The record · 17 cases

The case modules

A real event enters once, gets rated once, and comes out as curriculum, briefing, simulation and action — at whatever reading level the room needs.

Footage: cottonbro studio / Pexels

The card every item gets

What happened → what is established → what is claimed → what is open → primary source → Admiralty rating → who is affected → second-order effects → what to watch next → teaching application by age band → action available.

Seven cases, each verified to a primary source. Ratings on the Admiralty code. Nothing below B2 appears in participant-facing material.

MODULE 01 RUNG 1 · ADJUDICATED A1

New Mexico v. Meta — a court has already ruled

The anchor case. Not an allegation, not a trial in progress: a final judgment with a remedy attached.

Established

A March 2026 jury found 75,000 violations of New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act and imposed the maximum civil penalty, $375 million.
On 6 August 2026 Judge Bryan Biedscheid entered final judgment finding the platforms a public nuisance and ordering a $567 million abatement fund over five years.
Court-supervised design changes for in-state minors, with semi-annual compliance reports for five years.
Total exposure in New Mexico: $942 million.

Claimed

Meta says it will appeal and maintains its record on teen protection.
The state sought a $3.7 billion, fifteen-year plan; Meta's experts argued $27 million over five years. The court landed between them.

Open

Appeal outcome and whether the abatement order survives it.
Whether the public-nuisance theory travels to other states.
How the legislature distributes the fund.

Ages 8–11: A judge decided a company had to fix something it built. Grown-ups can be told to fix things too.
Ages 12–14: The difference between a fine (punishment for what happened) and an abatement fund (paying to repair the harm).
Ages 15–18: Two phases, two decision-makers: a jury found liability, a judge set the remedy. Read the order, find where each begins.
Adults: Why "a court found" and "a lawsuit alleges" are not interchangeable, and why an appeal does not erase a finding.
Watch next: Notice of appeal; first compliance report; whether other AGs copy the theory.

Primary: New Mexico Department of Justice judgment announcement; First Judicial District Court order, 6 Aug 2026. Corroborating: AP, TechCrunch, 7 Aug 2026.

MODULE 02 RUNG 2 · ON TRIAL NOW A1

The Oakland trial — evidence being heard this month

The live case. Teach the distinction between what plaintiffs allege, what the company answers, and what a jury has not yet decided.

Established

Jury selection began 12 August 2026 in federal court in Oakland; opening statements are set for 18 August.
Trial is expected to run about seven weeks before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
Two distinct sets of claims: California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey bring state consumer-protection claims; 29 states bring federal children's-privacy claims.
Meta disclosed in a July filing that plaintiffs' penalty exposure could reach $1.4 trillion.

Claimed

States allege the platforms were designed to keep young users engaged and that safety was misrepresented.
Meta disagrees with the allegations and points to its work with parents, experts and law enforcement.
Meta calls a penalty of that scale unprecedented; the AGs have not stated publicly what they will seek.

Open

Everything a jury decides. No verdict exists.
Whether internal documents entered at trial support the design allegations.
Effect on the roughly 3,000 consolidated cases behind it.

Ages 8–11: Not taught at this age. Rung 2 material is for 12+.
Ages 12–14: A trial is a question being asked, not an answer already given.
Ages 15–18: Four states are arguing one thing and 29 are arguing a different thing in the same courtroom. Separate the two before forming a view.
Adults: How to read coverage of an ongoing trial without treating an opening statement as a finding.
Watch next: Opening statements 18 Aug; testimony from named executives; verdict expected after trial concludes in October.

Primary: court filings, N.D. Cal. MDL 3047. Corroborating: Reuters, 12 Aug 2026; JURIST, 8 Jul 2026.

MODULE 03 RUNG 4 · DOCUMENTED A1 / B2

The digital pipeline — recruitment into forced criminality

The fake job. The strongest child-and-family protection case in the set, because the recruitment mechanics are identical to grooming mechanics.

Established

UNODC's July 2026 threat assessment records people from at least 80 countries and territories identified inside scam compounds in South-East Asia.
Recruitment networks run through transit hubs in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and advertisements are now targeting European and English-language speakers.
UNODC puts 2025 scam losses across the region at $88.3–114.1 billion.
A separate UN human-rights report documents passport confiscation, restricted movement and violence inside compounds.

Claimed

Meta reports removing 10.9 million accounts tied to criminal scam centers in 2025, plus 159 million scam ads, and disabling over 150,000 accounts in a joint law-enforcement operation. Company self-report, not independently audited — rate B2.
Royal Thai Police report 21 arrests from that operation.

Open

How many victims are in compounds now. No agreed figure exists.
Whether disruption reduces the trade or relocates it — UNODC notes operations continued after raids.
Scale of US-resident recruitment.

Ages 8–11: An unexpected gift is a question, not a present. Same lesson as the shoes.
Ages 12–14: Trace the path: advertisement → private message → travel → documents taken. Name the step where leaving stopped being possible.
Ages 15–18: Run the offer against a verification checklist. Which single check would have caught it earliest?
Adults: A platform can be both exploited by a criminal network and working to disrupt it. Teach the ecosystem, not a villain.
Watch next: Next UNODC assessment; new OFAC designations; whether recruitment ads shift to US-facing job boards.

Primary: UNODC, An Interconnected Criminal Ecosystem, 21 Jul 2026; Meta newsroom, Mar 2026; DOJ Scam Center Strike Force.

MODULE 04 RUNG 4 · DOCUMENTED A1

Outbreak detective lab — suspected is not confirmed

The cleanest possible lesson in evidence tiers, because this one resolved in public within 48 hours.

Established

DRC confirmed a Bundibugyo virus outbreak in Ituri Province on 15 May 2026; WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern on 16 May.
As of early August, health authorities report roughly 4,200 laboratory-confirmed cases and over 1,850 deaths across five provinces.
Uganda declared its outbreak over on 28 July 2026 after 20 confirmed cases and two deaths.
Over 200 riverboat passengers were quarantined at Maluku port near Kinshasa on 6 August after a former passenger died with matching symptoms. On 8 August the national laboratory reported every suspected case negative.
CDC assesses risk to the US public as low; no US cases from this outbreak.

Claimed

Africa CDC and national reporting give slightly different cumulative counts for the same week. Neither is wrong — they close at different dates.

Open

True case count: surveillance gaps are documented, and contact tracing is incomplete.
Whether existing therapeutics work against this species.
Duration of transmission in Ituri and North Kivu.

Ages 8–11: Doctors wait for the test before they say what someone has. Waiting is part of doing it right.
Ages 12–14: Four words, four meanings: contact, suspected, probable, confirmed. Sort ten headlines into the right box.
Ages 15–18: Run the Maluku sequence as a decision exercise. Quarantine before results, or wait? Justify against the case definition, not the outcome.
Adults: Two sources reporting different totals for the same week is a data-cutoff artifact, not a cover-up. Check the "as of" date first.
Watch next: Weekly Africa CDC situation reports; vaccination campaign scale-up; any case outside the five affected provinces.

Primary: CDC Ebola situation summary, 7 Aug 2026; CDC HAN 00530; WHO DRC outbreak page; Africa CDC situation reports. Corroborating: AP, 9 Aug 2026.

MODULE 05 RUNG 1 + RUNG 3 · MIXED A1

Civic evidence room — how an election rule actually moves

Not "who is right." The question is which institution holds which authority, and at what stage.

Established

An executive order issued in March 2026 directed the Postal Service to set new standards for mail-in ballots and directed states to supply eligible-voter lists.
On 25 June a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked key provisions as to 23 states and the District of Columbia. The First Circuit left that injunction in place on 25 July.
On 3 August the administration asked the Supreme Court for relief.
On 11 August the same judge granted a further preliminary injunction barring the Postal Service from implementing Section 3 for the 3 November midterms or any earlier federal election.
The ruling does not bar non-binding postal guidance on ballot envelopes.

Claimed

The court's reasoning: Congress has not delegated authority over mail-in voting to the Postal Service.
Plaintiffs argue the order created confusion for voters and officials; the administration disputes the rulings and is appealing.

Open

Supreme Court action on the pending application.
Appellate outcome in the First Circuit.
Whether any part of the order is operative in November.

Ages 8–11: Not taught at this age.
Ages 12–14: Three branches, one rule, four stops. Put the steps in order and say who can stop whom.
Ages 15–18: "Blocked" means paused by a court, not cancelled. Find in the ruling exactly what is paused and what is not.
Adults: Test the claim "the Postal Service changed the election" against the actual holding. Note what remains legally unresolved.
Watch next: Supreme Court docket; First Circuit calendar; 60-day and 90-day pre-election deadlines.

Primary: preliminary injunction, D. Mass., 11 Aug 2026; June injunction and First Circuit order. Corroborating: Reuters, Votebeat, 11–12 Aug 2026.

MODULE 06 RUNG 4 · DOCUMENTED A1

Chokepoints — what a measurement actually says

Use throughput volumes, which are officially estimated. Do not use daily vessel counts, which are not.

Established

EIA estimates crude and petroleum liquids through the Strait of Hormuz averaged 4.9 million barrels a day in the second quarter of 2026, down from 21.6 million a day in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Bab el-Mandeb volumes rose over the same period, from 5.4 to 8.1 million barrels a day, as Saudi flows rerouted via pipeline to the Red Sea.
Brent fell as low as $69 on 2 July and reached $105 on 23 July; it has traded near $88–90 in August.

Claimed

Attacks on tankers and a blockade threat are cited as the drivers of the July price move.
Vessel-transit counts circulate widely and vary by methodology; treat any single transit figure as a claim unless the counting method is stated.

Open

Whether and when transit volumes recover.
Sustainable capacity of the bypass routes.
How much of the price move is supply and how much is risk premium.

Ages 8–11: Follow one shipping container from a boat to a shelf. Where could it get stuck?
Ages 12–14: Close one strait on the map. Name three things that change and one that does not.
Ages 15–18: Two numbers describe the same event — barrels per day and ships per day. Which is officially estimated, and how would you check?
Adults: Rerouting is a real adaptation with real costs. A chokepoint closing is not automatically a shortage.
Watch next: Monthly EIA outlook; status of transit negotiations; insurance rates as a leading indicator.

Primary: EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook, 11 Aug 2026.

MODULE 07 RUNG 4 · DOCUMENTED A1

The household chain — with the lag rule enforced

Today's release is the reason this module has to be built carefully. The intuitive story is the wrong one this month.

Established

July 2026 CPI rose 0.1% for the month and 3.4% over the year (BLS, released 12 August).
Core CPI rose 0.2% for the month and 2.5% over the year.
Energy fell 1.5% in July; gasoline fell 2.9%. Shelter, up 0.1%, accounted for about two-thirds of the monthly increase.
Over twelve months energy is up 14.7% and gasoline up 24.6%. Airline fares are up 25.5% over the year.

Claimed

Commentary linking July's price picture directly to the chokepoint disruption. The monthly direction does not support it; the annual figures do, with a lag.

Open

How much of July's crude spike reaches consumers, and in which month.
Whether airline fares hold at this level.
Next release: 11 September 2026.

Ages 8–11: Prices for different things move in different directions in the same month.
Ages 12–14: One month versus one year: same index, two different stories. Which one matches your family's experience?
Ages 15–18: Build the transmission chain, then mark each link with a lag estimate. Defend the estimates.
Adults: The month oil rises is not the month groceries rise. A model that shows instant pass-through is teaching something false.
Watch next: September release; gasoline in the weekly retail series; whether shelter keeps carrying the index.

Primary: BLS Consumer Price Index, July 2026, USDL-26-1378, released 12 Aug 2026.

Ten more, from the Dallas prototype

These come from the AF Dallas app package and have never shipped anywhere. Checked against the live Digital Resilience Lab first: none of the ten appears there, so this is new material rather than a duplicate. Their evidence labels are the prototype’s own eight-status vocabulary, not the four-rung ladder — a gap worth closing before Dallas.

AF-DAL-001Platform Accountability High

Meta Youth-Safety Litigation

Use pending multistate litigation to teach the difference between allegations, company responses, evidence, and legal findings.

Why: Students learn that a complaint is evidence of an allegation—not proof that the allegation is true.

ALLEGATIONGovernment plaintiffs have alleged harms involving platform design, youth safety, and children’s data.

OPEN QUESTIONWhich factual allegations will ultimately be established, rejected, settled, or resolved on appeal?

TEACHING RULENever state a pending allegation as an adjudicated fact.

Evidence-label sortingMock hearingAlgorithm-objective simulatorPlaintiff/defense/source comparison

12–14 · 15–18 · Adults

https://www.reuters.com/business/meta-29-states-head-court-biggest-test-yet-youth-social-media-litigation-2026-08-12/

AF-DAL-002Gaming Safety High

Gaming & Platform Safety Audit

Students audit a fictional gaming platform for secrecy, gifts, migration to private channels, escalation, and reporting controls.

Why: Pattern recognition is safer and more defensible than teaching children that one message or one type of user proves grooming.

VERIFIED FACTGaming and social platforms are used by children and can be used as initial contact environments.

TEACHING RULEA single gift or private message does not prove grooming; patterns and context matter.

AF World simulationRed-flag pattern mapPrivacy-control auditTrusted-adult response drill

8–11 · 12–14 · 15–18 · Adults

https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/parents-and-caregivers-protecting-your-kids

AF-DAL-003AI Safety Critical

Synthetic Image & TAKE IT DOWN Lab

Teach that synthetic content can cause real harm, and pair detection literacy with an actionable response process.

Why: AI literacy is incomplete if students only learn how to spot fakes but not how to preserve evidence and get help.

VERIFIED FACTNCMEC reports more than 400,000 2025 CyberTipline reports with a generative-AI nexus.

VERIFIED FACTFTC enforcement of Section 3 of the TAKE IT DOWN Act began May 19, 2026.

LEGAL RULECovered platforms must provide a request process and remove qualifying content and known identical copies within 48 hours of a valid request.

Harmless deepfake demoSource-provenance challengeSTOP–SAVE–DON’T SHARE–TELL–REPORT drillTakedown workflow

8–11 · 12–14 · 15–18 · Adults

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/05/ftc-begins-enforcing-take-it-down-act

AF-DAL-004Coercion Safety Critical

Financial Sextortion: Break the Blackmail Loop

Teach how coercion escalates and where a child can break the offender’s control loop by getting help.

Why: The goal is not fear—it is restoring perceived options when an offender tries to create panic and irreversibility.

VERIFIED FACTNCMEC received more than 50,000 reports of financially motivated sextortion in 2025, averaging 137 reports per day.

DATA CAUTIONReports are not identical to unique victims or adjudicated criminal cases.

Blackmail-loop mapTrusted-adult scriptEvidence-preservation drillNo-victim-blaming language practice

12–14 · 15–18 · Adults

https://www.missingkids.org/blog/2026/ncmec-releases-new-sextortion-data-2025

AF-DAL-005Trafficking + Fraud High

Scam Compounds & Forced Criminality

Follow a fake job offer through recruitment, travel, coercion, scam activity, cryptocurrency, and law-enforcement disruption.

Why: Students learn the two-sided victim model: the fraud target and a coerced worker can both be victims.

VERIFIED FACTINTERPOL says Operation First Light 2026 identified more than 142,000 victims and produced more than 5,800 arrests.

FORENSIC RULEBehavior alone does not establish motive; coercion and duress require evidence.

Fake-job auditEntity-and-money graphVictim/perpetrator complexity exerciseSource-confidence review

15–18 · Adults

https://www.interpol.int/News-and-Events/News/2026/Over-5-800-arrests-USD-293-million-intercepted-in-global-fraud-bust

AF-DAL-006High-Risk Online Coercion Critical

764 / Violent Online Networks

Age-gated instruction on secrecy, escalation, coercion, doxxing, blackmail, and getting help—without graphic material.

Why: Dallas has a locally relevant FBI warning, but the subject must be trauma-informed and never become offender instruction.

VERIFIED FACTFBI Dallas issued a May 12, 2026 open letter warning North Texas parents, guardians, and teachers about violent online networks commonly referred to as 764.

VERIFIED FACTThe FBI Dallas letter states the Bureau was investigating more than 450 subjects tied to these networks.

TRAUMA SAFEGUARDNo graphic imagery, victim reenactments, or detailed self-harm instructions.

8–11: Close–Block–Tell12–14: Coercion-pattern map15–18: Evidence preservation and escalationAdults: warning-sign response protocol

8–11 · 12–14 · 15–18 · Adults

https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/dallas/news/fbi-dallas-open-letter-to-parents-guardians-and-teachers

AF-DAL-007Boundary Awareness Medium

Where’d You Get Those Shoes?

Use ordinary gifts and favors to teach children to ask where unexpected benefits came from and whether secrecy or repayment is expected.

Why: This gives younger children a non-graphic foundation for recognizing transactional pressure and grooming patterns.

TEACHING RULEUnexpected gifts are not automatically dangerous; unexpected gifts deserve questions.

PATTERNConcern rises when gifts are paired with secrecy, isolation, escalating requests, or threats.

Gift-and-secret scenario cardsParent question promptsReciprocity mapTrusted-adult role-play

8–11 · 12–14 · Adults

AF-DAL-008AI Literacy Medium

AI Friend or AI Tool?

Teach children to use AI as a tool without confusing fluency, confidence, or simulated empathy with verified authority.

Why: Children need functional AI literacy before they encounter high-stakes decisions through conversational systems.

TEACHING RULEAn AI’s confidence is not evidence that its answer is correct.

BOUNDARYAI can help explain and organize, but high-stakes medical, legal, safety, or emergency decisions require appropriate human professionals.

Tool-vs-person sortingHallucination checkSource request drillHigh-stakes escalation scenarios

8–11 · 12–14 · 15–18 · Adults

AF-DAL-009Privacy + OSINT Literacy Medium

Digital Footprint Forensics

Show how ordinary posts combine into a pattern that can reveal school, routine, age range, friends, or location.

Why: The lesson is cumulative inference—not paranoia about any single post.

TEACHING RULESmall pieces of public information can become sensitive when combined.

Fictional profile auditInference vs fact sortingPrivacy cleanupPattern wall

12–14 · 15–18 · Adults

AF-DAL-010Cyber Safety High

Social Engineering Pressure Lab

Teach students to recognize authority, fear, urgency, scarcity, curiosity, and affinity as common pressure mechanisms.

Why: Students become more resilient when they can identify the emotion a message is trying to trigger before they act.

TEACHING RULEA pressure tactic is a reason to slow down and verify—not proof by itself that a message is malicious.

Phishing message sortPause-and-verify drillTrusted-channel callbackEmotion-to-action map

8–11 · 12–14 · 15–18 · Adults

Its source registry

Five primary sources, each with the date it was last checked. The dates matter more than the links: a source ledger without an as of is a claim that nothing has changed since somebody looked.

Case	Publisher	Status	Checked
Synthetic Image & TAKE IT DOWN	Federal Trade Commission	PRIMARY / VERIFIED	2026-08-17
NCMEC CyberTipline	National Center for Missing & Exploited Children	PRIMARY / VERIFIED	2026-08-17
Financial Sextortion	National Center for Missing & Exploited Children	PRIMARY / VERIFIED	2026-08-17
764 / Violent Online Networks	FBI Dallas	PRIMARY / VERIFIED	2026-08-17
Scam Compounds / Global Fraud	INTERPOL	PRIMARY / VERIFIED	2026-08-17

Eight child-safety invariants

The prototype's own rules. They are the strongest thing in that package and they had never shipped anywhere.

No graphic exploitation content.
No forced disclosure exercises.
No offender-instruction detail.
No diagnostic labeling of students.
No public interrogation of a student.
No victim-blaming language.
Every high-stress lesson ends with an action pathway.
Mandatory-reporting obligations belong in the instructor policy layer and must be customized for jurisdiction.

The copilot invariant

Whatever assists a reader here must refuse to express a conclusion stronger than the supporting evidence, and must expose nine things at the point of every material factual output.

claimevidence statussourcesource datejurisdictioncurrent legal/procedural statusconfidencecontrary evidence/company response when relevantlast verified date

Eight evidence statuses

The prototype's vocabulary, which is not the four-rung ladder. Two evidence systems in one programme is a gap worth closing before Dallas — a facilitator holding both has to translate between them in the room.

VERIFIED FACTPRIMARY SOURCEALLEGATIONCORROBORATEDLEGAL FINDINGUNVERIFIEDOPEN QUESTIONFORECAST / ANALYSIS