President Donald Trump wants lower interest rates. Achieving that objective will require overcoming bigger obstacles than Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

There are structural forces that drive the cost of borrowing, and right now they’re pointing up. Governments and businesses are piling on debt to pay for tax cuts, military spending, and AI investments — which means more demand for credit. As the Baby Boomers retire and China decouples from the US, the pool of saving to finance those loans is drying up.

Attacks on Fed independence risk shrinking the pool further. Investors don’t want to see the value of their hard-earned cash inflated away by a central bank under political control.

Add all of this together and it points to a world where 4.5% may be the new normal for ten-year Treasuries — the crucial rate for mortgages and corporate bonds, and the one Trump’s team says it wants to bring down. In fact, Bloomberg Economics analysis shows it’s more likely to trend above that figure than below it. For the world’s biggest economy, that means a wrenching transition.

Read it all.

"Trump’s Interest Rate Obstacle Is Bigger Than Powell" https://t.co/CcNXpiVOuR pic.twitter.com/MLa29IeB2h

— Scott Lincicome (@scottlincicome) August 4, 2025

President Trump’s extensive tariffs have already started to generate a significant amount of money for the federal government, a new source of revenue for a heavily indebted nation that American policymakers may start to rely on.

As part of his quest to reorder the global trading system, Mr. Trump has imposed steep tariffs on America’s trading partners, with the bulk of those set to go into effect on Aug. 7. Even before the latest tariffs kick in, revenue from taxes collected on imported goods has grown dramatically so far this year. Customs duties, along with some excise taxes, generated $152 billion through July, roughly double the $78 billion netted over the same time period last fiscal year, according to Treasury data.

Indeed, Mr. Trump has routinely cited the tariff revenue as evidence that his trade approach, which has sowed uncertainty and begun to increase prices for consumers, is a win for the United States. Members of his administration have argued that the money from the tariffs would help plug the hole created by the broad tax cuts Congress passed last month, which are expected to cost the government at least $3.4 trillion.

Read it all.

Trump’s Tariffs Are Making Money. That May Make Them Hard to Quit. https://t.co/0IaBKVoYff

— tony romm (@TonyRomm) August 3, 2025

The U.S. economy is growing again, helped by trade swings and American consumers who keep spending. There are also signs of caution.

The Commerce Department said U.S. gross domestic product—the value of all goods and services produced across the economy—rose at a seasonally and inflation adjusted 3% annual rate in the second quarter. That is up from a 0.5% contraction in the first quarter.

Taken together, the two quarters show an economy that is growing, but more slowly. GDP grew at an average annual rate of 1.2% in the first six months this year, a step down from the 2.5% average pace in 2024.

Both quarters this year were heavily influenced by swings in trade as businesses tried to navigate tariff threats and trade deals from the White House.

“Businesses are very cautious—they don’t know the road map and so they’re driving in the right lane very slowly,” said U.S. Bank chief economist Beth Ann Bovino.

Read it all.

US economy rebounds a surprisingly strong 3% in the second quarter https://t.co/vJqYzkFiUY

— O.C. Register (@ocregister) July 30, 2025

Some obese Americans on Medicare and Medicaid could get access to expensive weight loss drugs under a five-year experiment being planned by the Trump administration.

Under the proposed plan, state Medicaid programs and Medicare Part D insurance plans will be able to voluntarily choose to cover Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound for patients for “weight management” purposes, according to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services documents obtained by The Washington Post.

It’s a strong signal that the administration is open to more broadly covering GLP-1 drugs — lauded by many as a miracle solution to Americans’ long-standing struggle with weight — through government insurance programs. Medicare covers the drugs mainly for patients with Type 2 diabetes, even as some private insurance plans cover them for patients with obesity.

Read it all.

Medicare, Medicaid Plans To Experiment With Covering Weight Loss Drugs – @washingtonpost https://t.co/ctAu2B9pX5

— LiveSquawk (@LiveSquawk) August 1, 2025

It was in 1787 that he first decided to put down a motion in the House of Commons about the slave trade. This nefarious traffic had been going on for three centuries, and the West Indian slave-owners were determined to oppose abolition to the end. Besides, Wilberforce was not a very prepossessing man. He was little and somewhat ugly, with poor eyesight and an upturned nose. When Boswell heard him speak, he pronounced him ‘a perfect shrimp’, but then had to concede that ‘presently the shrimp swelled into a whale.’ In 1789 Wilberforce said of the slave trade: “So enormous so dreadful, so irremediable did its wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for the abolition…. let the consequences be what they would, I from this time determined that I would never rest till I had effected its abolition.

So abolition bills (which related to the trade) and Foreign Trade Bills (which would prohibit the involvement of British ships in it) were debated in the commons in 1789, 1791, 1792,194, 1796 (by which time Abolition had become ‘the grand object of my parliamentary existence’), 1798 and 1799. Yet they all failed. The Foreign Slave Bill was not passed until 1806 and the Abolition of the Slave Trade Bill until 1807. This part of the campaign had taken eighteen years.

Next, soon after the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars, Wilberforce began to direct his energies to the abolition of slavery itself and the emancipation of the slaves. In 1823 the Anti-Slavery Society was formed. Twice that year and twice the following year, Wilberforce pleaded the slaves’ cause in the House of Commons. But in 1825 ill-health compelled him to resign as a member of parliament and to continue his campaign from outside. In 1831 he sent a message to the Anti-Slavery Society, in which he said, “Our motto must continue to be PERSEVERANCE. And ultimately I trust the Almighty will crown our efforts with success.” He did. In July 1833 the Abolition of Slavery Bill was passed in both Houses of Parliament, even though it included the undertaking to pay 20 million pounds in compensation to the slave-owners. ‘Thank God,’ wrote Wilberforce, that I have lived to witness a day in which England is willing to give 20 million pounds for the abolition of slavery.’ Three days later he died. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, in national recognition of his FORTY-FIVE YEARS of persevering struggle on behalf of African slaves.

— John R W Stott, Issues facing Christians Today (Basingstoke: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1984), p. 334

29 July 1833, William Wilberforce, died. Born Hull, evangelical Christian, Clapham Sect member, served as MP for 45 years, a founder of @cmsmission & @biblesociety, leading abolitionist (persuading in 1807 House of Commons to abolish slave trade), moral reformer & philanthropist. pic.twitter.com/DzJchsizTX

— Revd Nicholas Pye (@RevdPye) July 29, 2025

Let thy continual mercy, O Lord, enkindle in thy Church the never-failing gift of love, that, following the example of thy servant William Wilberforce, we may have grace to defend the poor, and maintain the cause of those who have no helper; for the sake of him who gave his life for us, thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Today in the Anglican tradition we thank God for William Wilberforce, an evangelical Anglican, slave abolitionist, founder of the CMS and RSPCA. Wilberforce understood Christianity as inseparable from justice! In a world of growing hate, let us remember and mirror his good works pic.twitter.com/i5RhLQwRva

— Victor-Joseph ❤️‍🔥🕊️ (@Anglicanvictor) July 30, 2025

Six months ago, few people would have anticipated that the United States would place a 15 percent tariff on exports from Japan, one of America’s closest and most longstanding allies. President Trump had campaigned on the idea of a 10 percent universal base-line tariff, plus a higher levy on China, but it was not clear whether he would follow through.

But on Tuesday, when Mr. Trump announced a trade deal that included a 15 percent tariff on Japanese products — the highest rate those goods have faced in decades — there was a palpable sense of relief. Stock markets in Asia and Europe rose. The Japanese Nikkei 225 surged by over 3.5 percent, while shares of Japanese automakers, which will also be charged a 15 percent tariff on their exports to the United States, jumped more than 10 percent. The reaction is a testament to just how quickly and completely Mr. Trump has transformed the world’s expectations regarding tariffs.

Read it all.

Trump’s Tariffs Are the Highest in a Century. But After His Threats, They Seem Like a Relief. https://t.co/eevtXIQ4cC via @NYTimes

— ISMAIL (@iamaniku) July 23, 2025

American missionary Caleb Rowen has witnessed firsthand China’s tightening restrictions on religious faith and practice.

From 2006 to 2016, government policies prohibiting missionary work did not feel strictly enforced, Rowen said. Cross-organizational outreach, partnerships, and Bible translation projects took shape and flourished in this season.

The Chinese government “just turned a blind eye,” he said, “until they didn’t.”

In 2014, the Chinese government started cracking down on Korean missionaries and went on to expel entire Western mission agencies in 2018. In the same year, it shut down prominent house churches and arrested pastors like Wang Yi of Early Rain Covenant Church. It seemed as if overnight, half the missionaries whom Rowen knew had left China. CT is using a pseudonym for Rowen, as he is concerned about his safety for speaking with Christian media. 

Read it all.

“[God] laughs at restrictions, and so do we, because we know that no system on earth can keep the lid on this thing—this chain reaction that God initiated with the cross,” said an American missionary in China. https://t.co/LgaThcpSgw

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) May 11, 2025

The militants are using the quadcopters to drop improvised explosive devices or mortar shells on their targets, five security officials said. They said these explosive devices were packed with ball bearings or pieces of iron.

Provincial police chief Zulfiqar Hameed said the police lacked resources to meet the new challenge.

“We do not have equipment to counter the drones,” he told the local Geo News channel on Sunday. “The militants are better equipped than we are,” he said.

No militant group has claimed responsibility for the drone strikes.

Read it all.

Pakistani Islamist militants use drones to target security forces, officials say https://t.co/b8OU8lkc1R

— Reuters Asia (@ReutersAsia) July 21, 2025

For decades, the prices Medicare pays doctors for different medical services have been largely decided not by Medicare itself, but by a powerful industry group, the American Medical Association.

An A.M.A. committee meets in secret to determine the difficulty and time demands of each type of medical visit, test and procedure, and then recommends to Medicare how much doctors should be paid for performing them.

And for decades, critics have complained that this process unfairly rewards surgeons and other specialists, at the expense of primary care physicians and other generalists.

Medicare officials have been loath to change it because it has spared them from needing their own staff and budget to make such pricing decisions, along with the unpleasant politics of adjudicating conflicts between competing groups of physicians.

Read it all.

“Under the new proposal, Medicare would pay 2.5 % less for every procedure, operation & medical test in 2026, based on data suggesting there have been improvements in “efficiency” over the years.”https://t.co/vZDu3kwjC4

— Howard Liu, MD MBA (@DrHowardLiu) July 21, 2025

…Mr Kruger expressed concern about “two religions moving into the space from which Christianity has been ejected”, saying that he could not “be indifferent to the extent of the growth of Islam in recent decades”.

He did not elaborate on this, save to say that he often found himself in agreement with Muslim MPs on social issues.

“It is the other religion that worries me even more,” he said: “a hybrid of old and new ideas, and it does not have a proper name. I do not think that ‘woke’ does justice to its seriousness.

“It is a combination of ancient paganism, Christian heresies, and the cult of modernism, all mashed up into a deeply mistaken and deeply dangerous ideology of power that is hostile to the essential objects of our affections and our loyalties: families, communities, and nations,” he said.

This religion “must simply be destroyed, at least as a public doctrine”, he said. “It must be banished from public life — from schools and universities, and from businesses and public services.”

Read it all.

The country needs “a revival of faith” and a recovery of “Christian politics”, the Conservative MP Danny Kruger said in the House of Commons on Thursday afternoon#houseofcommons #dannykruger #christianity #newreligion https://t.co/vOC4LXdBtH

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) July 20, 2025

From last year’s disaster in Asheville to this month’s catastrophic floods in Central Texas, the world has entered a new era of rainfall supercharged by climate change, rendering existing response plans inadequate. A Washington Post analysis of atmospheric data found a record amount of moisture flowing in the skies over the past year and a half, largely due to rising global temperatures. With so much warm, moist air available as fuel, storms are increasingly able to move water vapor from the oceans to locations hundreds of miles from the coast, triggering flooding for which most inland communities are ill-prepared.

“We’re living in a climate that we’ve never seen, and it keeps throwing us curveballs,” said Kathie Dello, North Carolina’s state climatologist. “How do you plan for the worst thing you’ve never seen?”

To understand why inland regions are so vulnerable to heavy rainfall, The Post compared the response to Helene in western North Carolina with that of Florida’s Gulf Coast, where the storm hit first. The investigation, based on analysis of cellphone data and interviews with two dozen meteorologists, disaster experts and storm survivors, revealed how scant flood awareness and a lack of effective warnings led to far fewer evacuations in North Carolina’s mountainous western counties.

Yet it was in these inland areas that Helene wrought its greatest human toll. At least 78 people in North Carolina died in Helene’s floodwaters, according to data from the National Hurricane Center — more than five times the number of people who drowned on the coast.

Read it all.

“How do you plan for the worst thing you’ve never seen?”

A new era of floods has arrived. America isn’t prepared.
via @sarahkaplan48 @kcrowebasspro @NaemaAhmed @BenNollWeatherhttps://t.co/Lesg50kWdt

— Brady Dennis (@brady_dennis) July 21, 2025

When President Trump slapped tariffs on nations across the globe this spring, many economists feared higher prices and spending cuts would flatten the economy.

Consumer sentiment collapsed. The S&P 500 stock index fell by 19% between February and April. The world held its breath and waited for the bottom to drop out.

But that didn’t happen. Now businesses and consumers are regaining their swagger, and evidence is mounting that those who held back are starting to splurge again.

The stock market is reaching record highs. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index, which tumbled in April to its lowest reading in almost three years, has begun climbing again. Retail sales are up more than economists had forecast, and sky-high inflation hasn’t materialized—at least not yet.

“We’ve been surprised again and again by consumers,” said Jonathan Millar, senior U.S. economist at Barclays. In April, Millar predicted that the U.S. economy would likely go into recession this year. He now expects it to keep growing, albeit at a slow pace.

When President Trump slapped tariffs on nations across the globe, many economists feared the economy would flatten. That didn’t happen—and now businesses and consumers are regaining their swagger. https://t.co/WIBgPogfQv

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) July 21, 2025

“The court knows that the freedom of religious expression is more than worship alone,” said Carlson-Thies, reached by telephone. “But where will the court draw the line, especially with religious individuals who own businesses that deal with the general public? … That’s the mystery. Everyone knows the court needs to do something. These issues are not going away. … But it isn’t clear that everyone thinks the Supreme Court should have the last word on everything. You hear that argued on the left and the right — depending on who controls the White House.”

Carlson-Thies noted several strategic rulings — in 2018, 2023 and this summer — in which the court addressed the religious-liberty claims of individuals.

The first was Masterpiece Cakeshop in 2018, a case focusing on Jack Phillips’ claim that he could refuse, for religious reasons, to create a unique wedding cake for Charlie Craig and David Mullins. The 7-2 majority said the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed obvious hostility to the beliefs of Phillips. The baker had offered to sell Craig and Mullins cookies, cakes and other items for their wedding reception, but not a personalized cake with artistic content celebrating their same-sex marriage.

However, Kennedy once again sidestepped First Amendment issues, stating that laws can and must “protect gay persons and gay couples,” while “religious … objections to gay marriage” are also “protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression.” He admitted that the “outcome of cases like this in other circumstances must await further elaboration in the courts.”

Read it all.

Agreed. The Supreme majority provides little or no guidance on how courts in future should balance competing claims. It's true that a ruling in the other direction would have been a terrible blow to religious freedom. But this just keeps things muddy. https://t.co/0BDvkvo7au

— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) June 4, 2018

Iran’s deeply buried nuclear enrichment plant at Fordo was badly damaged, and potentially destroyed, by the 12 massive bombs that U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers dropped on it last month, according to a new American intelligence assessment.

Two other nuclear sites targeted in the U.S. attacks were not as badly damaged, but facilities at the sites that would be key to fabricating a nuclear weapon were destroyed and could take years to rebuild, U.S. officials said.

A senior Israeli official said last week that the strikes most likely did not eliminate the stockpile of near-bomb-grade fuel that could be used to produce upward of 10 nuclear weapons. But without the facilities to manufacture a weapon, U.S. officials insist, the fuel would be of little use even if the Iranians can dig it out of the rubble.

The new assessment helps create a clearer picture of what the combined Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran achieved. The bombings deeply damaged Fordo — considered by the Iranians to be their best-protected and most advanced nuclear enrichment site — probably crippling Iran’s ability to make nuclear fuel for years to come.

Read it all.

New Assessment Finds Site at Focus of U.S. Strikes in Iran Badly Damaged https://t.co/dr2QDpujFD via @NYTimes

— Ali Vaez (@AliVaez) July 17, 2025

In the stillness of a small village on the outskirts of this central Taiwanese city, two CM-34 “Clouded Leopard” armored vehicles rumbled down narrow country lanes, unloading soldiers tasked with countering a simulated Chinese landing force pushing inland.

On the other side of town, two CM-11 “Brave Tiger” battle tanks concealed behind a community center fired mock rounds at a rice paddy, the blasts echoing through the village.

In years past, Taiwan’s annual Han Kuang exercises have been staged on military bases, along desolate coastlines and generally out of sight for the average resident of Taiwan, a democratically self-governed island at the center of regional tensions in the Asia-Pacific.

This year, the drills feel like something else entirely: They are twice as long, larger than ever in scale and far more visible in everyday life, spilling into the parking area outside a Costco, onto subway cars zipping underneath the capital city of Taipei and into viral social-media posts. In one case, a tank inadvertently sideswiped a passing car. In another, several tanks ended up outside the American big-box retailer’s store in the southern city of Tainan.

Read it all.

No longer does Taiwan conduct annual Han Kuang exercises in a secluded area for a short time. Now, it's out in the open–even in the parking lot of Costco!–and goes for longer. The island's stress is building because China's threats are rising.https://t.co/43vnqU9grl

— Derek J. Grossman (@DerekJGrossman) July 17, 2025

Jamie Mains showed up for her checkup so high that there was no point in pretending otherwise. At least she wasn’t shooting fentanyl again; medication was suppressing those cravings. Now it was methamphetamine that manacled her, keeping her from eating, sleeping, thinking straight. Still, she could not stop injecting.

“Give me something that’s going to help me with this,” she begged her doctor.

“There is nothing,” the doctor replied.

Overcoming meth addiction has become one of the biggest challenges of the national drug crisis. Fentanyl deaths have been dropping, in part because of medications that can reverse overdoses and curb the urge to use opioids. But no such prescriptions exist for meth, which works differently on the brain.

In recent years, meth, a highly addictive stimulant, has been spreading aggressively across the country, rattling communities and increasingly involved in overdoses. Lacking a medical treatment, a growing number of clinics are trying a startlingly different strategy: To induce patients to stop using meth, they pay them.

The approach has been around for decades, but most clinics were uneasy about adopting it because of its bluntly transactional nature. 

Read it all.

Meth use is surging, but unlike opioids, there’s no approved medication to ease cravings. In response, clinics across the country are offering small financial rewards to help patients. It’s a behavioral intervention that’s showing real results. Read more: https://t.co/eaDcMOJu87

— Addiction Policy Forum (@AddictionPolicy) July 17, 2025

Another reason companies hire consultants is to cover their *&^. As the old saying goes, “Nobody ever got fired for hiring McKinsey”; even if the project goes poorly, the CEO can blame the consultant instead of management.

But it’s becoming much more difficult for consulting firms to stick with their old tactics, and their old business model. The industry is being disrupted by two powerful forces. The first is the Trump administration’s crackdown on consulting for the federal government. According to the General Services Administration, the top 10 contractors alone were set to be paid $65 billion by the government in 2025—and the administration is adamant that that number be substantially reduced. It is voiding contracts that it does not believe are “mission critical.” And it is insisting that government consultants find significant savings—or else.

In a pointed letter to procurement officials throughout the government, acting GSA head Stephen Ehikian, complaining about the amount the government was spending on consultants, wrote: “This needs to, and must, change.”

The second factor is the arrival of artificial intelligence as a dominant force in American business. Although the big consulting firms are hoping to make money providing AI services to clients, the clients have figured out that AI can often provide an analysis in 10 minutes that used to take a team of junior consultants weeks or months to do. “It used to take two weeks to do a SWOT analysis with all the people engaged in doing research,” said Soren Kaplan, an innovation expert who has predicted for years that AI would upend the consulting business. (“SWOT” stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.) “Now it takes two minutes with AI. It is going to change the economics in a huge way, making everything cheaper and faster. And this is going to come into play in consulting in a huge way.” Ten minutes of work versus two weeks means a lot less money for the consultants.

Read it all.

The Consulting Crash Is Coming, argues Joe Nocera (@opinion_joe) in @TheFP

"Bloated, overpaid, and outpaced by AI—big firms confront a future they can’t outsource."https://t.co/NTrGqpgGBI pic.twitter.com/j4KNBWR3TK

— Stephen Landry (@landryst) July 11, 2025

Oyakhilome taught his members to make declarative statements such as “Debt has no hold over me! I operate in financial liberty, owing no man anything except love. I have more than enough to fund my dreams, support my family, and be a blessing to others.” Caleb argued that this strong belief leads to victory.

The prosperity gospel capitalizes on half-truths: Yes, we must believe in God to be blessed by him. But the Bible never tells us that the strength of our faith will magically procure all our needs.

Biblical faith is a deep trust in God. We trust him because of his character and promises, no matter what happens—good or bad, riches or poverty. We know that God is faithful and works all things for our good (Rom. 8:28). But the prosperity gospel creates a transactional relationship with God. As with a slot machine, you hope to get what you want. The prosperity gospel creates a God who serves our purposes rather than recognizing the true God, who created us for himself. True faith is focused on God, not on self.

Read it all.

The prosperity gospel is a false gospel because of its faulty view of the relationship between God and man. Simply put, if the prosperity gospel is true, grace is obsolete, God is irrelevant, and man is the measure of all things. https://t.co/VLz5aq8G9w

— The Gospel Coalition (@TGC) April 20, 2018

The emergence of a new form of capitalism—call it the teflon economy—may be behind these shifts. On one side of the equation, firms are better than ever at dealing with shocks, meaning that markets continue to function even at a time when politics breaks down. On the other side, governments offer their economies unprecedented levels of protection.

Start with supply chains, which have received a number of shocks in recent years. The conventional narrative that they are prone to “failure” is largely wrong. During the pandemic some commodities became a lot more expensive—but this was a consequence of an enormous surge in demand, rather than falling supply. Semiconductors are a classic example. In 2021 chipmakers shipped 1.2trn units, some 15% more than the year before. The industry did not really suffer a “supply crunch”. Rather, it responded efficiently to an extreme surge in demand.

According to the New York Fed’s supply-chain pressure index, bottlenecks have remained in line with the long-run average, even in the face of Mr Trump’s trade war. We find similar results in our analysis of 33,000 commodities that America imported from 1989 to 2024. For each year, we counted the number where imports declined from the previous year by more than 20%, even as the price of those imports rose by more than 20%. This hints at situations where a supply chain genuinely “fails”. We calculate that the failure rate has been trending down over time. 

Read it all.

Foreign-policy types talk of an age of unprecedented disorder—and markets barely notice https://t.co/eUWlhOsi7G

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) July 15, 2025

Faced with intensifying Chinese encroachment at sea, the Philippines increasingly sees its national security as intertwined with that of Taiwan and is quietly ramping up both formal and informal engagement with the self-governing island, including on security, according to government officials, defense analysts and diplomats here.

This marks a significant departure from Manila’s conservative approach toward Taiwan and could pave the way for the Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally, to play a bigger role if China makes good on its threats to invade Taiwan.

“Any force projection of China within our area is a matter of extreme concern,” Philippine Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said in an interview Thursday.

Read it all.

The Philippines is quietly ramping up cooperation with Taiwan — including on security

Lots of new details in our @washingtonpost dispatch, including that at a U.S.-Phil military exercise last month, unofficial Taiwanese observers were present & participated in tabletop planning pic.twitter.com/S1SiRjmjvK

— Rebecca Tan (@rebtanhs) July 14, 2025

After Meta broke ground on a $750 million data center on the edge of Newton County, Ga., the water taps in Beverly and Jeff Morris’s home went dry.

The couple’s house, which uses well water, is 1,000 feet from Meta’s new data center. Months after construction began in 2018, the Morrises’ dishwasher, ice maker, washing machine and toilet all stopped working, said Beverly Morris, now 71. Within a year, the water pressure had slowed to a trickle. Soon, nothing came out of the bathroom and kitchen taps.

Jeff Morris, 67, eventually traced the issues to the buildup of sediment in the water. He said he suspected the cause was Meta’s construction, which could have added sediment to the groundwater and affected their well. The couple replaced most of their appliances in 2019, and then again in 2021 and 2024. Residue now gathers at the bottom of their backyard pool. The taps in one of their two bathrooms still do not work….

Read it all.

"As tech giants like Meta build data centers in the area, local wells have been damaged, the cost of municipal water has soared and the county’s water commission may face a shortage of the vital resource."https://t.co/hLr6i31S5z

— Pat_Garofalo (@Pat_Garofalo) July 14, 2025

…[America] lags behind Russia and China in manufacturing drones, training soldiers to use them and defending against them, according to interviews with more than a dozen U.S. military officials and drone industry experts….

Drones have become a weapon of choice on modern battlefields. In the early days of the war in Ukraine, soldiers beat back the Russian invasion by adding deadly modifications to the Mavic, a drone sold to hobbyists by DJI, a Chinese company that is the world’s largest drone manufacturer. Versions of the Mavic cost between $300 and $5,000, according to online retailers.

DJI, of Shenzhen, China, accounts for about 70 percent of all commercial drones sold globally for hobby and industrial use, such as aerial photography, package delivery and weather research. The privately held company sells its equipment to customers in the United States — there’s even an authorized store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan — but U.S. law bars the military from buying Chinese drones. The company declined to share market data, but industry experts estimate that DJI’s output far exceeds that of any other drone manufacturer.

“No one even comes close,” said Bobby Sakaki, chief executive of UAS NEXUS, a drone industry consultant. “DJI can make millions of drones per year. That is a hundred times more than anybody in the United States can make.”

Read it all.

Drones are key to winning wars. But the US hardly makes any. https://t.co/LDPLiCmDnC

— Samuel Bendett (@sambendett) July 13, 2025

America’s broken construction industry is a big problem for Trump–The Empire State Building, finished in 1931, was erected in just 410 days. That same year construction began on the Hoover Dam. It was meant to take seven years, but was built in five. Such feats now seem hard to imagine. Last year half of America’s construction firms reported that commercial projects they were working on had been delayed or abandoned.

In 2008 Californian voters approved a high-speed-rail line connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco, to be finished by 2020. It will be at least a decade late. America’s inability to build is a problem for Donald Trump. Although he has again delayed levying “reciprocal” tariffs until August 1st, the president’s commitment to reviving American manufacturing through protectionism is as strong as ever. But can the country build the factories, warehouses and bridges needed to reindustrialize, and do so quickly enough? And if the administration is to achieve its ambition to win the artificial-intelligence race, it will have to ramp up the construction of data centres and electrical infrastructure, too.

Demand for projects is certainly soaring. Turner Construction Company, America’s largest commercial builder, reported that its order backlog rose by a fifth, year on year, in the first quarter of 2025. Yet delays and cost overruns remain inevitable. Productivity has gone from bad to worse. Since 2000, output per worker in the construction industry has fallen by 8%, even as it has risen by 54% for the private sector as a whole. The trouble is not limited to commercial projects. America’s housebuilding companies constructed the same number of dwellings per employee as they did nine decades ago, contributing to widespread shortages and soaring prices. Behind this dismal state of affairs is a combination of fragmentation, overregulation and underinvestment

Read it all.

America’s broken construction industry is a big problem for Trump (from @TheEconomist) https://t.co/uJ9VRbb1gF #construction #building #housing #infrastructure #design #architecture

— Marshall Leslie (@MarshallLeslie) July 11, 2025

US power providers are seeking to impose big price increases on consumers following booming data centre demand, sparking debate over who should pay for the electricity burden of artificial intelligence.

Utilities have sought regulatory approval for $29bn in rate increases in the first half of 2025, a 142 per cent increase over the same period a year ago, according to a new report by PowerLines, an energy affordability advocacy group.

These increases highlight the question of whether surging electricity costs will be shared among all consumers, or charged directly to the large industrial users driving the new demand. Power consumption is expected to more than double in the next decade because of energy-intensive AI, according to BloombergNEF.

“What we’re . . . seeing is a deer-in-headlights dynamic,” said PowerLines executive director Charles Hua. “A lot of states don’t have a playbook for how they can meet rising [data centre] demand while balancing affordability and utility bills.”

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US utilities plot big rise in electricity rates as data centre demand booms https://t.co/7VXoDXXqKX

— FT Energy (@ftenergy) July 10, 2025

The flattening of the Phillips curve, accelerated by the integration of AI and robotics into the workforce, represents a fundamental disruption of economic orthodoxy. As machines replace human workers across industries, the traditional relationship between unemployment and inflation is eroding, rendering conventional monetary policy tools ineffective.

The implications extend beyond dry economic theory. As automation reshapes the labor market, our very conceptions of work, productivity, and social value are called into question. For example, large swaths of the education system, still largely geared towards preparing workers for a human-dominated job market, faces obsolescence.

These changes are not merely challenging—they are potentially destabilizing. The flattening Phillips curve is a harbinger of profound economic and social upheaval. Our economic frameworks, developed in and for a world where human labor was paramount, are increasingly misaligned with the realities of an automated economy.

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This large study of 187k developers using GitHub Copilot finds AI transforms nature of coding.

Coders focus: more coding & less management. They need to coordinate less, working with fewer people

They experiment more with new languages, which would increase earnings $1,683/year pic.twitter.com/UN62E7Hmem

— Ethan Mollick (@emollick) July 10, 2025

The subtext of this war game is deadly serious. Finland’s entry into Nato in 2023 more than doubled the defence alliance’s border with Russia to almost 2,600km, stretching from the Arctic down to Belarus.

While Moscow is currently tied up with its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many along this frontier expect Russian President Vladimir Putin to one day turn his attention to Nato’s eastern flank. The Russian economy is already geared towards conflict and Putin’s imperialist ambitions may mean it goes on to look for conquest elsewhere.

Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte warned last month that Moscow could be ready to use force against the alliance “within five years”. “Let’s not kid ourselves, we are all on the eastern flank now,” Rutte said in a speech. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later said that Russia was planning “new military operations on Nato territory” in an address to the alliance’s summit last week.

While US President Donald Trump reassured allies he was “with them all the way” on arrival at the summit, he had spooked European capitals hours before with a suggestion that the military alliance’s mutual defence pact, known as Article 5, was open to interpretation.

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Can't wait to get to the office and see how this map for today's @FT Big Read printed. A comprehensive look at whether Europe is prepared for war. https://t.co/4neP2wMdoh
A lighter version for print to avoid it printing too dark and issues with white text.#dataviz #gistribe pic.twitter.com/KepzQ6nW76

— Steven Bernard (@sdbernard) July 1, 2025

His expensive tax cuts have been signed into law. His steep global tariffs are taking clearer shape. And his twin campaigns to deregulate government and deport immigrants are well underway.

With the major components of his agenda now coming into focus, President Trump has already left an indelible mark on the U.S. economy. The triumphs and turbulence that may soon arise will squarely belong to him.

Not even six months into his second term, Mr. Trump has forged ahead with the grand and potentially disruptive economic experiment that he first previewed during the 2024 campaign. His actions in recent weeks have staked the future of the nation’s finances — and its centuries-old trading relationships — on a belief that many economists’ most dire warnings are wrong.

Last week, the president enacted a sprawling set of tax cuts that he believes to be the ingredients for rapid economic growth, even as fiscal experts warned that the law may injure the poor while putting the U.S. government on a risky new fiscal path.

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With taxes and tariffs in place, Trump takes the reins of the U.S. economy 🇺🇸

Can he steer growth amid rising trade barriers? #Trump #USEconomy #Tariffs #TaxPolicy #EconomicUpdate #MarketWatch #TradeWar #FiscalPolicy pic.twitter.com/pJg4EqK2cK

— @LanCentralCoin – Daily (@CentralNewsYT) July 9, 2025

Some experts argue that A.I. is most likely to affect novice workers, whose tasks are generally simplest and therefore easiest to automate. Dario Amodei, the chief executive of the A.I. company Anthropic, recently told Axios that the technology could cannibalize half of all entry-level white-collar roles within five years. An uptick in the unemployment rate for recent college graduates has aggravated this concern, even if it doesn’t prove that A.I. is the cause of their job-market struggles.

But other captains of the A.I. industry have taken the opposite view, arguing that younger workers are likely to benefit from A.I. and that experienced workers will ultimately be more vulnerable. In an interview at a New York Times event in late June, Brad Lightcap, the chief operating officer of OpenAI, suggested that the technology could pose problems for “a class of worker that I think is more tenured, is more oriented toward a routine in a certain way of doing things.”

The ultimate answer to this question will have vast implications. If entry-level jobs are most at risk, it could require a rethinking of how we educate college students, or even the value of college itself. And if older workers are most at risk, it could lead to economic and even political instability as large-scale layoffs become a persistent feature of the labor market.

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Which Workers Will A.I. Hurt Most: The Young or the Experienced?

Check out this @nytimes piece on a pivotal time for AI in the workplace, featuring Lab Digital Fellow Sarah Bana and Postdoctoral Fellow @RuyuChen!https://t.co/GPmfAtjlG7

— Stanford Digital Economy Lab (@DigEconLab) July 8, 2025

Zooming in on the prices of affected categories at a few large retailers, Alberto Cavallo of Harvard Business School and co-authors do discern some slight price rises in both imported goods and their domestically produced competitors (see chart 2). However, such prices have risen by only a percent or two—a far smaller increase than that seen in tariffs. America’s effective tariff rate is now at 12%, according to calculations by the Tax Foundation, a think-tank, its highest in nearly a century. Reverting to Mr Trump’s initial Liberation Day offering would mean a significant step up.

Oddly, though, tariffs may be pushing down prices via another mechanism—by taking a toll on the economy. The Liberation Day drama crushed consumer confidence, possibly softening demand. Until recently, this has been evident only in “soft” data (surveys and the like). Now signs of it are starting to appear in “hard” data, too. A recent release showed that household spending fell month-to-month in May. Employment figures for June were strong, but bolstered by government hiring, especially of teachers. Those for the private sector were lower than expected.

A running estimate of GDP, produced by the Fed’s Atlanta branch, suggests that its core components (private investment and consumption) have fallen from an annualised growth rate of 2-3% at the start of the second quarter to 1% now (see chart 3). Goldman Sachs, a bank, has compared the latest data to previous “event driven” shocks that led to recessions, and found that today’s slowdown is roughly in line with the historical norm.

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Spotting a tariff impact on America’s economy requires a microscopic look at the data. Whether slight price rises are the start of something more serious depends, in large part, on how punchy the president feels on Wednesday https://t.co/Qq0TVCtGzq

Photo: Getty Images pic.twitter.com/oHfuhBbuGI

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) July 8, 2025