Fire officials ordered evacuations in Arapahoe County Saturday after a brush fire burning southeast of Byers spread to at least one home and threatened others.
Multiple fire departments and the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s office responded to a brush fire Saturday morning in the 2400 block of South Quail Hollow Road, according to an 11:20 a.m. statement from the sheriff’s office.
South Metro Fire Rescue said seven crews responded to support Byers Fire Rescue in wildland and structure fire protection.
“The fire, which is currently about the size of a football field, is burning several hundred yards from homes,” sheriff’s officials said when crews first arrived on scene.
By 11:42 a.m., the fire had spread to at least one home and sheriff’s officials said more may be involved.
Deputies have evacuated a three-mile area near County Road 193 and County Road 34, sheriff’s officials said.
As of 11:45 a.m., no injuries had been reported and the fire was burning in the southeast direction.
Meta, the parent company of social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, has decided to remove restrictions placed on former President Donald Trump’s accounts.
Meta updated its original statement announcing the end of Trump’s suspension on Facebook and Instagram in January of 2023 to reflect the Republican presumptive presidential nominee’s new online status. Axiosfirst reported on the news.
Meta removed Trump from all of its platforms following the attack on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 amid “extreme and highly unusual circumstances,” according to Meta’s original statement.
Seven people were killed as a result of violence on or collateral damage as a result of the attack on the Capitol building.
The following May, the Oversight Board ruled that Facebook failed to apply an appropriate penalty with its indefinite suspension of Trump’s accounts for “severely” violating Facebook and Instagram’s community guidelines and standards. Trump said in a video statement released less than three hours after the violence began “We love you. You’re very special” and called the insurrectionists “great patriots.” Those and other statements made in the wake of the US Capitol attack convinced the board that Trump violated its standard against praising or supporting people engaging in violence on its platforms.
Two years later, Meta restored Trump’s accounts following a time-bound suspension with stricter penalties for violating its terms of service, a standard that was higher than any other user on Facebook and Instagram. Meta noted in its latest update that the ex-president will be subject to the same standard as everyone else.
“With the party conventions taking place shortly, including the Republican convention next week, the candidates for President of the United States will soon be formally nominated,” according to Meta’s statement. “In assessing our responsibility to allow political expression, we believe that the American people should be able to hear from the nominees for President on the same basis.”
Twitter, now X, also took action against President Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol for three tweets he posted that were labeled for inciting violence. It started with a 12-hour suspension on Jan. 6, 2021. Two days later, Twitter banned him completely after determining that subsequent posts also violated its community standards. The following year, Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk conducted an informal poll on his account asking if he should remove President Trump’s ban and reinstated his account a few days later.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis was elected Friday to lead the National Governors Association, a bipartisan 55-member body of state and territorial leaders.
For the last year he served as the vice chair of the group, which serves as a policy workshop for the nation’s governors and their cabinets. In the new post, Polis will push an initiative to help states build education systems that prepare students for the workforce and to address economic needs, such as mismatched skills and worker shortages.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis speaks next to U.S. Senator Michael Bennet at a bill-signing event for a new child tax credit at Denver KinderCare in Denver on Friday, May 31, 2024. (Photo by Zachary Spindler-Krage/The Denver Post)
“All Americans should have access to education that prepares them for success in life,” Polis said in a statement announcing his chairmanship. “As the world changes and technology evolves, ensuring all students graduate with the skills and knowledge necessary for success is so important for U.S. economic competitiveness.
“Our initiative will explore how to better evaluate outcomes from state investments in education, and help drive improved outcomes for learners at all stages of their education journey.”
Polis earlier served in Congress, and before that on the Colorado State Board of Education. He helped found two charter schools. He has also previously served as chair of the Western Governors’ Association, where he pushed an initiative exploring the use of geothermal energy in the West.
This is the third election cycle in the US—2016, 2020, 2024—where social media is going to have played a really significant role in the election. The US still hasn’t gotten to grips with the fact that our democracy is becoming more and more precarious. It’s becoming more polarized, it’s becoming more hateful, it’s becoming less capable of consensus. With the 2020 election we saw that people no longer even accept elections are real. It’s important that we start to put into place the transparency and the accountability that’s required for these platforms that control the information ecosystem that has such an enormous impact on our electoral cycles.
Why do you think it’s been so difficult to regulate social media and the harm it can cause?
Countries around the world are doing it. The UK legislated the Online Safety Act. The EU legislated the Digital Services Act. Canada has legislated through C-63, and I’m going to give evidence in Ottawa at some point on that. In the US, we have seen social media companies put up their most aggressive defenses that they put up anywhere in the world. They’re spending tens of millions of dollars on lobbying on the Hill, in supporting candidates, trying to stop the inevitable from happening.
Something’s gotta work, no?
Ironically, I think the thing that is most likely to eventually move lawmakers is parents, and parents in particular worrying about the impact of social media platforms on their kids’ mental health. And that’s the thing with social media, it affects everything. CCDH looks at the effects of social media, disregulation on our ability to deal with the climate crisis, on sexual and reproductive rights, on public health and vaccines during the pandemic, on identity-based hate and kids. It’s the kids’ thing—really, it just is such an unimpeachable case for change.
My wife and I are having our first soon. I understand what you would do to defend your kids from being harmed. I think that when you’ve got platforms that are hurting our kids at such a scale, it is inevitable that change will come.
The optimist in me hopes you are right. The next generation should inherit a better world, but so much is working against that.
You know, one of the things that really scares me, we did some polling last year that showed that young people for the first time ever, 14- to 17-year-olds—the first generation who were raised on algorithmically ordered short-form video platforms—they are the most conspiracist generation and age cohort of any in America.
Oh wow.
Old people are slightly more likely to believe conspiracy theories. But it goes down as you get younger and then 14- to 17-year-olds, bam, the highest of all of them. We did that by testing across nine conspiracy theories: transphobic conspiracy theories, climate-denying conspiracy theories, racist conspiracy theories, antisemitic conspiracy theories, conspiracy theories about the deep state. And on every single one, young people were more likely to believe it. And it’s because we’ve created for them an information ecosystem that’s fundamentally chaotic.
And is only getting more chaotic.
Look, the way that tyrants retain power is not just by lying to people, it’s by making them unable to tell what truth is. And it creates apathy. Apathy is the tool of the tyrant. It was true with the Soviet Union. It was true with Afghanistan. There’s no secret to the fact that CCDH is senior leadership of people who come from places where we’ve seen this kind of destruction of the information ecosystem lead to tyrannical government. So, yeah, there is this awareness that things could get real bad real fast. And you’re right in saying that we worry about our kids, and we want to make our world better for them.
Paid-for blue checks on social media network X deceive users and are abused by malicious actors, the European Union said today, threatening the Elon Musk–owned platform with millions of dollars in fines unless the company makes changes.
Enabling any account to pay for a verification breaches the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), European Commission officials said on Friday, because it “negatively affects users’ ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts.” X now has a chance to respond to the findings. If Musk cannot reach a resolution with the EU, the company faces fines of up to 6 percent of its global annual turnover.
Blue checks, which appear next to account names of X Premium subscribers, have been the subject of controversy since Musk acquired the platform in 2022. “Back in the day, blue checks used to mean trustworthy sources of information. Now with X, our preliminary view is that they deceive users and infringe the DSA,” EU internal market commissioner Thierry Breton said in a statement. “X has now the right of defense—but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines and require significant changes.”
X did not reply to WIRED’s request for comment. But on X, CEO Linda Yaccarino hit back. “A democratized system, allowing everyone across Europe to access verification, is better than just the privileged few being verified,” she said. “We stand with everyone on X and in Europe who believes in the open flow of information and supports innovation.”
Before Musk took over X, formerly known as Twitter, blue checks were used to verify the identity of influential accounts, ranging from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to celebrity Kim Kardashian. Approved by Twitter staff, blue checks were also common among active researchers and journalists, signaling that they were reliable sources of information.
Supporters of that system argued it helped users identify trustworthy voices, while limiting scammers and impersonators. But Musk decried the arrangement as elitist and “corrupt to the core.” The ability to buy a blue tick for $8 per month was, he said, an antidote to “Twitter’s current lords & peasants” set-up. “Power to the people!” he posted, as he announced the new subscriber model.
Yet after a string of scandals—NBA star LeBron James was among high-profile figures targeted by impersonator accounts with paid-for blue checks—X introduced a more complicated color-coded system that Musk described as “painful, but necessary.” Verified companies can get gold checks, gray checks go to governments, and in April 2024 users considered “influential” had their blue checks restored for free.
Despite those changes, the EU said on Friday that X’s verification system does not correspond with industry practice. Officials also claimed X does not comply with local rules on advertising transparency and fails to give researchers adequate access to its public data, using methods such as scraping. The fees for access to X’s API—enterprise packages start at $42,000 per month—either dissuades researchers from carrying out projects or forces them to pay disproportionately high fees, the Commission said. “In our view, X doesn’t comply with the DSA in key transparency areas,” EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said in a post on X, adding this was the first time a company had been charged with “preliminary findings” under the Digital Services Act.
The X reprimand is the latest in a flurry issued to big tech companies by the Commission, as European regulators leverage new rules designed to curb tech giants’ market power and improve the way they operate. The EU gave no deadline for X to respond to its findings.
In the past month, Apple, Microsoft, and Meta have all been accused of breaking EU rules. Meta and Apple must resolve their cases before March 2025 to avoid fines. Yesterday, Apple said it would make its Tap and Go wallet technology available to rivals in its latest concession to local regulator demands.
London — The European Union said Friday that blue checkmarks from Elon Musk’s X are deceptive and that the online platform falls short on transparency and accountability requirements, in the first charges against a tech company since the bloc’s new social media regulations took effect.
The European Commission outlined the preliminary findings from its investigation into X, formerly known as Twitter, under the 27-nation bloc’s Digital Services Act.
The rulebook, also known as the DSA, is a sweeping set of regulations that requires platforms to take more responsibility for protecting their European users and cleaning up harmful or illegal content and products on their sites, under threat of hefty fines.
Regulators took aim at X’s blue checks, saying they constitute “dark patterns” that are not in line with industry best practice and can be used by malicious actors to deceive users.
Before Musk’s acquisition, the checkmarks mirrored verification badges common on social media and were largely reserved for celebrities, politicians and other influential accounts. After Musk bought the site in 2022, it started issuing them to anyone who paid $8 per month for one.
“Since anyone can subscribe to obtain such a ‘verified” status’ it negatively affects users’ ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with,” the commission said.
An email request for comment to X resulted in an automated response that said “Busy now, please check back later.” Its main spokesman reportedly left the company in June.
“Back in the day, BlueChecks used to mean trustworthy sources of information,” European Commissioner Thierry Breton said in a statement. “Now with X, our preliminary view is that they deceive users and infringe the DSA.”
The commission also charged X with failing to comply with ad transparency rules. Under the DSA, platforms must publish a database of all digital advertisements that they’ve carried, with details such as who paid for them and the intended audience.
But X’s ad database isn’t “searchable and reliable” and has “design features and access barriers” that make it “unfit for its transparency purpose,” the commission said. The database’s design in particular hinders researchers from looking into “emerging risks” from online ads, it said.
The company also falls short when it comes to giving researchers access to public data, the commission said. The DSA imposes the provisions so that researchers can scrutinize how platforms work and how online risks evolve.
But researchers can’t independently access data by scraping it from the site, while the process to request access from the company through an interface “appears to dissuade researchers” from carrying out their projects or gives them no choice but to pay high fees, it said.
X now has a chance to respond to the accusations and make changes to comply, which would be legally binding. If the commission isn’t satisfied, it can levy penalties worth up to 6% of the company’s annual global revenue and order it to fix the problem.
The findings are only a part of the investigation. Regulators are still looking into whether X is failing to do enough to curb the spread of illegal content — such as hate speech or incitement of terrorism — and the effectiveness of measures to combat “information manipulation,” especially through its crowd-sourced Community Notes fact-checking feature.
TikTok, e-commerce site AliExpress and Facebook and Instagram owner Meta Platforms are also facing ongoing DSA investigations.
When Cody Brundage steps into the Octagon on Saturday, he’ll carry his daughter’s fight with him.
Brundage, one of four locals on the UFC Fight Night card in the promotion’s return to Denver at Ball Arena, has gained strength from watching 3-year-old Kingsley battle ALG13-CDG — a rare disease caused by a genetic mutation.
“This (fighting) life is pretty hard in terms of balance because it demands everything of you, and a lot of times it doesn’t really give that much back,” Brundage said. “At one point fighting was the most important, biggest thing in my life. But with kids, that changes, and especially with Kingsley and the care she needs.
“I know as long as I’m being a good dad and good husband and partner, I’ll check the boxes with fighting and that will take care of itself. I didn’t really have that perspective before.”
Doctors initially told Brundage and his wife, ex-UFC fighter Amanda Bobby Brundage, that Kingsley would likely never be able to use her hands, sit up or feed herself. But Kingsley has already met those milestones, and though she remains nonverbal, the Brundages feel fortunate with where she is now.
That includes getting Kingsley’s seizures under control over the past couple of years. When she was an infant, she was having roughly 130 seizures a day.
“Imagine trying to go off to training when you know your baby at 6 months old is going through that many seizures a day,” Amanda Brundage said. “You’re trying to fight for your dreams, which is what Cody’s been doing, and that’s going on at home. It makes it hard (to focus).”
Amanda, who fought in the UFC from 2016 to ’18 and was on the cusp of returning to the promotion when she got pregnant with Kingsley, gave up her professional MMA career to be a mom. While Cody trains at Factory X in Englewood, she stays home with Kingsley and the couple’s other daughter, 1-year-old Millie.
“People can view living through someone else as kind of a negative thing, but for me, it’s a positive,” Amanda said. “I’m living through Cody. I’m supporting him, watching him train. I want him to go to the top, to reach all his dreams and potential. I still get to go to the gym to train. So I still get my feel for the sport, I still learn stuff, and he’s teaching me now.”
That latter part has been a role reversal for the couple, who initially met at an MMA gym in Michigan where Amanda was an instructor. She became the first MMA coach for Cody, an ex-college wrestler searching for his next step in life.
“She was in there doing private lessons and she came up to me and was like, ‘You have no idea what you’re doing,’” Cody recalled with a laugh. “I was like, ‘Thanks for that.’ And in my mind, I was like, ‘Who is this little woman telling me I don’t know what I’m doing?’ Turns out she’s in the UFC.
“She would always tell me, ‘You’re just going to owe me 2% (of future earnings). I’m not ever going to charge you anything now for coaching.’ I’ve been chasing that 2% deal ever since.”
On Saturday, Brundage (4-5 in the UFC) will look to get back into the win column after losing his last fight by submission to Bo Nickal in April.
Brundage’s middleweight opponent at Ball Arena is Ghanaian fighter Abdul Razak Alhassan. Brundage, a 30-year-old Parker resident, is expecting “chaos and fireworks” in a bout between two fighters capable of big finishes. All six of Alhassan’s UFC wins have come by KO/TKO.
“We know Razak is a tough opponent, and we also know that Cody’s skill set could be Razak’s kryptonite,” Factory X head coach Marc Montoya said. “We think this is a fight he can win. Now, he just needs to go prove it. … Cody’s skill set is very well-rounded. Razak’s obviously a good striker, super powerful and explosive. Can Cody’s well-roundedness on the feet and defensively negate what he’s doing?
“I don’t think Razak’s game plan is to come out and try to finish Cody on the ground. The hardest part for our opponent is figuring out what Cody is going to do because he’s very well-rounded.”
Anthony Hernandez grapples Josh Fremd in their middleweight fight during the UFC 273 event at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena on April 09, 2022 in Jacksonville, Florida. (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images)
Fremd’s “coming-out party.” Another 30-year-old Factory X middleweight on Saturday’s card is Josh Fremd, who will fight Andre Petroski in the evening’s second preliminary bout.
Fremd is 2-3 in the UFC and coming off a KO loss to Roman Kopylov via a body blow last September. The Connellsville, Pa., native and current Englewood resident said he’s underperformed in his five big-show bouts so far.
“This one’s going to be my coming-out party for the UFC,” Fremd said. “Coming up through the regional scene, I was having viral knockouts and performing great, and then when I got to the UFC it’s been a whirlwind. Even my two wins, they weren’t my best performances. I want to do better and show everyone what I’m actually capable of.”
Like a lot of fighters, Fremd’s road to the UFC was underscored by a rough upbringing. He was in and out of juvenile detention centers, halfway homes and foster care before his grandparents took him and his five siblings in.
But Fremd came out the other side, then developed his will to fight on the regional scene, where he dealt with various injuries and worked as a bartender/bouncer to make ends meet.
“There’s been so many times I could’ve quit, took the easy route out, got a (9-to-5) job, and said, ‘To hell with it.’ But I’ve fought through a lot and it’s taught me work ethic,” Fremd said. “… My boxing and my cardio are my strengths, but at the end of the day, I’m just a fighter. I’m not going to cave, give in or wilt under pressure. I’m okay to get beat up for a little bit just to turn it around and finish a fight.”
Montoya believes Petroski is going to want to capitalize on his grappling ability against Fremd.
“Josh and Cody are in a very similar spot where they’re young in the UFC and they have a high, high ceiling,” Montoya said. “Josh just needs to go out and perform. When you see a confident Josh Fremd, he is scary to fight. And what I’ve seen in the build-up to this fight is that it seems like Josh has found a lot of the swagger he had pre-UFC, and that’s a big deal.”
While Fremd and Brundage fight, Factory X’s top UFC fighter, flyweight Brandon Royval, will be in the stands watching. The Denver native and top-ranked contender in his division had an offer to take on an unranked fighter Saturday but turned it down.
Montoya said the fight didn’t make sense considering Royval is waiting for another shot at a title fight against Alexandre Pantoja, whom he lost to in December before beating then-No. 1 contender Brandon Moreno in February.
“That’s the man of the city right there,” Fremd said of Rovyal, “so in honor of him, I’m going to go out and knock this fool out.”
Rose Namajunas celebrates as the referee kneels over Zhang Weili during a UFC 261 mixed martial arts bout Saturday, April 24, 2021, in Jacksonville, Fla. (AP Photo/Gary McCullough)
Main event preview. The night will conclude with one of the state’s all-time fighters in the main event.
Westminster resident Rose Namajunas, a former two-time strawweight champion, fights Tracy Cortez in Namajunas’ third flyweight bout since moving up a weight class. Namajunas was originally supposed to fight Greeley native Maycee Barber, but Barber withdrew a few weeks ago due to medical issues.
Namajunas is No. 6 in the UFC flyweight rankings, and Cortez is No. 11. A win will inch Namajunas closer to an eventual title shot and a chance to become a two-division champion. Alexa Grasso currently holds the belt and is the No. 1-ranked pound-for-pound female fighter.
“I’m feeling lots of excitement, nerves, gratitude for this chance to fight here,” said Namajunas, a Milwaukee native who moved to Colorado about a decade ago. “I’ve had such a great career so far, with some ups and downs, so to get to this point of my first time fighting in Denver, there’s a lot to take in and a lot to process.
“If my heart is right, and my spirit is right … I’m the best for a reason, and (Cortez) will have to find that out.”
Cortez is riding an 11-fight win streak coming into Saturday — with five of those triumphs coming in the UFC — and is eager to hold on to her status as one of the promotion’s intriguing up-and-comers.
“I know right now (Namajunas) is a veteran, and we’re in her home, we’re in her backyard,” Cortez said. “All of that doesn’t really intimidate me. She was an amazing champion at 115 (pounds), but I don’t think she’s yet to face a true 125er like myself in her career. This is going to put both of us to a good test to see if, one, if she belongs in the flyweight division, and two, if I’m really as talented as I believe I am.”
During Namajunas’ training leading into Saturday, she worked with other local UFC fighters, including reigning bantamweight champion Raquel Pennington as well as flyweights Miranda Maverick and JJ Aldrich.
With Namajunas headlining alongside the trio of local men — UFC veteran lightweight and Colorado resident Drew Dober faces Brazilian Jean Silva in the third-to-last bout — Brundage believes Saturday will be a marquee night for the Centennial State’s MMA scene. The last time the UFC held a card in Denver was Nov. 10, 2018, at the then-named Pepsi Center.
“Hopefully we make enough of a statement that it doesn’t take six years to come back,” Brundage said. “This is where the UFC started (with UFC 1 in 1993 at McNichols Sports Arena), and there’s a ton of great MMA culture here. The fans here are awesome, they understand the sport. There’s a ton of jiujitsu gyms here with a lot of high-level UFC fighters who have fought for world titles, won world titles.
“I feel like with the history of this place with MMA, especially UFC, it’s crazy they haven’t been back sooner. … (We local fighters) are all going to go out, push a hard pace and show them what’s up.”
Drew Dober, left, exchanges strikes with Rafael Alves of Brazil in their lightweight bout during UFC 277 at American Airlines Center on July 30, 2022 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
UFC Fight Night
Saturday at Ball Arena
Preliminaries — 5 p.m.
Evan Elder vs. Darrius Flowers (Welterweight)
Josh Fremd vs. Andre Petroski (Middleweight)
Luana Santos vs. Mariya Agapova (Flyweight)
Montel Jackson vs. Da’mon Blackshear (Bantamweight)
Jasmine Jasudavicius vs. Fatima Kline (Flyweight)
Joshua Van vs. Charles Johnson (Flyweight)
Main Card — 8 p.m.
Abdul Razak Alhassan vs. Cody Brundage (Middleweight)
Julian Erosa vs. Christian Rodriguez (Featherweight)
Gabriel Bonfim vs. Ange Loosa (Welterweight)
Drew Dober vs. Jean Silva (Lightweight)
Santiago Ponzinibbio vs. Muslim Salikhov (Welterweight)
Rose Namajunas vs. Tracy Cortez (Flyweight, Main Event)
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s popularity is holding steady after 11 months in office, according to a new poll released Wednesday, but its findings suggest a sales tax increase he’s pitching for the November ballot could face some skepticism from voters.
Johnston remains confident in his tax proposal, unveiled Monday. It would generate an estimated $100 million a year to expand on the city’s affordable housing work, including by preserving or building tens of thousands of units affordable to people now getting priced out of the city. His own internal polling suggests two-thirds of the city would support the tax increase, he said.
Mayor Mike Johnston, joined by members of the City Council and community leaders, announces a new sales tax proposal to expand affordable housing in Denver on the steps of the City and County Building on July 8, 2024. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
But the June survey of 409 registered Denver voters for the nonprofit Colorado Polling Institute found that a solid majority — 64% — believe the city’s taxes are already high. Among them, 35% said the city’s taxes were “way too high,” while 29% said they were “high but acceptable.”
Still, it’s been rare for Denver voters to turn down tax increases, and a pollster noted that plenty of voters voiced moderate opinions on the question.
If both pass, the city’s effective sales tax rate would increase from 8.81% to 9.65%, making Denver stand out along the Front Range.
The bipartisan poll, conducted by Democratic polling organization Aspect Strategic and Republican firm New Bridge Strategy, was conducted via a mix of online and phone interviews between June 13 and 18. It has a margin of error of 4.85 percentage points.
In good news for the mayor, the poll found 48% of voters viewed him favorably. That’s virtually flat compared to the 46% who viewed Johnston favorably in a Colorado Polling Institute poll in August, just his second month on the job.
But the share viewing Johnston unfavorably climbed significantly, from 22% in August to 38% in June, according to the results.
That’s due in part to rising familiarity as Johnston has been in the news, including as he’s spearheaded a new homeless strategy and responded to the migrant crisis. Just 11% of voters told pollsters they had no opinion or had never heard of the mayor in June, down from 32% in August.
His favorability ratings in the new poll contrast with results from a Magellan Strategies survey of 1,595 Denver voters conducted in May. That poll found that 43% approved of his performance — while fully 50% disapproved. The margin of error was 2.45 percentage points.
The survey was conducted for the council’s central office primarily to gauge support for a potential tightening of term limits. Its contract with Magellan was valued at up to $29,000, council spokesman Robert Austin said. The poll also found that the council’s approval rating was underwater, with approval at 36% and disapproval at 49%.
Regardless of his own support levels, Johnston is banking that voters will approve his tax request in November.
On the Colorado Polling Institute survey’s taxes question, Lori Weigel, of New Bridge Strategy, viewed the responses with some nuance. She noted that just about any voter is liable to say they pay too much in taxes, which is why the poll allowed respondents to grade the city’s tax burden by offering several options: way too high, high but acceptable, about right and lower than what one would expect.
“When we look at the ‘high but acceptable’ or ‘about right’ (responses), it’s a majority sort of gravitating towards that middle spectrum,” Weigel said.
The Johnston administration has done its own polling. In a meeting with Denver Post journalists on Tuesday, the mayor said his data shows 65% of city voters would favor the “Affordable Denver” sales tax increase. That figure was steady regardless of whether respondents owned or rented their homes, he said.
“We were really surprised that you have total alignment between renters and homeowners, and you also have — not surprisingly — massive support from younger voters for this issue,” Johnston said. “As we know, if you can’t afford to live here, then all the rest of the other things are secondary.”
A new deepfake video that falsely claims the first lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, purchased a $4.8 million Bugatti sports car has racked up millions of views on social media, CBS News has found. The video is part of a Russian disinformation campaign aimed at degrading Western support for Ukraine, researchers said.
CBS News determined the video was created using artificial intelligence. It shows a man claiming to be a French luxury car dealership employee sharing “exclusive” information about the fabricated sale. The man doesn’t move his neck, rarely blinks and his head barely moves — telltale signs of being manipulated using AI.
Screenshot of a deepfake targeting the first lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska.
CBS News
The video was amplified by Russian disinformation networks across social media platforms, racking up over 20 million views on X, Telegram and TikTok. X and Telegram did not respond to a request for comment. A TikTok spokesperson told CBS News their policies do not allow misinformation that may cause harm and the company removes content that violates these guidelines.
While it’s not clear who created the video, an early version of it appeared in an article on a French website called Verite Cachee — or in English, Hidden Truth — on July 1. Researchers from threat intelligence company Recorded Future linked the website to a Russian disinformation network they call CopyCop, which uses sham news websites and AI tools to publish false claims as part of influence campaigns.
The article included a fabricated invoice purporting to be from Bugatti to dupe readers further. Bugatti Paris — which is operated by Autofficina Parigi, a Car Lovers Group company — said it had filed a criminal complaint against people who shared the video and forged the invoice. Car Lovers Group said the invoice is not theirs, and it contains errors that show it’s fabricated, including the lack of required legal details and an incorrect price for the vehicle.
Russian disinformation networks have spread similar false claims about Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his family in the past year, including a false claim that he bought two luxury yachts for millions of dollars, and a false claim that Zelenska bought over $1 million worth of jewelry at Cartier in New York City.
Clément Briens, a senior threat intelligence analyst for cybersecurity company Recorded Future, told CBS News that false stories about corruption are created to undermine Western support for Ukraine and “erode trust in the leaders, their institutions, and international alliances.”
The falsehoods play into existing concerns and documented reports about corruption in Ukraine, researchers say.
Darren Linvill, a Russian disinformation expert and professor at Clemson University in South Carolina, said the false claims are “framed for a very particular audience that wants to hear and is ready to hear that and repeat it.”
Linvill said the narratives have managed to gain traction online, despite being debunked — likely because of the cost and status of the brand used by the network. “I think Bugatti has something to do with it,” he said.
Erielle Delzer is a verification producer for CBS News Confirmed. She covers misinformation, AI and social media. Contact Erielle at erielle.delzer@cbsnews.com.
Colorado’s senators and a congressman are demanding answers from U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs leadership over a series of troubling reports about its Aurora hospital.
Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, both Democrats, and Rep. Jason Crow, an Aurora Democrat, sent a letter to VA leadership on Monday requesting an accounting of patient safety issues, further explanation over its current pause in surgeries due to a mysterious residue on its medical equipment, and steps the hospital has taken to address pervasive cultural problems among its staff.
“As problems persist within the (Eastern Colorado hospital system), we are increasingly concerned about the quality of care Colorado veterans receive, a lack of adherence to the required medical and employee procedures, and how recent leadership changes have impeded the system’s effectiveness,” the lawmakers wrote.
The letter comes on the heels of two scathing reports from the VA’s Office of Inspector General, which investigates departmental waste, fraud and abuse.
The probes, released June 24, found Aurora’s Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center paused surgeries for more than a year in 2022 and 2023 because the hospital didn’t have the staff to care for those patients after their procedures. They never told the federal VA as required, the investigation found.
The second inspector general report said the Aurora VA suffered from poor organizational health, citing widespread fear among staff that promoted disenfranchisement. Doctors stopped performing high-risk procedures, one staffer said, for fear of punishment if something went wrong.
The investigation mirrored The Denver Post’s reporting since last fall, which found the toxic workplace and culture of fear had permeated a wide swath of departments, leading to high turnover, especially among senior leadership positions. The Post also found that the head of the hospital’s prosthetics department was instructing employees to cancel veterans’ orders to clear a large backlog. The VA later confirmed The Post’s reporting.
Bennet, Hickenlooper and Crow, in their letter, asked the VA to respond to a series of questions, including detailed queries about the mysterious residue that has halted hundreds of surgeries since April. The Post first reported in May that the hospital was rescheduling or referring to community hospitals all surgeries that rely on reusable equipment.
The elected officials also asked the VA about staffing shortages at the hospital network, along with reports that many veterans in the system have been waiting months for their first face-to-face appointment with a provider.
“We share the goal of providing veterans across the country with timely, quality and consistent health care,” the letter states. “The continuous appointment delays and ongoing quality issues at (the hospital) undermine this objective.”
On a bipartisan 4-1 vote, the Senate Ethics Committee found that Winter failed to uphold the public’s trust in the legislature when she drank alcohol before taking part in a contentious community meeting in Northglenn. Winter, a Broomfield Democrat and the Senate’s assistant majority leader, previously apologized for her conduct at the meeting, where her speech appeared slurred. After it ended, police intervened to help her find a ride home.
Democratic Sens. Julie Gonzales and Dylan Roberts and Republican Sens. Paul Lundeen and Bob Gardner agreed that Winter violated ethics rules. Democratic Sen. James Coleman was the lone no vote.
Before the vote, Gonzales said it was up to the committee to decide what was acceptable conduct by a legislator and that holding office is an honor.
“That’s what each one of us is expected to uphold,” she said.
The committee recommended that Senate leadership issue a letter to Winter addressing her conduct at the Northglenn meeting and her substance use. She should be invited to address the full Senate when the chamber reconvenes in January, the members said. They also recommended that, should Winter’s conduct again raise ethics concerns because of substance use, she should face immediate action from the full Senate instead of another ethics committee process.
Winter, who voluntarily resigned a committee chair position and entered substance-use treatment in the days after the April meeting, attended Monday’s hearing at the state Capitol but was not invited to speak.
She did not immediately return a request for comment as the hearing concluded. In a letter to the committee last month, Winter apologized again and acknowledged that she had a drink before the Northglenn meeting.
But she asked that the complaint be dismissed and noted the culture of alcohol use in the Capitol. Gardner, a Colorado Springs Republican who previously appeared conflicted about what actions to take in response to Winter’s behavior, said he was particularly troubled by Winter’s reference to the Senate’s culture as “justification” for her actions.
The committee eschewed harsher recommendations, such as Winter being formally censured by the Senate or expelled from the chamber entirely. Only one legislator has been expelled in the past century: Rep. Steve Lebsock was removed in 2018 after he was accused of sexually harassing Winter and other women.
The ethics committee last month determined there was probable cause to believe Winter violated Senate rules. Winter then waived a full evidentiary hearing, which would have included testimony and questioning of witnesses.
The Colorado Avalanche signed its final restricted free agent remaining Friday, inking forward Jason Polin to a one-year contract.
Polin, 25, was an undrafted free agent from Western Michigan at the end of the 2022-23 season. He had one goal in seven games with the Avalanche in his first full season as a pro, spending most of his year with the Colorado Eagles in the AHL.
He had four goals and 10 points in 42 games for the Eagles. The 6-foot, 198-pound forward is likely to begin next season with the Eagles, but could be an option as an in-season callup again.
Polin joins Casey Mittelstadt and Wyatt Aamodt as RFAs who have signed contracts to return with the Avalanche. Colorado did not extend a qualifying offer to Alex Beaucage or Gianni Fairbrother, which made them unrestricted free agents.
Avs wrap up camp: Colorado’s prospects concluded summer development camp Friday at Family Sports Center. Calum Ritchie, a 2023 first-round pick and the club’s top prospect, was a standout throughout the week.
The other first-round pick in attendance, Oskar Olausson (2021), did not participate in the scrimmage (shoulder). He wore a non-contract jersey when he was on the ice during practices earlier in the week. Avs director of player development Brian Willsie said the club expects Olausson to be full-go for the start of training camp.
Jones finds a new home: Another member of the 2023-24 Avs squad moved on officially Friday. Caleb Jones, the club’s No. 7 defenseman for much of last season, signed a one-year, two-way deal with the Los Angeles Kings. Jones, whose father is Nuggets assistant coach Popeye Jones, had five points in 25 games for the Avs and appeared in three playoff games.
Alex English should be on summer break when I call him on a Thursday afternoon, but instead he’s fresh off of two stand-up sets in New York City, and is last-minute packing for a red-eye flight to London, where he will take the stage at the Top Secret Comedy Club that weekend. The work never ends when you’re, well, a working comedian.
Since joining the SNL writers room in 2021 (season 47), English has shown an uncanny knack for the kind of humor that hits you in all the right places (all the more impressive considering he had no prior sketch experience before SNL). In his short but remarkable tenure, he’s blessed audiences with “Hot Girl Hospital,” “Nice Jail,” and the instantly iconic “Lisa from Temecula,” which he tells me was inspired during a holiday trip to Detroit, his hometown.
English says the source of his humor is found not on social media but in analog experiences. “I talk to people, to my family. I read the paper. I also read a lot of books,” he says. “I love to people watch. I’m an old man.”
English belongs to the next generation of exciting—and excitingly queer—comedians that include humorists John Early, Bowen Yang, Sam Jay, and Joel Kim Booster. What they strive to achieve is not a viral moment, which English says too many new comics thirst for, but a common understanding through life’s absurdities. In fact, English is adamant that social media ruined not only the art of comedy, but also our relationship to it. So I asked him to explain how we got here, and how we might get back.
Jason Parham: What frightens you about the state of comedy right now?
Alex English: I was on a flight recently. Another passenger was watching a clip on their phone and I was like, “Oh, I know that person.” Within seven seconds of the video, he just scrolled off of it. I’m sure that time was the comic setting it up or talking to the audience. That scared me. I was like, “I don’t want anybody to do that to me. I don’t want anybody scrolling off of me.” You know what it is, also—because everybody’s doing it now, it becomes so saturated. There’s no uniqueness to the videos I’m seeing. That’s no diss to people doing it. I just feel that’s not the way I should be doing it.
That’s fair.
Long gone are the days where you could go and perform at a club, someone from the industry sees it, and they want to put you on a platform to elevate your work. Instead, now the business is, do you have 500,000 followers from burning material that you put out on the internet or talking to an audience. When it comes to crowd work, I’m the one who came to work. The audience didn’t come to work. They came to laugh. I don’t understand this obsession with that. When I’m on stage, I don’t care that much about the audience. Like, “Are y’all dating?” Who cares? There’s no unique story to that. And they didn’t pay for that.
Whose fault is that?
I realized, especially after the pandemic, the Instagram and TikTok of it all when it comes to comedy has really ruined a lot of audiences. It’s changed the audiences’ perception of what comedy—specifically stand-up comedy—actually is. I did a show a few months ago that went well. This woman comes up to me after the show. She’d been sitting in the front. She said, “Oh my God, I thought you were gonna talk to us tonight. I thought you were gonna make fun of us.” I said, “Is that what you think stand-up is now?” There’s an expectation from audiences now because of what they’re consuming online.
World War II Air Force veteran Major Richard Olson never discussed his military service with his son, Dick Olson.
“I didn’t have all that much time to be asking these questions while he was at home,” Dick, a Westminster resident, told the Denver Post in an interview. “He was a distant father, and I imagine a lot of that came from what happened to him during the war and in service.”
After Richard died, Dick turned to military archives, old photos and interviews with the surviving members of his father’s B-24 Liberator airplane crew to learn about the veteran’s journey. Through his research, Dick discovered that his father, despite being seriously injured in a plane crash before enduring months as a prisoner of war, had never received a Purple Heart.
For seven years, Dick worked to correct the oversight. In April, the Air Force agreed to posthumously award Richard a Purple Heart.
The veteran was 22 years old when he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in February 1941, according to his son. The service was renamed the U.S. Army Air Forces in June of that year and became the U.S. Air Force in 1947.
“He grew up through the Depression and everything else,” Dick told The Post. “I think he joined because he was looking for three square meals a day.”
Courtesy of Dick Olson
Richard Olson (bottom center) poses with a B-24 crew after completing a six hour training flight. (Photo credit: Courtesy of Dick Olson)
Olson later became the co-pilot of a B-24 bomber plane in the 484th Bombardment Group combat unit. A week after D-Day, while stationed in southern Italy, his crew was shot down over the Adriatic Sea by eight German fighter planes while flying to Munich.
“They lost an engine, and they couldn’t keep up with the rest of the bombers, so they had to turn around to go back,” Dick said. “Two of the gunners were killed on the plane. And then the plane was set on fire and I think they had two more engines shot out.
“But there was a big fire in the bomb bay so they had to get out of the plane. So they did, and everybody bailed out, the ones that were still alive.”
Shell fragments struck Olson’s leg and he sustained a back injury that left him with chronic pain.
Most of the men landed on the Italian coastline northeast of Venice, according to conversations Dick had with B-24 crew member John Hassan. He was transferred to two other POW camps and after 10 months of incarceration, Olson was liberated on April 29, 1945, from Moosburg, Germany.
“He just said it was a very dull existence and of course they were hungry all the time,” Dick told The Post. “There was not a whole lot to do there. They played sports and the American Red Cross supplied them with books and boardgames and sporting equipment and different things to keep their morale up.”
Courtesy of Dick Olson
Richard Olson’s identification card from his time as a POW in Stalag Luft III. (Photo credit: Courtesy of Dick Olson)
Olson stayed in the Air Force for 16 years after his liberation from the POW camp and became a major, father and husband before leaving the military in 1961, according to his obituary.
“My parents split when I was about 13,” Dick said. “He moved away from the household and they got divorced.”
After the divorce in 1969, Dick saw Richard three more times before the veteran passed away in 1996 from multiple myeloma.
“I was always interested in his Air Force career. And since he never talked about these other guys, I wanted to find them and talk to them myself,” Dick said.
He connected with John Hassan, the navigator in Richard’s B-24 crew, in 1997. “Going through some of his papers, I found a phone number for John and called him up and started looking for all the other crew members also,” Dick said, “I eventually did make contact with the ones that were living or family members for the ones who had passed away.
“John was my dad’s best friend on the crew and we became really good friends,” Dick added. “He pretty much had a photographic memory, so that’s how I know an awful lot about that crew.”
While researching the crew, Dick helped the plane’s bombardier, Walter Chapman, get a Distinguished Flying Cross he should have been awarded decades prior.
Like Chapman, Olson was also missing an award: a Purple Heart for sustaining an injury while in the line of duty.
“There was mention of everything else, like the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medals,” Dick said. “All the ribbons and medals that he was entitled to, except for the Purple Heart.”
A collection of medals, honors and other items made by Dick Olson for his late father WWII veteran Major Richard Olson at his home in Westminster, Colorado, on Jun 19, 2024. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
Olson’s capture as a POW right after the B-24 crash meant his wounds went undocumented. In 2017, Dick decided to file a claim with the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records and prove that his father had been injured. “I thought to myself, this is unfinished business, I’ve got to see if I can get this thing,” Dick said.
After an extensive filing process, the Board for Correction rejected Dick’s request in 2020.
Brian Schenk, founder of Midwest Military and Veterans Law, agreed to work with Dick pro bono and together, they took the Board for Correction to federal court, determined to prove that Olson had been injured during active duty.
“Dick Olson’s father was a war hero and he had such extreme humility that he himself never sought a Purple Heart,” Schenk told the Denver Post.
“I thought to myself, the old man went through the wringer, and he deserves to have this,” Dick said. “I told the Air Force in the letter that I wrote with my first application that I’m doing it for his legacy and for posterity. People should know that he was injured fighting for his country.”
On April 23, Dick won his case and the Board for Correction agreed to posthumously grant Olson a Purple Heart Award.
“He would have been real happy to wear this purple heart,” Dick said. “I think he would have been pretty proud of the fight we put up to make this happen.”
A major mortgage lender with offices across the country is cutting 187 more positions from its office in Greenwood Village after having announced the elimination of a total of 420 jobs in two previous rounds of layoffs.
Newrez, based in Pennsylvania, said the latest layoffs will start Aug. 26 and will likely be permanent. The company notified the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment of the reductions in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification dated June 27.
Newrez sent a letter in May notifying the state that 103 jobs would be cut and a June 6 letter about 317 more positions to be eliminated in phases.
“We take all personnel decisions extremely seriously and are committed to supporting affected employees through this transition,” a Newrez spokesperson said in an email Wednesday.
The company declined to say how many employees will remain in the Greenwood Village office after the job cuts or if the office will stay open.
The mass reductions follow the acquisition of Computershare Limited Services by Rithm Capital Corp., Newrez’s owner. Rithm closed the $720 million purchase in May.
Rithm said in a previous statement that it acquired companies affiliated with Computershare, including Specialized Loan Servicing LLC, which merged with Newrez. Layoffs at Newrez have been reported in Arizona and Florida.
Almost immediately after the UK general election was called on May 22, the meme war began. Social media campaigns from both the Labour and Conservative parties shared hundreds of memes, from Labour’s viral TikTok using English singer and TV presenter Cilla Black’s “Surprise! Surprise!” to mock the Conservative Party’s plans for mandatory national service at the age of 18, to the Tories’ TikTok video showing only blank slides titled “Here are all of Labour’s policies.” Reform UK, the Liberal Democrats, and the Green Party have contributed their own share of memes in the lead-up; meanwhile, the two leading parties in the polls have been engaged in a “trolling” back and forth on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and X.
“The shitposters have gone mainstream,” says political strategist Jack Spriggs from Cavendish Consulting, who specializes in TikTok’s influence on politics.
But reactions to the meme war have been a mixed bag, particularly among the Gen Z electorate, ranging from amused to disgusted. “Although conversation provoking, it reads as infantilizing,” says 20-year-old voter Maya Hollick from London. “They’re trivializing a very serious event.”
The Labour Party launched its TikTok account as soon as the election date of July 4 was announced, and has gained more than 200,000 followers since then, with hundreds more videos than any other party. Many of its posts have more than a million views, but its reach spans even further. “The most important power of TikTok isn’t how much it stays on the platform, but how much it travels,” says Hannah O’Rourke, cofounder of Campaign Lab, an organization that researches campaign innovation.
“A meme is Labour’s way of getting somebody to look into party policy,” O’Rourke says, referencing Labour’s viral Cilla Black TikTok.
WIRED spoke to students from the University of Bristol, with Bristol Central being a constituency where Labour and the Green Party, which also appeals to young voters, are frontrunners. (It is also the university where this writer studies.) Certain voters like Ed Sherwin, a 20-year-old student, say they don’t find memes useful: “I don’t really use TikTok but I did see the video,” he says, referencing the Cilla Black meme. “However, it didn’t make me go and look at the national service policies. I did that when I saw it on the news.” Sherwin labeled the memes “kind of pathetic and insensitive considering the state of the country.”
Charlie Siret, a member of Extinction Rebellion Youth Bristol, one youth branch of the climate-focused pressure group XR, says that they personally think Labour’s memes “are transparent and embarrassing” and “show a complete lack of self-awareness,” while Conservative memes are “a half-hearted attempt to appeal to a generation that largely despises them.”
Some also critiqued the simplification of political issues that happens in the meme format. “The use of memes infers that young people need a simplified version of politics—we are more intelligent than they give credit for,” says Grace Shropshire, 21. “Their marketing is quick, loud, and short.” Marketing student Alisha Agarwal says she “likes Labour, but not the oversimplified way they’re marketing their campaign.”
Afternoon thunderstorms en route to Colorado Wednesday afternoon threaten to bring large hail, damaging winds and tornado touchdowns, according to the National Weather Service.
Although the metro area has a slight chance of afternoon storms, the worst weather is expected to hit Colorado’s Eastern Plains east of Fort Morgan, NWS forecasters said.
“Large hail and damaging winds are the main hazards, but an isolated tornado can’t be ruled out,” forecasters said in a statement on social media. The weather service did not specify how big of hail or how strong of wind gusts are expected to hit the plains.
The storms will start around 2:30 p.m. on Colorado’s eastern border, near Julesburg, and around 3:30 p.m. further west on the plains, including near Akron and Limon, according to NWS forecasters.
Potential tornadoes are most likely on the eastern border, near Julesburg, but chances of a touchdown remain below 10%, forecasters said.
The Denver area can expect a dry afternoon Wednesday, with temperature highs around 92 degrees, according to NWS forecasters.
“Across the high country and urban corridor, dry and breezy weather is expected this afternoon, with elevated fire weather conditions possible,” forecasters said in a hazardous weather outlook.
Thunderstorms are more likely to move in on the metro area Thursday night, potentially disrupting fireworks plans for the Fourth of July holiday, the weather outlook stated.
Pretty much every online lurker knows the image: A man gawks at a passing woman making the kind of “How you doin’?” face that would make Joey Tribbiani blush. Ever since it landed in 2017, the “distracted boyfriend” meme, which took that stock photo and projected scenarios onto it, has been seared into the internet’s collective consciousness. Now, artificial intelligence is rendering the memory of that viral moment fuzzy, along with the memories of dozens of other memes.
Often called “time traveler” videos, particularly on TikTok, the AI-generated clips currently bouncing around the internet take well-known memes and add context that wasn’t there before. In some cases, they “interrupt” the action; sometimes they include a haunting specter. In the “distracted boyfriend” animation, which was posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) last month, the boyfriend is seen turning around and following the girl walking in the opposite direction while his girlfriend stands nearby.
The clip was made using Luma Dream Machine, an AI model that takes source images and text prompts and creates high-quality, realistic videos. Within days of its release, social media users started to borrow images and frames from recognizable memes to create visuals that test Dream Machine’s generation abilities. The results proved that while the AI model isn’t flawless, it does have the ability to rewrite internet history by altering the web’s most enduring images.
As Dream Machine spread, some common visual limitations and faults of generative AI showed up in the model’s output, such as unnatural human depictions and objects morphing. While some social media users found the visuals to be scary and concerning in terms of AI’s acceleration and its potential to create misinformation, others found amusement in the model’s incoherent errors.
While it may be disconcerting to think that one of these AI-altered memes could go so viral it eclipses the image that inspired it, Know Your Meme editor Phillip Hamilton believes that the trend doesn’t pose a huge threat to digital media preservation. Rather, it’s the ubiquity of the originals that makes the reboots work.
“Generally, everyone knows the context,” Hamilton says, referring to the viral images being edited. “The iconicness of the video is at the core of the trend … the core of the [time-traveler] meme is that popular thing being stopped.”
The nature of meme-sharing on social media revolves around user interaction with memes. Since most are the result of editing to begin with, editing memes with AI is fair game, Hamilton says.
Luma boasts that Dream Machine can generate 120 frames of high-quality video in under 120 seconds, despite facing significant delays due to extremely high demand. The speedy generation, along with the availability of a “free” tier that allows users to generate up to 30 clips per month, have made Dream Machine much more accessible than its OpenAI counterpart, Sora, which, despite being revealed in February, has not yet been released to the public so far.
Last week, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asked me to moderate what he called “The Real Debate.”
Kennedy was angry with CNN because it wouldn’t let him join its Trump-Biden debate.
His people persuaded Elon Musk to carry his Real Debate on X, formerly Twitter. They asked me to give RFK Jr. the same questions, with the same time limits.
I agreed, hoping to hear some good new ideas.
I didn’t.
As you know, President Joe Biden slept, and former President Donald Trump lied. Well, OK, Biden lied at least nine times, too, even by CNN’s count.
Kennedy was better.
But not much.
He did acknowledge that our government’s deficit spending binge is horrible. He said he’d cut military spending. He criticized unscientific COVID-19 lockdowns and said nice words about school choice.
But he, too, dodged questions, blathered on past time limits, and pushed big government nonsense like, “Every million dollars we spend on child care creates 22 jobs.”
Give me a break.
Independence Day is this week.
As presidential candidates promise to subsidize flying cars (Trump), free community college tuition (Biden), and “affordable” housing via 3 percent government-backed bonds (Kennedy), I think about how bewildered and horrified the Founding Fathers would be by such promises.
On the Fourth of July almost 250 years ago, they signed the Declaration of Independence, marking the birth of our nation.
They did not want life dominated by politicians. They wanted a society made up of free individuals. They believed every human being has “unalienable rights” to life, liberty, and (justly acquired) property.
The blueprints created by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution gradually created the freest and most prosperous nation in the history of the world.
Before 1776, people thought there was a “divine right” of kings and nobles to rule over them.
America succeeded because the Founders rejected that belief.
In the Virginia Declaration of Rights, George Mason wrote, “All power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people.”
By contrast, Kennedy and Biden make promises that resemble the United Nations’ “Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” U.N. bureaucrats say every person deserves “holidays with pay…clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.”
The Founders made it clear that governments should be limited. They didn’t think we had a claim on our neighbor’s money. We shouldn’t try to force them to pay for our food, clothing, housing, prescription drugs, college tuition.
They believe you have the right to be left alone to pursue happiness as you see fit.
For a while, the U.S. government stayed modest. Politicians mostly let citizens decide our own paths, choose where to live, what jobs to take, and what to say.
There were a small number of “public servants.” But they weren’t our bosses.
Patrick Henry declared: “The governing persons are the servants of the people.”
Yet now there are 23 million government employees. Some think they are in charge of everything.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.), pushing her Green New Deal, declared herself “the boss.”
The Biden administration wants to decide what kind of car you should drive.
During the pandemic, politicians ordered people to stay home, schools to shut down and businesses to close.
Then, as often happens in “Big Government World,” people harmed by government edicts ask politicians to compensate them.
After governments banned Fourth of July fireworks, the American Pyrotechnics Association requested “relief in the next Senate Covid package to address the unique and specific costs to this industry,” reportedThe New York Times. “The industry hopes Congress will earmark $175 million for it in another stimulus bill.”
Today the politically connected routinely lobby passionately to get bigger chunks of your money.
For some of you, the last straw was when the administration demanded you inject a chemical into your body.
When some resisted vaccinations, Biden warned, “Our patience is wearing thin.”
His patience? Who does he think he is? My father? My king?
At least Kennedy doesn’t say things like that. But he does say absurd things. In a few weeks I’ll release my sit-down interview with him, and you can decide for yourself whether he’s a good candidate.
This Fourth of July, remember Milton Friedman’s question: “How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect?”
COPYRIGHT 2024 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.
Watch The Real Debate as it was meant to be with all three candidates — Kennedy, Biden, Trump.#TheRealDebate has already been seen more than 11 million times. pic.twitter.com/W27pXIOLkd
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) June 30, 2024
The first batch of new Denver International Airport concourse train cars transported passengers on Monday, with 20 more set to hit the rails through 2025.
The 26 new train cars are expected to increase the number of passengers that can be moved to gates, shorten the time between train arrivals and improve energy efficiency, DIA officials said in a news release.
Six new train cars began operating Monday, with the remaining 20 coming online through next year.
“Today marks an important milestone, as our train to the concourses play a crucial role in the passenger experience at DEN,” airport Chief Executive Officer Phil Washington said in a statement. “With 77.8 million annual passengers and millions more expected year over year, we know we need the most reliable, durable and efficient infrastructure and systems to ensure as seamless an experience as possible.”
The new train cars will replace 16 of the airport’s 31-car fleet that are 29 years old and past their lifespan as well as increase the total number of train cars to 41, according to DIA officials. Airport leaders are also considering adding even more train cars.
DIA is also considering different train configurations to increase capacity, according to the release. The airport can currently run seven trains of four cars each at peak travel times, with the new cars increasing that to eight trains of four cars each.
