New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, once a figure of contention among leaders from both major political parties, has seen a remarkable surge in his political standing just six months into office.

The 34-year-old democratic socialist, a prominent figure on the progressive left, has garnered unexpected praise from both Donald Trump and New York Governor Kathy Hochul.

He has also emerged as the face of the region's sports renaissance. Now, days before New York's primary elections,

Love this guy. And please ignore my neighbor's ridiculous car. :p

It took more than a decade of planning, a messy court battle with preservationists and years of plodding construction, but the Obama Presidential Center will finally be unveiled on the South Side of Chicago on Thursday.

The opening itself will be a star-studded party, concert and celebration, the rare event that is expected to draw four former presidents — George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Joseph R. Biden Jr., along with Barack Obama himself.

An invitation was not extended to Trump, who recently compared the center to a trash heap.

Donald Trump’s administration has quietly redirected $352m in federal funds designated for the Secret Service toward the president’s controversial White House ballroom project, despite repeated promises by Trump that the construction would be financed by private donations

The funds were drawn from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump’s signature tax legislation passed last summer on Republican-only votes. The law stipulates the money may only be spent on Secret Service personnel, training facilities, technology and related costs, not construction.

About $340.8m of the funding was placed into an account labeled “Procurement, Construction, and Improvements” on 12 June, according to the office of management and budget (OMB) database. Another account labeled “Operations and Support” was also approved the same day, adding another $10.75m to the budget.

The move came after Congress explicitly refused to provide $1bn in funds for the “East Wing Modernization Project”, the Trump administration’s official name for a 90,000-sq-ft ballroom being built on the site of the White House’s demolished East Wing.

I'm so mf SAFE right now

at work and happy :)

The Trump administration is coming to the defense of Elon Musk in a lawsuit over claims that his artificial intelligence company, xAI, is polluting residential neighborhoods in north Mississippi. The Department of Justice (DOJ) told a federal court late on Monday to throw out the case.

The lawsuit was filed by the NAACP in April over allegations that xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech set up dozens of methane-gas turbines to power its data center in Southaven, Mississippi, without air permits. The suit claims these turbines emit toxic pollutants in violation of the Clean Air Act, and is asking a judge to block xAI from operating the machines.

“There is no moral or legal precedent for this…It’s a desperate attempt to protect wealthy tech companies from obeying the laws.”

The DOJ says this data center is being used to train and develop AI models that are “critical to the economy and the Department of War” and the turbines are necessary to power the facility. In a 33-page memo filed in Mississippi federal court, the government also claims that under the Clean Air Act, it can terminate such “citizen lawsuits.”

Super-Fun-Pak Comix by Ruben Bolling for June 18, 2026 | GoComics

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11949166

Archive link: https://archive.ph/EkF2v (Almost all links omitted)

If data brokers can track the devices you take with you, they know where you live, where you go, and what you do. And the stakes are only poised to climb higher, now that surveillance companies that sell automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) are getting in on the game. Defense contractor Leonardo is promoting a new technology called SignalTrace that will package plate cameras with sensors that can scrape unique identifiers tied to your smart devices and make that data available to law enforcement.

A recent report by 404 Media dives into the objective of SignalTrace and how it’s being marketed to authorities. Police, border security, and other government agencies already comprise Leonardo’s customer base, and with this technology, those clients seek to correlate footage from these cameras to phones, tablets, wearables, AirTags, and, naturally, the electronics inside cars themselves.

If SignalTrace can pick up your Bluetooth headphones, you can be damn sure it’ll also be looking out for your vehicle’s 5G hotspot, infotainment system, and even its tire pressure monitoring sensors. Hell, the company includes pet microchips as a potential entry point to tracking.

An excerpt from Leonardo’s own literature on SignalTrace. Leonardo

The goal here, as 404 sums up, is to “bridge the gap between vehicle and occupant.” Previously, these cameras could track a car’s whereabouts at a given time. Throw in a glut of unique identifiers, though, and the job of tying an individual or multiple people to that vehicle becomes trivial—and not something anyone can simply opt out of.

Of course, ALPRs were already bad news; the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that the simple act of repeatedly capturing photos of cars in transit at multiple points of their journeys, day in and day out, was enough to establish someone’s “pattern of life” and even identify those they associate with.

Leonardo was granted the patent for the technology that underpins SignalTrace two years ago. A press release announcing the milestone concludes with a disclaimer that the company’s tech “captures device frequencies emitted into the air” and “does not decrypt or capture the contents of the devices or their communications.” That’s precisely how these firms are able to evade culpability for the surveillance they enable. Whether they’re cracking encryption or not, the results are the same.

According to Reddit, he doesn't even wash his hands after going to the bathroom.

https://www.reddit.com/r/vmware/comments/1b2awqx/broadcom_ceo_pay_award_jumps_164_to_1608_million/

Due to having less than I thought put aside, and slightly poor financial planning, my bank account is currently in the negative. Help isn't necessarily urgent because my bank doesn't bleed me dry the second I go under a cent but I would really like to avoid risking it.

If anyone feels like helping I would very much appreciate it, my infos listed Cashapp: $ticky Paypal: @bongwater Venmo: @leghoul

Photographer: Charles J. Sharp

CC BY-SA 4.0