from the never-wrong-prez-just-dying-to-be-wrong-again dept

This is why having a case dismissed with prejudice is important.

Trump’s cronies/donors — who were paid millions to do a job they’d never done before — failed to bring the Lincoln Reflecting Pool up to spec by July 4th, preventing Trump from taking sole credit for everyone else’s hard work while turning the nation’s 250th birthday into a celebration of himself.

When the “American flag blue” undercoating began floating to the surface and the rest of the pool turned green due to the completely expected explosion in algae growth, Trump decided it would be better to arrest people for “vandalism” than throw his financial supporters under the bus.

Former Olympian David Hearn was the big catch. Trump, Interior Department Secretary Doug Burgum, and US Attorney Jeanine Pirro all claimed they had tons of evidence to support felony vandalism charges against their star defendant. Another handful of people were arrested and hit with misdemeanor charges, solely for the purpose of propping up Trump’s “it was vandals!” lies.

But the whole thing fell apart when the cases moved forward. In Hearn’s case, a government witness testified the damage was due to faulty repair work by the contractors, rather than anything Hearn or anyone else had done to the pool. This undercut Trump’s 350-foot vandal attack narrative. It also tanked the case for US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who moved to dismiss the case due to being misled by the Interior Department, which apparently buried details of the faulty fix in hopes of making Trump’s revenge convictions a reality.

Shortly after dropping the case, Pirro went toe-to-toe with Trump and DOI head Burgum, laying out all the evidence that contradicted Trump’s concocted narrative. Trump responded by attacking Pirro publicly in press comments and Truth Social posts. These attacks included some off-the-cuff remarks that seemed to have teleported in from a 1930s gangster b-movie script:

“Instead of going after the people that did it, the judge went after her and went after her department,” he continued. “And I guess she choked. I don’t know what the hell happened.”

[…]

Trump exclaimed minutes later that Pirro “folded like an umbrella.”

Advertisement

I only bring this up again because Trump has clearly demonstrated that umbrellas are impossible to “fold.”

Anyway, back to the point of the post: having a prosecution dismissed with prejudice means the government doesn’t get a second chance to do the wrong thing. The DOJ in general never does this because… who knows? Maybe some precedent will get handed down that revives a case. Maybe the cold case kids will find some sort of unidentifiable powder in the evidence locker. Or maybe the fucking president of the United States will just start ordering people to do the same thing again, only harder.

White House officials have asked the Justice Department to consider a new prosecution of a man accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, according to people familiar with the discussions, as President Trump fumes over U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s decision to drop the case.

[…]

Advertisement

After White House outreach, Justice Department officials are exploring whether another type of case—likely based on misdemeanor allegations—is even possible. 

And we’re right back where we started: with Trump trying to punish a US citizen because Trump embarrassed himself.

This isn’t going to end well for Trump. I mean, I would hope. The presiding judge is still trying to find out why the DOJ didn’t dismiss the charges against Hearn with prejudice, given that it had admitted in court that there was no evidence to support them.

And Hearn himself isn’t letting this go. If the DOJ decides to try again, this will vastly increase the chances the presiding judge will give his lawyers access to the grand jury materials he’s been requesting ever since the government’s witness testified (before the grand jury) that any so-called “vandalism” was actually just the side effects of a botched rush-job performed by under-qualified contractors better known for their loyalty to Trump than their specific set of skills.

Trump is too stupid to recognize this will only result in more damning evidence of his self-serving hubris. Pirro knows this case is fucked so it’s highly unlikely she’ll be willing to do what Trump is demanding. And no one in the administration with the intelligence to recognize why this is a terrible idea is willing to do anything but appease the madman they’ve chosen to serve at the expense of their own credibility and future employment opportunities. Let’s hope this all goes as badly as it should for Trump. After all, he’s earned it.

Filed Under: asshats, david hearn, doi, doj, donald trump, doug burgum, interior department, jeanine pirro, malicious prosecution, reflecting pool, trump administration

Companies: atlantic industrial coatings, greenwater solutions

• Volume and spend on tokens for Anthropic’s AI solutions made it more revenue than any of its competitors in July 2026, cementing its position as the top LLM provider
• This success is despite Anthropic’s tokens being more expensive than its competitors
• The data was collated by Vercel’s AI Gateway, an API service that routes LLMs for easy AI provider swapping

Monthly analysis of the AI industry has revealed a number of surprises for July 2026, not least the continued growth of Anthropic both in terms of revenue and token use.

This is despite the company charging a higher rate for tokens, AI’s computational data currency.

If you bought a game by accident, there is hope.

How to refund a game on Xbox

Engadget

What Xbox purchases are eligible for refunds?

How to get a refund for an Xbox subscription

Bangla press/Shutterstock

How long does an Xbox refund take?

On March 13, Nine PBS reportedly sent a letter to Iron Mountain stating that it would “pay any reasonable costs associated with” accessing the data.

After allegedly being unable to communicate with OSS, Nine PBS eventually won a default judgment against the company in the St. Louis Circuit Court, which found that Nine PBS had the “immediate right to possess the data,” according to the complaint. The court also ruled that OSS must return the data “and/or facilitate its transfer to a new vendor,” the complaint says.

However, Iron Mountain refused to give Nine PBS the data because it only has a contract with OSS and, according to Nine PBS’ complaint, because OSS owns “the physical services housing the data.”

Iron Mountain’s spokesperson told Ars that the company only provides physical infrastructure, such as the building, network connectivity, power, and environmental controls.

“Our customers rent space for their servers and other hardware. These are the client’s assets. We don’t have access to the data on the hardware/servers because they belong to our customers,” the company said.

Iron Mountain said the company would violate basic data privacy protocols, breach its contract with OSS, and “potentially [expose] confidential data belonging to other clients of OSS” if it granted “unauthorized access to third-party hardware without a court order.”

Ars asked Nine PBS if it had any backups of the data and what the station would do to prevent this from happening again, but we didn’t receive answers as of publication time.

Nine PBS VP and chief communications officer Leah Freeman shared a statement reading:

We appreciate the Court’s thoughtful decision establishing a path forward to access and recover our archival materials, which the Court confirmed that Nine PBS rightfully owns. These archives represent an important part of our region’s history, and we look forward to ensuring their preservation and protection through the Court-approved process.

Rejoice, Marvel fans, because X-Men ’97 season 3 is already deep into its development cycle. That means we’ll see it sometime in 2027, which is a welcome change from the two-year gap we had to endure between the animated show’s first two seasons.

Of course, we don’t know its actual return date on Disney+, but other things have been revealed and teased about X-Men ’97‘s third outing. Luckily for you, I’ve rounded up the most important details below, so don’t delay — scroll on to learn all there is to know about the series’ third season.

X-Men ’97 season 3 release date: what we know

Apple’s memory woes are continuing, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has urged Apple not to buy Mac memory chips from Chinese suppliers, despite the continuing supply crisis.

Apple has been testing memory chips from the controversial CXMT as a way to ease the current global chip shortage. However, the politically sensitive move has now led to a warning from the Trump administration, delivered by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday about the warning to avoid purchasing Chinese chips. Following a tour of the new Apple Advanced Manufacturing Center in Houston, Lutnick told the media, “The Trump administration is not in favor of that.”

Lutnick added there must be other ways to fix the problem, but stressed “It’s not great American companies using Chinese memory.”

When asked if the message was provided to Apple, Lutnick was curt but affirmative, stating “Plainly.”

Releasing the strain

Lutnick’s warning is about Apple’s attempt to work around the high prices and tight supplies of memory affecting the whole tech industry. As part of this, Apple has explored the possibility of securing supplies from Chinese memory suppliers such as CXMT.

The problem is that CXMT is on the Chinese Military Company Blacklist, or 1260H list. The list is a collection of companies that the Pentagon believes have links to the People’s Liberation Army and could be considered a risk to U.S. national security.

While the list doesn’t stop Apple from buying chips from CXMT, it will affect sales. The Defense Department is not able to make agreements with companies on the list, nor use products or services from third parties that use their components.

There’s also the problem of murmurs that CXMT would be put onto the “Entity List,” which would block all trade with the company completely. Even if Apple gained supplies from CXMT and ignored the 1260H list’s consequences, a shift of CXMT onto the Entity List would cut off that supply line once more.

That would put Apple back at square one.

A lot of backlash

Apple petitioned the Trump administration to allow it to buy Mac RAM chips from CXMT on June 27. Since then, it has secured chips for testing and has put them through their paces.

However, there has been considerable pushback against the plan. In July, U.S. memory maker Micron lobbied the White House, alleging that a move permitting the sales from blacklisted Chinese companies would be incredibly harmful.

To Micron, doing so would harm the U.S. tech manufacturing industry in the same way that China decimated U.S. steel and manufacturing plants.

The Republican chair of the House China Committee, John Moolenaar, said it would be a “grave mistake” for Apple to make the deal back in June.

In July, Apple was sent a letter from U.S. senators attempting to convince the iPhone maker to back away from the proposal.

On CXMT’s side, it has rejected a demand from Apple for a discount. It wants to be paid what Apple pays Samsung for memory, reducing Apple’s benefit of securing the new supply line.

To Apple, though, it can at least point to a need for fairness from the U.S. government on the matter.

On August 10, it was reported that rivals HP and Acer already use CXMT memory for hardware sold outside the United States. While it is unclear if HP or Acer asked permission before doing so, they both carried on without penalty.

OFFBEAT

Excellent internal detail cannot entirely disguise some penny-pinching choices

Lego has released its largest Hubble Space Telescope yet – a model built at approximately minifig scale that dwarfs the observatory included with its Space Shuttle Discovery set.

The first thing to say about this set is that there is an awful lot of grey. This is perhaps the greatest weakness of an otherwise excellent set and feels a little penny-pinching on the part of the Danish brick botherer.

Lego has produced several versions of Hubble over the years. There is a version to fit in the payload bay of its large Space Shuttle Discovery set, and a much smaller incarnation on a plinth in the Women of NASA set. Both are retired, so scratching that Hubble itch with a current official set means dropping £119.99 on the Icons Hubble Space Telescope.

It’s a large set. According to Lego, the 1,252-piece set measures 32 cm tall, 38 cm long (with the aperture door open), and 38 cm wide. An astronaut minifigure is included to indicate the model’s approximate scale – a shame there’s just one, since the servicing missions had a pair of spacewalkers – along with a power tool. There is also a stand featuring some of Hubble’s iconic imagery and a plaque with more information, including the dates of the Space Shuttle servicing missions. Lego has not included replacement instruments to recreate the various servicing activities.

Inside are Lego representations of Hubble’s instruments and systems, including its gyroscopes, primary mirror, and secondary mirror. Outside are posable solar arrays and antennas, along with an aperture door that opens. Some parts are a little fiddly, and the set is aimed at ages 18+. That seems a little on the high side, but this isn’t something you’d want a young child trying to build.

The level of detail is impressive, considering the nature of Lego components, but it is difficult to avoid all that grey plastic. The Hubble Space Telescope included with the Space Shuttle Discovery Icons set uses silver bricks, which makes the choice of grey plastic feel cheap in comparison.

And then there are the stickers. Thankfully, there aren’t too many, but printed parts are readily available, and Lego uses its own, so why make builders fiddle with sticker alignment? And then there are the solar arrays, which are single-sided and feel a little cheap compared with the arrays on some of the MOCs The Register has built over the years. 

Still, these are minor niggles in what is otherwise a fun build lasting 6-12 hours. The set is an excellent addition to the Icons range, but such is the affection for Hubble that details matter. The set also acknowledges Hubble’s 35th anniversary, celebrated in April 2025, with a “35” decal on the back of the astronaut minifigure. The real thing continues to orbit, although its days are likely numbered. 

The Lego version is likely to endure until a careless elbow knocks it off the shelf, or a creative builder decides to repurpose its components for an orbital animal amusement park.

Which, after all, is the whole point. ®