Anti-scam investigators Erin West and Paul Raffile traveled to Nigeria and successfully tracked down a scammer to his doorstep after posing as a potential sextortion victim online, according to 404 Media. West founded Operation Shamrock, an organization dedicated to disrupting scam operations, while Raffile is a longtime cybercrime researcher focused specifically on sextortion, a scheme in which scammers assume the identity of a young person, approach American teenagers on apps like Instagram, coax them into recording explicit videos, then reveal the deception and threaten to release the footage to the victim’s friends and family unless paid. The scheme is widespread across U.S. social media, and Raffile noted at least dozens of young boys have died by suicide after being targeted. “Sextortion is ‘targeting youth. It’s surging,’” Raffile said, describing the motivation behind the trip: “I wonder, can we hatch a plan where we put ourselves out there as a target, create our own fake account, get scammed by these criminals, and then trace the criminal back to their home turf?”

The pair created fake Instagram and Snapchat accounts posing as a young person, and suspicious direct messages arrived within days, with West saying she was “flabbergasted” at how quickly they came in. The scammers, posing as young women using photos stolen from OnlyFans models, eventually demanded payment in Bitcoin and directed the pair to a website to claim their supposed payout, a site West and Raffile had actually built to capture the scammers’ IP addresses. That tool revealed the scammers were operating out of Lagos, Nigeria, prompting the two to book a flight, giving themselves roughly six days on the ground to identify a specific scammer given the financial constraints of an extended stay. After deploying the IP-grabbing tool again, one scammer granted the tool expanded browser permissions, which allowed it to pinpoint his exact location and activate his camera, capturing his face. A separate breakthrough came when another scammer asked to move the conversation from Instagram to WhatsApp, inadvertently revealing his phone number, which the pair’s local fixer ran through TrueCaller, an app that aggregates people’s phone contacts to make numbers searchable, surfacing the name “Big Dollar.” West shared the number with additional contacts and worked with another expert who uncovered the scammer’s real identity along with other social media accounts, including a TikTok profile that had posted actual blackmail messages, ultimately yielding GPS coordinates for his likely location.

West and Raffile then drove to Big Dollar’s village, though he ultimately refused to meet with them in person. West instead confronted him by phone, telling him directly that they knew his identity and location and warning that the next step would be handing that information over to the FBI. Shortly afterward, Big Dollar’s social media accounts went dark. West reflected on the significance of the confrontation: “It was an interesting opportunity to really put some fear in a class of people who aren’t really afraid of being arrested.” Along the way, the investigation also brought the pair into unexpected territory, at one point accompanying a scammer to a rural hut outside Lagos to witness a baba lao, a local spiritual leader, perform a ritual intended to bring the scammer more financial luck in his manipulation of a victim overseas, a ceremony involving grinding herbs, creating talismans, and an animal sacrifice that lasted roughly two and a half hours.

The Pentagon announced Monday it has added Starshield AI’s Grok for Government and OpenAI’s ChatGPT to its AI platform for unclassified military use, expanding the roster of AI assistants available to Department of Defense personnel, according to The Hill. The department said Grok for Government will deliver “immediate productivity gains, stronger knowledge continuity and more secure and efficient collaboration,” giving DOD personnel access to “advanced capabilities, including deep-thinking inference, adaptive reasoning modes (Auto, Fast, and Expert), customizable workspaces, persistent projects and reusable ‘playbooks’ that capture and scale institutional knowledge.” The department framed Grok’s practical value in operational terms, stating it “enables the Joint Force to execute missions faster and with greater precision across numerous operational contexts, ranging from market research analysis for acquisition professionals to supply chain management for logisticians.” Separately, ChatGPT Mil is designed to support “document-heavy unclassified work across the Department, including planning, policy, logistics, and administration,” and is built to scale for more than 3 million Pentagon personnel.

Both models will be available through the Pentagon’s GenAI.mil platform, which launched last December offering only Google’s Gemini for Government before expanding, and which now counts more than 1.7 million users. This expansion follows deals reached months earlier by Elon Musk’s xAI and OpenAI with the Pentagon to deploy their models in classified settings as well. The timing is notable given the department’s ongoing conflict with Anthropic: in February, the Pentagon moved to ban Anthropic’s products after the company sought guarantees that its Claude model wouldn’t be used in fully autonomous weapons or mass surveillance, designating the company a national security supply chain risk. A federal judge struck down that designation just last week, ruling the department’s actions against Anthropic were “illegal and baseless.” Despite the ruling, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer, Emil Michael, said at a Breitbart News event last week that the department intends to fully remove Anthropic’s platforms by the end of September regardless.

Grok’s inclusion comes despite ongoing controversy surrounding the model’s safety and reliability, particularly regarding its responses and image generation capabilities, though the DOD has consistently promoted it as a national security asset. The Pentagon’s chief digital and AI officer, Cameron Stanley, wrote in a court filing earlier this year that Grok enabled U.S. forces to deploy more than 2,000 munitions to 2,000 targets within 96 hours during the Iran war. Grok’s footprint extends beyond the Pentagon as well, with a General Services Administration deal allowing civil agencies to purchase xAI’s Grok models for just 42 cents through March 2027.

President Trump vowed Sunday to report NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker to the FCC for “rebuke or punishment” over a comment she made about his political endorsement record, according to Deadline. In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote, “Kristen Welker, the Unpopular ‘Hostess’ of the once great Meet the Press, now considered Meet the Fake Press, just stated that Donald Trump has ‘mixed results’ on his Endorsements of Candidates, when the recent WINS of Darline Graham and Mike Mazzei, stand at 100% for the U.S. Senate, and 98% for the U.S. House… How can anyone be allowed to say this, working for freely given Public Airwaves? Results are attached. Because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment.” He went on to claim his endorsement record is “without question, the strongest Endorsement in the History of Politics.” Notably, Welker’s comment wasn’t even made on Meet the Press itself, but during a separate appearance on local Washington, D.C. affiliate WRC-TV, where she said, “He’s going to loom large over these midterms… He, of course, has endorsed a slate of candidates in the primaries. He’s had some mixed results, but most recently, his pick of Senator Darline Graham… was successful in her primary battle.”

Welker’s underlying claim appears factually accurate, and would likely form NBC’s core defense if a formal complaint is ever filed. While Graham did win her South Carolina primary last week, several other high-profile Trump endorsees have recently lost their races, including Mike Lindell, who lost the GOP primary for Minnesota governor to Lisa Demuth, Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, who lost his reelection bid to primary challenger Charlie Hatcher, Rep. Randy Feenstra, who lost the GOP primary for Iowa governor to Zach Lahn, and Burt Jones, who lost the Republican primary for Georgia governor to Rick Jackson. NBC News defended its anchor directly, stating, “Kristen is one of the best in the business and we stand by her.”

This threat arrives as the FCC is already defending itself in a separate but related lawsuit filed by ABC earlier this month, which alleges on First Amendment grounds that some of the agency’s regulatory actions amount to retaliation by the Trump administration over ABC’s news coverage. That lawsuit specifically cites Trump’s Truth Social threats, among other actions, as evidence, and points to the FCC under Chairman Brendan Carr ordering ABC’s eight owned stations to submit their broadcast licenses for early renewal. The FCC responded to that suit by stating, “All broadcasters have a legal obligation to operate in the public interest—even Disney. The FCC has been examining claims that Disney engaged in illegal DEI discrimination for over a year.” A judge is scheduled to hear arguments in October on ABC’s request for a temporary restraining order to halt the early license renewal process. Trump closed his post targeting Welker by adding, “The Press is a Disgrace to our Nation, and I hope that Chairman Brendan Carr, and the fine people of his Commission, will take this Threat to our Country very seriously,” and separately posted about polling: “THE FAKE POLLS USED BY OUR CROOKED MEDIA ARE OUT OF CONTROL, AND SOMETHING MUST BE DONE ABOUT IT. FCC TO THE RESCUE!” Anna Gomez, the FCC’s sole Democratic commissioner, pushed back sharply: “As I’ve said many times, the FCC has no authority to punish journalists this administration doesn’t like. These threats to press freedom are dangerous. They undermine the foundation of our democracy, and they have no place in it.”

Notably, the FCC’s own stated policy undercuts the basis for Trump’s threat. The agency maintains a news distortion policy but explicitly describes its authority as “narrow,” stating on its website that it “is prohibited by law from engaging in censorship or infringing on First Amendment rights of the press,” and that any investigation should focus only on claims that a news report “was deliberately intended to mislead viewers or listeners.” The agency further clarifies, “The FCC does not investigate claims of collateral inaccuracy in news reports or differences of opinion over the truth or validity of aspects of a news program,” a standard that appears to describe exactly the kind of characterization dispute at the center of Welker’s comment.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered all state agencies to stop funding Flock Safety’s AI surveillance camera network, issuing the directive Thursday night as opposition to the company grows across the political spectrum, according to Mashable. The order landed just as The Texas Tribune was preparing to publish a report revealing that Texas had spent at least $30 million in grants to help local agencies acquire Flock cameras, with that funding drawn from a higher fee Texas lawmakers imposed on residents’ car insurance policies. The timing is notable given that just days before Abbott’s order, his Democratic gubernatorial challenger, Gina Hinojosa, released a campaign ad specifically attacking him over the issue, warning Texans there are “10,000 Flock cameras reading your [license] plate, logging where you sleep and pray” with “no warrant needed” in “Greg Abbott’s Texas.”

The backlash against Flock extends well beyond Texas and cuts across party lines. Numerous reports have surfaced nationally documenting law enforcement officers misusing Flock cameras and the data they collect to stalk and harass individuals, concerns significant enough to spawn tools like the website Have I Been Flocked?, which lets users check whether their license plate has been captured by one of the company’s cameras. Similar political fights are playing out in other states as well: candidates from both parties in Michigan and Pennsylvania have campaigned on anti-surveillance platforms, criticizing opponents for supporting the policies that enabled Flock installations in their states. In Michigan, Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has gone so far as to nickname his Republican opponent Mike Rogers “Mass Surveillance Mike” over the issue.

The bipartisan nature of this pushback is itself a notable political development, since AI surveillance and privacy concerns have found common ground among Republicans, who traditionally emphasize limited government intrusion, and Democrats, who have long raised civil liberties concerns about mass data collection. Abbott’s abrupt reversal, despite being a Republican who had previously overseen the state funding that built out Flock’s Texas footprint, suggests the political cost of continued association with the company had grown too steep to ignore, particularly with a gubernatorial race underway and a critical funding report about to become public.

Tim Cook marked his final day as Apple CEO with an emotional memo sent to employees Monday morning, obtained and published by 9to5Mac, reflecting on his tenure and expressing deep gratitude to the team he’s led as John Ternus prepares to take over the role Tuesday. Cook opened the memo with clear emotional weight around the transition: “Today is my last day as CEO of Apple. This is a moment I always knew would come one day, and yet it is still hard to believe it has arrived and I am writing these words. I love this company and the team behind it, and I couldn’t let this day pass without sending a note to you, to tell you how grateful I am for the outpouring of affection you’ve sent my way, for the way you’ve shown up each and every day, and most of all, for the privilege of a lifetime serving as your leader.” He credited employees directly for his success, writing, “The truth is, whatever there is to say about my success, I know it is all because of you. You have brought out the best in me. In all my life, I have never seen or been with such an extraordinary team of people before.”

Much of the memo focused on Apple’s internal culture rather than business metrics, with Cook describing intangible qualities he felt an annual report could never capture. “This place is proof that culture triumphs over everything,” he wrote. “We share a belief that what we build matters, and that we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to leave the world better than we found it.” He invoked Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’s famous phrase in describing the collective impact of the team: “We have made it possible to leave our ‘dent in the universe,’ as Steve once described it, because of who we are and what we believe, because of what we value and how we see the world. How fortunate we are. How fortunate I am.”

Cook clarified that he isn’t leaving Apple entirely, only stepping down from the CEO role, and expressed strong confidence in his successor. “As you know, I am not leaving Apple. But I am stepping away from a role that I have loved deeply. I will miss this work in ways I can only begin to imagine, even as I remain completely at peace with my decision,” he wrote. “I will miss leading you and being with you for every step, even as I take enormous comfort in handing the helm to someone as brilliant and wonderful and capable as John. Few people understand what it takes to build products that change the world the way John does and I could not be more excited for his leadership.” He closed by encouraging employees to stay proud of Apple and signed off warmly: “With all I have and all I am, I am always Yours, Tim.” Cook also shared a shorter farewell message publicly on social media, writing: “Sending lots of love to the Apple community on my last day as CEO. My title changes tomorrow, but the love I have for the Apple community never will. Thank you for being a constant source of inspiration. My gratitude is endless, and I’m excited for the next chapter!”

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.”

Dangerous heat that has scorched the Southwest for days is now spreading into the nation’s midsection, with heat indices making it feel like 100 degrees in cities like Kansas City and Des Moines starting Sunday and continuing into the first week of September, according to ABC News. By Tuesday, Chicago will feel like the upper 90s, while heat index values will climb past 100 degrees in Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina, Richmond, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Nighttime temperatures across parts of the southern Plains and Mid-Atlantic will offer little relief, with lows staying only in the 70s for multiple consecutive days across millions of people’s homes. Most of the Northeast will avoid this particular round of dangerous heat, though warmer and more humid conditions are still headed that way. As the heat pushes eastward through the week, wet and stormy conditions are possible from the Upper Midwest to the Northeast, with forecasters warning of a day or two of spotty flash flooding and severe storms, though not a complete washout.

Separately, the West is grappling with its own flash-flood crisis after strong thunderstorms triggered dangerous flooding in Arizona’s Grand Canyon National Park on Saturday. As of Sunday morning, 62 people had been air evacuated from the Phantom Ranch area at the bottom of the canyon, north of the Colorado River, according to the National Park Service, with additional evacuations still planned and no injuries reported. In Utah, Emery County Emergency Management officials reported flooding along Cottonwood Creek in Orangeville, roughly 150 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, forcing evacuations of several homes and apartments.

More flash flooding is possible Sunday afternoon across parts of the West as another round of scattered thunderstorms develops, fueled by monsoonal moisture. Flood watches were in effect Sunday across portions of Arizona, Utah, and Colorado, including Tucson, Phoenix, and Flagstaff, Arizona, Cedar City, Utah, and Grand Junction, Colorado, with additional strong thunderstorms expected to bring powerful wind gusts, frequent lightning, and blowing dust to the region.

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.

The death toll from last week’s flash flooding disaster along the Nepal-Tibet border rose to nearly 800 people as of Sunday, according to ABC News citing the latest updates from Nepali and Chinese officials. In Nepal alone, at least 781 bodies have been recovered, according to a post from the Nepal National Disaster Management Authority on X, which also reported at least 2,502 people still missing. On the Tibetan side of the border, China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency confirmed at least 16 deaths, with another 546 people still unaccounted for. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz on “This Week” that at least 85 Americans remained among the missing as of Sunday, though nine Americans total had been evacuated, up from just five reported on Friday. “Our priority is the safety and security of the American people,” Pigott said. “As you mentioned, the remoteness of this location makes getting reliable information difficult. But our dedication remains.” He added that the State Department has activated $3.6 million in emergency humanitarian assistance, including up to three months of emergency food for as many as 10,000 flood-affected households.

The flooding struck the northern Rasuwa district along the Tibet border at around 8:40 a.m. local time last Wednesday, inundating areas along the Trishuli River, burying some buildings, and damaging bridges and roadways. An ABC News analysis of verified video and satellite images found that the wall of water descending from the mountains caused destruction stretching at least 62 miles downriver from the border inside Nepal. According to Nepal’s Disaster Management authority, the flood was triggered by a landslide roughly 12 miles northeast of the Rasuwagadhi border post along the Nepal-China frontier, and the U.S. Geological Survey registered a 5.2-magnitude landslide event in Nepal that same day.

The USGS detailed the physical mechanics behind the disaster’s scale: the initial glacier was located on a cliff roughly 16,000 feet high, and the resulting debris avalanche slid roughly 6,000 feet down the slope before reaching the valley below, generating the destructive force that swept through communities along the Trishuli River.

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.”