US spy- and killing-firm Palantir has put its latest parliamentary revolving-door hire Tom Watson to use — 'threatening' other politicians for criticising it. Labour MP Clive Lewis has outed the manoeuvre, publishing a letter that the former deputy party leader sent him and categorising it as an "implicit threat".

Lewis had already criticised Palantir's appointment of Watson, already considered one of Labour's most odious and problematic figures for his Israel-fanaticism and his part in the plot to topple Jeremy Corbyn through the 'Labour antisemitism' scam:

Palantir didn't hire a former Labour deputy leader for his coding skills. It hired him for access.

Tom Watson's move is more than a private career choice. It's the revolving door in action and another blow to public trust.

The integrity gap won't close until politicians pick a…

— Clive Lewis MP (@labourlewis) September 24, 2026

Now Watson has written to Lewis, listing Lewis's supposed transgressions and warning the Norwich South MP that Palantir has its eye on him:

Lewis read out the letter to a fringe at Labour's annual conference this week:

"For years, especially over the past year, you have made the case against Palantir itself more or less continuously - in the Commons, in written questions, in early-day motions, in interviews and opinion pieces, and on social media. By my count, you've spoken about Palantir almost 130 times since 2020; around 50 in the past year alone."

"I'm quite impressed by that, actually," Lewis interrupted to say, before continuing to read the letter from Watson out: "You have called us a 'spytech firm', said our 'business is death and destruction', called the NHS contract a deal that 'stinks', and urged the Health Secretary, the FCA and others to cut ties with us entirely."

Lewis went on to say Watson's "Big Brother" message was that "your card is marked":

It's an incredibly defensive response. There's a level of detail there that I didn't even know. That, to me, was an implicit threat. They're saying: 'We are watching you. We are monitoring you. And that's what we do. Your card is marked'.

Honestly, it feels very Palantir. Very Big Brother. 'We are watching you. We know what you are saying.' There's definitely a sense of power there. 'This is what you are up against'. If ever I needed a reason to fight harder for democracy, they've just given it to me.

But it's pretty concerning. They have access to my health records. What else do they have access to? And how could they use it?"

He also dismissed Watson's attempt to claim that his 'leave of absence' from the House of Lords removed the problems with his appointment:

He hasn't burned his contacts book. He understands how the system works and where the bodies are buried. Palantir aren't the good guys. I think it's really important people pick a side. You need to either commit yourself to public service or you need to commit yourself to working for them, and you can't do both and you shouldn't do both.

Labour's bureaucrats had already blocked a conference motion calling for the government to exercise its contractual rights to terminate Palantir's £330m NHS contract to manage NHS patient data. The firm's bosses have boasted how they use their technology to terrify and kill people the US doesn't like. Palantir has over £670m in UK government contracts across health, defence and policing, but some police forces have started to end their use of its systems.

Amnesty International, anti-genocide groups and human rights organisations are holding an international day of action today, 1 October 2026, against Palantir's infiltration of governments, including the UK's National Health Service.

Featured image via Facebook

By Skwawkbox

Mohammad Diriyya's return to the football pitch was far more than just another appearance for Palestine. Reappearing for the national B-team in a match against Turkish club Konyaspor, the Palestinian midfielder made his comeback following a long absence to undergo treatment for cancer.

On a night filled with emotional and sporting significance, Diriyya returned to the field wearing the captain's armband in one of the most moving moments of the match. Played at the Konya Metropolitan Stadium, the game ended in a 2-2 draw before being symbolically halted at the 89:59 mark.

Diriyya was named in the 21-player Palestine B-team squad announced by head coach Ibrahim Abu Madi ahead of the Konyaspor match, marking his official rejoin after his extended leave.

His career began early with Shabab Al-Khaleel, where he made his name and helped the club secure domestic silverware. In 2022, he moved to Latvian side Valmiera FC, embarking on a European professional stint that marked a major milestone in his development.

Recent years brought a different kind of challenge for Diriyya. After undergoing cancer treatment that sidelined him for a prolonged period, he finally made his long-awaited return to competition with the Palestine B-team.

In Konya, Diriyya did more than simply rejoin the team or play a match; he led the Palestine B-team as captain, in a poignant moment highlighted by the Palestinian Football Association and spectators alike.

His return took place in an extraordinary setting. Over 42,000 fans filled the stadium with Palestinian and Turkish flags, while Konyaspor supporters displayed tifos honouring Palestinian athletes and journalists killed in the conflict, alongside messages of solidarity.

Surrounded by this atmosphere, Diriyya put on the captain's armband and stepped back onto the pitch for Palestine after his arduous fight against cancer—a return where the final score mattered far less than reclaiming his place in the sport.

The game finished 2-2, with Mohammad Sandouqa scoring both goals for Palestine. In a symbolic gesture, play was brought to a stop at 89:59—one second shy of the full 90 minutes—as organizers announced that the final second would be played in Palestine following its liberation.

Diriyya's comeback coincided with an evening dedicated to solidarity: honoring fallen athletes, pausing at the 10:14 mark to remember the 1,014 lost, and leaving the final result suspended at 89:59.

Yet through it all, the main highlight remained a personal triumph: Mohammad Diriyya stepped back onto the field to lead his country once again.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alaa Shamali

The match between Konyaspor and the Palestinian reserve team was far more than an ordinary friendly. The stands of the Konya Metropolitan Municipality Stadium transformed into a powerful canvas of images and messages reflecting the war in Gaza. Throughout a night filled with Palestine flags, tribute was paid to the nation's martyrs, athletes, and journalists, before the match came to an end just one second shy of ninety minutes.

Around 42,000 spectators packed the stands, waving Turkish and Palestinian flags. The electric atmosphere began outside the stadium with celebrations, chants, and flares, all bringing to life the match's core slogan: "Our Home is Your Home."

Among the most striking moments was a massive tifo displayed by Konyaspor fans. It featured portraits of Palestinian athletes killed in the war, highlighting that 1,014 Palestinian sports figures have lost their lives. This figure wasn't just a static statistic—it took center stage once again at the 10:14 mark of the match.

At that moment, the stadium lights dimmed for 90 seconds while thousands of fans lit up the stands with their phones, creating a vivid tribute to the 1,014 athletes who died in the conflict. The crowd also unveiled another display honoring fallen Palestinian journalists, accompanied by the banner "Journalism isn't a crime."

Rather than relying on abstract solidarity, the supporters placed Palestinian sports and media directly at the heart of their message, foregrounding the faces, names, and stories of the victims from both fields.

The visual narrative continued with displays depicting iconic symbols of Palestinian history and memory. These included Muhammad al-Durrah, whose martyrdom anniversary fell on the day of the match (September 30), the cartoon character Handala, and the emotional image of Khaled Nabhan holding his granddaughter Reem, known worldwide as the "Soul of My Soul."

Banners throughout the stadium carried poignant messages, such as "Children are silenced when they sleep, not when they die," reiterating that silence cannot erase the truth or stall the march of history.

Together, the portraits of children, athletes, and journalists turned the stadium into a space capturing the many facets of the Palestinian struggle, while the national team competed on Turkish soil, far from home.

The night's most symbolic gesture came at the very end. With the game tied 2-2, the referee blew the final whistle at 89:59 — exactly one second before the full ninety minutes had elapsed.

The Palestinian Football Association explained that stopping the clock at this exact moment was intentional: a symbolic reminder that the match will only truly end on Palestinian soil after liberation, asserting the team's right to play on its home pitch.

From the tribute to 1,014 athletes to the images of fallen journalists, Muhammad al-Durrah, Handala, and "Soul of My Soul," right through to the dimmed lights at minute 10:14, every detail pointed toward that final moment at 89:59.

Though just one second remained on the clock, the match was intentionally left unfinished — waiting to be completed, one day, in a free Palestine.

Featured image via Instagram

By Alaa Shamali

In a further indication of the likely false-flag nature of the supposed FlyDubai 'hijacking', Iranian media were reporting — hours before the event — that Israel's spy service was planning an aviation attack:

Israel has a long, long track record of 'false flag' attacks designed to put blame on an uninvolved group or nation (like Hamas). In June 2025, former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levi warned that a false-flag attack was likely as Israel sought to increase US engagement in a direct war on Iran. His warning was inadvertently reinforced by the actions of pro-Israel mouthpieces in the US, who at the same time began setting the scene by predicting an Iranian attack on US soil or against a US vessel.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Ahmed Eldin | أحمد الدين (@ahmedeldin)

The colony has shown itself perfectly willing to endanger Jews in these false flags, including planting bombs and attacking Jewish businesses in Egypt to drive Jewish people to flee to the colony. It has shown itself perfectly willing to murder even Israeli citizens outright, slaughtering hundreds in a long day of 'Hannibal' attacks on 7 October 2023.

And it is even more willing to kill citizens of other nations, like its air attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 to try to provoke the US into attacking Egypt. In 1994 it bombed targets in London and blamed the attacks on Palestinian activists.

Israel has claimed credit for telling UK security services about the almost-certain false-flag 'attack' on the RAF Fairford US air base last week, meant to justify full UK entry into the war on Iran, collapsed in farce in barely a day. Its Israel's 'FlyDubai incident' is so far-fetched it took only hours to fall apart, despite the efforts of UK media and politicians to shore it up. The fact that Iran, whom Israel is blaming for the attack, warned beforehand that the apartheid colony's spies were planning it only undermines the pro-Israel narrative even further.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

It's a superlative achieved again and again: The current election cycle is the most expensive on record, according to AdImpact, likely to be surpassed only by the next one. North of $16 billion have been raised ahead of Tuesday's looming elections, with ad spending in House and Senate races topping $4 billion. Mega-donors this election season have overwhelmingly backed Republicans with contributions largely flowing from AI, crypto, and online gambling interests.

Related AIPAC Isn't Retreating. Here's How It's Already Shaping the Next Congress.

The Intercept tracked how super PAC spending is flowing into the midterms and how growing public skepticism of special-interest money in politics is affecting campaign strategies. Hundreds of candidates are still taking donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its super PAC, the United Democracy Project, despite public sentiment turning against the pro-Israel lobby. 

"The data overall reveals that [AIPAC is] still spending a ton of money on a lot of races, and more often than not, their candidates are still winning," Intercept managing editor Maia Hibbett told The Intercept Briefing. "It is still quite meaningful money."

Artificial intelligence super PACs have also poured tens of millions of dollars into this election cycle, most of it on just a few races in the primaries. The two leading AI super PAC networks, affiliated with OpenAI or Anthropic, dropped a whopping $50.7 million on the primaries, but are noticeably spending much less in the lead-up to the general election, $8.5 million — likely responding to public backlash in the same way that AIPAC has.

"The polls are just so startling on the public's transformation on AI and data centers over the last year. … The entire life cycle of these AI super PACs, which started about a year ago, has followed that evolution of the public's opinion," said Intercept politics reporter Matt Sledge. "One of the things that's been really interesting in the general election races is … candidates [trying] to paint themselves as the more pro-AI safety, pro-AI regulation candidate."

This week on the podcast, host Jessica Washington speaks to Hibbett and Sledge about the spending trends in the most expensive election cycle to date and unpack the intended impact.

"No matter which party gets control of either or both houses of Congress, there will be a lot of people elected next week who got there on the backs of Big Tech and special interests," said Hibbett.

"They're backing a lot of people in safe seats who don't really have a tight election," Sledge added. "The goal may just be to buy themselves a few friends in Congress, because sometimes in Congress, it's just as good to have a few people who can stop regulation as it is to have people who can shape and actually pass laws."

For more, listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Jessica Washington: Welcome to The Intercept Briefing, I'm Jessica Washington, politics reporter at The Intercept. 

On Tuesday, voters will head to the polls to cast their ballots in the most expensive election cycle ever in terms of campaign ad spending, even outpacing past presidential elections. That's according to AdImpact. 

North of $16 billion has been raised this cycle, with ad spending in House and Senate races topping $4 billion. Billionaire Elon Musk has dumped hundreds of millions into races across the country, using his enormous personal wealth to sway the election in favor of Republicans. Musk, who has a home and multiple businesses in Texas, has taken a particular interest in the state's Senate race between Republican candidate Ken Paxton and Democratic candidate James Talarico.

Most of the money from Musk and other donors has flowed not to candidates, but to powerful super PACs representing a variety of different special interests.  

That super PAC spending is the subject of my colleagues, Intercept politics reporter Matt Sledge and senior politics reporter Akela Lacy's new project, tracking how money is flowing into the midterms. 

Maia Hibbett, managing editor for The Intercept, and Matt Sledge join me now to talk about the project and how big money is shaping the midterms. 

Matt, Maia, welcome back to The Intercept Briefing 

Maia Hibbett: Thanks for having us. 

Matt Sledge: Thank you for having us, Jessie. 

JW: Maia, I want to start with you. As a part of the super PAC project, The Intercept tracked how millions of dollars flow through the pro-Israel lobby in the United States.

What did the reporting reveal about how the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and affiliated groups like the United Democracy Project mask their influence in U.S. elections in a political landscape where AIPAC's contributions and endorsements have become largely politically toxic? 

MH: The reporting showed that AIPAC and its affiliated super PAC UDP are a little bit weakened, but they're still pretty dominant.

The narrative out of this midterm cycle, especially during the primaries, was largely focused on a few high-profile races that an AIPAC-backed candidate lost — and that was a huge shock. These big upsets were AIPAC or UDP or a related group that, we can talk about a little bit later, had poured money into, and then the candidate didn't succeed.

But if you look at it in the aggregate, what the data overall reveals is that they're still spending a ton of money on a lot of races, and more often than not, their candidates are still winning. It is still quite meaningful money. And even though AIPAC has been discussed as going underground, they are still directly invested in a lot of races.

JW: I want to get into AIPAC's shifting strategy and their latest announcement on that. But first, Matt, I wanted to talk about your reporting. AI super PACs have poured tens of millions of dollars into this election cycle.

Related AI Tried to Buy the Midterms — Then the Lobby Learned Everyone Hates AI

What do we know about the people and companies behind these super PACs? This may seem obvious, but what are they hoping to gain with this level of spending? Are there specific examples of friendly legislation these varied interest groups are hoping their candidates will see through if they win?

MS: To answer your second question, I think it's really more about setting the tone for future regulation at the federal level. You have two big super PAC networks. One is affiliated with OpenAI, and they broadly favor a laxer regulatory scheme for AI. Then there's another network that's affiliated with Anthropic that paints itself as supporting a stricter regulatory scheme.

"It's really more about setting the tone for future [AI] regulation at the federal level."

Skeptics will point out that these networks are both backed by big AI companies. So at the end of the day, they're probably going to favor regulation that is favorable to the AI companies. I get into this a little bit in my story, but, just in the last few months, there's also been this constellation of other smaller groups that are sometimes backed by individual employees at these firms or just by people concerned about AI that are pushing for stricter regulatory regimes and aren't as directly connected to one of the big companies.

JW: Matt, I'm curious about the impact on voters here. CNBC analysis from early October found that mega-donors this election season were overwhelmingly backing Republicans with contributions largely flowing from AI, crypto, and online gambling interests: "Fourteen of the 20 largest donors and donor groups this election cycle have exclusively or nearly exclusively backed GOP candidates or aligned groups."

Matt, are we seeing voters become more receptive to Republicans as a result of all this ad spending? Is it working on the voter base? 

MS: It's always hard to tease out the impact of an individual super PAC or industry, because you have to keep in mind that a lot of the time, if you're a crypto super PAC, or an AI super PAC — or more recently, a prediction market super PAC — they are not running pro-crypto or pro-AI ads.

They are running ads that look very similar to everybody else's. Often, they're doing negative campaigning that campaigns don't want to do themselves, and they have such vague names that they're not associated with crypto or AI. So I do think ads have an impact on the races, but overall what we're seeing in polls is that it's not a great environment for Republicans.

So it may have served, just writ large, to potentially soften the blow to Republicans this time around. It does help them to have this many corporate allies, but it may still be overwhelmed by a blue tide. 

JW: That makes a lot of sense in terms of just, this is a bad environment for Republicans. They have a president who is unpopular. We have an economy that is not amazing right now. It makes a lot of sense that despite all this ad spending, the baseline of the election is not in favor of Republicans. 

Maia, I wanted to get back to something that you had said a little bit earlier about AIPAC and their shifting strategy. AIPAC recently announced that they would no longer officially endorse candidates or give money directly to campaigns.

Were we seeing an early signal of shifting strategies from AIPAC during the 2026 midterm elections? And what does this change actually mean for AIPAC's influence on our elections?

MH: I'm so glad you asked, because we actually noted early in the 2026 cycle that AIPAC was starting to retreat and change its strategy. Our colleague Akela Lacy wrote a story in December 2025, and the headline was, "AIPAC is Retreating From Endorsements and Election Spending. It Won't Give Up Its Influence." I encourage anyone to go back and read that story because it was really prescient about what we would see in the cycle to come, which is that AIPAC used to do all of its spending behind closed doors.

Related AIPAC Is Retreating From Endorsements and Election Spending. It Won't Give Up Its Influence.

In 2022, it made a big splash when it started doing direct spending in that year's midterms. The group had helped fund some anti-Bernie Sanders ads during the 2020 presidential campaign, but it was 2022 when it went all in, rather than routing its donations through other groups or through dark-money pathways, it just started giving contributions to candidates. 

After it spent so much money in that midterm cycle and in last cycle's 2024 races, and as public sentiment started to turn against the pro-Israel lobby's interests and people became very critical of the U.S. support for genocide in Gaza, AIPAC started to essentially return to its roots.

I think this is really interesting because in the press it has been talked about as a very new strategy. But really, it's more that AIPAC is returning to the way it used to do business. 

JW: Is that as effective as a strategy — the old model that they had? Should we expect that it'll have just as much influence on elections as they did previously?

MH: It's a good question. I don't know how effective it will be as a strategy. There's a lot more scrutiny on AIPAC now than there was a few years ago, and so it's much more difficult for them to hide what they're doing because there are journalists like us who are going to try to follow the money and say, maybe you gave to something that's called Elect Chicago Women, but it's actually from UDP, which is the super PAC for AIPAC.

I think in some cases, they can't get away from the public perception that now exists. But on the other hand, there are many voters who might not really pay attention to the name of the PAC that sponsored the ad that they saw, and then go look it up and see where the money came from. So it remains to be seen how effective it will be.

"It's much more difficult for them to hide what they're doing because there are journalists like us who are going to try to follow the money."

JW: Not everyone is reading The Intercept before voting, as they should, but it's fine.

Matt, I wanted to get back to you because there's a lot happening with these big AI super PACs. You noticed in your reporting that, after spending a lot in the primaries in New York in particular, but in other places as well, the big AI super PACs have gone pretty much quiet in the general election.

Are AI super PACs responding to public backlash in the same way that AIPAC is? What have you observed in terms of why they've gone a little bit quieter? 

MS: In response to your question about backlash, I think the answer is yes.

"It's just a dramatic decline in spending from the primaries to the generals — even though they still have money they can tap."

They're on this kind of accelerated timeline going through what AIPAC went through over the course of five years but essentially in five or six months. The polls are just so startling on the public's transformation on AI and data centers over the last year. It's just such a rapid change in public opinion, and the entire life cycle of these AI super PACs, which started about a year ago, has followed that evolution of the public's opinion.

It's just a dramatic decline in spending from the primaries to the generals — even though they still have money they can tap. Leading the Future, which is the OpenAI-aligned network, they started first, and then the Anthropic-aligned network, Public First, they started a few months later as a response to the Leading the Future network.

So it seems like, from what we've been able to tell, Leading the Future scaled back on spending as the general election came about, and Public First responded in turn and also scaled back its operations. That doesn't mean they're not spending anything, and we have seen a slight uptick in the final few days of this election when ads are probably just less effective than they would have been a couple weeks ago.

"If Darline Graham narrowly gets away with winning her race in South Carolina of all places … then you can still say that Leading the Future and the AI industry played a pretty important role in the general race."

One really notable race is now South Carolina, where Leading the Future is helping prop up Sen. Darline Graham, who hasn't been a great fundraiser on her own. So there's actually still a world where AI plays a decisive role in this election in terms of control of the Senate.

If Darline Graham narrowly gets away with winning her race in South Carolina of all places, and that narrowly hands control of the Senate back to the Republicans, then you can still say that Leading the Future and the AI industry played a pretty important role in the general race.

JW: Just to be clear, you're referring to Darline Graham, Lindsey Graham's sister, correct? 

MS: That's correct. 

JW: Maia, speaking of Big Tech, you also edited a story from Intercept reporter Jonah Valdez looking at how tech leaders, including John Hering, are dumping millions into the LA city attorney race to block Marissa Roy, a DSA-backed candidate, from winning. What is going on here — why such an interest in a race most people are likely not paying any attention to?

MH: City attorneys are one of those jobs that, as you said, a lot of voters don't pay attention to them. I think a lot of people in cities all over the country maybe couldn't tell you who the top lawyer of whatever city they live in even is. But this is a job that is largely tasked with enforcing regulations and laws and making companies that might be based in that city or might operate in that city comply with them.

Marissa Roy, this DSA-backed candidate, is currently a deputy attorney general for the state of California, and she's one of the people who helped the state prosecute this historic Meta settlement where Meta ended up having to pay $17 billion for harms to children using its technology.

We don't know exactly why John Hering and other tech leaders, like the founders of Ring and Tinder and investors in Anthropic and SpaceX, are spending so heavily in this race, but you might be able to conclude that they're interested in preventing a person who just helped carry out this huge settlement against Meta from becoming the city attorney of LA.

Some of them are funding a group that's called Neighbors for John McKinney, which is backing the opponent in the race. John McKinney is the other candidate, and he is much less likely to win, but is propped up now by a lot of spending. They frame him as a tough-on-crime candidate; they say he's going to restore order to LA, help clean it up is the idea.

Like Matt was saying, often these tech investments in races don't actually foreground the interests of Big Tech, and they don't say explicitly, "We want to stop this person from coming into office because we're worried they're going to regulate our industry." Instead, they find a different issue and spend money on that.

It's also worth noting that John Hering, his group, frames John McKinney as a lifelong Democrat and very anti-MAGA, is the language they use. But John Hering himself is a big ally of Elon Musk. He has been an eager investor in his companies. He said Musk was an "American hero" this year, and he has spent pretty heavily also to support Musk's America PAC and the Trump campaign after previously spending on the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

Like many Silicon Valley types, he's had an evolution. And although he lives in San Francisco, he also spent in favor of Spencer Pratt for LA mayor.

JW: Wow. Yeah, Big Tech has really come a long way from the '08 years in terms of their relationship with Democrats and Republicans, and propping up Spencer Pratt.

Matt, I want to bring you in and get your perspective and kind of big picture. What has made this election cycle so popular for Big Tech? 

MS: When it comes to AI and crypto and the prediction markets, it's knowing that the next few years are really going to be critical for them in terms of regulation. These are all fairly young industries, and the rules haven't been set yet. The Trump administration is doing its best to set them, but Congress has not had a final word on any of those industries.

Related Prediction Markets Have a Lock on the Midterms

They see a chance to shape the rules in a way that favors them, and they're just using the old Washington playbook of spending a bunch of money on campaigns and a bunch of money on lobbyists to try to shape the rules in their favor.

JW: Is this just also a matter of them having more money to play with than they've had before? Is this something tech probably would have done years ago if they'd had this access to capital? Or is this really, like you said, just they're aware that there is existential risks to their industry if they don't?

MS: Tech for the last few decades has had a lot of money. It's just been a huge part of the U.S. economy. But I think this move into more regulated spaces is maybe what's newer.

Related AI Almost Started a U.S.-China War — and No One Seems to Care

When Microsoft is creating an internet browser or a word processor, that creates potential antitrust issues, and they have to spend political money in that sense. But they're not playing in the same kind of highly regulated financial spaces, and nobody ever thought that Clippy posed an existential risk to humanity. So we are moving into new territory when it comes to techs. 

JW: I miss Clippy. That is my one comment on that. 

I want to get both of you back in here. We've been talking about some of the biggest donors in American politics today, and a few special interest groups in particular who've obviously been experiencing public backlash — AIPAC, AI, and data centers.

What do you make of this new record-level spending in a midterm election in particular? We'll obviously have more answers on this next week, but from what you've observed so far, is it having the intended impact on voters? Maia, let's start with you. 

MH: I think to use the cop-out that we keep coming back to, we won't really know if it worked with voters until after the results next week. But it's clear in this midterm cycle and maybe this is a reminder of kind of a perpetual truth in, when it comes to money in politics, that these big spenders are always going to fund candidates on both sides of the aisle. Often election narratives and questions about special interests will really look to one party or the other and try to map this kind of spending onto partisan issues.

While some of that certainly happens, I think no matter which party gets control of either or both houses of Congress, there will be a lot of people elected next week who got there on the backs of Big Tech and special interests.

That is something that voters are more and more aware of and more and more frustrated by, and we did see a lot of rejection of that kind of big-money spending in the primaries. But ultimately, I don't know how much that narrative has changed. 

JW: Matt, I know you've seen some specific examples of this impacting elections. Can you talk about that a little bit? 

MS: One of the things that's been really interesting in the general election races is this race from candidates to paint themselves as the more pro-AI safety, pro-AI regulation candidate.

I've done some reporting in Michigan's 7th [Congressional] District, where a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement is trying to unseat an incumbent Republican, and he has from the start really run on being an anti-data center candidate, campaigning with local activists in small towns of a few thousand people.

His Republican opponent is now also trying to paint himself as a data center skeptic — using different language, more language about local control than about big, bad companies. 

But there's been such a backlash that we've seen some changing tactics from the big AI super PACs in the runoff. One has donated money to a nonprofit that's more focused on building support for data centers. Good luck with that, I guess.

And then another, the Anthropic-aligned network, has essentially handed off money to a pro-Scott Wiener super PAC in California that already existed and already has funding from other tech leaders in the San Francisco area. But that donation has generated this whole fight between Scott Wiener and his opponent, Connie Chan, over who is the more pro-AI regulation candidate now. So it's a lot of candidates fighting to be the more pro-regulation candidate.

Just thinking back to your question about the effect on voters, I think for the super PACs and for their funders, the impact on candidates may ultimately be more important, on elected officials. They're backing a lot of people in safe seats who don't really have a tight election. The goal may just be to buy themselves a few friends in Congress, because sometimes in Congress, it's just as good to have a few people who can stop regulation as it is to have people who can shape and actually pass laws.

JW: That's a good point. Speaking of the election, which we know is just days away, what are you two going to be following closely next week? Maia, I want to start with you.

MH: There's obviously a lot to follow next week, and more races than we can keep track of. One I think that will be very interesting that I was thinking about in terms of AIPAC spending — when Matt just mentioned this thing about AI groups backing candidates who are not in close races — is, of course, the Senate race in Maine.

One of the interesting takeaways we found in this AIPAC project is that in the primaries when AIPAC was spending, as it does in, in various races, one of the top recipients of its money was Susan Collins — who at the time did not have a primary challenger, but it spent heavily to support her primary campaign.

So we'll obviously watch the Collins-Jackson race in Maine. We have a reporter going there. Matt's going to go to Michigan. We also have a reporter going to Texas to track some of the big Senate races. Depending on how the results look, I think we'll pretty quickly be pivoting to accountability for, coverage for the people who are elected, who, maybe entered office vowing not to take corporate PAC money or not to take special-interest money, and to keep an eye on those now Congress members and see if they vote like it or if they continue to have that policy once they've been elected.

JW: And Matt, what are you following? 

MS: As Maia mentioned, I will be in Michigan. Super interested in that 7th District race that I mentioned between Will Lawrence and Tom Barrett. But then the race everybody's going to be spinning and talking about for weeks probably: the Mike Rogers/Abdul El-Sayed race. It just is going to carry so much narrative heft going forward about what the voters were trying to say. 

Where are you going to be, Jessie? What are you going to be up to? 

JW: I will be in D.C., and I'll be looking at what it means to have yet another election with the National Guard in town and essentially in an occupied city.

I'll also be looking into what it would mean for the district to have a socialist mayor, Janeese Lewis George, who is almost certain to win on Tuesday, particularly when it comes to ICE and the Metropolitan Police Department's collaboration with ICE. That's going to be something I'm really keeping an eye on, not just on Election Day, but going forward to see if she can implement some of these really bold ideas that she's proposing in a city that's very constricted in what it can actually do because of federal law.

But that's enough previewing from me. We're going to leave it there. Maia, Matt, thank you so much for joining me on The Intercept Briefing. 

MH: Thanks again. 

MS: Thanks for having us. 

JW: And thank you for listening. Next week we'll be back in your feed early with a special midterm election episode, so stay tuned.

That does it for this episode. We want to hear from you. Tell us what you're following or want to see more coverage of. Email us at podcasts@theintercept.com or leave us a voice mail at 530-POD-CAST, that's 530-763-2278.

This episode was produced by Laura Flynn. Jordan Uhl is our social media producer. Ben Muessig is our editor-in-chief. Maia Hibbett is our managing editor. Nara Shin is our copy editor. William Stanton mixed our show. Legal review by David Bralow. Slip Stream provided our theme music.

This show and our reporting at The Intercept do not exist without you. Your donation, no matter the amount, makes a real difference. Keep our investigations free and fearless at theintercept.com/join. 

And if you haven't already, please subscribe to The Intercept Briefing wherever you listen to podcasts. Do leave us a rating or a review, it helps other listeners find our reporting.

Until next time, I'm Jessica Washington.

The post How AIPAC and AI Spent Their Money This Midterm Election appeared first on The Intercept.

A UK-based reseller of Shelly smart home equipment has warned customers that their payment data may be compromised after "unauthorized software" was found on its website.

"After receiving a warning from our payment provider, Stripe, we investigated and found unauthorized software on our website and server," the email from Shelly Store UK, seen by The Register, stated.

"We removed the identified malicious software, strengthened access security, applied security updates and introduced ongoing monitoring. We have also reported the incident to the Information Commissioner's Office."

Shelly Store UK informed customers it was unable to determine whether their data was accessed or copied, although all customers who made orders during an unspecified window are being contacted.

One punter told us that hours before they received the email from Shelly Store UK, they began a payment dispute with their card provider after a £221.28 transaction, dated October 26, was made in Australia using their details.

They suspect their full card details were swiped at some point between October 12, when they made their first and only order with the company, and October 27, when they received the breach notification.

Shelly Store UK did not immediately respond to our request for more details.

Its notification email stated the internal investigation remains ongoing, and in addition to payment card details, customers may have had their names, billing addresses, and contact details compromised.

Shelly Store UK recommended that customers contact their card issuer for guidance on whether they will need a replacement card, and to scour their transaction histories and report any suspicious entries.

It also urged caution in receiving communications asking for data such as payment details and security codes, and recommended a password reset.

"We're sorry for the concern and inconvenience this may cause," the company said. "We are taking this seriously and will contact you if our investigation identifies further information relevant to you."

Shelly Store UK is an authorized reseller of Shelly smart home products and is wholly independent of the main Shelly company.

"Shelly Store is a reseller of Shelly and is not part of, owned by, or directly affiliated with Shelly Group," a Shelly spokesperson said. "We do not manage the Shelly Store website, its business operations, and we do not direct our customers from any of our websites to Shelly Store UK." ®

BMW Motorrad has taken a stake in Venna, a young company developing high-performance electric motorcycles with a clear focus on off-road. The German manufacturer announced the deal in Munich on 29 October 2026. Neither the size of the investment nor the share BMW now holds has been disclosed.

A familiar name under a new label

Venna may be a new name, but the company behind it is not. It is the Slovenian start-up previously known as Flux Performance, the maker of the Flux Primo electric dirt bike. BMW's announcement does not mention the Flux name, but the connections are clear. The former Flux Motorcycles website now redirects to Venna. A US trademark application for the Venna name was filed by Flux Performance Group Inc. And Venna is led by CEO Marko Ukota, who founded Flux.

Ukota, a former Slovenian and Italian national supermoto champion, started Flux Performance in 2021 together with two aerospace engineers, Jure Tomažič and Črt Gorup. THE PACK first reported on the project in April 2022, when the company presented its first prototype. In October 2023 we followed up on the video presentation of the future production model, the Flux Primo.

The Flux Primo

The Primo was announced with a claimed peak output of 63 kW (85 hp), a 7 kWh swappable battery and a list of software-driven features. These include a virtual clutch that simulates the slip of a mechanical clutch, a separate lever for regenerative braking, and ride settings that can be adjusted via a smartphone. The bike was positioned as a direct rival to 450cc petrol motocross and enduro machines. In 2025 the company said it had sold out a first batch of pre-orders at an introductory price of 12,000 euro, with series production planned for 2026.

What the partnership means

According to both companies, Venna will remain independent and keep its own development pace. It will draw on BMW Motorrad's experience in development, industrialisation and global operations, and the two partners will cooperate in selected areas. Neither company has said which areas those are.

BMW Motorrad CEO Markus Flasch said the deal opens up a new segment for the brand and gives it access to new target groups. BMW points to younger riders, who increasingly see motorcycling as a sporty, performance-oriented leisure activity rather than transport.

Venna CEO Marko Ukota said his company aims to build high-performance electric motorcycles across all riding categories. He described BMW's investment as a strong endorsement of Venna's technical approach and said it should speed up both technology development and industrialisation.

Open questions

The announcement includes no product details. There is no information on a production model, specifications, pricing or delivery dates. BMW has also made no mention of a BMW-branded electric off-road bike or a factory racing programme linked to Venna.

THE PACK's take

Guy Salens: "With Yamaha, LiveWire and now BMW all buying into electric off-road start-ups, the major manufacturers clearly see a future for the segment. Off-road suits electric power better than most areas of motorcycling. Riding sessions are short, bikes are transported rather than ridden to the track, noise rules keep getting stricter, and maintenance is minimal. At the same time, the majors are hedging their bets. Investing in or acquiring a start-up secures technology and talent at limited cost, without committing their own production capacity to a segment that is still small in volume. For now, Stark Future remains the brand that has put an electric dirt bike into the hands of riders in significant numbers. The question is how long it will keep that lead once the established brands bring their new partners up to speed."

After UK's hottest summer on record, Ardingly near Haywards Heath is just 19% full - and next-closest reservoir is unusable due to broken treatment works

"You can see the water level at Ardingly going down and down. I don't remember ever seeing it this low," says Caroline Allan, a lifetime resident of Haywards Heath, the nearest town to one of England's most depleted reservoirs.

The Ardingly reservoir, managed by South East Water and serving about 95,000 properties in and around Haywards Heath and Uckfield in Sussex, is currently 19% full.

Marc Marquez led MotoGP World Championship practice Friday afternoon at Petronas Sepang International Circuit, in Malaysia. Riding his Lenovo Ducati Desmosedici GP26 on spec Michelin tires, the seven-time World Champion turned a lap time of 1:57.000 to  lead the 21-rider field.

Alex Marquez was the best of the rest with a 1:57.109 on his BK8 Gresini Racing Ducati Desmosedici GP26.

Ai Ogura was third at 1:57.167 on his SuperFile Trackhouse Aprilia RS-GP26.

Pedro Acosta finished the session fourth with a 1:57.380 on his Red Bull KTM Factory Racing RC16.

Fabio Di Giannantonio got fifth on his Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team Ducati Desmosedici GP26 with a time of 1:57.442. 

Marco Bezzecchi was 6th on his Aprilia Racing RS-GP26 with a lap time of 1:57.475 and his injured teammate Jorge Martin got 21st with a time of 1:59.670.

The post MotoGP: M. Marquez Fastest Friday Afternoon At Sepang appeared first on Roadracing World Magazine | Motorcycle Riding, Racing & Tech News.

Manuel Gonzalez led Moto2 World Championship practice Friday afternoon at Petronas Sepang International Circuit, in Malaysia. Riding his LIQUI MOLY Dynavolt Intact GP Kalex on Pirelli control tires, the Spaniard lapped the 3.44-mile (5.54 km) road course in 2:03.737, topping the field of 28 riders.

Alonso Lopez was second-best with a time of 2:03.881 on his ITALJET Gresini Kalex.

Daniel Holgado did a third-fastest 2:03.943 on his CFMOTO RCB Aspar Team Kalex.

Izan Guevara crossed the finish line fourth on his BLU CRU Pramac Yamaha boscoscuro with a lap time of 2:03.971 and Tony Arbolino got fifth on his REDS Fantic Racing Kalex with a time of 2:04.448.

American Joe Roberts finished Friday afternoon's practice session 12th with a best time of 2:04.685 on his OnlyFans American Racing Team Kalex.

More, from a press release issued by MotoGP:

Gonzalez collects Friday P1 as big hitters miss Q2 cut in Sepang. A crash in FP1 was backed up by an impressive Practice top spot display from the Moto2 title race leader in Malaysia, with title rival Guevara fourth fastest.

After a fast crash in Free Practice 1, World Championship leader Manuel Gonzalez (Liqui Moly Dynavolt Intact GP) bounced back in style in the all-important Moto2 Practice session to top the timesheets on Friday at the PETRONAS Grand Prix of Malaysia. Gonzalez's 2:03.737 was good enough to see off the Alonso Lopez (ITALJET Gresini Moto2) threat by 0.144s, with Daniel Holgado (CFMOTO RCB Aspar Team) completing the top three.

Holgado was another rider to crash this morning, but like Gonzalez, didn't show any ill effects from the tip-off in the afternoon stint. Fourth place went to Izan Guevara (BLU CRU Pramac Yamaha Moto2), who was the only other rider to get below 0.7s away from his title rival's table-topping time. The exact gap between the title-chasing duo? 0.234s.

2022 Moto2 Malaysian GP winner Tony Arbolino (REDS Fantic Racing) rounded out the top five ahead of the rider third in the overall standings, Ivan Ortola (QJMOTOR - MSI). And it was double delight in the MSI box because Ortola's teammate Angel Piqueras finished P7 to front the rookie charge in Moto2 Practice.

Some of the big headlines came further down the order, though. Two of our 2025 Moto2 Malaysian GP podium finishers, David Alonso (CFMOTO RCB Aspar Team) and Barry Baltus (REDS Fantic Racing), ended the session in P18 and P19 to face Q1, and they'll be joined in Q1 by British GP winner Filip Salač (OnlyFans American Racing Team) after the Czech star missed out on the top 14 because his second fastest lap was slower than Adrian Huertas' (Italtrans Racing Team) - the duo both setting 2:04.735.

Moto2 Practice results from Malaysia!

The post Moto2: Gonzalez Quickest Friday Afternoon In Malaysia appeared first on Roadracing World Magazine | Motorcycle Riding, Racing & Tech News.

David Almansa led Moto3 World Championship practice Friday afternoon at Petronas Sepang International Circuit, in Malaysia. Almansa used his Pirelli-shod Liqui Moly Dynavolt Intact GP KTM to lap the 3.44-mile (5.54 km) track in 2:11.427 to lead the field of 25 riders.

Rico Salmela was second-best with a time of 2:11.496 on his Red Bull KTM Tech 3 machine.

Veda Pratama, piloting his Honda Team Asia machine, claimed the third and final spot on the front with a lap time of 2:11.519.

Home hero Hakim Danish was fourth on his AEON Credit - MT Helmets - MSI KTM with a lap time of 2:11.573 and Adrian Fernandez finished the practice session fifth on his Leopard Racing Honda with a time of 2:11.589. 

More, from a press release issued by MotoGP: 

Almansa soars to Sepang P1 on Friday, home star Danish fourth. It was business as usual on Friday for the rider currently P2 in the standings whilst the home crowd will be cheering on Danish's strong start.

After a tricky start to the day, David Almansa (Liqui Moly Dynavolt Intact GP) paved his way to P1 to draw first blood in Moto3 in Malaysia. Aiming to consolidate P2 overall in the standings, the #22 set the fastest time of the day to head the field whilst the homecoming tour is well underway for Hakim Danish (AEON Credit - MT Helmets - MSI) with the Malaysian fourth at the chequered flag. 

A 2'11.427 saw the Spaniard clear by less than a tenth of a second from rookie star Rico Salmela (Red Bull KTM Tech3), taking to Sepang for the first time. 0.069s split the top two whilst less than a tenth covered the top three with Phillip Island polesitter Veda Pratama (Honda Team Asia) continuing his form in third and taking top Honda honours. Danish was a star in fourth ahead of Adrian Fernandez (Leopard Racing) whilst, like Almansa, Matteo Bertelle (LEVELUP-MTA) turned around a tricky FP1 to round out the top six in Practice.

Heavyweight names are scattered further back with the likes of Alvaro Carpe (Red Bull KTM Ajo) in P7, teammate Brian Uriarte in P9 and David Muñoz (Liqui Moly Dynavolt Intact GP) in P10. 2026 World Champion Maximo Quiles (CFMOTO Gaviota Aspar Team) was only 11th whereas big names missed the cut all together. US GP winner Guido Pini (Leopard Racing) will face the Q1 music in 15th, along with Argentinean pairing Valentin Perrone (Red Bull KTM Tech3) and Marco Morelli (CFMOTO Gaviota Aspar Team).

Moto3 Practice results from Sepang

The post Moto3: Almansa Is Best Friday Afternoon At Sepang appeared first on Roadracing World Magazine | Motorcycle Riding, Racing & Tech News.

This week's best wildlife photographs from around the world

Keith Kahn-Harris looks back at a landmark release full of surprises and possibilities

To push back a genre label is, all too often, a reliably generic move by artists desperately seeking to differentiate themselves from other artists who sound much the same. Occasionally though, pushing back against genre label is a more subversive move, the mark of an artist pushing against anything that would close off their creative development.

Such is the case with Carcass. It didn't take them long at the start of their career to reject the grindcore label, they are currently rebelling against the extreme metal label, and on Necroticism: Descanting The Insalubrious they were reluctant to be labelled as death metal, preferring 'progressive'. And however much one might...

The post Gutted, Hashed and Deboned: Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious By Carcass At 35 appeared first on The Quietus.

As we hurtle through the final months of 2026, tQ's staffers select another round-up of everything we've loved over the last few weeks

We are only a few weeks away from end-of-year chartmageddon, the point at which we will be forced, whether we like it or not, to put on the record what defined our 2026. Given that a person's relationship with music is constantly-shifting - I find that the side of bed I've woken up on can determine whether a song makes me feel ecstatic or annoyed - I've always found the idea of making a permanent declaration of what's 'best' slightly daunting.

I have a soft spot, by contrast, for the simplicity these more casual roundups, presented unranked and ad...

The post Music of the Month: The Best Albums and Tracks of October 2026 appeared first on The Quietus.

Marc Marquez has topped the timesheets in the timed practice session for the MotoGP class, making his intentions for the weekend very clear. The Ducati Lenovo rider took top spot on his first fast run, setting a time that no one else would match, then continued running on the same set of tires, saving a soft rear for the rest of the weekend. 

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Scientists call for incentives to preserve vegetation as study highlights benefits of plentiful planting in London

Your front garden could be a first line of defence against air pollution, according to a year-long field study in two London neighbourhoods.

The UK's 26m gardens cover nearly 5% of the country's land area, but they account for a much larger share in urban areas. In Greater London, domestic gardens cover 41% of the city, compared with 27% of Cardiff and 23% of Edinburgh.

In this week's newsletter: There are too many meetings, and not enough decisions, say experts - and time is running out

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When things are not going well at an environmental summit, organisers often tell delegates that the "world is watching" in an attempt to focus minds. But spend any time at biodiversity Cop17 in Armenia and it is clear that the world's attention is elsewhere.

The negotiating halls of Yerevan's Meridian centre are subdued. Environment ministers have arrived from all corners of the world to plan their response to being so far behind the biodiversity targets they agreed four years ago. Right now, they appear on track to miss nearly all of them. They risk continuing the miserable record of never having met a biodiversity target they have set for themselves.

The climate crisis will destroy our economies - we learned this 20 years ago. When will we act?

Heat killed 'staggering' 50,000 people in Europe's cities this summer, scientists warn

Angry Labour MPs urge leadership not to overrule energy secretary on Rosebank

As many as 8 million people have been affected by food shortages, electricity blackouts and health clinic closures

Extreme drought driven by an historic El Niño is affecting as many as 8 million people in Papua New Guinea, causing a cascade of issues from shortages of food and water, to electricity scarcity and schooling disruption.

An influential coalition that includes churches, trade unions and business groups has said the Pacific nation is in the midst of a "national crisis", but there appears to be "no coordinated plan to protect vulnerable communities from the worsening impacts of El Niño."

Oxford study shows Manx shearwaters lose direction when their body clocks get out of sync

Seabirds returning from foraging trips can be thrown hundreds of miles off course by a form of jet lag that arises when their body clocks get out of sync with local time, researchers say.

Tracking data from Manx shearwaters on the west coast of the UK revealed that when the birds returned home to their colonies after trips over the Atlantic, their rapid eastward flights disrupted their sense of time and navigation.

Loch Insh, Cairngorms: In my three decades in Scotland I've adjusted to the darkness of this time of year, and found glory in the quality of light

It is the one clear day in a fortnight of heavy cloud, wind and rain, so I am out by the loch, basking in the rays of light, breathing them in, hoarding for the weeks to come.

This time of year makes them all the more precious. Here in the Highlands, once we are past the autumnal equinox, we can almost feel the Earth tipping away from the sun as the light grows shorter each day and the night steals back. It's a turn that is especially obvious when the clocks change and our evenings are suddenly dark.

Google is paying a higher price for its bet on AI than even Alphabet's $51.4 billion in Q3 capital expenditures suggest.

The biz appears to have traded its high-performing search advertising business for the mediocre monetization of AI Overviews and AI Mode, a misstep that contributed to investor concerns as Alphabet lost roughly $500 billion in market value despite management's attempts to reassure Wall Street.

Google's year-over-year search revenue growth slowed from 17 percent in Q2 to 12 percent in Q3. It's still headed in the right direction, but at a slower rate.

During Alphabet's conference call for investors, Douglas Anmuth from JPMorgan Chase & Co asked whether that's because Google is showing fewer ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode than it shows in its traditional search results.

Chief business officer Philipp Schindler cited several reasons for that: foreign exchange rates, Europe's elimination of its customs-duty exemption, and "the lower monetization we were seeing in AI Mode."

To compensate, Google said it is expanding the distribution of AI Overview ads and adding multiturn ads in the US for AI Mode queries.

But some Google Ads customers appear to be more concerned about quality than quantity. In a social media post, Max Anderson, CEO of OnlyFinder, complained that Google has responded to declining search volumes by attempting to manufacture revenue growth through "short-sighted, highly extractive, customer-hostile tactics," such as charging advertisers more for lower-quality clicks, including clicks on search terms they had not agreed to target.

Eric Seufert, an analyst with Mobile Dev Memo, dismissed the doomsayers in a blog post.

"It's tempting to look at the successive deceleration in Search revenue growth from Q1 2026 as a response to pressure from other chatbots and to assume that Search query volume is migrating elsewhere," he wrote. "But the earnings release notes that the 'year-over-year Search query growth rate [was] the highest it has been in the last five years' in Q3, so it's clear that Search usage isn't declining."

So people are still searching, and the business is still growing, but less convincingly, thanks to the lower monetization of AI Overviews and AI Mode. And Google's answer involves more ads in AI interactions.

Nate Elliott, principal analyst for AI at Emarketer, told The Register in an email that AI represents a double-edged sword for Google's ad business.

"On the one hand, Google owns the thing that people use AI for most: search," Elliott wrote. "Our surveys say that by far the top reason people use AI is to look for facts and information. Luckily for Google, people also tell us they haven't stopped using search engines - they've simply added AI as a new behavior on top of search. That means people spend more time than ever looking for information, and most of those people don't even think twice before doing their searches on Google. If Google figures out how to effectively monetize those users, that's great news for them."

But, said Elliott, people may find tools they like better than Google Search as they become accustomed to AI-based discovery.

"If ChatGPT or Claude or Muse is better at helping them find what they're looking for, people's search habits might change for the first time in a generation," he said. "That's potentially catastrophic for Google's ad business. The same is true if they maintain their market share but simply can't figure out how to make money from this new kind of discovery.

"The problem is, Google isn't giving us very much information about what the specific impact is of AI on their business right now, so everyone's reading into the tiny scraps of information they are releasing."

Elliott said it's remarkable that Google has managed to keep the largest and most mature digital ad business growing at a double-digit rate every quarter in recent years.

"But it appears that most folks disagree, and instead are concerned that the advertising business 'only' grew by 10 percent," he said. ®

Results:

• Read more about 2026 Sepang Moto2 PR Result: Gonzalez Takes Control Again
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Results:

• Read more about 2026 Sepang Moto3 PR Result: Almansa Edges Salmela And Pratama
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After the session, Jorge Martin was passed fit to race, while Raul Fernandez was not fit after completing just 5 laps and withdrew from the rest of the weekend.

Results:

• Read more about 2026 Sepang MotoGP FP1 Result: Marquez Leads Bezzecchi, Martin Passed Fit
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Results:

• Read more about 2026 Sepang Moto2 FP1 Result: Guevara Dominates The First Session
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Results:

• Read more about 2026 Sepang Moto3 FP1 Result: Carpe Heads Quiles And Morelli
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Welcome to another instalment of On Call, the reader-contributed column The Register publishes each Friday as a cathartic service for readers who know that dealing with tech support BS can be a cow of a job.

This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Jason" who told us he had helped an agricultural equipment dealer with his computer issues for about 20 years.

"One day this guy called me to ask if I could help at a farm in Yorkshire, where he'd arranged the supply and installation of a fairly substantial system that used a computer to do effectively everything for a few hundred cattle," he told On Call.

"That meant individually feeding them, measuring milk yields, planning pregnancies, and periodically submitting all the data to the government."

Jason said other tech support folk had tried, and failed, to fix the system.

"This had somewhat soured the relationship between the agricultural equipment dealer and the farmer," he punned in his email to On Call.

Well punned, Jason.

But we digress.

"Despite not being fond of wading around in cow shit at four in the morning, I agreed to take a look at the system," Jason told us. By this time he had learned that the farm produced many tons of milk each week, so assumed he would find serious industrial-scale tech once he reached the farm.

That assumption was wrong.

"When I arrived, the first thing that I found to worry about was that the whole thing was controlled by proprietary software on a single PC running Windows XP - just after Microsoft ended mainstream support."

The other things to worry about were all acts of omission: the farm had no backups, no spare PC, and nobody on site to maintain the PC.

Jason asked if anyone was responsible for keeping the computer up to date with the security patches and was told the farmer's 14-year-old grandson had done some computer studies at school, so he got the job.

That lad had either not discovered, or deleted, the many rather racy videos Jason found on the PC.

"When the farmer's wife learned of this, there was what can best be described as a hullabaloo," Jason told On Call.

As he dug into the mess, Jason found that the computer was sending milk production data to Her Majesty's Government. He also found that neither the government, nor the farm management software vendor, had bothered to require installation of a firewall.

Jason says he installed one, made a few other tweaks, and got the system working.

"Everyone seemed pleased, or at least they did until they got my bill," he wrote. "And to be fair, they did pay it promptly."

Jason never heard from the farm again.

"I don't know if that's because it's still working OK, or if they're just too embarrassed to see me again, or they found someone cheaper who could cope with my recommendations," he wrote.

What's the strangest or dirtiest place you've been asked to deliver tech support? Don't cheese us off by holding back! Click here to send us your story so we can milk it for all it's worth in a future instalment of On Call. ®

Amazon Web Services will become a trillion-dollar business in five to ten years, and thanks to the AI boom Amazon CEO Andy Jassy thinks it should be able to grow by 40 percent or more in 2027 or 2028.

The cloud giant is already on track to generate $184 billion annual revenue this financial year, helped by 39.3 percent year-over-year growth that propelled Q3 revenue to a whisker short of $46 billion.

"It's important to remember that the vast majority of global IT spend, about 85 percent, is still on premises, and we're in a 10- to 20-year cycle where that equation will flip to the cloud," he said on Amazon's Q3 earnings call.

"Conventional wisdom has been that linchpin workloads like mainframes or storage area networks would never move to the cloud," he observed, before triumphantly noting "these workloads are moving."

He thinks AI will help, too.

Jassy said the cloudy concern installs a new AI accelerator "about every 14 seconds, and almost as fast as we install capacity, customers are gobbling it up." The outfit's Bedrock AI services is already the fastest growing multi-billion dollar service in its history, Jassy said.

Core compute and storage services are also soaring: the CEO said revenue from both "grew at their fastest rates in several years."

Jassy thinks the performance of Bedrock and core services are intertwined, because when users select AWS for AI workloads they want their cloudy inferencing rigs to be "near the rest of their data and apps."

The CEO said AI workloads therefore "can't help but drive core AWS demand because AI uses core for work like reinforcement learning, post-training, and tool usage, which can't help but drive reinvestment back into our broader AWS functionality."

He thinks this scheme is already working because margins for AI services are already "well ahead" of the figures AWS was able to achieve for its core services at a similar time in their evolution.

The company expects to make $220 billion of capital expenditure in 2026 and already spent $75.9 billion last quarter alone, most of that on AWS. Jassy said the cloud colossus is finding ways to more quickly pay for its infrastructure investments.

The CEO said it's not easy to do that.

"I think what we're seeing with AI, it's the biggest transformation in our lifetime," he said. "Would it be more convenient if this type of acceleration and opportunity happened over 25 years and you could spread the CapEx over 25 years? Yeah, it might be more convenient, but that's not the world that we live in, and that's not the opportunity."

"We can fund this plan. I think it will forever change the size of Amazon. It will forever change our revenue, it will forever change our free cash flow, and we're going to invest, and we're going to pursue it to continue to be the significant leader like we are today."

Amazon needs AWS to land this plane, because the cloudy concern is growing much faster than the company's retail and operations, which saw revenue rise six percent on far slimmer margins. Jassy could at least point to Prime Video becoming "a significant business with a revenue run rate in the tens of billions of dollars, [and is] now profitable in its own right."

Overall revenue was $180.17 bilion for the quarter.

So if the respective growth rates of AWS and the rest of Amazon continue, in a few years we could be talking about a cloud company with a retail side hustle. ®

Crypto exchange Binance has paused trading after discovering unknown parties cracked one of its workers' laptops and used it to make massive trades

Late on Thursday, US time, the company used its social media feeds to report "Our teams are aware of reports of a potential security issue and are actively investigating."

The exchange insisted "User funds are completely safe" and warned its customers "should remain cautious of scams and should not trust unofficial links, messages, or requests for account information."

The company soon froze $2.5 billion worth of assets and warned that the figure could go higher "as our teams work closely with law enforcement, issuers, blockchain intelligence firms and industry partners to trace and freeze additional assets."

To prevent the matter worsening, Binance halted all trading, deposits, and withdrawals. It also promised to cover any losses.

About an hour ago at the time of writing, Binance posted an update on the incident that explains what it thinks went wrong.

"Binance's initial investigation suggests that the security incident may involve a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop, which allowed an attacker to gain access to a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions," the post states.

The company also hiked the amount it thinks is at risk to $6.3 billion and repeated its promise to cover any customer losses.

The update also says Binance found no evidence of any wallet private key leak, suggesting that customers' holdings remain secure.

When they can use them again, as Binance is yet to resume trading.

Binance hasn't explained how attackers gained access to the engineer's laptop. The scant details provided make it hard to rule out a successful phishing attack, or perhaps a supply chain attack on a package the developer used.

Binance says it will spill once it knows exactly what happened.

Cryptocurrency outfits have a long and inglorious history of falling victim to cyberattacks, perhaps starting with the 2011 raid on Mt Gox, to incidents allegedly perpetrated by nation-states, and, just last week, another situation possibly involving an AI-powered attacker. ®

Since the winter storms of 2025-2026, when yet more houses fell into the sea, local people have been asking: 'Is this just climate change, or could dredging be making matters worse?'

It is February 2026 and the calm after the storm, but cold and wet. A Thorpeness resident stands despairingly in what remains of her once beautiful garden, the rest having been eaten away by the sea. The sounds of demolition machinery attacking a neighbouring house are all too evident. Four homes have recently been lost and eight more are condemned, hers included. 'I have nowhere else to live, nowhere to go,' she says in a scared and desolate voice.

Only a few months previously it had been estimated that coastal homes were safe on this cliff top for at least another ten years. Villagers therefore wonder whether such a dramatic miscalculation has resulted purely from unexpected worsening of climate change with increased storm surges, or if there might be some other influence that exacerbates the situation. Could this be offshore dredging?

The Crown Estate is the body that manages the seabed for up to 12 nautical miles from the coastline around England, Wales and Northern Ireland and is responsible for granting dredging licences, including those off the East Coast. These licences generate income for the Crown Estate. In addition to licence fees, operators pay a royalty for every tonne of sand and gravel dredged. The Crown Estate's overall net revenue profits are returned to the Treasury.

Most of the dredged material off East Anglia is in great demand in the construction industry as represented by the British Marine Aggregate Producers Association (BMAPA). Both the Crown Estate and BMAPA reject suggestions that licensed offshore dredging is contributing to coastal erosion. Dredging can affect sediment movement and the underwater landscape, with potential consequences for the stability of the near shore, beaches and coastal erosion. The more difficult question is whether offshore aggregate dredging is having any such effect on the Suffolk coast.

Off East Anglia, this natural movement is in a mainly southerly direction and is known as 'longshore drift'. It is crucial for supplying sediment to beaches, which in turn helps to support the base of cliffs. Long experience has shown that any interference with this process, for example putting in hard defences, will cause erosion further down the coast.

Within the sea, sandbanks have a protective effect by reducing the power of the waves as they move towards the shore. Some of Suffolk's coastal towns, villages and businesses have relied on two such banks, the Sizewell and Dunwich Banks. Clearly, if these, or indeed any others, were significantly reduced in size the results at the shore could be devastating.

If we look at the Marine Aggregate Dredging map of 2022 for the Eastern Region we see immediately that a very large area of licences has been granted offshore between Lowestoft and Caister. There are two more areas further south. The annual amount dredged has varied from 23 km2 (2016 and 2020) to as much as 97 km2 (1998). Could it be that the removal of such large quantities of sand and gravel (160 million tonnes during the 25 years to 2022) has either altered the movement of sediment in some way, or allowed the energy of storm waves to increase, or otherwise caused beaches to shrink, thereby affecting the stability of coastal villages?

The Crown Estate and BMAPA insist that their dredging is in deep water and too far offshore to interfere with longshore drift or cause any 'drawdown' from the coast into newly formed troughs. They emphasise that the average alteration of depth is only 0.33 m, yet the height and depth of the peaks and troughs prior to dredging remains unclear.

Evidently, the sand and gravel only come from what they refer to as 'fossil deposits' which they say are mostly immobile. However, they do admit that 'sandbanks represent the nearest point of potential influence from dredging taking place offshore'.

Local swimmers have been puzzled by how sandbanks that they used to stand on have mysteriously vanished. So, what about the protective Sizewell and Dunwich banks? During the last few decades hydrographic charts have shown consistent erosion of the two with lowering of the crests and a spreading out along the eastern contours. Could dredging be a contributing factor?

Recent events suggest that they are no longer substantial enough to prevent storm surges from ripping away the soft cliffs at Thorpeness. It is also a worry that Sizewell nuclear power stations A and B lie just 4 km to the north, with C currently under construction. The company is already having to consider recharge of the soft defences along the beach.

As Alan Brampton, who carried out research for the Crown Estate, has said, he is engaged in 'an inexact science. Sediment transport is very difficult to model.' Distressed coastal residents are therefore left with more questions than answers.

Nevertheless, old-fashioned commonsense indicates that such a very large area of offshore dredging could be having an impact on East Anglia's complex and finely balanced coastal processes. We interfere with these at our peril.

Nominate an organisation that needs scrutiny

The post Dredging for profit but losing our villages? first appeared on East Anglia Bylines.

Since the winter storms of 2025-2026, when yet more houses fell into the sea, local people have been asking: 'Is this just climate change, or could dredging be making matters worse?'

It is February 2026 and the calm after the storm, but cold and wet. A Thorpeness resident stands despairingly in what remains of her once beautiful garden, the rest having been eaten away by the sea. The sounds of demolition machinery attacking a neighbouring house are all too evident. Four homes have recently been lost and eight more are condemned, hers included. 'I have nowhere else to live, nowhere to go,' she says in a scared and desolate voice.

Only a few months previously it had been estimated that coastal homes were safe on this cliff top for at least another ten years. Villagers therefore wonder whether such a dramatic miscalculation has resulted purely from unexpected worsening of climate change with increased storm surges, or if there might be some other influence that exacerbates the situation. Could this be offshore dredging?

The Crown Estate is the body that manages the seabed for up to 12 nautical miles from the coastline around England, Wales and Northern Ireland and is responsible for granting dredging licences, including those off the East Coast. These licences generate income for the Crown Estate. In addition to licence fees, operators pay a royalty for every tonne of sand and gravel dredged. The Crown Estate's overall net revenue profits are returned to the Treasury.

Most of the dredged material off East Anglia is in great demand in the construction industry as represented by the British Marine Aggregate Producers Association (BMAPA). Both the Crown Estate and BMAPA reject suggestions that licensed offshore dredging is contributing to coastal erosion. Dredging can affect sediment movement and the underwater landscape, with potential consequences for the stability of the near shore, beaches and coastal erosion. The more difficult question is whether offshore aggregate dredging is having any such effect on the Suffolk coast.

Off East Anglia, this natural movement is in a mainly southerly direction and is known as 'longshore drift'. It is crucial for supplying sediment to beaches, which in turn helps to support the base of cliffs. Long experience has shown that any interference with this process, for example putting in hard defences, will cause erosion further down the coast.

Within the sea, sandbanks have a protective effect by reducing the power of the waves as they move towards the shore. Some of Suffolk's coastal towns, villages and businesses have relied on two such banks, the Sizewell and Dunwich Banks. Clearly, if these, or indeed any others, were significantly reduced in size the results at the shore could be devastating.

If we look at the Marine Aggregate Dredging map of 2022 for the Eastern Region we see immediately that a very large area of licences has been granted offshore between Lowestoft and Caister. There are two more areas further south. The annual amount dredged has varied from 23 km2 (2016 and 2020) to as much as 97 km2 (1998). Could it be that the removal of such large quantities of sand and gravel (160 million tonnes during the 25 years to 2022) has either altered the movement of sediment in some way, or allowed the energy of storm waves to increase, or otherwise caused beaches to shrink, thereby affecting the stability of coastal villages?

The Crown Estate and BMAPA insist that their dredging is in deep water and too far offshore to interfere with longshore drift or cause any 'drawdown' from the coast into newly formed troughs. They emphasise that the average alteration of depth is only 0.33 m, yet the height and depth of the peaks and troughs prior to dredging remains unclear.

Evidently, the sand and gravel only come from what they refer to as 'fossil deposits' which they say are mostly immobile. However, they do admit that 'sandbanks represent the nearest point of potential influence from dredging taking place offshore'.

Local swimmers have been puzzled by how sandbanks that they used to stand on have mysteriously vanished. So, what about the protective Sizewell and Dunwich banks? During the last few decades hydrographic charts have shown consistent erosion of the two with lowering of the crests and a spreading out along the eastern contours. Could dredging be a contributing factor?

Recent events suggest that they are no longer substantial enough to prevent storm surges from ripping away the soft cliffs at Thorpeness. It is also a worry that Sizewell nuclear power stations A and B lie just 4 km to the north, with C currently under construction. The company is already having to consider recharge of the soft defences along the beach.

As Alan Brampton, who carried out research for the Crown Estate, has said, he is engaged in 'an inexact science. Sediment transport is very difficult to model.' Distressed coastal residents are therefore left with more questions than answers.

Nevertheless, old-fashioned commonsense indicates that such a very large area of offshore dredging could be having an impact on East Anglia's complex and finely balanced coastal processes. We interfere with these at our peril.

Nominate an organisation that needs scrutiny

The post Dredging for profit but losing our villages? first appeared on East Anglia Bylines.

Andy Stott

Late Loop

The British electronic music producer proves himself, once again, a consummate perfectionist - but it's the subtle imperfections that make his music really sing

It didn't take Andy Stott long to find himself drawn towards the frayed edges, to wear and imperfections. Less concerned with gleaming dancefloor patterns than the accumulation of hiss and grit, he made his name with slower tempos, tracks that went a little wonky, marked by age and rust. A sound in love with the 'stuff' of sound, the sense it had a physical surface that got under your fingernails, that carried the marks of time. On Late Loop it settles to a stillness, a richly emotive minimalism under the slow shroud of attic dust.

It's...

The post Andy Stott - Late Loop appeared first on The Quietus.

A cartoon that celebrates small acts of grace

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Replacing diesel-powered ferries with electric vessels could reduce emissions and improve air quality

Cutting through New York Harbor in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, the small white boat we were riding on caught the attention of passengers aboard a nearby sightseeing ferry.

"It's quite a curiosity at the moment," Eric Laakmann, the chief executive and co-founder of Vessev, said.

Climate Central is an independent group of scientists and communicators who research and report the facts about our changing climate and how it affects people's lives.

There is no end in sight for the drivers of illegal mining, while police action appears ineffective

Cora Bailey has been encountering illegal miners ever since she first started treating injured animals in the townships around Roodepoort, west of Johannesburg, in 1991. But as the price of gold has soared, so too has activity in the abandoned mine shafts that mark the area.

In late September, dozens of zama zamas - the name given to illegal miners in South Africa, meaning roughly "to take a chance" in Zulu - arrived to dig for gold across the dirt road from her charity, Claw (Community Led Animal Welfare).

Many thanks also to my friend Barry Smiler for being October's sponsor. Do take a look at his climate site, which nicely complements mine. He recently added some nifty enhancements to his Research page. And for your climate listening pleasure, he suggests this little song.

"Oil Refineries Become Prime Targets as Global Fuel Shortage Worsens

"The global refining crisis is worsening, as war damage to Middle Eastern refineries and Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian facilities severely restrict fuel supplies."

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Oil-Refineries-Become-Prime-Targets-as-Global-Fuel-Shortage-Worsens.amp.html

"Ship reported on fire off Oman as Iran escalation fears mount.

"A ship in the Strait of Hormuz is reported to be on fire, a British maritime agency says. Iran has meanwhile said it has shot down another US drone as military tensions with Washington continue."

https://amp.dw.com/en/ship-reported-on-fire-off-oman-as-iran-escalation-fears-mount/a-79792733

"Iran's hidden web of military agencies is slipping hardware past the US blockade.

"Iran has harnessed a military-financial complex of 5,000 agencies to bring in components, explosives and heavy-duty trucks critical to its drone and missile programs. Even during the war, deliveries reached Iran by land, sea and air."

https://www.reuters.com/world/iran/irans-hidden-web-military-agencies-is-slipping-hardware-past-us-blockade-2026-10-29/

"Israeli election deadlock leaves door open to fresh Iran strikes.

"Israel's inconclusive election opens the possibility for Binyamin Netanyahu to launch a new bombing campaign with the US against Iran while he rules as caretaker prime minister, said Israeli security experts."

https://www.irishtimes.com/world/middle-east/2026/10/29/israeli-election-deadlock-leaves-door-open-to-fresh-iran-strikes/

70 years ago the Suez crisis exposed British relative decline. Today, the Iran conflict could be doing the same for the US

Suez showed that Britain had lost the leeway to behave like a superpower.

"…the invasion was a spectacular failure that was condemned by the international community. The crisis came to symbolise Britain's loss of superpower status."

https://theconversation.com/70-years-ago-the-suez-crisis-exposed-british-relative-decline-today-the-iran-conflict-could-be-doing-the-same-for-the-us-292833

"Americans are putting groceries and gas on credit, and the debt is piling up…

"A 2026 survey commissioned by Accredited Debt Relief found that 66% of respondents had used a credit card to purchase groceries in the previous year. The survey also found that 29% relied on credit or borrowing every month to make ends meet."

https://nypost.com/business/how-everyday-expenses-become-long-term-debt/

"North Sea oil and gas tax take 'close to zero' in five years, OBR says.

"The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), in a document published alongside the UK Government's Budget, also projected that North Sea output would decline by 10% a year until 2031. The 10% decline is assuming that the Rosebank oil field is approved for development."

https://www.thenational.scot/news/26677922.north-sea-oil-gas-tax-take-close-zero-five-years-obr-says/

"EU Scrambles to Contain Energy Price Crisis Ahead of Winter.

""We are in a very serious situation now. It does not look like we have a security of supply issue but I would warn against neglecting that," Jorgensen told media yesterday, as quoted by Reuters."

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/EU-Scrambles-to-Contain-Energy-Price-Crisis-Ahead-of-Winter.amp.html

"European property slump deepens as borrowing costs force price cuts…

"Government bond yields have surged to multi-year highs across ​Europe and globally, pushing up financing costs for borrowers, including in the interest-rate sensitive property ​sector."

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/european-property-slump-deepens-borrowing-costs-force-price-cuts-2026-10-29/

"Is the Eurozone heading towards a new sovereign debt crisis?

"Lessons from the Eurozone's experience with Greece in 2010 suggest that while a full-blown drama is yet to unfold, the European Central Bank must stand ready to intervene if nee

ded."

https://www.economicsobservatory.com/is-the-eurozone-heading-towards-a-new-sovereign-debt-crisis

"French Senate backs 'Rioters Pay' bill that could make protesters pay $11,000 fines…

"Under the so-called "Rioters Pay" bill, protesters could be ordered to pay up to 10,000 euros ($11,140) "for the compensation of damages resulting from crimes and offenses committed by force or violence." Welfare payments could also be seized to cover costs."

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/10/29/france-protests-riots-cost-damages-law.html

"Volkswagen crisis deepens as it reports worst loss since 'Dieselgate' scandal…

"Chief executive Oliver Blume has agreed to cut a total of 100,000 jobs by 2030… 'The loss reported by VW today is a warning sign for the entire sector and industry, and should also serve as one for policymakers,' said Moritz Kronenberger of Volkswagen investor Union Investment."

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-16248899/Volkswagen-crisis-deepens-reports-worst-loss-Dieselgate-scandal.html

"Private Credit: Facing A Brutal 2027.

"Private credit markets are deteriorating rapidly, with default rates hitting record highs and refinancing conditions worsening amid rising interest rates."

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4959243-private-credit-facing-a-brutal-2027

"Investors May Have Bought All the AI Bonds They Can Handle.

"A new anxiety is gripping Wall Street as it bankrolls the vast network of data centers and chips behind the AI boom: Early signs suggest the credit market is approaching the limits of how much more debt it can absorb."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-10-29/investors-may-have-bought-all-the-ai-bonds-they-can-handle

"The AI bubble could expose your deepest secrets…

"If the bubble pops, untold numbers of AI businesses will merge or shut down. The data that billions of people give to AI tools could then be purchased by almost anyone. You may never find out what happens to it."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20261029-the-ai-bubble-could-expose-your-deepest-secrets

[Reality corner]

In Erik Michael's latest he quotes Lyle Lewis:

"Perhaps the defining scarcity of this century will not be information. We already possess more information than any society in history. The scarcity will be uninterrupted time—time long enough for information to become understanding, understanding to become adaptation, and adaptation to become resilience.

Without that time, ecosystems cannot fully adapt, institutions cannot learn, and societies cannot clearly understand what is happening to them. The world does not need to conceal the crisis from us. It only needs to change faster than we can put the pieces together."

https://problemspredicamentsandtechnology.blogspot.com/2026/10/adaptation-will-be-futile.html

As a reader-funded publication, your one time and regular donations help keep this site going. If you value this work, please share it far and wide and consider a Patreon subscription or a one time Paypal donation. You can also support this work by buying a virtual coffee. Thank you!

You can read the previous "Economic" thread here. I'll be back tomorrow with a "Climate" thread.

The post 30th October 2026 Today's Round-Up of Economic News appeared first on Climate and Economy.

One of the UK budget's big surprises? A discount on gherkins. And while they'll always be good on a burger, there are many more unusual ways to indulge, from fried cheese treats to savoury ice-cream

In John Healey's first budget as chancellor this week, he announced that he will remove import tariffs on more than 100 products - including, crucially, gherkins. Baked beans and boiled sweets, too, but gherkins stole the limelight, perhaps due to gen Z's long-held obsession with all things pickled, including cucumbers.

But for those who think of a gherkin as either something to be chomped straight from the jar or swiftly removed from a Big Mac, do not worry: there are, in fact, plenty of ways to get more bang for your newly discounted gherkin buck.

The #25 won't be taking part in the rest of the Malaysian GP as he continues to suffer with his fingers, broken in Lombok.

Raul Fernandez (SuperFile Trackhouse MotoGP team) put in a superhuman ride at the Indonesian GP to take a podium despite having fractured fingers, but the #25 was then forced to withdraw from the Australian GP as his recovery continues.

Arriving in Sepang for the Petronas Grand Prix of Malaysia, Fernandez got the ok to take part in FP1 and headed out in the session. However, in a review thereafter he was declared officially unfit and is now sidelined from the event, instead focusing on making a full recovery.

Get well soon, Raul!

The post MotoGP: Raul Fernandez Sidelined From Sepang appeared first on Roadracing World Magazine | Motorcycle Riding, Racing & Tech News.

To state that RFK Jr. says things that are just plainly wrong is to state the obvious. His waffling claims about the dangers of vaccines are wrong. His various other pet conspiracy theories, such as chemtrails and damage to humans from EMF, are also wrong. The data HHS is putting out under his leadership about how many measles deaths have occurred this year is also wrong. Hell, at a recent campaign event in Michigan, a state with a large Arab population, Kennedy decided that the best way to stump for Mike Rogers was to claim that none of the Arabs throughout the world produce any science or literature, which is also wrong.

"There's 500 million Arabs in the world, and yet they don't produce science, they don't win the Nobel Prize, they don't win the Fields prize, they don't win the Wolf Prize, they don't produce literature," he said.

Arabs have won all those prizes. Peter Hotez, who is a professor at the Baylor College of Medicine and specializes in vaccine development and tropical medicine, said his late colleague, Nobel Prize winner Ahmed Zewail, who was Arab and died in 2016, "would disagree" with Kennedy's comments.

So, not just wrong, but racist in perhaps the stupidest manner possible given his only reason for being in Michigan in the first place.

So let's rewind the clock back to April, when Kennedy decided to tell the public that this whole measles outbreak thing had nothing to do with him. Rather, the only reason we had the outbreaks to begin with was because of dirty foreigners coming in as immigrants.

But despite Kennedy being the most vocal source of vaccine misinformation, the secretary tried to blame the outbreaks entirely on immigrants who come to the U.S. from countries where measles is not eliminated — framing the issue as a global epidemic rather than a national public health crisis.

"It has nothing to do with me," he told lawmakers. "If you're worried about polio and tuberculosis, you should look at the immigration policies in this country. 'Cause the place where it's occurring are the place[s] where the immigrants are going, because they're not vaccinated."

That was wrong too, of course. We knew it at the time, just was we knew that the practice of blaming immigrants for disease outbreaks is such common practice that we could set our watches to it. But now we have actual data on how the measles is spreading in America and that data fully puts the lie to Kennedy's bigotry.

Most of the meat of the study focuses on very specific instances in which Washington state endured measles infections that were spread specifically from South Carolina earlier this year.

The study in Washington relied heavily on epidemiological data, linking cases among contacts and exposure sites. But also key to the work was whole-genome sequencing, which made clear that cases didn't just stem from one single introduction of the virus from South Carolina that then spread among Washington residents; instead, it revealed five separate introductions.

"As public health jurisdictions prepare to respond to increased measles importations linked to domestic measles outbreaks, while remaining vigilant for international importations, timely whole-genome sequencing can supplement epidemiologic information to help differentiate distinct importations from local transmission and inform outbreak response," the authors conclude.

But when you pair that with the data from CDC as to exactly how the infections are spreading, you get both the micro and macro data for how it's occurring.

Kennedy claims that there is a "global outbreak" and the US is "doing a better job than any country in the world at controlling the measles outbreak." Both claims are false. Dozens of other countries have lower case rates than the US. While some countries, including neighboring Canada and Mexico, are also seeing large increases in cases, the soaring case tally in the US is not being driven by international imports, but by domestic spread in under-vaccinated communities.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 18 of the country's 4,588 confirmed measles cases this year were reported among international visitors. Of all the cases, 4,404 (96 percent) are linked to a domestic outbreak.

There can be no doubt that disease is sometimes imported into America from foreign visitors. But the point is that that just isn't the real problem here. America's measles problem is a domestic problem, not a matter of immigration. If we had maintained our vaccination rates such that we had herd immunity, we'd be fine.

It's because of Kennedy's many, many lies on vaccines that we are not. Don't let him tell you another lie, that this is all a result of immigrants, to cover up his responsibility.