The Daily Briefing highlights the news of the day and research that reveals the spirit of the day.
The Daily Briefing is a newsletter sent straight to your inbox every morning that provides biblical insight on today's news.
Top News
6. Trump repeals landmark legal policy underpinning key climate rules (WaPo)
“Nearly 17 years after the Environmental Protection Agency declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten the public’s health and welfare, the agency on Thursday rescinded the landmark legal opinion underpinning a wave of federal policies aimed at climate change.
“The agency issued its “endangerment finding” in 2009, concluding that the government had a sound legal basis to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. In scrapping the policy this week, the EPA will seek to erase limits on emissions from cars, power plants and other industries that release the vast majority of the nation’s planet-warming pollution.
“At an event at the White House on Thursday afternoon alongside EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, President Donald Trump called the decision “the single largest deregulatory action in American history.” He added, “And I think we can add the words, ‘by far.’”
Is there evidence that any administration has acted in a way that has resulted in accelerating or slowing decarbonization here in the US? As the great Alan Jackson put it, there is a Little Bitty amount of evidence…. A recent study analyzed the past 4 administrations, finding that emissions decreased the most, surprisingly, under the Trump administration (3 percent), followed by the Biden White House (1.6 percent), the Obama admin (1.5 percent), and then the Bush administration (1 percent).
Regulations may have well-intentioned aims, but they can lead to less-than-desirable outcomes... A famous study by Michael Greenstone looked at the effects of the Clean Air Act. He found that the regulations led to 40,000 job losses per year in facilities in parts of the country that had “dirty” air. Another study found that using regulation to achieve 80 percent greenhouse gas reductions would reduce GDP by between 0.6 and 2.3 percent by 2050, costing the average American $10,300.
So do we just let businesses ruin the environment? Michael Porter, in HBR, coined the idea of shared value, referring to how businesses can play a role in achieving goals that the government attempts to address via regulation. For example, the natural gas industry has played a significant role in decreasing emissions here in the US. A study from Miami University of Ohio found that natural gas development has led to an average annual reduction of 10.5 percent in emissions per capita, with overall US greenhouse gas emissions per capita decreasing by 7.5 percent annually.
As God’s agents of cultivation, we have been tasked to care for his creation. This care includes the Earth that groans for redemption and the people he sent his son to redeem (Leviticus 23:22, Psalm 8:3-6). We care for creation, but that doesn’t have to come at the expense of our neighbors. And while regulation is a way to do this, it isn’t the only way.
5. Judge says Pentagon 'trampled on' Sen. Kelly's First Amendment rights (ABC News)
“In a biting opinion that chastised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a Republican-appointed judge on Thursday blocked the Defense Department from trying to punish Sen. Mark Kelly over a video he and other Democrats made urging service members not to follow illegal orders, accusing Hegseth of "trampling" on the Arizona senator's First Amendment rights and suggesting Hegseth should be more "grateful" for the wisdom of retired service members.
"Rather than trying to shrink the First Amendment liberties of retired servicemembers, Secretary Hegseth and his fellow Defendants might reflect and be grateful for the wisdom and expertise that retired servicemembers have brought to public discussions and debate on military matters in our Nation over the past 250 years," Leon wrote… The Justice Department could appeal the decision, although it's not clear if it would. The Pentagon and Hegseth on Thursday did not immediately respond to requests for comment.”
Some were concerned with his comments, while others have reservations about the deployment of power. According to John Ferrari, the “problem is not whether one agrees or disagrees with Kelly’s politics. The problem is that the Pentagon should not have a financial or disciplinary hammer hanging over any government official.”
Ferrari analyzes the origin of this 19th-century tool of military discipline. He notes that under Title 10 of the US Code, retired members of the armed forces are still considered part of the armed forces for limited purposes. “For much of American history, retired military members were viewed as a reserve pool, subject to recall, continued discipline and military law even while not in uniform. That logic made sense when the military was small, retirement was rare, and shifts back to civilian life were often temporary. It makes far less sense today, where retirement is the end of service and not a pause in it.”
This is not consistent with American principles, according to Ferrari. “Civil-military relations depend on a clear boundary between military authority and civilian life… There is no compelling justification for layering military punishment on top of civilian accountability for post-service conduct. Doing so creates a two-tiered system of citizenship: one for those who served and retired, and one for those who did not… If a retired servicemember breaks the law after leaving service, civilian courts are fully capable of addressing it.”
Plato observed that the measure of a man is what he does with power. With power, King Saul attempted murder during a worship service, slayed nearly 100 priests at Nob, and harmed his relationship with his son. However, Boaz deployed his power to support a widow and provide generously to a stranger. While the amount of power varies among people, the level of accountability for our power does not. Marianne Williamson put it well: “Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure.” (Heb. 4, 1 Sam. 19, 22, Ruth 2-4)
4. Senate Democrats block Department of Homeland Security funding bill (CBS News)
“The Senate failed to advance a measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday, likely paving the way for another partial government shutdown without a last-minute breakthrough. In a 52 to 47 vote, all but one Democrat — Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania — opposed moving forward with the bill, which would fund DHS through September. The motion needed 60 votes to succeed. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, voted against the motion in a procedural move that allows him to bring it up again.
“Funding for DHS, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, is set to lapse at 12 a.m. Saturday. ICE and CBP would continue operating if that happens, since they received billions of dollars in separate funding last year. "Two weeks ago we agreed to extend funding while we talked and tried to find a pathway forward. However, the timeline we knew was going to be short," Britt said. "We are working in good faith to find a pathway forward. What we're asking is, let us continue to do that."
It’s Closing Time? You can sing that again, Semisonic. While some may view this as another piece of evidence regarding the brokenness of our system, Yuval Levin notes how this sentiment stretches back to our founding. “Our civic vocabulary is deeply shaped by this existential insecurity. The American national anthem, for instance, is not a celebration of the beauty or glory of our country; it is a song about barely surviving the night. We all implicitly share the wonder it expresses at the improbable fact that our flag is still there.”
He goes on: “Our political culture is not well equipped to appreciate its own durability. We still share the apprehension of the Founders that our politics hangs on a knife’s edge. Every generation of Americans has questioned its own capacity to sustain its political inheritance, trafficked in careless analogies to the fall of the Roman republic, and marveled at our continuing national existence.”
He concludes: “The durability of our system is a testament not only to its prudential ruggedness but also to its moral merits. At any given moment, some among us are almost certainly acting viciously and self-destructively. But over time, because of the ways in which our system curtails and redirects our political energies, Americans have ended up acting remarkably virtuously and constructively.”
We need the cave (Gen. 23)… When Abraham’s wife passed, he sought a place to bury her. He encountered Ephron the Hittite in his travels and inquired about purchasing the cave of Machpelah. For unknown reasons, Ephron initially wanted to give him the cave, not sell him the cave. Speculation abounds as to why, but Abraham insisted on purchasing it. After going back and forth in negotiations, they reached a settlement: Ephron agreed to not only sell the cave but the entire field; Abraham agreed to pay a significantly higher price to finalize the transaction (2 Sam. 24:24, Jer. 32:9). Like Abraham intially with the cave, we may be in a tough place, but with a little American persistence, we can get to a better place.
Cultural News
3. AI Doesn’t Reduce Work; It Intensifies It (HBR)
“In our in-progress research, we discovered that AI tools didn’t reduce work, they consistently intensified it. In an eight-month study of how generative AI changed work habits at a U.S.-based technology company with about 200 employees, we found that employees worked at a faster pace, took on a broader scope of tasks, and extended work into more hours of the day, often without being asked to do so. Importantly, the company did not mandate AI use (though it did offer enterprise subscriptions to commercially available AI tools). On their own initiative workers did more because AI made “doing more” feel possible, accessible, and in many cases intrinsically rewarding.
“While this may sound like a dream come true for leaders, the changes brought about by enthusiastic AI adoption can be unsustainable, causing problems down the line. Once the excitement of experimenting fades, workers can find that their workload has quietly grown and feel stretched from juggling everything that’s suddenly on their plate. That workload creep can in turn lead to cognitive fatigue, burnout, and weakened decision-making. The productivity surge enjoyed at the beginning can give way to lower quality work, turnover, and other problems.”
Life isn’t the only thing in the fast lane, Eagles. Matthew Shumer penned an article on AI earlier this week that has gone viral, comparing AI to the pandemic, believing that the disruption will be similar. He highlighted the “intelligence explosion,” and how “each generation helps build the next, which is smarter, which builds the next faster, which is smarter still.”
He goes on: “The most recent AI models make decisions that feel like judgment. They show something that looked like taste: an intuitive sense of what the right call was, not just the technically correct one. A year ago, that would have been unthinkable. My rule of thumb at this point is: if a model shows even a hint of a capability today, the next generation will be genuinely good at it. These things improve exponentially, not linearly.”
What does this mean for the future? “Imagine it's 2027. A new country appears overnight. 50 million citizens, every one smarter than any Nobel Prize winner who has ever lived. They think 10 to 100 times faster than any human. They never sleep. They can use the internet, control robots, direct experiments, and operate anything with a digital interface. What would a national security advisor say?”
He concludes: “Nobody knows exactly what the job market looks like in ten years. But the people most likely to thrive are the ones who are deeply curious, adaptable, and effective at using AI to do things they actually care about. Teach your kids to be builders and learners, not to optimize for a career path that might not exist by the time they graduate.”
In this new world, innovation will create jobs, and automation will take jobs. After all, 2/3 of jobs in the US today did not exist in 1940. While the marketplace will change, one thing won’t change – God (Heb. 13:8). He has tasked us to use his skills to make products or offer services for the world’s good… including our local communities. So while AI will thankfully do more work in the future, we will have new work to do as well. (Gal. 1:17, Rom. 8:28, Heb. 10:24-25).
News You Can Use
2. Dog Leads Police to Lost Boy Trapped in Car
Watch it here. “Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?” (Heb. 1:14)
1. For decades, 94-year-old Don Barnett has ended every night the same way — by singing his wife Marilyn to sleep.
Watch it here. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…” (Eph.5 :25)
