2 - On Sunday, @HoustonDash's Clarissa Larisey became the second player in #NWSL# history to score both an equalizing goal and a match-winning goal as a substitute, joining Teresa Noyola, who also did so for the Dash, in April 2014. Turnaround.

“They’re just chanting ‘Death to America,’ but they seem friendly at the same time.” That was CNN’s Clarissa Ward describing armed Taliban fighters after they seized Kabul in August 2021. It perfectly captures the network’s approach to Islamist regimes. If the gunmen smile at CNN, their ideology and body count somehow become less important. CNN takes the same approach to the Islamic Republic. It has been at the forefront of whitewashing the regime, trading journalistic independence and objectivity for access, then presenting that controlled access as genuine insight into Iran. The same language appeared again when Erin Burnett recalled Islamic Republic supporters chanting “Death to America” while remaining friendly toward her as an American journalist. There is nothing contradictory about that. Regime supporters can treat a useful Western reporter politely while supporting a system that kills Iranians, arms terrorist groups and plots attacks abroad. Friendliness toward CNN is not moderation. It is media strategy. Foreign journalists do not report freely inside Iran. The Islamic Republic decides who receives visas, where they can travel, what they can film and which officials they may interview. During the 2026 war, CNN received rare access while most Western outlets remained outside and independent Iranian journalists were censored, imprisoned or forced into exile. CNN’s cameras could show government-approved streets, stocked markets and regime supporters. They could not freely enter Evin Prison, follow Basij units or interview the families of murdered protesters without state interference. That is not an open press environment. It is a guided tour. CNN was also at the forefront of whitewashing the January massacre, when regime forces killed over 45,000 Iranians under the cover of an internet blackout. Instead of centring the victims and confronting the regime’s lies, CNN amplified official denials and treated state propaganda as a competing version of events. Christiane Amanpour’s relationship with the regime shows how the arrangement works. Inside Iran, she wears the compulsory hijab because the Islamic Republic would otherwise refuse her entry. When Ebrahim Raisi tried imposing the same condition on her in New York, she refused and the interview was cancelled. The message was clear. Access exists only when the journalist accepts the regime’s terms. CNN then boasts that it has reporters “on the ground” without emphasizing that the ground itself has been selected and controlled by the Islamic Republic. The Taliban tolerated Ward because her camera was useful during their takeover. The Islamic Republic grants CNN access because a Western network can carry its denials and present regime-managed scenes as authentic Iranian life. CNN repeatedly judges Islamist regimes by how they treat CNN rather than how they treat the people trapped under their rule. A polite interview does not erase a prison cell. A smile does not neutralize “Death to America.” Controlled access is not independent journalism.

Fifteen years ago, banks were asking how to become digital. Today, they are asking how to become blockchain compatible. A preview from tomorrow’s Range Stablecoin Fireside with @clarisse_hagege from @dfnsHQ and @Paulapbpb 👇

The Diplomat website retracted an article on Friday, saying that a story about a Ukraine firm was fabricated, and the bylined journalist, one “Kim Hwa-pyeong”, may not exist. “We now know that the journalist fabricated the interview and may not even be who they claimed to be,” the website said. Brendan Ruberry of Semafor yesterday added on X that “Clarissa Jenkins”, another writer for the same website, also did not exist—and her report was graded by a detection service as “100 per cent AI-generated”. . ACCELERATING PROBLEM The problem is likely accelerating. Sophia Gonzales, Ervin B Hoskins, and five other published journalists do not exist, according to a study in September by researchers at OpenAI. The present writer recently raised the issue of “Maya Wang”, the widely quoted China-hostile voice at Human Rights Watch. Her friends say the name was made-up for the wife of former Hong Kong Free Press columnist “Kong Tsung-gan”—who also did not exist—even though he was quoted in the New York Times, CNN, the Guardian, Time magazine, Washington Post, France24, Deutsch Welle and so on. Kong was unmasked as Brian P Kern, a US anti-China activist. UK Press Gazette reported on September 18 that the widely quoted art therapist "Dr Eleni Nicolaou", quoted in Forbes, Psychology, Vice and Glamour, appeared to be AI-generated. While it is not illegal to use a pen name or to add a “name changed to protect the innocent” disclaimer in an upfront manner, any practice that deceives readers is considered unethical in journalism. This can be a particular issue when there is a clear political purpose, as in the case of Mrs Kern, or an ethnicity-switching aspect, as in the case of her husband’s “yellowface” writings. . GENERATING FAKE FACES In the past five or six years, AI-powered scams have made these scams easier, as fake faces can be generated. In 2020, “Martin Aspen”, a researcher who produced a lengthy report on Hunter Biden’s dealings in China, turned out to be a fake identity with an AI-generated face. The project was financed by Apple Daily, run by Trump-fanatic publisher Jimmy Lai. . .

This Week in Replit 1) The Self-Driving Company. We believe by the end of 2030, every Fortune 500 will be a Self-Driving Company. That doesn't mean AI replaces people. People remain in the driver's seat leading judgment, creativity and taste, while agents fuel execution. → 2) Anyone can now bring their ideas into the company codebase. Replit Cloud Agents turn natural language into a tested pull request, and engineers still approve the final code before it ships. Our own design team used Replit to safely ship over 250k lines of code in the last 6 months. Now available for Pro and Enterprise users. → Connect a repo: 3) Security has to scale with agent autonomy. Our existing isolation protections prevented exploitation of last week's disclosed kernel vulnerabilities, and we patched affected tooling centrally, reducing remediation work for developers. Our CTO Luis Héctor Chávez (@lhchavez) explains what's available today and what's next. → 4) ViBench 2.0, a benchmark for long-horizon software building. Agents start from an empty project and build a whole product, one feature at a time, without seeing what comes next. Even the best models pass every check in only 49-65% of builds. Now part of Fireworks AI's Specialized Intelligence Index. → 5) GPT-6.1 Terra is now available in Power Mode. 6) Replit is now fully available in Japanese. Full replay of today's show, with Clarisse Chan (FP&A Lead) on how Replit's finance team builds its own tools on Replit:

Claressa Shields posted a backstage photo with Papoose captioned “This why she mad,” and fans think it was aimed at Remy Ma. The post came just days after Remy was spotted partying with Shields’ boxing rival Alycia Baumgardner.

CLARITY Act Could Finally Pass in 2027 Investor Kevin O'Leary (@kevinolearytv) is betting that the stalled CLARITY Act will become law in 2027. He says the financial system can no longer afford to ignore blockchain technology. Much of today's money transfer infrastructure dates back decades, he argued. Tokenization could change that. The bill has already hit a major roadblock in the Senate, however. A September procedural vote failed to reach the 60 votes needed to advance it.

Claressa Shields walked Atif Oberlton to the ring on Saturday night, and he made it count. Oberlton hurt his left bicep early against Deon Nicholson and fought most of the night with one good arm, but still won a split decision to stay undefeated at 18 and 0. After the fight, he told Nicholson that if he wants a rematch, he'll give him one with two arms.