The era of unconditional friendship with the US is coming to an end, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said, blaming Washington for the deterioration in relations.
The app, which Szydlowski calls "Zuckoff," a tawdry portmanteau, has garnered 5,000 users since its launch on Apple's App Store last month. read more
Anthropic has quietly set up a laboratory to do physical biology work as it pushes its artificial-intelligence ambitions into the world of drug science.
"Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far," Florida Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar said in a campaign video. read more
Survivors appalled nobody will tell them if they're in Epstein's CSAM collection. read more
Connecticut's new license plate camera law: What changes Oct. 1
www.newstimes.com
... New regulations on automated license plate cameras go into effect Oct. 1 in Connecticut. But in the four months since legislators in Hartford approved those rules, the debate on the technology has only gotten louder. ...
The new law changes who Connecticut departments can share data with. Starting Oct. 1, Connecticut law enforcement agencies can only opt into sharing license plate data with towns in Massachusetts, New York and/or Rhode Island, given those towns agree to Connecticut's usage policies. This can be done with specific cases or with automatic sharing agreements. Police in other states will only be able to search Connecticut data if they receive a judicial warrant to do so.
The law also changes what Connecticut data can be used for. Local departments, and the neighboring states with which they can share data, will be prohibited from using the data for immigration, reproductive care or gender-affirming healthcare investigations. The data also cannot be searched to identify someone "engaged in a First Amendment-protected activity," such as attending a protest.
The data collected by the cameras will only be retained for 21 days unless it is used for an active investigation, to comply with a warrant or for highway usage fees. Departments must also now follow a model policy developed by the state's police council and create annual reports on how they are using the technology.
"The law, for a first bite at the apple, is not bad," said Ken Barone, the manager of the University of Connecticut's Racial Profiling Prohibition Project that focuses on equitable roadway safety. "It puts limits on retention periods, prohibits certain locations for cameras, restricts how the database can be used and who you can share data with."
The law bars public agencies from collecting license plate data near a reproductive or sexual health facility that primarily provides gender-affirming healthcare services, or organizations that primarily serve immigrant communities. ...
@#5 ... Hegseth's wife has NO business inserting herself into our national security apparatus. ...
Maybe she's why Sec Hegseth wants nobody besides military hunks at his upcoming meeting.
Service members must meet weight, grooming standards for Hegseth event
thehill.com
... The Pentagon is requiring troops to meet waist-to-height requirements and exhibit "impeccable" grooming standards in order to attend Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's State of the Force address later this month, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to The Hill on Thursday. ...
Measles Cases and Outbreaks
www.cdc.gov
... As of September 17, 2026, 3,471 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States in 2026. ...
For the full year of 2025, a total of 2,289 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States. ...
... and those are CDC numbers ...
US Postal Service Chief Told Associates He Wants to Quit, Sources Say
www.usnews.com
... The head of the U.S. Postal Service has told confidants that he is deeply discouraged by his job and wants to resign, according to four people familiar with his thinking, as the agency comes under scrutiny over financial losses and President Donald Trump's effort to tighten rules on mail-in voting.
Postmaster General David Steiner, who took office in July 2025 after the White House forced out his predecessor, has expressed frustration over a lack of help from the White House and Congress in addressing the mail service's long-running financial woes, the people said. ...
@#34 ... Don't give up hope. Trump has a lot of "all things Trump" on his plate. ...
Urgent motion filed to stop carving of Trump's name into US Institute of Peace building
www.politico.com
... Ousted board members of the U.S. Institute of Peace are asking a federal court to block the imminent carving of President Donald Trump's name on the headquarters of the nonpartisan institution he sought to dismantle shortly after taking office.
Members of the board who were removed by the administration filed an emergency motion Thursday in Washington in a dispute that has echoes of Trump's effort to place his name on the Kennedy Center.
The motion was filed as an emergency petition, alleging that a contractor has already been selected to carve Trump's name into the Constitution Avenue headquarters that the administration sought to shutter as part of the Elon Musk-led DOGE effort to shrink the government. ...
Kennedy tells anti-vaccine activists they have a friend in Trump's White House
apnews.com
... Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave the keynote address Thursday at a conference of an anti-vaccine activist group he once chaired, telling the hundreds in attendance that they had a friend in President Donald Trump's White House.
It was Kennedy's first time appearing at the Children's Health Defense conference since he became secretary. Kennedy took leave from the group when he launched his bid to become president in 2023, but his speech Thursday served as a sort of homecoming, offering him a platform from which to hail the administration's steps to scale back vaccine guidance and reassure the activists in attendance that he was working to turn their priorities into policy.
"Let me be clear: You have a strong and steadfast friend in the White House. We've accomplished in 19 months things that would have seemed unthinkable two years ago," he said. ...
Related ...
Judge gives Blanche deadline, warns of possible contempt charges over Epstein files
thehill.com
... A federal judge gave Attorney General Todd Blanche a deadline to comply with court orders Wednesday regarding the release of certain information in the Epstein files, threatening contempt charges for failure to comply.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan stated in a Wednesday opinion that Blanche and his office were not following court orders concerning redactions in requested documentation related to the activities of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.
He gave the Department of Justice (DOJ) until Sept. 24 to provide the records or explain to the court why its orders were not "clear and unambiguous" " finding the attorney general's argument against the records' release to be "without merit."
Sullivan noted in his opinion that "a civil contempt finding at this juncture would be premature" but did not rule out the possibility if the deadline is not met. ...
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