Happy Friday! Chicagoans have been making hay out of their city’s connection to Pope Leo XIV, but it appears that Philadelphians, where the pontiff attended college, have swung the other way by electing their own anti-Pope: the Philadelphia Phillies’ mascot, Phillie Phanatic. Eat your heart out, Avignon.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to appear in Istanbul on Thursday for negotiations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, despite initially proposing the talks. Zelensky landed Thursday in Ankara for a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, but declined to travel to Istanbul after the Russian government confirmed that it would only be sending a delegation of lower-level officials. The talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials have been pushed to Friday. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to meet with the Ukrainian delegation and Turkish officials separately. President Donald Trump noted Thursday that “nothing’s going to happen” until he personally meets with Putin.
- President Trump said Thursday in Doha that Iran had “sort of” agreed to terms on a nuclear deal with the United States. “Iran has sort of agreed to the terms: They’re not going to make, I call it, in a friendly way, nuclear dust. We’re not going to be making any nuclear dust in Iran,” he said at a business roundtable, crediting the supposed progress to his administration’s “maximum pressure” sanctions regime. (It’s unclear what he means by “nuclear dust.”) Following talks in Oman last week, a top Iranian official said Wednesday that his government was willing to give up its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Iran has not yet publicly commented on Trump’s latest statement.
- The Department of Homeland Security has requested more than 20,000 National Guard members to help enforce the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts, the New York Times reported Thursday. If approved by the Defense Department, the call-up would mark the first time National Guard troops have been deployed to directly enforce immigration law, although they have been used to support immigration enforcement operations in the past. The request follows attempts by the Trump administration to crack down on illegal immigration by pulling in personnel from federal agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as working with state and local law enforcement.
- The medical team that delivered the first custom gene-editing treatment ever, curing the rare genetic disorder of an infant, presented their work on Thursday at the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy. The group of researchers, several of them at the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, used an innovative technique known as base editing to change a single mutation in the genetics of their patient, KJ Muldoon, who was born with the rare CPS1 genetic disorder. The breakthrough could open the door to treating the tens of millions of Americans suffering from rare genetic disorders.
- The cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced Thursday that criminals had obtained the personal data of a “small subset” of customers and were demanding $20 million for not making the information public. CEO Brian Armstrong said on X that the criminals had bribed overseas customer service agents for the information, but had not obtained passwords, private keys, or funds. He added that criminals were using the information to impersonate customer service agents and attempt to access customers’ funds. The company estimates that the costs of the attack and reimbursing customers would be between $180 and $400 million.
- The Supreme Court on Thursday heard oral arguments in the Trump administration’s challenge to the blocking, by nationwide injunction, of the president’s executive order seeking to abrogate birthright citizenship. The justices seemed divided on the Trump administration’s arguments that lower courts should not have the power to issue nationwide injunctions, with multiple opponents of the White House arguing that restricting injunctions’ scope to only the parties affected by the case would be administratively unworkable. Some justices also seemed to cast doubt on the constitutionality of the executive order itself.
Reconciliation Nation
Bill markups aren’t anyone’s idea of a fun all-nighter, so who can blame at least two members of Congress who appeared to fall asleep during a marathon markup for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Wednesday? The hearing ran for more than 24 hours as Democrats tried to either delay or force messaging votes on proposed amendments to Republicans’ “one big, beautiful” reconciliation bill.
Dealing with such antics from the opposing party is tiring, but Republicans in the House of Representatives have more difficult problems within their own conference. Various disagreements have emerged as GOP lawmakers haggle over the final details of their bill to put in place President Donald Trump’s key legislative priorities, bypassing the Senate filibuster through the budget reconciliation process and enabling the legislation to pass with no Democratic support. All the relevant committees have released the text of their portions of the bill and advanced them to the next step in the process. And of course, not everyone ...
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Today’s Must-Read
Humanitarian aid and development aid are not the same thing. It’s the difference between providing temporary shelter for a homeless person and tackling the underlying structural, political, and economic conditions that made that person homeless in the first place. It’s the difference between fixing the problem right in front of you and fixing the cause that led to it. Over USAID’s 60-plus years, development has become a barely visible thread connecting the agency to its original purpose. Gradually and inexorably, as an aid-industrial complex grew, USAID went from being a thoughtful, experimenting, exciting venturer into the complexities of human development to being a largely bureaucratic and technocratic delivery agency—a humanitarian FedEx.
Toeing the Company Line
Our People
The vices, and possible virtue, of tribalism.
Trump’s Middle East Trip Calls Attention to His Personal Business Ties
The Trump Organization has deals with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE.
‘Deals Are Coming’
White House tells congressional Republicans tariffs aren’t permanent.
Axing the Property Tax, Explained
As home values have spiked, Florida and other states are weighing elimination of property taxes.
Why I Was Wrong About Head Start
Alas, the pretense of knowledge.
LIVE: SCOTUS Hears Birthright Citizenship Case
‘This doesn’t cut easily along partisan lines.’
Mr. Trump in the Middle East
As long as the checks clear.
Worth Your Time
- In the Washington Post, Gary Winslett wrote about the biggest culprit in the decline of Rust Belt manufacturing: the South. “The Rust Belt’s manufacturing decline isn’t primarily about jobs going to Mexico. It’s about jobs going to Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. To put it in college football terms, the traditional Big Ten has been losing out to the Southeastern Conference. In 1970, the Rust Belt was responsible for nearly half of all manufacturing exports while the South produced less than a quarter,” he wrote. “Today, the roles are reversed, it is the Rust Belt that hosts less than one-fourth of all manufactured exports and the South that exports twice what the Rust Belt does. This migration didn’t happen by accident. It was driven by specific policy choices. States such as Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina and Texas have aggressively courted manufacturers by promising business-friendly policy environments.”
- Writing for Noema Magazine, Thor Hanson reflected on the biological mysteries awaiting us in our own backyards. “It started with a thump, the grim sound of a bird hitting the window of my little office shack. When I ran outside to check, I found the first hermit thrush that I had ever seen in our yard, lying dead in the grass. As I lay those few feathered ounces to rest beneath a rose bush, my sorrow was tinged with something like embarrassment. Here I was, studying nature and writing books about it, and I’d had no idea that this celebrated bird was wintering in the shrubs just a few feet from my desk,” he wrote. “As a biologist and a writer, failing to notice a species so famous in both of my chosen trades begged an obvious question: What else was I overlooking in my own backyard? Finding answers would occupy years. I climbed trees, I dug holes, I crawled on my hands and knees, and I sat inside a pile of sticks, listening and watching. I saw an incredible array of species doing things that I had never imagined, from yellowjackets sipping honeydew in the treetops to woodpeckers dropping branches on a saw-whet owl.”
Presented Without Comment
Los Angeles Times: L.A. Vietnamese Man Came for Annual ICE Check-In, Then Nearly Got Deported to Libya
Also Presented Without Comment
Politico: Biden’s Former Natsec Adviser Says Ex-President’s Debate Performance Was ‘A Shock to Me’
Also Also Presented Without Comment
Washington Post: Price Tag for Trump’s Military Parade Could Reach $45 Million
In the Zeitgeist
The inimitable Stanley Tucci returns to Italy on Monday to explore its culture and cuisine in a new National Geographic series, Tucci in Italy. Mamma Mia!
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