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Apple looks to shrink AI models for iPhones
Apple is reportedly in very early discussions with PrismML, a Silicon Valley startup spun out of the California Institute of Technology and backed by Khosla Ventures, about technology that could dramatically reduce the size of powerful AI models so they can run directly on iPhones, CNBC reports. PrismML recently announced that it compressed Alibaba’s open-source […]
County business park to get first infrastructure, new name
New Hanover County’s Holly Shelter Business Park could be getting its first infrastructure and a new name in the coming months. The New Hanover County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a $6.5 million infrastructure construction contract and renaming on Monday. Once developed, the approximately 300-acre master-planned industrial park is expected to accommodate more than 2 million square feet of industrial space. The construction contract was awarded to Carolina Civilworks, which submitted the lowest responsive bid for the construction of the infrastructure, Akin Akinola, the county’s engineer, told commissioners on Monday. In May 2023, the county approved a development agreement with Sidbury Land & Property Company to establish the business park. The firm then conveyed approximately 52 acres to the county, giving officials the option to purchase another 200 acres, Akinola said. “The county’s role is to construct the initial public infrastructure that will make the site ready for future development,” he said. “Today’s contract award represents the first major construction phase of that project.” The first phase of development will include approximately 2,750 linear feet of business park roadway, a water main and fire hydrants, along with a sanitary sewer pump station, sewer force main and gravity sewer. Other infrastructure will include a right-turn lane on Holly Shelter Road, along with associated drainage, utilities and traffic control improvements. “Completing this work establishes the backbone infrastructure necessary to serve future development and positions the site for future economic investment,” Akinola said on Monday. County staff, in consultation with Wilmington Business Development officials, are also recommending renaming the park as the I-40 Coastal Commerce Park, said Jennifer Rigby, the county’s chief strategy officer. The new name would emphasize the park’s proximity to I-40 and its location on the coast, she said. Several county commissioners also asked to add New Hanover County's name to the business park's name to commemorate the county's contributions. “We are hoping to achieve space for our businesses to grow and expand here in New Hanover County,” Rigby said. “We’ve had great success with out Blue Clay Business Park and this is another opportunity to really provide locations for our businesses to grow and expand.”
ISM® and Amazon Business research finds most organizations unprepared for supply chain disruption despite strategic shift
/PRNewswire/ -- New research from Institute for Supply Management® (ISM®) and Amazon Business reveals that while organizations are shifting toward balancing...
47 revelatory hours with Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced
To review this month’s supposed remake of 2013’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, I must first correct the record. Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced isn’t a game about pirates (and assassins) in the 18th century Caribbean. Sure, sure, that’s what the trailers would have you believe. They’ve go their clips of Edward Kenway swinging his swords and steering his pirate ship into cannon-blasting combat against British frigates. Is Resynced truly a pirate game? Of the 47 hours I spent playing Resynced over the past few weeks, I will admit I spent maybe 44 (?) of them collecting plunder with Blackbeard, drinking rum with Anne Bonny and debating the pros and cons of the lawless pirate-run settlement Nassau with Benjamin Hornigold. I may in fact have spent dozens of hours sailing to remote islands, reading treasure maps, opening messages left in bottles, sinking the odd Man o’ War with a well-timed broadside, collecting sea shanties for my crew, befriending a pet monkey, and hunting whales. I am nevertheless neither so Gullible nor so Narrow-Minded as to call the magnificent Resynced a “pirate remake.” Oh no. Forget any reviews of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced you may have read. Forget what you yourself may have played, if you’ve spent any time with the game since its launch. What Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is really about I’m here to give you the scoop (spoilers for Resynced’s Animus menu lore, which many players are probably not going to see): Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, the new game whose development was led by Ubisoft Singapore, is set in the year 2096. It’s about a societal split, about revolution, about an old Assassin’s Creed adventure repurposed in the series’ distant future as propaganda or samizdat. It’s about the overheated future of 2096, essentially conquered by the series’ well-established nefarious Templar-run company Abstergo. (In this future, Abstergo is, among other things, remaking a 2013 pirate movie called Devils of the Caribbean, but this time in VR. The VR version will be backed by a marketing plan that involves AI influencers, a 10,000-avatar “metaverse premiere event” and that manufacturing of memes aimed at “50 million VR nodes.” See what I mean about Abstergo being evil?) Resynced is about a late 21st-century population mollified by the widespread use of Abstergo’s Animus devices which let people experience the lives of historical figures culled from “genetic memories.” It’s about an insurgent faction of Assassins. And it’s about a plan to wake the population into revolutionary fervor by showing them the memories of 18th century pirate Edward Kenway, who—as depicted in the original Black Flag and again in Resynced—gradually comes to an understanding about the Assassins of his day and their centuries old fight for freedom. Resynced is also about an AI developed within the late 21st-century Animus, called Ego. It has found a way to alter genetic memories, to create and show Animus users false ones. The game is about Ego’s efforts to tell the people experiencing Edward Kenway’s memories that Kenway was wrong, that fighting against order is folly, that we should crave a world where “compliance is rewarded with power.” Who are we in this game? We’re an unnamed Animus user in 2096 who experiences Kenway’s journey virtually. At four moments during Kenway’s exploits in the Caribbean our virtual jaunt can be interrupted for 10-15 minutes, as we explore Animus “rifts” where Ego explicitly tries to tell us how wrong Kenway was. None of this is what 2013’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag was about, of course. That was a different game, even if you also spent dozens of hours pirating as Kenway in that game, across missions and a map that’s been faithfully reintroduced and rebuilt for Resynced. The 2013 Black Flag was about you playing as an unnamed researcher newly hired in 2013 by Abstergo Entertainment, the video game development wing of the Templars’ evil-corp. In that game, you were assigned to use the Animus to dive into the genetic memories of Desmond Miles, a man who died in Assassin’s Creed III and who was descended from a long line of Assassins (and at least one Templar) whose adventures were featured across the prior AC games. In 2013’s Black Flag, your mission was to plumb the Edward Kenway experience for material that Abstergo could use in productions such as the motion picture Devils of the Caribbean, though the Templars had some ulterior motives for the assignment. Resynced is therefore not a remake of 2013’s Black Flag. It’s a sequel. It is a new game about a new exploration of Edward Kenway’s pirate/assassin journey, set 83 years after the framing sequences of the original game. Resynced provides a new narrative framework that, thanks to the concept of an AI that wants to alter historical memories, arrives with creative justification to tweak a now-classic 13-year old game. That makes Resynced, already a hot seller, a tantalizing hint of where Ubisoft could go with a line of Assassin’s Creed remakes. They could remake the first game, the Ezio games, even the recent ones set in ancient Egypt and Greece. And for each, they could not just modernize the graphics and controls but expand and alter their sequences of events to use them as reference points for a conflict set in the late 21st century, as rival factions try to weaponize historical memories. Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, even when that work consists of ravings about Assassin’s Creed’s modern day plot, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe A story most players will probably miss If you didn’t know any of this, I’m not surprised. If you played the game and still didn’t catch it, I’m not a bit shocked. If Ubisoft has no plans to do more of this, I won’t fall down. Almost all of what I’ve described is optional and missable in Black Flag Resynced. I nearly missed it myself, as I planned for a breezy playthrough of an old Assassin’s Creed favorite. Instead, I found myself in a 40+ hour hunt for the “real” story, buried deeper in Resynced than any gold-filled chest. The story of 2096 is Resynced’s meta-story, told in two remote pockets of the game: 1) four optional playable “rifts” that players may find as they proceed through Resynced’s pirate fantasy , 2) in dozens of text files tucked three menus deep in the game’s barely-interactive Animus hub. Assassin’s Creed games have almost always had a meta-story about people in the 21st century (usually matching the game’s release year) and their connections to the main history portions you play. Those meta-stories have always been squeezed into the margins, though seldom as severely and as, uh, graphiaclly simple, as in recent games. Back in 2013, the modern-day exploits of you as an Abstergo Entertainment employee were prominent. They were portrayed via first-person portions that occasionally interrupted the third-person Kenway experience and could be explored for hours, complete with their own missions, side quests and puzzles. Resynced’s 2096 story—of Assassin “Watchers” vs. Abstergo/Tempar goons, of rogue AIs, of panicking scientists, of a woman wondering why her Animus-addicted husband is muttering about Mary Read (“What does he mean by Assassins?”), of a fight for the population’s hearts and minds via varying interpretations of Edward Kenway’s life choices—is mostly told through unlockable text files. The files are interesting. Offered via diary entries, intercepted chats and news reports, they present varied perspectives of a world in crisis. One set works as a narrative puzzle as it reveals the Rashomonic interpretations of a massacre, or was that a successful Assassin hit? Another favorite reveals the rising bitterness of a person who, through Edward Kenway’s journey, now shakes at the ignored evil around him. One surmises that Ubisoft is averse to putting the Assassin’s Creed’s meta-story in the way of more marketable pirate playgrounds and ninja/samurai epics. Instead, we get a better-than-nothing text-in-menus approach introduced in 2025’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows. In Shadows, players unlocked the meta-story text files largely via time-gated missions that called on the user to kill X number of enemy type Y, clear three enemy castles, re-win a three-phase fighting tournament, and other grinds. Time restrictions on accessing these missions and unlocking the files meant it could take players months to access the full story in-game. But even in the most hardcore Assassin’s Creed hangouts, the fanbase instead seemed to throw up their hands rather than grind to keep up. In Resynced, Ubisoft has shown some mercy, diminishing the amount of new text files that are tied to timed grinds. Now, most of the text-based 2096 lore are associated with “data file” collectibles that players can find in the world. That includes a batch of written entries that explain a historical link between the feudal Japan era in Shadows and the piracy adventures in Black Flag. Players who explore a lot will find dozens of data files, though the game does not appear to offer any in-game tracker for finding each one. You just need to keep looking for them. As of this writing, I have most of them, but not all. I can’t find any full guide for them online. And even Ubisoft’s optional $5 microtransaction that reveals lots of items in-game does not appear to reveal the locations of the text files (at least the official description omits them from its collectibles list). That’s not a huge bother, because tracking the data files down compelled me to re-explore the waves and islands of Black Flag. That was a thoroughly pleasant task to do for the first time in a dozen years. I expect many players, though, will be content to wait for the files to be reproduced in an online AC wiki somewhere, the easier to read on a web page. It may not seem enticing to play a video game in order to gradually unlock pages of text to read. Why not, you may ask, just read a book, where they put the pages in order? For one, they’ve not tucked this latest installment of Assassin’s Creed’s meta saga in a book. I also enjoy the unordered delivery, the dawning comprehension of a story about 2096’s desperate people and questionable tech, which I glimpsed first at its middle, then the end, then the front, then other moments in between1. I am also enamored with the idea of the Assassin’s Creed games I’ve previously played, including Black Flag, being repurposed for an information war. The ideas in Resynced’s meta-story, which builds off characters and ideas in Shadows’ chunks of text, are strong. The potential of where they could go with it is exciting. As for the pirate stuff? Looks great, controls pretty well, is fun to play and oh so speedy in terms of how much of a good time you can have with each sit-down. It never gets old to chase a new shanty page across a rooftop, bombard a fort with upgraded mortars or use a diving bell to explore sunken wrecks (hats off to the team at Ubisoft Barcelona that worked on the underwater portions in Resynced; that team is now facing layoffs, such is the misery of modern gaming and oft-troubled Ubisoft). New pirate missions in Resynced involving new ally characters are brief, dramatic and add more to Edward’s story, even if the gameplay perks they provide barely enhance the gameplay. A new denouement for high-class pirate Stede Bonnet is affecting; a new hunt for Blackbeard’s treasure is a welcome extra moment. A new epilogue to hunt down a pirate killer, on the other hand, over-complicates Kenway’s character. The ending credits remain my favorite of any game I’ve ever played. Black Flag provides great source material. The revisit is well-made and a great sign of what could be. It is offered in a different wrapper that hints at an opportunity for more interesting remakes to come, should Ubisoft choose to pursue such treasures—and as we brace to resist or comply with an Abstergo future. 1 The messages that Edward Kenway finds in bottles tell another out-of-order story, one about a man reckoning with the strange memories and voices he’s heard in his head since he was a boy. That tale was also in the 2013 game and develops into one of Black Flag’s most compelling character arcs. In Resynced, it has lost its climax, because the bottle story previously paid off in the halls of the first-person Abstergo Entertainment, which is exclusive to the older game. An altered resolution, written by the 2013 game’s lead writer is fine, doesn’t invalidate the 2013 version, but makes for an inferior final note.
University of Chicago scientists create "artificial leaf" that could be used for wireless implants
What University of Chicago scientists call an artificial leaf that mimics photosynthesis could be useful for wireless medical implants and other technologies.
Maple Leafs, Sabres both want 1400-point free agent
Toronto and Buffalo are both interested in a logical free agent target.
Major Montana healthcare organizations exploring partnership
St. Peter's Health and Billings Clinic-Logan Health announced Tuesday that they are exploring ways to partner that they believe will strengthen and expand local healthcare services.
Donald Thompson: Psychological safety isn’t enough. Train your team to pitch ideas
Teach your team to bring you evidence, business logic and clear asks — not just observations.
Scientists Found Gold in the Most Ironic Place Possible
Geologists found what they call “invisible gold” hidden within a surprising mineral near undersea hydrothermal vents.
National Science Foundation selects URochester to lead new laser tech program
The National Science Foundation has chosen the University of Rochester to lead a $15 million laser technology program, boosting Rochester's optics innovation cluster.
A Science Museum program is giving students a spot on the Minnesota Vikings
Through its Vikings Voyage program, the Science Museum of Minnesota is providing students with a look inside the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers behind their favorite football team.
Rochester Fringe Festival reveals full lineup; all tickets now on sale
Event organizers held a news conference Tuesday to announce the final lineup for this year's event.
RWJBarnabas Health and Rutgers Cancer Institute Welcome First Patients at Melchiorre Cancer Center
RWJBarnabas Health and Rutgers Cancer Institute, the state’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, officially welcomed its first patients today at the Melchiorre Cancer Center.
Treasure Island Las Vegas and KnokX Pro Entertainment Present MANA: A Polynesian Revue & Luau
LAS VEGAS, NV — Treasure Island Las Vegas, in partnership with KnokX Pro Entertainment, a Samoan-owned entertainment company led by High Chief Fonoti Reno Anoa'i, proudly presents MANA: A Polynesian Revue & Luau on July
'Plants get sick!': WashU scientists, U. City students research plants together
Biologist Rachel Penczykowski, in WashU Arts & Sciences, is an expert in infectious disease in plants. She conducts much of her research in the field — rural farmland, urban parks and, on this sunny day, a garden bed at Jackson Park Elementary School in the University City School District.
Health system leaders discuss care delivery, workforce and technology at 2026 AHA Leadership Summit
Following an introduction from Michelle Hood, AHA executive vice president and COO, moderator Chris DeRienzo, M.D., AHA senior vice president and chief physician executive, led a panel discussion July 14 at the 2026 AHA Leadership Summit with Betty Chu, M.D., senior vice president and chief medical officer of Advocate Health; Christine Donohue-Henry, M.D., chief population health officer of ChristianaCare; and Bill Gassen, president and CEO of Sanford Health, and AHA chair-elect.
Spotify expands its AI push with a ChatGPT-like music assistant
Spotify is rolling out a new AI-powered conversational feature that lets Premium subscribers chat with the app to discover music, podcasts, and audiobooks, and more.
U.S. National Science Foundation Announces Transformational Award to Connecticut's Quantum Tech Sector
'NSF Engines investments in critical technologies and future industries will transform America’s innovation infrastructure for decades to come'
Vanderbilt Health statement about its ongoing commitment to patients and families of Williamson County
Vanderbilt Health has been proud to partner with Williamson Health for more than a decade in delivering a wide variety of adult and pediatric services and in the immediate term we look forward to continuing our current joint operations, including our pediatric ED and inpatient services, as conversations with Williamson Health evolve.
Trump reduces size of 2 national monuments in Utah
The move to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by about 90% unravels protections established by former presidents for areas with unique archaeological and historical features
Politics & Power: Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical calls on Catholics to put human dignity first in age of AI
Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, challenges Catholics — and the world — to think carefully about how artificial intelligence is reshaping human life. Catholic leaders across the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond say the message is clear: technology must always serve people, not the other way around.
Deloitte Announces Framework, Digital Asset to Quantify, Communicate Sustainable Business Value
/PRNewswire/ -- Deloitte today unveiled Sustainability Fusion™, a new framework, digital tool, service offering and web-based evaluator designed to help the...
Watch the trailer for 'Novak Djokovic: The Wolf in Winter,' Prime Video's new documentary coming August 20
'The Oprah Podcast' is coming to Prime Video on July 21, with new episodes twice weekly
New episodes featuring today's thought leaders and cultural changemakers will air twice weekly on Prime Video.
The city of Bismarck launches its first business pitch challenge
Local entrepreneurs can apply to win a $15,000 forgivable loan to help take their business to the next level
Microsoft Entra ID gets passkeys default authentication starting September
Microsoft has announced that passkeys will become the default authentication method for the Entra ID enterprise identity service starting September 2026.
How birders in Chad ‘found’ the rusty lark, a bird lost to science for nearly a century
The morning of Feb. 2, 2026, started like many others for Pierre Defos du Rau and Julien Birard: It was hot and sunny with a gentle breeze, ideal birding weather. The two French ornithologists, who have been birding since their teens and have traveled the world in search of birds, were at Abou Telfane Game […]
Upcoming OLED iPad Mini Allegedly Uses 60Hz 8.4-Inch Display Panel
Apple is allegedly using a 60Hz 8.4-inch display panel in the upcoming OLED iPad mini, which is expected to be released later this year. The information comes courtesy of a hit-and-miss tipster running the account "yeux1122" on the Korean Naver blog. The leaker claims to have been told by a source in Apple's supply chain that the unreleased iPad mini is equipped with a low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) backplane hybrid OLED panel clocked at 60Hz.
Five RWJBarnabas Health Hospitals Recognized Among “100 Great Community Hospitals" for 2026 by Becker’s Hospital Review
RWJBarnabas Health, the largest, most comprehensive academic health system in New Jersey, today announced that five of its hospitals have been recognized by Becker’s Hospital Review and included in its list of “100 Great Community Hospitals" for 2026.
Iron Maiden Sells Catalog, Name, Likeness Stake to Pophouse
With a stake in the rights relating to Maiden's longtime mascot Eddie, Pophouse says it will "turbo-charge" the rockers' cinematic projects.
Why Science Is Taking UFOs Seriously, and You Should, Too
Why are scientists taking unidentified aerial phenomena seriously? Because every answer matters for science, national security, and the people whose lives are changed by these experiences.
Holland & Knight Health Dose: July 14, 2026 | Insights
Weekly healthcare policy briefing covering congressional action, FDA and CMS developments, 340B reform, Medicare updates, AI oversight and key regulatory changes.
In Paris, Rice physiology students trace science to its source
For professor Laura Kabiri, who teaches the same physiology course in Houston, Paris changed what the material meant to her students.
How to watch the X-Men“ ”movies in chronological order
A guide to the mutant cinematic saga.
Can humans hibernate their way to Mars?
Scientists are trying to recreate the biology that lets animals survive months without food or water, in hopes of making deep-space travel possible
Docs with greater clinical knowledge less likely to order low-value imaging
Wasteful tests and treatments, such as imaging for an uncomplicated headache, continue to plague the U.S. healthcare system, experts note.
Bipartisan bill seeks to bolster AI use in pediatric cancer care
Members of the Childhood Cancer Caucus are proposing the Accelerating Innovation for Kids Act, aimed at fast-tracking the deployment of this tech in pediatrics.
Vaccine skeptic Dr. Ryan Cole to stay on board of Idaho’s largest public health district
Dr. Ryan Cole, an Idaho pathologist who has been a vocal critic of COVID vaccines, is staying on the Central District Health board.
Solis Mammography opens 2 new imaging centers
On top of two other centers opened in Florida earlier this year, Solis now operates 15 locations across the Sunshine State and over 170 outposts nationwide.
Principal Financial Group Inc. Has $1.69 Billion Stake in Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. $LYV
Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its stake in Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:LYV - Free Report) by 3.4% in the first quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 11,095,305 shares of the company's s
Chrome on Android is getting a navigation bar redesign to make room for Gemini
Chrome on Android is getting a redesigned navigation bar with a dedicated Gemini shortcut, plus desktop-like multi-tab context.
Folarin Balogun joins LeBron James' Klutch Sports agency after breakout World Cup
United States forward Folarin Balogun has signed with LeBron James' agency Klutch Sports following a breakout World Cup that elevated his profile on and off the pitch.
Folarin Balogun joins LeBron James' Klutch Sports agency after breakout World Cup
United States forward Folarin Balogun has signed with LeBron James' agency Klutch Sports following a breakout World Cup that elevated his profile on and off the pitch.
Sale of multimillion-dollar T rex skeleton is big headache for scientists
Palaeontologists warn before auction at Sotheby’s in New York that super-rich collectors are harming research
Algorithm allows cancer patients to avoid CT scans for pulmonary embolism
There has been increased interest in finding alternative methods to diagnose pulmonary embolism in this patient population.
Building the tools behind the science
An industry application scientist reflects on the invisible labor behind widely used lab techniques, and how iterative testing, troubleshooting and cross-team collaboration turn new technologies into practical tools for the scientific community.
Crunchyroll Store to Become Exclusive to Mega/Ultimate Fan Tiers in August
Open orders will continue to process, including those for items released after store transitions
NSF Won’t Fund Research Involving Chinese Scientists
The National Science Foundation will bar U.S. colleges and universities from collaborating with many Chinese scientists and other entities on the federal government’s restricted parties lists.
Debt is central to Bending Spoons' business model, says Jim Cramer
'Mad Money' host Jim Cramer takes a look at recent IPO Bending Spoons and how to play the Italian technology company.
Daytime Emmys Announce 2026 Nominations (FULL LIST)
The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has unveiled the nominations list for the 2026 Daytime Emmys.
Health Subcommittee Markup
The Committee on Energy and Commerce is the oldest standing legislative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives and is vested with the broadest jurisdiction of any congressional authorizing committee.
Cardiologist’s lawsuit against former employer dismissed
The lawsuit Hemal Gada, MD, filed against UPMC has been dismissed with prejudice.
USMNT Star Flo Balogun Signs With Major Sports Agency Following World Cup
Flo Balogun's latest career decision points to a huge move.
Satya Nadella has issued a shocking warning to companies using AI
In a surprising blog post on Monday, Microsoft CEO is warning enterprises of the dangers of using proprietary models like Anthropic's and OpenAI's.
Acute kidney injury after TAVR: Simple biomarker helps cardiologists identify high-risk patients
The CALLY index, a biomarker that examines systemic inflammation, immune system activity and nutrition, could provide care teams with significant value.
New SCCT president, a veteran cardiologist, highlights importance of listening and teamwork
New SCCT president Ronen Rubinshtein, MD, says the fields of interventional cardiology and cardiac imaging are two of his greatest interests.
The Quintessential Trump-era Politician
In 2020, I wrote an article about collaboration and collaborators. The title was History Will Judge the Complicit, and it started with the story of two famous East Germans, Markus Wolf and Wolfgang Leonhard, who both landed in East Berlin just after the end of the war. Although they came from very similar backgrounds, the former stuck with the regime, eventually becoming its spy boss; the latter, horrified by the brutal reality of Soviet-style communism, escaped. By way of juxtaposition, I also wrote about Lyndsey Graham and Mitt Romney. These two men also made very different decisions when confronted by Donald Trump’s assault on the ideals that they had both grown up believing: A glance at their biographies would not have led many to predict what happened next. On paper, Graham would have seemed, in 2016, like the man with deeper ties to the military, to the rule of law, and to an old-fashioned idea of American patriotism and American responsibility in the world. Romney, by contrast, with his shifts between the center and the right, with his multiple careers in business and politics, would have seemed less deeply attached to those same old-fashioned patriotic ideals. Most of us register soldiers as loyal patriots, and management consultants as self-interested. We assume people from small towns in South Carolina are more likely to resist political pressure than people who have lived in many places. Intuitively, we think that loyalty to a particular place implies loyalty to a set of values. But in this case the clichés were wrong. It was Graham who made excuses for Trump’s abuse of power. It was Graham—a JAG Corps lawyer—who downplayed the evidence that the president had attempted to manipulate foreign courts and blackmail a foreign leader into launching a phony investigation into a political rival. It was Graham who abandoned his own stated support for bipartisanship and instead pushed for a hyperpartisan Senate Judiciary Committee investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden’s son. It was Graham who played golf with Trump, who made excuses for him on television, who supported the president even as he slowly destroyed the American alliances—with Europeans, with the Kurds—that Graham had defended all his life. By contrast, it was Romney who, in February, became the only Republican senator to break ranks with his colleagues, voting to impeach the president. “Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office,” he said, is “perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office that I can imagine.” In the wake of Graham’s unexpected death on Saturday, I wrote about him again. He was, in many ways, the quintessential politician of Trump’s Washington, a man who shifted 180 degrees. Graham had been a fervent American patriot, proud reserve officer and military lawyer; he became one of the most important defenders of a president who believes soldiers are “suckers and losers” and shows no respect for law of any kind. As his politics changed, his language grew coarser and his behavior grew worse: He urged Israel to “level the place” in Gaza, and insulted the Danish prime minister in Munich, prompting a colleague, Senator Elissa Slotkin, to issue an apology. Here’s an excerpt from the article, which you can read in The Atlantic (gift link here) Like his close friend John McCain, Graham believed that America should stand at the center of a broad democratic alliance. The few times I met him were in that context, at the Munich Security Conference or at other European-American gatherings, which he once attended with great regularity. He also took seriously the practice of American democracy at home. In a 2014 conversation with The Atlantic, he described himself as a pragmatic politician who eschewed populist slogans. “I know Washington is broken, but what’s broken about it is everybody yelling and nobody trying to fix it,” he said. “I’m trying.” When Donald Trump first appeared in U.S. politics, Graham recognized him immediately for what he was: the spokesman for an alien ideology, one radically different from the idealistic patriotism that Graham had practiced and preached since childhood. Trump privately mocked the military that Graham loved as nothing but “suckers and losers.” He put falsehoods, cynicism, and personal greed at the center of his politics, while expressing disdain for transparency, accountability, and democracy itself. In 2015, Graham described Trump as a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” who should “go to hell.” Also as a “nutjob.” When Trump won, Graham understood, as did so many others, that he would have to make some important choices. For a while, he went silent. In the spring of 2016, I saw him at one of those conferences in Europe. He seemed too depressed to speak. But then, like many other Republicans—and, more important, like many other people who have lived under political occupation or experienced radical regime change—he made the decision to abandon his previous ideals, to bury the patriotism that was once so important to him, and to become, instead, a loud, opportunistic collaborator. As I wrote in 2020, it’s very hard to look in to anyone’s heart and to understand their motivations from the outside. But it does seem that Graham had a deep need to be relevant, to be in the game, to be a player, at any cost. And that, rather than any particular achievement, is what he will be remembered for. Continuing to monitor conflicts of interest, ostentatious emoluments, outright corruption and policy changes that will facilitate outright corruption. (Read my original article, Kleptocracy Inc and check out the SNF Agora Institute chart) June 27 Trump diverted funds from more than 900 projects nationwide—including safety upgrades at national parks—to finance beautification projects around Washington, including $700,000 used to fix a White House walkway. June 28 After a years-long Department of Justice investigation into Abbott Laboratories over its management of a baby formula facility where potentially deadly bacteria turned up enough evidence to criminally charge the firm, top department officials instead opted for a financial penalty—illustrating the department’s move away from strict corporate enforcement under the Trump administration. June 29 Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stacked the Defense Policy Board—which is charged with providing independent national security recommendations to the Office of the Secretary of Defense—with Trump allies, including tech billionaire Marc Andreessen, who has invested in defense contractors like OpenAI and SpaceX, after purging the panel last year. Trump purchased between $1 million and $5 million worth of stock in Axon—which makes about 90% of US tasers—two weeks before ICE solicited bids for a $220 million taser contract. The White House unveiled limited-edition US passports for America’s 250th birthday, featuring a portrait of Trump overlaid on the Declaration of Independence. June 30 Trump made around $1.2 billion from his various crypto companies last year, including more than $500 million from World Liberty Financial and $600 million from sales of his meme coin. Trump is considering issuing 250 pardons to commemorate America’s 250th birthday. These are expected to be largely doled out through the Office of the Pardon Attorney’s informal network of intermediaries. White-collar defense attorneys say they can typically win pardons for clients for $2 million. Last year, Trump administration officials awarded a no-bid contract worth up to $500 million to Clark Construction for the White House ballroom—negotiations in which the president was directly involved. July 1 The Amazon MGM Studios documentary about Melania Trump earned the First Lady more than $10 million. Trump made hundreds of individual stock purchases worth as much as $12.8 million the day before his announcement pausing “Liberation Day” tariffs for 90 days sent the S&P 500 soaring nearly 10%—one of the largest single-day gains ever. Mar-a-Lago and Trump National Doral saw record surges in revenue during Trump’s first year in office, earning $77.5 million and $121.9 million respectively, compared to average annual revenues of $25 million and $75 million during Trump’s first term. Entities across the Persian Gulf paid more than $300 million to Trump’s businesses last year, including $263 million from the sale of half his stake in World Liberty Financial to a firm backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a top UAE royal and brother of the country’s president. Kash Patel failed to properly disclose his stock purchase of a Department of Justice contractor, MicroStrategy, worth up to $250,000 last year, despite laws requiring disclosure within 45 days of the trade. July 2 Trump has been directing administration officials to steer more government contracts—so far worth more than $2.4 billion—to Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin aerospace firm, after Amazon gave $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, donated to the White House ballroom project, and reached a $40 million deal to license a Melania Trump documentary. Alongside the billions he made from cryptocurrency last year, Trump earned millions of dollars from real estate licensing fees, including $21 million from organizations in the UAE and $9.2 million in Saudi Arabia, along with smaller sums from merchandise sales, including $4.7 million from Trump Watches and $35,920 from 45 Guitar, a guitar brand endorsed by the president. House Democrats accused consultants tied to the Trump administration of financial fraud, alleging they gave prospective donors to America250—the bipartisan committee created by Congress to celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial—the banking and routing numbers for Freedom 250, the White House’s fund for events like the UFC cage fight. Democrats also allege that Freedom 250’s CEO traveled to the World Economic Forum in Davos to solicit donations from foreign government officials and business leaders. The Trump administration’s proposed rollback of gun regulations would lift the prohibition on mailing handguns to individuals, a significant win for GrabAGun—the direct-to-consumer firearm retailer on whose board Donald Trump Jr. sits and in which he holds a 1.1% ownership stake. GrabAGun currently must rely on a middleman to transfer firearms to customers. Trump’s financial disclosure revealed that he made more than 21,000 securities trades during his first year back in office, growing his investment account to at least $858 million across stakes in around 1,600 companies, compared to the 13 total trades Joe Biden made during his entire presidency. July 4 Nearly 1 million people who bought the president’s meme coin—Trump Coin—collectively lost $3.8 billion on the token, while he walked away with $636 million. July 6 Shares of Dell closed up 4.4% after Trump recommended people buy the firm’s computers during a speech announcing the launch of Trump investment accounts for children, boosting the more than $1 million worth of shares the president owns in the company. July 9 Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh named crypto investor and Trump ally Marc Andreessen to a task force aimed at modernizing the Federal Reserve, including rethinking its approach to inflation—a key factor keeping interest rates elevated. Palm Beach International Airport has officially changed its name to Trump International Airport—a move that will require Florida to pay royalties to the president’s family for licensing his name. I was there a few months ago, during a trip to Barcelona. The sculptures were a revelation, I’d never seen so many together before. Each one has its own personality. Enjoy the good weather, if you are lucky enough to have it. History Will Judge the Complicit The Quintessential Politician Autocracy Inc Open Letters, from Anne Applebaum is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe
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