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Category: Law/Crime

Demanding loyalty to Trump, Justice Dept. struggles to recruit prosecutors

Demanding loyalty to Trump, Justice Dept. struggles to recruit prosecutors

The New York Times reports: Chad Mizelle, a former chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi, hung an online help wanted sign for federal prosecutors last weekend that perhaps explained why so many valuable Justice Department staff members have left, and why so few candidates want in. Assistant U.S. attorneys are not typically recruited, as Mr. Mizelle sought to do, by a former federal employee who asks potential candidates to send a private message to his X account. Nor…

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A U.S. Army plant in Missouri is a leading source of powerful ammunition used by Mexican cartels

A U.S. Army plant in Missouri is a leading source of powerful ammunition used by Mexican cartels

The New York Times reports: On the morning of Nov. 30, 2019, a convoy of pickup trucks carrying men armed with a heavy machine gun and powerful .50-caliber rifles entered the Mexican town of Villa Unión and opened fire. The men had been sent on a mission of intimidation: They planned to set fire to the town hall. Their superior firepower pinned down state and local police officers as they waited for military reinforcements. Terrorized residents scrambled to take cover…

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Is Google using AI to engage in identity theft?

Is Google using AI to engage in identity theft?

The Washington Post reports: David Greene had never heard of NotebookLM, Google’s buzzy artificial intelligence tool that spins up podcasts on demand, until a former colleague emailed him to ask if he’d lent it his voice. “So… I’m probably the 148th person to ask this, but did you license your voice to Google?” the former co-worker asked in a fall 2024 email. “It sounds very much like you!” Greene, a public radio veteran who has hosted NPR’s “Morning Edition” and…

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UK confirms Russia poisoned Navalny in prison with the rare toxin, epibatidine

UK confirms Russia poisoned Navalny in prison with the rare toxin, epibatidine

  GOV.UK: The UK is today exposing the brutal and barbaric circumstances surrounding the death of Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison. Two years after the Munich Security Conference was shocked by the news of the leading Russian opposition figure’s death, consistent, collaborative work has confirmed through laboratory testing that the deadly toxin found in the skin of Ecuador dart frogs (epibatidine) was found in samples from Alexei Navalny’s body and highly likely resulted in his death.  Only the Russian state had…

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Courts have ruled 4,400 times that ICE jailed people illegally. It continues to do so

Courts have ruled 4,400 times that ICE jailed people illegally. It continues to do so

Reuters reports: Hundreds of judges around the country have ruled more than 4,400 times since October that President Donald Trump’s administration is detaining immigrants unlawfully, a Reuters review of court records found. The decisions amount to a sweeping legal rebuke of Trump’s immigration crackdown. Yet the administration has continued jailing people indefinitely even after courts ruled the policy was illegal. “It is appalling that the Government insists that this Court should redefine or completely disregard the current law as it…

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Beyond the major cities, ICE is rattling small-town and exurban America

Beyond the major cities, ICE is rattling small-town and exurban America

The New York Times reports: President Trump may be ending the surge of immigration agents in the Twin Cities, but his mass deportation effort has already extended well past large, liberal cities like Minneapolis, to small communities where the national spotlight does not exist but the impact can be at least as acute. In places like Cornelius, Ore., Danbury, Conn., Biddeford, Maine, and Coon Rapids, Minn., where moderation, not partisanship, might predominate, the arrival of Immigration and Customs Enforcement —…

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ICE tried to justify a Minneapolis shooting. Then its story unraveled

ICE tried to justify a Minneapolis shooting. Then its story unraveled

The New York Times reports: When an immigration agent shot Julio C. Sosa-Celis in the leg last month in Minneapolis, touching off hours of tense protests, the Trump administration rushed to sell a version of events that demonized the wounded man and defended the agent. About two hours after the gunfire, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman claimed that three people had attacked an agent with a broom and snow shovel. She said the agent “fired a defensive shot to…

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Daniel Dennett was right: We URGENTLY need a federal law forbidding AI from impersonating humans

Daniel Dennett was right: We URGENTLY need a federal law forbidding AI from impersonating humans

Gary Marcus writes: The night before I testified in the US Senate in May, 2023, the late philosopher Daniel Dennett sent me a manuscript that he called “counterfeit people”. It was published a few days later in The Atlantic. Here the first paragraph. Money has existed for several thousand years, and from the outset counterfeiting was recognized to be a very serious crime, one that in many cases calls for capital punishment because it undermines the trust on which society…

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ICE operations increasingly resemble Israeli occupation. That’s no coincidence

ICE operations increasingly resemble Israeli occupation. That’s no coincidence

Sophia Goodfriend writes: As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have swarmed cities across the United States, American politics has appeared to enter a new phase, one in which armed federal forces turn civilian neighborhoods into active conflict zones. Part of what is driving this political shift is a potent technical infrastructure: ICE operations are now expedited by mobile surveillance and targeting systems, where agents’ most powerful weapon can fit in the palm of their hands. Recent reporting has…

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ICE plans to spend $38.3 billion turning warehouses into concentration camps

ICE plans to spend $38.3 billion turning warehouses into concentration camps

The Washington Post reports: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement expects to spend $38.3 billion on its plan to acquire warehouses across the country and retrofit them into immigrant detention centers that can hold tens of thousands of immigrants, according to documents the agency provided to New Hampshire’s governor and published on the state’s website Thursday. ICE plans to buy and convert 16 buildings across the country to serve as regional processing centers, each holding 1,000 to 1,500 immigrant detainees at…

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DHS sending hundreds of administrative subpoenas to social media companies to suppress political dissent

DHS sending hundreds of administrative subpoenas to social media companies to suppress political dissent

The New York Times reports: The Department of Homeland Security is expanding its efforts to identify Americans who oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement by sending tech companies legal requests for the names, email addresses, telephone numbers and other identifying data behind social media accounts that track or criticize the agency. In recent months, Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, have received hundreds of administrative subpoenas from the Department of Homeland Security, according to four government officials…

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In the Kristi & Corey Show, she gets to become president and he gets a gun — or at least a badge

In the Kristi & Corey Show, she gets to become president and he gets a gun — or at least a badge

The Wall Street Journal reports: Kristi Noem knew she needed a reset. It was two days after federal agents had shot and killed Alex Pretti, and Noem was facing fire from all sides. Even some inside the administration were pushing President Trump to remove her from her position for her handling of the chaotic immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis and comments she’d made saying Pretti committed an act of domestic terrorism. So Noem’s top adviser, Corey Lewandowski, messaged Trump’s pollster…

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UK ban on Palestine Action unlawful, high court judges rule

UK ban on Palestine Action unlawful, high court judges rule

The Guardian reports: The co-founder of Palestine Action has won a legal challenge to the home secretary’s decision to ban the group under anti-terrorism laws. The proscription of Palestine Action, which categorised it alongside the likes of Islamic State, was the first of a direct action protest group and attracted widespread condemnation as well as a civil disobedience campaign defying the ban, during which more than 2,000 people have been arrested. From 5 July last year, being a member of…

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The Epstein files and the hidden world of an unaccountable elite

The Epstein files and the hidden world of an unaccountable elite

The New York Times reports: Journalists and researchers will spend the next months ferreting through the Epstein files in search of further criminal conduct or a new conspiratorial wrinkle. But one truth has already emerged. In unsparing detail, the documents lay bare the once-furtive activities of an unaccountable elite, largely made up of rich and powerful men from business, politics, academia and show business. The pages tell a story of a heinous criminal given a free ride by the ruling…

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‘Outright fascist’: How ICE defies judges’ orders to release detainees

‘Outright fascist’: How ICE defies judges’ orders to release detainees

Politico reports: Courts across the country have overwhelmingly rejected the Trump administration’s effort to round up thousands of immigrants and lock them up without a chance for bond — even if they have no criminal records and have lived in the United States for years. But the Trump administration has slow-walked or outright defied judges’ orders demanding the release of people scooped up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at an increasingly rapid clip. Sometimes, ICE has raced detainees across state…

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Tallying the damage of ICE’s assault on Minneapolis

Tallying the damage of ICE’s assault on Minneapolis

Rolling Stone reports: The federal government is retreating from Minneapolis, Minnesota. White House border czar Tom Homan announced on Thursday that the Trump administration will end the immigration enforcement surge it launched in January after a right-wing YouTuber highlighted allegations of fraud at Minneapolis-based child care centers. Leaders in Minnesota were sober in their response. Speaking to reporters after Homan’s announcement on Thursday, Gov. Tim Walz cataloged the damage. “This surge of untrained, aggressive federal agents are going to leave…

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