Extra, Extra
Stairway to Heaven: “I imagine it as a very long staircase that ends with the eradication of TB and starts hundreds of years ago, when one in seven people were dying of TB. And we’ve been walking up that staircase. We can take steps forward or we can take steps back. And — I’m sorry. I got a little emotional. We didn’t take a step back. We fell down the staircase. And it is devastating. You report that hundreds of thousands of people have seen their treatment interrupted. The majority of those people will die. Elon Musk tweeted yesterday, ‘I’ve never physically hurt anyone.’ And I just disagree with that. Hundreds of thousands of people are going to die, and they’re going to die for no good reason. They’re not even going to die because we decided to stop providing foreign aid. They’re going to die because we decided to stop providing foreign aid in the most chaotic, unpredictable, inconsistent, radical way possible. It seems merely punitive to me.” John Green in the NYT (Gift Article): We Fell Down the Staircase. That’s the pain we’re inflicting abroad. What about here: Michael Mina: I Study Measles. I’m Terrified We’re Headed for an Epidemic. That’s the pain that’s coming. What about the pain that’s already here? Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared.
+ In the Red: “President Trump is focused on what teams American transgender athletes can race on, and China is focused on transforming its factories with A.I. so it can outrace all our factories. Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ strategy is to double down on tariffs while gutting our national scientific institutions and work force that spur U.S. innovation. China’s liberation strategy is to open more research campuses and double down on A.I.-driven innovation to be permanently liberated from Trump’s tariffs. Beijing’s message to America: We’re not afraid of you. You aren’t who you think you are — and we aren’t who you think we are.” Tom Friedman in the NYT (Gift Article): I Just Saw the Future. It Was Not in America. And from Martin Wolf in FT: China senses an opportunity in Trump’s cultural revolution. “In sum, the Chinese believe they can survive Trump’s onslaught. Indeed, many believe it may help them, by destroying US credibility and perceptions of its competence.”
+ Eric Rolled: “The judge overseeing the corruption case against Eric Adams has dismissed the charges against the New York City mayor, and in a spilt with the Trump Justice Department, ordered that the charges cannot be brought again.” (In other words, the Trump Justice Dept got rid of the charges against Adams but now has no leverage to make him do their bidding. The art of the deal.)
+ Share Button: “Members of President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, including White House national security adviser Michael Waltz, have conducted government business over personal Gmail accounts.”
+ Limp: Ugh, another law firm folds in the fight. Law Firm That Employs Doug Emhoff Bends the Knee to Trump. “We know this news is not welcomed by some of you and you would have urged a different course of action. Needless to say, this was an incredibly difficult decision for Firm leadership.” (Firm leadership? Seems limp to me.)
+ Long Division: Israel is ‘seizing territory’ and will ‘divide up’ Gaza, Netanyahu says.
+ Val Kilmer: “Val Kilmer, the charisma-oozing leading man who lost himself portraying such tormented, self-loathing characters as Jim Morrison, gunslinger Doc Holliday and Batman during his all-too-brief career, died Tuesday. He was 65. Kilmer, who came to fame for playing the competitive naval aviator Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky alongside Tom Cruise in Tony Scott’s 1986 mega box-office hit Top Gun, died of pneumonia in Los Angeles.” (For many of us. he came to fame in Real Genius.)
+ Generational Flooding? I usually don’t cover weather forecasts here, but, uh…Millions Across U.S. at Risk for Significant Tornadoes and ‘Generational’ Flooding This Week.
+ Tits Up? NYT: Hooters Files for Bankruptcy, but Its Restaurants Will Stay Open. One franchisee explained “he was planning what he called a ‘re-Hooterization,’ or rebrand, which would include ending the chain’s ‘bikini nights.'”
