Joshua Melvin

Deputy chief of @afp's Asia desk in Hong Kong. Will work for tips: [email protected]

[Axios @axios]

Scoop: Trump plans to drop "weaponization" fund https://t.co/0xzHZAD9aN

[Danny Kemp @dannyctkemp]

Trump to visit Temple of Heaven in Beijing on Thursday afternoon, WH's @AnnaKelly47 says. Welcome ceremony and Xi bilateral on Thursday morning, state banquet Thurs evening, and bilateral tea and working lunch on Friday before return to Washington

[Danny Kemp @dannyctkemp]

Reporters in black tie and ballgowns for Trump in briefing room after White House Correspondents Dinner shooting

[Steve Herman @newsguyusa]

Commentators are noting there was nothing new in President Trump’s 19-minute speech, which was essentially a verbal summary of his recent social media posts.
https://t.co/8kOPHRVWTj

[Department of State @StateDept]

Be the face of America, wherever America needs you.

Join the United States Foreign Service.

https://t.co/kFGsjbqzof

[Will Oremus @WillOremus]

A California jury just found Meta and YouTube negligent in designing products addictive to children — one day after a New Mexico jury found Meta endangered children online.

"There are thousands more lawsuits waiting to be heard... " https://t.co/3b8j1Mscy3 by @iduncan

[AFP News Agency @AFP]

Dirty diapers born again in Japan recycling breakthrough.

Billions of dirty diapers end up buried or burned every year in Japan -- more from seniors than babies -- but a recycling breakthrough has given them a new lease of life

https://t.co/Dng1Asvwgc

[Joshua Melvin @melvinreport]

#breaking Iran's state TV confirms death of Ali Khamenei @AFP reporting #IranStrikes

[Sam Altman @sama]

Tonight, we reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified network.

In all of our interactions, the DoW displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome.

AI safety and wide distribution of benefits are the core of our mission. Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems. The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.

We also will build technical safeguards to ensure our models behave as they should, which the DoW also wanted. We will deploy FDEs to help with our models and to ensure their safety, we will deploy on cloud networks only.

We are asking the DoW to offer these same terms to all AI companies, which in our opinion we think everyone should be willing to accept. We have expressed our strong desire to see things de-escalate away from legal and governmental actions and towards reasonable agreements.

We remain committed to serve all of humanity as best we can. The world is a complicated, messy, and sometimes dangerous place.

[Israel Defense Forces @IDF]

A short while ago, the IDF identified missiles launched from Iran toward Israel.

Defensive systems are operating to intercept the threat. In the past few minutes, the Home Front Command has sent a precautionary directive directly to mobile phones in the relevant areas.

[ABC News @ABC]

BREAKING: Israel says it has launched a preemptive strike against Iran, prompting Defense Minister Katz to declare a state of emergency in all areas of the country. https://t.co/WpGpowUIlM

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

The New York Times made news the loss leader for a $2 billion digital revenue machine, and this chart is the receipt.

News-only subscribers dropped 65% since June 2022. Bundle subscribers grew 227%. That looks like a news collapse. But the NYT deliberately killed its standalone news product. They stopped marketing it. They made it nearly impossible to buy a news-only subscription on their website. They priced the full bundle (News + Games + Cooking + Athletic + Wirecutter) at $2/month introductory, cheaper than a standalone Games subscription.

News-only ARPU is $13.33. Bundle ARPU is $12.92. Single non-news product ARPU is $3.36. Those 4.3 million single-product subscribers paying $3.36/month? They’re not the business. They’re the funnel. The NYT CEO said it explicitly on the earnings call: single products are “funnels to get people to subscribe” to the bundle.

Games now accounts for over 50% of time spent inside the NYT app. Wordle, Connections, and the Mini pull 10+ million weekly players who never intended to read a news article. But half of all NYT subscribers now pay for the bundle, and bundle subscribers retain longer, engage more, and accept price increases. The bundle just went from $25 to $30/month.

The result: digital revenue crossed $2 billion for the first time in 2025. Free cash flow hit $550 million. Adjusted operating margins reached 24% in Q4. Berkshire Hathaway just took a billion-dollar position. While the Washington Post cut 300 journalists last week, the Times added 1.4 million subscribers.

This chart shows a news company that built an attention ecosystem where Wordle gets you in the door, Cooking keeps you at breakfast, The Athletic owns your commute, and by the time you think about canceling, you’d lose four products instead of one.

The NYT figured out that the way to fund journalism in 2026 is to make sure you can’t quit the crossword.

[Axios @axios]

☢️ NEW: As the Trump administration mulls Iran options, it is prepared to consider a proposal that allows Iran "token" nuclear enrichment if it leaves no possible path to a bomb.

Another scenario “takes out the ayatollah and his son and the mullahs.” https://t.co/ZW2CH6pzyS

[Axios @axios]

Civil rights icon Jesse Jackson dies at 84 https://t.co/VwDhyUHKrS

[賴清德Lai Ching-te @ChingteLai]

In a wide-ranging conversation with AFP, I underscored #Taiwan's responsibility to enhance our defense & uphold regional peace. This is driven by our commitment to deepening cooperation with like-minded partners across security, technology, industry development & more.

[The New York Times @nytimes]

Breaking News: Will Lewis stepped down as the chief executive and publisher of The Washington Post days after it laid off hundreds of journalists. https://t.co/lu63u2pz0e

[BNO News @BNONews]

BREAKING: Savannah Guthrie says family has agreed to pay ransom for mother’s release

[David Folkenflik @davidfolkenflik]

Former WashPost Exec Editor Marty Baron says Bezos often "spoke forcefully and eloquently of a free press and The Post’s mission, demonstrating his commitment in concrete terms... I wish I detected the same spirit today. There is no sign of it." con't

[The New York Times @nytimes]

Breaking News: The Washington Post began sweeping layoffs that were slated to shrink the scope of the publication. https://t.co/3r71CU1shC

[AFP News Agency @AFP]

🇹🇼 An American climber conquers Taiwan's tallest building, becoming the first person to scale Taipei 101 without a rope, harness or safety gear.
➡️ https://t.co/PjvZmHqbrC