¶Trump’s ceasefire is an opportunity for the US to wriggle out of a war it started – nothing more.

¶The sell job cometh — Trump and the Administration will be working hard over the coming days, weeks, and months to sell this agreement as a victory. It’s hard to tell right now because no one has seen the text of it yet. The talking points sure sound like it’s nothing more than a return to a pre-war status quo, though.

¶“Our expectation is that the strait is going to be opened in a toll-free way for the long term, and that’s the sort of thing that we’re going to figure out in these technical negotiations,” Vance told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in an interview.

¶So, like it was before the war?

¶A new survey of individuals using AI found it made them more productive, saving each roughly 11 hours per week. But at the same time, the workers on average have to spend more than six hours “botsitting,” checking the AI output, fixing mistakes and rerunning the prompt.

¶I believe both sides of this coin. I’ve experienced both sides of it. I think productivity will increase as people become more adept at using AI and botsitting time will decrease as the models improve and people learn to trust their output more.

¶News of a cease fire in Iran is a welcome development, of course, but what exactly does this deal accomplish? Restoration of a pre-war status quo? Congrats, I guess.

¶And, as with everything associated with Trump, we’ll see. Apparently the agreement won’t be signed until this Friday. That’s an eternity in his world, leaving plenty of time for flip-flops, “crazy bastards” tweets, and other wildcards that could derail the entire thing.

¶The Boston Globe described thousands of “kilt-wearing, bagpipe-playing” Scottish fans as taking over parts of the city. After the final whistle it was “time for even more beers”, the newspaper’s reporter at City Hall Plaza wrote. Callum Liddle, 29, who had travelled from Scotland to Boston, said: “It’s the best day of my life.”

¶I’m generally not a soccer fan but have to admit that this World Cup has grabbed me. Team USA’s win in its initial match helped, of course, but I’ve loved learning about the passion of the fans behind various teams. To wit - we dropped my son off at the airport the other day for a return flight to Boston. At the drop-off, a car pulled in behind us and two kilt-wearing gentlemen got out as a woman stayed behind the wheel. My son wondered out loud if they were going to be on his flight (he confirmed later that they were). We also watched Canada v. Bosnia Herzegovina the other day, which the Canadian announcers described as the greatest day in the history of Canadian soccer. Wow! They earned a draw, which apparently gave Team Canada its first ever World Cup point. So, yeah, a big deal.

¶Any sport that instills this level of pride and passion in fans around the world must be worth watching. I’m vowing to get into it more.

¶Let’s go, Team USA!

¶The Munich Regional Court preliminarily ruled that Google is liable for a series of false statements generated by its AI Overviews feature, requiring the company to prevent the dissemination of erroneous or inaccurate claims through its search engine.

¶Something tells me this will shake out differently in the United States, where companies literally sell products with warnings that effectively say “If you use our product correctly, it will kill you.” Indeed, Google’s denial of liability in this German case seems to reveal a “we warned you” defense:

¶Google denied liability, arguing that its automatic summary feature warns users that the information may contain errors and should be independently verified.

¶Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. I think this area of the law is about to get really interesting.

¶The AP concluded that it was “possible” Ut took the photo, but it was unable to be proven conclusively due to the passage of time, absence of key evidence, limitations of technology and the deaths of several key people involved.

¶At the same time, AP found no proof that Nguyen took the photo, the report said.

¶I’d love to watch this documentary on the authorship of the famous Napalm Girl photo, but I can’t find it on any streaming service.

¶After reading her insightful piece in The Atlantic about a potential way forward, I talked to Danielle Allen, a professor at Harvard University who studies political science, democracy, and philosophy. She argues for a new social contract between higher education and the federal government that simultaneously calls for a firm commitment to academic freedom and what she calls a “horizontal” relationship between universities and the American people—one that is based on mutual respect and reciprocity.

¶I’ve seen Dr. Allen (Harvard bio; Wikipedia page) mentioned a couple times over the last couple weeks, in different contexts (first in a New Yorker article on how universities are pivoting toward pluralism and away from DEI), and now in this Science editorial about how the social contract between universities and the federal government. I don’t know much about her work or positions, but I’m going to learn more about both as she seems to be leading new thought on the future of universities.

¶But two of its authors say the correction is insufficient and the study should be retracted. Henry Legg, a quantum physicist at the University of St. Andrews, also has concerns. “This is the latest in a long line of issues we have seen with Microsoft-funded research,” he says. “It seems when they turn up with funding, standard research practices can go out the window.”

¶So maybe don’t take the money next time.

¶Donald Trump has offered his latest sharp criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, complaining during an Oval Office press conference on Thursday that dealing with the central banker is like “talking to a wall.”

¶Good. That’s exactly how it’s supposed to work.

¶The big blunder was that Trump was holding a red lightsaber, which just about everyone knows is the weapon used by the very same evil Sith lords named in the post and in the Star Wars movies – not the good guys.

¶It’s funny to me that people actually think the inclusion of a red lightsaber was unintended. He’s rattling your sabers, folks. That’s what he does.