France’s presidential election is still more than two years away, but the battle to shape its outcome has already begun, and it is being fought in the shadows of the internet. The vote is scheduled for the spring of 2027, yet long before a single ballot is cast, the process is already being tested by a combination of misinformation, alleged foreign interference, and criminal complaints. Researchers tracking covert influence operations have identified a campaign linked to Matryoshka, a shadowy disinformation network aligned with Russian interests. The name is fitting: like the famous nesting dolls, this operation appears to contain layer…

It was one of those moments in American political life that felt almost surreal: Tucker Carlson, the conservative commentator who had once helped turn Hunter Biden’s laptop into a rallying cry on the right, and Hunter Biden himself, the man at the center of that controversy, sitting together for an interview. The subject was not just the laptop, but a darker accusation that had been circulating beneath the surface for years. Carlson claimed on Monday that Israeli agents close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressured him to report false information about the laptop—specifically, an explosive allegation that the device contained…