Quid pro bros

The Defense Secretary says the end of the Iran war “will be at the president's choosing.” / The Wall Street Journal

The Director of National Intelligence says only Trump knows which threats are imminent. / Politico

Oil and natural gas prices spike following a string of attacks targeting oil and gas infrastructure. / Semafor 

China, the world’s biggest crude importer, is said to be close to tapping its commercial oil reserves. / Bloomberg [$]

LiveNation receives an unexpected legal reprieve from the Justice Dept. after adding Trump allies to its board. / The New York Times [$]

“One of the leading AI companies” is looking to hire sketch comics and improv actors. / The Verge [$] 

Your weekly whitepaper: A study finds it’s better to text a random stranger than talk to a chatbot if you want to reduce loneliness. / ScienceDirect

A wealthy town in Minnesota is the only city in the US not on Google Maps thanks to how it handles its streets. / 404 Media 

From interviews with Zimbabwean Uber drivers in Cape Town, South Africa: “All had learned where not to pick up or drop off lifts.” / zimbabweland

San Franciscans pay a premium of at least 10% to take a robotaxi instead of a human-driven rideshare. / Bloomberg CityLab

New York City’s Washington Square Park, previously a counterculture hub, is now overrun “with social media influencers looking to go viral.” / Gothamist

Unrelated: Interviews with guys who departed the manosphere. / The Conversation

For nearly six decades, Paul Ehrlich persisted in predicting catastrophic doom “even as humanity grew both more populous and prosperous.” / Reason

“Funny to think of you as a journalist. You’d be the world’s worst journalist.” Accounting for the fiction of Ben Lerner. / Harper’s

An artist uses gridded sketchbooks to create trompe-l’œil-like drawings. / Colossal

In the members area, unlocked links from Bloomberg, the New York Times, and the Verge ↓