The huge monster,

Inside the head of this interstellar monster is a star that is slowly destroying it. The huge monster, actually an inanimate series of pillars of gas and dust, measures light years in length. The in-head star is not itself visible through the opaque interstellar dust but is bursting out partly by ejecting opposing beams of energetic particles called Herbig-Haro jets. Located about 7,500 light years away in the Carina Nebula and known informally as Mystic Mountain, the appearance of these pillars is dominated by dark dust even though they are composed mostly of clear hydrogen gas. The featured image was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. All over these pillars, the energetic light and winds from massive newly formed stars are evaporating and dispersing the dusty stellar nurseries in which they formed. Within a few million years, the head of this giant, as well as most of its body, will have been completely evaporated by internal and surrounding stars.

Bring Back Execution by Firing Squad

The Truth About the Trump Plan to Bring Back Execution by Firing Squad

A veteran death penalty lawyer says it is part of the administration’s “brutality trip.”

Sophie Hurwitz

The US Department of Justice announced Friday that it plans to revive the firing squad as a method of killing in federal capital cases. In a 52-page memo, the department expanded the ways it can apply the death penalty to include using a group of executioners to simultaneously shoot at a condemned person. Taking action to strengthen the federal death penalty, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote, “is our highest duty as public servants.” 

Only five states currently allow executions by firing squad. The execution of Mikal Mahdi in South Carolina last year was only the fifth such killing since 1976; his lawyers later said the bullets mostly missed Mahdi’s heart, leaving him to die in a manner that violated the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. 

Jim Craig, a lawyer with the MacArthur Justice Center, has represented men and women on death row in the Deep South since 1986. I spoke with Craig about the dangers of executions carried out with guns, the 40 years he’s spent witnessing how governments condemn people to die, and what people should know about his clients.

What’s your reaction to the news that Trump is bringing back the federal firing squad? 

This proposal by the Trump Justice Department is characterized by their attraction to brutality. It’s characterized by their affection for causing visible harm to people. You see it in their foreign policy. You see it in their policing. The firing squad is very physical and visceral in the damage that it does to the person being executed. That’s why they like it. We should not mince words about this. It has nothing to do with the Eighth Amendment. It has nothing to do with the supply of drugs, or anything else. They like it because it’s the same kind of video game brutality that they like in every other context of this administration’s barbarism. 

The Department of Justice report suggests that the firing squad “does not offend the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments.” Is that true? 

The pitch that is made by proponents of the firing squad is that it destroys the consciousness of the condemned person within 10 to 15 seconds. This is not the case. In the execution of Mikal Mahdi in South Carolina last year…the three shooters were positioned 15 feet away from Mr. Mahdi. There was a target pinned on him. The folks that were witnessing his execution noticed that he cried out as the bullets hit him, that he groaned two times about 45 seconds after that, and that he continued to breathe for another 80 seconds before he appeared to take a final gasp. 

There were two wounds—not three—even though there were three shooters. The entry point for the bullets was downward through the liver, the pancreas, and the left lower lung lobe, before crashing into his spine and ribs.

“The men and women who are on death row in the US are basically the losers in a lottery.”

He did bleed, he did die, but an expert pathologist who studied the state’s autopsy report said that Mr. Mahdi’s ventricles were not disrupted. He was conscious for a lot longer than the state had suggested. You’re causing multiple multiple fractures of the ribs and sternum, and obviously also piercing flesh and internal organs. And that is extraordinarily painful. If it doesn’t cause an immediate lack of consciousness, which it clearly did not in Mr. Mahdi’s case, then it is torture. Mr. Mahdi was sentenced to death. He was not sentenced to be tortured. 

[The firing squad] relies on human actors to perform the execution in a way that, according to them, would cause a loss of consciousness in 15 seconds, to shoot to kill in the most accurate way, so as to essentially vaporize the heart. They clearly did not vaporize Mr. Mahdi’s heart. 

It comes back to my point about brutality. It’s just one of many, many provisions of the Constitution that they choose to ignore to focus on on their brutality trip.

You’ve spent decades representing people on death row. Who are those people? 

The men and women who are on death row in the United States are basically the losers in a lottery. They have not committed the most cruel crimes in the United States compared to other incarcerated people, or to people who are not incarcerated, but maybe should be. 

If you broaden the focus, the people who are responsible for 500,000 deaths of children because they cut funding to USAID are much more mass murderers than anybody who is on death row in the United States. But even if we’re just restricting ourselves to this 19th-century concept of “you do a bad thing on the street and we’re going to punish you,” I think it’s also true. 

The death penalty is fraught with all kinds of discretionary choices by prosecutors, judges, and juries on the basis of skewed evidence, usually litigating at the trial level with attorneys who are poorly-resourced, sometimes poorly-qualified, and in many cases giving horrifically poor performances. 

The clients that I’ve had over the years in Mississippi and Louisiana are there because the prosecutor in their jurisdiction decided to seek the death penalty, and the defense lawyer in their jurisdiction wasn’t able to match what the prosecution was able to put up, and because all the courts afterwards decided it was good enough. They don’t want to be called soft on crime. 

The overwhelming majority of the people I’ve represented who are on death row are in the far-lower percentiles of income in the United States, overwhelmingly Black or Brown, disproportionately suffering from intellectual disabilities or mental illness. A disproportionate number are combat veterans. 

These are not monsters. These are not people possessed by evil. These are people who were living under extremely precarious circumstances, some of whom committed acts of violence that caused the death of other people. And most of those folks accept that they have responsibility for that—and that the death penalty has absolutely nothing to do with anything other than vengeance and brutal retribution to make people feel better. And that’s not a good enough reason to torture people. 

Isn't it odd???

Trump and Friends Use Dinner Shooting to Boost Ballroom

The president’s $400 million ballroom has been stalled in legal disputes for months.

Alex Nguyen

President Donald Trump and many of his supporters are using the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Saturday night to promote construction plans for the new White House ballroom. 

“This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House,” Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday morning. 

“This is why we have to have all of the attributes of what we’re planning at the White House,” Trump said at his Saturday night press conference following the incident. “It’s actually a larger room, and it’s a much more secure. It’s got—it’s drone proof, it’s bulletproof glass.”

And his supporters have chimed in shortly after news of the shooting broke: 

“Unfortunately, the First Lady and I had to be evacuated from the White House correspondents’ dinner alongside the President and the entire cabinet,” Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry posted on X Saturday night, referring to his wife, Sharon Landry. “This event is yet another reason that President @realDonaldTrump’s ballroom should be built!”

“We’d better never again hear a peep from anyone complaining about a White House ballroom,” Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) wrote on X.  

There were similar messages in right-wing media:

“I don’t want to hear one more fucking criticism of Trump’s new ballroom at the White House,” wrote Meghan McCain, a conservative television personality who has criticized the president in the past for disparaging her father, former Senator John McCain, but has since seemed to have offered “the olive branch.”

“THIS IS WHY WE NEED TRUMP’S BALLROOM,” Chaya Raichik, who runs the anti-LGBTQ+ and far-right social media account Libs of TikTok posted on X. 

The president’s ballroom has been stalled in legal disputes for months, with a federal ruling asserting last month that Trump doesn’t have the authority to continue his $400 million passion project without congressional approval. But earlier this month, a federal appeals court stayed the March ruling until this coming June, permitting construction to continue until then. 

While Trump has repeatedly insisted that his new ballroom will not cost taxpayers any money, his administration reportedly may have revised tariffs to help out a foreign private firm who provided steel for the White House renovation and, according to a Saturday report from the New York Times, the company building the ballroom was secretly handed a no-bid contract for another Washington project at an inflated cost.

Want to Negotiate.....

So You Want to Negotiate with Iran ...

A bunch of demands on a PowerPoint slide won’t cut it if the Trump administration plans to engage seriously with Tehran's Islamist regime.

By Nahal Toosi

Trump and his aides could use some more time to think through what they want to accomplish in discussions with Tehran’s Islamist regime. The administration’s preparations for launching the war were … not great, and its negotiating efforts so far have underwhelmed. Ending the war — and keeping it ended — is almost certain to prove more complicated than Trump aides suspect.

The administration has a number of fundamental questions to sort through, people who have dealt with Tehran in the past tell me. That won’t be easy given the president’s rhetorical waffling.

“The details are incredibly important,” said Michael Singh, a former George W. Bush administration official who dealt with the Middle East. “Each new administration has to learn those details the hard way. The Iranians on other hand are often the same or similar teams who have negotiated these terms with multiple American administrations. You may receive what you think is a concession by the Iranians, but when you delve into it, it’s a concession from you to Iran.”

I’m still not convinced Trump is ready to genuinely commit to diplomacy with Iran, despite the ongoing ceasefire. He loves using military force and knows that Iran remains the weaker side, even as both the U.S. and Iran wrestle over the fate of the Strait of Hormuz. But at some point, the global economic fallout that is hurting both Americans’ wallets and the country’s reputation may force Trump to the negotiating table.

If he decides to take a serious shot at talks to end the war, the first critical question Trump needs to answer is: Is he prepared to agree to a deal that ultimately leaves the Islamist regime in place?

This is anathema to many Iranians who want an end to a regime that has long brutalized them. It could be intolerable for Israel and some Arab states who view Tehran as the root of many Middle East ills.

Despite Trump’s occasional specious claims that he’s already changed the regime, it’s clear the U.S.-Israel military attacks have failed to dislodge the Islamist system. Iranian citizens didn’t stage an uprising amid the bombing. And given Iran’s demonstrated willingness to seize control of the strait, what’s left of the regime is not without leverage.

The administration may have to decide that a deal is worth more than trying to change who runs Iran and how they do it. If so, it needs to be ready for Iran hawks to undermine its efforts — or at least try to shape them — at every step.

The Israelis, and probably a few Arab countries, too, will use strategic (and often out-of-context) leaks to the media. Think tanks in Washington will churn out arguments for why the U.S. should be tougher, even if it means no deal. The fights on X will get more personal. We’ve all gone through this before, especially around Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. But now there’s artificial intelligence and Iranian Lego videos!

The bottom line is that many Iran hawks will never trust any deal with this regime because they see the regime’s existence as the problem.

Another major question for the Trump administration to ask and answer: What is the minimum that it will demand of Iran?

Will Trump accept an agreement that covers Iran’s nuclear ambitions but not its ballistic missile program or its support for proxy militias in the region? What about the future of the strait? Every topic left out will be a headache later, but every topic included will make a deal harder to reach. Still, knowing the exact objective is crucial.

Let me be super clear here, especially for certain U.S. envoys who love PowerPoint: A framework is not a deal. A list of however-many points — Iran will do this, the U.S. will do that — with no details such as how, when, where will not be enough to resolve this conflict. That’s especially the case when it comes to figuring out how the U.S. will verify that Iran is keeping its end of the bargain.

The White House says it’s not concerned about the tricky terrain ahead for the president.

“The president has more experience with dealmaking than anyone, and Americans can rest assured that any agreement will put our national security interests first,” spokesperson Anna Kelly told me.

Another essential question: What aspects of Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is the Trump team willing to learn — or steal — from?

It might help some Trump administration officials to read the 2015 agreement, otherwise known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. In fact, here is a link.

They don’t have to like the JCPOA; I’m pretty sure a requirement of being a Trump appointee is that you don’t like it. But it’s worth examining it to understand the level of detail involved in such talks and some of the mechanisms that could prove useful in a future agreement.

There are, for instance, more than 100 references just to the International Atomic Energy Agency in its 159-page text. That agency is crucial to verifying whether Iran is meeting its nuclear commitments, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, which advocates for diplomatic solutions on hot-button topics such as nuclear nonproliferation.

Kimball added that it might help for supporters of diplomacy to stop comparing everything Trump does to the JCPOA, which was crafted under very different conditions. (Trump also tends to disdain anything related to Obama and would not care for comparisons.)

“What Trump needs to think about as he seeks a negotiated outcome is not how his deal might compare with Obama’s, but what does it take today, under different conditions, to block Iran’s potential pathways to the bomb?” Kimball said.

On the outcome front, is there a way to achieve U.S. objectives diplomatically without a single comprehensive peace deal?

It took around two years to pull together the JCPOA, but before it were many years of talks, sanctions and other engagement that included an interim agreement known as the Joint Plan of Action, or JPOA. This temporary deal included some concessions on both sides, but it bought time to negotiate the bigger deal.

The Trump administration may want to pursue a similar interim step. Reaching a diplomatic truce of this kind quickly also could help satiate the president’s appetite for an accomplishment to point to ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

The administration also could skirt the notion of a comprehensive deal and enter talks on multiple tracks, such as about the strait and the ballistic missiles. During the Obama-era nuclear talks, the U.S. held a separate successful track of discussions that freed several Americans held prisoner in Iran.

Finally, what sort of concessions is Trump willing to make to Iran?

Iran is unlikely to agree to much of anything without the U.S. offering some concessions of its own. That includes lifting many of the sanctions the U.S. has imposed on Iran — penalties that have severely limited its ability to conduct business beyond its borders. Iran may even demand that the U.S. formalize the agreement as a treaty, a politically challenging effort in Washington, but one which reduces the odds that Trump or another president could back out of the deal in the future.

I am not sure how else to say this, but this is extremely hard stuff. (Just consider the Iran “snapback mechanism” at the United Nations.) The administration will need the expertise of career government experts, no matter how much it dislikes them.

Iranian officials are many things, but they are not stupid. They care about being treated with respect, even when they are militarily and economically vulnerable. They will not give up something for nothing.

Trump “has to be cognizant of the fact that, without respect and without the willingness to come to a win-win deal, there is just never going to be a deal, regardless of the degree of pressure,” said Ali Vaez, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group who is in touch with all sides of the U.S.-Iran negotiations.

Even if the Trump administration manages to answer all these questions for itself, it could face problems if it doesn’t consult other geopolitical players, some of whom are no doubt whispering in Iran’s ear.

I don’t see the administration changing its “go-it-alone” style on negotiations. But if it doesn’t at least talk to other countries — including Russia and China — it could find itself at a disadvantage when it needs their help. As just one example: If Iran agrees to hand over its highly enriched uranium, Russia might be the only serious option to take it.

The administration could face other difficulties if it doesn’t loop in Congress. I understand that sounds about as much fun as walking on glass, but Congress has a legal right to review any nuclear deal with Iran and many U.S. sanctions on Tehran are enshrined in law.

In any talks with Iran, the Trump administration also needs to be prepared to walk away, even in the final stages of months and months of negotiations, which is when Iran sometimes likes to make new demands.

If that happens, though, the Trump administration needs to have a plan for what to do next.

The non-attempt... They are short-stroking this hard...

Key question: How did armed man get so close to Trump WHCD event?

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the suspect was likely targeting administration officials.

By Jacob Wendler

Law enforcement are investigating how a suspect got a firearm into the venue where the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was held Saturday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.

The suspect — who was taken into custody Saturday night after a shooting that rattled lawmakers, administration officials and reporters — is not cooperating with law enforcement, he said. Neither President Donald Trump nor any other attendees of the dinner were harmed during the shooting, though a Secret Service agent required hospitalization.

“We’re still understanding the security protocols that led to him being being able to have firearms in that hotel,” Blanche said Sunday morning during an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Blanche said he expected there would be more information on the suspect’s firearms “in the coming days.”

As details about the incident at the Washington Hilton continued to surface, Blanche said on NBC’s"Meet the Press” that law enforcement believes the suspect was targeting administration officials “likely including the president” based on a preliminary assessment, but he did not share further details.

Administration officials including Trump and Vice President JD Vance were quickly evacuated from the venue after shots were heard outside the ballroom, and the gala’s planned events were later canceled. Trump initially insisted the show would go on but later said he’d been told by law enforcement the event could not continue as planned. He said the dinner would be rescheduled within 30 days.

As of Sunday morning, law enforcement working the case — including the FBI, U.S. Secret Service and local officials — had executed various search warrants, including on “devices recovered from the suspect,” Blanche said. He said law enforcement was “actively talking to witnesses that knew him” as officials investigated the suspect’s motives.

Law enforcement are looking into a manifesto Cole Tomas Allen allegedly sent to his family members minutes before the shooting, of which his brother notified local police in New London, Connecticut, according to a White House official. The official said the manifesto stated that he wanted to target administration officials.

Secret Service and Montgomery County Police interviewed Allen’s sister at her home in Rockville, Maryland, and said she confirmed her brother had purchased three firearms. Allen’s sister also told police he had a tendency to make radical statements, per the official.

During a Sunday morning phone interview with Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich — who was on stage with the president at the time of the shooting — Trump said the suspected shooter was “a very troubled guy.” He added that the suspect “hates Christians” according to his manifesto, which POLITICO has not independently verified.

“He had a lot of hatred in his heart for quite a while,” Trump said. “It was a religious thing, it was strongly anti-Christian.”

The alleged shooter “never even came close to getting by the doors or getting through the doors,” Trump told Heinrich, who is set to take over the White House Correspondents’ Association as president in July.

Trump wanted to go on with the night’s plans but decided to reschedule once law enforcement informed him that the ballroom was no longer secure since the doors had been opened for the evacuation.

U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said Saturday night that the suspect would be charged in court Monday with assaulting a federal officer using a dangerous weapon and using a firearm during a crime of violence. Blanche said Sunday that “there’s a lot of federal charges that could be in play beyond those two charges” pending investigation.

The suspect — who has been identified by multiple news outlets as a 31-year-old California resident — took a train from California to Chicago and then a subsequent train from Chicago to Washington, Blanche said.

Law enforcement believe the suspect checked into the Washington Hilton — the venue that has for years hosted the annual gala and where a would-be assassin shot then-President Ronald Reagan in 1981 — on Friday, Blanche said on CNN.

A person looks out of their window at the Washington Hilton.

A person looks out of their window as law enforcement respond to an incident at the Washington Hilton during the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington, on April 25, 2026. | Allison Robbert/AP

Blanche also said law enforcement understand that the suspect shot a U.S. Secret Service officer who was taken to the hospital in the wake of the shooting. Trump said Saturday night that the officer was “saved by the fact that he was wearing a obviously a very good bulletproof vest” and was “doing great” as of the president’s last conversation with him.

U.S. Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi confirmed in a Sunday morning statement that the officer had been discharged from the hospital and that his ballistic vest had helped “avoid a potential tragedy” during the shooting.

“While the FBI is leading the criminal investigation, the U.S. Secret Service is conducting a comprehensive review of the defendant’s background and networks to better understand his motivations, leaving no detail unexamined,” Guglielmi said.

In wake of Saturday night’s events, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee requested a briefing from the Secret Service, according to a panel spokesperson. The committee previously held an oversight hearing around the attempted assassination of Trump in Pennsylvania in 2024 with the former Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle. She resigned the next day in the wake of the tumultuous grilling.

Blanche also said he was confident law enforcement would be able to ensure King Charles III’s visit to the U.S. this week would remain safe. A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace said Sunday that “a number of discussions will be taking place throughout the day” with U.S. officials to determine to what extent the shooting “may or may not impact on the operational planning for the visit.”

Hill leadership circles are beginning to discuss heightened security protocols for the king’s Tuesday address to Congress, according to six people familiar with the matter. British embassy officials have been in communication with Hill leadership staff, two of the people said.

Jeffery Carroll, the interim chief of the Washington police department, said the suspect, who charged a security checkpoint, had “a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives” in his possession.

“Look, this isn’t about, in my mind, changing the law or making the laws more restrictive around possession of firearms,” Blanche said. “It appears he purchased these firearms the past couple years. We don’t know how those firearms ended up in his possession in D.C.”

Still, the acting attorney general was adamant that Saturday night’s outcome constituted “a massive success story” for law enforcement, although he said law enforcement will make adjustments as necessary.

Trump, meanwhile, took to social media Sunday morning to insist that the shooting “would never have happened” at the new White House ballroom he’s constructing in place of the demolished East Wing, adding, “It cannot be built fast enough!”

“Nothing should be allowed to interfere with with its construction,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, criticizing a lawsuit which is seeking to halt the project until Trump receives congressional approval for the $400 million ballroom. Congress took a step in that direction on Sunday, with Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) and other Republicans announcing plans to introduce legislation to create explicit statutory authority for the ballroom.

A federal appeals court decided earlier this month that work could continue on the site after a lower court judge ordered the administration to pause construction.

Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate asked the National Trust for Historic Preservation to drop its lawsuit challenging the ballroom on Sunday in light of the shooting.

“I hope yesterday’s narrow miss will help you finally realize the folly of a lawsuit that literally serves no purpose except to stop President Trump no matter the cost,” Shumate wrote in a Sunday letter to Greg Craig, a former Clinton and Obama administration lawyer who is representing the National Trust in its lawsuit.

The Trump administration will move to dismiss the case if the National Trust does not drop its suit by 9:00 a.m. on Monday, Shumate wrote. Craig and The National Trust did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Oz Pearlman, the mentalist who was slated to perform at Saturday night’s gala, described the experience as chaos in a Sunday morning interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Pearlman — who was performing onstage for Trump, first lady Melania Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at the time of the shooting — said it was initially unclear whether the president and the first lady had been injured.

Pearlman said he initially thought that a bomb was about to explode when law enforcement rushed the stage to evacuate Trump and other officials.

“In the room, when there’s commotion of that sort, you tend to think — we’ve been to a lot of events — is this a medical emergency? Is somebody having a heart attack? Because you heard a noise, it wasn’t gunshots. I wasn’t sure if it was a tray,” he told host Dana Bash.

Pearlman said he later saw Vance backstage, who “looked very calm” and “was very assuring.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said he was talking to activist Kerry Kennedy when chaos broke out.

“Then suddenly there’s these loud booms, crashing sounds, plates, silverware, everything flying all over the place,” he said on “State of the Union.” “And people started yelling, get down, get down! Somebody kind of grabbed me and pushed me from behind. I landed on Kerry and a couple other people.”

Lost all, what was left, of creditability...

Trump lashes out at ‘60 Minutes’ anchor for reading alleged gunman’s manifesto

Any detente between the president and the press after the shared horror of Saturday’s dinner appears to be short-lived.

By Eli Stokols  

President Donald Trump lashed out at CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell in an interview Sunday for quoting from the manifesto of the suspected gunman who tried to storm the White House Correspondents Dinner less than 24 hours earlier.

Trump had initially expressed a sense of camaraderie with members of the press corps who hosted him at their annual dinner and experienced the same initial panic when armed law enforcement agents stormed into the ballroom.

But when O’Donnell, during an interview recorded at the White House on Sunday, quoted from the accused gunman Cole Allen’s apparent manifesto — “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” she read — Trump, who’d been relatively subdued in his responses, flashed a familiar anger.

“I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would, because you’re horrible people. Horrible people,” Trump said. “Yeah, he did write that. I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody.”

O’Donnell interjected, “Oh, do you think he was referring to you?”

But the president blew past her question, declaring, “I’m not a pedophile.”

Trump bristled at what he seemed to deem an insinuation about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who was not mentioned by name in the manifesto or by O’Donnell. “You read that crap from some sick person,” the president said. “I got associated with stuff that has nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated.”

O’Donnell had just asked Trump if he thought the experience at the dinner would change his experience with the press. He answered obliquely, asserting that the press corps was largely left-leaning and opposed to his policies on immigration and crime.

But his scathing response to her moments later offered a much clearer answer.

“You should be ashamed of yourself for reading that, because I’m not any of those things,” Trump said. “You shouldn’t be reading that on ‘60 Minutes.’ You’re a disgrace.”

They are fucking insane... Don't believe them...

'It is existential’: Elon Musk and Sam Altman duke it out over OpenAI’s founding

A jury is about to weigh whether Sam Altman deceived Elon Musk into funding OpenAI with promises it would operate as a nonprofit for humanity’s benefit. But the legal team for the world’s richest man faces stiff challenges.

By Christine Mui and Chase DiFeliciantonio

The years-long feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman heads to trial in California today, threatening to blow up OpenAI’s leadership and unravel its hard-won corporate conversion.

Musk, an estranged co-founder of OpenAI who now leads competitor xAI, is claiming that the ChatGPT-maker and Altman abandoned their charitable mission by making moves to shift toward a for-profit model in partnership with Microsoft.

A jury is set to weigh whether Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman breached their founding contract and deceived Musk into funding the startup with promises it would operate as a nonprofit for humanity’s benefit.

If Musk gets his way, the trial could upend the new structure that OpenAI cleared with the attorneys general of California and Delaware last fall, which unlocked billions of dollars in investment for the AI company and opened a path for it to go public as soon as this year.

But the legal team for the world’s richest man faces stiff challenges in the Oakland federal court.

Several legal experts — and even some opponents of the restructuring — doubt U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will reverse it, given that California Attorney General Rob Bonta and his Delaware counterpart, Kathy Jennings, waved it through.

“It’s very, very unlikely that they undo the transaction,” said Samuel Brunson, a law professor at Loyola University Chicago who focuses on nonprofits. “His best bet would be monetary damages.”

Anticipation of the trial has built it into a must-watch showdown in one of tech’s fiercest rivalries that has dragged in AI titans beyond Musk and Altman. The case has called into question the motives of the industry’s best-known personalities and raises the prospect of upheaval at OpenAI as it navigates a cash crunch under intensifying pressure from competitors like Anthropic.

Throughout the lawsuit, OpenAI has repeatedly contended that Musk’s actions are designed to benefit xAI by slowing a rival down. It counters that the billionaire initially agreed to the for-profit idea back in 2017.

Gonzalez Rogers — an appointee of former President Obama with a no-nonsense reputation and a history of overseeing high-profile fights between tech companies — has wide latitude in the case to decide what remedy, if any, is needed. She’s breaking the trial into two phases: first to decide if Altman and OpenAI are liable for wrongdoing, and the second, if necessary, to determine a fix.

Jury selection kicks off Monday. The trial is expected to last about four weeks and feature testimony by both Musk and Altman, as well as others who were instrumental in building OpenAI, which was founded with a mission to ensure that ultra-powerful AI systems will benefit everyone. Early OpenAI figures, including Mira Murati and Ilya Sutskever, are on the witness list, as is Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

In seeking approval for the restructuring last year, OpenAI said the changes — which turned a for-profit arm of the company into a separate public benefit corporation controlled by the nonprofit entity — were necessary to raise enough money to compete in the fast-moving AI sector.

After revising the suit multiple times since 2024, Musk wants to return OpenAI to its original nonprofit structure and send it, rather than himself, any profits that may have been wrongfully obtained at the charity’s expense. He’s also aiming to strip Altman and Brockman of their jobs.

That’s a big ask for courts, legal experts say.

“Will Sam Altman be leading OpenAI in the future? That is not something that judges like to decide,” said Anupam Chander, a professor of law and technology at Georgetown University. “Judges are reluctant to order remedies that are so prescriptive.”

Peter Molk, a University of Florida law professor specializing in organizational issues, said it would be an extraordinary move for a judge to overrule the findings of two attorneys general.

“The parties that matter have already said, ‘We think this new structure is fine,’” he told POLITICO. “It’d be awfully unusual for a judge to nevertheless come in because of what Musk is saying to say, ‘Well, I, as a judge, don’t think that this new structure with its current directors and management is fine.’”

In January, Musk’s attorneys said OpenAI and Microsoft should pay up to $134 billion in damages — a calculation Gonzalez Rogers said seemed to be pulled “out of air.” The staggering dollar amount was based on the $38 million Musk says he contributed to OpenAI during its early years, although OpenAI has maintained that money was “spent exactly as intended and in service of” its nonprofit mission.

The stakes couldn’t be higher for OpenAI. Geoff Ralston, the former president of the startup incubator Y Combinator, who introduced Altman and Musk, told POLITICO it’s hard to see how OpenAI would continue to function if the court grants Musk all the remedies he has requested, however unlikely.

“All the financing disappears. All the money disappears, and you can’t run a frontier lab without billions of dollars,” Ralston, now an investor in AI safety ventures, said. “It is existential, depending on the remedy the judge chooses.”

Musk brought more than two dozen claims against OpenAI, Altman and Brockman in 2024. But the trial has been whittled down to focus on claims around breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment. Musk’s lawyers, days before its start, dropped additional charges of fraud.

OpenAI declined to comment beyond its court filings, and Musk’s lawyers did not respond to an inquiry.

The jury will provide Gonzalez Rogers with a non-binding advisory verdict and won’t be involved in determining any potential remedies. Musk and his team aren’t allowed to discuss how the case should be resolved until the second part of the trial, slated for mid-May.

Microsoft, as a top investor that still holds a 27 percent stake in OpenAI following the restructuring, is accused of aiding and abetting OpenAI’s alleged breach of charitable trust. It has disputed Musk’s claim, writing in a court filing that he “can point to no evidence that Microsoft had actual knowledge of duties owed to him or their breach.”

The proceedings risk damaging the reputations of Musk and Altman by laying bare OpenAI’s origins. Already, a trove of messages and diary entries has been released that have pulled back a curtain on Silicon Valley’s inner sanctum, revealing, among other things, a private offer by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to help Musk take down social media posts criticizing him for his tenure atop the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

Catherine Bracy, CEO of the nonprofit TechEquity, questioned whether Bonta and Jennings had access to further evidence introduced at the trial when striking the deals with OpenAI, pointing to diary entries that she said the attorneys general may not have been aware of at the time. Those deals, including a memorandum of understanding between California and OpenAI, cleared the way for the company to take on its current structure.

“I think the AGs should be asking whether this does change the material facts around which [Bonta] negotiated the MOU,” Bracy said.

Her group is part of a coalition containing dozens of nonprofits that objected to the restructuring and have called for the company’s charitable funds to be placed under independent oversight.

Spokespeople for Bonta and Jennings declined to comment.

Musk’s legal team made an unsuccessful bid to bring Bonta’s office into the case as a defendant, arguing the charitable trust issues fell under his purview. OpenAI also wrote to Bonta earlier this month, asking him to investigate what it called anticompetitive collusion by Musk and Zuckerberg.

Last spring, OpenAI filed a countersuit against Musk, accusing him of an unlawful and relentless harassment campaign that included orchestrating a “sham bid” to buy the company for about $97.4 billion in February 2025.

As part of that claim, OpenAI subpoenaed advocates critical of the restructuring, seeking connections to Musk. It’s unclear whether those subpoenas turned up any smoking guns and if they will play a role in the proceedings.

Other groups that fought against the restructuring are not as confident that the litigation will yield major results when it comes to OpenAI’s structure.

“Back when this lawsuit started, this litigation was the primary venue where that debate was playing out,” said Nathan Calvin, general counsel of the nonprofit Encode.AI, in a statement. His group filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing against OpenAI’s transition before it had gone through. “But now that the AGs in Delaware and CA have gotten deeply involved there are many reasons why they are in a much better position to advocate for the public interest and the charity’s mission,” Calvin added.

Calvin, who received a subpoena from OpenAI after his group filed an amicus court brief supporting some of Musk’s arguments in the case, said he’s focused now on ensuring that “OpenAI abides by the terms of its memorandum of understanding with the CA and Delaware AGs, particularly given the pressures OpenAI may be under to cut corners on those commitments in the context of racing for an IPO.”

Another advocate who challenged the restructuring, California Labor Federation President Lorena Gonzalez, also isn’t holding out hope for an unwinding of the agreement from the bench.

“I think largely we don’t like how it worked out,” Gonzalez, whose federation of unions has increasingly found itself at odds with the state’s AI industry, said. “I’d rather there be some sort of enforcement on the agreement because I don’t trust Elon Musk either.”

Entangles Senate crypto bill

Clash over Trump family businesses entangles Senate crypto bill

Democrats want a provision in a landmark crypto bill that would crack down on the Trump family.

By Jasper Goodman and Declan Harty

Democratic lawmakers have spent the past year blasting the Trump family’s growing footprint in the cryptocurrency industry. Now, just months ahead of the midterm elections, they’re digging in on a push to crack down on one of the first family’s most lucrative businesses.

Republicans may have limited time to use their control of government to deliver on a Trump campaign promise to pass a sweeping crypto bill that would help the industry. But they need support from Senate Democrats, who are seeking to use the leverage to force the White House to agree to a provision restricting how executive branch officials use digital assets.

“There is no final bill — there is no final movement — unless there is a bipartisan agreement when it comes to the ethics provision,” said Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat generally supportive of the legislation who has been involved in negotiations over the issue.

The debate over the bill is giving Democrats a powerful point of leverage over one of the president’s marquee financial policy priorities. The Trump family’s crypto businesses, which account for more than $1 billion of their wealth, have been a common point of outrage among lawmakers on the left who say Republican-led efforts to enact a light-touch regulatory regime on the digital asset industry will enrich the first family.

The White House has consistently said the president doesn’t have any conflicts of interest, and Senate Republicans have mostly defended the president from attacks on his family’s businesses. But they are nonetheless trying to come to a deal with Democrats on an ethics provision. Both parties know that if Republicans lose either chamber of Congress, the push to pass legislation splitting up oversight of crypto trading between Wall Street regulators, a long-standing industry goal, would face long odds.

Now, Democrats have at least one reinforcement from across the aisle: Sen. Thom Tillis, a retiring North Carolina Republican and senior Senate Banking Committee member, said in an interview that ethics language in the bill is a must.

“There has to be ethics language in the bill before it leaves the Senate, or I’ll go from one of the people working on negotiating it to voting against it,” said Tillis, who has been an obstacle to other White House efforts on the Hill, including confirmation of a new Federal Reserve chair.

Lawmakers who have worked to land a bipartisan ethics agreement have struggled for months to make progress. But they now say that talks are advancing.

“We’re making progress,” said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). “We have been talking for a long time without making much progress, and now that other parts of the bill are starting to come together, we’re narrowing our differences.”

It’s unclear what shape the ethics language could take.

Schiff, who is leading negotiations for Democrats on the issue along with Gallego, said earlier this year they want “a ban on sponsoring, endorsing or issuing digital assets that applies to all federal employees,” including the president. Negotiations are ongoing over how the restrictions would be enforced, and it remains unclear whether Democrats will be able to get Senate Republicans and the White House to sign off on a deal that would meaningfully crack down on the Trump family’s crypto businesses.

Patrick Witt, a White House crypto policy adviser, is spearheading negotiations for the administration, alongside GOP Sens. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Bernie Moreno of Ohio. Moreno said in a recent interview that lawmakers are talking about “common sense” reforms.

Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee are hoping to advance the crypto bill — which has been stalled for months due to other policy disputes — in the coming weeks. The ethics fight is one of the last outstanding issues that needs to be resolved in order for the legislation to win bipartisan support. Because the issue is outside of the Banking Committee’s jurisdiction, the bill the committee approves is not expected to include ethics language. But Gallego said in an interview this month that there “needs to be a clear explanation about how this is going to go and how it’s going to be incorporated before it gets to the floor” by the time of a markup.

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement that “President Trump pledged to make America the crypto capital of the world, and he has delivered over the last historic 15 months.”

Once a fierce crypto skeptic, President Donald Trump and his family jumped into the crypto business during the heart of the 2024 presidential campaign — just as the then-former president pledged to make America “the crypto capital of the planet.”

The growing Trump crypto empire now includes several ventures: World Liberty Financial, a crypto project that Trump and his sons helped co-found; a Trump-themed memecoin; and Truth Social parent company Trump Media & Technology Group, which has sought to expand into the crypto markets. As in his first term, Trump has agreed to step away from the day-to-day operations of his family business and keep his assets in a trust managed by his children while serving as president.

The Trumps have emerged as major crypto players as the Washington landscape for the sector has become significantly more friendly, thanks in large part to Trump’s regulators and the industry’s allies on Capitol Hill. The latest bill could particularly help accelerate crypto’s expansion into mainstream finance, opening it up to more investors and Wall Street giants who have until now been reluctant to jump into the market due to the outstanding questions about its regulation.

Not that Trump’s projects have shown any sign of slowing down with their namesake in office.

World Liberty Financial has launched a stablecoin, USD1, and applied for a federal banking license. And an entity affiliated with the memecoin, which is known as $TRUMP, hosted a crypto conference Saturday at Mar-a-Lago for nearly 300 of the token’s top investors. Among those who spoke at the event were Mike Tyson, the former boxer; Tony Robbins, the self-help guru; and Trump, who spoke at the event before flying back to Washington for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

“It’s a pretty blatant example of the president selling access,” said Donald Sherman, who leads the ethics watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, of the memecoin conference. Trump, Sherman said, is “effectively auctioning off access to the highest bidder with no transparency.”

The Mar-a-Lago conference came after a bruising sell-off in the token, which reached as high as $75 in value early last year. As of Sunday morning, the $TRUMP token was trading at around $2.65. In his remarks, Trump, wearing a navy suit and light blue tie, said “today, we celebrate our tremendous success in keeping America at the forefront of the crypto revolution,” according to a recording of his remarks. He also spoke on the war in Iran and artificial intelligence, among other topics.

A White House official said the president attended the event in his personal capacity. The Trump organization did not respond to a request for comment.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt has previously denied that Trump or his family “have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest.”

Investors and traders have recently shown signs of souring on the Trump projects. Justin Sun, a crypto billionaire who calls himself an ardent Trump supporter, sued World Liberty Financial on Tuesday over what he calls an “illegal scheme” to seize his holdings in the company’s WLFI token.

World Liberty Financial CEO Zach Witkoff, who is the son of Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, fired back at Sun’s lawsuit on X, calling it “a desperate attempt to deflect attention from Sun’s own misconduct.” And Eric Trump, the president’s son and a World Liberty Financial co-founder, was quick to pile on.

“The only thing more ridiculous than this lawsuit is spending $6 million on a banana duct-taped to a wall,” Eric Trump said, referring to Sun’s infamous 2024 purchase. “We are incredibly proud of the [World Liberty] team.”

Russia sanctions

Beijing lashes out at EU after Chinese firms included in latest Russia sanctions

China’s commerce ministry warns Brussels that Beijing “will take necessary measures to resolutely safeguard” the interests of Chinese companies and individuals included in the 20th sanctions package.

By Milena Wälde

Beijing warned Brussels that the “EU will bear all consequences” after the bloc included Chinese companies in its latest sanctions package against Russia, escalating tensions in an already strained Sino-Europe trade relationship.

In a statement issued late Saturday, China's commerce ministry said it was “strongly dissatisfied” and “firmly opposes” the inclusion of Chinese businesses in the Russia sanctions, accusing the EU of acting “brazenly” despite repeated objections.

“China urges the EU to immediately remove Chinese companies and individuals from the sanctions list,” the ministry said in the statement, warning that Beijing “will take necessary measures to resolutely safeguard” their interests.

The EU’s 20th sanctions package, approved last week after Hungary and Slovakia dropped their veto, targets another 20 Russian banks, cutting them off from euro transactions and business in the bloc. The breakthrough on the sanctions came after a dispute over the Druzhba oil pipeline — which carries Russian crude via Ukraine to Central Europe — was resolved.

The package also targets banks and companies in third countries, including China, as part of a broader push to shut down back channels used to support Russia’s war economy, with a strong focus on anti-circumvention measures across trade, energy and financial networks.

French President Emmanuel Macron warned on Friday that Europe is now under pressure from the United States, China and Russia at the same time.

“We should not underestimate that this is a unique moment where a U.S. president, a Russian president, a Chinese president are dead against the Europeans,” Macron said, speaking alongside Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Athens. The French leader called on the EU to “wake up” and defend its own interests.

Merge parties against Netanyahu

2 former Israeli prime ministers agree to merge parties against Netanyahu

Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, who served as prime ministers in a rotation agreement under a prior coalition government, now plan to merge into a single faction.

By Associated Press

Two Israeli political heavyweights on Sunday said they would join forces in upcoming elections in a shared effort to unseat longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid served as prime ministers in a rotation agreement as part of a coalition government they formed in 2021. They now plan to merge their parties into a single faction headed by Bennett.

“The move is intended to unite the bloc, put an end to internal divisions and focus all efforts on winning the critical upcoming elections,” Lapid’s Yesh Atid party said in a statement.

Bennett and Lapid scheduled a joint news conference later Sunday.

The 2021 coalition agreement ended 12 years of Netanyahu rule. Bennett served as prime minister for the first year until their coalition fractured. Lapid then held the top job as caretaker prime minister for the final six months until new elections brought Netanyahu back to power.

Lapid has served as Israel’s opposition leader since that time, while Bennett took a break from politics.

The two men have ideological differences. Bennett is an Orthodox Jew with hard-line views toward the Palestinians, while Lapid is secular and seen as more moderate. But they enjoyed a close working relationship during their short-lived coalition.

Their alliance is aimed at uniting a fragmented opposition that appears to have little in common beyond their shared hostility toward Netanyahu.