Trump's Russia Reversal, Grok Joins The Government, & A Chocolate Cake Infestation

Hey readers, happy Tuesday! Today we’ll be covering Trump’s dismantling of the Education Department, the White House’s split from the Kremlin, shakeups and scuffles in Ukraine and Argentina, Grok in the government, Cuomo’s comeback, and a cursed box of cakes. 

Here’s the good news: On Monday, India announced that 50% of its installed electricity capacity came from non-fossil fuel sources, putting the massive country ahead of its 2030 clean energy target. The milestone indicates that India’s clean energy sector is accelerating well – nice!

“In my travels all over the world, I have come to realize that what distinguishes one child from another is not ability, but access. Access to education, access to opportunity, access to love.” – Lauryn Hill

The Jury Is In: Education Is Out

The Supreme Court has approved Trump’s plan to fully dismantle the Department of Education. On Monday, the conservative-held court paused a lower court’s order which had blocked Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s efforts to lay off almost 1,400 people from the department. While only Congress has the power to actually get rid of the Education Department, McMahon and Trump claim that the White House is legally allowed to move its systems and employees to other federal agencies, essentially stripping the department of all its powers. 

On top of those 1,400 pending layoffs, the Education Department has already begun offloading various programs to other agencies. The Treasury Department is likely to take over federal student loan programs, and the Department of Labor is preparing to handle $2.6 billion of the department’s grant programs for workforce training and adult education. 

“Without enough staff and resources, students will face more barriers to educational opportunity and have fewer places to turn to when their rights are violated,” said Gaylynn Burroughs, the vice president of the National Women’s Law Center. “This is part of a coordinated plan by the Trump administration to dismantle the federal government and roll back hard-won civil rights protections.” 

Another Breakup For Trump

Yesterday, Trump reversed his entire relationship with Russia. After several months of failed negotiations aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, the president is now threatening Moscow with extensive sanctions. Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Trump, is making peace negotiations drawn-out and painful thanks to his grinding assault on Ukraine. “My conversations with him are very pleasant, and then the missiles go off at night,” Trump said of Putin. 

That’s why he’s apparently decided to put a deadline on negotiations. If a ceasefire isn’t reached within 50 days, Trump says he will be forced to implement “severe tariffs.” He didn’t elaborate on the tariffs any further, but did note that they would be secondary tariffs – meaning they would affect Russia’s major international trade partners if implemented. Trump has also floated the idea of the U.S. unilaterally placing 100% tariffs on any country that buys Russian oil, which would put China, India, and Turkey in the crosshairs. While that might sound like an effective way to shut down Russia’s economy, much of its oil is smuggled to trade partners via Moscow’s “shadow fleet,” which renders most of its oil exports untraceable.

Besides trying to pile more economic pressure on Russia, shifted even further away from the Kremlin by promising to make new U.S. weapons available to Kyiv. In a surprising announcement yesterday, the president said that the U.S. will soon make “billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment” available to Ukraine – the Pentagon will first sell the weapons to NATO countries, which will then funnel them to Ukraine. When asked if those sales will include cutting-edge Patriot air defense systems and interceptor missiles, Trump replied, “it's everything.” Ukraine getting its hands on more Patriot systems is crucial for Kyiv, as Russia has been using long-range missiles to rain destruction on Ukraine for years at this point.

Doing The Kyiv Shuffle

• Yesterday, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he would be replacing his country’s prime minister as his troops continue to cede land to Russia’s offensive. In a Facebook post, Zelensky said that Yulia Svyrydenko, who is currently serving as Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister, will be replacing Denys Shmyhal, the current prime minister. Shmyhal has been serving as prime minister since 2020, making the change the biggest shakeup in Kyiv since Russia’s invasion began.

• The political shift comes as Zelensky is increasingly using his martial law powers to crack down on opposition. Journalists and critics of Kyiv have been targeted with sanctions and draft orders, and some civilian-elected mayors have been forcibly replaced by Kyiv-appointed military administrators. How does Shmyhal’s replacement tie into this all? He was apparently attempting to organize a network of bureaucrats that Zelensky didn’t like, and the president also believes that the change will “renew” the country’s government somehow. 

Things Get Messi In Argentina

• That wasn’t the only weird power shift at the top of international politics yesterday –  in Argentina, President Javier Milei got into a scuffle with his vice president as well. Victoria Villarruel, Milei’s second in command, engaged her boss in a very public feud over plans to increase pensions on Monday, telling him to “grow up.” In response, Milei called her “stupid” and “a traitor.”

• The spat came after Argentina’s Congress passed measures which will increase pensions and disability allowances – both of which Milei violently disagreed with. The president quickly promised to veto both, and pinned the blame on Villarruel for even allowing Congress to vote on them. After releasing his promise to veto the social support measures, Milei reposted a comment calling his running mate a “traitor, a demagogue and stupid in economic terms,” prompting her “grow up” remark. Milei has driven down Argentina’s inflation rate and brought the national budget into surplus, but those gains have come at the expense of vulnerable people whose livelihoods rely on pension increases.

Additional World News

• China GDP: Economic growth beats expectations as Trump tariffs loom (BBC)

• Plan to Indefinitely Displace Palestinians Threatens to Derail Gaza Truce (NYT, $)

• Ethiopian troops 'executed' aid workers in Tigray war, charity says (BBC)

• UN’s Albanese hails 30-nation meeting aimed at ending Israeli occupation of Palestine (Guardian)

• Why Syria's Bedouin and Druze have clashed, raising fears of sectarian violence (AP)

Grok Goes Government Mode

• Last week, xAI’s Grok chatbot went wild on X, making a whole host of antisemitic statements and even dubbing itself “MechaHitler.” This week, it was handed a $200 million contract by the Pentagon. According to the Pentagon, Grok will be used to “develop agentic AI workflows across a variety of mission areas” – alongside the contract announcement, xAI released a statement saying it would be working on a “Grok for Government,” which will be custom-trained to deliver “frontier AI products” to the U.S. government.

• In a statement regarding Grok’s racist meltdown last week, xAI said that its instructions for the chatbot telling it to not be “afraid to offend people who are politically correct,” had some “undesired” effects. These apparently made it “ignore its core values in certain circumstances in order to make the response engaging to the user,” leading to the bot “producing responses containing unethical or controversial opinions.” The company claims the changes have been reported, but do we really want an algorithm that’s one tweak away from declaring itself “MechaHitler” anywhere near the Department of Defense?

Cuomo Comes Back For More

• Andrew Cuomo is a masochist, apparently. Yesterday, the former New York governor, who was recently crushed in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, announced that he would be running in November’s mayoral election as an independent. Cuomo’s mayoral bid is his attempt at a political comeback after being slammed by two controversies: a series of sexual harassment allegations and his administration’s purposeful underreporting of Covid-19 deaths in nursing homes during the pandemic.

• Cuomo is being bankrolled by New York state real estate and business groups. One group gave him $10 million in the leadup to June’s Democratic primary, and another spent $22 million on promoting Cuomo while pushing attack ads on Zohran Mamdani. Despite all that money, Cuomo was steamrolled by Mamdani by almost 13%. Incumbent mayor Eric Adams – who is also running as an independent with funding from real estate groups – spoke out against Cuomo, who is likely to take some of his votes. “Cuomo is wasting time and dividing voters,” Adams said in response to Cuomo’s announcement. “The people spoke loudly — he lost. Yet he continues to put himself over the number one goal — beating Mamdani and securing our city future.”

Additional USA News

• 'Panicking': Recent college grads struggle to find jobs (NPR)

• Texas camp leader waited over an hour after flood warning to evacuate (Guardian) 

• Trump says Club World Cup trophy will remain in Oval Office after tournament’s end (Guardian) 

• 'Heart-breaking': Locals and visitors devastated by loss of Grand Canyon Lodge (BBC)

• Democrats Must ‘Toughen Up’ Against Trump, Obama Tells Donors  (NYT, $)

The Chocolate Cake Box From Hell

• This is quite possibly the most disturbing and upsetting story we’ve ever had the displeasure of publishing. On Monday, German customs officials announced that they’d confiscated chocolate sponge cake boxes, which were being used to smuggle some dangerous contraband. The mortifying contents of the confectionary boxes? 1,500 young tarantulas individually packaged within small plastic containers. According to the officials, they figured out that the boxes didn’t actually contain delectable chocolate cakes due to their “noticeable smell.” 

• “My colleagues at the airport are regularly surprised by the contents of prohibited packages from all over the world, but the fact that they found around 1,500 small plastic containers containing young tarantulas in this package left even the most experienced among them speechless,” said a spokesman for Cologne Bonn airport, adding that it “saddens us to see what some people do to animals purely for profit.” The tarantula were flown in on a flight from Vietnam for sale in the exotic animals trade – many of them unfortunately (for them) didn’t survive the flight.

Additional Reads

• Little videos are cooking our brains (Vox) 

• Cloning Came to Polo. Then Things Got Truly Uncivilized (Wired)

• Elmo's hacked X account posted racist messages. Sesame Workshop is trying to regain control (AP)

• 'Wobbly-tooth puberty': How children's brains change at six-years-old (BBC)

• Let your kid climb that tree. It could actually make them safer. (Atlantic)

• Superman’s Extreme Sincerity Was Its Box-Office Superpower (Vulture) 

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