Michael Sarnoff

The president is using the term “WOKE” to criticize the teaching of American slavery, within the context of his administration and justices he appointed repeatedly stripping the rights of Black people. It reveals the true meaning behind usage of the term in contemporary politics.

FIONA HILL: Massive weakness of Trump that Russia exploits is that Putin knows Trump himself is very prone to conspiracy theories. Putin knows that Trump lives in a world of memes and tropes on Truth Social, and he will take on board almost anything that is fed to him. When I was in Trump’s first administration, Trump would sometimes pick up on things, and you’d realize, “This is Russian propaganda.” That’s actually what I said during first impeachment. Russians are just amplifying all of this because they know Trump will believe it.

Jim Acosta came down to the National Mall to see if the National parks Department was really painting the reflecting pool blue and they were and it literally is going to look like a cheap Hotel pool now which is so sad! They used American flag blue which is a bright blue. 🙈

A Republican Sheriff in Florida, Grady Judd, announced the arrest of 266 defendants in a sex trafficking scheme & minced no words. He identified influencer Craig Long, who he said moved in high circles, including with the president, holding up a picture of Long with Trump. youtube.com/watch?v=x03q95…

The child [now 14] "was in the third grade when he started getting abused by this man" according to his mother. For that, the child rapist only got 60 days. Governor's office intervened directly! Doesn't have to register as a sex offender. Can become a lawyer again in 5 years.

Supreme Court gutting Affirmative Action and the VRA, southern states rushing to gerrymander away Black districts, and the president ranting about the Civil War are all connected — journalists need to be brave enough to write about how deeply the Trump era is connected to race.

After six months and nearly 1,000 cases, the South Carolina measles outbreak is officially over. How'd they do it? "Measles vaccinations were the most effective single containment tool." abcnews.com/Health/after-1…

Has there always been this much drama in the Army? “There’s never been any drama like this in the officer ranks in my time,” a senior Defense official said. “It wasn’t like this until Trump,” said one former Army officer. “He’s cracked the unity. We never really talked about any palace drama, but now it’s infected the ranks from top to bottom.”

We now know the Iran war price tag is more like $50 billion - hundreds of dollars per household - and counting. It's enough to cover all the health insurance premium credits that the Republicans got rid of for this year, and next. It could save rural hospitals, pay teachers, fix roads. Don't let this White House insult your intelligence by blowing your money on war, then saying America can't afford nice things.

A reminder that the science behind Ozempic traces back to research on the saliva of the venomous Gila monster. The kind of strange, foundational research that would almost certainly have been cut under today’s standards.

I am among the McClatchy journalists withholding my byline from AI-generated content. I cover sensitive stories that should never be repackaged or altered in any way by artificial intelligence. Whether the story is about sexual abuse or immigrants caged at Alligator Alcatraz, our journalists take great care to ensure that their material is accurate, fair and conveys invaluable aspects of humanity that AI simply can't do.

I can't figure out if vaccines work or not. Tough one. Need Sherlock Holmes on this one.

That big TrumpIRA thing he announced yesterday? That passed under Biden. Trump is just taking credit and slapping his name on it. huffpost.com/entry/trump-ta…

Trump has no plan in Iran. Hegseth doesn’t even know the cost. The American people are paying for their incompetence — every day at the pump.

So an ex-cop-turned drug dealer who murdered four people execution-style, whom Jeffrey Epstein accused of killing him and is also seeking a pardon from Donald Trump says he found Epstein's suicide note seven years ago in a book. One of his lawyers says he turned it over to the court but can't recall what it said -- and it took three tries before his other lawyer could "authenticate" it. By the way, the court docket for his case shows that Nicholas Tartaglione has had 18 lawyers. He is serving four consecutive life sentences.

The share of Americans who say their financial situation is getting worse (55%) is higher now than at any point in the past 25 years. 👉🏻 axios.com/2026/04/28/tru…

For pediatricians, “selling” vaccination to patients has never felt more tiring or more critical. Anti-vaccine sentiment isn’t new, but its proponents are more vociferous than ever. And as of last year, one of the most prolific vectors of pandemic misinformation, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is heading up the Department of Health and Human Services. In January 2026, under his direction, the CDC knocked the vaccines for hepatitis B from its list of universally recommended childhood immunizations, along with the vaccines that protect against hepatitis A, rotavirus, COVID-19, RSV, flu, and meningococcal disease. For decades, pediatricians have been using “the presumptive approach” to vaccination — that is, operating under the assumption that parents will choose to vaccinate. Under the CDC’s revised guidelines, the six newly demoted vaccines were recommended only for high-risk children or after “shared clinical decision-making,” phrasing that puts parents on equal intellectual footing with their children’s doctors. Before RFK Jr., “most families just trusted that there was a process behind the vaccine schedule,” says Megan Prior, a pediatrician in Washington, DC. Now, she says, “Families don’t believe things are necessary or evidence-based because the government is telling them that.” Tessa B. Scripps, a pediatrician at Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital, says sometimes she can’t break through to a family until they’ve come in for a few back-to-back visits. She says some of her patients who are resistant to vaccination are highly educated and even have medical degrees. “It’s surprising,” Scripps admits. “I really don’t know how to explain it.” Read Juno DeMelo’s full report on the daily agony and exhaustion pediatricians are facing as they convince parents to vaccinate their children: nymag.visitlink.me/lzffL9

Universal Music is selling $1.4 billion in Spotify shares. It paid nothing for them. Spotify handed the shares over in 2008 just for letting Spotify play music, and the deal was set up so almost none of that money would ever reach the artists who made the music. Taylor Swift's 2018 contract changed that. Back in 2008, Spotify was a small Swedish startup that needed songs to play. The big record labels had the songs. They had no reason to hand them over cheap, so the two sides cut a deal. Spotify gave them shares. The labels gave Spotify the right to play their music. Universal walked away with 5%. That stake later grew to 7% when Universal bought EMI and rolled EMI's 2% into its own. Then it drifted back to 3% as Spotify took on more investors and shrank everyone's slice. At today's prices, 3% of Spotify is worth about $2.7 billion. Universal sat on those shares for 18 years and never sold a single one. Until yesterday. Most artists never see royalty money. When a label signs you, it pays you an advance to live on while you make the album. It also covers your studio time, your music videos, your marketing, your tour. All of those costs go on a tab. The label keeps every dollar your music earns until you clear that tab. Berklee, the music school in Boston, says as many as 96% of major-label artists never earn enough to clear it. They stay in the red their entire careers. Sony moved first in 2018. It sold half its Spotify shares for $768 million and paid $250 million directly to its artists in cash, no matter how much each one still owed. Warner followed a few months later. It sold all of its Spotify shares for $504 million and said $126 million would go to its artists too. Warner played it differently. Most of that money went to pay down what those artists already owed, instead of putting fresh cash in their pockets. Taylor Swift was negotiating her own deal with Universal that same year. She refused to sign unless Universal put the Sony version of the rule in her contract. Cash to artists, no matter what they owed. She wrote at the time that the clause "meant more to me than any other deal point." Universal had said publicly in March 2018 it would share Spotify money with artists. But it had not put the cash-not-credit rule in writing. Swift's contract, signed eight months later, did. Universal is finally selling. Hundreds of millions of dollars in cash are about to land in artists' bank accounts, including artists who have spent years or decades in the red and would otherwise get nothing from a sale like this. Most of those artists have never met Taylor Swift. All of them benefit from a single line she insisted on eight years ago.

Let’s be clear: LA fire survivors who lost their homes shouldn’t have to pay property taxes based on a value of a property that no longer exists. Today my office urged LA County to offer clarity and assurance for these impacted survivors so that they can continue to defer payments without penalty.