Rhonda Prast

It’s been a year since we lost my friend and colleague @JGermanRJ - remember him for his impact and investigations, not his slaying. You can hear his distinctive voice in this podcast, and admire his deep #lasvegas knowledge ❤️ We miss you reviewjournal.com/podcasts/mobbe…

🎉 Welcome to the 2026 class of @AAAS #MassMediaFellows! These 15 scientists will be sharpening their #SciComm skills with news outlets across the country this summer. We can’t wait to see the impact they’ll have! Learn more about 2026 class here: aaas.org/news/aaas-mass…

The DOGE team was acting like “a bunch of people who didn’t know what they were doing, with ideas of how government should run — thinking it should work like a McDonald’s or a bank — screaming all the time,” former SSA Commissioner Leland Dudek said. propublica.org/article/inside…

@greenblattmark @IRE_NICAR @ddfonline She was amazing, truly compassionate and empathetic. I lost a good friend and colleague. Just devastating.

With deep sadness, I am so sorry to share news of the passing of @IRE_NICAR executive director, @ddfonline . I worked especially closely on our budget and finances with her for many years. She fought, hard- for our investigative community and IRE staff. May she rest in peace.

A group seeking donations for Trump sent out a mass email showing the president at an air base watching the somber transfer of US troops killed in the Iran War. The email says donors can get "private national security briefings and "the inside scoop DIRECT" from Trump.

Incredible @BaltimoreBanner story about a 9-year-old boy, Tristan King, who has been living out on his own, eluding authorities, since September, through the harsh winter. The government even sent armed US marshals looking for him.

“The concern that a filter team may err by neglect, by malice, or by honest difference of opinion is heightened where its institutional interests are so directly at odds with the press freedom values at stake.”

The New York Times made news the loss leader for a $2 billion digital revenue machine, and this chart is the receipt. News-only subscribers dropped 65% since June 2022. Bundle subscribers grew 227%. That looks like a news collapse. But the NYT deliberately killed its standalone news product. They stopped marketing it. They made it nearly impossible to buy a news-only subscription on their website. They priced the full bundle (News + Games + Cooking + Athletic + Wirecutter) at $2/month introductory, cheaper than a standalone Games subscription. News-only ARPU is $13.33. Bundle ARPU is $12.92. Single non-news product ARPU is $3.36. Those 4.3 million single-product subscribers paying $3.36/month? They’re not the business. They’re the funnel. The NYT CEO said it explicitly on the earnings call: single products are “funnels to get people to subscribe” to the bundle. Games now accounts for over 50% of time spent inside the NYT app. Wordle, Connections, and the Mini pull 10+ million weekly players who never intended to read a news article. But half of all NYT subscribers now pay for the bundle, and bundle subscribers retain longer, engage more, and accept price increases. The bundle just went from $25 to $30/month. The result: digital revenue crossed $2 billion for the first time in 2025. Free cash flow hit $550 million. Adjusted operating margins reached 24% in Q4. Berkshire Hathaway just took a billion-dollar position. While the Washington Post cut 300 journalists last week, the Times added 1.4 million subscribers. This chart shows a news company that built an attention ecosystem where Wordle gets you in the door, Cooking keeps you at breakfast, The Athletic owns your commute, and by the time you think about canceling, you’d lose four products instead of one. The NYT figured out that the way to fund journalism in 2026 is to make sure you can’t quit the crossword.

Understanding the State of Our Democracy and Christian Nationalism: Lessons from a Traveler and a Bishop I’m very concerned about the political pickle our country’s in — and so is Bishop Shelley Bryan Wee, a Lutheran bishop who is responsible for 120 ELCA churches in Northwest Washington. So, we recently invited our neighbors to gather together for an evening with us so we could explain, in the words of the great Elvin Bishop, “What the hell’s goin’ on.” I gave my take, and Shelley gave hers. And we filled the Edmonds Center for the Arts… twice. It was an exhilarating evening, and we’d like to share this very timely message with a much broader audience — and that includes you. (And if you can help us broadcast this even further, it can also include your own network of family and friends.) My talk about the current state of American democracy — including a step-by-step rundown of how the Trump administration is following the classic playbook used by fascist autocrats — is available here: ricksteves.com/watch-read-lis… And Bishop Shelley’s talk, which shares a hard look (inspired by scripture) at the perversion of Christianity called “Christian Nationalism,” can be found here: ricksteves.com/watch-read-lis… In Solidarity, Rick (and Shelley)

My 2 rescue dogs in their Sunday best today. Hank and Chance. Wouldn’t it be cool if everybody who had a rescue shared them in this thread to show the world that rescue dogs are the best option. Shelters and rescues all around the world full of great dogs. Go for it👇

NYT: FBI agents equipped with a signed warrant prepared to document blood spatter and bullet holes in Renee Good's SUV received orders to stop, including from Kash Patel. The fear? "a civil rights investigation would contradict Trump’s claim that Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer” who fired at her as she drove her vehicle." nytimes.com/2026/02/07/us/…

(GIFT@nyt): The Unraveling of the Department of Justice nytimes.com/interactive/20…

Since last year, we’ve been reporting on ICE extensively. But every week brings new information, and it’s getting harder to keep track of what’s happening, let alone remember what’s already happened. So here’s a quick thread to help.

Must reading from @AdamSerwer on what's happening in Minnesota. theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/…

ProPublica reporter @nicolemfoy found that more than 170 U.S. citizens had been detained by immigration agents. “The number became an important, irrefutable fact in the conversation about the immigration crackdown,” our editor-in-chief writes. propublica.org/article/propub…

Searing. Do read

The major news media have leaned into their brilliant visual investigations teams combined with citizens’ video footage on the top of their apps this morning. Sunday morning news shows will be important to inform the masses public and bring accountability for this tragedy.

The Trump administration claims that Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, was armed and a threat when agents shot him in the back and killed him. In fact, as best we can tell at this stage from the multiple videos, he was: a.) a Good Samaritan trying to help a small woman with a backpack whom agents had thrown to the ground and pepper sprayed; b.) unarmed, his legally licensed weapon already having been removed by another agent and taken away from the scene seconds earlier; c.) on his knees, pinned by agents and no threat to anyone at the moment two agents shot him approximately ten times in the back. As with Renee Good, it's disgusting not only that the authorities execute a person in cold blood but also that they lie about it to defame their victim and then block an investigation by local police that might establish the facts.

A mother in Minneapolis rushed to perform CPR on her 6-month-old baby after federal immigration agents deployed a chemical agent near her car, leading all six of her children to be taken to the hospital. This isn’t the first time kids have been on the receiving end of ICE's chemical weapons. motherjones.com/politics/2026/…

Read all of @hannah_natanson’s work here at this link. In just the last 3 month she’s been a part of 3 major EXCLUSIVE’s. She’s part of our team covering the federal workforce in a way no other news org can. washingtonpost.com/people/hannah-…

Federal agents grab a woman to drag her away from her car, and more scenes from Minneapolis this week. reut.rs/4aYqSvA 📷 Tim Evans