The Kosciusko County Council voted 5-0 to defund Flock cameras and other surveillance technologies, including ALPR systems and Axon Justice software, after hours of bipartisan public testimony against the equipment. The council can only withhold funding, not cancel contracts, which remains the commissioners' authority. Existing cameras in county buildings and officer body cameras were exempted from the defunding motions.
On September 10, 1897, London taxi driver George Smith became the first person in Britain—and possibly the world—to be convicted of drink-driving after his electric cab crashed into a building on New Bond Street. Smith admitted to consuming beer and was fined 20 shillings under existing legislation designed for horse-drawn carriages, years before Britain introduced driving licenses or breathalyzers.
A scientist with expertise in computational biology and AI-designed biological systems critiques Noah Smith's opinion piece about AI-engineered superviruses, arguing that designing functional viruses remains extraordinarily difficult and that Smith's fictional scenario of a teenager creating a civilization-ending pathogen vastly underestimates the technical barriers involved. The author contends that while localized harm from AI-designed bioagents is possible, existential-scale threats are unlikely for decades.