C.S. Lewis famously dismissed the journalism of his day. “I never read the papers. Why does anyone?” he wrote. “They’re nearly all lies, and one has to wade thru’ such reams of verbiage and ‘write up’ to find out even what they’re saying.” The notion, he quipped elsewhere, that journalists “can be saved is a doctrine, if not contrary to, yet certainly above, reason!”

“Trust,” said Ronald Reagan, “but verify.”

The three-word bit of wisdom has been widely—if casually—reported as coming from Reagan’s mind as well as his mouth. But it isn’t so. Some reporter somewhere was too quick to trust and too slow to verify. Others followed.

The proverb in fact finds its origins in Russia (Доверяй, но проверяй). The phrase became well-known in English only when Reagan jovially quoted it to Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland, during nuclear disarmament talks in 1986. Dozens of TV cameras seemed to authenticate his authorship.

Have you heard any good news lately? In the clamor of furious partisans, furious weather, and furious rhetoric, it doesn’t seem like it. Random conversations on the bus or in the checkout line, if they go beyond cute shoes or that book I’m holding, often end with sighs and head-shaking. Prices going up, kids don’t listen, can’t afford my mortgage, worried about my health coverage. Wall Street banksters, rotten Republicans, demon Democrats—the world’s a mess.

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump in a Sunday interview spoke about a wide range of hot-button topics, from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation to his relationship with world leaders.

Sojourners and other Christian left groups like to think of themselves as cutting edge, but “Christian socialism” in America goes back the late 19th century. Professor Richard Ely, who founded the American Economic Association in 1885, strove to apply principles enunciated by Horace Greeley to all of American society and tried to meld the Bible and forced redistribution. He demanded that all unite behind the “coercive philanthropy … of governments, either local, state, or national.”

A New York moment:

Last year I started subscribing to a local paper that covers a cluster of small towns north of New York City, like Beacon. The town meetings and arguments about construction of a cell tower are not relevant to me, but it’s a good newspaper, and I miss good, local news coverage. Every issue has a Q&A with a local resident, like a longtime pub owner or a librarian.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey will testify before a House committee Wednesday afternoon regarding accusations of bias against conservatives, a charge he denied in prewritten testimony: “Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions, whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules.” Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have accused Twitter of “shadow banning” conservatives in its search results.