The Hound | Sept. 15

Hi there,

It’s Tuesday. A Putin-linked Russian oligarch named Umar Kremlev secretly bankrolled hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses for Donald Trump Jr.'s Bahamas wedding in May. A retired senior FBI counterintelligence official said plainly: "If I'm paying for your wedding, at some point, you're going to owe me something. This should be unthinkable for the son of the president. End of story."

🖊️ Sign the petition to call on The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post, NBC News, ABC News, and other mainstream outlets to cover Kremlev's funding of Trump Jr.'s wedding not as a celebrity item, but as the counterintelligence crisis it is.

This is not a gossip story. It is a national security story. A member of Putin's inner circle spent a fortune to gain intimate access to the president's family — at the same moment his father is negotiating the end of a war with Russia. The public deserves reporting that treats Russian money flowing to the president's family as exactly the red flag every national security expert says it is.

In addition, how MAGA states undermined their own elections after rejecting ERIC. And why the AI doomsday is not inevitable.

Read about these, and more, in today’s stories:

Donald Trump Jr.’s Bahamas Wedding Was Secretly Bankrolled by Russian Oligarch Close to Putin (ProPublica)

States Already Have a Good Way to Ensure Election Integrity—and MAGA Hates It (Mother Jones)

The Mother of All Assault Weapons Cases Is Coming (The New Republic)

The AI Doomsday Future Is Not Inevitable (The Intercept)

Labor unions must unite against AI datacenters (The Guardian)

A Super El Niño Is Building. Florida’s Most Vulnerable Homes Aren’t Ready. (Inside Climate News)

Can Big Food Make Good on Promises of Regenerative Agriculture? (Civil Eats)

Until next time,

Harry from The Hound

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