David Swerdlick

U.S. Inflation Eased at Start of the Year The Consumer Price Index fell in January to 2.4 percent from 2.7 percent a month

Breaking News: Consumer prices unexpectedly eased at the start of the year, rising 2.4% in the year through January.

Why India Playing Pakistan in World Cup Cricket Matters The cricket-mad South Asian neighbors have a bitter history, punctuated by violence and wars. It makes this one of the fiercest, and most financially lucrative, rivalries in sports.

For cricket fans in India and Pakistan, when their teams face off on Sunday in the T20-format world cup, the money-spinning match with a viewership expected to dwarf the Super Bowl will be about more than just sport. It will be inextricably tied to national pride, or embarrassment.

A Pilot Fired Over Kristi Noem’s Missing Blanket and the Constant Chaos Inside DHS Secretary faces fire for confrontational immigration crackdown and self-promotional style; White House to wind down Minnesota operations.

Today's gift link. "Scott objected to being cut out of the process—and warned them Bovino's brash tactics would backfire on the whole department." www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Jon Stewart has become his own worst nightmare Econ 101? In this economy?

"It became clear that Stewart has conflated the entire field of economics with a half-remembered, left-wing caricature of capitalism." open.substack.com/pub/theargum...

"Hopefully this injunction will in some small way help
bring about a course correction in the Defense Department's approach to these issues."

Opinion | ICE Is on a Dark Path. Congress Must Act Now.

Today's gift link.

"It can be hard for many Americans to imagine what happens to a country when its government goes rogue. The residents of Minnesota and other cities subject to the Trump immigration crackdown have recently experienced a version of it." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/o...

Opinion | My Conversion to Skeptical Belief

Today's gift link. "It means understanding your beliefs as limited, contingent and fallible, recognizing that they can't be proven correct, that someone else's refusal to come around to them does not indicate stupidity or obstinacy or bad faith." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/o...

Opinion | I Just Returned From China. We Are Not Winning.

Today's gift link. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/o...

Analysis | The history of figure skating’s most controversial trick — the backflip This is the first Olympics to feature backflips in over 25 years.

Among others, @newsbysamuels.bsky.social talks to Surya Bonaly in this great breakdown on the backflip in figure skating. www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olymp...

Bar Complaint Filed Over Search of Washington Post Reporter’s Home A press group says a prosecutor broke ethics rules by not flagging a law that limits searches for reporting materials.

A press freedom organization says a prosecutor broke ethics rules by not flagging a law that limits searches for reporting materials after FBI agents searched the home of a Washington Post reporter as part of a leak investigation.

Opinion | What Replaces Deported Immigrant Workers? Not Americans.

Today's gift link.

"There is a big hole in the seductively simple argument that Mr. Trump's policy will push employers to hire Americans: For many jobs, the cheaper and more likely replacement is a robot." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/o...

51% of Americans overall said Trump is biased against Black people in April 2024, including 77% of Black Americans, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll. Both figures had declined since 2020 www.washingtonpost.com/tablet/2024/...

Opinion | If You Hate Bad Bunny, I Have Bad News for You

Today's gift link. "English is no longer culture's lingua franca, or at least not the only one." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/o...

C.I.A. World Factbook Ends Publication After 6 Decades The Factbook, a version of which dates to 1962, provided facts, figures, maps and more to generations of economists, professors, journalists and others.

The CIA’s World Factbook, a repository of facts on nations that for six decades provided detailed figures on birth and death rates and major exports, relied upon first by government agents and eventually researchers, educators, journalists and more, was shuttered without warning on Wednesday.

I'm convinced that a sign of getting old is how I keep buying new and fancy potato chip flavours, getting 1/3rd of the way through the bag and realizing I actually just want sour cream and onion.

Opinion | What’s Really Driving These Bogus Claims of Voter Fraud

Today's gift link.

"Recently, a number of states have undertaken investigations into noncitizen voting, cross-checking voter rolls with citizenship status, and found it virtually nonexistent." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/o...

Refried White Beans With Chile-Fried Eggs

While refried beans are typically made with pinto or black beans, they don’t have to be. Here, Ali Slagle uses canned white beans whose extra-starchy liquid speeds up cooking time, then adds a rich, spicy egg for a full meal. nyti.ms/4qjuoVf

Trump at National Prayer Breakfast: "They rigged the second election. I had to win it. I needed it for my own ego. I would've had a bad ego for the rest of my life. Now I really have a big ego. Beating these lunatics was incredible ... The first time they said I didn't win the popular vote. I did"

He Was Laid Off at The Washington Post After Working There 60 Years Martin Weil, one of hundreds being let go at The Post, has worked on local news there since 1965, witnessing the paper’s rise and now retrenchment.

Martin Weil, one of hundreds of journalists being let go at The Washington Post, has worked on local news there since 1965.

Opinion | Trump’s Foreign Policy Is Stuck in the 16th Century The president’s approach is not just chaos or an updated version of 19th-century great-power competition.

Trump’s approach to foreign policy is not just chaos or an updated version of 19th-century great-power competition, write @segoddard.bsky.social and @abenewman.bsky.social . “He is pursuing something more out of the 16th-century, what we call neoroyalist international politics."

Opinion | Common Ground Is for Suckers

Today's gift link.

"A hallmark of the president’s language since he stepped onto the national political stage is that some Americans are just a little more American than others, and that this is a function of race, nationality and, above all, allegiance to Trump." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/o...

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Predicting Bad Bunny’s set list at the Super Bowl LX halftime show (Gift Article) Bad Bunny has a huge catalog of music. Which tracks will he bring to Levi's Stadium for his Super Bowl halftime show?

Bonus gift link.

'Me Porto Bonito' (feat. Chencho Corleone) "Two generational voices of reggaeton teamed up and left us with a chorus that dares to overshadow everything in a packed stadium." www.nytimes.com/athletic/699...

Justin Bieber at the Grammys: A Stripped-Down, Perspective-Shifting Performance The pop star stripped down his music and himself for a vulnerable but assured solo performance of “Yukon” on Sunday.

Justin Bieber stripped down his music and himself for a vulnerable but assured solo Grammys performance. It "forced reflection — about how Bieber has been perceived and pilloried," our pop music critic writes.

Opinion | We Were Top Homeland Security Lawyers. You Can’t Wish Away the Fourth Amendment.

Today's gift link.

"The job of the general counsel is not to provide convenient legal cover or constitutional workarounds. It is to provide sound legal analysis and advice, even when that advice may be inconvenient for the administration." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/o...

Opinion | Trump Could Interfere With the Midterm Elections. You Can Help Defend Them.

Bonus gift link.

"The sanctity of the 2026 elections is indeed under threat. And the reason is Mr. Trump." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/o...

Opinion | ICE Took Liam Conejo Ramos. His Classmates Have Something to Say.

Today's gift link.

"I think you should make friends with the world. Love, a Valley View student." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/o...

What do they teach at Wharton

Opinion | We’re Seeing the Weakness of a Strong State

“Visible state violence against sympathetic civilians was the beginning of the end for Jim Crow. It may be a turning point now, too.” Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/28/o...

“The outcome of the 2020 election will not change, period.”

Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts briefs after FBI agents executed a search warrant at the Fulton County elections office

www.ms.now/news/fbi-sea...