Axios

The NYT broke the story earlier this evening about President Trump asking Comey to drop the FBI's probe into Michael Flynn.

Here's the buried part of that story that will spawn a slew of investigations:

The spread of artificial intelligence technology will create great demand for workers to "tag and label data," Mark Cuban argued at an event staged by VC firm Lerer Hippeau in New York Tuesday. "In order for machine learning, deep learning ... to be effective and work the most quickly, the more data that is tagged and defined and labeled correctly the quicker everything goes," he told Axios' Dan Primack.

Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle told The Mercury News that the idea of her joining the White House press shop, in Sean Spicer's job or another, has been "raised by a number of people" in Trump's administration.

Her quote from a recent Fox show:

"If you want to be successful and do communications with President Trump, you have to be someone who he actually wants to spend a little bit of time with... You've got to insist on getting in front of POTUS, talk to him, and have like five, six minutes with him before you go out there and take the podium, and otherwise you're driving blind."

Why it matters: Axios' Mike Allen has reported that Spicer's job is in jeopardy from a potential Trump shakeup.

Money quote: She wishes Spicer "the best."

Mark Cuban says that despite the high-profile failures of the Trump Administration, the American public still yearns for a disruptive outsider with a background in business as President. During an event staged by VC firm Lerer Hippeau in New York Tuesday, Cuban argued that Trump's missteps will be blamed on Trump's incompetence, rather than his business background. He told Axios' Dan Primack:

There's nobody like Donald Trump. He's just an idiot. —Mark Cuban

President Cuban? The Shark Tank investor didn't rebut rumors that he will run for office in 2020, though he did predict that if he were to run it would be against a President Pence rather than President Trump.

Why it matters: Cuban isn't the only businessman who is rumored to be considering a run for POTUS — Disney CEO Bob Iger is a name that has also been floated as a potential Trump rival in three years.

Axios' Dan Primack sat down with the co-founder of Mosaic and Netscape, Marc Andreessen, who said "prices are spiraling out of control" in the healthcare and education sectors of the economy because of technology. He says productivity and tech innovation are not meeting expectations in America.

In a swipe at the much-ballyhooed "gig economy," Americans say they care less about how much they earn than that their salary is predictable. And, while they want to enjoy what they do, Americans mostly aren't fixated on their job's importance, per a new study by Bloomberg and New America, a Washington-based think tank.

One quick thing: Uncertainty was a thread running through focus groups held as part of the study. "There was a palpable feeling of hopelessness throughout all our focus groups — and especially a lack of control over schedule," the study said.

Why it matters: Americans are not fretting over the largest long-term threats of the dual age of automation and Amazonization, which are wiping out manufacturing and retail employment. Instead, most worry about earning a predictable income — something that is unlikely if they are making ends meet by working at more than one job.

In two recent stories — Trump firing James Comey last week and the Washington Post's bombshell report claiming the president shared sensitive info with a Russian diplomat — left-leaning media has been quick to cry "collusion," while right-leaning media has ardently defended President Trump.

Why it matters: Trump might be quickly losing all trust in Washington, but the conservative news companies that propelled him to the presidency still have his back. They see mainstream media as out to get Trump, and as long as Trump and Russia continue denying accusations, so can they.

Last night, all cable networks were focused on one story: The Washington Post's bombshell report that Trump spilled sensitive secrets to the Russians last week. However, Fox News stood out from the crowd by taking a more defensive approach with its coverage:

Last night's cable news banners read:

• CNN: "WashPost: Trump shared highly classified info with Russians"
• MSNBC: "WAPO: Trump revealed highly classified info to Russians"
• Fox: "Leftists protest gay conservative journalist."

The decline in marriage rates among less-educated Americans has been a trend of concern for both the left and the right in recent years. Progressives have generally seen these data as the result of a lack of economic opportunity, while conservative thinkers have argued the reverse: that economic inequality is being driven by a decline in cultural affinity for the institution of marriage.

A new study published Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research argues against the first interpretation, showing that between 1997 and 2012, areas that experienced fracking booms — and therefore increased wages and economic opportunity for the less-educated — experienced a spike in birth but not marriage rates.

Why it matters: Though there is some evidence that falling working-class marriage rates were in part caused by shrinking economic opportunity, these results poke a hole in notion that better job opportunities will lead to more marriage.

The global marketplace has made it possible for superstars in music, sports, and even business administration to earn more money than ever before in what economists have labeled a "winner-take-all economy," whereby the best earn outsized rewards while the rest struggle.

New research from economists David Autor and Lawrence Katz suggests that this dynamic is also present in competition between corporations. They write that the rise of "superstar firms" is one cause of the recent decline in the share of corporate profits going to workers rather than shareholders.

Why it matters: Since the 1980s, industry concentration has risen across the developed world, and the growing power of corporations that are dominating their respective industries has enabled them to suppress wages.

Powerful women are a theme in New York magazine's Work Issue:

• Caitlin Flanagan has a long piece on Ivanka Trump, "The People's Princess": "Sometimes, she seems not just essential to his idea of being president; sometimes, she seems the point of his being president. ... [Trump] is Lear — 'All the power of his wits have given way to his impatience' — but Lear with only one relevant daughter, and to her has fallen the task of keeping his terrifying impatience from destroying not just their shared empire but the world itself. He is strangely dependent on her now. And so are we."
• Gabe Sherman, in a piece on the "toxic" workplace culture at Fox News, reveals: "The Murdochs are quietly looking for a new programming executive to run the network. ... James wants to recruit David Rhodes from CBS News (Rhodes is under contract). Rupert is interested in Wall Street Journal editor Gerry Baker, or Rebekah Brooks. One source said Rupert's daughter Elisabeth is also being discussed as a candidate."