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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How to Unionize at Amazon</strong> - On Staten Island, it made all the difference that the union was independent and led by workers from the warehouse, not managed by a large, outside organization. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/how-to-unionize-at-amazon">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Collecting Bodies in Bucha</strong> - A team of Ukrainian volunteers say that, since the Russian retreat, they have picked up three hundred corpses. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/collecting-bodies-in-bucha">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Putin’s War Gives America a Chance to Get Serious About Refugees</strong> - The climate crisis will produce a huge wave of migrants, and we’re not ready. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/putins-war-gives-america-a-chance-to-get-serious-about-refugees">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sheila Heti Reads “Just a Little Fever”</strong> - The author reads her story from the April 18, 2022, issue of the magazine. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-writers-voice/sheila-heti-reads-just-a-little-fever">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sheila Heti on the Rush and the Fear of Youth</strong> - The author discusses “Just a Little Fever,” her story from the latest issue of the magazine. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/this-week-in-fiction/sheila-heti-04-18-22">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>With The Candy House, Pulitzer winner Jennifer Egan makes her case for the novel</strong> -
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<img alt="The cover of the novel The Candy House by Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Visit From the 
Goon Squad Jennifer Egan." src="https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/LpqAOXh8bhLCzGO3xYJ6KYN3ie0=/0x92:593x537/1310x983/cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70735042/the_candy_house_9781476716763_xlg.0.jpeg"/>
<figcaption>
<em>The Candy House</em> by Jennifer Egan. | Scribner
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The ambitious, kaleidoscopic follow-up to A Visit From the Goon Squad sticks the landing.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Xte2W4">
Time is a goon, marauding and thieving and vicious. But the 12 years that have gone by since Jennifer Egan published her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel <a href="https://go.skimresources.com?id=66960X1516588&amp;xs=1&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fbookshop.org%2Fbooks%2Fa-visit-from-
the-goon-squad%2F9780307477477&amp;xcust=VoxCandyHouse040822"><em>A Visit From the Goon Squad</em></a> have treated that book with kindness. Playful, ambitious, and formally inventive, <em>Goon Squad</em> stands as a model for what the contemporary novel could be and often isn’t: a book that sets out to express something new, and builds itself a wholly new form with which to do so.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DjJp31">
Now Egan has released what she’s calling “a sibling novel” to <em>A Visit From the Goon Squad</em> titled <a href="https://go.skimresources.com?id=66960X1516588&amp;xs=1&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fbookshop.org%2Fbooks%2Fthe-candy-
house-9781476716763%2F9781476716763&amp;xcust=VoxCandyHouse040822"><em>The Candy House</em></a>, which borrows its sprawling structure and a number of its characters from its predecessor. But where reading <em>Goon Squad</em> felt like watching a circus acrobat pull off a flip you’ve never seen before, <em>The Candy House</em> has a subtler joy. Reading this book is like watching Simone Biles execute a trick that she’s crafted and polished and honed to perfection. You already know she can do it, so now the pleasure is in watching the details. Every little nuance works.
</p>
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<aside id="rD9bra">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YX0R9M">
The structural innovation Egan made with <em>A Visit From the Goon Squad</em> and repeats here with <em>The Candy House</em> is deceptively simple. It’s the novel as daisy chain: Each chapter picks up the point of view of a supporting character from a previous chapter, taking us from the mind of a strung-out record producer to his recovering addict daughter to her annoying D&amp;D-playing sober companion. We hopscotch across time, meeting the same characters again and again, refracted through the lenses of dozens of different points of view. In 2010, <em>Goon Squad</em> dazzled readers with its famous PowerPoint chapter; in <em>Candy House</em>, Egan’s great format twist comes with a chapter told as a field guide for spies.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ilAobc">
Technically speaking, <em>The Candy House</em> stands on its own, and if you read it without ever cracking the cover on <em>Goon Squad</em>, it will all make sense. If you approach it that way, however, you will most likely find the climax, which sees multiple <em>Goon Squad</em> characters briefly falling back into their old configurations, landing a little flat. <em>The Candy House</em> depends for its emotional oomph not just on your having read <em>Goon Squad</em>, but on your memories of <em>Goon Squad</em> being crisp and clear — which makes sense, because while <em>Goon Squad</em> was about time, <em>Candy House</em> is about memories.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aWtNTw">
It’s also about technology, that “candy house” that keeps enticing us to give up little pieces of ourselves to anonymous companies. And it’s about novels themselves, what we get out of them, and — you feel for Egan here — how incredibly intimidating they are to write.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i7Lf8N">
<em>The Candy House</em> begins with Bix, who we last met in <em>Goon Squad</em> as a brilliant Black grad student in the early ’90s, evangelizing to his classmates about the oncoming wonders of the web. Now it’s 2010, and Bix runs a social media empire. He’s become a cultural icon, a Steve Jobs-like figure as famed for his style predilections (zoot suit, leather hat) as for his technological work.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mqFrDx">
But Bix has developed a fear. Like a novelist staring down the follow-up to the book that made him famous, Bix has become afraid that he won’t be able to make something else as good as his social media network was. He built his name on a purloined academic theory about mapping the connections and relationships between human beings. How can he pull off the same trick twice?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="90I6Dt">
Bix finds his way forward with another scholarly concept. Upon hearing that academics have developed a way to “externalize” animal consciousness, Bix develops a device that allows users to upload the entire contents of their memories and share them in the searchable cloud-based format that comes to be called the Collective Consciousness.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CEKFJy">
The worldbuilding possibilities here are heady, but Egan gestures at them rather than getting too into the weeds. In a few brisk sentences, we learn that the Collective Consciousness, Facebook-like, comes to be useful for both reuniting with old friends and for law enforcement. There’s a half-submerged subplot about “eluders” — people who keep their lives off the internet, who eventually come to be considered dangerous renegades — but mostly, Egan is interested in the human-scale consequences of searchable, uploadable memories.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IALI7C">
One woman revisits a much-cherished childhood trip through her father’s eyes, only to recoil away from his dismissive reactions to her. A “counter” working for a data harvesting company flinches squeamishly away from his professional obligation to look at other people’s memories. A citizen spy develops a paranoid belief that the government is looking at her memories even when she never uploaded them to the Collective Consciousness.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bUJpoA">
There’s a certain professional envy at work here, a kind of territorial protectiveness. We live in an era of unprecedented access to other people’s minds, to the daily detritus of human beings’ thoughts. Does this access — Egan asks, through the metaphor of the Collective Consciousness — actually make us better at understanding one another? Or are we better off with the novel, that old, old technology for empathy?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="R5Fy60">
It probably won’t shock you that this novel comes down hard for novels as the winning option. But it’s hard to begrudge Egan’s decision to hand herself a win. Like <em>A Visit From the Goon Squad</em> before it, sweeping, kaleidoscopic <em>Candy House</em> more than makes its case.
</p>
<aside id="vfgX7e">
<div>

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</aside></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How much legal jeopardy is Hunter Biden in?</strong> -
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/e23TrIuLlXZor3OL6UMRhecUqZI=/0x0:2668x2001/1310x983/cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70734950/GettyImages_520762182.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Hunter Biden, then-World Food Program USA board chairman, speaks at the organization’s annual McGovern-Dole Leadership Award ceremony in Washington, DC, on April 12, 2016. | Paul Morigi/Getty Images for World Food Program USA
</figcaption>
</figure></li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Several recent reports claim the investigation into President Biden’s son is intensifying.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BRszC1">
Federal prosecutors’ investigation into Hunter Biden is heating up and the indictment of the president’s son is a real possibility, a recent series of reports suggests.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oNMnXO">
The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/us/politics/hunter-biden-tax-bill-investigation.html">New York Times</a>, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/prosecutors-advance-tax-probe-of-hunter-biden-11648465200">Wall Street Journal,</a> <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/federal-probe-hunter-bidens-taxes-intensifies-sources/story?id=83770321">ABC News</a>, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hunter-biden-investigation-federal-tax-new-details/">CBS News</a>, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/30/politics/hunter-biden-federal-investigation-heats-up/index.html">CNN</a>, and the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-biden-business-trump-impeachment-presidential-
elections-073e76b799fef4560ca3a9089d80d7fa">Associated Press</a> have all published stories in recent weeks with a similar theme: the investigation, run by the US attorney’s office in Delaware, has gotten increasingly active, with witnesses testifying to a grand jury.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="N7lI3Z">
The investigation focuses on Hunter Biden’s well-compensated work for foreign interests over the past decade or so, particularly for businesses or tycoons in Ukraine, China, and Kazakhstan. The main legal questions appear to be whether Hunter violated tax laws, committed money laundering, or acted as an unregistered foreign lobbyist.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yr7hAd">
Ethical questions <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/05/14/hunter-bidens-new-job-at-a-ukrainian-gas-company-is-
a-problem-for-u-s-soft-power/">have</a> <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/205992-white-house-
bidens-son-to-ukraine-gas-company-isnt-us-endorsement/">long swirled</a> about Hunter’s foreign consulting and investment work, which he began as his father was set to become vice president and continued amid tumultuous years for Hunter and the Biden family. Critics have argued he was at the very least trading on his father’s name, or that foreign interests were paying him exorbitantly in hopes of pleasing his father. President Trump became obsessed with all this as Joe Biden prepared to challenge him for reelection, and Trump’s allies have tried hard to make charges of Hunter’s purported corruption stick to Joe — so far without success.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4bOJBs">
But prosecutors’ inquiry into Hunter <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/us/politics/hunter-biden-tax-bill-investigation.html">reportedly dates</a> back in some form to the Obama administration. Recent stories reference some doubts and differing opinions from investigators about the strength of the case, so it’s not a certainty that he’ll be indicted. And by all accounts, the investigation is focused on Hunter Biden, not Joe Biden.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aHA51s">
With prosecutors’ ultimate conclusion unclear, most of the political discourse around Hunter Biden’s legal woes so far has been about how the media should cover them — with Republicans demanding more coverage and Democrats maintaining it’s not that important a story. But the possible indictment of the president’s son would be at the very least a PR problem for his administration, and potentially a threat to his reelection as well.
</p>
<h3 id="yjF5J3">
Why is Hunter Biden being investigated?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YbaSjF">
For pretty much his entire adult life, Hunter Biden has been in the business of being Joe Biden’s son. At age 26, Hunter took a high-paying job at Delaware-based bank MBNA, one of then-Sen. Biden’s largest donors. Five years later, Hunter Biden became a lobbyist. And after his father became vice president of the United States in 2009, Hunter moved into the more opaque world of highly paid consulting and investment efforts for foreign clients.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/sZdDdwJSv70jNKFqal2uLQcGSQI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23377477/GettyImages_151389020.jpg"/> <cite>Streeter Lecka/Getty Images</cite></p>
<figcaption>
Hunter Biden, center, flanked by siblings Ashley and Beau, watches father and then-Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden speak on stage during the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 6, 2012.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="enaYpk">
This proved to be lucrative. A Ukrainian gas company paid Hunter millions over five years to sit on its board (despite his lack of experience in the energy business), through a company Hunter had set up, Rosemont Seneca Bohai LLC. A company controlled by a Kazakh oligarch <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/prosecutors-advance-tax-probe-of-hunter-biden-11648465200">sent Rosemont</a> $142,000 that Hunter then used to buy a sports car. In 2017 and 2018, a Chinese energy company sent $4.8 million to entities Hunter and his uncle James Biden controlled for purported legal and advisory work, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/30/hunter-biden-china-laptop/">per the Washington Post</a>. That company’s founder gave Hunter <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/08/will-hunter-biden-jeopardize-his-
fathers-campaign">a large diamond</a>, which he has said he then gave to his business associates.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QyKVX2">
There is nothing inherently illegal about accepting money and gifts from foreign interests if you are a private citizen and your dad is a famous, powerful person. But you do have to pay taxes on it. And according <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/us/politics/hunter-biden-tax-bill-investigation.html">to the New York Times</a>, a federal inquiry into whether Hunter had properly paid his taxes began back during the Obama administration. Then, in 2018, the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/barr-worked-to-keep-hunter-biden-probes-from-public-view-
during-election-11607653188">tax inquiry became</a> a broader criminal investigation into Hunter, conducted by the US attorney’s office in Delaware, examining possible money laundering and whether he was an unregistered foreign agent.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QCYVQc">
At that point, the investigation wasn’t public, but as Joe Biden prepared to launch a presidential bid in 2019, Hunter became a particular fixation of Trump and his allies, who hoped to damage the elder Biden politically. Their efforts to do so became a saga that resulted in <a href="https://www.vox.com/c/2020/2/6/20914280/impeachment-
trump-explained">Trump’s first impeachment</a> and, eventually, the “October surprise” release of Hunter Biden’s private emails, texts, and other documents said to be from a <a href="https://www.vox.com/22992772/hunter-biden-
laptop">laptop</a> abandoned at a Delaware computer repair store.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="r1O0WV">
But the federal investigation into Hunter predated these shenanigans. It’s being led by the US attorney for Delaware, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-de/meet-us-attorney">David Weiss</a>, a Trump appointee left in place by President Biden (due to a desire not to interfere with this specific investigation). Weiss has worked in various capacities in that office since 2007 and isn’t known to be a partisan or a Trump crony. And he has moved forward with the probe in the new administration.
</p>
<h3 id="lf5s6m">
What is Hunter Biden being investigated for?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="K4WdeH">
Per recent reports, the investigation focuses on three main topics.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ygPjv1">
<strong>1) Taxes</strong>: Did Hunter properly pay taxes on the millions of dollars in income he made? It seems like the answer might be “not at first,” since he belatedly coughed up over $1 million to pay off his tax liability last year, per <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/us/politics/hunter-biden-tax-bill-investigation.html">the Times</a>. That wouldn’t get him off the hook for past criminal conduct, though, and the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/prosecutors-advance-tax-probe-of-hunter-biden-11648465200">Wall Street Journal reports</a> prosecutors are examining whether Hunter “moved funds in a way to obscure his tax liability.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Rr3hCT">
One recent comparison is the case brought by special counsel Robert Mueller against Paul Manafort. Manafort made tens of millions of dollars from Ukrainian clients, parked it in offshore accounts, and used much of it to fund his expensive lifestyle in the US — spending big on real estate, antique rugs, luxury cars, and more. But he didn’t disclose any of this as income on his tax returns or pay taxes on it. Similar issues appear to be at play for Hunter, as prosecutors are examining, for instance, the money a Kazakh oligarch paid his Rosemont company <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/prosecutors-advance-tax-probe-of-hunter-biden-11648465200">that he used to buy</a> a sports car.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OIcWcT">
“I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisors,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/hunter-biden-under-federal-
investigation/2020/12/09/3b7361be-3a64-11eb-9276-ae0ca72729be_story.html">Hunter said</a> in a December 2020 statement.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kUv4oA">
<strong>2) Money laundering</strong>: Hunter is also under scrutiny for potential money laundering — basically, bringing foreign funds into the US financial system in connection with some sort of crime. Various financial institutions filed “suspicious activity reports” to the US government about movements of funds in and out of Hunter’s accounts, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/30/hunter-biden-china-
laptop/">including to his uncle James Biden</a>.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/GT8qH1JFpu2S4suRhMUh2SK3ZHI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23377498/GettyImages_596955892.jpg"/> <cite>Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Then-Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden, left, and his brother James Biden at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NAlxM7">
Though the term “money laundering” may bring to mind drug trafficking or something of the sort, prosecutors can also charge it in connection with more prosaic crimes, such as <a href="https://www.justice.gov/file/1007271/download">acting as an unregistered foreign agent</a>. (Manafort was charged with conspiring to launder money for this purpose.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XWGwE1">
<strong>3) Acting as an unregistered foreign agent</strong>: The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) <a href="https://www.justice.gov/nsd-fara/frequently-asked-questions#1">requires</a> people doing political, public relations, or lobbying work for foreign clients to register with the government as foreign agents. Ordinary business work for foreign clients does not require FARA registration. But when that work moves from the business realm to the political realm — or, importantly, to the public relations realm — that obligation may kick in.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Zy5dSg">
So the question is what kind of work Hunter really did. Though FARA was rarely enforced until <a href="https://www.justice.gov/nsd-fara/recent-cases">some recent high-profile prosecutions</a>, Hunter, a lawyer, was well aware of it. In a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/us/politics/hunter-biden-tax-bill-
investigation.html">2014 email cited by the Times</a>, he wrote that officials at the Ukrainian gas company Burisma needed to know he’d “abide by FARA and any other US laws in the strictest sense across the board.” Here, at least, he expressed a desire to stay on the right side of the line.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iBIqf7">
But sometimes the lines seemed to blur. He brought some of his clients into contact with Vice President Biden — for instance, at <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/05/26/hunter-biden-arranged-secret-dinner-with-business-partners-and-vp-joe/">dinners</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/us/politics/hunter-biden-china.html">on foreign trips</a>. He <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9665695/Hunter-Bidens-relationship-D-C-consultancy-firm-federal-
investigation-revealed.html">helped arrange</a> for a Democratic PR firm to help burnish Burisma’s image in the US. Is all this sufficient to support criminal charges? It’s not clear. When Manafort was charged with FARA, prosecutors <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/us/politics/paul-manafort-fara-foreign-lobbying-law.html">alleged</a> he’d orchestrated an extensive multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign meant to influence US officials and the press on behalf of his Ukrainian patrons.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sd3Ybl">
From what we know so far, Hunter’s conduct seems relatively more hands-off. One indication of this is that, per <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/us/politics/hunter-biden-tax-bill-
investigation.html">the Times</a>, prosecutors have considered pursuing this as a civil matter for Hunter, not a criminal one, which would come with <a href="https://www.justice.gov/nsd-fara/fara-enforcement">much less steep penalties</a>.
</p>
<h3 id="26W82Q">
What about Hunter’s personal life?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ovfQ6J">
Prosecutors are investigating a period filled with tumult in Hunter’s personal life and tragedy for the Biden family. Hunter had struggled with alcoholism for some time, and in the mid-2010s he began more frequently using hard drugs, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/08/will-hunter-biden-jeopardize-his-fathers-campaign">including crack cocaine</a>. His older brother Beau died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter then split from his wife, who <a href="https://www.ksbw.com/article/hunter-biden-spent-money-on-drugs-prostitutes-says-estranged-wife/9085338">would later accuse him</a> in a court filing of “spending extravagantly” on “drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs, and gifts for women with whom he has sexual relations.” He began dating Beau’s widow, until that relationship <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/05/hunter-and-hallie-biden-break-up">collapsed</a> too. He <a href="https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2019/nov/20/dna-test-shows-hunter-biden-father-arkansas-womans/">fathered</a> a child with a different woman who later <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21450962-lunden-alexis-
roberts-v-robert-hunter-biden-partial-case-file">sued him for paternity</a>. He repeatedly went in and out of rehab. He was a mess.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zhMoXL">
Obviously some of the above conduct involves breaking laws, but reports have not so far suggested it’s really prosecutors’ focus. CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/30/politics/hunter-biden-federal-
investigation-heats-up/index.html">did report</a>, though, that they have looked into Hunter’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/25/sources-secret-service-inserted-itself-into-case-of-hunter-bidens-
gun-477879">purchase of a gun in 2018</a>, because he claimed he was not a drug user on a form when he bought it. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/25/sources-secret-service-inserted-itself-into-case-of-hunter-bidens-
gun-477879">Per CNN</a>, though, it’s “unclear whether the gun incident remains an active part of the investigation.” And the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/prosecutors-advance-tax-probe-of-hunter-biden-11648465200">Journal reports</a> that Justice Department officials have actually discussed whether Hunter’s addiction problem could make convicting him more difficult if he argues he was not of sound mind during this period.
</p>
<h3 id="9cOkmO">
Does this case mean legal trouble for Joe Biden too?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aDgBTy">
Trump allies have been arguing for years that Hunter Biden is corrupt, but they’ve also had a bigger game in mind — they want to tie his corruption to his father. But there have been no reports that prosecutors are aiming to do this or have evidence to do so.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<pre><code>    &lt;img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-</code></pre>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">cdn.com/thumbor/P9hMjWCNyWNyN7IB4TjTU1DDc7k=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox- cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23377500/AP22091762414076.jpg" /&gt; <cite>Carolyn Kaster/AP</cite></p>
<figcaption>
Hunter Biden hugs his father, President Joe Biden, after he was sworn in during the 59th Presidential Inauguration at the US Capitol on January 20, 2021.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8uGUSh">
The closest thing so far came just days ago when the <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/04/04/hunter-biden-grand-jury-witness-was-asked-about-deal-
with-chinese-firm-and-the-big-guy/">New York Post reported</a> a grand jury witness was questioned about who the term “big guy” referred to in a now-infamous email from one of Hunter’s business associates. The 2017 email laid out a proposed share split for a potential joint venture with the Chinese energy company, CEFC, which would include 10 percent “held by H for the big guy?” One former business associate has <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/10/27/tony_bobulinski_how_joe_biden_would_personally_benefit_from_a_stake_in_a_chinese_business_deal.html">publicly claimed</a> the big guy was Joe Biden, newly out of office.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RTPDRt">
This joint venture deal did not end up coming together. Hunter would instead end up being paid millions by CEFC for advisory and legal work in the ensuing months. But when the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/30/hunter-biden-china-laptop/">Washington Post recently reviewed</a> that whole affair, they wrote that they “did not find evidence” that Joe Biden “personally benefited from or knew details about” those transactions. In 2020, Biden’s presidential campaign issued a statement claiming he “has never even considered being involved in business with his family, nor in any overseas business whatsoever.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jHhOpK">
Basically, there’s no evidence at this point that money from this Chinese company actually went to Joe. All indications so far are that this investigation is squarely focused on Hunter Biden.
</p>
<h3 id="w2eQsc">
What does it all mean?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ndrHKi">
The Hunter Biden story has been a thorny one for the media and political system in part because of all the other scandals both Democrats and Republicans still have grievances with the media about.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PWAZpC">
Democrats deeply resent how the mainstream press covered the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email practices in 2016, believing the underlying issue was never all that important, but that the media gave it comparable time to Trump’s many scandals and extreme positions, which contributed to Trump’s victory. They also deeply resent the media’s coverage of the Democratic emails that were hacked by Russian intelligence officers, which they argue weren’t all that scandalous.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Z6p9pM">
Meanwhile, Republicans remain furious that the mainstream media spent so much time covering the investigation into whether Donald Trump secretly conspired with Russia to impact the 2016 election, which never ended up being proven or charged. They believe the media was happy to assume the worst of Trump and that, to try and ensure Trump’s defeat in 2020, they swept stories about Hunter Biden’s corruption under the rug in comparison.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JZV9xr">
Liberals have tended to argue that while Hunter Biden may perhaps be kind of corrupt and reveal the grubby world of DC influence-peddling, the story just isn’t that important and should not be the focus of much media attention; he’s not even a public official. They also argue Republicans’ concerns about corruption are insincere, since the <a href="https://www.vox.com/21527215/hunter-biden-jared-ivanka-eric-don-junior">Trump family business</a> also accepts large amounts of money from foreign interests that may well be motivated by a desire to curry favor with a powerful politician. Also, he tried to steal the election! (Conservatives fire back that all this is excuse-making to downplay a story that makes Democrats and President Biden look bad.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Wzfbow">
There may be no perfect answer to how much media coverage an investigation into the president’s son should get. But it surely merits some. If it continues to an indictment, it will merit more. And congressional Republicans <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/06/gop-early-plans-hunter-biden-probes-00023230">are already planning</a> on restarting their own Hunter probes if they retake the House or Senate in the midterms.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PKs3kp">
All this will be a continued political problem for Democrats as Biden prepares to potentially run for reelection in 2024 — a problem with no solution in sight.
</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Macron and Le Pen’s inevitable face-off exposes a major shift in French politics</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement Nationale Party election night party shows her facing off with 
incumbent Emmanuel Macron in the next round of France’s 2022 presidential race" src="https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/HPZdcg9OiZanwvErqGdCrxrPJ0k=/358x0:3517x2369/1310x983/cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70733499/1390702909.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Incumbent Emmanuel Macron and leader of the far-right Rassamblement Nationale Marine Le Pen are projected to face off in the second round of the French election. | Chesnot/Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Fears of a low turnout and overall volatility have plagued the first round of France’s presidential election.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Og5FYR">
Sunday’s first-round French presidential election follows days of <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-05/french-election-le-
pen-narrows-gap-on-macron-in-tighter-race">chaotic, rollercoaster polling</a>. Incumbent Emmanuel Macron’s once- comfortable lead over right-wing politician Marine Le Pen all but vanished going into the contest on April 10. While the results won’t reveal France’s next leader just yet, the election and the campaign leading up to it have exposed seismic shifts in France’s political culture that the establishment has yet to reckon with.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QSz5Br">
The run-up to the first-round elections wasn’t the first indication of that shift — far from it, according to some observers — though the level of political volatility it revealed was unexpected. Initially, “the general thought was, this is going to be a really boring election, and Macron is going to win,” Mabel Berezin, the director of Cornell University’s Institute for European Studies, told Vox in an interview Friday. That couldn’t be further from the current situation. “I’ve never seen an election change as quickly as this one has,” Berezin said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZMFAhr">
France’s elections are divided into two rounds: The first round selects the two frontrunners, and the second selects the winner, who has a five-year mandate to govern. “There’s a lot of candidates in the first round,” explained Susi Dennison, the director of the European power program at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “The idea of the system is that you vote with conviction in the first round, and then you vote strategically in the second round.” What that means is French voters typically cast their ballot for the candidate they really want in the first round, and against the candidate whom they don’t want in the second.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VtCCOF">
“What is becoming sort of complicated about the election this time around, and what is sort of frustrating a lot of voters in France, particularly those on the left — because there has been, at least until [Jean-Luc] Mélenchon started pulling forward, no real candidate on the left that had any prospect of getting through to the second round — is that I think a lot of people feel that they’re being forced to vote tactically in the first round,” Dennison said. Mélenchon is a member of the National Assembly with the La France Insoumise party, a left-wing populist party. Because traditional left parties like the Greens and the Socialist party aren’t polling high, some voters who might choose those candidates in the first round <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/10/millions-
of-french-people-set-to-vote-in-first-round-of-elections">might feel they have no alternative to Macron</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/france-election-president-2022-abstention-what-if-nobody-came/">that it’s not worth turning out to vote</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XRAviL">
“That’s almost dangerous in the current environment, because the more that you take away from those candidates with a real chance of going forward, the more opportunity that you give to the more extreme, anti-system candidates that are coming forward,” Dennison said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TgJcn9">
But, Berezin said, it’s nearly impossible to predict what Sunday’s results will be based on the data during the campaign: “It’s that unstable, that volatile …. [the numbers are] just changing too much in weird ways.”
</p>
<h3 id="29jf0C">
This election solidifies the shift away from France’s traditional politics
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LvVN8r">
What this election can tell us, though, is much more about shifts in the country’s political trends and values, as well as how the French public sees the failure of the ruling class overall.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QCSu4f">
Macron, the young former banker who promised a change in French politics, has proven to be a fairly traditional, center-right politician — despite vowing to be neither right nor left when he formed his own party, La République En Marche, and won the 2017 elections. And although his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic has earned praise from the French public, he’s largely unpopular with the country’s more left-leaning population.
</p></li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PmLaH1">
Dennison told Vox this frustration is a key factor in the chaotic polling leading to the first-round elections. While Sunday’s outcome likely portends a Macron-Le Pen matchup in the second round and then an overall Macron victory, if the French tradition of the<em> cordon sanitaire — </em>the unwritten policy of blocking off right-wing candidates for France’s highest office — holds true, that’s not a foregone conclusion.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AH7kdY">
“If you see <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/04/06/melenchon-macron-le-pen-france-left-runoff/">Macron vs. Mélenchon</a> [in the second round], then I think that things might go the other way, and you might see a kind of pushback against Macron with all of the voters who aren’t anti-system, anti-globalization as Mélenchon is, but want the opportunity to vote for someone other than Macron, and show him that there is an alternative,” she said. “I think there is a huge sense of frustration among people, that Macron is basically the only option that they’re being given. There’s a deep level of unhappiness, particularly with his promise to be neither left nor right, but ultimately having become a very clear center-right representative.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zLqGVZ">
Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally party (previously called National Front) was founded by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. She is therefore considered a high-profile right-wing leader who, like her father, has run in prior presidential elections. She’s steadily gained traction since her first contest in 2012, <a href="https://www.gouvernement.fr/en/final-results-of-the-first-round-of-the-2017-presidential-election-drawn-
up-by-the-constitutional">coming in second to Macron</a> in the first round of the 2017 elections, with 20.75 percent of the vote to his 23.39 percent. Le Pen <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2017/5/7/15571666/french-elections-emmanuel-
macron-marine-le-pen-front-national-vote-win">bombed in the second round</a>, after a disastrous performance in a televised debate with Macron and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/02/marine-le-pen-francois-fillon-
phrases-may-day-speech">a plagiarism scandal</a> sank her polling numbers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xw0Ec4">
But she’s been a force in French and European politics, both as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and part of the French National Assembly. And, as a potential frontrunner in the first-round elections, her party — once on the political fringes — is now shockingly close to power.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nU8wYf">
That’s due to a combination of factors, both Dennison and Berezin said. Besides the lack of viable left-wing candidates other than the dark horse Mélenchon — who was closely trailing Le Pen in the days leading up to the election and could grab some of her votes Sunday — Le Pen is sincerely politically adept and considered almost a populist chameleon.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3S9vZz">
“Marine Le Pen has worked very hard to say, ‘I’m not just a crazy, right-wing politician’” since she was “very definitely trounced” in the second round of the 2017 elections, Berezin said. “She’s very good at recalibrating. She did a terrible job on television in a debate with Macron about EU policy, and at that time she wanted to leave the EU, like Britain did. She’s the kind of person who can look around and say, ‘Oh, maybe that wasn’t such a good deal.’”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RclDzD">
Le Pen has pivoted her position that France should leave the EU, given how painful Brexit has been, and focused more on what France’s role in the EU should be, <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/viktor-orban-marine-le-pen-jaroslaw-kaczynski-europe-far-right-parties-
coalition/">even attempting to build a coalition with other right-wing leaders, like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán</a>. “Le Pen has stayed around, and has been consistently recalibrating, and rethinking and, moving in different directions,” Berezin said.
</p>
<h3 id="LdkhYM">
Many French people don’t feel represented by government — and that could be a problem for Macron
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0FLCE9">
Most pertinently for the present climate, Berezin said, Le Pen has been focusing on domestic economic issues. “She’s been talking about purchasing power,” focusing on “people in the outskirts of France, people who have to pay more for gas — that is a powerful message.” That kind of economic message resonates outside France, too, due to rising prices both from global inflation and, in the case of gas and other fossil fuels, attempts to divest from Russian oil due to its invasion of Ukraine.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aptHxm">
Macron’s been dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic for the past two years and trying to assert France’s place in the 21st century global order — lately, through diplomatic efforts concerning the Ukraine war. In those efforts, critics contend, he comes off as too focused on international problems and blind to the issues which affect French people the most.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eQpsTt">
“[Macron] is criticized for not engaging enough on the domestic challenges in France, and this kind of adds to the sense of him being disconnected from real French people, and what life is like, and really not knowing how they’re going to pay the bills at the end of the month,” Dennison said. “It’s something that he comes under a lot fire from the other candidates for, but I think it’s also something that drives this sense of frustration with people feeling that they’re being offered no alternative to him, that he simply doesn’t recognize the realities of their lives.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OJLF2l">
<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/macron-faces-tough-fight-france-votes-sunday-2022-04-10/">Early results on Sunday did indeed project a Macron-Le Pen match up</a> — the predicted outcome after a rollercoaster of a campaign — with Macron getting between 28.1 percent and 29.5 percent of the vote, to Le Pen’s 23.3 percent to 24.4 percent. But although the prediction ended up coming true, that second-time pairing makes it clear that France’s traditional parties have all but imploded, and it’s not clear what — if anything — party leaders intend to do about it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eMOIal">
“One of the big questions for me is, ‘What happens to Les Republicains [France’s traditional center-right party] as a party?’” Dennison told Vox. And there’s a similar question for the Socialist Party: How can parties on the left coalesce, draw voters, and sustain both relevance and political power if they can’t agree on a strong candidate to back?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="a1ATGU">
“I think that’s the big conversation that really needs to be had after these elections, the left needs to get more serious about that,” Dennison said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ncOSwI">
Macron and Le Pen will face off again on April 24; some of his first-round rivals from both the left and the right have called on their supporters to rally around Macron and block a Le Pen presidency.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WaUqSa">
“So that France does not fall into hatred of all against all, I solemnly call on you to vote on April 24 against the far-right of Marine Le Pen,” Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo said Sunday. Dennison, too, predicted on Sunday morning that voters would choose Macron in the second round: “Despite the frustration with [Macron], he’s still seen as a safer option than Le Pen.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SI4Cfa">
</p>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>UCL 2022: Emery’s Villarreal eye another giant-killing at Bayern Munich</strong> - Villarreal enjoyed one of the finest nights in the club’s history last week with a superb performance at La Ceramica that caught six-time European champions Bayern Munich cold</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Premier League roundup: 3 things we learned from this weekend</strong> - Chelsea fights off international blues, Conte guides Tottenham to fourth, nothing to separate Manchester City and Liverpool, and more from gameweek 30 of Premier League</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>PL 2022: Man City, Liverpool draw leaves title race on knife edge</strong> - Man City’s Guardiola and Liverpool’s Klopp, who shared a warm hug at the final whistle, will pit their wits against each other again in next week’s FA Cup semi-final at Wembley.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>IPL 2022 - RR vs LSG | Ashwin's ‘retired out’ was a team decision: Sanju Samson</strong> - Rajasthan Royals became the first team in IPL history to employ the ‘retired out’ tactic as Ashwin went back to the dug out despite being 28 not out.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>IPL witnesses first Retired Out</strong> - Ashwin returns to the dugout, allows Parag to join Hetmyer in the middle</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>CPI(M) failed to call out Sangh Parivar: KNM</strong> - ‘Criminal law amendment will affect minorities’</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Couple injured in auto accident</strong> - Three-wheeler fell into pit in the middle of road</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Teenager injured in explosion</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>TDP is defined as a party of backward classes, says Naidu</strong> - ‘Development of the communities has been in DNA of the party’</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>After getting threatening letter, Kannada writer Kumvee seeks police protection</strong> - Accompanied by his lawyer Pandit Aradhya, he met Vijayanagara Superintendent of Police K. Arun at the latter’s office on April 11, and submitted a written request seeking police protection</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>French elections: Macron targets Le Pen as run-off campaign begins</strong> - The French president fires up his re-election campaign visiting a stronghold of his far-right rival.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>France election: This time it won’t be a walkover for Macron</strong> - Emmanuel Macron will face a run-off against Marine Le Pen, in what is far from a done deal.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>War set to cut Ukraine’s economy by almost half</strong> - The World Bank forecasts Ukraine’s economy will shrink by 45.1% as a result of Russia’s invasion.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Could Marine Le Pen win?</strong> - Marine Le Pen will go head-to-head with President Macron in an election run off in a fortnight.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>French election: Macron v Le Pen - two visions for presidency</strong> - One liberal centrist, one far right - the two challengers offer very different ideas for the future.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>An old music industry scheme, revived for the Spotify era</strong> - The promise of exposure can lead artists to sign deals they otherwise wouldn’t consider. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1844999">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Apollo 10 1/2 review: A Linklater movie about nothing (and the Moon landing)</strong> - New animated movie from Richard Linklater is all about the vibes, man. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1846334">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Scientists spy on Mount Etna with fiber-optic cables</strong> - Researchers detect volcanic activity by watching how light moves through a cable. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1846894">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The weekend’s best deals: Nintendo eShop gift cards, Apple devices, and more</strong> - Dealmaster also has Logitech’s MX Master 3, Samsung microSD cards, and lots of video games. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1846953">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Senate bill that has Big Tech scared</strong> - Biggest platforms would be barred from advantaging themselves over the little guys. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1846884">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Grandpa said, “Your generation relies too much on technology.” I replied, “No, your generation relies too much on technology.”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Then I unplugged his life support.
</p>
</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">  submitted by   <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Nav_the_gamer"> /u/Nav_the_gamer </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/u0zod0/grandpa_said_your_generation_relies_too_much_on/">[link]</a></span>   <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/u0zod0/grandpa_said_your_generation_relies_too_much_on/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>R. Kelly had a chance to be a professional hockey player</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
But he doesn’t like to score after the first period
</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">  submitted by   <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/MrDickChuck"> /u/MrDickChuck </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/u0mdlj/r_kelly_had_a_chance_to_be_a_professional_hockey/">[link]</a></span>   <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/u0mdlj/r_kelly_had_a_chance_to_be_a_professional_hockey/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>A Texas State trooper pulled a car over on I-35 about 2 miles south of Waco Texas.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
When the trooper asked the driver why he was speeding, the driver said he was a Magician and Juggler and was on his way to Austin Texas to do a show for the Shrine Circus. He didn’t want to be late.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The trooper told the driver he was fascinated by juggling and said if the driver would do a little juggling for him then he wouldn’t give him a ticket. He told the trooper he had sent his equipment ahead and didn’t have anything to juggle.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The trooper said he had some flares in the trunk and asked if he could juggle them. The juggler said he could, so the trooper got 5 flares, lit them and handed them to him.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
While the man was juggling, a car pulled in behind the State Troopers car. A drunken good old boy from central Texas got out, watched the performance, then went over to the Trooper’s car, opened the rear door and got in. The trooper observed him and went over to the State car, opened the door asking the drunk what he thought he was doing.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The drunk replied, “You might as well take my ass to jail, cause there ain’t no way I can pass that test.”
</p>
</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">  submitted by   <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/MarionScott"> /u/MarionScott </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/u0lvcb/a_texas_state_trooper_pulled_a_car_over_on_i35/">[link]</a></span>   <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/u0lvcb/a_texas_state_trooper_pulled_a_car_over_on_i35/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>What did Yoda say when he saw himself in 1080p?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
HDMI
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">  submitted by   <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/wimpykidfan37"> /u/wimpykidfan37 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/u0o4rh/what_did_yoda_say_when_he_saw_himself_in_1080p/">[link]</a></span>   <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/u0o4rh/what_did_yoda_say_when_he_saw_himself_in_1080p/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>A fly feels a bug on its back!</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Hey, bug on my back, are you a mite?”, it asks
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“I mite be”, giggles the mite
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“That’s the worst pun I’ve ever heard”, groans the fly
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“What do you expect?”, says the mite. “I came up with it on the fly”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">

</p>
</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">  submitted by   <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/YZXFILE"> /u/YZXFILE </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/u0uvr6/a_fly_feels_a_bug_on_its_back/">[link]</a></span>   <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/u0uvr6/a_fly_feels_a_bug_on_its_back/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>


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