Kickers

 Lots of writers have asked me over the years about the best way to write endings, or kickers, to their stories. This is an especially difficult question to answer when you're telling a depressing story. How can you leave your readers with something other than an utter sense of hopelessness?

And, given the seriousness of, say, global environmental threats, should you even try to do that?

My answer is yes.

As to the how, whenever possible I'd try to find a life-affirming aspect to whatever story you are telling, and close with that. It takes some additional reporting and some hard thinking to locate the set of facts or perspectives that may allow readers to absorb all of the bad or sad news and still feel empowered to go on, better informed about dangers, but not necessarily bereft of hope.

Endings are as natural as beginnings. At the very end of my own stories, I like to find something to leave readers with that can encourage them to find even a small piece of inspiration going forward.

It is exactly what is meant by the concept of loving somebody so much that you can actually let them go, in the end, when that's the right thing to do. It hurts, and the pain is beyond intense. But is also is the kind of ending that implies new beginnings -- for both of you. 

An ending coated with love really isn't an ending per se, but a transition to a future neither of you can yet envision. When that new stage finally arrives, you'll both feel better for the way you let each other go--not by isolating, withdrawing, and denying, but by embracing, supporting and loving.

At least that's how I see it. :)

(I published the first version of this short essay 17 years ago.)

HEADLINES:

• House Passes Controversial Spying Bill as Speaker Johnson Overcomes GOP Objections (WSJ)

• How immigrant workers in US have helped boost job growth and stave off a recession (AP)

• U.S. officials warn attack by Iran for Israel strike could come very soon without warning (USA Today)

• Harris warns in Arizona after abortion ruling a second Trump term would mean ‘more bans, more suffering’ (The Hill)

• A narco revolt takes a once-peaceful nation to the brink (WP)

• Why jury selection in Trump’s hush money trial will be a daunting task (Independent)

• On eve of hush money trial, big, bold Donald Trump shows he's nothing but a giant chicken (USA Today)

• Are the odds of Fed interest rate cuts headed for zero? (The Hill)

• Mystery as Underwater Anomaly Larger Than Texas Spotted off African Coast (Newsweek)

• In the Arctic, American commandos game out a great-power war (WP)

• New York Times Bosses Seek to Quash Rebellion in the Newsroom (WSJ)

• Here’s what’s behind the latest US-China trade fight (AP)

• Japan’s native population declines at record rate as births plunge (Financial Times)

• Watch derpy robots show off their soccer skills thanks to new AI training method (LiveScience)

• The AI Revolution Is Crushing Thousands of Languages (Atlantic)

• Axios Finish Line: Next frontier for Axios (Axios)

• Generative AI Sucks: Meta’s Chief AI Scientist Calls For A Shift To Objective-Driven AI (Forbes)

• Local Man Knows He Moved To Minneapolis For Something, But Can't Remember What (The Onion)

Not Hiding

(I first published this four years ago on Facebook as the pandemic was raging.)

Life is made up of moments. Three friends, arms around each other, sharing their joy at an awards ceremony. Grandchildren, then so small, at a park nearby their grandfather's house. Children, all grown up and smiling with their Dad. A girlfriend working in the garden, her hair long and black. 

A documentary crew situating a man in the center of the newsroom. Lights, action. A visit from the makeup artist, fussing over you. A beach somewhere in the South Pacific at sunset. A sailboat taking off into the night. 

A bartender hoping to be a journalist someday, mixing your drink. A homeless friend, showing you proudly a photo of his daughters. A neighbor, the local drug dealer, taking his last breath after being shot in front of your house. A policeman, desperate for clues, at your front door at 2 a.m.

A hospital bed and a night nurse leaning against the wall, telling you her sad story of wasted love. Just wishing you could give her a hug.

As you age, these kinds of moments come back as a flood of memories, almost washing away the present. But no, this is a moment too. As long as you draw a breath, all of these moments, and many, many more, will continue to play over your mind.

George Harrison's haunting song, "All Things Must Pass" is a reminder that this is but a temporary stay for us. Since it is temporary, the moments matter even more.

I'm often awake in the night, lying in my bed, thinking, silently writing the next chapter of my book.

These days, I imagine many of us are awake at night. Our physical interactions, most of them, are so awkward now.

***

For months I have been living a trifurcated life, split between San Francisco, the peninsula and the East Bay. Until recently, this was only vaguely related to the virus. Some of my things were here, some there, and still others over there. Many were waiting for new owners on a sidewalk in San Francisco. Virtually all of my books are now gone -- thousands of them left at a book recycling center in the Eat Bay.

My journals, critical resources for my memoir, are locked down in the facility in Millbrae. If I go back there, I will be told to not leave my room for fourteen days.

This disease has turned us all into prisoners of fear.

Personally, I prefer hope. Even these moments can be special. Waving has become the new handshake. Strangers are the new friends. Masks do not need to hide our smiles. We can all pull down our mask, if only for a moment.

***

Many years ago, I was stuck on a plane in Milan. We were supposed to take off in the direction of Switzerland, which is very nearby. But a snowstorm had iced down our wings. It was freezing cold outside and not all that much warmer inside the plane.

The pilot politely explained our dilemma, that our wings were too weighed down with ice to safely take off, and soon a small army of men appeared on the airplane's wings, washing off the ice with hoses. They waved to us, trapped behind the windows.

But the water they sprayed soon turned into ice as well. I had the distinct impression that the workmen were not particularly familiar with de-icing a plane, though they did seem skilled at noticing the faces of pretty women framed by the oval windows near the wings.

Finally, the pilot announced the effort had failed and we deplaned for buses that carried us back to airport hotels. Most of us were Americans; it was an American airline and we were heading for America.

The next morning the weather abated a bit and we were taken back out to the plane, still anchored in place on the tarmac. I somehow was awarded a middle seat between two young women, Americans also from Northern California.

We all cheered as the plane lumbered aloft, rising ever so gingerly over the Alps. Given our ordeal the drinks were free, never a wise policy if you have journalists around.

Be that as it may, my companions and I chatted amicably all the way back across the world to San Francisco, with several stops along the way. At some point, they both fell asleep with their heads on my shoulders, one to the right and one to the left. I stayed very still so as not to awaken them.

Eventually they awoke, and told me about their lives. In return, they learned about me. When we landed, we exchanged farewells and returned to our regular lives. We’d never meet again.

That moment came back to me this morning as I was writing this piece. How and why it so swiftly came and went is something I don’t know.

There are so many things I don’t know, but since all things must pass, this pandemic certainly one day will be gone too.

HRADLINES:

• Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg says Trump’s hush money criminal trial isn’t about politics (AP)

• US restricts travel for diplomats in Israel amid fears of Iran attack (BBC)

• "Nowhere to go": Experts say Judge Cannon reversed herself because Smith had her "dead to rights" (Salon)

• Voters in many countries sceptical of democracy, poll shows (Reuters)

• Goldman still expects U.S. inflation to fall significantly as markets alarmed by recent rise (CNBC)

• Without Immigrants, US Working-Age Population Would Shrink (Bloomberg)

• Florida and Arizona show why abortion attacks are not slowing down (Vox)

• Arizona Republicans Thwart Attempts to Repeal 1864 Abortion Ban (NYT)

• NPR faces right-wing revolt and calls for defunding after editor claims left-wing bias (CNN)

• Hawaii is "on the verge of catastrophe," locals say, as water crisis continues (CBS)

• Senior U.S. general to visit Israel to coordinate on Iran attack threat (Axios)

• USAID leader says conditions in Gaza are ‘as dire as any I have seen’ (WP)

• The War Is Not Going Well for Ukraine (Atlantic)

• I spent a decade helping Afghan girls make educational progress − and now the Taliban are using these 3 reasons to keep them out of school (The Conversation)

• With US cities struggling, San Francisco has actually become a shining model of recovery (The Hill)

• Castaways rescued after writing ‘HELP’ with palm leaves on remote island (WP)

• Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says the benefits of AI 'will astound us all' (Yahoo)

• AI's flawed human yardstick (Axios)

• How AI could transform baseball forever (WP)

• O.J. Simpson Allowed To Remain Living After Coffin Doesn’t Fit (The Onion)

 

My Sweet Auditor

The first time I went to the local IRS waiting room to meet the person who would be auditing me I was scared. This was in the 1980s and I imagined my auditor would be a monster, something like George Harrison's "Taxman."

But my actual auditor turned out to be a winsome young woman fresh out of college with a lovely smile. Furthermore, once she found out I was a journalist, she seemed determined to satisfy my insatiable desire to learn the ins and outs of her auditing process.

Over the course of that first audit, which dragged out over several weeks, she gradually taught me how to comply with the arcane rules I had allegedly violated while trying to juggle a full-time job, two part-time gigs and some random income as a freelance writer.

One of my main problems was that I couldn't convince her that my workspace was a legitimate "home office," because it was also used as the kitchen, dining room, and playroom by my three young children.

Also, I had not kept a written record of my many lunches and business meetings or of my frequent travel as I multitasked work assignments. The agency clearly had not yet figured out how to handle a multitasker, as the word had originated too recently (1966) and was not yet commonly applied to human beings. 

By the end of that first audit, my auditor ruled that I owed Uncle Sam enough in additional taxes and penalties that it automatically triggered audits for the two subsequent tax years, focusing on the same set of issues.

But I wasn't about to suffer the same fate two times, let alone three. Besides, I had come to like my auditor and as we parted after that first go-around, she told me,"You know, you can request me to be your auditor for the next one if you want to, you have a right to that."

So when I showed up for my second audit, I officially requested to be assigned the same auditor and the IRS granted my request. This time, I showed up with a complete printed register of all of my lunches and meetings, tons of receipts (all numbered consistent with the register), and a more convincing argument that my home office was legit as it now consisted of a desk in the corner of my bedroom.

There were no toys or dinner plates on my desk when the auditor paid her visit for the mandatory inspection, but there were cookies and tea waiting for her.

That second audit ended much better -- in a virtual tie -- I didn't owe the IRS anything beyond what I had paid when I filed my tax return.

In due time the third audit commenced. By now, I was determined to reclaim some of the money confiscated by the agency back in that first audit. I again requested the same auditor. By now I looked forward to renewing our acquaintance and continuing to perform my role as her obedient student and auditee. 

This time around we had long frank conversations during which she told me about her dream to get out of the huge government bureaucracy and get a job at one of the Big Six accounting firms. 

I told her I thought she’d be a big success.

We’d become fast friends by now, and our conversations were long and intimate. That meant she only had time to give a cursory check of the impressive documentation I had prepared of my business meals and meetings, global travel, and an extensively outfitted home office that transformed what had previously been my bedroom into a distinctly professional workspace.

In the end, my sweet auditor gave me some welcome news: My arguments and documentation were persuasive. The IRS would be issuing me a refund -- almost identical to the excess taxes, penalties and fees assessed me back in the first year of our auditing relationship.

So in the end it was one win for  the IRS, one win for me, and one draw. Net-net, nothing was lost, nothing was gained, except one new friend.

So yes, I admit it. I developed a crush on my IRS auditor. Enough so that I almost wished that I could be audited again.

Almost.

HEADLINES:

• Russian airstrikes destroy Kyiv’s largest power plant (CNN)

• Arizona Republicans denounce revived 1864 abortion ban in sudden reversal (Guardian)

• ‘Catastrophic,’ ‘a shock’: Arizona’s abortion ruling threatens to upend 2024 election (WP)

• This Woman Will Decide Which Babies Are Born (Wired)

• Foreign terrorists targeting US 'increasingly concerning': FBI director (ABC)

• Former Trump executive Allen Weisselberg sentenced to 5 months in jail for lying (AP)

• As Kushner’s Investment Firm Steps Out, the Potential Conflicts Are Growing (NYT)

• Wall St battered as hot inflation data stymies rate-cut hopes (Reuters)

• Hot Inflation Report Derails Case for Fed’s June Rate Cut (WSJ)

• Content creators ask Meta to reverse politics limits on Instagram and Threads (WP)

• America’s top TV networks reportedly plan to issue an open letter asking for Biden and Trump to participate in a televised election debate. [HuffPost]

• he New York criminal charges against Donald Trump for allegedly covering up hush-money payments to a porn starare serious in the eyes of a firm majority of voters, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found. (Reuters)

• The Breathtaking Pace of Antarctic Warming Is Very, Very Worrisome (Mother Jones)

• NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust (NPR)

• How to keep AI from killing us all (Berkeley News)

• How to identify an AI imposter in video, audio and text as deepfake technology goes mainstream (CNBC)

• How to Stop Your Data From Being Used to Train AI (Wired)

• Man Thinks People Care Enough About Him To Be Let Down By His Failures (The Onion)

 

Disparities

As he was driving me home from Marin Sunday morning, I asked my Lyft driver where he had grown up.

“Afghanistan.”

He was surprised when I told him that I used to live there. It’s been over 50 years ago now since I was in Afghanistan teaching English as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

“Ah, that was our golden age,” he remarked. Indeed, at that time the country was ruled by a Western-educated monarch who believed in developing democracy. The government placed a premium on education for all boys and girls; thus the presence of Peace Corps teachers as part of that effort.

Alas, the intervening decades have not been kind to Afghanistan, nor to its hopes for a democratic future, let alone achieving an educated population. These days, girls are not allowed to even go to school by the Taliban government and women are forbidden to hold jobs. 

My driver told me he fears for his sisters, one of whom was about to enter college and study medicine when the Taliban came to power in 2021. Now she and her younger sister are trapped at home with their parents, unable to pursue their educations or get jobs…or even leave their compound unaccompanied.

He told me he sends money home every month to support them from his work for Lyft. I’m sure that is difficult because he also supports his wife and three young children on this income. They all live in a small apartment near Sacramento; every day he drives to the Bay Area for this work.

He said he dreams of finding an old farmhouse on a small plot of land where his family could live and raise crops. He also dreams od getting his family members out of Afghanistan.

The last time I checked, the average Lyft driver makes around $32,000 a year. That is barely enough to cover the cost of housing around here. But compared to Afghanistan it is a virtual fortune.

Figures are hard to come by, but the average Afghan makes somewhere around $1,800 a year, if he can find work at all. And women, of course, are forbidden from working at any job outside of the home.

As he dropped me off, I wished my driver well. “خدا با شما باشد” I said in Dari, which roughly translates as “God be with you.” Also, I added in English,“Good luck!” But I know he will need a lot more than luck for his dreams to come true.

HEADLINES:

• Arizona Supreme Court rules state must adhere to century-old law banning nearly all abortions (CNN)

• Appeals court rejects Donald Trump’s latest attempt to delay April 15 hush money criminal trial (AP)

• Special counsel urges Supreme Court to reject Trump’s immunity claim (WP)

• Parents of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley both sentenced to 10-15 years for involuntary manslaughter (NBC)

• Behind the Curtain: America's reality distortion machine (Axios)

• Every month, economists expect the labor market to slow. Will it ever? (CNN)

• Almost No One Is Happy With Legal Weed (Atlantic)

• Leaders of Jordan, France and Egypt: Cease fire now in Gaza (WP)

• Israel's Gaza withdrawal hints at what comes next (BBC)

• Active Fighting Subsides in Gaza, but the War Is Not Over, Officials Say (NYT)

• Meta confirms that its Llama 3 open source LLM is coming in the next month (TechCrunch)

• How Ukraine is using AI to fight Russia (Economist)

• Move over, deep learning: Symbolica’s structured approach could transform AI (VentureBeat)

• OpenAI and Meta ready new AI models capable of ‘reasoning’ (Financial Times)

• OpenAI prepares to fight for its life as legal troubles mount (WP)

• Study Finds Swans Only Other Animals Who Mate For Few Years, Get Scared, End Things, Then Regret It (The Onion)

 

Tiny, Connected

On Monday, the total lunar eclipse of the sun briefly interrupted the normal news cycle. Millions of people gathered in places along the event’s route across North America to witness it, wearing special glasses to protect their eyes.

It would be fair to say that none of them missed hearing about the world’s problems as they looked up at this wonder of the universe. They weren’t worrying about a divided electorate, Trump’s legal issues, the so-called border crisis or the economy, or about war, violence or climate change.

In fact, this was the rare phenomenon with the potential to unite us, if only for a moment, and remind us that we are all in this together.

It also was an opportunity to understand that we are but tiny bits of dust nonetheless intimately connected to the great order of things just beyond our comprehension.

Soon enough, normality replaced totality, but I and many, many others preferred the magic of the darkness with its potential for insight into ourselves and the universe to the ordinary glare of our present struggles.

HEADLINES:

• Biden races to enact new student loan forgiveness plan ahead of November (CNN)

• Israel’s relations with America reach breaking point (Economist)

• Israel Withdraws Troops From Southern Gaza as War Hits 6-Month Mark (NYT)

• A Hamas official said no progress was made at a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks in Cairo also attended by delegations from Israel, Qatar, and the US, (Reuters)

• Speaker Johnson’s job is on the line as the House returns (WP)

• 'The nuclear button': Special counsel could seek removal of judge in Trump classified docs case, attorneys warn (NBC)

• ‘Increasingly chaotic’: Why House Republicans are heading for the exits (WP)

• Doubts Creep In About a Fed Rate Cut This Year (WSJ)

• U.S. ready to sanction Chinese banks if they aid Russia’s war machine, Yellen says (CNBC)

• Trump says abortion should be left to states, declines to endorse national limit (WP)

• Vatican stands firm on social issues like sex change and surrogacy (BBC)

• Coastal wetlands can’t keep pace with sea-level rise, and infrastructure is leaving them nowhere to go (The Conversation)

• Solar eclipse totality sweeps across U.S. as millions watch (WP)

• Microsoft just set the stage for an all-out AI talent war with Google (Business Insider)

• ‘Social Order Could Collapse’ in AI Era, Two Top Japan Companies Say (WSJ)

• Could the AI Industry Implode? (FoP)

• Proud Billionaire Helps Young Son Open First Offshore Bank Account (The Onion)

 

After the Seagulls

 (This is from April 2021.)

"There’s an old joke that consultants are like seagulls - they fly in, make lots of noise, mess everything up and then fly out. That’s pretty much what tech has done to media industries - it changes everything and then it leaves..." -- Benedict Evans.

Not to gang up on consultants or the tech industry, but that quote pretty much sums it up. Of course there's the odd seagull who contributes something useful, but the sight of them approaching means either trouble or the 7th inning at the ballpark where the San Francisco Giants play baseball.

For undetermined reasons, the seagulls all show up in McCovey Cove during the 7th inning stretch, eager to scoop up all the half-eaten hot dogs and garlic fries before the crowd leaves and human clean-up crews arrive.

In recent years in media, consultants invariably brought variations of the Agile development process, with post-its, power points and recommendations related to expensive hardware/software schemes.

Once the consultants had had their way with us, most of the media companies I worked for went back to what we were doing before they showed up.

Of course there are two sides to every equation, and I served as a consultant myself for a number of years. One company hired me to use my journalistic interviewing skills. My assignment was to interview authors who had perfected the self-publishing process to become best-selling authors.

I carefully interviewed each one, inducing them to spill their secrets, and soon a fairly substantial body of knowledge existed on the company's website.

Apparently I was too good at my assignment, however. Because the company suddenly stopped assigning me any more interviews, just as I was getting to enjoy the work immensely. No one ever called or explained what had happened but when I checked the website, it turned out that the company had automated my interviewing techniques. So I'd been replaced by an algorithm.

A more straight-forward experience happened when a billionaire recruited me to leave Stanford to join his online media aggregation firm. "I want to study your brain as part of my company’s business plan.” 

I consented as the financial terms were substantially more lucrative than my salary as a visiting professor.

Long story short, maybe it was my brain or the software duplicate, but neither could prevent that guy’s company from filing for Chapter 11.

Thus it went, chapter by chapter of my supposedly illustrious career, for which just last year I was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the main professional association for journalists. It was quite an honor and I was grateful for the recognition.

The only problem was the arrival of a novel coronavirus (remember that?), which came along so they had to cancel the awards ceremony before I could give my speech, which might have been either a tearjerker or a stinker, who can say.

"Oh well," I told my grandchildren, "At least the plaque should be nice." They excitedly checked the mailbox for days in anticipation.

Only problem? The plaque never arrived. Eventually I heard one of the grandkids say to another, "You know what Mom says. Grandpa is full of stories that may or may not be true."

***

P.S. A couple years later, the plaque did arrive. By then the kids had forgotten all about it.

HEADLINES:

• Israel may have started a forever war in Gaza (Al Jazeera)

• Chef José Andrés says Israel's 'unforgivable' strike on his aid workers must force 'real reckoning' (ABC)

• Six months into Gaza war, Biden confronts the limits of U.S. leverage (WP)

• Obstacles to peace seem larger than ever after six months of war (BBC)

• How Gaza Protesters Are Making Life Difficult for Democratic Leaders (NYT)

• Trump Panders to Billionaires, Vows to Keep Their Taxes Low During Fundraiser (Rolling Stone)

• Trump protest vote warnings (Axios)

• How immigrants are helping boost the U.S. job market without affecting inflation (NBC)

• Lawmakers unveil sprawling plan to expand online privacy protections (WP)

• Into the Unknown (Atlantic)

• “It Blew My Mind: A Fully Functioning Forest Under the Sea” (Mother Jones)

• The world’s oldest man says the secret to his longevity is luck, plus regular fish and chips (AP)

• Elon Musk's X pushed a fake headline about Iran attacking Israel. X's AI chatbot Grok made it up. (Mashable)

• AI keeps going wrong. What if it can’t be fixed? (Financial Times)

• Lowe’s Introduces 2-Way Ladder User Can Also Climb Down (The Onion)

 

Interruptions

(The first half of this essay is from 2021; the second half is from 2020.)

(Illustration:  Chaos Theory, or a butterfly -- wiki commons)

Have you ever had the feeling your life has been placed into a holding pattern, like you are vectoring round and round over a distant city, waiting for a chance to land?

That is what the pandemic has felt like for me and (I bet) millions of other people. It all depends on your circumstances, of course. For those with steady jobs, stable places to live, and good health the Covid period perhaps has been a minor deviation in the course of life.

For the rest of us, all assumptions were off and a new path had to be found. Of those in this category I recognize that I am one of the lucky ones. As my possessions were reduced to a couple boxes of files and bags of clothes, and my apartments vacated, I started feeling hopeless but I had family that (literally) rescued me from myself.

Over a year later, my files and I remain separated (see below), so I've been writing this faux memoir strictly from memory, corrected from time to time by some old document or photo that turns up courtesy of readers, friends, or Google.

In the process, this daily ritual of sorting through the news has become sort of like a comfort blanket for me. No one asks me to do it and I'm not quite sure how it got started, but rifling through 20-25 news sources each morning is definitely a habit I don’t want to break.

Maybe I'm like a character in Charlie Chaplain's great 1936 film, "Modern Times," where the workers can't help performing every task away from the assembly line with the same repetitive motions at home that they use at work.

Having been paid to gather and interpret the news for years, I guess I now feel responsible for telling people what is going on, what matters, regardless of employment status. Maybe you can take the boy out of journalism but you can't take the journalism out of the boy. 

***

(And now from 2020.)

"Life Happens to You"

Today is when my boxes of papers and files are to be moved from the assisted living facility in Millbrae to a storage locker closer by. One of my sons is driving down there from the city to claim the stuff.

Work on my memoir has been effectively stalled since March 20 when I left that facility, my journals strewn on the floor next to the chair where I wrote, watched the news, ate meals, and admired the view, which stretched northward.

My whole life story then ringed that one chair. Now I sit in a different chair.

It's confusing to think back to what I imagined being retired and writing that book would be like, because all assumptions basically ended with the arrival of the pandemic. But I know the prospect held a dream-like appeal for me in the years I was wrapping up my career.

One of life's illusions that some of us hold onto longer than others is that we control our own destiny; that we make life happen, when in reality, the opposite is true. Life happens to us.

We are in control of so little it would be comical if the cost weren't so high. One of life's impossible lessons for those of us with a certain kind of nature is that while we can control many little things in this world, we really don't control anything significant.

And we have to know the difference.

It is one thing for me to write about that lesson but quite another to have learned it for myself. When it comes to my report card on that subject it's at best a D-.

My daughter was telling her kids recently 'You don't learn things the first time you hear them. You have to hear them over and over."

She could have been talking about me.

HEADLINES:

• Israel urged to publish full report on aid worker deaths (BBC)

• Israel may have just hit a turning point in its war on Gaza — but not for the reason you think (Business Insider)

• The United States and Israel Are Coming Apart (Atlantic)

• U.S. Seeks ‘Results’ After Israel Promises More Gaza Aid Routes (NYT)

• Is Biden Really Going to Let Netanyahu Lose Him the Election? (TNR)

• With no way out of a worsening war, Zelensky’s options look bad or worse (WP)

• Ukraine funds on ice as House Republicans dicker (Reuters)

• Why Immigration Is Now the No. 1 Issue for Voters (WSJ)

• Fentanyl kills thousands of Americans. Could plugging a gap in U.S. intelligence save lives? (USA Today)

• Biden Will Try Again to Wipe Out Student Loan Debt for Millions of Borrowers (NYT)

• US redistricting and the battle for control of the House (Reuters)

• Why we have co-evolved with technology (BBC)

• The unassuming material that could soak up carbon emissions (WP)

• Forgot to get solar eclipse glasses? Here's how to DIY a viewer with household items. (USA Today)

• How Google lost ground in the AI race (Financial Times)

• What Is AI Without Its Capacity for Delight? (Atlantic)

• Study: Wolf Attacks Still Leading Cause Of Death In U.S. (The Onion)