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talesofealdancynedom · 4 years ago

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Augustine and his familiar Belle; In fairy robes after going dark. The top illustration is the redraw of the bottom illustration, which is his original character concept.

Tale 13: Mattias Hwithas & Augustine Musham (chapter 2. Trapped in Time 2/6 ) part 3. Stories of True Love

harsh language,alcohol

On winter break, of their graduating year, Augustine gave a pair of hand bells and a double eyed needle the size of a sword to Mattias.

“They are for the time charms and dances; from those journals we share. They should help you control time,” Augustine said. “The infinity needle freezes time for whatever it goes through or around. If you pull it forward, time goes forward, pull back and time reveres.” he continued. Mattias examined them carefully, then gently lay them on the wrapping in front of him. Their pearly indigo luster was haunting. Augustine wilted, worried Mattias hated them after all the work he had done. But then Mattias lunged forward and hugged Augustine. Mattias was so glad that he would at last be able to control his abilities; He was sobbing in gratitude. Augustine hugged back.

“But what about your tools? You’ve proven yourself a masterful Warlock, but didn’t you start so you could learn to erase your memories?” Mattias asked.

“I’m glad you like them Mattias. But I did make tools for myself: A faceted mirror that allows someone to see all the facets of another person’s mind, a box that can store fifty years of the owner’s memories, a shiny plate that makes someone believe anything you tell them, masks that allow mages like us to share memories, and a ring that removes specific things from the mind. But these tools only work on others; I have not made anything that works on myself. Though all my tools achieve the impossible, they do me little good.” Augustine sighed.

“That’s still impressive. Maybe it’s ok if you just move past, well, the past? Instead of obsessing over it.” Mattias suggested. Augustine grabbed their chest, tearing a thread tore from the sweater Requiem knitted. That dead fey and man, flashing back in Augustine’s mind. He must have gone pale, for when Augustine return to the world, it was in Requiem’s warm embrace. Where would Augustine be without her? Requiem then gave Mattias and Augustine their gifts: computers.

“You said you liked to code, yes? I hear these are the latest technology. It may be a good alternative to dark magic. I’m happy to work for the counsel as a Witch, but you two may need better options.” Requiem said with a sparkle. Mattias was thrilled; He loved computer science, and had decided that though they registered as magic users in the spring, the magic they used was illegal. A mundane post-secondary option might be beneficial.

Four months past collage graduation, Augustine and Mattias had gotten jobs. They were fortunate that they came from wealthy families, and had no student loans. Life was handed to them up till this point. Soon, Requiem’s also got a job; Being a consult Witch for the Wizarding Administration Counsel; Representing their district. Being a witch paid comfortably for a magical specialty. They’re glorified politicians, lawyers, and diplomats for all things enchanted. Mattias and Requiem also decided to make their relationship permanent, marrying straight after graduation. Requiem and Mattias didn’t originally plan to get married right away, but they got lucky finding stability quickly. Augustine still had affections for Mattias, but knowing their love would never be requited, thought Requiem the next best thing. To Augustine, there was no better possible brother-in-law. As the years went by, and through many trials, Requiem and Mattias soon had three children: Twin girls, and a little boy.

One day, Augustine visited Mattias and Requiem’s home to help them out with their third child, a new baby boy. Augustine’s new nephew was named Orpheus, and he was in mothers house of Hawkwing; The older twins were in Mattias’s house. Alternating magic last names is a universal baby naming tradition, which is why Requiem and Augustine had different houses. People’s names were often more important than their gender or status; A name could be symbolic, elegant, signify heritage, and ones ability to learn enchantments. Certain houses were only found natively to certain countries, even with some people decided to stay where they traveled; A third of magic users had mixed heritage. Orpheus for example, was now quarter Grand West, Quarter North Central, and half Eastland. But he took most after his father. In a world were people can change, a name is the one thing that will stay the same.

After a few months, Mattias was run down. His lower-level Programming job was struggling to cover the cost of living, and three children. Augustine’s job paid a little more, as they worked for a different company. But Augustine’s financial aid was unstable, as they were supporting their dying parents back home. For now, Augustine was living in a basement apartment downtown. It was big enough for him to make legendary tools, store his computers, and to dance.

After paying bills and putting children to bed, Augustine asked Mattias if he wanted to get a drink, visit his apartment, or both. Requiem had fallen asleep in Orpheus’s room, and assuming his family safe, and desiring some simple recreation, Matthias agreed. He was beginning to crave fun and change. Mattias and Augustine snuck out to a nice pub where Mattias froze time with his bells. While time stood still, they could dance where they pleased, not pay for drinks, and make fun of the frozen people by moving around objects. When they tired of the bar, Mattias asked to see Augustine’s apartment.

“You brag about this basement like it’s a paradise.” Mattias insisted.

“Nope. Just a bachelor cave. I decked out in tech and forge equipment. A Warlock has to have a forge.” Augustine replied gleefully.

“You still do magic as a hobby?”

“And ballet. Sometimes I think I should have gone back to Francia, and got a job on stage. You should’ve seen my shows in my youth. I have many ribbons.” Augustine boasted, his accent pushing through.

“That would be a treat, I’m sure. But I do wish I had more time for magic these days. Between family and work, I barely managed this outing. Damn, I just remembered my bank balance and now I’m sad again.”

“No worries. I have a plan!” Augustine leant in unlocking a door.

“Oh? Go on.” Mattias said with intrigue.

“We are masters of the wonderous and advanced! Why are we settling to get paid coins, when our top-class skills in manipulation of mind, time, HTML and java, could give us a much-needed biannual bonus?” Augustine flaunted, showing Mattias his hardware. Printers, multiple phones, ID’s, fake statements, and so on. The place was chaos. Mattias was wondering what Augustine was really up too on his own while he changed diapers.

“You’re a bloody animal. What have you been doing these years?” Mattias said in repulsion. Mattias had caught on; Augustine was illegally acquiring funds, and doing a good job. This is not what magic was for, but it was less for the money and more for the thrill. Anything to clear his mind of witnessing death.

Mattias sighed; he could use the money. Augustine even had a way to launder the cash with Musham estate, which he would be the sole inheritor. Augustine had an air tight operation. The thought of stealing made Mattias’s heart sink a little. He could lose everything if they were caught; Yet, if he made more money and spent more time with Augustine, he might be happier and give his family a better life. A couple of times couldn’t hurt. Which is what he said every week when he came over to Augustine’s forge to plan the next hustle, and play with spells. After counting casino winnings on a steel table, Mattias asked if there were any time spells they hadn’t tried.

“I haven’t done something new for so long. What about that dance from the journal you showed me in college? The one that could stop aging.” Mattias suggested. Augustine laughed it off, and poured them both spiced rum. After the third time Mattias asked, Augustine obliged, pulling out the journal. Mattias must have held liquor well, because he performed the dance so perfectly and beautifully with Augustine, that the charm worked. But they got so intoxicated afterwards they wouldn’t remember this spell for another decade; When they would begin to wonder why they still looked like they should be ID'd at bars. The brothers, in that moment, simply laughed as if it didn’t work. If they weren’t inebriated, they would have figured out ageing takes time, and thus if one didn’t age it wouldn’t show until they were much older. Which turned out to be a curse when you are fourty going on to fifty, and look nineteen or twenty-three.

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#art #tales of ealdan cynedom #Mattias and Augustine #story thirteen #fantasy #short stories #augustine #mattias #requiem #orpheus #belle

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rorytait · 5 years ago

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Budapest: gritty, but grand

After taking the 6-hour train journey from Prague to Budapest, we arrived in a rather different city. A bit dirtier, with older cars and less well-kept buildings, Budapest was perhaps, naively, what I expected all of the cities in this part of Europe to be like.

That is not to say it wasn't charming, or a beautiful place – just in a different way to Prague.

Which is something I ended up being quite pleased about because there was some fear in me that I would grow sick of the "sameness" of cities on this trip. So having some contrast was very nice.

Once again this is a city with trams – which made me rather happy. Especially their bright orange and white colour scheme. Unfortunately, the network isn't quite as expansive as Prague's though.

As we walked around the city we unintentionally ended up on this unexpectedly modern shopping street, which really differed to much of the rest of the city, and particularly the Jewish Quarter where we were staying (pictured in the first two images of this post)

Continuing through this district we soon came to the conclusion this was a financial and administrative quarter – which was confirmed when we stumbled across the grand Hungarian Parliament Building unexpectedly.

It is such an enormous building that it's difficult to photograph from this side of the river.

So we decided to head towards the Danube and cross it for the afternoon with the eventual goal of seeing the Parliament from the opposite bank.

Along the promenade is a memorial to Jewish victims of fascists in World War Two. They were ordered to take their shoes off them shot so that they would fall into the river.

What I found surprising, however, was that no explanation of this was provided at the site. An uninformed tourist, of which I am certain there are many, would have no idea what this signifies without researching themselves.

We crossed the famous Chain Bridge, which we found to be far more impressive than Prague's Charles Bridge (and less crowded!), and began our ascent to the Buda Castle.

Once up here, there is a spectacular view of the river and over the city

After completing a loop around the castle, we headed further along the hilltop towards the Mattias Church and Fisherman's Bastion – two of Budapest's most famed sites.

The church was awfully beautiful, the colourful tiled roof and light walls provided a nice contrast to the older, darker buildings around much of the city.

Just besides the church, is Fisherman's Bastion, a panoramic viewing terrace constructed between 1895 and 1902 in reference to the fisherman who supposedly once guarded Buda Castle in the Middle Ages.

Finally, we finished our day by getting that photo of the Parliament from across the river. It's a truly spectacular building, and really symbolises the grand side of the two-faced coin that is Budapest.

#budapest #hungary #parliament #europe #travel #tram #numtot

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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

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The Global Machine Behind the Rise of Far-Right Nationalism https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/world/europe/sweden-immigration-nationalism.html

The Global Machine Behind the Rise of Far-Right Nationalism

(Russia’s hand in all of this is largely hidden from view. But fingerprints abound.)

Sweden was long seen as a progressive utopia. Then came waves of immigrants — and the forces of populism at home and abroad.

By Jo Becker | Published Aug. 10, 2019 | New York Times | Posted August 11, 2019 8:38 PM ET |

RINKEBY, Sweden — Johnny Castillo, a Peruvian-born neighborhood watchman in this district of Stockholm, still puzzles over the strange events that two years ago turned the central square of this predominantly immigrant community into a symbol of multiculturalism run amok.

First came a now-infamous comment by President Trump, suggesting that Sweden’s history of welcoming refugees was at the root of a violent attack in Rinkeby the previous evening, even though nothing had actually happened.

“You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden! Who would believe this? Sweden!” Mr. Trump told supporters at a rally on Feb. 18, 2017. “They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible.”

The president’s source: Fox News, which had excerpted a short film promoting a dystopian view of Sweden as a victim of its asylum policies, with immigrant neighborhoods crime-ridden “no-go zones.”

But two days later, as Swedish officials were heaping bemused derision on Mr. Trump, something did in fact happen in Rinkeby: Several dozen masked men attacked police officers making a drug arrest, throwing rocks and setting cars ablaze.

And it was right around that time, according to Mr. Castillo and four other witnesses, that Russian television crews showed up, offering to pay immigrant youths “to make trouble” in front of the cameras.

“They wanted to show that President Trump is right about Sweden,” Mr. Castillo said, “that people coming to Europe are terrorists and want to disturb society.”

That nativist rhetoric — that immigrants are invading the homeland — has gained ever-greater traction, and political acceptance, across the West amid dislocations wrought by vast waves of migration from the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. In its most extreme form, it is echoed in the online manifesto of the man accused of gunning down 22 people last weekend in El Paso.

In the nationalists’ message-making, Sweden has become a prime cautionary tale, dripping with schadenfreude. What is even more striking is how many people in Sweden — progressive, egalitarian, welcoming Sweden — seem to be warming to the nationalists’ view: that immigration has brought crime, chaos and a fraying of the cherished social safety net, not to mention a withering away of national culture and tradition.

Fueled by an immigration backlash — Sweden has accepted more refugees per capita than any other European country — right-wing populism has taken hold, reflected most prominently in the steady ascent of a political party with neo-Nazi roots, the Sweden Democrats. In elections last year, they captured nearly 18 percent of the vote.

To dig beneath the surface of what is happening in Sweden, though, is to uncover the workings of an international disinformation machine, devoted to the cultivation, provocation and amplication of far-right, anti-immigrant passions and political forces. Indeed, that machine, most influentially rooted in Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia and the American far right, underscores a fundamental irony of this political moment: the globalization of nationalism.

The central target of these manipulations from abroad — and the chief instrument of the Swedish nationalists’ success — is the country’s increasingly popular, and virulently anti-immigrant, digital echo chamber.

A New York Times examination of its content, personnel and traffic patterns illustrates how foreign state and nonstate actors have helped to give viral momentum to a clutch of Swedish far-right web sites.

Russian and Western entities that traffic in disinformation, including an Islamaphobic think tank whose former chairman is now Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, have been crucial linkers to the Swedish sites, helping to spread their message to susceptible Swedes.

At least six Swedish sites have received financial backing through advertising revenue from a Russian- and Ukrainian-owned auto-parts business based in Berlin, whose online sales network oddly contains buried digital links to a range of far-right and other socially divisive content.

Writers and editors for the Swedish sites have been befriended by the Kremlin. And in one strange Rube Goldbergian chain of events, a frequent German contributor to one Swedish site has been implicated in the financing of a bombing in Ukraine, in a suspected Russian false-flag operation.

The distorted view of Sweden pumped out by this disinformation machine has been used, in turn, by anti-immigrant parties in Britain, Germany, Italy and elsewhere to stir xenophobia and gin up votes, according to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based nonprofit that tracks the online spread of far-right extremism.

“I’d put Sweden up there with the anti-Soros campaign,” said Chloe Colliver, a researcher for the institute, referring to anti-Semitic attacks on George Soros, the billionaire benefactor of liberal causes. “It’s become an enduring centerpiece of the far-right conversation.”

From Margins to Mainstream Mattias Karlsson, the Sweden Democrats’ international secretary and chief ideologist, likes to tell the story of how he became a soldier in what he has described as the “existential battle for our culture’s and our nation’s survival.”

It was the mid-1990s and Mr. Karlsson, now 41, was attending high school in the southern city of Vaxjo. Sweden was accepting a record number of refugees from the Balkan War and other conflicts. In Vaxjo and elsewhere, young immigrant men began joining brawling “kicker” gangs, radicalizing Mr. Karlsson and drawing him toward the local skinhead scene.

He took to wearing a leather jacket with a Swedish flag on the back and was soon introduced to Mats Nilsson, a Swedish National Socialist leader who gave him a copy of “Mein Kampf.” They began to debate: Mr. Nilsson argued that the goal should be ethnic purity — the preservation of “Swedish DNA.” Mr. Karlsson countered that the focus should be on preserving national culture and identity. That, he said, was when Mr. Nilsson conferred on him an epithet of insufficient commitment to the cause — “meatball patriot,” meaning that “I thought that every African or Arab can come to this country as long as they assimilate and eat meatballs.”

It is an account that offers the most benign explanation for an odious association. Whatever the case, in 1999, he joined the Sweden Democrats, a party undeniably rooted in Sweden’s neo-Nazi movement. Indeed, scholars of the far right say that is what sets it apart from most anti-immigration parties in Europe and makes its rise from marginalized to mainstream so remarkable.

The party was founded in 1988 by several Nazi ideologues, including a former member of the Waffen SS. Early on, it sought international alliances with the likes of the White Aryan Resistance, a white supremacist group founded by a former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. Some Sweden Democrats wore Nazi uniforms to party functions. Its platform included the forced repatriation of all immigrants since 1970.

That was not, however, a winning formula in a country where social democrats have dominated every election for more than a century.

While attending university, Mr. Karlsson had met Jimmie Akesson, who took over the Sweden Democrats’ youth party in 2000 and became party leader in 2005. Mr. Akesson was outspoken in his belief that Muslim refugees posed “the biggest foreign threat to Sweden since the Second World War.” But to make that case effectively, he and Mr. Karlsson agreed, they needed to remake the party’s image.

“We needed to really address our past,” Mr. Karlsson said.

They purged neo-Nazis who had been exposed by the press. They announced a “zero tolerance” policy toward extreme xenophobia and racism, emphasized their youthful leadership and urged members to dress presentably. And while immigration remained at the center of their platform, they moderated the way they talked about it.

No longer was the issue framed in terms of keeping certain ethnic groups out, or deporting those already in. Rather it was about how unassimilated migrants were eviscerating not just the nation’s cultural identity but also the social-welfare heart of the Swedish state.

Under the grand, egalitarian idea of the “folkhemmet,” or people’s home, in which the country is a family and its citizens take care of one another, Swedes pay among the world’s highest effective tax rates, in return for benefits like child care, health care, free college education and assistance when they grow old.

The safety net has come under strain for a host of economic and demographic reasons, many of which predate the latest refugee flood. But in the Sweden Democrats’ telling, the blame lies squarely at the feet of the foreigners, many of whom lag far behind native Swedes in education and economic accomplishment. One party advertisement depicted a white woman trying to collect benefits while being pursued by niqab-wearing immigrants pushing strollers.

To what extent the party’s makeover is just window dressing is an open question.

The doubts were highlighted in what became known as “the Iron Pipe Scandal” in 2012. Leaked video showed two Sweden Democrat MPs and the party’s candidate for attorney general hurling racist slurs at a comedian of Kurdish descent, then threatening a drunken witness with iron pipes.

Under Mr. Akesson and Mr. Karlsson, the party has hosted the American white nationalist Richard Spencer. High-ranking party officials have bounced between Sweden and Hungary, ruled by the authoritarian nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Mr. Karlsson himself has come under fire for calling out an extremist site as neo-fascist while using an alias to recommend posts as “worth reading” to party members.

“There’s a public face and the face they wear behind closed doors,” said Daniel Poohl, who heads Expo, a Stockholm-based foundation that tracks far-right extremism.

Still, even detractors admit that strategy has worked. In 2010, the Sweden Democrats captured 5.7 percent of the vote, enough for the party, and Mr. Karlsson, to enter Parliament for the first time. That share has steadily increased along with the growing population of refugees. (Today, roughly 20 percent of Sweden’s population is foreign born.)

At its peak in 2015, Sweden accepted 163,000 asylum-seekers, mostly from Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria. Though border controls and tighter rules have eased that flow, Ardalan Shekarabi, the country’s public administration minister, acknowledged that his government had been slow to act.

Mr. Shekarabi, an immigrant from Iran, said the sheer number of refugees had overwhelmed the government’s efforts to integrate them.

“I absolutely don’t think that the majority of Swedes have racist or xenophobic views, but they had questions about this migration policy and the other parties didn’t have any answers,” he said. “Which is one of the reasons why Sweden Democrats had a case.”

A Right-Wing Echo Chamber

As the 2018 elections approached, Swedish counterintelligence was on high alert for foreign interference. Russia, the hulking neighbor to the east, was seen as the main threat. After the Kremlin’s meddling in the 2016 American election, Sweden had reason to fear it could be next.

“Russia’s goal is to weaken Western countries by polarizing the debate,” said Daniel Stenling, the Swedish Security Service’s counterintelligence chief. “For the last five years, we have seen more and more aggressive intelligence work against our nation.”

But as it turned out, there was no hacking and dumping of internal campaign documents, as in the United States. Nor was there an overt effort to swing the election to the Sweden Democrats, perhaps because the party, in keeping with Swedish popular opinion, has become more critical of the Kremlin than some of its far-right European counterparts.

Instead, security officials say, the foreign influence campaign took a different, more subtle form: helping nurture Sweden’s rapidly evolving far-right digital ecosystem.

For years, the Sweden Democrats had struggled to make their case to the public. Many mainstream media outlets declined their ads. The party even had difficulty getting the postal service to deliver its mailers. So it built a network of closed Facebook pages whose reach would ultimately exceed that of any other party.

But to thrive in the viral sense, that network required fresh, alluring content. It drew on a clutch of relatively new websites whose popularity was exploding.

Members of the Sweden Democrats helped create two of them: Samhallsnytt (News in Society) and Nyheter Idag (News Today). By the 2018 election year, they, along with a site called Fria Tider (Free Times), were among Sweden’s 10 most shared news sites.

These sites each reached one-tenth of all Swedish internet users a week and, according to an Oxford University study, accounted for 85 percent of the election-related “junk news” — deemed deliberately distorted or misleading — shared online. There were other sites, too, all injecting anti-immigrant and Islamophobic messaging into the Swedish political bloodstream.

“Immigration Behind Shortage of Drinking Water in Northern Stockholm,” read one recent headline. “Refugee Minor Raped Host Family’s Daughter; Thought It Was Legal,” read another. “Performed Female Genital Mutilation on Her Children — Given Asylum in Sweden,” read a third.

Russia’s hand in all of this is largely hidden from view. But fingerprints abound.

For instance, one writer for Samhallsnytt, who previously worked for the Sweden Democrats, was recently declined parliamentary press accreditation after the security police determined he had been in contact with Russian intelligence.

Fria Tider is considered not only one of the most extreme sites, but also among the most Kremlin-friendly. It frequently swaps material with the Russian propaganda outlet Sputnik. The site is linked, via domain ownership records, to Granskning Sverige, called the Swedish “troll factory” for its efforts to entrap and embarrass mainstream journalists. Among its frequent targets: journalists who write negatively about Russia.

“We’ve had death threats, spam attacks, emails — this year has been totally crazy,” said Eva Burman, the editor of Eskilstuna-Kuriren, a newspaper that found itself in the cross hairs after criticizing the Russian annexation of Crimea and investigating Granskning Sverige itself.

At the magazine Nya Tider, the editor, Vavra Suk, has traveled to Moscow as an election observer and to Syria, where he produced Kremlin-friendly accounts of the civil war. Nya Tider has published work by Alexander Dugin, an ultranationalist Russian philosopher who has been called “Putin’s Rasputin”; Mr. Suk’s writings for Mr. Dugin’s think tank include one titled “Donald Trump Can Make Europe Great Again.”

Nya Tider’s contributors include Manuel Ochsenreiter, editor of Zuerst!, a German far-right newspaper. Mr. Ochsenreiter — who has appeared regularly on RT, the Kremlin propaganda channel — worked until recently for Markus Frohnmaier, a member of the German Bundestag representing the far-right Alternative for Germany party. Documents leaked to a consortium of European media outlets — documents that Mr. Frohnmaier has called fake — have suggested that Moscow aided his election campaign in order to have an “absolutely controlled MP.”

Mr. Ochsenreiter, for his part, has been implicated in Polish court in the financing of a 2018 firebombing attack on a Hungarian cultural center in Ukraine. The plot, according to testimony from a Polish extremist charged with carrying it out, was designed to pin responsibility on Ukrainian nationalists and stoke ethnic tensions, to Russia’s benefit. Mr. Ochsenreiter has not been charged in Poland, but prosecutors in Berlin said they had begun a preliminary investigation. He has denied involvement.

Mr. Suk declined to comment.

Then there is Nyheter Idag. Its founder, Chang Frick — a former Sweden Democrat official who takes a maverick’s glee in his defiance of orthodoxy — readily admits to being a paid contributor to RT. At a pizza shop near his home one afternoon, he pointedly noted that his girlfriend was Russian and, with a flourish, pulled out a wad of rubles from a recent trip.

“Here is my real boss! It’s Putin!” he laughed.

But Mr. Frick, the son of a Swedish Roma and a Polish Jew, said Nyheter Idag answered to no one, neither the Sweden Democrats nor the Kremlin, though he added that his relentless reporting about the problems posed by immigrants dovetailed with both their agendas.

“People can see what’s happening in the streets,” he said, adding, “I’ve been accused of being a racist — I’m being ‘paid by the Sweden Democrats,’ I’m ‘a spy for Russia.’ That just tells me I’m kicking where it hurts.”

Still, he said he had reason to believe that “there is a little bit of collusion between Russia and some Swedish right-wing media.” One of his early scoops involved exposing the drinking and womanizing shenanigans of a Sweden Democrat member of Parliament who had been invited to Moscow. During that reporting trip, he said, he was invited to serve as an independent observer in Russia’s presidential election and to meet Mr. Putin.

He declined the invitation.

There is another curious Russian common denominator: Six of Sweden’s alt-right sites have drawn advertising revenue from a network of online auto-parts stores based in Germany and owned by four businessmen from Russia and Ukraine, three of whom have adopted German-sounding surnames.

The ads were first noticed by the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, which discovered that while they appeared to be for a variety of outlets, all traced back to the same Berlin address and were owned by a parent company, Autodoc GmbH.

The Times found that the company had also placed ads on anti-Semitic and other extremist sites in Germany, Hungary, Austria and elsewhere in Europe.

Which raised a question: Was the auto-parts dealer simply trying to drum up business, or was it also trying to support the far-right cause?

Rikard Lindholm, co-founder of a data-driven marketing firm who has worked with Swedish authorities to combat disinformation, dug deeper into the Autodoc network.

Hidden beneath the user-friendly interface of some of the earliest Autodoc sites lay what Mr. Lindholm, an expert in the forensic analysis of online traffic, described as “icebergs” of blog-like content completely unrelated to auto parts, translated into a variety of languages. A visitor to one of the car-parts sites could not simply access this content from the home page; instead, one had to know and type in the full URL.

“It’s like they have a back door and it’s open and you can have a look around, but to do that you have to know that the door is there,” Mr. Lindholm said.

Much of the content was not political. But there were links to posts about a range of divisive social issues, some of them translated into other languages. One hidden link — about female genital mutilation in Muslim countries — had been translated from English to Polish before being posted. Yet another post, from a site called AnsweringIslam.net, concluded, “Islam hates you.”

Thomas Casper, a spokesman for Autodoc, said the company had no “interest at all in supporting alt-right media,” and added, “We vehemently oppose racism and far-right principles.”

He said the company’s digital advertising team worked with third parties to place ads on “trusted websites with substantial traffic.” Autodoc, he said, had instituted controls to try to ensure that it no longer advertised on far-right sites.

As for the icebergs, after receiving The Times’s inquiry, the company removed what Mr. Casper called the “obviously dubious and outdated content.” It had originally been placed there, he said, to improve search engine optimization.

But Mr. Lindholm said that made no sense. “By linking to irrelevant content, it actually hurts their business because Google frowns on that,” he said.

Links Abroad

Another way to look inside the explosive growth of Sweden’s alt-right outlets is to see who is linking to them. The more links, especially from well-trafficked outlets, the more likely Google is to rank the sites as authoritative. That, in turn, means that Swedes are more likely to see them when they search for, say, immigration and crime.

The Times analyzed more than 12 million available links from over 18,000 domains to four prominent far-right sites — Nyheter Idag, Samhallsnytt, Fria Tider and Nya Tider. The data was culled by Mr. Lindholm from two search engine optimization tools and represents a snapshot of all known links through July 2.

As expected, given the relative paucity of Swedish speakers worldwide, most of the links came from Swedish-language sites.

But the analysis turned up a surprising number of links from well-trafficked foreign-language sites — which suggests that the Swedish sites’ rapid growth has been driven to a significant degree from abroad.

“It has the makings, the characteristics, of an operation whose purpose or goal is to help these sites become relevant by getting them to be seen as widely as possible,” Mr. Lindholm said.

Over all, more than one in five links were from non-Swedish language sites. English-language sites, along with Norwegian ones, linked the most, nearly a million times. But other European-language far-right sites — Russian but also Czech, Danish, German, Finnish and Polish — were also frequent linkers.

The Times identified 356 domains that linked to all four Swedish sites.

Many are well known in American far-right circles. Among them is the Gatestone Institute, a think tank whose site regularly stokes fears about Muslims in the United States and Europe. Its chairman until last year was John R. Bolton, now Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, and its funders have included Rebekah Mercer, a prominent wealthy Trump supporter.

Other domains that linked to all four Swedish sites included Stormfront, one of the oldest and largest American white supremacist sites; Voice of Europe, a Kremlin-friendly right-wing site; a Russian-language blog called Sweden4Rus.nu; and FreieWelt.net, a site supportive of the AfD in Germany.

This loosely knit global network does not just help increase readership in Sweden; researchers have tracked how Russian state outlets like RT and Sputnik, along with Western platforms like Infowars and Breitbart, have picked up and amplified Swedish immigration-related stories to galvanize xenophobia among their audiences.

Bjorn Palmertz, a disinformation specialist at the Swedish Defense University, said this “information laundry” had resulted in globally viral stories like the one about the Swedish town that allowed a mosque to issue calls to prayer while denying a church’s application to ring its bells — never mind that the church had not applied.

“Sweden is portrayed either as a heaven or a hell,” said Annika Rembe, Sweden’s consul general in New York. “But conservative value-based politicians in Hungary, Poland, the United States and elsewhere would use Sweden as an example of a failed state: If you follow this path, your society will look like Sweden’s.”

The ‘Village Of The World’

The auditorium at Rinkebyskolan, a middle school across the street from Rinkeby’s town square, filled rapidly. Women wearing hijabs and burqas spilled in, taking their seats on the left. Men sat to the right. From the speakers came the voice of an imam reading from the Quran.

Developed as part of a 1960s-era government initiative to build a million affordable dwellings, Rinkeby was originally home to a mix of Swedes and laborers from southern Europe. Over time it became known as Sweden’s “Village of the World,” with people from more than 100 countries living in drab, low-slung apartment blocks. Today, more than 91 percent of Rinkeby’s roughly 16,400 residents are immigrants and their children.

At a long table in front of the auditorium sat Niclas Andersson, a towering man who serves as Rinkeby’s police chief. Once prayers concluded, the audience began peppering him with questions.

Some worried about drug trafficking inside the apartment complexes, others about the prevalence of guns. Could the police install more cameras?

To be sure, Mr. Andersson said in an interview afterward, there were problems in Rinkeby, his posting for 18 years. But it is hardly the hellscape that nationalists bent on painting Sweden as a failed state hold it out to be.

Many newcomers still struggle to get a foothold in the job market, so unemployment is relatively high, at 8.8 percent. And in the larger Rinkeby-Kista borough, there were 825 reported episodes of violent crime last year, a rate 36 percent higher per capita than Stockholm as a whole.

But Mr. Andersson does not recognize the Rinkeby portrayed in the movie — directed by a filmmaker who has shot political ads for Republicans in Congress — that led Mr. Trump to make his “last night in Sweden” remarks. Rinkeby is not a no-go zone, Mr. Andersson said, an assertion supported by the film’s chief cameraman, who has acknowledged that officers who seemed to suggest otherwise had been edited out of context.

In fact, the number of police officers in Rinkeby has more than quadrupled since 2015. Assaults and robberies are down, Mr. Andersson said. Fatal shootings are down, too — of 11 in Stockholm last year, one was in Rinkeby. Nationally, the violent crime rate is one-fifth that of the United States.

“It was a heavily slanted picture,” Mr. Andersson said. “You zero in on a couple of incidents, then use that to describe the whole area.”

By the time Mr. Trump zeroed in on Rinkeby, “the government was tackling the problems,” said Amela Mahovic, a local reporter for Swedish public television. When the actual clash broke out soon after, she said, community elders spread the word to local youths: “You need to stop this.”

But soon, they said, they found that outside forces wanted the world to see a different picture.

Guleed Mohamed, then a researcher for public television, said he had spoken to a reporting team from Russia and Ukraine in Rinkeby Square that week and had tried to ask about Russia.

“They changed the subject to how multiculturalism doesn’t work,” he recalled. “And then they quickly connected that to the clash — ‘I want to talk about the riot. Don’t you think this is connected to the influx of migrants?’”

Hani Al Saleh, a Syrian who came to Sweden as a teenager, was working as a guard in Rinkeby. Tall and muscular with a sculpted beard, Mr. Saleh is known as “Amo,” or uncle, by the local youth. He said three young immigrants he knew told him that Russian journalists had tried to bribe them with 400 kronor (about $43) apiece.

“Boys, do you want to do some action in front of the camera?” they said the Russian journalists asked them.

Mr. Saleh later took a Danish journalist to meet two of the young men. After searching online, they recognized the logo of the Russian state-owned news channel NTV, along with the Russians who had made the offer.

The journalist contacted NTV, which denied the whole thing. But besides Mr. Castillo, the night watchman, The Times found other witnesses who backed up Mr. Saleh’s account.

Elvir Kazinic and Mustafa Zatara said they were in the square a couple of days after the clash when they overheard another group of young men talking about Russian journalists and a 400 krona bribe to fight.

“To stoop to that level and offer kids money,” said Mr. Kazinic, a Bosnian émigré who serves on Rinkeby’s district council, “that is low.”

Mr. Zatara, a poet, knows well the consequences of stirring up anti-immigrant racism. His father, Hasan Zatara, a Palestinian, came to Sweden in 1969, earned a high school diploma and opened a convenience store.

Standing behind the cash register on a January afternoon 27 years ago, he became the final victim of John Ausonius, a serial shooter who terrorized immigrant communities, killing one person and wounding 10 others. Hasan Zatara was paralyzed.

Mr. Ausonius later said he was inspired by the anti-immigrant party of the day, New Democracy.

“When my father was shot in 1992, we had New Democracy,” Mustafa Zatara said. “Today we have the Sweden Democrats. Then, they wore bomber jackets and boots. Today, they wear bow ties and suits. It’s normalized now in the Swedish political corridor.”

Building A Coalition

After the commotion in Rinkeby died down, Russian news agencies kept calling the police, fruitlessly asking permission to ride with officers patrolling the district.

“This went on week in and week out,” said Varg Gyllander, the department’s press officer.

Last September, right after the Swedish elections, the requests abruptly stopped.

The Sweden Democrats had their best showing yet. Their nearly 18 percent share of the vote hamstrung Swedish politics, with the mainstream parties unable to form a government for more than four months.

The Social Democrats finally formed a shaky coalition that excluded the Sweden Democrats. But it came at a price: some prominent center-right politicians are now expressing a willingness to work with the Sweden Democrats, portending a new political alignment.

In February, the Sweden Democrats’ Mr. Karlsson strode into a Washington-area hotel where leaders of the American and European right were gathering for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. As he settled in at the lobby bar, straightening his navy three-piece suit, he was clearly very much at home.

At the conference — where political boot-camp training mixed with speeches by luminaries like Mr. Trump and the British populist leader Nigel Farage — Mr. Karlsson hoped to learn about the infrastructure of the American conservative movement, particularly its funding and use of the media and think tanks to broaden its appeal. But in a measure of how nationalism and conservatism have merged in Mr. Trump’s Washington, many of the Americans with whom he wanted to network were just as eager to network with him.

Mr. Karlsson had flown in from Colorado, where he had given a speech at the Steamboat Institute, a conservative think tank. That morning, Tobias Andersson, 23, the Sweden Democrats’ youngest member of Parliament and a contributor to Breitbart, had spoken to Americans for Tax Reform, a bastion of tax-cut orthodoxy.

Now, they found themselves encircled by admirers like Matthew Hurtt, the director for external relationships at Americans for Prosperity, part of the billionaire Koch brothers’ political operation, and Matthew Tyrmand, a board member of Project Veritas, a conservative group that uses undercover filming to sting its targets.

Mr. Tyrmand, who is also an adviser to a senator from Poland’s anti-immigration ruling Law and Justice party, was particularly eager. “You are taking your country back!” he exclaimed.

Mr. Karlsson smiled.

Christina Anderson contributed reporting.

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jobsearchtips02 · 5 years ago

Text

Meet the Cuomo family: Mario Cuomo, Andrew Cuomo, Chris Cuomo

Michael Nagle/Getty Images.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has received praise for how he’s leading the state through the coronavirus pandemic.

New York is one of the states most greatly impacted by COVID-19

Other notable members of the Cuomo household consist of previous three-term New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and CNN anchor Chris Cuomo

The Cuomo family is among the most noteworthy dynasties in New york city’s political history. The late Mario Cuomo was the guv of New york city for over a decade, serving 3 terms. His eldest boy, Andrew, is the present governor of New york city, while his youngest kid, Chris, is a primetime news anchor on CNN.

In recent weeks, the Cuomo family has remained in the national spotlight due to the praise Andrew has been receiving for the way he’s managing New York’s coronavirus outbreak New York State has over 30,000 validated cases of COVID-19, with over 17,500 cases in New york city City alone, according to CNN’s newest updates since Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Chris Cuomo has actually been covering the pandemic on CNN. The 2 brothers in fact went on air together to talk about the infection; a now-trending clip reveals the brothers not only talking about the pandemic, but likewise entering a brotherly tiff about who is their mother’s favorite child

Representatives for Andrew and Chris Cuomo didn’t right away react to ask for comment from Business Expert concerning the brothers’ personal lives, professions, real estate, incomes, and particular debates.

Keep reading to discover more about the Cuomo household and a few of its most prominent members.

The Cuomo family is one of the most effective and influential New York political dynasties ever.

Michael Nagle/Getty Images.

The most significant members of the family are Mario, the former three-term guv of New york city State, Andrew, the present guv of New york city State, and Chris, a CNN primetime news anchor.

Andrew Cuomo has remained in the nationwide spotlight in recent weeks as people praise the method he is leading New york city State through the coronavirus pandemic.

New York City Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks throughout a statement at The Moynihan Train Hall in New York City City, U.S., August 17,2017

Reuters/Brendan McDermid.

Cases are expected to peak within the next 3 weeks, and a short-term morgue has actually even been constructed outside of New York City’s Bellevue Healthcare facility.

On March 20, the governor signed an executive order informing all non-essential services to keep their employees house, starting the evening of Sunday, March 23, Organisation Expert’s Bryan Pietsch reported.

A current Company Insider survey revealed that Cuomo and transmittable disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci are the most relied on leaders in America on the coronavirus right now, with both ranking far above President Donald Trump.

His daddy Mario Cuomo was born in South Jamaica, Queens, on June 15, 1932.

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Rodale).

Mario’s parents were immigrants from Italy, both coming from Campania, a region in the south. After coming to America, they owned a store in South Jamaica, Queens.

Mario went to St. John’s University for both college and law school, finishing with his JD in1956 He worked for numerous small firms before becoming a partner at the law firm of Comer, Weisbrod, Froeb and Charles, though he left in 1974 to run for Lieutenant Governor of New York City.

However, the gubernatorial ticket he ran on lost. Instead, Governor-elect Hugh Carey brought him on as Secretary of State of New York, a position Mario held from 1975 to1978 After that, he worked as the Lieutenant Governor of New York City from 1979 to 1982

Source: New York City Times

Before becoming lieutenant guv, Mario unsuccessfully ran for New york city City mayor.

Bowers/Getty Images.

The race between Mario Cuomo, and, then- US Agent Ed Koch for New york city City mayor was infamously tense and heated. Koch wound up winning the election.

Source: New York Times

Mario was the guv of New york city from 1983 to 1994.

Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo embraces his dad Mario after being re-election at the U.S. midterm race in New York, November 4,2014

REUTERS/Lucas Jackson.

As governor, Mario was known for his strong public presence and typically found himself at odds with the state legislature over issues such as taxes and program cuts.

Mario himself explained his political viewpoint as “ progressive pragmatism” and spoke up for many marginalized neighborhoods.

Source: New York Times, New Yorker

In 1991, Mario practically ran for president.

New York Gov. Mario Cuomo provides thumbs up gesture with both hands throughout his keynote address to the opening session of the Democratic National Convention Tuesday, July 17, 1984 in San Francisco’s Moscon.

AP.

In his profile of Andrew Cuomo, The Atlantic’s Edward-Isaac Dovere recounted how Mario almost flew to New Hampshire to file his governmental bid for the 1992 election, however then backed out at the last minute due to the fact that “[New York] state Senate Republicans were battling him over the budget plan.”

” It seems to me I can not turn my attention to New Hampshire while this risk hangs over the head of the New Yorkers that I’ve sworn to put first,” he stated at a news conference, just moments after he pulled out of filing his governmental ticket at the last minute.

Source: The Atlantic

Mario was likewise nearly then-President Costs Clinton’s first visit to the Supreme Court in 1993.

Walter Leporati/Getty Images.

After weeks of “back-and-forth” between Clinton’s aide, George Stephanopoulos, and Andrew Cuomo, representing his father, Mario chose he wouldn’t accept the consultation.

Eventually, in June, Mario decided he couldn’t accept after all and informed Stephanopoulos not to have the president call him.

Source: The New Yorker, Vox, The New York Times

Mario married Matilda Raffa in 1954, when he was still a law trainee.

Mario Cuomo is sworn in as 52 nd guv of New York by Judge Charles Desmond as Cuomo’s wife Matilda, looks on in Albany.

Dan Cronin/NY Daily News via Getty Images.

The 2 satisfied in 1951, when she was participating in the teachers’ college at St. John’s while Mario remained in law school there.

Matilda and Mario had five kids together: Andrew, Maria, Margaret, Madeline, and Chris, all of whom were born and raised in Queens. Mario passed away in 2015 of cardiac arrest

Source: Intelligencer

Both of Matilda’s parents were Italian immigrants hailing from Sicily.

Stephen Lovekin/FilmMagic/ Getty Images.

Matilda was born in 1931, though her birth name is really Mattia. According to the Chicago Tribune’s Paula Cohen, her name was changed to Matilda due to the fact that her teachers utilized to call her Matilda rather than Mattia.

A noted advocate for females and kids, Matilda is the founder of Mentoring USA, a program which assigns trainees coaches to help suppress the student drop-out rate. In 2015, Matilda was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame for her lifetime of advocacy.

In March 2020, when her boy, New york city Gov. Andrew Cuomo, began passing laws to help fight the spread of the coronavirus in New York State, he announced a law named after his mother: “ Matilda’s Law” supplies defense for New Yorkers over the age of 70, in addition to those with jeopardized body immune systems and underlying diseases.

Source: Intelligencer

When Andrew Cuomo was inaugurated in 2011, it was the first time in state history that a daddy and boy had actually both been elected guv, according to the New York Times.

New York City Guv Andrew Cuomo speaks in front of stacks of medical protective supplies throughout a news conference at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, which will be partly transformed into a momentary medical facility throughout the break out of the coronavirus illness (COVID-19) in New York City City, New York City, U.S., March 24,2020

REUTERS/Mike Segar.

As guv, he helped to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, helped form the United States Climate Alliance, passed strict weapon control laws, increased base pay, and legalized medical marijuana

As Service Insider formerly reported, Andrew Cuomo makes a minimum of $200,000 a year as the governor of New York.

In a March 2019 profile by The Atlantic’s Edward-Isaac Dovere, Cuomo was described as “irritating, confounding, and egotistical [but] he can also be engaging, intense, and charming.”

Dovere likewise kept in mind that in spite of the reality that “most political leaders in New York and beyond can’t stand him,” Cuomo “wins [elections] in landslides.”

Source: Fordham University, Albany Law, The Atlantic, New York City Times

Andrew’s period has actually not lacked controversy.

New York Guv Andrew Cuomo delivers remarks at a press conference concerning the very first confirmed case of coronavirus in New York State in Manhattan district of New york city City, New York City, U.S., March 2,2020

Reuters/Andrew Kelly.

In 2014, his administration faced criticism after it was implicated of interfering with an ethics commission, according to Vox’s Andrew Prokop. And in 2018, Joseph Percoco, a close Cuomo family friend and Andrew’s aide, was founded guilty of corruption

He was as soon as wed to Kerry Kennedy, the child of Robert F. Kennedy.

New York City Gov. Andrew Cuomo talks to advocates during an election night watch party hosted by the New york city State Democratic Committee in New York.

Ron Galella, Ltd./ Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images).

They had two kids together before separating in2005.

Andrew later started dating Sandra Lee, who is a host on Food Network. They divided in 2019.

Andrew Cuomo with then-partner Sandra Lee.

Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for HBO.

Lee and Cuomo satisfied in 2005 at a mixed drink celebration in the Hamptons, according to People

During their decade-plus relationship, Sandra and Andrew lived in a house in Westchester.

Source: New York Times

According to a 2012 interview with the New York Times, when Sandra first fulfilled Andrew, she explained him as a “substantial, musclebound guy.”

New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his sweetheart and tv chef Sandra Lee speak with members of the media as they reach the White Home for a state dinner October 18, 2016 in Washington, DC.

Alex Wong/Getty Images.

Sandra also attended to why they ‘d never ever married, although Andrew, at the time, was rumored to be making a governmental run and, as Goldman kept in mind, “Individuals without partners don’t get elected president anymore.”

” Andrew is focused on being governor. He’s not running for president,” Lee reacted to Goldman “We enjoy in the relationship the way it is. Still, I can tell you that Andrew’s kids desire us to get married. It’s extremely sweet.”

She also declined the idea that Cuomo was “hot-tempered” and stated that he was “client and mellow” with her.

” We never ever battle,” she stated “He doesn’t offer me sorrow.”

Source: New York City Times

Andrew also likes to trip. He’s especially fond of Saranac Lake, New york city, according to the New York Times.

Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Global Resident.

The governor has been known to visit Saranac Lake with his family. As the New York Times reported in 2011, the town is a lesser-known tourist attraction, and visitors can fish, shop, and eat near Lake Placid.

The town is also near locations like Whiteface Mountain, where Cuomo took his daughter skiing. Sandra likewise said that Saranac Lake was among her favorite getaway.

” I’ve been all throughout the country; the Adirondacks are a nationwide treasure,” Andrew once stated “It renews me. It just gets you in touch with nature and it’s simply one of the really special places on the world– duration.”

Source: New York City Times

In 2015, he took a trip to the Caribbean– though he hardly leaves New york city state.

New York City Gov. Andrew Cuomo, left, and Mayor Expense de Blasio discuss the state and city’s preparedness for the spread of the coronavirus, Monday, March 2, 2020, in New York City.

Mark Lennihan/AP Picture.

Barkan reported that Andrew, like his father, is known to seldom leave the state of New York.

Source: Observer

Andrew has actually also ended up being understood for his clashes with President Donald Trump.

New York City State Governor Andrew Cuomo attends to the crowd during the start of New york city City’s Columbus Day Parade.

Ira L. Black/Getty Images.

” He’s lost a lot [of supporters] who have actually lost faith in him,” the guv told Dovere.

” It is extremely hard and costly to live in New York.

Source: The Atlantic

In his March 2019 profile of Andrew for The Atlantic, Dovere stated the differences between Mario and Andrew were “huge.”

Democratic prospect for New York Chief Law Officer Andrew Cuomo raises arms with his daddy previous New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, at his triumph celebration in New york city, Tuesday, Nov. 7,2006

Jemal Countess/WireImage/ Getty Images.

Regardless of their character differences, the two were close.

” He was my finest pal.

Source: The Atlantic

Mario’s and Matilda’s earliest daughter, Maria Cuomo, is married to fashion designer Kenneth Cole.

Michael Stewart/Getty Images.

She is the chairwoman of AID U.S.A., a charitable structure.

Kenneth Cole’s eponymous company utilized to be public, however he took it private once again in2012 At that time, the company had a valuation of $280 million, Inc. reported.

Source: InStyle

The youngest child is Madeline Cuomo. She lives a very private life.

Maria Cuomo Cole (L) and Madeline Cuomo O’Donoghue (R).

BEN GABBE/Patrick McMullan by means of Getty Images.

In 1993, she married her high school sweetie, Brian O’Donoghue.

Source: New York Times

Youngest boy Chris Cuomo is a primetime news anchor for CNN.

Ben Gabbe/Getty.

Previously, Chris was the host of “New Day” with Alisyn Camerota He hosted the show from 2013 until 2018 when he relocated to host “ Cuomo Prime-time Television“

Prior To CNN, Chris operated at ABC. From 2006 to 2009, he was an anchor for Great Early morning America. He likewise worked as ABC News’ Chief Law and Justice Correspondent and was an 20/20 c0-anchor. Prior to his time at ABC, he was a correspondent for Fox News Channel.

He went to Yale University and Fordham Law.

Cash Inc’s Allen Lee quotes that Chris Cuomo has a net worth of around $12 million and makes around $2.5 million a year from hosting his CNN program.

Source: CNN

In August 2019, Chris made headings after a video emerged of him yelling at a Trump fan who called him “Fredo.”

Mike Coppola/Getty Images for WarnerMedia.

Donald Trump likewise reacted to the video stating, “ I believed Chris was Fredo.”

CNN stood with Chris throughout the debate, with CNN President of Communications Matt Dornic tweeting, “Chris Cuomo protected himself when he was verbally attacked with the use of an ethnic slur in a managed setup.

Source: The Cut

Given That 2001, Chris has actually been married to magazine editor Cristina Greeven.

Sonia Moskowitz/Getty Images).

The two were wed in Southampton, New York City, and reside in Manhattan with their 3 kids.

The family formerly owned a 5-bedroom, 4-bathroom home in Southampton, which was put on the market last year with an asking price of $2.9 million. Because 2011, Cuomo and his spouse have apparently lived in a $2.9 million house on Park Avenue in New York City.

Source: New York City Daily News

In early March, Andrew went on Chris’ CNN program to talk about the pandemic.

Luiz C. Ribeiro/New York Post Archives/( c) NYP Holdings, Inc. through Getty Images.

” I called mama just prior to I came on this program, by the method, she stated I was her preferred,” Andrew told his bro on the show.

” No,” Chris responded.

Source: CNN

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equilibriumstories · 7 years ago

Text

The Reaper's Reunion Part Two: It's In The Details

The day was long. In search for the demon’s whereabouts, the crusaders had taken their newest ally into the field in hope that she might allow for an easier hunt. Regardless of her power, Cassiel failed to sense any demonic presence among the sea of people congregating within King’s Valley. They had spent years masking their whereabouts, blending in with humans in any way possible to make themselves appear mortal. Their powers had grown tenfold throughout two centuries and they fed off of the sin of man like it were fresh fruit from an bottomless bowl. So, because of this, Cassiel was about as useless as any other beggar woman walking the streets of the valley. Her angelic powers were fueled by the faith of the crusaders – at least, what little faith was left. Even they could not satiate the needs of an ethereal being to allow for any kind of growth. After having departed from Gabriel, Mattias, and Prisca, Cassiel walked through the dense crowds alone. Though they’d sworn to remain within the same district, the sun was setting and the darkness was creeping. “Pity, pity...my dear, Cassiel.” Samael’s voice snaked out of the darkness, his figure slowly emerging from the viscous abyss. “I seemed I have stumbled upon a most vulnerable prey.” The demon came forth, stopping inches behind Cassiel, who seemed frozen. His warm breath drew across her naked neck as his chin lowered in a purposeful act to taunt her. A hungry sigh pushed past wet lips, his chest heaving like a predator. “Standing alone in the length of a busy street, devoid of her defenses. One wonders who is more foolish?” Cassiel remained still throughout his taunting. With her arms lax at her sides, her instrument absent, she remained focused on her senses. Heavy concentration pushed her through a fear that ignited within her chest. The longer she remained within this mortal body, the more attuned she would become to her humanity. Fear, anxiety, disgust, and anger grew in inklings for Samael, but she wouldn’t allow him the pleasure of knowing. Her eyes darted across the many faces in the crowd, though none looked interested in the woman and her visitor. “No? You have no answer for me?” The Light Reaper continued, pushing his advances further by allowing himself to lay hands on the angel. Impatient fingers wrapped around the curve of her waist, while his other hand enthusiastically went for her face. Samael drew closer, slowly closing the gap between their bodies, as his fingers drew lines down her face from her brows to her lips. His fingertips caught the skin beneath her eyes, pulling as they retreated and slowing once they felt the wetness of her lips. Cassiel could hear him sigh again, his breath shuddering with pleasure. Her eyes continued to search the crowd. No one stopped, no one cared. Or perhaps they couldn’t see what was happening. Similarly to before, though this time encapsulated in a much smaller space, there seemed to be transparent walls around the demon and the angel. They could see out, but no one could see in. The mortals walked around the shape of the invisible barrier as if it were natural to do so. “What are you doing here?” Samael asked, his head leaning over her shoulder. “Did you think you were safe here? Or perhaps the Reaper Angel has given up. So soon?” Though in truth, it had been weeks since they last saw each other. Encountering last at the courtyard near King’s Bridge, Cassiel had done well to stay away from the inner workings of the city. The fear that struck her upon seeing him last left a deep impression and she made the conscious effort to stay away from known demonic territory -- at least while alone. Samael’s lips drew nearer until his nose hovered just above her shoulder. With one long inhale, Samael engulfed himself in Cassiel’s scent. His nose traveled the distance from her shoulder to her earlobe, shuddering once more as he released the air from his lips. There was a pause, then low laughter. “Oh, Cassiel, is that a human I smell?” This time, he pushed his nose into her hair, his lips smiling against the back of her ear. The fingers gripping her waist tightened, his other hand sliding away from her mouth and around the shape of her throat. His fingers dangled on the edge of dangerous territory, “How could you allow a mortal man to soil such a delectable meal?” The saliva pooling in his mouth made his words wet. "No matter,” he pushed his face past her ear and traced the bottom of his lip with his tongue, “I’m not a picky eater.” “Cass?” Gabriel’s voiced flew above the heads of the crowd, echoing in the empty air above them. This prompted Samael to stop, ceasing any and all movement as his eyes flickered past Cassiel. The crusader was not in sight, but heavy footsteps searched the grounds for the angel in the form of a foreboding aura. ”Cassiel?” He called once more, his voice a little closer. “Was it him?” Samael’s fingers tightened around her throat, this time provoking a response. Cassiel’s body jerked beneath his grasp in a poor attempt to get away, but the demon’s hold was too strong. His fingers pressed into her windpipe, squeezing relentlessly. “No, no, it couldn’t have been. This scent is old.” He smelled her again, his nose knocking against her as she thrashed, neurotically searching for answers within the ancient’s aroma. Cassiel struggled, one foot stepping forward as her body tried to pull itself away from Samael. The fear was settling in. Cassiel continued to push forward, straining her muscles as Samael’s fingers tensed strongly around her waist and throat. In this instance, she cursed her mortal form for being so weak. The body was not strong enough to withstand her magic, so in fear of ripping her human shell apart, she could not fight him at her fullest. “Gabriel.” Cassiel’s voice called to the crusader, her aura brightening enough for Samael to notice. The demon laughed, pulled his arm close to her chest and locked her against his frame. As Gabriel came closer, unable to see the captive angel, Samael’s grin grew wider. He wrapped one arm around her abdomen and held her there, forcing her feet to slip on the ground. Air was no longer reaching her lungs and the angel gasped, her hands clawing at his arm as he slowly lifted her from the earth. "Gabriel,” Her voice called once more, reaching deep into the void in search of his ears, “reach out your hand.” Eyes fluttering, breaths staggered and harsh, Cassiel choked beneath Samael’s grasp. He continued to laugh, his volume increasing as the life drained from Cassiel. The large crusader drew nearer to the pair, his brows furrowed in frustration. It was clear that he could hear the woman calling, but he was puzzled by her instructions. He cursed, shaking his head in response. After spitting about it, the man reached his monstrous hand out into the crowd. It was inches away from Cassiel, though aiming in the direction of Samael’s face. The demon’s eyes grew wide at the sight of a small, wooden cross sewn against the fabric of his glove. Samael was just as trapped within the barrier as Cassiel was. He knew that if he took a step back, the illusion would break, and his questionable position would cause a ruckus amongst the crowd. It would put a mark on him, which was less than favorable. He knew that despite the crusader’s lazy reputation and lack of faith in the divines, they were well equipped to track a man down and more than prepared to slaughter a demon. Snarling at the sight of the cross, Samael caved. He released Cassiel from her bonds and from the illusion simultaneously, though he remained under cover. As Cassiel’s feet hit the ground her knees buckled, and she fell into Gabriel’s arms. Stunned to now be cradling a woman who’d appeared out of thin air, Gabriel wrapped his arms under her shoulders and pulled her to her feet. A circle formed around the pair. Prying eyes spied upon the crusader and the exhausted woman as they stepped around them, careful not to get in the way. Expressions of confusion and annoyance were thrown in their direction, though Gabriel’s attention was solely focused on Cassiel. Several thoughts went through his head; it seemed impossible for an otherworldly being to appear so fainted and it was absolutely impossible that she’d appeared right before his eyes. On top of this, that was the first time he’d heard her voice. ”Cassiel?” His deep voice made the effort to lower in volume, quietly calling for her as she slumped against his chest. After a long bout of silence, he shook his head and swept her legs beneath his arm. The crusader took one last look across the crowd, searching for any clue that might give him insight into what had just happened. He could sense a dark presence about them, but the scenery was nothing beyond the ordinary.

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