Top Items:
Hannah Grabenstein / PBS NewsHour:
WATCH: Sen. Mullin cites recording as he accuses CDC leader of repeatedly lying, later walks it back — Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., questioned former CDC Director Susan Monarez at a Senate committee hearing Wednesday about her firing, accusing her of being untrustworthy and lying …
Discussion:
New York Times and Associated Press
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Nathaniel Weixel / The Hill:
Paul gets into testy exchange over vaccines with fired CDC director — Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) got into a heated exchange about vaccines with former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez. — During a Wednesday hearing about Monarez's ouster from the agency …
Discussion:
Fox News, The Independent, ABC News, NewsMax.com, New York Daily News, KSTP-TV and STAT
NBC News:
Susan Monarez hearing live updates: Former CDC director says RFK told her that CDC staffers were ‘killing children’ — Monarez is facing questions about her ouster, including disputes with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on vaccines. … Sanders notes that heads of agencies talking …
Discussion:
CBS News, Reuters, Scripps News, Axios, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, PBS NewsHour, Bloomberg, Blue Virginia, New York Times, Raw Story, The Hill, WTOP News, WBUR and The Week
Peter Sullivan / Axios:
Ex-CDC director: RFK Jr. planning September vaccine changes
Ex-CDC director: RFK Jr. planning September vaccine changes
Discussion:
MSNBC, CNN, Politico, New York Times, MeidasTouch News, NOTUS, Washington Examiner, WNYW-TV, PBS NewsHour, New Republic, New York Magazine, STAT, The Atlantic, PoliticusUSA, Raw Story, Newsweek, Crooks and Liars, CBS News and Semafor
David Lim / Politico:
RFK Jr. warned her not to talk to lawmakers, Monarez says
RFK Jr. warned her not to talk to lawmakers, Monarez says
Discussion:
New York Times, The Hill, Axios, Rolling Stone, Associated Press, CBS News, PBS NewsHour, ABC News, Raw Story, Mediaite, IJR, Daily Mail, Washington Examiner and NewsMax.com
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System:
Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement — For release at 2:00 p.m. EDT — Recent indicators suggest that growth of economic activity moderated in the first half of the year. Job gains have slowed, and the unemployment rate has edged up but remains low. Inflation has moved up and remains somewhat elevated.
Discussion:
NOTUS, CBS News, Vanity Fair and Newsweek
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Jeff Cox / CNBC:
Fed approves quarter-point interest rate cut and sees two more coming this year — WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve on Wednesday approved a widely anticipated rate cut and signaled that two more are on the way before the end of the year as concerns intensified over the U.S. labor market.
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, Washington Times and The Guardian
Steve Kopack / NBC News:
Federal Reserve cuts interest rates for the first time this year
Discussion:
Axios, MSNBC, Washington Examiner, Breitbart, Fox Business, Daily Caller News Foundation, Bloomberg, Associated Press, Greeley Tribune, New York Times, WTOP News, Semafor and CBS News
Victoria Guida / Politico:
Trump crashes the Fed's consensus
Trump crashes the Fed's consensus
Discussion:
Punchbowl News, UPI and The Hill
Wall Street Journal:
Pam Bondi Needs a Free Speech Tutorial — The Attorney General seems to think ‘hate speech’ is illegal. Charlie Kirk knew better. — Is a basic understanding of the First Amendment too much to expect from the nation's Attorney General? Progressives have spent years trying to create and define a category called “hate speech.”
Discussion:
The Hill, FIRE, The Status Kuo, CNN, Daily Kos, USA Today, Jacobin, HuffPost, The Verge, Raw Story, The Gateway Pundit, Washington Examiner, The Free Press, Fox News, LGBTQ Nation, Washington Post, Cafe Hayek, UPI, New York Post, Townhall, Election Law Blog, The Atlantic, New Republic, New York Magazine, Blaze Media, Mediaite and Breitbart
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Steve Benen / MSNBC:
AG Pam Bondi eyes case against Office Depot employee who wouldn't print Charlie Kirk flyer
Discussion:
Poynter, New York Times, The Independent, Washington Times, The Hill, The Gateway Pundit, Mediaite, New Republic, Fox News, Breitbart, HotAir and Instapundit
Newsmax Wires / NewsMax.com:
Ronny Jackson to Newsmax: Trans People Need Treatment — Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, a physician and former White House doctor, told Newsmax on Tuesday that he believes inpatient mental health facilities should play a role in treating transgender people, whom he said have underlying psychiatric issues.
Discussion:
Erin In The Morning
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Bloomberg:
Bessent, Like Fed Governor, Made Contradictory Mortgage Pledges — US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent once agreed to occupy two different houses as his “principal residence” at the same time, mortgage documents show — the same kind of contradictory pledges that President Donald Trump …
Discussion:
Politico, CNBC, Mediaite, New Jersey Online and New York Sun
Andrew Egger / The Bulwark:
Confronting a Fuller Picture of Charlie Kirk's Killer — Attorney General Pam Bondi learned a tough lesson yesterday: There are still some pieties of the old right that conservatives aren't ready to abandon, and bristling at the concept of “hate speech” is one.
Discussion:
Zeteo and 24sight News
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New York Times:
Trump Invokes Kirk's Killing in Justifying Measures to Silence Opponents
Discussion:
Robert Reich, Daily Caller News Foundation, New York Daily News, Associated Press, Politico and Political Wire
Anthony L. Fisher / MSNBC:
Charlie Kirk's killing is a tragedy — the ‘reckoning’ is a moral panic
Stuart Anderson / Forbes:
Stephen Miller's Quota Likely Drove Korean Arrests In Immigration Raid — When ICE agents decided to arrest over 300 Korean workers at a Georgia battery plant, a White House-imposed daily immigrant arrest quota was likely on their minds. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid …
Discussion:
BBC, The Dispatch, New Republic, The Left Hook with Wajahat Ali, Eschaton and Jacobin
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Heather Cox Richardson / Letters from an American:
The phrase that kept coming up over the last several days was “make fetch happen.” …
The phrase that kept coming up over the last several days was “make fetch happen.” …
Kyle Cheney / Politico:
Kash Patel says court orders bar him from releasing the Epstein files. Judges have said otherwise. — FBI Director Kash Patel claimed Wednesday that he is barred by recent court orders from releasing thousands of documents connected to disgraced sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Discussion:
New Republic, NewsMax.com, Raw Story and CBS News
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April Rubin / Axios:
FBI director says he's never spoken to Trump about the Epstein files
Discussion:
Bloomberg, Scripps News, CBS News, New Republic, al.com, The Wrap, Raw Story, New Jersey Online, Mediaite, IJR, NewsMax.com, HuffPost, Crooks and Liars, Washington Times, Newsweek, MeidasTouch News, MSNBC, The Hill, PoliticusUSA and The Gateway Pundit
Ashleigh Fields / The Hill:
Senate Democrat: Patel ‘was testifying really for an audience of one: President Trump’
Senate Democrat: Patel ‘was testifying really for an audience of one: President Trump’
Discussion:
Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, Raw Story, Newsbusters, The Daily Signal, PBS NewsHour, Roll Call, New York Sun, Bloomberg, Townhall, Associated Press, RedState, CBS News, WNYW-TV and Los Angeles Times
ABC News:
Trump officials pressuring federal prosecutors to bring criminal charges against NY AG Letitia James: Sources — Prosecutors have not found clear evidence James committed a crime, sources say. — New York State Attorney General Letitia James makes an announcement at the Office …
Discussion:
New Republic, Salon, Talking Points Memo, Mediaite and RedState
Raquel Coronell Uribe / NBC News:
Four arrested after photos of Trump and Epstein projected onto Windsor Castle during president's U.K. visit — Trump, who arrived in the U.K. for a state visit, is scheduled to spend most of Wednesday at Windsor Castle with members of the royal family. — Police in the U.K. arrested four people …
Discussion:
New York Times, BBC, Time, Axios, Associated Press, CBS News, New York Magazine, People, Reuters, Washington Times, The Independent, CNBC, Al Jazeera, Breitbart, The Daily Caller, The Hollywood Reporter, Extra.ie, Deadline, The Hill, israelhayom.com, MeidasTouch News, Blue Virginia, UPI, Newsweek, New Republic, ABC News, Crooks and Liars, Daily Mail, Semafor, The Gateway Pundit, Politico, RTÉ and WTOP News
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The Guardian:
Thousands of anti-Trump protesters march in London as king and senior royals host US president in Windsor - UK politics live
Discussion:
The Hill, Reuters, New York Times, Washington Examiner, The Standard, New York Sun, The Independent, Human Events, NPR, KSTP-TV, Raw Story, Metro.co.uk, Associated Press and CBS News
Wall Street Journal:
America Loves Cocaine Again—Mexico's New Drug King Cashes In — The Trump administration's war on fentanyl created an opening for ‘El Señor Mencho’ to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. by the ton — From a heavily guarded mountain hideout in the heart of the Sierra Madre, 59-year-old Nemesio …
Discussion:
El País and The Daily Caller
David Klepper / Associated Press:
Foreign disinformation about Charlie Kirk's killing seeks to widen US divisions — Russia moved to amplify online conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk's killing just hours after it happened, seeding social media with the frightening claim that America is slipping into civil war.
Discussion:
ABC News
Peter Smith / Associated Press:
Suspect in custody after driver rams car into FBI building gate in Pittsburgh — A suspect has been taken into custody after a driver rammed a car into a security gate at the FBI building in Pittsburgh early Wednesday, then removed an American flag from the back seat and threw it over the gate before leaving, authorities said.
Discussion:
ABC News, New York Times, CBS News, New York Post, Fortune, The Hill, NewsMax.com, PennLive, Washington Examiner and UPI
RELATED:
Deon J. Hampton / NBC News:
Evergreen H.S. shooter hinted at his plans online, ADL says — The attacker, who shot and wounded two students, reposted a photo of a revolver and a box of ammunition two hours beforehand, research by the group's Center on Extremism shows. — DENVER — The 16-year-old who shot and wounded …
Discussion:
Colorado Politics, USA Today and Scripps News
Adrian Carrasquillo / The Bulwark:
Exclusive Focus Group: Trump Bleeding Latino Voters — LATINO VOTERS FLOCKED TO DONALD TRUMP in surprisingly large numbers last November to help him retake the White House. But a year later, the same cohort has soured on his presidency, with many saying they regret their vote.
Nicholas Grossman / Arc Digital:
Ezra Klein Accidentally Shows How the Media Brought Us Trump — It's easy to unequivocally condemn the killing of MAGA activist/podcaster/organizer Charlie Kirk as an act of political violence without making up a false version of Kirk to praise. The wrongness of murder does not depend on what I think of the victim's political views.
Discussion:
The American Saga and Mediaite
Reid J. Epstein / New York Times:
A New Democratic Think Tank Wants to Curb the Influence of Liberal Groups — Led by a former aide to Senator Harry Reid, the Searchlight Institute is hoping to persuade Democrats to play down causes like climate change and L.G.B.T.Q. rights to appeal to more voters
Discussion:
Eschaton
Axios:
CDC stops work-from-home disability accommodations — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is no longer allowing remote work for employees with disabilities or those with temporary health issues, including those who've requested to work from home since the Aug. 8 attack on the agency's Atlanta headquarters .
Discussion:
STAT
Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:
Top Trump Ally May Soon Control TikTok and CNN — Neither of these deals have been realized. But I want to flag something on the horizon that is potentially a very big deal. Yesterday, the Wall the Street Journal broke the news that the White House has negotiated a purchase of TikTok …
Discussion:
Breitbart, Mediaite, Techdirt, New York Post and The Wrap, more at Mediagazer »
Brittany Shepherd / ABC News:
Obama calls Kirk murder ‘horrific,’ says a president should ‘pull people together’ — He said President Donald Trump's rhetoric is part of a broader problem. — Former President Barack Obama attends the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on January 20, 2025 in Washington.
Hailey Fuchs / Politico:
House Judiciary to vote to subpoena major banks in Epstein case — The House Judiciary Committee will vote Wednesday on whether to subpoena the CEOs of four major global banks to investigate their relationships with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The subpoena would include Jamie Dimon …
Discussion:
NBC News, Washington Times, NewsMax.com, CBS News, Raw Story and The Hill
Politico:
Former GOP officials fear US strikes on alleged drug smugglers aren't legal … Yoo, now a professor at the University of California Berkeley, authored the Bush administration's legal justification for enhanced interrogation techniques against suspected al Qaeda terrorists in the early years of Bush's war on terror.
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, The Independent, Raw Story, Jacobin and Newsweek
Politico:
You get some climate money, and you get some climate money — With help from Noah Baustin and Blake Jones — MONEY TALKS: Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers got their long-awaited cap-and-trade extension over the finish line just in time — but the fight over the state's biggest pot of climate revenue is far from over.
Freddie Clayton / NBC News:
Lab tests show Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned, his wife says — Russian authorities said Navalny died last year after feeling unwell following a walk around the high-security Arctic penal colony where he was serving a combined 30 ½-year jail sentence.
Discussion:
Washington Post, Associated Press, New York Daily News, Axios, Washington Examiner, The Hill, UPI, The Sun, Reuters, RTÉ, Extra.ie, Al Jazeera, Politico and The Japan Times

