Wih Alexey Navalny in prison, one of his closest aides is carrying on the lonely work of the opposition.

The ACLU attorney works as a representative in every sense of the word.

“Choice is a great burden. The call to invent one’s life, and to do it continuously, can sound unendurable. Totalitarian regimes aim to stamp out the possibility of choice, but what aspiring autocrats do is promise to relieve one of the need to choose. This is the promise of “Make America Great Again”—it conjures the allure of an imaginary past in which one was free not to choose.”

Mapping the global spread of antigay ideology.

Thinking about the right thing to do, now and in the imaginable future.

Creating a new, clean police force in the Ukraine.

On Finland, the country most afraid of Russia.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s friends didn’t realize what he’d done until they saw his image on television.

A 15-year-old Russian has a shorter life expectancy than a peer in Bangladesh, Cambodia, or Yemen.

Putin v. Khodorkovsky:

Almost a decade ago, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, then the owner of the Yukos Oil Company and Russia’s richest man, completely miscalculated the consequences of standing up to Vladimir Putin, then Russia’s president. Putin had Khodorkovsky arrested, completely miscalculating the consequences of putting him in prison. During his eight years in confinement, Khodorkovsky has become Russia’s most trusted public figure and Putin’s biggest political liability. As long as Putin rules Russia and Khodorkovsky continues to act like Khodorkovsky, Khodorkovsky will remain in prison—and Putin will remain terrified of him.