Brian

[Dwarkesh Patel @dwarkesh_sp]

It's surprisingly plausible that we got GLP-1 drugs because of Danish tax law.

For tax reasons, Novo Nordisk is actually controlled by a non-profit foundation.

There are many downsides of this. But one possible upside is that it's helped the company avoid institutional drift.

The founding goals of the company were written into the non-profit's constitution, so now every new generation of leaders has to abide by them.

In particular, the company is legally mandated to reinvest significant sums in R&D, regardless of the effect on shareholder value.

That R&D gave us one of the major drug breakthroughs of this century so far.

[Oz Katerji @OzKaterji]

The economic situation in Russia is spiralling out of control, and the Russian occupation of Crimea is experiencing a profound crisis due to Ukrainian pressure.

Things are reaching a critical point and I expect Russia’s soft western apologists to start demanding Ukraine relents.

[Jonathan Chait @jonathanchait]

Definitive case that @elonmusk did in fact directly cause huge numbers of preventable deaths https://t.co/mN21k29XbS

[Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib @afalkhatib]

To suppress mass demonstrations against its rule by Palestinians in Gaza, Hamas terrorists split up in multiple teams including 2 examples in these photos: ISIS-like strike forces to shoot & kill; & fake "journalists" pretending to cover the protests to arrest any demonstrators.

[Ihab Hassan @IhabHassane]

BREAKING: Palestinians are gathering across the Gaza Strip to begin anti-Hamas protests.

DOWN WITH HAMAS!

[Jesse Singal @jessesingal]

Everyone should read this. The Musk/DOGE story is infuriating and in a remotely just world he'd have to at least explain himself. In the meantime, after making decisions that likely killed hundreds of thousands of people, he became a trillionaire.

https://t.co/ESdBWKQmhu

[Mallory McMorrow @MalloryMcMorrow]

One billionaire family controls the bridge that carries 25% of all U.S.–Canada trade.

The good news? There's a brand new public bridge right next door (and Canada paid for the whole thing).

The bad news? Donald Trump won't let it open.

Here's the story:

For more than a decade, Michigan and Canada worked together to build a new public crossing right next to it — six lanes over the Detroit River, named for a Canadian-born Red Wings legend, built by thousands of union workers. Canada paid the entire bill. Michigan co-owns it. It's finished. It’s a shining example of international cooperation and collaboration, with a tremendous return for both sides: more jobs, faster trade, and lower costs.

So why isn't it open?

Because the Moroun family, who own the rival Ambassador Bridge just up the river, doesn’t want the competition. They spent years and tens of millions of dollars trying to stop any competing international crossing from being built or opening. They lost. So they went to the White House instead.

In January, Matthew Moroun gave $1 million to a pro-Trump super PAC. Then the billionaire called Trump's Commerce Secretary and, just hours later, Trump suddenly attacked the same publicly owned bridge he praised in his own first term and threatened to block it.
Then, the day before the June 12th ribbon-cutting, the opening was called off indefinitely.

It's corruption so flagrant it would be laughable if it weren't so damaging.

Trump is screwing over Michiganders for the interests of billionaires — holding a finished, publicly owned project hostage to protect one donor's toll booth.

So a finished bridge sits closed, Michiganders keep paying the higher tolls, cars and trucks cost more, and a billionaire family keeps its monopoly.

Mr. President: stop playing games. Open the damn bridge.

[Eric Topol @EricTopol]

We stress tested many frontier AI models for multimodal medical reasoning (including GPT-5, Claude 3.5, Gemini 2.5 Pro). They’re not ready. Faulty reasoning, use of inappropriate shortcuts, hallucinations. Published today @NatureMedicine https://t.co/P6eHZEmfbW

[The Bulwark @BulwarkOnline]

Elon Musk has been busy. Not losing $240 billion in a matter of days, no, trying to incite a race war in the UK on X.

@CathyYoung63's latest fact checks his hateful rhetoric following various violent events that occurred in the United Kingdom for the past month.

[The Spectator @spectator]

The former hostage was Ilana Gritzewsky. The imperious official was Reem Alsalem, the UN's special rapporteur for violence against women and girls. Well, some women and girls.

As Ms Gritzewsky recounted the sexual savagery of Hamas, her voice trembling with quiet, dignified fury, Ms Alsalem looked like she would rather be anywhere else. "Please look at me", said Gritzewsky at one point. It was a truly shaming moment for the UN.

Ms Gritzewsky survived 55 days in the dank, cruel captivity of Gaza's Islamofascists. She was seized from Kibbutz Nir Oz, along with her partner, Matan Zangauker. She was sexually assaulted as she was kidnapped. A gun-toting brute put his hand up her shirt and grabbed her breast.

Such was the level of violence visited on her that she lost consciousness. When she awoke in the hellscape of Hamas-ruled Gaza, she was on a bare floor with her breasts exposed and her pants pulled down.

One of her tormentors later hugged her and said she would never be released because "I want to marry you".

N. N. rapporteur on violence against women sits there stone-faced. No empathy.

✍️ Brendan O’Neill

Article | https://t.co/I4s2PtJbtI | @spikedonline

[Ihab Hassan @IhabHassane]

HORRIFIC: The Fatwa Committee of the Association of Muslim Scholars of Palestine has issued a statement declaring that participating in the June 26 anti-Hamas protests is forbidden, accusing protesters of betraying Islam, collaborating with Israel, and calling for them to be publicly denounced.

This is exactly how peaceful dissent is demonized: first by branding ordinary Palestinians as traitors and collaborators, then by creating a religious and political justification to execute and persecute them.

The people planning to protest are not foreign agents. They are Palestinians demanding the right to speak, to live with dignity, and to express their views without fear.

Threatening civilians for exercising their right to peaceful expression is unacceptable and disgusting.

[David Axelrod @davidaxelrod]

It's actually mind-boggling that @JDVance would say Watergate would be a "10 hour story" today.
Just to review, Nixon's aides authorized a break-in of the DNC HQ to install bugging equipment--in a caper foiled by a night watchman, who called police. They then enlisted the CIA to mislead the FBI that the break-in was related to a probe of malign foreign actors.
The entire operation was paid for by a slush fund controlled by the WH.
The WH also enlisted the IRS to probe hundreds of Nixon's political enemies.
The AG, the WH COS and several other top aides all were convicted and served time for their involvement in the crimes and coverup.
Nixon was caught on his own secret tape system conspiring with them but was pardoned a month after he resigned by his successor, Gerald Ford.
That Vance thinks this would be a "10 hour story" today speaks volumes about the moral and ethical degradation of the Trump era.

[Michael Weiss @michaeldweiss]

“Look at all the shit we can get away with now, isn’t it great?” is what he’s saying here. Another rare moment of honesty from Vance.

[Michael Weiss @michaeldweiss]

The GRU operative—a member of Unit 29155, no less—who invented the Ukraine biolabs nonsense celebrated the day Gabbard pushed it. (Receipts in the link.) The IC was aware of the origin of this conspiracy theory, which makes Gabbard’s promotion of it as one of her valedictory moves upon leaving the IC all the more scandalous. Finally, people casually conflate recruited agent with agent of influence. The Russians do not. The latter category is more encompassing for a reason. And being in a batshit cult does not foreclose on the possibility of being manipulated by foreign intelligence; if anything, it makes one more susceptible. https://t.co/KDx13LkDw6

[Ihab Hassan @IhabHassane]

In just a few hours, the people of Gaza will rise up against Hamas.

This is not a one-day protest. This is the beginning of a sustained uprising that will continue until Hamas falls.

The people of Gaza have suffered for far too long under war, repression, hunger, and fear. They are demanding freedom, dignity, and a future without Hamas and without occupation.

The world must not abandon them. Stand with the people of Gaza. Amplify their voices. Watch what unfolds.

[Jimmy Rushton @JimmySecUK]

NEW: Ukraine has been setting conditions for its blockade of Crimea since 2022.

And now the occupied peninsula is under siege, with Moscow having no easy options to break it.

My analysis for the @KyivIndependent.

https://t.co/tdCOzoI7oA

[Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib @afalkhatib]

Right this moment, across the Gaza Strip, Hamas’s police, intelligence units, and al‑Qassam Brigade militias are fully deployed to crush the June 26 protests planned by civilians who want to voice their opposition to the group’s authoritarian, fascistic rule. In a new escalation, armed operatives from the Iranian‑funded Palestinian Islamic Jihad have joined Hamas, positioning fighters across Gaza to rapidly arrest, shoot, or disperse any gathering that could turn into a demonstration. Even more alarming, a national security source tells me that four days ago, communications were intercepted from Lebanon and the Islamic Republic of Iran advising Hamas on how to deter Gaza’s population and how to confront protesters with a “low visible footprint” once demonstrations begin.

Hamas has also unleashed hundreds of fake “journalists,” tribal figures, social‑media “influencers,” humanitarian “activists,” and other regime‑aligned voices to denounce the June 26 protests as “suspicious” and “Israeli-backed.” Given the scale of this state‑sanctioned terror apparatus, it would be surprising if large numbers of Gazans manage to demonstrate as originally envisioned. Yet a handful of activists with almost no resources have already rattled Hamas’s entire security infrastructure, and the broader “Axis of Resistance” so loudly celebrated by many in the Western “pro‑Palestine” movement. That alone exposes just how many supposed allies of the Palestinian people are, in truth, nowhere to be found when Gazans stand up to their actual oppressors.

[Máiría Cahill @cahillbooks]

More meat on the Belfast Telegraph story re Ian Paisley here.

Paisley claims he told Poots about a "not a teenager but a woman" who was in his words "exploited" by Donaldson.

Neither, it seems, told the DUP leadership.

First to be established : What was the nature of this "exploitation"?

Second : What are the DUP's rules for passing on such allegations?

Third: Were the allegations sufficient to be of a criminal nature? Presumably not if neither went to the police.

https://t.co/ZKbYHHPfmD

[Ruxandra Teslo 🧬 @RuxandraTeslo]

Stripe is simultaneously:
1) enabling small businesses (of only one person!) to exist.
2) publishing a small magazine of big ideas.
3) doing a big initiative to cure the common colds.

[Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib @afalkhatib]

Hamas has launched an industrial‑scale campaign of terror, intimidation, interrogation, and blackmail against thousands of Gazans it suspects of planning to join tomorrow’s June 26 demonstrations against its violent, authoritarian rule. Hospitals across Gaza have been turned into makeshift police stations, interrogation sites, and torture centers. Clan elders are being coerced into issuing statements. Hamas operatives are stealing phones and posting fabricated messages to sabotage the protests. Families are being threatened, people placed under house arrest, and Hamas’s al‑Qassam brigades (the same forces responsible for October 7) have been fully mobilized to reinforce police and intelligence units with explicit shoot‑to‑kill orders.

Meanwhile, the mainstream press is largely absent, apparently because Israel is not involved – so no Jews, no news. And the Western “pro‑Palestine” industry is either celebrating the electoral victories of pro‑Hamas, hard‑left candidates or actively smearing Gaza’s protesters as collaborators undermining the “resistance.” As for the UN, NGOs, and major human‑rights organizations: silence. Not a word for Palestinians risking their lives to say they are done with Hamas’s terror and rule.

This is what the abandonment of Palestinians in Gaza looks like. Shame on all who stay silent in the face of jihadi, ISIS‑like violence against the very people they claim to champion.