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University Student Sues County for Flock Camera Records

FLINT, Mich. — Kettering University student Josh Tewolde has filed a lawsuit against Genesee County after the county refused to release key public records concerning its use of Flock Safety automated license plate reader cameras.

Represented by the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, Tewolde is asking the Genesee County Circuit Court to require the county to disclose records requested under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act, including a map of Flock camera locations, audit logs showing who accessed the camera data and when, and records of scans involving Tewolde’s own vehicle.

Flock cameras capture images of every passing vehicle, including license plates and visible details such as make, model and color. The information is stored in a searchable database and can later be used in criminal investigations. Click here to read more.

 

Data center boom targets Texas’ most productive farmland, fueling power clashes

WASHINGTON — Texas is at the center of a rapidly growing fight over the expansion of data centers, as farmland is converted into industrial server sites and rural communities compete for water and power resources that support the state’s $900 billion agriculture industry.

The debate has cut across party lines, with Republicans divided, Democrats raising concerns and rural communities pushing back over whether Texas and other states should prioritize long-term protection of land, water and electricity infrastructure over continued growth.

Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Sid Miller said the projects often target the “very best, most productive farmland” because it is flat and already has key infrastructure such as water, electricity and roads. Click here to read more.

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Sheriff Dar Leaf: Jocelyn Benson employee provided evidence noncitizens automatically registered to vote

Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf says an employee of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson provided evidence that the state’s computer system automatically registers noncitizens to vote when they change their address.

Leaf announced the allegations in a video statement Tuesday and said his office has referred the matter to the U.S. Department of Justice for investigation.

“An employee of the Michigan Secretary of State’s office reported to me that noncitizens are automatically registered to vote when they change their address,” Leaf said in a video posted on X.

Leaf said the confidential informant provided evidence involving the Customer and Automotive Record System, or CARS, which the Secretary of State uses to process driver’s license and state identification transactions. Click here to read more.

 

Illinois among worst in U.S. for population growth, job growth, wage growth

Illinois ranks among the worst in the country on several economic metrics.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker is up for re-election Nov. 3.

Illinois still is suffering from people moving out. Since 2018, the state’s has lost more than 168,000 residents, or over 1% of its population.

Illinois ranks 48^th among the 50 states in both population growth rate and total population growth.

Pritzker’s second term has seen a slight uptick, largely because of international migration. Without that boost, Illinois’ population would have declined in 2025. Even so, Illinois ranks only 39^th in population growth rate from 2023 to 2025.

Poor job growth in part explains the large number of Illinoisians who can’t find work. Illinois’ unemployment rate was 5.1% in June, when over 300,000 residents were looking for work. Click here to read more.

 

North Carolina: Biden-Released Illegal Alien Accused of Killing 51-Year-Old Man in Hit-and-Run

An illegal alien, released into the United States by former President Joe Biden’s administration, is now accused of killing 51-year-old James Bagley III in a fatal hit-and-run crash in Sylva, North Carolina.

This month, illegal alien Mauricio Josue Alberto Sarmiento of Honduras was arrested by the Sylva Police Department and charged with felony hit-and-run resulting in death, no liability insurance, driving with a revoked license, speeding, and failure to reduce speed.

According to police, on August 2, Sarmiento was speeding when he allegedly struck Bagley, a pedestrian, around 3 a.m. before fleeing the scene. Bagley was found unresponsive and pronounced dead at the scene. Click here to read more.

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Detroit Schools to Continue $100 Weekly Perfect Attendance Payments, Add $50 for Middle Schoolers

Detroit Public Schools Community District is expanding an attendance incentive that officials say helped improve turnout among high school students.

Students in grades 6 through 8 can earn $50 for each week of perfect attendance, while high school students can still earn $100 a week.

The expansion comes as chronic absenteeism remains widespread. In 2024-25, 61% of district students missed at least 10% of the school year. Click here to learn more.

 

Meta Platforms faces pivotal trial as opening statements begin in California

OAKLAND, Calif. — Opening statements started Tuesday in a pivotal trial for Meta Platforms in a California federal court, where states are seeking billions of dollars in damages for social media harms to children.

Attorneys general from California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey are seeking a financial penalty that could, in theory, total as much as $1.4 trillion plus changes to how the company operates Facebook and Instagram. Twenty-nine states sued the tech giant in 2023 over child safety and privacy — the other 25 will go to trial later. The company also faces lawsuits in state courts.

The lawsuit accuses the social media giant of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features that addict children to its platforms. It also argues that Meta routinely collects data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent, in violation of federal law. Click here to read more.

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Abdul El-Sayed’s mother worked for designated terror group IARA that ‘provided direct financial support’ to Osama bin Laden, Taliban, Hamas

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed last month highlighted how his mother “taught me so much about both how to stand with others, and how to stand alone.”

In a video posted to TikTok, the former Wayne County health official chatted on a porch swing with Jacqueline El-Sayed, a highly accomplished engineer from Gratiot County, about how his stepmother helped shape his views on life as she helped raise the progressive firebrand in Bloomfield Hills, an upscale suburb of Detroit.

Jacqueline El-Sayed married El-Sayed’s father, Mohamed El-Sayed, not long after he immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1980s with Fatten Fathy Elkomy, the U.S. Senate candidate’s birth mother.

“They ended up getting divorced,” El-Sayed said of his birth parents during a 2017 speech before the Islamic Foundation. “And my mother, she remarried a gentleman who was working as a translator in the Middle East and moved back to the Middle East.” Click here to read more.

 

Alleged kidnapper posed as babysitter on Facebook group, warrant says; video shows children rescued

Lakesha Brown, 42, is charged with kidnapping and cruelty to children. Her arrest warrants state she posed as a babysitter on a “pregnancy mom group” on Facebook to get close to the family.

Police said Brown spent the past year building a relationship with the children’s mother, Elica Redding.

According to arrest warrants, Redding agreed to let Brown babysit the girls on Saturday night. Brown told the mother she was taking the girls to Walmart and Candy Utopia, but failed to show up at a designated grandmother’s house afterward. Click here to read more.

 

Where are Michiganders moving to? U-Haul has some answers

Michigan senior citizens are moving South. The state’s young adults are heading to Chicago or Detroit.

But there are also some surprises in new U-Haul data looking at one-way U-Haul rentals from July 2025 to July 2026. The data includes moves originating in metro Detroit and Grand Rapids.

The analysis breaks the data down by metro area and age group. It shows the top five out-of-state net-gain destinations for each age group, as well as the top five metro areas, which includes in-state moves.

Nationally:

• Baby Boomers across the U.S. are heading to warm climes. Six of the top seven net-gain states for Boomers are in the Southeast and the other is Arizona.

• Generation X and Millennials flocking to Florida and Texas more than anywhere else, although several Midwest states are in the mix for Millennials.

• Generation Z is gravitating major metro areas, including those in Texas and California as well as New York City and Chicago. Click here to read more.

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Democratic AG nominee Eli Savit ignored 500-pound black market marijuana operation

Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit, the Democratic nominee for Michigan Attorney General, is facing criticism for his decision not to prosecute individuals involved in an illicit 500-pound marijuana operation.

“500 pounds of illegally trafficked marijuana. No investigation. No charges. Evidence destroyed,” Eaton County Prosecutor Doug Lloyd, Savit’s Republican competition in the race, posted to X on Friday. “A prosecutor does not get to pick and choose which laws to enforce. My opponent’s record makes clear he believes otherwise.

“Michigan needs an Attorney General who will enforce the law, support law enforcement, and take the job of Michigan’s top cop seriously,” Lloyd wrote. Click here to read more.

 

Murderers. Rapists. Fentanyl Traffickers. Abdul El-Sayed Wants to Abolish the Agency Arresting Them.

As Michigan’s U.S. Senate race heats up, Democratic progressive Abdul El-Sayed continues to embrace a position that few candidates are willing to own: abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). On his campaign website, El-Sayed argues the agency “cannot be reformed or retrained” and says it should be dismantled and replaced with a new immigration enforcement structure.

What that new structure is and if criminals would continue to be arrested has not been identified by El-Sayed. Michigan News Source reached out to his campaign for more clarification on what that new structure would be but they did not return our request for comment. Click here to read more.

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5 non-citizens charged with voting in 2024 Michigan general election

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced charges against five non-citizens alleged to have voted in Michigan’s 2024 November general election.

Her office also brought charges against one U.S. citizen accused of registering their non-citizen spouse to vote.

Non-citizens allegedly voting in Michigan

By the numbers:

Sixteen cases of non-citizens voting in the 2024 election were brought to Nessel’s office, in addition to 22 more cases involving non-citizens voting in elections between 2009 and 2025, by the Michigan Department of State.

In addition to the six charged, 10 have been closed without charges, and 22 remain under review. Click here to read more.

 

Flawed drug tests can separate mothers and newborns

Advocates and medical groups are pushing to end childbirth drug testing practices they say are leading tens of thousands of families to face child welfare investigations, criminal allegations and, in some cases, separation from their children.

The urine drug tests, done on both the mother and newborn at childbirth in hospitals, often without explicit consent, are faulty, producing false-positive results nearly half the time, according to The Marshall Project. Even if a positive result is later dismissed, hospitals may still be required to report it to child welfare agencies and, in some cases, to law enforcement.

The degree to which these false results are being reported is staggering.

The Marshall Project discovered more than 70,000 instances after reviewing state and federal data spanning six years in 21 states. Click here to read more.

 

Taxpayers Funded a $533 Million Artillery Plant That Made Nothing

A robot was on fire. Again.

It was the summer of 2024, and the cutting-edge robots inside General Dynamics’ sweltering artillery factory near Dallas were catching fire with startling regularity, according to four former workers there. This wasn’t ideal, as the plant was supposed to be churning out urgently needed artillery shells for Ukraine. The robots, giant metal arms with clamps for hands, would end up drenched in oil, which would then — no surprise — combust as they moved steel blocks heated to 1,800 degrees into and out of a machine that periodically erupted columns of fire. One blaze that summer melted a robot’s cables, putting it out of commission for a week. Click here to read more.