Called to Account: “About 2,000 secret recordings of intercepted conversations between Russian soldiers in Ukraine and their loved ones back home offer a harrowing new perspective on Vladimir Putin’s year-old war. There is a human mystery at the heart of these conversations heard in intercepted phone calls: How do people raised with a sense of right and wrong end up accepting and perpetrating terrible acts of violence?” From AP and the Center for Investigative Reporting: ‘Never saw such hell’: Russian soldiers in Ukraine call home. And the companion podcast from Reveal: Listening in on Russia’s War in Ukraine.

+ Chopped Dilbert: “Dilbert creator Scott Adams continued to see his reach shrink Monday as dozens of newspapers and a major comic strip platform said they would no longer publish his long-running office workplace comic strip over his recent racist remarks.” We might be too quick to cancel people these days, but this in case, Adams’ statements were so wildly over the line, it’s not even close to being a close call. (Of course, Elon Musk came to his defense and argued that the media is racist against whites.)

+ Labora-story: “Some officials briefed on the intelligence said that it was relatively weak and that the Energy Department’s conclusion was made with ‘low confidence,’ suggesting its level of certainty was not high. While the department shared the information with other agencies, none of them changed their conclusions.” In many ways, it’s the mystery of our era. Lab Leak Most Likely Caused Pandemic, Energy Department Says.

+ Obrador Stop: “Tens of thousands of people filled Mexico City’s vast main plaza Sunday to protest President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s electoral law changes they say threaten democracy.” Anyone else sensing a global trend?

+ Maternity Leave: “The closure in Toppenish mirrors national trends as financially strained hospitals come to a harsh conclusion: Childbirth doesn’t pay, at least not in low-income communities. From 2015 to 2019, there were at least 89 obstetric unit closures in rural hospitals across the country. By 2020, about half of rural community hospitals did not provide obstetrics care.” NYT (Gift Article): Rural Hospitals Are Shuttering Their Maternity Units. And from the Texas Observer: Pregnant Texans Now Travel 10 Times Farther for an Abortion. (So you have to have the baby, but there’s nowhere to give birth.)

+ Father and Law: “A judge concluded the children were victims of ‘parental alienation,’ which continues to influence family courts despite being rejected by mainstream scientific groups, and authorized police to use ‘reasonable force’ to remove them from their mother.” ProPublica: Barricaded Siblings Turn to TikTok While Defying Court Order to Return to Father They Say Abused Them.

+ Nun Chucks: “Mornings inside the nunnery are filled with the thuds of heavy footsteps and the clanking of swords as the nuns train under Ms. Lhamo’s tutelage. Amid a soft rustle of their loose uniforms, they cartwheel, punch and kick one another.” NYT (Gift Article): Kung Fu Nuns of Nepal Smash Convention.