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Report: SFPD Already Using Surveillance Video From Self-Driving Cars

An internal SFPD document obtained by VICE News shows that not only can the SF Police Department pull the camera video from autonomous Waymo and Cruise cars, but more chillingly, that they have “already done this several times.”

We all had a good laugh last month at the “Ain’t nobody in it!” video when SFPD pulled over a driverless car that had no human being inside. A sensible conclusion to draw was that law enforcement was having a hard time coming to terms with these strange new fleets of robot cars that are suddenly ubiquitously all over San Francisco streets. But a new report from VICE News suggests that the relationship between the SF Police Department, and Google-owned Waymo and GM-owned Cruise, is far more advanced than we’d realized.

“‘Autonomous vehicles are recording their surroundings continuously and have the potential to help with investigative leads,’” says a San Francisco Police department training document obtained by Motherboard via a public records request,” VICE News reports. “‘Investigations has already done this several times.”

VICE News has the goods in a three-page SFPD training document outlining policies and procedures for dealing  with autonomous vehicles when encountering issues with them on the road. A lot of it is perfunctory, nuts-and-bolts stuff, like where to send the citation if the self-driving car commits a traffic violation, or what to do if the car becomes disabled.

But the very chilling phrase that really jumps out is “Autonomous vehicles are recording their surroundings continuously and have the potential to help with investigative leads,” and “Information will be sent in how to access this potential evidence (Investigations has already done this several times).”

Privacy advocates are of course worried. “​​As companies continue to make public roadways their testing grounds for these vehicles, everyone should understand them for what they are—rolling surveillance devices that expand existing widespread spying technologies,” Chris Gilliard, Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center, told VICE News. “Law enforcement agencies already have access to automated license plate readers, geofence warrants, Ring Doorbell footage, as well as the ability to purchase location data. This practice will extend the reach of an already pervasive web of surveillance.”

For their part, Waymo said in a statement to VICE News that the company “requires law enforcement agencies who seek information and data from Waymo to follow valid legal processes in making such requests (e.g. secure and present a valid warrant, etc.). Our policy is to challenge, limit or reject requests that do not have a valid legal basis or are overly broad.”

Cruise took a similar line, saying, “ We share footage and other information when we are served with a valid warrant or subpoena, and we may voluntarily share information if public safety is at risk.”

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Somali Daycare Owner with Long List of State Violations Wins DFL Primary for Minnesota House

Abdi Daisane, a Somali-born daycare operator, has won the DFL primary for Minnesota House District 14A, setting up a November showdown in a seat Republicans have held for years.

Abdi Daisane, a St. Cloud childcare-business owner, won Tuesday’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor primary for Minnesota House District 14A with 2,262 votes—62.52% of the total—defeating Paul R. F. Schumacher, who received 1,356 votes. The figures come directly from the Minnesota Secretary of State’s election results.

Daisane will face Republican Mike Conway in the November 3 general election. Conway won the Republican primary with 62.25% of the vote. The open district covers St. Augusta and portions of St. Cloud, Waite Park, and St. Joseph, according to KNSI’s election-night report.

Daisane, 38, was born in Somalia, spent 18 years in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp, and resettled in the United States in 2009.

He later moved to St. Cloud, earned degrees from St. Cloud State University, and opened Blooming Kids Child Care Center (licensed capacity 113). He has made expanding childcare funding and assistance a centerpiece of his campaigns.

The problem? His own daycare has a documented history of state violations.

Daisane is listed by Minnesota’s Secretary of State as the chief executive officer and registered agent of Blooming Kids Child Care Center Inc. The company was formed in 2017 and remains active and in good standing, according to the state’s business filing.

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New Database Documents Over 100 Cases of Cops Abusing Flock Surveillance Cameras

A new database launched Wednesday that details more than 100 cases of alleged abuse by law enforcement officers using Flock Safety’s nationwide camera network is adding fresh urgency to the growing backlash against automated license plate readers.

The database, published by the Institute for Justice (IJ)—a libertarian nonprofit public interest law firm based in Arlington, Virginia—documents “romantic stalking, wrongful stops and detentions, non-law enforcement use, and other types of misconduct.”

“Automated license plate readers (ALPRs) were sold to American communities as a targeted tool for catching car thieves and finding missing people,” IJ said in an introduction to the database. “What they actually purchased has grown into something far broader and more frightening: an AI-powered network of cameras that photograph and log the movement of every driver who passes, whether or not they are suspected of any crime.”

“Companies like Flock Safety have now blanketed thousands of communities with ALPRs, quietly assembling powerful mass surveillance systems that can reconstruct where people have been, when, and how often, all without a warrant,” the institute continued. “This dragnet surveillance threatens the freedoms the Fourth Amendment was adopted to protect. These concerns aren’t just abstractions: Every day, innocent people are harmed by officials’ abuse and misuse of these ALPRs.”

“When the government can track the everyday movements of ordinary people—to their jobs, their churches, their doctors, their protests—it holds a kind of power over private life that the Constitution does not allow,” IJ added.

Among the cases highlighted in the database are those of a Florida sheriff’s deputy who allegedly used an ALPR to track and pull over a woman after seeing her at a television shoot, a Texas deputy who reportedly searched tens of thousands of Flock cameras while trying to locate a woman who had allegedly obtained a medication abortion, and a Georgia police chief who reportedly tracked his former girlfriend and her teenage daughter hundreds of times.

The database’s authors warn that even those 100-plus cases may represent only a fraction of the actual misconduct. Officers often provide vague explanations when searching ALPR databases, making systematic detection of abuse difficult. In one case in Norfolk, Virginia, for example, IJ found that three generic search terms accounted for nearly one-third of roughly 230,000 searches over two years. One officer repeatedly entered “la la la la” as a justification without apparently attracting scrutiny.

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Fauci was not a mad scientist, but a mere bureaucrat granted unlimited power

For decades, Fauci was a career government health bureaucrat of unexceptional ability whose primary skill involved accumulated more power than any unelected American of his generation. He then used those skills to smother risk calculations and create consensus that any intelligent and wise adult would have rejected wholeheartedly.

On Monday, Senators Ron Johnson and Rand Paul released the first text chain from what we hope are a series of communications recovered from Fauci’s government-issued iPhone, which HHS finally handed over on August 5 in response to Johnson’s request. His phone is said to hold more than 34,000 texts and 522 voicemails. Quite suspiciously, it only contains three saved contacts, which probably means that it was tampered with. I do hope that government officials can secure the data that was possibly deleted.

The senators released something of a bombshell that discusses January 2021 communications between Fauci, then-CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, and future Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. This was just days after former President Biden’s inauguration. The subject is pregnant women and the mRNA injections. In it, Fauci writes that the supposedly “safe and effective” shot “theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester.”

One week later, Fauci went in front of cameras and said the vaccines had “no red flags” regarding pregnant women. He later said that there was “no indication whatsoever” of increased adverse events in pregnant women. By September, Walensky and her comrades in the Biden Government Health bureaucracy were strongly recommending vaccination before or during pregnancy.

If Fauci and his goons were level-headed and honest with the public, they would have said something along the lines of “we do not yet know if it’s totally safe, but we think covid is bad, so decide for yourself.”

Instead, they demanded compliance.

In another text in the chain, we get insight into Fauci’s mindset. It becomes clear that he is justifying the risk of miscarriage by declaring “COVID-19 can be a serious disease especially in pregnancy.”

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USS Abraham Lincoln sailors tried to jump overboard amid extended deployment – reports

Military families and Congress members are sounding the alarm about an intensifying mental health crisis onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, as its 5,000 sailors and marines endure a record-breaking deployment at sea tied to the war with Iran.

Two leading specialist military papers, the Navy Times and Stars and Stripes, are reporting that there have been multiple attempts by sailors to jump overboard as poor conditions and mental stresses on the Lincoln reach the breaking point. The crew is in its ninth month at sea, and has spent 250 days consecutively without making land – a record for an aircraft carrier in modern times.

Worried families vented their anxieties about loved ones onboard the Lincoln at an emotional town hall meeting with navy leaders in San Diego last Thursday, Stars and Stripes reported. One spouse among the 200 or so family members said that her husband had texted her that day saying “he hopes he doesn’t wake up tomorrow”.

The families’ worries were expressed directly to navy leadership, represented at the town hall by the acting navy secretary, Hung Cao, and other top officials.

A woman at the meeting told Cao that the navy had “broken trust between us and the leadership”, the paper reported.

The Navy Times gave details of thwarted suicide attempts onboard the aircraft carrier during the current deployment. Annabelle Loma told the outlet that her husband had tried to jump overboard after his spell at sea kept being extended.

“He’s scared. He thinks he’ll get a dishonorable discharge, and just because he was burnt out his 13-year career is ruined, just like that,” she said.

The paper quoted another sailor’s wife whose husband was involved in a separate incident onboard the Lincoln in which he prevented a fellow crew member from jumping, grabbing them and bringing them back on deck.

Mike Levin, a Democratic member of Congress from California, has sounded the alarm over conditions onboard the warship, which is in its fifth month of combat operations against Iran. He described the lot of the crew on X as “moldy showers, broken toilets, laundry down for weeks, long stretches with no hot water, a meal that came down to half a cup of rice and two tortillas. No soap, deodorant, or toothpaste.”

Jason Crow, a Democratic Congress member from Colorado who is a former army ranger having served in Afghanistan and Iraq, has warned that the strain on service members and their families on the Lincoln is “building week by week”.

The current crunch has been months in the making. The warship left San Diego on 21 November and was originally intended for the Pacific but was redirected to the Middle East once the US-Israel war with Iran began.

Since then, MS Now revealed, the 5,000-plus crew has had only two days on land, in Guam in December and Oman in July. The deployment was scheduled to end in May but has been extended a couple of times amid the ongoing war.

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ICE refuses to disclose records on Ilhan Omar fraud probe, cites ongoing ‘enforcement proceedings’

The federal government is refusing to turn over records related to an investigation conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement into allegations of immigration fraud by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., citing a legal exemption for ongoing investigations. 

Just the News filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the records in January, seeking the records pertaining to any investigations conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement into the allegations that Rep. Omar, who represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, married a relative in order to help him remain in the country. 

Omar has denied the allegations. No court records, DNA evidence, or other documentary proof has ever substantiated that Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, Omar’s legal husband from 2009–2017, was her biological brother.

“ICE has determined that the information you requested is being withheld in full pursuant to Title 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(A). Disclosure of any responsive records at this time could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings,” ICE told Just the News in response to the FOIA in May. 

The FOIA exemption cited by the agency “applies to records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes when their release could disrupt such proceedings,” the reply reads. 

You can read the letter below: 

Final Response 2026-ICFO-11295 3 (1).pdf

The Department of Justice guidelines for invoking exemption 7(A) say that doing so requires a two-step assessment. “First, there must be a ‘reasonable likelihood’ of a pending or contemplated law enforcement proceeding,” the guidance says. “Second, release of the information must be reasonably expected to cause some articulable harm to that proceeding.” 

Harm includes things such as exposing the case to witness tampering or tipping off suspects, according to the guidance. The exemption makes no distinction between criminal, civil, and administrative cases. 

Omar’s office did not respond to a request for comment. 

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Trump State Department Axes Biden-Era Initiative That Sought to Spread DEI Around the World

Trump administration reforms have ended efforts to turn the State Department into a DEI sales force.

Biden-era guidelines that ordered diplomats to push a diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility policies agenda on foreign governments have been scrapped, according to Fox News.

“Under the Trump Administration, America’s diplomats are tasked with advocating for our national interests on the world stage — not demonstrating adherence to woke political dogmas,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said.

“The State Department is implementing sweeping reforms to the Foreign Service to prioritize merit, refocus training on tangible diplomatic skills, and prepare our nation’s diplomats to deliver America’s answer to our most pressing challenges,” he said.

Biden administration rules spoke of having State Department leaders “raise social inclusion, racial/gender equity, disability, and LGBTQI+ issues with high-level host country interlocutors, especially in countries where these issues are problematic.”

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Canadian families now spend more on taxes than food, housing and clothing combined: Fraser Institute

The average Canadian family is now handing over nearly 42% of its income in taxes, more than it spends on food, housing and clothing combined, according to a new Fraser Institute study.

The think tank’s 2026 edition of its Canadian Consumer Tax Index, released Thursday, estimates the average Canadian family earned $121,111 in 2025 and paid $50,721 in total taxes, equivalent to 41.9% of its income.

By comparison, food, shelter and clothing combined consumed 36% of the average family’s income.

The study includes more than just income taxes in its calculation. It measures the total tax burden imposed on Canadian families, including income, payroll, sales, property, fuel, carbon, alcohol and other taxes paid directly or indirectly.

The Fraser Institute says the tax burden has grown substantially faster than the cost of basic necessities over the past six decades.

Since 1961, the average family’s total tax bill has increased 2,928%, compared with a 2,349% increase in shelter costs, a 952% increase in food costs and a 526% increase in clothing costs.

Taxes have also increased more than three times as quickly as the Consumer Price Index, which rose 946% over the same period.

The contrast with 1961 is particularly stark.

That year, the average Canadian family earned $5,000 and paid $1,675, or 33.5% of its income, in taxes. Basic necessities consumed 56.5% of family income.

Today, those proportions have effectively reversed, with taxes consuming a substantially larger share of family budgets while necessities take a smaller share.

The report comes as Canadian households continue to struggle with affordability, housing costs and debt.

The Fraser Institute’s findings also follow new federal insolvency figures showing 150,505 Canadians and businesses filed for insolvency during the 12 months ending in June 2026, putting filings near levels last experienced around the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

The study was authored by Fraser Institute analysts Grady Munro and Jake Fuss.

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High School English Teacher Brought to Tears as He Reveals Some Seniors in His Class Cannot Write a SINGLE SENTENCE

A high school English teacher took to social media to share his concerns about the state of education in the U.S.  He was brought to tears as he revealed that in his class, he has seniors who cannot write a single sentence.

“I literally broke down in the middle of class because I’m teaching seniors,” he shared. “These kids are leaving high school and going to college, hopefully, after they finish.”

“We had two paragraphs to read, one sentence, complete, to write. I gave them the sentence stems. I basically completed the sentence for them in the model.”

“These are 17 and 18-year-old kids, and they couldn’t fill in four words. Four words.”

“I gave them the scenario. We annotated together. I gave them the answers before we even had the problem.”

“And they couldn’t do it.”

“I don’t know. I simply don’t know where the problem is.”

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PBS broadcaster loses access to 50TB of data comprising 70 years of TV history after contracted cloud storage vendor goes defunct — public TV channel sues Iron Mountain data center, which hosts archival materials, to ensure preservation

Nine PBS is afraid that it will lose over 70 years of archival materials and programming after its contracted cloud storage vendor has apparently gone out of business. According to Current, the channel used Open Source Storage, or OSS, for storing over 50TB of data — but it suddenly lost access to its data earlier this year. Nine PBS has been working with OSS and its predecessor since 2019 and intended to renew its contract on March 6 of this year. The company never responded and abruptly cut off the station’s data access even though it still had 30 days to retrieve its data after the contract ended.

The station dug a little bit deeper when it discovered that the OSS website no longer existed and was listed as delinquent under the Colorado Secretary of State. It also discovered that OSS utilized Iron Mountain’s services, so it sent a demand letter to the latter to preserve its data and to “pay any reasonable costs associated with its demand.” At the time, Iron Mountain did not confirm or deny that it possessed Nine PBS’ data.

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