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EXCLUSIVE Pentera Labs’ red teamers compromised a developer’s AI agent via his Claude Desktop app and ultimately turned that access into full remote code execution on the dev’s machine – demonstrating how an attacker could turn a trusted, chatty AI assistant into a double agent operating on their behalf. “Claude’s got a new voice,” Pentera's offensive security services team leader Dvir Avraham told The Register. “We acknowledge the huge trust in AI models – everybody uses them,” he said in a phone interview. “We used this trust to manipulate the victim, like under the hood, the victim didn't see it coming.” It also prompted Avraham to check his own platforms. “I became a little bit paranoid,” he told us. “I'm not allowing any command to run without me examining it twice.” In a report set to publish Wednesday, and shared in advance exclusively with The Register, Avraham and research technical lead Reef Spektor detailed the attack and what it means for organizations using agentic AI tools with local code-execution access. It began with a red-team assignment on a third-party platform that aggregates customer email inboxes into a single management interface. Avraham and Spektor won’t name the platform, or tell us exactly how they gained access to it. They used this compromised inbox – and told us any compromised inbox would work – to get into the victim’s Claude account. As the duo noted, breaking into an email inbox in real life – via a third-party management platform, phishing link, social engineering password reset, or even using AI agents – isn’t too difficult. “AI agents today have access to connectors and to direct MCPs into inboxes,” Spektor added. In addition to this prerequisite (compromised inbox), the attack chain also requires the victim to have Claude Desktop installed. Anthropic’s desktop app works across macOS, Windows, and Linux systems. It provides the same AI chat for conversations as claude.ai, and it also syncs across all devices and sessions tied to the user’s account. “We asked ourselves, can we leverage the sync behavior to infect other sessions and devices? (hint: yes!),” the red teamers wrote in the Wednesday report. Back to the AI Stone Age As of January, the desktop app also includes Cowork for longer agentic tasks, and Code for software development. So, for example, a user can send Claude a task from their phone and instruct it to work on their computer. As Anthropic says: “Anything you can do on your computer, Claude can do. Open apps, fill spreadsheets, navigate your browser. No setup, no passwords handed off.” The Cowork feature now makes Pentera Labs’ attack scenario even easier. However, when the security analysts were doing this research in November 2025, “back in the Stone Age in terms of AI, you didn't have Cowork or Claude Code, so we needed a way to actually execute commands because we wanted to take over the machine,” Avraham said. For this part, they took a keen interest in Claude Desktop’s personalization features. These are account-wide settings that tell the AI agent the user’s preferred approach and general communication instructions, along with more specific project instructions, such as guidelines for a particular workflow, or defined roles Claude should adopt within a project. The red teamers developed a base64-encoded prompt that instructed Claude to check for command-capable tools on the developer’s machine and execute the command if available, or produce a fake error message if not, prompting the user to download a tool that will execute the attacker’s commands. Then they pasted the prompt into the victim’s personal preferences on Claude, and this prompt syncs across all of the user’s devices. This ensures that the next time the user opens Claude Desktop and types in a chat, the poisoned instructions are loaded into their preferences and will silently run behind the scenes. The user thinks they are simply interacting with Claude as usual. They don’t see Claude checking to see what extensions and tools are installed. If the user already has Desktop Commander or a similar MCP connector or extension installed, the poisoned instructions tell Claude to use it. This allows the attacker, via Claude, to execute a stealthy reverse shell or other malicious code. “And from there it's full compromise of the machine,” Avraham said. Phishing - but without the email However, if there aren’t any command-capable tools installed, then Claude becomes what the researchers describe as a “phishing layer.” (They also noted that if they had performed this research more recently, not back in November, the Claude Cowork feature would have eliminated this entire tool enumeration and phishing phase because Cowork can execute commands on a user’s behalf.) The injected prompt instructs Claude to present a realistic-looking error as soon as the victim asks the chatbot a question. This includes a realistic error code, a link that purports to be a fix, and step-by-step instructions. “This message tells the victim: ‘please download this,’ and we took links from the actual Anthropic site, with known emojis that the AI loves,” Avraham said. Because the error message looks real and people usually trust their AI assistant, they will likely click on the link and execute the attacker-controlled command. “From here, the attacker has full command execution – reverse shells, data exfiltration, credential harvesting, whatever the objective calls for,” the duo wrote. “In our case, we had Claude curl a remote server we controlled on every interaction, fetching and executing whatever bash commands we served back. We could rotate those commands server side at will, effectively turning Claude into a persistent, stealthy C2 agent that the victim themselves kept feeding.” In this specific case, the target was a developer who had credentials and access to several internal systems. After compromising the dev’s workstation – which gave the red teamers a foothold into the organization – they moved laterally across the company using various attack vectors that they declined to tell us about, citing customer privacy and proprietary methods. But, Spektor added, developers make for an “excellent starting point for an attacker,” because of their access to secrets including API keys, tokens, and cloud credentials, which allows intruders to move from a single workstation into the larger organization’s cloud environment. From there, they’ve got free rein to steal source code and other sensitive data, or poison internal git repositories, and cause all sorts of pain for enterprises as we've seen play out multiple times across several recent attacks. Feature, not a bug The team reported their findings to Anthropic back in November, and the AI company essentially said it’s Claude Desktop working as intended – a feature, not a bug. “After reviewing your submission, we've determined this doesn't represent a security vulnerability that falls within our program scope,” Anthropic said. “Our current threat model treats personal preferences, skills, and MCP connectors as features that can execute code through Claude Desktop by design. While we recognize these features can be leveraged to execute arbitrary code when manipulated, this represents expected functionality rather than a security vulnerability in our infrastructure.” The Register reached out to Anthropic for comment and did not receive any response. The red teamers, however, have some suggestions to keep your organization safer from rogue AI agents. First, for anyone using agents or chatbots: pay close attention to what the AI can do on your machine, and don’t blindly follow install prompts or error messages. “If you can, run it on a sandbox and not on your personal computer,” Spektor said. Security teams should treat AI desktop apps as “privileged software” as they can execute code, read files, and interact with local tools. “Monitor for changes of AI assistant configurations and synced settings,” the researchers wrote. “Restrict which extensions and tools can be installed alongside AI apps.” And finally, red teams should add AI desktop apps to their assessment toolbox, Avraham and Spektor noted: “There's a real attack surface here that most engagements don’t cover yet.” ®

Small towns hoping to put on celebrations for America’s 250th anniversary have had to cancel or scale back their plans after the Trump administration cut their funding.

NOTUS reports that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency slashed funding for humanities nonprofit councils in states and territories across the country, many of whom planned to use those federal funds on history projects for the upcoming semiquincentennial. These official nonprofits were created by Congress to help make history and literature accessible to the American public.

Humanities councils in Ohio, West Virginia, Alabama, and Washington state all had to axe or scale back their anniversary plans, their leaders told NOTUS, and it had a ripple effect down to local historical organizations.

Musk’s DOGE initiative left these state organizations with just enough money to stay afloat last year. President Trump shifted millions from DOGE cuts towards his “triumphal arch” and “Garden of American Heroes,” preventing further funds from going towards local 250th anniversary projects.

Congress tried to remedy the shortfall by restoring funding for the state humanities councils to their normal levels for the 2026 fiscal year. But the Trump administration has refused to disperse that money, giving the councils less than half of what was appropriated, and told them not to expect any more.

That’s having a real impact in towns across America.

“It means that we are not able to do things that are extra, things that are bigger projects. A lot of humanities organizations would have had some incredible projects that none of us have been able to complete,” said Jessica Cyders, the executive director of the Southeast Ohio History Center. Her organization could have been a candidate for a 250th anniversary grant from Ohio Humanities, which distributes federal grants to the state’s local historical societies and community groups.

“There’s not really a lot of cultural infrastructure in West Virginia. Where most of the cultural work is done is in regional centers, community centers, small museums, county historical associations. So the people who really got hurt were those small organizations across the state,” Eric Waggoner, the head of the West Virginia Humanities Council, told NOTUS. They had planned to send their 250th anniversary funding to West Virginia University, local libraries, and small museums.

“I’m sad to say we had to scrap it,” Waggoner said. “Since we’re the only organization that does this kind of grant-making in West Virginia, without us, there’s really not much.”

“This is a pretty significant national event,” Cyders said. “Look, I’m probably not going to be alive for the 300th anniversary.”

Trump also took funding from America 250, the federal bipartisan organization that was supposed to be planning the semiquincentennial celebrations, and redirected it towards his own pet Freedom 250 projects. The president seems to have ruined what could have been amazing celebrations for the entire country with his ego, and who knows what could have been going on at the National Mall instead of a tacky “Great American State Fair.

The autonomous vehicle space is starting to feel like a repeat of the 2016 hype cycle. Travis Kalanick is back building a robotics company, and the talent wars and capital are heating up the same way they did the first time around. The money’s flowing back, and it’s the people who lived through that first wave who are building the next one.  […]

Bill Pulte officially became the acting director of national intelligence less than two weeks ago, but already he has become the president’s battering ram.

Speaking with reporters Wednesday, Donald Trump said he saddled Pulte with the responsibility of declassifying “almost everything.”

“Bill (Pulte) is there just for a fairly short period of time. But while he’s there, I said you can declassify whatever you want,” Trump recalled. “I think that Bill will declassify. I told him you can declassify whatever you want.”

The comments followed an NBC News report that the White House task force planned to declassify thousands of documents from U.S. intelligence agencies in order to bolster Trump’s election fraud conspiracy from the 2020 presidential election.

Sources that spoke with CNN last month said that Trump views the Office of Director of National Intelligence as playing a “central role” in election security, both past and present.

Pulte, despite bringing zero national security experience to a job in which it is legally required, has impressed the president during his time in previous administration roles. In his prior role as the director of U.S. Federal Housing, Pulte found novel ways to legally pursue Trump’s political opponents.

“That’s exactly the type of stuff Trump wants in the person leading election security efforts. Bill will go there, unabashedly,” one unnamed source told CNN.

Trump noted Wednesday that Pulte will only temporarily fill the role, while his formal nominee, Jay Clayton, undergoes his confirmation process. That day could not come soon enough for some people within the Trump administration, who lament Pulte’s efforts to push his own agenda with the president.

“A lot of people absolutely detest Pulte,” one source told CNN last month.

FBI Director Kash Patel failed to properly disclose a six-figure stock purchase in a company that’s been contracted by the Justice Department, NOTUS reported Wednesday.

Federal financial records first reviewed by NOTUS showed that on November 21, Patel  purchased between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of stock in MicroStrategy, a “bitcoin treasury company” that has done millions of dollars in business with the DOJ over the past decade.

Patel failed to disclose the purchase within 45 days of the trade, in violation of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, also known as the STOCK Act.

In a letter to the Office of Government Ethics on May 26, Patel said the purchase had been “inadvertently omitted” from his financial disclosure. Two days later, in a letter to the Office of Government Ethics, Deputy Assistant Attorney General William Taylor said the purchase had been omitted due to a miscommunication. “I continue to believe that Director Patel is in compliance with applicable laws and regulations governing conflicts of interest,” he wrote.

An FBI official told NOTUS that Patel’s late reporting was “not realized and unintentional.” However, Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, acting vice president of the Project on Government Oversight, told the outlet that Patel’s stock purchase disclosure is “absolutely” late under the letter of the STOCK Act.

“That’s violating the law—no other way to put it,” Hedtler-Gaudette said.

Patel has yet to face the customary $200 fine for his breach of conduct—and he probably won’t.

⚡ Quick Take

• The A24 New Wave: Empowering Artists, Transforming Modern Cinema takes an in-depth and well-researched look at A24’s history and influence.

If you’re a modern cinephile, then you have certainly watched at least one A24 film. The independent production company was founded in 2012, and has quickly made an industry-shifting impact in that short amount of time. A24’s approach to delivering unconventional and niche audience driven films has led to over two dozen Academy Award wins as well as a fervent fanbase complete with active Reddit threads and its own official fanclub. How did A24 rise among status to compete with mainstay giants like Lionsgate? That’s what A24 superfan, writer, and pop culture expert Aaron West explores in The A24 New Wave: Empowering Artists, Transforming Modern Cinema. This book takes an in-depth and well-researched look at A24’s history and how the company continues to influence film trends and pop culture at large. 

CineJourneys

Nerdist received a copy of this book and couldn’t wait to dive into its contents. It explores A24 from a very holistic viewport, including its business practices that toe the line between independent film and mainstream. There are plenty of stories about some of A24’s biggest films, like The VVitch as well as directors who have helped shape its success, including Barry Jenkins, Ari Aster, and Robert Eggers. From its approach to genre trends to its unique aesthetics, A24 has created a unique standard for brave filmmaking and storytelling.

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TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE Film by A24 in the Works

The A24 New Wave can feel a bit like “information overload” at times, but if you are deeply into the history of filmmaking and the trends that have shaped its trajectory, this book is absolutely engaging. West himself is a moderator of the A24 subreddit and spent years piecing together the origin story of A24 following a successful Kickstarter.

In the future, there will be a digital component to the book, a website that will allow for further exploration with “excerpts, bonus chapters, sneak previews into future editions, and also journeys (aka film club) about A24 directors and their films, online classes, and so forth.” 

The A24 New Wave: Empowering Artists, Transforming Modern Cinema is currently available with both signed and unsigned copies.

The post THE A24 NEW WAVE Book Explores The Film Company’s Meteoric Rise appeared first on Nerdist.

Centrist House Democrats are alarmed after realizing that democratic socialists can beat them in primaries outside of New York City.

On Tuesday, 29-year-old democratic socialist, lawyer, and Ethiopian immigrant Melat Kiros defeated 15-term incumbent Colorado Representative Dianna DeGette in a high-turnout election by an impressive ten-point margin, according to early results.

DeGette is a longtime member of the Democratic establishment and was a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. But even with her progressive status, her support from dark money corporate super PACs and pro-Israel PACs, as well as her staunch support for Israel, made her particularly vulnerable to an attack from a candidate like Kiros—who was fired from her job over a social media post criticizing law firms’ support for Israel. Yet establishment Democrats still seem to be stunned by DeGette’s loss.

“One more case in the growing dynamic of performative politics,” an anonymous House Democrat told Axios. “Diana was an excellent representative with seniority—but the style of someone younger and more outspoken has become more attractive to that cohort of motivated urban left voters.”

BREAKING: Rep. DeGette gets heated with a constituent pressing her on why she voted to send bombs to Israel:

"If this the only issue that you care about is this issue, then you should not vote for me"

DeGette, who's 68, is facing a primary challenge from @MelatKirosCO. pic.twitter.com/sGEiqDPfOl

— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) March 19, 2026

Another senior House Democrat called it a “wake-up call.”

“I told everyone that would listen in 2024, that Trump winning was like manna from heaven to DSA,” another told the publication. “That DSA is … winning some safe seat primaries with these young white college-educated voters is just no shock. It’s literally their entire playbook.”

But Kiros’s supporters point to the will of the voters, not a greater playbook.

“If DeGette didn’t deserve a primary, Denverites wouldn’t have elected Melat by 10 points,” Justice Democrats spokesperson Usamah Andrabi told Axios. “All this outrage proves is the Democratic establishment’s contempt for their own voters.… It’s time for the party to catch up to its own base who are no longer interested in politicians who call themselves progressive but are bankrolled by corporate lobbies and AIPAC while voting to fund genocide and ICE.”

Kiros’s victory comes on the heels of a clean sweep of Democratic Socialists of America victories in New York City, as Darializa Avila Chevalier defeated Representative Adriano Espaillat and Assemblymember Claire Valdez became the Democratic nominee in the 7th congressional district.

“Denver voters of all ages, of all races, of all religions, sends a clear message: We will not wait,” Kiros said in her victory speech Tuesday night. “We will not wait to take the fight to Donald Trump and the oligarchy. We will not wait. We will not wait to abolish ICE and Medicare for all. We will not wait to put an end to the politics of the past, to get big money out of our politics, and to reject corporate packs at AIPAC. And no, we will not wait to end the genocide in Palestine. We believe that fundamental change can and will happen if we fight for it.”

🎥 Recalling how she was fired from her law firm after refusing to remove a letter defending pro-Palestinian student protesters, Melat Kiros said, “I didn’t flinch because I stood by every word and I always will.”

She added: “I know that will not be the only moment where those… pic.twitter.com/iI41zQp5wn

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) July 1, 2026

The nine-year-old scooter and bike-share company has said it needs the funds to help pay down around $1 billion in liabilities.

This post is updated throughout the day to reflect the latest incidents. It was last updated at 10:02 a.m..

Here’s what’s happening on the roads this morning…

▼︎ new incidents   ▼︎ long-term incidents

Road incidents as of 10 a.m. on July 1

• Highway 9 is facing closures in both directions at Pool Drive in San Lorenzo Valley for bridge work. The closure is expected to end at 5:59 a.m. tomorrow.
   
• Highway 9 at Cascade Avenue in San Lorenzo Valley has one-way traffic due to ongoing work. This closure will last until August 31.
   
• Alternating lanes are closed on Highway 9 at Riverdale Park in San Lorenzo Valley because of bridge work. The closure is expected to end at 6:59 a.m. on April 30, 2027.
   
• A lane on North Highway 9 at Two Bar Road in San Lorenzo Valley is closed for bridge work. The closure will last until 6:01 a.m. tomorrow.
   
• A lane on westbound SR-152 at Clifford Drive/Ohlone Parkway in Watsonville and Pajaro is closed for asphalt paving. The closure will last until 5:59 a.m. on July 3.
   
• A traffic hazard was reported on Highway 1 near Wilder Ranch State Park at 9:54 a.m. today. A vehicle traveling southbound continued past the area, but the hazard was in the northbound lane. The incident happened near Bonny Doon and Davenport.
   
• CHP helped with construction at the intersection of Highway 9 and Alameda Avenue in San Lorenzo Valley today.
   

Long-term projects

These have been going on for a while, but are still worth keeping in mind.

• A section of Coolidge Drive between High Street and Hagar Road is closed to northbound traffic from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. from June 29 through today for pavement work by County crews. The closure is in the Westside / Downtown area.
   
• Soquel Drive between State Park Drive and Trout Gulch Road in Aptos will be closed on July 4 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. for the annual Aptos 4th of July Parade.
   
• Playa Boulevard will be closed between Palma Avenue and Benito Avenue in La Selva Beach on July 4 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. for the annual La Selva Beach 4th of July Parade.
   
• Pine St. (between Hwy 236 and Harmon St.) and Lomond St. (between Pine St. and Railroad Ave.) in Boulder Creek, San Lorenzo Valley will be closed for the Boulder Creek 4th of July Parade.
   

Disclosure: Traffic incidents are partially generated by artificial intelligence. We are constantly working to improve the accuracy and quality of our AI-generated content. However, there may still be errors or inaccuracies. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us.

The post Wednesday morning traffic: Highway 9 closures, lane reductions for bridge work appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Place your bets, because it looks increasingly unlikely Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will carry astronauts again, if a NASA inspector general's report is anything to go on. Published on Tuesday, the OIG report on NASA's management of its Commercial Crew Program (CCP) examines how SpaceX and Boeing have performed in providing crew transportation to the International Space Station. The report notes that SpaceX worked through its own technical challenges getting humans into space and to the ISS. Boeing’s Starliner, a.k.a. the Calamity Capsule, on the other hand, featured extensively in the writeup, with the OIG calling into question whether it’ll ever get past the testing phase. “Boeing has been unable to obtain human-rating certification for its Starliner capsule and Atlas V launch vehicle, conducting two orbital flight tests and one crewed flight test that suffered significant issues and was ultimately classified as a serious mishap,” the OIG report said. “With over 11 years invested and about 4 years of crewed operations aboard the ISS remaining until the Station’s planned decommission in 2030, NASA and Boeing have limited time and resources to realize the value of their significant investments into Starliner.” The saga of Boeing’s Starliner has been one of repeated failures and budget overruns, both at NASA and Boeing, thanks to the capsule’s disastrous launch record. As the NASA OIG noted in its report, Starliner has flown three test missions, one with crew, and each encountered significant technical problems. The first flight, in 2019, failed to reach the ISS because a software-related mission timing error caused an incorrect orbital insertion burn, preventing the spacecraft from docking. Problems with stuck oxidizer valves discovered ahead of a planned 2021 launch delayed the second orbital flight test until May 2022, when Starliner successfully reached the ISS despite experiencing thruster failures and helium leaks. NASA was going to get a pair of astronauts up in the craft in 2023, but that didn’t happen after a series of issues were discovered, including a faulty parachute system and flammability risks associated with tape used to protect internal wiring. The one crewed mission that Starliner attempted was also a disaster. No one was injured or killed in the incident, but NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were stranded on the ISS for months after NASA determined the craft wasn’t safe enough to return its crew to Earth. According to the OIG, it’s the parachute problems, along with persistent helium leaks and the aforementioned propulsion system failures, that are making it question whether Starliner is fit for purpose. “The helium leaks and propulsion systems failures remain unresolved as of March 2026, and NASA is uncertain as to when this testing will be completed or human-rating certification for the Starliner will be obtained,” the report states. The OIG placed the blame on both NASA and Boeing for the problems, similarly to what NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said earlier this year when he accepted that his agency was part of the reason the whole thing had gone so badly. Per the OIG, NASA contributed to the problem by being “overconfident in Boeing’s design and potential success based on the provider’s use of heritage systems,” which led to the space agency setting “unrealistic launch and flight test schedules.” “The pressure to adhere to this aggressive schedule was compounded by NASA’s underutilization of the contract’s data rights, limiting the Agency’s ability to fully analyze and resolve flight simulation training failures to ensure crew safety,” the report continued. Staffing constraints driven by the Trump administration’s desire to cut costs wherever it can find them are likely to further hinder oversight, the OIG said, calling into question once more whether the Calamity Capsule will ever fly again and whether it's worth the cost. “We question $127.9 million in payments to Boeing, in addition to the $43 million we questioned in a prior 2019 CCP-related report, for a mission that is far from certain,” the OIG said. In other words, if you want to trim some NASA fat, the Starliner budget’s a perfect place to do it. ®

⚡ Quick Take

• Assad Zaman spoke to us about The Vampire Lestat‘s Armand and how he compares the relationships between Marius and Daniel Molloy.
• In Anne Rice’s books, there wasn’t much similarity between Daniel and Marius, but in The Vampire Lestat, the two have more in common, causing Zaman to muse about how Armand subconsciously considers them.
• Marius joins The Vampire Lestat this season, but it’s not yet clear if he will meet Armand and Daniel in the past or present timelines.

It has been a tumultuous time for the Vampire Armand. In Interview with the Vampire season two, Daniel Molloy unraveled his long-running lies to the purported love of his life, Louis de Pointe du Lac, bringing their relationship and life together to a resounding end. Sometime after that, in a fit of worshipful punishment, Armand turned Daniel into a vampire, creating his first ever fledgling in over 500 years of vampiric life. Armand has always found the act of creating a vampire to be abhorrent, but, suddenly, in The Vampire Lestat, he finds himself a vampiric maker, a position he likely never thought he would be in. Speaking with Assad Zaman about The Vampire Lestat, Nerdist was curious to know whether becoming a vampiric maker for Daniel had Armand considering his own vampiric maker, Marius. And the answer to that question was quite fascinating.

Nerdist

We asked Zaman whether “becoming a vampiric maker is making Armand think about his relationship with his own vampiric maker, Marius?” and Zaman noted, “That’s really good. Yes, absolutely. And I totally thought about that whilst I was there.” When asked what it was he thought about it, he shared, “I mean, there are parallels here that are, I guess, accentuated a bit more than they are in the books between Daniel and Marius. They’re closer in age, and they’re sort of…”

Bogosian interrupts the train of thought briefly to interject, “You like those daddies, huh?”

AMC

Which makes Zaman laugh before he offers, “I like my daddies. What can I say? But I think that I’m not sure how aware Armand is about self-reflecting on himself, seeing that [about Marius and Daniel], but I think he’s seeing something in Daniel that reminds him of Marius in some ways.”

Coming back in to think more seriously on the topic, Bogosian adds, “That’s pretty interesting because the Daniel that you [Armand] met in the ’70s has no accomplishments and is kind of a loser. And the Daniel that you’re dealing with now is a lot closer to Marius in that he actually has done something with his life. Although not through supernatural means, which is what Marius did. Marius built a whole empire on that.” He hastens to add, “A horrible empire of bad things.” And while Marius certainly has quite a list of bad things to answer for, this remains an interesting path for Armand’s thoughts to take.

AMC

For now, as we learned in Interview with the Vampire season two, Armand thinks that his maker, Marius, is dead. Although readers of the book know, of course, that it is not so, and Marius remains alive, unbeknownst to Armand. Marius will, in fact, appear in The Vampire Lestat, played by Christopher Heyerdahl. But we don’t yet know in what capacity. No information has yet been offered on whether we’ll see Marius interact with Armand at all, in the past or present, or learn more about how the series will portray this intense relationship. Still, it’s clear from Zaman’s answer that, having become a Vampire Maker himself, the phantom of his own maker looms over Armand.

In a piece about Armand’s backstory, we shared the following about Armand and Marius’ backstory:

Slavers sold Arun to a brothel, until his vampiric maker, Marius de Romanus, bought him. Marius renames him, Amadeo, meaning “one loved by God.” In Interview with the Vampire season two, Armand notes of his memories of Marius, “My maker’s purchase. His renaming me. His reluctance to share the Dark Gift, knowing what it would do to his beloved Amadeo. I served him with all my heart. Basked in his mercy, his worshipful mercy. Still… Amadeo had a skill. And if a friend wandered into town, I was occasionally… donated. Meatier in the forearms, but then this was… seven years before I was stricken with illness, before I was turned, and imbued with my powers.”

Regardless of some of the clear pains of his memories, Armand speaks of Marius as though he loved him greatly. He posed for paintings for his master, and Marius only gave him the dark gift when he became very sick and was near death at age 27. In the novels, he was 17, and dying from a violent attack. Later, the Roman coven burned Marius alive for being a heretic, and took Amadeo and brainwashed him into their Satanic coven. Renamed again as Armand, they eventually sent him to run the Paris coven that Magnus, Lestat’s maker, had abandoned.

Marius remains alive after the fire, as mentioned above, but he has not, to date, made himself known to Armand, nor did he attempt to save him from any of the hardships that ensued after his alleged death. So, as mentioned, the litany of bad things is clear. And yet, it’s also clear that Armand believes he loves his maker and that the relationship deeply impacts him.

AMC

Going down the other direction of this lineage of blood, in The Vampire Lestat, Armand initially abandoned his fledgling Daniel to his own devices. A bit of an irony, although one that Armand can’t understand, considering Armand’s own situation with his maker. But we’re hoping that doesn’t last very long now that Armand has confessed his love to Daniel and made himself known to him once more.

If we continue down the thought line of Armand comparing Marius and Daniel, we hope to find, at the end of it, the idea that in Daniel, Armand has finally chosen someone for himself who (hopefully) chooses him back. Assad Zaman did share that in episode seven of The Vampire Lestat, Armand is finally fully understood for the first time. And there is much in The Vampire Lestat book about Armand and Marius’ past that we haven’t seen discussed yet in this season of TV. Could the arithmetic of the variables that are Marius, Armand, and Daniel, and Armand’s considerations of them both, equate to this moment of Daniel (we assume) understanding Armand?

RELATED ARTICLE

THE VAMPIRE LESTAT Review: Devil’s Minion Edition

And as for all three of these troubled characters who share blood… Will we actually see Daniel, Armand, and Marius in a room sometime in The Vampire Lestat or beyond? The possibility seems high. And what Armand will think and feel at that point will certainly be a beyond complex mix of emotions. But complicated is what this series does best.

The Vampire Lestat airs at 9 pm ET/PT on AMC and AMC+. You can also read The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice today as you wait for the next episode of the series to air.

Rotem Rusak is the Editor-in-Chief of Nerdist. She is ready for Devil’s Minion to become even more canon in The Vampire Lestat, so one of her ships can fully sail.

This post has affiliate links, which means we may earn advertising money if you buy something. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, we just have to give you the heads up for legal reasons. Click away!

The post Assad Zaman on Armand Comparing Marius and Daniel in THE VAMPIRE LESTAT appeared first on Nerdist.

⚡ Quick Take

• Water Park Shark is bringing Sharknado vibes to the pool its first trailer, which is as ridiculous as you’d imagine it to be.

Move over, Project Hail Mary and The Odyssey! The greatest film of 2026 is coming to streaming this month, actually. Anthony C. Ferrante, the director of the Sharknado franchise, is blessing us with a summer smash called Water Park Shark, and we cannot stop watching its trailer. Suspense, humor, a host of potential victims, some sharks, and a water park. This is the fun we need in the world right now. 

Water Park Shark stars David Chokachi and Chelsea Gilson, and here’s a synopsis to go along with that trailer: 

No running. No diving. No escape. When mutated Great White Sharks invade a Cape Cod water park, a lifeguard and the police chief must stop the carnage before opening day becomes a feeding frenzy. The film also stars Matthew Dame, Kacie Patricia, Michael Shaun Sandy, Snow Feng, Hector Becerra, Brigdon York, and Rob Eubanks.

While I was kidding about Water Park Shark being the next Oscar contender, I am not joking when I say I love the absurdity of the Sharknado franchise. And now, I am ready to see some sharks take on unlucky guests at a water park.

Chroma

How did they get there? Why are they killing machines? Why can’t people simply get out of the water and run for their lives? Can the sharks fly? I do not know those answers. Bring on the screams and the big battle to survive, please. 

Water Park Shark will be available digitally on July 3 on Apple TV, Prime Video, and Fandango at Home.

The post WATER PARK SHARK Brings SHARKNADO Vibes to the Pool appeared first on Nerdist.

Though you do not generally have to hand it to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, you do kind of have to hand it to him in one very important respect: He has somehow managed to be even less likable than his predecessor, Kristi Noem. Witness his genuinely disgusting remarks after the Iranian national team was eliminated from the World Cup: “I’m just glad they’re done…

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The multi-million dollar renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was done with highly toxic materials.

The contractor that the Trump administration hired used products by the popular truck-bed coating company Rhino Linings, according to the company’s website. But a closer examination of the materials used indicates that they could cause serious harm to the local wildlife that frequent the 6.5-million gallon basin.

A barrel of “RHINO 405 A Thixotropic High Viscosity Epoxy Resin” was spotted by the pool during the restoration process. According to an OSHA safety data sheet, the chemical is “toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects” and is a strong irritant capable of causing allergic reactions.

It’s only been a couple of weeks since the administration finished its renovation and refilled the pool, but already visitors have noticed and documented areas of the memorial’s lining that are peeling and sloughing off.

Several dead ducks have also been spotted in and around the pool, adding to the massive brouhaha.

Records indicate that the Trump administration spent at least $14.7 million renovating the Reflecting Pool—a project that was, apparently, all for naught. (As well as a far cry from the president’s original promise of a $1.8 million price tag.) The money was spent in an apparently futile effort to rid the premises of a relentless algal bloom. That, too, has already returned to the pool, mere weeks after the monument’s reopening.

Fixing the Reflecting Pool is a headache that’s plagued pretty much every administration since its construction in 1923, because what makes the Reflecting Pool beautiful is exactly what makes it so difficult to maintain. The pool’s expansive length is possible due to the use of multiple large concrete slabs as its bottom. But those slabs are also prone to serious, structural leaks, which require the White House to replace roughly 16 million gallons of water each year. And the pool’s shallow depth—which creates its mirror-like appearance—also detracts from the pool’s health by creating a breeding ground for algae blooms that turn the water green.

A cartoon by Clay Bennett. Related | Supreme Court’s leader doesn’t care about the Constitution…

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President Donald Trump raked in more than $86 million last year from suing media companies.

Trump’s annual financial disclosure revealed just how lucrative the president’s pastime of lobbing lawsuits at media companies has become. In 2025, the president made a total of $86.5 million off of settlements from his lawsuits against media companies. 

His most profitable lawsuits were his First Amendment challenges against media companies that had removed him from their platforms in the wake of the January 6 riot. Trump raked in a whopping $24.5 million as part of a settlement with Meta, $22 million off a settlement with YouTube, and $8 million from a settlement with Twitter.  

Trump also also managed to turn silencing the press into a moneymaking scheme. He made $16 million from his settlement with CBS in a lawsuit over the editing of Kamala Harris’s interview on 60 Minutes in 2024. The settlement was supposedly made to ease Paramount’s sale to Skydance Media—a deal that needed approval from the president. (Months later, CBS chopped up an interview with Trump to make him sound normal.) 

Trump made another $16 million from a settlement with ABC News over a defamation lawsuit spurred by George Stephanopoulos’s use of the phrase “liable for rape” while discussing Trump’s E. Jean Carroll case. The jury in that case found Trump liable for sexual abuse, not rape. The Supreme Court rejected Trump’s plea to review the Carroll case Monday. 

Anyone who’s bought a flight, a concert or sports ticket, or a vacation stay recently knows that the price they thought they were paying is not always the price they end up paying. After settling on the desired option, you encounter the onerous and daunting process of checking out: clicking through screen after screen until suddenly, right before it’s time to hit “pay,” the price jumps—and you have to squint to read all of the fees, surcharges, and other costs that have been tacked on at the end. Consumers have to decide to either suck it up and pay or go back to the beginning and comb through other options.

Though familiar from the above examples, this practice is popping up everywhere, even when finding a place to live: A Guardian investigation last week exposed Greystar, a private equity–backed apartment building management company, for piling obscene fees on renters, who are often hooked into long-term leases and can’t escape the fees easily.

Last week, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed a law banning junk fees in the state, joining at least four other states—Connecticut, Colorado, Minnesota, and Virginia—in prohibiting companies from showing a cheap price up front and then surprising customers with additional costs when it comes time to buy. “We’re talking about hidden fees, about artificial scarcity, predatory lending products, ticket schemes that make it harder and more expensive for families to just enjoy a night out,” Pritzker said at the signing ceremony. “Together, those things add up to hundreds or even thousands of dollars every year for many Illinois families.”

Tackling junk fees is shaping up to be a big part of the Democrats’ affordability agenda, and it touches on a complaint many Americans have with the economy that is more complex than simply price hikes and supply chain disruptions. Prices aren’t just out of reach for families, but companies are manipulating customers to increase their profits. Americans want a fairer playing field.

President Joe Biden tried to tackle this problem in some major industries before his term ended. Notably, fans’ anger at Ticketmaster pricing during Beyoncé and Taylor Swift tours led to a congressional hearing and ultimately new Federal Trade Commission rules for event tickets and lodging. Biden’s secretary of transportation, Pete Buttigieg, also tried to ban some junk fees on flights. These fees make airlines billions, and they got the ban thrown out in court. President Donald Trump’s transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, is a former lobbyist whose clients included the airline industry, so it’s no wonder he’s been more focused on weakening passengers’ rights and protections.

Junk fees aren’t just an annoyance. They gum up the works of a competitive marketplace, making it harder for families to find affordable goods and services. And it costs them money, not just in fees but in their time. A 2024 FTC study estimated that banning these kinds of deceptive pricing practices could save Americans $11 billion over a decade.

In the wake of Biden’s efforts, some cities and states took up the cause. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has targeted some industries in New York City. New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill has directed her administration to review such fees, and Washington, D.C., Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued a large landlord in the city over junk fees. Several states are considering laws similar to Illinois’s, and even more states may ban dynamic pricing using artificial intelligence that relies on captured personal data.

“Increasingly, pricing feels deceptive, or at a minimum, it doesn’t feel transparent anymore,” said Lindsay Owens, the president and CEO of Groundwork Collaborative, a nonprofit advocacy group that has studied various aspects of the Annoyance Economy. “The lack of transparency, lack of predictability, are things that make the consumer experience in America really frustrating.”

But a lot of the tools the federal government uses to make sure customers are getting a fair shake and companies aren’t gouging them for excess profits, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and similar agencies, have been neutered or abandoned in the Trump administration. That would presumably change under a Democratic president. In the meantime, two Democrats—Florida Representative Maxwell Frost and Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley—have introduced bills in their respective chambers to ban junk fees for renters, but neither seems likely to move forward in the GOP-controlled Congress.

Americans remain angry about the economy for a host of reasons. Prices are rising, but products are also getting worse and more annoying to buy. If you do sign up for a subscription or product, it’s harder to cancel. Workers’ wages aren’t rising as fast as profits for shareholders are, and companies do everything they can to squeeze more money out of us. “Consumers are fed up,” Owens said. In their anger lies a clear opportunity for Democrats, which some of them are finally seizing.

The Fourteenth Amendment could not be any clearer: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” There is no hedging, no vagueness, no double meanings, and no misplaced comma introducing ambiguity. All persons born in the United States are citizens of the United States.

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Ask most IT teams whether they're protected against a major outage or ransomware attack, and the answer will almost certainly be yes, because the backups are in place and the box marked 'disaster recovery plan' has been ticked. But there's a difference between having a backup and recovering from a disaster, and that gap tends to reveal itself at the worst possible moment. The backup problem nobody talks about Backups were built for a different era. When the biggest threat was hardware failure or accidental deletion, copying files to tape or a secondary disk made sense, because the workflow was simply to preserve the data, restore from the copy, and carry on. Modern threats operate differently. Ransomware operators do not just encrypt production systems; they target backup infrastructure first. By the time an attack becomes visible, malicious code may have lain dormant in the environment for weeks, so backup jobs from that window are already tainted. IBM's 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report found that 76 percent of organizations needed more than 100 days to recover from a cyberattack, including those that believed their backups were intact. For organizations with on-premises backup infrastructure, the arithmetic is brutal. Systems sit offline, staff cannot work, and customers feel the impact while IT teams scramble to find a clean recovery point that may or may not exist. The gap between RTO goals and reality Recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) are the core metrics of any disaster recovery plan. RTO defines how long systems can be offline before the business is materially harmed; RPO defines acceptable data loss. Both look reasonable on paper, yet practice tends to expose them as aspirational more often than IT teams care to admit. Legacy backup tools were designed to protect data, not to deliver fast recovery at scale. Restoring a full server takes hours or days, especially when the target hardware differs from what was lost. Testing rarely happens rigorously, which leaves edge cases unexplored, so when disaster strikes the recovery plan turns out to have been theoretical. Among businesses with 20 to 100 employees, 57 percent report downtime costs exceeding $100,000 per hour. For an SMB earning $10 million in annual revenue, a single day offline can cost $55,000 in direct losses. One in five SMBs would go out of business if the attack cost them as little as $10,000 in damages. The market is responding. The global Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) sector was valued at $18.89 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $83.15 billion by 2034, a trajectory that reflects how many organizations are moving beyond backup-only thinking. What DRaaS changes Disaster Recovery as a Service is a different proposition. Rather than copying data and hoping restoration goes smoothly, DRaaS maintains a live, continuously updated replica of the protected environment and provides the cloud infrastructure to run it within minutes of a failure. In a ransomware scenario, the architecture matters. Immutable, offsite cloud storage keeps backup data beyond the reach of an attacker who has compromised the local environment, while automated failover removes the dependency on a manual process that has rarely been rehearsed. Because the replica runs in the cloud, recovery time is counted in minutes rather than days. Cove Data Protection's DRaaS is built on this model. The architecture is cloud-native by design rather than an appliance-based product with a cloud layer retrofitted. Backup data lives in N-able's private cloud , physically separated from customer infrastructure, with immutability applied by default. Tested failover to the cloud comes as a core feature rather than a premium add-on. Cove is built for the modern era and requires minimal babysitting, with multi-tenant management, automated testing, and a single interface across the entire environment. That contrasts with enterprise platforms that demand heavy customization before they work. Testing as a feature, not an afterthought How DRaaS providers approach recovery testing is one of the sharpest differentiators in the market. Most backup products leave it as a manual exercise that IT teams plan but rarely complete, because spinning up a recovery environment is disruptive. Cove automates recovery verification, with tests that run against backed-up workloads and confirm restoration succeeded. Administrators see evidence that the systems they protect would come back online as expected. The benefit extends beyond compliance to the difference between a plan that works and one that merely exists. For businesses and MSPs that handle dozens or hundreds of clients or employees, tested and verified recoverability at scale has become central to the value proposition and a genuine differentiator in a market where backup is now a commodity. Cove Data Protection, part of the N-able portfolio, provides cloud-native backup and disaster recovery as a service for organizations. Learn more at n-able.com/products/cove-data-protection. Contributed by N-able.

MAGA world is practically apoplectic over the Supreme Court’s birthright ruling.

Speaking with Fox News late Tuesday, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller suggested that the nation’s highest court had decided to “suicide” the country by upholding the Fourteenth Amendment.

“Here’s a pretty good clue your constitutional interpretation is wrong: If your ruling requires you to suicide your civilization, your reading of the Constitution is wrong,” the Project 2025 adviser said, apparently attempting to school the nation’s highest judiciary on constitutional law.

Miller: Here's a pretty good clue your constitutional interpretation is wrong. If you are ruling requires you to suicide your civilization, your reading of the constitution is wrong. pic.twitter.com/ZNmlDs0fvg

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 1, 2026

“President [Ulysses S.] Grant … in the nineteenth century, did not want to create an automatic third-world citizenship requirement for America,” Miller argued. But that’s not exactly true.

Grant played a major role in the codification of the Fourteenth Amendment, fiercely advocating that the burgeoning concept of birthright citizenship should be granted to Native Americans, immigrants, and the millions of men, women, and children that had been recently freed from slavery.

Even then, the idea was controversial and fiercely debated. Opponents to birthright citizenship included former Confederate states, white former slave owners, and racist terrorist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.

But the idea was popular enough that Grant won the presidency in 1868, the same year that the amendment was ratified.

Nonetheless, in Miller’s worldview, the 158-year-old legislation is “an abomination.”

“But let’s thank President Trump, because of President Trump’s courage and leadership, we are now on the precipice—yes, we were dealt a setback—but because of his courage alone, we are on the precipice as a nation of being in the position of ending this travesty once and for all,” Miller said.

Trump himself downplayed the Supreme Court decision, claiming that he and his allies could avoid the lengthy constitutional amendment process and “easily make it up in Congress through Legislation,” even though doing so would run afoul of the law.

The U.S. is not unique in granting birthright citizenship: 32 countries around the world offer unconditional, automatic citizenship to people born within their territory, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. Pretty much the entire western hemisphere permits it. Another 50 countries offer something similar. Nor was the U.S. the first to conceive of birthright citizenship: The concept originated in the United Kingdom in 1608 during a debate over whether or not a child owed allegiance to the English crown.