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Excellent article!!

📞 Trump on Iran: "We are low-keying it" President Trump signaled yesterday that he's prepared to allow economic pressure on Iran to mount — as opposed to ordering a new military offensive — even as the country continues to defy the U.S. This is a massive strategic shift, after threatening Iran repeatedly and then watching them ignore, mock and even bully U.S. negotiators. Iran is now the one making bombastic and unrealistic demands. Only a week ago, Trump was on the verge of ordering a return to major combat operations. But he didn't make any new military threats during a phone call with Axios' Barak Ravid. Trump also didn't express any anger or frustration about Iran holding up an announcement on a deal with Oman to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. "We are low-keying it," Trump told Barak. "We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money." Trump stressed that Iran "is in very bad shape" economically and has no money to pay its troops. The U.S. naval blockade has exacerbated the Iranian regime's economic crisis, Trump added. "It will work out," Trump said. "It always works out. It's like a chess game." ps:What does that mean? It seems that anytime he needs a comment, that phrase comes out!!

What Zuck's manifesto really means Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the latest tech mogul to unfurl a long AI manifesto, reveals — and defends — Meta's we're-behind-and-need-to-catch-up strategy. Every principle in his 6,500 words happens to be Meta's business plan: Distribute widely (the company has over 3 billion monthly active users), unleash open source AI (it's behind at the frontier), distillation is fine and legal (it does it) and don't delay releases (it's catching up). Zuckerberg argues that the most common concerns are overblown and fail to account for all the positives it can achieve. In his vision of AI, the biggest risk instead is that one government or entity has too much power over the technology, Axios' Ina Fried writes. "One of the ways to achieve both individual empowerment and checks and balances is to make sure you put the technology in everybody's hands," Zuckerberg told me in an interview ahead of the manifesto's release. "It's definitely a different view than what you're hearing from a lot of other people in the tech industry right now." He wrote that he wants to ensure the U.S. and other democracies lead, and ultimately make sure "humanity maintains control over superintelligence so it serves rather than endangers us." 🛰️ The big picture: Even as the world confronts AI that is breaking out of sandboxes, comparing notes on message boards and creating new viruses, Zuckerberg portrays it instead as an analog to other disruptive technical innovations. "Humanity has witnessed many transformative advances," he writes in the manifesto, which he previewed in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last month. "Each time there is fear that people will be left behind. But each time humanity has come out with more people sharing greater prosperity, health, and freedom." ⚠️ Threat level: Zuckerberg contrasts this vision with one in which only some people, some businesses or some countries have access to the most powerful AI, suggesting that would represent a far more dangerous outcome. "I'm personally more worried about centralization than I am about any of the specific risks others are talking about," he told me. 👀 Playing politics: Without naming his rival, Zuckerberg joined the anti-Anthropic pile-on. "I do not understand why anyone who believes that AI will eliminate most jobs and much of humanity's relevance would rush to build that future," he writes. Zuckerberg's plan for Meta is that "everyone will have free or affordable access to these tools," with the paid versions using a "dynamic auction mechanism" to get the compute they need at the lowest possible price. "This will ensure the benefits of superintelligence are distributed widely." 🔎 Between the lines: Zuckerberg also said Meta will resume releasing some open-source AI models, now that Meta Superintelligence Labs is up and running, as Axios reported in April. Meta says it's opening the weights of a new model, Muse Glimmer, billed as "one of the highest-performing models of its size," and will open the weights for a version of the foundational model Muse Spark 1.2 in coming weeks. Preempting federal mandates, Zuckerberg added that Meta's independent board will have the power to approve model-release safety criteria and review whether releases meet those standards. 💰 Local spending: Hoping to tamp down data-center backlash, Zuckerberg also announced Meta is launching the Future is for Everyone Fund "to support each community we work in directly." The fund, seeded with $1 billion for U.S. communities where Meta owns and operates data centers, will benefit teachers, first responders, and energy and water infrastructure. The bottom line: The manifesto represents Zuckerberg's clearest effort yet to weigh in on AI's future, both as a matter of policy and technology. Watch a Zuckerberg video ... Read Zuckerberg's essay ... Meta's research blog ... Glimmer model weights.

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A different Fed view Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios Axios CEO Jim VandeHei highlights what he sees as the most overlooked part of the Fed's Warsh era so far: When Mike and I are curious about the "real economy," we talk to sources at big-box stores for a read on real-time sales trends or friends at super regional banks to gauge the mood and money movement. To us, that's the real world and real data, imperfect but less imperfect than dated Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys built for a different time and economy. That's why we think the most interesting thing to watch long-term at the Fed is the seemingly boring data task force Warsh appointed last month to improve the "quality and timeliness of real economic signals that inform the Federal Reserve's policy judgments." The members: Harvard economics professor Raj Chetty, former Walmart CEO Doug McMillon and University of Chicago economics professor emeritus Kevin Murphy. The big picture: AI should surely help aggregate and better analyze more real-time data feeds to help policymakers make better decisions. If not, AI will be a total flop. Imagine a parallel Fed that uses more fine-tuned, real-time data feeds, analyzed without economic worldview bias or personal interest of Fed governors. The bottom line: We've known Warsh for years, and his interest in AI and rethinking data is real and intense. We'd be surprised if the ultimate manifestation of his "new chapter" isn't deeply infused with the work of McMillon & Co.

Warsh rewires the Fed Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh is attempting a high-wire act: rethinking the central bank's approach to guiding the economy, while also using its standard toolkit to bring down stubbornly persistent inflation, Axios chief economic correspondent Neil Irwin reports. A market blowup late last month showed the perils of doing both at the same time. The big picture: Warsh is ultimately trying to rewire the central bank to take greater advantage of AI to understand the economy in real time, aiming for better decision-making in the next few years. Some saw his July 29 news conference as evidence of a lack of commitment to quashing inflation — but to allies, it was a short-lived bump in the road toward a more credible Fed. 🔭 Zoom out: Warsh's supporters frame a couple of volatile trading days as a small price to pay for a world where markets are less dependent on central bank handholding. He seeks a paradigm shift in how the Fed uses AI — but those tools will take time to develop and prove workable, and meanwhile inflation has been elevated for more than five years. In the near term, the Warsh Fed is prepared to use its standard tool of raising short-term interest rates to combat inflation, based on tried-and-true analysis of government economic statistics. The intrigue: Warsh is a full-throated believer that AI is a transformative technology that stands to remake the economy. He has told associates that before taking office, he built AI bots that ingested the collected works of economists Milton Friedman and James Tobin. He then turned to them for their insights on contemporary economic questions. He also sees its use as an urgent need for the Fed itself to more fully embrace AI, both to understand what's happening in the economy at any given moment and to reason toward better policy decisions. His aspiration is that eventually, real-time information from retailers, banks and other companies can give a more reliable guide to what's happening to inflation and growth than government surveys. Reality check: Warsh leads a 112-year-old central bank with a $6.7 trillion balance sheet, which sits at the core of global finance. There's a reason it is historically cautious and slow to change, even with an approach that co-workers describe as pragmatic and collegial. The bottom line: Expect the Warsh Fed to keep pushing boundaries of how technology can shape economic data and policymaking — but with more reassurance that for now, the basic Fed toolkit remains intact.

109 years old. Wow. 9 children. Amazing. Great video.

What I'm trying to show you here is that Martin Luther, Calvin, John Wesley, John Smyth categorically rejected the idea you are "on solid ground" and went so far as to define that you are not on solid ground. I understand that in order to support Ellen White as a real prophet requires that what God said was impossible had to be "possible" otherwise Ellen would be in the soup. I'm only asking you to be honest with yourself and admit that SDA Christology is alien to Protestant Reformation Christology (which is identical to Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy) - SDA Christology instead aligns with "Restorationist Christology. I'll admit it, where you claim that SDA's are on solid ground and that we (including me?) will find out soon when we (including me) will "get all the answers"? Martin Luther could read Greek, Latin and Hebrew - this is in stark contrast to a small group of anti-Trinitarians who couldn't identify the 1st three letters of the Greek Alphabet and taught that Father God had every member, organ and part that a perfect man has and that Christ had the possibility of sinning, loosing His salvation and eternally ceasing to exist. You seem to have zero problem in admitting all these things openly Hobie, and for that I have to respect you for having the courage of your convictions. I disagree with you obviously but I do respect for you for being so bluntly honest about it. Provided you don't try to pass off your Christology as any part of the Reformation there isn't much, I can say, aside from the many Scriptures I've been sharing.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY August 10 1977 Son of Sam serial killer is arrested On August 10, 1977, police arrest 24-year-old postal employee David Berkowitz and charged him with being the “Son of Sam,” the serial killer who terrorized New York City for more than a year, killing six young people and wounding seven others with a .44-caliber revolver. Because Berkowitz generally targeted attractive young women with long brown […] read more Sponsored Content by REVCONTENT 19th Century 1846 Smithsonian Institution created 1970s 1978 Fatal Ford Pinto crash in Indiana American Revolution 1776 London learns of American independence Ancient Egypt 30 B.C. Cleopatra dies by suicide Arts & Entertainment 1793 Louvre Museum opens 1912 Virginia and Leonard Woolf marry 1939 “The Wizard of Oz” movie premieres in Green Bay, Wisconsin 1984 “Red Dawn,” first PG-13 movie, is released Inventions & Science 1937 First-ever electric guitar patent awarded to the Electro String Corporation Natural Disasters & Environment 2003 Temperatures in U.K. top 100 F for first time during European heat wave Sports 1981 Pete Rose sets National League hits record Women’s History 1993 Ruth Bader Ginsburg sworn in as Supreme Court justice World War II 1945 Japan accepts Potsdam terms, agrees to unconditional surrender

> Amazon to build a 35-turbine, 7.6 GW natural gas power plant to service a Texas data center; would be the single largest CO2 emitter in the US by a factor of two (More) | Why data centers need so much power (More, w/video) > Brain study reveals the prefrontal cortex, which controls decision-making and executive functions, can suppress "outside the box" thinking (More) > First complete genome of a songbird mapped; analysis sheds light on the neuroscience of vocal learning (More) | Listen to the zebra finch's "laser beam" vocalizations (More, w/video) How eclipses work: Tomorrow's 1440 Science & Technology newsletter explores eclipses, how they work, and much more.

Country music icon Violet Hensley, known as the “Whittlin’ Fiddler” for her ability to carve and play violins, dies at age 109 (More, w/video)

Don Nelson, five-time NBA champion and Hall of Fame coach, dies at age 86 (More) | How he revolutionized the sport with "Nellie Ball" and won 1,335 regular-season games, the second most in league history (More)

Roman Shipwreck Revealed A Roman-era shipwreck was discovered off the coast of Sicily, Italy’s culture minister announced Saturday. The ship measures about 20 feet wide and 70 feet long and was discovered alongside hundreds of well-preserved clay jars. Scroll for dive footage. The discovery came after a tipoff from a local fisherman, who found what appeared to be a rock while freediving three miles off the coast of Mazara del Vallo. He dove down and discovered the ship before sharing the finding with local authorities. At a depth of about 150 feet, cultural heritage divers from Palermo police confirmed the discovery of the ancient ship and jars, identifying them as the long cylindrical jars typically used to carry wine, olive oil, or grain. Italian authorities will now safeguard and investigate the site to learn more about its history. The Mediterranean seabed is believed to hold numerous still-undiscovered ancient wrecks. Explore the most fascinating treasures 1440 staff have discovered about ancient Rome.

Irish Mob Boss Extradited Daniel Kinahan, suspected head of one of the world’s largest drug syndicates, was taken into custody by Irish officials after his extradition from the United Arab Emirates yesterday. The transfer brings Kinahan home to face charges of directing organized crime and follows his April arrest in Dubai. Formed in the 1990s to traffic street drugs in Dublin, the Kinahan network became one of Europe’s primary importers of illicit drugs, controlling an estimated one-third of the continent's cocaine supply and amassing more than $1B in net worth. The group’s rise was reportedly due to Kinahan’s coordination of a “supercartel” (podcast w/transcript) linking Central and South American cartels with other regional crime networks, including the Italian Mafia. His lavish 2017 wedding in Dubai, to which he had fled a year prior, was infiltrated by undercover DEA agents, allowing them to begin mapping the worldwide network. Kinahan gave a phone interview from an Emirati prison days before being returned—listen to a clip here.

When dogs are born, they are completely blind & cannot hear. The first sense that they develop is the sense of touch. James

Black Residents Warned of Abusive Cops for Years. Then Police Shot and Killed a Toddler. Outside the Walmart in Senatobia, Mississippi, where police shot and killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley, a shrine of stuffed animals sits between the garden center and the pharmacy. There are teddy bears, elephants, and kangaroos with babies in their pouches. There is a Bluey plush toy — Kohen’s favorite cartoon — along with matchbox cars, a green plastic tractor, and an array of artificial flowers. https://theintercept.com/2026/08/06/kohen-wiley-senatobia-mississippi-police-shooting/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=The Intercept Newsletter Congress Might Give ICE the Power to Go After Shoplifters To counter the purported national scourge of “organized retail crime,” a bill moving through Congress would deliver the Department of Homeland Security unprecedented policing powers, granting even more authority to what experts say is an already lawless ICE. https://theintercept.com/2026/08/07/congress-ice-shoplifting-theft-surveillance/? Rubio Is Trying to Keep Leftists Out of U.S. by Banning Supporters of “Economic Sabotage” Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced last month a policy banning visas for foreigners accused of links to “far-left terrorism.” The policy cited Donald Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 as well as the law Rubio used to try to deport the pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil. https://theintercept.com/2026/08/08/state-department-rubio-leftists-visas-terrorism/? State Department Wants Palantir’s Advice on Free Speech and “Countering Digital Surveillance” The Trump administration tapped a surveillance giant with a record of attacking the press to advise the State Department on free speech. https://theintercept.com/2026/08/07/state-department-palantir-free-speech-surveillance/? The Pentagon Is Posting Cryptic Biblical Messages on Social Media As senior military leaders privately warned that the war with Iran was straining U.S. forces, depleting key missile defenses, and leaving the military without sufficient naval resources to continue protecting Israel, the Pentagon turned to Christian scripture in its official social media messaging. https://theintercept.com/2026/08/06/pentagon-department-defense-isaiah-6-8-send-me-iran-war/?

Watchdog for $46 billion tribal gambling industry can't enforce the law without a chairperson On opening day at the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma's new Harrah’s-branded casino, the tribe's chairman watched customers pack the gambling floor while a queue of cars spilled out of the parking lot. Read More.

Trump's immigration crackdown looms over Minnesota's bruising Senate primary In the streets surrounding a drab federal office complex next to the Minneapolis airport, the beleaguered resistance to President Donald Trump found its footing. Read More.

Hindu devotees honor goddesses in India and Britain, in photos In India and Britain, Hindu worshippers are taking part in rituals honoring the divine feminine. The observances come during Aadi, a holy month in the Tamil calendar associated with prayers, offerings and devotion to Hindu goddesses. Read More.

No Ebola cases found on quarantined river boat, Congo authorities say No cases of Ebola have been detected among passengers on a river boat that was placed in quarantine near Kinshasa, health authorities have said. Read More.

🚀 Science group pushing Kelly to run A liberal group working to elect scientists to public office has a 2028 message for Arizona Sen. — and former astronaut — Mark Kelly: Run, Kelly, run. Why it matters: 314 Action Fund has raised its profile this cycle, elevating candidates with STEM backgrounds who've pitched themselves as a bulwark against public health cuts and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 💰 The organization said it raised more than $100 million over the past decade — including $25 million during the 2026 midterms, more than half of which it spent on this year's Democratic primaries. Zoom in: Joshua Morrow, president of the 314 Action Fund, told Axios, "I'd love Mark Kelly to run" for president. "If Mark Kelly ran, we'd be there day one." Kelly has done events with 314 Action, and the group urged former Vice President Kamala Harris to pick him as her running mate in 2024. She chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz instead. 👩‍🔬 Morrow argued that scientist candidates are tapping into the electorate's hunger for "outsiders": "For so long the Democratic Party promoted the same type of candidate and the same type of person, and it's like, that doesn't work." As he put it, the cookie-cutter candidate is "white-guy lawyer." Context: 314 Action Fund received funding from AIPAC's super PAC in 2024 that it used to help now-Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), but it says it hasn't taken any money since then from the group, which has come under fire from many Democrats. Dexter has since disavowed AIPAC, and 314 Action Fund has backed some candidates this year who are sharp critics of Israel — including El-Sayed, a former public health official. What they're saying: Kelly's team declined to comment. He has said that he's seriously considering a run for president in 2028.

💥 Testing Bernie's revolution for '28 Illustration: Aïda Amer / Axios. Stock: Getty Images LA CROSSE, Wis. — Progressive insurgents Francesca Hong and Abdul El-Sayed want to shake up the next race for the White House — a notion that will likely petrify many top Democrats. Why it matters: They aren't running for president — they're vying for statewide office in presidential battlegrounds, and their campaigns are closely watched tests of the Bernie Sanders–style populism they want the party to embrace in 2028. It's a question that has haunted Democrats for a decade: Is America ready for a full-on left turn in politics, like what Sanders pitched when he ran for president in 2016? The prospect worries old-guard Democrats who fear Hong and El-Sayed can't win in November. 🚙 Driving the news: Hong, a self-described democratic socialist running for Wisconsin governor, is leading the polls for Tuesday's primary by double digits, as top Democrats try to stop her. She told us a win in November could boost progressive presidential hopefuls in the future. "A victory for our campaign is a victory for working-class people in Wisconsin and across the country — and it could signal to many candidates that we have common issues that we can be fighting for," Hong said. El-Sayed, Michigan's new Democratic nominee for Senate, went further in a Politico interview, prodding prospective 2028 candidates to embrace Medicare for All and other pieces of his populist agenda. "If not, I'm going to dog you up and down the state," he warned with a brash smile. 🔬 Zoom in: Progressives have long argued that Democrats twice lost the White House to Donald Trump not because voters see them as too far left, as many moderates believe, but because they're viewed as champions of a broken status quo. Now we're beginning to see what testing that theory looks like. To put the challenge into context: No progressive as closely aligned with Sanders as El-Sayed has won a battleground Senate race — and the U.S. has never elected a socialist governor. There was something of a split screen this week in the way many Democratic insiders responded to El-Sayed — whom party leaders are slowly warming to — and Hong, whom even several top progressives are keeping at arm's length. El-Sayed, a former public health official who campaigned on abolishing ICE and expanding Medicare to all Americans, signaled a willingness to reassure general election voters about his views on immigration while maintaining the pugilistic tone that helped him win a hard-fought primary. "We can have a secure border, we can enforce immigration policy, but we can do it without shooting people in the face or the back of the head," he said Friday. El-Sayed embraces the left but eschews the "democratic socialist" label, though many leading progressives who support him describe themselves that way. Many party bigwigs — mindful of Democrats' uphill fight to win control of the Senate — endorsed El-Sayed after his primary win. 😬 Hong's rollout onto the national political scene has been shakier. Hong is a restaurant owner-turned-state representative in Wisconsin whose shoestring campaign unexpectedly caught fire as she championed affordability and backed a moratorium on building data centers at a time when her opponents' campaigns were plagued by scandals. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley is the chief Democratic candidate looking to stop her, backed by Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D). As Hong has garnered national attention, she's gone viral for being mealymouthed when asked on CNN about a past social media post in which she called to "cancel Thanksgiving." Following her in Wisconsin, we saw signs she was adapting her message as voters asked her about her old posts at stop after stop. "People care about the solutions, not just slogans and labels," she told us. Hong told Politico she had "some bad takes on Twitter," but "I've evolved, I've learned." She and El-Sayed have faced criticism over former comments supporting "defunding" the police, which they both have walked back — taking a page from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's playbook. Friction point: Some Democratic strategists who think Hong is too far left point out that progressive leaders Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have endorsed El-Sayed, but not Hong. Hong told us she hasn't sought their endorsements. Senior Democratic Governors Association officials said Friday they believe all of their party's primary candidates could defeat Rep. Tom Tiffany, the expected GOP nominee for Wisconsin governor. Republicans are treating El-Sayed and Hong much the same, casting both as extreme and out of touch. Reality check: Hong still needs to win her primary Tuesday. Crowley, who's seen a bump in the polls, argues that Hong would be a liability for Democrats in the fall. "People don't like socialists," he told us. The bottom line: Hong's and El-Sayed's success or failure could serve as a signal to Democratic primary voters as they weigh the electability of a progressive presidential candidate in 2028. 👀 AOC, who's considering a run for Senate or president, is sure to be watching. Read more. — Holly Otterbein

New kind of flu shot is on the way as the FDA approves Moderna’s mRNA-based vaccine WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new kind of flu vaccine for older people, the first made with the same mRNA technology that was key to ending the COVID-19 pandemic, manufacturer Moderna said. https://apnews.com/article/flu-vaccine-moderna-mrna-fda-mflusiva-59d991a6bf70c26e2f0c210cc8ca87f1?

How to spot the Perseid meteor shower, a summer light show that promises to dazzle NEW YORK (AP) — The Perseid summer light show is back — and viewing conditions are especially promising for the Northern Hemisphere. https://apnews.com/article/perseid-meteor-shower-2026-where-to-see-b8b8679bb5baed6461e012b8c8fa4634? How to spot the Perseid meteor shower, a summer light show that promises to dazzle The Perseid summer light show is back — and viewing conditions are especially promising for the Northern Hemisphere. Read More.

Lake Mead hits historic low water level as Colorado River struggles Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, has plummeted to its lowest water level since it was filled some 90 years ago, another sign of the crisis plaguing the Colorado River system. Years of overuse combined with drought and rising temperatures have been depleting Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the country’s second-largest reservoir. Read more. RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Extreme heat and drought take a toll around the world, in photos Pilots of helicopter that crashed while fighting wildfire in Utah are dead, officials say Wildfires force 20,000 to flee as British Columbia declares state of emergency WATCH: Prolonged drought reveals a village buried beneath an Indonesian water reservoir