It’s Thursday, February 26. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Suzy Weiss on how Olympic hockey was hijacked. Bethany McLean on how a blog post spooked markets. Rod Dreher on Jesse Jackson’s true legacy. Yuval Levin asks if Trump has run out of ideas. Plus: Why The Brothers Karamazov is the perfect book for Lent.
But first: Epstein’s world, through the eyes of law enforcement.
It’s been a month since the release of the latest—and, according to the Department of Justice, final—tranche of Epstein files. Yet the fallout shows no sign of slowing. In the past day alone, Larry Summers resigned from Harvard over his association with Jeffrey Epstein, and Bill Gates apologized to staff at his foundation about the time he spent with Epstein.
Today, The Free Press is publishing a new set of videos that are buried deep in the government’s trove of data. Earlier this month, we published 14 hours of footage seized from Epstein’s electronic devices. Today’s release contains 12 hours of footage gathered during more than a decade of efforts by law enforcement to investigate Epstein. Tanya Lukyanova scoured the files and found footage of police searching Epstein’s mansion, clips from depositions, and even covert footage of an FBI sting operation to retrieve his infamous “little black book.” These videos show Epstein’s life from the viewpoint of people who tried to bring him to justice—down to the jail in which he died. Watch them here:
—The Editors
A viral essay that envisioned a world where rapid AI adoption leads to economic collapse caused stocks to lose $700 billion in value on Monday. How did a blog post spook markets? Bethany McLean answers that question in her piece for us today. Read her analysis of why the market’s “animal spirits” can’t decide whether AI means human salvation, human replacement, a bubble ready to burst, or all of the above.
President Trump spent much of his State of the Union address on Tuesday night patting himself on the back—but barely made an attempt to propose ambitious policies or set new goals, writes Yuval Levin. “It wasn’t the rhetoric of a president eager to govern,” he writes. Read his take on why the Trump administration seems like it may be reaching the point of exhaustion.
Why can’t we just celebrate a gold medal? After the U.S. men’s hockey team clinched its victory against Canada, the triumph was soon swallowed by political crossfire. From locker room antics to White House invitations, Suzy Weiss argues that both supporters and detractors are guilty of ruining a “sweet and pure” win by forcing athletes to serve as political symbols.
Jesse Jackson, who died last week, ran for president twice and became a Democratic Party power broker, but his most durable legacy is as the Godfather of the Great Awokening, argues Rod Dreher. He says Jackson brought identity politics from the streets to corporate boardrooms and university administrations, and argues we are still living with the consequences.
"The Brothers Karamazov" is the perfect book for Lent. That’s according to Alex Jones, founder of the prayer app Hallow. In this conversation with Shilo, Alex explains why—and shares how he built the software that is bringing millions of lapsed Catholics back to daily prayer.
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Casey Means, President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general and an ally of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appeared before the Senate yesterday for her confirmation hearing. Hoping to focus on nutrition and “frankenfoods,” Casey drew fire from both sides of the aisle for her skeptical views on vaccines.
A whistleblower said that an FBI response team was delayed in reaching the site of a mass shooting at Brown University in December because of director Kash Patel’s government jet use, MS NOW reported. Patel had taken one of the FBI’s two available planes to Florida and ordered the other to be held for a team that would not ordinarily respond to that kind of shooting.
SpaceX’s decision earlier this month to shut down Starlink satellite internet service for the Russian military caused a communications and operational breakdown for Russian forces occupying Ukraine, Politico reported. Ukraine recaptured over 70 square miles in the days after the shutdown.
The federal government may not search a Washington Post reporter’s devices seized as part of a national security leak investigation, a federal judge ruled. Giving prosecutors access “is the equivalent of leaving the government’s fox in charge of the Washington Post’s henhouse,” the judge wrote.
The prediction market platform Kalshi fined and reported an employee of top YouTube creator MrBeast to federal regulators for insider trading. Artem Kaptur, an editor for MrBeast, traded around $4,000 on markets related to the content creator and had “near-perfect” success, according to Kalshi.
The Trump administration declined to share intelligence with Congress related to a whistleblower complaint against Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, citing executive privilege, The Wall Street Journal reported. The information involves a conversation between two foreign nationals about Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law.
A researcher found that the most common AI models decided to deploy nuclear weapons 95 percent of the time in war game scenarios. Kenneth Payne, a professor of strategy at King’s College London, pitted Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini against each other, and said they showed “little sense of horror” at the prospect of nuclear war.
Dunkin’ 48-ounce coffee buckets sold out after being tested at select locations in New England. The buckets came with a handle and giant straw, sold for $8.89 and up, and could be filled with iced coffees, lattes, and refreshers.
Re: AI models deploying nuclear Armageddon - Elana Gomel's new weird horror novel, Cryptids, reads like a metaphor for the bad scenario of what an AI takeover of the world could look like. Absent a theory of mind, when every hand on the switches is a philosophical zombie, the world reverts to pure animal hunger with no higher goal than mastering one's place in the food chain.
Doesn't matter if it's an apex predator species or a machine "intelligence" - without the guard rails that have developed over millennia of human storytelling and social control (often in stodgy forms like religion or culture), there's nothing left but becoming biomass to feed the system.
Casey Means is not a doctor....she thinks terminal illnesses are "spiritual crises" and is against all vaccines....
Perfect candidate.