A woman discovered she had been secretly filmed by a man wearing Meta's AI-powered smart glasses when friends and people she hadn't talked to in years sent her a video posted on social media. "It went viral. Across all platforms, probably over 200,000 views," Toluwa Omitowoju said.
The Democratic National Committee sued the Justice Department on Thursday over its refusal to turn over documents related to any plans to seize ballots, voting machines and other election materials within a month of any federal primary and general election during the midterms.
X's algorithm learns what you hate and shows you more of it, according to a new study ... read more
They seldom stop crime: Reuters found the Guard mentioned in only a tiny fraction -- 1.3% -- of criminal prosecutions in a year-long deployment. read more
Last June, two investigators employed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) showed up at David Streever's house in Rochester, New York. read more
Traffic through the Panama Canal had been backed up because of the effects of Pres Trump's War of Choice against Iran and its effects upon shipping in the Middle East (Suez Canal...)
Panama Canal Slot Prices Break Records as War and Drought Hit US Shoppers (August 15, 2026)
www.techtimes.com
... The most expensive shortcut in the world just got more expensive. With two of the planet's major shipping corridors effectively shut, companies moving oil, gas, and consumer goods to and from the United States are paying record sums -- in one case more than $4.6 million -- to secure a single passage through the Panama Canal.
That bill is already being passed to American consumers.
On Thursday, a liquefied petroleum gas supertanker named the G. Arete, owned by South Korea's SK Shipping Co., paid $4.6 million at auction to jump the queue and secure a priority transit to the Caribbean. ...
How Canal Slot Prices Rose Sixteenfold in Months
Under normal conditions, ships crossing the canal pay flat reservation fees through the Panama Canal Authority's booking system.
Opening bids at the daily priority auctions -- the mechanism that lets vessels with urgent cargo jump the queue -- begin at around $15,000 for smaller vessels and $55,000 for the largest ships.
As recently as February 2026, Neopanamax vessels were clearing those auctions for roughly $55,000 per February baseline apiece.
That figure now appears almost fictional. Daily average auction prices for August have reached approximately $1.1 million, according to Argus Media data reported by the Financial Times " more than 16 times year-on-year.
The average auction price for Neopanamax vessels -- the largest ships the canal can accommodate, including laden LNG carriers and major containerships -- has set a Neopanamax average record at $2.5 million per slot.
Individual records since late July show Neopanamax slots selling for up to $3.78 million and Panamax slots for up to $2.63 million, per Argus Media. ...
Another view ...
Navy May Rename Carrier Slated to Honor Black Veteran to Instead Honor Donald trump
www.military.com
... The Navy is reportedly working to rename an aircraft carrier under construction that was set to honor a Black sailor celebrated for his heroism at Pearl Harbor, with President Donald Trump's name among those discussed as a replacement, according to CNN.
Three people familiar with the internal discussions told the network that the Navy is moving to rename the future USS Doris Miller in honor a Pearl Harbor hero and the first African-American recipient of the Navy Cross.
Two sources indicated internal conversations about renaming the ship to honor Trump, though CNN reported that it remains unclear what the Navy intends to call it.
Amid those discussions, the Navy has effectively stopped referring to the ship as the Doris Miller internally and has been calling it only by its hull number, CVN-81, one source told CNN. ...
Gen Z turns against capitalism as DSA takes off
thehill.com
... Only 9 percent of Americans younger than 30 have a "very positive" view of capitalism, according to a new CBS/YouGov poll.[emphasis mine]
That shows a stark generation between Generation Z and older generations.
Thirty-three percent of people older than 65, or those in the baby boomer generation, said they have a very positive view of capitalism, while 23 percent of people aged 45-64, a group that includes Generation Xers and older millennials, view capitalism very positively.
Millennials in the 30-44 age range were closer to Gen Z, with just 15 percent saying they had a very positive view of capitalism.
Forty-one percent of respondents younger than 30 had a very negative or somewhat negative view of capitalism. That compares with 27 percent of those 65 and older, 32 percent of those aged 45-64 and 37 percent of those aged 30-44.
The data arrives amid a surge in democratic socialist victories across the U.S. -- and not just in progressive corners of the country. Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon (D) on Tuesday beat out the more moderate Alex Vindman (D) in the Democratic Senate primary in Florida, a state known for its sunshine, not socialism.
Ashik Siddique, national co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), said the polling illustrates what the group is seeing at the street level: Generation Z is ready for a big change.
"We've seen that polling and it's definitely striking, but to us, it really tracks with the experience that so many younger people have," Siddique told The Hill.
"Gen Z, especially by now, just like wasn't even raised with a lot of the assumptions that I think millennials were," he added. "Seeing the condition of the world today, our government spending so much money on militarism and expanding ICE and giving tax cuts to the billionaires to the tune of trillions of dollars while public services are being cut for most Americans " it's just like the contrast is really clear." ...
@#19 ... Now that's funny. ...
Presuming you are referring to my #17, yeah.
Back in the day when I first heard the song on the local college station. I just laughed.
And, fwiw, back then, Ms Massey was referred to as "Egg Lady."
Edith Massey: The Egg Lady in Her Own Words (2021)
www.baltimoremagazine.com
... May 1982. Ronald Reagan is U.S. President. Late Night with David Letterman debuts. "I Love Rock n' Roll" covered by Maryland's own Joan Jett & the Blackhearts is the hot pop single. And John Waters is packing midnight movie houses with audiences drawn to his singularly shocking style of alt-films.
We are high school seniors at St. Paul's School for Girls, one of Baltimore's all-girls prep schools, buddied up in journalism class, and assigned one last article before graduating"a profile of a local celebrity.
Instead of our classmates' more staid interview subjects, we decide to go big and bold with Edith "Edie" Massey. Leader of an all-girl punk rock band, Edie and the Eggs. Smutty greeting card model. Most famously, actress in a series of Waters' dark comedies. A campy character deeply entrenched in Baltimore's underground arts scene.
Little do we know that ours would be the last interview the Egg Lady (her character, Divine's mother, in Pink Flamingos) would give before her death two years later in 1984. ...
Another view ...
DOJ whistleblower alleges probes into universities were politically motivated
www.highereddive.com
... The Trump administration's civil rights investigations into three Ivy League universities were politically motivated and designed to pressure those institutions into settlements, a former U.S. Department of Justice attorney alleged in a whistleblower account Monday.
Officials pressed for deals with Columbia and Harvard universities despite hasty or incomplete investigations, Haley Van Erem, who worked in the Justice Department's civil rights division for almost a decade, alleged. At Brown University, officials pursued a deal even after investigators concluded that there wasn't evidence to support a civil rights violation.
The outcomes of the investigations were "predetermined, without regard to evidence," the account alleges. Moreover, Trump officials pulled vast sums of federal funding from the universities before probes were even completed. ...
Another view ...
Disturbing reason X keeps showing you posts you hate revealed in new study
www.uniladtech.com
... Algorithms. Can't live with them, can't live without them. Social media platforms are notoriously cagey about their own ones, and we'll be damned if we're going to pretend we understand how they work.
Basically, algorithms feed you a conveyor belt of content that social media giants think will be relevant to you. That might feel great when you're shown hilarious TikTok videos, local dining spots you need to try out, and can keep up with all the latest news when it comes to your favorite celebrity, but why does it sometimes feel like we're being fed a bunch of nonsense? Worse than that, why are there continued complaints that X shovels a bunch of ragebait our way?
Apparently, there could be a good reason for it.
Since taking over Twitter in 2022, Elon Musk has been accused of driving the platform into the ground by overhauling how the old Twitter blue system works, removing the ability to fully block, and allowing hate speech to flow.
This affects both ends of the political spectrum, with the left and the right arguing that they're being bombarded with content that doesn't align with their views. Musk vowed to reveal exactly how the X algorithm works by making it open source, with it now possible to even see whether you've been shadowbanned.
As for the idea that we're gobbling ragebait as part of some evil master plan, a study titled "Value misalignment of X's feed algorithm is a reflection of value tensions in engagement" has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Researchers suggest that X's algorithm prioritizes engagement on the For You Page (FYP), while users who identify as Democrats are apparently served more ragebait. ...
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