Weldborough is a village in Tasmania in Australia. It’s got the Weld River, which you can go fossicking for sapphires in! In a wetsuit, ‘cos it’s freezing cold.

Kristy Probert runs the Weldborough Hotel, the pub in Weldborough. She was surprised when, from around September last year, she started getting tourists calling about the hot springs in the area. There are no hot springs in Weldborough: [ABC, audio]

In the last couple of months, I’ve just had a lot of people ringing and turning up looking for the Weldborough hot springs … I’m getting daily phone calls and people turning up to the pub.

And there’s an actual website for Tasmania Tours, saying that there’s hot springs in a number of locations in Tasmania, including Weldborough, which is just not the case. So the Weld River, which runs through Weldborough, it’s freezing cold, but it’s definitely not a hot spring.

The Tasmania Tours website really sold you on the experience: [ABC]

Its reputation as a tranquil haven has made it a favourite among local hiking groups, wellness retreat organisers, and anyone wanting to experience one of the more untouched hot springs Tasmania has to offer.

You’ll be shocked to hear the website was full of text and photos generated with AI.

ABC got in touch with Tasmania Tours owner Scott Hennessey. He told them:

Our AI has messed up completely.

Tasmania Tours outsources its marketing posts, and usually they check them — but Hennessey was out of the country at the time. The post went up in July last year. By September, Probert was getting calls about hot springs:

I actually had a group of 24 drivers turn up there two days ago that were on a trip from the mainland,and they’d actually taken a detour to come to the hot springs. And I said, if you find the hot springs, come back and let me know and I’ll shout your beers all night. But they never came back.

Probert phoned and had a good chat with Scott Hennessey and she reassures people that Tasmania Tours is on the level: [Facebook; CNN]

It is hard to keep everything up to date and relevant as a small business. They seem like lovely people, and we’ve all made mistakes. I think this was quite a funny one.

But you can bet Hennessey’s checking everything three times from now on.

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Here is an email that Elon Musk, current world’s richest man and owner of a gigantic social media network that generated child sexual abuse material on demand, sent to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on November 11, 2012: “What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?” 

At first glance, the latest Department of Justice dump of Epstein documents is at least as horrifying as any of the dumps that came previously. Whether or not—and most likely not—any consequences of any sort come for any of the people who interacted with or were friends with the notorious child sexual abuser, the documents are depraved and continue to show that Musk and many other rich and powerful people have been lying about their relationships with Epstein for years. 

In September, Musk tweeted “this is false” in response to a Forbes article based on previously released documents that stated he “planned a trip to Epstein’s private island.” He also wrote “Epstein tried to get me to go to his island and I REFUSED.” Musk had previously been named on Epstein’s calendar as being slated to visit Epstein’s island in 2014.

The emails released Friday show without a doubt that Musk, at the very least, “planned” a trip to Epstein’s island. They also show that Epstein asked Musk if SolarCity, his solar power startup that was eventually folded into Tesla, could electrify the island or his New Mexico ranch. 

The newly released documents show that Musk emailed with Epstein over the course of more than a year. In a December 2013 thread called “Christmas and New Year’s,” Musk wrote “Will be in the BVI [British Virgin Islands]/St Bart’s area over the holidays. Is there a good time to visit?” 

“I will send heli for you,” Epstein responded. “Thanks,” Musk answered. 

“Actually, I could fly back early on the 3rd. We will be in St Bart’s. When should we head to your island on the 2nd?,” Musk said in a follow-up email.

In October 2012, Musk emailed Epstein and said “The world needs more romance […] Talulah [Musk’s second wife] and I are headed to St. Barth’s at the end of the year. I assume you will most likely be on your island?” 

Epstein eventually responded in November and offered to send Musk as helicopter: “how many people will you be for the heli to island,” Epstein wrote. 

“Probably just Talulah and me,” Musk responded. “What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?”

Another thread between Epstein and Musk was about providing power to two of Epstein’s properties: “is there any one at Solar City that my guys can talk to about electrifying the caribean [sic] island? Or the New Mexico ranch,” Epstein wrote. “Are we in New Mexico?” Musk wrote, adding a colleague to the thread.

These emails are hitting at a time where there is quite a lot going on in the world, and Musk, Donald Trump, and the current class of people in political power have shown that they will suffer very little from essentially any political scandal. And yet, these emails show in black and white that Musk has been lying about his relationship with Epstein, and that’s worth documenting.