New details of rape allegation against Trump revealed in House Democrats’ Epstein report

New details of rape allegation against Trump revealed in House Democrats’ Epstein report

Time reports: A woman who had accused President Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her in 1993 described it to congressional staff as rape and said the interaction left her bleeding and bruised, according to a report released Monday by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee examining Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Beatrice Keul, a model and former Miss Switzerland, alleged to Judiciary Committee staff that she was raped by Trump in a Plaza Hotel suite in Manhattan when she was…

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How Trump is profiting from the war in Iran

How Trump is profiting from the war in Iran

CBS reports: As President Trump boasts about how much money the U.S. oil and gas industry is making from the war with Iran, the president’s personal holdings in oil and gas are now worth between $22.5 million and $81.6 million, compared with $12.6 million to $46 million at the end of 2025, according to a new report by Democrats on the Congressional Joint Economic Committee. The stocks the president holds have increased in value by an average of 43% since…

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Israelis risk nuclear annihilation if they don’t re-elect him, Netanyahu warns

Israelis risk nuclear annihilation if they don’t re-elect him, Netanyahu warns

The Guardian reports: Benjamin Netanyahu has resorted to increasingly alarmist rhetoric and reportedly put pressure on Israel’s military to take action against Iran as his far-right coalition narrowly trails in the polls ahead of Tuesday’s close-run elections. The Israeli prime minister posted an AI-generated image of a nuclear mushroom cloud destroying Tel Aviv, telling Israeli voters to choose him or risk nuclear annihilation. “Anyone who cares about their own physical existence, that of their family, and their loved ones should…

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How fan accounts for Taylor Swift et al helped Lula to a historic victory and defeat for Trump

How fan accounts for Taylor Swift et al helped Lula to a historic victory and defeat for Trump

Variety reports: In an unprecedented online wave, the day after Lula came second in the first round [of voting in Brazil’s presidential election], fan accounts for major artists such as Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, Katseye, Demi Lovato, Harry Styles, Katy Perry and Selena Gomez ignited a movement, offering their massive platforms to amplify the current president’s campaign and help boost their access to young audiences. The quickly spreading movement began with a Billie Eilish fan account, with the…

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Serbia’s election shows new vulnerability for nationalist populists

Serbia’s election shows new vulnerability for nationalist populists

The New York Times reports: When voters in Hungary rejected their seemingly invincible populist leader Viktor Orban in April, Andrej Borovac, a young designer in neighboring Serbia, was ecstatic, but he was downbeat about his own country’s populist strongman suffering the same fate. “That can never happen here,” he recalled thinking. Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia’s dominant political figure since 2012, looked immovable, given his grip — established over more than a decade in power — on security forces, nearly all major…

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Who’s paying whom? The circular money machine behind the AI boom (or bubble)

Who’s paying whom? The circular money machine behind the AI boom (or bubble)

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang, centre, speaking at the White House. OpenAI president Greg Brockman is on the right. AP By Ruipeng Liu, Deakin University and Sagarika Mishra, Deakin University Imagine a company that sells you equipment, invests money in your business, and then rents back what you build with it. It’s your supplier, your investor and your customer all at once. That’s known as circular financing. Many artificial intelligence (AI) companies, including Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Nvidia, have adopted…

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What cooperatives for an anticapitalist peace look like

What cooperatives for an anticapitalist peace look like

Azize Aslan writes: When I was seven years old, my family was forced to flee escalating violence. We left Bakur – a Kurdish region in what is currently southeastern Turkey – for a city further west, where we worked in Turkish fields, living in a tent until we could save up to rent a house on the city margins, in a neighbourhood with no electricity or road access. Those are some of my earliest memories of everyday violence against people…

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The state officials defending American democracy against relentless attacks by Trump

The state officials defending American democracy against relentless attacks by Trump

Barton Gellman writes: Now and then, not often, Deidre Henderson will still work up the nerve to drive herself to the market for milk or bread. She will sit in the parking lot in her big S.U.V., engine running, doors locked, ruminating on risk. Generally, she heads home without getting out of the car. Henderson, who is fifty-two years old, is the lieutenant governor of Utah, a Republican midway through her second term. That makes her the state’s chief election…

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The war in Iran enters a dangerous phase ahead of elections in the United States and Israel

The war in Iran enters a dangerous phase ahead of elections in the United States and Israel

The New York Times reports: Inside the Trump administration, officials are expressing fears that Iran is in the “advanced stages” of planning attacks against U.S. officials. More than 6,000 miles away, the Iranians appear convinced that Israel and the United States are preparing to unleash their third major attack in 16 months, a final push to force Iran to surrender to U.S. demands. The conflict in the Middle East has entered a new phase in which a maelstrom of factors,…

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A Texas cop signed on to help ICE deport his neighbors. It tore the town apart

A Texas cop signed on to help ICE deport his neighbors. It tore the town apart

ProPublica reports: The new patrol officer parked his black Dodge Charger outside a house off Main Street and approached on foot. A Mexican ballad was playing. Someone had called in a noise complaint, claiming it sounded as if people were fighting. But as the officer, Jaron Alexander, got closer, he found nothing of the sort. A middle-aged woman greeted him as her daughter, Joanna Martinez, petite and visibly pregnant, looked on. “What kind of party are you all having?” she…

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Bill Gates: Prepare for 20 years of tumultuous AI disruption

Bill Gates: Prepare for 20 years of tumultuous AI disruption

  Nilay Patel: My guest today is Bill Gates, co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft and chairman of the Gates Foundation. You may have noticed Bill in the news more lately — he’s been on something of a tour for the past few months talking about AI risk, and how crucial it is that we start taking this seriously. So I was excited to sit down with him and really dig into this subject. I came with many questions, about…

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Apollo economist: AI has delivered zero payoff to corporate America outside Big Tech

Apollo economist: AI has delivered zero payoff to corporate America outside Big Tech

Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, writes: Despite massive investments and widespread hype around artificial intelligence, the technology has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech. Revenue per worker is rising for the Mag 7 [Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla] but is flat for the S&P 493, see the first chart below. Profit margins are rising for the Mag 7 but are flat for the S&P 493, see the second chart…

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Mathematics is as much an expression of the human spirit as music and literature

Mathematics is as much an expression of the human spirit as music and literature

Steven Strogatz writes: It’s 4:26 a.m., and I’m walking around the house while my wife sleeps upstairs. I’m feeling disoriented and discombobulated, just as I have for months, since May, when AI came for math. The leaves are ablaze here in Ithaca, fiery reds and oranges, and I saw them swirling around in my backyard yesterday, following the streamlines of an eddy described by the Navier-Stokes equations. You’ve heard of Navier-Stokes, right? By now you must have—in early September, OpenAI…

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Study identifies world’s first corporate psychopath

Study identifies world’s first corporate psychopath

Anglia Ruskin University: New research suggests the same personality traits associated with toxic corporate leaders today may have been present at the very birth of global capitalism 400 years ago. The study, published in the Asian Journal of Business Ethics identifies Jeronimus Cornelisz, who was a merchant manager with the Dutch East India Company, as likely being the earliest documented example of a corporate psychopath. The research, by Dr Clive Boddy of Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), is believed to be…

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