As police scoured New England this week for the gunman who killed two people at Brown University, a parallel manhunt erupted online, falsely targeting a Palestinian student, Axios' Zachary Basu writes.

• Authorities say the real suspect, a Portuguese national also linked to the slaying of an MIT professor, was found dead Thursday in New Hampshire.

Why it matters: Social media influencers who play detective after tragedies are getting it disastrously wrong — falsely accusing innocent people of crimes with little evidence, massive reach and virtually no accountability.

• The speculation is often stoked by ideological accounts that seize on "clues" reinforcing their worldviews. Corrections are exceedingly rare — and seldom travel as far as the original claims.

🔎 Zoom in: Mustapha Kharbouch was never named by police as a suspect in the shooting that killed two Brown students, including Ella Cook, the vice president of the Brown College Republicans.

• Kharbouch was targeted online after his student profile disappeared from the university's website — a move MAGA-aligned accounts seized on as supposed evidence of a cover-up.
• Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said Tuesday there were many reasons the pages could have been taken down — including to prevent doxxing — and warned that online vigilantes were heading down a "really dangerous road."

The frenzy only accelerated from there.

• Popular right-wing figures and large anonymous accounts cast Kharbouch's identity — Palestinian, openly queer and outspoken on Gaza — as inherently suspicious.
• "The past few days have been an unimaginable nightmare," Kharbouch said in a statement. "I woke up Tuesday morning to unfounded, vile, Islamophobic, and anti-Palestinian accusations being directed toward me online."

💻 Between the lines: Online sleuths have a long history of misfires, most infamously during the manhunt after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. But what has changed is the speed of misinformation, and the influence of those spreading it.

• Shaun Maguire, a prominent pro-Trump venture capitalist, claimed Kharbouch was "very likely" the shooter and falsely suggested that the slain MIT professor, Nuno Loureiro, was Jewish and pro-Israel.
• Laura Loomer, a far-right activist with outsized influence in the Trump administration, continued to claim the shooter was a "Muslim who shouted 'Allahu Akbar'" — even after authorities identified the suspect as Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.

Even Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, a senior Justice Department official, amplified claims that Brown's removal of Kharbouch's student pages was suspicious.

• Read on.

The Justice Department released thousands of files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein yesterday — including documents, photos, recordings of phone calls and videos gathered during state and federal investigations.

• Why it matters: It's the clearest look yet into Epstein's years of abuse and his connections to influential figures in business and politics, Axios' Josephine Walker reports.

The big picture: While compiling records, the Justice Department found 1,200+ names of victims or victims' relatives, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in the letter to Congress.

The records detail the kinds of abuse Epstein made his survivors endure.

• In a graphic Palm Beach police interview, a girl says she was recruited to give Epstein partially nude massages when she was 16. She describes how Epstein asked her to seek emancipation from her parents to live with him as a "sex slave, whatever you want to call it."

New photos from Epstein's estate are in the release, too — many featuring women in various levels of undress.

• Many of the most discussed photos show former President Clinton. Some show Clinton on a private plane, including one with a woman seated next to him with her arm around him. Another shows Clinton in a hot tub with a woman. The faces of both women are redacted.
• The small number of photos that show President Trump appear to have been in the public domain for decades. There were references to Trump in Epstein's address book, flight logs and a message book in which Epstein's assistants logged missed calls, N.Y. Times notes. Versions of those documents were already public.

Some pages of the files are almost entirely redacted.

• Blanche said thousands more documents could be released in the coming weeks.

Quick takeaways ... Full trove of documents.

Venezuela is testing President Trump's blockade of sanctioned oil tankers by letting two crude-laden vessels motor out from the South American nation's ports — including one with a military escort.

• Neither tanker has been sanctioned by the U.S., so technically they're not running Trump's blockade.

Why it matters: This newest cat-and-mouse game between Trump and Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro is heightening the tension in the Caribbean. Millions of barrels of oil are at stake — a military conflict seems likelier than ever, Axios' Marc Caputo reports.

• "Maduro just does not know who he's messing with," a Trump adviser told Axios yesterday. A day earlier, Trump told NBC he wouldn't rule out going to war.

Read on.

The battle to dominate prediction markets — a fast-growing alternative to traditional online gambling — is heating up, Axios' Nathan Bomey reports.

Catch up quick: Polymarket and Kalshi pioneered the space and have been the most aggressive, offering markets like sports and politics and irking regulators. Now, competitors are arriving.

• DraftKings, one of the nation's largest sportsbooks, launched its long-anticipated prediction market yesterday in 38 states. It comes about two weeks after rival sportsbook Fanatics debuted its own prediction market app.
• Robinhood lets users trade bets in its app. Crypto exchange Coinbase is set to offer prediction markets soon.

😲 Stunning stat: Prediction markets could hit a trillion dollars in annual trading volume by 2030, CNBC reports, citing data from research firm Eilers & Krejcik.

• Sports — which E&K projects will make up 44% of the volume — is expected to drive the growth.

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Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) is suspending her campaign for New York governor and will not seek reelection to the House next year.

• Stefanik, one of President Trump's most prominent backers on Capitol Hill and a member of House GOP leadership, just entered the race for governor in November after Trump helped clear the field for her, Axios' Kate Santaliz and Andrew Solender write.

🗽 The announcement comes just days after Nassau County executive Bruce Blakeman decided to jump into the race.

• Trump and GOP leadership's effort to clear the field for Stefanik included convincing Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) not to run.

Between the lines: National Republicans earlier this year embarked on a polling project aimed at deciding who of the three — Stefanik, Lawler and Blakeman — would be the strongest GOP opponent to incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, Axios' Alex Isenstadt reported.

• Stefanik fared the best.

Keep reading.

The U.S. military conducted air strikes against dozens of ISIS targets in Syria yesterday.

• They were in retaliation for the attack that killed three U.S. soldiers last weekend, the U.S. military central command said.

Why it matters: "Operation Hawkeye Strike" is the most wide-ranging U.S. military operation against ISIS in Syria in several years, Axios' Barak Ravid reports.

• President Trump said yesterday Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa supports the operation.

More details.

Three moves this week appeared to solidify Vice President Vance's place as GOP frontrunner in '28:

1. Erika Kirk, widow of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk and the organization's new CEO, endorsed a potential presidential bid by Vance on the opening night of the conservative youth group's annual conference, AmericaFest (AmFest), in Phoenix on Thursday. "We are going to get my husband's friend JD Vance elected for 48 in the most resounding way possible," she said, referring to the 48th president. Keep reading.
2. Earlier this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, considered a potential candidate himself, also weighed in, telling Vanity Fair: "If JD Vance runs for president, he's going to be our nominee, and I'll be one of the first people to support him."
3. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who's also generating '28 buzz, reposted a poll that showed her beating Vance in a hypothetical matchup.

Go deeper: Young conservative women find a home in Turning Point with Charlie Kirk's widow at the helm.

Brian Fowler — an L.A. resident and devout Raiders fan — has unofficially set two world records this season during his quest to attend 56 NFL games, Axios' Isaac Avilucea writes.

• He took a sabbatical from work, set aside $25,000 and has been vlogging the experience.

🏟️ Zoom in: He topped the existing record last month when he attended his 34th game.

• Fowler tells Axios he also clinched a second record along the way, becoming the fastest person to visit all 30 NFL stadiums — doing it in 72 days, two days quicker than the previous record-holder.

Tomorrow's Eagles-Commanders matchup in D.C. will be his 48th game.

• Guinness World Records will review all of Fowler's evidence at the end of the season and determine within 12–15 weeks whether he's officially the new record-holder.

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