Detroit woman suing police, claiming faulty facial recognition technology led to unjust arrest
Faulty use of facial recognition technology led to the unjust arrest of a Detroit woman, she said in a federal lawsuit, alleging that police failed to ask basic questions that could've cleared her on the spot.
LaDonna Crutchfield, 37, was at home with her children on Jan. 23, 2024, when police took her away in handcuffs and accused her of being their prime suspect in an attempted murder, according to a complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
LaDonna Crutchfield.via Law Offices of Ivan L. Land
Crutchfield "was identified as a suspect by an unknown facial recognition database," the lawsuit said.
#Detroit #Woman #Police
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U.S. may import more eggs as prices soar. Canada says ‘happy to discuss’
As the U.S. grapples with soaring egg prices, that country’s agriculture secretary says “temporary import options” will be on the table.
In an op-ed written for the Wall Street Journal, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins outlined her plan to lower the price of eggs – a key issue for American voters in an election that saw Donald Trump return to the White House.
In the op-ed, Rollins noted that the average price of a dozen eggs had skyrocketed 237 per cent, from US$1.47 in January 2021 to US$4.95 last month. Rollins outlined several measures that the Trump administration would take, including combating avian flu, which she said has resulted in the culling of 166 million egg-laying hens since 2022.
Among the measures she proposed was importing more eggs.
“We will consider temporary import options to reduce egg costs in the short term. We will proceed with imports only if the eggs meet stringent U.S. safety standards and if we determine that doing so won’t jeopardize American farmers’ access to markets in the future,” she said in her opinion piece.
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Israel will say it had no choice, but its airstrikes in Lebanon risks igniting a regional war
Israel carried out "pre-emptive" strikes against Hezbollah overnight, while the militant group says it has completed the "first phase" of an attack on 11 Israeli military sites.
This appears to have been a high-stakes Israeli military operation that risked igniting a regional war.
Israel will say it had no choice: One of the pillars of Israeli military doctrine has long been the principle that offence is the best form of defence.
It is not the first time it has used its air force hoping to defang an imminent threat. Israel insists it sent an armada of warplanes to the skies over Lebanon, more than a hundred strong, to stop an 'extensive planned attack involving thousands of rocket launches' about to be let loose by Hezbollah.
Just as Israel launched audacious air attacks obliterating Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser's air force in 1967 and Saddam Hussein's atomic programme in 1981, Israel says it despatched jets overnight to neutralise Hezbollah.
It is not clear how many enemy drones and missiles were already in the air. Hezbollah claims all 11 of its targets in Israel were hit and it launched 320 Katyusha rockets.
The primary strike it says was aimed at "a qualitative Israeli military target that will be announced later" as well as "enemy sites and barracks and Iron Dome [missile defence] platforms".
Israeli intelligence sources had claimed the airbase used in the strike on Shukr and the headquarters of Unit 8200, the Israeli military intelligence agency, north of Tel Aviv, were on Hezbollah's target list.
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Hezbollah meanwhile says Israel's operation failed to pre-empt its long-awaited retaliation and insists it succeeded in striking targets deep within Israel.
Two questions for now: Hezbollah's next move and what this does to efforts to end the war in Gaza.
Will Hezbollah draw a line under the Shukr/Haniyeh affair? The organisation says today's action is over but is more planned in the coming days? All eyes are on its commander Hassan Nasrallah who will address his faithful by video link tonight.
He has not been seen in public since Hezbollah's war with Israel in 2006 for fear of being assassinated by Israeli jets himself.
Hezbollah attacked Israel in the wake of Hamas atrocities on 7 October and has been locked in an almost daily artillery duel with Israel over their border ever since.
Israeli intelligence claims Hezbollah has amassed an arsenal of 150,000 missiles secreted in the hills of southern Lebanon since 2006, 10 times the amount it possessed back then.
It has so far refrained from unleashing that firepower: Analysts believe its paymasters and patrons in Tehran prefer to keep that armoury in reserve as an insurance policy for the day Israel may attack Iran itself, as well as its alleged nuclear programme.
But Israel has been testing that theory for months now, responding with force to Hezbollah's attacks in the north. Each exchange of fire has the potential to escalate the region into a wider war through miscalculation and unintended mass civilian casualties.
So far, events overnight do not seem to have upended the fragile efforts towards a ceasefire in Gaza. Delegations are still on their way to Cairo for the next round of talks. If anything the escalation reemphasises the urgency behind the diplomacy.
But it could also offer the Israelis a distraction, should they want one, from huge pressure from the US to make the concessions required to reach a deal.
Most Israeli observers believe Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not want a ceasefire on the terms currently being negotiated for fear it could lead to his coalition government falling apart.
But US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators insist the truce terms are the best and possibly last chance of bringing home Israel's hostages and ending the war.
They also believe a ceasefire in Gaza is the best way of reducing tensions in the north - which have exploded overnight so spectacularly.
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Kenyan police deployed to Haiti haven’t received full promised salary in two months
Hundreds of Kenyan police officers leading an international policing force in Haiti have not received their full pay for two months, the latest complication in what has been a rocky start to the security mission in the gang-plagued Caribbean nation.
The first Kenyan officers deployed to Haiti arrived in June, the vanguard of a multinational security support mission (MSS) that is being funded largely by the United States. There are now around 400 Kenyan police in the country, many from specialized units.
In an August 25 statement acknowledging delays to payments, the MSS announced that officers could expect the missing funds to hit their bank accounts this week.
“Therefore, there is nothing to worry about (regarding) welfare issues of the MSS officers, since mainstream processes have been finalized,” the MSS added.
In a “progress report” released Monday, Kenya’s National Police Service (NPS) said that the officers were continuing “to draw their NPS salaries” while waiting for the supplemental pay for their MSS duties.
Kenyan officers had expected to be paid a significant supplement for their Haiti deployment – a grueling assignment more typical of a military than of a police force. Officers are not allowed to leave their base in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince during non-working hours.
Speaking to CNN, some officers expressed frustration and concern about the missing supplemental payments. With schools reopening in Kenya this week, some say they need the money urgently to manage school fees and other expenses for their families back home.
“The officers feel frustrated after not having been paid for two months. And we hear that the money has already been sent to Kenya but they haven’t paid us, so please help us out,” one officer in Haiti told CNN before the police statement was released, requesting anonymity.
The MSS force is expected to ultimately grow to 2,500, with more troops expected from Jamaica, Benin, Chad, the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados and Belize. The force is hoped to bolster the Haitian National Police’s battles against an alliance of gangs that controls an estimated 85% of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area.
Around 600,000 Haitians have been forced to flee their homes due to gang violence, and some 2 million people live in gang-ravaged areas where fear of attack is constant, Haitian interim Prime Minister Garry Conille said in an interview with CNN in early August.
The MSS is financed through a UN-managed trust fund, to which the US, Canada, France and Spain have contributed millions of dollars. The United States has committed at least $380 million overall in support of the mission, largely in the form of equipment and materiel.
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