Trump embraces AI self-policing; Hegseth moves to cut generals and admirals

AI's biggest players now writing their own safety rules

President Trump's new voluntary deal with tech leaders and why Democrats say self-policing isn't enough

Plus, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth takes aim at the top. His new plan to cut the number of generals and admirals by 20%

And Jack Smith isn't backing down. The former special counsel defends his Trump prosecutions and tells senators he'd make the same call again

The stories that matter, the facts you can trust from across the country to around the world

This is unbiased updates from straight arrow. Hey everybody, I'm Christian Bryant. Hope your

morning is off to a great start. Let's get you caught up and ready for the day ahead

President Trump has a new plan for keeping artificial intelligence safe, and he's putting much of the responsibility and the company's building it. Trump met with some of

the industry's biggest names at the White House Tuesday and announced a new voluntary safety

agreement. The companies are committing to internal controls and outside reviews as they

develop more powerful AI systems. Well, there's a belief that there should be tremendous self

regulation and we automatically have regulation with the Department of Justice, the FBI, all of

that. But the self-regulation is very important. Trump says the agreement will be morally binding

and plans to name someone to oversee it. That's well short of the government guardrails some AI leaders and lawmakers have been calling for

But Democratic Senator Mark Warner says self-policing isn't enough. He pushed the Senate Tuesday to require safety testing and incident reporting for the most advanced AI systems

saying, Are we really going to trust the industry to self-police on something that goes beyond what is happening

I'm not an AI doomer, but the ability to have these AI agents take over

shut down part of the financial system is real. We should heed the call from the experts

Earlier in the day, Trump also launched America.gov, a new AI-powered portal designed to give people

one place to search for federal information and services. With America.gov, the federal government no longer stands in your way and it stands

only at your service. And that's what we're doing. We're simplifying it. We're glamorizing

it. We're making it what it should be. Trump signed an executive order requiring federal

agencies to begin integrating their public services into America.gov within 90 days

For now, the site can search government information. The plan is to eventually let

people do things like renew passports or enroll in Medicare directly through it

Notably missing from President Trump's meeting with top AI executive Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman He was in San Francisco unveiling his company new always AI agent Just a day after OpenAI held back a more advanced model over safety concerns Altman unveiled a series of new products including Dots He described Dots as an AI helper that quote always has your back inspired by the kind of AI we seen in movies

Dots is designed to work more proactively, handling ongoing tasks without users having to spell out every step

It will compete with other personal AI agents, including Meta's Muse. Think about that AI from the future that you imagined. It knows what's going on. It knows what matters to you. You don't have to tell it every little thing to you to do. We want AI to feel like that. We want it to feel like magical things that it just does for you without you having to ask. Dots are remarkably capable, always on agents, built to handle really anything you can think of

Altman didn't address the model OpenAI held back Monday during his keynote, but he later said the company is investing more in safety, security, and monitoring as its AI agents become more capable

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is set to announce another round of cuts to the military's top ranks today

The Pentagon plans to cut 20% of the positions reserved for generals and admirals, according to multiple reports

That doubles the overall 10% reduction Hegseth ordered last year, part of his push to streamline the military's senior ranks

At the time, Hegseth said the cuts were needed to drive innovation and operational excellence, arguing that, quote, unnecessary bureaucratic layers were hurting the military's effectiveness

As of July, there were 851 active-duty generals and admirals across the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Space Force

The new cuts are expected to be completed by January 1st. Hegseth is set to lay out the plan during his State of the Force address at 3 p.m. Eastern at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia

Former special counsel Jack Smith says he stands by the decisions he made while investigating President Trump and would make them again

At a contentious Senate Judiciary hearing Tuesday, Smith defended his decision to prosecute Trump, saying his team developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump committed serious crimes

Smith also said he will not be silenced by threats of prosecution against him

If asked whether to prosecute a former president today based on the same facts, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat

The charges against President Trump were the result of the evidence. Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions, as alleged in the indictments they returned

Rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power After leaving office in January of 2021 President Trump illegally kept classified documents at his Mar social club and repeatedly

tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents

Republicans pressed Smith over his team's efforts to obtain phone records from GOP lawmakers

as part of the 2020 election investigation. Smith defended the move. Do you believe in the tooth fairy

I do not. How about the Easter Bunny? I no longer believe in the Easter Bunny

Do you think Jimmy Hoffa died of natural causes? I do not

Okay. Now, you saw the phone records of a bunch of U.S. senators, right

uh we sought uh the toll records non-content records any any any democrats or just republicans

if uh president trump had reached out to democrats but i'm just trying to get the facts

were there any democrats he sought their phone records just republicans right the toll the toll

records that we sought were relevant to the investigation and they were republicans i'm

Then came this exchange over a basketball game. Missouri's Republican Senator Eric Schmidt suggested Smith had been in Atlanta in 2024

and raised the possibility he was there in connection with Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis

What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta

at a Warrior Hawks game on February 3rd, 2024, the day after Willis and Wade announced their affair

I don't think you know that we have this stuff. So I'll give you a second to process it so you don't perjure yourself

But Schmidt appeared to have the wrong Hawks. Smith said he was at an Iowa Hawkeyes women's basketball game that day

against Maryland in Maryland, not an Atlanta Hawks game. Records confirmed the Hawkeyes played at Maryland that day

Neither of Smith's cases against Trump ever went to trial. Both were dismissed after Trump won the 2024 election because of Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president

A former American Idol singer is now a convicted murderer found guilty of killing his wife inside their Ohio home

A jury took just over two days Tuesday to convict Caleb Flynn on all nine counts against him

Flynn broke down in tears as the verdicts were read, then left the courtroom in handcuffs

Prosecutors say Flynn shot and killed his wife Ashley in February, then staged the scene to look like a home invasion

Flynn told police he was asleep on the couch when gunshots woke him up

But prosecutors said data from his electronic devices showed he was awake and moving around the house Then there were the text messages Flynn was having an affair with Aaliyah Botner who testified that he talked about hating his wife and wanting her dead

About six months before the killing, Flynn texted her that he was trying to think of ways to kill Ashley and not go to jail

The defense argued there was no concrete evidence Flynn fired the gun and told jurors

quote, being unfaithful doesn't equal murder. The jury convicted him on murder, assault

and evidence tampering charges. Flynn is set to be sentenced Monday and could spend the rest of

his life in prison without parole. Finally this morning, we don't shame here at Straight Arrow

but we do want to recognize a sizable achievement. The winner of Fat Bear Week 2026, Meet Bear 89

better known as Backpack, an adult male at Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska

He got that nickname as a cub when he would climb onto the back of his mom, Holly, as they crossed the river

And there are some good genes there. Holly won Fat Bear Week herself back in 2019

Backpack had a rough start, though. At about two years old, he suffered a serious leg injury that park rangers say put his survival in question

He recovered and has since grown into a large adult known for what park officials call his quiet toughness

And now in the 12th year of Fat Bear Week, Backpack has his own title, winning the final with more than 103,000 votes

And a little bit of nepotism, but it's okay in this particular situation

Before we head out, here's what we're tracking today. At 11.30 Eastern, top Justice Department and Homeland Security officials hold a news conference expected to focus on election integrity

At 1, President Trump hosts a Hispanic Heritage Month celebration. Ten minutes later, Vice President Vance joins Texas Governor Greg Abbott in Brownsville for the groundbreaking of a new Saronic Technologies manufacturing facility

And at 3, Trump makes an announcement with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick

We will be watching it all. There's always more to the story. That's why we created Offscript. It's a new podcast where we go beyond the headlines and talk with straight arrow journalists behind the reporting. I host my first episode this week. Very excited. So be sure to watch Offscript Thursdays on our app or at san.com slash offscript

If you have any questions or comments for me or the team, email us

UnbiasedUpdates at SAN.com. We read them and we like hearing from you guys

I'm still new here and I want to get to know the Straight Arrow audience. That's UnbiasedUpdates at SAN.com

And that is Unbiased Updates for this Wednesday. We'll see you here tomorrow. For the Unbiased Updates team and all of us at Straight Arrow, I'm Christian Bryant

Have a great one and we'll see you again soon. you