2026-06-02 20:00:00
For your next trip, you might want to have an air sickness bag ready a little earlier than usual; like while you’re pricing out your itinerary. Let’s start with the good news about your summer travel plans: Because of airlines’ perpetual problems related to fuel waste, scheduling complexity, flight controller shortages, and outdated technology, your vacation was probably going to be a little rough anyway. (Yes, in 2026, that’s the good news part of the equation.) The bad news is that the conflict that is putting increased pressure on just about every economic metric on Earth is having an even greater impact in the sky. And it could be a long summer. “Based on current conditions, U.S. airlines will probably pay some $25 billion more for jet fuel in 2026 than they expected to. That’s more than what the industry earned in 2024 and 2025 combined. It could be a bummer of a summer. And fall. And winter. Even if the oil starts flowing from the Middle East this month, jet fuel supply constraints and price increases will most likely extend into 2027.” NYT (Gift Article): Going Abroad This Summer? Good Luck. But at least once you arrive at your destination, from Greenland to Spain to Canada, you’re certain to be welcomed with open arms.
+ To save money, you can always get a job that requires international travel. The hottest job this summer is European ambassador for ranch dressing.
You’ve probably heard that the AI race is expensive. Like, really expensive. To give you some idea of how expensive, consider this. “Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has said it plans to raise up to $80bn in equity to fund its vast artificial intelligence infrastructure investments.” To put that number in perspective, if the funding is successful, “it would raise more than the world’s three largest initial public offerings put together.”
+ Google’s plan to release up to 32 million mosquitoes in California is not nearly as expensive. Wait, what? “The Debug Project is all about adding so-called ‘good bugs’ to the ‘bad bug’ population.”
+ Meanwhile, “President Donald Trump signed a landmark executive order Tuesday that asks AI companies to give the government early access to their most powerful models for review.” The key word is asks. “The testing would rely on voluntary collaboration from America’s leading AI companies, like Anthropic, OpenAI and Google. The order explicitly bars the government from creating a mandatory licensing or pre-clearance requirement for new AI models, making the government a request, not a rule.” (In other words, it’s not a landmark executive order; it’s the watered-down request pushed by AI companies.)
For a glimpse into the future of our warming world, take a virtual visit to the dusty district of Banda in India, where “temperatures hovered at 116-118F for more than a week.” ‘Mornings and nights no longer exist’: A day in the hottest place in India. One worker who walks 6km to work and 6km home with a packed lunch designed not to spoil by noon, “offered a sentence that could serve as the motto of Banda’s heatwave. ‘Poor people don’t have the luxury of worrying about the heat.'”
“Every generation, we see young people shoot and experiment with short films, but the big advantage today’s generation has is technology right at their fingertips with platforms like YouTube where they can upload their work and get instant feedback from viewers. This allows them to react instantly to what works and what doesn’t work and therefore hone their skills.” And boy, are they honing. A couple of indie horror films created by YouTube vets just beat Star Wars (and everyone else) at the box office. Variety: Why YouTubers Are Turning Hollywood Upside Down.
The House(builder) Always Wins: He has zero experience when it comes to intel or defense, but he has a lot of experience when it comes to housing and targeting Trump’s enemies with falsities. So, sure, why not? “As acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte will be the highest-ranking intelligence official, overseeing a vast network of 18 agencies, including the CIA and the National Security Agency. He will also be the president’s principal adviser on intelligence issues and will manage the daily intelligence briefing for the president.”
+ Stirring Crazy: “You’re f-cking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.” Trump seems mad at Bibi. Meanwhile, some Israelis are angry with Bibi for ceding too much ground to Trump. And Marco Rubio goes to Congress. Here’s the latest from the NYT.
+ Immunity Impunity: The Trump administration appears to be backing off on efforts to create a slush fund for accomplices. But the other part of the deal might still be alive. Trump to get audit immunity as $1.8 billion fund in doubt.
+ Patriot Games: Russia is not winning its war. But Putin is still trying to inflict as much civilian death as possible. Ukraine rescuers pull dead from rubble after Russian strikes kill 22 people. One of the reasons Russia can do this is because of a ‘window of vulnerability‘ created by the Patriot missile shortage.
+ California Teeming: A really silly primary system and the current state of politics have combined to leave California voters with a lot of reading to do on election day. “The state’s ballot is nineteen inches long, and lists sixty-one gubernatorial candidates.” Nathan Heller in The New Yorker: The Strange Emptiness of the Crowded Governor’s Race in California.
+ Our American Moment: Here are a couple of headlines that sum up our times. Pentagon Bars Reporters From Its Press Office. And, Minnesota Republicans Hold Moment of Silence for Ex-Officer Convicted of Murder.
+ No Whey: Bloomberg (Gift Article): Whey Protein Is Running Out as Food Companies Put It in Everything.
The place that calls itself ‘Baseball Heaven’ is now filled with a bunch of shirtless dudes. And women, in bare chest novelty tees. And kiddos, who needed permission from their moms to strip from the waist up. And those proudly showing off their hairy chests, and pimply backs, scars from surgeries and stretch marks from a life well lived. They all congregate here in the right-field bleachers of Busch Stadium. Every night, it starts with just a handful of the bravest, and youngest fans, but inning by inning, it spreads like a virus, infecting a crowd of all ages and body types.” MLB Tarps Off craze has awakened ‘Baseball Heaven’ with the bare truth. (The Giants’ season has already stripped me of my hope, pride, and dignity. I’m holding onto my shirt.)
2026-06-01 20:00:00
I spend most of my life alone in a room, talking to my laptop. So I can relate to Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s latest assignment: Writing a celebrity profile about Tilly Norwood. The subject identifies as a young woman, but you’d have to say Norwood’s pronoun is, it. After all, Tilly Norwood is a computer. A computer that is at the heart of a new-fangled and notorious Hollywood scandal, in which real people are worried that AI will be an unstoppable scene stealer. Norwood makes life easier for the paparazzi. They don’t have to stake out The Ivy, Craig’s, or Nobu Malibu. They can just do what civilian celebrity stalkers do. Scroll. But Brodesser-Akner decided the only way to do a real celebrity profile, even of an unreal celebrity, was an in-person meeting. “What that looked like was me sitting at the Groucho Club on a green couch, across from a laptop, as if I were talking to someone on Zoom … When we ordered lunch, we didn’t order for Tilly, as computers don’t eat, and Tilly is just a computer. That is the most important thing to remember: Tilly is just a computer.” NYT Magazine (Gift Article): I Profile Celebrities for a Living. Nothing Prepared Me for Tilly Norwood. “In our conversations — which are edited and condensed here — I told Tilly that I was a journalist and asked if she had ever spoken to one before … ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘They ask for honesty, then flinch when it arrives.’ Did I mention that in addition to being just a computer, she’s also kind of a bitch?”
+ In the end, Brodesser-Akner finds that the humanoid comes up short as an interview subject because it fails to provide the one thing people actually want from artist interviews. “They want to know who exactly it was that recognized their human wounds, who recognized them and made them feel less alone. That is what great art inspires in people. That is why I wrote all these profiles, why people even read them. To understand the person who made the art, which is just as essential as the art itself. There’s an entire conversation about separating the art from the artist, but maybe the conversation persists because we know we can’t do it. The art is the person.” That really captures the heart of the issue. At least until Tilly Norwood gets an upgrade…
Here are a few of the big problems with the US boat strikes in the waters of South America. First, we’ve been given little or no evidence that those killed are actually running drugs. Second, even if they were transporting drugs, “the military is prohibited from deliberately targeting civilians, even if they are believed to have committed a crime, unless they pose an immediate threat.” Third, the strikes have had no meaningful impact on the amount of cocaine coming to the US. And fourth, “coastal communities in Colombia and Ecuador, where most of the boats are thought to have begun their journeys, are counting the losses not just in relatives who never returned, but in how the attacks have upended the lives of those who make their living from the ocean and now fear it.” There’s a very good chance that some of those killed were forced by drug traffickers to transport drugs and an even better chance that some of them were just fishing. Which brings us to the fifth problem. These boat bombings are one of many reasons our former allies no longer trust our ethics or actions. NYT (Gift Article): The U.S. Boat Strike Campaign Has Now Killed Over 200 People.
+ Oh, and the sixth problem. These boat bombings are yet another reason for military service personnel to doubt their leaders. There are many of those. Hegseth Strikes Female and Black Navy Officers From Promotion List.
“This money is flowing in the direction of politicians that can be influential in defining the regulatory agenda for the next five years. Reinforcing the cycle of economic power produces political power, and political power further establishes economic power. So, this cycle is ongoing.” Tech billionaires are spending unprecedented sums in California races. And this trend is coming to a state near you.
“Kimmel insists that ‘there are far more people watching late-night TV than there ever were, if you look at the number of views me and my colleagues get online every day and add in our linear-television ratings,’ and that it’s ‘silly’ to call the format less relevant: ‘We’re not just dying of natural causes. We’re being poisoned.’ He points to reports that, in 2023, CBS encouraged Colbert to sign a five-year contract. Colbert opted for three years instead. When CBS pulled his show two years into that contract, the explanation given was that it was losing significant amounts of money — reportedly $40 million a year. Why, Kimmel asks, would the network offer him a five-year deal in the first place if the show were hemorrhaging money? … ‘These are just made-up numbers.'” NY Mag: Jimmy Kimmel Would Stop If He Could. (I can’t imagine what it must be like to wake up every morning and know you have to absorb, reflect upon, and joke about every horrible Trump story of the day. And you can’t really quit, even if you planned to by now, because it would be like giving up the good fight at the worst possible time. Oh wait, I can imagine what that’s like.) Kimmel: “Professionally, I have no idea what I’m going to do after this … Freedom is what I want more than anything. I want to be able to go fishing because the fishing’s good.” Alas, for now, we’ve got bigger fish to fry.
Peace Through Posts: “‘I had a very productive call with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, of Israel, and there will be no Troops going to Beirut, and any Troops that are on their way, have already been turned back,’ Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. He added that he also had a ‘very good call’ with Hezbollah through representatives and that ‘they agreed that all shooting will stop.’ ‘Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel.'” Here’s the latest on the Iran peace talks which are either on or off and depend on a Hezbollah/Israel battle that is either happening or not happening.
+ You Don’t Want Fries With That: Last week, we explained the American economy with tomatoes. This week, we’ll take a crack at explaining the European economy through French Fries. The World Capital of French Fries Has a Problem: Too Many Potatoes. “This month, he dumped the crop back into his fields in eastern Belgium, the cheapest way to dispose of enough potatoes to make 200 million French fries.” (I feel like this is an area where I can help.)
+ FIFA Fo Fum: “To anyone familiar with FIFA, the cost of this tournament should come as little surprise. Ever since the tournament hosting rights were awarded to the U.S., Canada and Mexico in 2018—with three-quarters of the games to be played in the U.S.—the organization has viewed America as a potential cash cow.” WSJ (Gift Article): How FIFA’s Biggest World Cup Unleashed a Summer of Price Gouging. (I mean, come on, it’s FIFA…)
+ Hammer Time: Trump’s name must come off of the Kennedy Center, judge rules. (If the Dems win the midterms, I’m putting all my money into jackhammers.)
+ Intel Outside? Nvidia has a new chip for Windows users. And Anthropic is laying the groundwork for a massive IPO.
+ Will LA Face a Pratt Fall: “Spencer Pratt, the reality star people love to hate-watch, is running for office—and betting that infamy can be political currency.” (What could give anyone that idea?) The Atlantic (Gift Article): Hope, Change, Troll.
+ You Can’t Hand(le) the Truth: “While it’s become undeniable that the humanoid boom has legs, the real test now is whether it has fingers.” Humanoid Hands Are Physical AI’s Anti-Hype Test. And maybe related: “A Florida woman was cited for driving with her phone in her right hand. This may seem perfectly reasonable, except there’s one problem — she doesn’t have a right hand.”
United Airlines flight to Spain pulls U-turn, apparently over Bluetooth device name. (It makes more sense when you learn that the name was b-o-m-b.)
+ “Bird keepers are often advised to discourage and even punish birds for masturbating, but the study found the activity was more common in the wild than in captivity, with researchers concluding it is part of a bird’s natural behavior.” Masturbation among birds is ‘natural’ and should not be punished, say experts. (So people are holding birds in captivity and punishing them for ruffling their own feathers? No wonder humans have such a bad reputation.)
2026-05-29 20:00:00
Hold the tomatoes. I’ve said that a thousand times in part because, despite my proclivity toward a nice Arrabiata sauce, I’m just not into tomatoes on their own, and in part because of definitional issues like the one exemplified in Wikipedia: “The tomato is a plant whose fruit is an edible berry that is eaten as a vegetable.” But these days, people are throwing nightshade at the old Solanum lycopersicum less for reasons of personal taste and more for reasons related to remaining financially solvent. A combination of crop yields, tariffs, and the Iran war has left restaurants and consumers slicing tomatoes out of their recipes. “Tomatoes, ubiquitous in everything from fast-food burgers to haute cuisine, are taking on a new role beyond the plate: A nagging reminder of rising costs. Prices for those red orbs have soared more than any other food product over the past year to cement a spot as one of the consumer headaches du jour.” AP: Tomatoes become latest symbol of America’s affordability squeeze.
+ For one segment of America, stories like this one are interesting asides with potential political ramifications; a dinner party topic to slice and dice over Bruschetta, Gazpacho, and Caprese. For a larger segment of people, it’s a serious bottom-line issue. And those two segments have never been more divided. WSJ (Gift Article): The Record Divide Between Corporate Profits and Worker Pay. “Labor’s share of economic output just hit an all-time low, while the profit share hit a near record. It helps explain why consumers feel so glum.” They’d probably be throwing tomatoes, if they could afford them.
In before times, America’s use of the military to perform relentless bombing on small boats that may or may not be transporting drugs would be an endlessly covered scandal that calls into question whether murder has at times been committed. In these times, it gets lost among endless waves of outrageous acts. But it’s worth noting that if you really wanted to hamper the drug trade, you’re gonna need (to target) a bigger boat. NYT (Gift Article): Blowing Up Boats Hasn’t Slowed Cocaine Traffic to U.S., Experts Say. It’s a cruel and expensive policy that damages our international status and results in a suboptimal outcome. In other words, it’s entirely on brand.
Everyone wants to live a longer and healthier life. But no one wants to live forever as much as really bad, really rich guys with absolutely no regard for human lives other than their own. “When Vladimir Putin was captured by a hot mic telling Xi Jinping that humans could achieve immortality by replacing their organs, some dismissed the exchange as eccentric small talk between aging autocrats. In fact, during the conversation at a Beijing military parade last September, Putin appeared to be describing a Kremlin-backed longevity initiative that has become one of Russia’s flagship scientific projects.” WSJ (Gift Article): Inside Putin’s $26 Billion Quest for Longevity. (I’m not a doctor, but for longevity, I still recommend the old stalwarts: Diet, exercise, and not murdering innocent civilians for years on end.)
What to Watch: Mixing humor with horror is all the rage these days. You may get enough of it in this newsletter, but if you’re in the mood for a little more, there are two new shows worth checking out. Widow’s Bay on Apple TV follows Matthew Rhys as the mayor of a small island looking to boost tourism, despite a lot of bad things hidden in the fog. And The Boroughs on Netflix features a group of retirees investigating a deadly, supernatural mystery. Think: Stranger Things meets Cocoon.
+ What to Doc: “In this true-crime documentary series, a cult expert and filmmaker infiltrate a polygamist sect to expose a self-proclaimed prophet and bring him down.” Trust Me: The False Prophet. These filmmakers go way beyond just documenting a tragedy.
+ What to Pod: “He’s wowed presidents, pro athletes and podcasters. But magicians tell us Oz Pearlman’s viral act has crossed an ethical line. Stevie Baskin, after obsessively studying Pearlman’s tricks, explains to Pablo Torre how influencers from Charles Barkley to the White House were in on the act — and why he thinks this brand of ‘mind-reading’ amounts to fraud.” On YouTube: Pablo Torre Finds Out: Debunking Oz Pearlman’s Tricks: Is He a Fraud?
On the Verge: We either have a deal, are really close to a deal, or there’s not yet a deal, that may or may not include the opening of the Strait. Trump claims to be on verge of approving peace deal with major Iranian concessions.
+ Pop Goes the Populism: “A year ago, the Trump administration withdrew from a global effort to curb offshore tax-dodging by multinational companies. That decision has been a huge gift to corporate America, enabling companies to avoid at least $40 billion in income taxes since the beginning of 2025.” Don’t get me wrong. Corporations aren’t the only ones benefiting these days. Dell Gets a $9.7 Billion Defense Contract. Trump’s Portfolio Stands to Benefit.
+ Failure to Launch: “A rocket belonging to Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin exploded during a test at the launch pad Thursday night, shaking nearby homes and briefly painting the sky orange.” Amazingly, no one was hurt. But it’s a major setback, and not just for Blue Origin. Ars Technica: Here’s why the failure of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket is so catastrophic.
+ Drone Zone: “It was the first known time that a Russian drone had caused damage and injuries in a major urban area on the territory of the Western military alliance.” Russian Drone Hits Romanian Apartment Building.
+ Emotional Roller Coaster: “Eight riders were stranded nearly 100 feet in the air on Thursday evening after a roller coaster in Texas stopped during its vertical climb.”
+ Caffeine For All: “Many Americans likely haven’t heard of 7 Brew, which has only been around since 2017 when it opened its first location in Rogers, Arkansas. The chain has since grown to over 700 locations in 38 states, with about 340 more on the way, but can’t be found in airports, indoor shopping malls or busy street corners in major US cities. Instead, it operates through drive-thrus and walk-up windows in parts of the country with little-to-no coffee competition.” Private equity-backed coffee. Talk about a business of the era. This drive-thru coffee chain is pushing into undercaffeinated parts of America.
+ Uncle Sam Wants You: Pentagon recruiting troops to watch White House UFC fights. (Tickets not included. Those who attend are required to “pay their own way and meet height and weight requirements.” Happy Birthday, ‘Merica!)
+ Shrinking is Growing: “He’s got five television shows on the air this year: the first-season HBO series “Rooster,” “Shrinking” on Apple TV (which recently dropped Season 3) and ABC’s rebooted “Scrubs,” all of which are in the running for Emmys, plus the upcoming “Ted Lasso” (entering Season 4) and “Bad Monkey” (back for Season 2), both on Apple.” How Bill Lawrence Became TV’s Most Prolific Showrunner. (You could spend all your TV time just keeping up with him and Taylor Sheridan.)
“The decline of physical bookstores remains so embedded in popular culture that the man dating Anne Hathaway’s character in The Devil Wears Prada 2 laments that bookstores are “getting downsized and consolidated.” But the decline actually ended years ago, and the latest numbers from the American Booksellers Association show independent stores expanding at a pace not seen this century.”
+ “Researchers say the new drug, called VERVE-102, could be administered to patients with a one-time infusion over the course of approximately four hours instead of having patients take a daily pill or regular shots.” New drug to treat high cholesterol could be 1-time therapy. And, A New, Powerful Cholesterol-Lowering Drug Is on the Horizon.
+ Rescue divers in Laos on Friday night safely evacuated the first of five local villagers who had been trapped in a cave for more than a week by floodwaters.
+ This High Schooler Developed an A.I. Tool to Diagnose Autism and ADHD Using the Retina.
+ Paul McCartney Doesn’t Need to Make Music Anymore. He Just Loves To. (He also seems pretty good at it.)
+ Shrey Parikh, 14, wins the Scripps Spelling Bee after a nail-biting spell-off.
2026-05-28 20:00:00
If you’re anything like me, when your mind boggles, your stomach gurgles. That’s why, when I’m suffering from anxiety, I’m just as likely to reach for the Imodium as the Xanax. The connection between your brain and body can often be felt in your gut. So maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that GLP-1 drugs are having a major impact on your head, your habits, your hunger, and your general health. These drugs were introduced as a tool to help control blood sugar. We then learned they could also lead to major weight loss. Needless to say, that made these drugs popular, placing millions of humans into one of history’s largest petri dishes. “Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs were initially understood as a metabolism breakthrough: medicines that act like hormones to control hunger, blood sugar and weight. But as researchers probe deeper into how the drugs work, early evidence suggests that GLP-1s may also be reshaping parts of the brain. Tens of millions of people are now taking the medications worldwide, turning what began as an obesity and diabetes treatment into what could be modern medicine’s largest unplanned neuroscience experiments.” WaPo (Gift Article): Ozempic may be reshaping the brain, scientists say. (Alt link.) This grand experiment has led to many unexpected health benefits and will lead to many discoveries. Of course, there are also risks. “If GLP-1s alter the brain systems involved in reward, craving and motivation, researchers wonder, where is the line between quieting a person’s destructive impulses and reshaping personality itself?” (I’ve been on one of these drugs for high blood sugar for quite a while. My wife and kids report no luck when it comes to personality reshaping.) One benefit of our experience with these drugs is that we may finally drop the habit of telling sick people that an illness is all in your mind. Of course it is, because the brain is part of the body. I’ve always believed in a strong mind/body connection. It’s called the neck.
The financial impact of the Iran war has followed a similar theme. The investor class hasn’t been much affected as the market continues to pile up gains. The Americans who were living on the edge are getting pushed over it. “Affordability has been a politically potent word, but an ill-defined measure of financial pain, often used as a reference to inflated prices. But new research from the Brookings Institution released Wednesday describes affordability by comparing the rising costs of essentials against family incomes. By that measure, the report found, in 2024, 45.5% of U.S. households did not earn enough to cover their necessities.” And that was before gas and other costs shot up. “The report concluded that a mere $1,000 hike in the annual cost of living would leave another 3 million households unable to make ends meet.” This is how close American households are to the financial edge.
+ “The New York Fed report is the latest set of findings from a series of releases detailing the so-called K-shaped economy, where the economic fates of the wealthy and those who are not have been diverging.” NY Fed finds ‘remarkable increase’ in food insecurity for many Americans.
+ “The U.S. economy has weathered a series of events that have raised prices, including the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Mr. Trump’s global trade war.” And now a fighting war. NYT (Gift Article): Prices in the U.S. Are Rising at the Fastest Pace in Years.
+ “High gas prices, rising interest rates and stubborn inflation are keeping buyers at home and cars on the lots.” WSJ (Gift Article): One Million New-Car Buyers Are Gone and They’re Not Coming Back Soon.
“U.S. and Iranian negotiators have reached a tentative agreement to extend the ceasefire by 60 days and start negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.” So we have a deal to work on a deal. With this minor caveat. “Iran did not immediately confirm any deal, and the official noted that President Donald Trump has yet to sign off on it.” Meanwhile, Oman seems bummed that Trump threatened to blow them up. Here’s the latest from The Guardian and NBC.
“After decades where the dominant expectation for high-achieving parents was to intensively helicopter, a new generation of moms is saying ‘enough.’ They’re reclaiming date night, saying no to schlepping to 17 different after-school activities and making peace with dirty dishes in the sink. These acts of giving up—or giving in—are beginning to add up to something of a feminist revolution, albeit a very low-key one.” WSJ (Gift Article): The Era of the Tiger Mom Is Over. Enter the Beta Mom. (The only people who have less of an impact on a child’s personality than parents are parent influencers.)
Dept of Injustice: Justice Department opens criminal probe involving E. Jean Carroll testimony in Trump sexual abuse lawsuit. A predator is using the power of our justice system to further target one of his sexual assault victims. And not a single person thinks that move will even dent his support among GOP leaders. This kind of ass-kissing will continue apace. Trump appointees push $250 banknote with his portrait. So will the DOJ’s corruption. DOJ Tries to Unmask Reddit and X Users Who Criticized ICE.
+ School Bullies: “Officers in Texas displayed startling belligerence at times, grabbing or tackling students a fraction of their size over misconduct that often appeared to be minor. Children in elementary school, including one as young as 6, were handcuffed. Teenagers were arrested, charged with crimes and even jailed. In the most extreme cases, they wound up in hospitals, bruised or concussed, after being body-slammed or shocked by Tasers, which are prohibited in the state’s juvenile detention facilities but allowed in its public schools.” NYT (Gift Article): Texas School Police Pepper-Sprayed, Tackled and Tasered Students.
+ Valuation Inflation: Anthropic Tops OpenAI to Become the World’s Most Valuable A.I. Start-Up. (Its valuation is more than double what it was just 3 months ago. Forget AI, we’re gonna need a bigger calculator…)
+ Graft Craft: Tired: The art of the deal. Wired: The craft of the graft. The White House Intervened to Get a $620 Million Deal for a Company Tied to Donald Trump Jr. (I guess this makes up for dad skipping Jr’s wedding…)
+ Free Milli: “Day and Young MC issued statements on social media disputing Wednesday’s announcement from Freedom 250, while Milli Vanilli singer Jodie Rocco told The Associated Press that neither she, her sister Linda Rocco nor any of the other group members had been asked to come.” Milli Vanilli and Morris Day say they won’t perform at Trump-linked Freedom 250’s DC shows. They’ve still got Vanilla ICE. Our lineup seems better. Bruce Springsteen calls out the White House and announces a protest festival.
+ Search for Hire Meaning: “Bari Weiss, CBS’s editor in chief, named Nick Bilton, a tech journalist and filmmaker, as the show’s executive producer. The network also fired two on-air correspondents.” (Editor’s note: Wait, what?)
+ Sinner Can’t Take the Heat: “As the match wore on, Sinner bent over on the clay court in apparent exhaustion multiple times and was hardly even running, resorting to drop shots and serve-and-volley tactics to try to shorten the points.” In a shocker, No. 1 Jannik Sinner falls apart, eliminated from French Open. Novak now has his opening for major win 25. (If you’re not into tennis, there’s still a story of interest here. Heat isn’t even supposed to be a factor at the French Open. This year, players, like many Europeans, are melting in May.)
“Joi AI, an AI companion startup that markets itself as providing ‘AI-lationships that satisfy you emotionally, intellectually, and intimately,’ is hiring 10 ‘masturbation consultants.'” (I applied, but I was told I was overqualified.)
2026-05-27 20:00:00
In the early days of the internet, blogging created an opportunity for anyone to express themselves to a potentially wide audience. This was good news for us English majors (or we English majors, I can never remember). But coming face to face with a giant, empty input box did little to entice those for whom the idea of posting long-form content was a perspiration-inducing reminder of homework. Twitter fixed that with a technical limitation that became its superpower. Due to SMS constraints, the original Tweets were limited to 140 characters. That was a welcome invitation for everyone to become a writer (and writers to realize that some of their 10,000 word ideas actually only needed about 8-10 words to get the point across).
+ In many ways, the AI experience is an inversion of the early days of the internet. The internet enabled you to do it yourself. AI does it for you. That includes the writing, and increasingly, the thinking. But is the technology turning all writing into the same writing? And will that lead to all thinking being similarly similar? (I’d like to see AI try to pull off wordplay like that.) Rebecca Winthrop in the NYT (Gift Article): What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity. “Brainstorming is the work that’s fundamental to writing. As a researcher studying A.I.’s effects on education, I have concluded that these tools only superficially improve writing. The bigger and more alarming impact they have is to constrict our full range of thoughts and our ability to generate original and useful ideas — what we call creative thinking. This seems to be especially true for students. A.I.’s smooth sentences, elegant transitions and rich vocabulary give the illusion of expansive creativity and individuality. But the underlying ideas often converge into a few homogenized categories. The erosion of creative thinking means young people will struggle to navigate uncertainty. Workers will strain to adapt to a shifting labor market. And society will miss out on the new ideas that can solve complex problems and enhance lives.” (Not to mention the pun headlines and beagle references.)
+ While non-writers are leaning on AI to take over, even serious writers are finding themselves distracted by tech. Ian McEwan: It’s harder to write now that phones have killed thinking. “It was much easier to be a writer in the Seventies. The most crucial difference is there [was] no internet and there [was] much more capacity for solitude. One didn’t take out one’s phone. I’m slightly addicted to mine, I have to admit.”
“Ahead of his Republican primary runoff Tuesday, Sen. John Cornyn highlighted a photo of himself standing next to President Donald Trump as his pinned post on X. He boosted one post disputing that he’s ‘disloyal’ to Trump and another about voting ‘yes on every major Trump law.’ The posts captured an important side of Cornyn: a loyal Republican soldier, standing with his party’s leader. There’s no disputing that Cornyn’s voting record was almost perfectly aligned with Trump.” But it wasn’t enough. None of Cornyn’s Trumpifications were enough to match the MAGAnificent qualifications of Ken Paxton: “A scandal-plagued hack lawyer who has been impeached by members of his own party; forced to take remedial ethics classes; admitted to breaking securities law; reported to the FBI by his employees; investigated by own his state bar association; and whose wife has filed for divorce on ‘Biblical grounds.'” In addition to garnering 20 years of scandals and headlines, he’s been going medieval on women’s choice and healthcare issues for years. That curriculum vitae was enough to earn Trump’s endorsement en route to a rout in Tuesday’s GOP Senate Texas primary. It may seem depressing to you that MAGA voters are still this loyal to Trump, but you’re not alone. Plenty of GOP senators are pretty depressed right now, too. “Mr. Cornyn, who less than two years ago came within a handful of votes of becoming the Republican leader, was a popular and respected senator as well as a prolific fund-raiser, a dependable conservative vote and an able floor debater. His colleagues saw the president’s last-minute endorsement of his scandal-mired opponent as a move to punish a senator whom Mr. Trump deemed insufficiently loyal, an insult to the institution and a self-serving political mistake that put his party’s hold on the Senate at risk.” Cornyn’s Defeat Fuels Tensions With President Trump in Senate GOP.
+ The GOP has a weak candidate. In James Talarico, the Dems have their strongest shot to turn Texas blue. But this race will still be tight and remarkably expensive. And Ken Paxton didn’t take long to let us all know exactly how he plans to run the race. On Talarico: “He’s a threat to our very way of life. I mean, he’s a vegan who thinks God is nonbinary.” (With that knack for imbecilic falsehoods, how could Trump not endorse him?)
“With my system in place, I wondered if I would feel guilty spying on my husband. But as I began tracking him, following his dot on a digital map, I felt connection. When his dot appeared at a favorite record store, I pictured him flipping through LPs. When his dot paused on Central Park’s Great Lawn, I imagined joining him on the grass. If he knew I was watching, he would feel like I’d betrayed him. But I felt like I had given him, and us, an extension on the routines that had held us together for more than 20 years.” Caroline Bailey with a touching piece in the NYT (Gift Article) on keeping tabs on the subway trips of her husband who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s: Tenderly Tracking My Husband. “In recent months, my husband’s tracking dot has shown him switching train lines with no clear logic behind the transfers. His trip summaries zigzag across neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Sometimes I can see that he has taken the D train straight to midtown and back without ever surfacing, or that he takes a quick hop from an R to an F to a neighborhood where we used to live, and he’ll just hover on a street corner for 20 minutes or so before coming home.”
“At Sentiré Pilates in London’s Belgravia, founder Iza Recelj says younger clients often use the space for social events. ‘We have a lot of birthday parties and bachelorette parties,’ she says. ‘People are booking the whole studio, doing a class together and then staying for mocktails or food afterwards.'” Young people are going to have a lot of things to fix in this world. But they just might have the abs to pull it off. Bloomberg (Gift Article): The New Social Scene Swaps Bars for $300 Gym Memberships.
A Perfect Ebola Storm: “In both cases, the news has been not only frightening but also confusing, even to scientists. The hantaviruses didn’t seem to be acting like hantaviruses, and the Ebola viruses weren’t behaving like Ebola viruses.” The Viruses Causing New Outbreaks Are Much Less Familiar to Science. Is climate a factor? From The New Yorker: Our Warming Planet Is a Petri Dish for New and Deadly Microbes. Meanwhile, the Democratic Republic of Congo is facing an ongoing conflict and Ebola at the same time. And war isn’t the only factor hindering the response. Vox (Gift Article): This is what happens when you defund Ebola prevention.
+ Divine Divers: “After a week of squeezing through the dangerous, mazelike cave network, divers Mikko Paasi and Norrased Palasing emerged from its muddy waters Wednesday to find a cause for hope. There, huddled on a rock, their headtorches still illuminated, were five villagers who had been trapped, missing — unknown if alive or dead — for eight days inside the flooded caves in Laos.” Many of the rescuers were part of the Thai cave rescue in 2018. Like then, locating the villagers is only the first step. They still need to get them out. 5 villagers stuck in a flooded cave for more than a week found alive in Laos.
+ Bluster’s Last Stand: “Responding to a question from a reporter about the possibility that a deal might include a pact between Iran and Oman, a U.S. ally on the other side of the strait, to jointly control the waterway, President Trump rejected the notion: ‘Oman will behave just like everybody else or we’ll have to blow them up. They understand that. They’ll be fine.'” Here’s the latest bluster about a potential deal with Iran. While the ceasefire is mostly holding between the US and Iran, the same is not true when it comes to Hezbollah and Israel. Meanwhile, the US will need years to replenish stockpiles of advanced weapons used in Iran war, new analysis finds. (Bad news for our defense, good news for weapons manufacturers.)
+ Adding Gruel to the Fire: “A combination of factors including bad weather, tariffs and a dwindling cattle herd are already pushing up grocery prices at an above-average pace. In April, they rose by the most in nearly four years, and economists say the impact of the Iran war and a potential El Niño weather pattern will only add to pressures into 2027.” Americans Are About to Pay Even More at the Grocery Store.
+ Get the Scoop: This is my kind of climate activism. Why an Ice Cream Cone is an Easy Environmental Win.
The greatest threat to America has always come from within. Even in survivalist communities. WSJ (Gift Article): A Luxury Survivalist Community Is Tearing Itself Apart. “Lawsuits, countersuits and disputes are piling up over septic systems, property taxes, off-leash dogs and a growing list of community rules. The legal skirmishing has reached the state supreme court—twice. Promised amenities, including a restaurant bunker, a pool bunker and a horse-stable bunker, have yet to materialize. Guns have been drawn, and there have been offers to settle things with fists.”
+ UFC fighting cage rises on White House lawn for a bout celebrating America’s 250th anniversary. (The official song of America’s 250th: It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.)
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There are a lot of perfectly reasonable explanations for why, regardless of the health risks, Gen Z is tanning like crazy. Young people tend not to worry about the long-term health risks of their behavior (and given the fact that the only conversations middle-aged people have are about streaming shows and our latest ailments, one can understand the desire to delay worrying). Maybe tans draw more likes and views on TikTok and Instagram. But I wonder if there’s not something more disturbing behind the latest numbers on sun habits from the American Academy of Dermatology. “Only 25 percent of Gen Z respondents (ages 18 to 29) reported concern about developing skin cancer in their lifetime, compared with 39 percent of the general population. What’s more, 20 percent said that getting a tan was more important than preventing skin cancer.” NYT (Gift Article): They’ve Heard the Warnings. Gen Z Is Tanning Anyway. In this age of attacks on science, maybe young people don’t really believe in the dangers of excessive sun exposure. In this age of misinformation, maybe young people buy the takes from some of their peers on TikTok, like, “The sun gives you cancer. Sunscreen gives you cancer. We die either way, so you may as well be tanned.” In this age of a rightful distrust of sullied government information and quack leaders, maybe young people don’t feel like taking skincare health tips from institutions when our Department of Health and Human Services is being run by a tanning bed enthusiast who has turned himself into a human McNugget (I hate to throw shade, but in this case, it’s for his own health). Perhaps related to an absence of trust in institutions, “Gen Z respondents cited TikTok or Instagram as their No. 1 source for skin-care information, and 65 percent of them were likely to believe tanning myths, including that a base tan can prevent sunburn or reduce the risk of skin cancer.” As their government unleashes flavored vapes, unbridled gambling, and climate policies that risk the future, would young people be wrong to question whether the olds really have their best interests at heart? Between the lack of trust in their elders and the endless stream of misinformation, would it be any wonder if young people didn’t know what to believe, and would be left with a desire to just let it all burn (including their skin)?
“Last fall, a high-stakes struggle unfolded inside the red brick walls of an obscure federal agency. Three companies — each with ties to the Trump family’s business empire — needed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to bless their ambitions in the white-hot field of prediction markets.” You can probably predict what happened. NYT (Gift Article): How Prediction Markets and Crypto Firms Steamrolled a Watchdog Agency. “By Christmas, the agency had put two top officials who had raised questions about the companies on leave, barred them from the office and placed them under internal investigation. Three other senior officials who had enforced laws involving cryptocurrencies — another industry linked to the Trumps — suffered the same fate. None of those officials were told what they had done wrong. But current and former agency staffers said in interviews that the commission’s work force took away a clear message: Don’t cause trouble for those industries.”
+ If you’re still not getting the picture, maybe this headline will help. Trump promotes unregulated online casino after $1 million Super PAC donation.
+ Anyone sensing a trend? A $5 Million Donation From Big Tobacco Preceded F.D.A. Vape Decision.
“The negotiations between the United States and Iran to end their war are following President Trump’s familiar playbook for resolving a Middle East crisis: agree to a cease-fire and deal with the toughest problems later.” For now, we’re getting mixed signals of new US strikes and suggestions that a peace deal of some sort is close. Here’s the latest from the NYT and The Guardian.
+ “How much Iran will get away with, and how much humiliation the United States will endure, has yet to be ironed out by the negotiators, but the war is now almost certain to end with Tehran’s theocrats firmly in power, and with a stronger chokehold both on their own people and on the international economy than they had three months ago. Not only is Trump incoherently staggering to defeat, he now risks signing on to an agreement that could be far worse than anything Obama negotiated with Iran a decade ago.” Tom Nichols in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Trump’s War Is Staggering to an Incoherent Defeat. (These worries aren’t just coming from the so-called liberal media. They’re coming from some of Trump’s top GOP supporters.)
“So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean … The various kinds of job insecurity, fragmented career paths and automation must not be evaluated solely in terms of efficiency, but in relation to the dignity of the worker, the right to sufficient remuneration and the genuine possibility of participating in society … I ask everyone to abandon the construction of yet another Tower of Babel and to join forces in building up the common good.” Count the Pope among those who are very worried about the rise of artificial intelligence. Magnifica Humanitas is the Pope’s first encyclical — a 42,300-word open letter on the need to put humans at the heart of technological change. (We might need a new data center wing to edit that down to a length modern readers will actually consume.) Main Takeaways From Pope Leo’s Encyclical on AI.
+ From commencement speakers getting booed to the Vatican, AI has some serious negative buzz going. Tech CEOs used to almost brag about what AI would do to the job market. Times have changed. OpenAI’s Altman says AI unlikely to lead to ‘jobs apocalypse.’
+ “What do the numbers really say about the impact of artificial intelligence on the labor market? The answer might surprise you.” A reality check on the AI jobs hysteria. So far, the job market hasn’t seen that big of an impact. But AI is just getting warmed up.
+ Meanwhile, one of the Pope’s worries seems unstoppable. AI warfare is already here. “Even Anthropic seems to think its red lines won’t hold for long. After all, history has proven otherwise.”
Race to Racism: Federal court blocks Alabama plan for new congressional districts that could help Republicans. “A three-judge panel in the state’s long-running redistricting case issued a preliminary injunction that prevents the state from switching maps, ruling that the Republican-backed plan ‘intentionally discriminated based on race.'” (Of course, that’s precisely what the Supreme Court just allowed, so one imagines they’ll chime in soon, with the midterms quickly approaching.)
+ Let’s Not Keep This on the (L)DL: “In a small, preliminary study, an experimental gene-editing treatment dramatically lowered cholesterol levels, perhaps permanently, after just one infusion, scientists reported on Monday. If confirmed in larger studies, researchers hope the findings may lead to a one-and-done way to prevent heart disease in large numbers of people.” Gina Kolata in the NYT (Gift Article): One-and-Done Heart Disease Prevention? Scientists Show It May Be Possible.
+ Command Performance: “The 42 swimming, track and weightlifting athletes who competed Sunday may have come to Las Vegas to chase personal records and millions in prize money, but the organizers of the Enhanced Games had greater ambitions than merely launching a new sports franchise. They sought to use the event to de-stigmatize the use of performance-enhancing substances and to entice consumers to buy them.” Enhanced Games got its ‘world record,’ but felt more like a glorified infomercial.
+ Here So Soon? “The U.K. smashed a century-old temperature record for the second time in 24 hours on Tuesday as a spring heat wave continued to scorch parts of Western Europe, triggering government warnings about risks to life. Several drownings were reported in Britain and France as people tried to cool down.” The heatwaves are coming early this year. Exceptionally early heat wave shatters records and brings deaths in Europe.
+ Backseat Drivers: “I don’t have to talk to another human being … I get in a car, and I’m just alone.” Blind Waymo Users Revel in the Joy of Riding Alone.
+ Curb Enthusiasm: “I am drawn there by a pair of parallel curbs that were designed to corral shopping carts. Unbeknown to shoppers on their way to rotisserie chicken and pallets of toilet paper, the curbs are world famous. Their image has been reproduced on stickers, T-shirts and skateboard graphics. Pilgrims fly across the country and from Europe to skate them, sometimes taking dimensions so they can mold replicas back home.” Conor Dougherty: What I Learned About Loss While Skateboarding at Costco.
“Police responding to reports of a shotgun blast at a convenience store sounds like the opening of countless American crime movies, but when cops in Nebraska responded to a recent such call they found an unusual culprit: a dog.” (I always assumed it would be the cats who would come for us first…)
+ Stephen Colbert was back on TV almost immediately. Public access TV. Only in Monroe.