What's New

Just days after threatening to jail a political opponent should he win the presidency, Donald Trump's got a new campaign website that's so very … Trumpian. "Together, we are making waterboarding part of the Republican Party again," it declares. Also, "Together, unleashing, perhaps all of our nuclear weapons." Truer words have never come out of Trump's mouth. Except they didn't, really-at least not directly. A Trump AI generated all of the site's copy on its own. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This afternoon, House Speaker Paul Ryan essentially declared Hillary Clinton the winner of the 2016 presidential election. On a conference call with Republican representatives, he announced that he would no longer publicly defend or campaign beside Donald Trump. After a leaked videotape showed Trump boasting of his ability to sexually assault women, Ryan had apparently concluded his party's candidate was doomed. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

After The Washington Post released a bombshell video in which Donald Trump brags about groping women against their will, top Republicans began abandoning him in droves. But losing the endorsements of senators and governors isn't the biggest threat to Trump's chances in November. Multiple reports suggest the Republican National Committee is redirecting resources to protect down-ballot races from potential fallout over the Trump tape. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Across swaths of Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, and North Carolina, half the highway lanes have reversed. Traffic engineers call this "contraflow," the volte-face of normal traffic. Now, on both sides of these roads, vehicles only run one way-away from Hurricane Matthew. As the Category 4 storm ripped the Caribbean with 145 mph winds, local and state officials urged nearly two million Americans to flee their homes before it hit the southern Atlantic coast. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

After Kim Kardashian was threatened and robbed in Paris this week, celebrities are considering whether her frequent social media use made her more vulnerable, and may be reassessing their own digital sharing. But for prominent people, this won't resolve another perpetual threat: Being hacked. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

By the time Google announced its pair of Pixel smartphones on Tuesday, the devices had already been leaked all to pieces. Shape, size, specs; even color variants were laid bare by clumsy carriers. In fact, just about the only thing left unknown about the Pixels is what they'll do to the already splintered Android ecosystem. Google had previously released smartphones, made by a revolving set of hardware partners, under its Nexus line. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Lightning connectors? Micro USB ports? USB-Cee you later! Our forecast: most, if not all, Android phones will have a USB-C charging port by this time next year. We're expecting new phones from Google this week, and you can bet those will be USB-C, just like the last crop. Samsung and Motorola are moving to USB-C too. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Concern about potential election tampering continued this week. As noted in the roundup below, the FBI found evidence that hackers have been assessing the defenses of voter registries around the country and the cell phones of some Democratic party officials. But election officials aren't the only ones on high alert. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The new HBO show Westworld is based on the 1973 feature film of the same name. The movie, which was written and directed by Michael Crichton, explores the idea of a high-tech theme park that goes haywire, an idea Crichton later recycled in his much more famous Jurassic Park. The original Westworld has many fans, but film critic Theresa DeLucci says the new series is a major improvement in terms of quality. "It's an HBO show," DeLucci says in Episode 223 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

If you add them all up, Google actually makes a lot of gadgets. It sells Nexus phones, Chromebook Pixels, Pixel C tablets, Nest smart-home products, Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices