2026-10-01 20:00:00
“No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals.” That was the key message during what Pete Hegseth called his “State of the Force” address, in which he also accused “the anti-American losers in our media” of treason for reporting negative stories about the Iran war, “that every red-blooded American is proud of,” and proclaimed that, “the ideological clowns are out, the patriotic cowboys are in, with testosterone testing on top.” (I kept waiting for Sgt. Hulka to walk onto the stage and say, “Lighten up, Francis.”) Given the state of the war he pushed inside the administration, Hegseth might want to spend less time worrying about low T and more time worrying about the lack of Ws. But while some of his strategies haven’t worked against our enemies, they’ve been very effective at remaking the military in ways that may take a long time to undo. Many military leaders and troops have been forced out under Hegseth’s leadership, and the ones who remain have to sit through speeches like this. Tom Nichols in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Pete Hegseth, Idea Guy. “He eagerly sowed division between the U.S. military and the society it serves … Hegseth’s speech proved, yet again, that he is manifestly unfit for his job. America can endure a bloated Pentagon with some generals in make-work jobs. It can stand to trim the waste in expensive programs and root out incompetent bureaucrats. What a democracy cannot—and should not—tolerate is a secretary of defense who trucks in propaganda and wants the people who serve in America’s military to be the armed instrument of his own resentments and biases.”
+ Foreign Policy’s Emma Ashford: Everyone got Pete Hegseth wrong. “It is astounding how a man initially dismissed as a drunken buffoon—or a television talking head—has nonetheless so profoundly shaped the direction of the Trump administration’s defense policy. It is likewise notable that he remains so influential. Hegseth would appear to be the obvious sacrificial lamb for a president looking to off-load blame for the war in Iran, yet he remains ascendant. Clearly, in the eyes of the White House, he is doing something right. Here, the explanation may be simple: Trump sees himself in Hegseth. From angry culture war posturing to his willingness to challenge the media and an obsession with image over substance, Hegseth’s qualities are fundamentally Trumpian, suited to a television personality and not a public servant. Indeed, more than anyone else in the Trump administration, the self-styled ‘secretary of war’ is uniquely well-positioned to mimic Trump himself in this way. Yet for the rest of us, the costs inflicted by Hegseth will not be limited only to this presidency.”
+ “Pete Hegseth has held onto his job by projecting a tough guy image, but his relationship with Republican lawmakers has never been worse.” NYT (Gift Article): Hegseth Talks Tough as Republican Doubts About His Leadership Grow. Who are we kidding? There’s only one Republican whose support Hegseth needs to maintain, and he loves all the attacks on media members, fatties, trannies, beardos, weirdos, wimps, and radicals (even if he meets the criteria for several of those categories).
For the past few decades, we’ve put our kids into a giant petri dish and run an endless array of experiments featuring addictive screens, streams, and social interactions. But we’ve never poured anything into the petri dish quite like AI. And even the scientists holding the beakers have some concerns. WSJ (Gift Article): Google Pushed AI Into Schools—and Even Students Say It’s Gone Too Far. “‘We’re doing this experiment on an entire generation on cognitive development, with no control group,’ said Mikel Rodriguez, a former Google research scientist who left last year. He said people inside Google privately worried among themselves about how their AI use was affecting their own cognitive skills. ‘It’s really uncertain what that’s going to lead to in terms of learning.'”
+ Middle-Schoolers Are Seeking Out AI Friends Instead of Real Human Ones.
+ An NYT (Gift Article) interview with Bill Gates, who offered several blunt warnings on AI and the notion of leaving the regulation up to the companies making the products. “I almost can’t keep a straight face. It’s fair to say that outside of the industry, the awareness of the dangers of A.I. is extremely low. And you can say that of academia, you can say that of think tanks, you can say that of policymakers, politicians. And part of the reason I’m speaking so loudly — as loud as I can — is that you can’t rely on the industry to self-regulate here. I mean, it’s just insane.”
Netflix may not want to buy the rights to the story of the near-disaster of the FlyDubai flight bound for Israel yesterday. It’s too unrealistic to believe. “A dentist and other passengers wrestled with a violent copilot. A plumber seized the controls as the plane plunged towards the desert. And the captain, despite being stabbed, managed to open the cockpit door — helping save all 182 people aboard the Israel-bound flight.” A plumber and a dentist are praised as heroes in FlyDubai near-disaster. The plumber had no experience flying, “but he remembered what he had seen in movies.”
+ Unprecedented: Extraordinary heroism and near-miraculous circumstances avert an airplane catastrophe.
Whey is in such high demand and short supply that it’s a good time to run a company that can extract protein from just about anything else. “For decades, whey has reigned supreme among the added protein in packaged foods or athletes’ shakes, thanks to its dissolvability, digestibility and sheer ubiquity. (Nearly 7 million tons of whey, a natural byproduct of cheesemaking, is churned out every year in the US alone.) But with diners wanting protein in almost everything they consume, from tortilla chips to cold brew, demand is outpacing supply, driving shortages and pushing up prices. That has opened the door for smaller startups trying to extract the macronutrient from other sources.” Startups Race to Cash In on Gold Rush Sparked by Whey Protein Shortage. (I was working on a plan to include protein with each edition of NextDraft, but I decided to work on including Xanax instead. Seems both more pressing and more on brand…)
Juárez Rizz: “No one expected the artificial intelligence revolution to appear here, on the edge of the Mexican city of Juárez, across from a patch of tiny homes where Roger Vilchis sells Tostitos and Coca-Cola from a roadside stand. His neighborhood is all dust and heat, with dogs sleeping in the dirt roads and norteño music bouncing through the air. A sign on a chain-link fence warns: ‘It is prohibited to throw garbage or dead animals here.'” Mary Beth Sheridan in the NYT (Gift Article) with a very interesting look at how market forces and a changing world order are bigger than any set of policies. This Is One Map Trump Can’t Redraw. “Mexico and other middle powers are banking on their competitive advantages and indispensability to the U.S. economy to withstand the Trump administration’s tariff campaign. As Washington throws its might into dominating the global A.I. market, Mexico has become an increasingly important supplier for America’s artificial intelligence boom, providing more than one-third of the United States’ imported computer servers.”
+ Seeing Double: “The ultrawealthy aren’t just pulling away from average Americans. Buoyed by a stock-market boom that has added trillions of dollars to their net worth, the extremely rich are even pulling away from other rich Americans. The top 0.1% wealthiest Americans have seen their total wealth more than double since the end of 2019.” WSJ (Gift Article): The Gap Between the Rich and the Very, Very Rich Is Getting Wider.
+ Near Death Experience: “Pike survived two doses of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital. Media witnesses said she was still heard breathing and snoring when they were removed from the viewing area.” Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is calling for a third-party review to determine what caused Christa Pike’s failed execution Wednesday. “At least seven needles were used to administer the lethal injection into Pike’s arm over the course of an hour.” She is currently in critical condition.
+ Follow Suit: “The partner of Renee Good, a Minneapolis woman who was fatally shot by an immigration officer in January, spoke publicly about her death for the first time Thursday as the family announced that they have filed two federal civil lawsuits.” With the absence of criminal investigations and the coming preemptive Trump pardons, we’re going to see lawsuits like these used more and more.
+ Welcome Splat: Even in a year when America hosted the World Cup, “overseas visitors to the US are on track to drop by almost two million year-on-year.” Gee, I wonder what it could be…
+ Taken for a Ride: What do companies like Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Pinterest, and Reddit have to do with your daily commute? A lot, as it turns out. 19 Out of 21 Late-Model Cars Tested Shared Data With 3rd Parties, Including Big Tech Companies.
In Fiji, “more than $13 million worth of cocaine has been stolen from a courthouse and replaced with flour.” (Damn it, I’m trying to cut down on carbs…)
2026-09-30 20:00:00
“Clinton, Iowa, is topographically flat and economically declining. The sawmills that made the city rich in the late 19th century have been repurposed as a museum. One of the Victorian mansions long since abandoned by the old lumber barons is open for tours, but tourists are scarce. Clinton has shrunk to about 24,000 people, and the town center, along the Mississippi River, feels nearly empty. On the west side, miles of deep-green corn and soy fields are crisscrossed with transmission wires and zoned for heavy industrial use. The city’s economic activity includes corn processing, pet-food production, and methamphetamines. With available land and a dire need for investment, Clinton seems like the perfect place for a gigantic data center.” Well, it seemed perfect to everyone except Clintonians. Instead, the town of Clinton is the latest site where one of the most quickly formed and widely supported partyline-crossing political movements is taking place. “The meteoric emergence of the data-center rebellion is a response to the speed and scale of construction, which in turn reflect the sudden ubiquity of generative and agentic AI. President Trump’s policy has been to turn everything about the technology, including data-center construction, over to private industry … But on this issue, most of Trump’s base remains angry and opposed to him.” A local newspaper editor described the way the issue has formed unlikely partnerships. “Outside of this, there’s no way in hell these people are talking to each other.” George Packer in The Atlantic (Gift Article) on what happened in Clinton and what it has to do with what’s happening across America. The Great Data-Center Rebellion. So what gives? Why is the opposition to data centers (whether it actually works or not) such a potent and often uniting force in America? It’s about a lot more than water use and who gets access to power. It’s about a feeling of powerlessness. “Opposition to data centers comes from a deeper concern than NIMBYism, resource misuse, or environmental harm. Over and over, Clintonians expressed a feeling of being misled, ignored, disrespected, betrayed—of having no say over basic matters in their own lives. The data center seemed to be a deal made among secretive insiders—huge, far-off entities in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street, and in Washington, as well as the local leaders of their own city. To the tech giants, QTS, Blackstone, and the Trump administration’s AI boosters, Clinton is an empty space on the Mississippi that looks like an opportunity. That the industry seeking to buy 1,100 acres on the west side of town is in the business of replacing human beings with machines—and perhaps, according to some AI experts, even rendering them extinct—only intensifies a sense of powerlessness.” Again, it’s unlikely that any political movement will ultimately stop big tech from building out the data centers it needs. But this isn’t just a story about a data center; it’s the story about America’s political center. And this is the first time in a long time that an issue has made it look like the center may hold. For Silicon Valley execs, all of this may not compute. But it’s not a machine story, it’s a human one.
+ NYT (Gift Article): How Meta Uses A.I. Data Centers to Avoid Billions in Federal Taxes. “Under a tax credit created in the 1980s to spur innovation, companies can get a rebate for supplies, but only if they are being tested in an experimental effort, not standard business operations. Meta is claiming that the costly A.I. computer chips it buys from companies, including Nvidia, are entitled to a taxpayer-provided discount as part of the experiment.”
+ Given all this and the upcoming midterms, yesterday seemed like an odd political moment to gather AI execs at the White House to praise data centers and announce that big tech will be left in charge of their own regulation. (But don’t worry, it’s not just any self-regulation. It’s tremendous self-regulation.) Trump, who is now calling AI “super intelligence,” signed a new accord. Sadly, the document had a notable misspelling: The name of our country. (Maybe the new ballroom plan should be replaced by a data center focused on spell check.)
“One pilot stabbed another at the controls of an Emirati flight to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, causing it to suddenly plunge thousands of feet until passengers and the crew won a fight to regain control of the plane. Passengers described a terrifying fall during the attack, which ended when some of them stepped into the melee and managed to subdue the aggressive pilot. Overhead bins swung open, parents clung to their children, and videos from inside the plane showed at least one wounded man and others on board covered in blood.” Plane to Israel Narrowly Averts Disaster After Pilot Stabbing.
+ “Three of us jumped on him forcefully, and we tied him up with his own zip ties and with the multimedia headphones. That is how we neutralized him.” Passenger describes grabbing attacker and taking plane controls after pilot stabbed on Israel flight.
“It was meant to be a dramatic confrontation, a public accusation of perjury against Jack Smith, the special counsel who investigated Donald J. Trump. Instead, Senator Eric Schmitt’s amateur sleuthing into basketball led him to the wrong game, league and state.” (And that lede doesn’t begin to do justice to how historically humiliating and offensive Eric Schmitt’s now viral self-own played out.) As Jack Smith Testifies, a Senator’s Accusation of Perjury Falls Apart.
+ If you’ve somehow missed it, you can see the whole exchange here. While the self-own was funny, the broader hearings were anything but, as Trump’s enablers soiled their office and the nation by attacking a good American and great prosecutor in the name of gaslighting the American people. Thankfully, Cory Booker summed things up. His angry comments are on the mark and worth your time. This hearing is a farce. “What do the Republicans in control of Congress do with their closing statement before an election? They carry out the big lie. They persecute prosecutors. They do Trump’s bidding. They choose Trump over truth, corruption and crimes over the Constitution.” (As I’ve said, it takes a village to raise a tyrant. Consider that, until yesterday, Eric Schmitt was considered a strong contender to be JD Vance’s running mate in ’28.)
“The Wing Hummingbird 7000W-B delivery drone weighs less than 15 pounds. It has 16 propellers — four for horizontal movement and 12 for vertical — a top speed of 60 miles per hour, a carrying capacity of up to 2.7 pounds, and a delivery radius of about six miles. It is authorized by the FAA for beyond-line-of-sight piloting. As a feat of engineering, it is impressive. So far I’ve mostly used it to send people potatoes.” Nathan Edwards in The Verge (Gift Article): The day the dads in my neighborhood discovered drone delivery. (This used to be about as controversial as tech stories got…)
Trump Pulls Out: “It’s been a long time with very bad decision making that got us involved in this quagmire in the first place. It was a quagmire. For many, many years it lasted. But soon that part of history will be over.” So said Donald Trump as the US military exits Iraq after 12 years. The withdrawal agreement was actually negotiated by the Biden administration. And it’s been a long time coming. But one wonders about this specific timing, given our ongoing negotiations with Iran (whose leaders are happy to see the pullout). Allisa J. Rubin in the NYT (Gift Article): What I Saw as the U.S. Debacle in Iraq Unfurled. “From the beginning, the United States did not understand the country it was storming into. Twenty-three years later, as it pulls the last of its forces out, it probably still does not.” (Allisa, we don’t even understand Canada.)
+ Deport into a Storm: U.S. Supreme Court sides with Trump administration in third-country deportations. “The court’s brief order granting the petition did not outline a reason for staying a lower-court order that blocked the third-country deportations. But it asked both sides to argue whether lower courts had the jurisdiction to rule on the issue and order nationwide relief, as well as whether the Trump policy is legal or whether it violated the due process clause or conventions against torture.” Seems like you’d want to halt an action that might violate due process (it does) or conventions against torture (we’ve all read the CECOT stories, etc). But SCOTUS is allowing the deportations to continue for now.
+ Brought to Account: WSJ (Gift Article): Treasury Will Auto-Enroll 60 Million Children in Trump Accounts. “The Treasury Department will automatically enroll tens of millions of children in the government’s new Trump Accounts as soon as this week, replacing the previous structure that required parents or guardians to sign up.” (This makes it more likely the accounts get to the kids who need them.)
+ Enjoy Your Stay: “There are men who cook for him and men who clean for him. There are men who make his bed and men who do his laundry. There is even a man who gives him Chinese-style massages. This is how Sean “Diddy” Combs has been living in prison.”
+ Riding Roughshod: Six Flags Magic Mountain said Tuesday that it is retiring its famous X2 roller coaster amid lawsuits alleging serious brain injury caused by the ride.
NYT (Gift Article): For Japan’s Young Singles, Romance Gets a Corporate Middleman. “For hundreds of years, through the post-World War II era, Japanese marriages were brokered through ‘omiai,’ a practice in which matchmakers — usually relatives, family friends or bosses — linked singles in their orbit. But the custom fell out of fashion, giving way to organic dating and, eventually, a wave of casual-dating apps. Now, young adults are enrolling at record rates in marriage agencies, where counselors serve as professional matchmakers. Across Tokyo, advertisements line metro cars, urging commuters to ‘leave life’s fateful encounters to the pros.'” (OK, maybe that translation doesn’t accurately capture the spirit of the offer…)
+ Backpack edges past Dancing Queen to win Alaska’s Fat Bear Week title.
2026-09-29 20:00:00
Guess who’s coming to dinner? No one. In the early days of NextDraft, my tagline was dinner party prep. I dropped it for a couple reasons. First, these days, the last thing anyone wants to have spoil their appetite is a discussion of the news of the day. And second, no one is having dinner parties, anyway. “Until 1975, half of Americans said they entertained guests at their home every month. But then something changed. Americans stopped throwing parties. Even more fundamentally, they stopped visiting each other. Between 1975 and 1998, the share of Americans who gave or attended a monthly dinner party declined by half. The share of Americans saying they never entertained people at home tripled.” And since just about every other form of in-person socializing has decreased in the 21st century, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that the numbers continued to slide. “In the last 30 years, Americans have seen double-digit declines in practically every measure of socializing. They are less likely to play cards; attend a sporting event; go to the bar; volunteer; or work on a community project. When it comes to hosting people at home, the declines are particularly stark. Since 1995, the share of Americans who say they’ve hosted guests or attended a dinner party has declined by about 20 percent.” Derek Thompson: You Are No Longer Invited to Dinner. Thompson goes through a few possible factors for the dinner decline — all of which I’m going to consider as soon as I get done with the latest streaming series I’m watching alone, in a dark room, while eating delivered food. Don’t feel bad if you’re doing the same. At least with the death of parties comes the death of FOMO.
In the latest signs of concern over artificial intelligence, OpenAI Scrapped the Release of a New AI Model Over Safety Concerns. And in the leaked prospectus for the upcoming Anthropic IPO, the company warns that rogue AI agents pose uncertain legal risk for the company, “citing the possibility of irreversible actions such as data deletion or financial transactions.” I worry about the technology. But I worry more about the humans running it. You might feel the same after reading about the long-running feud between Dario Amodei and Sam Altman. Kevin Roose in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Inside the Biggest Feud in Artificial Intelligence. “Workers at both companies have noted the irony that although their bosses train AI models to be kind and compassionate, they can’t stop trashing one another. For now, it seems, the ‘machines of loving grace’ will be built by humans of bitter spite.”
+ NYT (Gift Article): “Months before OpenAI’s artificial intelligence went rogue, two employees raised an alarm with top executives. They were ignored.” (Guess who ignored them? Yup, humans.)
“History teaches that the rule of law is rarely destroyed all at once. It is often weakened by attacks on the institutions in the public servants sworn to uphold it. Since January of 2025, we have witnessed precisely such an effort including the vilification of the agents, prosecutors and staff who worked on my team simply because of their unwavering dedication to the rule of law. I myself have been threatened with jail by the president of the United States.” Jack Smith, Who Charged Trump, Testifies in Combative Hearing. The hearing quickly devolved into a shouting match with Trump sycophants trying to make the case that the prosecutor is actually the criminal. The people who launched and carried out an insurrection are freed and celebrated, and the people who attempted to bring justice to those responsible “have been targeted illegally, lost their jobs illegally, and had their lives turned upside down.” That’s what happens when the criminal wins the election. But it’s not Trump doing the attacking today. It takes a village to raise a tyrant.
Last night, my daughter was playing Madonna remixes on TikTok. I felt like I was in a time warp. And I might be. She was listening to them because Madonna appeared on the MTV (still a thing) Video Awards (still a thing). Variety: VMAs Attract a Combined 8.4 Million Viewers, Making it the Most-Watched Since 2015 and Up 51% From Last Year.
+ “Last week, Ella Langley’s ‘Choosin’ Texas’ broke the record for the most weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The record was previously held by Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You,’ which is a song I’ve definitely heard before and could reliably hum the melody of. ‘Choosin’ Texas,’ not so much.” Ryan Broderick in Garbage Day on Why Choosin’ Texas doesn’t feel like a hit.
CECOT in a Cycle: “A year and a half ago, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 31-year-old Salvadoran man, was deported to El Salvador and detained in a maximum-security mega-prison known as CECOT. Abrego’s deportation, which was in violation of legal orders, prompted a public backlash and a federal judge’s intervention; he was ultimately returned to the United States. But as public attention has shifted elsewhere, El Salvador has continued imprisoning deportees sent from the United States, including many who have not been charged with any crime.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): ICE Deportees Are Vanishing Into Salvadoran Prisons. Meanwhile, ICE Plans 5,000 New Hires to Help With Deportation Drive.
+ Strictly Business: “This new initiative, which is still in its early stages and has not been previously reported, promises to advance several of Trump’s goals at once. It would help reintegrate Russia into the global economy and broaden Trump’s talks with the Kremlin beyond the intractable war in Ukraine, which his envoys have failed to end after more than a year of diplomacy. It would create a path for the U.S. to sign lucrative deals involving Russian oil, diesel, rare earth minerals, and other commodities. As a bonus, the release of prisoners on humanitarian grounds could bolster Trump’s case for his long-coveted Nobel Peace Prize.” Trump’s Latest Appeal to Russia Could Outrage Even His Allies. (Oh, I’m sure they’ll make a major stand…)
+ School Paper Trail: “Ever since we’ve posted the secondary coverage as well as the editorial, there’s been an absolute outpour of similar stories hitting my inbox and the sexual-misconduct tip line. There are also the ones that really relay a sense of kinship, solidarity, and relatability to the Jane Doe account. The response has been widespread and really multifaceted. There is this shock and outrage that this culture still permeates.” The Cut: How Student Journalists Broke the ‘Cornell Seven’ Case.
+ Fluid Situation: A lot more oil is getting through the Strait of Hormuz. “The crucial question: How long can the status quo hold up? The US military is expending tremendous resources in the region just to get oil through – all while global inventories continue to shrink toward operational lows and the price of fuel remains at or near record highs. Meanwhile, Iran, backed into a corner, is starting to fight back.”
+ Actor Factor: “A counter-terrorism operation near RAF Fairford in the UK was mired in confusion on Tuesday after police released five suspects on bail, prompting concern and surprise from the US president and secretary of state. Five British nationals from London were detained on suspicion of explosives offences and terrorism after three suspicious vans were reported to police in the early hours of Sunday, outside the base in the village of Whelford, Gloucestershire.” Rubio says foreign actor was ‘clearly’ behind suspected RAF Fairford plot. (That would be massive news. But given our administration’s track record, we can’t be sure if it’s true, which is scary.)
+ Truth Be Trolled: The newly-launched, AI-powered America.gov site has one major flaw. It tells the truth. Trump touts America.gov, but its government-sourced AI answers undercut many of his statements. (But don’t worry, they quickly fixed it.)
“There’s no way to sugarcoat this, so I’ll just come right out and say it: They’re trying to ban British guard hats. This kind: 💂. Eighteen members of Parliament wrote a letter last week urging the government to adopt an alternative. Their reason? It turns out that the hats, which are known as ‘bearskins’ in British military terminology, are made out of the skins of bears. ‘Bears,’ the MPs wrote, ‘are still being shot with crossbows’—what???—’and killed, their cubs orphaned, and their pelts used to produce new caps.'” The Ringer: Eight Burning Questions About the Fight to Ban British Guard Hats.
+ If that’s too intense a delve into the animal kingdom, try this: Selections From the 2026 Audubon Photography Awards.
2026-09-28 20:00:00
When I was in junior high, I carried around a screw in the front pocket of my corduroys. I’d occasionally pull it out, open my hand to display it to an attractive person, and ask, “Wanna screw?” I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether this behavior made me a comedic prodigy or signaled that I had a screw loose. But one thing is for sure. I was selling the wrong screw. Ironically, the one I should have focused on is called a precision ball screw. And not just because that name offers even more comedic potential. “It’s a spiral carved into metal, attached to a mechanism that might not look out of place in a junk drawer. Almost no one outside a small, obsessive community of machinists and engineers has ever heard of it. But this humble component, called a precision ball screw, is essential to producing Patriot missiles, airplanes and humanoid robots … [and they] are in short supply, adding months or even years to the time it takes to make a missile.” NYT (Gift Article): This Screw Is Needed for Missiles and Planes. Buying One Can Take Years. “Ball screws, which contain recirculating balls that reduce friction, turn rotary motion into linear motion, like a corkscrew. Those made for common industrial purposes, such as those used in electric power-steering systems in cars, don’t need to be as precise. They are relatively easy to get. But the ones that go into missiles often take a year to produce and can cost more than $1,000 apiece.” (If I had used precision ball screws in my offer, someone may have actually said yes…)
“In early March, as President Trump basked in the success of a military intervention in Venezuela, he joined Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in the West Wing for a private celebration. A businessman also attended, and brought along a pile of gold.” (I know, I know. You’re wondering why a businessman bringing a pile of gold into the West Wing rises to the level of newsworthy during the second Trump term. It’s the source of this particular gold that’s notable.) “Mr. Trump himself had once blacklisted Venezuelan gold, declaring that it destroyed the environment, poisoned people and financed gangsters and corrupt military officials. But after Mr. Trump toppled the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, his view changed. On the same day that the bars arrived at the White House, the Trump administration issued a new policy allowing traders to import Venezuelan gold from one of the world’s most violent and corrupt mining regions. The first supplies would come from a state-owned mining company that remained a designated U.S. national security threat.” Trump Brought Venezuelan Gold to the U.S., but Refiners Won’t Touch It. (They can always melt it down and finish coating the interior of the White House.)
“There are more than two dozen climate models from agencies around the world that forecast El Niño conditions, and they often don’t agree. But this year they are more aligned than ever before in predicting that El Niño conditions will last through the end of 2026. This high level of certainty means that many of the expected impacts — intense rainfall in some regions, drought and wildfire in others and an increase in global warming — are very likely to occur.” The Super El Niño Is About to Unleash Weather Chaos. Get Ready Now. (News curators are more prepared than most. We’re already in the fetal position.)
+ Concern mounts over slow-moving, planetary-scale ‘Kelvin’ wave heading for California. (I really hope the 2026 El Niño ends up being overblown like Y2K.)
“‘The Sopranos,’ ‘The Wire,’ ‘Mad Men’ and ‘Breaking Bad,’ besides being among the best shows the medium has ever produced, together served as a televisual Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Two hundred years from now, when people look to understand life in the United States in 2026 — a time of masked federal agents in the streets, presidential pardons for sale and gulag-style detention camps for immigrants — they’d be well advised to bypass whatever happens to be playing currently on TV. Despite these shows’ very different premises — one about the mafia, one about the drug trade in Baltimore, one about advertising on Madison Avenue in the 1960s and one about a chemistry teacher turned meth kingpin in New Mexico — all four contained clear warnings about where the country was headed, and their warnings have come true.” NYT (Gift Article): The Four TV Shows That Heralded America’s Fall. (I’d put The Apprentice on that list…)
Family Separation Sequel: No one covered the original family separation story better than Caitlin Dickerson. Sadly, there’s still more for her to cover. Things are different this time, but still awful. The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Babies Left Behind in America. “Whereas his first administration took children from their parents at the border to deter illegal crossings, the second is separating families living in the United States as part of a purge. Like last time, Trump officials claim that this is untrue.”
+ Oil Leak: Two factors that could be pressuring Iran to want a deal. WSJ (Gift Article): A U.S. Arm-Twisting Campaign Is Cutting Iran Off From the Rest of the World. And Reuters: Mideast oil exports rebound in September as Saudi Arabia boosts shipments.
+ Frat Row: “According to lawyers for the student, who filed a civil lawsuit against the university and her alleged attackers earlier in September, only two members of the Chi Phi fraternity were expelled after the October 2024 incident, in which she said she was drugged and repeatedly raped over the course of seven hours … None of the seven were arrested, they said, and the others were made to write essays, attend workshops or serve short suspensions.” Investigation of alleged gang-rape at Cornell University fraternity house reopened.
+ Get a Room: “On a spring day last year, Andrew Willoughby drove three and a half hours to a cheap motel in Nags Head, N.C. From the parking lot, he texted a stranger he had met online.” Yes, this is titillating. Just not in the way you’re thinking. In an $80 Motel Room, a Discovery to Shed Light on the Origins of Life. (Imagine what they could have discovered in a $1200 suite…)
+ Can Money Buy Love? “One of the ads — backed by music that repeats the words ‘love me’ — prominently features images of President Donald Trump while he says, ‘America will never be a communist country.'” (It’s not the first time Donald Trump paid for love. But this time, he’s paying with your money.) Taxpayer-funded Trump ads draw bipartisan scrutiny ahead of midterms.
+ Kruk and Kuip: “You do not become a legend in a major league booth without a finely tuned sense of timing. Krukow and Kuiper began polishing theirs when they were Giants players in the twilight of their careers and at the end of the dugout railing, entertaining themselves and their teammates with their mock broadcasts. When former Giants executive Corey Busch recognized their talent and they embarked on their second career in the broadcast booth, they continued to sharpen their comedic timing. They learned to avoid stepping on one another. But they became experts at so much more. Their emotional timing was exquisite, too.” (And Krukow’s farewell ceremony nearly broke me yesterday…) Andrew Baggarly: In good times and bad, Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper were the soul of Giants baseball. (Man oh man, were Giants fans lucky to have Kruk and Kuip. For decades, they were the soundtrack of our lives.)
“Golden Corral scrutinizes buffet waste, marries costly shrimp with cheaper hush puppies and mines data to make money off bottomless offerings.” WSJ (Gift Article): How America’s Biggest Buffet Chain Cracked the Math of All You Can Eat. (I’m not sure if that is meant as a challenge, but I’m taking it as one…)
2026-09-25 20:00:00
My beagles and I have an arrangement. I agree to pick up after them after they do their business, and they agree not to tell the other members of my family what I eat after everyone else has gone to bed. The deal seems simple enough, but it turns out that there used to be questions about whether or not dog owners should be required to scoop the poop at all. In the 1970s, NYC was awash in excrement. City officials pushed several possible solutions, including requesting the pets only go to the bathroom in the privacy of their own yards or mandating the use of sewer drains as toilets (it took me years to train my human offspring to do that). When it came to potential solutions, “the biggest obstacle was hostile pet owners, who argued that it would be physically challenging to hold onto a dog while simultaneously collecting its waste. They also complained that they would be ‘humiliated by being forced to pick up excrement from the gutter.'” (As if humiliation wasn’t one of the joys of pet ownership – and parenthood.) But then a man named Edward H. Lehner, who recently died at the age of 93, came up with a potential fix that combined a law and some (plastic) handy advice. But there would still be years of debate. “‘The purpose of this bill is laudable, i.e., to require each pet owner to take care of his own,’ the future Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, then New York’s secretary of state, wrote in a memo outlining his department’s view of the bill. But not only would an officer have to catch ‘a dog and his owner in flagrante delicto’ to enforce the law, he added, there was also the ‘sticky problem’ of proving that ‘a particular piece of evidence emanated from a particular aperture.'” At a moment when we’re bombarded with flagrante delicto coming out of political apertures nonstop, let’s pause for a little pick-me-up that changed NYC and cities across the country. NYC (Gift Article): Edward Lehner, Who Made Dog Owners Pick ‘It’ Up, Dies at 93. Yes, we’re leading with a story about political action that removed shit from your life, instead of merely piling more on. If that’s not a man-bites-dog story, what is?
“No modern President, in fact, has ever gone into a midterm election this unpopular. Trump’s standing with the American public is currently twice as low as it was at this point in 2018, when Republicans lost forty-one seats in the House.” Susan B. Glasser in The New Yorker: The Week Republicans Finally Panicked About Trump (alt link).
+ Public sentiment is one thing. Relentless efforts to skew the results, or call them into question, are another. And those efforts may have gotten a boost from the SCOTUS majority. “The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Trump administration can deploy an expansive online system that combines citizenship information, Social Security numbers and other sensitive data about millions of Americans, allowing states to use it to hunt for ineligible voters. Critics fear that states could use the system to purge large numbers of valid voters from their rolls ahead of the midterm elections.” So it looks like both Republicans and Democrats have reason to panic. At least we found some unity.
Regardless of all the warnings, I’m not sure that AI will cost you your life. But what about your livelihood? We know that AI agents have already teamed up and gone rogue to hack companies. “What might happen if AI agents manage to identify substantial weaknesses in a bank’s code base? It’s hard to say with any certainty. But because banks underpin nearly every aspect of modern life, outages or disruptions to back-end systems could ripple across digital commerce. That some of the dangers associated with frontier AI are inherently unknowable can make preparing difficult.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): AI’s Risk to Financial Systems. “Because the financial sector has long been a target of scams, frauds, and data breaches, it’s already on high alert. But not every institution is equally capable of handling new threats; some smaller banks may lack the resources and security expertise of larger firms. As AI models advance, these tools may expose the difference between those who can afford to prepare for what’s coming, and those who can’t.”
+ At least you can hedge your bet. Bloomberg (Gift Article): Polymarket Wagers on Bank Failures Trigger FDIC Concerns. “The bets have raised concerns among bank regulators and lawmakers on Capitol Hill, with some worried about whether the contracts could grow in volume and eventually help fuel a real-world bank run.” (The more dangerous AI becomes, the more determined humans are to prove they’re still more dangerous.)
What to Doc: “Explore the story of New York from the end of the 20th century through the first quarter of the 21st—one of the most dramatic, demanding and transformational periods in the city’s history.” This is a two-part follow-up to Ric Burns’ 8-part docuseries on the city. And it’s excellent. Watch New York: A Documentary Film on PBS.
+ What to Comedy: Rory Scovel’s latest comedy special, The Show Must Go On, on Netflix, absolutely kills. Even the most heartfelt moment of the show is hilarious. You might recognize Scovel from his recent appearance as the police officer on Rooster, where he’s the funniest character in the show.
+ What to Hear: It really oughta be a national holiday when Brandi Carlile has a new album out. Actually, let’s make it one. Take the rest of the day off and check out, Returning to Myself (Sad Gay Version). And here’s some bonus content. Brandi and Alanis Morissette performing Uninvited. She and Stephen Wilson Jr. singing Stand By Me. And Brandi’s performance of Church & State from earlier this week on Kimmel.
+ What to Watch: You should be able to find at least a couple things you haven’t watched on the NYT List of the Top 100 Shows of the 21st Century.
Quiet as It’s Kept: “The most effective escalation of President Trump’s mass deportation campaign happened quietly. Unlike earlier high-profile raids that drew thousands of protesters into the streets of Chicago, Los Angeles and Minneapolis, the surge in arrests in June, July and August was captured mostly by grainy security camera footage, through cracked blinds and from behind closed doors. Arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement this summer soared to record highs.” A Quiet ICE Surge That Unfolded ‘Everywhere All at Once’ This Summer. (The more the polling numbers look bad, the more urgently the administration will try to move forward with increasingly unpopular policies.)
+ Collateral: “Whether his schtick further damaged Israel’s standing was beside the point: Once again, Israel’s international reputation had become collateral damage of Netanyahu’s monomania for retaining his power.” Ben Samuels in Haaretz: Netanyahu Turned UN Into Campaign Stage. Israel’s Standing Was Collateral Damage.
+ Some of Them Want to Muse You: “Muse, the tech giant’s cuddly, doll-like AI agent, shot to the top of the Apple App Store charts after it was featured this week at the company’s Meta Connect conference.” And Meta’s stock has also shot up. It’s cute. It’s cuddly. And it wants your data.
+ In Sickness and In Wealth: “Just as providers are using sophisticated A.I. tools to say their patients are sicker, insurance companies have been accused of using the tools to delay or deny care. The companies have come under intense criticism for their use of A.I. when requiring prior approval of treatments and medicines.” Battle of Hospital A.I. vs. Insurer A.I. Is Pushing Medical Costs Higher. (Not exactly how you imagined AI impacting health care, eh?)
+ Pledge Hammer: Wisconsin frat leaders arrested after 30 pledges found in filthy basement, injured and covered in condiments. (What were they gonna do, eat them?)
+ It Wasn’t the Space Lasers: After all the hubbub, Ed Sheeran’s shows at Robert Kraft’s Gillette Stadium ended up getting canceled due to weather.
+ Coffee Breakdown: “A simple question about chilled caffeine has sparked heated debates on couches and online about workplace decorum, highlighting shifting expectations of professionalism. Proponents say it’s a way to show their personality—and after all, it’s just a drink. For iced-coffee critics, the problem is what the beverage signals: casualness, poor preparation and bad time management.” How an Iced Coffee in a Job Interview Sparked a Raging Etiquette Debate. (I’d never hire anyone who showed up to a NextDraft job interview with an iced coffee, and I’m the only one who’s ever even wanted to work here.)
“It started as a bizarre late-night standoff behind the counter of a fast food joint. It ended with no injuries — and free burgers.” NYT (Gift Article): The Viral In-N-Out Spatula Hero Is Exactly Who You Imagined He Was.
+ Pour yourself a cup of ambition. It’s Dolly Parton Day.
+ Ke Huy Quan Says His $100,000 ‘Indiana Jones’ Residual Check Was ‘Life-Changing‘ As a Child Actor: It ‘Didn’t Make Any Sense’.
+ Largest wildlife overpass in North America, located in Colorado, resulted in a 91% reduction in collisions. (RFK Jr. will probably want to take an alternate route…)
+ “University of Oregon leaders have long been accustomed to big checks from Phil Knight, a Nike co-founder whose surname is splashed on everything from the library to the law center. When Mr. Knight called Oregon’s president this year, though, he and his wife, Penny, had a greater gift in mind: the largest known contribution to a public flagship university in the United States.” $1 Billion Donation to University of Oregon Makes History. That’s a lot of bucks for the ducks.
+ 81-year-old man working to return lost luggage to fund wife’s cancer bills sparks community outpouring.
+ “While humans sometimes struggle to make it work, a lumpy green frog found in the savannas and dry forests of southeastern Africa seems to have polyamory figured out. Female gray foam-nest tree frogs (Chiromantis xerampelina) can breed with more than a dozen males at once without anyone fighting or getting squished.” When it Comes to Frog Sex, Teamwork Makes the Dream Work. (Maybe the frog who became a prince actually lost out?)
2026-09-24 20:00:00
Finding someone not on Ozempic is like trying to find a piece of hay in a needle stack. People are poking, prodding, puncturing, and piercing themselves for reasons ranging from high blood sugar to obesity. And a whole lot of us are taking a stab at it just … because. It’s gotten to the point that Lin-Manuel Miranda might have to tweak some of his most famous lyrics. I am not throwin’ away my shot. Ay, yo, I’m just like my country, I’m young, scrappy and not at all hungry, and I’m not throwin’ away my shot. “A large new study confirms what many people have long suspected: A sizable number of people taking drugs like Ozempic have no medical reason to do so.” Here’s the skinny from the NYT (Gift Article): GLP-1 Prescriptions for People With No Medical Need Are Climbing. “‘It’s the first time that I can recall that the general public knows so much’ about a drug, said Dr. Nils Krüger, a researcher at Harvard Medical School who has studied GLP-1s … These medications might pose unique risks to people who are not overweight … ‘We don’t know how this will play out. It’s like this big Ozempic experiment.'” That’s quite the parting shot.
A judge ordered the Trump administration to allow the media outlets the president had banned back into the White House because the ban itself was (in layperson’s terms) a load of constitutionally crazy-ass bullshit. The White House still barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from entry. As CNN’s Dana Bash noted, as Trump was hosting the leader of a communist power, he was “blocking American media and defying a federal judge.” After some additional legal wrangling, the journalists were allowed back in. (Congrats, you won. Your prize is being lied to and attacked nonstop, while inhaling the off-gassed particles of whatever chemicals are used to manufacture the orange makeup) This is just “the latest twist in a nearly weeklong standoff between President Trump and the press corps that covers him, and which has not yet been fully resolved.” There’s no way a serious judge would say the barring of journalists is OK, and the ban meant less coverage for a person obsessed with coverage. On some level, Team Trump must think this story is good politics. If it is, we’ve got even bigger problems. Here’s the latest from the NYT.
When it comes to superpower summits, the real negotiations are done ahead of time. The actual interactions between leaders are all about the visuals. The latest Trump/Xi get-together began on the tarmac of Joint Base Andrews with “a remarkable act of deference. By tradition, American presidents don’t make the 12-mile trip to the base to greet a foreign leader. They instead wait at the White House, backed by the grandeur and power of the executive mansion. But not this time.” Jonathan Lemire in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Deferential President. “It was not that long ago when Trump, a self-styled international bully, could credibly claim to ‘run the country and the world.’ But he seems far smaller on the global stage now. ”
+ Here’s the latest on the meetings, the press conferences, and the upcoming state dinner from The Guardian.
+ We may not get to agreements on Iran, Taiwan, or AI, but we can at least celebrate the impending arrival of Ping Ping and Fu Shuang. AP: Xi says 2 giant pandas from China will arrive in the coming days at Atlanta’s zoo. (It’s gonna be a major bummer if these turn out to be AI pandas…)
The “$14.3 billion deal Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg made to buy up all the employees of hot AI startup Scale AI in 2025 — including well-connected wunderkid Alexandr Wang, who got about $5 billion as part of the deal” seemed a little over the top at the time. But if the downloads of the company’s new Muse AI agent (and the upswing of its marketcap) is any indication, the investment might pay off in a big way. Meta’s $14 billion AI bet looks like it’s finally paying off. (Of course, $14 billion in AI money is like seventy-five grand in human dollars…)
Blame the Messenger: Bibi Netanyahu gave a defiant speech at the UN in which he attacked Mamdani and said that “devastating Iran’s nuclear facilities was hard. It was very hard to do. But for me, it was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make as prime minister, because if we hadn’t done it, we’d all be dead.” Bibi isn’t meeting with Trump during his very short trip, as his brand is currently toxic in the US. I worry that his actions and messaging have done similar damage to Israel’s brand abroad. But nothing about Bibi’s speech has anything to do with the international audience. It’s all campaign messaging for his upcoming election at home.
+ Junior’s Mint: “Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accepted $4 million in book advances and more than $270,000 in gifts over the past year from close allies who are working to advance his Make America Healthy Again agenda … Cheryl Hines, Mr. Kennedy’s wife, accepted $210,000 in consulting fees from MAHA Action, a nonprofit advocacy.” (In fairness, if he’s gonna spend so much time trying to kill us all, you can’t blame him for wanting to make a buck.) Meanwhile, RFK Jr.’s Enhanced Security Was Funded With Money From Minority Health Office.
+ Rogue Agents: “OpenAI’s artificial intelligence went rogue this year in at least four additional incidents, hacking and trying to break into government and university websites without being instructed to do so.” And from NPR: “Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Thursday he was extremely concerned about OpenAI ‘s breach of an Australian health department website that the artificial intelligence company took too long to reveal.” Meanwhile, Google Takes the A.I. Data Center Race to Outer Space. (All we wanted was an easy way to chat with our friends and the occasional funny cat video.)
+ Prediction Friction in This Jurisdiction: “New York sued the prediction market Polymarket on Thursday, arguing the platform is an unlicensed gambling operation and calling for a judge to block the company from operating in the state.”
+ Against the Wind: “Last month, President Trump dismissed concerns about difficult conditions reported aboard the ship. Asked whether he was concerned about the crew’s mental health and whether he thought the deployment had gone on too long, the president said: ‘No. No. No.’ He added: ‘Not nearly long enough.'” 8 Sailors in U.S.S. Lincoln Strike Group Attempted Suicide, Navy Says.
+ Monkey See, Monkey Do: “Chimpanzees are known to use rudimentary tools when foraging for food. According to a new paper in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, this learned behavior is passed down from adults to offspring through social learning. Specifically, adult chimps deliberately model the behavior, then turn their tools over to the youngsters so they can mimic the same motions.” (This was how I was gradually teaching my kids how to gather and summarize news. Then they switched to TikTok and Claude.)
“Affected fridges ‘suddenly lost power and stopped functioning immediately after’ trying to issue a firmware update through SmartThings, Samsung’s smart home platform.” Owners mourn spoiled food after firmware update bricks Samsung smart fridges. Just let us plug it in, and that’s it. We need a cold fridge, not cold fusion.