Daily News 08/21

Daily News 08/21

Daily News Archives Since June 2026

Big Brother Will Be Watching You!: The best political cartoons for Aug. 8-15, 2026 (opinion): Flocks, Fauci and Trump’s flaxen hairdo Political Cartoonist Nick Anderson’s take on Flock cameras. Nick Anderson/Tribune

It Wasn’t an Accident

Flock’s Cameras Remain Civil Liberties Threat Despite Surveillance company Flock Safety announced several operational changes in response to a torrent of criticism and overwhelming public opposition to its mass government surveillance product. Surveillance company Flock Safety announced several operational changes in response to a torrent of criticism and overwhelming public opposition to its mass government surveillance product. Flock’s threat to privacy stems from its operation of more than 120,000 automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) nationwide, which includes broad location data collection and sharing. While one proposed change to Flock’s operations might constitute a positive development, most of the other changes seem to be following Flock’s playbook of treating legitimate privacy concerns as mere public relations problems. Several of the proposed changes Flock is touting are merely retreads of previous inadequate safety measures. ALPR companies like Flock violate our privacy across the country by taking photos of every vehicle passing their cameras, logging detailed information about them into a massive nationwide database, and making it possible to track those vehicles and apply AI to uncover their occupants’ private patterns of life. The ACLU is fighting alongside communities to cancel local ALPR contracts and push lawmakers to protect our rights from this surveillance nightmare. Below, the ACLU details and responds to Flock’s announced changes.

And despite all that, so much mainstream discussion about climate change is inadequate. A whole lot of carbon talk while barely discussing power. And if we want to understand the power which results in a burning planet, eventually we have to talk about white supremacy. White supremacy is not merely the belief that one race is superior to another. It is a system of power that determines whose relationship to land matters, whose knowledge counts, what land is for, who has the right to extract from it and whose lives and communities can be sacrificed to absorb the consequences. It is the logic that makes it possible for the prosperity of some to depend on the dispossession, exploitation and suffering of others — There Is No Elsewhere: A World Burning

When the Republicrate’s Government Says That Social Security is in Debt, It is an Admission That the 1%’s Government Do Not Intend to Pay Back What They ‘Barowed’ (stole) From Social Security!:

… Intragovernmental Debt Intragovernmental debt records a transfer from one part of the government to another, and therefore, has no net effect on the government’s overall finances. As of March 2026, intragovernmental debt totaled $8 trillion, a $2.7 trillion increase from a decade ago. In almost all cases, such debt is held in government trust funds — accounting mechanisms to track money designated for a specific purpose or program. The largest holder of intragovernmental debt is the Social Security Old-Age and The Federal Government Has Borrowed Trillions. Who Owns All that Debt?Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, which holds $2.3 trillion, or 29 percent of intragovernmental debt, as of March 2026. Other accounts holding such debt include retirement funds for federal employees, Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, and the Highway Trust Fund. — The Federal Government Has Borrowed Trillions. Who Owns All that Debt?

Video: Are We Ready for Hurricane Trump?Trump has gutted nearly 20% of FEMA’s workforce and dragged his feet in granting natural disaster relief to blue states.

Video: BREAKING “This Isn’t A Heat Wave” Top Scientist’s Warning About What’s Over East Coast | Heat DomeOne of the planet’s strongest heat domes is descending on the East Coast, and Dr. Michael Mann, the nation’s leading climate scientist, tells Jim Acosta exactly why this keeps happening. Mann warns that heat domes have nearly tripled in the last fifty years — driven by human-caused warming from the continued burning of fossil fuels — and says extreme heat is the deadliest weather there is, triggering heart attacks and strokes. With New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore all threatening 100-degree records this week, Mann lays out what’s really trapping the heat over your head — and why it’s not going away.

Trump ‘weighing nuclear attack on Iran’ as peace deal expires

US government debt hits $40tn as borrowing rises at historic rate Public spending surges despite Trump’s vow to stabilise America’s finances … Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.comT&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More ion can be found on the Help FAQ on gift articles. Gross federal debt crossed the threshold on Tuesday, according to Treasury department data released on Wednesday. It has grown by $3tn over the past year, its fastest-ever pace outside the pandemic era, FT calculations show. “It’s that gigantic flashing ‘check engine’ light,” said Marc Goldwein, senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget think-tank. “It doesn’t mean that your engine’s going to melt down tomorrow, but it’s a good signal that things are pretty out of control. And it’s not just the magnitude, it’s the speed at which we’ve hit it.”

Signs of Economic Distress: Personal Bankruptcy Filings are Soaring in 2026 The number of Americans who file for bankruptcy is growing. More than 500,000 people took this step in 2025, nearly 50% more than in 2022. And the numbers have kept on climbing, with a 12% jump in June 2026 from a year earlier as many consumers struggled to pay their bills.nformati

Extinction Rebellion:India and Pakistan have both been experiencing periods of extreme heat for several years but for many in the Global North, that was a “them” problem. This past month has brought home what 40° actually feels like for those living in Europe and many parts of North America. Suddenly the rights of workers in heatwaves feels like an urgent issue. In the ultimate irony, a London Climate Week event about excessive heat had to be cancelled because of… excessive heat. Naming extreme heat episodes could be a step in making people understand these aren’t like the old heatwaves of the 20th century – our baseline temperatures have already risen by 1° to 1.5° so every heatwave starts from a higher point. What can one person do? Every time someone mentions the heat, talk about the fossil fuel created climate crisis that is the cause of the heat. Think about your own heat readiness. Look around your neighbourhood – are there cooling centres? Reach out to your municipality and local organizations about how more can be created. Community starts with people just talking to each other. Say hello to your neighbours. Share a story. Look out for each other.

Video: Something Hot Is Rising Beneath the Antarctic Ice – Time to Panic?Something Hot Is Rising Beneath the Antarctic Ice — Time to Panic? Scientists are investigating the complex interactions between geothermal heat, subglacial water, ice sheets, and the Antarctic bedrock, raising important questions about how heat beneath the continent could influence ice movement and long-term stability. Antarctica is not simply a frozen block sitting on solid rock. Beneath parts of the ice sheet are active geological systems, including geothermal heat sources and networks of subglacial lakes and water channels. In certain regions, heat from below can contribute to basal melting and reduce friction between the ice and underlying bedrock. In this video, we examine what scientists know about heat beneath Antarctic ice, why researchers are monitoring it, and what it could—and cannot—tell us about future ice loss and sea-level rise. What you’ll learn:

What is generating heat beneath parts of Antarctica
How geothermal activity interacts with the Antarctic ice sheet
Why subglacial water matters for ice movement
Whether underground heat could accelerate ice loss
What scientists are watching for next

Important reality check: Subglacial geothermal heat is real, but it does not mean Antarctica is about to suddenly collapse. Ice-sheet behavior depends on many interacting factors, including ocean temperatures, atmospheric conditions, ice dynamics, bedrock topography, and geothermal processes. Stay informed with accurate coverage of Antarctica, glaciers, climate science, sea-level rise, Earth science, and polar research.

The Brockovich Report: The U.S. Has A Landfill ProblemLandfills across the country are leaking toxic leachate into waterways, and when owners go bankrupt or vanish, neighbors and taxpayers are left holding the bill Lynn Tavenner is a bankruptcy trustee, a court-appointed official who steps in to manage a company’s assets and affairs once it files for bankruptcy. Right now, she is the closest thing to a regulator that a leaking, 50,000-gallon-a-day toxic waste site in Chesterfield County, Virginia, has left. In court filings, Tavenner wrote that conditions at the Shoosmith Landfill “literally keep” her “awake most nights.” She called it a potential environmental catastrophe. Engineers estimate it will cost $173 million and 30 years to close this landfill safely. The bond money set aside to pay for it is $19 million. But here’s an even bigger problem. While the landfill’s pretreatment system sat broken and Chesterfield County was pulling the discharge permit, the people running the landfill’s parent company sold off two parcels of land worth $25 million and $15 million. April 2024. November 2024. Right in the window between the violations and the bankruptcy filing. They didn’t fix the leak. They cashed out!

Burnham and British capitalism – bouncing into an abyss

Ukraine: Marxist Bogdan Syrotiuk sentenced to 15 years in prison – a call for solidarityWe publish below a statement of solidarity, written by Ukrainian Marxists, with Bogdan Syrotiuk, a Marxist in southern Ukraine who has been persecuted by the Ukrainian state for putting forward a communist position on the Ukraine War. For this, he has been accused of being a ‘Russian collaborator’, and charged with treason.To read more about the war in Ukraine, and the events that led up to it, we recommend this comprehensive reading list which covers the background of the war, as well as the following articles:

As People Getting Measles Increases: Demand Trump Rescind “Insane” Vaccine Order [Update: Republican Senator Slams “Stupid” Order] Donald Trump and RFK Jr. spent years pushing anti-vaccine BS. And a lot of people believed them, didn’t get vaccinated, and helped bring back some horrors we’d just about wiped out. (Welcome back measles!). But now these jackasses have made things even worse. Trump has signed an executive order bringing this anti-vaccine nonsense directly into federal vaccine policy — and forcing steps that morons support, but actual scientists and epidemiologists do not, including splitting up the MMR vaccine and reducing the number of universally recommended vaccines