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The Alex Jones Lawsuit Will Redefine Free Speech, Win or Lose

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Once upon a time, there was a fringe news outlet with a loud and dissenting opinion. A fatal shooting, it claimed, was not at all what it seemed to be: It was a hoax, orchestrated by some shadowy force—probably Communists—bent on replacing freedom with dictatorship. This was untrue, but that didn’t stop the outlet from naming and insulting alleged collaborators. And so the media outlet was sued for defamation.

This story might seem familiar, but we’re not actually talking about Alex Jones, the Infowars founder who infamously spread the lie that the Sandy Hook school shooting was an elaborate hoax—the grieving parents simply crisis actors—across YouTube, and is now being sued by Lenny Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, the parents of Noah Pozner, a 6-year-old killed in the attack. We’re talking about Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., a Supreme Court case that will provide the legal precedent for the court to decide how hard or easy it will be to take Alex Jones to task for spreading lies.

Trouble is, that case was tried in 1974.

A lot has happened in the past half century. Most notably, the emergence of Jones’ preferred medium: the internet. In a case where the web is not only the vector of the defamation but also the means of targeted harassment campaigns, severe enough that Pozner’s parents have moved seven times in the past five years, that is a pretty serious context switch.

Thus far, Jones’ legal arguments remain embroiled in the nuances of free speech: Specifically, what kind of platform constitutes a serious media institution, and what kind of actions signify a public figure. While it’s hard to sympathize with a man who spent years haranguing the parents of a murdered first grader, in a time when the modes and impacts of speech are being redesigned and renegotiated with every software update and platform policy, these are pressing questions. Whether Jones wins or loses, his suit, according to First Amendment lawyers, will be a building block for the way we think of free speech in the age of the internet.

Whether Jones wins or loses, his suit, according to First Amendmentlawyers, will be a building block for the way we think of free speechin the age of the internet.

And now back to precedents. In 1964, the Supreme Court heard the case of a Montgomery Public Safety commissioner who felt defamed by an ad in The New York Times that claimed the police departments he supervised had arrested Martin Luther King Jr. seven times. (Really they’d just arrested King four times.) In the resulting case, New York Times v. Sullivan, the court bestowed special status to public officials like the commissioner: Defamation would require “actual malice,” a knowingly false statement in “reckless disregard” of the truth. This high bar was a way of protecting the First Amendment-guaranteed right to speak openly about those in power.

Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. added a new wrinkle in the form of another type of public figure—a “limited-purpose public figure,” who also required the high bar of malice. Jones claims that by entering the public debates on misinformation and gun control, De La Rosa and Pozner occupy this second group. (De La Rosa has advocated for an assault rifle ban, and Pozner founded a nonprofit devoted to fighting misinformation.)

This is where the context of the internet starts to matter. The law assumes a narrow notion of fame—not a world where a YouTube channel’s following can rival a media company’s and the parents of a slain child can instantly become household names. “The First Amendment is a legal tool … crafted in a particular time to deal with particular media environments,” says Neil Richards, a First Amendment expert at the University of Washington Law School. “Our libel model is one that envisions establishment media and a bunch of people gossiping. It doesn’t envision social media.”

The law assumes a narrow notion of fame—not a world where a YouTubechannel’s following can rival a media company’s.

Do Pozner and De La Rosa count as limited-purpose public figures? Maybe. “Arguments have been made that in the digital world, you can be a public figure in the context of a particular videogame,” says Sandra Baron, a resident fellow at Yale Law School. “Even if no one outside that community would have ever heard of you.” So the Sandy Hook parents’ #activism may qualify them by making them well known in gun control circles, while public moves like founding nonprofits would only cement that status.

Others have argued that their accidental fame is another reason to revisit the laws. Under the original Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., the justices decided that, while it was technically possible to become an involuntary limited-purpose public figure, someone who is thrust into the public debate by outside design, such instances would be “exceedingly rare.” Not so in the age of the web. Having a mob of conspiracy theorists pillory you for articulating grief over a murdered child seems exactly the sort of public entrance no one would make voluntarily—and in age of virality, such situations aren’t even uncommon. We are all one rogue tweet away from public figure-dom.

Yet Jones is walking a second, well-trod line: No reasonable person should take what Jones says as fact. In that way, his (multiple) defamation lawsuits are a legal test run for internet trolls’ favorite excuse for their bad behavior: LOL JK.

As always, digital trolls aren’t as edgy as they’d have you think. This excuse has relevant pre-internet case law behind it: A few shock jocks on talk radio have successfully deflected defamation cases by arguing that no one took their comments seriously. But even if Jones wins that argument, he might lose against Pozner and De La Rosa’s claims that he intentionally inflicted emotional distress. See, the tale of the shock jock cuts both ways: According to Baron, shock jocks were the only defendants she ever saw lose to that argument, because their behavior—while performative—was considered so outside any form of civilized norm. Might harassing (and doxing) the parents of a murdered child qualify? It’s apparently not outside the internet’s moral code. IRL, it’ll depend on the judge, and the jury.

For the most part, this push and pull between internet and legal norms is a good thing—as long as it continues to evolve. “We adjusted the law to deal with the mass market media era of television and newspapers,” Richards says. “It’s clear that First Amendment doctrine needs to evolve, not to undo freedom of speech, but to ensure the values of public debate and of democratic self-government continue in a digital environment.”

That might mean adjusting what it means to be a public figure, so victims of tragedy don’t feel unable to express their feelings on social media. It might mean recalibrating what counts as “reckless,” when lies on the internet can mobilize genuine real world threats. Or, it might mean doubling down on protections for the kind of wild, fringe speech Jones engages in. What’s important is we learn to negotiate the balance between speaking safely, and freely, on the web.

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Google Faces Hurdles in China Beyond Censorship

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In April, the founder of multibillion dollar Chinese startup Bytedance made a striking public statement. “Our product took the wrong path, and content appeared that was incommensurate with socialist core values,” Zhang Yiming said, in a message widely distributed by state-controlled media. He pledged that Bytedance would work harder to “promote positive energy and to grasp correct guidance of public opinion.”

Zhang’s grovelling apology came after Chinese authorities temporarily removed Bytedance’s Toutiao news aggregator from app stores for featuring “vulgar” content. Three weeks later, the app, which has more than 100 million users, was restored.

The incident offers an indicator of the perilous environment awaiting Google if it carries through on reported plans to launch search and news aggregator apps in China.

China’s internet market is much larger and more lucrative than when Google pulled its desktop search app and withdrew from the country eight years ago after phishing attacks targeted Chinese activists using Gmail. The country now has more than 770 million internet users, most of whom access it via a device running Google’s open source Android mobile operating system. But the demands China’s government places on internet companies have grown significantly, too.

“China’s regulatory environment is more restrictive than in 2010,” says Lotus Ruan, who tracks online information controls in the country for the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab. “In the name of ‘rule of law,’ the state is releasing more and more laws and regulations to control internet activities.”

The prospect of Chinese riches has lured other tech companies. Apple’s iPhone has long been popular in the country; the company attributed nearly one-fifth of the $55 billion quarterly revenue it reported last week to China. LinkedIn agreed to censor its content when it entered the country in 2014. And The New York Times reported last month that Facebook has been trying to open a China office.

Google may face political trouble at home too. Six US senators wrote to Google CEO Sundar Pichai Friday asking him to explain the company’s plans regarding China. The letter said any plan to launch services in the country “risks making Google complicit in human rights abuses related to China’s rigorous censorship regime.”

China’s public would probably be open to trying services from Google, says Paul Triolo, who tracks Chinese technology markets and policy at Eurasia Group. “From Chinese users’ point of view, these services could be beneficial, I would argue that they would probably have a lot of users,” he says.

But if Google goes ahead, it will have to comply with a broad new cybersecurity law introduced last year. That law imposes some of the country’s first rules to protect consumers from corporate invasions of privacy—and restrictions on tech companies that place consumer data more easily within government reach. In addition, the government has ordered companies to store data for longer periods, and tightened enforcement of a rule requiring online accounts match a person’s real identity.

Implementation of the sweeping new regulations is ongoing, but it has already forced notable changes in how Chinese and US tech companies operate. One provision of the law restricts transfers of data out of the country, keeping the information within easier reach of authorities. Another mandates that cloud services must be operated by Chinese companies.

It’s why Apple in February transferred management of the Chinese version of its iCloud service that stores data such as messages and photos—and the encryption keys securing them—to a state-controlled company. Chinese authorities used to have to go to Apple to gain access to its users’ data. Now they may not. Bloombergreported Friday that Google hopes to offer cloud services in China, out of data centers run by local companies.

Google’s business and product plans are unconfirmed, making it hard to know exactly which parts of China’s regulations would apply. What’s been disclosed suggests the company would possess user data that could be alluring to Chinese authorities enforcing the country’s controls on political expression.

That could force Google to play an active role in unsavory policies. In 2005, writers Wang Xiaoning and Shi Tao were sentenced to 10 years in prison for, respectively, promoting democracy and leaking Communist Party documents, after Yahoo disclosed their personal data to the Chinese government. The company later settled a lawsuit brought by Shi’s family.

In the US and other markets, Google’s ad business relies on building rich profiles of people’s online activity such as web searches, which are used by advertisers to target their audience. Google could conceivably operate a search app without such profiles, by showing ads based solely on the query a person entered. But Google also plans to launch a personalized news-aggregation app in China, according to The Information.

Hundreds of millions of people in China already use such services, such as Toutiao, which employ machine learning to customize a user’s content. To compete, Google would probably need to collect rich profiles on its users, says Graham Webster, a senior fellow with the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale. “The company would be holding data that would show what users are interested in reading,” says Webster. “If a new topic became newly sensitive, theoretically the authorities could ask to see who has been accessing that information.”

Figuring out what authorities could ask for could become a constant headache for Google executives, were the company to offer new services in China.

US government demands on Google and other tech companies may not always be transparent, as the Snowden revelations showed. But they generally come via a known legal process that gives companies some mechanism by which to object. Chinese authorities do use court orders and regulations to request data from companies. They also use surveillance and apply informal and secretive pressures that can be unpredictable, says Ruan, of Citizen Lab. “The challenge for Google is that many of these laws are vaguely defined and often subject to interpretation by the authorities,” she says.

Bytedance’s public humiliation this spring helps illustrate that point. The company’s travails began with criticism of its services from state media, including complaints that a video app hosted clips of unmarried teenage moms discussing their lives, something China Daily said “does not accord with traditional values.”

Depending on how they were implemented, censorship tools or other systems built by Google to comply with China’s authoritarian internet policies could conflict with ethical principles for use of AI technology the company released in June. The principles state that Google “will not design or deploy AI … whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.” They were introduced after employee protests over a Pentagon contract.

Before Google can launch apps, it would need approval from the Cybersecurity Administration of China, which regulates the internet, as well as political clearance from the very top of China’s government.

Last week’s reports suggest Google’s making progress on both fronts. Company staff are said to have demonstrated versions of search and news apps to regulators. The Intercept says Pichai met last December with Wang Huning, a member of the Chinese Politburo. Wang is a top adviser to President Xi Jinping on matters of both ideology and cyberspace, says Eurasia Group’s Triolo. “He’s the guy you’d have to get approval from, basically,” he says.

Triolo and others watching Chinese-US relations in technology believe approval is unlikely to come soon. The ongoing trade war instigated by President Trump would make Google launching new services in China politically unwelcome on both sides of the Great Firewall.

Critics of China’s internet controls don’t find that very consoling. Google’s steady series of quieter, public moves to expand its presence in China suggests the company isn’t about to give up. Google opened an AI research lab in Beijing last year, has invested $500 million into leading online retailer JD.com, and last month launched an AI-enhanced drawing game on the dominant mobile messaging platform WeChat. “The problem lies in the uncertainty in how much Google would appease the state for growth and profits,” Ruan says.

UPDATE, Aug. 6, 1:45PM: This story has been updated to include information about Google’s ethical principles for use of AI technology.

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2019 Ford Mustang Bullitt: Test Drive, Price, Details

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The lane of oncoming traffic ahead of me is clear, so I use one hand to spin the wheel to the left and point the hood of the car up Pescadero Creek Road. My other hand is cradling the white cue ball that tops the stick shift, and as I tighten my grip, I push the stick forward and away to put the car into third gear.

I back out the clutch and press the accelerator—really, just giving it a little nudge—and my passenger and I go leapfrogging straight up the hill, the exhaust popping and burping behind us. The mighty Brraapp comes rippling up through the back of the car and swats our ears in the same way a wet, low B-flat from the sousaphone in a New Orleans brass band rattles you when you’re standing a little too close but you don’t care because you’re so lost in the heat and the booze and the rhythm. I push down harder toward the floor, and suddenly we’re doing 54 mph straight up the hill. It’s exhilarating.

I shift again, to fourth gear. With each new slot, the pitch of the exhaust goes up and down as the engine speed automatically adjusts to match the new choice of gearing. With the release of the clutch comes another explosion of decibels. Braaaaaah. Suddenly we’re pushing 70. I giggle and say it again, the word I’ve been muttering like a mantra ever since I took the wheel 20 minutes ago, the word that defines this vehicle, the word that should be stamped onto the vanity plate at the factory: Silly.

Chase Me

The beast I’m driving is the 2019 Ford Mustang Bullitt. It’s a special version of the Mustang that Ford developed and brought to market to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the film Bullit. In that movie—if you remember, and I know you do—there’s a famous car chase scene where the good guy (Steve McQueen) drives a green 1968 Mustang fastback as he chases the bad guys’ black Dodge Charger up and down the hills of San Francisco. It’s easily the most beloved car chase in Hollywood history. When audiences saw it in the fall of 1968, it made the young Mustang—then just four years old but already a hit—even more desirable, masculine, and sexy. Never mind Steve McQueen.

The original Bullitt Mustang.

Ford Motor Company

This car, the 2019 Bullitt edition, takes all the greasy DNA of the fetishized original and folds it into a modern Detroit chassis. On paper, the $46,595 Bullitt Mustang is not far removed from Ford’s recent Premium GT model Mustang. It’s got a 5-liter V-8 with 480 horsepower and 420 pound-feet of torque. Top speed is a silly 163 mph. The rev-matching manual transmission has six speeds, and shifting between them is as easy as reciting the alphabet. The performance-tuned suspension is borrowed from the Mustang GT, and the Brembo brakes are painted red so you can see them poking out from behind the front rims. In the dash is a B&O sound system and the Mustang’s brand new all-digital instrument cluster. The car is shaped, of course, like a fastback. Silllly.

Just like the ’68 McQueenmobile, this Mustang comes in “dark highland green” (or straight black, but why would you ever choose that?) and is adorned with choice bits of Bullitt bunting. The film’s logotype-in-crosshairs logo sits at the center of the steering wheel, on the passenger-side dash, and on the dummy gas cap on the rear where the Mustang badge would normally go. Then of course there’s that cue ball shift knob, just like the one in the vehicle that was driven in the movie. When I first walked around the car, I thought all the Bullitt badging felt a bit thirsty, but if you’re buying a Mustang, you really do need to advertise that your Mustang is more rare, more beastly, more obnoxious, and more silly than the all other Mustangs. So be it.

Note the green accents in the interior, the Bullitt logo on the wheel, and the white cue ball on the stick shift.

Ford Motor Company

Sound Transport

I take the Bullitt over the ridge and down to the ocean, where we’ll turn north and run up Pacific Coast Highway. I find some stretches of road where I can just cruise, and I lift my hand off the cue ball to test some of the settings. The only one I’m really interested in fiddling with is the exhaust mode selector. The nasty trumpeting I’ve been spraying all over the Northern California hills for the last hour is the result of Normal mode. I switch it to Quiet. It really is quiet. The car’s bite on the road isn’t lessened one bit, but the air feels suddenly neutered, as if one of the world’s great orators has ceded the podium to a prim accountant who begins reciting quarterly earnings statements. I flip the selector up two notches to Sport mode. The foul bark comes back, deeper and stronger. Dare I try Track mode? I dare. What a woof! I could be considerate of the kind folks enjoying their lunchtime buffets in their cozy homes tucked among the vineyards as we go wheeling past. But no. This is Bullitt. This is American might. Listen to my engine! I purposefully let each gear rev higher than I should before up-shifting just to get the eardrums buzzing. I implore my passenger to say it with me: Silly, silly, silly.

Soon, we are surrounded by minivans and Priuses as we ride tight, afternoon traffic all the way up through Half Moon Bay and into San Francisco. Sadly, this will be the Bullitt experience for most buyers—a modest 42 mph with plenty of red lights. But even when it’s stuck in the pen, the Mustang can smell the open prairies. I can steal three lengths from just about anyone off the line at a green light, and I make a game of it, doing it again and again. Because that’s what bucketloads of horsepower and torque are for. It’s addictive. Even in traffic, I can’t stop giggling.

Mechanical Music

Ford Motor Company

At dusk, Ford corrals the assembled journalists into a cocktail reception at a resort north of San Francisco. Naturally, the bourbon at the open bar is Bulleit. I spend some time chatting with the Ford company reps, all of whom are thrilled to be here, driving this car on the very streets that made it famous. We watch scenes from the 1968 film, we play Bullitt trivia games, we race Bullitt slot cars, and we shoot pool using a custom cue ball with the six-speed transmission mapped on it. We talk about the Mustangs of our youth. I tell them how I learned to drive behind the wheel of my parents’ 1988 Mustang GT convertible, which makes us all smile.

When I ask the Ford guys about the differences between this Bullitt Mustang and the other current Mustangs, they rattle off a few stats but ultimately settle on one point: The key thing this car offers is a visceral experience different from what you get in other Mustangs. When you roll down the window and hear the engine kicking, when you feel the exhaust note curl up the small of your back, when you look down and see that cue ball, you’re getting something wholly unique. It’s fresh and rare and you can’t replicate it in any other car. The original ’68 fastback, which has its own vibe, doesn’t come close. The souped-up Mustang GT doesn’t take you there either. The Bullitt is its own singular and delicious brand of silly.

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Paul Manafort’s Fashion Choices Top This Week’s Internet News Roundup

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Last week, while the Trump administration unveiled plans to roll back car pollution rules and told the American Civil Liberties Union to find the deported parents it separated from their children, the tallest point in Sweden melted due to climate change, the National Rifle Association announced that it was deep financial trouble, and the US president tried to gaslight the world about whether or not he was late to meet Queen Elizabeth II a couple weeks ago. (He was.) What kind of a crazy world is this, you might be asking? It’s one everyone talks about online. Here’s what else people were talking about on the internet over the past seven days.

Suit Up

What Happened: The first member of Donald Trump’s inner circle went to court, and all the public got out of it was a lot of news stories and some astonishing jackets.

What Really Happened: Last week started with, it seemed, a lot of people interested in someone else’s legal problems. But when that person is former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, about to go on trial for financial fraud in Virginia, that’s somewhat understandable. Manypeopletriedtopre-analyzewhatmighthappen, a situation not helped by the fact that, even before the trial, things were already happening.

But it wasn’t just inside the courthouse that a pre-game show was happening.

So, what is actually at stake here? Somesitesexplainedthebasics, but perhaps all you really need to know is this:

OK, that kind of sentence is pretty intense. Of course, considering his position in the Trump campaign, surely there’s the possibility for him to avoid all of this and just cut a deal to testify in Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation into potential Russian collusion and obstruction of justice. Who wouldn’t go that route?

Although the courtroom kept cameras out, there were plentyofreportersreadytosharehighlights. The trial itself was … interesting, it seems.

Something that definitely caught the attention of many was a focus on Manafort’s expensive and ridiculous spending on clothes.

But, at least that spoke to Manafort’s … interesting business arrangements.

Yes, for such a high-profile trial, everyone should be thankful that things were staying on topic and not getting weird…

The Takeaway: In case you were wondering, President Trump is totally relaxed about this whole trial, having already explained that he barely knew Manafort.

Never Tweet

What Happened: Someone really needs to tell President Trump to think twice about what he puts on social media.

What Really Happened: With his campaign under investigation and his former campaign chair on trial for financial irregularities, you might think that Trump was prepared to sit back and be silent for once, letting justice run its course. Guess what didn’t happen.

To say that peoplenoticedthatthePresidentoftheUnitedStateshadapparentlyjustobstructedjusticeinplainviewoftheentireworld would be an understatement.

As might be expected, Democratic politicians were quick to respond to what had just happened—

—and, just as obviously, Republicans were less eager to make any kind of comment at all.

Of course, the White House had a different take on the situation, because what else is press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ job if not to obfuscate for the Executive Branch? Spin, Sarah, spin!

As was argued, Trump was only offering an opinion and certainly didn’t feel agitated about what’s happening at all…

As it stands, everyone is now wondering whether or not Trump will finally sit down with Robert Mueller’s team to answer questions or not. One report last week suggested that the president really wanted to do it, despite the fears of his own attorneys. His reason? He thinks he can convince investigators that they’re actually carrying out a witch hunt.

The Takeaway: Lost in the whole response to Trump attempting something potentially illegal on Twitter was this small fact: It wasn’t even anything that could have helped, because the president had overlooked another small fact…

The Paper of Record

What Happened: The administration’s war on the media continued apace last week. Hopefully everyone who is such a fan of those constitutional amendments is ready to speak up for the press.

What Really Happened: Elsewhere in Donald Trump news, it was a busy week for the fraught relationship between the president and the media, starting with this surprise tweet over the weekend.

It was a surprise especially for The New York Times, which subsequently released a statement that not only gave more detail into the meeting, but explained, “Mr. Trump’s aides requested that the meeting be off the record, which has also been the practice for such meetings in the past. But with Mr. Trump’s tweet this morning, he has put the meeting on the record.” The Times also released a story about the meeting in the paper, which contained one especially eye-opening moment.

Bear that in mind as we jump to Thursday, and an appearance by Ivanka Trump at an Axios event at the Newseum in Washington, DC, where the First Daughter is asked a particular question…

This becameathinginitself, so much so that President Trump himself tried to walk it back hours later. The discrepancy between the two, however, meant that Thursday’s White House briefing was … worrying:

This, too, turnedintoastoryinitsownright. But who cares that the White House press secretary can’t bring herself to defend the press, right?

The Takeaway: Then again, maybe Ivanka had an ulterior motive in saying what she said, and all of the fallout is just accidental.

Q Who?

What Happened: One of Roseanne Barr’s thought leaders broke through to the mainstream last week, thanks to a Trump rally.

What Really Happened: One of the stranger stories last week came during a Trump rally where a conspiracy theory that had been under the surface for quite some time finallystartedtoget some attention. It all started on Tuesday when folks noticed one letter in particular was making a lot of appearances at the president’s event in Tampa.

Q? This Q?

Apparently not, as fun as the idea of a Star Trek: The Next Generation movement starting at Trump rallies may be. This Q, as it turns out, is something far more disturbing.

Indeed, thanks to the appearances at the rally, the “QAnon” conspiracy theory—in which Trump is a heroic figure pushing back against a conspiracy running America that makes the “Deep State” look like an after-school glee club—wentmainstreamwithallmannerofexplainersanddescriptions. This wasn’t something that went over well with everyone, as some complained that it was merely helping the conspiracy theory become more easily shared (as was apparently happening, it should be noted).

But what drove many people to distraction about the conspiracy theory was the way in which it overlooked actual facts that are happening right now:

As with all conspiracies, the response to this got wonderfully complicated for those into the Dark Web of it all, with Anonymous coming out against Q.

But what’s the scariest thing about this whole subject? How many people eagerly ate up the genuinely mystifying, contradictory nonsense, and what that means for the future.

The Takeaway: But we still don’t know! Who is Q? What could he want, besides simply whipping a whole swath of Americans up into a frenzy for nefarious purposes? If only he’d come forward and tell us what he wan—

Paul Ryan’s Ancestry

What Happened: Turns out, there’s something about Paul Ryan that even Paul Ryan didn’t know. But no one seems to be particularly excited over the news.

What Really Happened: Let’s close the week out with something light. As the result of research carried out for the PBS show Finding Your Roots, Republican speaker of the House and famous fitness fanatic Paul Ryan discovered that hewas, surprisingly, 3 percentJewish. Jewish Twitter was … what’s the opposite of thrilled?

Still, at least Ryan seemed to be excited about it:

Guess how that went down…

The Takeaway: This is getting out of hand. We need someone to bring a sense of perspective here…

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Elon Musk’s Apology, Tesla’s Quarter, Waymo’s Transit Partner, and More Car News This Week

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When it comes to relationships, even the business kind, sometimes you just have to make nice. That’s what Tesla’s Elon Musk did this week, when he expressed regret about sounding a bit overtaxed during an ultimately upbeat quarterly earnings call for the tumultuous electric carmaker. He’s still in the depths of production hell, you see.Meanwhile, the autonomous developers at Waymo decided to make friends with public transit officials in Phoenix, agreeing to work with them to ensure their driverless vehicles work for seniors and writers with disabilities. And in Sacramento, officials are opening their doors, er, streets to all the Bay Area self-driving developers who are sick of the fog and high housing costs.It’s been a week. Let’s get you caught up.

Headlines

Stories you might have missed from WIRED this week

  • Tesla CEO Elon Musk, not usually one to apologize, did just that on a quarterly earnings call with investors this week, acknowledging he had been “impolite” on his last call with the group. Fortunately, senior writer Jack Stewart reports, Musk also came with good news: Tesla has more in cash reserves than analysts expected, which means it won’t have to borrow money as it continues to ramp up production. And Musk still says the company will be profitable by the end of the year.

  • Musk also used the call to hype insists Tesla’s new self-driving chip, a customized GPU that he says will rival industry lead NVIDIA’s. NVIDIA has, predictably, pushed back on the claim.

  • Could Waymo, the Alphabet self-driving car company, actually make it easier for people to use mass transit? This week, the company rolled out an experiment with Valley Metro, a transit agency in Phoenix, where Waymo tests its driverless cars. One transportation expert told me it’s nice that the self-driving leader is thinking about public transit during this early stage of development—but no one knows what will work yet.

  • Sacramento, the capital of California, wants to prove that it’s tech-savvy but safety-minded. Thus, it announced a $100,000 partnership with Phantom Auto, a company specializing in remote safety operations for totally driverless cars.

Lost Elevator Bank of the Week

Ford lost an elevator lobby; it wants it back. Earlier this year, the automaker made headlines for its purchase of Detroit’s Michigan Central Station, its once-majestic, century-old train station. Now, the station will be the centerpiece for Ford’s trendy, downtown, mobility-focused campus—but not before a serious clean-up and refurbishment effort. Problem is, scavengers and treasure-hunters alike stripped some of Michigan Central’s best features out years ago. Like its waiting room light fixture, and its ticket window, and its elevator lobby. If you have them, and you’re feeling generous (like the mystery person who returned the station’s old clock did), please contact Ford Motor Company.

Ford Motor Company

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News from elsewhere on the internet

In the Rearview

Essential stories from WIRED’s past

Way back in 2017, Jack looked at what was then a new trend: companies partnering to build driverless cars. Ah, we were so young then.

Best Point and Shoot Cameras (2018): Canon, Sony, Olympus

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Hire Me and Get Disability Focus Employer Tax Incentives

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I have recently been looking into opportunities for myself and found some for you, my employers. Being a Type 1 Diabetic, I am considered to have a disability according to our government. With this disability the following incentives are offered to my hiring public (from https://disability.workforcegps.org):

“Businesses accommodating or hiring employees with disabilities may qualify for tax credits and deductions. There are three federal tax incentives available. They include the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC), Disabled Access Credit, and Architectural Barrier Removal Tax Deduction. There are also state employer tax incentives. More information and additional resource links are provided within this resource page.

Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) – This tax credit provides employers incentives to hire qualified individuals from different target groups that are inclusive of people with disabilities. The maximum tax credit could reach as high as $9,600, depending on the employee hired and the length of employment. This link connects you with the latest resources from DOL ETA resource website with program brochure, frequently asked questions, and youtube video providing a helpful program overview.

Disabled Access Credit – This tax credit provides a non-refundable credit for small businesses that incur expenditures for the purpose of providing access to persons with disabilities. This link connects you with helpful background developed by the Job Accommodation Network on this tax vehicle as well as the other two listed on this page.

Architectural and Transportation Barrier Removal Deduction – This tax deduction encourages businesses of any size to remove architectural and transportation barriers to the mobility of persons with disabilities. Businesses may claim a deduction of up to $15,000 a year for qualified expenses for items that normally must be capitalized. This link connects you with the mid-Atlantic ADA Center outlining facts about this tax deduction as well as the other two listed on this page.

State Employer Tax Incentives – Some state-specific tax credit programs for hiring people with disabilities are based on the Federal Government’s Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) and others are related to accessibility improvements and employment supports. This link from EARN provides an overview of the above three federal tax incentives as well as highlighting examples of state tax incentives implemented by various states from across the U.S.”

Type 1.5 diabetes is a non-official term that is sometimes used to refer to a form of type 1 diabetes known as Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults (LADA).

BioLite FirePit Review: A More Civilized Fire

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A few years ago, I took a weekend wilderness survival class. Deep in the remote woods of Oregon’s coast range, we strung plastic sheets up with fishing line for shelter and practiced signaling with tiny pocket mirrors. Enthralled, I watched as the instructor slowly teased a cotton ball daubed with petroleum jelly into a roaring campfire.

Survival class aside, fire starting isn’t one of my skills. I am far more likely to get exasperated and start dumping a bottle of white gas onto a pile of wood (which is not a WIRED-endorsed practice, by the way!) than I am to painstakingly craft lichen and kindling into a cozy home for a newborn flame. Luckily, with the BioLite FirePit, I don’t need to.

The FirePit is a sleek, portable, mesh box with removable legs, a hibachi-style grill, and an ash bin. It has a rechargeable 10,400 mAh battery that can power 51 air jets for up to 26 hours. And it’s Bluetooth-compatible, so you can precisely control the airflow—and how high the flames go—on your phone.

While you can charge your phone with the FirePit, the heat generated from the flames does not automatically recharge the FirePit’s battery pack, as with BioLite’s other stoves. So if you’re looking for a product that will let you cook food and charge devices in a natural disaster, the FirePit won’t be your first pick.

But if you want to quickly grill kabobs at a backyard or beachside gathering, the FirePit is as good at sparking conversation as it is flames.

Earth, Wind and Fire

With wildfires raging all over the western United States and ground fires forbidden in many locations, a portable fire pit is a very attractive option for summer car campers. The FirePit is particularly toteable, since it weighs less than 20 pounds, and is only 10 inches high with the retractable legs stowed. I can easily carry it with the side handles, and it also comes with a carry cover.

BioLite also cautions users to not set it up on a wood deck or dry grass. Nothing will ruin a backyard gathering faster than setting your house alight. I set my tester unit up on our slate backyard patio, charged the battery pack via micro USB (which took about four hours to go from 25 percent to 100 percent), and downloaded the BioLite app to my phone.

If you’ve ever used a charcoal grill, you’ll find the FirePit’s setup to be familiar. Air tubes run through the bottom of the unit, with a fuel rack in the inside. If you’re burning wood logs, set the fuel rack on the bottom, and if you’re cooking with charcoal, set the rack on the higher hooks.

If you choose to burn wood, the fuel rack can only accommodate 16-inch logs, and only up to four of them at that. Being able to adjust the airflow in the FirePit is a huge boon to getting a good fire started, but when working with so few logs, it does take a little skill.

I suggest keeping a hatchet and a few different types of kindling, like paper or small dry sticks, on hand. Not white gas or lighter fluid—the FirePit is not intended for use with any liquid fuel. If you’re trying to get a fire started, keeping the fan setting on low at first. The high setting is great for making the flames in a fire leap, but not for coaxing a bit of tinder to catch. The first time we used the FirePit, my spouse made the mistake of blasting the fragile sparks with air and just blew them all out.

Once you’re finished with flames for the evening, the FirePit is cools off really quickly and is easy to clean. I just took the fuel rack off the hooks and dumped the ash into our metal trash bin, then opened the sliding trap door to shake the rest of the ash out.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

The FirePit is not precisely smokeless, as BioLite claims. But it does do a much better job than our old fire pit of ventilating smoke, burning fuel more efficiently, and keeping stray embers contained. It was relaxing to sit around a fire without constantly circling around it to avoid smoke plumes. I also felt much better about having small children dashing madly around the patio.

It made cooking much easier, too. If you have a FirePit, you don’t need a separate grill, fire pit, and chimney firestarter. I used the FirePit for all three functions in the course of one evening. BioLite advises you to set the fuel rack higher up to cook over charcoal, but I didn’t like the idea of gingerly transferring it to the lower setting with a bunch of hot coals in the rack.

I set the fan to low and used kindling to start a fire with wood lumps in the lower rack setting. Once the charcoal started burning, I ramped up the air a little bit to get a little char on my chicken and veggie kabobs. The skewers fit perfectly across the grilling grate, and they finished cooking in a few minutes. After I was done, I just slid the cooking grate over, added a few logs to the hot coal base, and turned down the air.

The battery has a remarkably long life. Over a week of evening wood fires on low power, I only needed to charge it once. The app lets you know how long the battery life will be at each fan setting. At full charge, it has approximately 26 hours at low power, and at max power, about three. I grilled for an hour and had plenty of battery to last through the rest of the evening.

It’s a really big bummer that the FirePit can’t generate its own power from heat. BioLite’s other cooking stoves, the CampStove and the BaseCamp, have won devoted fans in both developing countries and in disaster-prone parts of the United States for being not only a great cooking tool, but a quick and highly efficient power source.

The FirePit does have an optional waterproof carry cover that also collects solar energy to recharge the battery. Just don’t count on it doing so particularly fast, since BioLite states that it will take 3-5 days in direct sun the cover to charge the FirePit entirely.

Finally, the FirePit might do too good a job at containing heat. We were all able to sit within a few feet of the FirePit and not feel any warmth. While that’s appreciated on a balmy summer evening, it means cold and rainy winter ones will probably be a lot less cozy. At least we can hike up the flames a little bit to cook s’mores.

Fire Fly

Going camping without a fire is like…well, it’s not like anything. Camping without a fire hardly seems like camping at all. Portable fire pits, like BioLite’s, are a great way to exercise your pyromanic tendencies while obeying campsite rules and protecting vulnerable areas from fire damage.

You won’t be able to show off your Bear Grylls skills with a Bluetooth-enabled fan gently nudging your flames up to cooking height. But you also won’t be spraying noxious flammable liquids everywhere, either, or smelling like smoke for days. That seems like a more-than-decent tradeoff to me.

Best Weekend Deals: SNES Classic, Apple Watch, Dell XPS

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The best things in life are free, but the next-best things are sometimes available at a steep discount. We’re pretty excited about the finds that we were able to pull together this week, with the help of our pals at TechBargains. The Nintendo Super NES Classic isn’t below its MSRP, but it’s such a rare treat to see them in stock. If tiny retro gaming consoles aren’t your bag, we also have ever-useful Apple AirPods and other discounted picks for you to peruse.

The Super NES Classic Is Back in Stock

For an entire generation, the Super NES was an introduction to the world of video games. It’s been almost impossible to get your hands on any of Nintendo’s mini-retro consoles and their lineup of iconic games. So click on this while you still can.Buy the SNES Classic for $80.

Gaming and TV Deals

Computer Deals, Apple Gear, and More

When you buy something using the retail links in our stories, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Read more about how this works.

Rare Footage Shows The Incredible Way Geese Protect Themselves From Hail

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So, why are the geese doing this? Likely, says Ross, it’s to protect their sensitive beaks from being damaged with a direct hit — an injury which could easily be life-threatening.

This behavior has been observed in other species by other researchers in the past, but the video above may offer even more insight into just how clever this group of geese is.

“A few individuals seem to be actually reacting to individual hailstones,” Ross told Live Science. “So not only are they looking up into the sky to reduce their profile, but perhaps when a hailstone was imminently going to hit them in the face, they dodge[d] it really quickly.”

While there’s still more to be studied about this behavior, there seems to be one obvious takeaway — it pays to look up.

Family Sees Giant Tangled Shark And Drops Everything To Help Her

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Joby Rohrer and his family were enjoying a day of diving off the coast of Lanai, Hawaii, when they spotted something that made them change their plans.

There, in the water not far from them, was a massive whale shark. Wrapped around her was a large rope, strangling her body.

What Rohrer didn’t know at the time was that, a few weeks earlier, this same animal had been spotted. Wildlife officials were urging the public to alert them if she was sighted again.

Woman Throws A Lavish Quinceañera For Her Rescue Chihuahua

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“Lupita is a rescue dog I found on the streets who was abused previously,” her owner, Miranda Sanchez, told The Dodo.

That was two years ago, and things since then have never been better. But recently Sanchez realized that there was an opportunity to celebrate her little pup in an extra special way — by throwing her a quinceañera party, and inviting all their pals.

Cops Get Call That Someone Strange Locked Himself Inside A Car

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The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office posted about the (unfortunately) not-too-unusual incident involving an opportunistic bear, hoping others take note.

“We’ve often warned that leaving your car unlocked makes it easier for thieves to steal items, but, as we’ve now seen twice this past week, it also makes it easier for bears to climb in and make themselves at home,” officials wrote online.

It was far from a clean getaway for this particular bear. After entering the car, he helped himself to some snacks the owner had left behind, accidentally closing the door behind him in the process. Unable to escape, he reportedly took a nap.

The responding officers needed to free him. As seen in this video, they used a rope to open the car’s door from a safe distance:

Pug Who Wanted To See The World Ends Up With A Stinky Job

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While little is known for certain about the pug, or why he ran away from his home in Escobedo, Mexico, we can only guess that the coziness of domestic life was too confining for his adventuresome spirit. This pup evidently wanted to see the world.

But he didn’t make it far — and the pup’s time as a carefree traveler was short-lived.

Turns out, a pair of local garbage collectors from Red Ambiental, a waste management service, spotted the dog out and about on his own and decided to “rescue” him. Since he wasn’t wearing a collar, they plopped him into the cab of their garbage truck and continued along their route as a trio.

And that’s how the liberty-seeking pug found himself here:

Random Herd Of Goats Shows Up, Takes Over Neighborhood

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It wasn’t long before local animal control officers showed up, but they soon learned they were going to need a much larger truck to gather this herd. They were simply outnumbered.

The fierce munching continued for nearly another hour, until the owner of the goats arrived with a trailer.

As it turns out, the animals are actually part of a land-clearing company called We Rent Goats, which brings in herds of goats to eat weeds or other overgrown areas. As shown by their clear passion for eating, they seem glad to oblige.

Curious Dog Accidentally Eats Weed Off Ground At Park

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Thankfully, the tiny dog will be just fine since she got medical treatment right away — but the situation could have been much worse given her size. Marijuana is toxic to dogs, and severe side effects from exposure can include tremors, seizures and even comas.

With the availability of marijuana increasing, whether medicinally or otherwise, cases of pet poisoning are also on the rise, says Lynn Buzhardt, DVM, of the Veterinary Centers of America.

“The idea of pets getting high on marijuana may seem comical, but it’s no laughing matter,” Buzhardt warns. “The bottom line when it comes to marijuana use and pets is: Be careful. Keep all forms of marijuana, medical or recreational, out of reach of your pet.”

Animals Keep Secretly Dying At This Mysterious Marine Park

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Marineland is a park that’s steeped in controversy — a young beluga has wasted away and died, and a walrus has appeared emaciated and sickly during performances. The ocean-themed amusement park, which is based in Ontario, Canada, has also been cited for numerous counts of animal cruelty for its mistreatment of land animals, including birds, bears, deer and bison. And now, animal welfare advocates have even more to worry about.

Over the past 12 months, several animals have died, including a beluga and a walrus, according to Phil Demers, a former senior marine mammal trainer at Marineland — yet the park hasn’t uttered a word about these deaths.

No One Wanted This Dog Because Of His Funny Teeth — Except One Family

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In 2016, Tessie Johnson and her family went to KC Pet Project, a shelter in Kansas City, Missouri, to adopt a dog. Their eyes immediately fell on a 4-month-old Rottweiler puppy with a pronounced underbite, who’d been picked up as a stray.

“He was the cutest thing ever,” Johnson told The Dodo. “They were saying that normally it’s easy to have puppies adopted because everyone loves puppies. But because of his teeth, a lot of people were turned off by him. And because he’s a Rottie, people also weren’t interested.”

Piglet Who Saved Himself Was So Scared — Until This Woman Hugged Him

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The woman, a local resident named Rhonda, took him to a vet right away to get him help. She knew the little guy had so much more life left, so she contacted Erin Brinkley-Burgardt, founder of Hog Haven Farm, a pig rescue and sanctuary based in Colorado.

“He had a broken jaw, so Rhonda cared for him for about three weeks to help [him] heal,” Brinkley-Burgardt told The Dodo. “Then, on July 26, we met halfway so I could bring him back to the sanctuary.”

The bruised little piglet had come a long way in three weeks, and Brinkley-Burgardt was so excited to finally meet him. Traveling to a new place, though, was scary for him.