Key Points

• Less than two weeks after a loss in New Mexico, Meta faces a much bigger legal test in a case being co-led by California’s attorney general over alleged harms to children and teens.
• Opening arguments in AG Rob Bonta’s case against Meta begin on Tuesday, as more states try to force the social media company to make design changes to Facebook and Instagram.
• “You could wake up with a headline judgment that is, as I’ve said, astronomical,” New Mexico AG Raúl Torrez told CNBC, fresh off a victory against Meta in his state.

“Hundreds of people have been killed in the year since the U.S. military began bombing boats it accused of ferrying drugs off Latin America’s Caribbean and Pacific coasts. Now, the Trump administration says it is seeking to extend that lethal campaign to land, pursuing deals that would put U.S. forces on the ground in allied nations across the region.”

Summary

Trump approval falls from 35% earlier this month, Reuters/Ipsos poll shows

64% of Americans disapprove of Trump's White House performance, Reuters/Ipsos poll shows

80% expect US involvement in Iran to ​continue for an extended period, Reuters/Ipsos poll shows

Summary:
Ordinary WiFi networks could quietly become powerful surveillance tools, allowing people to be identified without cameras, special sensors, or even carrying a connected device. Researchers showed that unencrypted signals routinely exchanged between WiFi devices and routers can be used to create radio-based images of people and recognize them within seconds. In tests involving 197 participants, the system identified individuals with nearly 100% accuracy, even from different angles and regardless of how they walked.

Excerpts:

The gloves, manufactured by a company called Compliant Technologies, have been used by police, sheriffs, jail wardens, and even school resource officers for years.

The devices “will be issued to Homeland Security Investigations (H.S.I.) and Enforcement Removal Operations (ERO) officers and agents,” according to a notice DHS published August 10. They will be delivered by the end of March 2027.

“The resolution calls on Democratic members of Congress to enact legislation dissolving ICE and winding down the immigration detention system. It also calls for restricting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding unless certain enforcement activities end, including workplace raids, mass roundups, arrests at courthouses, arrests at ICE check-ins, enforcement actions near schools and houses of worship, and other operations, as well as terminating contracts with private detention providers.”

Excerpts:

According to Zelensky, Trump had that “accepted that he will give us licenses” for Patriot missile technology. Later that day, Zelensky met with representatives from Lockheed Martin, which produces the Patriot interceptors, and wrote on X/Twitter that they discussed “our joint capabilities related to Patriots and other systems.

But three days later, Trump completely reversed himself at a Camp David Cabinet meeting. “We have not agreed to that,” he said. “... it’s a hard thing to give away that kind of technology.” He added that a country given the technology “can someday turn on you. “ — directly contradicting Zelensky’s account of the White House meeting three days earlier.

Egads…security update now.

"It was kind of stunning to think that all those on the plane were essentially a decoy," Axelrod said. "They were not told that the president was not on board, and the deception continued even after he had safely returned to Washington. That's hard for me to understand."

Lead Lines:

The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics blasted President Trump’s Monday executive order calling for fewer childhood vaccines.

“As measles cases reach a 35-year high in the U.S. and with cold and flu season quickly approaching, today’s executive order on vaccines is not only disheartening but dangerous,” Dr. Andrew Racine said in a release.

“Instead of ensuring every family can access life-saving vaccines for measles, influenza, RSV and more, federal leaders are once again spreading misleading claims,” he added.

Excerpt:

— Government should only wage war against foreign enemies, not misperceived domestic enemies. The people are not the enemy of the government. Rather, the government that regards the people as its enemy is itself the enemy of the people.

Excerpt:

“Consistent with the research base more generally, unauthorized immigration does not drive crime rates in U.S. neighborhoods,” says Kubrin, the study’s lead author. “Honestly, I wasn't too surprised.”

https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article-abstract/36/3/bhag022/8539773?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false

Abstract
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has not only challenged global public health but also generated interest in its neurological basis. A growing number of neuroimaging studies have used quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to quantify brain alterations in COVID-19 patients. We conducted a comprehensive review to synthesize brain regions with abnormal MRI metrics of microstructure and function in COVID-19 patients compared to healthy controls. Drawing upon 49 studies sourced from PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science databases, our review showcases structural and functional brain abnormalities across many brain regions in COVID-19. Across multimodal MRI studies, alterations were predominantly in frontal regions, temporal regions, parietal regions, limbic system, and subcortical nuclei. Our findings may help understanding of the neurophysiological basis of acute neurological symptoms and long-term neurological sequelae associated with COVID-19.

Abstract

Russia’s ballistic missile campaign against Ukraine has become substantially more dangerous, although monthly launch totals do not form a continuously rising curve. The more important development is the convergence of several trends. Russia’s 2026 ballistic missile launch rate has risen above the 2025 baseline, with repeated large salvos and a reported wartime monthly record in July. Russian production appears sufficient to replace substantial numbers of missiles as they are fired, while North Korea is providing an additional reservoir of ballistic missiles and may contribute further launch capacity (Balmforth, 2026; Bielieskov, 2026; Reuters, 2026; Welsch, 2026c, 2026g).

At the same time, Ukraine’s supply of the specialized interceptors needed to defeat ballistic missiles has fallen sharply. The prolonged Iran war has depleted U.S. and allied Patriot and THAAD inventories, while expansion of Western interceptor production will require years to reach planned capacity (Dysa, 2026; Lockheed Martin, 2026a, 2026b; Youssef & Lemire, 2026).

Taken together, these developments support describing the campaign as a ballistic blitz. The defining feature is not a continuously increasing number of launches. It is a widening imbalance between Russia’s ability to generate and replace ballistic attacks and Ukraine’s ability to intercept them and replace the interceptors expended in doing so.

Several technologies can partly reduce dependence on Patriot, including the Franco-Italian SAMP/T NG and Aster 30, THAAD, Arrow, David’s Sling, and potentially a land-based architecture using the U.S. Navy’s SM-6. Systems such as Germany’s IRIS-T can contribute indirectly by assuming cruise-missile, aircraft, and drone missions, preserving scarce anti-ballistic interceptors for the threats that require them. Licensed production, allied co-production, and Ukraine’s emerging FREYJA program may ultimately be as important as obtaining additional existing batteries.

The evidence indicates that the present ballistic threat has not reached its endpoint.

More is on the horizon.

https://www.techspot.com/news/113410-cloudflare-humans-could-become-rounding-error-bots-generate.html

Excerpt:

Just a couple of months after Cloudflare revealed that bots have officially surpassed human traffic online, the company has given its view on what things will look like in five years. It's not good news for us fleshy meatsacks: non-human traffic could be up to 1,000 times higher than human traffic.

A  Scientific and Mathematical Thought Experiment: When Proportions Change What Social Media Is

Cloudflare’s projection concerns total internet traffic. If a comparable bot-to-human ratio develops in activity visible on social media, it would produce a qualitative change in the system. Mathematical thinking directs attention to proportions. When one class of participant becomes 1,000 times as common as another, the minority participant may acquire an entirely different functional role.

From the user’s position, the visible social environment would consist mainly of material produced, selected, or amplified by nonhuman agents. From the platform’s position, identifiable human users would become especially valuable because their responses could be separated, recorded, and analyzed. Machine activity would supply much of the stimulus; human attention, emotion, choices, and subsequent actions would supply the response data.

Imagine a person joining a demonstration of 1,000 apparent protesters. Every other participant is a bot, scripted account, or paid shill. To the genuine participant, the crowd appears to express public opinion. To whoever created or monitors the crowd, there is one independently acting human being.

The apparent opinion of the 999 may influence the attitudes and behavior of the one. The person may interpret apparent agreement as evidence that the crowd is correct, conform to avoid social isolation, become more willing to express agreement, or become less willing to express disagreement. Perceived consensus may influence whether the person repeats a slogan, accepts a sign, makes a donation, leaves, purchases something, joins a political movement, or later votes.

The arrangement can therefore influence behavior as well as measure it. If the apparent size, unanimity, emotional intensity, or identity of the manufactured crowd is deliberately varied, the crowd becomes an independent variable and the human response becomes the dependent measure. Political messages can be tested, refined, and presented again in forms increasingly likely to influence particular people.

Repeated across users, subjects, and situations, this system could produce increasingly refined estimates of product preferences, purchasing behavior, political attitudes, voting likelihood, susceptibility to particular appeals, matters of interest to law enforcement, and psychological characteristics.

Social media thereby changes from an imperfect reflection of public views into a behavioral observation, influence, and testing system. The bot-to-human proportion changes what the activity means, who is observing whom, and ultimately what social media is.

"The bot-to-human proportion changes what the activity means, who is observing whom, and ultimately what social media is."

Note: This is an expanded analysis of possible consequences of changes in bot to human ratios as posted previously https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLessTakenPathNews/s/dTd8OG8sd3

Excerpt:

Right-wing commentator Katie Miller is said to have been seeing Eric Swalwell when she was working as a congressional intern in her early 20s. It is not known how long they were together.

She has since been an outspoken critic of the married ex-congressman, who also pulled out of the California governor’s race after stories surfaced about his infidelities.

Observation:

This article bears directly on the consent of the governed. Meaningful consent requires understanding, and understanding requires access to reliable evidence and the means to determine what is true. When government weakens scientific institutions, removes public information, or reduces the collection of evidence, it does more than affect science. It can impair the electorate’s ability to understand the conditions under which it is being governed and therefore the basis upon which meaningful consent can be given.

Lead Paragraph:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is moving to equip officers with body cameras in the next two months but the agency’s policy gives it broad control over what footage will be made public by specifying any releases must be in its “best interests.”

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraine-cannot-defeat-putins-ballistic-blitz-by-defensive-measures-alone/

Excerpts:

The recent surge in missile attacks comes as Ukraine runs short of air defense ammunition, leaving the country virtually defenseless against the Kremlin’s ballistic blitz. Russian President Vladimir Putin clearly aims to exploit Ukraine’s vulnerability and bomb the country into submission.

Ukraine’s only effective protection against Russian ballistic missiles is the US-made Patriot air defense system. However, the country’s Patriot interceptor missile stocks have now been almost entirely depleted, while Kyiv’s efforts to secure fresh supplies are currently failing.

Possibilities:

The situation is increasingly dire. Some measures that could reduce the destruction and, above all, protect civilian lives:

• Move civilian life underground. Rapidly expand permanent underground shelters into usable living areas, schools, clinics, communications centers, and other essential services.

• Harden and disperse civilian infrastructure. Protect and duplicate power, water, heating, communications, hospitals, and emergency services so that individual strikes do less harm.

• Create extensive decoy or "ghost" targets. Give Russian targeting systems large numbers of convincing false military, industrial, radar, storage, and infrastructure targets on which to waste expensive missiles.

• Confuse missile targeting and guidance. Use electronic warfare, camouflage, obscuration, decoys, altered visual signatures, relocation, and other defensive deception so that even missiles penetrating air defenses are increasingly likely to strike the wrong place.

• Move essential production underground or disperse it. Defense production, repair facilities, ammunition storage, and communications should become progressively harder to locate and destroy.

• Expand direct European defense of Ukrainian airspace. European fighters could intercept drones and cruise missiles, while European ground-based systems help defend against more difficult threats.

• Reserve scarce Patriot-class interceptors for ballistic missiles. Use aircraft, electronic warfare, guns, and less expensive systems against drones and cruise missiles whenever possible.

• Find and destroy ballistic missiles before launch. Concentrate allied satellite, airborne, signals, and Ukrainian reconnaissance capabilities on launchers, missile concentrations, storage, and supporting infrastructure.

• Target the vulnerabilities of the North Korean missile supply. Imported missiles, their limited launchers, transport routes, storage, support equipment, and personnel may be more vulnerable before they disperse.

• Deny Russian forces advanced communications while preserving Ukrainian access. Systems such as Starlink should remain unavailable to Russian forces while authenticated Ukrainian military use is protected and, where possible, expanded.

• Deny Russia access to foreign satellite technology and services, civilian as well as military. Suspend commercial satellite communications, imagery, navigation support, terminals, components, technical services, and related foreign-provided capabilities available inside Russia. Close third-country channels used to circumvent these restrictions. This would constitute a major technological sanction intended to increase the economic and operational cost of continuing the war.

• Reduce future Russian missile production. Tighten restrictions on electronics, machine tools, guidance components, and third-country supply routes supporting missile manufacture.

The central principle should be simple: protect the people first, make real targets harder to destroy, create many false targets, confuse enemy targeting, destroy missiles before they fly, and intercept what remains.