| | Good afternoon. Here’s what you should know today, July 3: |
| - An underground network sneaks Nvidia chips into China
- The jig is up for mouse jigglers
- Hot-dog eating champ Joey Chestnut gets frank about sitting out tomorrow’s contest
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| | Thanks for reading What’s News! Look for the  to enjoy a free article on us—and share the link with a friend (or forward the whole newsletter!). |
| | What's News will be off Thursday in observance of the Fourth of July. |
| |  | ILLUSTRATION: CAM POLLACK/WSJ; PHOTOS: AP, ZUMA PRESS |
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| 1. Donald Trump has a 6-point lead over President Biden among voters nationally, according to a WSJ poll. |
| Eighty percent say that the president is too old to run ( read for free) for a second term. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee had a 2-point lead in February. The new survey began two days after the debate that left Democrats panicked about the 81-year-old president’s acuity and their party’s election prospects in November. Biden told campaign staff, “No one’s pushing me out,” according to people with knowledge of his remarks. He and his senior advisers are trying to reassure lawmakers, boost party morale and convince skeptics that he is capable of serving another four years in office. |
| ‘Biden Is Like Yoda’: Inside the Big Money Battle to Salvage the Democratic Ticket (Read) What Would Happen if Biden Drops Out of the Election? (Read) |
| 2. The increasing likelihood of a second Trump administration has helped spark a selloff in U.S. government bonds. |
| Investors are betting that policies including tax cuts could drive up deficits and inflation. Treasury yields, which rise when bond prices fall, started surging Friday, a day after a debate between President Biden and Donald Trump raised questions about the former’s possible cognitive decline. (Econ and poli-sci majors will remember that deficits tend to be larger when one party controls both chambers of the Congress and the White House.) In stocks, the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite notched new records in a holiday-shortened session. |
| Fed Officials Signaled No Hurry to Cut Rates (Read) Car Prices Are Declining. Buyers Aren’t Seeing It. (Read) A Guilty Plea Could Be Boeing’s Best Option to Resolve 737 MAX Troubles (Read) |
| 3. A barely concealed network of buyers, sellers and couriers bypasses U.S. restrictions aimed at denying China access to Nvidia’s advanced AI chips. |
| They circumvent U.S. export controls through supply-chain blind spots, a WSJ investigation found. The Commerce Department, which oversees enforcement, didn’t respond to requests for comment. Nvidia’s chips can handle the massive computations needed to train artificial-intelligence systems that are critical to the China-U.S. tech rivalry. The company says it doesn’t sell restricted advanced chips to China and expects third-party partners to follow the rules, too. Many foreign governments and jurisdictions aren’t legally required to impose the U.S. controls, and generally don’t consider such chip sales to China a crime, according to international trade lawyers. |
| Beijing and Moscow Go From ‘No Limits’ Friendship to Frenemies in Russia’s Backyard (Read)  What the Rise in Chinese Imports Mean for U.S. Jobs (Watch)
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| 4. Israel has seized more land in 2024 than in any other year since the 1993 Oslo Accords. |
| It has declared a total of 9 square miles of the West Bank state land, according to an Israeli watchdog organization. That enables Israel to build new settlements and, in practice, prevents Palestinian access. The Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, said that the seizures aim to dispossess Palestinians. Israeli authorities say that only land that isn’t privately held by Palestinians can be declared state land, but rights groups say that, practically speaking, many Palestinians have had land confiscated. The latest 5-square-mile seizure is within an Israel-administered area and adjoins Israeli settlements, according to the watchdog group. Palestinians say that settlement expansion threatens the creation of a future contiguous Palestinian state. |
| Palestinian Doctor Says He Was Beaten During Seven Months in Israeli Custody (Read) |
| 5. French political parties are cooperating in an effort to stop the far right from gaining control of parliament. |
| A leftist alliance and President Emmanuel Macron’s bloc withdrew almost all of their third-place candidates to create head-to-head faceoffs against Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party in the final round of voting. They hope that supporters of the eliminated candidates will back whichever contender isn’t from National Rally. Across the Channel, the world’s most successful political party is facing a sweeping defeat in the U.K. election tomorrow. If polls are right, the Conservatives could get about 20% of the popular vote—their lowest share in modern British history and less than half of what they garnered in the last general election, in 2019. |
| The Making of the 28-Year-Old Star of France’s Far Right (Read) |
|  Enjoying this newsletter? Get more from WSJ and support our journalism by subscribing today with this special offer.
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| |  Follow coverage of detained WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich
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| The WSJ’s Evan Gershkovich is being wrongfully detained in Russia after he was arrested while on a reporting trip and accused of espionage—a charge the Journal and the U.S. government vehemently deny. Follow the latest coverage, sign up for an email alert, and learn how you can use social media to support Evan. |
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| MEMBER MESSAGE: MANSION GLOBAL BOUTIQUE | | Host and Housewarming Gifts |  | For the homeowner who has it all, creative presents that are practical and pretty. Read More | |
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| | $2.65 billion | The price that Saks Fifth Avenue’s parent company is paying for rival Neiman Marcus, according to people familiar with the matter. Amazon is to take a minority stake in the new company. Both luxury retailers have struggled amid consumer belt-tightening and competition from fashion brands’ flagship stores. |
| ~50% | The share of medium to large companies that used electronic worker-surveillance systems in 2023, according to research and advisory firm Gartner. More of them can now identify repetitive cursor movements or irregular patterns in someone’s computer activity, so if you use mouse jigglers or other hacks to fake working, beware. (Leigh knows each of my keystrokes is legit—or there’d be no newsletter every day.) |
| | “We think of this as such a bizarre practice, something very unusual and unexplainable, but three-quarters of societies did it.” | —Evolutionary scientist Peter Turchin, referring to human sacrifice. New research on ancient children’s DNA found that the Maya of Central America regularly killed boys—particularly twins or close male relatives between the ages of 3 and 6—between 900 and 1,400 years ago. Being sacrificed was considered a privilege, so the boys’ families likely gave them up willingly. Mayan lore includes male “Hero Twins,” so the double sacrifices were likely part of a ritual honoring that belief system. |
| | - Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Takes Back Control (Read)
- Your Flight Is Delayed. Would More Details Make You Feel Better? (Read)
- For Evan Gershkovich, Food Is Connection. His Supporters Are Cooking to Show Their Love. (Read)
- Why Are So Many Townhouses For Sale in Park Slope Right Now? (Read)
- No One Wanted to Finance Their Stadium. Now Every Game Is a Sellout. (Read)
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| |  | PHOTO: SCOTT SEMLER FOR WSJ; PROP STYLING SEAN DOOLEY |
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| How to build your best beach cooler |
| The poorly chilled six-pack has gone the way of tanning reflectors, so get ready to up your ice-chest game. Opt for fruited ciders, canned cocktails and big-flavored, lower-alcohol beers, adult-beverage experts suggest. For the non-drinkers, stash some canned nonalcoholic wines, ready-to-drink mocktails and hop waters. |
| | | What tricks do you use to look busy at work? Let us know at whatsnewsletter@wsj.com or reply to this newsletter. Include your full name and location, and we may publish your response in an upcoming issue. |
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| |  | Joey Chestnut has won the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest 16 times. PHOTO: BRITTAINY NEWMAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS |
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| WSJ’s Jason Gay talks to Joey Chestnut about missing the iconic Coney Island hot-dog eating contest this year. The competitive-eating champ is out because of his partnership with plant-based Impossible Foods. |
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Welcome to my geopolitics blog site. This is a Hawaii Island news site focusing on geopolitical news, analysis, information, and commentary. I will cite a variety of sources, ranging from all sides of the political spectrum.