These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targeted way to get a sense of the shape of the past week on the national level. Without such a map, we can be disoriented, not knowing where we have been over the past several days, or where we may be going.

But by spending concentrated, limited time thinking about the big picture, we can devote more of our time to where “agency and justice begin and end,” as Karen Swallow Prior put it: “on the ground, bodily, in community and real relationships, in flesh and blood.”

Quotes of the Week

We now spend more on interest on [the U.S. government] debt annually than we spend on the entire defense budget. - Ezra Klein

What made Parton different is that she was unashamed but she was not shameless. - Russell Moore

I’m convinced that every person — especially those of us who live in the world of ideas — should spend time in a place where he or she is a distinct religious or ideological minority, even when it’s hard. It can be among the most clarifying and rewarding experiences in life. - David French

He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. - John Stuart Mill

Night serves us as the time of gestation, rejuvenation, and revelation. - Timothy P. Schilling

Week in Review

Friday, Aug. 21

• TikTok pays $400 million in a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department, ending a case in which it was alleged the social media company violated the privacy of children.

Saturday, Aug. 22

• After negotiations fail to reach an agreement, U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods go into effect. The Wall Street Journal editorial board calls Trump’s tariffs “the dumbest trade war, revisited.” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says his nation will impose counter-tariffs, beginning Sept. 8.

• The father of a U.S. sailor on board the USS Lincoln is arrested by immigration authorities.

• “Pope Leo XIV used a visit to the tiny landlocked San Marino and a major Catholic gathering in the Italian city of Rimini on Saturday to issue one of his strongest appeals yet against war, polarization and social division, urging believers to foster dialogue and friendship in a fractured world,” the AP reports.

Sunday, Aug. 23

• A meeting between House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, is reported, the clearest signal that the Trump administration expects Democrats to control the House after fall elections.

• An IndyCar race takes over downtown D.C. for the afternoon.

Monday, Aug. 24

• “The Trump administration is preparing to revoke the business and tourism visas of up to 200,000 foreigners who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum status in the United States. If it happens, the move would be the largest single mass revocation of visas in U.S. history and would likely face legal challenges,” the AP reports.

• More than 90,000 people evacuate their homes near Reno, Nevada, due to a growing wildfire.

• Justice Department lawyers threaten to demolish the Kennedy Center if a judge does not allow it to close for two years of renovations. The performing arts center has generated $100 million less in revenue since Trump took control of its board and programming.

Tuesday, Aug. 25

• Darline Graham, sister of former Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, wins her state’s Republican primary to serve a full term in that Senate seat.

• Music icon Dolly Parton dies at 80 years old after a short bout with cancer.

• The father of a sailor on board the USS Lincoln who had been detained by immigration authorities is released.

• ICE arrests surged to 50,000 in July, the highest amount of Trump’s presidency, the AP reports. The Trump administration is increasingly targeting immigrants with no criminal record, including “people married to U.S. citizens, people who had entered legally and were pursuing an asylum claim, and others with a temporary legal status that the administration pushed to revoke,” the Times reports.

Wednesday, Aug. 26

• Microsoft founder Bill Gates issues a stark warning about artificial intelligence in a 6,000-word self-published essay. “Even under the best circumstances, the transition to this new AI era will be one of the most turbulent times in human history. Right now, we are not preparing for it. I don’t see evidence that leaders, experts and communities are confronting the challenges adequately,” he writes. He calls for a tax to slow the rush away from human employees.

• Meta agrees to pay $18 billion -- a little over 2% of its 2025 revenue of $201 billion -- to settle a lawsuit over social media addiction on its platforms of Facebook and Instagram. Meta also agrees to implement measures meant to shield children from addictive social media use. Read this for a clear breakdown of what Meta has agreed to do to protect children going forward, and how the settlement puts pressure on TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat to take similar steps.

• A collapsed glacier in the Himalayan mountains along the border of Nepal and Tibet causes a landslide and flooding that kills at least 300 with another 1,300 people missing.

• The Kremlin says that CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow to meet with intelligence counterparts in the Russian government.

Thursday, Aug. 27

• “OpenAI, Anthropic, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and more than 100 other companies” warn that “organizations now only have months to prepare for AI-enabled cyberattacks,” Axios reports.

• “The U.S. military is experiencing a “beyond critical” shortage of advanced missile interceptors in Europe largely driven by President Donald Trump’s war with Iran, a U.S. defense official in Europe and a NATO official told The Associated Press, raising concerns about vulnerabilities in NATO countries to a potential Russian attack,” the AP reports.

• An autopsy report, obtained by the AP, shows that a National Guard soldier fatally show a Memphis man in the back in the early hours of July 4, contradicting government claims that the guardsman shot the man in the chest.

Friday, Aug. 28

• The likely death toll in Nepal rises well above 2,000, with 1,900 people still missing and the confirmed death toll at 580.

• Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh signals that interest rate hikes may be in the cards come September, to fight inflation that is once again creeping up.

Interesting Reads

• The turbulent AI era is here. The choices we make now are critical, by Bill Gates for Gates Notes

• Trump says the US doesn’t need Canada. The economy says otherwise, by Rob Gillies for The Associated Press

• Trump vs. the Bond Market, by Ezra Klein for The New York Times

• Meta agrees to a groundbreaking shake-up of social, by Ricky Sutton for Future Media

• Politics should be more boring, by Matt Yglesias for Slow Boring

• The world inches toward catastrophic climate events: ‘Bigger shocks are on the way’, by Peter Prengaman for The Associated Press

• Hegseth’s Purge of Top Generals Leaves the Army Rudderless, by Greg Jaffe,Eric Schmitt, Helene Cooper and Adam Entous for The New York Times

• Data centers’ ‘oh s--t’ moment, by Gabby Miller and Owen Dahlkamp for Politico

• In candid interviews, National Guard members speak out about D.C. deployment, by Kat Lonsdorf for NPR

• Go Ahead, Sean Duffy. Let Your Daughter Go to Harvard, by David French for The New York Times

• Pope Leo XIV Guts the Case for Vance’s Postliberal Catholicism in San Marino, by Christopher Hale for Letters from Pope Leo

• A Republican Governor Tried to Heal American Politics. It Almost Broke Him, by McKay Coppins for The Atlantic

• Learning from Ross Douthat, by Massimo Faggioli for Commonweal

• The Weed Got Too Strong, by Sivabalaji Kaliamurthy for The New York Times (gift link)

• Dolly Parton Didn’t Need You to Love Her (and That’s Why Most of Us Did), by Russell Moore for Christianity Today

• The Wolf and the Shepherd: A 3:00 a.m. meditation, by Timothy P. Schilling for Commonweal

After this summer’s glorious World Cup, I’m ready to become a more serious football fan.

I’ve decided to pick a team to root for in the English Premier League.

Sorry: a club, not a team.

I’ve held off for decades. I watched World Cups going back to my junior year of high school, when the U.S. hosted it in 1994.

I’m that generation of Americans who became casual soccer fans every four years because of 94. That was a watershed moment.

From 1954 to 1986, the U.S. hadn’t even qualified for the World Cup. In 1990 they qualified but lost all three games. In 1994, they not only won a game, they made it out of the group stage. That squad was one for the ages: goalie Tony Meola and his pony tail straight of Belleville, New Jersey, John Harkes and Cobi Jones in the midfield, and Alexi Lalas on the back line.

Major League Soccer launched its first season in 1996. I went to a fair share of D.C. United games back when they played at RFK Stadium, coached by Bruce Arena, and won back to back championships the first two seasons of MLS play.

From 2010 or so until the Year of Our Lord COVID (2020), I was all in on baseball. The Nats had a golden decade culminating with their World Series title in 2019, and I was coaching our son in Little League for most of that time.

But in recent years our family has gravitated toward soccer, as our daughters grew older and this became their main sport. The Washington Spirit women’s team — dominant like United was in past years — began to play their home games at Audi Field after COVID, and we’ve gone to many games there since.

Matches, sorry. Matches, not games.

Yet, despite all that, I looked askance at Americans who professed to be fans of European football. It just seemed like LARPing (Live Action Role Playing — it’s a video game term) to me: a way for wannabe hipsters and faux sophisticates to strike a pose.

Sports teams are tied to place. Think of the teams you grew up rooting for. It’s almost always because of where you lived or where your parents grew up.

How do you just air drop into a fan culture from an ocean away? How does an American sing songs of regional pride about Sussex County and not feel like a total chud?

Then I saw British fans singing “Wonderwall” by Oasis after England’s 3-2 win over Mexico. That didn’t seem very traditional or sacred. It was kind of lame, actually. And in a weird sort of way, it helped break some of the spell. How serious can any fan base be when they’re rooting for a team with players like Jordan Henderson, who didn’t play a minute in that game and yet still managed to draw a yellow card and be carted off the field in a stretcher.

So, despite my fairly deep and long held reservations, I am ready to give Premiership football a chance.

Why the Premier League, rather than other leagues in Spain, Italy, France, Germany or even others in England? Well, I’d thought Premier games were on U.S. TV the most. That is false. La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga: they’re all on U.S. TV now. I just happened to know the Premier League the best.

But I was quite clear with myself that I wouldn’t be choosing one of the better known “famous” clubs: Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City, Man United, and maybe one or two others. Too Johnny-come-lately. Even Crystal Palace was a little too well known.

So, how many Premier League clubs had I not heard of?

Turns out there weren’t many. Hull City. Brentford. Maybe Fulham. And Brighton.

Of those, Brighton stood out. I think it was mostly because I love Graham Greene and have read his novel about teen mobsters in that town, called Brighton Rock. The Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club has played in this coastal city for 125 years.

I still don’t know what Hove Albion means. I don’t think I know any of the players on the team. But I’m already learning some of Brighton’s history. Ridiculously, I’ve looked at Brighton’s merchandise page already, wondering if I should buy something.

You don’t even know if you’re going to be a fan, I reproach myself. This is a trial period.

But I can already see a trip to the British beach in my future.

Sorry, the seaside, not the beach.

These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targeted way to get a sense of the shape of the past week on the national level. Without such a map, we can be disoriented, not knowing where we have been over the past several days, or where we may be going.

But by spending concentrated, limited time thinking about the big picture, we can devote more of our time to where “agency and justice begin and end,” as Karen Swallow Prior put it: “on the ground, bodily, in community and real relationships, in flesh and blood.”

Quotes of the Week

Use the machine as a reader, not a writer. - Allison Stanger

Democrats have a type. From JFK through Obama, the party wins with candidates who reflect tomorrow not yesterday, can speak in paragraphs and have elite bona fides but also can run credibly against the status quo because they aren’t part of the Washington old guard. - Jonathan Martin

The notion that cannabis is not addictive may basically be incorrect. - Dr. Nora D. Volkow

Governments are worse than networks because the former have the power to crush you, and you only get one at a time, and you can’t change the channel except every four years. - Peggy Noonan

Week in Review

Friday, Aug. 14

• Trump dismisses concerns raised by families of U.S. sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East, who have been at sea for nine months. Families of U.S. service members have raised concerns about supply issues and mental health concerns on board the ship. Trump, asked by a reporter if the deployment had gone on too long, said, “No, no, no, not nearly long enough.”

• An air traffic controller in Phoenix averts disaster by making sure two American airlines planes -- one arriving from Chicago and one taking off -- with identical flight numbers do not collide.

Saturday, Aug. 15

• A 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Indonesia kills roughly 70 people.

• The death toll from flooding in Indiana reaches 7 people.

Sunday, Aug. 16

• Trump orders the U.S. military to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea, finding fault with America’s long-time ally for not helping attack Iran, and saying he has a good relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

• Israel’s Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, says that the Israeli government should be “taking down 30 or 40 [Palestinians] every night,” in a podcast interview. “There are people there [in Gaza] who are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people,” Ben-Gvir says.

Monday, Aug. 17

• A deadline for ending the war in Iran passes with the U.S. and Iran farther apart than ever in how to resolve the conflict.

• A new report finds that Trump has appointed more ultra rich people, worth more than $100 million each, than the previous three presidents combined.

• The Ebola death toll in Congo surpasses 2,300 people.

Tuesday, Aug. 18

• The U.S. and Canada agree to a three-day delay of 50% tariffs on Canadian goods.

• Darline Graham, sister of deceased U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, is asked in a debate among candidates to replace her brother for a six-year term about the U.S. relationship with Taiwan. Graham says, “I’m just going to be honest here; I’m not that informed on national security, so — but I do support the military.”

• Florida Democrats elect a far left candidate, Angie Nixon, for U.S. Senate over Alexander Vindman, a former National Security Council aide who drew Trump’s ire by testifying against the president during his first impeachment.

Wednesday, Aug. 19

• The U.S. national debt hits $40 TRILLION. It was just under $20 trillion 10 years ago. The rising debt crowds out other priorities for government spending, as interest payments eat up more and more of the annual budget. It also raises borrowing costs for American consumers, increasing the cost of their car and house payments. “The U.S.’ fiscal position stands as the worst among other developed countries,” the AP reports.

• The Trump administration takes emergency steps to try to stop interest rates on the government’s debt payments, also known as bond yields, from rising.

• Wired Magazine reports that Elon Musk is planning to spend between $100 million to $200 million on the midterm elections, much of it to boost Senate candidate Ken Paxton, a Republican.

Thursday, Aug. 20

• The Trump administration’s efforts to keep interest rates on government debt down fail, as rates rise again.

• A charter plane crashes in Alaska, killing all eight people on board.

Friday, Aug. 21

• The World Health Organization sends over 15,000 doses of an Ebola vaccine that they believe may offer some protection against the current outbreak in Congo.

• Residents of Indiana suffer through their 10th day without power caused by flooding.

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fires “the editor-in-chief of Stars and Stripes and a top reporter for insubordination after they spoke publicly against any interference by the Defense Department in the military news outlet that has a long history of editorial independence,” the AP reports. Stars and Stripes had reported on concerns by families of Navy sailors aboard the USS Lincoln.

Interesting Reads

• Inside Big Tech’s Frantic Race to Quell the Growing Backlash to AI, by Isabella Simonetti and Meghan Bobrowsky for The Wall Street Journal

• Why Korea Matters by Gary Kasparov for The Next Move

• The White House Freak-Out Over Natalie Harp, by Jonathan Lemire for The Atlantic

• The Art of the Self-Deal: Thoughts on how Trump-era corruption is affecting Americans as a people, by Peggy Noonan for The Wall Street Journal

• Nation’s Largest Reservoirs Are Drying Up, Threatening Life in the Southwest, by Scott Dance and Mira Rojanasakul for The New York Times

• Trump’s slight of South Korea in favor of the North raises broader US security concerns, by Matthew Lee and Ben Finley for The Associated Press

• AI Makes Me a Better Writer, by Allison Stanger for The Wall Street Journal

• As More Americans Turn to Cannabis, Problem Use Is Increasing, by Roni Caryn Rabin for The New York Times

• AOC and the Democratic reckoning over the “Great Awokening”, by Michael Baharaeen for The Long View

• Trump orders the Navy to return to an older system of launching jets off aircraft carriers, by Konstantin Toropin for The Associated Press

• As the Old Files Open, One Family Confronts Another’s Dark Nazi Past, by Nina Siegel for The New York Times (gift link)

• The Hidden Debt That Apple Owes to the CIA, by Sharon Weinberger for The Wall Street Journal

• The Bond ‘Chaos’ Is a Sign Kevin Warsh’s Plan Is Working, by Joseph Sternberg for The Wall Street Journal

These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targeted way to get a sense of the shape of the past week on the national level. Without such a map, we can be disoriented, not knowing where we have been over the past several days, or where we may be going.

But by spending concentrated, limited time thinking about the big picture, we can devote more of our time to where “agency and justice begin and end,” as Karen Swallow Prior put it: “on the ground, bodily, in community and real relationships, in flesh and blood.”

Week in Review

Friday, Aug. 7

• The Senate approves a sanctions bill targeting Russia’s oil revenue that had been negotiated by recently deceased Sen. Lindsey Graham.

• A federal appeals court rules 2-to-1 that President Trump cannot build a new White House ballroom without congressional approval.

Saturday, Aug. 8

• Todd Blanche is confirmed as attorney general.

• “The Pentagon is pressing the U.S. defense industry to accelerate production of weapons to help replenish its diminished stockpile of munitions, including those depleted in the ongoing war with Iran,” the AP reports.

• An illegally chartered boat carrying 14 people in New York harbor near the Statue of Liberty capsizes in choppy waters caused by the wake of a larger vessel. A 27-year old woman and her 5-month old baby are drowned.

Sunday, Aug. 9

• Over 20,000 people evacuate in Western Canada due to wildfires.

Monday, Aug. 10

• Iran says it will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until the U.S. ends its blockade of Iranian ports, lifts economic sanctions, releases Iran’s frozen assets, and pays compensation for war damage.

• Trump signs an executive order advocating that for “separating the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine into three different single-disease shots and administering all childhood immunizations at separate appointments whenever possible.” Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican who is also a physician, says the president is stoking unfounded fears of a link between vaccines and autism. “I’m a doctor. This executive order is wrong. The President does not have the expertise to make these changes,” the Cassidy says.

• A 7.4 magnitude earthquake in Columbia kills over 100 people.

• The Ebola death toll in Africa reaches over 1,900 people, with confirmed cases rising above 4,200.

Tuesday, Aug. 11

• Wisconsin Democrats nominate a moderate candidate for governor, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, averting fears that the party’s base would put forward a far left candidate, Democratic Socialist and former chef Francesca Hong, who had spoken a few years ago of canceling Thanksgiving and abolishing all police and prisons.

• The Washington Post reports that Trump left the NATO summit in Turkey last month in an alternative plane after boarding Air Force One. He was taken to a different plane by stepping on to Air Force One’s catering truck which ferried him to the new plane, all due to an Iranian assassination threat.

Wednesday, Aug. 12

• The Associated Press reports that ICE is planning to spend up to $20 million to outfit ICE agents with gloves that deliver electrical shocks.

• The Los Angeles Lakers are sold for $12 billion to Josh Kushner, brother to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Hollywood executive Bob Iger.

Thursday, Aug. 13

• U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee describes Israeli settlers who have surrounded three Palestinian homes in the West Bank as “terrorists,” an unusually strong rebuke of Israeli extremists by the Trump administration.

• The average long term U.S. mortgage rate dips for the first time in six weeks but remains elevated at 6.67%.

Friday, Aug. 14

• England, France and Germany battle wildfires amid another intense heat wave.

Interesting Reads

• ‘Revenge of the silent normie majority’ by Adam Wren for Politico Playbook

• Why I’m (still) evangelical, by Drew Brown for Slow Faith

• The Great American AI Rebellion, by Derek Thompson on Substack

• Israeli Settlers Are Out of Control. Could an Election Change That? by Nicholas Kristof for The New York Times (gift link)

• Why MAGA Is So Obsessed With Fauci, by Pete Wehner for The Atlantic

• Arthur Brooks: I Tried to Vacation Like a European. It Was a Disaster, by Arthur Brooks for The Free Press

These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targeted way to get a sense of the shape of the past week on the national level. Without such a map, we can be disoriented, not knowing where we have been over the past several days, or where we may be going.

But by spending concentrated, limited time thinking about the big picture, we can devote more of our time to where “agency and justice begin and end,” as Karen Swallow Prior put it: “on the ground, bodily, in community and real relationships, in flesh and blood.”

Quotes of the Week

What we collectively do now will determine how the next phase of civilization unfolds. - Demis Hassabis

Nolan’s Odysseus is not a trickster. He is a man living in the ruins brought about by tricksters. So, too, are we. This movie, and the reaction to it, is a sign that the age of the trickster is ending. Now we need those who would remake this world.

- Ezra Klein

In the first year of his return to the White House, Trump’s political speed helped him to take the initiative. He was doing things so fast that he left others living in a state of total disorientation. But now — and this is very clear in the case of war with Iran — Trump has become the victim of his own time zone.

- Ivan Krastev

Week in Review

Friday, July 31

• Charges against a former Olympian for damaging the Reflecting Pool in DC were based on false information and are dropped by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. The damaged to the pool was caused by “flawed installation by the contractor,” contrary to Trump’s statements that the $16 million renovation fell apart within days due to vandalism.

Saturday, Aug. 1

• Trump calls off another round of attacks on Iran, the latest in an on-again, off-again series of escalations and pauses.

• Cyber attacks on municipal water infrastructure expand to Michigan. Trump contradicts U.S. intelligence and law enforcement reports and blames Democratic politicians.

• Trump continues to claim without evidence that the Reflecting Pool was damaged by vandalism.

• Three people are killed and seven others wounded in a shooting at an Idaho fast food restaurant.

Sunday, Aug. 2

• Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche says in writing that the Trump administration will not create a $1.8 billion slush fund for Trump, which the president’s lawyers had proposed in a lawsuit settlement. That concession clears the way for two key Republican senators to support his nomination to be attorney general, despite the fact that Trump’s immunity from prosecution for tax avoidance in the future remains largely intact.

• Wildfires in Washington state destroy over 600 structures and force the evacuation of more than 60,000 people.

Monday, Aug. 3

• Two people with pre-existing health conditions become the first two people to die from the microscopic parasite cyclospora, Michigan health officials announce.

• Trump criticizes Pirro for her decision to drop charges related to the Reflecting Pool. Pirro goes to the White House and confronts Interior Secretary Doug Burgum for providing Trump with false information about vandalism that did not occur.

Tuesday, Aug. 4

• Progressive candidates defeat moderates for U.S. Senate and Congress in Democratic primaries in Michigan. The wins for left-wing candidates deepen fears among Democrats that their party, driven by anti-Trump fervor, is drifting too far away from mainstream voters in states that are key to winning back the presidency.

• Taxpayers will provide $1.4 billion to keep National Guard troops in Washington, D.C. through 2029, according to the Pentagon.

Wednesday, Aug. 5

• “More than 50 parents and spouses of active-duty service members have been detained since Trump took office for a second term, and at least six have been deported and one self-deported,” an AP investigation finds. “At least eight immediate family members of U.S. service members remain in federal immigration custody.”

• Congressman Chuck Edwards, a North Carolina Republican, quits his reelection campaign after the House Ethics Committee recommends he be censured for inappropriate conduct toward two young female aides.

Thursday, Aug. 6

• Trump signs an executive order to restrict the ability of people born in the U.S. to non-citizens to become citizens, a month after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the president cannot overrule the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that confers citizenship in that situation.

• A New Mexico court orders Facebook and its parent company Meta to pay $567 million to go towards mental health treatment for young people harmed by its platform, months after ordering the “social media” company to pay $375 million in civil penalties.

Friday, Aug. 7

• ICE says it will equip its officers with body cameras but will only release footage if it is in the “best interests” of the agency.

• A 14-year old student in Thailand opens fire at a high school outside Bangkok, killing five people and wounding 20.

Interesting Reads

• A deal with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz may require a compromise from Trump, by Ben Finley and Matthew Lee for The Associated Press

• Trump’s Meddling in Justice Dept. Causes Problems of His Own Making, by Alan Feuer for The New York Times

• Christopher Nolan’s Trojan Horse, by Ezra Klein for The New York Times (gift link)

• She Escaped Teen Marriage in Appalachia. Her Time at Harvard Was Even Worse, by Ellen Gamerman for The Wall Street Journal (gift link)

• Will The Two Cults Finally Fall? by Andrew Sullivan for The Weekly Dish

• Trump goes unmentioned but not ignored as Clinton, Bush and Obama step up as essayists on presidents, by Calvin Woodward for The Associated Press

• Ted Lasso season 4 is the death knell for the Cringe TV era, by Jack King for GQ

• Exclusive: Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis calls for U.S.-led global AI watchdog, by Mike Allen, Zachary Basu, Madison Mills for Axios

• A Framework for Frontier AI and the Dawning of a New Age, by Demis Hassabis for Demis Hassabis

• Don’t count out Demis Hassabis: his second act could save us from AI, by Sebastian Mallaby for The Times

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Where a strictly worded definition closes down thought and can be shallow, a story opens the hearer’s mind and is endlessly deep. Stories carry meaning without having to be converted into a rigid statement.

- James Martin SJ

The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.

- Mark Twain

There are two traps: first, relativism, which says, “There is no truth, only your truth or my truth”; and second, fundamentalism, which says, “There is truth, and I have it, and you do not.” We have to find our way between relativism and fundamentalism, toward truth that is ultimately deep and mysterious.

- Timothy Radcliffe

Week in Review

Saturday, July 25

• One person is killed and many more are injured by an attack on a Pride parade in Berlin, in which a man drives a van into a crowd.

Sunday, July 26

• A shootout between suspected teenage gang members in Seattle at a food festival kills three and injures several others, including a toddler.

Monday, July 27

• French President Emmanuel Macron says that the wildfire in the nation’s Gironde region is “completely unprecedented,” having displaced over 250,000 people and injured more than 90 firefighters.

• More than 30 Minnesota municipal water systems are targeted in a coordinated cyberattack. “In at least one case, a city’s well and treatment plant were temporarily knocked offline Monday. Other cities reported that the attack targeted communications and automated operations within their water system — forcing a move to manual workarounds,” MPR reports.

Tuesday, July 28

• Iran launches a surprise ballistic missile attack against a U.S. troop base in Jordan. The missiles are intercepted.

• Massive wildfires threaten major cities like Bordeaux in France and Madrid in Spain. Over 300,000 people are evacuated and more than 450 structures are destroyed.

Wednesday, July 29

• Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, Todd Blanche, faces opposition from key Republican senators, stalling his path to confirmation. The GOP lawmakers want to see

• Video is released showing three National Guard soldiers in combat fatigues going onto the property of a U.S. Army veteran and Purple Heart recipient and handcuffing her without explanation. The Army veteran, Anna King, files a lawsuit against the Idaho National Guard and the Defense Department for her treatment, which she alleges caused her injuries.

• The Federal Reserve keeps interest rates steady, despite calls from some members and expectations from analysts and economists to raise them to fight inflation.

Thursday, July 30

• U.S. intelligence analysts say Iran was likely behind the cyberattack on Minnesota’s water supply.

• The U.S. military conducts a “heavy wave” of strikes on targets in Iran, and conducts a joint exercise with Saudi Arabia against Iranian-backed militias operating in Iraq.

• A 55-year old Georgia man is sentenced to 15 years in prison for giving his 14-year old son a rifle and scope despite signs of his son’s deteriorating mental health. The boy, who was recently sentenced to life in prison, shot and killed two students and two teachers at a high school in 2024.

Friday, July 31

• Tens of thousands of migrants return to Morocco after a dramatic influx into a Spanish territory on the northeastern tip of the north African country, which is separated from the Spanish mainland by the Strait of Gibraltar. The rush of migrants, which produced alarming video images and led to at least 57 deaths, was sparked by a misinterpretation of a ruling by the Spanish Supreme Court. The Spanish Interior Ministry says that of roughly 50,000 people who had crossed into the Spanish territory of Cueta on Thursday, more than 48,000 had returned to Morocco.

• The Trump administration ends a two-year subsidy that had lowered prescription drug costs for about 25 older Americans.

Interesting Reads

• Centrist Democrats Are Staring Down Disaster in a Michigan Swing District, by Alex Roarty for NOTUS

• Neither Saint Nor Villain: The all-too-human story of a masterful operator, Tony Fauci, by Andrew Sullivan for The Weekly Dish

• A U.S. Citizen Deleted His Phone’s Data. Now He Faces a Felony Charge, by Adeel Hassan for The New York Times

• The Senate’s Absurd Conflicts of Interest Bill, by Bob Bauer for Executive Functions

• Being Christian Means Being Alive An interview with Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe, OP, by Vincent Ray M. Daut for Commonweal

• Scrutiny of WNBA intensifies as mounting discord around the league looms over All-Star festivities, by Alanis Thames for The Associated Press

• Cut the number of choices you make each day. Your brain will thank you, by Albert Stumm for The Associated Press

• Matt Damon’s Biceps in That ‘Odyssey’ Fight Scene? They’re Hers, by Alisha Haridasani Gupta for The New York Times

Quotes of the Week

In the era of artificial intelligence, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanization, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human. - Pope Leo

“We often owe more to our enemies than to the applause of friends.” - Tomas Halik

To affirm the view of the world that Christianity seeks to replace—a world of cruelty, hierarchy, and might makes right—is to be an anti-Christian. - Damon Linker

We should treat highly distracting digital garbage like junk food – something we largely avoid – and purposefully schedule a non-trivial amount of time each day to read, write, and self-reflect, just as we now dedicate time to walking, jogging, and weight lifting. - Cal Newport

It’s healthy to avoid doomscrolling -- less healthy to avoid reality. - Matt Labash

Thanks in large part to Vatican II, Catholicism has grown enormously, more than doubling from 653 million members in 1970 to 1.4 billion today. The vast majority of that growth has come in the Southern Hemisphere. Catholicism is far more African, more Asian, more Latin American than it is European. - David Gibson

Week(s) in Review

Saturday, June 13

• President Trump prepares to depart for the G7 summit in France after signaling that a tentative Iran ceasefire and trade disputes will dominate talks with allied leaders.

• The Kennedy Center removes President Trump’s name from its Opera House.

Sunday, June 14

• Trump hosts a cage fighting match on the White House lawn to celebrate his 80th birthday.

• The Palestinian death toll from the Israel-Hamas war surpasses 73,000 people.

Monday, June 15

• A U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber crashes in the Mojave desert during a training flight, killing all eight service members on board.

• Republican lawmakers express skepticism about an announced peace deal between the U.S. and Iran.

• California Gov. Gavin Newsom says the Justice Department has opened a politically motivated investigation into him as he weighs a bid for president in 2028.

Tuesday, June 16

• Iran’s soccer coach says that the U.S. told his team they must leave the country and return to their training center in Mexico immediately after their Monday night game versus New Zealand in Los Angeles.

• The Justice Department asks a judge to halt the first reparations program in U.S. history, in Evanston, Illinois. The program has been giving $25,000 payments to descendants of those “who lived in the city between 1919 and 1969 and suffered housing discrimination because of city ordinances, policies or practices.”

• Vice President J.D. Vance appears for an hour on “The View” to promote his new book.

• National Park Service workers struggle to contain an algae bloom in the Reflecting Pool after Trump’s more than $14 million renovation.

Wednesday, June 17

• Trump signs a deal with Iran to end fighting. The agreement “calls for Tehran to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and waives U.S.-backed sanctions on the country, immediately allowing Iran to sell its oil freely in a major concession from Washington, according to details released by both countries,” the AP reports.

Thursday, June 18

• The price of gas falls below $4 a gallon on average for the first time since March, even as Americans are paying about $1 more per gallon than they were before Trump’s decision to launch airstrikes on Iran.

• Former President Barack Obama formally opens his presidential center in Chicago with a large celebration

Friday, June 19

• An AP poll shows 65% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the Iran war.

• Iran delays talks with Vice President J.D. Vance out of protest for continued Israeli strikes in Lebanon.

Saturday, June 20

• Trump says police have made “multiple arrests” of people who touched or meddled with the Reflecting Pool in D.C., as he tries to deflect blame for growing algae blooms and cracking paint on the bottom of the pool weeks after a $14 million renovation.

Sunday, June 21

• Vance and a U.S. team begin talks in Switzerland with a team of Iranian leaders.

• France and other parts of Europe bake in a heat wave that pushes temperatures above 100 degrees.

Monday, June 22

• The U.S. and Iran conclude two days of talks. Vance says a “good foundation” has been laid for an end to fighting.

• The U.S. Senate passes a bipartisan housing deal that the AP reports to be “one of the most sweeping efforts in recent decades to increase supply and bring down prices.” The bill heads to the House.

• British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says he will resign after two years in the post. His replacement will become the seventh British PM in a decade.

Tuesday, June 23

• Three Democratic candidates for Congress in New York win primaries after being endorsed by New York City Zohran Mamdani, pushing the party’s congressional delegation in that state further to the left and signaling a rising tide of progressive energy in the party at large.

• The Senate, for the first time, approves a symbolic war powers resolution to block U.S. military action against Iran, during a morning vote. Trump attends a lunch with Republican senators, which descends into a yelling match. Senate Republican leaders hold another symbolic vote late that evening on the war powers question, and enough Republicans vote against it to reverse their vote from earlier in the day.

Wednesday, June 24

• A pair of massive earthquakes rock Venezuela, killing over 5,000 people and injuring more than 16,000 people. Tens of thousands of people remain missing.

• Trump cancels plans to sign the bipartisan housing bill at the last minute, saying he wants a bill to clamp down on voting rights to be passed.

• After a flu outbreak sickens more than 300 U.S. service members at an Air Force base, the Pentagon reinstates mandatory vaccination against the flu for new recruits, following War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s suspension of the requirement in April.

Thursday, June 25

• The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, allows “the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, exposing hundreds of thousands more people to potential deportation,” the AP reports.

• A federal judge blocks a Trump executive order to create a federal voting list, an idea that Republicans have fiercely opposed in the past.

Friday, June 26

• Economic data shows the U.S. GDP grew buy 2.1% during the first quarter of 2026, a surprisingly strong result. Inflation data from May shows the highest increase in three years due to gas price increases and demand for computer parts involve in the AI explosion.

Saturday, June 27

• The U.S. launches attacks on Iran in retaliation for an Iran attack on a maritime vessel. Iran launches strikes on Bahrain and Kuwait.

Sunday, June 28

• ICE arrests a 56-year old Catholic nun, wearing her habit and walking one-block to mass, in South Texas. She is released later that day after federal lawmakers get involved. The local diocese calls the federal government’s actions “wildly disturbing.”

Monday, June 29

• The U.S. says talks to end fighting are resuming. Iran says they are not.

Tuesday, June 30

• The U.S. Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship, rejecting the Trump adminstration’s efforts to end citizenship for those born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents.

• Trump has made over $1 billion on the sale of cryptocurrency while president, federal disclosure forms show, part of the doubling of his net worth to over $6 billion since he was reelected president in 2024. The cryptocurrency assets have plunged in value since they were sold to investors.

Wednesday, July 1

• U.S. and Iranian negotiators in Quatar meet separately from one another with representatives from Quatar and Pakistan.

Thursday, July 2

• A former Olympic canoe racer is indicted in federal court in Washington, D.C., on a felony charge of property destruction in and accused of “forcefully and violently” pulling on a piece of the sealant on the bottom of the Reflecting Pool, as the pool’s condition continues to deteriorate. David Hearn, the accused, says he simply touched the pool’s coating out of curiosity and stopped when told to do so.

Friday, July 3

• A huge swath of the U.S., from the Great Plains to the East Coast, swelters under an extreme heat wave that breaks numerous records.

Saturday, July 4

• Americans around the world celebrate the 250th birthday of their nation.

Sunday, July 5

• The U.S. Men’s soccer team is embroiled in controversy ahead of their round of 16 knockout match against Belgium in the World Cup, as star forward Folarin Balogun is reinstated to play and Trump claims credit for intervening with FIFA, the governing body. European soccer body UEFA says FIFA “crossed a red line” and calls the decision “unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable.” Norwegian coach Stale Solbakken says: “It’s a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad decision that will hurt the World Cup.”

• A Tennessee man is fatally shot by National Guard members in Memphis.

Monday, July 6

• Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Graham Platner, a progressive darling, is accused of rape by a former girlfriend. Platner loses support from key Democratic allies and lawmakers.

• The U.S. men’s team loses to Belgium, 4-1. “Overturn this,” Belgium’s social media account says afterward.

Tuesday, July 7

• A 37-story building in Manhattan is evacuated after fire officials find evidence of instability and warn that the building could collapse. The building is stabilized by the end of the day.

Wednesday, July 8

• The U.S. launches new airstrikes against Iran, and Iran strikes Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar in response. Trump says the fragile ceasefire is over. Oil prices rise and stocks fall.

• The U.S. agrees to help Ukraine make Patriot air defense systems, after years of requests from Kyiv.

• At a NATO summit, Trump again says the U.S. needs to take control of Greenland.

• Trump departs the NATO summit in an older version of the Air Force One plane, after security concerns are raised with the Qatari-provided upgrade.

• Graham Platner drops his bid for the U.S. Senate seat in Maine.

• Another person is killed by a federal task force member in Memphis.

Thursday, July 9

• Eight men are indicted for making plans to conduct an attack on the June 14 UFC fight at the White House, involving drones and snipers. Their plan was foiled when the mother of one alleged plotter, a 19-year old Ohio man, called police four days before the event to warn them about her son’s purchases of weapons and plans to go to Washington, D.C.

• Fighting between the U.S. and Iran intensifies.

Friday, July 10

• The Justice Department serves subpoenas to New York Times reporters who wrote about security concerns related to the Qatari-gifted Air Force One, seeking to compel testimony the following week.

• Trump says he will allow the bipartisan housing bill to become law without his signature.

Saturday, July 11

• Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, staunch Trump ally and strong supporter of Ukraine in Congress, dies unexpectedly at age 71 of a suspected aortic tear.

Sunday, July 12

• Severe weather impacts much of the country: flooding in Missouri, severe storms on the East Coast, wildfires in California, and extreme heat in Florida.

Monday, July 13

• A federal immigration officer shoots and kills a man in his vehicle in Biddeford, Maine. The government says the officer shot in self-defense but then changes its story to say the officer shot the man when he began to flee, to protect public safety. It is the ninth killing of a person in the U.S. “during immigration operations since the start of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign,” the AP reports.

• Oil prices begin to rise again after a weekend of continued fighting in Iran and constriction of shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

• “President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over his leaked tax returns was filed for an “improper purpose,” a judge said Monday as she referred one of his lawyers for potential disciplinary action and characterized the $10 billion complaint as an exercise in self-dealing,” the AP reports.

Tuesday, July 14

• Iran and the U.S. continue to exchange missile strikes and Trump says the U.S. is reinstating a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and will now charge ships a toll for passage.

• A man fleeing federal agents in Florida is struck by a tractor trailer and killed, the third death in a week involving ICE officers.

• The Trump administration orders ICE to cease conducting most vehicle stops after two deadly shootings in a week.

Wednesday, July 15

• Trump says he thinks ICE should continue making traffic stops.

• Canadian wildfires send large amounts of smoke across eastern Canada and the U.S., making air quality unhealthy for many.

• The Reflecting Pool, drained again, has turned gray.

• The ebola outbreak in Congo continues to grow, exceeding 2,000 cases and 800 deaths, as the health response is complicated by attacks on health workers.

Thursday, July 16

• U.S. strikes against Iran begin to hit areas around the capital city Tehran, and Iran says recent strikes have killed at least 35 people in that country.

• Trump gives a prime time address from the White House to once again air unfounded claims that the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden, was rigged against him, and talks about unnamed threats to the next election.

• Trump’s social media company, Truth Social, says it will sell access to messages to Wall Street traders before others see them to give them an opportunity to make trades on the information. “It’s yet more brazen corruption. Trump can line his pockets by selling access,” says Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert at Washington University School of Law.

• Flooding in Texas hill country kills at least two people.

• The Centers for Disease Control says lettuce served at Taco Bell has been a source of a large outbreak of the diarrhea-causing parasite cyclospora.

Friday, July 17

• An Iranian missile strike on a U.S. military base in Jordan kills three U.S. service members and injures several others, bringing the total death toll in the conflict to 18 U.S. soldiers.

• Relatives, including an ex-wife, of the ICE officer who fatally shot a Columbian man in Maine earlier that week say the officer has a long history of mental health issues and violent behavior.

Saturday, July 18

• A seventh straight night of U.S. air strikes on Iran begins to target critical infrastructure such as bridges. Iranian missiles are fired at multiple U.S. allies in the region including Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain.

• Misogynist influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate are arrested in Miami as Britain seeks their extradition on rape and sex trafficking charges.

Sunday, July 19

• Maine Democrats unite around a replacement for Graham Platner, choosing former state Senate president Troy Jackson to run against Sen. Susan Collins in the fall.

• Spain defeats Argentina, 1-0, in the World Cup final.

Monday, July 20

• The U.S. conducts a ninth consecutive night of airstrikes on Iran as the two countries move closer to all out war.

• Trump says he will place 50% tariffs on most Canadian goods.

• Gas prices move back above $4 a gallon on average as a result of renewed fighting in Iran.

Tuesday, July 21

• War Secretary Pete Hegseth says the U.S. war in Iran has cost $37 billion so far, as the Pentagon requests another $70 billion for operations. Hegseth faces tough questions from U.S. senators on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

• The Trump administration defers $1 billion in Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota, states with Democratic governance.

• The House passes a government funding shortgap.

• “ChatGPT maker OpenAI said Tuesday that its artificial intelligence system hacked into another AI company on its own in what the company called an “unprecedented cyber incident,” the AP reports.

Wednesday, July 22

• The U.S. conducts a 12th night of consecutive strikes on Iran. Trump threatens to destroy bridges and power plants in retaliation for attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

Thursday, July 23

• The U.S. House passes, for the second time, a resolution to halt the U.S. war in Iran, showing dwindling support in Congress for the president’s war.

• Government lawyers withdraw subpoenas seeking to compel testimony from New York Times reporters.

Friday, July 24

• Trump extends tariffs on much of the world, imposing “taxes of 10% to 12.5% on imports from 60 trading partners accounting for 99% of U.S. imports.”

Interesting Reads

• The Still-Rising Anti-Christian Right, by Damon Linker for Notes from the Underground

• Why American elections are so complicated — and secure, by Ali Swenson for The Associated Press

• Trump says these documents prove his false claims of election fraud. Here’s what they really say, by Jill Colvin and Erick Tucker for The Associated Press

• This Is What’s Keeping Me Up at Night, by David French for The New York Times

• The Trump Administration’s Portentous Subpoenas of NYT Reporters, by Jack Goldsmith for Executive Functions

• The America That’s Still Possible, by Ezra Klein and Bryan Stevenson for The New York Times

• Pope Leo Chooses Social Justice Over Pelvic Theology, by David Gibson for The New York Times

• Authenticity in Music by Ted Gioia for The Honest Broker

• America’s Suez Moment, by Andrew Sullivan for The Weekly Dish

• Trump shifts his tone on Jimmy Carter while grappling with Iran, inflation and his own legacy, by Will Weissert for The Associated Press

• Vance, an admirer of Richard Nixon, says Watergate would be ‘a 12-hour news story’ today, by the AP

• How Podcasts Ruined America by Michael Tracey for Compact

• Hillbilly Eulogy, by Paul V. Brock for Commonweal

• Justices Kagan And Barrett Are The Spokeswomen SCOTUS Needs Right Now, by David Lat for Executive Functions

• Trump’s 18-Month Deadline To Cut Electricity Prices in Half Has Arrived. Rates Are Up 18%, by Jeff Luse for Reason

• Staggering amounts of fentanyl hit streets as the DEA watched and took no action, records show, by Jim Mustian and Joshua Goodman for The Associated Press

Sen. Lindsey Graham died Saturday evening at 71 years old, without any advance notice, of a “brief and sudden illness.”

He was a colorful and entertaining figure, a politician through and through, for better and for worse. He will be remembered for a few things: perhaps most for his move from staunch ally of John McCain to an acolyte of Donald Trump, who trashed McCain during the 2016 campaign for being captured by Vietnamese soldiers when McCain’s U.S. Navy jet was shot down during the U.S. war in Vietnam.

McCain spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war. You can read his first-person account of his capture and imprisonment and torture here.

In 2015, Trump was criticizing McCain during an interview on stage in front of voters when the interviewer called McCain a “war hero.”

“He’s not a war hero,” Trump said. “He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

Graham stood by McCain at that time, but after Trump took control of the GOP Graham gradually became one of the new populist president’s fiercest advocates in the Republican party, especially after McCain died in 2018 at age 81 from brain cancer.

Graham again broke with Trump in 2021 after the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol but again returned to his team after the ex-president in exile re-consolidated control over the GOP.

Just over a decade ago, I followed Graham around New Hampshire and wrote a long profile about the South Carolina Republican’s long shot run for president.

You can read the whole piece here or here. But I’ll paste two passages here:

• the introduction about our adventure through a sudden blizzard

• a sample of his interactions with Republican primary voters about immigration policy.

BELMONT, N.H. — I could see the headlines in my mind: “U.S. senator injured when journalist drives off the road.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had just finished speaking to a gathering of local Republicans at the Top of the Town restaurant here, exiting into a near-blizzard.

He took a picture with a local Republican official to document the early April snowstorm — “Nobody back home is going to believe this,” he cracked — then announced to his two aides that he would be driving back to Concord with me, the lone journalist accompanying him that day.

An hourlong trip south on a completely dark, near-empty and snow-covered Interstate 93 followed. Flakes whipping down toward the windshield, I kept my speed at about 35 miles per hour. Any faster and the Nissan Altima started to fishtail.

Eventually we pulled up behind a car going even slower.

“Should I go around?” I asked the senator. I edged the car over to the left to see if it was doable or if the snow on the road was too thick outside of the one lane both cars were forging down the highway.

“Go for it,” said Graham.

The storm had caught the state by surprise. Graham made an occasional remark about the absurdity of driving in such snowy conditions, but mainly he didn’t seem too bothered by them.

We didn’t see a plow for the entire trip. But we did see a car that had slid off the right side of the road into a ditch, hitting some trees at the bottom of a small hill.

We pulled over and got out to see if the driver was OK. Her door was open, and an off-duty cop who had pulled over a few minutes before us in his pickup truck was standing next to her.

“Is everybody all right?” Graham hollered. The young police officer said the driver was not injured and had called AAA. A tow truck was on its way. Graham noticed the badge on his belt and told the officer, “Thanks for taking care of her.”

As we walked back to the car, I pulled out my iPhone to take a picture of Graham and the car and the snow-covered Interstate. With the preternatural instincts of a politician facing a camera, Graham turned and put his right elbow on the car and posed for a picture.

And here’s the interaction with voters on immigration:

Graham was just reelected to a third term last fall, in a deep red state, while talking often about the need for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and for greater U.S. military involvement in the Middle East.

Graham’s down-home drawl and off-center wit are a sugary coating that he uses to disarm audiences so that he can dispense some very unwelcome realities to the Republican party’s most conservative voters, particularly on immigration.

The confrontation that Graham is seeking on this issue often comes to him, as it did here during his appearance in Belmont at the biweekly dinner of the Belknap County Republican Committee, when a man with a mustache and a short ponytail, wearing a suit and tie, rose and challenged Graham from the back of the main dining room.

“Didn’t you kind of support amnesty for illegal aliens at one point?” said Raymond Howard Jr. Howard — who last fall was elected to New Hampshire’s 400-member state House and who told me later that he thought Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was acceptable but that Donald Trump was “what we really need” — asserted to Graham that undocumented immigrants were getting taxpayer-funded benefits “they never earned.”

Graham pounced. “This is a great question,” he said. He immediately contradicted Howard’s statement that illegal immigrants can receive government benefits, but then ran the audience through a series of questions and answers.

“Paying these guys under the table hurts every worker in America. Do you agree?” he said. There were a handful of yeses.

“All right. Do you agree that having a porous border allows somebody to come in to the country to blow us up?” he said.

“Yup,” someone said.

“Do you agree that having 11 million people living in the shadows is not good for our culture?” Graham inquired. This time there was a muted response.

“Do you agree that they’re here mostly to work?”

He was met with several emphatic noes, but forged ahead, using his background as an Air Force lawyer to lead the crowd like a witness in a trial.

“Why are they here?” he said.

“For the freebies,” a woman said. “Freebies,” a man echoed.

Graham sounded slightly exasperated. “Well, they — that’s wrong, absolutely,” he said.

Howard spoke up from the back of the room.

“I can tell you some in this state that are illegal aliens and are signed up and getting benefits,” said the 62-year-old state rep.

“You can say that, but there is no — you cannot get food stamps, you can’t get Medicare, you can’t get Social Security if you’re illegal,” Graham said and then went beyond defending illegal immigrants to advocating for them. “About $80 billion has been paid into the Social Security system by illegal immigrants, and they’re never going to get the money out. They’ve been paying in, but they’re not going to get it out.”

This went on for almost 15 minutes, with Graham challenging his listeners, then letting out some pressure with a joke, and then charging back into another rapid-fire series of queries.

“As to the 11 million, crooks are not welcome. Do you agree?” General nods of assent.

“How many of you think they all should be driven out of the country?” Howard raised his hand, along with a few others.

“How many of you think that that’s pretty much hard to do?” Several hands shot up.

“How many of you think that some of them can stay but they gotta learn English?” Several hands went up again, probably responding more to the clause on the back end of that sentence than the one on the front end. “Gotta learn English,” one man said.

“I don’t speak it well, but look at how well I turned out,” Graham cracked, getting a few laughs.

And on and on. “How many of you believe they should get paid over the table, not under the table?”

“Pay taxes?”

“How many of you think they should pay a fine?”

“How many of you think they should not be able to cut in line in front of somebody who’s been waiting years to get here?” There were murmurs of agreement. “Exactly,” a man said.

Graham had gotten the crowd to agree to the basics of the bill that the Senate passed in 2013. “Now we’re talking,” he said, quietly pleased with them, and with himself.

This was April 2015. At that time, Donald Trump was an afterthought to most. The idea of him even coming close to winning the Republican nomination for president, in a primary with Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz and others was a punchline. But not to voters like the one who said in this scene with Graham that Trump was “what we really need.”

It turned out there were enough of these Trump voters in 2016 — about a third of the Republican party’s primary voters at the time — to give Trump the nomination when the other Republicans couldn’t consolidate around a consensus choice who appealed to the other two thirds of the party.

That watershed event threw remarks like Graham’s at the end of this piece back in his face.

Rubio, Graham said, was “so afraid of the right.”

“I’ve let that go,” he claimed.

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These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targeted way to get a sense of the shape of the past week on the national level. Without such a map, we can be disoriented, not knowing where we have been over the past several days, or where we may be going.

But by spending concentrated, limited time thinking about the big picture, we can devote more of our time to where “agency and justice begin and end,” as Karen Swallow Prior put it: “on the ground, bodily, in community and real relationships, in flesh and blood.”

Quotes of the Week

We are made for the infinite. That is why every finite horizon, every step, every achievement — while satisfying us — also propels us forward and invites us to keep searching. - Pope Leo

I’m not against the critique that the left did not create space for a healthy vision of masculinity. I agree with that critique. But this is so [expletive] warped, where these people have ended up. - Ezra Klein

Week in Review

Friday, June 5

• As California’s vote counting process moves slowly forward, Democrat Xavier Becerra becomes the first candidate for governor to advance to the top-two fall election.

Saturday, June 6

• Secretary of War Pete Hegseth speaks at a D-Day ceremony near the beaches of Normandy, but uses the occasion to speak about an “invasion” of immigrants.

Sunday, June 7

• Iran launches missile attacks against Israel for the first time since April.

Monday, June 8

• U.S. border officials deny entry to the country to a soccer referee from Somalia who was scheduled to take part in the World Cup.

Tuesday, June 9

• A U.S. Army helicopter collides with an Iranian drone off the coast of Oman and crashes. The two pilots are rescued by an autonomous boat.

• Republican Steve Hilton finishes second in California’s primary election for governor, putting him through to the final fall election against Becerra.

• Street violence erupts in Belfast, Ireland a day after a Sudanese man is arrested for attacking and stabbing an Irish man, leaving serious injuries to his eyes.

Wednesday, June 10

• Inflation rises above 4% for the first time in three years. Trump makes head-scratching comments about the inflation report: “You know what I really love? I love the inflation.” He says that when fighting in Iran winds down, inflation will come down.

• The U.S. launches air strikes on Iran, which retaliates by launching strikes on Bahrain and Kuwait.

• Florida’s Supreme Court approves Republican efforts to redraw congressional maps in the state so that the GOP can control more seats in the House.

• Microsoft founder Bill Gates testifies to Congress about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Thursday, June 11

• In the morning, Trump threatens more strikes on Iran but pulls back in the afternoon, claiming progress in ceasefire talks.

• Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican who lost his seat due to Trump’s endorsement of a Republican opponent, says that during his seven remaining months in office he will join a group of Republican senators who are increasingly independent from Trump. The president, Cornyn says in an interview, is “going to have the most miserable two years of his life in the last two years of his term, I think, because I think November is going to be a disaster.”

Friday, June 12

• “Pakistan’s prime minister said Friday the United States and Iran have agreed to wording of an agreement aimed at ending their war in the Middle East and that mediators were working with both sides to finalize a deal,” the AP reports.

• Elon Musk becomes the world’s first trillionaire when shares of SpaceX go public.

• Workers begin building scaffolding to remove Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center, after a federal judge rejects an appeal of a lower court’s decision that Trump’s name was illegally added to the performing arts center.

Interesting Reads

• Kennedy Shows Minimal Engagement With Vast Health Portfolio, by Sheryl Gay Stolberg for The New York Times

• Why Trump Seems Confused By His Own War, by Sam Kahn for Persuasion

• https://www.natesilver.net/p/why-isnt-the-us-better-at-soccer?publication_id=1198116&post_id=201034815&isFreemail=true&r=8xeg&triedRedirect=true by Nate Silver for Silver Bulletin

• Red Mirage, Blue Shift, Online Cope by Renee DiResta for Agents of Influence

• Taking a Week to Count Votes Is Doing It Wrong, by the New York Times editorial board

• Scientists lose critical climate record as ocean observatory will go dark under Trump funding cuts, by Annika Hammerschlag for The Associated Press

• Magnifica Humanitas: Reflecting on Pope Leo’s AI Encyclical, by Jim Stump for BioLogos

• Brawls, Biting and Bliss in a City Craving a Knicks Championship, by Maria Cramer and Maia Coleman for The New York Times

These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targ…

Read more

These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targ…

Read more

These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targ…

Read more

These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targ…

Read more

These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targ…

Read more

These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targeted way to ge…

Read more

These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targeted way to ge…

Read more

These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targeted way to ge…

Read more

These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targeted way to ge…

Read more

These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targeted way to ge…

Read more

These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targeted way to ge…

Read more