Biden's Moment

 An FBI agent I once interviewed for Rolling Stone said something that I’ve never forgotten. “Maybe this one will be my career case.”

I’d never heard that phrase — career case — before. We were in a fairly obscure place, windswept Rapid City, South Dakota, with the Black Hills in the distance. We were talking about the unsolved murder of an American Indian Movement activist named Anna Mae Aquash.

This came to mind as I was thinking about the State of the Union speech Joe Biden has to give tonight. He isn’t known as a great speaker but the may have to find the way to deliver his career speech on this occasion.

It’s the official kickoff of his 2024 race against Trump, which polls indicate will be another election decided by the thinnest of margins.

Thus it’s a career moment for a career politician. And of course much more is riding on his victory than simply Biden’s career.

Democracy, for starters.

HEADLINES:

• Trump’s grim visions of an American apocalypse (Guardian)

• Joe Biden’s Last Campaign (New Yorker)

• It’s Not Just That Biden Is Old (Atlantic)

• Trump slams Haley as she drops out, while Biden calls for ‘common ground’ (Politico)

• Who will Nikki Haley’s supporters vote for now that she dropped out? (WP)

• Do Americans Have a ‘Collective Amnesia’ About Donald Trump? (NYT)

• ‘Rust’ armorer convicted of involuntary manslaughter in fatal shooting by Alec Baldwin on movie set (AP)

• Schiff and Garvey will advance to California Senate general election (CNN)

• Israel is pillaging not just Gaza’s cities but also its waters (Al Jazeera)

• Israel approves plans for 3,400 new homes in West Bank settlements (BBC)

• Russian missile strike hits near Zelensky motorcade in Odessa (WP)

• Media companies cut thousands of jobs so far this year. They're not coming back. (Yahoo)

• Bill Gates-backed startup confident it can unearth more buried treasure after a historic copper find (CNBC)

• Google is changing its search results to weed out SEO spam (Engadget)

• OpenAI Hits Back at Elon Musk’s Lawsuit by Publishing His Emails (Daily Beast)

• AI singularity may come in 2027 with artificial 'super intelligence' sooner than we think, says top scientist (LiveScience)

• Producing more but understanding less: The risks of AI for scientific research (ArsTechnica)

• Adobe Finds AI Hype Is a Two-Edged Sword (WSJ)

• Microsoft asks to dismiss New York Times’s ‘doomsday’ copyright lawsuit (Guardian)

• Satanic Couple No Longer Has Shared Dark Vision For Future (The Onion)