Monday was the fourth anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, not one of the better days in the Republic’s history. At the time, as you may (or may not) remember, Democrats (and many Republicans) were united in saying that the attack certainly marked the end of Donald Trump’s political career. Spoiler alert: They were wrong. This story from The New York Times explains how Trump and his allies managed to turn the Jan. 6 narrative around — and even managed to use it to his advantage in the 2024 election.

And here’s a story that’s not completely unrelated to Jan. 6: Social media giant Meta announced this week that it was ending a fact-checking program on Facebook, Instagram and Threads in the United States. I guess this means that Facebook is no longer a consistently accurate source of information — which, of course, begs the question: When was it ever? David Bauder of The Associated Press offers a more nuanced take on the decision.

Members of the International Fact-Checking Network fired off an open letter to Meta leader Mark Zuckerberg, warning of the potential consequences of the decision. The letter is worth reading. And the Nieman Lab at Harvard ran a piece from a founding director of the network, who fact-checked Zuckerberg’s announcement and found it, shall we say, a little light on facts. And context, for that matter.

Another Nieman Lab story, this one from Joshua Benton, tells of the time in 1980, when Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post endorsed President Jimmy Carter, then running against Ted Kennedy for the Democratic nomination. The suspicion then — and now — is that Murdoch made the endorsement in part to win a low-interest loan from the federal government to buy jumbo jets. Murdoch and the White House denied it. But the entire affair reads today as an incident in which a billionaire media mogul tried to win political favor by influencing news coverage. Thank goodness nothing like that appears to be happening today.

The wildfires devastating Los Angeles already have been the focus of outstanding news coverage, and there’s certainly more to come as authorities and experts examine the causes of the blazes and the efforts to fight them. In the meantime, here’s a handful of fire-related stories that might be of particular interest to residents of Oregon, which endured another record-breaking wildfire year in 2024. (Most of the big blazes were in eastern Oregon, so they didn’t generate the sort of news coverage that followed the state’s 2020 fires.)

First: President Joe Biden almost immediately authorized federal aid for California n the wake of this week’s fires. Would Donald Trump do the same — or would he threaten to withhold federal aid to states like California (or, for that matter, Oregon) that tend to be unfriendly to Trump? If you’re thinking, “No, no president would do that,” perhaps you’ve forgotten that Trump did it during his first term. This New York Times story will refresh your memory.

Here’s another New York Times piece that goes deep into Los Angeles’ preparation for the fires, and suggests that the firefighting playbook that has worked well in the past might not be particularly effective against the sort of urban wildfire that is increasingly common. (For more on this topic, check out John Vaillant’s outstanding book “Fire Weather.“)

And in The Atlantic, M. Nolan Gray argues that well-intentioned policies helped to fuel the fires. (Fire insurance, a big issue in Oregon, plays a role in the Los Angeles fires, Gray argues — but so does the way we design our suburbs.)

Here’s an interesting fact you can use to dazzle friends or family: Data centers already use more than 10% of all the electricity in Oregon — and that percentage is almost certain to rise in spectacular fashion, especially as the use of power-hungry artificial intelligence spikes. That’s part of the reason why state Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, is working on a bill to require data-center operators to cover most of the cost of that additional electricity and transmission infrastructure. Mike Rogoway at The Oregonian/OregonLive has the details.

Soul man Sam Moore, half of the famed R-and-B duo Sam and Dave, died Friday from complications after surgery. (Dave Prater, the other half of the duo, died in a car crash in Georgia in 1988.) The two famously disliked each other — but that didn’t stop them from making some terrific music.

Looking for a place where you can get away from it all — and where, perhaps, it might be hard to find you? Consider the Stanley Ranch in Oregon’s Wheeler County, once owned by the Steiwer family of prominent politicians, ranchers and bankers. It covers 37 square miles (that’s bigger than the city of Bend). Amenities include a cattle operation, a party saloon, a helicopter hangar, a theater, an oxygenated pool stocked with fish, and an indoor riding arena (but you already assumed it had an indoor riding arena, didn’t you?) The asking price, according to Janet Eastman of The Oregonian/OregonLive, is $34,950,000 — but you might need to dig a little deeper into your pockets to grab this site.

That’s it for this weekend. Let’s gather here next weekend and compare notes about which films stand the best chance of winning Oscar nominations, which will be announced next Sunday, Jan. 19.