The Big Beautiful Bill Breakdown & ID'ing The Idaho Shooter

Hi readers, happy Tuesday! Today, we’re covering the Big Beautiful Bill battle, the Syrian government’s dark secrets, Netanyahu’s White House visit, the Idaho shooter, Trump’s latest attack on immigrants, and a robot soccer match.

Here’s the good news: According to a recent study, stem cells extracted from wisdom tooth surgeries are able to be used to treat multiple serious diseases. As a bonus, wisdom tooth stem cells can be collected more ethically than normal stem cells, as roughly 10 million wisdom tooth surgeries are performed annually in the U.S. alone.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ― Albert Einstein

A Big Beautiful Battle

For most days of the year, you’d be right to say that you work harder than most Senators. But yesterday, at least, the country’s upper legislature was up burning the midnight oil. Why? Trump wants his landmark “Big Beautiful Bill” to be on his desk by July 4, and the bill will need re-approval in the House because the Senate has made so many changes to its provisions.

The budget bill would cut social support programs like Medicaid and food stamps while providing sweeping tax cuts and sending more money to the military and immigration agencies. While Republicans claim they’re fiscally conservative, experts claim that the bill will actually inflate the national debt over the next decade. This debt burden, alongside cuts to some of the U.S.’s most important support systems, have understandably worried centrist Republicans in both the House and Senate – with the GOP’s paper-thin majorities in both legislatures, those flip-floppers could seal the deal for Trump’s bill. 

Amendments made to the bill in the Senate yesterday include permanent tax cuts for the wealthy and weakened cuts to food stamps. Altogether, those changes would raise the federal deficit by $3.3 trillion over the next decade, a $1 trillion increase to the version of the bill passed by the House. Elon Musk, who is for some reason extremely worried about the federal budget, has vowed to spend his fortune funding primary challenges against GOP lawmakers who vote for the bill. He also tweeted that the two-party system essentially means that “we live in a one-party country – the PORKY PIG PARTY!!” 

Damascus Has Some Syria-s Question To Answer

According to an investigation by Reuters, fighters linked to Syria’s current U.S.-backed regime have killed almost 1,500 people belonging to the country’s Alawite ethnoreligious group this year. The killings were mostly carried out by Sunni militants in early March of this year, just a few months after the regime of President Bashar al-Assad was toppled by a coalition of militant groups led by the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Sunni Islamist organization last December.

Technically, HTS was dissolved on January 29, but in reality it was simply integrated into various institutions across Syria’s current government. According to Reuters, many of the groups involved in the Alawite massacres were similarly folded into the government – for example, the General Security Service was an HTS-backed security unit which participated in the killings but now serves as part of Syria’s Interior Ministry. Other groups involved in the Alawite killings include the HTS’s elite Unit 400 fighting force and the Sunni militia Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade, both of which were affiliated with the transitional government at the time of the massacres.

While some of the individual groups have been sanctioned by the E.U., the U.S. has done nothing about the killings at all. In fact, soon after the Reuters report was published, Trump signed off on an executive order revoking almost all sanctions on Syria. “President Trump believes ‘there is great potential in working with Syria to stop radicalism, improve relations, and secure peace in the Middle East,’” said the White House in an announcement regarding the executive order. 

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More Middle East Mediations?

• After securing a kind-of victory in resolving the Iran-Israel conflict, Trump is now re-trying his hand at ending the conflict in Gaza. Yesterday, the White House announced that it would be hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next Monday as Trump hopes to hammer out a ceasefire deal and hostage exchange between Hamas and Israel.

• The president offered an unwarranted display of confidence when talking about a possible peace deal last Friday, telling reporters that “within the next week we’re going to get a ceasefire” in Gaza. The usual Trump bluster? Or does the president have an ace up his sleeve? We’ll find out soon.

• The thing about a potential ceasefire in Gaza is that both Hamas and Israel need to agree to lay down their arms, but with the way the IDF is killing people in Gaza it’s not clear that Hamas would sign off on an end to the conflict. Yesterday, Israel’s military killed at least 74 people in Gaza – 30 were killed at a seaside cafe while 24 others were shot dead trying to collect supplies from one of the enclave’s infamous Israel and U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund aid distribution sites.

• The U.S., soon after those attacks, rewarded Israel with more supplies for its military campaign. The White House announced the sale of more than 7,000 bomb guidance kits to the Israeli military in a deal totalling over $510 million. The guidance kits will be used to help the IDF aim two types Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) bombs, which it has used to strike targets in both Iran and Gaza.

Additional World News

• Starmer faces down a revolt over welfare reform after a troubled first year in office (AP) 

• White House says Canadian PM ‘caved’ to Trump demand to scrap tech tax (Guardian)

• Cartel Fighters Make a Desperate Alliance That Could Transform Underworld (NYT, $)

• Dangerous Heat Grips Much of Europe, With More to Come (NYT, $)

• Asian factories hobbled by US tariff risks despite modest relief (Reuters)

Identifying The Idaho Shooter

• On Sunday, an Idaho man started a brushfire, opening fire at three firefighters who came to put it out. Two of the firefighters were killed in the shooting and the third was injured. The suspect – a 20 year-old named Wess Roley – was found dead at the scene of the crime and is presumed to have shot himself.

• According to Roley’s grandfather, the 20 year-old had wanted to pursue a career as a firefighter earlier in his life, but was working in the tree service industry in recent months. Roley himself had no criminal record – just minor run-ins with police officers – and was apparently living in his car, which was found near the scene of the crime.

• His parents, who divorced in 2015, were a pair of U.S. Army veterans who separated once his father Jason became violent. Court documents reveal that the father “punched several holes in the walls” before pushing his wife to the ground. Roley’s mother told a judge that her ex-husband had “threatened to sit outside my house with a sniper rifle or burn my house down.”

Does That Sound Like Justice To Anyone?

• The Justice Department just revealed a new way that the Trump White House is planning to persecute immigrants. In a memo leaked yesterday (but dated June 11), Justice Department leaders asked government attorneys to focus on stripping naturalized Americans of their citizenship if they’ve committed certain crimes.

• According to the memo, the DoJ wants to denaturalize immigrants if they’re proven to be involved “in the commission of war crimes, extrajudicial killings, or other serious human rights abuses … [and] naturalized criminals, gang members, or, indeed, any individuals convicted of crimes who pose an ongoing threat to the US.” Now the start of that list might seem like a no-brainer – who wants a war criminal in this country? – but we’ve seen that the White House has been quick to label people with simple tattoos as gang members, so this might become a serious problem for innocent citizens sooner than you’d think.

Additional USA News

• DOJ announces a record-breaking takedown of health care fraud schemes (NPR)

• Judges consider whether Trump can use wartime act against Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (AP) 

• More Class-Action Lawsuits May Be Used to Try to Block Trump After Supreme Court Ruling. How Do They Work? (NYT, $)

• White House says Canada's Carney 'caved' to Trump on tech tax (BBC)

• Stanford University will cut $140m from its budget, citing ‘federal policy changes’ (Guardian)

Robo-Messi Is A No-Go

• If you end up watching next year’s World Cup and find yourself asking “Where’s China? Why is a country with a population of 1.4 billion not competing here?,” just remember this story. In short, the country is more interested in robot soccer than actual human-powered football.

• Over the weekend, four teams of three AI-powered robots faced off in the inaugural RoBoLeague robot soccer competition in Beijing. Unlike the robot marathon we wrote about a few months ago, these robo-footballers were fully autonomous and were supposed to be unassisted by humans. Of course, they looked closer to a bunch of drunk toddlers than prime Real Madrid, but the robots were able to rack up some decent goals as the tournament progressed.

• When the robots tipped over – usually after trying to move at any speed faster than a gingerly shuffle – they were surprisingly good at helping themselves up. Unfortunately, though, some ended up needing some human help to get up, while others literally needed to be stretchered off the pitch like an injured player. If you’re interested in watching some painful footage, here’s a link. As for the winner of the tournament, Tsinghua University’s THU Robotics team claimed the robo-crown in a 5-3 victory over the China Agricultural University’s Mountain Sea team.

Additional Reads

• Microsoft says AI system better than doctors at diagnosing complex health conditions (Guardian)

• Why Can’t Americans Sleep? (Atlantic)

• Is this fitness metric just making us feel worse? (Vox)

• OpenAI Leadership Responds to Meta Offers: ‘Someone Has Broken Into Our Home’ (Wired)

• Trump Wants America to Make iPhones. Here’s How India Is Doing It. (NYT, $)

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