How Musk threatens America’s national security, and what must be done

How Musk threatens America’s national security, and what must be done

Robert Reich writes: Shortly after the apparent second assassination attempt against Trump, Elon Musk responded in a now deleted post: “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala 🤔 ????” Musk later said his post was intended as a joke. But it could be interpreted as a call to murder Biden and Harris — at least by one of the 198 million followers of Musk who initially received it. Presumably this is why the Secret Service is investigating it. Under 18…

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John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

Amanda Gefter writes: When Johnny Wheeler was 4 years old, splashing in the bathtub in Youngstown, Ohio, he looked up at his mother and asked, “What happens when you get to the end of things?” The question would haunt him for the rest of his life. What happens when you get to the bottom of space? What happens when you get to the edge of time? It would lead him to suggest that space-time can’t be the true fabric of…

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Sen. Bernie Sanders and colleagues move to block arms sales to Israel

Sen. Bernie Sanders and colleagues move to block arms sales to Israel

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.): Today, with colleagues, I introduced Joint Resolutions of Disapproval seeking to block certain arms sales to Israel. The Senate will vote on these resolutions when it reconvenes in November. Let me explain why these arms sales must not proceed. Israel clearly had the right to respond to Hamas’ horrific terrorist attack on October 7th, which killed 1,200 innocent Israelis and took hundreds of hostages. But Prime Minister Netanyahu’s extremist government has not simply waged war against…

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Biden administration divided over Israel’s escalation against Hezbollah

Biden administration divided over Israel’s escalation against Hezbollah

The Washington Post reports: The Biden administration is divided over Israel’s military escalation against Hezbollah with some senior officials viewing it as a reckless bombardment likely to produce more deadly cycles of violence and others seeing it as a potentially effective means of degrading the Lebanese militant group and forcing it to back down. Senior officials are publicly calling for de-escalation as the administration tries to find a diplomatic off-ramp to the metastasizing Middle East conflict. In the past two…

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In Israel’s prisons, skin diseases are a method of punishment

In Israel’s prisons, skin diseases are a method of punishment

+972 Magazine reports: Pale and frail, with an unkempt beard and a prosthetic eye, his emaciated body testifies to the neglect and torture he experienced inside Israeli prison. “Stay away,” he shouts at the eager crowd surrounding him upon his release. “I don’t know what disease I’m carrying — I have a rash and can’t risk shaking hands.” But his parents, overcome with emotion, move forward to embrace him. He shrinks away, fearfully insisting that he should remain untouched. Mo’ath…

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Trump’s sexual assault accusers tell their stories in chilling new ads

Trump’s sexual assault accusers tell their stories in chilling new ads

People reports: George Conway, the ex-husband of former Donald Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, is helping bring attention to the sexual assault claims against the former president as he seeks a second term in the White House. On Wednesday, Sept. 25, the attorney’s political action committee launched ads featuring two of the Republican presidential nominee’s sexual assault accusers. The first ad centers around former PEOPLE reporter Natasha Stoynoff, who claims she was assaulted by Trump during a December 2005 trip to…

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D’Esposito scandal sparks ‘migraine’ for Republicans hoping to keep House

D’Esposito scandal sparks ‘migraine’ for Republicans hoping to keep House

ABC News reports: Monday’s bombshell report alleging infidelity and possible violations of House ethics rules by Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-N.Y., is rattling his reelection bid in a key Long Island district. But it’s not just New York’s 4th Congressional District that’s at stake. D’Esposito, a former police detective, allegedly hired his longtime fiancée’s daughter and his mistress to work in his district office, jobs that received taxpayer-funded salaries, The New York Times reported Monday. The first-term lawmaker was already facing…

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Secret Service agent accused of sexually assaulting Harris aide

Secret Service agent accused of sexually assaulting Harris aide

RealClear Politics reports: A Secret Service agent has been accused of sexually assaulting a staffer who works for Vice President Kamala Harris, according to four sources in the Secret Service community. The incident in question took place sometime over the last week during a trip devoted to providing advance security work and planning for a Harris campaign event in Wisconsin that ultimately did not take place. Several Harris staffers and Secret Service agents were in Green Bay to provide advance…

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Bigger AI chatbots more inclined to spew nonsense — and people don’t always realize

Bigger AI chatbots more inclined to spew nonsense — and people don’t always realize

Nature reports: A study of newer, bigger versions of three major artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots shows that they are more inclined to generate wrong answers than to admit ignorance. The assessment also found that people aren’t great at spotting the bad answers. Plenty of attention has been given to the fact that the large language models (LLMs) used to power chatbots sometimes get things wrong or ‘hallucinate’ strange responses to queries. José Hernández-Orallo at the Valencian Research Institute for Artificial…

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Israel deliberately blocked humanitarian aid to Gaza, two government bodies concluded. Blinken rejected their findings

Israel deliberately blocked humanitarian aid to Gaza, two government bodies concluded. Blinken rejected their findings

By Brett Murphy This story was originally published by ProPublica The U.S. government’s two foremost authorities on humanitarian assistance concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza. The U.S. Agency for International Development delivered its assessment to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the State Department’s refugees bureau made its stance known to top diplomats in late April. Their conclusion was explosive because U.S. law requires the government to cut off weapons shipments…

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Haitian group in Springfield, Ohio, files citizen criminal charges against Trump and Vance

Haitian group in Springfield, Ohio, files citizen criminal charges against Trump and Vance

The Associated Press reports: The leader of a nonprofit representing the Haitian community invoked a private-citizen right to file charges Tuesday against former President Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, over the chaos and threats experienced by Springfield, Ohio, since Trump first spread false claims about legal immigrants there during a presidential debate. The Haitian Bridge Alliance made the move after inaction by the local prosecutor, said their attorney, Subodh Chandra of the Cleveland-based Chandra Law Firm. Charges…

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Trump tries to hypnotize women into submission

Trump tries to hypnotize women into submission

Jonathan Chait writes: Donald Trump has always been wildly sexist. Generally, his sexism takes the form of reducing women to their looks, either praising their sex appeal or denigrating them as ugly. In private, of course, Trump behaves like a sex pest. But his new campaign riff to women voters is something altogether more disturbing. He sounds like a domestic abuser. The Trump pitch begins with a winking acknowledgment that he is losing among female voters. (He calls his deficit…

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Hundreds of pregnant women prosecuted the year after Roe v. Wade fell

Hundreds of pregnant women prosecuted the year after Roe v. Wade fell

Rolling Stone reports: At least 210 women faced criminal charges related to pregnancy, abortion, pregnancy loss, or birth in the year after the Supreme Court ended the federal right to abortion, according to a new report from the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice. In most of the cases — 121 of the 210 — the information later used against the women was obtained or disclosed in a medical setting, researchers found. The period examined — from June 2022, when the court’s…

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Project 2025 mastermind allegedly told colleagues he killed a neighbor’s barking dog with a shovel

Project 2025 mastermind allegedly told colleagues he killed a neighbor’s barking dog with a shovel

The Guardian reports: The man behind Project 2025, the rightwing policy manifesto that includes calls for a sharp increase in immigrant deportations if Donald Trump is elected, told university colleagues about two decades ago that he had killed a neighborhood dog with a shovel because it was barking and disturbing his family, according to former colleagues who spoke to the Guardian. Kevin Roberts, now the president of the Heritage Foundation, is alleged to have told colleagues and dinner guests that…

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