Rising costs and the war in Iran

False claims circulated online that the Israeli government posted an AI-generated video of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Journalists’ review of the original footage shows that Netanyahu has five fingers in it, despite social media posts sharing screenshots mistaking his palm for an AI-generated sixth finger.

Netanyahu’s official Instagram account then posted a video of the prime minister at a café. Reuters verified the video by cross referencing it with other posts from the café on the same day. It also passes a few other AI detection tests without raising suspicion. For instance, while AI struggles to maintain consistent text throughout a video, this video did have consistent text.

Grok said the video was AI. Grok is wrong all the time. One BBC study found that 51% of all answers to questions about the news from other AI assistants had significant issues. These tools predict likely words rather than facts, make up plausible fiction to fill in information gaps, don’t have built-in fact checking, and can reflect the biases of the people who train them and the data they’re trained on.

This makes it even easier to fall for conspiracy theories, which we’re all susceptible to — especially when they’re connected to emotionally charged events or political figures, like ones carrying out an ongoing genocide.

The Strait of Hormuz is a little strip of water that borders Iran. In 2024, an average of 20 million barrels of oil traveled through it every day. In response to U.S. and Israeli attacks, Iran has closed off access to the strait.

The U.S. doesn’t get a ton of oil from through the strait. We import 8 million barrels per day total, but only about half a million through the Strait of Hormuz. Still, the closing of the strait has led to higher oil prices in U.S. too.

If you drive (or, like me, helpfully sit in the passenger seat and act as your driver’s court jester) then you’ve likely seen gas prices rise because of this. Another big contributing factor: strikes like the one Israel just made against the a major gas field.

China stockpiled over a billion barrels of oil in case of an event like this. They’ve also invested in renewable energy to become less reliant on oil. The war against Iran has pushed many EU leaders to also call for a transition away from fossil fuels.

Looking past the price tag, over 2,500 people have been killed since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. 1,444 of those casualties happened in Iran, according to the country’s health ministry.

The practice involves companies fluctuating prices for certain things, like how flight prices might change depending on what day of the week you book. This is sometimes called ‘surveillance pricing’ when companies use your personal data to guess how much you might be willing to pay and fluctuate prices that way.

Some restaurants are experimenting with this, which could spell doom for my weekly meal out and my 17 loyal followers on Beli. It’s also expanding to things like school supplies, video games, ride shares, groceries and subscriptions for publications owned by billionaires.

The types of personal data on the table for these companies to mine include your location, demographics, browsing patterns and shopping history. So if Marvel Unlimited ever learns how much they can eek out of gay 26 year old Cuban Americans in Chicago who spend hours on end using their service, it’s over for me.

At least a dozen states have introduced legislation around surveillance, including outright bans on the practice and requirements that companies disclose when they’re doing it.

D.C. gets three electoral votes to help decide presidential elections, and a delegate in the House of Representatives. That delegate can sit and vote in committees as well as debate legislation. That gives D.C. residents some representation in how bills are shaped and whether they get pushed closer to becoming laws. But D.C.’s delegate can’t actually vote on whether a bill becomes a law. That means the District’s 700,000 residents don’t have the same representation that people living in U.S. states do. Making D.C. a state would change that, and a referendum petitioning Congress for D.C. statehood passed in 2016 with 86% of the vote. But that would add another blue state to the union, making it unlikely for the Republican-controlled Congress and White House to sign off.

Puerto Ricans are less keen on statehood than D.C. residents are. In a 2024 vote over Puerto Rican statehood, 57% showed support. Support for Puerto Rican independence or other forms of sovereignty beyond statehood is lower but growing. Some Puerto Ricans worry about statehood eroding Puerto Rican identity and forcing schools to switch to English from Spanish. Trump has opposed Puerto Rican statehood, and U.S. imperialism in Puerto Rico has allowed Trump to launch his attack against Venezuela from there.

Days ago and months after that attack, Trump again expressed his desire to annex Venezuela as the 51st state. It harkens back to US efforts to annex Cuba, a country Trump has similarly threatened to “take over” and is currently orchestrating a devastating energy embargo against. Technically, only Congress, not Trump, can annex new states. But a lack of Congressional approval hasn’t stopped Trump from other controversial moves like kidnapping Nicolás Maduro. And opposition to being annexed hasn’t stopped the US before — just look at Hawai’i.

The one that started when Democrats said they wouldn’t fund the Department of Homeland Security unless its immigration enforcement agents followed the law and some new measures meant to get them to killing people? And Republicans wouldn’t budge?

Well, they might be budging a little. White House negotiators say they’ve agreed to expand body camera use (a reform with historically limited efficacy, by the way), limit enforcement in some places and require officers to identify themselves.

But they’re not budging on other things, like requiring judicial warrants to enter private property (which, as journalist Radley Balko has repeatedly noted, is already required by literally the Bill of Rights), banning agents from wearing masks to conceal their identities, and following existing policies against excessive force.

Outside the halls of Congress, the partial government shutdown has disrupted airport travel since TSA is under DHS. And even amid the shutdown, immigration enforcement agencies still have access to billions of dollars in funding from Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”