Car-tracking license plate cameras are now being sold aggressively to cities and neighborhoods around the US. Even individuals can buy them and set them up.

The article inexplicably presumes that there's nothing dangerous about letting thug departments run these cameras. I think that's the most dangerous mode of operating them. However, allowing individuals and businesses to run them is almost as bad, because some business will start collecting and correlating the data.

Deleting all the data after 30 days is useless as a precaution if it is practical to copy all the data to another server before it gets deleted.

To make these cameras safe, getting the data out of the camera should require physical access to the camera. That will make them security cameras rather than surveillance cameras. The inconvenience of this will assure that people do it only in the case of real need.

It is ok for the camera to read a list of vehicles being sought and alert someone when one of those vehicles passes by.

The capture of one cocaine gang leader is not likely to make any important change in the drug smuggling industry. There may be a temporary increase in violence as gangs reshape their power relationships, but nothing fundamental.

Similarly, when the leader of a guerrilla organization or terrorist organization is killed, don't expect that to change much.

*Learning the ropes: why Germany is building risk into its playgrounds.*

China promises a substantial decrease in fossil fuel use by 2060. However, it may not be as much as it sounds like. If China doubles its power output by 2060, 20% of that power amount would equal 40% of the current power output. That would still be a substantial decrease compared with today's fossil fuel use, but China can and must do more.

A US court recognized hippopotamoses in Colombia as "legal persons". The article explains that this means much less the it sounds like, but also calls it a "milestone victory".

If hippopotamoses are treated legally as persons, there is no telling what might be next to receive that privilege. Corporations???