Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America.
The US government’s map of Africa mislabeled every country during a state department presentation at a global conference in Brazil this week. The Trump administration is weighing a $100,000 fee for foreign graduates to work in the US. Colorado Republicans nominated a governor candidate who charges $99 to pray away gay demons. And two-thirds of MAGA voters say they’d back a Republican accused of sexual assault over any Democrat.
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State Department Map of Africa Got Every Country Wrong
Say what you will about colonialism, but at least they knew where the countries were.
A US government map of Africa mislabeled every single country during a State Department presentation at the Aids 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro this week. A Reuters analysis found the map carried an artificial intelligence watermark signaling it was made with OpenAI tools.
The map showed Nigeria as landlocked in the Sahara desert, which will surprise the several hundred US troops currently deployed there. Mozambique, which sits in southeastern Africa, was moved to the Horn of Africa. Côte d’Ivoire, in west Africa, was placed on the opposite side of the continent.
The official giving the presentation was Jeff Graham, the top US health envoy who oversees Pepfar. The State Department said it took “full responsibility,” but blamed a team member who hastily changed the slide deck before the event.
The United States has operated in Africa for over two decades, spending $130 billion on HIV treatment alone. We’ve spent $130 billion on a continent we apparently cannot find.
Trump Weighs $100,000 Fee for Foreign Graduates
The Trump administration has found a way to keep out international students without building a wall.
The administration is weighing a plan to charge international students $100,000 to stay in the country and work after graduating. A White House official said there was no imminent change, but did not deny the proposal was under consideration. It is not yet clear whether the fee would be charged to the students or their employers
The fee would target the Optional Practical Training visa extension, which lets visa holders stay and gain relevant work experience. There were almost 300,000 international students on OPT as of late last year, roughly a quarter of the entire foreign student population in the US.
The administration already tried this with H-1B visas last September, slapping a $100,000 fee on employer petitions. A federal court struck it down as an unlawful tax, and an appeals court upheld that ruling six days ago.
So far, the only thing the $100,000 fee has accomplished is full-time employment for immigration lawyers.
The government would like to charge people $100,000 for the privilege of staying. We’re asking for considerably less than that. We don’t have investors or advertisers, which is only possible because readers like you pay for it. If you’ve been reading for free, now’s the time to upgrade.
GOP Governor Nominee Charges $99 to Cast Out Gay Demons
For the small fee of $99, the Republican candidate for governor of Colorado can cure your homosexuality.
The GOP nominated Victor Marx, a Marine veteran and ministry leader, at the end of June. His own rivals called him “a fraud” and “a grifter,” and declined to endorse him. State Attorney General Phil Weiser, the Democratic nominee, called Marx “a threat to our state’s values and our future.”
At the center of Marx’s multi-million-dollar ministry is a “retooling” prayer he uses to cast out everything from “addictions to homosexual lifestyle to cheating to murder, the whole nine yards.” Christian leaders have described the ritual as “unbiblical.”
The prayer is also available to you. Marx’s eight-part course, “Retooled: Demolishing Demonic Strongholds,” sells for $99 through his ministry website. He says it works on homosexuality, murder, and a lack of self-confidence.
On the Flyover Conservatives Show, Marx estimated a co-host had 11 demons attached to her, then banished them in six minutes from a remote location. She was so relieved she pitched the video herself. “They have it for $99 or whatever you can afford,” she told viewers.
No word on whether the course offers a group rate for the legislature.
Two-Thirds of MAGA Voters Would Back Candidate Accused of Sexual Assault
There is a line for MAGA voters, and a sexual assault accusation is comfortably before it.
Among voters who backed Trump in his last White House run, 66 percent said they would vote for a GOP candidate in a hypothetical congressional race even if “a former partner has accused the Republican candidate of sexual assault,” according to a new Politico poll.
Nine percent of that group said they would vote for the Democrat instead. Twenty-five percent said they would vote for neither.
Among a broader group of Republican-leaning respondents, 42 percent still went for the accused Republican. Eleven percent chose the Democrat.
This is not a hypothetical stretch for the party. In May 2023, a jury found that Trump himself sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s. He’s also a longtime friend of late child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
The poll didn’t ask about murder, but give it a cycle.
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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
A Judge Just Refused to Toss the Privacy Lawsuit Against DOGE. A lawsuit against the so-called Department of Government Efficiency will move forward after the DOJ failed to get it thrown out. The Electronic Privacy Information Center and a federal employee identified as “Doe 1” alleged in February 2025 that the administration unlawfully exposed sensitive information of millions of Americans by handing DOGE access to Treasury and OPM databases. The Fourth Circuit had previously found that disclosing such data to DOGE staffers constituted an illegal invasion of privacy. The administration’s argument is that access to people’s personal data was not a concrete injury. By this logic, a peeping Tom hasn’t done anything wrong.
James Talarico Leads Ken Paxton in a Fox News Senate Poll. A new Fox News poll shows Democratic state Rep. James Talarico with a three-point edge over Attorney General Ken Paxton, 51-48, in the race for Texas’ US Senate seat. Talarico is winning 68% of independents and about a quarter of non-MAGA Republicans, while also polling well among Hispanic voters. It is not the first poll to show a tight race, as a New York Times survey in June had the candidates tied. Paxton’s team dismissed it, with senior advisor Nick Maddux calling Talarico’s campaign “a pipe dream.” Pipe dreams don’t usually carry a quarter of your own party.
Pediatricians Are Sidestepping the CDC on Vaccine Advice. Dr. John Snyder, a pediatrician in Amherst, Massachusetts, spent 30 years treating the CDC as the most trusted public health source in the world. Now his practice’s website tells families the agency “is no longer considered to be a reliable or legitimate source of information.” The rupture followed RFK Jr.’s confirmation as HHS secretary, after he dismissed every member of the CDC’s vaccine advisory board and replaced them with new appointees, some prominent vaccine skeptics. Snyder joined a local coalition called Valley Vax, which buys ads featuring local doctors and directs patients to medical groups that are not the CDC. Multiple states have formed similar alliances.
Alzheimer’s Blood Tests Offer New Promise to Diagnose and Predict the Disease. A simple blood test may be able to tell you if you’re going to develop Alzheimer’s five to ten years before any symptoms show up. Among 2,700 healthy older adults, researchers found that elevated levels of a protein called p-tau217 were linked to a 38 percent higher risk of cognitive decline. The protein is already used to diagnose people with symptoms, but the discovery that it works before anything is visibly wrong could transform early treatment. Researchers say healthy people shouldn’t rush to get tested yet. They also know how people work.
