cogitoergofun

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Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is scheduled to appear Friday at the annual gathering of Moms for Liberty, a national nonprofit that has spearheaded efforts to get mentions of LGBTQ+ identity and structural racism out of K-12 classrooms.

In a “fireside chat” conversation in the nation’s capital, the former president will seek to shore up support and enthusiasm among a major part of his base. The bulk of the group’s 130,000-plus members are conservatives who agree with him that parents should have more say in public education and that racial equity programs and transgender accommodations don’t belong in schools.

Yet Trump also will run the risk of alienating more moderate voters, many of whom see Moms for Liberty’s activism as too extreme to be legitimized by a presidential nominee.

A year ago, Moms for Liberty was viewed by many as a rising power player in conservative politics that could be pivotal in supporting the Republican ticket. The group’s membership had skyrocketed after its launch in 2021, fueled by parents protesting mandatory masking for students and remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But in the last several months, a series of embarrassing scandals and underwhelming performances during local elections have called Moms for Liberty’s influence into question.

The group also has voiced support for Project 2025, a detailed and controversial playbook for the next conservative presidency from which Trump has repeatedly distanced himself.

Moms for Liberty serves on the advisory board for Project 2025, and the author of the document’s education chapter is teaching a “strategy session” at the group’s gathering Friday.

The negative perceptions about Moms for Liberty around the country could increase the potential liability for Trump as he sits down with co-founder Tiffany Justice on Friday evening, said University of Central Florida political science professor Aubrey Jewett.

“It certainly helps him rally his base,” Jewett said. “But will that be enough to outdo the backlash?”

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Firearms were used to commit 1,799 homicides in Texas in 2023—a devastating human toll. Yet guns purchased in Texas likely contribute to even more homicidal violence south of the border that empowers fentanyl traffickers and pushes more migrants toward the United States. 

Of crime guns recovered in Mexico from 2017 to 2021 (among cases in which gun traces identified a country or U.S. state of origin), more than one of every four (29 percent) was sourced to Texas, according to new data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). 

More than 22,000 gun homicides occur in Mexico each year. With 29 percent of crime guns traced to purchases in Texas, that means 5,500 murders in Mexico likely involved guns from Texas. That’s three to four times as many gun homicides reported annually in the Lone Star State. (Texas had 1,799 homicides committed with firearms last year compared to 1,339 in 2019.) 

In May 2024, more than three years after I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request, the ATF released data on firearms recovered in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras and traced to purchases in the United States over an eight-year period. That new data shows 52,541 firearms recovered in Mexico between 2015 and 2022 were traced to a U.S. purchase. The new data reinforces the importance of Texas in the illicit gun pipeline: Of those, more than 40 percent came from Texas. 

A previous leak of gun tracing data also shows that some specific Texas firearms dealers are the source of a large number of crime guns recovered in Mexico. According to data on guns traced from Mexico to the United States in 2019-2020, Primary Arms in Houston sold more than 40 carbine rifles (most of them were Anderson AM-15s) recovered from crime scenes in 2019-2020 alone. 

[...]

Firearms purchased in Texas and trafficked to Mexico are widespread. Data shows that firearms were purchased in 212 Texas counties before being trafficked to Mexico and recovered as crime guns from 2015-2022, for a total of nearly 22,000 firearms. 

Yet the number of crime guns recovered in Mexico represents only a small portion of the overall number of guns actually trafficked into the country, as with estimates of all types of contraband. The most rigorous study of guns trafficked from the United States to Mexico, a multinational research project called “The Way of the Gun” released by the University of San Diego and the IGARAPÉ Institute in 2013, estimated that 253,000 firearms annually were purchased in the United States with the intent to traffic them to Mexico. 

Mexico itself already limits legal access to firearms. Mexico’s gun production industry is very small, and Mexico-produced guns represent a tiny fraction of guns recovered in the country.

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Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly earned praise this week with an announcement that it is now selling starter dosages of its popular weight-loss drug tirzepatide (Zepbound) at a price significantly lower than before. But the cheers were short-lived as critics quickly noticed that Lilly also quietly raised the price on current versions of the drug—a move that was notably missing from the company's press release this week.

In the past, Lilly sold Zepbound only in injectable pens with a list price of $1,060 for a month's supply. Several dosages are available—2.5 mg, 5 mg, 7.5 mg, 10 mg, 12.5 mg, or 15 mg—and patients progressively increase their dosage until they reach a maintenance dosage. The recommended maintenance dosages are 5 mg, 10 mg, or 15 mg. The higher the dose, the more the weight loss. For instance, people using the 15 mg doses lost an average of 21 percent of their weight over 17 months in a clinical trial, while those on 5 mg doses only lost an average of 15 percent of their weight.

On Tuesday, Lilly announced that it will now sell Zepbound in vials, too. And a month's supply of vials with the 2.5 mg doses will cost $399, while a month's supply of 5 mg doses is priced at $549—a welcome drop from the $1,060 price tag. These prices are for a self-pay option, meaning that patients with a valid, on-label prescription can buy them directly from Lilly if they have no insurance or have insurance that does not cover the drug.

[...]

“No rational reason, other than greed”

But, that wasn't the end of the news. When Lilly released its press release, people noticed that the company had also increased the price of Zepbound pens for those who have insurance plans that don't cover the drug. In the past, Lilly offered a "savings card" that allowed these patients to buy a month's supply of any dosage of Zepbound pens for $550. Now the price is $650, a nearly 20 percent increase.

Lilly did not respond to Ars' request for comment or questions about why the company increased the price for some patients.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a longtime critic of the pharmaceutical industry and their drug pricing, was quick to weigh in. He called the vial prices a "modest step forward" but noted that, even with the price reduction, millions of Americans still won't be able to pay for the drug. At $549 a month, the price of the drug is a little over the average monthly payment for a used car, which was $523 in the first quarter of this year, according to Experian. As for the increase in pen pricing, Sanders called it "bad news."

"In addition, Eli Lilly has still refused to lower the outrageous price of Mounjaro that Americans struggling with diabetes desperately need," Sanders went on. "There is no rational reason, other than greed, why Mounjaro should cost $1,069 a month in the United States but just $485 in the United Kingdom and $94 in Japan."

In May, a Senate committee report concluded that uptake of such weight-loss and diabetes drugs stands to "bankrupt our entire health care system," given the high prices and large demand in the US. The report was produced by the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee, which is chaired by Sanders.

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A congressman intervened to help former President Donald Trump’s social media company jump the line for a difficult-to-obtain foreign-worker visa to bring a company executive to the U.S., according to interviews and records reviewed by ProPublica.

A former staffer for Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, said the congressman personally instructed her to help Trump Media, even though she thought it was inappropriate to mix politics with the office’s constituent services duties.

“I specifically did not want to do this,” Bacon’s former director of special projects, Makenzie Cartwright, told ProPublica when asked about emails showing the lawmaker’s intervention. “It was specifically the congressman that suggested I needed to deal with it.”

“Thank you so much for your help on making sure we push this forward,” the company’s chief operating officer wrote to another Bacon staffer in January 2022, according to an email reviewed by ProPublica. “I will make sure to thank the congressman as well!”

Trump Media, which now accounts for roughly half of Trump’s net worth, presents conflicts of interests for the former president, according to ethics experts. While there have been concerns about donors and special interests seeking to curry favor with the Republican candidate for president, this is the first known instance of a politician helping Trump in a private matter involving his social media business.

And it shows that as Trump has presented himself as an immigration hawk, his company has sought special treatment to bring its own foreign executive to the United States.

His administration generally pushed U.S. companies to hire Americans over foreign workers and instituted policies that made it harder to secure visas for skilled workers. Trump’s current platform pledges to “strengthen Buy American and Hire American Policies.”

Trump Media’s relationship with the executive, a software developer in North Macedonia, began in part because American candidates for the same work were more expensive, according to a person involved.

Dan Berger, an immigration attorney who handles such cases, called Trump Media’s hiring of a foreign worker “hypocritical.”

“It got harder in every way possible,” he said of the visa cases he handled during the Trump administration. “It was just one thing after another.”

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A Boar’s Head deli meat plant in Virginia tied to a deadly food poisoning outbreak repeatedly violated federal regulations, including instances of mold, insects, liquid dripping from ceilings, and meat and fat residue on walls, floors and equipment, newly released records show.

Government inspectors logged 69 instances of “noncompliance” with federal rules in the past year, including several in recent weeks, according to documents released through federal Freedom of Information Act requests.

Inspections at the plant have been suspended and it will remain closed “until the establishment is able to demonstrate it can produce safe product,” U.S. Agriculture Department officials said in a statement Thursday. Boar’s Head officials halted production at the Jarratt, Virginia, plant in late July.

The plant has been linked to the deaths of at least nine people and hospitalizations of about 50 others in 18 states. All were sickened with listeria after eating Boar’s Head Provisions Co. Inc. deli meats. The company recalled more than 7 million pounds of products last month after tests confirmed that listeria bacteria in Boar’s Head products were making people sick.

[...]

Barbara Kowalcyk, director of the Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security at George Washington University, said the records raise a lot of red flags.

“It makes me wonder why additional actions weren’t taken by management of that company and the regulators,” she said.

Donald Schaffner, a Rutgers food science and safety expert who reviewed the inspection documents, said reports of condensation throughout the plant are concerning because that’s a known risk factor for listeria.

“The fact that they are having the same problems over and over again weeks apart is an indication that they really struggling to keep up with sanitation,” Schaffner said.

[...]

Bill Marler, a Seattle lawyer who has sued companies over food poisoning outbreaks, said the conditions described in the inspections reports were the worst he’s seen in three decades.

Garshon Morgenstein said his father bought Boar’s Head products because of the company’s reputation.

“For the rest of my life, I have to remember my father’s death every time I see or hear the name Boar’s Head,” he said.

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The Justice Department’s internal watchdog has found continued shortfalls in the FBI’s handling of tips about child sexual abuse despite a series of changes put in place following the bureau’s bungled handling of the Larry Nassar scandal.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s office examined 327 cases between October 2021 and late February 2023. It says it found no evidence that FBI employees complied with mandatory reporting requirements to local or state law enforcement in nearly half the cases.

“It’s critically important that the FBI appropriately handle all allegations of hands-on sex offenses against children,” Horowitz said. “Because failure to do so can result in children continuing to be abused and perpetrators abusing more children.”

In one of the cases examined in the audit, the inspector general’s office found that a registered sex offender allegedly victimized a minor for a 15-month period after the FBI initially became aware of the abuse allegations.

In its response to the audit, the FBI said in a letter to the IG that it takes seriously the “significant compliance issues” outlined in the report, and will “continue to work urgently to correct them.”

The latest inquiry follows the inspector general’s examination of how the FBI handled sexual abuse allegations against Larry Nassar, the longtime USA Gymnastics doctor who sexually abused gymnasts—including members of the U.S. women’s national team-—for years.

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Responding to pressure from conservative groups threatening "anti-woke" boycotts, Jack Daniel's parent company, Brown-Forman, recently announced that it would end workforce and supplier diversity goals and no longer participate in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, citing shifts in the "legal and external landscape."

My connection to Jack Daniel goes back to a very different era—one defined by the man himself, Jack Daniel, and the inclusive environment he created at his distillery in the 19th century. The legacy I want to highlight is about his commitment to inclusion and equity, which Jack Daniel, the man, fostered in an improbable time and place: the post-Civil War South, just minutes from the Alabama border. His values of inclusion became a cornerstone of the distillery's early success and were carried forward by his descendants well into the 20th century.

Jack Daniel’s approach to inclusion was groundbreaking for its time. In the heart of the rural South, where racial division was the norm, Jack Daniel built a distillery where half of his workforce was African American, even though African Americans made up less than 20% of the population in Lynchburg, Tenn. The jobs at Jack Daniel Distillery were some of the most coveted in the area, and it was known that Jack hired based on merit, not race, drawing African Americans from surrounding towns. His fair treatment of workers created an environment where diversity wasn’t just accepted but sought after. Jack Daniel may not have been able to address the systemic or structural issues of the time, but he led with his heart, creating a culture of inclusion that was not only morally right but good for business.

What made Jack Daniel’s commitment to equality even more remarkable was his humanity beyond the distillery. Upon his death, thousands of unpaid loan notes were found in his possession—debts owed by people of all backgrounds, races, and walks of life. His will was clear: not a single debt was to be collected. Jack Daniel understood that everyone needs a helping hand at some point, and his generosity showed his belief in giving without expecting anything in return.

The fact that Jack Daniel Distillery was able to recover and thrive after Prohibition when so many other Tennessee distilleries closed their doors permanently can be attributed, in part, to the diversity Jack Daniel built into the fabric of his company. By pulling from a wide pool of talent and perspectives, Jack Daniel Distillery had the agility and strength to rebuild when others could not. It is this legacy of inclusion—initiated by Jack Daniel, the man, and continued by his family—that I have built upon at Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey.

At the heart of that legacy is Nearest Green, the African American distilling genius who became Jack Daniel’s first master distiller. Nearest Green taught Jack Daniel the craft of distilling, and the two men formed a bond that was much more than business: Nearest Green was a mentor and a father figure to Jack. After Nearest Green retired, his son, George Green, continued working with Jack as his right-hand man, further embedding the Green family’s legacy into the foundation of the distillery.

Jack Daniel, the man, offers a model for the type of DEI we need today. Jack Daniel didn’t need mandates or quotas to treat people equitably. His workforce at the distillery was diverse long before it was required by law. The fact that Jack Daniel was able to foster inclusion in the heart of the South, during an era when such practices were virtually unheard of, is a testament to the strength of his character and the values he lived by. This is the spirit of inclusion that guided Jack Daniel in his day, and it’s the spirit that guides Uncle Nearest now.

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A senior aide to Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, once worked for a far-right political consultancy that touts its capacity for “clandestine actions” and has links to a network of extremist groups and thinktanks, the Guardian can reveal.

Parker Magid was recently appointed as Vance’s press secretary and his employment history links Vance and his circle to elements of the extremist right far outside the mainstream of American politics.

Vance’s staffer links him to Beck & Stone and its subsidiary political consultancy Knight Takes Rook (KTR). The brand consultancy with a business address in New York is close to Vance allies including the far-right Claremont Institute, the serial Arizona political candidate Blake Masters and the “counter-revolutionary” magazine IM–1776.

Beck & Stone was founded in 2014, according to statements by its founders, Andrew Beck and Austin Stone. Initial company filings in Florida date from April 2015. Its current Florida filings give an address that is a UPS store in New York City.

Beck, Beck & Stone’s co-founder, is closely involved with the Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), a secretive invitation- and men-only fraternal lodge that has been the subject of extensive previous reporting in the Guardian.

Beth Daviess, a researcher at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, who has published research on SACR, said the politics represented by the group are “much more extreme than mainstream conservatism”. She explained there were two elements of that extremism: “their opinions on gender and the role women should have in society” and “their views on whether government should be democratic at all”.

The link is just one of a series of connections between Vance and the so-called “new right”, an anti-democratic movement that attacks feminism, racial equality and immigrants while centering the grievances of white men. Those connections were dramatized in an April 2023 photo resurfaced last month in which Vance posed with the staff of New Founding, a Beck & Stone-aligned venture capital firm “for the right” that opposes what it calls “woke capital”.

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Former Trump National Security Adviser HR McMaster has written in a new book that the then-president was treated like a “chump” by a string of authoritarian leaders.

McMaster, a lieutenant general, writes about an almost two-week-long trip to Asia in his memoir At War With Ourselves, saying that China was the “most consequential” destination.

On their way to Beijing, McMaster cautioned Donald Trump that Chinese President Xi Jinping would attempt to trick the then-president into saying something that was positive for China but would in effect be bad for the US and its allies.

“The CCP’s favorite phrase, ‘win-win,’ actually meant that China won twice,” McMaster wrote that he told Trump. While Trump appeared to listen at the time, he later said he agreed with Xi that military exercises in South Korea were “provocative” and a “waste of money.” He also suggested that China could have a claim to the Senkaku Islands, which belong to Japan, a US ally.

As his stomach sank, McMaster wrote in a note to then-Chief of Staff John Kelly, a general, that Xi “ate our lunch,” according to The New York Times.

The national security adviser writes in the memoir that Trump was often treated like a “chump” by authoritarian leaders.

To get on Trump’s good side, some flattery and a bit of pomp and circumstance appeared to be all that was needed from leaders such as Xi, Vladimir Putin of Russia, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.

[...]

McMaster questions if Trump, 78, can “perform well the sometimes grueling job of president,” adding that the 13-day trip to Asia left him “tired” – seven years ago.

“Trump’s anxieties and insecurities rendered him vulnerable,” McMaster writes.

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A burgeoning Internal Revenue Service program that would allow Americans to file their taxes directly with the federal government has come against opposition from congressional Republicans, including Sarasota Rep. Greg Steube. 

Steube co-sponsored the “IRS Overreach Prevention Act,” introduced by Reps. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., and Chuck Edwards, R-North Carolina, in July. The bill is meant to "prohibit the Secretary of the Treasury from implementing or continuing a free, public electronic tax return-filing service option.”

Its language barely stretches to two pages: 

“The Secretary of the Treasury (or the Secretary’s delegate) may not continue the Direct File program of the Internal Revenue Service, and may not develop or provide to taxpayers any successor program which provides a free, public electronic return-filing service option.” 

The legislation targets IRS Direct File, which began in 2024 as a pilot program that will be expanded in 2025. More than 140,000 taxpayers across a dozen states – including Florida – used the pilot program in the past tax season. The agency said those users saved about $5.6 million in tax preparation fees. 

The federally-run filing system was designed as cost-free alternative to services such as TurboTax and H&R Block. The average individual taxpayer spends about 8 hours and $140 preparing their taxes, according to a 2023 IRS Report to Congress. A 2024 poll commissioned by the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive nonprofit, found that 95% of Floridians wanted free tax filing service from the IRS. 

After the pilot ended, all 50 states and Washington, D.C. were invited to join the permanent program. However, some GOP representatives are determined to kill Direct File. In a statement to the Herald-Tribune, Steube criticized the program as unnecessary and said it lacked congressional authorization. 

[...]

A progressive economic non-profit called the Economic Security Project found in a 2024 report that after five years at full service, Direct File would annually save the average user about $160 in filing fees. 

“By breaking down barriers to filing, Direct File would also deliver up to $12 billion each year in additional tax credits to low-income families currently missing out,” the report said. 

The Treasury Department said that in a survey of more than 11,000 Direct File users, 90% of respondents rated the user experience as “Excellent” or “Above Average.” 

“A majority of survey respondents who filed taxes in the prior year reported having to pay to prepare their taxes last year,” the statement said. “Among survey respondents, 47% of users paid to file their taxes last year and 16% did not file last year at all.” 

The bill may pose an existential threat to private tax-filing companies such as Intuit, H&R Block, and Jackson Hewitt. An alliance of tax preparation and software corporations called the American Coalition for Taxpayer Rights has vigorously opposed a free direct filing program. The ACTR has spent over $1 million on lobbying efforts since 2021.

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Kroger Co. hiked prices on milk and eggs more than needed to account for inflation, the company’s top pricing executive testified during a court hearing on the U.S. government’s bid to block the grocery chain’s purchase of rival Albertsons Cos.

In a March 2024 email to his bosses, Andy Groff, Kroger’s senior director for pricing, acknowledged that the company had raised its prices more than required to adjust for higher costs.

“On milk and eggs, retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation,” Groff wrote.

Groff testified about his email as part of a federal antitrust lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission and a group of states to block Kroger from buying the Albertsons chain. U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson in Portland is expected to rule on whether to stop the $24.6 billion acquisition from moving forward.

Kroger and other grocers have benefited from periods of higher inflation as they passed down price increases to consumers. Supermarket operators raised retail prices instead of absorbing all increases, and higher food prices led to jumps in sales until shoppers pulled back on their spending.

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A Republican state party official in Georgia appeared to agree with the host of a white nationalist TV show who said Jews run the government, responding, “They’re controlling everything.”

Kandiss Taylor, who chairs the Republican Party in her southeast Georgia congressional district, appeared on a mid-February episode of “The Stew Peters Show,” whose namesake host lives in Florida and has a history of promoting antisemitic rhetoric and Holocaust denial.

Peters and Taylor discussed the arrest of a man accused of vandalizing a rainbow crosswalk mural in south Florida honoring the LGBTQ+ community.

In the episode, which the liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America reported Monday, Peters said, “No more funding our own demise — bioweapons and forever wars from the Jewish lobby that basically runs our entire government. And they run this as well, don’t they?”

Taylor responded, “Yeah they run this. 100%. They’re controlling everything.”

The comments were condemned by Georgia’s only Jewish state representative, Democrat Esther Panitch, who called on the state Republican Party to condemn the exchange.

“Ok, @GaRepublicans, it’s time to show the Jewish community of Georgia that you reject antisemites. Let me know if I can be of assistance,” she wrote on X.

“We always knew she was extreme,” Panitch told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I just didn’t realize her extremism went after Jews. I mean, I’m not surprised, but I was not aware of these specific comments.”

Panitch also told JTA that nobody from the Georgia Republican Party had reached out to her about Taylor’s comments.

“You can’t pretend to be a friend to the Jews, or to support us, and allow your officials to make these statements without any remarks,” she added.

This is not the first time this month that Taylor has been in the public eye for comments about religious discrimination. In an August 17 episode of her podcast, “Jesus, Guns and Babies,” Taylor said that only Christians should be permitted to run for elected office.

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The US on Wednesday announced sanctions against an Israeli organization, Hashomer Yosh, allegedly responsible for supporting settler violence in the West Bank against Palestinians, according to a State Department spokesperson.

“After all 250 Palestinian residents of [West Bank village] Khirbet Zanuta were forced to leave in late January, Hashomer Yosh volunteers fenced off the village to prevent the residents from returning,” said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller in a statement.

The US alleges the group also guarded the outposts of Israeli individuals previously sanctioned by the US.

The US also sanctioned an Israeli individual, Yitzhak Levi Filant, who allegedly “led a group of armed settlers to set up roadblocks and conduct patrols to pursue and attack Palestinians in their lands and forcefully expel them from their lands” in February.

“The United States will continue to take action to promote accountability for those who commit and support extremist violence affecting the West Bank,” Miller said.

In the announcement, Miller again called on Israel’s government to “hold accountable” those responsible for settler violence against civilians in the West Bank.

These sanctions are the latest in a wave from the US targeting Israel settler violence against Palestinians that has increased in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack against Israel that triggered the outbreak of the war in Gaza.

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Donald Trump shared more than a dozen posts on his social media network Wednesday that call for the trial or jailing of House lawmakers who investigated the attack on the U.S. Capitol, special counsel Jack Smith and others, along with images that reference the QAnon conspiracy theory.

The former president began posting a string of messages Tuesday evening after Smith filed a new indictment against him over his efforts to undo his loss in the 2020 presidential election. The new indictment keeps the same criminal charges but narrows the allegations against Trump following a Supreme Court opinion last month that extended broad immunity to former presidents.

Trump reposted a doctored image that was made to look like President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in orange prison jumpsuits, among other political figures, and a lewd post about Harris and Clinton that referenced a sex act. One post seemed to suggest former President Barack Obama should be tried in a military court.

Trump has long talked about seeking retribution against perceived enemies if he wins a second term. He has publicly bristled in recent weeks at the advice of his campaign advisers to focus his message on policy around the economy and the border rather than indulge in personal attacks that were seen as distracting from the case he’s trying to make to voters.

[...]

Trump in recent years has openly embraced followers of QAnon after years of winking at the theory, centered on the baseless belief that Trump is waging a secret campaign against enemies in the “deep state” and a child sex trafficking ring run by satanic pedophiles and cannibals.

The former president’s indulgence of the conspiracy theory is among the ways Trump has embraced the far-right fringe of his political movement. Trump has also championed those jailed for their role in the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

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Autonomous driving capabilities are a central component of Tesla's stratospheric share price, with CEO Elon Musk repeatedly telling investors that they're the difference between "being worth a lot of money or worth basically zero." But real-world performance on the road lags far behind Musk's claims, with the latest data point coming from another Musk venture, the Boring Company, and its tunnels under Las Vegas.

The Boring Company might be Elon Musk's strangest side hustle. Whether it was sparked by a desire to avoid traffic commuting to SpaceX or part of an insidious plan to undermine rail projects, the results for the sewer-sized tunnels have been about what you'd expect: Proposed tunnels between Washington DC and Baltimore, underneath I-405 in Los Angeles, and from Chicago to its major airport remain literal pipe dreams.

So far, there's just a 2.2-mile loop with three stations serving the Las Vegas Convention Center, albeit with the potential to expand the subterranean system to 68 miles (110 km) in total.

When the Boring Company tunnels were first proposed, the concepts featured custom-designed autonomous electric people movers, but when Ars got a ride in a test tunnel in 2018, it was in a Tesla Model X SUV with a human behind the wheel. The mode of transport inside the Boring Company's tunnels remains Tesla road cars, but they are resolutely human-driven despite the controlled environment with constant lighting and a lack of weather, other traffic, or pedestrians for the camera-based system to worry about.

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An oil tanker which was attacked by Yemen's Houthi rebels in the Red Sea last week is still on fire and may be leaking oil, the US Pentagon says.

Attempts to salvage the Greek-owned and flagged MV Sounion have been thwarted by the Houthis, who have threatened more attacks, the Pentagon adds.

The ship is carrying more than 150,000 tonnes - or one million barrels - of crude oil, and a major spill hasthe potential to be among the largest from a ship in recorded history.

The Iran-backed Houthis, who control much of Yemen, say they have been attacking ships in the Red Sea for 10 months in support of the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

They have reportedly sunk two ships and killed at least two crew members in that time.

They have claimed - often falsely - that they are targeting ships only linked to Israel, the US or the UK.

[...]

A US State Department statement on Saturday expressed concern about the attacks on the Sounion. It warned of a possible spill of oil four times the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, which released 257,000 barrels off the coast of Alaska.

On Tuesday Pentagon spokesman Maj-Gen Patrick Ryder said two tugs had been sent to salvage the stricken vessel but the Houthis had threatened to attack them as well.

He said the US was working with partners in the region to try to mitigate any potential environmental impact.

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Luna, a self-described 32-year-old “MAGA Trump supporter” from the battleground state of Wisconsin, has gained a huge following since she joined X, formerly Twitter, in March. Her timeline has become a digital bullhorn for the “Make America Great Again” movement, praising former President Donald Trump’s re-election bid, promoting conspiracy theories about his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, and touting Republican talking points to nearly 30,000 followers, who she addresses as “patriots.”

“Would You Support Trump Being The President forever? I wonder if you all support Trump for president just like me,” @Luna_2K24 posted on July 29, sharing a beach selfie in a white bikini and asking her followers to respond with an American flag emoji if they agreed. The post was viewed by around 54,000 people.

But Luna isn’t real. The photos of the smiling brunette posted periodically on @Luna_2K24’s timeline are of Debbie Nederlof, a German fashion influencer who lives across the Atlantic and won’t be voting in the US presidential election in November. When CNN reached out to the 32-year-old, a trained optician and single mother who is working two jobs – as a social media manager at an engineering firm and as a model to raise money for her child – she was angry and frustrated that her face was being used to push pro-Trump propaganda on X.

“To be honest, ‘what the f**k?’ was my reaction. That was my reaction, because I have nothing to do with the United States. With Trump, the political things over there. What the hell do I – from a small place in Germany – care about US politics?” she said.

Nederlof is one of 17 real European women — fashion and beauty influencers from the Netherlands, Denmark and as far away as Russia — whose online photos have been stolen by unknown actors to promote Trump and his pick as running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, on X, a CNN investigation in collaboration with the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) has found. CIR is an independent, non-profit social enterprise which describes itself as dedicated to exposing human rights abuses. It receives funding for individual projects from governments, NGOs and individuals.

The fake accounts are among 56 profiles on X identified by CNN and CIR, using a mixture of digital sleuthing and reverse image search tools, as appearing to be part of a coordinated campaign backing the Trump-Vance ticket ahead of the 2024 presidential election. There’s no indication that the Trump campaign is involved.

Experts say this could be just the tip of the iceberg. An analysis of the 56 pro-Trump accounts reveals a systematic pattern of inauthentic behavior. All of the accounts use photographs of beautiful, young women – many of them stolen, while others appear to be AI generated – who declare their support for Trump and use hashtags such as #MAGAPatriots, #MAGA2024 and #IFBAP (I Follow Back All Patriots). In many cases, CNN and CIR found the images had been manipulated to add Trump and MAGA slogans to otherwise unbranded clothing, all with captions that call to get out the vote.

The accounts also post similar messages, which often include English language errors (a potential sign of foreign interference, according to experts), and sometimes repost each other. Most have been created in the last few months and have seen their follower count grow rapidly; all give their location as being in the United States. Fifteen of the fake accounts have blue check marks – supposed to indicate that they have been verified – and eight of those have been identified as using stolen images.