News Briefing
A new series about AI and journalism
Last week Anthropic, which makes the Claude chatbot, quietly released some plugins for Claude, including one that performs legal services. Wall Street freaked out.
Investors didn’t just punish companies tied directly to the legal profession. They dumped a much broader swath of stocks across software, financial data, and real estate. For two days, markets were gripped by a panic to unload shares of companies investors suddenly decided AI was about to destroy. According to Bloomberg, 164 software/financial stocks lost $611 billion in market value.
It was, as Dean Ball of the Foundation for American Innovation put it to the Wall Street Journal, “the most important thing that’s happened in AI since ChatGPT’s launch.”
Ever since that selloff, the financial press has been flooded with speculation about which white-collar profession is next. Coders are doomed. Claude can generate full-featured apps at the press of a button. Lawyers and paraglegals are increasingly exposed. AI can review contracts, draft legal memos, and synthesize case law. Entry level finance jobs are quietly disappearing. I wouldn’t recommend a career in copy editing to anyone in their twenties. And many professions that don’t yet appear headed for extinction are nonetheless being radically transformed
But the question I really care about is more personal: Can AI replace journalists?
So I started playing around with the most advanced paid models from Anthropic and OpenAI to see what they could actually do—not in theory, not in demos, but in real work.
I used AI to assist me in putting together the newsletter you’re about to read. I don’t want to say more than that right now. Read it, and tell me what you think. (This one is long, but it covers a lot of weekend news as well.) I’ll publish one or two of these each day this week, and then unpack the entire process—what worked, what didn’t, and what surprised me.
Your feedback is central to this experiment, so please let me know what you think.
But remember, this is an experiment in using AI-assistance, so treat this newsletter accordingly.
(And yes, I’ll get to Part 10, but this is more important for the moment!) —Ryan
Monday Afternoon Briefing — February 9, 2026
A 10-minute read on a Monday when the president spent the weekend picking fights with a pop star, a 27-year-old Olympic athlete, and the Spanish language — while his allies sold access to the Oval Office for $1 million, new revelations deepened the scandal surrounding his intelligence chief’s handling of a whistleblower complaint, and a new pope decided to skip the country altogether.
🎯 Trump’s Weekend of Grievances
The Super Bowl is supposed to be the one event that briefly unites America. This year it became a showcase for a president who can’t stop making everything about himself.
It started Sunday night, when Bad Bunny — a U.S. citizen from Puerto Rico — delivered a largely Spanish-language halftime show featuring Ricky Martin, Lady Gaga, a live wedding on the 50-yard line, and a football inscribed “Together, We Are America.” The performance was a pan-Latin celebration with no direct political messaging. (NYT, NYT)
Trump responded with a lengthy Truth Social tirade: “The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence.” He added: “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children.”
That was Sunday night’s finale. But the president had been at it all weekend:
- Attacking a 27-year-old Olympic skier. Trump called Hunter Hess “a real Loser” after the U.S. skier told reporters he had “mixed emotions” about representing the country under the current administration. “If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have tried out for the team, and it’s too bad he’s on it,” Trump wrote.
- Excluding Democratic governors. The White House barred all Democratic governors from what has traditionally been a bipartisan meeting at the National Governors Association’s annual Washington summit, scheduled for the week of Feb. 19. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, the nation’s only Black governor and the NGA vice chair, wrote on X: “I can’t ignore that being singled out for exclusion from this bipartisan tradition carries an added weight — whether that was the intent or not.” (WaPo)
- Claiming he “fixed” affordability. In an NBC interview before the Super Bowl, Trump said he’s “very proud” of the economy and declared, “The one thing that they don’t say anymore is ‘affordability,’ because I fixed the problem that they created” — even as polling shows most Americans disagree.
This all follows last Thursday, when Trump posted a racist AI-generated video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes — content so extreme that even Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) called it “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.” The NYT’s assessment of Sunday night: “The Culture War Is Over. Bad Bunny Won.” (NYT)
🚨 The Immigration Machine Grinds On
Despite last week’s drawdown of 700 federal agents — about a quarter of the deployment — Minneapolis remains the epicenter of the crackdown, with three developments signaling strain on all sides:
Official burnout: ICE Chief Counsel Jim Stolley — the agency’s top lawyer in Minnesota for 31 years — has retired amid the crush of cases. His departure follows a remarkable courtroom meltdown on Monday from Julie Le, an ICE attorney detailed to Minneapolis to help handle the surge, who told a judge:
“This job sucks... When you show up, they just throw you in the well and then here we go.”
Le said she had “stupidly” volunteered and stayed awake until 2:35 a.m. preparing, only to receive “no direction” from leadership. She was removed from her post. (NBC News, CNN, WSJ)
Legal victory for Trump: The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the administration can lawfully deny bond hearings to immigrants arrested nationwide. People who have lived in the U.S. for decades — “the spouses, mothers, fathers, and grandparents of American citizens,” as the dissent noted — can now be jailed indefinitely without a hearing.
Judge Dana Douglas — a Biden appointee and the first Black woman to serve on the 5th Circuit — dissented: Congress members who passed immigration law 30 years ago “would be surprised to learn it had also required the detention without bond of two million people.” (Fox News)
Protests continue: Demonstrations outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Saint Paul have persisted for weeks, with community members maintaining a round-the-clock presence.
Courts overwhelmed: The Minneapolis U.S. attorney’s office has been swamped by more than 500 habeas petitions in eight weeks — a legal tsunami from detainees challenging their imprisonment. The office has shrunk from 55 attorneys in January 2025 to fewer than 20 today, leaving prosecutors scrambling to keep up. (WSJ)
Human cost: An immigrant whose skull was broken in eight places during an ICE arrest says the beating was unprovoked, according to AP. A toddler was returned to ICE custody and denied medication after hospitalization, per a lawsuit. (AP, Reuters)
Meanwhile, it’s spreading. The NYT published a deep dive Monday on a federal raid at a horse racetrack in Wilder, Idaho — a deep-red community where 75 people were deported and the town was “nearly destroyed.” This isn’t blue-city resistance; it’s red-state America experiencing the crackdown’s human consequences firsthand. (NYT)
And the politics are converging on a deadline: DHS funding expires Friday. ICE agents wearing masks have become the central flashpoint in Congress — Democrats are demanding masks off, body cameras, and judicial warrants. CBS data shows less than 14% of ICE arrests involved people with violent criminal records. AP reports masks have become a symbol of “Trump’s ICE crackdown.” (AP)
🏛️ Consolidating Control
While immigration dominates the headlines, Trump’s broader project of concentrating federal power continues quietly:
Gutting employee protections: The Office of Personnel Management has proposed ending the right of fired federal employees to appeal to the independent Merit Systems Protection Board. Appeals would instead be routed to OPM — which reports directly to Trump. This builds on the 317,000 federal employees already pushed out in 2025. The administration is systematically dismantling the mechanisms designed to insulate the civil service from political pressure. (Reuters)
DOJ can’t recruit: The New York Times reports the Justice Department is struggling to recruit prosecutors who align with Trump’s priorities. Chad Mizelle, a former chief of staff to AG Bondi, posted on X: “If you are a lawyer, are interested in being an AUSA, and support President Trump and anti-crime agenda, DM me” — an unprecedented recruitment method for federal prosecutors. The DOJ lost roughly 8% of its workforce in 2025; some offices are so depleted that military lawyers have been sent in to fill gaps. (NYT)
📊 The Political Fallout Is Real
Democrat Chasity Martinez won Louisiana’s 66th House District by 24 points Saturday. In 2024, Trump carried the district by 13. That +37 swing is the largest yet in a pattern playing out across Trump country. (CBS News)
The flip scoreboard: Since January 2025, five state legislative seats have flipped from Republican to Democrat. Zero have gone the other way.
The over-performance pattern: In the nine competitive special elections held in Trump territory since January 2025, Democrats have over-performed their 2024 baseline in every one — flipping five seats and narrowing GOP margins in the rest. Republicans held Florida CD-1 and Tennessee CD-7, but their margins collapsed from Trump +37 to R+15 and Trump +22 to R+9. When Republicans targeted the Louisiana state district on Saturday as a pickup opportunity, they lost by double digits.
Whether this translates to 2026 remains to be seen — special election voters tend to be older, more engaged, and more educated than the midterm electorate. But for now, every data point in Trump country is moving in one direction.
Republicans are worried. Karl Rove warns the GOP faces real risks of Senate losses in Maine (Collins), North Carolina (open), and a Texas primary that’s become a “real mess” (Paxton vs. Cornyn). WaPo reports Trump leaves Republicans guessing on midterms plans despite a $300M+ war chest with no approved spending plan — people close to Trump say he sometimes sounds “detached and noncommittal.” (Mediaite, WaPo)
And the redistricting master plan is failing. Trump’s effort to push Republican state lawmakers to create more GOP-favorable House districts “is on track to yield far fewer gains than expected,” per the WSJ. Nonpartisan analysts now say the redistricting push will likely net Republicans just 3–4 seats — or possibly none at all. The problem: California. The Supreme Court cleared a new map that could flip 5 seats to Democrats, largely offsetting GOP gains in Texas (+2), North Carolina, Missouri, and Ohio. Meanwhile, Virginia Democrats released a “10-1” map that would transform a 6-5 delegation into potential 10-1 dominance. “You can’t gerrymander your way out of a wave election,” said Jacob Rubashkin of Inside Elections. (WSJ, WaPo, NYT)
The redistricting scoreboard:
🔵 CA (+5 Dem, Supreme Court approved)
🔵 VA (+4 Dem, pending court)
🔵 NY (+1 Dem, court-ordered redraw)
⬜ IN (GOP rejected Trump push)
🔴 TX (+2 GOP, enacted)
🔴 NC (+1 GOP, enacted)
🔴 MO (+1 GOP, enacted)
🔴 OH (+1 GOP, enacted).
Net projected effect: near zero.
🔍 Gabbard: Breaking Every Norm in Service of the President
DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s handling of a classified whistleblower complaint is escalating — and it now connects to two of the most alarming stories in the country.
The whistleblower complaint: A U.S.-intercepted phone conversation captured individuals linked to a foreign government discussing a person close to President Trump, with the discussion concerning issues related to Iran. After meeting with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Gabbard limited sharing of the intelligence within the U.S. intelligence community for political reasons, according to the complaint. The complaint was filed last May but was locked in a safe for eight months before reaching Congress — described by the WSJ as “without known precedent” for such delays. (WSJ, WSJ)
The WSJ highlights growing pressure on Gabbard, while Reuters reports she has rejected claims she withheld the complaint from Congress, calling the accusations “baseless and politically motivated.” (WSJ, Reuters)
Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) : “The whole thing stinks to high heaven… I think this was an effort to try to bury this whistleblower complaint.” (CBS)
TIMELINE — Whistleblower Complaint:
May 2025: Intelligence official files whistleblower complaint with IC Inspector General
May 2025: Gabbard meets with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles about the matter
Summer 2025: Complaint locked in safe; Inspector General determines some allegations “not credible,” cannot reach determination on others
Nov. 2025: Whistleblower’s lawyer accuses Gabbard’s office of “hindering” transmission to Congress
Feb. 2, 2026: WSJ breaks story revealing complaint’s existence and 8-month delay
Feb. 3, 2026: Inspector General finally transmits complaint to congressional leaders
Feb. 7, 2026: NYT reports complaint involves NSA intercept of foreign nationals discussing person close to Trump
Feb. 8, 2026: WSJ details that discussion involved issues related to Iran
And then there’s Georgia. The same Tulsi Gabbard was spotted outside the Fulton County, Georgia, elections office after the FBI raided it on January 28, seizing 24 pallets containing about 700 boxes of 2020 ballots.
A federal judge has now ordered the DOJ to unseal records justifying the raid by Tuesday. Local officials say the seizure showed “callous disregard” for voters’ constitutional rights.
Meanwhile, NBC News reports that state election officials say the Trump administration has been entirely absent on election security — CISA has been gutted, funding cut, and the first contact in months was a surprise email inviting them to a call. The Atlantic reports Gabbard’s election investigations have “absolutely destroyed” trust between federal and state officials. (NBC, Atlantic)
The picture that emerges: the nation’s top intelligence official buried a complaint implicating someone close to the president, and is simultaneously at the center of an unprecedented raid on state election infrastructure — while the administration has abandoned its responsibility to help states secure their elections. All of this serves a president who has repeatedly made false claims about election fraud, who last week called for the federal government to “nationalize” elections — which is unconstitutional — and whose administration has been sowing doubt about the integrity of this year’s midterms by filing lawsuits against states and seizing ballots. As House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries put it on CNN: “What Donald Trump wants to do is try and nationalize the election — translation: steal it.” (NBC)
💰 Selling the Presidency
The corruption is not subtle.
A New York Times investigation reveals that Trump allies are offering presidential access for donations of $1 million or more to a new organization called Freedom 250, created to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary. The planning includes a massive marble arch overlooking DC, an IndyCar race through Capitol streets, and a UFC match on the White House lawn on Trump’s birthday. Donors giving $2.5 million or more get speaking roles at an event in DC on July 4. (NYT)
Like Trump’s White House ballroom project, Freedom 250 has emerged as another channel for people and companies to curry favor with the president.
Trump and his allies have raised approximately $2 billion for political causes in the past year. Many donors benefit directly from administration actions.
📰 Media Under Siege
The Trump administration’s pressure campaign against the press continues to escalate:
Government retaliation: FCC Chairman Brendan Carr launched an investigation into ABC’s “The View” over alleged equal-time violations — triggered by a Texas Democratic Senate candidate’s appearance on the show. (Reuters)
The escalating pattern:
Dec. 2024: ABC settles Trump’s defamation lawsuit over Stephanopoulos interview for $15M
July 2, 2025: Paramount settles Trump’s “60 Minutes” lawsuit for $16M; FCC approves Skydance-Paramount merger weeks later
Sept. 16, 2025: Trump sues NYT for $15B
Dec. 16, 2025: Trump sues BBC for $10B
Jan. 14, 2026: FBI searches WaPo reporter’s home and seizes devices
Jan. 30, 2026: Don Lemon arrested while covering anti-ICE protests
Feb. 7, 2026: FCC opens “The View” probe
🌍 Trump’s Foreign Policy: Transactional and Alienating
A through-line connects Trump’s approach to Iran, Ukraine, Gaza, and the crypto billions flowing to his inner circle: transactional logic and overlapping personnel. At the same time, traditional allies are being pushed away.
The Transactional Machine
Iran: Talks in Oman were called a “step forward” by Iran’s foreign minister, though Tehran signals caution. Trump claimed Iran wants a deal “very badly.” Netanyahu will fly to Washington for an urgent Wednesday meeting. (Bloomberg, WSJ, Bloomberg)
But there’s a dark underside to the “positive” talks: Bloomberg reports that Iran has extended Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi’s prison sentence by approximately 8 years and arrested prominent reformist politicians, escalating its crackdown weeks after security forces killed 6,476 protesters during two weeks of December demonstrations. The crackdown comes just days after the “positive” nuclear talks — a reminder that diplomatic engagement and domestic repression can coexist perfectly well. (Bloomberg)
The Witkoff Connection: Steve Witkoff — Trump’s all-purpose special envoy — visited the USS Abraham Lincoln amid Iran tensions, alongside Jared Kushner. Both sit on Trump’s “Board of Peace,” which holds its inaugural meeting February 19. Meanwhile, the WSJ reports that World Liberty Financial — the crypto venture run by Witkoff’s 32-year-old son Zach alongside Trump sons Don Jr., Eric, and 19-year-old Barron — has doled out at least $1.4 billion to both families since the president’s re-election. World Liberty struck a secret $500 million deal to sell almost half the company to Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, an Abu Dhabi royal dubbed the “Spy Sheikh.” (WSJ, CNN, CNN, NYT)
“World Liberty has earned the Trump family at least $1.2 billion in cash in the 16 months since its launch… By contrast, it took eight years for President Trump’s real estate, golf and brand empire to throw off that amount of cash between 2010 and 2017.” (WSJ)
TIMELINE — Crypto-Diplomacy Convergence:
Sept. 2024: Trump sons and Zach Witkoff hatch World Liberty Financial at Mar-a-Lago
Jan. 2026: Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Tahnoon secretly buys 49% of World Liberty for $500M
Jan. 22: Board of Peace unveiled at Davos; Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner named to executive board
Feb. 6: Witkoff and Kushner negotiate with Iran in Oman
Feb. 7: WSJ reports $1.4 billion has flowed to Trump and Witkoff families
Feb. 8: Witkoff and Kushner visit USS Abraham Lincoln in Arabian Sea
Feb. 19: Board of Peace inaugural meeting in Washington
Ukraine: Zelensky revealed that Trump has set a June deadline for a Ukraine-Russia peace agreement. More strikingly, Zelensky warned the U.S. is “readying huge economic deals” with Russia — suggesting the same transactional logic at work. (Guardian, WaPo, Bloomberg)
Venezuela: In the most brazen example, the NYT reports Trump’s plan to seize control of Venezuela’s oil industry shatters an American taboo. After U.S. forces captured Maduro in January, Trump announced plans to take control of the country’s oil — forcing Venezuela to begin “turning over” as many as 50 million barrels for sale by the U.S. Senator Murphy (D-CT): “You are taking their oil at gunpoint.” Even Rep. Massie (R-KY) has called it “stolen oil.” It’s the first time a U.S. administration has simply seized control of another country’s oil reserves — crossing what critics call an imperialist red line that even the Bush administration was careful to avoid after invading Iraq. (NYT)
“You are taking their oil at gunpoint.” — U.S. Senator Murphy (D-CT)
Pushing Allies Away
The transactional approach has consequences beyond the deals themselves. Traditional allies are being alienated across every front:
The Pope declines to visit. Pope Leo XIV — the first American pope — has announced he will not visit the United States this year, in what is widely read as a rebuke to Trump. Pope Leo has criticized the administration on multiple occasions: calling Trump’s treatment of immigrants “extremely disrespectful” and condemning “diplomacy based on force” after the Venezuela intervention. VP Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, received an “icy reception” at the Vatican last year. (Daily Beast)
Germany’s “painful estrangement.” The FT reports on a deep emotional rupture. Wolfgang Ischinger, the 79-year-old chair of the Munich Security Conference who fell in love with America as a 16-year-old exchange student in small-town Illinois, now wonders whether the warning signs of estrangement were visible two decades ago. “America was the country that trusted Germany to become reasonable after the atrocities of the second world war,” says Claudia Major of the German Marshall Fund. “The Americans taught the Germans democracy. It feels like a betrayal.” Chancellor Friedrich Merz — a former head of Atlantik-Brücke and ex-chair of BlackRock in Germany — declared in December: “The decades of Pax Americana are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany.” The Munich Security Conference begins this week. (FT)
“The Americans taught the Germans democracy. It feels like a betrayal.” — Claudia Major, German Marshall Fund.
British executives blocked. The U.S. embassy in London is denying visas to top-level business executives over minor, decades-old criminal offenses — cannabis use, bar fights, old DUIs. “In our experience, anybody that has a criminal irregularity — no matter how minor — is unlikely to obtain a visitor visa,” said Christi Jackson of Laura Devine Immigration in London. “We are telling clients with existing visas that they should guard them with their lives.” Another lawyer said they were now turning away clients with any criminal history at all. London is the largest U.S. visa post in Europe, with more than 150,000 non-immigrant visas issued in 2024. (FT)
China escalates financial pressure. Bloomberg reports that Chinese regulators have advised financial institutions to rein in their holdings of U.S. Treasuries, citing concentration risks and market volatility. This comes as the dollar has fallen 8.1% in the past year — the most since 2017 — and another 1.3% this year, as Trump’s tariffs and weakening fiscal position erode investor confidence. Trump’s response when asked about the dollar’s slide: “I think it’s great.” (Bloomberg)
🌏 The Right Rises in Asia
Three developments over the weekend tightened the strategic pressure between Washington and Beijing — while revealing the global ripple effects of the Trump era.
Japan: The Biggest Landslide in 71 Years
PM Sanae Takaichi’s LDP won 316 seats (up from 198), securing a supermajority for the first time in the 465-member lower house. The margin was the biggest for any party since WWII. The LDP won so many proportional seats it ran out of candidates to fill them. (NYT, WSJ)
Takaichi, Japan’s first female PM, now has a mandate for hard-line immigration, defense, and China policies. She meets Trump March 19 ahead of the critical Trump-Xi April summit. While other traditional allies have struggled to respond to Trump’s tariffs and disruptive foreign policy, Japan under Takaichi is doubling down on the U.S. alliance — pledging to ramp up defense spending and positioning Japan as America’s “indispensable partner in Asia.” Trump endorsed Takaichi, saying she deserved “powerful recognition.” Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te immediately congratulated her. (WSJ, Bloomberg)
Xi faces a dilemma: a strengthened, hawkish Tokyo complicates China’s calculus in the Indo-Pacific, just as Hong Kong’s courts demonstrate Beijing’s continued willingness to crush dissent.
Hong Kong: Jimmy Lai Sentenced to 20 Years
A Hong Kong court sentenced media mogul Jimmy Lai to 20 years — the longest sentence under Beijing’s national security law. Six former Apple Daily employees received terms up to 10 years, including the editor-in-chief, executive editor, and an editorial writer. The WaPo editorial board called it “a de facto death sentence” for the 78-year-old. (NYT, NYT, WaPo)
Trump has said he raised Lai’s case with Xi. Coverage notes this adds friction to U.S.-China relations ahead of Trump’s planned April visit to Beijing — where he’ll arrive as Xi is both courting Trump economically and crushing the kind of press freedom Trump attacks at home.
Thailand: Conservatives Win for First Time This Century
The Bhumjaithai party won Thailand’s election — the first victory for a royalist-establishment party this century. It leaves the young pro-democracy movement disillusioned and adds another data point to Asia’s rightward drift. (FT)
⚖️ Epstein: Transatlantic Reckoning Deepens
Three million pages of Epstein documents are reshaping politics on two continents — with the sharpest contrast in how each culture handles shame.
The UK Crisis
PM Keir Starmer is fighting for his political life. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar — the most senior Labour figure yet — publicly called for Starmer to quit over the Peter Mandelson–Epstein appointment. Two top aides resigned in 24 hours: chief of staff Morgan McSweeney (Sunday) and communications director Tim Allan (Monday). Downing Street was warned about Mandelson-Epstein photos before the appointment was made, per Labour peer Lord Glasman. Starmer will address Labour MPs Monday evening. Cabinet ministers have rallied publicly, but gilts and the pound are under pressure. (Bloomberg, Bloomberg, FT, NYT, AP, WSJ)
New US Revelations
Monday’s developments: Ghislaine Maxwell appeared virtually before House Oversight for a closed-door deposition and invoked the Fifth Amendment, refusing to answer questions. GOP Chairman Comer called it “very disappointing.” Democrats accused Maxwell of using the deposition to campaign for clemency from Trump — her lawyer posted on X that Maxwell is “prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump” and claimed both Trump and Clinton are innocent. Documents released alongside the deposition include photos of Trump with women (faces redacted) and a suggestive note to Epstein that appears to bear Trump’s signature, which Trump says was faked. Meanwhile, Reps. Massie (R-KY) and Khanna (D-CA) visited DOJ to begin reviewing unredacted files. (Reuters, Fox News)
Farkas-Epstein emails: The NYT details nearly 2,000 emails between Andrew Farkas and Epstein showing deep personal and business ties. Farkas called Epstein “one of the blessings in my life.” (NYT)
Bannon connection: CNN reveals Epstein was deeply embedded in Steve Bannon’s global populist movement — texts show strategic advising right up to Epstein’s 2019 arrest. (CNN)
Cabinet exposure: Documents directly contradict Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s claim that he distanced himself from Epstein before 2008. Files show Lutnick planned a visit to Epstein’s private island and maintained contact far longer than disclosed. Navy Secretary John Phelan also appears in flight logs. (NYT, WaPo)
Tech feud: Newly released emails have reignited the Musk-Hoffman feud, including a previously unseen photo of a “wild dinner” with tech titans that Epstein hosted. Musk has vowed to pay legal fees for any Epstein victim who “speaks the truth.” (WSJ)
Survivors speak: Epstein survivors ran a Super Bowl ad targeting Attorney General Pam Bondi, demanding accountability. (Daily Beast)
The FBI’s conclusion: An AP review of internal Justice Department records reveals that the FBI found ample proof Epstein sexually abused underage girls — but “scant evidence he led a sex trafficking ring serving powerful men.” Investigators couldn’t confirm the most high-profile allegations about Epstein “lending” victims to powerful friends. The documents provide the clearest picture to date of why authorities ultimately closed the case without additional charges. (AP)
What to watch: Five more depositions are scheduled after Maxwell’s, including Hillary Clinton (Feb 26) and Bill Clinton (Feb 27) — they’ve requested public hearings to prevent “selective leaks.” Axios frames the issue question starkly: Europe is confronting its Epstein shame while Trump’s America wants to move on. Starmer, who never met Epstein, is fighting for his political life. Lutnick, who planned to visit Epstein’s island, sits in the cabinet. The Atlantic observes: “British Politicians Are Still Capable of Shame. Americans Aren’t.” Will the culture of shame cross the Atlantic? (Axios, Bloomberg, Atlantic)
⚡ Quick Hits
AI Disruption: Big Tech races to fund $660 billion in AI spending — and 15 of 66 Super Bowl ads featured AI companies, drawing ominous “Crypto Bowl” comparisons. (FT, NYT)
Insurance stocks crushed by AI app: Insurance broker stocks fell 3.9% (biggest drop since October) after AI startup Insurify launched a tool sparking disruption fears — another sector joining the AI disruption wave. (Bloomberg)
Senators’ Stock Trades: CNN analysis finds at least 9 senators reported stock trades in companies overseen by their committees. Sen. Moody — who introduced a bipartisan bill to ban lawmaker trading — bought $100K–$250K in Eli Lilly while sitting on the health committee. (CNN)
Bitcoin turmoil: FT declares “Bitcoin is still about $70,000 too high.” (FT)
Social Media on Trial: Arguments begin today in a landmark social media addiction trial in Los Angeles — the first major legal test of whether platforms can be held liable for harms to children. (NYT)
GOP Judges Fast-Track: Republicans are accelerating Trump judicial confirmations as pressure builds to kill the Senate’s “blue slip” tradition that lets home-state senators block nominees. (Fox News)
The House Always Wins: A prediction-market trader who thought he'd outsmart inexperienced Super Bowl bettors lost $100,000 on the game. (WSJ)
Sources: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Bloomberg, Reuters, Associated Press, Financial Times, CNN, CBS News, NBC News, Fox News, the Guardian, the Atlantic, Axios, Mediaite, the Daily Beast, Ballotpedia, Inside Elections, the Silver Bulletin, Pew Research Center, Quinnipiac University Poll, and Civiqs.
This was an experiment. What did you think?
Read through this and see some of the hallmarks of what I assume are LLM contributions. Whether or not it's digestible to read, I would prefer to take my sub money elsewhere in favor of writers who are writing their articles/substack themselves (without AI at any stage). Can LLMs write journalistically? Probably, sure. Do I want to support that with my money? Not even remotely.
It's a lot. I think too much. It feels plagiaristic even though sources are cited. One of my family members is experimenting with using AI for digesting and summarizing scientifically based content that is hard to get to with simple searches, and feels it's a great timesaver, but almost all of this content I have actually seen in many other news publications so it feels like just a laundry list of today's news. If you aren't going to do original reporting then it works OK as long as sources are cited, but I agree with Casper that it's not what I thought I signed up for.