Friday, August 22
Headlines
John Lamparski/Getty Images
NY appeals court throws out $500 million fraud penalty against Trump. President Trump will no longer have to pay the half-billion-dollar judgment from his civil business fraud trial after a New York court tossed the massive fine. “While harm certainly occurred, it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half billion-dollar award to the State,” Justice Peter Moulton wrote in a decision that sharply divided the court. Trump immediately took to social media to declare “TOTAL VICTORY.” Though it threw out the huge financial penalty, the court upheld the fraud ruling, which found last year that the president had inflated his net worth in order to secure better loan terms.
The US and EU reveal some details of their trade agreement. A month after announcing a preliminary trade deal that was devoid of specifics, the US and EU laid out the framework of their arrangement. Under the deal, which is still only a verbal agreement and not yet a legally binding contract, the US will put a 15% tariff on most goods coming from European Union member countries. The exception is cars, which will be slapped with a much higher 27.5% tariff until the EU introduces legislation to lower levies on American products—at which point the auto tariff will drop to 15%, too. A White House official told the New York Times that this could be addressed “in a matter of weeks.”
Meta reportedly freezes its AI hiring. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Facebook and Instagram parent company is ending its AI spending spree (for now) and putting a hold on hiring for its artificial intelligence division. Meta has invested untold billions in waging a talent war over the industry’s top AI minds as part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s quest to develop “superintelligence,” or smarter-than-human intelligence. Earlier this year, Meta spent $14 billion for a stake in Scale AI to secure the services of its co-founder, Alexandr Wang. But analysts and investors are beginning to worry about the sky-high spending. Meta downplayed the hiring freeze as “basic organizational planning.”—AE
Robert Reich
How to stop him
Friends,
I’m writing to you from Houston, Texas, where I’m flogging Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America to every Texan who might be interested. So far I think I’ve sold two copies.
Just kidding. Last night, in fact, I met hundreds of Texans who seemed interested.
Texas wasn’t always the bastion of right-wing extremism it seems today. Remember Ann Richards? She was the progressive firebrand governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995. I recall her keynote speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta when she said of then-President George H.W. Bush, “Poor George, he can’t help it — he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.”
Today, the progressive torch is being carried in Texas by people like Beto O’Rourke, Rep. Greg Casar (from Texas’s 35th congressional district), and State Rep. Nicole Collier.
At A Glance
New Beatles demos, documentary footage coming this fall.
Award-winning photographs of the night sky.
Remember Sears' DIY houses?
See previous designs of famous websites.
Find the best burger in every state.
... and each state's most popular baby name 25 years ago.
Highest places in the world to get drinks.
The latest dating trend is Shrekking.
Clickbait: Cuddly, huggable carnivorous bats.
Historybook: First Geneva Convention held (1864); American poet Dorothy Parker born (1893); Cadillac Motor Co. founded (1902); Althea Gibson is first African American to compete in a US national tennis tournament (1950); Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton is murdered (1989).
In The NEWS
Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> The 2025 PGA Tour Championship kicks off today for the FedEx Cup title and $10M top prize (More) | ... and Tiger Woods to chair committee to look at major structural changes to the PGA Tour (More)
> ESPN's new app, which will include livestreams of all 12 of the network's channels, launches today at $29.99/month (More) | ... and the streaming service will host its first WWE event Sept. 20, ahead of the scheduled 2026 launch (More)
> Former boxing champ Julio César Chávez Jr. deported over alleged ties to Mexican drug cartels (More) | YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul to face WBA world champ Gervonta Davis on Netflix Nov. 14 (More)
Science & Technology
> Google debuts line of Pixel smartphones that use Google's artificial intelligence assistant, Gemini, to let users complete multiple tasks simultaneously (More)
> Study shows triple-negative breast cancer cells feed on nearby fat cells, prompting researchers to develop a treatment that blocks the aggressive cancer’s access to fat; the approach may also work against other cancers (More) | Why it's so hard to cure cancer (More)
> Never-before-seen supernova—or exploding star—confirms massive stars have several onion-like layers and an innermost iron core (More) | IBM and NASA release an advanced open-source AI model for predicting solar weather (More)
Business & Markets
> US stock markets close mixed (S&P 500 -0.2%, Dow +0.0%, Nasdaq -0.7%) (More) | Federal Reserve meeting minutes from July show most officials agree it's too early to lower interest rates (More) | President Donald Trump calls for resignation of Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook amid accusations of mortgage fraud (More)
> Pop Mart shares close up 12% after the Labubu maker sees net profit rise nearly 400% in first six months of 2025, hints at mini-Labubu dolls (More) | What are Labubus and why are they so popular? (More)
> Sony to raise prices of PlayStation 5 game consoles in the US by $50 starting today, citing challenges of current economic environment (More)
Politics & World Affairs
> At least 600 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staffers receive final termination notices (More) | Office of the Director of National Intelligence to cut annual budget by over $700M, trimming workforce by up to 40% (More) | Texas House passes GOP redistricting plan; Senate vote expected today (More)
> Hurricane Erin is forecast to cause large swells, life-threatening rip currents, and damaging winds along the US East Coast into Friday; the storm has already spurred dozens of water rescues and beach closures (More) | Why there's a "dirty side" of a hurricane (More)
> Third federal judge denies Justice Department request to unseal grand jury transcripts from the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation, citing contents of DOJ's sealed files far exceed the transcripts in question (More)
SOURCE: 1440 NEWS
On Being a Father
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My daughter was born in 1972 while I was still in the Navy and stationed at Norfolk, VA. I was on leave, when she was born but had to return that same day. Four months later, I was honorably discharged and two months later, I enrolled in college while I was working full time.
Even though I received the GI Bill, I still worked full time which left me with very little time to be with my daughter. Two years later, I graduated and immediately became employed with a company that had me working over 60 hours a week.
Guess what?
I had very little time to spend with my daughter.
My daughter was a freshman in college, when her mother and I got a divorce. I set up a Trust Fund before the divorce that would pay for four years of college plus give her $10,000 when she graduated.
My daughter and I stay in touch with each other regularly, until about 7 years ago, when all of sudden she quit communicating with me, offering no explanation. I reached out several times but she did not respond.
My parents were not touchy-feely parents and never emotionally supportive of me, and I acquired those same behaviors. While I was not as strict on my daughter as my parents had been on me, I still was not emotionally supportive, nor was I there very much while she was growing up.
I have no idea if that is what contributed to her desire to quit communicating but I am sure it had something to do with it.
If you are a new father and reading this, please learn from my lesson and be there for your children as often as you can otherwise you might regret it like me.
Scientists just proved a fundamental quantum rule for the first time
Physicists have confirmed that even a single photon obeys the angular momentum conservation law when split,
marking a first in quantum experiments and paving the way for powerful new quantum technologies.
Credit: AI/ScienceDaily.com
Researchers at Tampere University and their collaborators from Germany and India have experimentally confirmed that angular momentum is conserved when a single photon is converted into a pair - validating a key principle of physics at the quantum level for the first time. This breakthrough opens new possibilities for creating complex quantum states useful in computing, communication, and sensing.
Conservation laws are the heart of our natural scientific understanding as they govern which processes are allowed or forbidden. A simple example is that of colliding billiard balls, where the motion - and with it, their linear momentum - is transferred from one ball to another.A similar conservation rule also exists for rotating objects, which have angular momentum. Interestingly, light can also have an angular momentum, e.g., orbital angular momentum (OAM), which is connected to the light's spatial structure.
Thursday, August 21
Headlines
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Trump calls for Fed Governor Lisa Cook to resign. President Trump posted on Truth Social yesterday that Lisa Cook, a Biden-appointed Federal Reserve governor, “must resign, now!!!” after the leader of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bill Pulte, claimed she submitted fraudulent information to banks on mortgage loan documents. Citing anonymous sources, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump is considering firing Cook for cause. It’s his latest swipe at the independence of the central bank, which hasn’t lowered interest rates like the president wants. Pulte, a Trump ally who has made similar allegations against prominent critics of the president, asked the DOJ to investigate Cook, alleging she had requested mortgages in Atlanta and Michigan and claimed both properties as her primary residence. Cook said she would not be “bullied to step down.”
“Almost all” Fed officials supported leaving rates unchanged, per meeting minutes. The minutes from the Fed’s July meeting are out, and they suggest that the two officials who voted against keeping interest rates steady were alone in that effort—but it still represented the first time since 1993 that more than one Fed governor dissented from a rate decision. The minutes show that most Fed officials remained more concerned about the possibility of rising inflation than problems in the labor market, though that could change going forward since the meeting took place two days before disappointing jobs data came out. The issue is politically fraught since President Trump has been pushing for a cut (see above).
Texas House passes redistricting bill. After a fight that involved Democratic lawmakers fleeing the state and being forced to have police escorts when they returned, the Texas House yesterday passed the redistricting bill President Trump requested, sending it to the state’s Senate for a final vote. If the Senate passes the bill unchanged, it will advance to the governor’s desk, but if it alters the bill, the two versions will have to be reconciled. The new map, which could add five seats for Republicans in Congress, could set off a flurry of gerrymandering efforts around the country. California’s Governor has vowed to respond with his own redistricting, a move that former President Barack Obama endorsed yesterday.—AR
Robert Reich
With apologies
Friends,
I’m going to expose myself today in a way I’m not particularly comfortable doing. I hope you’ll forgive me.
Ever since I was a teenager I’ve been fascinated by the bestseller list of The New York Times Sunday book review, especially nonfiction.
I wondered how certain books and their topics got to be high on the list. I was particularly interested in the books that got to be #1 bestsellers. I thought that their authors and ideas provided tiny windows into the American mind at those particular moments in time.
For the last 43 years, I’ve also felt a personal stake. My first book was published in 1982. It didn’t make anywhere near the bestseller list.
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