Moving To New Zealand: This Week On Fresh Powder

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The lede

True story: Less than a week after the deadliest mass shooting in New Zealand’s history, its government not only put into motion but passed, effective immediately, a ban on military-style assault weapons which includes a buy-back program and eliminating the license that enables the sale of the weapons: CNN. (All this and time for the victims’ funerals, too? Who knew?)

…  In brief, from The New York Times, on New Zealand’s prime minister: “Jacinda Ardern Is Leading by Following No One.”

…  The Roots of Jacinda Adern’s Extraordinary Leadership After Christchurch: The New Yorker

…  Jay Willis in GQ: “What New Zealand just did is not astonishing, though. It is the only safe, rational, and sane thing to do. We are the insane ones.”

…  New Zealand gun owners were already voluntarily giving up their firearms before the law passed, reported BuzzFeed News.

Seconded

“At the heart of the bribery scandal lies the toxic belief that college acceptance confers value. That parents might go to jail over this reveals how deeply rooted this belief is. But I worry that legacy admissions are just a socially-acceptable expression of this same mindset.” Nailing it in two minutes or less is Maya DiRado Andrews, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and former legacy student of Stanford herself.

TGIF

In important political news, “Veep” returns this weekend: On its final season (IndieWire), Selina Meyer’s best-selling book (EW) and an interview with Julia Louis-Dreyfus (GMA).

…  As countdowns go: Less than a month now until “Game of Thrones.” Read Emilia Clarke’s wrenching personal essay for The New Yorker: “I had just finished filming Season 1 of “Game of Thrones.” Then I was struck with the first of two aneurysms.”(Long live our Queen!)

#MillennialProblems

To a generation of clickbait lovers, “Florida man” is near and dear. For Poynter, a fun-sucker’s old-man take on why “The ‘Florida man’  is not so funny sometimes.” (Is this one of those, “If you don’t think you have that friend it’s because you are that friend” things?)

…  Hey, look, puppy pics!

Sports!

MLB’s Los Angeles Angels gave outfielder Mike Trout a new contract worth more than $430 million over the next 12 years; naturally, that made everyone else want one, too.

…  Because maybe you and Trout look kind of alike, or because of your kid’s presumed athletic potential (with video proof).

…  “When you think of the Angels, you think about Mike Trout,” a teammate told ESPN, but I don’t know… there’s still this. (Shoulder shrug emoji.)

Thinking ahead

That dude Mueller’s report dropped like a new Beyonce album and nothing’s changed. Only new Beyonce can save us now. (Here’s the latest intel.)

This also happened last week: Twitter went bananas for a photo of a monkey that one tweeter equated to every journalist’s headshot, and I strongly recommend scrolling through the replies.