https://apnews.com/article/meta-ai-copyright-lawsuit-sarah-silverman-e77968015b94fbbf38234e3178ede578

Alt Text:

This is a screenshot of a bluesky post from “The Tennessee Holler” posted 12 hours ago. The post reads: “If you’re zip-tying grandmas protesting losing health care maybe you’re not the good guys in the story?”
The post includes a repost from Joe G posted 2 hours ago that says “Arresting people in wheelchairs protesting Medicaid cuts.”
Below the text is a video thumbnail showing what appears to be law enforcement officers restraining an elderly person in a wheelchair in what looks like a government building or office setting.

The Post

archive.is/N274X

In other words, your kids will die from preventable medical causes

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/health/vaccines-cdc-acip-kennedy.html

A senior aide to President Donald Trump has claimed Zohran Mamdani's victory in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary is a result of a failure to control migration.

"NYC is the clearest warning yet of what happens to a society when it fails to control migration," Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, wrote on X.

Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, defeated former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in a stunning upset on Tuesday night.

White House Responds to Zohran Mamdani's Election Win

Stephen Miller says Zohran Mamdani's victory in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary is a result of a failure to control migration.

^{Daniel Orton (Newsweek)}

Alt Text:

Woman in a wheelchair saying: “THERE IS NO MARRIAGE EQUALITY UNTIL PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES CAN MARRY WITHOUT LOSING BENEFITS”

A Gallup and Walton Family Foundation poll found 6 in 10 US teachers in K-12 public schools used AI tools for work during the past school year, with higher adoption rates among high school educators and early-career teachers. The survey of more than 2,000 teachers nationwide conducted in April found that those using AI tools weekly estimate saving about six hours per week.

Majority of US K-12 Teachers Now Using AI for Lesson Planning, Grading - Slashdot

^{news.slashdot.org}

As AI companies rave about how their products are revolutionizing productivity, Senator Bernie Sanders wants the tech industry to put its money where its automated mouth is.

Bernie Sanders says that if AI makes us so productive, we should get a 4-day workweek | TechCrunch

^{Amanda Silberling (TechCrunch)}

Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver pleads not guilty to charges stemming from incident outside ICE facility. ACLU condemns Trump admin's "intimidation tactics."

As McIver Pleads Not Guilty, Rights Group Sounds Alarm Over Trump 'Intimidation Campaign'

"The Trump administration is attempting to silence opposition through fear, but New Jersey will not be intimidated by authoritarianism," said the head of the ACLU of New Jersey.

^{eloise-goldsmith (Common Dreams)}

One of the interesting projects engaged in by Mozilla that directly wasn't related to their web browser efforts was DeepSpeech, an embedded/offline speech-to-text engine. To not much surprise given the lack of activity in recent years, last week they finally and formally discontinued the open-source project.

Mozilla Formally Discontinues Its DeepSpeech Project

^{www.phoronix.com}

Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are deeply concerned about whistleblower allegations against DOJ official Emil Bove, who allegedly pressured lawyers to ignore court orders.

'Beyond Unfit': Emil Bove Endorses Trump's 'Unitary Executive' Theory at Confirmation Hearing

The federal judicial nominee supports signing "a blank check for Trump to control every agency," said one government watchdog.

^{julia-conley (Common Dreams)}

Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani's victory in NYC's mayoral primary has rattled oligarchs, including President Donald Trump.

Melting Down Over NYC Mayoral Primary, Trump Calls Mamdani '100% Communist Lunatic'

"Trump attacking Mamdani is basically an endorsement at this point," said one social media user.

^{jessica-corbett (Common Dreams)}

NLnet Foundation announces 62 new projects for the NGI Zero Commons Fund - the largest round of the programme yet. We congratulate the selected projects and look forward to the new capabilities these will bring to society. There were many more applications, we would like to take this opportunity to thank all applicants for their contributions towards digital commons and an open, trustworthy and more resilient internet.

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/31947999

As ever and always, I’m back with a week’s worth of gaming news I’ve spotted and thought I should share with you all!

This week is slightly less than is typical (1,000-ish words less than my last week’s I can tell you!) for a few reasons:

• I’ve cashed in some of my crypto and bought a cabin. Which makes me sound like an actress in a Stephen King movie
• I’ve had some odd health hiccups lately – nerve damage in my hip which means I feel nothing when touching a small patch of skin, but it also feels like it is on fire

So I’ve been a little distracted, but I do pinkie-swear next week’s will be back to my normal output!

So what are these posts?

My aim for these News Posts in general is to make them a more clearly not a professional, but someone who cares about gaming manner than most gaming sites do now. I see so many sites, even the independent ones, bombarding with ads, banners and reminders to support them. I get it, I really do, but it’s an unpleasant experience to me.

My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:

• Image/gif/link heavy (though once again this week I have few of these, so this dot-point’s a bit needless)
• Personal voice (I can’t help rambling, send help – this won’t be even slightly professionally written)
• Mostly news or articles or points which you won’t find on normal gaming sites. These are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to. I know you’ll have spotted the big news articles, so I’m hoping some of these smaller ones might have been missed by you.

A mixed bag of what I’ve considered news this week, so there really is a bit of everything ahead.

---

General Gaming News:

---

A New PS2 Emulator – Iris:

After 7-8 months of working on it, Lycoder (also goes by Allkern) has released their PS2 emulator called Iris. While games are running with very low/low/unplayable frames at the moment, they want to reassure people that this is constantly in development and improvements are being made regularly.

Windows, Linux and MacOS are supported.

The GitHub page is here, if you’d like to read a little more!

...and here is the link to the 0.10-alpha build of Iris

Funnily enough, it was only very recently that I fixed a DMAC bug that was keeping a lot of games from booting, and now this opens up a ton of potential to further debug and fix other issues, which may lead to even more games to boot. There's still a lot of work to be done, especially in the optimization department. I'm really looking forward to continue working on this project and advancing PlayStation 2 emulation!

It’s lovely to have another player in the scene, particularly with PS2 emulation.

And, naturally, here’s some pictures:

---

System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Delay:

...sorry, don’t want to make you panic if you’re a PC gamer – no delays on that front, but if you’re a console gamer then it has been delayed for now:

Knowing the publishers, I’d say you’re in good hands without having to wait too long to play it, and I’m so excited to play through myself.

---

How to Fix Xbox’s Stupid Update:

I can’t even be bothered taking picture to illustrate this one, but if you’re on Xbox you’ll have seen it. Select a game and then you’re presented with a new screen giving you another step before you can select it again to play the game. And half that screen is taken up with their hopeful promotions of DLC and micro-transactions.

Shitty.

Anyway:

Settings / General / Personalization / Games & Apps / Choose whether game huds open automatically from the following places -

• Recently played list
• Groups
• Installed games

---

Grounded 2 Hype:

With the announcement of Obsidian’s Grounded 2, the numbers of the first game (Honey, I Shrunk The Kids meets Arrietty have exploded, bring a 193.8 boost to current players. The game shot up the Xbox charts from #88 to #23 (overtaking Halo: MCC and Elden Ring)

The first game on Steam holds a ‘Very Positive’ rating with 66,596 all-time ratings.

---

Lies of P:

I’m sure you’ve read this in at least four other places by now, but it still warms my heart. I couldn’t really make it through Lies of P – the souls-like and even souls-adjacent genre is not my cup of stressful tea. What I did love though was the atmosphere and setting, reminding me for no particular reason of Drood, the novel by Dan Simmons about the last five years of Charles Dickens and how spooky it could get.

Anyway, the devs behind Lies of P and Overture (the DLC) got a bonus for their efforts, with the two selling over 3m copies combined. They got a bonus, two weeks vacation and a free Nintendo Switch 2. IDK, a nice rarity in today’s gaming world!

---

Still Wakes The Deep:

The Chinese Room - Developers behind the BAFTA-winning-game Still Wakes The Deep have laid off some of their team, just after the release of their DLC – Siren’s Rest.

At a glance, around 10 staff with the studio listed as their current employer have the 'looking for work' label on their LinkedIn profiles – though this is not a reliable metric by itself.

A full article telling you not much more than I just wrote is here on GamesIndustryBiz if you’re wanting to find more details on things.

However, The Chinese Room will share news on changes for the studio in the coming weeks so more will come out, I suppose. Sad news for those who worked on the rather amazing game.

---

Subnautica 2 Dev Vlog:

The latest dev vlog for the game has come out, titles ‘Building Unknown Worlds’

Join senior narrative designer Seth Dickinson, level designer Artyom O’Rielly, environment artist James Stout, and senior environment artist (and rock connoisseur) Ben Hale as they walk you through the incredible work that goes into building out the world of Subnautica 2.

My fav comment on the video is this one:

I have never been so excited over rocks

---

LEGO Island in Browser:

As the title says, the game is now available to play in your browser. I’m way too young for this game to have any impact in my life, but I think the older members here might remember it. Released in 1997, it’s certainly got a rabid following.

The link to the site is here, try it out!

And one more thing, I found the fact the devs created a physical island in actual LEGO when making the game, and this is ancient and adorable:

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Auto-Shutdown after game download:

A gamer by the username of Avaneesh13 has created a Python-based application when they saw room for it – shutting their PC down for them after a big game download completed (rather than having their PC on all night)

This application is called SteamDown, and the link to the GitHub page is here for you to read through if you’d like.

SteamDown:

• Monitors your Steam download activity in real-time
• When downloads go inactive for a set period (you choose how long), it automatically performs an action of your choice
• Actions include: shutdown PC, sleep mode, stop Steam, or other custom actions
• Completely free and open-source

I kept starting massive game downloads (looking at you, Call of Duty) before going to bed, only to wake up and find my PC had been running idle for 6 hours after the download finished at 3 AM. Felt wasteful and probably wasn't great for my electricity bill either. Now I just set it to wait 5-10 minutes after downloads stop, then shut down my system automatically. Much better for power savings and peace of mind.

How it is different from other solutions:

*Generic system monitors that don't understand Steam's download behaviour specifically
* Command-line tools that require technical setup and aren't user-friendly
* Part of a larger system suite with bloatware I didn't want
* Paid solutions for what should be a simple utility

Technical details:

• Written in Python and built it as a standalone .exe (no installation needed)
• Works on Windows primarily, though I might explore macOS/Linux support
• Planning to add support for other launchers like Epic, GOG, etc. in future updates.
• Codebase clean and modular in case anyone wants to contribute or fork it

The functionality should be working as expected - it reliably monitors Steam and performs the shutdown actions. The UI could use a bit of work though (I'm more of a backend person), so if anyone has suggestions or wants to contribute on the interface side, I'd welcome the help!

Again, the GitHub link is at the start of this section, so take a look if you’re curious!

---

Epic reaches 500:

When Epic officially started their free games each week, all the way back in 2018, no one anticipated it would go for as long or be filled with the quality titles it has today. Starting with Subnautica (though unofficially giving away Shadow Complex Remastered before this in an effort to get users to install the launcher), we’re now up to 502 PC games given away.

Now they’re even expanding on this, with mobile phone games given away free each week. This coming week’s giveaway will be Sable (more on that later!).

But if you’d like to scroll down the list of every game given away by Epic, you can do so with this article which gets updated each week on PCGamer

...though be warned, it might make you sad to see what you’ve missed out on.

And what is this free games each week on Epic thing I mention? Well, there’s a tiny chance you don’t know:

The Epic Games Store gives away free games every week (to keep forever) as part of its strategy to attract new users and keep existing ones engaged. Anyone with a free Epic account can "claim" these games during the giveaway period (usually one week), and once claimed, the games are permanently added to the user’s library—no strings attached. This initiative started in 2018 and is funded by Epic to build its user base. The games are often high-quality indie titles big-budget releases, and you don’t need a subscription—just an account.

If you’re a Linux gamer you can use methods such as Heroic Games Launcher or Junk Store to play these games without requiring Epic’s own launcher (Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney is famously anti-Linux).

---

Warhammer 40,000 DLC:

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, the incredibly well regarded cRPG made by Owlcat Games has released their next DLC – Lex Imperialis.

()

Lex Imperialis, the second major expansion for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, offers a new 15-hour storyline and introduces the Adeptus Arbites — a faction of incorruptible enforcers — alongside a new companion: the grim and relentless Solomorne Anthar. Featuring battle familiars like cybernetic eagles and cyber-mastiffs, this DLC is AVAILABLE NOW to all players.

Rogue Trader holds ‘Very Positive’ ratings on Steam, with 22,120 reviews on Steam. I own the game on GOG, and I enjoyed it far more than I expected to. There’s a lovely gothic/space setting, kinda unsettling, and a deep game behind the Warhammer branding.

While releasing this DLC, Owlcat games is also working on two more games (both ‘coming soon’):

• Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy

Become an acolyte of the Inquisition in this grim dark, party-based, story-driven cRPG. Lead investigations, uncover grand conspiracies, master tactical combat, and wage a secret war against heresy. Make tough choices as a conduit of the God-Emperor’s will.

• The Expanse: Osiris Reborn

The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a third-person Action RPG set in The Expanse universe. You’re no hero — just a merc caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to hold your crew together and keep the ship up and running. Your choices will shape your story.

One thing is for sure with Owlcat (aside from the initial release of their games tending to need a patch or two!), they care about their games and support them for the long haul.

---

Crosswind – MORE PIRATES!!!

Since you’re reading this, you’ll probably know by now that I cry about the lack of games set in the golden age of piracy. It’s a setting I like to think is popular but just...kinda ignored. AC: IV Black Flag is still in my opinion the best-of-the-best, but we’ve got another to add to the collection. Crosswind!

Crosswind is a survival adventure in the Age of Piracy. Explore procedural open world, gather, build and craft. Overcome challenging bosses in soulslite combat. Sail your ship, fight on land and sea, play solo or with friends. Live your swashbuckling life in PvE or rise to power in optional PvP.

They’re calling it a ‘pirate survival adventure’, and they devs known as Crosswind Crew have released a statement along with the trailer, which is as follows, in their words:

Crosswind is our dream pirate game. Heavily inspired by great titles like Valheim or Enshrouded, it also feautres naval combat similar to AC: Black Flag and soulslite bossfights. The upcoming Alpha is a big milestone -- with playtesters live feedback we will be able to thoroughly verify a lot of work and designs. It's not gonna be perfect, but we hope it will move in the right direction, and we are absolutely willing to complete this journey whatever it takes.

The Alpha will feature:
* Basic survival gameplay (building, crafting, upgrading);
* 3 unique biomes scattered across a big archipelago - each with unique resources, enemies and bosses;
* 3 playable ships and one NPC merchant (of course to plunder it!);
* Land combat, basic naval combat and early version of boarding actions;
* Very basic Tortuga social hub.

All in all we hope it will provide 30-40 hours of a survival adventure, but of course some parts of the game will be much less polished then others.

For those interested in playtesting: we start small, and have very limited server slots for the test, but for those willing to try the game -- the signups are open on Steam page. We will be gradually letting people in starting tomorrow; Steam picks people randomly. There will be other tests in the future, so even if you want to try Crosswind and don't make it in the first wave, you may get luckly later.

The Crosswind Steam page is here, for you to check it out

---

Jurassic World Evolution 3:

After some people got (rightly) angry at Jurassic World Evolution 3 using A.I. generated assets for scientist portraits, the devs realized they’re being stupid and released a statement:

Thanks for your feedback on this topic. We have opted to remove the use of generative AI for scientist portraits within Jurassic World Evolution 3.

...you can read their statement here on the Steam community page

Meh, I’m hardly going to celebrate devs for doing the bare minimum here.

---

Major Mod - Black Orchestra:

...admittedly a game and gigantic mod I’ve never heard of before, but Black Orchestra Worldfront: 37-54 is coming. Made for Rising Storm 2 Vietnam, it adds the Pacific, Western, Mediterranean and Eastern Fronts of World War II to the game.

The mod is deemed feature complete now,

• This is the link to the modDB page where the full info is
• This is their site

---

GOG Library Price Checker:

Someone has made a site which checks your GOG games library and gives you an estimate on the value of the total games. Or, it makes you feel awful about seeing a cold number stating you’ve spent way too much.

It’s wonky, and makes mistakes, and doesn’t seem to register all games. I can also see GPT everywhere in this, which as someone who enjoys writing kinda makes me feel icky. But whatever, if it helps people get an idea across then that’s the better of the A.I. uses these days.

I guess all-in-all, it’s still a fun idea in theory. One I should note I have not done or checked myself.

Here’s the link to their site

In their own words:

So I wanted to check how much my GOG games library is actually worth — like how SteamDB does it for Steam users — but turns out… there’s nothing like that for GOG.
And if there was anything, it either asked you to log in or paste your cookies... which to me instantly screamed obvious scam 🙃
So I thought: why not just make something myself?
Here's what I did:

• You just grab a list of your games from GOG (don’t worry, I explain how to do this — since GOG gives no easy export option, had to get creative).
• Upload that CSV to my site.
• It fetches current prices from GOG, calculates your total value, base prices, and savings.
• You get to download the results as a CSV or as a cool little trading card-style badge image.

I'm a CS student (cooked ), and this is kinda my first real utility site — so I’d love feedback, suggestions, criticism, anything really.
Will try to make a video walkthrough soon for those who need visual instructions.
Let me know if anything breaks, or if there's something you'd want to see added.

yes It’s hosted on Vercel for now because, well… it’s free and I’m broke
The ads are just me playing around with how a “real” implementation might look — not trying to cash out or anything, just testing stuff in the wild.

---

Where is your Q&A?

You might remember in my last news post I shared I mentioned that I have been chatting to the lead dev of a program which makes piracy on a jailbroken (Custom Firmware or CFW) Nintendo Switch. The program works as a replica to the official Nintndo eShop except...it’s not filled with shit, ironically. And it doesn’t slow to a crawl to search through.

Anyway, it’s a piracy portal. I wanted to interview them with the idea of getting a glimpse behind why they do it, how they do it, how they justify doing it. All without sharing the name of this program, or the name of the dev.

Anyway, they’ve been a little busy, I’ve shared my side with them and am still waiting on their responses before I format it up and add some pictures, generally make it fit to view on Lemmy here.

Anyway, it’s coming soon, just to let you know!

---

Switch 2 Compatibility Tracker:

Speaking of Switch, someone has made a webpage which tracks Switch 2 compatibility with Switch 1 games:

*I saw that the lists here don't update regularly (last updated June 5), and that Nintendo says to check individual eShop pages for updated information. So, I made a webpage that scrapes the eShop for up-to-date information. Check it out! Feedback is welcome!

The GitHub page for the tracker is here and updates twice daily!

---

Junk Store’s Pricing Revealed:

The next iteration of Junk Store is close to launching. Promising emulation, more store-fronts and even (planned, not there yet!) cloud saves. Currently Junk Store works as a plugin via Decky Loader on your Steam Deck – install the plugin and from the gaming mode on your Steam Deck you can enjoy Epic Games titles. With a paid extension to that (a one-off purchase of $6) you can also enjoy GOG games.

The next iteration will be a subscription model, and I’ll share Junk Store’s own words on their announcement below:

Tldr:

Junk Store is almost ready. It’s a full rebuild — faster, more stable, no Decky required, and packed with new features. Pricing is USD$40/year with a 7-day free trial, and you keep everything released during your subscription.

The open-source version remains available. Early supporters get a discount, and we’re rolling out in waves to keep things sustainable.

The Longer Version

We’re close to launching the new version of Junk Store — rebuilt from the ground up after over a year of work. It’s faster, more stable, and adds major features like Amazon support, a download queue, and simplified extension generation (no coding needed). This version is fully standalone — no more Decky required — and is based on everything we learned from the original.
We know pricing will be a sticking point for some, so here’s the plan:

• $40 (USD) for 12 months of updates
• Includes all extension presets (currently GOG, Epic, Amazon — more to come)
• You keep everything released during your subscription
• Renewal is $40/year
• 7-day free trial — cancel anytime (Stripe handles billing)

To keep things sustainable, we’ll be rolling out in waves. Hosting and bandwidth aren’t free — and based on the original version’s download volume, opening the gates all at once would sink us. Existing supporters will be onboarded first and get a discount that reflects their earlier contributions.
We also want to clear up a few things:
* This version does not share code with the open-source one.
* The free, open-source version will remain available.
* Junk Store does not handle any credentials except its own.

We expect a few bumps early on — this is new code, and no software survives first contact with the public. But it’s already been battle-tested internally and testers.
What’s Next?

If all goes well, we’re planning:

• Itch.io support (and possibly EA, Ubisoft, Battle.net)
• Cloud saves (done right)
• Game-specific presets
• Better extension creation tools
• Full localisation
• Community extension sharing
• Automated updates

For a more detailed breakdown head [to this link] here
Thanks again to everyone who’s supported this journey. We’re almost there.
Game on.

So, what do you think? Will you be trying Junk Store out? I think Gardiner is planning a video showcasing what it does and how it does it, closer to the date if that helps you visualize what it’s capable of!

---

Retro Gaming Finds:

---

I’ve just come across a few fun retro gaming-centric things, so while they’re not at all news-worthy in the hard news sense, they’re amazing in every way and I’d be remiss to not add them to their own section here. If you’ve interest in older games (by my sense because I am so young what is ‘old’ might make you cringe), so settle back and enjoy these ones:

Underwater:

Just someone’s custom bathroom efforts, which seems totally appropriate here:

PS1 Concept Logos:

PC-88:

The PC88 was an 8-bit computer that was dominant in Japan in the 1980s, and has a bit of a reputation for very pixel-y blocky boxy graphics. What comes out beautifully though are the city-scapes in the games. The images will follow, but in order they appear from the following games:

• Tien Gow Pia Special (1989)
• Can Can Bunny (1989)
• Snatcher (1988)
• Misty Blue (1990)
• Burning Point (1989)
• Imitation wa Aisenai (1989)
• Can Can Bunny Superior (1990)
• Paragon Sexa Doll (1989)

Costanza:

Yep, George owned a Virtual Boy. I also think it’s pretty funny that the series has him as the fat one and by today’s standards he’s honestly pretty trim. Weird. Sad about our society now, I think. Anyway, Virtual Boy here:

Wall Art:

It’s amazing, but if you wanna be totally accurate to the time:

• DK has a tie on, whereas the original does not
• ‘jumpman’ should have red overalls and a blue shirt
• Peach is used instead of Pauline

Michael Jackson:

Keen eyes may spot that it is GoldenEye in the N64 there, next to his throne.

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# That’s that for this week!

Sorry again that it’s been a little smaller than as is typical, I have a lot on my plate right now but I do plan the next to resume my typical way-too-many-words standard I seem to have set for myself!

Previous Posts:

If you’d like to read my previous Gaming News posts (they’re mounting up in number now!), then you can find them here:

• Steam Deck / Gaming News #2
• Steam Deck / Gaming News #3
• Steam Deck / Gaming News #4
• Steam Deck / Gaming News #5
• Steam Deck / Gaming News #6
• Steam Deck / Gaming News #7
• Steam Deck / Gaming News #8
• Steam Deck / Gaming News #9
• Steam Deck / Gaming News #10
• Steam Deck / Gaming News #11
• Steam Deck / Gaming News #12
• Steam Deck / Gaming News #13
• Steam Deck / Gaming News #14
• Steam Deck / Gaming News #15
• Steam Deck / Gaming News #16
• Steam Deck / Gaming News #17
• Steam Deck / Gaming News #18
• Steam Deck / Gaming News #19
• Steam Deck / Gaming News #20

Mastodon:

I do tend to post there each and every day, 99.99% gaming nonsense. If you want more of this, then come drop by!

cross-posted from: rss.ponder.cat/post/215357

Flock, the automatic license plate reader (ALPR) company with a presence in thousands of communities across the U.S., has stopped agencies across the country from searching cameras inside Illinois, California, and Virginia, 404 Media has learned. The dramatic moves come after 404 Media revealed local police departments were repeatedly performing lookups around the country on behalf of ICE, a Texas officer searched cameras nationwide for a woman who self-administered an abortion, and lawmakers recently signed a new law in Virginia. Ordinarily Flock allows agencies to opt into a national lookup database, where agencies in one state can access data collected in another, as long as they also share their own data. This practice violates multiple state laws which bar the sharing of ALPR data out of state or it being accessed for immigration or healthcare purposes.

The changes also come after a wave of similar coverage in local and state-focused media outlets, with many replicating our reporting to learn more about what agencies are accessing Flock cameras in their communities and for what purpose. The Illinois Secretary of State is investigating whether Illinois police departments broke the law by sharing data with outside agencies for immigration or abortion related reasons. Some police departments have also shut down the data access after learning it was being used for immigration purposes.

“Some states, like California, do not allow any sharing across state borders. For those states, Flock has disabled National Lookup to make compliance easier,” Flock CEO Garrett Langley wrote in a public blog post on June 19.

In that blog post, titled “Setting the Record Straight: Statement on Flock Network Sharing, Use Cases, and Federal Cooperation,” Langley says he is writing to provide transparency on “recent clickbait-driven reporting and social media rumors that mischaracterize Flock’s LPR devices.” Rather than refuting any of our reporting, he instead explains that as a result of it, Flock has decided to perform numerous internal audits about how police are using the network that exactly aligns with 404 Media’s reporting, and that Flock has decided to make specific changes to how Flock works to ensure that local police are complying with state data sharing laws, which include disabling the national lookup tool in California.

That post followed another published by the company a few days earlier, which discussed an audit Flock conducted on what agencies were accessing data in Illinois. “Since we initiated the audit in May, 47 agencies have been removed from access to Illinois data,” that blog post reads.

Flock has also removed the national lookup feature for cameras in Virginia, according to an internal Flock message viewed by 404 Media. 404 Media granted the source who shared it anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the press. On Tuesday a Flock spokesperson confirmed in an email to 404 Media that the changes to Virginia data access are complete.

In May, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin signed a new law which will limit the use of such data to specific criminal investigations, human trafficking, stolen vehicles, and missing persons cases, the local TV outlet WAVY reported. The law comes into effect July 1, the report added.

Flock cameras work by continuously scanning the plates, model, and color of vehicles driving by. Law enforcement can then access data collected from their own cameras, but Flock also allows state and nationwide lookups. For a nationwide search, agencies are able to search other police departments’ cameras if they in turn make theirs available for search. But this can result in illegal data sharing if such access violates state law.

💡****Do you know anything else about Flock? We would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message Joseph securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send him an email at joseph@404media.co. Jason's Signal is jason.404****

404 Media reported in May that local police around the country were performing Flock lookups on behalf of ICE. That included lookups on cameras administered by the Danville, Illinois Police Department, triggering the audit there. 404 Media also reported cops in California are illegally sharing Flock data with agencies out of state, and searched cameras related to an “immigration protest.”

Flock says it conducted an internal audit of agencies that had access to Illinois data. If an agency was found to have affirmed compliance with Illinois law while also conducting multiple searches using reasons impermissible under state law, then Flock revoked their access to Illinois data. Flock also wrote that “All out of state agencies with access to Illinois data are being re-educated on Illinois-specific legal requirements and product functionality,” and that the company is placing new emphasis on “responsible sharing, with updated training content, in-product guidance, and communications to reinforce compliance.”

Flock also said it launched a new tool that blocks impermissible searches in real time. “If a search involving Illinois camera data includes terms that indicate an impermissible purpose under Illinois law, the Illinois data will automatically be excluded,” the company wrote.

Flock said it also has plans for an AI-based tool that will identify suspicious searches and allow agencies to require case numbers when their cameras are searched (as opposed to the vague reasons such as “immigration” in some of the data 404 Media obtained).

404 Media’s investigation into local police departments performing Flock lookups for ICE was based on a “Network Audit” obtained by researchers by public records requests. A Network Audit shows what agency searched another agency's Flock cameras, and for what stated purpose. The investigation into a Flock search performed for “had an abortion, search for female,” was based on Network Audits from other police departments obtained by 404 Media. The sheriff in that case said the family was worried for the woman’s safety and so authorities used Flock in an attempt to locate her.

Since publishing those articles and much of the related data, other outlets have dug into the information themselves. For example, Suncoast Searchlight used the data we published to find the Florida Highway Patrol tapped Flock cameras to aid immigration crackdowns; the Evanston Roundtable used it to find its police department shared access to its cameras with agencies that performed searches related to immigration; the Central Current reports officials in Syracuse, New York, are investigating their data sharing practices the outlet reviewed the data; and KUSA-TV Denver found Loveland Police Department’s Flock cameras were used for “ICE” searches.

And several cities have decided not to renew or expand their contracts with Flock. The City of Austin let its contract with Flock lapse, in part because of concerns around ICE access to the data. The City of San Marcos decided to not place additional cameras in the city. The San Marcos Police Department also changed their policy to require outside law enforcement agencies to file a request concerning a specific crime in order to receive Flock data, Spectrum News 1 reported.

The Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety said it blocked outside access to its cameras after learning the data was being searched by departments “focused on immigration-related violations,” local media reported.

“License plate readers can serve as an important tool for law enforcement, but these cameras must be regulated so they aren’t abused for surveillance, tracking the data of innocent people or criminalizing lawful behavior. No one seeking legal healthcare services in Illinois should face harassment or jail—period,” Secretary Giannoulias told 404 Media in a statement.

Flock declined to comment further on its changes to California data access.

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From 404 Media via this RSS feed

https://winbuzzer.com/2025/06/25/microsoft-pivots-offers-free-windows-10-updates-after-end-of-life-deadline-with-a-strategic-catch-xcxwbn/

Lenovo Legion Go S gets better frame rates running Valve’s free operating system.

Games run faster on SteamOS than Windows 11, Ars testing finds

^{Kyle Orland (Ars Technica)}

caitlinjohnst.one/p/after-deny…




https://x.com/FranceskAlbs/status/1936913191369343452

80% of the country has been destroyed, 100% of the population displaced, 50% of the deaths children(, 0 solution has been seriously discussed), ... :

https://x.com/dn_osama_rabee/status/1933093727423095151
https://x.com/translatingpal/status/1936134624620540307
https://x.com/ryangrim/status/1936555053768171996
...

17% would only comparable to the second Congo war(, 1998-2003, 3-5M out of ~30M, mostly civilians from starvation or diseases), or the Korean war(, 1950-1953, 1.5-2M out of 9M, mostly from US bombings), otherwise, a.f.a.i.k., the only relatively recent recorded historical events with a higher percentage are genocides(, that have even reached an unbelievable 90% in two cases).

https://x.com/caitoz/status/1926467525488889926

Gotta keep 'em separated so the marketers and snoops can't come out and play

Psylo browser tries to obscure digital fingerprints by giving every tab its own IP address

: Gotta keep 'em separated so the marketers and snoops can't come out and play

^{Thomas Claburn (The Register)}

A bipartisan group of senators have reintroduced a bill requiring app stores to support sideloading and alternative payments systems.

US senators reintroduce bill to open Apple and Google's app stores

^{Ian Carlos Campbell (Engadget)}

"Great optics if you want to ignite a revolution," remarked one observer.

Medicaid Defenders in Wheelchairs Arrested Ahead of Senate Vote on 'Betrayal of a Bill'

^{brett-wilkins (Common Dreams)}

Link without the paywall

archive.ph/OgKUM

Meta wins AI copyright case in blow to authors

Court finds using online books to train artificial intelligence models without writers’ consent is ‘fair use’

^{Cristina Criddle (Financial Times)}

Rights advocates and Democratic officials are outraged by the Trump administration and Florida Republicans' plan to build "Alligator Alcatraz" in the Everglades to detain migrants.

'Alligator Alcatraz' Denounced as Epitome of GOP Dehumanization and Cruelty Toward Migrants

"There's no clearer illustration of the brutality of the Trump administration than robbing funds from cities supporting asylum-seekers to build...

^{jessica-corbett (Common Dreams)}

Microsoft has been hit with a lawsuit by a group of authors who claim the company used their books without permission to train its Megatron artificial intelligence model.

Case file: fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/…

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/microsoft-sued-by-authors-over-use-books-ai-training-2025-06-25/

Chinese and Hong Kong scientists succeed in animal trials, but potential problems include risk of devices being left in body and public suspicions

Archived version: archive.is/20250625171031/theg…

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

Swarms of tiny nose robots could clear infected sinuses, researchers say

^{Robert Booth (The Guardian)}

Simon Willison talks about ChatGPT’s new memory dossier feature. In his explanation, he illustrates how much the LLM—and the company—knows about its users. It’s a big quote, but I want you to read it all.

The family members of a U.S. citizen who was taken into custody by federal agents in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday are demanding answers as she was detained while on her way to work.

Andrea Velez, a Cal Poly Pomona grad working in merchandising at a shoe company, had just been dropped off by her mother and sister for the workday when they saw her being taken into custody, adding they had barely even driven a block before the arrest began.

"They didn't have vests that said ICE or anything," said Velez's sister Estrella Rosas. "Their cars didn't have license plates."

She says that her mother was driving away when she looked in her rearview mirror at what was described by police as immigration enforcement.

"In the rear mirror she saw my sister was kinda, like, attacked from the back and she was already on the floor," Rosas said.

Video shows a growing crowd of onlookers yelling as officers surround the 32-year-old woman. Her family members were too scared to get out, as Rosas' mother has residency but not full U.S. citizenship.

They're also worried that Velez may have been holding pepper spray, which they say she always carries in her hand when walking downtown, when agents approached her.

Witnesses told CBS News Los Angeles that no one asked for her identification, but her family believes that it was nothing she actually did that led to her arrest, but rather the way she looks.

"Just because of the color of our skin, they think we're criminals," Rosas said. "My sister was there, so they were like, 'Oh, she looks Hispanic, so let's take her too.'"

As of Tuesday night, they have still not been able to find out where Velez is being held and are worried it could be days before they finally do.

CBS News Los Angeles has reached out to the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement for information on Velez's arrest but has not yet heard back. An inquiry was also made asking how agents check a person's status when they first come into contact, and how they find the people they're targeting in enforcement operations.

Some of the video circulating online, showing Velez's arrest, also shows a group of Los Angeles police who appear to be aiding federal agents in the immigration operations.

Later Tuesday, officers told CBS News Los Angeles that they were called to the area after receiving a 911 call reporting a kidnapping at the location. When they arrived, they say that they saw that a federal immigration operation was underway and stayed to maintain peace because they were concerned by the growing crowd and the federal agents.

Family members outraged as U.S. citizen detained by federal agents in downtown LA on way to work

Andrea Velez, a Cal Poly Pomona grad, was taken into custody while being dropped off at work by family members

^{Laurie Perez (CBS Los Angeles)}

La Pro Loco Faenza organizza un ciclo di visite guidate serali nei “Martedì d’Estate”, alla scoperta di luoghi insoliti e storie affascinanti della città. Quattro appuntamenti curati da guide turistiche abilitate della Regione Emilia-Romagna, con inizio alle 20.45 e ritrovo presso la sede Pro Loco (Voltone Molinella).

Quota di partecipazione: 3 euro. Prenotazione obbligatoria, posti limitati. Consigliata la prenotazione dalla settimana precedente.

Programma:

1° luglio – “Farmacie d’arte”
Tour in tre farmacie storiche (Sansoni, Zanotti, Duomo), tra arredi antichi, architetture e arte. Percorso accessibile, tranne un primo piano non adatto a persone con mobilità ridotta.

8 luglio – “I 120 anni del Sarti”
Dalla sua nascita a teatro a cinema, un viaggio dietro le quinte e nelle trasformazioni del Teatro Sarti.

15 luglio – “Il Ridotto del Masini e la Galleria dei Cento Pacifici”
Un’immersione nell’eleganza neoclassica tra architetture, sculture e affreschi del Ridotto del Teatro Masini e della Galleria dei Cento Pacifici.

22 luglio – “Storie di uomini e paesi”
Passeggiata all’interno del Museo di Palazzo Laderchi per scoprire la Faenza tra XIX e XX secolo attraverso volti, memorie e trasformazioni della città.

Info e prenotazioni:
Pro Loco Iat Faenza – Voltone Molinella 2
📞 0546 25231 ✉️ info@prolocofaenza.it
🌐 www.prolocofaenza.it

Orari ufficio (maggio-settembre):
Lun–Sab: 9.30-12.30 / 15.30-18.30 | Dom e festivi: 9.30-12.30

Faenza (Ra): Visite guidate della Pro Loco per i "Martedì d'Estate" (1-8-15-22 luglio 2025) - ViaggieMiraggi

PRO LOCO FAENZA: “MARTEDÌ D’ESTATE – VISITE GUIDATE ALLA SCOPERTA DI FAENZA” Tra i retropalchi dei teatri e gli antichi arredi delle farmacie storiche, la Pro Loco Faenza in occasione dei “Martedì d’Estate”, organizza un ciclo di visite guidate seral…

^{Redazione (ViaggieMiraggi)}