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From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford.
Today's Wednesday, June 24th, here's what we're covering.
A heat wave has gripped Europe with high temperatures threatening to shatter records. Britain, France, and Spain are facing the most intense conditions, with temperatures soaring well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, often in places that were not built for that.
“Many homes, schools, and businesses there were designed for the cooler climate of the past.”
Air conditioning is not standard. Some buildings were even designed to retain heat. But Europe is now warming faster than any other continent. Because it has been very difficult out here in Paris for the past couple of days. We see people holding portable fans, water sprayers,
cleaning to areas with shade. My colleague, Segalin Lestradek, says that in France, the heat has driven some people out of their homes. Because of the extreme temperatures, the mayor of Paris has decided to keep parks open 24/7.
I've usually closed at night, so I went for a walk very early yesterday morning. And I could tell people had spent the night sitting in the park. In the last few days, at least 40 people in France have drowned, as crowds have poured into any swimming spot they can find. Officials say many of the victims were young and swimming in unsupervised areas.
Across the continent, the current temperatures are being driven up by a heat dome,
a kind of high pressure system that basically acts like a lid on a pot of boiling water.
Because of climate change, heat domes are becoming more common worldwide. In Europe, they've been trying to prepare for this. Two decades ago, a summer heat wave caused a staggering 70,000 deaths. In response, countries created early warning systems, organized more cooling shelters.
Paris even built a registry of elderly and vulnerable residents who get checking calls when temperatures rise. This summer, experts say, will be a test of many of those systems. One public health expert told the Times, quote, "We have adapted, but it is far from enough for what is coming."
In New York last night, a set of primaries for house seats delivered a resounding wind for the left wing of the Democratic Party, bolstering the political movement championed by New York City's mayors, Warren Mamdoni. Mamdoni had called the congressional primaries a referendum on the direction of the Democratic Party, and he endorsed a series of candidates who won last night,
including two who ousted Democratic incumbents. The winning candidates share Mamdoni's progressive economic platform. They'd also all been outspoken about ending American support for Israel,
a sign of how many in the Democratic Party have grown increasingly critical of Israel and its government.
Overall, last night's results in New York show voters hunger for insurgency over in competency, and their hopes for a political shake-up heading into the midterm elections this fall. Meanwhile, one of the candidates who came up short last night in New York was Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of President John F. Kennedy. Before he announced his run for Congress, Schlossberg had made a name for himself online, as a combative sometimes crude social media personality
in provocateur, who cracked jokes and went after his famous cousin, Hellsecretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Early polling had shown Schlossberg with a path to victory, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, even endorsed him. But times political correspondent, Lisa Layers says that in the end, it was not enough. Schlossberg was hampered by his lack of experience in government or really politics at all,
“so I think his campaign here really just shows how social media and a social media presence”
can get a candidate on the ticket and put them in the running, but it can't necessarily win them the seat. You can find the full results from last night's primaries in New York and
Other races around the country at nytimes.
On this vote, the Yays are 358, the Nays are 32, and without objection, the motion to reconsider
“is laid on the table. In Washington, Congress has passed a landmark by partisan bill aimed at”
boosting the supply of U.S. homes and tackling the country's housing crisis. And President Trump is expected to sign it into law today. For a long time, the high cost of housing had been seen mostly as a big city issue, but during the pandemic, prices shot up around the country, in places like Boise, Boseman, and Kalamazoo, partly due to a lack of inventory.
Today, experts say the U.S. has a shortage of up to six million homes, and the new bill,
which is the most significant piece of housing legislation in almost four decades, will try and change that. It's coming at the problem from a couple of angles. It will loosen federal regulations, making it easier, faster, and cheaper to build, and it gives grants to communities hoping to repair
“existing housing. The bill is also designed to limit the reach of large institutional landlords,”
who've bought up hundreds of thousands of single-family homes. Now, the number of homes those investors can own will be capped. Overall, housing experts told the times that the measures
could help boost the U.S. housing supply and bring down prices, but that it will take time.
For one thing, it could be years before some construction projects actually break ground. Plus, high interest rates are still keeping a lot of potential buyers out of the market. Yesterday, the United Nations released a report accusing Israeli security forces of deliberately killing Palestinian children in the months after Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire. The report was compiled by an independent commission, which concluded the killings were part of
“a strategy to destroy the future of Palestinians in Gaza and said that amounted to genocide.”
The findings underscore the increasing alarm from the UN and other humanitarian agencies that the ceasefire in October has failed to stop the violence. UNICEF has said that one Palestinian child has been killed on average every day since the start of the truce, calling the peace agreement a quote, "cruel and deadly illusion." Israeli officials dismissed the report as a libelous sham and accused the commission of trying to single out and vilify the
country. Israel's foreign ministry also criticized it, saying it ignored the deaths of Israeli children who were killed by Hamas.
And finally, not too long ago, tech companies were pushing their employees to use AI as often as
possible. The idea was to cut down on busy work and boost productivity. Some companies even posted big leaderboards showing which workers were using AI the most. It led to the term "token" maxing, tokens being essentially a unit of AI use. But tokens cost money. Companies like anthropic and open AI charge their corporate subscribers for each token they use. And now that the bills have come due, the new word in Silicon Valley is "token" meaning. As in, let's maybe cut back.
That's partly because the more advanced AI programs have become, like with the rise of AI agents that can work unsupervised for hours at a time, writing entire software programs, the more tokens they use. As a result, software engineers can now be burning through tens of thousands of dollars worth of tokens every month. Recently, Uber said it had already blown through its entire projected AI spending budget for the year. Amazon and Meta have taken down their token
maxing leaderboards. The abrupt reversal after just a few months underscores how much uncertainty there is about the best strategy for using AI tools. Since many companies still aren't seeing a clear return on their investments, those are the headlines. Today on the daily, how the relationship between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump is rupturing, and what that could mean for the future of US support for Israel. You can listen to that in the New York Times
app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracy Mumford, we'll be back tomorrow.
