Kushner and Witkoff met Putin in Moscow on Saturday. They flew to Kyiv and met Zelenskyy on Sunday. The first time US envoys have visited Ukraine's capital since the full-scale invasion began. No ceasefire was announced.

The week that ended with a Lindsay Clancy mistrial and a Michigan Hail Mary opened with Trump's envoys having just landed in Kyiv for the first time since the war began, straight from a meeting with Putin in Moscow. Here is Monday.

Kushner and Witkoff flew from Moscow to Kyiv in 24 hours. They met Putin. Then they met Zelenskyy. It is the most significant Ukraine peace diplomatic push in years.

United States special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Sunday, their first visit to the Ukrainian capital since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022. The meeting came one day after they met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. National security advisers from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany joined the Kyiv discussions. The US team and Ukrainian negotiators held three rounds of talks. A White House official said both sides "discussed substantive plans for next steps, which will be announced in the coming weeks". Putin ordered a three-day halt to Russian attacks on Kyiv to coincide with the US delegation's visit. Zelenskyy said Ukraine would refrain from strikes on Moscow through Monday. No ceasefire was announced. The war continues.

"We've had a very meaningful discussion, substantive, important, and we are very encouraged and we look forward to continuing this as long as it takes," Witkoff said after the Kyiv talks. Zelenskyy thanked Trump for "allowing them to come" and said it was "very important to do everything so that this war ends." Ukraine's proposals, he said, were "constructive."

The diplomatic choreography of this weekend is specific and worth naming carefully. Kushner and Witkoff met Putin in Moscow on Saturday. They flew to Kyiv on Sunday. Putin halted Russian attacks on Kyiv for three days. Ukraine halted strikes on Moscow. UK, France, and Germany joined the Kyiv talks but not the Moscow talks. No major breakthrough was announced and the war continues including Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities outside Kyiv and Ukrainian strikes on Russian infrastructure outside Moscow. What the weekend produced is not peace. It is the conditions under which peace might be discussed again. "Next steps to be announced in the coming weeks" is not a ceasefire. It is a signal that both sides are willing to be in the same diplomatic process, which they have not been since the talks collapsed earlier this year. That is what moved.

An Amazon cargo plane crashed at Miami International Airport on Sunday killing five people. The Boeing 767 overran the runway and struck vehicles on the road beyond the airport fence.

An Amazon Prime Air cargo Boeing 767, Flight 7598, overran the runway at Miami International Airport after arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico on Sunday afternoon, struck multiple vehicles on a road beyond the airport fence, and caught fire, killing five people and injuring five others. More than 60 fire-rescue units responded. All runways at Miami International Airport were closed. The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates aviation accidents, is examining the crash. The cause is not yet known.

Miami International Airport is one of the busiest airports in the United States, handling more than 50 million passengers annually. An overrun crash that strikes vehicles on a public road beyond the perimeter represents a failure not just of the aircraft's stopping mechanism but of the buffer zone that airports maintain between runways and public infrastructure. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said: "Today is an incredibly difficult day for all of us here in Miami-Dade County." The NTSB investigation will examine mechanical systems, flight crew performance, weather conditions, and runway conditions. Runway overrun crashes are rare but not unprecedented at major airports. In each case the investigation traces backward through a sequence of decisions and conditions that individually might have been corrected. The five people who died Sunday afternoon were on or near a road in Miami that happened to lie beyond the end of a runway. The NTSB will spend months understanding why the plane could not stop.

Germany's far-right AfD just won 44% in Saxony-Anhalt, more than doubling its 2021 result. The CDU collapsed. Germany may be forming its first far-right state government since World War II.

Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, won approximately 44% of the vote in Sunday's Saxony-Anhalt state election, more than doubling its 20.8% result from 2021 and positioning it to potentially lead Germany's first far-right state government since World War II. The center-right CDU, which led the previous state government, collapsed from 37.1% to 17.2%. NPR's Esme Nicholson called the results "a disaster" for Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who had vowed to halve AfD support when he took office. Germany's federal and state intelligence agencies have classified the AfD's Saxony-Anhalt branch as a "confirmed right-wing extremist" organization.

Germany rebuilt its democracy after Nazi rule with unusually strong constitutional safeguards designed to prevent the far right from returning to power. Those safeguards include a ban on parties that threaten the constitutional order and a culture of what Germans call the "firewall," an agreement among mainstream parties not to form coalitions with the AfD. The Saxony-Anhalt result tests both. The AfD does not have an outright majority with 44%, but it has by far the largest vote share. The other parties must either maintain the firewall and form an awkward coalition without the largest party, or one of them breaks the firewall and enters a coalition with the AfD. Either outcome is historically significant. Elon Musk had promoted the AfD on X, calling it "the only party that can save Germany." Vice President Vance met with AfD leaders before the election. What the German electorate decided Sunday in Saxony-Anhalt is a specific answer to the question of whether the postwar European project's most important democracy is still committed to the political architecture it built after 1945. The answer, at 44%, is at minimum a very complicated yes.

Hawaii just declared a state of emergency as Hurricane Lowell tracks toward the islands. It is the third major storm to threaten Hawaii in three weeks.

Hawaii declared a state of emergency as Hurricane Lowell tracked toward the islands, with tropical storm warnings issued for Kauai and Niihau. It is the third major storm to threaten Hawaii in three weeks.

Three major storms in three weeks is not a normal hurricane season for Hawaii. The Hawaiian Islands sit in the central Pacific where tropical storms are less frequent than in the Atlantic or western Pacific, and major storms making direct landfall or near-landfall approaches are historically rare. The warming of the central Pacific, documented across multiple datasets over the past decade, has been associated with increased frequency and intensity of storms in regions that previously saw them rarely. Hawaii's infrastructure was not built for repeated major hurricane threats. The emergency declaration activates state resources and allows for federal assistance. The specific risk from Lowell includes not just wind and rain but storm surge on islands with limited evacuation routes. A state that is still assessing damage from the previous two storms is now preparing for a third.

Bernie Sanders just introduced a bill to ban artificial superintelligence. The bill targets AI systems that could surpass human intelligence across every domain.

Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the "Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act," legislation targeting the development of artificial superintelligence, meaning AI systems whose capabilities surpass human intelligence across all domains simultaneously. The bill would prohibit the development and deployment of such systems in the United States.

Artificial superintelligence is a theoretical category of AI that does not yet exist. Current AI systems, including the most capable large language models and multimodal systems, are extremely capable within specific domains but do not possess general intelligence that exceeds human capability across all areas simultaneously. The Sanders bill is legislation against a future technology rather than a current one. The Capital to Capitol read on this is specific: Congress has been unable to pass any AI regulation governing existing AI systems for years, with multiple bills failing to advance. Sanders introducing legislation against a technology that does not exist yet, in the same week that the NYC AI ban for K-8 students is taking effect and California is advancing its own AI regulatory framework, describes a legislative environment in which the policy response to AI is fragmenting across every level of government simultaneously. The federal government has not regulated existing AI. It is now considering banning a category of AI that does not exist. The gap between those two facts is where the entire AI policy conversation is happening.

Gas just hit $4.14 a gallon nationally for Labor Day weekend. The cause is the Iran war. The consequence is arriving at every gas station in the country.

US drivers are facing record gas prices this Labor Day weekend, with the national average approaching $4.14 per gallon, driven by ongoing disruptions in crude oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and high domestic refinery operating costs.

The Iran war's economic consequences have been discussed throughout this month at the level of bond yields, oil futures, and Fed policy. Today they are at $4.14 a gallon on the Labor Day weekend, when more Americans drive than on any other weekend of the year. The direct pass-through from a military conflict in the Persian Gulf to the price at a gas station in Ohio or Georgia or Arizona is the most visible and least abstract consequence of the war for most American households. Gasoline is not a discretionary purchase for most people who need to get to work, school, or the grocery store. A $4.14 national average on Labor Day weekend is a number that will appear in every midterm campaign argument about the economy between now and November. It is also a number that the Warsh Fed will read alongside the PCE data and the employment numbers when it meets in three weeks to decide whether to hold rates or move. Both of those readings are part of the same $4.14.

An armed attacker charged toward an Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate at the Canfield Fair on Sunday. Several people were injured before troopers intervened.

An armed assailant charged toward Amy Acton, the Democratic candidate for Ohio governor, at the Canfield Fair in Mahoning County, Ohio on Sunday. Several people were injured before Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers intervened and stopped the attacker.

Amy Acton served as Ohio Director of Public Health during the COVID-19 pandemic and became a nationally recognized public health figure before resigning in 2020. She is running for Ohio governor as the Democratic candidate with 64 days until the midterm elections. An armed attacker charging toward a gubernatorial candidate at a public fair is a political violence incident in the middle of an election campaign season. The midterms are 64 days away. Multiple candidates across both parties have increased security details this cycle. The Canfield Fair is one of the oldest and largest county fairs in Ohio, a public event in a heavily attended setting. Troopers intervening means there was a gap between the attacker beginning to charge and being stopped, during which people around Acton were at risk. Several of them were injured. The political violence that has been present in American elections since at least 2016 arrived at a county fair in Mahoning County on Sunday afternoon.

The White House is drafting a plan to pay stay-at-home parents. The policy detail will determine everything about who benefits.

The White House is reportedly drafting a plan to pay stay-at-home parents for their caregiving work.

A federal program to compensate stay-at-home parents has been discussed in policy circles for years without ever achieving political viability. The arguments for it are straightforward: caregiving is economically productive labor that is excluded from GDP calculations, stay-at-home parents forego Social Security contributions and career advancement, and child care costs have made full-time parental caregiving financially impossible for most families. The arguments against it are equally straightforward: it is expensive, it creates incentives that economists debate, and the definition of who qualifies is politically and administratively complex. What matters most in this reported plan is the detail that does not yet exist: who qualifies, at what income level, for what amount, and through what mechanism. A plan to pay stay-at-home parents that is means-tested and modest looks nothing like one that is universal and generous. The White House is drafting something. The something that gets drafted will tell you everything about whose caregiving the administration thinks is worth paying for.

The thread underneath Monday

Kushner and Witkoff shuttled between Moscow and Kyiv in 24 hours, holding three rounds of talks with Zelenskyy after meeting Putin, with UK, France, and Germany joining, both sides temporarily halting strikes on each other's capitals, and no ceasefire announced but next steps to be announced in coming weeks, the conditions under which peace might be discussed again having moved without peace itself arriving. An Amazon Prime Air Boeing 767 overran the runway at Miami International Airport after arriving from Puerto Rico, struck vehicles on the road beyond the fence, caught fire, and killed five people, with the NTSB now investigating why the plane could not stop. Germany's AfD won 44% in Saxony-Anhalt, more than doubling its 2021 result and testing whether Germany's postwar firewall against far-right governance still holds as mainstream parties decide whether to form a coalition with the party their own intelligence agencies classify as right-wing extremist. Hawaii declared a state of emergency as Hurricane Lowell, the third major storm in three weeks, tracked toward Kauai and Niihau. Sanders introduced a bill to ban artificial superintelligence in the same week Congress has passed no AI regulation governing existing systems. Gas hit $4.14 a gallon nationally for Labor Day weekend because of the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz, the most direct pass-through from a military conflict to a gas station in Ohio. An armed attacker charged toward Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton at the Canfield Fair with 64 days until the midterms. The White House is drafting a plan to pay stay-at-home parents whose details will determine whether it is a family policy or a talking point. US forces struck Iranian oil tankers in retaliatory attacks. Questions are growing over China's reporting on deaths from the Nepal floods. Massachusetts prosecutors have not yet announced a decision on retrying Lindsay Clancy.

Eight sections, 64 days until the midterms. The FOMC meets in three weeks. The week ahead has Germany deciding whether the firewall holds, Hawaii preparing for a third storm, and Kyiv waiting to hear what "next steps" actually means. See you tomorrow.

What to watch tomorrow: Watch Germany for whether any mainstream party signals willingness to break the firewall and enter coalition talks with the AfD, because a government formation negotiation in Saxony-Anhalt will set a precedent for German federal politics that the rest of Europe is watching. Watch whether the NTSB releases any preliminary findings on the Miami cargo plane crash, because an overrun at a major airport typically produces early factual findings within 24 to 48 hours. Watch whether the White House releases any detail on the stay-at-home parent pay plan, because the structure of that plan is the difference between a meaningful policy and a midterm message. And watch any statement from the Zelenskyy government about what "next steps" from the Kyiv talks actually involves, because Witkoff's "encouraged" is not an outcome and the war is still running. See you tomorrow.

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