The Trump administration has dropped its case against a former Olympic canoeist charged in connection with damage to the Reflecting Pool, acknowledging their allegations against David “Davey” Hearn don’t hold water.
In a filing Friday afternoon, a supervisor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, which is headed by Jeanine Pirro, wrote that officials obtained information that undermined “the evidentiary basis for the indictment” against Hearn.
Prosecutors said that after the indictment came down on July 2, the Interior Department provided additional documents to the U.S. Attorney’s Office “indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings.”
DOJ said it “first became aware of information showing that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism” after reviewing more documents.
“Had [the Interior Department] been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment,” the filing said.
DOJ said when it presented the case to a grand jury, it was “not in possession of any information from DOI indicating that any damage to the Reflecting Pool was caused by anything other than the actions of the defendant and other vandals who damaged the pool’s lining.”
The Justice Department filing said that based on its review of evidence, “it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt.”
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Continuing to redecorate Washington DC -
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Don't drink the water? -
Don't drink the water?Hackers have targeted water systems in several US states in a coordinated cyberattack that has caused some utilities to issue boil-water notices and switch to manual mode, taking their systems offline, according to US officials.
It’s one of the most serious cyberattacks on water systems in the US in years, according to some analysts. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency have for the last week been scrambling to try to help secure the water facilities and ensure that the safety of drinking water isn’t affected. No incidents of contamination have been reported.
The hackers “are targeting water entities of all sizes,” CISA said in a warning Thursday that urged water facilities to get vulnerable industrial equipment offline.
US and state officials are treating Iran as one of the suspects behind the hack, but have not made a formal determination of who is responsible and are wary of false flags.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/31/politics/sweeping-cyberattack-us-water-systems
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Meta-thread: Word association threadFor a while now, I have felt we might benefit from a meta-thread about the Word association thread
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AI wins and failsFail on the part of a company using AI, not the AI itself, but still...
A mysterious, unnamed company is reported to have accidentally spent half a billion dollars in a single month on Claude AI after forgetting to set usage limits for Claude licenses for employees. The staggering revelation was made as part of a new Axios report that claims U.S. corporations are starting to feel the pinch of overzealous AI spending.
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A Craigslist first -
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AI wins and failsThought I'd start a thread to post stories about AI, both the successes and the failures.
Here's one for the win column. Mythos finding the bugs, that is. It could go to the fail column if Microsoft can't fix the bugs before the "bad guys" get access to Mythos....
Anthropic’s Mythos has flagged bugs faster than Microsoft can fix them. Documents reviewed by ProPublica reveal the tech giant's “mad dash” behind the scenes to patch holes before hackers can find and exploit them.
https://www.propublica.org/article/anthropic-mythos-microsoft-software-vulnerabilities
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A Craigslist firstA first for me, at least.
I have some car floor mats out on CL for free. I got this email in response to the listing:
Hello,
I hope you’re doing well. I’m reaching out because I’m currently going through a really tough time financially and could use a little help.
If you are in a position to assist, anything you could Cash App me ( $cashitnowrightnow) would mean the world to me right now. No pressure at all if you can't, but I truly appreciate your support.
Best,
[LarryJohnson]
The name on the email address is listed as "Charles Jones".
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Our government employees isn't learningAnd apparently, neither is OpenAI
A US government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a state department presentation at a global conference in Brazil this week, causing a stir among attenders who took screenshots and posted them online.
Reuters viewed a video of the presentation given at the Aids 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro, which shows the errant map displayed halfway during a presentation about the state department’s new health agreements.
A Reuters analysis found the image of the map included in the presentation contained an artificial intelligence watermark that signals it was made with OpenAI tools. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
The state department said it took “full responsibility” for the confusion caused and that the map had been produced by a team member who hastily changed the slide deck before the event.
The map showed Nigeria, where the US currently has several hundred troops deployed, as landlocked in the Sahara desert. Mozambique, which is in south-eastern Africa, was relocated to the Horn of Africa, while Côte d’Ivoire in west Africa was placed on the other side of the continent.
Screenshots of the map first appeared in a Substack post by the Aids expert Emily Bass and were widely shared on LinkedIn, with one post garnering about 40,000 views.
“Whoever created and approved this slide did not know where countries in Africa are and did not care to check their work,” wrote Matt Petit, who focuses on AI and geopolitics at the Atlantic Council, in the post.]
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/30/government-map-mislabels-african-countries
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Laughter is the best medicine -
Blanche confirmationRepublican Sen. John Cornyn continues to block Todd Blanche's path to confirmation as attorney general, saying Thursday morning that there were "new complications."
Cornyn is demanding the Department of Justice put in writing that the nearly $1.8 billion so-called "Anti-Weaponization Fund" is officially dead, and that the scope of President Donald Trump's immunity deal with the IRS be narrowed.
"I know that Todd Blanch understands it, but I think he's probably getting some pushback from the White House, and that's making things more complicated than there needs to be," Cornyn told ABC News.
Too bad it took getting primaried for him to develop a spine....
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Real customer service isn't dead yetYou have more patience than I do.
Usually I would give up. These guys have just gotten under my skin and I'm out to make their lives miserable.
But you're right to point out that this is a waste of life energy. You may have gotten me to throw the towel in and move on.
