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The agony and ecstasy of scoring last-minute face value Taylor Swift tickets | CNN Business

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CNN
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When Julia Thomas woke up at her home in Cleveland last Saturday, she spontaneously decided to drive 15 hours to the Taylor Swift concert that night in Nashville, picking up her sister in Cincinnati along the way. But they were missing one thing: tickets.

Like so many Swift fans, she couldn’t get tickets on Ticketmaster when they went on sale last fall, nor could she afford the four-figure price tag listed for them on resale sites. About halfway through the drive, however, her sister found $350 floor seats after refreshing various Swift-focused Twitter accounts: Ticketmaster had just dropped a handful of last-minute tickets at face value on its website.

“We seriously just got super lucky,” she told CNN. “We made it to Nashville with about an hour to spare before the concert started.”

Thomas is one of many devoted fans who closely monitor a mix of Twitter accounts dedicated to alerting fans when Ticketmaster releases a new batch of Swift tickets after the initial sale.

Ticket drops are not new. They’re ostensibly due to additional seats being added to a venue, or if tickets are returned. But these drops have become an obsession among Swift’s most devoted fans, who are struggling to find tickets for the artist in the face of Ticketmaster’s broader ticketing snafus.

Ticketmaster has been under scrutiny for fumbling the online sales to the mega-star’s latest tour, in an era where it already completely dominates the live event industry, leaving few, if any, alternatives. In November, “Verified Fans” were sent a presale code — but when sales began, heavy demand snarled the website and millions of Swifties could not get their hands on a ticket. Presale tickets for Capital One card holders brought similar frustration — and then Ticketmaster canceled sales to the general public, citing “extraordinarily high demand” and “insufficient remaining ticket inventory.”

In testimony before Congress, Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation President and CFO Joe Berchtold partly blamed the ticketing incident on bots. He also emphasized that Ticketmaster does not set ticket prices, does not determine the number of tickets put up for sale and that “in most cases, venues set service and ticketing fees,” not Ticketmaster.

Ticketmaster and Live Nation are currently face a lawsuit from Swift fans across the country for “unlawful conduct,” with the plaintiffs claiming the ticketing giant violated antitrust laws, among others. A preliminary hearing was held in March; Ticketmaster has denied the allegations.

Millions of fans are still unable to buy tickets. In recent weeks, however, Ticketmaster has been sending out more Verified Fan codes to people who were originally selected from the pre-sale to purchase from leftover tickets. For people without codes, Ticketmaster is also doing routine ticket drops ahead of shows.

It’s not unusual, however, that thousands of fans are trying to secure the same tickets at the same time. Sometimes the seats are purchased by bots and scalpers, and reposted to third-party sites like StubHub within minutes.

Ticketmaster did not respond to a request for comment about its ticket drops.

But that’s not deterring Swift fans. Some are spending hours searching for tickets online and driving long distances to concert venues without a ticket in hand, even if it risks ending in heartbreak.

Molly Ramsey, an 18-year-old fan from Bristol, Tennessee, said she recently stumbled across the Twitter account @erastourticks, which often tweets about Ticketmaster’s drops. “My family [last weekend] took the gamble to drive down the 5 hours to Nashville to see if we could get face value tickets,” she said.

After nearly nine hours of refreshing Ticketmaster, she secured four tickets right before the show started. “We were sitting outside of the stadium while the openers were playing, but as soon as our payment went through, it was an out-of-body experience,” she said. “My sister started screaming and dancing.”

In a nod to Swift’s hit song “Anti-Hero” and the rush to find drop tickets, the Twitter account – which has about 22,000 followers – recently tweeted: “It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero aka @Ticketmaster.”

A similar site, @concertleaks, has been connecting its 62,000 followers to last-minute Swift tickets. The account was originally set up years ago to post concert setlists, merchandise, and tickets for various artists, but has evolved to help connect followers with ticket drops, too.

Another Twitter account called @ErasTourResell, which has 120,000 followers, has gained significant traction working with resellers who want to sell their tickets at face value. The account is run by longtime friends Courtney Johnston, Channette Garay and Angel Richards. The trio of twenty-somethings aim to make Swift tickets as accessible to fans as possible without them overpaying or getting scammed.

“So far we’ve posted somewhere between 2,700 and 3,000 tickets, all for face value,” the trio said in a DM conversation on Twitter. “It’s truly so rewarding seeing these tickets go to real fans for face value when the resale market has insane prices with people making three times the profit. It’s also been amazing to meet people who follow the account at shows, especially if the only reason they were even able to attend was through our account.”

They spend hours, in between working and going to school, sifting through daily submissions to make sure the tickets are real. The group encourages buyers to ask for video proof of tickets, to pay only via Paypal Goods and Services due to its protection plan and to never pay over the face value. (They also said they don’t make any money off the process, and do it only to help fellow Swifties, but they do have a Ko-Fi account where people can donate funds for food or coffee).

“Surprisingly, the vetting process has gone immensely well and smoothly because by now we know what a sketchy screen recording looks like or what a forged or hacked email can look like,” the group said. “It’s all about being able to catch the super small details – what color an image is supposed to look like, what link is clickable, where that link has to take you, what message is supposed to pop up at any certain point.”

But getting these tickets isn’t easy. After an alert for tickets is posted to their Twitter page, many users say they never hear back from sellers, and it’s unclear how they select a buyer from the hundreds of fans who reach out to them.

“It has definitely gotten harder with our amount of followers increasing,” the friends behind @ErasTourResell told CNN. “Some [sellers pick] based off of the first direct message and mention, and others go for someone with a touching story so it truly varies. Having our notifications on helps as we tend to do a little warning and tease before posting most tickets.”

Beyond Twitter, many fans are turning to sites such as Reddit, including the R/Taylor Swift page, for play-by-play details on Ticketmaster drops. Some say they’ve spotted them several times throughout the day but most frequently about 30 minutes before a show starts. (Tickets have even appeared an hour into the show.) Others suggest using Apple Pay to expedite the payment process and avoid losing tickets while typing in credit card information.

Despite these massive efforts, not all fans find luck online.

Katy Blackman, 33, from Birmingham, Alabama, said she spent all day in a Nashville hotel last weekend refreshing the site. Only once did she manage to get a single ticket into her online shopping cart, but it was gone before she could check out.

Still, she headed to Nissan Stadium that night and stood in the parking lot alongside hundreds of other fans without tickets trying to get in. When the lights dimmed minutes before Swift took the stage, the crowds scattered; she was nearly the only one left, still refreshing Ticketmaster.

“All my searching and combing Ticketmaster and resell sites was worthless,” she said. “But then all of a sudden, a random girl came running up to me truly seconds before she came on and said, “Hey, wanna come in with me?”

The stranger had just scored last-minute tickets and had an extra to sell. “A miracle happened,” Blackman said. “My new friend and I sang every single song. We cried, danced, hugged. It was worth the absolute hell to get there.”

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May 13, 2023
Erdogan’s rival has gone through a political makeover ahead of the elections | CNN

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Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.

CNN
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Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the main opposition candidate in Turkey’s presidential election, is decidedly calm and mild-mannered in his bid to end the two-decade rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Much of his campaign messaging has been delivered from his quintessentially Turkish middle-class home and posted on Twitter, in videos that some observers have called his “kitchen diaries.”

Seated, often with tea in an “ince belli”, a Turkish teacup, he lays out his key campaign promises, announces members of his potential coalition, and sometimes just speaks candidly to the people, virtually welcoming the public into his home.

Such gestures are in stark contrast to the elitist image he and his party once had. Analysts say the desire to appeal to today’s voters has seen the presidential candidate undergo an image makeover over the years. His messages now target Turkey’s middle class and the downtrodden, the very constituency that Erdogan has always championed.

But Erdogan is now seen by his critics as being responsible for the economic turmoil the country is facing, largely due to his inability to control runaway inflation, an issue that polls have said is high on the agenda of voters who go to the ballot box on Sunday. Inflation in the country was at 43% in April, down from its peak of 85% last October.

For Erdogan’s opponents, that’s fodder for campaigns against him.

Promising to fix Turkey’s faltering economy has been a cornerstone of Kilicdaroglu’s campaign. In a video posted on Twitter on Friday, he stood in the kitchen and held up staples like bread, eggs, and yogurt, reminding viewers how much their price had soared in a year. In a separate four-second clip, he says: “Today, if you are poorer than yesterday, the only reason is Erdogan.”

Gulfem Saydan Sanver, a political communication expert who works with several politicians in Kilicdaroglu’s center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP), said the kitchen has become a “symbol” of the candidate, “that he is living in a humble (life), and he is dealing with daily life problems of the ordinary Turkish citizens.”

“(He) wanted to show that Erdogan is the one who has forgotten about the problems of the lower income families,” she said.

His use of Twitter to reach the electorate may not have been out of choice, however. The majority of mainstream media outlets in the country are controlled by government loyalists, prompting the opposition to lean heavily into social media messaging.

When he took control of the CHP in 2010, Kilicdaroglu had an image problem, experts say. His party was staunchly secular and fiercely nationalistic. Today, however, it has unified disparate political players, is trying to court the Kurdish vote and has even welcomed defectors from Erdogan’s Islamist-leaning Ak Party.

According to some of those who’ve known him, the career bureaucrat turned politician was seen as elitist and disconnected from the working class as he took control of the party, much as the CHP itself was perceived. Erdogan’s government capitalized on that.

“The government used very much the people-versus-elite distinction… in order to discredit the opposition by showing them as part of some kind of power elite,” said Murat Somer, a political science professor at Koc University in Istanbul. That created a “very hard, ossified, negative image that the opposition could not get rid of,” he told CNN.

The home videos would have been hard to imagine in the early days of his political career since his natural inclination is to keep his private life to himself, said Mehmet Karli, CHP member and longtime adviser to Kilicdaroglu.

“He has come to understand over the course of (his) … political life that private and public are very much intermeshed, especially if one is leading a movement,” he told CNN.

But the soft-spoken demeanor portrayed from his home could have downsides.

Sanver said the kitchen videos had the potential to come off as too soft for some of the tougher foreign policy issues in Turkey – including ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the United States.

Erdogan has been able to leverage personal relationships and has shown effective leadership in one of the world’s most intractable issues. Alongside the United Nations, he managed to broker a deal on grain exports between Ukraine and Russia, helping prevent a global food crisis.

“It’s one of the critiques I had,” Sanver, who has met with Kilicdaroglu throughout his campaign, told CNN. “He needs to look strong because Erdogan is also very strong.”

Delivering some addresses from his office may have helped establish a more serious persona while showing he’s still a different leader than Erdogan, she said.

In a country where ethnic and religious identity often plays a part in the public discourse and is exploited by some politicians, Kilicdaroglu has moved swiftly to deprive his opponents of ammunition.

In a video posted on Twitter from his office last month, he declared to the electorate that he belongs to the Alevi sect, a minority faith group from the east of Turkey that has for years complained about persecution in the majority Sunni Muslim country. The video was watched 36 million times.

“We will no longer talk about identities; we will talk about achievements,” he said. “We will no longer talk about divisions and differences; we will speak of our commonality and our common dreams. Will you join this campaign for this change?”

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May 12, 2023
A law that cancels cancel culture? This country is considering it | CNN

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CNN
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Cancel culture, the online trend of calling out people, celebrities, brands and organizations – rightly or wrongly – for perceived social indiscretions or offensive behaviors, has become a polarizing topic of debate.

To some, it’s an important means of social justice and holding powerful figures to account. But to others, it’s often “misused and misdirected” and has become a form of mob rule.

But one country wants to put an end to the deeply contested online phenomena by introducing what legal experts and observers say would be the world’s first law against cancel culture – raising alarm among rights activists who fear that such legal powers could be used to stifle free speech.

Over the past year, Singapore’s government has been “looking at ways to deal with cancel culture,” a spokesperson told CNN – amid what some say is a brewing culture war between gay rights supporters and the religious right following the recent decriminalization of homosexuality in the largely conservative city-state.

Authorities said they were “examining existing related laws and legislation” after receiving “feedback” from conservative Christians who expressed fears about being canceled for their views by vocal groups online.

“People ought to be free to express their views without fear of being attacked on both sides,” law minister K Shanmugam said in an interview with state media outlets in August.

“We should not allow a culture where people of religion are ostracized (or) attacked for espousing their views or their disagreements with LGBT viewpoints – and vice versa,” he added.

His comments came ahead of the historic repealing of a colonial-era law that criminalized gay sex – even if it was consensual.

“We cannot sit by and do nothing. We have to look at the right boundaries between hate speech and free speech in this context,” Shanmugam said. “There could be wider repercussions for society at large where public discourse becomes impoverished… so we plan to do something about this.”

In a statement to CNN, his law ministry said the impact of online cancel campaigns could be “far reaching and severe for victims.”

“(Some) have been unable to engage in reasonable public discourse for fear of being attacked for their views online… and may engage in self censorship for fear of being made a target of cancel campaigns,” a ministry spokesperson said.

The first thing any law tackling cancel culture must do, would be to define the act of canceling – an extremely complex challenge according to legal experts, given how contentious cancel culture can be.

The phrase first originated from the slang term “cancel,” referring to breaking up with someone, according to the Pew Research Center, and later gained traction on social media. The Center published a study around the cancel phenomenon in 2021 which revealed deep public division across demographic groups in the United States – from the very meaning of the phrase as well as what cancel culture represents.

According to Eugene Tan, an associate law professor from the Singapore Management University (SMU), there remains “no accepted definition” of canceling and as such, any proposed law would have to be “very clearly defined and worded.”

“What does it mean when a person claims to be canceled? How would alleged victims show proof of being canceled?” said Tan, who once served as a nominated member of the Singapore Parliament.

“All too often, incidents are interpreted, described or remembered by people in different ways. The lack of precision could result in the law being over inclusive, covering acts which it shouldn’t,” added Tan. “But if the definition is limiting, the law could be under inclusive and not cover crucial acts when it should,” said Tan.

Given how most cancel cases take place online, the new law would also have to be specially drafted with the internet in mind and likely involve cooperation from social media giants, lawyers in Singapore told CNN.

“A cancel law will have to involve the platforms on which people typically discuss or propagate anything related to cancellation and where materials are published,” said Ian Ernst Chai, a lawyer who once served as a deputy public prosecutor in Singapore’s Attorney General’s Chambers.

Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok could possibly be asked to police users or comply with court orders to a certain extent, Chai said – and this could also include taking down posts and tweets deemed to be “in infringement of the law.”

Special legal mechanisms would also be needed to identify perpetrators (‘cancelers’), said other legal experts. “With cancel culture, things can spread immediately online and people’s reputations can be ruined in a matter of hours,” said criminal lawyer Joshua Tong.

“It is clear that traditional legal processes are not suitable for cancel scenarios and a different process must be used. The (new) law could contain sections like intervention mechanisms to stop cancel campaigns before they gather steam,” added Tong.

In Singapore’s case, there are also already several laws governing the internet which include an anti fake news bill – punishable with fines of up to 50,000 Singapore dollars ($38,000) or possible prison sentences of up to five years – as well as laws governing cyberbullying and doxing.

So a cancel law would have to be one that’s very distinct in nature.

The drafting of new laws could take months or even years and would have to be passed in Parliament, Singapore legal experts said.

While the government did not provide further details when asked about what a new law dealing with cancel culture would look like or when it could be expected – critics have raised concerns over what they say could result in further restrictions on freedom of speech and expression in Singapore.

“It sounds like yet another intimidation tactic by the government against those on the ground trying to raise their voices to demand accountability and change,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch.

“If a person or a group says hateful and discriminatory things against gay and trans people for example, others should be allowed to call them out and rebut what was said – this isn’t ‘cancel culture’, it’s social discourse and any modern, democratic society should be able to handle that without overbearing state interference.”

Free speech advocate Roy Ngerng said a law against cancel culture would be “dangerous.”

In 2015, Ngerng was sued for defamation by the Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong over a critical blog post he had written about the country’s national pensions plan. Ngerng lost his job at a national hospital as a result and said he was also harassed online.

“The government’s strategy has been systematic from the beginning – canceling people like activists, journalists and opposition politicians who they deem disagreeable,” he told CNN.

“They have adapted laws for use during the Internet era and perhaps seeing how fast conversations move on social media has prompted them to create a new law to stamp out cancel culture – prevent conversations from moving too quickly,” he said.

“We shouldn’t be worried about conversations being canceled – we should be more worried about the government coming up with new laws and ways to cancel Singaporeans.”

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May 12, 2023
Wagner boss steps up his online tantrum as Bakhmut battle rages. What does it mean? | CNN

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CNN
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What’s eating Yevgeny Prigozhin?

In recent days, the boss of the Russian private military company Wagner seems to have gone into social-media meltdown, flooding his Telegram channel and other accounts with ever-more outrageous and provocative statements.

Among other things, Prigozhin revealed an apparently humiliating battlefield setback for Russia, fulminating this week that a Russian brigade had “fled” around eastern city of Bakhmut, threatening his troops with encirclement by the Ukrainian forces.

“The situation on the western flanks is developing according to the worst of the predicted scenarios,” Prigozhin complained in an audio message released Thursday. “Those territories that were liberated with the blood and lives of our comrades … are abandoned today almost without any fight by those who are supposed to hold our flanks.”

Earlier in the week, Prigozhin marred Russia’s May 9 Victory Day celebrations with public and profanity-laced criticisms of the country’s top military brass.

“Today they [Ukrainians] are tearing up the flanks in the Artemovsk [Bakhmut] direction, regrouping at Zaporizhzhia. And a counteroffensive is about to begin,” he said Tuesday. “Victory Day is the victory of our grandfathers. We haven’t earned that victory one millimeter.”

And then there was a more cryptic comment that raised eyebrows on social media. Continuing a longstanding public complaint that Russia’s uniformed military was starving his troops of shells, Prigozhin suggested that the higher-ups were dithering while Wagner fighters died.

“The shells are lying in warehouses, they are resting there,” he said. “Why are the shells lying in the warehouses? There are people who fight, and there are people who have learned once in their lives that there must be a reserve, and they save, save, save those reserves. … No one knows what for. Instead of spending a shell to kill the enemy, they kill our soldiers. And happy grandfather thinks this is okay.”

That begged the question: Whom, exactly, is Prigozhin referring to? After all, “grandfather in the bunker” is one of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s favorite monikers for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who inhabits an almost cartoonishly extreme security bubble.

So what, exactly, was Prigozhin driving at? Is he flirting with defenestration? Or is he simply at the end of his tether, after spending months on the front lines?

Prigozhin quickly backpedalled on his “grandfather” comment, recording a subsequent voice memo clarifying that he might be referring to the former Defense Minister Deputy Mikhail Mizintsev or Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov (or, more bizarrely, pro-war blogger Nataliya Khim).

“I spoke about a ‘grandpa’ in the context of the fact that we are not given shells which are kept in warehouses, and who can be a grandpa?” Prigozhin said in a Telegram voice memo. “Option number one, Mizintsev, who was fired for giving us shells and therefore now he cannot give shells. The second is the General Chief of Staff, Valery Vasilyevich Gerasimov, who is supposed to provide shells, but we do not receive enough shells, and we receive only 10%.”

A bit of context is in order here. For months, the boss of the Wagner private military company has seen his political star rise in Russia as his fighters seemed to be the only ones capable of delivering tangible battlefield progress in the grinding war of attrition in eastern Ukraine. And he has used his social-media clout to lobby for what he wants, including those sought-after ammunition supplies.

But amid those successes — particularly in the meatgrinder of Bakhmut — Prigozhin has revived and amplified a feud with Russia’s military leadership. A canny political entrepreneur, Prigozhin has cast himself as a competent, ruthless patriot — in contrast with Russia’s inept military establishment.

It may seem surprising in a country where criticizing the military can potentially cost a person a spell in prison that Prigozhin gets away with strident criticism of Putin’s generals. But Putin presides over what is often described as a court system, where infighting and competition among elites is in fact encouraged to produce results, as long as the “vertical of power” remains loyal to and answers to the head of state.

But Prigozhin’s online tantrums to be crossing the line to open disloyalty, some observers say.

In a recent Twitter thread, the Washington-based think tank Institute for the Study of War said, “If the Kremlin does not respond to Prigozhin’s escalating attacks on Putin it may further erode the norm in Putin’s system in which individual actors can jockey for position and influence (and drop in and out of Putin’s favor) but cannot directly criticize Putin.”

Speculation then centers on whether Prigozhin is politically expendable, whether his outbursts are a sort of clever deception operation — or, more troublingly for Putin, whether the system of loyalty that keeps the Kremlin running smoothly is starting to break down.

“This isn’t meant to happen in Putin’s system,” said Cold War historian and Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies professor Sergey Radchenko in a recent Twitter thread. “Putin’s system allows for minions to attack each other but never undermine the vertical. Prigozhin is crossing this line. Either Putin responds and Prigozhin is toast or — if this doesn’t happen — a signal will be sent right through. A signal that the boss has been fatally weakened. And this is a system that does not respect weakness.”

That theory will be tested in the coming days, as the battles continue to rage around Bakhmut.

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May 11, 2023
5 things to know for May 8: Texas shooting, King Charles, Title 42, Measles, ChatGPT | CNN

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CNN
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American flags will be lowered to half-staff this week at the White House, on military bases, and at all public buildings to honor the victims of the deadly mass shooting in Texas over the weekend. In the wake of the massacre, President Joe Biden again urged Congress to act: “Too many families have empty chairs at their dinner tables. Tweeted thoughts and prayers are not enough,” he said.

Here’s what else you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day.

(You can get “CNN’s 5 Things” delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up here.)

Eight people were killed and at least seven others were wounded when a gunman opened fire at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas, on Saturday — the latest mass shooting to shatter an American community. A Dallas-area medical group said it was treating patients ranging from age from 5 to 61 years old. The 33-year-old shooter was killed by a police officer who was already at the Dallas-area mall on an unrelated call. The gunman was armed with an AR-15 style rifle and had multiple weapons in his vehicle, according to police. The shooter’s motive remains unclear at this time, but officials are investigating his potential ties to right-wing extremism after he was found with an insignia on his clothing worn by some members of extremist groups, a law enforcement source said. Officials have also found he had an extensive social media presence that included neo-Nazi and White supremacist-related posts.

Britain’s King Charles III was crowned Saturday in a once-in-a-generation royal event witnessed by hundreds of high-profile guests inside Westminster Abbey, as well as tens of thousands of well-wishers who gathered in central London. Scores of foreign dignitaries, British officials, celebrities and faith leaders attended the deeply religious ceremony. Once the King was crowned, his wife, Queen Camilla, was crowned in her own shorter ceremony. On Sunday, thousands of events and parties took place across the UK as part of the “Coronation Big Lunch.” But the historic weekend did not go without a display of dissidence. Police arrested more than 50 people during the coronation after controversially promising a “robust” approach to protesters.

Missed it? Here’s King Charles’ coronation in 3 minutes

The US is expecting to see an influx of border crossings when Title 42, the Trump-era policy that allowed officials to swiftly expel migrants who crossed the border illegally during the Covid-19 pandemic, expires on Thursday. Without Title 42, the primary border enforcement tool since March 2020, authorities will be returning to decades-old protocols at a time of unprecedented mass migration in the region, raising concerns within the Biden administration about a surge in the immediate aftermath of the policy’s lifting. Also on Thursday, the House is set to vote on Republicans’ wide-ranging border security package, GOP leadership sources told CNN. Last month, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Republicans have the necessary votes to pass the legislation in the chamber.

U.S. prepares for a surge of migrants ahead of the end of Title 42

A child in Maine has tested positive for measles, officials said, marking the first case in the state since 2019. Measles was declared eliminated from the US in 2000 thanks to an intensive vaccination program, according to the CDC. But vaccination rates in the US have dropped in recent years, sparking new outbreaks. The CDC recommends all children get two doses of the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine; the first dose between 12 to 15 months of age and the second between the ages of 4 to 6. The child who tested positive had received a dose of the measles vaccine, but is being considered “infectious out of an abundance of caution,” the Maine CDC said. There have been a total of 10 documented cases of measles in eight states this year.

How vaccines stop the spread of viruses

ChatGPT, a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence, can pick stocks better than your fund manager, analysts say. A recent experiment found that the bot far outperformed some popular UK investment funds — and funds managed by HSBC and Fidelity were among those selected. Between March 6 and April 28, a dummy portfolio of 38 stocks gained 4.9% while 10 leading investment funds clocked an average loss of 0.8%, the results showed. The analysts asked ChatGPT to select stocks based on some common criteria, including picking companies with a low level of debt and a track record of growth. Microsoft, Netflix, and Walmart were among the companies selected. While major funds have used AI for years to support their investment decisions, analysts say ChatGPT has put the technology in the hands of the general public — and it’s showing it can potentially disrupt the finance industry.

MTV Movie & TV Awards 2023: See who won

Tom Cruise accepted an award for “Top Gun: Maverick” while flying a plane — because he’s Tom Cruise. Here are the other stars who received golden popcorn statuettes on Sunday.

A mother-daughter moment: Regal twinning at coronation catches eyes

Princess Catherine of Wales and her daughter, Princess Charlotte, made a statement in matching silver headpieces. See the photo here.

Bronny James, son of NBA superstar LeBron James, commits to the University of Southern California

The NBA’s all-time leading scorer made headlines last year when he said he wanted to play his final season in the league alongside his son Bronny. The father-son duo is now one step closer to that reality.

‘Saturday Night Live’ didn’t air a new episode this past weekend

Former cast member Pete Davidson was set to return as host for “SNL” but things didn’t go as planned due to the ongoing film and TV writers strike.

Climate activists dye iconic Italian fountain water black

Onlookers snapped pictures as protesters were arrested for defacing this popular monument.

111 degrees Fahrenheit

That’s how high temperatures reached in Vietnam over the weekend, the highest ever recorded in the country. Neighboring Laos and Thailand also recently shattered various temperature records as a brutal heat wave continues to grip Southeast Asia.

“This tangled web around Justice Clarence Thomas just gets worse and worse by the day.”

— Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin, telling CNN on Sunday that “everything is on the table” as the panel scrutinizes new ethics concerns around Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The conservative justice is receiving criticism after a bombshell ProPublica report detailed he accepted several lavish trips and gifts from GOP megadonor Harlan Crow. Thomas also accepted free rent from the Republican billionaire for his mother and allowed him to pay the boarding school tuition for his grandnephew, according to ProPublica.

‘It embarrasses me’: Senate Judiciary chair on Justice Thomas revelations

Check your local forecast here>>>

Parrots learn to call their feathered friends on video chat

These parrots were taught to ring a bell whenever they want to caw their fellow bird friends! See them in action. (Click to view)

Parrots learn to call their feathered friends on video chat

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May 8, 2023
‘Silo’ explores a dystopian world where residents can’t go outside (but viewers might want to) | CNN

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CNN
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“Silo” is an unfortunately apt name for a series that feels as if it’s slowly spinning in circles, set in another dystopian future where the lingering remnants of humankind grapple with how they got there and what they do next. Apple TV+ has taken some big sci-fi bets (see “Foundation”), but despite its provocative themes this series inspires a little too much curiosity about when and how to find the exit.

“We do not know who built the silo” and “We do not know when it will be safe to go outside” are part of the mantra repeated by those living in this confined space, who only know that the domicile was built more than 100 years earlier and that it’s likely certain death if they’re forced to “clean,” or venture outside into what appears to be a forbidding wasteland.

Based on the book series by Hugh Howey, the series inspires comparisons to cinematic visions of a world where those in authority aren’t sharing everything with its populace, from “Soylent Green” (was that really a half-century ago?) to “Snowpiercer,” another series (after the movie) boxed in by the parameters of its premise.

Adapted by producer Graham Yost (“Justified”), “Silo” boasts an impressive cast, and exhibits a willingness to introduce and then shed major characters.

At its core is Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson), a technical genius who keeps the silo’s life-support systems functioning, who begins asking probing and uncomfortable questions after a personal loss involving a mysterious death.

Her investigation doesn’t sit well with the bureaucratic figures running the place (Tim Robbins and Common key among them), who clearly know more than they’re sharing with the population in an effort to keep the silo’s residents docile and manageable. That includes rules about who gets to procreate in an effort to sustain and protect this society’s limited resources.

While the 10-episode season begins with a fair amount of momentum, featuring Rashida Jones and David Oyelowo at the outset, forward progress pretty quickly slows to a crawl. That does foster suspense about what’s actually outside, but it doesn’t do a whole lot to propel the audience through this season, much less stoke excitement for another.

Building this sort of elaborate world takes some time, and the inherent warnings about authoritarianism and blindly trusting the government give the series a certain real-world resonance. (As a footnote, the dystopian backdrop has a close cousin in “Black Knight,” a South Korean series premiering on Netflix in May, so there’s a lot of that going around.)

The inherent mystery here, however, feels stretched to the point of strained, exacerbated by characters that don’t consistently pop. When Common’s smooth-talking security enforcer ominously says, “We all work for the good of the silo,” for viewers who actually do have the option of going outside, it’s reason to consider how well a plodding exercise like “Silo” really works for the good of us.

“Silo” premieres May 5 on Apple TV+. (Disclosure: Lowry’s wife works for a unit of Apple.)

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May 5, 2023
GOP frontrunner for NC governor mocked school shooting survivors and once justified shooting protesters | CNN Politics

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North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the current Republican favorite to be the party’s nominee for governor in 2024, has a long history of remarks viciously mocking and attacking teenage survivors of the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, for their advocacy for gun control measures.

In posts after the shooting, Robinson called the students “spoiled, angry, know it all CHILDREN,” “spoiled little bastards,” and “media prosti-tots.”

Robinson, whose political rise as a conservative Internet personality started when a clip of him speaking at a city council meeting in April 2018 went viral, as he was speaking against a proposal to cancel a local gun show after the Parkland shooting. He also began attacking the Parkland survivors after they launched the “March for Our Lives” movement that called for new gun control measures, comparing the students to communists.

Robinson’s comments about the school shooting survivors were frequently personal, mocking their appearance and intelligence. In one post on Facebook, Robinson shared a photo of several students posing for photos, with the caption, “the look you get when you let the devil give you a ride on a river of blood to ’15 minutes of Fameville.’”

In another comment on Twitter in April of 2018, Robinson shared several crying laughing emojis in response to a post that blasted conservatives who mocked the survivors, writing that when children “got sassy,” adults needed to make sure the “CHILDREN knew their place.”

Robinson did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

As Robinson became known for his fierce defense of gun rights, he was frequently featured in videos and promoted by the National Rifle Association. Robinson leveraged his often viral and unapologetic Facebook posts to win his party’s nomination for the state’s lieutenant governorship in 2020, winning the race to become the state’s first Black lieutenant governor.

Though the position is largely considered a ceremonial role – and the state has a Democratic governor because the jobs are elected separately – Robinson has now set his sights on the top job. Roy Cooper, the current Democratic governor, is term-limited, and Robinson would likely face Josh Stein, the state’s attorney general, a Democrat finishing out his second term.

CNN’s KFile examined his mostly unreported remarks, as the candidate is coming under renewed scrutiny in his bid for the governor’s mansion. Robinson, who frequently posted in defense of law enforcement, often attacked left wing protesters, going so far as defending the shooting of students at Kent State protesting the Vietnam War in May 1970, commonly known as the “Kent State Massacre.”

Robinson said such a response deserved to be emulated today.

“The shooting that happened at Kent State now, I don’t know how much you know about that shooting at Kent State, but people have got to understand it,” Robinson said on one podcast in 2018. “We have the constitutional right to peacefully assemble. Now peacefully assemble does not mean you could throw bricks at National Guardsmen, bust out windows and block traffic. Once you cross that line into violence and the disruption of public transportation and public services and start blocking the entrances of a federal building, you are no longer a protester.”

“You are are now a criminal and you need to be dealt with like a criminal,” he continued. “And we need some politicians in office in some of these cities that’s gonna let people know from the get-go, you go in the street and block traffic, if you block buildings, if you destroy property, you are going to be dealt with swiftly and harshly. We are not going to tolerate it. That is exactly the message that needs to go out to these people. You wanna apply for a permit to protest at the park, that’s fine, but it’s gonna be peaceful and you’re not going to bother anybody, and you’re not going to destroy anything. If you do, you will be dealt with harshly and swiftly.”

Though there were violent clashes between local police and protesters in the days leading up to the shooting, the Nixon administration-established President’s Commission on Campus Unrest said that the shooting was unjustified, writing in a 1970 report, “Even if the guardsmen faced danger, it was not a danger that called for lethal force. The 61 shots by 28 guardsmen certainly cannot be justified.”

Robinson was also frequently critical of the “March for Our Lives” rally itself, calling it, “a march of pawns in Washington today” and mocked attendees.

One photo shared by Robinson mocked an attendee at the “March for Our Lives” rally in Washington, DC, saying the college-aged student needed to “put that sign down and go read a book dummy” and “They live. They breathe. They’ll procreate. #funnybutscary.”

His harshest rhetoric was saved for then-18-year-old Parkland activist David Hogg, calling the student a “commie stooge,” in a post that also mocked 18-year-old Parkland student X Gonzáles as “that bald chick,” referring to the pair as “stupid kids.”

In another post on Facebook, less than two weeks after the shooting in 2018, Robinson shared the laughing crying emoji with a photoshopped chyron on a picture of Hogg on MSNBC with the title “Media Hogg,” and a day later shared a crude photoshop of the student’s face on body of Boss Hogg from “The Dukes of Hazzard” calling the student “just as corrupt as the TV character.”

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May 5, 2023
Apple posts second consecutive quarterly revenue decline | CNN Business

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Apple on Thursday reported that its revenue fell 3% to $94.8 billion for the first three months of the year as consumers scale back spending on smartphones and computers amid looming recession fears.

The company’s revenue was slightly better than what Wall Street had expected, but it nonetheless represented the second consecutive quarterly revenue decline for the iPhone maker.

Apple attempted to appease investors by announcing up to $90 billion in share buybacks. Shares of Apple were largely flat in after-hours trading Thursday following teh results.

Despite the continued revenue decline, there were bright spots in the report.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said Apple hit a “a March quarter record for iPhone despite the challenging macroeconomic environment” and that the installed base of active devices reached an all-time high.

Apple’s latest quarterly earnings report comes amid a sharp decline in PC and smartphone sales globally after a surge earlier in the pandemic.

Worldwide PC shipments declined 30% in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the year prior, according to data from Gartner. Global smartphone shipments plunged 14.6% last quarter, according to separate data from market intelligence firm IDC.

Apple’s report on Thursday caps off a closely-watched earnings season for Silicon Valley amid broader economic jitters. All five Big Tech companies beat Wall Street’s estimates, but the numbers paint a stark picture of the industry at this moment.

Apple and its peers once enjoyed seemingly limitless growth. Now these business are struggling to grow sales and profits – or posting declines.

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May 4, 2023
Breast density changes over time could be linked to breast cancer risk, study finds | CNN

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Breast density is known to naturally decrease as a woman ages, and now a study suggests that the more time it takes for breast density to decline, the more likely it is that the woman could develop breast cancer.

Researchers have long known that women with dense breasts have a higher risk of breast cancer. But according to the study, published last week in the journal JAMA Oncology, the rate of breast density changes over time also appears to be associated with the risk of cancer being diagnosed in that breast.

“We know that invasive breast cancer is rarely diagnosed simultaneously in both breasts, thus it is not a surprise that we have observed a much slower decline in the breast that eventually developed breast cancer compared to the natural decline in density with age,” Shu Jiang, an associate professor of surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and first author of the new study, wrote in an email.

Breast density refers to the amount of fibrous and glandular tissue in a person’s breasts compared with the amount of fatty tissue in the breasts – and breast density can be seen on a mammogram.

“Because women have their mammograms taken annually or biennially, the change of breast density over time is naturally available,” Jiang said in the email. “We should make full use of this dynamic information to better inform risk stratification and guide more individualized screening and prevention approaches.”

The researchers, from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, analyzed health data over the course of 10 years among 947 women in the St. Louis region who completed routine mammograms. A mammogram is an X-ray picture of the breast that doctors use to look for early signs of breast cancer.

The women in the study were recruited from November 2008 to April 2012, and they had gotten mammograms through October 2020. The average age of the participants was around 57.

Among the women, there were 289 cases of breast cancer diagnosed, and the researchers found that breast density was higher at the start of the study for the women who later developed breast cancer compared with those who remained cancer-free.

The researchers also found that there was a significant decrease in breast density among all the women over the course of 10 years, regardless of whether they later developed breast cancer, but the rate of density decreasing over time was significantly slower among breasts in which cancer was later diagnosed.

“This study found that evaluating longitudinal changes in breast density from digital mammograms may offer an additional tool for assessing risk of breast cancer and subsequent risk reduction strategies,” the researchers wrote.

Not only is breast density a known risk factor for breast cancer, dense breast tissue can make mammograms more difficult to read.

“There are two issues here. First, breast density can make it more difficult to fully ‘see through’ the breast on a mammogram, like looking through a frosted glass. Thus, it can be harder to detect a breast cancer,” Dr. Hal Burstein, clinical investigator in the Breast Oncology Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who was not involved in the new study, said in an email. “Secondly, breast density is often thought to reflect the estrogen exposure or estrogen levels in women, and the greater the estrogen exposure, the greater the risk of developing breast cancer.”

In March, the US Food and Drug Administration published updates to its mammography regulations, requiring mammography facilities to notify patients about the density of their breasts.

“Breast density can have a masking effect on mammography, where it can be more difficult to find a breast cancer within an area of dense breast tissue,” Jiang wrote in her email.

“Even when you take away the issue of finding it, breast density is an independent risk factor for developing breast cancer. Although there is lots of data that tell us dense breast tissue is a risk factor, the reason for this is not clear,” she said. “It may be that development of dense tissue and cancer are related to the same biological processes or hormonal influences.”

The findings of the new study demonstrate that breast density serves as a risk factor for breast cancer – but women should be aware of their other risk factors too, said Dr. Maxine Jochelson, chief of the breast imaging service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, who was not involved in the study.

“It makes sense to some extent that the longer your breast stays dense, theoretically, the more likely it is to develop cancer. And so basically, it expands on the data that dense breasts are a risk,” Jochelson said, adding that women with dense breasts should ask for supplemental imaging when they get mammograms.

But other factors that can raise the risk of breast cancer include having a family history of cancer, drinking too much alcohol, having a high-risk lesion biopsied from the breast or having a certain genetic mutation.

For instance, women should know that “density may not affect their risk so much if they have the breast cancer BRCA 1 or 2 mutation because their risk is so high that it may not make it much higher,” Jochelson said.

Some ways to reduce the risk of breast cancer include keeping a healthy weight, being physically active, drinking alcohol in moderation or not at all and, for some people, taking medications such as tamoxifen and breastfeeding your children, if possible.

“Breast density is a modest risk factor. The ‘average’ woman in the US has a 1 in 8 lifetime chance of developing breast cancer. Women with dense breasts have a slightly greater risk, about 1 in 6, or 1 in 7. So the lifetime risk goes up from 12% to 15%. That still means that most women with dense breasts will not develop breast cancer,” Burstein said in his email.

“Sometimes radiologists will recommend additional breast imaging to women with dense breast tissue on mammograms,” he added.

The US Preventive Services Task Force – a group of independent medical experts whose recommendations help guide doctors’ decisions – recommends biennial screening for women starting at age 50. The task force says that a decision to start screening earlier “should be an individual one.” Many medical groups, including the American Cancer Society and Mayo Clinic, emphasize that women have the option to start screening with a mammogram every year starting at age 40.

“It’s also very clear that breast density tends to be highest in younger women, premenopausal women, and for almost all women, it tends to go down with age. However, the risk of breast cancer goes up with age. So these two things are a little bit at odds with each other,” said Dr. Freya Schnabel, director of breast surgery at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center and professor of surgery at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York, who was not involved in the new study.

“So if you’re a 40-year-old woman and your breasts are dense, you could think about that as just being really kind of age-appropriate,” she said. “The take-home message that’s very, very practical and pragmatic right now is that if you have dense breasts, whatever your age is, even if you’re postmenopausal – maybe even specifically, if you are postmenopausal – and your breasts are not getting less dense the way the average woman’s does, that it really is a reason to seek out adjunctive imaging in addition to just mammography, to use additional diagnostic tools, like ultrasound or maybe even MRI, if there are other risk factors.”

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May 2, 2023
Jordan subpoenas CDC, other federal agencies over censorship concerns | CNN Politics

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The House Judiciary Committee has sent subpoenas to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the Global Engagement Center for documents as it continues to investigate whether the federal government pressured social media companies to censor certain viewpoints.

The subpoenas mark an escalation in the panel’s inquiry, as House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan described the agencies responses to previous voluntary request in March as “inadequate” in the subpoena cover letter and said that none of the agencies have produced any documents responding to previous requests to date.

Jordan, a Republican, has long claimed that the federal government and big tech companies have been “weaponized” against conservatives, and leads a subcommittee on that topic.

The subpoena letters do not list any specific allegations the committee is investigating but raises the concern over censorship more broadly. The subpoenas set a document deadline of May 22 for a broad request of information and communications.

Through the subpoenas to the CDC, CISA (which is a part of the Department of Homeland Security) and the Global Engagement Center, under the Department of State’s purview, the Judiciary panel claims to be seeking information about the extent to which the Executive Branch “pressured and colluded” with social media and other tech companies and others to “censor certain viewpoints on social and other media in ways that undermine First Amendment principles.”

Conservative critics have said that correspondence released by Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk late last year demonstrates a willingness by social media publishers to act on requests by government officials to suppress certain points of view. Federal officials, however, have rejected this accusation.

“The Department of Homeland Security does not censor speech and does not request that content be taken down by social media companies,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told CNN. “Instead of working with the Department, as numerous committees have done this Congress, the House Judiciary Committee has unnecessarily escalated to a subpoena. DHS will continue cooperating appropriately with Congressional oversight requests, all while faithfully working to protect our nation from terrorism and targeted violence, secure our borders, respond to natural disasters, defend against cyberattacks, and more.”

The Judiciary panel “made no effort to work with DHS through traditional channels” a source familiar with the backchanneling between the committee and DHS said.

Outlining the scope of the agency, the source added that CISA provides guidance on foreign influence operations, disinformation tactics and issues of election security and shares that information with state and local election officials. In the 2018 and 2020 election cycles, CISA shared potential election security related disinformation identified by local authorities with social media companies, but did not do so in the 2022 election cycle. The source emphasized, “platforms make their own decisions according to their policies and terms of service.”

CNN has reached out to the other agencies for comment as well.

Jordan claims that the subpoenas will help his panel determine if legislation is needed to create “new statutory limits on the Executive Branch’s ability to work with social media platforms and other companies to restrict the circulation of content and deplatform users.”

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April 28, 2023
Chinese ambassador sparks European outrage over suggestion former Soviet states don’t exist | CNN

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CNN
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European countries are demanding answers from Beijing after its top diplomat in Paris questioned the sovereignty of former Soviet republics, in comments that could undermine China’s efforts to be seen as a potential mediator between Russia and Ukraine.

The remarks by China’s ambassador to France Lu Shaye, who said during a television interview that former Soviet countries don’t have “effective status in international law,” have caused diplomatic consternation, especially in the Baltic states.

Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia would be summoning Chinese representatives to ask for clarification, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis confirmed on Monday.

Officials including from Ukraine, Moldova, France and the European Union also all hit back with their own criticisms of Lu’s comments.

Lu made the remarks in response to a question whether Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, was part of Ukraine.

“Even these ex-Soviet countries don’t have an effective status in international law because there was no international agreement to materialize their status as sovereign countries,” Lu said, after first noting that the question of Crimea “depends on how the problem is perceived” as the region was “at the beginning Russian” and then “offered to Ukraine during the Soviet era.”

The remarks appeared to disavow the sovereignty of countries that became independent states and United Nations members after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 – and come amid Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine under leader Vladimir Putin’s vision the country should be part of Russia.

China has so far refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or call for a withdrawal of its troops, instead urging restraint by “all parties” and accusing NATO of fueling the conflict. It has also continued to deepen diplomatic and economic ties with Moscow.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said that China will be discussed during a foreign ministers meeting on Monday.

“We have been talking a lot about China (over) the last days, but we will have to continue discussing about China because it’s one of the most important issues for our foreign policy,” Borrell said.

The EU foreign ministers will also raise the situation in Moldova and Georgia, as those countries “see the war (in Ukraine) very close, they feel the threat,” he added.

Moldova is a small country on Ukraine’s southwestern border that has been caught in the crossfire of Russia’s invasion.

Georgia, which shares a frontier with Russia further east, has also come under the spotlight, after protests erupted over a controversial foreign agents bill similar to one adopted in the Kremlin to crack down on political dissent.

“For us Georgia is a very important country and remember that it has specific security issues because its territory is partially occupied by Russia,” Borrell said.

On Sunday, he tweeted that the remarks by the Chinese ambassador were “unacceptable” and “the EU can only suppose these declarations do not represent China’s official policy.”

France also responded Sunday, with its Foreign Ministry stating its “full solidarity” with all the allied countries affected and calling on China to clarify whether these comments reflect its position, according to Reuters.

Several leaders in former Soviet states, including Ukraine, were quick to hit back following the interview, which aired Friday on French station LCI.

Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics called for an “explanation from the Chinese side and complete retraction of this statement” in a post on Twitter Saturday.

He pledged to raise the issue during a meeting of EU foreign ministers Monday, where relations with China are expected to be discussed.

“We are surprised about Chinese (ambassador’s) statements questioning sovereignty of countries declaring independence in ’91. Mutual respect & (territorial) integrity have been key to Moldova-China ties,” the Moldovan ministry said on its official Twitter account.

“Our expectations are that these declarations do not represent China’s official policy.”

“It is strange to hear an absurd version of the ‘history of Crimea’ from a representative of a country that is scrupulous about its thousand-year history,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s Presidential Administration, also wrote on Twitter.

“If you want to be a major political player, do not parrot the propaganda of Russian outsiders…”

When asked about Lu’s remarks at a regular press briefing Monday, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said China respects the “sovereign state status” of former Soviet Union countries.

“After the Soviet Union dissolved, China was the one of the first countries to establish diplomatic ties with the countries concerned … China has always adhered to the principles of mutual request and equality in its development of amicable and cooperative bilateral relations,” spokesperson Mao Ning said, without directly directly addressing questions on Lu’s views.

This is not the first time that Lu – a prominent voice among China’s so-called aggressive “wolf-warrior” diplomats – has sparked controversy for his views.

“He’s been a well-known provocateur,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University.

“But he’s a diplomat, he represents his government, so it reflects some thinking within China about the issue,” he said. adding, however, that it’s “not the time for China to put at risk its relationship” with France.

The comments place Beijing under the spotlight at a particularly sensitive moment for its European diplomacy.

Ties have soured as Europe has uneasily watched China’s tightening relationship with Russia and its refusal to condemn Putin’s invasion.

Beijing in recent months has sought to mend its image, highlighting its stated neutrality in the conflict and desire to play a “constructive role” in dialogue and negotiation, further fueling debate in European capitals over how to calibrate its relationship with China, a key economic partner.

That debate intensified this month following a visit to Beijing from French President Emmanuel Macron, who signed a raft of cooperation agreements with China during a trip he framed as an opportunity to start work with Beijing to push for peace in Ukraine.

Voices in former Soviet states, where many remember being under Communist authoritarian rule, have been among those in Europe critical of such an approach.

“If anyone is still wondering why the Baltic States don’t trust China to ‘broker peace in Ukraine,’ here’s a Chinese ambassador arguing that Crimea is Russian and our countries’ borders have no legal basis,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Landsbergis wrote on Twitter Saturday following Lu’s interview.

Moritz Rudolf, a fellow and research scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center of the Yale Law School in the US, said China had been “increasingly successful in being perceived as a responsible power that might play a constructive role in a peace process in Ukraine.”

“It remains to be seen whether the leadership in Beijing realizes how damaging those words may turn out to be for its ambitions in Europe if the Foreign Ministry does not distance the (People’s Republic of China) from the words of Ambassador Lu,” he said.

He added that China’s “official position and practice” contradict Lu’s comments, including as China had not recognized the sovereignty of Russia over Crimea or any territory it annexed since 2014.

Others suggested Lu’s remarks may also shed light on Beijing’s real diplomatic priorities.

For Russia, giving up control of Crimea is widely seen as a non-starter in any potential peace settlement on Ukraine. This means Beijing may have a hard time giving a straight answer on this question, according to Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Washington-based think tank Stimson Center.

“The question is impossible to answer for China. China’s relationship with Russia is where its influence comes from,” she said, adding that didn’t mean Lu could have given a “better answer.”

“Between sabotaging China’s relationship with Russia and angering Europe, (Lu) chose the latter.”

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April 24, 2023
How to protect yourself from iPhone thieves locking you out of your own device | CNN Business

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A complex but concerning method of gaining control over a user’s iPhone and permanently locking them out the device appears to be on the rise.

Some iPhone thieves are exploiting a security setting, called the recovery key, that makes it nearly impossible for owners to access their photos, messages, data and more, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report. Some victims also told the publication their bank accounts were drained after the thieves gained access to their financial apps.

It’s important to note, however, this type of takeover is hard to pull off. It requires a criminal essentially watching an iPhone user enter the device’s passcode – for example, by looking over their shoulder at a bar or sporting event – or manipulating the device’s owner so they’ll share their passcode. And that’s all before they physically steal the device.

From there, a thief could use the passcode to change the device’s Apple ID, turn off “Find my iPhone” so their location can’t be tracked, and then reset the recovery key, a complex 28-digit code intended to protect its owners from online hackers.

Apple requires this key to help reset or regain access to an Apple ID in an effort to bolster the user’s security, but if a thief changes it, the original owner will not have the new code and will be locked out of the account.

“We sympathize with people who have had this experience and we take all attacks on our users very seriously, no matter how rare,” an Apple spokesperson said in a statement to CNN. “We work tirelessly every day to protect our users’ accounts and data, and are always investigating additional protections against emerging threats like this one.”

On its website, Apple warns “you’re responsible for maintaining access to your trusted devices and your recovery key. If you lose both of these items, you could be locked out of your account permanently.”

Jeff Pollard, VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research, said the company should offer more customer support options and “ways for Apple users to authenticate so they can reset these settings.”

For now, however, there are a handful of steps users can take to potentially protect themselves from having this happen to them.

The first step is protecting the passcode.

An Apple spokesperson told CNN people can use Face ID or Touch ID when unlocking their phone in public to avoid revealing their passcode to anyone who might be watching.

Users can also set up a longer, alphanumeric passcode that’s harder for bad actors to figure out. Device owners should also change the passcode immediately if they believe someone else has seen it.

Another step someone could consider is a hack not necessarily endorsed by Apple but one that’s been circulating online. Within an iPhone’s Screen Time setting, which allows guardians to set up restrictions on how kids can use the device, there is the option to set up a secondary password that would be required from any user before they could successfully change an Apple ID.

By enabling this, a thief would be prompted for that secondary password before changing an Apple ID password.

Finally, users can protect themselves by regularly backing up an iPhone – via iCloud or iTunes – so data can be recovered in the case an iPhone is stolen. At the same time, users may want to consider storing important photos or other sensitive files and data in another cloud service, such as Google Photos, Microsoft OneDrive, Amazon Photos or Dropbox.

This won’t stop a bad actor from gaining access to the device, but it should limit some of the fallout if it ever should happen.

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April 23, 2023
Gymnastics star Simone Biles and NFL player Jonathan Owens are married | CNN

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USA Gymnastics star and world champion Simone Biles and NFL player Jonathan Owens are married.

Both shared images on social media Saturday announcing their marriage, and Biles now includes “Owens” in her full name on Instagram and Twitter.

“I do,” Biles wrote on social media Saturday. “Officially Owens.”

“My person, forever,” Owens wrote in a post of his own.

The announcement comes just days after the couple posted a picture holding what appeared to be a Texas marriage license, with the caption, “Almost time to say ‘I do.’”

The seven-time Olympic medalist announced her engagement to Owens in February 2022, along with several photos of the proposal.

The two met online right before the pandemic hit.

Owens told Texas Monthly in 2021 that the Covid-19 shutdown created time for them to get to know each other better.

“It was one of the few times in her life where everything was just shut off and she couldn’t do anything,” he said. “So we used it to get to know each other—really get to know each other. It created our bond and made it stronger. Now I’m so thankful.”

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April 22, 2023
Easily stolen Hyundais and Kias should be recalled, more than a dozen attorneys general say | CNN Business

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A coalition of attorneys general for 17 states and the District of Columbia on Thursday called for a federal recall of Hyundai and Kia vehicles that they say are unsafe and too easy to steal.

The attorneys general called for the recall “following the companies’ continued failure to take adequate steps to address the alarming rate of theft of their vehicles,” a release from California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is leading the coalition, said.

In a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the coalition requested a recall of “unsafe” Hyundai and Kia vehicles manufactured between 2011 and 2022 “whose easily bypassed ignition switches and lack of engine immobilizers make them particularly vulnerable to theft.”

The vehicles in question, 2015-2019 Hyundai and Kia models, such as the Hyundai Santa Fe and Tucson and the Kia Forte and Sportage, when equipped with turn-key ignitions — as opposed to cars that only require a button to be pushed to start — are roughly twice as likely to be stolen as other vehicles of a similar age. Many of these vehicles lack some of the basic auto theft prevention technology included in most other vehicles, even in those years, according to the Highway Loss Data Institute, an industry group that tracks insurance statistics.

These models became the subject of a viral social media trend in which thieves filmed themselves and others stealing Hyundai and Kia vehicles and taking them for a drive. In some parts of the country, the problem became so bad that some insurance companies refused to write new policies on these Hyundai and Kia models in places where the thefts had become extremely common.

The models in question don’t have electronic immobilizers, which rely on a computer chip in the car and another in the key that communicate to confirm that the key belongs with that vehicle. Without the right key, an immobilizer should do just that — stop the car from moving.

“Hyundai and Kia announced that they will initiate voluntary service campaigns to offer software updates for certain vehicles with this starting-system vulnerability. Unfortunately, however, this is an insufficient response to the problem and does not adequately remedy the safety concerns facing vehicle owners and the public,” the letter to the NHSTA said.

Hyundai and Kia did not immediately respond to CNN’s request comment.

The two South Korean automakers have created a software patch to fix the problem, the automakers have said. Hyundai and Kia operate as separate companies in the United States, but Hyundai Motor Group owns a large stake in Kia, and various Hyundai and Kia models share much of their engineering.

The patch will be installed free of charge on models that need it, with software that requires an actual key in the ignition to turn the vehicle on. The software will also block the car from being started after the doors have been locked using the key fob remote control. The vehicle will need to be unlocked before it can be started.

The software also extends the length of the alarm sound from 30 seconds to a full minute. Hyundai dealers will also affix window stickers stating that the vehicle has anti-theft software installed.

“The bottom line is, Kia’s and Hyundai’s failure to install standard safety features on many of their vehicles have put vehicle owners and the public at risk,” Attorney General Bonta said. “We now ask the federal government to require these companies to correct their mistake through a nationwide recall and help us in our continued efforts to protect the public from these unsafe vehicles.”

Recalls are ordered by NHTSA or, much more commonly, undertaken by automakers to correct safety-related defects. The attorneys general’s letter asserts that the ease of theft of these Hyundai and Kia vehicles constitutes a safety hazard and the vehicles fail to meet federal standards for theft prevention.

“Moreover, thieves have driven these vehicles recklessly, speeding and performing wild stunts and causing numerous crashes, at least eight deaths, and significant injuries,” the letter said.

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April 21, 2023
Netflix is winding down its DVD business after 25 years | CNN Business

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CNN
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Netflix is officially winding down the business that helped make it a household name.

This fall, the streaming giant will officially say goodbye to its DVD rental service and all of the red envelopes that made it possible.

“On September 29th, 2023, we will send out the last red envelope,” the company tweeted Tuesday. “It has been a true pleasure and honor to deliver movie nights to our wonderful members for 25 years.”

“Our goal has always been to provide the best service for our members, but as the DVD business continues to shrink, that’s going to become increasingly difficult,” co-CEO Ted Sarandos wrote in a blog post Tuesday. “Making 2023 our Final Season allows us to maintain our quality of service through the last day and go out on a high note.”

The company reported a miss for its second-quarter earnings after market close on Tuesday. Shares fell by around 6%.

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April 18, 2023
Tennessee Air National Guardsman applied to be a hitman online, the FBI says. It was a spoof website and now he’s facing charges | CNN

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CNN
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A Tennessee Air National Guardsman is facing charges after applying to be a hitman on a spoof “rent-a-hitman” website, according to the Department of Justice.

Josiah Ernesto Garcia, 21, was charged Thursday after submitting an employment inquiry to the website rentahitman.com, which is a parody site that includes “testimonials” from purportedly satisfied hit-man customers.

The website was originally created in 2005 to “advertise a cyber security startup company,” the Justice Department said in a news release. “The company failed and over the next decade it received many inquiries about murder-for-hire services.”

Garcia indicated in February that he had “military experience, and rifle expertise” and requested an “in depth job description,” according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday.

“Garcia followed up on this initial request and submitted other identification documents and a resume, indicating he was an expert marksman and employed in the Air National Guard since July 2021. The resume also indicated that Garcia was nicknamed “Reaper,” which was earned from his military experience and marksmanship, the Department of Justice said in the news release.

Garcia sent another follow-up email days later, saying he didn’t hear back after submitting a resume, according to the complaint.

According to investigators, Garcia wrote in the email, “Why I want this Job* Im looking for a job, that pays well, related to my military experience (Shooting and Killing the marked target) so I can support my kid on the way. What can I say, I enjoy doing what I do, so if I can find a job that is similar to it, (such as this one) put me in coach!”

After Garcia sent more follow-up emails, the website owner – at the direction of the FBI – responded with an email saying, “Josiah, a Field Coordinator will be in touch in the near future. You will receive a message when they are ready. Timing is based on client needs,” according to the complaint.

On April 5, an FBI undercover agent contacted Garcia for a phone interview, during which he asked, “How soon can I start?” and “What do the payments look like?” according to the complaint.

The undercover agent asked Garcia if he was comfortable with taking fingers or ears as trophies or performing torture at a client’s request.

“If it’s possible and in my means to do so, I’m more than capable,” Garcia said, according to the complaint.

In an in-person meeting with the undercover agent on Wednesday, Garcia “was presented with a ‘target package’ consisting of photographs and a description of a fictional target’s name, weight, age, height, address, and employment information,” the complaint said.

Garcia was told the target was the client’s husband, who was abusive to her, and that the client was paying $5,000 for the job with a down payment of $2,500, the complaint said.

“After agreeing to the terms of the murder arrangement, Garcia asked the agent if he needed to provide a photograph of the dead body,” according to the Justice Department release. “Garcia was then arrested by FBI agents, who in a subsequent search of his home, recovered an AR style rifle.”

Garcia is charged with the use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted, the Justice Department said.

CNN has been unable to reach Garcia’s attorney for comment. Garcia is set to appear in court on Tuesday afternoon.

CNN has reached out to the Air National Guard for comment.

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April 17, 2023
‘Love is Blind’ live reunion delayed as Netflix pleads for patience | CNN Business

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CNN
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Netflix’s highly anticipated live reunion Sunday for the season 4 cast of its reality dating show “Love is Blind” has been delayed, leaving fans waiting for over an hour.

Eventually, Netflix opted to tape it for streaming at a later time.

“To everyone who stayed up late, woke up early, gave up their Sunday afternoon… we are incredibly sorry that the Love is Blind Live Reunion did not turn out as we had planned,” Netflix tweeted in a statement. “We’re filming it now and we’ll have it on Netflix as soon as humanly possible. Again, thank you and sorry.”

The second live show in Netflix’s history was expected to start at 8 p.m. ET Sunday. A couple minutes after its scheduled start time, Netflix tweeted: “Love is … late. #LoveIsBlindLIVE will be on in 15 minutes!”

A few minutes later, the streaming service promised the show “will be worth the wait….” When Netflix subscribers tried to access the stream, they were met with a screen that said, “It’s almost time! The live event will start soon.”

The company isn’t used to airing live events like many of its streaming competitors. The only live show to air on Netflix came on March 4 when it live-streamed “Chris Rock: Selective Outrage,” a standup special from the comedian. That streamed without a hitch.

Netflix’s rivals have found success with live streaming. Amazon Prime started airing Thursday Night Football last year. Apple TV+ partners with Major League Baseball for select games. And other competitors have gotten into the live space, as well.

But Netflix has been notoriously resistant – not because of technological hurdles, but because the company has repeatedly said live broadcast rights, particularly for sports, come at a high cost. Still, Netflix had a rough 2022, losing subscribers as consumer behavior shifted. The company started experimenting with live broadcasts as the media landscape continues to shift.

As the world waited for the reunion episode, hosted by Nick and Vanessa Lachey, the silly and biting social media posts started to roll in.

Among the angry fans was New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whom Netflix retweeted.

Someone call Lucia the seamstress to fix this. I believe in her

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 17, 2023

Blockbuster, the bankrupt former video store, tweeted: “Remember renting vhs’ from us. You could start it on time no problem… This is what we get.”

The “Love is Blind” series features couples that propose before seeing one another. It helped the company solidify its reality TV chops when it started streaming three years ago, at a time when traditional network and broadcast television were essentially the only places to get a reality fix.

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April 16, 2023
Opinion: Washington needs to get over its TikTok fixation | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Evan Greer is an activist, writer and musician based in Boston. She’s the director of the digital rights group Fight for the Future, and a regular commentator on issues related to technology policy, LGBTQ communities and human rights. Follow her on Twitter @evan_greer or Mastodon @evangreer@mastodon.online. Read more opinion on CNN.

CNN
—

The US government is racing ahead with proposals aimed at banning TikTok, the viral video platform used by more than 150 million Americans. Officials say it’s a matter of national security, gesturing urgently toward TikTok’s parent company ByteDance and its ties to China.

While some might be motivated by thinly-veiled xenophobia, lawmakers also rightly point to concerns about TikTok’s surveillance and capitalist business model, which vacuums up as much personal information about users as possible and then uses it to serve content that keeps us clicking, scrolling, and generating ad revenue. TikTok “spies” on us for profit. That’s not in question.

The problem is that – while they might not be owned by a Chinese company – Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter all do it too, as privacy advocates have been warning for more than a decade. Banning TikTok won’t make us safer from China’s surveillance operations. Nor will it protect children, or anyone else, from getting addicted to Big Tech’s manipulative products. It’s just an ineffective solution that sounds good on TV.

While many governments engage in internet censorship and surveillance, China certainly has one of the most sophisticated and draconian systems. A core characteristic of China’s censorship regime is the “Great Firewall,” which blocks foreign social media apps, news sites and even educational resources like Wikipedia, under the guise of protecting national security.

As they hyperventilate about TikTok, US politicians are so eager to appear “tough on China” that they’re suggesting we build our very own Great Firewall here at home. There is a small but growing number of countries in the world so authoritarian that they block popular apps and websites entirely. It’s regrettable that so many US lawmakers want to add us to that list.

Several of the proposals wending their way through Congress would grant the federal government unprecedented new powers to control what technology we can use and how we can express ourselves – authority that goes far beyond TikTok. The bipartisan RESTRICT Act (S. 686), for example, would enable the Commerce Department to engage in extraordinary acts of policing, criminalizing a wide range of activities with companies from “hostile” countries and potentially even banning entire apps simply by declaring them a threat to national security.

The law is vague enough that some experts have raised concerns that it could threaten individual internet users with lengthy prison sentences for taking steps to “evade” a ban, like side-loading an app (i.e., bypassing approved app distribution channels such as the Apple store) or using a virtual private network (VPN).

But banning TikTok isn’t just foolish and dangerous, it’s also unconstitutional. The strong free speech protections enshrined in the First Amendment bar the government from extreme actions like criminalizing an app that millions of people use to express their opinions and ideas. The US government can’t ban you from posting or watching TikTok videos any more than they can stop you from reading a foreign newspaper like the Times of India or writing an opinion piece for The Guardian.

The Washington Post, the New York Times and CNN all have their own official TikTok accounts, as do numerous candidates for office, elected officials, academics, journalists, religious leaders and political figures. Any proposal that results in TikTok’s effective ban in the US would almost certainly fall apart under a legal challenge, as the American Civil Liberties Union and other experts have asserted. Even conservative Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky agrees that banning the app would violate Americans’ right to free speech.

A ban on TikTok wouldn’t even be effective: The Chinese government could purchase much of the same information from data brokers, which are largely unregulated in the US.

The rush to ban TikTok – or force its sale to a US company – is a convenient distraction from what our elected officials should be doing to protect us from government manipulation and commercial surveillance: passing some basic data privacy legislation. It’s a matter of common knowledge that Instagram, YouTube, Venmo, Snapchat and most of the other apps on your phone engage in similar data harvesting business practices to TikTok. Some are even worse.

So it’s not just TikTok. Much of what you do in the digital space on all of your devices is tracked. Companies that engage in the practice claim that they track users’ activities online in order to deliver more targeted advertising and content.

Many companies sell the data they harvest to third parties, who sell it to fourth and fifth and sixth parties. While companies collect this data for the purpose of extracting profit and getting users hooked on their products, governments have long taken an interest.

The only way to stop governments from weaponizing data that private companies like TikTok collect and store about us is to stop those companies from collecting and storing so much information in the first place. You can’t do that with censorship. You do that by passing a strong national data privacy law that bans companies from collecting more data about us than they need to provide us with the service we’ve requested.

Instead of helping Big Tech get bigger by banning a major competitor, Congress should also pass antitrust legislation to crack down on anti-competitive practices. That would give concerned parents and internet users who want to ditch TikTok and Instagram better options to choose from, and reduce the power of the largest platforms, making them harder for governments to exploit and manipulate. It’s much harder for bad actors, whether they’re corporate trolls or government agents, to control information across a constellation of smaller platforms, each with their own rules and algorithms, than it is for them to poison the well when there are a tiny handful of companies controlling access to information.

A separate concern that lawmakers and US officials have raised is the idea that the Chinese government could pressure TikTok to amplify propaganda, or otherwise change its algorithm to advance the government’s interests. It’s an argument that’s not entirely without merit.

We know the Russian government was effective in manipulating information on Facebook during the 2016 elections. The US has historically engaged in similar conduct overseas. Consider, for example, the US history in influencing the outcomes of elections in Latin America or disinformation campaigns by US allies after the Arab Spring. State-backed disinformation campaigns are happening at a mass scale and on every major platform. We fight that by demanding more transparency and accountability, not more censorship.

It’s a national embarrassment that we have no basic data privacy law in the United States. And it’s a travesty that we continue to allow unregulated tech monopolies to trample our rights. Every day that our elected officials spend wringing their hands and spreading moral panic about what the kids are doing on TikTok is another day we’re left vulnerable and unprotected.

With any luck, Washington’s TikTok hysteria will fade quickly. Let’s hope the next hot new trend in the nation’s capital is passing actual laws that protect people, starting with strong privacy and antitrust legislation.

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April 16, 2023
Indiana’s recycling plant fire is mostly out, but evacuations remain as crews monitor air quality and clear debris from schools and homes | CNN

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CNN
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A fire burning at a recycling plant in Richmond, Indiana, is mostly out, but hundreds remain evacuated from their homes as crews monitor the air for chemicals and collect potentially harmful debris from neighboring schools and homes, officials said Saturday.

Richmond residents who live within a half a mile radius of the recycling plant – about 2,000 of Richmond’s 35,000 residents – have been under a mandatory evacuation order since Tuesday, when the massive inferno exploded at the plastic-filled recycling plant in Richmond, sending thick, black smoke over the area.

When they can return home will mainly depend on whether it’s safe to breathe the air in their community. Officials had warned that the smoke the fire spawned was “definitely toxic,” forcing the closure of Richmond public schools for days as the US Environmental Protection Agency performed air sampling and monitoring tests in the area.

An announcement was initially expected Saturday on when evacuation orders could be lifted, but Richmond city officials later said that no determination had been made. “We have another meeting in the morning to determine the best time to lift the evacuation order,” Mayor Dave Snow said Saturday evening.

“Unfortunately, we are unable to provide an exact time when evacuation orders will be lifted. As air monitoring results come back from lab testing and they can be analyzed by our health experts, we are hoping to be able to allow residents to return to their homes,” Wayne County Emergency Management Agency officials said Saturday.

Those downwind from the fire were asked to continue to shelter in place “if they feel they are in danger or find themselves in a smoke plume,” emergency officials said.

More meetings and data analysis are needed before the evacuation order can be lifted, Richmond Fire Chief Tim Brown told CNN Saturday.

As for the blaze itself, Brown said firefighters have knocked down 98-99% of the fire at the recycling plant as of Saturday.

“Right now, there is no plume, there is no product being off-gassed from the fire itself,” Brown told CNN. “What we have coming off of it is mainly a white smoke or some steam. We have no plume. We have a slight wind, which is kind of pushing things out.”

Inside the facility, there are hot spots and occasional small fires that will continue to smolder for days and produce smoke, soot or the smell of burnt plastic, emergency officials said.

In the meantime, work is underway to clear debris scattered in the community from the toxic fire.

Some samples of debris from the area tested positive for asbestos containing materials, Wayne County emergency officials said, citing preliminary tests by the EPA.

“Because all debris has the potential to contain asbestos, it is important that a trained professional remove all materials suspected to be from the fire,” emergency officials said, asking residents to not disturb or touch any debris they find on their property.

Asbestos is a naturally occurring, but very toxic, substance that was once widely used for insulation. When inhaled or ingested, asbestos fibers can become trapped in the body, and may eventually cause genetic damage to the body’s cells. Exposure may also cause mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive form of cancer.

Crews in protective gear began collecting debris from three schools near the fire site on Saturday, including three in Richmond and one school in Ohio.

Officials said that schools impacted with debris will be cleared first, and then contractors will begin to deploy drones to search rooftops for additional debris, according to the post.

“After school grounds are cleared, these contractors will begin removing debris from residential properties, parks and/or public areas, and businesses,” city officials say in the post.

The county said the EPA is bringing in federal contractors to assist with the proper cleanup and removal of visible debris in both Indiana and Ohio.

A primary health concern to residents is particulate matter, which could cause respiratory problems if inhaled, Christine Stinson, who heads the Wayne County Health Department, previously said.

At the fire zone’s center, the chemicals hydrogen cyanide, benzene, chlorine, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, were detected, the EPA said Friday. They were not detected outside the evacuation zone, the agency said.

Potentially harmful VOCs also were found in six air samples, the agency said, without saying where the samples were taken.

Particulate matter also was found inside and outside the half-mile evacuation zone, as expected, the agency said.

Additionally, one of two air samples taken a little more than a mile from the fire site detected chrysotile asbestos in debris, an EPA official said Thursday. Also called white asbestos, chrysotile asbestos can cause cancer and is used in products from cement to plastics to textiles.

As for water quality, testing downstream of the fire site is underway and officials say they have “not found anything of immediate alarm, including any sign of fish kills.”

Crews did find some ash and loose plastic debris, “but weir booms have been installed and are successfully capturing this material. Likewise, Indiana American Water has also been closely monitoring the drinking water and has reported no unusual readings or results from testing,” Wayne County emergency officials said.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation and likely won’t be known for weeks, officials said. But local leaders have shared concerns since at least 2019 that the facility had hazards and building code violations, records show.

The mayor has accused the plant’s owner of ignoring a city order to clean up the property, saying the plant was a fire hazard.

CNN has sought comment from the plant’s owner, Seth Smith. The attorney who previously represented Smith in a related lawsuit declined to comment.

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April 16, 2023
Images of leaked classified documents were posted to at least two Discord chatrooms | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Images of the leaked classified documents were posted to at least two chatrooms on Discord, a social media platform popular with video gamers, according to a CNN review of Discord posts and interviews with its users.

The leaks began months ago on the first chatroom, called Thug Shaker Central, that Jack Teixeira allegedly oversaw, multiple US officials told CNN. An FBI affidavit unsealed Friday corroborates this timeline.

Teixeira, a 21-year-old airman with the Massachusetts Air National Guard, made his first appearance in federal court in Boston Friday morning following his arrest by the FBI in North Dighton, Massachusetts, the day before.

According to charging documents, Teixeira held a top secret security clearance and allegedly began posting information about the documents online around December 2022, and photos of documents in January.

It is unclear how, exactly, photos of the classified documents later ended up on a second Discord chatroom, known as End of Wow Mao Zone, in March. But four members of Wow Mao Zone told CNN that they saw another user, who does not appear to be Teixeira and who went by “Lucca,” repost some of the classified documents to that chatroom.

CNN has been unable to contact Lucca or establish their identity. In many online forums, users cloak their identities behind screen names and are reluctant to reveal themselves, including the End of Wow Mao Zone members that CNN spoke with. But End of Wow Mao Zone chatroom members told CNN that Lucca played a key role in propagating the documents that Teixeira allegedly leaked.

On Discord, Lucca had stature and anonymity — two things that allowed the documents to remain on the platform for weeks without repercussions. And multiple users assumed the documents were fake, that no one would be brazen enough to post US military secrets to the platform.

Lucca was a “respected user,” one Discord user who said they knew Lucca told CNN in a text conversation, and it was expected that Lucca would take the images down. But they didn’t. Many of the chat rooms are very lightly moderated, and the images stayed up for weeks, according to the four users who spoke to CNN.

After posting the documents, Lucca would add “fresh off the press” or something along those lines, one user added. “He would post them for attention. It was very common for him to ping everyone,” the user said.

Discord is aware of Teixeira’s arrest and has cooperated with US law enforcement on the investigation, a Discord spokesperson told CNN in a statement Thursday night.

“Our Terms of Service expressly prohibit using Discord for illegal or criminal purposes, which includes the sharing of documents on Discord that may be verifiably classified,” the Discord spokesperson said.

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April 14, 2023