Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of forty-seven. Sunrise is 7:24 AM and sunset 4:27 PM, for 9h 03m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 69.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the seven hundred seventy-eighth day.
On this day in 1900, Carrie (Carry) Nation smashes a Witicha, Kansas bar in one of her many hatchetations:
a hatchet-wielding Carrie Nation brought her campaign against alcohol to Wichita, Kansas, where she damaged the bar at the elegant Carey Hotel. Since the Kansas Constitution prohibited the purchase of alcohol, Nation argued that destroying saloons was an acceptable means of battling the state’s thriving liquor trade.
Recommended for reading in full:
Anna Nemtsova writes The Putin Regime is Forcing Russia’s Best and Brightest Into Exile:
Outspoken critics of the Kremlin’s policy are aware of the risks they run. Every week Russian authorities order the arrests of activists. On Sunday, police detained 12 people protesting outside the Federal Security Service (FSB) headquarters against abuses of power. One of the activists was holding a banner, which said: “Putin, leave Ukraine alone, nobody wants the war.”
In 2015 a group of assassins gunned down the man at the heart of the Russian opposition, ex-vice prime minister Boris Nemtsov, right by the Kremlin wall. It was a demonstrative gesture: the criminals showed that no federal security service was there to protect the leading critic of President Putin.
Every year thousands march in Nemtsov’s memory all over the country. Earlier this year, the city of Washington D.C. renamed the street outside the Russian embassy Boris Nemtsov Plaza.
Since 2014, the year Russia took Crimea from Ukraine and annexed it, Russia’s prominent cultural figures, writers, artists, gallery owners, musicians, film-makers, and journalists have been moving out. According to the latest study by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, nearly every third young Russian wants to emigrate.
Ilya Arkhipov reports Russia Considers Constitution Changes as Putin Faces Term Limits:
The speaker of Russia’s parliament raised the possibility of changing the constitution as speculation grows that the Kremlin is considering ways to allow President Vladimir Putin to remain in power beyond the end of his current term, when current law requires him to step down.
“This is about the transfer of power,” said Gleb Pavlovsky, a political analyst and former Kremlin aide. “Putin encourages this game, dropping ambiguous hints.”
The comments from Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the State Duma and a top member of the ruling party, at a scripted Kremlin meeting with Putin late Tuesday were vague and didn’t mention succession. But analysts said they showed the authorities already are preparing the ground for changes before the end of Putin’s current term in 2024.