Only four candidates are running to be the next secretary-general of the United Nations, as compared to 13 in 2016. / The Associated Press

Hezbollah fires drones and rockets in retaliation for the Israeli military’s multiple violations of the ceasefire. / Reuters

Did you know? Thanks to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, helium prices have spiked and suppliers are declaring force majeure. / Construction Physics

Another consequence to consider in the coming months? Condoms will cost more, and we’ll see more canceled flights. / The Guardian, Semafor

Unrelated: What to know before you install a solar panel on your balcony. / Canary Media

Regarding US-China relations: “If this is a chess match, the US is taking pawns off the periphery rather than controlling ⁠the center of the ​board.” / Reuters

More than 100 former NASA astronauts start a nonprofit to advocate for constitutional limits “and bringing back civic responsibility.” / The Wall Street Journal [$]

Whistle-blowers say the National Security Agency is using Anthropic’s new Mythos edition of Claude, the one that got embargoed for being too dangerous. / Axios

Spencer Ackerman: I don’t know what sort of cybersecurity model is going to exist if Mythos is what Anthropic says it is. / Forever Wars

The McClatchy news group has been using AI to rewrite stories and run them under unwitting journalists’ bylines, fanning the flames of a nascent union fight. / Tedium, The Columbia Journalism Review

An accountant explains what it was like to do his own taxes this year with Claude. “Is this better than a human? Better than me, for sure.” / Geoffrey Doempke

Related: Zoom and Tinder are partnering with Sam Altman’s eyeball-scanning company. / Gizmodo

“Degree hacking,” “college speed runs” and “hyper-accelerated degrees” refer to students earning degrees at online colleges in mere weeks or months. / The Washington Post [$]

District governments in China offer housing incentives to marathon runners, seen as a demographic “with comparatively high purchasing power.” / Sixth Tone

Summarizing a new history of the interwar Latin American left, also yet more writing from Karl Ove Knausgaard. / Africa Is a Country, The Drift

Tejal Rao investigates the many scams—in grocery stores and restaurants—involving so-called Wagyu beef. “What are we chasing, exactly?” / The New York Times [$]

The overhauled Los Angeles County Museum of Art mostly gets raves (unless you hate the idea of “no pathways”) as the city attempts a pre-Olympics glow-up. / The New York Times [$], The Wall Street Journal [$], Torched

Some drawings of animals wandering through neighborhoods at twilight. / Colossal

“Please give me all of your money, or I will tickle you to death.” A true bank-robbing story. / Dreamland

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