Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Can Trump Take Health Care Hostage? (NY Times Column)
The president adopts a bargaining tactic that's both nasty and stupid.
Josh Marshall: That Big Bomb (TPM)
A brief note on that massive bomb the US Air Force just dropped in Afghanistan. For those of us who remember, the US made a lot of noise and threatened to use this bomb in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. That was likely as much psychological warfare as anything else. It was never used.
Josh Marshall: "Nobody Could Have Known: Global Trade Edition" (TPM)
President Trump flipped on maybe half of his major campaign promises [April 12]. That's an issue in itself. But I want to zoom in on the specific issue of Trump's out of nowhere about-face on designating China as a "currency manipulator" - a technical executive branch finding which brings lots of penalties in its wake.
Emma Brockes: Fearless Girl? She looks like she's auditioning for a TV talent show (The Guardian)
The new bronze statue facing down the Charging Bull on Wall Street is meant to be a symbol of defiant femininity. What a pity it makes no sense.
Stuart Heritage: One for the money: the great actors who slummed it in dumb movies (The Guardian)
Helen Mirren's appearance in the Fast and Furious franchise is a bit of a surprise. But virtually every notable actor - from Welles to Brando to Blanchett - has cashed in an easy paycheque for a mindless franchise or a duffer.
Peter Bradshaw: Mulholland Drive review - David Lynch's delirious masterpiece still stands tall (The Guardian)
The virtuoso director has never topped this erotic, eerie commentary on Hollywood, featuring a stunning breakthrough performance by Naomi Watts.
Peter Robinson: Has pop finally run out of tunes? (The Guardian)
Ed Sheeran has reached a £16m settlement over his song "Photograph" in the latest claim over pop plagiarism. So are songwriters out of ideas? Time to call in the musicologists.
John Cheese: 5 Parts Of Small Town Life That We Swear To God Are Real (Cracked)
5. Given Enough Time, You Will Be On The Front Page Of The Newspaper
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Patriot Act
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Last Night
Mostly sunny, still on the cool side.
Gets Statue At Dodger Stadium
Jackie Robinson
He was the first black man to play in the major leagues, ending six decades of racial segregation, and a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
Fittingly, Jackie Robinson is the first to be honored with a statue at Dodger Stadium. It will be unveiled Saturday on the 70th anniversary of his debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Two years ago on Jackie Robinson Day, owner and chairman Mark Walter suggested a sculpture belonged at Dodger Stadium of the six-time All-Star second baseman who starred when the team was in Brooklyn.
The 77-inch tall bronze statue depicts Robinson as a rookie in 1947 sliding into home plate, a nod to his aggressive base running. It weighs 700 pounds and is secured with a 150-pound steel rod. It stands in the left field reserve plaza, with sweeping views of downtown Los Angeles in one direction and Elysian Park in the other.
Smith said the location was chosen because it's where the majority of fans enter the hillside ballpark that opened 55 years ago.
Jackie Robinson
Ends Plans For Pot Clubs
Colorado
Colorado lawmakers on Thursday backed off plans to become the first U.S. state to regulate marijuana clubs, saying approval of Amsterdam-style pot clubs could invite a federal crackdown.
It was perhaps the starkest display yet of legal pot states' uncertainty on how to regulate the drug under Donald Trump (R-Crooked). Alaska marijuana regulators recently delayed planned rules for on-site pot consumption at dispensaries.
Colorado's measure, which would have allowed users to bring their own pot to clubs, initially had substantial bipartisan support. But lawmakers ultimately sided with Gov. John Hickenlooper, who has warned that bold changes may anger federal drug enforcers.
"Given the uncertainty in Washington, this is not the time to be ... trying to carve off new turf and expand markets and make dramatic statements about marijuana," Hickenlooper told The Denver Post last month.
Colorado and Alaska have cited federal uncertainty about whether clubs would anger federal drug enforcers. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has criticized the 28 states and Washington, D.C., that do not enforce federal law banning marijuana.
Colorado
Scans Reveal Slice Of Norse Culture
Viking Swords
High-tech scans of Viking swords are revealing details of how the weapons were made and how their role changed in Viking society over time.
A new analysis of three Viking swords has found that, as fearsome as these seafaring people were, these specific "weapons" were probably not sturdy enough for battle or raiding, and instead were likely decorative.
This finding, along with similar examples of non-fighting swords from the Viking Age, described previously by scientists, indicate that swords became symbols of power and status that were only rarely used, the scientists said.
During the Viking Age, which ancient texts and archaeological discoveries suggested lasted from about A.D. 750 to 1050, seafaring crews from Scandinavia went "viking" - that is, they started raiding. They used different kinds of weapons depending on their social status, ranging from affordable axes, spears and lances to costly swords, usually owned only by the elite, researchers said.
More than 2,000 swords from the Viking Age have survived to the present day, researchers of the new study said. These swords were mostly examined either by eye or through invasive methods that required the extraction of samples.
Viking Swords
Prehistoric Sea Creature
Elasmosaur
A fossil found by an elk hunter in Montana nearly seven years ago has led to the discovery of a new species of prehistoric sea creature that lived about 70 million years ago in the inland sea that flowed east of the Rocky Mountains.
The new species of elasmosaur is detailed in an article published Thursday in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Most elasmosaurs, a type of marine reptile, had necks that could stretch 18 feet, but the fossil discovered in the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge is distinct for its much shorter neck - about 7½ feet.
"This group is famous for having ridiculously long necks, I mean necks that have as many as 76 vertebrae," said Patrick Druckenmiller, co-author of the article and a paleontologist with the University of Alaska Museum of the North. "What absolutely shocked us when we dug it out - it only had somewhere around 40 vertebrae."
The smaller sea creature lived around the same time and in the same area as the larger ones, which is evidence contradicting the belief that elasmosaurs did not evolve over millions of years to have longer necks, co-author Danielle Serratos said.
Elasmosaurs were carnivorous creatures with small heads and paddle-like limbs that could grow as long as 30 feet. Their fossils have been discovered across the world, and the one discovered in northeastern Montana was well-preserved and nearly complete.
Elasmosaur
Law Rolls Back Funding Protection
Planned Parenthood
Donald Trump (R-Crooked) privately signed legislation that removes Obama-era rules protecting tax-funded financing of family planning clinics that offer abortion.
The new law goes towards a long-held goal of defunding abortion held by Republicans, who passed the bill two weeks ago with a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence (R-Hate Radio).
The law does away with a rule brought in by Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, that prevented states from withholding money distributed under a "Title X" program that funded Planned Parenthood and other clinics that provide abortion.
Republicans say their stance upholds states' rights. But opposition Democrats see the move as a "Republican war on women."
Planned Parenthood
NY Judge
Sheila Abdus-Salaam
Police detectives retracing the final hours of a pioneering judge who turned up dead in the Hudson River in Manhattan have found no signs of foul play, supporting the belief it was a suicide, some law enforcement officials said Thursday.
Speaking to reporters about the death of Sheila Abdus-Salaam, New York Police Department Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce declined to answer questions about whether she took her own life.
But two other law enforcement officials said Thursday that investigators were treating the death as a suicide. One of the officials said both the judge's mother and brother had died in recent years around Easter, the brother by suicide.
The 65-year-old Abdus-Salaam, the first black woman on New York state's highest court, had spent the weekend with her husband at their New Jersey home, Boyce said. She had her last conversation with her husband by phone around 7 p.m. Monday after she had gone to a second home in Harlem, and also spoke with her assistant on Tuesday, he said.
After the judge was reported missing, the New York City police harbor unit responding to a 911 call retrieved her clothed body from the Hudson on Wednesday. A Metrocard found on the body was last used at a subway stop on 42nd Street in Manhattan on Monday, Boyce said.
Sheila Abdus-Salaam
Surveillance Requests More Than Doubled
Microsoft
Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it had received at least a thousand surveillance requests from the U.S. government that sought user content for foreign intelligence purposes during the first half of 2016.
The amount, shared in Microsoft's biannual transparency report, was more than double what the company said it received under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) during the preceding six-month interval, and was the highest the company has listed since 2011, when it began tracking such government surveillance orders.
The scope of spying authority granted to U.S. intelligence agencies under FISA has come under renewed scrutiny in recent weeks, sparked in part by evolving, unsubstantiated assertions from President Donald Trump and other Republicans that the Obama White House improperly spied on Trump and his associates.
Microsoft said it received between 1,000 and 1,499 FISA orders for user content between January and June of 2016, compared to between 0 and 499 during both January-June 2015 as well as the second half of 2015.
The number of user accounts impacted by FISA orders fell during the same period, however, from between 17,500 and 17,999 to between 12,000 and 12,499, according to the report.
Microsoft
Detention 'Degrading'
Moon Rock Sting
For nearly two hours on May 19, 2011, Joann Davis stood in the parking lot of a California Denny's restaurant in pants soaked in urine answering questions from a federal agent about a rice-sized piece of moon rock she wanted to sell to help pay for her son's medical care.
Davis, who was in her 70s, had contacted NASA about the rock and claimed it was a gift to her late husband from astronaut Neil Armstrong. But lunar material gathered on the Apollo missions is considered government property, and her email prompted an investigation that brought six armed officers to the Denny's that day in a sting operation to seize the rock.
An indignant federal appeals court on Thursday criticized Davis' detention by NASA agent Norman Conley in the Denny's parking lot, calling it "unreasonably prolonged and unnecessarily degrading."
Conley detained Davis even though he knew she was nearly 75 years old, had urinated in her pants during the sting, had reached out to NASA herself and was having financial problems, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said.
Instead of telling Davis that her possession of the rock was illegal and asking her to surrender it to NASA, Conley "organized a sting operation involving six armed officers to forcibly seize a lucite paperweight containing a moon rock the size of a rice grain from an elderly grandmother," 9th Circuit Chief Judge Sidney Thomas wrote.
Moon Rock Sting
Uses Toby Keith Soundtrack
'Fox & Friends'
The "Fox & Friends" crew was criticized on Friday after playing Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" over footage of the massive bombing by the U.S. military in Afghanistan this week.
"That video's black and white," co-host Ainsley Earhardt told Geraldo Rivera. "But that is what freedom looks like. That's the red, white and blue."
Rivera waxed nostalgic about watching the U.S. strike "that exact part of Afghanistan" back in 2001 and said, "One of my favorite things in the 16 years I've been here at Fox News is watching bombs drop on bad guys."
Not everyone shared the enthusiasm of the "Fox & Friends" team.
"Given this culture, maybe the U.S. isn't the best country to bring humanitarianism and freedom to the world by dropping love bombs on them," the Intercept's Glenn Greenwald tweeted.
'Fox & Friends'
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