Three Bibb County, Georgia deputies were arrested after an internal audit, run with Flock's help, found they used the license-plate camera network to stalk people they knew. Charged with stalking and oath violations, all three resigned. The case sharpens the debate over police access to mass license-plate surveillance.
Read more →The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to let construction of the roughly 400 million dollar White House ballroom continue while it appeals. A D.C. Circuit panel had ruled the president cannot build the 90,000-square-foot hall, on the site of the demolished East Wing, without congressional approval. The Solicitor General wants a decision before the halt takes effect August 21, framing the project as a national-security complex. It is a separation-of-powers test over executive authority.
Read more →Karoline Leavitt, at 28 the youngest White House press secretary, will leave the role at the end of August, President Trump announced. He said she will become a top outside advisor and work on the Republican midterm campaign. Leavitt returned only weeks ago from maternity leave. No successor has been named.
Read more →Taiwan briefly slowed its mobile internet to text-only speed in a civil-defense drill simulating wartime communication stress, part of the island's preparation against a potential Chinese blockade.
Read more →Vladimir Putin made his first visit to the Kuril Islands, the Pacific chain the Soviet Union seized from Japan at the end of World War II, touring Iturup and meeting the regional governor. Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called the trip unacceptable and lodged a protest. The dispute has blocked a Russia-Japan peace treaty for eighty years.
Read more →The US ambassador called a settler siege of Palestinian homes in the West Bank a horrific act of terror, unusually direct language from Washington.
Read more →A sustained Russian missile and drone campaign against Ukraine's Black Sea ports has cut grain exports by about three-quarters this month, with roughly 90 percent of shipowners suspending calls as insurance costs spike. Ukraine has proposed a Black Sea truce to separate civilian shipping from the war. The ports feed much of South Asia and Africa, so the squeeze reaches well beyond the front.
Read more →Russian ghost-fleet tankers are rigging improvised nets to fend off Ukrainian sea drones, a low-tech answer to a high-tech fight over Black Sea shipping.
Read more →Major Russian grain export terminals were hit in a Ukrainian attack on Black Sea ports, escalating the war over the region's grain trade.
Read more →Zhu Rongji, the premier who drove China's economic opening in the 1990s, died in Beijing at 97. Known for blunt speech rare in the Party, he presided over years of double-digit growth. News of his death topped Weibo with tributes to the people's good premier.
Read more →The Houthis reportedly killed six in their first deadly attack since the start of the Iran war, a sign the group remains active.
Read more →Israel rejected Trump's 15-point plan for Gaza, Netanyahu said.
Read more →Israel is accused of weaponising archaeology at ancient West Bank sites, using excavation to assert control, the BBC reports.
Read more →A magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck Choco in western Colombia on August 10, killing at least 181 by the government's count, with other tallies above 265, thousands injured and nearly 200 missing. More than 11,000 buildings were damaged or collapsed in the country's poorest department. It is among Colombia's deadliest quakes in decades, and the government declared a national disaster.
Read more →The USS George Washington is heading to the Middle East to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been at sea for 265 days on a twice-extended deployment marked by mold, plumbing failures, and crew-morale reports. The USS George H.W. Bush is also in the Arabian Sea as the US presses Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, where hundreds of ships remain bottled up.
Read more →India marks its 80th Independence Day on August 15. The government says the equipment for the Red Fort ceremony is, for the first time, entirely indigenously built, a showcase for the Atmanirbhar self-reliance push, and Bhashini, the state AI translator, will render the Prime Minister's address live into more than 22 languages. Tiranga Yatra flag processions ran across states in the run-up.
Read more →A UN Security Council sanctions report has officially attributed the Red Fort attack to Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, putting an international stamp on what Indian investigators had alleged. The report also flagged concern that AQIS is trying to exploit Bangladesh to establish cells there, widening the security picture beyond India's borders.
Read more →Air India will begin full screening of its pilots for prohibited substances and medications from August 13, run alongside training at its Gurgaon academy and post-flight at airports. The move follows heightened scrutiny of the carrier's safety culture.
Read more →Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Badal was attacked in Nanded, Maharashtra, his hand injured in an assault with a kirpan. One person was held and Chief Minister Fadnavis ordered a probe.
Read more →The death toll from the Mumbai landslide reached eight as the NDRF called off search-and-rescue in consultation with the BMC. A monsoon-season loss, reported without gloss.
Read more →Carnegie Hall announced Naad, its first festival of Indian music, for May 21 to 23, 2027. A.R. Rahman makes his Carnegie debut on the middle night; bansuri master Rakesh Chaurasia opens the festival and vocalist Kaushiki Chakraborty closes it. Tickets went on sale August 10.
Read more →The Great Indian Kapil Show streams its first Independence Day special on Netflix on August 15, built around the cast of the film Operation Safed Sagar and filmed at the Indian Air Force Auditorium in New Delhi, with real IAF officers present.
Read more →Sayani Gupta, of Delhi Crime and Axone, will make her US feature debut in Arya, filming in Duluth, Minnesota. She plays a disciplined piano teacher who takes on a struggling northern-Minnesota band program. The film is the directorial debut of Neil Tuli, a former Netflix and Illumination strategist.
Read more →Cincinnati composer Kanniks Kannikeswaran premiered a new orchestral work at the Summermusik festival, performed by the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra with the Greater Cincinnati Indian Community Choir, part of the festival's America-250 season.
Read more →Lamborghini revealed the Revuelto SV, the hotter version of its V12 hybrid flagship, at Monterey Car Week. It set a performance record ahead of the debut. Pricing is expected to run well past the standard Revuelto's roughly 669,000 dollar sticker, in a limited run.
Read more →Tesla plans to demonstrate a hovering Roadster at SpaceX's McGregor, Texas site as soon as this month, using SpaceX cold-gas thrusters and no driver. The stunt version is not street legal, and its thrusters are loud enough that spectators must stand back. Musk claims a 0 to 60 time of 1.1 seconds. The Roadster has slipped its deadline for years.
Read more →Stanford researchers reported in Nature that immune cells from the blood begin entering the human brain as early as middle age and turn into microglia, the brain's own immune cells. Lineage tracing in matched blood and postmortem brain tissue confirmed it, and the effect appears uniquely human, absent in mice and primates. The work reframes the brain's immune system and hints at using blood-born cells to deliver therapies.
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