2026-07-31 20:00:00
I don’t want to be just one more news curator who drops into your inbox every day and announces that the sky is falling. Relax, only part of the sky is falling. It’s not a bird, nor a plane, nor Superman foiled by kryptonite (or a bad kryptocurrency investment). It’s space garbage that’s supposed to incinerate when reentering the Earth’s atmosphere, but sometimes doesn’t. So far, there’s not that much of a chance that one of these smoldering space chunks will land on you (though, I’m not sure whether that’s good news or bad news in 2026), but the risk will rise as the space race accelerates. Having a roof over one’s head will never be more important, preferably a blast-resistant steel-reinforced concrete roof coated with a few layers of military-grade polymer and polyurea spray. Just ask the Kenyans. “One December afternoon, the sky tore open and a fiery hunk of metal, wider than a school bus, came hurtling down. It was louder than a thunderclap when it plunged into a patch of farmland, startling everyone in the village of Mukuku, about three hours south of Nairobi, Kenya … ‘This is an isolated event,’ the Kenya Space Agency said in early 2025. Not exactly. More space debris is raining down on Earth than ever before — one effect of the frenetic race among governments and companies like SpaceX to reign over the skies.” NYT (Gift Article): A Ton of Space Junk Tumbles Unpredictably to Earth Every Week. And who pays if you or your property gets hit? Well, the law isn’t quite ready for that. “The patchwork of regulation governing rocket launches and orbital junk is no match for the pace of space development. Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has more than 10,000 satellites in orbit, has applied to launch a million more. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has similar ambitions and Chinese ‘megaconstellations’ are expected to have hundreds of thousands of satellites.” As Tevye reminds us in Fiddler on the Roof, “If you spit in the air, it lands in your face.” (I’d add that the fiddler should probably come down from the roof and maybe consider a basement concert series…)
+ If you’re thinking of moving off the planet to avoid the falling debris, you might want to consider this headline: Drifting SpaceX rocket heading for accidental collision with the moon.
“An estimated 50,000 to 60,000 migrants entered a small Spanish territory alongside Morocco on Thursday and Friday, according to Spanish authorities. Although at least 48,300 had returned to Morocco by Friday afternoon, the mass crossing prompted an immediate backlash from far-right politicians in Europe that seemed poised to linger. Scenes of chaos in Ceuta (pronounced say-YOU-tah), the North African exclave that Spain has held for centuries, splashed across news networks and social media. Juan Jesús Vivas, the head of Ceuta’s government, said that nearly three dozen migrants had died in attempting the crossing and called the situation ‘absolutely unsustainable’ in a territory with about 83,000 residents.” This was a crazy scene with crazy photos and videos. And the political impact might be even crazier.
“Almost every night in the White House, President Trump calls his fundraiser, Meredith O’Rourke, for an update. Trump asks O’Rourke which companies and donors have cut checks and which haven’t, and for how much. He often asks her to make much larger financial requests than she was planning—for some donors the ask is $5 million, for others it is $50 million … In turn, Trump has called her the ‘princess of darkness’ because she is such a ‘killer’ with donors, according to people who have heard his comments.” WSJ (Gift Article): ‘The Boss Wants This Money’: Inside Trump’s Unprecedented Fundraising Operation.
+ And how are corporations reacting to this new form of purely transactional governance? They’re racing to take advantage of it. NYT (Gift Article): Companies Rush to Close Daring Deals Under Trump.
What to Watch: “Furious on Hulu follows an FBI agent, Alice Black (Emmy Rossum) on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating female serial killer. Both walk their paths toward justice, and as their lives start to intertwine, the line between right and wrong begins to blur.” (In a Dexter sort of way.)
+ What to Hear: Stephen Wilson Jr’s guitar playing and singing reached a new audience when his cover of Stand By Me went viral. Here he is describing and singing his own song, Gary, on the Howard Stern show. If you have Sirius, definitely listen to the whole interview. Here’s more of Wilson Jr Spotify.
+ What to Doc: On HBO Max, check out Live Aid: When Rock ‘n’ Roll Took On the World. It will remind you of the music and the moment, and of a time when political leaders around the world were pushed to do something good.
Unclosed Deal? Trump announced that under a Board of Peace deal, Hamas would completely disarm and Israel would pull out of Gaza. He might be a little ahead of the participants in the deal (I know, shocker). Trump’s Gaza Deal Sparks Questions on Whether Israel, Hamas Will Comply.
+ There’s Something Contrary About Larry: “His big bet on A.I. was built on an astronomical amount of debt in every imaginable form — bonds, letters of credit, asset-backed securities — available in seemingly unlimited quantities, because the more you spent building A.I. infrastructure, the more you would earn, or so the logic went. Computer theorists called it the scaling hypothesis. It held that advancements in A.I. were directly tied to the generation of unprecedented amounts of computing power to process unprecedented volumes of data … But lately, some investors and analysts have started questioning the scaling hypothesis or at least asking if all this spending is sustainable.” NYT Mag (Gift Article) with a solid weekend read: Larry Ellison Bet It All on the A.I. Boom. Will He Be the Face of the A.I. Bubble?
+ Using Your Outside Voice: “Some Trump Administration officials now seem to recognize that the silencing of V.O.A. has left the country with a diminished capacity to push back against other countries’ disinformation efforts.” Yet again, the administration is learning it needs a lot of stuff it broke. But, whether we like it or not, there’s only one voice of America these days. Marc Fisher in The New Yorker: How Donald Trump Silenced the Voice of America.
+ Electoral Collage: One of the goals of all the 2020 election denial and invented threats to our voting systems is to weaken the faith Americans have in our elections. And it’s working. Two in three Americans are concerned about political leaders pressuring election officials to change election outcomes.
+ Gamble On: “New York sued Kalshi on Friday, alleging its prediction market is nothing more than illegal, unlicensed gambling.” New York is right, but the feds are doing everything they can to protect the prediction markets.
+ Deadly Climb: “Rescuers had said earlier on Friday that four bodies had been found and efforts were underway to retrieve them despite the harsh weather.” World-renowned climber Nirmal Purja among 11 struck by avalanche on Pakistan mountain.
+ Nomo Romo: CBS Sports has placed NFL analyst Tony Romo on leave following his arrest last week on suspicion of driving under the influence.
+ Protein Age Wasteland: You just KNEW this was coming. The protein craze may not be for everyone. “Excess protein might speed aging in sedentary people, a new review suggests.”
“A Montana man walked 10 miles to safety with a trekking pole speared through his torso after a fall during a hiking expedition on the state’s highest mountain … One of his friends walked behind Cifaldi to make sure he was steady on the rugged terrain back down while the other walked ahead to warn oncoming hikers. ‘There’s families, and he … had us hike ahead and warn people so young kids didn’t have to see such a gnarly wound.'”
+ He Was Wearing a Spider-Man Suit. A Man in a Wheelchair Needed Help.
+ “Ryder somehow maintained his grip even as the waves tossed him and the boy around – and eventually a fellow lifeguard was able to join him and assist in bringing the child safely back to shore.” ‘I’m super proud of him’: father of teen lifeguard recounts dramatic ocean rescue.
+ Taylor Sheridan alert: Boy, 14, Rescues Drowning Man with Rodeo Lasso during family camping trip in Montana.
+ Matt Damon’s Biceps in That ‘Odyssey’ Fight Scene? They’re Hers.
2026-07-30 20:00:00
Acute inflammation is good. It’s the cavalry your body calls in when it’s “engaged in battle, destroying invaders or repairing injuries.” That’s swell. And often, swelling. Chronic inflammation is bad. “Specifically, the culprit is chronic low-level inflammation — the prolonged activity of immune cells in the absence of any immediate threat.” Researchers are beginning to learn just how bad this kind of inflammation is. “Studies have shown that chronic inflammation is not just a symptom — it’s often a cause. They may add up to one of the biggest medical breakthroughs of the 21st century.” It could be the one thing that underlies a variety of common and brutal diseases. That’s not swell. Or swelling — and that’s one reason why it’s so hard for doctors to determine whether you suffer from the malady. As one researcher explains, “I think we are all looking for simple answers. There will be answers. They will not be simple.” Of course, that’s not the message you’ll get from do your own researchers who have gotten out in front of what we know about the problem to sell their cures. Whether they have swell heads or seek swelling wallets, it’s worth taking their advice with a grain of salt (or potassium chloride salt substitute). “Mainstream media headlines tell us how to ‘fight’ inflammation by eating these six fruits and following those nine healthy habits. Articles question whether treating inflammation can prevent dementia or reduce depression. Longevity influencers dive into the ills of chronic inflammation on their podcasts. On platforms like TikTok and Reddit, users eagerly seek and dispense advice on how to eliminate their chronic inflammation by any means necessary: by fasting or humming or taking ice baths or injecting themselves with copper peptides. They urge one another to avoid ultraprocessed foods, plastics, pollution, pesticides, tick bites, loneliness — these are a just a few of the suggestions. Kernels of truth can be found in much of this advice.” The race is on to turn that kernel knowledge into something closer to the whole truth. The NYT Magazine (Gift Article) with a very interesting look at The New Science of Inflammation.
“These mechanics are not incidental. In the games that employ them, they are designed to maximize engagement. And they’re nearly identical to the variable-reward loops that slot machines and sports-betting apps use in games for adults and that research has shown to be particularly addictive. Games that look like simple fun, according to addiction experts I spoke with while reporting this article, may be normalizing behaviors that could lead to serious consequences down the road.” Some games are turning into a feeder industry for the sports betting and prediction markets that are waiting for (and marketing to) your kids. The Atlantic (Gift Articles): Why Kids Can’t Quit Roblox. (This is all part of the same story that explains why prediction markets are so dangerous. They combine the most powerful lessons learned from social media, gaming, and gambling into one product intended to hook you like nothing before.)
“President Trump said on Thursday he may withdraw his nomination of Todd Blanche as attorney general, which was on hold after Republicans, lacking the necessary support, postponed a critical committee vote. Mr. Trump said he could nominate him again after two lame-duck Republican holdouts, who were concerned over a deal he cut to settle Mr. Trump’s lawsuit against the I.R.S., leave office next year.” Blanche, formerly (and pretty much currently) Mr. Trump’s personal attorney has soiled the Justice Department, weaponized the law against Trump’s perceived enemies (including the insane Comey 86-47 seashell case), betrayed Epstein survivors, negotiated a sweet prison transfer for Ghislaine Maxwell, targeted liberal-minded nonprofits, spearheaded the $1.8 billion slush fund, and otherwise undermined the rule of law that is currently hanging on by a thread. Yet, he’s only a couple still open for negotiation votes from being confirmed. And it’s worth noting that the GOP holdouts almost always fold, and the worst-case scenario almost always wins out. In the meantime, Blanche will probably remain in his role as acting attorney general.
+ Meanwhile, payouts to Trump allies continue, and another lawyer who represented Trump has been appointed U.S. Attorney in Manhattan.
During yesterday’s embarrassing hearings, Senator Bernie Moreno asked Fauci, “Who the f-ck did you think you were?” I look forward to Moreno asking the same question of the president since Trump gave Fauci a presidential commendation on the last day of his first term. This reality is just one of the ways the attempt to rewrite the history of Fauci and Covid and science is an absurdity. In fact, it’s our new pandemic. I covered it yesterday. Screwing the Fauooch. “The latest pandemic is here. The condition seems permanent and the symptoms include lying, grandstanding, soul-selling, self-serving, sycophancy, unctuousness, a frustration that RFK Jr doesn’t seem crazy enough, a willful ignorance that deepens over time, and the appearance that one is stuck in a timeloop in which the year is always 2020.”
+ If you’re not quite sure about what actually went down in 2020, I can recommend an excellent book on the topic.
Rooting Out the Canal Problem: An attack on an Egyptian port near the Suez Canal threatens to expand the Iran war, while Saudi Arabia “joined with over a dozen other countries, including Egypt and Turkey, to form a new defense coalition to stop attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.” There’s a lot of work going into addressing problems in the region that didn’t exist before the war started. Here’s the latest.
+ Go FIFA Yourself: Are there still times when corruption goes too far? Maybe. European football’s 55 member associations have voted to boycott World Cups if Infantino goes through with plans to sell off part of the org to private investors. “It is one of football’s greatest sporting legacies. It has been built over generations by players, national teams and supporters across every continent. No part of it should ever be surrendered to private investors. The World Cup is not for sale.”
+ The Coast is Not Clear: “He was a big, gregarious man who seemed able to handle anything. But as Kayleigh grew up, she watched him slowly fall apart. First came headaches. Then sleeplessness. His memory frayed and his moods turned raw. When he retired from the Coast Guard at age 40 in 2022, things only grew worse. He would rant and scream. One afternoon he dropped her grandfather with one punch. In the months after, he started setting things on fire. On a winter evening in 2025, with a pile of Coast Guard files burning on the living room floor, he walked out the front door and shot himself dead.” His daughter wanted to find out if his years on the rough seas in a rescue boat could have played a role. She found out the Coast Guard didn’t know and hadn’t asked. So she asked other elite rescuers herself. “Their answers were so stunning that they changed her whole perspective on her father.” NYT (Gift Article): Rescue Boat Crews Show Signs of Brain Injuries, but Coast Guard Isn’t Looking.
+ Country Mile: “Only 4 percent of the country’s ob-gyns practice in rural areas, which is where 10 percent of women ages 15 to 49 live. And that proportion is likely to fall even more because many new entrants to the field are not willing to do a residency or start a practice in states that restrict abortion, many of which are more rural.” And that’s just one reason that “giving birth in a rural county is going to become an even more dangerous prospect. Care will be in shorter supply, travel distances will stretch further, and high-risk situations will more likely result in mortality.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Rural America’s Maternal-Health Crisis Is About to Get Much Worse.
+ The Musk-eteers: “With hundreds of millions of followers on a platform he personally controls, Musk stands as the most prominent purveyor of far-right and ultranationalistic rhetoric in the world.” Jamelle Bouie asks a pretty decent question. Why Do We Tolerate Elon Musk’s Racist Commentary? (I’m guessing the answer starts with $…) Meanwhile, Musk is ready to help Trump and the GOP bigly in the midterms. (Did I mention that SpaceX just scored a $1.6 billion deal with the federal government?)
Mad Dash: “Despite finding no evidence of the crime on his digital devices, Canadian police arrested Klayme in 2020 on child sex abuse charges. He was convicted after a trial in 2023 and sentenced in 2024 to 18 months in prison. He served the full term. Even after release, Klayme continued to fight his conviction. In the process of preparing his appeal, the username mistake that led to all these years of disruption was finally discovered.” A missing underscore sent an innocent man to prison for 18 months.
+ A US government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a State Department presentation at a global conference. (As my high school football coaches always advised, if you’re gonna make a mistake, at least do it full out and at full speed.)
2026-07-29 20:00:00
The latest pandemic is here. The condition seems permanent and the symptoms include lying, grandstanding, soul-selling, self-serving, sycophancy, unctuousness, a frustration that RFK Jr doesn’t seem crazy enough, a willful ignorance that deepens over time, and the appearance that one is stuck in a timeloop in which the year is always 2020. It’s hard to pinpoint the origins of the disease (lab leak or flab leak), but by now, its orange-ins are well established. Armchair scientists doing their own research have verified that the zoonotic plague was first transmitted from the Narcissista Malignus to (sad excuses for) humans via lips to ass contact, but forget about not touching, wearing masks, full body Purell soaks, or wiping down your Amazon boxes, the pathogen is now so wildly infectious that it can be spread over the air or even over the airwaves. Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, UV light, and disinfectant injections have proven more harmful than beneficial, yet they—along with a limited edition commemorative coin—are available to anyone who wants to risk their life (or feel more connected to the Joe Rogan podcast). Just send a self-addressed stamped envelope, along with a large sack of crypto for deposit to World Liberty Financial, to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Some experts contend that the combination of honesty and critical thinking can cure the sickness, but so far, no one who has it has been willing to try. For those fortunately immune and merely witnessing the disease, Tylenol can address some of the symptoms (if you’re crazy enough to take Tylenol!)
+ The disease was on full display during a showboating Senate hearing in which Anthony Fauci in particular, and science in general, were attacked relentlessly. Fauci, “who spent nearly four decades as the government’s top infectious disease expert, refused on Wednesday to answer any questions from a Senate committee investigating the origins of Covid-19. Dr. Fauci accused the committee’s Republican chairman, Rand Paul, of having an ‘unhinged obsession with me,’ before repeatedly invoking his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself.” While Fauci didn’t answer any questions, he did provide an opening statement that included this: “Given Senator Paul’s obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars.'” After being subjected to today’s hearings, he (and the rest of us) may have preferred the behind bars option. NYT (Gift Article): Fauci Repeatedly Refuses to Answer Senators’ Questions at Volatile Hearing. (Someone should go back and research who was president back then, and let Fauci talk all that science stuff.)
+ Senator Bernie Moreno asked Fauci: “Who the f-ck did you think you were?” (A puff of orange concealer came out of his mouth when he asked that question.)
+ Katherine J Wu in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Unmaking of Anthony Fauci. “For decades, he has been one of the nation’s best-known and most-respected scientists. In the late 1960s, Fauci helped lead a team at the National Institutes of Health that repurposed cancer therapies as cures for several once-fatal rheumatological conditions. His later partnerships with AIDS activists and his push to accelerate experimental-drug trials for HIV helped transform the infection into a survivable condition. He went on to serve as a chief architect of PEPFAR, a global HIV-prevention-and-care program that has prevented an estimated 25 million deaths since 2003.” (So, obviously, he must be stopped.)
The war with Iran is not going well. But it is a teachable moment for the American military (and those of other superpowers). Times, and technology, have changed. Marc Champion in Bloomberg (Gift Article): A Misdiagnosis of US Failings Leaves Trump Stuck in Iran. “The US is failing and is likely to go on failing in Iran because technology has changed the nature of war and, with it, the balance between greater and lesser powers. Trump’s belief in the omnipotence of the US military is simply out of date. As Robert A. Pape, a University of Chicago professor … argues in a Foreign Affairs magazine article published last week, the same globalized economy that America’s post-Cold-War dominance made possible since 1991 has also democratized the spread of new technologies of war — from satellite imaging to chips and drones.”
+ “American and Saudi fighter jets attacked Iranian-linked militias and their Iranian advisers in Iraq on Wednesday, and Iran fired missiles at military bases in Jordan. It ended a dayslong pause in direct fighting between the United States and Iran and further widened the scope of the war.” Here’s the latest.
“It sounds like something James Bond would use: a gadget that self-destructs if it falls into the wrong hands. But it’s actually an open-source operating system that can be downloaded onto Android phones. Federal prosecutors in Atlanta are bringing an obstruction charge against a U.S. citizen who gave customs officers what is known as a duress passcode, which activated software that erased the contents of his phone.” NYT (Gift Article): A U.S. Citizen Deleted His Phone’s Data. Now He Faces a Felony Charge.
“The game’s open-ended design and building tools allow players to reimagine real-life spaces like abandoned riverbanks, dark alleys and dump sites, making it one of the main tools used to involve citizens, especially youth, in redesigning urban areas.” Minecraft Is Helping Kids Redesign Their Cities. (Now, if the adults would just stop blowing them up…)
A Shock to the System: Not everyone is against the AI boom and the data center buildout. And not everyone is worried about job losses. For some, the boom is a boon. A.I. Companies Are Recruiting Electricians and Carpenters by the Thousands. Meanwhile, back at the office… Mark Zuckerberg Blasts Centralization of A.I. Power. (Yeah, I mean, we wouldn’t want too much tech power in the hands of someone we don’t trust. Thanks for bringing that up, Zuck.)
+ From Worse to Bad: “The Senate confirmed Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, on Tuesday to oversee the nation’s intelligence agencies, installing a longtime ally of the president into a top national security post that has waned in significance during the second Trump administration.” (Clayton doesn’t have the required experience, nor was he willing to answer honestly about the 2020 election, but even Dems are relieved that the guy he’s taking over for will be out.)
+ Life in Shell: “The disclosure, included in internal government documents turned over to Mr. Comey, is one of the most glaring examples to date of the degree to which Mr. Trump now directs federal law enforcement actions. The records suggest his intense personal involvement in investigating his longtime nemesis and a sharp break from past practice in which the president remained removed from criminal inquiries.” Trump Demanded Details of Agents’ Interview of Comey, New Filing Says.
+ My Bad: Tales of poor leadership are in full display these days. Here’s an example of good leadership. 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan was in a serious car accident that left him with broken bones, stitches, and a concussion. When journalists started digging for details, they reported that the accident was the fault of the other driver involved in the crash. Shanahan, who hadn’t spoken to the press yet, immediately gathered reporters to set the record straight. “‘I hit her,’ an emotional Shanahan said. ‘I don’t know why it was reported (the other) way.'”
+ Mitch, Please: “In the letter, Beshear called on the 84-year-old to ‘directly and verbally address the people of Kentucky and provide proof of your capacity to serve, or resign.'” Kentucky Governor to McConnell: Prove Fitness to Serve or Resign. (McConnell would have had McConnell kicked to the curb like three weeks ago.)
+ Glen Hansard: “Glen Hansard, a singer-songwriter who was the frontman of the popular Irish band the Frames and who shared an Oscar for ‘Falling Slowly,’ a wistful song from the 2006 film ‘Once,’ died in a motorcycle accident on Wednesday in Dublin. He was 56.”
+ Vend Times: “Finding a snack-filled vending machine when you have the munchies may feel like a religious experience, but that’s nothing compared to the world’s first vending machine — a first-century contraption that dispensed holy water. Since then, entrepreneurial souls have crammed machines full of everything from stamps and Tutti-Fruiti gum, to cigarettes and books, and, heck, even Ferraris.” The vending machine renaissance is here.
“The female body … has historically been an afterthought for longevity bros and the medical industry alike. Women were not even routinely included in medical research until the 1990s, and just uttering ‘vagina’ can still be a problem in some circles. The new enthusiasm for measuring and enhancing the vagina is a notable departure from that history—and predictably, sleek start-ups like Evvy, June Bio, Tiny Health, and Daye are rushing to offer direct-to-consumer test kits and coaching, while Evvy and Daye also offer probiotics and supplements that claim to optimize the vagina.” Vanity Fair: The Newest Status Symbol in Longevity Circles? A Top One Percent Vagina. (I suppose that’s one way to get people to stop complaining about the one percent…)
2026-07-28 20:00:00
Charles Dickens is guilty of an undercount. It’s not a tale of two cities, it’s a shift that’s taking place in big cities across the country. While most urban blight is notable for what you see, this trend is most visible in what you don’t: Kids. “The number of children under 18 living in big U.S. cities is down 6% in the past decade … The drop is especially stark among families with little kids: The number of children under age 5 in big cities fell 15%, compared with a drop of 7% nationwide. Even cities that are gaining population are losing children.” WSJ (Gift Article): America’s Big Cities Are Rapidly Losing Kids. “Families with children cite concerns about costs, safety and quality of life in their move away from cities. Also contributing to the drop is a growing number of childless residents opting to stay that way, worried about the financial implications and lifestyle trade-offs of having a family. The drop is happening in cities across the economic spectrum.” In this era where we flock together with like-minded thinkers on the internet, dense, urban areas represent a possibility of still interacting in real life, and countering the caricatured versions of ourselves and the “others” created by those who benefit from keeping us divided. Will an increase in our geographic divide also increase our political, economic, and cultural ones? What gets to kicked the curb when we all move to the burbs?
Question: Who would have guessed that America’s decision to simultaneously reduce international spending and global decency would quickly backfire, provide an opening for our adversaries to fill the void, and leave us scrambling to fix a mess of our own making? Answer: Pretty much everyone other than the handful of people running our executive branch. And even they’re figuring it out. “The Trump administration is preparing to ramp up funding by hundreds of millions of dollars for programs designed to counter China’s growing influence around the world, after it had put a halt to many of those initiatives last year during a flurry of budget and personnel cuts.” AP: US looks to boost anti-China spending worldwide by hundreds of millions. (Refilling the coffers will be a lot easier than rebuilding the trust and goodwill.)
How do we solve the school shooting problem? Don’t raise your hand unless your answer is an arms race. “Schools in at least three states will be equipped with drones this year that can zoom through halls, smash windows and pepper-spray active shooters if teachers report a threat.” WaPo (Gift Article): Schools are adding pepper-spraying drones to help combat active shooters. “Teachers will have an app or classroom panic buttons to summon the drones. Mithril Defense’s professional drone pilots can then fly them remotely.” (I used to teach high school, and I have to admit that my requests for everyone to quiet down and focus would probably have been more effective if I’d had a team of professional drone pilots covering my six during sixth period.)
Scientists are trying out “a portable testing station equipped with a touch screen and facial recognition software, [which] could help scientists study primate intelligence in the wild.” NYT (Gift Article): In This Costa Rican Forest, Monkeys Come Face-to-Face With AI. “One day last summer, a curious white-faced capuchin encountered a strange contraption in the forest. There, in the middle of the Taboga Forest Reserve in Costa Rica, sat a 15-inch touch screen, mounted in a wooden frame. As the monkey, an alpha male named Papi, began investigating — poking the device here, prodding it there — his fingers landed on the screen. Suddenly, a piece of dried banana dropped into a tray below the frame. Before long, Papi learned the basic rules of the device: touch the screen, get a dried banana slice.” (Papi, trust us, we know the feeling. Wait until you see how many dried banana slices you get when you use the screen to stir up outrage by spreading an over-simplified falsehood about another monkey.)
Through Thick and Win: Both Bibi and Zelensky are in town for Lindsey Graham’s funeral. They also met separately with Trump, who has basically reversed his opinions on both of them. “It is a remarkable change of fortunes for Zelensky, whose relationship with Trump once seemed irredeemably damaged. Last year, Trump called Zelensky a dictator, criticized his leadership and berated him during a tense Oval Office meeting. Days after the meeting, Trump paused all military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, and he subsequently balked at sending more assistance to the beleaguered country.” WSJ (Gift Article): Impressed by Ukraine’s Battlefield Gains, Trump Warms to Zelensky. “Trump, a senior administration official said, likes winners—and Zelensky, in the U.S. president’s estimation, is increasingly looking like one.” (Great to have an ally you can trust to be there through thick and thicker.) Here’s the latest.
+ Talk Balk: “The rhetoric coming from Iran indicates that its leaders are comfortable with the state of limbo with the United States — something between peace and full-fledged war — believing that they can handle renewed conflict and that they have leverage over President Trump.” Why Iran Is in No Rush to Return to Talks With United States.
+ Mail Pattern Boldness: “Mr. Trump has repeatedly criticized mail-in voting and sought restrictions on it. For years, he has made unfounded claims sowing doubt about voting by mail and claiming that it allows widespread fraud.” The question is whether or not the Supreme Court majority will back him up. And the fact that that is a question at all is a problem. Trump Asks Supreme Court to Allow Order Restricting Mail Voting.
+ Flub Med: “Kennedy was taken aback. Even though he has long been known to be skeptical of vaccinations, he had been asked by White House political advisers to tone down his vaccine efforts ahead of the midterms, the people said. Now, it was the commander in chief who was pushing to make the study of vaccines and autism more of a priority. The president steers nearly every conversation with his health secretary back to the issue.” You might imagine RFK Jr pushing Trump to implement more of his quack ideas and Trump telling him to pipe down. That’s not how it’s going. Trump is doing the quacking. Trump Turns Up the Heat on RFK Jr. to Cut Back Childhood Vaccines.
+ Above and Beyond: “This climate emergency is exceeding every threshold and scale that scientists have long warned all of Spain and Europe about.” NYT (Gift Article): ‘A Wake-Up Call’: Massive Wildfires Pierce Madrid’s Bubble. (For some leaders, it’s a wake-up call. Others keep hitting the snooze button.)
+ That’s What Kalshi Said: “‘You can’t be a felon on active supervision and vote. If you’re 17, you can’t vote, and betting on an election where you vote, it’s the same thing, it’s not allowed,’ she said. Jump ahead to 2026, and Kalshi, the company leading the prediction market craze, is criticizing the law, calling it ‘bananas,’ ‘illegal’ and a type of ‘voter suppression.'” Kalshi attacks a Wisconsin law banning election bets as voter suppression. This is less about voter suppression and more about suppressing the right of states to regulate gambling. Meanwhile, Betting on Drug Trials and Approvals Prompts Concerns About Undermining Research.
+ Fraternal Disorder: “In the case involving the Secret Service agent, the two victims were each made to sit in a half squat with one arm pointed forward, and they were repeatedly struck with paddles if they incorrectly answered questions about the fraternity and its history, according to the warrant. The beatings stopped on the final day only after one of the victims bled through his underwear and pants.” Secret Service Agent and 2 Others Charged in Near-Fatal Fraternity Hazing.
“Torre del Greco’s port authority said coastguard staff and local police had together collected 40 items as part of a national beach and lake safety operation that targets people labelled by the Italian press as furbetti dell’ombrellone.” Dawn raid targets ‘umbrella cheaters’ reserving beach spots in Naples.
+ “It took almost the entire grounds crew to corral a squirrel in a game between the Baltimore Orioles and Detroit Tigers. The real action starts at around the 9-minute mark. But it’s baseball, so enjoy the full 12 minutes of coverage.
2026-07-27 20:00:00
“It could gobble you up in one bite. It’s just an amazing creature. It’s the best trophy kind of thing you could own.” That’s how Dan O’Dowd described the purchase of his Tyrannosaurus rex, Samson. “Dinosaur skeletons had recently become a hot new asset class, coveted by the ultrarich, not unlike sports franchises or Fabergé eggs. They offered a mix of glamour and primal appeal to a certain type of high-net-worth buyer—someone who might find the conventional art market fussy or convoluted but couldn’t deny the allure of a T. rex.” You have to give O’Dowd some credit. He got into the game early, back in 2009 — only missing the market’s peak by about 66 million years. He scored his dino for a cool $600,000. These days, they can go for about $50 million. “A dinosaur’s value, like a painting’s or sculpture’s, derives from a protean mix of provenance, desire and authenticity—the last one hard to define, let alone prove, and in the case of an auction, up to the buyer to verify.” It’s not entirely clear whether these bones should be privately owned, whether the market for them makes any real sense, whether the numbers add up, and most importantly, whether or not the high-valued items are bone-a-fide or not actually worth anything at all. In other words, it’s a lot like many of today’s other popular investments. Bloomberg (Gift Article): The Bone Rush.
The at-times very loud debate over data centers takes place in the public square. The financing and politics associated with them happen behind the scenes. Even when we’re talking about a data center that covers nearly six square miles. NYT (Gift Article): How Meta Got Everything It Wanted in a Secret Louisiana Data Center Deal. “Rewriting the bill was a critical part of a nine-month process that Meta used to cut deals behind the scenes, avoid local opposition and offload financial risk, according to interviews with more than 40 people and a review of corporate filings, tax records, property records and meeting transcripts. The secrecy was agreed to by nearly everyone involved, from utility executives to the governor’s office to a local elected official who knew about the talks with Meta and sold 300 acres of his own property for the project.” Governor Jeff Landry doesn’t apologize for the lack of transparency. “Mr. Landry bluntly acknowledged that the deal’s secrecy was unconventional, but said state officials had to think like a tech company to secure a project of its size. ‘Transparency is a very interesting word,’ he said. ‘Because what we’ve seen is people have used the word transparency to basically kill deals like this.'”
“For decades, the federal government has funneled big-ticket grants to local communities to help them take on ambitious construction projects to expand public transit. The grants, sometimes in the billions of dollars, have funded new railroad tracks, train stations and roads rebuilt for modern bus service. Today, they’re funding extensions of the Second Avenue Subway in New York and the Red Line in Chicago, as well as the Gateway Tunnel under the Hudson River and bus infrastructure in Indianapolis and San Antonio. But since President Trump returned to office, the Federal Transit Administration has not signed a single new agreement under the program, known as Capital Investment Grants.” Congress Budgeted Billions for Big Transit Projects. Trump Isn’t Spending It. “As the number of pending projects builds up, so has anxiety about the federal government’s support for major transit infrastructure. Money that Congress designated for that purpose is accumulating too: More than $7 billion hasn’t been obligated to any project.” This is what happens when a party cedes the power of Congress. Nothing they do or spend has any meaning. Or, in other words, don’t let your mouth write a check the ass won’t cash.
“Classics scholar Emily Wilson was in Greece’s Costa Navarino last year when she heard the news that would change her life: Filmmaker Christopher Nolan was planning to release a star-studded adaptation of The Odyssey, the epic poem that Wilson had spent years painstakingly translating from Homeric Greek into English.” A Penn professor thought she’d sell 1,000 copies of her ‘Odyssey’ translation. She sold more than a million this year alone.
+ For those kinds of sales, you’d expect the movie to get a rave review from Emily Wilson. Well, not so much. “It’s a family-friendly audiovisual spectacle, like an elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display [Editor’s note: Oooh!] – and with about the same level of narrative and emotional depth.” [Editor’s note: Aaah…]
Death of a Sales Job: “In 1982, Benjamin Netanyahu was the marketing director of a Jerusalem-based furniture maker when Israel’s ambassador in Washington decided that the 32-year-old had been pitching the wrong product. Instead of selling cupboards to Israelis, he should have been selling Israel to Americans. The ambassador, who met Netanyahu at a conference a few years earlier, brought him to Washington as his deputy. Almost instantly, Netanyahu became the face of Israel on American television—a fixture on Nightline and Larry King Live, pugnacious, eloquent in unaccented English acquired as a boy in the suburbs of Philadelphia.” He’s been selling it ever since. But at some point, he stopped caring whether Americans were buying. Franklin Foer in The Atlantic (Gift Article): How Netanyahu Lost America.
+ Error Defense: The major military campaign targeting Iran has been paused. Maybe to let diplomacy work. Or maybe to consider America’s declining munitions stocks. WSJ (Gift Article): Trump Pauses Iran Strikes as Officials Weigh Dwindling Air Defense Stocks. “Trump denied that dwindling munitions are a problem, insisting in a statement to The Wall Street Journal that ‘we have far more munitions than anyone in the world, and far more than we need.'” (Phew.)
+ Dinner Theater of the Absurd: At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Trump proved once again that he has the first known case of Verbal Cyclospora. Trump ranted and attacked rivals and the press. Just as we knew he would. And just what the fools who attended deserved. The dinner itself is not a big story. But what it represents is. Margaret Sullivan: The predictable disgrace of the White House Correspondents Dinner. (The weirdest moment was when Trump had to sit and watch as the WSJ got an award for their reporting on the Epstein birthday card.)
+ Tropic Blunder: “Trump has said at least 15 times, including as recently as last month, that the strikes have reduced maritime drug trafficking into the country by 97 or 98 percent. ‘98.2% of Drugs coming into the U.S. by Ocean or Sea have STOPPED!’ he wrote on Truth Social in April.” Shockingly, those cocaine numbers aren’t quite on the nose. WaPo (Gift Article): Deadly U.S. boat strikes have failed to curb cocaine supply, Pentagon and DEA officials say.
+ Europe’s Hot Summer: “Heat waves and scant rainfall in Europe have contributed to historic wildfires in France and Spain that have forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes in one of the continent’s biggest evacuation efforts since World War II.” And here are some photos of the wildfires raging across France and Spain. Plus, Wildfire Disruptions to the Tour de France Show How Climate Change Is Shaping Sports.
+ Breaking Away: Even this hot summer couldn’t slow down Tadej Pogačar, who won the Tour de France for third consecutive year and fifth time in his career. The Athletic (Gift Article): In the midst of his majesty: How Tadej Pogacar won the 2026 Tour de France.
+ Over a Barrel: “Cracker Barrel’s CEO is stepping down nearly a year after an attempted rebrand of the chain led to a fierce customer backlash.”
+ Chateau Marmot: “For years, Blumstein has overseen one of the longest-running studies of free-living mammals in the world, focused on yellow-bellied marmots in central Colorado … Fearing that a lack of funding might terminate the program, Blumstein recently got his lab together and they came up with a creative, if highly unorthodox solution.” Calif. researchers turn to OnlyFans as their funding dries up. (This would probably drive more OnlyFans revenue if they were studying Dik Diks…)
How hot is it getting around the world? “Japanese vending machine manufacturer SDRS has developed a human-sized, stainless-steel fridge to stave off heatstroke amid the increasingly sweltering summers brought on by climate change.” (I wonder if the refrigerator is big enough to hold The Refrigerator?)
+ “Chicago’s ‘Scream Club’ meets there every week during the city’s warmer months, bringing together a community of up to 300 people who like to scream out over the water – and it’s an activity that seems to be spreading across the US.” Chicago scream club lets people ‘give in and let go.’ (These people should try social media, they’d love it.)
2026-07-24 20:00:00
The Trump Justice Department’s subpoena armada isn’t going well. Judges aren’t just rejecting the subpoenas, they’re using the Department’s shoddy lawyering and lawlessness to force withdrawals. Government subpoenas are not getting quashed, they’re getting squashed. Here’s the latest example from the NYT (Gift Article): U.S. Withdraws Subpoenas Issued to New York Times Journalists. “Either we can quash the subpoenas, or you could withdraw the subpoenas,’ the judge told Sean Buckley, a top official in the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, who was speaking on behalf of the government. Judge Subramanian then grilled the prosecutors for the vast majority of the hourlong hearing, his demeanor at times resembling a teacher scolding his pupils. He asked few questions of The Times’s lawyers; at one point, he even apologized to one of them and promised time to respond to some of the government’s statements.” That wasn’t the administration’s only judicial pullback this week. There was also one that resulted in a headline that could only possibly exist in 2026 (or maybe 1936). Trump Administration Drops Subpoena Demanding List of Jews From Penn. Part of this story is good; judges and courts are standing up to frivolous, dangerous, or just plain insane subpoenas. But the existence of these subpoenas in the first place is a stark and dark reminder of how completely Trump has turned the Justice Department into a lawless retribution machine. Bringing charges against James Comey for taking photos of some seashells on the beach is (probably) too crazy to result in a conviction. But the fact that the case wasn’t considered too crazy to be surfaced in the first place is further evidence of how many officials have fully lost the courage of their convictions. If you think the jury is still out on that last point, consider how close the Senate is to confirming Trump’s personal lawyer as Attorney General.
Just when you thought you were out from under the Trump tariffs, they pull you back in. No little hurdles like a Supreme Court ruling will stop Trump from implementing his favorite way of taxing our purchases (and our patience). “The Trump administration on Friday will impose new tariffs of 10% and 12.5% on goods from 60 trading partners, including the European Union, over allegations of lax enforcement of forced labor bans, just as a temporary 10% global tariff expires.” Makes sense. Who is more concerned about the well being of workers around the globe than Donald Trump?
+ Trump accused of using forced labor as ‘convenient’ justification for tariffs. “‘Today’s forced labor justification is too convenient to be taken seriously,” said Richard Neal, the top Democrat on the US House ways and means committee. ‘Forced labor is a real and pervasive problem in our supply chains and demands serious enforcement. It should never be cheapened into a pretext for a tariff policy built on dubious legal theories and personal grievances.'” (Well, as the adage goes, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes and dubious legal theories and personal grievances.”)
Given the combination of our current protein obsession and increasingly high beef prices, you’d think that pork would be living high on the hog. But it turns out that consumers are not porking out and pork sellers are not bringing home the bacon. Bloomberg (Gift Article): Pork Struggles to Gain Ground Even in Middle of Protein Craze. “In a time of belt-tightening and America’s protein obsession, pork should be on a winning streak. It’s cheap compared with beef, which is climbing to record high prices, and it’s the type of clean protein consumers can’t seem to get enough of. But pork consumption per capita in the US is forecast near the lowest level in about a decade.”
+ Maybe it’s time to bring back the pork industry’s The Other White Meat ad campaign. Maybe updated for the era: DEI-Free Meat That’s Not Woke.
What to Binge: I usually find myself uninterested in TV shows that are based on an alternate history. But, since the current history is so unpleasant, I decided to give For All Mankind on Apple TV a shot. The show imagines a world where the global space race between the US and the Soviets never ended, but it’s really a story about the astronauts and their families. The cast is excellent. And it’s a story about space that doesn’t mention Elon Musk.
+ What to Book: Colson Whitehead has won two Pulitzers. That seems like a bit much for one writer, so I’m starting with the first book in his trilogy that hasn’t won a Pulitzer (yet). And it’s damn good. Check out Harlem Shuffle.
+ What to Read: Looking for a different way to choose your next read. Check out Uncovered.Ink, where you can’t judge a book by its cover. You get the opening lines, and then decide if you want to know what the book is and see the cover. Judging a book by its words? Sounds like reading Playboy for the articles. It’s so crazy it just might work. It was a dark and stormy night…
Fit for a King: “During a recent meeting in the Oval Office, he launched into a tirade against Iranian leaders, calling them scumbags and lunatics, and unleashing a series of expletives, according to a person who heard the comments.” WSJ (Gift Article): Trump Is Losing Patience Over an Iran War With No Clear End in Sight. The question is how does he get out of the war, and how does America avoid being left in much worse shape? “The United States sought above all to deter Iran from doing two things: striking American partners in the region and disrupting maritime traffic. Is Iran now more deterred from taking these actions—or less so? The answer is clearly the latter.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The War Is Lost. Now Fix What It Broke. (We all hope that’s wrong, but it sure seems more and more right.) The decision being made now: Whether to escalate.
+ Peptide Turns: F.D.A. Panel Supports Lifting Restrictions on Four Peptides, Despite Scientists’ Objections. For a good backgrounder on this issue, check out this Newshour interview with The New Yorker’s Dhruv Khullar.
+ Lettuce Go: Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania … welcome aboard. Outbreak of diarrhea-causing parasite linked to 4 more states. From The Ringer: All the Questions—and Explosive Answers—You Could Have About Diarrhea Summer. (That’s how I used to refer to sleep-away camp…)
+ A Family Chainstay: “Many have urged them to change their minds. Silicon Valley billionaires, European entrepreneurs and, most recently, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund have all approached the Amaurys with offers. Some wanted to buy all or part of the Tour for immense sums. Others, like the Saudis, wanted to make it the crown jewel of a new league, one that would tie together a bunch of races and produce a multi-month season, like football or soccer. All of these supplicants were given the same answer. Non.” Did you know one family owns the Tour de France? NYT (Gift Article): At the Tour de France, One Family Wins Every Year.
+ Bucket List: “I know a lot about the movie business, and I didn’t really know much about the bucket business. It was beyond me to really envision that there’d be a strong demand for $50 popcorn buckets.” Oh well, live and learn. Salty, Buttery, Astonishingly Lucrative: The $100 Million Market of Popcorn Buckets.
+ Over the Influence: “More than 20 students, many of them freshmen, darted around the lush grounds. All were dressed in white. Most had never met before. They scrambled into small groups to brainstorm, their quips echoing beneath palatial arches. They filmed one another with their smartphones, directing whoever was on camera at any given moment.” Welcome to the college programs turning students into influencers. I’m nostalgic for the days when all you had to do was take your kid to the dentist.
+ Home (For) James: I think the text I sent my sister this morning sums up my feelings on LeBron’s latest decision. “Happy Thank God He Didn’t Pick the Warriors Day!” LeBron picks 76ers.
A new guiding principle: WWWAYD: What would Weird Al Yankovic Do? ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic Turned Down Million-Dollar Offer to Perform in Saudi Arabia: “I Don’t Need to Take Any Money if It Makes Me Feel Icky.” He also told the AI industry to just beat it.
+ His doctor’s prescription for his unbearable pain seemed absurd. It worked.
+ Trekking 57 miles per day, this ultrarunner just broke the speed record on the Pacific Crest Trail.
+ 64-year-old father of 5 graduates as a nurse after studying alongside his son.
+ Small dog missing for weeks rescued while swimming in San Francisco Bay.