Top 5 US news stories

U.S. to Take 10% Stake in Intel, Scrambling Party Lines on Government's Role in Economy

At New Hyundai Plant, Robots Outnumber Humans in Glimpse of Future Factories

Tech Leaders Form PAC Network to Shape AI Policy Ahead of Midterms

Population Shifts Poised to Tilt Electoral College Toward GOP, Projections Show

Labor Market Feels Whiplash as Historic Immigration Wave Comes to an End

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1. U.S. to Take 10% Stake in Intel, Scrambling Party Lines on Government's Role in Economy

A. The U.S. government is taking a 10% stake in Intel, a deal that caps a two-week frenzy for the troubled chip maker and marks the latest in a series of extraordinary private-sector interventions by President Trump. Under the terms of the agreement, $8.9 billion in grants that had been awarded to Intel from the 2022 Chips Act, but not yet paid, will be converted to equity, the two sides said Friday. The government could get more stock depending on what happens to Intel’s chip manufacturing business. The deal is a remarkable turnaround. Just over two weeks ago, Trump called for Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to be fired for his ties to China. After meeting Tan and talking about the business last week, Trump became a fan and saw an opportunity to deepen their partnership, he said Friday.

WSJ

B. President Trump’s latest economic move has drawn outrage from conservatives—and praise from some on the left—in the latest example of the odd bedfellows created by his idiosyncratic worldview. The announcement last week that the government plans to take a 10% stake in the troubled U.S. chip maker Intel prompted an outpouring of criticism from voices on the right, who accuse the administration of nationalizing industry. “Today it’s Intel, tomorrow it could be any industry,” Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) said Friday. “Socialism is literally government control of the means of production.” The syndicated radio host Erick Erickson wrote on X that the measure was “socialism with an R next to its name” and that conservatives who called out Obama’s sins against markets while tolerating such behavior from Trump were “shameful and cowardly.” That was music to the ears of Paul’s self-described socialist colleague, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), who praised the move that he said mirrored legislation he had proposed. “Taxpayers should not be providing billions of dollars in corporate welfare to large, profitable corporations like Intel without getting anything in return,” Sanders said Friday, urging the administration to go still further. Supporters say there is a public interest in supporting American chips manufacturing, which has long been a vital component of the defense industrial base and has been supported by administrations of both parties. “It’s just realism,” said Julius Krein, co-founder of the New American Industrial Alliance, which advocates for government-supported industrial policy. A cohort of New Right thinkers have amplified Trump’s populist instincts to urge more government meddling in the economy, from reining in Big Tech to blocking corporate mergers. The administration has sought investment pledges from trading partners in exchange for lowering tariffs, boasting of $1.5 trillion worth of investments that Trump plans to personally direct.

WSJ

2. At New Hyundai Plant, Robots Outnumber Humans in Glimpse of Future Factories

ELLABELL, Ga.—At Hyundai Motor Group’s ultramodern new auto plant, robots perform a stunning array of tasks. They move materials, attach doors and do almost all of the welding. Dog-like robots, their snouts laden with cameras, prance across the floor to inspect partially built Ioniq electric vehicles. The factory, which opened near Savannah, Ga., late last year, deploys 750 robots, not counting the hundreds of autonomous guided vehicles that glide across the floor. About 1,450 people work alongside them. That roughly 2-to-1 ratio of humans to robots compares with the U.S. auto-industry average of 7-to-1. Human beings are still in the driver’s seat for some jobs. They spot burrs that must be smoothed and bits of trim that need replacing. They snap fabric door panels into place with grommets, push electrical connectors together until they click and duck into places robots can’t reach to bolt down seats and attach shock absorbers. Hyundai Motor Co. Chief Executive José Muñoz said the factory was designed so that robots do tasks that are dangerous, repetitive or physically demanding. People are left to troubleshoot, monitor quality and bring craftsmanship to the manufacturing process.

WSJ

3. Tech Leaders Form PAC Network to Shape AI Policy Ahead of Midterms

WASHINGTON—Silicon Valley is putting more than $100 million into a network of political-action committees and organizations to advocate against strict artificial-intelligence regulations, a signal that tech executives will be active in next year’s midterm elections. Venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI President Greg Brockman are among those helping launch and fund Leading the Future, a new super-PAC network focused on AI, the group told The Wall Street Journal. Andreessen Horowitz’s head of government affairs, Collin McCune, Brockman and OpenAI chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane were involved in initial conversations earlier in the year about the need to help shape industry-friendly policies. Leading the Future hopes to use campaign donations and digital ads to advocate for select AI policies and oppose candidates who the group believes will stifle the industry at large. One of its goals is to push back against a movement backed by some other tech titans that focuses on regulating AI models before they get too powerful and create catastrophic risks for society. The organization said it isn’t pushing for total deregulation but wants sensible guardrails.

WSJ

4. Population Shifts Poised to Tilt Electoral College Toward GOP, Projections Show

The year is 2032. Studying the Electoral College map, a Democratic presidential candidate can no longer plan to sweep New Hampshire, Minnesota and the “blue wall” battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and win the White House. A victory in the swing state of Nevada would not help, either. That is the nightmare scenario many Democratic Party insiders see playing out if current U.S. population projections hold. After every decennial census, like the one coming up in 2030, congressional seats are reallocated among the states based on population shifts. Those seats in turn affect how big a prize each state is within the Electoral College — or how a candidate actually wins the presidency. In the next decade, the Electoral College will tilt significantly away from Democrats. Deeply conservative Texas and Florida could gain a total of five congressional seats, and the red states of Utah and Idaho are each expected to add a seat. Those gains will come at the expense of major Democratic states like New York and California, according to a New York Times analysis of population projections by Esri, a nonpartisan company whose mapping software and demographic data are widely used by businesses and governments across the world. Midwestern states like Minnesota and Pennsylvania could lose a seat. Across all of the possible scenarios in the nine states that would be considered battlegrounds in the 2032 election, Democrats would see about a third of their current winning Electoral College combinations disappear if population projections hold. However, when looking only at the most feasible winning combinations based on voting behaviors in the 2024 election, the outlook is far worse. Of Democrats’ 25 most plausible paths to victory in 2024, only five would remain.

NYT

5. Labor Market Feels Whiplash as Historic Immigration Wave Comes to an End

Last week, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the U.S. labor market has entered “a curious kind of balance.” The demand for workers has cooled, yet the unemployment rate has held steady because the supply of labor has slowed abruptly. Behind that slowing in the labor supply is a dramatic swing in immigration, from one of the biggest waves in U.S. history to almost none. Economists say that could have subtle but lasting consequences. A virtual halt to unauthorized border crossings, plus stepped-up deportations and a souring climate for foreigners means net immigration this year could be negative for the first time in decades, some experts predict. That has a short-run benefit, as Powell alluded to. It means slumping labor demand won’t necessarily push up the unemployment rate, which at 4.2% is historically low. But in the long run it could limit the economy’s potential growth and generate larger budget deficits. From 2010-19, a net 917,000 people entered the country annually, on average, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That leapt to 3.3 million in 2023 and an estimated 2.7 million in 2024, one of the biggest such surges in American history. In a recent paper for the conservative American Enterprise Institute, economists Wendy Edelberg, Stan Veuger and Tara Watson estimated net migration will drop to negative 205,000 this year, give or take roughly a quarter-million.

WSJ

August 25 1921: Franklin D. Roosevelt, age 39, is diagnosed with polio, also called infantile paralysis because it typically strikes much younger people. He will never regain the full use of his legs.

Following his polio diagnosis in August 1921, Franklin D. Roosevelt embarked on an exhaustive and determined recovery campaign that would span several years. Initially refusing to accept the permanence of his paralysis, he pursued every available treatment, from experimental therapies to intense physical rehabilitation, spending considerable time and resources at Warm Springs, Georgia, where the warm mineral waters were believed to have therapeutic properties. Roosevelt developed his own exercise regimens, including swimming and water therapy, and worked tirelessly to strengthen his upper body and learn to walk short distances using heavy steel braces and canes, though this required tremendous effort and caused significant pain. Perhaps more importantly, he mastered the art of concealing his disability from the public through carefully choreographed appearances, strategic use of automobiles, and the cooperation of a sympathetic press corps who rarely photographed him in his wheelchair. While he never regained full use of his legs, Roosevelt's recovery efforts transformed him both physically and psychologically, developing a resilience and empathy for human suffering that would later inform his leadership during the Great Depression and World War II, proving that his greatest recovery was not physical but rather his ability to reinvent himself as a leader who could inspire hope in others facing seemingly insurmountable challenges.

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Sources

1. https://www.wsj.com/tech/trump-to-announce-u-s-taking-nearly-10-stake-in-intel-1a38225d?st=WHcm7x&reflink=article_copyURL_share
2. https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trumps-intel-move-blurs-party-lines-on-economic-intervention-3c7665cc?mod=hp_lead_pos2
3. https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/hyundai-factory-georgia-automation-jobs-6d7d4e5d?mod=wknd_pos1
4. https://www.wsj.com/politics/silicon-valley-launches-pro-ai-pacs-to-defend-industry-in-midterm-elections-287905b3?mod=hp_lead_pos11
5. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/08/25/us/politics/electoral-college-seats-republicans-democrats-redistricting.html
6. https://www.wsj.com/economy/immigration-workers-labor-market-b277548f?mod=hp_lead_pos6

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