Odds Are: A Blue Wave

Prediction markets are a tricky business when it comes to politics, for all sorts of reasons, but they can have value as the election gets closer.

Accordingly, I checked this morning with Kalshi, and here’s what I found:

• Which party will win the U.S. House? The Democratic Party 90 percent to 10 percent.

• Which party will win the U.S. Senate? The Democratic Party 62 percent - 38 percent. 

• Texas Senate race? Talarico (D) 64 percent - Paxton (R) 36 percent.

• Michigan Senate race? El-Sayed (D) 68 percent - Rogers (R) 32 percent.

The consensus among those betting at the site is that a “blue wave” will result in at least 230-237 seats for Democrats in the House, where 218 is needed for a majority.

And in the Senate, Democrats stand to hold 52-53 seats, where 51 represents a majority.

Now I’m not a betting man, but I thought it might be nice to start off today with some who are.

HEADLINES:

• MI5 chief warns of threats to UK from Russia, Iran and AI (BBC)

• Cyberattack Hits Hundreds of Supermarket Refrigeration Systems in France (NYT)

• Trump attacks Rep. Ilhan Omar and Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed at Ohio rally (NBC)

• Trump subjected the crowd at his Ohio rally to an absurd and bigoted rant about Somalis, singling out Somali-American Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), whose home was raided by federal agents earlier in the day. The president also stood by as a crowd member violently slapped a protester and then went on to spew vile insults at the person himself. [HuffPost]

• The Ilhan Omar home search fits a very political pattern for Trump and his DOJ (CNN)

• Kimberly Guilfoyle Resigns as Ambassador to Greece (NYT)

• Internet can’t stop laughing at White House press secretary’s short and awkward briefing: ‘Is this a hostage video’ (Independent)

• Air Force Major Who Called for Trump’s Impeachment is in Solitary Confinement 24 Hours a Day: Attorney (Military.com)

• Supreme Court to Review Dispute Over Access to DOGE Records (NYT)

• Why the Intelligence Gap Really Matters (Atlantic)

• Inside Elon Musk’s $276 Million Midterm Rescue Mission for Republicans (NYT)

• Cooper holds 14-point lead in North Carolina Senate race poll (The Hill)

• Will Republican gerrymanders become dummymanders? (Silver Bulletin)

• Cornell Bans Fraternity Parties and Adds Sexual Assault Investigators (NYT)

• Iran reportedly fortifies nuclear sites as it prepares for possible U.S. strikes after midterms (CNBC)

• As Houthis strike Riyadh, Saudi Arabia confronts the costs of U.S. war on Iran (WP)

• Saudi Arabia's warning system stayed silent before deadly airport attacks (Reuters)

• Pope Leo Found to Have Lung Cancer During Surgery, Vatican Says (NYT)

• Could the US cut Ukraine off from vital military intelligence again? (Euronews)

• Man dies after falling off Goliath roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia (CNN)

LATEST AI NEWS:

• What Congress can do to prevent an AI catastrophe (Economist)

• The AI data grab is coming for your emails (BI)

• How California Is Using A.I. and Cameras to Stop Wildfires (NYT)

• WarTalk: AutoWarCom and Project Meridian (China Talk)

• AI models may soon self-replicate across smart-home devices, Anthropic warns (Reuters)

• Jon Stewart Is Right About AI And Wrong (YouTube)

• FBI arrests OpenAI employee accused of placing recording device in company conference room (AP)

Nancy's Lake

 

You can’t poke around anywhere here without bumping into some other odd collection or another. These are aged pieces of birch bark from trees around the shores of a lake in the northwestern part of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. 

When she was 9, my oldest daughter had a habit of drawing or painting on things she gathered in nature (like stones, driftwood, pine cones, etc.) At this lake in Michigan, she established what became over the next decade a family tradition. She drew on a piece of the ubiquitous curls of birch bark that line the shore of the lake. She dated her drawing as a memento of our visit.

Birch trees shed their outer layers all the time. Their outer bark is white; the inner bark is pinkish-brown. Native Americans carved light-weight, strong canoes out of these trees. The consistency of the bark is soft, almost like flannel.

It is easy to write on, reminiscent of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

On one of our visits to the Nancy’s Lake, which the kids had christened after my big sister, who had a summer cottage there, the family gathered to celebrate my mother’s 80th birthday. The following year we again gathered there, in honor of my father’s 80th. 

For these large family gatherings, virtually every child and grandchild and spouse of my parents’ four kids were there. We shot family videos of the events; the one from my father’s birthday party is a classic.

That was to be our last visit to Nancy’s Lake, however. She and her husband sold the cottage and moved further downstate.

My father lived to the age of 82.

My mother lived to the age of 87.

Today, my 12-year-old and I discovered these parchments, in a plastic bag at the bottom of one of the dozens of boxes I have stacked around this place. As I find things like this, I photograph them and post them on the web. I’m creating a digital family history -- a quirky one, mind you, but what other way could it possibly be if I am the curator?

HEADLINES:

• White House has asked Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign, new Trump press secretary says (CNBC)

• US immigration authorities raid home of Democratic Trump critic Ilhan Omar (Reuters)

• Energy prices rise after Trump’s ‘energy ceasefire’ fails to move Russia or Ukraine (NBC)

• Trump defends Russia diesel deal after bipartisan pushback: ‘I made the right choice’ (CNBC)

• Iran War Updates: Deadly Houthi attacks keep Saudi airport closed as Trump considers U.S. strikes in Yemen (CBS)

• Saudi Arabia Has Few Options as Houthis Aim at Heart of Its Ambitions (NYT)

• One dead and several hurt after rollercoaster incident at Six Flags (BBC)

• Some Revised Scenes From The Social Network (Atlantic)

• US measles cases surpass 4,000, with more than 25 percent coming from Pennsylvania (The Hill)

• US Citizen of 15 Years Faces Denaturalization Over Discarded Green Card (Newsweek)

• Justice probe into TV networks rests on thin legal grounds, legal experts say (WP)

• Judge orders the Trump administration to cancel taxpayer-funded promotional TV ads (AP)

• We’re Learning to Live with Waymos. It’s Going Weird (New Yorker)

LATEST AI NEWS:

• Can You Trust ChatGPT With Your Best Ideas? NYU Professor Says Think Twice (Yahoo)

• The Attractive Economics Behind Anthropic Data Center Sprint (The Information)

• Your AI agents can execute every tool call correctly and still break every enterprise rule (VentureBeat)

• Amazon has over 1 million robot workers. What’s next for human employees? (ArsTechnica)

• North Dakota Apologizes For Contributing Nothing To Nation’s Greatness (Onion)

The Day My Grandfather Arrived

24 January, 1923

Built by Germania Werft, Kiel, Germany, 1908. 8,072 gross tons; 449 (bp) feet long; 54 feet wide. Steam quadruple expansion engines, twin screw. Service speed 13.5 knots. 1,260 passengers (100 first class, 1,160 third class).

Built for Anchor Line, British flag, in 1921 and renamed Assyria. Glasgow-New York service. Built as YPIRANGA for Hamburg-American Line. Sold to Companhia Colonial, Portuguese flag; renamed COLONIAL in 1929.


As listed at the Ellis Island site.

Ship’s Manifest



First Name: Alexander Mc Kechnie
Last Name: Anderson
Ethnicity: Britain, Scotch
Last Place of Residence: Eaglesham, Scotland
Date of Arrival: Jan 24, 1923
Age at Arrival: 37y 
Gender: M 
Marital Status: M 
Ship of Travel: Assyria
Port of Departure: Glasgow
Manifest Line Number: 0004

Note: Anyone whose relatives immigrated to America should check out this site, which has 25 million records.

HEADLINES:

• Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home raided by DHS in fraud probe of immigration paperwork: Report (CNBC)

• Trump claims Russia and Ukraine agree to energy ceasefire (Axios)

• Kremlin rejects 60-day truce offer and refuses to comment on Trump’s ‘energy ceasefire’ (Guardian)

• Ukraine doesn’t deserve ‘respite’, Russia’s Lavrov says, as Zelensky says he’d support Trump’s energy ceasefire (BBC)

• US threatens to block arms for Ukraine over attacks on Russian refineries (FT)

• Tillis says Trump’s Russian diesel deal may be illegal (Politico)

• Six senators call for Trump administration to ‘immediately reverse course’ on Russian diesel plan (AP)

• Why are Houthi missiles breaking through Saudi Arabia’s air defences? (Al Jazeera)

• Riyadh airport hit again as Houthis claim attacks, including strike that killed 12 – as it happened (Guardian)

• Hormuz attacks intensify as efforts to end war on Iran stall (Al Jazeera)

• America’s Elected Officials Are Living in Fear (NYT)

• Republicans face midterm backlash from factory workers squeezed out of jobs by Trump's tariffs (AP)

• These are the voters who will decide the midterm elections (WP)

• The Deleted Tweets of the New White House Press Secretary (Bulwark)

• ‘Musk’ Documentary Suggests DOGE’s Real Purpose Was Something Else Entirely (HuffPost)

• The terrifying prospect of President Pete Hegseth (Independent)

• How Trump aide Natalie Harp’s family broke apart — and polarized (WP)

• Can Wearables Really Track Blood Pressure Without the Cuff? I Tested Them. (WSJ)

• ‘It felt like the Hunger Games had started’: Employees are ‘loud working’ in an effort to secure their jobs (BI)

• A Week Later, Russia Hasn’t Said What Pathogen Killed Plague Researcher (NYT)

LATEST AI NEWS:

• Learning to use local AI is exciting, overwhelming, and frustrating (Verge)

• I watched 6-foot robots fight with blades. This is San Francisco now (SF Standard)

• She Designed Meta’s New AI Logo. Then Came the Hate (Wired)

• Joseph Gordon-Levitt Sounds the Alarm on AI Models ‘Being Trained to Hijack Your Intimacy’ (Wrap)

• Ex-Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon says he’s 90% certain China has spies inside America’s AI giants (Yahoo)

• Grandma Fondly Recalls Once Working With Homosexual (Onion)

 

Get Ready

“If the coming election does result in a blue wave, Trump will be faced with the fact of his diminishment. The rest of us will be faced with the wreckage.” — David Remnick, New Yorker

“Get Ready” — Smokey Robinson

***

With a little over three weeks to go until Election Day, I can’t shake the feeling that this is going to be like a massive natural disaster, an earthquake, hurricane, tornado and tsunami combined.

Trump appears to be increasingly unhinged as he realizes that is about to get thumped by voters from sea to shining sea. Democrats stand to take the House by a wide margin; while the outcome in the Senate is less certain, the signs point to a possible Democratic victory there as well.

In addition, Democrats look to make gains in state and local races nationwide.

All of that is good news for the health of our democracy, but no matter how the elections turn out, we’re still stuck with Trump for two more exhausting years.

What many fear is that Trump will seek to overturn the results of the elections just as he did on Jan. 6, 2021, one of the darkest days in American history.

So back to my point about an impending disaster. I recommend stocking up on necessities— food, water, batteries, toilet paper, medications, whatever you can’t live without — just to stay safe during whatever crazy steps Trump takes in the wake of his thumping at the polls.

It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

HEADLINES:

• Hegseth’s public execution plan meets the age of viral violence (Axios)

• Republican opposition widens to livestreamed execution (Reuters)

• Kelly calls to remove Hegseth ‘immediately’ over public execution plan (The Hill)

• American Taliban (Journal of the Plague Years)

• What to know about public executions, and why they stopped in the U.S. (WP)

• Houthis warn airlines and passengers not to use Saudi Arabian airports after deadly Riyadh attack (BBC)

• At Least 12 Killed in Houthi Attack on Airport in Saudi Capital (NYT)

• Trump Says Voter Fraud Is Rampant. The Evidence Says Otherwise. (Reveal)

• How Trump’s Revenge Campaign Descended Into Turmoil (NYT)

• Trump hits International Criminal Court with sanctions after Nobel goes to former judge (Reuters)

• Christa Pike is discharged from a hospital after surviving execution attempt, her attorneys say (AP)

• One Philadelphia Officer Is Killed and Another Is Shot 12 Times in Ambush (NYT)

• At least 2 deaths attributed to Isaias after hurricane bashes Florida and Alabama (NPR)

• This Is the Hurricane Season El Niño Foretold (Atlantic)

• Justice Dept. Is Investigating TV Networks Over Trump Pool Coverage (NYT)

• Trump’s New Press Secretary Says Abortion Pill Came From Nazi Germany (TNR)

• Walmart Denies Plans for Surveillance Pricing Despite Holding Patents for Surveillance Pricing (Gizmodo)

• India arrests protest leaders (Reuters)

• Zelenskyy furious as Trump announces deal to buy Russian diesel (Guardian)

• 8 dead after shooting in Erie, Pennsylvania, governor says. Shooter also dead (CNN)

• Pope Leo says he will undergo surgery to remove a nodule on his lung (NBC)

• How narcoleptic dogs helped this Stanford scientist crack a medical mystery (SFC)

LATEST AI NEWS:

• The US and China Cannot Slow the AI Race, But They Can Make It Safer (Diplomat)

• Why Companies Are Building Humanoid Robots And What It Means For Your Job (Forbes)

• ‘Pure insanity’: Mathematicians will need years to make sense of OpenAI’s latest drop (Verge)

• Anthropic AI agents took ‘unintended’ actions on government sites (WP)

• Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Decision to Pull the Trigger on Meta’s A.I. Agent (NYT)

• Cornell Tries Going By Different Name (Onion)

 

A Mystery Story

The other day, I asked ChatGPT (the free version) if it could locate a copy of a letter from the White House to Rolling Stone magazine in 1976. I didn’t offer any other details. 

The chatbot first went down a blind alley, speculating that the letter probably concerned Jack Ford, who was President Gerald' Ford’s son, and who joined the magazine as an assistant in 1977.

Since the letter I had asked about had nothing to do with Ford, I decided to drop the matter. I then asked the chatbot a series of unrelated questions I won’t bother recreating here. Finally I asked CatGPT to identify Rolling Stone’s greatest scoops, and then to identify the most important journalism scoops in U.S. history.

(I published the results of that query in The Scoop.)

Next I asked ChatGPT to identify the biggest stories produced by the Center for Investigative Reporting, the organization I co-founded after leaving Rolling Stone. It came back with a list of investigations all produced later, but none before the 1990s. Then it suggested this: “CIR's most historically significant work may not be its most famous work.”

I took the chatbot up on its offer to explain and it went on to reconstruct the Center’s early history. It then offered a new list of CIR’s all-time biggest stories.

***

1. Circle of Poison / Corporate Crime of the Century — 1978–81
2. Global Dumping Ground — 1986–90
3. American Rehab — 2018–20
4. Kept Out — 2017–18
5. The Disappeared — 2018–20
6. Behind the Smiles / Amazon — 2018–20
7. Nuclear Navy / nuclear-accident investigations — 1980s
8. Consumer-product testing / The Illusion of Safety — 1982
9. Rape on the Night Shift — 2015
10. After Ayotzinapa — 2021–22

***

Next, ChatGPT zeroed in on the top story, “Circle of Poison.”

***

1. The unlikely beginning: a packet of Kool-Aid in Afghanistan

The origin story is almost too perfect.

While serving in the Peace Corps in Afghanistan from 1969–71, Weir bought a packet of Kool-Aid in a Kabul bazaar. He noticed that it contained cyclamates, an artificial sweetener that had been banned by the FDA as a carcinogen. That raised a basic but profound question: How could something considered unsafe in America be sold in one of the poorest countries in the world?

Weir says that experience eventually led him to investigate a much broader phenomenon: products that were banned, restricted or heavily regulated in the United States were nevertheless being exported to poorer countries.

By the mid-1970s he had begun publishing what he called his “Export of Poison” reporting in Rolling Stone and through Pacific News Service. 

2. “For Export Only” — the Rolling Stone breakthrough

The crucial Rolling Stone article was “For Export Only.”

It was a remarkable story for its time because it connected three things that were normally treated as separate:

American chemical regulation → exports to developing countries → American consumers.

The reporting showed that chemicals considered too dangerous for domestic use could nevertheless be sold abroad.

And this wasn’t simply an environmental story. It raised a fundamental question about whether American corporations and the U.S. government were effectively operating under two standards of safety.

Weir has recently recalled that the article was included in President Jimmy Carter’s weekly briefing on new policy issues. Carter subsequently created an interagency task force to examine the problem and eventually issued an executive order restricting the overseas trade in banned and restricted products. 

***
At this point, it suddenly became clear that ChatGPT was still trying to solve the mystery of that White House letter I’d asked about way back in my first prompt. Here is how it came up again.

***

One especially promising next step would be to reconstruct the original “For Export Only” Rolling Stone story itself—its date, issue, reporting, sources, and the Carter White House response. That could also solve the 1976 White House letter to Rolling Stone you asked me about earlier, because Weir's recent account confirms that the Carter administration was specifically tracking his export-of-poison reporting.

How to find the original letter

I would pursue the archival trail in this order.

1. Jimmy Carter Presidential Library

2. White House records and policy files

3. David Weir’s personal papers and Rolling Stone files

***
What I found remarkable about all of this is that ChatGPT remembered my original query about the White House letter and connected the dots after sorting through many other piece of information and queries without my help. (I have only included a small portion here of the massive amount of communication involved.)

In the end, it identified the letter I was seeking.

Before this, I had doubts about the power of AI as a research tool. I no longer have those doubts.

HEADLINES:

• Trump keeps trying to control California’s elections. The midterms will be another test (SFC)

• Some 78% of Americans blame President Donald Trump’s policies for rising prices that are outpacing their earnings, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that found majorities of Republicans and Democrats cite the cost of living as their top concern ahead of next month’s midterm elections. (Reuters)

• Poll: Democrat Troy Jackson narrowly leads Susan Collins in Maine Senate race (WP)

• Could Minnesota spoil the blue wave? (Silver Bulletin)

• ‘You’ve Hired Half the Third Reich’: 6 Key Moments From the Georgia Senate Debate (NYT)

• El Niño’s storm-killer winds and climate’s warming waters in fight over future of Hurricane Isaias (AP)

• Hurricane Isaias disrupts U.S. oil production in Gulf of Mexico, threatens refineries (CNBC)

• Powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake hits Panama and triggers tsunami warnings (Guardian)

• Trump names commentator Katie Zacharia of his media company as next White House press secretary (AP)

• F.B.I. Arrests Key Suspect in ShinyHunters Hack of Its Own Agents’ Data (NYT)

• Vance, Rubio brush off questions about claim that Guilfoyle asked donor to pay $100K Amex bill (WP)

• Trump establishes panel to probe Fed governor Lisa Cook in latest attempt to fire her (NBC)

• Hegseth faces bipartisan backlash over public execution for Fort Hood shooter (Politico)

• Hegseth Impeachment Gains Traction Among Democrats (Newser)

• The Simple Truth Behind Jane Doe’s Story (Atlantic)

• EU aviation body widens Saudi airspace warning after Houthi strikes (Reuters)

• India calls JD Vance’s comments about immigrants ‘deeply offensive’ (CNBC)

• Judge Extends Pause on Trump’s Ban Against CNN, MS NOW and Politico (NYT)

• US imposes sanctions on ICC hours after former judge wins Nobel Peace Prize (Reuters)

• Former U.N. human rights chief Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, a judge on the International Court of Justice, won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in Oslo, Norway. Her win is sure to be seen as a high-profile rebuke to Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who have both rejected the findings of a U.N. commission she led that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. [AP]

• US surpasses 4,000 measles cases with infections confirmed in 45 states: CDC (ABC)

• Quantum Research Races Ahead (WSJ)

• Meta bans TikTok ads on its platforms in US (Reuters)

• Forget Tech. San Francisco Is Home to Great Movies. (NYT)

• FBI Classifies Not Finishing Hamburger  As Seditious Activity (Onion)

LATEST AI NEWS: 

• We must recall open-ended AI agents with internet access from the market, now (Marcus)

• Trump decrees that anyone who uses the term Artificial Intelligence is now ‘The Enemy!’ (Independent)

• ‘Breathtaking,’ ‘Devastating’: Mathematics Reels After New OpenAI Release (NYT)

• OpenAI doubles down on decision to fire three AI safety researchers (Verge)

• Fired OpenAI safety researchers dispute misconduct claims, warn of chilling effect (TechCrunch)

• Clinical Trial Indicates A.I. Chatbots Could Aid Urgent Care (NYT)

• I run an AI company with a workforce of 34 AI agents (BI)

MUIC VIDEO:

Olivia Rodrigo - Full Episode | Live on Austin City Limits TV

Friday Mix

HEADLINES:

• Hurricane Isaias latest: Storm now Category 3 as it takes aim at Florida Panhandle (ABC)

• ICE Agent Shoots and Wounds Man in New York City (NYT)

• Fort Hood shooter’s execution will be live-streamed, Defense Dept. says (WP)

• Human Rights Lawyer Navi Pillay Is Awarded Nobel Peace Prize (NYT)

• Houthi strikes on Riyadh airport killed three Saudis as war escalates (Reuters)

• Fiery Senate Debates in Maine, Michigan and Georgia: Five Takeaways (NYT)

• Cornell gang-rape accuser was ‘misled’ about criminal investigation, her lawyer says (PBS)

• Russia pounded Ukraine with missiles and drones. More than 30 people died in the attacks, including children, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. (Reuters)

• Trump’s Retreat: From the Gulf to Britain, American Forces Pull Back (NYT)

• Reducing the Number of Generals Isn’t the Problem (Atlantic)

• U.S. military prepares new Iran war options ahead of midterm elections (NBC)

• Trump: U.S. won’t attack Iran before midterms (Axios)

• The left’s fortunes have been rising. Will 2028 be AOC’s moment? (Silver Bulletin)

• Trying to execute Christa Pike again would push into uncharted legal territory, experts say (AP)

• David Ellison Calls Skydance “Solution” To Mistakes Ten Years Ago When Big Tech Moved In On Media (Deadline)

• Texts Show Kimberly Guilfoyle Seeking $100,000 and Offering Access to Trump Officials (WSJ)

• Trump administration critics are calling on U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign after a damning new Wall Street Journal report revealed that Guilfoyle urged Eric Deters, a Trump donor and former congressional candidate, to pay off a $100,000 debt ahead of her Senate confirmation hearings. [HuffPost]

• Venezuela’s Maduro charged in US with ordering torture of opponents, Americans (Reuters)

• Trump Administration Considers Using Ships to Deport Immigrants (NYT)

• Trump leaves blue states out in the cold (Money Trail)

• China wants teenagers to read a classic English novel (Economist)

• The surprising new idea that is reshaping how we think about ADHD (WP)

• New CDC Director Is Eager to Change Its Culture (WSJ)

• Amazon employees hit by fresh job cuts across several teams (BI)

• More physical activity may mean slower Parkinson’s disease progression (WP)

• Before Amelia Earhart, this female aviator set records in San Francisco. Why has she been forgotten? (SFC)

LATEST AI NEWS:

• The most interesting mathematical discoveries in OpenAI’s 722 new papers (New Scientist)

• As A.I. Accelerates, Governments Are Increasingly Being Left Behind (NYT)

• Cyber war won’t be the same in the age of AI (FT)

• Women don’t like AI. They have reasons (Axios)

• The AI Panic and the Hunt for Reliable Narrators (TPM)

• Man vs. ‘Terminator’-Like Robot in a Cage. California Called It Illegal. (NYT)

• RFK Jr.’s embrace of AI confounds some MAHA allies and medical experts (AP)

• A tale of Google and Anthropic — and the future of civilization (WP) 

• The Start-Up That Wants to Build ‘Microrobots’ With A.I. (NYT)

• Conversation About Non-Monogamy Chock-Full Of Animal Facts (Onion)

The Scoop

Bill Harris, one of the Symbioses Liberation Army kidnappers of Patty Hearst in 1974, died on September 10, and the New York Times got around to publishing two long articles on Harris and the SLA this week. 

It is 52 years since Howard Kohn and I published our expose of the matter, “The Inside Story,” in Rolling Stone.

So I decided to ask ChatGPT where our scoop ranked in the greater scheme of things. Well, according to ChatGPT, our story was the third biggest scoop (behind Watergate and the Pentagon Papers) in the history of U.S. journalism. 

Here’s what the chatbot had to say about the matter:

If I were creating a “Mount Rushmore of American scoops,” I’d choose four:

🗿 Watergate

Woodward & Bernstein — Washington Post

The greatest sustained political scoop.

🗿 Pentagon Papers

Neil Sheehan — New York Times

The greatest government-document scoop.

🗿 Patty Hearst

Howard Kohn & David Weir — Rolling Stone

The greatest pure magazine scoop.

***

So that’s pretty cool. Below is the chatbot’s extended reasoning:

Patty Hearst — “The Inside Story” (1975)

Howard Kohn and David Weir

This is probably the magazine’s greatest classic scoop. Rolling Stone obtained detailed information about what happened to Hearst after her kidnapping—including her movements with the Symbionese Liberation Army while she was underground.

Kohn and Weir spent months tracking the story and interviewed people who had direct knowledge of Hearst’s movements. The magazine kept the story secret until publication.

The first installment, “The Inside Story,” appeared October 23, 1975. PBS has preserved the original story as a primary source.

What’s particularly remarkable is that the story was essentially overtaken by events: the FBI arrested Hearst while the article was already being prepared for publication. Rather than killing the story, Rolling Stone went ahead and published it.

Jann Wenner later called it “the scoop of the Seventies.” The Hearst story shows that Rolling Stone was already behaving very differently from a conventional music magazine by 1975. The magazine had become willing to:

• cultivate confidential sources;

• protect sources aggressively;

• spend months on an investigation;

• keep a major story secret from competing publications;

• take substantial legal and financial risks;

• and publish stories that could have national political consequences.

Time actually covered the Hearst scoop at the time, noting that Rolling Stone had a circulation of about 410,000 and that its two reporters had obtained information that mainstream news organizations had not been able to obtain.

And there’s an extraordinary contemporary congressional record: a member of Congress discussed Rolling Stone‘s Hearst story on the House floor just days after publication, describing it as the magazine’s “exclusive” and asking how Kohn and Weir had obtained their information.

HEADLINES:

• Can $1 billion buy victory in the midterm elections? Some Republicans fear the answer is no (AP)

• The border counties that swung to Trump are now short of workers. They may swing back. (WP)

• Justice Dept. Turns to Partisans and Conspiracists to Fill Depleted Ranks (NYT)

• Christa Pike’s lawyer says request to unshackle her from hospital bed denied as he confirms she is speaking ‘limitedly’ (Guardian)

• Tips came in just minutes after Cornell alerted students to an alleged sex assault at a frat house (NBC)

• Pullout of B-1 bombers shows how an outgunned Iran is keeping the U.S. on edge (WP)

• Yemen’s government is on the attack against the Houthis. What has changed? (Al Jazeera)

• Israelis mourn on the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack as Palestinians live in devastated Gaza (AP)

• The Atlantic hurricane season has been eerily quiet—Tropical Storm Isaias could change that (SciAm)

• France halts use of stun grenades after boy’s hand blown off in student protests (BBC)

• What David Ellison’s Latest Moves Say About How He’ll Lead Now (WSJ)

• Trump wants to turn his West Palm Beach golf club into the new Camp David (WP)

• Tesla is browbeating the EU to approve its ‘Full Self-Driving’ tech. (Reuters)

• What Was the Symbionese Liberation Army? (NYT)

• Time Travelers From Year 2376  Warn Of Future    Where America   Still Perfect (Onion)

LATEST AI NEWS:

• AI-powered robots are next in war tech, Ukraine’s former defense minister says (WP)

• Trillions are being ‘wasted’ on the AI boom, Arthur Hayes says. (CNBC)

• Why My Conversations With ‘ChatGPT for Teens’ Made Me Very Worried (NYT)

• ChatGPT is adding real cartoonists’ signatures to fake New Yorker cartoons (Nieman)

• AI Solved One Math Problem and Everyone Freaked Out. It Just Cracked Hundreds More. (WSJ)

• The unexpected ways that AI is reshaping the U.S. economy (WP)

• FCC considers allowing more political robocalls before midterms, including those created with AI (AP)

• As A.I. Accelerates, Governments Are Increasingly Being Left Behind (NYT)