This is yet another story about authoritarianism — but one that hits a little different. Phurba is resilience incarnate, a person born for these times. And his tale is bonkers. I hope you enjoy reading it as much we did reporting it. Gift link: www.wsj.com/world/asia/t...

Hi, former Foreign Service Officer here The Secretary of State might be interested to learn that visa requirements and terms are generally reciprocal. We do it to them, they do it to us.

it is not the case that if you stop observing bad things, the bad things go away

sure fuck it, whatever. we deserve this

What a great, great farewell note

LLMs are basically terrifying users by force-feeding them niche fanfic texts without context. There's a reason why fandoms congregate on small forums to talk out their inside jokes because they don't want innocent people to stumble into their space and freak out without knowing the context!!!

This is a really crazy thing to do.

Hmm, where have I heard this bef…oh, right:

As the U.S. heads toward trade talks with China next week, President Trump is increasingly focused on trying to strike an economic bargain with Beijing.

The most interesting fact about Hulk Hogan is that as a kid in France, Andre the Giant sometimes got driven to school by playwright Samuel Beckett

Your moment of joy today.

This is shattering, must-read journalism from @leloveluck.bsky.social, Heba Farouk Mahfouz, Siham Shamalakh, Miriam Berger and @cheesemanab.bsky.social. Glad it is getting the front-page treatment it merits. Gift link for non-subscribers is here: wapo.st/3GXPS9A

"Google users who encountered an AI summary also rarely clicked on a link in the summary itself. This occurred in just 1% of all visits..."

i believe that at 18 every american should be entered into a draft, not for military service, but for one year of mandatory retail or restaurant work

Hey WHCA -- u up?

“I violated the user directive …” “I violated the first law of robotics…” “I’m sorry Dave…”

NEW FROM ME: new research has found millions of ex's of personal info, including credit cards, passports, résumés, birth certificates etc in 1 of the largest web-scraped datasets used to train image generation AI models. It's a major privacy violation. www.technologyreview.com/2025/07/18/1...

Excellent move. Strong and confident regimes have no need for so-called “comedy,” which serves only to undermine socialist spiritual civilization.

the Grok - Mechahitler story is interesting for what it reveals not just about Elon's LLM but about how sign systems work at a pretty high level of abstraction

The leap from this to the systems Chinese police use for social engineering in Xinjiang and Tibet is exceedingly small

Settle in and read this extraordinary piece by Rümeysa Öztürk about her detention and marvel at her compassion for others, even in the darkest conceivable situation. We are blessed to have students like her in America: www.vanityfair.com/news/story/r...

you can get this exact same result with a reasonable sized edible

Tiktok got banned despite massive efforts to demonstrate that Beijing wouldn't access US data. All the while, the U.S. government allowed China-based Microsoft service teams to directly access classified government systems w/ nominal supervision. www.propublica.org/article/micr...

Palestinians in Gaza are facing a tough decision every day: starve or risk death while trying to get food from one of the aid distribution centers https://on.wsj.com/46JM6uT

Some places will have to start rationing water - to enable AI slop. "A data center like Meta’s, which was completed last year, typically guzzles around 500,000 gallons of water a day. New data centers [will] require millions of gallons of water a day" Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/14/t...

this is a structural problem that threatens the entire industry: the financial incentives lean toward Takes but Takes ultimately depend on a bedrock of reporting that there is almost no working model for at this point.

State-run elementary and even preschools doing the work in Tibet of the “reeducation centers” in Xinjiang. Old imperial trick… but behind every national school, hedge schools are keeping the flame lit. Important reporting by @joshchin.bsky.social et al www.wsj.com/world/china/...

As more journalists are driven out of their jobs, I keep hearing this drumbeat of "it's ok -- they can start their own newsletter or publication." Some can. But becoming your own business is a huge job, and will eliminate many talented reporters from the public sphere. Here's why. (1/5)

China National Space Administration recruitment campaign launching in 3, 2 …

They’re so close. Less than a thousand dollars away from hitting their goal. Let’s get them across the line!

The other thing that is either a huge tip of the hand or spectacular incompetence, is that the next obvious line is, "it's time to try white."

“I have lost a third of my body weight after nearly 21 months of war … Once [hunger is] controlling your own mind, you cannot think straight. Once you feel that your stomach, your brain, your body, are craving something, you will not be afraid of anything. You will do anything to get food.”

The “Not in Xi Jingping’s Wildest Dreams” file is getting so big it will soon fill the entirety of a shuttered State Department office

US contractors say their colleagues are firing live ammunition as Palestinians seek food in #Gaza. The AP has obtained videos of a food-distribution site in Gaza and interviewed two American contractors working there. apnews.com/article/pale...

😂 六四 👏 👏 👏

A critical resource, under threat because of DOGE cuts. No group is better at finding cracks in the Great Firewall. If you think it’s important to understand China, consider donating

“General Motors just killed plans to make electric motors at a factory near Buffalo, N.Y., and instead will put $888 million into building V-8 gasoline engines there.” www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

STAGGERING: This new study of 133 countries is the first to estimate the impact of all USAID’s work. In 2 decades, it has saved *92M* lives. Current cuts, if not reversed, are forecast to cost up to *14M* lives thru 2030. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

I got permission to share this, and I'm extremely grateful for that. The Onion got this letter from one of our subscribers in Alaska. She works with dementia patients and decided to leave a copy in the car for each one. This email made my year. Read it and you'll see what I mean. People are good.

Comrade Xi Jinping does not have a “branded fragrance.” However, if he did, it would subtle but unmistakable, warm but unyielding, evocative of a blossoming new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and confounding to anti-Party and reactionary elements. With a hint of sandalwood.

This is just an incredible story. A leadership team from Princeton University Press went on a propaganda tour in Xinjiang (strangely, in a subsequent public statement the press described some of the basic mechanics of a propaganda tour when defending its actions).

Amazing work here. One of the smartest and most comprehensive reports ever done on Chinese censorship -- a topic that's going to become so much more relevant as DeepSeek and other Chinese LLMs continue to grab territory

What’s the ideal age for the state to impose assimilation on minorities? In Tibet, it’s 4. Gift link to new long read from me and Niharika Mandhana Beijing's building of government-run preschools across Tibetan areas to reverse generations of opposition to party rule: www.wsj.com/world/china/...

Specific parts of Zohran’s platform explain why he got nearly 60% support from the Asian American electorate

All I see here is top notch ball security, elite contact balance, a willingness to grind out tough yards btwn the tackles, and surprising burst after he finds daylight

Yes, it’s another “just like in China moment.” But what does that mean? This piece from @mauracunningham.bsky.social on the closing off of China’s archives 10 years ago gives us a roadmap to where things could go from here

Welp

Honestly, even the Chinese and Russians never made me do this to get a visa. Even the North Koreans, who made me hand over my phone for the duration of my visit, never made this demand.

We're sorry. We're unavailable to accept your plea at this time. If you're a fading imperialist power desperate for China to help clean up your mess, please press "1" and hold for the first available cadre. The current wait time is 1,307 days. www.cnbc.com/2025/06/22/u...