🧵 A social media started posting about a candidate in a tough race, and critics accused her of creating undisclosed ads. She posted more than 400 videos across two platforms and got more than 10M views in total. I watched her videos, and here is what I noticed … san.com/cc/an-influe...

New: Police in Wisconsin used Flock to create a pretext to search a man's car for weed. Their justification? He drove from Wisconsin to Michigan, a “known source state for marijuana as it is legal there,” and Flock showed he "travels to Michigan frequently." www.404media.co/cops-used-fl...

Cops Used Flock to Track a Man Across State Lines to Create Pretext to Search His Car for Weed

"The vehicle travels to Michigan frequently which is a known source state for marijuana as it is legal there," a probable cause justification reads.

404media.co

Researchers are making progress on synthesizing the vast amount of health data collected by wearables into digital biomarkers useful for doctors—a long-term health dashboard, if you will. Standing between then and now is nothing more than the entire US healthcare system. san.com/cc/smartwatc...

Smartwatches are getting smarter. Is healthcare ready?

As smartwatches and other wearables become more advanced, researchers are hopeful they could transform personalized medicine.

san.com

Tyler, TX is using a cute wee robot to search for city sidewalks in need of repair, an experiment in automation I can fully get behind san.com/cc/the-littl...

The little robot that could … fix America’s sidewalks?

Tyler, Texas is testing whether autonomous bots can replace humans in mapping ADA accessibility. Is tech the solution to our safety crisis?

san.com

The ICE shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston was predicated on a search for a white van. A Straight Arrow review of registrations shows there are 1669 white vans in Houston. san.com/cc/ice-targe...

New: We found 50 cops who misused Flock cameras and other license-plate readers for personal purposes, often to spy on their girlfriends or ex-wives. He "watched every single move I made. ... Who do you turn the chief of police in to?" wapo.st/3S6rTuo

She left her ex. He secretly tracked her through a network of policing cameras.

Flock’s array of license-plate cameras was built to fight crime. But at least 50 law enforcement officers were charged with or accused of misusing it and other systems.

wapo.st

Had a nice time in Helltown, pleasant area

For the past 2 years I’ve been working on a feature documentary about wildfires. It’s the most important project I’ve ever worked on. It’s coming soon.

The 1st screenshot is easy to dunk on, but the 2nd is more pernicious: all experts with publicly available research data have shown COVID came from a wild animal killed for food. That's not "bolstering an idea" from intelligence agencies, it's the original work. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/30/h...

J.P. Morgan’s Feroli on Fed chair Warsh’s presser: “It's hard to know what to make of Warsh’s remarks, which involved a lot of well-turned phrases but little in the way of a coherent macro view.”

NEW from me: Transportation officials have removed a growing list of safety measures that reference bikes from federal websites. The push began after DOT Secretary Duffy’s social media post vowing to end funding for “DEI bike lanes” earlier this month. www.npr.org/2026/07/23/n...

DOT cranks up its campaign to strip bike lane references from federal websites

Transportation officials have removed a growing list of safety materials that mention bike lanes from federal websites. Safety advocates warn that's undermining proven measures for reducing crashes.

npr.org

If Lake Mead's water falls below 1,035 feet — a level not seen since the reservoir was filled in the 1930s — it’s expected that 70% of the Hoover Dam’s current hydropower will be cut. That could happen next Spring, according to a new study. #energysky #climate buff.ly/w0i9T1G

What does low water at the Hoover Dam mean for power in the American West?

The water level at Lake Mead is less than 10 feet away from rendering most of the hydroelectric turbines at the Hoover Dam inoperable.

buff.ly

Out of nowhere, Jonas Vingegaard crashed out of the Tour de France. A lot of people are assigning blame and trying to figure out why, when really, it's very simple: the unavoidable cruelty of professional cycling. defector.com/jonas-vingeg...

Jonas Vingegaard Felled Yet Again By The Cruelty Of His Sport | Defector

ÉVIAN-LES-BAINS, France — Exactly 84 minutes after Jonas Vingegaard spiked his right collarbone into a curb and limped into an ambulance and out of the Tour de France, the assembled press watched him ...

defector.com

Someone think of the election security experts, who once again are spending their time explaining why US vote counting is indeed secure san.com/cc/trump-tak...

Trump takes aim at US election system, which experts call ‘fundamentally secure’

President Donald Trump will deliver a prime-time address Thursday night on election security, promising “really big news” as his administration reportedly prepares to release newly declassified intell...

san.com

A rider on another team helping push a rider across the line after a 40mph crash is all the good and bad parts of bike racing in one go

A Reconstruction-era law built to stop Klan terror is now being used against Trump officials and pro-Israel groups. Here's its history. san.com/cc/the-trump...

The publisher of a local paper in Gettysburg, PA, put out an editorial full of white nationalist tropes on July 4. A priest responded with an editorial of her own—including claiming the post was AI slop san.com/cc/a-newspap...

One of the most unusual things about the Tour de France, a global sporting event, is that teams not only get paid a pittance to compete, but their hotels are booked by the organizers, occasionally to disastrous effect www.cyclingnews.com/pro-cycling/...

Multiple teams complain about Tour de France rest day hotels as riders forced to sleep outside in Massif Central

Uno-X Mobility and Alpecin-Premier Tech stayed in apartments that one riders dubbed 'amongst the the worst places I have stayed'

cyclingnews.com

Some Americans, upon learning that unwashed lettuce can be a vector for the explosive diarrhea bug, listed their lettuce on Facebook Marketplace san.com/cc/stop-givi...

Stop giving lettuce to neighbors: diarrhea-causing bacteria spreading paranoia, too

An illness that gives people diarrhea, fatigue and other symptoms is causing some to panic over exposure, while others look to hand off produce to others.

san.com

The White House Office of Management and Budget's plan to rework how scientific research grants are made threatens to erase the research advantage the US carefully built throughout the 20th century san.com/cc/the-end-o...

‘The end of American science as we know it.’ White House funding plan sparks alarm

A Trump administration proposal would vastly expand political oversight of federal grants. Critics say it threatens “science as we know it.”

san.com

Straight Arrow spoke with local leaders and historians about the factors they say are shaping the response — from the current political climate to Houston's geography and how it affects large-scale demonstrations. Full story: https://ow.ly/VOrJ50Zmvj2

Shout out to Norway for using SIS gels, the connoisseur's choice of sugar slurries

Graham Platner's strategist was asked to do more thorough vetting of the first-time candidate. Those requests went unanswered. Nice scoop from @azipaybarah.bsky.social san.com/cc/graham-platners-strategist-was-asked-three-times-to-do-more-vetting-sources?…

Graham Platner’s strategist was asked three times to do more vetting: Sources

Three early messages asking for more vetting into Graham Platner went unanswered, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.

san.com

Love locks have been milkshake ducked by public works departments around the nation san.com/cc/how-the-c...

How the crushing weight of love strains city bridges across the US

Cities are removing thousands of pounds of “love locks” as corrosion and safety concerns mount, even as residents defend the tradition.

san.com

Every so often I get to think of something that is not awful. I interviewed Henry freaking Rollins about his quest with Ian MacKaye and a few other schemers to revive Vengeance Records, The Cramps’ record label: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

How two punk icons are giving the Cramps a second life

“If you lose culture," Henry Rollins explains, "the society dies.”

motherjones.com

Over the last few years, 404 Media's @jasonkoebler.bsky.social has has become mildly obsessed with hustle bros and their online get rich quick scams. He goes LARPing to see how exactly they do this: Read the story here: www.404media.co/how-i-bought...

I chalk this up to Wout Van Aert attacking in the Arenberg Trench to finally win Paris-Roubaix after 10 years of trying to deliver on a promise to a teammate who died in their first participation of the race

There's only one explanation for this performance, and that is that ball don't lie

Correct your priors: Private money is going after clean energy, governments are using public money to prop up fossil fuels "About 59% of all money spent on the fossil fuel system came from taxpayers in 2015. By 2025, that climbed to 68% and spiked at 78% in 2022." www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Who’s Really Keeping Fossil Fuels Alive? Taxpayers

To judge by the way many people discuss the energy transition, we’re engaged in a fight between green idealogues in government and academia on the one hand, and a more realistic private sector that re...

bloomberg.com

The monkeys paw of the Balogun chicanery is that, sure, the US got a great player back, but in turn they all were required to drink NyQuil before the match