Good morning! The weekend edition is 756 words, a 3-minute read.

What’s on tap: 

• Corporation for Public Broadcasting shut down

• Good Samaritan train track rescue

• Chef’s guide to eating in NYC

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Today’s Big Story

Trump Deploys Nuclear Submarines

• President Trump announced on social media Friday that he had ordered two nuclear submarines to be positioned in strategic regions, responding to remarks from Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and now one of the Kremlin’s most outspoken anti-Western hawks. All US submarines are nuclear-powered, but Trump didn't specify whether these also carry nuclear weapons.

• The confrontation began when Trump gave Russia until August 8 to agree to a Ukraine ceasefire or face tariffs targeting both Russian oil and its international buyers. After Trump called Russia and India's economies "dead" and told Medvedev to "watch his words," Medvedev fired back by referencing Russia's "Dead Hand" — a Cold War automatic system designed to launch nuclear missiles even if the country's leadership is destroyed.

• US officials rarely discuss submarine locations due to their secret nuclear deterrence missions, making Trump's public announcement highly unusual. The Navy declined comment while the Pentagon didn't immediately respond.

Saturday’s Quick Hits

• The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will shut down by September after Congress cut its $1.1 billion funding. CPB announced Friday it's laying off most staff by September 30, keeping only a skeleton crew through January 2026. The move kills funding for local PBS and NPR stations nationwide. (More)

• President Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee toured a Gaza aid site Friday that claims to deliver one million meals daily, even as international groups say famine is "playing out" across the territory. The tour site is in an Israeli-controlled zone where hundreds have been killed by gunfire while desperately seeking food over recent months. (More)

• A Miami jury ordered Tesla to pay $200 million after finding it partly responsible for a 2019 Autopilot crash that killed a pedestrian. The Tesla hit a parked SUV at 62 mph without braking in the Florida Keys, killing 20-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon and injuring her boyfriend. Tesla got one-third of the blame, the distracted driver two-thirds. The verdict challenges Elon Musk's claims that Autopilot makes driving safer. (More)

• Canada's wildfires are sending smoke into the US Midwest, making air quality bad in Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, and Illinois. Canada has seen over 3,000 fires burn more than 22,000 square miles this year, with Alberta hit hardest. Northwest winds are pushing the smoke southeast while high pressure keeps it trapped. The smoke will move east to New York by early next week. (More)

• Trump fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics chief Friday, just hours after she released a weak jobs report showing only 73,000 jobs added in July versus 115,000 expected. Unemployment jumped to 4.2% as 221,000 people left the workforce. He accused Commissioner Erika McEntarfer of faking numbers to help Democrats and demanded someone "more competent." McEntarfer won bipartisan Senate approval 86-8 last year. (More)

• Four astronauts finally launched to the space station Friday using a SpaceX rocket after Boeing's troubled Starliner grounded them for a year. The crew includes NASA's Zena Cardman, plus Japanese and Russian astronauts. They will replace astronauts covering for two NASA members stuck in space for nine months due to Starliner's thruster failures. Boeing won't fly crews again until 2026 while engineers fix the problems. (More)

• Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell was quietly moved to a minimum-security prison "camp" in Texas with better living conditions while her lawyers seek a Trump pardon. Maxwell recently met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche for two days. Her accusers' families worry the transfer signals an undisclosed deal between the Justice Department and the Trump administration. (More)

Weekly Dose of Positive

• After Texas floods hit Camp Camp for disabled children, a Facebook plea brought 1,500 cleanup volunteers who helped reopen it this summer. (More)

• Young aspen trees are growing in Yellowstone for the first time since the 1940s after wolves returned and reduced elk herds, which feed on the trees. (More)

• A Good Samaritan in Russia sprinted across tracks and pulled an unconscious man to safety seconds before a train passed. (More)

• Shelter dog Sienna detected a man's seizure without training at an adoption event and found her forever home after nationwide attention. (More)

Extra Credit

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