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How Biden Reluctantly Agreed to Send Tanks to Ukraine

WASHINGTON — President Biden’s announcement Wednesday that he would send M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine came after weeks of tense back-channel negotiations with the chancellor of Germany and other European leaders, who insisted that the only way to unlock a flow of heavy European arms was for the United States to send tanks of its own.

His decision, however reluctant, now paves the way for German-made Leopard 2 tanks to be delivered to Ukraine in two or three months, provided by several European nations. While it is unclear whether it will make a decisive difference in the spring offensive that President Volodymyr Zelensky is now planning to take back territory seized by Russia, it is the latest in a series of gradual escalations that has inched the United States and its NATO allies closer to direct conflict with Russia.

Billionaire friend of Putin’s daughter defied sanctions to import world’s finest wines into Russia

A friend of Vladimir Putin’s daughter managed to import bottles of the world’s most expensive wines into Russia last year despite Western sanctions, according to public filings.

Pharmaceutical billionaire Alexey Repik’s company Ryatiko brought in ten bottles of Henri Jayer wine, which fetched £184,000 a bottle at a Christie’s auction in 2020.

Roger Ailes Accuser Sues Fox News and Trump’s Ex-Comms Director

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

A former Fox News employee who previously came forward with sickening accusations of sexual servitude against Roger Ailes is suing the network, its parent company, and a former producer who worked in the Trump White House.

Laura Luhn, who in 2021 told The Daily Beast that Fox’s lawyers were trying to intimidate her, filed her lawsuit Wednesday in New York state court, detailing the decades of sexual abuse and assault she says she suffered under the late Fox executive.

“Ailes’s abuse of Luhn was among the worst he inflicted on his many victims,” the complaint says. “At their very first encounter, Ailes set the stage by blackmailing Luhn and taking videos of her performing coerced sex acts. He physically forced Luhn to perform oral sex on him regularly. And he constantly reminded Luhn that he ‘owned’ her, that she was his ‘sex slave,’ and that she was forbidden from telling anyone about the abuse or he would make her pay dearly.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Georgia judge hears arguments on whether to make Trump grand jury report public

A Georgia judge will decide whether to publicly release a report from a special grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump and his allies’ efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in that state. CBS News reporter Graham Kates has been following the investigation and joins Vladimir Duthiers and Anne-Marie Green to discuss.

Scientists set Doomsday clock closer to midnight amid climate change, Ukraine invasion

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday clock forward to just 90 seconds before midnight Tuesday. The clock is a metaphor for how close scientists say we are to destroying our planet. Sivan Kartha, a member of the Science and Security Board for the Bulletin, explained the reasons for clock’s movement to CBS News.

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