Welcome to the Weekend Briefing. Before we dig into the news, I want to share with you a story about how artificial intelligence is helping neurodivergent people navigate the subtle cues of social encounters. It’s our first story in the AI&Us series. And I urge you to read this story about a Mexican family whose decision to self-deport from the United States led to calamity.
‘I think they want to die’: Israel is considering “alternative” options to bring its hostages back from Gaza while ending Hamas’ rule. President Trump said Hamas didn’t want to make a deal, and said he thought its leaders would be hunted down. Israel and the U.S. rebuked France for its plan to recognize a Palestinian state. Some other major Western powers demurred. Israel said it would allow other countries to parachute aid into Gaza. People including malnourished children are facing man-made mass starvation, the U.N. and aid agencies said.
‘The situation has intensified’: In southeast Asia, Thailand and Cambodia fought for a third day as new flashpoints emerged along the border. Both sides blame the other for starting the conflict. Read this report from the Thai side of the border where families are trying to stay safe.
‘We have to do this’: During a pivotal push by Ukraine to retake territory from Russia in late September 2022, Elon Musk gave an order that disrupted the counteroffensive and dented Kyiv’s trust in Starlink. It is the first known instance of the billionaire actively shutting off coverage over a battlefield during the conflict. Starlink’s global outage on Thursday hit Ukrainian military communications for more than two hours.
A question of color: The top U.S. embassy official in South Africa asked Washington if non-whites could apply for a refugee program geared toward Afrikaners. The reply he received from the State Department’s senior refugee and migration official was that the program was for white people. The official policy? It’s more complicated. And FEMA money is going to pay for states to build U.S. immigrant detention centers.
A question of clemency: Trump said he has not considered pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell or commuting her prison sentence for helping Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls. Deputy Attorney General Tom Blanche interviewed Maxwell over two days in federal prison in Tallahassee. Trump remains under pressure from his supporters and political opponents to release more information about the investigation into Epstein, and his usual methods of distracting people from his problems are not working.
Earnings season: Businesses focused on artificial intelligence did well in their latest quarterly results. Consumer names didn’t fare so well. Stocks and the dollar firmed on Friday as markets prepared for a Fed policy meeting and Trump’s Aug. 1 deadline for negotiating trade deals. Mainstream media are about to get a look at what the Trump administration considers unbiased journalism. And Macquarie found a business opportunity I’d never have thought of: student-housing businesses in Europe.
Quashed: Anyone here remember Tom Hayes? That was a big name a decade ago when he became the first trader to be jailed for interest-rate rigging. Earlier this week, Britain’s top court overturned his conviction.
Not enough droppings: Scientists along Peru’s central Pacific coast warn that climate change, disease and overfishing are threatening the survival of birds that produce large quantities of excrement that are used as natural fertilizer. A toxic algae outbreak off South Australia is devastating marine life and disrupting tourism and fishing.
Five Australian women who said they were pulled from a Qatar Airways flight and subjected to strip searches in 2020 won the right to sue the airline. Some women said they were forced to undergo gynecological exams to see if they’d recently given birth after an abandoned newborn was found at Doha’s airport.
Five former members of Canada's 2018 gold medal-winning world junior ice hockey team were acquitted of sexual assault. Whether they can resume their NHL careers is still to be determined.
U.S. health authorities are changing the organ-transplant system and threatened to close a major procurement body after a probe found premature attempts to start organ retrieval while patients showed signs of life.
A U.S. judge dismissed a mail-fraud criminal case after the Justice Department realized that
