Author: Admin

CBS News Design features allegedly make Snapchat a favored platform of sexual criminals targeting kids, according to a lawsuit filed by New Mexico Thursday against Snap, the company that operates the popular social media app. An undercover investigation by the state found Snapchat has crafted “an environment where predators can easily target children through sextortion schemes and other forms of sexual abuse,” Attorney General Raúl Torrez stated in a news release.  Sextortion is a rapidly growing crime that involves a person pretending to be a peer coercing minors to send explicit images or videos of themselves, and then threatening to distribute the material unless they are paid. The scam has resulted in numerous teen suicides, the AG noted. READ THE FULL STORY                   

Fox News A federal judge last week ruled in favor of a whistleblower advocacy group that sued the Justice Department to unseal documents related to its secretly obtaining communications about congressional staffers who were investigating the DOJ. Empower Oversight Whistleblowers & Research won a partial victory in a lawsuit it filed in May, when a federal court ordered the DOJ to release documents. The victory on Friday came days after the group filed a second lawsuit to force the Justice Department to unseal additional records. “The requested records are likely to show a startling failure by DOJ to respect the long-established separation of powers in the United States Constitution,” the recent Empower Oversight complaint said. “These records will show the lengths to which DOJ went starting in 2016 to secretly surveil various congressional staff members (of both political parties) who were actively engaged in oversight of the DOJ pursuant to their constitutional authorities.” READ THE FULL STORY                   

Washington Examiner There are so many races in Maricopa County, Arizona, this year that general election ballots will be printed on not one but two pages. One precinct in Phoenix will have 87 contests, which is the highest number of contests out of all the local ballots. It’s the first time since the 2006 midterm election that the county has needed to print the ballot on two sheets of paper. On the ballot’s first page, voters will see federal, statewide, county, and local contests. The ballot’s second page will have statewide and countywide ballot propositions. In addition to the presidential race and the Senate race between Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Republican Kari Lake, Arizonans are set to vote on a number of ballot measures.  READ THE FULL STORY                   

Axios Montana Republican Tim Sheehy leads Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) in one of the most critical races of the 2024 election, according to new AARP polling. Whichever party wins Montana is likely to control the Senate in 2025, as most signs suggest at this point. With West Virginia all but certain to flip Republican, Democrats have to win the eight other competitive seats to keep the Senate at a 50-50 margin — and hope to have a VP Tim Walz as tie-breaker. READ THE FULL STORY                 

Breitbart Germany’s AfD has has acquired a list of the forenames of all 2023 gang rape suspects in one federal state, claiming it shows the vast majority are of migrant heritage. “A clear trend is evident” in the forenames of those named as suspects in gang rapes in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), it is stated, after the Alternative for Germany (AfD) faction applied for a release of information not found in normal government data releases. There were 209 reported ‘gang rapes’ in NRW in 2023, a publication by the state’s interior ministry answering questions by two parliamentarians from the right-wing-populist, anti-mass migration AfD reports. The document notes while there is no actual definition of gang rape in German law, the research was facilitated by looking at reported rape cases where suspects were recorded as not working alone. READ THE FULL STORY                   

CBS News The Biden administration is debating changes that would make it harder to lift the sweeping asylum restrictions it enacted in June, drafting plans to alter the criteria that would be used to deactivate the strict border measure, two Department of Homeland Security officials told CBS News. The proposed changes concern a proclamation issued in early June by President Biden that has effectively shut down access to the American asylum system for migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. Officials have credited the crackdown, the most restrictive asylum policy by a Democratic president, for a four-year-low in unauthorized border crossings. Mr. Biden’s partial asylum ban included a deactivation trigger, in which the policy would be discontinued if the seven-day average of daily illegal border crossings fell below 1,500. Under the proposed changes, the asylum restrictions would only be deactivated if the seven-day average of unlawful border crossings stay below 1,500 for 28 days, the DHS officials said, requesting anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. READ THE FULL STORY 

The Associated Press The White House is signaling an openness to blocking the acquisition of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel, as a government review of the proposed takeover by the Japanese company is on the cusp of ending. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that President Joe Biden plans to stop the deal from going forward. A White House official, insisting on anonymity to discuss the matter, did not deny the report and said Biden still needs to receive the official recommendation from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. That review could end as soon as this month. Biden had already voiced his objections to the merger, backing his supporters in the United Steelworkers union who oppose the deal. The objection carries weight as U.S. Steel is headquartered in the swing state of Pennsylvania and is a symbol of Pittsburgh’s industrial might in an election year where Republicans and Democrats alike are promising more domestic manufacturing jobs. READ THE FULL STORY                   

Breitbart In a significant victory for Elon Musk’s social media platform X, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has partially blocked a California law that mandates social media companies to disclose their policies for addressing disinformation, harassment, hate speech, and extremism. Reuters reports that the decision, which overturns a lower court judge’s ruling that had declined to pause the enforcement of the new California law, marks a crucial development in the ongoing debate over the extent of states’ authority to regulate social media companies. The law in question requires large social media platforms to publicly report their content moderation practices and provide data on the number of objectionable posts and how they were handled. Elon Musk, who acquired Twitter last year and recently rebranded it as X, had filed a lawsuit to prevent the law from taking effect, arguing that it infringed upon the First Amendment’s speech protections. The case is one among several legal challenges that have emerged as states attempt to exert greater control over social media giants. READ THE FULL STORY                     

Catholic News Agency The historic Church of the Immaculate Conception in Saint-Omer, in the Pas-de-Calais department of northern France, was ravaged by arson on the night of Sept. 2. The suspect, a multi-recidivist who has attempted to set fire to numerous places of worship in the past, was apprehended a few hours after the blaze was brought under control. According to local authorities, the fire started at around 4 a.m. It then spread to the side and central aisles, then to the roof and bell tower, which rapidly collapsed. The fire was contained by 7:15 a.m. thanks to the efforts of 120 firefighters. READ THE FULL STORY                   

Breitbart The latest development between the Biden/Harris administration and the government of Mexico on the immigration front will see migrants provided bussing from two southern Mexico cities to the United States border. The plan will provide the migrants headed to the United States with meals and security during travel from the two cities to the U.S. destination where the migrant’s asylum appointments are scheduled under the CBP-One application. The government of Mexico’s National Institute of Migration (INM) announced the new program in a Spanish-language notice issued on Saturday, referring to the initiative as the “Secure Emerging Mobility Corridor.” The two departure cities in southern Mexico will be Villahermosa, Tabasco, and Tapachula, Chiapas. READ THE FULL STORY                     

Axios A former deputy chief of staff in the New York governor’s office was arrested on Tuesday and charged with acting as an agent of the Chinese Communist Party. The FBI and Department of Justice have been warning for years about covert Chinese efforts to influence American politics. These charges are a particularly stark example. Prosecutors allege the aide, Linda Sun, altered public statements to match Beijing’s preferred language, helped Chinese officials obtain travel visas, and thwarted outreach from Taiwan — all while enriching herself “to the tune of millions of dollars.” READ THE FULL STORY                   

CBS News The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a request from Oklahoma officials seeking to restore federal family planning grant funding to the state’s health department after it refused to offer patients a hotline phone number that would provide counseling on pregnancy options, including abortion. The justices turned down the bid for emergency relief from the state, which had asked the Supreme Court to temporarily stop the Department of Health and Human Services from withholding $4.5 million in federal Title X funding from the Oklahoma State Department of Health. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said they would have granted Oklahoma’s request. The dispute is the latest involving abortion to land before the nation’s highest court in the wake of its June 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade. As more than half of the states banned or imposed stringent restrictions on abortions following the ruling, including Oklahoma, the Biden administration has sought to protect access at the federal level, including through an emergency care law that was at the center of a dispute before the justices in its most recent term. READ THE FULL STORY                   

Washington Examiner Former President Donald Trump signaled Thursday that he plans to vote for Florida‘s abortion referendum this fall, which would reverse his home state’s six-week abortion ban that went into effect following the Supreme Court’s 2022 repeal of Roe v. Wade. Though Trump has taken credit for installing the Supreme Court justices who struck down the ruling, which created a national right to abortion, he has also angered the anti-abortion movement by opposing restrictions on the procedure at the federal level. The former president previously hinted that he would soon unveil how he planned to vote on the Florida referendum, known as Amendment 4, during a press conference earlier this month, but in a Thursday interview with the Daily Mail, he revealed that he considers a six-week ban too restrictive. READ THE FULL STORY                 

The National Desk College athletes are being offered cash through Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deals in exchange for endorsing Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., according to emails obtained by The National Desk (TND) Thursday. The senator is up for reelection in a tight race against GOP candidate and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy. Sen. Tester’s campaign appears to be distancing itself from Vice President Kamala Harris as the senator has not endorsed her for president. Emails obtained by TND appear to offer Montana college athletes up to $2,400 for the creation of four Instagram reels endorsing Sen. Tester from now until November. The email also promotes topics such as LGBT rights, reproductive care and the economy. READ THE FULL STORY                   

Axios Google is rolling out new protections for its generative AI products as election season heats up. Google on Friday said it would extend the policies it announced for its search and YouTube products last December to more of its AI products, including Search AI Overviews, YouTube AI-generated summaries for Live Chat, Gems, and image generation in Gemini. Restrictions are already applied to some of Google’s generative AI products, such as Search Generative Experience(SGE) and Gemini, but now the restrictions are more widely extended across Google’s AI ecosystem. READ THE FULL STORY                 

Fox News The Mexican border state of Chihuahua is on alert for members of a violent Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua, or TdA, after receiving reports that members of the gang were moving through the state to cross into the U.S. near El Paso, Texas. Chihuahua Secretary of Public Safety Gilberto Loya warned Monday that Mexican authorities have seen a large number of individuals they believe are members of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, or TdA, operating in the state and passing through to cross the U.S. border with Mexico near El Paso, according to a report from the Latin Times. The report comes after the Treasury Department in July sanctioned TdA as a transnational criminal organization, noting that the gang has committed human trafficking, extortion, money laundering and drug trafficking that pose a “deadly criminal threat” across the Western Hemisphere. READ THE FULL STORY                   

CBS News Attorneys for the man charged in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students in 2022 say the pressure to convict is so severe that some Latah County residents are predicting lynch mobs or riots if he is acquitted. Bryan Kohberger’s defense lawyer Elisa Massoth made that argument in a filing this month, saying the only way he can get a fair trial is to move it to a new location. Second District John Judge is scheduled to preside over a hearing on the motion for a change of venue Thursday morning. If he agrees, the trial, set for June of 2025, could be moved from Moscow to Boise or another larger Idaho city. READ THE FULL STORY                 

Breitbart An illegal alien is accused of killing 48-year-old Mark Deane of Gretna, Louisiana, a longtime local journalist and producer, in a crash on the Crescent City Connection bridge on August 23. Jorge Alberto Martinez-Sanchez, a 29-year-old illegal alien who was previously denied a visa to enter the United States, has been arrested and charged with negligent homicide, reckless operation, and driving without a license in connection with Deane’s death. According to Louisiana State Police, Deane was driving his motorcycle across the Crescent City Connection bridge on the morning of August 23 when Martinez-Sanchez ran into the back of him. READ THE FULL STORY                   

Axios OpenAI said on Thursday that ChatGPT now has more than 200 million weekly active users — twice as many as it had a year ago. ChatGPT remains the leader among generative AI chatbots, but it’s an intensely competitive space with the other big names in tech offering frequent updates in hopes of grabbing share. OpenAI also said that 92% of Fortune 500 companies are using its products and that usage of its automated API has doubled since the release of GPT-4o mini in July. READ THE FULL STORY                 

Sky News Pavel Durov, the chief executive of Telegram, has been charged with allegedly allowing criminal activity on the messaging app. French judges have barred Mr Durov from leaving France pending further investigation, but he has avoided jail with a 5m euro bail. The billionaire founder of the encrypted messaging and social media app was arrested in France on Saturday after his private jet landed at Le Bourget airport outside Paris. READ THE FULL STORY                   

CBS News Nancy Pelosi referred to former President Donald Trump as a “domestic enemy” in a newly released video of the former speaker of the House the day after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The footage was turned over to Congress by HBO and obtained by CBS News. The footage shows the former House leader preparing for a press conference with her staffers on Jan. 7. In the footage, Pelosi plans to publicly call for the resignation of U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund in the aftermath of the attack, but also addressed Trump’s role in the attack.  “There is a domestic enemy in the White House,” Pelosi says. “Let’s not mince words about this.” She did not use that line when addressing the press later that day. READ THE FULL STORY                            

Axios Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was released from police custody Wednesday but is due in court ahead of a possible indictment, multiple outlets reported. Durov’s arrest in connection to illicit activity on the messaging app sparked an outcry among anti-censorship advocates. It also raised questions about how other other social media companies and executives could be held accountable for the content on their platforms. The Paris prosecutor’s office said in a statement Wednesday that Durov was released from custody but would be transferred to court for his first appearance before a judge ahead of a possible indictment, AP reported. READ THE FULL STORY                            

The National Desk The Vermont Department of Health on Wednesday asked the public to avoid referring to children as “son” or “daughter” and instead use gender-neutral language. The suggestion is included in a social media post about “inclusive language for families.” That post also encouraged use of the term “family members” rather than “household members” to include incarcerated individuals, step siblings and the like. “The language we use matters!” the department wrote. “When talking about family, it’s important to use terms that cover the many versions of what family can look like.” READ THE FULL STORY                   

Axios Former President Trump is bringing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard onto his presidential transition team, a Trump campaign senior adviser confirmed to Axios. Gabbard and Kennedy, both onetime Democratic presidential candidates, will have an official role in helping prepare for a possible second Trump administration. They both endorsed the former president within the last week. READ THE FULL STORY                   

Washington Examiner “Race and gender” are key criteria in Vice President Kamala Harris’s selection of a media personality to host her first sit down interview since joining the presidential race, a report Monday in Politico Playbook revealed. The criteria spotlights the close-mindedness of Harris’s world view, as she attempts to rally support from rural white voters in swing states. The demographic is key to winning the 2024 presidential election, political experts believe. Harris will purportedly sit for an interview this week as part of her campaign’s ramped-up strategy heading into the post-Labor Day push, Axios reported, but questions remain about who she will select to host the interview. READ THE FULL STORY                      

CBS News More than 200 Republicans who worked for former President George H.W. Bush, former President George W. Bush, Sen. John McCain and Sen. Mitt Romney endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, saying democracy would be “irreparably jeopardized” by another Trump administration.  “We have plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz. That’s to be expected. The alternative, however, is simply untenable,” said the letter, which was first reported by USA Today.  The group, which put out a similar letter in 2020, said another four years of former President Donald Trump’s “chaotic leadership” would “hurt real, everyday people and weaken our sacred institutions.”  READ THE FULL STORY                   

Breitbart “Race and gender” are key criteria in Vice President Kamala Harris’s selection of a media personality to host her first sit down interview since joining the presidential race, a report Monday in Politico Playbook revealed. The criteria spotlights the close-mindedness of Harris’s world view, as she attempts to rally support from rural white voters in swing states. The demographic is key to winning the 2024 presidential election, political experts believe. Harris will purportedly sit for an interview this week as part of her campaign’s ramped-up strategy heading into the post-Labor Day push, Axios reported, but questions remain about who she will select to host the interview. READ THE FULL STORY                   

Daily Mail UK The parents of Trump shooter Thomas Crooks have hired a team of powerhouse attorneys as the FBI continues to investigate just how much they knew ahead of their son’s assassination attempt on the former president, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal. The development comes as one family member shared with DailyMail.com that the FBI, ‘still very much has questions’ regarding how much the killer’s parents knew – while revealing that his father Matthew Crooks, 53, is a gun enthusiast who has sold firearms to relatives in the past. Speaking to DailyMail.com, the family member who asked not to be named said, ‘The FBI still very much has questions about how much they knew and how he [Thomas] slipped through the net.’ READ THE FULL STORY    

FOX News Presidential candidate Cornel West must appear on voting ballots in Michigan, a state judge ruled on Saturday. Judge James Robert Redford issued the ruling days after West and his running mate, activist Melina Abdullah, were kicked off the ballot earlier this month due to technical issues. The Michigan Bureau of Elections had notified West’s campaign of the discrepancies in an August 16 letter. The campaign responded by arguing that the Michigan Democratic Party was weaponizing technicalities in an effort to remove West from the ballot. READ THE FULL STORY