What Does THE WALKING DEAD’s Netflix and AMC Deal Mean for Its Future?
- Netflix and AMC Global inked a $500 million dollar deal for extended streaming rights to The Walking Dead, so what does that mean for its future?
Sixteen years after The Walking Dead made its debut on AMC, this franchise is still pressing forward. With its flagship show spanning eleven seasons and six spinoffs—including Daryl Dixon, The Ones Who Live, and Dead City—there are still a lot of fans who are deeply invested in this apocalyptic universe. For years, newcomers to the original show have joined the Dead Family by watching it on Netflix.
Meanwhile, the other shows have primarily stuck to streaming on AMC+. Now, according to Deadline, Netflix has inked a $500 million dollar deal for co-exclusive streaming rights to The Walking Dead with AMC Global, and the show will come to AMC+ in 2027. What does this mean for the future of the franchise? We have some thoughts.
Gene Page/AMC
The Walking Dead Expands Its Netflix Streaming Reach and Heads to AMC+ in 2027
First, a little more about what this massive deal means. All 371 episodes of the original series and the spinoffs will stream on Netflix in several countries, including the UK, Italy, Australia., New Zealand and other new territories, as well as the US, where it has been since 2011. This deal lasts for five years, taking us through 2031. Twenty years of a show that’s not a Netflix original streaming there is very mind boggling and speaks to the power of The Walking Dead.
“Audiences have discovered and loved The Walking Dead on Netflix for nearly 15 years and the show continues to attract new fans,” said Lori Conkling, Vice President of Licensing at Netflix. “We’re excited to partner with AMC Global Media to continue to expand that access to more audiences around the world and bring the entirety of The Walking Dead Universe to Netflix.”
Sure, there are a lot of fans who are no longer as immersed in its world, especially with Rick Grimes no longer on screen. But we get the feeling that won’t last for long, and that TWD maestro Scott Gimple really does have something up his sleeves in the near future.
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The Entire Timeline of THE WALKING DEAD and Its Spinoffs, Explained Does The Walking Dead‘s 5-Year Netflix and AMC+ Streaming Deal Hint at a Crossover and More Spinoffs?For the past few years, there has been ongoing speculation and chatter that there will be a The Walking Dead crossover event that brings original characters back together for one last round. Fans finally got to see Rick meet his son and reunite with his wife Michonne and daughter Judith in The Ones Who Live. But, he has yet to reconnect with his old friends Daryl, Carol, and Maggie. (Let’s safely assume he does not care about Negan.) And, we cannot forget that Morgan’s last moments in Fear the Walking Dead was to go to look for Rick with his daughter Mo.
A crossover event could be the right thing to bring fans back into the fold who left long ago. Andrew Lincoln hinted at ongoing conversations about what could happen next for Rick Grimes. And Gimple himself previously hinted that there could be more room to tell stories with foundational characters. “Anything is possible…,” he said to Deadline. “We’re focused on this one right now. But this one came together in a really amazing way, where there were all sorts of plans. And then the world changed and we altered those plans.”
Additionally, Gimple also said that he did have dreams of merging the spinoffs together. “I do have dreams of merging this all together, and I have laid little breadcrumbs toward that, but you never know exactly when and how [it will come together], because of a variety of reasons,” he told TVLine.
AMC Networks
Timelines, New Fans, and Potential New Walking Dead Content
That interview was two years ago and we are seemingly coming to the finish line for Dead City, which is currently airing its third season and initially had a planned four season arc (a season that has yet to be confirmed). Timeline wise, that show is running ahead of Daryl Dixon but with this universe’s tendency to do time jumps, it will not be too hard to bring things back in alignment in Daryl Dixon’s fourth and final season, which airs in 2027. As that show confirms, there are many threats out there that could descend upon Virginia and cause them to come together Avengers style.
Bringing The Walking Dead to AMC+ and extending its time on Netflix with this $500 million dollar deal seems to hint at more to come from this franchise. It gives fans new and old more avenues to watch everything in this universe to prepare for what’s next, much like we do with Marvel.
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FEAR THE WALKING DEAD’s Morgan Jones Leaves the Show and Heads Back to AlexandriaCrossover thoughts aside, there’s always room for new anthologies in the vein of Tales of the Walking Dead, an animated series, or another live-action limited series or film that takes us to another part of the world. The deal for now is for the current and previous spinoffs, but it is not impossible that there’s room in that agreement for future shows, too. No matter what, a massive streaming deal to have The Walking Dead on Netflix and AMC+ suggests that all the walkers aren’t quite ready to be put down yet.
The post What Does THE WALKING DEAD’s Netflix and AMC Deal Mean for Its Future? appeared first on Nerdist.
‘Head for an eye’: Trump team has no plan to end Iran war
Ignoring the fact that Americans are increasingly fed up with President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, the administration admitted that there’s still no plan to end it. On Thursday, State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigot told Fox News that there seems to be very little that the United States can do as foreign entities join the war in support of Iran. “We continue to issue sanctions…
Unreal effects
A cartoon by Drew Sheneman. Related | Mitch McConnell swears he’s alive—but not well enough to work…
FIFA Hit With Brutal Boycott Over Plans to Sell Pieces of World Cup
The Union of European Football Associations, or UEFA, is pulling out of future World Cups over FIFA’s plan to sell shares to the highest bidder, including members of President Donald Trump’s inner circle.
UEFA announced Thursday that the organization of 55 national associations “will not participate in FIFA competitions” going forward. The decision comes shortly after FIFA President Gianni Infantino threatened to cut funding from teams that don’t get behind his moneymaking scheme.
“We unanimously and unequivocally reject FIFA’s proposal to transfer ownership interests in the World Cup and other FIFA competitions to private investors,” the statement said.
Last week, FIFA announced the creation of the FIFA Forward Enterprise, or FFE, which is expected to raise up to $4.2 million in the next year by “carefully selecting long-term investors who will purchase minority, non-controlling interests in FFE.”
Critics immediately decried the decision to sell stakes in the World Cup, which is managed by FIFA, a nonprofit organization. The move could potentially earn Infantino tens of millions of dollars.
“This model has no place in the world of football,” UEFA said in its statement. The group said it would continue to boycott so long as Infantino’s proposal “stayed alive.”
Infantino reportedly held investor discussions with members of the Trump administration. The move came amid mounting concerns over Infantino’s relationship with Trump, after the U.S. president openly bullied FIFA into lifting a red card against a player on the U.S. men’s soccer team.
In addition, FIFA reportedly stated that once the approval was granted, the investor group would be led by Thrive Eternal, a venture capital firm run by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared who is under investigation for alleged corruption.
Republicans Kill Attempt to Stop Trump’s Corrupt IRS Immunity Deal
Republicans apparently have no problem with President Trump protecting himself and his family from any tax investigations ever again.
On Thursday, the Senate Finance Committee voted down an amendment to a tax procedure bill that would have prevented the IRS from making any tax audit immunity deals with a sitting president, their family, or any connected entities. It also would have effectively killed Trump’s IRS audit immunity deal and required the Treasury Department to report any related agreements to Congress.
Every Republican on the committee voted against the amendment, including Senators Bill Cassidy and John Cornyn, who will be leaving the Senate at the end of this year after being defeated in GOP primaries by Trump-backed challengers.
Cornyn and Cassidy have vocally opposed Trump’s settlement deal with the IRS, which not only would give the president, his family, and his businesses protection from audits from the IRS, but also calls for the creation of a nearly $1.8 billion slush fund for anyone who claims to have been victimized by “political weaponization” from the federal government. Cornyn in particular has vowed to vote against Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general until he gets a written agreement that the slush fund is dead and the IRS audit immunity deal is narrowed in scope (so as not to apply to future filings).
But their opposition to the settlement seems to end at actually taking any legislative action against it.
The amendment vote was forced by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, the ranking member on the committee, and was supported by every Democrat on the committee. The amendment failed by a 14–13 vote.
“Our office has received more than 7000 messages from constituents expressing their opposition and anger,” Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell told Bloomberg Law. “We need to make clear to those law-abiding citizens that the well-connected are not above the law and they don’t get a free pass when it comes to compliance with our tax laws.”
Other Republicans on the committee claimed that approving the amendment would have doomed the bipartisan bill altogether. It’s a package of changes to tax procedures, including collections, processes, and administration. Republican Senator Mike Crapo, the committee’s chair, said “this is not the place” to resolve the settlement.
“If this bill were to become the vehicle where this issue is resolved, it would achieve basically making this bill a partisan bill,” and that “would turn this bill into a bill that has a much dimmer future for becoming law,” Crapo said. He and his fellow Republicans haven’t offered any other solutions to Trump’s unprecedented and outrageous IRS settlement, though.
Democrats Call For Ethics Investigation into Congressman Max Miller
Several Democratic members of Congress are requesting the House Ethics Committee investigate their colleague, Congressman Max Miller (R-OH), over allegations that he assaulted his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, and possibly injured their child.
“The recent reports of domestic violence and child abuse against Representative Max Miller are deeply disturbing, and Congress can’t ignore them. Allegations of violence against women and children have to be met with the utmost seriousness. We therefore call on the House Committee on Ethics to swiftly and thoroughly investigate these allegations,” said a statement by the 96-member Democratic Women’s Caucus chairwoman Leger Fernandez (D-NM), and vice chairs Hillary Scholten (D-MI) and Emilia Sykes (D-OH).
Their calls for a formal probe into the embattled Congressman follow the publication of a July 18 profile in Mother Jones that drew from thousands of pages of public records alleging numerous episodes of misconduct. As I wrote in the story:
The summary of the Zoom meeting and investigative report are among more than 2,000 pages of court filings and police reports pertaining to Miller that Mother Jones obtained through public records requests. The trove of documents contains allegations of drug use by Miller, misogyny and verbal abuse, and violent behavior against multiple women. The filings also include evidence that Miller implicitly threatened his ex-father-in-law, Sen. Bernie Moreno.
Some of the allegations were documented in a police report regarding an investigation into potential child abuse after Miller’s daughter wound up with a broken collarbone.
Neither the child’s father, Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), nor mother, conservative policy adviser Emily Moreno, admitted to knowing what caused their daughter’s injury or that it occurred while their daughter was under their care. Miller’s primary theory was that the bruising resembled marks from a seat belt. Moreno, who discovered the bruises and took the child to an emergency room, suggested the cause may have been something more sinister. Records of the investigation into potential child abuse show that Moreno told detectives that Miller had previously thrown hot water at her, shoved her, and held a gun to her head; therefore, she couldn’t rule out that Miller caused their daughter’s fracture. Moreover, a child protection specialist reviewing the incident had characterized the bruising near the fracture as resembling a “handprint.”
The police investigation into possible child abuse was ultimately “unsubstantiated.” That means there was not enough evidence to support a finding of neglect or abuse.
Though Miller repeatedly declined to answer questions from Mother Jones, he has elsewhere denied ever being violent towards women.
“Every woman and child deserves to live free from fear of violence, especially within the sanctity of their own home, and we will not stop fighting until that’s the reality,” wrote the leaders of the Democratic Women’s Caucus in a statement first provided to Mother Jones.
The caucus was joined in calling for the investigation by several lawmakers. Rep. Sam Liccardo, a California Democrat, wrote on X Wednesday, “Allegations that Max Miller abused his wife and child demand an immediate House Ethics Committee investigation. Congress must never serve as a safe harbor for abusers.”
He was joined by Rep. Gwen Moore, a Wisconsin Democrat who has previously spoken about surviving domestic violence, told Mother Jones, “The domestic abuse allegations against my colleague, Rep. Max Miller, are disturbing.” She added, “I am especially concerned about the claims of abuse against his 2-year-old daughter whose collarbone was broken. Every child deserves to feel safe in their home, and that is the responsibility of all investigative authorities involved.”
No Republican members of Congress have yet called for an investigation into Miller—including Miller’s former father-in-law, Sen. Bernie Moreno.
Meet Marnûkh: RINGS OF POWER Showrunners Talk Orc with an Arc
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season three’s showrunners and cast explained new character Marnûkh, an orc with an arc.
If there was one character that was close to my heart in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power‘s first two seasons, it was that of the Orc (Uruk) Father, Adar. Adar knew that every one of his children “has a name, a heart… Are creations of the One, Master of the Secret Fire, the same as you. As worthy of the breath of life, and just as worthy of a home.” And although his execution lacked a little bit to be desired, Adar’s aim to create a life for his orc children, one where they could thrive and be seen as just as important as any other race, was a truly noble one. Alas, Sauron, the Great Deceiver, turned Adar’s softest parts against him, convincing his children to slay their own father. “They are not children anymore,” Sauron told Adar as he lay dying. But is that so? Are the orcs now definitively orcs, or are they Uruk? For me, it has been a central question of The Rings of Power. And now, a new “orc with an arc” has come to the forefront of the narrative, ready to test the question of nature vs. nurture one more time. At SDCC, I spoke with The Rings of Power‘s showrunners and cast about Marnûkh, the latest and greatest hope for Uruk Nation. Here’s what I learned about his new orc with an arc.
Prime Video
At The Rings of Power season three’s San Diego Comic-Con panel, it was revealed that Marnûkh, played by Adam Young, “claims that he has turned his back against Sauron and he wants to now help the elves defeat the Dark Lord. But can you trust an orc?” That is THE quandary. And it’s not an easy one to come to a conclusion on, share The Rings of Power showrunners, J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, when I ask after Marnûkh in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season three.
And it turns out Marnûkh, himself, doesn’t make it any easier. Payne revealed more about the orc with and arc in The Rings of Power, “Marnûkh and [actor]Adam Young bring such a wonderful quality to this orc character, where part of you thinks, ‘Oh, he’s sort of sweet and funny, and there’s something sensitive to him.’ And even dare I say, poetic and soulful about him. But then, also, he’s constantly sort of undercutting things, and there’s part of him that’s gross and frightening. And so he constantly keeps everyone guessing.” Listen, who among us isn’t sometimes sweet and funny and sometimes gross and frightening? It sounds to us like Marnûkh is just a multi-faceted character trying his best to be more than what fate has decided for him on The Rings of Power season three.
Prime Video
But what will Marnûkh’s relationships with the other characters in his orc-arc, Galadriel and Arondir, look like this season on The Rings of Power. Payne notes of Galadriel meeting Marnûkh, “It puts Galadriel in a really interesting place, because as we’ve seen in previous seasons, she despises the orcs and she’s fought against them for years and years and years because they’ve taken everything from her that she loves. But now in this season, she’s in a position where she has to decide if she can trust an orc or not.”
Of course, Galadriel went on something of a journey with Adar in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season two. And though she doesn’t ever quite apologize for slaying many of his children on her quest for vengeance, she does appear to come around to the idea that orcs/Uruk may have a purpose for existing beyond just evil, and potentially a heart worth saving, by the end of The Rings of Power season two. But does she remember those times with Adar after so many years of war against Sauron and the Orcs?
Prime Video
McKay laughs when I ask that very question, “Well, I think Marnûkh is hoping she does.” When I follow up wondering if Marnûkh remembers Adar, I don’t receive a clear answer. So we’ll have to wait and see.
Of course, Galadriel isn’t the only elf that Marnûkh will have to win over in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season three. The trio becomes complete with Arondir. At the SDCC panel, Arondir’s actor, Ismael Cruz Córdova, shared about Arondir and Marnûkh, “We have this relationship, this odd couple relationship, we don’t trust each other, we don’t like each other. He stinks.” But despite everything, Cruz Córdova shares with me that Arondir wants to trust the orcs.
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The Orcs, The Ents, and the Question of Peace on THE RINGS OF POWERCruz Córdova reveals, “I think Arondir has been surrounded by darkness from minute 1, second 27, of the first episode of The Rings of Power. And he hasn’t been able to really have a lot of redemption from that. And I think that experience of leaning into that darkness and being curious about that darkness is at the core of who he is. That deep curiosity of ‘What’s at the other side, what is my purpose? Who are the ones that I can trust?’ But also, I think he wrestles with not liking orcs because I think he sees them… I think he sees them as one of his own. I think he sees orcs as victims. I think his vendetta with Adar was because I respected him in a certain way. And then he still turned around and killed the love of my life. So I think it’s a very emotional knee-jerk reaction and it’s understandable, but I don’t think he’s completely has given himself to that darkness.”
Prime Video
We’ve said it once, and we’ll say it again: Arondir is the most elfy elf of all. And his ability to see beyond the hard lines drawn in the sand to the common origin of orcs and elves, and the way the orcs could not help but become what they were, is truly so beautiful. For Arondir and Marnûkh, this understanding could be a key to both their healing, if they can find a way to fully trust one another. Cruz Córdova concludes, “There’s a softness and openness and different colors that we placed in this story this time around.”
Whatever happens between Marnûkh, Arondir, and Galadriel, we know this is one The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season three storyline that we’ll be seated for.
The Rings of Power season three premieres on Prime Video on November 11. The full release schedule can be found here.
The post Meet Marnûkh: RINGS OF POWER Showrunners Talk Orc with an Arc appeared first on Nerdist.
Okta buys AI security startup Permiso; source says for about $200M
Elon Musk Comes Running Back to Help Trump With Midterms
Elon Musk is planning to revive his shady America PAC to help out President Donald Trump’s party in the midterm elections.
Despite the billionaire technocrat’s pledge last year to stay out of politics, his America PAC is planning to direct its efforts toward door-knocking, direct mail, and digital advertising, sources told Axios Wednesday.
“America PAC was an essential partner for our historic GOTV operation in 2024, and their return for 2026 is a huge boost for Republicans across the country,” James Blair, Trump’s senior political advisor told Axios.
“We will again outsmart our opponents and ruthlessly execute our mission for the GOP between now and Election Day,” he added.
The news of Musk’s return to politics came alongside reports that his company SpaceX had landed a $1.6 billion military contract.
It’s not clear how much Musk plans to spend, but given the $288 million he personally poured into Trump’s reelection effort, the number is expected to be high.
America PAC has a history of using shady means to drum up the conservative vote.
During the 2024 presidential election, America PAC launched a series of digital ads using the image of Trump’s assassination to invite people browsing Google to “register to vote.” In key battleground states, users were directed to a very different page, prompting them to enter their phone number, address, and age. Once complete, users were then greeted by a “Thank You” page, with no actual link to voter registration in sight.
The information collected from user responses to this ad campaign informed the PAC’s canvassing efforts in those states. So, in effect, collecting private data that went right back to the Trump campaign.
Musk also waded into murky legal waters with his direct mail scheme. In Georgia, residents received partially pre-filled absentee ballot applications from Musk’s America PAC, in violation of state law. Members of the Georgia State Elections Board voted to issue a formal letter of reprimand to Musk’s America PAC—but it seems that nothing happened after that.
And Musk’s door-to-door efforts weren’t exactly a breeze. Canvassers reported that the app they used was buggy, and some even exploited its technical issues to fake door knocks. Other canvassers said they were tricked and threatened as part of Musk’s get-out-the-vote efforts.
If Musk’s America PAC is really coming out of dormancy, then Americans can expect even more misleading ads, illegal mailers, and chaotic canvassing efforts.
Will Gavin Newsom Choose Billionaires Over People?
It’s been a while since I wrote about California Forever, the billionaire-funded effort to build a new 400,000-person “tech utopia” city in rural Solano County. The project is aligned with the Network State, a Silicon Valley movement that seeks to build new billionaire-owned cities all over the world.
California Forever was supposed to seek voter approval via a ballot measure in 2024, but it abandoned the plan after polls showed it headed for massive defeat. One poll showed 70% of voters opposed to the project, including both Democrats and Republicans.
But that wasn’t the end of the project. As the ballot effort flopped, I predicted that California Forever would try to bypass local voters and get the state government to impose the project against the will of the people.
“They could dream up some convoluted scheme to try to use the courts or state power to force Solano County to allow them to build their tech dystopia,” I wrote in April 2024.
That is exactly what’s happening, and the project appears to have a powerful new champion: Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“Gov. Gavin Newsom has been quietly whipping support for California’s billionaire-backed megacity as it faces the loss of a key tenant,” reports the New York Post. “While staying publicly mum on the controversial megaproject, Newsom privately met with California Forever's CEO this spring before launching a behind the scenes push to win support for the project during his final months in office—with his staff even telling lawmakers the project may be a matter of national security.”
The Post reports that Newsom is convening a high-level meeting today in Sacramento to push for the project.
Newsom’s support is not exactly a surprise. Early on, California Forever hired some of his top political consultants. Politico called it “California Forever's A-Team.” But no amount of Sacramento consulting savvy could turn this project into something that could win voter approval. So here comes Plan B: get the governor and the state legislature to impose California Forever on the people of Solano County.
The gambit could work. California Forever has retained Axiom Advisors, the lobbying firm co-founded by Jason Kinney, one of Newsom’s closest friends.
Remember when Newsom created a scandal during the COVID lockdown by attending a dinner at the French Laundry restaurant in Napa County? That was Kinney’s birthday party. The billionaires have also hired two former legislative leaders to advocate for their utopia and lined up support from construction unions.
The strategy is paying off. For months, rumors have swirled that California Forever was seeking support from Newsom’s office. Last week, Newsom’s Office of Business and Economic Development appeared to confirm those rumors by publishing a memo in support of the project.
“GO-Biz believes this is a moment for California to double down on the economy of the future—and to show the country and the world that we remain open for business,” the memo said. “The path forward will require collaboration among state and local government, labor, business, community organizations, and private investors. This memo is meant to frame that conversation—not to prescribe a specific path or outcome.”
Newsom himself has avoided publicly endorsing the project, but the memo says it all. Having worked for a previous California governor, I can say with certainty that the GO-Biz memo states the governor’s position.
California Forever is desperate. A group of tech billionaires spent $900 million to quietly buy up nearly 60,000 acres of land under the leadership of Jan Sramek, a former Goldman Sachs trader from the Czech Republic with no experience building cities. One way or another, they need their city built—regardless of what voters think. A 2024 Vanity Fair profile of Sramek described him as an Ayn Rand enthusiast who, as a young man, was fond of saying: “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”
The project has cycled through multiple identities since 2024, including a bid to rebrand itself as essential to national security. For the past year, California Forever has touted the possibility of a new shipbuilding facility, but that deal went to Texas. Unable to win voter support, the project has instead worked to cut annexation deals with individual cities in Solano County.
Now it’s trying a Hail Mary: get Newsom, a lame-duck governor eyeing the White House, to secure the deal before he leaves office. It’s not clear he can pull it off.
“I'm not sure he has the ability to turn the screws to pass special legislation,” political consultant Matt Rexroad told the Post. “The governor has a lot less juice than he did five years ago for something like this.”
Still, it’s clear he’ll try. But siding with the billionaires over the voters also carries risk for Newsom, who hopes to be the Democratic nominee for president in 2028.
In my first New Republic piece on the Network State movement, I wrote:
The people of Solano County are fighting a billionaire land grab that they fear will bring traffic headaches and pollution. Without knowing it, they may also be on the front lines of a battle over whether tech plutocrats can buy enough power to radically transform the political map by yanking democracy right out from under their feet and replacing it with a dystopia of their own design.The moment of truth has arrived. Newsom has chosen a side, and it may come back to haunt him.
Weird Billionaire CitiesWhy are tech billionaires suddenly trying to build new cities everywhere? From Gaza to Greenland to Honduras to California, the globe is awash in Silicon Valley schemes to build new tech-owned territories. My forthcoming book, The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy, exposes the deeper story of the California Forever project.
Click this link to pre-order. Coming Aug. 18! Use this link to support both independent bookstores and this newsletter.
Tesla made its 10 millionth EV
Another day, another Trump desecration of DC
President Donald Trump’s appetite to put his gross mark on Washington, D.C., simply knows no bounds, and it’s getting exhausting. You’d think a guy who is dealing with a war he started on a whim and cannot extricate himself from, a guy who can’t stay awake, a guy presiding over an ever-deepening affordability crisis, would maybe be a bit too busy to fuss around with wrecking another D.C.
When will fusion power startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems go public?
State Department Map Labels Every African Country Wrong at Conference
The State Department is having some trouble identifying states.
At the annual International AIDS Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this week, the U.S. State Department unveiled a map of the African continent with every single country mislabeled. Nigeria drifted into the Sahara Desert, landlocked and lost; Mozambique was relocated to the eastern Horn of Africa; and the Ivory Coast, somehow, found itself nowhere near a coast. The map also included a country with no name, while Cameroon, dutifully included in the list of countries, got no real estate on the map at all.
The map was revealed about halfway through a presentation about the State Department’s new international health agreements. It was supposed to depict opportunities for Annual Program Statements by country in Africa, as part of the implementation process for remaining AIDS prevention programming after President Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency dismantled USAID last year. According to an analysis by Reuters, the map contained an artificial intelligence watermark which identified it as made by OpenAI.
Presentation attendees—including high-level officials representing several of the mislabeled countries—took screenshots of the map and posted them online. Photos posted by journalist and AIDS expert Emily Bass were shared across LinkedIn, with one post garnering about 40,000 views, Reuters reports.
“The U.S. government’s failure to catch this error before displaying the slide at the top international AIDS conference in the world, in a session that featured the Director General of Nigeria as an invited guest, is not only disrespectful to African collaborators, it’s also a significant tell,” Bass wrote on Substack. “As this session made clear in so many ways, the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy is redrawing the map and rewriting history.”
Matt Petit, who focuses on geopolitics and AI at the Atlantic Council, called the map “beyond embarrassing” in a post on LinkedIn. “Whoever created and approved this slide did not know where countries in Africa are and did not care to check their work.”
In a statement following the presentation, the State Department claimed “full responsibility for the confusion and misrepresentation it caused for attendees, including our African partners.” It went on to blame a staff member for hastily changing the slide deck before the session began. Despite the embarrassing moment, the department said it remains “committed to fighting AIDS.”
Maybe a map that can’t identify a single African country says more about America’s AIDS diplomacy than a briefing ever could.
Meta says AI is making it easier to build new apps — and more are coming
STREET FIGHTER’s Ryu Vs. Blanka Teaser Is Electrifying
- A new special look teaser for Street Fighter shows Ryu vs. Blanka, and it is quite the electrifying fighting scene.
The World Warrior Tournament will dominate the big screen when Street Fighter hits theaters this October. The Paramount Pictures and Legendary film will bring the infamous video game to live-action. Its cast is stacked, with stars like Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson III, Noah Centineo, Eric Andre, David Dastmalchian, Andrew Koji, and Jason Momoa. Speaking of the latter two, who play Ryu and Blanka, respectively, there’s a new special look at Street Fighter that shows them in a tense fighting scene.
In it, guards drag Ryu into the center of a room with incarcerated men caged and screaming all around them. Bison speaks to Ryu, saying he knows what he’s capable of… and so do we. It appears that he’s going to fight three men in chains, but all of them are soon dispatched by none other than Blanka.
This green and beastly guy does his signature moves, like sending an electric current to shock someone, and Ryu says he does not wish to fight him. Blanka is not trying to hear that and Ryu counteracts with the Hadouken, placing his palms in front of him to send a ball of ki towards Blanka. This Street Fighter Blanka vs. Ryu special look is electrifying, indeed.
Here’s the synopsis for Street Fighter:
Set in 1993, estranged Street Fighters Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) are thrown back into combat when the mysterious Chun-Li (Callina Liang) recruits them for the next World Warrior Tournament: a brutal clash of fists, fate, and fury. But behind this battle royale lies a deadly conspiracy that forces them to face off against each other and the demons of their past. And if they don’t, it’s GAME OVER!
Paramount Pictures/Legendary
Get ready to put your quarter (well, dollars or credit card) up, because Street Fighter will bring the battle to theaters on October 16.
Editor’s note: Nerdist is a subsidiary of Legendary Digital Networks
The post STREET FIGHTER’s Ryu Vs. Blanka Teaser Is Electrifying appeared first on Nerdist.
Why Epstein Survivors Aren’t Impressed With Blanche’s Olive Branch
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Inside Washington
Epstein survivors ask senators to vote “no” on Blanche
Republican holdouts on Todd Blanche’s confirmation to the position of attorney general are mostly focused on stopping Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund for alleged victims of government overreach. But survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein are fighting against Blanche for an entirely different reason.
“My message would be that if you have a daughter, or you have a son, or you have grandchildren, put them first because Todd Blanche isn’t gonna put them first. He puts himself and the president first. That’s it,” Sharlene Rochard, a survivor of Epstein’s sex trafficking, said about senators who will vote for Blanche’s nomination.
Survivors have heavily criticized Blanche’s handling of the Justice Department’s Epstein investigation—in particular, releasing files that included the names of Epstein’s victims, not investigating and prosecuting perpetrators, and giving preferential treatment to Epstein’s collaborator, Ghislaine Maxwell, they say. On Wednesday, survivors and advocates railed against Blanche’s nomination at the launch event for the “Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile,” a mobile exhibit of the Epstein files created by Defiance.org and the Institute for Primary Facts. The bookmobile is intended to bring the Epstein files to voters, particularly those in red states, as it travels across the country. After the morning event, the group decamped to Capitol Hill and went office to office to hand out copies of the Epstein files to senators.
The Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to vote on Blanche Thursday morning, but Republican committee Chair Chuck Grassley announced at the end of the day Wednesday that it would be postponed. Blanche has a razor-thin margin; just one “no” vote would sink his nomination. GOP Senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn, the main holdouts on Blanche, have said they’re more concerned about his position on President Trump’s $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” than on his attitude toward the Epstein files.
“I’m focused on other issues,” Cornyn said Wednesday when I asked if he had a message for the Epstein survivors. “It’s a terrible tragedy, but that’s between them and the attorney general.”
Cornyn and Tillis have asked to see Blanche confirm, in writing, that the slush fund is dead in the water. Without that written confirmation, Cornyn said Wednesday, he is “not prepared to vote ‘yes.’”
Some Democrats are optimistic that their Republican colleagues’ opposition could end Blanche’s chance to be attorney general. “But I’ve seen this movie before,” Senator Richard Blumenthal told me. “I have no great optimism that they will act to do the right thing.” Senator Ron Wyden, at least publicly, was more hopeful. “We think we’ve got a real shot at winning,” he said after the bookmobile launch, at which he spoke. “I think [Republicans] are really rattled. They ought to be!”
When asked about the Epstein survivors’ opposition to Blanche, Tillis tried to paint a positive picture: “I just talked to some of the Epstein survivors,” he said. Alongside Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, Tillis had pushed for Blanche to meet with survivors, which Blanche then did on July 16. “Keep in mind: Blanche is the first person, official, senior official from the DOJ since 2007 that’s met with them. That’s something to build on.”
Jena-Lisa Jones, who grew up in Palm Beach County, Florida, and was abused by Epstein when she was 14 years old, wasn’t impressed by the meeting. “He asked to speak to the survivors, and it was a very last-minute thing, which I think was to cover his own—pardon my French—ass,” she said. “I think it was a waste of our time and, unfortunately, a joke.”
Rochard, for her part, had no interest in attending the meeting with Blanche. “The reason I chose not to go is because it felt forced,” she said, as though Blanche just wanted “to check a box.” She also pointed out that the meeting was just one hour long, while last year, as deputy attorney general, Blanche spent nine hours over two days with Maxwell, Epstein’s accomplice and convicted sex offender. Shortly after that meeting, Maxwell was transferred to a minimum security prison.
As for Cornyn and Tillis, Jones told me: “We hope that they stand with us and vote ‘no,’ but the way things have played out and how our government runs, anything can happen.”
—Emma Janssen
Outside Washington
About those gas stoves …
Remember the gas stove war of 2023? Studies had been steadily emerging for years showing that gas stoves were leaking harmful substances into homes, and in January of that year, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s Richard Trumka Jr. told Bloomberg that the government could potentially regulate the devices. Conservatives immediately lost it, falsely claimed the Biden administration was going to “ban all gas ovens,” and started tweeting out “Don’t Tread on Me” and gun rights memes with stove images subbed in.
Now, an update on all that: The Washington Post on Wednesday reported the striking results from a pioneering study led by a Case Western professor: Replacing the gas stoves of people suffering from asthma quickly reduced the number of asthma attacks. The finding comes after the Trump administration canceled the study’s $18 million grant, torpedoing the intended sample size: Researchers could only replace 85 stoves instead of the intended 1,200. Nevertheless, the Post’s Jake Spring reports, “removing the gas stoves relieved the participants’ asthma so much that the results were clear even with only 85 of them, according to two scientists who reviewed the methodology but were not involved in the study.”
The gas stove culture wars are far from over. Last month, a conservative group succeeded in getting a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a “right to natural gas” on the ballot in Colorado—voters will decide on that in November. (Also notable: Back in 2023, 29 House Democrats joined Republicans in a bit of political theater, passing a bill to block a federal gas stove ban that was not in fact being proposed.)
Elsewhere:
- The incident revealed last week, in which OpenAI’s large language model “agent” broke out of its “sandbox” to hack a random company, was worse than initially reported: The agent actually targeted four other companies, too.
- Across the country, budget shortages, driver shortages, and declining public school enrollment are threatening the iconic yellow school bus, The Guardian’s Eric Berger reports. Related, in case you missed it: The Washington Post’s report last week on the rising number of public school closures in recent years.
—Heather Souvaine Horn
The Ideas Factory
KFF finds Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) enrollment numbers down after “several years of rapid enrollment growth.” The likely culprit: expiring subsidies, which dramatically raised people’s premiums. The GOP decided in late 2025 to let the subsidies expire rather than renew them.
The Center for American Progress releases a report by Gréta Bedekovics and Devon Ombres on the status of state laws resembling the currently stalled federal SAVE Act. These laws require “Americans to provide proof of their citizenship, chiefly a passport or birth certificate, to register to vote or stay registered.” Fourteen states already have laws like this, and more are considering bills or ballot measures.
Data for Progress crunches the numbers and finds that, perhaps contrary to prevailing wisdom, “compared with a Democratic candidate who rejects outside PAC money, Democratic candidates who take money from AIPAC, AI companies, cryptocurrency companies, and pharmaceutical companies perform significantly worse against a Republican candidate averaged across all funding sources.”
In case you missed it: The Groundwork Collaborative and the Century Foundation find that back-to-school supplies and “lunchbox essentials” are set to cost families “close to $400 more per kid” this year, due to rising prices. “Nearly half of all parents report cutting back on other expenses to make room in the budget for back-to-school expenses, or worse, taking on debt.”
—Heather Souvaine Horn
In Closing
Here’s Why That’s B.S.
What’s the deal with Mitch McConnell’s health?
Two weeks after Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear asked for an update on absent Senator Mitch McConnell, the senator’s staff still hasn’t released anything aside from a hospital photo of him smiling. Watch TNR’s Edie Olmsted unpack the situation.Political Trivia Question of the Day
The Senate continues to weigh Todd Blanche’s fate. It’s rare indeed that the Senate has voted down a president’s attorney general nominee. It last happened nearly a century ago. Who was it? (If you know the answer to that, we’ll be impressed!)
Meanwhile, an easier question: A fairly recent president nominated two people in a row who were forced to withdraw their nominations. Who were they, and why did they withdraw? The reason was the same in both instances. (Sign up for The Blue Book to find the answer in tomorrow’s newsletter.)