Friday, September 4th, 2026 - Gloria Steinem Dies at 92, ICE Building National Voter Database, Leon Black Ghosted Congress, AI Outage

Today's Headlines: Today's episode is dedicated to Gloria Steinem, who passed away at 92 years old. In what can only be described as a fitting tribute, ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok all went down simultaneously shortly after, forcing people to use their actual brains for a few hours. On the Immigration beat, ICE is spending $5 million to build a national voter database on behalf of DHS, acquiring voter registration and history files from specific states. A 17-year ICE veteran whistleblower also came forward accusing the Trump administration of fast-tracking unqualified candidates as agents before background checks were complete, calling it an "unprecedented lowering of standards" and a national security risk. In a rare moment of accountability, Trump's own DOJ charged an ICE officer with lying about shooting a Venezuelan immigrant in Minneapolis — the same officer Texas's governor previously refused to extradite to face state charges. In Epstein files news, Leon Black skipped his congressional testimony on his Epstein ties and instead sued the House Oversight Committee to block his subpoena, arguing they can't force him to hand over NDAs signed with women Epstein trafficked to him, and the committee responded by threatening contempt charges. We’ll see if that actually happens though. Meanwhile, Nvidia announced a $13 billion acquisition of Hugging Face — the AI platform OpenAI's model previously hacked — betting on an open-source AI future similar to China's approach, which is either brilliant or deeply ironic. And finally, for the first time in recorded human history, people over 65 now outnumber children under 5 globally, per a new US Census report — a milestone driven by declining birth rates and longer life expectancy.  Resources/Articles mentioned: WIRED: ICE Plans to Pay $5 Million to Create National Voting Database NYT: ICE Skipped Basic Checks in Rush for Recruits, Whistle-Blower Says AP News: Live updates: ICE officer federally charged with lying about shooting of Venezuelan man, AP source says AP News: Billionaire Leon Black skips Epstein deposition and sues House panel over subpoenas Politico: House Oversight chair still wants attorney general to testify on handling of the Epstein files - Live Updates The Verge: ChatGPT, Grok, and Claude all went down at the same time Wired: Nvidia’s Hugging Face Acquisition Is a $12.9 Billion Bet on Open-Source AI Axios: Historic first: Older adults now outnumber the youngest children worldwide Subscribe to the Betches News Room and join the Morning Announcements group chat. Go to: betchesnews.substack.com Morning Announcements is produced by Sami Sage and edited by Grace Hernandez-Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices