Declaring that “the deal is all signed” with Iran, as President Trump did today, is like shopping for a wedding dress after a good first date: It’s just too soon.
A deal has an element of finality and permanence. A nuclear deal with Iran, for example, would require specific obligations, concessions, and verification measures, such as inspections, agreed to by all parties.
In theory, Donald Trump has a consistent position on AI. On the first full day of his second term, the president declared that he would use his full authority to speed the AI industry along and, in particular, to beat China in the AI race: “We have an emergency,” he said. “We have to get this stuff built.” If AI is poised to become the most important technology ever made, the thinking goes, whichever country commands the most powerful bots will dominate the rest of the century and beyond.
One of the most repeated truisms in social-science research is: “The No. 1 best thing for your well-being is your relationships.” Despite using this line myself many times, I’ve nevertheless questioned its universality.
In the fall of 1929, the Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation, then the most successful film company in America, seemed poised to buy Warner Brothers Pictures Inc. The latter was smaller and newer, but it had already become a lucrative commodity, having recently bought Vitagraph, an even tinier studio that operated cutting-edge sound technology.
Even before the first ball of the World Cup was kicked in Mexico City on Thursday, there was one team that everyone was already rooting against. FIFA and its president, Gianni Infantino, have been widely lambasted for ticket costs this year—which are four to 10 times higher than they were for comparable matches at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
The Trump administration has approved media conglomerate Paramount’s $111 billion bid to acquire Warner Bros., one year after Paramount and Skydance Media signed a similar merger that placed Paramount’s movie studio, streaming service and broadcast network CBS under the control of the multibillionaire Ellison family, founders of Skydance and close allies of Donald Trump. The Warner Bros.
Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman is in Belfast, where several days of racist riots have targeted immigrants and ethnic minorities with violence, threats and property destruction. It is the third consecutive summer of organized mob violence against immigrants in Northern Ireland, with roots in the extant paramilitary structures that remain there after decades of sectarian warfare.
More than 100 days into hostilities, Iran and the United States say they have reached a preliminary deal to end the war. Israel, however, is not a party to the tentative deal and says it plans to keep occupying areas of southern Lebanon — a position still contested by Iran and the key sticking point to the partial ceasefire deal agreed to by the U.S. and Iran in April.
Inflation is on the rise, but the Trump administration doesn’t seem concerned.
Is the industry screwed?
Brendan Greeley offers up the surprising origin story of our favorite currency.
Guest host Mary Childs explains why index funds are bending their rules and giving investors little choice but to opt into the AI boom.
The people now running CBS seem really determined to undermine the best thing going.
But inside the health department, workers say the dysfunction of the DOGE era persists.
Chris Klomp is working to boost morale and deliver results at the Health Department after a year of upheaval.
The American Medical Association has sought a working relationship with the health secretary. Members saw moral compromise.
Lawmakers will question the billionaire Microsoft founder and global health philanthropist about his ties to the late sex offender.
Trump administration wants ill recipients to prove they can’t work every six months. Doctors, advocates and state officials wonder how.
Outward’s hosts sit down with the host and co-creator of When We All Get to Heaven.
The neighborhood changes, the church moves, people forget and remember “the AIDS years,” but AIDS isn’t over.
The AIDS cocktail opens new possibilities. And MCC San Francisco tries to use the experience of AIDS to make bigger social change.
The church’s minister gets sick and everyone knows it.
The church’s “it couple” faces AIDS, caregiving, and loss as part of a pair, part of families, and part of a community.
“We have to take care of ourselves because we can’t rely on one foreign partner,” Mark Carney said in a video address. “We can’t control the disruption coming from our neighbors.
We speak with Oscar-nominated filmmaker Rick Rowley about his new documentary, Hell’s Army. The film tracks the Wagner Group, the notorious Russian mercenary army that has fought in Ukraine and other parts of the world. The group’s founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was a confidant to Putin until a failed 2023 mutiny against the government. He died in a suspicious plane crash two months later.
Palestinian activist and green card holder Mohsen Mahdawi, who was targeted by the Trump administration last year as part of a crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activism, faces a new deportation threat. A federal immigration judge has sided with the administration and renewed removal proceedings against him, reviving a case that had been dismissed by an earlier immigration judge. Now he is taking his case directly to the U.S.
The Trump administration is continuing its assault on higher education, but in a departure from its earlier high-profile fights with individual institutions like Harvard, it is now rewriting the federal rules that govern all universities and colleges.
We continue our conversation with acclaimed Iranian environmental scientist Kaveh Madani, who comments on U.S. strikes targeting Iranian water reservoirs, which have exacerbated the country’s water shortage. He criticizes the “normalization of targeting civil infrastructure as a part of a war.”
“Who suffers from the consequences of this? The poor community, the vulnerable communities,” says Madani.
The environmental toll of the artificial intelligence boom continues to mount as tech companies use ever more power to run their data centers and enormous amounts of water for cooling. A new investigation by U.N. scientists warns that AI’s water use in 2030 will match the needs of 1.3 billion people, while its power use will be triple that of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria combined — countries with a total population of 650 million.
[The presidents stare out from their portraits along the White House Corridor of Misleading Presidential Facts.]
Thomas Jefferson: Well, lads, we did it: 250 glorious years. The American experiment is—dare I say it?—a success!
[Donald Trump and Dana White, the Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO, stroll past the wall of paintings.