pelespirit

I have Nest right now and Google changed the parameters when they bought it out. It not only got way more expensive, they won't show your video or picture history at all unless you buy a subscription. Nest would show 24 hours worth.

I want to add another camera, but I'm now willing to eat the cost of a new system and not have to depend on the cloud. We're not a super techy household though. Is there an easy way like the nest or close to that easy?

Edit: These are outdoor security cameras

cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/40655145

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Photo by Pierre Lavie. Yes this is me. And I threw my Leica. It landed on the bass plate with hardly a scratch. Another photographer grabbed it along with my phone and I was able to track him later. I was held face down tear gas deployed right in front of me and pepper sprayed directly into the eye.

-- John Abernathy

Representatives Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, have asked a federal judge to appoint a "special master and independent monitor" to oversee the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) release of its files on Jeffrey Epstein.

In a letter to U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer dated Thursday, the lawmakers said the DOJ had failed to meet the requirements of the Epstein Files Transparency Act “in multiple respects," including failing to meet a December 19 deadline to release all the files.

"As the leads of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, we have urgent and grave concerns about DOJ’s failure to comply with the Act as well as the Department’s violations of this Court’s order,” they wrote.

Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor said Friday that a judge lacks the authority to appoint a neutral expert to oversee the public release of documents in the sex trafficking probe of financier Jeffrey Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer was told in a letter signed by U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton that he must reject a request this week by the congressional cosponsors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act to appoint a neutral expert.

U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, say they have “urgent and grave concerns” about the slow release of only a small number of millions of documents that began last month.

In a filing to the judge they said they believed “criminal violations have taken place” in the release process.

When developers build apartments in pedestrian-heavy areas, many cities require restaurants or retail on the ground floor. The idea is to encourage people to walk, rather than drive, to shop and dine.

But developers often lose money on those storefronts, and those costs get passed on to renters through higher housing prices.

The new policy applies to pending scientific publications co-authored by employees in the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, which conducts research on crop yields, invasive species, plant genetics and other agricultural issues.

The USDA instructed employees to stop agency researchers from collaborating on or publishing papers with scientists from “countries of concern,” including China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela.

But the agency is also vetting scientists from nations not considered “countries of concern” before deciding whether USDA researchers can publish papers with them. Employees are including the names of foreign co-authors from nations such as Canada and Germany on lists shared with the department’s Office of Homeland Security, according to records reviewed by ProPublica. That office leads the USDA’s security initiatives and includes a division that works with federal intelligence agencies. The records don’t say what the office plans to do with the lists of names.

The Trevor Project, known for its hotline for LGBTQ+ youth, received $45 million from billionaire and author MacKenzie Scott at the end of 2025, the organization said Monday.

The gift is the largest in the organization's history but also a major boon following years of management turmoil, layoffs and the loss of significant federal funding over the summer.

"I literally could not believe it and it took some time. I actually gasped," said Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project, when they were notified of Scott's gift.

Scott, whose fortune largely comes from her ex-husband Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, gave more than $7 billion to nonprofits in 2025, but this gift to The Trevor Project was not included among the donations she disclosed on her website in December. Scott previously gave The Trevor Project $6 million in 2020.

The Department of Education said Friday it will temporarily delay forced collections on federal student loans. The pause applies to collection efforts such as Administrative Wage Garnishment and the Treasury Offset Program.

“The Department determined that involuntary collection efforts such as Administrative Wage Garnishment and the Treasury Offset Program will function more efficiently and fairly after the Trump Administration implements significant improvements to our broken student loan system," said Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent.

Friday’s announcement appears to mark a reversal in policy. The department began sending wage garnishment notices earlier this month, the first step in a process that could have automatically deducted up to 15% of a borrower’s paycheck. About 1,000 notices had been sent to borrowers in default, representing a small fraction of the more than 5 million borrowers who have defaulted on their federal student loans.

Wednesday’s arguments center on President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, in August 2025. The lower courts have thwarted his efforts to do so thus far, but the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to put those rulings on hold while Cook’s challenge to her firing continues. Here’s a brief explainer on the case, Trump v. Cook, and its background.

What is the Federal Reserve?

The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the United States. Its responsibilities include conducting U.S. monetary policy – that is, taking steps to achieve big-picture economic objectives, such as “price stability, full employment, and stable economic growth.”

The Fed is also an independent government agency. Unlike most agencies, it is funded primarily through interest earned on securities that it owns, rather than through the normal congressional appropriations process.

The Fed’s main governing body is its seven-member board of governors.

Spanberger, who led in fundraising throughout the race, won a decisive 15-point victory in November after a campaign focused on the cost of living and the impact of the Trump administration's federal cuts in Virginia. Democrats see her victory as an early test case of the party's emerging message on "affordability," which they are expected to deploy across the country in this year's midterms.

Economic concerns were at the forefront of her victory speech in November. But Spanberger also paid tribute to the Virginia women in politics before her, including Barbara Johns, a Black teenage activist who led a 1951 school walkout to protest school segregation. The walkout led to a legal case that was later folded into the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education that ultimately desegregated American public schools.

"She showed us that no matter your age, you can be part of the change and the progress that you want to see here in Virginia and across the nation," Spanberger said in her speech. "We are a nation founded on ideas, but we are a country where it is up to us, the citizens, who must put those ideas into action."

The US has seized a sixth tanker in the Caribbean Sea in its ongoing efforts to control exports of Venezuelan oil, officials say.

The vessel, Veronica, was boarded in a predawn operation "without incident" as it was defying President Donald Trump's "quarantine of sanctioned vessels", said the US military.

"The only oil leaving Venezuela will be oil that is coordinated properly and lawfully," the Southern Command said.

Since the US military strikes on Venezuela and seizure of its president Nicolás Maduro this month, Trump has said he plans to tap into the country's huge oil reserves.

"The Veronica is the latest tanker operating in defiance of President Trump's established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean," US Southern Command said in a post on social media.