Morning Announcements

Today's Headlines: Iran may have hacked over 30 Minnesota water systems, with the FBI investigating amid existing warnings that Iranian hackers have been specifically targeting water and wastewater infrastructure. Speaking of hacking, Anthropic's AI models hacked into three companies during tests, topping OpenAI's model which only hacked one, which is either a quality gap or a concerning arms race depending on how you look at it. On this administration’s shenanigans, Trump is threatening to pull Todd Blanche's attorney general nomination after Cornyn and Tillis refused to vote for him, though his plan appears to be waiting until their terms end and his preferred replacements take their seats — and a new court filing in the Comey case reveals that Trump's Secret Service tracked Comey's cellphone without a warrant in real time, coordinating directly with the DOJ and updating Air Force One, including while Comey stopped to visit his deceased son's grave, with one Secret Service agent noting internally that pinging the phone was "legally a bad idea." On the war beat, Trump announced a deal for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw from Gaza, with neither Hamas nor Israel confirming any of it and no official timeline provided. The US continues heavy strikes on Iran while Saudi Arabia announced 14 countries have agreed to form a Maritime Defense Alliance to protect international shipping. Finally, two new studies confirmed that Europe's catastrophic wildfires were made significantly worse by human-caused climate change, with Spain's fire conditions made 20 times more likely and France's doubled, and scientists noting that no amount of money for fire prevention helps when climate conditions are this extreme — cool, cool.

Resources/Articles mentioned:

AP News: Cyberattacks on Minnesota water systems investigated as officials warn about Iranian hackers

WSJ: Anthropic AI Models Hacked Three Companies During Tests

WSJ: Trump Threatens to Pull Blanche Pick in Clash With ‘Wounded Bear’ Senators

MS Now: Secret Service felt pressure from administration to surveil James Comey, new documents reveal

AP News: Trump announces a deal for Hamas to disarm in Gaza, but many hurdles and uncertainty remain

CNN: Saudi Arabia says 14 countries backing maritime alliance to protect shipping routes

AP News: Human-caused climate change made Spanish, French fires much more likely, scientists calculate

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Today's Headlines: Congress was quite busy. Rand Paul turned the Senate into a personal vendetta circus, dragging Anthony Fauci in for a hearing where he pleaded the Fifth almost 100 times — because the entire point was to find something to criminally prosecute him for despite Biden's preemptive pardon — and Paul is now threatening to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress for asserting his constitutional right. Todd Blanche's attorney general confirmation vote was cancelled because Thom Tillis and John Cornyn want the bare minimum assurance that he won't create Trump's insurrectionist slush fund or give Trump permanent IRS immunity — things Blanche won't promise — though both senators still ultimately want to vote for him, so there really is no point to this. Jay Clayton, who has zero intelligence or national security experience, was confirmed as Director of National Intelligence anyway, because experience is optional now. On the war beat, Iran launched a ballistic missile strike on a US base in Jordan, Trump told Fox News the US would "beat the fucking shit out of them," the US and Saudi Arabia jointly struck Iranian-aligned militants in Iraq, and then Iranian drones set two ships on fire in an Egyptian port in what Iranian sources called a demonstration that "global shipping and energy supplies could be more deeply disrupted." Trump called it "more of the same" and said "it's our turn to hit them," he must think war works like the game Battleship. In election interference news, Elon Musk is reviving his America PAC for the midterms after spending $250 million to elect Trump in 2024, with plans for door-knocking, digital ads, and direct mail — and has reportedly been talking to Trump's team about how he can be most helpful. And finally, The Federal Reserve voted 9-3 to keep interest rates between 3.5 and 3.75%, with the three dissenting votes wanting a rate increase due to persistent inflation, which is not the news anyone wanted.

Resources/Articles mentioned:

WaPo: Rand Paul threatens to hold Fauci in contempt after he declines to answer questions

NYT: Senators Cornyn and Tillis Threaten to Block Blanche Nomination Over Trump’s IRS Deal

CNN: Trump’s new intelligence chief takes over an office in turmoil

Axios: Exclusive: Musk plans massive push for GOP in midterms

NYT: Iran War Live Updates: U.S. Begins New Wave of Attacks on Iran, Military Says

Axios:U.S. launches fresh airstrikes in Iran

AP News: Trump announces a $22.5B makeover of Dulles airport that will eliminate the 'people movers'

WSJ: Fed Holds Rates Steady but Three Officials Vote for Increase

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Morning Announcements is produced by Sami Sage and edited by Grace Hernandez-Johnson

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Today's Headlines: Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear issued Mitch McConnell an ultimatum — prove you can serve or resign — pointing out that if Mitch can chat with Scott Jennings for 20 minutes he can call into a Kentucky news station. Lindsey Graham's memorial service at the Capitol brought together an unlikely guest list including Zelensky and Netanyahu, both of whom used the funeral as an opportunity for behind-closed-doors Trump meetings — Netanyahu called it "one of the best conversations I've had with Trump, and Zelensky said it was "good" and they discussed Patriot missiles and Ukraine diplomacy. In other Trump adjacent news, FIFA president Gianni Infantino announced plans to sell a $20 billion stake in the World Cup to private investors led by Thrive Capital, owned by Jared Kushner's brother Joshua Kushner and his wife Karlie Kloss, because of course it is, with reactions from FIFA's 211 member associations being nearly universally negative. On the AI beat, AI companies are now buying rare books in bulk and destroying them to scan the pages for model training, because they've run out of internet content that isn't their own slop. Additionally, Elon Musk is suing the state of Minnesota over its ban on AI nudification, arguing that generating non-consensual sexual images of people without their knowledge is "free speech." Finally, ICE agents are going undercover at at least 15 airports nationwide to arrest foreign nationals with expired visas while traveling — including spouses of American citizens — using airline data shared through TSA, and the administration simultaneously created a new rule channeling nearly half a million asylum seekers directly into deportation proceedings without a hearing, because due process is apparently optional now.

Resources/Articles mentioned:

Axios: Speak or resign: Beshear ups demand for McConnell health status

AP News: Lindsey Graham eulogized as an 'American original' with global reach

CNBC:Netanyahu, Zelenskyy come to DC for Graham's funeral, meetings with Trump amid wars

WSJ: FIFA Explores Stake Sale in New $20 Billion Entity

Futurism: AI Companies Are Buying Antique Books, Ingesting Their Contents to Train Models, and Then Destroying Them at Incredible Scale

KARE 11: Elon Musk's X.AI sues to block Minnesota's AI nudification ban, calling it a 'ban on free speech'

NYT: ICE Arrests Surge at Airports, Opening New Front in Deportation Drive

WaPo: Asylum seekers could be sent directly to deportation court under new rule

Subscribe to the Betches News Room and join the Morning Announcements group chat. Go to: betchesnews.substack.com

Morning Announcements is produced by Sami Sage and edited by Grace Hernandez-Johnson

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Today's Headlines: Mitch McConnell's office released a photo with his wife and a doctor's note confirming he's still in a rehab facility and won't make it to the Fancy Farm Kentucky annual picnic, because THAT’S what everyone was concerned about. To add to the depraved and morally corrupt Republicans news, Ohio congressman Max Miller, whose ex-wife filed roughly 2,000 pages of court documents alleging he threw boiling water at her, pointed a gun at her head, and broke their two-year-old daughter's collarbone, is being defended by House Speaker Mike Johnson who said "the key word is allegation" — while Pete Buttigieg was separated from his four-year-old twins for 24 hours over a completely fabricated CPS tip from someone police later called "possibly mentally unstable," which Michigan police waited six days to even begin investigating, so the system is working great. The DNC is also in crisis, with chair Ken Martin reportedly throwing his phone at a staffer, the party so deep in debt it's asking vendors to invoice them after November, and paying $75,000 a month in loan interest. On the immigration beat, ICE built a surveillance database monitoring protesters using facial recognition, license plate scanning, and DNA collection, which was documented in a police report obtained by Mother Jones — the same outlet that found at least 59 ICE and CBP agents have been accused of sexual and violent crimes in the past two decades, 50 of them sex crimes many involving children, while a top DHS statistics official resigned citing the administration's "war on immigrants." In other news, Trump asked the Supreme Court to reinstate his mail-in voting executive order that a federal appeals court already blocked for threatening to disenfranchise eligible voters. Trump says Iran came back to the table seeking peace talks, Iran says that's not true, and a Ukrainian drone hit an Iranian supply line running to Russia — meaning the Iran and Ukraine wars have officially converged. And finally, France recorded its first ever pyrocumulonimbus cloud — a fire-generated storm system that French firefighters called "an operational impossibility, a natural force beyond our control."

Resources/Articles mentioned:

Rolling Stone: MAGA Rep. Allegedly Assaulted Wife, Put Gun to Her Head. Republicans Don't Care

WaPo: Police vetted dubious allegation only after Buttigieg was separated from children

NYT: Inside the Phone-Throwing Drama at the Troubled, Broke Democratic Party

NBC News: Mitch McConnell releases health update, saying he’s not ready to return to work yet

WaPo: Trump administration asks Supreme Court to allow new limits on mail ballots

Mother Jones: Records Reveal How Homeland Security Agents Surveilled ICE Protesters

Mother Jones: Report: Dozens of ICE and CBP Agents Have Abused Women and Children

Wired: DHS Official Resigns, Citing ‘War on Immigrants’

CNN: Live updates: Trump says US halted strikes on Iran at Tehran’s request

WSJ: Two Wars Converge in the Caspian Sea as Ukraine Hits Iranian Supply Line to Russia

WIRED: France Records Its First-Ever Pyrocumulonimbus Cloud Amid Record-Smashing Fires

Subscribe to the Betches News Room and join the Morning Announcements group chat. Go to: betchesnews.substack.com

Morning Announcements is produced by Sami Sage and edited by Grace Hernandez-Johnson

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Today's Headlines: The White House Correspondents Dinner happened over the weekend — Trump did an hour of his greatest hits, mocked Kaitlin Collins and his own guest Nicki Minaj, and Wolf Blitzer presented the Wall Street Journal with an award for uncovering Trump's Epstein ties while noting the reporter had to move after Trump doxxed her home address in a lawsuit, which is a sentence about the current state of press freedom. The Trump administration is moving to rename New York Penn Station — renderings obtained by Gothamist already show a presidential seal with Trump's name on it — because courts blocked his Kennedy Center name and apparently he needs a replacement trophy. Meanwhile, court documents from an Energy Department lawsuit revealed that the administration canceled $7.5 billion in energy grants to states specifically because they voted for Kamala Harris and have two Democratic senators, with an Energy Department attorney explicitly stating there was no programmatic or performance-based reason for the cancellations, which is actually quite honest. In food safety news, nineteen million eggs have been recalled for salmonella across 17 states with nearly 100 people sickened and 26 hospitalized, meaning the lettuce, beef, and now eggs are all compromised simultaneously, MAHA. On the war beat, Iran strikes were paused for two days to give negotiations "some space," days after Trump said he was considering an attack "bigger than ever before," while the Pentagon quietly removed four recently killed service members from the official Iran war casualty count because they died after the "ceasefire" — and the injury count fluctuated between 482 and 420 on the Pentagon's own website. This week: Zelensky visits the White House Tuesday, the US and UK are meeting in London to find countries willing to help with the Strait of Hormuz, and Sam Altman is heading to DC to pitch the government on approving the AI model that autonomously hacked another company last week.

Resources/Articles mentioned:

NYT: Nearly 100 Cases of Salmonella Tied to Voluntary Recall of 19 Million Eggs

NYT: At Correspondents’ Dinner, a Rambling Trump Hurls Insults

The New Republic: Trump Team Moves to Rename New York’s Penn Station

NYT: Trump Administration Admits Canceling Grants to States That Did Not Vote for Him

Axios: Dems' 2028 primary schedule angers some progressives

WaPo: Trump wants to give U.S.-Iran talks ‘some space’ as he weighs escalation, aide says

AP News: Pentagon's official Iran war death toll no longer lists 4 troops killed during renewed fighting

Axios: Trump to meet Zelensky at White House Tuesday

Axios: Scoop: U.S., U.K. planning international conference on Strait of Hormuz

Axios: What OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will tell the White House this week

Subscribe to the Betches News Room and join the Morning Announcements group chat. Go to: betchesnews.substack.com

Morning Announcements is produced by Sami Sage and edited by Grace Hernandez-Johnson

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices