The important thing is committing to the bit
And also not using AI for every damn thing
It’s been a big week. Alana Haim looked stunning at Cannes for the premiere of her new film The Mastermind with Josh O’Connor. Hailey Bieber sold her business for a literal billion dollars. A comedian became a real pilot for the bit. I made a perfect loaf of banana bread without a recipe on what was certainly those bananas’ last day.
Reminder: Times are tough and weird, so Hot Tip annual subscriptions are $30, which my calculator tells me is just $2.50/month! My avocado tree is years away from bearing fruit, so your support means a ton (and, literally, breakfast.) xo.
The headlines:
Wildfires are raging in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada, and the smoke will cloud some northern US states soon. So stop asking AI if you’re hot!!! 1) You are. 2) We need the water.
A federal judge says Harvard can continue to enroll international students, blocking the White House’s efforts to stop them from doing so. Calling summer’s hottest look now:
The State Department is planning to fire thousands of employees, scrapping some departments focused on human rights and democracy entirely. Also lost in the shake-up: Marco Rubio’s spine.
On-again, off-again tariffs are hard to keep up with. So a quick refresher that may not be relevant by the time you read it: All in the span of one week, Trump threatened to hit the EU with 50% tariffs on June 1, then quickly said jk, July 9, but also maybe not. Then a trade court blocked most of Trump’s tariffs on Wednesday, and then another federal court did too, but then an appeals court paused the pause. At this point, all I’m asking is for someone to buy arethetariffsonornot.com and have “yes” or “no” in giant letters on the homepage.
Hailey Bieber sold her not even three-year-old beauty company Rhode to e.l.f. Beauty for a billion dollars—basically. Technically, it’s (only!!!) $800 million now, and the other $200 million is contingent on the brand’s growth over the next three years.
Bags fly free no more. Southwest Airlines has ended its trademark (literally, they trademarked it) free checked bag policy, the final bastion of humanity and civility in a world of shoe-removers and complicated in-flight skincare routines that would have made Amelia Earhart voluntarily dive her plane into the Pacific. Meanwhile, United + JetBlue are forming an alliance to be known as Blue Sky (tbd if the Bluesky app is okay with this), thus allowing passengers to earn and redeem miles on either airline.
LinkedIn laid off hundreds of employees in California—none of whom want to hear anyone’s “open to work” joke, don’t do it—hundreds of workers at FedEx and Chevron in Texas are set to lose their jobs, and Business Insider laid off a fifth of its staff due to decreased traffic and, yep, you guessed it—
There’s not reading the book, and then there’s making up the book’s existence entirely. RFK Jr.’s so-called “MAHA report” cited hundreds of “studies” in its war on America’s food and prescription drugs, but the problem is—some of these studies simply don’t exist. In response to the made-up data, the White House says these are just “formatting issues,” which does feel a bit like a defense attorney calling his client’s murders “lil oopsies.”
Speaking of lil oopsies—the Trump Admin. cancelled a $600 million Biden-era contract with Moderna to develop a vaccine for humans against bird flu—despite early trials going well—and also forfeited the country’s right to buy doses ahead of a possible future pandemic. And you might be thinking, okay, yeah, they’re antivax/antiscience losers, but at least they’re not actively bringing bird flu here, Alex! To which I offer this—I cannot stress this enough—completely real update after a flock of 400 ostriches in Canada were exposed to bird flu and set to be killed:
If you haven’t already finished The Rehearsal, skip this paragraph and go watch it now. If you have—watch this (admittedly 17-minute) Nathan Fielder + John Goglia interview on CNN, in which (at 4:58, if you don’t have the time) Fielder calls the FAA “dumb” while wearing a blue “737” hat and sitting next to Wolf Blitzer. No notes.
And Elon quit the federal government after realizing he couldn’t buy friends there, either. But he leaves with the ultimate goody bag: All our precious data. I am of course assuming he stole it, but I’m a comedy writer not bound by any journalistic standards. So, yeah—he definitely stole it. You can read more about why I’m so sure from this February interview with former Treasury spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein:
Hacks (HBO Max) wraps up with its Season 4 finale today and was renewed for Season 5. Adults (FX), produced by Nick Kroll, premieres this week. And as it turns out, Mike White is meant to live an uncomfortable life—at least, for the duration of Survivor Season 50, where he’ll be competing/meme generating for as long as he can.
Sweden wants to know what defines its own national culture, and if you can read Swedish—or use Google translate—you can submit suggestions to their culture canon website. Mine: ABBA. IKEA. Meatballs. Gravlax. Swedish Chef. But mostly ABBA.
Don’t miss: The “Philly Justice” episode of Amy Poehler’s podcast, Good Hang, especially if you’re a Parks & Rec fan—but even if you’re not. I giggled my way through a three mile walk yesterday (brag!!!) listening to the fake names Mike Schur has concocted over the years so that no actor ever plays the role of “man at bar.”
Quick tips: A lot of American doctors are considering getting a medical license in Canada. A Swiss village is underwater after a glacier collapsed, but thankfully all the humans (and animals!) made it out safe beforehand. And the Loewe Puzzle Bag is celebrating its tenth birthday with 19 re-editions of archival bags. The bags are going for $7k, but perusing the website is free.
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The Philly Justice episode of Good Hang is going to be my piece of sunshine in the current depressing news weather. The fake names story was so wholesome. I was just looking through the IMDB page for Parks and Rec yesterday looking for some of those crazy names 😂.
“They’re dumb.” Nathan Fielder, deadpan 🤣