News gathered 2024-02-24
(date: 2024-02-24 18:26:10)
Are screen media the new pacifiers? The role of parenting stress and parental attitudes for children’s screen time in early childhood
date: 2024-03-01, from: ETH Zurich, recently added
Brauchli V.; Sticca F.; Edelsbrunner P.; von Wyl A.; Lannen P.
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/649586 Save to Pocket
A convolutional neural network-based method for the generation of super-resolution 3D models from clinical CT images
date: 2024-03-01, from: ETH Zurich, recently added
Zhou Y.; Klintström E.; Klintström B.; Ferguson S.J.; Helgason B.; Persson C.
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/655412 Save to Pocket
Handling uncertainty in train timetable rescheduling
date: 2024-03-01, from: ETH Zurich, recently added
Zhan, Shuguang; Xie, Jiemin; Wong, S.C.; Zhu, Yongqiu; Corman, Francesco
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/657510 Save to Pocket
Global nutritional challenges and opportunities: Buckwheat, a potential bridge between nutrient deficiency and food security
date: 2024-03-01, from: ETH Zurich, recently added
Jha R.; Zhang K.; He Y.; Mendler-Drienyovszki N.; Magyar-Tábori K.; Quinet M.; Germ M.; Kreft I.; Meglič V.; Ikeda K.; Chapman M.A.; Janovská D.; Podolska G.; Woo S.H.; Bruno S.; Georgiev M.I.; Chrungoo N.; Betekhtin A.; Zhou M.
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/660083 Save to Pocket
Human cues in eHealth to promote lifestyle change: An experimental field study to examine adherence to self-help interventions
date: 2024-03-01, from: ETH Zurich, recently added
Cohen Rodrigues T.R.; de Buisonjé D.R.; Reijnders T.; Santhanam P.; Kowatsch T.; Breeman L.D.; Janssen V.R.; Kraaijenhagen R.A.; Atsma D.E.; Evers A.W.M.
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/660082 Save to Pocket
Socioeconomic impacts of small conserved sites on rural communities in Madagascar
date: 2024-03-01, from: ETH Zurich, recently added
Rodríguez-Rodríguez, David; Knecht, Nielja; Llopis, Jorge C.; Heriarivo, R.A.; Rakotoarison, H.; Andriamampionomanjaka, V.; Navarro-Jurado, Enrique; Randriamamonjy, Voahirana
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/659418 Save to Pocket
Prenatal and postnatal influences on behavioral development in a mouse model of preconceptional stress
date: 2024-03-01, from: ETH Zurich, recently added
Scarborough, Joseph; Iachizzi, Monica; Schalbetter, Sina M.; Müller, Flavia S.; Weber-Stadlbauer, Ulrike; Richetto, Juliet
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/659419 Save to Pocket
Multi-criteria assessment of inland and offshore carbon dioxide transport options
date: 2024-03-01, from: ETH Zurich, recently added
Oeuvray, Pauline; Burger, Johannes; Roussanaly, Simon; Mazzotti, Marco; Becattini, Viola
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/661076 Save to Pocket
“No one thought we’d be here.” Notre Dame-San Jose completes Cinderella run, beats Mills to capture first section title in school history
date: 2024-02-25, from: San Jose Mercury News
Notre Dame-San Jose pulled off the upset, beating Mills in overtime to capture the CCS Division III title.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/24/no-one-thought-wed-be-here-notre-dame-san-jose-completes-cinderella-run-beats-mills-to-capture-first-section-title-in-school-history/ Save to Pocket
Photos: Hundreds jam Jack London Square for Oakland Fans’ Fest
date: 2024-02-25, from: San Jose Mercury News
Supporters of the A’s and other Oakland sports teams and clubs turn out for annual event
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/24/photos-hundreds-jam-jack-london-square-for-oakland-fans-fest/ Save to Pocket
Conflicted Oakland A’s fans make trek to Spring Training to watch their team
date: 2024-02-25, from: San Jose Mercury News
Oakland loses its spring opener 5-1 against Colorado as diehard A’s fans wonder if this is their favorite team’s last year in the Bay Area.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/24/conflicted-oakland-as-fans-make-trek-to-spring-training-to-watch-their-team/ Save to Pocket
Fatal Traffic Collision on East Cota Street and Santa Barbara Street
date: 2024-02-25, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
On February 24, 2024, around 2 a.m., the Santa Barbara Police Department Combined Communications Center received a report of an injury traffic collision occurring at the intersection of East Cota Street and Santa Barbara Street involving a vehicle and a motor scooter.
The post Fatal Traffic Collision on East Cota Street and Santa Barbara Street appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/24/fatal-traffic-collision-on-east-cota-street-and-santa-barbara-street/ Save to Pocket
Ukraine on the Mind as Dozens Rally Downtown
date: 2024-02-25, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Santa Barbarans gather to remember two years of war with Russia.
The post Ukraine on the Mind as Dozens Rally Downtown appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/24/ukraine-on-the-mind-as-dozens-rally-downtown/ Save to Pocket
Cops & Computers
date: 2024-02-25, from: Chris Coyier blog
I watched the Netflix Documentary American Nightmare. It feels like standard fare at this point, where we dip back a decade or two to some crime story that had a few twists and turns in it and make it freshly popcorn worthy again. This was the “is this the real life Gone Girl?” case. Denise […]
https://chriscoyier.net/2024/02/24/cops-computers/ Save to Pocket
New York City Owl Flaco Dies After Crashing Into Building
date: 2024-02-25, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — Tributes poured in Saturday for Flaco, the beloved Eurasian eagle-owl that became a feel-good New York story after escaping its Central Park Zoo enclosure and flying free around Manhattan.
Flaco was found dead on a New York City sidewalk Friday night after apparently flying into a building. It was a heartbreaking end for the birders who documented the owl’s daily movements and the legions of admirers who eagerly followed along.
“Everybody feels the same, they’re devastated,” said Nicole Blair, a New York City artist who devoted much of her feed on the X platform to photos and memes featuring the celebrity owl with checkerboard black and brown feathers and round sunset-hued eyes.
Staff from the Wild Bird Fund, a wildlife rehabilitation center, declared Flaco dead shortly after the collision. A necropsy was expected Saturday.
Flaco was freed from his cage at the zoo a little over a year ago by a vandal who breached a waist-high fence and cut a hole through a steel mesh cage. The owl had arrived at the zoo as a fledgling 13 years earlier.
Flaco sightings soon became sport. The owl spent his days perched on tree branches, fence posts and fire escapes and nights hooting atop water towers and preying on the city’s abundant rats.
Like a true celebrity, the owl appeared on murals and merchandise. A likeness occupied a spot on Blair’s New York City-themed Christmas tree, right next to “Pizza Rat,” the infamous rodent seen in a YouTube clip dragging a slice down a subway stairwell.
“I got to see him on my birthday,” Blair said of her encounter with Flaco in Central Park in the fall. “It was kind of an unbelievable situation, and I’m like, this is the best birthday present ever.”
But she and others worried when Flaco ventured beyond the park into more urban sections of Manhattan, fearing the owl would ingest a poisoned rat or encounter other dangers.
“The vandal who damaged Flaco’s exhibit jeopardized the safety of the bird and is ultimately responsible for his death,” the zoo said in a statement Friday. “We are still hopeful that the NYPD which is investigating the vandalism will ultimately make an arrest.”
Flaco fans shared suggestions Saturday for a permanent bronze statue overlooking New York City. One requested that the owl’s remains be buried in Central Park.
“Flaco the owl was, in many ways, a typical New Yorker — fiercely independent, constantly exploring, finding ways to survive ever-changing challenges,” read a post on the X platform, reflecting a common sentiment. “He will be missed.”
David Barrett, who runs the Manhattan Bird Alert account, suggested a temporary memorial at the bird’s favorite oak tree in the park.
There, he wrote in a post, fellow birders could “lay flowers, leave a note, or just be with others who loved Flaco.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/new-york-city-owl-flaco-dies-after-crashing-into-building-/7501598.html Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-25, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Joe Biden gives the media a desperately needed lesson about Donald Trump.
https://www.salon.com/2024/02/24/joe-biden-gives-the-media-a-desperately-needed-lesson-about-donald/ Save to Pocket
Antioch murder leaves teenager dead, detectives launch investigation
date: 2024-02-25, from: San Jose Mercury News
Police are investigating the murder of a Pittsburg teenager who was found dead in Antioch.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/24/antioch-murder-homicide-police-cop-teen-dead-fatal-investigate-tupelo/ Save to Pocket
USC at UCLA — live updates
date: 2024-02-25, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Darren Parry reports live from Pauvey Pavilion.
The post USC at UCLA — live updates appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/24/usc-at-ucla-live-updates/ Save to Pocket
Western leaders rally around Kyiv to mark 2 years since Russia’s full-scale invasion
date: 2024-02-25, from: San Jose Mercury News
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed Western leaders to Kyiv Saturday to mark the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, as Ukrainian forces run low on ammunition and foreign aid hangs in the balance.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/24/western-leaders-rally-around-kyiv-to-mark-2-years-since-russias-full-scale-invasion/ Save to Pocket
Two Years of Death, Bombs, and Heartbreak
date: 2024-02-25, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Freedom is never free, but it is worth supporting – even when the oppression and injustice is half a world away.
The post Two Years of Death, Bombs, and Heartbreak appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/24/two-years-of-death-bombs-and-heartbreak/ Save to Pocket
Death of beloved New York City owl, Flaco, in apparent building collision devastates legions of fans
date: 2024-02-25, from: San Jose Mercury News
Tributes poured in Saturday for Flaco, the beloved Eurasian eagle-owl that became a feel-good New York story after escaping its Central Park Zoo enclosure and flying free around Manhattan.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/24/death-of-beloved-new-york-city-owl-flaco-in-apparent-building-collision-devastates-legions-of-fans/ Save to Pocket
Where California sea otters go, coastal erosion rates slow
date: 2024-02-25, from: San Jose Mercury News
“A few otters took refuge in Elkhorn Slough,” Silberstein remembers, “and they discovered that it was like an open buffet.”
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/24/where-sea-otters-go-erosion-rates-slow/ Save to Pocket
Trump Wins South Carolina Primary; Haley Heads to Michigan
date: 2024-02-25, from: VOA News USA
charleston, south carolina — Former U.S. President Donald Trump won South Carolina’s Republican primary on Saturday, beating former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley in her home state and further consolidating his path to a third straight GOP nomination.
Trump has now swept every contest that counted for Republican delegates, with wins in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The former president’s latest victory will likely increase pressure on Haley, who was Trump’s representative to the U.N. and South Carolina governor from 2011 to 2017, to leave the race.
Haley has vowed to stay in the race through at least the primaries on March 5, known as Super Tuesday, but was unable to dent Trump’s momentum in her home state despite holding far more campaign events and arguing that the indictments against Trump will hamstring him against U.S. President Joe Biden in the fall.
South Carolina’s first-in-the-South primary has historically been a reliable bellwether for Republicans. In all but one primary since 1980, the Republican winner in South Carolina has gone on to be the party’s nominee. The lone exception was Newt Gingrich in 2012.
Haley said in recent days that she would head straight to Michigan for its Tuesday primary, the last major contest before Super Tuesday. She faces questions about where she might be able to win a contest or be competitive.
Trump and Biden are already behaving like they expect to face off in November.
Trump and his allies argue Biden has made the U.S. weaker and point to the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Trump has also repeatedly attacked Biden over high inflation earlier in the president’s term and his handling of record-high migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump has questioned — often in harshly personal terms — whether the 81-year-old Biden is too old to serve a second term. Biden’s team in turn has highlighted the 77-year-old Trump’s own flubs on the campaign trail.
Biden has stepped up his recent fundraising trips around the country and increasingly attacked Trump directly. He’s called Trump and his “Make America Great Again” movement dire threats to the nation’s founding principles, and the president’s reelection campaign has lately focused most of its attention on Trump, suggesting he’d use the first day of a second presidency as a dictator and that he’d tell Russia to attack NATO allies who fail to keep up with defense spending obligations mandated by the alliance.
Haley also criticized Trump on his NATO comments and also for questioning why her husband wasn’t on the campaign trail with her — even as former first lady Melania Trump hasn’t appeared with him. Major Michael Haley is deployed in the Horn of Africa on a mission with the South Carolina Army National Guard.
But South Carolina’s Republican voters line up with Trump on having lukewarm feelings about NATO and continued U.S. support for Ukraine, according to AP VoteCast data from Saturday’s primary. About 6 in 10 oppose continuing aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russia. Only about a third described America’s participation in NATO as “very good,” with more saying it’s only “somewhat good.”
Haley has raised copious amounts of campaign money and is scheduled to begin a cross-country campaign swing on Sunday in Michigan ahead of Super Tuesday on March 5, when many delegate-rich states hold primaries.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham complimented Haley while speaking to reporters at Trump’s election night party in Columbia but suggested it was time for her to drop out.
“I think the sooner she does, the better for her, the better for the party,” Graham said.
Biden won South Carolina’s Democratic primary earlier this month and faces only one remaining challenger, Dean Phillips. The Minnesota Democratic congressman has continued to campaign in Michigan ahead of the Democratic primary there, despite having little chance of actually beating Biden.
Though Biden is expected to cruise to his party’s renomination, he faces criticism from some Democrats for providing military backing to Israel in its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The war could hurt the president’s general election chances in swing states such as Michigan, which is home to a large Arab American population.
https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-wins-south-carolina-primary-haley-to-head-to-michigan-/7501583.html Save to Pocket
More than 10,000 fans and several ex-A’s show unity at Fans Fest in Oakland
date: 2024-02-24, from: San Jose Mercury News
The Oakland A’s stopped hosting its annual fan fest after the 2019 season, but the fans haven’t stopped showing up. Not when there’s something worth celebrating, that is.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/24/thousands-of-fans-and-several-ex-as-show-unity-at-fans-fest-in-oakland/ Save to Pocket
Saugus cheer brings home CIF, national titles
date: 2024-02-24, from: The Signal
Saugus High School cheer is celebrating a year of accomplishments, after not only winning first place in the CIF Southern Section on Jan. 20, but also placing first in the team’s division at the CIF Regionals on Jan. 27. Saugus varsity also won fourth place in the UCA National High School Cheerleading Championship, the biggest […]
The post Saugus cheer brings home CIF, national titles appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/saugus-cheer-brings-home-cif-national-titles/ Save to Pocket
Mighty Quinn: Branham center dominates, leads Bruins to CCS Division I title
date: 2024-02-24, from: San Jose Mercury News
Quinn Godfrey fills up stat sheet and more as Branham defeats league rival Evergreen Valley in a thrilling CCS championship game.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/24/mighty-quinn-branham-center-dominates-leads-bruins-to-ccs-division-i-title/ Save to Pocket
SF Giants-Cubs: Bob Melvin debuts in the dugout; Logan Webb works on the running game
date: 2024-02-24, from: San Jose Mercury News
Outfielder Heliot Ramos also left the Giants’ first game of spring training in the fifth inning after being hit in the foot with a breaking ball.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/24/sf-giants-cubs-bob-melvin-debuts-in-the-dugout-logan-webb-works-on-the-running-game/ Save to Pocket
West Ranch baseball stumbles late in loss to Camarillo
date: 2024-02-24, from: The Signal
The West Ranch baseball bleachers were packed for Thursday’s non-league game with the Camarillo Scorpions. However, a large percentage of the spectators weren’t supporting one team — they were radar-gun-wielding scouts out to watch the big left-handed Scorpion pitcher Boston Bateman. Bateman shined in the game and threw a no-hitter through his five innings of […]
The post <strong>West Ranch baseball stumbles late in loss to Camarillo</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/west-ranch-baseball-stumbles-late-in-loss-to-camarillo/ Save to Pocket
Saugus lacrosse completes comeback, beats Hart in OT
date: 2024-02-24, from: The Signal
Saugus senior Parker Teel soared down the field in overtime of Wednesday’s league matchup at Hart in search of a sudden-death goal. Teel weaved through multiple Indian defenders and punched in the golden goal to beat Hart 12-11 in overtime, completing the Centurion comeback. Saugus (2-2, 1-0) played catchup throughout the game but surged back […]
The post <strong>Saugus lacrosse completes comeback, beats Hart in OT</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/saugus-lacrosse-completes-comeback-beats-hart-in-ot/ Save to Pocket
Complicity
date: 2024-02-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
In addition to this failure to hold Rep. Carbajal responsible for his open complicity in genocide, the Independent fails to inform readers of the candidacy of Helena Pasquarella running on a Peace platform.
The post Complicity appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/24/complicity/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-24, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Nazis mingle openly at CPAC, spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories and finding allies. (Thanks for not calling them neo-Nazis.)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nazis-mingle-openly-cpac-spreading-antisemitic-conspiracy-theories-fin-rcna140335 Save to Pocket
Reflections Gala awards 60
date: 2024-02-24, from: The Signal
Photographs, paintings, poems, and other forms of visual and performing arts created by students from the Santa Clarita Valley were on display at the main entrance of the Newhall Family Theatre on Thursday night for the Reflections Gala hosted by the Santa Clarita Valley Council PTA. The original artworks and pieces all had a recurring […]
The post Reflections Gala awards 60 appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/reflections-gala-awards-60/ Save to Pocket
Man arrested in connection to house fire
date: 2024-02-24, from: The Signal
A man has been arrested in connection to a house fire in Saugus on Friday, according to Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station officials. First responders received calls about a house fire on the 28000 block of Infinity Circle in Saugus on Friday at 1:56 p.m. and arrived on the scene five minutes later, said Kaitlin […]
The post Man arrested in connection to house fire appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/man-arrested-in-connection-to-house-fire/ Save to Pocket
Pole fire in Castaic
date: 2024-02-24, from: The Signal
No injuries were reported after a utility pole caught fire at the intersection of Hillcrest Parkway and The Old Road in Castaic on Thursday afternoon, according to Angeles County Fire Department officials. A pole caught fire from the base, according to observations from the scene. First responders were dispatched at 1:02 p.m. and arrived at […]
The post Pole fire in Castaic appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/pole-fire-in-castaic/ Save to Pocket
February 23, 2024
date: 2024-02-24, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-23-2024-557 Save to Pocket
Printing from Android
date: 2024-02-24, from: Miek Giebin blog
Quick note to self. Printing from Android requires IPP. If your printing does not support this protocol out of the box you will not be able to directly print from Android devices. CUPS can then be used to translate between IPP and JetDirect (in my case). Install and configure CUPS and then on Android configure the printer. The later means connecting to a printer by IP address. In that form enter the following:
https://miek.nl/2024/february/24/printing-from-android/ Save to Pocket
Ford Halts Shipments Of 2024 F-150 Lightning Due To Undisclosed Quality Issue
date: 2024-02-24, from: Inside EVs News
Meanwhile, the 2023 model-year versions are sold at substantial discounts.
https://insideevs.com/news/709961/ford-halted-shipments-2024-f150-lightning/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-24, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
A lot of Redditors hate the Reddit IPO.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/24/24081441/reddit-shares-redditor-ipo-user-risk Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-24, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Is it time to give up on old news?
https://buzzmachine.com/2024/01/24/is-it-time-to-give-up-on-old-news/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-24, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
These Embryos Are Five Years Worth of Money, Sadness, and Hope.
https://www.glamour.com/story/these-embryos-are-five-years-worth-of-money-sadness-and-hope-i-just-want-to-be-a-mom Save to Pocket
Chief US Gun Laws Enforcer Fears Americans Becoming Numb to Violence
date: 2024-02-24, from: VOA News USA
LEWISTON, MAINE — The head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says he fears that a drumbeat of mass shootings and other gun violence across the United States could make Americans numb to the bloodshed, fostering apathy to finding solutions rather than galvanizing communities to act.
Director Steve Dettelbach’s comments to The Associated Press came after he met this past week with family members of some of the 18 people killed in October at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston, Maine, by a U.S. Army reservist who later took his own life.
He said people must not accept that gun violence is a prevalent part of American life.
“It seems to me that things that we used to sort of consider memorable, life-altering, shocking events that you might think about and talk about for months or years to come now are happening with seeming frequency that makes it so that we sort of think,”That’s just the one that happened this week,’” he said. “If we come to sort of accept that, that’s a huge hurdle in addressing the problem.”
Dettelbach, whose agency is responsible for enforcing the nation’s gun laws, met for nearly two hours at Central Maine Community College with relatives of those killed and survivors of the Lewiston shooting. An AP reporter also attended, along with other law enforcement officials.
Some expressed frustration about missed red flags and questioned why the gunman was able to get the weapon he used. Dettelbach told his audience that they can be a powerful catalyst for change.
“I’m sorry that we have to be in a place where we have to have these horrible tragedies happen for people to pay attention, but they have to pay attention,” Dettelbach said. “I can go around and talk, but your voices are very important and powerful voices. So, if you choose to use them, you should understand that it makes a difference. It really makes a difference.”
Those who met with Dettelbach included members of Maine’s close-knit community of deaf and hard of hearing people, which lost four people in the October 25 shooting at a bowling alley and bar.
Megan Vozzella, whose husband, Stephen, was killed, told Dettelbach through an ASL interpreter that the shooting underscores the need for law enforcement to improve communications with members of the deaf community. She said they felt out of the loop after the shooting.
“Nothing we do at this point will bring back my husband and the other victims,” Vozzella said in an interview after the meeting. “It hurts my heart to talk about this and so learning more every day about this, my only hope is that this can improve for the future.”
There are questions about why neither local law enforcement nor the military intervened to take away weapons from the shooter, Robert Card, despite his deteriorating mental health. In police body cam video released to the media this month, Card told New York troopers before his hospitalization last summer that fellow soldiers were worried about him because he was “gonna friggin’ do something.”
Dettelbach, in the AP interview, declined to comment on the specifics of Card’s case, which an independent commission in Maine is investigating. But he said it is clear that the nation needs to make it harder for people “that everyone agrees should not have firearms, who the law says are not entitled to have firearms, to get them because it’s too easy to get them now.”
Dettelbach’s conversation with victims was part of a tour in New England that also included meetings with law enforcement and others to discuss ways to tackle gun violence. Dettelbach, who has expressed support for universal background checks and banning so-called assault weapons, said he regularly meets with those affected by gun violence.
“Each one of these shootings is a tragedy that takes lives and changes other lives forever. And that’s whether it makes the news or not, whether it’s the suicide of a child or a drive-by in the city, whether it’s a massacre at a parade, a spray bullets on a subway, whether it’s a man who kills his family, murders police” or a student with a rifle “shooting up their school,” he said during a speech at Dartmouth College on Wednesday.
“I submit to you that it is our patriotic duty as Americans to respond, to think of these people, to have their backs, to view this tough news as a call to action.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/chief-us-gun-laws-enforcer-fears-americans-becoming-numb-to-violence/7501174.html Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-02-24, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Unfortunately ChatGPT has been down just when I needed it for some SQL coding help, so I turned to Google’s service, and then thought to paste the post above into it’s tiny little text box, and see what it had to say. It suggests, among other things, that I reconsider whether ChatGPT is a good deal. Heh. 😄
http://scripting.com/2024/02/24.html#a172731 Save to Pocket
Trump Enters South Carolina’s Republican Primary Looking to Embarrass Haley
date: 2024-02-24, from: VOA News USA
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA — Former U.S. President Donald Trump is looking to win his fourth straight state primary Saturday over Nikki Haley in South Carolina, aiming to hand a home-state embarrassment to his last remaining major rival for the Republican nomination.
Trump went into the primary with a huge polling lead and the backing of the state’s top Republicans, including U.S. Senator Tim Scott, a former rival in the race. Haley, who served as United Nations ambassador under Trump, has spent weeks crisscrossing the state that twice elected her governor warning that the dominant front-runner, who is 77 and faces four indictments, is too old and distracted to be president again.
In all but one primary since 1980, the Republican winner in South Carolina has gone on to be the party’s nominee. But Haley has repeatedly vowed to carry on if she loses her home state, even as Trump positions himself for a likely general election rematch against President Joe Biden.
Trump’s backers, including those who previously supported Haley during her time as governor, seemed confident that the former president would have a solid victory Saturday.
“I did support her when she was governor. She’s done some good things,” Davis Paul, 36, said as he waited for Trump at a recent rally in Conway. “But I just don’t think she’s ready to tackle a candidate like Trump. I don’t think many people can.”
Trump has swept into the state for a handful of large rallies in-between fundraisers and events in other states, including Michigan, which holds its GOP primary Tuesday.
He has drawn much larger crowds and campaigned with Gov. Henry McMaster, who succeeded Haley, and Scott, who was elevated to the Senate by Haley.
Speaking Friday in Rock Hill, Trump accused Haley of staying in the race to hurt him at the behest of Democratic donors.
“All she’s trying to do is inflict pain on us so they can win in November,” he said. “We’re not going to let that happen.”
In some of those rallies, Trump has made comments that handed Haley more fodder for her stump speeches, such as his Feb. 10 questioning of why her husband — currently on a South Carolina Army National Guard deployment to Africa — hadn’t been campaigning alongside her. Haley turned that point into an argument that the front-runner doesn’t respect servicemembers and their families, long a criticism that has followed Trump going back to his suggesting the late Sen. John McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, wasn’t a hero because he was captured.
That same night, Trump asserted that he would encourage countries like Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” against NATO member countries who failed to meet the transatlantic alliance’s defense spending targets. Haley has been holding out that moment as evidence that Trump is too volatile and “getting weak in the knees when it comes to Russia.”
After one of Haley’s events, Terry Sullivan, a U.S. Navy veteran who lives in Hopkins, said he had planned to support Trump but changed his mind after hearing Haley’s critique of his NATO comments.
“One country can say whatever it wants, but when you have an agreement, among other nations, we should join the agreements of other nations, not just off on our own,” Sullivan said. “After listening to Nikki, I think I’m a Nikki supporter now.”
Haley has made an indirect appeal to Democrats who in large numbers sat out their own presidential primary earlier this month, adding into her stump speech a line that “anybody can vote in this primary as long as they didn’t vote in the February 3 Democrat primary.”
Some of those voters have been showing up at her events, saying that although they planned to vote for Biden in the general election, they planned to cross over to the GOP primary Saturday to oppose Trump now.
In any other campaign cycle, a home state loss might be detrimental to a campaign. In 2016, Sen. Marco Rubio dropped out shortly after losing Florida in a blowout to Trump, after his campaign argued the political winds would shift in his favor once the campaign moved to his home state.
And Haley’s campaign can’t name a state in which they feel she will be victorious over Trump.
But in a speech this week in Greenville, Haley said she would stay in the campaign “until the last person votes,” arguing that those whose contests come after the early primaries and caucuses deserved the right to have a choice between candidates.
Haley also used that speech — which many had assumed was an announcement she was shuttering her campaign — to argue that she feels “no need to kiss the ring,” as others had, possibly with prospects of serving as Trump’s running mate in mind.
“I have no fear of Trump’s retribution,” Haley reiterated. “I’m not looking for anything from him. My own political future is of zero concern.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-enters-south-carolina-s-republican-primary-looking-to-embarrass-haley/7501167.html Save to Pocket
Pluralistic: Vice surrenders (24 Feb 2024)
date: 2024-02-24, from: Cory Doctorow’s blog
Today’s links Vice surrenders: Literally the stupidest publishing strategy I’ve ever heard of (ever). Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2004, 2014, 2019, 2023. Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Vice surrenders (permalink) Vice died the way it lived: being suckered in by smarter predators, even as it trained its own predatory instincts on those more credulous than its own supremely gullible leadership. RIP, we hardly knew ye. For those of you who don’t know, Vice was a Canadian media success story. It was founded by a motley clique of hipsters, one of whom – founder of the Proud Boys – has since grown to be one of the world’s great fascism influencers. Another perfected the art of getting young people to work “for exposure” even as he built a massive, highly lucrative media empire on their free labor: https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/vice-oral-history/ Eventually, Vice transitioned to a string of progressively worsening corporate owners, each more dishonest, predatory – and gullible – than the last. The company was one of the most enthusiastic marks for Facebook’s infamous “pivot to video” – in which Mark Zuckerberg destroyed half the media industry by tricking them into thinking that the public was clamoring for video content, based on fraudulent viewing numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pivot_to_video Vice went all-in on video, spending hundreds of millions to finance Zuckerberg’s doomed attempt to conquer Youtube. But unlike other the rubes who got zucked, Vice found greater fools to scam, convincing giant, slow-moving media companies that the best way to get in on the Next Big Thing was to shower them with vast sums of string-free money: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viceland_(Canadian_TV_channel) And yet, at every turn, through a succession of increasingly incompetent owners who bought the stumbling, declining Vice at fire-sale prices and then proceeded to hack away at the wages and tools its journalists depended on while paying executives salaries so high that they beggared the imagination, Vice’s reporters continued to turn out stellar material. This went on literally until the last moment. The memorial posted by 404 Media rounds up a selection of major stories Vice’s beleaguered, precarious writers produced even as Vice’s vulture capitalist leadership were pulling the rug out from under them: https://www.404media.co/behind-the-blog-vices-legacy-and-the-idea-that-the-internet-is-forever/ True to form, those private equity scumbags locked all those workers out of the company’s CMS without notice – and then forgot to lock down the podcasting back-end. That allowed a group of Vice veterans – Matthew Gault, Emily Lipstein, Anna Merlan, Tim Marchman and Mack Lamoureux – to gather for a totally unauthorized, tell-all session that they pushed out on an official Vice channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKT4OtDEJRA It’s a hell of a listen. Not only do these Vice veterans have lots of fascinating history to recount, but they also describe the conditions under which those blockbuster stories of Vice’s final days were produced. As the “visionary leaders” of the company paid themselves millions, they halted payments to key suppliers, from Lexisnexis to the interview transcription service the writers depended on. Writers paid out of pocket to search PACER court records. Not only did Vice’s reporters do incredible work under terrible and worsening circumstances, but the Vice writers who got out ahead of the total collapse are also doing incredible work. 404 Media is a writer-owned investigative news publisher founded by four Vice escapees – Samantha Cole, Jason Koebler, Emanuel Maiberg and Joseph Cox, which is both producing incredible work and sustaining the writers who founded it: https://www.404media.co/ All of which leads to an inescapable conclusion: whatever problems Vice had, they didn’t include “writers don’t do productive work” and also didn’t include “that work isn’t economically viable*. Whatever problems Vice had, they weren’t problems with Vice’s workers – it was a problem with Vice’s bosses. Which makes Vice’s final, ignominious punishment at the hands of those bosses even more brutal, stupid and inexcusable. According to the leaked memos emanating from the company’s investors and their millionaire C-suite toadies, the business’s new strategy is abandoning their website in order to publish on social media. This is…I mean, this,.. This is… Wow. I mean, wow. The thing is, the social media business model is a giant rug-pull. They’re not even bothering to hide their playbook anymore. For social media, the game is to encourage media companies to become reliant on third parties to reach their audiences. Once that reliance is established, the companies turn down – or even halt – the ability of those media companies to reach their audience altogether. Then, they charge the media companies to reach their audiences: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-need-end-end-web Now, this wasn’t always quite so obvious. Back when Vice was falling for Facebook’s “pivot to video,” it wasn’t completely obvious that the long con was to take your audience hostage and ransom them back to you. But deliberately organizing your business to be reliant on social media barons today? It’s like trusting your money to Sam Bankman-Fried…in 2024. If there was ever a moment when the obvious, catastrophic, imminent risk of trusting Big Tech intermediaries to sit between you and your customers or audience, it was now. This is not the moment to be “social first.” This is the moment for POSSE (Post Own Site, Share Everywhere), a strategy that sees social media as a strategy for bringing readers to channels that you control: https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/19/now-we-are-two/#two-much-posse Predicting that a social media platform will rug the media companies that depend on it today doesn’t take a Sun Tzu – as cunning strategies go, the hamfisted tactics of FB, Twitter and Tiktok make gambits like “Lucy and the football” look like von Clausewitz. The most bonkers part of this strategy is that it’s coming from private equity bosses, who laud themselves as the great strategists of the 21st century, whose claim on so much of our global capital and resources is derived from their brilliant insight, which allows them to buy “distressed assets” like Vice, “restructure” them to find “efficiencies” and sell them on. The reality is that PE goons – like other financiers – are basically herding animals. Everyone’s hit on the tactic of buying up beloved media companies – from the 150-year-old Popular Science to modern publications like CNet – and then filling them with spammy garbage in the hopes that Google will fail to notice and continue to award them pride-of-place on search results pages: https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task The fact that these billionaire brain-geniuses can’t figure out how to “turn around” a site whose workers a) produce brilliant, popular, successful work; and b) depart to found successful firms that commercialize that work tells you everything about their ability to spot “a good business opportunity.” PE – like other mafiosi – only have one business-plan, the “bust out,” where you invade a business that produces useful things, force them to pay your chosen suppliers sky-high fees for things they don’t need, extract massive fees for your “management” and then walk away from the collapse: https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben Hey look at this (permalink) Klobuchar, Smith Announce Judicial Selection Committee for Vacancy on Federal District Court https://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2024/1/klobuchar-smith-announce-judicial-selection-committee-for-vacancy-on-federal-district-court (h/t Matt Stoller) The Fed Is Behind the Capital One/Discover Merger https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-fed-is-behind-the-capital-onediscover Cory Doctorow Nails Dot-Com Tech and its Fat Cats in ‘The Bezzle’ https://www.everythingzoomer.com/zed-book-club/2024/02/23/cory-doctorow-nails-dot-com-tech-and-its-fattest-cats-in-the-bezzle/ This day in history (permalink) #20yrsago How to get an agent http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004772.html#004772 #20yrsago Capitol Records ships threatening Grey Tuesday letter https://web.archive.org/web/20040224163515/http://downhillbattle.org/grey/emi_cd_letter.html<?a> #10yrsago More Escher tessellated cookies https://www.flickr.com/photos/fdecomite/12707039483/ #5yrsago Mobile apps built with Facebook’s SDK secretly shovel mountains of personal information into the Zuckermouth https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/22/facebook-receives-personal-health-data-from-apps-wsj.html #5yrsago Fast food executive complains that social media inflates young people’s “self-importance,” killing their willingness to work for free https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/careers/muffin-break-boss-fury-over-youth-who-wont-work-unpaid/news-story/57607ea9a1bbe52ba7746cff031306f2 #5yrsago Small business in Wisconsin cancels its unusably bad internet service from Frontier; Frontier demands $4,300 cancellation fee https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/frontier-demands-4300-cancellation-fee-despite-horribly-slow-internet/ #5yrsago Insider sources say Apple is shutting its east Texas stores to escape the jurisdiction of America’s worst patent court https://www.macrumors.com/2019/02/22/apple-closing-stores-in-eastern-district-texas/ #1yrsago Fighting the privacy wars, state by state https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/23/state-of-play/#patchwork Colophon (permalink) Today’s top sources: Currently writing: A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025 The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024 Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Latest podcast: How I Got Scammed (https://craphound.com/news/2024/02/18/how-i-got-scammed/) Upcoming appearances: The Bezzle at Third Place Books (Seattle), Feb 26 https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/event/cory-doctorow The Bezzle at Powell’s (Portland) Feb 27: https://www.powells.com/book/the-bezzle-martin-hench-2-9781250865878/1-2 The Bezzle at Changing Hands (Phoenix), Feb 29: https://www.changinghands.com/event/february2024/cory-doctorow Tucson Festival of Books, Mar 9/10 https://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/?id=676 Enshittification: How the Internet Went Bad and How to Get it Back (virtual), Mar 26 https://libcal.library.ubc.ca/event/3781006 Wondercon Anaheim, Mar 29-31 https://www.comic-con.org/wc/ The Bezzle at Anderson’s Books (Chicago), Apr 17 https://www.andersonsbookshop.com/event/cory-doctorow-1 Torino Biennale Tecnologia (Apr 19-21) https://www.turismotorino.org/en/experiences/events/biennale-tecnologia Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (Winnipeg), May 2 https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cory-doctorow-tickets-798820071337?aff=oddtdtcreator Tartu Prima Vista Literary Festival (May 5-11) https://tartu2024.ee/en/kirjandusfestival/ Media Ecology Association keynote (Amherst, NY), Jun 6-9 https://media-ecology.org/convention American Association of Law Libraries keynote (Chicago), Jul 21 https://www.aallnet.org/conference/agenda/keynote-speaker/ Recent appearances: Radioactive (KCRL) https://krcl.org/blog/grist-investigates-doctorow-seed/ The enshittification of music (Music Ally) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh20fD3XXbg Aaron Swartz (EpistemiCast) https://open.spotify.com/episode/5t9QVHSQBjIXKUiN2EvEmK Latest books: The Bezzle: a sequel to “Red Team Blues,” about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/). “The Lost Cause:” a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/) “The Internet Con”: A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). “Red Team Blues”: “A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before.” Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/. “Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin”, on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com “Attack Surface”: The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it “a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance.” Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html “How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism”: an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html) “Little Brother/Homeland”: A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html “Poesy the Monster Slayer” a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/. Upcoming books: Picks and Shovels: a sequel to “Red Team Blues,” about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025 Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025 This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://twitter.com/doctorow Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic “When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla” -Joey “Accordion Guy” DeVilla
https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/24/anti-posse/ Save to Pocket
Guilty Verdict in 1st US Hate Crime Trial Over Gender Identity
date: 2024-02-24, from: VOA News USA
COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA — A South Carolina man was found guilty Friday of killing a Black transgender woman in the nation’s first federal trial over a hate crime based on gender identity.
After deliberating for roughly four hours, jurors convicted Daqua Lameek Ritter of a hate crime for the murder of Dime Doe in 2019. Ritter was also found guilty of using a firearm in connection with the fatal shooting and obstructing justice.
A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled. Ritter faces a maximum of life imprisonment without parole.
“This case stands as a testament to our committed effort to fight violence that is targeted against those who may identify as a member of the opposite sex, for their sexual orientation or for any other protected characteristics,” Brook Andrews, an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of South Carolina, told reporters after the verdict.
While federal officials have previously prosecuted hate crimes based on gender identity, the cases never reached trial. A Mississippi man received a 49-year prison sentence in 2017 as part of a plea deal after he admitted to killing a 17-year-old transgender woman.
The four-day trial over Doe’s killing centered on the secret sexual relationship between her and Ritter, the latter of whom had grown agitated by the exposure of their affair in the small town of Allendale, according to witness testimony and text messages obtained by the FBI. Prosecutors accused Ritter of shooting Doe three times with a .22 caliber handgun to prevent further revelation of his involvement with a transgender woman.
Prosecutors presented police interviews in which Ritter said he did not see Doe the day she died. But body camera video from a traffic stop of Doe showed Ritter’s distinctive left wrist tattoo on a person in the passenger seat hours before police found her slumped in the car, parked in a driveway.
Defense lawyer Lindsey Vann argued at trial that no physical evidence pointed to Ritter. State law enforcement never processed a gunshot residue test that he took voluntarily, she said, and the pair’s intimate relationship and frequent car rides made it no surprise that Ritter would have been with her.
Doe’s close friends testified that it was no secret in Allendale that she had begun her social transition as a woman shortly after graduating high school. She started dressing in skirts, getting her nails done and wearing extensions. She and her friends discussed boys they were seeing — including Ritter, whom she met during one of his many summertime visits from New York to stay with family.
But text messages obtained by the FBI suggested that Ritter sought to keep their relationship under wraps as much as possible, prosecutors said. He reminded her to delete their communications from her phone, and hundreds of texts sent in the month before her death were removed.
Shortly before Doe’s death, their exchanges grew tense. In one message from July 29, 2019, she complained that Ritter did not reciprocate her generosity. He replied that he thought they had an understanding that she didn’t need the “extra stuff.”
He also told her that Delasia Green, his main girlfriend at the time, had insulted him with a homophobic slur after learning of the affair. In a July 31 text, Doe said she felt used, and Ritter should never have let Green find out about them.
Ritter’s defense attorneys said the sampling represented only a “snapshot” of their messages. They pointed to other exchanges where Doe encouraged Ritter, or where he thanked her for one of her many kindnesses.
Witnesses offered other damaging testimony.
On the day Doe died, a group of friends saw Ritter ride away in a silver car with tinted windows — a vehicle that Ritter’s acquaintance Kordell Jenkins said he had seen Doe drive previously. When Ritter returned several hours later, Jenkins said, he wore a new outfit and appeared “on edge.”
The friends built a fire in a barrel to smoke out the mosquitoes on that buggy summer day, and Ritter emptied his book bag into it, Jenkins testified. He said he couldn’t see the contents but assumed they were items Ritter no longer wanted, possibly the clothes he wore earlier.
The two ran into each other the following day, Jenkins said, and he could see the silver handle of a small firearm sticking out from Ritter’s waistline. He said Ritter asked him to “get it gone.”
Defense attorneys suggested that Jenkins fabricated the story to please prosecutors and argued it was preposterous to think Ritter would ask someone he barely knew to dispose of a murder weapon. They said Ritter’s friends gave conflicting accounts about details like the purported burning of his clothes while facing the threat of prosecution if they failed to cooperate.
With Allendale abuzz with rumors that Ritter killed Doe, he began behaving uncharacteristically, according to witness testimony.
Green said that when he showed up days later at her cousin’s house in Columbia, he was dirty, smelly and couldn’t stop pacing. Her cousin’s boyfriend gave Ritter a ride to the bus stop. Before he left, Green asked him if he had killed Doe.
“He dropped his head and gave me a little smirk,” Green said.
Ritter monitored the fallout from New York, FBI Special Agent Clay Trippi said, citing Facebook messages with another friend, Xavier Pinckney. On August 11, Pinckney told Ritter that nobody was “really talking.” But by August 14, Pinckney was warning Ritter to stay away from Allendale because he had been visited by state police. Somebody was “snitching,” he later said.
Pinckney faces charges of obstructing justice. Federal officials allege he gave false and misleading statements to investigators.
https://www.voanews.com/a/guilty-verdict-in-1st-us-hate-crime-trial-over-gender-identity/7501160.html Save to Pocket
Aprilia All Stars Returns To Misano At The Big Aprilia Festival
date: 2024-02-24, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
A grand gathering of folks passionate about everything on two wheels.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/709611/aprilia-all-stars-misano-2024/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-02-24, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
It
just occurred to me that I’m doing some of my best writing in ChatGPT,
and I don’t automatically get a copy of all that text somewhere I can
access it if they go away. Also that writing is not going into any
search engine. Normally I watch out for this, but they got me, and you,
to write for them for free, and I pay them $20 a month for the
privilege. However in balance it is worth it, at least in the short
term.
http://scripting.com/2024/02/24.html#a161904 Save to Pocket
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) gaming laptop with Ryzen 8040HS and OLED display is now available
date: 2024-02-24, from: Liliputing
The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is a gaming laptop for folks looking for a reasonably thin, light, and portable machine with enough horsepower to handle most modern games. Asus has released a number of variations over the past few years, but the 2024 model of the Zephyrus G14 brings some of the biggest (and smallest) […]
The post Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) gaming laptop with Ryzen 8040HS and OLED display is now available appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/asus-rog-zephyrus-g14-2024-gaming-laptop-with-ryzen-8040hs-and-oled-display-is-now-available/ Save to Pocket
Lightroom Classic 13.2
date: 2024-02-24, from: TidBITS blog
https://tidbits.com/watchlist/lightroom-classic-13-2/ Save to Pocket
Carbon Copy Cloner 6.1.10
date: 2024-02-24, from: TidBITS blog
https://tidbits.com/watchlist/carbon-copy-cloner-6-1-10/ Save to Pocket
toketaWare Shuts Down, Orphaning iThoughtsX Mind-Mapping Software
date: 2024-02-24, from: TidBITS blog
Although iThoughts will no longer receive updates, the Mac, iOS, and Windows apps should continue to run, and downloads, license codes, and documentation remain available.
https://tidbits.com/2024/02/24/toketaware-shuts-down-orphaning-ithoughtsx-mind-mapping-software/ Save to Pocket
US Should Block Chinese Auto Imports From Mexico, US Makers Say
date: 2024-02-24, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government should block the import of low-cost Chinese autos and parts from Mexico, a U.S. manufacturing advocacy group said Friday, warning they could threaten the viability of American car companies.
“The introduction of cheap Chinese autos — which are so inexpensive because they are backed with the power and funding of the Chinese government — to the American market could end up being an extinction-level event for the U.S. auto sector,” the Alliance for American Manufacturing said in a report.
The group argues the United States should work to prevent automobiles and parts manufactured in Mexico by companies headquartered in China from benefiting from a North American free trade agreement. “The commercial backdoor left open to Chinese auto imports should be shut before it causes mass plant closures and job losses in the United States,” the report said.
Vehicles and parts produced in Mexico can qualify for preferential treatment under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement as well as qualifying for a $7,500 electric vehicle, or EV, tax credit, the report noted.
The Chinese embassy in Washington said in response that China’s automobile exports “reflect the high-quality development and strong innovation of China’s manufacturing industry. … The leapfrog development of China’s auto industry has provided cost-effective products with high quality to the world.”
The issue has received new interest after news reports that China’s BYD Company plans to set up an EV factory in Mexico. BYD, known for its cheaper models and a more varied lineup, recently overtook its biggest rival, Tesla, to become the world’s top EV maker by sales.
Tesla announced plans almost a year ago to build a factory in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon. In October, Mexico said a Chinese Tesla supplier and a Chinese technology company would invest nearly a billion dollars in the state.
A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers has urged the Biden administration to hike tariffs on Chinese-made vehicles and investigate ways to prevent Chinese companies from exporting to the United States from Mexico.
A group of lawmakers urged U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to boost the 27.5% tariff on Chinese vehicles and said her office “must also be prepared to address the coming wave of [Chinese] vehicles that will be exported from our other trading partners, such as Mexico, as [Chinese] automakers look to strategically establish operations outside of [China].”
Alliance for Automotive Innovation CEO John Bozzella has said that proposed U.S. environmental regulations could let China gain “a stronger foothold in America’s electric vehicle battery supply chain and eventually our automotive market.”
The U.S. Treasury issued guidelines in December on the $7,500 EV tax credit aimed at weaning the U.S. EV supply chain away from China.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-should-block-chinese-auto-imports-from-mexico-us-makers-say/7501058.html Save to Pocket
No on Measure A
date: 2024-02-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The present Charter provision contains, despite it being glossed over by proponents of Measure A, specific authority for the city to remove low bidders who are not proven “responsible.”
The post No on Measure A appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/24/no-on-measure-a/ Save to Pocket
Anthropologist Challenges Return of Native American Remains
date: 2024-02-24, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act requires federally funded institutions to catalogue, report and return Native American ancestral remains and funerary objects.
With exemptions for cases in which institutions can prove legal ownership, the 33-year-old law known as NAGPRA was updated in January with requirements that researchers obtain tribal or lineal descendants’ consent before exhibiting or conducting research on human remains and related cultural items.
While many Indigenous leaders are encouraged by stronger provisions in the law, anthropologist Elizabeth Weiss says the whole thing should be scrapped because repatriating human remains hinders scientific research.
“A research collection’s ability to inform us never, never dies, because you have new hypotheses that can be used to test, and you also have to retest old hypotheses when new methods develop,” the San Jose State University professor told VOA.
What the law says
Weiss argues that NAGPRA undermines the separation of church and state because it gives traditional Native American religious leaders a say over whether and to whom human remains will be returned.
“NAGPRA was passed with the requirement that two of its [seven] committee members must be traditional Indian religious leaders,” she said. “Further, it allows only one type of religious evidence to be used in repatriation — and that’s Native American creationism.”
Weiss says the law has led to institutional guidelines for the handling of remains based on what she calls tribal “mythology,” including a provision at her university that blocked people who are menstruating from handling skeletal remains.
“And the more you allow the acceptance of this kind of superstitious pseudo-religion to creep in, the more widespread it becomes,” she says.
In November 2021, San Jose State’s Anthropology Department issued guidelines on the handling of Native American ancestral remains which read, “Menstruating personnel will not be permitted to handle ancestors.”
The university rescinded that in April 2022.
Long history of grave robbing
Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles, a citizen of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota, is an Indigenous geographer at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. He says Weiss is misguided.
“On its face, she makes what looks to be [a] convincing and appealing argument that scientists are working for the betterment of humankind and that Indigenous opposition is based in which she terms ‘pseudo-science’ and stifling the process,” he said. “What she doesn’t really engage with is a very long history of grave robbing of Indigenous burial sites in the name of science.”
Smiles gave the example of mid-19th Century “craniologist” Samuel Morton who amassed and measured hundreds of human skulls to support his belief in five races, each created separately, whose cranial size determined their place in the racial hierarchy.
“In their mental character, the Americans are averse to cultivation, and slow in acquiring knowledge,” he wrote in his 1839 book, “Crania Americana.”
Smiles says, “There’s been a really long history of people treating Indigenous remains as just simply objects of curiosity, as things that are made to be studied, rather than belonging to human beings once upon a time.”
NAGPRA previously allowed institutions to retain artifacts they deemed “culturally unidentifiable.” That provision has now been removed, and tribal historians and religious leaders will now have a voice in determining where those items should go.
Attorney Shannon O’Loughlin, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, heads the Association on American Indian Affairs, a nonprofit that helps tribes navigate NAGPRA processes.
“The law is very clear that institutions do not own Native bodies or cultural items unless they can prove a right of possession,” she said. “If some tribes ask for certain accommodations and protocols, that’s because they’re the true owners.”
O’Loughlin stresses that NAGPRA does not prohibit research or display of Native remains.
“It simply requires consent. The whole point of the law is to bring tribes to the table where they’ve never been allowed before and to educate museums about items in their collections and why they are significant.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/anthropologist-challenges-return-of-native-american-remains-/7501037.html Save to Pocket
Washed-Away Road Cuts Access To Famed Surf Spot. What’s Next for Old Man’s?
date: 2024-02-24, updated: 2024-02-24, from: The LAist
The state’s parks department is working with stakeholders, including the military, to rebuild the San Onofre road, but no timeline has been given.
https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/san-onofre-old-mans-beach Save to Pocket
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-02-24, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
For the past couple of years, I have been watching TV shows and movies on the iPad.
The worst thing to happen to me was the introduction of multitasking. Since then, whenever there is a slow part in the movie, I would open a social media app and scroll. And then, if I found something good, I would stop the show.
A 2-hour show takes me about six hours to watch over a week or so.
With vision in theater mode, I found myself without any desire to multitask and can now finish shows on time.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111986892166261793 Save to Pocket
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-02-24, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
This makes sense: https://mastodon.social/@simsaens/111984731090778552
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111986826475365321 Save to Pocket
YOU LOVE TO SEE IT: Mega-Merger (Potentially) Blocked On Aisle Five
date: 2024-02-24, from: The Lever News
Plus, consumers could be protected from insurer meltdowns, dueling communities reach rare agreement over water rights, and rural America scores access to clean water.
https://www.levernews.com/you-love-to-see-it-mega-merger-potentially-blocked-on-aisle-five/ Save to Pocket
Ask the Motor Cop | Pull over for emergency vehicle on other side of divider?
date: 2024-02-24, from: The Signal
Question: Jerry, my name is Steve, and I am not sure what I am actually supposed to do when I am driving on a road with a raised center divider and I see an emergency vehicle with lights and siren coming in the opposite direction. Am I required to stop? — Steve Answer: Thank you, […]
The post Ask the Motor Cop | Pull over for emergency vehicle on other side of divider? appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/ask-the-motor-cop-pull-over-for-emergency-vehicle-on-other-side-of-divider/ Save to Pocket
Getting Hitched? You Got A Few Hours Left To Make It Official On 2-24-24
date: 2024-02-24, updated: 2024-02-24, from: The LAist
The Orange County Clerk-Recorder is adding special hours today to issue marriage licenses, because 2-24-24 is a pretty irresistible date.
https://laist.com/news/los-angeles-activities/getting-hitched-you-got-a-few-hours-left-to-make-it-official-on-2-24-24 Save to Pocket
The History Of LA’s Visually Stunning Wayfarers Chapel, Now Closed By Landslides
date: 2024-02-24, updated: 2024-02-24, from: The LAist
Built in 1951, the glass-walled chapel is one of L.A.’s few national historic landmarks. This isn’t the first time it has been damaged by landslides.
https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/wayfarers-chapel-palos-verdes-landslide-history-lloyd-wright-historical-landmark Save to Pocket
A Virtual Reality Tour of Surveillance Tech at the Border
date: 2024-02-24, from: The Markup blog
A conversation with Dave Maass of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://themarkup.org/hello-world/2024/02/24/a-virtual-reality-tour-of-surveillance-tech-at-the-border Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-24, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
STAT readers on older presidents.
https://www.statnews.com/2024/02/24/presidents-age-cognitive-decline-doctors-letters-to-editor/ Save to Pocket
Would you rather have one $50k EV or 50 of these $1k Chinese electric cars
date: 2024-02-24, from: Electrek Feed
Panning for gold in Alibaba’s electric vehicle catalog is bound to find some real doozies, such as this week’s Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week. Meet this fun little purple three-wheeled electric car that barely manages to fulfill the requirements of a car.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/24/would-you-rather-have-one-50k-ev-or-50-of-these-1k-chinese-electric-cars/ Save to Pocket
Embark On An Unforgettable Adventure With BDR’s Northern California Route
date: 2024-02-24, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
A feast for the eyes and a challenge for man and machine.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/709771/backcountry-discovery-routes-north-california/ Save to Pocket
Windows-as-a-nuisance: How I clean up a “clean install” of Windows 11 and Edge
date: 2024-02-24, from: OS News
I frequently write about Windows, Edge, and other Microsoft-adjacent technologies as part of my day job, and I sign into my daily-use PCs with a Microsoft account, so my usage patterns may be atypical for many Ars Technica readers. But for anyone who uses Windows, Edge, or both, I thought it might be useful to detail what I’m doing to clean up a clean install of Windows, minimizing (if not totally eliminating) the number of annoying notifications, Microsoft services, and unasked-for apps that we have to deal with. ↫ Andrew Cunningham at Ars Technica Five pages of nonsense you have to go through to make Windows 11 somewhat less of a trashfire. I can’t believe we’ve reached a point where this is normal and accepted, and often even defended by Windows users, here on OSNews as well. I know “just install Linux” generally isn’t a helpful comment, but at what point is installing Linux the path of least resistance compared to whatever the hell this is? Especially now that most work is done online in the browser anyway?
https://www.osnews.com/story/138645/windows-as-a-nuisance-how-i-clean-up-a-clean-install-of-windows-11-and-edge/ Save to Pocket
Judge slaps down law firm using ChatGPT to justify six-figure trial fee
date: 2024-02-24, updated: 2024-02-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Use of AI to calculate legal bill ‘utterly and unusually unpersuasive’
You’d think lawyers – ostensibly a clever group of people – would have figured out by now that relying on ChatGPT to do anything related to their jobs could be a bad idea, but here we are, yet again, with a judge rebuking a law firm for doing just that. …
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/24/chatgpt_cuddy_legal_fees/ Save to Pocket
Paul Butler | Little birds & big people at work
date: 2024-02-24, from: The Signal
What do little birds and big humans in the workplace have in common? Well, from my window, they demonstrate so many similarities. Let’s take a walk around the garden together and see what we can observe and hopefully learn. Regardless of breed, the birds are certainly talking. Their constant chirping seems sweet, although if you […]
The post Paul Butler | Little birds & big people at work appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/paul-butler-little-birds-big-people-at-work/ Save to Pocket
NRA loses landmark trial over millions in wasted donor funds
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The National Rifle Association and its longtime leader Wayne LaPierre were found liable for violating New York law with lavish spending of donor funds, denting the gun rights group’s invincible aura after a six-week trial and years of embarrassing revelations in court.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/nation-world-news/nra-loses-landmark-trial-over-millions-in-wasted-donor-funds/ Save to Pocket
White House, tribal leaders hail ‘historic’ deal to restore salmon runs in Pacific Northwest
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>WASHINGTON — The Biden administration, leaders of four Columbia River Basin tribes and the governors of Oregon and Washington celebrated on Friday as they signed papers formally launching a $1 billion plan to help recover depleted salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/nation-world-news/white-house-tribal-leaders-hail-historic-deal-to-restore-salmon-runs-in-pacific-northwest/ Save to Pocket
Historic moon lander likely on its side, but data are flowing, company official says
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>ORLANDO, Fla. — A day after a private company made history with a soft landing on the moon, company officials detailed what they think they know from limited data gathered and lack of imagery about the lander, including the likelihood that is on its side.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/nation-world-news/historic-moon-lander-likely-on-its-side-but-data-are-flowing-company-official-says/ Save to Pocket
Hawaii Education Department braces for severe budget cuts
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>State education officials say that between a new round of possible state budget cuts on top of a looming “federal fiscal cliff,” they are bracing for a triple punch to the funding of Hawaii’s public school system.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/hawaii-news/hawaii-education-department-braces-for-severe-budget-cuts/ Save to Pocket
How did Haley’s South Carolina become Trump country? Ask the Tea Party
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>AIKEN, S.C. — When Nikki Haley ran for governor of South Carolina in 2010, one of her early campaign stops was the Aiken, South Carolina, living room of Claude and Sunny O’Donovan.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/nation-world-news/how-did-haleys-south-carolina-become-trump-country-ask-the-tea-party/ Save to Pocket
Vulcan basketball teams sweep FPU Sunbirds
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>FRESNO, Calif. — UH-Hilo’s basketball teams both notched victories over Fresno Pacific in Pacific West Conference action on Thursday night.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/sports/vulcan-basketball-teams-sweep-fpu-sunbirds/ Save to Pocket
Florida defies CDC in measles outbreak, telling parents it’s fine to send unvaccinated kids to school
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>With a brief memo, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has subverted a public health standard that’s long kept measles outbreaks under control.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/nation-world-news/florida-defies-cdc-in-measles-outbreak-telling-parents-its-fine-to-send-unvaccinated-kids-to-school/ Save to Pocket
Police arrest man in killing of nursing student at University of Georgia
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>ATHENS, Ga. — A 26-year-old man was arrested Friday in the killing of a nursing student whose body was found on the University of Georgia campus, and police said he apparently did not know the victim, he acted alone and there was no further threat to the university community.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/nation-world-news/police-arrest-man-in-killing-of-nursing-student-at-university-of-georgia/ Save to Pocket
House Speaker Johnson must now confront his own party’s sabotage
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Mike Johnson promised a “well-oiled machine” the night he won the U.S. House speaker’s gavel. Four months later, he hasn’t delivered. Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden is unraveling, Ukraine war aid languishes amid GOP opposition as Russia advances on the battlefield, and the U.S. government is on the brink of a politically damaging government shutdown.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/nation-world-news/house-speaker-johnson-must-now-confront-his-own-partys-sabotage/ Save to Pocket
US and EU pile new sanctions on Russia for the Ukraine war’s 2nd anniversary and Navalny’s death
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>WASHINGTON — The United States and European Union on Friday heaped hundreds of new sanctions on Russia in connection with the second anniversary of its invasion of Ukraine and in retaliation for the death of noted Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny last week in an Arctic penal colony.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/nation-world-news/us-and-eu-pile-new-sanctions-on-russia-for-the-ukraine-wars-2nd-anniversary-and-navalnys-death/ Save to Pocket
NY fraud judgment against Trump finalized at $454 million with interest
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>NEW YORK — The devastating judgment handed down last week against Donald Trump in his fraud case was finalized Friday — coming out to more than $454 million with interest — a day after New York Attorney General Letitia James said she’d seize prized jewels in his real estate portfolio if he can’t afford to pay.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/nation-world-news/ny-fraud-judgment-against-trump-finalized-at-454-million-with-interest/ Save to Pocket
Ahead of South Carolina primary, Trump says he strongly supports IVF after Alabama court ruling
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>ROCK HILL, S.C. — Former President Donald Trump said Friday that he would “strongly support the availability of IVF” and called on lawmakers in Alabama to preserve access to the treatment that has become a new flashpoint in the 2024 presidential election.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/nation-world-news/ahead-of-south-carolina-primary-trump-says-he-strongly-supports-ivf-after-alabama-court-ruling/ Save to Pocket
Netanyahu seeks open-ended control over security and civilian affairs in Gaza in new postwar plan
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — A long-awaited postwar plan by Israel’s prime minister shows that his government seeks open-ended control over security and civilian affairs in the Gaza Strip. That was swiftly rejected Friday by Palestinian leaders and runs counter to Washington’s vision for the war-ravaged enclave.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/nation-world-news/netanyahu-seeks-open-ended-control-over-security-and-civilian-affairs-in-gaza-in-new-postwar-plan/ Save to Pocket
Kenya mourns as marathon world record-holder Kelvin Kiptum is given a state funeral
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya’s world marathon record holder Kelvin Kiptum was given a state funeral Friday following his death in a car crash earlier this month, as many Kenyans urged the government to do more to protect the country’s famous athletes. </p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/sports/kenya-mourns-as-marathon-world-record-holder-kelvin-kiptum-is-given-a-state-funeral/ Save to Pocket
What might an MLB owner ask Trevor Bauer? Here’s a transcript of what he had to say.
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — On a Monday night three years ago, the Dodgers’ Trevor Bauer threw what might have been the last pitch of his major league career, a third strike. The next day, a woman named Lindsey Hill obtained a temporary restraining order against him, providing hospital records that said she had been diagnosed with “acute head injury” and “assault by manual strangulation” in the wake of a sexual encounter.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/sports/what-might-an-mlb-owner-ask-trevor-bauer-heres-a-transcript-of-what-he-had-to-say/ Save to Pocket
Olympic all-around champ Sunisa Lee is happy competing again. She also wants a skill named for her
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Simply competing is an encouraging sign that Sunisa Lee is in a good, healthy place, especially the latter. </p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/sports/olympic-all-around-champ-sunisa-lee-is-happy-competing-again-she-also-wants-a-skill-named-for-her/ Save to Pocket
Judge rules against NCAA, says NIL compensation rules likely violate antitrust law, harm athletes
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>A federal judge on Friday barred the NCAA from enforcing its rules prohibiting name, image and likeness compensation from being used to recruit athletes, granting a request for a preliminary injunction from the states of Tennessee and Virginia in dealing another blow to the association’s ability to govern college sports. </p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/sports/judge-rules-against-ncaa-says-nil-compensation-rules-likely-violate-antitrust-law-harm-athletes/ Save to Pocket
Tropical Gardening: Native epiphytes and lithophytes not well represented in Hawaii
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>If you were to visit the humid tropics of Asia, Central and South America you would be amazed at all the plants that grow on the branches of trees and even on rocks with no soil. We do have lichens, mosses and even ferns that have evolved here to festoon rainforest and cloud forest trees, but there are few compared to the rest of the tropical world.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/features/tropical-gardening-native-epiphytes-and-lithophytes-not-well-represented-in-hawaii-2/ Save to Pocket
Jen Pawol to make big league spring training debut, on verge of becoming MLB’s first woman umpire
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Jen Pawol will take a big step toward breaking the gender barrier for Major League Baseball umpires on Saturday when she becomes the first woman to work a big league spring training game in 17 years. </p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/sports/jen-pawol-to-make-big-league-spring-training-debut-on-verge-of-becoming-mlbs-first-woman-umpire/ Save to Pocket
NFL’s salary cap skyrockets to $255.4 million, up a record $30.6 million
date: 2024-02-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>NEW YORK — The NFL’s salary cap for 2024 will be $255.4 million, up a record $30.6 million from last year. </p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/24/sports/nfls-salary-cap-skyrockets-to-255-4-million-up-a-record-30-6-million/ Save to Pocket
Our View | Getting Serious: Stop the Stench
date: 2024-02-24, from: The Signal
By The Signal Editorial Board It’s a stinkin’ mess. Now that we have your attention — looking at you, every elected official who represents the Santa Clarita Valley — we are asking you to put your foot on the gas and keep the pedal mashed to the floor until the Chiquita Canyon Landfill problem has […]
The post Our View | Getting Serious: Stop the Stench appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/our-view-getting-serious-stop-the-stench/ Save to Pocket
Jason Gibbs | Proposition 1 and an Unusual Group of Foes
date: 2024-02-24, from: The Signal
The primaries are upon us! In early February, the March 5 primary election ballots hit California voters like a tidal wave! With every active registered voter now receiving a vote-by-mail ballot with no stamp being required to return them, and just about anyone can seemingly turn a vote in for someone else, the amount of […]
The post Jason Gibbs | Proposition 1 and an Unusual Group of Foes appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/jason-gibbs-proposition-1-and-an-unusual-group-of-foes/ Save to Pocket
GDOE stakeholders share concerns, recommendations during 2nd engagement forum
date: 2024-02-24, from: Guam Daily Post
At the Public School Engagement Forum on Saturday, Guam Department of Education representatives acknowledged many of the challenges that have placed GDOE in the spotlight this school year, but it was also a learning opportunity for officials, as stakeholders shared…
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/gdoe-stakeholders-share-concerns-recommendations-during-2nd-engagement-forum/article_9b59ae32-d2d0-11ee-8c8a-db4580fa798f.html Save to Pocket
Chuuk fulfills $1 million contribution to Pacific Islands Development Bank
date: 2024-02-24, from: Guam Daily Post
Chuuk state has fulfilled a long-standing agreement by contributing $1 million in subscribed capital shares to the Pacific Islands Development Bank. A handover ceremony took place on Guam Friday at the Hyatt Regency Guam.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/chuuk-fulfills-1-million-contribution-to-pacific-islands-development-bank/article_22e8e138-d1f0-11ee-83bc-e7e729e0243b.html Save to Pocket
GDOE, GEB summoned to court
date: 2024-02-24, from: Guam Daily Post
Ten parents of public school students alleged that the superintendent of education and the Guam Education Board failed to comply with the Every Child is Entitled to an Adequate Public Education Act.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/gdoe-geb-summoned-to-court/article_6110049a-d138-11ee-97c5-8bc6c858fa18.html Save to Pocket
Society and technology
date: 2024-02-24, from: Manu - I write blog
This past week we, yet again, had an example of how technology and society will always struggle to coexist. You might have read or heard about this but the Google AI image generation thingy—Bard? Gemini? Gemma? I have no idea what it’s called because Google is the absolute worst when it comes to naming products—managed to stir quite the controversy for the choice of people it decided to generate or not generate.
I’m not going to comment on the controversy itself—I don’t find it interesting—but I am going to comment on something that’s tangentially related and that is the inevitable clash between society and technology.
Technology doesn’t appear out of thin air. Technology is created by people. And those people have a series of beliefs that will inevitably influence those technologies. But what’s true and sensible for one person might not be true and sensible for another. And that’s an unsolvable contrast. There are situations in which there are no right answers. None.
I was listening to a podcast not long ago and they were discussing the proposed law in, I think Florida, to ban social media for people under 16 years of age. I find it fascinating that both hosts agreed that the idea made sense because of the impact social media has on young people.
Yet both were quick to point out the flaw in the system because a 3rd party had to take care of doing the age verification. They didn’t like that it was a 3rd party but they didn’t like the idea of the government having to do that either. And so I’m sitting here thinking “Who should do this then?”.
And that’s just one of the many examples where society and technology clash in ways that are probably unsolvable in a clean way. Some things will be messy, no matter how hard you try. And that’s why I find controversies around AI generation so boring and pointless. Those tools will generate some wild shit and some people will get mad because of that. Or they won’t and some people will get mad because of that.
https://manuelmoreale.com/@/page/FFi9O9ejikFqs7Uf Save to Pocket
Why has the Republican Party become an enemy of democracy? The Saturday coffee klatch
date: 2024-02-24, from: Robert Reich on Substack
With Heather Lofthouse and yours truly
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/why-has-the-republican-party-become Save to Pocket
Today in SCV History (Feb. 24)
date: 2024-02-24, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1993 – Jury awards Newhall Land $2.3 million for “Valencia” trademark infringement by Palmer apartments at Valle del Oro, Newhall. [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-feb-24/ Save to Pocket
Watkins rewrites history as women’s basketball takes down Colorado
date: 2024-02-24, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The star freshman recorded her 11th 30-point game, setting USC’s single-season record.
The post Watkins rewrites history as women’s basketball takes down Colorado appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/juju-watkins-history-colorado-womens-basketball/ Save to Pocket
February 23, 2024
date: 2024-02-24, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog
Two years ago today, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky made a passionate plea to the people of Russia, begging them to avoid war. He gave the speech in Russian, his own primary language, and, reminding Russians of their shared border and history, told them to “listen to the voice of reason”: Ukrainians want peace.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-23-2024 Save to Pocket
Capps Gives Progess Report on Bluff Safety Plan in Isla Vista
date: 2024-02-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The Santa Barbara County supervisor discusses taller fencing, lighting, and Social Host Ordinance.
The post Capps Gives Progess Report on Bluff Safety Plan in Isla Vista appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/23/capps-gives-progess-report-on-bluff-safety-plan-in-isla-vista/ Save to Pocket
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-02-24, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
TikTok on visionOS is superb.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111984765009328928 Save to Pocket
Ordained Pastor Comes to Santa Barbara to Talk White Christian Nationalism
date: 2024-02-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
John Fanestil, author of “American Heresy: The Roots and Reach of White Christian Nationalism,” will be in town Sunday, February 25, to discuss the ways this strain of Christian thought has taken root in American life.
The post Ordained Pastor Comes to Santa Barbara to Talk White Christian Nationalism appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/23/ordained-pastor-comes-to-santa-barbara-to-talk-white-christian-nationalism/ Save to Pocket
Sewage Spill in Goleta Slough Reaches More Than One Million Gallons
date: 2024-02-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Hole in main pipeline fixed, but spill estimate grows.
The post Sewage Spill in Goleta Slough Reaches More Than One Million Gallons appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/23/sewage-spill-in-goleta-slough-reaches-more-than-one-million-gallons/ Save to Pocket
Welcome Back to CSUN’s Planetarium
date: 2024-02-24, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
After a pause prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Donald E. Bianchi Planetarium at California State University Northridge (CSUN) is resuming operations. Visitors can once again embark on an interesting…
https://sundial.csun.edu/178657/multimedia/watch/welcome-back-to-csuns-planetarium/ Save to Pocket
White House, Tribes Hail ‘Historic’ Deal to Restore Pacific NW Salmon Runs
date: 2024-02-24, from: VOA News USA
washington — The Biden administration, leaders of four Columbia River Basin tribes and the governors of Oregon and Washington celebrated on Friday as they signed papers formally launching a $1 billion plan to help recover depleted salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest.
The plan, announced in December, stopped short of calling for the removal of four controversial dams on the Snake River, as some environmental groups and tribal leaders have urged. But officials said it would boost clean energy production and help offset hydropower, transportation and other benefits provided by the dams should Congress ever agree to breach them.
The plan brokered by the Biden administration pauses long-running litigation over federal dam operations and represents the most significant step yet toward eventually taking down the four Snake River dams. The plan will strengthen tribal clean energy projects and provide other benefits for tribes and other communities that depend on the Columbia Basin for agriculture, energy, recreation and transportation, the White House said.
“Since time immemorial, the strength of the Yakama Nation and its people have come from the Columbia River, and from the fish, game, roots and berries it nourishes,’’ Yakama Nation Chairman Gerald Lewis said at a White House ceremony.
“The Yakama Nation will always fight to protect and restore the salmon because, without the salmon, we cannot maintain the health of our people or our way of life,’’ Lewis said, adding that Columbia Basin salmon are dying from the impacts of human development.
“Our fishers have empty nets and their homes have empty tables because historically the federal government has not done enough to mitigate these impacts,’’ he said.”We need a lot more clean energy, but we need to do development in a way that is socially just.’’
Lewis was among four tribal leaders who spoke at the hourlong ceremony at the White House complex, along with Washington Governor Jay Inslee, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek and an array of federal officials.
The agreement, formally known as the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative, “deserves to be celebrated,’’ said Jonathan W. Smith, chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation.
The settlement “takes the interests of all the stakeholders in the Columbia Basin into account,’’ he said.”It lays out a pathway to restore salmon and steelhead to healthy and abundant levels and moves forward with the necessary green energy transition in a socially just and equitable way.”
Corinne Sams of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation called the signing ceremony a historic moment, not just for the tribes, but also for the U.S. government “and all Americans in the Pacific Northwest. My heart is big today.”
The Columbia River Basin, an area roughly the size of Texas, was once the world’s greatest salmon-producing river system, with at least 16 stocks of salmon and steelhead. Today, four are extinct and seven are listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Dams are a main culprit behind the salmon’s decline, and federal fisheries scientists have concluded that breaching the dams in eastern Washington on the Snake River, the largest tributary of the Columbia, would be the best hope for recovering them, providing the fish with access to hundreds of miles of pristine habitat and spawning grounds in Idaho.
Conservation groups sued the federal government more than two decades ago in an effort to save the fish. They have argued that the continued operation of the dams violates the Endangered Species Act as well as treaties dating to the mid-19th century ensuring the tribes’ right to harvest fish.
Friday’s celebration did not include congressional Republicans who oppose dam breaching and have vowed to block it.
Dams along the Columbia-Snake River system provide more than one-third of all hydropower capacity in the United States, said Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Washington Republican who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In Washington state, hydropower accounts for 70% of electricity consumed.
The Snake River dams “helped transform Eastern Washington into one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world,’’ including 40% of America’s wheat, Rodgers said in a statement.
She denounced “secret negotiations” led by White House senior adviser and climate envoy John Podesta, saying he and other officials “worked behind closed doors with a select group of radical environmentalists to develop a secret package of actions and commitments’’ that advance”efforts to remove the four Lower Snake River dams.’’
Podesta and other speakers at the White House ceremony looked past those concerns, with few even mentioning the dams.
“President Biden understands that the Columbia River is the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest, for its culture, for its economy and for its people,’’ said Brenda Mallory, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
“The historic agreement is charting a new and exciting path to restore the river, provide for clean energy and live up to our responsibilities and obligations to tribal nations,’’ Mallory said.”I’m confident we will secure the vision … of securing a restored Columbia River Basin, one that is teeming with wild fish, prosperous to tribal nations, [with] affordable clean energy, a strong agricultural economy and an upgraded transportation and recreation system.’’
https://www.voanews.com/a/white-house-tribes-hail-historic-deal-to-restore-pacific-nw-salmon-runs/7500873.html Save to Pocket
Haley Seeks Key Win in Home State Against Front-Runner Trump
date: 2024-02-24, from: VOA News USA
Georgetown, South Carolina — The two-person contest for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination comes to South Carolina on Saturday, where former governor and United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley is looking for her home state to deliver her first win of the election season over former President Donald Trump.
Polling shows Trump holds a strong lead over Haley, after securing wins in the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary in January. A Suffolk University/USA Today poll of South Carolina voters conducted last week found that 63% of the state’s voters prefer the former president.
Earlier this week, Haley vowed to continue on to Super Tuesday, the primary day in early March when a diverse set of 15 states will vote for their choice of a Republican candidate to go up against President Joe Biden in the November general election.
But at a campaign event Friday, Donald Trump Jr. told reporters Haley’s vow was a calculated decision.
“It’s just political theater, but it’s the political theater designed to hurt Donald Trump and the Republican chances in November. She’s saying that she’s going to remain until Super Tuesday. I’m sure she will. She won’t win any states on Super Tuesday either,” he said.
Trump holds 63 delegates going into Saturday’s vote, while Haley holds 17. A candidate needs 1215 delegates to secure the nomination, with most of the delegates still to be awarded.
Haley told voters at a Georgetown, South Carolina, rally on Thursday that she is the better choice in the general election, arguing American voters are concerned about the age and abilities of both Trump and Biden.
“Are we really saying the best we can do is two guys in their 80s?” Haley said. “Because we need someone who can serve eight years uninterrupted, day and night, and focus on what’s going to get solutions for the American people.”
Haley is Trump’s only remaining rival for the nomination. Some voters who chose Trump in the last election said they are turning to Haley now as an alternative to the former president’s rhetoric.
“Nikki Haley is a lot less volatile than he is — he has a very volatile personality,” Kat Loftus, a voter from Georgetown, told VOA. “I think she would do a much better job of listening to people that are different from her and negotiating and getting things accomplished to unite our country.”
Loftus said border security and immigration are her top concerns this election year and Haley’s experience as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations would be useful as she negotiated with Mexico’s president on border security.
In her well-attended speech, Haley also argued Trump has harmed the global reputation of the United States with his support for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Donald Trump is siding with a thug,” Haley said. “Half a million people have been wounded or killed because Putin invaded Ukraine. Donald Trump is siding with a dictator who kills his political opponents.”
Tee Miller, a South Carolina voter, agreed, saying the former president had his chance during his term.
“Everyone thinks he’s going to bring this change, but he had the opportunity before and didn’t really make the change. And he’s also brought on new baggage,” Miller said.
Flo Phillips did change her mind. She voted for Trump in the last election but said she is now voting for Haley.
“I can be proud of her when she’s talking. She’s not saying horrible things about everybody. She seems to be a real smart person,” Phillips told VOA.
Trump campaign focused on Biden
But Haley was barely mentioned Friday by Trump Jr. as he rallied voters in Charleston, South Carolina.
“We can get our country back to where it needs to be,” Trump Jr. told a small group of voters, alleging Biden is controlled by radical Leftists. “No one actually thinks that Joe Biden is coming up with policy, right?”
Rosie, a South Carolina voter who declined to provide her last name, agreed, saying that Biden has torn down democratic values during his term in office. She said she did not consider voting for Haley.
“She was on record saying that she would never run if Trump was running. So that’s just indicative of her flip flopping on what she says she’s going to do and then what she does. She’s proven that her track record is, ‘I’ll say what I need to get elected and then do the opposite,’” she told VOA.
“Nikki is a good lady,” South Carolina voter Todd, who declined to provide his last name, said he appreciated her leadership in 2015 when a racist gunmen killed eight people at the Charleston AME church. Todd, who described himself as a big fan of Trump Jr.’s political podcasts, said the timing of Haley candidacy wasn’t right. “With all that’s going on in our country, it’s just not the right time.”
Carolyn Corcoran, a voter and single mother worried about the rising cost of living, said Haley is too politically entrenched in Washington. She said she likes Trump because he puts people ahead of politics.
“The way they’re attacking Trump by using the law as a political weapon — it’s really heartbreaking for someone who protected people for years and enforced the laws the way they should be enforced,” said Corcoran, who retired from law enforcement after 30 years.
“To see our whole country, the attorneys general using the law to try to get at Trump, when he’s never done anything that anyone else hasn’t done. They just want to weaponize the law against him.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/haley-seeks-key-win-in-home-state-against-front-runner-trump/7500859.html Save to Pocket
Meghan, Harry, and Barry
date: 2024-02-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
All I know about royalty is that we fought a war to get rid of them. Obviously it didn’t take.
The post Meghan, Harry, and Barry appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/23/harry-meghan-and-barry/ Save to Pocket
Anthropologist Challenges Return of Native American Remains
date: 2024-02-24, from: VOA News USA
washington — The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act requires federally funded institutions to catalog, report and return Native American ancestral remains and funerary objects.
With exemptions for cases in which institutions can prove legal ownership, the 33-year-old law known as NAGPRA was updated in January with requirements that researchers obtain tribal or lineal descendants’ consent before exhibiting or conducting research on human remains and related cultural items.
While many Indigenous leaders are encouraged by stronger provisions in the law, anthropologist Elizabeth Weiss says the whole thing should be scrapped because repatriating human remains hinders scientific research.
“A research collection’s ability to inform us never, never dies, because you have new hypotheses that can be used to test, and you also have to retest old hypotheses when new methods develop,” the San Jose State University professor told VOA.
What the law says
Weiss argues that NAGPRA undermines the separation of church and state because it gives traditional Native American religious leaders a say over whether and to whom human remains will be returned.
“NAGPRA was passed with the requirement that two of its [seven] committee members must be traditional Indian religious leaders,” she said. “Further, it allows only one type of religious evidence to be used in repatriation — and that’s Native American creationism.”
Weiss says the law has led to institutional guidelines for the handling of remains based on what she calls tribal “mythology,” including a provision at her university that blocked people who are menstruating from handling skeletal remains.
“And the more you allow the acceptance of this kind of superstitious pseudoreligion to creep in, the more widespread it becomes,” she said
In November 2021, San Jose State’s Anthropology Department issued guidelines on the handling of Native American ancestral remains that read, “Menstruating personnel will not be permitted to handle ancestors.”
The university rescinded that in April 2022.
History of grave robbing
Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles, a citizen of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota, is an Indigenous geographer at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. He said Weiss is misguided.
“On its face, she makes what looks to be [a] convincing and appealing argument that scientists are working for the betterment of humankind and that Indigenous opposition is based in which she terms ‘pseudoscience’ and stifling the process,” he said. “What she doesn’t really engage with is a very long history of grave robbing of Indigenous burial sites in the name of science.”
Smiles gave the example of mid-19th-century “craniologist” Samuel Morton who amassed and measured hundreds of human skulls to support his belief in five races, each created separately, whose cranial size determined their place in the racial hierarchy.
“In their mental character, the Americans are averse to cultivation, and slow in acquiring knowledge,” he wrote in his 1839 book, Crania Americana.
Smiles said, “There’s been a really long history of people treating Indigenous remains as just simply objects of curiosity, as things that are made to be studied, rather than belonging to human beings once upon a time.”
NAGPRA previously allowed institutions to retain artifacts they deemed “culturally unidentifiable.” That provision has now been removed, and tribal historians and religious leaders will now have a voice in determining where those items should go.
Attorney Shannon O’Loughlin, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, heads the Association on American Indian Affairs, a nonprofit that helps tribes navigate NAGPRA processes.
“The law is very clear that institutions do not own Native bodies or cultural items unless they can prove a right of possession,” she said. “If some tribes ask for certain accommodations and protocols, that’s because they’re the true owners.”
O’Loughlin stressed that NAGPRA does not prohibit research or display of Native remains.
“It simply requires consent. The whole point of the law is to bring tribes to the table where they’ve never been allowed before and to educate museums about items in their collections and why they are significant.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/anthropologist-challenges-return-of-native-american-remains-/7500826.html Save to Pocket
US Army in Europe Dips Into Own Funds to Cover Ukraine Training
date: 2024-02-24, from: VOA News USA
pentagon — The U.S. military has been forced to dip into its own funding to cover American training of Ukrainian forces, a strategy that could leave the Army short on finances in Europe as the Russian war on Ukraine enters its third year.
“U.S. Army Europe and Africa (USAREUR-AF) is currently paying to fund Ukraine training ourselves,” Col. Martin O’Donnell, the public affairs director for the Army’s forces across those two continents, told VOA.
Without a 2024 budget approved by Congress, and without Congress passing supplemental funding for Ukraine, USAREUR-AF currently has roughly $3 billion to pay for $5 billion of operations costs, according to two U.S. Army officials.
“If nothing changes, and we do not receive additional money, we will run out of funding for everything — support to Ukraine, operations and exercises in Europe and Africa — at the start of summer,” O’Donnell said.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been debating new funding for Ukraine for months. The Pentagon sent the last round of aid that could be pulled from its military stockpiles in late December.
Last week, the Senate approved a $95 billion foreign aid bill that included $60 billion in support for Ukraine. However, Republican leadership in the House of Representatives has so far declined to bring the bill up for a vote.
Congressional “inaction” is forcing the Army and others to make “tough decisions” that could “impact the entire force,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told VOA.
“We are definitely vulnerable,” she said in an interview Friday. “We’re unable to modernize. We’re unable to change programs. It’s like fighting with one arm tied behind our back. It puts us at a complete disadvantage.”
Singh called the training of Ukrainian forces “an essential mission.”
“We can’t just turn our backs on those Ukrainian soldiers that are coming, whether it’s in Europe or to the United States to train, to go back out there and fight this war,” she said.
The Biden administration believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s goals do not end with taking Ukraine. Should Putin attack a NATO ally, the U.S. would be bound by treaties to defend that nation, bringing the U.S. into war with Russia.
In the administration’s view, supporting Ukraine not only comes to the aid of a democratic partner that was illegally invaded, but also keeps the U.S. out of a future war.
According to an Army official, the U.S. just completed training a Ukrainian battalion in Germany and is currently training approximately 150 Ukrainians at Grafenwoehr Training Area.
“We remain postured to support Ukraine’s needs,” Col. O’Donnell told VOA.
Arizona National Guardsmen are also training a small number of Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets at Morris Air National Guard Base in Tucson, Arizona, while a small number of other Ukrainian pilots and aircraft maintainers attend English-language training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas.
National Guard Bureau Chief Gen. Dan Hokanson told reporters earlier this month that the Guard can continue the training to completion — likely later this year.
“Then if we decide to increase that, obviously, we’ll need the resources to train additional pilots and ground support personnel,” he said.
Saturday marks two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine says it has retaken control over more than 50% of the territory once controlled by Russia. Russia still controls about 18% of Ukrainian territory.
Earlier this week, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told CNN that Ukraine wouldn’t have lost the city of Avdiivka, where Kyiv’s forces recently withdrew, if Ukraine “had received all the artillery ammunition that we needed to defend it.”
Singh on Friday agreed with Kuleba’s assessment, saying there was a “direct link” between “congressional inaction” and Ukraine’s withdrawal from Avdiivka.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-army-in-europe-dips-into-own-funds-to-cover-ukraine-training-/7500854.html Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-24, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Sotomayor, Barrett encourage civility in front of nation’s governors.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4485867-supreme-court-justices-sotomayor-barrett-encourage-civility/ Save to Pocket
Cal State Undergraduate Workers Vote To Unionize
date: 2024-02-24, updated: 2024-02-24, from: The LAist
Some 20,000 student assistants across the CSU system have joined SEIU.
https://laist.com/news/education/cal-state-undergraduate-workers-vote-to-unionize Save to Pocket
National Rifle Association, LaPierre Found Liable in Lawsuit Over Misspending
date: 2024-02-24, from: VOA News USA
new york — Wayne LaPierre misspent millions of dollars of the National Rifle Association’s money during his decades leading the powerful gun lobby, using the funds to pay for an extravagant lifestyle that included exotic getaways and trips on private planes and superyachts, a New York jury determined Friday.
The jury ordered LaPierre, 74, to repay the group he led for three decades $4,351,231. It also ordered the NRA’s retired finance chief, Wilson Phillips, to pay back the group $2 million. Jurors also found that the NRA omitted or misrepresented information in its tax filings and violated New York law by failing to adopt a whistleblower policy.
LaPierre sat stone-faced in the front row of the courtroom as the verdict was read aloud.
‘Same rules’ for all
The verdict is a win for New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who campaigned on investigating the NRA’s not-for-profit status.
“In New York, you cannot get away with corruption and greed, no matter how powerful or influential you think you may be,” James said in a post on the social media platform X. “Everyone, even the NRA and Wayne LaPierre, must play by the same rules.”
The loss in court was the latest blow to the group, which in recent years has been beset by financial troubles and a dwindling membership. LaPierre, its longtime face, announced his resignation on the eve of the trial.
NRA general counsel John Frazer was also a defendant in the case. Although the jury found that he violated his duties, it didn’t order him to repay any money.
The penalties paid by LaPierre — the jury actually found him liable for $5.4 million but determined he’d already paid back a little over $1 million — and Phillips will go back to the NRA, which was portrayed in the case both as a defendant that lacked internal controls to prevent misspending and as a victim of that same misconduct.
James also wants the three men to be banned from serving in leadership positions at any charitable organizations that conduct business in New York. A judge will decide that question during the next phase of the state Supreme Court trial.
Another former NRA executive turned whistleblower, Joshua Powell, settled with the state last month, agreeing to testify at the trial, pay the NRA $100,000 and forgo further involvement with nonprofits.
James sued the NRA and its executives in 2020 under her authority to investigate not-for-profits registered in the state.
She originally sought to have the entire organization dissolved, but Justice Joel M. Cohen ruled in 2022 that the allegations did not warrant a “corporate death penalty.”
The trial, which began last month, cast a spotlight on the leadership, organizational culture and finances of the lobbying group, which was founded more than 150 years ago in New York City to promote rifle skills and grew into a political juggernaut that influenced federal law and presidential elections.
Face of the organization
Before he stepped down, LaPierre had led the NRA’s day-to-day operations since 1991, acting as its face and becoming one of the country’s most influential figures in shaping gun policy.
During the trial, state lawyers argued that he dodged financial disclosure requirements while treating the NRA as his personal piggy bank, liberally dipping into its coffers for African safaris and other questionable expenditures.
His lawyer cast the trial as a political witch hunt by James.
LaPierre billed the NRA more than $11 million for private jet flights and spent more than $500,000 on eight trips to the Bahamas over a three-year span, state lawyers said.
He also authorized $135 million in NRA contracts for a vendor whose owners showered him with free trips to the Bahamas, Greece, Dubai and India, as well as access to a 108-foot (33-meter) yacht.
LaPierre contended he hadn’t realized the travel tickets, hotel stays, meals, yacht access and other luxury perks counted as gifts, and that the private jet flights were necessary for his safety.
But he conceded that he had wrongly expensed private flights for his family and accepted vacations from vendors doing business with the NRA without disclosing them.
Among those who testified at the trial was Oliver North, a onetime NRA president and former National Security Council military aide best known for his central role in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s. North, who resigned from the NRA in 2019, said he was pushed out after raising allegations of financial irregularities.
After reporting a $36 million deficit in 2018 fueled largely by misspending, the NRA cut back on long-standing programs that had been core to its mission, including training and education, recreational shooting and law enforcement initiatives. In 2021, it filed for bankruptcy and sought to incorporate in Texas instead of New York, but a judge rejected the move, saying it was an attempt to duck James’ lawsuit.
Despite its recent woes, the NRA remains a political force. Republican presidential hopefuls flocked to its annual convention last year and former President Donald Trump spoke at an NRA event earlier this month — his eighth speech to the association, it said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/national-rifle-association-lapierre-found-liable-in-lawsuit-over-misspending-/7500843.html Save to Pocket
CPAC Speaker’s Goal: Ending Democracy
date: 2024-02-24, from: Dan Rather’s Steady
Turning point the media missed
https://steady.substack.com/p/cpac-speakers-goal-ending-democracy Save to Pocket
US-Asia Entertainment Summit and Game Changer Awards showcase Asian women’s empowerment
date: 2024-02-24, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The Asia Society Southern California summit and awards ceremony led the change in creating more inclusive spaces in the entertainment industry.
The post US-Asia Entertainment Summit and Game Changer Awards showcase Asian women’s empowerment appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/us-asia-entertainment-summit-and-game-changer-awards-showcase-asian-womens-empowerment/ Save to Pocket
USC vs. Colorado — as it happened
date: 2024-02-24, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Thomas Johnson & Leila MacKenzie report live from Galen Center.
The post USC vs. Colorado — as it happened appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/usc-vs-colorado-buffaloes-live-updates/ Save to Pocket
‘Treasure Island’ Offers a Coffer Filled with Adventure
date: 2024-02-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
SBCC Theatre Group presents a female twist on the famous pirate tale.
The post ‘Treasure Island’ Offers a Coffer Filled with Adventure appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/23/treasure-island-offers-a-coffer-filled-with-adventure/ Save to Pocket
US Military Tracking ‘Small Balloon’ Over Western States
date: 2024-02-24, from: VOA News USA
washington — U.S. fighter jets are tracking a balloon traveling at high altitudes over the western United States, but officials said there is no danger to anyone either on the ground or in the air.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD, described the object as a “small balloon” being pushed by the wind at an altitude of between 43,000 and 45,000 feet (about 13.72 kilometers).
Fighter jets were sent to intercept the balloon over the state of Utah and “determined it was not maneuverable and did not present a threat to national security,” according to a NORAD statement.
NORAD said it will continue to track the balloon and that it is in contact with the Federal Aviation Administration “to ensure flight safety.”
As of late Friday, the FAA “also determined the balloon posed no hazard” to passenger jets or other planes in the area, NORAD said.
The U.S. military has been watching the skies in and around the United States more closely following the discovery of a Chinese spy balloon that transited the country in February 2023.
Chinese officials said that balloon was designed to research weather and had “deviated from its planned course.” But the Pentagon rejected those assertions, saying the balloon had been designed for surveillance.
The incident heightened tensions between the U.S. and China, and even caused U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and other high-ranking officials.
The U.S. eventually shot down the Chinese balloon off the coast of South Carolina, after it had traveled across much of the continental United States.
Following the incident, the U.S. took steps to improve detection of objects in its airspace.
It also began work to establish an accessible and up-to-date inventory of unmanned, airborne objects, and updated rules and regulations for launching and maintaining unmanned objects.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-military-tracking-small-balloon-over-western-states/7500780.html Save to Pocket
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-02-24, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Godot on iPad.
This is the next dialog to work on.
A straight SwiftUI port is trivial, but what I want to do sort out is an iOS-grade replacement UI for this.
The advanced tab in particular gives me anxiety:
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111983735912670152 Save to Pocket
The Weekly Frame: Focus
date: 2024-02-24, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Bubbles, blurred lines and other tastes of camera magic.
The post The Weekly Frame: Focus appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/the-weekly-frame-focus/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-24, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Why Republicans Are Making a Big Mistake on Biden’s Age.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/02/22/im-a-republican-strategist-bidens-age-wont-doom-him-00142492 Save to Pocket
SCA adjunct professors vote overwhelmingly to unionize
date: 2024-02-24, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Months after the University declined to voluntarily recognize their union, adjuncts voted 206-13 to create a formal union, pending certification of the results by the National Labor Relations Board.
The post SCA adjunct professors vote overwhelmingly to unionize appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/sca-adjunct-professors-vote-overwhelmingly-to-unionize/ Save to Pocket
Outlining Postwar Gaza Principles, Netanyahu Continues to Defy Biden
date: 2024-02-24, from: VOA News USA
washington — Postwar principles for Gaza outlined in a document Friday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stand in stark contrast to Washington’s vision for the war-torn territory, a sign of the deepening divide between his government and the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden.
The document, The Day After Hamas Principles, is the first official summary of Netanyahu’s public positions on the war that Israel has waged in Gaza in response to Hamas’ October 7 attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 200 people hostage.
It calls for civil governance by Israeli-appointed individuals in Gaza, bypassing any involvement from the Palestinian Authority and absent provisions for a pathway to Palestinian statehood.
Without explicitly stating the role of the Israel Defense Forces, the plan potentially allows vast Israeli control over Gaza, including the establishment of an Israeli-controlled buffer zone along the border with Egypt, a move that would be seen by Palestinians as more occupation of their territory and could inflame tensions with Cairo.
Speaking from Buenos Aires, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken declined to specifically address Netanyahu’s plan but underscored a core principle in the administration’s vision for postwar Gaza.
“There should be no Israeli reoccupation of Gaza,” he said. “The size of Gaza’s territory should not be reduced.”
The establishment of a buffer zone would in effect require an Israeli invasion of Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where most Gazans currently seek safety.
“We wouldn’t support those kinds of operations unless or until the Israelis had properly accounted for the safety and security of the more than 1 million people that are seeking refuge down there,” national security communications adviser John Kirby told VOA during Friday’s briefing, reiterating the administration’s position on Israel’s plans for a ground offensive in Rafah.
‘Fundamentally at odds’
What Netanyahu has outlined is “fundamentally at odds with what the Biden administration has been urging,” said Thomas Warrick, a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council.
Warrick said Netanyahu’s plan “basically locks in the differences” he has had with President Joe Biden. “There needs to be further efforts to try to bridge this gap, perhaps with a different approach,” he told VOA.
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, an American writer and political analyst from Gaza, said that Netanyahu’s plan, if enacted, would amount to a permanent Israeli military occupation and create a series of “rump states” or cantons on remnants of Gaza’s shrinking territory.
Even if enough Palestinians in Gaza agree to take part in such administrations, they lack the means to do so without full Israeli support, he told VOA.
“They’ll be viewed as collaborators and subcontractors of the Israeli occupation, decimating any credibility or standing among the battered and beaten population and placing their lives and safety at grave risk.”
Hamas lambasted the proposal during a press conference in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
“Netanyahu is presenting ideas which he knows fully well will never succeed,” spokesman Osama Hamdan said on Friday.
After holding power for 17 years, Netanyahu faces plummeting popularity amid an angry population that blames him for the security failures that allowed the Hamas attack. His incumbency depends on keeping intact his coalition, the most right-wing and religiously conservative the country has ever seen.
“The current plan does not necessarily reflect what the long-term Israeli policy will be, but rather showcases what Netanyahu thinks he needs to do in order to advance a primary goal of his — political survival,” said Nimrod Goren, senior fellow for Israeli affairs at the Middle East Institute. Given widespread Israeli desire for new leadership, the eventual postwar plan may well be devised by the next government, he told VOA.
Alkhatib said that the Israeli prime minister could also be biding his time until the U.S. presidential elections in November, which could fundamentally shift what’s happening in Gaza.
The world will see either a second Biden term where the U.S. will apply more pressure on Netanyahu, or a new Trump administration that would give Israel “complete free rein to do as it pleases in the Gaza Strip,” Alkhatib predicted.
Biden increasingly impatient
Biden remains staunchly supportive of Israel, providing military and diplomatic aid. Last week, his administration vetoed an Arab-backed United Nations resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, the third veto since Israel’s military offensive began.
However, the U.S. submitted its own draft resolution, calling for a temporary cease-fire in Gaza after a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas is secured and opposing Israel’s ground offensive into Rafah without adequate civilian protection.
The U.S. draft shows Biden’s increasing impatience with Netanyahu, said Richard Gowan, U.N. director of the International Crisis Group.
“If I were looking at this from Israel’s perspective, I would feel a little nervous because the signaling from the Biden administration is becoming marginally stronger,” he told VOA. “It will continue to protect Israel at the U.N., but its patience is not limitless.”
Washington is hoping for a breakthrough in talks underway in Paris between top U.S., Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials aimed at securing a temporary cease-fire in return for the release of hostages held by Hamas.
The U.S. is also working to defuse Israel-Hezbollah tensions along the Lebanese border to prevent escalation to a full-fledged war in the region. “The success of these efforts is very much needed and could be assisted by some pause in fighting in Gaza,” Goren said.
A cease-fire would bring welcome relief to Gaza, where more than 29,000 people have been killed in the bloodiest episode of the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine contributed to this report.
https://www.voanews.com/a/outlining-postwar-gaza-principles-netanyahu-continues-to-defy-biden/7500525.html Save to Pocket
Microsoft catches the Wi-Fi 7 wave with Windows 11
date: 2024-02-24, updated: 2024-02-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
In with the new, but old Insider bugs remain
More than a month after the Wi-Fi alliance introduced certification for Wi-Fi 7 devices, Microsoft has added support for the technology to Windows 11.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/24/microsoft_adds_wifi_7_to_windows_11/ Save to Pocket
Biden Announces 500 New Sanctions on Russia
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
U.S. President Joe Biden has announced 500 new sanctions on Russia as the world marks two years since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Biden said the sanctions will target Russia’s “war machine,” including weapons procurement, and will also target individuals involved in the imprisonment and death of prominent Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny one week ago. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-announces-500-new-sanctions-on-russia-/7500526.html Save to Pocket
With Ukraine Aid in Limbo, Supporters Push for Fallback Options
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
washington — Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have begun laying the groundwork for a potential bid to sidestep Republican Speaker Mike Johnson and force a vote on a $95 billion security assistance package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, House aides said Friday.
Representative Jim McGovern, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, filed legislation on February 15 that could be used as a vehicle for a discharge petition, a rarely used procedural tool that eventually could force a vote on the bill if at least 218 House members — a majority of the chamber’s 435 voting members — sign it.
Under House rules, Ukraine backers could begin collecting signatures for the petition around March 1.
Months after Democratic President Joe Biden asked Congress to approve more foreign security assistance, the Senate last week approved the package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan and to replenish U.S. weapons stocks by an overwhelming 70-30 vote. Twenty-two Republicans joined most Democrats in voting “aye.”
But Johnson, a close ally of former Republican President Donald Trump who voted against assisting Ukraine before he became speaker, sent the House home for a two-week recess without bringing the measure up for a vote, leaving the aid in limbo as the war in Ukraine approached its second anniversary.
Trump, the front-runner to be his party’s 2024 presidential nominee, has opposed aid to Kyiv.
Johnson told a party meeting on February 14 that House Republicans would not rubber-stamp the Senate bill. Party leaders are considering writing new bills, amending the Senate legislation or dividing it into separate parts.
House Democrats are also considering another, even rarer process, known as defeating the previous question, in which Ukraine backers could take control of the House floor before certain votes.
The exact number needed is not certain, because it would require only a simple majority of members present and voting.
So far, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has said only that he is leaving every legislative option on the table.
https://www.voanews.com/a/with-ukraine-aid-in-limbo-supporters-push-for-fallback-options/7500517.html Save to Pocket
China’s Woes Won’t Slow US Economy, but Excess Capacity a Concern – Treasury Official
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/china-s-woes-won-t-slow-us-economy-but-excess-capacity-a-concern-treasury-official-/7500510.html Save to Pocket
NASA Tech Contributes to Soft Moon Landing, Agency Science Underway
date: 2024-02-23, from: NASA breaking news
Editor’s note: This release was updated Feb. 23, 2024, to add an image from the news conference and participant titles. For the first time in more than 50 years, new NASA science instruments and technology demonstrations are operating on the Moon following the first successful delivery of the agency’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-tech-contributes-to-soft-moon-landing-agency-science-underway/ Save to Pocket
Here’s What a Harley-Davidson Bagger Looks Like as a Snow Bike
date: 2024-02-23, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Spoiler alert: it’s way better than you think—until the hill climb competition.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/709925/harley-davidson-snow-bike/ Save to Pocket
EPA Orders Chiquita Canyon Landfill To Fix Its Odor Problem
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The LAist
The move comes after state officials found landfill operators violated hazardous waste control laws.
https://laist.com/news/epa-chiquita-canyon-landfill-odors Save to Pocket
GE scraps plans to make giant 18 MW offshore wind turbines
date: 2024-02-23, from: Electrek Feed
GE Vernova is abandoning plans to supersize its offshore wind turbines and will instead focus on rolling out smaller “workhorse” turbines.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/23/ge-offshore-wind/ Save to Pocket
This Week in the IndieWeb
date: 2024-02-23, from: This week in Indie Web
February 16-23, 2024
Recent Events
From events.indieweb.org/archive:
<p>Join us online in Zoom for demos of personal sites, recent breakthroughs, discussions about the independent web, and meet IndieWeb community members! Homebrew Website club is for all levels and areas of IndieWeb interest, whether curious, creative, coder, or all the above.</p>
</div><div><img src="https://indieweb.org/this-week/images/2024-02-23/9cce12ab4135804d43a08dcb29d6aa62f16a7235.jpg" style="width:100%" class="u-photo"></div></div>Upcoming Events
From events.indieweb.org:
<p>Join us online in Zoom for demos of personal sites, recent breakthroughs, discussions about the independent web, and meet IndieWeb community members! Homebrew Website club is for all levels and areas of IndieWeb interest, whether curious, creative, coder, or all the above.</p>
</div></div>- BRIGHTON AND HOVE, England: The Skiff
<p>IndieWebCamp Brighton 2024 will be the seventh IndieWebCamp to held in Brighton, England.</p>
</div></div>- FÜRTH, Bayern: Fab Lab Region Nürnberg e.V.
<p>HWC Nuremberg is a in-person meeting for everybody who is interested in setting up a personal website and talk about web-related issues.</p>
</div></div>- FÜRTH, Bayern: Fab Lab Region Nürnberg e.V.
<p>HWC Nuremberg is a in-person meeting for everybody who is interested in setting up a personal website and talk about web-related issues.</p>
</div></div>What We’re Reading
From news.indieweb.org:
New Community Members
From IndieWeb Wiki: New User Pages:
User:Www.zoraster.org
Created by Www.zoraster.org on Saturday and edited 3 more times
User:Lejtzen.dev
Created by Lejtzen.dev on Wednesday
Top New Wiki Pages
From IndieWeb Wiki: New Pages:
as2.rocks
as2.rocks was an instance of the ActivityStreams2 validator https://github.com/w3c-social/activitystreams-validator last archived on 2018-09-03, that was since lost.
Created by Tantek.com on Wednesday and edited 2 more times
New Event Notes
From IndieWeb Wiki: New Pages:
Homebrew Website Club Europe/London: 2024-02-21
Homebrew Website Club - The Americas: 2020-11-25, 2020-11-18, 2020-11-11, 2020-11-04
Top Edited Wiki Pages
From IndieWeb Wiki: Recent Changes:
- Bluesky 9 edits by loqi.me and tantek.com
- Tailwind 4 edits by loqi.me, paulrobertlloyd.com and tantek.com
- 2024/Brighton 4 edits by qubyte.codes, yousefamar.com and jkphl.is
- other-languages 4 edits by paulrobertlloyd.com
- bookmarks 2 edits by martymcgui.re
- events/2024-01-03-hwc-europe 2 edits by tantek.com
- indieweb-carnival 2 edits by blog.basementcommunity.com and alexsirac.com
- ActivityPub 2 edits by loqi.me and gregorlove.com
https://indieweb.org/this-week/2024-02-23.html Save to Pocket
Some Intel Core chips keep crashing, game devs complain
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Oodles of problems with data decompression and suchlike, depending on system settings
Some recent Intel microprocessors are crashing systems – and the problem appears related to the chips’ firmware and clock rates settings.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/intel_core_13th_crash/ Save to Pocket
Broadcasting: Touch Some Grass
date: 2024-02-23, from: CI View (CSCI Student Paper)
By Corey Rose and Allen Monge In a generation that goes on their phone for most of the day, not enough attention goes to […]
http://civiewnews.com/opinion/broadcasting-touch-some-grass/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=broadcasting-touch-some-grass Save to Pocket
Faking It: 2025 Dodge Charger EV To Simulate Vibrating ‘Engine’
date: 2024-02-23, from: Inside EVs News
Dodge is engineering an “Active Vibration Enhancement” system into its upcoming electric muscle car.
https://insideevs.com/news/709937/dodge-charger-ev-to-simulate-engine-vibrations/ Save to Pocket
LockBit extorted billions of dollars from victims, fresh leaks suggest
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Investigating LockBit’s finances has blown previous estimates of the operation’s wealth out of the water
Authorities digging into LockBit’s finances believe the group may have generated more than $1 billion in ransom fees over its four-year lifespan.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/lockbit_extorted_billions_of_dollars/ Save to Pocket
AI comes for jobs at studio of American filmmaker Tyler Perry
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
$800M expansion canceled after a mere glimpse at the power of Sora
If you ask American film mogul Tyler Perry, AI isn’t coming for jobs – it’s already taken them. Case in point, Perry’s Atlanta film studio, where the movie maker just scrapped an expansion in the works for four years after getting a glimpse of OpenAI’s Sora. …
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/ai_jobs_tyler_perry/ Save to Pocket
Iran Denies Providing Ballistic Missiles to Russia
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
Dubai, united arab emirates — Iran denied on Friday that it had provided ballistic missiles to Russia, after the United States said there would be a severe international response to any such move.
Earlier this week Reuters, citing six sources, reported that Iran had provided Russia with many powerful surface-to-surface ballistic weapons, deepening military cooperation between the two U.S.-sanctioned nations.
The Biden administration warned Iran on Thursday of a “swift and severe” response from the international community if the Islamic Republic had provided ballistic missiles to Russia.
“Despite no legal restrictions on ballistic missile sales, Iran is morally obligated to refrain from weapon transactions during the Russia-Ukraine conflict to prevent fueling the war,” Iran’s mission to the United Nations said on the X social media platform.
“[That] is rooted in Iran’s adherence to international law and the U.N. Charter,” it added.
U.N. Security Council restrictions on Iran’s export of some missiles, drones and other technologies expired in October.
However, the United States and the European Union retained sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program amid concerns over exports of weapons to its proxies in the Middle East and to Russia.
Iran initially denied supplying drones to Russia but months later said it had provided a small number before Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
https://www.voanews.com/a/iran-denies-providing-ballistic-missiles-to-russia-/7500448.html Save to Pocket
CSU Student Assistants Unite: An Unprecedented Victory
date: 2024-02-23, from: CI View (CSCI Student Paper)
By Miriam Packard In a groundbreaking turn of events, student assistants from California State University (CSU) campuses have clinched a historic win, forming the largest […]
http://civiewnews.com/news/csu-student-assistants-unite-an-unprecedented-victory/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=csu-student-assistants-unite-an-unprecedented-victory Save to Pocket
Jeep’s first EV will land in the US as early as July, electric Wrangler-like Recon to follow
date: 2024-02-23, from: Electrek Feed
The first all-electric Jeep could be delivered to US customers as soon as July. According to new CEO Antonio Filosa, production of Jeep’s first EV, the Wagoneer S SUV, is expected to begin in Q2. Deliveries could happen as soon as the third quarter. Jeep’s CEO also confirmed we may see the electric Wrangler-like Recon launch by the end of the year.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/23/jeeps-first-ev-soon-electric-wrangler-recon/ Save to Pocket
The CI View Hosts Freedom of Speech Day Event: A Call to Action for Students
date: 2024-02-23, from: CI View (CSCI Student Paper)
By Miriam Packard On Feb. 22nd, students at CI gathered at an event hosted by The CI View to commemorate Freedom of Speech Day. The […]
http://civiewnews.com/news/the-ci-view-hosts-freedom-of-speech-day-event-a-call-to-action-for-students/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-ci-view-hosts-freedom-of-speech-day-event-a-call-to-action-for-students Save to Pocket
California’s first Amazon ‘Dash Carts’ are at Whole Foods in San Mateo
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
The San Mateo Whole Foods location is the first in California — and the sixth location in the U.S. — where Amazon is testing out a new high-tech shopping cart that scans your items as you go. When you’re done, you skip the lines and just walk out of the store with your groceries.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/californias-first-amazon-dash-carts-are-at-whole-foods-in-san-mateo/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-23, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Reddit is getting ready to go public.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/23/reddit-downplays-risks-of-developer-backlash-decentralized-social-media-in-its-ipo-filing/ Save to Pocket
Happy Feet: A New Dance Floor
date: 2024-02-23, from: CI View (CSCI Student Paper)
By Aileen Lawrence Oct. 11 students, faculty, staff, administration and alumni all gathered to celebrate the installation of CI’s new dance floor in Malibu Hall. […]
http://civiewnews.com/news/happy-feet-a-new-dance-floor/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=happy-feet-a-new-dance-floor Save to Pocket
Chinese Companies Hit by US, EU Sanctions on Russia
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
London — U.S. and European Union sanctions announced Friday on hundreds of people and companies for supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine included several companies from China.
While most sanctions were against Russians and Russian firms, the U.S. and EU measures also included Chinese individuals and companies based in mainland China cities as well as Hong Kong for supplying the Russian military.
The U.S. sanctions also targeted individuals and firms based in Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, while the EU also targeted individuals and entities based in India, Kazakhstan, Serbia, Sri Lanka and Turkey.
They also included sanctions against Russian prison officials over the suspicious death last week in a Russian prison of opposition leader Alexey Navalny.
Russia’s foreign ministry denounced the sanctions as “illegal” and said it would respond by banning some EU citizens who provided military assistance to Ukraine from entering Russia.
Chinese officials did not issue an immediate response to the sanctions. But, at a regular briefing Tuesday, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning commented on the expected sanctions saying China follows an “objective and impartial position on the Ukraine crisis” and has “worked actively to promote peace talks.”
She said they “have not sat idly by, still less exploited the situation for selfish gains.”
Ukrainian officials and media reports have accused Chinese companies of supplying key electronics and dual-use technologies, including drone components, to Russia’s military since its invasion of Ukraine two years ago, which Beijing has denied.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday preempted Friday’s official announcement on social media, saying, “I welcome the agreement on our 13th sanctions package against Russia. We must keep degrading Putin’s war machine. With 2000 listings in total, we keep the pressure high on the Kremlin. We are also further cutting Russia’s access to drones.”
The sanctioned individuals and companies are banned from doing business with U.S. or European firms.
But legal and political analysts disagree on the effectiveness of the sanctions.
Lawyer Mark Handley, a partner at the Philadelphia-headquartered law firm Duane Morris LLP, said being sanctioned will certainly affect their international business. “Things like international insurance companies or shipping could get very complicated once they are on the sanctions list.”
However, Pieter Cleppe, editor-in-chief for BrusselsReport.eu, told VOA, “Historical research has shown that sanctions mostly fail, especially when prolonged, as is the case with Russia. The targeted country learns to cope with them.”
He said, “While sanctions may impoverish ordinary Russians, they have failed to halt the Russian offensive, which should be the goal.”
The Yermak-McFaul International Working Group on Russian Sanctions and the Ukrainian think tank KSE Institute in January published a report showing sanctioned technology has still been reaching Russia’s military through third country intermediaries, which the EU and the U.S. hope the fresh measures will stop.
Despite the historic sanctions, Russia’s economy has been resilient as it shifted from European trade to doing more business and selling more oil to Moscow-friendly nations such as India, Brazil and China.
Junhua Zhang, senior assistant researcher at the Brussels-based European Institute for Asian Studies, said the EU’s highest expectation “is for China to align with the EU in resisting Russia’s aggression, which is unrealistic. The EU’s minimum expectation is for Chinese companies not to work for Russia, but strictly speaking, only fools would have such an expectation.”
“Just consider, [Chinese President] Xi Jinping sees Putin as his best friend, and those below him will act accordingly, a point that Europeans also recognize.”
Others argue that sanctions on Chinese firms could push Beijing to reconsider.
Aliona Hlivco, a former Ukrainian lawmaker and managing director at the London-based think tank the Henry Jackson Society, said sanctions against Chinese companies could prove useful in deterring Russia’s war on Ukraine. “China is currently attempting to improve relations with the West, so reinforcing China’s compliance with international norms could be opportune.”
The EU is China’s second-largest trading bloc partner after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
China Customs says China-EU bilateral trade value was $783 billion in 2023, a year-on-year decrease of 7.6%.
In the same year, while Russia lost most of its European market due to sanctions, the bilateral trade between China and Russia hit a record high of $240 billion, a year-on-year increase of 26.3%.
Trade between the U.S. and China in 2023 fell for the first time since 2019, by 11% to $664 billion, according to customs data, and the Commerce Department says the United States imported more goods from Mexico than China for the first time in 20 years.
https://www.voanews.com/a/chinese-companies-hit-by-us-eu-sanctions-on-russia/7500429.html Save to Pocket
Friday Squid Blogging: Illex Squid and Climate Change
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-19, from: Bruce Schneier blog
There are correlations between the populations of the Illex Argentines squid and water temperatures.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
Read my blog posting guidelines here.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/02/friday-squid-blogging-illex-squid-and-climate-change.html Save to Pocket
49ers’ first significant roster move this offseason costs cornerback his job
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
Cornerback Isaiah Oliver got released Thursday in the 49ers’ first personnel exit after their Super Bowl loss, in which he did not take a defensive snap.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/49ers-first-significant-roster-move-this-offseason-costs-cornerback-his-job/ Save to Pocket
So many reasons to love Ellis
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
The planned Village Center is poised to become a focal point and will offer neighborhood-serving retail, food, beverages and places for neighbors to gather and socialize.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/so-many-reasons-to-love-ellis/ Save to Pocket
Romance Authors Riled by ‘From Meet-Bot to AI-Do’ Writing Workshop
date: 2024-02-23, from: 404 Media Group
A chapter of the Romance Writers of America organization planned a program called “From Meet-Bot to AI-Do: Crafting Romances in the Realm of AI,” but it’s since been scrubbed from the site after backlash from authors.
https://www.404media.co/romance-authors-riled-by-from-meet-bot-to-ai-do-writing-workshop/ Save to Pocket
Fire Destroys Museum Honoring Legendary Blues Musician Mississippi John Hurt
date: 2024-02-23, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The three-room shack in the town of Avalon, Mississippi, was once the singer and guitarist’s home
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/fire-destroys-museum-honoring-legendary-blues-musician-mississippi-john-hurt-180983839/ Save to Pocket
Private US Moon Lander ‘Alive and Well’ After Rocky Landing
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/private-us-moon-lander-alive-and-well-after-rocky-landing-/7500408.html Save to Pocket
Three charged in residential robberies of units at Victorian home in Alameda
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
Donning masks and pistols, the suspects kicked in the door of the outside residence, pistol-whipped and bound the man living there before robbing him of cash and other items, according to court documents.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/three-charged-in-residential-robberies-of-units-at-victorian-home-in-alameda/ Save to Pocket
China breakthrough promises optical discs that store hundreds of terabytes
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The coasters are making a comeback … but tech won’t be commercially available for some time
Optical discs that can store up to 200 TB of data could be possible with a new technology developed in China. If commercialized, it could revive optical media as an alternative to hard disk or tape for cost-effective long-term storage.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/optical_disc_breakthrough/ Save to Pocket
San Jose bakery calls out Tesla for canceling order of thousands of pies
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
When Voahangy Rasetarinera began The Giving Pies seven years ago out of her San Jose home kitchen, her mini pies became an instant hit with Stanford University students. Then corporate buyers like Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon soon starting scooping them up, too. The companies ordered pies in the hundreds to the low thousands. So when […]
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/san-jose-bakery-calls-out-tesla-for-canceling-order-of-thousands-of-pies/ Save to Pocket
CHP: Officers locate stolen construction tractor
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Signal
California Highway Patrol officers located stolen Caterpillar construction equipment Wednesday night, according to Josh Greengard, spokesman for the CHP’s Newhall-area office. According to Greengard, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department asked the CHP’s Los Angeles Communications Center to help locate the stolen tractor originating from Pearblossom, and reported that the truck towing it was heading […]
The post <strong>CHP: Officers locate stolen construction tractor</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/chp-officers-locate-stolen-construction-tractor/ Save to Pocket
Slayings expose the dark side of Medellin’s tourist boom
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
Now the surge in tourism has presented officials with a new set of dark challenges, including an uptick in sex trafficking and the killing of tourists and Colombian women after rendezvous on dating apps.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/slayings-expose-the-dark-side-of-medellins-tourist-boom/ Save to Pocket
Vice and Engadget “Content”
date: 2024-02-23, from: Michael Tsai
Bruce Dixon: We create and produce outstanding original content true to the Vice brand. However, it is no longer cost-effective for us to distribute our digital content the way we have done previously. Moving forward, we will look to partner with established media companies to distribute our digital content, including news, on their global platforms, […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/23/vice-and-engadget-content/ Save to Pocket
Apple Sports
date: 2024-02-23, from: Michael Tsai
Apple (MacRumors): Apple today introduced Apple Sports, a free app for iPhone that gives sports fans access to real-time scores, stats, and more. Designed for speed and simplicity, the app’s personalized experience puts users’ favorite leagues and teams front and center, featuring an easy-to-use interface designed by Apple. Apple Sports is available to download now […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/23/apple-sports/ Save to Pocket
IAP Required for Insight Timer Tips
date: 2024-02-23, from: Michael Tsai
Sarah Perez: The CEO of meditation app Insight Timer, Christopher Plowman, is frustrated. He doesn’t think the teachers who leverage his app’s marketplace to reach their students should have to share 30% of their income with Apple — its commission on in-app purchases — and for the past 12 months, Apple had also agreed. After […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/23/iap-required-for-insight-timer-tips/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-23, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Arc browser’s new AI-powered ‘pinch-to-summarize’ feature is clever.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/23/arc-browsers-new-ai-powered-pinch-to-summarize-feature-is-clever-but-often-miss-the-mark/ Save to Pocket
Swift Scripts Importing Cocoa Frameworks Broken on macOS 14
date: 2024-02-23, from: Michael Tsai
Jesse Squires: On macOS 14 Sonoma there is a regression in Swift 5.9 which causes Swift scripts that import Cocoa frameworks to fail. […] The current workaround (also posted by @rdj) is to update the shebang, #!/usr/bin/swift, by replacing it with the following:#!/usr/bin/env DYLD_FRAMEWORK_PATH=/System/Library/Frameworks /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/swift Previously: Scripting Languages to Be Removed
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/23/swift-scripts-importing-cocoa-frameworks-broken-on-macos-14/ Save to Pocket
Varda capsule proves you don’t need astronauts for gravity-defying science
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Space factory startup celebrates successful re-entry
Almost drowned out by last night’s lunar landing, Varda Space Industries celebrated the re-entry and landing of the capsule from its W-1 mission in the Utah desert.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/materials_processed_in_space_return/ Save to Pocket
Travelers won’t know where they’re going on this new ‘mystery’ voyage from Windstar Cruises
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
The eight-day voyage will depart from and return to Athens — but every other stop on the itinerary will be a mystery until the captain reveals it 24 hours ahead of arrival.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/travelers-wont-know-where-theyre-going-on-this-new-mystery-voyage-from-windstar-cruises/ Save to Pocket
Time for Two Parties Again
date: 2024-02-23, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Growing up here in Santa Barbara during the ’60s and ’70s, this area was as red as a matador’s cape, until things began to change in the ’80s and ’90s.
The post Time for Two Parties Again appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/23/time-for-two-parties-again/ Save to Pocket
No, RAG is probably not going to rescue the current situation
date: 2024-02-23, from: Gary Marcus blog
The thing about promises is that in Silicon Valley, accountability rarely shows up. Investors put in over $100 billion into the driverless car industry, and so far have little to show far it. Endless promises (and empty predictions) were made at essentially no cost to those who made them. So what if Elon made bad predictions year after year? Nobody cares.
https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/no-rag-is-probably-not-going-to-rescue Save to Pocket
Hubble Views an Active Star-Forming Galaxy
date: 2024-02-23, from: NASA breaking news
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features IC 3476, a dwarf galaxy that lies about 54 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices. While this image does not look very dramatic – we might say it looks almost serene – the actual physical events taking place in IC 3476 are highly energetic. In fact, the little galaxy […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/hubble-views-an-active-star-forming-galaxy/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-23, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
I've heard a lot of good things about the Arc browser. They have a blog, but no feed linked into the blog's home page. It's important.
https://arc.net/blog Save to Pocket
Column: A new book on Blaxploitation movies celebrates it all, from Pam Grier to ‘Black Belt Jones’
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
Author Odie Henderson on Blaxploitation movies: “Like anything starting underground, once it goes mainstream it’s going to be destroyed.”
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/column-a-new-book-on-blaxploitation-movies-celebrates-it-all-from-pam-grier-to-black-belt-jones/ Save to Pocket
Knitting Anything?
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/knitting-anything Save to Pocket
An American Spacecraft Successfully Lands on the Moon for the First Time Since 1972
date: 2024-02-23, from: Smithsonian Magazine
After a tense touchdown process with last-minute changes, U.S.-based company Intuitive Machines received a signal from its uncrewed Odysseus lunar lander on Thursday evening
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/an-american-spacecraft-successfully-lands-on-the-moon-for-the-first-time-since-1972-180983841/ Save to Pocket
Sureño gang member convicted in Richmond mass shooting that killed three, injured seven
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
Enrique Ramirez-Calmo, 29, argued in trial he made a false confession to the Father’s Day 2021 killing.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/sureno-convicted-in-richmond-mass-shooting-that-killed-three-injured-seven/ Save to Pocket
Single-family residence sells for $1.8 million in Hayward
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
A 3,653-square-foot house built in 1994 has changed hands. The spacious property located in the 28700 block of Barn Rock Drive in Hayward was sold on Dec. 20, 2023, for $1,800,000, or $493 per square foot.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/single-family-residence-sells-for-1-8-million-in-hayward/ Save to Pocket
Podcast: Tesla Model 3 Performance refresh, $RIVN earnings, new EV models, and more
date: 2024-02-23, from: Electrek Feed
On the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss the new Tesla Model 3 Performance refreshed, Rivian’s earnings, new EV models being unveiled, and more.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/23/podcast-tesla-model-3-performance-refresh-rivn-earnings-new-ev-models/ Save to Pocket
Tesla’s new Cybertruck wheel caps are not easy on the eyes
date: 2024-02-23, from: Electrek Feed
Tesla has started rolling out its new Cybertruck wheel caps, which shouldn’t fall off this time, but the solution is not easy on the eyes.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/23/tesla-cybertruck-wheel-caps-are-not-easy-on-the-eyes/ Save to Pocket
Visiting artist provides work for festival
date: 2024-02-23, from: Catalina Islander
With the 12th Annual Catalina Arts and Crafts Festival approaching on Easter Weekend, the posters advertising the event are popping up around town. The art used for this year’s event poster was actually done by a visiting artist at the September art festival event and the painting was done with a unique process, whereby the […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/visiting-artist-provides-work-for-festival/ Save to Pocket
White Papers
date: 2024-02-23, from: NASA breaking news
White Paper, “Space Data Ethics: The Next Frontier in Responsible Leadership” White Paper, “Space Data Ethics: The Next Frontier in Responsible Leadership,” prepared by the Climate and Societal Benefits Subcommittee. This is a position paper in support of a recommendation to develop the principles of space data ethics. Completed December 1, 2023. White Paper, “Enhancing […]
https://www.nasa.gov/general/white-papers/ Save to Pocket
US, China Discuss Russia-North Korea Cooperation, Says State Department
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
washington — A top U.S. official on North Korea held a video call this week with China’s envoy on Korean Peninsula affairs in which they discussed the growing military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang, the State Department said Friday.
The U.S. senior official for North Korea, Jung Pak, and her Chinese counterpart, Liu Xiaoming, also addressed North Korea’s “increasingly destabilizing and escalatory behavior,” the department said in a statement.
It said the growing military cooperation between Russia and North Korea was “in violation of numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions.”
Russia has long been party to U.N. sanctions on North Korea over the latter’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs but has stepped up ties with Pyongyang since invading Ukraine in 2022.
The United States has accused North Korea of supplying Russia with artillery shells and missiles used in Ukraine.
Moscow and Pyongyang deny the accusations but vowed last year to deepen military relations.
The State Department said the video call followed a February 16 meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Munich at which they “affirmed the importance of continued communication on [North Korea] issues at all levels.”
The Kremlin on Tuesday said Russian President Vladimir Putin had given North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a Russian Aurus limousine as a gift. On Friday, Washington imposed sanctions on the producer of the car as part of a sweeping round of sanctions against Russia over the death of opposition leader Alexey Navalny and to mark the second anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine.
The sanctions and trade restrictions also targeted Chinese firms that the U.S. said were assisting Russia’s war.
Sino-U.S. relations have shown signs of improvement in recent months with steps to reestablish communication channels after ties sank to their lowest levels in decades.
But many points of friction remain, including U.S. sanctions on China over security and human rights issues. China said Wang told Blinken in Munich that these should be lifted.
The top U.S. official for arms control, Bonnie Jenkins, told an event on Thursday that Washington was keen for more talks with China on strategic stability and crisis management and that a more aggressive North Korea was not in Beijing’s interest.
She said she believed North Korea, which borders China, is keen to acquire fighter aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, armored vehicles, ballistic missile production equipment or materials and other advanced technologies from its cooperation with Russia.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-china-discuss-russia-north-korea-cooperation-says-state-department/7500184.html Save to Pocket
LA’s Winter COVID Surge Ebbs
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The LAist
We’re past the post-holiday peak, according to Los Angeles County health officials.
https://laist.com/news/health/las-winter-covid-surge-ebbs Save to Pocket
U-Haul tells 67K customers that cyber-crooks drove away with their personal info
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Thieves broke into IT system using stolen login
U-Haul is alerting tens of thousands of folks that miscreants used stolen credentials to break into one of its systems and access customer records that contained some personal data.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/uhaul_data_breach/ Save to Pocket
Biden Slaps 500 New Sanctions on Russia over War, Navalny Death
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
washington — U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday announced a significant sanctions escalation against Russia, targeting its financial system and military infrastructure with over 500 new penalties, marking the largest tranche of sanctions since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago.
The measure was announced ahead of the invasion’s anniversary on Saturday and followed the death of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny in a penal colony in the Arctic earlier this month.
The sanctions target various sectors, including Russia’s state-owned National Payment Card System, banks, investment firms, venture capital funds and other financial institutions, its defense industry and procurement networks. They also target individuals involved in evading sanctions, in Russia and abroad, as well as prison officials who Washington believes to be linked to Navalny’s death.
Urging lawmakers in the House of Representatives to pass the $95 billion Senate-approved supplemental funding measure that includes additional military aid for Kyiv, Biden vowed to respond with further punishment for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We in the United States are going to continue to ensure that Putin pays a price for his aggression abroad and repression at home,” he said Friday. Failure to do so, he warned, would embolden further aggression in Ukraine and worldwide.
Since Moscow’s invasion, Washington and its allies have imposed sanctions on thousands of Russian targets. Friday’s package includes nearly 300 people and entities targeted by the U.S. Treasury Department, as well as 250 people and entities targeted by the State Department. The Commerce Department added over 90 companies to the entity list.
However, simply adding individuals and companies with no links to the United States and arguably with limited links to the world outside of Russia at large is ineffectual, said Dalibor Rohac, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Instead, the administration should better coordinate with allies to prevent existing sanctions evasion, especially for those related to oil revenue, Rohac told VOA.
“And a seizing of Russia’s sovereign assets overseas — particularly its central bank reserves,” Rohac said.
Beginning in December 2022, the U.S. and its allies imposed a $60 per barrel cap on Russian oil, limiting services such as insurance and trade finance for shipping Russian oil sold above that price.
According to a Treasury Department analysis released Friday, the cap has reduced Russia’s oil income. Over the past month, the policy forced Russia to discount its oil by $19 per barrel.
The cap, combined with a European Union ban on nearly all Russian oil imports, was designed to choke funding to Putin’s war machine. However, countries can still legally buy Moscow’s crude if it is refined elsewhere, including in Turkey and India.
“As long as Russia can continue to sell their oil, they’ll be able to continue buying missiles, and bullets and pay for soldiers,” William Browder, head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, told VOA. “As long as we allow that, then this war is never going to end.”
Earlier this week the EU also slapped Moscow with a new round of sanctions, focusing on fighting sanctions evasion by targeting companies around the world accused of providing Russia with advanced technology and military goods.
Nearly 200 people and entities, mostly from Russia, have been added to the entity list, now totaling more than 2,000 individuals and entities.
For the first time, the EU sanctions are hitting companies in mainland China suspected of helping the Kremlin. Companies from India, Turkey, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Singapore, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong are also targeted.
Cindy Saine contributed to this report.
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-slaps-500-new-sanctions-on-russia-over-war-navalny-death-/7500240.html Save to Pocket
Catalina Island Marathon medal has new twist with local connection
date: 2024-02-23, from: Catalina Islander
The Catalina Island Marathon, the oldest trail marathon in California, has revealed their 2024 finisher medals, and they’re definitely something to check out. This year’s medals were designed by Robin Cassidy of Silverado Pottery, a local artist on the island. The medals feature a colorful design of ocean waves and an iconic Catalina Island sunset, […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/catalina-island-marathon-medal-has-new-twist-with-local-connection/ Save to Pocket
Rivian (RIVN) stock hits all-time low after double analyst downgrade, job cuts
date: 2024-02-23, from: Electrek Feed
After disappointing fourth-quarter results, Rivian (RIVN) stock earned a double downgrade, sending share prices to an all-time low. Sitting at its lowest value since going public, the EV maker looks to gain control of costs in 2024.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/23/rivian-rivn-stock-all-time-low-downgrade-job-cuts/ Save to Pocket
Expert To Dealers: Embrace EVs Or Lose Your Jobs
date: 2024-02-23, from: Inside EVs News
Analysts agree that rolling back EV policies would be unacceptable, and dealers need to do more to embrace EVs.
https://insideevs.com/news/709026/how-dealers-can-embrace-evs/ Save to Pocket
CalArtian Wins 2024 Caldecott Medal
date: 2024-02-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Author and illustrator Vashti Harrison (Film/Video MFA 14) has been named the recipient of the 2024 Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children for her book “Big.”
https://scvnews.com/calartian-wins-2024-caldecott-medal/ Save to Pocket
Local water rates to increase
date: 2024-02-23, from: Catalina Islander
If you are on Catalina Island, your water bill will go up, most likely in March. That was the news from Southern California Edison representatives who spoke at the Feb. 20 Avalon City Council meeting. Background Ryan Stevenson, SCE, the water rate case manager for Catalina, told the council that Edison filed the application for […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/local-water-rates-to-increase/ Save to Pocket
Texas just got an enormous 1.1-million-panel solar farm
date: 2024-02-23, from: Electrek Feed
Renewable developer Clearway Energy Group has completed a 452-megawatt (MW) solar farm in West Texas – and it’s huge.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/23/texas-just-got-an-enormous-1-1-million-panel-solar-farm/ Save to Pocket
Recreation Dept. to tighten conduct code
date: 2024-02-23, from: Catalina Islander
Community Services Manager David Hart told the City Council on Feb. 20 that they were “tightening up” the Code of Conduct for Avalon’s recreation programs. The reason: Kids are not signing up for programs for fear of being bullied. Councilmember Michael Ponce took the opportunity to express his disappointment in the community because nothing has […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/recreation-dept-to-tighten-conduct-code/ Save to Pocket
Abraham Lincoln Pardoned Joe Biden’s Great-Great-Grandfather, 160-Year-Old Records Reveal
date: 2024-02-23, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Historian David J. Gerleman discovered the link between the two presidents while reviewing historic documents at the National Archives
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/abraham-lincoln-pardoned-joe-bidens-great-great-grandfather-documents-reveal-180983837/ Save to Pocket
Los Padres National Forest Seeks Public Comment on OHV Grant Application
date: 2024-02-23, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
SOLVANG, Calif.— Los Padres National Forest is proposing to submit grant applications supporting Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) management activities on national forest
The post Los Padres National Forest Seeks Public Comment on OHV Grant Application appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/23/los-padres-national-forest-seeks-public-comment-on-ohv-grant-application-2/ Save to Pocket
Sheriff’s Log: Feb. 15 to Feb. 21, 2024
date: 2024-02-23, from: Catalina Islander
The following is the Avalon’s Sheriff’s Stations significant incidents report for the period of Feb. 15 to Feb. 21, 2024. All suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Many people who are arrested do not get prosecuted in the first place and many who are prosecuted do not get convicted. […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/sheriffs-log-feb-15-to-feb-21-2024/ Save to Pocket
Milk-V Duo S is a tiny $11 computer with RISC-V and ARM processor cores
date: 2024-02-23, from: Liliputing
The Milk-V Duo S is a tiny, square-shaped single-board computer that measures just 43 x 43mm (1.7″ x 1.7″). But there’s enough room on the little computer for a 10/100 Ethernet jack, USB Type-C and Type-A ports, a microSD card reader, and two sets of expansion headers. But the most unusual thing about this small, […]
The post Milk-V Duo S is a tiny $11 computer with RISC-V and ARM processor cores appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/milk-v-duo-s-is-a-tiny-11-computer-with-risc-v-and-arm-processor-cores/ Save to Pocket
CSUN Physical Therapy Students Honored by Campanella, Dodgers Foundations
date: 2024-02-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Earlier this month, CSUN’s College of Health and Human Development recognized 10 physical therapy students for winning scholarships from the Roy and Roxie Campanella Foundation and the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation
https://scvnews.com/csun-physical-therapy-students-honored-by-campanella-dodgers-foundations/ Save to Pocket
Here’s Lucid’s Plan To Survive 2024 And Beyond
date: 2024-02-23, from: Inside EVs News
Lucid is struggling with demand for its cars, but its CEO is pushing investors to think long-term.
https://insideevs.com/news/709900/lucid-air-gravity-midsize-q4-earnings/ Save to Pocket
Mustangs Defense Comes Up Big in Win Over Jessup 72-65
date: 2024-02-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Master’s University men’s basketball team was nearly perfect down the stretch as they defeated the Jessup Warriors 72-65 Thursday night at The MacArthur Center
https://scvnews.com/mustangs-defense-comes-up-big-in-win-over-jessup-72-65/ Save to Pocket
More Giant Pandas Are Coming to the U.S. in a New Loan From China
date: 2024-02-23, from: Smithsonian Magazine
China plans to send a male and a female panda to the San Diego Zoo as early as this summer, and negotiations are underway for pandas’ possible return to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/more-giant-pandas-are-coming-to-the-us-in-a-new-loan-from-china-180983842/ Save to Pocket
California Students Sue, Claiming High School Paper Censorship
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/california-students-sue-claiming-high-school-paper-censorship/7500124.html Save to Pocket
Strong opposition to Netanyahu’s plan to control Gaza after war
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
Netanyahu’s plan calls for freedom of action for Israel’s military across a demilitarized Gaza after the war to thwart any security threat. It says Israel would establish a buffer zone inside Gaza, which is likely to provoke U.S. objections.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/strong-opposition-to-netanyahus-plan-to-control-gaza-after-war/ Save to Pocket
San Jose State professor suspended after altercation during Gaza protest
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
University officials confirmed the professor was on leave but did not identify the person.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/san-jose-state-professor-suspended-after-altercation-during-gaza-protest/ Save to Pocket
VTA quests to seize properties jolt downtown San Jose entrepreneurs
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
Two downtown San Jose entrepreneurs say a powerful transit agency’s real estate seizure odysseys have harmed their businesses.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/san-jose-real-estate-home-house-bart-transit-build-vta-economy-court/ Save to Pocket
Interdependence and Its Discontents: Why Would Nations with Incentives to Avoid It Go to War?
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: RAND blog
It’s tempting to think that interdependence between the United States and China has reached a level in which armed conflict between them is unthinkable. Unfortunately, history gives us little reason to be confident that peace is inevitable simply because the degree of interdependence is strong.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/02/interdependence-and-its-discontents-why-would-nations.html Save to Pocket
No fare! Free bus rides raise questions of fairness, viability
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
It’s not surprising that free rides can juice ridership numbers for systems struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting shift to at-home work.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/no-fare-free-bus-rides-raise-questions-of-fairness-viability/ Save to Pocket
Lady Mustangs Pull Away in 4th to Defeat Warriors 59-45
date: 2024-02-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Scoring 23 points in the final quarter, The Master’s University women’s basketball team broke open a close game to defeat the Jessup Warriors 59-45 Thursday night in The MacArthur Center
https://scvnews.com/lady-mustangs-pull-away-in-4th-to-defeat-warriors-59-45/ Save to Pocket
Should You Buy A Tesla Model Y? Owners Offer Advice After Driving One For 60,000 Miles
date: 2024-02-23, from: Inside EVs News
Does the world’s best-selling electric car live up to the hype?
https://insideevs.com/news/709718/tesla-model-y-owner-buying-advice-3-years-60000-miles/ Save to Pocket
Now that I have kids, I can more fully appreciate The Kid…
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/0044047-now-that-i-have-kids Save to Pocket
More taxpayer money benefits pro sports owners amid ‘stadium construction wave’
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
Elected leaders continue to shower tax revenues on stadium and arena projects with the aim of recruiting or keeping teams and boosting local economies.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/more-taxpayer-money-benefits-pro-sports-owners-amid-stadium-construction-wave/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-23, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
How to freeze-dry a website.
https://technologizer.com/home/2024/02/22/how-to-freeze-dry-a-website-technologizer/ Save to Pocket
RadWagon 4 Cargo e-bike hits $1,599 ($400 off), official Tesla EV charger at $450, and more
date: 2024-02-23, from: Electrek Feed
Headlining today’s green deals is an eight-day flash sale on two Rad Power e-bike models, led by the RadWagon 4 Cargo e-bike for $1,599. It is joined by a rare discount on Tesla’s Wall Connector Level 2 EV Charger at $450, as well as the Pit Boss Navigator 550 Wood Pellet Grill falling to a new $200 low. Plus, all of the other best new Green Deals landing this week.
Head below for other New Green Deals we’ve found today and, of course, Electrek’s best EV buying and leasing deals. Also, check out the new Electrek Tesla Shop for the best deals on Tesla accessories.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/23/radwagon-4-cargo-e-bike-tesla-ev-charger-rare-discount-and-more/ Save to Pocket
Trump, Haley, and the Climate Primary That Wasn’t
date: 2024-02-23, from: Heatmap News
As a climate-concerned citizen, one of the most discouraging things about Donald Trump’s all-but-inevitable confirmation as the 2024 Republican presidential nominee has been thinking about parallel universes.
I don’t just mean the ones where the conservative Supreme Court has a shocking change of heart and disqualifies him from the presidential ballot, or where Nikki Haley, against all odds, manages to win her home state primary on Saturday and carry the momentum forward to clinch the Republican nomination. I’m talking about an even greater fantasy: A world in which Trump doesn’t dominate the news cycle, in which South Carolina conservatives have a real debate about the energy transition, and in which the climate conversation hasn’t been set back years by culture war-mongering and MAGAism.
Laugh, sure, but squint and you can almost see it. South Carolina, where the 2024 campaign heads this weekend, is unique among early primary states for having a conservative base that is potentially more open to climate-related issues than people in Iowa or even Nevada. Though the state tracks closely with the opinions of the average American Republican on things like risk perception of global warming and policy support for green issues like regulating CO2 and renewable energy, South Carolina voters have also elected several conservative politicians unusual in their openness toward climate issues. Senator Lindsey Graham, who’s held his office since 2003, has been described as “too green for the GOP,” once even working with then-Senator John Kerry on a climate bill that would have capped greenhouse gas emissions. Even Haley, the state’s former governor, broke with most of the 2024 Republican primary field by saying she believes human activity is causing climate change and worsening extreme weather.
Graham and Haley’s environmental records are far, far from ideal. Still, their unlikely receptiveness to at least some climate science seems to suggest a constituency with a certain level of open-mindedness about green policies. The polls appear to back this up, too: In a summer 2023 study by Conservatives for Clean Energy-South Carolina, more than seven in 10 general election voters in the Palmetto State said they support the continued development of renewable clean energy; the same number said they believe in climate change.
Again, this is only natural when you look at what’s happening in the state. The Inflation Reduction Act is expected to bring an estimated $15 billion in investment in clean energy and storage to South Carolina by 2030, in the form of things like EV battery plants, 73 solar companies, and a lithium processing facility that claims it will produce enough material to support the manufacturing of an estimated 2.4 million EVs per year — that is, 200,000 more than were sold in the U.S. in all of 2023.
South Carolina also stands out in the southeast as being particularly forward-thinking about climate resilience; it’s hard to live in the state and not have extreme weather at the top of your mind. Some 210,000 South Carolinians live in flood-prone areas, the Southern Environmental Law Center reports, and homeowners insurance is increasingly difficult to come by or afford. The state also sits squarely in the path of intensifying Atlantic hurricanes. All of this might seem incongruous with local Republican voters’ middling levels of climate concern, but as writer and professor Susan Crawford told Heatmap last year, “At the state level, certainly, you’re better off not talking about the human causes of climate change” — even as you’re quietly addressing them.
The absence of climate from the primary conversation isn’t just because of the damage that being called an environmentalist does to a Republican’s reputation in the year 2024, though. An early-season primary debate even acknowledged that the climate issue has become so big that Republicans ought to be discussing it. But because Trump is the party’s frontrunner, any conversation about climate, clean-energy jobs, or resilience was over before it could start. While Trump has hardly been shy about attacking EVs and “the green new scam,” his rants are reductive, making climate a negative buzzword rather than a policy issue that can be debated. Haley has spent her time and energy focusing on Trump’s scandals and deflecting his attacks rather than talking about what South Carolinians have to lose if Trump guts the IRA as he intends.
That’s not to say Haley is some great defender of the climate agenda; she isn’t, and needless to say, it’s never good when Rex Tillerson is the one on the right side of an issue from you, as he was when he defended the Paris Agreement against the then-U.N. ambassador’s calls to extract the U.S. from it. But the shame is that Trump has snuffed out any sort of conservative debate about the climate in South Carolina before it could even begin.
Dwelling on the would’ve- and could’ve-beens, of course, is a fool’s errand of which I’m now wholly guilty. This is the reality: Trump is queued up for another win on Saturday, one that will effectively be the nail in the coffin of the Haley campaign even if she’s vowed not to drop out of the race. Voters won’t decide the next four years of the climate agenda in the U.S. tomorrow — that happens 255 days from now, in November. That means the timeline still isn’t fixed, but boy, it sure feels that way.
https://heatmap.news/politics/trump-haley-south-carolina Save to Pocket
This Alder Lake-N mini PC has an unusual, fanless design, dual 2.5 GbE LAN ports and an exposed PCIe socket
date: 2024-02-23, from: Liliputing
Chinese PC maker CWWK’s “Magic Computer” is one of the strangest mini PCs I’ve seen in a while. Basically it’s a single-board computer with an Intel Alder Lake-N processor and enough ports and connectors to make it a pretty versatile system for networking, media, storage, or other applications. But that little board is attached to […]
The post This Alder Lake-N mini PC has an unusual, fanless design, dual 2.5 GbE LAN ports and an exposed PCIe socket appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/this-alder-lake-n-mini-pc-has-an-unusual-fanless-design-dual-2-5-gbe-lan-ports-and-an-exposed-pcie-socket/ Save to Pocket
February 22, 2024
date: 2024-02-23, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-22-2024-679 Save to Pocket
Nvidia set to top $2 trillion valuation in first for chipmakers
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
The Santa Clara chipmaker’s shares closed Thursday at a $1.96 trillion valuation.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/nvidia-set-to-top-2-trillion-valuation-in-first-for-chipmakers/ Save to Pocket
California school district’s critical race theory ban, transgender notification policy stand for now, judge rules
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
Judge Eric Keen denied requests for court orders seeking to stop the Temecula Valley Unified School District from enforcing the two controversial policies. Keen did not elaborate on his ruling during the court hearing.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/temeculas-critical-race-theory-ban-transgender-policy-stand-for-now-judge-rules/ Save to Pocket
John Boston | ‘OOF…!!’ That Cursed Word Kids Never Say
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Signal
There’s one thing to this day that I never cared about regarding my father. He lived to be just about 90 and, in all those years, he never once used the word, “OOF.” Which rhymes with “Poof” and “Woof.” The latter is dog talk. But, still. Dad was a darn specimen. Even in his last […]
The post John Boston | <strong>‘OOF…!!’ That Cursed Word Kids Never Say </strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/john-boston-oof-that-cursed-word-kids-never-say/ Save to Pocket
Single family residence in Oakland sells for $1.6 million
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
The spacious historic property located in the 300 block of Staten Avenue in Oakland was sold on Jan. 2, 2024. The $1,550,000 purchase price works out to $668 per square foot. The house, built in 1914, has an interior space of 2,320 square feet.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/single-family-residence-in-oakland-sells-for-1-6-million-3/ Save to Pocket
City Releases Schedule for High School Nights at The Cube
date: 2024-02-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Calling all Junior High and High School students – bring your IDs and join us for discounted ice skating at The Cube – Ice and Entertainment Center | Powered by FivePoint Valencia, located at 27745 Smyth Drive
https://scvnews.com/city-releases-schedule-for-high-school-nights-at-the-cube/ Save to Pocket
US, EU levy 100s of new sanctions on Russia over Navalny death
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
President Joe Biden said the sanctions come in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “brutal war of conquest” and to Navalny’s death, at a gathering of U.S. governors at the White House. “We in the United States are going to continue to ensure that Putin pays a price for his aggression abroad and repression at home,” Biden said.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/us-eu-levy-100s-of-new-sanctions-on-russia-over-navalny-death/ Save to Pocket
Ron Perry | America’s Day Off
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Signal
So it looks like it is official: The United States has just attained Third World status. All on the same day: In Pakistan the polls were closed because the “authorities” suspended mobile calls and data during a controversial election. A challenger to Vladimir Putin was “barred’ from Russia’s election. And the U.S. Supreme Court is […]
The post Ron Perry | <strong>America’s Day Off </strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/ron-perry-americas-day-off/ Save to Pocket
Dr. Gene Dorio | The American Experience
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Signal
I would like to follow up on Gary Horton’s recent column, “A Deeper Dive Into Immigration” (Feb. 7), describing the many successful immigrants from the Santa Clarita Valley who have, through hard work, established their families and contributed to our American experience. Two decades ago at a local hospital, I was asked by a doctor […]
The post Dr. Gene Dorio | <strong>The American Experience </strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/dr-gene-dorio-the-american-experience/ Save to Pocket
Diana Raab Talks About Writing, Hummingbirds, and Those Who Came Before Us
date: 2024-02-23, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Santa Barbara author’s 14th book is her third memoir.
The post Diana Raab Talks About Writing, Hummingbirds, and Those Who Came Before Us appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/23/diana-raab-talks-about-writing-hummingbirds-and-those-who-came-before-us/ Save to Pocket
Bosco and Blue
date: 2024-02-23, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Sweet pups need a home!
The post Bosco and Blue appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/23/bosco-and-blue/ Save to Pocket
Mel Gibson, known for later antisemitic rants, almost starred in ‘Schindler’s List,’ famed agent says
date: 2024-02-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
Gibson was interested in playing Oskar Schindler but Steven Spielberg rejected the idea, ensuring that the 1993 film’s legacy wouldn’t be tarnished by the actor’s later antisemitic comments.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/23/mel-gibson-known-for-later-antisemitic-rants-almost-starred-in-schindlers-list-famed-agent-says/ Save to Pocket
Don’t Buy a Snowmobile Until You’ve Seen BRP’s 2025 Lineup
date: 2024-02-23, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
For 2025, the Ski-Doo and Lynx lineups are stacked with upgrades, an anniversary edition, and even some electric models.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/709761/brp-2025-snowmobiles/ Save to Pocket
Estudiantes de SB Unificado Aprenden sobre el Poder de la Narración en SBIFF
date: 2024-02-23, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Una excursión al Festival Internacional de Cine de Santa Bárbara (SBIFF) inspiró a los estudiantes del Distrito Unificado de SB
The post Estudiantes de SB Unificado Aprenden sobre el Poder de la Narración en SBIFF appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/23/estudiantes-de-sb-unificado-aprenden-sobre-el-poder-de-la-narracion-en-sbiff/ Save to Pocket
SB Unified Students Learn About the Power of Storytelling at SBIFF
date: 2024-02-23, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
A field trip to the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) inspired SB Unified students to learn to read and
The post SB Unified Students Learn About the Power of Storytelling at SBIFF appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/23/sb-unified-students-learn-about-the-power-of-storytelling-at-sbiff/ Save to Pocket
Wesley Morris awards “Best Theft of a Movie” to Ryan Gosling in…
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/0044045-wesley-moore-awards-best- Save to Pocket
Central Coast Groundwater Sustainability Agencies will use $5.5 million from DWR for Local Groundwater Conservation, Water Quality, and Sustainability Projects
date: 2024-02-23, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
As part of our continued partnership with local experts to make strategic investments in water supply resilience projects across the
The post Central Coast Groundwater Sustainability Agencies will use $5.5 million from DWR for Local Groundwater Conservation, Water Quality, and Sustainability Projects appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/23/central-coast-groundwater-sustainability-agencies-will-use-5-5-million-from-dwr-for-local-groundwater-conservation-water-quality-and-sustainability-projects/ Save to Pocket
Google Maps leads German tourists to week-long survival saga in Australian swamp
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Pair had to dodge croc on trek back to civilization
Two German tourists got more than they bargained for when they put their lives in the hands of Google Maps and blindly followed the service into the depths of the Australian jungle.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/google_maps_australian_jungle/ Save to Pocket
From A ‘Lonely Road’ To An Artist Haven: How This Music Community Helps Angelenos Feel Less Alone
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The LAist
Writer’s ’Round seeks to bring LA’s musicians together to jam, and maybe make some friends
https://laist.com/news/how-to-la/from-a-lonely-road-to-an-artist-haven-how-this-music-community-helps-angelenos-feel-less-alone Save to Pocket
UTLA Suspends Support For LAUSD Board Candidate Following Revelations Over Social Media Activity
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The LAist
Los Angeles Unified School District Board candidate Kahllid Al-Alim apologized earlier this week for pre-campaign social media posts that endorsed assigning antisemitic literature to students, and for liking “graphic content.”
https://laist.com/news/education/utla-teachers-union-kahllid-al-alim-board-district-1-endorsement Save to Pocket
ON the Beat | Savoring Traditional Opera and Non-Traditional Violinist Heroism
date: 2024-02-23, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Opera Santa Barbara did right by Verdi’s La Trovatore, and masterful, modern-minded violinist Liela Josefowicz heads to the Hahn.
The post ON the Beat | Savoring Traditional Opera and Non-Traditional Violinist Heroism appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/23/on-the-beat-savoring-traditional-opera-and-non-traditional-violinist-heroism/ Save to Pocket
See 15 Otherworldly Images From the Underwater Photographer of the Year Awards
date: 2024-02-23, from: Smithsonian Magazine
A hunting monkey, ‘kissing’ scorpionfish and playful dolphins feature in just a few of the 130 striking photographs distinguished with honors in the competition
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/see-15-otherworldly-images-from-the-underwater-photographer-of-the-year-awards-180983832/ Save to Pocket
‘Visible Mending,’ on Love, Death, and Knitting
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/visible-mending-on-love-death-and-knitting Save to Pocket
4 Charged in Transporting Suspected Iranian-Made Weapons; 2 SEALs Died in Intercepting the Ship
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA — Four foreign nationals were arrested and charged Thursday with transporting suspected Iranian-made weapons on a vessel intercepted by U.S. naval forces in the Arabian Sea last month. Two Navy SEALs died during the mission.
The criminal complaint unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Richmond alleges that the four defendants — who were all carrying Pakistani identification cards — were transporting suspected Iranian-made missile components for the type of weapons used by Houthi rebel forces in recent attacks.
“The flow of missiles and other advanced weaponry from Iran to Houthi rebel forces in Yemen threatens the people and interests of America and our partners in the region,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a news release.
U.S. officials said that Navy Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Christopher J. Chambers was boarding the boat on January 11 and slipped into the gap created by high waves between the vessel and the SEALs’ combatant craft. As Chambers fell, Navy Special Warfare Operator 2nd Class Nathan Gage Ingram jumped in to try to save him, according to U.S. officials familiar with what happened.
“Two Navy SEALs tragically lost their lives in the operation that thwarted the defendants charged today from allegedly smuggling Iranian-made weapons that the Houthis could have used to target American forces and threaten freedom of navigation and a vital artery for commerce,” Monaco said.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland pledged that the Justice Department “will use every legal authority to hold accountable those who facilitate the flow of weapons from Iran to Houthi rebel forces, Hamas, and other groups that endanger the security of the United States and our allies.”
Muhammad Pahlawan is charged with attempting to smuggle advanced missile components, including a warhead he is accused of knowing would be used by the Houthi rebels against commercial and naval vessels in the Red Sea and surrounding waters. He is also charged with providing false information to U.S. Coast Guard officers during the boarding of the vessel.
Pahlawan’s co-defendants — Mohammad Mazhar, Ghufran Ullah and Izhar Muhammad — also were charged with providing false information.
Pahlawan’s attorney, Assistant Supervisory Federal Public Defender Amy Austin, said Pahlawan had an initial appearance in U.S. District Court Thursday and is scheduled to be back in court Tuesday for a detention hearing. She declined to comment on the case.
“Right now, he’s just charged with two crimes and we’re just at the very beginning stages, and so all we know is what’s in the complaint,” Austin said when reached by phone Thursday.
According to prosecutors, Navy forces boarded a small, unflagged vessel, described as a dhow, and encountered 14 people on the ship on the night of January 11, in the Arabian Sea off the Somali coast.
Navy forces searched the dhow and found what prosecutors say was Iranian-made weapons, including components for medium range ballistic missiles and anti-ship cruise missiles.
All 14 sailors on the dhow were brought onto the USS Lewis B. Puller after Navy forces determined the dhow was not seaworthy. They were then brought back to Virginia, where criminal charges were filed against four and material witness warrants were filed against the other 10.
According to an FBI affidavit, Navy forces were entitled to board the ship because they were conducting an authorized “flag verification” to determine the country where the dhow was registered.
The dhow was determined to be flying without a flag and was therefore deemed a “vessel without nationality” that was subject to U.S. law, the affidavit states.
According to the affidavit, the sailors on the dhow admitted they had departed from Iran, although at least one of the men initially insisted they departed from Pakistan.
The affidavit states that crew members had been in contact multiple times by satellite phone with a member of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
https://www.voanews.com/a/charged-in-transporting-suspected-iranian-made-weapons-2-seals-died-in-intercepting-the-ship/7499969.html Save to Pocket
Volvo to sell majority of Polestar (PSNY) stake, cuts funding for next growth stage
date: 2024-02-23, from: Electrek Feed
Volvo announced plans to sell 62.7% of its stake in EV maker Polestar (PSNY) as it looks toward the next stage of its transformation. Volvo said it will also cut off funding as the “company is well positioned for growth.”
https://electrek.co/2024/02/23/volvo-sell-polestar-psny-stake-cuts-funding/ Save to Pocket
Valencia-Based Lief Labs Celebrates 15 Years
date: 2024-02-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Valencia-based Lief Labs, a premier formulation and product development innovator and manufacturer of dietary supplements which was founded in February of 2008, marked the completion of its 15th year of business with a celebratory event at Lief’s Valencia headquarters on Friday, Feb. 16.
https://scvnews.com/valencia-based-lief-labs-celebrates-15-years/ Save to Pocket
Behind the Blog: VICE’s Legacy and the Idea That ‘The Internet Is Forever’
date: 2024-02-23, from: 404 Media Group
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we reflect on VICE’s legacy, archiving, and whether the internet is really forever.
https://www.404media.co/behind-the-blog-vices-legacy-and-the-idea-that-the-internet-is-forever/ Save to Pocket
The week we couldn’t find Google News
date: 2024-02-23, from: Nieman Journalism Lab
Sarah on Wednesday: “Where is the Google News filter?” Us: “Haha what” [continues talking about divorce on Slack] Sarah: [posts succession of screenshots] “Where is the ‘news’ filter?” Obviously it doesn’t make sense that Google News would disappear, we use that all the time, must be a bug or some crazy Sarah tech issue surely!…
https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/02/the-week-we-couldnt-find-google-news/ Save to Pocket
This Week on The Analog Antiquarian
date: 2024-02-23, from: Digital Antiquarian
The Voyage of Magellan, Chapter 1: East to Asia, West to Asia
https://www.filfre.net/2024/02/this-week-on-the-analog-antiquarian/ Save to Pocket
Investing in the stock market for beginners
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
You need to invest — or at least, that’s what people say. But should you? And if so, why and how? The capital markets, often referred to as the stock…
https://sundial.csun.edu/178650/opinions/investing-in-the-stock-market-for-beginners/ Save to Pocket
New iMessage PQ3 Encryption Protocol Protects Against Post-Quantum Attacks
date: 2024-02-23, from: TidBITS blog
In the upcoming iOS 17, iPadOS 17.4, macOS 14.4 Sonoma, and watchOS 10.4, Apple will start rolling out the PQ3 encryption protocol for iMessage conversations to protect them against attacks made possible by future quantum computers.
https://tidbits.com/2024/02/23/new-imessage-pq3-encryption-protocol-protects-against-post-quantum-attacks/ Save to Pocket
Join us for High School Nights at The Cube!
date: 2024-02-23, from: City of Santa Clarita
JOIN US FOR HIGH SCHOOL NIGHTS AT THE CUBE! Get Discounted Admission and Free Skate Rentals! Calling all Junior High and High School students – bring your IDs and join us for discounted ice skating at The Cube – Ice and Entertainment Center | Powered by FivePoint Valencia (27745 Smyth Drive). During the next three […]
The post Join us for High School Nights at The Cube! appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.
https://santaclarita.gov/blog/2024/02/23/join-us-for-high-school-nights-at-the-cube/ Save to Pocket
Tesla Model 3 Long Range Gets Third Price Increase In February
date: 2024-02-23, from: Inside EVs News
Is the manufacturer trying to discourage customers from ordering a Model 3 and redirect them to the Model Y?
https://insideevs.com/news/709849/tesla-model3-third-price-increase-february2024/ Save to Pocket
Feb. 27: City Council Expected Consider Parks Vacancy Applicants
date: 2024-02-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Santa Clarita City Council will hold a public safety meeting Tuesday, Feb. 27, at 4 p.m., followed by its regular meeting at 6 p.m
https://scvnews.com/feb-27-city-council-expected-consider-parks-vacancy-applicants/ Save to Pocket
I’ve been thinking a lot about alternate families/relationships/friendships lately and this Modern…
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/0044043-ive-been-thinking-a-lot Save to Pocket
Watch this humanoid robot work on NIO’s EV assembly line [video]
date: 2024-02-23, from: Electrek Feed
In a next-level automation move, Chinese EV maker NIO (NYSE: NIO) is piloting humanoid robots on its EV assembly line at one of its factories.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/23/humanoid-robot-nio-ev-assembly-line-video/ Save to Pocket
A Foreign Government, Oprah, and Fires in Maui: The Impact of Misinformation on Community Resiliency
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: RAND blog
Crises and disasters are opportunities to undermine the national unity that forms in response to tragedy: U.S. adversaries may gain an advantage when there is discord among the American public. But even if information operations are cheap for foreign governments to execute, they also can be simple to counteract effectively through routine emergency management preparedness activities.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/02/a-foreign-government-oprah-and-fires-in-maui-the-impact.html Save to Pocket
The Windows Photos app’s new Generative erase feature can remove unwanted items from a picture
date: 2024-02-23, from: Liliputing
Microsoft is rolling out its answer to Google’s Magic Eraser, which uses AI to let you remove unwanted people or objects from photos. The Windows version is called Generative erase, and rolling out to the Windows Photos app for members of the Windows Insider preview program. It should eventually make it way to stable versions […]
The post The Windows Photos app’s new Generative erase feature can remove unwanted items from a picture appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/the-windows-photos-apps-new-generative-erase-feature-can-remove-unwanted-items-from-a-picture/ Save to Pocket
NASA Sets Coverage for Agency’s SpaceX Crew-8 Launch, Docking
date: 2024-02-23, from: NASA breaking news
NASA will provide coverage of the upcoming prelaunch and launch activities for the agency’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission with astronauts to the International Space Station. The launch is targeted for 12:04 a.m. EST, Friday, March 1, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The targeted docking time is about 7 a.m. on […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-sets-coverage-for-agencys-spacex-crew-8-launch-docking/ Save to Pocket
1Password 8.10.26
date: 2024-02-23, from: TidBITS blog
https://tidbits.com/watchlist/1password-8-10-26/ Save to Pocket
Tangled Barn Owl Rescued from Atop a 50-Foot Palm
date: 2024-02-23, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Taken to Ojai Raptor Center, where bird’s condition is ‘fair to guarded.’
The post Tangled Barn Owl Rescued from Atop a 50-Foot Palm appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/23/tangled-barn-owl-rescued-from-atop-a-50-foot-palm/ Save to Pocket
Another categorial update
date: 2024-02-23, from: Logic Matters blog
It’s been a month since I last posted about the category theory project, so a quick update — and the end really is in sight! I’ve just put online another revised version of Category Theory I. Little has changed except for some more corrections of typos (with particular thanks to Georg Meyer) and a few small […]
The post Another categorial update appeared first on Logic Matters.
https://www.logicmatters.net/2024/02/23/another-categorial-update/ Save to Pocket
LockBit identity reveal a bigger letdown than Game of Thrones Season 8
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
NCA still left enough for onlookers to wonder if there’s anything more to come
The grand finale of the week of LockBit leaks was slated to expose the real identity of LockBitSupp – the alias of the gang’s public spokesperson – but the reveal has fallen short of expectations.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/lockbit_identity_reveal/ Save to Pocket
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-02-23, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
1 out of every 20 Gazans is either dead or maimed.
Reply with a rationalization to earn a free block.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111981718020893055 Save to Pocket
A huge study of more than 99 million people confirms the safety…
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/0044041-a-huge-study-of-more Save to Pocket
AIs Hacking Websites
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: Bruce Schneier blog
New research:
LLM Agents can Autonomously Hack Websites
Abstract: In recent years, large language models (LLMs) have become increasingly capable and can now interact with tools (i.e., call functions), read documents, and recursively call themselves. As a result, these LLMs can now function autonomously as agents. With the rise in capabilities of these agents, recent work has speculated on how LLM agents would affect cybersecurity. However, not much is known about the offensive capabilities of LLM agents.
In this work, we show that LLM agents can autonomously hack websites, performing tasks as complex as blind database schema extraction and SQL injections without human feedback. Importantly, the agent does not need to know the vulnerability beforehand. This capability is uniquely enabled by frontier models that are highly capable of tool use and leveraging extended context. Namely, we show that GPT-4 is capable of such hacks, but existing open-source models are not. Finally, we show that GPT-4 is capable of autonomously finding vulnerabilities in websites in the wild. Our findings raise questions about the widespread deployment of LLMs…
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/02/ais-hacking-websites.html Save to Pocket
Transcript: Is Biden’s Climate Law Actually Working?
date: 2024-02-23, from: Heatmap News
This is a transcript of episode three of Shift Key: Is Biden’s Climate Law Actually Working?
ROBINSON MEYER: Hi, I’m Rob Meyer. I’m the founding executive editor of Heatmap News and you are listening to Shift Key, a new podcast about climate change and the shift away from fossil fuels from Heatmap. My co-host Jesse Jenkins will join us in a second and we’ll get on with the show. But first a word from our sponsor.
[AD BREAK]
MEYER: Hi, I’m Robinson Meyer. I’m the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.
JESSE JENKINS: And I’m Jesse Jenkins, a professor at Princeton University and an expert in energy systems.
MEYER: And you are listening to Shift Key, the new podcast about climate change and the energy transition from Heatmap News. On today’s show, we’re going to talk about how the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s big climate law passed in 2022, how it’s working, whether it’s working. We have new data to shine light on this extremely important question. And we also are going to do as always our upshift and downshift, our thing that gave us hope this week and our thing that maybe has us feeling a little down. So Jesse, ready?
JENKINS: I’m ready. Let’s dig in.
MEYER: Let’s get into it. In August 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, the IRA. It’s the largest climate law in American history and arguably in global history. And it threw the full financial power of the US federal government behind decarbonization, directing more than $500 billion in grants and tax credits toward replacing old dirty fossil fuel infrastructure with new clean zero carbon technologies. Now, when it passed, modeling, including from the REPEAT Project, which is a collaboration of ZERO Lab at Princeton University, led by my co-host Jesse Jenkins and Evolved Energy Research, a consulting firm, suggested that the law would cut US greenhouse gas emissions 37 to 41% by 2030. And I should say this research when it came out was a big deal. You don’t have to take my word for it. The ZERO lab’s work was cited in the Guardian and the New York Times, by the Wall Street Journal, by legislators and by the White House itself.
And it wasn’t the only kind of piece of energy modeling that we used to figure out how big a deal the IRA was. There were other reports, one from an organization called the Rhodium Group and another from a nonprofit called Energy Innovation. Now those reports really, I think at the time, helped us understand just how big a deal this law was going to be. We’re now just about 18 months after the Inflation Reduction Act has been signed. And that means we’re getting to a point where we can see the impact of this legislation. We can start to see whether it’s working. And the REPEAT project, in conjunction with the Rhodium Group, MIT and Energy Innovation — all the groups that did this research last time have gone and conducted the first analysis of whether the law is working — our kind of first midstream assessment, 18 months in, of whether the IRA is actually reducing emissions and decarbonizing the economy like we hoped that it would. So that’s what we’re gonna talk about on the show. The first real analysis of whether Biden’s climate law is cutting greenhouse gas emissions, with my co-host Jesse Jenkins, one of the researchers who helped us understand its potential in the first place. So Jesse, I actually want to start by backing up slightly. And before we get into this new data that you have that talks about, you know, whether the law is working, let’s start with this: how is the IRA supposed to work?
JENKINS: The IRA is effectively putting clean energy on sale for all Americans. That’s how it’s supposed to work. It is a set of financial incentives that effectively drop the cost of just about any action you would want to take to help accelerate the clean energy transition by, you know, somewhere in the order of 20 to 50%. So it’s a little bit like you know, Black Friday shopping deals or Cyber Monday or whatever your favorite sale is. It’s, you know, using the federal purse to make it easier and a smarter financial decision for households or businesses or utilities or whoever else to just make the greener investment or purchasing decision over the dirtier one.
And it’s really quite comprehensive. It involves a set of incentives that cut across really all of the major emitting sectors of the economy. But in particular, all of our modeling from REPEAT Project and our colleagues at Energy innovation and Rhodium Group, indicated that the biggest emissions reductions over the next decade, in particular, would come from the power sector, electricity generation, and the transportation sector, particularly the uptake of electric vehicles.
These are two trends that were already underway before passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. And what we’re looking for is evidence that those trends have basically been supercharged by the incentives provided in the act.
MEYER: And luckily my understanding is that those are exactly the two sectors we have new data on today. Is that right?
JENKINS:
That’s right. So yeah, this should be a terrifying moment for any modeler — when we get to check our modeling projections against reality. But we did just that. We have data from 2023 now, courtesy of the Clean Investment Monitor Project. If you go to cleaninvestmentmonitor.org, you can check out this data yourself. This is a joint project of the MIT Center for Energy Economic Policy Research and the Rhodium Group. This is led in part by Brian Deese, who is one of the chief economic advisors to President Biden and one of the key architects of the series of laws passed in the last Congress. He was the chair of the National Economic Council and is now an innovation fellow at MIT in helping lead this project.
And what it’s doing is, it’s basically giving us as close to real time a look at the progress of the clean economy in the United States as I think we can get. It’s basically updated every quarter and it’s tracking all of the public and private investments in actuality as well as announced projects, that kind of as a leading indicator of what’s coming in the future across most of the major sectors that we’re talking about here. It’s a really helpful data set to gauge our progress. So what we did was we took that data on zero emissions vehicle adoption — so EVs and fuel cell vehicles and plug in hybrids and clean electricity capacity additions — and compared that to what each of our three modeling groups were estimating was likely to happen after passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, and I should add the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law as well, which we were modeling you know back in 2022. So now we have year end 2023 data and the question is, how well are we tracking at least in this first year out from passage of those major laws?
MEYER: I wanna talk in a second about how confident we are that the signal that we’re seeing in the data is actually the IRA or the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, like how confident we are in the Bidenomics signal. But first, let’s do the moment of truth. Let’s just first get to the data. So in the power sector, what do we see?
JENKINS: What we see in the electricity sector is a new record set for zero carbon electricity generation and storage capacity additions. That’s new power plant and battery storage construction. In aggregate, we saw over 32,000 megawatts or 32 gigawatts of new zero carbon generation and storage added to the US grid in 2023. That’s about a 32% increase from the rate in 2022. And it edges out a previous record that we saw in 2021 of about 31.6 gigawatts.
So good news is we’re setting new record growth rates in total in terms of wind and solar and battery additions. Unfortunately, that does fall on the lower end of what we were projecting in most of the modeling results. We were looking for on average about 46 to 79 gigawatts. So call it, you know, 40 to 80 gigawatts on average of additions in 2023 and 2024. And we fell short of the low end of that range right at 32.3 gigawatts. And so, unless the pace accelerates substantially in 2024, we’re probably going to fall a bit behind schedule in terms of capacity additions.
MEYER: And do we have a sense of what’s driving that? Because I think that’s a very surprising finding, that we’re behind schedule in the power sector where I think people feel pretty good generally about the pace of decarbonization or I think where the common wisdom at least is that the pace of decarbonization is like proceeding apace. What’s driving this underperformance of the model?
JENKINS: So it’s really the difference between solar and wind additions. The solar sector added about 18.4 gigawatts of capacity in 2023. That’s up massively from just about 11 gigawatts in 2022. It’s about double what we had seen in 2020 which was kind of our reference when we were doing our modeling as we started the REPEAT project in 2021. And so that’s looking encouraging and in fact, is running ahead of schedule with the average pace of additions that we saw in REPEAT project results.
Batteries are growing way faster than we expected. And that helps really make the most of those solar capacity additions because solar and batteries are kind of like peanut butter and jelly, they go together quite well. And that’s because solar has this nice, regular daily fluctuation, right? From the sun rising and setting. And that pairs really well with batteries, which today in a way lithium ion batteries are best suited for, you know, only a few hours of storage. So they’ll charge for three or four hours in the middle of the day when we’ve got an abundance of sun. And then they’ll discharge in the evening to help meet the evening peak of demand when everybody’s coming home from work.
The batteries basically helped shift the solar output from the middle of the day to hit that evening peak. And that’s, that’s really helpful.
Where things are running behind schedule is really in the wind sector, where we only built about half of the peak rate, actually less than half, that we’ve seen historically in 2023. Additions of wind power in 2023 were only about 6.3 gigawatts, and that’s down from nearly 15 gigawatts in each of 2020 and 2021.
So that’s a step backwards at a time when we should be smashing new record growth rates across all of these sectors. And that’s giving me the biggest concern as we look at in the next couple of years.
MEYER: And that’s, I mean, last show we talked about offshore wind and the troubles in offshore wind and how it seems like some big offshore wind projects that we thought might be coming online in the middle of this decade might not be coming online till the end of the decade. But when we talk about wind underperforming in terms of the whole country over the past year, we’re really still talking about onshore wind. This is like big turbines in the middle of the Great Plains, not big turbines off the coast of New York, New Jersey, right?
JENKINS: That’s right. Yeah, I think I don’t think we had any significant offshore wind capacity additions coming in 2024. You know, most of that we were expecting would come in between 2026 and 2030 or 2035. So this is really a story about onshore wind, where if we look at the economics of onshore wind across the country, there’s a tremendous number of sites that look very economic given the incentives provided by the Inflation Reduction Act.
And unfortunately, we’re just not building out at the pace that would be economically justified. And that is really an indicator that there are a substantial number of other non-economic frictions or barriers to deployment of wind in particular at the pace that we want to see.
MEYER: Before we go on, I just want to make it clear—
JENKINS: Maybe it’s worth pausing and unpacking what those incentives look like. But the main one is what’s known as a production tax credit that provides a payment of tax credits for every megawatt hour of clean electricity produced over the first 10 years of operations from a new facility. And that credit is worth about $28 per megawatt hour, which is getting pretty close to the average wholesale revenue that you would get just from selling your electricity. So it’s basically doubling roughly, or maybe it’s an 80% increase, the revenues that a wind or solar facility gets during its first 10 years of operation. And that is a huge boost in terms of the return on investment that people are seeing. And so that is the incentives that the IRA expanded and extended into the long term, you can increase it even further than that, if you meet domestic content requirements or build in so-called energy communities. And so it could be an even larger incentive worth up to 20% more than that if you meet both of those requirements.
MEYER: I was going to say, the back of the envelope number I usually hear is like a 5% increase in interest rates, is like a doubling of project cost. But if you’re doubling project revenue, that actually suggests that yes, we’re seeing some big non-economic factors hold up offshore wind.
JENKINS: Yeah, so it’s definitely true that the increase in interest rates is sucking up some of what would have been the kind of financial tailwinds provided by the Inflation Reduction Act. And that’s why I’m eager to see what our new round of modeling results looks like. But the other, I think data point here is that, you know, batteries and solar are also 100% capital investments just like wind. And so interest rates would affect all of them equally in many ways. So there has to be something unique to the wind industry here that’s holding the wind sector back while solar and batteries set new growth records. I have my speculation as to what that is, I think it’s, you know, three factors and I have no idea, you know what proportion we can assign to each of them.
One of the first things that’s I think unique about the wind sector is that it was facing the full expiration of that production tax credit that I was mentioning. So prior to passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which extended this credit for the long term out through into the 2030’s. We’ve had this on again, off again history with the production tax credit of expirations every few years. It’s been around since 1994 but it’s not a permanent part of the tax code. And so every few years, it’s up for renewal.
But unlike the ITC, the investment tax credit that was supporting solar previously, which was also on a ramp down but was still in place when the IRA passed, the production tax credit had entirely phased out for projects that commenced construction after the end of 2021. At that point, it had been reduced to only 60% of its full value. So if you wanted to get the full value, you had to finish or start construction by the end of 2019.
And I think we can see that in the data, what that did was that pulled forward the project pipeline, the development pipeline, and encouraged everyone if they could to start their construction by the end of 2019 in order to lock in the full value of that production tax credit. And that’s why I think we saw record build outs in 2020 and 2021 because everybody was finishing projects that they commenced in 2019 in order to get the full value of the credit.
MEYER: You think the first factor here is like maybe a pipeline problem, so to speak, where a ton of projects started in the pipeline in 2019, they were completed in 2020 or 2021, and now we’re in this fallow period where the projects that started after the IRA passed aren’t complete yet, so we don’t see them showing up.
JENKINS: That’s exactly right. So that’s the first factor. So if that’s an issue, then what we would expect to see is that the project pipeline is large now and that we would see more projects coming in 2024 and 2025 that were started as the IRA was passed.
Now the other factor that’s, I think, a little bit more unique to wind is also the impacts of the supply chain disruptions that we saw around COVID, and the increase in labor costs, particularly in Western countries. And that’s because the solar sector and batteries are dominated by China and other Asian manufacturing bases. Whereas wind is really still a Western-produced technology, most of the wind manufacturing is in Europe or the United States.
That’s partly because these are such big components, wind turbines, missiles and towers and blades are massive. And so there’s less advantage of shipping them around the world. You want to build them closer to where you need them. And so we maintain more of a manufacturing base. I think something like two thirds of all of the content of wind turbines built in the US were manufactured here, whereas we only build about 5% of the solar PV modules in the US in terms of their domestic content right now. So I think that’s important because what we saw was, you know, a very different pandemic response, right, in Europe and the US versus China where China largely kept its manufacturing going for most of the pandemic. Whereas the US had, you know, these disruptions and Europe had these disruptions from lockdowns.
We had more rapid inflation, you know, labor costs were going up. And so all of that I think hit the wind industry harder than it hit batteries and solar PV. We see that in the real costs of these projects. So for the first time, we saw real cost increases for all of the technologies we’re talking about: wind, solar and batteries. But already in 2023 costs are back down for modules, solar PV modules and battery packs, but they’re still up for wind. So I think that’s an important factor too.
MEYER: It’s not only that China kept the factories going, it’s that even in the post pandemic moment— I feel like this is such an important aspect of how the global economy is working right now that hasn’t been fully understood— the US did a ton of demand support macro-economically. Not electricity demand, but I mean, we sent checks to people, we did expanded employment, we made sure the consumers kept spending. China really did so much less of that. And so China’s pathway to growing its economy to the level that it hopes to grow it right now is entirely through expanding exports and trade.
JENKINS: And so no wonder they were pumping the supply side up, right?
MEYER: All their support has gone to the supply side. And then furthermore, there’s just like this structural support to the supply side because Chinese consumers are in such poor condition, basically, that they have to export things they make is their only possibility of breaking even and growing the economy.
JENKINS: Yeah, for now, at least. I’m sure we’ll come back to talk about China’s transition soon. So I would say those two factors are hopefully transitory, right? The sort of supply shocks are fading. The inflation is ebbing and we should be rebuilding the pipeline.
The third factor is the one that keeps me up at night. And that’s just that I worry that wind is just much more difficult to site and much more transmission-dependent than solar and batteries are.
And that’s kind of a function of the physics of wind power, which is interesting. Wind speeds and solar radiation, you know, kind of vary about proportionally. The best wind sites in the country are about twice as good as the worst wind sites. And that’s true for solar too, like the best solar sites in Arizona or New Mexico have about twice the resource quality as you know, Maine or, you know, somewhere else in New England. And that makes sense because the physics of the wind is driven largely by the impacts of the sun heating different parts of the planet differentially and that moves pressure and temperature around and that drives the wind.
The big difference is that solar panels convert sunlight or insulation into electricity kind of proportionally to the resource quality. So a linearly one for one kind of relationship, whereas wind turbines convert wind speeds to wind power at the wind speed cubed. So if you double the wind speed, you get about an 8x increase in the wind power generation. And what that does is it makes wind much more site-dependent than solar, right? If you have a good wind speed site, you’re not just a little bit better than a bad wind speed site, you’re way better. And so the best, most economic, you know, attractive projects, they have to be where it’s really windy.
And that means they don’t have as much flexibility about where to build and those windy locations, you know, right up and down the middle of the Great Plains, for example, tend to be a lot further from where most people live. And so they’re also much more dependent on transmission to site those projects than solar projects, where you can kind of move around pretty freely across a broad area without really sacrificing much in terms of resource quality. And therefore you can pick a site that’s easier to build, that has less local opposition, that happens to be closer to a transmission line. Maybe you lose 3-5% of your, you know, power output by picking that easy-to-develop-site over maybe the best one around. But it’s just not that big a difference whereas for wind, it really could make or break a project.
MEYER: Last question, then I want to move on to EVs, because that’s so interesting. But how much does solar and batteries need to overperform to make up for this issue we’re seeing with wind?
JENKINS: So if wind can’t really get back on the same track as it was in 2020 and 2021 where we’re building at least 15 gigawatts a year and kind of growing steadily from there, then it’s true that solar and batteries are going to have to step up and kind of fill the gap.
And I think there’s a chance that could happen if we look at the results kind of extrapolating out a bit further beyond 2023. We in the REPEAT project are estimating about 26 gigawatts a year of solar additions between now and 2026. So 2023 through 2026, and about 15 gigawatts a year of wind. And so if wind can only do eight or seven, you would have to see solar growing at maybe 35 or 40 gigawatts a year.
And that’s actually exactly what the US Energy Information Administration is projecting for the solar sector over the next couple of years. They’re projecting that in 2024, we’ll build about 44 gigawatts of utility scale solar, of both utility and distributed solar, I should say, and about a similar amount in 2025. And so there’s a chance that we actually could see solar kind of over-performing and making up for wind being a laggard and that kind of gets us through the next couple of years. But the growth rate just has to keep smashing new records every year from here on out. And I don’t think we can really do that if we’re dependent only on solar and batteries, we need both wind and solar pulling their weight. And if the wind industry can’t pick things back up, I think we’re probably gonna fall short of the targets that we were seeing in our modeling.
[AD BREAK]
MEYER: I want to move now to the other sector that your new research looked at, which is EVs, transportation, vehicles. What is happening in the US vehicle sector?
JENKINS: Yeah, this is one where it’s funny, you know, you mentioned that I think most people have pretty good vibes about the power sector but maybe there’s some warning signs that wind is lagging. I think we’ve seen a lot of bad vibes on the EV sector as I wrote for Heatmap a while back.
MEYER: It’s nothing but bad vibes right now!
JENKINS: Yeah, it’s just all bad vibes. And yet this is the sector that is unequivocally on track, at least compared to our modeling— maybe not compared to Ford or GM’s sales growth projections— but as a sector, compared to our modeling from REPEAT project, as well as Rhodium and Energy Innovation, the EV transition is actually moving at about the pace that we expected. And that’s probably likely to be true for the next several years also, not just for 2023.
MEYER: I just wanted to pause and put a pin in this point because it shocked me when I saw the initial report and I think it is so important. In the power sector, I feel like it’s mostly good vibes right now. Like people have a sense that the power sector is decarbonizing at roughly the pace we need. That seemingly is not true! In the electric car sector, in EVs, there’s a sense that like EVs are in trouble, the transition is in danger, things aren’t going well, it’s not going as well as the Biden administration wants or thought it would. And in fact, it’s going basically at the pace we thought it would happen.
I just think this is such an important, interesting thing because it is completely the opposite of, if you’re just reading the paper, it’s completely the opposite of what you would think.
JENKINS: Yeah. And maybe this reflects just that our modeling groups were a little bit more conservative than individual car companies were in their sales growth projections. But we look at new technology adoption and we typically apply an S-curve to that adoption where they’re growing at double-digit compound annual growth rates at the beginning. But then they hit, usually, a linear phase where they’re growing at a pretty steep rate but it’s a straight line rather than continuing to bend upwards like an exponential curve. And what that means is that you would expect the annual growth rates, the percentage growth, to be declining even as the absolute sales growth is increasing because you’re building on a much bigger base, right? You know, adding 20% to a million vehicles is easier than adding 20% to 5 million vehicles, right?
MEYER: I mean, this is like a version of the Facebook problem, right? Where eventually just enough humans are Facebook users that Facebook has to find other ways to make money. It can’t just keep adding new humans every quarter.
JENKINS: Exactly. So we all modeled these uptake rates pretty similarly as this kind of S-curve where we expected growth to be strong. We expected, I think, supply chain constraints on the production side to persist a bit longer than they did in reality. So that’s an interesting divergence from at least our kind of underlying thinking at REPEAT. We thought that it would be harder to ramp up manufacturing capacity as quickly as the auto industry has.
MEYER: Huh!
JENKINS: But in general, you know, we are expecting to see what we saw. Actually it’s interesting, in 2023, we actually saw the annual growth rate go up. In 2022, the growth rate for zero-emissions vehicles, and that includes EVs and plug-in hybrids as well as fuel cells (although they’re a rounding error) went up by about 43%, 44% in 2022. And that growth rate accelerated in 2023 to 52%. So despite all the vibes about slowing growth, there’s actually no evidence of that, at least on an annual basis. 2023 grew faster in compound annual growth terms, percentage growth terms, than 2022. But we would expect that growth rate to decline. None of our modeling is expecting a 50% annual growth rate from every year. We would hit 100% sales in just a matter of a few years if that were the case.
Instead, we’re expecting the growth rate in 2024 to 2026 to be somewhere between 30 and 44% and to fall even further to somewhere between about 15 and 27% from 2027 to 2030. You know, exactly following that S-curve where the annual growth rate is declining as we hit that linear phase.
MEYER: I just want to be clear, this is in the absence of any technology-forcing policy, like new EPA rules that say you have to sell a certain number of EVs per year.
JENKINS: We do include the states that have been following California in adopting the Advanced Clean Cars to standard, which is their requirement that by 2035, 100% of vehicles need to be zero-emissions vehicles, vehicles sold, I should say in 2035 need to be zero-emissions vehicles. And so we had included at the state level, some states like that, there’s about a dozen that are following in that direction. That’s maybe 30% or so of the overall vehicle market in the US. So it’s not inconsequential, but it’s not the only thing going on. I think we all expect that 2024 will see a slowdown from 2023. But again, that’s in line with what we expected in our modeling.
What’s actually really interesting, at least from the REPEAT side, is that hybrids, both plug-in hybrids and just regular hybrid electrics, are far outselling our projections from our modeling.
MEYER: The IRA has incentives for some plug-in hybrid vehicles, but it has no incentives for regular hybrid vehicles. Is that right?
JENKINS: That’s right. Yeah, that’s right. And that’s kind of what we expected was that basically hybrids would kind of give way to EVs, and that seems to be not what we’re seeing. We’re seeing that actually, they’re kind of additive, particularly hybrids. Where last year, I think we mentioned this on an earlier show, we sold about as many hybrid electric vehicles as we did battery electric vehicles about 1.1 or 1.2 million of each of them, and that is way higher than what we expected. I think we only expected about a 1 or 2% sale share, which is about where we were in 2019.
And instead hybrid electric vehicles have just grown right alongside EV growth, and that’s encouraging from an emissions perspective because those hybrids are emitting about 40% less per mile traveled, probably, than an equivalent sized internal combustion car.
MEYER: They’re also going to then go have a long life as a used car, continuing to reduce emissions.
JENKINS: So from a climate perspective, every internal combustion engine vehicle that’s sold that’s a hybrid instead of a regular one, that’s a win.
MEYER: It is funny because I feel like on the one hand, this is surprising. And on the other hand, I can think of multiple new car consumers, like in my life, friends I know, who were buying a new car in the past two years and were EV-curious, they looked at EVs. They kind of quickly decided there were none in their price range or there were none that needed exactly what they needed them to do. And so then they bought a hybrid.
Why did they buy a hybrid? Well, because they wanted to buy an EV, and they couldn’t find one they liked. So they bought a hybrid because they felt like that was on the path of the transition, which is not really a rational consumer behavior as I think you would expect from a model. But on the other hand, kind of makes sense from a certain flavor of like, “Oh, well, I wanna help with this, but I can’t buy an EV yet, so I’m gonna buy a hybrid.”
JENKINS: Yeah, I mean that was my mental model too because I think that’s how you think about it. If you’re segmenting the market, there’s a certain amount of consumer who cares about the environment, they care about the cost of fueling their vehicle or both. And so they’re looking at a hybrid versus a plug-in hybrid versus an EV, and they’re going to fall in that range. And our expectation was that the large incentives provided for EVs would basically shift the consumer from a hybrid to the EV. But it looks like either that’s not what’s happening or there’s a larger market out there for EVs than even we anticipated, and it’s just that right now that market is still being split between hybrids and EVs.
But there’s basically twice as many consumers interested in one of those than we thought, right? Because we sold about 2.2 million hybrids and battery electric vehicles, you know, whereas we were only expecting, you know, a few 100,000 hybrids and then around that many EVs. So, you know, there’s a million extra consumers out there that we didn’t think would be there in the market in 2023. And again, my thinking was, look, a plug-in hybrid vehicle is always going to be more expensive than a battery electric or an internal combustion car because it’s just, both drivetrains crammed into the same vehicle.
MEYER: Right.
JENKINS: It’s got a pretty big battery, not as big as an EV, but it’s a pretty good size one. It has to keep the internal combustion drivetrain and add the electric motors, you know, and so it’s gonna be relative. It’s always gonna be a cost premium over an internal combustion car. Whereas a battery electric vehicle, they’re getting cheaper and cheaper every year and there’s gonna be a point before too long where even the upfront cost is lower. I think the cost of ownership is already at parity, but you’re gonna go to the dealership and it’s just gonna be cheaper to get in a battery electric car than a internal combustion car because they’re simpler to build and they have less parts and batteries are the biggest chunk of the cost and batteries keep getting cheaper year after year.
MEYER: Yeah, there’s this argument you hear from Toyota executives, which I’ve always taken as like 70% cope. Where they say, “Oh, well, actually, you know, plug-in hybrids and regular hybrids make more sense because as long as lithium and these minerals we need for the batteries are scarce, you get more emissions reductions per ton of lithium or per ounce of lithium or per ounce of cobalt, whatever, than you do with, with a plug-in hybrid or a regular hybrid than you would with a pure battery electric vehicle. Do you think that a plug-in hybrid is this range anxiety security blanket where you’re able to do a lot of your trips plug-in but, whenever you need—
JENKINS: It depends on the size of the battery. Yeah, in some ways, the plug-in hybrid is the ideal vehicle, right? If you had, you know, a 40 or 30 mile range, that covers most people’s daily commute, the all year around town, driving to pick up the kids at soccer, school or whatever. And then when you need to go on a road trip, you’ve got your gasoline engine and you can go for as long as you want. So in some ways, it’s kind of the ideal American car if you didn’t think about charging infrastructure.
But of course, as we build out the charging infrastructure and as batteries get cheaper, you know, BEVS get cheaper. I think it will make sense for more and more people to just get rid of the gas part and you don’t need the range extender. You know, we are a single car household. We have one EV only and our second car is an e-bike, for riding around town. You know, we put 20,000 miles on our car since we bought it in November of 2022. And we’ve been on many road trips and we had maybe one or two charging experiences that were suboptimal.
MEYER: [laughs]
JENKINS: But like that is such a small part of my overall driving experience on those 20,000 miles. Most of them, I just wake up in the morning and my car is full with 280 miles, 290 miles of range. That’s like enough for a week. And I never have to go to the gas station! The convenience of that so outweighs the one or two frustrating experiences in a long distance trip every year, that I think most people, once they’re in a battery electric vehicle, they don’t miss the gas at all. We’ve seen actually in recent consumer reports, trends that consumers who have bought EVs are far more likely to buy a second EV than to go back to internal combustion cars.
Toyota’s argument about lithium, I think is intellectually correct, I should say, if you think that lithium is in finite supply. But go look at lithium prices on the market right now. They’re in freefall. We are not lithium constrained, right? So, I don’t know, it’s a good, nice ex post justification for Toyota’s strategy. But basically what Toyota did was they bet big on fuel cell vehicles and they’ve lost massively. So they’re trying to recoup their position by doubling down on the one area where they do have advantage, and that’s in hybrids and plug-in hybrids.
MEYER: How would you look at this big— is Paris any good or not? Yes or no, is the IRA working?
JENKINS: I would say yes, I think that we’re still within the cone of growth for these sectors that we projected. So I don’t think there’s any evidence that we’re off, you know, way off base yet. Emissions did fall in 2023 as the economy expanded for the first time since the pandemic hit, it’s lower than what we projected in our modeling. So, you know, again, it’s early. We should have mentioned this much earlier on, but it’s hard to know— I think you alluded this actually in your setup— how much signal there is here from the IRA.
MEYER: Yeah.
JENKINS: Because we spent most of the last 18 months writing tax credit guidance and setting up new grant programs and issuing RFPs and reviewing those and most of the money hasn’t actually gotten out the door yet. And so, whatever we’re seeing now is just sort of like the early stages of influence from these policies and where the real signal is going to show up is in particularly 2025 and 2026 and 2027. When you have time to build a new factory, to install a new wind farm, to expand our charging infrastructure, and really take advantage of the credits and grant programs and others that were enacted by these laws, which are really just starting to get out the door.
MEYER: One more observation, which is, it is crazy that hybrids especially— I don’t want to keep going back to this and I feel like again, we’re just seeding topics for a future conversation— but it is crazy that hybrids are popping off during a year when gas prices did not go up.
JENKINS: Yeah!
MEYER: Because I feel like in the past, what we’ve seen is the only years where Americans don’t buy more SUVs, let’s say, than they did the previous year, is in years like 2007 or 2022, when gas prices spike to really high, you know, previously unprecedented levels. 2023, gas prices went down.
JENKINS: Maybe the memory is still in people’s minds, maybe it’s the inflation and the cost of living overall is still very salient for people. And so the ability to save some money on your gas bill is still helpful even if gas is not at its peak inflation levels.
I think the other factor is just that the upfront cost of buying a hybrid has fallen so much that for many models, it’s just like a total no brainer. I spend a few $100 more and I get a better car that has more power and less fuel consumption. You know, it just makes a ton of sense from an economic perspective.
MEYER: And I was thinking earlier that in some ways, the presence of battery electric vehicles really defangs conventional hybrids because it is no longer the “lib car.” I mean, I don’t think that cultural politics are the entire driver here, but the presence of battery electric vehicles as kind of the new “Democrat car” for lack of a more elegant way of phrasing that particular cultural idea. Okay, what I’ve learned from this is we need to do like 15 more episodes on cars and we need to do another 15 more episodes on China’s macroeconomy and green transition.
JENKINS: Alright, we got the next season lined out.
MEYER: Yeah, let’s do Upshift and Downshift. But first, let’s take a break.
[AD BREAK]
MEYER: Okay, let’s do Upshift/Downshift. Jesse, what is your downshift for the week?
JENKINS: So my downshift is one of the things that I think flew under the radar for a lot of people, is that on February 15th, the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a new pipeline from Texas to Mexico that will export about 2.8 billion cubic feet of natural gas for the purposes of supplying a new liquefied natural gas plant on the Pacific coast of Mexico. You know, we talked in our first episode about the pause that the Biden administration has put on the review of new LNG export terminals in the US.
This is an export pipeline which I think falls under the same criteria of, you know, having to decide whether it’s in the public interest or not. And we just approved another 2.8 billion cubic feet of exports. That’s like a quarter of all of our LNG exports today! And this is going to go out as a pipeline, not as LNG, right. It’ll leave the US in a pipeline but it will then go to the Pacific coast of Mexico where it will supply a new $15 billion LNG terminal that is meant to supply Asian markets, right? So the ability to get the gas to the Pacific Ocean and then go from there to Asia is, you know, quite advantageous relative to the Gulf coast terminals that we’re mostly talking about in the US.
So I just thought this was really interesting, I mean, we’ve had this big debate in our first episode and across the energy sphere about the role of exports in the US economy of natural gas exports, and here’s this really massive pipeline that just kind of snuck in under most people’s radar. I almost didn’t catch it. But you know, big approval last week of a 2.8 billion cubic feet per day gas export pipeline to Mexico. What’s let you down this week?
MEYER: I feel like I’m about to use a downshift that I will have to use sparingly over the next few months. The presidential election, Jesse! I’m not sure you’ve heard about it, but there’s a presidential election in the United States of America in 2024. And it has me down. Ezra Klein published a really interesting audio essay this past week about calling for Biden to step aside and for a Democratic Convention, an open Democratic Convention later this summer to select a candidate. I think he counseled something in that, which I thought was quite wise, which was that it’s February and a lot of Democrats are acting very fatalistically about their candidate, and that’s kind of absurd.
It’s February, it’s too late to get on the primary ballot in a lot of states. But there’s still many months to go before the presidential election and nothing is written. There’s still a lot of different possibilities that could happen. It’s just that the outcome of the presidential election is not yet secure. However, at this point, I think it is important to say Biden is losing, which from a strictly climate policy lens would be a really bad thing for climate policy.
And I think what has me most worried about this presidential election and, and which I think, I hope that folks listening to this and folks who were very angry at me when I posted the Ezra Klein essay— I don’t know whether I agree with it, I’m not gonna take an advice standpoint here— I will say that what has been so noticeable about the campaign so far is the reluctance to use Biden and the reluctance to put Biden out in public. And that the way to dispel public concerns, which seem to be extremely widespread, understandably, about the president’s age, are to have the president out there a lot, talking! Showing that he can campaign, showing that he’s up to the task, and the fact that that has not happened as much over the past two weeks and the fact that the president is so unavailable— he’s done fewer press conferences than both of his predecessors— I think should give a lot of folks who are interested in US politics, even solely because of climate policy, a lot of pause.
Well, let’s turn this around, and what’s your upshift?
JENKINS: My upshift is from Jeff Stein at the Washington Post who is an economics reporter there and has been doing some really interesting on-the-ground reporting as to the impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act and other incentives in these climate bills on, you know, local economies around the country. And so he spent some time last week in Michigan with the United Association Union of Plumbers and pipefitters in central Michigan. So this is, you know, a union that does plumbing and HVAC technicians and welding and pipe fitting. And what he found is that the demand for union jobs there is just booming, driven largely by two massive new EV battery plants that are under construction in Michigan, driven by the Inflation Reduction Act and the incentives for domestic battery manufacturing that the law provides, that includes both direct subsidies for manufacturing EVs in the US, as well as tying some of the EV tax credits to the sourcing of domestic or North American assembled batteries.
So it’s a straight line from the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act to the employment boom that they’re talking about. He noted that typically this union in central Michigan has fewer than 1000 members and that these two plants alone could hire about 500 full time jobs each from their union. So the entire union would be employed building these two battery plants. And clearly that’s gonna create new jobs and new opportunities for union work and well-paid family-supporting jobs in Michigan. I think that that story is playing out across the country. That’s hopefully encouraging in the long term for the politics of the clean energy transition because when people see the clean energy transition as something that’s fueling their economic future and not just as about avoiding scary future climate outcomes, I think that has a strong amount of durability and a lot of political salience.
MEYER: I am so curious though to see whether these— I mean, unions are now, the federal government has passed a ton of policy that increases demand for union workers, and like a lot of these unions have to grow in a way they have not been asked to grow in a long time. And I’m so curious to see how that happens.
JENKINS: So, what about you, Rob? Do you have something to close us out on and keep us a little bit more positive than that electoral news?
MEYER: There’s a really interesting study that came out earlier this month in the Journal Earth’s Future by Mallory L. Barnes et al, she’s a scholar at Indiana University in Bloomington, that looked at this question that I think has kind of hung over some climate data for a long time, which is when you look at these global maps of temperature rise and how much different parts of the planet have experienced global warming, often the least amount of warming has happened in the Eastern United States. And you’ll sometimes even hear this called “a warming hole” that while the rest of the planet seems to be experiencing, you know, varying levels of global warming and especially at the poles, quite extreme levels of global warming, the Eastern US, which of course, is this extremely important area, if you’re talking about global climate policy, the Eastern US isn’t experiencing as much warming, at least compared to other places in the world.
So what this study found, the study is called “A Century of Reforestation Reduced Anthropogenic Warming in the Eastern United States.” What the study found is that basically in the Southeast US, especially, a lot of land that used to be tillage or farmland has since become reforested. And that reforestation drives local cooling and that has mitigated a lot of the global warming we’d otherwise expect to see, and that’s why recent temperatures have been cooler than we might have expected with global warming. And so the abstract says, “Ground and satellite-based observations showed that Eastern United States forests cool the land service by 1 to 2 °C annually compared to nearby grasslands and crop lands, with the strongest cooling effect during midday in the growing season when cooling is 2 to 5 °C.”
I just found that really fascinating. Of course, it raises lots of adaptation questions like should we be doing more reforestation in other places in order to generate local cooling in those places? Reforestation has, while not a silver bullet by any means, does also have climate benefits as well. You know, carbon cycle benefits. And so I just thought that was such a cool study and while it might not be kind of encouraging in the conventional sense in the same way that maybe yours was, I just found it to be so engrossing. It made me think about processes being connected to each other in ways I maybe hadn’t thought about before. I thought it was really cool.
JENKINS: That is really fascinating. Those are not small effects. Those are quite substantial. So that’s really quite interesting. I’m glad you shared that. I’ve heard a lot of conversation about urban forestation as an adaptation measure, right? Adding urban tree canopies does have appreciable impacts on local heat island effects that you see in cities, and that’s maybe an important area of adaptation policy. Some of my colleagues here at Princeton are exploring those kinds of dynamics and there’s a lot of interest there. But this is interesting. This is almost continental scale effects, right?
MEYER: Exactly.
JENKINS: Across a broad region for reforestation, not just in cities. So, wow, that’s, that’s really interesting. Thanks for sharing.
MEYER: Well, Jesse, I feel like we have so much here. There’s just like 10 different things we could talk about next week. And I know I want to talk about China, I know I want to talk more about electric vehicles, I want to talk about transportation policy, maybe reforestation.
JENKINS: Yeah, there is so much to unpack here on Shift Key. I hope you all join us again next week as we dive in again.
MEYER: Thank you for listening to Shift Key.
[AD BREAK]
MEYER: Shift Key is a production of Heatmap News. The podcast was edited by Jillian Goodman. Our editor in chief is Nico Lauricella, multimedia editing and audio engineering by Jacob Lambert and Nick Woodbury. Our music is by Adam Kromelow. Thanks so much for listening and see you next week.
https://heatmap.news/podcast/transcript-shift-key-episode-three-ira Save to Pocket
Public Health Ends Weekly COVID-19 Updates
date: 2024-02-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health confirmed Friday 78 new cases and one additional death from COVID-19 in the Santa Clarita Valley within the last week
https://scvnews.com/public-health-ends-weekly-covid-19-updates/ Save to Pocket
Prop 65 Notice Issued to L.A. County for Chiquita Canyon Landfill
date: 2024-02-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Recently, the Department of Public Health received a Proposition 65 Notice from the California Department of Toxic Substances Control regarding the threatened illegal discharge of hazardous waste from the Chiquita Canyon Landfill
https://scvnews.com/prop-65-notice-issued-to-l-a-county-for-chiquita-canyon-landfill/ Save to Pocket
Gender-Neutral Baby Names Gain Popularity, but Traditional Names Still Rule
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
US parents get more creative when deciding what to name their children
https://www.voanews.com/a/gender-neutral-baby-names-gain-popularity-but-traditional-names-still-rule/7499777.html Save to Pocket
NASA, Intuitive Machines to Discuss Historic Moon Mission Today
date: 2024-02-23, from: NASA breaking news
NASA and Intuitive Machines will host a televised news conference at 5 p.m. EST Friday, Feb. 23, to detail the Odysseus lander’s historic soft Moon landing. With the last-minute assistance of a NASA precision landing technology, the first CLPS, or Commercial Lunar Payload Services, mission carrying the agency’s science and technology demonstrations successfully landed on […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-intuitive-machines-to-discuss-historic-moon-mission-today/ Save to Pocket
When cost of living is a major voting bloc’s biggest concern
date: 2024-02-23, from: Marketplace Morning Report
A new AARP survey of women age 50 and up is out. They’re a large demographic — 62 million, according to AARP — and are more likely to vote than other cohorts. They’re also a swing voting bloc, and rising costs are dragging down their personal economies. We’ll also learn about new tribal gaming compacts aimed at protecting tribes’ interests and hear why one economist is watching productivity gains.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/when-cost-of-living-is-a-major-voting-blocs-biggest-concern Save to Pocket
BYD launches new Dolphin EV starting under $14K as price war with ICE cars heats up
date: 2024-02-23, from: Electrek Feed
BYD launched the new Dolphin Honor Edition with more performance, an improved design, and an even lower price tag. The new BYD Dolphin EV starts at $13,900 (99,800 yuan), fueling the automaker’s declared price war on ICE cars.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/23/byd-launches-new-dolphin-ev-14k-price-war/ Save to Pocket
The Ukraine War Blew Up the World’s Energy Economy
date: 2024-02-23, from: Heatmap News
It’s an open secret in U.S. climate policy circles that the Inflation Reduction Act got its name for purely political reasons. It’s a climate bill, after all. Calling it “Inflation Reduction Act” was just the marketing term to help sell it to a skeptical public more worried about rising prices than temperatures in August 2022.
Temperatures have only risen since, while inflation is down, and the Inflation Reduction Act had nothing to do with either. But to see why the name was more than appropriate only takes going back a further six months.
On February 24, 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In many ways, the step shouldn’t have come as a surprise. The invasion followed months of saber-rattling. It wasn’t even Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine — that happened ten years earlier, with Russia’s forceful annexation of Crimea. But Russia’s bombs raining down on Ukraine still came as a shock. February 24 was a Thursday. By Sunday morning, Germany had changed 75 years of pacifist defense strategy. Another result of the invasion: fossil energy price spikes.
Now, two years later, it has become clear that the shock of the war has changed the trajectory of global energy and climate in ways that we are only beginning to appreciate. It is also precisely where the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act enters the picture, and why history will judge the law — and its name — kindly. Let me explain.
Gas prices in Europe had already been high all winter before Russia’s invasion, in part in response to Putin’s posturing. After the invasion, they spiked. The peak happened in August 2022, in anticipation of the Russian war lasting through the coming winter and worries about the war dragging on. Drag on, of course, it did. Two years in, there’s no end to the fighting in sight. Gas prices, meanwhile, are down again to levels not seen since well before the invasion.
One key reason: demand is down. Europe’s gas demand was down almost 18% in the first year after the invasion, compared to the year before. Not all of that is good news, for the climate or otherwise. One reason for decreased gas demand had been temporarily increased coal use. Another is a sputtering European economy.
The U.S. had been relatively insulated from these extreme fluctuations. But it, too, saw gas prices spike in August 2022. The spike, to be clear, was much lower than in Europe. Gas, unlike oil, is a regional market. But the economic upshot was similar everywhere: massive inflation driven by volatility in fossil fuel prices, or “fossilflation” for short.
All of us, the global economy, and the fortunes of political leaders everywhere are at the mercy of geopolitical vagaries. Putin blows a fuse and invades Ukraine, and your gas bills spike – both types of “gas” bills, by the way: gasoline to get to work, and methane gas to heat your home. Electricity bills typically are not far behind, with gas-powered plants that can be called upon at a moment’s notice providing a necessary margin of safety during moments of peak demand. That means that they — or, by extension, Putin, in this case — set the price.
Don’t take my word for it. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics unpacks the underlying drivers of inflation into three main categories: food, fuel, and everything else. Throughout the most recent U.S. spike in inflation in 2022, the energy category alone was responsible for around half of total inflation. And that’s just counting the direct effects. Indirectly, a good portion of the food price increases ever since are also due to higher energy costs. If the farmer pays more to harvest the crop, soon those commodity prices increase as well. Of course, it isn’t all fossil fuels. Putin’s invasion, for example, also impacted corn production in the Ukraine directly, by destroying crop land, preventing a timely harvest, and cutting off export routes.
There are two other climate-related factors that drive inflation — call them “climateflation” and “greenflation,” to use German economist Isabel Schnabel’s terms. Schnabel — a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, the body that sets interest rates for the 340 million people in the Eurozone — introduced all three -flationary terms in a March 2022 speech warning of “a new age of energy inflation.”
Climateflation is just what it sounds like: inflation because of unmitigated climate change. When an extreme weather event wipes out a country’s harvest of a particular crop, prices spike. One year it’s avocados, the next sugar, and more significant food staples like corn, rice, and wheat are never far behind. The long-term prescription, much like with fossilflation: get off fossil fuels.
None of that will happen overnight. That, in a sense, makes the IRA a horrible political strategy with an eye toward the next election cycle. Want to cut inflation quickly? Make gas and gasoline cheaper with direct handouts. Hello, gas tax holidays!
The problem with that policy quick fix is that it’s just that: decidedly short-term thinking. Fossil energy use will go up as a result. In fact, several U.S. states and European countries have done just that in response to Putin’s invasion. As a result, the average price paid per ton of CO 2 has gone down in 2022, after a decade of steadily rising carbon prices the world over.
The IRA famously does not establish a carbon price either, and that’s A-OK. It does establish a $900-per-ton price for methane paid by oil and gas companies, but the law is decidedly more carrots than sticks. That contrasts U.S. climate policy with what has been the primary focus of the EU, with its emissions trading system and national carbon taxes. It also addresses a more subtle type of climate-related inflation: greenflation, upward pressure on prices because of the rush to get off fossil fuels.
The good news on that front: It seems to be true that there’s plenty of the kinds of precious metals and rare earth minerals we need to power the low-carbon transition to go around. Polysilicon prices spiked for a bit, before new supply came online, and solar panel prices never budged from their decades-long, precipitous decline. Lithium, nickel, and other minerals used in batteries and other low-carbon technologies similarly rose for a bit before they, too, declined precipitously.
The post-fossil fuel transition will still take plenty of active management and proactive policy. That is where the U.S. IRA shines, and where the EU, despite its head start and overall ambitious climate policy, is playing catchup.
In May 2022, the European Union passed REPowerEU, a broad set of measures to cut off Russian gas within five years. By September of that year, the EU had cut Russian gas as a percentage of total gas piped in from abroad to under 10%, down from over 40% a year prior. Germany built three LNG import terminals in record time, and lots of other measures showed almost immediate effect.
Overall, the EU is now racing to catch up with the U.S. in the global climate race with its own set of ambitious supply-side measures in form of a broad Green Deal Industrial Plan. We should all applaud that transatlantic climate policy competition and embrace the newly rekindled green growth mindset. Done right, the planet will emerge as a winner, and so will our economies.
The IRA has not and will not cut inflation overnight. But that fight is indeed a big part of the bill’s legacy: Play the long game of tackling all three types of climate-related inflation — fossilflation, climateflation, and greenflation — at their very core, and indeed justify the law’s name.
https://heatmap.news/economy/ukraine-war-global-energy Save to Pocket
What Happens to Your Sensitive Data When a Data Broker Goes Bankrupt?
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Markup blog
Data on sensitive locations, such as abortion clinics, could be sold off, raising alarms
https://themarkup.org/privacy/2024/02/23/what-happens-to-your-sensitive-data-when-a-data-broker-goes-bankrupt Save to Pocket
curl HTTP/3 security audit
date: 2024-02-23, from: Daniel Stenberg Blog
An external security audit focused especially on curl’s HTTP/3 components and associated source code was recently concluded by Trail of Bits. In particular on the HTTP/3 related curl code that uses and interfaces the ngtcp2 and nghttp3 libraries, as that is so far the only HTTP/3 backend in curl that is not labeled as experimental. … Continue reading curl HTTP/3 security audit
https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2024/02/23/curl-http-3-security-audit/ Save to Pocket
Bill Miranda | Santa Clarita Unveils One Story One City Selection
date: 2024-02-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
One of my favorite passions is traveling, especially to exotic countries to explore different cultures and lifestyles – and if I can’t travel, I love to escape within the pages of a book
https://scvnews.com/bill-miranda-santa-clarita-unveils-one-story-one-city-selection/ Save to Pocket
Pluralistic: Dinkclump Linkdump; The Bezzle excerpt (Part VI) (23 Feb 2024)
date: 2024-02-23, from: Cory Doctorow’s blog
Today’s links Dinkclump Linkdump: A rare, out-of-cycle linkdump. The Bezzle excerpt (Part VI): The thrilling conclusion! This day in history: 2009, 2014, 2019 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Dinkclump Linkdump (permalink) Some Saturday mornings, I look at the week’s blogging and realize I have a lot more links saved up than I managed to write about this week, and then I do a linkdump. There’ve been 14 of these, and this is number 15: https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/ Attentive readers will note that this isn’t Saturday. You’re right. But I’m on a book tour and every day is shatterday, because damn, it’s grueling and I’m not the spry manchild who took Little Brother on the road in 2008 – I’m a 52 year old with two artificial hips. Hence: an out-of-cycle linkdump. Come see me on tour and marvel at my verticality! https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/16/narrative-capitalism/#bezzle-tour Best thing I read this week, hands down, was Ryan Broderick’s Garbage Day piece, “AI search is a doomsday cult”: https://www.garbageday.email/p/ai-search-doomsday-cult Broderick makes so many excellent points in this piece. First among them: AI search sucks, but that’s OK, because no one is asking for AI search. This only got more true later in the week when everyone’s favorite spicy autocomplete accidentally loaded the James Joyce module: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/02/chatgpt-alarms-users-by-spitting-out-shakespearean-nonsense-and-rambling/ (As Matt Webb noted, Chatbots have slid rapidly from Star Trek (computers give you useful information in a timely fashion) to Douglas Adams (computers spout hostile, impenetrable nonsense at you): https://interconnected.org/home/2024/02/21/adams But beyond the unsuitability of AI for search results and beyond the public’s yawning indifference to AI-infused search, Broderick makes a more important point: AI search is about summarizing web results so you don’t have to click links and read the pages yourself. If that’s the future of the web, who the fuck is going to write those pages that the summarizer summarizes? What is the incentive, the business-model, the rational explanation for predicting a world in which millions of us go on writing web-pages, when the gatekeepers to the web have promised to rig the game so that no one will ever visit those pages, or read what we’ve written there, or even know it was us who wrote the underlying material the summarizer just summarized? If we stop writing the web, AIs will have to summarize each other, forming an inhuman centipede of botshit-ingestion. This is bad news, because there’s pretty solid mathematical evidence that training a bot on botshit makes it absolutely useless. Or, as the authors of the paper – including the eminent cryptographer Ross Anderson – put it, “using model-generated content in training causes irreversible defects”: https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.17493 This is the mathematical evidence for Jathan Sadowski’s “Hapsburg AI,” or, as the mathematicians call it, “The Curse of Recursion” (new band-name just dropped). But if you really have your heart set on living in a ruined dystopia dominated by hostile artificial life-forms, have no fear. As Hamilton Nolan writes in “Radical Capital,” a rogues gallery of worker-maiming corporations have asked a court to rule that the NLRB can’t punish them for violating labor law: https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/radical-capital Trader Joe’s, Amazon, Starbucks and SpaceX have all made this argument to various courts. If they prevail, then there will be no one in charge of enforcing federal labor law. Yes, this will let these companies go on ruining their workers’ lives, but more importantly, it will give carte blanche to every other employer in the land. At one end of this process is a boss who doesn’t want to recognize a union – and at the other end are farmers dying of heat-stroke. The right wing coalition that has put this demand before the court has all sorts of demands, from forced birth to (I kid you not), the end of recreational sex: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/02/getting-rid-of-birth-control-is-a-key-gop-agenda-item-for-the-second-trump-term That coalition is backed by ultra-rich monopolists who want wreck the nation that their rank-and-file useful idiots want to wreck your body. These are the monopoly cheerleaders who gave us the abomination that is the Pharmacy Benefit Manager – a useless intermediary that gets to screw patients and pharmacists – and then let PBMs consolidate and merge with pharmacy monopolists. One such inbred colossus is Change Healthcare, a giant PBM that is, in turn, a mere tendril of United Healthcare, which merged the company with Optum. The resulting system – held together with spit and wishful thinking – has access to the health records of a third of Americans and processes 15 billion prescriptions per day. Or rather, it did process that amount – until the all-your-eggs-in-one-badly-maintained basket strategy failed on Wednesday, and Change’s systems went down due to an unspecified “cybersecurity incident.” In the short term, this meant that tens of millions of Americans who tried to refill their prescriptions were told to either pay cash or come back later (if you don’t die first). That was the first shoe dropping. The second shoe is the medical records of a third of the country. Don’t worry, I’m sure those records are fine. After all, nothing says security like “merging several disparate legacy IT systems together while simultaneously laying off half your IT staff as surplus to requirements and an impediment to extracting a special dividend for the private equity owners who are, of course, widely recognized as the world’s greatest information security practitioners.” Look, not everything is terrible. Some computers are actually getting better. Framework’s user-serviceable, super-rugged, easy-to-repair, powerful laptops are the most exciting computers I’ve ever owned – or broken: https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/13/graceful-failure/#frame Now you can get one for $500! https://frame.work/blog/first-framework-laptop-16-shipments-and-a-499-framework And the next generation is turning our surprisingly well, despite all our worst efforts. My kid – now 16! – and I just launched our latest joint project, “The Sushi Chronicles,” a small website recording our idiosyncratic scores for nearly every sushi restaurant in Burbank, Glendale, Studio City and North Hollywood: https://sushichronicles.org/ This is the record of two years’ worth of Daughter-Daddy sushi nights that started as a way to get my picky eater to try new things and has turned into the highlight of my week. If you’re in the area and looking for a nice piece of fish, give it a spin (also, we belatedly realized that we’ve never reviewed our favorite place, Kuru Kuru in the CVS Plaza on North Hollywood Way – we’ll be rectifying that soon). And yes, we have a lavishly corrupt Supreme Court, but at least now everyone knows it. Glenn Haumann’s even set up a Gofundme to raise money to bribe Clarence Thomas (now deleted, alas): https://www.gofundme.com/f/pzhj4q-the-clarence-thomas-signing-bonus-fund-give-now The funds are intended as a “signing bonus” in the event that Thomas takes up John Oliver on his offer of a $2.4m luxury RV and $1m/year for life if he’ll resign from the court: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE-VJrdHMug This is truly one of Oliver’s greatest bits, showcasing his mastery over the increasingly vital art of turning abstruse technical issues into entertainment that negates the performative complexity used by today’s greatest villains to hide their misdeeds behind a Shield of Boringness (h/t Dana Clare). The Bezzle is my contribution to turning abstruse scams into a high-impact technothriller that pierces that Shield of Boringness. The key to this is to master exposition, ignoring the (vastly overrated) rule that one must “show, not tell.” Good exposition is hard to do, but when it works, it’s amazing (as anyone who’s read Neal Stephenson’s 1,600-word explanation of how to eat Cap’n Crunch cereal in Cryptonomicon can attest). I wrote about this for Mary Robinette Kowal’s “My Favorite Bit” this week: https://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/my-favorite-bit/my-favorite-bit-cory-doctorow-talks-about-the-bezzle/ Of course, an undisputed master of this form is Adam Conover, whose Adam Ruins Everything show helped invent it. Adam is joining me on stage in LA tomorrow night at Vroman’s at 5:30PM, to host me in a book-tour event for my novel The Bezzle: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Cory-Doctorow-discusses-The-Bezzle (Image: Peter Craven, CC BY 2.0) The Bezzle excerpt (Part VI) (permalink) It’s launch-week for my new novel The Bezzle, a high-tech, revenge-soaked crime thriller in which my intrepid forensic accountant Martin Hench must pit his wits against unbelievably evil (and sadly true-to-life) prison-tech grifters: https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/14/minnesota-nice/#shitty-technology-adoption-curve As part of the launch, I’m serializing part of Chapter 14, a side-plot about music royalty theft and the (again, sadly true-to-life) corruption of the LA Sheriffs Deputies, who are organized into criminal gangs that murder, run drugs and intimidate with impunity: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/deputy-gangs-cancer-los-angeles-county-sheriffs-department-scathing-re-rcna73367 Today marks the sixth and final installment of the serial, but you can hear me read more of the book. Just show up at one of the stops on my book tour! Tomorrow (Feb 24) in LA, I’m appearing on Saturday evening with AdamC onover at Vroman’s: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Cory-Doctorow-discusses-The-Bezzle< And then on Monday I’ll be in Seattle at Third Place Books with Neal Stephenson: https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/event/cory-doctorow From there, I’m off to Portland, Phoenix, Tucson and points further: https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/16/narrative-capitalism/#bezzle-tour Here’s part one of the serial: https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/17/the-steve-soul-caper/#lead-singer-disease Part two: https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/19/crad-kilodney-was-an-outlier/#copyright-termination Part three: https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/20/fore/#lawyer-up Part four: https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#poacher-turned-keeper Part five: https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/22/self-censorship/#acab And now, the thrilling conclusion! * * * Benedetto was outraged by my face and swore he’d sue the Sheriff’s Department on my behalf. He got even angrier when I got stopped again, the following week, as I was leaving my concussion checkup at the Kaiser hospital on Sunset by a sheriff’s deputy who had me pull over in front of the big Scientology building. This deputy was a little bantam rooster of a fellow, with a shiny bald head and mirror shades and no neck. He strutted up to my car, got me out of it, ran my ID, and frisked me. “Do you know why I pulled you over, sir?” he said. He had that cop knack for making “sir” sound like “motherfucker.” “No, sir,” I said, trying it out myself. He didn’t like that and leaned in close enough for me to smell his aftershave and the scented sunscreen on his bare scalp. “I stopped you, sir, because you were using your phone while driving.” I must have looked surprised. “I personally saw you tapping at your phone screen. That is a misdemeanor, sir. Reckless driving.” He stopped as if waiting for me to respond. I made myself go mild. “Sir, I did not use my phone.” He was waiting for that. He narrowed his eyes and leaned in closer. “Are you telling me I didn’t see what I saw?” Mild, Marty, mild. “I don’t know what you saw, sir, but I didn’t use my phone.” He rocked back and tilted his head. Patients went by with crutches and walkers. Nurses and doctors passed in scrubs. Scientologists scurried in and out of their gigantic temple. A fruit cart man labored past us. “Well, sir, this should be simple enough to resolve.” He reached for his belt and pulled out a generic ruggedized cop-rectangle of gear, and unspooled a multiheaded cable from its side. He leaned into the rental and retrieved my phone, and squinted at its I/O port, then attached the cable to my phone. The rugged rectangle beeped. “I’m gathering forensics on your mobile device, sir,” he said. I’d figured that out already. My phone—like yours and everyone else’s—was a trove of my most intimate information, a record of all the places I’d been and people I’d spoken to and all the things I’d said to them. It was full of photos and passwords and client files and voice memos. It was more information than any judge would have granted a warrant for on a reckless-driving rap. The little man smirked as he held my phone and his gadget. I stayed mild as milk. I was running full-device encryption. I’m no computer security expert, but I spend a lot of time around them, and they’d been insistent on this point, and had made reference to this very scenario in describing why I would bother to dig around my phone’s settings to turn this on. God, my face hurt. I didn’t know how long the gadget was supposed to take, but from the cop’s increasing impatience, I could tell it was going long. Beep. The cop shaded the gadget’s little screen from the punishing LA sun with one hand and peered at it. “Sir, I need you to unlock this device, please.” My face hurt. Be mild, Marty. “I invoke my right to counsel,” I said. He pursed his lips. “Sir, if you would please enter your unlock code, we can verify whether your device is in use and we can both be on our way.” “I invoke my right to remain silent.” I said it straight into his bodycam. He sighed and looked irritated. I had known Benedetto for so long that I had once had to dial his number from a landline. I’d long ago memorized his office’s number, 1–800-LAWER4U. He’d bought it early, back before 800 numbers got expensive, and he’d had plenty of offers for it. He’d kept it. This day in history (permalink) #15yrsago Tonga Room, San Francisco’s magnificent tiki bar: doomed? https://laughingsquid.com/will-the-tonga-room-be-a-casualty-of-the-fairmont-condo-plans/ #15yrsago New Zealand’s terrible copyright law suspended, may be dead https://web.archive.org/web/20090317045724/http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/86D681292534A2CCCC25756600143FD1 #10yrsago Ukrainian president Yanukovuych flees Kiev as opposition seize the palace https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/22/ukraine-crisis-uncertainty-after-yanukovych-signs-deal-live-updates #10yrsago Cossacks horsewhip Pussy Riot at Sochi https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26265230 #10yrsago Pussy Riot use footage of cossack horsewhipping in new music video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjI0KYl9gWs #10yrsago Austin cops violently crack down on scourge of anonymous jaywalking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6ugqW7fFmk #5yrsago Whatsapp abused the DMCA to censor related projects from Github https://memex.craphound.com/2014/02/22/whatsapp-abused-the-dmca-to-censor-related-projects-from-github/ #5yrsago Blockbuster Gizmodo investigation reveals probable masterminds of the massive anti-Net Neutrality identity theft/astroturf campaign https://gizmodo.com/how-an-investigation-of-fake-fcc-comments-snared-a-prom-1832788658 #5yrsago This is bad: the UAE’s favorite sleazeball cybermercenaries have applied for permission to break Mozilla’s web encryption https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/02/cyber-mercenary-groups-shouldnt-be-trusted-your-browser-or-anywhere-else #5yrsago Google ends forced arbitration contracts for workers after googler uprising https://www.wired.com/story/google-ends-forced-arbitration-after-employee-protest/ Colophon (permalink) Today’s top sources: Benjamin Jolley, Glenn Haumann. Currently writing: A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025 The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024 Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Latest podcast: How I Got Scammed (https://craphound.com/news/2024/02/18/how-i-got-scammed/) Upcoming appearances: The Bezzle at Vroman’s (Pasadena), Feb 24 https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Cory-Doctorow-discusses-The-Bezzle The Bezzle at Third Place Books (Seattle), Feb 26 https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/event/cory-doctorow The Bezzle at Powell’s (Portland) Feb 27: https://www.powells.com/book/the-bezzle-martin-hench-2-9781250865878/1-2 The Bezzle at Changing Hands (Phoenix), Feb 29: https://www.changinghands.com/event/february2024/cory-doctorow Tucson Festival of Books, Mar 9/10 https://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/?id=676 Enshittification: How the Internet Went Bad and How to Get it Back (virtual), Mar 26 https://libcal.library.ubc.ca/event/3781006 Wondercon Anaheim, Mar 29-31 https://www.comic-con.org/wc/ The Bezzle at Anderson’s Books (Chicago), Apr 17 https://www.andersonsbookshop.com/event/cory-doctorow-1 Torino Biennale Tecnologia (Apr 19-21) https://www.turismotorino.org/en/experiences/events/biennale-tecnologia Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (Winnipeg), May 2 https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cory-doctorow-tickets-798820071337?aff=oddtdtcreator Tartu Prima Vista Literary Festival (May 5-11) https://tartu2024.ee/en/kirjandusfestival/ Media Ecology Association keynote (Amherst, NY), Jun 6-9 https://media-ecology.org/convention American Association of Law Libraries keynote (Chicago), Jul 21 https://www.aallnet.org/conference/agenda/keynote-speaker/ Recent appearances: Radioactive (KCRL) https://krcl.org/blog/grist-investigates-doctorow-seed/ The enshittification of music (Music Ally) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh20fD3XXbg Aaron Swartz (EpistemiCast) https://open.spotify.com/episode/5t9QVHSQBjIXKUiN2EvEmK Latest books: The Bezzle: a sequel to “Red Team Blues,” about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/). “The Lost Cause:” a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/) “The Internet Con”: A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). “Red Team Blues”: “A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before.” Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/. “Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin”, on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com “Attack Surface”: The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it “a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance.” Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html “How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism”: an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html) “Little Brother/Homeland”: A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html “Poesy the Monster Slayer” a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/. Upcoming books: Picks and Shovels: a sequel to “Red Team Blues,” about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025 Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025 This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://twitter.com/doctorow Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic “When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla” -Joey “Accordion Guy” DeVilla
https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/23/gazeteer/ Save to Pocket
New Law Requires SNAP Recipients To Balance Food On Nose Until Receiving…
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/0044040-new-law-requires-snap-rec Save to Pocket
Lender threatens to sweep MariaDB accounts over private equity bid
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Publicity around offer breaches loan agreement, or so SEC filing alleges
MariaDB has been warned by a bank lender that it may “sweep” its accounts in retaliation for the publication of a private equity bid for the troubled database company.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/lender_threatens_to_sweep_mariadb/ Save to Pocket
Across LA, College Papers Offer Student Reporters a Connection to Campus, Community
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
washington — For years, Marc Anthony Martinez worked delivery jobs in Los Angeles and across the U.S.
One of his regular stops: the University of Southern California village. Martinez, 33, says he would drop off food deliveries and wonder what it would be like to go to school there.
“After a while I was like, ‘You know what? I write pretty good, I love traveling, why don’t I try to go into journalism and try to become a sports journalist?’” he said.
So in April 2022, Martinez enrolled in the journalism program at East Los Angeles College.
Nearly two years on, Martinez is editor in chief for the community college newspaper, Campus News.
Founded in 1945, Campus News has won several awards, including from the Journalism Association of Community Colleges SoCal conference.
But before students can publish work in Campus News, they must take the college’s Journalism 101 class.
Jean Stapleton, chairperson of the college journalism department and adviser for Campus News, provides that training.
First comes a writing test, then classes on subjects such as how to write news articles and on media ethics.
The emphasis, Martinez said, is on the responsibilities reporters will have in their careers.
Entering his second semester at the newspaper, Martinez said that the newspaper’s flexibility allows him to do his “own thing,” whether that is drafting sports stories or exploring photojournalism.
A self-proclaimed introvert, Martinez says joining the newspaper also provided opportunities to push himself outside of his comfort zone.
“That’s what I tell the other journalists, ‘Look I know its nerve wracking but it’s also part of the thrill of journalism.’ You’re pushing yourself and expanding your limits on how far you can go,” he said.
Journalism 101
In downtown Los Angeles, the Los Angeles City College newspaper team takes a similar approach.
Sorina Szakacs, who is active with LACC’s The Collegian, says the newspaper offers classes to improve students’ reporting skills.
Szakacs, who is now studying at Columbia University in New York, graduated from LACC in 2019.
She still contributes to The Collegian as a reporter and editor, and sometimes audits the college’s journalism classes.
The classes, she said, are demanding but help students know if they are interested in pursuing a career in journalism.
“Once you’re working in the newspaper, you know what is expected of you. By the time you finish, you know if journalism is the career for you or not,” Szakacs said.
Students don’t just work on reporting and editing. They also help with distribution, loading trucks with print copies that are delivered to homes and businesses.
Szakacs recalls being on a distribution run and seeing people emerge from their houses as soon as copies are dropped off.
Residents also will often write emails and letters or call with tips and questions, which she says shows an interest in the newspaper as a part of the community.
“There is a need for it. People are waiting for it,” she said. “That’s why we write — for them.”
While The Collegian is part of the largest community college district in the nation and covers a more extensive area, Campus News focuses on more specific issues surrounding student issues and life on campus.
Martinez says he is interested in features about people on campus who might otherwise be overlooked.
“We got to find people that we don’t necessarily know that are on our campus,” he said.
He recalls approaching a student after seeing their drawings and asking if they would be open to an interview.
More recently, a student pitched a story on a group that sets up and breaks down equipment for sports games.
“That’s what makes our paper good. It shows recognition to those that need it and deserve it,” Martinez said.
He finds that features display an appreciation toward community members and help increase the visibility of Campus News. After a student or teacher is featured in the paper, they often ask for copies of the newspaper, he said.
“They’ll take a couple of copies for themselves and give it to their families, and they’ll have it. That’s what keeps our paper going,” he said.
But the student reporters sometimes run into challenges.
In May, the music department at LACC prohibited a photojournalist from covering an event for the outgoing president, telling them it was a private event.
Music department officials later said there had been a “miscommunication.”
Later that month, the sheriff’s deputies who do campus security confronted another student who was taking photos in common areas around the music building.
Coverage of the incidents reached the Los Angeles Times and the Student Press Law Center. Students also reported on it in The Collegian.
Next generation
Both community colleges offer a strong foundation in media skills, but the students are wary of the job market.
So far this year, the newspaper industry has seen a massive layoff at the Los Angeles Times in January and at other U.S. newsrooms.
Martinez and Szakacs say that because many community college students transfer to four-year universities, those who are committed to a career in journalism will find ways to adapt.
For Szakacs, the situation made her hesitant to return to Los Angeles.
Martinez says he isn’t as concerned for sports journalism or photojournalism, but that his plans may change.
Szakacs said that as times change, so, too, should the industry.
Embracing technological advancements may help provide solutions for journalism, she said.
Student journalists can be a part of that, she said. They can help fill the gap of stories that major newspapers lack resources or interest in reporting on.
“It’s not easy,” Szakacs said. “It’s never going to be easy, but that’s what it means to be a journalist.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/across-la-college-papers-offer-student-reporters-a-connection-to-campus-community-/7498866.html Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-23, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Who is Robert Hur, special counsel in Biden documents case?
https://apnews.com/article/who-is-robert-hur-special-counsel-biden-d715ffd26adc75f2ba740d1960936a09 Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-23, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Special counsel describes Biden as ‘elderly man with a poor memory’ in eyebrow-raising report.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4456879-special-counsel-describes-biden-as-elderly-man-with-a-poor-memory-in-eye-raising-report/ Save to Pocket
Never-Repeating Tiles Can Safeguard Quantum Information
date: 2024-02-23, from: Quanta Magazine
Two researchers have proved that Penrose tilings, famous patterns that never repeat, are mathematically equivalent to a kind of quantum error correction.The post Never-Repeating Tiles Can Safeguard Quantum Information first appeared on Quanta Magazine
https://www.quantamagazine.org/never-repeating-tiles-can-safeguard-quantum-information-20240223/ Save to Pocket
Tesla Cybertruck turns into a tank with massive snow tracks
date: 2024-02-23, from: Electrek Feed
Tesla Cybertruck is often described as a tank, but it now literally comes a lot closer to one with these massive snow tracks.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/23/tesla-cybertruck-turns-into-tank-massive-snow-tracks/ Save to Pocket
Elon Musk Says Rivian Execs ‘Need To Live In The Factory Or They Will Die’
date: 2024-02-23, from: Inside EVs News
Plus, Lucid’s “Saudi sugar daddy is the only thing keeping them alive,” according to Tesla’s CEO.
https://insideevs.com/news/709784/elon-musk-rivian-execs-live-factory-lucid-saudi-sugar-daddy/ Save to Pocket
Our Third FOIA Forum! 3/6, 2PM EST
date: 2024-02-23, from: 404 Media Group
We are hosting our third FOIA Forum at the start of March. Join the livestream, file FOIAs with us, get tips, and more.
https://www.404media.co/our-third-foia-forum-3-6-2pm-est/ Save to Pocket
INEOS Automotive unveils its first 4×4 EV, but also uses the moment to romanticize gas cars
date: 2024-02-23, from: Electrek Feed
During a livestream held from the Grenadier Pub in London today, young UK Automaker INEOS publicly unveiled its third model and first EV – the Fusilier. As a smaller version of its Grenadier sibling, the Fusilier will arrive with BEV and range extender options. Despite being all-electric, the Fusilier’s makers couldn’t stop talking about the potential of every other option besides electric.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/23/ineos-automotive-unveils-its-first-4x4-ev-but-also-uses-the-moment-to-romanticize-gas-cars/ Save to Pocket
The new Apple Sports app for iPhone is pretty good but isn’t…
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/0044035-the-new-apple-sports-app Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-02-23, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
The
other day I
asked if an
op-ed columnist at the NYT or WP would ever criticize their employer for
showing poor judgment on what to report on, esp re the election. I was
thinking of the
story
about the special
prosecutor who did something highly unethical in writing a public,
official, condemnation of someone he investigated yet decided not to
prosecute. We have judges and juries for that. Only in a police state
can a prosecutor pass judgment on an accused person. The news orgs took
the bait, I didn’t read one report on who
Robert K.
Hur is, and the ethics of what he did. Is it appropriate to quote a
person who was behaving so openly unethically, esp if you don’t disclaim
that up front. It’s not that democracy is on the ballot this year, we’re
already over the line. Our journalism is acting as if it were already
controlled by the authoritarians. Our lack of trust in journalism is our
biggest problem. How can we force journalism to start to be a
little accountable. Right now they’re the only part of our ruling
class that can’t have their choices reviewed.
http://scripting.com/2024/02/23.html#a142425 Save to Pocket
The Salt Lake Tribune’s Opinion On UTV Use Would Restrict Everyone’s Access
date: 2024-02-23, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
And it’s filled with factual inaccuracies.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/709763/salt-lake-tribune-atv-utv-opinion-land-access-trail-closure/ Save to Pocket
Old enough to know besteer
date: 2024-02-23, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News
I came up with a motto for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign – Old Enough to Know Better.
I asked ChatGPT to draw a campaign rally with a banner that said that, but it wouldn’t do it for Joe Biden, so I changed the name to Bull Mancuso, and had him run for governor of Calif instead of president of the US.
It still couldn’t spell the banner correctly but it is pretty inspiring.
http://scripting.com/2024/02/23/140239.html?title=oldEnoughToKnowBesteer Save to Pocket
ACT garners donations, recognition
date: 2024-02-23, from: Guam Daily Post
Autism Community Together, or ACT, is a nonprofit support group for individuals with autism and their families. With ACT now in its 20th year of operation, members of the Guam government and business communities have offered donations and thanks to…
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/act-garners-donations-recognition/article_6e5209de-d20d-11ee-8b10-87c8ab46dd1a.html Save to Pocket
Spring 2024 Pathways Vacancies
date: 2024-02-23, from: NASA breaking news
Our next application cycle will open on February 26, 2024 for Fall 2024 opportunities. All Pathways internship vacancy announcements are posted on USAJOBS. Below are the available pathways at each NASA center. To apply for a suitable opportunity, first identify the category of work you’re interested in, and ensure you have a qualifying major (check whether it […]
https://www.nasa.gov/general/spring-2024-pathways-vacancies/ Save to Pocket
Google co-founder Brin named a defendant in wrongful death complaint
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Lawsuit accuses contractor and co-defendants of ‘pacify and delay’ tactics
Sergey Brin and two of his businesses – Google and Bayshore Global Management – are named in a lawsuit seeking damages over the death of a pilot who attempted to ferry one of Brin’s airplanes from California to his private island in Fiji.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/sergey_brin_wrongful_death_lawsuit/ Save to Pocket
Artists Reflect on Black Experience in America
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
It’s Black History Month in the United States. In Los Angeles, there is an exhibit of black artists sharing their experiences growing up in America. Genia Dulot takes us there.
https://www.voanews.com/a/artists-reflect-on-black-experience-in-america/7499591.html Save to Pocket
Bethann Hardison on breaking barriers in fashion
date: 2024-02-23, from: Marketplace Morning Report
For our Econ Extra Credit series this month, we’re watching “Invisible Beauty,” an autobiographical film exploring the life and work of model and activist Bethann Hardison. Today, “Marketplace Morning Report” host David Brancaccio is in conversation with Hardison to discuss a major cultural moment — walking for designer Chester Weinberg in the ’70s — and how she helped inspire a shift in the world of modeling and fashion. But first, Reddit goes for the IPO.
Sign up for our Econ Extra Credit newsletter now.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/bethann-hardison-on-breaking-barriers-in-fashion Save to Pocket
Here’s Your First Look At The NACS Adapter Ford EV Owners Will Get For Free
date: 2024-02-23, from: Inside EVs News
It’s surprisingly similar to Tesla’s so-called Magic Dock adapter.
https://insideevs.com/news/709846/ford-nacs-adapter-first-look/ Save to Pocket
Wheel-E Podcast: E-bike licenses, electric bike insurance, more
date: 2024-02-23, from: Electrek Feed
This week on Electrek’s Wheel-E podcast, we discuss the most popular news stories from the world of electric bikes and other nontraditional electric vehicles. This time, that includes the prospect of electric bike licenses in California and e-bike insurance in New Jersey, Dutch police doing roadside compliance checks, new e-bike from Tern, new battery from JackRabbit, battery-swapping for electric motorcycles from Africa, and more.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/23/wheel-e-podcast-e-bike-licenses-electric-bike-insurance-more/ Save to Pocket
Counting the Americans Displaced By Disaster
date: 2024-02-23, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Warm weather is causing cherry blossoms to bloom early in parts of Japan • Massive thunderstorms threatened to delay a Taylor Swift concert in Sydney • It’s going to be in the 50s and cloudy this weekend in Kherson, the first major city Russia captured after it launched its war on Ukraine two years ago.
THE TOP FIVE
- Natural disasters displaced 2.5 million Americans last year
Roughly 2.5 million people were displaced from their homes due to natural disasters in 2023, according to new Census Bureau data. That number is an imprecise estimate, but it represents “some of the best available numbers on displacement,” reported The New York Times. Tracking this kind of displacement in America can be hard, but it’s gotten slightly easier over the last two years after the Census Bureau added questions about disasters to its Household Pulse Survey in 2022. This year’s results show that Louisiana saw the highest share of disaster-related displacements, followed by Hawaii and Florida. Maine was also high on the list, likely due to extreme flooding. The data also suggested fraud runs rampant in the wake of natural disasters, with more than half of those displaced saying they had encountered a potential scam offer afterward. Last year America saw 28 weather and climate disasters, each costing at least $1 billion
- Vineyard Wind has 5 turbines up and running
Vineyard Wind 1, the first large-scale offshore wind farm in the U.S., came online at the beginning of January with one turbine sending about five megawatts of electricity to the New England grid. Now its owners say four more turbines are up and running off the Massachusetts coast, sending 68 megawatts of electricity to the grid, enough to power 30,000 homes. Nine turbines in total have been installed so far, and the 10th is in progress. Once completed, the project will consist of 62 turbines and be capable of powering 400,000 homes and businesses.
- Researchers: Planting trees won’t solve the climate crisis
New research published in the journal Science finds that we’re overestimating the cooling effect of forests by only focusing on carbon dioxide. While trees do absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, they also do other things, like absorb warmth and light that would have otherwise been reflected back into space. They can also emit compounds that, rather counterintuitively, can actually increase levels of some greenhouse gases. Taking all this into consideration, the researchers think the cooling effect of tree planting could be upto 30% lower than previous estimates. The findings are important as the world looks for ways to remove CO2 from the atmosphere to limit the worst effects of global warming. “Planting trees has an intuitive appeal,” the authors said, noting that many businesses tout their tree-planting efforts as a carbon offsetting gesture. “Trees can help fight climate change, but relying on them alone won’t be enough.”
- Coal’s slowdown is slowing down
The United States has been able to drive its greenhouse gas emissions to their lowest level since the early 1990s largely by reducing the amount of energy on the grid generated by coal to a vast extent. But the steady retirement of coal plants may be slowing down, reported Heatmap’s Matthew Zeitlin. Only 2.3 GW of coal generating capacity are set to be shut down so far in 2024, according to the Energy Information Administration. While in 2025, that number is expect to jump up to 10.9 GW, the combined 13.2 GW of retired capacity pales in comparison of the more than 22 GW retired in the past two years.
Get Heatmap AM directly in your inbox every morning:
- Atmospheric rivers transform Death Valley into lake
The back-to-back atmospheric rivers that have slammed the West Coast recently have helped transform the driest place in America into a temporary lake known as Lake Manly. Death Valley usually gets about 2 inches of rain over the course of an entire year, but has seen 5 inches just over the last six months, starting with Hurricane Hilary last August and exacerbated by recent torrents of rain. The six-mile-long, three-mile-wide Lake Manly has been attracting throngs of tourists, and even kayakers.
THE KICKER
“The Cybertruck’s sensibility belongs to the consequence-free world of gaming and graphical interfaces, its ballistic resistance a God Mode brought to life. It’s not militarism; it’s infantilism.” –The Wall Street Journal’s auto columnist Dan Neil reviews Tesla’s Cybertruck
https://heatmap.news/climate/displaced-data-natural-disasters Save to Pocket
Kubuntu Focus M2 Linux laptop now comes with a Core i9-14900HX processor and NVIDIA RTX 40 series graphics
date: 2024-02-23, from: Liliputing
The Kubuntu Focus M2 is a Linux laptop with an Intel Core i9 processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series discrete graphics, and a choice of 15.6 inch or 17.3 inch displays (both sizes feature screens with 2560 x 1440 pixel resolutions and refresh rates up to 240 Hz. When the Kubuntu Focus M2 Gen 5 launched last […]
The post Kubuntu Focus M2 Linux laptop now comes with a Core i9-14900HX processor and NVIDIA RTX 40 series graphics appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/kubuntu-focus-m2-linux-laptop-now-comes-with-a-core-i9-14900hx-processor-and-nvidia-rtx-40-series-graphics/ Save to Pocket
California Distributes Stockpile Of Abortion Pills Before They Expire
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The LAist
The state purchased 250,000 misoprostol pills last year for about $100,000.
https://laist.com/news/health/california-abortion-pill-stockpile Save to Pocket
All Our Favorite Places To Eat When CicLAvia Takes Over Melrose on Sunday
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The LAist
Pizza to go, sandwiches galore, and a birthday cake perfect for the Swiftie in your life.
https://laist.com/news/food/places-to-eat-ciclavia-melrose-sunday Save to Pocket
Best Thing I Ate This Week: Venezuelan Arepas
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The LAist
Food editor Gab Chabran shares a dish that filled him with delight in the past seven days.
https://laist.com/news/food/best-thing-i-ate-this-week-venezuelan-arepas Save to Pocket
Divers Recover Bell From Wreck of American Destroyer Sunk in World War I
date: 2024-02-23, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Sixty-four American sailors died when a German torpedo hit the USS “Jacob Jones” on December 6, 1917
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/divers-recover-bell-from-underwater-wreck-of-wwi-american-destroyer-180983827/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-23, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Biden impeachment effort on the brink of collapse, because it was 100% bullshit, it never should have been given any credence by journalism.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/23/biden-impeachment-collapse-00142689 Save to Pocket
A Farewell to ®s
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/02/23/a-farewell-to-s/ Save to Pocket
Microsoft adds more AI to Photos in Windows 10 and 11
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Windows 10 users would probably prefer longer support instead of prettier pics
Windows Insiders cannot get enough of AI if Microsoft is to be believed, with the company rolling out AI-infused Photo updates for Windows 10 and 11.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/microsoft_adds_more_ai_to_windows/ Save to Pocket
The Plop boot managers
date: 2024-02-23, from: OS News
I wrote different boot managers. Three boot managers are available as download. The Plop Boot Manager 5, PlopKexec and the new boot manager PBM6. The new boot manager is under development. ↫ Elmar Hanlhofer I had never heard of the three Plop boot managers, written by Elmar Hanlhofer, but they seem like quite the capable tools. First, Plop Boot Manager 5 is the most complete version, but it’s also quite outdated by now, with its last release stemming from 2013. That being said, it’s incredibly feature-packed, but since it lacks EUFI support, its use case seems more focused on legacy systems. PBM6, meanwhile, is the modern version with EUFI support, but it’s not complete and is under development, with regular releases. Finally, PlopKexec is exactly what the name implies – a boot manager that uses the Linux kernel. I’ve never encountered these before, but they seem quite interesting, and if it wasn’t for how much I do not like messing with bootloaders, I’d love to give these a go. Have any of you ever used it?
https://www.osnews.com/story/138640/the-plop-boot-managers/ Save to Pocket
IMF: Ukraine needs “timely support” from donors
date: 2024-02-23, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: As Ukraine prepares to mark two years since Russia’s invasion, the International Monetary Fund says the country’s economy is holding up — but funding from the U.S. and other international backers remains essential. In Ukraine, however, delays in international funding are weighing on confidence. Plus, could menopause be considered a disability? Then, a look at the link between trade deals and panda deals.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/imf-ukraine-needs-timely-support-from-donors Save to Pocket
Hubble Views an Active Star-Forming Galaxy
date: 2024-02-23, from: NASA breaking news
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features IC 3476, a dwarf galaxy that lies about 54 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices. While this image does not look very dramatic – we might say it looks almost serene – the actual physical events taking place in IC 3476 are highly energetic. In fact, the […]
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-views-an-active-star-forming-galaxy/ Save to Pocket
P&B: Herman Martinus
date: 2024-02-23, from: Manu - I write blog
This is the 26th edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Herman Martinus and his blog, herman.bearblog.dev
Herman is the creator of the super minimal blog platform bearblog.dev—it was included in my recent list of blog platforms—and he’s based in Cape Town like my long time friend Rob and they actually know each-other, something I didn’t know when I first contacted Herman to be part of the series. I love how small the web world can feel at times.
To follow this series subscribe to the newsletter. A new interview will land in your inbox every Friday. Not a fan of newsletters? No problem! You can read the interviews here on the blog or you can subscribe to the RSS feed.
Let's start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?
I’m Herman, a maker and game developer living in Cape Town, South Africa. I grew up and went to school in a small town outside of Johannesburg, then went to university at the University of Pretoria where I studied Computer Science with a focus on Multimedia. This led me down the path to become a game developer, and later a maker of neat things for the Internet.
My primary hobbies currently are writing on my blog (and maintaining the platform Bear Blog), building games for the Play.date, and riding motorcycles (I live in a very beautiful part of the world and this is, in my opinion, the best way to see the landscape).
What's the story behind your blog?
I’ve always been a writer. In high school I started writing short stories, all of which have been lost to the ether, thankfully. As a young adult I started writing the kinds of things that young people full of new knowledge and self discovery generally do. I started keeping a journal around this time, about which I’ve written a few times before.
Later on, as my experience in my field grew and I felt like I had more to share with the world, I started blogging on a semi-regular basis. During this time my blog went through many different iterations. I was on Wordpress, Proseful, wrote in plain HTML for a bit, then finally built my own platform as a way of procrastinating.
What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?
I generally write about what has been on my mind lately. My partner, Emma, listens to me blab on at length about things like traffic circles, building frustration into products, and the like. This is only for a few days, generally, but sometimes spans months. Then, after I’ve thoroughly interrogated the concept it finds its way to a rough outline in my notes app where I start sifting through the thoughts in a more structured way. This is usually turned into the first draft the next day (I like to let the outline marinate overnight), edited, and published.
I also keep a Trello board of writing ideas for when I’m feeling particularly uncreative.
Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?
I am highly affected by physical spaces and sound. For a decent period of my life while I was travelling I worked out of noisy coffee shops. I’m surprised I got any work done. Now when I’m travelling I shell out the extra cash for a quiet co-working space where I can think without being interrupted by the loud Australian tourists three tables over loudly talking about how wasted they got last night.
At home we have a “day room” which has big windows overlooking Table Mountain. This provides a lot of natural light and is my favourite place to work. There is, however, a primary school across the road, and when the kids come out for recess, chaos breaks loose as they fight for school-yard dominance. For those two half hour periods, I have a set of noise cancelling headphones.
A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?
I use Bear Blog as my blogging platform of choice. Not only do I use it, but I am also the creator of it. I was very unimpressed with the options available with their infinite customizability and bloat. All I needed was a quick and easy way to get my words up on the internet. I also wanted people to be able to read them without all the cruft that surrounds modern content. So I built Bear, and it’s now loved by tens of thousands of writers worldwide.
Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?
This is an interesting question, since I’ve been considering starting another blog that is more specific to no-nonsense information about climate and environment-related technology (think geoengineering, green energy generation, and the like). And the conclusion I came to is that I’d build it in the exact same way I have with my own blog: Running on Bear, writing in a semi-casual and personal tone on technical topics, injecting my own personality where possible.
Financial question since the web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost or does it generate some revenue? And what's your position on people monetising personal blogs?
Because I run the platform, my blog is, naturally, cost free. My blog is not meant to generate revenue and I do not intend for it to do so. However, because I regularly write about the development of the Bear Blog platform, and the trials and tribulations of building out the small web, sometimes people look at it and, maybe, start a blog. If I’m particularly lucky, they even upgrade. So while my blog is not monetised in the traditional sense, there is a small financial reward for posts that do exceedingly well.
Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?
I follow a handful of small- to medium-sized blogs, but the one I’m always the most excited to see in my RSS reader is coryzue.com
This is a blog by a maker in my city who writes about similar themes to me, but also muses existentially at times. His blog is a great read, and he would also make a good candidate for an interview.
Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?
Right now I’m just fascinated with the play.date and will be building games for the next few months. You can see a list of running projects on my blog’s project page.
This was the 26th edition of People and Blogs. Hope you enjoyed this interview with Herman. Make sure to follow his blog (RSS) and get in touch with him if you have any questions.
Awesome supporters
You can support this series on Ko-Fi and all supporters will be listed here as well as on the official site of the newsletter.
- Jamie Thingelstad (RSS)
- Piet Terheyden
- Raul Montala (RSS)
- Eleonora
- Carl Barenbrug (RSS)
- Steve Ledlow (RSS)
- Paolo Ruggeri
- Nicolas Magand (RSS)
- Rob Hope
- Chris Hannah (RSS)
- Pedro Corá (RSS)
- Jeremy Sarber (RSS)
- Colin Walker (RSS)
- Sixian Lim
- Matt Stein (RSS)
- Winnie Lim (RSS)
- Flamed (RSS)
- C Jackdaw
- Kevin Humdrum (RSS)
- Fabricio Teixeira (RSS)
- Rosalind Croad
- Frank Meeuwsen (RSS)
- Mike Walsh
- Jose Munoz (RSS)
- Markus Heurung
- Jeremy Bassetti (RSS)
- Juan Villela (RSS)
- Michael Warren (RSS)
- Chuck Grimmett (RSS)
- Robin Harford (RSS)
- Bryan Maniotakis (RSS)
- Barry Hess (RSS)
- Chris Jung (RSS)
- Khürt Williams (RSS)
- Ben Werdmuller (RSS)
- Ivan Moreale
- Cory Gibbons
- Luke Harris (RSS)
- İsmail Şevik (RSS)
- Lars-Christian Simonsen (RSS)
- Seth Werkheiser
- Cody Schultz
- Brad Barrish
- Nikita Galaiko
- Erik Blankvoort
- Jaga Santagostino
Want to support P&B?
If you like this series and want to help it grow, you can:
- support on Ko-Fi;
- post about it on your own blog and let your readers know about its existence;
- email me comments and feedback on the series;
- suggest a person to interview next. I’m especially interested in people and blogs outside the tech/web bubble.
https://manuelmoreale.com/@/page/UYEQKv38hYLvHczG Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-23, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
A view into how our supposedly trustworthy journalists deal with exposing their own corruption. They don’t.
https://presswatchers.org/2024/02/the-hunter-biden-story-has-done-a-total180-but-the-msm-is-in-denial/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-23, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The truth about trump is that while he might claim a huge net worth, it’s all mortgaged, many times, fraudulently, so the banks could repossess all of it, but haven’t for fear of having it all crash, and them getting pennies on the dollar.
https://twitter.com/davewiner/status/1760978034394275908 Save to Pocket
Are you ready to back up your AI chatbot’s promises? You’d better be
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Air Canada discovered the hard way that when your ML model makes a commitment, your biz will be on the hook for it
Opinion I keep hearing about businesses that want to fire their call center employees and front-line staffers as fast as possible and replace them with AI. They’re upfront about it.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/opinion_column/ Save to Pocket
A path out of bloat: A Linux built for VMs
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
What Linux distros could learn from the inventor of the hypervisor
FOSDEM 2024 How hard can you cut down Linux if you know it will never run on bare metal? Further than any distro vendor we know of has tried to go.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/linux_built_for_a_vm/ Save to Pocket
Chiefs sign punter Matt Araiza, who was dropped from lawsuit in December after alleged rape
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Kansas City Chiefs are signing punter Matt Araiza, who was dropped from a lawsuit in December that had been filed by a woman who alleged she was raped by San Diego State football players in 2021. </p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/sports/chiefs-sign-punter-matt-araiza-who-was-dropped-from-lawsuit-in-december-after-alleged-rape/ Save to Pocket
Another homeless camp cleared at Kona pool
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>A homeless encampment at the Kona Aquatics Center was removed Thursday morning with police and Parks and Recreation staff performing park rules enforcement.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/hawaii-news/another-homeless-camp-cleared-at-kona-pool/ Save to Pocket
MLB players miffed at sport’s new see-through pants, relaying concerns to league
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>PEORIA, Ariz. — MLB’s new uniform reveal hasn’t gone very well. Now some of the rampant criticism has moved below the belt. </p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/sports/mlb-players-miffed-at-sports-new-see-through-pants-relaying-concerns-to-league/ Save to Pocket
Funding bill to settle claims against the state advances
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The House Committee on Finance on Thursday passed an appropriations bill to cover payments for claims against the state, its officers and employees.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/hawaii-news/funding-bill-to-settle-claims-against-the-state-advances/ Save to Pocket
HVNP seeks public input for Kilauea summit plan
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Visitors to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park are encouraged to help develop a plan to reduce traffic congestion within the popular destination.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/hawaii-news/hvnp-seeks-public-input-for-kilauea-summit-plan/ Save to Pocket
A US-built spacecraft lands on the moon for the first time since 1972
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>For the first time in a half-century, an American-built spacecraft has landed on the moon.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/nation-world-news/a-us-built-spacecraft-lands-on-the-moon-for-the-first-time-since-1972/ Save to Pocket
Big Island astronomers laud success of lunar mission
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Hawaii astronomers were over the moon Thursday after a private commercial company’s spacecraft made the first successful American moon landing in more than 50 years.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/hawaii-news/big-island-astronomers-laud-success-of-lunar-mission/ Save to Pocket
Doncic scores 41 points, pairs with Irving to help Mavs beat Suns 123-113 for 7th straight victory
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>DALLAS — Luka Doncic scored 41 points, Kyrie Irving added 29 and the Dallas Mavericks beat the Phoenix Suns 123-113 on Thursday night, extending their winning streak to seven games in the return from the All-Star break for both teams. </p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/sports/doncic-scores-41-points-pairs-with-irving-to-help-mavs-beat-suns-123-113-for-7th-straight-victory/ Save to Pocket
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scores 31 points, Thunder beat Clippers 129-107
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>OKLAHOMA CITY — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 31 points and the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Los Angeles Clippers 129-107 on Thursday night in a matchup of Western Conference contenders. </p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/sports/shai-gilgeous-alexander-scores-31-points-thunder-beat-clippers-129-107/ Save to Pocket
Police respond to report of unexploded ordnance in S. Kohala
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Police are reminding the public about steps to take when they encounter unexploded ordnance.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/hawaii-news/police-respond-to-report-of-unexploded-ordnance-in-s-kohala/ Save to Pocket
EA Sports College Football 25 to block gamers from manually adding players who reject NIL opt-in
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Gamers will be blocked from manually adding players to EA Sports’ new college football game who decide not to accept an offer to have their name, image and likeness used in it, the video-game developer said Thursday. </p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/sports/ea-sports-college-football-25-to-block-gamers-from-manually-adding-players-who-reject-nil-opt-in/ Save to Pocket
Soccer All-BIIF awards released
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The Big Island Interscholastic Federation (BIIF) released its All-BIIF honors for boys and girls soccer on Wednesday night — with the teams who played in the HHSAA tournament dominating the selections.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/sports/soccer-all-biif-awards-released/ Save to Pocket
Manhattan DA Bragg blasts Arizona prosecutor, vows slain Queens sex worker will not be used as political pawn
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>NEW YORK (TNS) — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Thursday said he would do everything in his power to seek justice for Denisse Oleas-Arancibia, a sex worker bludgeoned to death in a SoHo hotel room — and would not let a grandstanding Arizona prosecutor use the slain mother as a political pawn.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/nation-world-news/manhattan-da-bragg-blasts-arizona-prosecutor-vows-slain-queens-sex-worker-will-not-be-used-as-political-pawn/ Save to Pocket
‘Little dark secret’: DEA agent on trial accused of taking $250K in bribes from Mafia
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>BUFFALO, N.Y. — The way prosecutors tell it, Joseph Bongiovanni went to work for years with a “little dark secret.”</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/nation-world-news/little-dark-secret-dea-agent-on-trial-accused-of-taking-250k-in-bribes-from-mafia/ Save to Pocket
Cultural pride on display at International Night
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>After months of preparation, international students are ready to showcase performances reflecting cultures from seven different countries represented at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/entertainment/cultural-pride-on-display-at-international-night/ Save to Pocket
Waiakea High DECA students attend conference
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Waiakea High School DECA students attended the 2024 Hawaii State DECA Career Development Conference that took place on Jan. 29-31 at the Hawaii Convention Center on Oahu.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/community/waiakea-high-deca-students-attend-conference/ Save to Pocket
Iran-backed Houthis prepare for long Red Sea battle with US
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Houthi militants and their Iranian backers are preparing for a lengthy confrontation with the U.S. and allies around the Red Sea regardless of how the Israel-Hamas war plays out.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/nation-world-news/iran-backed-houthis-prepare-for-long-red-sea-battle-with-us/ Save to Pocket
What the Ukraine aid debate is really about
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Over the weekend Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio went to the Munich Security Conference to play an unpopular part — a spokesperson, at a gathering of the Western foreign policy establishment, for the populist critique of American support for Ukraine’s war effort.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/opinion/what-the-ukraine-aid-debate-is-really-about/ Save to Pocket
Manhattan district attorney is first again against Trump
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Six months ago, we suggested that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s Stormy Daniels hush money criminal case against Donald Trump take a backseat to the federal and Georgia state election subversion cases and the federal pilfered document case.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/opinion/manhattan-district-attorney-is-first-again-against-trump/ Save to Pocket
Free admission Sunday at ’Imiloa
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>‘Imiloa Astronomy Center will be honoring Hawaii’s native forest birds as it celebrates its 18th birthday on Sunday.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/hawaii-news/free-admission-sunday-at-imiloa/ Save to Pocket
US examined allegations of cartel ties to allies of Mexico’s president
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>American law enforcement officials spent years looking into allegations that allies of Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, met with and took millions of dollars from drug cartels after he took office, according to U.S. records and three people familiar with the matter.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/nation-world-news/us-examined-allegations-of-cartel-ties-to-allies-of-mexicos-president/ Save to Pocket
4 charged in transporting suspected Iranian-made weapons. Two SEALs died in intercepting the ship
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p> (AP) — Four foreign nationals were charged Thursday with transporting suspected Iranian-made weapons on a vessel intercepted by U.S. naval forces in the Arabian Sea last month. Two Navy SEALs died during the mission.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/nation-world-news/4-charged-in-transporting-suspected-iranian-made-weapons-two-seals-died-in-intercepting-the-ship/ Save to Pocket
Public invited to participate in CERT training
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Free to the general public, Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency has scheduled a two-day Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Basic Training course from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 6, and Sunday, April 7, at the Discovery Harbour Community Center, 94-1604 Makalii St, Naalehu.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/community/public-invited-to-participate-in-cert-training/ Save to Pocket
AT&T says its cellphone network restored after a widespread outage hit users across the US
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>AT&T said Thursday its wireless network was back after an outage knocked out cellphone service for its users across the U.S. for hours.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/nation-world-news/att-says-its-cellphone-network-restored-after-a-widespread-outage-hit-users-across-the-us/ Save to Pocket
Biden calls Putin ‘crazy SOB’ and steps up attacks on Trump
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>President Joe Biden called Vladimir Putin a “crazy SOB” and took a swipe at Republican rival Donald Trump for likening himself to Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who died last week in a remote prison.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/nation-world-news/biden-calls-putin-crazy-sob-and-steps-up-attacks-on-trump/ Save to Pocket
Obituaries for February 23
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Veronica Claire Koizumi, 80, of Hilo, formerly of Honolulu, died Feb. 3 at Life Care Center of Hilo. Born in Hilo, she was the retired owner of the former Hale Inu Sports Bar and had worked at the former Green Door. No services. Survived by children, Carleen Haunani Medeiros, Sidney (Doreen) Medeiros, Melissa (Mike) Alidon and Jerry Koizumi Sr. of Hilo; grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren; nieces, nephews and cousins. Arrangements by Dodo Mortuary.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/obituaries/obituaries-for-february-23-10/ Save to Pocket
Desperate for soldiers, Ukraine weighs unpopular plan to expand the draft
date: 2024-02-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>LYMAN, Ukraine — When the Russian army mounted a full-scale invasion two years ago, Ukrainian men zealously rushed to recruitment centers across the country to enlist, ready to die in defense of their nation.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/23/nation-world-news/desperate-for-soldiers-ukraine-weighs-unpopular-plan-to-expand-the-draft/ Save to Pocket
GDOE plans to spend ARP, Limited Gaming Fund money, ESF II exhausted
date: 2024-02-23, from: Guam Daily Post
While the Guam Department of Education has $123.8 million left in funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, Education Stabilization Fund money is exhausted and money from the Limited Gaming Fund has yet to be spent.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/gdoe-plans-to-spend-arp-limited-gaming-fund-money-esf-ii-exhausted/article_dac910d4-d1f0-11ee-aae2-bffa913a603e.html Save to Pocket
Father, son plead no contest to assaulting 17-year-old
date: 2024-02-23, from: Guam Daily Post
A father and son pleaded no contest to charges of assaulting a 17-year-old boy in Mangilao in December 2022.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/father-son-plead-no-contest-to-assaulting-17-year-old/article_f8b5abfa-d1f2-11ee-853f-53283874259b.html Save to Pocket
Evidence to be tested by FBI in infant homicide case
date: 2024-02-23, from: Guam Daily Post
Prosecutors are looking to send DNA evidence to the FBI for testing within the next week in a murder case.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/evidence-to-be-tested-by-fbi-in-infant-homicide-case/article_7a0a266e-d201-11ee-93f1-6bc097f1203c.html Save to Pocket
Man accused of sexual assault days after turning 18
date: 2024-02-23, from: Guam Daily Post
A man was accused of sexually assaulting an 18-year-old woman two days after his own 18th birthday
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/man-accused-of-sexual-assault-days-after-turning-18/article_5bfb6dd8-d204-11ee-8afd-5fba2b68cd49.html Save to Pocket
Fire reported at Eggs ’N Things
date: 2024-02-23, from: Guam Daily Post
A fire was reported early Thursday morning at Tumon restaurant Eggs ’N Things.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/fire-reported-at-eggs-n-things/article_c684ee0c-d111-11ee-aab2-9f5f8bbe72ea.html Save to Pocket
Police investigating Dead Man’s Curve crash
date: 2024-02-23, from: Guam Daily Post
The Guam Police Department’s Highway Patrol Division is investigating a four-car collision that sent one person to the hospital on Thursday morning.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/police-investigating-dead-mans-curve-crash/article_622a7b2a-d1e8-11ee-a397-db017d6ff3bb.html Save to Pocket
Energy credit extension, other measures pass
date: 2024-02-23, from: Guam Daily Post
A three-month extension to long-standing energy credits is one of several measures that managed to pass the Guam Legislature this session.
https://www.postguam.com/news/energy-credit-extension-other-measures-pass/article_50aa254a-d228-11ee-8841-53ccc9630f10.html Save to Pocket
Energy credit extension, other measures pass
date: 2024-02-23, from: Guam Daily Post
A three-month extension to long-standing energy credits is one of several measures that managed to pass the Guam Legislature this session.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/energy-credit-extension-other-measures-pass/article_50aa254a-d228-11ee-8841-53ccc9630f10.html Save to Pocket
The Emerging Republican Theocracy
date: 2024-02-23, from: Robert Reich on Substack
White Christian nationalism is the creed of red America
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/republican-theocracy Save to Pocket
What on earth is a dual spiral marble clock?
date: 2024-02-23, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
This RP2040-powered clock features ball bearings climbing a spiral to show the time, with one representing the hours and the other showing the minutes rolling by.
The post What on earth is a dual spiral marble clock? appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/what-on-earth-is-a-dual-spiral-marble-clock/ Save to Pocket
Work for you? Again? After you lied about the job and stole my stuff? No thanks
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Sometimes the best form of revenge is doing nothing – very politely
On Call Taylor Swift is playing in On Call’s town tonight, creating a city-wide Friday frenzy. Here at The Register we prefer to end the working week in a gentler fashion by offering a fresh installment of On Call, the reader-contributed column in which we share stories of haters who hated IT, fakers who faked technical nous, and techies who shook it off and got the job done.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/on_call/ Save to Pocket
Classifieds – February 23, 2024
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The Daily Trojan features Classified advertising in each day’s edition. Here you can read, search, and even print out each day’s edition of the Classifieds.
The post Classifieds – February 23, 2024 appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/classifieds-february-2-2024-2/ Save to Pocket
IBM begins work on Power11 enablement for upcoming Linux 6.9
date: 2024-02-23, from: OS News
The first “Power11” patches were queued today into the PowerPC’s “next” Git branch ahead of the upcoming Linux 6.9 kernel cycle. The first of many IBM Power11 processor/platform enablement patches are beginning to flow out for the Linux kernel for enabling the next-generation Power processors. This shouldn’t be too surprising given that a few months ago IBM began posting “PowerPC Future” patches for the GCC compiler with speculating at the time it was for Power11 just as IBM previously called their “future” CPU target in GCC for Power10 prior to those processors officially debuting. ↫ Michael Larabel I really hope IBM learned from the POWER10 fiasco and will make sure POWER11 is properly and fully open again, because POWER9’s openness made it unique among the other options out there. Without it, there’s really no reason for an enthusiast community to developer around POWER11 as it did around POWER9, and that would be a shame. Again.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138637/ibm-begins-work-on-power11-enablement-for-upcoming-linux-6-9/ Save to Pocket
ORQUÍDEAS merece sus flores
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
El nuevo álbum de la cantante colombiana Kali Uchis merece ser escuchado.
The post ORQUÍDEAS merece sus flores appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/orquideas-merece-sus-flores/ Save to Pocket
Residente se desnuda en su nuevo álbum
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
El álbum muestra que para el cantante, las letras son más importantes que nunca.
The post Residente se desnuda en su nuevo álbum appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/residente-se-desnuda-en-su-nuevo-album/ Save to Pocket
Sigamos a las feministas mexicanas
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Las mujeres mexicanas son ejemplares en la lucha de los derechos de la mujer.
The post Sigamos a las feministas mexicanas appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/sigamos-a-las-feministas-mexicanas/ Save to Pocket
Voz Latina encendió la noche
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The post Voz Latina encendió la noche appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/voz-latina-encendio-la-noche/ Save to Pocket
Los inmigrantes no son buenos ni malos
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The post Los inmigrantes no son buenos ni malos appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/los-inmigrantes-no-son-buenos-ni-malos/ Save to Pocket
El turismo del sexo en Colombia es violento, misógino
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
La cultura colombiana se ha reducido al turismo sexual dentro de la cultura popular.
The post El turismo del sexo en Colombia es violento, misógino appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/el-turismo-del-sexo-en-colombia-es-violento-misogino/ Save to Pocket
Today in SCV History (Feb. 23)
date: 2024-02-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1998 – Worst day of record-setting 1997-98 El Nino storm season. [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-feb-23/ Save to Pocket
La religiosidad latina debe ser modernizada
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
El progreso social debería ser una fuerza unificadora, no un divisor religioso.
The post La religiosidad latina debe ser modernizada appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/la-religiosidad-latina-debe-ser-modernizada/ Save to Pocket
The problem with commodity fetishization and luxury brands
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Consumers need to be more conscientious of what their purchases entail socially.
The post The problem with commodity fetishization and luxury brands appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/the-problem-with-commodity-fetishization-and-luxury-brands/ Save to Pocket
EcoDorm cleans, furnishes sustainably
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The climate justice-oriented organization revamps used dorm items to foster equity.
The post EcoDorm cleans, furnishes sustainably appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/daily-trojan-ecodorm/ Save to Pocket
Sundays can be a space for innovation
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Sundays @ USC encourages collaboration and feedback on a wide range of projects.
The post Sundays can be a space for innovation appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/daily-trojan-sundays-usc/ Save to Pocket
Dartmouth steps out of bounds
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Unions could change the future of the NCAA.
The post Dartmouth steps out of bounds appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/dartmouth-steps-out-of-bounds/ Save to Pocket
The dangerous rhetoric in APIDA activism
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Racial tensions that stem from white supremacy are apparent and prevalent.
The post The dangerous rhetoric in APIDA activism appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/the-dangerous-rhetoric-in-apida-activism/ Save to Pocket
Women’s basketball to host Galen gala
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
In its final homestand, USC will play two top-25 teams with March on the cusp.
The post Women’s basketball to host Galen gala appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/womens-basketball-to-host-galen-gala/ Save to Pocket
Women’s golf places fourth at the Pac-12 Preview
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The Trojans, led by Amari Avery, tackled three stroke-play rounds in Hawai‘i.
The post Women’s golf places fourth at the Pac-12 Preview appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/womens-golf-places-fourth-at-the-pac-12-preview/ Save to Pocket
The Huntington celebrates the work of Sargent Claude Johnson
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The museum gives attention to a very neglected figure of the Black Renaissance.
The post The Huntington celebrates the work of Sargent Claude Johnson appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/23/the-huntington-celebrates-the-work-of-sargent-claude-johnson/ Save to Pocket
Dust Offering Up Another 100 Spots For Its Upcoming All-Electric Dirt Bike
date: 2024-02-23, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Why don’t I have more cash?
https://www.rideapart.com/news/709720/dust-moto-ev-dirt-bike-crowdfunding-alpha-1/ Save to Pocket
Meta seeks ASIC designers for ML accelerators and datacenter SoCs
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Appears to be struggling to find them, even in India, as it’s re-posted job ads
Meta wants to build accelerators and SoCs to run in its datacenters – for jobs including machine learning – but appears to be struggling to find folks to design them.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/meta_asic_design_jobs/ Save to Pocket
Bishop Diego Softball Defeats Santa Barbara 9-1 to Claim First Victory of the Season
date: 2024-02-23, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The Cardinals racked up a season-high 17 hits.
The post Bishop Diego Softball Defeats Santa Barbara 9-1 to Claim First Victory of the Season appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/22/bishop-diego-softball-defeats-santa-barbara-9-1-to-claim-first-victory-of-the-season/ Save to Pocket
NASA warns as huge solar flare threatens comms, maybe astronauts too
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
No, this was not the cause of cellular network outages that hit the USA on Thursday
NASA has warned of strong solar flares that have the potential to interrupt communications in space and down here on Earth.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/solar_flare_warning/ Save to Pocket
Webcurios 23/02/24
date: 2024-02-23, from: Web Curios blog
Reading Time: 36 minutes Gah! I have a call in 24 minutes and I am still in my pants and need to wash! Gah! Apologies, you didn’t need that image – but then again, none of us needed the sight of our elected representatives competing to see who could demonstrate the most nakedly-self-serving and venal behaviour while ostensibly pretending…https://webcurios.co.uk/webcurios-23-02-24/ Save to Pocket
Bill placing new hospital at Ypao Point passes, governor will veto
date: 2024-02-23, from: Guam Daily Post
Lawmakers have narrowly passed Bill 185-37, one of the measures competing to place a new hospital or medical campus on Guam. But with only eight senators supporting the measure and the governor stating that she would veto Bill 185, it…
https://www.postguam.com/news/bill-placing-new-hospital-at-ypao-point-passes-governor-will-veto/article_77d20af6-d210-11ee-b8fd-4b3957a0e0f4.html Save to Pocket
Bill placing new hospital at Ypao Point passes, governor will veto
date: 2024-02-23, from: Guam Daily Post
Lawmakers have narrowly passed Bill 185-37, one of the measures competing to place a new hospital or medical campus on Guam. But with only eight senators supporting the measure and the governor stating that she would veto Bill 185, it…
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/bill-placing-new-hospital-at-ypao-point-passes-governor-will-veto/article_77d20af6-d210-11ee-b8fd-4b3957a0e0f4.html Save to Pocket
US Plans ‘Crushing’ Sanctions on Kremlin 2 Years After Ukraine War
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
Buenos Aires, Argentina — Two years after Russia’s war on Ukraine, the United States is doubling down pressure on the Kremlin by rolling out sanctions on Russia targeting banks and the weapons industry, as described by a senior U.S. official.
A day before the U.S. plan to announce new sanctions packages imposed on Moscow, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there’s a strong desire among the Group of 20 for Russia’s aggression in Ukraine to end.
“If you were in that room, as (Russian) Foreign Minister Lavrov was, you heard a very strong chorus coming from not just the G7 countries within the G20, but from many others as well, about the imperative of ending the Russian aggression, restoring peace,” Blinken told reporters during a press conference after attending G20 foreign ministers’ meetings in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Some of the U.S. sanctions will target those responsible for the detention death of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny.
“The fact that (Russian President) Vladimir Putin saw it necessary to persecute, poison, and imprison one man speaks volumes not about Russia’s strength under Putin, but its weakness,” Blinken added.
In Washington, Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said during a Thursday event hosted by the Center for Security and International Studies, or CSIS, that the U.S. will impose “a crushing new package of sanctions, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them, in the next couple of days.”
Some of these sanctions will be targeted at individuals directly involved in Navalny’s death, but the vast majority are designed to further impact “Putin’s war machine” and close gaps in existing sanctions, according to Nuland.
Despite the efforts of the United States and other countries to isolate Moscow, it remains actively engaged in diplomatic activities, as demonstrated by the presence of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at this week’s G20 ministerial meeting.
During the meeting, Lavrov held talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, where they discussed “diplomatic solutions” to the Ukraine war.
U.S. officials have said they don’t see the conditions for diplomatic negotiations to end the Ukraine war, as there’s skepticism that Russia is not motivated to negotiate and that Putin would never accept an independent Ukraine.
“Two years. We are all here,” wrote Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a post on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, indicating that representatives from dozens of countries and various international organizations have gathered to show solidarity with Ukraine.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-plans-crushing-sanctions-on-kremlin-2-years-after-ukraine-war/7499382.html Save to Pocket
Adding Insult to Injury: Radioactive Waste and DDT Rub Elbows off Coast of Los Angeles
date: 2024-02-23, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
David Valentine, the UC Santa Barbara scientist who discovered a DDT dumping ground in the waters off Catalina Island, releases a new study pointing to the disposal of radioactive waste in the Pacific Ocean.
The post Adding Insult to Injury: Radioactive Waste and DDT Rub Elbows off Coast of Los Angeles appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/22/adding-insult-to-injury-radioactive-waste-and-ddt-rub-elbows-off-coast-of-los-angeles/ Save to Pocket
X protests forced suspension of accounts on orders of India’s government
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Nonprofit SFLC links orders to farming protests
The global government affairs team at X (née Twitter) has suspended some accounts and posts in India after receiving executive orders to do so from the country’s government, backed by threat of penalties including significant fines and imprisonment.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/x_india_farmers_compulsory_takedown/ Save to Pocket
And the Oprah’s Book Club Bump Goes to … Abraham Verghese and UCSB Arts & Lectures!
date: 2024-02-23, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The ‘Covenant of Water’ author got a surprise guest at his Arlington appearance in Santa Barbara.
The post And the Oprah’s Book Club Bump Goes to … Abraham Verghese and UCSB Arts & Lectures! appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/22/and-the-oprahs-book-club-bump-goes-to-abraham-verghese-and-ucsb-arts-lectures/ Save to Pocket
Bag of potato chips in oven started fire in Cowlings and Ilium, USC says
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The fire erupted on the building’s fifth floor Tuesday night.
The post Bag of potato chips in oven started fire in Cowlings and Ilium, USC says appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/22/cowlings-and-ilium-fire/ Save to Pocket
February 22, 2024
date: 2024-02-23, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog
The Alabama Supreme Court on February 16, 2024, decided that cells awaiting implantation for in vitro fertilization are children and that the accidental destruction of such an embryo falls under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. In an opinion concurring with the ruling, Chief Justice Tom Parker declared that the people of Alabama have adopted the “theologically based view of the sanctity of life” and said that “human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-22-2024 Save to Pocket
Former President Trump Leading Only Republican Opponent in Her Home State
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
The two-person contest for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination comes this weekend to South Carolina, where former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley hopes for an upset victory in her home state over former president Donald Trump. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from the Southern state.
https://www.voanews.com/a/former-president-trump-leading-only-republican-opponent-in-her-home-state-/7499371.html Save to Pocket
USC, UCLA Saudi Student Associations host Founding Day event
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The associations held the event Feb. 17 in the Trojan Grand Ballroom to honor Saudi Founding Day, which is celebrated on Feb. 22.
The post USC, UCLA Saudi Student Associations host Founding Day event appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/22/daily-trojan-saudi-founding-day/ Save to Pocket
USC, UCLA Saudi Student Associations host Founding Day event
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The associations held the event Feb. 17 in the Trojan Grand Ballroom to honor Saudi Founding Day, which is celebrated on Feb. 22.
The post USC, UCLA Saudi Student Associations host Founding Day event appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/22/saudi-founding-day/ Save to Pocket
Val Verde residents file petition to shut down Chiquita Canyon Landfill
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Signal
Tim Williams is a longtime resident of Val Verde, having lived there since 1959. At a press conference on Thursday afternoon at Hasley Canyon Park, Williams said Val Verde has faced plenty of challenges in the 60 years he’s been living in the community, but nothing compares to the issues that have been stemming from […]
The post <strong>Val Verde residents file petition to shut down Chiquita Canyon Landfill</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/val-verde-residents-file-petition-to-shut-down-chiquita-canyon-landfill/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-23, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Vice is abandoning Vice.com and laying off hundreds.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/22/24080497/vice-media-website-layoffs Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-23, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Early Access Federation for Self-Hosters.
https://docs.bsky.app/blog/self-host-federation Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-23, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Bluesky: An Open Social Web.
https://bsky.social/about/blog/02-22-2024-open-social-web Save to Pocket
Please stop pouring the wrong radioactive water into the sea, Fukushima operator told
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Government takes TEPCO to task for caesium absorption tower incident
Japan’s Economy, Trade and Industry minister has called on the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to improve its management of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant after a leak was discovered earlier this month.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/minister_fukushima_leak/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-23, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Bluesky opens up federation, letting anyone run their own server.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/22/bluesky-opens-up-federation-letting-anyone-run-their-own-server/ Save to Pocket
Why Are Americans Likely Stuck With a Biden-Trump Rematch in November?
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
washington — In an election year beset with uncertainties, one thing is clear: Americans find a November rematch between U.S. President Joe Biden and his leading Republican challenger, former U.S. President Donald Trump, even less appealing than the first time around in 2020.
A January Reuters/Ipsos poll showed most Americans do not want Biden and Trump to run again and that they are tired of seeing the same candidates in presidential elections.
Trump is besieged by legal woes, and both he and Biden are seen as too old, although polls show more Americans worry about Biden, who would be 81 on Election Day, than Trump, who would be 78.
So, why are Americans in this predicament?
The short answer, according to analysts, is that both Biden and Trump want another term, and they operate in a political system geared to favor incumbents.
Trump wants four more years
A second term could deliver vindication for Trump who since losing to Biden in 2020 has pushed baseless claims that the election was stolen, said Thomas Schwartz, a presidential historian with Vanderbilt University.
Trump’s critics accuse him of running not for the good of the country but to stay out of prison, something he denies. Trump faces 91 criminal charges under four indictments: for falsifying his business records in New York, for withholding classified federal government documents in Florida, and for attempting to overturn the 2020 election in two separate cases in Washington and the state of Georgia.
These indictments have not hurt his poll numbers, said Clifford Young, president of Ipsos Public Affairs in the U.S.
“Trump has a very strong connection with his base,” Young told VOA. “It’s almost unbreakable.”
Revisiting grievances that resonate with MAGA (Make America Great Again) Republicans, Trump dominated the primaries — the statewide voting processes in which voters select a party’s nominee who will compete in the general election — held so far. He is expected to handily win the rest, capitalizing on a system that amplifies the most ideologically fervent voices of the electorate.
This is particularly true in states with “closed” primaries where voters must register with a party before voting. The process shuts out independent and unaffiliated voters, and candidates win by taking on the most ideologically extreme positions.
“You have an overwhelming vote for Donald Trump among Republican primary voters,” Schwartz told VOA.
But even “open” primaries, where registered voters regardless of their political affiliation can vote for any candidate, reflect only a small share of the electorate. In U.S. elections since 2000, the average turnout rate for primary elections is 27% of registered voters, compared to 60.5% for general elections.
Biden wants four more years
Like any incumbent American president, Biden sees a second term as a vindication of his achievements, Schwartz said.
Biden secured a series of legislative wins, led the Western response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and presided over an economy where recession fears have eased, growth and job gains are beating expectations, and inflation is cooling.
“It is possible for Joe Biden to declare himself a successful one-term president and step aside. He just doesn’t want to,” Schwartz noted, citing Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson who decided not to run again in March of 1952 and 1968 respectively. “And the party is not strong enough to tell him to do so.”
Democrats see Biden as the best barricade against their biggest fear — another Trump administration, Schwartz said. Had Trump not been in the race, he added, they would have been more willing to challenge Biden.
“What I’m hearing is, we’re riding with Biden,” said Democratic strategist Corryn Grace Freeman.
This despite progressives’ frustration with the president’s inability to fully cancel student loan debt and his response to the Israel-Hamas war, she told VOA.
“There are many people that cannot support this president, who also don’t like Donald Trump, who just feel like the Democratic Party consistently fails us,” she said, adding that support from Blacks and Latinos “is beginning to dwindle because of how this president has shown up.”
Democrats are now stuck in an extraordinarily high-risk gamble where a potential health or other age-related incident could further discourage voters, Schwartz warned. But despite Biden’s weak poll numbers and questions about his age, there is no Plan B for Democrats.
“No viable alternative got into the race,” said Elaine Kamarck, senior fellow in Governance Studies and the director of the Center for Effective Public Management at Brookings Institution. “You can’t beat something with nothing,” she told VOA.
This notion was put to the test early, during the January New Hampshire primary that Biden skipped because he had promised South Carolina Democrats that their state would host the first primary. The president was not on the New Hampshire primary ballot, but the majority of voters there wrote in his name, delivering his overwhelming victory over two longshot challengers, Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips and self-help author Marianne Williamson, who were on the ballot.
System favors incumbents
Both essentially running as incumbents, Biden and Trump have huge influence over their party apparatus and resources. They also benefit from a primary system where a small number of states have outsized influence and candidate choices are locked in far in advance of the election, even if they become less popular.
The latter feature of the system is the unintended result of efforts to fix the former, said Geoffrey Cowan, a professor at the University of Southern California.
During the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Cowan pushed for reform to ensure voters in all 50 states are represented, replacing a system where fewer than 20 states held primary elections and caucuses and presidential nominees were mostly selected by party leaders during their convention.
“I put together this commission which said that all delegates to the 1972 convention would have to be picked through a process open to full public participation in the calendar year of the election,” Cowan told VOA.
In mandating that primaries are held the same year, the commission did not anticipate that state rules would evolve to lock in candidates early, even if voters’ attitudes about them change, Cowan said.
Most states now require candidates who want to run in a party’s primary to register by the first week of election year. States also race to hold their primaries as early as possible, a process known as frontloading.
This means by the third week of February, it would be difficult for a candidate to launch a campaign against Biden or Trump even though there are still more than 250 days to the election. Primaries have been held in critical states such as New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina, and candidacy filing deadlines have passed in many others.
Which means, unless one of them drops out and the party scrambles to nominate a replacement during the convention, Americans are stuck with either Trump, who will be the Republican nominee by championing MAGA grievances, or Biden, because he is seen as the only one who can beat Trump.
https://www.voanews.com/a/why-are-americans-likely-stuck-with-a-biden-trump-rematch-in-november-/7498770.html Save to Pocket
Why Americans Are Facing a Likely Biden-Trump Rematch
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
In an election year beset with uncertainties, one thing is clear: Americans find a November rematch between President Joe Biden and his leading Republican challenger, former President Donald Trump, even less appealing than the first time around in 2020. But why are they the only choices? White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara explains.
https://www.voanews.com/a/why-americans-are-facing-a-likely-biden-trump-rematch-/7499348.html Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-02-23, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
I
have the motto for the Biden campaign: Old enough to know better.
Uncle Joe, sit down with a reporter you can relate to, and explain what
aging is about. How there’s good and bad that come with getting on, and
Repubs (of course) have been focusing on the bad but the journalists
aren’t getting the other side. One thing is for sure, it’s hard to put
one over on someone who’s been in politics at the highest level for as
long as President Joe has been. That’s what the “know better” part is
about. Whatever you can say about him, he knows a lot about being
president. I’ve been using this motto as my own tagline for a while. But
in the interest of protecting our democracy, I think the president
should use it for his re-election campaign. No charge. 😄
http://scripting.com/2024/02/22.html#a031907 Save to Pocket
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-02-23, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Every internal modern layoff announcement contains a variation of “this will help us increase our velocity”
And every time I see that, I cant stop thinking “increase velocity to irrelevance?”
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111978620773445787 Save to Pocket
Biden Meets With Navalny’s Widow in California
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
As the United States is set to announce sanctions against Moscow following Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s death, President Joe Biden met with his widow in San Francisco on Thursday. VOA Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-meets-with-navalny-s-widow-in-california/7499336.html Save to Pocket
UNRWA Chief Says Israeli Pressure, Funding Freeze Threaten Agency
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
United Nations — The head of the embattled U.N. agency that assists Palestinian refugees warned Thursday that it is at a “breaking point,” and its ability to assist millions of Palestinians is “seriously threatened.”
“It is with profound regret that I must now inform you that the Agency has reached breaking point, with Israel’s repeated calls to dismantle UNRWA and the freezing of funding by donors at a time of unprecedented humanitarian needs in Gaza,” Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini wrote in a letter to the president of the U.N. General Assembly.
Without new funding, he said UNRWA’s operations across the region will be severely compromised starting in March.
The General Assembly established the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA, in 1949 to assist some 700,000 Palestinian refugees displaced in the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that broke out after Israel became a state in May that year.
Today, it operates not just in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, but also in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, where there are large Palestinian refugee communities. Nearly 6 million Palestinians are eligible for UNRWA services, which include education and health care.
UNRWA has faced severe financial problems before, but after Israel presented information to Lazzarini last month alleging that 12 UNRWA staffers were involved in the October 7 terror attacks inside Israel, the agency faced its biggest crisis yet.
The staffers were immediately fired, and an internal investigation was launched. But in the aftermath, 16 donors, including top contributor the United States, suspended funding totaling around $450 million.
A second, independent review of UNRWA’s working methods and neutrality was ordered by the United Nations. Former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna is heading it up and will present her group’s final report in April. She met with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday to discuss their work.
“We will specifically clarify the mechanisms, the process in place, the structures and see if they ensure the neutrality as they should to the best of the power within UNRWA, and we also will look at how they have been implemented, of course, in practice, not only they’re fit for purpose, but how they are implemented,” she told reporters.
Tensions
Israeli officials have criticized UNRWA for years, alleging that Hamas uses its schools for terrorist activities and that they promote an anti-Israel curriculum. After the October 7 allegations, the rhetoric intensified.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a visiting group of U.N. ambassadors in Jerusalem on January 31, that UNRWA was “totally infiltrated with Hamas” and its “mission has to end.”
Last week, Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a post on social media platform X that, “UNRWA cannot be a part of Gaza’s landscape in the aftermath of Hamas.”
At the United Nations, Israel’s ambassador asserted on Tuesday, without offering any details or evidence, that 12% of UNRWA’s 13,000 staff members in Gaza are members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and that at least 236 of them “are active terrorists in these organizations’ armed wings.”
“In Gaza, Hamas is the U.N. and the U.N. is Hamas,” Ambassador Gilad Erdan told a Security Council meeting, saying Hamas had a data center and tunnels under UNRWA headquarters in Gaza.
UNRWA’s Lazzarini said in his letter that his agency does not have “counterintelligence, police, or criminal justice capacities” and relies on Israel for this, even providing the government with its staff list.
He said Israel’s calls for UNRWA’s closure are not about the agency’s neutrality but are political.
“Instead, they are about changing the long-standing political parameters for peace in the occupied Palestinian territory set by the General Assembly and the Security Council,” he said. “They seek to eliminate UNRWA’s role in protecting the rights of Palestine Refugees and acting as a witness to their continuing plight.”
Palestinians want to preserve their “right of return” as a final status issue for negotiations with Israel over a two-state solution. If the refugee agency is eliminated, some fear it could have political implications.
Lazzarini appeared to link some of Israel’s campaign against UNRWA with the International Court of Justice’s decision on January 26 to issue provisional measures ordering Israel to take steps to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza.
“Since the ICJ ruling, there has been a concerted effort by some Israeli officials to deceptively conflate UNRWA with Hamas, to disrupt UNRWA’s operations, and to call for the dismantling of the Agency,” he said.
The commissioner general said that included Jerusalem’s deputy mayor taking steps to evict the agency from the headquarters it has occupied for 75 years in East Jerusalem and the tabling of a bill in the Israeli Knesset to exclude UNRWA from U.N. privileges and immunities. He said visas for international staff have been limited to only one to two months, and an Israeli bank blocked an UNRWA account.
U.N. chief Guterres has said UNRWA is critical and irreplaceable.
“There is no other organization that has a presence in Gaza that is capable of being able to respond to the needs,” he told reporters earlier this month.
Most aid going into Gaza is delivered by UNRWA.
Ambassador Vanessa Frazier of Malta was one of the diplomats who visited Israel last month. She said her government will not stop funding the agency.
“UNRWA is the backbone of the entire humanitarian system throughout Gaza,” she told reporters. “If UNRWA fails, they will not be able to just simply to take the funding from countries [to other agencies] and do deliveries.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/unrwa-chief-says-israeli-pressure-funding-freeze-threaten-agency-/7499329.html Save to Pocket
Yahoo Lays Off the Leaders of Engadget
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: Daring Fireball
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/22/24080215/engadget-layoffs-tech-news-blogs-editorial-restructuring Save to Pocket
Biagi Bros. posts pictures of its ten (10!) Nikola hydrogen semis
date: 2024-02-23, from: Electrek Feed
Just hours after Nikola announced that it had completed the first North American deliveries of its hydrogen fuel cell electric semi trucks, Biagi Bros. Logistics took to social media to post pictures of its new fleet of Nikolas. Plural.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/22/biagi-bros-posts-pictures-of-its-ten-10-nikola-hydrogen-semis/ Save to Pocket
Juniper sued over HPE buyout after allegedly ginning up execs’ wallets
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Material information withheld from shareholders, it’s claimed
Juniper Networks, currently in the process of being acquired by HPE, has been accused of violating US securities laws in a shareholder lawsuit.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/juniper_networks_sued_over_hpe/ Save to Pocket
Army Doctor, Black Hawk Pilot Holds Record for Longest US Spaceflight
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
pentagon — U.S. Army Colonel Frank Rubio, who holds the record for the longest U.S. spaceflight, recounted the “awesome” experience of re-entering Earth’s atmosphere on Thursday during a Pentagon ceremony honoring his achievement.
“Colonel Rubio is a stellar example of someone who has made the absolute most of every opportunity,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said as she presented him with an honor known as the Army Astronaut Device. “It’s truly a privilege to have him representing the Army and the United States.”
The Army awards the astronaut device to soldiers who complete at least one mission in space. Rubio joins Colonel Anne McClain and Colonel Andrew Morgan as the only active-duty soldiers authorized to wear it.
Rubio returned to Earth late last year on a Russian spacecraft after 371 days in the International Space Station.
The doctor and Black Hawk helicopter pilot flew more than 600 hours in dangerous combat deployments in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq before joining NASA in 2017 to become an astronaut.
While becoming an astronaut is a childhood dream for many who go to space, Rubio said he fell in love with the space mission much later in life.
“It’s few things where you can say, ‘Hey, my job helps represent humanity.’ And that’s a pretty powerful thing to be a part of,” Rubio told reporters at the Pentagon.
While he now holds the record for longest spaceflight by an American, he certainly wasn’t trying to earn that title. Rubio’s six-month mission was extended to 371 days after his initial ride home sprang a leak.
His year in space led to incredible highlights, he said, from hurtling into space on top of 300 tons of rocket fuel during the launch, to spacewalks, to re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.
“You essentially become a meteorite, right, and you have a plasma layer a couple of inches below you, because of the heat that’s generated. All those things were awesome,” he said in response to a question from VOA.
Rubio is the son of Salvadoran immigrants, and he credits the Army for giving him the chance to reach for the stars.
“I think it is the American Dream. It really represents the fact that we have so many opportunities, and again, I really value the fact that it’s the opportunity that’s given, not the results,” he said. “And I think if you put in the hard work, if you dedicate yourself and you sacrifice, really almost anything is possible.”
Rubio told reporters on Thursday that he hopes to continue contributing to NASA’s mission on the ground and back in space.
https://www.voanews.com/a/army-doctor-black-hawk-pilot-holds-record-for-longest-us-spaceflight-/7499313.html Save to Pocket
President Says Alabama IVF Ruling ‘Direct Result’ of Roe Decision
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/president-says-alabama-ivf-ruling-direct-result-of-roe-decision-/7499301.html Save to Pocket
New Jersey offers $50,000 bi-directional electric school bus incentive
date: 2024-02-23, from: Electrek Feed
New Jersey recently announced a $45 million, three-year pilot program to put electric school buses to work in 18 school districts – and it’s offering up to $50,000 more for buses with the ability to power the schools.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/22/new-jersey-offers-50000-bi-directional-electric-school-bus-incentive/ Save to Pocket
MacSymbolicator 2.6
date: 2024-02-23, from: Michael Tsai
Mahdi Bchatnia (via Daniel Jalkut): A simple Mac app for symbolicating macOS/iOS crash reports.Supports symbolicating:.crash and .ips crash reportssample and spindump reports
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/22/macsymbolicator-2-6/ Save to Pocket
Muse Retrospective
date: 2024-02-23, from: Michael Tsai
Adam Wiggins (via Peter Steinberger): You’ve probably seen the meme about product distribution, and I went into this venture knowing that productivity software is particularly difficult to market.[…]I’m deeply grateful to the folks inside the App Store editorial team who were rooting for us from the beginning. Getting featured here really is a game-changer. […] […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/22/muse-retrospective/ Save to Pocket
2023 Six Colors Apple Report Card
date: 2024-02-23, from: Michael Tsai
Jason Snell (Hacker News): John Gruber wrote: “By the end of the year, every single Mac in the lineup, save one [the Mac Pro], is arguably in the best shape that model has ever been. […] Matt Deatherage wrote: “It’s difficult to ding Apple’s Mac performance. With Apple Silicon leading the way, the Mac hardware […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/22/2023-six-colors-apple-report-card/ Save to Pocket
2023 Apple Vision Accessibility Report Card
date: 2024-02-23, from: Michael Tsai
AppleVis (via Shelly Brisbin): The 2023 Apple Vision Accessibility Report Card reveals slightly decreasing satisfaction with VoiceOver features and user experience across iOS, iPadOS and macOS compared to 2022, contrasted by mostly improved ratings for braille and low vision capabilities. While reactions to new 2023 vision accessibility features were moderately more positive with a 3.7 […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/22/2023-apple-vision-accessibility-report-card/ Save to Pocket
Apple Sports and Lock Screen Live Activities
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: Daring Fireball
https://support.apple.com/en-is/guide/iphone/iph9ac289c4d/ios Save to Pocket
4 Charged in US Court With Transporting Iranian-Made Weapons
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
richmond, virginia — Four foreign nationals were charged Thursday with transporting suspected Iranian-made weapons on a vessel intercepted by U.S. naval forces in the Arabian Sea last month. Two Navy SEALs died during the mission.
The criminal complaint unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Richmond alleges that the four defendants — who were all carrying Pakistani identification cards — were transporting suspected Iranian-made missile components for the type of weapons used by Houthi rebel forces in recent attacks.
“The flow of missiles and other advanced weaponry from Iran to Houthi rebel forces in Yemen threatens the people and interests of America and our partners in the region,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a news release.
U.S. officials said that Navy Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Christopher J. Chambers was boarding the boat on January 11 and slipped into the gap created by high waves between the vessel and the SEALs’ combatant craft. As Chambers fell, Navy Special Warfare Operator 2nd Class Nathan Gage Ingram jumped in to try to save him, according to U.S. officials familiar with what happened.
“Two Navy SEALs tragically lost their lives in the operation that thwarted the defendants charged today from allegedly smuggling Iranian-made weapons that the Houthis could have used to target American forces and threaten freedom of navigation and a vital artery for commerce,” Monaco said.
Muhammad Pahlawan is charged with attempting to smuggle advanced missile components, including a warhead he is accused of knowing would be used by the Houthi rebels against commercial and naval vessels in the Red Sea and surrounding waters. He is also charged with providing false information to U.S. Coast Guard officers during the boarding of the vessel.
Pahlawan’s co-defendants — Mohammad Mazhar, Ghufran Ullah and Izhar Muhammad — were also charged with providing false information.
Pahlawan’s attorney, Assistant Supervisory Federal Public Defender Amy Austin, said Pahlawan had an initial appearance in U.S. District Court on Thursday and is scheduled to be back in court Tuesday for a detention hearing. She declined to comment on the case.
“Right now, he’s just charged with two crimes and we’re just at the very beginning stages, and so all we know is what’s in the complaint,” Austin said when reached by phone Thursday.
According to prosecutors, Navy forces boarded a small, unflagged vessel, described as a dhow, and encountered 14 people on the ship on the night of January 11, in the Arabian Sea off the Somali coast.
Navy forces searched the dhow and found what prosecutors say were Iranian-made weapons, including components for medium-range ballistic missiles and anti-ship cruise missiles.
All 14 sailors on the dhow were brought onto the USS Lewis B. Puller after Navy forces determined the dhow was not seaworthy. They were then brought back to Virginia, where criminal charges were filed against four and material witness warrants were filed against the other 10.
According to an FBI affidavit, Navy forces were entitled to board the ship because they were conducting an authorized “flag verification” to determine the country where the dhow was registered.
The dhow was determined to be flying without a flag and was therefore deemed a “vessel without nationality” that was subject to U.S. law, the affidavit states.
According to the affidavit, the sailors on the dhow admitted they had departed from Iran, although at least one of the men initially insisted they departed from Pakistan.
The affidavit states that crew members had been in contact multiple times by satellite phone with a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
https://www.voanews.com/a/charged-in-us-court-with-transporting-iranian-made-weapons-/7499294.html Save to Pocket
Why 2024 Is a Make or Break Year for Rivian
date: 2024-02-23, from: Heatmap News
America’s most interesting electric-vehicle company is about to have the
defining year of its life.
On Wednesday, the company reported that it lost $1.58 billion in the fourth quarter of last year, bringing its net annual losses to $5.4 billion. It announced that it is laying off about 10% of its salaried employees, but — at the same time — promised that it has a plan to achieve a small profit by the end of this year.
Rivian does not seem to be in trouble — not quite yet, at least. But the earnings made clear what electric-vehicle observers have known for a long time: Either the company will emerge from this year poised to be a winner in the EV transition, or it will find itself up against the wall.
That’s partially because Rivian has a stomach-turning number of corporate milestones coming up. Over the next 11 months, it plans to unveil an entirely new line of vehicles, shut down its factory for several weeks for cost-saving upgrades, break ground on a new $5 billion facility in Georgia, and — most importantly — turn a profit for the first time. It also expects to manufacture and deliver roughly another 60,000 vehicles to customers.
Any one of these goals would be difficult to achieve in any environment. But Rivian is going to have to execute all of them during a time defined by “economic and geopolitical uncertainties” and especially high interest rates, its CEO R.J. Scaringe told investors on Wednesday. Since 2021, Rivian’s once robust stockpile of cash has been cut in half to about $7 billion; at its current burn rate, the company will run out of money in a little more than two years.
Although Rivian’s situation is dire, it’s not experiencing anything out of the ordinary. As I’ve written before, the electric truck maker is crossing what commentators sometimes call “the EV valley of death.” This is the challenging point in a company’s life cycle where it has developed a product and scaled it up to production — thereby raising its operating expenses to eye-watering levels — but where its revenue has not yet increased too.
During this vulnerable period, a company essentially burns through its cash on hand in the hope that more customers and serious revenue will soon show up. If those customers don’t arrive, then it either needs to raise more cash … or it runs out of money and goes bankrupt.
It’s a frightening time, but once a company crosses the valley of death, it can reach an idyll. Not so long ago, Tesla found itself in something like Rivian’s position as it prepared to launch the Model 3. Seven years later, it is the most valuable automaker in the world.
Once Rivian’s revenue exceeds its costs, its problems will get easier, or at least more straightforward: Instead of fighting for its survival and watching its cash reserves dwindle, Scaringe will be able to make more strategic trade-offs. Should the company cut costs to expand its profit margin and reward investors, or should it pass the savings along to customers in the form of lower prices, thus growing its market share? Scaringe can’t make these types of decisions until his firm is safely out of the valley.
Claire McDonough, Rivian’s chief financial officer and a former J.P. Morgan director, has a plan for crossing that canyon — an aptly if strangely named “bridge to profitability” that it will attempt to build this year. Rivian’s survival, she said, will depend above all on cutting the unit costs of producing its vehicles, including by using fewer materials to make every car. Other savings will come from making more vehicles faster. That’s what makes the shutdown plan, though it might seem extreme, worth it; McDonough said those improvements alone will get the company about 80% of the way to profitability.
Another 15% will come from marketing more “software-enabled products” to Rivian drivers and by selling air-pollution credits to other carmakers, whose vehicles are not as climate-friendly. This is a tried-and-true technique; Tesla first turned a profit in 2021 by selling regulatory credits needed to comply with federal and California state-level rules to other, dirtier automakers. But that same year, Tesla also debuted an entirely new vehicle: the Model Y crossover, which quickly became its top seller in the United States. Tesla, in other words, finally started to make money by cutting costs, finding new revenue sources, and releasing new products.
New products, however, are becoming a weak point for Rivian. The company says that high interest rates will keep demand for its vehicles flat this year. It expects to make about 60,000 of them, about 20,000 fewer than what it had once anticipated. The Rivian R1S, a three-row S.U.V., has become the company’s flagship; it is selling better and is cheaper to manufacture than Rivian’s pickup, the R1T. It also costs at least $75,000, or nearly $600 a month to lease. The highest-tier models can cost $99,000. Turns out, it’s difficult to sell a lot of $70,000 trucks when even the cheapest new-car loans hover around 6%.
Rivian once had a first-to-market advantage in the electric three-row SUV market, but that may be fizzling out, too. Kia is now selling its own all-electric three-row SUV, the EV9, for $18,000 less than the R1S; in fact, the Kia EV9’s most expensive trim costs $76,000, which is only slightly more than the cheapest R1S. The Kia SUV can also charge faster than the Rivian under ideal conditions. It remains an open question how many rich suburbanites are still interested in buying Rivians, especially now that the Tesla Cybertruck and Ford F-150 Lightning are competing directly with Rivian’s pickup truck.
The company’s hopes, in other words, rest on its next product line: the R2, which it will launch on March 7. We know almost nothing about the R2 line, except that it will probably include an SUV, that it will go on sale in 2026, and that it will fall somewhere in the $45,000 to $55,000 price range. (The median new car transaction in the United States now costs $48,200.) Last year, Scaringe told me that the R2’s timing was perfect because it would fit “beautifully with what we see as this big shift” in the American EV market. In today’s market, he said, “a lot of people ask themselves, Am I gonna get an electric car? Well maybe the next one.” He better hope they’ll start buying that next one in 2026.
Even if they do, Rivian may still have to confront the problem that Tesla has changed the EV market before Rivian could get there. When the first Tesla Model 3s were delivered in 2017, the sedan was instantly one of the best EVs on the market — because it was one of the only EVs on the market. Now every automaker in the world has plans to compete at the Model 3’s price point.
Rivian’s fortunes don’t rest entirely on American consumers; it also sells vans to commercial fleet operators, as well as delivery trucks to Amazon. (Amazon owns about 17% of Rivian.) But that business can be lumpy. Rivian’s vehicle growth slowed down last quarter, for instance, almost entirely because of a near pause in sales to Amazon, which sets up fewer new vehicles in the fourth quarter. If Amazon is willing to bail out Rivian, in other words, it’s not yet clear in the data.
None of this is to say that the company’s outlook is dire. Rivian was always going to find itself at a moment like this, when its expenses exceeded its revenue by such a large amount. The automaker already has devoted fans, and many people — myself included — are interested in the R2 as a potential first EV purchase.
And the company has shown that it can make strides in a single year. Twelve months ago, I had never seen a Rivian on the road before; today, one is regularly parked on my block. The company rocketed from a standing start to become the No. 5 best-selling electric car brand in America last year. What the company has done so far is impressive. But now it must prove that it can be great.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correctly reflect Rivian’s cash burn rate.
https://heatmap.news/electric-vehicles/rivian-earnings-r2-release Save to Pocket
Accelerating Your Project with Rapid Quote Turnaround Times
date: 2024-02-23, from: Elevated Materials, upcycled carbon fiber
In the dynamic world of manufacturing, time is often the most precious resource. For companies working with manufacturers, the time to receive a quote for a project can be a game-changer. Rapid quote turnaround times not only streamline the initial stages of a project but also set the tone for efficient production and delivery. Here,…
The post Accelerating Your Project with Rapid Quote Turnaround Times appeared first on Elevated Materials.
https://www.elevatedmaterials.com/accelerating-your-project-with-rapid-quote-turnaround-times/ Save to Pocket
Castaic Science Olympiad Team perseveres, puts up top-10 finish
date: 2024-02-23, from: The Signal
Castaic High School’s Science Olympiad Team competed at the Southern California Science Olympiad Los Angeles Regional Tournament to score ninth place in its division on Saturday. Castaic, the newest high school in the William S. Hart Union High School District, not only placed ahead of other schools in the district, but also placed ahead of […]
The post <strong>Castaic Science Olympiad Team perseveres, puts up top-10 finish</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/castaic-science-olympiad-team-perseveres-puts-up-top-10-finish/ Save to Pocket
Ex-FBI Source Accused of Lying About Bidens Returns to US Custody
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
las vegas — A former FBI informant who claims to have links to Russian intelligence and is charged with lying about a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden’s family was again taken into custody Thursday in Las Vegas, two days after a judge released him, his attorneys said.
Alexander Smirnov was arrested during a meeting Thursday morning at his lawyers’ offices in downtown Las Vegas. The arrest came after prosecutors appealed the judge’s ruling allowing Smirnov, 43, who holds dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship, to be released with a GPS monitor ahead of trial. He is charged with making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record.
Attorneys David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld said in a statement that they have requested an immediate hearing on his detention and will again push for his release. They said Smirnov was taken into custody on a warrant issued in California for the same charges.
The case against Smirnov was originally filed in California, where he used to live. Several sealed entries were listed in the court docket, but no additional details about his return to custody were immediately available.
A spokesman for Justice Department special counsel David Weiss, who is prosecuting Smirnov, confirmed that Smirnov had been arrested again, but did not have additional comment. He is in the custody of U.S. marshals in Nevada, said Gary Schofield, the chief marshal in Las Vegas.
Prosecutors say Smirnov falsely told his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid President Biden and Hunter Biden $5 million each around 2015. The claim became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry of President Biden in Congress.
Smirnov has not entered a plea to the charges, but his lawyers have said their client is presumed innocent and they look forward to defending him at trial.
As part of their push to keep him in custody, prosecutors said Smirnov told investigators after his arrest last week that “officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story” about Hunter Biden. They said Smirnov’s self-reported contact with Russian officials was recent and extensive, and said he had planned to meet with foreign intelligence contacts during an upcoming trip abroad.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel Albregts on Tuesday had said he was concerned about Smirnov’s access to money that prosecutors estimated at $6 million but noted that federal guidelines required him to fashion “the least restrictive conditions” ahead of trial. Smirnov was also ordered to stay in the area and surrender his passports.
Prosecutors quickly appealed to U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright in California.
While his identity wasn’t publicly known before the indictment, Smirnov’s claims have played a major part in the Republican effort in Congress to investigate the president and his family, and helped spark what is now a House impeachment inquiry into Biden. Republicans pursuing investigations of the Bidens demanded the FBI release the unredacted form documenting the unverified allegations, though they acknowledged they couldn’t confirm if they were true.
Democrats called for an end to the probe after the Smirnov indictment came down last week, while Republicans distanced the inquiry from his claims and said they would continue to “follow the facts.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/ex-fbi-source-accused-of-lying-about-bidens-returns-to-us-custody-/7499290.html Save to Pocket
Triumph Foundation: Star Shines Bright When Darkness Closes In
date: 2024-02-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Star has never been one to let a tough situation keep her down. But an unexpected injury put her resilience to the test
https://scvnews.com/triumph-foundation-star-shines-bright-when-darkness-closes-in/ Save to Pocket
Avast shells out $17M to shoo away claims it peddled people’s personal data
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
A name that’s commonly shouted by pirates might be a clue, me hearties!
Avast has agreed to cough up $16.5 million after the FTC accused the antivirus vendor of selling customer information to third parties.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/avast_ftc_settlement/ Save to Pocket
Mustangs Enjoy Record-Breaking Afternoon at Golden Eagle Invitational
date: 2024-02-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Master’s University track and field teams had a record-breaking afternoon recently at the Golden Eagle Invitational in Irvine
https://scvnews.com/mustangs-enjoy-record-breaking-afternoon-at-golden-eagle-invitational/ Save to Pocket
The Dodgers Gondola Project Lives To See Another Day: Metro Board Moves Forward With Plans
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The LAist
The proposed project now heads to the L.A. City Council, Caltrans, and California State Parks for their approval. It includes more than 30 conditions the project must meet in order to break ground.
https://laist.com/news/transportation/dodgers-gondola-project-metro-board-approves-plans Save to Pocket
The Dodgers Gondola Project Lives To See Another Day: Metro Board Moves Forward With Plans
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The LAist
The proposed project now heads to the L.A. City Council, Caltrans, and California State Parks for their approval. It includes more than 30 conditions the project must meet in order to break ground.
https://laist.com/news/dodgers-gondola-project-metro-board-approves-plans Save to Pocket
Apple Sports Is Eddy Cue’s Baby
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: Daring Fireball
https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/02/apple-sports-a-free-iphone-app-to-get-you-the-score-fast/ Save to Pocket
Friday 23 February, 2024
date: 2024-02-23, from: John Naughton’s online diary
My ol’ Burgundian Home If I had a house en Bourgogne (which, alas, I don’t), I’d like one like this. And then I’d ask Randy Newman to do a variation on this for me. Quote of the Day ”My problem … Continue reading
https://memex.naughtons.org/friday-23-february-2024/39166/ Save to Pocket
US Making Plan for Palestinian State After War Ends in Gaza
date: 2024-02-23, from: VOA News USA
Although fighting in Gaza shows no sign of ending soon, the international community is looking at the day-after scenario in the Gaza Strip. The United States says it wants to see a demilitarized Palestinian state headed by a revitalized Palestinian Authority. Israel continues to reject the idea. Linda Gradstein reports for VOA from Jerusalem.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-making-plan-for-palestinian-state-after-war-ends-in-gaza-/7498889.html Save to Pocket
Google sends Gemini AI back to engineering to adjust its White balance
date: 2024-02-23, updated: 2024-02-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Big Tech keeps poisoning the well without facing any consequences for its folly
Comment Google has suspended availability of text-to-image capabilities in its recently released Gemini multimodal foundational AI model, after it failed to accurately represent White Europeans and Americans in specific historical contexts.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/23/google_suspends_gemini/ Save to Pocket
GHC 9.8.2 is now available
date: 2024-02-23, from: Glasgow Haskell Compiler
GHC 9.8.2 is now available
Zubin Duggal - 2024-02-23
The GHC developers are happy to announce the availability of GHC 9.8.2. Binary distributions, source distributions, and documentation are available on the release page.
This release is primarily a bugfix release addressing many issues found in the 9.8 series. These include:
- A fix for a bug where certain warnings flags were not recognised (#24071)
- Fixes for bugs in the renamer and typechecker (#24084, #24134, #24279, #24083)
- Fixes for bugs in the simplifier and code generator (#24160, #24242, #23628, #23659, #24160, #23862, #24295, #24370)
- Fixes for some memory leaks in GHCi (#24107, #24118)
- Improvements to error messages (#21097, #16996, #11050, #24196, #24275, #23768, #23784, #23778)
- A fix for a recompilation checking bug where GHC may miss changes in transitive dependencies when deciding to relink a program (#23724).
- And many more fixes
A full accounting of changes can be found in the release notes. As some of the fixed issues do affect correctness users are encouraged to upgrade promptly.
We would like to thank Microsoft Azure, GitHub, IOG, the Zw3rk stake pool, Well-Typed, Tweag I/O, Serokell, Equinix, SimSpace, Haskell Foundation, and other anonymous contributors whose on-going financial and in-kind support has facilitated GHC maintenance and release management over the years. Finally, this release would not have been possible without the hundreds of open-source contributors whose work comprise this release.
As always, do give this release a try and open a ticket if you see anything amiss.
Enjoy!
-Zubin
http://haskell.org/ghc/blog/20240223-ghc-9.8.2-released.html Save to Pocket
pgagroal 1.6
date: 2024-02-23, from: PostgreSQL News
The pgagroal community is happy to announce version 1.6.0.
New features
- Support for CLI/JSON output
- Support for client certificates (Experimental)
- Introduce subcommand config-get
- Introduce subcommand config-set
- Add a max_connection_age setting
- Mac OS X support
pgagroal
pgagroal is a high-performance protocol-native connection pool for PostgreSQL.
Features
- High performance
- Connection pool
- Limit connections for users and databases
- Prefill support
- Remove idle connections
- Perform connection validation
- Enable / disable database access
- Graceful / fast shutdown
- Prometheus support
- Grafana 8 dashboard
- Remote management
- Authentication query support
- Failover support
- Transport Layer Security (TLS) v1.2+ support
- Daemon mode
- User vault
Learn more on our web site or GitHub. Follow on Twitter.
pgagroal is released under the 3-clause BSD license.
https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/pgagroal-16-2813/ Save to Pocket
Full Circle Magazine 202
date: 2024-02-23, from: Full Circle Magazine
This month:
- Command & Conquer
- How-To : Python, Stable Diffusion and Latex
- Graphics : Inkscape
- Review : Xubuntu 23.10 and Uwuntu
- UbPorts Touch : OTA-4
- My Story : OSX To Linux Mint
- Ubuntu Games - Ginsha
plus: News, Q&A, The Daily Waddle, and more.
Other Languages
https://fullcirclemagazine.org/magazines/issue-202/ Save to Pocket
Two missing features from HTML5, an enhanced form.enctype and a list input type
date: 2024-02-23, from: Robert’s Ramblings
I wish the form element supported a application/json
encoding type and there was such a thing as a list-input
element.
I’ve been thinking about how we can get back to basic HTML documents
and move away from JavaScript required to render richer web forms. When
web forms arrived on scene in the early 1990s they included a few basic
input types. Over the years a few have been added but by and large the
data model has remained relatively flat. The exception being the select
element with multiple attribute set. I believe we are being
limited by the original choice of urlencoding web forms and then resort
to JavaScript to address it’s limitations.
What does the encoding of a web form actually look like? The web
generally encodes the form using urlencoding. It presents a stream of
key value pairs where the keys are the form’s input names and the values
are the value of the input element. With a multi-select element the
browser simply repeats the key and adds the next value in the selection
list to that key. In Go you can describe this simple data structure as a
map[string][]string1. Most of the time a key
points to a single element array of string but sometimes it can have
multiple elements using that key and then the array expands to
accommodate. Most of the time we don’t think about this as web
developers. The library provided with your programming language decodes
the form into a more programmer friendly representation. But still I
believe this simple urlencoding has held us back. Let me illustrate the
problem through a series of simple form examples.
Here’s an example of a simple form with a multi select box. It is asking for your choice of ice cream flavors. …
https://rsdoiel.github.io/blog/2024/02/23/enhanced_form_handling.html Save to Pocket
Russia’s Role in the South Caucasus and Central Asia
date: 2024-02-23, from: ETH Zurich, recently added
Safiyev, Rail; Kobilov, Firdavs Burkhardt, Fabian; Orttung, Robert; Perović, Jeronim; Pleines, Heiko; Schröder, Hans-Henning
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/661339 Save to Pocket
In English this could be described as “a map using a string to point at a list of strings” with “string” being a sequence of letters or characters.↩︎