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)

 

Oh Canada

The Trump administration’s trade talks with Canada collapsed Friday, deepening the crisis between the U.S. and our neighbors to the north.

But I don’t have to look north to see Canada; all I have to do is look in the mirror.

I’m Canadian by virtue of my father’s birth there in 1916.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney “walked away,” in the words of the Times, “from what he thought was a bad trade deal with the United States. Many Canadians are behind him, but it will be costly.”

Trump has said that 50 percent tariffs will now go into effect on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods.

• “By walking away, Mr. Carney chose a road that no major U.S. ally has taken: With his country’s economy on the line, he stood up to President Trump and refused to accept the administration’s offer of a new trade relationship with tariffs permanently baked in. Britain, the European Union and other major U.S. trading partners have agreed to smaller deals that have been volatile and often left them worse off.”

• “Since he rose to lead Canada last year, Mr. Carney has put in motion a plan to help his country survive Mr. Trump’s presidency and, in the long run, thrive apart from the United States. One of his favorite lines is that “nostalgia is not a policy,” and he has told everyone who will listen that there is no going back to the old relationship with the United States — a close and familial, if lopsided, bond.”

• “Instead, Mr. Carney has been traveling to secure new partnerships in Asia and Europe, a generational shift away from economic dependence on the United States, although that is unlikely to bear fruit fast enough to cushion the blow of the breakdown of the two countries’ relationship.”

For me personally, this feels like a divorce. It’s a tearing-in-half of the self kind of feeling. If I’m going to have to take sides in this divorce, I’ll stand with Canada.

HEADLINES:

• Iran declares it has won the war as U.S. turns to economic warfare (CBS)

• Trump Warns of ‘Economic D-Day’ Against Iran, but Tehran Is Well Acquainted With Sanctions (Military.com)

• Tehran president says it is time to end war ‘in position of strength’ after Trump threatens ‘Economic D-Day’ (Independent)

• Trump’s ‘economic D-Day’ claims first victim: Not Iran, but US markets (Al Jazeera)

• The Iran War Is Eating the GOP’s Midterm Message Alive (Bulwark)

• Trump increasingly lashing out at allies as victory in Iran war proves elusive (WP)

• US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has warned militant Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank not to steal property owned by Palestinian Americans, describing such behavior as "a violation of God's law". (Reuters)

• U.S.-Canada trade talks collapse, setting new 50% tariffs in motion (NBC)

• Carney Stands Up to Trump in Trade War Despite the Risks (NYT)

• U.S., Canada fail to reach a tariff deal, deepening trade war (CNBC)

• Pentagon fires Stars and Stripes leaders who criticized DOD’s interference (WP)

• Supreme Court allows Trump’s ballroom construction to continue for now (NPR)

• Trump’s Ballroom Isn’t Just a Farce Anymore—It’s a Threat (Nation)

• Ken Paxton and the Curious Case of the Missing $1,000 Pen (NYT)

• Trump faces backlash over reports US navy carrier could be named after him instead of Black war hero (Guardian)

• Interior spares California, Arizona, Nevada from most dramatic short-term Colorado River water cuts (The Hill)

• Islamophobia’s Rise in Texas: ‘I Won’t Rest Until Every Muslim Is Gone’ (NYT)

• It now seems possible to vaccinate against cancer (Economist)

• Moderna, Merck breakthrough could usher in wave of cancer vaccines (CNN)

• US ramps up Cuba sanctions and detentions of Americans returning from the island (AP)

• Gun stash in German forest believed to be linked to Russia, say reports (Guardian)

• A Celebrity Death and a Murder Trial Shine Light on Postpartum Mental Health (WSJ)

• Argentina players, staff banned for combined 21 games after World Cup final brawl (NYT)

• L.A. Mayoral Candidate Nithya Raman Says Legality of Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger “Should Be Decided in Court” (Hollywood Reporter)

• Prince Harry and Others Told to Pay Daily Mail Publisher $13 Million (NYT)

• California set to ban ‘addictive’ social media features to protect teens (WP)

• From balloons to pans: in praise of useful tech (FT)

• TikTok Settles With U.S. Over Child Privacy Concerns for $400 Million (NYT)

• Scientists Revisited a Forest Experiment That Was Forgotten for 30 Years. What They Found Was Astounding (SciTechDaily)

• I Saw the Future of AI in a Robot That Can Learn on the Spot (Wired)

• OpenAI’s training pause is convenient. That doesn’t make it meaningless. (BI)

• The AI ‘death zone’ is here and most corporate AI strategies are standing in it (Fortune)

• How the A.I. Borrowing Binge Helps Drive Up Government Bond Yields (NYT)

• Every Commercial On ESPN Past Midnight Just Straight-Up Telling Viewers They Have Prostate Cancer (Onion)

Bringing Trump 'Joy'

In today’s news, the controversial relationship between the 80-year-old Trump and his 35-year-old aide Natalie Harp is back up top.

The Daily Beast published two letters allegedly written by Harp that indicate the unusual intimacy of their relationship.

I’m not going to characterize it any more than that. Read the report and draw your own conclusion.

HEADLINES:

• Natalie Harp’s Intimate Letters to Trump Revealed in Full (Daily Beast)

• Natalie Harp Worked At White House For Over A Year Without Security Clearance, Report Says (Forbes)

• The White House Freak-Out Over Natalie Harp (Atlantic)

• Trump increasingly lashing out at allies as victory in Iran war proves elusive (WP)

• Weary Aircraft Carrier Heads Home From the Middle East (NYT)

• FBI thwarts an alleged ISIS-inspired plot to bomb New York Capitol building (NBC)

• So About That Iranian Cyberattack on Our Water Supply (Slate)

• Huge Russian strikes on Kyiv leave 17 dead as attacks spill over to Romanian and Moldovan territory (CNN)

• Nato jets blow up suspected Russian sea drone near gas facility (Independent)

• Croatia orders detention of Ukrainian man wanted in Germany for Nord Stream blasts in 2022 (AP)

• FBI seizes former Congressman Eric Swalwell’s devices in sexual misconduct investigation (BBC)

• The End of the European Summer (New Yorker)

• Jennifer Hegseth’s Hands-On Role in Her Husband’s Pentagon (NYT)

• Tearing Down the Wall Between Church and State in Texas (Money Trail)

• More than 2,300 Mexicans sent to Guatemala and Honduras as Trump ramps up third-country deportations (AP)

• Kentucky Gov. Beshear Keeps Pushing for Info on McConnell’s Health. He Says He’s ‘Heard Absolutely Nothing Back’ (Time)

• ICE Arrests Captain in New York Boat Accident That Killed 2 (NYT)

• The housing market is on pace for its worst year since 2011 (BI)

• Paramount’s Purchase of Warner Bros. Could Cost 4,500 TV and Film Production Jobs and Hurt a Damaged Indie Film Biz (IndieWire)

• Harry and Meghan to return to the press ‘lion’s den’ they sought to escape (Reuters)

• The Hidden Debt That Apple Owes to the CIA (WSJ)

• As the Old Files Open, One Family Confronts Another’s Dark Nazi Past (NYT)

• San Francisco Bay Area dethroned as largest tech talent market (LAT)

• Former SpaceX engineers are building a robotic factory for making steel parts (ArsTechnica)

• When AI art has no author: Study finds generated images often can’t be traced to training data (MIT)

• Don’t mistake chatbot intelligence for consciousness (Economist)

• Texas student blew the whistle on a rogue AI hacking attempt. (Reuters)

• Dad’s Driving Directions Hinge On Where Old Shell Station Used To Be (Onion)

Sand Hill Road

The final hurdle to getting one of my jobs was for me to meet with a venture capitalist who backed the company. So I drove along Sand Hill Road until I located his office in one of the low-slung buildings that cluster like wildebeests on the African plain.

It was my first time venturing into the belly of the beast, though not my first time using mixed metaphors.

My interlocuteur was, like me, a middle-aged fellow, casually dressed with an easy smile and a ready sense of humor. As he thumbed through my resume, he brought up the obvious entries — Rolling Stone, Wired Digital, Stanford — and noted that the co-founders considering to hire me to work in their startup were about half my (and his) age.

“I can work well with Gens X and Y,” I replied, noting that is precisely what I did at Wired Digital, Stanford and elsewhere.

“These guys probably could use someone with experience,” he mused, more thinking out-loud than addressing me. We both appreciated the irony that these young men felt they needed the approval of one elder (him) to hire another one (me).

He said, “Do you have any questions for me?”

I did: “What do you think the chances are this one will make it?”

“Well, it’s an election year and that’s a good thing for their content. The problem will be how they adapt to the post-election period, when there will be a downturn in public interest.”

I nodded. As a career journalist, I was accustomed to ups and downs of audience interest around elections and I felt I knew something about how to adjust content strategies accordingly.

Leaving Sand Hill Road and heading back to my flat in the Mission, I knew that I had secured the VC’s blessing and that the job now would be mine.

Indeed it was; thus started one of those fast-moving spurts that characterized my career’s middle years. This time, I was able to forge one-off partnerships with several major media companies, as well as with some digital stars.

We quickly built a large following with our election coverage and all things looked rosy until the election passed. Then — poof! — our audience stopping growing and we had the awful feeling of being on an airplane stalling mid-flight, with nowhere to go but down.

Nothing we tried worked. So the co-founders abruptly laid me off one chilly wintry morning and soon after my departure, their startup crashed and burst into flames.

That particular VC knew what he was talking about.

HEADLINES:

• Donald Trump’s spying on leftwing groups recalls J Edgar Hoover’s Cointelpro (Guardian)

• A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds most Americans, including nearly half of Republicans, think Trump has been improperly cashing in on his presidency. (Reuters)

• U.S. Eyes Lower Tariffs on Metals and Autos in Canada Trade Deal (WSJ)

• North Korea fires 10 missiles day after Trump curtails South Korea joint drills (Guardian)

• Trump threatens ‘Economic D-Day’ for Iran and ‘tremendous’ consequences for its backers (CNBC)

• USS George Washington Move a ‘National Security’ Risk for US: Ex-Admiral (Newsweek)

• Hegseth Covered Up the Real Reason the USS Lincoln Wasn’t Resupplied (TNR)

• Longtime publisher of Stars and Stripes to retire, citing differences with Pentagon leadership (AP)

• U.S. Debt Hits $40 Trillion as America’s Borrowing Binge Continues (NYT)

• Putin makes rare admission that Kyiv’s huge strikes are ‘causing us harm’ (Independent)

• ‘With All My Heart, Natalie.’ Trump’s Most Devoted Aide Emerges. (NYT)

• Unhinged White House response shows senator’s ‘Natalie’ barb struck a nerve (Guardian)

• Who is Natalie Harp, Trump’s right-hand woman? (BBC)

• Meet Natalie Harp, the aide so close to Trump she once rode in an SUV trunk to accompany him (CNN)

• Melania May Be Behind MAGA’s Natalie Harp Freakout (Bulwark)

• Cancer treatment could face landmark moment with promising vaccine (WP)

• COVID is ‘growing’ in nearly every state, CDC reports. Here’s where levels are highest (The Hill)

• Trump 2.0 has deleted or altered nearly 400 US datasets, endangering public health, education and more (Guardian)

• Why homes once banished to trailer parks are filling the suburbs (WP)

• Human-caused climate change was the main driver of recent record-breaking sea temperatures around Europe, scientists said on Wednesday, warning of severe consequences for marine ecosystems and coastal communities. (Reuters)

• Mamdani is going to town on the annoyance economy (BI)

• Harry and Meghan Will Move Back to Britain After 6 Years in U.S. (NYT)

• Lindsay Clancy’s trial puts postpartum psychosis in the spotlight (BBC)

• Scientists tracked kids for 8 years — the screen time result was unexpected (ScienceDaily)

• An AI boss just fired a worker in S.F. (SFC)

• OpenAI hit the brakes. Now what? (Verge)

• What Really Happens If China Wins the AI Race? (Atlantic)

• This may be the first academic profession to see its work taken over by AI (WP)

• Visit To Girlfriend’s Family Provides Illuminating Insight Into Why She’s Asian (Onion)