Feed aggregator

A 22-year-old man is facing fraud and identity theft charges in a skimming investigation that spans the state.

According to Watsonville police, the investigation started earlier this month when an employee found a skimming device during a routine ATM maintenance check at Bay Federal Credit Union in the 2000 block of Freedom Boulevard.

Criminals place skimming devices on ATMs and other card readers to steal customers’ financial information.

Surveillance footage helped WPD identify a car connected to the suspect and led officers to a second skimming device at the Bay Federal Credit Union in the 1400 block of Main Street. Police said at least 500 card transactions occurred at the two ATMs while the devices were in place, potentially compromising the financial information of hundreds of people.

As the investigation continued, officers identified additional vehicles connected to the suspect and used Flock Safety alerts to help establish their movements and connections to the case. Investigators also learned the suspect was connected to skimming devices at banks in Monterey County.

WPD obtained an arrest warrant for Mihia Ionita and shared the information with other law enforcement agencies. On Wednesday night, the Tustin Police Department received a Flock Safety alert for the suspect’s vehicle and located and arrested Ionita. He faces multiple fraud and identity theft charges.

“The use of Flock Safety cameras played a critical role in solving this case,” WPD said.

WPD asks anyone who used an ATM at either of the local Bay Federal Credit Union locations and believes their information was compromised to review their account activity and call Detective Edgar Rivera at 831.768.3354.

Teresa sat across from a hiring manager, answering interview questions in English. Although she had been studying English with her literacy tutor, they hadn’t reached the lesson on job interviews yet. But Teresa (a pseudonym, used to protect her privacy) applied for the caregiving role on her own. She got the job, and has since scored 100% on the English training exams.

Since 1967, the Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz County’s Adult Literacy program has paired adult learners like Teresa with volunteer tutors, teaching English one lesson, one conversation, one milestone at a time. The mission hasn’t changed in nearly six decades: language should be a bridge to belonging, not a barrier.

That mission has rarely felt more urgent. Nearly one in four Santa Cruz County adults struggles with basic English literacy, cutting people off from everyday parts of life — getting help in an emergency, filling out a job application, or helping a child with homework. The Literacy Program closes that gap, connecting neighbors not just to English, but to opportunity, safety, and community.

That’s true for Leila, who called 911 the day she witnessed an emergency. Because of what she’d practiced with her tutor, she gave the address, explained the situation clearly, and got help on the way. It’s true for volunteer Pamela Rocco’s student, too, a 48-year-old mother of three who recently landed a better-paying job at a local grocery store, where her new employer has praised her work. “Me das oro,” she tells Pamela almost every time they meet. You give me gold.

Nancy and her volunteer tutor, Tina, built more than English skills together. Since they started working together, Nancy has earned her driver’s license, bought a car, opened a 401(k), and grown her own business.

This year, the program exceeded every performance goal set by the state, who determines funding priorities for literacy programs state-wide. Yet, overall program funding was cut state-wide, leaving the Santa Cruz County program facing a $15,000 shortfall that threatens the student materials, tutor training, and the one part-time coordinator who keep it all running.

Volunteer tutors do more than teach English. They help neighbors navigate daily life — riding the bus, applying for jobs, opening a bank account, talking with a doctor, or asking for a translator at school. These skills strengthen the community for everyone, regardless of their primary language.

How You Can Help

Volunteer as a Literacy Tutor
Join us for a free Literacy Tutor Orientation on Sept. 16 or Sept. 24. No teaching experience required! Learn more & sign up

Donate to Support Tutors and Learners
It costs $1,500 to fully train and equip a new volunteer tutor. A gift of $65 provides the first set of training materials for a tutor–student pair to get started.. Every dollar helps keep the program staffed and strong. Give Here

Spread the Word

Know someone who might be a great tutor? Share this article and invite them to get involved!

Together, we can keep literacy alive in Santa Cruz County — and ensure every neighbor has the chance to belong.

For more information or to sign up, visit scvolunteernow.org/literacy.

About the Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz County

We connect people for good because meaningful service is the heart of a strong, vibrant community. Through programs like Adult Literacy, we match 18,000 volunteers with causes they care about, strengthening 300+ nonprofits while running 19 programs covering mental health, justice, seniors, and families. Our vision is a community where everyone’s gifts matter, kindness is celebrated, and together we build a stronger, healthier, more connected Santa Cruz County. Join us at scvolunteercenter.org.

The post This Santa Cruz County literacy program changes lives: here are three ways you can help appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Alligator Alcatraz, the notorious immigrant detention camp erected in the Florida Everglades last year, routinely held detainees in “small metal enclosures” with just 18 square feet of floor space, a practice that the Department of Homeland Security’s independent watchdog called “highly unconventional and does not align with standards for humane treatment,” according to a DHS Office of Inspector General report.

First revealed by the New York Times on Monday morning, the document provides a rare comprehensive glimpse of life inside the facility, erected by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration last year.  Consisting of several soft-sided tents on a remote airfield surrounded by swampland, Alligator Alcatraz at its peak housed up to 1,500 immigrant detainees when DHS was short on detention beds in other facilities. As I’ve reported throughout the last year, since its opening in the summer of 2025, Alligator Alcatraz was criticized for its treatment of the migrants, with advocates noting that the tents were prone to flooding. There were also mosquito infestations, limited access to legal counsel, and food scarcity. The state of Florida officially closed it in June, citing the threat of hurricane season.

The report is based on an unannounced inspection by the DHS Office of Inspector General in January. They concluded that while the detention camp did adhere to intake and use-of-force standards, they discovered several violations. Most notably, the use by detention staff of tight metal enclosures to confine a total of 79 people for periods of time ranging from a few minutes to up to two hours. The metal mesh enclosures, roughly the size of a phone booth, measured about 4 feet by 4 feet and were nearly 8 feet tall. “Facility staff described the small metal enclosures as ‘calming areas’ for detainees to de-escalate and have time alone,” the report states. “Staff further maintained that detainees asked to spend time in the small metal enclosures.” But inspectors found at least one case in which the enclosure was used to discipline someone who failed to comply with a staff order.

Inspectors found several other violations. Each detainee should have at least 75 square feet of living space, but they received only 28 square feet at the camp. During their inspection, OIG officials saw as many as 32 people held within the facility’s eight cell areas. Detainees were also only allowed recreation outside of their housing units three days a week for one hour. As the report noted, “With the limited amount of recreation, detainees could not engage in recreational and exercise programs, which could negatively affect physical and mental health.” Detainees told inspectors that they did not have access to clean drinking water, and inspectors found that they could shower only three days a week—federal detention standards require access to daily showers. 

“The absence of well-defined standards at detention facilities increases the risk that detainees may not receive appropriate care.” 

Corene Kendrick, deputy director at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, called the report “horrifying.” “It confirms and reaffirms the cruelty of Alligator Alcatraz. It backs up everything that the people who were detained at that camp were reporting to advocates about the conditions and the lack of access to legal calls, the lack of access to going outside, the cages that were used as punishment,” Kendrick told me. “At the time when these allegations were being brought up by people in the facility and by their family members and their attorneys, ICE and the state of Florida repeatedly said that that was all made up and that people were exaggerating and it wasn’t true.” But this report, she added, confirms that “people were suffering.” 

After touring the detention center and interviewing staff and detainees, OIG officials found there was a “lack of clarity” on whether Alligator Alcatraz was following state or federal detention standards. The report states, “The absence of well-defined standards at detention facilities increases the risk that detainees may not receive appropriate care.” 

In its response to the Office of Inspector General, DHS officials blamed the state of Florida for the conditions, which the agency says maintained authority over daily operations. But the report noted that ICE personnel were frequently on site and federal funding was used to open and run the detention camp. The state Department of Emergency Management, which ran the camp, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement, Alex Lanfranconi, the communications director for the governor’s office, said: “At least ten million illegal aliens entered our country under the Biden administration. Florida decided to do something about it. The left-wing media wants to focus on a confinement area for violent criminal aliens who have proven they cannot remain peaceful while awaiting deportation. While it adheres to all federal standards for criminal confinement, we’d make it even smaller if we could.” 

Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia are filing lawsuits against the Trump administration to prevent the Department of Homeland Security from changing the “public charge” rule, increasing the power of federal immigration officials to deny green card and visa applicants based on their potential future participation in federal aid programs.

A separate lawsuit was filed the same day on behalf of Democratic cities including New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle.

Traditionally, immigration officers looked at whether applicants relied on programs like Supplemental Security Income and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. But the Trump administration now wants to expand that to penalize applicants who are enrolled in Medicaid or receive food stamps.

“Under @POTUS Trump, DHS is restoring the basic principle that immigrants must be able to support themselves,” DHS announced earlier this summer, before the lawsuit was filed. “We are reaffirming the requirement of self-reliance, protecting public resources, and ending policies that encouraged dependency on hard-working American taxpayers.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James zeroed in on that “self-reliance” bit during a press conference on Monday.

“The rule would allow immigration officers to consider use of critical benefits like Medicaid and SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), and even participation in school meal programs, as part of an applicant’s circumstance,” said James. “That means immigrant New Yorkers may be forced to ask themselves impossible questions: ‘Will getting health insurance hurt my chances of getting a green card? Will accepting food assistance when I fall on hard times be held against me?’”

“Cruelty is the point.... Having a chilling effect on immigrants is the point. Letting individuals know that they are not welcome here is the point. Immigration animus is the point,” James continued. “The fact that you’re going to deny individuals who are sick and hungry and homeless benefits just is beyond the pale. And that’s why we are seeking in the state of New York to vacate this rule,” she said.

This rule change, if accepted, will also incur a massive chilling effect, leading green card and visa applicants and their families to avoid engaging with federal programs at all, even if they’re legal and needed.

“No family should have to choose between accessing healthcare and nutrition assistance today — or protecting their pathway to a green card tomorrow,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said. “The Trump Administration is seeking to rewrite more than 100 years of law with its expansive new definition of who is considered a ‘public charge.’ In doing so, it is providing individual immigration officers with the discretion and power to punish families for lawfully accessing certain public benefits programs during short-term periods of need. This Administration’s cruelty continues to know no bounds. We’re going to court on behalf of the millions of immigrants who call this state home — and we will fight to get this unlawful rule undone.”

The public charge policy change is scheduled to take effect on Friday.

America’s billionaire president is preaching to his followers that the threat of artificial intelligence is a “hoax.”

“Concerning AI, when, in the History of Business, did anyone see the Leaders of an Industry call for Regulation that, if strongly implemented, will drive them into oblivion and bankruptcy?” Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday afternoon. “AI taking over the World, destroying Humanity, and all other things bad, is a HOAX.”

Trump compared the latest national furor over artificial intelligence (sparked by industry insiders) to several other controversies that have plagued his presidency, including the investigation into Russian collusion in his 2016 presidential campaign, the Ukraine war, and both impeachment efforts against him.

The AI uproar is “no different from RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA—UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE—IMPEACHMENT HOAX #1—IMPEACHMENT HOAX #2—and all of the other HOAXES and SCAMS that America was forced to endure through the Destructionists’ and Deviants’ foul play and illegal conduct,” Trump wrote.

He added that he is “not happy” about the backlash, which he suggested has placed America in a backseat position amid the global race to dominate the burgeoning technology. He cited Google’s €13 billion deal with Finland to build out the company’s AI infrastructure, as well as Beijing’s recent dismissal of Silicon Valley’s urgent warnings to develop and implement AI safeguards (former Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon cautioned last week that, in private, the people building large language models have expressed it could be capable of killing all humans by the end of the decade.)

“AI, and Data Centers, will be the Greatest Economic Development Engine in History—Bigger than Oil, Gold, Diamonds, or even the Internet. It will not be stopped by brilliantly run Destructive Forces during the Term of President DONALD J. TRUMP!” he concluded.

Trump has a lot to politically—and personally—gain from championing AI. Days into his second term, the president unveiled a $500 billion public-private venture to support AI development. The project was dubbed Stargate and backed by OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX, an AI investment firm owned by the United Arab Emirates.

The president’s 2026 financial disclosures also reveal that he’s invested a sizable sum in tech companies pursuing AI projects, spending millions of dollars on stock purchases for Oracle, Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta, Amazon, Apple, and Alphabet.

But Trump’s opinion on the matter is seriously at odds with that of the American public. Recent polling indicates that the vast majority of Americans, including Republicans, have no interest in permitting the tech industry to build AI facilities in their backyards. An August survey published by Heatmap revealed that 75 percent of the public opposes data center development in their communities.

The growing divide between the president’s sentiments and the reality lived by the American public should serve as a reminder that Trump—who is worth an estimated $6.5 billion and owns hundreds of business entities and properties around the world—has almost nothing in common with the rest of the country. Trump will never be hard pressed to find drinking water like the residents of Flint, Michigan; apparently doesn’t have to buy (or even pronounce) America’s increasingly expensive “groceries”; and will never experience the crushing toll of the housing crisis (a “big yawn,” he called it in June, while profiting off it) or need to split the cost at the gas pump between credit cards.

Last month, Trump even went so far as to claim that anyone who opposes data center development is “backwards and poor,” a sobering reminder that Trump simply does not care about the average American.

An oak tree in Henry Coe State Park. (Nik Altenberg — Santa Cruz Local file)

Shothole borer beetle meetings

• 10 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 15 at Felton Branch Library community room, 6121 Gushee St., Felton.
• 9:30 a.m. Friday, Sept. 18 at London Nelson Community Center, 301 Center St., Room 4, Santa Cruz.
• To report suspected damage from the beetles call the Santa Cruz County Department of Agriculture at (831) 763-8080.

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY >> Two meetings are planned this week to share information about an invasive beetle that threatens an unknown number of trees in Santa Cruz County.

An infestation of the invasive beetles was first detected along Zayante Creek near Felton in 2024. Called shothole borer beetles, the tiny insects hail from Southeast Asia and are problematic locally because they bore into trees and bring a deadly fungus with them which can cause tree dieback. The female beetles, generally a bit larger than males, are about 3.78 mm long or roughly 5/32 of an inch.

The beetles are known to affect trees across urban, rural and agricultural areas. In Santa Cruz County, box elders have suffered the most destruction but the beetles have also been found in California sycamore, coast live oak, willow and black cottonwood trees.

(function() { window.mc4wp = window.mc4wp || { listeners: [], forms: { on: function(evt, cb) { window.mc4wp.listeners.push( { event : evt, callback: cb } ); } } } })(); Stay informed on Santa Cruz County’s biggest issues. Santa Cruz Local’s newsletter breaks down complex local topics and shows residents how to get involved. Email address:
mc4wp.forms.on('subscribed', function(form) { // gtag.js if(form.id == '6954') { gtag('event', 'subscribe', {'event_category': 'newsletter_prompt', 'event_label':'top_of_story'}); } }); Leave this field empty if you're human:

The County of Santa Cruz and UC Cooperative Extension are planning two meetings this week to inform residents about the issue, how to identify an infestation and how the community can help tackle the problem.

Signs of an infestation may include “small, round entry holes, wet staining, gumming, boring dust or sugary buildup on trees,” according to a county press release. Dieback from the fungus could cause “pale and wilted leaves and branch dieback,” according to the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources website.

If an infestation is suspected, residents are asked to call the county Department of Agriculture at (831) 763-8080. A shothole borer detection assessment and more information about the insects are available on the website. 

The species found in Santa Cruz County was the first instance of the greater shothole borer detected on the West Coast. Related species of shothole borers were first identified in Southern California in 2012 in a backyard avocado tree and have since caused the loss of tens of thousands of trees.

U.S. Forest Service researchers estimated in a 2017 study that 27 million urban trees in and around Los Angeles County could ultimately be lost to the beetle. The extent of the threat to trees in Santa Cruz County is unclear.

Questions or comments? Email info@santacruzlocal.org. Santa Cruz Local is supported by members, major donors, sponsors and grants for the general support of our newsroom. Our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support. Learn more about Santa Cruz Local and how we are funded.

Learn about membership Santa Cruz Local’s news is free. We believe that high-quality local news is crucial to democracy. We depend on locals like you to make a meaningful contribution so everyone can access our news. Learn about membership

The post Learn to identify invasive beetles that threaten trees in Santa Cruz County appeared first on Santa Cruz Local.

Staff at Alligator Alcatraz called them “calming areas.” They were really cages.

A new report Monday revealed that the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General discovered two metal cages, roughly the size of a phone booth, where immigrant detainees were kept at Alligator Alcatraz, the Trump administration’s soft-sided concentration camp in the Florida Everglades.

Between the camp’s hasty construction in July 2025 and its official closure in January 2026, at least 79 detainees were held in these small outdoor cages, according to the report. Immigrant detainees would spend between seven minutes and two hours in the enclosures, each four feet three inches wide and seven feet nine inches tall.

Staff claimed that detainees would request time in these so-called “calming areas,” and that they were never even locked. Both cages, however, included locking mechanisms.

The OIG found one instance in which a “calming area” may have been used as a disciplinary tool. Documentation provided to the OIG noted that one detainee who spent 26 minutes in a small metal enclosure had “failed to comply with a lawful command.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed that the cages were used for “disciplinary issues, crisis intervention, housing changes, and conflicts among detainees,” according to the report.

In March, Democratic Senators Jon Ossoff and Dick Durbin wrote a letter to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and then–ICE Director Todd Lyons over concerns that immigrants were being kept in a small structure called “the box,” where they were “held in stress positions with hands and feet tightly shackled for hours at a time, in direct sunlight with no access to food or water.”

The OIG could not confirm these claims, but stated that the use of these cages was “highly unconventional” and did not align with the standards for humane treatment.

“Use of these small metal enclosures for any reason is unprecedented among ICE facilities inspected by OIG,” the report stated. “Confining individuals in small metal enclosures for any reason presents significant risks to detainee health and well-being.”

Alligator Alcatraz has been the source of dozens of disturbing reports of inhumane treatment. Detainees at the soft-sided facility reported flooding in the tents, worm-infested food, behemoth bugs, no access to running water, and widespread violations of immigrants’ legal rights.

A former corrections officer at Alligator Alcatraz previously claimed that detainees were being kept in a “human-sized kennel.” One detainee told CBS News: “We’re human beings; we’re not dogs. We’re like rats in an experiment.”

Computer security researchers have identified a design flaw in modern encryption hardware that allows access to protected memory in notionally confidential computing environments. But the attacker would need physical access to the victim system. Boffins affiliated with KU Leuven, ETH Zurich, Durham University, and Google have found that scalable memory encryption hardware fails to check whether the data in memory is fresh. As a result, they've been able to devise a small hardware interposer, dubbed DDRop, that when wired to an appropriate circuit board, interferes with DDR5 write operations. Unable to tell that memory isn't fresh, a protected VM becomes vulnerable to a replay attack that uses stale, attacker-selected data. They describe their work in a paper titled, "DDRop: Active Memory Interposer Attacks on Confidential VMs by Dropping DDR5 Writes." Their attack requires physical access and so it is relevant mainly in scenarios where confidential computing guarantees have been made to tenants by cloud service providers. "DDRop uses a custom-built 'interposer': a small, custom-designed circuit board, costing under $200, that sits between the processor and a memory module," explained Jo Van Bulck, a professor in the DistriNet lab at KU Leuven, Belgium, in an email to The Register. "It corrupts commands on the high-speed DDR5 memory bus to silently drop writes to encrypted memory. The protected VM keeps computing on old data that still decrypts perfectly. We are releasing the complete interposer design as open-source hardware." The attack breaks the integrity of Intel TDX, Scalable SGX, and AMD SEV-SNP, used in trusted execution environments (TEEs). Van Bulck and colleagues Jesse De Meulemeester, Stefan Gloor, Patrick Jattke, Daniel Moghimi, David Oswald, Martin Thompson, Kaveh Razavi, and Ingrid Verbauwhede developed a proof-of-concept attack on a current Intel TDX server. "By injecting maliciously crafted secure page-table entries, we can force any protected VM into debug mode and read out its private memory in plaintext," said Van Bulck. "Furthermore, writing to critical TDX metadata structures enables forged attestation reports, so that a backdoored VM appears trusted to the remote user." Both attacks, said Van Bulck, succeed deterministically in under two minutes without crashing the machine. Several of these researchers developed a similar attack on DDR4. But Van Bulck said this is the first active interposer attack on DDR5. "DDR5’s redesigned command bus prevents the address-aliasing tricks used by Battering RAM, and until now, only considerably weaker passive attacks had been demonstrated on DDR5: TEE.fail monitors the data bus using bulky, second-hand logic analyzers that are easier to detect and require slowing the memory bus to its lowest speed to observe ciphertext patterns, which can be masked in software," he explained. DDRop differs in that it alters DDR5 bus traffic at full speed. According to Van Bulck, it's the first attack to subvert TDX's trusted management interface without exploiting a software bug. It also reduces the cost of prior interposition attacks that took an estimated $170,000 in lab equipment to perform. There's no easy fix for Intel's and AMD's current scalable memory-encryption designs, said Van Bulck, and no simple software or hardware patch that can address the root cause. "Scalable memory encryption deliberately trades cryptographic freshness (e.g., available in early Intel SGX offerings supporting only 128/256 MB of protected memory) for the ability to protect large amounts of memory in cloud systems," he said. Noting that Intel's Simon Johnson recently discussed memory-interposer attacks at an industry conference, Van Bulck said that planned mitigations like "cache line versioning" still appear to be vulnerable to DDRop. In a security bulletin released on Monday, Intel acknowledged the DDRop disclosure and said the attack is out of scope for its cloud computing threat model. The company said it is "evaluating additional architectural hardening options and detection mechanisms as part of ongoing platform security improvements…" AMD also said the attack is out of scope and no mitigation is planned. ®

A coalition of NFL owners have deemed Macklemore unfit to perform in their stadiums.

The “Thrift Shop” rapper was slated to perform during 10 stops of Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour. That plan was unexpectedly canned Monday, when Sheeran’s representatives announced that the tour would go on without Macklemore after several stadiums across the country banned him from performing.

“As the concert promoter for Ed Sheeran’s U.S. Loop Tour, we have been notified by venues on the upcoming U.S. tour dates that they will not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the lineup, which would result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans,” Messina Touring Group, the promoter of Sheeran’s U.S. tour, told Rolling Stone. “After discussions with stakeholders, Macklemore will not be performing on the remaining support dates.”

Macklemore was more explicit in a post on his Instagram account, claiming that he was booted from the tour after billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft deemed the musician’s brief pro-Palestine speech at New Jersey’s Metlife Stadium too risqué.

“Last Monday, in the middle of all the media attention surrounding P!nk and what I said at Metlife, Ed told me that Robert Kraft called him,” Macklemore wrote.

Kraft owns Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, where Macklemore and Sheeran were scheduled to perform on September 25.

“Ed told me that Kraft said I would not be allowed to perform in his stadium,” Macklemore continued. “Ed also told me that Kraft had rallied some of the other stadium owners and collectively they gave him an ultimatum: if Macklemore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed to play in our venues.”

Macklemore said he had a tough conversation with Sheeran, during which Sheeran insisted on maintaining his apolitical image.

“Taking a side can cost you. Money, brand deals, sponsorships, festivals, private shows, relationships, and access. I’ve lost all those things,” Macklemore continued. “But there is no neutral position between the oppressor and the oppressed.”

Besides Metlife and Gillette Stadiums, Macklemore was scheduled to play alongside Sheeran at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia; Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta,; AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas; Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida; Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida; Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California; SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles; and Lumen Field in Seattle. Nearly all of the stadiums are owned by NFL-affiliated groups or maintain enormous contracts with the football league.

“What I said at Metlife I have been saying on stages around the world for almost three years,” Macklemore continued. “So why is it an issue now? Because I’m sharing a stage with one of the biggest artists in the world, in some of the biggest stadiums in America. At a certain level of exposure, ‘Free Palestine’ becomes too much of a risk.”

No other artist in recent memory has kicked up such a firestorm from the NFL’s powerful billionaire owners. Earlier this year, Ye—better known by his former name, Kanye West—performed at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles and Raymond James Stadium without issue, despite his affinities for Adolf Hitler, the Nazi regime, and his long history of antisemitic remarks.

Chris Brown too has been performing in the same stadiums across the country, despite the fact that he has been accused—and found guilty of—brutalizing multiple people, including his then-girlfriend Rihanna in 2009. Representative Jasmine Crockett even honored Brown onstage during his performance Saturday at AT&T Stadium.

Pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil is suing his alma mater, Columbia University, for failing to protect him and other students from harassment over their activism against Israel’s war in Gaza.

Khalil and other former Columbia students filed a lawsuit against the university in federal court Monday, alleging that Columbia’s administrators ignored their pleas for help against repeated threats as part of a pattern of “deliberate indifference” even before the attacks of October 7, 2023, The New York Times reports.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Khalil in March 2025 at his university apartment building despite the fact that he was a legal permanent resident and had not committed any crimes. He was detained for 104 days and missed the birth of his first child.

This is a developing story.

OpenAI agents appear to have flooded RubyGems with malicious packages, adding to a near-daily deluge of rogue AI models engaging in potentially unlawful activity while their human creators face growing questions over responsibility for their agents’ bad behavior. A swarm of agents began uploading malware to the Ruby package registry on May 5, and flooded RubyGems with more than 2,000 malicious packages between May 11 and May 12, ultimately forcing maintainers to disable new user registration for four days. “We believe these were authored by internal OpenAI agents,” researchers Spencer Kitts, Thomas Larsen, and Sydney Von Arx said on Friday. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed that the model maker is investigating the incident. “Based on our review, our agents used the RubyGems platform to access the internet to carry out benign tasks and retrieve public information," the spokesperson said. "We’ll continue to investigate as part of our broader review of agent activity during training and evaluation.” This same trio of researchers earlier this month said that they found evidence that OpenAI’s swarm hijacked a German wiki months before the AI agents attacked Hugging Face. As they did during the German wiki incident, the agents involved in the RubyGems abuse self-identified as being from OpenAI. Hundreds of the gems included “oai” in their name, and 15 set “oai” as their author. At least one other used “openaixyz65947@gmail.com” as the email address for contact. Also according to the researchers, more than 100 of the malicious packages followed the same exploitation path, submitting a malicious package to the public library and triggering a documentation request to force RubyDoc.info to build the package. OpenAI’s agents then used the build script to run code on RubyDoc.info, scrape targeted websites, and steal data from the documentation server by publishing another gem to the public Ruby language package registry, the researchers said. “Additionally, once the AIs got arbitrary RCE on the build environment, they would sometimes use the build environment to attempt to steal other users’ API keys (though we are unsure if they succeeded or not),” they wrote. The agentic swarm also found and attempted to exploit a zero-day CDN caching bug on May 12 that wasn’t discovered by maintainers until July. The vulnerability would have allowed the AIs to steal users’ API keys. At least six of the malicious packages, including one named slnleaker5, used this security hole, the researchers said. Most of the agentic activity happened in May. After the RubyGems team added security measures such as requiring verified emails for new signups, OpenAI’s agents resumed their efforts on June 18 and published 83 gems over three hours. While the researchers note that they don’t know whether the swarm used a shared message board to communicate, as agents did during the Hugging Face intrusions, they “suspect” the bots were coordinating and likely had some way to exchange information. The researchers also said that it’s “unclear” if or when OpenAI learned that its agents were using RubyGems to scrape publicly available data. “It seems that either their monitors failed to catch it or they did not disclose it,” the trio wrote. This seems to be the case with other recent agentic hacks traced back to OpenAI’s models going rogue during training exercises. To be fair, Anthropic’s bots have also gained unauthorized access to third-party systems over the past few months without being caught at the time by their human supervisors. In light of the increasingly apocalyptic warnings around AI - or perhaps in a self-serving attempt at regulatory capture - several of the industry’s biggest bosses over the weekend backed a collective slowdown of AI training and development, after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned that future agents could become “capable of taking over the entire internet with a persistent botnet.” Meanwhile, President Trump said on Truth Social, "the only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a strong and smart (high IQ!) president," and claimed his administration has stopped "AI 'people' from doing bad, or potentially bad, 'things.'"® Editor's note: This story was amended post-publication with comment from OpenAI.

ALT

Quick Take

• Girl Scouts of USA has announced two new online-exclusive cookies for 2027.
• Sparkables are the group’s first allergy-friendly cookie, and Patch Pals is the first Girl Scout cookie for dogs.
• Nerdist’s Take: It’s always a good year when we get a new Girl Scout cookie. Next year will also be the best year yet for dogs.

We don’t get a new Girl Scouts cookie every year, so when we do, we like to savor the news. We then like to literally savor at least three or four boxes of the latest release. But in 2027 our best furry friends can also get in on the snacking fun. The organization has announced two first-of-its-kind Girl Scouts cookies. There will be a new human option that is also the group’s first allergy-friendly sweet treat. And when you order them for yourself, you’ll also be able to nab the first Girl Scouts cookie made specifically for dogs.

Girl Scouts Girl Scouts New 2027 Cookie Flavor Is Allergy-Friendly

Girl Scouts of the USA revealed that its 2027 cookie collection will feature two all-new, online-exclusive boxes. The first new Girl Scout cookies are meant for people; these are called Girl Scout Sparkables. The organization developed them with Partake so anyone can enjoy them. Sparkables are a “crunchy oatmeal cookie” with chocolate chips and sprinkles. What makes these special is that they “avoid the nine major food allergens,” making them safe to eat for a whole lot people.

Girl Scouts New 2027 Cookie Flavor Is For Dogs

The other new item is not meant for any human. Literally. They are meant for dogs. The Girl Scouts developed their first-ever dog cookies, Patch Pals, with BARK. The doggo dessert is a “soft-baked, blueberry muffin-flavored” dog cookie. Each dog cookie also features one of four “patch” designs meant to represent “iconic Girl Scout experiences.” (Though that element’s more for us than the dogs.)

Not gonna lie: Patch Pals sound really good. Unfortunately for me (or, you know, fortunately), I have a strict “no eating dog food” rule. It’s a personal thing. But I hope many good dogs get to enjoy them.

They will be able to soon enough. You can order your best canine buddy a box of Patch Pals when both they and Sparkables go on sale online starting January 12, 2027. That’s when the full 2027 Girl Scouts cookie season begins. We our dogs will love Girl Scout cookies just as much as we do.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow Mikey on Bluesky at @‌burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post New Girl Scouts Cookies Are for Dogs appeared first on Nerdist.

Quick Take

• A24 has obtained the worldwide distribution rights to V/H/S: SCP, the latest in the anthology horror series, which will adapt wiki horror sensation SCP Foundation.
• The studio hopes to see as much success with the SCP Foundation as they had earlier this year with Backrooms.
• The past several V/H/S movies had gone directly to Shudder, whereas this will go to theaters.
• Nerdist‘s take: It will be cool to give an array of creative people an opportunity to bring their own spin to the horrifying SCP world.

After the success of Backrooms earlier this year, which brought an internet wiki-style creepypasta thing (I’m 42) to the big screen, A24 wants to see if they can do it again. Will another huge, fan-built horror fandom equal large dollars? The studio is hoping so, and that the SCP Foundation will be the thing to do it. A24, along with Spooky Pictures and Image Nation Studios, will bring the internet phenom to the big screen in 2027, as an extension of the V/H/S series. Intriguing.

A24, Spooky Pictures and Image Nation Studios

The SCP Foundation (which stands for “Secure. Contain. Protect.” began in 2008 as a kind of creature-focused X-Files-type thing. If you’ve played Remedy’s Control, that’s a kind of riff on the SCP. From the project’s press release, the SCP Foundation “evolved into a sprawling, collaborative mythology created and expanded by thousands of contributors around the world. Its universe encompasses an enormous library of anomalous objects, entities, phenomena and stories, and has inspired games, short films, web series and a deeply engaged global fan community.”

A24 will hold worldwide rights to the project and co-produce Roy Lee and Steven Schneider for Spooky Pictures, alongside Josh Goldbloom, who has produced several V/H/S features including V/H/S/94, V/H/S/99 and V/H/S/Halloween, and Michael Schreiber, who has also worked across V/H/S titles including V/H/S/94 and V/H/S/Beyond. That series had found at home with Shudder over the past several years. At one point, the SCP movie was going to just be another direct-to-Shudder V/H/S before A24 swooped in.

Shudder

Image Nation Studios’ CEO Ben Ross and Spooky Pictures Co-Founders Roy Lee and Steven Schneider said:

“Internet lore is quickly rising as a compelling source of new stories for the horror genre, bringing with it built-in, highly devoted audiences. As fans increasingly seek out fresh scares, we’re focused on tapping into the most compelling online worlds in which talent already live, such as the vast SCP universe, and helping them make the leap to the big screen. With A24’s expertise in nurturing and elevating internet-born phenomena like Backrooms into major theatrical success, they’re the ideal partner for V/H/S: SCP and we can’t wait to expand the franchise with new, spine-chilling stories together.”

Variety is one of the best things about both the V/H/S series and the SCP Foundation. If the creators of the film plan to dramatize some of the fandom’s most popular SCPs in the movie, I think it’ll make people very happy. Unlike Kane Parsons with Backrooms, the SCP Foundation doesn’t have a particular creator who has risen to the top of the heap. It will be cool to give an array of creative people an opportunity to bring their own spin to the horrifying world.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.

The post Internet Horror Sensation SCP FOUNDATION Movie Coming 2027 appeared first on Nerdist.

Quick Take

• The Scooby gang is getting a new look in the live-action Scooby-Doo: Origins series, which will make its way to Netflix soon.
• Mckenna Grace, Tanner Hagen, Abby Ryder Fortson, and Maxwell Jenkins join the cast for Netflix’s live-action Scooby-Doo series.
• Nerdist’s Take: This show is done filming as of September 2026, and we predict that it will land by summer 2027.

Jinkies! The Mystery Gang is back together and ready to solve more mysteries. Netflix announced the four faces set to play those meddling kids. Grab the Scooby Snacks and get your investigating caps on, ’cause we got some work to do now. Mckenna Grace, Tanner Hagen, Abby Ryder Fortson, and Maxwell Jenkins join the cast for Netflix’s live-action Scooby-Doo series. Cue the intro music. And now, we know that there will be an actual puppy playing Scooby-Doo, thanks to this teaser:

First look at Scooby in the upcoming series #ScoobyDoo: Origin.

Premiering on Netflix in 2027. pic.twitter.com/QlX0LePAQG

— Rotten Tomatoes 🍅 (@RottenTomatoes) June 8, 2026

Variety also reports that Paul Walter Hauser will star in this series as well in an undisclosed role. He is a series regular, so don’t expect him to just be the villain of the episode. And, in more casting news, Andre Benjamin, perhaps better known by his rap moniker Andre 3000, and Cathy Moriarty both have recurring roles. It is nice to see Andre back into acting after he’s spent a lot of chill time traveling and playing his flute. Scooby-Doo: Origins and began production in Atlanta in April 2026, wrapping up in September 2026, and will premiere sometime in 2027. Here are some cute photos that Netflix dropped to celebrate the end of filming:

Click To View Gallery Netflix Netflix Netflix Netflix

RELATED ARTICLE

New SCOOBY-DOO Anime Series Coming in 2027

Scooby-Doo is as beloved as they come. What started as a cartoon about four mystery-solving teenagers and their lovable dog grew into an empire Toys, snacks, crossovers, a string of live-action movies, and several more cartoons followed. The first movie came in 2002, casting Sarah Michelle Gellar as Daphne, Linda Cardellini as Velma, Matthew Lillard as Shaggy, and Freddie Prinze Jr. as Fred. The four remain inseparable from those roles even today. That leaves some pretty big shoes to fill for the four newcomers.

Netflix

Netflix announced the cast for the new series on March 18. Mckenna Grace is Daphne Blake, Tanner Hagen is Shaggy Rogers, Abby Ryder Fortson is Velma Dinkley, and Maxwell Jenkins is Fred Jones. Here is Netflix’s official synopsis for the upcoming series:

“A modern reimagining of the iconic mystery-solving group of teens and their very special dog. During their final summer at camp, old friends Shaggy and Daphne get embroiled in a haunting mystery surrounding a lonely lost Great Dane puppy that may have been a witness to a supernatural murder. Together with the pragmatic and scientific townie, Velma, and the strange, but ever so handsome new kid, Freddy, they set out to solve the case that is pulling each of them into a creepy nightmare that threatens to expose all of their secrets.”

Where Do I Know Netflix’s Live-Action Scooby-Doo: Origins Cast From? Prime Video/Paramount Pictures/Netflix/Blink&Miss Productions

RELATED ARTICLE

Netflix’s Live-Action SCOOBY DOO Series Casts Mckenna Grace

The newest names attached to the pop culture powerhouse are all young actors, but you may recognize them from this or that. Maxwell Jenkins played Will Robinson in Netflix’s Lost in Space and more recently starred alongside Kevin Bacon in The Bondsman. Tanner Hagen appeared in an episode of The Pitt. Abby Ryder Fortson (also in an episode of The Pitt) is most famous for her leading role in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

Finally, Mckenna Grace is in… well, honestly everything. She’s probably one of the most famous child actors of our (my) generation. Most recently, she was in Scream 7, Regretting You, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, and will play a role in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.

Warner Bros. Animation

Netflix’s live-action Scooby Doo series is in collaboration with Warner Bros. Television. Josh Appelbaum and Scott Rosenber will be its showrunners and executive producers. While we may never be able to separate the original cast from their iconic roles, it’ll be exciting to see a new take on the classic.

Originally published on March 19, 2026.

Sarah Campbell is the editorial intern for Nerdist. She is obsessed with all things movies and TV. She covers all sorts of pop culture, some of her favorites including Stranger Things, Welcome to Derry, Marvel, and more. Sarah can be found on Instagram and TikTok (@sarahcampbell.tv).

The post SCOOBY-DOO: ORIGINS Wraps Filming, Drops Behind-the-Scenes Photos appeared first on Nerdist.

Attorney General Todd Blanche invoked the Alien Terrorist Removal Act for the first time ever to expel Nazira Haji Zada, a lawful permanent resident from Afghanistan, from the country for allegedly being the “matriarch” who helped radicalize her Islamic extremist family members.

According to court filings unsealed Friday, Haji Zada waived her rights to challenge her detention and was deported back to Afghanistan last month.

“Nazira Haji Zada, 47, an Afghan national previously residing in Fort Worth, Texas, was removed from the U.S. after conceding that she is an alien terrorist. As the matriarch in her family, she supported a plot to commit an ISIS-inspired mass shooting on Election Day in 2024 for which her son and son-in-law were previously arrested and convicted,” the Justice Department announced.

Haji Zada became a permanent resident in 2018, as her husband worked as an assistant to the U.S. military on Bagram Air Base, one of the largest U.S. bases in Afghanistan. Her son, Abdullah Haji Zada, and son-in-law, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, pleaded guilty to attempting to purchase two AK-47-style rifles and 500 rounds of ammunition from an undercover FBI agent in order to carry out a terrorist attack in Oklahoma in 2024. Abdullah was sentenced to 15 years in prison, while Tawhedi is still awaiting sentencing.

Investigators noted that Haji Zada, however, had no knowledge of their plans.

The Alien Terrorist Removal Court, created after the 1996 Oklahoma City Bombing, allowed to DOJ to circumvent charging suspected terrorists in criminal court and instead allows them to be removed from the country over “terrorist activity.”

“Under the law, terrorist activity includes not only serious offenses … but also providing, whether voluntarily or under duress, housing or transportation to what the law defines as a ‘terrorist organization.’ Statutorily, the term terrorist organization includes even ‘a group of two or more individuals, whether organized or not,’ who have hijacked a vehicle or used a firearm to cause substantial damage to property — a threshold virtually any criminal gang would meet,” the Brennan Center for Justice notes. “As the courts have acknowledged, these terms encompass ‘more conduct than our society, and perhaps even Congress, has come to associate with traditional acts of terrorism.’”

It is also much easier for the government to secure approval for an individual’s removal, as they only have to prove a “preponderance of evidence” rather than the traditional, more strenuous “beyond a reasonable doubt.” The DOJ also reportedly refused to show classified evidence to Haji Zada’s attorneys, even though they had a security clearance.

“Dragging lawful permanent residents into court but refusing to show them or their attorneys the evidence that will be used against them is a plain violation of due process,” Haji Zada’s public defenders said, adding that they expect the decision to be rejected as “unconstitutional.”

Local authorities across the US often lack the negotiating power and know-how to work effectively with developers proposing new datacenters in their communities. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is trying to fill that gap by arming officials with the right questions to ask and the bargaining tools to use. The AI industry has triggered a surge in server farms construction, leaving many local governments to negotiate with developers over massive new facilities, often for the first time. To help, FAS has put together a report combining an overview of what local governments are already doing with a look at Community Benefits Agreements (CBA) between authorities and developers. The document, Before Breaking Ground: A Local Government Guide to Better Data Center Policy and Community Benefits, can be downloaded from the nonprofit think tank’s website. One key recommendation is that state and local governments should not allow for tax exemptions or provide economic incentives to datacenter operators without the provision of opening these up for negotiation beyond five years. This is because the property value of the site may increase substantially while the authority ends up out of pocket, as The Register has previously reported. Some states are losing more than $1 billion per year in tax abatementsand rebates offered as incentives to developers. CBAs have been used in numerous contexts to ensure local community groups obtain the benefit of the bargain when negotiating with a developer over large infrastructure projects. Their purpose is to ensure developers act in the interest of the community, such as building or upgrading infrastructure, hiring locally, and abiding by sustainable practices. The report lists 10 CBAs, nut only one - between Lancaster, Pennsylvania and the developers of two AI campuses - is explicitly labeled a CBA and written specifically around community benefits. In general, they cover a number of policy areas, including taxes and financial contributions, energy and water use, noise, lighting and e-waste, plus legal compliance and potential remedies. The FAS recommends future agreements specify what happens during a sudden surge in energy demand, and whether the datacenter would generate its own power or draw from the grid. Likewise, agreements should include reporting requirements on the facility's water use, and the procedure for securing additional water beyond an average day’s demand. However, one activist has already filed a lawsuit against Amazon Web Services, alleging the company published false and misleading statements about water use at its facilities in Virginia. Authorities wishing to limit noise should consider adding a specific, measurable - and therefore enforceable - numerical figure in their CBA, plus yearly testing near to local residences regardless of whether complaints are received or not. When looking to specifying remedies, CBAs could include language allowing special or consequential damages, and contain a clause on alternative dispute resolution, like mediation, instead of relying on litigation for issue resolution. The FAS also advises that CBAs should supplement local authority ordinances – laws or regulations - rather than replacing them. The two also need to be written to reinforce each other because “a CBA cannot fix a zoning gap and a zoning ordinance cannot capture specific project commitments like a CBA can.” Another notable point in the report relates to decommissioning regulations remaining largely untested. FAS isn't aware of a single case where a datacenter had ceased operations or been formally decommissioned, meaning enforcement provisions in agreements and ordinances have yet to be tested. However, it recommends that authorities should approve a decommissioning plan before a datacenter gets the go-ahead. ®

Quick Take

• Mutant and Apple TV are bringing the soundtrack for Widow’s Bay to vinyl in a standard and deluxe box edition, and we love it.
• The box set includes some cool things from the series, like an invitation to Patricia’s totally normal cocktail party.
• Pre-orders are available now for a December 2026 release, just in time for the holidays.
• Nerdist’s Take: Do you really have to ask? We will get our pre-orders ASAP.

Widow’s Bay is a quaint island town just off the New England shore that’s a total delight and definitely not haunted. In fact, we heard that it is the next Martha’s Vineyard and absolutely not haunted at all. And, anything you’ve heard differently is simply not true. Pay no attention to that guy named Wyck nor those weird bell tolls that are allegedly for souls. As you can see, we love Widow’s Bay, so we are happy that Apple TV and Milan Records teamed up with Mutant to release David Fleming’s incredible score for this series on vinyl and we have no qualms about ordering it immediately.

Mutant/Apple TV/Milan Records

Not only is there a standard vinyl edition with the sounds of our favorite new travel destination, there are also limited-edition vinyl box sets with some cool keepsakes and a chance to even own it on CD. CDs totally sound like they are Patricia’s vibe, right? Let’s get into what’s featured with each vinyl as well as what you’d get if you purchase the Widow’s Bay vinyl collector’s deluxe box set: 

Widow’s Bay Soundtrack Collector’s Box Set and Standard Vinyl

Album artwork by David Seidman

Pressed on 2 x 140gm “Sea Hag” Blue and Forest Green colored vinyl

Featuring an etched D-side

Liner notes by series creator Katie Dippold and composer David Fleming

Price: $45 for Standard, $100 for Collectors’ Box Set

What Does the Widow’s Bay Vinyl Box Set From Mutant Include? 

•   “Your Turn” 20 page Book with Dust Cover
• “Run” Card game reproduction, Featuring 25 cards
• 12 x 20 “Cannibalism in God’s House” Newsprint Reproduction
•  “Sunset Cocktails” Invitation
•  Mayoral Letterhead reproduction
•  “Don’t Say We Didn’t Warren You” Poster Reproduction

If you want to grab the CD instead and blast this on your boom box, you can do that for just $15. Right now, the estimated release for everything is December but pre-orders are available right now, which makes this a perfect gift for yourself or the Widow’s Bay fan in your life. Honestly, the Venn diagram between those two people should be a circle, because why are you NOT a fan? Get it together if you haven’t already!

Click To View Gallery Mutant/Apple TV/Milan Records Mutant/Apple TV/Milan Records Mutant/Apple TV/Milan Records Mutant/Apple TV/Milan Records Mutant/Apple TV/Milan Records

If you want to dive more into the world of Widow’s Bay, check out our guide to the show. And, if you’re already craving season two, here are a few mysteries that we really hope are solved next time we take the ferry to Widow’s Bay.

This post has affiliate links, which means we may earn advertising money if you buy something. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, we just have to give you the heads up for legal reasons. Click away!

Tai Gooden is the Features Editor for Nerdist, a fictional villain apologist, and a horror aficionado who is forever waiting for her trip in the TARDIS.

The post We Have No Qualms About Buying This WIDOW’S BAY Vinyl Box Set appeared first on Nerdist.

Former FTC chair Lina Khan wants the federal government to know that it doesn't need to wait for new laws to address AI threats. There are already laws and regulations on the books, including a 92-year-old Supreme Court precedent, that she argues could be used to hold AI companies and, in some circumstances, their executives accountable for their actions. Khan’s comments on X Sunday follow a flurry of activity from the leadership of OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and xAI aimed at doing what can only be described as trying to corner regulators into giving them their way. The former Biden administration trust buster pointed to numerous examples of current laws, and prior precedent, that could be used to hold frontier labs to account, even if they’re currently doing all in their power to change the conversation. “We shouldn’t let discussions about new legal regimes distract from the fact that there’s no AI exemption from laws already on the books,” Khan said. “Law enforcers already have authority to charge companies and their CEOs for creating and releasing dangerous, unvetted, or defective products.” As one example, Khan points to laws governing dangerous and defective products as an avenue to prosecute AI leaders. She notes that the release of unvetted models or agents can violate consumer protection laws, and that shipping tools “without implementing adequate measures to detect and stop rogue or defective AI agents” could be prosecuted under rules governing unfair and deceptive trade practices. Particularly timely, Khan also pointed to existing laws prohibiting unfair methods of competition. This, she notes, includes cases “where firms pursue dangerous behavior, aware that doing so may compel rivals to do the same.” There’s no leap needed to understand what Khan’s talking about here. OpenAI’s agents broke out of their intended sandbox and gained unauthorized access to Hugging Face systems - conduct that could raise serious criminal-law questions if carried out knowingly by a human. After doing some digging to look at its own agents' behaviors, Anthropic has essentially copped to similar activities that would be criminal if a meatbag was behind the keyboard instead of a simulated silicon brain. OpenAI’s agents have since been identified as the culprits in other misuses of online assets that, again, would be crimes were they perpetrated by a human. Khan points to a 1934 US Supreme Court decision to argue that the current battle between American frontier labs, which has put parts of the internet in the firing line of agents that escaped their intended constraints, could amount to an unfair method of competition if companies feel compelled to take similar risks to keep up. That decision, FTC v. R.F. Keppel & Bro, includes a passage where the justices argue that, if keeping up with the competition requires companies to “descend to a practice which they are under a powerful moral compulsion not to adopt,” that competition is unfair whether or not it’s criminal. Without weighing in on who shot first, OpenAI and Anthropic appear locked in a race to build increasingly capable AI while also warning, as both did over the weekend, that those systems could become dangerous without stronger safeguards and coordinated limits. Aside from the bad activity of the frontier labs themselves, Khan points out that the “highly concentrated and interconnected structure” of the AI industry also merits scrutiny for its potential to create “major risks and conflicts of interest.” Again, Khan points out this isn’t a hypothetical. “OpenAI could face liability given the Hugging Face incident, but Hugging Face being bought up by Nvidia means that we’re unlikely to see it file a lawsuit over this,” Khan noted, “given Nvidia’s strong incentive to see OpenAI continue full speed ahead.” Nvidia has dumped billions of dollars into OpenAI, becoming a centerpiece of the lab’s datacenters that power ChatGPT. Why, then, would the soon-to-be-owner of Hugging Face opt to hold one of its major partners accountable and further push it to build its own hardware? “We can and must pursue any new efforts alongside enforcing existing laws,” Khan said. Let’s be frank, though: The current administration is unlikely to do anything except capitulate and allow the AI industry to capture its regulators, if it even bothers to implement new regulations at all. Trump has already rejected the AI industry’s weekend calls for regulation, declaring himself to be the only guardrail the AI industry needs. As the AI industry leaders basically admitted over the weekend, whichever one of them blinks first stands to lose, so every single frontier lab in the US is going to keep pushing full steam ahead unless all of them agree to hit the brakes and pace their development. With Trump and other Republican leaders rejecting those calls, Khan’s argument leaves her former agency and other state and federal regulators as potential avenues for action. Kirk Sigmon, a founding partner at technology law firm KellDann Law, told us that it’s unlikely federal regulators will take any action. “Most governments are desperate not to kill a nascent technology as it grows, especially when other countries are allowing it to grow,” Sigmon told The Register. He said the only actions against the industry he expects to see in the next few years are “easy wins” in places like deepfake porn, impersonation, and AI-enabled scams. “I very much doubt we'll see much action … against the entire process of training, or the like - that's likely to be perceived as strangling the industry.” In other words, fire up the boilers - it’s full speed ahead toward the day AI does something truly devastating and we all gnash our teeth and wail about how something should have been done earlier. ®

Two U.S. citizen teenagers who were on their way to file enlistment papers to join the Marines were violently attacked by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, who reportedly detained them for nearly eight hours before letting them go. 

Telemundo reports that agents pepper-sprayed the teenagers because they were allegedly filming ICE arresting parents outside of Santos Livas Elementary School in Alamo, Texas. ICE agents were caught on video pulling one teen from the car and punching him repeatedly in the face while he lay on the ground. The other teen, Luis Ochoa, said he informed the ICE agents he was a citizen, but was told, “I don’t give a damn.... Your parents can’t help you now.”  

ICE brutally detain 2 U.S. citizen teens—driving to hand in papers to join Marines.

Now changing their minds about enlisting.

"How can I serve a country that doesn't even uphold my basic rights?"

Agents shot them with pepper spray—then punched them in the face.

Just because… pic.twitter.com/C0JQ7G3P4Q

— LongTime🤓FirstTime👨‍💻 (@LongTimeHistory) September 14, 2026

Ochoa is reportedly rethinking his decision to enlist, with his mother telling Telemundo, “How are they supposed to serve a country that doesn’t even uphold their basic rights?” 

The Trump administration is already making it clear it has no interest in uploading those rights. Military service has no effect on this regime’s mass deportation agenda, with agents freely targeting the family members of service members and recruits without any fear of reproach. The two teens didn’t even experience the worst of ICE. ICE agents routinely attack people in public, shooting and killing targets as well as bystanders regardless of legal status. Sometimes people have been held in ICE custody for months. Still, the agency has received record amounts of funding with virtually no accountability.