Alexa, Reindustrialize the Heartland. Plus. . .

It’s Tuesday, July 22. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: A rare glimpse inside the psyches of the ultra-wealthy. How Trump lost control of the Epstein narrative. And much more.

But before we get to the news, we’re thrilled to announce that Haviv Rettig Gur, one of the most insightful interpreters of the modern Middle East, is joining The Free Press. Click here to learn more about Haviv, and set yourself a reminder for his first livestream, which is this Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. ET.

Now to today’s stories. First up: Is Detroit the new Palo Alto?

It is so obvious that China has overtaken the United States as the manufacturing envy of the world that the lopsided numbers barely register as a blip anymore.

China churns out a third of the world’s manufacturing output, twice what the U.S. produces. China refines 90 percent of the world’s rare earth minerals. If we went to war with China right now, the U.S. could run out of some do-or-die munitions—including long-range, precision-guided weapons—within seven days. The list goes on and on.

Despite still being a global powerhouse in technical talent and software, the U.S. has been losing ground at building things for so long that we are in danger of losing our military and economic dominance, writes Chris Power, the CEO of Hadrian, a defense tech and advanced manufacturing start-up, in an essay for The Free Press that is a jarring wake-up call.

“We think we’re Mike Tyson in his prime—but we’re actually Tyson on the night he lost to Buster Douglas: unprepared, overconfident, and shocked when reality hits back,” Power writes.

How can America fight back before it’s too late?

Free Press columnist Batya Ungar-Sargon found some answers at last week’s Reindustrialize Summit, a gathering in Detroit of hundreds of tech investors, venture capitalists, defense contractors, manufacturers, and government officials. Let’s call them the New Industrialists.

No one is trying to bring back assembly-line factories like Ford’s old River Rouge plant in nearby Dearborn. These New Industrialists make things like robots, flying boats, air taxis, drones, and electric vehicles. Their ambitions are grand, even if their day-to-day accomplishments are mundane, like figuring out how to automate screwing the caps on bottles of lotion.

“There’s this irrational fear of robots taking jobs. The more robots that we have, the more collective production and output will be,” Saman Farid, whose company Formic is making robots to enhance American workers.

How scalable their strategies are is another big question. But Batya found lots of energy, purpose, and even joy—at least a start on a Made in America comeback.

—Rick Brooks

• At least 19 people were killed and 164 others injured yesterday when a Bangladesh Air Force training jet crashed into a school in Dhaka, according to a military spokesperson. “The pilot. . . made a valiant attempt to divert the aircraft away from densely populated areas. Despite his best efforts, the aircraft. . . crashed into a two-story building belonging to Milestone School and College,” he said in an interview with Reuters.

• Young children who talk to AI chatbots may face developmental risks, pediatricians and psychologists say. “We’re entering uncharted territory for how this might shape their developing sense of reality and relationships,” one pediatrician told Axios.

• Hunter Biden had some choice words for George Clooney yesterday: “Fuck him and everybody around him.” In an interview with YouTuber Andrew Callaghan, the former president’s son tore into other top Democrats, including David Axelrod, who he said “had one success in his political life, and that was Barack Obama, and that was because of Barack Obama.”

• New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign office was vandalized overnight by anti-Israel perpetrators. Police responded to a 911 call around 12:45 a.m. Monday morning from the congresswoman’s office, where they found red paint splashed across the facade with a sign that said “AOC FUNDS GENOCIDE IN GAZA.”

• Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna referred Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to the DOJ for a criminal investigation yesterday, accusing him of two instances of perjury. Luna is the latest voice in a chorus of Trump allies echoing the president’s calls to oust Powell from the Fed, despite warnings from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

• Russia launched a major aerial attack on Ukraine yesterday, killing two and wounding 15. The city’s Darnytskyi district saw the greatest devastation, where a kindergarten, supermarket, and warehouse all caught fire, according to the AP.

• More than 5.2 million above-ground pools sold in the U.S. and Canada over the last two decades are being recalled after nine reported drowning deaths. The recalled pools feature a compression strap that runs along their exteriors, which “may create a foothold” and allow small children to climb in unattended, according to notices published yesterday by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada.

• BRAT singer Charli XCX and George Daniel, drummer for The 1975, got married this weekend at a small ceremony in London. The intimate nuptials will be followed by a much larger wedding in Sicily, Italy, one source told People.

• A Microsoft server hack compromised about 100 organizations yesterday, according to cybersecurity researchers. The affected servers included major industrial firms, banks, auditors, healthcare companies, and several U.S. state-level and international government entities, Reuters reported.