☕ Daily Brief: Trump Presses Ahead on AI

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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

🚨 MA seizes teen from parents over transgender dispute. Two Catholic parents in Massachusetts say a school counselor secretly “transitioned” their daughter from female to male, then had the state remove her from their home after they refused to affirm it. A judge just blocked the state from giving the 17-year-old high-dose testosterone while the case plays out.

✝️ El-Sayed protested terrorists who converted to Christianity. A 2007 protest resurfaced showing Abdul El-Sayed, then a Muslim Students Association VP, rallying against three former terrorists who'd converted to Christianity. "We’ve done something good today,” said El-Sayed at the time, “and we need to keep that going in the future.”

🎥 Trump defends the use of AI surveillance cameras. President Trump told reporters he backs Flock Safety's AI license plate readers, even as Republican Sen. Josh Hawley (MO) investigates the company over officers abusing the system for personal searches. Meanwhile, progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is vowing legislation to stop what he calls "AI mass surveillance."

🤖 Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon join forces against AI. The unlikely pair — a Democratic Socialist with a populist conservative — will headline a "Pro-Human Assembly" following an Anthropic researcher's resignation warning of a race to "self-improving superintelligence." Trump fired back, dismissing the alarm as a "SICK conspiracy" that only benefits China.

WORLD NEWS

Behind the paywall: A drone strike that almost hit a former prime minister and CIA director, French police seen aiding a smuggling operation, and Beijing's response to American warnings about AI.

HOAX TRACKER

There's just one problem with the number they reported…

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ASK THE EDITORS

Q: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman twice urged President Trump to launch strikes against the Houthis, but the administration has declined. Why don't the Saudis launch their own military operations? — Chuck from North Carolina

A: Saudi Arabia has actually been launching its own strikes for weeks, but they don’t have much to show for it. They bombed Houthi targets in late July in response to a wave of Houthi attacks on oil tankers, and they hit Sanaa's (Yemen’s capital) airport runway in July, supposedly to block an Iranian arms flight.

The Saudis learned that air power alone doesn't work against this particular terrorist group during their 2015-2022 war against them. The Houthis are dug into Yemen's mountainous terrain, use cheap drones and missiles that are hard and expensive to intercept, and have spent a decade honing guerrilla tactics that make them tough to completely take out.

On the ground, Saudi Arabia has been relying on Yemeni proxy forces rather than its own troops to hold territory, though these were recently discovered to be "ghost armies," where only 20 percent of listed troops actually existed.

President Trump wants to pressure the Saudis to use their own resources to fight the Houthis instead of American resources, as the US’ own missile stockpile is very low, and Trump worries about expanding the conflict outside of Iran.

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YOUR TAKE

Should AI development be slowed down?

TODAY’S POLL

POP QUIZ

POLL RESULTS FROM YESTERDAY

Do you trust that President Trump can resolve the war in the Middle East?

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 👍 Yes (524)

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜ 👎 No (435)

🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜ 🤔 Unsure (292)

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