A photograph showing thousands of satellites cross-hatching the night sky over New Zealand appeared so extraordinary the astrophotographer who captured it is fighting accusations it was created by AI.

To create his spectacular image – now viewed millions of times online – Brendan Larsen spent two hours in September snapping hundreds of photographs of the night sky over Mount Taranaki in the North Island.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and other Republicans are including Christian nationalist themes in their messaging and campaign rhetoric in the final days before the midterm elections.

This past weekend, Johnson appeared on “The Week on Capitol Hill,” a right-wing Christian program hosted by Tony Perkins. Perkins asked Johnson what advice he’d give to conservatives “who are considering sitting this election out.”

Many observers have posed the question, “How did the US end up with a psychotic president who displays no regard for truth?” A critical and historical understanding of the political economy of politics helps to explain the self-aggrandizing transactional presidency and make sense of the seemingly nonsensical.

With the midterm elections shaping up to be a stinging rebuke of his gold-plated presidency, the tempo of Donald Trump’s political prosecutions—a hallmark of his second term—has increased. Headlines and story-framing lead paragraphs, however, routinely fail to highlight the authoritarian nature of these persecutions.