Experts from five European countries have concluded that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with the toxin epibatidine, after traces were found in samples taken from his body. Moscow has dismissed the conclusions about the cause of his death two years ago in a Siberian penal colony as “necro-propaganda.” But the use of poison to eliminate enemies has become “less a medieval cliche” than Russia’s current “geopolitical signature flourish,” said NBC. 

How has Russia used poison? 
Credible reports of a Soviet “poison program” stretch as far back as the 1920s. In 1978, the West was shocked by the death of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, killed by a ricin-filled pellet believed to have been fired from the tip of an umbrella by Soviet assassins on Waterloo Bridge. 

More recently, pro-Western Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yuschenko was left permanently disfigured by a 2004 dioxin attack, and Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko died in 2006 after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210 at a London hotel. And in 2018, two Russian GRU agents were implicated in the Novichok attack on former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury. 

Why poison? 
The advantage of toxins is their “deniability and terror,” said The Times. They send a “very clear message,” a security source said to the outlet. Not only can the state kill, but it can do so “without ever admitting it has done anything at all.” 

The toxin said to be used in Navalny’s fatal poisoning is secreted from the skin of the Ecuadorian poison dart frogs and leads to an “agonizing death,” said Sky News. If the Kremlin did choose to use “such an exotic substance to silence a critic, it demonstrates an unusual level of ruthlessness.” 

Will there be any consequences? 
European ministers have reported the results of the lab tests on the Navalny samples to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The hope is that “greater scrutiny“ will deter the Kremlin from poison attacks overseas, said Sky News. 

For now, the “main international consequence” will be that the U.S.’s European allies refuse to “swallow” any peace plan for Ukraine brokered by President Donald Trump that appears to reward Vladimir Putin, said The Independent. “Poison, it turns out, can be a boomerang.”

Stephen Colbert will not lead late night without a fight. The CBS host is clashing with his network bosses, saying they refused to air his interview with Texas Democrat James Talarico. At the heart of the conflict is the Federal Communications Commission’s “equal time” rule.

The FCC has long required radio and TV broadcast networks like CBS to “give equal time to political candidates” seeking the same office, said The Associated Press. Talarico is running for U.S. Senate, so that rule would seem to suggest that his Democratic primary opponents would get airtime if he had been featured on Colbert’s show. (The rule does not apply to streaming services, which is why the Talarico interview is featured on Colbert’s YouTube channel.) But the mandate “hasn’t traditionally been applied to talk shows.” Colbert’s staff “can’t find one example of this rule being enforced for any talk show interview” going back to the 1960s, the host said Tuesday night.

Changing standards
The law originated in the 1920s amid fears that the then-brand-new medium of radio “could influence the outcome of elections by spotlighting a preferred candidate on the airwaves,” said Deadline. Congress “created four exemptions in 1959” because of concerns that a strict requirement “would make it impossible for news programs to report on candidates,” said Axios. One of those exemptions included “bona fide news interviews” and was long understood to include interviews on “late-night programming.”

FCC Chair Brendan Carr issued new guidance in January, saying late-night and other talk shows would no longer be exempt, said Politico. The shows are often “motivated by purely partisan political purposes” and going forward must “provide all candidates with equal opportunities,” he said. 

But critics saw a partisan play by Carr, a Republican. His announcement did not include equal time enforcement for “talk radio, which conservatives dominate,” said David A. Graham at The Atlantic.

Future enforcement
The FCC’s “enforcement powers are limited,” said CNN. Trump has made “repeated calls for station licenses to be revoked,” but that’s “exceedingly unlikely” and would probably trigger lawsuits. 

But the picture may soon become clearer. The FCC has reportedly opened an investigation into ABC’s “The View” after Talarico was featured as a guest. Congressional Democrats are meanwhile offering “sharp condemnation” of Carr and vowing an investigation, said Mediaite.

Palestinians in Gaza City recite the Quran in a makeshift prayer space set up next to a destroyed mosque on the first day of Ramadan. “There’s no joy after we lost our family and loved ones,” said Gaza City resident Fedaa Ayyad to The Associated Press.
Saeed M. M. T. Jaras / Anadolu / Getty Images

By the ’60s, the television era was in full swing with the onset of full-color programming. But the medium’s prestige was still a distant second to cinema’s. That makes what these stellar series pulled off even more impressive given the budgetary and reputational constraints.

‘Bonanza’ (1959-73)
This long-running NBC Western was appointment-viewing on Sunday evenings and one of the top-rated shows of the time. A Western that “most often was about avoiding and resolving conflict,” it remains an important “part of our cultural history and our TV past,” said Henry Cabot Beck at True West. (Prime Video)

‘The Fugitive’ (1963-67)
One of several beloved ’60s television shows to later become a blockbuster film, “The Fugitive” featured a “great story, main cast, fun guests and interesting settings.” It “really has a life that most other TV shows at its time didn’t have,” said Samuel Williamson at Collider. (Youtube)

‘That Girl’ (1966-71)
In the 1960s, most of the women on television were housewives or two-dimensional plot devices. That’s what made ABC’s ebullient sitcom “That Girl” truly revolutionary for its time in the way that it legitimized the career ambitions of aspiring actor Ann Marie (Marlo Thomas). Featuring a “different kind of everywoman,” the series “broke ground by depicting a single woman with bigger dreams for her career than her love life,” said Rachael Allen at Slate. (Prime Video)