The Thirst Trap

A Dry Heat, Interns v Terrorists

For generations, Yeah, but it's a dry heat has worked as a decent line to make people feel a little better about oppressive temperatures. But we have reached a dryness tipping point. The punchline is now the problem. In short, the schvitz has hit the fan. In the most basic terms: The world is getting hotter, a hotter atmosphere is thirstier, that makes evaporation take place at a higher rate, which makes droughts even worse, which makes things even more dry, which puts humanity in increasingly drier straits. NYT (Gift Article): It’s Not Just Poor Rains Causing Drought. The Atmosphere Is Thirstier. "'A hotter world is a thirstier one,' said Solomon Gebrechorkos, a hydroclimatologist at the University of Oxford. He led a new study ... which found that atmospheric thirst, a factor that fills in some of the blanks in our understanding of drought, over the last four decades has made droughts more frequent, more intense and has caused them cover larger areas." What can I say? When it rains it pours. Except when it doesn't.

2

Young Man, There's a Place You Can Go

"Typically ... a candidate that green wouldn’t have gotten an interview for a junior position, much less be hired to run operations. According to LinkedIn, the bulk of Fugate’s leadership experience comes from having served as secretary general of a Model United Nations club." If I tried to write about every outrageously bad Trump appointee, you'd be overwhelmed and my already nubbed fingertips would be worn down to my palms. So instead, I just include a few examples to give you an idea of the team we're putting on the field. ProPublica: The Intern in Charge: Meet the 22-Year-Old Trump’s Team Picked to Lead Terrorism Prevention. "The office’s mission has changed overnight, with a pivot away from focusing on domestic extremism, especially far-right movements. The 'terrorism' category that framed the agency’s work for years was abruptly expanded to include drug cartels, part of what DHS staffers call an overarching message that border security is the only mission that matters. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has largely left terrorism prevention to the states." (Maybe the states can find some junior high students who want to run the programs for extra credit.)

3

Psychotic Episode

Another day, another national humiliation on the world stage. Yes, it's time for the latest episode of Trump's Oval Office, this time featuring guest star German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and featuring some familiar, bumbling antics like remarkably imbecilic and offensive remarks about D-Day (it's like we're living through a remake of the movie Stripes and Trump is playing the part of Cruiser) and the even worse comparison of Putin's invasion of Ukraine to two kids fighting in a park ... you see it in hockey. Of course, because this is America in 2025, the viral moments from today's episode will be connected to what it is becoming a bad and very public breakup between Trump and Elon Musk. From Musk: "Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate ... Such ingratitude." From Trump: "People leave my administration, and they love us, and then at some point they miss it so badly, and some of them embrace it, and some of them actually become hostile." (As the old proverb says, the enemy of my enemy is still a complete a**hole.)

4

TL;DR

"As neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf explains, when you give your complete attention to a stimulating book or longform article, you activate a wide array of the brain’s linguistic and cognitive capacities. In this contemplative state, the reader rapidly draws connections between the text and their background knowledge, generating original thoughts in the process. And this vital form of reading is in sharp decline. In 2021, American adults read fewer books on average than in any year on record, according to Gallup. Among young Americans, the dwindling of deep reading is especially stark." Is the decline of reading poisoning our politics? (Actually, that question would make a great Netflix show...)

+ Apparently, the problem starts pretty early on. The Guardian: ‘It’s so boring’: gen Z parents don’t like reading to their kids. Like? I didn't like changing diapers, but I did it...

5

Extra, Extra

The Ban is Back: "President Trump is banning travelers from 12 countries and partially restricting travelers from seven others, starting on Monday, June 9, a measure he said was necessary for national security." Here's a look at what's in the ban and which countries are affected. (The fact that this story is so much smaller than it was during Trump's first term is a reflection of how much crazier everything else is.)

+ Tall Order: "That administration officials obeyed the instructions of the judge, Brian E. Murphy of the Federal District Court in Massachusetts, was a significant departure from the defiant stance that the White House has staked out in other immigration matters." U.S. Brings Back Guatemalan Wrongly Deported to Mexico. Meanwhile, "a federal judge in Washington ordered the Trump administration on Wednesday to take steps toward giving nearly 140 Venezuelan immigrants who were deported to El Salvador in March under a rarely invoked wartime law the due process that they had been denied." (The question of the era: Will the administration follow court orders, and if not, then what?)

+ It's All About the Bias: "The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a straight woman who claimed she faced bias in the workplace after she was passed over for positions that went to gay colleagues. The decision will make it easier for people who are White, male or not gay to prove bias claims." (This one is not as controversial as it sounds. The ruling was 9-0.) Meanwhile, in another unanimous decision, the Court "blocked a lawsuit brought by Mexico that sought to hold American gunmakers accountable for playing a role in country's struggle with drug cartels."

+ Empathy Running on Empty: "Even if most Americans haven’t abandoned their private sense of empathy, many don’t seem terribly bothered by the rancidness of their leaders. I confess that this indifference astonishes me. It might be the ugliest effect of Trump’s return—the rapid normalization of spectacular corruption, the desensitization to lawless power, the acceptance of moral collapse. Eventually it will coarsen us all." Believe it or not, that's not the most depressing part of this George Packer piece in The Atlantic (Gift Article): No One Can Offer Any Hope.

+ Xi Finally Called Him: Trump and Xi agree to new in-person meeting after phone call amid trade tensions.

+ To DEI For: "When President Donald Trump blamed diversity, equity, and inclusion programs for the deadly January crash at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, some aviation officials were appalled. Some were simply perplexed. But few officials inside the Federal Aviation Administration took the president’s remarks seriously." That was then. The Trump Administration Is Spending $2 Million to Figure Out Whether DEI Causes Plane Crashes.

+ The Mile High Hubbub: "Severe storms in southern Germany forced a Ryanair flight to make an emergency landing late Wednesday after violent turbulence injured nine people on board." (I wonder if DEI is to blame for storms...)

6

Bottom of the News

"Amazon is reportedly developing software for humanoid robotsthat could perform the role of delivery workers and 'spring out' of its vans. (Don't worry if you're not home for a delivery, they can break down the door.)

+ Fans around the world queue up in long lines for the highly anticipated Nintendo Switch 2 launch.