The New York Times has a look at efforts to build a next generation electric battery for automotive use:

Another prominent name is SES AI, founded in 2012 based on technology developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. SES has backing from General Motors, Hyundai, Honda, the Chinese automakers Geely and SAIC, and the South Korean battery maker SK Innovation. In March, SES, based in Woburn, Mass., opened a factory in Shanghai that is producing prototype cells. The company plans to begin supplying automakers in large volumes in 2025.

SES shares have also plunged, but Qichao Hu, the chief executive and a co-founder, said he wasn't worried. "That's a good thing," he said. "When the market is bad, only the good ones will survive. It will help the industry reset."

SES and other battery companies say they have solved the fundamental scientific hurdles required to make cells that will be safer, cheaper and more powerful. Now it's a question of figuring out how to churn them out by the millions.

If any more proof were needed that President Trump has become unmoored from reality, consider Trump's decision to circulate an article from Townhall headlined "Tear Down This Icon: Replace Reagan With Trump." Trump included the article in his July 12 update emailed to supporters.

The article, by Arthur Schaper, contends, "The issues which Reagan faced in 1980 and 1984--inflation, recession, communism around the globe--were not the major issues of Election 2012. In fact, they are not the main issues today.... It's time to replace Reagan, and replace him with Trump."

Ha! The idea that inflation is not a main issue today will come as a surprise to American voters struggling with rising gasoline costs, grocery expenses, and rent bills. It's as delusional as the idea that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.

The secretary of transportation, Pete Buttigieg, is moving to Traverse City, Michigan. He should take the transportation department with him to signal that solutions will come from the private sector, outside Washington, I write in my column this week. Please check out the full column at Newsmax ("Buttigieg Is Moving. Now Let's Move DOT To Boost Private Sector"), at Reason ("Pete Buttigieg Is Moving to Michigan. He Should Take the Transportation Department With Him") and at the New York Sun ("Secretary Pete Buttigieg's Big Move"). The column was also picked up and excerpted and summarized in the New York Post (Gadfly: Move Transportation Dept. out of DC).

The line in the Declaration of Independence about "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor" is the topic of my column this July 4 week. Please check out the full column at Newsmax ("Today's American Revolution Could Use Shot of Founders' Passion") and at the New York Sun ("Ongoing American Revolution Could Use Infusion of Founding Passion.")

Public radio's Marketplace program has a report about what seems to be a Chinese government operation aimed at preventing American production of rare-earth elements:

Researchers at Mandiant said that a Chinese group impersonated Americans on social media in order to undermine U.S. production of rare-earth elements....

Earlier this month, a chorus of social media accounts that appeared to be based in Texas started warning that a rare-earth element refinery planned there by Australian mining firm Lynas Rare Earths would cause radiation poisoning, toxic waste and threats to livelihood.

"But these people weren't real," said John Hultquist, a vice president of Mandiant,. "These are hundreds of accounts, essentially part of an information operation."

Why isn't Biden rushing to protect access to abortion? That's the question I try to answer in my column this week. Please check it out at Newsmax ("Will Schumer, Pelosi, More Choose Politics Over Ending Abortion War?") and at the New York Sun ("Why Isn't Biden Rushing to Protect Abortion?")

A couple of New York Sun columns of mine from last month that remain relevant: "In Chinese Police Files, 'Overwhelming and Horrific' Evidence of Xi Jinping Role in Genocide" and "Governor Wilson, or Zeldin, Could Put New York Back on Republican Map."

New York Times columnist Ron Lieber does an excellent job applying some reportorial skepticism to "environmental, social, and governance" funds that purport to offer more ethical investments. He interviews two ESG professionals:

LIEBER: Defining justice seems messy these days. On one hand, some investors don't want to invest in weapons manufacturers. On the other, many of them would very much like to put more weapons in the hands of the Ukrainians.

ROBASCIOTTI: In the world our investors want to live in, the government is responsible for weapons and defense, and that is not a private activity.

LIEBER: Wait, so the government should be producing weapons?

DOMINI: Capitalism is great at distributing goods and services broadly and cheaply. Weapons shouldn't be distributed broadly and cheaply.

"Biden Administration Sues a City Over 'Rampant Overspending on Teacher Salaries,'" is the headline over a piece I wrote for Education Next about the Securities and Exchange Commission action against Rochester, New York:

How much has Rochester been "overspending?" The website Seethroughny.com, a project of the Empire Center for Public Policy, lists 717 Rochester City School District Employees who earned more than $100,000 in 2019.

The 2024 presidential matchup is the topic of my column this week. Please check out the full column at Newsmax ("Can America Do Better Than Biden or Trump in '24?") and at the New York Sun ("America Can Do Better Than Biden or Trump").

"Recall How Low America Stooped to Appease Iran," is the headline over a letter to the editor I had published in the Wall Street Journal.

"The one goal hardly anyone in Washington dares to mention is a free and democratic Russia," I write in my column this week, arguing for that as an American aim. Please check out the full column at Newsmax ("A Free, Democratic Russia Guarantees a Nervous China") and at the New York Sun ("The Logic For America Is To Aim for a Free, Democratic Russia.")

Frank Brandeis Gilbert, a lawyer who saved New York City's Grand Central Terminal and preserved tens of thousands of other historic properties nationwide while also wisely counseling generations of Harvard Crimson editors in his capacity as longtime chairman of the student newspaper's graduate board, has died.

Gilbert, a grandson of Justice Louis Brandeis, had Parkinson's Disease. I spoke to him on Wednesday May 4, and he agreed to join other Crimson alumni in signing on to a letter expressing dismay at the newspaper's recent editorial singling out Israel for a boycott. I told him in that conversation that I felt the Crimson had never really adequately thanked him for his years of service to the organization, and that I wanted to thank him, myself, for the time and energy and wisdom that he had devoted to the paper.

There are three recent letters from me to the Harvard Crimson responding to the paper's editorial calling for a boycott of Israel — one letter they wouldn't publish, one letter they did publish, and another letter that they did publish and that I signed on to but did not draft myself. All are recommended reading for those interested in the campus climate, the state of student journalism, and the underlying issues. There is also a Harvard Faculty Statement on the issue.

The Constitution and how it relates to abortion is the topic of my column this week. Please check out the full column at Newsmax ("Abortion Right Not in Constitution, Doesn't Mean It Doesn't Exist") and at the New York Sun ("Ninth Amendment Is Key in Abortion Law Battle").