What happened
Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” won six awards at last night’s Academy Awards, including best picture. Anderson (pictured above, center right) won best director and best adapted screenplay and Sean Penn was awarded best supporting actor. Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” the other contender for the top prize, won four Oscars, including best actor for Michael B. Jordan and best original screenplay for Coogler. Jessie Buckley won best actress for “Hamnet,” completing her awards season sweep, and Amy Madigan won best supporting actress for the horror thriller “Weapons.”

Who said what
The 98th Academy Awards, hosted by Conan O’Brien, also featured a rare tie (for best live action short film) and some jokes about Timothée Chalamet but not a lot of overt politics. Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman and first Black person to win best cinematographer, for “Sinners.” 

The Southern vampire drama and “One Battle After Another” were “two tour-de-force works written for the screen by directors exploring the complexities of America’s past and present,” The Wall Street Journal said. Neither writer-director had won an Oscar until yesterday. It was a “long-in-coming coronation for Anderson,” one of “America’s most lionized filmmakers for decades,” The Associated Press said, and a well-earned honor in the “unblemished career” of the “widely loved” Coogler.

What next?
The success of both films was also an “oddly poignant note of triumph” for their studio, Warner Bros., which “scored a record-tying 11 wins” weeks after it agreed to be absorbed into Paramount, the AP said. Billy Crystal led a tribute to late filmmaker Rob Reiner, his friend and director in “When Harry Met Sally” and “The Princess Bride.” “All we can say is, buddy, what fun we had storming the castle,” Crystal said.

What happened
President Donald Trump said on social media yesterday he was “so thrilled” that Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr was “looking at the licenses” of some “Highly Unpatriotic ’News’ Organizations.” Responding to complaints from Trump about media coverage of the Iran war, Carr on Saturday threatened the broadcast licenses of any networks “running hoaxes and news distortions — also known as the fake news” — unless they “correct course.”

Who said what
The Trump administration is “turning its fire on reporters and threatening news outlets” as the war becomes mired in “dismal polling and a muddled message,” Axios said. In a “similar vein” to the comments from Trump and Carr, The New York Times said, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday “delivered a lengthy complaint about CNN’s coverage of the war,” especially a report that the administration wasn’t prepared for Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz. 

Carr (pictured above) posted his broadcast license threat from Mar-a-Lago, where he was “seen talking with Trump,” Brian Stelter said at CNN. But Trump’s “attack dog atop the FCC” has “very little power to follow through” on his “crusade” to police the news. The FCC doesn’t regulate cable news or broadcast networks, just their local stations and affiliates. Carr’s threats “violate the First Amendment and will go nowhere,” said Commissioner Anna Gomez, the FCC’s lone Democrat. “Broadcasters should continue covering the news, fiercely and independently.”

What next?
Carr’s “threats are hollow” on revoking broadcast licenses, said public interest lawyer Andrew Jay Schwartzman. But the “implicit threat” of stifling regulatory approvals provides him a “real hammer.” What Carr “is describing is government control of the press,” said Tara Puckey, CEO of the Radio Television Digital News Association. But “journalists aren’t intimidated by a bully with a briefcase.”