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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

Jun 13 • 4:15 AM EDT • Politics • anneapplebaum.substack.com

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Jun 10 • 9:02 AM EDT • Politics • thehill.com

National newspaper supplements mark World Mental Health Day 2026 in Bangladesh

To mark World Mental Health Day 2026, special newspaper supplements were published across nine national newspapers in Bangladesh, helping bring mental health messages to readers across the country. The supplements appeared in seven Bangla-language and two English-language newspapers: Bangladesh Pratidin, Bhorer Akash, Jaijaidin, Jugantor, Kalbela, Dainik Amader Shomoy, Prothom Alo, New Age and The Daily Star.

Oct 16 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • who.int

Nintendo opens up Fire Emblem with the gigantic Fortune’s Weave

Fortune’s Weave’s ambitious structure really works.

Sep 16 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

John Beilein, Bia Holmes headline 2026 WVU Sports Hall of Fame class

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Seven outstanding contributors to Mountaineer Athletics make up the 36th class of honorees in the West Virginia University Sports Hall of Fame, announced today by Vice President…

Aug 7 • 10:28 AM EDT • Sports • wboy.com

Three Oklahoma State football players questionable vs West Virginia

Three Oklahoma State players are questionable for Saturday's Big 12 opener against West Virginia in Morgantown.

Sep 23 • 10:44 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

WVU Medicine contributes $9 million to advance public health initiatives in Monongalia County

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University (WVU) Health System today (July 28) made a $9 million contribution to the Monongalia County Commission to expand preventive health services and strengthen community health programs that serve uninsured,...

Jul 28 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • wvumedicine.org

Stubborn, arrogant, a genius: France’s De Gaulle epic shows up the tepidity of our politics

The man who led Free France during Nazi occupation was single-minded to the point of obstinacy. But he believed in his own power to make history, says Guardian Europe writer Alexander Hurst

Jun 25 • 12:00 AM EDT • Politics • theguardian.com

Luxury Entertainment Trends in 2026 That Are Redefining Travel

Luxury in 2026 is about more than five-star hotels and extravagant amenities. Discover how private escapes, immersive dining, wellness experiences and personalized hospitality are changing the way we travel.

Oct 19 • 8:42 AM EDT • Entertainment • finehomesandliving.com

Reform’s Tice says people should stop tackling climate crisis and ‘enjoy’ heat

Deputy leader says it is ‘arrogant’ to try to stop global heating, despite UK being left reeling by summer firewave

Aug 17 • 10:51 AM EDT • Politics • theguardian.com

WVU Health System, Fulton County Medical Center sign definitive agreement

MORGANTOWN, W.Va., and MCCONNELLSBURG, PA. – The West Virginia University Health System, which operates under the brand WVU Medicine, and Fulton County Medical Center (FCMC) have signed a definitive affiliation agreement that will lead to FCMC joining the WVU Health System. ...

Aug 6 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • wvumedicine.org

Vancouver turns its Science World museum into a giant 17-story soccer ball for the World Cup

It started with a whimsical idea. Why not transform the landmark Science World museum in downtown Vancouver, the geodesic dome-topped building not far from BC Place stadium, into a gigantic

Jun 27 • 2:56 PM EDT • Science • kdhnews.com

Fashion, food and fun combine to make this event a success

arc THRIFT STORES Denver News: “Let’s Celebrate” was the theme for arc Thrift Stores’ annual fundraiser, and it’s not a stretch to say that’s exactly what everyone did at this Sept. 3 gathering held at Denver Botanic Gardens. The crowd that filled the gigantic tent overlooking the UMB Amphitheater launched the celebration with a social hour where good conversations, along […]

Sep 8 • 5:28 PM EDT • Politics • coloradopolitics.com

Moment of Science: Abundant oxygen not enough to explain massive ancient insects, new study suggests

Unlocking answers about giant ancient insects! Here's why an abundance of oxygen 300 million years ago may not explain why some animals got so gigantic after all.

Sep 8 • 3:40 PM EDT • Science • 13abc.com

Kathryn Ann Meinders Digestive Health Institute Now Open, Transforming Oklahoma Healthcare

Digestive healthcare in Oklahoma took a gigantic leap forward Monday with the official grand opening of Mercy’s Kathryn Ann Meinders Digestive Health Institute.

Jun 22 • 10:47 AM EDT • Health • mercy.net

Paul Jr.’s American Motor Fest Set to Bring Major Entertainment Weekend to Clearfield County

CLEARFIELD — Engines will roar, music will fill the air, and thousands of visitors are expected to descend upon the

Jun 8 • 1:20 AM EDT • Entertainment • gantnews.com

Scientists unlock evolution of gigantism in Scottish island wrens

A new study of British wrens has provided new insights into the inner workings of "island syndromes," according to research led by the University of Birmingham. The paper, published in the Evolutionary ...

May 28 • 6:00 AM EDT • Science • phys.org

Burglars steal from Grand Forks business, cancer fundraiser

The owner of An Elegant Affair says burglars stole merchandise, cash and donations collected for an employee battling cancer.

Jun 26 • 7:09 PM EDT • Business • inforum.com

12 TB Valve Archive Leaks Online, Fans Dig Through Early Portal 2 and Half-Life Clues

A gigantic 12-terabyte archive from Valve's old Steam2 content servers has leaked online, containing internal development builds spanning from 2003 to 2013. The trove includes a July 2009 build of Portal 2 with unused sequences and beta menus, along with assets from F-Stop, the canceled Portal...

Aug 30 • 2:16 PM EDT • Technology • techpowerup.com

Using comic books to get serious about science

Nuclear engineer-turned-librarian Jim Ottaviani found his niche as a writer of nonfiction comic books about scientific superheroes. Move over, Marvel. Step aside, DC Comics: Einstein, Pasteur, and more, have muscled their way into the best-seller stratosphere.

Oct 1 • 3:44 PM EDT • Science • michigantoday.umich.edu

15 uplifting images from Dog Photography Awards 2026

From elegant poodles to playful corgis.

Oct 17 • 8:05 AM EDT • Science • popsci.com

'I Don't Think We're Seeing It Here': GTA 6 Launch Trailer Not Using PS5's New QSSR Upscaler

"That's quite extravagant"

Oct 17 • 8:00 PM EDT • Technology • pushsquare.com

Morgantown native Emily Calandrelli brings science to Marvel's 'Iron Man and His Awesome Friends'

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — For Emily Calandrelli, science is a superpower — one she hopes to inspire the next generation to discover for themselves.

Oct 21 • 11:00 AM EDT • Science • wvnews.com

Curiosity stumbles upon a gigantic Martian “honeycomb” that has scientists intrigued - Futura-Sciences

In a 360-degree panorama captured by the rover on June 19 and 20, the 4,930th and 4,931st Martian days, or sols, of the mission, the polygonal shapes stretch in every direction as far as the rover can see. They even extend around the sides of a nearby butte nicknamed “Miraflores,”...

Aug 15 • 10:00 AM EDT • Science • futura-sciences.com

ISRAEL’S GRAND STRATEGY – AND POLITICS? – AT AN INFLECTION POINT

Essays – Grand Strategy has been elegantly defined by John Louis Gaddis and others as the dynamic relationship between national goals – which can aim high – and

Jun 21 • 10:11 AM EDT • Politics • jstribune.com

The four-hour-long Elon Musk documentary might be preaching to the choir

Alex Gibney’s latest feature is so gigantic in scope that it may miss its intended audience.

Sep 14 • 9:50 AM EDT • Entertainment • theverge.com

Ashley Gantt launches campaign to succeed Shevrin Jones in SD 34

The two-term lawmaker will leave her HD 109 seat at the end of this legislative term.

May 29 • 11:01 AM EDT • Politics • floridapolitics.com

Moment of Science: Abundant oxygen not enough to explain massive ancient insects, new study suggests

Unlocking answers about giant ancient insects! Here's why an abundance of oxygen 300 million years ago may not explain why some animals got so gigantic after all.

Sep 8 • 11:28 AM EDT • Science • 13abc.com

Watch: Bria Holmes inducted into WVU Sports Hall of Fame

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Former West Virginia women’s basketball star Bria Holmes was inducted into the WVU Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday morning. Playing from 2013-16, Bria Holmes is one of fou…

Oct 10 • 5:26 PM EDT • Sports • wboy.com

Local businesses brace for gigantic cargo moves starting next week

Locals anxiously waiting for superloads of heavy equipment — weighing up to 380 tons — to travel through their towns will have to hold on until next week. The first trip, on a giant, specialized truck, is expected to leave a dock in Gilpin’s Schenley section on Monday morning. Officials

Sep 8 • 5:06 PM EDT • Business • triblive.com

Watch: John Beilein inducted into WVU Sports Hall of Fame

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Former West Virginia men’s basketball coach John Beilein was inducted into the WVU Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday morning. Beilein led the Mountaineer men’s basketb…

Oct 10 • 5:27 PM EDT • Sports • wboy.com

Sinkers, Floaters, And Hunters: Carl Sagan Once Proposed There Could Be Gigantic Life On Jupiter, Stretching Kilometers Across

According to Sagan, creatures on Jupiter would be incentivized to grow larger than any in Earth's history. The larger they got, the more advantage they would have.

Oct 2 • 6:25 AM EDT • Science • iflscience.com

Botafogo 1-1 RB Bragantino

Botafogo drew 1-1 with RB Bragantino this Saturday (12) in a match valid for the 27th round of the Brazilian Championship at Nilton Santos. Alvinegro’s goal was scored by Vitinho, with a header, aft...

Sep 12 • 10:11 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

WVU Health System, Independence Health System merger expected to close in the fall

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The West Virginia University Health System, WVU Medicine and Independence Health System have signed a definitive agreement that will lead to the acquisition by the WVU Health System. Pending regulatory approvals the transaction is expected to close in the fall of 2026. Since preliminary plans were announced last fall, WVU Health System

Jun 2 • 11:17 AM EDT • Health • wvmetronews.com

✂️ Coach cracks down: top nation banned from the barber!

Modern footballers are certainly known for sporting extravagant looks and occasionally setting one hairstyle trend or another.Here and there, however, the pros seem to spend a little too much time on ...

Sep 25 • 8:23 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Turkey’s World Cup was a gigantic disappointment

A very talented generation failed at the biggest stage

Jun 20 • 1:52 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

West Virginia's Rich Rodriguez admits Michigan job 'was a mistake' after failed Wolverines tenure

As Rich Rod 2.0 hits Year 2 in Morgantown, the WVU coach reflected on his Michigan failures

May 27 • 12:27 PM EDT • Sports • cbssports.com

Scientists Think a Cosmic Particle Accelerator Shot a Mystery Particle Right at Earth

A gigantic "blazar" may have fired a beam of light-speed particles at our planet, creating a 2023 "ghost particle" detection.

Jun 2 • 7:45 AM EDT • Science • extremetech.com

METZ Launches the New MNH7000Z QD-MiniLED TV in Italy, Bringing Premium Home Entertainment to a New Level.

ROME, July 20, 2026--METZ officially announced the launch of its new QD-MiniLED TV MNH7000Z in Italy on May 20, combining advanced display technologies, immersive entertainment features and elegant design to deliver a premium home entertainment experience.

Jul 20 • 4:10 AM EDT • Entertainment • finance.yahoo.com

2 Morgantown business owners appear in court in $245M nationwide COVID loan fraud sweep

Two Morgantown business owners have been sentenced or entered guilty pleas in federal court for defrauding pandemic-era relief programs as part of a nationwide enforcement sweep totaling over $245 million in intended losses.

Sep 15 • 9:43 AM EDT • Business • wdtv.com

State health leaders visit ESCC to discuss workforce shortages

Eastern Shore Community College welcomed Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources Marvin B. Figueroa and other state leaders to its Melfa campus Friday, Aug. 28, for discussions about expanding the region’s healthcare workforce. Figueroa was joined by Heidi Hertz, director of Virginia’s Rural Health Transformation Initiative; Dr. Felicia Ganther, senior vice chancellor for academic and workforce services with the ... Read More

Sep 5 • 5:25 AM EDT • Health • shoredailynews.com

Will Ferrell says Ted Danson knew 'Elf' would be ‘gigantic’ hit after watching him film this scene

Jul 31 • 5:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com

Several Petah Tikva synagogues refuse to host Smotrich, cite objections to politics during services

Some congregants argued that withdrawing the invitation after it had already been extended and publicly announced would be inappropriate, particularly since the synagogue had hosted other speakers.

Oct 17 • 5:58 AM EDT • Politics • jpost.com

A New York cemetery was hiding 5.5 million bees underground

A casual walk through an Ithaca cemetery led to the discovery of a gigantic hidden bee population — roughly 5.5 million ground-nesting bees packed beneath the soil. Scientists believe it may be one of the largest bee aggregations ever documented and say the insects are crucial pollinators for apple orchards and other crops. The bees have likely lived there for more than 100 years, thriving in the cemetery’s undisturbed sandy soil.

May 27 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

Gant Adds AI Assistant to Self-Service Platform

Tool uses agentic chat to take action on a traveler’s behalf

Sep 14 • 9:08 AM EDT • Business • businesstravelexecutive.com

Tignor named WVU Health System vice president, chief managed care officer

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Rachel Tignor has been named vice president and chief managed care officer for the WVU Health System (WVUHS), effective July 5. Rachel Tignor Tignor has served in leadership roles of increasing...

Jul 7 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • wvumedicine.org

Watkins honored with top national bone health award

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Colleen Watkins, M.D., a WVU Medicine rheumatologist, has been named the 2026 Andrew D. Bunta Own the Bone Clinician of the Year by the American Orthopaedic Association. Colleen Watkins, M.D. ...

Jun 19 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • wvumedicine.org

Longines Drops an Elegant Monopusher Chronograph for Way Less Than You'd Expect

Longines adds a monopusher chronograph to its Master Collection for the first time, powered by a new, Longines-exclusive movement.

Aug 25 • 12:35 PM EDT • Technology • gearpatrol.com

As America 250 approaches, fewer Americans see their country as exceptional, AP-NORC poll finds

A new AP-NORC poll finds that as the U.S. prepares for an extravagant celebration of its founding principles, fewer Americans see their country or its system of government as exceptional

Jun 8 • 5:21 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com