By The Free Press | Created at 2026-06-17 10:27:31 | Updated at 2026-06-17 13:17:37
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It’s Wednesday, June 17. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Karim Sadjadpour on how Iran out-maneuvered Trump. River Page on how a Libertarian could hand Texas to the Dems. Brad Wilcox delivers the good and bad news about fatherhood today. And much more.
But first: Meet the new tech elite.
SpaceX’s massive IPO last week did more than make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. It also minted 4,000 new millionaires. Anthropic and OpenAI are on track to go public later this year, and will no doubt create many more millionaires in the process.
This brings us to the big and obvious question. No, not what the rise of these tech juggernauts means for the future of the economy. How are these people going to spend all that cash?
Thankfully, the one and only Suzy Weiss has the answer. “My phone has been ringing off the hook since these IPO filings started dropping,” one big-time Bay Area real estate agent told her. “The liquidity event hasn’t fully hit yet and I’m already seeing the demand shift.”
Every boom is different, and this one is just getting started. But in a country where wealth inequality has become a major political concern, plenty of the new AI rich folk want to live quietly and safely while giving away vast sums. Yes, they want the pied-à-terre in Paris. But they also don’t want a lot of attention while embarking on projects like fighting hunger, or helping people who are set to lose their jobs to AI.
And, naturally enough, they also want to invest in their hobbies and passions. “I’m obsessed with expanding volleyball as a sport and expanding my role in it,” one member of the AI set told Suzy. “I wouldn’t have done this without OpenAI. It’s a YOLO play.”
Read Suzy’s in-depth look at America’s burgeoning tech elite and how they plan on spending their money. And, as such, a view into the future. The money being made by the AI.
—The Editors
Data show that fathers are investing record amounts of attention, affection, and time in their children. But there’s a dark side to this good news story, with more and more men opting out of fatherhood altogether. Brad Wilcox takes a close look at the data and finds that dads and non-dads split along many lines, with the backdrop of an economy that makes having children feel out of reach to many.
Rafaela Siewert • The Free Press Interviews
On Sunday, the public learned that the U.S. had reached a memorandum of understanding with Iran—reportedly, a one- to two-page document seeking to extend the ceasefire by 60 days and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with nuclear negotiations to follow. Rafaela Siewert sat down with Karim Sadjadpour, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, to talk through all of it: why he believes there’s a dramatic misunderstanding on both sides of the negotiating table, why he calls this a strategic defeat for Trump, and what comes next.
River Page • U.S. Politics
The Texas Senate race is neck-and-neck between MAGA Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico—but one overlooked candidate could tip the race. His name is Ted Brown, the Libertarian Party candidate, and he ran against Ted Cruz in 2024, receiving 2.4 percent of the vote. In a new interview with River Page, Brown maintains that he’s not a “spoiler” because “You can’t spoil something that’s already rotten and putrid to begin with. And that’s what the Republican Party is now.”
With America’s 250th birthday just a few weeks away, we’re honoring some of the Great Americans who made their mark on these United States. Today, former California congressman and SEC chair Christopher Cox remembers suffragist Alice Paul, without whom the Nineteenth Amendment would have taken years longer to pass. She silently picketed the White House, was force-fed in prison at 60 pounds, and was essential to giving women the right to vote. Read Cox’s piece to find out how one tenacious woman’s nonviolent protests shifted public opinion so dramatically that Woodrow Wilson reversed his opposition and endorsed the amendment before Congress.
MORE FROM THE FREE PRESS
THE NEWS
The agreement to end the Iran war will end oil sanctions on the Islamic Republic immediately, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. So far, at least one Iranian tanker carrying crude oil has left port and made it past the U.S. naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz—the first such journey to take place since the U.S. placed its ships there in April.
An Idaho judge ruled yesterday that the state cannot enforce its law criminalizing using a restroom that does not match one’s biological sex. The law, federal judge Amanda Brailsford rules, is unconstitutional on the grounds that it requires law enforcement personnel to subjectively evaluate a person’s sex on the scene to decide whether or not a criminal offense has been committed.
A group of people who allegedly planned to attack this weekend’s UFC fight on the White House lawn using drones, snipers, and explosives were arrested and charged this week, law enforcement officials said yesterday. The plot was discovered, according to court documents, by the concerned mother of a 19-year-old suspect who was incensed about the government’s handling of the Epstein files.
Federal prosecutors have charged 15 Minnesotans with conspiracy to violently oppose immigration enforcement during last year’s “surge.” U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Daniel Rosen claimed those charged conspired to interfere “by force,” while critics claimed the cases against the 15 were based “on false testimony.”
Apple is planning to debut camera-equipped AirPods and a foldable iPhone in 2027, the year of the smartphone’s 20th anniversary, Bloomberg reported yesterday. The new AirPods are meant to be the company’s first AI-focused wearable product.
A top Southern Poverty Law Center official has been accused of directing $1.2 million in donations to an informant placed inside a white supremacist group who was also allegedly her lover, the New York Post reported yesterday. The report follows a recent superseding indictment filed by the Department of Justice against the SPLC accusing the nonprofit of redirecting donor money to the alleged hate groups they purported to be fighting.
Samuel Adams announced that its Boston Taproom depleted its entire stock of Boston Lager over the weekend, attributing the shortage to a surge of Scottish soccer fans. According to the brewer, consumption between Thursday and Sunday was roughly four times what it typically sees during a major four-day holiday weekend such as the Fourth of July, forcing the company to arrange an emergency resupply on Saturday morning.
