Evening Medusa

We tell everything about the telescope that will replace the Hubble. We answer questions about our crowdfunding. We are talking with journalist Khristo Grozev about the Malaysian "Boeing"

Good evening,

THIS MESSAGE (MATERIAL) IS CREATED AND (OR) DISTRIBUTED BY A FOREIGN MASS MEDIA PERFORMING THE FUNCTIONS OF A FOREIGN AGENT AND (OR) A RUSSIAN LEGAL ENTITY PERFORMING THE FUNCTIONS OF A FOREIGN AGENT

This is Meduza's daily newsletter about the main news of the day. But first -

important announcement,

or a letter within a letter

Everyone who sent money to Meduza at least once in 2021 received a letter the day before from the founders of the publication, Ivan Kolpakov and Galina Timchenko. Today we have published this letter in its entirety for all readers . It contains answers to the most exciting questions about the life of Meduza and our hopes for the coming year.

In short, our main hope (and joy) is you 🖤 Thanks to you, we survived an incredibly difficult year. And we continue to work, too, only for you. Thank you all for your support, we really feel it!

You can help Meduza on this page: https://support.meduza.io/

Pulse

The main thing for the day - point by point

• In Russia, for the first time, turnover fines were imposed for non-removed content. Google and Facebook were fined 7.2 and 1.9 billion rubles , respectively.
• In Astrakhan, a fire broke out in the red zone of a covid hospital. Two patients died.
• The Moscow City Court sentenced a 19-year-old student who urinated on a stand with a portrait of a war veteran to four years in prison .
• Priest Nikolai Stremsky, who raised 72 children, was given 21 years on charges of child rape . The victims accuse the investigation of bribery and threats.
• Alleged former son-in-law of Putin Kirill Shamalov left the board of directors of Sibur . But it included the former Prime Minister of France.
• In Russia, the acquittal of the first accused under the article on thieves in law has been canceled.
• has died . Joan Didion , one of the founders of the New Journalism,

Texts of the day

The James Webb telescope is expected to be a breakthrough in the study of space. We tell about it (almost) everything

So much is expected from the telescope that replaces the Hubble, it costs so much, was built and put off for so long that it has already become a cultural phenomenon - memes appear with it, for each of its individual instruments, nodes, creators and, of course, research scientific articles, Wikipedia pages and YouTube videos are devoted to the tasks, and students who planned to write dissertations based on his data have long become professors themselves. The launch of the most expensive telescope in history is scheduled for tomorrow - any mistake will be a disaster: there will be no way to fix it in space.

Vladimir Putin is lying about the law on “foreign agents”. Dmitry Peskov tried to explain to Meduza why this is not the case

Today, like almost every weekday, the press secretary of the President of Russia held a briefing with journalists. A Meduza correspondent tried to find out from Peskov why Vladimir Putin again started talking about the absence of criminal liability for “foreign agents” in Russia ( although this is not true ). And how did it happen that Putin is better informed about the provisions of the American Criminal Code than the Russian one? Read an excerpt from this conversation .

Glossary of terms of the podcast "Peppers and Gaase". For those who want to understand what phrases like “Dad doesn’t like that respected people began to form fractals” mean

The hosts of the political show Pertsev and Gaaze use dozens of terms in their weekly podcast episodes. Some of them are quite scientific, others are used by representatives of the Russian establishment, and others are invented by the leaders themselves. Meduza publishes a dictionary to help listeners better understand what is being said. Yes, without "games of towers" could not do.

Podcast "What Happened"

We are talking with journalist Khristo Grozev about the Malaysian Boeing. He investigated this story, and his information became part of the case against Strelkov and other defendants.

Dutch prosecutors have demanded life sentences for four defendants in the 2014 downing of a Boeing. The prosecution believes that the Russians Igor Girkin (Strelkov), Sergei Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko were involved in the transportation of the Russian Buk, from which a Malaysian Airlines passenger plane was shot down over the Donbass. Much of the information that formed the basis of the accusation was established from open data. In this edition of What Happened, we are talking to the journalist Khristo Grozev, who took part in this, one of the members of the international investigative group Bellingcat (declared by the Russian authorities as a “foreign agent”).

Listen to What Happened on Meduza and YouTube , and subscribe to Apple Podcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Yandex.Music and other podcast services.

hedgehog of the day

His name is Eclair, he is from Novosibirsk, and he is fighting for the title of the city's main pet in a competition held by Sib.fm. Eclair survived the amputation of his front paw, but this does not prevent him from sleeping all day, running in a wheel, filming for tiktok and enjoying life . Our respect!

We are waiting for the holidays to live no worse than Eclair the hedgehog. Your Medusa