Sunrise

Today’s notice: Check out our new duds. Democrats sound the money alarm. OpenAI’s government stake plan may have been a hallucination. And: <Jurassic Park theme music plays.>

THE LATEST

A new Sun over the horizon. What you’re reading right now is the first edition of The Washington Sun’s flagship daily newsletter. What you’re also reading is another edition of the daily newsletter we have been honored to build with you these past couple years. We’re something different today, but also continue to be the thing we hope you’ve come to count on. New name, same great taste.

Why The Sun? Editor-in-Chief Tim Grieve explains: “You can choose your metaphor: We’re shining a light on Washington. Everything is clearer in daylight. And we’d rather light a big candle than keep on cursing the darkness. We cover politics and policy and the people who shape life in Washington — not just at the White House and in Congress, but at the Wilson Building, at Northwest Stadium and in the neighborhoods where we live.”

What this means, by the numbers: We’ve more than doubled the size of our newsroom in just six months, adding top talent up and down the masthead. If you live in the D.C. area or care about people who do, we now have incredible local reporting, restaurant and events coverage, weather forecasts from what used to be called the Capital Weather Gang and more local sports coverage than anyone else in the DMV.

If you live outside the city — or just don’t particularly care if it’s going to rain tomorrow — we have also added top-flight reporters covering national politics and policy, going where the story is and regularly bringing new insights to the conversation.

What it means for you, and us. On our end, we’re very excited for this next chapter. We love good stories as much as you, and there are gonna be a lot more good stories now. On your side of the screen: keep talking to us, telling us what you like and what you don’t. We’re going to be here tomorrow just like always — and you should be, too.

More: Sununu to Face Pappas in New Hampshire Senate Race • Challenge to Abortion Drug Heads Back to Court Ahead of Midterm Elections • U.S. Strikes Iranian Tankers in Retaliation for Attacks on Navy Vessels • Duffy Scolds Ford Over Deals With China in Urging More American Manufacturing

Open tabs:

• At 9/11 Tribute, Trump Adds New Claim to His Disputed Role After Attack (NYT)
• States That Gave Data Centers Billions in Tax Breaks Are Now Ripping Up the Deals (WSJ)
• US resumes immigrant visa processing for Hungary, Poland as pause remains elsewhere (Reuters)

FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

Democrats’ money problems: “The money has been slower than anyone anticipated,” Bradley Beychok, co-founder of the Democratic super PAC American Bridge, told The Sun as the fall general-election spending season kicks off in earnest. Our Elena Schneider and Alex Roarty report that outside money groups backing Democrats are desperate for funds, even as polling and other data point to a great environment for their candidates. Just about everyone agrees a blue wave is possible, Elena and Alex write, but no one is sure if Democrats will have the money to help make it happen.

THE BIG ONE

Have AI explain this one to you: For months, OpenAI has been connected to the idea that it’s interested in voluntarily ceding shares to the government. The Sun’s Jeff Stein first broke that story in June.

That was then. Today, Jeff reports OpenAI CEO Sam Altman privately told a group of conservative economists on July 29 that he did not support having the government take shares in the company. To those present, Altman appeared confused why anyone could think he wanted the government to own part of the company.

Altman said that he supports some version of redistributing company shares to the American public, according to multiple sources who attended the event. “I had the sense that he did not see as big of a difference between individual Americans owning shares and the government owning shares as there is in reality,” one attendee said.

What Altman does support: A “government-administered public wealth fund,” which in a statement, OpenAI distinguished from one in which the government took a “controlling or ownership stake in AI companies, which we would not support.” Experts have a hard time understanding exactly what that means, or how it would work.

PERSPECTIVES

Today The Washington Sun rises — and with it a belief that we can reimagine the traditional newspaper for the digital age, writes Dana Milbank.

NEW ON THE WASHINGTON SUN

Paleontologists vs. the White House: Donald Trump shrank the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by more than 90% in July, removing almost 900,000 acres of geologic layers home to unusually complete dinosaur fossils. The move came as a great relief to many Republican lawmakers in Utah, The Sun’s Anna Kramer reports, and a great horror to the state’s dinosaur hunters.

These are some of the world’s greatest dino deposits. The most recent “Jurassic World” featured dinosaurs only known to scientists because of excavations there, Anna writes. But they’re also lands with potentially very valuable minerals underneath that have been locked out of development since the national monument was declared.

In a very deep dive spanning millions of years, Anna carefully scrapes away the politics around dinosaurs, energy extraction and government land protection.

More: Mega Millions-Winning Congressman Violates the STOCK Act • Central Command Says American Drone Captured by Iran ‘Malfunctioned’ • New Grand Jury Subpoenas Sent in Trump-Russia Conspiracy Probe • Air Force Base to Allow Religious Greetings After Hegseth Vowed to Intervene

NOT US

• Kennedy Promised Children’s Health Reforms. Here’s How He Did. By Dani Blum and Alice Callahan for The New York Times
• As Social Security fund runs dry, some Republicans say it’s time to raise taxes, by Steve Thompson for The Washington Post
• Why House Republicans are pulling money from a key swing seat, by Andrew Solender for Axios

BE SOCIAL

IYKYK

Thank you for reading! If you liked this edition of The Washington Sun Newsletter, please forward it to a friend. If this newsletter was shared with you, please sign up — it’s free! Have a tip? Email us at tips@washsun.com. And as always, we’d love to hear your thoughts at newsletters@washsun.com.

The newsletter was produced by Thomas Burr and Andrew Burton.