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edition.cnn.com – By Katie Polglase, Pallabi Munsi, Barbara Arvanitidis, Alex Platt, Mark Baron and Oscar Featherstone – 8/28/24 – Trier, Germany  –  Luna, a self-described 32-year-old “MAGA Trump supporter” from the battleground state of Wisconsin, has gained a huge following since she joined X, formerly Twitter, in March. Her timeline has become a digital bullhorn for the “Make America Great Again” movement, praising former President Donald Trump’s re-election bid, promoting conspiracy theories about his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, and touting Republican talking points to nearly 30,000 followers, who she addresses as “patriots.”

“Would You Support Trump Being The President forever? I wonder if you all support Trump for president just like me,” @Luna_2K24 posted on July 29, sharing a beach selfie in a white bikini and asking her followers to respond with an American flag emoji if they agreed. The post was viewed by around 54,000 people.

But Luna isn’t real. The photos of the smiling brunette posted periodically on @Luna_2K24’s timeline are of Debbie Nederlof, a German fashion influencer who lives across the Atlantic and won’t be voting in the US presidential election in November. When CNN reached out to the 32-year-old, a trained optician and single mother who is working two jobs – as a social media manager at an engineering firm and as a model to raise money for her child – she was angry and frustrated that her face was being used to push pro-Trump propaganda on X.

“To be honest, ‘what the f**k?’ was my reaction. That was my reaction, because I have nothing to do with the United States. With Trump, the political things over there. What the hell do I – from a small place in Germany – care about US politics?” she said.

More… https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/28/europe/fake-maga-accounts-x-european-influencers-intl-cmd/index.html 

politico.com – By Isabella Ramírez and Irie Sentner –

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Friday he was suspending his presidential campaign — bringing to a close one of the strangest campaigns in recent memory.

The independent candidate, a son of former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, ran a conspiracy-filled, long-shot campaign. But despite consistently low polling, Kennedy still managed to frequently grab hold of the news cycle — often for bizarre reasons.

Here

He said a worm ate his brain

The New York Times revealed in May that what Kennedy originally thought was a brain tumor might have been the work of a hungry parasite — at least, according to him.

During a 2012 deposition made during a contentious divorce from his second wife, Kennedy told attorneys that a doctor believed an abnormality in his brain scans “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died,” per the Times. He said he had been experiencing severe memory loss and mental fogginess, which he claimed had diminished his earning power.

The revelation captivated the internet, and even Kennedy himself had no choice but to lean into it.

“I offer to eat 5 more brain worms and still beat President Trump and President Biden in a debate,” Kennedy wrote in a post on X.

He admitted to dumping a dead bear in Central Park

In an attempt to get ahead of a New Yorker article on the subject, Kennedy posted a video on social media earlier this month admitting to comedian Roseanne Barr that he left a dead bear in New York City’s Central Park a decade ago. Kennedy says in the video that another driver had killed the bear, and he pulled over and put it in his car with plans to skin it and “put the meat in my refrigerator.”

Long story short, his explanation ends with the fact that he wasn’t going home and couldn’t leave the bear in his car, so naturally, he placed the carcass in Central Park and staged it to look like a bike accident. The circumstances surrounding the bear’s death had remained a mystery for years (and, coincidentally, Kennedy’s cousin Tatiana Schlossberg wrote a 2014 report about it for The New York Times).

The New Yorker published an article featuring the story alongside a photograph from 2014 of Kennedy putting his fingers in the bear’s bloody mouth with a comical expression on his face.

His response to the New Yorker’s report? “Maybe that’s where I got my brain worm,” he told the publication.

He denied eating a dog

Vanity Fair published a startling 2010 photo in July of Kennedy holding what appeared to be a whole barbequed animal — and not a pig. Kennedy had sent the image to a friend who was traveling to Asia and suggested he go to a restaurant in Korea that served dog on its menu, implying the pictured animal was a dog, according to Vanity Fair.

In an interview with NewsNation, he denied the report and said the animal was a goat in Patagonia.

“I’m a very adventurous eater,” Kennedy said. “I’ll eat virtually anything. There’s two things I wouldn’t eat — well, three. I wouldn’t eat a human, I wouldn’t eat a monkey, and I wouldn’t eat a dog. I think I’d eat anything else.”

More…https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/23/rfk-jr-7-weird-campaign-moments-00176157 

latimes.com – By Terry Castleman – After years of controversy and a protracted legal battle, a fixture of the Palm Springs tourist scene is set to move.

The Forever Marilyn statue, a 26-foot commemoration of Monroe’s famous skirt scene from 1955’s “The Seven Year Itch,” has drawn the ire of locals and visiting critics alike since it returned to Palm Springs in 2021. It currently stands on the edge of Downtown Park, with Monroe’s sculpted back facing the Palm Springs Art Museum.

The statue will be resettled in a “location to be determined in the Downtown Park,” Palm Springs Mayor Jeffrey Bernstein said in a statement. “The City Council is very pleased to have found a satisfactory solution to this issue, which has divided so many within our community.”

The statue will not be moving far: the park spans only 1.5 acres, and the statue will be placed within its boundaries.

Trina Turk, a fashion designer, was among those who led the effort to get the statue relocated.

more… https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-08-06/gigantic-marilyn-monroe-statuein-palm-springs-will-be-moved-after-uproar 

rollingstone.com – Story by Ethan Millman – Aerosmith is officially retiring from touring, the band announced in an extensive statement on social media Friday, canceling the rest of what would’ve been their farewell tour as Steven Tyler struggles to recover from a vocal injury he suffered last year.

“As you know, Steven’s voice is an instrument like no other. He has spent months tirelessly working on getting his voice to where it was before his injury,” the band said Friday. “We’ve seen him struggling despite having the best medical team by his side. Sadly, it is clear, that a full recovery from his vocal injury is not possible. We have made a heartbreaking and difficult, but necessary, decision – as a band of brothers – to retire from the touring stage.”

Aerosmith first started the Peace Out farewell tour in May of 2023 but played just three shows before pushing dates back after Tyler injured his Larynx. The band announced the new show dates back in April, originally planning to continue the tour in September.

More…https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/aerosmith-retires-from-the-road-heartbreaking-and-difficult/ar-AA1o9le0 

rollingstone.com – On Monday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk denied a report that he is donating $45 million per month to a Super PAC to boost Donald Trump, while taking credit for starting the group.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that “Musk has said he plans to commit around $45 million a month” to the pro-Trump Super PAC, citing “people familiar with the matter.” Musk, the world’s richest man, rejected the WSJ report in an interview on Monday with conservative commentator Jordan Peterson.

“What’s been reported in the media is simply not true,” Musk said. “I’m not donating $45 million a month to Trump. What I have done is I have created a PAC, or Super PAC, whatever you want to call it. I simply call it the America PAC.”Over the weekend, Trump bragged about Musk’s reported donations at a campaign rally in Michigan.

nytimes.com – by Adam Satariano and Derrick Bryson Taylor – A massive global technology outage on Friday took down airlines, medical services, TV broadcasts, banks and scores of other business and services around the world, a stunning example of the fragile dependence the global economy has on certain software and the cascading effect it can have when things go wrong.

The outage was attributed to CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm whose software is used by scores of industries around the world to protect against hackers and outside breaches. Several governments said they found no evidence of a computer attack. A software update issued by CrowdStrike appeared to be at the root of problem, resulting in crashes of machines running Microsoft Windows operating system.

Here’s how the spillover effects are being felt all over the world:

• At least three major U.S. airlines, American, United and Delta, grounded all flights, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

• The issues were also being felt at airports around the world, including Hong Kong International Airport, Sydney Airport, Berlin Brandenburg Airport and Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. At the Manchester Airport in Britain, there were long lines in the departures area as many machines at check-in counters were not working. Ryanair, one of the largest airlines in Europe, said it was experiencing disruption because of a third party IT outage that is “entirely out of our control.”

• In the U.S., the outage appeared to be affecting emergency 911 lines in multiple states, the U.S. Emergency Alert System said on social media. It said people experiencing emergencies should call the number for their local police or fire department.

• In Britain, the National Health Service was experiencing a loss of access to its computer systems across a number of hospitals and doctors offices.

• More… https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/19/business/global-tech-outage 

By Nathan Layne

Donald Trump deleted a video posted to his Truth Social account that included reference to a “unified Reich” after President Joe Biden’s campaign and others criticized the use of language often associated with the Nazi regime.

The 30-second video, which was posted on Monday afternoon, was no longer available on the website by early morning on Tuesday. A person familiar with the matter confirmed the post had been removed from the site.

The video portrayed a positive vision for the country should the Republican presidential candidate defeat Biden, a Democrat, in November’s election, featuring hypothetical newspaper headlines about a booming economy and a crackdown on immigration at the southern border.

At two points in the video, text below a larger headline reads: “INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED… DRIVEN BY THE CREATION OF A UNIFIED REICH.” The text is somewhat blurred, making it difficult to make out at first glance.

Trump has made a series of inflammatory remarks on the campaign trail, calling political enemies “vermin” and saying immigrants who entered the nation illegally were “poisoning the blood of our country.” Those drew heavy criticism from Democrats and some historians who said they echoed Nazi rhetoric.

Speaking at two fundraisers in Boston on Tuesday, Biden criticized the use of a word often associated with Nazi Germany’s Third Reich under Adolf Hitler.

more… https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/after-backlash-trump-pulls-social-media-post-with-reference-to-unified-reich/ar-BB1mOoPN?ocid=BingNewsSerp