Read: Senators raise alarm over Delta's AI pricing plan
Why it matters: Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote that Delta's personalized "current and planned individualized pricing practices" would present data privacy concerns and "likely mean" fare price rises "up to each individual consumer's personal 'pain point'" at a time when many families were struggling.
Zoom in: "Consumers have no way of knowing what data and personal information your company and Fetcherr plan to collect or how the AI algorithm will be trained," wrote the senators, in reference to the Israeli company that developed a Generative Pricing Engine tool.
"Prices could be dictated not by supply and demand, but by individual need," they added.
"While Delta has stated that the airline will 'maintain strict safeguards to ensure compliance with federal law,' your company has not shared what those safeguards are or how you plan to protect American families against pricing discrimination in the evolving AI landscape."
What they're saying:"There is no fare product Delta has ever used, is testing, or plans to use that targets customers with individualized offers based on personal information or otherwise," a Delta spokesperson said in an emailed statement late Monday.
"A variety of market forces drive the dynamic pricing model that's been used in the global industry for decades, with new tech simply streamlining this process. Delta always complies with regulations around pricing and disclosures."
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USA Today
31 minutes ago
- USA Today
MLK files: What's in them and what's left out?
Historians assessing the trove of newly released documents are cautioning people against the idea that they contain any groundbreaking information. Among details included in a newly released trove of documents related to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.: assassin James Earl Ray took dance classes and had a penchant for using aliases based on James Bond novels, according to researchers. Likely not among the nearly a quarter million pages released by the National Archives and Administration on July 21 is anything that changes the narrative cemented when Ray pleaded guilty to King's murder in 1969, historians say. "By all means the government should release all the documents that they have and they should have done it 20 years ago. The issue is about what our expectations are for what's going to be found," said Michael Cohen, a University of California, Berkeley professor and author of a book on conspiracies in American politics. "The idea that there's some sort of secret document showing that J. Edgar Hoover did it is not how any of this works. Part of the challenge is getting the American public to understand it's nowhere near as exciting." National Archives officials released the over 6,000 documents in accordance with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in January. Officials released the documents over objections from members of the King family. The files are available for the public to read online at the National Archives website. Historians say it will take weeks to fully understand what they reveal. Trump's Jan. 23, 2025 executive order also called for the release of records related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. The full findings of the government investigations into the three killings have been hidden for decades, sparking wide-ranging speculation and preventing a sense of closure for many Americans. All three men were national and international icons whose assassinations — and the theories swirling around them — became the stuff of books, movies, controversy, and the pages of history itself. More: Trump's release of assassination docs opens window into nation's most debated mysteries What's in the King files? The newly released records come from the FBI's investigation of the King assassination, records the Central Intelligence Agency deemed related to the assassination and a file from the State Department on the extradition of James Earl Ray, who pleaded guilty in 1969 to murdering King. David Barrett, a historian at Villanova University, said the files will likely contain new, interesting information. But as was the case with the JFK files released in March, the material likely isn't groundbreaking. "I'm not seeing anything that strikes me as surprising," said Barrett, author of multiple books on presidents and intelligence agencies. "Unless they want to write about the investigation, I don't know that this will have an impact on the scholarship." Noteworthy in the files, Barrett said, are details concerning how the FBI connected Ray to King, how they found him and extradited him back to the U.S. from the United Kingdom, where he had fled. "It does take weeks to go through these, so there might be some important revelatory things but I doubt it," said the political science professor. "It's not exactly what people were hoping for and not what the King family was fearing." Many of the files are also illegible due to age and digitization. Archives officials said the agency was working with other federal partners to uncover records related to the King assassination and that records will be added to the website on a rolling basis. 'Now, do the Epstein files': MLK's daughter knocks Trump over records release What's not in the King files? Not among the newly released documents are details of FBI surveillance into King that historians say could include recordings agency director J. Edgar Hoover hoped to use as blackmail against the Georgia preacher. Experts say Hoover's wiretappings of King's hotel rooms, which are believed to contain evidence of infidelity, are likely what his family fears being made public. The New York Times reported the recordings remain under seal pursuant to a court order until 2027. But UC Berkeley professor Cohen said the documents likely haven't been revealed for multiple reasons. "There's claims that these are major government secrets and so whatever they might contain might be true and that's not the case," Cohen said. "Any large-scale government investigation often includes all sorts of spurious claims, hearsay evidence, things of which there's no truth and part of the reason why they get withheld is bureaucratic inertia and also the need to check their veracity." What does the FBI have to hide? Hoover's recordings might also prove a double-edged sword for the FBI, according to Cohen: "Will these files contain things that will upset the King family? That's possible. But they'll also likely reveal just how massively the FBI violated King's civil liberties." FBI agents began monitoring King in 1955, according to researchers at Stanford University. Hoover believed King was a communist and after the Georgia preacher criticized the agency's activities in the Deep South in 1964, the original FBI director began targeting King using the agency's counterintelligence program COINTELPRO, Stanford researchers said. COINTELPRO was a controversial program that a 1975 U.S. Senate investigation slammed, saying: "Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity," the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities said in its final report. "The Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association." The agency went so far as to send King a recording secretly made from his hotel room that an agent testified was aimed at destroying King's marriage, according to a 1976 U.S. Senate investigation. King interpreted a note sent with the tape as a threat to release recording unless King committed suicide, the Senate report said. MLK assassinated in Memphis, April 4, 1968 The official story of how King died is that he was killed on the balcony outside his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968. He stepped outside to speak with colleagues in the parking lot below and was shot in the face by an assassin. James Earl Ray, a 40-year-old escaped fugitive, later confessed to the crime and was sentenced to a 99-year prison term. But Ray later tried to withdraw his confession and said he was set up by a man named Raoul. He maintained until his death in 1998 that he did not kill King. The recanted confession and the FBI's shadowy operations under J. Edgar Hoover have sparked widespread conspiracy theories over who really killed the civil rights icon. King's children have said they don't believe Ray was the shooter and that they support the findings of a 1999 wrongful death lawsuit that found that King was the victim of a broad conspiracy that involved government agents. Department of Justice officials maintain that the findings of the civil lawsuit are not credible. Read the MLK files Looking to read the MLK files yourself? You can find them on the National Archives' website here. Most of the files are scans of documents, and some are blurred or have become faint or difficult to read in the decades since King's assassination. There are also photographs and sound recordings.
Boston Globe
2 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Trump escalates attacks on Obama and Clinton as questions swirl about Epstein
'Obama was trying to lead a coup,' Trump said. 'And it was with Hillary Clinton.' Trump's extended digression, which came during a visit with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines, was a stark example of his campaign of retribution against an ever-growing list of enemies that has little analogue in American history. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up It even prompted a rare response from Obama's office. Advertisement 'These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,' said Patrick Rodenbush, a spokesperson for Obama. 'Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes.' After Trump's attack on Obama, reports continued to surface about his relationship with Epstein. CNN published photos of Epstein at Trump's 1993 wedding to Marla Maples, the president's second wife. Gabbard's report, which claimed there was a 'treasonous conspiracy' by top Obama officials, contradicted a lengthy study by the Senate Intelligence Committee that was signed by all Republican members of the committee, including Marco Rubio, now the secretary of state. Advertisement The Obama administration never contended that the Russians had manipulated votes; instead, the administration, and the Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee, concluded that Russia mounted a major effort to influence voters. Still, in his remarks Tuesday, Trump claimed that he could have sent Clinton, the former secretary of state and another of his political rivals, to prison but chose not to. He said he would show no such leniency to Obama. 'I let her off the hook, and I'm very happy I did, but it's time to start after what they did to me,' Trump said. 'Whether it's right or wrong, it's time to go after people. Obama's been caught directly.' The president then listed even more enemies he wanted his Justice Department to target, including his former FBI director, James Comey and James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, and former President Joe Biden. 'It would be President Obama,' Trump said. 'He started it, and Biden was there with him, and Comey was there, and Clapper, the whole group was there.' 'He's guilty,' he said of Obama. 'This was treason. This was every word you can think of.' Trump's campaign to exact revenge against his perceived enemies has taken many forms. Over the past six months, he has pulled protective details from former colleagues facing death threats from Iran. He has revoked or threatened to revoke the security clearances of Biden, members of his administration and dozens of others. His administration has taken steps to target members of the media seen as unfriendly, taken the hatchet to entire agencies perceived as too liberal, and fired or investigated government workers deemed disloyal. Advertisement The re-examination of the intelligence around the 2016 election began with John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, ordering a review of the agency's tradecraft that went into the intelligence community assessment in December of that year. The review was deeply critical of the Obama administration and the former CIA director, John Brennan. CIA analysts took issue with the speed of the assessment and accused Brennan of allowing an unverified dossier prepared by a former British intelligence officer to influence the assessment. But Brennan has long denied that the so-called Steele dossier had any impact on the assessment, and other former officials said that the analysts working on the report paid no attention to it, maintaining that it was unverifiable rumor. Ratcliffe wrote on social media that the review had shown that the process was corrupt, and then he made a criminal referral to the FBI. Last week, Gabbard issued another report that criticized the findings of the intelligence assessment even more directly. Gabbard's report suggested that in the winter of 2016, intelligence officials under pressure from the White House changed their assessment from one that Russia had failed to mount a significant effort to hack election infrastructure to one that the Kremlin was trying to boost Trump and denigrate Clinton, the Democratic nominee. But Gabbard's report conflated two different intelligence findings. Intelligence officials had concluded that Russia had not engaged in any major effort to hack election systems and change votes. But they also believed that Russia had tried to influence the election in various ways by releasing hacked documents to harm Clinton and sow dissent. Advertisement Gabbard has also called for several Obama officials to face criminal investigation, without naming them. This article originally appeared in
The Hill
2 hours ago
- The Hill
Omar calls GOP ‘pedophile protection party' for dodging Epstein votes
Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar (D) on Tuesday slammed the GOP for dodging a vote that would call for the release of files related to deceased financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Republican leaders this week scrapped their legislative plans and headed early into a long summer recess — all to avoid votes on the Epstein saga. However, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has insisted the move was not intended to shield Republicans from tough Epstein votes — or protect Trump from potentially embarrassing disclosures — but to end the Democrats' 'political games.' 'The pedophile protection party is shutting down Congress just to avoid voting on the release of the Epstein files,' Omar wrote in a post on X in response to the move. Last week, GOP lawmakers killed a vote backed by Democrats attempting to force the release of Epstein's files. It failed 211-210 along party lines. 'The American people are best served by putting an end to Democrats' side shows. That's what we're doing by not allowing the Rules Committee to continue with that nonsense this week,' Johnson said during a Tuesday press conference. 'We're done being lectured on transparency,' he said. However, some Republicans have refused to completely abandon the public's desire for more information related to Epstein's international illegal dealings. The House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee voted Tuesday to subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell, longtime associate to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, to appear for a deposition. Some are hoping the measure will unveil new details about the list of people involved with the human trafficking ring. 'This is progress. We will not stop fighting until the Epstein Files are released. Trump and Bondi must stop blocking the American people from the truth,' House Oversight Democrats wrote on the social platform X after the vote. On Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche also said in a statement that he has communicated with Maxwell's counsel 'to determine whether she would be willing to speak with prosecutors from the Department.' 'I anticipate meeting with Ms. Maxwell in the coming days,' Blanche said. 'Until now, no administration on behalf of the Department had inquired about her willingness to meet with the government. That changes now.'
