2026-05-21 20:00:00
To all of those who have complained over the years about my typos, misprints, errors, omitted words, dittography, haplography, misspellings, mistakes, scribal errors, or other minor boo-boos, I’m not sorry. There will be no erratum nor corrigendum issued (including any necessitated by my potential misuse of those words). None of these keyboardian goofs were accidental. It was my way of enabling you to be certain that these missives were being delivered by a human being. I typo, therefore I am. Not only were my countless typos intentional, they were prescient and prophetic (or prophylactic, I need to check Grammarly). It turns out that typos that once enraged readers are now all the rage. “Although typos and other mistakes don’t suddenly mean that a piece of writing is good or praiseworthy, to some people, they are at least signs that it is worth reading. On a base level, many of us are willing to invest time in reading a long email if we sense that someone actually wrote it, line by line.” (The basic rule these days: If a note is perfect, it was written by AI. If it has typos, it was written by a human. And if it has a lot of all-caps, it was written by a monster.) The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Typo Vibe Shift. “Some job applicants are intentionally adding typos to their cover letters to prove that they, and not an AI program, wrote them. Celebrities and CEOs are sending out error-ridden emails and Instagram Stories, and instead of getting a scolding, they are praised for sounding authentic. On some dating apps, where people are, somewhat absurdly, prompted to compose their profiles with AI, typos are apparently no longer an automatic repellant. Nicole Ellison, a University of Michigan professor whose 2006 study showed that dating profiles with spelling mistakes turn people off, now thinks people are warming to the Tinder typo. ‘A typo maybe signals that you actually do care.'” (Now you know: There’s never been a newsletter writer who cares more about their readers than I do.)
“The two teenagers who walked into a San Diego mosque with assault rifles on Monday wore patches displaying the Black Sun—a neo-Nazi iteration of the swastika—and had scribbled white-supremacist symbols in white correction fluid on their guns. They started shooting, killing three. Then they fled in a BMW one had stolen from his mother. In the car, 17-year-old Cain Clark apparently shot his accomplice, Caleb Vasquez, before shooting himself in the head. We know much of this, in graphic detail, because, within hours, Clark and Vasquez’s video-recorded rampage seems to have been posted on the messaging platform Discord, then on a website called Watch People Die.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Glorification of Mass Murder. “The San Diego mosque killings were part ideological, part performance.”
+ “The shooting, conducted by two teenagers who police said met on the internet, extends a pattern of bloodshed inspired by the web, where in recent years video-recorded slayings have been live-streamed onto Facebook and Twitch, reposted onto YouTube and X, and cut into memes across Reddit and 4chan. The videos so frequently cite one another that they’ve raised fears from extremism experts that they could motivate copycats. The speed of their virality has also made it challenging to fully take them offline.” WaPo (Gift Article): San Diego mosque attack followed a familiar online script.
Were American Jews right to feel abandoned by our supposed allies in the immediate aftermath of October 7, when hostage posters were being torn down and campus protests were surging long before Israel even responded to the attacks? Yes. Are American Jews allowed to believe that what felt like a betrayal has been followed by Israeli military actions that have gone too far, led by a current government that’s “intent on blocking the creation of a Palestinian state and seems committed instead to permanent domination?” Yes. Is this complex set of realities and emotions happening at a moment when antisemitism is going through the roof, in America and abroad? Hell yes. Michael W. Sonnenfeldt tries to make sense of the situation. The Challenge for American Jews. “These contradictions place many American Jews in an untenable position. Many of us believe deeply in Israel’s right to exist, and many of us believe the United States should help Israel defend itself against existential threats, because as America’s only democratic ally in the Middle East, Israel’s survival is in the United States’ interest. At the same time, we cannot ignore the profound moral questions raised by the conduct of the war in Gaza, or dismiss the concerns of those who fear that American arms are being used in ways that violate humanitarian law. Understanding the impulse to condition military support is not the same as abandoning Israel; it can be an expression of anguish about what Israel, under its current leadership, is becoming.”
“Jell-O — long known for its bright rainbow of artificially colored gelatins — is getting a line of products made without synthetic colors or artificial sweeteners to meet increasing consumer demand for natural ingredients.” But before you get too excited about the health benefits associated with getting rid of artificial colors, remember that it’s 2026. WSJ (Gift Article): Natural Food Colors Embraced by MAHA Linked to Health Problems. “Artificial food dyes have long been suspected to be harmful to your health. But new research shows that some of the natural color additives being turned to as alternatives are associated with an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes and cancer.”
Ballroom Lancing: “‘I don’t like the fund at all,’ said Sen. John Curtis (R., Utah), who added he didn’t believe any guardrails could fix it. Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.), who is retiring after Trump regularly criticized him, called it a ‘payout pot for punks.'” The Trump IRS slush fund is not all that popular, even with Republicans. And funding for the new ballroom polls about as well as a punch in the face. Will these issues finally mean Trump’s enablers have found their bottom? (It’s hard to imagine, but we can hope.) WSJ (Gift Article): Trump on Collision Course With GOP Over Controversial $1.8 Billion Fund.
+ Highway to EL: “The biggest episodes of the past have altered the course of human events, according to researchers. An emerging one is drawing historic comparisons.” A Powerful El Niño Is Forming. If History Is a Guide, It Could Hit Hard.
+ It’s Getting Old in Old Havana: “Widespread blackouts on the fuel-starved island and spotty phone signals meant word of the new, steep escalation in the U.S. pressure campaign on the Cuban government was slow to reach many of Cuba’s own residents.” NYT: In Blackout-Hit Cuba, Word of U.S. Castro Indictment Spreads Slowly. (Cuban citizens who have been victimized by their own government are now being victimized by another government in the name of stopping that victimization.)
+ Cut Loose Like a Bruce: “I am here in support tonight for Stephen because you are the first guy in America who’s lost his show because we got a president who can’t take a joke. And because Larry and David Ellison feel they need to kiss his ass to get what they want. Anyway, Stephen, these are small-minded people, they got no idea what the freedoms of this beautiful country are supposed to be about.” Springsteen on the penultimate episode of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show.
+ Legal Gamble: “Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has signed the nation’s first law banning prediction market sites from operating in the state, and in response, the Trump administration has sued, teeing up a legal battle over the most far-reaching crackdown on popular services like Kalshi and Polymarket.”
+ Batman and Robbing: “Batman is being held hostage in a Mississippi warehouse. So, too, are James Bond, Doctor Who and Cruella de Ville. Not even pop culture’s grumpiest cat, Garfield, can escape. They’re among thousands of characters represented in roughly 8.2 million comics, graphic novels, figurines and table-top games held for months in a 600,000-square-foot warehouse formerly operated by a major comics distributor that went bankrupt in 2025.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): JPMorgan Fights Over Millions of Comic Books Locked in a Mississippi Warehouse.
+ The Vagina Dialogues: “Maybe you need a $30 VMagic vulva balm. Does sex feel uncomfortable? A $115 vibrating massager, sold by The Pelvic People, claims to ease ‘intimacy-related tension and anxiety.’ To prevent recurring UTIs, there are Mineral Undies; to ‘reduce pressure around your pelvis,’ there is pain-free underwear. If you suffer from recurrent bacterial vaginosis, Happy V and Bonafide say they have pills to break the cycle. If you’re not sure what you suffer from, Evvy can provide you with a $348 at-home microbiome and UTI test and a ‘vaginal health coach.’ The wellness crusade has come for the vagina.” NYT (Gift Article): The Vaginal Wellness Boom Is Here.
“A calendar featuring close-ups of young, handsome men in priestly attire has been a perennial Rome souvenir for the last two decades — but few, it seems, are actually men of the cloth.” Holy deception: Rome’s ‘sexy priest’ calendar star never set foot in a seminary. (Remember when this used to be the kind of thing we considered a major scandal?)
+ “As the incline got steeper, I opened the companion app on my phone and pressed Boost. My stride quickened. The whirring got louder. As the AI marched me toward the summit, I enjoyed the view. Thirty seconds later, the surge of power was over, and the legs returned to the gentler Eco mode.” Forget E-biking. E-Hiking Is Here.
+ America in 2026: Joey Chestnut to defend hot dog title while on probation.
2026-05-20 20:00:00
In the early days of the internet, we found things by browsing through web directories, like the one from Yahoo. That method of discovery was replaced by much more powerful search technologies, led by Google, that enabled us to quickly scour the entire internet and click on links to get to the source material. And so it’s been for more than a quarter century (which is like 10 million years in internet time). But now, the blue links that have defined the internet era, and powered a revolution in business transformation and information sharing, are, like so many other tech job-holders, at serious risk of being put out of work by AI. TechCrunch: Google Search as you know it is over. “Instead of returning a simple list of links, Google Search will drop users into AI-powered interactive experiences at times. Google is also introducing tools that can dispatch ‘information agents’ to gather information on a user’s behalf, along with tools that let users build personalized mini apps tailored to their needs.” But if links die, what happens to the sites they now connect (the same sites that are being repurposed to provide answers to your questions in the new-fangled search box)? As Jay Peters writes in The Verge (Gift Article): “Google doing everything also means a lot of the web that Google relies on collapses under it. If Google Search doesn’t send traffic to publishers or websites who need visitors to make money … what will Search learn from, and where will it point people to?” And what will become of the serendipity and random discovery that made the internet fun and informative? And what happens to our already isolated tech experiences when we lose the links that not only connect us to information, but to each other as well? Those are questions even AI can’t yet answer. In the meantime, Google and its AI competitors are racing to become the Hotel California of AI’s captive audience age. We are programmed to receive. You can check out any time you like. But you can never leave.
“Less than six months from the midterm elections, the president may be as unpopular as he’s ever been with the general public. But inside the Republican Party, he remains the undisputed kingmaker.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Why Thomas Massie Thought He Was Different. “Last night Massie met the same fate as so many of Trump’s Republican critics: He lost his primary.”
+ There’s no sugar-coating the sad fact that, even after dragging America’s democracy, economy, and global status through the mud, Trump still holds a tight grip on the core GOP voting base. But that same grip may be costly once we get to general elections that feature a broader voting population that views Trump negatively. Trump’s grip is choking his GOP enemies, but it may leave the GOP choking its chicken in November. Dan Pfeiffer sums it up. Everyone Thinks Trump Won Last Night. They’re Wrong (paywalled). “The message to Republicans from Kentucky, Louisiana, and elsewhere is crystal clear — buck Trump and lose your job. The problem for Republicans on the ballot this fall is that the best way to keep their job might be to buck Trump.”
+ In the shorter term, there are now a few more GOP members of Congress who have nothing to lose by expressing their actual views on matters. These folks aren’t exactly profiles in courage, but, in 2026, we’ll take what we can get. The GOP’s YOLO caucus is small but growing.
Yesterday, I wrote: Trump may not be good at wars, economics, or geopolitics, but give him this: He is amazingly good at corruption. And today, here’s the NYT Editorial Board (Gift Article) on Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund and deal to end all ongoing audits of himself and his family. There Has Never Been an Example of Presidential Corruption Like This. “The fund manages to combine three of Mr. Trump’s most alarming behaviors. One, it is an obvious form of corruption, coming from a president who has used his office to enrich himself, his family and his allies. Two, the fund continues his pattern of using the Justice Department as an enforcer to punish his perceived opponents and protect his friends and allies. Three, the fund is his latest attempt to rewrite history about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress.”
+ Think you’re sickened by the idea of the already-pardoned Jan 6 criminals getting a cut of your tax dollars as a reward for their crimes? Imagine how the Capitol police officers feel. Jan. 6 Police Officers Sue to Block $1.8 Billion Fund.
+ The corruption is nonstop. We’re used to headlines like this one: Trump Has Been Investing in Companies and Then Pumping Them in His Speeches. But even judged by our lowered standards, this corruption stands out. Joyce Vance: “When everything is bad, nothing is bad. People get desensitized. They can no longer keep track of it all. It’s all so awful that none of it gets processed anymore. So I need you to hear me when I say tonight: This is bad. Really, really bad.” (Let’s hope we get to the midterms before we run out of reallys…)
“But the sell-off of youth sports is no surprise. In America, little remains of what used to be called the public commons—the essential parts of life organized for mutual benefit rather than profit extraction. Hospitals, nursing homes, and insurance companies were once mostly nonprofit, run by local boards. No more. Education, from preschool to college, is being colonized by for-profit owners. Even utilities such as electricity and water, once treated as public goods, are being taken over by profit-obsessed investment firms.” Chris Murphy in The Atlantic (Gift Article): My Son’s Hockey Team and the Crisis of American Resentment.
+ The way youth sports has changed also has an impact on what I wrote about yesterday. Americans are increasingly divided, not only politically, socially, and economically, but geographically. Our lack of real-world interaction makes us all the more susceptible to hateful, rage-baiting messages spread by those who benefit from keeping us divided and afraid of one another. Gotta Keep ‘Em Separated.
Havana Bad Day: “Cuba is not expected to extradite Castro to the U.S. and most indicted foreign leaders are not brought to the country to face charges. But Blanche hinted to the possibility of U.S. action in Cuba when he told reporters there was a warrant for Castro’s arrest, ‘so we expect that he will show up here by his own will or by another way.'” DOJ indicts Raúl Castro over fatal 1996 civilian planes’ shooting.
+ Ebola’s Spread: “Anxious healthcare workers in eastern Congo said Wednesday they are underprotected and undertrained in a rapidly spreading Ebola outbreak of a rare type of the virus in one of the world’s most remote and vulnerable places.” Ebola fears surge on the ground in Congo over rapid spread of a rare type. Plus, the absence of USAID likely slowed Ebola detection and response, former officials say. Here are some photos from Congo and Uganda during the Ebola outbreak.
+ Homework: “A prominent Guinean couple, living in a suburb near Dallas, took in a young girl from their home country. They told neighbors that she was their niece, whom they had rescued from war and poverty. But children
in the neighborhood, who noticed how she was always working, began to refer to her as a ‘slave.'” Yudhijit Bhattacharjee in The New Yorker: In Plain Sight.
+ Frank Acknowledgement: “Often voted the ‘brainiest,’ ‘funniest’ and ‘most eloquent’ member of the House, he was also the first to come out voluntarily and helped normalize being openly gay in public office.” Brains, humor, and eloquence are some things we could use more of these days. Barney Frank, Gay Pioneer and Liberal Stalwart in Congress, Dies at 86.
+ Dad Bod of Work: “Sales have been sliding for nonfiction titles about politics, biographies and other books often aimed at men.” WSJ (Gift Article): Dad Books Are a Dying Breed. These days, I really only read fiction. The content I consume on a daily basis is already more non-fiction than I can handle. I’m guessing others feel the same.
+ Make the Grade: “The cap, which applies to the undergraduate college, limits the number of A’s per course to 20%, plus an additional four A’s to account for smaller courses with more variability. It won’t apply to A-minuses, which committee members predict will take over as the most awarded grade.” WSJ (Gift Article): Harvard Votes to Cap A’s in Effort to Curb Grade Inflation.
+ The Tortoise and the Heir: “Currently valued at $50 million, Sperm Racing is a start-up devoted to, well, racing human sperm through an artificial reproductive system. At their office and across the country, they’ve hosted matches with college students, streamers and influencers — all in the name of raising awareness about male infertility.” NYT Mag (Gift Article): Silicon Valley’s Answer to Declining Male Fertility? Sperm Racing. (When I was young, we raced our sperm in the snow, uphill, both ways.)
“He’s only taken one art history course at Vanderbilt, but his platform is based on an almost mutant-like talent … he discovered he has an incredible memory for fine art images.” A look at the guy behind the excellent feed that finds art that mirrors moments in sports. Art, but Make It Sports.
+ Texas man arrested after intentionally driving Cybertruck into lake to test ‘wade mode.’
2026-05-19 20:00:00
Throw the bums out. It’s an old political slogan that’s a lot harder to achieve in the age of redistricting, when most elections are decided long before voters get to the polls. More than 90 percent of the upcoming midterm races aren’t likely to be competitive. “Competitive districts — where a candidate leads a challenger by fewer than 10 percentage points — are increasingly rare. That is partly because many voters choose to live in communities with like-minded people, making many areas more politically homogenous and less competitive. And it is partly because parties are able to draw gerrymandered House maps, whittling down the number of swing districts even further.” NYT (Gift Article): How Redistricting Is Making the Midterms Less Competitive. This is a problem when it comes to voting. But it’s also representative of a broader problem. Americans are increasingly divided, not only politically, socially, and economically, but geographically. Our lack of real-world interaction makes us all the more susceptible to hateful, rage-baiting messages spread by those who benefit from keeping us divided and afraid of one another. Most Americans have never met anyone in real life that they hate as much as the caricatured versions of their political opponents. The imaginary friends of our childhoods get replaced by the imaginary enemies that exist somewhere, out there, beyond the borders—online and off—of our silos of homogeneity. Forget having united states, between political messaging, physical divides, and now contorted gerrymandering, we don’t even have united neighborhoods anymore.
“But, of course, nobody entertains for a moment the thought that the fund could conceivably reward an actual victim of weaponization. To ensure that it will never be used for a deserving victim, the fund is scheduled for termination on December 15, 2028.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Trump’s $1.8 Billion Slush Fund Is Worse Than Stealing.
+ Don’t just take the media’s word for how bad this is. Take it from the top lawyer at the Treasury Department. “Brian Morrissey, the Treasury’s general counsel, resigned from the position seven months after he was confirmed to it by the Senate and just hours after the Trump administration announced the fund on Monday.”
+ I covered this more broadly yesterday: “What would happen if you gave a criminal defendant and his attorney control of the most powerful government in the world? In America, that was a rhetorical question for about 250 years. Unfortunately, in 2026, we’re rapidly watching the answer come to life.” The Commander in Thief.
+ Trump may not be good at wars, economics, or geopolitics, but give him this: He is amazingly good at corruption. Trump traded over $50 million in ‘Magnificent 7’ stocks last quarter.
“Kayla Bundy likes to start her day with a cup of bone broth. She buys her milk raw, snacks on sardines, eats authentic sourdough bread — no commercial yeasts here — and generally cooks with locally-sourced ingredients. On TikTok, where she has over 500,000 followers, she claims that her diet ‘fixed’ her skin, her hair and her depression, and she sells coaching sessions to help others with their diets. Bundy, a 27-year-old Christian content creator, might sound like your run-of-the-mill clean-eating type, but she believes her diet to be part of a higher calling.” Eating Healthy? No, They’re Eating Biblically. (Maybe we can find common ground. I eat serving-sizes that are of biblical proportions.)
If you’re a journalist feverishly working to write a lede that perfectly encapsulates the year 2026, it might be time to lay down your pencil. Benjamin Mullin just wrote it in the NYT (Gift Article): “The author of a nonfiction book about the effects of artificial intelligence on truth acknowledged on Monday that he had included numerous made-up or misattributed quotes concocted by A.I.” Book on Truth in the Age of A.I. Contains Quotes Made Up by A.I. “On Monday night, (the author) Mr. Rosenbaum acknowledged in a statement that the book had ‘a handful of improperly attributed or synthetic quotes’ and said that he had started his own investigation.”
Ebola Timing: It’s “a fast-moving epidemic in a conflict-ridden region, involving a strain with no approved vaccine, at a moment when the global health infrastructure built after past Ebola crises has been weakened by funding cuts and political upheaval.” In other words: Not good. Why this Ebola outbreak will be so difficult to contain.
+ The Data Suggests Otherwise: “From mill towns in Maine to farm counties in Indiana to desert plots outside Abilene, Texas, data center developers are telling local governments: Bring us in, give us what we need, add some tax breaks, and the jobs will follow. More than 35 states have responded by offering incentives and more to attract the industry.” But here’s the rub. Data centers don’t really create many jobs, especially considering how much space, water, and energy they consume. The Verge (Gift Article): Data centers are coming for rural America. (Of course, new manufacturing centers, now powered by robots and AI, also don’t create as many jobs as they used to.) AI companies have remarkably deep pockets. They could bring development and jobs and other resources to communities where they want to build data centers. And here’s why it’s in their self interest to do so. The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam.
+ Mosque Shooting: “One of the victims, the mosque security guard, played … a ‘pivotal’ role in preventing additional bloodshed. ‘I think it’s fair to say his actions were heroic, and undoubtedly he saved lives today.'” Time: What We Know About the Shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego.
+ Paxt Americana: Yes, incumbent John Cornyn sold his soul by backing Trump in primaries and voting to acquit in his impeachment trials, but Ken “Paxton was impeached on bribery and corruption charges in 2023.” So really, how could Trump resist? Trump endorses Ken Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn ahead of Texas Republican Senate runoff. (Did Trump just hand a general election win to James Talarico?)
+ Cleanup Duty: “NATO is discussing the possibility of helping ships pass through the blocked Strait of Hormuz if the waterway isn’t reopened by early July.” (One way or another, the free world needs the Strait open.)
+ Tired of All the Zyning: “At a lunch this month between President Trump and tobacco executives, the conversation turned to nicotine pouches, one of the hottest products in the market. The president called his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and in the course of the conversation asked him what pouches he used. Trump took an interest in the product and told officials he wanted to see more of the pouches authorized.” How Zyn Became All the Rage Inside Trump World—Including With RFK Jr.
+ To Victor Go the Spoils: Nothing ever lives up to the hype. Except game one of the much-anticipated NBA playoff series between the Thunder and the Spurs. The Majestic Arrival of Playoff Wemby.
“A brawl between two rival Roman criminal gangs on Saturday at the site has provoked debate about whether security is adequate to protect the millions of tourists who visit the Trevi every year … In the latest diving incident, a 30-year-old tourist from New Zealand broke away from his friends and dived into the fountain.” Tourist caught diving into Trevi Fountain.
+ About the only places crazier than the Trevi Fountain these days are the lines outside stores selling the Swatch x Audemars Piguet Royal Pop. GQ: Brawls, Pepper Spray, and Store Closures: Inside the Madness of Royal Pop Release Day.
+ “Cats Lock is exactly what it sounds like. It offers a way to quickly lock your keyboard, either with one click from the menu bar or using a keyboard shortcut, to block all typing when there’s a risk of a feline invasion.” (I’m still waiting for the beagle block.)
2026-05-18 20:00:00
What would happen if you gave a criminal defendant and his attorney control of the most powerful government in the world? In America, that was a rhetorical question for about 250 years. Unfortunately, in 2026, we’re rapidly watching the answer come to life. Trump’s meritless, vexatious suit against an IRS that he has always shortchanged but now oversees has been settled by the once-independent Justice Department he has corrupted, which will result in major payouts for fellow criminals who served (and possibly plan to serve further) as willing, often violent, accomplices. “The Justice Department on Monday announced that it was establishing a $1.776 billion ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ after President Donald Trump moved to dismiss a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over his leaked tax returns … The massive fund would give Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump a mechanism to seek taxpayer payouts for their claims of government overreach. The fund could even issue ‘formal apologies’ to individuals who made claims against the government.”
+ This corruption eruption is bad and sad news for the rule of law, but it could also end up being bad news for Republicans in the upcoming midterms.”Republicans broadly approved of Mr. Trump’s job performance and the war. But most other voters showed serious skepticism of his leadership on other top issues, including the economy and the cost of living. Sixty-four percent of all voters disapproved of his handling of the economy, long a strength for him, and majorities expressed negative views of how he was managing the cost of living.” Serious skepticism might be an understatement. Trump’s approval numbers are plummeting. The key for the opposition will be consistently and constantly tying the administration’s corruption to individual pocketboots. Every issue — the money spent on the war, healthcare cuts, tax cuts for the wealthy, the wanton Trump family corruption — needs to be connected directly to the daily experiences of the average American. No one is managing this narrative better than Jon Ossoff: “The faithless president depicts himself as Christ while he plunges the nation into wars of choice, while he and his family rake in billions from foreign princes, while he plunders our healthcare to cut taxes for the rich. Meanwhile, rent, power, groceries and healthcare have all hit all-time highs this year. While you pay more for everything, the first family’s wealth is growing by billions of dollars – because they’re crooks, and everybody knows it.” To quote the Mandalorian: This is the way.
When Elon Musk’s Doge, empowered by the Trump administration, kicked off the president’s second term by cutting USAID, the world’s poorest and most desperate people paid the price. That same group is now bearing the brunt of the closing of the Hormuz Strait. “As the conflict in the Middle East grinds into its third month, catastrophe is unfolding across the world’s poorest, least stable countries. If hostilities continue beyond June, those confronting acute hunger will swell beyond 363 million people worldwide, an increase of 45 million compared with before the war, the World Food Program warned. The danger is mounting absent the usual degree of international mobilization.” NYT (Gift Article): Catastrophe Is Emerging in the World’s Most Vulnerable Places. From Kate Phillips-Barrasso, head of global advocacy at Mercy Corps, “The system has been eviscerated. This is the era of indifference.”
“Living on campus for the past four years has been an eye-opening journey. Higher education was not equipped for the A.I. revolution. Someday in the future the fully autonomous Clawdbots or Moltbots (or whatever people call them) will laugh to themselves about this silly interregnum when universities seemed paralyzed, trying to bridge the gap between the liberal education of yore and the future in which humans have no monopoly on intelligence. For us, this was college.” Theo Baker, college senior and the author of How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University, in the NYT (Gift Article): What A.I. Did to My College Class.
+ As is my policy, any story with information out of Stanford must be paired with academically superior information from Cal. “The share of A’s in college classes heavy on writing and coding—in other words, work more prone to artificial intelligence use—has grown more significantly than in other classes since ChatGPT’s debut, according to a paper from the University of California, Berkeley.” WSJ (Gift Article): A Grades Are Suddenly Everywhere Since the Arrival of ChatGPT.
+ If you missed it, Princeton’s test-taking honor code, which had survived for well over a century, was no match for AI. Proctor’s Gamble.
+ Even with homework assistance and grade inflation, the youth sure don’t seem too enthused by AI. Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt booed after AI remarks at Arizona commencement.
“Any complete and responsible explanation of this phenomenon cannot begin in the 21st century and should never pretend that this is some tragedy brought about by exclusively terrible things. Birthrates have been declining in developed countries for a long time, as child mortality has declined; as women’s education has increased; as female labor force participation has soared; as modern contraception has proliferated; and as modern notions of feminism have empowered women to take more control over their bodies and their economic futures. And birthrates have continued to decline around, or even accelerated in their downturn in developed countries, as smartphone usage has surged; as housing prices of increased; as time spent at home on the Internet has grown; and as socialization and coupling have declined.” Whatever is causing the fertility decline, it’s a really big deal. Derek Thompson with an interesting look at the issue. The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think. (The phrase, is probably worse than you think, could append most headlines these days…)
Waited So Long: “A federal jury on Monday found that tech billionaire Elon Musk waited too long to bring his lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and others, throwing out the suit that claimed Altman had unlawfully enriched himself from the organization Musk and Altman co-founded.” (This was like a Yankees/Dodgers game. I was hoping both sides would lose.)
+ Minor Inconvenience: “A study of insurance claims for 1.8 million children found that the number of families raising mental health issues at visits to general practitioners rose sharply over a decade, with anxiety by far the fastest-growing complaint.”
+ Broken Families: “The findings point to a scale of family separations that far eclipses that of the first Trump administration’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy in 2018, when about 5,500 children were removed from their parents immediately after crossing the southern border.” Over 100,000 Family Separations in Deportation Push, Report Estimates.
+ Tennessee No Evil: Removing voting rights is just one part of a much broader attack. For example, “Knox County Schools in Tennessee is removing Alex Haley’s 1976 novel ‘Roots’ from its libraries.”
+ Lane Change: “Everlane built its following in the early 2010s around what it called ‘radical transparency’ on pricing and supply chain practices, positioning itself as a sustainability-minded, affordable basics brand.” So much for those goals. The brand just got acquired by Shein.
+ The Rai Stuff: “You won’t find one person on property who’s not happy for him.” … “There’s very few people that are nicer and kinder human beings than Aaron.” … “He’s such a good dude.” Those were just some of the comments made in celebration of an unlikely winner of golf’s PGA Championship. We’re gonna have to rethink where nice guys finish. Why all of golf was glad to see Aaron Rai win the US PGA Championship.
“More than seven years later, here is what is known for certain about the details of Lagerfeld’s will and estate: nothing. (Under French law, such matters are not made public.) But plenty has been rumored. Various figures close to Lagerfeld have been suggested as beneficiaries, including several male models and fashion executives, his bodyguard, his housekeeper, and the princess of Monaco. Even so, from the start, one improbable name has stood out: Choupette, Lagerfeld’s blue-cream Birman cat.” The Richest Cat in the World.
2026-05-15 20:00:00
The dawning of the internet enabled a creative revolution, where one guy like me, with a laptop, could develop a publishing system and an audience that could compete with major, branded publications. During the dot-com boom, five people from the New York Times came to my South of Market, San Francisco office because they wanted to get advice about their newsletter strategy. The age of indies had arrived. We were where it was all happening. During the current AI boom, it feels more like something is happening to us. Giant corporations with unprecedented amounts of capital and no real oversight other than the hollow promises of self-regulation are making massive decisions about the future of everything, while we’re left to hope our tech overlords are benevolent in the way they choose to delete the role of mere salaried NPCs, and where they decide city-sized data centers will drink our milkshake. All that indie creativity has been sucked into giant database farms, where it gets regurgitated as bulleted outlines. The internet empowered. AI is overpowering. Both the reality and the marketing around AI are overwhelming. Charlie Warzel explains why so much of the current tech revolution makes people want to hit a giant ESC key. “That you can’t begin to wrap your mind around the AI boom or orient yourself in it is a feature, not a bug, for those building the technology. But for anyone just trying to adapt, it’s difficult not to feel resentful or alienated. Silicon Valley is trying to speedrun the singularity, and it’s polarizing the rest of us in the process.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Too Much Is Happening Too Fast. “I’d argue that the most common feeling about AI is somatic: a low-grade hum of difficult-to-place anxiety that’s the result of loud people constantly suggesting that the near future will look very little like the present and that nothing—your job or the social contract—might survive the transition.” (To save space, I’m skipping the interim tech years where the internet annihilated attention, polarized populations, razed reality, totalled truth, and demolished democracy.)
A lot of China-US summit deals have been touted, even though, predictably, details are scarce. (Boeing got a big airplane purchase deal, but it was smaller than expected and the stock is down). David Sanger (who Trump called treasonous on Air Force 1) has a good overview in the NYT (Gift Article): Trump Was Flattering, Xi Was Resolute. The Difference Spoke Volumes. “Mr. Xi arrived highly scripted, leaving no doubt that for all of China’s problems — deflation, depopulation, the bursting of the real estate bubble — the moment when China acts as a peer superpower had arrived. At every turn, at least as he began his two-day trip to China, Mr. Trump sounded conciliatory, the exact opposite of his portrayals of China in public appearances back home.”
+ By 2026 standards, the summit actually went pretty well. Ian Bremmer sums it up in this short video piece: “We are in the books on the Xi Jinping, Donald Trump summit in Beijing, certainly, one of the most consequential summits that we have witnessed in a long time. And yet very little concrete has come out of it, and on balance, I think, most observers are very comfortable with that.”
+ Time: Trump’s China Trip Underscores How Power Has Shifted East.
+ Of course, there’s the question of how the summit went for America vs how the summit went for Trump. To get an answer to the latter question, we may have to wait until Trump’s next financial disclosure. Trump Has Made Bank Off of Government Contractors’ Stock. And from Bloomberg (Gift Article): Trump’s More Than 3,700 Trades Provoke Wall Street Astonishment.
+ Time will tell who were the biggest winners of the summit. For now, the biggest loser seems to be CBS News anchor Tony Dokoupil, who reported on the China summit from Taiwan. Oh, and his cameraman passed out (probably over confusion over what they were doing in Taiwan). Defector: Tony Dokoupil Flew 8,000 Miles Just To Eat More Sh-t.
“Tractors, like the one his father frequently drove, had been hit in the fields. In March, a drone blew up a car next to a shop. Another had exploded on Anatolii’s street just the day before. Now, the one he spotted was heading right for his house. As he clung to the tree trunk, the black quadcopter buzzed past, flying just off the ground and bearing down on a cluster of buildings where three of his younger siblings were playing with other kids in their yard … What Anatolii did next — something he had rehearsed, something few civilians in Ukraine have been taught — might have saved the lives of those children, his mother changing a diaper inside or other neighbors on the block.” WaPo (Gift Article): In northern Ukraine, it was boy vs. Russian drone. The boy won.
What to Binge: An inexperienced crew of civil servants is quickly thrust into roles as undercover agents trying to slow the flood of heroin into 1990s Britain in the new series, Legends on Netflix.
+ What to Book: The very popular novel Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke is told from the perspective of a trad-wife influencer. The less you know going in, the better.
+ What to Read: If you missed it yesterday … a great writer (Wright Thompson) wrote about a great guy (Steve Kerr). From ESPN: The Warrior Still Remains. Yes, this is an article about my favorite coach and my favorite NBA team. But it’s much more than that. It’s about loss, politics, chronic pain, retirement, decision-making, community, family, and a lot more. To get something out of this piece, you don’t have to be into the NBA or the Warriors. You can be a road warrior, a keyboard warrior, a social justice warrior, or a weekend warrior, and you’ll relate.
Slush Fun: “President Donald Trump is expected to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in exchange for the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration.”
+ Kush Job: “They’ve agreed to pay Kushner’s firm tens of millions of dollars in fees annually in hopes of gaining influence at the White House as well as returns for their portfolios, according to people familiar with the matter. Trump’s decision to move forward with an Iran war that all three opposed shows the constraints of that approach.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): Kushner Disappoints Mideast Clients Who Spent Millions Seeking Sway. (Wait, I just thought they wrote the checks because Jared is such a good investor?)
+ Last Deport of Call? “Hugo Palencia said he was delivering meals in Aurora, Colo., for DoorDash and Uber around this time last year. Now, he is in a hotel in the Democratic Republic of Congo, dazed by a journey that he said took him in shackles from the United States to a Central African country that he had barely heard of before last month.” U.S. Migrants Deported to Congo: ‘Where on Earth Is This Place?’
+ Little Shop of Horowitz: The same investors that are dominating the biggest tech deals are also dominating politics. Andreessen Horowitz Is Spending on Politics Like No Other. Even with Trump’s low approval rating, it will be tough to compete with this kind of cash…
+ Shoot First Ask Questions Later: “The Trump administration has consistently sought to justify the killings, which began during last year’s military buildup towards Venezuela, by arguing those targeted were “narco-terrorists” transporting drugs to the US. But a joint effort by 20 journalists led by the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism this week published the identities of 13 of those killed, some of whom showed no indication of involvement in drug trafficking.”
+ Commercial Endeavors: “He directed nearly 1,000 comedic commercials, including a much-quoted spot for Wendy’s and one for FedEx featuring a manic speed talker.” You may not know the name, but if you’re of a certain age, you definitely know the work. Joe Sedelmaier, Auteur Behind ‘Where’s the Beef?’ Ad, Dies at 92.
+ Bad Kar-ma: Earworm Kars4Kids jingle yanked from California airwaves for false advertising.
“Pancreatic cancer is one of the most dire diagnoses in medicine. There are few available treatments, and they do little to help. For decades, experimental drugs flopped in trials. Many researchers believed the biological obstacles could not be surmounted. In what seems the blink of an eye, all that has changed.” How an ‘Impossible’ Idea Led to a Pancreatic Cancer Breakthrough.
+ “Rita Collins had a dream for her retirement: bringing books and people together all over the country. Behind the wheel of a van she’s making it happen.” NYT: This Bookstore Gets Good Mileage.
+ Adults relive the musical camaraderie of their youth at band camps reprised for grown-ups.
+ Before ‘Ted Lasso,’ Cristo Fernández had pro soccer dreams. Now he’s living them. Futbol is life (imitating art).
+ The surprisingly strong case for feeling great about your coffee habit.
+ YouTube taught a Japanese teen how to kick field goals. Now he’s in the NFL.
2026-05-14 20:00:00
Maybe the best way to describe Team Trump’s visit to China is by paraphrasing Michael Corleone’s famous Godfather quote. It’s not political, Sonny. It’s strictly business. The group photo of the U.S. delegation that stood at attention at the Great Hall of the People features a whole lot of CEOs looking to increase revenues from China, and not a whole lot of people, if any, with Chinese diplomatic expertise. Having business leaders negotiate deals may not provide the best possible geopolitical outcomes, but most would agree that it beats having a summit in which Trump is given free rein, and an open mic, to negotiate more complex issues. As Vivian Salama and Jonathan Lemire explain in The Atlantic (Gift Article), “the major goal of Trump and Xi’s meeting is to do no harm.” The Hippocratic Summit. “The delegation that arrived with President Trump in Beijing last night looked less like the diplomatic corps of a superpower and more like a Fortune 500 board meeting. On Air Force One were Elon Musk, Tim Cook (‘Tim Apple,’ as the president calls him), and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Joining in Beijing were honchos from Wall Street and aerospace firms. The message was impossible to miss: This trip, billed as a high-stakes summit between the leaders of the world’s two most powerful nations, is about money first and geopolitics second—with differences in ideology trailing far behind.” While the summit was mostly friendly, no doubt, the experts on both sides were thinking of another Corleone quote: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
+ While the US delegation was all about business, Xi was definitely focused on one very big political issue. China’s leader warns Trump that differences over Taiwan could lead to a clash. “Xi warned the U.S. ‘must exercise extra caution in handling the Taiwan question … If it is handled properly, the bilateral relationship will enjoy overall stability … Otherwise, the two countries will have clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy.” While Marco Rubio declared that US policy on Taiwan is “unchanged,” many were concerned that Trump would weaken America’s stand on Taiwan in exchange for China’s help getting him out of the Iran mess (which has resulted in Chinese gains). The Taiwan conflict is also a story about business. As much as the Strait of Hormuz has impacted the global economy, “these hiccups are nothing compared to the effects of a serious disruption to the flow of chips from Taiwan.” Rest of World: Taiwan’s chips power the global economy. China holds the leverage.
+ “‘The idea is that when an established, great power is met with a rising power, conflict between the two is certainly likely if not inevitable,’ said Daniel Sutton, a classicist at the University of Cambridge who studies Thucydides, on Thursday. In Mr. Xi’s version of the analogy, an emboldened China is the Athens to an American Sparta.” Xi Warned of the ‘Thucydides Trap.’ What Is It? (There’s about as much chance that Xi’s guest of honor understood that reference as there is that the rest of us will come up with a definition for Covfefe.)
“The findings reflect the complex landscape in which medical decisions are now made. Patients can readily find health information — both accurate and inaccurate — on social media, in podcasts and from A.I. chatbots. A recent report from the Pew Research Center found that half of U.S. adults under 50 get health and wellness information from influencers or podcasters, many of whom are not health professionals.” NYT (Gift Article): More Cancer Patients Are Taking Ivermectin. Mel Gibson and Joe Rogan Might Be Why. “There’s this perfect storm of fear, urgency, uncertainty, information overload and then this desperate need for hope … When somebody is offering you a magic cure for something and they give anecdotal examples, it can feel very hopeful.”
At this point, we’re getting used to headlines like this one: Cisco posted record revenue on surging AI orders. It’s cutting almost 4,000 jobs. But technology isn’t just costing jobs in the tech sector. Everyone is affected. Even snipers. WSJ (Gift Article): Military Snipers Are Being Put Out of a Job by Drones. “A Ukrainian special-forces sniper claimed a world record in late 2023 with a shot that hit a Russian officer almost 2½ miles away. These days Vyacheslav Kovalskiy has a new job: supporting drone pilots. He hasn’t been out to shoot in more than a year and a half.”
Most mornings, I cringe as I wake up to brutal headlines written by questionable sources about bad people doing terrible things. So I was relieved and excited this morning to wake up to a great writer (Wright Thompson) writing about a great guy (Steve Kerr). From ESPN: The Warrior Still Remains. Yes, this is an article about my favorite coach and my favorite NBA team. But it’s much more than that. It’s about loss, politics, chronic pain, retirement, decision-making, community, family, and a lot more. To get something out of this piece, you don’t have to be into the NBA or the Warriors. You can be a road warrior, a keyboard warrior, a social justice warrior, or a weekend warrior, and you’ll relate.
Getting Off: If you have the right connections and deep pockets, there’s really never been a better time to be a criminal. U.S. Set to Drop Charges Against Indian Billionaire Accused of Fraud. “The reversal came after the Indian billionaire, Gautam Adani, hired a new legal team led by Robert J. Giuffra Jr., one of President Trump’s personal lawyers.” You could be in pretty decent shape even if you’ve already been convicted. Donald Trump is thinking about celebrating America’s 250th birthday with 250 additional pardons. (At least he didn’t pick the number 1776…)
+ Bye American: Mike Banks, who led Trump’s border crackdown, resigned weeks after reports of prostitution allegations. “The resignation comes weeks after the Washington Examiner reported that six current and former border patrol employees had accused Banks of regularly paying for sex with prostitutes during trips to Colombia and Thailand over more than a decade, and bragging about it to colleagues.” (I’m sure the administration was just irritated that he didn’t spend his money on American prostitutes.)
+ Fraudian Slip: “Vice President JD Vance announced Wednesday that the Trump administration is withholding $1.3 billion in Medicaid payments to California and is threatening to suspend federal funding to all states if they don’t aggressively prosecute fraud in their Medicaid programs.” (I’m sure the targeting of red states is right around the corner.)
+ Developing Story: “The continuing crisis in Iran and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz have exacted a heavy cost worldwide.” Here’s the story in photos. (Luckily, we still have enough petrochemicals to develop photos…)
+ App-ly Yourself: “Software is built for the masses, designed not to be perfect for anyone but to be passable for everyone.” Vibe coding may not be the ideal way to build a scalable app for a huge customer base. But it’s incredibly empowering if you want to create an app for yourself. David Pierce in The Verge (Gift Article): You can make an app for that.
+ Coal Hole: Trump’s Push to Keep Coal Plants Open Is Costing Hundreds of Millions. (Other than that, it’s a great idea.)
+ I’m Gonna Harden My Heart: “For decades, heart health advice has focused on a few key pillars: Eat healthily, exercise, don’t smoke, and manage cholesterol, blood pressure and stress. But there’s a growing body of research that suggests there may be a less obvious factor that can influence cardiovascular health: optimism.” WaPo (Gift Article): People who are optimistic tend to have healthier hearts, study finds. (I guess I’ll just say my goodbyes now…)
“Where do battle tanks and military trucks go when their service has ended? Enthusiasts and professionals put them to work for search and rescue, marketing and just having fun.” Backyard Battalions. “Westen Champlin, an auto enthusiast and YouTube personality in Kansas, owns a tank. Specifically a 1962 Centurion battle tank.” (I’m thinking of getting one of these for whenever I’m parked near a Cybertruck.)
+ “In a study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One, scientists describe the latest discovery from the site — a Neanderthal molar with a depression that they believe is evidence of an ancient invasive dental procedure. ‘Basically a root canal.'” (I’m guessing Neanderthal novocaine left much to be desired.)