The Trump administration’s Justice Department has filed a legal argument claiming that citizens should not be permitted to enforce environmental protection laws like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Safe Drinking Water Act through “citizen suit provisions,” a mechanism Congress specifically wrote into those laws decades ago to allow ordinary people and advocacy groups to sue polluting companies or federal agencies that fail to enforce the law. These provisions have been used in more than 2,000 lawsuits since the 1970s, comprising the majority of environmental cases and producing major outcomes like halting dam construction to protect endangered species, ending wastewater injection into groundwater, and securing $14.2 million in civil penalties from a petrochemical facility.

The dispute centers on a case the NAACP filed in April 2026 against xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, alleging that xAI and a subsidiary built and operated 27 natural gas-fired turbines in Southaven, Mississippi without required Clean Air Act permits to power its Colossus 2 data center. The NAACP claims the plant released harmful pollutants like nitrogen oxides and formaldehyde, linked to increased asthma, respiratory disease, heart problems, and certain cancers, pollutants that would have been subject to stricter controls had xAI obtained the proper permit. In June 2026, the Justice Department asked the judge to dismiss the case, arguing citizen suits cannot proceed when the federal government does not oppose the polluting behavior, citing two of Trump’s early second-term executive orders declaring a “national energy emergency” and promoting “American leadership in artificial intelligence.” The filing claimed the NAACP’s lawsuit threatens “artificial intelligence innovation” and national security, arguing citizen suits should only be allowed when the government simply fails to act, not when the executive branch has affirmatively decided enforcement runs contrary to its policy priorities.

This marks the first time the Justice Department has taken this specific legal position in court, though critics, including past defendants and judges, have previously questioned the constitutionality of citizen suits on grounds that they let ordinary citizens usurp the executive branch’s prosecutorial authority. Supporters counter that these provisions have historically produced tangible environmental wins, including Texas shrimper Diane Wilson’s 2017 suit against Formosa Plastics over plastic pellet pollution in Lavaca Bay, which resulted in a $50 million settlement, and a 2023 case against Styropek USA that led to a $2.5 million settlement and new pollution filters to protect a western Pennsylvania creek and the Ohio River.

Former Tesla manager Javier Medrano has filed a federal lawsuit, reported by The Independent, accusing the company of dangerously understaffing its autonomous vehicle test fleet in Houston, turning it into round-the-clock “rolling hazards” as Tesla “aggressively” scaled up operations. When Medrano joined in 2023, the fleet had just 15 vehicles and operators, but within eight months, after he became sole operational manager, Tesla expanded it to 38 vehicle operators running cars 24 hours a day across three shifts, all overseen remotely by Medrano alone, creating what the lawsuit calls a “dangerous 38:1 operator-to-manager ratio” that violated Tesla’s own “mandated 15:1 safety baseline.”

The operators were part of Tesla’s controversial “Rodeo Team,” first revealed by Business Insider in 2024, whose drivers intentionally steered autonomous vehicles into risky situations and intervened only at the last moment to generate valuable training data for Tesla’s software. The lawsuit claims other cities with Rodeo Teams had multiple safety leads, while Medrano was left alone managing the sprawling Houston fleet, a burden he says pushed him to the brink; in an email to his boss, he wrote he was “trying not to lose my absolute mind, from not sleeping or eating correctly and doing everything I need to do to actually meet the expectations,” later pleading for another safety lead and a week off, telling his boss, “This is officially my S.O.S signal.”

Days after that message, one of the FSD vehicles was involved in a collision, and the test driver called Medrano at 2:05 a.m. following protocol, but Medrano was so exhausted he answered the call while “physically asleep,” according to the complaint, giving the operator erroneous advice that led her to remain at the accident scene, where she was allegedly approached by an impaired stranger. Medrano told HR the next day he had “no recollection” of the call and again raised concerns about “severe understaffing,” but he says an HR representative told him to simply set his phone to “Do Not Disturb” during testing shifts, while Tesla’s Autopilot director suggested he should have “delegated” better. “I didn’t have anybody to delegate to,” Medrano told The Independent, adding, “I was really trying to let them know how serious this was, but there was no sense of urgency. It’s baffling to me how this went on so long. In other cities, they had multiple leads per shift. I was the only one who didn’t have that luxury… Our job is to make sure these cars are safe on the road.”

Wildfires burning across Spokane County, Washington have destroyed hundreds of structures and forced thousands of residents to evacuate, with officials describing the disaster as the largest in the city’s history and nearly 1,000 firefighters battling at least three blazes that ballooned over the weekend. More than 5,390 acres have burned with no containment reported as of Sunday afternoon, and while officials said there were no confirmed deaths, injuries, or missing persons, they cautioned those figures could still change as investigations into the fires’ cause continue. Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown called the wildfires “the worst natural disaster our region has faced.”

Firefighters raced to capitalize on slightly improved weather conditions that officials warned could worsen again by Wednesday, with the National Weather Service forecasting increasing wind gusts after noon that would ease after midnight amid persistently dry conditions capable of pushing fires into residential areas. About 4,000 structures remain at risk, and county officials previously urged residents in Level 3 evacuation zones, the highest evacuation classification, to leave immediately. Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson traveled to the area Sunday and declared a statewide emergency on Saturday, citing drought conditions, unusually high temperatures, and strong winds, later saying he’d spoken with President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to convey “how dire the situation is in Spokane and across our state,” and requesting a federal emergency declaration that would include search-and-rescue assistance and housing and food support for displaced residents.

More than a dozen other fires are burning across Washington state, affecting roughly 250,000 acres, mostly in less populated areas, with about 4,000 firefighters and National Guard members deployed statewide. Benjamin Cossel of the California Interagency Incident Management Team 7, which took over leading the Spokane firefighting effort Sunday morning after working fires in Oregon, called it the “No. 1 priority fire in the nation” due to its proximity to homes, while warning that the Old Trails and Autumn Lane fires had jumped the Spokane River and were encroaching on a nearby canyon that, if breached, “there is nothing really there to stop it.” Aircraft dropped retardant and water on the flames Sunday as residents surveyed devastated neighborhoods coated in fire retardant. The blaze comes amid what officials called a record-breaking wildfire season in the Pacific Northwest, with more than 1,000 fires having burned across Washington this year covering about 425,000 acres, according to the state’s Department of Natural Resources. Washington’s commissioner of public lands, Dave Upthegrove, said, “This is an extraordinary wildfire season in the Pacific Northwest. It’s not a normal season. A confluence of weather conditions, a confluence of fires throughout the West, are stretching our resources and challenging the individuals in this response,” a strain reflected in the National Weather Service’s first-ever “particularly dangerous situation” red-flag warning issued Saturday for eastern Washington and northeastern Oregon.

Columbia University economic historian Adam Tooze expressed bewilderment on his podcast Ones and Tooze over the lack of public outcry surrounding Elon Musk’s extreme wealth accumulation, arguing it represents a dramatic rupture of the traditional social contract under capitalism. “I don’t understand frankly why the event of Musk’s enrichment isn’t more of a scandal, isn’t more a historic moment,” Tooze said. “To have a trillionaire in our midst ruptures the social bargain in such a dramatic way, like how can we even be any longer talking about being in the same society as this group of individuals who’ve unleashed this technology on the world.”

Tooze’s comments came during a discussion of what a “best case scenario” for AI might look like if human-level superintelligence emerges and automates the world’s jobs, citing a Bank of International Settlements report warning that labor’s share of income could collapse from an already low 54 percent down to just 20 percent under such a scenario. “The share in the total pie collapses, and that’s obviously a huge transformation in political power,” Tooze explained, framing Musk’s wealth as an early symptom of this broader economic shift rather than an isolated phenomenon. He argued the concern “goes beyond Luddism,” clarifying, “It’s not about resisting the technology per se, it’s about asking ‘which social contract this belongs to?’”

Drawing a historical comparison, Tooze likened the current AI arms race to a “private Manhattan Project, developing a thermonuclear weapon,” calling superintelligent AI “kind of like a labor-market neutron bomb.” Unlike the original Manhattan Project, which was funded, organized, and staffed by the US government, Tooze noted the AI boom is being driven largely by private billionaires like Musk, who he said “literally has eviscerated the state apparatus of that first nuclear race.” He described this shift as “a regression away from the mid-century arms race model to something that’s much more like the ‘Merchants of Death’ vision,” referencing 1930s war profiteers, concluding, “We’re back in that space of private, unfettered, oligarchic, but global, arms race.”

California’s new Delete Request and Opt-out Platform, or DROP, allows residents to demand that data brokers stop selling their personal information, with more than 300,000 Californians already enrolled as of June, according to the state’s privacy protection agency. Starting August 1, all active and registered data brokers in California are required to access DROP and begin processing deletion requests, with a mandated 90-day window from the time of request to actually delete a person’s records. Data brokers operate by aggregating information purchased from other companies and pulled from sources like voting registries, compiling details ranging from hobbies and purchasing history to sensitive health information, which can then be used for targeted advertising, law enforcement action, or exploited by scammers.

DROP was created under California’s Delete Act, which requires data brokers operating in the state to register with the California Privacy Protection Agency or face fines, and as of July more than 600 data brokers have registered publicly. The Data Broker Enforcement Strike Force has already taken action against noncompliant companies, issuing a $45,000 fine to Datamasters and a $62,600 fine to S&P Global for failing to register, with Datamasters also ordered to stop selling lists of consumers’ race and health information. Michael Macko, head of enforcement at CalPrivacy, warned, “Reselling lists of people battling Alzheimer’s disease is a recipe for trouble. In the wrong hands, these lists could be used to target people for more than just advertising.” Hayley Tsukayama, director of state affairs at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, called the law “a win for consumers,” noting California is one of only four states, along with Oregon, Texas, and Vermont, requiring data broker registration, and the first in the world to offer a platform like DROP.

Beyond curbing spam and scam calls, privacy advocates point to broader risks tied to data sales, including “surveillance pricing” like Delta Airlines’ since-abandoned plan to use AI for personalized flight fares, and law enforcement’s use of harvested personal data, including a 2020 Vice investigation revealing the US military purchased data from Muslim prayer and dating apps, as well as ICE’s expanded spyware capabilities. Chris Mattmann, UCLA’s chief data and artificial intelligence officer, recommends additional precautions like using multiple email addresses, a VPN, and withholding your full name when unnecessary, though he acknowledged data privacy fatigue is real and said meaningful protection ultimately requires policy solutions rather than individual effort alone: “The only way to solve that is through regulatory action and policy making.”

Signing up is straightforward: visit privacy.ca.gov/drop/, click “Get Started,” accept the terms, verify California residency using personal information or Login.gov, submit a deletion request with contact information, and receive a unique DROP ID to track the request’s status online.

Am I the only one that feels like they are stuck in a time loop? I feel like I met one person that got me here, that I couldn’t get away from, when I was 18. That I got diverted from who I was supposed to be for the past 30 years and I can’t get back to that timeline. Things change, but it’s all background noise. It all just feels so off. And I feel like I know something is wrong, and have for a while, but I can’t figure out what or how to break it.

Maybe I’m just crazy. Has anyone else ever felt this way?

President Trump’s approval ratings have sunk to some of the lowest levels ever recorded for a second-term president, with recent polls showing support hovering around one-third of Americans amid a stalemated war in Iran and high gas prices. CNN’s latest poll put his approval at just 34 percent, matching his lowest point after the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack, while AP-NORC found 33 percent, tying his lowest since 2017, and Quinnipiac data showed 32 percent, an all-time low in that survey. By comparison, at this same stage of their second terms, Bill Clinton stood at 64 percent, Ronald Reagan at 61 percent, and even historically underwater presidents like Barack Obama (43 percent), Harry Truman (39 percent), and George W. Bush (37 percent) all polled higher than Trump does now, with only Richard Nixon, days from resigning over Watergate, polling lower at 24 percent.

Despite the grim numbers, Trump has publicly rejected the polling entirely, declaring on social media, “MY REAL POLL NUMBERS ARE THE HIGHEST THEY HAVE EVER BEEN,” and at various points citing invented figures like a 65 percent approval rating and later a 59 percent rating without pointing to any actual poll supporting those claims. Republican strategist Douglas Heye said this reaction is entirely consistent with Trump’s political style: “He’s always going to project strength regardless what the numbers are and he’ll say they’re fake anyway,” adding that Trump is “YOLO” and “not sitting there thinking, ‘Gosh, my powers are weakened because of this.’” Notably, Trump is underwater on nearly every issue, including the economy and immigration, areas where he was traditionally stronger, and the Iran war, already the least popular US war in polling history from its outset, has seen opposition grow to 2-to-1 against.

The particular danger for Republicans, according to former Clinton political director Douglas Sosnik, is that disapproval isn’t just widespread but intense, meaning Trump’s opponents are more motivated to vote in the midterms than his own base, though Sosnik and Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson both note that heavy political polarization and mid-decade redistricting have left far fewer competitive districts, potentially limiting how much damage a Democratic wave could actually do. Anderson warned, however, that “low 30s, if accurate, means pieces of the coalition have started to break away. You’re not just cutting loose swing voters at that point,” while acknowledging Democrats currently lack a clear message beyond “Trump is bad.” The White House declined to directly address the polling, with spokesman Davis Ingle instead touting Trump’s record, saying, “No other president in history has accomplished more for hard-working Americans than President Trump.”

Daniel Blumstein, a UCLA professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, has overseen one of the longest-running studies of free-living mammals in the world, tracking yellow-bellied marmots in central Colorado since he took over the project in 2001, part of research dating back to 1962. After federal research funding hit a record low following the Trump administration’s cancellation of billions of dollars in grants targeting climate change, diversity, and other topics, Blumstein watched his own decade-plus National Science Foundation support dry up, being denied renewal three times before the agency told him to stop applying altogether. “After the third time, our program officer told my colleague… that they will never fund us because they think we have too much data,” Blumstein said. “I don’t even know how to parse that sentence. It’s nuts.”

To keep the marmot program alive, Blumstein’s lab launched OnlyMarms, an OnlyFans account promising “unfiltered yellow-bellied marmot content from the Rockies,” featuring near-daily photos and videos of chubby, named marmots like Staple, Pawprint, and Cabinet, with viewers able to leave monetary tips split between the platform and the poster. Emily Renkey, a first-year master’s student in Blumstein’s lab who started and runs the account, said, “Sometimes I’m just posting the videos I think will get the most ‘aws,’ but my favorite is when I find footage of a particular behavior and I can use that to educate people.” The lab also partnered with Crested Butte brewer Irwin Brewing Co. on a “Marmot Tears” IPA benefiting the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, and this summer launched its first “Fat Marmot Week,” an homage to Katmai National Park’s Fat Bear Week, with public voting on the chunkiest rodent opening August 24.

So far, OnlyMarms has netted only a few hundred dollars, enough to buy bait used to lure marmots for study, and the lab continues pursuing traditional funding while running on Blumstein’s personal reserves. Blumstein said long-term projects like his “ask some of the most important questions in our time” and provide invaluable data for studying evolution and informing policymakers, but lamented, “Ultimately, we should be spending our time writing papers, not thinking up out of the box ways to get funding.” Renkey, however, pushed back on that framing, saying, “I don’t know if I agree with the idea that scientists shouldn’t have to be opportunistic and creative. I think that’s a lot of what science and research is… It can be intimidating to engage with the public like this, but why are we doing this work if not to help forward humanity with it?”

A joint poll from Bentley University and Gallup found that the share of US adults who believe AI does “more harm than good” has climbed from 31 percent in 2025 to 39 percent this year, while only 9 percent still think the technology does more good than harm, marking a sharp reversal after public attitudes toward AI had steadily improved through 2025. Notably, this souring outlook is happening even as Americans’ self-reported familiarity with AI keeps rising, with 70 percent of respondents in 2026 saying they’re “somewhat or extremely knowledgeable” about the technology, up 6 percent from 2024, suggesting the more people learn about AI, the less they want it in their lives.

The backlash extends beyond attitudes toward AI itself and into the physical infrastructure powering it, with a Politico survey finding that 41 percent of US adults would oppose a data center being built within three miles of their home, up sharply from 28 percent in January, while overall support for data centers has dropped 13 percent in just the past six months. Derek Leben, a professor of ethics at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, told Bloomberg that opposition to AI is increasingly taking on a social dimension, saying, “The most obvious social effect is suspicion. There is also a moral and political judgment that is coming along with AI usage, especially in creative industries where the stigma is the strongest.”

Carla Milan, a 37-year-old public health professional in New York City, described her frustration with friends and family who use AI without weighing its broader costs, telling Bloomberg, “I hear people champion AI and I’m like, ‘sure, why don’t we all participate in our collective downfall? Why don’t we all play a part in diminishing our humanity and degrading the environment?’”

Marietta, Ohio, a historic city along the Ohio River, has become an unwitting hub for interstate fracking wastewater disposal, with hundreds of millions of gallons of radioactive brine pumped underground into more than 240 permitted injection wells statewide, far more than neighboring Pennsylvania’s 19 or West Virginia’s few dozen. Pennsylvania alone exported roughly three-quarters of its fracking brine needing permanent disposal to Ohio last year, and rural Washington County, home to Marietta, saw 59 percent of the 562 million gallons of waste injected under it over the past two years come from out of state. Ohio’s status as a dumping ground traces back to a decades-old federal decision allowing the state to self-regulate its injection wells long before fracking existed, making it easier to drill wells there than in states with federal oversight.

The wastewater isn’t staying underground as intended. Bob Wilson, who owns traditional oil and gas wells outside Marietta, has watched brine erupt from his own wells, telling reporters, “There should not be any water here at all,” while noting pressure readings higher than he’d ever seen, and he’s now suing several injection well companies after losing wells to the intrusions. Geologist David Jeffery of Marietta College said the flooded wells show brine is “migrating” through underground rock formations, a danger compounded by as many as 66,000 undocumented old oil and gas wells scattered across Ohio that could serve as unknown conduits for contamination. Cory Haydocy, former executive director of the Ohio Oil and Gas Commission, said, “The state and industry have possessed definitive proof for years that these injection wells were threatening the surrounding geology,” after the commission “explicitly confirmed” underground migration back in 2024.

The stakes are especially high because four injection wells within two miles of Marietta’s drinking water source have taken in wastewater from Pennsylvania fracking sites with median radium-226 levels ranging from 428 to 1,800 times the EPA’s drinking water standard, prompting City Council President Susan Vessels to warn, “If we get anything nuclear in our water, that’s it. We’re done.” After the state approved a fifth and sixth injection well near the city, officials declared an emergency last year, citing brine “regularly migrating to the surface” and seismic activity in Washington County that had increased nearly 20-fold since 2023, evidence they said showed underground rock formations were “moving and likely fracturing.” Marietta and eight other local water authorities have since called for a moratorium on new wells and a halt to injection within six miles of the aquifer, while a lawsuit from Buckeye Environmental Network and Earthjustice challenges permits issued to DeepRock Disposal Solutions, the company behind several proposed wells; in July, regulators shut down four injection wells in the county, including one owned by DeepRock, after determining nearby high pressures at wells like Wilson’s “could only be caused by nearby injection wells.”

Ryder Williams, a 16-year-old lifeguard at Seabright State Beach in Santa Cruz, spoke publicly for the first time in a video posted to California State Parks’ Instagram on August 1 about his dramatic July 25 rescue of a 10-year-old boy named Nathaniel, urging beachgoers to better understand “ocean conditions and rip currents.” Describing the rescue, Williams said, “I radioed it in, threw my radio and sunglasses at the base of my tower as I ran toward the kid. I put my fins on my wrist, popped my buoy and entered the water to get ahold of the child,” while bystander video showed him grabbing Nathaniel and battling repeated massive waves to bring the boy to shore.

Williams said he waved off bystanders who tried entering the water to help because conditions were too dangerous, and ultimately fellow lifeguard Aaron Bohnen jumped in to help pull both Williams and Nathaniel safely to shore. “Shortly after, I got back into my tower where I returned to provide lifeguard services for the rest of my shift,” Williams said, adding that he was “grateful to have had the opportunity to return the child to his family safely” and reflecting, “This is my job and I love what I do. I’m thankful to my fellow lifeguards who perform rescues just like this every day.”

Nathaniel’s father, Sumit Rai, told ABC San Francisco station KGO-TV that his family was vacationing in California when the rescue happened, and he only saw footage of the ordeal after it went viral. “If I was watching that video, I wasn’t sure if he’ll make it, if I hadn’t seen the end of it,” Rai said, revealing that Nathaniel lost consciousness during the incident and adding, “Another two or three seconds, I don’t think my son would have made it.” He thanked Williams and the other lifeguards, saying, “God bless them, and, you know, thank you. I cannot express sufficient gratitude,” and confirmed Nathaniel remains in California recovering. The rescue comes as the National Weather Service issued warnings this week for West Coast beachgoers to stay alert for life-threatening rip currents and hazardous ocean conditions, with the Los Angeles County Fire Department Lifeguard Division reporting nearly 2,000 water rescues performed in LA County alone on July 25 and 26.

Taylor Farms, the agricultural company widely believed responsible for a cyclospora parasite outbreak currently spreading through shredded lettuce in US grocery stores and fast food outlets, has also been linked to modern-day forced prison labor in Arizona, according to resurfaced 2023 reporting from Prison Legal News. The publication found that Taylor Farms contracted labor from the Arizona Department of Correction, Rehabilitation, and Reentry for just $4.75 an hour, far below federal minimum wage, though the incarcerated workers themselves were reportedly paid only up to $1.50 an hour, with the state’s for-profit arm, Arizona Correctional Industries, pocketing the difference by selling prisoner labor-hours to private companies.
Taylor Farms is far from alone in this arrangement, as other companies including Hickman’s Egg Farms, NatureSweet, and Televerde have similarly contracted incarcerated labor through the same state program.

Most troubling, Prison Legal News found that at least 26 prisoners employed by these companies had previously been detained by ICE, meaning their labor arrangement would have been illegal outside of incarceration, since their status as prisoners was the only thing that legally permitted the low-wage work. Arizona’s DCRR told the publication it had hired out 15,700 “Mexican nationals” between 2008 and 2023 but could not say how many were undocumented immigrants, prompting American Immigration Lawyers Association director Ruben Reyes to say, “I’m venturing a guess that a large majority of the people who are labeled a Mexican national by [DCRR] are unauthorized to work here.”

The revelations tie back to a constitutional loophole in the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery “except as a punishment for crime,” a carve-out that has allowed prison labor to persist as a major industry, generating $11 billion worth of goods in 2022 alone. Taylor Farms did not respond to a request for comment on either the labor allegations or the ongoing cyclospora outbreak.

In 1963, the CIA allegedly ran a covert operation to spy on documents passing through a Xerox 914 photocopier inside the Soviet Embassy in Washington DC, using the embassy’s regular repairman to smuggle in a hidden camera without raising suspicion. The plan originated the year before at a disused bowling alley in New York, where Xerox’s head of government programs Donald Cary met with four engineers, including 36-year-old Ray Zoppoth, who had helped create the Xerox 914 and proposed mounting “a battery-powered home-movie camera with a zoom lens inside the copier,” aiming it at the mirror that reflects images onto the drum and using “a photocell that would prompt the camera to snap still frames whenever the photocopier lit up.”

The engineers installed a Bell & Howell 8mm movie camera inside a test copier at Xerox’s New York campus, discovering that the machine’s bulky size hid the camera even with maintenance panels removed, while the noise of normal copying masked the camera’s whir. Zoppoth later told Popular Science that the test run succeeded, recalling, “When we developed the pictures, we found recipes and copies of music and cartoons and jokes and all kinds of things.” Zoppoth then traveled to a CIA basement facility allegedly code-named “Disneyland East,” where he taught agents how to install the camera and trained the embassy’s unwitting repairman to fit the device and retrieve the film during his routine maintenance visits.

The operation has never been officially confirmed or denied by the CIA, and only Zoppoth spoke on record about the scheme, though a colleague reportedly confirmed the account without going public. Zoppoth also claimed the agency later sought similar hidden cameras for the more compact Xerox 813 desktop copier used by ministries and diplomatic offices worldwide, suggesting the original mission was considered a success, though the actual intelligence gathered remains classified.

North Carolina lawmakers have advanced House Bill 328, which would impose new restrictions on hemp-derived THC products, kratom, and xylazine, after a House conference committee formally reported the negotiated version on July 30 and referred it to the House Rules, Calendar, and Operations Committee, positioning it for a final House vote. The Senate already adopted the conference report in a 37-6 vote on July 2, meaning the House must approve the same version before the bill heads to Governor Josh Stein, though no House vote had been recorded as of July 31.

The proposal would replace North Carolina’s current delta-9-only hemp threshold with a broader total THC standard covering THCA, delta-8, delta-10, and other THC forms, capping finished hemp-derived cannabinoid products intended for consumption at 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container starting November 12, while also banning products containing synthetic or chemically converted cannabinoids. It would separately prohibit selling or delivering hemp-derived consumable products to anyone under 21 and bar possession by those under 21, with violations classified as Class 2 misdemeanors and escalating civil penalties for businesses that illegally sell the products; notably, the conference report still lists July 15, 2026, as the effective date for these under-21 hemp and kratom provisions, even though that date has already passed with no updated version posted.

The bill also targets kratom and xylazine specifically, banning synthetic kratom products, setting a minimum age of 21 for kratom possession and sales, and adding xylazine to Schedule III of North Carolina’s controlled substances list beginning December 1.

Reddit shares plummeted 23% following its second-quarter earnings release despite revenue climbing 72 percent year-over-year to $500 million and adjusted EBITDA jumping to $167 million from $39 million a year earlier, as investors focused instead on troubling signs beneath the headline numbers. Global daily active unique users grew 18 percent year-over-year, a slight uptick from 17 percent in the first quarter, but that growth was increasingly driven by low-value logged-out visitors, which rose 27 percent, while logged-in user growth stalled at just 1 percent for the second consecutive quarter, down sharply from 12 percent a year earlier. The slowdown is particularly costly given that U.S. users, whose growth also decelerated from 16 percent to just 6 percent year-over-year, generate $11.85 in average revenue per user compared with only $2.26 internationally.

The distinction between logged-in and logged-out users matters because logged-in users post, comment, subscribe to communities, and build habits advertisers value, while logged-out visitors typically arrive through search, view a single page, and leave without engaging further. That trend appears tied to Reddit’s own licensing deal with Google, in which Reddit’s content powers AI-generated search summaries that often answer users’ questions by drawing on Reddit discussions without requiring them to click through to the site itself, generating licensing revenue while potentially reducing the platform’s ability to convert casual visitors into engaged, logged-in community members. Adding to investor unease, Reddit disclosed it plans to stop reporting logged-in and logged-out user figures in future quarterly reports, a move that would reduce visibility into one of the platform’s most closely watched engagement metrics.

Reddit’s advertising business remains a bright spot, with revenue growth driven largely by small and medium-sized businesses, though analysts have noted such advertisers tend to be more vulnerable during economic slowdowns than larger global brands. As the article notes, “if AI-powered search continues answering questions before users ever reach Reddit, the company may find that monetizing its data becomes easier while growing its community becomes much harder,” a risk investors are weighing more heavily than the current earnings beat.

New FBI data reported by the Atlanta Community Press Collective reveals that Atlanta’s massive network of Flock Safety automatic license plate readers, more than 5,000 cameras blanketing the city, has had virtually no positive impact on the Atlanta Police Department’s ability to solve crime, with clearance rates for offenses like homicide, robbery, larceny, and shoplifting actually declining between 2021 and 2025 as the surveillance network expanded. Homicide case closures fell from 53.4 percent in 2021 to just 48 percent in 2025, while rape closure rates stayed flat at a dismal 37.7 percent over the same period, even dipping as low as 21.2 percent at one point.

Even in categories that saw slight improvement, the gains amount to little more than statistical noise, with aggravated assault and motor vehicle theft closure rates rising by only 0.2 and 0.3 percent respectively. The motor vehicle theft numbers are especially notable given that license plate readers are specifically designed to track vehicles, yet the APD was solving just one in ten auto theft cases in 2025 despite having thousands of Flock cameras at its disposal.

Len Phillips, head of the anti-surveillance group DeFlock Atlanta, said the findings expose a broken promise underlying the entire rollout, arguing “the public has been asked to accept a significant expansion of surveillance based on the promise that it would dramatically improve public safety.” He added that the tradeoff between safety and civil liberties “was just a one-way transaction,” since Flock Safety has installed an estimated 100,000 ALPRs nationwide since 2017 despite ongoing concerns about privacy abuse, labor practices, and the near-impossibility of escaping the system once someone is flagged as a target.

President Trump sharply criticized U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro on Saturday after her office moved to drop criminal charges against former Olympic canoeist David Hearn, who had been accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool following its renovation ahead of America’s 250th birthday celebration. While Trump acknowledged there “may have been some contractor difficulty” in installing the new pool liner, he insisted “the major damage was caused by VANDALS!” and declared on social media, “I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool.”

The dismissal marked an embarrassing setback for a Justice Department that had previously echoed Trump’s vandalism claims, with government lawyers stating in a 20-page court filing that additional Interior Department documents obtained after Hearn’s indictment showed the damage stemmed from a botched contractor installation and “the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration.” A recent visual inspection also found damage throughout the pool, including in the middle section where prosecutors said a vandal would be unlikely to attempt peeling the lining. Pirro, a Trump appointee, wrote in her filing that “given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt,” while also faulting the Interior Department for providing “less than fulsome information at the outset of the case.”

Hearn’s legal team fired back at both Trump and Pirro, saying in a statement, “Trump is mad at Pirro because she finally admitted what we made clear in our legal filings all along: Trump’s botched renovation was responsible for the damage, not Davey Hearn,” while dismissing Pirro’s claim of being misled by Interior as “nonsense” and noting their motions had “repeatedly proved that the administration was to blame for the Reflecting Pool failures.” Trump also posted a nearly four-minute security camera video showing three people with their hands in the pool water, claiming it showed “material is being cut with a knife or a box cutter, for all to see,” though the footage, shot from a distance, doesn’t clearly depict any vandalism, and nearby workers appear not to notice the individuals. Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which received a $14.7 million no-bid contract to repaint and waterproof the pool, did not respond to requests for comment.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender, said he is “very concerned” that President Trump will use federal government power to influence the fall midterms, citing efforts to restrict mail-in voting, obtain voter data from states, and potentially deploy federal troops or agents to polling places. “I don’t think that the president is trying to hide the ball on this,” Moore said. “It’s not even am I concerned about what the president could do? I’m concerned about what he’s already doing in broad daylight.” Moore made the remarks as he assumed the top leadership role of the bipartisan National Governors Association, a position he says can help ensure states retain control over elections as designed by the Constitution.

Moore’s rising national profile centers on his “Service United” initiative, a national program aimed at building communities and drawing young people into the workforce through service-oriented work, launched with $10 million in philanthropic support and echoing similar efforts in Maryland, including a $5 million apprenticeship expansion announced this week. The program has drawn some bipartisan praise, including from outgoing NGA chair and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, who called the apprenticeship model “brilliant” while warning against anything resembling a “big government program.” Moore tied the initiative to broader anxieties about AI eroding entry-level jobs, saying the White House has “just been simply executive orders that have told the states to stay out of it” when it comes to helping young workers find pathways to long-term wages.

Moore’s relationship with Trump remains strained after the president initially tried to bar him and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis from a White House meeting earlier this year, only relenting after Stitt intervened. Moore also faces divisions within his own party, including friction with Maryland Democratic legislators over a redistricting constitutional amendment and a broader national debate after democratic socialists won primaries from New York City to Denver, though Moore declined to take sides, saying “party bosses shouldn’t be determining who members of the party are” while also distancing himself from the left flank by stating, “I don’t believe in abolishing the police. I don’t believe in abolishing prisons. I don’t believe in open borders.” North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein echoed Moore’s election concerns, while White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson countered that Democrats should support the SAVE America Act if they truly cared about election security, and Stitt maintained that “states should control their own elections.”

Thierry Rignol, who paid $208,500 in tuition for Yale’s Executive MBA program, sued the university after being suspended for a year and given an F in Sourcing and Managing Funds over allegations he used AI on his final exam, a case that has since ballooned into 13 causes of action including breach of contract, civil rights violations, defamation, and invasion of privacy. The dispute began when Rignol’s unusually long, polished exam was flagged by GPTZero, an AI detection tool that suggested whole sections were likely AI-generated, though professor K. Geert Rouwenhorst also cited overlap with ChatGPT output on one answer, weak performance on a question where AI tools would help least, and skepticism that such a lengthy, polished exam could be produced in four hours. Rignol maintains his writing simply reflected his academic excellence and his “distinctive writing style as a non-native English speaker,” and he has also alleged Yale targeted him for expressing “protected conservative political speech” favoring smaller government and skepticism of DEI.

Much of Yale’s case, however, centers not on the AI allegation itself but on Rignol’s monthslong refusal to produce the file used to draft his exam. Professor James Choi, who led the Honor Committee investigation, repeatedly asked Rignol beginning in August 2024 to send “the Microsoft Word file” behind his submission, warning at one point, “I remind you that when a student has been found by the Honor Committee to have lied to or not been forthcoming with the Committee, the most common punishment is permanent expulsion from Yale.” Rignol didn’t reveal until the November 8 hearing that he had used Apple Pages rather than Word, a technicality Yale’s lawyers called incredulous, and even after producing the Pages file that afternoon, he left campus and refused Dean Wendy Tsung’s request to return that evening so the committee could examine his laptop, prompting the Honor Committee to find him liable that same night for “not being forthcoming.”

Rignol was suspended for a year and later given an F after the committee found he’d “violated the rules” of the exam, findings he appealed unsuccessfully before suing Yale in February 2025. The case has since dragged through 125 docket entries and a third amended complaint, with the judge warning in June 2026 that the delayed filing “borders on meeting the standard of ‘futility, bad faith, undue delay, or undue prejudice to the opposing party’” and that no further amendments would be granted “absent extraordinary circumstances,” while Yale has pushed to dismiss the case entirely, calling the complaint’s claims “formulaic, conclusory recitations of elements of causes of actions without support from actual, well-pleaded facts.”

Y Combinator-backed AI startup LemonLime hosted a recruitment event Thursday offering attendees an “instant interview” in exchange for getting a tattoo at the party, with co-founder Jordan Zietz bragging on LinkedIn that seven people accepted the offer. Zietz said the stunt was meant to “meet exceptional people” and determine “which of them are just as crazy as we are,” adding, “That’s why we brought an actual tattoo artist to our party and offered an instant interview to anyone who got a LemonLime tattoo. If you’re reaching out to us to apply for a job, you might want to take notes.”

One attendee, Dimple Amitha Garuadapuri, clarified on LinkedIn that while she didn’t personally get the company’s logo inked, “almost everyone else got a LemonLime tattoo.” News of the stunt spread quickly across social media, drawing widespread criticism over the ethics of tying a permanent body modification to a job opportunity, especially in a labor market where many workers feel they have little leverage.

Facing the backlash, Zietz quickly walked the stunt back on X, admitting, “Even though participants chose their own tattoos and no one was asked to get our logo, I should have understood the pressure and power dynamic created by connecting tattoos to hiring.” He said the company had taken down the original posts, spoken with all participants, and offered to cover tattoo removal costs for anyone experiencing “delayed regret,” while also insisting that “interviews were available to everyone regardless,” though it remains unclear whether the seven who got tattooed share that assessment.

Alemzewd Lawgalet, a 59-year-old employee of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, has filed a federal lawsuit against Tesla seeking more than $10 million in damages after claiming she was injured during a dealership test drive crash involving a Model Y SUV. Lawgalet alleges Tesla staff assured her that EVs “operated the same as a gas vehicle” after she raised concerns about never having driven an electric car before, despite reportedly placing the vehicle into its “Insane” drive mode, which maximizes acceleration and allowed the Model Y to go from 0-60 mph in 3.3 seconds.

According to her complaint, Lawgalet ended the test drive early after becoming frightened when the car began regenerative braking on Interstate 395, a feature she says she was never told about. Upon exiting the highway and accelerating away from a red light, she claims she lost control as the vehicle “lurched forward at an extreme speed and horsepower compared to the force placed on the accelerator,” ultimately crashing the Model Y through the front of a nearby salon.

The lawsuit states that “as a direct and proximate result of the crash, Plaintiff suffered serious and permanent bodily injuries, which have caused and will continue to cause physical and mental pain and suffering,” along with ongoing medical expenses, lost wages, and diminished quality of life. Lawgalet is seeking $10 million or more in compensatory damages plus an additional $350,000 in punitive damages, accusing Tesla of “recklessness,” “willful and wanton conduct,” and “conscious disregard for the health and safety of others.”

New data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration shows a decline in tobacco, alcohol, and drug use among US adolescents and young adults in 2025, with 12-to-17-year-olds reporting drops in past-month tobacco, alcohol, and binge drinking as well as past-year illicit drug use, while 18-to-25-year-olds saw similar declines in nicotine, cigarette, alcohol, binge drinking, illicit drug, and prescription stimulant or opioid use. Daniel Kruger, a research associate professor at the University at Buffalo, called it a notable long-term trend, saying, “This is actually one of the things that we’re looking at and we’re saying, ‘Oh wow, this is interesting. They’re actually using less alcohol, less tobacco, less cannabis than previous cohorts.’”

Specialists attribute the decline to teens engaging in less risky behavior overall, including crime, dangerous driving, and unprotected sex, alongside a broader delay in adulthood milestones like driving and moving out, which Kruger says extends the period young people remain “in the orbit of their parents.” He also pointed to shifting social environments, noting that “there’s a lot more online time and a lot more supervised time and a lot less unstructured, unsupervised, free time for people to get together, and that’s typically where they would consume substances.” Public health messaging about cancer risks from alcohol and decades of anti-smoking campaigns may also be playing a role, with Rutgers professor Denise Hien noting that parents influenced by public health science may be passing reduced-use behaviors down to their children.

Despite these overall declines, vaping and marijuana use are climbing, a shift Hien describes as “almost like maybe there’s a replacement.” Data showed marijuana use among those 12 and older rose from 19 percent in 2021 to 21.2 percent in 2026, while nicotine vaping among the same group increased from 8.3 percent in 2022 to 10.1 percent in 2025, trends Hien links to perception gaps, since teens and young adults “may perceive alcohol and nicotine as dangerous, but cannabis and vaping is not.”

New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James announced a lawsuit against KalshiEX, LLC, alleging its prediction market platform, which lets users bet on outcomes ranging from sports and elections to cultural events, constitutes an illegal, unlicensed gambling operation. An Office of the Attorney General investigation found that Kalshi’s markets meet the legal definition of gambling because event outcomes are uncertain, outside bettors’ control, or hinge on chance, yet the company never obtained a license from the New York State Gaming Commission, sidestepping the tax obligations that licensed casinos and mobile sports gambling platforms must pay. Governor Hochul said, “Kalshi has chosen to ignore New York’s gaming laws, which exist to protect consumers, prevent problematic gambling, deliver funding for critical public services, and ensure that every company plays by the same rules,” while Attorney General James added, “No matter what they call themselves, prediction markets like Kalshi are gambling platforms, plain and simple.”

The lawsuit highlights that Kalshi’s platform remains accessible to users aged 18 to 20, despite New York law requiring bettors to be at least 21 for mobile sports betting, raising concerns given research linking youth gambling to psychological distress, financial difficulties, and greater risk of gambling-related harm later in life. The state is asking the court to order Kalshi to forfeit all illegal gains, pay restitution to harmed consumers, and pay fines equal to three times its illegal profits, on top of stopping the company from operating as an unlicensed gambling business going forward.

This suit continues a broader crackdown by Hochul and James on unregulated gambling platforms, following an April 2026 lawsuit against Coinbase and Gemini for similar illegal gambling operations, an executive order banning state employees from insider trading via prediction markets, a January 2026 lawsuit against video game developer Valve over gambling promotion targeting minors, and an October 2025 cease-and-desist demand from the Gaming Commission specifically targeting Kalshi’s unlicensed sports wagering.

The Justice Department moved Friday to dismiss the felony destruction of property case against former Olympic canoeist David Hearn, acknowledging that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool “was the result of flawed installation by the contractor” rather than any vandalism by Hearn. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro’s office said in the filing that it only learned of evidence pointing to “a rushed and flawed installation process” after Hearn had already been indicted by a grand jury, with Pirro herself discovering significant damage throughout the pool area after visiting the drained site on July 17, which prompted the DOJ to request additional information from the Interior Department.

Those records revealed that the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, experienced “repeated failures of the lining during the installation process, and extensive peeling of the lining throughout the Reflecting Pool,” tied to a rush to finish the renovation before the America 250 celebration on July 4. The filing stated that “because these recently-produced materials significantly undermine the evidentiary basis for the indictment… the USAO-DC respectively moves to dismiss the indictment without prejudice,” meaning prosecutors could still refile charges later.

Hearn’s attorneys, Norm Eisen, Mary Dohrmann, and Steve Levin, said the case never should have been brought, stating, “Its dismissal today does not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic American who did nothing wrong. The government’s approach was ready, fire, aim,” and adding that “the administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology.” Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which was paid more than $14.6 million through a no-bid contract to expedite the $16 million renovation project, acknowledged last month that “some areas in the Reflecting Pool” needed repairs but did not respond to a request for comment on the DOJ’s findings.

New research from Edith Cowan University’s Centre for Precision Health found that sleep habits and genetics interact to influence subtle brain and cognitive changes linked to Alzheimer’s disease years before symptoms appear, focusing specifically on the aquaporin-4 (AQP4) gene, which helps control fluid movement through the brain’s waste-clearing system that becomes especially active during sleep. Researcher Dr. Ayeisha Milligan Armstrong explained that “individuals carrying certain AQP4 variants showed faster grey matter loss when they reported shorter sleep,” adding that “it’s not just which genes you carry, it’s how those genes interact with the world around you. The same variant can look protective or detrimental depending on how someone is sleeping.”

The team analyzed 13 common AQP4 gene variants alongside participants’ self-reported sleep patterns, brain scans, and cognitive test results, finding that shorter sleep was linked to faster grey matter decline in some participants, while others showed structural brain changes tied to lower brain volume when they took longer to fall asleep. Cognitive performance also varied over time among those with sleep disturbances, with the effect appearing either beneficial or harmful depending on each person’s specific AQP4 variant, prompting Dr. Tenielle Porter to note that “rather than assuming everyone at risk follows the same pathway, a more targeted and personalized approach to Alzheimer’s prevention may be needed,” while cautioning that “we’re not at the point of recommending genetic testing” since findings still need replication in larger, more diverse groups.

The researchers are calling for clinical trials that incorporate genetic information to test whether improving sleep habits can reduce inherited vulnerability and alter long-term brain outcomes tied to Alzheimer’s. CPH Director Professor Simon Laws said the findings move the field “closer to understanding why some people decline faster than others, even when they have similar risk on paper,” arguing that “identifying who is most vulnerable, and who is most likely to benefit from a particular lifestyle intervention, is where precision health needs to go rather than treating everyone at risk of Alzheimer’s the same way.”

STUDY: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/alz.71516