Counting the Ballots

The Governor of California is more like a head of state. The state’s economy ranks as the fourth-largest in the world, competing with Japan’s. The state is home to everything from Hollywood to Silicon Valley.

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)

To Be California's Governor

If you believe the polls, Former state Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra has created enough space between himself and the 60 other people vying to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom as California’s Governor that he should qualify as one of the two candidates to survive tonight’s primary election.

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)

Talking About Climate

What makes global climate change so difficult is it feels too big and overwhelming for us as individuals to have any impact.

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)

 

Where the Money Goes

Millennials (AKA Gen Y) are those born roughly between 1980-1996. They have been defining marketing trends since they came of age. Now, they are in the process of inheriting more wealth ($68 trillion) from their baby boomer parents than any generation in history.

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)

Only the Truth Can Provide Relief

“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)

 

Past and Future Now

 All over the country, young people are graduating. They’re just starting out. 

Reports say young men are in crisis. 

Reports say old men in power are part of the problem.

I’m not sure about all of that but I am sure that around here it is a season of hope.

(Photo: Grandpa, grandson Luca, Uncle Peter, Uncle Ty, grandson Leif)

HEADLINES:

• Key inflation gauge worsens as Americans' income and spending power erodes (AP)

• Trump’s approval plunges among his White working-class base (WP)

• Federal judge halts work on Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization fund’ (CNN)

• Uncertainty Hangs Over Talks as Sticking Points Remain (NYT)

• Oil prices turn lower as U.S.-Iran ceasefire extension awaits Trump approval (CNBC)

• Iran says it targeted American base after fresh US strikes (BBC)

• Donald Trump shares draft Iran peace agreement with Israel and other allies (Guardian)

• A federal judge in D.C. declines to block Trump’s executive order on voting by mail (NBC)

• Paxton win sparks GOP money panic (Politico)

• California Tries to Block Trump Involvement in Election Procedures (NYT)

• Who’s ahead in the California governor race? (CalMatters)

• Hilton’s Chances of Beating Becerra In California Governor Race: New Poll (Newsweek)

• Members of Congress visit federal immigration detention center in New Jersey amid reported hunger strike (AP)

• Trump administration ‘drawing up plans’ to stop processing international flights in sanctuary cities (Guardian)

• West Coast chemical emergencies raise questions about the safety of massive industrial tanks (AP)

• Trump appointees push $250 banknote with his portrait (WP)

• A conflict between the US and China over Taiwan would risk a nuclear escalation with both militaries likely to stage sweeping operations targeting rival command and communications hubs, a leading defence research center said. (Reuters)

• Europe’s superyacht builders hit choppy waters (Economist)

• US forces deployed to war zones have been targeted using commercially available location data, according to reports fielded by military officials, an illustration of how the global surveillance ‌economy is shaping the battlefield. (Reuters)

• Russia signs military partnership with the Taliban (Politico)

• Why Pakistan and Afghanistan Are Still Fighting (NYT)

• Israel has emptied southern Lebanon far beyond the front lines (Reuters)

• Ozempic is changing the brain in ways that surprise scientists (WP)

• Gamification and memes lure young people to sports wagering apps, prediction markets (AP)

• AI sticker shock hits corporate America (Axios)

• AI Is Taking Over the Most Cursed Job in the World (Wired)

• These 5 skills are AI-proof and likely to become more valuable ‘over the next 5 years,’ says Oxford-trained career expert (CNBC)

• Tesla’s AI trainers don’t trust its self-driving tech (Reuters)

• Listerine Leaves 0.1% Of Germs Alive To Spread Message Of Terror Throughout Microbial Community (Onion)

Luca's Graduation