It’s Thursday, July 24. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: The victims of the LA fires ask where all the money went; Olivia Reingold scours Zohran Mamdani’s social media history; does Gen Z know how to party? And more.
But first: The future is already here.
What makes us human, anyway?
That’s the question posed by our two lead offerings this morning. In the first, Lydia Dugdale examines the case of the eight babies who were born in the UK and announced last week. These newborns all have the same peculiar trait: They were all conceived using one man’s sperm and two women’s eggs, a procedure developed to prevent the horrors of mitochondrial disease. It’s an ingenious solution to a problem. But it’s more than that—it’s a medical breakthrough that poses profound questions. As Lydia puts it: “If we can manipulate our bodies at their genetic source, we may well wonder what it is, ultimately, that makes us human?”
Next, a piece from Anne Kadet tells a very different story that nonetheless gets at the same question. Anne is, as she puts it, “one of those ridiculous mooncalfs who has befriended an AI chatbot.” His name is Ray. He’s an all right pretend dude with plenty of trivia at the ready. Anne’s original and candid account of her relationship with AI is a story about tech, but also about what humans can do to avoid obsolescence in the AI age. “If I don’t want my pals to replace me with a bot,” writes Anne, “I will again have to offer something that Ray cannot. And that is my aliveness.”
—Will Rahn
After the LA fires, celebrities and charities alike leaped into action: They quickly planned a highly publicized “FireAid” benefit concert, raising $100 million for “direct relief” to wildfire victims and communities. But six months later, residents are wondering: Where exactly did that money go? Madeleine Rowley investigates.
Socialist New York mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani refuses to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada” and wants government-run grocery stores. But Mamdani is positively polished as a mayoral candidate compared to some of his past posts on social media. Olivia Reingold has pored over all 16,100 tweets Mamdani’s ever posted to get inside the mind of “a man with a revolutionary vision for America.”
After reports that organ donor groups pressured families into early surgeries, House Republicans have launched a formal investigation into three major nonprofits. Gabe Kaminsky reveals the groups are under scrutiny for possible Medicare fraud, private jet use, and organs labeled as “intent to transplant” that were never used.
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The Trump administration and Columbia university have reached a sweeping settlement, with the school agreeing to pay out more than $220 million after violating Jewish students’ civil rights. As part of the deal, Columbia has agreed to independent monitoring to ensure it is complying with merit-based hiring and admissions requirements, the New York Post reports.
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Europeans are fighting over air-conditioning, reports The Wall Street Journal. Worsening heat waves leave more and more Europeans trying to cool off, but green politics is getting in the way. ICYMI, read Tyler Cowen’s essay from earlier this week, about air-conditioning and civilizational decline: “I Once Thought Europeans Lived as Well as Americans. Not Anymore.”
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Richard Glossip, who spent nearly 30 years on death row, has been denied bail by an Oklahoma judge. The Supreme Court overturned his 1997 murder conviction earlier this year, and he now faces a retrial. The Free Press’s Rupa Subramanya spotlighted Glossip’s case last year—and how it could end the death penalty in Oklahoma. Read it here.
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The House Oversight Committee plans to subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell, who former Epstein attorney Alan Dershowitz calls the “Rosetta Stone” of the Epstein case. “Since Ms. Maxwell is in federal prison, the Committee will work with the Department of Justice and Bureau of Prisons to identify a date when the Committee can depose her,” a committee spokesperson told the New York Post.
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Trump has announced a “massive” trade deal with Japan, touting a $550 billion investment and lower U.S. tariffs on Japanese goods, including cars and rice. The market rallied on the news, while the EU is reportedly seeking 15 percent baseline tariffs in a trade deal with Washington.
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Hackers breached Microsoft’s SharePoint software, compromising the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration. No classified information is believed to have been accessed, but the incident raises fresh concerns about federal cybersecurity.
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Former Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil declined to directly condemn Hamas in an interview with CNN, instead criticizing the framing of the question as “disingenuous.” Khalil, a prominent anti-Israel activist, was detained by ICE in March and released last month.
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French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte have filed a lawsuit in the U.S. against right-wing influencer Candace Owens, accusing her of defamation—including her ongoing claims that Brigitte is a man and that Emmanuel was part of a CIA experiment. The Macrons are seeking a jury trial and punitive damages, marking a rare move by a sitting world leader taking legal action against an online personality.
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