News gathered 2024-06-23

The 28-year-old man was in stable condition at a hospital where he is being treated for a wound to his face, authorities said.

S.F.: Firefighters save warehouse in 2-acre fire in Bayview District

A wind-driven grass fire damaged the exterior of a warehouse and two acres of vegetation and trees in San Francisco’s Bayview district Saturday, but firefighters got the one-alarm blaze under control quickly and saved the warehouse, fire officials said.

Sharks trade forward drafted in first round to Predators

The San Jose Sharks have traded Ozzy Wiesblatt, their 2020 first-round draft pick, to the Nashville Predators for forward Egor Afanasyev

Turn Off The Pillow Machines

Amazon’s plans to shift its packaging strategy points at a new front in the lengthy tug of war between paper and plastic—a war that started in grocery stores.

‘Inside Out 2’ scores $100M in its 2nd weekend, setting records

The Pixar sequel collected $100 million in ticket sales in its second weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday, setting a record for an animated movie in its follow-up frame in theaters. The previous best second weekend for an animated title was the $92 million for “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” Only six movies ever have had better second weekends.

In just a week and a half, “Inside Out 2” has become 2024’s highest-grossing film to date with $724.4 million globally, including $355.2 million in U.S. and Canadian theaters. That passes the $711.8 million worldwide total of “Dune: Part Two.” “Inside Out 2” will likely blow through the $1 billion mark in about a week, which would make it the first film since “Barbie” to do so.

The extent of the “Inside Out 2” success startled Hollywood, which had grown accustomed to lower expectations as the film industry watched ticket sales this year slump about 40% below pre-pandemic totals, according to data firm Comscore, before “Inside Out 2” came along.

The record haul for “Inside Out 2,” though, recalled past years when $1 billion grosses were more commonplace for the Walt Disney Co. It is also a much-needed blockbuster for Pixar, which after experimenting with direct-to-streaming releases, reconsidered its movie pipeline and approach to mass-audience appeal.

Now, “Inside Out 2,” which dipped a mere 35% from its $154 million domestic debut, is poised to challenge “The Incredibles 2” ($1.2 billion) for the all-time top grossing Pixar release. It could also steer the venerated animation factory toward more sequels. Among its upcoming films is “Toy Story 5,” due out in 2026.

For theater owners, “Inside Out 2” could hardly have been more needed. But it also reminded exhibitors of how feast-or-famine the movie business has become in recent years. Since the pandemic, movies like “Barbie,” “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “Top Gun: Maverick” have pushed ticket sales to record heights, but fallow periods in between box-office sensations have grown longer. Ticket sales over Memorial Day last month were the worst in three decades.

Some of 2024’s downturn can be attributed to release-schedule juggling caused by last year’s writers and actors strikes. The biggest new release over the weekend was Jeff Nichols’ motorcycle gang drama “The Bikeriders,” a film originally slated to open in 2023 before the actors’ strike prompted its postponement.

“The Bikeriders,” starring Jodie Comer, Austin Butler and Tom Hardy, came in on the high side of expectations with $10 million from 2,642 venues in its opening weekend. “The Bikeriders,” which cost about $35 million to produce, was originally to be released by Disney before New Regency took it to Focus Features last fall.

The strong business for “Inside Out 2” appeared to raise ticket sales generally. Sony Pictures’ “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” held well in its third week of release, collecting $18.8 million. It remained in second place. The “Bad Boys” sequel, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, has grossed $146.9 million domestically thus far.

Next week, the sci-fi horror prequel “A Quiet Place: Day One” and Kevin Costner’s Western epic “Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1” will hope some of the “Inside Out 2” success rubs off on them.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

Fighting bots

That brings up the question: what do we do? What even can we do? It’s obvious that robots.txt is no longer an option because most companies don’t even bother checking it. We can try to block the user agents at a server level but they can avoid that by simply sending a generic UA. We could de-list our sites but that would make it very hard for actual users to find our content and I suspect the point of writing for most of us is to share and connect with others. The legal system sure ain’t gonna fix this situation anytime soon. So what’s left? I guess there are only two options left:

Both solutions are suboptimal. Reading Nicolas’s post made me also think about something else. He wrote:

What if Google decided to do that? What if Google decided to not return any result related to a company like Perplexity? I know it’s obviously not going to happen but wouldn’t that be funny?

(Weekend Edition) Field Notes: June 23, 2024

On My Mind This past week, I devoted time to “personal maintenance,” undergoing the usual array of medical tests necessary to preempt potential health issues. Additionally, I faced a dreaded dental surgery — which, despite the use of lasers and sedatives, did not necessarily mean less pain or discomfort. As a result, my writing, reading, …

Animals with names, not numbers

Blue, a Yorkshire pig, enjoyed a warm sunny Thursday morning by taking a long nap and receiving belly scratches from Farm Sanctuary tour guide Rafaella Epalas. Named after his bright […]

An American Story

Self-taught home cook shines in national cooking contest

Rlynn Smith-Thomas likes to spend time in the kitchen cooking meals that are rich in flavor, nutritious, and will put a smile on her friends’ and family’s faces. The self-taught […]

Temperatures expected to drop after a scorching Saturday in the Bay Area

After a scorcher of a Saturday where parts of the Bay Area experienced temperatures in the mid-90s and in the triple digits, Sunday is expected to bring a bit of relief. “Today is going to be generally cooler than yesterday,” National Weather Service meteorologist Rachel Kennedy said. “We’re looking at temperatures that are about five […]

NHTSA finalizes moderate fuel economy standards for 2027-2031

On June 7th, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced finalized fuel economy standards that will govern the auto industry during model years 2027-2031. The NHTSA is an agency within the U.S. Department of Transportation tasked with administering the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, and the finalization of new regulations marks the end of a complex rulemaking process.

2024 Dodge Hornet does tradition right

The Hudson Hornet debuted in 1951, the Dodge Hornet in 2023. In the interim, the same nameplate has been used on concept cars, pickup trucks and daily drivers.

Arizona athletics: The challenging future, a critical report and AD Desiree Reed-Francois’ first 100 days

An assessment by Ernst & Young found numerous flaws with the Wildcats’ budgeting process.

‘Hands down our best performance’: Bay FC’s defense rises to occasion in win over Angel City

Expansion Bay FC in thick of playoff race after defense leads team to a 1-0 victory over Los Angeles rival.

The 2024 Ford Bronco Everglades Edition 4 door 4×4 SUV

What is a Bronco? A Bronco is a midsize SUV built in the Ford Motor Company’s Wayne, Michigan assembly plant and sold in North America by Ford. The 2024 Ford Bronco is a 4 wheel drive SUV available in 9 primary trim levels. In order of price they are: Big Bend, Black Diamond, Heritage Edition, Outer Banks, Badlands, Wildtrak, Heritage Edition Limited, Everglades and Raptor. This SUV is an Everglades Edition.

Photos: 5th annual Lakefest in Oakland

Thousands of festivalgoers attended Saturday’s 5th annual Lakefest at Lake Merritt in Oakland.

Democrats wrestle with whether to attend Netanyahu’s address to Congress

Washington — The last time Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the U.S. Congress, nearly 60 Democrats skipped his speech nine years ago, calling it a slap in the face to then-President Barack Obama as he negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran.

With Netanyahu scheduled to address U.S. lawmakers on July 24 and his government now at war with Hamas in Gaza, the number of absences is likely to be far greater.

Congressional Democrats are wrestling with whether to attend. Many are torn between their long-standing support for Israel and their anguish about the way Israel has conducted military operations in Gaza. More than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 that triggered the war, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run territory. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its figures.

While some Democrats are saying they will come out of respect for Israel, a larger and growing faction wants no part of it, creating an extraordinarily charged atmosphere at a gathering that normally amounts to a ceremonial, bipartisan show of support for an American ally.

“I wish that he would be a statesman and do what is right for Israel. We all love Israel,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said recently on CNN about Netanyahu.

Tensions between Netanyahu and Democratic President Joe Biden have been seeping into the public, with Netanyahu last week accusing the Biden administration of withholding U.S. weapons from Israel — a claim he made again Sunday to his Cabinet. After the prime minister leveled the charge the first time, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “We genuinely do not know what he’s talking about. We just don’t.”

The invitation from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to Netanyahu came after consultation with the White House, according to a person familiar with the matter who was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive subject. As of now, no meeting between the leaders during Netanyahu’s Washington visit has been scheduled, this person said.

Netanyahu said in a release that he was “very moved” by the invitation to address Congress and the chance “to present the truth about our just war against those who seek to destroy us to the representatives of the American people and the entire world.”

Republicans first floated the idea in March of inviting Netanyahu after Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the United States, gave a speech on the Senate floor that was harshly critical of the prime minister. Schumer, D-N.Y., called the Israeli leader “an obstacle to peace” and urged new elections in Israel, even as he denounced Hamas and criticized Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Republicans denounced the speech as an affront to Israel and its sovereignty. Johnson spoke of asking Netanyahu to come to Washington, an invitation that Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York ultimately endorsed, albeit reluctantly. Pelosi, who opposed the invitation to Netanyahu in 2015 when she was Democratic leader, said it was a mistake for the congressional leadership to extend it again this time.

Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who attended the 2015 address as a House member, said he saw no reason why Congress “should extend a political lifeline” to Netanyahu.

Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said it would be “healthy” for members of both parties to attend. “I think that a lot of Americans are getting a one-sided narrative, especially the younger generation, and I think it’s important they hear from the prime minister of Israel, in terms of his perspective,” said McCaul, R-Texas.

Interviews with more than a dozen Democrats revealed the breadth of discontent over the coming address, which many feel is a Republican ploy intended to divide their party. Some Democrats say they will attend to express their support for Israel, not Netanyahu.

New York Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he has an “obligation” to attend because of that position.

Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., who leads the Sente Foreign Relations Committee, has signaled he will be there. Cardin said that what he’s looking for in Netanyahu’s speech is a “type of message that can strengthen the support in this country for Israel’s needs,” but also lay the groundwork for peace in the region.

Other Democrats are waiting to see whether Netanyahu will still be prime minister by the time he is supposed to speak to Congress.

There have been open signs of discontent over the handling of the war by Netanyahu’s government, a coalition that includes right-wing hard-liners who oppose any kind of settlement with Hamas.

Benny Gantz, a former military chief and centrist politician, withdrew from Netanyahu’s war Cabinet this month, citing frustration over the prime minister’s conduct of the war. On Monday, Netanyahu dissolved that body.

Rep. Seth Magaziner, D-R.I., said he stands with those “who hope that he’s not prime minister by the time late July rolls around. I think that he has been bad for Israel, bad for Palestinians, bad for America.” But, he added, he believes it his job to show up when a head of state addresses Congress, “even if its someone who I have concerns about and disagree with.”

Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., attended the 2015 speech and described it as “among the most painful hours” he has spent while in Congress. He plans to boycott unless Netanyahu became a “champion for a cease-fire.”

A large portion of the Congressional Progressive Caucus — lawmakers who are among the most critical of Israel’s handling of the war — is expected to skip. Among them is Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the caucus, who told The Associated Press that it was a “bad idea,” to invite Netanyahu.

What Are All These Alerts About Ground-Level Ozone?

If you’re of a certain age, you probably remember the hole in the ozone layer. Like Joseph Kony and Livestrong wristbands, the obsession over O3 now feels like a cultural artifact, thanks to ozone depletion being one of the rare success stories of international environmental cooperation. Since the world banned chlorofluorocarbons under the Montreal Protocol in 1987, the holes over the North and South poles have steadily recovered.

Today, if you hear about “ozone” at all, it’s much more likely to be from an air quality alert on your phone. Unlike the stratospheric ozone that we were all so concerned about in the 1980s and 1990s, which makes up a protective layer around the planet that insulates us from the sun’s cancer-causing ultraviolet rays, “tropospheric” or “ground-level” ozone is mainly man-made. In fact, when people throw around the word “pollution,” what they’re probably talking about is ground-level ozone, which is created by a chemical reaction between nitrogen oxides (highly reactive gases produced by burning fuels) and volatile organic compounds (organic compounds that easily evaporate under normal environmental conditions and can be found in vehicle exhaust as well as scented personal care products like deodorants, lotions, and bug sprays), plus sunlight. This chemical reaction usually occurs when cars, refineries, power plants, and other industrial sources emit pollutants into the environment during a hot, clear day. You probably know the result by its other name: smog.

Ozone is a climate issue not just because it is yet another concerning consequence of burning fossil fuels. According to some estimates, high levels of ground-level ozone pollution could grow in frequency by three to nine additional days per year by 2050 because of the gas’s close relationship with intense sunlight and high temperatures. While ozone dissipates fairly quickly once those conditions go away, it can build up while they last. Hot days, which are increasing in the U.S., also coincide with weak winds and stagnant air — conditions that allow ozone to accumulate in one place.

When the temperatures start to rise, here’s what you need to know and what you can do to protect yourself and others from ozone pollution.

How worried should I be when I get an air quality alert for ground-level ozone?

Different pollutants cause concern at different concentrations. The Air Quality Index is designed so that, in theory, a level of “100” corresponds to the point at which people in sensitive populations might start to be affected by the pollutant in question. (To learn more about how the AQI is calculated, you can read our explainer here).

That said, “The evidence has clearly been increasing that lower levels of ozone — levels well below the current standard of 70 parts per billion — are causing more health impacts,” Katherine Pruitt, the national senior director of policy at the American Lung Association, which is campaigning to strengthen the standard to 55 to 60 parts per billion, told me.

As Pruitt explained, ozone is a caustic irritant and can corrode metals. Breathing it in can cause inflammation in anyone, “from vulnerable children and elders to even the fittest elite athletes,” Pruitt said, adding that it is, “at some level, like getting a sunburn on your lungs.” Anyone who spends time outside is vulnerable to ozone, but the more sensitive groups — including children; the elderly; people with asthma, chronic heart disease, and other diseases; and pregnant women — are at a higher risk. They might already be paying more attention to the AQI levels in their area, and will potentially notice that they need to slow down and limit exertion during “yellow” or “orange”-level ozone events.

In the short term, ozone pollution can cause coughing, shortness of breath, and a lowered immune response, on top of aggravating any preexisting lung conditions or diseases. But Pruitt stressed to me that “living in places that have high levels of ozone day in and day out, for months and years, can cause respiratory diseases, nervous system disorders, metabolic disorders, reproductive problems, and mortality. It’s not just a cough and a wheeze on one bad air day.”

Where are the worst places in the country for ozone?

Ozone requires two main ingredients: the burning of fossil fuels and other chemicals, and sunlight. While ozone concentrations can be high in communities with a lot of industry and freeways nearby, ozone is “not really so much a roadway problem; it’s more of what we call an ambient air pollutant,” Pruitt said. Ozone can travel far away from where it was produced, in other words.

There are some rules of thumb, though. The places with the highest emissions and most appropriate atmospheric conditions for ozone pollution are “increasingly the western U.S. and the Southwest,” Pruitt said. The top four worst cities for ozone on the 2024 State of the Air report by the ALA were all in California, led by Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Since the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1963, other regions of the country have been doing much better, including the Southeast, mid-Atlantic, and Northeast. (Bangor, Maine, had the cleanest air in the report.)

What can I do to protect myself?

Because ozone is so strongly related to sunlight, it does not cause indoor air pollution to the same extent as wildfire smoke (which, if you’re keeping score, is a PM2.5 pollutant). “Because it’s so reactive, it gloms onto your furniture and your walls and stuff, once it gets inside,” Pruitt said of ozone. To protect yourself, you can just stay indoors and run your air conditioner.

But what if you want or need to go out? Because ozone is a gas rather than a particle, HEPA filters and face masks won’t protect you. Instead, Pruitt said that you can time your errands, tend to your garden, and exercise when the sunlight is the weakest — mornings, especially, tend to be less demanding on the lungs during ozone events.

What can I do to protect others?

The Clean Air Act of 1963 requires the Environmental Protection Agency to review the national ambient air quality standards for ozone (as well as several other pollutants) every five years. “It almost never actually does it every five years” though, Pruitt said. “Sometimes advocates have to sue them to get them to move things along.” The EPA completed its last review in December 2020, with the Trump administration maintaining the 70 parts per billion standard set in 2015. Attacks on the Clean Air Act would likely resume if Trump retakes office.

Aside from agitating for stricter clean air standards, there are measures you can take to protect others from ozone events. The simplest is not to contribute any more nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds to the environment than you otherwise have to when ozone levels are high. Avoid driving or idling your car; top off your tank during the coolest parts of the day, such as after dark; minimize your electricity use; and set your air conditioner no lower than 78 degrees.

In the long term, reducing ozone pollution will mean “choosing greener products for cleaning and personal care, so that we’re not producing volatile organic compounds,” Pruitt told me. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration previously found that in New York City in 2018, “about half” of the ambient volatile organic compounds it measured were produced by people, not vehicle exhaust. (Here’s a guide to reducing VOCs from your rotation.)

Additionally, “transitioning to zero-emission technologies so we’re not burning fossil fuels” will help limit ozone pollution, Pruitt said. The difference can be pretty significant: A study from the University of Houston published earlier this month found that by switching to electric vehicles, New York and Chicago could prevent 796 and 328 premature pollution-related deaths per month, respectively. Counterintuitively, the study found that more EVs on the roads could increase mortality in Los Angeles due to a corresponding increase in secondary organic aerosols caused by complicated dynamics between nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds and the city’s unique geography. “This underscores the need for region-specific environmental regulations,” the authors said.

LEVER WEEKLY: AI’s Unquenchable Thirst

From the AI apocalypse to the risks of mega trains, here’s all the news from The Lever this week.

Illinois may soon return land US stole from Prairie Band Potawatomi chief 175 years ago

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Some 175 years after the U.S. government stole land from the chief of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation while he was away visiting relatives, Illinois may soon return it to the tribe.

Nothing ever changed the 1829 treaty that Chief Shab-eh-nay signed with the U.S. government to preserve for him a reservation in northern Illinois: not subsequent accords nor the 1830 Indian Removal Act, which forced all indigenous people to move west of the Mississippi.

But around 1848, the U.S. sold the land to white settlers while Shab-eh-nay and other members of his tribe were visiting family in Kansas.

To right the wrong, Illinois would transfer a 1,500-acre (607-hectare) state park west of Chicago, which was named after Shab-eh-nay, to the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. The state would continue providing maintenance while the tribe says it wants to keep the park as it is.

“The average citizen shouldn’t know that title has been transferred to the nation so they can still enjoy everything that’s going on within the park and take advantage of all of that area out there,” said Joseph “Zeke” Rupnick, chairman of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation based in Mayetta, Kansas.

It’s not entirely the same soil that the U.S. took from Chief Shab-eh-nay. The boundaries of his original 1,280-acre (518-hectare) reservation now encompass hundreds of acres of privately owned land, a golf course and county forest preserve. The legislation awaiting Illinois House approval would transfer the Shabbona Lake State Recreation Area.

No one disputes Shab-eh-nay’s reservation was illegally sold and still belongs to the Potawatomi. An exactingly researched July 2000 memo from the Interior Department found the claim valid and shot down rebuttals from Illinois officials at the time, positing, “It appears that Illinois officials are struggling with the concept of having an Indian reservation in the state.”

Democratic state Rep. Will Guzzardi, who sponsored the legislation to transfer the state park, said it is a significant concession on the part of the Potawatomi. With various private and public concerns now owning more than half of the original reservation land, reclaiming it for the Potawatomi would set up a serpentine legal wrangle.

“Instead, the tribe has offered a compromise, which is to say, ‘We’ll take the entirety of the park and give up our claim to the private land and the county land and the rest of that land,’” Guzzardi said. “That’s a better deal for all parties involved.”

The proposed transfer of the park, which is 68 miles (109 kilometers) west of Chicago, won Senate approval in the final days of the spring legislative session. But a snag in the House prevented its passage. Proponents will seek endorsement of the measure when the Legislature returns in November for its fall meeting.

The Second Treaty of Prairie du Chien in 1829 guaranteed the original land to Chief Shab-eh-ney. The tribe signed 20 other treaties during the next 38 years, according to Rupnick.

“Yet Congress still kept those two sections of land for Chief Shab-eh-nay and his descendants forever,” said Rupnick, a fourth great-grandson of Shab-eh-nay. “At any one of those times the Congress could have removed the status of that land. They never did.”

Key to the proposal is a management agreement between the tribe and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Rupnick said the tribe needs the state’s help to maintain the park.

Many residents who live next to the park oppose the plan, fearing construction of a casino or even a hotel would draw more tourists and lead to a larger, more congested community.

“Myself and my family have put a lot of money and given up a lot to be where we are in a small community and enjoy the park the way that it is,” resident Becky Oest told a House committee in May, asking that the proposal be amended to prohibit construction that would “affect our community. It’s a small town. We don’t want it to grow bigger.”

Rupnick said a casino doesn’t make sense because state-sanctioned gambling boats already dot the state. He did not rule out a hotel, noting the park draws 500,000 visitors a year and the closest lodging is in DeKalb, 18 miles (29 kilometers) northeast of Shabbona. The park has 150 campsites.

In 2006, the tribe purchased 128 acres (52 hectares) in a corner of the original reservation and leases the land for farming. The U.S. government in April certified that as the first reservation in Illinois.

Guzzardi hopes the Potawatomi don’t have to wait much longer to see that grow exponentially with the park transfer.

“It keeps this beautiful public asset available to everyone,” Guzzardi said. “It resolves disputed title for landholders in the area and most importantly, it fixes a promise that we broke.”

Abortion access has won when it’s been on the ballot, but not option for half the states

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Tucked inside the West Virginia Statehouse is a copy of a petition to lawmakers with a simple request: Let the voters decide whether to reinstate legal access to abortion.

The request has been ignored by the Republican lawmakers who have supermajority control in the Legislature and banned abortions in the state in 2022, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a constitutional right to the procedure.

The petition, with more than 2,500 signatures, is essentially meaningless given the current makeup of the Legislature. But it illustrates the frustratingly limited options millions of Americans face in trying to re-establish abortion rights as the country marks the two-year anniversary since the Supreme Court’s ruling.

West Virginia is among the 25 states that do not allow citizen initiatives or constitutional amendments on a statewide ballot, an avenue of direct democracy that has allowed voters to circumvent their legislatures and preserve abortion and other reproductive rights in a number of states over the past two years.

Republicans there have repeatedly dismissed the idea of placing an abortion-rights measure before voters, which in West Virginia is a step only lawmakers can take.

“It makes you wonder what they’re so afraid of,” said Democratic Del. Kayla Young, one of only 16 women in the West Virginia Legislature. “If they feel so strongly that this is what people believe, prove it.”

The court’s ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade was praised by abortion opponents as a decision that returned the question to the states. Former President Donald Trump, who named three of the justices who overturned Roe, has repeatedly claimed “the people” are now the ones deciding abortion access.

“The people are deciding,” he said during a recent interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity. “And in many ways, it’s a beautiful thing to watch.”

But that’s not true everywhere. In states allowing the citizen initiative and where abortion access has been on the ballot, voters have resoundingly affirmed the right to abortion.

Voters in seven states, including conservative ones such as Kentucky, Montana and Ohio, have either protected abortion rights or defeated attempts to curtail them in statewide votes over the past two years. Reproductive rights supporters are trying to put citizen initiatives on the ballot in several states this year.

This is particularly true for those living in the South. Republican-controlled legislatures, many of which have been heavily gerrymandered to give the GOP disproportionate power, have enacted some of the strictest abortion bans since the Supreme Court ruling while shunning efforts to expand direct democracy.

States began adopting the initiative process during the Progressive Era more than a century ago, giving citizens a way to make or repeal laws through a direct vote of the people. Between 1898 and 1918, nearly 20 states approved the citizen initiative. Since then, just five states have done so.

“It was a different time,” said John Matsusaka, professor of business and law at the University of Southern California. “There was a political movement across the whole country when people were trying to do what they saw as good government.”

Some lawmakers argue citizen initiatives bypass important checks and balances offered through the legislative process. In Tennessee, where Republicans have gerrymandered legislative districts to give them a supermajority in the statehouse, House Majority Leader William Lamberth likened ballot measures to polls rather than what he described as the legislature’s strict review of complicated policy-making.

As in West Virginia, abortion-rights supporters or Democratic lawmakers have asked Republican-controlled legislatures in a handful of states to take the abortion question straight to voters, a tactic that hasn’t succeeded anywhere the GOP has a majority.

“This means you’re going to say, ‘Hey Legislature, would you like to give up some of your power? Would you like to give up your monopoly on policymaking?’” said Thad Kousser, professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego. “You need a political momentum and then have the process cooperate.”

In South Carolina, which bans nearly all abortions, a Democratic-backed resolution to put a state constitutional amendment on the ballot never got a hearing this year. Attempts to attach the proposal to other pieces of legislation were quickly shut down by Republicans.

“If you believe you are doing the right thing for all the people of South Carolina — men and women and babies — you should have no problem putting this to the people,” said Democratic Sen. Margie Bright Matthews, alleging that Republicans fear they would lose if the issue went directly to voters.

In Georgia, Democratic Rep. Shea Roberts said she frequently fields questions from her constituents asking how they can get involved in a citizen-led ballot measure. The interest exploded after voters in Kansas rejected an anti-abortion measure from the Legislature in 2022 and was rekindled last fall after Ohio voters overwhelmingly passed an amendment codifying abortion rights in the state’s constitution.

Yet when she has brought legislation to create a citizen initiative process in Georgia, the efforts have been ignored inside the Republican-controlled Legislature.

“Voters are constantly asking us why we can’t do this, and we’re constantly explaining that it’s not possible under our current constitution,” Roberts said. “If almost half of states have this process, why shouldn’t Georgians?”

The contrast is on stark display in two presidential swing states. Michigan voters used a citizen initiative to enshrine abortion rights in their state constitution in 2022. Voters in neighboring Wisconsin don’t have that ability.

Instead, Wisconsin Democrats, with a new liberal majority on the state Supreme Court, are working to overturn Republican-drawn legislative maps that are among the most gerrymandered in the country in the hope of eventually flipping the Legislature.

Analiese Eicher, director of communications at Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, said a citizen-led ballot measure process would have been especially valuable for her cause.

“We should have legislators who represent their constituents,” she said. “And if they don’t, there should be another option.”

In West Virginia, Steve Williams acknowledges the petition he spearheaded didn’t change minds inside the Legislature.

But the Democratic mayor of Huntington, who is a longshot candidate for governor, said he thinks state Republicans have underestimated how strongly voters believe in restoring some kind of abortion access.

Republican leadership has pointed to a 2018 vote in which just under 52% of voters supported a constitutional amendment saying there is no right to abortion access in the state. But Williams said the vote also had to do with state funding of abortion, which someone could oppose without wanting access completely eliminated.

The vote was close, voter participation was low and it came before the Supreme Court’s decision that eliminated a nationwide right to abortion. Williams said West Virginia women weren’t facing the reality of a near-total ban.

“Let’s face it: Life in 2024 is a heck of a lot different for women than it was in 2018,” he said.

David Hegg | Climb That Mountain!

By David Hegg For centuries, societies depended almost entirely on agriculture. The recognition that ground had to be cleared and plowed, seeds sown, and plants tended was part and parcel […]

Israel defense chief to discuss Gaza, Lebanon on US trip

Jerusalem — Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant headed to Washington on Sunday to discuss the next phase of the Gaza war and escalating hostilities on the border with Lebanon, where exchanges of fire with Hezbollah have stoked fears of wider conflict.

Iran-backed Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel since the Gaza war erupted more than eight months ago. The group has said it will not stop until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.

“We are prepared for any action that may be required in Gaza, Lebanon, and in more areas,” Gallant said in a statement before setting off to Washington, where he said he will meet his counterpart Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Earlier in June, Hezbollah targeted Israeli towns and military sites with the largest volleys of rockets and drones in the hostilities so far, after an Israeli strike killed the most senior Hezbollah commander yet.

U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein visited Israel and Lebanon last week in an attempt to cool tensions, amid an uptick in cross-border fire and an escalation in rhetoric on both sides.

Some Israeli officials have linked the ongoing Israeli push into Rafah, the southern area of Gaza where it says it is targeting the last battalions of militant Islamist group Hamas, to a potential focus on Lebanon.

“The transition to Phase C in Gaza is of great importance. I will discuss this transition with U.S. officials, how it may enable additional things and I know that we will achieve close cooperation with the U.S. on this issue as well,” Gallant said.

Scaling back Gaza operations would free up forces to take on Hezbollah, were Israel to launch a ground offensive or step up its aerial bombardments.

Officials have described the third and last phase of Israel’s Gaza offensive as winding down fighting while stepping up efforts to stabilize a post-Hamas rule and begin reconstruction in the enclave, much of which has been laid to waste.

Gallant, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, has sparred with the premier in the past few months, calling for a clearer post-war plan for Gaza that will not leave Israel in charge, a demand echoed by the White House.

Netanyahu has been walking a tightrope as he seeks to keep his government together by balancing the demands of the defence establishment, including ex-generals like Gallant, and far-right coalition partners who have resisted any post-Gaza strategy that could open the way to a future Palestinian state.

The head of Israel’s parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, Yuli Edelstein, told Army Radio on Sunday that fighting Hezbollah would be complex either way, now or later.

“We are not in the right position to conduct fighting on both the southern front and the northern front. We will have to deploy differently in the south in order to fight in the north,” said Edelstein, also a Likud member.

Edelstein criticized a video by Netanyahu released last week in which the prime minister said the Biden administration was “withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel.” The video led to a spat with the White House.

President Joe Biden’s administration paused a shipment of 2,000 pound and 500-pound bombs in May over concerns about their impact if used in densely-populated areas of Gaza. Israel was still due to get billions of dollars worth of U.S. weaponry.

“I hope that in the discussions behind closed doors much more will be achieved than by attempts to create pressure with videos,” Edelstein said, referring to Gallant’s trip.

Israel’s ground and air campaign in Gaza was triggered when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

The offensive has killed more than 37,400 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, and left nearly the entire population of the enclave homeless and destitute.

Dr. Gene Dorio | The Meaning of D-Day

Robin and I share a family bond. Both our fathers were wounded World War II veterans. Her father was on the water, taken to a British hospital unconscious after his […]

FBI offers reward for information about deadly southern New Mexico wildfires

RUIDOSO, N.M. — Federal authorities offered a reward for information about those responsible for igniting a pair of New Mexico wildfires that killed two people and destroyed hundreds of homes in the past week.

The FBI on Saturday offered up to $10,000 for information in connection with the South Fork Fire and Salt Fire in southern New Mexico, which forced thousands to flee.

An agency statement said it was seeking public assistance in “identifying the cause” of the fires near Ruidoso, New Mexico, that were discovered June 17. But the notice also pointedly suggested human hands were to blame, saying the reward was for information leading to arrest and conviction of “the person or persons responsible for starting the fires.”

The South Fork Fire, which reached 26 square miles (67 square kilometers), was 26% contained on Saturday, while the Salt Fire, at 12 square miles (31 square kilometers), was 7% contained as of Saturday morning, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Full containment was not expected until July 15.

Recent rains and cooler weather have assisted more than 1,000 firefighters working to contain the fires. Fire crews on Saturday took advantage of temperatures in the 70s Fahrenheit (21 to 26 Celsius), scattered showers and light winds to use bulldozers to dig protective lines while hand crews used shovels in more rugged terrain to battle the fires near the mountain village of Ruidoso.

Elsewhere in New Mexico, heavy rain and flash flood warnings prompted officials to order some mandatory evacuations Friday in the city of Las Vegas, New Mexico, and communities near Albuquerque, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) north of Ruidoso. Las Vegas set up shelters for displaced residents, and some evacuation orders remained in place there on Saturday.

Flash flood warnings were canceled Saturday, though the National Weather Service said afternoon storms could produce excessive runoff and more flooding in the area.

The wildfires have destroyed or damaged an estimated 1,400 structures. Other fallout from the fires, including downed power lines, damaged water, sewer and gas lines, flooding in burn scars, continued “to pose risks to firefighters and the public,” according to a Saturday update from the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department.

Evacuations in areas near Ruidoso and road closures were still in effect. In Ruidoso, full-time residents will be allowed to return Monday, though everyday life won’t return to normal.

“You’re going to need to bring a week’s worth of food, you’re going to need to bring drinking water,” Mayor Lynn Crawford said on Facebook.

President Joe Biden issued a disaster declaration for parts of southern New Mexico on Thursday, freeing up funding and more resources to help with recovery efforts including temporary housing, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property and other emergency work in Lincoln County and on lands belonging to the Mescalero Apache Tribe.

Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, met with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Crawford and Mescalero Apache President Thora Walsh Padilla on Saturday. “These communities have our support for as long as it takes to recover,” Criswell posted on the social media platform X.

Much of the Southwest has been exceedingly dry and hot in recent months. Those conditions, along with strong wind, whipped the flames out of control, rapidly advancing the South Fork Fire into Ruidoso in a matter of hours. Evacuations extended to hundreds of homes, businesses, a regional medical center and the Ruidoso Downs horse track.

Nationwide, wildfires have scorched more than 3,344 square miles (8,660 square kilometers) this year, a figure higher than the 10-year average, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

Risk of getting malicious extension from Chrome store way worse than Google’s letting on, study suggests

All depends on how you count it – Chocolate Factory claims 1% fail rate

Google this week offered reassurance that its vetting of Chrome extensions catches most malicious code, even as it acknowledged that “as with any software, extensions can also introduce risk.”…

US political trailblazer Shirley Chisholm honored in exhibit

new york — She was the first African American woman in U.S. Congress and the first woman and African American to seek the presidential nomination from one of the two major U.S. political parties.

Shirley Chisholm, who would have turned 100 in November, has served as an inspiration to several generations of female and minority politicians, including current Vice President Kamala Harris.

Less than five months before a hotly contested presidential election pitting Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump, the Museum of the City of New York is honoring Chisholm’s legacy with a special exhibit.

Zinga Fraser, the co-curator of the show titled “Changing the Face of Democracy: Shirley Chisholm at 100” said honoring the politician’s legacy is even more important during an election year.

“If there’s any person to remind us about democracy and what’s possible and where we need to go,” that would be Chisholm, Fraser said.

Writing on Chisholm’s birthday on November 30, 2020 — after Harris had just been elected the first African American vice president and the first woman in that role — Harris said Chisholm “paved the way for me and so many others.”

“We celebrate her brilliance and boldness to break down barriers, fight to increase the minimum wage, and speak for those who otherwise wouldn’t have a voice in the political process,” Harris wrote on Instagram.

Born in 1924 in Brooklyn, New York, to parents from Barbados and Guyana, Chisholm transformed American democracy in the 1960s and 1970s with her political slogan “Unbought and Unbossed.”

In 1968, Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to Congress and four years later launched a bid for the White House. While she didn’t win the nomination of the Democratic Party, she still served as a catalyst for change.

“I ran because somebody had to do it first,” she reflected later. “I ran because most people think the country is not ready for a Black candidate, not ready for a woman candidate. Someday …”

During her political career, Chisholm fought for abortion rights, food assistance, education and worker protection, as well as police and prison reform. She also campaigned against the war in Vietnam and apartheid in South Africa.

“I think what you also see as a part of her legacy is just more in terms of women and women of color in the office,” Fraser said.

Before Chisholm was elected to the House of Representatives in 1968, there were only four Black men and 11 white women or other minorities in Congress.

According to the Center for American Women and Politics, there are now 28 Black women in the House (out of 435 representatives, including 126 women) and one in the Senate (out of 100 senators, including 25 women).

During the 1972 primaries, Chisholm recruited student and activist Barbara Lee, who went on to serve as California’s Democratic representative in the House since 1998.

“Shirley Chisholm was more than a mentor to me,” 77-year-old Lee wrote on X. “She inspired me to live a life of service, fearlessness, & dedication to justice & equity.”

Chisholm, who died in 2005, also is being honored this year by a Netflix documentary that was released in March.

In “Shirley,” the trailblazing politician, played by actress Regina King, confronts other lawmakers and decides to compete in the primaries alone.

Total Recall

The tech news has had a lot of coverage recently of Microsoft’s proposed ‘Recall‘ system, which (as a very rough approximation) takes a screenshot of your display every five seconds, and uses their AI-type Copilot system to allow you to search it. “What was that cafe or restaurant that someone in the call recommended yesterday?” Continue Reading

Go West

We’ve been away for the last week or so on the south coast of Cornwall, and it was a great trip. We had our folding e-bikes inside the van, and our little boat behind, which meant it wasn’t always the easiest setup to take along narrow Cornish lanes, especially if we found ourselves needing to Continue Reading

Today in SCV History (June 23)

1946, 11:20pm: William S. Hart, 81, dies at L.A.’s California Lutheran Hospital, leaving his Newhall estate and his (now West) Hollywood home to the public. [story

2.5 million Americans will have marijuana convictions cleared or forgiven

Couples’ marriages survive, thrive through gender transition

Andrew S. Tanenbaum receives ACM Software System Award

Andrew S. Tanenbaum, professor emeritus of Computer Science at VU Amsterdam, receives the ACM Software System Award for MINIX, which influenced the teaching of Operating Systems principles to multiple generations of students and contributed to the design of widely used operating systems, including Linux. Tanenbaum created MINIX 1.0 in 1987 to accompany his textbook, Operating Systems: Design and Implementation. MINIX was a small microkernel-based UNIX operating system for the IBM PC, which was popular at the time. It was roughly 12,000 lines of code, and in addition to the microkernel, included a memory manager, file system and core UNIX utility programs. It became free open-source software in 2000. ↫ VU Amsterdam website Definitely a deserved award for Tanenbaum, and it’s a minuscule bit of pride that VU Amsterdam happens to be my Alma mater. He also wrote an article for OSNews way back in 2006, detailing MINIX 3, which is definitely a cool notch to have on our belt.

Vivaldi browser improves customization for RSS subscriptions

The built-in RSS reader in the Vivaldi web browser has always allowed users to easily subscribe to RSS feeds when visiting web pages. But the browser’s latest feature gives you more subscription options, making the RSS experience even better.

Now, when subscribing to an RSS feed, you can customize its title, how often the feed will refresh, and even update its URL address.

Not only is the feature a very helpful addition, but it’s great to see a web browser increasingly embracing RSS. We hope that other web browsers will follow suit—especially when RSS use has become more important than ever.

US military says it destroyed 3 Houthi vessels in Red Sea

Santa Barbara’s Eastside Boys & Girls Club Reopening in July

Systems: What does a board of directors do?

This is great, and jibes with my experiences both being on boards and supporting them as a part of various organizations.

The most functional boards I’ve seen do what Anil describes here: they’re pre-briefed and are ready to have a substantive discussion in a way that pushes the organization forward. Board meetings have a heavy reporting component, for sure, but the discussion and working sessions are always the most meaningful component.

The board meetings I’ve attended that are the most robust and open to discussion and genuine debate have also been the ones attached to the most successful companies. I don’t think it’s quite causation, but rather two things that come from a particularly pragmatic attitude towards running a business: one where outside perspectives and differences of opinion are a strength, not a threat.

Highway 154 Closed Near San Antonio Creek Road Due to Roadway Cracking

Caltrans has implemented a full closure of Highway 154 in both directions from State Route 192 in Santa Barbara to the Hwy. 154/246 Roundabout in Santa Ynez.

Authorities Identify UC Santa Barbara Student Found Dead at Campus Dorm over Commencement Weekend

Adam Paul Gromotsky, 22, was pronounced dead from unknown causes on June 15 at San Joaquin Villages.

Brush fire quickly extinguished

A 1-square-foot by 1-square-foot brush fire was quickly extinguished on Saturday afternoon in Canyon Country by the Los Angeles County Fire Department. First responders received reports of a brush fire […]

Full Circle Weekly News 371

MIME, RSS, and existential torment

TL;DR: how I fixed my RSS feed by installing mailcap so I don’t get tormented by mimes

Trump backs Ten Commandments in all schools, urges Christians to vote

washington — Donald Trump told a group of evangelicals they “cannot afford to sit on the sidelines” of the 2024 election, imploring them at one point to “go and vote, Christians, please!”

Trump also endorsed displaying the Ten Commandments in schools and elsewhere while speaking to a group of politically influential evangelical Christians in Washington on Saturday. He drew cheers as he invoked a new law signed in Louisiana this week requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom.

“Has anyone read the ‘Thou shalt not steal’? I mean, has anybody read this incredible stuff? It’s just incredible,” Trump said at the gathering of the Faith & Freedom Coalition. “They don’t want it to go up. It’s a crazy world.’’

Trump a day earlier posted an endorsement of the new law on his social media network, saying: “I LOVE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, PRIVATE SCHOOLS, AND MANY OTHER PLACES, FOR THAT MATTER. READ IT — HOW CAN WE, AS A NATION, GO WRONG???”

The former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee backed the move as he seeks to galvanize his supporters on the religious right, which has fiercely backed him after initially being suspicious of the twice-divorced New York City tabloid celebrity when he first ran for president in 2016.

That support has continued despite his conviction in the first of four criminal cases he faces, in which a jury last month found him guilty of falsifying business records for what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. Daniels claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier, which he denies.

Trump’s stated opposition to signing a nationwide ban on abortion and his reluctance to detail some of his views on the issue are at odds with many members of the evangelical movement, a key part of Trump’s base that’s expected to help him turn out voters in his November rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.

But while many members of the movement would like to see him do more to restrict abortion, they cheer him as the greatest champion for the cause because of his role in appointing U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned national abortion rights in 2022.

Trump highlighted that Saturday, saying, “We did something that was amazing,” but the issue would be left to people to decide in the states.

“Every voter has to go with your heart and do what’s right, but we also have to get elected,” he said.

While he still takes credit for the reversal of Roe v. Wade, Trump has also warned abortion can be tricky politically for Republicans. For months, he deferred questions about his position on a national ban.

Last year, when Trump addressed the Faith & Freedom Coalition, he said there was “a vital role for the federal government in protecting unborn life” but didn’t offer any details beyond that.

In April of this year, Trump said he believed the issue should now be left to the states. He later stated in an interview that he would not sign a nationwide ban on abortion if it was passed by Congress. He has still declined to detail his position on women’s access to the abortion pill mifepristone.

About two-thirds of Americans say abortion should generally be legal, according to polling last year by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Attendees at the evangelical gathering on Saturday said that while they’d like to see a national abortion ban, Trump isn’t losing any of their deep support.

“I would prefer if he would sign a national ban,” said Jerri Dickinson, a 78-year-old retired social worker and Faith & Freedom member from New Jersey. “I understand though, that as in accordance with the Constitution, that decision should be left up to the states.”

Dickinson said she can’t stand the abortion law in her state, which does not set limits on the procedure based on gestational age. But she said outside of preferring a national ban, leaving the issue to the state “is the best alternative.”

John Pudner, a 59-year-old who recently started a Faith & Freedom chapter in his home state of Wisconsin, said members of the movement feel loyal to Trump but “we’d generally like him to be more pro-life.”

“I think a lot, you know, within the pro-life movement feel like, well, gosh, they’re kind of thinking he’s too far pro-choice,” he said. “But because they appreciate his Supreme Court justices, like that’s a positive within the pro-life community.”

According to AP VoteCast, a wide-ranging survey of the electorate, about 8 in 10 white evangelical Christian voters supported Trump in 2020, and nearly 4 in 10 Trump voters identified as white evangelical Christians. White evangelical Christians made up about 20% of the overall electorate that year.

Beyond just offering their own support in the general election, the Faith & Freedom Coalition plans to help get out the vote for Trump and other Republicans, aiming to use volunteers and paid workers to knock on millions of doors in battleground states.

Trump on Saturday said evangelicals and Christians “don’t vote as much as they should,” and joked that while he wanted them to vote in November, he didn’t care if they voted again after that.

He portrayed Christianity as under threat by what he suggested was an erosion of freedom, law and the nation’s borders.

He returned several times during his roughly 90-minute remarks to the subject of the U.S.-Mexico border and at one point, when describing migrants crossing it as “tough,” he joked that he told his friend Dana White, the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, to enlist them in a new version of the sport.

“‘Why don’t you set up a migrant league and have your regular league of fighters. And then you have the champion of your league, these are the greatest fighters in the world, fighting the champion of the migrants,’” Trump described saying to White. “I think the migrant guy might win, that’s how tough they are. He didn’t like that idea too much.”

Enhancing Safety and Efficiency in Our Community

By City Manager Ken Striplin “Government’s first duty and highest obligation is public safety.” – Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger As a City Manager, father and community member—the safety of Santa Clarita residents will always be my top priority, especially on the roads. In 2022, the City of Santa Clarita worked with Senator Alex Padilla […]

Update: Stolen kitten has been found

Residents’ warm wishes and efforts have resulted in the reunion between 15-week Milo and his brother Winston Saturday morning, according to Gary Kassan from Bulldog Liquidators. “We got a call […]

Clarification from Ray Kurzweil

Gaza war divides Democrats in New York primary

How a U.S. congressional district north of New York City votes in the June 25 primary race could reveal how much the war in Gaza is on the minds of Americans. The outcome could inform Democrats trying to regain control of the House of Representatives in November. Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains.

Photos: VIA Cocktails & Conversation with Senator Scott Wilk

Attendees gathered at Margarita’s Mexican Grill for VIA Cocktails & Conversation with Senator Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, on Thursday, June 20.

What You Need To Know About The California Budget Deal

Gov. Newsom and legislative leaders announce an agreement to bridge the state budget deficit by dipping into reserves and reducing some spending.

A moment of blissful relaxation

Leading from the front: Kuhlman’s tenure with Hart school district built on relationships

As Superintendent Mike Kuhlman’s time with the William S. Hart Union High School District is coming to a close after 27 years, Erin Wilson had an idea. Appointed to the […]

Fashion shows and lunches at Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga

The Montalvo Service Group is hosting another series of Wednesday lunches at the historic villa at the Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga during July and August.

Hitting climate goals needs clean energy permitting reform: Letter to the editor

“Members of Congress are influenced by their constituents. Please urge yours to support permitting reform.”

Helicopters scramble to rescue people in flooded Iowa town while much of US toils again in heat

The governor of Iowa sent helicopters to a small town to evacuate people from flooded homes Saturday, the result of weeks of rain, while much of the United States longed for relief from yet another round of extraordinary heat.

ON Culture | Everybody Dance for Pride Month and Pianos on State

This edition of ON Culture was originally emailed to subscribers on June 21, 2024. To receive Leslie Dinaberg’s arts newsletter

To people who say you get wrong answers from ChatGPT, if I wanted my car to kill me I could drive into oncoming traffic. That's the problem with reporters discovering ChatGPT gives incorrect answers. So does Google. As do reporters.

Sergey Durmanov commented on issue #141 at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2

Sergey Durmanov commented on issue #140 at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2

Because StringGridModel is not an extension of Models.Model. This needs to be checked when generating code.

There are 2 kinds of people: Those who find AI absolutely revolutionary and indispensable and integral to their workflows, and those who haven't learned how to use it yet. #amen

Flooding forces people from homes in parts of Iowa

San Jose performance connects teens to legends of their parents

San Jose’s Ópera Cultura wants teens to immerse themselves and reconnect with their heritage in the tragic legend of La Llorona with their new musical drama “La Llorona: The Weeping Woman.

Cool temperatures to follow Bay Area weekend heat wave

Flag giveaway in San Jose dishonors Old Glory: Letter to the editor

“In my Almaden neighborhood, two competing real estate firms have been placing small American flags (complete with business cards) in front of each house. I assume it is an effort to inspire patriotism, or just maybe it’s for advertising.”

Don’t let them tell you what to think

Last year I wrote a little about how I hope AI will be used, using the GPS navigation in my car as an analogy:

I like my GPS. I use it pretty much every time I drive. But it’s not going to make the final decision about which way I go.

Perhaps it seems obvious, but I’d like to extend that analogy to news, media, and influencers.

We all need journalism — and particularly investigative journalism — to inform us and help us make better decisions. We need to take in sources, form opinions based on them, and vote accordingly as a baseline. But democratic participation doesn’t start and end with voting: we also need to know how to use our voices, spend our money, organize our communities, and, in areas we feel particularly strongly about, protest.

I do think we all need to use our voices. I’m wary when people are silent: whether this is their intention or not, silence is acquiescence to the status quo. If our government is doing something harmful on our behalf and we don’t speak out about it, or an atrocity is taking place somewhere and we choose not to speak up, our lack of action is an endorsement. Change only happens when people speak up.

But this only makes sense when we make up our own mind. If our opinions that copy what’s popular, or what a particular news outlet has to say, then we’re not exercising our democratic rights at all. We’re handing over that power to someone else. When we let someone make our mind up for us, using our voice is just amplifying their voice.

When people complain that we’re not all watching the same newscasts anymore, that’s the world they want to create: one where we’re all getting the same narrow band of information and forming opinions in the same way. That’s not democracy; that’s homogeny. It’s worth considering whose voices could be heard in that world. How diverse was it? Who was really represented?

Similarly, while there is certainly disinformation put out in the world that’s designed to coerce people to exercise their democratic rights in a particular direction (often towards fascism), some people have also used the words “misinformation” and “disinformation” (or “fake news”) to describe reporting that they simply don’t like.

This is the playbook of Trumpworld. When all of journalism is painted as biased and “fake news” — as Trump has taken pains to do — supporters are left with the officially-endorsed channels like Fox News, OANN, and Newsmax. They receive a narrow band of information that becomes the basis of their opinion-making. For example, during Trump’s presidency and beyond, these channels frequently pushed narratives that undermined trust in mainstream media, labeled critical reports as conspiracies, and even presented alternative facts about significant events like the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 election results. This systematic discrediting of journalism fosters an echo chamber that isolates its audience from opposing viewpoints and critical analysis.

But there’s a streak of this in Democrat-land, too: a subset of the community that’s sometimes been described as “blue MAGA” for its use of similar rhetoric. Here, any voice that criticizes Biden is also described as fake news, or even a Putin plot. For instance, when progressive commentators or journalists critique Biden’s policies on immigration or healthcare, they are sometimes met with accusations of undermining the Democratic agenda or aiding Republican narratives. This phenomenon isn’t as pervasive as Trumpworld’s approach, but it highlights a discomfort with internal criticism within certain Democratic circles. While I’d clearly prefer a Democratic America to one run by Trump, this dismissal of uncomfortable sources as being fake because we don’t like them is no less undemocratic.

And, of course, the same goes for people who learn how to vote and what to think from their places of worship. In some religious communities, congregants are encouraged to vote in line with specific doctrinal beliefs, which can limit their exposure to broader societal issues and alternative viewpoints. It’s a hell of a waste of a free mind and a democratic bill of rights.

We need to consume information from a variety of sources, be critically aware of the biases and origins of those sources so that we can properly evaluate and contextualize them, and then make up our own minds, regardless of whether our conclusions are popular or not.

Making up our own minds has gotten a bad name lately through people who “do their own research” and end up promoting ivermectin for covid, believing that vaccines cause autism, or that climate change isn’t real. I’m not arguing for abandoning critical reasoning or scientific fact here; quite the opposite. The antidote to this kind of quackery is stronger critical thinking and source evaluation, not — as some have argued — restricting our information diet to a few approved sources.

New voices and sources matter. The world changes. Lots of things that were wildly unpopular and sneered at in the past are now part of ordinary life. For example:

Abolition
Women’s suffrage
Access to birth control
Interracial marriage
Marriage equality
The 40 hour work-week

Each of these things were hard-won by people who were very much outside the mainstream until they weren’t. Consider what it would have meant to be silent while each of those struggles for basic rights were underway, or what it might say about a person if they stayed silent because doing otherwise would affect their job prospects or earnings potential. These ideas weren’t popular to begin with, but they were right.

Even the internet was dismissed as a weird fad in the nineties. The mainstream press didn’t think it would catch on; people inside newsrooms had to fight to establish the first news websites. Memorably, one British magazine called it “the new name for ham radio” — just a few years before it took over the world.

What matters is not adherence to the values of a tribe. We aren’t better people if we demonstrate that our values are the same as an accepted set. The world isn’t like supporting a sports team, where you put on a red or a blue jersey and sing the same songs in the stands. It’s nuanced, and each of us can and should have our own nuanced perspectives that are informed by our lived experiences and those of the people around us, and a set of diverse, freely-reported information sources.

For the avoidance of doubt, my values are vehemently anti-war, pro-immigration, and fiercely on the side of diversity, equity, and inclusion. I believe in the right to choose. I believe that trans women are women and trans men are men. I believe that too-small government leads to big corporate power, and too-big government leads to authoritarianism, so a continual balance must be found. I believe that universal healthcare is a fundamental human right. I believe guns must be controlled. I roll my eyes when people complain about socialism in America, because usually what they mean when they use that word is what I’d consider to be basic infrastructure. I think there needs to be a ceasefire in Gaza and in Ukraine. I dislike patriotism because I think it encourages people to care more about people who are geographically close to them. I believe Ayn Rand’s “morality of self-interest” is an excuse to act without compassion. I like startups and believe in the right to start and run a business — and that they can be the vehicle for great change. I think climate change is not just real and behind many of the geopolitical decisions we’re seeing playing out today. I believe that the civil rights marches and movements of the 2020s are the signs of really exciting progressive change. I believe Trump must not become President. I believe a progressive world is a better world.

And I believe in talking about those things and why I believe them. Loudly. Even when it’s uncomfortable. There is no media outlet I’m aware of that publishes based on that exact set of values. You might nod your head in agreement with some of them and be angered by others.

The news I read and the information I gather is my GPS. I appreciate the signal, and it will certainly inform my actions and beliefs. I’m still going to find my own way.

Denise Lite | Socialism Must Be Rejected in America

In the realm of economic systems, socialism and capitalism stand as two fundamentally different approaches to organizing and managing the economy, each with its own set of principles, strengths, and […]

Arthur Saginian | Voting for a Felon? Sure

I am not a devout supporter of former President Donald Trump or the Republican Party, but I would have no problem voting for a convicted felon just so long as […]

Rob Kerchner | An Interesting Array of Agencies

Check out the list of federal agencies who were present for the Jan. 6 riot. There’s the Department of Defense, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of […]

Michael Reagan | ‘The View’ Hosts Are for Trump?

Who do the liberal ladies of “The View” think they’re kidding? This week Joy Behar and her ragged troop of pretend political pundits were again acting terrified by the specter […]

Exclusive: US confirms Iran will run absentee ballot stations in US

Washington — The Biden administration will again allow Iran to run absentee voter stations on U.S. soil for next week’s Iranian presidential election, VOA has learned, prompting the Islamic republic’s critics to denounce the plan as absurd and shameful.

Iranian Foreign Ministry official Alireza Mahmoudi told state media on Sunday that Tehran is planning to set up more than 30 ballot stations across the United States for the June 28 vote to replace Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last month.

Mahmoudi said ballot boxes for Iranian absentee voters would be set up at the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington and in New York but did not identify other locations.

Iranian state media say the United States is home to the largest proportion of overseas-based Iranians at 30%. The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey estimates there are about half a million people born in Iran or of Iranian origin in the U.S., while the Iranian American nonprofit group National Union for Democracy in Iran, or NUFDI, says it has a higher estimate of more than 1 million.

Canada and Turkey follow with 12% shares of the Iranian diaspora, according to Iranian state media. Mahmoudi said Iran is arranging absentee voting in other diaspora locations as well.

In a statement reported exclusively by VOA, the U.S. State Department said on Friday it has no expectation that Iran’s presidential election will be free or fair. The Islamic republic’s ruling clerics permit only loyalists of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to run for offices such as president and parliament, which are subservient to him on key policy issues.

Iran’s last parliamentary and presidential elections, in March and 2021, respectively, drew record-low official turnouts, with the lack of choices leaving much of the electorate disinterested.

Opponents of Iran’s clerical rulers at home and abroad repeatedly have called for boycotts of Iranian elections, which they view as shams, and they have done so again for the June 28 vote. They also have noted that the Islamic republic seeks legitimacy for its 45-year authoritarian rule by trying to boost turnout for such elections.

VOA asked the State Department how authorizing ballot stations in the U.S. for Iran, whose poor human rights record it has strongly criticized, is consistent with the U.S. view of Iranian elections as neither free nor fair.

A spokesperson responded by noting that Iran set up U.S.-based ballot stations for previous presidential elections, in 2021 and 2017, with approval from the Biden administration and its predecessor, the Trump administration, respectively.

“This is nothing new,” the spokesman said, in reference to the planned ballot stations for next week’s vote.

Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser to the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, countered that permitting Iran to engage in another round of absentee balloting on U.S. soil is a “theater of the absurd.”

In a statement to VOA, Goldberg wrote: “How and why we would facilitate such a charade for a state sponsor of terrorism that is hunting Americans every day is beyond me.” He also questioned who would be operating Iran’s ballot stations in the U.S. and what relationship they have to the Iranian government.

VOA put those questions to Iran’s U.N. mission, which responded by saying it declines to comment because it “believes the issue is not of interest to an American audience.”

A day before Iran’s 2021 presidential election, the Iranian Interests Section in Washington published an online chart showing the addresses of ballot stations in 29 U.S. cities where Iranian citizens could vote. Besides the Interests Section, the other listed venues included 20 properties of U.S. and British hotel companies and eight Islamic centers. There was no indication of who operated the stations.

VOA contacted three hotels that hosted the 2021 ballot stations on Friday to ask if they were planning to host such stations again next week. Staff members who answered the phones at the Marriott Spring Hill Suites in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and at the Hilton Garden Inn Irvine-Orange County Airport in California said they had no record of such events on their schedules. A woman who answered the phone at the Comfort Inn Sandy Springs in Atlanta, Georgia, repeatedly hung up when asked if it is hosting an event next Friday.

Cameron Khansarinia, vice president of the Iranian American group NUFDI, told VOA that diaspora Iranians have a responsibility to protest the Islamic republic’s “shameful” absentee voter stations wherever they are set up.

In reference to those who operate and vote at the planned ballot stations, Khansarinia said, “While we should respect the physical safety of these individuals and U.S. law, they deserve to be publicly shamed for their absolutely amorality.”

VOA also asked the State Department whether U.S. authorities have granted licenses to businesses and nonprofit groups that plan to host the Iranian ballot stations to exempt them from U.S. sanctions that generally prohibit the provision of commercial services to Iran.

The spokesperson replied, “Foreign governments carrying out election-related activities in the U.S. must do so in a manner consistent with U.S. law and regulations.”

The Treasury Department did not respond to similar questions sent by VOA on Tuesday, regarding the granting of licenses for Iranian ballot stations.

Brian O’Toole, a former senior adviser in the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, told VOA it is a gray area.

O’Toole, a nonresident senior fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council, identified two U.S. regulations, OFAC’s General License E and the Code of Federal Regulations section 560.545, as potentially permitting election activity and democracy-building in Iran.

“Despite the Iranian government’s issues with elections, the U.S. has a clear interest in promoting democracy,” said O’Toole, who managed OFAC’s sanctions program during former President Barack Obama’s administration.

“What this administration probably would lean toward is the principle that people who are eligible to vote [in Iran’s election] should make the decision as to whether they should or should not,” he said.

California is a leader on a host of issues: Letter to the editor

“Our state is ahead of the game on a number of issues across the nation: climate change, women’s health care rights, attempts at gun control, LGBTQ rights, et al.

Chevron isn’t the main cause of pollution in Richmond: Letter to the editor

“I worked at Chevron Research in the lab on the sixth floor. On hot days I would go on the balcony and look east and I could see where freeways 80 and 580 were because of all the smog over the freeways.”

Don’t let screens raise our children: Letter to the editor

“Have the demands of parenthood become so enormous that we’re choosing to ignore our feeling that all this screen time is harmful?”

Mother and Son Santa Barbara Walkers Take On Challenges

Marathons and ascents are a passion for Mary and Jonathan Maguire, a mother and son who have taken their love of the outdoors to new levels.

Bake an LLM with custom prompts into your app? Sure! Here’s how to get started

In Rust, we trust. But in gen-AI to not hallucinate? Eh, that’s another story

Hands on Large language models (LLMs) are generally associated with chatbots such as ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini, but they’re by no means limited to Q&A-style interactions. Increasingly, LLMs are being integrated into everything from IDEs to office productivity suites.…

This San Jose business district embraces a new identity with a new name

New murals are making a name for East Village San Jose, which includes retail shops, eateries and a number of vegan and vegetarian options.

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-06-22, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

Every once in a while you read a piece that explains and reorganizes your worldview- this is one of those pieces for me:

It’s Always Sunny For Clean Energy

Plus, a judge rejects a fossil-fueled lawsuit, the IRS keeps going after the rich, shots are fired against a deadly disease, and cannabis convictions vanish.

Heavy rain, flash flooding prompt evacuations in New Mexico

LAS VEGAS, NEW MEXICO — Heavy rain and flash flood warnings in the U.S. state of New Mexico prompted officials to order mandatory evacuations Saturday, with shelters set up for displaced residents.

The National Weather Service announced a flash flood emergency on Friday night through early Saturday. The impacted areas included the city of Las Vegas and communities near Albuquerque.

Up to 5 centimeters (2 inches) of rain had fallen by late Friday, with additional rainfall up to 3.8 centimeters (1.5 inches) expected overnight, the weather service said.

There was flash flooding with multiple road closures on the north and west sides of Las Vegas, the weather service said.

The Las Vegas municipal government announced mandatory evacuations of parts of the city in social media posts, warning residents to prepare for overnight stays. The city said it established shelters for residents on the west and east sides of the city.

The city government asked residents to limit nonessential water use, while also clarifying that online rumors suggesting the city’s dams had broken were false and that the dams “are currently intact.”

New Mexico also suffered devastating wildfires this week that killed at least two people and forced thousands to flee from the flames. The South Fork and Salt fires in south-central New Mexico destroyed or damaged an estimated 1,400 structures. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell and New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham planned to tour the disaster area Saturday.

The Time Ranger | Grave Robbers, Nuclear War & Spencer Tracy

C’mon, dear saddlepals. Roll out of the bunks and hop into those jeans. Don’t make me say the obvious. You get double minus bonus points if we catch you in […]

The Amazing Michael Gonzalez

But every Solstice I think of Michael dancing up the street that day, in his pure soulmate blissful sharing mode.

All these points are good, but add this — Trump will surrender to Putin on day one. He’s a loser. Proud of being a loser. A sickness for America.

Humans and machines

My colleague Neil Lawrence’s new book, The Atomic Human: Understanding Ourselves in the Age of AI, is a terrific account of why ‘artificial intelligence’ is fundamentally different from embodied human intelligence – which makes it on the one hand an … Continue reading →

Many people don’t pay full price for their news subscription. Most don’t want to pay anything at all.

Ask the Motor Cop | Seeking U-turn and 15 mph clarification

Question: Is a U-turn allowed from a left turning lane in front of an apartment complex driveway? — Toni Answer: Hi Toni. Referring to last week’s article, apartments are considered […]

Paul Butler | Whistle while you work

I love singing, but for some reason, I don’t like whistling — there’s something about whistling that sounds like chalk scratching on a blackboard to me. I enjoy singing so […]

Robert Lamoureux | Stairs throwing a curve ball on Pergo install

Question: Hello Robert, my name is Gary P. I live in Saugus in a two-story, larger home. Our stairs are curved, currently covered in carpet, and we are in the […]

US aircraft carrier arrives in South Korea as show of force against North

SEOUL, South Korea — A nuclear-powered United States aircraft carrier arrived Saturday in South Korea for a three-way exercise stepping up their military training to cope with North Korean threats that escalated with its alignment with Russia.

The arrival of the USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group in Busan came a day after South Korea summoned the Russian ambassador to protest a pact reached between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this week that pledges mutual defense assistance in the event of war. South Korea says the deal poses a threat to its security and warned that it could consider sending arms to Ukraine to help fight off the Russian invasion as a response — a move that would surely ruin its relations with Moscow.

Following a meeting between their defense chiefs in Singapore earlier in June, the United States, South Korea and Japan announced Freedom Edge. The new multidomain exercise is aimed at sharpening the countries’ combined response in various areas of operation, including air, sea and cyberspace.

The Theodore Roosevelt strike group will participate in the exercise that is expected to start within June. South Korea’s military didn’t immediately confirm specific details of the training.

South Korea’s navy said in a statement that the arrival of the Theodore Roosevelt demonstrates the strong defense posture of the allies and “stern willingness to respond to advancing North Korean threats.” The carrier’s visit comes seven months after another U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, came to South Korea in a show of strength against the North.

The Theodore Roosevelt strike group also participated in a three-way exercise with South Korean and Japanese naval forces in April in the disputed East China Sea, where worries about China’s territorial claims are rising.

In the face of growing North Korean threats, the United States, South Korea and Japan have expanded their combined training and boosted the visibility of strategic U.S. military assets in the region, seeking to intimidate the North. The United States and South Korea have also been updating their nuclear deterrence strategies, with Seoul seeking stronger assurances that Washington would swiftly and decisively use its nuclear capabilities to defend its ally from a North Korean nuclear attack.

From network security to nyet work in perpetuity: What’s up with the Kaspersky US ban?

It’s been a long time coming. Now our journos speak their brains

Kettle The US government on Thursday banned Kaspersky Lab from selling its antivirus and other products in America from late July, and from issuing updates and malware signatures from October.…

Trump botched America’s response to one killer virus. Now he wants a second chance to botch our response to another.

Today in SCV History (June 22)

After mass killings, complex question follows: Demolish, or press on?

PITTSBURGH — Last week in Parkland, Florida, wrecking equipment began demolishing the building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where a gunman’s rampage in 2018 ended with 17 people dead. As the rumble of destruction echoed, people in the community set to explaining exactly why ripping the building down was so meaningful — and so crucial.

From former student Bryan Lequerique: “It’s something that we all need. It’s time to bring an end to this very hurtful chapter in everyone’s lives.” And Eric Garner, a broadcasting and film teacher, said: “For 6½ years we have been looking at this monument to mass murder that has been on campus every day. … So coming down, that’s the monumental event.”

Parkland. Uvalde. Columbine. Sandy Hook. A supermarket in Buffalo. A church in South Carolina. A synagogue in Pittsburgh. A nightclub in Orlando, Florida. When violence comes to a public place, as it does all too often in our era, a delicate question lingers in the quiet afterward: What should be done with the buildings where blood was shed, where lives were upended, where loved ones were lost forever?

Which is the appropriate choice — the defiance of keeping them standing, or the deep comfort that can come with wiping them off the map? Is it best to keep pain right in front of us, or at a distance?

The most obvious example in recent history is the decision to preserve the concentration camps run by Nazi Germany during World War II where millions of Jews and others died — an approach consistent with the post-Holocaust mantras of “never forget” and “never again.” But that was an event of global significance, with meaning for both the descendants of survivors and the public at large.

For individual American communities, approaches have varied. Parkland and others chose demolition. In Pittsburgh, the Tree of Life synagogue, site of a 2018 shooting, was torn down to make way for a new sanctuary and memorial.

But the Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo, New York, and the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where racist mass shootings happened, both reopened. And Columbine High School still stands, though its library, where so much bloodshed occurred, was replaced after much impassioned debate. “Finding a balance between its function as a high school and the need for memorialization has been a long process,” former student Riley Burkhart wrote earlier this year in an essay.

What goes into these decisions? Not only emotion and heartbreak. Sometimes it’s simply a question of resources; not all school districts can afford to demolish and rebuild. Sometimes it’s about not wanting to give those who might support the shooter a place to focus their attention.

“Denying such opportunities for those who celebrate the persecution and deaths of those different from themselves is a perfectly sound reason to tear down buildings where mass killings occurred,” Daniel Fountain, a professor of history at Meredith College in North Carolina, said in a email.

Perhaps the most significant driving force, though, is the increasing discussion in recent years about the role of mental health.

“There are changing norms about things like trauma and closure that are at play that today encourage the notion of demolishing these spaces,” said Timothy Recuber, a sociologist at Smith College in Massachusetts and author of “Consuming Catastrophe: Mass Culture in America’s Decade of Disaster.”

For many years, he said, “the prevailing idea of how to get past a tragedy was to put your head down and push past it. Today, people are more likely to believe that having to return to the scene of the crime, so to speak, is liable to re-inflict harm.”

In Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, a fence masks the site where the Tree of Life synagogue stood until it was razed earlier this year, more than five years after a gunman killed 11 people in the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.

David Michael Slater grew up across the street from the synagogue. He understands the ambivalence that can come with choosing whether to knock down.

“It’s easy to see why decision-makers might have chosen one path or the other. And to me, it seems presumptuous for anyone not part of, or directly affected by, the choice to quibble with it,” said Slater, who retired this month after 30 years of teaching middle and high school English. “That said, the decision to demolish such sites, when seen in the context of our escalating culture of erasure, should raise concern.”

From World War II to 9/11, the politics of American memory are powerful — and nowhere more intricate than in the case of mass shootings. The loss of loved ones, societal disagreements over gun laws and differing approaches to protecting children create a landscape where the smallest of issues can give rise to dozens of passionate and angry opinions.

To some, keeping a building standing is the ultimate defiance: You are not bowing to horror nor capitulating to those who caused it. You are choosing to continue in the face of unimaginable circumstances — a robust thread in the American narrative.

To others, the possibility of being retraumatized is central. Why, the thinking goes, should a building where people met violent ends continue to be a looming — literally — force in the lives of those who must go on?

It stands to reason, then, that a key factor in deciding the fates of such buildings coalesces around one question: Who is the audience?

“It’s not a simple choice of should we knock it down or renovate or let it be,” said Jennifer Talarico, a psychology professor at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania who studies how people form personal memories of public events.

“If we’re interested in the memories of the people who directly experienced the event, that physical space will serve as a specific and powerful reminder. But if we’re talking about remembering or commemorating an event for other people, those who did not experience it, that’s a slightly different calculus,” Talarico said. “Remembering and forgetting are both powerful forces.”

Ultimately, of course, there is a middle ground: eliminating the building itself but erecting a lasting memorial to those who were lost, as Uvalde and other communities have chosen. In that way, the virtues of mental health and memory can both be honored. Life can go on — not obliviously, but not impeded by a daily, visceral reminder of the heartbreak that once visited.

That approach sits well with Slater, who has contemplated such tragedies both from the standpoint of his hometown synagogue and the classrooms where he spent decades teaching and keeping kids safe.

“Like every problem in life that matters, simple answers are hard to come by,” Slater said. “If what replaces the Tree of Life, or Parkland, or the next defiled place of worship or learning or commerce, can be made to serve both as proof of our indomitable spirit and as memorialized evidence of what we strive to overcome, perhaps we can have the best of both worst worlds.”

TikTok legal filing details case against potential US ban

Immigrant families rejoice over move toward citizenship, but some are left out

HOUSTON, TEXAS — Hundreds of thousands of immigrants had reason to rejoice when U.S. President Joe Biden unveiled a highly expansive plan to extend legal status to spouses of U.S. citizens, but, inevitably, some were left out.

Claudia Zuniga, 35, married in 2017, which was 10 years after her husband came to the United States. He moved to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, after they wed, knowing that, by law, he had to live outside the country for years to gain legal status. “Our lives took a 180-degree turn,” she said.

Biden announced Tuesday that his administration will, in coming months, allow U.S. citizens’ spouses without legal status to apply for permanent residency and eventually citizenship without having to first depart the country for up to 10 years. Some 500,000 immigrants may benefit, according to senior administration officials.

To qualify, an immigrant must have lived in the United States for 10 years and be married to a U.S. citizen, both as of Monday. Zuniga’s husband is ineligible because he wasn’t in the United States.

“Imagine, it would be a dream come true,” said Zuniga, who works part time in her father’s transportation business in Houston. “My husband could be with us. We could focus on the well-being of our children.”

Every immigration benefit — even those as sweeping as Biden’s election-year offer — has a cutoff date and other eligibility requirements. In September, the Democratic president expanded temporary status for nearly 500,000 Venezuelans who were living in the United States on July 31, 2023. Those who had arrived a day later were out of luck.

The Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has shielded from deportation hundreds of thousands of people who came to the United States as young children and is popularly known as DACA, required applicants be in the United States on June 15, 2012, and continuously for the previous five years.

About 1.1 million spouses who are in the country illegally are married to U.S. citizens, according to advocacy group FWD.us., meaning hundreds of thousands won’t qualify because they were in the United States for less than 10 years.

Immigration advocates were generally thrilled with the scope of Tuesday’s announcement, just as Biden’s critics called it a horribly misguided giveaway.

Angelica Martinez, 36, wiped away tears as she sat next to her children, ages 14 and 6, and watched Biden’s announcement at the Houston office of FIEL, an immigrant advocacy group. A U.S. citizen since 2013, she described a flood of emotions, including regret that her husband couldn’t travel to Mexico when his mother died five years ago.

“Sadness, joy all at the same time,” said Martinez, whose husband arrived in Houston 18 years ago.

Brenda Valle of Los Angeles, whose husband has been a U.S. citizen since 2001 and, like her, was born in Mexico, renews her DACA permit every two years. “We can start planning more long-term for the future instead of what we can do for the next two years,” she said.

Magdalena Gutierrez of Chicago, who has been married to a U.S. citizen for 22 years and has three daughters who are U.S. citizens, said she had “a little more hope” after Biden’s announcement. Gutierrez, 43, is eager to travel more across the United States without fearing an encounter with law enforcement could lead to her being deported.

Allyson Batista, a retired Philadelphia teacher and U.S. citizen who married her Brazilian husband 20 years ago, recalled being told by a lawyer that he could leave the country for 10 years or “remain in the shadows and wait for a change in the law.”

“Initially, when we got married, I was naive and thought, ‘OK, but I’m American. This isn’t going to be a problem. We’re going to fix this,’” Batista said. “I learned very early on that we were facing a pretty dire circumstance and that there would be no way for us to move forward in an immigration process successfully.”

The couple raised three children who are pursuing higher education. Batista is waiting for the details of how her husband can apply for a green card.

“I’m hopeful,” Batista said. “The next 60 days will really tell. But, obviously, more than thrilled because every step forward is a step toward a final resolution for all kinds of immigrant families.”

About 50,000 noncitizen children with parents who are married to a U.S. citizen could also potentially qualify, according to senior administration officials who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity. Biden also announced new regulations that will allow some DACA beneficiaries and other young immigrants to more easily qualify for long-established work visas.

Women’s gymnastics league aims to expand athletes’ careers

Garcia, county discuss frustration over Chiquita Canyon

Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, implored L.A. County officials to declare a state of emergency over Chiquita Canyon Landfill and again asked the state to do the same during a […]

Finish The Job, Adam

If Meta is going to support the fediverse, it needs to actually support people who don’t live on Threads. No lip service. No half-finished betas.

Sols 4222-4224: A Particularly Prickly Power Puzzle

Earth planning date: Friday, June 21, 2024 All our patient waiting has been rewarded, as we were greeted with the news that our drill attempt of “Mammoth Lakes 2” was successful! You can see the drill hole in the image above, as well as the first place we attempted just to the left. The actual […]

Trump departs from anti-immigrant rhetoric with green card proposal

Miami, florida — Former President Donald Trump said in an interview posted Thursday he wants to give automatic green cards to foreign students who graduate from U.S. colleges, a sharp departure from the anti-immigrant rhetoric he typically uses on the campaign trail.

Trump was asked about plans for companies to be able to import the “best and brightest” in a podcast taped Wednesday with venture capitalists and tech investors called the “All-In.”

“What I want to do, and what I will do is, you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically as part of your diploma a green card to be able to stay in this country. And that includes junior colleges, too, anybody graduates from a college. You go there for two years or four years,” he said, vowing to address this concern on day one if he is elected president in November.

Immigration has been Trump’s signature issue during his 2024 bid to return to the White House. His suggestion that he would offer green cards — documents that confer a pathway to U.S. citizenship — to potentially hundreds of thousands of foreign graduates would represent a sweeping expansion of America’s immigration system that sharply diverges from his most common messages on foreigners.

Trump often says during his rallies that immigrants who are in the country illegally endanger public safety and steal jobs and government resources. He once suggested that they are “poisoning the blood of our country.” He has promised to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history if elected.

Trump and his allies often say they distinguish between people entering illegally versus legally. But during his administration, Trump also proposed curbs on legal immigration such as family-based visas and the visa lottery program.

Right after taking office in 2017, he issued his “Buy American and Hire American” executive order, directing Cabinet members to suggest reforms to ensure that business visas were awarded only to the highest-paid or most-skilled applicants to protect American workers.

He has previously said the H1-B program commonly used by companies to hire foreign workers temporarily — a program he has used in the past — was “very bad” and used by tech companies to get foreign workers for lower pay.

During the conversation with “All-In,” Trump blamed the coronavirus pandemic for being unable to implement these measures while he was president. He said he knew of stories of people who graduated from top colleges and want to stay in the U.S. but can’t secure visas to do so, forcing them to return to their native countries, specifically naming India and China. He said they go on and become multibillionaires, employing thousands of workers.

“You need a pool of people to work for your company,” Trump said. “And they have to be smart people. Not everybody can be less than smart. You need brilliant people.”

In a statement released hours after the podcast was posted, campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “President Trump has outlined the most aggressive vetting process in U.S. history, to exclude all communists, radical Islamists, Hamas supporters, America haters and public charges. He believes, only after such vetting has taken place, we ought to keep the most skilled graduates who can make significant contributions to America. This would only apply to the most thoroughly vetted college graduates who would never undercut American wages or workers.”

Judge dismisses Nevada fake elector case over venue question

las vegas, nevada — A Nevada judge dismissed an indictment Friday against six Republicans accused of submitting certificates to the U.S. Congress falsely declaring Donald Trump the winner of the state’s 2020 presidential election.

Nevada was one of four states with criminal charges pending against so-called fake electors.

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford stood after Clark County District Judge Mary Kay Holthus ruled that Las Vegas was the wrong venue for the case and said he’d take the case to the state Supreme Court.

“The judge got it wrong, and we’ll be appealing immediately,” Ford, a Democrat, told reporters, declining additional comment.

Defense attorneys bluntly declared the case dead, saying that to bring it now before another grand jury in another venue such as Nevada’s capital of Carson City would violate a three-year statute of limitations that expired last December.

“They’re done,” said Margaret McLetchie, attorney for Clark County Republican Party chairman Jesse Law, one of the defendants in the case.

The judge called off the trial, which had been scheduled for January, for defendants who included state GOP chairman Michael McDonald; national party committee member Jim DeGraffenreid; national and Douglas County committee member Shawn Meehan; Storey County clerk Jim Hindle; and Eileen Rice, a party member from the Lake Tahoe area. Each was accused of offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument — felonies carrying a penalty of up to four or five years in prison.

Defense attorneys led by McDonald’s lawyer, Richard Wright, contended that Ford improperly brought the case before a grand jury in Las Vegas — Nevada’s largest and most Democratic-leaning city — instead of Carson City or Reno, northern Nevada cities in a more Republican region where the alleged crimes occurred.

Challenged by Holthus to respond, Deputy State Attorney General Matthew Rashbrook argued that “no one county contains the entirety of these crimes.”

“Society is the victim of these crimes,” the prosecutor said. “Voters who would have been disenfranchised by these acts … would have been victims of these crimes.”

But the judge decided that even though McDonald and Law live in Las Vegas, “everything took place up north.”

After the court hearing, Hindle’s attorney, Brian Hardy, declined to comment on calls from advocacy groups for his client to resign from his elected position as overseer of elections in Story County.

Meehan is the only defendant not to have been named by the state party as a Nevada delegate to the 2024 Republican National Convention next month in Milwaukee. His defense attorney, Sigal Chattah, said her client chose not to seek the position. Chattah ran as a Republican in 2022 for state attorney general and lost to Ford by just under 8% of the vote.

Nevada is one of seven presidential battleground states where slates of fake electors falsely certified that Trump had won in 2020, not Democrat Joe Biden. The others were Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Nevada’s case, filed last December, focused on the actions of six defendants. Criminal cases in three other states focus on many more — 16 in Michigan, 19 in Georgia and 18 in Arizona.

Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who pleaded guilty in Georgia last October of helping to orchestrate the Trump campaign fake elector scheme in 2020, cooperated with prosecutors in the Nevada criminal investigation and was not charged.

In testimony before the grand jury that met in Las Vegas in November, Chesebro said he provided the state GOP with an “organized step-by-step explanation of what they would have to do” to sign and submit certificates falsely stating that Trump, not Biden, won in Nevada.

He also called Nevada “extremely problematic” to the fake elector plot, compared with other states, because the meeting of electors was overseen by the secretary of state. Also, unlike other states, Nevada did not have a legal challenge pending in courts at the time.

Trump lost Nevada in 2020 by more than 30,000 votes to Biden and the state’s Democratic electors certified the results in the presence of Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican.