Twitter layoffs worry election officials, politicians - The Washington Post

Twitter headquarters in San Francisco on Friday. (Jeff Chiu/AP)

Devastating cuts to Twitter’s workforce on Friday, four days before the midterm elections, are fueling anxieties among political campaigns and election offices that have counted on the social network’s staff to help them combat violent threats and viral lies.

The mass layoffs Friday gutted teams devoted to combating election misinformation, adding context to misleading tweets and communicating with journalists, public officials and campaign staff.

The layoffs included a number of people who were scheduled to be on call this weekend and early next week to monitor for signs of foreign disinformation, spam and other problematic content around the election, one former employee told The Washington Post. As of Friday morning, employee access to internal tools used for content moderation continued to be restricted, limiting staff’s ability to respond to misinformation.

Twitter had become one of America’s most influential platforms for spreading accurate voting information, and the days before elections have often been critical moments where company and campaign officials kept up a near-constant dialogue about potential risks.

But a representative from one of the national party committees said they are seeing hours-long delays in responses from their contacts at Twitter, raising fears of the toll workplace chaos and sudden terminations is taking on the platform’s ability to quickly react to developments. The representative spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

Some researchers tracking online threats said they also feared that the cuts would interrupt lines of communication between the company and police that have been used to identify people threatening voter intimidation or offline violence.

“Law enforcement may lose precious minutes in identifying that person who we think is posing an actual threat,” said Katherine Keneally, a senior research manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that studies political extremism and polarization.

Keneally said she’d already seen an uptick in threatening content related to the election. She pointed to one post where a user wrote of the need to “pour in bleach or gasoline” at ballot drop boxes, a target of right-wing conspiracy theories about systematic voter fraud.

President Biden on Friday criticized Twitter’s role in spreading false information.

“Elon Musk goes out and buys an outfit that spews lies all across the world,” he said while attending a political fundraiser in Chicago. “There’s no editors anymore in America.”

Twitter communications officials did not respond to requests for comment. Many of them were among the layoffs.

Yoel Roth, the company’s head of safety and integrity and one of the few top executives to survive Musk’s takeover, tweeted on Friday evening that the company’s “core moderation capabilities remain in place.” He said that the cuts to Twitter’s Trust & Safety division were about 15 percent, in contrast to the nearly 50 percent in cuts across the company.

“With early voting underway in the US, our efforts on election integrity — including harmful misinformation that can suppress the vote and combatting state-backed information operations — remain a top priority,” he tweeted.

Musk, the world’s richest person who spent $44 billion for the site, has said the massive cuts of the company’s 7,500-person staff will help prepare it for future success, and he has instructed workers to roll out services he says will safeguard the platform as a digital town square.

Some of his more aggressive changes, however, are also sparking unease. Under Musk, the company is pushing ahead on a service — scheduled to be unveiled Monday, a day before the election — that would give any paying user the “verified” check-mark icon now offered only to politicians, journalists and other notable figures who have confirmed their identity. That move, some political officials said, could fuel deep confusion in the final hours of the race.

“Impersonation of election (officials) is a serious concern for us as the platform considers modifications to their verifications,” said Amy Cohen, the executive director of the National Association of State Election Directors. “We hope that Twitter leadership deploys any changes in advance of the election carefully and recognizing the critical role the platform plays in the election information ecosystem.”

Among the cuts to Twitter was its curation team, a key part of the company’s efforts to guide users to reliable news sources and tamp down on viral hoaxes and conspiracy theories. The team has worked for years to counter election-related falsehoods, such as claims that vote-by-mail ballots would be discarded, and provide credible information in cases where losing candidates have falsely claimed victory.

In October 2020, ahead of the U.S. presidential election, the team added context to all trends that could be found in Twitter’s prime real estate — its “For you” and “What’s happening” boxes — on its app and website. As recently as two weeks ago, Twitter was touting the team’s debunking efforts as a key aspect of its approach to the 2022 midterms.

But on Friday, multiple Twitter employees told The Washington Post the entire team appeared to have been cut amid Musk’s layoffs. Edward Perez, a former Twitter product director and an expert on election integrity, said, “For Musk to back away from Twitter’s positive efforts to pre-bunk or debunk false claims, just days before a major election, is simply terrible timing.”

Twitter to charge $8 a month for verification. What you need to know.

The cuts also have shaken members of civil rights and advocacy groups who met with Musk earlier this week to share their concerns about his takeover. Musk had “promised to retain and enforce the election integrity measures that were on Twitter’s books before his takeover,” Jessica González, a co-leader of the group Free Press, said Friday. “With today’s mass layoffs, it’s clear that Musk’s actions betray his words. … Even before Musk took over, this operation was dangerously under-resourced.”

Rashad Robinson, the president of the civil rights group Color of Change, took issue with Musk’s proposal to change Twitter’s “verified” system right before midterms, saying it “could have [an] unprecedented impact on election chaos.”

“Any right-wing troll can pay $8 on Monday, get a blue check mark and then change their username to ‘CNN’ or ‘Georgia secretary of state’ and appear as verified and call races,” he said.

Musk meeting with civil rights groups upsets his fans

Even before the layoffs, experts had warned that Twitter did not have enough people on staff to handle content moderation. An audit that company whistleblower Peiter Zatko commissioned from the company Alethea Group found that Twitter’s integrity teams were “persistently understaffed” and “have had to make significant trade-offs.”

During U.S. elections, Twitter has set up an election squad that includes people from outside of the core content moderation units to help identify threats; the company’s ability to staff that unit will probably be impacted by the cuts.

“Some of the ways that platform worked yesterday are not going to be the way they work today, tomorrow and going into the election on Tuesday,” she said.

Joan Donovan, research director at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, said she had also seen reports of increased coordinated activity, hateful content and harassing messages. But she said she was encouraged by Musk’s decision not to allow banned users immediately back on the platform, which, she predicted, would avert the “avalanche of misinformation many people are anticipating.”

On alternative platforms, meanwhile, there was glee over the possibility of less content moderation on Twitter. A user with more than 72,000 followers on the chat app Telegram celebrated that the anticipated changes were taking place “RIGHT BEFORE THE US ELECTION” so that “whatever goes down on Tuesday … a lot more people will be talking about it on Twitter.”

To Donovan, that expectation could actually blunt the impact of misinformation. “Because the chaotic changes at Twitter have been playing out in public view, many people are already going to be skeptical of the information they’re getting from the platform,” she said. “It’s not considered a very reliable source in this moment.”

Some employees in roles related to the midterms announced on Twitter that they had been terminated. Michele Austin, the director of U.S. and Canada public policy at the company, wrote that she helped lead the 2022 midterms on the platform and was “in denial” that her time at the company was over.

Kevin Sullivan, a civic integrity specialist who said on LinkedIn that he led editorial planning for the 2022 midterms and election misinformation, also announced his departure.

“He couldn’t have waited till Wednesday? #Election2022,” he tweeted.

Matt Brown, Naomi Nix, Will Oremus, Brittany Shammas and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez contributed to this report.

Intelligence Carries Out Most Difficult Tasks in Russia's Operation in Ukraine: Defense Minister

©Sputnik / Russian Defense Ministry / Go to the mediabank

Officers of the Russian military intelligence are carrying out the most difficult tasks in the course of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Saturday on the occasion of Military Intelligence Day in the country.

Russia celebrates Military Intelligence Day, a professional holiday commemorating the establishment of the Registration Office coordinating intelligence agencies of the Red Army, on November 5.

"Today, in the course of the special military operation, military intelligence personnel demonstrate exceptional courage and dedication, clearly and efficiently carry out the most difficult and demanding tasks," Shoigu said.

The minister noted that the military intelligence has been carrying out tasks competently and effectively, both in peacetime and the years of severe challenges.

"They have been obtaining valuable information necessary for making the most important government decisions in a timely manner under trying circumstances, sometimes risking their lives," Shoigu said.

The minister expressed great appreciation to the intelligence veterans, whose service to the country is an example for the younger generation.

Serangan presisi terhadap infrastruktur Ukraina telah dilakukan oleh Rusia sejak 10 Oktober (dua hari setelah serangan teroris di Jembatan Krimea).

The West continues pursuing a wrong policy believing that the Ukrainian situation can be resolved on the battlefield while in fact it must be considered how to find a negotiating solution, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said on Saturday.

"Regarding new decisions of the American administration on additional supplies of weapons to Ukraine I would like to point out that our so-called partners continue with a wrong policy believing that the problem can be solved on the battlefield and keep spending more energy and means. Now they are amassing armed forces near the Russian borders," Antonov told journalists commenting on a new package of the US military aid for Kiev.

Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov
© Alexander Shcherbak/TASS

"The developing situation is extremely alarming," he said. "In fact, in Ukraine, on the Ukrainian soil, we are fighting not against the Ukrainians, but against the collective West, which tries to undermine the foundations of Russia, to exhaust us, to deplete us of all economic and military resources and to stage a situation, in which Russia would never have a chance to negotiate equally with the Western countries on the international arena," the diplomat stressed.

However, according to Antonov, Russia will manage to win no matter what Washington is trying to do.

"We have no other way out and no doubts that we pursue the right cause and we will win," he noted.

Antonov said that the present-day situation cannot be solved on a battlefield and the West should start looking to settle it by means of negotiations.

"We must think today not about pumping up Kiev with additional weapons, but about how to find a negotiating solution. It is impossible to completely solve the problem on the battlefield," he said.

Deputy Pentagon Spokesperson Sabrina Singh announced on Friday that under the new package of assistance, Ukraine would receive 90 refurbished T-72 tanks, 1,100 Phoenix Ghost kamikaze drones, HAWK air defense systems and other means.

Developments in Ukraine

The situation along the line of engagement in Donbass escalated on February 17. The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) reported the most massive bombardments by the Ukrainian military back then, which damaged civilian infrastructure and caused civilian casualties.

On February 21, President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow was recognizing the sovereignty of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Russia signed agreements on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance with their leaders. Moscow recognized the Donbass republics in accordance with the DPR and LPR constitutions within the boundaries of the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions as of the beginning of 2014.

Russian President Putin announced on February 24 that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics for assistance he had decided to carry out a special military operation in Ukraine. The DPR and the LPR launched an operation to liberate their territories under Kiev’s control.

From September 23 to September 27, the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic as well as the Kherson Region and the Zaporozhye Region held a referendum where the majority of voters opted to join Russia.

On September 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the heads of the DPR, the LPR, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions signed treaties on their accession to Russia. Later, the State Duma and the Federation Council (the lower and upper houses of Russia’s parliament) approved legislation on ratifying these treaties, as well as federal constitutional laws on the accession of the four regions to Russia.

Viral Resepsi Pernikahan di Lumajang Terendam Banjir, Tamu Tetap Asyik Santap Hidangan

viral acara pernikahan tetap digelar di tengah banjir. (lumajangsatu / Instagram)

Momen pernikahan adalah waktu seseorang merasa bahagia dan haru karena bisa melangkah ke jenjang yang lebih serius. Keluarga dan sahabat pun memberikan ucapan selamat kepada pengantin dan orang tua yang telah menikahkan anaknya.

Salah satu bentuk kebahagiaan itu adalah dengan menggelar resepsi pernikahan.

Namun, bagaimana jika peristiwa tak terduga terjadi saat resepsi tengah berlangsung?

Hal itulah yang dialami oleh pasangan pengantin di Desa Tempursari, Kabupaten Lumajang, Jawa Timur ini.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by lumajangsatu (@lumajangsatu)

Kebahagiaan mereka harus rela diwarnai dengan kedatangan banjir yang menggenangi area resepsi pernikahan.

Meskipun begitu, acara terlihat terus berjalan meski lokasi resepsi terendam banjir.

Momen tak terduga tersebut terekam dalam sebuah video amatir. Video itu kemudian diunggah ulang oleh akun instagram @lumajangsatu.

Dalam video tampak suasana di sebuah resepsi pernikahan. Tampak banjir setinggi betis orang dewasa menggenangi area resepsi.

Para tamu tampak duduk di kursi dengan celana disingkap ke atas agar tidak terkena banjir.

Sementara pasangan penganti beserta kedua orang tua masing-masing tampak duduk di atas kuade.

Sementara pasangan penganti beserta kedua orang tua masing-masing tampak duduk di atas kuade.

Tamu lainnya pun terlihat sedang menikmati hidangan meskipun berada di tengah-tengah banjir.

Sejumlah warganet pun turut berkomentar pada unggahan tersebut.

"sulit dilupakan pasti," ujar __siti***

"duh awas ada kabel-kabel lho nakutin," kata upang***

7 Guru Besar Unhas Mundur Gegara Dipaksa Luluskan Mahasiswa Tak Pernah Kuliah

Universitas Hasanuddin (Unhas)/Net

Tujuh guru besar Fakultas Ekonomi dan Bisnis Universitas Hasanuddin (Unhas) Makassar mundur usai dipaksa meluluskan mahasiswa yang tidak memenuhi syarat lulus yaitu tidak pernah kuliah.

Salah satu guru besar yang mundur mengajar di Program Pasca Sarjana S3 Ilmu Manajemen Prof Muhammad Idrus Taba mengatakan, intervensi dekan yang memaksa agar mahasiswa yang tidak pernah hadir dalam perkuliahan bisa diluluskan menjadi alasan dirinya bersama guru besar lain untuk mundur.

"Kebetulan yang mengalami masalah itu adalah Prof Siti Haerani dan Prof Idayanti yang mengajar mata kuliah, kemudian mahasiswa itu tidak diluluskan, karena tidak memenuhi syarat, tidak ikut kuliah. Kemudian sudah dijelaskan, lalu dekan minta diluluskan," kata dia, hari Kamis, 03/11/2022.

Idrus mengakui tidak tahu alasan dekan menginginkan mahasiswa yang tak pernah hadir dalam perkuliahan namun tetap diluluskan.

"Itu hak dosen. Kejadian itu di semester lalu bukan semester baru," kata Idrus.

Dua dosen yang mengajar mahasiswa itu lalu memutuskan untuk tidak meluluskan. Mahasiswa tersebut lalu drop out (DO) karena tak pernah hadir dalam perkuliahan.

Ketujuh Guru Besar FEB Unhas, kata Idrus tetap mengajar untuk semester ini. Namun, ia tidak bisa memastikan apakah mereka semuanya mau mengajar di semester depan atau tidak. Mereka sudah mengajukan pengunduran diri sebagai pengajar S3 Program Ilmu Manajemen.

"Kita menunggu perkembangan nantinya," kata dia.

Sementara itu, dekan Fakultas Ekonomi dan Bisnis Unhas masih bungkam. Namun, Rektor Unhas Jamaluddin Jompa mengklaim masalah sudah selesai antara guru besar FEB dengan dekan.

Sementara itu, dekan Fakultas Ekonomi dan Bisnis Unhas masih bungkam. Namun, Rektor Unhas Jamaluddin Jompa mengklaim masalah sudah selesai antara guru besar FEB dengan dekan.

Dikatakannya, ketujuh guru besar FEB ini tidak mengundurkan diri sebagai dosen, melainkan hanya mengajukan tidak lagi mengajar di program S3 Ilmu Manajemen.

"Tidak ada guru besar yang mundur, cuma mundur untuk tidak mengajar lagi di Program S3. Bukan mengundurkan diri sebagai dosen," kata dia.

Intelligence Vets: US Media Yarn About Nuclear Chatter by Russian Military is Nothingburger

©Sputnik / Vladimir Astapkovich / Go to the mediabank

As the US midterms are approaching, the US mainstream media has again started to speculate about Russia's "nuclear bugaboo," citing a US intelligence assessment of alleged discussions about nuclear weapons by the Russian military, with a proviso that there is zero indication that Moscow has any intent to use weapons of mass destruction.

"It's simply a sign of weakness and desperation on the part of Joe Biden and his administration," said Larry Johnson, a veteran of the CIA and the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism, which provided training to the US military’s special operations taskforce for 24 years. "If things were going well in Ukraine, as far as the United States was concerned, if Ukraine really was defeating Russia on the battlefield, there'd be no need to talk like this. But that's not the case. The tables have turned and Ukraine is in a very desperate situation. And so, as a result, you get these kinds of lies being circulated to try to rally public support.

The US media first broke about the alleged nuclear chatter by the Russian military on November 2, presenting a gloomy picture of imminent nuclear doom. One US newspaper claimed that "senior Russian military leaders" had recently held discussions on "when and how Moscow might use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine," adding that the intelligence assessment of the alleged conversations circulated within the US government in mid-October.

However, later in the day, another American media outlet clarified that the assessment, which was drafted by the National Intelligence Council, is neither "a high confidence product" nor raw intelligence, but just an "analysis." There is also a possibility that the document was taken out of context and that it does not necessarily mean that Russia is up to using nuclear arms, according to the US media.

To cap it off, there is also zero indication that Russian President and Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Putin was involved in the alleged discussions, the media outlet continued, admitting that Washington has still not seen any signs that the Kremlin has any intention to use nuclear arms against Kiev.

"I don’t have any comment on the particulars of this reporting," National Security Council official John Kirby said when asked about the NIC's "analysis." He underscored that the US sees no indications that Russia is making preparations for the use of nuclear arms.

Kirby noted, however, that "Russia’s comments about the potential use of nuclear weapons are deeply concerning, and we take them seriously," in reference to Vladimir Putin's September 21 speech in which the Russian president warned Washington against nuclear blackmail and said that Russia would protect its territory with all military means. Subsequently, Putin's notion was misrepresented by US politicians and the mainstream press as nothing short of a "nuclear threat."

However, Russia's nuclear doctrine clearly forbids the use of nuclear arms of any sort unless the country is nuked, or faces a conventional attack so severe that it threatens the country’s existence.

"It's not just that they are lying, they're not even accurately representing what Vladimir Putin has said," said Johnson. "They are misrepresenting it. They are, in fact, fabricating claims that Putin has talked about using nuclear weapons. He has not. The closest he's come was two or three weeks back. He indicated that Russia would use all means at its disposal to protect itself. But he did not at any time indicate that - particularly in Ukraine - that he was prepared to use nuclear weapons. In fact, he has stated the opposite."

Dirty Bomb: 'Very Dangerous Possible Development'

The latest fuss over the alleged Russian "nuclear threat" comes against a backdrop of reports warning about a potential false flag operation by Kiev involving a "dirty bomb." A "dirty bomb" is an explosive device that contains radioactive material, be it uranium, plutonium, or other radioactive waste material. After being detonated, a dirty bomb could disperse radioactive materials over several square kilometers, resulting in a contamination zone. The rationale behind such a potential false flag by Kiev would be to accuse Moscow of using nuclear arms in a bid to isolate Russia, according to Russian officials.

Previously, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu held a series of telephone talks with his French, British, American, and Turkish counterparts, warning them of a possible nuclear false flag by Kiev. Western leaders dismissed the threat, claiming that Moscow is escalating tensions over Ukraine. One should not underestimate the possibility of such a false flag operation on the part of Kiev, warned Philip Giraldi, a former CIA station chief and military intelligence officer.

"It would be a high explosive that would be encased or covered with radioactive material that would, in theory, be set off somewhere inside Ukraine and blamed on the Russians," the CIA veteran said. "It would be carried out by the Ukrainian government, which is quite capable of doing this and which has the material in place to carry it out. Zelensky wants direct US and NATO involvement in his war and the expectation would be that the outrage over the dirty bombing would bring about that development. I think it's quite plausible that Zelensky would do this or something else like it and the US and Western media would follow his lead and blame it on Russia. This is a very dangerous possible development."

He highlighted that neither Russia nor the US is interested in a nuclear tit-for-tat, adding, however, that "there is always a danger that a bad series of decisions could place either country on the brink of considering such an action."

For its part, the US mainstream press cannot be trusted in its coverage of the nuclear weapons issue, "as it is dedicated to making both Russia and its leadership look as bad as possible," Giraldi remarked.

Earlier this week, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement urging the world's major nuclear powers to reject provocations with weapons of mass destruction.

"We are strongly convinced that in the current complicated and turbulent situation, caused by irresponsible and impudent actions aimed at undermining our national security, the most immediate task is to avoid any military clash of nuclear powers," the ministry underscored.

Barbra Streisand on Her Pristine Early Recordings: ‘That Girl Can Sing’

Live at the Bon Soir,” a restored set of songs from November 1962, allows listeners today and Streisand, herself to rediscover the sounds of a star being born.

Barbra Streisand onstage at the Bon Soir in the West Village. A collection of her newly restored recordings from the small West Village club is being released as “Live at the Bon Soir.” Credit... Don Hunstein/Columbia Records

By Wesley Morris

For about 60 years, Barbra Streisand has had the same manager, Marty Erlichman. He’s 93 now and still remembers the night he knew there was nobody like her.

It was 1960. She was 18 and had earned a gig performing at the Bon Soir, a small, chic club in New York’s West Village. Over the phone earlier this week, he recalled sitting at a front-row table with some other reps, including a guy from William Morris, and Jack Rollins, who managed Woody Allen at the time. When Streisand started her set, one of them leaned over and said, “See, it’s acts like that need someone like me.” She was doing it wrong. Why was she opening with a ballad? Why was she opening with a ballad in those clothes?

Streisand’s two-week gig was extended to 11, then rebooked over the next two years, becoming a drag-your-friends, word-of-mouth must-see. The songwriters Alan and Marilyn Bergman caught it and had the same experience Erlichman did: cartoon birds flying around their heads. The Bergmans would go on to write the lyrics for the Streisand gems “The Way We Were,” “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” (with Neil Diamond) and the songs for her directorial debut, “Yentl.” But that night, they were simply in awe. Alan, who’s 97, told me over the phone that “the minute she sang less than eight bars, Marilyn was in tears.”

What they all witnessed was a star, this singular source of incandescence — pillow-soft singing that was pow-right-in-the-kisser, too; phrasing that could turn a song into a literary event; and timing most stand-ups wish they had.

Now, 60 years later, we can hear what they saw, on “Live at the Bon Soir,” a pristinely restored recording of three dozen songs from late November 1962 that’s due Friday. During the Bon Soir run, Erlichman got Streisand signed with Columbia Records, which arranged a recording of the show but shelved it in favor of an 11-song studio version, “The Barbra Streisand Album,” from 1963.

To Streisand, it’s just as well. “I was only, what, 20 years old, and I didn’t like the sound,” she said from her home in Los Angeles, describing speakers poised over her head the size of shoe boxes. “You could hear the hiss.” Now, technology can solve almost any sonic dilemma. So Streisand finally handed over the recordings from her vault to the engineer and musician Jochem van der Saag, who excavated the pure sound of the original show and restored what the Marty Erlichmans and Alan and Marilyn Bergmans of the world would have heard: something close to perfection.

At 80, Streisand isn’t going out of her way to listen to music she’s already made. By her own admission, she’s too busy worrying about the state of the country to fuss over her work. But what she heard surprised her. “I didn’t realize, actually, that my vocals were that good ’til they played me the new one,” she said, before laughing. “I thought, ‘Oh my God. That girl can sing.’”

That, of course, is the shock of “Live at the Bon Soir.” We’re hearing a voice that’s been at the center of American singing for more than half a century being heard for just about the first time. We thought we knew everything it has done, every way it could sound. And yet it’s mind-blowing to discover all it could do, in a little nightclub, with a crack four-man band and the crowd eating out of her hand — giddy and coquettish, yet accomplished and skilled, lunatic yet in control.

Streisand is the kind of performer who, more than a year into her Bon Soir run, jokes to an audience, “People complain that I don’t do standards. Well, here’s a standard,” then launches into “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” with an impossible featherweight world weariness. The range of her singing isn’t just a matter of octaves. It’s the diversity of characters the voice can find for one song. On “The Big Bad Wolf,” it’s story time and operetta, Big Mama Thornton and Ethel Merman. For “Lover, Come Back to Me,” it’s something to rival Ella Fitzgerald in the way she can already take a tune, especially in concert, from botanical garden to boxing match. That performance certainly ranks up there with the supreme Streisand interpretations of anything. By 20, she’d achieved this near-mastery all with, what, by 1962, were standards, grandma music.

That, of course, was what made the suits nervous: a repertoire that included Tin Pan Alley and show tunes, those dreaded ballads and jazz; Oscar Hammerstein, Harold Arlen and Fats Waller. Where were the big pop songs? The contemporary stuff. The “Surfin’ U.S.A.” The “Walk Like a Man.” The “Be My Baby.” The “Fingertips.” The “It’s My Party.”

When Erlichman took her to audition — live — for Capitol, RCA and Columbia, “Everyone said the same thing,” he recalled. “‘She has a good voice.’” (If he ever wrote a book, he said, he’d call it “Good Closes on Wednesday.”) Obviously, she was capable of great art. “She wasn’t singing commercial songs,” Erlichman said. And “executives, they’re frightened to break new ground.”

But Streisand could appreciate the splendor of an old object. That’s what the vintage outfits she’d wear onstage were all about. “I always bought antique clothes,” she said, “because I thought they were so beautiful. I admired the craftsmanship.” The craftsmanship of the 1890s.

“Opening night, I wore a black, high-necked velvet beaded top,” she said. “I had my tailor make me a little black velvet skirt that went with that top. But I didn’t know you’re not supposed to dress like that. I didn’t know that when you sing in a nightclub, you’re supposed to have kind of a gown or something elegant, made out of fabulous silks or satins.” At some point on “The Bon Soir,” you can hear her tell the audience that she’s wearing her boyfriend’s suit. She told me that “the masculine and the feminine was what felt comfortable on me.”

That admiration she harbors for well-made things obviously extends to the Great American Songbook: superior craftsmanship. Its hundreds of dynamic, adaptable songs rely on characters, stories, wordplay and variations on a theme. For a singer, figuring them out is like doing math or the crossword or architecture. They’re also an opportunity to act, which is what Streisand says she wanted to do in the first place. During the Bon Soir run, she was splitting her days between nightclubs and Broadway, where she was loudly making a name for herself as the secretary Miss Marmelstein in “I Can Get It for You Wholesale.”

The wit and drama of the Songbook lyrics lend themselves to a theatrical approach. An imaginative singer can phrase a standard any way she likes. And, in that regard, Streisand has one of the great imaginations. Each Bon Soir song, she said, had a different character for her to play. And what comes through now is a devastating understanding of tone, shading, pitch, diction but also emotional variability. At the Bon Soir, she makes “Cry Me a River” an exploding torch song. When she finishes, one of her musicians — the guitarist Tiger Haynes or the bassist Averill Pollard — says, “Let’s go home now, let’s go home.” Yes, because Streisand just burned the place down.

“She wants to know every single word, and if a word doesn’t make sense to her, she’ll stop and go, ‘I don’t understand. Why this word?’” the composer, conductor and arranger Bill Ross said in a video call. He’s been collaborating with Streisand on live shows since the early 1990s, and said one thing that makes Streisand Streisand is that she’ll spend so much time, “just on the lyrics trying to make sure they make sense to her.” Once she’s got that down, only then can she ask what the melody is. “I’ve never seen any other artist like that,” he said.

Streisand is such a rigorously engaged interpreter yet also a kind of Method performer that she can’t imagine herself doing anything the same way twice. “I want to be in the moment,” she said. “That’s what you learn as an actress, that you have to be in the moment. That’s why no two takes of mine are the same. You know, it’s hard to edit me because I don’t phrase it the same. If I’m in the moment, I can’t sing the same. That’s why when I did ‘A Star Is Born,’ I said I have to sing live.”

With that approach, if the soundtracks, say, for “Funny Girl” or “Hello, Dolly,” get recorded months in advance, “Well, how do I know how I’m going to feel when I’m singing ‘My Man’ at the end of ‘Funny Girl’?”

That spontaneity is what made an impression on van der Saag, the engineer who spent months deep inside the “Bon Soir” recordings. He told me a great vocalist ought to have superb intonation, phrasing and sense of melody. Besides Streisand being “absolutely the best” on those first three, she has “this other thing,” that’s probably a result of being an actor, what he calls transference of emotion.

Someone can get a song technically correct, which is a feat. “But to be able to just sing to the listener wherever they are and make them feel an emotion,” he said, “and to that extent? That is another level. And, you know, it’s very rare that you come across vocalists who have that.

Streisand’s use of Jewish American humor, Jewish American vibrancy (throwaway lines, ba-dum-bum comedy, the border she permeates between Brooklyn and Buckingham Palace) is also an emotional transmission. “This next song is from a record-breaking show,” she says before doing a quickie called “Value.” “It lasted nine previews and one performance. It was called ‘Another Evening with Harry Stoones.’” Streisand extends the “o” in Stoones for a lick for derision then, lowering her voice a touch, buries her dagger: “No wonduh …” It’s expert comedy. The song is a riot so fast and moving, uninhibited and exhibitionist, that it’s as close as singing gets to streaking.

Streisand said she grew up around all kinds of people and all kinds of life. She moved through the city with an open heart. “I lived as a young girl in Williamsburg,” she said. “You know, Williamsburg was not what it is today with highfalutin apartments and fancy shops. I was in a Black neighborhood with a church across the street. And I loved bowing to the fathers and the sisters because I didn’t have a sister or a father.”

That’s what Streisand evokes on “The Bon Soir.” A single person doing the work of an entire neighborhood. Sixty years later, her neighborhood has become the world. And Streisand frets about its future. But there’s something else on this new album — some other emotional transmission. And it’s the opposite of catastrophic. It’s confidence and poise and security and daring and honesty and a belief in the power of a good song, great bandmates and raw talent.

Barbra Streisand was giving all of that to people, first at the Bon Soir, then everywhere that was smart enough to book her. That’s what else you can hear on this album, what Streisand herself heard upon rediscovering this long lost self. It’s hope.

Clash with Neo-Nazis in Ukraine was inevitable, says Putin

©Sergei Fadeichev/TASS

Russia would have inevitably got into confrontation with the Ukrainian Neo-Nazi regime but later it would have had to do that from worse positions, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.

"Russia’s confrontation with the Neo-Nazi regime that emerged on the territory of Ukraine was inevitable. Had we not taken the corresponding actions in February, this would have been all the same but only from worse positions for us," the head of state said.

As Putin pointed out, some Western ‘friends’ of Ukraine had driven the situation in that country to a state when it turned to be suicidal for the Ukrainian people and fatal for Russia.

"We see this just from the nature of combat operations. It is simply surprising what is happening. It generally seems that Ukrainians do not exist. They are thrown into the burner and that’s all," the Russian leader said, describing the situation.

It is Ukraine, the Ukrainian people that are "the first and primary victim of the deliberate instigation of hatred for the Russians and for Russia," he said.

"In Russia, it is the other way round. You know well about that. We have always treated and treat the Ukrainian people respectfully and warmly. This has been and this is the case now, despite today’s tragic confrontation," the Russian leader said.

Russia assumed responsibility for what was happening "in order to prevent a far more serious situation," Putin explained.

"We remembered and remember what happened in 1941 when, despite the intelligence data on the inevitable attack on the Soviet Union, the decisions on taking necessary defense measures were delayed. And the victory over Nazism was achieved at such a heavy price," the head of state said.

Confrontation inside one people

The situation today is also uneasy, the Russian leader said.

"It is also difficult and bitter because actually one people is fighting with each other. In actual fact, there is confrontation within one people, the same as was the case after the 1917 upheavals. And now people have been set against each other again," he stressed.

As the Russian leader pointed out, in the last century, foreign powers benefited from the Civil War in Russia and the tragedy of its people: "they did not care a damn about the Whites and the Reds, they pursued their own interests, were engaged in weakening and tearing historical Russia apart."

"And today, by incessantly supplying weapons to Ukraine, bringing in mercenaries there, they are absolutely ruthless about its citizens. At their expense, they are pushing through their geopolitical goals that have nothing in common with the interests of the Ukrainian people," the Russian leader stressed.

Today efforts also continue that are aimed at weakening, disintegrating and ruining Russia, Putin said.

"They lay the basis of the events that are taking place in Ukraine. We will never allow doing that, we will defend our Fatherland in the same manner as our heroic ancestors did," the Russian leader emphasized.