ACLU sues ICE after it ignores requests for license plate reader records
"ICE apparently failed to turn over records after multiple requests. In December, ICE purchased access to two databases of automated license-plate reader data."
On Poisoned Ground: East Chicago’s legacy of lead pollution
"East Chicago officials knowingly built the elementary school and, later, the public housing complex on a polluted industrial brownfield, then ignored decades of warning signs that people in this predominantly black area of the city were being poisoned."
Brain-damaging lead found in tap water in hundreds of homes tested across Chicago, results show
"Chicago required the use of lead service lines between street mains and homes until Congress banned the practice in 1986. Yet as Mayor Rahm Emanuel borrows hundreds of millions of dollars to overhaul the city’s public water system, Chicago is keeping lead service lines in the ground."
Why Do Americans Stay When Their Town Has No Future?
"Family and community are the only things left in Adams County, Ohio, as the coal-fired power plants abandon ship and the government shrugs."
John Whitehead: The Age of Petty Tyrannies
"70 years ago, one out of every 20 U.S. jobs required a state license; today, almost 1 in 3 American occupations requires a license."
Thousands of Google employees threaten to quit over military drone AI project
"Around a dozen Google employees have already quit over the company's involvement in an artificial intelligence drone program for the Pentagon called Project Maven."
When the Meter Feeds on You
"The combination of automated plate readers every 10 yards or so with always-on cameras that feed into an always-watching (and recording) nexus of 'private-public' surveillance is bleak, depressing and scary. Worse, it’s real."
Uber, Lyft Want to Ban Personal Use of Self-Driving Cars in Urban Areas
"Uber, Lyft, and several other firms critically involved in self-driving cars have their own ideas about how to improve personal transport — and one of the biggest involves you not being allowed to drive your car at all."
A Beer War Is Brewing in Maryland
"This is where the story becomes quite curious. The new bill will reduce output for all brewers except for one: the new Guinness Brewery being built in southwest Baltimore."
The Big Losers at the Olympics Are the Host Nations
"Politicians in the winning country are often not around when taxpayers foot the bill more than half a decade later. The Olympics exhibit many qualities which are endorsed by free-market capitalism, actively promoting individualism, international cooperation, and excellence through competition. Why, then, do we continue the tradition of outlandish public spending on them?"