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Donald Trump is hawking tokens for a crypto project he still hasn’t explained

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

After a disclaimer that nothing we’d hear tonight is financial or legal advice, followed by a 40-minute interview with former President Donald Trump — which touched on the apparent attempt on his life at a Florida golf course, the border, the “evil forces” conspiring against him, and his granddaughter’s foreign language skills — and subsequent conversations with Trump’s sons and associates, the X Space dedicated to announcing Trump’s “crypto platform” more or less got to the point.

The goal of World Liberty Financial, Trump’s new decentralized finance project, is to drive “the mass adoption of stablecoins and decentralized finance,” according to a statement posted on its X account earlier this month. But over the course of the lengthy...

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JD Vance doesn’t care that his viral story about Haitian migrants is false

Graphic photo collage of J. D. Vance.
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

JD Vance almost gave the game away. In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, the Republican vice presidential candidate came close to acknowledging that rumors about Haitian migrants eating cats in Springfield, Ohio, are completely fabricated — and then backtracked, saying the rumors are true after all.

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” Vance said. When Bash asked him to clarify whether he created the story, Vance made an about-face, claiming he had heard “firsthand accounts” from his constituents. “I say that we’re creating a story meaning that we’re creating the American media focusing on it,” Vance...

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TikTok is about to get its day in court

Photo collage of the TikTok logo over a photograph of the US Capitol building.
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images

Next week, a court will hear arguments about whether the US government can ban TikTok, based on evidence it doesn’t want anyone — including the social media company — to see.

On September 16th, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hear oral arguments for TikTok v. Garland, TikTok’s First Amendment challenge to legislation that it claims amounts to a ban. It’s a fight not just about free speech but whether the Department of Justice can make a case using classified material that its opponent can’t review or argue against. The government argues TikTok is a clear national security threat but says that revealing why would be a threat, too.

“I think the courts are going to tread very carefully here,” Matt Schettenhelm, a...

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Right-wingers can’t get enough of anti-Haitian AI disinformation

Digital collage of snakes slithering out of a megaphone with a glitchy filter.
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Image

Right-wing media figures and influencers have descended on Springfield, Ohio, hunting for anything that can help them prove the veracity of a viral racist rumor about Haitian migrants in the community — and relying on misleading, occasionally AI-generated content to help them prove their point. Springfield, which has seen its Haitian population grow by an estimated 15,000 people, has become a sort of shorthand for conservatives’ fears about immigration and demographic change.

One of the most recent examples comes from Tyler Oliveira, a YouTuber and MrBeast associate, who posted a misleading video about Springfield on Wednesday. Oliveira’s video intersperses interviews with locals — including some Haitians — with...

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