August 4: Spokane Fire Arrest and Apple’s UK Encryption Fight

In UK technology and work
The UK is considering rules requiring employers to consult workers or their representatives before introducing surveillance tools, including AI performance scoring, keystroke logging, biometrics, CCTV, and location tracking. Ministers say the systems may raise productivity, but acknowledge risks to privacy and fair treatment when bad data is dressed up as management insight.
Apple is also back in a UK court, challenging renewed government demands for access to encrypted iCloud data. Apple previously weakened some protections for British users rather than build the requested access mechanism. The dispute again centers on whether investigators can be given exceptional access without weakening security more broadly.
In Washington state
Authorities have charged 37-year-old Aaron Farinacci with first-degree arson in connection with the Old Trails Fire near Spokane. The blaze was among three major fires that destroyed at least 700 structures, prompted evacuation orders affecting roughly 67,000 people, and brought more than 1,000 firefighters to the area. Investigators have not linked Farinacci to the other two fires. He is being held on $1 million bond.
In New Jersey immigration detention
A Salvadoran man has died while being held at an ICE detention facility in Newark, ICE says. Detainees at the facility have called for better living conditions and medical care, saying some people have been denied medication.
In Jerusalem
Board of Peace negotiators met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss disarming Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza. The meeting focused on a central unresolved question in any postwar arrangement: who controls weapons, and who can enforce that decision.
In Malta
Jurors in the murder trial of businessman Yorgen Fenech heard that journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was investigating suspected corruption involving Fenech and government figures before she was killed by a car bomb in 2017. Fenech, a part-owner of the Electrogas company whose dealings she had examined, is accused of commissioning and paying for her killing.