Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org. I'm me and

Masters, and today I'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with Putin's escalation of the war in Ukraine in violation of the UN Charter

as elite North Korean troops entered the battle against Ukraine on the Russian side,

raising questions about what North Korea gets in return for dispatching cannon fodder,

which likely involves the transfer of nuclear and missile technology,

enabling North Korea to strike the United States.

Joining us is Aram Shabanian, the National Investive reporter for New Orleans magazine.

He recently taught in non-proliferation and terrorism studies

at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies at Monterey,

where his research focused on the Cold War

and contemporary histories of Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

His latest report at New Line's Magazine is

the Russo-Ukrainian War in context.

Then we'll look into the impact on the election by another South African billionaire, Patrick Sun Xiong,

the owner of the Los Angeles Times, who spiked the paper's editorial board from endorsing Kamala Harris to the glee of the Trump campaign

that is crowing about how California's biggest newspaper won't endorse the Californian

vice president and presidential candidate. Joining us is Victor Picard, a professor at the Annenberg

School of Four Communications at the

University of Pennsylvania, where he co-directs the Media Inequality and Change Center.

He's the author of America's Battle for Media Democracy, The Triumph of Corporate Libertarianism

and the Future of Media Reform, and his latest book is Democracy Without Journalism, confronting the Misinformation Society.

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