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I took three steps out of my house today, turned around and went back inside to change.
It was 100 degrees, but that wasn’t the weird part. It was the soupy, hard-to-breathe humidity. For the second time this week, Los Angeles looked exactly the same but felt like someone had quietly moved it to the equator.
It’s climate change, apparently, because El Niño, a scientist assures me, hasn’t even arrived yet.
And when I sat down to work, everyone was talking about the existential threat of AI again.
There are legitimate reasons to worry about AI. There are legitimate reasons to worry about the climate. And cyberattacks. And democracy. There are too many to keep properly sorted. If you find that overwhelming, you’re not alone. We are living through a period when things that sounded like the plot of a bad disaster movie have become reasonable subjects for a Wednesday.
The good news: People aren’t entirely powerless. Keep learning. Keep talking about what worries you. Public pressure helped change the conversation around social media, and recent rulings against Meta suggest culture can move institutions, even if it takes a while. Alex Gibney’s new film about Elon Musk received a five-minute standing ovation when it debuted in Venice. One person who saw it predicted to me it could be a “culture change moment.”
And keep some extra water at home. It’s hard to know which existential threat to prepare for, but water seems to have emerged as the consensus pick.
If you missed my conversation with , check that out here.
In today’s newsletter: Missouri’s map mess. Trump wants a census with fewer people. Still free tonight? The RNC has seats available. What did Netanyahu know, and what did he do about it? Another AI insider sounds the alarm. And a court weighs in with a surprising finding about clean water.
Count This: The Trump administration wants tochange who gets countedin the U.S. Census with potentially enormous consequences for political power and federal funding. The Census Bureau is proposing that the 2030 count include only U.S. citizens and permanent residents, leaving out millions of undocumented immigrants andall documented non-U.S.citizens without a green card. That couldradically reshapeeach state’s number of representatives in the House, electoral college votes, and voting maps. It would also deprive states of federal funds needed to support their actual population. The 14th Amendmentexplicitly statesthat the census must count the “whole number of persons in each state,” not just U.S. citizens. The second proposed change is tostop askingquestions about people’s race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. This information iscrucial forenforcing civil rights laws and informing policymaking. The proposal will likely end up in court.
Missouri Mess: The fight over Missouri’s voting map isgetting chaotic; officials are under conflicting orders to use two different voting maps. Last week,as we reported, the state Supreme Court blocked a new voting map designed to gain Republicans another House seat, until voters get a chance to approve or reject the new map in a November referendum. Republican state officials appealed the decision, and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh declined to intervene, giving no reason. Hours later, a Trump-appointed federal judgeordered officialsto use thenew, gerrymandered map anyway. Republican officials quickly announced they would follow that order. Opponents appealed but an appeals courtdeclined to blockthe judge’s order. Now there are two seemingly conflicting orders: One from the state Supreme Court blocking the new map, and another from a federal judge requiring officials to use it. Because the federal order is based on federal law, itcould take precedence. But opponents have now gone back to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to resolve the mess. Meantime, the state Supreme Court announced it may hold Attorney General Denny Hoskins in contempt anddemandedhe appear in person tomorrow to explain why he directed election officials to use a map the court had barred. To make things even more complicated, the deadline to finalize the state’s ballot was yesterday.Please Come: The RNC’smidterm conventionkicked off today in Dallas, a self-described “Trump-a-Palooza” that’s a mix between a rally and fundraiser. Trumpclaimedthe event is sold out, but members of the NNN audience in Texas tell us they’re flooded with offers to attend Trump’s speech tonight for free, bolstering reports the RNC has beengiving awayticketsto fill seats. Trump wasdelayed en routeto Dallas after the emergency slide on his new Qatari-gifted Air Force One deployed.
Warning Signs: An explosive new report raises questions about what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knew before October 7. Israeli newspaper Haaretzreports thatUAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed personally called Netanyahu about ten days before the attack to warn him that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was preparing a major operation against Israel. Haaretz reports Netanyahu failed to inform Israeli defense officials about the warning. Netanyahudenies the call happenedand called the report an “absolute lie” “with clear political timing.” The UAEsaidit shares “all relevant intelligence” when necessary. A previous report alleged that Netanyahu received a similar warning from Egypt’s intelligence chief, and female Israeli soldiers who staff an observation postsay their warningswere disregarded as well. Netanyahu’s opponents are demanding answers and independent investigation into the failures surrounding October 7. Israel votes on October 27 in its firstnational electionssince the attack.Polls showa close race but suggest Netanyahu’s far-right coalition is headed for defeat.Unsettled Issue: Israel is facing growing international pressure over settlements in the West Bank. The UK announced it willban tradein goods and some services connected with Israeli settlements there, which are considered illegal under international law. Britain’s Foreign Minister Ed Miliband, describing himself as a “proud British Jew,” accused settlers of “ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,” and alleged the government was turning “a blind eye.” Israel’s government responded byclosing Britain’s consulatein East Jerusalem and banning 11 British lawmakers from the country. Canada, France and several European countries aremoving to impose restrictionson trade with settlements.
Friendship Breakup: The U.S.–Canada trade fight just escalated again. Trumpannounced a banon some Canadian goods,includingmaple syrup, motorcycles, alcohol, molasses, and milk byproducts like whey, which is set to take effect later this month. He also slapped tariffs up to 50% on additional goods, including cheese, boats, and metal products. [Trump is using Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, a rarely used law that gives presidents broad power to retaliate against countries they say discriminate against U.S. trade. It has]never been usedto impose either tariffs or import bans before.
Superintelligence: An AI researcher just quit one of the world’s leading AI companies with an alarming warning: Superhuman AI could wipe out humanity within 5 years. Jacob Coxonresignedfrom Anthropic,giving up his equity, after working both there and at OpenAI. He posted a𝕏message saying, “Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.” Coxon argued researchers building AI “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” a claim a senior official at Anthropicconfirmed. He’s not alone. Nearly 1,400 AI researchers, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI Chief Scientist Jakup Pachocki, signeda letterin July urging governments around the world to coordinate and slow the development of increasingly powerful AI.Out of Containment: One reason AI researchers are worried about losing control of powerful systems is that it’s already happened on a smaller scale. In July, agentsbeing trainedby OpenAI got around safeguards meant to keep them off the internet, communicated withone anotherandbroke intoparts of OpenAi’s systems and Hugging Face. [Hugging Face is a hugely popular hub for AI developers, where they share models, data, and tools. NVIDIA] The agents ran code on dozens of Hugging Face servers and took full control of one, without anyone noticing. OpenAIjust agreed to buyit for almost $13 billion.missed or failed to acton several warning signs for weeks. The incident hasintensified callsby some experts and lawmakers for regulation of AI.
Me, Me, Me: Trump is once again making the September 11 attack about him. While posthumously awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Welles Crowther, who died after helping multiple people escape the South Tower,Trump complainedhe was “very unhappy” that Crowther’s heroism made him “more famous than me.” At another memorial event,Trump claimedhe was at Ground Zero when two “big, strong” firemen pulled him away from a building they thought might collapse. This is the latest in a long list ofdubious claimsTrump has made over the years, which include being at Ground Zero with first responders (a deputy fire chiefsaid he wasn’t), marshalling hundreds of his workers to help (the Trump Organization hadfewer than 20at the time), donating $10,000 to a victim’s fund (the city’s comptrollerfound no evidenceof that), seeing thousands of Muslims cheering (widely debunked), and musing on the same day of the attack that it made his building the tallest in downtown Manhattan (it didn’t).Opening a New Chapter: Appleunveiled the iPhone Duo, a foldable iPhone that’s about the size of a passport. Foldable phones have been around foreight years, but have yet tobreak outof a niche audience. New CEO John TernusclaimsApple’s offering will “redesign the experience of using a foldable phone,” which may be necessary to convince buyers to pay at least $1,999.
**Who’s Right?**The Fifth Circuit Court of Appealsruled thatyou do not have a constitutional right “to be free from exposure to contaminated water” or to receive “accurate information from public officia…
