David Gilbert

This Is How a Child Dies of Measles When your family becomes a data point in an outbreak

Please, just vaccinate your children

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Elon Musk's X Appears to Be Violating US Sanctions by Selling Premium Accounts to Iranian Leaders While publicly supporting protesters in Iran, Elon Musk's X appears to have been selling premium accounts to regime officials. Checkmarks were removed from certain accounts after a WIRED inquiry.

The Trump admin is threatening Iran with military action, and Elon Musk has vocally supported Iranian protesters.

Meanwhile, X appears to be providing dozens of Iranian officials and agencies with paid premium accounts -- giving them a social media bullhorn and potentially violating US sanctions.

X did not respond to our requests for comment about Elon Musk allegedly violating US sanctions on Iran.

But within hours of us contacting them, they began removing blue checkmarks from the accounts we flagged.

www.wired.com/story/elon-m...

Elon Musk's X Appears to Be Violating US Sanctions by Selling Premium Accounts to Iranian Leaders While publicly supporting protesters in Iran, Elon Musk's X appears to have been selling premium accounts to regime officials. Checkmarks were removed from certain accounts after a WIRED inquiry.

“By failing to take basic steps to enforce our sanctions, the Trump Administration continues to undermine our national security and the integrity of the financial system,”

— @warren.senate.gov tells WIRED about Elon Musk

www.wired.com/story/elon-m...

Elon Musk's X Appears to Be Violating US Sanctions by Selling Premium Accounts to Iranian Leaders While publicly supporting protesters in Iran, Elon Musk's X appears to have been selling premium accounts to regime officials. Checkmarks were removed from certain accounts after a WIRED inquiry.

EXCLUSIVE

Last month, Elon Musk publicly claimed to support the protesters in Iran

But a new @ttp-updates.bsky.social report shows how X appears to have been violating US sanctions by allowing dozens of Iranian government accounts subscribe to its Premium service

www.wired.com/story/elon-m...

ICE’s Secret Expansion Plans; Palantir Employees’ Ethical Concerns; AI Assistants Podcast Episode · Uncanny Valley | WIRED · 02/12/2026 · 37m

New Uncanny Valley pod up today! Come listen to me, @brbarrett.bsky.social, and @zoeschiffer.bsky.social talk about ICE's expansion plans, AI bots taking over your life, Palantir, and our undying love for the Olympics. Wherever you get your podcasts!

I asked TPUSA about this and they said there are no plans for Erica Kirk to visit Belfast or for TPUSA to hold an event there....

FYI subscribe as @wired.com under @katie-drummond.bsky.social is killing it

ICE Is Expanding Across the US at Breakneck Speed. Here’s Where It’s Going Next ICE plans to lease offices throughout the US as part of a secret, months-long expansion campaign. WIRED is publishing dozens of these locations.

ICE has secretly secured leases at over 150 locations in nearly ever state in the US as it races to expand its footprint.

Read @leahfeiger.bsky.social's incredible scoop about how the campaign came about, efforts to keep it a secret and where ICE is going next

www.wired.com/story/ice-ex...

US federal contractor hired white supremacist leader for wildfire relief Ian Michael Elliott of neofascist Patriot Front worked ‘crisis relief missions’ funded by Department of Agriculture

“How a prominent white supremacist leader came to work for a federal security contractor is unclear.”

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

RFK Jr.’s Picks for a Key Autism Panel Include Advocates for Bizarre Theories Among those Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently named to a federal autism committee are people who tout dangerous treatments and say vaccine manufacturers are “poisoning children.”

• A doc sued for prescribing a debunked autism therapy
• A man who says vaccines are “poisoning children”
• A woman boosting autism "treatments" using stem cells from rabbits

This is not a QAnon conference line-up, it is the people now guiding US autism research

www.wired.com/story/rfk-jr...

RFK Jr.’s Picks for a Key Autism Panel Include Advocates for Bizarre Theories Among those Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently named to a federal autism committee are people who tout dangerous treatments and say vaccine manufacturers are “poisoning children.”

“We’ve fought so hard to protect our community, but they want to experiment on us. We are guinea pigs. When you are autistic, like me, and a mother to autistic children, I see this as a way to end us. That's what it is.” autism activist Fiona O'Leary

www.wired.com/story/rfk-jr...

ICE and CBP’s Face-Recognition App Can’t Actually Verify Who People Are ICE has used Mobile Fortify to identify immigrants and citizens alike over 100,000 times, by one estimate. It wasn't built to work like that—and only got approved after DHS abandoned its own privacy r...

NEW: Records reviewed by WIRED show DHS’s facial recognition app (Mobile Fortify) isn’t designed to actually "verify" identity—despite DHS claims and its agents relying on its matches to support probable cause in the field.

Journalism is a great industry to go into if you want to become speedrun becoming a Marxist.

HHS Is Making an AI Tool to Create Hypotheses About Vaccine Injury Claims Experts worry Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Health Department will use an internal AI tool to analyze vaccine injury claims in a way that furthers his anti-vaccine agenda.

NEW: NEW: HHS is working on an AI tool to analyze VAERS—a database of vaccine injury claims to which anyone can make submissions—and "generate hypotheses." This is from @emilymullin.bsky.social:

Inside the ICE Forum Where Agents Complain About Their Jobs “I'm all for removing illegals, but snatching dudes off lawn mowers in Cali and leaving the truck and equipment just sitting there? Definitely not working smarter,” writes one forum user.

Inside the ICE Forum Where Agents Complain About Their Jobs

Another excellent scoop from my @wired.com colleague @telliotter.bsky.social

www.wired.com/story/inside...

The Oireachtas Media Committee 🔔

Alan Kelly notes the “disrespect” shown by X in refusing to attend but also takes aim at the “bizarre” and “worrying” conditions requested by other social platforms - he says at least one company said “if three of the four platforms attend, we’ll be there”.

Tracker Newsletter: ICE in Focus As federal agents carry out Trump’s program of mass deportation, this limited-series newsletter will track what’s happening and what’s coming next.

It can be hard to keep up with EVERYTHING that the Trump admins is doing—and planning to do—right now with ICE and Border Patrol around the US

So @wired.com created the ICE Tracker newsletter to ensure you know exactly what's happening....and it's FREE

Sign up here: www.wired.com/newsletter/I...

Right-Wing Gun Enthusiasts and Extremists Are Working Overtime to Justify Alex Pretti’s Killing Donald Trump has appeared to undermine Second Amendment rights in statements about Alex Pretti’s killing. Many in the firearms community are going along with it.

"Pretti did this to himself.”

Right-wing gun nuts are doing some impressive mental gymnastics to blame Alex Pretti for his own death.

They are also excusing Trump's gun comments that appear to undermine their own gun rights....

www.wired.com/story/right-...

Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong The pushback against ICE exposed a series of mistaken assumptions.

"Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority."

Superb reporting from @adamserwer.bsky.social

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

And remember, Amazon paid $40M to acquire the doc, and spent a further $35M to market it.....

We Found Two Theaters With Sold-Out ‘Melania’ Opening Day Screenings A WIRED analysis of nearly 1,400 Friday showtimes of Melania found only two with no tickets available. Both are before 3 pm.

Brett Ratner's Melania documentary is opening in cinemas today.

@regret.bsky.social scraped the data from over 1,400 locations showing the movie today, and found a total of two that were sold out.

Both showings are before 3pm

www.wired.com/story/we-fou...

ICE Pretends It’s a Military Force. Its Tactics Would Get Real Soldiers Killed WIRED asked an active military officer to break down immigration enforcement actions in Minneapolis and elsewhere.

"As we watch the least effective and most morally objectionable of our tactics come home and be used amongst and against us, we are left with a profound feeling of betrayal."

www.wired.com/story/ice-pr...

ICE Pretends It’s a Military Force. Its Tactics Would Get Real Soldiers Killed WIRED asked an active military officer to break down immigration enforcement actions in Minneapolis and elsewhere.

"If an agency wants to cosplay as a military force, it deserves to be evaluated as one,"

WIRED asked an active military officer to evaluate ICE's actions. Their analysis is not good...

www.wired.com/story/ice-pr...

Neo-Nazis arrested on weapons charges planned to strike 'high value targets,' feds say Two neo-Nazis arrested last week are accused of buying machine guns as part of an alleged scheme to launch a paramilitary death squad.Aiden Cuevas, 20, and Andrew Nary, 23, each face a federal charge ...

Worth noting that all four of the people named in this FBI affidavit and linked to the Tennessee Active Club named in this are aged between 19 and 23.

It highlights how more attention needs to be paid to how Active Clubs are radicalizing young men across America

www.rawstory.com/raw-investig...

Big news that I'm delighted to no longer be keeping a secret: Next week I join @wired.com as a senior writer!

As everyone knows, this is a top-tier publication and indispensable record of digital life today. I'll be covering internet culture in all forms, as I have for almost 15 years now.

Donald Trump Wants to Force Colorado to Free an Imprisoned Election Denier. It’s Not Working Former election clerk Tina Peters is a hero to conspiracy theorists, and even received an empty “pardon” from the president. Colorado's governor has held firm against commuting her sentence—so far.

“Trump is a lawless president. He disregards the law, he disregards the Constitution, and when people do not cave, he then starts retribution. I believe giving in leads to more illegal actions and outrageous actions from the president.” — @jenagriswold.bsky.social

www.wired.com/story/donald...

Donald Trump Wants to Force Colorado to Free an Imprisoned Election Denier. It’s Not Working Former election clerk Tina Peters is a hero to conspiracy theorists, and even received an empty “pardon” from the president. Colorado's governor has held firm against commuting her sentence—so far.

In recent weeks, Trump has:

• Kidnapped the leader of a sovereign country
• Threatened to invade Greenland
• Emboldened ICE to kill US citizens in Minneapolis

But the Tina Peters case is, for now, one of the few examples of the limits of Trump's power

www.wired.com/story/donald...

Donald Trump Wants to Force Colorado to Free an Imprisoned Election Denier. It’s Not Working Former election clerk Tina Peters is a hero to conspiracy theorists, and even received an empty “pardon” from the president. Colorado's governor has held firm against commuting her sentence—so far.

NEW:

Donald Trump recently said the only limit to his power is his own morality.

But in the case of jailed election denier Tina Peters, he has encountered one situation he has been unable to bend to his will.

At least, not yet....

www.wired.com/story/donald...

Meta Is Blocking Links to ICE List on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads Users of Meta’s social platforms can no longer share links to ICE List, a website listing what it claims are the names of thousands of DHS employees.

“It's no surprise that a company run by a man who sat behind Trump at his inauguration, and donated to the destruction of the White House, has taken a stance that helps ICE agents retain anonymity,”

— Dominick Skinner, the creator of ICE List

www.wired.com/story/meta-i...