Omaha City Councilman Brinker Harding has launched a bid to succeed outgoing U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who announced that he will not seek re-election next year.

"I’m a husband, father, businessman, and Omaha City Councilman. Today, I am announcing my run for Congress in NE-02 to make America more like its Heartland and to make the next 250 years a New Golden Age for America. I hope you’ll join me!" Harding declared in a July 1 post on X.

Bacon, who has served in Congress since 2017, has announced that he will finish his current term, but will not run for re-election in 2026.

KEY HOUSE GOP MODERATE DON BACON WON'T SEEK RE-ELECTION

"Thank you, @DonJBacon, for your 30 years of distinguished service in the Air Force and a decade of dedicated leadership representing NE-02 in Congress," Harding declared in a June 30 post on X. "You’ve been a true statesman who’s served with integrity and heart. Wishing you and Angie all the best in this next chapter."

While Republicans have been divided on the issue, Bacon is a staunch proponent of U.S. aid to Ukraine.

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"It is a time for honesty. Peace talks are having zero effect on Putin. His goal is to dominate Ukraine & he won’t stop until he realizes he cannot win. The U.S. & Allies must arm Ukraine to the teeth, sanction Russia to the max, & confiscate the $300B in overseas Russian assets," the congressman declared in a post on X in late May.

U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., is backing Harding for the House seat.

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"Throughout a lifetime of service to Omaha and Nebraska, Brinker Harding has always championed public safety, economic development, and fiscal responsibility. Brinker will make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous. I am honored to endorse him for Congress," Fischer noted in a post on X.

For this week’s podcast, I’m talking to our friend Casey Johnston, a tech journalist turned fitness journalist turned independent journalist. Casey studied physics, which led her to tech journalism; she did some of my favorite coverage of Internet culture as well as Apple’s horrendous butterfly laptop keyboards. We worked together at VICE, where Casey was an editor and where she wrote Ask a Swole Woman, an advice column about weightlifting. After she left VICE, Casey founded She’s a Beast, an independent site about weightlifting, but also about the science of diet culture, fitness influencers on the internet, the intersections of all those things, etc. 

She just wrote A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting, a really great reported memoir about how our culture and the media often discourages people from lifting, and how this type of exercise can be really beneficial to your brain and your body. I found the book really inspiring and actually started lifting right after I read it. In this interview we talk about her book, about journalism, about independent media, and how doing things like lifting weights and touching grass helps us navigate the world.

Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Become a paid subscriber for access to this episode's bonus content and to power our journalism. If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version! You can also add that subscribers feed to your podcast app of choice and never miss an episode that way. The email should also contain the subscribers-only unlisted YouTube link for the extended video version too. It will also be in the show notes in your podcast player.

• Ask a Swole Woman
• A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting

• Banking could be "redefined" by as much as 40% by 2030, a new report predicts.
• The report says AI will fundamentally reshape many aspects of what banks do.
• It was prepared by ThoughtLinks, led by veteran banking exec Sumeet Chabria.

A new report attempts to put hard numbers on a question hanging over every Wall Street corner office: just how much of banking work will AI actually change?

Artificial intelligence is on track to redefine 44% of the work done at banks by 2030, according to ThoughtLinks, an independent consulting firm.

ThoughtLinks — which is led by founder and CEO Sumeet Chabria, a former tech and operations COO at Bank of America and a Wall Street veteran — mapped nearly 5,000 individual banking "processes" to see which roles or units at banks will experience the most upheaval in their roles.

ThoughtLinks found that tech, engineering, and infrastructure—collectively considered one sector — would be most susceptible to transformation, with a projection of 55% of the work involved in that sector being redefined by 2030. It's a logical outcome, considering how many of the tasks in these fields are precisely the kinds that automation is best suited to handle.

Front office, client-facing sectors are hardly immune. Commercial banking could be redefined by as much as 49% by 2030, wealth management to the tune of 42%, and investment banking by as much as 33%, according to the report.

Wall Street banks are investing heavily to compete. JPMorgan has deployed a large language model suite to its 200,000 employees, while Goldman Sachs has rolled out its own ChatGPT-like sidekick, GS AI Assistant. Citigroup also last week announced a new leadership team to drive AI strategy for its nearly quarter-million workers worldwide.

It's important to note that these numbers do not reflect ThoughtLinks' predictions about how many jobs could be lost or created as a result of AI — rather, they look at how much of the work done by those who work in banks could be done differently thanks to the implementation of artificial intelligence.

To assess how much each banking process could be redefined, ThoughtLinks developed a framework that maps what bank employees do to nearly 5,000 individual "processes." "'Redefined' reflects substantial AI-enabled, process-level change via automation, resequencing, elimination, or redesign," the firm wrote in its report.

In an interview, Chabria said that breaking finance jobs down to their most basic components would be critical to understanding how to retrain workers in the face of the AI revolution. "Clearly, you've got to keep the level of agility," he said, "because things are going to change."

Chabria shared three examples with Business Insider of how he anticipates sectors to respond to AI-driven changes. We got a look at snapshots for commercial banking, investment banking, and wealth management. Take a look at what's already transforming, what will be adapted by 2030, and the parts of the job that may stay mostly in the hands of humans for now.

Commercial banking: 49% redefined by 2030

What's already being automated:

• First-generation banking advisor copilot services are now live, helping bankers obtain insights on clients, quickly summarize notes or files, draft basic memos, or flag policy exceptions.
• Some manual workflows — like creating spreadsheets, drafting emails, and navigating legacy systems — are being replaced. This reduces time doing manual work, as well as human error.
• Customers have access to virtual AI-enabled assistants on corporate banking systems that give them personalized insights and enable them to do routine transactions more quickly.

What is expected to be redefined by 2030:

• Client onboarding: GenAI will help guide client onboarding conversations and tailor explanations, while the next iteration of AI will likely be able to verify forms and assess risks.
• Banks will leverage AI to assess small business creditworthiness to expand credit access.
• Banks will use AI to adjust loan pricing, fee structures, and product terms based on clients' behavior, financial patterns, and market conditions.
• AI tools will help detect some breaches and generate internal alerts in real time, increasing security 24/7.

What is likely to resist being redefined by AI:

• Large corporate lending will still require human credit judgment and board oversight.
• Banks will need to rely on legal, tax, risk, and structuring teams.

Investment Banking: 33% redefined by 2030

What's already being automated:

• Drafting documents like prospectuses or pitchbooks is being digitized. Generative AI tools can now pull in some market data, past deals, financial comps, and company-branded slides to build draft pitchbooks in minutes.
• Internal AI copilots are accelerating deal prep. Bankers can now use GPT-based tools to instantly summarize earnings calls, analyst reports, and client financials.
• Generative AI tools can now review documents, flag missing disclosures, and summarize new regulatory changes.

What is expected to be redefined by 2030:

• Banks will leverage AI to simulate investor demand or model pricing scenarios for equity and debt offerings. (Final allocation will remain human-led.)
• AI will help bankers test thousands of ways to structure a deal by adjusting debt, equity, pricing, and covenants to find the right balance for clients.

What is likely to resist being redefined by AI:

• Final IPO and syndicate pricing will remain human-led. Setting the price for a new issuance will require banker judgment, market feel, and live investor feedback.
• Winning mandates and advising the C-suite will remain relationship-driven and led by humans, who will use AI to enhance their knowledge or judgment and land new mandates.

Wealth Management: 42% redefined by 2030

What's already being automated:

• AI copilots can now answer questions, generate meeting prep docs, and summarize client portfolios — in seconds.
• Financial planning is faster and becoming more scalable. Tools powered by generative AI can aid advisors in building personalized plans that simulate life events, goals, and risk tolerance without starting from scratch.
• Client reporting is now becoming personalized with custom commentary on investment performance, market moves, and risk tailored to each client's portfolio.

What is expected to be redefined by 2030:

• Tax management will become more automated and timely.
• AI will help tailor advice and investment strategies to reflect individual preferences, financial behavior, and goals.
• On the flip side, clients may use AI to manage their wealth in their own portfolio with smart triggers.

What is likely to resist being redefined by AI:

• Client engagement and coaching will remain human. During market downturns or personal events, clients still want empathy, reassurance, and value judgment that only a trusted advisor can provide.

• Regulators will ensure that advisors remain responsible for advice, not AI.

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Zac Affleck is paying tribute to wife Jen Affleck after her “intense” experience giving birth without the use of pain medication.

Zac, 28, took to Instagram on Wednesday, July 2, and reflected on the birth of their third child, Penelope. 

“Before I flood your feed with endless photos of our perfect baby girl, I have to do a dedicated post to Jen,” Zac captioned his post. “Our doula told her, ‘You have to go to the stars to bring this baby back.’ I don’t think either of us anticipated how intense natural birth would actually be.”

He continued, “It was a spiritual experience mixed with every emotion possible — one of the most bonding experiences we have ever had. It gave me a completely new level of appreciation and love for my wife I didn’t know was possible.”

Secret Lives of Mormon Wives' Jen and Zac Affleck's Relationship Timeline

Zac said he’s “genuinely speechless at how amazing women are, what their bodies go through, and what they are capable of. I love you, Jen, and am so grateful for you bringing our beautiful children into this world.”

Besides writing that heartfelt caption, he also revealed some behind-the-scenes photos of the labor process in which he comforted Jen, 26, while she experienced painful contractions. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by zacaffleck (@zacaffleck)

“Over here crying. ,” a fan wrote in the comment section of Zac’s post. “these are the SWEETEST photos. A supportive and loving birthing partner means more than men truly know. Congrats! These are beautiful .”

Zac and Jen both appear on the Hulu reality series The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. They tied the knot in June 2019 and previously welcomed daughter Nora in November 2021 and son Lucas in July 2023.

Jen Affleck Addresses Comments Calling Her Pregnancy a 'Band-Aid Baby'

In February, the pair announced that they were expecting baby No. 3.

Jen announced Penelope’s arrival via Instagram on Wednesday, writing, “Going unmedicated was truly the most painful but empowering experience of my life. I could not have done it without Zac and my supportive doula! I’m so grateful and so happy that Penny is earth side now.”

Zac and Jen’s marital woes were a major story line on the first season of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which premiered last fall. Zac received backlash for the way he treated his wife.

“I definitely think it was the best thing to happen to our relationship.” she exclusively told Us Weekly in September 2024. “While watching the show, a lot of people are going to think maybe this would break our relationship apart. But if anything, it did the opposite. Being on camera and having those moments happen made us take a step back and actually look at a relationship and make us just see what we have to change.”

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Diogo Jota recollects on his signing for Liverpool FC as being “the right club for him”.

Lisa Nandy has paid tribute to Diego Jota in the House of Commons following the footballer’s death at the age of 28.

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Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, 21, was two months into his internship with Kansas Representative Ron Estes when he was caught in a spray of bullets on Capitol Hill