Riots In Belfast & Is U.S. Education Really That Bad?

Hi readers, happy Thursday! Today we’re covering U.S. education outcomes, the U.S.-Iran war getting hotter, riots in Belfast, Pete Hegseth’s threat against Cuba, inflation rising, massive problems for the U.S. intelligence community, and NASA’s plan to get to the moon.

“The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent, but if we can come to terms with this indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.” ― Stanley Kubrick

The Kids Might Be Alright If We Keep Investing In Education

Education outcomes in the U.S. have been in decline for years, even before the COVID-19 pandemic forced students to take classes from home. While the pandemic made that problem worse, recent federal test results are giving us a few reasons to be optimistic.

According to the most recent long-term trend (LTT) report released by the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) – which examines reading and math outcomes for 9- and 13-year-old students – younger students are finally starting to show some improvement after almost a decade of declining test scores. The test scores of 9-year-olds (who were just 4 years old when the pandemic started) improved across both reading and math across every performance bracket, “which is fantastic,” according to one education expert. “It is just so encouraging,” he added. “Even though they're performing below average, [they] are trending upward.” The data should mean that younger students are heading into middle and high school with a stronger educational foundation.

Unfortunately, things were not so positive for 13-year-olds. Reading outcomes for 13-year-olds are still below their pre-pandemic levels, and are actually hovering around 1971 levels. In math, students are performing at levels recorded during 1978, erasing the 21-point gains they made between 1978 and 2012. “As a nation, we have to bring more focus to the middle school years,” said the executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board. This marks the last NAEP long-term trend report we’re expected to see until 2033 thanks to the Trump White House making huge budget cuts and layoffs at the Department of Education – though a Nation's Report Card is set for release in 2027.

War Doesn’t Take Summer Breaks

On Tuesday, Iran took down a U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopter flying over the Strait of Hormuz, bringing the U.S. and Iran back into a full-on hot war. According to the White House, a U.S. drone boat was able to recover both of the helicopter’s pilots alive soon after the helicopter went down. While that’s a consolation for the soldiers and their president, the Shahed drone that took down the Apache was worth just a fraction of the American helicopter – Shaheds cost up to $50,000 to produce, while a fully-kitted Apache helicopter can cost more than $100 million.

In the wake of losing the helicopter, Trump stated that the U.S. “must, of necessity, respond to this attack.” Those responses came early on Wednesday, when U.S. Central Command said it had begun “self-defense strikes … in response to Iran's unwarranted and continued aggression,” adding that it had targeted “Iranian air defense, ground control stations, and surveillance radar sites.” Iran responded by firing missiles at Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan, as well as a few ships in the Strait of Hormuz. 

Around that time, Trump revealed to the press that the U.S. had “secretly” moved over 100 million barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz under Tehran’s nose. There are two issues with his crowing about that mission – first, those shipments were widely reported on by the media already; second, 100 million barrels of oil is equivalent to just 5 days of pre-war oil traffic. The war has been going on for over 100 days at this point. Global oil prices rose roughly 2% on the news, hitting $95 per barrel – that same barrel cost $73 before the U.S. and Israel initiated the war.

Belfast Is Burning

• Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, has been rocked by anti-immigrant violence in the wake of a stabbing attack. On Monday, local police arrested a 30-year-old Sudanese man (a refugee and legal resident of the U.K.) for his alleged role in a violent stabbing earlier in the day. Over the next two days, as details of his immigrant status and race were released to the public, groups of masked rioters – mostly young men – took to the streets, targeting immigrant communities in multiple arson attacks.

• “People were being terrorized simply because of the color of their skin or where they came from,” said one local councilor, adding that he’d seen “mobs of people basically chasing people from their homes.” Local police acknowledged that much of the violence was aimed at Belfast’s immigrant communities, and multiple immigrant workers needed police escorts to move around the city for fear of racist attacks.

• After news of the stabbing spread, online agitators began posting inflammatory anti-immigrant messages on social media, calling on people to take to the streets as a response to an “invader attack on our people.” Elon Musk even got involved, reposting far-right messages and sharing lists of locations around Northern Ireland for rioters to gather via his Twitter account, which has over 240 million followers.

We’re Going To Invade You But You Can’t Fight Back

• On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth traveled to the U.S. naval base/prison/CIA black site on Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. There, he warned Cuba’s government against procuring weapons which could be used against the U.S., even as the Trump administration has drummed up consent for a future invasion of the island nation.

• “It would be unwise of the government of Cuba to try to procure or get access to the types of weapons that could reach this base or the American homeland,” Hegseth said. “They would be inviting the kind of confrontation not only do they not want but ​they could not stand. No country on Earth can match the capabilities of the United States of America.”

• The state of Cuba’s economy has become increasingly dire over the past few months, as Trump has maintained the U.S.’s economic sanctions on the island nation while also blocking it from importing fuel. The White House has threatened to slap steep tariffs on countries that sell oil or gas to Cuba, leading to endless power outages as the Cuban government struggles to keep the lights on.

Additional World News

• U.S. Ebola Unit Sparks Fury, Protests and a Political Crisis in Kenya (NYT, $)

• Three Indian sailors missing after US says it hit tanker in Gulf of Oman (BBC) 

• Trump lauds Armenia PM's 'decisive' election win in face of Russian pressure (Reuters)

• Poll: Voter cynicism remains a potent threat to incumbents across the globe (Politico)

• Four days of extreme rain in Indonesia killed 7% of world’s rarest great apes, study finds (Guardian)

• Canada introduces legislation to ban social media for children under 16, regulate AI chatbots (Reuters)

The Only Inflation Lover In The Room

• According to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, inflation grew by 4.2% in May, marking the biggest increase in prices that the U.S. has seen over the past three years. “I love it. The numbers were great. You know what I really love? I love the inflation,” Trump said in response to the inflation data, confusing everyone for a period. He later clarified to the New York Post (of all publications) that he meant that inflation was “much lower than anticipated” in the context of the Iran war.

• Gas and electricity bills were almost 25% higher than last May, and other data shows that gas prices at the pump have risen to $4.15 a gallon now, a massive jump from the $2.98 observed just before Trump and Netanyahu initiated the war. Prices for plane tickets, personal and medical care, recreation, and communication also rose in May.

• The high inflation rate coupled with better-than-expected unemployment numbers means that the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates in the future. Currently, though, May’s increases in hiring and inflation are “not large enough to prove any ammo,” according to one economist – those trends would need to persist for a few more months before the bank is pushed to take action.

Bidding Section 702 Adieu?

• It’s becoming increasingly likely that Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) will lapse at 11:59 p.m. on Friday. That’s because Trump has chosen to continue pushing for federal housing finance regulator Bill Pulte to become the country’s interim director of national intelligence. 

• Section 702 of FISA, which allows the U.S. to spy on non-U.S. citizens located outside of the U.S. without a warrant, was supposed to be renewed with bipartisan support long before this week. But Trump’s decision to push for Pulte – who has zero intelligence experience – has put the surveillance law’s fate in jeopardy, as Democrats have refused to support a bill to renew the law unless a more experienced candidate is nominated in his place. 

• Despite badgering from Congressional lawmakers on both side of the aisle, Trump has refused to put forth another pick, claiming that he doesn’t have enough time to find a replacement for Pulte. Yesterday, the president announced that Pulte would be working in “a sort of renovation role” to help the Office of the Director of National Intelligence be “renovated and downsized,” which probably just made Democrats and the wider intelligence community even more ticked off with him.

Additional USA News

• America’s doctors just voted for war with RFK Jr. (Politico)

• SpaceX’s IPO Could Turn 4,400 Employees Into Millionaires (NYT, $)

• July 1 brings big student loan changes. Here's what you need to know (NPR) 

• US measles cases pass 2,000 this year as outbreak nears worst in decades (Guardian)

• The theory taking the rich by storm: China funds data center haters (NPR)

• The Democratic fight over Graham Platner has just begun (NBC)

NASA’s Road Map To The Moon

• On Tuesday, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced his agency’s plans for Artemis III and IV, its next two missions that will culminate in the first human lunar landing since 1972. Calling it the “Earth’s first starfleet,” Isaacman also discussed the myriad spacecraft needed to undertake the two missions, which will require rockets, capsules, landers, and support spacecraft.

• The immediate next goal for NASA is the Artemis III mission, which is scheduled for 2027. Artemis III will send a crew of four astronauts (one Italian and three Americans) into lower Earth orbit in order to test two lunar landers produced by Blue Origin and SpaceX. The winner of those tests will be used in the Artemis IV mission, which will actually see humans set foot on the lunar surface.

• “Think about how many spacecraft, all of which will eventually carry human beings, will be in orbit at the same time, from Dragon, Shenzhou, Soyuz, possibly Starliner, Starship, and Blue Origin landers,” Isaacman said. “This seems like the beginning of the future that we imagined as children. This seems like the very beginning of Earth’s first Starfleet to me.”

Additional Reads

• I tried Siri AI, and so far it actually works (Verge)

• Sunscreens in the U.S. Might Finally Be Getting Better (The Cut) 

• The special kind of knowledge that can’t be put into words (Psyche)

• Designer babies. Self-improving AI. Are we ready for either? (Vox) 

• Why modern parents feel more sleep deprived than our ancestors did (BBC) 

• Crowds turn out in Barcelona for pope blessing Sagrada Família’s final tower (Guardian)

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Peanut For Your Thoughts

Apparently self-funding a campaign with no background in politics is not the way to win Californians’ hearts, no matter how well-intentioned you might be: Steve Hilton Wins Second Spot in California Governor Race, Beating Tom Steyer (NYT, $)

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