Attention to the Unseen

Reuters reports: Elon Musk secretly funded a conservative political group in recent years, according to four people familiar with his donations, illustrating quiet financial support for right-wing causes even before the billionaire entrepreneur in July endorsed former President Donald Trump’s bid for re-election. Two of the people familiar with the donations told Reuters that Musk’s contributions to the organization, Building America’s Future, had started by 2022. One of those people and a third source said the donations amounted to millions…

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The Associated Press reports: Donald Trump repeatedly spread falsehoods Monday about the federal response to Hurricane Helene despite claiming not to be politicizing the disaster as he toured hard-hit areas in south Georgia. The former president and Republican nominee claimed upon landing in Valdosta that President Joe Biden was “sleeping” and not responding to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who he said was “calling the president and hasn’t been able to get him.” He repeated the claim at an event with…

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Jonathan Martin writes: Springfield was once a manufacturing hub. Perched on the interstate between Dayton and Columbus, it had tire and farm implement factories. Like a lot of Midwestern towns, that economy declined in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet in recent years, a number of jobs have been created in the area and with that a demand for more workers. It’s the same story in all of Ohio, which is why [Ohio Gov. Mike] DeWine made a point in his…

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The New York Times reports: For Jamie McGregor, a businessman in Springfield, Ohio, speaking favorably about the Haitian immigrants he employs has come to this: death threats, a lockdown at his company and posters around town branding him a traitor for hiring immigrants. To defend himself and his family, Mr. McGregor has had to violate his own vow to never own a gun. “I have struggled with the fact that now we’re going to have firearms in our house —…

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Reuters reports: In Arizona, one of seven competitive U.S. states that are expected to decide the 2024 presidential election, an advocacy group founded by Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller is advancing a bold legal theory: that judges can throw out election results over “failures or irregularities” by local officials. The lawsuit by the America First Legal Foundation, a conservative advocacy group, says the court in such cases should be able to toss the election results and order new rounds of…

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  CNN reports: The world’s richest man stood steps away from the US-Mexico border, adjusting the brim of his black cowboy hat. “As an immigrant to the United States, I am extremely pro-immigrant,” Elon Musk said, “and I believe that we need a greatly expanded legal immigration system, and that we should let anyone in the country who is hardworking and honest and will be a contributor to the United States.” But in the September 2023 video from Eagle Pass,…

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Robert F Worth writes: As word spread on Saturday that Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah had been killed in his underground Beirut bunker by an Israeli airstrike, people began quietly reckoning with the possibility that Lebanon’s political architecture might be about to shift for the first time in more than three decades. And that, in turn, raised the prospect that locked doors might soon open across the Middle East. Those who have fought against Hezbollah—not just Israelis but also Lebanese from…

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The Guardian reports: The far right won the most votes in an Austrian election for the first time since the Nazi era on Sunday, as the Freedom party (FPÖ) rode a tide of public anger over migration and the cost of living to beat the centre-right People’s party (ÖVP). The pro-Kremlin, anti-Islam FPÖ won 28.8% of votes, beating the ruling ÖVP of the chancellor, Karl Nehammer, into second place on 26.3%, according to near-complete results. The opposition Social Democratic party…

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