ISIS launched an attack today on Ramadi in the Anbar province, and seized control of the city, including the police headquarters and army compound. Why Ramadi is important:

Ramadi controls the only significant routes to Baghdad from Syria and Jordan, a vital means of resupply for ISIS. Ramadi sits on the Euphrates River; the dam in Ramadi and the reservoir south of the city regulate usage of the river’s water for a significant portion of southern Iraq. Ramadi is the biggest population center in the Sunni heartland and is the seat of the powerful Dulaymi tribe, a major part of the Iraqi Sunni population ISIS needs support from if it wants to be a nation-state.... Ramadi is important because it means including the Sunnis in the governance of Iraq

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GMA has a really interesting article about a female rancher in Colorado who suffered a traumatic brain injury and is now an "accidental genius" in art and music.

[N]ow she is a gifted artist and poet. She enjoys spending time puzzling over mathematical equations. She can “see” sounds and “hear” colors when she listens to music, although she is extremely sensitive to light.

She remembers nothing about her prior life. She doesn’t even recognize her own mother.

The brain works in such interesting and at times unexpected ways. There are stroke victims who suffer from aphasia who cannot speak in words but can sing them.[More...]

Our last open thread is full, and I'm about to watch Senor de los Cielos. Here's a new one, all topics welcome.

ISIS released a new audio message by leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi today. You can read the English version here (MS Word Document) or here. It's called "March Forth Whether Light or Heavy."

It strikes me as a pep talk and foreign recruitment effort. There's remarkably little about the West. It's mostly a shout-out to fighters in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Khorasan, Indonesia, the Caucasus and Africa and a call for them to join the war. [More...]

The jury is now deliberating the fate of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The Court has published the 24 page verdict form on PACER.

There are 21 mitigating factors the jury must consider, but they are not limited to those factors. Each juror can come up with additional mitigating factors on his or her own and assign whatever weight to the factors he or she deems appropiate. [More...]

Judy Clarke is about to deliver her closing argument in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. I'm following Reporter Jim Armstrong on Twitter. Worth mentioning: As Clarke goes through the mitigating factors, keep in mind they do not have to relate to the commission of the offense. [More...]

Since I'll be following Tsarnaev and then heading to court (here, not in Boston), here's an open thread for other topics. All topics welcome, except Freddie Gray. Please use threads dedicated to Gray for comments about him.

Here's a new thread for the continuing discussion of the Freddie Gray case.

Both sides rested their case today in the Dzhokar Tsarnaev trial. Closing arguments and deliberations begin Wednesday.

The defense ended its case with the testimony of Sister Helen Prejean. She testified she met with Tsarnaev five times over the past year and he expressed remorse.

"He said it emphatically. He said no one deserves to suffer like they did," said Prejean, the public face of the New Orleans-based Ministry Against the Death Penalty and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. "I had every reason to think that he was taking it in and that he was genuinely sorry for what he did."

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Someone fired a shot through the passenger window of George Zimmerman's vehicle today. He was taken to hospital in an ambulance, but was able to walk on his own. (Added: he sustained minor injuries.)

Kenneth Cornell told WESH 2’s Gail Paschall-Brown that he called 911 after the alleged shooter approached him and said, “I shot George Zimmerman.” Cornell said the alleged shooter then got on the phone with dispatch and explained what happened.

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Eric Boehlert at Media Matters offers his thoughts on why the D.C. media is "primed to take down Hillary Clinton."

It's official: Hillary Clinton now faces two looming campaign challengers, Republicans and their allies in the press. But don't take my word for it. The anti-Clinton press campaign is now an open secret in the media, and it marks a whole new chapter in campaign journalism.

Seymour Hersh's version of the targeted killing of Osama bin Laden couldn't be more different from that of the White House.

[Hersh] claims that Bin Laden’s burial at sea never happened, that Bin Laden was an invalid when the SEALs raided the compound and killed him, and that there was no firefight at all during the SEAL raid. Additionally, Hersh’s account says that the ISI captured and set bin Laden up in Abbottabad in the first place, to use him as “leverage” in the country’s dealings with al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Hersh's version appears here in the London Review of Books.[More...]