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Chapter 1: What biological threats are AI CEOs warning Congress about?
AI CEOs call on Congress to act, fearing that criminals could use the tech to unleash biological weapons. Plus, after months of warnings, a flesh-eating parasite is confirmed in U.S. livestock. And higher ed tries to get a grasp on pandemic learning loss.
The elite schools in the country have been bringing back the SAT and the ACT to try to give themselves one more tool or data point to figure out if kids are going to be able to do the work in college.
It's Thursday, June 4th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.
President Trump has told his aides that he won't resume an all-out war with Iran unless it kills American troops, private comments that shed light on his reluctance to reignite the conflict, even if it means withstanding weeks or months of smaller flare-ups.
Speaking yesterday, following some of the most intense fighting since the ceasefire went into effect in early April, Trump told reporters he was willing to keep it in place. Sir, how do you define ceasefire?
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of the flesh-eating screwworm's arrival in the U.S.?
Pretty much the way it is. It's a different part of the world. You know, I'd say in that part of the world, ceasefires when you're shooting in a more moderate manner.
While Trump has indicated that a pact to end the war could be close, he said in a New York Post interview published yesterday that a U.S. blockade could last until September's Labor Day. Elsewhere in Washington, top AI executives and security experts are urging Congress to protect against biological threats posed by the technology, adding to mounting pressure on lawmakers to address its risks.
Chapter 3: How is higher education addressing pandemic learning loss?
Journal tech policy reporter Amrith Ramkumar says that the leaders of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind are among the signatories of a letter calling for action.
In particular, these executives and researchers are worried about gene synthesis screening, which is when companies order synthetic DNA and RNA, a key step to developing certain vaccines and biotech breakthroughs that can also be used to develop new pathogens and bioweapons.
Omer says that experts have been worried about that threat for some time, but because of recent breakthroughs with NAI, the risk is rising dramatically by potentially giving criminals the tools to unleash new pathogens.
Many people see biological risks as the next frontier in protecting against AI threats.
Chapter 4: Why are professors advocating for the reinstatement of entrance exams?
Congress is under pressure in general because lawmakers haven't passed any significant AI legislation. Earlier this week, President Trump signed an executive order largely focused on cybersecurity and model oversight of powerful tools before they're released. But a lot of experts say there's more to be done in the area of biology.
President Trump previously revoked a Biden-era screening framework for gene synthesis. While the White House last year promised to replace it with its own guidelines, a replacement policy has not yet been published. A White House official said the administration remains committed to balancing safety with innovation. A flesh-eating screwworm has arrived in the U.S.
A calf in southern Texas has tested positive for the New World screwworm, the first detection of the deadly fly-borne parasite in U.S. livestock since 1966. The finding creates a headache for U.S.
Chapter 5: What are the implications of the SAT and ACT's return for college admissions?
ranchers and livestock producers. The American cattle herd is already at its smallest since the 1950s, according to USDA data, helping drive beef prices to record highs for U.S. consumers. Despite the alarming headline, the USDA says that human cases are uncommon, and Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins said that food safety isn't at risk.
Top line, this pest does not cause any sort of a food safety issue. It is not a disease, but simply an insect that that feeds on living tissues. Once removed and cleaned, animals treated early enough, including the calf that we're talking about, the eight week old bovine, that calf and those animals, if they're treated early enough, will recover and are safe to enter the food supply system.
The USDA isn't taking chances, though, setting up a more than 12-mile infection zone subject to stepped-up surveillance. It said that severely infested animals would be removed from the food supply, but that producers won't need to cull their herds, even if cases are found among their livestock.
Shares of SpaceX are set to go on sale next week for $135 apiece in what could be the largest IPO in history. It's an unconventional IPO strategy, given that companies usually set a price range that's then refined in meetings with investors. But reporter Becky Peterson says that SpaceX is used to doing things differently.
The company said they're going to sell 555 million shares, which means they could raise $75 billion. And at that share price, the implied valuation for SpaceX is $1.75 trillion. That makes it one of the most valuable companies in the world. But more interesting to prospective investors is that it doesn't have the same revenue as other companies at that level.
The SpaceX valuation is almost 94 times its revenue for 2025. Because the company brought in less than $19 billion. If you compare that to the S&P 500, the aggregate company in that index had a multiple closer to 3.4.
SpaceX is expected to start trading on NASDAQ on June 12th. Pattern day trading is back. Starting today, Robinhood Markets and other brokers are lifting restrictions on rapid-fire stock and options trades dating back to 2001 after the SEC signed off on the move in April.
Under the new rules, brokerages will need to monitor their customers' trading throughout the day and alert them to any deficits. Shares of Broadcom are down sharply after hours following the chipmaker's latest earnings, in which it reported an almost 50% jump in Q2 revenue but left its 2027 outlook unchanged.
That guidance, which failed to live up to some investor expectations, appears to have paused a global tech surge. sending Nasdaq futures lower and triggering a retreat among other chip stocks. And oil prices are easing after Israel and Lebanon agreed to renew their ceasefire, potentially resolving what had become a sticking point in talks between the U.S. and Iran to end the war.
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Chapter 6: How is the U.S. government responding to biological risks associated with AI?
And then when the kids get into the STEM classes, the level of preparation is really disparate. So you end up with professors who are trying to bridge these learning gaps in class, which ends up slowing down the progress they can make and the amount of the curriculum they can cover.
We should note, Doug, that in response to this letter from professors, the University of California's academic Senate chair said it's going to examine admissions policies and requirements. So maybe we see something come out of that. But more broadly, are we seeing any other signs about how academia is responding to these concerns?
This is the $64,000 question across the education spectrum right now from elementary school through college. If kids aren't plugged in, engaged, and focused, then they're not going to learn as much, and they're just not. And so the gaps are significant. There's a lot of experimentation right now going on about how best to teach and reach these kids at different levels.
You know, in the K-12 system, there was a big push on individualized tutoring. And the hope was that if you sat a student next to a teacher or a mentor or a tutor, they could pull them up. So that's been helping. There's been a lot of experimentation of getting rid of phones in classrooms. There's been a lot of experimentation of using blue books for college exams.
and even oral examinations so that kids can't cheat on these examinations. We just saw Princeton University update their honor code so that students will now be monitored by professors in classrooms because there was concern about cheating there. So it's sort of all over the map, and there's not been a good silver bullet.
One of the more interesting issues we're seeing is schools just incorporating AI wholesale. And, you know, the results aren't in yet.
I've been speaking to Wall Street Journal reporter Douglas Belkin, who covers higher education for us. Doug, a pleasure. Thanks so much. Thank you. And finally, as AI reshapes the world of work, new research from LinkedIn shows that the current cohort of grads entering the workforce are likely to have double the amount of jobs in their lifetime.
LinkedIn predicts people entering the workforce today are going to have twice as many jobs over the Now, that's partly because people are just working longer and longer. But the big thing, of course, is artificial intelligence.
That's Wall Street Journal on-the-clock columnist Callum Borshers, who says that given the unknowable impact of AI, it's hard to imagine there won't be a seismic effect on Gen Z's careers. But there are ways to get ahead.
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