The decision to halt production of Tesla’s polarizing polygonal pickup marks the end of an error.

Elon Musk, in a post on X, has officially called time on the Cybertruck, stating that “Tesla will be winding down production of the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of next year to make room for increased Cybercab production.”

Produced for less than four years, the polarizing pickup is seemingly dying as it lived, with the news being greeted in a flurry of replies in praise of the EV as well as deriding it. James Star, claiming to be a Tesla employee, posted that it was “the saddest news! Cybertruck (was) the best car Tesla sold,” right next to a user called Captain Ford who simply replied to Musk with “Fuck that shitbox.”

HOUSTON (AP) — Houston’s mayor on Friday directed police to limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, signing an order that he called a direct result of Democrats reclaiming power in Texas for the first time in decades.

The shift in the nation’s fourth-largest city is one of the first actions to restrict U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations since Democrats’ rout in Tuesday’s midterm elections. It also is a sign that results are already having an impact in Texas, where Republican leaders have enthusiastically embraced President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

The stunning victories included Democrat Gina Hinojosa ousting Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, which will make her Texas’ first Latina governor and the first member of her party to hold the office in more than 30 years.

“I’ve said many times, elections matter,” Mayor John Whitmire said.

A federal judge in Oregon says he can no longer assume ICE agents are telling the truth in their arrest paperwork, declaring Monday that live testimony is now "necessary" after finding that warrantless arrests are still being made and facts are being "fabricated in official records" by immigration officers.

In a 50-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai ruled that ICE repeatedly violated an existing court order governing warrantless immigration arrests in the Beaver State, with inaccurate reports, missing records and accounts that did not match what actually happened.

The judge's loss of confidence in the agency was so pronounced that he withdrew the usual presumption that government officials have properly performed their duties.

Tesla will stop making the Cybertruck next year, according to CEO Elon Musk, who said on X that the company will use the factory space to build more two-seater Cybercab robotaxis.

The decision to wind down the futuristic, steel-clad EV comes after just a few short years of underwhelming sales. When Musk handed over the first few Cybertrucks in late 2023, he predicted Tesla would sell around 250,000 per year. It was supposed to be such a cornerstone of Tesla’s future that, before construction began, the company talked about its Texas factory as the “Cybertruck factory.” But Tesla has instead sold just tens of thousands — total — over the last three years.

A federal judge has blocked construction of Donald Trump’s arch for 14 days after a final vote approving the structure passed late Thursday despite fierce opposition from citizens who voiced concern during a marathon public hearing.

The National Capital Planning Commission, one of two federal agencies that oversees architectural and design changes in Washington, gave the final green light to build the 250-foot monument at its virtual meeting on Thursday after more than 120 citizens, many of them veterans, lined up to plead with the panel to block the project.

Within an hour of its passage, US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee who is overseeing a high profile lawsuit to stop construction, ruled that the administration, the defendants in the case, would be prohibited from “initiating, making or otherwise effectuating” any “construction-related activity” near the proposed site of the arch.

Insane content censorship destroying people’s ability to make a living. Great one, UK.

Nvidia’s CEO is reportedly the target of a ‘Chinese spy plot’ for intelligence on American AI chips.

China’s intelligence agency recruited Megaspeed executive Alice Huang to spy on Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, according to The New York Times. The Ministry of State Security (MSS) enlisted her to glean information about American AI chips and “potentially influence the company to push for its most advanced chips to be made available to China.” Megaspeed is a customer of Nvidia’s, and Alice Huang also has “relationships with executives at the highest levels of the A.I. chip industry,” including leaders at Gigabyte, the NYT says.

Last week, the NYT reported that Jensen Huang was seen as the target of a “Chinese spy plot” and shared details about Alice Huang and Jensen Huang’s relationship, but the information that China’s MSS had recruited her is new.

On Tuesday, Alabama residents voted on Constitutional Amendment 3 to amend the state constitution by requiring public schools to recite the Pledge of Allegiance daily and allow "student-led prayer."​ The measure officially passed on Wednesday, with 63 percent of the vote, according to The New York Times.

-President Donald Trump announced White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller will be promoted to chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles.

-Miller will take over starting Monday, Trump said in a Truth Social post.

-Wiles “will be moving over to the Trump Political Operation,” the president wrote.

President Donald Trump on Friday announced White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller will be promoted to chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles.

Trump revealed the stunning shake-up just three days after Democrats won a landslide victory in the midterm elections, gaining majority control in the House and Senate and scrambling the trajectory of Trump’s last two years in office.

Elevating Miller, an architect or Trump’s controversial mass-deportation efforts, is bound to raise the hackles of the incoming class of congressional Democrats, who have already vowed to investigate the government’s immigration policies.

Miller will take over starting Monday, Trump said in a Truth Social post, praising his longtime aide as “one of my most trusted advisors.”

Wiles, “who has done an outstanding job, will be moving over to the Trump Political Operation,” the president wrote.

The bill would require companies like Amazon to directly employ the people who deliver their packages while also creating a licensing system that would hold the companies to new safety, training, and labor standards. It has the backing of Mayor Zohran Mamdani and 31 of the council’s 51 members—enough for it to pass if brought to a vote. Supporters of the bill say it would increase street safety while also providing better protection for the workers who deliver Amazon packages.

The women whom Russell Brand raped and sexually assaulted have for weeks endured the ordeal of a heavily publicised trial. Throughout, Brand held online prayer meetings with followers. Does he feel Christian sympathy for those women?

Only Brand, in the deepest recesses of his conscience, can know.

The answer would be the best indicator of whether the disgraced comic, actor and born-again Christian has worn his newfound faith as a cloak in an effort to deflect and distract from the seriousness of the allegations against him. Or whether his conversion is a profound and sincere one – a spiritual crutch he may need in the coming years.

Whatever the truth, Brand’s case demonstrates how Christianity has become a frontier in the culture wars along which battle lines are now drawn on all kinds of ethical, political and even legal issues.

...

The US EV maker only began delivering the Cybertruck to customers in late 2023. ‌According to Kelley Blue Book, the company only sold 20,237 Cybertrucks ⁠in the US last year, down 48% from 38,965 in 2024. Before the pickup truck launched, Musk had predicted annual sales of 250,000 units.

...

In response to a user on X, Musk called the Cybertruck the "best vehicle Tesla has ever made" and the wind-down the "end of an era".

As always, the President remains laser focused on the important things...

...

As is universally acknowledged in the media, the 2026 midterm election was the greatest electoral repudiation of a sitting president in over half a century, and one of the largest in American history. The shift against Trump ran through every region of the country and every section of the population, and it was sharpest among rural voters, young men and workers whom Trump had claimed as his base.

The vote was a rejection not only of Trump but of the entire agenda of his administration. It expressed mass opposition to the growth of social inequality, war, the assault on immigrants and attacks on democratic rights.

Yet the Democrats came out immediately offering bipartisanship.

Hakeem Jeffries, who is expected to become speaker of the House in January, declared that Democrats are “ready, willing and able to find bipartisan common ground” and that “the American people don’t want us to get even.” He added that not a single member of his caucus had raised impeachment with him.

Barack Obama declared that Americans “want a politics that brings people together rather than divides them.” The same line was repeated in various forms by newly elected Democrats: a call to “restore a sense of decency and bipartisanship in Washington,” (Kansas Senator-elect Adam Hamilton); the assurance that “come January, we will be forced to work together,” (Iowa Governor-elect Rob Sand); a disavowal of any interest “in moving Minnesota to the left or the right,” (Minnesota Governor-elect Amy Klobuchar).

James Talarico, elected to the Senate from Texas, said he had not been elected “for retribution.” On immigration, the policy of mass roundups, detention camps and deportations, he said one should “give the president credit where credit is due.”

This response demonstrates the fraudulent character of the elections and the imperviousness of the ruling elite to the will of the population. The Democrats are not acting as an opposition party that has defeated the government. They do not need Republican support. They will hold substantial majorities in both the House and the Senate. Why, then, are they talking about bipartisanship at all?

They treat the losing party as if it had won, and a hated president as a suitor whose favor they seek. It is as if Abraham Lincoln, reelected in November 1864 on a program of prosecuting the war to victory and abolishing slavery, had responded by offering “common ground” to the Confederacy.

...

"A group of Facebook users says Meta was aware of receiving user data from hundreds of medical providers without users' knowledge or consent.

Users recognized at least 664 hospital systems and health provider websites from which Meta received patient information..."

The law, which went into effect on July 1, 2024, does not differentiate between those using and those selling the drug, and it doesn’t require prosecutors to find evidence of trafficking. Instead, prosecutors can charge people with fentanyl trafficking if they possess at least 4 grams or 100 pills that contain fentanyl. InvestigateWest reviewed court records for all fentanyl trafficking charges filed through June 30 of this year. Among the 90 cases that included arrest reports, one-third of them lacked evidence such as scales, ledgers and small bags, which when found together are commonly considered proof that someone sold or intended to sell drugs. But court records show those people were charged with trafficking and face the law’s mandatory minimum prison terms based on the amount of fentanyl police said they had.

A sheriff deputy in western Idaho’s Nez Perce County arrested a man for drug possession after he dropped a bag of blue pills that the deputy identified as fentanyl on the floor of a casino, according to the police report. After counting 111 pills, “I changed the charge from possession, to trafficking Fentanyl,” the deputy wrote in the report.

One county north, Isaac Berger was charged with fentanyl trafficking by the Latah County Prosecutor’s Office after an emergency room nurse who was treating him for an overdose reported Berger to police. Less than three months later, Berger died of fentanyl poisoning. The detective who investigated Berger's death said there was no evidence that he was planning to sell or distribute the drugs, which Berger’s mother brought to the hospital in an effort to help healthcare workers save her son.

Prosecutors who supported the law during legislative debates continue to defend it, saying it deters drug dealers from bringing fentanyl into the state, though none provided evidence to support the claim.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20261106130413/https://www.investigatewest.org/an-idaho-law-targeted-fentanyl-dealers-prosecutors-are-using-it-to-charge-users-too/

Archived English version

Archived Spanish version

Venezuela may be one step away from becoming one of the first countries outside the People’s Republic of China to adopt the new generation of Chinese artificial intelligence systems for mass surveillance and political control, according to a report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

The report reveals that in July 2025, the Venezuelan government signed a memorandum of understanding with iFlytek, a Chinese company that has been on the U.S. trade sanctions list since 2019 for its role in the repression of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. The agreement to jointly develop Artificial intelligence in Venezuela was negotiated by Delcy Rodríguez, then vice president and now Venezuela’s interim president.

...

The report, titled “Warning Signals: Venezuela and the Risk of Chinese AI-Enabled Digital Authoritarianism” (pdf), documents that Venezuela doesn’t need to build a surveillance system from scratch — it already has one, built largely on Chinese technology through importing cameras, networks, identity systems and command centres from Chinese firms in the past two decades.

While the resulting architecture is fragmented, unevenly deployed and technically constrained, ASPI's researchers identified six interconnected technological layers in the imported surveillance system: telecommunications, digital identity, central databases, video surveillance, internet control, and now, analytics and artificial intelligence. All of them were built or enhanced with support from companies such as Huawei, ZTE, CEIEC, Hikvision, and Dahua.

...

At the core of this system’s identity layer is the Carnet de la Patria (Homeland Card), a digital ID linked to social benefits. The report states it had 21.8 million registered users as of January 2023—roughly three-quarters of Venezuela’s population—and served as many as 14.2 million people each month. A layer of central databases could cross-reference identity information, biometric data, and social welfare data.

The report also describes a network of video surveillance and command centres (such as the VEN911 and SIMA systems) capable of monitoring public spaces and coordinating responses in real time, and a telecommunications infrastructure that, by channelling a large portion of the country’s data traffic, functions as an additional checkpoint.

While the above technologies were imported through separate contracts, they reinforce one another and form a partially connected surveillance system, enabling government agencies to identify, monitor, and take action regarding citizens’ behaviour.

...

According to the report, iFlytek's AI technology will further integrate the pre-existing layers of surveillance infrastructure into a more comprehensive system, making it faster, more scalable, and harder to evade.

Facial recognition, voice identification, and automated database cross-referencing tools could be used to identify, locate, and profile individuals without any visible human action, such as attending a protest.

...

If that capability were combined with the network of cameras and the identity records in the Carnet de la Patria, the risk is that the government would no longer need to rely on someone’s visible participation in a protest to identify them, and could instead preemptively flag individuals based on patterns of association, movement, or activity on social media even before any specific incident occurs.

...

Added to all this is a pattern of opacity. As has been the case for years with technology agreements between Venezuela and the People’s Republic of China, the details of the memorandum with iFlytek have not been made public in their entirety; this makes it difficult to ascertain the actual scope of the agreement, which is why the report recommends demanding the full publication of these agreements.

...

The agreement with iFlytek was signed months before Maduro’s capture by U.S. forces in January 2026. Delcy Rodríguez, who negotiated it directly at the time, now serves as the U.S.-backed interim president. However, the report notes that during her tenure, the Venezuelan surveillance apparatus has not been dismantled. This is the same conclusion reached by the UN International Fact-Finding Mission, which documented that the surveillance infrastructure remained in place following the change in government.

The authors argue that, despite this, there is a window of opportunity. The interim government’s current dependence on the U.S. could be used to demand the cancellation of the memorandum with iFlytek before this technological escalation is implemented.

...

Archived

Here is the full report: A Formula for Repression – China’s Global Grid for Community Control (pdf)

In 2022, Safeguard Defenders published 110 Overseas and Patrol & Persuade: two reports detailing the activity of over 100 overseas Chinese police stations operating in more than 50 countries.

After the report was published, many of the countries affected denounced the stations’ illegal operations. Some pursued criminal investigations. Beijing responded by claiming they had closed.

[...]

Now a new report exposes Beijing’s claim to be false. Far from closing, the evidence shows expansion.

[...]

Today, more than ten police forces from five Chinese provinces are engaged in the work of a global network of Chinese Communist Party operatives abroad. The police involvement is only the beginning, and these are not isolated initiatives by a few local governments in China.

Since late 2024, five new national policies instruct authorities across China to expand designated liaison activities abroad. The core aim is to export the domestic system of grid management to control the diaspora.

[...]

In China, the Party divides every city, town and village into grids, each square representing a few hundred households, and each with a grid manager who reports upward. The manager has ten tasks, nine of which have to do with surveillance and control. There is a file on every resident.

Anything seen as a threat to Party rule is escalated to a hub where enforcement stands ready to act.

Internationally, this system of mass surveillance, control and suppression is projected through a global grid of united front affiliated organizations or designated liaisons. They are run by the Party's "bridge and bond" to the diaspora: the Overseas Chinese Federation.

These Party liaisons provide the infrastructure other Chinese authorities - police, prosecutors, courts, justice bureaus and others - simply plug into. Or, as the Party calls it: through which they "extend their tentacles".

How the 'grid' extends abroad

The authorities sometimes use the word “grid” themselves when talking about overseas functions. In May 2019, eight months after opening their first “police-overseas-Chinese stations” [警侨驿站] abroad, the Qingtian county police, in Zhejiang Province, reported to the national police newspaper that they had hired 135 diaspora association leaders and chairs as center directors, deputies and liaison officers, and “put together an overseas grid-service informant corps of more than 1,000” [组建了1000余人的海外网格服务信息员队伍] ...

[The report describes how the Chinese grid of police stations extends abroad. It is fairly impossible to paraphrased what the report calls "The machinery: 1 + n + X + Y(y)". Everyone is stronglu encouraged to read the report (pdf).]

[...]

In its new report, the NGO Safeguard Defenders finds nearly 1,250 formally designated liaisons in at least 91 countries which exist to carry out domestic grid functions abroad.

This number is based on a conservative methodology, and a likely underrepresentation of actual activity. The Party numbers its affiliated associations abroad in the tens of thousands, every one of them a potential grid liaison in the waiting.

Included in this number are the very liaison stations Safeguard Defenders exposed years ago and were told "merely" provided services to the diaspora community. Yet the functions of service and control cannot be separated, as the official policies and public statements that form the basis for this report make clear. In fact, the power to provide or deny services directly adds to the Party liaisons’ ability to exercise control.

Every liaison designated and every task carried out by them are breaches of sovereignty. They are transnational repression embodied, affecting entire communities around the world. Their standing order to carry out any task as required by the Party represents an active national security threat.

[...]

Beneath it all sits one structure: the Party’s united front, and its global network of affiliated associations.

The names given to such designated liaisons may change; the underlying structure does not.

Policymakers must urgently devise strategies to confront this superstructure of CCP interference if the stations and their activities are to be shut down for good.

[...]