SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " RNA " 100 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
Sign in to save shuffle history.
Triune Mercy Center awarded $465K Greenville Health Authority grant
The program will expand street outreach and help connect individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness with essential healthcare services.
CALIFORNIA SCIENCE CENTER CELEBRATES GRAND OPENING OF SAMUEL OSCHIN AIR AND SPACE CENTER
The California Science Center's highly anticipated Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, the permanent home of Space Shuttle Endeavour, today opened to the public with a ribbon cutting and celebratory grand opening remarks. The Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center is the only location in the world to exhibit a complete, authentic space shuttle system, with a flown orbiter, solid rocket boosters, and external tank, displayed in 20-story launch position. This transformative 200,000-square-foot expansi
Deb Haaland breaks political barriers as Native women in her home community face hurdles
PARAJE, N.M. (AP) — On the morning of a Laguna Pueblo village’s annual Feast Day, Ashley Sarracino knelt in her family home holding clothespins between her teeth. She straightened her niece’s black cotton manta, a traditional one-shouldered dress, and tied a sash around her waist. On these days, Sarracino is a caretaker, dressing relatives for […]
Is indigenous science really science? (and its connection to AI)
Well, both of the world’s most prestigious science journals have gone off the rails, a fact confirmed again when I read the Science editorial and letter below on AI and indigenous science, wh…
New Fresno State manufacturing lab offers CNC training for Valley workers
Fresno State opens an $850K manufacturing lab offering CNC, 3D printing and workforce training. See how Valley manufacturers and students can benefit.
Argentina beaten by Uruguay in first game since Messi retirement
Argentina suffered a 2-1 defeat against Uruguay on Friday in their first game since Lionel Messi's retirement from international football.A second-half own goal by Argentina defender Leonardo Balerdi followed by a fluky effort from Uruguay midfielder Maxi Araujo sealed defeat for the 2026 World Cup runners-up.
How AI tools are quietly reshaping working conditions in hospitals
AI tools can degrade clinicians’ work conditions by increasing administrative pressure, and introducing gig-economy practices to nursing without adequate safeguards, according to panelists at AHCJ's fall summit.
After a big blue wave, some Democrats think the Deep South is in play
WASHINGTON — As a youthful White House aide, famed journalist Bill Moyers recalled President Lyndon B. Johnson predicting shortly after signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that the Democratic
Endpoints seeks a business of science reporter
Endpoints News is hiring a biotech journalist to cover how advanced therapies and drug technologies turn into the medical products of tomorrow. The right candidate is business-savvy and science-minded. In this job, you’ll write about clinical trials, startups and the business of science. You’ll be responsible for helping set the agenda on a busy beat […]
Nature journaling helps RSU 21 students learn science outdoors
Students are taking science learning outdoors through nature journaling and hands-on exploration at Kennebunkport Conservation Trust preserves.
Brice Turang leads four Brewers in NL MVP balloting
Four different Brewers appeared on ballots for National League MVP
Kreiss-Tomkins becomes first Democrat since 1998 elected governor in Alaska
Alaska voters have elected a Democrat for governor for the first time since 1998. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, a former state lawmaker, defeated three Republicans. One of those, Bernadette Wilson, was endorsed
Missing Israel games 'stressful' for captain Collins
Republic of Ireland captain Nathan Collins says he felt he left his teammates "on their own" after missing the two controversial Nations League games against Israel in the last international window through injury
Bringing maternal healthcare to rural NC. Grant-powered community health centers offer hope.
From the mountains of Graham County to coastal Pender County, community health centers are providing essential maternal health services.
The US and Mexico are on the verge of forfeiting a major health victory. Here's what to know
International health experts are meeting this week to determine if the United States and Mexico have forfeited one of their greatest public health victories—the elimination of measles.
SPH Launches New Center for Convergent Work on Maternal and Child Health
Patricia Elliot, clinical associate professor of community health sciences, and Martha Werler, professor of epidemiology, will co-direct the new center, which builds on three decades of MCH education, practice, and research across the school.
Q&A: From seed funding to scientific breakthroughs
The MIT Global Seed Funds are designed to do more than launch research projects — they build international partnerships that make ambitious science possible. MIT professor of biology Matt Shoulders describes the program and explains its profound influence on his career to date.
California Science Center Celebrates Opening of New Space Center
The California Science Center opened its Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center to the public Friday, displaying space shuttle Endeavour in a nearly 200-foot-tall launch configuration with authentic solid rocket boosters and an external tank. The 200,000-square-foot addition at the Science Center, 700 Exposition Park Drive, is the only place in the world displaying a […]
Blackburn Camp Touts Win Despite Poor Political Conditions
Memo from Gov.-elect Marsha Blackburn's camp touts campaign victory despite a strong showing from independent candidate David Hatley.
The Trump administration is diverting billions in health funding away from low-income countries, defying Congress’ plans
The Trump administration plans to redirect or withhold nearly all funding that Congress had slated for international family planning aid this year – about $605 million – according to an internal US State Department budget report and a memo to lawmakers that were obtained by CNN.
The US and Mexico are on the verge of forfeiting a major health victory. Here's what to know
International health experts are meeting to assess whether the U.S. and Mexico have lost their measles elimination status. Measles, a highly contagious disease, had been controlled in the U.S. for 30 years. Large outbreaks in recent years have led to thousands of illnesses and about a dozen death...
Chris Van Hollen Set to Challenge Chuck Schumer for Senate Majority Leader
Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland has emerged as a favorite of Democrats seeking an alternative to Senator Chuck Schumer, who says he has the votes to win.
Scientists Figured Out Why We Feel Colder As We Age
Our built-in furnace loses some punch over time.
Music majors score work in Fort Wayne's growing scene
Fort Wayne's music economy offers various career opportunities for students who studied music, but not all graduates opt to stay.
How Valley ROP prepares students to run real businesses
Valley ROP marked 55 years by showcasing nearly 20 student-run businesses in Sanger. Read how career training builds Central Valley workforce skills.
A slave, a lawmaker: Meet the last Black senator from Mississippi
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yellow carnations hung from a wrought iron fence outside a Civil War-era townhome in the Shaw neighborhood this week.
Indigenized Energy, Global Citizen target 50,000 homes in $2.5B solar campaign
As many as 50,000 Indigenous homes across the United States and Canada would receive solar power and battery storage under an ambitious fundraising initiative from Native-led nonprofit Indigenized Energy and international advocacy organization Global Citizen. The partners are seeking $2.5 billion through philanthropic contributions and impact investments to finance energy systems, workforce training and local […]
Mental health becomes leading cause of Texas pregnancy deaths
The highly anticipated maternal mortality report published Friday after the state delayed its release until after the midterm elections.
Dual HDAC6 and HDAC8 inhibition enhances STING mediated innate immune responses
Communications Biology - Dual HDAC6 and HDAC8 inhibition enhances STING mediated innate immune responses
Scientists Develop Injectable Glucose Sensor That Could Change Diabetes Care
An experimental injectable sensor could give people with diabetes a more affordable way to track blood sugar, with early tests showing that a cheaper sensing ingredient performed similarly to its costlier alternative. For millions of people with diabetes, knowing how glucose levels are changing helps guide decisions about medication, meals, and daily activities. Continuous glucose
England bundled out by Australia in first ODI
England meekly offer Australia respite from the ongoing sandpaper scandal by being bowled out for 131 in the first one-day international in Perth.
Edinboro woman seeks investors to grow snack food business
It started as a fundraiser, built on nostalgia for the crunchy snacks her mother used to make.
‘10,000-tonne level talent’ biologist Zhao Yingming leaves Chicago for Hangzhou
The expert in DNA and genetics, who has published 210 papers including in leading journals, leaves US for Zhejiang University.
Threats, violence, intimidation: French journalists warn of mounting attacks on press freedom
OP-ED. While numerous political figures have made hostile, even threatening remarks toward the press, 32 journalists' associations condemn the violence that several reporters have suffered at the hands of police. They stress that the fundamental right to information must be protected by law.
The best 'so-bad-they're-good' TV shows, from 'Emily in Paris' to 'Virgin River'
Sometimes TV shows are so good they win Emmy Awards. Sometimes they're so good that they change people's lives or our culture. And sometimes they're so bad we can't stop loving them.
Dortmund "definitely" want to recruit a central defender in winter
Having made a strong start to the Bundesliga season, Borussia Dortmund may be set to bolster their squad depth in winter. As BVB chief journalist Jörg Weiler reports in the BILD podcast 'Dortmund In...
“Mirra Andreeva Didn’t Even Care” – Jessica Pegula Explains How ‘Diva’ Drama Finally Ended Ahead Of WTA Finals SF
Jessica Pegula had plenty to say about her upcoming semifinal showdown against Mirra Andreeva at the 2026 WTA Finals. Pegula stirred controversy ahead of the prestigious year-end tournament after a hot mic recording of her criticizing Andreeva’s mentality went viral.
Some International Physical Copies Of GTA VI Can Allegedly Be Redeemed Without Opening The Box
The box was already for decoration, and now maybe more so.
Personalized mobile health coaching offers new approach to preventing gestational diabetes in high-risk pregnancies
A continuous, personalized mobile health (mHealth) coaching program can significantly reduce gestational diabetes incidence among high-risk pregnant women, independent of changes to maternal weight—according ...
Flo Health Earns ISO 13485 Medical Device Quality Certification, Adding to Its ISO Security and Privacy Credentials
LONDON, November 13, 2026--Flo Health, the #1 women's health app used by more than 500 million people worldwide, has earned ISO 13485 certification, the international standard for quality management systems in medical devices. The certification follows an independent audit of Flo's quality management system (QMS) by Scarlet, a government-accredited certification body that specializes in AI medical devices. The audit returned no major findings.
New congress members learn the ropes + NC county considers Trump tax credit
Newly elected legislators were giving first day of school vibes as they arrived at the Capitol.
Hybrid off-Strip venue hosts ‘Fuego Fridays,’ and much more
Amp’d at M Resort presents such local favorites as Latin Breeze, Volume 1, 80s Station, Latin Breeze and High Octane.
Johnson County business news: Nov. 14
Franklin, Greenwood Meijer stores donate to local causes
A.J. Brown injury update as Patriots WR eyes international game return
When will A.J. Brown return? The New England Patriots gave their star wide receiver a designation ahead of their game in Munich.
It’s Open Enrollment Season. Hear Reporters Discuss ACA Sign-Ups, High Costs, and More.
KFF Health News journalists made the rounds on national and local media recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
The NVIDIA story is a BFD
Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, one of the world’s most valuable companies and perhaps the most strategically important corporation to the future of the United States, resigned after admitting to an extramarital affair with a woman U.S. intelligence officials believe was a Chinese spy. This is a big fucking deal. Thanks, Captain Obvious. But my impression is that the political world is under-reacting to the Nvidia story. We’re overdue to have at least an initial newsletter covering it. I don’t expect this to become a Silver Bulletin obsession, but the overlap between politics and AI is well within our purview, and this story falls within those sightlines. I’m going to do this as one of those “13 thoughts” bullet-pointed lists that can make for a nice shortcut for these developing news stories. The usual ground rule is that I’m working through my thinking with you in real time, so treat this as provisional. To be clear, this is political analysis, not a scandal explainer. For more about the scandal itself, read Zvi or listen to these recent editions of Odd Lots or Search Engine: Basically, what those describe is that this story isn’t just about Jensen Huang having slept with an alleged Chinese agent, Alice Huang. As this New York Times graphic illustrates, there’s also a broader penumbra of suspicion related to a company called Megaspeed, which Alice Huang ran and which bought Nvidia chips through Nvidia’s hardware partners. U.S. authorities began investigating Megaspeed in 2024, during the Biden administration, over whether it diverted advanced Nvidia chips to China in violation of U.S. export controls. The Commerce Department’s work on the probe was paused in late 2025, and the case was “abruptly transferred” to the Justice Department, the Times reported. My 13 thoughts A canonically good bet is to “buy the rumor but sell the news.” In other words, to bet on people overreacting. That would have been good advice in the case of Haley Stevens’s endorsement of Mike Rogers, for instance. But I think there’s a case for buying the news when the news cycle is particularly busy. The political news world has been knee-deep in the midterms, which is an absolutely massive story given the magnitude of the Democratic sweep. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say it’s one of the bigger political earthquakes of the century. However, public attention spans and journalistic bandwidth are finite resources. The timing might lead one to downplay the magnitude of the Nvidia story. It will probably build. In terms of the magnitude, the comparison that comes to mind is the onset of the Iran War, which also dropped amid a busy news cycle1. Nvidia is not the same sort of story, but it is of roughly the same shape and size, because there are tripartite implications for the economy, for geopolitics and for domestic politics.
Cindy Holscher’s win breaks a 70-year trend in Kansas politics. ‘Miraculous victory’
Republicans and Democrats have traded power in the governor’s office for decades in Kansas, even as Republicans dominated the statehouse.
Boynton Health and University officials seek to aid student insurance woes
When international student Firuzabonu Haydarova arrived at the University of Minnesota from Uzbekistan at age 17, she had to do something she had not done alone before – go to the doctor. Haydarova had to navigate medical care without her parents and communicate in a language different from her own. Understanding how to pay for...
California Science Center Opens Space Shuttle's New Home
By Carolyn Giardina For the many members of our Creative + Tech Orbit family that are as inspired by space exploration as we are, we’re happy share that with this morning’s ceremony and ribbon cutting, the new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center at the California Science Center in Los Angeles is now open to the public. It’s highlighted by Space Shuttle Endeavour, which is displayed in a remarkable 20-story-tall launch configuration with solid rocket boosters and an external tank. The flown orbiter can be viewed on multiple levels of the building—and a 140-foot ascent aboard an elevator leads to a glass floor observation platform hovering over the shuttle’s nose and the interior of the payload bay. Visitors will arrive in this gallery after viewing a short film produced by Bad Robot. The film concludes with a Shuttle launch and atmospheric effects as the screen is lifted to reveal Endeavour. California Science Center President and CEO Jeffrey N. Rudolph preceded over an opening ceremony just prior to the ribbon cutting. Guests and speakers included government officials and roughly 30 former NASA astronauts. “This ship is a testament and now a monument to American ingenuity,” said Senator Mark Kelly, former NASA astronaut who served as Commander for Endeavour’s final mission. Chairman of the Mr. and Mrs. Oschin Family Foundation Lynda Oschin noted that the massive effort is “about the children, and it’s about the future, and inspiration, curiosity and knowledge.” The ribbon-cutting was attended by hundreds of school children and guests. In all, the 200,000-square-foot expansion of the California Science Center has three galleries – the Samuel Oschin Shuttle Gallery, the Korean Air Aviation Gallery, and the Kent Kresa Space Gallery — and houses roughly 100 artifacts, in addition to interactive and immersive experiences focused on science and engineering. Artifacts includes a range of flown spacecraft, including the Mercury-Redstone 2 capsule, Gemini 11 capsule, and Apollo-Soyuz Command Module. If you plan to visit this weekend, you can catch astronaut and aerospace-related talks given by astronauts and experts from JPL and NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center. California Science Center’s IMAX Theater is showing themed movies today, including The Dream Is Alive, Journey to Space 3D, Hubble 3D, and A Beautiful Planet 3D. Also opening this weekend is “Endeavour’s Long Journey,” a photo exhibit documenting Endeavour’s final flight over California, its ambitious journey through the streets to the Science Center, along with the multi-phase process of stacking each of the space shuttle components in vertical configuration. The Center also features the short film that follows this national treasure’s journey to the Science Center, made by more than 150 volunteers and donors from the Hollywood community.
When Science Magazine in 1960 Predicted Doomsday for Friday, Nov. 13, 2026
In 1960, a prominent science journal published a provocative paper calculating that human population growth would reach infinity on November 13 2026. Researchers used historical data to argue that humanity grew faster than exponential rates. Their mathematical model proved surprisingly accurate for decades before global birth rates eventually declined significantly following targeted social changes.
Anchoring Maternal Mental Health in Obstetric Care: Key Takeaways from New York’s Historic Hearing - Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health
Advocates in New York, facilitated by the Postpartum Resource Center and others, worked with the legislature to host the state’s first Maternal Mental Health Hearing on Monday, November 9. The hearing featured over 40 speakers, including our CEO, Joy Burkhard. Joy’s testimony centered around opportunities to improve screening and diagnosis.
Who is in 'Sunrise on the Reaping'? Here's your refresher ahead of the movie
What a year to be a Hunger Games fan.
Wins By Religious Democrats Break Republican Grip On Faith In Politics
Wins by a string of openly religious Democratic candidates in last week's midterm elections have broken the Republican stranglehold on integrating faith and politics, a change that could reshape America's political landscape for years to come.
☀️ Conceiçao's gesture, talent for Napoli, Inter renewals: morning news
With the national team's first fixture out of the way, it is another day packed with news and talking points for Serie A's big clubs as they navigate the international break, contract renewals and the...
GPL Column: Scruffy, sparkles and the science of reading
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed by columnists are solely the opinion of that person and not necessarily the Daily Journal.
Mueller Water Products to exit metering business under ZENNER USA deal
News, analysis and reports on the international water sector.
Scientists find a simple daily routine linked to less pain and depression
A simple change to your daily routine could make a surprising difference in how you feel, both physically and mentally. University of Missouri researchers found that older adults who followed consistent daily schedules reported less physical pain and fewer symptoms of depression, even when they struggled with insomnia. Keeping regular times for sleeping, eating, and other activities may help regulate the body's internal clock, which influences mood, sleep, and overall health.
What awaits Fernando Mendoza in his NFL debut? Facing Seahawks’ No. 1 defense, Raiders remind rookie he’s not ‘Spring Fernando’
U.S. and Mexico risk losing a major health victory: What to know
International health experts are meeting to assess whether the U.S. and Mexico have lost their measles elimination status. Measles, a highly contagious disease, had been controlled in the U.S. for 30 years.
Paraguay’s democracy after the Ueno Bank intervention
On Nov. 3, the Central Bank of Paraguay intervened in Ueno Bank and served about 3 million customers, many on lower incomes.
You can watch 'A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving' for free this weekend
Another Thanksgiving means another feast with Charlie Brown & Co.
Crew Packs Dragon with Science and Cleans Spacesuits
Expedition 75 had a busy shift on Thursday primarily focusing on packing a U.S. cargo craft for its upcoming departure and cleaning a pair of spacesuits. Thursday’s research topics aboard the International Space Station included space agriculture and super intelligence.
Communist Party Politics, Rockets and Komsomol Business in Soviet Dnipropetrovsk
This is an excerpt from Ukraine’s Outpost: Dnipropetrovsk and the Russian-Ukrainian War (2022). Free to download from E-International Relations. The Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk (in 2016 the city was renamed Dnipro) was shown on a movie screen in the Soviet Union for the first time in 1981 as a ‘Russian-speaking’ city in Nikita Mikhalkov’s feature film Rodnia. A story of a Russian peasant woman who visited her daughter in the big industrial city was used by Mikhalkov in his movie to emphasise a growing crisis in Soviet family life during the Brezhnev era when former Russian peasants lost their Orthodox Christian identity during the process of socialist industrialisation and modernisation. Paradoxically, Mikhalkov completely ignored the real social and national problems of the city; instead choosing as the setting for his movie Russian peasants’ adjustment to Soviet modernisation. Even now many Russians use this film as evidence of the ‘Russian character’ of Dnipropetrovsk ignoring the real demographic and social history of this Ukrainian region (Elberg-Wilson 2016).[1] Despite Mikhalkov’s picture, the city of Dnipro and the Dnipropetrovsk region had a multi-national and multi-cultural character coupled with the strong influence of Ukrainian and Jewish culture. Get E-International Relations delivered to your inbox, free. As you sign up, consider becoming a paid subscriber, or make a donation, to support our work. Subscribe Using various archival and published documents, this chapter will cover the social, economic and cultural development of the city and the region of Dnipropetrovsk through the period of late socialism after Stalin, showing the ties between the multi-national Komsomol members and business ventures during perestroika and how this influenced the rise of oligarchic clans in post-Soviet Ukraine. Emergence of Soviet Dnipropetrovsk Paradoxically, from the early beginning, the founding of the ‘city of Catherine’s glory’ (Ekaterinoslav in Russian) and its province in 1776 by the Russian imperial administration of the Catherine the Second involved non-Russian ethnic groups, which shaped a historical demography of this region in Southern Ukraine. These ethnic groups included the local Ukrainian Orthodox Christian peasants and Cossacks, Jewish traders and artisans, Armenian Christians, and Tatar Muslim settlers. By the middle of the nineteenth century, thousands of German Protestant and Mennonite colonists also settled in the province. Moreover, by attracting foreign capital, the Russian imperial administration transformed this multi-ethnic and multi-religious region in the booming industrial centre of the Russian Empire by the beginning of twentieth century (Zhuk 2004, 33–96). After the Russian Revolution and civil war, the province of Ekaterinoslav continued to play an important role in the industrial development of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1926 the Soviet administration decided to change the name of Ekaterinoslav which sounded too ‘old fashioned’ and ‘imperial Russian.’ The new name was a combination of the name of the Dnipro River with the last name of Grigorii Petrovskii, head of the All-Ukrainian Executive Committee of the Soviets, and well-known organiser of the working-class movement in the region of Ekaterinoslav before the Revolution. ‘Dnipro-Petrovske’ was later transformed into ‘Dnipropetrovsk’ (Bolebrukh 2001, 156). Both the city and region of Dnipropetrovsk lived through the New Economic Policy (N.E.P.), industrialisation and the Stakhanovite movement. The region lost millions of human lives during collectivisation and the dekulakisation campaign, and especially during the Holodomor of 1932–33. During industrialisation, the Soviet government restored the industrial base of the region. Former metallurgical giants such as the Petrovskii (formerly Brianskii)plant, the Chodoir (formerly Vladimir Lenin) plant and others resumed production of pig iron and steel. During the 1930s, Dnipropetrovsk became an important centre for Soviet heavy industry. In 1932, Dnipropetrovsk regional metallurgical plants produced 20 per cent of the entire cast iron and 25 per cent of the steel manufactured in the Soviet Ukrainian Republic. After the beginning of the campaign of ‘Ukrainianisation’ in 1923, the number of those who spoke Ukrainian grew, reaching 38.5 per cent in the city by the end of the 1920s. Between 1932 and 1939, the number of city dwellers in Dnipropetrovsk increased to over 500,662. The Dnipropetrovsk region became the most urbanised of Soviet Ukraine with more than 2,273,000 people living in the region (Vasiliev 1977, 55; Bolebrukh 2001, 159–164). Dnipropetrovsk also became the cultural and educational centre of Soviet Ukraine. There were ten colleges, including the State University, 97 secondary schools and 19 vocational schools. The Soviet administration restored local drama and music theatres. During the 1930s, Dnipropetrovsk had 120 libraries, five museums, six movie-theatres, 30 clubs and palaces of culture (Bolebrukh 2001_,_159–164). The Leonid Brezhnev Clan Post-war Soviet modernisation influenced the careers of many young and ambitious Komsomol members in the region. One of them, Leonid Brezhnev, was born in 1906 in Kamenskoe, joined the Kommunystycheskaya Partyya Sovetskoho Soyuza (Communist party of the Soviet Union - KPSS) in 1931 and, after graduation from Dniprodzerzhinsk Metallurgical Institute was elected as a council deputy of the city of Dniprodzerzhinsk. The Stalinist purges of the 1930s removed many old Soviet and Communist officials from government positions who perished in prisons and the labour camps of GULAG. Young people such as Brezhnev filled the void created by Stalinist repressions in the region. In 1938, the young Brezhnev was elected as a member of the regional committee of the Soviet Communist party of Ukraine (KPU) and head of the Department of Agitation and Propaganda. By the young age of 32, Brezhnev had become secretary of the KPU committee of the most important industrial region of Soviet Ukraine. His career was interrupted by the Great Patriotic War when Brezhnev joined the army as an ideological officer (see Mlechin 2005). From August 1941 to October 1943, the Dnipropetrovsk region was occupied by the Nazis, and Soviet troops liberated the entire region by February 1944 (Berkhoff 2004, 11, 36, 49, 149–150, 152–153, 248–249). The Soviet administration restored the industrial base of Dnipropetrovsk, and by 1950 the main metallurgical and machine-building factories had reached their pre-war levels of industrial production and productivity. During this period, Brezhnev began his political career as a talented and ambitious organizer of the industrial re-birth of Dnipropetrovsk. He was an experienced young army ideologist who had proved his loyalty to the Stalinist leadership during the war and was familiar with Dnipropetrovsk before 1941. The Central Committee of the KPSS sent Brezhnev to Dnipropetrovsk in November 1947 when he was elected first secretary of the Dnipropetrovsk regional committee of the KPU, and he ruled the oblast until June 1950 (Vosstanovlenie). His successors were Andrei Kirilenko and Volodymyr Shcherbitskyy, both close friends. Two other young comrades of Brezhnev, Oleksiy Vatchenko and Yevhen Kachalovskii led the region respectively in 1965–1976 and 1976–1983 (Vasiliev 1977, 72; Bolebrukh 2001_,_ 233; Mlechin 2005). Brezhnev promoted the political career of his old friends, many of whom became prominent political figures in Kyiv and Moscow during his leadership of the KPSS. Both contemporaries and scholars who study the ‘Brezhnev period’ call this phenomenon the ‘Dnipropetrovsk mafia’ or rule of the ‘Dnipropetrovsk Family’ (Nahaylo 1999, 36, 69; Wilson 2000, 162). Since the rise of Brezhnev to the pinnacle of Soviet power, the ruling elites of Dnipropetrovsk influenced not only regional, but also republican and All-Union politics. Dnipropetrovsk’s transformation into an important centre of the Soviet military industrial complex was directly related to the sudden rise of Brezhnev to the pinnacle of Soviet power in October of 1964. Brezhnev promoted the political career of his compatriots from the Dnipropetrovsk military industrial complex. Brezhnev’s friends and close colleagues from his post-war years in the Dnipropetrovsk region went to Moscow and became prominent political figures in the Soviet nomenklatura hierarchy during the 1960s and 1970s. Two main industries of the Soviet military industrial complex – metallurgy and missile-building – had important factories in Dnipropetrovsk and therefore provided the Brezhnev clan with new members from 1964 until 1982. Even after the downfall of the Brezhnev clan in Moscow in 1983, when Yurii Andropov began his struggle ‘against corruption and nepotism’ in the Soviet nomenklatura, members of this clan continued to play a prominent role in the political life of Soviet Ukraine. Besides the Physical-Technical Department of Dnipropetrovsk State University, the Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute also assisted the political careers of many of Brezhnev’s close friends who in the 1970s and 1980s became important members of the Kremlin nomenklatura. Nikolai Tikhonov, former head of Dnipropetrovsk Sovnarkhoz during the 1950s, was one of the deputies of the Soviet Prime Minister between 1966 and 1976, First Deputy of the Prime Minister from 1976 to 1980 and head of the USSR Council of Ministers from 1980 to 1985.[2] Nikolai Shcholokov was the Soviet Minister of Public Order in 1966–1968 and from 1968 to 1982 he was Soviet Minister of Interior. Georgii Tsynev was during 1971–1976 a member of the Central Revision Committee of the KPSS and a deputy head of the KGB from 1970 to 1982. In the KGB he was the 1st Deputy Chairman in 1982–1985 as well as he was a Candidate Member of CPSU Central Committee in 1976–1981 and accordingly was a full Member of the said body in 1981–1986. Victor Chebrikov, who graduated from Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute in 1950, was one of the leaders of the city party organisation in Dnipropetrovsk from 1961 to 1971. In 1971 he became the head of the personnel department of the USSR KGB, First Deputy of the Head of this organization and from 1982 to 1988 a chairman of the KGB (Pikhovshek 1996, 11–12, 272–274). Another of Brezhnev’s close friends, Volodymyr Shcherbytskyy, promoted the careers of other people from the region of Dnipropetrovsk. With his support, Oleksii Vatchenko became the head of the Presidium of the Ukrainian Soviet Supreme Soviet from 1976 until 1984 with the assistance of another politician from Dnipropetrovsk, Valentyna Shevchenko. Aleksandr Kapto, who worked as a secretary of both the Dnipropetrovsk Komsomol organization and the Soviet Ukrainian Komsomol in Kyiv in the 1960s, oversaw the Department of Culture in the Central Committee of the KPU; in 1979–1986 he was a Secretary of the Central Committee and accordingly was the main ideologist of the Soviet Ukraine. Many other members of the ‘Kyiv ruling class’ under Shcherbytskyy were also linked to the Dnipropetrovsk metallurgical and military lobby. Shcherbytskyy’s assistant from 1972 to 1984 was Konstantin Prodan who began his career in the Komsomol organisation of the city of Dnipropetrovsk (Pikhovshek 1996, 48–103). As a contemporary political analyst noted, ‘Officially Prodan was put in charge of industrial production, though, according to insiders of the former KPU Central Committee, his principal function was ‘maintaining’ contact with Brezhnev’s assistant Georgii Tsukanov in Moscow’ (Pikhovshek 1996, 33–34). Another important reason for the rise of the ‘Brezhnev Clan’ was the relative independence of Dnipropetrovsk’s local administration from Kyiv. Because of the status of Dnipropetrovsk as a ‘strategically important centre for military industry,’ different branches of the local administration were under the direct supervision of Moscow, rather than Kyiv (Interviews with Tihipko, Markov and Bocharova). The Military Industrial Complex and Ruling Elite of Dnipropetrovsk The city of Dnipropetrovsk was the location of famous metallurgical and machine-building factories in pre-revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Union. Before 1941, Dnipropetrovsk became the most urbanised region of the Soviet Ukraine. Almost 53 per cent of this region’s population lived in 16 cities and towns of the region (Vasiliev 1977, 55; Bolebrukh 2001, 159–164). In 1980, the industrial enterprises of Dnipropetrovsk manufactured a significant part of the industrial products and customer goods for the Soviet Ukrainian Republic. A total of 5.4 per cent of steel, 9 per cent of rolled iron, 28 per cent of pipes, 62 per cent of combine beet-harvesters, 27.9 per cent of television sets, and 8.5 per cent of knitted wear in Ukraine were produced in the city of Dnipropetrovsk (Bolebrukh 2001, 219). After 1945, the main centre of economic and financial activities of the region and the city of Dnipropetrovsk became neither metallurgy nor mining. The new centre which changed the status of the region and of the city was a secret military factory in Dnipropetrovsk. The entire ideological and cultural situation in the region, and especially the city, depended on this one industrial plant which became the most important part of the Soviet military industrial complex. In July 1944, the State Committee of Defence in Moscow decided to build a large military machine-building factory in Dnipropetrovsk on the location of the pre-war aircraft plant. In December 1945, thousands of German prisoners of war began construction and built the first sections and shops of the new Dnipropetrovsk Automobile Factory (Markov, 1995). In 1947–1948 this factory produced its first cars and special military vehicles. However, on 9 May 1951 the USSR Council of Ministers decided to transform the main shops and sectors of this factory into ‘secret production’ which included not only special military vehicles, but also powerful rocket engines and different types of modern military aircraft. The former Dnipropetrovsk Automobile Factory was transferred to the Ministry of Armament of the USSR and received a new name – the State Union Plant #586 (Lukanov 1996, 12). Stalin introduced the organisation of special secret training of highly qualified engineers and scientists who were to become rocket construction specialists. He recommended the introduction of a new college degree at Dnipropetrovsk State University which would be a Master of Sciences in rocket construction. In 1952 the university administration formed a new department with the name ‘physical-technical faculty’ which was the largest department at the university, admitting on average four hundred students each year. These students received better accommodation and a higher stipend payment than students from other departments and colleges; the lowest stipend for this department was 450 roubles, while the highest stipend at another prestigious school, the Dnipropetrovsk Medical Institute, was only 180 roubles. A special commission from Moscow selected talented undergraduate students studying physics from engineering schools all over the USSR and sent them to the physical-technical department at Dnipropetrovsk State University, where they resumed their studies as rocket engineers. Simultaneously, the university administration announced the admission of new freshmen students in this department. The promise of a good stipend and a ‘romantic’ career of rocket engineer attracted thousands of talented young people to this ‘secret’ department, which provided training specialists for only the Dnipropetrovsk Automobile Factory (Horbulin 1998, 9, 62–63). In accordance with another decision of the Soviet government, in 1954 the administration of this automobile factory opened a secret design office with the name ‘Southern Construction Bureau’ (konstruktorskoe biuro Yuzhnoe). The main assignment of this office was to construct military missiles and rocket engines. Hundreds of talented physicists, engineers and machine designers moved from Moscow and other big cities in the Soviet Union to Dnipropetrovsk where they joined the konstruktorskoe biuro Yuzhnoe (KBYu). In 1965, the secret Plant #586 was transferred to the Ministry of General Machine-Building of the USSR and the next year it changed its name into the ‘Southern Machine-building Factory’ (Yuzhnyi mashino-stroitelnyi zavod) or simply Yuzhmash (in Ukrainian Pivdenmash). The first ‘General Constructor’ and head of the ‘Southern’ design office was Mikhail Yangel, a prominent scientist and outstanding designer of space rockets who led the design office and factory from 1954 to 1971. Yangel designed the first powerful rockets and space military equipment for the Soviet Ministry of Defence. Yangel worked with talented engineers who later became the leaders of military production in Dnipropetrovsk and the official directors of Pivdenmash. Two close collaborators of Yangel were the Pivdenmash directors Leonid Smirnov (1952–1961) and Aleksandr Makarov (1961–1986). Makarov’s successor was Leonid Kuchma, the Director General of the Pivdenmash in 1986–1992, who later became one of the most prominent political leaders in independent Ukraine and was and still is the only President of Ukraine (1994–2005) elected twice (Strazheva; Platonov and Horbulin; Romanov and Gubarev; Baikonur; Baikonur, Korolev, Yangel). In 1951 the Southern Machine-building Factory began manufacturing and testing new military rockets with an initial range of only 270 kilometres. By 1959 Soviet scientists and engineers developed new technologies, and as a result, the KBYu launched a new machine-building project producing ballistic missiles. Under Yangel, KBYu produced very powerful rocket engines which dramatically increased the range of ballistic missiles and from the 1960s, began to be used as launch vehicles for Soviet spaceships. Pivdenmash designed and manufactured four generations of missile complexes which included space launch vehicles Kosmos, Interkosmos, Tsyklon-2, Tsyklon-3 and Zenith. The KBYu created a unique space-rocket system called Energia-Buran and manufactured 400 technical devices which were launched as artificial satellites (Sputniks). For the first time in the world space industry, the Dnipropetrovsk missile plant produced space Sputniks. By the 1980s, Pivdenmash manufactured 67 different types of spaceships, 12 space research complexes and four defence space rocket systems. These systems were used not only for purely military purposes by the Ministry of Defence, but also for astronomical research, for global radio and television and for environmental monitoring. Pivdenmash initiated and sponsored the international space programme of Eastern European socialist countries, called Interkosmos. Twenty-two of the 25 automatic space Sputniks of this programme were designed, manufactured, and launched by engineers and workers from Dnipropetrovsk. Pivdenmash and KBYu became not only an important centre of the Soviet space industry and Soviet military industrial complex, but also the main rocket producer for the entire Soviet bloc. (Hall and Shayler 2001, 316ff; Siddiqi 2003, 97, 113, 114, 164, 177, 285) The military rocket systems manufactured in Dnipropetrovsk created the base for the Soviet Strategic Missile Forces (Dnepropetrovskii raketno 1994; Bolebrukh 2001_,_ 209–211, 229; Lukanov 1996, 13). On the eve of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, KBYu had nine regular and corresponding members of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, 33 full professors and 290 scientists holding a Ph.D. More than 50,000 people worked at Pivdenmash. Pivdenmash was ‘a state’ inside the Soviet state. In 1969, after a long competition with Moscow’s V. Chelomei Centre of Rocket Construction, Pivdenmash rocket designs won, and from then leaders of the Soviet military industrial complex preferred only Pivdenmash models. The Soviet state provided billions of Soviet roubles to finance Pivdenmash projects (Horbulin 1998, 6, 24–31). Officially, Pivdenmash also manufactured agricultural tractors and special kitchen equipment for everyday needs, such as mincing machines or juicers for Soviet households. In official reports and public information there were no details given about its production of rockets or spaceships. However, hundreds of thousands of workers and engineers in the city of Dnipropetrovsk were employees of this plant, and members of their families and therefore most local people knew about the ‘real production’ of Pivdenmash. Dnipropetrovsk as a KGB “Testing Ground” The Soviet government approved the KGB’s proposal to introduce the highest level of secrecy over Pivdenmash and its products. According to the Soviet government’s decision, the city of Dnipropetrovsk was officially closed to foreign visitors in 1959. No citizen of a foreign country (even Eastern European socialist) was allowed to visit the city or district of Dnipropetrovsk. From the late 1950s, Soviet people called Dnipropetrovsk ‘the rocket city’ or ‘closed city.’ (Bolebrukh 2001, 211). Members of the Brezhnev clan in the Moscow offices of the KGB and Ministry of Interior also contributed to centralised ideological control in Dnipropetrovsk, which especially influenced the KGB and security operations in the closed city. The local KGB office was always more Moscow-oriented, ignoring the interests of the authorities in Kyiv. At the same time, for Moscow officials who began their careers in Dnipropetrovsk, the city became the testing ground for many All-Union KGB campaigns which they attempted to initiate. Dnipropetrovsk KGB officers were ‘pioneers’ in the organisation of ideological campaigns which became ‘models’ for other ‘closed’ industrial Soviet cities. [This phrase – ‘pioneers of ideological campaigns’ – belongs to a local retired KGB officer. According to the KGB documents, Moscow’s representatives in the Dnipropetrovsk clan always interfered in local KGB business, imposing their own practices on the local officers.] (Igor T.; DADO, f. 19, op. 52, spr. 72, ark. 1–18) As a result, the inhabitants of Dnipropetrovsk experienced more ideological limitations and more brutal anti-Western campaigns than people in many other Soviet cities. Facing direct Kremlin supervision, the local KGB and KPSS ideologists sought to prove their ideological reliability and occasionally exaggerated the ‘threat from the capitalist West.’ KGB officers transformed one building in the Dnipropetrovsk Special Psychiatric Hospital (psikhushka), located in a town of Ihren (now a suburban district of Dnipro), into a special police facility for ‘political dissidents.’ All over the Soviet Union, Ihren psikhushka (especially its Section 9) became notorious and known as the worst incarceration for political prisoners. The Dnipropetrovsk KGB tested various drugs on prisoners and performed different medical experiments, treating the most ‘opinionated’ political dissidents as mentally sick patients. Many religious and civil rights activists and ‘bourgeois nationalists,’ such as national communist dissident Leonid Plyushch, described the Dnipropetrovsk Psychiatric Hospital as ‘mental hell’ because of its police system of harsh treatment and everyday humiliation (Plyushch 1979, 304–326, 340–349). Meanwhile, local KGB officers explained their harsh treatment of dissidents such as Plyushch as an ideological necessity to protect a strategically important centre of the Soviet military industrial complex (Igor T). Growth of the Population and Standards of Living in the Region The new status of the city brought more state investments and contributed to the overall improvement of the standard of living of its inhabitants. During the 1950s, the main sponsor of city improvements and renovations was the metallurgical industry. During the 1960s and 1970s, the space rocket industry and its biggest factory, Pivdenmash, sponsored all major city programmes, renovations and new architectural projects which included the sports palace Meteor with a large indoor pool, football team Dnipro, city airport, city theatre of opera and ballet, historical museum of Yavornitskii, department store ‘Children’s World,’ construction of thousands of modern apartments, libraries and movie-theatres, and celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the city of Dnipropetrovsk in 1976. (Bolebrukh 2001_,_ 211–212). Even the expansion and renovation of the Dnipropetrovsk Central Farmer Market (known as Oziorka) was supported by Pivdenmash as part of its improvement of the city’s life, and a reflection of the growth and strategic importance of the city. From 1958 to 1965 the city administration invested money in building a new covered location for the market and by 1970 they had re-built the entire neighbourhood transforming it into a modern and convenient place for the ‘socialist consumption of goods and services.’ (Lazebnik 2001, 167–185) As a result, the missile factory, the centre of the Soviet military industrial complex, contributed to a new level of cultural consumption among not only the city’s dwellers, but also among all guests of Dnipropetrovsk. Consequently, the pioneering efforts in the popularisation of new modern forms of Western music such as jazz and rock-n-roll also began among engineers and workers of Pivdenmash who contributed to the spread of new cultural forms and activities among those who lived in the city and region of Dnipropetrovsk. The improving living conditions in Dnipropetrovsk led to an increase of the regional population from 2,339,800 people (with a 56 per cent urban population) in 1951 to 2,850,700 (with a 72 per cent urban population) in 1961. The larger salaries and better distribution of food and industrial goods also attracted young people from other regions of the Soviet Union to Dnipropetrovsk. From the 1950s onward, most of the Dnipropetrovsk population were people younger than 30 years old. In 1970 there were 3,343,000 people in the region (76 per cent of who lived in cities) which by 1984 had increased to 3,771,200 people (with 83 per cent urban population). The population of the city of Dnipropetrovsk grew from 660,800 people in 1959 to 1,066,000 in 1979 and more than 1,153,400 people in 1985 when Gorbachev came to power (Glushkina 1985, 10, 11). The Dnipropetrovsk region had a young multinational, predominantly Russian speaking population. Three major ethnic groups shaped the cultural development of the region – Ukrainians, Russians, and Jews. During the peak of ‘international harmony and prosperity of developed socialism’ in 1979, Ukrainians made up the overwhelming majority of the regional (72.8 per cent) and urban (68.5 per cent) population. Due to massive emigration from the Soviet Union, the Jewish population decreased from 2.7 per cent in 1959 to 1.7 per cent in 1979 and 1.3 per cent in 1989. The number of Russians in the region’s population grew rapidly from 17.2 per cent in 1959, 20.9 per cent in 1970, 23 per cent in 1979 and 24.2 per cent in 1989 (O vozrastnoi structure 1971; Goskomstat USSR 1991, 100, 102). By 1985, more than a third of the population in the city of Dnipropetrovsk was ethnically Russian. If we add to this number the 3.2 per cent of Russian-speaking Jews and more than 33 per cent of Ukrainians who considered Russian their native language, we will have more than two thirds of the city’s population who associated themselves with Russian rather than with Ukrainian culture. According to contemporaries, the high salaries and better conditions of living attracted representatives of various nationalities from different republics who also spoke Russian rather than the Ukrainian language in Dnipropetrovsk (Goskomstat USSR 1991, 106, 108, 119, 122; Prudchenko and Smolenska 2007). Komsomol ‘Business’ During the Late Soviet Era The regional economic activities of local ‘businessmen and women’ from the Komsomol during perestroika had their roots in the pre-perestroika era. They also strengthened trends for independence from Moscow which had earlier existed in Dnipropetrovsk. All the elements of their initial business had already been developed during the Brezhnev era when the cultural consumption of late socialism combined the structures of Soviet international tourism with the ideological efforts of Komsomol activists into one business network. Mass rock and discotheque music consumption among Soviet youth was delivered by Komsomol and trade union apparatchiks. International tourism and discotheque enthusiasts provided these apparatchiks with music and video material for their entertainment business. Without these relations it would be impossible to imagine the development of post-Soviet capitalism. The first pioneers of organizing Komsomol business in the region were two graduates of Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute, the Ukrainian-Moldovan Sergiy Tihipko, the First Secretary of the Dnipropetrovsk Komsomol regional organization in 1986–91, and the Ukrainian Oleksandr Turchynov, who worked with Tihipko as head of the agitation and propaganda division in the same Komsomol regional organisation in 1987–90. Tihipko and Turchynov initiated and ‘ideologically justified’ the first Komsomol businesses in the region. Two other Komsomol members, who also graduated from the same institute as Tihipko and Turchynov, Kolomoyskyy and Viktor Pinchuk, both of Jewish origin, started their careers not in the official Komsomol business, but on the black market of Dnipropetrovsk, trading various goods, and using their financial and engineering skills for their own survival in the conditions of economic collapse of late socialism. Kolomoyskyy used his financial skills and connections with Tihipko to organize its own financial corporation Privatbank, which became the most successful bank in post-Soviet Ukraine. Pinchuk, using his engineering and managerial skills, founded his own metallurgical venture, entitled Interpipe Company. It is noteworthy that all four of those Komsomol members, two Ukrainian and two Jewish, used their personal connections through their friends and partners from Pivdenmash, including through its last director Leonid Kuchma, to start their first businesses in Dnipropetrovsk (see Golovko 2012). In the mid-1980s, when perestroika created favourable conditions for the managerial skills of Komsomol activists, this system produced new activities for cultural consumption, such as video salons which brought their organisers more profits than traditional discotheque clubs. The video business used the same infrastructure and network of the discotheque movement; namely international tourism, Komsomol activists, trade union leaders and the ‘discotheque mafia.’ This network contributed to the business career of two fans of Western popular music, Yulia Tymoshenko and her husband, Oleksandr (Popov, Milshtein, 55; Ponamarchuk). Yulia Grigian (Telegina) was the daughter of Armenian taxi-driver Grigian and Russian technical worker Telegina, a fan of British rock music. Yulia Grigian married Oleksandr Tymoshenko, son of a member of the city KPU committee in the Pivdenmash administration. In 1978, Yulia Tymoshenko joined the student Komsomol organization in the Department of Economy at Dnipropetrovsk State University. This department was opened on the initiative of the Pivdenmash administration in 1977 to provide training for qualified economists in Dnipropetrovsk’s growing military industrial complex. Yulia Tymoshenko graduated with honours from the Department of Economy in 1984 and began her first job as an engineer-economist through the connections of her father-in-law, Hennadii Tymoshenko. For five years, she worked at the Lenin machine building plant, another factory which belonged to the Soviet military industrial complex. In 1979, she gave birth to her daughter Yevhenia, and until 1988 she and her husband enjoyed a typical Soviet upper-middle class life in their one-bedroom cooperative apartment. They continued to watch movies, listen to Western pop music, and occasionally visited and danced in well-known discotheque clubs in downtown Dnipropetrovsk (Popov and Milshtein 2006, 64–67; Suvorov 1991). Perestroika changed the young Tymoshenko family. Hennadii Tymoshenko recommended his son and daughter-in-law to join the co-operative movement and promised his support through the city’s KPU and Soviet administration. In 1988, the young Tymoshenkos used their old connections in the Komsomol discothèque world to open a public service enterprise, a video-rental shop in Dnipropetrovsk, with 5,000 borrowed Soviet roubles. The profits made from this first venture were used to open a chain of video rental stores. They used the experience of Komsomol apparatchiks, who brought their first VCRs in Dnipropetrovsk through Sputnik. Contacts in the discotheque movement helped provide these apparatchiks with Western video tapes and an audience which was ready to consume new Western cultural products. Former discotheque enthusiasts tested these new business practices and proposed the idea of video salons, which had already become the most popular and fashionable form of entertainment Moscow and the three Baltic republics. As a result, during perestroika both the Komsomol and ‘discotheque mafia’ provided infrastructure for these salons in Dnipropetrovsk. When in 1987the KGB opened the city of Dnipropetrovsk to foreigners, Pivdenmash imported thousands of VCRs using barter agreements with South Korean businessmen. As a regional KPU apparatchik who oversaw the distribution of movies throughout the Dnipropetrovsk region (kinoprokat), Yulia Tymoshenko’s father-in-law had access not only to these Korean VCRs but also to local movie theatres which provided the first mass audience for video films. The main base of a Tymoshenko’s ‘video enterprise’ was the location of the former central Komsomol discotheque club of Dnipropetrovsk oblast– the Student Palace in the Taras Shevchenko Park of Culture and Relaxation in downtown Dnipropetrovsk (Popov and Milshtein 2006, 52–89; Ponamarchuk 2007). In 1989, she quit her old engineer-economist job and became the head of the Terminal co-operative. The same year, another participant in the ‘discotheque mafia,’ Serhiy Tihipko, was elected as the first secretary of the Komsomol organization of Dnipropetrovsk oblast. He not only supported Tymoshenko’s enterprise, but also brought his additional discotheque and Sputnik connections into Terminal. In this way, discotheque activists and Komsomol apparatchiks contributed to the growth and popularity of Tymoshenko’s business (Tihipko). In 1991 after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Soviet state tourism, the representatives of the Brezhnev era Komsomol elite, such as Tymoshenko demonstrated again that a skilful adjustment of this network to the new economic situation was an important foundation for success in post-Soviet business activities. The initial capital of Terminal, the music and video Komsomol enterprise which Tymoshenko had launched during ‘the discotheque era’ of late socialism, became the foundation of her business and political career in post-Soviet Ukraine. Epilogue: Dnipropetrovsk Komsomol Entrepreneurs and the Formation of Post-Soviet Oligarchs Political corruption in the post-Soviet geopolitical space is rooted in cultural consumption during the Brezhnev era, especially in the so-called ‘discotheque effect’ on society during the era of ‘mature socialism.’ During this period of late socialism in the USSR, millions of Soviet young people, loyal members of Komsomol, fell in love with the catchy sound of ‘beat music’ by the Beatles and hard rock by Deep Purple. Even ten years after dissolution of the Soviet Union, the post-Soviet space was ruled by former Soviet hard rock fans, representatives of the so-called ‘Deep Purple generation,’ new post-Soviet politicians, such as Russian Prime-Minister Dmitri Medvedev, twice Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, President Petro Poroshenko and former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Paradoxically, détente in the 1970s led to the influx of Western cultural products into the USSR, such as popular music and feature films. As a result, Soviet ideologists, including the Komsomol, attempted to control Soviet consumption of cultural products from the West using ‘Komsomol discothèques’ where Soviet young people could dance to ‘ideologically permitted’ Soviet and Western music. Contemporaries called these organizers ‘disco mafia’ in the industrial cities of Eastern Ukraine. By the end of perestroika in 1991, more than 100 Komsomol businesses had emerged in industrial cities in Eastern Soviet Ukraine, of which more than ninety originated in the city of Dnipropetrovsk (Zhuk 2010, 301). Only a few of the most successful enterprises survived post-Soviet competition during the 1990s and created ‘new business corporations’ such as Yulia Tymoshenko’s ‘Gas Empire,’ Kolomoyskyy’s and Tihipko’s Privatbank, Aleksandr Balashov’s ‘Trade Corporation’ and Rinat Akhmetov’s Liuks. The overwhelming majority of these post-Soviet successful businesses were organised by or directly connected to the ‘disco mafia.’ At the same time, the first Dnipropetrovsk ‘capitalists’ demonstrated a wide range of ethnic backgrounds, from the Ukrainian Tihipko, Armenian-Russian Tymoshenko, Russian Balashov and Jewish Kolomoyskyy contributing to the multi-national identity of the city of Dnipropetrovsk and Dnipro. Some contemporaries noted how the business activities of Komsomol ‘entrepreneurs’ in the 1980s contributed to regional identity in Eastern Ukraine. Many of these ‘entrepreneurs’ who were not ethnic Ukrainians became active participants in the Ukrainian independence movement in 1988–1991 to protect their regional business interests rather than defending Ukrainian culture and language. In the 1990s, former members of the Soviet ‘discotheque mafia’ and their former KPU supervisors became an integral part of the business and political life of independent Ukraine. As leaders of oligarchic clans in Ukraine they have resisted Russian expansion into their ‘spheres of influence.’ The case of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, elected in April 2019, whose entire career was generated inside the Soviet-based system of television entertainment, continues to demonstrate the connection between ‘post-Komsomol‘ business and political careers. Zelenskyy began his acting career in 95-yi Kvartal, which was a reference to a neighbourhood in Kryvyy Rih, where he had grown up and was inspired by the 1960s Soviet television show KVN. As we see, the Dnipropetrovsk and Dnipro elites, who are still rooted in their Soviet past, play a significant role in the development of independent Ukraine. References Berkhoff, Karel C., (2004). Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine under Nazi Rule. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bolebrukh, Anatolii G. et al., eds., (2001). Dnipropetrovsk: vikhy istorii. Dnipropetrovsk: Grani. Derzhavnyy arkhiv Dnipropetrovskoyi oblasti (hereafter – DADO), f. 19, op. 52, spr. 72. Dnepropetrovskii raketno-kosmicheskii tsentr: Kratkii ocherk stanovlenia i razvitia. (1994). DAZ-YuMZ-KBYu: Khronika dat i sobytii. Dnipropetrovsk: YUMZ. Glushkina, Liudmila G. ed. (1985). Tsentral’noe Statisticheskoe Upravlenie Dnepropetrovskoi oblasti. Dnepropetrovshchina v tsifrakh. (K 40-letiu pobedy v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine). Dnipropetrovsk: Gosstat. Golovko, Volodymyr. (2012). Ukrainski finasovo-promyslovi grupy v modernizatsiinykh protsesakh 1991-2009. Kyiv: Instytut istorii Ukrainy NAN Ukrainy. Goskomstat USSR. Dnepropetrovskoe oblatnoe upravlenie statistiki. (1991). Naselenie Dnepropetrovskoi oblasti po dannym Vsesoiuznoi perepisi naseleniia 1989 goda. Dnepropetrovsk: Gosstat. Hall, Rex, Shayler, David J. (2001). The Rocket Men: Vostok and Voskhod, the First Soviet Manned Spaceflights. Chichester, NJ: Springer. Horbulin, Volodymyr P. et al. eds. (1998). Zemni shlyakhy i zoryani orbity. Shtrykhy do portreta Leonida Kuchmy. Kyiv: DrUk. Kuznetskii, Mikhail I., Stazheva, Irina V. eds. (1995). Baikonur – chudo XX veka: Vospominania vevteranov Baikonura ob akademike Mikhaile Kuzmiche Yangele. Moscow: Kosmos. Kuznetskii, Mikhail I. ed. (1997). Baikonur, Korolev, Yangel. Voronezh: Kosmos. Lazebnik, Valentina I. (2001). G. A. Efimenko ed., Oziorka nasha: Istoricheskii ocherk o Dnepropetrovskom Tsentralnom rynke. Dnipropetrovsk: Grani. Lukanov, Yuriy. (1996). Tretii president: Politychnyi portret Leonida Kuchmy. Kyiv: Taki Spravy. Markov, Karlo A. (1995). Uchastie nemetskikh voennoplennykh i internirovannykh v vosstanovlenii narodnogo khoziaistva Dnepropetrovskoi oblastiv pervye polevoennye gody. Voprosy Germanskoi istorii: Ukrainsko-nemetskie sviazi v novoe i noveishee vremia. Mezhvuzovskii sbornik nauchnykh trudov, In: Svetlana Bobyliova, ed., Dnipropetrovsk: DDU, 158–172. Mlechin, Leonid M. (2005). Brezhnev. Moscow: Molodaia gvardia. Nahaylo, Bohdan. (1999). The Ukrainian Resurgence. Toronto: Hurst. O vozrastnoi structure, urovne obrazovania, natsional’nom sostave, iazykakh i istochnikakh sredstv sushchestvovania naselenia Dnepropetrovskoi oblasti po dannym Vsessoiuznoi perepisis naselenia na 15 ianvaria 1970 goda. (1971). Dneprovskaia Pravda, June 26. Pikhovshek, Vyacheslav, et al., eds. (1996). ‘Dnipropetrovska simya’: Informatsia stanom na 25 lystopada 1996 roku. Kyiv: Ukrainian Centre for Independent Political Research. Pikhovshek, Vyacheslav et al. Eds. (1996). Dnipropetrovsk vs. Security Service. Kyiv: Lybed. Platonov, Vitalii P. and Horbulin, Volodymyr.P. (1979). Mykhaylo K. Yangel. Kyiv: Nauka. Plyushch, Leonid. (1979). History’s Carnival: A Dissident’s Autobiography. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Ponamarchuk, Dmytro. (2007). Prosto Yulia. Izvestia, September 20. Popov, Dmitrii, and Milshtein, Ilia. (2006). Oranzhevaia printsessa. Zagadka Yulii Timoshenko. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Ol’gi Morozovoi. Romanov, Aleksandr P., Gubarev, Vladimir S. (1989). Konstruktory. Moscow: Molodaia gvardia. Siddiqi, Asif A. (2003). Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Elberg-Wilson, Eliot. (2016). ‘Eduard Artem’iev and the Sonics of National Identity,’ Slovo, 28, 2: 2–25. Strazheva, Irina V. (1978). Tiulpany s kosmodroma. Moscow: Molodaia gvardia. Vasiliev, I. V. et al. eds. (1977). Istoria gorodov i siol Ukrainskoi SSR v 26-ti tomakh: Dnepropetrovskaia oblast. Kyiv: Glavnaia redaktsia Ukrainskoi Sovestskoi Entsiklopedii. Vosstanovlenie Pridneprovia (1946–1950). (1980). Dokumenty i materially. Kyiv: Nauka. Wilson, Andrew. (2000). The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press Zhuk, Sergei. (2004). Russia’s Lost Reformation: Peasants, Millennialism and Radical Sects in Southern Russia and Ukraine, 1830–1917. Baltimore, MD & Washington D.C: Johns Hopkins University Press and Woodrow Wilson Centre Press. Zhuk, Sergei (2010). Rock and Roll in the Rocket City: The West, Identity, and Ideology in Soviet Dniepropetrovsk, 1960–1985. Baltimore, MD & Washington D.C: Johns Hopkins University Press and Woodrow Wilson Centre Press. **Interviews**Igor T., KGB officer, 15 May 1991, Dnipropetrovsk. Karlo A. Markov, 12 April 1992, Dnipropetrovsk State University. Mikhail Suvorov, 1 June 1991, Dnipropetrovsk. Natalia V. Bocharova, 15 March 1993, Dnipropetrovsk State University. Sergiy Tihipko, director of Privatbank in Dnipropetrovsk, 12 October 1993, Dnipropetrovsk. Yevhen D. Prudchenko and Halyna V. Smolenska, 18 July 2007, Central Library of Dnipropetrovsk oblast, Dnipropetrovsk. Notes [1] I used also numerous interviews conducted with my relatives, who are ethnic Ukrainians, but live in Moscow, Russia, who still support Russian President Vladimir Putin’s anti-Ukrainian politics. [2] Sovnarkhoz is abbreviated from Russian Sovet narodnogo khoziaistva, an economic department in the Soviet government during the early Stalin era and during Khrushchev’s reforms.
SAIC: Science Applications International Corporation filed SEC Form 8-K: Entry into a Material Definitive Agre
8-K - Science Applications International Corp (0001571123) (Filer) Real-time SAIC news, filings and analyst ratings on Quantisnow.
Measles: What's at stake if the US loses elimination status
In this webinar, panelists cover what the potential loss of measles elimination in the U.S. means and what conquering it again will take.
Missing Israel games 'stressful' for captain Collins
Republic of Ireland captain Nathan Collins says he felt he left his teammates "on their own" after missing the two controversial Nations League games against Israel in the last international window through injury.
The US and Mexico are on the verge of forfeiting a major health victory. Here’s what to know
International health experts are meeting to assess whether the U.S. and Mexico have lost their measles elimination status.
Climate change and tornadoes: the science shows a mixed picture
Climate change and tornadoes have a complicated relationship, and these 10 points explain what researchers know about tornado trends, shifting risk and why the record is hard to read
ITALY U21 WIN AS CAMARDA SCORES
The first Rossoneri goal of the second international break of the season has arrived. On Friday evening, Camarda scored one of the goals in Italy U21's 2-1 friendly win away to France in Laval. Franc...
The Politics Hour: Montgomery County's new era
Montgomery County Executive-elect Will Jawando talks top priorities and Ward 1 D.C. Councilmember-elect Aparna Raj on how the city can afford universal child care.
Can Artificial Intelligence help with mental health issues?
You may be struggling to find the right therapist, or need help faster than you can set up a counselling appointment. Many of us - especially the young - are turning to chatbots such as Gemini, Claude or ChatGPT who seem like understanding listeners.
Black birthworker groups partner with Virginia hospitals on maternal care
Facilities have cited improvements to patient care after including doulas in care teams.
Rubio urges conservatives to uplift their ideology, brushes off Republicans’ midterm losses
The secretary of state also condemned “activist courts” in the U.S. and the “weaponization of international law” against the Trump administration.
Sustainable valorization of pineapple leaf waste into biocompatible activated carbon for biomedical and food applications
npj Science of Food - Sustainable valorization of pineapple leaf waste into biocompatible activated carbon for biomedical and food applications
Pochettino breaks down in tears during United States press conference
Manchester United’s new head coach Mauricio Pochettino broke down in tears on Friday as he said leaving his role with the United States had been “one of the most difficult decisions” of his whole career. United confirmed the Argentinian as their new head coach on Friday, just over 24 hours after they sacked Michael Carrick after the club’s worst start to a season since 1986.
Target shoppers visiting more often as holidays gear up
Target's strong growth in customer visits this year has analysts optimistic about its turnaround heading into its busiest season.
Beyond Banking: Why Treasury Management Has Become a Strategic Business Function
By Lesly Murray, Director of Treasury Management For many business owners, bankers have traditionally been viewed as service providers. While that function remains important, the nature of banking relationships has […]
Michigan football regional championship final scores in Greater Lansing
See the results from the third week of the MHSAA football playoffs in Greater Lansing.
SEIU Wisconsin calls for bill to restore UW Health union rights
After a seven-year campaign to reinstate union rights at UW Health hospitals in Madison, organizers are looking to the incoming Democratic governor and majority in the Legislature to help finish the job. Service Employees International Union’s Wisconsin branch mobilized support across the state for winning candidates — from Gov.-elect David Crowley on down to incoming […]
Mauricio Pochettino: Manchester United agree two-and-a-half-year deal with USA manager to replace Michael Carrick
Mauricio Pochettino will take charge of Manchester United after the current international break; USA boss will replace Michael Carrick, who was sacked on Thursday with the club in the Premier League relegation zone; Pochettino will sign deal until summer of 2029
FIFA fails to stop UEFA disclosure order over World Cup investor plan
A New York court has thrown out world football governing body FIFA's application to stop European football ruling body UEFA’s disclosure order against Thrive Capital and JP Morgan surrounding the doomed FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal. FIFA president Gianni Infantino had sought to set up FFE to run the commercial interests of the World Cup and its other competitions, with private investors holding a minority stake, although the plan was abandoned in August after being rejected by three co
San Siro
How do you get 80,018 people (yes, you read that right, EIGHTY THOUSAND AND EIGHTEEN) into San Siro during the international break? No Inter, no football, but still a ball, albeit an oval one for a ch...
‘Reached the lives of many.’ Retired Bellefonte business owner remembered after fatal fire
A GoFundMe campaign for his wife, Karen, was launched after Monday’s fire.
Meghan Cox Gurdon ’86 and Hugo Gurdon talk journalism and conservative politics
On Wednesday evening, students, faculty and community members convened in the Main Lounge of Moulton Union to hear from journalists and married couple Meghan Cox Gurdon ’86 and Hugo Gurdon in a discussion moderated by Professor of Africana Studies and English Tess Chakkalakal and Leah Kiros ’28. Meghan Cox Gurdon is a weekly contributor to […]
Maternal healthcare advocates lay out next steps
A coalition of maternal healthcare advocates is laying out their policy wish list for Michigan’s next legislative term.
Public News Service | News in the Public Interest
Public News Service (PNS) is a member-supported news service that advocates journalism in the public interest. PNS's network of state-based news services distribute high quality public interest news and information to both mainstream and alternative media.
Companies love a ‘rockstar’ CEO. Until they depend on one
Jensen Huang’s exit tests Nvidia’s succession planning and governance, and offers lessons for companies that elevate their CEOs to rockstar status.
Grambling State University to Offer Bachelor's Degree in Public Health | The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education
“Public health plays an essential role in the health and well-being of our communities,” said Grambling State University President Martin Lemelle, Jr. “This new degree gives our students another opportunity to pursue careers in the health field while gaining the knowledge and skills needed to address issues affecting communities across Louisiana and beyond.”
FAA grounds all flights nationwide
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a nationwide groundstop order for all airports on Friday, without offering additional information.
Nature journaling helps RSU 21 students learn science outdoors
Students are taking science learning outdoors through nature journaling and hands-on exploration at Kennebunkport Conservation Trust preserves.
🥐 Nations League night, Premier League moves: 5️⃣ Friday headlines
Spain remain unstoppable in the UEFA Nations League after winning away to Czechia, on a day of international action marked by Harry Kane’s historic England record and a shock defeat for Zinedine Zid...
Photos: Family Science Night at SCC
Southeast Community College hosted a Family Science Night this week, offering experiments and hands-on activities. Daily Sun photos by Christina Lyons.
ATP Finals predictions: Sky Sports panel pick their winners and surprise package as Alexander Zverev and Carlos Alcaraz lead the field
Who will win the season-ending tournament in Italy? Are world No 1 Alexander Zverev and No 2 Carlos Alcaraz on collision course? You can watch the Nitto ATP Finals from November 15-22 in Turin on Sky Sports Tennis
Fiesta Bowl Flag Football Classic returns for second year
The UCF Knights won the inaugural flag football tournament last season, beating in-state opponent Florida 19-7.
Get diagnosed: Doctors flag throat ailment mistaken for allergy
Allergists in the US are warning of a rising caseload of eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), a throat disease sometimes mistakenly diagnosed as a food allergy when it manifests and leads to years of trouble with swallowing. “Not every frightening reaction after eating is anaphylaxis,” said allergist Talal Nsouli of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), warning that EoE can result in “repeated emergency visits before the correct diagnosis is made.
How Nvidia Can Move Forward Without Its Founder
When a celebrated founder leaves abruptly, the board must stabilize the business, communicate clearly, and find a successor who can lead through uncertainty. In this Q&A with Harvard Business Review Senior Editor Juan Martinez, Harvard Business School professor Sandra Sucher discusses the challenges facing Nvidia’s leadership. She explains how directors can demonstrate the company’s capabilities, support investigations, and help employees address customers’ concerns. The succession search requires assessing whether internal executives have gained the authority and experience needed for the top job. Sucher also discusses what an outside candidate would need to succeed and how to keep valued executives engaged. Her advice emphasizes honest communication, deliberate leadership development, and giving employees a meaningful role in rebuilding trust across the organization.
A guide to the 2026 Volusia County Fair, from ticket prices to food
The 81st annual Volusia County Fair runs through Sunday, Nov. 15, 2026, at Volusia County Fairgrounds in DeLand, Florida. What to know before it ends.
Milwaukee outlines four-year plan to improve maternal and infant health
The plan comes as Milwaukee’s infant mortality rate remains one of the worst in the nation.
Clinton Historical Society to examine Revolutionary War veteran
Historian Christian Goodwillie will discuss Revolutionary War veteran Barnabas Pond and his role in Clinton's early history Nov. 15 at the Clinton Historical Society.
CVS Health (CVS) Could Be 28% Undervalued As Its Recovery Narrative Builds
CVS Health (CVS) has jumped back into the spotlight after announcing the latest Caliber Artist Series journals, a small product move that still raises fresh questions about its retail brand power. Recent trading reflects that mix of headlines and hard numbers. CVS Health shares trade at US$89.35, with a 7 day share price return of 6.56% after a softer 90 day share price return of 8.04% and a 1 year total shareholder return of 18.36% that indicates momentum relative to a longer base. Scan how...