Eleonora Movsisyan is the CEO and founder of Nail Sunny, a chain of nail salons offering manicures and pedicures in several locations across Moscow. The head of the self-described “#1 nail art chain in Russia” visited Washington, D.C. on Tuesday morning for a meeting with her country’s new ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Ivanovich Antonov.

A photo posted on Movsisyan’s personal Instagram account, and on Nail Sunny’s company Instagram page, shows that the meeting took place at a popular locale for foreign governments eager to please President Donald Trump: the Trump International Hotel.

Despite the emoluments clause, a provision in the United States Constitution that prohibits Trump and other federal officials from receiving payments from foreign governments, diplomats from around the world have been holding events at his properties since his 2016 election.

In December 2016, ThinkProgress reported that — under pressure — the Kuwaiti government had cancelled a contract with one Washington hotel and moved a major event to Trump’s new hotel. A former Mexican ambassador has alleged that Trump’s State Department is actively encouraging world leaders to use Trump’s hotel for official visits.

After authorities arrested a handful of Donald Trump supporters for plotting to car-bomb Somali immigrants in Kansas in 2016, the defense attorney for one pointed to a novel defense for his client: fake news. Per the attorney, Patrick Stein – whose Facebook was littered with both fake stories and support for then-candidate Trump – was motivated to plan his slaughter because he thought then-President Barack Obama was on the brink of declaring martial law, misinformation he picked up from fake news sites.

Stein’s plot, of course, was foiled, but his case helps sum not only the threats posed by the spawn of fake news sites over the past few years, but the propensity for Trump supporters to find themselves consuming fake news sites at far higher clips than other demographics in the U.S.

Indeed, a new paper from a trio of researchers illustrates just how popular fake news sites are for Trump supporters – and how ineffective fact-checking efforts aimed at combating these sites remain.

The new paper from Princeton’s Andrew Guess, Dartmouth’s Brendan Nyhan, and University of Exeter’s Jason Reifler illustrates how approximately 27 percent of American adults visited a fake news site in the lead-up to the 2016 election, as well as the election’s immediate aftermath. For the purpose of the study, the academics described fake news sites as those that “frequently publish false claims, distort genuine news reports, and copy or repurpose content from other outlets.” Sites identified included fake news outlets like BipartisanReport.com, IJR.com, and DailyWire.com, among dozens of others.

Yashar Ali 🐘 ‏Verified account @yashar

Nothing says 2017 like Sheriff Clarke responding to a fake Chelsea Clinton tweet with a fake Hillary Clinton quote. Put this in a time capsule.



6:53 PM - 31 Dec 2017