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137 dead: Over the weekend, gunmen affiliated with Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K)—an offshoot founded in 2015, mostly comprised of malcontent Taliban militants—opened fire on a Moscow concert hall where the band Picnic was playing. They killed 137 people and injured 180 more, and they also set the concert hall on fire. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack; Russian news media immediately started blaming Ukraine, claiming the West was lying about who is responsible.
The four suspects, who have been arrested, are men from Tajikistan who were in Russia as migrant workers. Russian President Vladimir Putin alleged the men “were heading toward Ukraine” to seek refuge after carrying out their attack.
“During the U.S. military withdrawal from the country, ISIS-K carried out a suicide bombing at the international airport in Kabul in August 2021 that killed 13 U.S. service members and as many as 170 civilians,” reports The New York Times. ISIS-K has, up until now, been widely regarded as ineffective; the group has plotted several attacks in Europe—notably one on the cathedral in Köln, Germany, for New Years Eve 2023—yet has mostly been thwarted before they’ve had the opportunity to carry them out.
Trump goes to court (again): Former President Donald Trump will appear in a Manhattan court today to “seek another delay of his criminal trial on charges that he covered up a sex scandal that could have derailed his stunning victory in the 2016 presidential election,” per The New York Times.
There was a recent delay in this case, after new evidence was made available and the judge decided that Trump’s lawyers needed a 30-day extension to review it. (Trump asked for either a 90-day extension or a thrown-out case.)
But Trump is also facing imminent financial trouble, from needing to either settle up in the civil fraud case—also in New York—or go the appeals route, which would require him to secure a half-billion-dollar bond. If Trump does not secure that bond, the state attorney general, Letitia James, will most likely start freezing Trump’s bank accounts and seizing some of his assets. (He already secured a $91.6 million bond needed for another case—the defamation suit brought by E. Jean Carroll—but is struggling to do so for this much larger amount.)
Appeal bonds, like the one Trump is seeking, are “document[s] in which a company guarantees the. judgment, plus interest, should [a client] lose his appeal and fail to pay,” says the Times. “Mr. Trump would need to pledge significant collateral to a bond company—about $557 million, his lawyers said—including as much cash as possible, as well as stocks and bonds he could sell quickly.” He would also incur a roughly $20 million fee owed to the bond company.
Scenes from New York: The story of comedian Pete Davidson getting kinda stoned and buying a decommissioned Staten Island ferry.
QUICK HITS
- Another day, another “RFK Jr. considers running on Libertarian ticket” piece, this time from Politico. (FWIW, I do not think this is very likely to happen, but that doesn’t mean the mainstream media will stop writing pieces about it.)
- Investors approved the Truth Social/Digital World merger I mentioned in Friday’s newsletter, which will line Donald Trump’s pockets with a bit more cash.
- Inside the Aurora Borealis tourism industry in Iceland.
- What you don’t know about Andrew Huberman.
- Yes:
Weird era we are living in when trying to be “valuable to others” is considered a bad thing. pic.twitter.com/QhSSTDB9hy
— Diana S. Fleischman (@sentientist) March 25, 2024
- Transit system assaults in New York City really are rising. Zach Weissmueller and I talked about this (and more) with Peter Moskos on last week’s Just Asking Questions:
Transit assaults 2006-2023. It’s not just a “perception” issue. Reported assaults have tripled over the past decade. That’s not good. https://t.co/4t2imulhBb
— Peter Moskos (@PeterMoskos) March 25, 2024
- “The Wisconsin attorney general’s attempt to find a right to abortion in the Wisconsin Constitution is unprecedented, and wrong,” write Christine File, Heather Weininger, and Dan Miller in National Review.
- Belmopan: the city of bureaucrats, totally centrally planned, made boring as a result, with a population of only 25,000 despite being Belize’s capital city.
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