OUR PICKSKey Takeaways About the Condition of US Bridges | Litigation Finance Exposes Our Judicial System to Foreign Exploitation | RFK Jr. Has Assembled His Anti-Vax Conspiracy Squad, and more
· RFK Jr. Has Assembled His Anti-Vax Conspiracy Squad
Nicole Shanahan, RFK Jr.’s VP pick, seems to have already embraced her running mate’s conspiratorial thinking
· Trump Shares Video Featuring Image of a Hog-Tied Biden
The social media post reflects the increasingly violent and personal attacks that Donald J. Trump has employed during the presidential campaign
· Qatari Royal Reportedly Invested $50 Million in Pro-Trump News Channel Newsmax
Right-wing news outlet Newsmax received an investment of roughly $50 million from a Qatari royal between 2019 and 2020. Newsmax employees said they were urged to soften news coverage of Qatar, a claim that the outlet rejects
· Key Takeaways About the Condition of US Bridges
About 42,400 U.S. bridges are in poor condition, carrying about 167 million vehicles each day
· Uranium Being Mined Near Grand Canyon as Prices Soar
The largest uranium producer in the United States is ramping up work just south of Grand Canyon National Park on a long-contested project that comes as global instability and growing demand drive uranium prices higher
· Litigation Finance Exposes Our Judicial System to Foreign Exploitation
To uphold the American justice system, we must turn a spotlight on third-party litigation funding
· The Night the Francis Scott Key Bridge Came Down
In the end, the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge may require more than financial surgery to repair
RFK Jr. Has Assembled His Anti-Vax Conspiracy Squad (Makena Kelly, Wired)
Conspiracy theories and the people creating them have overwhelmed the US political process, and they’re becoming only more prevalent with each passing year. 2024 will be no different, if not worse: We’re already uncovering all kinds here on the WIRED Politics desk, from election conspiracy groups to claims that Boeing planes were made faulty on purpose. In the past few days alone, we’ve seen theories swirl online about the Baltimore bridge collapse and Kate Middleton’s cancer announcement.
A number of conspiracies were also given a boost this week by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s long-shot presidential campaign. Let’s talk about them!
Trump Shares Video Featuring Image of a Hog-Tied Biden (Chris Cameron, New York Times)
Former President Donald J. Trump posted a video on Friday to his social media website that features an image of President Biden with his hands and feet tied together.
Mr. Trump’s promotion of the video featuring the image reflects the increasingly caustic and personal attacks that he has directed against Mr. Biden — for example, in a speech this month he said that “everything Joe Biden touches turns to” filth, though he used an expletive — and it extends a record in which the former president features violent imagery on his social media accounts.
Mr. Trump has previously posted doctored photos and videos depicting him physically attacking political opponents, focusing particularly on Mr. Biden in the last year. The former president has, for example, repeatedly shared videos depicting him hitting Mr. Biden with golf balls. Mr. Trump also posted a photo last year of him holding a baseball bat next to Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, who is prosecuting Mr. Trump in connection to a hush money payment made to a porn star during the 2016 campaign.
Mr. Trump has also used increasingly authoritarian language on the campaign trail, repeatedly saying that migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and describing his political opponents in a Veterans Day speech last year as “vermin” who needed to be “rooted out.”This month, Mr. Trump said that some migrants were “not people” and, amid a discussion of the auto industry, that the country would face a “blood bath” if he lost the election.
