👋 Aniin!*
Welcome to Thursday, where the U.S. has struck Houthi-controlled areas inside Yemen, Western foreign ministers gathered in Rio face off against Russia’s Lavrov and two German researchers find 546 words for “drunk” in the English language. Meanwhile, we explore a new project in Germany that aims to better understand how Hitler used his public speeches to wield power.
[*Ojibwe, Canada]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Warsaw-based daily Fakt, like several other Polish newspapers today, is dedicating its front page to Tomasz Komenda, a man wrongly accused of rape and murder, who has died at the age of 47 of lung cancer. After spending 18 years in prison, new evidence was revealed that led to Komenda’s acquittal by Poland’s Supreme Court in 2018, and drew national attention to major flaws in the country’s justice system. Komenda was awarded compensation in 2021.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• U.S. strikes Houthi anti-ship cruise missiles in Yemen: The U.S. military says it has carried out four “self-defense” strikes against seven anti-ship cruise missiles located in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. The military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said the missiles were “prepared to launch towards the Red Sea” and presented an “imminent threat to merchant vessels and to the US Navy ships in the region.” Follow Worldcrunch’s coverage of the situation in the Red Sea region here.
• Palestinian gunmen open fire near West Bank settlement: Three Palestinian gunmen opened fire at motorists near an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, killing one and wounding seven. Police killed two attackers while the third was injured and arrested. In the UK, the House of Commons descended into chaos when dozens of lawmakers from the Scottish National Party and the governing Conservative Party stormed out of parliament to protest against Speaker Lindsay Hoyle’s handling of a key vote on support for a ceasefire in Gaza.
• Russia's top court upholds ban on anti-war presidential candidate Nadezhdin: Russia's Supreme Court upheld a ruling by electoral authorities that bans anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin from the country’s presidential election scheduled in March, leaving President Vladimir Putin without any significant challengers. The Central Election Commission had barred Nadezhdin after it said it had found irregularities in the list of supporters' signatures he had presented in support of his candidacy. Read our English edition of Vazhnyye istorii’s piece about how Alexei Navalny’s death could affect the popular movement to protest the Russian election.
• Soccer star Dani Alves found guilty of nightclub rape: Former Barcelona and Brazil soccer player Dani Alves was found guilty of raping a woman in a Barcelona nightclub in 2022 and was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. The 40-year-old, who is one of the most decorated footballers in history, was also ordered to pay 150,000 euros ($162,000) in compensation to the victim.
• Japan's main stock index closes at all-time high: Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 2.19% on Thursday to close at 39,098.68, breaking its previous record set in December 1989. Despite recent news that the country has fallen into a recession, global investors are returning to the benchmark index thanks to strong company earnings and the boost of Asian technology shares.
• Former Australian bishop charged with rape after police re-open probe: Australian bishop Christopher Saunders was arrested in Western Australia on Wednesday and charged with historical sex offenses, becoming one of the most senior Catholics in the country to be charged with sex crimes. The 74-year-old clergyman is expected to face court on Thursday. Saunders had stepped down in 2020 when allegations of sexual abuse first surfaced, before the Vatican launched its own probe in 2022 and later shared its findings with police. Here’s a Die Welt story (translated from German by Worldcrunch) about the Protestant Church in Germany facing its own sex abuse crisis.
• Scientists solve mystery of how whales sing underwater: Scientists have figured out the mechanics behind the baleen whales’ underwater haunting and complex songs: a specialized voice box. A large U-shaped structure with a cushion of fat at the top of the larynx allows the animals to sing by recycling air.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
546
A study conducted by two German linguists reveals that the English language has 546 synonyms for the word “drunk,” or “drunkonyms.” British people use a wide range of creative expressions, adding “-ed” to words like “hammered”, “bladdered” or “steampigged.” Despite the negative consequences of excessive drinking and the risks of binge drinking culture, the British often describe it with humor. The love of wordplay, absurdism and the deep-seated drinking culture in the UK contribute to this linguistic diversity. The research also explores similar expressions in other European languages, such as French and Spanish, highlighting their cultural and linguistic nuances showcasing unique and poetic ways of expressing drunkenness in these languages.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
Why German scholars waited 80 years to truly confront Hitler's speeches
Hitler wielded much of his power through his public discourses, yet a serious academic edition of his speeches has never been published. An unprecedented project led by Germany’s Institute of Contemporary History and the National Broadcasting Archive aims to better understand how he wielded power through rhetoric, reports Sven Felix Kellerhoff in Berlin-based daily Die Welt.
💬 Hitler’s influence was due to two qualities: his charisma (a term that has no moral value and should certainly not be viewed as positive) and his rhetorical skill. From Konrad Heiden in 1936 to Wolfgang Schieder in 2023, more than 100 journalists and historians have sought, in biographies, to unlock the mystery of Hitler’s effect on people, but mostly without success. The role of Hitler’s rhetoric has been consistently underestimated.
📕 One of the reasons for this is there is still no scholarly collection of Hitler’s speeches from the period between his rise to power, on Jan. 30, 1933 and his suicide on April 30, 1945. Despite the vast array of literature available that covers almost all aspects of the Third Reich, and the periods before and after it, academics rely on copies of these speeches in contemporary newspapers or a notoriously unreliable collection of excerpts from Hitler’s speeches, Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations 1932–1945 by the Würzburg archivist Max Domarus.
🔍 Now the Institute of Contemporary History Munich-Berlin, the German National Broadcasting Archive and other research institutes have launched a joint project to replace Domarus’s work. First, the researchers want to identify, analyze and compile a critical collection of all Hitler’s speeches from 1933 to 1945. They plan to release a printed edition, mainly for libraries, as well as an online version. The approach is similar to that taken for Mein Kampf in 2016, which was published in two volumes.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
📣 VERBATIM
“We have a crazy SOB like that guy Putin.”
— U.S. President Joe Biden called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a “crazy SOB” during a San Francisco fundraiser. “We always have to worry about nuclear conflict,” he added, “but the existential threat to humanity is climate.” Biden has intensified his verbal attacks on Putin, blaming him for the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded by telling Reuters that the comment “debases those who use such vocabulary” and reflects a failed “Hollywood cowboy” act. Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev labeled Biden a “useless old geezer,” accusing him of being “senile” and ready for war with Russia.
👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
• Was Navalny Poisoned? Novichok's Creator Casts Doubt On The Current Storyline — WORLDCRUNCH
• Sex Abuse Scandal In Germany's Protestant Church Breaks Myth Of Superiority Over Catholics — DIE WELT
• Truth, Lies And Suicide After An Online Restaurant Review — LUCY SULLA CULTURA
✍️ Newsletter by Anne-Sophie Goninet and Cory Agathe
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