Chris Larsen, cofounder of Ripple who just sold $250million of XRP last week, upgrading SFPD surveillance grid.
The net is closing fast it seems...
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie announced Thursday a $9.4 million donation from a crypto billionaire to upgrade the police department's surveillance technology, including a new Real-Time Investigation Center (RTIC).
According to the mayor's office, the donation comes from Chris Larsen, co-founder of Ripple. With the money, the center will move from its current location at the Hall of Justice to a vacant office in the Financial District.
"It gives the team room to grow and ensures they're fully operational in a crisis. And it puts them right in the heart of downtown, where they can best serve every neighborhood across San Francisco," Lurie said at a press briefing Thursday morning.
Larsen said in a statement, "We are proud to help usher in a new era of accountability with the launch of an enhanced Real-Time Investigation Center for SFPD and law enforcement partners that matches San Francisco's reputation as the innovation capital of the world."
Also known as RTIC, the center brings together live data from drones, surveillance cameras and automated license plate readers, providing first responders with real-time information.
Lurie said the center has helped with more than 500 arrests and prevented numerous police pursuits since its launch in March 2024, including 32 arrests in the past week.
"This is the beginning of a new era of policing in San Francisco," said police chief Bill Scott, who is soon leaving the department to lead the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority police. "Our hard-working officers can continue to drive crime down by identifying and arresting offenders as quickly as possible."
Speaking at the WEF, Savor CEO Kathleen Alexander boasts about how her company is "saving the planet" from the evils of agriculture by replacing real butters and oils with synthetic versions made from carbon dioxide and methane. 😳
"Savor is part of bringing transformation to the food system by re-imagining how we make an entire macronutrient—fats and oils."
"The result is that we can dramatically lower the planetary footprint of our food system."
"Our food system today uses about 50% of the habitable land on the planet. It's 20-30% of our greenhouse gas emissions."
"And we can reduce all of those by 50-100%."
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[July 3, 2026 EST]
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⛽ Oil & Energy
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🇮🇷🏆🇺🇸 Iran Is a Bigger Defeat Than Vietnam | Foreign Policy
At his second inaugural, U.S. President Donald Trump pronounced his hope “that our recent presidential election will be remembered as the greatest and most consequential election in the history of our country.” By losing his Gulf war, Trump has achieved that goal. His choice to launch a campaign against Iran was encouraged by others, but fully his own. It has led to a reversal that marks a strategic calamity far greater than the U.S. defeat in the Vietnam War.
Defeat in the Iranian war looks, on the surface, nothing like other U.S. military defeats. The speed of the war and its remoteness have lent an air of unreality to the whole endeavor. The White House has not been burned, as it was in 1814; there have not been protests against a nonexistent draft. The absence of substantial U.S. casualties in this conflict also masks the scale of the U.S. defeat. To be sure, the war has been deadly: Thousands of Iranians, ...
According to The Wall Street Journal, Donald Trump reviewed military options for a full-scale war against Iran to “finish the job,” but has decided, for now, not to move forward.
The report says Trump is concerned that renewed military conflict could hurt the chances of a diplomatic resolution and of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, and that he’s shown willingness to let indirect talks in Qatar run past the August 18 deadline. He is said to be fine with continuing limited strikes on Iranian targets if Tehran violates the current temporary deal - as it already has, repeatedly.
How are those negotiations going?
Not well. It seems JD Vance’s “historic” face-to-face achievement was a one-off. Washington has been quietly downgraded from talking to the Great Satan to negotiating with the Little Satan instead - a senior Qatari official confirmed that U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Qatari officials in Doha, but there are currently no high-level U.S.-Iran meetings ...