Jules Witcover was one of the most consequential journalists of our time because he understood to his core the fundamental role journalists play in our democracy – and the great responsibility that comes with being one. Over the course of my career, I spent a lot of time with Jules who came from a middle class background a lot like mine. He also believed, like I do, that family is the beginning, middle, and end. That perspective gave him an innate sense of decency that he never lost sight of – no matter how big the scoop, or how controversial the topic. I saw it firsthand in the reporting Jules did on my own life. His work was always fair, honest, and smart. Jules was a straight shooter. And he listened. For him, journalism was more than just telling a story, it was about telling the hard truths. Jules' words – and his coverage of all the big moments in recent American history – will help future generations better understand what this country is all about. And his work will continue to inspire generations of young journalists. For six decades, Jules was a respected, reliable voice for readers across the country and a mentor to many. He was one of the greats. Jill and I send our love to his wife Marion, his children Amy, Julie, Paul, and Peter, his three grandchildren, and all of those who were fortunate enough to know him.

I am the Deputy Director of Disclosure Compliance at the Office of Government Ethics. I oversee a team of 11 specialists. We process financial disclosure amendments for senior executive branch personnel. We are very good at our jobs. In Q1 2026, we received 113 pages of periodic transaction reports from a single trust. Form OGE-278-T, filed in duplicate. 3,642 individual stock trades. I want you to understand the scale of our achievement: we processed every single one. On time. In triplicate. Asset type, transaction date, notification date, value range. Every field populated. Every box checked. Every signature dated. 60 trades per trading day. My senior analyst calculated it on her lunch break. She thought the number was remarkable. I told her what was remarkable was our processing speed. For context: the previous 2 administrations filed primarily index funds and Treasury notes. Fewer than 200 transactions per year. My team reorganized the archive. We updated the flowchart. Those were quiet years. The system worked. I will summarize several entries that exemplify our compliance standards. On February 10, the trust purchased $1-5M in Dell Technologies stock. On May 8, at a White House Mother's Day event, the President of the United States said — on camera, into microphones — "Go buy Dell." The stock surged 14.6% to an all-time high of $263.99. Dell's founding family had pledged $6.25B to affiliated financial accounts the previous December. This is compliant. The disclosure was filed within the statutory window. Schedule C, Addendum J — I verified the columns personally. On January 6, the trust purchased $500K-$1M in Nvidia. 1 week later, the Commerce Department approved the sale of Nvidia H200 chips to China. On February 10, the trust purchased an additional $1-5M in Nvidia. The following week, Nvidia announced a major partnership with Meta. The CEO of Nvidia had been cultivating what the press corps describes as a "close personal relationship" with the President. Also compliant. Both transactions filed on time. I color-coded the Nvidia entries green. Green means technology sector. Palantir Technologies required its own subsection. The trust purchased $65-150K in January. Sold $1.1-5.3M in February — the same month the Department of Homeland Security signed a $1B Palantir contract for immigration enforcement. Then purchased another $200-500K in March, after the Pentagon awarded a separate $1B Palantir AI contract. Buy, sell, buy. Each transaction disclosed. Each form complete. My team processed the Palantir cycle in under 4 hours. I nominated them for the Distinguished Processing Award. Some trades carried a designation I should explain: "unsolicited." This means the trade was not broker-recommended. The filer or their representative specifically requested it. The large purchases of Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon — all unsolicited. This is not a flag. This is a checkbox. We check it. The box is checked. Intel deserves mention. The trust increased its Intel position beginning in March — after the federal government acquired a 9.9% equity stake worth $8.9B, now valued above $41B. On April 30, the President posted on Truth Social congratulating Intel. The stock rose 3%. Intel is up 140% year-to-date. I color-coded Intel blue. Blue means strategic national interest. On April 9, 2025, at 9:37 AM, the President posted: "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT." 3 hours and 47 minutes later, he announced a 90-day tariff pause. The S&P 500 gained $4 trillion in a single session. Trump Media stock rose 22.67%. The President's 53% stake increased $415M before the market closed. The President's annual salary is $400,000. These are separate line items on Form SF-278. This was not on our forms. The President's social media posts are not financial instruments subject to disclosure. They are communications. We file communications in a different cabinet. The trust also executed 9 Coinbase purchases and additional transactions through Robinhood and SoFi — while the administration signed pro-cryptocurrency executive orders, proposed a federal bitcoin reserve, and the Department of Justice dissolved its National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team. Robinhood served as custodian for several affiliated accounts. Combined crypto-adjacent holdings: $11.6B. Income from crypto in H1 2025: $800M. Fully disclosed. Every form filed. The Commerce Secretary appeared on Fox News and told viewers to buy Tesla stock. This is not within our jurisdiction. We process OGE forms. I have forwarded a memo. The memo has been filed. The late filings require a note. The STOCK Act mandates timely disclosure. When reports are filed late, the maximum penalty is $200. $200. That is the maximum penalty under the STOCK Act for late disclosure of stock trades executed by the President of the United States. The filing fee for a single LLC in Delaware is $250. The President acknowledged the fee. We acknowledged the acknowledgment. People misunderstand what "ethics oversight" means. The word "oversight" contains both "sight" and "over." We see it. Then it is over. My office has 74 employees. We can review, advise, recommend, refer, flag, note, catalog, and file. We cannot block a trade. We cannot delay an executive order. We cannot freeze an account. We have no subpoena power. We have no enforcement mechanism. We have a filing cabinet. It is a very organized filing cabinet. I should mention the blind trust. I drafted the implementation memo in 2017. Memo OGE-2017-041-R. 14 pages. Proper margins. Every president since Lyndon Johnson used a blind trust or equivalent. Jimmy Carter sold his peanut farm. Barack Obama held Treasury notes and index funds. Joe Biden maintained a blind trust. My memo recommended voluntary divestiture or a qualified blind trust within 90 days of inauguration. It was received, acknowledged, and filed. Filed is the final stage. After filed, there is nothing. Filed is where recommendations go to be preserved. The trust is managed by the filer's adult sons, who simultaneously operate the family's private real estate and licensing business. My former director, Walter Shaub, called the arrangement "wholly inadequate" and "not a blind trust." He resigned in 2017. I was promoted to manage his filing backlog. His concerns were documented, stamped, and archived. Third shelf, first cabinet. A new analyst asked me last month why we don't refuse to process the forms. I explained that refusal is not a stage in the compliance lifecycle. The compliance lifecycle has 4 stages. None of them is refusal. A law professor at Oxford described the aggregate pattern as "potentially the most far-reaching securities fraud in history." This is an academic opinion. We do not process academic opinions. We process Form OGE-278-T. The form has been processed. The new STOCK Act reform bill in committee would ban congressional stock trading. It explicitly exempts the President and Vice President. It reduces our projected caseload by zero. The Treasury Secretary has publicly endorsed banning stock trades for members of Congress. Our office processes 60 executive branch trades per day. These are compatible positions. Senator Warren called the volume "unprecedented." She is technically correct. We have never processed this quantity before. I had to requisition a second filing cabinet. Form GSA-3402. Walnut finish. It is beautiful. "Conflict of interest" is a documentation category, not a prohibition. When we identify a conflict, we document it. When we document it, we have addressed it. When we have addressed it, the file is closed. This is the compliance lifecycle. It has 4 stages and a laminated flowchart. The system does not exist to prevent. The system exists to create a record that the system exists. The record is the product. The product is the record. We are in the record business. We are fully staffed. We are well-funded. We are operational. Cumulative transaction value for Q1: $220M-$750M. The next quarterly filing deadline is in 9 days. I expect volume to increase. I have requested a third cabinet.

Last year I nearly shut down Blueprint. My reasoning was that in the grand game of existence, getting our societal goals right is the only thing that matters. In the long arc of time, it wouldn't matter if I built a longevity company. I wanted to invest all of my energy into Don't Die. Maybe I'm naive, however it seems obvious to me that when your species is giving birth to superintelligence, your sole concern becomes survival. Not because you're scared or fear what may come, but because you realize that superintelligence is big. Bigger than any of us can imagine and happening faster than our intuitions allow us to model. This is a hard concept for Homo sapiens to understand because we are not good at understanding our limitations of knowing. In the void of not knowing, the one thing that we each know to be true is that none of us want to die right now. When tomorrow arrives, that will be true about the next day too. Don't Die is not about immortality. It's about the most basic observation of intelligent life, we want one more breath. Just as Homo erectus, a million years ago, with an axe in their hand, was unable to articulate our modern world, we are once again Homo erectus relative to AI. We may experience a million years of relative progress in the next 10, 20 or 50 years. Given this, Kate and I have cycled through this problem hundreds of times over the past few years. How can we get the world aligned around Don't Die? Committed to the idea that in spite of our many differences, we share a planet and a common interest in tomorrow. Basically, how can we make existence profitable and die unprofitable. We saw the problem as two-fold. One practical and one spiritual. Practically, we need things to work in the world: clean water, transportation, energy, security, stable institutions, communications and health care. Spiritually, we need purpose, existential explanations, and hope. We also need progress and adventure: solve aging, abundant AI, creative joy and expression and things to build. We decided to build on both fronts. Blueprint would be the practical, a company aligned to Don't Die. A group of humans that labor together to help other humans thrive as their sole objective. To hold ourselves to a standard of making existence profitable and die unprofitable, for ourselves. To never let profit corrupt this goal. Sounds simple until you take stock of how many companies make their living on making humans die. Sometimes this is done openly and other times it's hidden in a mesh of poorly aligned incentives that are invisible. This is not an esoteric philosophical argument, death is measurable in a biological system. You can get clever and find arguments ("does this mean we shouldn't have children?") but we know death and life when we see it. On the spiritual side, we think that 2027-28 is the breakout time for Don't Die. Maybe we're off by a year or two, but we think it's soon. We believe that AI will create several societal shocks, none of which we will predict accurately, but will leave the world feeling unmoored. Hopefully it won't be catastrophic, but will be a cold water dunk we need to awaken us to the realization that no one really wants to die right now and that our current societal systems that profits from death are ill suited for this moment. That in our most sober moments, when at funerals, or after a near-death experience, we see clearly, even if for a few minutes. Above all, we care about life more than anything else. All else fades away in those moments. We see with crystal clarity that all the other stuff that had us entranced wasn't that important after all. I write this for two reasons. First, to invite you to build Don't Die in the practical world. Capitalism (profit and loss) is a good system that has done society well. In whatever you're building, align your and your organization's efforts with a loyalty to acting in people's best long term interests. Don't do things that cause other people to die, commit self harm, or create societal harm. This doesn't mean being paternalistic, it means using your best judgement about how you'd want someone else to treat you if the roles were reversed. Second, to ready yourself for the new philosophy that will be arriving shortly. One that prioritizes our shared existence and vitality above all other goals. Don’t Die is the foundation. Immortalism is what we’re going to build. Again, not for selfish reasons, but because we understand that we are warriors and caretakers of intelligent life in this part of the galaxy and we take on this responsibility with honor and nobility.

In the Backpack tokenomics, we have one guiding principle. - Insiders "dumping on retail" should be impossible: no founder, executive, employee, or venture investor should receive wealth from the token until the product hits escape velocity. Of course it begs the question, what does it mean to "hit escape velocity". Every project is different, and it's impossible to generalize. For Backpack, the answer is clear: we want to IPO in the USA. Going public might happen quickly, it might happen not so quickly, and in fact, it might not happen at all. In any case, we're going for it. But before going public, we have to grow--a lot. The odd thing about Backpack's growth over the past year--and in fact one of the things that makes Backpack so different from basically every token project in crypto--is that, today, Backpack Exchange only serves about 48% of the world. We've been very slow, very intentional about opening up our product to the world, ensuring that we have every "i" dotted and ever "t" crossed as a regulated financial institution. Growth that sometimes feels like running with a parachute, but we are happy to take the long path, because it's precisely that parachute that will allow us to fly. For those that don't know us, the reason for this is simple. Backpack is trying to not only build great crypto products, but we're also trying to build great TradFi products. We're trying to not only give our users access to every crypto asset, every blockchain, and every decentralized application, but we're also getting banking rails around the world, USD client money accounts in the USA, EUR in the EU, JPY in Japan--every currency on every major payment network you can imagine. We're trying to build a great securities product, whether that's getting access to your favorite stocks in a traditional brokerage or bidding on primary shares of a company about to go public on NASDAQ. We want to serve not only retail users worldwide, but we want to serve regulated products for regulated counterparties and regulated institutions around the world. All of this takes an enormous amount of time, effort, blood, sweat, and tears. We've been working on this for over three years at this point, laying an international foundation for the company and for the product slowly but surely, brick by brick. If we're lucky, we'll spend a lifetime. What this all means is that, in the most literal sense--and I know this sounds silly--we're just getting started. We still have half the world to open up into. We still have some of our most exciting products to launch. And this leads to our next guiding principle in our tokenomics. - Liquid tokens should exclusively go to users, fueling growth triggered by key product milestones. Every time we open up a new region, every time we launch a new product, that's an opportunity to grow. Open up EU => grow. Open up Japan => grow. Open up the USA => grow. Open up predictions => grow. Open up stocks => grow. Open up card => grow. Like gasoline onto a fire, the token serves to continuously kickstart new markets in the same way points kickstarted Seasons 1-4. With every growth lever we pull, tokens unlock in a predictable way to users, bringing in a new wave of token holders, growing the community, and allowing the product to soar to new heights. The objective constraint for this to work is precise: the value of added growth created by new token unlocks must always be greater than the dilution of those unlocks. As long as that condition holds, we can continue to unlock tokens direct to our most active users, growing along the way. Last but not least is the question: Ok so if all the liquid tokens are going to users, then what about the team? How exactly do you remain incentive aligned while ensuring the team cannot unlock, dump on retail, and become enormously wealthy without building something great? And the answer is simple: not a single founder, executive, team member, or venture investor has been given a direct token allocation. The entire "team allocation" sits in a "corporate treasury", i.e. on the balance sheet of the Backpack company--locked until at least one year post IPO. The team owns equity in the company, and the company owns a large percent of the token supply. It's not until the company goes public (or has some other type of equity exit event), that the team can earn any wealth from the project. It's not until the company has access to the largest, most liquid capital markets in the world by going public--and it's not until the company has done all the hard work to earn access to those markets--that the team can reap the rewards of the value created by the Backpack community from now until then. We either go big, or we go home.

National Police Week is a time to celebrate the brave men and women who keep our communities safe, but it also serves as a solemn reminder of the incredible sacrifices made every day when our police officers put on their uniforms. I mentioned these individuals in my address at the Capitol, but I wanted to give those who gave their lives in the line of duty their due recognition. First, I want to honor a brave officer from my home state of Ohio who was killed in a cowardly ambush attack in Lorain County. Phillip Wagner was an officer in the local police department, and Marine Corps veteran with a beautiful wife and three precious children. Last July, Officer Wagner and a fellow officer were in their patrol vehicle when a man opened fire on their car. Officer Wagner succumbed to his wounds in the hospital, surrounded by his loved ones. Last August, Officer Suzanne O was mortally wounded in Maui County, Hawaii while responding to reports of an armed and dangerous suspect. Suzanne O was a devoted public servant who was awarded the Certificate of Merit two years prior for her tireless efforts during the 2023 Hawaii wildfires. Officer O gave her life in defense of the people she swore to serve, and her legacy of strength and selflessness will be remembered by her family, loved ones and all Americans. Finally, I want to honor three officers from Pennsylvania’s Northern York County Regional Police Department who were killed in the line of duty last year. Detective Mark Baker, Detective Isaiah Emenheiser, and Detective Sergeant Cody Becker were working to serve an arrest warrant against an armed stalker lying in wait outside a woman's home. These talented, seasoned officers confronted evil face-to-face and were met with a brutal ambush by a coward who took these brave husbands and fathers from their families prematurely. These stories, unfortunately, are not unique. Too many other officers have given their lives protecting their communities. The officers I mentioned are just a few examples of the strength and sacrifice that every officer in our country represents. Under the Trump Administration last year, on-duty law enforcement officer deaths were the lowest they've been in 80 years. That’s a stat I’m extremely proud of. Last year, the murder rate in our country was the lowest it's been in 125 years. That's because of the dedication of our peace officers and the shift in our nation that supports and respects the men and women who keep us safe. Peace and safety in our country comes at a price. It is paid for in the blood of brave individuals who make the ultimate sacrifice defending their communities, and in the tears of fallen officers' families. That is a price Americans should never take for granted, and it is a debt we can never repay. To all of our peace officers, thank you for your service.

When people talk about a once-in-a-lifetime trip, they often don’t realize that they may truly never return there. Many journeys that seem grand at the time eventually become ordinary parts of our lives. But even the little restaurant next to your home might, after some ordinary day, become a place you never visit again. Will space be once in a lifetime? I think not. But I really don’t know whether I will ever set foot on Bouvet again. I think Bouvet Island will very likely remain my true once-in-a-lifetime trip.

My favorite part about writing is that first spark of an idea. It can happen at any time, for any reason. The idea for the Opalite music video crash landed into my imagination when I was doing promo for The Life of a Showgirl. I was a guest on one of my favorite shows, @TheGNShow. For those of you who aren’t familiar, it’s a UK late night show where Graham Norton (the insanely charismatic and lovable host) invites a random group of actors, entertainers, musicians, etc to be on his show and we all sit there and chat like it’s a dinner party. They even serve wine. Anyway. I remember thinking I got ridiculously lucky with the group I was paired with. Cillian Murphy, Domhnall Gleeson, Greta Lee, Jodie Turner-Smith, and @LewisCapaldi. All people whose work I’ve admired from afar. When we were all talking during the broadcast, Domhnall made a light hearted joke about wanting to be in one of my music videos. He’s Irish! He was joking! Except that in that moment during the interview, I was instantly struck with an *idea*. And so a week later he received an email script I’d written for the Opalite video, where he was playing the starring role. I had this thought that it would be wild if all of our fellow guests on the Graham Norton show that night, including Graham himself, could be a part of it too. Like a school group project but for adults and it isn’t mandatory. To my delight, everyone from the show made the effort to time travel back to the 90’s with us and help with this video. You might even recognize some friendly faces from The Eras Tour. I got to work with one of my favorite people in the world, Rodrigo Prieto, again! I had more fun than I ever imagined - Made new friends, metaphors, and fashion choices. It was an absolute thrill to create this story and these characters. Shot on film. The Opalite video is out now on Spotify & Apple Music.

12years with GOT7💚 us GOT7 & IGOT7 are really growing up together i saw alot of IGOT7 now getting married build a family , had kids some been with us from young age and now became a full adult some even had our music as a childhood through these time we've been sharing each other almost every steps in our life like me myself show you every single steps from 17 till now that i'm 29 i hope we all can continue sharing alot of moments & memories and always be there for each others like we always were till the last day we can sing & dance for you guys till the day we all build a family not just as a artist but as a human being i hope i can share with you all till the last day having IGOT7 for almost half of my life are truly a blessing and also having a 6 brothers for life are the best thing ever happened to me i'm truly thankful for everything that we built together God bless you all💚

“I thought that was accomplished,” Darby said. “If there is a nuclear weapon that us American citizens don’t know about it, put our life and security above our finances,” but that “at this current point in time, with the knowledge we have in front of us … no, the financial situation is what comes next. We have to pay for food and bills.” Darby, who called the war “distasteful” to young voters, said “we don’t want to be back in the Middle East again fighting another forever war. … The goal is America first.”

0/ A personal update I have decided to step back from @multicoin. It's a bittersweet moment for me because my time at Multicoin has been some of the most meaningful and rewarding of my life. That said, I am excited to take some time off and explore new areas of technology. After nearly a decade in crypto, I’m more confident than ever that crypto is going to fundamentally rewire the circuitry of finance. I believe the Clarity Act will unlock a tidal wave of new entrants and spur adoption unlike anything we’ve seen. I remain bullish on crypto, specifically Solana, and intend to continue making personal investments in the space and supporting Multicoin portfolio companies. Moreover, I will continue to serve on the board of @zama, and I will continue in my role as Chairman at Forward Industries (@FWDind). More on Forward in next tweet. It goes without saying that I also remain bullish on Multicoin. My partners @tushar_jain, Brian Smith, @johnrobertreed, @mattshap1, @xethalis, @SpencerApplebau, and @shayonsengupta are some of the best investors and operators in the world. I am excited for them to continue to drive the crypto ecosystem and Multicoin forward for many years to come. To all of our portfolio founders, LPs, and industry partners—thank you for the opportunity to work with you. For reference, here is the letter we shared with LPs today