X said Tuesday that it was ordered to restrict access to the presidential account of Ekrem Imamoglu, seen here running for mayor of Istanbul in 2019. The social media platform said it would challenge the order in court. File photo by Sedat Suna/EPA-EFE
Aug. 5 (UPI) — Social media platform X said it was challenging a Turkish court order to restrict access to the official presidential candidacy office account of jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.
X’s global government affairs team said in a Tuesday statement that the order requires the platform to block the account in Turkey while leaving it accessible to the rest of the world.
“Although Turkey’s laws force us to comply with the order, we are challenging the order in court and, in the spirit of full transparency, are sharing the court order,” the team said, adding that it is challenging the order “because we believe keeping the platform accessible in Turkey is vital to supporting freedom of expression and access to information.”
Not complying with the order could trigger “severe sanctions,” according to X, including throttling the entire platform in Turkey.
According to the order shared by X, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office was investigating allegations of of public disseminating misleading information.
“As a result of open-source research, it was determined that the account identified below had shared content alleged to constitute the offense under investigation and that the content was of a nature capable of disturbing public peace,” the document said. The content in question was not specified.
Though the election is not scheduled until 2028, Imamoglu is widely seen as the main political rival of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian president, who has been in office for nearly 12 years, after previously serving as prime minister for 11 years.
Imamoglu’s presidential candidacy office X account was created in November 2025 and has more than 225,700 followers.
Access to his personal account, which has more than 9.4 million followers, was restricted in May 2025.
Turkish authorities detained Imamoglu and more than 100 people on March 19, 2025. He was formally arrested and remanded in custody four days later on suspicion of unlawfully recording personal data, accepting bribes, rigging tenders conducted by public institutions and establishing an organization for the purpose of committing crimes.
Prosecutors allege that an organization led by Imamoglu defrauded public institutions of about $3.9 billion since 2015. If convicted, he faces 1,929 years in prison.
Imamoglu and his Republican People’s Party have denied the allegations.
Human Rights Watch has described his initial detention as “a politically motivated move to stifle lawful political activities.”
A federal prosecutor in Texas has shared new details about the moments before an immigration officer shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo that cast doubt about the government’s claim that the man struck an ICE vehicle before he was shot.
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer killed Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican national and longtime American resident, on July 7 as he was driving to a Houston construction job site with three co-workers, including his brother. ICE has acknowledged he was not the target of the operation.
The shooting sparked protests in the nation’s fourth-largest city, echoing Salgado Araujo’s family’s calls for transparency. The family describes him as a hardworking father who was close to obtaining legal status in the U.S. after living in the country for 35 years.
The shooting came just days before two other men were killed, in Florida and Maine, in confrontations in President Trump’s federal immigration crackdown, renewing scrutiny on the Department of Homeland Security’s law enforcement tactics.
Aaron Reitz, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas, said for the first time Thursday that ICE officers were targeting two Guatemalan men who were potentially subject to deportation. He said they were driving a van similar to the one Salgado Araujo was driving when he was killed. In an earlier statement released the day Salgado Araujo was killed, Homeland Security said he was targeted in an immigration enforcement operation and he was living in the country without legal permission.
Reitz also said that the officers believed that Salgado Araujo and the passengers in his car fit the description of the Guatemalan men the agents were looking for.
Four officers driving two separate law enforcement vehicles attempted to pull over Salgado Araujo’s van using their police lights. Salgado Araujo then made a U-turn and drove over a median to evade getting pulled over, Reitz said.
Later that morning, the officers again encountered Salgado Araujo’s van and for the second time tried to pull him over, this time essentially surrounding the vehicle, Reitz said. Two of the four agents got out of their cars and told Salgado Araujo to put the vehicle in park. Just before he was shot, one of the agents was “partially inside the van or immediately next to it” when Salgado Araujo tried to reverse the van and then drive forward again, Reitz said.
An earlier Homeland Security statement accused Salgado Araujo of “weaponizing” his vehicle. The agency said he rammed his van into a law enforcement vehicle and said an officer opened fire in self-defense. The most recent statement from the U.S attorney’s office, however, didn’t mention any collision between Salgado Araujo’s van and a law enforcement vehicle. It also didn’t explicitly say that the officer feared for his life. There are no reported injuries among the officers involved.
The latest statement didn’t name the officer who killed Salgado Araujo, nor did it specify whether the officer who fired the shot was the same person who was next to, or partially inside, the van.
Reitz also said in the statement that officers “saw in plain view several small bags of a white, crystal-like substance inside the van” and that the FBI later executed a search warrant to investigate for possible illicit substances.
Salgado Araujo’s brother, who was in the van when the shooting happened, has been in ICE detention since the incident. His attorney said the white substance was a salt mixture that the men used as electrolytes to stay hydrated while doing manual labor in the grueling Texas heat.
Few photos or videos surrounding the shooting in Houston have emerged on social media, unlike other deaths involving federal immigration officers.
There’s this idea in social media that you’re supposed to choose a lane. Either you grow “purely organic”, patiently waiting for the algorithm to reward you, or you automate everything and turn your account into some kind of growth machine that runs without you.
In reality, nobody who actually tries to grow an account long-term sticks to either extreme.
Pure organic growth is slow enough to make you question whether anything is happening at all. Pure automation without real content is just noise with extra steps.
Most accounts that survive past the first few months end up somewhere in between, even if nobody says it out loud.
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Where automation actually fits in
When people hear “automation”, they still imagine spam bots or engagement farms from years ago. That’s not really what we’re talking about anymore.
Used properly, automation isn’t about replacing activity. It’s about smoothing out the worst part of it – posting something decent and watching it sit at zero for hours because the algorithm didn’t pick it up.
That initial silence is where a lot of good content dies. Not because it’s bad, but because nothing happens around it early enough.
Automation in this context is just early support. A bit of initial visibility, some signal that the post isn’t completely invisible, enough to get it into circulation instead of letting it sink immediately.
Why organic alone stops scaling
Organic-only accounts usually hit the same pattern. At the beginning, everything feels like progress. A few posts perform, you get your first audience, and there’s a sense that things are starting to move.
Then it slows down. Not dramatically, just quietly. You keep posting, improving, adjusting – but the results stay in the same range. It’s not that the content gets worse. It’s that platforms don’t scale reach in a predictable way.
That’s usually where frustration starts. Not failure, just repetition. You’re doing the same work, but the outcome doesn’t change much. And that’s a difficult place to stay in for long.
Why automation alone also fails
On the other side, accounts that rely only on automated promotion usually run into a different problem. They can create activity, they can push numbers, they can make a profile look alive. But without real content behind it, there’s nothing for people to actually connect to.
No point of view, consistency and reason to follow.
People notice that, even if they don’t consciously analyze it. An account can look active and still feel empty. Automation can amplify reach, but it can’t replace identity.
The middle layer: where growth actually happens
The more stable setups usually combine both sides. Organic content is responsible for the actual message – what the account stands for, what it’s trying to say, why it exists in the first place.
Automation supports distribution – making sure that message doesn’t get lost immediately after it’s published. They solve different problems:
organic answers what is being communicated;
automation answers whether anyone is actually seeing it.
Most accounts struggle because they only solve one of those properly.
The psychology of perceived activity
There’s also a simpler factor that often gets ignored: perception. People don’t evaluate accounts in isolation. They compare them instantly to everything else in their feed.
An account with visible engagement feels more established. Not because people sit and analyze metrics, but because inactivity is noticeable.
Good content with no traction creates hesitation. Not rejection – just a pause. And on social media, hesitation is usually enough for someone to move on.
Adding early visibility reduces that friction. It makes the account feel like it already exists in circulation, not like it’s still trying to get noticed.
How teams actually use this mix
In practice, most teams don’t frame this as theory. They just build a workflow.
Organic content is used for messaging, storytelling, positioning. That part doesn’t change.
Promotion, including automated support, is used when something deserves more reach than it would naturally get in the first hour or two.
Some posts are left alone, some are boosted, while others are tested and dropped. It’s less about forcing outcomes and more about not letting good content disappear by default.
Services like Top4SMM are often used in that layer – not as a replacement for marketing, but as a way to stabilize visibility when organic reach is unpredictable. If you want to compare options, you can see details.
Why consistency beats intensity
A common mistake is treating growth like a short-term push. People post more, experiment harder, try to “fix” the algorithm in a week or two – and then step back when nothing changes immediately.
What actually works is much less dramatic. Steady output. Steady distribution. No spikes needed.
When both sides are consistent, results start compounding. Slowly at first, then more noticeably over time.
Final thoughts
There isn’t really a pure way to grow on social media anymore. Organic alone struggles with reach. Automation alone struggles with meaning.
The accounts that keep growing are the ones that combine both – content that actually says something, and distribution that makes sure it doesn’t disappear on impact.
Everything else mostly comes down to hoping for timing to behave like a strategy.
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The Pentagon and the U.S. Air Force have fully abandoned an attempt to axe the acquisition of E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft, and to use E-2D Hawkeyes to help fill the resulting gap. In something of a twist, the Pentagon has proposed cutting U.S. Navy E-2D purchases, as well as raiding a classified Air Force account, to keep the E-7 program going. The House Appropriations Committee has now pushed back on the E-2D part of that plan. The back-and-forth underscores the critical importance of airborne early warning and control aircraft and the strain on existing U.S. fleets.
A Royal Australian Air Force E-7 Wedgetail flies together with a U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor during an exercise. USAF
To recap quickly, roughly a year ago, the Pentagon and the Air Force disclosed their intention to axe the E-7 program, which had suffered delays and cost overruns, and acquire additional E-2Ds as an interim gap-filler. Questions about the future survivability of the Wedgetail were also raised. The Air Force’s long-term goal was then and still is now to eventually push most air moving-target indicator (AMTI) tasks into space, though that is still years away from truly becoming a reality. Congress subsequently intervened to save the Wedgetail, appropriating billions for the effort in Fiscal Year 2026. The E-7 was again missing from the Air Force’s proposed 2027 Fiscal Year budget, which raised the prospect of a new battle with Congress.
Top Pentagon and Air Force officials subsequently said that the viewpoint on the Wedgetail had fundamentally changed, and submitted an amendment to the budget request to include funding for the program. Per a memo earlier this month from Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) at the White House, this was done in two ways. $898,549,000 was taken from “Other Procurement, Air Force” section of that service’s budget proposal, while another $650,549,000 came out of “Aircraft Procurement, Navy.”
The combined $1,549,098,000 was moved into the “Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Air Force” account. According to Vought’s memo, the funding would go toward “priority requirement to deliver two E-7 Wedgetail prototype aircraft and continue Engineering Manufacturing and Development activities for a program of record.”
The Air Force already has seven E-7s on order now, including the two jets to support rapid prototyping efforts. It is unclear when the service expects to begin flying Wedgetails operationally. Before the attempt to cancel the program, the target date for initial operational capability had already slipped from 2027 to 2032. It should be noted here that variants of the E-7 are already in service in Australia, South Korea, and Turkey, and that the United Kingdom is set to field a fleet of Wedgetails, too.
A Royal Australian Air Force E-7 Wedgetail. Australian Department of Defense
The report the House Appropriations Committee released yesterday included important additional context about the latest funding plans.
“While the President’s budget request for fiscal year 2027 did not include funding for the E–7 Wedgetail program, the Secretary of the Air Force and Secretary of Defense testified before the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee that they support this critical platform and have submitted a budget amendment to the Office of Management and Budget to restore funding for the platform,” it explained. “The shift in mindset at the Department of Defense translated to requested transfers from the Special Update Program in Other Procurement, Air Force, and the E–2D program in Aircraft Procurement, Navy for a total investment of $1,549,098,000 for E–7 in Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Air Force in fiscal year 2027.”
“While the Committee wholly supports the E–7 program and funding realignment, the Committee also restored the E–2D program to six aircraft for fiscal year 2027,” the report added. “The Committee understands the operational necessity of the E–2D platform; the complementary nature of the E–2D and E–7; and believes that more aircraft, not fewer, are necessary to support our warfighters now and in the future.”
A pair of E-2D Hawkeyes. Lockheed Martin
It is not immediately clear whether the draft spending plan that the House Appropriations Committee has now put forward still includes the full $1,549,098,000 for the E-7 program, as well as the restoration of funding for the E-2D purchases. The memo from OMB had stressed that its intent in shifting funding around was not to add to the roughly $1.5 trillion topline for its proposed 2027 Fiscal Year defense budget. Congress can, of course, appropriate additional funds as it sees fit, and often does.
Regardless, this new debate over how and where to find funding for the E-7 highlights larger issues surrounding airborne early warning capacity within the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy.
“The conflict in Iran has reinforced the need for the Air Force to maintain a credible airborne battle management capability, currently being met with the Air Force’s E–3 Airborne Warning and Control System and the Navy’s E–2D Hawkeye programs,” the House Appropriations Committee’s report also notes. “As the E–3 is set to retire, the E–7 Wedgetail will serve as [a] modern replacement for lost battle management capability, commensurate and interoperable with assets already being utilized by key allies.”
U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry aircraft at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia in 2022. USAF
The House Appropriations Committee report also leaves out any broader context about the planned E-2D purchases for Fiscal Year 2027. When it released its proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2025 back in 2024, the Navy had no plans to order more Hawkeyes, at least over the next five years. In its 2026 Fiscal Year budget request, the service asked for funding for four E-2Ds, presumably as part of the plan to cancel the E-7. Congress subsequently appropriated funding for three Hawkeyes in that fiscal cycle.
When it rolled out its latest budget request earlier this year, the Navy outlined all-new plans to buy 12 E-2Ds – six in Fiscal Year 2027, two in Fiscal Year 2028, and four in Fiscal Year 2029 – explicitly “to replenish accelerated service life burn down of existing force structure due to Overland Airborne Early Warning (AEW) tasking.” This underscores operational strain on the Hawkeye fleet, which can only have been further added to by operations in relation to Iran over the past few months. This also points to E-2Ds supplementing E-3s in providing overland coverage.
An E-2D Hawkeye comes in to land on the U.S. Navy supercarrier USS Gerald R. Ford after a sortie in support of Operation Epic Fury against Iran in March, 2026. CENTCOM
How exactly the E-7 program gets funded in Fiscal Year 2027, as well as what happens to the plans to order more E-2Ds, remains to be seen. The House Appropriations Committee’s draft defense spending plan could still evolve in various ways in the coming weeks and months, and will need to be reconciled with companion legislation making its way through the Senate. Once Congress passes the bill, President Donald Trump will still need to sign off on it, too.
What is clear is that both the E-3 Sentry and E-2D Hawkeye fleets remain as critical as ever, but have been even more stressed by recent operations against Iran, with new E-7s still years away from entering service.
WASHINGTON — First Lady Melania Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Thursday the launch of Fostering the Future Accounts, a spinoff of the Trump Accounts investment funds meant to give $1,000 to every newborn whose parent opens one.
Building on her work helping foster children, Trump said the new federal guidance will give child welfare agencies the ability to act as a guardian for children in foster care for the purposes of opening an account.
At a news conference at the Treasury Department, the first lady said the move “gives foster children the same chance at asset ownership and long-term wealth as every other child.”
The accounts will be open for contributions July 4. To qualify for an account, a child must also be a U.S. citizen born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028.
The White House Council of Economic Advisers estimates that a Trump Account balance for a baby born in 2026 will be $5,800 by age 18 and $18,100 by age 28 if no other contributions are made.
The first lady said 23 governors, all Republicans, have pledged to allow state agencies to begin the process of enrolling children in the program. “I urge every governor and business leader to help fund these accounts,” she said.
There are roughly 330,000 children in the U.S. foster care system, according to the National Council for Adoption. One in five of them is at risk of homelessness after aging out of foster care, and only half gain employment by the time they are 24, according to the National Foster Youth Institute.
“Those outcomes are unsettling, but we refuse to accept them as inevitable,” Bessent told the news conference. “We are affirming that the American dream belongs to every child.”
A provision of Trump’s tax and spending legislation that he signed into law last summer created Trump Accounts. Under them, the Treasury Department gives $1,000 to babies so long as their parents open an account. That money is then invested in the stock market by private firms, and the children can access the money when they turn 18.
Employers and billionaires across the country have pledged to make matching Trump Account contributions for employee benefits. Among them are Michael and Susan Dell, who announced a $6.25 billion donation, and hedge fund founder Ray Dalio and his wife, Barbara, who pledged $75 million for kids under 10 in Connecticut, where the Dalios live.
Airlines and shipping companies must send payment receipts to PDVSA to access fuel. (Archive)
Caracas, June 3, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan government headed by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has instructed airlines and shipping companies to direct fuel payments to a US Treasury account.
Spanish newspaper El Diario published a May 28 letter from state oil company PDVSA addressed to “aviation and maritime customers” that laid out the “banking coordinates” for foreign currency payments concerning JET A1, MGO, and IFO 380 purchases.
JET A1 is a kerosene-based fuel widely used by commercial airplanes, while Maritime Gas Oil (MGO) and Intermediate Fuel Oil (IFO) 380 are standard for ship engines.
“We urge our customers to take the necessary precautions and forward the payment receipt to PDVSA sales representatives so that the payment is cleared and fuel supply is assured,” the letter read.
An attached US Treasury information sheet contains details for Fedwire payments to a “Venezuela custody account” and requires information about “source of funds, e.g., oil, gold, minerals, etc.”
The leaked letter is the first publicly available document from a Venezuelan state institution directing foreign currency payments to an account run by the US Treasury Department as opposed to the country’s Central Bank (BCV) or some alternative state-run mechanism.
Since the January 3 military strikes and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has seized control of the country’s export revenues. The White House has likewise extracted concessions in the form of pro-business reforms, preferential access for Western corporations to natural resources, and external audits of the Venezuelan Central Bank.
US Treasury general licenses allowing select Western corporations to engage in oil and gas activities mandate that all Venezuela-owed payments for royalties, taxes, and dividends be deposited in US Treasury accounts. Additional sanctions waivers imposed similar constraints on mining sector services and exports.
Neither US nor Venezuelan authorities have disclosed information about the funds, the timings of their disbursements back to Caracas, and the percentage kept by the Trump administration. The US president stated in a May interview that Washington has “made a fortune” from Venezuelan oil sales.
Both Washington and Caracas have acknowledged the use of Treasury-held Venezuelan revenues for the purchase of medicines and medical equipment from US manufacturers. In January, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a Senate hearing in January that Venezuela would need to submit a “budget request” to access its own funds.
According to reports, Washington is mandating that the Venezuelan Central Bank distribute the returned foreign currency to private sector importers via exchange table auctions run by public and private banks. The BCV has reportedly allocated more than US $5 billion thus far in 2026.
The Rodríguez acting government’s diplomatic rapprochement with the Trump White House, coupled with reforms to attract Western investment, has led to a growing number of international airlines reestablishing flights to the Caribbean nation. American Airlines currently runs two daily direct Caracas-Miami flights, while United Airlines will launch a Caracas-Houston connection in August. Jetblue, for its part, is set to initiate its first-ever Venezuela route later in the year.
Venezuelan authorities have likewise recorded increased shipping activity at the country’s ports.
