Extra, Extra
USAID and Abetting: “Perhaps the best advertisement for U.S.A.I.D. is that autocrats tend to hate it.” Jon Lee Anderson in The New Yorker: Growing Up USAID. “As a child in postings around the world, the author witnessed the agency’s complex relationship with American empire—and with autocrats everywhere.” (Even if you don’t care about the human cost to USAID workers and clients, you might care that China is moving quickly to fill the void.) Meanwhile, the administration is not following a judicial order to release funds. Judge gives Trump administration two days to release billions of dollars in blocked foreign aid. (What does Trump think he has legal immunity or something?)
+ Forced Arms: Wapo (Gift Article): “The Washington Post spoke to a dozen trans people for this article. Many of them spoke on the condition of anonymity — or insisted that only their first name be used — for safety reasons. All said they were arming and educating themselves about guns because they were scared of what Trump’s presidency will bring.” (With the relentless attacks, can you blame them?)
+ Laid Bare: Tired: Eggs come from chickens. Wired: Eggs come from Turkey. Turkey to export 15,000 tons of eggs to US to ease bird flu disruptions.
+ Ready or Not: “People who’ve spent their lives working within a system of laws and civic institutions may be particularly unsuited to respond to that system’s failure. But an F.B.I. run by Patel and Bongino is a sign that the system — which for all its manifold flaws has provided Americans a level of stability uncommon in history — is falling apart.” Michelle Goldberg in the NYT (Gift Article): Trump’s New Deputy F.B.I. Director Has It Out for the ‘Commie Libs.’
+ Stage Fright: “With the establishment of an unstable cease-fire last month, the Hamas show has taken to broadcasting scenes of public humiliation of Israeli hostages to the world via Al Jazeera and social media. Eli Sharabi, 52, was compelled to speak at his release about how he looked forward to reuniting with his wife and daughters—his captors knew, but didn’t tell him, that they had been murdered on October 7 … And on Saturday, just two days after the bizarre Bibas body swap, 22-year-old Omer Shem Tov was instructed by a masked cameraman to kiss his captors onstage, resulting in a viral social-media clip.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Hamas’s Theater of the Macabre.
+ Shield Bearer: “‘If I had reacted just a little bit quicker. And I could have, I guess,’ a weeping Hill told Mike Wallace on CBS’ 60 Minutes in 1975, shortly after he retired at age 43 at the urging of his doctors. ‘And I’ll live with that to my grave.'” Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who tried to shield the Kennedys, dies at 93.
+ Gen Zzzing at Home: “In years past, Tully would be called a boomerang kid: someone who moved out with a plan for an independent life but wound up back under mom and dad’s roof. In the old days, this trajectory might suggest that the kids—or the parents—were screwups. Incapable. Incompetent. The proper course of action, the one instilled in me, my friends and many of the parents I interviewed for this story, was this: you graduate high school. You get some education. And you get out. That idea has flown out the childhood bedroom window.” McClean’s on Canada’s households. Why Gen Z Will Never Leave Home. (Gen Z is on their phones so much, I barely notice them when they’re here…)
