A Sunny Outlook In Alaska & A Major City Runs Out Of Water

Hi readers, Happy Thursday! Almost there. Today, we’re covering the upcoming Trump-Putin meeting, a bad deal for Google, Kabul’s water crisis, a first lady in prison, the climate crisis in America, Trump’s D.C. plan, and Apple’s smart home plan.

Here’s some good news: According to a recent Gallup poll, just 54% of Americans said they drink alcohol – that marks a record low since the organization began tracking the statistic in 1939!

“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

A Sunny Outlook In The Alaskan Summer

Tomorrow, Trump is set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a U.S. Army and Air Force base located near Anchorage, Alaska. At the meeting, Trump will try to hammer out a deal that might end the war in Ukraine. Normally, you’d expect another failed set of negotiations, make some “Art of the Deal” joke, and move on, but this time Western leaders are betting at least a handful of chips that the peace talks might go well.

Yesterday, a group of top European leaders met with the U.S. President on a video call, outlining their hopes for the negotiations (despite the fact that they won’t be there). German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and other top European leaders talked to Trump on the call. Merz described the meeting as “a truly exceptionally constructive and good conversation” with the president, adding, “There is hope for movement, there is hope for peace in Ukraine.” Trump also seemed to come away from the call happy. “We had a very good call,” he told reporters. “I would rate it a 10. Very friendly.”

Trump seems to have come around to European leaders’ anti-Putin stance after multiple rounds of failed negotiations. When asked if he would try to get the Russian leader to stop targeting Ukrainian civilians, he said no. “I’ve had that conversation with him,” Trump clarified. “I’ve had a lot of good conversations with him, and then I go home and see a rocket hit a nursing home, or a rocket hit an apartment building and people are laying dead in the streets.” This time, he promises, “there will be very severe consequences” if Putin doesn’t agree to end the war on Friday.

A Perplexing Ploy

The world of AI startups can be confusing, fascinating, and concerning depending on how you look at it. This week, an AI firm added another adjective to that list: perplexing. Why? Currently, Google is waiting for U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta in a high-profile antitrust case which has seen the tech giant accused of acting like a monopoly to maintain its top position in the internet search market. Mehta is set to deliver his ruling as early as this week, and could even force Google to spin off Chrome into a separate entity or sell it to another company. 

That’s where our word of the day “perplexing” comes into play… in adverb form. AI startup Perplexity, which offers an AI web search engine that users can talk to like a chatbot, has offered to buy Chrome from Google for the price of $34.5 billion. First of all, the offer was a little bit rude as Google hasn’t actually been ordered to sell off Chrome (yet). Second, Perplexity is valued at $18 billion by investors. 

In an open letter to Google’s parent company Alphabet, Perplexity chief executive Aravind Srinivas said that the offer was “designed to satisfy an antitrust remedy in highest public interest by placing Chrome with a capable, independent operator.” The Wall Street Journal has sued Perplexity over copyright infringement, alleging that the AI firm used its content (without permission) to train its chatbot, and the New York Times and BBC have sent the firm cease-and-desist orders over that same issue as well.

A Crisis In Kabul

• According to a recent report by the Mercy Corps, an international aid organization, Kabul (Afghanistan’s capital city) is likely to become the first modern capital city to run out of water. The organization predicts this could happen as soon as 2030. 

• How did things get this bad? First, climate change has led to increased temperatures and droughts across Afghanistan, making rainfall and snow melts scarcer. Because those water sources have dried up, people have begun digging more wells in the area, which the Taliban government has failed to regulate. In turn, the wells have overburdened underground water reserves, which the Mercy Corps says could run dry within five years.

• “Kabul has been struggling with water issues for two decades, but it never was a priority,” said one water expert. “Now the wells are drying up and it’s an emergency.” The Taliban are largely unable to build dams or redirect rivers to the city due to a lack of resources, and the city’s pipe system is also crumbling as the water crisis worsens. “We are increasingly fighting because water is like gold for us,” said one Kabul resident.

Korea’s Fraught First Family

• South Korea’s former first lady Kim Keon Hee spent her first day in jail yesterday, following in the footsteps of her husband, ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol. Kim is in the slammer because authorities are worried she might destroy evidence needed for an investigation into her alleged crimes, which include bribery, stock fraud and influence peddling. Her husband, in case you forgot, is in jail after he attempted to seize power by imposing martial law.

• Kim’s lawyers claim that reports about her receiving gifts in exchange for political favors are nothing but baseless accusations, and the former first lady has described herself as “a nobody.” She’s now being held in solitary confinement due to the high-profile nature of her case, living in a cell smaller than a parking space. While she’s able to access common facilities like showers and an outdoor exercise area, those times are staggered to avoid contact with other inmates.

Additional World News

• Russian hackers seized control of Norwegian dam, spy chief says (Guardian)

• Greece battles wildfires as heatwave rages across southern Europe (BBC)

• Beijing Evacuated Thousands Before Deadly Floods, but Not a Nursing Home (NYT, $)

• Israel announces West Bank settlement that rights groups say could imperil Palestinian state (AP)

• Zelenskiy in London as Ukraine braces for Trump-Putin meet (Reuters)

A Story Of Climate Change And Ice And Fire

• We’ve got two climate change stories in one today. One is heat-related and the other is ice-related, so you could say we’ve got A Story of Ice and Fire for you all. First, the ice – yesterday, Alaska’s capital city of Juneau was almost overrun by floods. The flooding occurred after the Mendenhall Glacier released a surge of rainwater, snowmelt, and ice into the Mendenhall River, making it overflow its banks. Luckily, the city was able to erect temporary barriers in time, preventing flood damage to hundreds of homes.

• As for the heat story, there’s less of a happy ending. According to official data from Maricopa county, Arizona, at least 400 people are suspected to have died from extreme heat this year. Temperatures in the county have hit at least 110°F for 12 days in a row at time of writing, affecting cities like Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, and Mesa. The thing is, these temperatures aren’t particularly record-breaking – this June was the eleventh-warmest June on record, and July was the ninth. Public health advocates say the high number of heat-related deaths have been caused by urban sprawl and a housing affordability crisis, which both force people out of their homes even during dangerously hot periods.

From President To Police Chief

• On Wednesday, Donald Trump let the cat out of the bag. The president announced that he plans to seek “long-term” control over Washington D.C.’s police department, and warned again that he’s looking to pull similar stunts in other Democrat-held cities.

• Trump used an obscure clause of D.C.’s governance structure to assert his control over the city’s police department and send the National Guard into the capital. Under that statute, though, the White House can only control Washington for 30 days – to remedy this, Trump wants to pass a new piece of legislation granting himself “long-term” control over the city. This is where another problem comes up: Congress isn’t in session until September 2, meaning Trump can’t just shove a bill through the legislative branch. Luckily (for him), Trump already thinks he has a solution. “If it’s a national emergency, we can do it without Congress,” he told reporters yesterday.

• Democrats, according to Trump, are “afraid to do anything because they don’t want to be criticized. But fighting crime is a good thing.” He went on to say, “We’re going to go for statutes in D.C. and then ultimately for the rest of the country, where that’s not going to be allowed,” singling out New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Additional USA News

• ‘Severe’ staff shortages at US veterans’ hospitals, watchdog finds (Guardian)

• Hispanic Democratic Officials in Texas Plead Not Guilty to Voter Fraud (NYT, $)

• There’s Money to Be Made in ‘MAHA.’ Food Companies Want In. (NYT, $)

• Melania Trump threatens to sue Hunter Biden over Epstein claim (BBC)

• Man accused of throwing sandwich at US border agent charged with assault (Guardian)

• Uvalde County and school district release troves of records about the Robb Elementary shooting that left 21 people dead (CNN)

Apple Eyes Your Home

• According to Bloomberg, Apple is planning to move into your home. Yesterday, Bloomberg News reported on the supposed future of Apple, claiming that the tech giant is looking to expand its ecosystem by selling a variety of AI-powered “smart home” products. The most interesting of these is a “tabletop robot” which “resembles an iPad mounted on a movable limb that can swivel and reposition itself to follow users in a room.” The watchful device will supposedly act as a hub for the company’s other smart home offerings, and users will mainly interact with it via an improved version of Siri, which will be able to talk to multiple people and remember more of its conversations.

• Other planned releases include a non-moving version of the hub that looks more like a Google Nest Hub, as well as a smart camera with facial recognition and infrared sensors. The camera, nicknamed J450, will be used for both security as well as automating tasks via the new smart hub. Powering these home devices will be an all-new operating system code-named Charismatic, which will talk to users with help from the newer and smarter Siri. Have we mentioned that Siri will be getting some sort of animated face as well? So when the motion-tracking iPad arm stares at you from your coffee table, at least you’ll have something to make eye contact with.

Additional Reads

• Man Who Tried to Export 850 Turtles Hidden in Socks Pleads Guilty (NYT, $)

• Baby Shark song: South Korean court rejects US composer’s claim catchy tune was plagiarised (Guardian)

• How language is hiding the real internet from you (BBC)

• Chatbots aren’t telling you their secrets (Verge)

• Behind Wall Street’s Abrupt Flip on Crypto (NYT, $)

• I was a Leftie hippie. Could I marry a man who loved guns? (Psyche)

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