Weekly Perspective

We present the following as we "go dark" through Labor Day Week-End here in the United States:    Journalists walk in rubble on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 29, 2022. (AP/Rodrigo Abd) For six months, CPJ has covered how Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has affected press freedom in the region. At least 12 journalists have been  killed  covering the war and CPJ is investigating whether the deaths of  three others  were related to their work. Russia’s independent media  has been gutted  as scores of journalists have fled onerous new media restrictions in their homeland, and dozens of Belarusian journalists who earlier found refuge in Ukraine from their own country’s media crackdown were  forced to flee  yet again.   CPJ  continues to call for  the protection of Ukrainian journalists, international reporters, and media workers covering the conflict. Are you a journalist covering the conflict? Check out CPJ’s safety advisories, including a  guide to bringin

Florida governor hopeful and current Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL). Photo:  Andres LaBrada Photographer / Flickr / CC BY 2.0 . History tells us that fewer than one out of three registered Democrats are likely to cast ballots in  Florida’s Aug. 23 Democratic primary for governor , with early voting already underway in many Florida counties. The five primaries before 2018 saw an average of only about 21% of the electorate voting. This August, it’s hard to tell where turnout will land. But that isn’t stopping rivals Nikki Fried and Charlie Crist from flooding would-be voters with phone calls, texts, door-to-door canvassers and mailers in the homestretch of a race that just got a whole lot tighter. The push into the campaign’s final days comes as two polls suggest a considerable shift in momentum toward the state’s agricultural commissioner. First, a  Public Policy Polling survey commissioned by the Fried campaign  showed her gaining on Crist — trailing by seven percentage points, but with 23%