A Firing At The Fed & Elon Musk Goes To Court

Hi readers, welcome back! Today we’re covering Trump’s firing at the Fed, Israel’s double-tap bombing, South Korea’s White House visit, a dressing-down in Paris, new flag-burning laws, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia’s second ICE arrest, and Elon Musk’s latest case against OpenAI.

Here’s some good (but also gross) news: In a study published on Monday, researchers from China reported that they were able to semi-successfully transplant a lung from a genetically modified pig into the body of a (brain dead) human recipient. The experiment marks the first transplant of its kind, and the lung functioned for nine days in the human body – the hope is that the data gained from the experiment will be used to improve further organ transplant technology.

“Summer has always been good to me, even the bittersweet end, with the slanted yellow light.” – Paul Monette

A Flabbergasting Firing At The Fed

At this point, the word “unprecedented” doesn’t mean much in American politics, but here it is again. Last night, the president pulled off an unprecedented coup at the Federal Reserve, claiming that he’d fired Fed governor Lisa Cook over allegations of mortgage fraud. Cook’s supposed firing marks the first time that a U.S. president has ever ousted a Federal Reserve governor in the Fed’s 111-year history and follows up on Trump’s repeated threats to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not raising interest rates quickly enough. 

Cook, though, says she doesn’t plan to step down from her job. While the president is technically allowed to fire members of the Fed’s board “for cause,” this is understood to mean dereliction of duty or unlawful acts. “President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so,” Cook told CNN via her attorneys. “I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022.” 

According to CNN, there was at least one irregularity in Cook’s mortgage history: in 2021, she took out mortgages on two different properties, listing both as her “primary” residence. However, Cook hasn’t faced any actual charges for that blip, and for the irregularities to register as an actual crime, prosecutors would need to show that she’d done so intentionally. “I do intend to take any questions about my financial history seriously as a member of the Federal Reserve and so I am gathering the accurate information to answer any legitimate questions and provide the facts,” Cook said last week when the allegations were first brought up. 

One Double-Tap, But No Likes

Yesterday, Israel’s military conducted a controversial “double-tap” bombing attack on Nasser hospital in southern Gaza, killing at least 20 people. Among the dead are five journalists and multiple first responders who were caught in a secondary blast at the hospital after the IDF’s initial bombing. 

The five journalist casualties add to the disproportionately high number of media workers killed in the Gaza conflict. According to the U.N., Israel’s military has killed at least 247 journalists over the past 22 months (including the casualties from this attack), making the Israel-Hamas war the deadliest conflict for media workers on record. Israel has also banned foreign press from entering Gaza to report on the conflict, meaning the vast majority of media coverage relies on a shrinking number of Palestinian reporters.

According to the BBC, the first strike damaged the hospital’s emergency department, inpatient ward, and surgical unit. Journalists and first responders rushed to help the wounded and film the aftermath, but the second bomb caught them just ten minutes after the first strike. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the double-tap strike as “a tragic mishap,” adding that his country “values the work of journalists, medical staff, and all civilians” before promising that the IDF is conducting a “thorough investigation” of the attack. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron called the strikes “intolerable,” U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he was “horrified” at the IDF’s repeated attacks on journalists, and even U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he was “not happy” about the strikes.

Remove The Target On Your Back

A Seoul-Sucking Deal

• Recently elected South Korean president Lee Jae Myung visited the White House for the first time yesterday. Unfortunately for him, the main headline that came out of his meeting with Trump was the U.S. president announcing that he hopes to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sometime this year. “I hope you can bring peace to the Korean Peninsula, the only divided nation in the world, so that you can meet with Kim Jong Un, build a Trump World (real-estate complex) in North Korea so that I can play golf there, and so that you can truly play a role as a world-historical peacemaker,” Lee told Trump.

• Besides the North Korean rhetoric, both sides were apparently trying to work out some sort of trade/security deal. “I think we have a deal done,” Trump told the media after the visit. “They had some problems with it, but we stuck to our guns.” Trump has described Seoul as a “money machine” in the past, adding that it’s been able to grow its economy by depending on America’s massive military presence in Korea. Pundits think he pushed for Korea to up its defense spending in exchange for America’s continued “protection” – Trump himself told reporters that Korea should simply give the U.S. the “land where we have the big fort,” referring to Camp Humphreys, a 3,454-acre, $11 billion U.S. Army base just south of Seoul.

The City Of Lights & Diplomatic Fights

• Yesterday, France summoned U.S. Ambassador Charles Kushner for a dressing-down. The meeting was a response to a letter by the diplomat criticizing Paris for allegedly not doing enough to combat antisemitism in France, a claim that the country’s government said was “unacceptable.” Kushner was conveniently unavailable for the meeting, meaning his embassy’s No. 2 took the verbal beating for him. During the meeting, French diplomats said Kushner’s letter amounted to “interference” in France’s internal politics, adding that it “presented a view that did not correspond to the reality” of how France is working to combat antisemitism.

• If you’re wondering why Kushner’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s the father of Jared Kushner, who’s married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka. That connection is probably Kushner’s main qualification for his ambassadorship, as he’s actually a former real estate developer, a disbarred attorney, and also a convicted felon. In his letter, Kushner wrote that “public statements haranguing Israel and gestures toward recognition of a Palestinian state embolden extremists, fuel violence and endanger Jewish life in France,” and he urged French President Emmanuel Macron “to act decisively: enforce hate-crime laws without exception, ensure the safety of Jewish schools, synagogues and businesses ... and abandon steps that give legitimacy to Hamas and its allies.”

Additional World News

• At Least One Dead as Typhoon Kajiki Slams Vietnam (NYT, $)

• Rivers at critical level as Scotland's water supplies feel the strain (BBC)

• What’s Next for Ukraine After All That Diplomacy? (NYT, $)

• Iran directed antisemitic attacks in Australia, PM Albanese says (AP)

• Marshall Islands parliament burns down in overnight fire (Reuters)

• Protests erupt in Indonesia over privileges for parliament members and ‘corrupt elites’ (Guardian) 

Burning The Spirit Of The Law (But Not The Flag)

• On Monday, Trump signed an executive order criminalizing the burning of the American flag, despite the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled that flag-burning is a Constitutionally protected act of free speech. The order instructs the Justice Department to prosecute flag-burning “to the fullest extent possible” – while it acknowledges that the act is protected by the Constitution, the order’s text says there is room to prosecute flag-burners when their actions are “likely to incite imminent lawless action” or amount to “fighting words.”

• As he signed off on the order, Trump fired off his usual stream-of-consciousness ramble. Burning the flag, he claimed, “incites riots at levels we’ve never seen before,” adding that some people were “going crazy” over burning the stars and stripes. According to the president, flag-burning will carry a sentence of one year in jail with no opportunity for early release, and any foreign nationals caught in the act could have their visas revoked or face deportation. 

Deportation Double Jeopardy

• Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was illegally deported to El Salvador in March, was re-detained by ICE on Monday. Abrego Garcia was released from ICE custody last Friday but was arrested once again by immigration officials while in Baltimore for a mandated ICE check-in. 

• Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said they expected their client to be detained at the check-in after the U.S. government announced that it wanted to re-deport him to Uganda over the weekend. Soon after his arrest yesterday, they filed a petition aimed at stopping his deportation to Uganda, claiming that ICE detained Abrego Garcia without granting him the chance to express his “fears of persecution and torture in that country.” The judge overseeing Abrego Garcia’s case has already warned that ICE agents “are absolutely forbidden at this juncture to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia from the continental United States.” Will they follow her orders? Who knows.

Additional USA News

• First human case of flesh-eating screwworm parasite confirmed in US (Guardian)

• What’s Life Like in Washington, D.C., During Trump’s Takeover? (New Yorker)

• Judge rules Utah’s congressional map must be redrawn for the 2026 elections (Guardian) 

• Lil Nas X pleads not guilty to four felony charges after LA arrest (BBC) 

• House Republican Seeks Documents From Epstein Estate (NYT, $)

• Attendees could be in for thunderstorms, dust and hail at this year's Burning Man (NPR)

The Clash Of The AI Titans

• It’s been a while since we caught up with Elon Musk, as he’s kept a relatively low profile after being unceremoniously dumped out of the Trump White House. Now, he’s making headlines again as xAI, his AI startup, is suing Apple and OpenAI. According to Musk’s lawsuit, filed in a Texas court yesterday, the two tech giants are engaged in “a conspiracy to monopolize the markets for smartphones and generative AI chatbots” via a 2024 deal that integrates OpenAI’s LLMs into Apple devices.

• Just a few weeks ago, Musk threatened to sue the pair, claiming that Apple was “making it impossible” for non-ChatGPT AI apps to top its App Store rankings. “Defendants entered an unlawful agreement and conspiracy to leverage Apple’s monopoly power in the US smartphone market to maintain OpenAI’s monopoly power in generative AI chatbots,” Musk’s lawyers wrote in their complaint. Apparently, xAI is seeking to “recover billions in damages” with the case.

• The case is the latest episode in an almost decade-long spat between Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The pair founded OpenAI together in 2015, but Musk left the company in 2018 after a failed buyout attempt. Since then, Musk has repeatedly sued the company as Altman attempts to turn it into a for-profit enterprise. “We’re sad that it’s come to this with someone whom we’ve deeply admired – someone who inspired us to aim higher, then told us we would fail, started a competitor, and then sued us when we started making meaningful progress towards OpenAI’s mission without him,” OpenAI wrote last year. In response to the most recent suit, a spokesperson for the AI firm said the case was “consistent with Mr Musk’s ongoing pattern of harassment.”

Additional Reads

• A Crypto Micronation Is Making Friends at the White House (Wired)

• A24’s Empire of Auteurs (New Yorker)

• The surprising foods that lead to better sleep (BBC) 

• Payton Talbott, a New Kind of Fighting Man (NYT, $)

• Is Today’s Self-Help Teaching Everyone to Be a Jerk? (NYT, $)

• Are weighted vests good for bones and muscle? Fact-checking a fitness trend (NPR)

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