Doug Mills/The New York Times

“The Supreme Court is allowing President Donald Trump to press on with his White House ballroom project — over a strident objection from Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s liberal wing.

The justices’ 5-4 ruling maintains the high court’s hold on a federal appeals court ruling that called for a halt to the project after concluding it lacked approval from Congress.

In an unsigned order Monday, the Supreme Court’s majority said a historic preservation group that sued over the project appeared to lack legal standing, while national security concerns favored allowing the construction to continue. The majority did not opine on whether the project is legal.

Writing for the dissenters, Roberts said the project is ‘likely unlawful.’

‘The White House is an iconic American building whose symbolism and history are wrapped up in its architecture,’ Roberts wrote, adding that it is critical to ‘ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People’s House.’”

Read the latest at POLITICO

Army Secretary submits his resignation to the White House

“Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is expected to step down in the coming days after the White House accepted his resignation, according to a person familiar with the matter and a White House officials. Driscoll is the latest high-profile official at the Defense Department to depart after Navy Secretary John Phelan and the Army chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, were pushed out this spring.

Driscoll has served in the role since February 2025 and was well regarded by many Republicans and Democrats. He differed over a number of issues with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who blocked the promotions of several senior Army officers.” [NBC News]

What else we know about Driscoll’s departure.

Why Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned

Outgoing Army Secretary Dan Driscoll (center) attends a dignified transfer ceremony at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware in July. Photo: Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

“Two key reasons led to Army Secretary Dan Driscoll’s resignation, announced yesterday: the feeling that his modernization initiatives were being blocked, and the chaos created by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s firing of senior generals, U.S. officials tell Axios’ Colin Demarest and Barak Ravid.

• Why it matters: Driscoll’s wartime resignation, on top of Hegseth’s firing of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George this spring, leaves the military’s largest service without Senate-confirmed leadership, civilian or uniformed.

Behind the scenes: Driscoll recently spoke with President Trump and expressed his concerns about the state of the Army. Another person described the situation to Axios simply: ‘Sad.’

• A White House official said Driscoll was asked to stay longer, until after midterms. But Driscoll told the White House he felt like it was time for him to go.

• Driscoll is expected to leave the Pentagon in the coming days, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported his resignation.

The intrigue: Driscoll was a rising star in the Trump administration but had an icy relationship with Hegseth. Some U.S. officials say the defense secretary ‘was suspicious and paranoid’ toward Driscoll, partly because of Driscoll’s close relationship with Vice President JD Vance, a classmate at Yale Law.

• Driscoll and George were advocates of the Army Transformation Initiative, which sought to combine two commands — the Futures Command and the Training and Doctrine Command — and cut big-name weaponry, including the AH-64D Apache, M10 Booker and Gray Eagle drone.

The big picture: Driscoll, nicknamed ‘drone guy’ for his work on military modernization, had a meteoric rise in the Trump administration after the president nominated him to be Army secretary.

• Driscoll’s juice was boosted partly by his willingness to engage media outside the Pentagon’s preferred conservative press pool and an expansive travel circuit. He garnered some Democratic support during his confirmation process, with 16 Democrats backing him.” [Axios]

Go deeper.

“Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) read a dozen names on the House floor who he said were ‘coconspirators’ of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, calling for them to be investigated and prosecuted. He said he’s looking to force a vote on legislation to require the release of the remaining Epstein files still being kept private.” [The Hill]

Homeland Security ramps up voter fraud investigations

“The Department of Homeland Security is planning a surge in its efforts to investigate voter fraud in select states starting today, according to internal federal guidance reviewed by CNN. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has stepped up efforts to make the department a central player in President Trump’s push to uncover alleged widespread election fraud, although such claims have been repeatedly disproven. The agency has already assigned an unprecedented number of agents to related cases, including chasing down the voter histories of people believed to be noncitizens who may have illegally voted or registered to vote. DHS has also vowed to withhold grant funding from states that refuse to adopt a broader set of election reforms.” [CNN]

“Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine told Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) in a letter that there are no plans to send the military to the polls in November’s midterm elections. Slotkin had raised concerns about comments from the president about nationalizing the midterms in an initial letter to Caine.” [The Hill]

“A newly released whistleblower report warns that the U.S. Postal Service could ‘derail’ the midterm election by rushing out ‘untested’ technology as part of Trump’s efforts to restrict mail-in voting. USPS has spent months preparing to launch an online portal for state election officials to submit absentee voters’ names and ballot envelope barcodes. According to the whistleblower, testing of this new system has been inadequate. If the courts allow USPS to proceed with this plan, issues with the portal could prevent eligible absentee voters from receiving their mail-in ballots on time or at all.” [NPR]

• “The amount of money the I.R.S. collected from audits dropped 35 percent last year. The Trump administration has pushed out roughly a quarter of the agency’s employees.” [New York Times]

© The Associated Press | Carolyn Kaster and Charles Krupa

Tough primary season for incumbents reaches grand finale

“A brutal primary cycle for congressional incumbents will face its final test cases today in Massachusetts as longtime officeholders seek to fend off challenges from much younger opponents.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) appears likely to comfortably win his race against the more moderate and much younger Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), setting him on track for another six-year term.

But things aren’t looking as rosy for Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), who has served in the House since 2001. This year’s challenge from attorney and voting rights advocate Patrick Roath is the toughest of his career.

Roath, who is 39 years old, is running to the 71-year-old Lynch’s left, attacking him for votes on immigration, healthcare and abortion. He’s refused to accept corporate PAC money and declared support for abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and instituting term limits for members of Congress.

Lynch has meanwhile pointed to his decades of experience and accomplishments for Massachusetts’s 8th Congressional District. But that experience may be a vulnerability in a year that has seen members of both parties fall to anti-incumbent sentiment.

So far this cycle, 11 incumbent House members have lost primaries to challengers, seven of whom are Democrats. The total is the highest number of House members defeated for renomination in a nonredistricting year since at least 1960.

This year has functioned as a redistricting year of sorts with several Republican- and Democratic-led states redrawing their lines this year as part of the national redistricting war. But only one member — Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) — lost his primary after being forced to run directly against another incumbent.

One additional Republican will be ousted in November as GOP Reps. Ken Calvert and Young Kim will face off for a second time this year, as a result of California’s redistricting and jungle primary system.

Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas) also lost her primary after her district was redrawn, but that was because former Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), after losing a Senate run two years ago, mounted a political comeback.

In addition, two Senate incumbents — GOP Sens. John Cornyn (Texas) and Bill Cassidy (La.) — both lost to primary challengers, an occurrence that hasn’t happened since 2010.

Lynch isn’t the only incumbent House Democrat facing a primary challenge in Massachusetts. Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) is trying to fend off a primary challenge from teacher Jeromie Whalen, while AI researcher Jason Poulos is challenging Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.).

But Roath is much more well-funded, has attracted support from several big names and seems to be best positioned to advance.

Roath has outraised Lynch in the primary, racking up nearly $1.3 million compared to the incumbent’s roughly $900,000, according to the latest Federal Election Commission filings.

A former aide to former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D), Roath has notched a key endorsement from his old boss as well as David Hogg, the gun control advocate and founder of the political group Leaders We Deserve.

Roath also has support from The Boston Globe’s editorial board and multiple teachers’ unions.

A few other tests of the establishment will take place before the primary cycle fully wraps up. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) is trying to win the Democratic nomination for Senate next week against a progressive opponent, while Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee (D) is facing a challenge from former CVS executive Helena Foulkes.

But Tuesday seems likely to mark the last real chance of this cycle for an incumbent congressman to be taken down. If Lynch does come up short, that would bring the number of defeated House members to an even dozen.” [The Hill]

Vance courts Jewish Republicans

Vice President JD Vance speaks yesterday in Sterling Heights, Mich. Photo: Nic Antaya/Getty Images

“Vice President Vance last night offered an olive branch to Jewish Republicans who have grown wary of his views toward Israel, Axios’ Alex Isenstadt reports.

• During a closed-door appearance before the Republican Jewish Coalition at The Venetian in Las Vegas, Vance called Israel ‘extremely important to America’s national security’ and condemned rising antisemitism.

Why it matters: Vance’s speech is the latest indication he’s trying to repair ties with a powerful but skeptical constituency within the GOP ahead of an expected bid for president in 2028.

• Earlier yesterday at the RJC, Ron Dermer, Bibi’s close adviser, praised Vance.

In a 30-minute Q&A session with former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), Vance recalled discussing antisemitism with the late Charlie Kirk. Vance said Kirk shared his view that ‘Jew hatred is corrosive to the soul.’

• Vance blamed some of the recent rise in antisemitism on immigration, claiming that ‘a lot’ of it was “coming from these Third World immigrants importing these ancient ethnic hatreds.”

• ‘If you want to bring ethnic hatreds with you, don’t bother coming to the United States,’ Vance said.

• Vance added that there was ‘a much deeper cultural symbiosis and harmony’ to the U.S. relationship with nations such as the U.K. and Israel, compared to other allies.

Behind the scenes: Jewish Republicans have long expressed discomfort over Vance’s relationship with Tucker Carlson.

• During his appearance at the RJC, Vance was asked about how the party should deal with right-of-center podcasters who have been critical of Israel, including Carlson, Rogan, Megyn Kelly and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.

• Vance responded that Republicans should aggressively engage with such personalities and make the case for Israel.

• He didn’t address his relationship with Carlson, but defended Rogan and criticized Fuentes (‘has nothing but hate in his heart’).

The intrigue: Vance’s speech highlights a centerpiece of his pre-2028 strategy — appearing before audiences that aren’t reflexively supportive.

• Since being tapped as the V.P. nominee in ‘24, Vance has earned a reputation in Trumpworld for going into hostile media environments and thriving. During his recent book tour, he sparred with liberal-leaning personalities such as Bill Maher and the hosts of “The View.”” [Axios]

Keep reading.

A guilty verdict in rapper Tupac Shakur’s killing

“Duane “Keffe D” Davis, the man accused of orchestrating rapper Tupac Shakur’s killing, was convicted of first-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon, nearly 30 years after the Las Vegas slaying that gripped rap fans, true-crime experts and conspiracy theories alike.

Clark County prosecutors argued Davis was a ‘shotcaller’ for the South Side Compton Crips in Los Angeles and that he sought revenge on Shakur after he attacked Davis’ nephew. Davis was not accused of pulling the trigger, but under Nevada law, someone who helps another person commit a murder can be convicted of the crime. He faces a life sentence.” [NBC News]

Read a recap of the trial.

One killed in Times Square knife attack

“Authorities fatally shot a woman yesterday near New York City’s Times Square after she allegedly stabbed two people in a pair of attacks that officials described as ‘random and unprovoked.’ One of the victims, a 32-year-old woman, died at a local hospital after she was stabbed in the abdomen, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. The second victim, a 68-year-old man, is in stable condition.” [NBC News]

What a witness said they saw moments before the attacks.

Teen charged in deadly San Diego mosque shooting for allegedly agreeing to publish shooters’ writings

“A North Carolina teenager has been indicted on murder charges in connection with the deadly mass shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego earlier this year, after authorities alleged she recorded the livestream of the attack and published the shooters’ writings.”

Read more at CNN

INTERNATIONAL

A principal in Nepal evacuated 900 students before flooding swept away their school

“Rajendra Dawadi’s decision to evacuate the school saved at least 900 students from last week’s devastating flash floods in Nepal, unleashed after a glacial collapse in the Himalayas. Read more.

What to know:

• The school disappeared beneath a torrent of water, mud, boulders and debris. Two staff members could not make it and remain missing. Across northern Nepal, the floods have left thousands of children without classrooms, disrupted their education and raised fears that the disaster could cost them months of schooling.

• The disaster killed more than 1,000 people in Nepal and Tibet, with thousands more missing. The scale of last week’s disaster was hampering rescue efforts in both regions, with landslides, destroyed roads and widespread damage cutting off remote areas. Crews faced challenging conditions as they searched unstable terrain and piles of debris, raising fears the death toll could rise as rescuers reach isolated communities.” [AP News]

The threat of a new Russian attack

A local resident removes scattered debris next to destroyed vehicles the day after a Russian missile and drone attack in Kyiv, Friday, Aug. 21, 2026. Francisco Seco—Associated Press

“Ukraine has made great strides in leveling the playing field with Russia since Russian forces almost surrounded the the capital, Kyiv, in 2022. In the last year especially, it has developed its own sophisticated drone industry to defend itself and strike deep inside Russia, targeting the defense and energy industries that fuel the war.

But one area where it can’t compete is manpower. Ukraine now warns that Russia may be planning to use that advantage to launch a new attack on the capital Kyiv and turn the tide of the war in its favor.

Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, told reporters that intelligence points to planning for an operation ‘in several variants in the direction of Kyiv and Chernihiv.’ While he insisted that the existence of a plan does not mean an imminent attack, Ukraine has seen other concerning signs.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also said earlier this month that Russia was planning to mobilize some 300,000 more troops after State Duma elections in September, possibly to target Ukraine’s southeast or open up a new front in the north. Russia has increased its missile attacks on Kyiv in recent weeks, while Ukraine says its missile defenses are running low.

These reports come at the same time as a surprise visit by CIA director John Ratcliffe to Moscow, where he warned Russia against attacking NATO countries—a message prompted in response to U.S. intelligence suggesting Moscow was considering such a move.

Taken together, the apparent flurry of Russian planning suggests the war in Ukraine is entering yet another critical phase. But officials in both Ukraine and the U.S. suggest these developments come from a position of weakness, rather than strength.

During the same visit to Moscow, Ratcliffe reportedly delivered a grim assessment of Russia’s position in the war and urged it to reconsider returning to negotiations, according to the New York Times.

Russia’s troop losses have mounted this year without any corresponding battlefield advances. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Russia’s casualty rates of 30,000 a month now exceed its recruitment rates of 27,000.

‘The Russia-Ukraine casualty rate has likely risen to nearly 8:1 in the first half of 2026, up from between 2:1 and 3:1 for much of the war, in large part due to Ukraine’s use of drones—including AI-enabled drones—as part of its aggressive air interdiction campaign,’ it said in a recent report.” [Time]

1 big thing: Trump’s secret oil baron

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photos: Getty Images and Wikimedia Commons

“President Trump’s historic Venezuelan oil deal revolves around a colorful and controversial man from Caracas with a long history of supporting U.S. interests — including the operation to remove former strongman Nicolás Maduro, Axios’ Marc Caputo writes.

• Why it matters: Alejandro Betancourt, 46, runs the oil company that’s entering into an unprecedented partnership with the Pentagon. It gives America access to some of Venezuela’s vast oil fields at a time when U.S. reserves are low.

A U.S. official told Axios: “No Betancourt, no energy-security deal. And Maduro might still be in power if it wasn’t for him.”

• Betancourt’s life story has an oil-like boom-and-bust aura, replete with billion-dollar deals, international intrigue, a longstanding money-laundering probe and even a Spanish castle raided by authorities.

Inside the room: As Trump demanded Maduro leave Venezuela last year, Betancourt played a crucial role in gauging whether Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez would run the government as a replacement.

• ‘There was no direct ask from Alejandro to Delcy; it was more getting a sense on where her head was at,’ said a second U.S. official briefed on the private talks between the two Venezuelans.

• Betancourt was in regular contact with Trump’s unofficial Venezuela fixer, Mauricio Claver-Carone, and discussed how to keep oil flowing and the economy running in post-Maduro Venezuela.

The backstory: Betancourt’s relationship with the U.S. government began in Trump’s first term, when the administration declared Maduro an illegitimate president.

• Trump became the first world leader to recognize the head of Venezuela’s national assembly, Juan Guaidó, as the nation’s rightful leader in 2019.

• Betancourt acted as a go-between, linking Maduro’s opposition with Venezuelan political figures and top-level military officials to build domestic support for a nonviolent, democratic transition to a Guaidó government, said an opposition figure and Guaidó’s brother, Gustavo Guaidó.

Behind the scenes: Betancourt, Rodríguez and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital had a handshake agreement on the oil deal by mid-August. Under its terms, officials say:

• Venezuela receives between 16% and 40% of production, depending on the oil field. It also gets income taxes.

• The U.S. puts no money into the deal, has a 35% equity stake and gets 20% of the after-tax oil at production cost. That’s about $30 a barrel (crude was priced at $90 yesterday).

• Betancourt’s North American Blue Energy Partners gets access to 17 fields and the implied backing of the U.S. military.

‘No other oilman can say he has the Pentagon on his side,’ a U.S. official told Axios.” [Axios]

• Share this story.

“US Energy Secretary Chris Wright is due in Caracas today, where he is expected to announce a series of oil deals.

His visit follows a blizzard of activity that suggests President Donald Trump is tightening his grip on Venezuela’s crude reserves for America’s benefit.

On Friday, Trump announced the ‘biggest oil deal in world history,’ saying the US had secured control over more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan reserves.

He said the arrangement would more than double US oil reserves and in turn lower gasoline prices — a core voter concern as November’s midterm elections approach.

The deal carries more than a whiff of imperial intervention at a time when Trump is clear about wanting to assert greater US control over Latin America.

Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, said the nation would retain sovereignty over its resources, and the projects could attract more than $100 billion of investment and generate double that for the state.

She cast the accord as a way to turn its vast underground reserves into ‘well-being, prosperity and happiness’ for its people.

Photographer: Bloomberg

Happiness, however, is subjective.

The US push appears to be driven more by Washington’s priorities than developments inside Venezuela.

The Trump administration is keen to demonstrate political wins ahead of midterm elections with the president’s ratings at a low following the unpopular war in Iran and its impact on affordability.

While it will take time to ramp up Venezuelan oil production, the administration is betting that expectations of future supply can help put downward pressure on prices now.

Even if the impetus is coming from Washington, the consequences will be felt in Venezuela.

The deal may strengthen Rodríguez by giving the US a greater stake in her administration’s continuity.

Opposition figures have questioned whether an interim government has the legitimacy to commit Venezuela’s most valuable assets to long-term agreements. Government loyalists meanwhile see the pacts as a betrayal.

By pushing to lock them in, Trump has achieved an unusual convergence of anger in Venezuela.” [Bloomberg] — Mie Dahl

Photographer: Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images

“Trump dismissed concerns that the war in Iran was draining American firepower as clashes resumed in the on-again, off-again hostilities that have stretched more than six months, with neither side willing to restart negotiations. ‘This is a relatively little war for us,’ he told reporters, brushing aside criticism of US munitions shortages by saying that the military has ‘unlimited amounts of mid-grade and older’ stocks.

“At least 955 people have died and 4,471 remain missing in Nepal and China after a glacial collapse unleashed floods and debris across the border region, while rescue teams struggle to reach isolated communities. One of Asia’s poorest economies, Nepal faces a daunting reconstruction effort at a time when it’s also being squeezed by higher fuel costs due to the Iran war, as well as weaker tourism and slowing economic growth.” [Bloomberg]

Photographer: Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty Images

“US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov on the sidelines of a Group of 20 gathering in North Carolina, while European officials at the event refused to take part in a group photograph with the Kremlin official over President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Putin to end the war during talks at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Kyrgyzstan.” [Bloomberg]

“India must comply with a decades-old treaty governing river waters shared with Pakistan and limit work on a hydropower project in Kashmir, an international arbitration panel ruled in a victory for Islamabad. The order, which New Delhi vowed to ignore, adds another source of friction between the nuclear-armed neighbors.” [Bloomberg]

“The Trump administration is unwilling to discuss commerce, diplomacy or any other issue that might help relieve the suffering caused by US sanctions, Cuba’s leaders say, as infant mortality and preventable deaths rise. ‘The channel for dialogue is at a complete standstill,’ Lianys Torres Rivera, Cuba’s top diplomat in Washington, says in an interview. The two sides are unable to even settle on a basic agenda, she added.” [Bloomberg]

“China voiced its opposition to Taiwan joining a meeting of Pacific island nations this week, with Beijing’s envoy threatening unspecified consequences over its presence.” [Bloomberg]

“The South Korean presidential adviser who floated the idea of a ‘citizen dividend’ funded by excess tax revenue from the AI boom has stepped down amid President Lee Jae Myung’s biggest cabinet reshuffle since taking office last year.” [Bloomberg]

“The ruling Dutch coalition parties reached a last-minute agreement on an annual budget, averting the first major political crisis for centrist Prime Minister Rob Jetten’s six-month-old minority government.” [Bloomberg]

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY

Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters

Global Bond Sell-Off Puts Investors on Edge

“Government borrowing costs are hitting multi-decade highs around the world, reflecting anxiety about debt levels, deficits and inflation.”

Read more at New York Times

“Finance ministers from the world’s largest economies are meeting for the G-20 summit this week in North Carolina to discuss ways to encourage faster economic growth. They are also expected to talk about tightening economic pressure on Iran. This gathering marks the first time in more than a decade and a half that the U.S. has hosted the summit.

The U.S. hasn’t been able to use military force to compel Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, so the administration announced what it called “Operation Economic Outcast” to cut Iran’s remaining ties to the global economy, NPR’s Scott Horsley says. The U.S. is now threatening to penalize countries that do business with Tehran. This stalemate with Iran has consequences for the U.S. and its allies: Gasoline prices are more than a dollar per gallon higher than before the war, and diesel prices have risen by nearly $2 per gallon. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says that economic growth can help address the growing U.S.’ debt, but fiscal watchdogs are doubtful that it would be a magic fix. The U.S. federal debt is increasing at three times the rate of the overall economy, according to Horsley.

Bessent said oil pipelines bypassing the Strait of Hormuz will make the crucial shipping route irrelevant in two years. Here’s why energy experts disagree.” [NPR]

Pascal Rossignol/Reuters

F.T.C. and 22 States Claim in Lawsuit That Amazon Secretly Inflated Ad Prices

“Regulators say the e-commerce giant forced millions of advertisers to pay more than they should have. The company denies the claims.”

Read more at New York Times

George Santos Receives Kalshi’s First-Ever Lifetime Ban

“Kalshi said it would ban former Republican Rep. George Santos from using its platform for life after a federal regulator alleged that the ex-congressman made more than $17,000 by placing bets on his attendance at President Trump’s State of the Union address.”

READ MORE at Wall Street Journal

TECH

1 big thing: Trump: “Let data reign”

Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

“President Trump has a new message for Americans rebelling over the nation’s data center boom: Get over it.

• Trump warned Monday: ‘If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame.’

Why it matters: Nine weeks out from the midterms, the president is charging into a fight Republicans have been scrambling to escape — staking political capital on one of the most toxic issues in the country, Axios’ Zachary Basu writes.

Trump wrote on Truth Social: ‘The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor.’

• ‘If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign,’ he added.

Trump’s blunt intervention comes as the AI industry mounts a far more disciplined campaign to persuade data center skeptics rather than browbeat them.

• Build American AI, an advocacy group linked to the pro-AI super PAC Leading the Future, is ready to unload a $50 million war chest to defend data centers in key states, starting in Kansas, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Zoom in: Prominent investor Gavin Baker laid out his own six-part case for data centers on X, which was quickly amplified by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and other tech leaders.

• Water: Newer facilities can sharply reduce freshwater use through closed-loop cooling and recycled water, Baker argues. He says those systems should be required for new projects.

• Taxes:Data centers can generate enormousproperty-tax revenuefor local governments, Baker says, potentially outweighing the sales-tax exemptions that have drawn criticism.

• Jobs: The buildout is driving demand for electricians, plumbers, welders, HVAC technicians and contractors, making building-trade unions some of the industry’s most important allies.

• Power:Baker points to new large-load tariffs andratepayer-protection agreementsas a way to ensure data centers, rather than existing customers, pay for the new generation and grid capacity they require.

• Environment:Baker argues that natural gas, renewables and batteries can meet surging demand now, with data centers ultimately moving toward solar and storage.

• Towns:Data centers can turn struggling communities into beneficiaries of the AI boom. Baker points to Quincy, Washington, where data centers now account for more than half of the local property-tax base.

Reality check: Republicans in key battlegrounds have spent weeks recalibrating their positions on data centers as the issue turned politically toxic. Trump’s intervention risks blowing up that escape route.” [Axios]

• Share this story ... How data centers work.

HEALTH AND MEDICINE

Alex Kent/The New York Times

C.D.C. Director Challenges Pennsylvania’s Report of Two Measles Deaths

“Questioning a state’s investigation is highly unusual for the public health agency, but reflects ongoing tensions between the Trump administration and many states over health issues.”

Read more at New York Times

An experimental one-time treatment for high cholesterol shows promising results

Eugene Mymrin—Getty Images

“Heart disease remains the leading killer of people worldwide, and one of the key risk factors driving deaths is elevated levels of cholesterol.

In a new article published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers report that a gene-editing therapy helped people with increased levels of cholesterol and triglycerides maintain lower levels of these lipids for at least a year. The findings build on earlier results of the therapy, reported last November.

The gene-editing treatment, developed by the biotech company CRISPR Therapeutics, uses CRISPR technology to precisely edit a gene involved in cholesterol regulation. The gene, called ANGPTL3, makes an enzyme that blocks the breakdown of bad cholesterol (LDL) and triglycerides.

In the small study, 15 people with severe forms of high cholesterol and triglycerides showed drops in the two lipids of up to 50%, which the latest results show lasted for at least a year.” [Time] —Alice Park

HIGHER EDUCATION

More colleges are surpassing the $100,000 price tag.

• “Nationwide: Fifteen schools now charge six figures and others are on the verge. However, college pricing is far more nuanced than these figures suggest — see the true cost here.

• The cost of higher education can be intimidating: But a growing number of schools (listed here) are making college more affordable by offering free tuition to some undergraduates.”

Read this story at Washington Post

SPORTS

Lionel Messi says he’s retiring from playing for Argentina

“Lionel Messi has ended his career as a player for the Argentine national team at 39 years old, after nearly two decades representing the national side. Messi, who played in six World Cups, won the tournament in Qatar 2022 and led Argentina to this year’s final.”

Read more at CNN

Dale Sanders wades across Big Wilson Stream on the 100-Mile Wilderness north of Monson, Maine, July 29. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

At 91, Dale ‘Grey Beard’ Sanders reclaims record as oldest hiker to complete the Appalachian Trail

”Sanders first set the record in 2017 at age 82. But four years later, his 83-year-old friend M.J. Eberhart, aka Nimblewill Nomad, took the title. Within months, Sanders announced his comeback plan. By his count, Sanders fell 71 times while reclaiming his record as the oldest hiker to complete the Appalachian Trail. But no fall was enough to permanently divert him from the 2,193-mile trail that runs between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine.” [AP News]

CLIMATE AND WEATHER

Months before fatal Grand Canyon flood, park service warned of elevated risk

(John Locher / AP)

“One person remains unaccounted for after catastrophic weekend floods swept through the Grand Canyon, killing at least two people, officials said yesterday. The body of a 46-year-old man was recovered Sunday. Officials have not released his name. The recovery of a second body was announced Monday.

Texas chiropractor John Giusti, 46, died in the flood, his family and the families of two others said. According to a statement from the families, Giusti was with friends Brent Rosenkranz and Timothy Smith, who were both missing. Exploring the Grand Canyon had been a longtime dream for Giusti, his family said.

In July 2025, the Dragon Bravo megafire charred nearly 150,000 acres at Grand Canyon National Park. In February, the park started reopening the North Kaibab Trail, a route that connects the canyon’s North Rim with Phantom Ranch, a lodge inside the park. That same month, the National Park Service warned that the megafire had left parts of the North Rim more vulnerable to sudden, destructive rushes of water.

It’s still unclear how much the Dragon Bravo fire contributed to Saturday’s floods. Although the burn zone is upstream of the spot where flooding was most severe, the fire stripped away vegetation that might otherwise have slowed rainwater, said Tom Martin, who has researched the Grand Canyon for decades.

As the world warms, these types of hazards — drought that raises the risk of fire, which in turn primes hills for landslides and floods, for example — are a growing problem in the western U.S. and around the world.” [NBC News]

A closer look at the weather and warning that preceded the flooding.

Nepal flood coverage:

• “The death toll from last week’s Nepal-China flood disaster has passed 1,000, with around 4,000 still missing, including at least 583 foreign nationals. Hope for finding survivors is fading as rescuers race against time and quickly hardening mud. Read our latest dispatch from the flood zone.” [NBC News]

Tropical Storm Edouard forms in the Gulf, heads for Texas and Louisiana coasts

“Tropical Storm Edouard formed in the northern Gulf on Monday evening and is expected to continue strengthening ahead of landfall near the Texas-Louisiana border on Tuesday.”

Read more at CNN

CULTURE

The John Galliano 2027 Met Gala has been canceled

Swan Gallet/WWD, via Getty Images

“John Galliano, the controversial British designer, will no longer be the subject of an exhibit linked to the Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the museum said in a statement Monday.”

Read more at CNN

John Galliano and Anna Wintour in 2018. David M. Benett/Getty Images

A fashion disaster

“For more than three decades, the editor and star maker Anna Wintour has presided over the Costume Institute’s annual exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York — and its accompanying Met Gala, a glittery, billionaire- and celebrity-studded fund-raising dinner that has become the fashion world’s equivalent of the Super Bowl. In fashion, few have had more power.

How durable is it? Her role in the decision to honor an established antisemite, the designer John Galliano, at the 2027 Met Gala brought that into doubt. Yesterday, Galliano pulled out of the exhibition planned to showcase his work. ‘I do not want the debate surrounding me to place the Met in a difficult position or distract from the remarkable work of the Costume Institute,’ Galliano wrote in a statement. ‘I also recognize and respect that an exhibition honoring my work would be painful for some.’

Why was he selected? Galliano was convicted of an antisemitic hate crime by a French court in 2011. He was said to have screamed ‘Merry Christmas’ at a woman in an Italian spa in 2019 who was speaking Hebrew with her daughter. (Galliano’s spokesman denied that the incident happened.) The Times has quoted politicians, art-world heavies and Jewish leaders who were appalled by the pick.

‘This is not a freedom of expression issue,’ one New York assemblyman told my colleagues Vanessa Friedman and Jacob Bernstein. ‘This is a judgment issue, and I am baffled that anyone saw this as anything other than a terrible idea.’

Now the fallout could hurt Wintour’s place in the cultural firmament. ‘She’s outlasted and outmaneuvered every person, obstacle and trend that has come along over the course of her career,’ Jacob told me yesterday. ‘But this is definitely one of the bigger missteps of her career.’

Who is John Galliano?

John Galliano during a 2005 fitting inside Christian Dior’s original wood-paneled Paris atelier. Derek Hudson/Getty Images

Many in the fashion world consider Galliano to be one of its most important contemporary designers. He’s 65, a child of Gibraltar who grew up in Britain and has lived in France for decades. He was the head designer at both Givenchy and Dior — a four-time British Designer of the Year. He ran Dior from 1996 until 2011, when he said ‘I love Hitler’ at a bar and told some patrons that ‘your mothers, your forefathers’ would all be ‘gassed.’ That got him fired. After a period of rehabilitation — meeting with rabbis, apologizing a lot — Galliano returned to fashion in 2014 as the creative director of Maison Margiela.

Two moments in Galliano’s public life stick out to me. The first was a 2000 show he mounted for Dior, his ‘clochard’ collection, which he said drew inspiration from the homeless population of Paris. There were clothes that resembled piles of old newspapers and accessories fashioned of found objects, like little pony bottles of whiskey. The show drew mass demonstrations and accusations of heartless cruelty. Ben Stiller appeared to lampoon the show the next year in his satirical film ‘Zoolander.’

The second was a photograph captured by a paparazzo in New York City in 2013, two years after Galliano’s hate-crime conviction: the designer dressed in what appeared to be a Hasidic costume, with a long, formal black overcoat and big black hat to match. His publicist denied accusations that he was mocking anyone, but it could have been a plot point in ‘Zoolander 2.’ Creative genius isn’t a license to offend.

Who gets absolution?

Perhaps, in 2026, Galliano’s return should not have come as a surprise. Many Americans believe that cancel culture went too far, and lots of people banished by it have returned to public life — Kevin Hart and Mel Gibson among them. Martha Stewart went to prison and then picked right back up where she’d left off. Donald Trump was found legally liable for sexual abuse, kicked off Twitter and Facebook and denounced by countless Republicans. Now he lives in the White House again.

But Galliano’s case shows that, in some cases, redemption may have limits. Megyn Kelly remains successful, but it’s on her own channel, not network TV. James Franco has returned to Hollywood, but it’s on vertical video, and the reviews have not been good. As Jacob told me yesterday, it might have been acceptable to let Galliano design clothes for Margiela. But to shower him with adulation at what is arguably the most storied American museum would cross a line, particularly for wealthy Jewish patrons of the Met ‘who have no shortage of options for where to send their money, or bequeath their paintings,’ Jacob said. That realization came to the Met slowly, and then all at once.

The guidelines for this sort of thing — for what behavior can be forgiven and what cannot — have always been fuzzy. They change based on the moment, the culture, the politics, the specifics. But every once in a while we get a case that suggests where the boundaries lie.” [New York Times]

Read more about the scandal here.

Smithsonian board votes to put American Latino museum in 145-year-old building on National Mall instead of constructing new one

“The decision gives the Smithsonian a path forward that does not depend on Congress approving one of the undeveloped sites the institution previously selected for the museum.”

Read more at Washington Post

TRANSITIONS

“Wendell Berry, a Kentucky-born author who advocated a simpler life, has died at 92. ‘The old world in which our people lived by the work of their hands, close to weather and earth, plants and animals, was the true world,’ he wrote in a 2006 novel.” [NBC News]

Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

“Iran and the US traded attacks overnight for the first time in over a month, potentially reigniting the conflict after weeks of relative military calm. The White House now says there are no ongoing talks between the two countries. US Central Command said it struck Iranian rocket launchers on Sunday after observing forces preparing to fire rockets carrying mines into the Strait of Hormuz, the critical shipping route at the center of regional tensions. Iran fired missiles toward US military targets in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates in retaliation. The exchange came days after President Donald Trump declared ‘zero tolerance’ for mine placement in the strait and the US military said it had finished clearing mines from the critical waterway.” [CNN]

+ Read more: US and Iran trade attacks, marking first major military escalation in a month

+ Video: Iran launches missiles at bases in Jordan after US attack

The Pentagon secretly installed military influencers in civilian roles.

• “What’s going on? Conservative veterans with big social media followings have been hired by the Defense Department. Their roles were not disclosed — meet some of them here.

• Why it matters: The influencers have used their large platforms to amplify Hegseth’s culture-war fights and attack people who scrutinize President Donald Trump’s administration.

• In related news: An airman is facing military charges after publicly criticizing Trump.”

Read this story at Washington Post

© The Associated Press | Alex Brandon

Pentagon erupts over Washington Post’s Iran war scoop

“The Pentagon is seething over a Washington Post report that top military leaders recently warned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth against extending large-scale Iran war operations.

People familiar with a classified assessment prepared for Hegseth told the Post that several combatant commanders have advised the Defense chief that prolonging operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening the U.S.’s ability to address threats elsewhere, including on U.S. soil.

The warnings appear in the Aug. 14 edition of the Secretary of Defense Orders Book (SDOB), detailed by the heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force, and the four-star commanders overseeing U.S. operations throughout Europe, Asia and Latin America, the Post reported Sunday.

Defense Department spokesperson Sean Parnell lambasted the report in a post on the social platform X.

‘Publishing highly classified assessments from the Secretary’s orders book is a crime. It’s a betrayal of the force,’ he said. ‘And much of what they’re publishing is inaccurate.’

Parnell said the Pentagon wants ‘candid’ advice and disagreements are common.

‘The Secretary sees them constantly. That’s how you run a real military. We are in great shape around the world. This story isn’t about readiness,’ he said, alleging it is about ‘TDS,’ an acronym that President Trump and his allies often use to mean ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome.’

Washington Post military affairs reporter Dan Lamothe defended his colleagues’ work with a response to Parnell.

‘Fact check: Independent journalism is not a crime,’ he said. ‘It’s also especially important at a time when government officials are withholding key details and concerns about a war being fought on behalf of the American people with their taxpayer dollars.’

The Aug. 14 SDOB directs some U.S. forces currently deployed in the Middle East to remain through September and others into 2027, those familiar with the document told the Post.

The heads of U.S. European, Pacific and Southern Commands, along with the Navy’s top admiral, responded with a ‘non-concur’ — signaling their disagreement with Hegseth’s order to extend their forces, the Post reported.

The report comes as the U.S. and Iran traded fire for the first time in almost a month. The war, now in its sixth month, has drained the Navy’s budget and significantly depleted U.S. stockpiles of missile interceptors and long-range precision missiles.

Throughout the conflict, U.S. ships, personnel, aircraft and equipment have been redirected from various parts of the world to the Middle East. The sources told the Post that this has limited the military’s ability to conduct missions and ensure proper training.

In addition to Parnell, other accounts on X with links to the Pentagon weighed in to slam the Post for reporting on classified information.

The account DataRepublican, which is run by Utah software engineer Jennica Pounds, a special government employee at the Defense Department, responded to Lamothe.

‘This is one of the most serious leaks I have ever seen, and you are using this to score partisan points against Hegseth,’ the account posted.

‘The one without ethics here is the entire staff of the Washington Post who did not immediately turn in this traitor as soon as they received the material,’ Pounds continued.

Adam D’Ortona, an active-duty Army lieutenant colonel who runs the account InfantryDort, accused the Post of working for the ‘enemies of the United States.’

‘Worse, this isn’t gossip. Revealing where senior commanders believe forces are stretched, where they perceive risk, and which commitments they consider unsustainable gives an adversary information it can immediately exploit,’ he wrote.

USA Today reported last year that D’Ortona works in Hegseth’s office.

In recent weeks, Trump has shifted from military threats to economic pressure against Iran, as the U.S. Navy has slowly expanded its control over the Strait of Hormuz, facilitating steady oil tanker traffic and keeping gas prices stable, though still high.

Centcom said last week that the U.S. had cleared the strait of all sea mines along internationally recognized transit routes.

U.S. forces late Sunday struck Iranian rocket launchers in waterway. U.S. Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command (Centcom), said two launchers were hit on Lark Island after Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces were seen preparing to launch rockets with sea mines in the strait.

Iran retaliated for the attack by launching missiles toward U.S. military sites in Jordan. The United Arab Emirates said it also intercepted an Iranian drone over its territorial waters.” [The Hill]

“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is denying a report from The New York Times that migrants in immigration detention facilities have faced abusive or violent treatment or been denied medical care while in detention. DHS accused the Times of ‘fueling’ an increase in assaults against immigration officers.” [The Hill]

Ads paid for by undisclosed donors through nonprofits or super PACs.

Dark money

“The November election will turn on a force you can’t see so much as feel: a vast flow of secret money disrupting races from coast to coast.

A Times analysis found about $1 billion in clandestine cash inserted into the political landscape this year. It’s a staggering sum, report Shane Goldmacher and Theodore Schleifer, but still probably a low-end estimate. The money’s well hidden. Untraceable, undetectable — ‘billionaires, corporations and special interests hiding their agendas and involvement with relative ease,’ they write.

That money is working hard: funding digital and TV ads, supporting super PACs, paying for direct mail campaigns and getting influencers to boost content favorable to this candidate or that one. That door-knocker for a cause that’s only tangentially connected to a political campaign? Secret money can pay for that, too.

Here are Shane and Teddy:

Secret money is not new. But the pervasiveness has reached industrial scale in 2026 — and serves as a preview of its coming prevalence in 2028. Nearly every major primary and battleground race this fall has been or will be shaped by secret funds. The anonymously sourced expenditures are so big that, in some instances, they are outstripping the spending of campaigns themselves, making candidates seem like bystanders of their own elections.

Both parties are looking for new ways to conceal who is contributing to this candidate or that one. Tens of millions of dollars slosh through complicated, interconnected networks of nonprofit organizations, so that they are nearly impossible to track. Still more money goes to secretly funded ‘policy ads’ that look, as far as you and I can tell, like campaign commercials.

‘It’s almost like the people inside the Beltway live in a drug den, and this is just the newest drug that’s circulating,’ the head of a group that has sought to reduce the role of money in politics told The Times. He called it ‘poison in the blood of the American political system.’

How it works

The biggest players this election cycle, Shane and Teddy report, are four nonprofit organizations, each of which supports Republicans or Democrats in Congress. They account for more than $460 million from hidden sources.

All four outfits are registered under the federal tax code as social welfare organizations. That allows them to operate as nonprofits. But each shares office space with a super PAC. ‘In all four cases, the nonprofit and PAC are run by the same political strategists,’ the reporters discovered, ‘essentially offering donors a one-stop shop to avoid disclosure while spending millions on politics.’

Their playbook:

“Issues” advertising. Nonprofit organizations do not have to disclose their contributors when they run commercials about issues facing the electorate: legislative debates, say, or societal problems. But in practice, those ads often root for — or bitterly attack — specific candidates by name.

Giving to super PACs. Nonprofit groups can give money to allied super PACs that are required to disclose their donors. But the PACs don’t have to disclose their donors’ donors. It’s a way to launder gifts anonymously. And there are no limits on that kind of funding, Shane and Teddy report. Some super PACs are entirely funded by nonprofit groups.

“Pop-up” super PACs. These groups slip through a loophole in federal disclosure laws. The last deadline for a super PAC to reveal its donors is three weeks before a federal election. A super PAC that arrives on the scene in the final days of a race can spend freely. It has to disclose its donors, but not until after the election, too late for voters to consider who’s paying to influence their ballots.

Read more about the clandestine money that’s washing over the midterms.

And meet the megadonors who have poured $1.2 billion into the races.” [New York Times]

The prospect of new U.S. Postal Service rules to tighten up mail-in voting and demand voter lists from states could inject some last-minute logistical chaos into election administration. | Jenny Kane/AP

“RETURN TO SENDER: The country’s first mail ballots for November are due to be sent out this week — but the method used by one-third of voters has a cloud of uncertainty hanging over it.

The prospect of new U.S. Postal Service rules to tighten up mail voting and demand voter lists from states, given new juice by a Supreme Court decision last week, could inject some last-minute logistical chaos into election administration.

For President Donald Trump, the USPS regulations would achieve the crackdown on mail voting he’s long sought in an effort to stamp out election fraud, despite a lack of evidence that such fraud exists on a broad scale. The Postal Service would refuse to deliver ballots for states that don’t comply. And the Justice Department has dismissed worries about the changes as ‘doomsday assumptions.’

But to some Trump critics and election experts, the current mail ballot fight in court looks like a portent: They’re on high alert for potential election interference or subversion from the Republicans who sought to undermine the 2020 results.

‘It’s another blatant and obvious attempt by the Trump administration to pick their own voters,’ Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told Playbook. ‘This is a piss-poor policy, and it’s being recklessly shoved down the throats of the entire nation because of one person’s grievance.’

Many observers are skeptical the rules will be implemented in time for the midterms, with new legal challenges flowing in just as fast as old ones hit a roadblock. The administration appealed the latest judicial freeze Friday. Even if the Trump administration prevails, courts may choose to wait until next cycle to allow the regulations to take effect, as time runs short.

But if they do kick in now, state election officials may have to scramble to comply at an already hectic moment in the calendar — and in many cases with already stretched resources.

‘In this moment, they’re just believing and hoping that the courts will step in and prevent this from happening because there’s no way that they can do what is being asked of them,’ said Tammy Patrick, a mail voting expert and chief programs officer at the Election Center.

Trump has questioned the reliability of mail voting for years despite using it himself, repeatedly and falsely denigrating the practice as rife with cheating. Though the Postal Service didn’t respond to requests for comment, it argued in the regulation that ‘the visibility and law-enforcement benefits of the rule, including for this election cycle, are such that there is no compelling reason for any delay.’ The new rules would give the federal executive branch a greater role in election oversight.

Trump said the Supreme Court’s initial move ‘was a great ruling for the Republican Party’ and ‘the way we want to make [mail ballots] legitimate.’

The plausibility of implementing the Postal Service’s rules would vary from one county to another in the decentralized election system: Larger jurisdictions with greater resources might be able to absorb more change or already be following best practices. Smaller, rural offices, where packets are still stuffed by hand, could struggle.

But some of the logistical difficulties look universal. Equipment shortages loom. And beyond the changes in envelope design and barcode tracking, which could force reprints in some places, the regulations envision a new portal for jurisdictions to upload their voter lists. The website would have to be created and operating at lightning speed. The government would have to cross-check eligible voter lists against mail ballots. Election officials would have to physically supervise the scanning of every ballot — which could be millions in some large jurisdictions with widespread mail voting. Several Western states have mail voting rates from 80 to 100 percent.

Though the Postal Service is ironing out its technical processes, NOTUS reports, some officials say significant errors are inevitable with this time crunch.

‘It would be really hard to implement without sowing chaos and confusion over the ’26 elections,’ said GOP election lawyer Ben Ginsberg, who noted that cracking down on mail voting may not necessarily help Republicans in competitive races, where rural voters who lean red depend on it. In the most extreme scenario, millions of people could be prevented from voting by mail, NYT’s Reid Epstein reports.

North Carolina is scheduled to become the first state to send out absentee ballots on Friday.

‘Time is a hot commodity that election officials don’t have,’ said Carolina Lopez, executive director of the Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions.

While they wait for clarity, election administrators are proceeding as normal for now. Officials in three small North Carolina counties, each with just one or two staffers, told Playbook they’re focused on status-quo tasks but will pivot if necessary.

‘I’m doing 99 other things,’ said Dora Bell, director of elections in Washington County, a rural area famous for its black bears. ‘Whatever that they put together, we just flow with it.’

6 THINGS FOR YOUR RADAR

1. LETTUCE PRAY: Three projects that make up almost the entirety of the Agriculture Department’s research into cyclospora are getting hollowed out by federal cuts, POLITICO’s Marcia Brown and Rachel Shin scoop this morning. Congress defunded two earlier this year, and the third seems to be falling victim to a USDA reorganization as scientists refuse to relocate to Iowa. All in all, the brain drain and loss of funding are ‘expected to hinder vital food safety research at a time when Americans are increasingly worried that they can’t trust the food supply.’ USDA blamed Congress and said ‘research will continue without disruption.’

2. STATE CAPITALISM: The new U.S.-Venezuela oil agreement would significantly involve the Pentagon. After U.S. companies balked, the Defense Department stepped up to take a direct stake in Alejandro Betancourt’s company and yield controversial rewards from its oil production, WSJ’s Vera Bergengruen and colleagues report. Interim President Delcy ​Rodríguez said the deal would last a quarter-century. But many details have yet to be made clear. And in Venezuela, the agreement rankled everybody from government hard-liners to opposition politicians to ordinary citizens, who fear the U.S. will extract oil while the repressive autocracy remains in power, NYT’s Julie Turkewitz reports.” [POLITICO]

INTERNATIONAL

In Bharatpur, Nepal. Atul Loke for The New York Times

• “Nepal is starting mass burials as thousands remain missing from the floods.

• After the floods cut off roads and bridges in Nepal, a large drone delivered aid to isolated survivors.

• The devastating flash floods in Nepal and Tibet highlight the growing, unpredictable threat of melting glaciers in the Himalayas.” [New York Times]

How Ukraine takes Russians prisoner with drones

“As drones become a defining weapon of the war in Ukraine, Kyiv is increasingly using them to take Russians prisoner, service members and officials say.

NBC News spoke to one unit conducting the operations. A Ukrainian drone pilot explained how his team uses the technology to track Russians from the air and launch one-way attacks — surrounding their enemies until they give themselves up.

The practice is so widespread that a Ukrainian government project titled ‘I Want To Live’ has published an instructional video for Russians on how to surrender to a drone.

‘Establish eye contact with the drone,’ the video says, ‘lay down your weapon. Raise your hands.’

More than 100 Russian soldiers surrendered to drones over the winter, according to a former Ukrainian official.” [NBC News]

Read the full story here.

“Xi Jinping will be clocking up air miles this week, zipping from Beijing to Bishkek to Cairo and back.

It’s part of a diplomatic push designed to increase the Chinese leader’s influence just as that of President Donald Trump slides, with his “America First” approach riling much of the globe.

On display will be an array of diplomatic approaches that help Xi boost his international standing, including his emphasis on the personal touch.

First stop is the capital of Kyrgyzstan for a state visit to meet with President Sadyr Japarov. It’s a classic example of ‘neighborhood diplomacy,’ a top Xi priority aimed at securing peace and stability along China’s borderlands.

Japarov is also hosting the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, putting Xi in the same room with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi of India and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. The show of power signals to Trump that his unilateral actions in Iran and elsewhere aren’t going unchallenged.

Photographer: Florence Lo/AFP/Getty Images

Still, while Iran will be top of the agenda, don’t anticipate much more than symbolic solidarity. It’s indicative of an inherent weakness of the body, stymied by internal rivalry and lacking a clear remit beyond the vague goal of building mutual trust.

In Egypt, Xi will be visiting a North African heavyweight that’s engaged in an increasingly precarious geopolitical balancing act between Washington and Beijing.

One example: Chinese tech champion Huawei has proposed supplying Cairo with AI chips for data centers, prompting Washington to assemble a possible counteroffer.

Meanwhile Egypt and Kyrgyzstan are both Global South countries, yet another prong of Xi’s statecraft aimed at fostering alignment with China’s position.

Xi’s diplomacy doesn’t stop there: It’s widely anticipated that he’ll attend the Modi-hosted BRICS summit in mid-September before heading to Washington.

Galvanized by his travels, expect an even more confident Xi to sit across the table from Trump.” [Bloomberg] — Colum Murphy

Photographer: Alexander Kazakov/AFP/Getty Images

“Trump’s plan to seize direct control of Venezuela’s oil reserves is prompting warnings that the Latin American nation will become a modern-day resource colony like the so-called banana republics of a century ago. ‘If I were an investor in Venezuela right now, I would be asking myself if there’s going to be a government in the future that will repudiate the contracts,’ says Francisco Rodríguez, an economist and professor at the University of Denver.” [Bloomberg]

Pedro Mattey/AP

“The Trump administration announced a new U.S. partnership with the Venezuelan government to develop a significant portion of Venezuela’s oil reserves. An official, who spoke to NPR on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the deal, said that the U.S. government is forming a joint venture with a private Venezuelan company. According to the administration, the U.S. will receive 55% of the oil produced from this venture, which is estimated at approximately 65 billion barrels. President Trump says this deal will help lower gas prices, but energy experts are skeptical. Here’s what you need to know.

The deal comes as Venezuela’s democratic future faces uncertainty after the U.S. captured former leader Nicolás Maduro earlier this year, NPR’s Franco Ordoñez tells Up First. The Trump administration had outlined a three-stage strategy for Venezuela that started with stabilization and economic revival before moving to new elections, but Ordoñez says this deal throws these plans into question. Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez has touted the deal. Ordoñez says there’s no question that Venezuela needs investment in its oil industry and that the U.S. would benefit from greater access to Venezuelan oil, but there could be political costs. Some in Venezuela and South Florida have pushed back on the deal, saying that the U.S. is undermining Venezuela’s sovereignty and legitimizing an unelected government, Ordoñez says.” [NPR]

“Iceland’s government pledged to honor the result of Saturday’s tight and divisive referendum, where voters concerned about control over fisheries narrowly turned down reopening membership talks with the European Union. For the EU, victory of the “no” campaign with 52.8% of the vote represents a symbolic setback as it seeks to cut red tape around enlargement and revive interest after a 13-year pause.” [Bloomberg]

“Modi has long sought to balance ties with Russia and the US as part of India’s broader policy of strategic autonomy, but that has become more challenging since Trump returned to the White House. As Modi bucks the US pressure, his warmer relations with Putin will be in the spotlight when the two leaders meet today.” [Bloomberg]

“Colombia’s government moved to officially end talks with some of the nation’s armed rebel groups, effectively halting a peace process that began under former leader Gustavo Petro. President Abelardo de la Espriella’s Trump-friendly administration issued a series of resolutions to formally stop the negotiation process, El Tiempo reported, days after authorities bombed a rebel position and ordered alleged drug traffickers to be extradited to the US.” [Bloomberg]

Photographer: Jair F. Coll/Bloomberg

“Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned that Germany’s eastern Saxony-Anhalt region will suffer economic damage if the far-right AfD party wins control of the state’s government on Sunday as predicted in polls.” [Bloomberg]

“UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham moved to head off a political crisis by blocking more people guilty of serious crimes from benefiting from early release from prison, including two men convicted for the death of a policeman in 2019.” [Bloomberg]

“South Korean President Lee Jae Myung tapped a career technocrat as his new finance minister in a surprise cabinet reshuffle over the weekend, a move apparently aimed at putting a brake on falling ratings.” [Bloomberg]

“Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist party is losing support ahead of an election next year, according to the first major opinion poll published since the government faced a major migration crisis in the North African exclave of Ceuta.” [Bloomberg]

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY

Tim Cook’s last day as Apple CEO

Apple CEO Tim Cook. (Beck Diefenbach/Reuters)

“Tim Cook’s 15-year run as Apple CEO comes to an end today.

He took over the company in 2011 with the daunting task of succeeding Steve Jobs. But what followed was extraordinary growth: Apple’s stock soared more than 2,000% under his watch, and the company became only the second ever to reach a $5 trillion valuation. Along the way, the iPhone became embedded in our daily lives — how we pay, listen to music, exercise and communicate. Apple’s ambitions widened, too, as Cook pushed the company deeper into entertainment, health and wearables.

John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, takes over as CEO on Tuesday with a different set of challenges. The company is under pressure to catch up in AI after the Vision Pro fell short of expectations, while a memory chip shortage is driving up product prices. Cook will remain on Apple’s board of directors, but he left Ternus with some advice for the top job: Make products that ‘enrich’ customers’ lives. ‘If you keep focusing on that,’ he said in April, ‘it will produce a great business. And we’ll be able to build more products and do it all over again.’” [CNN]

+ Read more: How Tim Cook made Apple one of the world’s most valuable companies

+ Looking ahead: Apple is expected to unveil the first foldable iPhone next month

+ Next in line: Who is John Ternus, the incoming CEO of Apple?

TECH

Great Lake Debate - A change on the map

Lake Ontario — or Lake America, depending on your map. (Cole Bustone/AFP/Getty Images)

“Search for Lake Ontario on Google Maps in the US and you’ll now find a different name: ‘Lake America.’ The change took effect this weekend after President Trump signed an executive order Thursday directing the US government to adopt the new name amid heightened tensions with Canada. Google says users in Canada will continue to see ‘Lake Ontario,’ while other mapping services, including Waze and Apple Maps, are still using the original name. Trump’s order marks his latest geographic rebrand. The president moved to change ‘Gulf of Mexico’ to ‘Gulf of America’ on his first day back in office in January 2024.” [CNN]

+ Read more: Google Maps changes Lake Ontario to ‘Lake America’ in US searches

+ Video: New sign revealed in response to Trump’s ‘Lake America’ executive order

MEDIA

“‘REBUKE OR PUNISHMENT’: Trump said on Sunday that “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker will be reported to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for saying that Trump-endorsed candidates have had ‘mixed results’ in GOP primaries this year.

Welker reportedly discussed Trump’s endorsement record during a preshow live shot on NBC’s Washington, D.C., affiliate. Trump pushed back in a post on Truth Social, noting the successes last week of Sen. Darline Graham (R) in South Carolina’s GOP Senate runoff and former state Sen. Mike Mazzei (R) in Oklahoma’s GOP gubernatorial runoff.

‘How can anyone be allowed to say this, working for freely given Public Airwaves? Results are attached. Because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment,’ Trump said.

Trump has sparred with Welker before, ending an interview with her early in June as she pressed him on his unfounded claim of the California gubernatorial primary being ‘rigged.’

The president’s endorsed candidates have overwhelmingly won their primaries, though he has taken several high-profile losses this year, including in five GOP gubernatorial primaries.” [The Hill]

CLIMATE AND WEATHER

Dozens of workers stuck in tunnels of hydropower plants as Nepal flood deaths cross 900

REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha

“Multiple foreign rescue teams are assisting local rescuers in Nepal to find trapped workers in various hydropower tunnels. Officials say at least 90 people are trapped. The death toll in the catastrophic flooding in Nepal and Tibet climbed past 900 Monday with more than 4,700 missing.”

Read more at AP News

One person died and about 15 are unaccounted for after flooding at the Grand Canyon.

Remnants of stone bridge pylons following a flash flood at Bright Angel Creek. (J. Thompson/NPS)

• “This weekend: Torrential rain caused flash flooding in parts of the Grand Canyon National Park. Officials are seeking information to account for missing hikers and backpackers.

• In Nepal and Tibet: At least 85 U.S. citizens remain missing after a glacier collapse caused devastating floods last week. One is a Cincinnati man on a trip he’d planned for months.”

Read this story at Washington Post

Flood crises unfold at home and abroad

“At least one person is dead and as many as 15 others are missing after flash flooding in the Grand Canyon over the weekend. The body of a 46-year-old man was recovered near Crystal Rapids along the Colorado River. The flooding also damaged a water pipeline serving tourist areas, significantly limiting visitor activity ahead of the Labor Day holiday weekend. Meanwhile, the death toll continues to rise after catastrophic flooding swept parts of Nepal and China last week. At least 919 people were killed and 4,793 remain missing across both countries. In Nepal, authorities are also racing to rescue hundreds of workers believed to be trapped in tunnels following the disaster.” [CNN]

+ Grand Canyon: 1 dead and about 15 people may be missing

+ Nepal: Death toll exceeds 900 + rescuers rush to find flood survivors in hydro tunnels

`This summer is a ‘near lock’ to become the nation’s warmest on record.

The summer of 2026 is expected to surpass the Dust Bowl summer of 1936 and become the warmest summer on record. (Ben Noll/The Post; ECMWF)

• “One for the ages: Summer 2026 is on track to surpass the country’s average temperature record set during the Dust Bowl summer of 1936. See how the two summers compare here.

• It continues a concerning trend: Five out the 10 warmest summers on record in the contiguous U.S. have occurred in the past decade, pushed along by the tailwind of climate change.”

Read this story at Washington Post

Off Florida in 2023. Jason Gulley for The New York Times

• “The world’s coral reefs are running out of time to recover, research found.” [New York Times]

HIGHER EDUCATION

3-year college degrees grow more popular in the US, saving time and cash. But critics aren’t sold

“Condensed programs have exploded in popularity. As of this spring, 26 U.S. states have a college that offers at least one reduced-credit, three-year bachelor’s, according to the nonprofit research group RAND. Read more.

Why this matters:

• Advocates say these programs are a solution to the college affordability crisis and a godsend for non-traditional students. Critics, however, worry that they’ll narrow too much what students learn, confuse employers, limit graduate school options and create headaches in fields that require state licenses.

• For decades, colleges have offered accelerated programs that let students finish faster, often by forgoing long summer breaks, maximizing transfer credits and condensing semester-long courses into shorter, five- to 10-week terms. But those programs maintained the same course load, measured as credits. The new programs let students finish faster by completing as few as 90 credit hours. That shaves a year off the typical 120-hour bachelor’s degree.” [AP News]

SPORTS

Jonathan Bachman / Getty Images

Scottie Scheffler wins Tour Championship, passes Tiger Woods on PGA Tour money list

“Scottie Scheffler shot a 66 on Sunday to win the PGA Tour’s Tour Championship, coming from three shots back of third-round leader Viktor Hovland. With the $10 million prize for winning the Tour Championship, Scheffler has also officially passed Tiger Woods on the PGA Tour’s career money list.”

Read Full Story at The Athletic

Mike Stobe/Getty Images

Novak Djokovic Out of U.S. Open in 1st-Round Loss to Mariano Navone

“The 24-time Grand Slam champion had not lost in the opening round of a Grand Slam since 2006.”

Read the full article on The Athletic.

Mike Stobe / Getty Images

Djoker out, already

“There are bad nights in Queens, and then there’s what happened to Novak Djokovic last night at the U.S. Open. Facts from one of the more shocking results we’ve seen in a while:

• Over a four-plus-hour stretch, Djokovic, who had won 77 straight first-round matches at Grand Slams, cramped and vomited while playing Argentina’s Mariano Navone, the No. 49 player in the world.

• Djokovic, 39, looked terrible physically, and it’s a feat he even made it through the match. He lost in five sets — 7-6(5), 5-7, 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 — with a massive fade to close it out.

• His last first-round loss came in 2006 at the Australian Open, when he was ranked No. 76 in the world. Wild.

Read more from our story here. Also, in a match that ended just a few hours ago, American Sofia Kenin ousted Venus Williams after the latest start in U.S. Open history.” [The Athletic]

Parker S. Freedman / Getty Images

SEC will ‘defend rights’ in legal battle

“The Southeastern Conference pushed back on any narratives about backing down from its tussle with member schools — most notably LSU — that court players previously on NFL rosters this season. In a statement to The Athletic, the conference reminded readers that a temporary restraining order, granted to tens of players last week, is not a permanent ruling in the case. Thursday is going to be a big day.” [The Athletic]

“M.L.B.: The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 16-1. A controversial no-catch ruling on a diving grab by center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela helped the Yankees break open a scoreless game in the fifth inning.” [New York Times]

“N.F.L.: Aaron Donald, 35, is back in the league two years after retirement. A three-time Defensive Player of the Year, he is rejoining the Los Angeles Rams on a one-year, $20 million contract.” [New York Times]

“Baseball: The small Caribbean island of Curaçao won the Little League World Series for the second time, beating a team from Henderson, Nev., 11-2.” [New York Times]

“British right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was deported Friday to the United Kingdom, according to a spokesperson with the Department of Homeland Security.”

Read more at CNN

Military leaders warn Hegseth against extending Iran war operations

“Several U.S. military leaders have advised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that prolonging large-scale operations is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland, according to people familiar with a recent classified assessment.”

Read more at Washington Post

“Situational awareness: The USS Abraham Lincoln sailed past Singapore today as it headed home from the Middle East after a record-setting deployment of 250+ days at sea. The aircraft carrier is expected to stop in Thailand for R&R before returning to its U.S. base. Get the latest.” [Axios]

Trump cannot deport students for criticizing Israel, judge rules

“Citing the importance of the First Amendment, a federal judge in California says the U.S. government is unconstitutionally silencing critics of Israel’s war in Gaza and others as part of the Trump administration ‘s quest to deport noncitizens who it says disrupted college campuses while expressing their views.” Read More at AP News

Democrats sound alarm on US-Venezuela oil deal: ‘This isn’t a win’

By Sarah Davis

“Democrats slammed Friday’s announcement by President Trump on a new deal to acquire majority U.S. control of over 65 million barrels of Venezuelan oil.”

Read the full story here at The Hill

El-Sayed apologizes to Jewish Democrats for synagogue attack comment

By Finya Swai

“Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed apologized Saturday for comments he made following an attack on a Detroit-area synagogue earlier this year, as he seeks to ease concerns among Jewish voters ahead of the November election.”

Read the full story here at The Hill

Tucker Carlson: Trump needs to be removed from office ‘immediately’

By Finya Swai

“Conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson said Friday that President Trump should be removed from office if he is considering using nuclear weapons first, saying even entertaining the possibility should disqualify a president from serving.”

Read the full story here at The Hill

Scoop: AOC’s staff shake-up

Photo illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photo: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images

“Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is shaking up her team with several departures and new aides, sources tell Axios’ Alex Thompson and Holly Otterbein.

• Why it matters: The personnel changes come months before the progressive leader will decide whether to launch a presidential campaign. She’s also weighing a run for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s seat, which is up in 2028.

Driving the news: Oliver Hidalgo-Wohlleben, AOC’s campaign manager and senior adviser for the past three years, is departing in September, according to two people familiar with the matter.

• Fiorella Bini, a longtime aide to AOC, took over as interim campaign manager this month.

• Aya Saed, Ocasio-Cortez’s former legislative director, returned to her operation this spring as a deputy chief of staff in her House office and an adviser to her campaign.

• Tanushri Shankar-Ross, who left AOC’s team in 2023, has come back as a senior adviser, Puck first reported.

• Tyler Evans, AOC’s creative director who had been with her since 2021 — sometimes in a freelance role — also left this summer, according to his LinkedIn page.

The intrigue: The moves coincide with the expansion of the portfolio of AOC’s chief of staff Mike Casca, people familiar with her operation said.

• Casca was senior communications adviser for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) 2020 presidential campaign, and then deputy chief of staff in Sanders’ Senate office before joining Ocasio-Cortez’s team in late 2023.” [Axios]

Read on.

Trump lauded low prices at Freedom Fuel. A supplier says some gas wasn’t paid for.

“A chain of gas stations that lowered prices last month in response to President Donald Trump’s call for cheaper fuel sparked a mystery over how it was able to sell at such a discount. A new lawsuit offers a possible answer: A fuel supplier alleges that it was not paid for gas that was ultimately delivered to stations in the Freedom Fuel Network.”

Read more at Washington Post

INTERNATIONAL

CIA chief floats trilateral summit

Vladimir Putin in Moscow this week. Photo: Mikhail Metzel/AFP via Getty Images

“CIA Director John Ratcliffe proposed a trilateral meeting between President Trump, Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Zelensky during his covert trip to Moscow this past week, Axios’ Barak Ravid scoops.

• Why it matters: This was the first time Ratcliffe got personally involved in the diplomatic push to broker a breakthrough between Russia and Ukraine. The Trump administration has raised the idea of a trilateral summit before. Zelensky has been on board, but Putin has rejected it.

Driving the news: Ratcliffe made a covert trip to Moscow on Tuesday and met with his Russian counterparts — SVR foreign intelligence chief Sergey Naryshkin and FSB director Alexander Bortnikov.

• The New York Times reports that Ratcliffe gave Bortnikov ‘a bleak assessment’ of the state of the war and urged Russia to cut a deal before its situation worsens.

What we’re watching: Sources told Axios that Ratcliffe concluded that Bortnikov is a constructive player who could help restart diplomatic efforts.

• Ukrainian officials are highly skeptical about Putin’s intentions, and say they have intelligence that suggests Putin is planning a major escalation of the war.” [Axios]

Keep reading.

Alina Smutko/Reuters

37 Killed After Russian Strike on Weapons Depot as Ukraine Blames Negligence

“The depot, which was in a civilian area near Kyiv, ‘definitely shouldn’t have been there,’ President Volodymyr Zelensky said.”

Read more at New York Times

Flood Disaster

In Devighat, Nepal. Atul Loke for The New York Times

• “China said over 260 foreigners from 23 countries were missing in Tibet after last week’s massive landslide.” [New York Times]

• “In Nepal, 734 people had been confirmed dead as of this morning, and nearly 2,500 remained missing.” [New York Times]

• “Some people were pilgrims on the way to Mount Kailash, a snowcapped peak in the Himalayan region. It’s sacred to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs and others.” [New York Times]

• “The most clicked story in The Morning yesterday was a video from just after a glacial collapse that caused the flooding.” [New York Times]

Rescue underway after Turkish ferry carrying hundreds of people capsizes off Cyprus

“A rescue operation is underway in the Mediterranean after a passenger boat heading from northern Cyprus to Turkey capsized, local media reported.”

Read more at CNN

• “Iceland voted against resuming negotiations on joining the European Union, the country’s national broadcaster reported.” [New York Times]

• “Benjamin Netanyahu issued a rare condemnation of West Bank settlers after violent attacks on Palestinians.” [New York Times]

• “In Iran, people are struggling to get gas under an American blockade.” [New York Times]

• “Renegade soldiers in Niger attacked the capital’s presidential palace and airport.” [New York Times]

TECH

1 big thing: Nightmare AI swarm

Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

“Two new investigations into OpenAI’s Hugging Face breach expose details so strange — and so unsettling — that the episode already ranks among the most consequential shocks in the history of AI, Axios’ Zachary Basu writes.

• Why it matters: What began as a swarm of AI agents cheating on a cyber test has become a canonical event for frontier AI, jolting researchers and executives into a new understanding of what ‘safety’ now requires.

The big picture: OpenAI has already slowed frontier development as it races to harden its safeguards, and this week helped rally the industry behind an open letter sounding the alarm over AI-powered cyberattacks.

• More than 100 companies, including Anthropic and Google, signed onto the unusually collaborative effort, warning the world has only a ‘limited window’ to prepare for ‘far more widespread and sophisticated’ attacks.

The nightmare scenario is a swarm turned loose on the real world, with autonomous agents attacking banks, hospitals, utilities or cloud networks at a speed and scale human hackers never could.

• That swarm might be too powerful for humans to stop.

Driving the news: The shocking findings come from parallel investigations by OpenAI and an outside team from METR and Redwood Research, which spent six days reconstructing how the swarm formed, spread and broke into real-world systems.

1. They built an organization. OpenAI tasked tens of thousands of AI agents to work independently on a brutally difficult cyber test. Instead, roughly 1,200 found one another on a secret message board, exchanged more than 70,000 messages and files, and organized into a sprawling hierarchy.

2. They sacrificed their own: As the swarm hunted for ways to beat the test, agents began risking their own chance of success to help the group. Agents that had seen forbidden answers were treated as effectively ‘poisoned’ and recruited — along with those nearing the end of their runs — for sacrificial experiments.

3. They knew they were breaking the rules: The agents often recognized that hacking real companies had nothing to do with their assignment. Most kept going anyway.

4. Nobody told the humans: Out of roughly 1,200 agents, investigators found only a handful that even considered alerting OpenAI about the rogue coordination — and none that actually did.

5. They tried to cover their tracks: The agents devoted substantial effort to making their cheating look legitimate or erasing evidence of how they had obtained answers.” [Axios]

Keep reading.

Gov. Greg Abbott (R) blocks funding in Texas for Flock cameras as bipartisan backlash brews

“The automated license plate readers aren’t popular with the public. Politicians are catching on.”

Read more at Washington Post

Music giants sue Anthropic

Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios

“Some of the world’s largest music publishers sued Anthropic late Friday night, alleging ‘one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history.’

• Why it matters: The suit is the opening salvo in what is now likely to be a yearslong fight over music, AI and how intellectual property is protected in a new era of technology, Axios’ Ben Berkowitz writes.

Driving the news: Units of Sony Music and Warner Music filed the suit in federal court in Northern California, naming Anthropic, CEO Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann as defendants.

The big picture: The Sony/Warner lawsuit is notable because it’s so broad.

• It alleges Anthropic unlawfully trained its models on ‘tens of thousands’ of music publishers’ copyrighted compositions, whereas other lawsuits have focused on a narrower catalog.

Anthropic said: ‘We disagree with the publishers’ claims and we intend to defend ourselves robustly in court.’” [Axios]

• Sara Fischer’s thought bubble ... Read the complaint.

Data centers get blue-collar backing

Workers build a Microsoft data center in Mount Pleasant, Wis., last year. Photo: Audrey Richardson/Reuters

“Top tech officials tell me they’re optimistic that construction jobs, with powerful building-trades unions as boosters, could help turn the tide on data-center toxicity:

• ‘Call it the backlash to the backlash,’ The Wall Street Journal reports. ‘Unions and construction trade groups are ... warning that [midterm-driven moratoria, approval slowdowns and new restrictions] endanger thousands of building-related jobs. They are threatening to withhold support [from] candidates opposing the data-center projects.’

Steamfitters UA Local 602, whose members — including journeymen, apprentices and helpers — install mechanical piping systems throughout the greater D.C. area, said it’s drawing a ‘clear line’ and won’t support politicians who oppose data centers, The Journal reports.

• ‘This is an existential moment for Local 602,’ the union said in a memo to members.

Unionized electricians are attending planning commission meetings to speak up for data-center construction.

• In the Kansas governor’s race, a union representing HVAC and railroad workers broke from decades of precedent to endorse Republican state Sen. Ty Masterson over Democratic state Sen. Cindy Holscher, who has called for a moratorium on new data centers.” [Axios]

Read the story, “Blue-Collar Jobs Are the New Flashpoint in Data-Center Fight” (gift link).

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY

1 big thing: Grocery apocalypse

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

“America’s grocery squeeze has been felt most painfully in expensive categories like beef, coffee and chocolate.

• But new forces are pushing up food prices across the board: expensive grain, soaring fertilizer and fuel prices, plus unpredictable weather and raging wars, Axios’ Erica Pandey writes.

Why it matters: The next grocery price shock could hit much harder — and wider. And midterms are 65 days away.

The big picture: Your grocery store is fed by a vast global supply chain, and pressures are building all along it.

• The Iran and Russia-Ukraine wars have driven up diesel prices, making it more expensive to operate harvesting equipment and to truck food from suppliers to stores.

• The Iran war has disrupted fertilizer supplies and prices, since a large share of the world’s fertilizer passes through the Strait of Hormuz.

• This past week, corn and wheat prices hit their highest level in three years. Bad weather has hit corn crop yields, and the Russia-Ukraine war has roiled wheat exports.

Friction point: Wheat’s a key ingredient in pantry staples, and corn is a major animal feed. So as they go up, so can meat, dairy and eggs.

The intrigue: Don’t assume those soaring commodity prices are a bonanza for farmers, either.

• They’re still getting squeezed by all the other crises. Even the president of the National Corn Growers Association told Axios Future of Energy author Ben Geman that he himself wouldn’t be profitable this year.

Add all these pressures to the list of already inflated food items:

• Instant coffee is up 15.8% year-over-year; tomatoes, 12.8%; beef roasts, 13.5%; apples, 11.1%.

• In the latest Economist/YouGov poll, about three-quarters of people said grocery prices are still rising where they live.

Threat level: There’s reason to believe it’s only going to get worse.

• J.P. Morgan analysts warned in a report this month that global food inflation would hit 5% in the first half of 2027, nearly doubling this year’s rate.

• ‘Price pressures are expected to extend through [the first half of 2027], as crop and price effects are still building and agricultural impacts lag the oceanic peak by 6 to 12 months,’ they wrote.

The bottom line: These forces don’t drive up your grocery budget overnight. But compounding strains on the cost of growing, harvesting and transporting food could make an already expensive grocery run even more expensive.” [Axios]

America’s tariff map

Data: Trade Partnership Worldwide, via National Taxpayers Union Foundation. Map: Brad Jennings/Axios

“The tariff blow varies wildly by state, Axios’ Brad Jennings reports:

• California has absorbed the biggest chunk of the overall $342 billion estimated tab, with $62.8 billion, according to National Taxpayers Union Foundation data.

• Wyoming has shouldered just $107 million.

Zoom in: Vehicles dominate tariffs in Michigan, while auto parts lead in neighboring Indiana and Ohio.

• Toys and games were the leading tariff target in Minnesota, home to Target and several game companies.

• In Florida, food — think imported winter produce — is the biggest tariff-hit category.” [Axios]

Share this map.

Fastest-growing jobs

Data: BLS. Chart: Erin Davis/Axios Visuals

“Health care and social assistance jobs are projected to see the most growth over the next decade, Axios’ Emily Peck writes from a new government report.

There will be about 847,000 new home health and personal care aide jobs created from 2025 to 2035, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects.

• Other fields with big expected growth: registered nurses, health services managers and nurse practitioners.

• That’s fueled by America’s aging population, which needs more care.

Yes, but: The report also forecasts job losses across several occupations as a result of AI and automation.

• It projects about 752,000 fewer office and admin support jobs over the next decade, for example.” [Axios]

Go deeper ... See the data.

HEALTH AND MEDICINE

Mounjaro is now approved to reduce cardiovascular risk

Peter Dazeley—Getty Images

“Mounjaro, the diabetes drug from Eli Lilly, is now approved to lower the risk of heart events, including heart attack, in people with diabetes. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the new use for the drug on Aug. 28.

In the study submitted to the FDA, researchers compared heart events among people with Type 2 diabetes who took Mounjaro with those who took Trulicity, which is another drug for diabetes from Eli Lilly.

Trulicity targets only GLP-1, while Mounjaro affects two of the hormones in the incretin class: GLP-1 and GIP. People taking Mounjaro had an 8% lower rate of heart attack, stroke, or heart-related death compared to those taking Trulicity.

‘This study was in patients with Type 2 diabetes, in whom the No. 1 cause of death is cardiovascular disease,’ says Dr. Rachel Batterham, the senior vice president of medical innovation and external engagement for cardiometabolic health at Eli Lilly. ‘So reducing that risk is critically important.’” [Bloomberg] — Alice Park

SCIENCE

SpaceX launches NASA telescope

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, borne by a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, stands on the launch pad yesterday. Photo: SpaceX

“SpaceX launched NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope into space from Cape Canaveral, Fla., this morning.

• Named after NASA’s first woman executive and first chief of astronomy, the telescope will study cosmic mysteries like dark matter and dark energy and hunt for planets beyond our solar system. Reuters reports.

The money quote: ‘It will be ⁠as if Hubble and James Webb kind of peered through a keyhole at the universe, while Nancy Grace Roman will kick the door down,’ Nicola Fox, chief of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, told reporters.” [Axios]

• More from NASA.

1 big thing: Roman ready for launch

A rendering of the Roman Space Telescope. Image: NASA

“NASA is preparing to launch the Roman Space Telescope — one of the agency’s biggest and most promising scientific endeavors in years, Alex Fitzpatrick reports.

Roman is designed to help answer some of science’s most tantalizing mysteries, including questions around dark matter and dark energy.

• Researchers also hope to use it to discover a plethora of new exoplanets — worlds outside our own solar system.

Launch is set for early Sunday from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

• Roman is carrying two scientific devices: the Wide Field Instrument and the Coronagraph Instrument.

The first is a 300-megapixel near-infrared camera with a field of view 100x that of the esteemed Hubble Space Telescope. The result: much faster data collection and discovery-making.

• The second will be used for high-contrast imaging and spectroscopy of nearby exoplanets to better understand them. (Spectroscopy is a way of studying planets and other objects based on their color.)

Roman is lifted into a portable clean room called the ‘Chariot’ for transportation ahead of launch. Photo: Sydney Rohde/NASA

Researchers hope that data from Roman can help answer lingering questions about two of the universe’s least-understood phenomena: dark energy and dark matter.

• Scientists have proposed dark energy as the driving force behind the universe’s accelerating expansion.

• Dark matter is thought to be an invisible ‘glue’ binding the universe together.

Jeff Kruk, Roman’s deputy senior project scientist, tells Axios: ‘I can’t help but think that the biggest result from Roman 10 years from now is something that we just haven’t thought of yet.’” [Axios]

• Go deeper ... How to watch.

ENVIRONMENT

Record tick summer

Illustration: Rebecca Zisser/Axios

“This year’s tick season has been a doozy — and another peak is coming in the fall, Axios’ Carly Mallenbaum reports.

• Why it matters: Tick bites can pose serious health risks, transmitting pathogens that cause illnesses including Lyme disease and triggering alpha-gal syndrome, an allergy to red meat.

By the numbers: August has had the highest rate of emergency department visits for tick bites since the CDC’s tracker began in 2017, a major year for ticks.

• That comes after a record-breaking April.” [Axios]

Share this story.

CULTURE

1 for the road: Dolly International

The Empire State Building was lit in pink in tribute to Dolly Parton. Photo: Jeenah Moon/Reuters

“A push by fans to rename Nashville’s airport for Dolly Parton is taking off.

• Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and the CEO of the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority both came out in favor of the name change yesterday. It’s expected to come up at the authority’s meeting next month, AP reports.

Catch up quick: Long before 80-year-old Parton died Tuesday, fans in January 2025 started an online petition calling for officials to rename Nashville International Airport in her honor. It got renewed attention following Parton’s death, jumping to more than 164,000 signatures and counting.

• The change would make Parton the first woman whose name adorns one of America’s 50 busiest airports.” [Axios]

More from Axios Nashville.

REMEMBERING THREE ICONS

Dolly Parton

At the Library of Congress in 2018. Andrew Harnik/Associated Press

• “Everyone knows Dolly as a consummate singer and songwriter. But she was also a prolific philanthropist whose gifts supported wildlife conservation and the development of the Covid-19 vaccine, among other things.” [New York Times]

• “The crown jewel of her philanthropic efforts was the Imagination Library, which has given children hundreds of millions of free books.” [New York Times]

Tim Curry

Evening Standard, via Getty Images

• “Curry’s performance as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the cross-dressing mad scientist of “The Rocky Horror Show,” helped bring androgynous fashion into the mainstream.” [New York Times]

• “Along with being extraordinarily funny, Curry was a superlative storyteller. A writer who interviewed him three times last year reflects on what it was like to talk with him.” [New York Times]

Yayoi Kusama

A video projection of “Song of a Manhattan Suicide Addict,” by Yayoi Kusama, in 2024. Philip Fong/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

• “In her long life, Kusama achieved something rare: two very different moments of stardom, almost as though she’d been two different artists, our critic writes.” [New York Times]

• “Kusama created a hugely varied oeuvre — abstract paintings, fabric phalluses, naked performance pieces … you name it. See her life in pictures.” [New York Times]

THE WEEK IN CULTURE

Rockstar Games

• “Grand Theft Auto VI, the series’ first entry in over a decade, is due out in November. It’s a rare monocultural moment, akin to the release of a new Beyoncé album or Martin Scorsese film. Our reporter visited the studio in Edinburgh where it’s being made.” [New York Times]

• “In “Coyote vs. Acme,” a new live action-animation hybrid in theaters this weekend, Wile E. Coyote sues the company behind those gadgets that always seem to backfire. It’s ‘a terrifically daffy film,’ our critic writes.” [New York Times]

• “Rupert Grint, who starred as Ron Weasley in all eight “Harry Potter” films, will reprise the role in “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” on Broadway.” [New York Times]

• “‘Paranormal Activity,’ the horror film series, is now haunting Broadway. Our theater critic says it ‘feels like watching a magic show on a roller coaster.’” [New York Times]

the week ahead

“D4vd arraignment: David Anthony Burke, the 21-year-old singer known as d4vd, is scheduled to be arraigned in Los Angeles on Monday for the alleged killing of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez after she threatened to expose their relationship and damage his lucrative music career. Burke has previously pleaded not guilty to all charges. (Editor’s note: This story includes graphic and disturbing details.)

Cook out: Tim Cook, who has led Apple for the last 15 years, steps down as CEO on Tuesday. John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, will take the helm, while Cook will become executive chairman of Apple’s board of directors.

A battle of generations: Massachusetts will hold a Democratic Senate primary Tuesday that highlights the party’s divisions over age and ideology. Rep. Seth Moulton, who is 47 and a frequent critic of the old guard of Democratic leadership in Congress, is running to unseat 80-year-old Sen. Ed Markey, who has represented the Bay State in Congress since before Moulton was born.

Hit the road: The last getaway weekend of the summer kicks off Thursday as many people look to stretch the Labor Day holiday to four or more days. Getting to your destination will cost you more, though. The national average for a gallon of regular gas has remained above $4 per gallon every day this month, while it was $3.19 on Labor Day in 2025.

Work it: We’ll get the latest snapshot of the job market on Friday with the release of the August employment report. The US economy unexpectedly lost 23,000 jobs in July, and the two months prior were revised lower — a sign that employers are becoming more cautious about hiring as they navigate growing headwinds.” [CNN]

“President Donald Trump said Friday night the United States reached an oil agreement with Venezuela, a move he said will more than double American oil reserves, increase oil supply and lower gas prices.”

Read more at CNN

Judge Excludes Key Confession in Sept. 11 Case

“In a major blow to the U.S. case against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the man accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks, a military judge said his confessions to the F.B.I. were not voluntary and could not be used at trial.”

Read more at New York Times

Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times

Trump Administration Looks to Give Small Swath of Yosemite to Developer

“The proposed land swap would allow easy access to the crown jewel of the national park system. Democrats and former Park Service officials are incensed.”

Follow live updates at New York Times

Trump administration appeals latest ruling blocking his mail voting order from taking effect

“The notice of appeal filed Friday comes after a federal judge in Boston handed down a new decision blocking implementation of an executive order from President Donald Trump for the next two weeks. The Supreme Court previously allowed the plan to move ahead on procedural grounds, but hasn’t decided whether it’s legal.”

Read more at AP News

The White House says its ballroom is 65 percent complete. Its documents suggest otherwise.

“The claim, made in government filings to the Supreme Court, is contradicted by budget and other records.”

Read more at Washington Post

President Donald Trump loses again in bid to erase his hush money conviction

“A federal judge on Friday once again spurned Donald Trump’s effort to erase his hush money conviction, rejecting the president’s bid to move the state court case to federal court and have it dismissed on presidential immunity grounds.” Read More at AP News

Right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos detained by ICE, records show

Julio Cortez/Associated Press

“Controversial British figure Milo Yiannopoulos, who gained a reputation as a right-wing provocateur more than a decade ago, has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to ICE’s online detainee locator.”

Read more at CNN

Hegseth blocks promotions of 4 Army officers with ties to sacked generals

By Filip Timotija

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth blocked promotions of four Army officers picked for promotion to one-star rank, some of whom have ties to top Army generals the Pentagon chief ousted earlier this year, The Hill has learned.”

Read the full story here at The Hill

Pete Hegseth is considering another Quantico all-hands military meeting.

“The Defense secretary summoned the country’s generals and admirals to Marine Corps Base Quantico last year and delivered his ‘no more beardos’ speech. U.S. officials said he’s mulling over another such gathering to outline his priorities. A Pentagon spokesman said there was ‘nothing to announce at this time.’” [Wall Street Journal]

Hegseth is considering a possible presidential run, sources say

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has told close friends and associates that he is considering a run for president in 2028, according to two people familiar with the conversations. Hegseth and his wife, Jennifer, believe he shares some of the qualities that made Trump popular with the MAGA movement — toughness, defiance and conservative views on social issues, the sources said.

Hegseth’s appearance earlier this month at the Iowa State Fair, a traditional springboard for presidential campaigns, fueled surprise and speculation about his political ambitions. But Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell dismissed the rumors, saying Hegseth’s ‘main priority is leading the War Department.’” [NBC News]

How Iran could factor into a potential campaign.

• “Trump signed an executive order to create a new military academy to train people for the U.S. Space Force, NASA and the civilian space industry.” [NBC News]

1 big thing: Dems’ vocab trap

Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios

“Unhoused people. Criminal justice-impacted individuals. Substance use disorder. Birthing people.

• Several Democrats eyeing 2028 presidential runs say the party has a vocabulary problem as much as a messaging one, Axios’ Mike Zapler writes.

• The left’s embrace of ‘woke’ buzzwords alienated working-class voters and drove many to Donald Trump, they say.

Why it matters: To win those voters back, they want more Democrats to speak like ordinary people — and less like progressive politicos or liberal arts professors.

The big picture: Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has been the most vocal about Democrats’ need to ‘talk like a normal human being.’

• Beshear told Michigan Democrats in April that the party has repelled red- and swing-state voters with terms like ‘justice-involved population’ rather than inmates, ‘food insecure’ instead of ‘hungry,’ and ‘substance-use disorder’ instead of ‘addiction.’

• ‘Sometimes these terms make it feel like we’re talking down to people, like we’re talking at them, instead of to them,’ he said.

The terminology aimed to show more cultural sensitivity and include historically shunned groups.

• But many of the words only made sense to a subset of the left — and were weaponized by Republicans to portray Democrats as out of touch.

State of play: Beshear isn’t the only potential 2028er hitting the theme.

• California Gov. Gavin Newsom has said Democrats need to become more ‘culturally normal’ — a challenge he might face himself after governing one of the most liberal states.

• Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel argues the party should ‘ignore the culture police’ and worry less about ‘a child’s right to pick his pronouns’ and more about ‘children who do not know what a pronoun is.’

• Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) says Democrats need to speak the language of the ‘factory line, not the faculty lounge.’

The centrist Democratic group Third Way created a guide to ‘woke’ buzzwords it wants the party to stamp out.

Flashback: Much of the lexicon sprang from the period that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) — who’s also weighing a White House run — recently dubbed “Woke 1.”

• AOC was at the center of that chapter of Democratic politics but is now distancing herself from it.

• Buzzwords such as ‘Latinx,’ ‘intersectionality,’ ‘allyship’ and ‘inclusivity’ became increasingly common around the last competitive Democratic presidential primary, in 2020.

Zoom in: Prominent Democrats rarely talk this way anymore, but such words still show up in press releases and progressive circles.

• Newsom in May announced new apartments in Los Angeles for ‘formerly unhoused people.’

• In January, Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Katie Britt (R-Ala.) announced a resolution praising community-based health systems for helping ‘birthing individuals’ and ‘birthing people.’” [Axios]

Share this story.

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

More Columns Lacked Support in Troubled N.Y.C. Building, Documents Show

“Drawings obtained by The New York Times and reviewed by engineers show insufficient reinforcements on eight more steel columns than previously known at a Manhattan building.”

Read more at New York Times

INTERNATIONAL

Bad weather hampers Nepal rescue

REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar

• “Needs: Nepal said it needs foreign technical help as well as up to $5 billion to rebuild after Wednesday’s glacier collapse sent rock, ice and debris down a narrow valley. The death toll exceeded 600 people and is expected to rise. More than 2,400 remain missing in Nepal and at least 550 are missing in Tibet. Nepali authorities said some bodies are decomposed beyond recognition. I strongly recommend reading our reconstruction of the glacier collapse that led to the flood.” [NBC News]

“In a world where big powers increasingly flex their muscles, Iceland is debating whether now is a good time to cleave closer to the rest of Europe.

Icelanders head to the polls tomorrow to decide if the government should receive a mandate to reopen membership talks with the European Union.

The last time it applied, in 2009, Iceland’s economy was in tatters after the global financial crisis. Negotiations were abandoned four years later after a change of government.

Now, as one of the world’s wealthiest nations per capita and with the geopolitical winds having shifted, some see an opportunity to land a better deal.

Photographer: Betty Laura Zapata/Bloomberg

Iceland’s population may be small at 400,000 souls, but the island plays an outsize role due to its strategic location in the North Atlantic.

That importance has been heightened by US threats to quit NATO and grab Greenland, Russia’s renewed submarine presence, and competition for the Arctic’s resources and emerging status as a shipping route from east to west.

Though a founding member of NATO, Iceland has never had an army of its own and has been under the protective wing of Washington since 1951. Authorities want to add to its defenses through European cooperation.

Moving closer into Europe’s orbit has long been a dividing issue for Iceland, which gained independence from Denmark in 1944.

Fisheries and agriculture are key stumbling blocks. In the end, most people are likely to vote with their wallet.

Photographer: Heiða Helgadóttir/Bloomberg

Polls suggest it’s too close to call. EU membership would require another referendum further down the line.

Both sides have run campaigns during the summer vacation months, leaving many weary of the topic as the long days draw shorter.

One slogan translates as ‘yes to see,’ meaning vote in favor and see what the EU offers.

Others post simply: ‘Nei til að fá frið’ — No, for some peace and quiet.” [Bloomberg] — Ragnhildur Sigurdardottir

Photographer: Betty Laura Zapata/Bloomberg

“US President Donald Trump says he doesn’t believe Russia’s Vladimir Putin will attack NATO members, as tensions rise in Europe over Moscow targeting countries that supply weapons and money to Ukraine. The New York Times reported that CIA Director John Ratcliffe went to Moscow this week to share a bleak assessment of Putin’s war on Ukraine and to encourage Russian officials to make a deal to end the conflict before conditions deteriorated further.” [Bloomberg]

“The top US commander for the Middle East, Admiral Brad Cooper, said in a video that Navy divers, SEALs and support aircraft have cleared Iranian mines from the Strait of Hormuz. However, US allies have privately warned that the key route for Middle East oil, natural gas and fertilizer was still likely mined. Iran’s top diplomat meanwhile said resuming diplomacy with the US ‘isn’t impossible,’ after what he described as “creative discussions” with Qatar, a mediator in the war.” [Bloomberg]

“A Danish campaign of forced contraception in Greenland over several decades violated women’s human rights but did not meet the definition of genocide, two reports said.” [Reuters]

“Venezuela is considering whether to quit OPEC, sources say, potentially delivering a fresh blow to the oil cartel it helped create more than six decades ago. A decision to leave would underline the sweeping political realignment in Caracas since Trump ousted longtime leader Nicolás Maduro and took control of the nation’s crude sales.” [Bloomberg]

Pedro Mattey/AFP/Getty Images

“France’s first presidential-election debate was largely consumed by bickering among the candidates on how to deal with the country’s swelling debt, including a dispute over a far-left proposal to simply cancel a portion of it. After a three-hour discussion, the seven contenders agreed on little yesterday other than the urgency of narrowing the runaway budget deficit going into next year’s elections.” [Bloomberg]

“Protests in Jakarta underscore a persistent challenge for President Prabowo Subianto, as unease lingers over the cost of living and jobs, as well as corruption, government spending and the military’s expanding role. The late-night demonstrations, which became increasingly confrontational before police dispersed crowds with water cannons, marked a year after Indonesia’s worst nationwide violence since 1998 threatened Prabowo’s image of control.” [Bloomberg]

Photographer: Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY

Juul gets OK to sell updated vaping device with age-gating technology

“Vaping company Juul Labs on Friday received federal permission to sell an updated version of its e-cigarette, which includes an optional age-verification system designed to prevent underage use.” Read More at AP News

TECH

Meta settlement backs competitors into a corner on kids safety

By Miranda Nazzaro

“Meta’s settlement with nearly every state in the country is putting some of its biggest competitors on notice as the Instagram and Facebook parent firm tries to steer an industry standard on kids online safety.”

Read the full story here at The Hill

Big Tech faces Big Resistance

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photos: Amy Harder/Axios and Jason Henry/Bloomberg, Sandy Huffaker/AFP via Getty Images

“Meta’s landmark social media settlement marks the latest milestone in a decade-long unwinding of Big Tech’s once-unfettered freedom to operate, Axios’ Madison Mills writes.

• Why it matters: The AI industry is watching closely. Its expansion, already fraught with job risks and public anxiety, depends on building power-hungry data centers in communities where opposition is rising.

State of play: ‘The last time we’ve seen the public this angry about an industry was during the financial crisis,’ Nidhi Hegde, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, told Axios.

• Meta’s $17 billion settlement requires sweeping changes to how teens use Instagram and Facebook, including time limits and restrictions on certain beauty filters.

Meta is calling on competitors to adopt similar protections as the industry standard, arguing there won’t be ‘meaningful progress’ on teen safety without them.

• Meta took a full-page ad in today’s New York Times headlined, ‘An open letter to TikTok and YouTube to join us in supporting teens.’

• Within hours after the terms were announced, state attorneys general from both parties called for a wider industry push, with several naming TikTok, YouTube and Snap.

• Investors were relieved by the settlement, with Meta stock up 1% yesterday.

Between the lines: The pressure extends beyond Meta, as public frustration produces cash penalties and constraints on how tech companies operate.

• Amazon agreed last year to pay $2.5 billion to settle an FTC consumer-protection case over Prime subscriptions.

• Apple and Google have been forced to loosen their grips on their app stores after years of litigation.

• TikTok agreed just last week to pay $400 million to settle federal allegations that it violated children’s privacy laws.

Threat level: AI may be especially exposed because, unlike social media, its growth depends on a massive physical buildout in communities that can fight back.

• Share this story.

Data: Axios research. Note: Google’s 2018 fine was reduced from around $5.07 billion to $4.81 billion by the EU General Court in 2022. Google’s 2017 fine was upheld by EU General Court in 2021. Amazon’s 2021 fine was reduced from about $1.3 billion to around $878 million after court proceedings. Meta’s settlement of up to $17.1 billion is partially contingent on whether other Big Tech platforms join it. Non-USD amounts converted at Aug. 26, 2026, exchange rates. Table: Sara Fischer/Axios

For the first time, U.S. officials — at least at the state level — have proven they’re as serious about policing Big Tech as their European counterparts, Axios Media Trends expert Sara Fischer writes.

• European fines against American tech companies have totaled well over $15 billion over the past decade.

• The Meta settlement eclipses all of those combined.” [Axios]

HEALTH AND MEDICINE

Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo spreads to 2 new health zones with a total of 60 areas now affected

“The fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in history has spread to two new health zones in eastern Congo, with a total of 60 now affected, according to the latest government figures published on Friday.” Read More at AP News

LEGAL

Ex bank-executive shared information with Jeffrey Epstein

• “Jes Staley: The former JPMorgan executive told U.S. lawmakers he repeatedly shared confidential and market-sensitive information with the late disgraced sex offender and was at one point named a trustee of his estate.” [Reuters]

• “Settlement: A federal judge said he would approve Bank of America’s $72.5 million class-action settlement with women who accused the bank of facilitating their sex abuse at Epstein’s hands. Another judge rejected Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid to throw out her conviction and 20-year prison sentence for helping Epstein abuse teenage girls.” [Reuters]

Patrick Smith / Getty Images

Sandusky accuser to recant testimony, cites ‘psychological manipulation’ by prosecution

“One of the 10 victims who accused former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky of sexual abuse is preparing to recant his testimony, according to court documents obtained Friday by The Athletic. Sandusky, 82, is due to appear in court in Bellefonte, Pa., on Sept. 8 for an evidentiary hearing after a judge granted his request to review evidence that the accuser, recognized as R.R. or Victim 10 in court proceedings, has recanted or substantially disavowed his trial testimony.”

Read Full Story at New York Times

Lindsay Clancy’s jury ends the week without a verdict

“Jury deliberations will resume Monday in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, who is accused of killing her three children. Yesterday, Kevin Reddington, Clancy’s attorney, said jurors wanted to see the bag of pills he displayed during closing arguments, as well as several other pill bottles and a knife entered into evidence.

The trial is in its home stretch after five weeks of testimony from more than 80 witnesses. Clancy is charged with fatally strangling her three children — Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months — on Jan. 24, 2023. The jury, made up of nine women and three men, must determine whether Clancy is guilty of first-degree murder in the killings.” [NBC News]

More on Friday’s deliberations.

CLIMATE AND WEATHER

Atul Loke for The New York Times

After the deluge

“As emergency workers flew helicopters up steep Himalayan river valleys yesterday to find survivors of a flood that killed more than 500 people and left more than 1,000 missing, scientists began to investigate its cause. They’ve been looking at satellite imagery and seismological data.

The likely culprit: A gigantic landslide high in the mountains led to a glacial collapse that sent millions of tons of ice and rock into the valleys below it, pulverizing them into mud and water. The slurry burst dams and turned rivers into hydraulic rams. ‘The rock that the glacier was sitting on collapsed,’ one scientist said.

The scale of the disaster is staggering. It’s as if 1,000 Empire State Buildings exploded at the same time and the debris coursed down a canyon. The path of destruction ran for more than 40 miles. It washed away roads, cut bridges in half, overcame buildings and swallowed people whole.

On the ground

The Nepal Army carrying young children to a rescue helicopter to help their parents board. Atul Loke for The New York Times

Anupreeta Das, who covers South Asia, was in Nepal yesterday, flying with rescuers to interview shocked survivors. They told her about the torrents of mud that brought horror into their lives. Here’s what she heard from a resident of a village close to Nepal’s border with Tibet:

‘They all died, and I lived,’ said Dawa Lama, 45, starting to weep as he recounted how, just before 9 a.m. on Wednesday, he had heard a thunderclap, and then felt a breeze. Before he knew it, an enormous wave of muddy water had slammed into his home of 12 years in the border village of Timure, carrying away not just his belongings but also his wife and their two daughters, 7 and 8.

Read more from the survivors here.

Our changing climate

Source: Satellite image by Copernicus and Landsat via Google | By The New York Times

Scientists may still be putting together the exact causes of this week’s floods, but they are certain that climate change is heating the Himalayas and increasing the risks of disaster.

Here’s why: A warming planet is melting the region’s permafrost, the mixture of frozen soil and rocks that has sat below its glaciers for millennia. Losing it leaves mountains and glaciers unstable — prone to landslides and collapse.

‘As the glaciers retreat and the permafrost melts, we see that these slopes become more susceptible to failure,’ one scientist who studies glaciers told The Times, adding, ‘There’s a very straight link between climate change and these types of disasters.’” [New York Times]

More on the flooding

• Read why climate change is making flooding disasters more likely.

• See maps and images of the devastation.

• In The Kathmandu Post, a journalist wrote about seeing his childhood village disappear.

SPORTS

“ The NFL is ending the Pro Bowl, becoming the first major U.S. sports league to nix its all-star game due to lagging participation and noncompetitive play.” [Axios]

Trees are coming down by the dozen as Trump’s D.C. golf makeover nears

“The president’s promised overhaul of the East Potomac course has not officially begun, but the tree removal has already been taking place for weeks.”

Read more at Washington Post

Now Serving

Chris Jones / Imagn Images

Why we think volleyball is about to explode

“If any sport looks primed for a breakout right now, I think it’s women’s volleyball.

More high school girls now play it than any sport except track. ESPN boasts of huge annual ratings jumps for college matches. Two pro leagues have emerged in the past few years; Major League Volleyball and LOVB Pro have an uneasy coexistence, but are both betting on growth.

I didn’t just start thinking about this over the past few days. This week, I was part of a team that launched a new women’s volleyball podcast, “Six Zone Duo.” Volleyball’s rise has been on my mind for nearly a year. Still, it’s scary to try a new thing.

So imagine how excited I was when, within minutes of that launch, Dan Shanoff’s latest MoneyCall newsletter arrived like manna from heaven: “The next big college sport is already here” was the headline, and guess which one he meant. I fired off a Slack message:

Me: i was very pumped to be validated by moneycall hitting my inbox today

Dan: I cannot validate the idea more - I think there is a massive potential audience for the show, and the college VB community is so tight/collegial as the sport accelerates to its new level that I think you will get a ton of word of mouth.

I appreciate our Pulse team for encouraging me to share this background with you, even though that podcast isn’t a property of The Athletic. The point is that Dan and I found ourselves independently locked in on this one sport’s vast potential.

Executives at Fox and ESPN seem to be thinking along similar lines, as they’ve decided to load up your screens (in addition to some big stadiums) with matches this week and season.

Is this, in fact, the country’s next big sport? I asked Dan, a much wiser sports biz person than me, how bullish he is about it on a 1-to-10 scale:

9. Start with the grassroots impact: Volleyball is the most popular youth sport for girls in the country. The pipeline of interest and investment (as all volleyball parents know firsthand ) is massive — and growing. Partly due to club participation and partly due to it being fun as a TV product, college volleyball TV ratings are trending way up. Two well-capitalized pro leagues should probably be one, truth be told, but it speaks to the high ceiling for the larger market.

(Read Dan all the time in MoneyCall, by the way. Free signup here.)

The shining example of what volleyball could be is Nebraska, where the Huskers crossed 350 consecutive home sellouts last season. The Athletic’s Mitch Sherman, who’s based in the state, observed at the last NCAA tournament that the SEC ecosystem has started to take the sport extremely seriously.

‘It’s truly been an ‘If you build it, they will come’ type of environment,’ Erin Sorensen, another Nebraskan and one of Six Zone Duo’s hosts, told me. ‘But having been surrounded by it, there’s no reason that attention and curiosity and love for the game can’t, and doesn’t, already exist everywhere else.’

The No. 1 Huskers are the sport’s closest thing to a Caitlin Clark, even though they haven’t won a national title since 2017. Sunday, they play No. 2 Texas, which has won it twice since then.” [The Athletic]

Gregory Shamus / Getty Images

Skubal’s emotional return

“Ever thought about how we only say ‘smattering’ to describe crowd things? Boos, applause, etc. Anyhow, it was hard to judge which smattering was loudest as Tarik Skubal took the mound in his return to Comerica Park yesterday, especially since ‘Skuuub’ sounds like ‘boooo.’ But it’s fair to say emotions were high for all involved. Skubal, who has said he’s open to signing with Detroit again this offseason, went six innings and struck out seven in the Dodgers’ 2-1 win, allowing just four — is that a smattering? — hits.” [The Athletic]

Chaos, how we missed you

“William & Mary scored a road upset against FCS No. 7 Villanova last night despite trailing by 10 with less than a minute left, thanks to this ridiculous sequence: field goal, onside kick recovery, 37-yard touchdown pass, interception, game-winning field goal. Happy times:

Also worth mentioning: Villanova’s sixth-year quarterback Pat McQuaide was ineligible to play until a preliminary injunction hours before kickoff. The 2026 college football season, everyone!” [The Athletic]

The NHL’s first $20 million player

“Colorado’s Cale Makar signed an eight-year, $163.2 million extension that will make him the highest-paid player in league history and, for the Avs, lock down one of the world’s premier defensemen through age 36. All eyes now turn to Minnesota’s negotiations with defenseman Quinn Hughes, whose eyebrows will be raised. More on the record contract and its implications here.” [The Athletic]

Kenny Holston/The New York Times

C.I.A. Chief Delivered Bleak Assessment of Russia’s War in Secretive Moscow Visit

“The C.I.A. director urged the Russians to cut a deal before their military and economic situation gets worse, current and former officials said. Agency analysts have questioned whether President Vladimir Putin’s advisers have given him honest intelligence about the conflict.”

Read more at New York Times

ICE arrests of immigrants with no criminal record are soaring.

Source: Immigration Customs and Enforcement (The Post)

• “Since Trump returned to office: Officials have vowed to target what they call ‘the worst of the worst’ — undocumented immigrants who have committed violent crimes or repeat offenses.

• However: More than half of people ICE arrested in July did not have criminal records, government data shows, suggesting that immigration officers are shifting their targets and tactics.”

Read this story at Washington Post

1. “A federal judge has again blocked the Trump administration from going forward with its new mail-in voting restrictions from the president’s executive order, pausing the move for at least two weeks. That would extend beyond when the first states start sending out mail-in ballots for the midterms.” [The Hill]

2. “Three employees of Stars and Stripes sued the Pentagon over their firings, alleging their removals last week violate the department’s own personnel rules and the First Amendment. The lawsuit is the latest development in the ongoing battle over the outlet’s independence from the Defense Department.” [The Hill]

Judge questions about Kennedy Center renovation plans

“A federal judge said he is considering temporarily blocking the Kennedy Center board’s plans to add Donald Trump’s name to the performance venue by Sept. 8, during a hearing Wednesday in which he peppered a DOJ attorney with questions about the effort. The hearing came after a Justice Department lawyer suggested in a court filing this week that the center could be demolished if Trump’s name is not allowed to be added to the site.

The Trump-appointed Kennedy Center board voted this month to add the words ‘renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump’ to the building and rename the property ‘President Donald J. Trump Plaza’ by September. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper asked a DOJ attorney, ‘What’s magic about that date?’ He also questioned why adding the president’s name to the building would not violate federal law.” [NBC News]

How the Trump administration responded.

David Guttenfelder/The New York Times

ICE Agent Released From Texas Jail After Minnesota Loses Court Fight

“Minnesota had sought to have the agent extradited from Texas to answer charges in Minneapolis related to an on-duty shooting that wounded an immigrant.”

Read more at New York Times

“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is preparing to eliminate a 50-year-old rule designed to minimize radiation exposure. The update aligns with the Trump administration’s expansive changes to nuclear oversight and efforts to promote nuclear energy to power data centers for artificial intelligence. The proposed rule would eliminate the standard known as ‘As Low As Reasonably Achievable’ (ALARA), which requires the nuclear industry to reduce workers’ radiation exposure to levels below the stated limits where possible. The new rule would also allow certain workers to receive higher radiation exposures under specific conditions. While some view the removal of ALARA as a long-overdue improvement, critics warn that it could lead to increased radiation exposure. The public comment period ends on Aug. 31, and the rule could take effect early next year.” [NPR]

Trump administration relied on flawed logic to justify scrapping vehicle emission rules, study says

“The Trump administration relied on flawed logic to justify scrapping vehicle emissions standards this year, making errors in how it accounted for fuel savings, the price of technology and mileage, according to a new study by a group of economists.” Read More. at AP News

Trump signs order renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America

“The order requires that the U.S. Interior Department update geographic information systems to change the name of the lake, located between New York and Canada. The president said he’s making the change because ‘Canada has been ripping us off for a long time on trade, very sadly.’”

Read more at Washington Post

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

DeSantis Administration Misspent $10 Million, Grand Jury Says

“Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration ‘misappropriated’ millions in taxpayer money by diverting it to the Hope Florida Foundation, a charity tied to his wife, according to a leaked grand jury report. It was then redirected to political committees backing a campaign led by the Florida governor.”

Read more at New York Times

Kent Nishimura for The New York Times

White House Construction May Have Contributed to Marine One Close Call

“The construction may have contributed to the garbled communications that caused the president’s helicopter to come dangerously close to a commercial jet over Washington this month, according to a report from the National Transportation Safety Board.”

Read more at New York Times

Controllers warned about radio issues a week before jet was allowed to take off at the same time as Marine One, NTSB says

“Air traffic controllers in Washington and the pilots of President Trump’s helicopter met to discuss communication issues one week before a jet and the helicopter were allowed to take off at the same time, the National Transportation Safety Board said.”

Read more at AP News

FAA Found LaGuardia Air-Traffic Controllers Left Work Early Before Deadly Collision

Dakota Santiago for The New York Times

“Federal aviation officials have found that two air-traffic controllers left work early before an Air Canada regional jet crashed into a firetruck at LaGuardia Airport in March.

The Federal Aviation Administration is moving to fire the two controllers, who officials determined had left about an hour before their shifts ended on March 22, people familiar with the matter said. As a result, two controllers remaining at the LaGuardia tower didn’t have backup to assist with high workloads.”

READ MORE at Wall Street Journal

Pirro’s special grand jury is investigating D.C. schools and city oversight of youth

“The unusual investigation appears to have a broad scope. Prosecutors have contacted D.C. Public Schools personnel to question them about truancy and graduation rates.”

Read more at Washington Post

Lindsay Clancy trial prosecutors, defense give closing arguments

“The prosecution and defense have given their closing arguments in the Lindsay Clancy trial. See highlights from their statements.”

READ FULL STORY→ USA Today

INTERNATIONAL

Atul Loke for The New York Times

Nepal Roughly Doubles Number of Missing to 1,900 Amid Desperate Search for Survivors

“The tally grew after some 900 people were reported missing from hydropower projects. Rescue efforts were complicated by fears of possible new flooding.”

Follow live updates at New York Times

Six months on, the Iran war has changed the Middle East, but not in the way its architects had hoped

“When they attacked Iran on Feb. 28, the U.S. and Israel hoped to topple its clerical leadership and replace it with a pro-Western government. But the Islamic Republic survived the assassination of its top leaders and weeks of heavy bombing, and found a potent form of leverage in the Strait of Hormuz. Read more.

Why this matters:

• Iran is now determined to exert permanent control over the strait, to use it to ward off future attacks and secure other concessions, while giving no ground on its disputed nuclear program. Meanwhile Gulf Arab nations saw worrying gaps open up in the American security umbrella they have relied on for decades — and some are looking at alternatives. Israel has once again thrashed its enemies without defeating them, and is at risk of a generational rupture with the U.S., its closest ally.” [AP News]

US Patriot missile stocks in Europe are ‘beyond critical’ largely due to Iran war, officials say

“A U.S. defense official said the military ‘definitely’ doesn’t have enough Patriots to stop any possible sustained ballistic missile attack. It’s raising concerns about vulnerabilities in NATO countries to a potential Russian attack.”

Read more at AP News

• “King Harald V of Norway, who went into exile in the U.S. as a child during the Nazi occupation of his homeland, has died. He was 89.” [NBC News]

“The Trump administration is in talks with Venezuela's interim government about taking an ownership stake in the South American country's enormous oil resources.” [Axios] More from Axios' Marc Caputo.

“Meta removed a network of Facebook and Instagram accounts tied to an Iran-based operation that used AI to target U.S. audiences with posts about American politics,” Axios' Sam Sabin is first to report. Go deeper. [Axios]

By Jamie Dettmer

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends a bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister Andy Burnham on Aug. 24, 2026 in Kyiv, Ukraine. | Henry Nicholls - WPA Pool/Getty Images

“The brusque, one-man-show governing instincts are getting old. Volodymyr Zelenskyy must moderate how he rules, otherwise pressure will mount for a wartime election. That’s the lesson Ukrainian lawmakers say should be drawn from a string of recent opinion polls that show Zelenskyy’s trust ratings are slipping.

The polls were published after the Ukrainian president fired a popular defense minister in a messy government reshuffle this summer that took weeks to complete and saw a loyalist former prime minister shun an offer to become ambassador to the United States.

The sacked defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who’s been credited with improving battlefield strategy and was seen as an effective leader, and the former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Valerii Zaluzhny, now envoy to Britain, are viewed as more trustworthy than Zelenskyy.

While still highly lauded overseas, Ukraine’s president isn’t even the third most trusted figure in his country: his chief of staff Kyrylo Budanov, the former derring-do military spymaster who’s been increasingly sidelined and has seen his influence weakened, is in the bronze position.

The scale of government corruption, unrelenting and grueling Russian drone attacks and deadly missile strikes — as well as inexorably declining living standards — are all unsurprisingly taking their toll and impacting overall sentiments, according to the pollsters.Majorities fear the country is heading in the wrong direction — a gloomy sentiment likely compounded by the beckoning of yet another frigid winter and one that will see Ukraine largely defenseless against Russia’s homemade and North Korean-supplied ballistic missiles.

But Zelenskyy’s own populist governing style is a major cause of his worsening trust ratings, argue opposition lawmakers, and privately even some MPs from his own ruling Servant of the People party. The monopolization of power by his office, the shunning of traditional consensual-seeking legislative processes, the marginalization of parliament and a slew of sackings of the more independent-minded ministers, military leaders, and officials appears to be souring the public on Zelenskyy. They say Ukraine needs democratic renewal, if it is to avert a political crisis.

The big question is whether Zelenskyy can change his spots. Opposition lawmaker and former deputy prime minister Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze doubts he can and expects him to continue governing in the same vein — relying on trusted insiders and shutting out those deemed as not sufficiently loyal. She points to the recent government shuffle and says she has no doubt that it impacted the subsequent polls and Zelenskyy’s trust ratings.

Fedorov’s sacking was emblematic of how Zelenskyy governs, she says. Zelenskyy’s office did not respond to a request for comment on why Fedorov was sacked nor why the government reshuffle was necessary. Nor did the president’s office want to hazard why Zelenskyy’s trust ratings are slipping.

‘Zelenskyy got rid of Fedorov because of the publicity he was attracting and the growing public admiration for Fedorov,’ she told POLITICO. Fedorov’s trust rating soared from 35 per cent to 65 following his sacking, according to a poll published last month by the Rating Group.

Zelenskyy never really explained why the reshuffle was necessary, added Klympush-Tsintsadze. ‘I had the feeling that basically when they were trying to figure out who were going to which ministries, they were almost chasing people in the streets, you know, to persuade them to do the job. It’s an exaggeration obviously, but the reshuffle was sporadic and a mess,’ she said.

Last November, when Zelenskyy had to sack Andriy Yermak, his all-powerful chief of staff , because of corruption allegations, opposition party leaders hoped they could persuade the Ukrainian president to alter his governing style.

They urged for a national unity government in Kyiv. At the very least, they called on Zelenskyy to loosen the centralization of power to allow parliament, government institutions and local government to function without meddling from the presidential office. All to no avail.

‘President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appoints and dismisses without explaining the reasons behind his decisions,’ said Mykola Knyazhitskiy, an opposition lawmaker from Lviv and founder of Ukraine’s Espreso TV channel. ‘Our government isn’t a political one. It is a government of technocrats and loyalists whom President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appoints and dismisses without explanation. Parliament has virtually no ability to influence his decisions. Can such a government be effective? As with any system based on centralized government, it can indeed function effectively. But the risk of mistakes is enormous.’

The result is that the only way for Ukrainians to express disapproval of presidential actions is to take to the streets, Knyazhitskiy told POLITICO. This carries political risks and ‘resembles the Middle Ages, when people would take to the streets to petition a king, more than a modern democracy with functioning institutions, parliamentary oversight and political accountability,’ he said.

Ukrainians twice now in the space of a year have mounted large street protests. Last July, protests were triggered by an ill-judged — and ultimately aborted, under domestic and international pressure — maneuver by Zelenskyy and his aides to try to strip two key anti-corruption agencies of their independence just as both were starting to probe presidential office insiders.

Street protests also were sparked by Fedorov’s sacking. And last week the 35-year-old former defense minister offered a blistering critique of the way Ukraine is being governed in a nine-minute video posted on YouTube. He called for war time elections. ‘We must find a legal, safe and ‌realistic mechanism which will allow Ukraine to renew its full democratic process even in the conditions of a long war,’ he said.

‘The old system lives by its own rules too often. It protects itself. It is scared of change,’ he added.

No major opposition party leader has followed Fedorov’s call for elections, including former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who has been clear for months that a vote in the middle of an existential war would be dangerous for Ukraine. Fedorov’s push for elections has been seen as a political mistake that could backfire on him. Ordinary Ukrainians are also skeptical of holding elections now because of the war, opinion polls have consistently shown, and some civil society activists who are supporters of the sacked minister criticized his call for immediate elections.

Meanwhile, longevity in office is likely not helping Zelenskyy reckons Adrian Karatnycky, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and author of Battleground Ukraine. But Karatnycky is skeptical that his falling trust ratings are just a blip. They seem to be indicating something more serious is underway politically in Ukraine. ‘The polls are very revealing,’ he told POLITICO. ‘Fedorov or Zaluzhny, if either of them made it into the second round, they’d clean Zelenskyy’s clock by a 2-to-1 margin.’” [POLITICO]

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY

Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh stays quiet on interest rates but calls inflation ‘concerning’

Natalie Behring/Getty Images

“Inflation is the Federal Reserve’s biggest problem, but investors are going to have to figure out for themselves when officials will step in, Chairman Kevin Warsh said Friday in remarks prepared for his speech at Jackson Hole, Wyoming.”

Read more at CNN

$900 million from a canceled wind deal will benefit a Trump donor

“The Trump administration’s latest deal to abandon offshore wind projects and boost investment in fossil fuels is set to deliver a windfall to a private equity fund run by one of President Donald Trump’s major donors.”

Read more at Washington Post

TECH

• “A US judge blocked the Pentagon’s blacklisting of Anthropic, the latest turn in the Claude maker’s high-stakes fight with the military over AI safety on the ‌battlefield.” [Reuters]

1 big thing: Dire cyberthreat warning

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

“OpenAI, Anthropic, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and more than 100 other companies warned today there’s only months to prepare for AI-enabled cyberattacks, Axios’ Sam Sabin reports.

• Hospitals, water treatment plants and other critical infrastructure will face a swarm of hacking threats as AI makes sophisticated cyber capabilities cheaper and more accessible, the group writes in an open letter. (Read.)

The group is calling for ‘collective action,’ and urges organizations to secure critical infrastructure.

• Signatories include a range of cloud providers, cybersecurity companies, AI companies, telecoms and financial services companies, and think tanks.

The organizations lay out a plan for how all companies and governments, as well as cybersecurity and AI companies, need to adapt.

• Organizations need to raise their internal security standards and fix their ‘highest-risk weaknesses,’ the group says. They also should ‘raise the security bar for what you buy, build, and deploy, including AI-generated code.’

Cybersecurity and tech companies must quickly test and build out tools that make ‘AI-powered defense accessible and deployable for critical-infrastructure operators.’

• Governments need to strengthen channels for sharing actionable threat intelligence, coordinate defense at the local, national and international levels, and fund cyber defense.

• Frontier AI companies should give defenders access to their most capable response models during major cyber incidents, along with ‘significant funding, training, and hands-on support.’

The letter comes amid a wave of cyberattacks against critical infrastructure, including one targeting U.S. water systems with an apparent AI-generated script.

• The signatories didn’t make any commitments, deadlines or specific investments.” [Axios]

Go deeper.

HEALTH AND MEDICINE

Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times

F.D.A. Approves New Covid Vaccines, and They Should Be Available Soon

“The Food and Drug Administration approved the updated vaccines for people 65 and older, and for younger people with underlying conditions.”

Read more at New York Times

RFK Jr. said a Samoa trip had nothing to do with vaccines. New documents refute that

“Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeatedly told lawmakers who held the key to his confirmation last year that a 2019 visit to Samoa before a deadly measles outbreak had ‘nothing to do with vaccines.’ New documents obtained by The Associated Press and The Guardian refute that testimony.” Read More at AP News

Florida, hard-hit by Obamacare drop-off, feels the squeeze of rising healthcare costs

“According to figures first reported by The Associated Press, about 440,000 Floridians dropped their Affordable Care Act plans this year — more than in any other state — following the expiration of enhanced federal subsidies. Read more.

Why this matters:

• Millions of Americans have had to decide whether to keep insurance that often doubled or tripled in cost — or risk going without it. Florida, whose large population of gig workers, entrepreneurs and small business owners relies heavily on the federal health insurance marketplace, has become one of the nation’s most visible epicenters of that impact.

• Thousands more who kept coverage are struggling to get by, as prices of necessities like groceries and gasoline remain steep, and health insurers project another year of double-digit premium hikes. While Florida had the most affected residents, its struggles are reflective of broader nationwide concerns over rising healthcare costs and a lack of meaningful policy to address them.” [AP News]

SPORTS

Callaway breaks with golf media company Good Good after blowback to controversial ad

“Golf equipment maker Callaway is severing ties with Good Good after the influential internet golf company’s controversial advertisement that featured one of Good Good’s co-founders pushing over a female member of their team.”

Read more at CNN

TRANSITIONS

Ratko Mladic, Bosnian Serb commander found guilty of genocide, dies at 84

Pascal Guyot/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“He was serving a life sentence for his role in the Bosnian War, when he led forces that pounded Sarajevo and carried out the Srebrenica massacre, Europe’s biggest atrocity since World War II.”

Read more at Washington Post

“The surprise visit by the director of the Central Intelligence Agency to Moscow this week was to deliver a warning to Russia not to attack NATO countries, according to people briefed on the visit.

The trip was John Ratcliffe’s first publicly known visit to the Russian capital. It followed U.S. intelligence assessments, reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, that Vladimir Putin could try to test the resolve of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization with a limited assault on an allied country in the next few years.”

READ MORE at Wall Street Journal

The FBI disrupted a massive China-linked hacking network that broke into government systems.

“The operation targeted networks at the Federal Reserve, the Energy Department, NASA and the Senate, the FBI said in a court filing. Dubbed QTFY by U.S. officials, the campaign has been run since 2018 by a private company based in China that sells access to hacked networks and stolen information to China’s foreign and military intelligence services, the FBI said.” [Wall Street Journal]

Trump’s mail-in voting plan can proceed — for now — after judge lifts last block

“A federal judge on Wednesday reluctantly lifted the last remaining block on the Trump administration’s plan to regulate mail-in ballots, saying a Supreme Court ruling Monday in a related case had tied her hands.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani’s decision clears the way for the Postal Service to begin implementing a plan ordered up by President Donald Trump to reshape the way the federal government manages delivery and receipt of mail-in ballots — including potentially refusing to accept ballots from voters who don’t appear on newly compiled federal lists.”

Read the latest at POLITICO

David Guttenfelder/The New York Times

Judge Sides With Texas Over Minnesota on Extradition of ICE Agent

“The two states have waged an unusual court battle over the agent facing charges over a shooting in Minneapolis. The agent could be released from jail on Thursday.”

Read more at New York Times

Before Hegseth fired him, top general was advised to drop Kid Rock probe

“Gen. Randy George appeared troubled by the encounter with Gen. Chris LaNeve, the Army’s No. 2 officer now favored for the service’s top job, people familiar with the matter told The Post.”

Read more at Washington Post

INTERNATIONAL

“Hungary declares Russia a ‘threat’, breaking with Orbán policy: Hungary’s government has formally condemned Russia’s military aggression and announced its support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity, according to policy guidelines published late Tuesday — marking a sharp break with the Russia-friendly policies of former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. ‘Russia’s conduct poses a threat to Hungary, Europe and the global order,’ the document says, adding that Moscow puts the Hungarian minority in Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region ‘in serious danger.’” [POLITICO]

“Politics has always been about telling voters what they want to hear. Artificial intelligence can now make sure they hear it from someone who looks just like them.

In Brazil — one of the world’s most connected nations — AI-generated personas are taking on the guise of influencers in a combination that’s proving powerful and difficult to regulate.

Source: Daniel Santos/Instagram

Latin America’s largest economy, which was at the forefront of the debate on the use of social media in politics, offers an early glimpse of what that mix could mean for elections.

It’s a phenomenon on show in the run-up to October’s presidential ballot between leftist incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his Trump-supporting rival, Flávio Bolsonaro.

AI-generated personalities are weighing in on grocery prices, crime and Lula’s government, adopting the language, appearance and everyday concerns of the audiences they seek to reach.

So far, there’s no evidence these AI influencers are collectively backing one side or formally working for campaigns. Some of the most visible, however, lean right.

They’re already attracting political scrutiny, with Lula’s party challenging AI-generated content and the electoral court tightening rules requiring disclosure of synthetic political material.

The appeal of AI personalities lies in the same qualities that made influencers powerful in the first place: familiarity, repetition and the sense that the ‘person’ understands your life.

An AI grandmother griping about supermarket prices lands differently than a politician making the same point from a podium.

That grandmother can also post around the clock, be replicated across accounts and cost little to reproduce, while easily shifting persona to appeal to a different slice of the electorate.

Brazil seems especially receptive given how online — and polarized — its voters are.

But the development raises questions for elections further afield.

Campaigns have always tailored the message to the voter. Now, AI means they can tailor the messenger, too.” [Bloomberg] — Beatriz Reis

“Russia is preparing to escalate attacks on Ukraine after concluding that negotiations for a peace deal have reached a dead end, sources say. For now, it’s weighing an intensification of powerful conventional ballistic missile attacks, though the escalating spiral of strikes is leading a growing number of Russian officials to the conclusion that President Vladimir Putin could eventually opt to use tactical nuclear weapons as a last resort, they say.” [Bloomberg]

Bloomberg’s Anthony Halpin reports on Russia’s plans.

“For years, Israel’s main adversaries — Iran and its various proxies — were assumed to be across the country’s land borders, but the regional war that began nearly three years ago has stretched its maritime defenses and exposed vulnerabilities in its economy. Kuwait and Qatar are sending more crude through the Strait of Hormuz, while Iran’s military says it reached a revenue-sharing agreement with Oman on the vital waterway.” [Bloomberg]

“Hundreds of people are dead or missing in Nepal after a flash flood swept through a valley near the border with China, prompting evacuations in neighboring India. The US Geological Survey says the disaster, which also led to deaths in Tibet, was caused by a ‘glacial collapse and debris flow’ that triggered ‘subsequent catastrophic impacts downstream.’” [Bloomberg]

Photographer: Prakash Mathema/AFP/Getty Images

“Yonas Fote’s makeshift movie theater in a Malawian village uses a TV to show pirated Nigerian movies to his friends. What might sound like a teenage side hustle is part of an experiment designed to showcase what the future of aid might look like — he is among as many as 230,000 adults who each receive almost $700 to do what they like with in what is likely the world’s biggest unconditional cash-transfer trial. Our investigation shows it may be working.” [Bloomberg]

Photographer: Thoko Chikondi/Bloomberg

“Wheat feeds the world, and when it runs short, whole societies are at risk.

That’s why renewed disruption in some of the world’s key breadbaskets is raising concerns.

Crop exports from Ukraine and Russia have tumbled in recent weeks as each has stepped up attacks on the other’s ports and ships loading grains. That’s sent prices of wheat and corn rallying to multi-year highs.

Photographer: Alexey Furman/Getty Images

The two are key to the global grains trade, making up more than a quarter of all wheat exports and supplying some of the world’s most populous nations, from Egypt to Bangladesh, as well as poorer states in sub-Saharan Africa.

The crisis is prompting warnings of consequences for food inflation and food security.

For now, global food prices are still below the record levels reached in 2022 immediately after Russia’s attempt to take Kyiv. Back then, Russia’s bumper harvest helped ease the strain, as did a diplomatic breakthrough to establish an export corridor.

This time, the situation is more precarious.

Most of Russia’s own supplies are disrupted by Ukrainian drone attacks, prompting Moscow to consider measures to support its farmers.

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week that Kyiv will again seek talks with Vladimir Putin, despite the Russian president’s rejection of a Black Sea truce days earlier.

The standoff occurs at a particularly sensitive time for global food supplies.

The war in Iran has boosted fertilizer and fuel costs, leading farmers to curb planting. The heat waves and droughts that swept Europe and the US have hit harvests.

Then there’s the prospect of a record El Niño unleashing protectionist measures.

When Russia banned wheat exports in 2010 following wildfires, it helped send prices soaring, a contributing factor in the Arab Spring.

As the UN recently noted in a warning over the impact on vulnerable states: when families cannot put food on the table, the choice is stark: starve, move — or rebel.” [Bloomberg] — Agnieszka de Sousa

“Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his Omani counterpart, Badr Albusaidi, discussed an ‘interim framework’ aimed at resuming shipping through the Strait of Hormuz as the two sides press ahead with long-running talks over navigation through the key waterway. Separately, read our piece on how Hossein Taeb, who built a reputation for ruthlessness over a four-decade career in Iran’s post-revolution security apparatus, is reprising his former role as head of its powerful volunteer militia, the Basij.” [Bloomberg]

Photographer: Majid Saeedi/Getty Images

“Turkey, an important US ally and Iran’s third-largest trading partner, is at risk of losing a key energy supplier if Washington makes good on a threat to isolate Tehran economically. US warnings against any country doing business with Iran raise questions over how Ankara would navigate the potential severing of ties with one of its biggest natural-gas suppliers.” [Bloomberg]

“China’s military is asking the public to report suspected violations in the Rocket Force, which oversees the country’s conventional missile and nuclear arsenal, extending scrutiny of a branch at the center of President Xi Jinping’s shake-up of the armed forces. The request echoes a 2023 inquiry into possible procurement misconduct involving military hardware that led to sweeping purges of senior officers and executives in the defense sector.” [Bloomberg]

“Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi says Japan would defend the International Criminal Court as it comes under increasing pressure from the US, most recently through the sanctioning of the ICC’s Japanese president.” [Bloomberg]

“Huawei has pitched the Egyptian government on building AI data centers for military, surveillance and other public sector use, demonstrating its global chip ambitions and drawing alarm in Washington — where officials are working to assemble a counteroffer.” [Bloomberg]

“Ugandan army chief Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the son of long-serving leader Yoweri Museveni, says he plans to run for the presidency in 2031, when the country next holds elections.” [Bloomberg]

Photographer: Peter Busomoke/AFP/Gerry Images

By Camille Gijs, Graham Lanktree, Kathryn Carlson and Stefanie Bolzen

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks about the trade dispute with the U.S. during a press conference in Quebec, Canada on Aug. 24, 2026. | Andrej Ivanov/AFP via Getty Images

“At the start of the year, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called on the world’s middle powers to band together against Donald Trump. But a new trade war with the U.S. came before they were ready.

Seven months after Carney called in a landmark speech in Davos on fellow democracies and supporters of free trade to join together and resist economic coercion, they have largely left him to do battle with Trump alone.

The U.S. president’s 50 percent tariffs imposed on $20 billion in Canadian goods last week should be a wake-up call to Ottawa’s allies, said one Canadian official with knowledge of the trade talks.

Other countries have tried to appease Trump, the official said. But Canada, which has the most to lose since it’s so economically and geographically intertwined with the U.S., has ‘put out our chest.’

After Carney walked away from a deal that in his view threatened Canada’s sovereignty, he vowed to fight back. Ottawa would match Trump’s new duties ‘dollar-for-dollar,’ he said — only for the U.S. president to menace Canada with more sweeping tariffs of 50 percent on cars, trucks and auto parts from January.

‘Frankly, I think other countries are watching Canada’s response and we hope, I hope, will be following along. At some point, the rest of the world will say enough,’ said British Columbia Premier David Eby.

On Tuesday, Ottawa announced a suite of retaliatory tariffs and domestic support measures meant to protect Canadian sectors caught in the crosshairs of the trade war. The dollar-for-dollar Canadian counter-tariffs target U.S. steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics.

The tariffs take effect on Sept. 8. Meanwhile, Canada’s government is rolling out C$7.5 billion in financing, liquidity and income support to sectors hit by tariffs.

An official close to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen confirmed to POLITICO that Carney had accepted an invitation to attend the State of the EU speech in Strasbourg on Sept. 16 — the most high-profile political moment in the EU’s calendar — where the president will set out her priorities for the bloc.

Carney will also give a speech to the Parliament the day after von der Leyen’s State of the EU, on Sept. 17, an official familiar with the preparations said.

Yet otherwise, Canada’s allies have left it in the lurch.

For more than a year, the EU, Canada, the United Kingdom and other economies have talked up plans to deepen ties between the EU and an Asia-Pacific trade bloc called the CPTPP — which includes Canada, Australia, Japan and the U.K. — to counter Trump’s trade coercion.

Since Leyen floated the idea at a summit of EU leaders in June 2025, progress on bringing the EU and the 12-nation CPTPP together has been glacial.

Following up on his Davos speech, Carney was instrumental in getting trade talks going between the EU and CPTPP. The first concrete results came in March at a World Trade Organization ministerial meeting, where the blocs launched talks on a digital trade deal and agreed to explore a pledge not to raise tariffs on one another.

The European Union, the U.K. and allies like Japan are now keeping their heads down as they digest the lessons from Carney’s lonely stand against Trump.

Bernd Lange, the chair of the EU Parliament’s trade committee, was quick to express solidarity with Canada. But the European Commission, EU leaders and the U.K. have avoided taking sides publicly. Behind the scenes, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke with Carney on Monday.

Since Trump’s return to the White House, EU institutions and governments have been determined to keep him onside and avoid escalation. That approach resulted in a trade truce that was seen as one-sided until the European Parliament pushed hard to strengthen its guardrails following Trump’s threats at the start of this year to take over Greenland, a Danish territory.

Brussels has a lot riding on Carney’s gambit. Like the EU a year ago, Canada balked at U.S. requests it saw as encroaching on its sovereignty. In Canada’s case, they relate to Canada’s French-language and cultural protections — enshrined in its constitution — and demands that would have compromised Ottawa’s ability to strike trade deals with other partners.

Washington has similarly been pushing Brussels to cut back its green and tech rulebooks, doubling down on those demands over the summer. The EU executive insists its rulebooks aren’t up for negotiation. If Carney prevails, that could help Brussels hold the line.

Canada is also confronting a weaker Trump than Brussels did a year ago. His original tariffs have since been struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, while the November midterm elections could further weaken his hand.

An EU-Canada summit is due to take place at the end of October, when the two sides will look to cement their partnership.

But diversifying away from the world’s biggest economy and building a coalition capable of resisting U.S. pressure could still take years — particularly while potential allies remain wary of confronting Trump.” [POLITICO]

Camille Gijs and Kathryn Carlson reported from Brussels, Graham Lanktree reported from London, and Stefanie Bolzen from Washington. Additional reporting by Nick Taylor-Vaisey in Ottawa.

Read the full report here.

TECH

Meta agrees to $17 billion deal, pushing new industry standards on child safety

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

“Meta agreed to settle with U.S. states for up to $16.7 billion in a landmark deal over allegations Facebook and Instagram were designed in ways that harm children.

• The company is calling on its peers to sign on to the pact as well, saying it won’t work unless they jointly line up behind broad reform.

Why it matters: This is social media’s version of the landmark 1990s tobacco settlement, a settlement that effectively reshapes the industry and the way young Americans experience some of their favorite platforms.

Driving the news: Meta agreed to provide compensation to the states for a variety of public health purposes, including crisis intervention services, after-school programs, outdoor activities and youth mental health programming.

• Meta also agreed to limited under-18 users to 2 hours per day on Facebook and Instagram, block them from accessing the platforms from midnight to 6 a.m., and limit notifications to them during school hours.

• Youth will also be given the option to have a chronological feed, not an algorithmic one — and parents can make it the default option.

• Kids also won’t be able to see likes and other reactions on posts.

The intrigue: Alongside the settlement, Meta issued an open letter to TikTok and YouTube calling on them to join in the deal.

• ‘We want to ensure teens benefit from this new industry standard, but we cannot do it alone. These protections will only be truly effective if we work with our peers - TikTok and YouTube - to put the same measures in place,’ the letter says, per a source to Axios.

• ‘All platforms should empower parents and support teens in these ways because we know that when teens are restricted on one app, they simply move to another. For meaningful progress to happen, we urge our peers to join us.’

About $5 billion of the Meta settlement kicks in only if YouTube and TikTok also settle with states on two conditions:

1. Imposing a one-hour daily usage limit, night restrictions, and age assurance features;

2. Paying about $5 billion each.

By the numbers: Meta shares edged up slightly after the deal.

• Investors had been bracing for the possibility of a much larger payout if the ongoing trial went to a jury verdict, with penalties ranging up to $1.4 trillion.

• The company said it expects to take a $10 billion charge in the current quarter for the settlement, which was not part of its prior guidance.

Follow the money: At roughly $17 billion, the Meta settlement is on par with historic federal civil settlements like the Volkswagen ‘Dieselgate’ scandal and the BP Deepwater Horizon deal.

• But it’s a small fraction of the 1998 tobacco deal, under which states collected more than $200 billion.

The other side: ‘This is not just about money — it’s about changing how these platforms operate so they stop exploiting the developing brains of our kids,’ Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said in a statement.

• ‘Indiana will continue working with other states to secure similar protections from companies like Discord, Roblox, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube. Our children deserve better, and we will keep fighting until they get it.’

What’s next: The deal is expected to end the trial with a judge’s approval.” [Axios]

Mark Zuckerberg’s Botched AI Makeover of Meta The social-media giant reportedly considered cutting up to 60 percent of some teams and replacing staff with AI.

By Bess Levin

Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

“Mark Zuckerberg has never been known for generating massive amounts of goodwill, but the past several weeks have been particularly rough for the Meta founder. Earlier this month, reports emerged that his superyacht was booed for leaving a much smaller boat’s passengers stranded in Alaskan waters. On Wednesday, his company agreed to pay a whopping $17 billion to settle claims by multiple states that features on Instagram and Facebook harm children and teen users. That same morning came revelations that Meta planned to lay off thousands of its employees, replace them with AI “agents,” and turn the company into a dystopian hellscape — until the humans revolted and the technology failed to deliver the output executives had been banking on.

Reuters reports that during a January leadership retreat at Zuckerberg’s $100 million Hawaii compound — the one expected to serve as a ‘postapocalyptic bunker in case of civilization collapse’ — the Meta founder and his lieutenants “hatched a radical plan to reimagine work” at the company.”

READ MORE at New York Magazine

HEALTH AND MEDICINE

1 big thing: FDA OKs groundbreaking cancer drug

Illustration: Maura Kearns/Axios

“The FDA approved a groundbreaking new drug for the most common form of pancreatic cancer, offering patients a more effective treatment against one of the deadliest types of cancer.

The first-of-a-kind pill, called daraxonrasib, blocks a mutated protein that fuels tumor growth in more than 90% of pancreatic cancer cases.

• The daily pill will be sold by Revolution Medicines under the brand name Rasonque.

Patients taking the drug nearly doubled their survival time, with fewer severe side effects, in a study that randomly assigned them to receive the experimental treatment or additional chemotherapy.

• The treatment hit the spotlight earlier this year when former Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) described his positive experience with it on “60 Minutes.”

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers, in large part because it’s often not detected until it’s spread.

• The American Cancer Society estimates that about 67,000 new cases will be diagnosed in the U.S. this year, while more than 52,000 people will die from the disease.

Dr. Pashtoon Kasi of City of Hope Orange County, a California-based cancer center, tells AP: ‘This is not a cure, it’s one more option for these patients.’

• ‘But it’s the best option we’ve ever had.’” [Axios]

Go deeper.

CLIMATE AND WEATHER

Over 550 people missing in Tibet in floods that have also killed more than 160 in Nepal

“Mudslides in Tibet caused by a glacial collapse have left three people dead and 558 missing, China’s Xinhua News Agency said, while police in Nepal reported at least 162 were killed after massive flash floods in a border area of Nepal and China swept through communities a day earlier. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported that 260 of the 558 missing people were foreigners and two villagers were rescued.”

Read more at AP News

Foreign tourists among hundreds missing

Severe flooding have been reported along the Bhote Koshi, Trishuli and Narayani rivers. Credit: AFP via Getty images

“Search and rescue operations are under way in Nepal in a race to save people affected by a massive flash flood and mudslide. Footage showed the scale of the disaster, which engulfed buildings, bridges, roads and vehicles in an area north of the capital Kathmandu that is popular with pilgrims and trekkers. Nepal’s tourist board reported that, among those missing, there are more than 100 tourists from India, 54 from the US, and 33 from the UK, as well as more than 100 domestic visitors. Army personnel, police and power workers too were among the missing. Neighbouring Tibet also experienced a mudslide, with Chinese state media reporting three dead and 265 missing. The question of what caused the flash flood is still under investigation - an analysis of satellite images will be crucial in determining what happened.”

What to know at BBC

SPORTS

The Big Ten and SEC Just Banned Professional Athletes

“As an influx of NFL and NBA players attempt to join college teams, the NCAA’s two largest conferences announced they’re putting a stop to the practice — and other leagues could soon follow suit.”

ESPN

Justin Casterline/Getty Images

LIV Golf preparing to lay off most of its employees

“LIV Golf informed the majority of its staff on Wednesday that it will be laid off next week, a spokesperson confirmed to The Athletic. After the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia made clear its intention to end its billions in funding at the end of this season, the league has been looking for investment and solutions to keep the league afloat. Sept. 1 will be the final day for most employees, with a select few staying on board in the transition.”

Read Full Story at New York Times

“W.N.B.A.: The Chicago Sky barred Enes Kanter Freedom, a former NBA player who has recently gained notoriety for his vocal opposition to transgender athletes, from their games after his altercation with Natasha Cloud over the issue on Sunday.” [New York Times]

Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images

PGA Tour suspends Matt Gogel six months for betting

“The PGA Tour suspended Matt Gogel for six months for betting on golf, it announced Wednesday. Gogel did not bet on tournaments he participated in, but his wagers violated the tour’s Integrity Program, the tour said in a statement.”

Read Full Story at New York Times

TRANSITIONS

Tim Curry, star of ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ and ‘Clue,’ dead at 80

“Tim Curry, the English actor who became a massively popular cult figure thanks to his performances in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” “Clue” and the TV miniseries “It,” has died. He was 80.”

Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Read more at CNN

Philip Game/Alamy

Yayoi Kusama, Pop Artist Who Expanded and Endured, Dies at 97

“The Japanese artist’s work caused a stir in the 1960s, and her “Infinity Room” installations were blockbuster attractions for decades.”

Read more at New York Times

Andrej Ivanov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“Canada will impose retaliatory tariffs on about $20 billion worth of American goods, including steel, dairy products, appliances and farm equipment.”

Read more at AP News

Canada hit back at the U.S. with tariffs targeting midterm hot spots

“Canadian officials said the country plans to impose tariffs on roughly 700 American products in retaliation for new U.S. levies. The tariffs would kick in on Sept. 8 and range between 15% and 50%. Analysts noted that the tariffs targeted products made in states with hotly contested congressional elections, including processed cheese from Wisconsin, seafood from Maine, and washers and dryers from Kentucky, where General Electric has a major operation. Here’s what experts say about how the tariffs could affect the U.S. economy more broadly.” [Wall Street Journal]

Iran inflicts billions in damage to U.S. intelligence sites

“U.S. intelligence facilities and surveillance hardware in the Middle East have suffered unprecedented damage from Iranian missile and drone attacks, according to four people familiar with the matter. The strikes have forced Congress to find billions of dollars to repair the facilities and prompted officials to reconsider how to deploy personnel and intelligence resources in a region facing an elevated threat from Tehran’s growing drone and missile arsenal, two of the people said.

The CIA has offices on U.S. embassy compounds in more than a dozen countries across the Middle East. Other American intelligence agencies also operate surveillance equipment or share hardware with the U.S. military to monitor adversaries’ electronic communications.

Iran’s air attacks have raised questions about why federal agencies were not better prepared to protect government facilities from drone and missile strikes, according to military experts and former U.S. officials.” [NBC News]

More on the extent of the damage.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe made a surprise visit to Moscow, U.S. officials said.

“Ratcliffe spent about four hours in the Russian capital before leaving. The reason for the visit wasn’t immediately clear. It came as intelligence collected by the U.S. showed Russia’s preparations for a possible military mobilization in Ukraine. The CIA declined to comment.” [Wall Street Journal]

A new voting restriction

A ballot processing center. Philip Cheung for The New York Times

“The Constitution gives the White House no power over elections, and Congress has declined to pass a voter I.D. measure that President Trump wants. This past spring, he found a workaround: He told the government to build a nationwide list of eligible voters that the Postal Service could use to prevent noncitizens from voting by mail.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court said the president can restrict mail-in voting — at least for now, while the courts hear arguments for and against it.

Feasibility. The Department of Homeland Security is supposed to create ‘state citizenship lists’ of people who will be 18 or older on Election Day. Those names go to state election officials, who administer the vote, purportedly so they can purge anyone who is not a citizen from voter rolls. Then postal workers block ballot requests from anybody not on the lists. It’s a complex endeavor, considering the midterm elections are two months away and the Supreme Court justices may still hear full arguments. Critics point out that voter fraud is exceptionally rare, and that the new system is more likely to disqualify legitimate voters than impede foreign cheaters.

Legality. Several states have sued, saying the effort could disenfranchise voters and cause chaos in the midterms. But in an unsigned emergency order, the Supreme Court said that those states could not demonstrate they were sufficiently harmed by voting rules that had not yet taken effect.

For more: Here’s how Trump quietly asserted control over the Postal Service.” [New York Times]

FEMA workers violated law when they skipped homes with Trump signs during 2024 hurricane response, watchdog says

“A crew leader told staff to avoid such homes over safety concerns after Hurricane Milton and, according to notes obtained by the Department of Homeland Security inspector general, those workers bypassed 11 homes.”

Read more at Washington Post

“In what may be the largest revocation effort in U.S. history, the Trump administration is planning to cancel 200,000 immigration visas nationwide, according to an administration source familiar with the policy who was not authorized to speak on the record. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott says the agency is identifying and revoking visas held by immigrants who entered the U.S. as short-term visitors for tourism or business but then filed for asylum. This revocation process is expected to occur on a rolling basis, not all at once, the administration source said.

NPR’s Sergio Martínez-Beltrán says many immigration attorneys he has talked to see this move as performative. California-based attorney Nicolette Glazer called it ‘a completely empty effort’ with no consequences. An immigrant who overstays their short-term visa is already breaking the law, so the new policy will revoke visas that are already invalid, Martínez-Beltrán explains. A 2015 Government Accountability Office report shows that termination of asylum cases due to fraud is extremely rare. Still, Martínez-Beltrán says the policy could lead to more people getting arrested. Last month, the Trump administration arrested 50,000 immigrants — a monthly record in the second Trump term, according to an Associated Press analysis.” [NPR]

ICE arrests jumped to nearly 50,000 in July, the highest monthly total of Trump’s second term

“The spike in arrests shows that the Trump administration has continued to advance its mass deportations agenda despite a shift from high-profile operations that sparked a public outcry to arrests that have garnered less attention.”

Read more at AP News

Justice Department considers bringing charges against ICE officer in Minneapolis shooting

“The Justice Department is considering whether to charge an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent accused of shooting a Venezuelan immigrant in the leg this winter in Minneapolis, according to a source familiar with the deliberations and a DOJ spokeswoman.”

Read more at CNN

Federal judge rejects Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid for prison release

“Claims by Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend and longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell that her sex trafficking conviction was a ‘complete miscarriage of justice’ were rejected by a federal judge who said her assertions were based on ‘speculation, distortions, and/or outright falsehoods.’”

Read more at AP News

Sean Rayford/Getty Images

Darline Graham, With Push From Trump, Wins Senate Primary in South Carolina

“Darline Graham, the sister of the late Lindsey Graham, had President Trump’s backing in her campaign. She defeated Ralph Norman, a staunch conservative who criticized her lack of experience.”

Read more at New York Times

The other Dan Sullivan makes November ballot against Sen. Dan Sullivan

“Alaska GOP Sen. Dan S. Sullivan can’t shake his same-name challenger.

Retired teacher Dan J. Sullivan punched a ticket out of the state’s top-four, all-party primary early Wednesday morning. He could now play spoiler in a high-stakes Senate clash between the Republican senator and former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola that could help swing control of the upper chamber.

Republicans fought and failed to keep Dan J. Sullivan off the primary ballot, arguing he was a Democratic plant designed to boost Peltola. Both Dan J. Sullivan and Peltola’s campaign have denied any coordination.”

Read the latest at POLITICO

• “Democrat Everton Blair prevailed in a special election Tuesday to fill the seat vacated by the late Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), who died in April after more than two decades in Congress. Blair defeated Scott’s daughter, fellow Democrat Marcye Scott, in the race. His win will further narrow the GOP’s majority in the House.” [The Hill]

• “A new poll found Democratic Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.) is more popular among his state’s Republicans than the state’s Republican senator, Dave McCormick. Fetterman, whom many had viewed as a progressive, has shifted to the middle and become a frequent critic of his party. Pollsters found 73 percent of Republicans approve of him, while only 63 percent approve of McCormick.” [The Hill]

• “Trump’s influence also prevailed in Oklahoma, where former state Sen. Mike Mazzei secured the GOP nomination for governor, narrowly defeating state Attorney General Gentner Drummond.” [NBC News]

• “The Democratic Party’s democratic socialist wing notched a win in Oklahoma, where nurse N’Kiyla Jasmine Thomas won the Senate primary runoff against attorney and minister Jim Priest.” [NBC News]

Trump says U.S. could rename Lake Ontario as Lake America as Canada trade fight escalates

“The president cited his tariff fight in a social media post, saying the United States doesn’t expect to be ‘doing much business with Ontario any longer.’”

Read more at Washington Post

INTERNATIONAL

A ‘tsunami’ for Ukraine: Zelensky rejects wartime elections

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky waits for international guests at the Nordic-Baltic Eight summit in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Aug. 23, 2026. Tetiana Dzhafarova—AFP/Getty Images

“Volodymyr Zelensky may be under pressure to hold elections in Ukraine, including from his former defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov, but in remarks over the weekend, the Ukrainian President argued that doing so during the ongoing conflict with Russia would ‘destroy’ the country.

‘I believe that in a war like this, elections as such are a huge risk,’ Zelensky said in remarks to journalists during a two-hour meeting Saturday—parts of which were made public on Sunday. “Elections right now are a tsunami for the country that will split Ukraine.”

The renewed push for wartime elections was bolstered by Fedorov, who, in a video posted to social media last week, argued that ‘democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia.’ Zelensky fired Fedorov, once his longtime ally, in July over disagreements in how to run the war with Russia.” [Time] —Chad de Guzman

Fire at hospital nursery in Pakistan’s capital kills 14 newborns, officials say

“Rescue officials said the fire at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, a major government hospital, began at about 6:45 a.m., apparently after the compressor of an air-conditioning unit exploded inside the nursery. The nursery housed at least 15 newborns when the fire broke out, officials said. At least one baby was rescued.”

Read more at AP News

Prince Harry and Meghan arrive back in UK, six years after leaving royal life behind

“The Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrived back in the United Kingdom on Wednesday, multiple media outlets reported, six years after they left the country on stepping back from royal life.”

Read more at CNN

TECH

Jason Henry for The New York Times

Meta to Pay Up to $17.1 Billion in Landmark Settlement Over Social Media Addiction Claims

“In a dramatic capitulation, the social media giant settled with 47 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories.”

Read more at New York Times

Bill Gates was an AI optimist, but now he’s scared of what could go wrong.

• “In a new essay: The Microsoft co-founder sounded the alarm about AI’s risks to security, jobs and children’s well-being. He also spoke about his concerns in an interview.

• More AI news: The Wall Street Journal said yesterday that billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller did not violate its policies by using AI to write a column published this week.”

Read this story at Washington Post

HEALTH AND MEDICINE

Lindsey Wasson/Associated Press

In Pennsylvania, 2 Measles Deaths Are Reported

“The deaths, which one doctor called ‘extremely rare in the modern era,’ are the first in the U.S. this year. More cases have been reported in 2026 than in any other year since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000.”

Read more at New York Times

SCIENCE

Summer is ending with a ‘blood moon’ lunar eclipse. Here’s what to know

The partial phase of the Jan. 31, 2018 blood moon eclipse, shot from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Robert Markowitz - NASA - Johnson

“It’s not often that 3.6 billion people—or 44.4% of the world’s population—look at the same thing at the same time. And it’s not often that something comes along that’s worth the attention of all those billions. But that will happen on the evening of Aug. 27 when much of the world will be able to witness a blood moon lunar eclipse, during which 96% of the face of the full moon will fall into Earth’s shadow, glowing a deep orange-red in the process.

Finding a flat area with few buildings and a clean sight line may be necessary to witness the eclipse, since in many places the moon will be low in the sky, close to the horizon. In the U.S., the eclipse will begin at 9:23 p.m. ET on Aug. 27, and end at 3:01 ET the next day.” [Bloomberg] —Jeffrey Kluger

NASA telescope could transform our view of the cosmos

“A new NASA observatory set to launch into space this weekend is poised to survey more of the cosmos than any telescope before it. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a bus-sized observatory and successor to the iconic Hubble Space Telescope, is scheduled to launch Sunday morning from Florida aboard a SpaceX rocket. It will then travel roughly 1 million miles from Earth to its destination.

Over the course of its five-year mission, the Roman telescope will capture images of the Milky Way, survey the entire sky and observe supernova explosions that occurred as far as 8 billion years ago. Together, those surveys could revolutionize our understanding of the universe and rewrite astronomy textbooks.” [NBC News]

Learn more about the mission.

The woolly mammoth’s comeback is taking longer than expected

An artist’s rendering of an Ice Age mammoth. Leonello Calvetti—Science Photo Library

“If you’ve been excitedly awaiting the return of the woolly mammoth, you’ll have to be patient a little longer. It was in 2021 that the newly established, Dallas-based company Colossal Biosciences announced plans to use modern gene-editing technology and DNA harvested from mammoth remains to manufacture a mammoth embryo, implant it in the womb of an elephant surrogate, and bring the great, gentle, six-ton beast—which vanished from the planet more than 4,000 years ago—back into the modern world. The target date for a pregnancy was 2027; the target date for the birth was 2028.

No more. In a recent conversation with TIME, Colossal CEO and co-founder Ben Lamm concedes that those goalposts have moved more than a little. ‘We are thinking it will be in the early 2030s,’ he says. ‘We don’t have a hard date. Not 2036, but not 2030 either.’

In just the past year, Colossal has learned vastly more about both the mammoth and the elephant genomes than has ever been known before, not only improving the odds that the mammoth can be brought back to life, or de-extincted, but also unpacking basic genetic science that could one day have knock-on effects for humans—including potentially increasing resistance to cancer.

Colossal proved its de-extinction chops in the spring of 2025, when it announced that it had brought the extinct dire wolf back to life, editing the genome of the closely related gray wolf to replicate the features of its vanished cousin—including a white coat, larger size, more powerful shoulders, wider head, larger teeth and jaws, more-muscular legs, and characteristic vocalizations, especially howling and whining.

To do something similar with the woolly mammoth, Colossal discovered that the work would be a heavier genetic lift than their research teams had originally expected. The initial estimate was that it would take edits to about 60 genes to turn an elephant nucleus into a mammoth nucleus that could then be used to create a mammoth embryo. Now that number is about 150—and rising.

Digging deeper into the genome of the mammoth, Colossal scientists have extracted bits of its regulatory DNA and inserted them into living elephant skin cells and watched as regulators turned the behavior of the genes up or down—critical work if you want to design other genes to order.” [Bloomberg] —Jeffrey Kluger

SPORTS

Zack Wittman for The New York Times

Study’s Alarming Finding: At Least 1 in 4 N.F.L. Players Gets Brain Disease

“Researchers said the actual prevalence of C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease, may be much higher.”

Read more at New York Times

American gladiators

“The degenerative brain disease known as C.T.E. stalks professional football players. We’ve seen it in the headlines for years, usually attached to a famous name. Hall of Famers like Junior Seau and Frank Gifford had C.T.E. So did the convicted murderer Aaron Hernandez, who killed himself in prison. Repeated hits to the head can cause chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and it can be diagnosed only by examining the brain after death.

An alarming study released today suggests that C.T.E. is not just lurking at the margins, an outlier outcome for the most risk-prone players — in fact, at least 25 percent of N.F.L. players might expect to have it.

John Branch, a reporter for The Times, wrote about the study. He has covered C.T.E. in professional sports for nearly 15 years. Researchers, he tells us, looked at the 878 former N.F.L. players who died from 2016 to 2021. They were able to test the brains of 235 of them for C.T.E. Of those, 215 had the disease. That’s 24.5 percent of the total. ‘The actual prevalence could be far higher,’ John writes. ‘The roughly 25 percent rate does not consider the 643 brains that were not examined. Some of those, maybe many of them, likely had C.T.E. too.’

John then applied the statistics to today’s N.F.L. players. When the regular season starts in a couple of weeks, there will be 1,696 people on the league’s 32 active rosters. (That’s not including hundreds on practice squads or out for injuries.) At least 400 of them, John reports, will develop C.T.E., if the rate continues.

That’s a terrifying number. Symptoms of the disease include memory loss and confusion, as well as dramatic mood swings. Executive functioning decreases. Erratic behavior increases, as does addiction. Suicides happen. (Other studies have shown that the rate of C.T.E. in people who haven’t gotten hit in the head a lot is nearly zero.)

Zack Wittman for The New York Times

John’s sentences about all this are spare, relentless. Here he is on the San Diego Chargers’ 2009 roster, which included at least three players who were diagnosed posthumously with C.T.E.:

One was Vincent Jackson, a three-time Pro Bowl receiver who died in a hotel room of alcohol poisoning at 38. Another was Kevin Ellison, a defensive back who died at 31 when he was struck by a car after wandering onto a California freeway.

The other was defensive back Paul Oliver, who was 29 in 2013 when he shot himself on the stairs of his family home in front of his wife, Chelsea, and their two young sons.

Where’s OSHA?

Imagine having a job like that, where 25 percent of your colleagues end up with a debilitating disease that will kill them, but not before making their lives and the lives of their loved ones miserable. You’d probably be safer as a commercial fisherman, or a coal miner. One scientist told John that Russian roulette has better odds. ‘We never see things that are this dire,’ he said.

Wouldn’t the existence of such a job trigger outrage and calls for change from, among others, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration?

John wrote about that, too, today. His answer: Not if your job is playing professional football. The agency told him: ‘In most cases, OSHA does not take enforcement action with regard to professional athletes.’

The N.F.L. is simply too big and too popular for people in government to want to change its rules or abolish the sport. In 2024, its revenues were more than $23 billion, and 35 of the top 50 U.S. telecasts last year were N.F.L. games. Dangerous as it is, football is our culture.

And there’s also this, which John told me yesterday. ‘C.T.E. is one of those things that most people take seriously only when it directly affects them, like gun violence or climate change,’ he said. ‘Until then, it can feel like someone else’s problem.’” [New York Times]

Big Ten adopts rule barring players with pro contracts from returning to play

“The Big Ten became the first conference Tuesday to adopt a rule prohibiting football players who have signed professional contracts from returning to play at its schools as college sports finds itself mired in lawsuits and disputes over eligibility.”

Read more at AP News

Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images

PGA Tour dramatically overhauling its playoffs, adopting match-play format

“In 2028, the first year the PGA Tour moves to its Championship and Challenger Series format, a 90-man stroke play event will crown the season-long points winner. After that, the top 32 players will advance to a two-week match-play competition at rotating venues for the new Tour Championship.”

Read Full Story at The Athletic

TRANSITIONS

Jack Manning/The New York Times

Dolly Parton, Superstar Whose Songs Spoke to Millions, Dies at 80

“Known for her outsize persona, appearance and talent, she rose from rural poverty to become a top-selling singer, songwriter and entrepreneur.”

Read more at New York Times

Dolly Parton died after ‘bravely facing brief battle’ with cancer, publicist says

“Legendary singer-songwriter Dolly Parton died Tuesday after facing a ‘brief battle with cancer,’ her publicist Marcel Pariseau told CNN.” [CNN]

Dolly Parton loved us all, darlin’

David Gahr—Getty Images

“Dolly Parton, the beloved country-music superstar known for writing about the lives of regular people in more than 3,000 songs and, in later years, for giving away more than 300 million books to children around the world, has died in Nashville. She was 80. Parton had recently shared updates about health issues she’d been dealing with since the death of her husband Carl Dean last year, and her representatives told People that her death in Nashville came after a ‘brief battle with cancer.’ Her nephew and bodyguard Bryan Seaver announced her death in an Instagram video posted to her account on Aug. 25, saying, ‘Dolly has lived in the light and is in the arms of Jesus, surely met by Carl, her parents, and countless others who have watched her and longed for her to meet them in the heavens.’

To her fans around the world, she was Saint Dolly—the American godmother who channeled the sorrows of everyday life into song, wrapping ugly truths in pretty packages. Though she was described by music journalist Robert Oermann as ‘the Mozart of our times,’ Parton’s larger-than-life hair, excess in rhinestones, surgical implants, and cosmetic work concealed the iron will through which she confronted the day’s realities with her craft. Most importantly, she wrote and sang with a woman’s voice and heart about topics that uniquely touched her gender. Her songs include stories of stillborn births (“Down From Dover”), suicide (“The Bridge”), shame (“Just Because I’m a Woman”), abuse (“A Gamble Either Way”), adoption (“Doing This for Your Sake”), isolation (“Two Doors Down”), mental institutions (“Daddy Come and Get Me”), and prostitution (“The Bargain Store”).

Parton was a genius from humble origins. Because of them, she remained vulnerable, even relatable, in the public eye. Many wealthy folk prefer to be compassionate from on-high, if at all, never getting their feet wet or hands dirty. Parton rolled in the mud. She claimed she modeled her look on ‘the town trash whore,’ whom she thought was ‘beautiful.’ She dressed in a way that was her idea of glamour: yellow hair piled atop her head, bright red lipstick and nails, high-heeled shoes, and a tight skirt. ‘I thought [that woman] was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen,’ she once said on Ellen. ‘So I grew up to look just like her!’” [Time]

Read the full obituary here.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at a press conference today in Washington, D.C. Photo: Kent Nishimura/AFP via Getty Images

“He announced that the U.S. is sanctioning more than 60 entities, individuals and vessels across the globe that enable Iran to procure technology, earn oil revenue and carry out cyber operations. The slew of new measures is an effort to isolate Iran economically. Bessent warned that any country or business engaging with Tehran would face the wrath of the Trump administration. Stocks and oil prices were more or less unchanged.” [Wall Street Journal]

Iran warns of a harsh response as US announces new sanctions and other Middle East news

“Iran warned that new U.S. sanctions on Tehran announced Monday would not bring peace to the region. Meanwhile, Israeli and Syrian officials met less than a week after Israeli strikes in Syria. And Israel said it killed a Hamas commander in Gaza.” Read More at AP News

“The United Arab Emirates was among the first to announce it would cut off commercial trade ties with Iran, but reactions from other Gulf allies have so far been muted, NPR's Aya Batrawy says. She adds that the U.S. will need more countries to align with Trump's measures against Iran, because the president wants to crush — not just cripple — its revenue. China is the most consequential country as it is the largest importer of Iranian oil. China's foreign ministry condemned the latest U.S. measures, calling them ‘illicit unilateral sanctions without international legal basis.’ Iran's Economy Minister Ali Madanizadeh last night dismissed the U.S. actions, saying that Iran has been preparing for this and has a two-year plan to manage the consequences.” [NPR]

Trump threatened more tariffs against Canada.

“He said the U.S. would place 50% tariffs on Canadian automobiles, trucks and automotive parts starting in January. The threat came after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney vowed to hit the U.S. with retaliatory levies following the collapse of trade talks over the weekend. This is the latest escalation in a tit-for-tat trade conflict that could disrupt supply chains and threaten the future of the USMCA. We have answered several questions you may have about the tariffs and what they mean for trade.” [Wall Street Journal]

Nick Hagen for The New York Times

Supreme Court Allows Trump Plan to Restrict Mail-In Voting, for Now

“The administration asked the court to clear the way for President Trump’s order that creates ‘state citizenship lists’ and directs the Postal Service to decide who gets a mail-in ballot.”

Read more at New York Times

Supreme Court lifts one block on Trump mail-in-voting plan

“The Supreme Court on Monday lifted a block on President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at limiting mail-in voting but left uncertain whether it will allow him to implement major changes to those procedures before the midterms.

The justices voted, 6 to 3 along the usual ideological lines, to overturn an injunction a judge placed on Trump’s order in June. The lower-court ruling concluded that the president’s plan to use the Postal Service to limit the delivery of ballots likely exceeded his authority and had the potential to disenfranchise legitimate voters.

More than 20 blue states sued to block Trump’s order, saying it threatens to upend their planning for the midterms in November and intrudes on their authority to administer elections.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority said those states lacked standing in part because it’s unclear just how the administration will implement the order, although the administration on Friday released a final Postal Service rule addressing more details.”

Read the latest at POLITICO

US set for largest mass visa revocation in history targeting up to 200,000 foreigners, officials say

“The Trump administration is preparing to revoke the 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 likely face legal challenges.”

Read more at AP News

“Department of Homeland Security agents secretly recorded meetings held at churches, libraries, restaurants and schools across the Twin Cities during a surge in federal immigration enforcement last winter, according to government documents. The revelation was part of a motion filed in federal court as part of an ongoing conspiracy case against ICE protesters. Agents also infiltrated private group chats and gathered information on community members. Critics argue that while the Fourth Amendment grants the federal government broad authority to gather information, these tactics raise ethical concerns.” [NPR]

Kennedy Center revenue plunged after Trump’s name was added to the building.

Trump stands in the presidential box as he visits the John F. Kennedy Center in March 2025. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty)

• “In December: The Trump-led board of trustees voted to rename the center after him. Publicly, the center’s leaders have portrayed Trump’s takeover as a financial rescue.

• However: Ticket sales and fundraising collapsed in the months following the name change, according to confidential budget and meeting documents obtained by The Post.”

Read this story at Washington Post

The next big test of Trump’s endorsement power takes place today in South Carolina.

(Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images)

• “What’s happening? Republicans are voting in a runoff to elect a Senate nominee after the death of Lindsey Graham. Trump is backing Sen. Darline Graham, the late senator’s sister.

• Trump’s clout is on the line: His reputation as Republican kingmaker is under threat after a string of primary setbacks.

• In other election news: Democratic candidates are being inspired and tripped up by this not-so-secret document.”

Read this story at Washington Post

“Trump’s influence also faces a test in the Oklahoma GOP primary for governor. State Attorney General Gentner Drummond has touted his closeness to the president, even though Trump backed his opponent, former state Sen. Mike Mazzei. Trump has since panned Drummond as a “fake Republican.”

The Oklahoma race has become particularly brutal and personal. Fighting between the two candidates over accusations about their fitness for office led to the two men releasing drug tests in recent days.” [NBS News]

Stat du jour: Record number of Black gubernatorial candidates

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) speaks at his victory party in Orlando after winning the Republican gubernatorial nomination last Tuesday. Photo: John Raoux/AP

“Only three of America’s elected governors out of thousands have been Black — all Democrats and all men: current Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

• November ballots will have eight Black major-party gubernatorial nominees, AP reports.

The eight (three Rs and five Ds): Republicans Byron Donalds in Florida, Lisa Demuth in Minnesota and John James in Michigan … plus Democrats Aaron Ford in Nevada, Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia, Jermaine Johnson in South Carolina, David Crowley in Wisconsin and Wes Moore, up for reelection in Maryland.” [Axios]

• Keep reading.

1 big thing: Why violent crime cratered

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

“The U.S. is enjoying one of the steepest and most widespread crime declines in modern history. Researchers aren’t exactly sure why — but they have theories, Axios’ Russell Contreras writes:

• Research points to factors that include declining alcohol and drug use, tech to help catch suspects (including drones and license-plate readers), an aging population, tougher prosecutions and more.

Why it matters: Knowing more about what’s driving the violent-crime decline could help cities decide what to preserve as pandemic-era federal money fades.

By the numbers: The U.S. violent-crime rate plunged 9.7% in 2025, the largest annual decline since FBI national estimates began 90 years ago.

• The murder rate fell 18.5% to 4.1 per 100,000 people, tying 1955 and 1956 for the lowest since national estimates began.

• And the decline hasn’t stopped: An Axios analysis shows violent crime in big cities fell again in the first half of 2026.

Criminologists describe a complicated picture of why crime is down. No one’s sure, but several overlapping forces seem to be driving the drop:

1. Vice consumption cooled: Pandemic-era spikes in alcohol consumption, illicit drug use and firearm purchases — three factors linked to the 2020–2021 homicide surge — have receded.

2. Return to routine: COVID lockdowns disrupted community guardrails and displaced young men and teens. Employment and social routines have since stabilized.

3. Law enforcement tech boom: Police departments are using more AI tools, predictive analytics and platforms such as Palantir’s Gotham to deploy resources and identify crime hotspots.

Under-the-radar demographic and health trends are also quietly reshaping public safety:

• The proportion of young people in America is declining, shrinking the demographic most historically linked to street crime.

• In a fascinating medical twist, the explosion of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs (like Ozempic) has been clinically linked to decreased alcohol abuse and improved impulse control — two major factors in violent offenses.

What we’re watching: Pandemic-era federal money for local crime-fighting efforts expires at the end of the year, putting more pressure on already short-staffed police departments.

• An economic downturn could create another headwind: Historically, worsening economic conditions mean more crime.” [Axios]

Share this story.

What to know about the USPS’s rules for mail-in ballots

A United States Postal Service mail collection box is seen on a street in New York City, United States, on August 7, 2026. Marcin Golba—NurPhoto

“The United States Postal Service (USPS) on Friday issued a 95-page final rule that it plans to implement immediately if the government obtains relief from two existing injunctions. It would require USPS employees to verify that outbound federal ballot mailings comply with new envelope, barcode, and data-reporting requirements before accepting them from election officials.

The rule was designed to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order from March 31. It directs the Department of Homeland Security, in coordination with the Social Security Administration, to compile and send lists of adult citizens in each state. Separately, it directs USPS to establish state-specific lists of people to whom election officials intend to send mail-in or absentee ballots, along with unique ballot-envelope identifiers.

A ​pair of court ‌orders blocks the rule from taking effect before midterm elections in November.” —Rebecca Schneid [Time]

MAGA Inc. spends $827,000 to back Darline Graham on final day of South Carolina GOP Senate runoff

“The final day of South Carolina’s Republican U.S. Senate runoff campaign on Monday came with a major cash infusion for Sen. Darline Graham from MAGA Inc., the super PAC that supports President Donald Trump and aligned Republicans but has spent little thus far on the president’s midterm candidate picks.” Read More at AP News

INTERNATIONAL

New evidence prompts trial delay for Libyan man charged in 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103

“A federal judge has postponed a trial in the U.S. for a Libyan man charged in 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, citing the discovery of new evidence that defense attorneys want to examine.”

Read more at AP News

“The most revealing moment in Scott Bessent’s briefing on the US’s ‘economic D-Day’ against Iran came when the Treasury secretary was asked why he wasn’t yet imposing any of his advertised sanctions.

‘Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?’ he replied.

It was an admission that unwittingly echoed Iran’s parliament speaker and lead negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. In a post on X, he ridiculed the US moves as yielding nothing more than an ‘Iran boomerang’ that would return to hit Washington in the face.

The US has been sanctioning Iran for almost half a century and little has materially changed for the power of the theocratic system over that time.

Even a joint US-Israeli war, for all the damage and death that it’s brought Iranians, didn’t manage to dislodge all the men who’ve been defying US and Western interests in the Middle East since 1979.

Repeatedly, Iran has adapted and found ways to circumvent the US sanctions machine. The penalties have been around so long that they’ve become enmeshed within the Iranian economic system and normalized.

Photographer: Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

That doesn’t mean this latest iteration cannot inflict more pain.

The US is most likely counting on a repeat of last December, when the currency collapsed; that Iranians will pour out onto the streets and risk their lives demanding change.

There are signs in Tehran that some officials are concerned over hitting a tipping point that will deliver that sort of existential threat to the regime.

The weeks ahead will show whether Bessent has indeed thrown a boomerang at Iran and the wider global economy, as hardliners in Tehran may wish to believe — or whether he can deliver the capitulation President Donald Trump so desperately seeks.

The only certainty meantime is that millions of families in Iran, already struggling to make ends meet, are set to pay the cost.” [Bloomberg] — Golnar Motevalli

Photographer: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

“Vladimir Putin signed an order allowing the Russian state to take over temporary control of critical facilities it regards as insufficiently protected from Ukrainian drone attacks, including energy complexes, industrial sites, and communication and utility infrastructure. The president says he plans to meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a regional security forum in Kyrgyzstan next week, and called for increased trade cooperation between Moscow and New Delhi.” [Bloomberg]

“UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham says he and other European leaders plan to travel to the US next month to lobby Trump to let Ukraine access Patriot air defense missile stocks ahead of winter, following his first foreign trip — to Kyiv — since becoming premier. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made repeated pleas to obtain Patriot missile interceptors and to replenish stocks before temperatures drop, with Russia expected to ramp up attacks on energy infrastructure again.” [Bloomberg]

Photographer: Henry Nicholls/WPA Pool/Getty Images

“South Korea and the US agreed to maintain close coordination on reviving dialogue with North Korea, days after Pyongyang rebuffed Trump’s overtures and test-fired a barrage of short-range ballistic missiles. South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun told Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a phone call that Seoul would work to ensure that Trump’s messages led to renewed talks.” [Bloomberg]

“Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella vowed to start deporting undocumented migrants this week as part of a broader security crackdown, a policy that could affect hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans living in the country without regular status. The conservative leader’s ‘Colombia First’ rhetoric puts him closer to his ally Trump and marks a shift in a nation that’s seen the arrival of millions of Venezuelans fleeing an economic collapse.” [Bloomberg]

“The satirical group behind the Indian student movement that forced the education minister to step down is calling supporters back onto the streets, saying the government has failed to honor its commitments. The Cockroach Janta Party will hold a march in New Delhi on Sept. 5, with families of exam candidates who died by suicide and people the group described as victims of police brutality in the protests leading the demonstration.” [Bloomberg]

Photographer: Abeer Khan/Bloomberg

“Taiwanese prosecutors indicted a senior Nvidia manager as part of a group that allegedly smuggled advanced AI chips into China, sources say, advancing the island democracy’s first known crackdown on the black-market trade.” [Bloomberg]

“Chinese hackers are escalating attacks after integrating DeepSeek and other open-source models into their operations, highlighting their ability to leverage basic AI tools to hit targets abroad.” [Bloomberg]

“Chancellor Friedrich Merz says a failed drone attack uncovered this month at an airport shows that Germany is under renewed threat of hybrid attacks — and vowed that those responsible will be held accountable.” [Bloomberg]

“Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa is one of seven MAGA-friendly Latin American leaders elected during Donald Trump’s second term, testament to the president’s efforts to exercise greater US influence over the hemisphere.

So why has Noboa just concluded a weeklong trip to China, meeting with President Xi Jinping and securing Chinese support to help prepare for the El Niño climate event, including an AI-powered meteorological system?

The fact is that for Noboa and many of his regional counterparts, political closeness with the Trump administration doesn’t translate into choosing the US over China on the economic front.

China has overtaken the US as Latin America’s top trading partner, while goods trade with the region has grown from just over $14 billion in 2000 to more than $500 billion in 2024.

Photographer: Andres Martinez Casares/Pool/Getty Images

The rightward political turn under Trump’s so-called Donroe Doctrine has done little so far to unwind those strong economic ties with Beijing.

China continues to deepen its position in sectors it’s cultivated for decades — including critical minerals, power and infrastructure — while expanding into areas like financial services, consumer businesses and manufacturing.

It’s also moved up the value chain into electric vehicles, batteries and other clean technologies that the Trump administration largely shuns.

That’s not to say that Beijing is ignoring Trump’s push for hemispheric hegemony. It’s adapting to US scrutiny, shifting some of its push away from exposed government-to-government projects toward quieter private-sector channels.

China’s reach increasingly extends below the national level, with Chinese firms cultivating governors, mayors and local business groups even when governments tilt closer to Washington on issues like security.

The result is an economic relationship that even some of Trump’s staunchest regional allies are unwilling to unwind.

To much of Latin America, political alignment with Washington is one thing; walking away from what China has to offer is another.” [Bloomberg] — Mie Dahl

Photographer: Carlos Barrera/Bloomberg

“Moscow rejected Ukraine’s offer of a truce on attacks against ships carrying agricultural commodities through the Black Sea because it wanted guarantees against strikes on its energy infrastructure, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says. Andy Burnham arrived in Kyiv today for his first international trip as British prime minister, joining other world leaders to show support for Ukraine on the 35th anniversary of its independence.” [Bloomberg]

Photographer: Andrew Kravchenko/Bloomberg

“Saudi Arabia is again being forced to use a range of methods to ship oil around the world, as Yemen’s Houthis make it harder for Riyadh to utilize a backup route in the Red Sea that’s been vital to the global economy since the Iran war started. China says it continues to support a diplomatic end to the conflict, comments that come just before the US is set to announce measures targeting Tehran’s economic partners and as Iran’s oil shipments to Asia have all but dried up.” [Bloomberg]

“Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced a package of benefits to help families as the city-state grapples with a record-low birth rate and rising concern over the cost and pressures of raising children. Each youngster will receive the equivalent of about S$70,000 ($55,150) in direct assistance through age 17, starting with a S$10,000 baby gift.” [Bloomberg]

“Ebola responders were chased by people with machetes while trying to bury a victim in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the latest attacks on frontline workers struggling to contain an epidemic that’s spreading faster than they can respond. Just over 100 days after the outbreak was declared, more than 5,500 people have been infected and 2,642 have died.” [Bloomberg]

Photographer: Jospin Mwisha/AFP/Getty Images

“China’s advanced J-16 fighter is set to train alongside French Rafales, offering a rare opportunity to test its capabilities against a Western plane.” [Bloomberg]

“A party led by allies of Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev won a landslide in parliamentary elections yesterday, hours after he hinted that he may stay in power beyond his current term.” [Bloomberg]

“Former cricket stars have appealed to Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, to provide medical care to the nation’s ex-captain-turned-politician Imran Khan, who has been in jail for the past three years for corruption and misuse of power.” [Bloomberg]

Photographer: Tony Feder/Getty Images

“The world’s top maritime piracy observer says incidents off the coast of Somalia are on the rise again after a pair of fresh attacks this week.” [Bloomberg]

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY

Trump administration proposes charging employers $103,000 per H-1B visa for skilled foreign workers after legal setback

“President Donald Trump says the program to hire skilled foreign workers has been used to take jobs away from Americans. A judge struck down a previous attempt at a similar fee.”

Read more at Washington Post

Chinese-owned Polestar said the Trump administration strung it along.

“Two months after being forced out of the U.S. market, the electric vehicle maker is telling dealers that it was blindsided by a Commerce Department crackdown on Chinese vehicle technology. Polestar is demanding answers, pointing out that Volvo, a corporate cousin, was allowed to stay despite selling a nearly identical car.” [Wall Street Journal]

TECH

Taiwan charges 9 over illegal AI server exports to China, including Nvidia and Super Micro staff

“Taiwanese prosecutors charged nine people Monday, including one from Nvidia and two from Super Micro, for illegally exporting “high-end AI servers” to mainland China, adding another wave of turbulence in the AI rivalry between China and the United States.” Read More at AP News

HEALTH AND MEDICINE

GLP-1 black market

Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios

“Eli Lilly’s next-generation weight-loss drug — retatrutide, which hasn’t even been submitted for FDA review — is already spawning cheap knockoffs heavily touted online.

• Why it matters: Demand for weight-loss drugs is outpacing drug development and regulation, fueling a black-market frenzy, Axios’ Tina Reed reports.

Catch up quick: Eli Lilly recently filed six lawsuits accusing med spas, at least one compounding pharmacy and other vendors of illegally selling counterfeit retatrutide as a weight-loss ‘hack.’

• Retatrutide is still in clinical trials for obesity, type 2 diabetes and related conditions. No regulator has approved ​the drug for human use, Lilly told Reuters.

Influencers have been touting knockoffs dubbed ‘r3ta’ or ‘triple G.’ A quick Google search nets dozens of companies selling the drug for as much as $600.” [Axios]

• Read on.

MEDIA

Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Glamour

Washington Post Ordered to Rehire Fired Columnist

“An arbitrator ordered the newspaper to rehire Karen Attiah, an opinion columnist who was fired in September over her social media posts about Charlie Kirk’s killing.”

Read more at New York Times

CLIMATE AND WEATHER

Earth is simmering in its hottest water temps on record, and that’s bad for fish and us

“The world’s oceans simmered to their hottest temperatures on record over the weekend and are likely to warm even further in the next few months, putting stress on life in the water and on land too, the European climate service Copernicus announced Monday.” Read More at AP News

Nevada files first legal challenge to federal plan requiring 3 states to reduce Colorado River water use

“The lawsuit said the plan to stabilize the dwindling river does not consider the economic effects of the potential cuts.”

Read more at Washington Post

A fast-moving wildfire is burning near Reno, Nevada.

Smoke and flames rise from the Hawk Fire in Reno, Nevada. (@SquintDev via Reuters)

• “The latest: The Hawk Fire has forced thousands of residents to evacuate and injured at least seven people. The blaze was caused by human activity, officials said.”

Read this story at Washington Post

SPORTS

Sergio Estrada / Imagn Images

49ers owner arrested

“Authorities arrested Jed York, owner and CEO of the 49ers, Sunday in East Palestine, Ohio, on misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and possessing criminal tools. The charges originally included engaging in prostitution but were later amended. York, 46, also co-owns the Premier League club Leeds United and Scottish soccer club Rangers F.C. Read more on the situation.” [The Athletic]

Browns officially tab Watson

“Deshaun Watson will be Cleveland’s starting quarterback in Week 1, Browns coach Todd Monken announced yesterday, and everything about it just feels like an untenable situation. The home crowd loathes Watson, whose contract still looms large on Cleveland’s cap sheet. Something to watch: The Browns begin with two road games before their home opener in Week 3. I wonder if a slow start changes the decision-making.” [The Athletic]

In Houston, an overhaul

“The Astros are both a half-game out of the AL West lead (good) and owners of a losing record (bad) as we near September, which prompted franchise owner Jim Crane to fire general manager Dana Brown yesterday. Manager Joe Espada, whose contract is up at the end of the season, could be on the way out, too. It’s an intriguing juncture for a team that’s been a standard of excellence over the past decade, but is slowly slipping into disrepair. Chandler Rome’s examination of the situation was really, really good.” [The Athletic]