Rising Conflict in DRC, Sudan, Other African Countries Linked to Trump’s Gutting of USAID: Study
The decades-old U.S. humanitarian aid agency USAID was largely dismantled in the early days of President Trump’s second term by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. The authors of a new study in the journal Science conclude, “The abrupt withdrawal of USAID led to a significant and sustained increase in conflict across Africa’s most USAID-dependent regions.”
We are joined by Austin Wright, one of the study’s authors and a professor of public policy at the University of Chicago. “What we found is that that shutdown had these large effects,” says Wright. “These are often double-digit percentage increases in the incidence, severity and lethality of violence across Africa in the affected regions.”
‘Empty and vapid’ CDC finally responds to hantavirus outbreak. But experts say it’s too little, too late
World Health Organization – which the US left under Trump – has been leading the response to the cruise ship outbreak
“Muskism”: Author Quinn Slobodian on How Apartheid South Africa Inspired Elon Musk’s Worldview & More
In the new book, Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, authors Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff look at the worldview that shaped Elon Musk and the ideology that has coalesced around him. They call Muskism “an operating system for the 21st century.”
Musk runs rocket company SpaceX, AI startup xAI, electric car maker Tesla and the social media platform X, formerly Twitter. Musk’s political influence extends from his use of X to advance controversial ideas, to his political donations, to the role he played leading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. “He’s not just building a rocket company or a satellite company — but what we see is a vertically integrated ideological stack where he can kind of build an echo chamber from low Earth orbit all the way back to Earth and create a kind of closed loop for the ideology that he wants to push out,” says Slobodian, professor of international history at Boston University.
“Colossus Failure”: Elon Musk’s Data Centers Face Lawsuit for Polluting Black Neighborhoods in Memphis
As tech companies scramble to build massive new data centers to power artificial intelligence, marginalized communities are bearing the brunt of the environmental harms. In Memphis, Tennessee, Elon Musk’s xAI operates over two dozen methane gas-burning turbines without legal permits to power its data centers, Colossus 1 and Colossus 2, polluting the nation’s largest majority-Black city with toxic emissions. The NAACP is suing xAI for violating the Clean Air Act. “We are, unfortunately, a cautionary tale about what will and possibly can happen if you don’t have the right rules and guardrails in place,” says KeShaun Pearson, the executive director of Memphis Community Against Pollution. Pearson says pollution from xAI’s energy generation is already “at a level even higher than our Memphis International Airport.” Meanwhile, the company has created far fewer jobs than it initially promised. “This has been terrible for our region, and it’s terrible for our future, because our community is going to continue to suffer. Our children have the highest rate of ER visits for respiratory illnesses and issues in the state of Tennessee, and it’s only going to continue to get worse.”
CFPB Staffer Alexis Goldstein Fired for Confronting DOGE Members, Announces Run for Congress
The Trump administration has fired Consumer Financial Protection Bureau program manager Alexis Goldstein for documenting a meeting a year ago between the agency and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. “I have been on admin leave ever since, until I was fired last week,” says Goldstein, who says the Trump administration’s gutting of the CFPB removed key oversight of the financial industry. “So, essentially, no one is watching the biggest banks.”
Goldstein is now running to represent Maryland’s 6th Congressional District.
‘A different set of rules’: thermal drone footage shows Musk’s AI power plant flouting clean air regulations
Images confirm xAI is continuing to defy EPA regulations in Mississippi to power its flagship datacenters
Elon Musk Under Fire for Epstein Links, Grok’s Sexualized AI Deepfakes & SpaceX-xAI Merger
French prosecutors have asked Elon Musk to appear for questioning following a police raid on the offices of the social media network X in Paris. The French probe comes on the heels of a U.K. investigation into Musk’s AI tool Grok over its “potential to produce harmful sexualized image and video content.” Last month, the European Union also launched an investigation into sexual deepfakes created by Grok. “It’s a part of a kind of a pushback that we’re seeing now against Musk that’s probably more forceful than anything we’ve seen to date,” says Quinn Slobodian, professor of international history at Boston University and author of the upcoming book Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed.
So, DOGE, What Would You Say You Did Here?
An exit interview
The People Who Will Determine Whether Musk Becomes a Trillionaire
This week’s Tesla shareholder vote could give the world’s richest man more money and more control.
We regret to inform you that the Tesla Cybertruck has yet another design flaw
Is there any part of this car that isn't falling apart?
Killer Rabbit 90