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365 Days in the Life of Evan Gershkovich Peter Savodnik

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Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich looks out from a defendants’ cage at the Moscow City Court last month. This Friday marks one year behind bars for him. (Photo by Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images)

On the morning of March 29, 2023—one year ago this Friday—Simon Brooks woke up to 18 missed calls and a slew of text messages. “The texts were like, ‘Is this real?’ ” Brooks told me, “and I immediately knew, and I was like, ‘Dude, Evan.’ ”

He meant his best friend, Evan Gershkovich, who had roomed with Brooks at Bowdoin College in Maine, moved to Russia, became a Wall Street Journal reporter, and was supposed to be Brooks’s best man at his upcoming wedding.

The same Evan Gershkovich, now 32, who had been arrested a few hours earlier in Russia. 

“I remember being like, ‘Okay, this is a misunderstanding,’ ” said Brooks, who runs a media company in Los Angeles called Phony Texts. “Everyone else was in panic mode. I was just like, ‘There’s no way. It’s either a publicity stunt, or they’re trying to send a message, and this is going to be resolved quickly,’ and then I got in contact with his mom, and that’s when I realized, Okay, this might be a process.”

Brooks recalled that, at his wedding at a ranch in Santa Barbara a few months after his friend’s arrest, “everyone kind of talked about Evan. It was very hard.”

Gershkovich, who was based at the Journal’s Moscow bureau, had committed the crime of reporting on a regime that does not care for the free press or for reporters. While he was on a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg—which is just over 1,000 miles east of Moscow, straddling the border between Europe and Asia—he was arrested by agents working for the Federal Security Service, or FSB. 

The next day, Gershkovich was seen leaving a Moscow courthouse. He was charged with espionage. Russian officials said that Gershkovich, “acting on the instructions of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.” 

As the son of Russian Jews who had fled the Soviet Union in the late 1970s, Gershkovich was ideally suited to report on post–Soviet Russia: He spoke good Russian, and he had a strong, intuitive grasp of Russian culture and politics. But he also had the thoughtfulness and perspective of the outsider. His parents, both computer programmers, had met in New York before moving to Princeton, New Jersey. His first job in newspapering was at The New York Times—as an assistant to the public editor, Margaret Sullivan. This led to a job at The Moscow Times and ultimately the Journal.

In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, and that made reporting on Russia, especially as a correspondent from an American outlet, more complicated. Most reporters left the country; everyone who continued reporting there did so with the understanding that the FSB was watching them more closely than ever. But Gershkovich kept returning to the country, covering the place that his parents had left, that felt like a part of him. 

“He felt this deep sense of responsibility as one of the few people who could report the facts on the ground in a deep and accurate way,” said Sam Silverman, another close college friend of Gershkovich, who lives in New York City.

In March 2023, Gershkovich traveled to Yekaterinburg to look into a story about the Wagner mercenary group that had taken part in hostilities in Ukraine, and he wanted to interview people at a tank factory in the city. He was arrested at a steakhouse, where he’d apparently gone for a late lunch.

Since then, Gershkovich has been in purgatory, awaiting trial. If he is found guilty, he could spend the next 20 years in prison. 

Last month, Russian president Vladimir Putin, in an interview with right-wing media personality Tucker Carlson, said of Gershkovich, “He was caught red-handed when he was secretly getting classified information”—offering zero evidence to support that. 

The State Department has repeatedly dismissed this charge. So has the Journal.

Putin added that he’d like to see Gershkovich released. “I do not rule out that the person you refer to, Mr. Gershkovich, may return to his motherland. By the end of the day, it does not make any sense to keep him in prison in Russia.”

But on Tuesday, Russian authorities extended Gershkovich’s detention until at least June 30, though no trial date has been set. Once again, just as every time he has appeared in court, Gershkovich was confined to a glass box where defendants are paraded in front of the cameras and court officials. He smiled a bit, but he looked pale and trapped—not unlike Alexei Navalny, who had appeared so many times in his own glass box before his death in prison last month.

Russians are fond of talking about how they abolished the death penalty in the nineties, as if this makes them morally superior to the Americans. But the thing is, life in a Russian prison is death in slow motion.

For now, the question is: What do the Russians want in exchange for Gershkovich? And is the Biden administration willing to give that up?

Emma Tucker, the Journal’s editor in chief, said in a recent joint interview with Gershkovich’s parents on ABC, “Evan will be released,” but explained that securing his release amounted to a complex game of chess. “You move one piece and you edge towards an end game, and then another piece moves and you take a backward step,” Tucker said. “It’s complicated to get there. There are a lot of different people and governments involved.”

Gershkovich’s parents, Ella and Mikhail, in the same interview, looked the way you might expect: scared, rigid, careful not to say the wrong thing. “We were happy that both governments have expressed willingness to negotiate,” Mikhail said, when asked what he thought of Putin’s comments about his son during his interview with Carlson. “We are confident they’re doing everything they can, and we want them to continue to do that.”

Sam Silverman said the last time he saw Gershkovich, in August 2022, the reporter had just flown in from Moscow and was planning to visit his family in New Jersey. 

“He was cognizant of some of the dangers he was in,” said Silverman, who runs a tourism company called BagelUp. “But this we never expected. He said, ‘You know, I’ve got an American passport, I’m an accredited journalist—nothing is going to happen to me.”

At the time, Brittney Griner, the WNBA star, was being held by the Russians for drug trafficking after she carried less than one gram of hash oil into the country. But Gershkovich was undeterred. After all, the last time an American journalist had been detained in Russia was in 1986—before the Soviet collapse. And that American reporter was released in a prisoner swap after just 20 days inside. 

But also, Gershkovich was unafraid of the unknown, said Michael Van Itallie, who met the reporter when they played on the same kids’ soccer team, coached by Gershkovich’s dad. After college, Van Itallie said, Gershkovich traveled in Asia, and he was in Nepal during the 2015 earthquake. (He wrote a great essay about that experience for The Bowdoin Orient.) 

Van Itallie recalled that, on one of his trips home while working at the Journal, Gershkovich got frustrated with his friends for voicing what he thought were stereotypical views of Russians and Russia—that they were cold and distant, that it was a scary place.

“ ‘You guys don’t get it,’ ” Van Itallie recalled Gershkovich saying. “ ‘This is a really cool culture.’ He really loved it there. He really loved his life there.”

Van Itallie added: “I think a lot of us were assuming it was a temporary thing, but he didn’t really see it that way. He really wanted to stay. I remember him saying, ‘I really feel like this is a great place for me to be.’ ”

Peter Savodnik is a writer and editor for The Free Press. He was based in Moscow from 2006 to 2008, and in Minsk in 2010, where he reported for GQ, The Atlantic, Wired, and other outlets. Read his Free Press piece “Why Is the American Right Pandering to Putin?” and follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @petersavodnik.

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Trump maintains funding freeze at NIH, defying court order Judd Legum

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Exterior view of the main historic building (Building 1) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The Trump administration is still prohibiting National Institutes of Health (NIH) staff from issuing virtually all grant funding, an NIH official tells Popular Information. The ongoing funding freeze is also reflected in internal correspondence reviewed by Popular Information and was reiterated to staff in a meeting on Monday. The funding freeze at NIH violates two federal court injunctions, two legal experts said.

The funding freeze at NIH puts all of the research the agency funds at risk. As the primary funder of biomedical research in the United States, NIH-funded research includes everything from cancer treatments to heart disease prevention to stroke interventions.

On January 27, the Trump administration, through the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), issued a memo requiring federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance,” including “grants and loans” beginning at 5 PM on January 28. The purpose of the spending freeze was to ensure compliance with President Trump’s Executive Orders prohibiting funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion, or “DEI,” and “woke gender ideology.”

The Trump administration quickly faced two federal lawsuits, one filed by the National Council of Nonprofits and another filed by 22 states. On January 28, a judge in the National Council of Nonprofits case issued an administrative stay preventing the funding freeze from going into effect. In an attempt to head off the litigation, the OMB rescinded the memo on January 29. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, however, posted on X that the memo was only rescinded to evade the court’s order and the “federal funding freeze” was not rescinded and would be “rigorously implemented.”

As a result of the post, plaintiffs in both cases pushed for the federal court to issue a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) prohibiting the Trump administration from implementing the funding freeze.

On January 31, the federal judge overseeing the case brought by 22 states issued a TRO. The Trump administration is “restrained and prohibited from reissuing, adopting, implementing, or otherwise giving effect to the OMB Directive under any other name or title or through any other Defendants (or agency supervised, administered, or controlled by any Defendant), such as the continued implementation identified by the White House Press Secretary’s statement of January 29, 2025,” according to the TRO.

On February 3, the federal judge overseeing the case brought by the National Council of Nonprofits also issued a TRO. This TRO states that “Defendants are enjoined from implementing, giving effect to, or reinstating under a different name the directives in OMB Memorandum M-25-13 with respect to the disbursement of Federal funds under all open awards.”

Despite both of these injunctions, NIH staff was prohibited from issuing virtually any grant funding — including funding for multi-year grants that have already been approved and partially disbursed. According to internal NIH email correspondence, the agency leadership said that the freeze was in place to ensure the grants were compliant with Trump’s executive orders. This was the precise rationale stated in the OMB memo.

Popular Information is an independent newsletter dedicated to accountability journalism since 2018. It is made possible by readers who upgrade to a paid subscription.

On February 10, NIH canceled all Federal Advisory Committee meetings where new grants are approved. This notice was posted to the NIH Employee Intranet:

Between February 3, 2024, and February 10, 2024, the NIH issued 513 grant awards totaling $218,273,053. Between February 3 and February 10 this year, the NIH issued just 11 grant awards totaling $4,981,089. In other words, since the courts ordered a full resumption in grant funding, the agency approved a handful of grants accounting for 2.2% of its typical volume. An NIH official says a small number of grants are being approved by NIH leadership, but nearly all grants remain frozen.

David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and an expert on administrative law, told Popular Information that the Trump administration is “in contempt of court” and the continued funding freeze at NIH is “completely unlawful.”

Further, Super said, the law requires “the prompt expenditure of appropriated funds” and “federal officials take oaths to uphold the Constitution of the United States, not the individual who happens to be president at a particular moment, and they must uphold those laws whether or not consistent with the wishes or executive orders issued by the president.” Super noted that the U.S. Code says that the “[t]he Director of NIH shall expand, intensify, and coordinate research and other activities of the National Institutes of Health with respect to autoimmune diseases.” Withholding appropriated grant funding is inconsistent with this legal obligation.

Samuel Bagenstos, a law professor at the University of Michigan with a specialty in governance issues, agreed. Bagenstos told Popular Information that both judges were “very clear” about the scope of the TROs and that the NIH is violating both orders.

The federal judge overseeing the case brought by 22 states found that the Trump administration had not fully complied with the January 31 order. The judge issued a new order directing the Trump administration to “immediately end any federal funding pause.” According to an NIH source, no action was taken in response to the new order.


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A $4 billion funding cut

Alongside the funding freeze, the Trump administration announced Friday that it would drastically cut its NIH grants to research institutions in order to save an estimated $4 billion.

When the NIH awards a grant to a university, part of that funding directly funds a research project, and part of it goes to the overhead costs that support the research, such as electricity, building maintenance, and personnel. In the past, the indirect funding tacked on to NIH grants has been around 30% of the grant for direct research funding on average, with some universities getting over 60%.

Now, the NIH says it will slash the rate for indirect funding to a maximum of 15% of the grant for direct research costs — a move that has sparked intense backlash at research institutions across the country.

Researchers and university officials note that overhead costs are essential to performing research. Many institutions rely on government funding for indirect research costs since many private grants cover a much smaller portion of those costs. In its announcement, the NIH pointed to the massive endowments of Harvard and Yale (around $50 billion and $40 billion, respectively), implying that universities could simply draw from their endowments to cover the sudden gap in funding. But most universities have endowments far smaller than those of Harvard and Yale and are restricted in how they can use those funds.

A 2022 report by the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing group behind Project 2025, argues that indirect funding linked to NIH grants is used by elite universities to hire DEI employees. The release announcing the indirect funding cap references the Heritage Foundation study, WIRED reports.

The cuts will be a devastating setback for biomedical research in the U.S. Jeffrey Flier, the former dean of Harvard Medical School, posted on X that “a sane government would never do this.”

Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), the ranking Democrat on the Senate appropriations committee, has called the 15% limit “illegal” since a law was passed last year prohibiting the NIH from changing the system it uses to distribute funds for indirect expenses. On Monday, 22 states filed a new lawsuit the Trump administration to block the cuts, saying that “cutting-edge work to cure and treat human disease will grind to a halt.” A few hours after the lawsuit was filed a federal judge issued an injunction blocking the new policy.

 

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Trump: Free the Hostages or ‘All Hell Will Break Out.’ Plus… River Page

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It’s Tuesday, February 11. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Coming up: Kanye West and the case for conservatorships, Kat Rosenfield on what comes after cancel culture, and the lessons from a phony frenzy over the government’s Politico subscriptions.

But first: Trump’s ultimatum to Hamas—and British historian Andrew Roberts on the precedents for the president’s Gaza proposal.

How much longer will the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas hold? To listen to Donald Trump, the answer is no later than Saturday—unless all of the remaining hostages are released. Trump issued his ultimatum while taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office on Monday afternoon.

“If they’re not returned—all of them, not in drips and drabs. . . Saturday at 12 o’clock,” said Trump. “After that, I would say all hell is going to break out.”

Earlier Monday, Hamas announced it was suspending the release of more hostages and accused Israel of breaking the ceasefire deal. Israel’s defense minister called the move an “outright violation of the ceasefire,” and said he had ordered the IDF to “prepare at the highest level of alert for any possible scenario in Gaza.” In other words, the ceasefire was already looking shaky before Trump opened his mouth. Then he upped the ante.

It’s the second time in a week that Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks on the conflict have grabbed headlines. Last Tuesday, it was his plan to take over Gaza and rebuild it. Over the weekend, Trump revisited the controversial idea, saying that Gazans would not have the right to return to the Strip once it has been rebuilt.

The response to this plan hasn’t exactly been positive. Everyone from the MAGA base to Israel’s Arab neighbors have derided it.

British historian and Churchill biographer Andrew Roberts sees it a little differently. Trump, he argues, is suggesting only the historical norm. As he puts it: “Again and again in the past, peoples who unleash unprovoked aggressive wars against their neighbors and are then defeated lose either their government or their sovereignty, or both.”

Read Andrew Roberts: “The Historical Case for Trump’s Gaza Plan.”

Cancel Culture Is Over. What’s Next?

Last week, Marko Elez, a DOGE staffer, resigned after The Wall Street Journal revealed that the 25-year-old had made a series of racist comments under a pseudonym on X, including “Normalize Indian hate,” and “I was racist before it was cool.” He also called on the United States to implement “eugenic immigration policy.”

Then Musk posted a poll on—where else?—X, asking if he should rehire Elez. When the online masses said yes—and J.D. Vance backed Elez’s return—Elon did just that. It’s the latest sign that cancel culture is over. But what is replacing it? That’s the subject of today’s column by Kat Rosenfield, who explains how we have lurched from one extreme to another. That’s fine, writes Kat, “if you want to live in a world where the discourse is permanently dominated by shrieking authoritarians on one side and smirking edgelords on the other.”

But what if you don’t?

Read Kat’s piece, “DOGE and the Backlash to the Backlash.”

Beware the Internet Mob—on USAID and Everything Else

Last week, a scandal broke—“the biggest in media history,” according to popular conservative activist Benny Johnson. DOGE had opened the books on USAID and cut off aid to Politico, the popular D.C. news site. Now that their ill-gotten taxpayer gains were gone, the news site couldn’t meet payroll. Conservative media, Elon Musk, and even Trump jumped on the story, with the president repeating the “biggest scandal” line.

But, as reporter Isaac Saul writes today in The Free Press, it wasn’t a scandal at all. Various government employees had purchased a product called Politico Pro and expensed it to their respective agencies. Someone was wrong on the internet? What’s new? Well, Isaac says the story is a cautionary tale that epitomizes everything that is wrong with our current media environment. Read why here.

Speaking of the media, yesterday, just hours after we asked PBS about an alleged plan to hide its DEI staffers from Trump’s executive order, the network scrapped its DEI division. Read Josh Code’s exclusive report here.

Kanye Needs a Conservatorship

Just a week after trotting his clearly uncomfortable wife onto the Grammy’s red carpet in a completely see-through dress, rapper Kanye West went on an unhinged antisemitic online posting spree. How bad? He started by declaring himself a Nazi and posting a series of inflammatory messages about Jews and women (as well as a few hardcore porn videos). A few lowlights: “Hitler was sooooo fresh,” and “JEWS WERE BETTER AS SLAVES YOU HAVE TO PUT YOUR JEWS IN THEIR PLACE AND MAKE THEM INTO YOUR SLAVES.”

It wasn’t the first time this has happened: In 2022, West went on several similar rampages. He vowed to go “death con [sic] 3 on Jewish people,” and implied that fellow rapper Diddy (currently in jail awaiting trial on racketeering and sex trafficking charges) is controlled by a Jewish cabal. Lest we forget, he also made a bizarre appearance on Infowars where he proclaimed his admiration for Hitler and performed a skit with a butterfly net called “Netanyahu” that was so unhinged even Alex Jones was visibly uncomfortable.

Kanye’s latest tirade ended with the deactivation of his X account—it’s not clear whether he deactivated the account himself or was booted off the platform. But even in his absence, he’s still trolling: During the Super Bowl he ran a bizarre ad, filmed at his dentist’s office, encouraging viewers to visit his website Yeezy.com. Sunday, there were numerous products on the site, including shoes and CDs, but today, there is only one: A $20 swastika T-shirt. Given that—and everything else—it’s hard to have sympathy for Kanye. But we should. Take away the fame and money and what you have is a crazy person lashing out on a bus. America’s rambling bus stop schizos deserve help, and that includes Kanye. It’s time for a conservatorship.

I suspect some people will be angry with me for suggesting this. Most Americans who know the word conservatorship were probably introduced to it via the “Free Britney” campaign. That’s Britney as in Britney Spears, the 2000s pop star behind early aughts classics like “. . . Baby One More Time” and “Toxic.” Her story goes something like this: Britney was a sweet Southern girl who was plunged into the spotlight by her domineering stage parents and broken by paparazzi. In 2007, as her painful divorce played out in the tabloids, Britney lost it and shaved her head before attacking a paparazzo with an umbrella. A year later, she was placed under a court-ordered conservatorship that gave her father and lawyer control over her financial and personal affairs. The arrangement was extreme: Britney would later compare her situation to slavery. She claims she was forced to work, forcibly medicated, and had no control over her personal life, including her finances.

After a drawn-out court battle, she was “freed” in November 2021. But since then her behavior has repeatedly worried her fans. After her short-lived marriage to a significantly younger man, a fitness instructor–slash-actor-slash-model named Sam Asghari, Britney began a turbulent relationship with her ex-con handyman, which ended in a violent altercation that saw police and paramedics involved. Online, Britney has posted numerous bizarre rants—including one where she doesn’t appear to know her own age—and videos where she dances with knives, and she has repeatedly posted nude photos of herself, something that reportedly strained her relationship with her two teenage sons, who live with their father.

Clearly, her mental break in 2007 wasn’t a one-time thing. Combined with her recent activity, it raises the question: Shouldn’t someone watch out for her? And would Kanye benefit from the same oversight?

Sure, conservators’ power should be limited, and there should be greater oversight in place to ensure that people aren’t being exploited. Britney’s story was terrible, but as is often the case with mental health—see mass deinstitutionalization, which has ballooned the prison population—the response has been to decry conservatorship as an institution instead of taking the steps needed to reform it. Because like it or not, some people are too mentally ill to be left in complete control of their own lives.

That would appear to include Kanye. He’s completely wrecked his own public image by becoming the most famous antisemite in America, and his behavior toward his wife Bianca Censori certainly seems abusive: Kanye repeatedly trots her out naked in public in what appears to be some kind of bizarre psychosexual humiliation ritual. This is not a sane person. At a certain point, the mentally ill have already lost their autonomy to whatever disease ails them. Allowing that to continue spinning out, unmitigated, is crueler than placing someone under a conservatorship, particularly if our leaders finally stand up and deliver the reforms the system so desperately needs.

Kanye needs help. He needs supervision. Kanye needs to be protected from Kanye.

New York City mayor Eric Adams at a press conference at City Hall on December 12, 2024, in New York. (Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images)
  • A group of investors led by Elon Musk submitted an unsolicited offer of $97.4 billion to buy OpenAI, Sam Altman’s AI venture that produced ChatGPT. The move complicated both Altman’s plans to turn OpenAI into a for-profit company (it was first founded as a charity) and his ongoing legal battles with Musk. In a statement reminiscent of his takeover of Twitter, Musk said, “It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was. We will make sure that happens.” Altman responded on X, saying “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”

  • Trump signed an order imposing 25 percent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports on Monday. The move came just one week after the president promised to suspend tariffs on Mexico and Canada—yet Canada is the largest supplier of steel and a major supplier of aluminum to the U.S., and will face the brunt of Trump’s order. Trump has also started to threaten additional countries with reciprocal tariffs, saying, “Very simply, if they charge us, we charge them.” The man just loves tariffs. No wonder, as this Wall Street Journal headline reports, “For CEOs and Bankers, the Trump Euphoria Is Fading Fast.”

  • A federal judge blocked Trump’s attempts to reduce health research grant funding Monday. It is the latest fight in the battle brewing between the administration and the courts. J.D. Vance retorted that “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” and Musk retweeted a post on X that stated “Either the Supreme Court comes in and reigns [sic] these judges in or we don’t actually have real elections.” Separation of powers, kiddos.

  • Yesterday, the Justice Department told federal prosecutors to drop corruption charges against New York mayor Eric Adams, who was accused of accepting illegal gifts from Turkish nationals and at least one Turkish government official. The gifts allegedly bought the Turks fast-track approval for a new consulate in Manhattan, despite safety concerns, as well as Adams’ silence on the Armenian genocide. The charges seem to have been dropped after Adams’ monthslong charm offensive with Trump. Whether or not the mayor broke the law, he sure knows how to network!

  • Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, took an HIV test at 10 Downing Street in order to encourage others to do the same. Starmer said he was “surprised” to discover that he is “the first prime minister to have done this.” HIV is mostly transmitted through unsafe sex, with gay and bisexual men at greatest risk, or by sharing needles while injecting drugs. Presumably Starmer, who has been married to the same woman since 2007, has had next to no exposure to the disease, but who knows? Maybe the secret lives of stodgy British politicians are more exciting than we think.

  • Indian police shut down Grammy Award–winning singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran’s street performance in Bengaluru on Sunday. “Even global stars must follow local rules—no permit, no performance!” said a local MP who was concerned about traffic congestion. Finally, someone has put a stop to him. We’ve dealt with the hokey nonsense long enough!

  • Can someone please explain why they still call it The City of Brotherly Love? After the Philadelphia Eagles crushed the Kansas City Chiefs 40–22 in Sunday’s Super Bowl, Philly fans made like BLM protesters in 2020. Nearly 50 revelers were arrested, four sanitation trucks were vandalized (sanitation trucks?), and a bonfire was lit at a downtown intersection. “The Super Bowl victory celebrations will continue on Friday, when the city hosts the parade,” said ABC News. A word to our Philly readers: Youse guys stay safe out der, go birds.

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Tulsi Gabbard, Kanye West, and Mar-a-Gaza Bari Weiss

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It’s Trump’s third week in office and there is no shortage of news to report. Last week, RFK Jr., Kash Patel, and Tulsi Gabbard advanced in their congressional confirmation hearings for Health and Human Services secretary, FBI director, and Director of National Intelligence, and criticisms of Gabbard resurfaced over her meeting with former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in 2017, and over her defense of Edward Snowden—who she refused to call a traitor.

Meanwhile, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the United States, making him the first foreign leader invited to the new Trump White House. At a press conference with President Trump, he looked like the dog that caught the car when Trump announced that the U.S. would take control of Gaza, and that the 1.7 million people living there would be resettled elsewhere. 

Trump also issued an executive order imposing a 90-day pause on foreign aid programs, which totaled around $70 billion in 2023. Meanwhile, Kanye has gone nuts again; Trump backed DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts and said Elon would be heading to the Pentagon next, causing shares of defense stocks like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to tumble; and the vibe shift came for the Super Bowl. 

To unpack it all today is Newsweek opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon and political fundraising powerhouse Brianna Wu.

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