President Donald Trump continued to claim the United States and Iran were in active peace talks on Monday, despite denials from Iranian and U.S. officials.
“Iranian Leadership is unbelievably duplicitous!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “They ask for a meeting, some would say’ beg,’ talks begin, with more scheduled in the immediate future, and they say, openly and proudly, that they’re not having any discussions, that nothing is being talked about, and they’re only dealing with ‘Oman.'”
Trump told reporters over the weekend that Iran came to the U.S. hat in hand to avoid further airstrikes. The president said that the Pentagon had planned “the biggest attack since World War II.”
“It would have been disastrous for them,” he said. “They didn’t want us to do it, and frankly, Saudi Arabia didn’t want it either.”
Trump called the denial a bit of “their usual bather.” He said that Iran needs to reach a deal with the U.S. or surrender unconditionally. Speaking to a reporter in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump said he was offering Iran “every last chance before decapitation.”
“Very tough to do what we have planned, still planned,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”
No popular music genre despises the present as much as country music. Through quirks of form and function, all other radio-ready music is incredibly focused on its immediate surroundings. Pop has trendiness in its very bones, and its songwriters’ striving for universality tends to create songs focused on broad, current feelings: the sharp sting of a fresh heartbreak, the effervescence of new heartbreak, the joy of dancing in this club right now.
Rap is usually made quickly by impossibly young stars for an equally young audience, so it tends toward today’s fashion. Micro-trends in production, slang and topics come and go quickly. Last month was another era. Last year might as well be prehistoric.
Country music, though, is a different animal, born out of the urban migration of the 1930s as a way to sell a slice of an idealized past on wax to newly minted city-dwellers longing for home. Sonic trends — from the slick countrypolitan in the 1970s to the neo-traditionalist 1990s and on through the trap-indebted 2010s — have come and gone. Demographics on the dial have shifted. Stars are younger and more male than they’ve ever been. But that focus on greener pastures is as persistent as the apparent blood feud between Texas and Tennessee.
The average country listener wants to have their past misremembered for them, whether it’s the Judds asking Grandpa about the good old days or Tim McGraw missing the nebulous “back when.” The biggest hits sand down the rough-hewn edges of Mama’s metaphorical front porch to up their resale value, perhaps never funnier than Luke Bryan’s bullet-point summer vacation on “Fish, Hunt, Golf, Drink.” All that cornpone Luddism floating around made Gillian Welch’s “Everything Is Free” feel remarkable upon its release 25 years ago.
The concerns of the track from 2001’s “Time (The Revelator)” are topical and immediate. Welch responds to the then-new phenomenon of online music piracy with practical concerns. How am I going to pay my bills if no one wants to pay me for my music? How do I put gas in the car right now? Nearly a decade before the launch of Spotify, Welch saw clearly that someone was bound to “hit the big score” off of the new model — it just wouldn’t be her.
“Everything is free now, that’s what they say. Everything I’ve ever done, gonna give it away,” she sings, before immediately shifting toward plans to make money elsewhere so that she can keep performing.
A quarter century on from the song’s release, the U.S. economy is overrun with people who believe that nothing should come with a price tag.
A quarter century on from the song’s release, the U.S. economy is overrun with people who believe that nothing should come with a price tag. The finance industry is dominated by private equity firms that offload the debt of their corporate acquisitions onto other companies, the better to walk away clean when those companies collapse. The biggest players in Silicon Valley are building data centers to more efficiently run copyright-infringement machines built on terabytes of pirated material.
The journalism industry was hollowed out by the same forces that sliced up Welch’s catalog, leaving few journalists to report on the graft and theft this post-payment class of billionaires are carrying out across the country. The Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, once a world-class newspaper, has turned into a shell of its former self following a conservative reorientation of its opinion pages and a corporate downsizing that saw over 300 of newsroom journalists laid off in February, representing about 30% of its total staff.
More recently, Louisiana officials recently inked a secret agreement with Meta to build a five-mile-long data center in the state. The New York Times eventually sniffed out the backroom deal. The local papers were too busy covering the hors d’oeuvres at Mark Zuckerberg’s celebratory luncheon.
At the same time, the ham-fisted hollowing out of regulatory agencies by the Trump administration has had predictable results. Outbreaks of new livestock diseases, parasitic produce and slower responses to global crises followed the Department of Government Efficiency’s wild budget-slashing even as Elon Musk, the man who helmed that project, is richer than anyone else in the history of earth — and he’s gearing up to throw millions into the 2028 presidential and congressional elections.
It would be a stretch to say that Gillian Welch saw all this coming. But listening back now, it’s hard not to marvel at how timeless this timely track feels. You can’t help but sympathize with her desire to skip the coming crisis in her industry. She “never minded working hard,” she sings, but she had a lot of concern about “who I’m working for.” Seeing into the future that she’d soon be asked to work for pennies while someone else got obscenely rich, she passed.
“If there’s anything you want to hear,” she says, “you can sing it yourself.”
If only we all could have opted out in a similar fashion.
For a good portion of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” we watch all versions of the film’s namesake arachnid-juiced hero (Tom Holland) — full leotard, half leotard, sans leotard —cyberstalking Ned (Jacob Batalon) and MJ (Zendaya), his best friend and love interest, respectively, who now have no memory of him at all since the last time Spidey put them both in harm’s way, in 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
Romantic threads are a standard given annoyance in these films, put in so there’s something for everyone, to advance the plot when there is no more plot to be had, and to give me the opportunity to jump into the debate of: “They’re just men when they’re not saving the world, they should be allowed to date” with an emphatic: No they shouldn’t!
If you’re new to the Spider-verse, or you’ve forgotten the details of what took place in “No Way Home,” Spider-Man called upon Doctor Strange to wipe the memories of MJ, Ned and the rest of the world during a tear in the multiverse in which Peter Parker’s identity was made known, which was obviously bad news for him and everyone around him. Shortly before this spell is cast, Parker makes a promise to MJ that once things stabilize and there’s no longer the threat of a dimensional collapse, he’ll find her and make her remember not only who he is, but that she’s in love with him. At the end of the film, we see Parker pay a visit to a donut shop MJ is working at and make the choice to leave her be, rather than tip her for his coffee and cruller by backflipping onto the counter and throwing a posterboard with “YOU LOVE ME” written on it in her face.
But flash forward just short of five years, and here he comes again, putting the woman he claims to love in harm’s way just as she’s gotten settled into a relatively danger-free life without him, newly graduated from MIT and nuzzled up with a boyfriend who, while considerably less exciting, will almost definitely not get her killed.
(Sony Pictures) Tom Holland in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”
What is the plot of “Brand New Day?” You may be asking yourself this regardless of whether you’ve already seen the film or not. Well, given the amount of Marvel Cinematic Universe hooey thrown into this thing . . . what isn’t the plot? But don’t worry, amidst all of the flippin’ and swingin’ and jizzy web-shootin ‘, MJ and other women characters such as a movie-saving Jean Grey (Sadie Sink) and Black Widow (Florence Pugh) are given a few lines so that, regardless of what’s going on, men in the audience will receive flashes of someone to fantasize about saving or showing their pepperoni nipples to.
Sometimes the best way to love someone is by leaving them the hell alone.
The fact that superhero movies always cram in a love story element is both annoying and ridiculous, but it makes sense. Big-budget films of the “Superman,” “Batman,” “Spider-Man” variety need to make sure they turn a profit by getting butts in seats, and that means layering on whatever (and however) they’ve determined each and every one of those butts will be expecting to see in order to make it seem worth tapping their cards for the price of admission and concessions. Romantic threads are a standard given annoyance in these films, put in so there’s something for everyone, to advance the plot when there is no more plot to be had, and to give me the opportunity to jump into the debate of: “They’re just men when they’re not saving the world, they should be allowed to date” with an emphatic: No they shouldn’t!
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Batman has a crush on someone? Cool! She’s probably gonna die. Superman has been in love with Lois Lane for years? Awesome, she’s never gonna be safe again because every one of his enemies is going to try and throw her off a building. Spider-Man finds time to haunt MJ’s Instagram stories amidst all manner of chaos breaking out in the streets of New York and beyond? Well, sure, let’s just do whatever, at this point. Just like the average moviegoer likes to chuck some Reese’s Pieces in their tub of popcorn to get that salty and sweet action going, most people like for their eyeballs to get breaks from the stomach kicking and face punching by watching implied or actual grab-ass. We’re a simple species. And that’s OK. Still ridiculous though.
(Sony Pictures) Zendaya and Tom Holland in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”
In “Brand New Day,” as Spider-Man is dealing with his genes mutating in a way that increases his powers, gives him migraines and makes it so that he no longer needs the use of synthetic webs because real (real gross) ones now shoot from his wrists, there’s so much else going on in this still, somehow, pretty boring movie.
Extras are flash-mobbing in the background as Jean Grey telepathically hops from body to body to do a mixed-bag of whatever she wants: infiltrate the Department of Damage Control, mess with Spider-Man, look for her sister who’s dead. The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) is grunting and groaning around, helping Spidey and providing elbow-jab opportunities for guys in the audience to turn to their dates and loudly whisper: That’s me. Black Widow is holding meetings in a Russian bath. The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) is like, “Did I kill anyone?” And where’s Spider-Man? Putting flowers on Aunt May’s grave each day and pouting when MJ is finally like “Thanks for saying you love me . . . I don’t know you.”
How about this? Maybe in the next Spider-Man movie, and every superhero movie to follow, we put to rest this shoehorned lovey-dovey nonsense and leave viewers with the big takeaway that sometimes the best way to love someone is by leaving them the hell alone and that, in certain circumstances — especially if you’re tasked with saving the world on a daily basis — your job actually is more important.
They must have hoped the photos would dispel conspiracy theories that he’s dead, or at least incapacitated. But the two proof-of-life pictures taken of Sen. Mitch McConnell and his wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, purportedly from his room at a rehabilitation center, have only generated more speculation about what has really happened to the 84-year-old Kentucky Republican, who hasn’t been seen or spoken in public since being hospitalized in mid-June. In both pictures, the typically sharp-minded senator is staring with a vacant smile at the camera, while the 73-year-old Chao has a firm grip on his arm that reads less as affection and more like direction.
In the first, taken July 12, McConnell holds the day’s newspaper, a tradition familiar more commonly seen in hostage photos. Even that pretext was dropped from the second picture, released July 27, which was accompanied by a note from the Senate attending physician insisting that McConnell is working “to rebuild strength and reduce the risk of future falls.” This followed the senator’s continued refusal to say much about what happened besides that he fell down and was “briefly unconscious.”
McConnell has a long history of dirty tricks — culminating in functionally stealing a Supreme Court nomination from then-President Barack Obama and holding it for Donald Trump — so it’s not surprising that many progressives suspect the former Senate Majority Leader has sinister motives in refusing to step down from his seat. There has also been boundless speculation that he’s using this to gain some illicit power for Republicans. The rumors have gotten so bad that Andy Beshear, Kentucky’s Democratic governor, publicly demanded that McConnell “directly and verbally address the people of Kentucky and provide proof of your capacity to serve, or resign.”
Despite the chatter, it’s almost certain that McConnell isn’t doing this to benefit Republicans in the Senate. In commentary for MS NOW, independent journalist Lindsay Beyerstein pointed out the senator’s absence means “the GOP is down a vote in a closely divided Senate.” Trump’s struggle to get his attorney general nominee Todd Blanche across the finish line is a reminder of how every vote counts for the party.
But it’s hard to fault conspiracy theorists when it really does seem that McConnell — or whoever is making decisions for him — is hiding something. Efforts to convince the public that he is communicative backfired when people noticed that the Republicans claiming to have spoken with him appeared to be working from the same script. As Beshear noted last week, even McConnell’s doctor noticeably avoided addressing whether the senator can “speak, reason, or carry out” his duties. Already set to retire at the end of the year, it’s becoming clear that McConnell is never coming back to the Senate chambers.
Despite the conspiracy theories, the likeliest reason to conceal McConnell’s condition is more pathetic than calculating: It’s hard for these powerful old men and their families to let go of power.
Despite the conspiracy theories, the likeliest reason to conceal McConnell’s condition is more pathetic than calculating: It’s hard for these powerful old men and their families to let go of power.
In their controversial book “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” Jake Tapper and Alex Johnson examined the role that ego and status play in keeping politicians in office long after they’re capable of doing the job. The writers uncovered evidence that Biden’s delusions were bolstered by both his family and his top staff, who seemed loathe to give up the elevated status and power that comes from being close to the president. This impression has only deepened in recent weeks, as Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, has been on a bizarre media tour for no other apparent purpose than squeezing his famous last name for one more bout of attention.
This is why there’s been such a focus on Chao’s role in her husband’s health drama, starting with the clothes she’s wearing in the proof-of-life photos which are being examined and analyzed for clues.
“I can’t imagine Elaine, one of the most put-together people in existence, releasing a pic wearing a thin shirt over a visible black bra, UNTUCKED,” writer Jeff Yang, who claims to know the Chao family, argued on Bluesky about the second photo taken from McConnell’s hospital room. Others argued that the shirt is too cheap-looking to be something Chao, who is every inch the wealthy socialite, would wear.
To be fair to Chao, she is a private person; most of our perception of her fashion comes from glimpses of her at public events. In the real world, people don’t typically dress to visit a medical facility the same way they do for work. Nonetheless, internet sleuths sussed out that the shirt Chao is wearing on the July 26 photo appears to be the same one she was seen wearing on July 15. But whatever her level of responsibility, it’s not surprising that McConnell’s wife is the center of many conspiracy theories. It wasn’t that long ago that then-First Lady Jill Biden was engaged in ham-fisted efforts to deny and downplay her husband’s inability to do his job.
Like the aging politicians themselves, family members often benefit from the status and power they get through their famous relatives. Chao is no different. Not only did she serve in the Cabinets of Trump, George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, Chao was also appointed to government positions by Ronald Reagan, and she continues to engage in power-brokering around the world. When McConnell was rushed to the hospital in June, she was in China having meetings with high-ranking officials, including the country’s vice president Han Zheng. The trip was so important that she didn’t cut it short to return to her husband’s side. Whatever dealings she has with foreign leaders, she surely gains leverage from her connection to such a powerful man.
We don’t have any specifics on what McConnell and Chao are hiding or why, but after the Biden debacle, it’s silly to pretend such these cover-ups are implausible. If anything, they’re starting to feel like the norm. The late Dianne Feinstein, who served as senator from California for 31 years, faced intense scrutiny and accusations about her obviously failing health before her death in September 2023. The following year, it was revealed that GOP Texas Rep. Kay Granger had been absent from Congress and living in a dementia ward for months. Earlier this year, Rep. Tom Kean Jr, R-N.J., disappeared for months with no explanation, and when he returned, he only shared vague details about a mental health episode after the growing outrage became impossible to ignore. In the past year, six members of Congress have died in office, and while a couple were surprises, most of them had health issues they minimized or ignored until it was too late.
It’s hard not to feel some sympathy for these politicians, and even for McConnell, who has long been especially private and, as reporter Andrew Egger noted on a recent Bulwark podcast, “had a very stage-managed political presence even when things were doing great.” Rare is the person who faces impending mortality with total grace and humility, and being in denial about it, at least some of the time, is a normal part of aging. But McConnell, like Biden and others before him, has a level of presumption that is not acceptable in what is supposed to be a democratic system. Politicians on both sides of the aisle get so accustomed to the power and privilege of their office that they seem to forget it doesn’t actually belong to them, but to the people they are elected to serve.
This is especially troubling when we have an 80-year-old president who is clearly in decline but yearns to be regarded as a king or even a god, and apparently to serve an illegal third term in office. The Trump situation is not helped when so many other politicians, including the previous president, have acted entitled to hold office well beyond what’s reasonable. Dying in office should be a rare and surprise occurrence, not a norm that our authoritarian president can exploit.
Matt Long stood before the Granbury City Council at an April zoning meeting to oppose the influx of proposed data centers in Hood County, likening them to a spiritual abomination.
“I’d consider us a Christian city inside a Christian county,” said Long, a member of the county’s development commission who lives near Granbury. “As Christians, do we think that trading 2,100 acres of natural beauty for godless technological complexes is moving us closer to the creation, or further away?”
“Do we think that entering into negotiations with Google, Meta and Amazon are closer to making a covenant with God, or making a deal with the devil?” he asked the council.
Christians, Long concluded to applause, must stand up to data centers.
Controversy surrounding data center construction has roiled Texas in recent months, fostering a bipartisan coalition of opposition, particularly among rural and suburban residents. With at least 248 planned data center projects and 335 in operation, Texas is poised to become a leader in data center development.
Opposition has also coalesced around religious appeals from a theologically diverse group of residents, leaders and politicians who see data center development as an affront to their most sacred values.
Much of the opposition focuses on environmental impact and the large amounts of water and power needed by massive facilities that operate AI applications.
Clayton Tucker, a Democrat running for Texas agriculture commissioner, is a leader in the anti-data center movement. A Catholic, he wonders if data centers are akin to the apple in the Garden of Eden.
“If we take a bite of that apple of knowledge, is that what’s going to kick us out of this blue marble of Eden … that we call Earth?” Tucker said.
Agriculture commissioner candidate Clayton Tucker speaks at a rally against data center development in Texas on the Capitol grounds in Austin on July 27, 2026.
Religion isn’t solely the domain of the opposition. Texas Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian, a Republican, said he supports data center construction because “throughout history, Christians have embraced innovations that improve lives, from the printing press to modern medicine.”
“We should approach data centers the same way: embracing their benefits while ensuring they’re built responsibly,” Christian said in a statement.
For Long, biblical passages such as Daniel Chapter 2 and Revelation Chapter 13 reveal that there are spiritual implications to replacing God’s creation “with things created by man.”
The books of Daniel and Revelation, known as apocalyptic literature, have been interpreted in some theological circles as warnings about the misuse of technology — such as artificial intelligence — in ways that threaten God’s intended order and vastly increase the government’s ability to conduct surveillance.
“They’re going to be able to track where we go, they’re going to track our money. … You’re going to have to essentially stay in line socially,” said Long, who believes this generation will be judged by its response to data centers.
“I just don’t want to read that everybody complied, everybody gave in, everybody quit. I want to hear about this small contingent of people that stood on their principles, that saw it coming from a mile away, and said, ‘We’re not budging,’” he said.
Joseph Locke, a professor of Texas and American religious history at the University of North Texas, said he was not surprised that Texans were making religious arguments against data centers.
“Texans have often drawn on religion when they want to enact social or political change,” he said in a statement, adding that “the rhetoric of spiritual warfare is pretty common, especially among today’s Christian nationalists and their conservative allies.”
Long has hosted well-attended prayer meetings in his home and taken his fight online, where he is not alone. Religious arguments are a periodic feature of comments on several dozen Facebook groups dedicated to opposing data center development.
Last month, Clarendon resident Maria Miller asked members of the Texans United Against Data Centers Facebook group to pray against data centers.
Miller said she sees parallels between the rapid development of data centers and the story of the end times told in the Book of Revelation at the end of the New Testament. “It’s kind of a no-brainer,” she said in an interview.
“People of faith feel a moral duty”
Not all religiously grounded opposition sees data centers as apocalyptic or part of a larger cosmic battle between good and evil.
“People of faith feel a moral duty to make sure that people have the things they need to live lives of dignity and thriving, and so water and energy are really important for that,” said Rev. Dr. Becca Edwards of the interfaith policy advocacy group Texas Impact.
“We’re called to be stewards of creation, which means caring for the world as God does. And I think what we see in the creation story is that the world was created to be a place of fruitfulness and plenty,” Edwards said.
Locke said many Texans have drawn on their faith “to attack inequalities, provide for the needy and, yes, advocate for environmental protections.”
In addition, conservative Christians have been “generally supportive of Texas’ conservative economic and environmental policies,” Locke said.
“The oil industry, for instance, has long been wed to conservative Christianity,” he said. “Billy Graham was backed by Texas oilmen, and George W. Bush, who helped bring Texas’ religious politics to Washington, D.C., was rooted in the oil industry.”
Texas churches also spoke out against inequality during the Gilded Age — a late 19th-century period of rapid industrial growth that produced extreme wealth inequality, Locke said. Evangelical leaders “helped to organize the Populist revolt of the 1880s and 1890s” and others “urged Texans to see the sins of our economic system,” he said.
“Texas’ conservative Christian nationalism may win the most headlines, but Texas religion contains multitudes,” Locke said.
Tucker, the Democratic candidate for agriculture commissioner, is a fifth-generation Texan who ties his campaign to Texas’ populist movement and focuses on issues that receive the most petition signatures on his website.
A petition on data center development has been a top performer, and as long as it remains popular, “that’s gonna be our top issue,” Tucker said while driving between anti-data center meetings, many of them held in churches.
“Had you told me a year ago that running for agriculture commissioner, I’d be talking mostly about data centers, I would have looked at you funny,” he said, adding that the facilities’ high-volume water use caught his eye.
“If we run out of water, nothing else really matters,” he said.
Matt Long shakes hands with attendees while holding a sign that says “This is insane” at a Hood County Commissioners Court meeting in Granbury on Feb. 23, 2026.
Long, who identifies as a conservative-leaning libertarian, said Tucker, although a Democrat, is “the only politician that is saying anything negative about data centers.” Older Republicans, he added, “don’t understand, like, the good versus evil fight that I believe we’re in.”
Polls show in many cases opposition to data centers transcends political partisanship. According to a June poll by the Texas Politics Project, 71% of registered Texas Democrats and 44% of registered Texas Republicans oppose data centers, with only 14% of Republicans strongly in support. National polls indicate even greater bipartisan alignment: a May Gallup survey found that 63% of Republicans and 75% of Democrats oppose data centers.
Long said he’s also found himself in a surprising alliance over data centers with some “liberal white women.”
“After the meeting … we’re hugging, and we’re all on the same page, trying to fight this,” he said.
“Humanity over injury and profit”
Elizabeth Dempsey Beggs, a Democrat running for the U.S. House in Virginia, called opposition to data centers a “unifying factor” that crosses political lines. Virginia is home to the world’s largest data center market, with about 685 operating or planned, and Texas advocates have looked to the state as a cautionary tale.
“I guarantee you Jesus would be outside right now flipping tables,” Beggs said in a recent public testimony against data centers.
People “deserve a place that is safe to raise their children, and we know the harm that data centers are doing,” Beggs said in an interview. “That’s not something you can tolerate as a mother, as a citizen, and as a Christian.”
Long, who has nine children, said in testimony earlier this year that data centers create “a sacrificial zone” that negatively harms children. It is ironic, he said, that Hood County adopted a “sanctuary for the unborn” ordinance while not being a sanctuary for the born.
Hood County commissioners bow their heads in prayer at the beginning of a Hood County Commissioners Court meeting in Granbury on Feb. 24, 2026. The meeting included a vote on a moratorium that would pause construction of eight proposed data centers.
Some Jewish leaders have also based their opposition on religious grounds.
“At the core of most religious traditions is a recognition of the sanctity of life and humanity over injury and profit,” Rabbi Jennie Rosenn of the Jewish climate advocacy group Dayenu said in a statement.
Rosenn said data centers are an affront to Judaism’s most foundational teachings of “life, not death (bacharta bahayim), protect creation (shomrei adamah), pursue justice (tirdof tzedek), not waste (bal tashchit), protect the most vulnerable (shomer ger yatom v’almanah), and ensure that life can continue l’dor v’dor (from generation to generation).”
“If this sounds like Judaism’s greatest hits, it’s because it is,” Rosenn continued. “That is how fundamentally the explosive growth of data centers across our nation threatens the values we — and many other people of faith — hold most dear.”
Jane Bannor, treasurer of Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community, a progressive advocacy group, said Unitarian Universalists around the nation are calling for moratoriums on data center construction based on a “respect for the interdependent web of life of which we are all a part.”
“We want to see businesses benefit not just corporate shareholders, but also the surrounding population,” Bannor said.
Tucker hopes religious-based opposition can affect the data center debate in Texas.
Faith appeals carry extra weight, he said, “when you can kind of tie [data centers] to those stories that are foundational to Christianity, that are foundational to a lot of our worldviews.”
(Mark Weinberg / Food52)Flowers are silhouetted against lights from the Stargate data center in Abilene on May 2, 2026.
This story is published through a collaboration between The Texas Tribune and Religion News Service.
Disclosure: Amazon, Facebook, Google, Meta and University of North Texas have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in The Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
An Australian library has welcomed home a book roughly 150 years overdue after it was discovered inside a tea crate bricked into a sealed fireplace.
Ross Simmons found the water-damaged copy of “The Antiquities of Athens” while renovating a house in the seaside town of Kiama, south of Sydney. The book was published in 1858 and carries the number 506, placing it among the roughly 1,000 volumes held when the Kiama Library opened in 1872.
Simmons believes the book may have been borrowed by his great-great-grandfather, John Simmons, who owned the house when the library first opened. The library’s original borrowing records have been lost, however, leaving the identity of the delinquent reader — and the reason the book was sealed inside a fireplace — a mystery.
Had the library applied the overdue rate printed in the volume, the theoretical fine would have reached approximately 28,000 Australian dollars, or about $19,500 in U.S. currency. Fortunately for the Simmons family, the library no longer charges late fees and has no intention of pursuing a 19th-century borrower’s descendants.
The old lending rules discovered with the book offered another glimpse into library life during the 1870s. A household needed at least three people capable of reading before borrowing, and patrons were prohibited from collecting a book while intoxicated.
Despite some water damage, the volume survived its century and a half inside the fireplace and has now been added to the library’s local history collection.
It will not, however, be returning to circulation.
“We’re not going to allow it to go back out again,” library manager Michelle Hudson said, joking that staff did not want to wait another 150 years for its next return.
The discovery gives Kiama Library an unusually complete local mystery: an unidentified borrower, a hidden fireplace, a theoretical five-figure fine and, after approximately a century and a half, a very late happy ending.
A Florida English professor is suing her former public college, alleging she was fired after its president objected to an award-winning short story she assigned in a freshman literature course.
Vinita Prabhakar filed a federal lawsuit against South Florida State College President Fred Hawkins and the school’s board of trustees, arguing her dismissal violated her First Amendment rights and academic freedom. The lawsuit seeks reinstatement, damages and a declaration that the college acted unlawfully.
Prabhakar had assigned “Bettering Myself,” a short story by acclaimed author Ottessa Moshfegh, in her Freshman English II course. The award-winning story follows an alcoholic Catholic school teacher whose increasingly self-destructive behavior illustrates themes of addiction, alienation and moral decline through the perspective of an unreliable narrator.
According to the complaint, Prabhakar had taught the story for nearly a decade without incident and used it in a unit on unsympathetic and unreliable narrators alongside works by Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver. The story won the Paris Review’s 2013 Plimpton Prize for Fiction and has appeared on syllabuses at other universities.
One student reportedly told Prabhakar that the material made them uncomfortable. Prabhakar discussed the story with the student, who later said they felt better about the assignment, according to the lawsuit.
Hawkins nevertheless summoned Prabhakar to a meeting, called the story “political” and ordered her not to teach it again, the complaint alleges. Prabhakar said her department chair, dean and a college vice president supported her explanation of the story’s academic purpose.
The next day, she was placed on administrative leave and told her contract would end after the semester. Prabhakar alleges she received no formal complaint, hearing or explanation of which college policy she had violated.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which is helping represent Prabhakar, argues that public colleges may establish curriculum requirements but cannot punish professors merely because administrators dislike ideas expressed in relevant course material.
The allegations have not yet been tested in court. The lawsuit places the latest Florida education dispute at the intersection of academic freedom, faculty discretion and the authority public institutions exercise over classroom instruction.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeatedly clashed with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday’s “State of the Union” over vaccines, COVID-19, autism research and the nation’s growing measles outbreak, with the veteran anchor challenging the health secretary’s claims by citing decades of scientific research and public health data.
The contentious interview came as the United States experiences its second consecutive record-breaking year for measles cases, with Bash noting on-air that infections have reached a 35-year high and that roughly 93% of cases have occurred among unvaccinated people.
Asked whether he accepted any responsibility for the resurgence after years as one of the country’s most prominent vaccine skeptics, Kennedy responded, “Absolutely not,” arguing the outbreak is part of a broader international trend and pointing to higher per-capita case rates in several other countries.
Kennedy instead blamed the COVID-19 lockdown period for reduced childhood vaccination rates, arguing that missed immunizations during the pandemic created today’s vulnerable populations. He also maintained that his department has responded quickly to outbreaks by deploying federal public health teams to affected states.
Throughout the interview, Bash repeatedly interrupted Kennedy to challenge claims she said conflicted with the broader scientific consensus, particularly on COVID-19 vaccines and autism research. At one point, she told Kennedy that “study after study after study” has found no link between vaccines and autism, citing findings from the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Kennedy rejected those conclusions, arguing existing research has not adequately examined vaccines administered during the first six months of life and accusing Bash of relying too heavily on experts rather than the underlying research.
The exchange grew increasingly tense after Kennedy accused CNN of contributing to misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and suggested Bash was repeating claims without independently examining the evidence. Bash pushed back, defending her role as a journalist.
“My job is to find out and tell the truth,” she said.
The interview also touched on a Wall Street Journal report that President Donald Trump has encouraged Kennedy to pursue additional research examining possible links between vaccines and autism. Kennedy confirmed Trump supports further study while also saying his department is investigating a broader range of potential environmental factors that may contribute to autism.
The nearly 20-minute interview ended with Bash defending the role of scientific expertise in public health reporting while Kennedy maintained that federal health agencies should continue reexamining longstanding assumptions about vaccine safety and other medical issues.
A statement was released by a CNN spokeperson to Salon regarding this interview.
Dana Bash is a veteran journalist who conducted a newsmaking interview with Secretary Kennedy in which he stated that he supports parents getting their children vaccinated against measles and addressed President Trump’s push for further study into autism and vaccines. Asking tough, substantive questions to those in power is the job of every journalist, and Dana did hers incredibly well today. We stand behind Dana, her reporting, and CNN’s overall coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic.
UPDATED: Aug. 2, 2026 at 2:12 p.m. to include statement from CNN.
Allow me to sing, o Muse, of a recent dinner conversation about “The Odyssey.” The setting was not a Greek restaurant but a Vietnamese joint. My friend Sharon and I had just settled at our table and ordered our dinner and drinks when she steered our conversation toward Christopher Nolan’s latest opus.
Have I seen it? she asked. Of course. What did I think? It was fine, I said. A little too long, definitely overhyped. I think I described it as Nolan’s baroque reward for “Oppenheimer.”
Then, like Odysseus himself, she aimed at her main target of derision: Matt Damon. What on Earth possessed Nolan, a notoriously detail-oriented director, to tap the all-purpose flour of movie stars to portray one of the most storied heroes in literature?
“What, was Leo not available?” she asked, as if petitioning the gods. But divine entities stopped intervening in man’s affairs long ago; besides, I had the answer drawn and nocked since I’d walked out of the theater days before.
Why not Leo? Because nobody would believe Leonardo DiCaprio could string that bow.
I can only imagine that at this point, restaurant waitstaffs across the world have picked up crumbs and slices of chatter about Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s 2,700-year-old blockbuster. Nolan’s work is designed to bring out everyone’s inner critic and professor, but his execution of “The Odyssey” tosses us plenty of bones to pick.
By now the distinctiveness of Nolan’s cinematic ruminations is common knowledge. Whether we’re talking about “Oppenheimer,” “Interstellar” or his “Batman” trilogy, Nolan is a seasoned explorer in the realm of man’s hubris and its relationship with personal history, time and memory, especially the selective variety, among many touchstones. The nonlinear nature of Homer’s epic poem lends itself to his style.
But perhaps the least appreciated aspect of Nolan’s approach is his conscious use of modern celebrities in his version of one of the earliest stories to question the human compulsion to reach for fabled immortality at the cost of the people beside us. In essence, Nolan chose a superstar cast to drive home the interpretation of Homer’s saga as a legend about fame.
Spinning that lore for a modern audience, then, calls for fronting the cast with a star whose popular persona is outsized compared to his dramatic proficiency. Damon is the simplest and most reliable vehicle to tell us about a complicated man, as the highly lauded translator Emily Wilson describes Odysseus.
By this, I don’t mean to call Damon a bad actor. I’m just saying that his “Odyssey” performance is workmanlike. Wilson, for her part, walked away from the film with an impression of Nolan’s efforts that makes a person picture the Muse Calliope whispering in her ear, “Drag him.” Thus inspired, she wrote a long and brutal essay for the London Review of Books.
Damon’s Odysseus captures all the heroic arrogance, bravery and selfish stupidity of an action-flick brawler who would shoot a giant cyclops in the eye as he’s making his escape, just because.
In my view, though, if the idea is to position Odysseus as an everyman hero swept up in a maelstrom of ordeals too vast for him to conquer, Damon was always going to be Nolan’s guy.
Which brings us back to the hero’s mythical recurve. Odysseus’ bow is an extension of his valorous identity. It is his Excalibur, his Andúril, the vaunted weapon only he can string and use to hit a bullseye through a row of twelve crossed axes. The fact that none of Penelope’s suitors could do that marked them as unfit to take his place as Ithaca’s king.
And while my friend made very good points about Hollywood personal trainers and physics and how, through creatine, all things are possible, the simple fact is that we’re more likely to buy that the man synonymous with Jason Bourne would be the only one who can bend that buster, string it, and make it sing.
It might seem strange to look this deeply into the why of Matt Damon as Odysseus, since his casting didn’t agitate right-wing trolls. The MAGA crowd whined early and loudly when the trades announced Lupita Nyong’o’s selection to play Helen of Troy, a fuss only slightly outdone by the news of Elliot Page’s casting as a Greek soldier named Sinon. When the rumor mills incorrectly assumed Page was playing Achilles, heads exploded.
But Nyong’o’s Helen, admirably performed though it was, contained few of the metatextual implications of Nolan’s other casting choices.
Tapping Travis Scott to play the Bard singing the tales of Odysseus’ exploits, for example, doesn’t merely reframe the role of ancient storytellers and poets as that age’s rappers. Scott is a 10-time Grammy nominee whose ability to combine spectacle with his lyrical craft has gained him a significantly passionate following. He is a brand unto himself and a sought-after corporate ambassador. If a queen like Penelope (played by Anne Hathaway) desired to send a message to her unworthy suitors about their inadequacy, she’d choose a rhapsodist with that kind of pull who also blends in with a boisterous crowd.
Then we have Benny Safdie as Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae, whom Odysseus follows to Troy and, ultimately, his cursed fate. Placing famous directors in front of the camera is a classic auteur filmmaker flourish, and Safdie is both an actor and a director mainly associated with indie films.
Notably, unlike Damon’s Odysseus, Safdie’s Agamemnon is not jacked. But his intimidating onyx armor obscures all that, much in the way Darth Vader’s helmet and cloak overcompensate for his shriveled form. We don’t see Agamemnon’s face for most of the movie until the end, when his wife and Helen’s twin Clytemnestra (also Nyong’o) murders him in the bathtub as revenge for sacrificing their daughter. Only then do we see this dark colossus for the slight creature he always was.
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Admittedly, that’s a lot more flexible interpretation than the obvious reasoning behind Damon’s selection. Yes, Nolan has worked with some of the most distinguished actors of our time, including Christian Bale, Cillian Murphy and Leo.
But when reading the famous opener of one longstanding translation — “Speak, memory, of the cunning hero/The wanderer, blown off course time and again” — few broadly popular A-list actors besides Damon live up to that picture.
Damon’s Odysseus captures all the heroic arrogance, bravery and selfish stupidity of an action-flick brawler who would shoot a giant cyclops in the eye as he’s making his escape, just because. Moves like that make it easy to comprehend that his ill-fated meanders could have been avoided if he’d followed the same directions that got everyone else home sooner.
But really, it all comes back to that bow. Only a true and blustery hero can string it, much as we believe that only Damon can win a knife fight by wielding a pen. And if we’re being honest, DiCaprio may have earned an Oscar for his performance in “The Revenant,” but he does not have the biceps to take on that CGI grizzly.
The American Civil Liberties Union and its state affiliates have filed 54 administrative claims against the federal government on behalf of people who allege they were harmed by federal immigration enforcement, launching what the organization says is one of its broadest coordinated legal efforts challenging ICE operations.
The claims, filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act, span 17 states and Washington, D.C., and represent the first legal step required before individuals can sue the federal government. The ACLU said the filings allege a pattern of misconduct by federal immigration agents, including excessive force, unlawful arrests, racial profiling, retaliation against people exercising their First Amendment rights and abuse while in detention.
Among the claims is one filed on behalf of Dr. Norma Bowe, a New Jersey nurse and Kean University professor who alleges she was assaulted by federal agents while providing medical care outside Delaney Hall, an immigration detention facility in Newark. Other claims involve U.S. citizens and legal residents who say they were wrongfully detained or subjected to aggressive enforcement actions despite having legal status.
“These are not isolated incidents,” the ACLU said in a press release announcing the coordinated filings, arguing the claims reflect a broader pattern of unlawful conduct by federal immigration authorities.
The Department of Homeland Security rejected the allegations, defending its immigration enforcement efforts and criticizing the ACLU’s characterization of federal operations. The agency said its officers are trained to enforce immigration laws while protecting public safety and complying with federal law.
The administrative claims do not themselves constitute lawsuits. Under federal law, agencies generally have an opportunity to review and respond before claimants can pursue litigation in court. If the claims are denied or remain unresolved after the statutory review period, the individuals may seek damages through federal lawsuits.
The coordinated filings come as immigration enforcement remains a central issue in the Trump administration’s agenda and as civil rights organizations continue mounting legal challenges to enforcement tactics across the country.
By most objective standards, the 2026 FIFA World Cup tournament — which concluded two weeks ago in New Jersey with Spain’s grueling 1-0 victory over Argentina — was a major success. Despite global anxiety over the collision between the world’s largest sporting event and Donald Trump’s “America First” regime, stadiums were mostly full across North America, fans and players from all sorts of large and small countries seemed to enjoy themselves (and tried to smuggle home large quantities of ranch dressing) and, of course, something like $15 billion flowed into FIFA’s coffers.
Just below the surface, however, the soccer world was seething with discontent. That erupted into all-out rebellion this week, which could finally bring down Gianni Infantino, the Swiss administrator who has served as FIFA chief executive for the last decade. Unpacking the byzantine history of alleged or actual corruption within FIFA and the numerous regional and national federations under its purview would be a dissertation-length project. But it’s definitely not wrong to say there’s a Trump angle, and that Infantino’s marriage of convenience and shared sensibility with the U.S. president may bring his downfall.
Even before this year’s tournament, Infantino stood accused of commercializing or “Americanizing” world soccer — a process he did not start but has certainly accelerated — and of shamelessly cozying up to Trump, whom he presented with the newly-invented FIFA Peace Prize, aka the “Temu Nobel,” last December. That was all inarguably true, and the guy has form, as they say on British cop shows. Back in 2022, while seeking to justify holding the World Cup in Qatar, an autocratic monarchy with a famously dreadful human rights record, Infantino launched a thousand memes with this memorable monologue:
“Today I have very strong feelings, I can tell you. Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel a migrant worker.”
If it seems extraordinary that a major executive of any enterprise, anywhere in the world, could say stuff like that and still have a job four years later, you are beginning to appreciate the hallucinatory Infantino experience. Anyway, in 2026 Infantino seems to have swapped all those intersectional identities for an adjunct MAGA membership, and this year’s World Cup pushed the soccer world’s bizarre love-hate relationship with its leader into overdrive.
Even before this tournament, Infantino stood accused of “Americanizing” world soccer — a process he did not start but has certainly accelerated — and shamelessly cozying up to the current occupant of the White House. This was inarguably true.
Tom Burrows of the Athletic did a nice job this week of summarizing the indictment: Infantino drove World Cup ticket prices to previously unimagined levels, introduced “commercial breaks in each half [of matches] dressed up as hydration breaks” — a network-friendly innovation that global football had resisted for decades — capitulated to Trump in reversing a red-card suspension for U.S. star striker Folarin Balogun, and introduced a “surreal halftime show” featuring Madonna, BTS and Justin Bieber in the final match, in obvious (and inept) imitation of the Super Bowl.
All of that, mind you, came before Infantino’s big surprise this past week: Apparently without consulting any relevant stakeholders, he announced a plan to spin off commercial rights to the World Cup into a new for-profit company (FIFA is a nonprofit, like other international sporting federations) and then sell off a big chunk of that company to an investment consortium led by Joshua Kushner, the younger brother of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. So it’s not entirely accurate to say that Infantino wanted to sell world soccer’s biggest brand to the Trump family. But it’s not exactly false either.
To coin a phrase, you can’t make this stuff up. But the good news, or the kind-of good news, or the “why in God’s name did this take so long” news, is that Infantino has finally choked on an overdose of hubris. His proposal collapsed within 48 hours and as of this weekend has been abandoned completely. (Soccer fans will discern unmistakable echoes of the European Super League, a proposed NFL-style closed competition for Europe’s top club teams that was announced in 2021 and imploded within a few weeks.)
UEFA, the federation that governs European soccer and is by far the most powerful of FIFA’s regional subsidiaries, wasted no time in rejecting Infantino’s scheme and announcing that none of its 55 national teams would participate in any FIFA competitions until the proposal was ditched. That was almost certainly enough to torpedo this galaxy-brain plan, and other regional confederations — most notably Concacaf, which represents North America, Central America and the Caribbean, and therefore includes the U.S. — soon followed UEFA’s lead, if not as aggressively.
Donald Trump did not pick up the phone on this occasion. (“Johnny who? Really, I barely know the guy.”) Only the Confederation of African Football — whose member nations, fairly or otherwise, are perceived as Infantino supporters — remained silent. More on that shortly.
Anyone who follows world soccer already knows that UEFA has its own extensive history of political intrigue and internal scandal, and is not well positioned to play populist hero in this drama. But as is so often the case in world affairs, there are no good guys in the story and you have to pick your poison. One could draw a rough analogy with the European Union, a deeply flawed entity that nonetheless represents some degree of ideological or economic counterweight to Trump’s America. In this particular confrontation, Europe held nearly all the cards.
If Infantino somehow pushes through his scheme to sell shares in the World Cup, he will do so — believe it or not — by casting himself as a defender of the downtrodden and underprivileged. He feels gay and African and disabled, remember?
While the next men’s World Cup, FIFA’s biggest golden goose, is still four years away, the consequences of a European boycott would have been felt immediately. The under-20 Women’s World Cup begins in Poland about a month from now, and qualifying playoffs for FIFA’s second-biggest event, the Women’s World Cup (to be held next summer in Brazil) are set for October. Given his avowed commitments to promoting the women’s game and youth soccer at all levels, Infantino simply couldn’t afford to play chicken with UEFA and risk losing those tournaments. Joshua Kushner and his family, one imagines, will not starve.
This may be stretching the point, but there’s a thematic resemblance at work here to the worldwide pushback against Big Tech data centers, and against the opaque government processes that gets them built, as well as to the popular and legal resistance that has stalled the $110 billion merger between Warner Bros. and Paramount. It’s also true that Infantino is now understood, both to soccer fans and the world at large, as a proxy for Donald Trump, which looks like a much worse bet than it did a year ago. Infantino was cruising to likely re-election as FIFA president next year, but right now it’s an even-money bet that he can survive the next month.
Like his White House buddy, Infantino has thrived on a remarkable ability to weaponize greed and cynicism, both on an epic scale and at ground level. He fully intended to push through his scheme to sell shares in the World Cup by casting himself, believe it or not, as a defender of the downtrodden and underprivileged. He feels gay and African and disabled, remember? The uncomfortable truth is that he has ruled over a vast global sports and merchandising empire largely by fulfilling his promises to channel lots of money into regional and national federations in the Global South that have historically had few resources.
Under Infantino’s proposed plan, each of FIFA’s 211 federations — at least the ones who supported him! — would have received an immediate cash infusion of $40 million, with further annual installments to follow. That sum would barely make a difference to the football gods in England, Spain or France, but would been enormous in Malawi or Madagascar. Affluent European nations don’t need infusions of private equity capital to build new stadiums and support younger players, and can afford to stand up to Infantino’s Trump-flavored bribery scheme. For players, parents, coaches and local officials in sub-Saharan Africa, the equation might have looked very different. Why should they care where the money comes from? This particular grift may have failed, but in a world built on massive structural inequality, grifters tend to prosper.
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from Andrew O’Hehir on our wonderful and terrifying world
Right-wing media looks to have made a profound miscalculation. They put Hunter Biden through an unrelenting public pressure cooker, convinced that by turning a private citizen’s darkest personal rock bottom into a daily political circus, they could break both the man and his family. Now, seven years into his sobriety, Biden has picked up a podcast mic and won’t stop talking. The man whom the right spent years trying to destroy is now walking into rooms they open up for him — and setting them on fire from the inside.
For the better part of the past decade, conservative media made a concerted effort to turn Biden into the ultimate avatar of political corruption: the degenerate failson as a symbol of Democratic rot. During his father Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, the right devoted extensive attention to Hunter’s overseas business dealings, particularly his role on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma and allegations stemming from a laptop Hunter owned that surfaced in GOP hands shortly before the election. The laptop story became a defining example of modern media dynamics after the major social media companies temporarily limited distribution of an October 2020 New York Post article that included information taken from the laptop, a decision that conservatives still cite as evidence of a massive, multi-institution coverup. Republican lawmakers spent endless congressional hours investigating his digital footprint, but were ultimately unable to establish that the elder Biden had engaged in a criminal bribery scheme tied to his son’s business activities.
Right-wing media turned Hunter Biden into a household name to hurt his father, and now that notoriety is precisely what gives him leverage.
The meandering story is what makes the current public rehabilitation of Hunter Biden one of the stranger spectacles in American politics. Right-wing media turned him into a household name to hurt his father, and now that notoriety is precisely what gives him leverage.
Having emerged from severe addiction, public humiliation and federal prosecution, Biden is now truth-telling about his past and single-handedly roasting the right wing’s bad-faith outrage ecosystem on its own home turf. This year alone Biden has sat for hours-long interviews with independent outlets that cater to the very audience the GOP spent a decade cultivating against his family. He talked to Andrew Callaghan’s Channel 5, whose YouTube following runs past three million and skews toward people who trust almost nothing coming out of U.S. institutions. He talked to Shawn Ryan, a former Navy SEAL and CIA contractor who spent years amplifying allegations against him. Ryan then hooked him up with MAGA podcaster Candace Owens, who once called him a degenerate who belonged in prison.
Biden’s media strategy is dangerous and fascinating. He has described his media blitz as partly about addiction recovery and partly about strategy. Independent podcasts and YouTube channels have replaced the legacy media gatekeepers that used to referee these fights, and Biden figured out faster than most Democratic operatives that the audience he needed to reach was sitting in exactly the media ecosystem built to hate him. “No one gives a shit with what anybody says on CNN,” he told one interviewer, arguing that years of investigations and public scrutiny had lowered expectations to the point where audiences were surprised simply to hear him speak coherently at length. His approach appears designed to replace years of secondhand portrayals with direct exposure.
Biden’s rapid growth on X further underscores this tactical evolution. Joining Elon Musk’s platform just days before his interview with Owens dropped, Biden began tweeting with relentless energy, sometimes authoring over 100 posts a day. Commentators quickly dubbed him a “MAGA whisperer” as he systematically dismantled right-wing talking points and exposed media figures he accused of building careers off bad-faith attacks. When CNN anchor Jake Tapper published a scathing review of Jill Biden’s memoir — which defended the former president’s fitness for office — Hunter immediately went on the offensive, blasting Tapper and corporate media for what he viewed as complicity in weaponizing personal family dynamics for television ratings.
Biden’s new approach mixes vulnerability with nuclear-grade anger. Instead of avoiding controversy, he frequently addresses it head on. On a Barstool Sports podcast this week, he joked about signing a laptop and openly discussed his struggles with crack cocaine addiction. For a movement that has invested years in hyping “Hunter’s laptop” as a civilization-ending scandal, seeing the man himself turn it into a potential merchandising opportunity should be humiliating.
On that same Barstool appearance, he delivered an expletive-filled rant about Donald Trump’s entire family: “F**k him. F**k his sons. F**k his daughter. I mean it, all of them, the whole family, down to the grandchildren. I hope for the rest of time that I am on this earth, that their names live in ignominy.” Biden backed that rage up with a substantive critique, pointing out that the Trump sons received $3.2 billion in Defense Department contracts in just 18 months and that son-in-law Jared Kushner, despite holding no government position, is reportedly receiving more than $110 million from the Saudis, tied to nuclear enrichment authorization and billions in investment funds.
But Biden is also reaching out beyond the right-wing media ecosystem. He has appeared on NPR’s “Newsmakers,” podcasts hosted by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Don Lemon, and the “I’ve Had It” podcast with hosts Jennifer Welch and Angie “Pumps” Sullivan. Yet his aggressive, unapologetic posture does not spare Democrats. He has openly torched party leaders who pressured his father to abandon his 2024 reelection bid following the president’s disastrous debate performance, specifically calling out Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as a “piece of s**t” for his role in pushing his father aside. “I’m not running for anything, so I can say whatever the f**k I want,” Hunter Biden declared, giving voice to millions of frustrated progressives who are sick and tired of watching Democratic leaders play by polite, outdated rules while right-wing extremists burn down democratic norms.
It makes you wonder: Had the party embraced Biden’s willingness to fight back early on, perhaps they could have deployed one of the most effective anti-MAGA communicators in the country to stop Trump’s return.
It makes you wonder: Had the party embraced Biden’s willingness to fight back early on, perhaps they could have deployed one of the most effective anti-MAGA communicators in the country to stop Trump’s return.
To be certain, Biden’s media strategy has generated intense criticism, especially his decision to sit down with the extreme, far-right activist Nick Fuentes. The interview, filmed in a Philadelphia studio dressed up to resemble a seedy motel in a wink at the laptop scandal, quickly became a viral sensation, generating millions of views. During the interview, which reportedly nearly escalated into a physical confrontation, the two found common ground, trading skepticism about American support for Israel, with Fuentes framing his objections as political rather than religious, a distinction that will comfort no one who has watched what he actually says about Jews. When discussing their public reputations, Biden joked, “I’m a crackhead,” to which Fuentes replied, “I’m a racist,” prompting Biden to shoot back, “Mine is true!”
Biden defended the pairing on social media in terms that sound almost reasonable — until you remember who he is talking about. He argued that people who profit from keeping Americans separated have built a business model on it, and that he would sit down with anyone who sees Trump as an enemy, regardless of what else they believe. He was explicit that Fuentes’ views on race and women are indefensible, and that what Fuentes has said about the Holocaust and Nazism cannot be defended. But he argued that one issue — stopping Trump — mattered more than any daylight between him and a man who leads an online movement built substantially on racial grievance.
This is a coherent argument. It is also the argument every troll counts on succeeding, because it leads and allows audiences to conclude that platforming extremist speech and views like Fuentes’ is a savvy tactical maneuver rather than what it actually is: a laundering operation. In this particular wash cycle, Fuentes needed laundering a great deal more than Biden needed an outlet.
The instinct to give Fuentes and people like him a bigger microphone under the banner of anti-Trump unity deserves more skepticism. There is no common ground with someone whose political project is ethno-nationalist authoritarianism, and treating a two-hour conversation as evidence that the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” echoes the bad faith politics that lets extremists claim they were misunderstood or “just joking” the whole time. It’s just whitewashing bigotry for clicks.
But Hunter Biden’s choice to sit with Fuentes exposes something crucial about our current media environment. At a moment when fascism is organizing through podcasts and X feeds, he has stumbled into a role Democrats should have desperately filled: that of a loud, media-savvy fighter who doesn’t care about decorum. By owning his flaws and speaking directly to the public, Biden has stripped the right-wing outrage machine of its primary power source.
Conspiracy theories do not simply explain events, they identify villains – and Fauci has become one of the most popular in this particular story.
In the years since the pandemic, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and others have accused Fauci of many things, but the central conspiracy accusation is that Fauci helped enable the COVID-19 pandemic through U.S.-funded research at a lab in Wuhan, China, and then participated in a coordinated government-scientific cover-up, misleading Congress to conceal that connection and suppress the laboratory-leak explanation. Paul, a Republican, has repeatedly called for Fauci’s prosecution.
That investigation ultimately endorsed a central claim of the conspiracy narrative: the House GOP’s COVID-19 investigation concluded the virus most likely leaked from a Wuhan lab, that Fauci helped shape a scientific paper dismissing that theory, and that he privately testified the “six feet apart” guidance “sort of just appeared” – though these are the conclusions of a partisan committee, not an independent inquiry, and Fauci and Democratic members have disputed them.
I’m an associate professor of sociology and criminology, and my scholarship focuses on far-right networks and digital radicalization – the exact ecosystem where these conspiracy theories have taken root and spread. My research on how these movements evolve online and intersect with political activists and extremist networks was directly relevant to tracing how COVID-origin claims moved from fringe communities into mainstream political discourse.
Fauci’s decision to invoke the Fifth Amendment, which he and his lawyer explained not only as a basic constitutional right but also a strategy to avoid the possibility that Paul might try to prosecute him for lying to Congress based on anything he might say, may be politically explosive and provide his opponents with another talking point. But, in my assessment, the spectacle says more about what happens when conspiracy theories become embedded in political institutions than it does about the origins of COVID-19.
From uncertainty to conspiracy
COVID-19 created the conditions in which conspiracy theories flourish: enormous uncertainty, frightening consequences, rapidly changing information and distrust of institutions.
These questions were legitimate. Problems emerged when those questions became connected to a predetermined conclusion: Powerful people either created the pandemic or concealed the connection to the lab in Wuhan.
A 2021 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute illustrates how widespread one version of this thinking was. About 4 in 10 Americans – 39% – agreed that the coronavirus had been intentionally developed by scientists in a laboratory. Among QAnon believers – a sprawling conspiracy theory claiming that a cabal of powerful elites, often portrayed as child-trafficking Satanists, controls government and society and that Donald Trump was secretly fighting it – the figure was dramatically higher, at 85%. The same survey found that people who embraced anti-elite and anti-expert attitudes were more likely to accept coronavirus conspiracy theories.
Conspiracy thinking is rarely isolated. For example, a person who comes to believe that public health officials are secretly manipulating information may be more receptive to claims that vaccines contain hidden dangers. Someone who distrusts pharmaceutical companies may be more receptive to claims that the pandemic was engineered for profit. Someone who believes powerful elites routinely operate in secret may be more receptive to broader conspiracy narratives such as QAnon.
These beliefs can reinforce one another, creating a broader worldview in which institutions, experts and government officials are presumed to be acting deceptively.
The Fauci conspiracy
Because Fauci was highly visible during the pandemic, advising presidents and appearing on television, he quickly became associated with government efforts to control the spread of the virus.
Anti-vaccine activists incorporated him into broader narratives about pharmaceutical companies and public health agencies. Conspiracists took the story further, portraying Fauci as part of a secret effort to conceal the origins of COVID-19. Extremists connected these claims to older ideas about government tyranny, social control and corrupt elites.
The lab-leak question is not the same as a conspiracy theory
Asking whether SARS-CoV-2 emerged through either zoonotic spillover, which is when a virus jumps from animals to people, or through a laboratory-related incident is not inherently a conspiracy theory. Scientists and governments have legitimate reasons to investigate the origins of a pandemic.
The World Health Organization’s independent scientific advisory group reported in 2025 that much of the information needed to fully evaluate the competing hypotheses had not been provided by China. It concluded that the available evidence suggests spillover but maintained that the laboratory-leak hypothesis could not be ruled out.
There is, however, a distinction between investigating whether a laboratory accident might have occurred and claiming that scientists created a virus and intentionally released it. That distinction is important in returning to Fauci and the claims raised at the July 29 hearing: Were lawmakers investigating the possibility of an accidental laboratory release, or were they advancing the more conspiratorial idea that scientists deliberately created and released the virus?
European leaders scrambled Saturday to contain the political fallout from a mass migration surge into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta, where authorities say roughly 50,000 people crossed from Morocco in an unprecedented two-day rush that left at least 67 people dead.
Spanish officials said crossings largely stopped overnight after Morocco increased enforcement and thousands of migrants voluntarily returned. Spain also began installing a 500-meter floating barrier off Ceuta’s coastline while deploying additional police and military personnel to prevent further crossings.
The humanitarian crisis has quickly become a political one. Italy temporarily reinstated border controls with Spain for one month, while 22 European Union member states called for an emergency discussion on strengthening the bloc’s external borders. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez criticized calls to isolate Spain, arguing the country’s border controls remain intact and warning against measures that could undermine European unity.
Ceuta, along with the nearby Spanish enclave of Melilla, forms the European Union’s only land border with Africa, making it a longstanding flashpoint in debates over migration. While Spain has introduced a pathway to legal residency for some undocumented immigrants already living in the country, officials rejected claims that the policy triggered the latest crossings, instead blaming migrant-smuggling networks and misinformation circulating on social media.
Reuters reported that many migrants who reached Ceuta have already returned to Morocco after encountering overcrowding, food shortages and little prospect of continuing onward into mainland Europe. Spanish officials said migrants who enter Ceuta cannot freely travel into the rest of Spain because identity checks remain in place before any ferry or air travel to the mainland.
President Donald Trump seized on the crisis Saturday, posting on Truth Social that the scenes in Spain resembled what he claimed occurred under former President Joe Biden and warning that the United States would face an even larger “invasion” if Democrats return to power. Similar claims have circulated widely online, though Spanish officials dispute comparisons to U.S. immigration policy and say the circumstances surrounding the Ceuta crossings are unique to the enclave’s geography and legal status.
Six months after the publicly released two previously withheld ransom notes while the family renewed its plea for anyone with information to come forward.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department released the handwritten notes Friday, saying investigators believe the author’s distinctive language, grammar and phrasing could be recognized by someone who knows the writer. Authorities said making the documents public is an investigative strategy aimed at generating fresh leads as the high-profile kidnapping case reaches the six-month mark.
— Pima County Sheriff’s Department (@PimaSheriff) July 31, 2026
Nancy Guthrie, 84, disappeared from her Arizona home on Feb. 1. According to investigators, the first note, received the following day, demanded $4 million in cryptocurrency in exchange for her safe return. A second note, sent several days later, claimed she died shortly after the abduction and had been “buried in nature.”
Authorities stressed they have not confirmed that claim and continue to investigate the case as an active kidnapping. Detectives said DNA evidence, surveillance footage and other forensic material remain under review, and more than $1 million in reward money is still being offered for information leading to a breakthrough. Investigators hope someone will recognize the writing style or other details contained in the notes and contact law enforcement.
Marking six months since her mother’s disappearance, Savannah Guthrie shared an emotional public appeal, calling the anniversary “an agony beyond words” and urging anyone with information to help investigators. She thanked supporters who have continued searching for answers while asking the public to closely examine the newly released notes.
The sheriff’s office asked anyone with information about Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance or the ransom notes to contact investigators, saying even seemingly minor details could prove significant as the search continues.
It shelves a photograph you paused over, a dish you ate three summers ago, a flavor combination you praised enthusiastically in public and then apparently continued discussing with yourself in private. Later, it sends an idea forward as though it has arrived whole.
A friend had recently posted photographs from Barcelona, including several enviable angles of pan con tomate. In one, it sat on a tiny plate beside a chilled vermouth cocktail garnished with a pearl onion on a spear. In another, it occupied an outdoor café table next to an exceptionally good pair of cat-eye sunglasses. I wanted the toast, the cocktail, the sunglasses and, presumably, whatever version of myself knew how to arrange all three so casually.
I had also recently waxed poetic about compound butter during a live discussion on summer entertaining. And after several weeks of 90-degree days, I had become devoted to grating tomatoes, an activity especially suited to weather in which chewing can seem like an unreasonable demand.
The name arrived before the instructions did. I knew it would involve sourdough. I knew the bread would be toasted in the oven, where its entire surface could become evenly crisp rather than merely acquire a few handsome skillet stripes. I knew I wanted unsalted butter and mild white miso. And I knew the finished thing would require some crunch.
It had, in other words, the certainty of a craving and the vagueness of a dream.
Toast is forgiving of this kind of thinking. It is the food of pantry rummagers and refrigerator foragers, and it exists on a curious emotional spectrum. One person says, with defeat, “All I managed today was beans on toast.” Another announces, with delight, “I made these incredible marinated white beans and put them on toast.” I am firmly in the latter camp. Toast is what happens when three unrelated things in the refrigerator agree to become lunch.
This particular toast only looked improvised. Beneath its casual, slightly rumpled appearance was a specific bit of flavor logic: salt, fat, sweetness, acidity, glutamates upon glutamates.
There is a quiet kitchen principle I return to often: What wants to hold hands?
Spend enough time cooking — or leafing through cookbooks in bed — and you notice certain ingredients keep reaching for one another. Tomato already knows butter from ghee-rich curries, grilled cheese dipped in tomato soup and Marcella Hazan’s famously spare sauce. Miso and butter are just as comfortable together, whether in mashed potatoes or chocolate-chip cookies. The combination needed little persuasion. I only had to decide what shape it would take.
I considered whipping the miso into cold butter, making a compound butter to scrape over oven-hot sourdough before adding tomato slices and crystalline hunks of salt. But I wanted the miso butter to seep into the bread, not merely sit on top of it. I considered basting the tomatoes in butter and stewing them down with miso until soft and glossy. That version sounds wonderful, but it belongs to the first day the temperature slips below 70 degrees.
This was summer. The tomato needed to remain itself.
I melted the butter and miso together until fragrant and faintly nutty, then brushed it over sourdough and baked the slices until deeply golden. I grated a ripe tomato into a bowl, an operation I find disproportionately satisfying. When the skin has collapsed into your palm like a deflated balloon, you lift the box grater and discover an almost implausible amount of ruby pulp underneath it. Apparently, when it comes to shreds and zest, I possess the object permanence of a baby. Every time, the reveal delights me.
I seasoned the tomato with salt and a little garlic powder, which supplied savory warmth without the acridity fresh garlic can bring. I spooned it over the hot toast and finished it with scallions, sesame seeds, black pepper and olive oil.
I had my notebook open beside me, ready to catalogue the toast’s faults. Recipe development has trained me to distrust a dish that works on the first try; it is like meeting someone wonderful on a first date and spending the evening scanning for red flags. I have to be missing something, right?
Perhaps it needed acid. White balsamic, maybe, or a splash of the regular kind. Then I tasted it.
I took another bite before picking up my pen.
“This is a good toast,” I wrote.
Another bite.
“I’m glad I didn’t add vinegar.”
Miso-Butter Tomato Toast
Yields
2 servings
Prep Time
10 minutes
Cook Time
15 minutes
Ingredients
1 medium ripe tomato
¼ teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for finishing
⅛ teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 ½ teaspoons white miso
2 thick slices sourdough bread
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more as desired
2 teaspoons thinly sliced scallions
½ teaspoon sesame seeds
Freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a small sheet pan with parchment paper.
Cut the tomato in half. Holding one half by its skin, grate the cut side against the large holes of a box grater set over a bowl. Continue until only the flattened skin remains; discard the skin and repeat with the remaining half. Season the tomato pulp with the salt and garlic powder, then set aside.
In a small skillet or saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the miso and stir until smooth. Continue cooking for 30 seconds to 1 minute, until the mixture smells nutty and begins to deepen slightly in color. Remove from the heat before the miso darkens too much.
Brush the miso butter generously over both sides of the sourdough. Arrange the bread on the prepared pan and bake until golden and crisp, 12 to 15 minutes, flipping halfway through.
Transfer the toast to a plate. Spoon the grated tomato over the top, leaving behind any excess liquid if the tomato is especially juicy. Drizzle with the olive oil and finish with the scallions, sesame seeds, black pepper and another small pinch of salt. Serve immediately.
The Justice Department filed a motion Friday asking a federal judge to dismiss the felony case, acknowledging that peeling and deterioration at the recently renovated pool stemmed from “flawed installation by the contractor” and not from Hearn’s actions. The reversal follows the discovery of Interior Department records showing the project had experienced significant installation problems before Hearn was accused of damaging the site.
Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist, was charged last month after surveillance footage showed him stopping at the Reflecting Pool and touching sections of the blue liner that had begun peeling away. Prosecutors initially alleged he intentionally damaged the newly renovated surface, a felony offense carrying a potential prison sentence.
According to court filings, however, federal prosecutors later learned that contractor records documented widespread failures in the installation process. The Justice Department also said key information about the renovation problems was not provided before the indictment was returned.
The Reflecting Pool renovation became a high-profile project after the Trump administration ordered a makeover ahead of the America 250 celebrations. Soon after reopening, however, visitors documented algae blooms, bubbling surfaces and peeling liner, prompting questions about the quality of the work.
Hearn has maintained that he merely touched material that was already separating from the surface and did not cause any damage. His attorneys have called on the government to apologize, arguing he was wrongfully prosecuted based on incomplete information.
Hours after the charges were dropped, Trump disputed the Justice Department’s conclusion in a Truth Social post, writing that “vandals” were responsible for the damage and criticizing prosecutors for abandoning the case. Federal prosecutors, however, cited newly obtained Interior Department records and additional evidence in concluding the damage was caused by problems with the Reflecting Pool’s installation rather than Hearn’s actions.
The trouble with Diarra Brickland is she can’t let things go.
“Diarra From Detroit” presents this as the schoolteacher-turned-detective’s greatest asset and her biggest flaw. If it weren’t for her stubborn insistence on finding out why a great guy, Chris (Shannon Wallace), ghosted her after an incredible first date, she might be happier. Then again, nobody would have noticed that Chris had been kidnapped.
But Diarra’s tendency to fixate on small details and slights eventually cracked the case. They also brought to light a broader conspiracy, starting with the twist that this wasn’t Chris’ first kidnapping.
As Season 2 begins, Chris and Diarra have settled into coupledom, which is precisely what Diarra thought she wanted, but nothing like she pictured it would be. Chris is a mess. Diarra would love to dump him, but her nearest and dearest friends Aja (DomiNque Perry) and Tea (Bryan Terrell Clark) warn her that would damage her reputation. The single bright spot and mixed blessing to come out of all this is that her neighbors see Diarra as the go-to person for fixing lost causes and finding lost people. Hence her latest caper, which begins with a mission to track down a vintage desk and turns on a dime into a heist tied to a cache of gold.
But wait, as our hard-boiled citizen investigator is fond of saying. I should go back. You see, these latest episodes of “Diarra From Detroit,” created by its star, Diarra Kilpatrick, have been cooking for more than two years. Three, if you count the series’ debut at the 2023 Tribeca Festival before its 2024 premiere on BET+. From there, it sat in limbo until Paramount renewed it in 2025.
But limbo is better than canceled, which is more likely to happen if the proposed merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery goes through.
Like Diarra and Chris’ relationship status, the case of Paramount’s proposed marriage to Warner Bros. is complicated. Hollywood all but accepted that the merger was a done deal until mid-July, when a dozen state attorneys general and along with the Writers Guild of America West and Eastfiled a lawsuit to stop the merger and California U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín issued a restraining order to temporarily halt the proceedings. (Salon’s unionized employees are represented by the WGA East.)
On July 24, Paramount’s legal team agreed to postpone the merger pending the outcome of the states’ antitrust case. That could potentially delay the transaction for more than a year, since the opposing sides can’t agree on when they want the trial to begin. The states would prefer a 2027 start while Paramount wants to kick it off this fall. If the AGs win, Paramount’s inevitable appeal could keep the $110 billion deal backburnered well into late 2027.
The states argue that this merger would leave consumers paying more for less diverse news and entertainment options if finalized.
The continued existence of shows like “Diarra From Detroit” — shows by female, non-white creators about a place and people rarely depicted in the fullness of their humanity on television — is a miracle under normal circumstances.
What this means is that as tough as it already was for a TV series created by a Black woman to be picked up by a major platform, it could be nearly impossible in a universe in which Paramount has swallowed HBO, CNN and other prime Warner Bros. channels. Even in a scenario where BET+ still existed — it officially shut down on July 22 — making original stories like “Diarra” requires resources and a level of corporate will that a megacorporation’s smaller brands don’t tend to be afforded. In a contracted media landscape with fewer places to pitch, its odds of landing in front of audiences on a major platform decline even further. And they weren’t all that high to begin with.
Meanwhile, Paramount is urging us to pay no attention to the Ellisonsbehind the curtain. “This merger is lawful, pro-competitive, and will benefit consumers, creators, workers, and the entertainment industry,” a Paramount spokesperson said in a statement.
“All four categories of diversity—ownership, representation, viewpoint, and outlet—are threatened by this merger, reducing the forms of diversity the public depends upon in cinemas, over the airwaves, and across online platforms,” they warn in a recently published paper. Previous findings by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative back this conclusion.
Among those paying attention to The Mystery of the Media Merger, the survival of TV’s Diarra Bricklands is not the top concern. All eyes are on CNN, as Sharon Waxman, the founder and editor-in-chief of The Wrap, explained in a recent New York Times column.
If what’s happening to CBS News under editor-in-chief Bari Weiss is a sign of things to come, that’s another assault on our already besieged democracy. A greater one, even, since CNN is a global news brand.
Consider that only days ago, “60 Minutes” announced that former New York Times Opinion columnist Ross Douthat is joining its ranks. Douthat, if you’ve forgotten, is the guy who proposed in a 2018 column that the solution to placating incel violence may be between the legs of hypothetical charitable women who feel sorry for them. Or sexbots.
Corporate media traded insightful journalism for ragebait like this years ago, which is what makes figures like Diarra Brickland and her creator ever more valuable. They’re Black women excelling in roles not often associated with (or awarded to) people of color.
And to specifically bring it back to Douthat’s dubious query, Diarra — either of them — is precisely the kind of woman who puts the lie to fantasies about female submissiveness. Season 2 starts with her realizing she’s probably better off free of her mystery prize.
But for now, Chris and Diarra are in counseling. Part of their unofficial relationship homework involves field missions that spark heated conversations about masculine insecurity and Diarra’s conflicted desires about motherhood.
One topic she’s absolutely clear about, however, is being in control of every aspect of her life — including but not limited to Chris’ access to the part of her body she describes as “the Cadillac of the human anatomy: Gorgeous interior, impeccable design, not to mention the portal for all of humanity.”
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Writing like this ensures that “Diarra From Detroit” remains nimble from start to finish of each episode. That alone isn’t why this show and others like it need to be championed and protected. Television history is littered with the bodies of terrific shows denied more than a few seasons, or even a full order of one.
Citizen detectives like Diarra Brickland, who arranges her messy life around ensuring that the people and prizes typically overlooked or quietly erased by the mainstream keep being seen, are even less common. The continued existence of shows like “Diarra From Detroit” — shows by female, non-white creators about a place and people rarely depicted in the fullness of their humanity on television — is a miracle under normal circumstances. With that in mind, both the show and the merger are cases worth tracking right now and in the months to come, as if the quality of our lives depends on it.
New episodes of “Diarra From Detroit” stream Wednesdays through Sept. 9 on Paramount +.
Six years ago, Match.com released an ad in which the devil met his true love: 2020. The couple spent their courtship sharing fun Covid-era activities, like stealing toilet paper, enjoying empty cinemas and stadiums, and taking selfies in front of dumpster fires, all to the tune of Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.” In a memorable tagline, Satan said, “I just don’t want this year to end.” Released in December, only weeks after the presidential election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, it reflected the national mood perfectly: horror at what we’d all been through, and vast relief that it was almost over.
Sadly, it seems we are destined to live in that damned year until the end of our days.
The year ended on a high note. Biden was elected president, the new Covid-19 vaccines were about to become available and we felt we could look forward to a day in the not-so-distant future when going to the grocery store didn’t come with a potential death sentence. Many people were back at work in one way or another, and the government had managed to get the American people through the crisis without suffering economic ruin. But it soon became clear Trump was unable to admit he had lost his reelection bid, and by January he and his army of surrogates and influencers had worked his MAGA followers into such a frenzy that they stormed the Capitol to stop certification of the election results.
At the same time, the MAGA faithful at home, which had, with the president’s help, pushed snake oil cures and conspiracy theories about the virus for months, were unwilling to move on from their various obsessions. They were set to turn the anti-vaccine movement into a juggernaut that would be ready to take on the entire American public health system and challenge medical science in general. The “do-your-own-research” crowd had felt their power, and they liked it.
Still, most of the country eventually moved on. Things had changed in some ways. Working from home is now a regular feature of the work world, Zoom calls are an everyday thing, and digital learning and telehealth have become mainstream.
Imagine my surprise, then, to awaken on Wednesday to a Senate hearing featuring Dr. Anthony Fauci in which he was being asked about hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin. I had to check to make sure I wasn’t accidentally watching a documentary about the pandemic. But no: Rand Paul, Kentucky’s GOP senator had decided to scrape off the scab yet again by calling Fauci to face a grilling by Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Fauci looked the same. Paul looked the same. The daft conspiracy theories sounded the same. It was as if the last six years never happened. Déjà vu all over again.
Before leaving office, Biden preemptively pardoned Fauci — and for good reason. The doctor had become the whipping boy of the MAGA right, commonly accused of personally creating Covid-19 (in cahoots with Chinese communists, naturally) and then making a vaccine that they insist killed more people than the virus. It’s all nonsense, of course. There are still debates about the origins of the virus, but the idea that Fauci created or enabled it in some way is ridiculous. The hearing, ostensibly called to get to the bottom of all this, is actually just the latest step in Rand Paul’s petty vendetta against Fauci that began when they sparred in a series of confrontations during the crisis.
Despite being a doctor, Paul has always had, shall we say, an eccentric view of medical science, and he could never get the better of Fauci in their meetings. But the senator wanted the last word, and he got it.
Despite being a doctor, Paul has always had, shall we say, an eccentric view of medical science, and he could never get the better of Fauci in their meetings. But the senator wanted the last word, and he got it. Ignoring Biden’s pardon, Paul threatened Fauci with perjury if he “lied” during this latest hearing, a charge he claimed would not be covered by the pardon. In fact, the whole hearing was obviously a perjury trap.
Paul had released Fauci’s 1,000-page private pandemic diaries — helpfully provided to him by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — which had been stored on government servers. The senator knew there would likely be inconsistencies between Fauci’s memory and what he wrote at the time. Fauci’s attorney wisely told him to assert his Fifth Amendment rights, which he did. Paul threw that attorney out of the hearing for attempting to explain why.
The senator’s Republican colleagues piled on in their questioning of Fauci. Ohio’s Bernie Moreno was especially grotesque, bellowing “Who the f**k do you think you were?” at the 85-year-old scientist. Even Trump was less harsh in his commentary about the hearing, merely saying that he stopped listening to Fauci after a while.
But the hearing wasn’t the only recent time warp. Trump has spent the last six years attempting to rewrite the 2020 election, and apparently it’s not enough that he made one of the greatest political comebacks in history. He needs to erase the fact that he ever lost in the first place, so he has deployed the intelligence community to find proof that he didn’t. and decided to give a primetime presidential address on July 16 to reveal the findings.
To no one’s surprise, it was a dud. The information he presented was mostly old news, and he failed to provide any proof that domestic or foreign actors had any impact on the election that year — because they didn’t. Even his MAGA media ecosystem was left unimpressed.
But Trump remains undaunted. He’s been willing to completely blow up the legislative session going into November’s midterms unless he gets his way with the SAVE America Act, legislation designed to suppress the vote, which Senate Republicans have so far refused to pass. (It will suppress their own voters too.)
For Trump and Republicans, the worst year in living memory will never end, and it’s easy to see why. Like the devil in that famous ad, it’s their idea of a good time.
In a private ceremony on Sept. 17, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stood at a podium inside the National Archives building in Washington, D.C., and praised a Florida nonprofit for what he called a singular achievement in American education. The attendees were celebrating the Foundation for Liberty and American Greatness, which announced that it had reached 2 million children with civics education since its founding in 2016.
“I hope you understand how important this is,” Hegseth told the room. “What we pour into the next generation will determine whether we keep our republic or not.”
FLAG’s founder, Nick Adams, had spent nearly a decade building toward this moment. An Australian-born conservative commentator and MAGA influencer, Adams had created the nonprofit, raised $7.7 million for it over 10 years, and garnered repeated praise from President Donald Trump. In March, Trump appointed Adams as the special presidential envoy for American tourism, exceptionalism and values — a position created for him after his nomination as ambassador to Malaysia stalled the previous year.
But a review of FLAG’s finances, donor operations and online donation network reveals a less celebratory picture. There is little evidence that the nonprofit has provided the civics education it claims. And Adams and his nonprofit have engaged in a pattern of questionable financial arrangements, including paying Adams and his mother more than half its recent annual revenue, while raising much of its money through a sweepstakes operation that has promised donors a chance to win $1,000,000 — a prize FLAG’s records show no evidence of ever paying.
Adams moved to the United States from Australia in 2012 and has since become an outspoken champion of the American political and economic system. Now 41, he has built a following as a conservative commentator and self-described “alpha male” influencer, making frequent media appearances and amassing roughly 2.1 million followers on Facebook and 640,000 followers on X on his personal pages. Adams authored books including “Retaking America: Crushing Political Correctness” and “Trump and Churchill: Defenders of Western Civilization.”
In 2016, Adams founded FLAG, registering it as a nonprofit with the mission to bring high-quality civics education to K-12 students across America. FLAG has produced civics materials like the Student’s Constitution, the Student’s Declaration of Independence and the Student’s Federalist Papers — kid-friendly editions of the country’s founding documents. By 2023, FLAG was reporting annual revenue of nearly $1.5 million, consisting of donations and merchandise sales. “Thanks to the support of 40,000+ grassroots patriots,” the organization’s website states, “over 1 million FLAG resources have been distributed in classrooms all across America.”
To give FLAG credibility in conservative circles, Adams assembled an advisory council of movement leaders including Hegseth, then a Fox News host; the late Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA; the late Edwin J. Feulner, founder of the Heritage Foundation; and Dennis Prager, the conservative radio host and co-founder of PragerU, a nonprofit that produces conservative educational materials. (The council has since been replaced with a board of directors.)
Adams did not respond to a detailed list of questions about FLAG’s financial practices, sweepstakes operation and educational programming. A Pentagon spokesperson declined to respond to questions but reiterated Hegseth’s support for FLAG.
Civics education has become a rallying cause across the Make America Great Again movement, whose slogan invokes a return to a specific vision of the country’s founding principles. PragerU is an approved curriculum provider in at least eight states. Turning Point USA pursued a similar goal through Turning Point Academy, a network of private schools. Along with those organizations, FLAG is now part of the America 250 Civics Education Coalition, a partnership of the U.S. Department of Education formed with over 40 conservative groups.
Trump’s return to office has been a boon for Adams. The president has called Adams one of his favorite authors, and a foreword in Adams’ 2024 book, “Alpha Kings,” credited to Trump calls Adams someone whose “work ethic equals his moral responsibility and faith in God.” Although Trump wasn’t able to attend FLAG’s 2023 annual gala, he sent a video praising the nonprofit and Adams, telling attendees that “tens of thousands of teachers are being trained and hundreds of thousands of parents and grandparents are now standing up for our kids.”
“It takes Nick from Australia to come and teach us about American greatness and to help us fight for our country,” Trump added. “He’s an American now, and we’re very lucky to have him.”
The White House press office declined to comment.
FLAG’s website invites teachers to request free classroom presentations, delivered by “certified FLAG Ambassadors,” including Adams himself, alongside guest speakers described as entrepreneurs, business leaders and immigrants. In 2016 and early 2017, FLAG regularly posted photos documenting visits to schools. After that period, however, ProPublica could not find similar documentation of FLAG representatives visiting schools.
Since 2016, as FLAG’s annual revenues grew from $68,000 to $1.1 million in 2024, there is almost no indication in the organization’s annual federal tax filings that it was spending money on its stated mission. No line item in FLAG’s federal tax filing identifies a payment to a school, a teacher or an educational distributor. Only two lines, in a 2017 federal filing, indicate $26,925 for “Student’s Constitutions, Printing” and $5,670 for “Book Donations, Shipping & Supplies.” In the last six years, while FLAG operated under Adams, the only documented instance of FLAG activity that appears to fit the definition of “educational” is a 2020 video showing Adams speaking at what is described as a teachers’ conference.
But the nonprofit has been lucrative for the Adams family. In 2024, Adams, who was born Nicholas Adamopoulos, and his mother, Angelika Adamopoulos, collected a combined $587,279 in compensation and benefits from FLAG — 53% of the organization’s revenue that year, according to the nonprofit’s federal filing.
Adamopoulos was paid $201,861, including benefits, as FLAG’s secretary. In the same filing, FLAG answered no when asked by the IRS whether any officer or director shared a family relationship with another director or officer. Adamopoulos did not respond to requests for comment.
Experts were troubled that the organization spent so much on Adams and his mother. “The amount being paid, both in absolute dollar terms and as a percentage of the organization’s revenues and expenses, is very high,” said Lloyd Mayer, a nonprofit law professor at Notre Dame Law School and a leading authority on tax-exempt organizations.
Mayer said Adams’ salary increases since FLAG’s founding are more of “a yellow flag,” than a clear violation. For FLAG’s first three years, Adams received no salary. He first took compensation in 2019 of just $20,400. Then his annual pay rose steadily to reach $411,209, or about 30% of the group’s total revenue, in 2023. Adamopoulos was the first employee outside of Adams to be paid a significant salary, in 2024. No other employee was paid more than $5,000 from 2016 to 2024, according to FLAG’s federal filings, obtained through ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer.
The legal test, Mayer said, is whether the board was clear that it was making up for early years of low or no pay: “Were they explicit in saying, ‘We’re not just paying you for this year; we’re paying you for your past service, which you were not fairly compensated for’?”
The IRS asks nonprofits whether their executive compensation was reviewed by independent people and if they used comparisons to other similar organizations — a standard safeguard against self-dealing. In all filings from 2017 to 2024, FLAG answered no to both questions.
Philip Hackney, a nonprofit law professor at the University of Pittsburgh and former IRS official, said the absence of an independent review creates its own legal exposure. “Technically, that can be an excess benefit transaction on its own,” Hackney said, referring to the IRS category that triggers taxes on compensation paid to nonprofit insiders above fair market value.
FLAG claims that 66% of revenue goes toward program service expenses, according to a separate financial report filed with the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in Florida, where the organization is now based. But the salaries of Adams and his mother, social media spending and travel expenses account for $755,541, or 86%, of the $878,208 allocated to program services.
Mayer said the classification is not automatically improper under federal law. “Education as a charitable purpose is a very broad category,” he said. “Spending money on staff, online communications and even fundraising appeals that have informational content can all be considered programmatic.”
“What [the IRS is] looking for is not inflated spending,” Mayer said. “They’re looking for disguised personal spending.”
In Australia, Adams was accused of spending taxpayer dollars on personal expenses. In 2006, when Adams was 22 years old, he served as a councillor in Ashfield, Australia. He was formally condemned by fellow councillors for running up thousands of dollars in phone calls and taxi charges for personal use while claiming them as council expenses. He repaid the charges after a formal investigation, according to a 2006 article in the Inner-West Weekly, an Australian newspaper.
FLAG’s online store sells Adams’ personal books — including “Alpha Kings” and “From Mar-a-Lago to Mars,” several marketed as signed copies for as much as $40 — alongside its own educational materials. One of Adams’ personal books, “Trump and Churchill,” is on the front page of FLAG’s online store, accompanied with language that says, “Proceeds from all sales go directly to promoting our mission and providing students and teachers with high-quality educational resources.” It is the only book with language that distinguishes which purchases fund FLAG’s mission or pay Adams directly.
In September, FLAG posted a photo from a conservative women’s convention showing Adams standing behind a table stacked with copies of his personal books displayed alongside FLAG-branded resources with the organization’s banner behind him. Adams’ books have also been advertised for sale on FLAG’s Facebook page, with links going directly to Adams’ personal website for the books rather than FLAG’s shopify page.
“He’s free to market his books,” Mayer said, “but if he has a charity do it, that means it’s not really a charity anymore, in that respect. It’s not about public benefit — the private benefit to him overrides the public benefit.”
In addition to the disclosure discrepancies, FLAG appears to have violated rules for conducting sweepstakes. Nearly all of FLAG’s revenue originates from individual donors, and most of that money is raised through a direct-mail sweepstakes operation that offers the chance to win prizes, in one case $1,000,000.
For years, FLAG has run a direct-mail sweepstakes campaign under names like “Payout Decision” and “Winner Search Swps.” Sweepstakes are regulated primarily at the state level, and organizations that run them are often required to register and report to state officials. Not every state requires this, but Florida, where FLAG is registered as a charity, does. FLAG does not disclose a sweepstakes program in its federal filings, and ProPublica could not locate any official sweepstakes registration for the organization in any state.
Nine years of FLAG’s federal filings contain no transaction consistent with a $1,000,000 payment. Hackney said any such payout would be expected to appear on the organization’s tax filings. “It should be an amount paid out at some point, and that would show up in a 990,” he said, referencing the name of the tax return filed by nonprofits, which is public. At its financial peak in 2023, FLAG held roughly $512,000 in total assets — about half the value of the prize it has offered to donors.
Mayer said the absence of a documented prize payment raises further legal questions. “If the promise is that someone will win $1,000,000 and no one ever does, that’s fraud,” he said. “That’s lying to induce people to support you.”
Internal records from a mailing list exchange database, which details how often and for what purpose organizations use mailing lists of potential donors, shows a shift in FLAG’s emphasis. Notes in FLAG’s record state that as of July 2020, FLAG was “not mailing much” through conventional fundraising channels and was “focusing on the sweeps side.”
In April 2024, someone filed a Better Business Bureau complaint against FLAG, alleging that its sweepstakes drawing deadlines had been repeatedly postponed — along with those of more than a dozen other charities the complainant said used the same practice. In a follow-up filing, the complainant cited FLAG’s timeline: a drawing originally set to run from January 2022 through December 2024 that had, by then, been pushed to run from December 2023 through January 2025.
“I just want them to pay me back my hard earned money,” the complainant wrote, “since I am a retired senior citizen who happened to love this country.”
FLAG told the BBB on May 6, 2024, that it had responded to the complainant.
FLAG marks its 10th anniversary on Wednesday, and is throwing itself a gala with tickets for the occasion priced at $1,000; $5,000; and $10,000. Adams is still listed on the website as FLAG’s founder but ceded the role of CEO in March to Cooper Rodenburg, a recent graduate of Stetson University, around the time he accepted his State Department role to promote tourism to the United States.
Reached by phone, Rodenburg requested that questions be sent by email but did not respond to them.
Rodenburg has since increased FLAG’s public activity, launching a TikTok account and a Substack newsletter, meeting with educational representatives and speaking to groups like the Shelby County Republican Women’s Club in Tennessee. A Substack post in April described FLAG, represented by Rodenburg and Adamopoulos, delivering founding documents to schools in Mississippi. This was one of the only specific program activities the organization has documented in recent years.
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