For the first time, Google has published the number of geofence warrants it’s historically received from U.S. authorities, providing a rare glimpse into how frequently these controversial warrants are issued. The figures, published Thursday, reveal that Google has received thousands of geofence warrants each quarter since 2018, and at times accounted for about one-quarter of all U.S. warrants that Google receives. The data shows that the vast majority of geofence warrants are obtained by local and state authorities, with federal law enforcement accounting for just 4% of all geofence warrants served on the technology giant. According to the data, Google received 982 geofence warrants in 2018, 8,396 in 2019 and 11,554 in 2020. But the figures only provide a small glimpse into the volume of warrants received and did not break down how often it pushes back on overly broad requests... Geofence warrants are also known as “reverse-location” warrants, since they seek to identify people of interest who were in the near vicinity at the time a crime was committed. Police do this by asking a court to order Google, which stores vast amounts of location data to drive its advertising business, to turn over details of who was in a geographic area, such as a radius of a few hundred feet at a certain point in time, to help identify potential suspects. Google has long shied away from providing these figures, in part because geofence warrants are largely thought to be unique to Google. Law enforcement has long known that Google stores vast troves of location data on its users in a database called Sensorvault, first revealed by The New York Times in 2019.

Before Black motorists could freely travel across the American South, Black-owned gas stations offering food and respite acted as safe harbors

New numbers provide a reminder of the fluidity of American identity.

GhostEzra runs the largest QAnon channel on Telegram, and has been spreading openly antisemitic propaganda for months. Using OSINT, we found him.

A man drove a pickup truck onto a sidewalk outside the Library of Congress Thursday morning and claimed he had explosives, leading law enforcement to evacuate government buildings and nearby homes as they negotiated with the suspect. Floyd Ray Roseberry, of Grover, North Carolina, surrendered without incident after an hourslong standoff, Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said at a news…

Fears about a spike in abuse were proved wrong. Now mothers with firsthand experience of the system want to transform its approach to family safety, which is rooted in racist surveillance and carceral intervention.

Ads touting the theoretical powers of apple cider vinegar have been appearing on porn sites.

Tumblr has changed the landscape of artistic discourse, and Kitfox Games is learning that better than anyone

The MyPillow guy's disastrous "Cyber Symposium" could cost him.

Having tired of imaginary cab drivers, Thomas Friedman enters his mind palace for a summit with three special guests: As I watch events in Afghanistan unfold, I find myself trying to ignore all the commentary and longing instead to interview three people: President Lyndon Johnson, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Mohammed Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan. President Johnson, what did you think of Joe Biden’s speech about quitting Afghanistan? Johnson: I listened to it, and I have to say that I choked up. If only I had had the guts to give that speech on April 7, 1965, about America’s involvement in Vietnam — the war that I inherited and then expanded with that speech. Promise me one thing: You won’t link to that speech. Friedman: Sorry, Mr. President, but I already did. Here are some highlights of what you said to justify sending more troops into Vietnam: Why are we in South Vietnam? We are there because we have a promise to keep. Since 1954, every American president has offered support to the people of South Vietnam. … We are also there to strengthen world order. Around the globe, from Berlin to Thailand, are people whose well-being rests, in part, on the belief that they can count on us if they are attacked. … We are also there because there are great stakes in the balance. Let no one think for a moment that retreat from Vietnam would bring an end to conflict. The battle would be renewed in one country and then another. … Thus it became necessary for us to increase our response and to make attacks by air. This is not a change of purpose. It is a change in what we believe that purpose requires. … We do this to increase the confidence of the brave people of South Vietnam, who have bravely borne this brutal battle for so many years with so many casualties. … We will not be defeated. We will not grow tired. Johnson: Yes, Mr. Friedman, I wish I had said what Biden did — and what his predecessors never would: “How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghanistan’s civil war when Afghan troops will not?’’ Friedman: President Xi, what do you think of all the American commentators proclaiming China a winner from Biden’s withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan? Xi: Oh, my, these are what we call useful idiots. What planet are these people living on? We had a perfect situation going before Biden came along. America was hemorrhaging lives, money, energy and focus in Afghanistan — and their presence was making the country just safe enough for Chinese multinationals to exploit. The Metallurgical Corporation of China and Jiangxi Copper had a contract to develop a copper mine in Mes Aynak, and the China National Petroleum Corporation was working on a field in the north of the country — and the Americans were funding the overall security. That is our idea of perfection! Alas, neither of these projects ever got off the ground because of the craziness in the Kabul government. But Afghanistan is hugely rich in minerals we need. Who will protect our investors after the Americans have stopped doing it for free? Not me. Friedman: How about the Taliban? Xi: The Taliban?! You think that we trust them? Have you noticed what their brothers in the Pakistani Taliban have been doing to our investments in Pakistan? Just read The Wall Street Journal from July 28: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A gunman opened fire on a car carrying two engineers in the southern port city of Karachi, the latest attack on Chinese nationals in close ally Pakistan. … Chinese nationals have been the victims of multiple recent attacks in Pakistan. Earlier this month, a bombing killed nine Chinese construction workers in a bus being taken to the site of a dam being built in northern Pakistan. Targets of other attacks in recent years include the Chinese Consulate in Karachi, the partly Chinese-owned stock exchange in Karachi and a hotel in the Chinese-run port of Gwadar. Xi: Pakistan cannot even keep us safe from its own Taliban and Baloch separatists — in their own country — and we own Pakistan! And don’t even get me started on how the Taliban victory could inspire our Uyghur Muslims. … Joe, Joe, what did you do to us, Joe? You should have listened to your foreign policy experts and stayed in Afghanistan. The last thing we want is you refocusing all of America’s resources and energy on competing with us for the industries of the 21st century, instead of chasing the Taliban around the Hindu Kush. Friedman: Mohammed Zahir Shah was the last king of Afghanistan, who ruled from 1933 until he was deposed by his brother-in-law in 1973, triggering nearly a half-century of coups, wars and invasions. He was the last of a 226-year dynasty of Pashtun monarchs to rule Afghanistan. Your Highness, what do you think of Biden’s decision to just quit Afghanistan and of the Taliban takeover? Zahir: Let me tell you a few things about my country. The first thing you have to know is that we are and always will be a mosaic of many different languages and cultures and ethnicities and approaches to Islam. There are 14 ethnic groups recognized in our national anthem — Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Balochis, Turkmens, Nooristanis, Pamiris, Arabs, Gujars, Brahuis, Qizilbash, Aimaq and Pashai. We have Sunni, Sufi and Shiite Muslims. The reason the country was relatively peaceful under my leadership, until my idiot cousin toppled me, was that people saw me as a unifying symbol to whom they could all relate. The Taliban represent only one element in our mosaic — Pashtun Sunni Islamism. Since they were ousted by the Americans 20 years ago, all they have been thinking about is how to again own the Afghanistan they lost, not how to govern anew the Afghanistan that exists today. Let me tell you, Mr. Friedman, more than 70 percent of Afghanistan’s population is under 25 years old. Most of them know nothing about the Taliban and have never heard of Mullah Omar — just like all those 20-somethings in Iran who have never heard of the shah and give Iran’s Islamic rulers grief every day. They have been raised in a different Afghanistan, in a different age, and they will not easily give up the freedoms they enjoyed these past 20 years, even if the country was a mess. Tribes in this part of the world, Mr. Friedman, have a saying: Me and my brother against my cousin. Me and my brother and my cousin against the outsider. Americans were the outsider, and the Taliban could always find plenty of passive and active cousins for their project of getting you out. But now they and their brothers will have to deal with all their cousins inside — from those 14 different ethnicities — and that will be a different story. The Taliban have no idea how to govern a modern country. Vietnam’s nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh spent his exile in Paris. These Taliban guys studied, at best, in madrasas in Pakistan, where they don’t even teach science. And then there’s the money. The American occupation was to Afghanistan what oil is to Saudi Arabia. You were like an oil well that didn’t dry up. But now that you’re gone, so is all that income to run the government and pay salaries. How are the Taliban going to replace it? You can smuggle only so many drugs to Europe. Sure, the Chinese will throw them some crumbs to keep them away from the Uyghurs. But there are no more sucker superpowers out there that want to come in and run this place, because they all now know that all they’ll win is a bill. Here is my prediction: The Taliban will either form a national unity government with all the major ethnic and tribal groups, under loose centralized control — and it will sort of hold the country together and be able to enlist foreign aid — or they won’t. If they do, President Biden’s bet on getting out will prove right — that America’s presence was actually preventing Afghans from compromising and coming together to govern themselves. Maybe they will even find one of my family’s descendants to be the symbolic unifier. I repeat: My reign corresponded with one of the most peaceful eras in Afghan history. But if the Taliban try to keep power all by themselves, with no cousins, watch out. The country will eventually resist it, the Taliban will crack down harder, and Afghanistan will not implode — it will explode. It will break up into different regions and hemorrhage refugees and instability. It will be very ugly, and America and Biden will be blamed for the chaos. But America will also be gone. Afghanistan then will be a huge problem for its neighbors, particularly Pakistan, China, Russia and Iran. Friedman: Hmm. Pakistan, China, Russia and Iran? Maybe Biden had that in mind all along.

“We’ve never been here before. We are in truly now in uncharted territory in terms of our ICU bed capacity,” said Alabama Hospital Association President Dr. Don Williamson.

Following a tweet in support of Nabisco workers during a strike, Danny DeVito abruptly lost his Twitter verification.

The City of Mobile said it ran out of ambulances on Wednesday. The call for a ‘critical mass level zero’ was issued around noon. Local hospitals have been overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases causing ambulances to have nowhere to take emergency patients as emergency rooms are on diversion. The alarm warns Mobile Fire-Rescue crews that if they need an ambulance, one isn’t available. If someone calls 911 they will get a response, but it just might not be an ambulance. Paramedics could arrive at a scene in a firetruck. With COVID-19, crews can’t quickly get patients out of ambulances and into the emergency room. And even when the hospital finally gets the patient inside, the ambulance crew still has to disinfect the equipment before it can go back in service. Mobile Public Safety Director Lawrence Battiste said the city is trying to address the crisis, but options are limited.

Joe Biden's handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal was condemned as "catastrophic" and "shameful" on Wednesday as the Houses of Parliament delivered an unprecedented rebuke to a US president. MPs and peers from across the political spectrum, including Boris Johnson, put some blame for the Taliban's takeover and the chaos that followed on Britain's closest ally. Mr Biden was accused of "throwing us and everybody else to the fire" by pulling out US troops, and was called "dishonourable" for criticising Afghan forces for not having the will to fight.

A 2017 draft assessment of formaldehyde that was suppressed by the Trump administration found that the chemical causes myeloid leukemia, according to several sources familiar with the document. The draft assessment concludes that 1 microgram of formaldehyde in a cubic meter of air increases the number of myeloid leukemia cases by roughly 3.5 in 100,000 people, more than three times the cancer risk in the assessment now in use. The EPA currently regulates formaldehyde using an outdated set of calculations, finalized in 1991, based on the risk of nasopharyngeal cancer. If the nasopharyngeal cancer and myeloid leukemia risks are combined, the cancer risk could be 4.5 times higher than the current value. Although the suppressed assessment, produced by a division of the Environmental Protection Agency known as the Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS, has grave implications for public health, Trump administration officials, including former EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, refused to allow the agency to release the assessment, several sources told The Intercept. If the Biden EPA permits IRIS to finalize the assessment, which is among the most controversial in the agency’s history, other branches of the EPA will likely set regulatory limits based on the new risk value. IRIS values are used to determine safety thresholds for the amounts of the chemical permitted in air and water, emissions caps from industrial facilities, and guidance for cleanups. Such thresholds also alert exposed people to the dangers they face. “This is a big, big deal. It could trigger significant interest by the personal injury bar,” said Bob Sussman, who served as the senior policy counsel to the EPA administrator during the Obama administration and deputy EPA administrator under President Bill Clinton. “Even without including the leukemia, the risk is a significant one. With the leukemia, it’s certainly a very significant public health concern.”

Chiba, a ferociously talented martial artist who starred in films like "The Street Fighter" and "Kill Bill" series, died this week from Covid-19, his representative confirmed to CNN. Chiba was 82.

Babbling in baby bats bears a striking resemblance to human infants learning to talk, researchers find.

Caster Semenya and several other athletes were banned from certain events in Tokyo, but in a scientific correction published today World Athletics admits flaws in research used to support the ban

A: barefoot is legal

Afghanistan’s last known remaining Jew allegedly demanded a financial payment from a group of volunteers working to facilitate his evacuation from Kabul following the Taliban takeover this week, refusing to leave when his request was rebuffed. Israeli-American businessman Moti Kahana, who has been involved in several controversial high profile exfiltrations of Jews from Middle Eastern countries, told Haaretz on Wednesday that while 62-year-old Zabulon Simantov initially agreed to be evacuated, he subsequently conditioned his exit on the receipt of "personal financing.” "I'm not paying Jews to save their own lives. I'm here to help. I'm not here to pay you to save your life," Kahana said. Simantov “claimed to have had some debts that he had to cover before he leaves. We’re not in the business of covering peoples’ debts. We’re in the business of saving people's lives if they need to be saved,” confirmed Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, the Istanbul-based chairman of the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States and another participant in the aborted rescue mission.