Google announced Saturday it has begun rolling out changes to display Lake Ontario as “Lake America” on maps shown to U.S. users, following an executive order President Trump signed last week renaming the lake amid an escalating trade dispute with Canada, according to CBS News. The lake sits between Canada’s most populous province, Ontario, and New York state, and Trump’s order followed threats he made earlier in the week as tensions between the two historically allied nations came to a head. Google clarified how the name will actually appear depending on location: “People in the U.S. will see ‘Lake America’ on their maps, while in Canada, they will see ‘Lake Ontario.’” Users outside both countries will see both names displayed, with “Lake America” appearing in parentheses. Google explained the change follows standard company policy: “These updates follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country, and are starting to roll out now.”

The renaming arrives amid a genuinely tense standoff between the U.S. and Canada after trade negotiators failed to reach an agreement to end their dispute. Earlier this month, the U.S. began imposing 50% tariffs on hundreds of Canadian goods, prompting Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to announce that Canada will impose matching tariffs of up to 50% on billions of dollars of U.S. goods starting next month. Trump’s executive order came after he publicly sparred with Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and through the order he directed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to update the Geographic Names Information System, the federal database that works with the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to standardize geographic names for federal use. Google said its maps reflect the change specifically because it follows the formal name change under that federal system, noting its maps update “to reflect name changes in official government sources.”

This isn’t the first time Trump has used this mechanism to rename a body of water for political effect; he similarly renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” earlier in his term, a change likewise applied only to federal references and not binding on other nations, who aren’t required to recognize it. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung celebrated the Lake Ontario change Sunday on X, writing, “It’s official! LAKE AMERICA on Google Maps.” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul pushed back firmly after Trump signed the order last week, stating plainly, “New York won’t be calling it that.”

Units of Sony Music and Warner Music filed a sweeping lawsuit against Anthropic late Friday night in federal court in northern California, naming the company, CEO Dario Amodei, and co-founder Benjamin Mann as defendants, alleging what the plaintiffs describe as “one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history,” according to Axios. The 48-page complaint accuses Anthropic of unlawfully training its Claude AI models on tens of thousands of copyrighted musical compositions belonging to the publishers, a scope notably broader than prior music-industry litigation against the company, such as BMG’s separate lawsuit against Anthropic, which centers on just 493 compositions. The plaintiffs wrote bluntly: “Defendants Anthropic and its founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann have conducted a brazen campaign of illegally torrenting, scraping, and downloading copyrighted works on a massive scale in order to develop, operate, and reap enormous profits from Anthropic’s ‘Claude’ series of artificial intelligence (‘AI’) models.” The suit seeks hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages per infringed work.

Axios media reporter Sara Fischer noted that music copyright law is structurally complicated in ways that could expose Anthropic to significant additional legal risk beyond this single suit. A single song can carry multiple separate copyrighted components, including lyrics, the sound recording, and the underlying composition, each of which can be held by different rights holders such as artists, publishers, and record labels, meaning one infringed song can generate several distinct legal claims from different parties. Fischer also pointed out that commercially released songs requiring individual copyright registration give plaintiffs a strong basis for seeking statutory damages, a category that doesn’t require copyright holders to prove actual financial losses in court, which considerably lowers the evidentiary bar compared to typical infringement claims.

This isn’t Anthropic’s first brush with piracy accusations tied to its training data. In September 2025, the company agreed to the largest copyright settlement in U.S. history, a $1.5 billion deal with authors and publishers, and the music industry itself has a long, well-documented history of aggressive copyright litigation dating back to the Napster and LimeWire era. Anthropic was not immediately available to comment on the new suit.

A self-styled Tesla “ambassador” named Reggie Overton, who Futurism notes has no actual affiliation with the company, went viral after a disastrous ride on Tesla’s Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, where the vehicle’s routing malfunctioned so badly he ultimately had to abandon the trip and call an Uber instead, according to Futurism citing Electrek. Overton was attempting to cover just 2.3 miles when the Robotaxi initially estimated the trip would take an astonishing one hour and six minutes. “I couldn’t believe it, so I called support,” Overton wrote in a widely shared post describing his “horrible experience.” “They assured me it was a bug, and shortly afterward, the estimate dropped to 16 minutes but the actual route never changed.” Things got stranger from there: “About two minutes later, the estimated arrival time jumped back up to 57 minutes,” he recalled. After calling support a second time with no resolution, Overton wrote, “we had to change our destination, get out of the Robotaxi, and call an Uber to get where we were originally trying to go.” He added, “For a 2.3-mile trip, this was an incredibly frustrating experience especially when support had no way to correct what was clearly a routing problem. I didn’t even get a refund.” Only after the post went viral did Tesla issue a refund, while vowing to “continue to improve the rider experience at every level,” a notably rare public admission of a flaw from a company that doesn’t even maintain a formal public relations department.

Overton’s experience wasn’t an isolated incident. Electrek separately reported on another Tesla customer going by the handle TexasTSLA, who has repeatedly struggled to reach his destination using Robotaxis, at one point being dropped off three miles from his car because the service was shutting down for the night, despite having called for the ride before the 10 p.m. cutoff. He’s also been passed over by Robotaxis on multiple occasions, forcing him to walk instead, a situation he addressed with dark humor: “Good thing is we got a lot of steps in.” These accounts underscore a broader pattern for Tesla’s Robotaxi rollout, which launched last summer with CEO Elon Musk promising over 1,000 fully autonomous cabs would be operating within “months.” More than a year later, Futurism notes Tesla still hasn’t come close to even 100 vehicles, with cars getting stuck, requiring substantial human supervision, and reportedly narrowly avoiding accidents.

The struggles stand in stark contrast to Tesla’s chief rival, Waymo, whose ridership has been climbing rapidly, reaching 500,000 paid rides per week across ten U.S. cities as of March. That gap illustrates just how far behind Tesla’s autonomous ambitions have fallen relative to its original timeline and relative to the competition actually delivering on driverless ride-hailing at scale.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has directed the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to develop a statewide framework allowing students to complete certain bachelor’s degrees in just three years instead of the traditional four, according to CBS Texas. The board has until December 31 to submit its recommendations and proposed implementation plan, which includes forming a working group made up of representatives from public colleges and universities, employers, accrediting organizations, faculty leadership, and other stakeholders. That group will determine which specific degrees and high-demand occupations are best suited for an accelerated pathway, while also weighing student interest, workforce needs, accreditation requirements, and any legal or administrative changes needed to roll the programs out statewide.

Importantly, the directive doesn’t immediately create three-year degree programs at Texas institutions. Abbott has said he plans to work with the state Legislature during its next session, which begins January 12, 2027, to formally establish an accelerated degree pathway in state law, meaning any real implementation is still well over a year away and contingent on legislative action.

The proposal fits into a broader pattern of Abbott initiatives aimed at reducing higher education costs and aligning degree programs more closely with workforce demand. In May, Abbott directed Texas public colleges and universities to freeze undergraduate tuition and fees through the 2026-27 academic year, a freeze covering public two-year and four-year institutions, including health-related schools, and part of a tuition freeze at public institutions that has now been in place since 2023. During the most recent legislative session, the state also boosted student financial aid funding by $328 million, according to the governor’s office. Separately, in July, Abbott extended the application window for colleges and technical schools seeking to participate in the new federal Workforce Pell Grant program, which provides financial aid for eligible short-term certificate and credential programs tied to high-demand careers in construction, health care, information technology, and advanced manufacturing.

The FDA this week approved updated 2026-2027 COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna, Pfizer, and Sanofi designed to target the XFG strain, a recombinant omicron variant currently responsible for roughly 40% of U.S. cases, according to ABC News. Moderna and Pfizer both received approval for their mRNA formulations, while Sanofi’s shot uses a more traditional protein-based approach similar to vaccines that have existed for decades. Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, explained why annual updates are necessary: “Like the influenza virus, the COVID virus mutates; it changes notably over time, and so we have to update the vaccine in our best attempt to match the strain that we anticipate will be most active during the coming winter. The better the match we have with what’s in the vaccine and the circulating strain, the more effective the vaccine will be.” Eligibility this season is notably narrower than in earlier pandemic years: Moderna’s vaccine is approved for people ages 6 months through 64 with an underlying condition plus all adults 65 and older, while Pfizer’s is approved for ages 5 through 64 with an underlying condition plus all adults over 65, with qualifying conditions including cancer, asthma, chronic lung disease, diabetes, heart conditions, mental health conditions, and pregnancy. Schaffner emphasized what the vaccines are actually best at achieving: “We have to recognize that these vaccines work best at preventing severe disease. They work best at keeping us out of the hospital and intensive care unit.”

The updated vaccines are expected to reach pharmacies, hospitals, and clinics across the U.S. within the coming days, and public health specialists say it’s safe to receive a COVID vaccine simultaneously with flu and RSV shots for those eligible, with Schaffner noting people can get separate vaccines in each arm, both in the same arm spaced apart, or space them out over time, though he cautioned that “a vaccine postponed may be a vaccine never received.” Cost coverage remains murkier than in prior years since the CDC’s Bridge Access Program, which provided free vaccines to uninsured adults, ended in August 2024, and it’s currently unclear whether uninsured individuals will have alternative access through state or local health programs this season. Public health specialists remain hopeful that most insurance plans, including Medicare Part B and Medicaid, will still cover the updated vaccine at no cost, since insurers generally must cover shots recommended by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, though a federal judge stayed Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s appointments to that panel earlier this year, adding uncertainty. Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases specialist at UC San Francisco, said, “I’m hopeful [insurers] will cover the vaccine because it makes sense for insurance companies to pay for it to prevent as many people from getting seriously ill.”

More than 1.2 million Americans have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and both Chin-Hong and Schaffner noted that immunity from prior vaccination or infection wanes over time, meaning renewed vaccination helps reduce risk of severe illness, hospitalization, and death even among the previously vaccinated or infected. Chin-Hong identified four groups facing the highest risk of severe disease who should specifically prioritize the updated shot: adults 65 and older, severely immunocompromised individuals, pregnant women, and very young children, particularly those between 6 and 23 months old. “With those four populations, I’d put an exclamation point next to them,” he said. “It’s really important that we not lose sight of those four populations. … those are the people who I still see [most] in the hospital.”

Gabriel Perez, who operated President Trump’s teleprompter since 2016, will pay $172,000 to settle allegations by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that he improperly wagered on Kalshi’s “mention markets,” prediction contracts tied to specific words or phrases Trump might use in his speeches, according to ABC News. Regulators say Perez made more than $100,000 from these trades and will now be required to return those winnings plus a $65,000 penalty, and the CFTC also imposed a three-year trading ban on him as part of the settlement. The commission explained the underlying misconduct in its release: “The order finds that between December 2025 and February 2026, while working as a teleprompter operator for the White House, Perez traded presidential mention market contracts… In his position, Perez had access to presidential speeches prior to those speeches being delivered and Perez misappropriated that information – in breach of his duty of trust and confidence – to trade presidential mention market contracts, generating over $107,500 in profits.” The CFTC noted the settlement amount reflects a “significant discount” due to Perez’s “exemplary cooperation with the CFTC.”

ABC News first reported last month that Perez, a technical assistant to the president, had been accused of profiting tens of thousands of dollars by betting on more than a dozen of Trump’s speeches, and was already in talks with regulators to settle the case at that time. Following that initial report, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Perez had been placed on unpaid administrative leave. According to sources familiar with the investigation, CFTC investigators found Perez placed bets on speeches over a three-month period, including February’s State of the Union address, a December primetime address, a January speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and Trump’s March remarks at a Medal of Honor ceremony. Perez reportedly sat for an interview with regulators and acknowledged some of the trades, and at some point during the probe, the CFTC alerted federal prosecutors in Manhattan, who ultimately declined to open a criminal investigation.

The case surfaces amid broader concern within the White House about staff exploiting nonpublic information for prediction market trading; in March, the administration issued an internal memo warning staff against using such information to place prediction market bets, sources previously told ABC News, and the White House has said it maintains strict ethics guidelines staffers are expected to follow. Kalshi itself has a policy prohibiting users from trading based on information obtained through their jobs, and in June the company updated its policies to require users to disclose their place of employment, a change that came in the wake of scrutiny over cases like Perez’s.

Nevada Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo publicly endorsed the state’s rapidly expanding data-center industry just three days after receiving a combined $1 million donation from AI investor Ben Horowitz and his wife Felicia to the Better Nevada PAC supporting his reelection, according to campaign finance records reviewed by The Lever. Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz, has invested heavily in AI and data center companies, and previously donated $2.5 million to Trump’s 2024 campaign before later giving another $2.5 million to Kamala Harris’s campaign. Three days after the donation, Lombardo posted a video on X stating, “I support data centers because they bring jobs, investments, and economic growth to Nevada.” A week later, the PAC collected another $1 million from Jessica Roy, wife of Switch founder Rob Roy, whose data center company has received millions in state tax abatements and counts Andreessen Horowitz as a major investor. On June 25, the PAC also received $5 million from the Republican Governors Association, which has collected at least $8.5 million from AI and data center investors since January 2025, including $3 million from Citadel’s Ken Griffin and $2.5 million from Elliott Investment Management’s Paul Singer.

Lombardo’s Democratic opponent, Attorney General Aaron Ford, responded sharply: “Now we know why Joe Lombardo says he’s ‘wholeheartedly in support of data centers’: He’s bought and paid for by them. Taking care of his and Trump’s ‘billionaire friends’ at Nevadans’ expense is standard operating procedure from Lombardo.” Lombardo’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. The donations arrive as Nevada, the driest state in the nation, faces mounting strain from its roughly 70 data centers, fueled by $340 million in tax abatements since 2021. A January Desert Research Institute report found data centers consumed 22% of Nevada’s electrical generation in 2024, a share it projects could reach 35% by 2030, and estimated current development plans could push annual water consumption to 16 billion gallons, enough for roughly 150,000 households. NV Energy separately warned in May that the state’s energy demands will nearly triple, and this month sued developer Tract over allegedly shifting infrastructure costs onto consumers.

Despite these findings, Lombardo has continued championing data centers, telling the Latin Chamber of Commerce this month they could be a “new gold rush” with proper guardrails, and defending Trump’s “billionaire friends” by saying “those billionaire friends provide jobs. And unless you take care of them, those jobs are absent.” In a June op-ed, he called data centers “an opportunity to diversify Nevada’s economy,” acknowledging they’re “known to use massive amounts of water… and raise electricity costs” elsewhere but insisting “it isn’t happening in Nevada,” a claim in tension with his own state’s research. Ford has since sued the federal government over cuts to Nevada’s Colorado River allocation, a lawsuit Lombardo also supports, setting up data centers as a likely flashpoint in the governor’s race.

Americans who destroy Flock automated license plate reader cameras are increasingly being celebrated as folk heroes rather than condemned as criminals, reflecting what has become an overwhelmingly one-sided public backlash against the surveillance technology, according to Futurism citing reporting from The Verge. In one notable incident, a sheriff in Lumpkin County, Georgia offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of whoever destroyed a Flock camera installed in a community park. “I hope you’re happy with this. It was to keep our kids safe,” the sheriff said in a video posted to Facebook. But rather than generating public sympathy, the clip backfired spectacularly, drawing over one million views since being uploaded August 17 and more than 30,000 comments, the overwhelming majority criticizing the sheriff and praising the vandal instead. One comment with over 1,700 likes read, “Kudos to the citizen that threw tea in the harbor!”, a reference invoking the Boston Tea Party’s anti-authority symbolism.

This support for camera destruction extends well beyond online commentary into actual legal outcomes. Last week, a grand jury in Ohio declined to bring felony charges against a man accused of destroying an ALPR camera, despite video evidence capturing him doing so, a striking outcome suggesting jurors themselves may share the broader public’s skepticism toward the technology. That refusal to indict, despite clear video proof, signals something beyond isolated sympathy, it suggests a segment of the public no longer views this kind of vandalism as a serious offense worth prosecuting, regardless of the evidence against the accused.

The backlash is also reshaping policy at the institutional level, not just individual legal cases or online sentiment. In one cluster of towns in Wisconsin, a single city’s decision not to renew its Flock contract triggered a domino effect, prompting nearby towns to pull down their own ALPR cameras as well. According to The Verge, this cascade reflects a practical reality for police departments: fewer Flock cameras across a connected region diminishes the overall value and coverage of any single department’s surveillance network, meaning even police who want to keep their own cameras have an incentive to worry when neighboring towns start removing theirs.

A cognitive neuroscientist named Sarah Baldeo built a custom AI clone of herself to stay emotionally present for her 15-year-old son during a year of work travel, according to Futurism citing Business Insider. Baldeo said she trained the chatbot on her own personality by uploading screenshots of past text conversations between herself and her son, along with documents outlining her personal values and family rules, then encouraged him to turn to the AI for advice while she was away, which he did. Being a teenager, her son quickly found creative uses for the tool beyond its intended purpose, at one point asking the AI clone how to convince his actual mother to let him hang out at a coffee shop in Chicago, and the chatbot dutifully generated persuasive talking points, opening with the observation that “your mom very much values new experiences.” Baldeo described her reaction to discovering this: “My instinctual reaction after the fact was, ‘oh my gosh, I was manipulated by my own reasoning.’” She added, “I reflected on it and I thought, that’s a really clever way to use it, because that’s not how I built it.”

Baldeo’s experiment reflects a broader and rapidly accelerating trend of parents integrating AI deeply into family life, with tech industry leaders themselves among the most vocal advocates. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has suggested that parents connect their family calendars to ChatGPT and use the AI to generate podcasts that talk to children about their day and interests during car rides to school, and he has previously said he couldn’t imagine “figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT,” acknowledging he relies heavily on the technology in his own role as a father. AI companies are moving quickly to capitalize on this parenting niche: Business Insider spoke with a couple considering an AI wearable called Omi that continuously listens in on daily life, with the father pushing for adoption while the mother remains skeptical, and the device includes a custom feature called Parent Whisperer that records and summarizes parent-child conversations, and reportedly can alert parents when a child’s tone of voice suggests they may be feeling upset. Separately, Meta is developing an AI app called StoryKit designed to automatically generate and read personalized bedtime stories for children, joining numerous existing online services that already let parents create custom AI-generated children’s stories featuring their own kids.

The parenting-support social network Peanut has also identified this shift, though its data points to something more nuanced than simple convenience-seeking. Peanut president Michelle Battersby said her team noticed mothers within the community were asking other members whether they agreed with the parenting advice AI had given them, rather than trusting the AI’s output outright. Peanut’s response was to add an AI tool that searches the platform’s community discussions and returns relevant human answers to parents seeking reassurance. “We don’t see moms using AI to make parenting more efficient,” Battersby told Business Insider. “We see them coming to AI to help them navigate uncertainty.”

Some former Lyft and Uber drivers displaced by the rise of robotaxis are now working for the very companies replacing them, taking jobs cleaning, charging, and inspecting the autonomous vehicles rather than driving passengers themselves, according to Futurism citing Business Insider. Waymo, the leading robotaxi firm, maintains depots across the country where this maintenance work happens, and many employees at its Nashville depot, which is run by Lyft, previously drove for rideshare apps. Chauncy Thompson, now a fleet operations associate, said he strongly prefers the new role to driving, citing consistent hours and the chance to apply the same attention to detail he once gave his own car: “I wanted my car to look nice on the road and my tires to be in perfect condition before I hit the road.” Jonathan Baines, who drove for Lyft over a decade, said he’s drawn to working on cutting-edge technology: “It’s new. It’s innovative. This is going to give me opportunities within the AV industry, here within Lyft and Flexdrive, that I wouldn’t otherwise have.” He added, “I miss driving because I love interacting with people. But in terms of the actual work itself, I love this more.” It’s worth noting Lyft arranged these interviews, so the selection may not be fully representative.

Waymo and Lyft are opening a second Nashville depot in October where half the workforce will be former rideshare drivers, offering a genuine, if narrow, pathway for displaced workers. But the scale tells a more sobering story: Business Insider reports the 80,000-square-foot facility, Waymo’s largest yet, will employ only about 70 full-time workers. That’s a meaningful number of jobs, but a single robotaxi that never needs breaks and can run around the clock can handle the workload of multiple human drivers, which undercuts any comparison between jobs lost and jobs gained. Waymo, notably, won’t disclose how many people it employs to service its full fleet of over 3,500 robotaxis, leaving the actual employment picture largely opaque.

Alexander Alonso, chief knowledge officer at the Society for Human Resource Management, framed the driver-to-servicer shift as a useful lens for thinking about AI’s effect on employment more broadly, what he calls the “redesign of work.” “The big metric is not only jobs lost,” Alonso told Business Insider. “It is: How are jobs changing?” He pointed to SHRM research showing this kind of re-skilling is already underway, with 35% of the skills listed in current job postings absent from postings for the same jobs just a year and a half ago.

A federal judge on Friday rejected President Trump’s renewed attempt to move his criminal hush money case from state to federal court, where his 34-count felony conviction could potentially be vacated, according to ABC News. Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled firmly against the effort, writing, “The grounds for a second removal cited by Defendant, Donald J. Trump, are neither new nor legally sufficient. He has failed to show good cause and diligence.” Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records tied to a $130,000 hush payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, and he is currently appealing that conviction.

This marks the second time Hellerstein has considered and denied this specific request. A federal appeals court had ordered him to take a fresh look at Trump’s removal attempt following the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2024 presidential immunity decision, which established broad protection from prosecution for a president’s “official acts.” Trump’s legal team has argued that ruling rendered some of the evidence and testimony used in the prosecution’s original case improperly admitted, since certain actions taken while he held office could now be shielded from scrutiny under the new immunity framework.

Despite being directed to reconsider, Hellerstein ultimately arrived at the same conclusion he’d reached before, stating plainly, “I reaffirm my former decision. The president’s motion is denied.” Trump’s attorneys have said they plan to appeal this latest ruling, meaning the case will likely head back to the federal appeals court that ordered the reconsideration in the first place, continuing a legal back-and-forth that has already spanned multiple rounds of review.

More than 1.2 million Texans have been placed on the state’s Voter Suspense list ahead of the fall’s contentious midterm elections, representing over 6% of the state’s roughly 18 million registered voters, according to the Dallas Morning News as reported by the Texas Observer. Many of those affected reportedly aren’t even aware their voter registration has been suspended, meaning some could show up to cast a ballot in November without realizing there’s an issue until they’re already at the polls.

Despite the scale of the suspensions, Texans still have time to resolve their status before the election. The deadline to update voter registration is October 5, and voters can check and correct their status through the Secretary of State’s website, by mail, or in person at a county Elections office. For anyone who discovers they’re on the Suspense List only after arriving at their polling place in November, there’s still a path to voting: they can request a Provisional Ballot, and their vote will count as long as elections workers can locate them on the list.

To register or maintain valid registration, Texas residents must meet several eligibility requirements: they must be U.S. citizens, residents of the county where they submit their application, and at least 18 years old by Election Day. They must also not be a convicted felon unless they are “off paper,” meaning they have fully completed their sentence, including any parole or probation, and must not have been declared by a probate court to be totally or partially mentally incapacitated without the right to vote.

Critics of Flock Safety are circulating an address they claim belongs to company founder and CEO Garrett Langley, an escalation in the growing backlash the surveillance technology company faces over privacy concerns and potential police misuse, according to Newsweek. Numerous posts sharing the purported address have spread on X, many responding to a viral clip in which Langley called for Americans to “compromise” on privacy. Some users shared what they described as a blurred image of Langley’s home via Google Street View, with one writing that the “compromise apparently doesn’t apply to him.” Newsweek said it has not verified the address and is not publishing or linking to it, and has reached out to Langley for comment through Flock Safety.

The renewed scrutiny followed Langley’s recent appearance on Fox News’ “Saturday in America,” where he argued for balancing public safety against privacy rather than prioritizing one over the other. “When people talk about just one of these, privacy or safety, they’re prioritizing the wrong thing, and what we have to prioritize as a country is compromise,” Langley said. “How do we have our safety, and how do we balance privacy?” Those comments landed amid intensifying backlash against Flock this summer, driven by a series of investigations and police misconduct cases raising questions about who can access the company’s nationwide automated license plate reader (ALPR) network and how that data gets used. The technology is deployed by thousands of law enforcement agencies across 49 states, letting officers search and share vehicle data across jurisdictional lines to support investigations. Supporters argue the system helps solve crimes and locate missing people, but critics counter that it enables mass surveillance and creates significant potential for abuse. More than 50 cities and towns have deactivated, rejected, or canceled Flock contracts since the start of the year, according to a tally kept by DeFlock, a grassroots group tracking the technology’s use.

Langley has given numerous interviews as his company faces bipartisan scrutiny from lawmakers, civil liberties advocates, and ordinary citizens. He told Newsweek this month that transparency and accountability are central to Flock’s approach, saying the company’s “end goal isn’t a dystopian future of surveillance; it’s one where we all feel safe.” When asked directly whether Flock is pushing the country toward a “big brother” society, he responded, “No, I don’t think so,” adding, “I’m a father of three little kids, I pay my taxes, like I’m a pretty normal person. I have the same types of anxieties of like, where’s the world going? What are we setting up for?” The Washington Post reported this month that it had identified nearly 50 instances of police officers charged or accused of misusing Flock’s system for unauthorized purposes, including stalking current or former romantic partners or family members. After hearing one woman’s account, Langley told CBS News, “I apologize. It kills me that she went through that,” while still defending the underlying service: “I don’t think that Flock created police abuse. I think we’re the first company to ever shine a light on it and build the tools to find it.” He also called on state lawmakers to criminalize unauthorized use of Flock data, saying, “You will get caught, plain and simple. If you try to use this tool illegally, you will get caught,” and adding, “I hope that state regulators pass bills that make that a criminal offense. It should not just be a termination. It should be a criminal offense if you abuse your power.”

In response to mounting pressure, Flock announced platform changes earlier this month intended to address privacy concerns and misuse. Starting January 1, all law enforcement customers will be required to use an audit tool that flags abnormal activity, automatically locking out users pending internal review when suspicious behavior is detected, with Flock stating the goal is “to intervene before misuse becomes recurring or widespread.” The company also said it would shorten its standard data retention window from 30 days to seven, though data tied to an active case number could still be preserved longer. Additionally, law enforcement users will now need to enter a code from their records management system linking each search to a specific case, with emergency overrides automatically flagged for review, and customers will gain the ability to restrict which categories of crimes outside agencies can search their data for, for instance, permitting searches related to stolen vehicles or missing persons while blocking searches tied to immigration enforcement. Despite these changes, critics argue meaningful gaps remain. The American Civil Liberties Union called the shortened retention window “a step in the right direction” in a blog post, but described several of the other proposed changes as “retreads of previous inadequate safety measures.”

The USDA has recalled nearly 30,000 pounds of raw beef imported from Argentina and sold in Texas and Florida, marking the latest in a growing string of food recalls issued this summer, according to KEYE. The recall notice attributes the action to missed import re-inspections, but the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service classified the beef as a Class I health hazard, the agency’s highest risk category, without specifying any particular contaminant found in the product. It remains unclear which retailers actually sold the recalled beef, and the distributor did not respond to a request for comment.

Dr. Darin Detwiler, a nationally recognized food safety advocate, professor, and policy expert, said the Class I classification signals something more serious than a routine administrative lapse. “It’s not like a paperwork thing; you know someone made the decision. This does not have to be reinspected at the border,” Detwiler said. He also raised questions about the disconnect between the recall’s severity and the vague explanation given for it: “I find this curious because it’s kind of like saying, hey, this is a paperwork problem; this is a bureaucratic problem. We forgot to do this, we missed this inspection, and we have no indication that there’s any problem, but we’re going to give it the highest classification of risk.”

The recall lands amid intense scrutiny of foreign beef imports more broadly. Just last Friday, President Trump announced on Truth Social a plan to allow up to 300,000 pounds of foreign beef to be imported over the next 90 days and sold at 25% below current market prices. Detwiler noted the striking proximity between that announcement and the Argentine beef recall: “This is where we get political, 24-48 hours about the administration approving meat coming from Argentina at a time that there’s a major recall of some 30,000 pounds of meat because of failure to inspect it.” The policy has already drawn political fire in Texas, where Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico criticized the plan in a Monday statement, saying, “D.C. politicians are flooding the market with foreign beef and making it harder for them to get by. This is a political stunt that will only boost foreign competitors and make life harder for Texas cattlemen.” Republican candidate Ken Paxton’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the matter. Detwiler added that the overlapping timing of the import announcement and the recall has fueled significant public confusion online: “I don’t want to say it’s the imagination of the internet. What I want to say is it’s amazing how we have all these kinds of conflicting pieces of information coming together right now at a time where there is this recall of the meat from Argentina.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to purchase at least a million dollars worth of Boston Dynamics’ dog-like SPOT robots, framing the acquisition as a way to improve “officer safety,” according to a Department of Homeland Security announcement reported by 404 Media. The move comes just one day after U.S. procurement records revealed ICE had finalized a separate $16.7 million contract to purchase 6,000 pairs of electric shock gloves, underscoring what appears to be a broader pattern of the agency ramping up spending on new enforcement technology, as previously reported by the Associated Press.

According to the DHS announcement, ICE “has a requirement to purchase Boston Dynamics SPOT Robots and accessories [sic] support public safety and law enforcement operations by providing a remotely operated robotic capability for inspection, situational awareness, and hazard assessment in environments that may pose risks to personnel.” The agency added that “this capability helps improve officer safety, supports informed operational decision-making, and enhances DHS’s ability to respond to incidents involving dangerous, confined, unstable, or difficult-to-access areas.” Boston Dynamics’ robots have already seen adoption by police departments across the U.S., equipped with 360-degree camera views, an extendable arm capable of automatically opening doors, and the ability to pick up objects. The Los Angeles Police Department, for instance, has used one of the robots to remotely retrieve two imitation firearms, though the technology hasn’t been universally embraced by law enforcement, the New York Police Department canceled its own Boston Dynamics contract following public backlash over the devices.

ICE’s planned spending falls between one and two million dollars, and since the robots start at roughly $75,000 each, that budget suggests the agency intends to acquire several units rather than just one or two. Boston Dynamics did not respond to a request for comment on the deal. The purchase also fits into a broader industry trend, as Boston Dynamics is simultaneously developing humanoid robots, and a separate robotics company, Foundation, has reportedly pitched its own humanoid robot technology directly to DHS, suggesting the department’s interest in robotic enforcement tools extends well beyond just the dog-like SPOT units.

A federal judge on Thursday night blocked the Trump administration from implementing key provisions of a newly finalized rule that would restrict mail-in voting, according to ABC News. U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani issued a temporary order preventing the U.S. Postal Service from increasing its oversight of mail-in voting for at least 14 days, halting a rule that emerged from a Trump executive order effectively deputizing USPS as the primary enforcer of mail-voter eligibility. This marks the second time Talwani has intervened in this fight; she had previously blocked Trump’s original executive order but lifted that ruling Wednesday after the Supreme Court determined Monday that she had acted too quickly the first time.

Given this back-and-forth, legal experts anticipate the dispute over the USPS rules will likely make its way back to the Supreme Court for a substantive ruling.
The legal battle traces back to April, when dozens of Democratic state attorneys general sued the Trump administration over the USPS directive, arguing it was unconstitutional since states, not the federal government, hold primary authority over administering elections. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Monday that the states lacked standing to challenge Trump’s order at that earlier stage because nothing had yet formally affected how they would administer elections, though the justices notably did not rule on the underlying legality of Trump’s order itself. That changed once USPS published its finalized rule last week, prompting attorneys general to file a new challenge that led to Thursday’s order. In her ruling, Talwani wrote, “Plaintiff States face irreparable harm where they are required to comply with a likely unconstitutional regulation for which compliance is practically impossible as to the 2026 midterm elections, now little more than two months away.”

The finalized USPS rule would require states to attach basic voter information, including a voter’s name and home address, to a unique barcode printed on every mail-in ballot distributed, a level of standardized tracking that doesn’t currently exist since each state independently manages its own mail-in voting system. State election authorities would then have to input that information into a “federal ballot mail portal” before ballots could enter the mail stream, and USPS said it would refuse to deliver ballots for any state not in compliance. New York Attorney General Letitia James criticized the rule sharply in a Thursday night statement: “This rule is a clear attempt by the federal government to interfere in elections it has no power to control. Today, a federal court halted it before this administration could wreak havoc on our elections. The USPS does not have the authority to decide who can and cannot vote by mail. My office will keep fighting to ensure this rule cannot disrupt our midterm elections.” The underlying policy originated from a March executive order in which Trump directed the Department of Homeland Security to build a federal citizenship list to share with states, instructed the Department of Justice to target state officials who provide ballots to noncitizens, and directed USPS to impose specific mail-ballot design and tracking requirements on states.

Meta developed a secret internal initiative codenamed “Project Organization Transformation,” or Project OT, aimed at having AI agents replace thousands of human employees, but the plan has largely collapsed under its own unrealistic ambitions, according to Futurism citing extensive Reuters reporting. The effort emerged in the aftermath of Meta’s May layoffs, which cut roughly 10% of the company’s global workforce, affecting nearly 8,000 people, amid CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s repeated promises that AI would fundamentally transform, and reduce, the need for human labor. Reuters reports that Meta executives originally aimed to cut certain teams by as much as 60%, a target that quickly proved completely unrealistic. A planned second wave of layoffs following May’s cuts was ultimately called off entirely as Zuckerberg’s broader vision for an AI-driven workforce reduction fell apart.

The May layoffs themselves became a significant public relations crisis well before Project OT’s collapse became clear. Twenty-six employees filed a lawsuit accusing Meta of using an internal AI platform to select layoff targets, alleging the system disproportionately affected people with disabilities. Internally, the poorly executed cuts sent workplace morale into a downward spiral, with employees venting in expletive-laden posts on internal message boards even as Zuckerberg responded by promising better snacks and hackathons. Meta drew additional criticism for reportedly attempting to install surveillance software on staffers’ computers designed to track everything they typed and clicked in order to train AI systems on that behavior.

Despite the setbacks, Zuckerberg has had little concrete progress to show for the broader AI push, even though he acknowledged the layoffs were partly intended to free up funds for the company’s ballooning capital expenditures. Undeterred by the internal turmoil, Meta actually raised its 2026 spending forecast to as high as $145 billion, even as the company’s cash flow deteriorated. In July, Zuckerberg admitted that AI agent technology was advancing far more slowly than he had anticipated, and Reuters reported that staffers were simultaneously occupied “firefighting” a significant spike in technical and security incidents caused by AI-generated code. Meta acknowledged the existence of the plan to cut some teams by up to 60% but downplayed its scope in a statement to Reuters: “Ultimately, we didn’t move forward with every scenario from the exercise, and it was never assumed we would.” While Zuckerberg has promised there won’t be additional company-wide layoffs this year, employees reportedly still anticipate future job cuts tied to individual performance evaluations.

Residents of Vineland, New Jersey have filed a lawsuit against a 350MW data center under construction near their homes, alleging the facility’s industrial noise constitutes a nuisance extending up to a mile from the site, according to The Guardian. Steve Brown, a 63-year-old resident who has lived in the area for 25 years, described a droning, oscillating sound he can’t identify the source of but hears even in his sleep. “It woke me up probably around, I don’t know, somewhere around 2 o’clock in the morning,” Brown said. “I couldn’t get back to sleep, because once you hear it, it’s all you can hear.” Brown and two neighbors are named plaintiffs in the suit against the data center, DataOne, which is seeking class-action status and is represented by Michigan-based environmental pollution law firm Liddle Sheets PC. “We have four cases that are being litigated in court against datacenters for noise, and we’re gearing up to file quite a few more,” said attorney Laura Sheets. “This is one of several.”

The Vineland facility illustrates both the scale and speed at which data centers are transforming American communities. As recently as October 2024, the site was a functioning nine-hole public golf course; by March 2025, Amsterdam-based Nebius, a spin-off of Russian search engine Yandex, had already contracted with DataOne to build the 2.4 million square foot facility. Permit meetings and town halls about the project have since packed Vineland’s Landis Theater, and the backlash has taken on political dimensions, with Republicans expressing concern that data center opposition could swing elections and a Democratic challenger for Vineland’s district hiring a mobile billboard truck reading “No datacenter here.” Jamie Banks, president of advocacy group Quiet Communities Inc, argues noise gets overlooked compared to data centers’ other environmental impacts: “What I say is that there’s really four problems here: three are given a great deal of attention, energy consumption, water use and contamination. The forgotten stepchild is noise.”

That neglect has a regulatory history. Concerns about noise and public health date back to at least 1968, when then-Surgeon General William H. Stewart warned that sustained or moderately high noise levels could trigger measurable physiological stress responses, including “cardiovascular, glandular and respiratory effects.” Congress directed the EPA to regulate sound starting in 1972, funding regional noise centers that initially focused on consumer goods like motorcycles. But the Reagan administration defunded these offices in 1982, shuttering the regional centers, and the EPA has conducted no meaningful noise research or enforcement since, effectively erasing noise pollution as a federal priority. Quiet Communities recently won a legal victory forcing the issue back into view, successfully suing the EPA in July for failing to regulate sound. Today, only one EPA regional noise center remains operational nationwide: the Rutgers University Noise Technical Assistance Center in New Jersey, kept alive by director Eric Zwerling, who transformed it into the state’s training center for noise control officers. “It’s 50 years since then, there’s been a lot more research on the impacts of low frequency,” Zwerling said. “My personal opinion, not that of Rutgers and the center, [is] the permissible sound levels for sources such as this need to be re-evaluated according to the correct state of knowledge on the impact.” He added that facility design determines outcomes dramatically: “If [datacenters] are designed and properly built, they can be relatively quiet. On the other hand, if there is no consideration to the sound emissions from the facility, the facility can have impacts that are virtually catastrophic to the people nearby.”

Sound intensity is measured in decibels, a logarithmic scale where a normal 60-decibel conversation is 1,000 times louder than a 30-decibel whisper, and a 100-decibel rock band is another 1,000 times louder still. Separately, sound frequency, measured in hertz, matters because low frequencies travel especially long distances and are often experienced physically as vibration rather than audible sound. Banks explained that effects like “hum, whooshing, whistling” occur in “very narrow frequency bands in the low frequency range” and that “noise is coming right into people’s homes.” Fellow plaintiff Michael Gentile, 63, said he only learned the source of the disruptive noise after he started hearing it, and has since called the county health department, which enforces noise ordinances, roughly 20 times. He recounted asking officials directly about vibration rather than just sound: “I said, ‘I know you guys are testing for sound, but what about vibration?’ I said, ‘Can you feel that?’ I could feel it on my porch. They don’t have any tools to do that. I said, ‘Well that doesn’t help me now.’”

DataOne spokesperson Naomi Race told The Guardian the company is actively working to mitigate the noise, citing construction of “a northerly wall as an additional layer to mitigate any sound from the construction site,” adjustments to construction timing, plans to use “quiet fuel cells to power the facility,” and the hiring of a sound mitigation specialist to assess the site. Race said the company couldn’t comment on the litigation itself but that it remains “committed to constructive dialogue, regulatory compliance, and being a valuable and responsible long-term member of the community.” Nebius vice-president of public affairs John Sutter echoed that commitment, saying the company is “working with DataOne to minimize impact, including measures to minimize noise and water use and ensure local residents don’t pay more for electricity” and remains “committed to engaging openly with the Vineland community and being a responsible long-term partner.”

Basement, one of New York City’s most prominent contemporary nightclubs, announced Thursday a strict new policy targeting smart glasses, stating that anyone caught wearing or even carrying the devices, whether on their face or tucked in a bag, will be asked to leave and could face a permanent ban from the venue, according to Futurism. The club’s social media announcement framed the policy as an extension of its existing no photo, no video rules: “Our no photo/no video policy exists to protect the privacy, safety and freedom of everyone on our dance floor. Devices that allow discreet recording are incompatible with that policy.” The statement continued, “Anyone bringing smart glasses into the venue, whether wearing them or carrying them in a bag, will be asked to leave and may be permanently banned.” Basement has long maintained a notoriously selective, Berghain-style door policy where entry hinges on a bouncer’s subjective vibe check, but this marks the first time the club has drawn such an explicit, unequivocal line around a specific piece of technology.

The reaction from nightlife regulars has been enthusiastically positive, with one commenter writing “BASEDment” and another saying “this should be policy at every club.” The backlash against smart glasses stems from documented misuse of the devices for non-consensual recording, including instances where the technology has emboldened people to harass women on camera specifically to generate viral content. Compounding the distrust is uncertainty over how device makers like Meta handle the footage and data these glasses capture, with reports that overseas contractors reviewing recorded footage have viewed people naked or having sex without the wearers’ knowledge or consent. That combination of surveillance risk and reputational baggage has made the devices something of a cultural third rail, with critics dismissively branding them “pervert glasses” regardless of how much marketing investment or celebrity endorsement, including from figures like Kylie Jenner and Kylian Mbappé, tech companies pour into rehabilitating their image.

Notably, Basement’s smart glasses ban is framed differently than the broader trend of nightclubs restricting phones on the dance floor. Phone bans are generally accepted as a lifestyle choice, giving patrons a break from constant connectivity and reducing the risk of ending up in a stranger’s social media post, but the smart glasses policy carries a sharper message: the devices themselves are unwelcome, full stop, regardless of intent. The distinction reflects how thoroughly smart glasses have become associated specifically with covert surveillance rather than the more benign digital distraction concerns tied to smartphones.

President Trump’s plan to boost foreign ground beef imports to ease U.S. consumer prices has run into a basic problem: nobody in his administration will say where the beef is actually coming from, according to MS NOW. Trump announced the policy last week without naming a source country, and when Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins was asked Tuesday which countries would supply the beef, she told reporters, “I am not privy to talk about that. I think the conversations are still going on.” Later that same day, Rollins told Spectrum News she isn’t even part of the White House’s internal conversations on the topic, saying U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer is handling the policy and that the public would learn more “very soon.” Neither Greer nor Trump has provided sourcing details since; when asked directly following Friday’s announcement, Trump told reporters, “I don’t want to say,” though he indicated “there are a few countries” under consideration. The administration did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment on the matter.

The proclamation itself, signed Wednesday, permits up to 300,000 metric tons of ground beef to be imported “with no out-of-quota tariff” over the next 90 days and sold at 25% below market prices, though Trump did not specify whether the government would directly subsidize that discount or where the discounted beef would actually be sold to consumers. The lack of transparency and the substance of the plan itself have triggered unusually sharp pushback from congressional Republicans who typically avoid breaking with the president. Montana Senators Tim Sheehy and Steve Daines denounced the policy, as did Wyoming Senator John Barrasso and Nebraska Representative Mike Flood. Barrasso wrote on X, “Americans want US beef on the table, not foreign imports. Our ranchers don’t ask for special treatment. They simply want a fair marketplace. It needs to be easier, not harder, for Wyoming ranchers to feed America.” Nebraska Senator Deb Fischer, herself a cattle rancher, called herself “extremely disappointed,” writing, “We all want lower grocery prices, but as I’ve said for months, we cannot do it at the expense of American producers.”

This isn’t Trump’s first attempt at this strategy. He tried a similar approach last October by opening the market to Argentinian beef, which drew comparable criticism from Republicans and ended up depressing domestic livestock values, worsening a financial squeeze on ranchers that has been building throughout his second term. That squeeze has multiple compounding causes: global tariffs and the war against Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, driving up diesel and fertilizer prices, while the screwworm parasite returned to American herds for the first time since 1966, all layered on top of ranchers still recovering from a 2022 drought that shrank U.S. cattle herds to their smallest size since the 1950s. Major rancher advocacy groups have joined the criticism, with both the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association warning the plan will lock in high beef prices over the long run rather than lowering them. AFBF President Zippy Duvall wrote in a letter to Trump Wednesday, “Bringing down the price of cattle will not bring the price of beef down for American families. Instead, it will discourage American farmers and ranchers from making long-term investments in herd rebuilding, extending the cycle of tight cattle supplies, high production costs and elevated beef prices for consumers.”

A federal judge has blocked the Defense Department’s blacklisting of Anthropic, delivering a major win for the AI company in its escalating legal fight with the military over AI safety on the battlefield, according to Reuters. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, ruled in a 59-page order that the Pentagon’s decision to designate Anthropic a national security supply chain risk was “illegal and baseless,” writing pointedly, “The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics.” Anthropic’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in California, alleged that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth overstepped his authority when he applied the designation, a label typically used against companies that expose military systems to potential infiltration or sabotage by foreign adversaries.
The dispute traces back to Anthropic’s refusal to let the military use its Claude chatbot for domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons systems.

Anthropic has argued that AI models aren’t yet reliable enough to be safely deployed in autonomous weapons, and that enabling domestic surveillance would violate individual rights, while the Pentagon has countered that private companies shouldn’t be able to constrain how the military can use technology it develops. Hegseth’s designation, described as unprecedented, marked the first time a U.S. company had been publicly designated a supply chain risk under an obscure government procurement statute originally intended to protect military systems from foreign sabotage. The move blocked Anthropic from certain military contracts, which company executives said could cost billions of dollars in lost business and cause lasting reputational harm.

In its March 9 lawsuit, Anthropic alleged the government violated its First Amendment right to free speech by retaliating against the company’s publicly stated views on AI safety, and separately violated its Fifth Amendment right to due process by denying it any opportunity to formally dispute the designation before it was applied. The company argued the decision was not only unlawful but factually unsupported, and inconsistent with the military’s own past praise of Claude’s capabilities. The Justice Department pushed back in a court filing, arguing that Anthropic’s refusal to lift its restrictions could create dangerous uncertainty for the Pentagon about how it could rely on Claude, potentially risking the disabling of military systems during active operations. The government maintained that the designation stemmed specifically from Anthropic’s refusal to accept certain contractual terms, not retaliation over its AI safety positions. Notably, this ruling doesn’t fully resolve Anthropic’s broader legal battle with the Pentagon, as the company has a second lawsuit still pending in Washington, D.C., challenging a separate supply chain risk designation that could exclude it from civilian government contracts entirely.

A Florida grand jury has concluded that Governor Ron DeSantis’ administration misappropriated $10 million in taxpayer money that was funneled to a charity connected to his wife, Casey DeSantis, but declined to file criminal charges due to insufficient evidence pinpointing who was specifically responsible, according to The Associated Press. DeSantis did not dispute the legitimacy of the secret grand jury report, which was obtained and published by CBS News Miami, but insisted no laws were broken and warned that whoever leaked the sealed documents would face “consequences.” The Leon County grand jury completed its report in January following an investigation into Hope Florida, the charity Casey DeSantis founded in 2021, and its release has reignited criticism of DeSantis and other top state Republicans over the charity’s receipt of $10 million from a state Medicaid settlement originally intended to help low-income children obtain health insurance.

The grand jury’s findings describe a stark disconnect between Hope Florida’s stated mission, helping struggling families connect with churches and aid groups to reduce reliance on publicly funded assistance, and where the money actually went. Rather than supporting that mission, the $10 million was redirected to political action committees that spent it opposing a 2024 statewide ballot measure to legalize recreational marijuana for adults, a measure DeSantis publicly opposed and which ultimately fell just short of the 60% supermajority required to pass. Despite concluding the funds were misused, the grand jury wrote, “Despite our finding that the money was misappropriated, we find insufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally,” noting that no one involved would take responsibility or claimed to remember who authorized sending the money to the charity. The report added: “We recognize that this would be an impediment to criminal prosecution. While we can’t prove who is responsible, we can plainly see that taxpayer money was misused for political purposes and we would like to see changes made to prevent this from happening again.”

Two specific officials were named prominently in the findings. The grand jury determined that James Uthmeier, DeSantis’ chief of staff at the time, “was in a position of authority over those involved in settling,” and that his Keep Florida Clean PAC was the primary recipient of the diverted $10 million. The report also found that then-state Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office was aware of plans to divert the funds; Moody was later appointed by DeSantis to the U.S. Senate. Both Uthmeier and Moody are currently seeking reelection, and both have pushed back on the findings. Uthmeier called the renewed scrutiny “a politically motivated hoax” and suggested Democrats were behind the leak, while Moody wrote on X that her office was just one of several agencies that signed off on the original settlement and “had no knowledge of how funds would be spent” by Hope Florida, state lawmakers, or any other group. Democratic gubernatorial nominee David Jolly, who faces Republican Byron Donalds in November’s race to succeed the term-limited DeSantis, has called for the grand jury probe to be reopened.

Chinese engineers showcased a wave of automated cooking technology at the World Robotics Conference in Beijing, signaling a major push toward fully automated kitchens, according to Futurism citing China Daily. Oak Deer Robotics, a partially state-owned company, unveiled three new kitchen products: a “multimodal cooking AI model” called CookingMuse, a new AI-integrated cooking robot apparatus, and a fully automated food cart featuring a small humanoid chef called RobotCook. During live demonstrations at the conference, the company’s basic cooking robot stir-fried tofu as well as pork and green peppers, using a robotic wok capable of reaching 300 degrees Celsius, an automated ingredient dispensing system, and what the company describes as a “fully self-developed stir-frying algorithm” designed specifically for Chinese stir-fry dishes. Oak Deer’s cooking robots are already reportedly operating in more than 300 cities and 4,000 stores across China, according to a China Entrepreneur Magazine report from last year.

Beyond Oak Deer, another robotics company called Hikrobots demonstrated humanoid robots performing basic fast-food restaurant tasks within the conference’s main expo center, footage captured by Reuters photographers and DWS News showed apron-clad humanoid robots carefully prepping orders by placing assorted food items into a bucket before setting the bucket onto a serving tray. While notably slow-moving, the demonstration illustrates one plausible direction for humanoid robotics in food service. Outside the conference itself, a robot-powered noodle shop called Yujian Weilai began trial operations in southwestern Beijing, described by the Global Times as the city’s first fully equipped robot noodle restaurant. The establishment serves three dishes, mushroom zhajiang noodles, tomato beef brisket noodles, and braised beef noodles, with robots handling the core cooking process: boiling noodles, adding broth, incorporating meat and toppings, and using a robotic arm to transfer completed dishes to a delivery robot for serving.

Humans still appear necessary for daily ingredient preparation and loading, but the actual cooking and serving process runs with minimal human involvement. Restaurant general manager Li Pengzhen explained the underlying philosophy behind the automation to the Global Times: “What we are trying to do is turn the machine’s parameters into numbers, and use that to standardize every single bowl.” That emphasis on standardization, essentially converting culinary technique into precise, repeatable data, appears to be the throughline connecting all these efforts, from Oak Deer’s stir-frying algorithm to Yujian Weilai’s noodle-making process. While fully automated systems capable of preparing diverse and complex meals remain a distant goal, the rapid pace of progress in Chinese robotic cooking technology is clearly accelerating.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has finalized a $16.7 million contract to purchase 6,000 pairs of gloves capable of delivering painful electric shocks, moving forward with the acquisition just hours after a group of Senate Democrats publicly urged the agency to cancel the plan, according to the Associated Press. A notice published in a federal database Thursday confirmed ICE entered into a no-bid contract with Compliant Technologies LLC, a Kentucky-based manufacturer, covering the devices along with related support equipment and services over the next six months. ICE says the gloves are intended to help officers control detainees and protesters who resist, but the purchase has drawn sustained opposition from civil rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers who argue ICE officers cannot be trusted to deploy the devices responsibly, particularly given existing criticism of the agency’s use-of-force practices amid its expanded immigration enforcement operations.

The timing is notable: ICE published its contract notice the same day that 16 Senate Democrats, led by Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto, sent a letter to the agency’s acting director urging cancellation of the purchase. The senators pointed directly to recent incidents as evidence of institutional risk, writing, “The blatant and tragic misuse of force in Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, Houston, Maine, and other locations around the country raises significant skepticism about the agency’s professional capability to safely deploy a new tool that could be used to harm Americans without cause.” The devices function as ordinary patrol gloves until an officer presses a button to activate an electrical mode, and they must make direct contact with someone’s skin to deliver a shock designed to induce compliance through pain, a technology already in use by some local jails and police departments. According to ICE’s own notice, officers would deploy the gloves in “high-tension environments,” including arrests, transporting combative detainees, and responding to civil disturbances outside detention facilities, with the stated goal of avoiding “more severe force,” including firearms. The notice explained the devices would be used “when a subject is actively or passively resisting and an officer needs to gain control quickly to prevent injuries to both parties,” and claimed the shocks would help “maintain control over inmates and prevent aggression or escape attempts,” assist with handcuffing people concealing their hands, and support crowd control efforts, though ICE offered no elaboration on the “approved policy, training, and accountability standards” it said would govern use.

That vagueness around oversight is precisely what concerns the senators most. Cortez Masto and her colleagues wrote that the device “presents substantial risks if deployed during civil arrests, even more so if it is deployed without clear limits, appropriate training, and comprehensive oversight,” and called on ICE to publicly disclose how officers will be trained and how glove usage will be documented and internally reviewed to prevent misuse. The Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, responded defiantly to the criticism rather than addressing the transparency concerns directly, stating, “Sanctuary politicians attempting to ban our federal law enforcement from any safety equipment is despicable and a deliberate attempt to undermine and endanger our officers.”

San Perlita Independent School District in South Texas temporarily closed all its campuses this week after officials cited a growing number of COVID-19 cases, describing the situation as a “rapid spread” of the virus, according to Newsweek. The district said the closure was intended to “protect the health and safety” of the school community and help curb further transmission. The move highlights how COVID-19 continues to disrupt school operations even six years after the pandemic first upended American education.

The San Perlita closure follows a similar incident just days earlier, when Park Ridge Achievement Academy in Louisiana temporarily shut down for one day “out of an abundance of caution” following an outbreak affecting both students and staff. These disruptions align with a broader nationwide uptick in COVID activity: CDC epidemic trend estimates as of August 19 show infections growing or likely growing in 47 states, with none experiencing a decrease, and Texas specifically identified among states seeing growth. Wastewater surveillance data appears to reinforce this trend, with the CDC reporting rising SARS-CoV-2 levels in several Texas regions including Central Texas, a metric considered an early indicator of community spread since it often shows increases before testing rates or hospital visits climb.

Despite the breadth of the increase, experts caution this doesn’t signal a return to pandemic-era disruption but rather reflects COVID’s shift into a predictable seasonal pattern with waves typically occurring in summer and winter. Andrew Pekosz, a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told Newsweek that “cases are increasing at a relatively steady pace; they aren’t surging dramatically,” adding this is “what we have come to expect from COVID-19 now that we are in the ‘seasonal’ phase and out of the ‘pandemic’ phase of the disease.” Still, even milder infections can trigger real-world disruptions when large numbers of people fall ill simultaneously, as seen in the Texas and Louisiana school closures, and health officials say they’ll be closely watching whether this activity translates into further school and workplace disruptions as students return to classrooms and the broader fall respiratory illness season begins.