(AP Photo/Ryan M. Kelly)

Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates Don Scott (D) announced his party “respects” the decision of the Virginia Supreme Court to overturn a new congressional map passed by the legislature and signed off on by Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger (D), while others sounded off on the ruling.

“We respect the decision of the Supreme Court of Virginia,” Scott said in a public statement after Friday’s 4-3 decision.

He continued:

I’m proud that Virginians came out in historic numbers, made their voices heard, and sent a message not just here at home – but across the country – to Donald Trump and his administration.

Three million people voted in a free and fair election. We gave this decision to the voters – exactly where it belongs – and they spoke loud and clear. They voted YES because they wanted to fight back against the Trump power grab.

That truth doesn’t change because of a court ruling. This was always about more than one election – it was about whether the voices of the people matter. And no decision can erase what Virginians made clear at the ballot box.

We respect the court. But we will keep fighting for a democracy where voters – not politicians – have the final say. Because in Virginia, power still belongs to the people.

Democratic leaders in the state shared mix reactions to the Supreme Court’s decision, including Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones, and Lt Gov. Ghazala Hashmi.

“The Supreme Court of Virginia has told voters in the Commonwealth that their voices can simply be discarded. This decision does not exist in isolation. It comes amid years of assaults on fundamental civil rights, the battles for voting rights, escalating hyperpartisanship, and coordinated efforts to erode public trust in democratic institutions. These actions disenfranchise voters and weaken the very principles of our country,” Hasmi said.

Jones said the Republican-led majority court got it legally wrong and accused the judges of putting “politics” over the law.

“The consequences of their error are grave,” Jones said.

Kaine said the state’s Supreme Court threw Virginians’ votes “in the trash can.”

The new congressional map would have given Democrats an advantage in all but one of the state’s districts.

Governor Spanberger announced she was “disappointed” by the court’s ruling on Friday, saying voters “made their voices heard” and tried to “push back against a president who said he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress.”

“I am disappointed by the Supreme Court of Virginia’s ruling, but my focus as Governor will be on ensuring that all voters have the information necessary to make their voices heard this November in the midterm elections because in those elections we — the voters — will have the final say,” she said in her statement.

The post Top Virginia Dem ‘Respects’ Supreme Court Decision Nixing Gerrymander While Others Fume first appeared on Mediaite.

Gmail does a decent job at filtering junk mail to the Spam folder, but there are always the marketing emails, newsletters, and other mass messages that slip through to your inbox. Maybe you accidentally signed up for a mailing list, or you wanted those promo emails at one point, but now they've become too much. You can keep deleting them one by one—or you can take action to remove spam from certain senders once and for all.

Set up filtering to banish unwanted emails

Filtering is one of our favorite Gmail hacks for moving junk emails straight to the trash. Select the messages in your inbox from as many senders as you want to filter out, click the three-dot menu at the top of the screen, and select Filter messages like these. On the pop-up, click Create filter and check Delete it. Be sure to also check Also apply filter to [X] matching conversations. Future emails from filtered senders will automatically go to Trash.

Filter entire domains instead

If you're still getting emails from a sender you've filtered out, it may be because they're using multiple aliases on the same domain. To solve this, you can set up a filter for an entire domain. Go to Settings > See all settings > Filters and Blocked Addresses and select Create a new filter. Add the domain (@[domain].com) to the "From" field, select Create filter, and check Delete it.

Unsubscribe en masse via 'Manage Subscriptions'

You can unsubscribe from mailing lists by clicking "Unsubscribe" at the bottom of each individual email you receive, but this is both tedious and a potential security risk, as threat actors have been known to hijack these links for malicious purposes. At minimum, opening the email and clicking any link therein confirms that your email address is active and ripe for targeting. Google updated Gmail last year to include a "Manage Subscription" view, which centralizes mailing list and promotional emails in one place with a one-click unsubscribe option. In the left-hand navigation bar, click More > Manage subscriptions, locate the sender, and click Unsubscribe to be removed from that sender's list.

Note that Gmail may not pull all email campaigns into this view—if that's the case for a list you want to unsubscribe from, you can click Unsubscribe at the top of the email itself (next to the sender's address) instead or use the next step to block the sender entirely.

Use the 'Report spam' button ruthlessly

If you find yourself deleting emails from the same senders over and over, report them as spam instead. This helps Gmail to recognize these and similar messages as junk, which over time can reduce how much clutter actually reaches your inbox. Select the email and click the Report spam button at the top of your inbox to move the message to your spam folder. Gmail automatically deletes spam after 30 days.

Block external images to prevent tracking

Marketing emails typically have tracking pixels—invisible 1x1 images used to monitor online activity—embedded that let senders know when you open a message, which is why you should stop opening emails you don't want and use one of the above strategies to filter, delete, or block them instead. To add an extra layer of protection, you can keep external images from loading in emails unless you explicitly allow them. Go to Settings > See all settings. On the General tab, scroll to Images and select Ask before displaying external images.

Keep your email address private and use aliases instead

An obvious way to keep junk from reaching your inbox is to avoid giving out your email address in the first place. You can create a second Gmail account to use solely for subscriptions, shopping, service sign-ups, etc. so any lists you are added to are directed straight to a separate inbox. Gmail also has unlimited aliases via "plus addressing," so you can easily see where spam is coming from. Or you can create burner accounts via "hide my email" services in browsers, password managers, or Apple iCloud.

(Photo by Davide Bonaldo / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown fired back at comments by an editor who blocked her from getting the Pulitzer Prize years ago, posting a series of tweets rebutting his claims that her reporting had not been “fully novel.”

Brown’s reporting is widely credited with leading to the arrests of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell for their sordid child sex trafficking scheme, as well as exposing details about the controversially lenient plea deal Epstein secured in an earlier criminal case. In the course of reporting her “Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story” series in 2018, she worked closely with Virginia Giuffre and numerous other victims to help them share their stories, and her work was influential in pushing for the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files.

This year’s Pulitzer Prizes included a special citation for Brown for her “groundbreaking reporting” on the series that “exposed Jeffrey Epstein’s systematic abuse of young women, the justice system that protected him, and, over time, his powerful network of associates and enablers,” and gave “voice to the scores of victims who had been groomed and abused by him and others in his circle.”

The announcement of Brown’s Pulitzer recognition reignited discussions about why her work had been overlooked before. David Boardman, who served on the Pulitzer jury in 2019, posted a tweet blaming a “well-known editor” who mounted a “bizarre campaign” against Brown.

Semafor’s Max Tani reported that two sources told him that the editor in question was Joseph Sexton, who had been at ProPublica then and also was a previous Metro and Sports editor for The New York Times, describing Sexton’s objections as “voic[ing] strong concerns that Brown’s reporting didn’t include enough substantially new information to deserve the award.”

Tani reached out to Sexton for comment, and got a reply by email:

In an email to Semafor, Sexton called Brown’s work “commendable and consequential.” But he said the “most explosive elements of her reporting had been previously published, both in news articles and books.”

“I and others on the jury felt the work was not the best entry for a category that greatly values fully novel reporting,” he said. “The work’s impact on the public’s appreciation of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and the troubling performances by local and federal authorities was considerable, and I raised the possibility that the entry be moved to another category — public service or explanatory, perhaps. Nothing came of it. The Pulitzer board encourages its juries to engage in both robust debate and its own inquiries into the distinctiveness of all entries. It was a seven-person jury, and the majority vote required to advance Brown’s work as a finalist did not happen.”

The Daily Mail’s Daniel Bates shared Sexton’s quote with a comment, “An argument that looks worse and worse over time.”

Brown wrote multiple tweets as a reply to Bates defending her work against the criticism by Sexton and other skeptics who questioned whether she was worthy of the Pulitzer.

Wrote Brown:

I guess it wasn’t “novel” to track down 80 victims (all their names redacted from court documents, meaning I had to find them), convince 8 of them to speak to me, four on the record– and on camera! Does anyone understand how difficult that was? It was so difficult that I contacted sexual assault psychiatrists to guide me so that I wouldn’t re-traumatize them. 1/

I also got the lead detective and police chief to speak on the record about their own betrayal by the state and federal prosecutors, they too were cagey BECAUSE they said other journalists had not taken their concerns seriously. 2/

3/ There were also hundreds of emails between prosecutors and Epstein’s lawyers — most of which had also never been reported before — showing a pattern of the prosecutors repeatedly bowing to Epstein’s powerful lawyers.

4. Lastly, I did a search of how many stories the NYT wrote about Jeffrey Epstein between 2005, when his case became public, and 2018 when my story ran. Do this search and read the stories. They simply did not cover this story adequately — and it is fair to ask why one of their own journalists cozied up to Epstein, even after he pleaded guilty to sexual assault.

5. What is really galling and sad is that I even have to explain this, especially to journalists. But then again, this is why the victims have had to fight so hard to be heard. /end

— —

The post Julie Brown Fires Back at Editor Who Blocked Her Pulitzer Because Her Epstein Reporting Wasn’t ‘Fully Novel’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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In my years reviewing speakers, I've learned a couple of things: Reputation and price get me to buy it, but if I dig the look, I'll keep using it over better options. This is what Marshall speakers, in general, nail. They look great while still doing their basic job as a portable speaker well. Right now, the Marshall Emberton III is $129.99 (originally $179.99), its lowest price yet, according to price-tracking tools.

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My wife and I have been using the Marshall Emberton III for a few months now, and we love it. The moment she first saw it, she fell in love with the look and wanted to keep it on display on the kitchen counter before she even turned it on. We now use it on our kitchen counter and listen to music while we cook or clean up.

The Emberton III is a portable speaker, so it's designed to be taken outdoors, resist the elements with its waterproof IP67 rating, and play for long sessions with its 32-hour playtime. It does all these things well while looking and feeling premium. The sound it produces is distortion-free, even at max volume, which is surprising for a small portable speaker, and it's loud for its size.

The main downside is that there is no adjustable EQ on its app, but it can't have everything. There are physical controls on top of the speaker to skip songs and pause the media. There is also a battery bar that tells you how much juice you have left. The design is simple yet efficient, and I can't stress enough how much my wife and I love the retro look of the speaker. You can read more about it on ZDNET's review. If you're looking for a fun, good-looking portable speaker you can happily display, get the Marshall Emberton III while it's at its lowest price.

The hosts of The View blasted Secretary of State Marco Rubio for his “generational destruction” warning to Iran, with Joy Behar naming him one of the “three stooges of the apocalypse.”

“Somebody needs to tell Marco Rubio that there is generational destruction going on here as well,” Whoopi Goldberg said on Wednesday’s The View after hearing updates from the day prior on the Iran war from President Donald Trump and Rubio.

During a Tuesday press conference, Rubio issued warnings to Iran about opening the Strait of Hormuz, where the country has been targeting and charging tolls on ships going through. He warned Iran they are facing “generational destruction” if they continue down the path they are on.

“They are facing real catastrophic destruction to their economy — generational destruction to their economy, generational destruction to the wealth of their country imposed on themselves by the actions they are taking. They should check themselves before they wreck themselves in the direction that they’re going in,” Rubio said.

Goldberg and her co-hosts argued the war has created a massive financial strain in the United States thanks to stagnant inflation and rising gas prices.

“People finally got themselves up above water are now sinking down because of them,” Goldberg said, adding, “This is on y’all. This is yours.”

Goldberg and Joy Behar accused Rubio, Trump, and Vice President JD Vance of giving mixed messaging on the Iran war and not getting across a clear plan.

“They don’t even know what the other one is saying. It’s like they’re in a giant ballroom in all kinds of different spaces. What is going on?” Goldberg said.

“It’s like The Three Stooges of the apocalypse,” Behar joked.

“Yeah, it is,” Sara Haines agreed.

“I need that t-shirt!” Goldberg excitedly added.

Sunny Hostin later blasted Rubio as Alyssa Farah Griffin called him a “formidable candidate.” Hostin took issue with Rubio dropping a couple ’90s hip hop references during his press conference, one to Cypress Hill and the other to Ice Cube.

“Insane in the membrane? Come on. He’s not cool!” Hostind declared.

Watch above via ABC.

The post The View’s Hosts Accuse Trump of Creating Same ‘Generational Destruction’ in US He Threatened Iran With first appeared on Mediaite.

Google's AI search is getting a handful of updates designed to highlight first-hand information sourced from discussion boards and social media posts along with your trusted news sources and subscriptions. Notably, AI responses will now show "expert advice" pulled from online forums like Reddit, highlighting specific quotes and linking to discussions related to your search queries. With this "preview of perspectives," you'll also see additional context for the discussion, including the creator's name, handle, or community name.

It should go without saying, but even when the results are billed as "expert advice" sourced from forums you'd typically go to for answers, you shouldn't blindly take them as fact. As TechCrunch notes, AI isn't great at detecting sarcasm and humor, and Google's AI Overviews have often recycled jokes made on Reddit as serious advice. In general, generative AI is also known to hallucinate, simply making things up and presenting everything from fake news summaries to non-existent legal advice with confidence. While AI Overview may be accurate around 90% of the time, according to a New York Times analysis, that means at least one in 10 responses will still contain errors.

In some ways, Google is facilitating fact-checking with other AI search updates: Source links will appear within AI responses next to the relevant text or bullet points, and you can hover over inline links to see a preview of the website before clicking through. AI Mode and AI Overviews will also highlight content from your news subscriptions first, so you know information is coming from sources you trust.

However, you should still do the extra legwork to ensure the information AI provides is legitimate. At the very least, click through to the source material cited to ensure it actually says what the AI claims it does, and assess whether the source itself is trustworthy. (Remember that "user-generated" doesn't necessarily mean "expert.") And use lateral reading strategies to find reputable sources supporting or refuting AI's claims.

President Donald Trump proclaimed from the Oval Office on Tuesday that Iran “knows what not to do” as the ceasefire brokered with the Islamic Republic appears to show signs of crumbling.

It all started when Daily Caller White House correspondent Reagan Reese asked Trump during an event with young athletes what Iran has to do “to violate the ceasefire.”

“Well, you’ll find out,” Trump replied to Reese. “I will let you know. They know what to do. They know what not to do, more importantly, actually.”

Trump added:

They fired them from little boats with pea shooters. You know the peashooters? A little boat. You know why? Because they don’t have any boats anymore. Their Navy is comprised of- they call them little boats. And they’re fast. They’re so fast. They had eight of them, and they’re all gone. They’re fast, but they’re not fast like a missile. A missile is slightly faster. They’re all gone. So they’re looking around for little boats to try and compete with our great Navy. We have a Navy that’s unbelievable. You know, when you set up a blockade, as you know very well. Not one ship. A couple tried and they got their engines shot out. You remember, I think it was one of them. It was a great display.

Trump’s words came as cracks have begun to form in the ceasefire agreed to last month.

CNN national security correspondent Natasha Bertrand reported on Monday that U.S. Central Command Chief, Admiral Bradley Cooper, acknowledged that U.S. military and commercial vessels were attacked by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz earlier in the day.

That same day, Trump told Fox News reporter Trey Yingst that if the Iranians try to target U.S. ships in this area, they will be “blown off the face of the earth.”

Earlier Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was also present in the Oval Office on Tuesday, denied that the exchange of fire with Iran on Monday had broken the ongoing ceasefire, framing the clash as a “separate and distinct project” when a reporter grilled him on the subject at the Pentagon.

Watch above via Fox News.

The post Trump Declares Iran ‘Knows What Not to Do’ as Ceasefire Teeters first appeared on Mediaite.