He never expected the recording to matter as much as it did. For years, Ryan Amacher—a Lake Oswego, Oregon resident who posts online as Rhein Amacher—had been just another voice in the crowded, angry world of right-wing social media, trading in outrage and conspiracy theories with modest reach. But on a Sunday night, his name briefly slipped into the national spotlight when an elaborate hoax involving a Democratic candidate’s mental health collapsed in public, exposing not only a failed smear but also a long, disturbing paper trail of extremism. Amacher had tried to manufacture a story by repeatedly calling a…

On an island that knows the rhythm of typhoons, there is an especially uncomfortable moment when the sky grows heavy, the wind begins to moan, and the palm trees begin to bend. In that space between anticipation and impact, information matters more than almost anything. That is why a rumor circulating over WhatsApp on Saturday felt so unsettling. It said that the Guam Power Authority would turn off power islandwide at 8 p.m. in order to “protect the grid system.” The message spread quickly, passed from neighbor to neighbor and relative to relative, stoking worry inside homes already being stocked…