administration more power to arrest and hold immigrants, including green card holders, who have criminal records.
Carlsbad tightens rules for massage businesses after prostitution arrests
Background checks, application fees, 5-year ban for violators added in updated massage ordinance.
James Harden arrested in Houston Saturday for carrying an unlawful weapon
Here’s what you missed: A week of big announcements in politics and law enforcement
It was a busy week across the Upstate, beginning with Primary Election Day and ending with some notable arrests and convictions. Here are some of the major stories you may have missed from this week.
In Retrospect: Poland, Russia, Europe
In April I spent a few days with Zryw, a Polish non-profit organization that recruits young people to enter politics and public life. Their aim is to build a new generation of civic leaders in Poland. I’ve followed their evolution from the beginning; my son is one of the founders. (“Zryw” means “impulse” or “burst of speed” in Polish). Julie Chmielewska, one of Zryw’s leaders, interviewed me at the event. Here is the conversation, lightly edited for grammar and context: Julia Chmielewska: Assuming that culture shapes institutions, could we conclude that some cultures are more prone to authoritarianism? Anne Applebaum: I don’t think so. Every culture, every nation, and every country has the potential for change. When we look at history, we can see that nations do change. Poland has changed, for example, from the 1980s to today. There’s a completely different mentality here than the one I encountered when I first visited, in 1988. The current generation sees the world through a different frame. So no, I don’t believe that certain nations are doomed to authoritarianism, or to anything. Of course, there are political and cultural traditions, but they can always be challenged. JC: So do you think there’s something intrinsic in human nature that pushes people to democracy, freedom? AA: I think there is something in human nature, a deep instinct, that pushes people towards freedom, yes. People who live in authoritarian countries – and I’ve heard this from them over and over again – sooner or later find themselves angered by a feeling of helplessness. They can see the unfairness of crooked courts, irrational political decisions. They naturally dislike the fact that somebody has all the power while they have none. In those circumstances, people who have no political background at all sometimes are politicized just by that frustration. I’m thinking of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, for example, who was a Belarusian housewife, until the circumstances of her husband’s arrest forced her to become a politician. I met a woman who is a Uyghur from China, and who had come to live in Turkey. After several of her family members were arrested, she too was propelled into a political role. These kinds of experiences make people interested in democracy or political reform, even if they thought they didn’t care. I also think that the opposite is true: some people instinctively prefer homogeneity, order, hierarchy. They don’t like the confrontation of opinions or the noise of debate, and they lean towards a single leader or a unified regime. I think that most of modern history is shaped by the clash between those two different sides of human nature. JC: Which force do you find more powerful today? AA: I think they both have a lot of power and there’s no way of predicting who wins. Even in countries that seem very shut off or stuck in an authoritarian system can change. We’ve seen that happen. And vice versa, I think democracies can also begin to fail and slide into authoritarianism. So it’s very important not to be complacent in either direction. JC: I want to go into your history and your experiences. You’ve lived in Russia during a time of incredible change in the late 80s, and then you came back to do research in post-Soviet Russia. AA: I was a student in Russia just before the collapse of the Soviet Union. I then traveled and worked there extensively in the 1990s, and I met people who really were full of hope. They hoped that Russia could become a democracy, or at least a place that guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of the press. These weren’t ideas that came from Washington. Although now the narrative in the Kremlin is different, I met many people who were working towards exactly that kind of transformation. A friend of mine ran a series of seminars – once a year, and then later several times a year, in cities all over Russia – designed to get people to discuss politics in new ways. She invited young politicians and journalists, as well as foreigners. I went to many of them, in Moscow as well as Volgograd and Novosibirsk. Over two decades, hundreds of people came to these seminars, and all of them wanted Russia to be different. I remain convinced that many Russians still want Russia to be different. It’s just that the old system, in the form of Putin, a representative of that system, returned. The KGB reimposed their power. And this wasn’t because of something to do with culture, this was to do with money and politics, and who was in charge. JC: You’ve partially answered my question... I wanted to ask whether that excitement of the 1990s was an exception from the Russian historical norm which has been rather authoritarian? AA: Of course, if you look at the history of Russia since the 18th century, there have always been liberal groups, reformers and revolutionaries. There were the Decembrists, in the early 19th century, and the rural populists later on, who tried to organize the peasantry. A significant group of liberal Russians appeared at the turn of the 20th century, people like the father of the writer Vladimir Nabokov, who was a Russian politician before the revolution. These groups were small in number, but sometimes had a broader significance. The Russian dissident movement in the 1950s and 1960s actually invented the modern human rights movement. It was their idea to hold the leaders of the Soviet Union accountable for the language they used, to remind them of the treaties they had signed and the promised they had made. They created the Helsinki group, for example, that held Soviet leadership to the language of the Helsinki Treaty, which formally ended the Second World War and which contained guarantees of human rights, at least on paper. That idea spread to Eastern Europe, and similar tactics were used here in Poland. (Benjamin Nathans recently wrote a great book about the Soviet dissidents, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause) JC: But seemingly, even if they do ever get power, they could never hold on to it. AA: We don’t know, because they have never really had power. But in any case, we also don’t know what will happen in the future. There is no reason to assume that Russia will forever be condemned to totalitarianism. Even during the first fifteen years of Putin’s regime there was some form of democratic politics. Only when the full-scale war began did he bring everything to an end: he shut down all remaining independent organizations and killed his most important opponent, Alexi Navalny. But does that mean he is popular, that he enjoys legitimacy? Even now, we don’t really know what Russians think about him, or about the war. There is no way of doing real polling in Russia because nobody will answer an independent pollster over the phone. JC: Do you think that the flock of young people, especially young men, who fled Russia after the start of the war represent a continuation of liberal movements that refuse to partake in the authoritarian state, or do you think they are moving for the sake of self-preservation – “I don’t want to go to the army, so I leave”? AA: I’m sure it’s both. I actually know many people who left Russia for political reasons either in the very last years before the war, or else just after the war began. JC: And do you see a change in the young generation versus the old one that have fled? AA: It’s hard for me to say because the people who I know were mostly already politicized. I do know some younger people who left, but most of them were already either active in the opposition, or working as journalists. Many of them very self-consciously think of themselves as maintaining Russian culture abroad, just as in the 20th century the Soviet dissidents or the anti-communist White Russians once thought of themselves as people who maintained the true Russian culture, outside of Bolshevik Russia. JC: Let’s move on to Poland. One of your first experiences with Poland was reporting on Margaret Thatcher’s first state visit, in the autumn of 1988. You followed her around the farmers’ market. AA: She was making a symbolic gesture. She wanted to welcome free markets, but the only one she could really visit was the farmers’ market at Hala Mirowska. JC: And I want to talk about this area because today you can look out of any window in that district, Mirów, and see rows and rows of skyscrapers. How does it feel to see a country built from the ground in such a short time, both politically and economically? AA: You know, when you’re living in a period of dramatic change, it’s always hard to know whether the change is positive or negative. The transformation in Poland created winners and losers, as well as new classes of people, new political movements of different kinds. At the time, it sometimes just felt like turbulence. Now, we can look back at the 1990s and early 2000s in Poland and see in retrospect that the country was headed in towards prosperity and European integration. In around 2009 or 2010, I remember speaking to a woman who worked cleaning government offices, and who asked me if her daughter should study in Amsterdam or in London. This seemed to me to be a real transformation, and it happened very fast: within a few years, Poles stopped feeling like second-class Europeans, and a generation of younger Poles appeared who had no qualms about crossing borders. JC: We again live in turbulent times. Do you think we’re heading towards positive outcomes? AA: I can’t make predictions, because everything that happens tomorrow depends on what people do today. Also, history doesn’t have a trajectory. It doesn’t move in a particular direction. You only think it does afterwards. As I said, you can look afterwards at Poland in the 1990s and you could say this was a period of great progress. But not everybody at the time saw that. Sometimes people are very wrong about a given country’s trajectory. I remember people writing about Ukraine in the 1990s, about how dangerous it was that Ukraine was independent, that this was going to be an anti-semitic state, that Ukrainian nationalism was going to come back... and although you can say many bad things about Ukraine, the country made many bad choices, actually it became a pretty tolerant state which now has a Jewish president and until recently a Muslim defense minister. JC: In the 1990s Poland’s and Ukraine’s GDP were roughly similar. Ukraine was even a bit richer. So the starting point was similar for both of these countries, but they’ve turned out very, very differently. Even if we stop in 2014. Why do you think Ukraine “chose East”? Was it external influence? AA: No, I think Ukraine was in a different position. First of all, central and eastern Ukraine had been part of the Soviet Union since the 1920s, and had therefore experienced a longer period of occupation, repression, Sovietization and even Russification. Ukraine did not have, as Poland did, an alternative elite: a large cadre of economists and politicians, who already had some experience in opposition politics and in independent thinking. In Poland, the transformative finance minister, Leszek Balcerowicz, had already thought about how an economy might be decentralized before he took office. We can argue about how successful he was, but at least he was prepared to try something new. In Ukraine, people weren’t prepared. For one, there hadn’t been much space even for an illegal opposition in the previous couple of decades. Ukraine was also in many ways still emerging from colonial occupation. For the previous couple of centuries, many of the most capable Ukrainians had moved to Russia, and the first generation of leaders in independent Ukraine tended to be former Soviet apparatchiks. They didn’t immediately seek to become closer to western Europe. Instead, they looked for some kind of economic and political “third way” and an accomodation with Russia. Ukraine became stuck in this position, half-in, half-out and became pretty profoundly corrupt. JC: The Polish alternative elite had a vision of where they wanted the country to go. I think the general perception now is that this vision ends with the next election, right? Is this a natural process of gaining power? AA: Their vision, and it was shared by the time by politicians who now call themselves both left and right, was that Poland should join the EU and NATO, as fast as possible. My husband (Radek Sikorski) was in the very first government that said it wanted to join NATO. At the time this was taken very badly in Washington: the demand for NATO membership absolutely came from Poland, not from the US. But even then, in the early 1990s, many Poles already understood that the Russian sphere of influence would grow once again, that it was important to become part of the transatlantic alliance and an integrated Europe as fast as possible: NATO, the EU, the Council of Europe, all of the trading and security alliances. That consensus lasted through several different governments and over many years, even governments containing former communists. For twenty years, right, left and center disagreed about many things, but they all agreed on the direction that the country should go. In retrospect, that consensus created the basis for prosperity in Poland. JC: And regarding the Polish-Ukrainian relations. We know that antagonisms, e.g. the myth of Wołyń [a massacre of Poles that took place in what is now Western Ukraine, in 1943] are increasingly used in Polish political discourse today. In Ukraine, nationalist historians make heroes out of UPA, the Ukrainian revolutionary army, which is held responsible for this tragedy. Where do you see a start for burying the hatchet? Is the reconciliation of our nations possible? AA: So here’s a strange thing: For more than a decade after they both gained independence, Poland and Ukraine participated in a number of projects that were designed to solve exactly these kinds of Polish-Ukrainian differences. Books were published that were jointly written by Polish and Ukrainian historians, monuments were built. These projects were successful: If you’d asked me this question in 2010, I would have said that there are no real historical issues between Poland and Ukraine, that the two countries had mostly reconciled. For a number of reasons, this began to shift. In Poland, children and grandchildren of victims of the Wołyń massacre felt their tragedy hadn’t been fully recognized. In Ukraine, nationalist groups wanted the UPA partisans who had fought against the Soviet Union recognized for their heroism, despite the fact that some in this broad and not well-defined group were also linked to Wołyń. In both eastern Poland and western Ukraine, the memory of the ethnic cleansing that took place there in the late 1940s - Poles were moved West, Ukrainians East - to accomodate new borders has left feelings of displacement and bitterness. The wave of Ukrainian immigration, which started before the war, may have provoked some of this. But don’t underestimate the role played by Russia, which has always wanted to create discord between Poland and Ukraine, and pumps out propaganda to that effect in both countries. Vandalism on both sides of the border, damage done to cemeteries and monuments, is sometimes carried out by provacateurs working for Russia, just to create bad feelings. The Polish-Ukrainian conflict also hides a different reality: although there are real grievances and bad memories, the truth is that the biggest tragedies both nations experienced in the twentieth century were inflicted by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. That should unite these two countries, not divide them. JC: This week (19.04.2026 – Ed.) in Hungary we saw that using historical narratives to create grievance has no longer worked. Are you optimistic about the direction after Orban’s loss? AA: The Hungarian election was really important because it shows that people can actually resist powerful, dominant propaganda. The ruling party Fidesz controlled all of the TV, 90% of the newspapers, the constitutional court, the bureaucracy... and yet people had the nerve to vote against it and resist it. It’s also an important election because Hungary created a huge network of well-funded think tanks and foundations that were funding other far right groups and projects. So that loss is going to have a knock-on effect in other places too, maybe even in Poland. JC: What you’ve said about resisting propaganda reminds me of one of the interviews you did about talking to Russians in the post-Soviet era who claimed that people knew that the system was lying. Why do people choose to believe in these regimes anyway? AA: Because it’s useful. Stephen Kotkin, an American historian, once described how people would learn how to “speak Bolshevik”: It was just a language that you needed to use in order to get by in society. If you didn’t talk the way the regime wanted you to talk, then you might have problems, or lose your job, or your kids would not get into university. It was a way of getting along. Communist Poland was similar, at least in the early years. When I was writing a book about the Sovietization of Eastern Europe after World War II, I met a lot of people who wanted to talk a lot about the war, when many of them had done really heroic things. But almost nobody wanted to talk about the decade afterwards, between 1945 and 1956. This was when you had the short period of terror, violence and Polish Stalinism. To stay safe, people felt the need to just go along with what others were saying, or stay out of politics, or use communist jargon without necessarily believing it. I don’t judge them for it, and I wouldn’t describe all of those people as collaborators. It’s easy to feel moral certainty in retrospect, because we know that communism ended. But if you were living in 1949, it might not have been clear to you that communism was going to end. In very repressive societies, maybe about 10% of people who are really evil – collaborators, torturers. Maybe 10% of people are really brave and who find ways to resist. And then around 80% of people have kids, they have parents, they have to have jobs and they’ve had to get through it somehow. Strange though it may sound, I’ve found that the work I did on that book is now very useful in explaining some of what’s going on in the United States today. There are plenty of members of the Republican Party in Congress who know perfectly well that Donald Trump says many things that aren’t true. But they avoid criticizing him because it’s inconvenient, because they would get in trouble, because someone would attack them on the internet. So actually you don’t even need mass terror to get people to conform. JC: Is Gen Z reinventing agency? AA: We’ll see. In any generation you can find groups of people who want agency. If you live in a society that’s unfair, for example where a tiny number of people have captured most of the wealth, then at a certain point people rebel. This is always easier for younger people, who have you have less to lose. The question now is how the internet will affect the relationships between citizens and the state, and how it will change organizations. The “Twitter revolutions” people spoke about as early as 2008-9, mass protests organized online, have often proved to be very superficial. Although you can easily join something just by clicking, the work of creating a real movement requires physical participation. Successful mass movements of the past, for example the Civil Rights movement in the United States, were built by people who had spent many years together. They had participated in non-violent workshops together. They practiced and prepared. Just using the you can get everybody to show up at a certain moment, but then when the protest is broken up, nothing happens. It’s also true that the repressive regimes have more recently learned how to use the internet to undermine leaders and movements. Most of all, they now understand how to make people cynical. The form of propaganda that most modern authoritarians use - and I think the Russians really pioneered this - deploys sneering cynicism. Instead of praising the rulers, the regime propagandists mock the opposition movement leadership for being supposedly corrupt or sexually degenerate, with the goal of undermining any kind of idealism. JC: MAGA grew on the internet? AA: MAGA is a real grassroots movement. They had symbols, red hats, they showed up at rallies. But you’re right that the cynicism, the sarcasm and the distrust that the movement embodies came originally from the internet, and this is different. Fifty years ago, most European political parties had a social base in real organizations, in trade unions for Social Democrats, in church groups for Christian Democrats. As people stopped going to church and as the trade unions became smaller, the social base of these parties disappeared. Now people who wouldn’t have known one another in the past meet on the internet and create new movements, many of which don’t last. JC: Is history ending? Going in stale circles? AA: History never ends. In truth, human beings want contradictory things at the same time: order and freedom, stability and change. These things are never resolved, and when a society swings too far in one direction, people always push it the other way. But each time that happens, the result is different. Certainly it is true that we are now in a period when old philosophers and ideas from the 1930s are undergoing a revival. Carl Schmitt, who was a philosopher who was very influential on the Nazis, is back as an influence on both the far left and the far right, once again inspiring people to think that all politics has to be existential, that all politics is about defining and defeating enemies. In the US, some are also bringing back dominionism, the idea that we need a Christian and not a secular state. It’s also true that we are living through a more fundamental shift. The old left-right divide, which was mostly about the size of the state, is much less important now. Instead, we are arguing about more fundamental things: what are our rights, what protects our freedom. Or how much power do we want to give small elites, versus how much power to give ordinary people. In America a small group of very wealthy people now control information, because they control the social media platforms and AI, which means they determine what people will read and learn. Finding a way to preserve preserve zones of autonomy and independent thinking, this is going to be the main task for the next generation. JC: What is the one book that a person interested in Central Europe should read? AA: You could read my book “Iron Curtain: the Crushing of Eastern Europe” which tells the story of how the Soviet Union imposed its culture on the region. Or read Tim Snyder’s history of the region, “The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus 1569-1999.” And everyone should read “The Captive Mind” by Czesław Miłosz, which describes exactly the phenomenon we were talking about: why do people collaborate? I joined Scott Galloway and the brilliant Fiona Hill in a discussion about the wars in Ukraine and Iran, the future of global power, and what these conflicts reveal about America's role in the world. Scott told us that this was the 400th edition of his podcast, which is quite a number: My friend Francesco Chiamulera runs a brilliant series of literary events, Una Colline di Libri, A Hill of Books, in the Prosecco Hills, a region of vineyards and elegant hill towns in the Veneto, north of Venice. We did an event in Vittorio Veneto and also drove and biked around the countryside. Buy Autocracy Inc Buy Iron Curtain Open Letters, from Anne Applebaum is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe
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