Hi friends,
Welcome back to the newsletter where I break down the news that Dave has covered in the past week. This edition marks the dawn of something that probably only I care about, but maybe you do too. Great way to hook someone at the top of a newsletter, I know. Leave a comment if this is also something deeply meaningful to you.
If you’ve been following for a while, you know that I’m somewhat new to this, I live in fear of your email provider cutting these emails off before the end, and I’ve gone to great lengths to get you to click that “View entire message” button. I’ve included pet pictures at the end of these emails, hidden non-news links for you to find, and resorted to general trickery and mischief.
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Well, I now have a handy little tool that tells me how large this email is and if it will get cut off. This is a good thing, except now I need a new running gag. (We’re keeping the pet picture at the end and the hidden link in the body of this email, by the way.)
Anyway, I wrote the body of this newsletter before writing this intro and I still have 20 kilobytes to spare. I could ramble on about anything. The X-Men. Lorde’s concert in Chicago last week. The sad indie playlist in the coffee shop I’m writing this from. I can write full length essays on all these things without your email provider cutting me off and it’s making me mad with power. (Unless it is cutting me off still? That would be embarrassing, let me know!) But I’ll spare you — let’s just get into the news Dave covered this week.
More countries recognize a Palestinian state. The U.S. hasn’t.
The U.K., Canada, Australia and Portugal all began recognizing a Palestinian state. France also formally recognized a Palestinian state at the U.N. on Monday after announcing its intent to do so in July. The U.S. still doesn’t, though House Democrats are urging the Trump administration to recognize Palestinian statehood.
The U.K., Canada, Australia and France still send weapons to Israel as it carries out its genocide in Gaza, The Intercept reported. Human rights organizations and activists have called for countries recognizing Palestinian statehood to go further in combatting the genocide.
This wave of recognition comes after a U.N. Commission also found Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. This conclusion was preceded by journalists and civilians in Gaza, as well as experts on genocide, saying the same thing. As recently as September 9, Britain refused to call Israel’s genocide a genocide. Canada’s U.N. ambassador also signaled that his country isn’t ready to call Israel’s actions a genocide.
Recognizing Palestinian statehood basically allows full diplomatic relations between Palestine and the countries that recognize it. That could include establishing embassies, foreign ambassadors and treaties.
The New (TikTok) Deal
President Donald Trump signed an executive order that says a preliminary TikTok deal meets national security requirements. The framework of the deal that Trump reached with Chinese President Xi Jinping will have American investors take control of the platform’s U.S. operations.
Trump and Xi are set to meet again at a regional summit in South Korea at the end of October to discuss the deal and other issues, which sounds like a really boring way to celebrate Halloween.
U.S. officials have argued for years that the Chinese government could force TikTok’s parent company to hand over data about its U.S. users. TikTok and ByteDance have rejected these critiques. Research shows that other social media platforms collect similar amounts of data as TikTok does, and that the U.S. government uses social media to surveil us.
Tech giant Oracle is expected to lead security and oversight of the U.S. algorithm, and a White House official told CBS News that Oracle is expected to have a stake in TikTok. Oracle was recently sued over data security concerns, and a close Trump ally runs the company. (TL;DR — is our data safe with any government or tech giant?)
And speaking of tech giants’ legal troubles
Amazon agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle a case alleging that the company tricked customers into paying for Prime. The Federal Trade Commission brought the lawsuit in 2023.
Amazon (which we no longer have to say is owned by the same guy who owns our news organization, yay) denied any wrongdoing. But according to emails and texts, a former Amazon user experience researcher and his team flagged that the company’s design tactics were misleading to customers. He also said Amazon’s business goals would be hard to hit if the design was different.
Millions of people are expected to receive payments up to $51 each, or enough to buy 102 issues from the 50 cent bin at my comic book store. Other Amazon users (that’s you, maybe!) can submit claims for refunds, and might be eligible depending on how many Prime perks they used. Here’s how to get your refund.
Well, we didn’t get Raptured
Except for one of the Dave-sonas in this video. He did get Raptured at the end and the Dave we’ve seen since is a simulacrum.
Some online thought we might be Raptured. But not you, reader who never thought it would happen and was only in on this as a bit. You’re very smart. It all seemingly stemmed from Joshua Mhlakela saying in a YouTube interview that the rapture would happen on September 23 and 24.
Who is Joshua Mhlakela? A guy in South Africa. Although news reports have widely described him as a pastor, The New York Times noted that in the same video he predicted the date of the Rapture, he also said, “I’m not a pastor.” And he said Jesus told him in a dream that the Rapture would happen on those dates ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which, according to his dream, would end up not happening due to rapture-related chaos.
I had a dream last night that a coworker at my old job was left in charge while our bosses were away and then delegated that responsibility to Linus from Peanuts. So everyone buckle up for that I guess.
Rapture predictions aren’t new. One theology professor told Newsweek they often happen during periods of instability.
Readers respond:
Incredible ending, congratulations on being raptured
Can the federal government keep spending borrowed money?
For 46 of the last 50 years, the U.S. government has run a deficit, meaning it spends more money it takes in. That money goes towards things like healthcare, education, housing and responding to crises like COVID-19. It also spends a lot of money on its military.
When the government spends money it doesn’t have, that’s called deficit spending. And it contributes to the national debt, which is now at $37 trillion and makes me feel better about what my credit card statement will look like after working from a coffee shop to write this newsletter.
Even with this amount of debt, lenders continue letting the federal government borrow money. But it’s not clear how long that will last.
This video is part of Dave’s partnership with Free the Facts, a nonpartisan, non-profit organization that empowers young Americans to learn and lead.
After running through the news Dave covered in the past week, I hand things over to him for some analysis. Let’s head on into Dave’s corner.
Our most successful video this week was about the Rapture, which is perhaps unsurprising. Why should other news matter if we may not even be here tomorrow?
Every generation has their own Rapture or Doomsday scare. Remember 2012? That one was wrapped up in the Mayan calendar ending, but also managed to weave in a few religions and scientific observations as well. It became so mainstream, they even made a movie I never watched.
That Rapture belonged to Millennials. This Rapture very much belonged to Gen Z. It started on YouTube, but then took off on TikTok. In other words, it was born out of arguably the two most popular Gen Z apps. TikTokers were stocking their home, for any loved ones that weren’t raptured, and documenting all of it. It was like the prepping that took place before Y2K, but in 4K.
As I mentioned in this week’s video, it likely gained popularity because we’re in such uncertain times. If things are so fraught, a Rapture starts to make a lot of sense. For some people on TikTok, it even seemed to bring some relief.
Rapture or no Rapture (spoiler alert: no Rapture), we’re in the middle of a news cycle reminiscent of 2020. This feels like the uncertainty and fear in May 2020, following the murder of George Floyd in the midst of the pandemic. While some people look back at this period more fondly, I promise you the comment sections at that time were out of control. This is all to say, I’m going to keep doing what I do best in weird, uncertain times like this. Follow along to stay sane.
@washingtonpost Not sure who’s driving
Let’s now head out from Dave’s corner. As promised, here are all the typical fixings for the end of this newsletter.
This week’s hidden link was to a reading order for ‘The Clone Saga,’ a controversial Spider-Man comic book storyline in which it was revealed that for 20 years of publication, the character we thought was Peter Parker was actually a clone who had replaced him. I now have a similar head canon for Dave’s videos that holds Dave Prime was raptured and the Dave-sona we’ve seen since is a Ben Reilly-esque imitation.
And here’s this week’s pet picture! Everyone say hi to Misty.
Dave will be back in your inbox next Monday with a new reflection on building his new independent media company. I’ll be back next Friday with another news roundup. If you’re an LNI member, you’ll get both newsletters before they go out to everyone else.
Until next week!
Chris
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