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Why this matters:

• Asked later Sunday if he was trying to minimize the risks from AI, Trump said, “I’m not downplaying.” Trump warned about the technology moving too quickly and with little oversight to “negative forces” he did not identify. The Republican president spoke a day after Dario Amodei, CEO of the artificial intelligence company Anthropic, said the industry should put the brakes on its fast-moving development to give safety measures time to catch up.
  
  

• AI has become a major election-year issue in the U.S. Trump has kept up his support for data centers even as both Republicans and Democrats run from them and many communities try to block them. Former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, said his party should make AI a campaign issue.
  
  

• Chinese President Xi Jinping is due at the White House later in September to meet with Trump, and AI likely will be among the items they discuss.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

• WATCH: Trump says ‘whoever wins AI wins’
• Beijing hits back at Anthropic CEO’s call to curb China’s AI development
• New warnings about the risks of AI to humanity revive a long-running debate 
• WATCH: Amodei urges slowdown

POLITICS

Second federal judge freezes Trump mail ballot order

The decision was issued late Sunday by the U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols in Washington, D.C. It added another obstacle to the administration’s effort to limit mail voting for the midterm elections. The Supreme Court is poised to weigh in on the matter. Read more.

What to know:

• Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to create a nationwide list of verified eligible voters. Election officials say it would be impossible to implement the changes this close to a general election. Nichols wrote in issuing the preliminary injunction, that “Plaintiffs have demonstrated that, absent an injunction, there is an increased risk that a significant number of otherwise appropriate absentee or mail-in ballots will ultimately not be counted in the upcoming elections.”

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

• House Speaker Mike Johnson says Trump’s $5,000 ‘dividend’ needs congressional approval
• Trump agreed to new ethics rules to get a crypto bill across the line. But that might not be enough  
• A more perfect union? Congress has been the place where America tries to resolve its problems
• Why Canada? America’s northern neighbor seems an unlikely target for a trade war

US NEWS

In an age of instant answers, educators say there’s a case for letting kids struggle a little

At a time when an answer or AI-generated help can be seconds away, giving children room to figure things out for themselves can be hard to do. But developmental experts and educators say children need chances to struggle with everyday problems because figuring them out is a skill that has to be practiced. Read more.

Why this matters:

• If children rarely have to struggle, it can lead to severe anxiety when they have to figure out something on their own, said Dr. Stephanie Carlson, director of the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota. The challenge for parents is knowing when to help and when to step back.