The [Environmental Protection Agency] has set a 10-year deadline for most utilities to replace lead service lines, but omitted requirements for schools to replace the water fountains or plumbing that have lead components.

Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/F5qXx

Global Intelligence claims that, using only open source data—public information that doesn’t require a warrant—and a suite of more than 700 algorithms, its Cybercheck system allegedly can geolocate an individual in real time or at a specific time in the past by detecting the wireless networks and access points the person’s “cyber profile” has interacted with. The company’s founder, Adam Mosher, has testified under oath that the process is entirely automated, requiring no human intervention from the time an investigator enters basic details about a case into the Cybercheck portal until the time the system produces a report identifying a suspect and their location.

If the technology works as advertised, then Global Intelligence is selling police departments previously unknown surveillance capabilities for as little as $309 a case that rival the open source tools used by national spy agencies. But a WIRED review of investigations involving Cybercheck from California to New York, based on hundreds of pages of court filings, testimony, interviews, and police records, suggests Cybercheck is a much less effective tool—one that has provided evidence in high-profile cases that was either demonstrably incorrect or couldn’t be verified by any other means.

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Tens of thousands of Nebraskans who’d been blocked for months from registering to vote regained ballot access on Wednesday, though with little time to act before the November election.

The block was lifted by the Nebraska Supreme Court, which ordered state officials to immediately comply with two related laws—one from 2005, and another passed this spring—that allow people to regain voting rights after completing their felony sentences. The court’s ruling on Wednesday reversed the actions of Nebraska’s Republican secretary of state, Bob Evnen, and attorney general, Mike Hilgers, who together in July abruptly declared both laws unconstitutional and blocked Nebraskans with past felony convictions from voting.

The court’s decision means that nearly 100,000 Nebraskans who’d already regained voting rights over the last two decades because of the 2005 reform law, only to see their rights thrown into question this summer, are once again unambiguously eligible to cast a ballot. It also allows approximately 7,000 Nebraskans who were enfranchised by the law adopted this year to finally register to vote.

Justice Lindsey Miller-Lerman, who ruled with the majority, criticized Evnen and Hilgers for attempting such a massive rollback of voting rights right before a major election. “Why now?” she wrote. “Why not take the opportunity to challenge the laws long ago with available remedies, rather than creating uncertainty at this time?”

Voting rights advocates celebrated the court’s decision but they remain outraged at Evnen and Hilgers for the confusion and delays they created. The timing of the court’s decision gives advocates little opportunity to help people who might be confused about their voting rights because of Evnen and Hilgers: It came just two days before the Oct. 18 deadline to register to vote online. The cutoff for people to register in person is next week, Oct. 25.

Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/4p3Qh

The state of Mississippi no longer has much of a case against Tasha Shelby. Almost 25 years ago, Shelby was convicted of a murder that almost certainly never happened. Prosecutors said she had shaken to death Bryan Thompson IV, her fiance’s two-year-old son from a previous relationship.

But the case has since fallen apart. In 2015, the medical examiner who helped convict her recanted his testimony. Last year, a juror from her trial said he now believes Shelby is innocent. And the theory under which she was convicted—Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS)—has been largely debunked. Symptoms associated with SBS can be caused by, among other things, illnesses, injuries sustained during childbirth, and short-distance falls.

To coincide with National Wrongful Convictions Day, Shelby’s legal team mailed an amended clemency petition to Gov. Tate Reeves and sent a copy to District Attorney Crosby Parker, Shelby’s attorney, Valena Beety, told The Appeal. Neither the governor nor prosector’s office responded to messages from The Appeal.

Beety says they last submitted a clemency petition in 2022 but did not receive an answer from the governor. Reeves has not yet granted any clemency petitions, but Shelby’s team hopes he’ll change course.

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Andrew Ciolli was in charge of the penitentiary at Thomson in Illinois for one year, before he moved to lead an even larger and more high-profile prison complex in Florence, Colorado. An internal investigation by the Bureau of Prisons conducted last spring found that some staff at Florence used excessive force in violation of policy, and Ciolli, as warden, should have stopped it — but didn’t. Investigators referred him for disciplinary action. But he’s now landed a role as the director of the bureau’s Management and Specialty Training Center, which provides leadership training and specialized instruction across the agency.

Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/dGNFh