Good morning, and a warm welcome to all our new subscribers. In today’s edition:

• 🚨 ICE arrests hit recent high
• 💼 Rise of AI job interviews
• 🖼️ Shredded Banksy gains major value

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.47-minute read (1,189 words).

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“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”

–Sun Tzu (544 BC – 496 BC)

The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has intensified this summer, with ICE arrests of immigrants living in the US illegally surging to new heights as the agency increasingly targets people without criminal records.

By the numbers: ICE made ~49,000 arrests in July, up from ~43,000 in June and the biggest monthly total since Trump returned to office for a second term.

• Over half of those arrested were accused of civil immigration violations but had no criminal charges or convictions, the first time that group has made up a majority of monthly arrests during Trump’s second term.
• Those with convictions for violent crimes made up ~4% of ICE arrests in July, and stand at ~6% of all ICE arrests under the current administration.

Driving the surge

Analysts point to several reasons behind the recent increase in federal immigration arrests:

• ICE has significantly expanded its workforce over the past year-and-a-half, growing from ~21,000 employees when President Trump returned to office, to ~29,000 in June.
• More arrests are happening outside typical areas of interaction, with ICE agents making arrests at traffic stops, airports, and immigration check-ins. Historically, many ICE arrests have come when individuals were already in law enforcement custody.

Local law enforcement is also playing a larger role through 287(g), a program that allows participating state and local officers to make federal immigration-related arrests. Some 12,700 of ICE’s arrests in June and July came through these programs (~14%).

What does the administration say?

DHS says the growing number of arrests of people without criminal records reflects the Trump admin’s broader enforcement policy: anyone living in the US illegally can be targeted by ICE, regardless of their criminal history.

Officials also dispute how the “no criminal record” category is interpreted, saying it can include gang members, terrorists, human-rights abusers, and people accused of crimes abroad that wouldn’t appear in US records.

On the other hand: Immigration attorneys and advocates say the wider scope of enforcement is affecting people who previously faced less risk of arrest, and are tax-paying residents often working in vital, labor-intensive sectors like agriculture, construction, and hospitality.

Recent cases have included people married to US citizens, asylum seekers who entered the country legally, and immigrants with temporary legal status that the Trump admin recently moved to revoke.

Looking ahead…The partnerships helping ICE expand its reach are set to keep growing, with 287(g) program agreements now covering 1,850+ city, county, and state agencies and counting.

📊 Flash poll: Speaking in general terms: Do you think all, some, or none of the immigrants living in the US illegally should be deported?

• All
• Some
• None

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Here are five stats from this past week that made our team go “whoa.” Hopefully you will, too.

🍔 The average American worker earns enough money to buy 10,215 Big Macs yearly, the highest among all OECD countries, per The Economist. Switzerland ranks first on an hourly basis, with workers earning ~7 Big Macs/hour (vs. ~6/hr for America).

🎓 The number of high-school graduates is projected to fall significantly by 2041 in California (-29%), New York (-27%) and Illinois (-32%)—a stark contrast from the US South, where the average HS graduate population is projected to grow by 3% over the same period.

🎤 Dolly Parton performed at least 716 times in the US during her nearly six-decade solo career, per crowdsourced database Setlist, which likely undercounts her total.

🤖💼 About 63% of US job applicants say they’ve been interviewed by an AI system, with 38% saying they've walked away from a job because it included an AI interview, per Greenhouse data.

🗽💻 New York City is home to more tech workers than San Francisco for the first time ever in CBRE's annual industry report, which dates back to 2014. The Bay Area remains far more reliant on the industry overall, with 10.3% of its workforce in tech vs. 4.2% of NYC’s.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📈 Nvidia shares close up 8.7% in first trading day after blockbuster earnings report, marking its best day since April 2025; Nvidia’s one-day market cap gain of $442 billion is the second-most in history, behind Microsoft’s $450 billion gain last month.
• 🏦 Fed Chair Kevin Warsh to deliver keynote address later today at the central bank’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
• 🤖 Group of 100+ major companies—including OpenAI, Anthropic, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and more—sign new open letter warning that the world has only months to prepare for a surge in sophisticated, AI-enabled cyberattacks.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈 College football kicks off the 2026-27 FBS season with a slate of games for “Week 0” tomorrow.
• 🙏 Peter Cullen, the voice actor behind Optimus Prime, Eeyore, and more, died at 85. | Yayoi Kusama, one of contemporary art’s most popular and commercially successful artists, passed away at 97.
• 🍽️ First-ever Michelin Guide Southwest includes five new Michelin stars: four in Las Vegas, and the first restaurant in Utah history.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 💧🔩 Electrically charged water can corrode and eat through metal, new Nature study finds; water can become charged in a variety of ways, like passing through a thundercloud or sliding across different surfaces.
• 🥤 Consuming sugar-sweetened beverages at least 1x/day is associated with a ~2.45 higher chance of developing stomach cancer, per new research; it’s the first study to show such a link in a US population.
• 🚀 NASA is gearing up to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope as early as Sunday morning; scientists hope the telescope’s massive 300-megapixel camera will help uncover insights into dark energy, exoplanets, and cosmic structures.

US, WORLD, & POLITICS

• 🇷🇺 CIA Director John Ratcliffe made a covert trip to Moscow on Tuesday to meet with his Russian counterpart, in what several media outlets reported was an effort to warn Moscow not to attack a NATO country; President Trump later disputed the reports, telling Axios Ratcliffe didn’t deliver any such message, and that he isn't concerned Russia will attack NATO.
• 🌊 President Trump signs executive order to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America”; the new name is expected to be included in official US gov’t documents and communications, but likely won’t be recognized by Canada.
• ✈️ FAA discovers two LaGuardia air-traffic controllers left work early before a fatal March collision between an Air Canada regional jet and a firetruck, per WSJ report; the act of leaving shifts early is reportedly a longstanding practice within the air-traffic controller industry, which has dealt with worker shortages for years.

☝️The Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards released a 16-image sneak peek of this year’s 100 winning photos, ahead of their official reveal at London’s Natural History Museum in October. The 62nd edition of the annual photo competition received 65,403 entries across 121 countries and territories.

🤔 Did you know? Banksy's Girl with Balloon painting self-destructed through a hidden shredder immediately after selling for ~$1.5 million at Sotheby's in London in 2018. The shredded artwork, renamed Love is in the Bin, was resold three years later for ~$25 million, or an ~18x increase over the non-shredded version.

📰 Worth a read: How a ‘psychic’ horse changed the way we do science

🖱️ What we’re clicking:

• ‘One of the worst’ habits 41% of credit card holders do
• Why I keep a frozen pickle in my freezer
• Ditch the 40 oz water bottle: You’re probably hydrated enough

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How well did you pay attention this week? Find out here.

1. What number comes next in the sequence: 3, 7, 15, 31, __?
2. A parking garage charges $6 for the first hour and $2.50 for each additional hour. How much does it cost to park for 5 hours?
3. There are 30 students in a class. The ratio of boys to girls is 2:3. If 3 boys leave the class, what is the new ratio of boys to girls?

(keep scrolling for the answers)

🏃‍♀️ As Emma Kessler got closer to running her first half marathon, her nerves about not having a running partner to keep spirits high got harder to ignore. But she had no idea the surprise her boyfriend was planning behind the scenes.

1. 63 (multiply by 2, then add 1)
2. $16
3. 1:2 (9 vs. 18)

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