CYBERGRILL: A committee of US Senators yesterday put the chief executives of five major social media companies on the barbecue grill for their handling of material considered sexually exploitive or harmful to children.

  The Senate Judiciary Committee spent nearly four hours grilling Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg along with the chief executives of TikTok, Snap, Discord, and Twitter/X. The primary accusation was that the companies have not done enough to shield minors from sexual content, online predators, and drug dealers.

  It was one of those bipartisan occasions legislators use to make themselves look tough. Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said, “Collective, your platforms really suck at policing themselves.”

  Citing one case in which a predator groomed a young person on Snap, Illinois Sen. Dick Durban asked the company’s chief executive, Evan Spiegel, “Did you and everyone else at Snap really fail to see that the platform was a perfect tool for sexual predators?”

  Despite claiming they do everything they can to protect children, the executives of Discord and X had to be subpoenaed to appear.

  In the audience were the families of children dead, some by suicide, after social media engagements. Responding to a challenge to apologize, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg turned to the families and unemotionally claimed he’s doing everything to prevent more families from suffering what they have.

CHINA SYNDROME: FBI Director Christopher Wray spoke chillingly before Congress yesterday about the efforts of Chinese computer hackers and the threat they pose to US military and economic security, saying “today and literally every day they are attacking out economic security, engaging in wholesale theft of our innovations, and our personal and corporate data.” 

  He said Chinese hackers have been attacking US, communications, energy, and transportation, and water facilities, “critical civilian infrastructure that keeps us safe and prosperous.”

  Wray added, “And they don’t just hit our security and economy, they target our freedoms, reaching inside America across our borders to silence, coerce and threaten our citizens and residents.”

DRUGGED OUT: Struggling with an epidemic of drug use and associated homelessness, the City of Portland, Oregon has declared a state of emergency to deal with the fentanyl crisis in that city.

  City officials are admitting that their decision to decriminalize the use of the powerful drug has failed. According to Multnomah County in which Portland is located, the number of overdose deaths involving fentanyl increased by 533% between 2018 and 2022.

  Exactly what government officials can do to be effective is uncertain. The announcement said the plan is to launch a major advertising campaign and to establish a “command center… where state, county and city employees will convene to coordinate strategies and response efforts.” 

  In announcing the state of emergency, Governor Tina Kotek, conceded that the city was suffering “economic and reputational harm” from the fentanyl problem. She said in her statement, “Our country and our state have never seen a drug this deadly addictive, and all are grappling with how to respond.” 

THE WAR ZONE: With Russia pressing its winter and spring offensive against the Ukrainian front and American military aid in doubt, an analysis by five authors posted by The Institute for the Study of War says that, “A Russian conquest of all of Ukraine is by no means impossible if the United States cuts off all military assistance and Europe follows suit.”

  The paper goes on to say that the US would face the risk of a larger and costlier war in Europe, loss of deterrent power, and that, “The United States would face the worst threat from Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union, as a victorious Russia would likely emerge reconstituted and more determined to undermine the United States — and confident that it can.” The analysis says, “A Russian victory would create an ugly world in which the atrocities associated with Russia’s way of war and way of ruling the populations under its control are normalized.”

THE SPIN RACK: The New Mexico Justice Department says it will not criminally charge the three cops who went to the wrong house responding to a call last year and fatally shooting the armed homeowner as he opened the door. The cops could be heard on bodycam video questioning whether they were at the right house for a domestic disturbance call. But prosecutors said that an expert report had found that the use of deadly force was “lawful” in light of the threat they faced from Robert Dotson, 52, and then his wife, who were both armed with guns. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spent $160 million running for president only to quit after one primary. — A 56-year-old Queens, NY man who pushed a police officer over a ledge during the January 6^th insurrection has been sentenced to six and a half years in prison. Ralph Celentano’s lawyers said, “He is a man who deeply believed the election was stolen, who was disaffected by his government and who received his news from sources that fed him misinformation.”

ERRATUM: In our obituary of Chita Rivera we mistakenly said she was Anita in West Side Story. That was Rita Moreno.

BELOW THE FOLD:  A lot of hotels in recent years have boosted profits with add-on fees … resort fees, internet fees, and parking to name a few.

  And so it goes with new Apple devices, The NY Times notes that while the new Apple Vision pro video goggles coming out tomorrow sell for an astounding $3,500, the true cost with a few add-ons is more like $4,600.

  Yet the true cost of owning the Vision Pro is probably even higher. Try $4,600. That’s because the price shoots up with the add-ons and accessories that many people would find necessary, including:

• Carrying case, $200. 
• A pair of earphones/AirPods, $180. 
• Larger data memory, $200.
• Spare battery, $200, because the battery lasts two hours, just over halfway through “Killers of the Flower Moon.

And there’s more, but you get the idea. Buy Apple stock instead.

-30-