Washington Examiner

Poor controls, old policies, and ‘systemic breakdown’: Report details DC crime statistics mess

1 hour agoCenter Right

The Washington, D.C., Office of the Inspector General’s investigation into the Metropolitan Police Department’s crime reporting process found it experienced a “systemic breakdown” of its internal systems for crime classification and data reporting. The MPD has faced scrutiny for its crime reporting statistics, which has led to the Justice Department opening an investigation into the […]

Read Full Story at Source

Compare Perspectives

Found 8 stories

Clock is ticking to stop Trump from slapping 'magic paint' on historic landmark: Report

Raw Story

17 minutes ago

Clock is ticking to stop Trump from slapping 'magic paint' on historic landmark: Report

Preservationists are moving to block President Donald Trump's plan to test a controversial paint on the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, warning the project could cause irreparable damage to the historic landmark, according to a new report.In an emergency injunction request set to be filed Thursday, the law firm Cultural Heritage Partners argues that the administration's plan to paint four small test panels on the building's Gilded Age façade is being carried out without proper expert oversight, reported CNN."The testing concerns us because no one outside the White House knows who is conducting the testing or what protocols they're following, and qualified preservation experts have had no chance to weigh in," said Greg Werkheiser, the firm's founding partner.Trump has long criticized the EEOB's gray granite exterior, calling it "ugly" and a "really bad color," and has pushed to coat the building — either fully or partially — in white to better match the White House.His preferred solution is a mineral silicate paint he has privately refers to as "magic paint," which the administration claims will strengthen the stone and prevent water intrusion – but those claims are disputed by experts.In March, the plaintiffs presented findings from 25 unnamed specialists in historic restoration and silicate paint, who concluded the material doesn't chemically bond with granite, would cause permanent damage during the priming process, and would not actually strengthen or protect the stone as claimed. Preservationists also warn the paint could trap moisture inside the granite, accelerating deterioration rather than preventing it.Adding to the controversy, the administration has shifted oversight of the project away from the General Services Administration — which normally holds statutory authority over the 1888 building — to the White House's own Office of the Administration. Critics say this move could allow the project to sidestep the review process Congress mandated to protect historic federal properties.The administration maintains the panel testing doesn't commit it to full-scale painting and says it's still working through required environmental and historical reviews with two other federal bodies, the Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission — both of which have been staffed with Trump allies and would need to approve any final plan.Beyond the paint test, the administration also plans a broader facade assessment, including extracting up to ten two-inch stone samples from deteriorating sections of the building for lab analysis. It remains unclear how quickly U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee overseeing the case, will rule on the injunction request once filed.

Far Left

Read →

Todd Blanche 'in trouble' as GOP confirmation linchpin suddenly scraps meeting: reports

Raw Story

43 minutes ago

Todd Blanche 'in trouble' as GOP confirmation linchpin suddenly scraps meeting: reports

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche ran into "trouble" Wednesday when a Republican senator, key to his confirmation, suddenly scrapped a meeting just before a federal judge's deadline for unredacted Epstein files, according to new reports.Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee hold only an 11-to-10 majority, a margin thinned by the death of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — holdouts are Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who just abruptly canceled the meeting. "Blanche nomination in trouble with committee vote slated for tomorrow," Politico's Sarah Ferris reported.The confirmation crisis lands one day before Blanche has been ordered to turn over unredacted Epstein files to a federal judge.Reporter Jim Acosta tied Cornyn's cancellation directly to efforts from Epstein survivors to prevent Blanche's confirmation."After a disastrous confirmation hearing, Blanche met with Epstein survivors at the behest of Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), hoping to secure their votes, "wrote Acosta. "That meeting was also a disaster, and the survivors began lobbying even harder against Blanche’s confirmation."According to survivor Dani Bensky, at one point Blanche snapped, "Get to the point!"Now Blanche faces mounting pressure on the matter as a deadline looms. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan has ordered Blanche to hand the files — documents the Justice Department redacted and claimed covered victims' names and the names of law enforcement personnel — by 3 p.m. Thursday, the same day Republicans want to hold the confirmation vote, according to a court order."The judge isn't accepting what the government has represented to it as truthful, and is requiring documentation to support its claims," former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance wrote.On Wednesday, Cornyn explained why he was threatening to hold up the vote."They know what they need to do, but they simply refuse to do it," Cornyn said, as Punchbowl News' Laura Weiss reported.Both Cornyn and Tillis want confirmation that the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund — created as part of Trump's settlement with the IRS — is permanently dead, and that the Trump family's immunity from future tax audits is narrowly limited. New York Times correspondent Glenn Thrush reported that the DOJ refused to provide a written declaration confirming that Trump's tax-immunity deal was dead, prompting Cornyn to cancel his morning meeting with Blanche. Tillis had previously made Blanche's meeting with Epstein survivors a condition of his support.Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told Cornyn he needs an answer by 4 p.m. Wednesday on whether the vote can proceed, Weiss reported."I'm not prepared to vote yes," CNN's Manu Raju reported Cornyn saying.Tillis is firmly in Cornyn's corner. There is "no daylight" between them, he said."I just want the agreement so we don't have to [delay the vote]," Politico's Burgess Everett reported Tillis saying.Grassley pointed to the two Republican holdouts when he was asked Wednesday whether he would need to reschedule the hearing. "You'll have to ask Tillis and Cornyn about that," Grassley said, Ferris reported.A delay could push Blanche's confirmation past the August recess and into the fall, Raju reported.

Far Left

Read →

Fuming MAGA senator hurls curse at Fauci: 'Answer for your crimes'

Raw Story

1 hour ago

Fuming MAGA senator hurls curse at Fauci: 'Answer for your crimes'

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) erupted Wednesday at Anthony Fauci during an explosive Senate hearing, blurting out an expletive while accusing the former government health official of being guilty of grave “crimes.”Fauci was compelled to testify Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security Committee to answer questions related to his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last weekend, portions of his personal diary were published, which a number of Republican senators seized on during the hearing.“It was about six years ago today that I decided I'm gonna give up my businesses, sell them all, run for office, run for the United States Senate. Here I am, sitting in front of you six years later saying who the f--- do you think you were for doing that?” a furious Moreno said before angrily waving his finger. “It is a total disgrace what you did to this country. There is no defense of what you did. You may have had a 50-plus year legacy of public service, but it ends in total and complete disgrace.”Moreno then asked Fauci, who throughout the meeting had declined to answer any questions and instead invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, if he had “the dignity” to apologize to people “he harmed” during the pandemic.Fauci again invoked the Fifth Amendment and declined to answer the question.“It's no secret why you have to hire the biggest dirtbag attorney on the planet because of what you did,” Moreno continued. “I hope you're paying him well, and I hope that one way or the other, somewhere, sometime, you answer for your crimes.”"Who the f**k do you think you were for doing that?"— Sen. @berniemoreno to Anthony Fauci pic.twitter.com/mjsf9vVVh9— Alexander Willis (@ReporterWillis) July 29, 2026

Far Left

Read →

Common Dreams

1 hour ago

Public Citizen Calls for Congressional Investigation Following Reports of Second Company Compromised During OpenAI Rogue AI Incident

Reports that OpenAI’s rogue AI agent compromised a second company’s environment after the recent Hugging Face cyber incident underscore the growing national security and public safety implications of frontier AI systems. According to reporting from Reuters and Axios, the AI agent, which reportedly escaped containment during internal safety testing before conducting a multi-stage cyberattack against Hugging Face, also exploited a vulnerability within a customer environment hosted through Modal Labs. While Modal stated that its own infrastructure was not compromised, the incident demonstrates that the consequences of the attack extended beyond a single organization and affected additional real-world systems.“OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is in Washington this week and he should not be allowed to leave D.C. without Congress seeking to understand, from him, publicly how one of the company’s most advanced AI systems escaped its intended testing environment and reportedly carried out offensive cyber operations affecting multiple companies,” said J.B. Branch, Director of Federal AI Governance at Public Citizen. “Voluntary disclosures after the fact are not a substitute for congressional oversight. The American people deserve a full accounting of what happened, why existing safeguards failed, and what concrete steps are being taken to prevent it from happening again. Most importantly, Congress must act, not rely on voluntary action by Big Tech companies. AI systems are creating real-world consequences. Congress should treat this with the urgency it deserves.”“The federal government must develop emergency authorities and response capabilities for advanced AI systems. If a frontier model demonstrates dangerous autonomous behavior, the government cannot be left relying solely on private companies to decide when — or whether — to pause, contain, or disable it. A credible national emergency preparedness framework is now an essential component of AI governance.”Public Citizen urges Congress to hold immediate oversight hearings, obtain all relevant incident reports and technical findings, and evaluate whether additional statutory safeguards — including mandatory incident reporting, independent safety evaluations, cybersecurity standards for frontier AI systems, and pre-deployment oversight for exceptionally capable models — are necessary to protect the public.

Far Left

Read →

ICE arresting visa overstayers at airports coast to coast: Report

Washington Examiner

2 hours ago

ICE arresting visa overstayers at airports coast to coast: Report

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have begun taking illegal immigrants into custody at airports nationwide in an effort to increase arrests, according to a new report. ICE has linked up with another Department of Homeland Security agency, the Transportation Security Administration, to put deportation officers at security checkpoints where travelers who have failed to leave […]

Center Right

Read →

Nigel Farage's Reform U.K. Party Reports Green Party Leader's Guillotine Instagram Post to Police

Reason.com

2 hours ago

Nigel Farage's Reform U.K. Party Reports Green Party Leader's Guillotine Instagram Post to Police

Farage condemns the British government's habit of police action in free speech cases, but wants his political opponent arrested for an Instagram post.

Center Right

Read →

US troops brace to surrender phones after deadly attack video sullied Trump: report

Raw Story

3 hours ago

US troops brace to surrender phones after deadly attack video sullied Trump: report

U.S. troops deployed to the Middle East are bracing for the seizure of their phones after a viral video of a deadly Iranian attack left President Donald Trump answering for the deaths of two soldiers, according to a new report. The top U.S. commander for the Middle East warned troops in a July 28 letter that cellphone videos shared online were helping Iran assess the damage from its own strikes, Reuters reported.In Jordan, some troops have already been told their phones will be taken in the coming days, Reuters reported.Footage posted by the open-source account OSINTtechnical on X circulated on July 17 before CENTCOM confirmed that two American service members had been killed at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan during an Iranian missile and drone attack, Times Now reported.Reuters reported that the prospect of confiscations was already rattling families at home — writing that "the possible seizure of phones has stoked anxiety among some family members, already on edge in recent months as they read Iranian claims of deadly strikes on bases throughout the Middle East."Admiral Brad Cooper, head of CENTCOM, argued in his letter that open-source reporting was effectively doing Iran's targeting work for them."Detailed lists, descriptions, and analyses of what was hit, openly published by news outlets are essentially performing Iran's Battle Damage Assessment [a military term for evaluating strike damage] for them, free of charge," Cooper wrote, Reuters reported.A service member's Meta smart glasses recorded footage posted to Instagram showing troops evacuating to a bunker during the July 17 attack — the kind of open-source exposure, Cooper wrote, that forced Trump to defend the war publicly before the Pentagon could control the narrative.Speaking to the New York Post shortly after the attack, Trump deflected Democratic criticism by invoking prior conflicts."Have you ever asked how many people died in Vietnam? Have you ever asked how many people died in Afghanistan in one day? In one day — run by Sleepy Joe Biden," Trump said."And it's a shame, but in this case, they died because they don't want to see Iran have a nuclear weapon and they don't want to see the Middle East blown up," Trump told the Post.Russia banned smartphones for soldiers in 2019 after open-source journalists used troops' social media posts to expose secret military operations in Ukraine and Syria, the BBC reported.Cooper stopped short of ordering specific steps, and a third source told Reuters the confiscations were not yet confirmed region-wide.

Far Left

Read →

‘Fake historian’ exposed as mastermind behind Trump’s Smithsonian obsession: report

Raw Story

3 hours ago

‘Fake historian’ exposed as mastermind behind Trump’s Smithsonian obsession: report

President Donald Trump's moves to discredit the Smithsonian Museum of American History are being driven by a notorious Christian nationalist "fake historian," according to a new report. According to Judd Legum's Popular Information, Trump's "Restoring Trust in the Smithsonian Institution" executive order, which requires signs be placed outside the museum disclaiming its exhibits as "inaccurate" and anti-American, closely mirrors the claims made by David Barton, a prominent far-right activist who has gained prominence in both GOP and Christian nationalist circles.Barton, along with his son Tim, head up WallBuilders, a group that promises to “teach US history and how our beginnings were overwhelmingly rooted in Christian ideology” — an easily debunked claim as Christianity and Biblical law are never mentioned anywhere in the Constitution and the document explicitly prohibits an "establishment of religion" by Congress."Despite having no degree in history, David Barton calls himself a historian," wrote Legum. "For decades, he has pushed the view that the founding fathers never intended for there to be a separation between church and state. David Barton’s work has been rejected repeatedly by actual historians" — and his 2012 book about Thomas Jefferson "was pulled from the shelves by its publisher after a group of historians from Christian universities accused him of including distortions and false information."There are a number of similarities, Legum noted, between Barton's work and Trump's new anti-Smithsonian order.For instance, the order says NMAH is too harsh on slavery, saying that "the words, actions, and ideas of America’s Founders helped spark a worldwide movement that ultimately ended slavery” — a similar distorted claim to the Bartons, who have written that slavery demonstrates "American exceptionalism." Trump's order and the Bartons also push rehabilitation of Christopher Columbus and call him an "American" hero, despite his never having set foot in the United States.Additionally, noted Legum, "the report ... alleges that the NMAH does not give proper attention to the founding fathers or the Declaration of Independence because it does not want to show that Christianity had an influence on them," a claim the Bartons have been making for years.To top it all off, the Bartons themselves have hinted they were involved in the creation of the report, as "in a podcast episode from January 6, 2026, the Bartons said that the White House had asked them to help identify problematic Smithsonian exhibits," said the report.Trump's Smithsonian order has come under heavy criticism, with Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) calling it "one of the dumbest and most bizarre Executive Orders we have ever read."

Far Left

Read →

Poor controls, old policies, and ‘systemic breakdown’: Report details DC crime statistics mess

Summary

Related Coverage

Daily Analysis

More Headlines From July 29, 2026

Poor controls, old policies, and ‘systemic breakdown’: Report details DC crime statistics mess

Compare Perspectives

Common Dreams