In the NYT (Gift Article), Peter Baker, who reported from Moscow early in Putin’s reign, explains that In Trump’s Washington, a Moscow-Like Chill Takes Hold. "A new administration’s efforts to pressure the news media, punish political opponents and tame the nation’s tycoons evoke the early days of President Vladimir V. Putin’s reign in Russia." Just yesterday, Reuters and Associated Press were barred from Trump's first cabinet meeting. It doesn't help that many of those who own media's most notable brands are siding not with their reporters, but with the administration. The latest example is Jeff Bezos' Trump-friendly re-imagining of the Washington Post opinion section. By way of Margaret Sullivan, former media columnist for WaPo, former executive editor Marty Baron has some thoughts on what amounts to a big shift in Bezos stewardship of the publication. "What Bezos is doing today runs counter to what he said, and actually practiced, during my tenure at the Post. I have always been grateful for how he stood up for the Post and an independent press against Trump’s constant threats to his business interest. Now, I couldn’t be more sad and disgusted." The Post's tagline is Democracy Dies in Darkness. Maybe it should be replaced by the Simon and Garfunkel line, Hello Darkness, My Old Friend. 2The Virus vs The ViralTrump repeatedly said Covid would just go away. In March of 2020, his current co-president claimed that there would probably be no new cases in the US by the end of April. Five years and 1.2 million American deaths later (and more than 20 million worldwide), those predictions have been proven wrong. But the people who made them are in charge and a different kind of misinformation has taken hold. David Wallace-Wells in the NYT(Gift Article): The Covid Alarmists Were Closer to the Truth Than Anyone Else. (But truth was one of Covid's other victims.) "Though the world has been scarred by all that death and illness, it is considered hysterical to narrate the history of the pandemic by focusing on it. Covid minimizers and vaccine skeptics now run the country’s health agencies, but the backlash isn’t just on the right. Many states have tied the hands of public health authorities in dealing with future pandemic threats, and mask bans have been put in place in states as blue as New York. Everyone has a gripe with how the pandemic was handled, and many of them are legitimate. But our memories are so warped by denial, suppression and sublimation that Covid revisionism no longer even qualifies as news." 3The Forest Service Through the Trees"She voted for Joe Biden in 2020, her first time casting a ballot in a presidential election. But life felt more complicated these days. Her mortgage was too expensive, groceries were nearly $400 a month, and one single cycle of IVF could cost more than 10 percent of her annual household income. Trump, at a campaign stop an hour and a half south of her, had promised to make IVF free. She knew that from a video clip she saw on TikTok. And she had believed him. She also believed him when he said that Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for the next Republican administration that suggested mass cuts to the federal workforce, was not his plan. So Cooper filled in the bubble next to his name, thinking of the daughter she wanted." Ryleigh Cooper is probably not the person you envision when you think of a Trump voter. And she definitely wasn't the person she envisioned when she recently got fired from the U.S. Forest Service after receiving an extremely high performance evaluation. WaPo (Gift Article): She hoped Trump’s victory would change her life, but not like this. 4Gene Expression"Legendary actor Gene Hackman and his wife had been dead for 'quite a while' before their bodies were found in separate rooms of their New Mexico home, as authorities on Thursday called their deaths suspicious. Hackman was 95. He got a late start as a well-known actor, but he made up for lost time, winning two Oscars and leaving behind an almost ridiculous filmography including: Unforgiven, The French Connection, The Royal Tenenbaums, Hoosiers, The Poseidon Adventure, The Conversation, Mississippi Burning, Superman, No Way Out, Get Shorty, The Birdcage, Bonnie and Clyde, etc. NYT (Gift Article): Gene Hackman, Hollywood’s Consummate Everyman, Dies at 95. 5Extra, ExtraBigly if True: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with Trump to try to pull the American president back toward our allies, and to explain, in Ukraine, we can't have "peace that rewards the aggressor." He's got his work cut out for him. At the start of the meeting, Trump said of Putin, "I think he’ll keep his word. I’ve spoken to him, I’ve known him for a long time now, we had to go through the Russian hoax together." 6Bottom of the News"The number of 98.6 degrees was based on millions of temperature readings of 25,000 people in the mid-19th century by a German physician." Times have changed. Has our temperature? One woman's viral fever question sparked a very real debate. Is 98.6 outdated?
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