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I don’t want to be just one more news curator who drops into your inbox every day and announces that the sky is falling. Relax, only part of the sky is falling. It’s not a bird, nor a plane, nor Superman foiled by kryptonite (or a bad kryptocurrency investment). It’s space garbage that’s supposed to incinerate when reentering the Earth’s atmosphere, but sometimes doesn’t. So far, there’s not that much of a chance that one of these smoldering space chunks will land on you (though, I’m not sure whether that’s good news or bad news in 2026), but the risk will rise as the space race accelerates. Having a roof over one’s head will never be more important, preferably a blast-resistant steel-reinforced concrete roof coated with a few layers of military-grade polymer and polyurea spray. Just ask the Kenyans. “One December afternoon, the sky tore open and a fiery hunk of metal, wider than a school bus, came hurtling down. It was louder than a thunderclap when it plunged into a patch of farmland, startling everyone in the village of Mukuku, about three hours south of Nairobi, Kenya ... ‘This is an isolated event,’ the Kenya Space Agency said in early 2025. Not exactly. More space debris is raining down on Earth than ever before — one effect of the frenetic race among governments and companies like SpaceX to reign over the skies.” NYT (Gift Article): A Ton of Space Junk Tumbles Unpredictably to Earth Every Week. And who pays if you or your property gets hit? Well, the law isn’t quite ready for that. “The patchwork of regulation governing rocket launches and orbital junk is no match for the pace of space development. Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has more than 10,000 satellites in orbit, has applied to launch a million more. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has similar ambitions and Chinese ‘megaconstellations’ are expected to have hundreds of thousands of satellites.” As Tevye reminds usin Fiddler on the Roof, “If you spit in the air, it lands in your face.” (I’d add that the fiddler should probably come down from the roof and maybe consider a basement concert series...)
+ If you’re thinking of moving off the planet to avoid the falling debris, you might want to consider this headline: Drifting SpaceX rocket heading for accidental collision with the moon.
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Crossing the Rubicon
“An estimated 50,000 to 60,000 migrants entered a small Spanish territory alongside Morocco on Thursday and Friday, according to Spanish authorities. Although at least 48,300 had returned to Morocco by Friday afternoon, the mass crossing prompted an immediate backlash from far-right politicians in Europe that seemed poised to linger. Scenes of chaos in Ceuta (pronounced say-YOU-tah), the North African exclave that Spain has held for centuries, splashed across news networks and social media. Juan Jesús Vivas, the head of Ceuta’s government, said that nearly three dozen migrants had died in attempting the crossing and called the situation ‘absolutely unsustainable’ in a territory with about 83,000 residents.” This was a crazy scene with crazy photos and videos. And the political impact might be even crazier.
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Prolonged Collection
“Almost every night in the White House, President Trump calls his fundraiser, Meredith O’Rourke, for an update. Trump asks O’Rourke which companies and donors have cut checks and which haven’t, and for how much. He often asks her to make much larger financial requests than she was planning—for some donors the ask is $5 million, for others it is $50 million ... In turn, Trump has called her the ‘princess of darkness’ because she is such a ‘killer’ with donors, according to people who have heard his comments.” WSJ (Gift Article): ‘The Boss Wants This Money’: Inside Trump’s Unprecedented Fundraising Operation.
+ And how are corporations reacting to this new form of purely transactional governance? They’re racing to take advantage of it. NYT (Gift Article): Companies Rush to Close Daring Deals Under Trump.
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Weekend Whats
What to Watch: “Furious on Hulu follows an FBI agent, Alice Black (Emmy Rossum) on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating female serial killer. Both walk their paths toward justice, and as their lives start to intertwine, the line between right and wrong begins to blur.” (In a Dexter sort of way.)
+ What to Hear: Stephen Wilson Jr’s guitar playing and singing reached a new audience when his cover of Stand By Me went viral. Here he is describing and singing his own song, Gary, on the Howard Stern show. If you have Sirius, definitely listen to the whole interview. Here’s more of Wilson Jr Spotify.
+ What to Doc: On HBO Max, check out Live Aid: When Rock ‘n’ Roll Took On the World. It will remind you of the music and the moment, and of a time when political leaders around the world were pushed to do something good.
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Extra, Extra
Unclosed Deal? Trump announced that under a Board of Peace deal, Hamas would completely disarm and Israel would pull out of Gaza. He might be a little ahead of the participants in the deal (I know, shocker). Trump’s Gaza Deal Sparks Questions on Whether Israel, Hamas Will Comply.
+ There’s Something Contrary About Larry: “His big bet on A.I. was built on an astronomical amount of debt in every imaginable form — bonds, letters of credit, asset-backed securities — available in seemingly unlimited quantities, because the more you spent building A.I. infrastructure, the more you would earn, or so the logic went. Computer theorists called it the scaling hypothesis. It held that advancements in A.I. were directly tied to the generation of unprecedented amounts of computing power to process unprecedented volumes of data ... But lately, some investors and analysts have started questioning the scaling hypothesis or at least asking if all this spending is sustainable.” NYT Mag (Gift Article) with a solid weekend read: Larry Ellison Bet It All on the A.I. Boom. Will He Be the Face of the A.I. Bubble?
+ Using Your Outside Voice: “Some Trump Administration officials now seem to recognize that the silencing of V.O.A. has left the country with a diminished capacity to push back against other countries’ disinformation efforts.” Yet again, the administration is learning it needs a lot of stuff it broke. But, whether we like it or not, there’s only one voice of America these days. Marc Fisher in The New Yorker: How Donald Trump Silenced the Voice of America.
+ Electoral Collage: One of the goals of all the 2020 election denial and invented threats to our voting systems is to weaken the faith Americans have in our elections. And it’s working. Two in three Americans are concerned about political leaders pressuring election officials to change election outcomes.
+ Gamble On: “New York sued Kalshi on Friday, alleging its prediction market is nothing more than illegal, unlicensed gambling.” New York is right, but the feds are doing everything they can to protect the prediction markets.
+ Deadly Climb: “Rescuers had said earlier on Friday that four bodies had been found and efforts were underway to retrieve them despite the harsh weather.” World-renowned climber Nirmal Purja among 11 struck by avalanche on Pakistan mountain.
+ Nomo Romo: CBS Sports has placed NFL analyst Tony Romo on leave following his arrest last week on suspicion of driving under the influence.
+ Protein Age Wasteland: You just KNEW this was coming. The protein craze may not be for everyone. “Excess protein might speed aging in sedentary people, a new review suggests.”