The Department of Justice has released more of its records on self-described “science philanthropist” and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Other than Epstein, they’ve also brought an intense focus on the many powerful people who associated and corresponded with him, including Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Google cofounder Sergey Brin, and President Donald Trump. There’s also […]
After weeks of flooding the internet with nonconsensual sexual deepfakes, X has finally reined in Elon Musk’s rogue chatbot Grok. Musk claims Grok obeys local laws and refuses to produce anything illegal – except it hasn’t and it can. My testing shows Grok still readily undresses men and is still churning out intimate images on […]
This week’s Current Climate newsletter also looks at Indiana’s plan to get rare earths from coal waste and how batteries keep power flowing in Texas
After protests broke out in early January, the Iranian regime shut down the internet, starting the longest blackout in Iranian history. Despite this attempt to stop the protests from spreading, they did not stop. Still, the internet shutdown slowed down the spread of information both inside and outside Iran. Behind the heavily policed borders and […]
It was too cold to take off my mittens and check Google Maps so I put my faith in the trickle of bundled-up people ahead of me. All of them were carrying signs and wearing whistles around their necks on top of layers and layers of winter clothing. At first there were dozens of us […]
The Senate voted on Friday evening to pass the federal budget, funding everything except for one entity: the Department of Homeland Security, which was given a two-week funding extension in order to negotiate new guardrails around Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). If no agreement is reached, DHS funding will lapse and the department will face […]
Where’s the Trump phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. We’ve reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump phone’s whereabouts. As usual, we’re still waiting for a response. In the meantime, I finally got a reply from a company exec. After months – months – of emailing various official Trump […]
What responsibility do you have to speak up about bad things happening in the world? Does that responsibility change when speaking up might affect your business? What about if you’re a sports creator, or the moderator of a deeply NSFW subreddit? What about if you’re just a little ol’ phone website? Ultimately, everyone has to […]
The Trump administration has flooded Minneapolis and other parts of Minnesota with federal agents as part of its immigration crackdown, Operation Metro Surge — detaining children, intimidating protestors and community organizers, and killing multiple people. Minnesotans have responded with mass community-level resistance, including mutual aid and tracking ICE operations, despite threats and surveillance — including through systems […]
Don Lemon, a former CNN anchor turned independent journalist, was arrested on Thursday night by federal agents in Los Angeles, who alleged that he had violated federal law while covering an anti-ICE protest in Minnesota. Notably, Lemon was not the only journalist targeted by law enforcement for their presence at the Minnesota protest. On Thursday […]