News Items (Newsletter)

“Most mornings I learn more from New Items than I do from all of the traditional papers I read combined.” — Michael Blair, former presiding partner, Debevoise & Plimpton.

“News Items is the first thing I read every morning.” — Jack Leslie, former chairman of Weber Shandwick and Adjunct Professor, Georgetown Global Health Institute. 1.

There are primary elections today in Georgia, Indiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina. The South Carolina run-off election for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate will get most of the news coverage. The scribes are eager to learn whether President Trump can drag a weak candidate across the finish line. If he does, they will be disappointed. If he doesn’t, there will be celebratory commentary about how he’s “beginning to lose his hold” on the Republican base.

“It’s the first thing I read every morning.” — Annie Lamont, co-founder of Oak HC/FT, a leading venture capital firm. 1. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US was expanding secondary sanctions on Iran but offered no deadline for Tehran’s trading partners to comply before Washington imposed measures he said could “blow up” the world’s financial system.

“It’s the first thing I read every day.” — Brigadier General (retired) Russ Howard, founding director of The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. 1. Iran has been invited to join the Mecca Agreement for Mutual Defense, the new security alliance established by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan earlier this month, Al Mayadeen reported on Saturday, citing a senior Iranian official.

We’re not posting a Weekend Edition until after Labor Day.

What follows (see below) was written by Paul Kedrosky, a fellow blogger back in the days when people blogged on Blogger. Paul is an investor in private and public companies, as well as a writer and researcher. Originally trained as an engineer, he went on to do a Ph.D. at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, where he researched aspects of the economics of technology—specifically, the role of path dependency and network effects in risk & complexity.

News Items is “the most valuable newsletter out there.” — Peggy Noonan. 1. For much of the war, Russia’s air assaults followed a battle-tested formula: first, waves of drones to saturate and tie up air defenses; then, once a path was cleared, a salvo of highly destructive missiles. But as Ukraine now struggles with severe air defense shortages, Russia is going straight for the missiles.

“Most mornings I learn more from New Items than I do from all of the traditional papers I read combined.” — Michael Blair, former presiding partner, Debevoise & Plimpton. 1. An experimental mRNA vaccine allowed people with high-risk melanoma to live longer, cancer-free, the pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Merck announced Wednesday.

“There are a bunch of newsletters out there I have read. News Items is the one I want to read.” — Jane Metcalfe, Chair of the Board of Directors, Human Immunome Project, co-founder Wired magazine and Wired Ventures. 1. The power grid relies on thousands of aging, hand-built transformers. If enough fail, the blackout could last years.