Welcome to May, Weekend Reader readers! If you’re not familiar with the James Taylor song “First of May,” it’s not too late to make its acquaintance.

If you’re not familiar with the details of the Trump administration’s 2026 budget proposal — and if you have a little time to spare — you might be interested in perusing this White House-provided summary. I read it in some detail on Friday, and I was struck by the combative tone, if not the mean-spiritedness, of the document. Consider, for example, this excerpt about the nation’s institutions of higher education (or, as the document terms them, IHEs):

A renewed focus on academics and scholastic accomplishment by IHEs, rather than engaging in woke ideology with Federal taxpayer subsidies, would be a welcome change for students and the future of the Nation.

In that light, I was intrigued by this New York Times story about the president of Harvard University, Alan Garber, who has emerged as a hero in some circles for standing up to the administration war against Harvard (and higher education in general). But Garber still believes that Harvard — and, by extension, other universities — have a campus culture problem that urgently needs fixing.

Somewhere in my garage is a copy of Walter Lippmann’s classic book “Public Opinion,” published in 1922. I’ll have to dig it out in light of this Megan Garber piece from The Atlantic, which persuasively argues that Lippmann’s main points are shockingly relevant to today’s politics. The problem, LIppmann and Garber argue, is that democracy requires that its participants have access to reliable information — but our brains have a hard time distinguishing between things that are true and things we only believe are true. Or, put another way, emotion often trumps information. It’s worth remembering that Lippmann was writing before anyone coined the word “media.”

In a completely related story, the White House has launched White House Wire, a website (inspired by The Drudge Report) that will feature hard-hitting coverage of the administration. Just kidding! Axios, which broke the story, quoted an administration official as saying the site would be “a place for supporters of the president’s agenda to get the real news all in one place in a shareable and readable format.” Be sure to bookmark the site.

Speaking of The Atlantic, as we were a paragraph above: If you were surprised that Trump sat down for an interview with some of the magazine’s editors, I was too. Still, the actual interview might even be more astonishing. And here’s a confession: The interview made me laugh out loud a couple of times. But maybe not in a mirthful way, if you follow me.

I promise this is the last bit of Donald Trump-related news in this edition: The president has consistently portrayed himself as an advocate of free speech — why, on the first day of his administration, he signed an executive order about his commitment to the First Amendment. But his actions over the first 100 days of his administration paint a much different picture, as the Poynter Institute notes.

Sad local news: The city of Albany has decided to stop paddle boat rentals on Waverly Lake, saying that the program costs considerably more money than it brings in. Better news, according to the Gazette-Times’ Hans Boyle: The iconic gigantic foam duck will return to the lake later this spring.

When the Cascadia subduction zone earthquake finally occurs — hopefully not anytime soon — it’ll do plenty of damage to coastal communities. But that could be just the start of the story, according to a new study: The quake and subsequent tsunami also could cause Northwest coastlines to lower and retreat as land erodes. Alex Baumhardt reported on the study for the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

If you’ve followed the career of Gov. Tina Kotek, her willingness to oust leaders of state departments shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Even so, since the start of her term, she’s either fired or encouraged the resignation of nine state executives, including three already this year — the heads of the troubled Oregon State Hospital, the Oregon Youth Authority and the Oregon Public Defense Commission. Kotek’s backers say it’s evidence of her high expectations. Kotek’s critics say the firings are evidence that she lacks the in-depth engagement with state agencies that could provide early warnings of trouble. The Oregonian/OregonLive takes a deeper look in this story.

The actor Jeremy Renner, who nearly died two years ago when he was run over by a snowplow, has a new memoir in which he vividly describes his near-death experience. It turns out scientists have been studying these near-death experiences for decades — but they have, shall we say, different opinions about what it all means. This Times story has the details.

A new poll suggests that most Americans — about three-quarters of us — make at least some contributions each year to charitable organizations. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the vast majority give less than $500 — and there’s evidence that younger Americans increasingly are less likely to give. This Associated Press story outlines the poll’s findings.

For reasons that still evade me, the French bulldog is still the top dog breed in the United States. (Labrador retrievers are No. 2, followed by golden retrievers, German shepherds and poodles.) Moving up the chart in a hurry is the cane corso, a breed I never had heard of until just now: The powerful and protective breed has jumped to No. 14 in just a few years, the Associated Press reports.

That’s it for this week’s Weekend Reader — I need to go walk my dad’s dog, an Australian terrier (No. 158 on the list, for reasons I completely understand.) I should be back from the walk at about this time next weekend.