British prime minister defeated by lettuce — and other notable journalism for your weekend

Well, that sure didn’t take long. Liz Truss is out as U.K. Prime Minister, resigning after just 44 days. As Anthony Scaramucci tweeted, “Liz Truss lasted 4.1 Scaramuccis.” (Scaramucci was fired as Donald Trump’s White House communications director after 10 days.) Scaramucci later cracked, “But she outlasted the milk in the refrigerator. I wasn’t able to do that! Kudos.”

Just last week, the British tabloid The Daily Star started a poll to ask readers who would last longer: Truss as PM or a head of lettuce? Apparently, the lettuce has won, as The New York Times’ Daniel Victor notes. Truss goes down as the shortest shortest-serving prime minister in British history.

So I start today with some of the better and more analytical (and serious) coverage of the Truss resignation.

• The Washington Post’s Leo Sands, Adela Suliman and Karla Adam with “Why Liz Truss resigned as U.K. prime minister: A guide to the chaos.”
• The Associated Press’ Jill Lawless with “Truss quits, but UK’s political and economic turmoil persist.”
• The New York Times’ Mark Landler with “Truss Defied the Markets, and They Ruthlessly Sealed Her Fate.”
• BBC News economic editor Faisal Islam with “Prime Minister Liz Truss was the author of her own demise.”
• Washington Post columnist Henry Olsen with “Liz Truss’s resignation is a warning for Republicans.”
• The Atlantic’s Brian Klaas with “What Happened to Liz Truss Can’t Happen Here.”
• The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Sugden with “Before Liz Truss, This British Prime Minister Held the Record for Shortest Tenure.”
• And, finally, The New York Times with “These are the likely front-runners to replace Liz Truss.”

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And now on to other journalism you should catch up over the weekend

• Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch with “Shock videos of Fla. handcuffing Black voters showed true stakes of ‘22 election.”
• Reporting from Mexico City, The Los Angeles Times’ Kate Linthicum with “Mexico’s new racial reckoning: A movement protests colorism and white privilege.”
• If you read this newsletter regularly, you know I’ve written time and time again how I believe The Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins is the best sports columnist in the country. Here’s another example as she takes on a favorite target in the owner of the Washington NFL team: “Daniel Snyder is always looking for the sucker. This time, it might be him.” Here’s a devastating line from her opening paragraph: “Snyder is long on bluster and short on everything else, including competence, and his duplicity has made him chronically distrusted.”
• Also in the Post, media critic Erik Wemple with “CNN host dreams of a ‘whole network’ for ‘independent thinkers.’”
• And one more breaking news story from The Washington Post’s Elizabeth Dwoskin, Faiz Siddiqui, Gerrit De Vynck and Jeremy B. Merrill: “Documents detail plans to gut Twitter’s workforce.”
• The Daily Beast’s Lawrence O. Gostin and Jana Shaw with “Megyn Kelly’s Anti-Vax Lies Are a Threat to Public Health.”
• And speaking of journalists saying dangerous things, my goodness, what the heck has happened to former “60 Minutes” correspondent Lara Logan? The Daily Beast’s Justin Baragona has the latest in “Lara Logan Goes Full QAnon, Spews Blood Libel on Newsmax.”
• For ProPublica, Kathleen McGrory and Neil Bedi, in conjunction with NPR, with “The U.S. Never Banned Asbestos. These Workers Are Paying the Price.”
• Andscape’s David Dennis Jr. with “Kanye West’s ‘Drink Champs’ episode failed us all.”
• On his latest “The Axe Files” podcast, David Axelrod talks with New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman about her coverage over the years of former President Donald Trump, and her new book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.”
• For Wired, Will Bedingfield with “The Bruce Willis Deepfake Is Everyone’s Problem.”
• Teen Vogue’s Lauryn Higgins with “A School ‘Paused’ Its Student Newspaper After an LGBTQ Pride Issue.”
• CNN has put out a video ad promoting its new upcoming morning show with Don Lemon, Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins. Here it is.
• New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat debuts a new weekly newsletter today. It’s about politics and culture.

Have a great weekend everyone. Talk to you again on Monday.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].

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