Shannon Bond

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🎙️NPR correspondent covering how technology, power, politics & influence intersect. send tips on Signal to shannonbond.01 https://www.npr.org/people/763523701/shannon-bond

A Kalshi spokesperson confirmed on Monday that the company now prohibits anyone in its affiliate program from questioning the integrity of an election or undermining a legal ruling or official determination about an election.
a screenshot of the first page of the complaint. It shows a screenshot from OpenAI saying ChatGPT was "built with safety in mind" followed by a footnote reading "Not so."
Pursuant to Local Civil Rule 7(m), Plaintiff’s counsel attempted to confer with Defendants’ counsel regarding this motion, including by contacting attorneys within the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Division’s Federal Programs Branch and Office of Immigration Litigation, but were informed that an attorney has not yet been assigned to this matter.
Counsel for Defendants agreed that he was not aware of any statute that gave Secretary Hegseth the authority to issue such a prohibition and agreed that the statement had “absolutely no legal effect at all.”
The text of Wikipedia is copyrighted (automatically, under the Berne Convention) by Wikipedia editors and contributors and is formally licensed to the public under one or several liberal licenses. Most of Wikipedia's text and many of its images are co-licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA) and the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts). Some text has been imported only under CC BY-SA and CC BY-SA-compatible license and cannot be reused under GFDL; such text will be identified on the page footer, in the page history, or on the discussion page of the article that utilizes the text. Every image has a description page that indicates the license under which it is released or, if it is non-free, the rationale under which it is used.
Wikipedia tarot page: "Tarot (/ˈtæroʊ/, first known as trionfi and later as tarocchi or tarocks) is a set of playing cards used in tarot games and in fortune-telling or divination. From at least the mid-15th century, the tarot was used to play trick-taking card games such as Tarocchini. From their Italian roots, tarot games spread to most of Europe, evolving into new forms including German Grosstarok and modern examples such as French Tarot and Austrian Königrufen. Tarot is commonly found in many countries, except in English and Spanish speaking countries where tarot games are not as widely played, It is normally found in the form of specially designed cartomantic decks used primarily for tarot card reading, in which each card corresponds to an assigned archetype or interpretation for divination, fortune-telling or for other non-gaming uses."
Wikipedia apple page: "An apple is the round, edible fruit of an apple tree (Malus spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (Malus domestica), the most widely grown in the genus, are cultivated worldwide. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, is still found. Apples have been grown for thousands of years in Eurasia before they were introduced to North America by European colonists. Apples have cultural significance in many mythologies (including Norse and Greek) and religions (such as Christianity in Europe). Apples grown from seeds tend to be very different from those of"
The following exchange occurred at this point: Mr. Japson: They’re all GSA employees… we’ll have to get back to you. HSGAC Staffer: When you say you’ll get back to us on the DOGE information, do you all just not know who’s on the agency DOGE team, or are you not sure what you can share with us right now? Mr. O’Connell: I’ve been here two weeks, I can get you the information, I’m more than happy to. GSA has yet to provide staff with this information. General Services Administration, Site Visit with Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Majority and Minority Staff and Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works Majority and Minority Staff (May 28, 2025).
Additional details about the sixth floor of GSA from the Committee Staff site visit: In an office labeled “Chief of Staff,” there was a large ping-pong table set up along with a sofa and a whiteboard with cloud computing architecture diagrams scribbled on it.1 Bedrooms outfitted with IKEA furniture occupied most of the executive suite, including an adjoining room on the Administrator’s office that is normally the Administrator’s dining room.2 A kitchen included a dedicated fridge stocked with Celsius energy drinks and Muscle Milk.3 The windows in one room were crudely covered with black trash bags.4 Many other conference rooms and offices in the executive suite stood empty. GSA officials told staff that as far as they were aware, these rooms were not serving as the primary residence of any GSA employee.5 However, the unstaged bedroom in the Administrator’s dining room showed signs of long-term use.6 The twin beds were unmade. Smartphones, tangles of cables, a hot plate for cooking, and what appeared to be small personal items surrounded them on the floor and nearby ledges. On the floor next to one bed was a large computer console that was covered with a fleece blanket.7 Mr. Japson was unable to identify whether this computer console was GSA-issued.8 There was also an adjoining closet full of clothes.9
Ultimately, Senate staff saw just one bedroom in the executive suite corridor, perfectly tidied, with one queen bed, a wardrobe and a big screen TV.113 GSA officials leading the tour seemed unfamiliar at times with the executive suite space or what it would look like on the day of the congressional staff visit.114 In particular, when staff were in the Administrator’s office, Mr. Japson was initially surprised when staff discovered the makeshift bedroom directly adjoining the Administrator’s suite and he remarked, “What’s in there?” The room contained two twin beds on the floor, with sheets unmade.
Highlights • Staff visited the executive suite of GSA, which was occupied by a handful of DOGE staff and segregated from the rest of the agency by armed security guards. • GSA officials were unable to answer basic questions about which employees were working in the suite, what their roles were, and who at the agency oversees their work. Some officials were clearly seeing parts of the DOGE setup for the first time. • GSA prevented staff from taking photos or interviewing GSA employees during the visit, failed to answer follow-up questions, and refused a staff request for a follow-up visit. • The Acting Administrator does not work out of the Administrator’s office – instead, DOGE programmers do amid stacks of laptops of unknown origin. • GSA officials attempted to prevent staff from seeing cloud architecture diagrams in the DOGE workspace. • DOGE has installed a Starlink network at GSA, potentially allowing them to circumvent agency IT oversight as required under OMB guidance and agency policy, and creating a potentially significant cybersecurity risk.
A post from White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson showing she is using a paragraph from NPR's story as her X.com account header photo
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson didn't directly respond to NPR's questions for this story. She sent an emailed statement saying: "The White House consistently posts banger memes," and went on to mock NPR. In response to NPR's questions about the agency's social media posts, DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin called the inquiry "deranged and delusional." She continued: "If the media needs a history lesson on the brave men and women who blazed the trails, forded the rivers, and forged this Republic from the sweat of their brow, we are happy to send them a history textbook."
But some legal experts consider Mr. Trump’s action — and in particular his order’s claim, which Ms. Bondi endorsed in her letters, that he has the power to enable companies to lawfully violate the statute — to be his starkest power grab. It appears to set a significant new precedent about the potential reach of presidential authority, they said. “There are other things that are more important than TikTok in today’s world, but for pure refusal to enforce the law as Article II requires, it’s just breathtaking,” said Alan Z. Rozenshtein, a University of Minnesota law professor who has written about the nonenforcement of the TikTok ban, referring to the part of the Constitution that says presidents must take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
u/ TravelStateGov Promoted LPT: If you're thinking about traveling to a country with a Level 4 travel advisory-don't. Curious about what a Level 4 travel advisory could mean for your trip? We'll break it down. The U.S. State Department issues Level 4 Do Not Travel advisories when there's a high chance of you experiencing: • Kidnapping • Wrongful detention • Terrorism • Political instability • Outbreaks of infectious disease and in places where the U.S. Government may not be able to provide assistance. In short, just don't. It's not worth the risk. Before booking any trip abroad, we strongly encourage you to visit travel.state.gov for Department of State guidance on the safety of your destination. tl; dr Do. Not. Visit. Level. 4. Countries.
When CDC publications have gone out, some have been delayed or missing information. A recent release of CDC data regarding the prevalence of HIV in the U.S. cautioned that it "does not include data on PrEP coverage," referring to medication taken by individuals to prevent HIV infection. "CDC is unable to resume PrEP coverage at this time, due to a reduction in force affecting the Division of HIV Prevention (DHP)."
PBGC is a federal agency created by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) to protect pension benefits in both single-employer and multiemployer private sector pension plans - the kind that typically pay a set monthly amount at retirement. If your plan ends (this is called "plan termination") without sufficient money to pay all benefits, PBGC's insurance programs will pay for the benefit provided by your pension plan, up to the limits set by law. The agency’s two insurance programs are legally separate and operationally and financially independent. The Single-Employer Insurance Program is financed by insurance premiums, investment income, and assets and recoveries from failed single-employer plans. The Multiemployer Insurance Program is financed by insurance premiums. Special financial assistance for financially troubled multiemployer plans is financed by general taxpayer money.
The Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts because the servers were overloaded. In the field, office managers have resorted to answering phones at the front desk as receptionists because so many employees have been pushed out. But the agency no longer has a system to monitor customers’ experience with these services, because that office was eliminated as part of the cost-cutting efforts led by Elon Musk.
And the phones keep ringing. And ringing.
The federal agency that delivers $1.5 trillion a year in earned benefits to 73 million retired workers, their survivors and poor and disabled Americans is engulfed in crisis — further undermining its ability to provide reliable and quick service to vulnerable customers, according to internal documents and more than two dozen current and former agency employees and officials, customers and others who interact with Social Security.
Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets describing what you accomplished last week and cc your manager. Going forward please complete the above task each week by Mondays at 11:59pmET. Please do not send links, attachments, or any classified/sensitive information. If all your activities are classified or sensitive, please write “all my activities are sensitive”.
screenshot of Treasury Dept website showing Tom Krause named fiscal assistant secretary
screenshot of Twitter Spaces showing hosts and speakers are Elon Musk, Joni Ernst, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Mike Lee
A team including current and former employees of Musk assumed command of OPM on Jan. 20, the day Trump took office. They have moved sofa beds onto the fifth floor of the agency's headquarters, which contains the director's office and can only be accessed with a security badge or a security escort, one of the OPM employees said. The sofa beds have been installed so the team can work around the clock, the employee said. Musk, a major donor to a famously demanding boss, installed beds at X for employees to enable them to work longer when in 2022 he took over the social media platform, formerly known as Twitter. "It feels like a hostile takeover," the employee said. The new appointees in charge of OPM have moved the agency's chief management officer, Katie Malague, out of her office and to a new office on a different floor, the officials said.
A world map showing some examples of the impact of the Trump administration’s foreign aid freeze.
The Justice Department seemed to be at cross purposes with the White House as Mr. Schwei urged the judge to let the matter rest. During the hearing, the states introduced into evidence a social media post by the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, in which she claimed the motion rescinding the Office of Management and Budget memo was “NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze.” “It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo,” she wrote. “We can’t cross-examine the tweet,” the judge joked.
One scientist at the agency said this week has been the hardest of their working lives, worse even than working during the Covid response. They said it has been a week filled with confusion and chaos, trying to respond to different orders, understand what they mean, and worry that they and their co-workers could lose their jobs, in addition to trying to do research in the midst of the disruption.
Others said Mr. Zuckerberg was throwing current and former employees under the bus despite their efforts on content moderation. As upset employees posted about the changes on internal message boards, human resources workers quickly removed the posts, the people said, saying they broke the rules of a company policy on community engagement. Meta put the policy in place in 2022 to keep contentious social issues out of the workplace.
Vaccine advocates, with less money on hand than the better-funded antivaccine advocates, see an uphill battle to defend vaccination in courts, legislatures, and the public square. People are rarely inclined to celebrate the absence of a conquered illness, making vaccines a hard sell even when they are working well. While many wealthy people, including potion and supplement peddlers, have funded the antivaccine movement, "there hasn't been an appetite from science-friendly people to give that kind of money to our side," said Karen Ernst, director of Voices for Vaccines.
cover of Ballet for Drina book by Jean Estoril
cover of the Book of Three novel by Lloyd Alexander
The professor is one of the architects of a discredited herd immunity strategy reliant on so-called “natural immunity,” meaning infection-acquired. He has long claimed that the danger the virus poses to non-senior citizens is minimal despite COVID having been a top killer among young people. He has cast doubt on the safety and necessity of vaccinating that demographic and opposed government efforts to control the worst public health crisis in a century. The professor even spread conspiracy theories about the very agency he is on the verge of leading, alleging that a small number of top bureaucrats have been using funding to stifle dissenting views like his.
When John Merrill was secretary of state of Alabama, he felt like it was his job as the state's top voting official to encourage voter registration. "One of the things I was known for as a secretary was trying to get everybody in the state that was eligible," said Merrill, a Republican. But he remembered that for many in his party, that stance was controversial. "I had people when I would speak to some Republican groups, they'd tell me, 'I don't like that, I don't think it's a good thing,'" Merrill said. "And I'm like, 'Why would you say that?' And they're like, 'Because you're going to get more Blacks and you're going to get more Democrats.'"
Why vaccine safety is often a rallying cry for anti-vaccine activists While Kennedy is running as a Democrat, promising to "heal the divide" in American politics, many of his views are out of step with the mainstream. Americans of both parties resoundingly support childhood vaccines. His extremely isolationist positions on immigration and foreign policy sound more like a candidate in the Republican primary. He says he would "seal the [U.S.-Mexico] border permanently" and blames the U.S. for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, saying Moscow acted in "good faith." At his April campaign launch, Kennedy only obliquely nodded to his concerns about vaccines, instead referring to a "chronic disease epidemic" hurting Americans. He frequently tells interviewers that he's not anti-vaccine but instead an advocate for increased safety — while continuing to repeat disproven claims. Vaccines go through extensive clinical trials, safety testing and monitoring in the United States. But the safety framing used by Kennedy and other vaccine skeptics makes their message "approachable," Koltai said. "They are ... degrading the trust and safety we have in institutional organizations like the CDC or the FDA and trying to manipulate data to make it seem like vaccines are less safe than they are," she said. "Everyone wants safe vaccines. No one is saying we want less safe vaccines," she said. "They might frame this in a way that seems very appealing to everyone. But in reality, they're using the same sort of tropes and arguments and narratives that people in conspiratorial communities use."
Joint ODNI, FBI, and CISA Statement WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released the following statement: “Since our statement on Friday, the IC has been observing foreign adversaries, particularly Russia, conducting additional influence operations intended to undermine public confidence in the integrity of U.S. elections and stoke divisions among Americans. The IC expects these activities will intensify through election day and in the coming weeks, and that foreign influence narratives will focus on swing states. "Russia is the most active threat. Influence actors linked to Russia in particular are manufacturing videos and creating fake articles to undermine the legitimacy of the election, instill fear in voters regarding the election process, and suggest Americans are using violence against each other due to political preferences, judging from information available to the IC. These efforts risk inciting violence, including against election officials. We anticipate Russian actors will release additional manufactured content with these themes through election day and in the days and weeks after polls close. • The IC assesses that Russian influence actors recently posted and amplified an article falsely claiming that U.S. officials across swing states plan to orchestrate election fraud using a range of tactics, such as ballot stuffing and cyber attacks. • Russian influence actors also manufactured and amplified a recent video that falsely depicted an interview with an individual claiming election fraud in Arizona, which involved creating fake overseas ballots and changing voter rolls to favor Vice President Kamala Harris. The Arizona Secretary of State has already refuted the video’s claim as false
As it stands, Musk remains legally “independent” from Donald Trump’s campaign — even though he appears at his rallies; speaks regularly with the candidate; funds a field operation that shares data with Trump’s campaign; advertises through direct mail, text message and radio to elect Trump; has secured an advisory role in a future Trump administration; and has publicly announced that he plans to use that position to improve his own business fortunes.
Joint ODNI, FBI, and CISA Statement WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released the following statement: “The IC assesses that Russian actors manufactured and amplified a recent video that falsely depicted an individual ripping up ballots in Pennsylvania, judging from information available to the IC and prior activities of other Russian influence actors, including videos and other disinformation activities. Local election officials have already debunked the video’s content. This Russian activity is part of Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the US election and stoke divisions among Americans, as detailed in prior ODNI election updates. In the lead up to election day and in the weeks and months after, the IC expects Russia to create and release additional media content that seeks to undermine trust in the integrity of the election and divide Americans.”
"Immigration and voter fraud has become, by far, the entrepreneur’s favorite and most popular policy topic online, according to a large-scale Bloomberg analysis of his posts on X, the social network he owns, where he has more than 200 million followers. In 2024, Musk’s frequent posts on immigration — including claims about the crimes attributed to migrants, the pace of their entry into the US, and the false assertion that Democrats are using them to cast votes — have received more reposts than any other policy issue he writes about."
a QR code to start a Signal chat with me at shannonbond.01
It is entirely possible for journalists to earn enough from the sale of their work to make a living and to continue in their vocation; it just may no longer be possible for the sale of that work to also fund the extravagant ambitions of swirly-eyed, would-be moguls and grifting MBA-havers and entire constellations of make-work consultants. But those are the people in charge, and they are simply never going to fire themselves.
Wynns asked Yasar if it was possible to create a massive, automated political phone campaign to gather polling information from voters. He told Yasar he knew people who might make use of the technology. To make a proof of concept, Yasar used ElevenLabs to clone the voice of Mike Lindell, the chief executive officer of MyPillow, who is active in right-wing politics and is being sued for $1.3 billion by voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems Inc. related to false claims about the 2020 presidential election. Lindell has denied any wrongdoing. “I firmly believe we need to scrutinize our voting systems and ensure transparency,” the audio proclaimed, reading from a script created by ChatGPT, according to a sample reviewed by Businessweek. “My efforts are focused on investigating irregularities.”
Irene Solaiman, the head of global policy at the AI company Hugging Face, was moved by the voices highlighted in the Shotline. She told NPR that AI use in advocacy can be a powerful tool when used respectively by individuals affected by it. However, as she continues to wrestle with what the future of the appropriate use of AI looks like, questions still arise. "There is a danger to generating representations of people who have lost their lives where the authority to control that representation may not only rest among the loved ones," Solaiman said. "There's no real delineation of who those loved ones are, who are the appropriate people to control the representation, and whether that control should lie in the developer, a company or the people who are distributing the voice or generated content?"
a case of cheese inside a shopwith a sign on it saying “Cheeses for watching Taylor Swift watch the Super Bowl”