Extra, Extra
Death of a Sales Job: “In 1982, Benjamin Netanyahu was the marketing director of a Jerusalem-based furniture maker when Israel’s ambassador in Washington decided that the 32-year-old had been pitching the wrong product. Instead of selling cupboards to Israelis, he should have been selling Israel to Americans. The ambassador, who met Netanyahu at a conference a few years earlier, brought him to Washington as his deputy. Almost instantly, Netanyahu became the face of Israel on American television—a fixture on Nightline and Larry King Live, pugnacious, eloquent in unaccented English acquired as a boy in the suburbs of Philadelphia.” He’s been selling it ever since. But at some point, he stopped caring whether Americans were buying. Franklin Foer in The Atlantic (Gift Article): How Netanyahu Lost America.
+ Error Defense: The major military campaign targeting Iran has been paused. Maybe to let diplomacy work. Or maybe to consider America’s declining munitions stocks. WSJ (Gift Article): Trump Pauses Iran Strikes as Officials Weigh Dwindling Air Defense Stocks. “Trump denied that dwindling munitions are a problem, insisting in a statement to The Wall Street Journal that ‘we have far more munitions than anyone in the world, and far more than we need.'” (Phew.)
+ Dinner Theater of the Absurd: At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Trump proved once again that he has the first known case of Verbal Cyclospora. Trump ranted and attacked rivals and the press. Just as we knew he would. And just what the fools who attended deserved. The dinner itself is not a big story. But what it represents is. Margaret Sullivan: The predictable disgrace of the White House Correspondents Dinner. (The weirdest moment was when Trump had to sit and watch as the WSJ got an award for their reporting on the Epstein birthday card.)
+ Tropic Blunder: “Trump has said at least 15 times, including as recently as last month, that the strikes have reduced maritime drug trafficking into the country by 97 or 98 percent. ‘98.2% of Drugs coming into the U.S. by Ocean or Sea have STOPPED!’ he wrote on Truth Social in April.” Shockingly, those cocaine numbers aren’t quite on the nose. WaPo (Gift Article): Deadly U.S. boat strikes have failed to curb cocaine supply, Pentagon and DEA officials say.
+ Europe’s Hot Summer: “Heat waves and scant rainfall in Europe have contributed to historic wildfires in France and Spain that have forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes in one of the continent’s biggest evacuation efforts since World War II.” And here are some photos of the wildfires raging across France and Spain. Plus, Wildfire Disruptions to the Tour de France Show How Climate Change Is Shaping Sports.
+ Breaking Away: Even this hot summer couldn’t slow down Tadej Pogačar, who won the Tour de France for third consecutive year and fifth time in his career. The Athletic (Gift Article): In the midst of his majesty: How Tadej Pogacar won the 2026 Tour de France.
+ Over a Barrel: “Cracker Barrel’s CEO is stepping down nearly a year after an attempted rebrand of the chain led to a fierce customer backlash.”
+ Chateau Marmot: “For years, Blumstein has overseen one of the longest-running studies of free-living mammals in the world, focused on yellow-bellied marmots in central Colorado … Fearing that a lack of funding might terminate the program, Blumstein recently got his lab together and they came up with a creative, if highly unorthodox solution.” Calif. researchers turn to OnlyFans as their funding dries up. (This would probably drive more OnlyFans revenue if they were studying Dik Diks…)
