Jon Ward

Vice President of Public Affairs at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association

[Ed Stetzer @edstetzer]

Fascinating.

And, two @SWBTS (and two Harvard) grads!

[Alex Seitz-Wald @aseitzwald]

Interesting dispatch from @emmaogreen about how a small newspaper in coastal Maine covered an election when the world descended on them. They seem really cool! https://t.co/VFnpyabZRF

[Jon Ward @jonward11]

@KLF thoughts and prayers

[Texas Tribune @TexasTribune]

Texas’ governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and every other statewide candidate fell, upending the state’s political power structure in one night. https://t.co/D35BaUPdWP

[Jonathan Martin @jmart]

Would love to see the private fight data by 9am of all the planes landing across Mississippi en route to courthouses for this Senate epic

[Jon Ward @jonward11]

@teddygoff @patrickgaspard gotta play the long game!

[The Deciders @decidersshow]

Right to repair won 80%+ in Massachusetts and 86% in Maine. “We didn’t lose a county in Massachusetts.” The automakers sued anyway. @autocareorg’s Bill Hanvey on why it now needs a national law. Watch on YouTube: https://t.co/eL16OcKA9e

[NFL on CBS 🏈 @NFLonCBS]

JIM NANTZ JUST TRIED TO PEANUT PUNCH @JJWatt 🤣

"I did not think you were gonna go that hard"

"my wrist is broken" 😭

[Kevin Baron @DefenseBaron]

So sad. La Bonne Vache is an absolute GEM in Washington. The best staff, best food, and best deal on blanc des blancs. Glad nobody hurt, hope they can rebuild. DC needs more joints like this.

[The Deciders @decidersshow]

What isn't Washington talking about? @TeamAPCIA's Nate Cook: people living past 100. “Instead of four generations in the workforce, 7 or 8 generations in the workforce, and what does that mean to us? It's not that far away.” Watch on YouTube: https://t.co/ziMYDN0HPU

[Matthew McConaughey @McConaughey]

Redskin greats honored at halftime and a @Commanders victory at home knocking off the reigning SB champs. 🤙 Mariota. Hail.

[Capital Weather @capitalweather]

🚨 We’re calling it: Summer is over in DC.

After 50 days of 90+ heat and one of our 10 hottest summers on record, the pattern has finally flipped.

70s today. 60s Tuesday and Wednesday. And no sustained heat in sight.

Welcome, fall. 🍂

Link: https://t.co/H1XOVPElJ1

[Ryan Hawk @RyanHawk12]

Wow. Love this response

[Jon Ward @jonward11]

@WillAisNumber24 I agree with you. Sasse's column is really just a case for organized sports in general. As for wrestling/football: I think if you take the most challenging, toughest moments for football players -- mentally & physically -- those are just another day at the office for a wrestler

[Jon Ward @jonward11]

Sure, football does all this (I realized that nowhere more profoundly than during a reporting trip to Steubenville, Ohio). But if you want all the positive qualities Sasse outlines here, in spades, put your kid into wrestling and see if they can stick with it.

[Jake Tapper 🦅 @jaketapper]

Sasse: America Needs Its Boys to Play Football https://t.co/CwAZRPBTMH

[Nick Offerman @Nick_Offerman]

RIP Wendell you beautiful beanpole of a farmer poet king.
What a great time to celebrate our nation’s greatest writer by digging into The Unsettling of America or Hannah Coulter or send some love to @Berry_Center

[New York Magazine @NYMag]

‘Travel sports,’ a term that has come to encompass all sorts of private teams, leagues, and clubs, used to be for the truly exceptional young athlete. Now, they’re for anyone willing to pay — an expensive, exhausting commitment that has become popular not necessarily because millions of parents want them for their children but because it can feel like there’s no other choice. Rec programs are underfunded and struggle to compete with for-profit leagues for prime field, rink, and court times. And the level of play is diluted, often very early, as travel teams are incentivized to enroll children at young ages.

Around 5 million children in the U.S. now compete on travel teams. Parents find themselves trapped. They know the benefits of sports and want that for their children, yet giving it to them often means buying into a sports ecosystem that’s inherently flawed. As the pay-to-play model increasingly takes hold, so does the idea that kids should start competing at younger and younger ages, risking their sense of self along with their shoulders and ACLs.

“I never want my kids to look back and say I didn’t do everything I could to help them live their dreams,” a mother of three soccer players said. She’s hired professional photographers to take action shots for her 12- and 13-year-olds’ Instagram accounts — the platform has become a recruiting tool — and they’ve both asked her to pay for personal trainers.

“I think the word isn’t ‘specialize’; you are ‘professionalizing’ your kid early. You are exposing them to everything professionals have to deal with — I’m talking injury, time, schedule, everything,” said John Van Benschoten, a former MLB player and travel-baseball coach.

It makes one ask: All this for what? And for whom? Read Caitlin Moscatello’s cover story on how travel leagues have made youth sports more expensive, hypercompetitive, and all-consuming — and the investors who are making a killing: https://t.co/zHcKsPYfeC

[Matthew Zeitlin @MattZeitlin]

every statewide election now is two people who supported data centers five minutes ago saying their opponent supports data centers

[Sebastian Mallaby @scmallaby]

Early reaction on @demishassabis stepping back:

Demis has been playing the role of Google AI statesman for some time, and Koray Kavukcuoglu has been running Google DeepMind research for some time. So this is a formalization of something that had been happening informally. I doubt it changes how well Google executes on AI, and nor does it justify the market's reaction--Alphabet down 5%.

DeepMind's mission has always been to solve AGI and then use it to solve everything else. The solving AGI piece is pretty much done. The channeling AGI into safe and beneficial outcomes is only just beginning. So it makes sense that Demis is shifting his energy from the research to the social impact.

This isn't out of character. Demis cared about safety enough that he sold DeepMind to Google, not to Facebook, even though Facebook offered more money. He cared enough about safety that he fought a three-year battle with Alphabet to get external oversight over DeepMind's AI deployment. This next chapter of his career is a return to that side of his work.

Meanwhile Demis continues to lead Isomorphic Labs, which gives him an opportunity to show how AI can help humanity via medicine.

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis is stepping aside https://t.co/CrpBdGFHOB