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One of the striking things about how furiously many people reacted to the news last week that MSNBC “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski met with President-Elect Donald Trump was how quaint their defenders sounded. “It is insane for critics to NOT think all of us in the media need to know more so we can share/report more,” Jim VandeHei, co-founder of Axios and Politico, said on social media. It would be journalistic malpractice for the hosts of a morning television news program not to take a meeting with a president-elect, right? But “Morning Joe” isn’t traditional journalism, and last week’s incident is a telling illustration of the broader trend of impartial fact-finding being crowded out in the marketplace by opinionated news and the expectations that creates. Scarborough, a former congressman, and his wife, veteran newswoman Brzezinski, didn’t just talk about the presidential campaign from their four-hour weekday perch. They tirelessly and emotionally advocated for Democrat Kamala Harris, likening Trump to a fascist-in-waiting. “They have portrayed themselves as bastions of integrity standing up to a would-be dictator,” says Frank Sesno, a former CNN Washington bureau chief now professor at George Washington University’s school of media and public affairs. “What the followers see is the daily procession of people on the show constantly talking about the evils of Donald Trump and then Joe and Mika show up and have high tea with the guy.” The social media blowback was instant and intense. “You do not need to talk to Hitler to cover him effectively,” was one of the nicer messages. More telling is the people who have responded with action. “Morning Joe” had 770,000 viewers last Monday, its audience — like many shows on MSNBC — down from its yearly average of 1.09 million because some of the network’s liberal-leaning viewers have tuned away after what they regard as depressing election results. That’s the day Scarborough and Brzezinski announced they had met with Trump the previous Friday. By Tuesday, the “Morning Joe” audience had slipped to 680,000, according to the Nielsen company, and Wednesday’s viewership was 647,000. Thursday rebounded to 707,000. It’s only three days of data, but those are the kind of statistics about which television executives brood. “The audience for the polarized news-industrial complex has become unforgiving,” says Kate O’Brian, outgoing head of news of the E.W. Scripps Co. The Washington Post learned this last month when it lost a reported 250,000 subscribers — presumably the bulk of them non-Trump supporters — after announcing it would not endorse a candidate for president. A draft of an editorial endorsing Harris had already been in the works. Mixing news and opinion isn’t new; many U.S. newspapers in the 1800s were unabashedly partisan. But for most of the past century, there was a vigorous effort to separate the two. Broadcast television, licensed to serve the public interest, built up fact-based news divisions. What began to change things was the success of Fox News in building a conservative audience that believed it was underserved and undervalued. Now there’s a vigorous industry catering to people who want to see their points of view reflected — and are less interested in reporting or any content that contradicts them. The most notable trend in 2024 campaign coverage was the diminishing influence of so-called legacy news brands in favor of outlets like podcasts that offered publicity-hungry politicians a friendly, if not supportive, home. Trump, for example, visited several podcasters, including the influential Joe Rogan, who awarded Trump with an endorsement. “I won’t even call it journalism,” Sesno says. “It’s storytelling.” The past decade’s journey of Megyn Kelly is one illustration of how opinion can pay off in today’s climate. Once one of the more aggressive reporters at Fox News, she angered Trump in a 2015 debate with a pointed question about his treatment of women. She moved to the legacy outlet NBC News, but that didn’t work for her. She has since started a flourishing podcast with conservative, and Trump-friendly, opinion. Among cable TV-based news brands, CNN has tried hardest to present an image of impartiality, even if many conservatives disagree. So the collapse in its ratings has been noteworthy: the network’s audience of 4.7 million people for its election night coverage was essentially half the 9.1 million people it had for the same night in 2020. O’Brian is leaving Scripps at the end of the year because it is ending its 24-hour television news network after finding impartiality was a tough business. Scripps is continuing a streaming news product. That’s the environment Scarborough and Brzezinski work in on “Morning Joe.” “They are very talented show hosts,” Sesno says. “But they are not out on the front lines doing journalism, seeking truth in the way that a professional journalist does.” Hours after the hosts’ announcement that they had met with Trump, an MSNBC colleague, legal contributor and correspondent Katie Phang, said on X that “normalizing Trump is a bad idea.” Scarborough had made a point of saying that was not what he was attempting to do. “It’s not up to you or your corrupt industry to ‘normalize’ or not ‘normalize’ any politician who wins an election fair & square,” Christina Pushaw, the pugnacious aide to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, replied to Phang. “Americans had their say; Trump will be your president come January whether you ‘normalize’ it or not. I would suggests journos should accept reality.” Quaintness alert: Sesno is among those who believe the “Morning Joe” hosts did the right thing. Whatever the motivations — and there are some who believe that worries that a Trump administration could make life difficult very difficult for them was on the hosts’ minds — opening a line of communication to ensure that a show based on politics is not completely cut off from the thinking of a presidential administration makes business sense, he says. A little humility doesn’t hurt. Even if her own job has proven that it’s not a great business now, Scripps’ O’Brian has seen enough focus groups of people who yearn for a more traditional journalism-based approach to believe in its importance. “I think that there is still a need for nonpartisan news,” says the former longtime ABC News producer, “and maybe what brings it back to where it used to be will be an exhaustion from the hyper-polarized climate that we currently live in.”“Gladiator II” asks the question: Are you not moderately entertained for roughly 60% of this sequel? Truly, this is a movie dependent on managed expectations and a forgiving attitude toward its tendency to overserve. More of a thrash-and-burn schlock epic than the comparatively restrained 2000 “Gladiator,” also directed by Ridley Scott, the new one recycles a fair bit of the old one’s narrative cries for freedom while tossing in some digital sharks for the flooded Colosseum and a bout of deadly sea-battle theatrics. They really did flood the Colosseum in those days, though no historical evidence suggests shark deployment, real or digital. On the other hand (checks notes), “Gladiator II” is fiction. Screenwriter David Scarpa picks things up 16 years after “Gladiator,” which gave us the noble death of the noble warrior Maximus, shortly after slaying the ignoble emperor and returning Rome to the control of the Senate. Our new hero, Lucius (Paul Mescal), has fled Rome for Numidia, on the North African coast. The time is 200 A.D., and for the corrupt, party-time twins running the empire (Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger), that means invasion time. Pedro Pascal takes the role of Acacius, the deeply conflicted general, sick of war and tired of taking orders from a pair of depraved ferrets. The new film winds around the old one this way: Acacius is married to Lucilla (Connie Nielsen, in a welcome return), daughter of the now-deceased emperor Aurelius and the love of the late Maximus’s life. Enslaved and dragged to Rome to gladiate, the widower Lucius vows revenge on the general whose armies killed his wife. But there are things this angry young phenom must learn, about his ancestry and his destiny. It’s the movie’s worst-kept secret, but there’s a reason he keeps seeing footage of Russell Crowe from the first movie in his fever dreams. Battle follows battle, on the field, in the arena, in the nearest river, wherever, and usually with endless splurches of computer-generated blood. “Gladiator II” essentially bumper-cars its way through the mayhem, pausing for long periods of expository scheming about overthrowing the current regime. The prince of all fixers, a wily operative with interests in both managing gladiators and stocking munitions, goes by the name Macrinus. He’s played by Denzel Washington, who at one point makes a full meal out of pronouncing the word “politics” like it’s a poisoned fig. Also, if you want a masterclass in letting your robes do a lot of your acting for you, watch what Washington does here. He’s more fun than the movie but you can’t have everything. The movie tries everything, all right, and twice. Ridley Scott marshals the chaotic action sequences well enough, though he’s undercut by frenetic cutting rhythms, with that now-familiar, slightly sped-up visual acceleration in frequent use. (Claire Simpson and Sam Restivo are the editors.) Mescal acquits himself well in his first big-budget commercial walloper of an assignment, confined though he is to a narrower range of seething resentments than Crowe’s in the first film. I left thinking about two things: the word “politics” as savored/spit out by Washington, and the innate paradox of how Scott, whose best work over the decades has been wonderful, delivers spectacle. The director and his lavishly talented design team built all the rough-hewn sets with actual tangible materials the massive budget allowed. They took care to find the right locations in Morocco and Malta. Yet when combined in post-production with scads of medium-grade digital effects work in crowd scenes and the like, never mind the sharks, the movie’s a somewhat frustrating amalgam. With an uneven script on top of it, the visual texture of “Gladiator II” grows increasingly less enveloping and atmospherically persuasive, not more. But I hung there, for some of the acting, for some of the callbacks, and for the many individual moments, or single shots, that could only have come from Ridley Scott. And in the end, yes, you too may be moderately entertained. “Gladiator II” — 2.5 stars (out of 4) MPA rating: R (for strong bloody violence) Running time: 2:28 How to watch: Premieres in theaters Nov. 21. Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.Your relationship with money might seem random, but one expert says it offers clues about your childhood — and understanding this could help overcome toxic spending habits. Vicky Reynal, a financial psychotherapist and author of "Money on Your Mind," told CNBC Make It that there are psychological reasons behind our spending habits, and many of these attitudes stem from childhood experiences. > 24/7 San Diego news stream: Watch NBC 7 free wherever you are "Our emotional experiences growing up will shape who we become," she said. For example, someone who felt secure during childhood might feel that they deserve good things, and later in life may be more likely to negotiate a higher salary or enjoy the money they have, Reynal said. Whereas someone who experienced childhood neglect may grow up with low self-esteem and act this out through money behaviors. This could include feeling guilty when spending money because they don't feel they deserve good things, or splashing the cash to impress because they feel unworthy of attention. "The little toddler that goes up to their parents to show them their scribble — how they get responded to will give them a message about how the world will respond to them," Reynal added. Money Report Political leaders and industry titans pay tribute to former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh China's industrial profits extend decline to a fourth straight month, dropping 7.3% in November Reynal said "the money lessons we learn growing up" are largely shaped by whether we grew up in an environment of scarcity or wealth. "To give you an example, growing up in scarcity, people that manage to move themselves out of that economic reality, and maybe in their own adult life manage to accumulate quite a bit of wealth, it's quite common for them to struggle with what they call the scarcity mindset," Reynal said. This is a pattern of thinking that fixates on the idea that you don't have enough of something, like money. A scarcity mindset means someone might struggle to enjoy the money they've earned and be anxious about spending it, Reynal added. Alternatively, there are people who grew up with little but became wealthy, and are now very careless with money. "They're giving themselves everything that they longed for when they were little so they might go on the other extreme and start spending it quite carelessly, because now they want to give their children everything that their parents couldn't give them," Reynal added. The key to overcoming toxic spending habits is to stop self-sabotaging — a common behavior — according to Reynal. "Often behind a pattern of financial self-sabotage, there are deep-seated emotional reasons, and it could range from feelings of anger, feelings of un-deservedness, to maybe a fear of independence and autonomy," she said. To identify these, you first have to determine what your financial habits and inconsistencies are, Reynal said, giving an example of someone who might overspend in the evenings. "Is it boredom? Is it loneliness? What is the feeling that you might be trying to address with the overspending?" she said. "That's already giving you a clue as to what you could be doing different. So, if it's boredom, what can you replace this terrible financial habit with?" Reynal said she had a young client who would always run out of money within the first two weeks of the month. She asked them: "What would happen if you were financially responsible?" The client revealed that they feared risking their relationship with their mother because every time they ran out of money, they called their mother to ask for more. "Their parents had divorced a long time ago, and the only time they ever spoke to their mother was to ask for money," Reynal said. "They had a vested interest in being bad with money, because if they were to become good with money, then they had the problem of: 'I might not have an excuse to call mother anymore and I don't know how to build that relationship again'." The financial psychotherapist recommended being "curious and nonjudgmental" when considering the root of bad spending behavior. "So sometimes asking ourselves: "What feelings would I be left with if I actually didn't self-sabotage financially, or if I weren't so generous with my friends?' That can start to reveal the reason why you might be doing it," she added. Also on CNBC Mega Millions jackpot reaches $1.15 billion—these 8 states don’t tax prizes How these 24-year-olds spend 6-figure incomes in New York, California and Bali Scrambling to spend your FSA money? Don't make these 3 mistakes, experts warnwild acre brewing 。

(The Center Square) – Eleven states, led by Texas, have sued the three largest institutional investors in the world for allegedly conspiring to buy coal company stocks to control the market, reduce competition and violate federal and state antitrust laws. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Tyler Division and demands a trial by jury. It names as defendants BlackRock, Inc., State Street Corporation, and Vanguard Group, Inc., which combined manage more than $26 trillion in assets. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.No. 8 Kentucky flying high ahead of Western Kentucky meetingGeorgia loses QB Carson Beck (arm) during SEC title game

Sinn Fein actively pursuing route into government, insists leader McDonaldPlano police make arrest in 30-year-old kidnapping and sexual assault cold case

Sinn Fein actively pursuing route into government, insists leader McDonaldIt looked like a recipe for disaster. So, when his country's swimmers were being accused of doping earlier this year, one Chinese official cooked up something fast. He blamed it on contaminated noodles. In fact, he argued, it could have been a culinary conspiracy concocted by criminals, whose actions led to the cooking wine used to prepare the noodles being laced with a banned heart drug that found its way into an athlete's system. This theory was spelled out to international anti-doping officials during a meeting and, after weeks of wrangling, finally made it into the thousands of pages of data handed over to the lawyer who investigated the case involving 23 Chinese swimmers who had tested positive for that same drug. The attorney, appointed by the World Anti-Doping Agency, refused to consider that scenario as he sifted through the evidence. In spelling out his reasoning, lawyer Eric Cottier paid heed to the half-baked nature of the theory. "The Investigator considers this scenario, which he has described in the conditional tense, to be possible, no less, no more," Cottier wrote. Even without the contaminated-noodles theory, Cottier found problems with the way WADA and the Chinese handled the case but ultimately determined WADA had acted reasonably in not appealing China's conclusion that its athletes had been inadvertently contaminated. Critics of the way the China case was handled can't help but wonder if a wider exploration of the noodle theory, details of which were discovered by The Associated Press via notes and emails from after the meeting where it was delivered, might have lent a different flavor to Cottier's conclusions. "There are more story twists to the ways the Chinese explain the TMZ case than a James Bond movie," said Rob Koehler, the director general of the advocacy group Global Athlete. "And all of it is complete fiction." In April, reporting from the New York Times and the German broadcaster ARD revealed that the 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive for the banned heart medication trimetazidine, also known as TMZ. China's anti-doping agency determined the athletes had been contaminated, and so, did not sanction them. WADA accepted that explanation, did not press the case further, and China was never made to deliver a public notice about the "no-fault findings," as is often seen in similar cases. The stock explanation for the contamination was that traces of TMZ were found in the kitchen of a hotel where the swimmers were staying. In his 58-page report, Cottier relayed some suspicions about the feasibility of that chain of events — noting that WADA's chief scientist "saw no other solution than to accept it, even if he continued to have doubts about the reality of contamination as described by the Chinese authorities." But without evidence to support pursuing the case, and with the chance of winning an appeal at almost nil, Cottier determined WADA's "decision not to appeal appears indisputably reasonable." A mystery remained: How did those traces of TMZ get into the kitchen? Shortly after the doping positives were revealed, the Institute of National Anti-Doping Organizations held a meeting on April 30 where it heard from the leader of China's agency, Li Zhiquan. Li's presentation was mostly filled with the same talking points that have been delivered throughout the saga — that the positive tests resulted from contamination from the kitchen. But he expanded on one way the kitchen might have become contaminated, harkening to another case in China involving a low-level TMZ positive. A pharmaceutical factory, he explained, had used industrial alcohol in the distillation process for producing TMZ. The industrial alcohol laced with the drug "then entered the market through illegal channels," he said. The alcohol "was re-used by the perpetrators to process and produce cooking wine, which is an important seasoning used locally to make beef noodles," Li said. "The contaminated beef noodles were consumed by that athlete, resulting in an extremely low concentration of TMZ in the positive sample. "The wrongdoers involved have been brought to justice." This new information raised eyebrows among the anti-doping leaders listening to Li's report. So much so that over the next month, several emails ensued to make sure the details about the noodles and wine made their way to WADA lawyers, who could then pass it onto Cottier. Eventually, Li did pass on the information to WADA general counsel Ross Wenzel and, just to be sure, one of the anti-doping leaders forwarded it, as well, according to the emails seen by the AP. All this came with Li's request that the noodles story be kept confidential. Turns out, it made it into Cottier's report, though he took the information with a grain of salt. "Indeed, giving it more attention would have required it to be documented, then scientifically verified and validated," he wrote. Neither Wenzel nor officials at the Chinese anti-doping agency returned messages from AP asking about the noodles conspiracy and the other athlete who Li suggested had been contaminated by them. Meanwhile, 11 of the swimmers who originally tested positive competed at the Paris Games earlier this year in a meet held under the cloud of the Chinese doping case. Though WADA considers the case closed, Koehler and others point to situations like this as one of many reasons that an investigation by someone other than Cottier, who was hired by WADA, is still needed. "It gives the appearance that people are just making things up as they go along on this, and hoping the story just goes away," Koehler said. "Which clearly it has not." Get local news delivered to your inbox!

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Arcane’s Showrunner Discussed Spinoff Plans Following The Series Finale, And There’s One Particular Project I’m Really Pumped For‘Critical’: Housing leaders welcome Help to Buy, Build-to-Rent wins