The 10 Things the Bezoses Are Almost Certainly Grateful for Each Morning Never mind. We said “money” yesterday.

I am grateful for @petridishes.bsky.social

✨gift link✨

Column | Trump’s dark rhetoric eclipses the new wonders of the Space Age The Apollo missions offered an unprecedented promise of global progress. But Artemis II is fraught by one nation’s threats to obliterate another.

Read all the way to the brilliant final graph of this piece by the inimitable @philipkennicott.bsky.social:

Trump Threatens to Kill Thousands More Iranians in Unnerving Tirades In a blunt warning, Senator Chris Murphy tells us that “everybody in that chain of command has to think hard” about carrying out such a hideously inhumane order, which he described as “war crimes.”

If Trump bombs power plants in Iran, the humanitarian crisis will be horrific. Experts tell me to expect water shortages, closed hospitals, many deaths.

“We’ve never had a US president so proudly promise to commit war crimes," Sen Chris Murphy says. 1/

(new piece)
newrepublic.com/article/2087...

That's home. That's us.

This image of home just came down from the Artemis II crew.

Taken after their translunar injection burn, there are aurorae at top right and lower left, and zodiacal light at lower right.

Credit: NASA/Reid Wiseman

This sent me on a hunt for the 1988 Miami Herald/Tropic Magazine piece about the Challenger disaster, which includes a passage I have never and will never forget, about what likely happened when the shuttle broke apart and the crew cabin fell. Found it here:
www.lutins.org/nasa.html

A Manned NASA Rocket Is Headed to the Moon. There Are Questions on Its Safety. Artemis II is scheduled to blast off this week, but a former astronaut and heat-shield expert has major concerns.

"By the time Camarda strapped in, [the space shuttle] had had already failed twice in 113 launches, for a failure rate of one in 56.5. He estimates the crew of the Artemis II faces even worse odds — somewhere between one in 20 and one in 50." nymag.com/intelligence...

Five extremely cool things about going to the moon

We're honoring a goddess and toilet-phoning while slingshotting round a space rock 252,000 miles away

Who are you going down in history with? THE FUTURE IS OURS TO MAKE’s quarterly review of significant recordings

From Babyfxce’s E’s glassy beats to Robyn’s transcendence to Morrissey’s dismal rigidity — a delightful & illuminating 100 (!) capsule reviews from @chrisrichards.bsky.social in THE FUTURE IS OURS TO MAKE:

CBS News will end radio service as Weiss struggles to right ship The troubled network is eliminating its century-old CBS News Radio division and laying off more staff.

Breaking news: CBS News will end its nearly century-old radio service, CBS News Radio, and cut more jobs amid a rocky turnaround effort under its new top editor, Bari Weiss.

Pentagon seeks more than $200 billion in budget request for Iran war That figure would far surpass the costs of the U.S. airstrike campaign to date and aims to boost production of critical weapons depleted in the conflict, people familiar with the matter said.

SCOOP: The Pentagon asked the White House today for more than *$200 billion* for Iran war supplemental, sources say

Some in WH think Congress won't support b/c it's so big

Will tee up giant battle in Congress

My last story for WaPo:

www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Every grown-up gets a trophy You, an adult, don’t have to like the music of ‘KPop Demon Hunters’

"Americans allowed themselves to be infantilized by their government—which is why we now find ourselves surrounded by Disney adults...Our Star Wars became forever wars. With Hegseth, even the real war...is being propagandized as videogame kidstuff." thefutureisourstomake.substack.com/p/every-grow...

New Interview: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

My Year as a Degenerate Sports Gambler Practically overnight, America made wagering on a game as frictionless as checking the weather. I was determined to understand the consequences—for my country, and for myself.

Ubiquitously advertised betting available through the computer you carry in your pocket via apps designed and managed by ruthlessly efficient data scientists and programmers seems like a mistake. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

I will not lie I will not lie I will not lie Listening to — and looking at — a Fugazi album that didn’t exist

@chrisrichards.bsky.social on the sound and feel of Fugazi's long scrapped/newly released "Albini Sessions":

"The central miracle of 'In on the Killtaker' is that it’s this crushingly severe album that managed to achieve escape velocity. With Albini, they were still feeling out the gravity."

"LLMs simply don't make mistakes like the ones you see here in this passage from Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy" is jokerizing

I Recognize the Look on Liam Ramos’s Face The 5-year-old was briefly held at Dilley, where families are sent after ICE roundups.

"Detained children experience more stress than their bodies can handle, child-welfare experts told me, and are profoundly destabilized by seeing their parents’ fear and helplessness."

An essential report from @caitlindickerson.bsky.social on what's happening to children inside Dilley. Gift link:

goodnight and good luck to all my fellow parents of small children who are extremely, wildly, irrepressibly still awake

This is a fantastic review essay. Just placed a library hold

'those movies where people watch a video because it's supposed to make you die in a week are unrealistic' I say as I watch another person take a Chotiner phone call

Our New Iran Correspondent | The New York Times Company

Amazing hire for @nytimes.com (and a world-class fumble for the Post) - @yjtorbati.bsky.social is everything a journalist should be. So thrilled to keep reading her work www.nytco.com/press/our-ne...

Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post offering “financial runway." This month it gutted its newsroom—more than 300 layoffs.

Whatever you think of legacy news, the hard data shows us that newspaper closures hurt Americans. Here's how: 🧵

Trump, seeking executive power over elections, is urged to declare emergency Activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a draft executive order that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting.

"Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution assigns power to regulate elections to state legislatures and Congress, with no role for the president."

Trump aides struggle with how to spend $500 billion more on military Some senior officials resisted the decision to approve the major military spending increase, sources say.

Breaking news: Trump officials have struggled to figure out how to increase military spending by $500 billion.

The White House budget chief was among those who objected to the defense secretary’s plan to increase military spending by roughly 50 percent.

Trauma persists, especially in little children who are in the midst of such critical and formative stages of development.

1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken.

Hundreds of kids are still detained.

We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵

Washington Post C.E.O. Will Lewis Steps Down After Stormy Tenure

“I’m glad Will Lewis has been fired. I wish it had happened before he fired all my friends.”
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/07/t...

Goodbye from "Post Reports" - The Washington Post A heartfelt thanks to our listeners from "Post Reports" host Martine Powers, and the rest of the team who made this show happen.

The team behind Post Reports is utterly brilliant, truly just magnificent. I've absolutely loved working with them, and I am so stunned and heartbroken to see this important, illuminating work go dark. Please listen to their farewell. Please hire them. www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/pos...

Will Lewis was too busy to join the call to tell his staff he’s destroying the @washingtonpost sports department yesterday … but he did have time to walk the red carpet at NFL Honors here in San Francisco today. Amazing.

. @nickijhabvala.bsky.social: "Will Lewis was too busy to join the call to tell his staff he’s destroying the @washingtonpost.com sports department yesterday … but he did have time to walk the red carpet at NFL Honors here in San Francisco today. Amazing."

You Can’t Kill Swagger My old corner of The Washington Post raised some of the best journalists in the business.

Yesterday, hundreds of those people were swept out, because of the charlatans in charge. Hundreds remain, carrying on the work.

I wish Americans could really see & feel what it's like in a newsroom. The care. The effort. @sallyjenx.bsky.social captures it here: www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

A good shot at the facts — Mr. Dan Zak Ten years ago today I first reported for work at The Washington Post. Deep Throat had come out a couple days earlier. I might have been wearing a tie. My pants sure as shit didn't fit.

I left The Washington Post last year, but wrote my love letter in the middle of my time there, in 2015.

Everything changed, over my 1st decade there. Then everything changed again, in the decade after this was written. But there were 2 constants: the work & the people. www.mrdanzak.com/blog/10years