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Trump is winning his war on American institutions

Trump is winning his war on American institutions

George Packer writes: When Donald Trump came into office, there was a sense that he would be outmatched by the vast government he had just inherited. The new president was impetuous, bottomlessly ignorant, almost chemically inattentive, while the bureaucrats were seasoned, shrewd, protective of themselves and their institutions. They knew where the levers of power lay and how to use them or prevent the president from doing so. Trump’s White House was chaotic and vicious, unlike anything in American history,…

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Why Trump made a baseless attack on Supreme Court justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor

Why Trump made a baseless attack on Supreme Court justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor

George T. Conway III writes: President Trump is treating the judiciary the way he treats the media. But the harm created by these attacks could be far greater. In 2016, CBS “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl asked Trump off camera why he persisted in going after journalists. In one of those sporadic moments in which he reveals the raw truth, Trump replied, according to Stahl, “I do it to discredit you all and demean you all, so when you write…

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In the face of a pandemic, the rich get or hope for special treatment

In the face of a pandemic, the rich get or hope for special treatment

Bloomberg reports: One investor may fly to Idaho with or without family. A doctor in a Colorado ski town is soothing wealthy clients who want a cure. And one New Yorker called up the hospital with his name on it. Like everyone across the U.S., the rich are bracing for a deadly coronavirus outbreak. Ken Langone, the co-founder of Home Depot Inc., watched President Donald Trump’s press conference and wondered if the media was overplaying the risk — but he…

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Hush money: How Bloomberg silences unhappy employees

Hush money: How Bloomberg silences unhappy employees

The New York Times reports: Every year, hundreds of departing employees at Bloomberg L.P. are presented with a choice: Either leave the company empty-handed or accept a generous financial package and agree to never speak ill of the company. Many take the money. The result is that some employees at Michael R. Bloomberg’s company are barred from publicly describing misconduct and what they perceived as an entrenched culture of bullying, where women are often objectified and sometimes face discrimination, according…

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Netanyahu’s war on Israel’s tenuous democracy

Netanyahu’s war on Israel’s tenuous democracy

Zack Beauchamp reports: On a cool November night in the West Bank, Murad Shteiwi walked me through the streets where he had been shot. Shteiwi is an activist leader in the town of Kufr Qaddum, a quiet village near the northern city of Nablus. Israel closed the road between Kufr Qaddum and Nablus during the second intifada in the 2000s to prevent Palestinians from getting too close to the nearby Israeli settlement Qadumim. A drive to Nablus that should take…

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Trump administration response to coronavirus crisis described as ‘complete chaos’ by senior official

Trump administration response to coronavirus crisis described as ‘complete chaos’ by senior official

The Washington Post reports: Minutes before President Trump was preparing Wednesday to reassure a skittish nation about the coronavirus threat, he received a piece of crucial information: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had identified in California the first U.S. case of the illness not tied to foreign travel, a sign that the virus’s spread in the United States was likely to explode. But when Trump took to the lectern for a news conference intended to bring transparency to…

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Genetic evidence indicates hundreds of undetected coronavirus infections have spread in U.S. for weeks

Genetic evidence indicates hundreds of undetected coronavirus infections have spread in U.S. for weeks

The New York Times reports: Researchers who have examined the genomes of two coronavirus infections in Washington State say the similarities between the cases suggest that the virus may have been spreading in the state for weeks. Washington had the United States’ first confirmed case of coronavirus, announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Jan. 20. Based on an analysis of the virus’s genetic sequence, another case that surfaced in the state and was announced on Friday…

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Kept at the hospital on coronavirus fears, now facing large medical bills

Kept at the hospital on coronavirus fears, now facing large medical bills

The New York Times reports: The federal government has the authority to quarantine and isolate patients if officials believe them to be a public health threat. These powers, which date back to cholera outbreaks among ship passengers in the late 19th century, are rarely used. They don’t say anything about who pays when the isolation happens in a nongovernmental medical facility — or when they’re brought there by a private ambulance company. “There is no uniform practice,” said Lawrence Gostin,…

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The media is amplifying Trump’s lies

The media is amplifying Trump’s lies

Margaret Sullivan writes: Some months ago, I wrote about the linguist George Lakoff’s prescription for handling the president’s false statements and lies, an approach that’s become known as the “truth sandwich.” Rather than lead with the falsehood and then try to debunk it, Lakoff — an expert on how propaganda works — suggested flipping that formula: Lead with the truth, air the falsehood, and then follow with the fact-check. Avoid giving prominence to lies, he advises. Don’t put them in…

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The South’s white suburban women, whose loyalty Trump can’t afford to lose

The South’s white suburban women, whose loyalty Trump can’t afford to lose

The Washington Post reports: [Miranda Murphey] is 39, a high school English teacher with a PhD and part of a voting demographic whose rebellion could upend the political map of the country: not just suburban women, not just white suburban women, but white suburban women in the South, whose loyalty Trump will need to remain in power. It is the kind of loyalty that has always been expected of white Southern women, who have long played a role as allies…

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Major GOP donor and activist investor, seeks shake-up at Twitter

Major GOP donor and activist investor, seeks shake-up at Twitter

Bloomberg reports: Activist investor Elliott Management Corp. has taken a sizable stake in Twitter Inc. and plans to push for changes at the social media company, including replacing Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey, according to people familiar with the matter. The New York-based firm has nominated four directors to Twitter’s board, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the matter isn’t public. There are only three seats becoming available at this year’s annual meeting but Elliott wanted…

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Israel’s UN ambassador interferes in U.S. election with derogatory remarks about Bernie Sanders

Israel’s UN ambassador interferes in U.S. election with derogatory remarks about Bernie Sanders

The Times of Israel reports: Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations on Sunday assailed US Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as an “ignorant fool,” two days before a key test for the Jewish frontrunner when primaries will be held in 14 states in Super Tuesday. At a conference hosted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Danny Danon made the daring remark — which could be construed as Israeli interference in the election process in the United States —…

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Experts simulated a coronavirus pandemic last year. It would have killed 65 million people

Experts simulated a coronavirus pandemic last year. It would have killed 65 million people

Adam K. Raymond writes: Last October, two months before the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 emerged in central China, a group of public-health experts gathered in New York City for a simulation. Their objective was to determine how industry, national governments, and international institutions could work together to respond to a hypothetical “pandemic with potentially catastrophic consequences.” Such a pandemic is no longer just a hypothetical. This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it’s preparing for a coronavirus…

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Trump is ignoring the lessons of 1918 flu pandemic that killed millions, historian says

Trump is ignoring the lessons of 1918 flu pandemic that killed millions, historian says

The Washington Post reports: The first wave wasn’t that bad. In the spring of 1918, a new strain of influenza hit military camps in Europe on both sides of World War I. Soldiers were affected, but not nearly as severely as they would be later. Even so, Britain, France, Germany and other European governments kept it secret. They didn’t want to hand the other side a potential advantage. Spain, on the other hand, was a neutral country in the war….

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