Extra, Extra
Scratching a Mitch: “Sen. Mitch McConnell has announced he will not seek reelection next year, ending a 40-year career in Congress that saw the Kentucky Republican serve as the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history.” Perhaps no person is more responsible for GOP power than McConnell. And yet, he’s way too moderate for the group he enabled.
+ Parading Coffins: “Crowds of Palestinians gathered near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis to watch the theatrical handoff staged by Hamas: four coffins placed on a stage in front of a cartoonish, vampiric picture of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. Triumphant music thumped in the background. One casket bore a picture of Kfir Bibas, who was less than nine months old when he was kidnapped. A few yards away, a poster threatened that if Israel went back to war against Hamas, even more hostages would return in coffins.” NYT: With Coffins and Taunts, Hamas Hands Dead Hostages to Israel. And from NPR: Hamas releases the bodies of four Israeli hostages, including mother and young sons. Between the scenes and quotes in these articles, peace seems as far as ever.
+ Internal Conflict: “The layoffs are expected to total 6,700, according to a person familiar with the matter, and largely target workers at the agency hired as part of an expansion under Democratic President Joe Biden, who had sought to expand enforcement efforts on wealthy taxpayers.” IRS fires 6,000 employees as Trump slashes government.
+ Weaponized: “A lawyer at advertising conglomerate Interpublic Group fielded a phone call in December from a lawyer at X. The message was clear, according to several people with knowledge of the conversation: Get your clients to spend more on Elon Musk’s social-media platform, or else. ” (In December, things were still comparatively subtle.) WSJ (Gift Article): X Hinted at Possible Deal Trouble in Talks With Ad Giant to Increase Spending. This is all part of a trend. DOGE reportedly fired the FDA employees who were reviewing clinical trials for Elon Musk’s Neuralink.
+ Drug Tested: “Many see illicit fentanyl, said to be about 50 times as powerful as heroin and 100 times as powerful as morphine, as the worst drug epidemic the country has ever seen. At the same time, experts have reached a consensus: Medication-for-addiction treatment, or M.A.T. — using medicine like buprenorphine or methadone to help patients recover from their opioid-use disorder rather than trying to get them to quit cold turkey — is the best course of treatment. Merely starting people on buprenorphine, research suggests, can cut their chances of dying from overdose by between 50 and 80 percent, compared with patients receiving talk therapy and other nondrug interventions. Yet the drug remains drastically underprescribed.” NYT Magazine (Gift Article): An Effective Treatment for Opioid Addiction Exists. Why Isn’t It Used More?
+ Tomb Raiders: “Egyptologists have discovered the first tomb of a pharaoh since Tutankhamun’s was uncovered over a century ago.” (No word on whether they’ve located any framed mug shot photos.)
