June 29th
Mark David
1) Scoop: Powerful Anthropic model, Fable 5, on track to return soon
by Mike Allen and Zachary Basu for AXIOS
The Trump administration is close to allowing Anthropic to restore access to its powerful Fable 5 model, which has been offline for 15 days because of security fears by the government, a source close to the situation tells Axios.
- Insiders expect the administration's limits on Fable 5 could be lifted as soon as this coming week, the source said.
- A second source said conversations are expected to continue over the weekend, and Anthropic expects to restore Fable access soon.
Why it matters: For developers and even non-technical early adopters, Fable 5's blackout was unprecedented and deeply jarring — a top-tier model, already in users' hands, pulled offline due to government intervention.
The big picture: The progress toward liberating Fable 5 marks a thaw in a bitter four-month standoff between the administration and Anthropic.
2) What 20 million bans reveal about the strain on Wikipedia’s volunteers
Published: June 25, 2026 8:35am EDT by Ryan McGrady Senior Research Fellow, Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure, UMass Amherst for THE CONVERSATION
This year, Wikipedia is celebrating 25 years as the internet’s encyclopedia that anyone can edit. In its first decade, the quirky experiment for passionate nerds exploded in popularity. It became a ubiquitous information resource and a homework helper for schoolkids, much to the dismay of skeptical teachers.
In its second decade, amid the public’s growing dissatisfaction with the mangling of facts in popular discourse, it took on a new role as information infrastructure, helping categorize and validate information worldwide. Wired magazine deemed it “the last best place on the internet.” The hope was that the volunteer project could serve as the antidote for misinformation. Platforms from Facebook and Twitter to Alexa and YouTube began embedding Wikipedia material to ensure that users had context for what they read or saw.
3) JD Vance’s stunning Watergate revisionism says the quiet part out loud
There’s a reason Donald Trump’s allies take issue with the exposing of rot in a presidential administration.
Jun. 27, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT By Paul Waldman for MS NOW
For half a century, Watergate has been the quintessential American scandal, so much so that we frequently affix “-gate” to new episodes of official wrongdoing in an attempt to make it sound significant and sinister.
But what if, asked Vice President JD Vance, we consider Watergate no big deal? Or even better, why not decide that former President Richard Nixon, our pre-Trump model of corruption and abuse of office, was not the perpetrator of Watergate but its victim?
“I’m actually fascinated by Nixon as a character in history,” Vance said at an appearance this week at the Nixon Library in California. “I think that his historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, but I think deservedly so. As I joked with Robert backstage, if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. Like, the idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.”
4) Supreme Court says Trump can't fire Fed governor Lisa Cook by Courtenay Brown for AXIOS
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that President Trump could not immediately remove Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, a blockbuster ruling that limits the president's influence on the central bank.
Why it matters: The decision is the highest court's strongest endorsement yet of Federal Reserve independence, making it harder for Trump and future administrations to reshape the central bank through presidential firings.
What they're saying: "We see no reason to leave the public in limbo, or to sow doubt as to the status of one of our Nation's (and the world's) most important financial institutions," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.
5) What the Reflecting Pool Actually Reflects about Trump
An American icon becomes a metaphor for an incompetent and corrupt presidency.
Don Moynihan Jun 29, 2026 for LINCOLN SQUARE
Don Moynihan is the J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy at the University of Michigan Ford School of Public Policy. Subscribe to his Substack, Can We Still Govern?
Different types of government failures grab our imagination: coverups, tragedies, personal moral failings, and corruption all lend themselves to narratives that humans naturally relate to.
But failures that can be visualized are hard to beat. They tell their own story. That is why I think the Reflecting Pool has caught the public imagination. Endless images and memes of the degradation of the Pool have swept through social media. The stakes seem simultaneously low enough to laugh about, but significant enough to gin up outrage. It is simultaneously funny and symbolic.
It would take a whole other post to highlight the best jokes, but this is certainly my favorite.
That said, I think the Reflecting Pool debacle is mirroring different aspects of Trump’s failure to govern in a competent and accountable way. Here are some themes.
6) Israel’s ‘campaign between the wars’: How strategy to contain Iran and its allies risks further straining ties with US Published: June 26, 2026 THE CONVERSATION
BY Amy McAulife Visiting Distinguished Professor of the Practice, University of Notre Dame
A lot hangs on whether the United States can compel Israel to cease operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon. After all, an end to the Israeli military offensive was a key provision of the broad U.S.-Iran agreement setting out a road map to end the Iran war.
And even though Israel did not sign the deal, policymakers in Washington will continue to press Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to abide by the truce.
Yet there’s a larger and more vexing issue for the Trump administration and its Arab allies in the Middle East that has received little attention: Israel’s long-standing “campaign between the wars” strategy and whether it threatens the prospect for long-term peace in the region.
7) Zohran Mamdani’s Freezer Burn Socialism by NEWSWEEK EDITORS
The most important test of Zohran Mamdani’s socialism isn’t today’s wins, like the rent freeze he just secured for 1 million apartments in New York City.
It’s tomorrow’s results: whether the heat comes on, the elevator works, the leak gets fixed, and the super still has a budget after the freeze has done its political work.
8) Trump Boasts About Crowd Size at His Medical Appointments by Andy Borowitz
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Claiming that it “has to be some kind of record,” on Monday Donald J. Trump boasted about the “enormous” crowd size at his medical appointments.
There were so many doctors at my last physical, there wasn’t room for them all,” he bragged. “They never turned out like that for Obama.”
He said that he was considering demolishing Walter Reed National Military Medical Center because “I’m going to need a bigger hospital.”
9) Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” is making kids go hungry
Hundreds of thousands of children in Arizona have been pushed off nutrition assistance.
By Judd Legum for POPULAR INFORMATION June 29th
One of the key provisions of President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” enacted on July 4, 2025, was a major cut to nutrition assistance for low-income Americans, known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The SNAP cuts amounted to about $18.7 billion annually — about as much as the federal government spent in one week of the Iran War. Although the deepest SNAP cuts have yet to take effect, the impact of these cuts has already been devastating, particularly for children.
In Arizona, for example, enrollment in SNAP programs has plummeted by more than 50% since the state began implementing the changes mandated by the Trump administration. In June 2025, there were about 375,000 Arizona children enrolled in SNAP. In May 2026, that number had plummeted to 178,000.
10) Medicare pushes end-of-life discussions in hospitals by Maya Goldman for AXIOS
The Trump administration wants to formalize the process for recording whether Medicare patients want to be kept alive if they become incapacitated.
Why it matters: Health providers have been required to ask about living wills and other "advance directives" since the early 1990s. But the questions are often skipped — or become a box-check in the admissions process.
- Only about a third of U.S. adults have documented their end-of-life care wishes. More consultations could reduce costly life-extending treatments that patients don't really want.
11) Dems' Tea Party-like rebellion built by a decade of frustration
BY Alex Thompson, Holly Otterbein for AXIOS
Democratic leaders are increasingly alarmed that they're facing their own version of the GOP's Tea Party rebellion 17 years ago — and that they can't stop it.
Why it matters: The recent wave of primary victories by Democratic socialists and outsiders over the party's hand-selected candidates has shocked establishment Democrats. But the rage in the party has been building for a decade.
It's not just progressives vs. moderates. It's insiders vs. outsiders, with many Democratic voters dissatisfied with their own party.
- Some Democrats now believe the party is poised for a Trump-esque figure to take it over in 2028 — someone who'll offer an outlet for their anger.
- Dan Pfeiffer, a former top aide to Barack Obama and now co-host of "Pod Save America," said this week: "It is very clear that the groups of the left — Justice Democrats, Democratic Socialists of America, Our Revolution — are out-organizing, out-fundraising, out-working, out-maneuvering the traditional party institutions ... That is happening."
12) Is JD Vance More Dangerous Than Trump?
The putative presidential candidate is even more skilled at demagoguery
Robert Reich Jun 29, 2026
JD Vance said on Friday that the U.S. wins “either way” in negotiations with Iran. “If we make the final deal, then great,” Vance told HBO’s Bill Maher. “If we don’t make the final deal, their nuclear program is still destroyed. They’re still much weaker as a country.”
Just hours after Vance’s appearance on HBO, Iran launched attack drones on Bahrain — which hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters, a major logistical base for U.S. military operations. Iran also struck an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, its second attack on a ship since Thursday.
So much for Iran being much weaker.
13) Tension with unions shadows Moore's run-up to 2028 Holly Otterbein AXIOS
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has cast himself as a champion of workers, but behind the scenes his relationships with some labor unions are increasingly rocky.
- Several union officials tell Axios that the potential 2028 presidential candidate says the right things to them but often doesn't follow through — and that he's even combative toward organized labor at times.
Why it matters: The tension with labor officials is the latest obstacle that Moore, an Afghanistan veteran and former investment banker, faces in his backyard as he builds a national profile ahead of a possible run for the White House.
14) We've Never Been More Connected. So Why Are We So Lonely?
People communicate constantly: texting, posting, replying, reacting, liking, sharing, streaming, commenting, subscribing, swiping, and broadcasting. But what about real human relationships?
Brian Daitzman is the Editor of The Intellectualist The Intellectualist LINCOLN SQUARE
A person today can send a message across an ocean in less than a second. A child can speak by video with a grandparent on another continent. A lonely teenager can find strangers who share their exact fear, desire, diagnosis, fandom, grievance, dream, identity, obsession, or wound. A worker can collaborate with people they have never met. A writer can publish without a printing press. A musician can release a song without a label. A dissident can document abuse before power can bury it. A citizen can watch events unfold in another country almost as they happen.
No previous generation has had anything like this scale of instant, everyday communicative reach. Technically, the distance between people has never been easier to cross. And yet reach is not attachment. Availability is not intimacy. Contact is not belonging. A person can be reachable by everyone and held by no one. A message can cross the sea instantly and still fail to become a relationship. A feed can contain thousands of human signals and still leave the body alone in a room. A society can build extraordinary communication systems and still face an epidemic of loneliness.
15)Trump Gets Negative Reviews Internationally as Fewer Say U.S. Is a Reliable Partner
36-country survey finds declining ratings for the U.S. amid rising concerns about its foreign policy and the health of its democracy
By Richard Wike, Laura Silver, Moira Fagan and Jonathan Schulman PEW RESEARCH CENTER
A new Pew Research Center survey finds negative – and often overwhelmingly negative – views of U.S. President Donald Trump in regions around the globe.
Across 36 nations polled, a median of 23% of adults express confidence in his leadership of world affairs. In many countries, confidence in Trump has slipped since last year.
16) The End of Independent Agencies
The Supreme Court majority throws out the New Deal and much else Robert ReichJun 29, 2026
First of all, you should know that I spent five years of my life advising the commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission how they could best protect Americans from monopolies and deceptive corporate practices.
I’m proud of the work the FTC did then, and proud of much of what it’s accomplished since then. When I served there, the chair of the FTC was Michael Pertschuk, an energetic and charismatic trust-buster and consumer advocate. More recently, the FTC has been chaired by Lina Khan, who courageously stood up to some of the biggest and most politically-powerful corporations in America.
Part of the reason the FTC has been so effective is that it is — or was — independent, and therefore immune to the political moves of powerful corporations seeking to stop it from acting for the common good.
The FTC was established in 1914 as part of what’s known as the “progressive era” when the government first sought to rescue the nation from the grip of the robber barons who then ran the railroads, oil, shipping, and much of the rest of the economy — and corrupted the nation’s politics — during the First Gilded Age.
17) Volkswagen is expected to cut 100,000 jobs in landmark downsizing by Nathan Bomey for AXIOS
Volkswagen reportedly plans to lay off as many as 100,000 employees worldwide in a massive downsizing that illustrates how Chinese competition is reshaping the global automotive industry.
Why it matters: European automakers are faltering in China and on their home front as Chinese automakers like BYD deliver high-quality, low-cost electric vehicles.
Driving the news: VW plans to shed nearly 1 in 6 of its global positions, according to multiple reports, including German outlet Manager Magazin and the Financial Times.
The big picture: If the company follows through and cuts 100,000 positions, it would be one of the largest layoffs in business history.
- FT noted that other huge cuts included General Motors shedding 74,000 positions in the 1990s and IBM cutting 60,000 in 1993.
- VW has only one plant in the U.S. — a facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where employees recently joined the United Auto Workers.