Notes and Essays -- John Brown

In the first year of his second term, President Trump has made sweeping efforts to influence the arts and media in America. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/arts/trump-culture-war-smithsonian-kennedy-center.html 9 min read

Read in Browser Living through the humanitarian crisis in Kyiv; JB:   on Ms. Shevchenko, see also; and also Chief Executive Officer Daryna Shevchenko Dear reader, This is Daryna Shevchenko, CEO of the Kyiv Independent. And I want to take you through one ordinary day of my life. What we, Ukrainians, are living through right now is hard to explain or label. Russia’s attacks have left millions of people across the country without electricity, heating, and water — amid subzero temperatures. It’s a humanitarian crisis. It’s hard to explain what this means for those on the ground. Instead, I invite you into my lived experience. Today is Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. I’m writing this on the subway, on my way to our office. It’s -12 degrees Celsius (10 degrees Fahrenheit) outside. I’m cold — but ready for the day. This day was chosen at random. I don’t know how it ends. I’ll be grateful if you stay until it does. 8:30 a.m. — My alarm goes off. I snooze it with confidence. I deserve at leas...

Opinion David Ignatius The Washington Post , January 20, 2026 An emergency warming tent in Kyiv. (Thomas Peter/Reuters) KYIV — It’s a bitterly cold Saturday night here, the temperature 10 degrees Fahrenheit and falling, and a few pedestrians are skittering down the icy sidewalks to get inside before the midnight curfew. Because the heat is out in some homes in the wake of savage Russian bombing of power facilities this month, they may have to visit one of the hundreds of warming centers in the city to get through the night. This grim winter scene is a snapshot of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal strategy for victory. By pounding Ukraine’s sources of power and heat, he hopes to freeze the country into submission.  President Donald Trump sometimes talks as if he agrees with Putin that Russian victory in this bloodbath is inevitable — and that Kyiv must give up territory in a peace deal. But conversations here Sunday with Ukraine’s new Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov and o...

President Trump and Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, are expected to talk about sticking points in negotiations to end the war with Russia. Jan. 22, 202 Constant Méheut Reporting from Davos, Switzerland The New York Times , Jan 22; see also Image President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine will meet President Trump on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Credit... Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was meeting with President Trump in Switzerland on Thursday to try to advance U.S.-mediated talks aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, an effort that Washington has pursued for nearly a year with little tangible progress. The two leaders met on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a spokesman for Mr. Zelensky said. They were expected to zero in on the main sticking points that have stalled a peace deal so far, namely control over territory and security guarantees for Ukraine after the war. ...