BREAKING: Bob Mackie, a fashion icon who designed dazzling and memorable looks for Cher and many other A-list stars, dies at 87
Meanwhile, former President Barack Obama urged Democrats to prioritize developing a plan around artificial intelligence, and Sen. Chuck Schumer called for an all-Senate briefing.
The Kennedy Center’s board of trustees plans to vote tomorrow on two resolutions related to renaming and temporarily closing the institution, according to documents filed as part of a lawsuit by ex-officio board member Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio.
One of the proposals argues that the historic culture and arts center risks financial collapse if Trump’s name isn’t added to the facade. A federal judge had previously removed the president’s name from the building.
“The Center is seeking to appropriately recognize and acknowledge President Trump for his well timed proffer of fiscal rescue,” the resolution says. “The Board understands that without such appropriate recognition it is unlikely that President Trump will provide the fundamental oversight of the renovation of the main building and lead the fiscal rescue of the Center.”
The board will consider 10 different naming options for the Kennedy Center, all of which includes Trump’s name.
That resolution also would require “that the main building of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts shall be closed to patrons forthwith,” and for programming to continue at the REACH, a facility on the campus of the Kennedy Center that is physically separate from the main building.
A federal judge has also previously blocked the Center from closing.
Another proposed resolution states that the Delta Consulting Group, which has assessed the center’s renovation plans, and the center’s own executive director “consider the main building to be unsafe for continued occupancy, and anticipate further risk to the public and employees if the building is not immediately closed and renovations begun.”
Trump said Ukraine and Russia have agreed not to hit energy targets as diesel prices hit record highs.
“Ukraine has agreed not to hit Russian Energy targets. Russia has agreed to do, likewise!” he wrote on Truth Social. “The World’s Diesel price rise is mostly caused by the Russia/Ukraine War, not Iran.”
Diesel prices have been affected by both the wars in Iran and Ukraine.
Last week, the average cost of diesel in the U.S. hit $6 per gallon for the first time, a 60% increase since the war in Iran began. The average cost of diesel now sits at $6.23 per gallon.
Over the weekend, Trump blamed the rising diesel prices on Ukraine and called on that country’s president not to strike diesel infrastructure in Russia.
President Donald Trump rejected the idea of placing guardrails on artificial intelligence, saying in a Truth Social post today that the only control needed is “a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!”
In the same post, the president appeared to hint at the government pursuing criminal or regulatory penalties against AI companies after industry insiders warned of potentially catastrophic dangers posed by the rapidly evolving technology.
Read the full story here.
Urgent calls for a slowdown in the development of artificial intelligence may cite a grave threat to humanity, but China says the warnings are instead aimed at slowing its progress as America’s rival superpower.
Beijing today dismissed the intervention from U.S. tech leaders as “fearmongering” and part of a “Cold War playbook.”
It’s the latest sign that competition between the two countries could outweigh mounting safety concerns, after Trump also rebuffed the warnings from industry leaders and said his focus was on beating China on AI.
Read the full story here.
Two progressive groups made a call today for their favored candidates — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ro Khanna of California — to make a 2028 White House run.
The groups, Progressive Democrats of America and RootsAction, said they intend to launch a campaign right after the November midterms to push each of them to make a run for president and unveiled the RunRoRunAOC.org site this morning.
Khanna has already made some overtures about a potential 2028 run, having hired key staff, including some who had worked previously for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna. Getty Images
Ocasio Cortez, however, is still weighing whether to mount a Senate run or seek the Democratic nomination.
“As the prospective field comes into view, it’s crucial to have a strong progressive at the top of the Democratic ticket in 2028,” the two groups said in a joint statement. “Most of the Democrats whose names now crowd the field have been war enablers, go-slow reformers or status quo protectors. AOC and Khanna, meanwhile, have shown a willingness to blaze unusual and much-needed trails on Capitol Hill beyond the constraints of the Democratic Party establishment and bipartisan corporatism.”
Both groups have pushed progressive candidates in the past, and in 2022, RootsAction launched the “Don’t Run Joe” campaign calling for former President Joe Biden not to seek re-election.
In September 2023, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman and other billionaire tech titans huddled with senators in the Capitol to discuss what Musk called the “civilizational risk” posed by artificial intelligence.
Three years later, those tech titans have all deepened their investments in AI, and Congress still has not passed any comprehensive legislation to rein in or create guardrails for the fast-moving technology. Even after countless committee hearings on AI and the formation of various commissions and task forces to study it, there’s not even any consensus in the House or Senate about how to tackle the issue.
That failure has been spotlighted in recent days as a trio of AI researchers at top companies dropped a bombshell, saying they had left their jobs over concerns that AI systems could spiral out of control and end humanity. Jacob Coxon, who resigned from Anthropic, wrote on X: “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”
Read the full story here.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., this morning called for a Senate briefing with top administration officials to “address the serious risks posed by uninhibited AI development and lack of action to stop China’s development of the technology,” his office announced in a news release.
“Warning bells are ringing louder than they ever have — and the Trump administration is looking the other way,” Schumer said in a statement. “Well, if they won’t hold themselves accountable, we will. And if Trump does not act, Congress must.”
Schumer called for the administration to address testing for frontier AI models, controls on U.S. technology exports to China and plans to defend against AI-enabled cyberattacks.
Last week, AI concerns exploded into the open as industry insiders raised alarm over potential imminent dangers posed by the rapidly developing technology.
Yesterday, on “Meet the Press,” former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warned that congressional proposals for guardrails like an AI “kill switch” could be outpaced.
In a separate “Meet the Press” interview, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., called for guardrails and safety measures, but said that “we can’t rush in and have Congress do something that would be detrimental to national security.”
Trump said yesterday that the U.S. can implement guardrails, but argued that the U.S. was leading China on AI.
“We’re the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly, I want to keep it that way, because whoever wins AI wins,” he told reporters.
Former Anthropic AI researcher Jacob Coxon yesterday called for Congress to allow the nation’s leading frontier AI labs to regulate themselves, while lawmakers come up with a long-term regulatory framework for slowing the pace of AI development.
“My personal opinion would be to insist and allow that the current labs regulate themselves. I do think that the people running the labs, especially their recent communications, are completely genuine. They would like to slow themselves down,” Coxon told NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
He added that current legislation that’s been introduced in Congress, including the framework for a national “kill switch” if AI starts to exceed the bounds of human control, will quickly be outpaced.
NBC News
Read the full story here.
A federal judge late yesterday ordered that the U.S. Postal Service not implement Trump’s executive order limiting mail balloting, adding another obstacle to the administration’s effort to rewrite election rules as the Supreme Court is poised to weigh in on the matter.
The nation’s highest court already is considering the administration’s appeal of an order by U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani in Boston prohibiting the postal service from enforcing its new rule on mail voting before this year’s midterm elections.
Read the full story here.
Former President Barack Obama urged Democrats to prioritize developing a plan around artificial intelligence, saying that’s what he would be doing if he were running for president in 2028.
In remarks at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser Thursday, Obama said that while he was neither an “accelerationist” nor a “doomer,” the AI bell is not one that could be unrung, and that Democrats ought to flesh out an agenda on the topic.
Read the full story here.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said yesterday that Congress would “work through” Trump’s promise to give $5,000 to American adults if Republicans keep the House and Senate after the midterm elections, but he did not commit to ensuring the president’s proposal was executed.
“I commit that Congress will work through it and find consensus on that, like I have to do everything else,” Johnson said, when asked whether he would commit to carrying out Trump’s promise.
Read the full story here.
Trump yesterday called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries and other infrastructure used to produce and distribute diesel, saying the attacks are causing a global shortage. He spoke after diesel prices in the U.S. hit a record Friday, soaring past $6 a gallon on average.
Ukraine has for months been targeting Russia’s oil and gas industry with long-range strikes, prompting fuel rationing across the country and causing Moscow to ban diesel exports in July, removing supplies from the already tight global market.
Read the full story here.
NBC News