Some international sellers on large platforms like eBay and Etsy have jacked up their shipping costs to the United States to absurd prices in order to deter Americans from buying their products in an effort to avoid dealing with the logistical headaches of Trump's tariffs.

A Japanese eBay seller increased the shipping cost on a $319 Olympus camera lens to $2,000 for U.S. buyers, for example. The shipping price from Japan to the United Kingdom, Italy, Ireland, Costa Rica, Canada, and other countries I checked is $29, meanwhile. The seller, Ninjacamera.Japan, recently updated their shipping prices to the United States to all be $2,000 for dozens of products that don't weigh very much and whose prices are mostly less than $800. That price used to be the threshold for the de minimis tariff exemption, a rule that previously allowed people to buy things without paying tariffs on lower-priced goods. As many hobbyists have recently discovered, the end of de minimis has made things more expensive and harder to come by.

eBay does allow sellers to opt out of selling to the United States entirely, but some sellers have found it easier to modify existing listings to have absurd shipping prices for the United States only rather than deal with taking entire listings down and delisting them to restrict American buyers entirely.

I found numerous listings from a handful of different sellers who, rather than say they won't ship to the United States, have simply jacked up their shipping costs to absurd levels for the United States only. There are $575 cameras that the seller is now charging $500 to ship to the United States but will mail for free anywhere else in the world. Another Japanese seller is charging $640 to mail to the United States but will ship for free to other countries. A seller in Kazakhstan is charging $35 to mail a camera internationally but $999 to send to the United States. A German yarn seller is charging $10.50 to ship to Canada, but $500 to ship to the United States. On Reddit, users are reporting the same phenomenon occurring with some sellers on Etsy as well (it is harder to search Etsy by shipping prices, so I couldn’t find too many examples of this).

What is happening here, of course, is that some sellers in other countries don't want to have to deal with Trump's tariffs and the complicated logistics they have created for both buyers and sellers. Many international shipping companies have entirely stopped shipping to the United States, and many international sellers don't want to have to deal with the hassle of changing whatever shipping service they normally use to accommodate American buyers. eBay has also warned sellers that they may get negative feedback from American buyers who do not understand how tariffs work. eBay's feedback system is very important, and just a few negative reviews can impact a seller's standing on the platform and make it less likely that buyers will purchase something from them. 

None of this is terribly surprising, but as an American, it feels actually more painful to see a listing for a product I might want that costs $2,000 for shipping rather than have the listings be invisible to me altogether.

Influencers and content creators are many things beyond their public personas. All but the biggest figures likely do some combination of the following jobs themselves: content moderator, video editor, photographer, social media strategist, script writer, and idea generator. What if they could outsource much of that work to AI? And what if it were the social media platforms themselves that provided them with the tools to do so? 

At the Made on YouTube event, held Tuesday in New York, the company launched a slew of new AI features aimed at content creators, many of which focus on all the behind-the-scenes work that goes into a video. Unlike previous tools — like an AI background music generator or tools that create AI photos and videos — the new ones are largely content strategy features, marketed as helping creators reach new audiences (and more effectively get in front of their existing base).

Among the new tools is Ask Studio, an AI chatbot that creators can use to ask analytics questions about how their content is performing. Amjad Hanif, VP of product management, describes it as a “creative partner”: How is the audience responding to a video? What are the most compelling moments of a video? The tool pulls in data from across a YouTube channel, including long-form videos and Shorts — essentially a faster and more direct analytics tool that’s built into the platform. Creators can ask the tool to do things like summarize comments and synthesize viewer sentiment, and ask for suggestions based on data: if YouTube reports a drop off in viewership at a certain part, Ask Studio will spit out advice for next time on optimizing that section of the video. Creators can also ask for things like “video ideas from comments on my latest video,” and follow up with requests for title suggestions. For now, the tool can’t compare one channel versus another (queries like “What videos from my competitors are performing well?”).

Also rolling out is a new thumbnail and title A/B testing feature, building upon a thumbnail testing version announced last year. With this update, creators can pair thumbnail images and titles and run tests to see which performs the best; the “winner” is the combination with the highest watch time.

“No matter how good the video is, the thumbnail and title is what gets people to even see the video and see if it’s good or not. It might be the most important thing, honestly,” says Ashley Alexander, a lifestyle influencer who was given early access and who has been testing some of the tools. Alexander says she uses the thumbnail-only testing feature for every video and has begun integrating the new thumbnail and title A/B testing tool into her workflow.

The influx of tools essentially meant to help creators optimize for the YouTube algorithm is something of a paradigm shift. For years, creators ran their own tests to figure out what worked best for each social media platform: how to write the most enticing title or whether to have a closed or open mouth in a thumbnail. It was trial and error, with creators trying to sort through what kind of content the platforms preferred. Now, some platforms themselves directly tell creators what they should post and how — TikTok tells creators what topics are trending and even what their followers are searching for in the app, with explicit nudges that creators should make videos that target those searches. The effect is twofold: It’s a way for YouTube and other platforms to more directly guide what creators make. “Optimizing” content is also potentially beneficial to both creators and YouTube itself — both parties want viewers to be spending more time on the platform, watching their videos. 

YouTube is also expanding some viewer-facing AI tools, like dubbing. Previously, creators had access to an auto-dubbing feature — now, the feature will also sync the YouTuber’s lips to match the dubbed language. Content that uses YouTube’s AI dubbing feature will have a badge underneath the title and in the video description indicating it was auto-dubbed. Creators won’t be able to go through and correct or tweak mistranslated portions after uploading. 

Separately, creators will also have the option to add multiple collaborators to a single video — essentially a cross-posting feature. Each collaborator will be able to see performance metrics for the video. 

The AI creep into influencing and content creation has been happening for a while, and across industries: adult content creators are using chatbots to interact with paying clients and platforms are encouraging advertisers to use AI-generated models to sell products. When YouTube recently updated its monetization rules, many creators understood the “inauthentic content” policy was taking aim at AI-generated mass produced videos. Some creators were concerned about what exactly qualified as “inauthentic,” how YouTube would screen content, and how it would decide what to demonetize.

There’s example after example of online and hobby communities reckoning with an influx of AI content — but does it matter if it’s happening behind the scenes? Do viewers care if their favorite YouTuber uses AI to come up with video topic ideas, like the platform encourages them to do? And if everyone is perfectly optimized for YouTube’s algorithm and relying on the same built-in tools, is anyone really optimized? Who wins when everyone’s thumbnail and title are just right, or when everyone is using the same AI tool to generate the perfect video topics and scripts?

Creators like Alexander say the features are a jumping-off point, not a cheat code: the AI-generated ideas are a good place to start, but she thinks ultimately she knows her audience best. For many content creators, their audiences buy into them as people making distinct creative choices, not just churning out whatever a chatbot suggests — that relationship is something AI can’t replicate.

In late August, two pro-AI super PACs were announced on the same day, intent on shaping the upcoming midterm elections. One was a fairly traditional super PAC, announced via a splashy press release, with multiple major industry players planning to donate over $100 million to boost AI-friendly candidates across the country.

The other was far more unusual. Meta had quietly filed to create the Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across (Meta) California, a state-only super PAC that would allow Meta to spend its own money to run political ads on behalf of their AI interests - and only their interests.

After the Supreme Court's 2010 decision i …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The Department of Justice has removed a study showing that white supremacist and far-right violence “continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism” in the United States. 

The study, which was conducted by the National Institute of Justice and hosted on a DOJ website was available there at least until September 12, 2025, according to an archive of the page saved by the Wayback Machine.

“The Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs is currently reviewing its websites and materials in accordance with recent Executive Orders and related guidance,” reads a message on the page where the study was formerly hosted. “During this review, some pages and publications will be unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”

Shortly after Donald Trump took office he issued an executive order that forced government agencies to scrub their sites of any mention of “diversity,” “gender,” “DEI,” and other “forbidden words” and perceived notions of “wokeness.” The executive order impacted every government agency, including NASA, and was a huge waste of engineers’ time.

We don’t know why the study about far-right extremist violence was removed recently, but it comes immediately after the assassination of conservative personality Charlie Kirk, accusations from the administration that the left is responsible for most of the political violence in the country, and a renewed commitment from the administration to crack down on the “radical left.”

“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals,” Trump said in a speech after Kirk’s death. “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now. My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it.”

Elon Musk, who owns X, recently tweeted that he was going to “fix” the platform’s AI assistant Grok after it cited research that showed right-wing violence was more common than left-wing violence: “My apologies, we are fixing this cringe idiocy by Grok,” he said. 

Vice President JD Vance, who guest hosted Kirk’s podcast on Monday, also vowed to go after “growing and powerful minority on the far left.”

“Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives,” the study said. “In this same period, far-left extremists committed 42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives.”

The DOJ did not immediately respond to our request for comment. Steven Chermak, one of the study’s co-authors, declined to comment.

Google is testing a new search app for Windows. A blog post on Tuesday said the app, currently available on personal accounts via Google’s Search Labs, will allow you to use an Alt + Space shortcut to search for information from the files on your computer, in your Drive, and on the web.

The app, which has a Chrome-like install process and requires you to sign in, also comes with Google’s visual search feature, Lens, built in. That means you can select and search for images on your screen, as well as translate text. In one example shared by Google, you can highlight a math problem on your homework and then ask Google’s AI Mode to help you find the answer.

Just like Google’s search engine on the web, you can switch between all results, AI Mode, Images, Shopping, and Videos, and more, as well as choose between dark and light mode. It’s similar to the Spotlight on Mac, which can help you search through your files, apps, and the web. Windows has long had a built-in feature that lets you search through your files and the web, but it recently upgraded this capability with the launch of Copilot Plus PCs.

Upon downloading the app, Google will plant a search bar directly on your desktop that you can drag anywhere on your screen and resize. You can minimize the search bar by hitting Alt + Space. The app also gives you the option to enable or disable AI Mode, as well as change the shortcut used to open the app by selecting your profile picture and hitting Configurations.

You can try out Google’s new app for Windows now by enabling the experiment in Labs. It’s currently only available in English and for users in the US. You’ll need a PC with Windows 10 or up to download it.

Update, September 16th: Added more information about the app.

Tesla is under investigation for faulty electronic door handles that can trap people inside their vehicles.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) launched the probe, saying it was responding to numerous complaints filed by Tesla owners, with a particular focus on children who have been locked inside the vehicle without any way to get out. The news comes a few days after Bloomberg published a bombshell report about Tesla owners who have been seriously injured after becoming trapped in their vehicles after crashes.

Tesla’s door handles, which operate electronically and sit flush against the vehicle for improved aerodynamics, have been the source of some consternation for some time. China’s government is considering banning electronic door handles for safety reasons. And now NHTSA says it is investigating instances in which Tesla’s handles become inoperable as a result of low-voltage battery problems.

The investigation specifically focuses on an estimated 174,290 Model Y SUVs, though the regulator said the investigation could widen:

This investigation will also assess the approach used by Tesla to supply power to the door locks and the reliability of the applicable power supplies. At this time, NHTSA’s investigation is focused on the operability of the electronic door locks from outside of the vehicle as that circumstance is the only one in which
there is no manual way to open the door. The agency will continue to monitor any reports of entrapment involving opening doors from inside of the vehicle, and [Office of Defects Investigation] will take further action as needed.

NHTSA says its investigation was prompted by nine instances of children becoming trapped inside a Tesla vehicle as a result of low-voltage battery problems. Typically, parents were unable to reopen their Tesla’s doors to retrieve their children from the backseat. Tesla’s vehicles contain manual door releases, but the agency notes that certain people, especially children, may not be able to operate them.

“Entrapment in a vehicle is particularly concerning in emergency situations, such as when children are entrapped in a hot vehicle,” the agency states.

This is the latest investigation to target Tesla. The company is also being examined for failing to report crashes involving its partially autonomous driving technology in a timely manner, and for its remote parking feature after several crash incidents were reported.