Only in Whispers

(The following is a new, edited version of an essay from five years ago, just as the restrictions of the Covid pandemic were lifted.)

If we’ve entered a new reality, as per today’s top link from the Times*, I for one welcome it. Yes the coronavirus is horrible, the political/economic/culture wars are dispiriting, and all of it fades into insignificance as we stare global climate change in the face.

I accept all that. But we’ve been long overdue to make fundamental changes in the way we live anyway and maybe now is our chance. It’s time to take that less-traveled path in the woods and see where it leads.

Forests are one of the best places to think and feel. Trees communicate with each other through their roots, which connect far below the surface. They seek each other out, offer comfort and warn of danger.

When you’re in a forest, the trees may talk to you, but only in whispers.

The same is true of other wild places. I’ve hiked beaches all over the world and the more remote the beach the more it has to say. Every beach is connected to some distant shore by the tides that wash back and forth, carrying gifts in the form of driftwood, stones, shells, seaglass and the occasional message in a bottle from one land mass to another.

If all of this sounds silly, consider your dreams. We classify them into good ones and nightmares, but they persist either way and there’s no real escaping from them. Even waking up doesn’t help.

But we also have our rational side, that wonderful ability to apply logic and collect evidence before we make decisions. Most of us try to make sense of what we do, if only so we can explain it to each another.

There are all sorts of economic theories suggesting that the sum of many irrational choices by individuals add up to a collective rationality. I may not be getting that exactly right but isn’t that partly how economists explain the movements of the futures markets?

Quantum physics takes all of this out to the furthest place we’ve been able to venture intellectually, where time, space and consciousness all become moot. Starting with Einstein, physicists have been either getting clearer or cloudier as time passes. Take your pick.

Somewhere beyond the rational is the instinctive, where we know what we can trust when we hear it from the trees or the ocean or our dreams -- or our hearts. They propel us forward to explore.

This may be the path to a future where everything changes. We may be living with wave after wave of pandemics, natural disasters, and other disruptions. Our first instinct may be to huddle down in place, become more conservative, seek what is safe and familiar.

Or we may venture out, try to embrace the unknown and learn from it.

Everyone alive now is engaged in this struggle whether we acknowledge it or not. We have a will to survive but at times we get overwhelmed and want to give up. 

Don’t give up. The best part is yet to come.

* What if the Coronavirus Crisis Is Just a Trial Run? -- The year 2020 gave us a glimpse of something radically new: tensions in politics, finance and geopolitics intersecting with a natural shock on a global scale. (Adam Tooze/NYT)

HEADLINES:

• 37 Killed After Russian Strike on Weapons Depot as Ukraine Blames Negligence (NYT)

• Missing toll from devastating floods in Nepal and China passes 3,000 (CNN)

• Trump Says U.S. To Take Control of Big Portion of Venezuelan Oil (NYT)

• US Treasury imposes limits on Egyptian bank for doing business with Iran (FT)

• Fired Stars and Stripes staffers sue Pentagon, Hegseth (USAToday)

• The Sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln Deserve Better (Atlantic)

• Putin sees U.S. as weakened by Iran war, intelligence reports say (WP)

• Six months on, the Iran war has changed the Middle East, but not in the way its architects had hoped (AP)

• Milo Yiannopoulos, a Right-Wing Provocateur, Is Arrested by ICE (NYT)

• ‘If it’s made in the US, I don’t buy it’: Canadians on boycotting Trump’s America (Guardian)

• The Canadian Menace (NR)

• Trump’s ‘Lake America’ move revives one of his biggest political flops (CNN)

• Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo spreads to 2 new health zones with a total of 60 areas now affected (AP)

• Trump Administration Proposal Would Give Part of Yosemite to a Developer (NYT)

• The Right Is Rediscovering the Fourth Amendment (Newsweek)

• Judge Throws Out Key 9/11 Confession as Tainted by Torture (NYT)

• U.S. economy created fewer new jobs in 2025-2026, it turns out. Just how bad was it? (MarketWatch)

• Fed Chair Warsh Seeks to Calm Concerns About Fed’s Grip on Elevated Inflation (NYT)

• Warsh signals rate hikes may be needed with US inflation stubbornly elevated (AP)

• The under-the-radar solution to America’s expensive ticket crisis (BI)

• In Trump’s Washington, Ballooning National Debt Stirs Little Action (NYT)

• Kacey Musgraves, Crossover Queen (New Yorker)

• Social media giants could face even stiffer penalties under California bill (Politico)

• ICE is arresting soaring numbers of immigrants with no criminal record (WP)

• ICE plans to buy robot ‘dogs’ for some immigration enforcement operations (NBC)

• S.F.’s AI boom is fueling a new wave of eviction fears (SFC)

• OpenAI and Anthropic are ruining San Francisco (SFGate)

• A US judge blocked the Pentagon’s blacklisting of Anthropic, the latest turn in the Claude maker’s high-stakes fight with the military over AI safety on the ‌battlefield. (Reuters)

• As A.I. Money Floods the Market, San Francisco Renters Weigh Buyouts (NYT)

• New AI startup with ‘extreme’ work culture takes over S.F. office abandoned by Cruise (SFC)

• HHS Replaces Childhood Vaccination Schedule With List Of Recommended Animal Bites (Onion)

Lost Loves, AI and the Lake

Several stories in today’s mix call out for attention. There’s a new neurological study from Rice University that suggests that our memories are not fixed but flexible, i.e., retrieving a memory may change it in ways that alter it the next time we access it. 

Maybe that’s why some of us can’t tell the same old story the same way twice in a row?

Then there is the site “A Map of Us,” that contains lost love letters, which reminds me of the charming romcom, “Letters to Juliet.” It was a lost love that first motivated me to become a blogger.

On the more troubling side of the news, Bill Gates is suggesting that we need both national and international regimes to contain AI before it causes some serious harm. Others have warned us, but maybe this one will get some response from those who must act in Congress and elsewhere.

Finally, the sheer pettiness of Trump, trying to rename Lake Ontario to the absurd “Lake America” will not outlive his time in office.

As a proud Canadian, it will always be Lake Ontario to me.

HEADLINES:

• Hundreds killed in Nepal flood as fears grow of secondary disaster (CNN)

• U.S. and Canada Are Bracing for Prolonged Trade Dispute (WSJ)

• Trump signs order to rename Lake Ontario ‘Lake America’ amid Canada trade war (CNBC)

• Why the US‑Canada trade war could change how American farmers grow their crops for years (The Conversation)

• C.I.A. Chief Delivered Bleak Assessment of Russia’s War in Secretive Moscow Visit (NYT)

• U.S. weapons shortage from Iran war alarms allies confronting China (WP)

• Ukraine’s Most Potent Weapon: The Software Orchestrating Its Drone Army (NYT)

• ICE agent charged in Minneapolis shooting released from Texas jail (AP)

• Trump’s Coming Midterm Crashout (Bulwark)

• Trump has already found someone to blame if Republicans lose the midterms (CNN)

• RFK Jr. Suggests Pennsylvania Measles Deaths May Have Been ‘Fabricated’ By Shapiro Staffers (HP)

• The Supreme Court Isn’t Interested in Facts (Atlantic)

• DeSantis Administration Misspent $10 Million, Grand Jury Says (NYT)

• NYC’s millionaires vs. the pied-à-terre tax (BI)

• F.D.A. Approves New Covid Vaccines, and They Should Be Available Soon (NYT)

• Tropical Storm Dolly forms in the Atlantic, hurricane center says (Orlando Sentinel)

• Norway’s King Dies at 89 (AP)

• White House Construction May Have Contributed to Close Call With Trump’s Helicopter (NYT)

• The internet is overflowing with unsent love letters. (WP)

• Dolly Parton, Honky-Tonk Angel (New Yorker)

• How we remember may change our memories, study finds (Rice)

• A media M&A chill: The Paramount-WBD antitrust challenge may hold up more deals than one (CNBC)

• Will Meta’s Changes Benefit Young Users’ Mental Health? (NYT)

• ‘Blood in the water’: Why Meta’s $18 billion settlement won’t end company’s legal woes (NBC)

• Bill Gates was an AI optimist. Now he’s scared of what could go wrong. (WP)

• Salesforce just put its entire CRM inside Claude — and says you’ll never need its app again (VentureBeat)

• China’s humanoid robots aren’t smart enough to take your job – yet (Reuters)

• How OpenAI let a mob of LLM agents game a test and ransack Hugging Face (ArsTechnica)

• ChatGPT may be changing how you’re writing (SFGate)

• They confided in ChatGPT. Their secrets ended up in court. (WP)

• AI is changing religion and religions are trying to change AI (Economist)

• Rest Of Fantasy League Losing Patience With Player Who Has Other Things Going On In His Life (Onion)

Old Guys

In the series called “Shrinking,” which is streaming on Apple, Harrison Ford plays a character I can identify with. He’s a grouchy old man in his 70s battling Parkinson’s.

The maddening thing with this disease is it can take different forms with a disquieting number of potential symptoms, both on the motor skill and cognitive levels.

Ford’s character experiences tremors, depth perception impairment, memory lapses, plus moments when he “freezes” and is unable (temporarily) to move.

There also can be balance issues, tiredness, vivid dreaming and a range of other symptoms as the disease progresses.

There are plenty of other characters in”Shrinking,” some better than others. It’s part drama, part comedy and partly a commentary on therapy.

But for those of us battling P.D., the show quite accurately captures what we’re dealing with, day in, day out. It is like our body is at war with itself. 

But the good part of “Shrinking” is it profiles resilience.

Resilience — we’re going to need a lot of that to get through the Trump era. In his own twisted way, he has inflicted the equivalent of a political Parkinson’s Disease on the entire nation.

HEADLINES:

• At Home and Abroad, Deference to Trump Turns Increasingly to Defiance (NYT)

• Iran has held new talks with neighboring Oman on management of the Strait of Hormuz, blockaded over nearly six ‌months of conflict, with Oman’s foreign minister saying he was hopeful a temporary corridor through the waterway could be announced soon. (Reuters)

• One US dollar now costs 2 million rials in Iran, and here’s what it can buy (Al Jazeera)

• Wiped out: US faces surging toilet paper prices amid trade war with Canada (Guardian)

• Hundreds killed, more than 1,000 missing in Nepal and China after Himalayan flood (Reuters)

• Flash flood on Nepal-Tibet border, hundreds of tourists missing (BBC)

• What triggered the catastrophic flood on the Nepal-Tibet border? (Reuters)

• CIA chief John Ratcliffe reportedly made secretive Moscow trip to warn Russia against attacking NATO (CNBC)

• Hegseth’s Purge of Top Generals Leaves the Army Rudderless (NYT)

• The Real Reason There’s a Munitions Shortage (Nation)

• Pentagon attack on Stars and Stripes is part of Trump’s war on media (The Hill)

• Active-duty Air Force officer who called for Trump impeachment faces three charges (Military Times)

• The scope of Hegseth’s damage to the U.S. Army comes into sharper focus (MS Now)

• Before Hegseth fired him, top general was advised to drop Kid Rock probe (WP)

• Judge Sides With Texas Over Minnesota on Extradition of ICE Agent (NYT)

• Immigrant dad of USS Lincoln sailor is released from ICE detention (NBC)

• USS Abraham Lincoln heads to Thailand for a brief stop after a lengthy deployment at sea (AP)

• 3 Secret Service Officials Are Said to Be on Leave Amid Inquiry (NYT)

• Lawyers gear up as Trump administration threatens election officials with arrest (WP)

• Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Clear-Eyed Solo Dissent Explains the Supreme Court’s Voting Assault (Slate)

• Immigration officers are being diverted to Trump’s voter-fraud effort (WP)

• I Worked for Trump. The Natalie Harp Saga Isn’t Surprising. (Bulwark)

• Russia’s baiting and switching Latin Americans to fight its war (The Hill)

• One Woman Conceived a Baby. One Carried Him. Who’s the Mother? (NYT)

• Rob Bonta Says No Paramount-WBD Settlement Talks Scheduled After He Canceled Monday Session (Deadline)

• F.D.A. Approves Drug Poised to Transform Care for Pancreatic Cancer (NYT)

• Invasive green crabs are bad for the environment, so New Englanders are starting to eat more of them (AP)

• Is R.F.K., Jr., Winning or Losing? (New Yorker)

• ‘Life of M’ constructs a portrait of how stardom hides a person’s core (NPR)

• Tim Curry, ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ Star, Dies at 80 (Variety)

• Dolly Parton Had the Voice, and Concerns, of an Earth Angel (NYT)

• Reporter Lisa Richwine talks Dolly Parton’s life and legacy on the Reuters World News podcast — listen now. (Reuters)

• Meta to Pay Up to $17.1 Billion in Landmark Settlement Over Social Media Addiction Claims (NYT)

• Microsoft employees reveal how much cash they’re burning on AI (BI)

• Everyone is making a U-turn on data centers as public support craters (Politico)

• MIT Says AI Is Forcing A Rethink Of College Itself (Forbes)

• AI can now credibly complete most undergraduate assignments, MIT warns (WP)

• Robots need help learning human skills. These AI companies are rushing to meet the demand (CNBC)

• Bill Gates was an AI optimist. Now he’s scared of what could go wrong. (WP)

• A.I. Is Becoming So Powerful, It’s Stumping Those Trying to Contain It (NYT)

• New Meta Glasses Feature Reminds Users To Blink To Appear Human (Onion)

We Will Always Love Her

“What a life.”

— Barack Obama, in an X post on Tuesday

There has never been a death of a public figure that saddened me more than that of Dolly Parton. She was a great writer and story teller who kept it simple and told it straight. She wrote an astonishing 3,000 songs, each one uniquely hers.

She was also a major philanthropist. She created the Imagination Library, which has given away 332 million books to children around the world. She helped fund the earliest Covid vaccine research. She always helped those in need after disasters. Her generosity of spirit is every bit as impressive as her music.

The New York Times issued a special report titled simply “Remembering Dolly.” President Trump ordered the nation’s flags to be lowered to half-mast for a week. The Empire State Building was lit up pink in her honor at 9:25 p.m. — that’s 9 to 5.

“She was the rare person both sides of the political aisle loved. In a poll this year, 70 percent of Americans expressed a favorable view of Dolly — higher than anyone else on the list,” reports the Times.

Our world needs more people like Dolly Parton. She was a uniter, not a divider. Her legacy: We all need to try harder to be like her. 

May she rest in peace.

OBITUARIES AND REMEMBRANCES:

• Dolly Parton, Superstar Whose Songs Spoke to Millions, Dies at 80 (NYT)

• Dolly Parton: A Life Defying Expectations (WSJ)

• Larger than life (NYT)

• Dolly Parton, legendary country music superstar and philanthropist, dead at 80 (BI)

• Dolly Parton, country music icon, dies at 80 (NBC)

• Dolly Parton, country music singer and cultural icon, dies at 80 (WP)

• Dolly Parton, in her own words: The country icon's interviews with the AP over the decades (AP)

• Country music’s patron saint Dolly Parton has died at the age of 80 following a "brief battle with cancer" at a hospital in Nashville, her representatives said on Tuesday. Tributes to the country music legend poured in, including eulogies from fellow music superstars Reba McEntire, Jack White, Carole King and Taylor Swift. Parton was known for her country chart-toppers, outsized blonde hair and an equally outsized, bubbly personality. But another key part of her legacy was her devotion to philanthropy. [HuffPost]

• Remembering Dolly Parton (AP)

• Dolly Parton’s quiet decades-long life in California (SFGate)

HEADLINES:

• Canada slaps retaliatory tariffs on US goods worth $20 billion as trade war intensifies (Reuters)

• Wiped out: US faces surging toilet paper prices amid trade war with Canada (Guardian)

• Trump says U.S. could rename Lake Ontario as Lake America amid Canada trade war (WP)

• How Will the New Canadian Tariffs Affect the U.S. Economy? (WSJ)

• Can Democrats Win Back the Senate? Why Their Chances Are Improving. (NYT)

• Do I really buy that Texas could turn blue? (Silver Bulletin)

• Court Allows Trump to Pursue Mail Voting Limits, for Now (NYT)

• Hundreds missing and many feared dead after massive flash flood hits Nepal-China border (CNN)

• ICE arrests jumped to nearly 50,000 in July, the highest monthly total of Trump’s second term (AP)

• Darline Graham, With Push From Trump, Wins Senate Primary in South Carolina (NYT)

• Churches, libraries and breweries: Inside DHS’ covert surveillance operation (NPR)

• US set for largest mass visa revocation in history (AP)

• Squeezed by tariffs and Iran war, farmers say they face a new crisis (WP)

• Iran vows to retaliate after the US widens sanctions (Reuters)

• Paramount CEO David Ellison is at the final hurdle before buying WBD. So far, he can’t clear it (CNBC)

• Two unvaccinated people die of measles in Pennsylvania (BBC)

• Study’s Alarming Finding: At Least 1 in 4 N.F.L. Players Gets Brain Disease (NYT)

• Superpowers are discovering their limits, says UN chief (FT)

• China sends archaeologists to South America to trace ancestral links for the first time (SCMP)

• Trump Administration Has a Different Way to Drain Harvard Funding (NYT)

• Leaked Microsoft pay data shows how much some employees are making in AI, cloud, and other teams (BI)

• A Drone Killed Three Ukrainians. It Was Guided Entirely by A.I. (NYT)

• Report: More Americans Abandoning Lengthy Conversations In Favor Of One Really Big Word (Onion)

Beyond Trump

Some fine day, Trump will be gone. Tragically, the damage his reign has ushered in will remain. Not only has he shattered the web of institutions underlying liberal democracy, he has bared the ugliness of the class divide that haunts America.

It’s easy for Democrats or progressives or anyone for that matter to blame Trump. He’s the most polarizing figure in our history and his actions are universally disruptive as he dismantles the fragile infrastructure of a welfare state, and engages in corruption at a scale never before seen.

He is a monster.

But the monsters in our nightmares serve a purpose if we analyze them closely enough. They can reveal our darker fears.

What are those fears? That everything good we thought we part of in our lifetimes is being erased from history.

Human rights, civil rights, women’s rights, LBGTQ rights, diversity, tolerance, environmental reform, anti-monopoly reforms, humane immigration policies and progressive initiatives of all kinds are going up in smoke right before our eyes.

Trump has been able to do this by exploiting the fears and resentments of that portion of the working class that is the less educated, less urbanized, less sophisticated than the rest of the population.

And there are just enough people like that — plus those who can be manipulated to vote with them — to barely edge out those who are more educated, more urbanized and more likely to appreciate organic food, the arts and immersing themselves in a more diverse society than the one they grew up with.

That is a class divide. And we know what Marx said about class divisions.

It is fashionable to divide liberal-thinking people into moderates and radicals, but they share more in common with each other than they do with working class people, and that is an enduring problem, one that will outlive Trump.

Those who provide the labor for those who enjoy the benefits of that labor have largely backed Trump, but the first joke will be on them, because Trump is a traitor to the working class.

And now, with the coming of AI and humanoid robots, those who provide labor may lose their jobs to machines smarter and more manageable than they are. At least that’s one way it may work out.

But Trump is also a traitor to the educated class by ripping off the liberal cover from its institutions meant to implement gradual change, plus his international adventurism that is reducing U.S. influence, for better or for worse, all over the world. (That requires a separate essay.)

Long after he has faded from the scene in America, this dangerous class divide will remain. And the wealth disparity is rapidly getting worse, resulting in a super-rich uber class of billionaires lording over us all. 

Assuming the Democrats regain a measure of political power, they are likely to squander it by focusing on new investigations into Trump’s corruption while shying away from addressing the underlying class divisions that created the opening for an opportunist like him in the first place.

It is not just votes that have to be won; it’s hearts and minds. And that, my friends, is a far longer, messier prospect than what happens in the next election cycle.

HEADLINES:

• Trump Threatens Even Higher Tariffs on Canadian Exports After Talks Unravel (NYT)

• Canada Sees Long Trade War With US That May Last Beyond Midterms (Bloomberg)

• Canada has one important edge in the North American trade war (Politico)

• ‘Half my business will be gone’ - firms in Canada and US fear trade war (BBC)

• Iran War Updates: U.S. unveils new sanctions after Trump threatened “economic D-Day” (CBS)

• China hits out at ‘illegal’ new US sanctions on Iran and trading partners (BBC)

• The US threatened Iran with what it called “the greatest financial offensive ever marshalled” as it prepared to roll out economic sanctions that target Iran’s trade partners. (Reuters)

• While Ukraine is under fire, corruption and political chaos abound (Economist)

• Elite Ukrainian drone unit brings the war to Moscow’s doorstep (AP)

• Supreme Court Allows Trump Plan to Restrict Mail-In Voting, for Now (NYT)

• Dems turning more GOP Senate strongholds into midterm battlegrounds (Axios)

• South Carolina Senate race between Darline Graham and Ralph Norman heads to runoff today (CBS)

• Why some Texas conservatives are breaking ranks and pledging to vote Democratic (WP)

• House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Jared Kushner reportedly met in private recently to discuss areas of common ground as the midterm elections approach. [HuffPost]

• Reality TV Cabinet Secretary Has No Grasp of Reality (Bulwark)

• Washington Post ordered to reinstate opinion writer fired over Charlie Kirk posts (Guardian)

• Legal scholar on SCOTUS decision to allow ballroom project to continue for now (NPR)

• The Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Is Existential for Writers (Hollywood Reporter)

• California Expected to Seek TV Channel Sales From Paramount-Warner (WSJ)

• Top US firms that backed Voting Rights Act donate to groups working to undermine it (Guardian)

• Trump’s Corruption is Much Worse than the $40 Trillion Federal Debt (Money Trail)

• Firefighters Grapple With Nevada Blaze That Drove Thousands From Homes (NYT)

• Earth is simmering in its hottest water temps on record, and that's bad for fish and us (AP)

• MAGA Flips Out Over Kacey Musgraves’ Birthday Wish (HuffPost)

• 25 years after 9/11, Bin Laden has achieved one of his major goals (The Hill)

• Singapore offers parents $55,000 in effort to boost birth rates (FT)

• The Enormous Stakes of the Federal Case Against Meta (New York)

• The Data Center Backlash Bursts Into the Midterms (NYT)

• ‘Don’t ask me to print your ChatGPT birthday card’: Hitting back at AI ‘slop’ (BBC)

• Humanoid robot soldiers likely only 5-10 years away, one developer behind China’s robotics boom says (CBS)

• AI is coming for your glasses (FT)

• Calif. colleges bought everyone ChatGPT. No one knows what to do with it. (SFGate)

• Biology Teacher Disappointed Nobody Did Assigned Summer Dissecting (Onion)

Carry On

Anyone who’s ever tried to integrate an exercise routine into their daily life will tell you that while it may be hard at first, it gets easier over time.

You just have to stick with it.

The same goes for writing, or any other creative endeavor. While at first you may find yourself staring at an empty screen, or staring off into space, writing a few paragraphs every day can become one of those habits that gets easier over time.

Of course, that still doesn’t mean it is easy. Significant achievements rarely are easy.

My own commitment to myself and my readers is to try to write something every day. On days that, for whatever reason, I cannot, I still sort the news from major news outlets and post links to the headlines of those stories and call it a “mix,”

Some days I repost an old essay. Some 6,000 of those exist, as I’ve been doing this now for 20 years, but only the best are worth revisiting more than once or twice.

On the days I repost an old essay, I’m wearing my editor’s hat, rather than that of the writer. 

Overall, this daily routine of sorting the news, trying to write an essay, and editing what I will publish the following day has become one of my main habits.

Just like daily exercise, though I could get a lot better at that one…

Recommended reading: Stephen Marche’s guest essay in the Times from Toronto: “Friday, Aug. 21, may go down in history as Canada’s Liberation Day. It was the day America came for us, and we said no.”

HEADLINES:

• US and Canada plunge deeper into a trade war (AP)

• America Came for Canada. We Said No. (NYT)

• ‘No more!!!’: Trump lashes out after US-Canada talks devolve into trade war (Guardian)

• Trump accused of risking more pain for Americans with Canada trade war (FT)

• U.S.-Canada breakdown shows limits of Trump’s aggressive trade strategy (WP)

• Iran Warns Gulf States Against Joining Trump’s Economic War, or Else (NYT)

• Top Iran official says U.S. focus on economic warfare shows it has failed militarily (NPR)

• The USS Lincoln has been at sea for 270-plus days. Here’s why conditions on board fell apart (Independent)

• Zelenskyy says wartime elections could ‘destroy’ Ukraine (Al Jazeera)

• Dems turning more GOP Senate strongholds into midterm battlegrounds (Axios)

• Why Polling Chaos Could Create Big Problems for American Politics (NYT)

• Natalie Harp reportedly posted 150 pro-Trump tweets on day of Capitol riot (Guardian)

• Another Democratic rising star jibes at Trump over close aide Natalie Harp as her deleted Jan 6 posts revealed (Independent)

• Doctors say Trump’s weight poses a significant health risk (WP)

• NATO’s next nightmare: The French presidential election (Politico)

• Why some of America’s biggest brands are losing ground in China (CNBC)

• The creator of the 4% rule for retirement savings wants you to spend more (BI)

• Why College Enrollments Are Expected to Plunge (WSJ)

• Human-caused wildfire approaches Reno, Nevada, forcing thousands of evacuations (AP)

• California has forgotten how to fix things. Can these new Bay Area cafés help? (SFC)

• The modern parenting ‘throuple’ (BI)

• Texas Governor Abbott Says Data Centers ‘Dug Their Own Grave’ (Newsweek)

• Robot boxing, football and sprinting at World Humanoid Games (BBC)

• AI trained on simulated sites finds unknown features in lidar data (Archaeology News)

• David Attenborough Admits To Exaggerating Wonder Of Seals (Onion)

Sunday Mix

HEADLINES:

• ‘Attacked’ by Trump on Trade, Canada Is ‘at War’ With U.S., Carney Says — Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a powerful speech to Canadians on Saturday morning, hours after ordering negotiators to suspend U.S. trade talks despite President Trump’s punishing tariffs. (NYT)

• Trump accuses Canada of wanting ‘benefits of being a State, without being one’ amid trade war (The Hill)

• Ahead of tough new U.S. sanctions, Iran criticizes ‘extraterritorial sovereignty’ (CNBC)

• Iranian military leader vows Tehran ‘will not submit’ as US prepares further economic squeeze (CNN)

• Tehran says US sanctions ‘declaration of war’ on all nations (Al Jazeera)

• Persuasion, denial and bluster: Trump ‘stuck’ on Iran war ahead of elections (Guardian)

• USS Abraham Lincoln Leaves the Middle East After Almost 7 Months (USNI)

• Families of USS Abraham Lincoln crew upset over Trump, Hegseth remarks (USA Today)

• There Is Something Very Wrong With the U.S. Navy Right Now (Slate)

• Army Secretary Driscoll to Step Down This Year Amid Hegseth Friction: Report (Military.com)

• Men from Cuba and other countries describe being deported by the U.S. to a dangerous African nation: “We cannot leave” (CBS)

• Russian forces have begun equipping loitering drones with microphones for attacks on vehicles (UA.news)

• US Postal Service rule tightens mail-in voting despite court orders blocking changes (Guardian)

• ‘People are p***** off’: Black voters are turning out after Supreme Court guts Voting Rights Act (Independent)

• America’s college enrollment map is being redrawn (Axios)

• She’s a Trump acolyte. He’s a ‘gringo Sandinista.’ Meet the Harps. (WP)

• Deleted tweets show Natalie Harp’s zealous support of Trump on January 6 (CNN)

• What Natalie Harp Carries (New Yorker)

• Amid an August of mounting danger, a frivolous, oblivious president (WP)

• Sen. Adam Schiff on Israel, Impeachment, and Post-Trump America (Reveal)

• Trump falls short on foreign policy (Reuters)

• ​Hawaii’s Young People Are Fleeing Paradise. Can Tech Startups Keep Them? (WSJ)

• U.S. Forest Service, timber companies spraying record amounts of glyphosate in California (PBS)

• Why millions of people around the world will contract measles in 2026 (The Conversation)

• Some Americans are turning to Europe for help having a baby (WP)

• How an 18-month career break changed my life (BI)

• No more doom scrolling or Instagram Stories? A Meta trial loss could end the social media we know (CNBC)

• A.I. Is Everywhere in China. See For Yourself. (NYT)

• Chinese robot runs 100m sprint quicker than Usain Bolt’s world record (Guardian)

• Anthropic IPO filing will show AI backlash as a risk factor, sources say (CNBC)

• Would even an AI disaster on the scale of Hiroshima be enough to make humankind protect itself? I fear not (Guardian)

• White House Doctor Claims President Has Always Been Face Drawn Onto Cantaloupe (Onion)