LETTER

It’s Monday, the beginning of the workweek. Over the weekend, Hurricane Harvey struck the heart of Texas, displacing tens of thousands from Corpus Christi to Houston and leaving at least one reported death. The National Weather Service declared the rainfall unprecedented, as some areas received as much as 50 inches of rainfall and the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency claimed that it could take years for Texas to recover from the flooding that ensued.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration dropped several under-the-radar policy pronouncements as the hurricane struck Texas, issuing a memo outlining the military ban on transgender troops, firing White House national security advisor and alt-right affiliate Sebastian Gorka, and issuing a pardon absolving former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio of upcoming criminal charges.
In other top stories, thousands of anti-Trump protesters swarmed Berkeley on Sunday in response to cancelled protest organized by Trump supporters originally scheduled for that day; counter-protesters in San Francisco marched on Saturday to abort a planned alt-right rally and press conference; and Uber named former Expedia chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi as its new CEO.
As per usual, good luck on the week ahead and thanks for reading the newsletter.
Cheers,
The Wonks Team
Politics and Public Policy
- The Washington Post reports that President Trump tried to negotiate a deal to construct a Trump Tower in Moscow with a group of Russian developers while he was still a candidate during last year’s presidential election.
- Ben Casselman of FiveThirtyEight analyzes the habits of the Trump administration for changing policy, illustrating the contradictions between what is said or accomplished and how President Trump defers cabinet appointees to direct regulatory changes.
Business, Science, and Health
- Bloomberg Businessweek profiles the business investments of the Golden State Warriors, describing how NBA players have shifted from investing in chains of car dealerships to buying equity stakes in venture capital projects in their spare time.
- The New York Times writes about the thawing of Alaska’s permafrost due to climate change and how the melting of ground that stores carbon will lead to warmer temperatures in the coming decades.
Sports and Culture
- Vulture interviews actor/director Justin Chon on his career in token Asian roles, his new film “Gook” and growing up in south L.A. during the riots, and the absence of Asian-American representations in conversations on diversity in Hollywood.
- Albert Burneko of Deadspin reflects on the McGregor–Mayweather fight, arguing that it lived up to expectations as another boring technical feat by Floyd Mayweather, Jr., and that the media gave too much credit to Conor McGregor for simply being present.

