WhiteNoise intercepts all /static/ requests and serves from STATIC_ROOT.
Without collectstatic that directory is empty, so every asset 404s regardless
of the storage backend. Remove it from MIDDLEWARE in development so Django's
runserver handles static files natively (DEBUG=True is enough).
Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
