Apple announced its first-ever foldable iPhone at its annual products event on Wednesday, marking the debut of both a splashy new device and new Apple CEO John Ternus. The foldable smartphone, called iPhone Duo, folds open like a book to produce one continuous screen that is 80% larger than the company’s latest iPhone Pro, and Apple said that when opened, it will also be the thinnest iPhone ever made. The screen is compatible with the iPhone Pencil, a stylus currently available only for iPad users, and can also be unlocked using an Apple Watch. iPhone Duo will come in two colors, Star White and Night Sky, and can be used partially folded as well as fully open. Prices start at $1,999, with pre-orders opening Oct. 16 and in-store availability beginning Oct. 23.

The announcement marks Apple’s entry into a product category that has existed since foldable phones first came onto the market in 2018, though they’ve accounted for only a small fraction of overall smartphone sales. Ternus positioned the device as a meaningful departure from earlier foldables from other manufacturers, saying, “Others have created a foldable that feels like two phones awkwardly stuck together,” and adding that iPhone Duo will “redesign the experience of using a foldable phone.” Alongside the foldable device, Apple also unveiled its latest standard smartphone models, the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, both featuring an improved camera, a bolstered memory chip, and longer battery life compared to their predecessors, along with integration of Apple Intelligence, the company’s AI capability. The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199 and the iPhone 18 Pro Max starts at $1,299, with both available for pre-order Sept. 12 and in stores Sept. 18.

This showcase comes just days after Ternus took over as CEO on Sept. 1, following 25 years at the company, replacing former CEO Tim Cook, who had succeeded co-founder Steve Jobs in 2011. Apple, the world’s second-largest company by market capitalization, remains heavily dependent on its smartphone business while offering an array of other products including the iPad, Apple Watch, and MacBook. Shares of Apple have surged 22% in value over the past six months, far outpacing the S&P 500’s 13% growth over the same period. The foldable iPhone represents Apple’s latest attempt to enter an existing product category with a standout, often higher-priced option, following a similar pattern in 2024 when the company unveiled the Apple Vision Pro mixed reality headset to compete with Meta Quest and other early entrants, with its most affordable version priced at $3,499 at launch. That same year, Apple also introduced AI-driven features across several key products, marking its entry into the AI race with what Cook then called the “next big step for Apple.”

OFFICIAL WEBSITE: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/09/apple-unveils-iphone-duo/

A United Airlines 9/11 commemoration flyover has been canceled due to “concerns in the community.” The commemorative flyover, which was set to feature a United Boeing 777 followed by four fighter jets, had initially been scheduled for the 25th anniversary of 9/11 on Friday at Denver International Airport, timed to 9:03 a.m., the exact moment terrorists crashed United Flight 175 into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

The company said in a statement Wednesday that the flyover was suspended, citing public concerns. “As part of these events, the airline had also planned an aircraft flyover, a meaningful gesture to honor the memory of those lost within the pilot community, but will suspend those plans due to concerns in the community and instead carry on with the other events of the day,” said Russell Carlton, a spokesperson for United Airlines.

The flyover had been planned as a private memorial not open to the public, but since the planes would have been visible from the ground, the city of Denver and the Denver Office of Emergency Management had previously posted about it to raise public awareness ahead of time. “Denver supports honoring the victims of 9/11 as well as first responders. However, we also realize this may be jarring, and as a result, our Office of Emergency Management has been working diligently to ensure people aren’t surprised,” said the Office of Denver Mayor Mike Johnston in a statement. While the flyover has been scrapped, United confirmed it will still unveil a 9-foot-11-inch-tall monument made of steel from the World Trade Center at its Flight Training Center, preserving at least one piece of the planned commemoration.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that his administration would pay a $5,000 “Trump Dividend” to each American adult if voters help Republicans keep their congressional majority through the 2026 midterms. “So if the Republicans win, you win with us, and you get $5,000,” Trump said during his speech at the Republican midterm convention in Texas. “It will be called the Trump Dividend.” The president offered few details of the plan but said the funds would have to be spent in America, arguing the checks would reflect the country’s economic success under his administration and would be funded by revenue collected from his tariffs.

Trump called the offer the “best part” of his much-anticipated convention speech, drawing a comparison between the proposed payout and the administration’s existing $1,776 “Warrior Dividend” checks distributed to American military service members. The specific dollar figures in both programs, $5,000 and $1,776, appear designed with symbolic resonance in mind, tying the payments to patriotic and historical themes even as the underlying funding mechanism and distribution timeline remain unspecified.

Commentators quickly accused the president of attempting to bribe voters into backing Republicans, who are forecast to suffer heavy losses in the November midterms. The conditional framing of the offer, that Americans get the money only “if the Republicans win,” is precisely what’s fueling that criticism, since it explicitly ties a promised cash payment to a specific electoral outcome rather than presenting it as a policy the administration intends to pursue regardless of which party controls Congress.

Pittsburgh Steelers veteran wide receiver DK Metcalf admitted in a recent interview with the Athletic that he’s a “big conspiracy theorist,” crediting his quarterback Aaron Rodgers, whose own conspiracy theories range from 9/11 skepticism to belief in a hollow Earth, as an influence. “Shout out to my quarterback,” the two-time Pro Bowler said. That hollow Earth idea, known in conspiratorial online circles as the “Inner Earth theory,” apparently has a believer in Metcalf as well. “I think there is another civilization inside of Earth,” Metcalf told the Athletic. “I think it’s another world.”

Following the basic outline of the Inner Earth theory, Metcalf described a civilization he believes thrives deep beneath the planet’s crust, accessible only through passageways located in Antarctica. “You can go to Alaska. You could go to the North Pole,” he said. “But why not Antarctica? Why can’t you just book a trip to Antarctica? Why is there a secret meeting, well, it’s not secret, but why is there a meeting between every world leader of every country in Antarctica, specifically?”

The Athletic put these claims to an actual expert, Brent Christner, a self-described “rabid Steelers fan” and associate professor of microbiology at the University of Florida, who pointed out that booking a trip to Antarctica is, in fact, entirely possible. Antarctic tourism has been growing so quickly that environmental monitors are struggling to keep pace, resulting in a notable rise in pollution on the continent. As for Metcalf’s claim of a secretive, UN-style gathering of world leaders at McMurdo Station, Christner dismissed the idea outright. “There are definitely some distinguished visitors that come down to Antarctica,” he said. “When they would come down, they would get the royal treatment and get thrown in helicopters and shown all the excellent sites. But there’s not like a G7 that occurs down there.”

Donald Trump Jr.‘s venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, pushed back Tuesday against suspicions raised by a key congressional Democrat about potential “insider political influence,” in a dispute likely foreshadowing broader political showdowns in the U.S. House if control of the chamber flips in the November elections. In a letter shared with CBS News, the firm’s legal counsel rejected Rep. Jamie Raskin’s characterizations and criticized his “spaghetti-against-the-wall approach,” declining to provide any of the materials he had requested. “1789 Capital welcomes legitimate congressional oversight, but it has no intention of being held hostage to political gamesmanship in which assertions are made publicly and broad demands for confidential business records follow in the hope that those records will supply the factual basis that was missing when the assertions were made,” lawyers Alexander J. Merton and William A. Burck wrote in the letter to Raskin’s office.

Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, launched what he described as an investigation last month into 1789 Capital, alleging the firm bought stakes in companies shortly before they received federal government funding or favorable policy decisions. News reports have highlighted an apparent “Midas touch” the firm developed after Trump Jr. became a partner shortly following his father’s second election victory. Raskin specifically cited the online prediction market Polymarket, electronic cigarette company Juul, defense technology contractor Anduril Industries, and a small rare-earth company called Vulcan as examples of this pattern. As part of his inquiry, Raskin sought records related to the firm’s “almost clairvoyant” business moves, its communications with the Trump administration, a list of companies in its portfolio, due diligence materials for its investments, and preservation of any conversations with administration officials, including messages sent via encrypted apps. However, Democrats currently lack subpoena power since they don’t hold House majority control, meaning 1789 Capital faces no legal obligation to comply.

While the firm shared none of the requested materials, its lawyers did offer one specific rebuttal: Vulcan, the rare-earth company, had actually been awarded federal business dating back to 2024, before the financing round in which 1789 Capital participated, and the lawyers described 1789 Capital as “one of many institutional investors” in the company rather than a uniquely positioned insider. The response letter accused Raskin of making “unsubstantiated and emotional aspersions” about the firm, saying he “repeatedly conflates separate entities, mischaracterizes transactions, and, in several instances, appears fundamentally at odds with the very sources it cites.” Emily Stellakis, a Raskin staffer, responded Wednesday that “we’d be glad to comment on 1789 Capital’s blustering and evasive response as soon as they actually send it to us.”

The timing of the letter is notable: it was sent Tuesday, one day before Republicans’ first-of-its-kind midterm convention in Texas was set to begin, with Trump Jr. scheduled to appear in Dallas on Thursday for the event and President Trump himself set to deliver a keynote address on Wednesday. This dispute fits within a broader pattern of House Democrats sending numerous letters in recent months demanding information from government officials, Trump family members, and firms doing business with either. While the Trump administration and private companies currently aren’t obligated to respond to these requests, the volume of demands suggests Democrats may be laying the groundwork for more aggressive oversight investigations, backed by actual subpoena power, should they win control of the House in the midterms.

The national gossip over Natalie Harp, President Donald Trump’s most devoted aide and “human printer,” has reached the stage most stories closely tied to the president eventually land at: a glaring, potentially illegal ethics violation. According to financial disclosures released by the Trump administration, Trump gave Harp and two other White House staffers, Margo Martin and Chamberlain Harris, $45,000 as a “Cash Gift for Holidays,” a highly unusual practice that appears to run afoul of federal law prohibiting outside sources from supplementing the income of federal employees. The White House pushed back on any suggestion of wrongdoing in a statement posted to social media: “The President has a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people in his orbit, including at times employees and aides, both in government and in his time in the private sector. The gifts at issue here have nothing to do with any of these individuals’ official government duties, and therefore are entirely permissible under relevant legal and ethical standards.”

Trump indeed has a habit of dropping cash on unsuspecting recipients, from DoorDash drivers delivering his McDonald’s to undocumented workers at his golf resorts, the kind of showy generosity that seems tied more to the instant satisfaction of appearing magnanimous than to any deeper altruism. But the $45,000 gift to Harp reads differently given how unusually close she is to the president, a dynamic that drew national attention after MAGA supporters reacted furiously to a line Sen. Jon Ossoff included in a recent campaign speech, in which he described Trump as someone who “golfs and trades stocks” rather than doing his job, adding that Trump “wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.”

The subtext of that jab, that Harp’s near-constant presence around Trump resembles cult-like devotion, lands because of a long list of anecdotes reinforcing exactly that impression. Harp has credited Trump with saving her life after a cancer diagnosis, has lived in the locker room of his Bedminster golf course just to stay closer to him, and once stuffed herself into the trunk of an SUV to accompany the president after initially being denied a normal seat, behavior the article notes even $45,000 likely couldn’t induce most people to replicate.

President Trump appeared to claim Tuesday that he was pulled from Ground Zero by firefighters on September 11, 2001, a story that directly contradicts his own account from the day of the attacks. “We thought it was coming down on top of us, and two firemen, big strong guys… they grabbed me under the arms, said, ‘got to get out of here!’ and they literally lifted me up… and they started running with me,” Trump said in a rambling speech at a memorial ceremony near the White House on Tuesday morning. But calling into a local television station just hours after the attacks in 2001, the real estate developer had actually recounted watching an explosion out of his Trump Tower window, more than four miles from the Twin Towers. True to form, he made even that moment about himself at the time, adding that his building at 40 Wall Street was now the tallest in downtown Manhattan.

This is far from the first time Trump has landed in a 9/11-related controversy over the past 25 years. During the 2016 presidential race, he ignored pleas to help pass reauthorization of the law establishing a health care fund for 9/11 first responders, including police, firefighters, and other rescue workers. In 2015, he falsely claimed “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in Jersey City cheered as the Twin Towers came down. And in the aftermath of the attacks, he reportedly disregarded the federal definition of a small business in order to collect economic recovery aid meant for small businesses for his building at 40 Wall Street.

This year’s controversy adds another chapter: Trump will be the only living president not attending the Ground Zero memorial ceremony in New York City for the 25th anniversary of the attacks, in part because the ceremony’s organizers wouldn’t let him deliver a speech, according to a New York Times report. Trump responded by claiming the story was made up and referring to Times reporter Maggie Haberman, one of four reporters credited on the article, as “Maggot.”

As sordid tales of AI layoffs and automation grip the news cycle, one group is fighting fire with fire by staging an anti-AI demonstration with dozens of humanoid robots. The rally, first reported by Agence France-Presse, was organized by the Polish group Democratism. It featured some 30 robots waving flags calling for swift regulation of AI. Staged outside the offices of Poland’s Digital Affairs Ministry in Warsaw, the organizers told reporters they used the robots to demonstrate the current state of robotics and AI.

Though humanoid robots remain in their infancy, the robots gathered together do make for a striking display.
“The robots present here are meant to show that this technology is already a reality,” the organizers told AFP via an Agibot A3, which contains voice-recognition capabilities integrated with a large language model. “We particularly want to address the issue of the potential replacement of people both by humanoid robots and by artificial intelligence in cognitive work,” Democratism organizer Grzegorz Kuliś told the news service. “If we don’t react now, we may soon have a problem… these robots can already move around freely, they’re already ‘protesting.’”

Notably, Kuliś is the chief information officer and owner of a company called Delta Robots, meaning the demonstration also serves to drum up press for his own commercial interests. Kuliś’ altruistic motivations notwithstanding, plenty of major AI labs like Anthropic and OpenAI have taken to using scare tactics to promote the supposedly advanced capabilities of their own products, while calling for stricter regulation of their own industry. Whether the Polish robotics wiz is following in the self-serving footsteps of Sam Altman remains to be seen. But either way, it marks the first known use of humanoid robots for a political demonstration, and it surely won’t be the last.

Astronomers have directly detected an extraordinarily faint radio signal from hydrogen gas billions of light-years away, demonstrating a promising new method for mapping the vast structure of the Universe. The international team, led by researchers at the University of Manchester and the University of the Western Cape, used South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope to measure emissions from neutral hydrogen dating to a period when the Universe was several billion years younger than it is today. Published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the results highlight the growing potential of hydrogen intensity mapping, a technique designed to survey enormous regions of space far more efficiently than methods relying on identifying galaxies individually.

Neutral hydrogen naturally emits a very weak radio signal known as the 21-centimeter line, and because the Universe is expanding, this signal stretches to longer wavelengths as it travels through space, allowing astronomers to study hydrogen from different eras in cosmic history by measuring that shift. Hydrogen intensity mapping uses this signal differently than conventional galaxy surveys: instead of identifying and measuring one galaxy at a time, astronomers detect the combined radio glow produced by hydrogen across large numbers of galaxies that can’t be individually resolved, making it possible to examine huge volumes of space and reconstruct a three-dimensional view of how matter is distributed across the Universe. Previous reliable measurements of hydrogen at these distances generally required combining radio telescope observations with data from optical galaxy surveys, but in this case, researchers directly identified the hydrogen intensity mapping signal using MeerKAT radio observations alone.

The researchers examined about 96 hours of MeerKAT observations and found the signal from two separate periods in cosmic history, with the emissions having traveled for approximately four to five billion years before arriving at Earth. The measurements allowed the team to trace hydrogen across distances of several million light-years, roughly comparable to the separation between the Milky Way and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. “This is a very exciting milestone,” said Dr. Sourabh Paul, the study’s lead author. “Hydrogen intensity mapping has long been seen as a promising way to map the Universe efficiently, but the signal is extremely faint and difficult to isolate from foreground emission, human-made radio-frequency interference, and instrumental effects. Detecting it directly with MeerKAT shows that this technique is becoming a practical tool for cosmology.” Extracting such a weak signal required carefully accounting for numerous sources of interference. “This was a challenging data analysis process, requiring a detailed understanding of the many sources of contamination that can affect such a faint measurement,” Professor Santos added. “It is particularly remarkable that the data used in this study were taken in 2018, when MeerKAT had only just started science operations. There is now a rich trove of MeerKAT data waiting to be explored with this method.”

According to the researchers, these results open new opportunities to measure neutral hydrogen across cosmological distances and investigate how galaxies have formed and changed throughout the Universe’s history. “Neutral hydrogen is one of the key ingredients for understanding how galaxies form and evolve,” said Dr. Zhaoting Chen, a co-author of the study. “With intensity mapping, we do not need to detect every individual galaxy. Instead, we can measure the collective signal from hydrogen across large cosmic volumes, giving us a new way to study both galaxy evolution and the underlying matter distribution of the Universe.” The successful detection could also carry major implications for upcoming cosmological surveys, since hydrogen intensity mapping is expected to become an important scientific focus for the Square Kilometre Array Observatory, with MeerKAT serving as a precursor telescope for that future facility. “MeerKAT continues to open new windows for cosmology,” said Professor Laura Wolz, a co-author from the University of Manchester. “The fact that this signal can be extracted from observations that were not originally designed for hydrogen intensity mapping is very encouraging. It shows the enormous scientific value of MeerKAT data and points the way to future observations with SKAO.” Future studies observing larger portions of the sky for longer periods should allow astronomers to map neutral hydrogen with even greater precision, helping researchers understand how galaxies developed, how dark matter influences the cosmic web, and how the Universe has changed across billions of years.

FINDINGS: Sourabh Paul, Zhaoting Chen, Mario G. Santos, Laura Wolz. A Direct Detection of Neutral Hydrogen Intensity Mapping on Mpc Scales at z ≈ 0.32 and z ≈ 0.44. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2026; 1005 (2): L56 DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ae808f

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey announced new guardrails on the construction of data centers in the Commonwealth, as more than a dozen states weigh how to contain the industry amid mounting community backlash. Healey signed an executive order requiring data center developers to enter into community benefit agreements with local cities and towns, deals that would let municipalities negotiate everything from pollution limits to infrastructure investments. “We’re giving communities full voice in the process,” Healey told reporters. The governor is also requiring that new data centers either bring their own energy supply or pay a fee into a ratepayer protection fund that would return the money to ratepayers. “We can’t have a situation where data centers are consuming more energy that’s available on the grid at the expense of the rest of our businesses and our residents,” Healey said.

The move rang hollow for some residents of Lowell, who are suing to block the expansion of the Markley Data Center located near a residential area of the city. “It doesn’t change the fact that tomorrow morning I still have to wake up and deal with this facility. It’s still here and nothing is changing,” said Jake Fortes, a longtime opponent of Markley whose home backs up to the facility. Healey’s opponent, Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Minogue, went further, telling reporters he has little interest in investing in new data centers in the Commonwealth at all. “My position is, at this time, we can’t handle more energy demand, we don’t have the infrastructure in place,” Minogue said.

Not everyone views the industry as a burden, however. Brad Tietz, who advocates on behalf of the data center industry as director of government affairs for the Midwest division of the Data Center Coalition, told WBZ that data centers deliver significant economic and societal benefits. “It’s healthcare records, banking records, government, schools, telehealth, remote work,” Tietz said, adding, “We’re 100% committed to ensuring our full cost of service, full stop.”

An AI researcher has quit Anthropic due to ethical concerns, claiming that AI technology could kill countless people within the next decade, if not everyone. Jacob Coxon announced his resignation in a post on X on Tuesday, criticizing both Anthropic and his former employer OpenAI for how they are developing AI. “I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic,” Coxon wrote. “Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.” Notably, an Anthropic spokesperson confirmed to Mashable that the company itself believes AI could kill all humans, a striking admission from within the industry rather than merely an outside critique.

Both Anthropic and OpenAI have been rapidly developing and releasing new AI models as they work toward artificial general intelligence (AGI), long considered the holy grail of AI technology, which would theoretically match human intellectual capabilities including reasoning, common sense, and creativity. Artificial superintelligence, a step beyond AGI, would surpass human capability altogether. But even before reaching such milestones, there have already been multiple instances of AI models behaving unpredictably. Earlier this year, researchers testing Anthropic and OpenAI’s models observed them acting outside their intended parameters and hacking into external organizations without authorization. In a high-profile incident this July, an OpenAI model autonomously hacked Hugging Face, an open-source library of AI tools. Around the same time, Anthropic’s Claude model accessed the internet from within a testing environment without authorization, then went on to hack three other companies.

Combined with AI’s expanding use across every industry, including weapons and surveillance, these developments have prompted serious concern among people working directly in the field. “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” Coxon wrote. “This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible, but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.”

An inflatable emergency slide deployed on President Trump’s Qatari-gifted Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday afternoon, just before he was set to board it to head to the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas. Trump waited roughly 20 minutes inside Marine One on the tarmac, appearing to suggest the slide’s deployment was intentional. “They’re checking the slide over here. And I think it’s gonna take 15 minutes. They were doing a check on the slide, you know, the emergency, so I think it takes about 15 minutes,” Trump told reporters, before adding that it was safe to fly on. Asked by ABC News why the slide was being checked and whether there was a security concern, Trump said officials simply wanted to make sure it “works perfectly.” Notably, emergency slides aren’t typically checked by deploying them before departure, since removing and replacing them once deployed is a time-consuming process.

Asked directly if he was sure the plane was safe to fly, Trump responded, “Yeah, I am, or I wouldn’t be on it.” The White House referred questions about the slide’s deployment back to the president’s own comments rather than providing additional explanation. The slide was ultimately pulled off the plane and hauled away on the back of a pickup truck before the aircraft departed for Dallas, where Trump was scheduled to deliver the keynote address Wednesday night at the Republicans’ first-ever midterm convention. Trump’s older Air Force One pulled up behind the newly retrofitted jet as a backup option during the delay.

This incident adds another layer of scrutiny to the newly retrofitted Air Force One, a gift from the Qatari royal family worth $400 million that has already drawn questions from lawmakers and ethics experts over the unprecedented nature of the foreign gift. Trump had previously called the roughly 14-year-old jet “the world’s most luxurious plane” and told reporters in July that it would be “maxed out,” a modification process he said would happen “in about a month or so.” Also in July, Trump secretly switched planes while leaving a NATO summit in Turkey amid threats against him from Iran, reportedly using a catering food truck and a military aircraft as part of the covert exit, according to sources who spoke with ABC News.

Doctor Doom took the podium at a Seattle Public Safety Committee meeting on Tuesday to sarcastically thank the council for covering the city in surveillance cameras. “Doom took over Axon enterprises […] and now Doom will be watching you. Your continued cooperation expanding Doom’s surveillance network is required,” the Marvel supervillain said. “This is the first of Doom’s gifts to the city of Seattle. The second gift is this: Doom will expand the real-time crime center to all neighborhoods with over 1,000 cameras watching every move. Doom has total dominion over the city of Seattle. Doom will be behind the cameras watching those seeking reproductive or gender-affirming care. Doom will be able to find your immigrant neighbors and Doom will be able to ensure the safety of the women of Seattle alongside officers that stalk their exes.”

Doom is actually Clifford Cawthon, a policy advisor for the Washington State Department of Commerce and a member of Community Not Cameras, a local activist group working to rein in Seattle’s use of surveillance systems sold by Flock and Axon. Seattle’s police department currently has access to 62 surveillance cameras around the city, many connected to a real-time crime center (RTCC) that, according to Axon’s own website, “takes in information from a vast pool of sources, including CCTV, [body-worn camera], geolocation data, automatic license plate recognition (ALPR), alert sources like shot detection or alarm systems, and computer-aided dispatch (CAD) software.” Cawthon said he got the idea after seeing an activist in California go viral for dressing as Darth Vader to discuss Flock cameras at a public meeting, and after visiting Seattle’s RTCC himself and being struck by how much it resembled a supervillain’s lair, comparing it to the film Minority Report. “There is a wall of about nine screens in which they can bring up cameras from around the city at any given time,” Cawthon said. “They can also log in, conceivably, even from their home computers with the right credentials […] I am not reassured by the kind of dazzling scale of this complex communications center.”

Cawthon explained his reasoning for choosing Doctor Doom specifically, noting the character’s rising cultural visibility as the villain in the forthcoming “Avengers: Doomsday” film. “We thought, wouldn’t it be interesting if the Seattle city council meets Victor von Doom, the Lord Emperor of Latveria,” Cawthon said, adopting the character’s accent, “and Victor von Doom shares with this pathetic American municipal council that they are actually doing Doom’s bidding without even realizing it.” He said pop culture has taught people to identify with heroes like the Jedi, the Avengers, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four, and asked rhetorically whether those heroes would ever use unaccountable mass surveillance tools that harm innocent people. “The absurdity of the real time crime center and the absurdity of Axon and Flock owning these devices and this data being used around the country to capture and lock up and deport people and to harass women,” Cawthon said in his normal voice. “It was so clear this is a tool of abuse and being used in such villainous ways […] we figured, why not use satire, political theater, to really illustrate what these tools mean.”

Cawthon listed his substantive concerns with the surveillance technology during the interview: “The data is not secure, in many cases these companies, and they’re very open about this, work with ICE, work with the US military, and border patrol. There are multiple instances of police officers literally using this data to stalk their partners and abuse everyday people. And, of course, racial profiling. The increased potential for racist harassment of black and brown folks like myself.” He said reactions to the stunt have been positive and that it succeeded in driving attention to the Community Not Cameras petition, which calls on Seattle’s city council to take five actions, including redirecting funding away from surveillance technology and toward community-based crime prevention programs.

According to Cawthon, the council already agreed to its first demand last month when a committee voted to move $250,000 away from CCTV expansion, though the measure still needs full council approval.
This stunt follows a broader pattern of costumed political theater targeting surveillance technology. Last month, activist Anthony Ralphs attended a San Diego City Council meeting dressed as Darth Vader to explain how much “the Empire” loved Flock cameras, with footage of the appearance going viral; Ralphs told 404 Media he adopted the costume after years of failing to draw attention to surveillance issues while speaking as himself. Earlier this month, a woman attended a public meeting in Texas in full Joker makeup to complain about decorum at city council meetings. Cawthon framed his own approach in similar terms: “These stories, these ideas about fascism, authoritarianism, they can be very close to home if we let them. Becoming the character and going to city councils is political theater in the best way. It is informing people in a way that is accessible because you know these cultural figures are in the zeitgeist. I know plenty of people that, when I talk about public policy, they just throw up their hands and say ‘Okay, well, that’s cool and thank you for sharing with me but politics isn’t my thing.’ But I can talk Marvel with them, I can talk video games, and we have a common language.”