Pandemic split screen; Newsmax settles with Dominion exec; McConnell targets 1619 Project; YouTube removed from Roku; Disneyland re-opens

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Oliver Darcy here at 8:15pm ET Friday. Inside this edition: Newsmax settles with a Dominion exec, Mitch McConnell targets the 1619 Project, and Donie O'Sullivan speaks with anti-vax Republicans. Plus, how "CBS This Morning" marked Susan Zirinsky's final day as CBS News president and what it was like on Friday when Disneyland re-opened. But first...

Pandemic split screen

Brian and I had lunch Friday — our first since pre-pandemic times. We dined indoors at The Smith in New York. When we sat down, the waiter informed us they had updated their mask policy: Patrons no longer need to wear a face covering when placing orders because the entire staff is now vaccinated. While we were at the restaurant, CNN Business published a story about how OpenTable data shows Americans are "heading back to restaurants." We talked about that and Disneyland re-opening and Brian's recent vacation. Which is all to say that, here in the US, things are on the upswing.

Across the world in India, however, the situation could not be more different. Death is quite literally in the air as bodies of coronavirus victims are burned en masse at crematorium grounds. Hospitals are overrun. Stories about rising case counts and oxygen shortages and a "double mutant" flood the zone.

It's a pandemic split screen. As the US inches toward normalcy, India is grappling with a full-blown crisis. And while the situation in our own backyard is improving quickly, the pandemic is still very much ongoing — and that can't be lost in our coverage.

"Everyone I know has lost someone to the virus"

Writing for NYT, New Delhi-based journalist Aman Sethi described what it is like "watching India's funeral pyres burn." Sethi also detailed the emotional toll the virus has inflicted on the people of India. "Everyone I know has lost someone to the virus. Many have lost several members of their family," Sethi wrote. "But while you're in lockdown, the dead don't feel dead as much as disappeared. So when my father called me on Tuesday to say that his uncle had died of Covid-19, that the uncle's whole family was ill with the disease and that a cousin of my father's was in an intensive care unit, I sensed the onset of a familiar numbness."

On the ground

CNN, BBC, and Sky News have crews on the ground in India. NYT and WaPo also have correspondents filing reports, as well as the Associated Press and Reuters...

The toll of reporting

Delivering a report on-air Friday from New Delhi, CNN's Vedika Sud described what it has been like reporting on the outbreak. "Being an Indian and being a journalist, it's actually been very difficult for me to keep the emotions aside when it comes to the developments in India," Sud explained.

Sud said that before she went on air, she had spoken by phone with her husband. Her husband had told her that a colleague of his was sick and in need of oxygen and that they were looking for a way to get some for him.

Gupta says his uncle passed

Dr. Sanjay Gupta also opened up about how the situation has impacted his family. He said that he is "communicating all the time" with his family in India. Gupta also disclosed that the "favorite uncle" in his family had died from coronavirus. Gupta said the death happened suddenly and said it was "shocking..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- NYT's Parul Sehgal: "Every member in my family in Delhi has Covid -- from the babies to the elderly. All seem to be recovering at home but the city is a pyre..." (Twitter)

-- Tenzin Zompa looks at how global media has covered the crisis in India... (ThePrint)

-- Mallika Sen writes about how, for those from India living in the US, bad news often comes "in a barrage of WhatsApp messages first thing in the morning, and sometimes it lands in the middle of the night..." (AP)

-- The top story across most news orgs: "Biden administration to restrict travel from India starting Tuesday..." (CNN)

Anti-vax Republicans

Donie O'Sullivan writes: "A new CNN polls finds 44% of Republicans will not get vaccinated. One thing that has stood out to me from speaking to Trump supporters is that even some of his biggest fans view the vaccine as a red line – they won't get it, they say, even if Trump were to plead with them do so. I spoke to some members of Trump's base about why they're declining a vaccine. Watch here..."

Rewarding vaccination

Brian Lowry writes: "In the media-messaging wars, I think Keith Olbermann and Juliette Kayyem are onto something with their suggestion about allowing the market – and convenience – to promote vaccination among the resistant. As Kayyem wrote, 'Instead of imposing requirements that restrict everyone's activities equally, governments and private entities may rely on drawing sharper distinctions between 'unburdened' and 'burdened' classes. TSA PreCheck is a perfect example: If people take a few affirmative steps — providing the government with some background information and submitting to a security screening — they avoid certain hassles at airport checkpoints. People are free to refuse, but they'll have to wait in line and be ready to take off their belt and shoes.' Olbermann added, the idea is 'not to mandate vaccination but reward it...'"

WEEKEND PLANNER

The Kentucky Derby is on NBC Saturday...

Susan Collins and Anita Dunn are among Jake Tapper's guests on "SOTU" Sunday...

"The Story of Late Night," exec produced by Bill Carter, premieres Sunday on CNN...

This weekend on "Reliable"

Brian Stelter writes: "I'll go one on one with Kathleen Kingsbury, the top editor of the NYT's Opinion section... Plus, David Leonhardt and Zeynep Tufekci on the media's shifting conversations about masks, Daniel Dale and Nicole Hemmer on fact-checking, Eli J. Finkel on the rise of 'political sectarianism,' and the aforementioned Bill Carter. See you Sunday at 11am ET on CNN!"

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- Months after he vanished from Fox's air, the network has confirmed it has parted ways ways with weekend anchor Leland Vittert... (Mediaite)

-- Michael Hiltzik took a look at how Tucker Carlson's show "survives" without major advertisers... (LAT)

-- "The right-wing media landscape is a part of the [Rudy] Giuliani story in ways that go beyond interviews and on-air support," Jon Allsop observed... (CJR)

Newsmax settles lawsuit with Dominion exec

Newsmax on Friday settled a lawsuit filed by an executive with Dominion Voting Systems who had sued the right-wing network after being the target of conspiracy theories related to the 2020 election. The lawsuit had been filed in December by Eric Coomer, Dominion's director of product strategy and security. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed and a spokesperson for Coomer declined to comment Friday. Insider's Jacob Shamsian, who broke the news, has more details here...

Newsmax acknowledged in a statement the theories it gave voice to were baseless. "Newsmax has found no evidence that Dr. Coomer interfered with Dominion voting machines or voting software in any way, nor that Dr. Coomer ever claimed to have done so," the statement said. "Nor has Newsmax found any evidence that Dr. Coomer ever participated in any conversation with members of 'Antifa,' nor that he was directly involved with any partisan political organization. On behalf of Newsmax, we would like to apologize for any harm that our reporting of the allegations against Dr. Coomer may have caused to Dr. Coomer and his family."

McConnell targets the 1619 Project

Mitch McConnell is taking on NYT's 1619 Project. In a letter first reported by Politico, "the Republican leader asks Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to abandon curriculum in American schools that McConnell argues tells a revisionist history of America's founding," CNN's Ryan Nobles reported.

>> Nikole Hannah-Jones pointed out, "No one is pushing laws mandating the teaching of the #1619Project, but Republicans across the U.S. are pushing laws to mandate 'patriotic' education & to prohibit the teaching of the #1619Project and abt nation's racist past." And Cardona told Ana Cabrera that he hadn't yet seen McConnell's letter, but said "the reality" is that "the federal government doesn't really have a role in the curriculum development..."

A battle for the soul of the GOP in Texas

Donie O'Sullivan writes: "A special election in Texas on Saturday includes one Republican with a controversial message (at least for those in the GOP): the 2020 election, he says, was NOT stolen. Michael Wood, a veteran, voted for Trump in November — but everything changed for him on January 6th and now he is running with an anti-Trump message. Speaking about the challenge facing the Republican Party and the country, he told me, 'I think that there's problems with the sort of news silos that we can put ourselves in. Now you can watch people who only agree with you, listen to people who only agree with you, read people who only agree with you. And in some ways this is sort of unprecedented in American history...'"

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- "The pathways into the kind of extremism that led to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, threats against lawmakers and last year's armed confrontations at state capitals nationwide are often initially anything but ideological," Marc Fisher wrote, outlining how extremists "use popular culture to lure recruits..." (WaPo)

-- George W. Bush sat down with The Dispatch, warning that some of the crazy nonsense floated by the GOP recently could result in it going "extinct..." (Dispatch)

-- This clip went viral Friday: Stephanie Ruhle skewered West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice over his signing of an anti-trans bill... (Mediaite)

-- Jill Biden made some news during the couple's sit-down with Craig Melvin, revealing that a feline will soon be living at the White House. "She's waiting in the wings," Jill Biden said, adding that Major has received some training on being with cats... (NBC News)

-- Ruth Franklin wrote about Blake Bailey and "what we lose when only men write about men..." (NYT)

Zirinsky's final day as CBS president

Friday marked Susan Zirinsky's final day as president of CBS News. As the hosts of "CBS This Morning" paid tribute to her, Zirinsky actually swung by the set for a brief appearance. "CBS News will always be in my heart," she said, noting that she was not departing the network, but simply transitioning roles. "You have all worked so hard," she added, "and I could not be more proud."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- "A local television news crew spotted an Arizona murder suspect near the Atlanta airport and flagged police, resulting in the man being taken back into custody after a daylong search..." (CBS News)

-- "With the help of translators at the University of Hawaii and support from the community, Civil Beat is launching a new special section dedicated to telling stories in the Hawaiian language..." (Civil Beat)

YouTube TV removed from Roku

"YouTube TV has been removed from Roku's channel store, after Roku and YouTube TV parent Google failed to come to a distribution agreement amid accusations that the tech giant made anti-competitive demands," Axios' Sara Fischer reported Friday. Fischer noted that "these spats happen regularly between Pay-TV providers and linear TV networks." But, as she pointed out, "in the digital era, this is one of the rare times in which consumers will have a major streaming network removed from their platform's channel store due to a breakdown in negotiations..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

-- "The European Union charged Apple with antitrust violations for allegedly abusing its control over the distribution of music-streaming apps, broadening the battle over the tech giant's App Store practices ahead of a federal trial in the U.S. brought by 'Fortnite' maker Epic Games," Sam Schechner reports... (WSJ)

-- "TikTok announced a new CEO and COO, in what its Chinese parent company ByteDance said was 'a strategic reorganization' to optimize the popular short-form video app's global teams and support its continued growth," Todd Spangler reports... (Variety)

Weekend reads...

By Katie Pellico:

-- If you haven't already spent some time with it yet, Garrett Graff's oral history on the Osama bin Laden raid is a must-read... (Politico)

-- Mattia Ferraresi, managing editor for Italy's Domani newspaper, shares "what newsrooms can learn about trust from coverage of the AstraZeneca vaccine..." (NiemanReports)

-- "This grad school investigative unit dove deep into the far-right extremist movement." Read why it was also "a story about the importance of having a diverse newsroom..." (Poynter)

-- A weekend listen: Ezra Klein digs into "shame, safety and moving beyond cancel culture" in a conversation with Natalie Wynn and Will Wilkinson, "both of whom have been canceled... and have since dedicated parts of their work to grappling with both the good and the bad of the phenomenon..." (NYT)

-- "Marvel's 'Black Panther,' one of the all-time highest-grossing films at the worldwide box office, is the starkest recent reminder that stories led by Black characters made by Black creators have monetary value to the mainstream when done right." Hear from five Black comic book creators with five "ways of seeing this inclusive superhero moment..." (LAT)

"A truly happy day at the happiest place on earth"

"Disneyland and Disney California Adventure opened their gates to guests Friday after an unprecedented 13-month closure, welcoming parkgoers to stroll down Main Street USA, pay a visit to the Haunted Mansion and scream down Splash Mountain as the COVID-19 pandemic loosens its grip on the state," LAT's Hugo Martin and Todd Martens reported. Martin and Martens said "eager parkgoers began lining up hours before Disneyland's official 9 a.m. opening time, and a cheer greeted the announcement that the temperature-check station would start processing them for admission about an hour early."

>> Per Deadline, Bob Chapek "gave a speech to staffers this morning before opening." And Bob Iger was seen snapping selfies with guests. "A truly happy day at the happiest place on earth," Iger tweeted...

FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX

-- Noel Clarke is denying "any sexual misconduct or criminal wrongdoing" after The Guardian spoke with 20 women about him... (Variety)

-- Meanwhile: BAFTA has suspended Clarke "until further notice..." (CNN)

-- "NBC is staying in business with Dwayne Johnson and Kenan Thompson," Peter White reports. "The network has renewed comedies Young Rock and Kenan for second seasons..." (Deadline)

-- Eriq Gardner writes about how a "malpractice suit against a star lawyer could leak #MeToo secrets..." (THR)

Lowry reviews what is streaming this weekend

Brian Lowry writes: "Thirty-five years after the movie, and 40 after the book, 'The Mosquito Coast' becomes an Apple TV+ series, with author Paul Theroux's nephew, Justin Theroux, producing and starring. But moving the concept into contemporary times only makes the off-the-grid protagonist feel creepier, in what charitably might be described as 'Breaking Bad: Family Edition.'"

>> Lowry adds: "Movie-wise, Glenn Close follows her latest Oscar nomination (and viral dance) by co-starring with Mila Kunis in 'Four Good Days,' a movie based on a WaPo article about addiction that struggles to conjure 90-some-odd good minutes. A better bet is 'Eat Wheaties!,' which cleverly adapts the book 'The Locklear Letters' for the social-media age, with Tony Hale ('Veep') playing a guy who begins to torpedo his life as his college reunion nears by becoming obsessed with the fact he went to school with Elizabeth Banks (in the 2003 novel, it was Heather Locklear)."

FOR THE RECORD, PART SEVEN

By Lisa Respers France:

-- See some of what's streaming in May...

-- And while we are talking streaming, there's a new season of "The Handmaid's Tale" and that's only one of the things we are excited to watch this weekend...

-- Halle Berry saw you all clowning her and laughed at a joke about her Oscars hairstyle...

-- Turns out that T-Pain has been missing out on hundreds of celeb DMs over the past two years. The rapper/singer/producer didn't know about a certain Instagram message folder and accidentally ignored messages from some heavy hitters including Viola Davis and Diplo...

🎧 This week's Reliable podcast: The future of entertainment 🎧

A trio of CNN's entertainment gurus and newsletter regulars -- Chloe Melas, Lisa Respers France and Frank Pallotta -- joined Brian on the "Reliable Sources" podcast to analyze the end of awards season, the tentative reopening of movie theaters, and shifting streaming release strategies. The big question: What is the post-pandemic entertainment world going to look like? As Lisa said, "Hollywood is going to have to change because we've changed." Check out the conversation via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your favorite app...