Late in 1995, I was invited over to the headquarters of Wired magazine by one of the editors, John Battelle, who knew me from my years teaching at U-C Berkeley.

The magazine’s office had cubicles, computers, rock ‘n roll playing in the background and a few dogs lounging around.

But the real attraction lay on the other side of a common kitchen area where HotWired, the online side of Wired magazine, was located.

It was a striking scene. Row after row of 20-somethings sat working on laptops perched on doors balanced over sawhorses, with the Chili Peppers blasting and a whiff of marijuana in the air. A couple of my former interns stood up to greet me and showed how they were designing content for a wide range of websites.

Right after I left the office, I called home to say, “I’ve just found the next place I want to work.”

Several weeks later, HotWired offered me a job as producer of what would be the web’s first daily political news site, called The Netizen.

Although the starting salary was barely half what I’d previously been making, and I did have the needs of a new family at home to consider, I accepted the offer without hesitation and said I could start the next day.

On day one, I was introduced to a small staff of producers and designers with hardly any journalism experience. But they were smart, highly motivated and ready to invent something.

I quickly hired two of the brightest young journalists (and former students) I knew from Berkeley and set out to work with the developer team -- the head engineer was a former colleague from Mother Jones, and we set a crash course to build The Netizen.

We launched the website in something like 28 days.

It was a presidential election year, so we hired three experienced political writers as our correspondents and they fanned out across the campaign trail to cover the re-election effort of incumbent Bill Clinton and his Republican challengers, including the eventual nominee, Bob Dole.

I had been assured complete editorial independence for the operation, and it quickly attracted a large audience among the early adopters then flocking to the web. Day after day we published smart, snarky takes from all sides of the political spectrum with a decidedly libertarian streak, in accordance with the dominant philosophy of Silicon Valley.

For me it was exciting -- my young staffers were quickly developing editorial skills, and we were able collectively to generate controversy almost without trying.

Email was still a new phenomenon, and the feedback from readers that poured in upon publication included some that were outright abusive, often misogynistic, which disturbed me and was a harbinger of things to come.

Thinking back with the benefit of hindsight, I had an early glimpse of how hate, lies and conspiracies might flourish in this new environment, but I didn’t know what to do about that at the time.

Free speech was free speech, I told myself somewhat naively. And outside of the negative stuff, I liked the chaotic two-way communication cacophony of the web. It was a free-for-all.

Our readers blasted off at our writers in ways traditional journalism never had experienced. Those of us from legacy media were used to being the last word on a topic. In this new media, as I told a Poynter symposium, we were only the first word. It was a conversation, not a broadcast.

Everyone on staff handled it in relatively good spirits as The Netizen quickly rocketed into position as one of the leading news sites on the web.

If I was the pilot, it felt like I was guiding a ship far out into space, destination unknown.

(To be continued.)

HEADLINES:

• U.S. and Iran sign deal ahead of schedule (Axios)

• The Text of the Deal (NYT)

• Trump says the US will resume bombing if Iran doesn’t comply with agreement (CNN)

• Questions linger over U.S.-Iran deal as details remain murky (PBS)

• Trump Does Not Understand the War He Lost (Atlantic)

• Trump is in a sea of trouble over Iran (Spectator)

• Moscow hit by largest Ukrainian attack since start of Russia’s full-scale war (BBC)

• Fed Holds Rates and Leans Toward Fighting Inflation With Future Increases (NYT)

• Trump says intelligence chief pick’s hearing is off and Pulte will remain for now (WP)

• Senate delays Jay Clayton’s nomination for intel director after Trump post (NBC)

• The death rate in ICE immigrant detention centers more than doubles under Trump (Reuters)

• Georgia Republicans Shelve Redistricting as Anger Grows (NYT)

• El Niño is here, so what does it mean? (NPR)

• Inside the push to keep RFK Jr.’s vaccine agenda alive (WP)

• News sites are the new newspapers: People are abandoning them for social media (Nieman)

• How Ukraine Uses A.I. to Knock Deadly Russian Drones Out of the Skies (NYT)

• The private school choice boom leaves behind many kids in public school (AP)

• The White House’s capricious controls on Anthropic (FT)

• China isn’t trying to beat the U.S. at AI — it’s playing a completely different game (Fortune)

• The Cloud Has Sound: The Unrelenting and Unseen Cost of A.I. Data Centers (NYT)

• E.T. Admits Shock At Not Even Being Called For Cameo In ‘Disclosure Day’ (Onion)

Oh, and somebody should probably tell Israel.

So onto other matters.

Update on my tomato plant wars: Although we’ve never identified the animal that stole our plants, the garden has provided a large number of new plants that sprung up from last year’s plantings.

So I am now tending to over a dozen new plants. Enemies beware.

This is truly a World Cup house and as France won its first match, 3-1, the place erupted into a state of bedlam. My grandchildren are not only French fans, three of them are French citizens as well.

So, there will be a good deal more cheering to come at our house this summer, I presume.

HEADLINES:

• Trump turns his attention to Ukraine ahead of Iran deal: ‘I’m going to do whatever I can’ (CNBC)

• Trump insists Iran deal will open Strait of Hormuz ‘toll-free’ as he meets world leaders (BBC)

• Trump claims victory over Iran, but deal is silent on nuclear weapons (WP)

• Trump’s Iran Deal Looks Worse Than Obama’s—And I’m Glad He Made It (Bulwark)

• Doubts swirled around the US-Iran interim deal to end the war in the Middle East as shippers said it could take weeks for confidence to return after any reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and fundamental questions remained unanswered. (Reuters)

• Oil Futures Extend Decline on Optimism About U.S.-Iran Deal (WSJ)

• Higher prices for gas, groceries and flights will outlast the Iran war, experts say (AP)

• NATO’s Permanent Crisis (Foreign Affairs)

• Records reveal $600M estimate for Trump’s ballroom project, with half from taxpayers (WP)

• Federal Judge Blocks Idaho Law Criminalizing Transgender Bathroom Use (NYT)

• US primaries in Oklahoma, Georgia, others: Key takeaways from the results (Al Jazeera)

• Trump’s favored candidate won in a closely watched Alabama Senate contest. Find four takeaways from races in Alabama, Oklahoma and Georgia here. (WP)

• COVID-19 vaccine linked with lower risk of heart attack, stroke: Study (The Hill)

• As the US approaches its 250th birthday next month, two out of five Americans do not believe it will endure another 250 years, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll ‌that highlighted deep divisions over how the nation views itself. (Reuters)

• The Newsground turns to coffee to fund investigative journalism (Nieman)

• Giants players’ ‘Pride Night’ hat stance criticized by broadcaster Mike Krukow (NBC)

• SpaceX is buying AI coding startup Cursor (BI)

• The hidden risk of Trump’s Anthropic crackdown (Axios)

• How Anthropic lost the White House’s trust — and then its flagship product (WP)

• Humanity isn’t ready for the coming intelligence explosion (Economist)

• Study: More Americans Foregoing College In Favor Of Letting The Carnival Sort Them Out (Onion)

One legacy of the Covid-19 pandemic is the increased use of robots in our society. Among their advantages, they don’t need masks or social distancing and they don’t take sick days, vacations or parental leave.

They also don’t easily take offense when treated badly or need to be thanked for doing a good job. In fact they don’t require any emotional involvement whatsoever.

As robotized services including Alexa and Siri have become more embedded in our offices and households, a question that occurs to me is what long-term impact are they having on the way we communicate with each other.

It starts, as do all things, with the children. Kids quickly learn to ask Siri or Alexa to do something in a commanding voice, which then becomes anger if the robot cannot comply with their wishes quickly enough.

I wonder how a child growing up in such circumstances will treat his or her employees in the future?

When voice commands first became a thing, I found myself speaking in a respectful voice and often thanking Siri for her help. Siri never replied. The engineers who developed her apparently hadn’t bothered to work “you’re welcome” into her vocabulary.

Thus, my politeness fell on deaf ears.

And although this type of software is supposed to be intelligent, i.e., it learning from interacting with us, in my experience our robotic friends are in no way learning to be more polite.

As for humans, when we are not rewarded for being polite, we tend to become less so over time. Gradually, for example, I’ve learned to issue simple straight-out commands to my voiced units. There is no point in engaging in social niceties with an entity that doesn’t respond accordingly, is there?

But what I am conditioning myself to become?

When it comes to the people who have designed the relevant software in this case, many of them value direct, logical and blunt sentences. Social skills simply are not at a premium during an intense Agile development cycle.

As our society populates the environment with robots, maybe the ultimate effect will be that nobody will have much of a reason to be nice anymore.

This would, of course, resemble our political culture, where it seems politeness and respect for others became extinct some time ago.

Indeed, being not nice is often a virtue in modern America. And those who cheer on the misogynist, racist, homophobic demagogues at political rallies? They resemble nothing so much as robots.

The news summaries in an age like this might as well be compiled by robots as well, but in fact I’ve done the ones that follow in the old-fashioned way. They are hand-picked. Please enjoy them.

HEADLINES:

• US, Iran agree to ceasefire, sending stock futures higher and oil lower (Yahoo)

• Iran war day 109: Tehran, Washington, sign MoU electronically (Al Jazeera)

• Trump Winds Down the War He Started With Goals Unmet (NYT)

• Trump’s Iran Deal Is a Humiliation for Him—and Good News for the World (Nation)

• Authorities in southern Lebanon warned people displaced by three months of war between Israel and Hezbollah against rushing home despite ‌the US-Iran deal, as Israel said it would not withdraw troops from the south. (Reuters)

• 82nd Airborne Deployment to Israel Went Unannounced (Military.com)

• FBI foiled alleged plot to attack White House UFC event, Kash Patel says (NBC)

• Eight Crew Members Dead in B-52 Crash at Air Force Base (NYT)

• ‘An awkward family gathering’: Trump and G7 leaders convene in France amid geopolitical divergences (CNN)

• Newsom Says Trump’s Justice Department Is Investigating Him and His Wife (NYT)

• Inside the Ludicrous, Deadly Serious Plan to Take Over Greenland (New Yorker)

• Trump ties FISA renewal to his stalled voting bill (Axios)

• Inside the Trump administration’s rapid rollback of gun regulations (WP)

• Voters are turning out against toxic pesticides. Will the Senate listen? (The Hill)

• As the U.S. turns 250, this historian has blunt advice: ‘America has to grow up’ (NPR)

• Vance’s fraud task force is sweeping up legitimate small businesses (WP)

• Britain Announces Social Media Ban for Children (NYT)

• What the ‘60 Minutes’ fiasco reveals about press freedom today (The Hill)

• ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ Ratings Show Huge, Dramatic Swing (Yahoo)

• MLB sends warning letter to three Giants relievers for their anti-Pride Night protest (McCovey Chronicles)

• The US Government Is Letting a Key Data Center Regulation Expire (Wired)

• How a warning from Amazon led the White House to shut down Anthropic’s Mythos model (Fortune)

• AI robots can go rogue – a researcher on how easily it happens (Conversation)

• Bots Now Outnumber Humans on the Internet. Here’s What That Actually Means (CNET)

• Why AI Is Incorrigibly Didactic (Atlantic)

• How to Run a News Company in the Age of Polarization and A.I. Slop (NYT)

• MLB Demands Return Of All Foul Balls (Onion)

Among the options for ways to learn about and experience the larger world, travel is the best choice. If you go to enough places on several continents you begin to develop an appreciation for the diversity of human choices and conditions.

If you cannot travel, you can read books, watch films and try to meet those in your community who come from different countries and backgrounds. There also are ethnic restaurants, festivals and parades.

And then there’s sports, which brings me to the World Cup.

In our house there is a hand-drawn wall chart listing every matchup for all the teams playing in this year’s World Cup competition. My grandchildren drew it and filled in their predictions for all the games before the first match had been played.

Five of them did this by debating the merits of each squad from around the world, based on their knowledge as soccer players themselves and as fans.

We’ve had the games playing on TV all weekend. At one point, I found myself sleepily watching the match between Australia and Türkiye broadcast in Spanish with my 15-year-old granddaughter, who is fluent in French.

We both understand just enough Spanish to sort of follow the commentary, which was exuberant and fast-paced.

For those uninterested in the World Cup, or in sports generally, I can understand the irritation at all the hype.

But then again, this is the whole world coming together to play games and cheer their teams on in peace, not war, which is a lot better than the alternative.

HEADLINES:

• Iran and US agree deal to end war as Israel says its forces will stay in Lebanon (BBC)

• U.S. and Iran reach deal to extend ceasefire and open strait (Axios)

• U.S.-Iran deal explained: What we know — and what remains unresolved (CNBC)

• Trump Claims Strait Will Be ‘Permanently Toll-Free’ Under Agreement With Iran (NYT)

• Trump Celebrates While America Capitulates (Atlantic)

• A deal is only the beginning of the end of the US-Iran war (Economist)

• So Much for Leaving Abortion Up to the States (Atlantic)

• The White House UFC fights are a spectacle. And a reflection of America. (WP)

• Hospitals See Diseases Resurge as Vaccinations Decline (NYT)

• Congress has lost its grip on funding the government (WP)

• Russia Is Rich in Ballistic Missiles. Ukraine Is Short of Ways to Stop Them. (NYT)

• Pilot and 11 skydivers dead after Missouri plane crash, officials say (CNN)

• Trump at 80: A President ‘Really Uncomfortable’ With Aging (NYT)

• As UFOs go mainstream, the jury is out on what the existence of alien life might mean for religion (AP)

• Germany and Japan Are Rearming Again, 80 Years After World War II (NYT)

• Why American Christianity Ended Up Like This (New Yorker)

• US asks Anthropic to block global access to top AI models: Why it matters (Al Jazeera)

• The World’s Leading Deepfake Expert No Longer Trusts His Own Eyes (NYT)

• Why it’s nearly impossible to build a robot without China (Japan Times)

• For centuries, math has been a human endeavor. Does AI mean it’s over? (WP)

• The skills people still perform better than AI, according to workplace experts (AP)

• Study: Crying Not Linked To What You Said But The Way You Said It (Onion)

Like all adults trying to balance responsibilities, I probably complained about it on occasion, and it certainly could be stressful when we were running late.

But it was a privilege because it was one of my opportunities to play an essential role in our social ecosystem.

Believing that your role matters is not always the easiest thing to achieve in American culture. Years later, when the kids were grown, I missed it. And I started feeling rather inessential.

Retiring from work made everything worse, as my professional responsibilities, once deemed by many as weighty and significant, melted away just like those parental duties.

And it was that point that I started pondering how much I ever did matter in the larger scheme of things.

Early in 2020, just as the pandemic was arriving and I was recovering from a stroke, I moved into an assisted care facility. At the time it seemed like the only option left for me.

Nothing against the staff members in there, most of whom were terrific, or the residents, but every minute I spent in that place my hope was evaporating and my spirit was being crushed.

But in the end I was one of the lucky ones who escaped. My family rescued me and that’s why I can tell this little story today.

As I woke up one recent morning, it was obvious that the heat wave had finally broken. Fresh cool air swept in from the ocean.

As I drank my first cup of coffee, my 12-year-old granddaughter appeared. Her parents were busy and she asked if I could give her a ride.

Without hesitation, I grabbed the car keys.

HEADLINES:

• Trump says US-Iran deal to be signed on Sunday as Tehran casts doubt on timing (BBC)

• Iranian foreign minister says deal with U.S. “never been closer” (Axios)

• Israel carries out air strikes on Lebanon, state media says, as Iran claims deal with US near (BBC)

• The U.S. and Iran Might Actually Have a Deal (Atlantic)

• What’s the deal on the Iran-U.S. peace deal? (Reuters)

• Judge Blocks National Parks From Removing ‘Negative’ Signs (NYT)

• Congress has lost its grip on funding the government (WP)

• America Has a Credit Card Problem, Just Not the One You Think (WSJ)

• Ariana Grande tells White House to stop using her music (CNN)

• Americans Are Reaching a Financial Breaking Point (Nation)

• The Supreme Court Hands a Surprising Death-Penalty Defeat to Alabama (TNR)

• DNI Gabbard Reveals Evidence of U.S. Taxpayer-Funded Global Biolab Program (DNI)

• Global HIV prevention declined drastically after Trump aid cuts, U.N. finds (WP)

• Hegseth Loses His Holy War (Bulwark)

• We’re replaying the Civil War, but the turf this time is the US government (Reveal)

• An Honored Canadian Journalist on the Importance of Investigative Reporting (NYT)

• A Court Has Ruled That Google Is Liable for False Statements Generated by AI Overviews (Wired)

• Anthropic cuts off Fable 5 and Mythos 5 access following government order (Verge)

• Battery breakthroughs will lessen AI’s demand on the electricity grid (WP)

• This Ford exec used Claude to build her family a ‘chief of staff’ (BI)

• Olive Garden Unveils New ‘We Invented Spaghetti’ Slogan (Onion)

When the members of a jury are selected, they are asked whether they can be fair in coming to a judgement — whether they can put aside any biases or pre-existing opinions about the people and issues involved in that trial in order to come to a dispassionate, balanced decision based not on beliefs or prejudices but on the facts as established in sworn testimony.

They are also reminded of this pledge by the judge when they receive instructions just before they begin their deliberations.

The analogy is not perfect but what we demand of jurors is similar to what we insist of journalists when we send them out to gather the facts for stories.

Editors and news directors recognize that reporters are just like anyone else in that they have their own beliefs, opinions, biases, blind spots and flaws. That’s only human.

But what a good journalist, like a good juror, has to set that all aside in favor of an all-consuming commitment to get it right.

That this is hard to do is obvious, especially when the truths we discover contradict our core beliefs, prejudices or assumptions. But, as I’ve said many times to student journalists, you can’t discover the truth as you wish it to be, you have to report the truth as you discover it to be.

The integrity of our legal system depends on jurors who can follow strict jury instructions in a search for the truth. The integrity of our press depends on journalists who can maintain a similar discipline in their search for truth.

And our democracy depends on both.

HEADLINES:

• What’s in the Iran deal Trump says he’s ready to sign (Axios)

• Qatar pursued secret talks with Iran to shield gas complex from strikes, security officials say (WP)

• Whipsawed Between Fear and Relief, Iranians Hope for War’s End (NYT)

• Judge blocks DOJ ‘anti-weaponization’ fund for longer, wants guarantee it’s dead (CNBC)

• Trump’s allies have another way to pay ‘weaponization’ victims (Reuters)

• US to cut air and naval assets deployed for NATO operations in Europe (Al Jazeera)

• SpaceX stock pops 20% in first trades after record-breaking IPO (BI)

• Elon Musk becomes the first trillionaire after SpaceX surges out of the gate (WP)

• Americans Are Already Paying Dearly for the National Debt (Atlantic)

• Steve Hilton’s Chances of Beating Becerra to Flip California: New Poll (Newsweek)

• California’s schools are emptying out. Experts say it’s only going to get worse. (SFGate)

• In Cesar Chavez’s Labor Union, Women Often Worked in Fear (NYT)

• Silicon Valley needs to get God (Economist)

• Alarm as Ebola spreads into new areas of DR Congo (Al Jazeera)

• El Niño and the Iran war may spark hunger crisis for more than 100 million (WP)

• Suspect in Fatal Shooting Is Dead After a Standoff in Texas, Officials Say (NYT)

• Scientists gave an octopus a mirror. Here’s what happened next (BBC)

• Justice Dept. Clears Way for Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger (NYT)

• Live market odds: Are we heading for the hottest year on record? (Weather Channel)

• As World Cup Begins, Mexico City Becomes a Global Stage (NYT)

• Tom Hanks bought a 1930s Royal standard typewriter at Berkeley Typewriter last week (Berkeleyside)

• What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity (NYT)

• EPA Approves Use Of Napalm As Pesticide (Onion)

He was worn out from campaigning and had intended to go to bed upon arriving, but then he was told that 10,000 students had been waiting patiently for him for hours, so he decided instead to go to the campus of the University of Michigan and deliver what became a life-changing speech for many in my generation.

He proposed creating a new national service for students, and the youthful crowd roared its approval. After he was elected, he made good on that proposal by forming the Peace Corps.

A few years later, I was a naive young man of 22 when I went to Afghanistan as a Peace Corps Volunteer in 1969, having never been out of the country before, let alone halfway around the world.

But by then, thousands of young people just like me were answering Kennedy’s call to serve our country not by going to war but by spreading messages of peace.

We were idealistic and naive, yes, but those of us who were male were also trying to avoid the draft, which would have sent us to Vietnam to fight a war we vehemently opposed.

Like others in my generation, I was radicalized in college to the point I considered U.S. foreign policy the imperial arm of an expanding empire.

Living in Afghanistan proved to be a rude awakening about some of my assumptions. I saw up close how mean and brutal people could be to each other in a poor society, including tribal wars, murders, bribery and cruelty like in the “Lord of the Flies.”

I also saw beauty, generosity and tenderness -- the whole range of human behavior was on display every day amid widespread illiteracy and ignorance.

The poorest people on the planet would welcome me into their homes to share the one good meal they would have that entire week. Strangers went out of their way to help me when I got lost.

When I taught high school in Taloqan, many of my students spouted political beliefs shaped by the five booming radio signals that reached our remote town -- Radio Moscow, Radio Peking, and to a much lesser degree, Radio Kabul, the BBC and the Voice of America.

The brightest kids seemed attracted by socialist and communist ideas similar to the Marxist-Leninist thinking I was familiar with on campuses back home. At first I went along with their ideas about how U.S. imperialism was oppressing people in poor countries, but eventually, like any committed teacher, I began to challenge their assumptions, if only to get them to think more critically.

It was easy to see how Soviet and Chinese propaganda was distorting these young minds, and also how their views of America were affected by the worst of Hollywood. The stories they repeated about U.S. barbarism were overblown and simplistic.

U.S. troops had slaughtered innocents at My Lai, it was true, which was awful, but all armies do horrible things. Certainly no country had a monopoly on human rights abuses. Meanwhile, there were also many, many Americans like Peace Corps Volunteers who were opposed to the military and dispensing aid, food, clothes, medicine and education instead of guns and napalm.

But to be truthful, I more or less agreed with my students’ political analysis and wanted no part of the dark sides of U.S. policy, What I did wish to share were the better parts of our culture -- our beliefs in freedom, gender equality, and universal literacy.

Fewer than ten percent of the Afghans population could read or write. The infant mortality rate was the highest in the world. Women had little access to education, jobs or independent lives.

I knew my students needed a counterweight to what they were hearing on Radio Moscow, but the irony was not lost on me that here I was, an anti-war American, seemingly defending my country’s military as part of my role as a mentor.

Anyway, for Afghans in 1970, the problem wasn’t the threat of impending American intervention. The problem was that the Russians had troops massed right next door. And within a few years of my leaving Afghanistan, the Russians indeed invaded, bombing and strafing the country into submission, or so they thought at the time.

But that ended badly for the Soviets a decade later as they limped back to Moscow in retreat. Once they lost the Afghan war, the entire Soviet empire crumbled as well.

(I first published a version of this one five years ago.)

HEADLINES:

• Trump claims peace deal ‘approved’; Tehran says not so (Al Jazeera)

• Proposed Iran-U.S. deal would reopen Hormuz strait and lift oil sanctions, Iran state media says (CNBC)

• Trump Retracts Latest Threats of More Strikes (NYT)

• Iran’s Crude Production Slumped in May Under U.S. Blockade (WSJ)

• The new precision weapon: Is the West ready for cellular drones? (The Hill)

• Trump Picks New Intelligence Chief After Revolt Over Pulte (NYT)

• Why Trump keeps avoiding Senate confirmation for top government roles (CNN)

• World Bank cuts global growth outlook to 2.5%, warns of drop to 1.3% if war fallout spreads to markets (Reuters)

• Business (Economist)

• Trump has a new, surprising take on the higher cost of living: ‘I love the inflation’ (AP)

• At least five states are bowing out of Trump’s ‘Great American State Fair’ (CNN)

• Trump Officials Say ICE Won’t Raid World Cup Games, but Fans Are Worried (NYT)

• Why Trump and Putin can’t escape their mistakes (WP)

• Ukraine’s police chief has accused Russia of ‌recruiting teenage Ukrainian girls to kill Ukrainian military personnel, following the arrest of a 17-year-old suspected of murdering a serviceman on the instructions of a Russian operative. (Reuters)

• The War in Ukraine Has Now Gone On Longer Than World War I (NYT)

• El Niño Is Back. Here’s What It Could Mean for Hurricanes, Heat and Flooding (USNWR)

• All clear given at Pentagon following after ‘hazardous materials’ alert (Al Jazeera)

• Southern Baptists advance a formal ban on churches with women pastors (AP)

• Anthropic apologizes for invisible Claude Fable guardrails (Verge)

• Anthropic v. OpenAI: Behind the bitter battle for the future of AI (Reuters)

• For a Second Time, Trump Muses About Americans Sharing in A.I. Wealth (NYT)

• Taylor Swift Urges Travis Kelce To Whittle Down Trampolines On Registry To One (Onion)

***

I once started a screenplay with the words: “I have two kinds of regret. Regret for things that I did. And regret for things I didn’t do.”

Regrettably, I didn’t finish that project.

When I started publishing daily essays on Facebook at the beginning of the pandemic, the most common feedback I received was that my memories resonated with people. But those memories were only one part of what I was trying to achieve.

My past, like everyone else’s, was littered with successes and failures, wins and losses, darkness and light. In retrospect, good and bad seemed roughly in balance over my eight decades. You could say the two kinds of regret were also therefore in balance, I suppose.

Which brings me to the story behind Ricky Nelson’s plaintive yet defiant ballad “Garden Party.” The song recounts the night that the ‘60s pop star played before a packed house at Madison Square Garden while trying to make a comeback in 1972.

While he was on stage, Nelson thought the concert was turning into a disaster because the crowd seemed to be booing him off the stage whenever he tried to sing one of his new songs.

It later turned out that most of the booing was in fact directed at the security guards, who were roughing up some rowdy members of the crowd outside of the singer’s line of sight. But by the time Nelson learned about that, he’d already written and released “Garden Party.” (Lyrics below.)

His assumptions about the boos may have been flawed; nevertheless he had a hit on his hands.

The key line in his song is “If memories were all I sang, I’d rather drive a truck.”

That song turned out to be a very big hit, Nelson’s last in fact. Perhaps he regretted being wrong about the booing; or perhaps not. He died at age 45 in a plane crash on the way to a New Year’s Eve concert.

HEADLINES:

• U.S. Trades Fire With Iran for Second Day in Bid to ‘Negotiate With Bombs’ (WSJ)

• Three Indian sailors killed in US strike on oil tanker (BBC)

• Iran attacks Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan in retaliation for US strikes (Al Jazeera)

• Inflation Jumps as Iran War Intensifies Price Squeeze (NYT)

• Trump presses on with plan to install Bill Pulte as acting intelligence chief (Guardian)

• Cue shutdown watchafter Republicans go it alone on ICE funding (Politico)

• What’s In—and Not In—the Immigration Enforcement Funding Bill Congress Passed (Time)

• The state of play in Maine (Silver Bulletin)

• San Francisco immigration court shuts down, striking at heart of historic advocacy (NPR)

• Trump officials lay out aggressive timeline to build triumphal arch (WP)

• The DOGE Bros Want Another Shot (Atlantic)

• Bill Gates tells Congress Jeffrey Epstein tried to use information about his infidelities to get close to him (CNN)

• America’s 250th birthday celebration is replacing history with toxic myth (Guardian)

• Trump’s Sharp Turn on China: Embracing It as a Peer Power (NYT)

• The Fault Lines in China’s Power (Foreign Affairs)

• Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 is a version of Mythos the public can access today (TechCrunch)

• AI’s productivity paradox (BI)

• Half of Americans fear that the rise of AI could put them or someone in their household out of work, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll ‌that also showed widespread angst at how widely the technology is being adopted. (Reuters)

• Amazon Employees Detail Inhumane Working Conditions On Bezos’ Human Chessboard (Onion)

LYRICS (“Garden Party” by Rick Nelson

I went to a garden party
To reminisce with my old friends
A chance to share old memories
And play our songs again

When I got to the garden party
They all knew my name
But no one recognized me
I didn’t look the same

But it’s all right now
I learned my lesson well
You see, you can’t please everyone
So you got to please yourself

People came from miles around
Everyone was there
Yoko brought her walrus
There was magic in the air

And over in the corner
Much to my surprise
Mr. Hughes hid in Dylan’s shoes
Wearing his disguise

But it’s all right now
I learned my lesson well
You see, you can’t please everyone
So you got to please yourself

I played them all the old songs
I thought that’s why they came
No one heard the music
We didn’t look the same

I said hello to “Mary Lou”
She belongs to me
When I sang a song about a honky-tonk
It was time to leave

But it’s all right now
I learned my lesson well
You see, you can’t please everyone
So you got to please yourself

Someone opened up a closet door
And out stepped Johnny B. Goode
Playing guitar like a ringing a bell
And lookin’ like he should

If you gotta play at garden parties
I wish you a lotta luck
But if memories were all I sang
I’d rather drive a truck

But it’s all right now
I learned my lesson well
You see, you can’t please everyone
So you got to please yourself

And it’s all right now, yeah
Learned my lesson well
You see, you can’t please everyone
So you got to please yourself

Some used a cane or a walker. Some had a companion who helped them on their way.

As I parked my car and got out to walk into the pharmacy, I became one of them. Just another old person walking.

At the other end of life, in infancy, we watch for a baby’s first steps. This is universally celebrated as a big moment.

But a person’s last steps are never celebrated.

***

There is a role for old people in our society that is often overlooked, and that is what we see when we look out at the world around us.

We see not only what is there now but what used to be there. We remember what is gone and what has been replaced.

To a certain degree, we can see where things are going based on where they have been.

It’s context and we might be able to provide some.

But in the eyes of those much younger than us, we may have always been old — only old. So they may think we don’t know about the kinds of things that concern them.

Heartbreak, for example, we may know a thing or two about that. Losing someone you love can lead to excruciating pain. We know about that.

We also know that better times will come, and that while you may never fully get over certain losses, the world has ways of making things right again.

Just wait and see.

HEADLINES:

• Trump says U.S. must ‘respond’ after Iran shoots down helicopter over Hormuz Strait (CNBC)

• U.S. Launches Strikes on Iran to Retaliate for Downed Helicopter (NYT)

• Netanyahu and Trump are at odds over the war they started together (AP)

• Five takeaways from the primaries in Maine and South Carolina (WP)

• Trump Previews Fall Strategy With Baseless Claims of California Vote Fraud (NYT)

• Who is Lesley Groff, Jeffrey Epstein’s former assistant being interviewed in House probe? (PBS)

• House Passes G.O.P.’s $70 Billion Immigration Bill (NYT)

• Americans’ morals hit a puritanical streak (Axios)

• Hilton Beats Steyer to Win Second Spot in California Governor Race (NYT)

• Trump to meet House speaker as pressure mounts over surveillance law deadline (Guardian)

• Platner Wins Maine Senate Primary After a Turbulent Stretch of His Bid (NYT)

• The real reason Bill Pulte was named director of national intelligence (The Hill)

• The spectre of gen Z socialism is haunting the world … according to the Economist (Guardian)

• More women getting shut out from senior positions in Trump’s second term (WP)

• Iran’s lakes are vanishing: Satellite images show a deepening water crisis (Al Jazeera)

• A Mayor, Her Boyfriend and China’s Mysterious Propaganda Machine (NYT)

• Risking little of their own money, the US president and his sons have added at least $2.3 billion to the family fortune from their main crypto ventures, while the investors they’ve wooed have taken a $2.3 billion hit. Read our special report. (Reuters)

• No set. No actors. No cameras. (BI)

• He’s the expert on deepfakes. Can this Berkeley professor keep up with AI? (SFC)

• Apple Has Another Go at A.I., but Don’t Call It a Reinvention (NYT)

• Doctors Warn Air Fryers Not A Substitute For Human Companionship (Onion)

“The Last Letter From Your Lover,” a 2021 film, gets it right, although you may never meet a journalist exactly like the character Ellie Haworth plays in the film.

If you spend a lot of time around young journalists, you notice certain characteristics. Young reporters typically don’t know yet what attracts them to particular types of stories, and that’s just as it should be.

Some come out of such a specific background that they almost embody it -- a place, a race, a culture, a gender, a religion, an emotional or intellectual environment. And at first they tend to want to that do stories that conform with that background.

But anyone who goes into journalism and develops to any significant degree knows that while his or her background matters a great deal, it is hardly the end of the story. It’s more like the beginning. We need to learn how to do stories despite our backgrounds as much as because of them.

I remember conversations I had with my late friend Raul Ramirez, a long-time news executive at KQED, the NPR/PBS affiliate in San Francisco, while he was dying of cancer. He wanted to establish a fund that would support diversity in journalism at San Francisco State University in his final days, and he did.

I promised him I would help supervise the journalists that got internships via that fund as long as I could, and I am still doing that 13 years later.

What Raul meant about diversity was in no way confined to representations of only certain ethnic or racial groups, sexual orientations, political perspectives or any of the other categories that divide us one from another.

In the movies and in popular imagination, reporters rarely appear as nuanced as the people Raul wanted to help break into our business. In film, we often are portrayed as heroes (”All the President’s Men”), irritants (”Maid in Manhattan”), or naive idealists (”Almost Famous”).

And there are many others: “The Post,” “True Story,” “Official Secrets,” etc.

What I like about the part played by Felicity Jones in “Last Letter...” is she is just an everyday person who makes mistakes, questions the stupid rules she encounters, and never gives up on her investigation. When at one point in the film she reaches an apparent dead-end in the trail, an older man and former reporter himself says bluntly: “Well, you’re a journalist. Try again.”

She takes his advice and makes the breakthrough that allows the film to reach its resolution.

In the process, she finds out a lot about herself and also about something she didn’t know she was searching for -- how to love and be loved.

That’s about as perfect a conclusion as a journalist (or anyone in Hollywood) can hope to achieve.

(I first published a version of this essay when the film was released in 2021.)

***

I doubt that anyone dislikes the slow-motion vote-counting process in California more than I do, but Trump’s claim that election results are rigged out here are absurd. If anything, the state takes so much extra precaution to count every vote cast and to verify that each ballot is authentic that the chances for fraud are greatly reduced.

But Trump labels any vote total not to his liking as fraudulent, so we are routinely subjected his outbursts in these matters. In reality, tampering with the vote would be very difficult in such a system.

As far as the actual vote totals in last week’s primary election is concerned, 83% has now been counted. The Democrat Beceera is roughly two million votes ahead of the Republican Hilton, who is roughly two million votes ahead of the Democrat Steyer.

By percentage of the overall vote, that breaks down to 27.7 (Becerra), 25.1 (Hilton) and 22.4 (Steyer).

Sort of like Tic Tac Toe.

HEADLINES:

• What Maine Voters Are Saying About Platner on the Eve of the Primary (NYT)

• In a changing GOP, a Republican blasted Big Agriculture and beat a Trump-backed candidate (WP)

• Democrat Secures Second L.A. Mayor Spot and Ends Spencer Pratt’s Run (NYT)

• U.S. military helicopter goes down near Strait of Hormuz, two crew members rescued (NBC)

• Consumers alter spending habits as gas prices strain their budgets (AP)

• After trading missile fire, Israel and Iran pull back — for now (NPR)

• Trump Struggled to Rein In Netanyahu’s Strikes on Iran (WSJ)

• Satellite images show destruction of the US-Israel war on Iran (Al Jazeera)

• China is helping to cushion global oil prices below $100 — but analysts warn it won’t last (CNBC)

• China’s Xi Jinping calls for strengthened ‘strategic cooperation’ with North Korea in rare summit with Kim Jong Un (CNN)

• What Xi and Kim Want From Their Summit in North Korea (WSJ)

• In Russia, Rage Is Boiling Over (NYT)

• Iran’s national soccer team arrived in Tijuana ahead of three World Cup matches in the United States, amid tensions that have turned the world’s biggest sporting event into a soft-power contest between the warring countries. (Reuters)

• Why Britain and America Can’t Stop Firing Their Leaders (Politico Mag)

• Trump weighs buying another territory after Greenland fiasco: report (Independent)

• Hail Is Changing, And Scientists Warn It Could Become More Dangerous (ScienceAlert)

• The AI boom is gobbling up power faster than ever (BI)

• Have a Thorny Medical Question? Your Doctor May Be Using A.I. for That (NYT)

• Meta Deletes Face-Recognition System From Its Smart Glasses App After WIRED Report (Wired)

• Apple announces Siri AI and its next generation of Apple Intelligence (Verge)

• Humanoid robot with embodied intelligence to run convenience store 24/7 in Hong Kong (IE)

• Trump Claims He Never Promised A Livable Country (Onion)

***

When I first visited Tehran many decades ago, I was struck by the friendly, casual sophistication of the Iranians I encountered, as well as their good-natured tolerance of my broken Farsi.

Later on, after my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in neighboring Afghanistan, the urbanites of Iran’s largest city easily discerned that my Farsi had deteriorated (in their eyes) into the country bumpkin dialect known as Dari spoken by the Afghans.

Every Iranian I met in the big city seemed well-educated and well-informed about life in the U.S.

Back in the U.S.A., one of the first stories I wrote for our new magazine SunDance in San Francisco got me in touch with Iranian dissident students attending college here and protesting against the corrupt leader of their country, Shah Reza Pahlavi.

The Iranian leader was planning a visit to the U.S. and the students were making secret plans to embarrass him with protests. I made connections through my Peace Corps network and attended one of their planning meetings.

Everybody wore masks, hoping to avoid being identified by the Shah’s dreaded imperial police, SAVAK, which was known to have infiltrated some of the student groups in order to disrupt their actions.

And while in my piece for SunDance I was careful not to name any of my Iranian sources, I did name an American source who had witnessed some of the Shah’s authoritarian tactics when he had been a teacher at Tehran University.

That was a serious journalistic error, because the man thought he had been speaking with me off the record, though I didn’t find that out until some 20 years later.

On that occasion, I was just settling in for what was supposed to be a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner at Berkeley’s Chez Panisse, when the maitre d’ came over to reintroduce himself.

“Remember me? I’m Steve and I was working in an Iranian rug store when you quoted me in your article in SunDance. I lost my job because of your article. The owners fired me out of fear of SAVAK,” he said.

I was mortified and deeply embarrassed. Talk about a buzzkill.

“Man, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize—.” My face turned bright red.

He just grinned. “Don’t feel too bad about it. ‘Cause it’s all worked out for both of us. I’ve followed your career at Rolling Stone and so on; and as for me, I’ve got my dream job here at Chez Panisse.”

At that point, the night got a whole lot better.

(My source, Steve Crumley, passed away in 2023.)

HEADLINES:

• Iran and Israel Halt Exchanges of Fire (WSJ)

• Iran and Israel Exchange Strikes for First Time Since April Cease-Fire (NYT)

• Powerful earthquake hits Philippines, killing at least 15 (Al Jazeera)

• Trump doesn’t rule out giving Jan. 6 rioters who attacked police payouts from the ‘anti-weaponization’ fund (NBC)

• How Trump’s DOJ Burned Its Most Important Asset (Bulwark)

• Flu Vaccines Should Not Be This Hard (Atlantic)

• First came Congress. Now a national redistricting battle may turn to statehouses and city councils (AP)

• The three things Democrats must do to regain rural America’s trust (Guardian)

• Trump walks out of ‘Meet the Press’ interview when challenged over false claims (WP)

• Warner: Pulte a ‘national security risk’ (Politico)

• Political dynasties carry new baggage as voters vilify the elite (WP)

• Erdogan and Putin, the End of an Unlikely Partnership (NYT)

• Ukraine Is Not Losing. Russia Is Not Winning. (Atlantic)

• Israel strikes Beirut’s southern suburbs days after US-supported ceasefire deal (AP)

• Pete Hegseth’s D-day speech on immigration condemned as ‘grotesque stupidity’ (Guardian)

• Bumblebees have tiny brains but they can solve problems like chimps and elephants (NPR)

• OpenAI Announces Unnerving New ChatGPT Feature Named ‘Lockdown Mode’ (Gizmodo)

• Why most politicians are not calling for data center bans despite voters’ anger (WP)

• Why isn’t the U.S. better at soccer? (Solver Bulletin)

• The AI that can actually simplify your life (BI)

• Sorry, I’m Not Available. Talk to the A.I. Version of Me. (NYT)

• Department Of Labor Cracks Down On People Getting Paid For Work (Onion)

Next, using a chopstick, I’ll create 1/4” furrows in the moist soil, into which I’ll set some cucumber seeds.

Yes, I’m resuming my Quixotic quest to grow crops that elude the garden thief that stole our tomato plants. That mystery remains unsolved.

But assuming that it is a small mammal, I’ll cover my new plants with protective wire cloches and hope for the best.

This will require patience.

***

Something else that requires patience is the California Governor’s race, which is much like watching a competition between turtles. It took days for the Democrat Beceera to pull ahead of the Republican Hilton, but he has finally done so and will apparently slowly pull further out there in the lead from here on out.

But they stop a lot.

Meanwhile, the third turtle in the race, Steyer, is ever so gradually sneaking up behind Hilton, but he’s never going to catch him.

Only two turtles can advance to the fall election, so that ballot will feature a rerun (or should we say a rewalk?) between Beceera and Hilton. Counting the ballots will go slowly, like on turtle time.

Because they stop a lot.

HEADLINES:

• More Republicans are breaking with Trump. Is it conscience or politics? (Guardian)

• The Congresswoman Who Got Trump’s Name Off the Kennedy Center (Atlantic)

• Pentagon Sees Growing Espionage Threat From Israel (NYT)

• Graham Platner’s troubles grow in Maine, and Democrats are increasingly nervous (The Hill)

• Graham Platner: The Personal is Not Political (Journal of the Plague Years)

• At least 12 shot near Ohio festival, gunmen still at large (NBC)

• Tehran targets Gulf neighbors after US attack on Iranian military sites (CNN)

• Trump undercuts Netanyahu at a critical moment (Reuters)

• Tehran says US ‘lacks will’ for stability after latest clash (Al Jazeera)

• U.S. mortgage rates are staying high – and the Federal Reserve can do little about it (PBS)

• Pope Leo, After Taking on Trump and A.I., Prepares for New Duels in Spain (NYT)

• Ebola outbreak in Central Africa could reach 20,000 cases without strong public health measures (AP)

• Voters in this city handed the tech industry its worst defeat yet in data center backlash (WP)

• AI is going to drink even more water (Reuters)

• Americans hate rising prices. AI is making it worse. (WP)

• Revenge of the AI bubble (Axios)

• 4 surprising ways AI is making your life more expensive (WP)

• Mom Disappointed Kids Not Coming Home For National Donut Day (Onion)

Among its many bad moves, perhaps the most shameful is the Trump administration’s treatment of immigrants.

Now, thanks to a former Social Security Administration executive, Jeremiah Schofield, we know that DOGE officials had planned to classify 2.7 million living people as dead, which was intended to intimidate immigrants into leaving.

The plan included some U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

Schofield revealed the plan in a 49-page whistleblower disclosure to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). It offers the most detailed account yet of how officials from Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service sought to use Social Security data in service of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

According to the Washington Post, “Schofield’s whistleblower complaint describes a tumultuous period inside Social Security, as career officials questioned the legality of such efforts and watched DOGE officials gain access to some of the government’s most sensitive databases. In one meeting, Schofield said, a DOGE official working with the Department of Homeland Security described the goal of declaring 2.7 million living people dead: making immigrants so miserable that they self-deported or went to Social Security offices for help, where they could be arrested.”

Social Security carried out a smaller version of the plan last year, marking 6,100 immigrants as dead.

HEADLINES:

• DOGE officials planned to mark 2.7 million living people as dead, according to a whistleblower. (WP)

• US Senate passes $70bn ICE funding bill: What comes next? (Al Jazeera)

• DOJ could still pay Jan. 6 rioters even without ‘anti-weaponization’ fund (NBC)

• Graham Platner Faces Accusations Of ‘Toxic’ Relationships And Disturbing Behavior—Days After Sexting Scandal (Forbes)

• Democrats are increasingly frustrated with Graham Platner in Maine Senate race (WP)

• Judge Says Trump Officials Must Restart Asylum and Immigration Processing (NYT)

• Trump’s Name Is Disappearing From More Than Just the Kennedy Center (Atlantic)

• Trump’s Iran war messaging is not winning over Americans – or their representatives (Guardian)

• Why can’t California count? (Silver Bulletin)

• What to know about the deal between Israel and Lebanon extending their shaky ceasefire (AP)

• The US economy added 172,000 jobs last month, extending the labor market rebound (CNN)

• America’s Farms Depend More Than Ever on a Troubled Visa Program (NYT)

• AI Agents Now Generate More Web Traffic Than Humans (CNET)

• Anthropic says the world should have option to ‘pause’ on AI (Guardian)

• Can These Ads Make You Love A.I.? (NYT)

• Zeus Lands Cameo Role As Trojan Soldier In ‘The Odyssey’ (Onion)

The older I get, the whole puzzle of life on earth seems like it should be simple. We need to find the right balance that allows us all to exist together. That’s about it, but whether we will ever be able to do that is another question.

There’s a synchronicity to your life and my life and all of our lives — what each of us does affects everyone else. Everybody wants and needs the same basic things.

My Canadian-born grandmother was in a nursing home in her 90s when we went to visit one winter’s day to take her out on a day trip. We went to a nearby hilly area where we parked and watched people with sleds go up and down a gentle incline.

There was fresh snow and my tiny grandmother sat in the front seat watching for a while before pronouncing, “‘Round and ‘round everyone goes, and where they stop nobody knows.”

That was it, just a childhood rhyme. She had nothing else to say.

My grandmother stopped more than half a century now and the world has changed in dramatic ways, yet her truth remains. Everyone is still riding the merry-go-round and where they stop nobody knows.

HEADLINES:

• Trump pans ‘bad Republicans’ who voted to end the Iran war (Politico)

• Iran war powers rebuke shows how Trump is increasingly boxed in (CNN)

• Iran war live: Israel continues deadly attacks after new Lebanon ceasefire (Al Jazeera)

• The Iran Problem Trump Can’t Defer (Atlantic)

• California Had the Most Expensive Governor’s Race in U.S. History. It’s Still Not Over. (NYT)

• Three studies used by RFK Jr and allies to justify controversial vaccine policy changes facing new scrutiny (Guardian)

• Ex-Trump advisor John Bolton agrees to plead guilty to retaining classified information (MS NOW)

• GOP immigration bill runs into turbulence amid backlash to Trump’s $1.8 billion ‘anti-weaponization’ fund (CNN)

• Supreme Court sides with FCC in clash with wireless carriers over fines (CNBC)

• Trump strips job protections from 8,000 senior federal workers (WP)

• The American Military’s Coming Marathon (Foreign Affairs)

• Pride Groups Plan for a Future Without Some of Their Biggest Corporate Sponsors (WSJ)

• Putin faces rival visions of war and peace at Russia's 'Davos'. (Reuters)

• America’s secretary of war pulls his punches on China (Economist)

• ‘You can’t handle the truth!’ Microsoft staff push back on survey results. (BI)

• Donkeys help improve patient wellbeing at psychiatric hospital (AP)

• A handful of American households pay for AI. Is the future free — or a subscription? (NPR)

• Inside the Trump-backed push to bring AI doctors into American medicine (WP)

• Energy, water use and pollution of AI and data centers rival most countries (AP)

• FCC To Investigate TV Shows Where The Mom Has Job (Onion)

Well out here in California, we might all feel a bit like those guys as we wait for the ballots to be counted from our latest primary election.

Beckett was concerned with existentialism, the meaninglessness of life, and the futility of hope.

These ideas may be familiar to us, but I, for one, reject the futility of hope.

There are many critics of California’s primary system, which allows the top two vote-getters to move forward to compete in the general election in November.

But at least in theory, this process reduces the stranglehold the two-party system has on our politics and promotes something more akin to a parliamentary process where multiple factions of the parties get to face off and compete for votes.

Of course, in reality obscene amounts of money distort the process, and the role of campaign advertising paid for by special interests can overwhelm voters as they try to make their choices, but I still think it is better than party primaries.

At least this way minority interests get an airing.

That said, the outcome in California will almost certainly be the Democrat Becerra v. the Republican Hilton. And that in all likelihood would have been the result of party primaries as well.

So this essay was supposed to be about hope, but I guess most of us out here are just sitting back and waiting for that particular item to arrive, just like Godot.

HEADLINES:

• House votes to rebuke Trump over war with Iran (NBC)

• Iran war live: No progress on negotiations with the US – Araghchi (Al Jazeera)

• Iranian strikes in Kuwait kill 1, injure 63 as shaky ceasefire with U.S. is further tested (NBC)Yes, Russia Is Losing the War in Ukraine (Bulwark)

• Senate Republicans axe $1bn for Trump’s new White House ballroom (BBC)

• In a series of posts on his Truth Social platform early Thursday, President Donald Trump falsely claimed that prices are falling "across the board." But the biggest thing on his mind appeared to be this week’s primary elections in California. [HuffPost]

• Tense governor’s race in California unsettled as vote-counting continues (Guardian)

• Takeaways from the primary elections in California, Iowa and elsewhere (CNN)

• Yes, Russia Is Losing the War in Ukraine (Bulwark)

• The end of Trump’s ‘weaponisation’ fund is another sign Republicans are fighting back (BBC)

• Trump diverts millions from National Park visitor fees to D.C. fountains and fireworks (WP)

• From festering infections to untreated cancer, ICE detainees across the US describe medical neglect (AP)

• nfighting between the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has led the CIA to pull back from key intelligence assessments. (Reuters)

• Trump Endorses Right-Wing Presidential Candidate in Colombia (NYT)

• EU plots long game against US digital supremacy (Politico)

• China’s Economy Is Taking Everyone Down (Atlantic)

• New forecasts lay out 2 rocky paths for global economy (Axios)

• Disney Finds Its Spine (Slate)

• Bari Weiss praises — and blames — Scott Pelley in a CBS News meeting after firing him (BI)

• U.S. Support for LGBTQ+ Issues Remains Down From Peak (Gallup)

• China has approved the world’s first invasive brain-computer chip—here’s what’s next (MIT)

• No, AI Is Not Conscious (Atlantic)

• Scientists Find Way to Supercharge Dangerous Computer ‘Worms’ With A.I. (NYT)

• lack Neighborhood Demolished To Make Room For Nothing In Particular (Onion)

Artificial intelligence? Headquartered here.

Shohei Ohtani? Plays here.

So when it comes to counting their votes for Governor, Californians know a lot is at stake.

As I publish this morning, 58 percent of the vote is in. Republican Steve Hilton is in the lead with 27.8 percent, closely followed by Democrat Xavier Becerra at 25.4 percent.

Democrat Tom Steyer is third with 19.6 percent.

The only other candidate in double figures is Republican Chad Bianco with 11.3 percent.

California provides universal mail-in ballots, which are valid if postmarked by Election Day and received by election officials up to seven days later.

Many, many voters take advantage of mail-in ballots. Take me, for example. I’ve lived at my current address for six years but I’ve never been to my polling place. In fact, I don’t even know where it is.

As for which two candidates will ultimately prevail, it appears that will be Hilton and Becerra. But Steyer remains close enough behind the front-runners that no one can call the race yet.

The preponderance of mail-in ballots will be Democratic, which may well carry Becerra to the top of the pack. Hilton’s strong showing probably means he will be the other candidate to move on to the November ballot.

But the math gets really difficult for Steyer. He should get a bump from the mail-ins, just like Beceera, but it is not likely that that will be enough to overtake the top two.

So that is the report at press time. I believe it will Beceera v. Hilton in November.

And that Ohtani may win this year’s National League’s Cy Young Award.

HEADLINES:

• California primary election results: governor’s race too close to call (Guardian)

• Thune on Pulte pick: ‘We don’t need a weaponized’ director of national intelligence (The Hill)

• Alarm in Washington as Trump taps staunch loyalist to serve as intelligence chief (Guardian)

• Why the Worst Get on Top (Atlantic)

• Rebecca Bennett Wins New Jersey House Primary to Take On Thomas Kean Jr. (NYT)

• Supreme Court allows Alabama to use GOP-friendly map for midterms, cutting seat held by Black Democrat (CNN)

• Trump Signs Executive Order Seeking Oversight of A.I. Models (NYT)

• Pentagon hires convicted Jan. 6 rioter for sensitive counterterrorism job (WP)

• Trump vowed to revoke hundreds of citizenships. It’s proving harder to do (NPR)

• $1.8 Billion Fund Is ‘Not Moving Forward,’ Blanche Says (NYT)

• New Jersey sues Delaney Hall operators for access after allegations of inhumane conditions (CNN)

• Russian attack on Ukraine kills at least 16 and traps others in damaged buildings (NPR)

• As Russia fails to achieve war aims in Ukraine, Putin needs a way out (WP)

• Ukraine Turns the Tide (Foreign Affairs)

• Pentagon press office is now a classified area and off-limits to reporters (Politico)

• World’s Most-Used Weedkiller Found To Disrupt Honeybee Brains (ScienceTechDaily)

• New ways to remove CO2 from atmosphere must grow much faster, report says (Guardian)

• UN warns of extreme heat risk from El Nino. (Reuters)

• There Is Already a Word for the Deep Moral Failures of AI (Atlantic)

• AI stumbles on questions of faith (Axios)

• Young and unemployed? Remote work, not AI, may be the problem, study finds (AP)

• Trump Launches $88 Billion Fund For Anyone Who Has Ever Been Rejected By Woman (Onion)

The question is who will be the other?

Again, if you believe the polls, it will most likely be another Democrat, billionaire Tom Steyer, or a Republican, conservative commentator Steve Hilton.

Steyer and Hilton appear to be running neck-and-neck at this late stage of the race.

At stake is whether the next five months will feature an internecine battle between the two Democrats or a more traditional contest between the two major parties.

If it’s an inner party showdown, that will pit the moderate Becerra against the progressive Steyer.

When it comes to Hilton, there’s no mystery to where he stands, as he was endorsed by Trump.

Meanwhile, Newsom will step aside courtesy of term limits and he’s widely expected to run for President in 2028.

HEADLINES:

• Trump Said to Be Backing Off Plans for $1.8 Billion Fund After Backlash (NYT)

• Iran suspends peace talks and threatens ‘closure’ of Strait of Hormuz (FT)

• Iran warns Israeli attacks in Lebanon threaten ceasefire with US (BBC)

• U.S. and Iran launch fresh strikes (NBC)

• Trump’s Iran War Success Story Gets Blown to Pieces (TNR)

• How California’s New Congressional Map Is Reshaping Tuesday’s Primaries (NYT)

• The bizarre race to succeed California Gov. Gavin Newsom (WP)

• Trump picks housing Dir. Bill Pulte as acting intelligence chief, replacing Tulsi Gabbard (CNBC)

• One by one, U.S. civil rights agency dismantles tools to fight discrimination (NPR)

• Dr. Harry Edwards on NAACP’s Call for Black Athletes to Boycott After SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights (Daily Kos)

• Losing Trust in Justice Dept., Judges Call Out Its Lawyers’ Behavior (NYT)

• The Trump administration is working on a deal to give weapons-grade plutonium to energy companies (CNN)

• Who’s leading the wide-open 2028 Democratic presidential field? (WP)

• Trump is facing a new inflation warning from the bond market, adding to his midterm challenges (AP)

• Ukraine is now Europe’s war. Survival can’t be the only aim (Economist)

• Right-wing candidate pulls ahead in first round of Colombia’s presidential vote (NPR)

• As Ebola spreads, the institute Fauci once led stays on the sidelines without a leader (NBC)

• Congrats, you never have to write another cover letter (BI)

• Is A.I. Replacing Tech Workers or Providing an Excuse for Job Cuts? (NYT)

• Florida AG sues OpenAI, seeks to hold CEO Altman personally liable for alleged harms (CNBC)

• AI fiction is the new fast food (WP)

• This University System Went All In on A.I. Now It’s Tearing Itself Apart. (NYT)

• Tearful Trump Claims He Was Sex-Trafficked By Epstein (Onion)

But that isn’t true.

In our daily lives, we can eat a more climate-friendly diet, including seasonal, local foods; install solar panels, recycle, invest in sustainable technologies, conserve resources and limit our consumption of fossil fuels, among other steps.

As citizens we can support leaders who get it and expel those who don’t from office. Organizing efforts by environmental activists have been responsible for much of the progress we’ve made on the issue; so donating to non-profits who are working on the issue is another option.

But perhaps the most important step we can take is changing the way we talk about it -- not as an apocalyptic inevitability but as a mitigable inevitability. Although it is too late to stop climate change, we may be able to limit its catastrophic effects on future generations.

In this context, converting government fleets to electric vehicles, promoting the collection of rainwater by agencies, and reducing public waste all will help. If governments mobilize for collective action, there may be ways to better prepare our populations for what is to come.

Explaining the impending crisis to young children is appropriate as long as it isn’t done in ways that overwhelm them. After all, they will be dealing with this throughout their lives, so getting used to the tradeoffs early on may spur them to help us find solutions.

Most children instinctively want to make things better; they are our greatest natural resource.

And though the steps I’ve described may seem small in the face of the scope of climate change, they at least represent hope.

Future generations deserve at least *that* much from us...right now.

(This is an update from an essay in 2021. Getting government to take the indicated steps has obviously become much more difficult under Trump.)

HEADLINES:

• U.S. intercepted Iranian missiles targeting American forces in Kuwait, Central Command says (CNBC)

• Israel seizes Crusader-era castle as Netanyahu orders forces deeper into Lebanon (CNN)

• US strike on alleged drug boat kills three in eastern Pacific (Guardian)

• Trump floats MAGA rally instead of concert after musicians drop out of Freedom 250 (NPR)

• I Asked a Mining Billionaire About His Environmental Philanthropy. It Didn’t Go Well. (Mother Jones)

• Race for rare earths sparks concern about environmental damage (FT)

• Asia reckons with China as Trump pulls back (Politico)

• Blue states pitch 100 percent tax on Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization’ payouts (WP)

• Robotaxis Are Spreading Across the U.S.—and So Is the Backlash (WSJ)

• Astronomers finally solve Saturn’s decades-long spin mystery (ScienceDaily)

• Chinese scientists leave posts after whistle-blower raises alarm over their research (SCMP)

• Ukraine turns real-life kills into video game thrills for drone pilots (WP)

• AI Bubble Debate Gets Real as Chip Stocks Rally Turns Historic (Bloomberg)

• AI hit its COVID shutdown moment (BI)

• As the Pentagon pushes for battlefield AI, some military leaders urge caution (AP)

• Pit Bull Makes Throat-Slitting Gesture While Owner Not Looking (Onion)

And they are digital natives.

They’ve grown up in a world dominated by the technology companies. Virtually every one of them carries a mobile device in their pocket or purse that is capable of housing all of the world’s known information over the entire sweep of time, i.e., the millennia.

So it makes sense that one of the otherwise obscure stories that caught my eye this week is how millennials have embraced digital banking over the traditional brick and mortar banks we grew up with.

When it comes to transferring money, cashing or depositing checks, paying bills or making investments, they are rapidly transitioning to green, paperless systems that has rendered the old savings and loan of “It’s a Wonderful Life” lore to the history books.

That chapter will henceforth have to be titled “It *Was* a Wonderful Life.”

I’m still getting used to the fact that the days when I took my teenagers to our local bank branch to open their first checking account are a relic of history they won’t be repeating with their kids. When we made those trips, the “bankers” would shake my kid’s hand and say something like, “You’re a real adult now.”

They wore a certain self-satisfied smile when they said that, like they knew something the kid didn’t. I’m pretty sure it’s called “debt.”

As a kid I learned about banking in an odd way. As something of a purported math whiz, I was studied by the local bank when it was first introducing computers into its arsenal, in the early 60s. It was only a matter of time before ATMs would be replacing tellers and, well, the rest of that is history.

After studying my pattern-recognition skills for a spell, the local banker guy told my father that unfortunately, I was not “banker material, psychologically.”

Alas, perhaps that is why my personal millennials will not be inheriting very much of that $68 trillion generational wealth -- what has been dubbed as the “Greatest Transfer of Wealth of All Time.”

I spent all of my reporting career “following the money” rather than accumulating it.

Sorry, kids.

(I wrote this five years ago.)

HEADLINES:

• Trump-linked Freedom 250th concert series runs into trouble (Axios)

• In California race, Becerra gains support in latest poll with Steyer and Hilton not far behind (LAT)

• Trump’s ‘weaponization’ fund puts Republican senators in a bind (Reuters)

• Trump’s $1.8 Billion Settlement Fund Sparks Alarm Inside White House (WSJ)

• Israeli forces push past Lebanon’s Litani River: How significant is it? (Al Jazeera)

• Iran official says Trump is stalling talks with ‘excessive demands’ as wait for breakthrough continues (NBC)

• The War Trump Can’t End (Atlantic)

• Why Iran fears a deal today means more war tomorrow (FT)

• Fears of travel chaos flare as Mullin weighs pulling customs officers from Newark airport (Politico)

• Why Conservatives Are Trying to Kill the Voting Rights Act (Mother Jones)

• Why America’s rich keep getting richer (CNN)

• There are no Supreme Court vacancies, but some judges are acting like there might be (WP)

• U.S. general meets Cuban military officials at edge of Guantanamo Bay (CNBC)

• Russia’s and Ukraine’s neighbors face drone threat (Reuters)

• Trump’s name must come off of the Kennedy Center, judge rules (NPR)

• Massive Blue Origin rocket explosion gives edge to Elon Musk in space race (WP)

• LLMs believe false statements even after explicit warnings that they’re false (ArsTechnica)

• The antisocial workplace (BI)

• Pope Releases Encyclical On Perils Of Disney’s ‘Star Wars’ Strategy (Onion)

“I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults.” -- Molly Ivins

---

When I was a little kid, no myth had greater power over my imagination than that of Davy Crockett. Like millions of others, I had a coonskin cap and a toy rifle. And like millions of others, I was mesmerized by Walt Disney’s 1955 TV series version of Crocket’s’s heroic last stand at the Alamo.

The only problem is that it wasn’t true.

According to the book, Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth, the historical record departs from the Disney version in significant ways. It documents that the territory’s war for independence from Mexico, including battle between the ragged group of volunteers held up at the old mission in San Antonio and Santa Ana’s Mexican army, was in part over the issue of slavery.

At the Alamo, the pro-slavery group, (Crockett’s side), lost.

And there was nothing heroic about the occasion. Many of the volunteers broke ranks and ran, and were easily cut down in the open as they tried to flee. Crockett himself appears to have surrendered and was executed.

This information is only now gaining currency because the memoirs of Mexican soldiers at the scene and other contemporaneous accounts are finally being taken seriously by historians.

Today, in 2026, Texas is a majority-Latino state.

So it really is time to abolish the old Anglo myths like the Alamo fairy tale, acknowledge the role of slavery in America’s creation, and stop suppressing minority voters, which is happening right now, in real time in Texas with its gerrymandering.

The late, great Texas muckraker Molly Ivins got it right when she said: “There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.”

This is one of those times.

HEADLINES:

• Judge Reopens Trump I.R.S. Suit, Questioning ‘Weaponization’ Fund (NYT)

• Trump lays out Iran deal demands, says he’s about to make ‘final determination’ (CNBC)

• Middle East on Edge as Trump Mulls Decision About Iran Deal (NYT)

• Iran says it has a new air defence system. How significant is it? (Al Jazeera)

• Bombs, Bargains and Bluster: Trump’s Iran Approach Sows Confusion (NYT)

• New poll shows California governor race down to 3 frontrunners (KTLA)

• Pam Bondi tells lawmakers ‘redaction errors’ were made in Epstein files release (NBC)

• ICE Agent Wanted in Minneapolis Shooting Is Captured in Texas (NYT)

• Big Banks Are Raking In Profits as Market Turbulence Shows No Signs of Easing (WSJ)

• Court Orders Trump’s Name Stripped From Kennedy Center (NYT)

• Tomatoes become latest symbol of America’s affordability squeeze (AP)

• Smart tech is making war a dumber choice (Economist)

• Louisiana Approves Map Eliminating a Majority-Black District (NYT)

• Rep. Thomas Kean Still Trading Stocks Amid Months-Long Absence (Forbes)

• ABC stations call FCC’s early call for license renewal ‘unconstitutional’ (AP)

• Trump’s Violent Threats Can’t Hide the Truth: He’s a Humiliated Bully (Nation)

• After a brutal winter, Ukraine’s drones are breaking Russian defenses (WP)

• With a stalemate in Ukraine and discontent at home, Putin seems ready to escalate his war (AP)

• China is building launch pads near its nuclear missile silos (Reuters)

• Blowing Up Boats Hasn’t Slowed Cocaine Traffic to U.S., Experts Say (NYT)

• How seeing Bruce Springsteen in DC gave me hope (Salon)

• Olivia Rodrigo Tried Writing Love Songs. Then Life Got Messy. (NYT)

• The Biggest Tell That Something Was Written by AI (Atlantic)

• Your AI bill is out of control. Google has been waiting for this moment. (BI)

• A.I. Boom Upends San Francisco Housing Market (NYT)

• Meta Glasses Users Report Bug Where They Can See Mark Zuckerberg’s Memories (Onion)