#thewashingtonpost — Public Fediverse posts

https://www.europesays.com/people/217632/ Ranking the Republican 2028 contenders #Cruz #MarcoRubio #rubio #state #TheWashingtonPost #Trump #TrumpJr #TrumpOrganizationInc #Vance

‘It will still take years’: Ted Cruz acknowledges that Trump’s Venezuela oil deal won’t lead to immediate gas savings

Ted Cruz has a message for Americans hoping for cheaper gas following President Donald Trump’s deal with Venezuela:…
#Conflict #Conflicts #War #American #Americans #CharlieNeibergall #Cruz #Gallup #tedcruz #TheWashingtonPost #U.S. #Venezuela
https://www.europesays.com/3235269/

https://www.europesays.com/iran/278398/ Under pressure, Iran lashes out and ramps up rhetoric #DonaldTrump #Dubai #GulfInternationalForum #Iran #Iran"hard" #Iran’s #iranian #TheWashingtonPost #thursday #trump #US

https://www.europesays.com/iran/277956/ Iran war: Why US midterms could be a pivotal moment #Iran #TheWashingtonPost #trump #US #Washington

https://www.europesays.com/people/214093/ Eric Trump Proudly Shows off His New Commemorative Passport with Dad Donald Trump’s Face on It: ‘I Absolutely Love It’ #250th #Donald #DonaldTrump #Eric #EricTrump #TheDepartmentOfTheInterior #TheWashingtonPost #Trump

Washington Post Publisher and CEO Will Lewis Steps Down Following Layoffs
#Variety #News #TheWashingtonPost #WillLewis

https://variety.com/2026/biz/news/will-lewis-washington-post-ceo-1236655923/

Washington Post Publisher Will Lewis Resigns After Jeff Bezos-Owned Media Outlet Laid Off 1/3 Of Staff; Jeff D’Onofrio To Serve As Acting CEO
#News #Politics #ElectionLine #JeffBezos #TheWashingtonPost #WillLewis

https://deadline.com/2026/02/washington-post-publisher-resigns-will-lewis-1236712143/

A National Newspaper Falls — and Democracy Feels It

Why the Dismantling of The Washington Post Is a National Warning

By DrWeb, assisted by AI. All content, images edited and approved. Some images are also public domain, as noted in the captions.

On February 4, 2026, the American people lost a vital organ of their democracy. It didn’t happen in a courtroom or through a legislative act; it happened on a Zoom call.

When Executive Editor Matt Murray and CEO Will Lewis announced the termination of over 300 journalists—one-third of a newsroom that once stood as the world’s watchdog—they used the bloodless language of corporate “restructuring.” They spoke of search engine algorithms, the rise of Generative AI, and the “disappointing realities” of the media market. But we must see through the fog. This was not a business adjustment; it was a surrender.

The Washington Post has, for over 150 years, been a “living laboratory” of modern journalism. It was the place where the impossible stories were told, where “Darkness” was fought with a relentless, expensive, and often dangerous pursuit of the truth. By gutting the foreign desks and local Metro coverage, leadership has essentially declared that the world—and the citizens of the nation’s capital—no longer deserve to be seen.

II. A Legacy Forged in Fire: Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

To understand the depth of this betrayal, one must remember what the Washington Post used to be. In 1971, the paper faced a choice that would define the First Amendment for a generation. When the Nixon administration secured an injunction against the New York Times to stop the publication of the Pentagon Papers, it was Katherine Graham and Ben Bradlee who stepped into the breach.

They knew that publishing those top-secret documents—which proved the government had systematically lied about the Vietnam War—could lead to criminal charges or the financial ruin of the paper. They did it anyway. They understood that the press’s duty is to the governed, not the governors. That Post saved this country by exposing the “GIGO (Garbage in, Garbage out” of the military-industrial complex. It proved that a newsroom, armed with the truth and the courage to print it, could stop a war machine. Today, that same newsroom is being hollowed out by a billionaire who appears more concerned with federal contracts than with the legacy of Graham.

III. The Specter of Anticipatory Obedience

The layoffs of 2026 are the completion of a bow toward power that began in October 2024. When Jeff Bezos spiked the Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, he was signaling a pivot toward compliance.

As his other companies —Amazon and Blue Origin— depend on massive federal contracts, the Post’s editorial independence has become a “rounding error” on a billionaire’s balance sheet. We are seeing a return to the dark days of “anticipatory obedience,” where the press silences itself to avoid the wrath of a vengeful administration. When the reporter covering Amazon itself is among the first to be fired, the watchdog is no longer guarding the public; it is guarding the owner.

IV. The Human Cost: Fired in a War Zone

The cruelty of these layoffs is exemplified by the case of Lizzie Johnson. A dedicated Ukraine correspondent, Johnson was notified of her layoff while on the ground in a war zone—working without heat or power in sub-zero temperatures to bring the reality of the Russian invasion to American doorsteps. To fire a journalist while they are literally under fire is the ultimate indictment of modern corporate “news.” By erasing the entire Middle East roster, the Post is blinding the American public to global realities at a moment when awareness is a matter of national survival.

V. What Can We Do?

My small site, a small but growing blog, remains (for now) a small, independent voice, but we are not silent, nor will we be. The death of the Post as we knew it means the burden of truth-seeking falls back onto We the People, and other media, and the resources they can use to report news and facts and fact-checking.

• Follow the Outcasts: Support the 300+ journalists who still have the truth but have lost their platform. [See below for the listings we have already of fired staff.]
• Reject the “New” Post: If a “Doorway” to truth is corrupted by billionaire interests, and with a man with real authoritarian impulses on a hair trigger, it is no longer a doorway; it is a wall. For me, the Post now has DO NOT ENTER signs.
• Fund Independent Journalism: Our American Democratic Republic depends on newsrooms that are not beholden to corporate authorities. Find voices that sound the missing pieces again, loud as we can.

Names and Work Areas for the Post Wednesday Massacre

While the Washington Post has not released a formal master list of the 300+ employees affected by the February 4, 2026 layoffs, many journalists and editors have confirmed their departures publicly. Source of this information: Google’s Gemini.

Below is a compiled listing of names and roles identified through newsroom reports and public statements as of today, February 5, 2026.

International & Foreign Desks

The entire Middle East team and several major foreign bureaus were reportedly eliminated.

Technology & Corporate Coverage

These cuts notably included reporters covering Jeff Bezos’s own company, Amazon.

Metro & Local Coverage (D.C., MD, VA)

The Metro desk was reduced from over 40 staffers to approximately 12.

Specialty Desks (Sports, Books, Culture)

The Sports and Books sections were shuttered as standalone departments.

Editor’s Note: Contact me via the About Page to remove your name or information from this listing.

Tactical Notes

• The “AI Strategy”: Executive Editor Matt Murray explicitly cited AI-generated content and declining search traffic as the primary reasons for this “strategic reset.”
• The Sports Desk Legacy: The shuttering of the High School Sports operation ends a department that had run for over 100 years.
• Ideological Critique: Several departing reporters, including Emmanuel Felton, have publicly challenged the “financial” necessity of the move, characterizing it instead as an ideological shift.

Multimedia Evidence

The Defense of Silence: Watch Jeff Bezos’s direct response to the endorsement crisis that served as the harbinger for this dismantling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=007rGogqDNo

[WATCH] Jeff Bezos defends the Washington Post’s decision

The Fourth Estate (Our Media) Responded as well.. they see what is being done to a legacy national newspaper, over politics and money. It did not fail in its mission. It was no longer allowed to be the Post.
Below is a PDF snapshot of Google News coverage (late night, 2/4/26). You can see the headlines and the sources and the reactions. –DrWeb

Bibliography (MLA Style)

• Baron, Martin. 28 Oct. 2024. “Marty Baron, former Washington Post editor, slams paper’s non-endorsement.” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piGipOLJc2g.
• Folkenflik, David. 28 Oct. 2024. “The Washington Post bleeds subscriptions as Bezos responds to endorsement criticism.” NPR, https://www.npr.org/2024/10/28/nx-s1-5168449/washington-post-subscriptions-cancel-jeff-bezos-endorsement.
• Kagan, Robert. 25 Oct. 2024. “Washington Post editor-at-large resigns over Bezos’ decision. He explains why.” CNN, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIYdQS9Plw0.
• Serna, Alene. 26 Oct. 2024. “Washington Post stirs up fury in liberal America over neutral election stance.” The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/oct/26/washington-post-stirs-up-fury-in-liberal-america-over-neutral-election-stance.

SEE ALSO: Additional Deep-Dive Sources

• Columbia Journalism Review. 15 May 2023. “Journalism’s Essential Value: Objectivity and Independence.” CJR, https://www.cjr.org/special_report/ag-sulzberger-new-york-times-journalisms-essential-value-objectivity-independence.php.
• Nieman Journalism Lab. 31 Dec. 2025. “How Jeff Bezos used to talk about The Washington Post, and what’s changed.” Nieman Lab, https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/something-i-will-be-most-proud-of-when-im-90-how-jeff-bezos-used-to-talk-about-the-washington-post-and-whats-changed/.
• Sullivan, Margaret. 4 Sept. 2025. “Times Change, and So Can Ethics.” Columbia Journalism Review, https://www.cjr.org/analysis/times-change-and-so-can-journalism-ethics.php.
• Tani, Max. 28 Oct. 2024. “Four Washington Post opinion staffers have now resigned their roles over the non-endorsement controversy.” Semafor via Nieman Lab, https://www.niemanlab.org/reading/four-washington-post-opinion-staffers-have-now-resigned-their-roles-over-the-non-endorsement-controversy/.

Additional Historical Links

• Post History: Pentagon Papers & Watergate
• Folkenflik: The Metro Desk Bloodbath
• O’Donovan: Covering Amazon vs. Bezos
• Parker: The Murder of the Cairo Bureau
• Post Guild Union Statement
• Johnson: Fired in a War Zone
• Sullivan: Will Bezos Destroy the Post?
• Western Media’s Global Retreat
• Tani: Shuttering the Sports Section
• Historical Timeline of The Post

How pets healed us this year – The Washington Post

Each week, we highlight a comment from our readers. This week, my favorite comment was on a story I wrote about how pets healed us this year.

The Optimist

How pets healed us this year

They give our lives deeper meaning and make us laugh. Here’s how pets helped get us through 2025.

December 26, 2025, 4 min

By Sydney Page

If you have a pet, you know their healing properties. If you don’t, there’s well-documented science to back it up. Even just a few minutes with a dog or cat can make someone happier and less stressed.

So with that in mind, here are some animals that boosted our mood this year, made us laugh and feel less lonely, and even saved some lives. Basically, they helped us get through 2025.

They improved our mental health

Norm Feigenbaum, a 93-year-old Los Angeles man, described his yellow Lab, Sunny, as his best friend. When Sunny went missing for nearly two weeks, Norm felt anxious, had sleepless nights and said he felt a profound sense of emptiness. Volunteers worked tirelessly to reunite them, and when they did, Norm’s emotional state steadied.

“Without her, there’s nothing,” Norm said.

Then there’s Kynlee, a girl from Kentucky, who adopted Tennessee, a Boston terrier with a cleft lip that matched her own. Their bond lifted Kynlee’s confidence and brightened her outlook on life.

“Tennee is just like her,” said Kynlee’s mother, Kimberly Rogers, adding that they happen to share the same birthday, June 4. “It just gives her something she can relate to. She’s not alone.”

They gave us many laughs

Some pets have big personalities. Ray Ray, a mischievous house cat from Pennsylvania, turned a family road trip into an adventure when he hitched a 100-mile ride on the roof of his family’s van before anyone noticed he was there. He ended up getting a New York City vacation out of it, though his family toted him around in a cat backpack and on a leash for safety.

Then there’s Duke, the golden retriever whose talent for “stealing” household items turned him into a social media fan favorite. Lamps, reading glasses, picture frames, purses, even plates — nothing is safe. Duke parades his treasures around proudly in his mouth, before guarding the items on his bed. He keeps his owner — and thousands of followers — amused with his mischief every day.

They strengthened our community

Faygo, a friendly goldendoodle from Virginia, was diagnosed with terminal cancer earlier this year. Knowing how much Faygo loved getting attention from people, his owners asked neighbors to stop by and give Faygo a pet. Dozens of people visited to offer Faygo comfort, treats and affection in his final days. Through Faygo, a community came together for a dog they barely knew.

They saved people

Dogs have been known to alert people to perilous situations and even detect health issues or medical emergencies. Earlier this year, a shelter dog at an adoption event alerted a man that he was about to have a seizure, prompting his wife to take her husband home and give him his meds. She said the pooch’s instinct helped her husband avoid a dangerous seizure.

Another standout pooch this year is Freyja, a certified search-and-rescue dog in New Hampshire. When a 2-year-old girl went missing in the woods, Freyja and her handler spent nearly five hours navigating the dense, cold forest. Using her keen senses, Freyja tracked down the child, who was returned to her parents. Authorities noted that without Freyja’s tracking skills, the outcome could have been very different.

They helped us live with purpose

Beef, an English bulldog recovering from pneumonia, helped his owner’s father, Manny Miranda, stay motivated to exercise. Their slow, short daily walks became a shared fitness journey, and beloved on social media.

Courtney Proctor Cross transformed a struggling West Virginia animal shelter that was euthanizing most of its animals into a nationally recognized no-kill shelter.

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: How pets healed us this year – The Washington Post

Opinion – How media lost power in the age of Trump and the internet – The Washington Post

Opinion

By George F. Will

What killed print media — and what died with it

The waning of newsprint is about cultural changes more momentous than digital publishing’s arrival.

October 17, 2025, 4 min

A sound of morning silence is coming to Atlanta. The sound of newspapers landing on sidewalks in residential neighborhoods will vanish when, at year’s end, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, joining a national trend, stops publishing print editions.

Turning trees into paper, marking it with ink, trucking it to people who deliver it to readers — soon this laboriousness might be as forgotten as men with tongs lugging large slabs of ice for home iceboxes. The waning of the 400-year era of newspapers is, however, about cultural changes more momentous than the efficiency and convenience of written words presented digitally.

The Economist reports that the share of American adults who read for pleasure has fallen 40 percent in 20 years, and students’ ability to read in quantity, with comprehension, is in parallel decline. An Oxford professor of English says students “struggle to get through one novel in three weeks.” Students lack, another professor says, “habits of application and concentration.”

The sentences that are being read are shorter and simpler. The Economist says an analysis of hundreds of New York Times bestsellers “found that sentences in popular books have contracted by almost a third since the 1930s.” Readers, if they can be called such, who are mentally wired for driblets of 280 characters cannot cope with Charles Dickens’s “Bleak House” (1.9 million characters). Can people unable to decipher sophisticated prose manage sophisticated political ideas?

But sophistication is not in the repertoire of journalism devoted to what Andrey Mir, a Canadian, calls the retribalizing of society. In his epigrammatic 2020 book “Postjournalism and the death of newspapers,” Mir, a self-described “media ecologist,” says the media lost agenda-setting power when the internet enabled crowdsourced agenda-setting.

As advertising dollars migrated to the internet, newspapers, which hitherto were funded from above by selling readers to advertisers, became funded from below by selling themselves to readers. Newspapers encouraged readers to think of subscriptions as donations to political causes. Subscribers enjoy their “slactivism,” outsourcing their activism through “donscriptions” — subscriptions thought of as donations.

Mir says “the last newspaper generation” was born in the early 1980s. It came of age as the internet did. Soon journalism stopped being about informing people to make them citizens, and began to be about making them agitated.

The new business model depends on polarization, amplifying readers’ irritations and frustrations. “A newspaper,” wrote Vladimir Lenin, “is not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organiser.”

“Americans,” Mir says, “consume media 12 hours per day. Counting weekends, this is twice as much as a full-time job.” Because there is insufficient news to fill the time, emphasis has shifted to “expertise, commentaries, and opinions.”

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Opinion | How media lost power in the age of Trump and the internet – The Washington Post

#2025 #AgeOfInternet #America #CNN #DonaldTrump #Education #Film #GeorgeWill #Google #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Media #Opinion #Politics #PrintMedia #Resistance #Science #Technology #Television #TheWashingtonPost #Trump #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates #YouTube

Opinion | Rail trails offer space to reconnect with community – The Washington Post

Opinion

Meet us on the rail trail

A place to gather as Americans, not partisans.The Island Line Trail on the Burlington, Vermont, waterfront, which Howard Dean played a role in creating. (Courtesy From Rails to Trails Film, LLC)

By Tommy Thompson and Howard Dean – Tommy Thompson, a Republican, is a former governor of Wisconsin. Howard Dean, a Democrat, is a former governor of Vermont.

September 28, 2025 at 7:00 a.m. EDT, Yesterday at 7:00 a.m. EDT, 3 min

Life in much of America today seems fractured, offering fewer opportunities for people to meet, mingle and feel part of the same community. But there is at least one exception: local rail trails — quiet, leafy greenways that follow the paths trains once traveled.

Over the past six decades, a citizen-led movement has transformed more than 26,000 miles of abandoned rail corridors into thousands of public paths for walking, biking and recreation. Tens of millions of people use these trails each year — in the countryside, in small towns and in big cities. This successful effort to convert rails to trails has never belonged to just one political party.

We know this because we’ve lived it; rail trails have been important to both our lives. One of us (Thompson) grew up along the nation’s first rail trail: the Elroy-Sparta State Trail in Wisconsin, which ran through his family farm. The other (Dean) helped create the Island Line Trail in Vermont, which swings from Burlington out onto a causeway far into Lake Champlain.

It was Thompson’s father who helped bring the Elroy-Sparta trail to life, setting in motion a project that revived local communities and became a model for the nation. And it was Dean whose leadership helped secure a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that validated the concept of saving rail corridors.

These trails do more than repurpose land. They restore communities. They promote health, tourism and local business. They give Americans a place to meet as neighbors, not partisans.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Opinion | Rail trails offer space to reconnect with community – Washington Post

#2025 #America #Biking #community #Education #Health #History #Libraries #LibraryOfCongress #OpenSpaces #Opinion #PublicPaths #RailTrails #Railroads #Rails #Reconnect #Recreation #Science #TheWashingtonPost #Travel #UnitedStates #Walking

Former FBI Director James Comey indicted amid Trump push to prosecute foes – The Washington Post

National Security Foreign Policy Intelligence Justice Military

Former FBI director James Comey indicted amid Trump push to prosecute foes

Comey, who has denied wrongdoing, is charged in connection with allegations he lied to Congress.

Updated, September 25, 2025 at 8:50 p.m. EDT, 10 minutes ago, 5 min

By Salvador Rizzo, Jeremy Roebuck and Perry Stein

Former FBI director James B. Comey was indicted Thursday on allegations he lied to Congress following an extraordinary demand from President Donald Trump for the Justice Department to prosecute a man he has long considered a political foe.

The indictment [ see below ] by a federal grand jury in Alexandria charges Comey with one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction of Congress, charges punishable by up to five years in prison.

Editor’s Note: The PDF is embedded here, and a download link.

Grand jurors rejected a third false statement count sought by prosecutors, the panel’s foreperson said during a brief court proceeding following their decision.

The White House recently forced out the previous top prosecutor on the case and replaced him with one of Trump’s former personal attorneys. The indictment makes Comey the first of several Trump targets to face charges following the president’s extraordinary demand last weekend that Attorney General Pam Bondi move swiftly to bring cases against several of his perceived political adversaries.

The case also means Comey is the first former senior government official to face prosecution in connection with an investigation that has become a central grievance for Trump since his first term — the FBI’s probe of Russian interference in his 2016 election victory.

Comey declared his innocence in a video statement posted to social media and vowed to take his case to trial.

“My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn’t imagine ourselves living any other way,” he said. “We will not live on our knees and you shouldn’t either.”

Trump derided Comey as “the former Corrupt Head of the FBI” in a social media post Thursday evening after the indictment was returned.

“JUSTICE IN AMERICA!” Trump wrote, adding later of Comey: “He has been so bad for our Country, for so long, and is now at the beginning of being held responsible for his crimes against our Nation”

Bondi, in a statement Thursday, said “no one is above the law.”

“Today’s indictment reflects this Department of Justice’s commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people,” she said. “We will follow the facts in this case.”

Comey was originally appointed as FBI director in 2013 by President Barack Obama. He was fired by Trump in 2017 amid acrimony largely stemming from the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation.

The case against him centers on testimony he gave before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2020 during a hearing on the FBI’s Russian interference investigation. Under questioning from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Comey testified he’d never authorized leaks to the media about the Russia investigation or a separate probe into then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Prosecutors now contend that answer was untrue, forming the basis for the first charge against him. The second count, obstruction of a congressional proceeding, relates to the same September 2020 testimony but does not specify the “false and misleading statements” Comey is alleged to have made that forms the basis for the charge.

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Former FBI Director James Comey indicted amid Trump push to prosecute foes – The Washington Post

#2025 #America #BidenAdministration #DonaldTrump #Education #FBIDirector #Health #History #JamesComey #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #Reading #Resistance #Science #Television #TheWashingtonPost #Trump #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates

Gangs looting #Gaza aid operate in areas under #Israeli control, aid groups say -
from #TheWashingtonPost #WaPo

A #UN memo obtained by The Post concluded that gangs “may be benefiting from a passive if not active benevolence” or “protection” from #Israel’s military.

https://wapo.st/3ACvR5r [gift article]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/11/18/gaza-looting-aid-convoys-israel-famine/

#NotAnotherBomb
#StopArmingIsrael
#RejectAIPAC #BDS
#CeasefireNow #DivestFromIsrael
#StopGazaGenocide
#RestoreFundsToUNRWA
#SolidarityWithPalestine is #NotAntisemitism
#EqualRightsForAllFromTheRiverToTheSea is #NotAntisemitic
#JewHatredHurtsPalestine
#IsraelWarCrimes #ArrestNetanyahuAndGallant
#USHandsOffICC
#Palestine #MiddleEast #WestAsia #politics
#media #news #press @palestine @israel

Gender & compensation at VC-backed startups – Where are we today? - Conrad Lee
Contributor

Conrad Lee leads the VC Executive Compensati... more: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/N_e2bsymH50/ #humanresourcemanagement #thewashingtonpost #batteryventures #venturecapital #genderequality #socialequality #genderwagegap #advanced-hr #recruitment #employment #diversity #personnel #glassdoor #designer #wagegap #column #hiring #talent #google #salary #switch #sigma