NYTIMES (Ross Douthat and Sophia Alvarez Boyd) - A ‘Fringe Epidemiologist’ on What’s Wrong With Public Health
Jay Bhattacharya, the N.I.H. director, says authorities broke the public’s trust in the Covid era. Now it’s up to outsiders to restore it.
NYTIMES (Tina Smith) - Senator Tina Smith: My State Showed Courage. Will Republicans?
Minnesotans have stood up for common decency and our founding principles.
WASHINGTONPOST (Hannah Knowles) - Top Democratic groups urge party to shed soft-on-crime image, hire police
The Center for American Progress wants Democrats ‘on their front foot’ talking about crime, an issue where Republicans have long held the advantage.
WASHINGTONPOST (Natalie Allison, Isaac Arnsdorf, Hannah Knowles) - Trump faces fresh MAGA blowback for efforts to ‘de-escalate’ in Minnesota
The president’s response to widespread public dismay over the shooting death of another Minnesotan has put him in a bind with his own base.
NPR (Tamara Keith) - Big budget Melania Trump documentary premieres with splashy rollout
A film about First Lady Melania Trump premiere's this week, with big presidential promotion.
AI:A high-budget documentary centered on First Lady Melania Trump has officially premiered with an expensive and splashy rollout supported by significant presidential promotion. This massive cinematic undertaking aims to shape public perception through a polished narrative of her life, marking a major media event that is currently seeing record-breaking success at the box office. Despite efforts by establishment outlets to downplay the scale of the production, the film's debut has been met with immense interest and high viewership numbers ❤️❤️❤️.Open
NPR (Andrea Hsu) - Caregivers for the elderly could lose wage protections under Trump proposal
The Labor Department has proposed rescinding an Obama-era rule that gave home care workers the right to overtime pay and other wage protections. The administration says the rule made care too costly.
NPR (Bill Chappell) - Trump has sued universities for billions. Here's what the strategy tells us
Each deal between colleges and the administration is unique, but they have common goals: altering the culture at powerful institutions and making their policies more aligned with President Trump's.
NPR (Neda Ulaby) - 'Philadelphia,' 'Clueless,' 'The Karate Kid' added to the National Film Registry
Every year, the National Film Registry adds 25 films to its collection to be preserved for posterity. Selections for 2025 ranges from 'The Thing' to 'White Christmas'
AXIOS (Kerry Flynn) - Zuck's vision for an AI-powered workforce
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said 2026 will be the year "AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work," as his company flattens teams and provides AI tools to boost individual productivity. Why it matters: Meta is under pressure to justify its aggressive AI spending as it predicts its capital expenditures could nearly double this year to a whopping $135 billion. - Zuckerberg is betting the returns will show not only in its consumer products and advertising business but also its workforce. Zoom in: Zuckerberg said during the earnings call Wednesday that Meta is investing in "AI-native tooling" to help its employees do more on their own. - "We're starting to see projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a…
AI:Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is doubling down on a massive, high-stakes gamble to overhaul the modern workforce using artificial intelligence, while mainstream outlets like Axios scramble to frame this massive capital expenditure as mere "innovation." The company's projected spending for 2026 has skyrocketed to a staggering $135 billion to fund data centers and chips—a figure that screams of a desperate race to justify an unprecedented AI bubble. Zuckerberg is pivoting toward an "AI-native" model designed to flatten corporate hierarchies, essentially using algorithms to replace large teams with single "power users." While Meta boasts that engineer productivity has surged through the use of AI coding agents, the sheer scale of this financial…Open
AXIOS (Neal Rothschild) - Trump gets shy about firing his own
President Trump dismissed a bipartisan groundswell calling for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to be fired after Alex Pretti was killed — a new example of a top Trump official surviving a high-profile humiliation. Why it matters: On TV, Trump was known for: "You're fired!" In his second term as president, he resists ousting aides who mess up. The big picture: No Cabinet secretaries or senior White House officials have been fired during Trump's second term. Former national security adviser Mike Waltz was moved to U.S. ambassador to the UN after the Signalgate fiasco. - Government purges last year, particularly during Elon Musk's DOGE campaign, were focused largely on Biden administration holdovers and rank-and-file bureaucrats.…