News gathered 2024-07-16
(date: 2024-07-16 14:26:54)
Stolen Cinematic Kisses for Santa Barbara
date: 2024-07-16, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
‘Steal Big Steal Little’, the quirky, personal film by hometown director Andrew Davis, kicks off the Granada Theatre’s “Home Movies” series.
The post Stolen Cinematic Kisses for Santa Barbara appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/07/16/stolen-cinematic-kisses-for-santa-barbara/
Judge’s dismissal of classified document case against Trump, explained
date: 2024-07-16, from: The Signal
By Sam Dorman Contributing Writer U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the Justice Department’s classified documents case against former President Donald Trump on Monday, ruling that special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment […]
The post Judge’s dismissal of classified document case against Trump, explained appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/07/judges-dismissal-of-classified-document-case-against-trump-explained/
Purposeness Meets Deliciousness
date: 2024-07-16, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Moby Dick’s new Oyster Bar on Santa Barbara’s Stearns Wharf brings sustainable sourcing to the next level.
The post Purposeness Meets Deliciousness appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/07/16/purposeness-meets-deliciousness/
A Statue of a 12-Year-Old Hiroshima Victim Has Been Stolen
date: 2024-07-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The monument to Sadako Sasaki, who died of leukemia in 1955, vanished from Peace Park in Seattle
Trump officially secures GOP presidential nomination
date: 2024-07-16, from: The Signal
By Janice Hisle Contributing Writer MILWAUKEE — It’s official: Former President Donald Trump is the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nominee. The announcement was made almost simultaneously with Trump’s announcement of his […]
The post Trump officially secures GOP presidential nomination appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/07/trump-officially-secures-gop-presidential-nomination/
How did would-be Trump assassin get to rooftop vantage point unseen?
date: 2024-07-16, from: VOA News USA
Antitrust: GoDaddy under fire for banning DNS automation tool in favor of its own
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Domain name giant yanked into court after Entri Connect disconnect
GoDaddy is facing an antitrust lawsuit over claims it unfairly and underhandedly blackballed a smaller outfit’s DNS automation tool in favor of its own apparently inferior product. …
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/godaddy_antitrust_violations/
FBI gains access to suspected Trump shooter’s phone
date: 2024-07-16, from: The Signal
By Zachary Stieber Contributing Writer FBI agents have gained access to a phone belonging to Thomas Crooks, the man identified by law enforcement officials as shooting former President Donald Trump, the […]
The post FBI gains access to suspected Trump shooter’s phone appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/07/fbi-gains-access-to-suspected-trump-shooters-phone/
Aug. 21: SCV Chamber After Hours Mixer at Henry Mayo
date: 2024-07-16, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Join the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce at the Business After Hours Mixer, alongside other business leaders from the Santa Clarita Valley, for an exclusive networking event at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 5:30-7:30 p.m
https://scvnews.com/aug-21-scv-chamber-after-hours-mixer-at-henry-mayo/
Sale closed in Los Gatos: $2.2 million for a four-bedroom home
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
The 2,050-square-foot property, built in 2013, was sold on July 3, 2024. The $2,210,000 purchase price works out to $1,078 per square foot.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/07/16/sale-closed-in-los-gatos-2-2-million-for-a-four-bedroom-home/
Scientists Find an Underground Cave on the Moon That Could Shelter Future Explorers
date: 2024-07-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Such caves could serve as lunar bases during upcoming missions, protecting astronauts against cosmic radiation and extreme temperatures
Peter Buxtun dies at 86; one-time public health worker blew whistle on Tuskegee syphilis study
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
In his complaints to federal health officials, Buxtun drew comparisons between the Tuskegee study and medical experiments Nazi doctors had conducted on Jews and other prisoners.
Nearly half of cancers linked to lifestyle factors, study finds
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
The study points to the possibility that the daily choices people make can give them some control over their cancer risk.
Safari already contains ad tracking technology, and they’re now adding it to Safari’s Private Browsing mode, too
date: 2024-07-16, from: OS News
We’ve been talking a lot about sleazy ways in which the online advertising industry is conspiring with browser makers – who also happen to be in the online advertising industry – to weaken privacy features so they can still track you and the ads they serve you, but with “privacy”. They’re trying really hard to make it seem as if they’re doing us a huge favour by making tracking slightly more private, and browser makers are falling over themselves to convince us that allowing some user and ad tracking is the only way to stop the kind of total everything, everywhere, all at once tracking we have now. We’ve got Google and Chrome pushing something called “Privacy Sandbox“, and we’ve got Mozilla and Facebook pushing something called “Privacy-Preserving Attribution“, both of which are designed to give the advertising industry slightly more private tracking in the desperate hope they won’t still be doing a lot more tracking on the side. Safari users, meanwhile, have been feeling pretty good about all of this in the knowledge Apple cares about privacy, so surely Safari won’t be doing any of this. You know where this is going, right? Today, the WebKit project published a lengthy blog post detailing all the various additional measures it’s taking to make its Private Browsing mode more, well, private, and a lot of them are great moves, very welcome, and ensure that private browsing on Safari is a little bit more private than it is on Chrome, as the blog post gleefully points out. However, not long into the blog post, the shoe drops. We also expanded Web AdAttributionKit (formerly Private Click Measurement) as a replacement for tracking parameters in URL to help developers understand the performance of their marketing campaigns even under Private Browsing. ↫ John Wilander, Charlie Wolfe, Matthew Finkel, Wenson Hsieh, and Keith Holleman A little further down, they go into more detail: Web AdAttributionKit (formerly Private Click Measurement) is a way for advertisers, websites, and apps to implement ad attribution and click measurement in a privacy-preserving way. You can read more about it here. Alongside the new suite of enhanced privacy protections in Private Browsing, Safari also brings a version of Web AdAttributionKit to Private Browsing. This allows click measurement and attribution to continue working in a privacy-preserving manner. ↫ John Wilander, Charlie Wolfe, Matthew Finkel, Wenson Hsieh, and Keith Holleman So not only does Safari already include the kind of tracking technology everyone is – rightfully – attacking Mozilla over for adding it to Firefox, Apple and the Safari team are actually taking it a step further and making this ad tracking technology available in private browsing mode. The technology is limited a bit more in Private Browsing mode, but its intent is preserved: to track you and the ads you see online. I would hazard a guess that when you enable a browser’s private browsing or incognito mode, you assume that means zero tracking. We already know that Chrome’s Incognito mode leaks data like a sieve with bullet holes in it, and now it seems Safari’s Private Browsing mode, too, is going to allow advertisers to track you and the ads you see – blog post full of fancy privacy features be damned. Do you know those “Around the web” chumboxes? Even if you’re unfamiliar with the term, you’ve most definitely seen these things all over the web, and really hate them. A major player in the chumbox business is a company called Taboola, a name that’s quite despised and reviled online. Popular Apple blogger John Gruber called Taboola a “slumlord” and the “lowest common denominator clickbait property“. Do you want to know which major technology company just signed a massive deal with Taboola? Ad tech giant Taboola has struck a deal with Apple to power native advertising within the Apple News and Apple Stocks apps, Taboola founder and CEO Adam Singolda told Axios. ↫ Sara Fischer at Axios Apple needs to find new markets to keep growing, and clearly, pestering its users with upsells and subscriptions to its services isn’t enough. The online advertising industry is massive – just look at Google’s and Facebook’s financial disclosures – and Apple seems to be interested in taking a bigger slice of that fat pie. And as Google and now Mozilla are finding out, a browser that blocks ads and ad tracking kind of gets in the way of that. Anyone who can make and sell plug-and-play Pi-Hole devices even normal people can use is going to make a killing.
Aug. 3: ‘Evening of Elegance’ Fundraising Gala to Benefit Mission Opera
date: 2024-07-16, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Mission Opera has announced the fundraising gala, “An Evening of Elegance,” will be held Saturday, Aug
https://scvnews.com/aug-3-evening-of-elegance-to-benefit-mission-opera/
What we can learn from ‘Money Moms’
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
Moms groups can be fertile ground for financial tips.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/07/16/what-we-can-learn-from-money-moms/
Taboola + Apple News? No thanks
date: 2024-07-16, from: Om Malik blog
I’ve been a happy Apple One customer. It made perfect sense signing up for the package considering I was paying for Apple TV+, Apple Music and iCloud storage. For an extra couple of dollars, I could get Apple News+, so I thought why not. That ended today, when I learned that Apple had struck a …
https://om.co/2024/07/16/taboola-apple-news-no-thanks/
Apollo 11 Lifts Off
date: 2024-07-16, from: NASA breaking news
55 years ago on July 16, 1969, NASA’s Apollo 11 spacecraft launched from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as seen in this photo. Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin were aboard. Apollo 11’s primary mission objective was to fulfill a national goal set by President John F. Kennedy on May 25, […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/apollo-11-lifts-off/
LA County leaders vote to give renters free eviction attorneys, a first in SoCal
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The LAist
The proposed Right To Counsel program would give low-income renters in unincorporated L.A. County a free eviction attorney starting next year.
NASA to Provide Background on Space Station Deorbit Planning
date: 2024-07-16, from: NASA breaking news
NASA is planning for the future in low Earth orbit for science, research, and commercial opportunities as the agency and its international partners maximize the use of the International Space Station. As the agency fosters new commercial space stations, leadership from NASA and SpaceX will participate in a media teleconference at 2 p.m. EDT Wednesday, […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-to-provide-background-on-space-station-deorbit-planning/
See Inside Denver’s 143-Year-Old Train Station
date: 2024-07-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The transit hub, which just got an $11 million makeover, is deeply connected to the city’s history
You know what spreadsheets need? LLMs, says Microsoft
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Excel-lent, Smithers, have we fired accounting yet?
Researchers at Microsoft have developed a framework designed to make it easier for large language models (LLMs) to analyze the content of spreadsheets and perform data management and analysis tasks, because why not?…
Why FTC Needs to Rethink Tech Regulation
date: 2024-07-16, from: Om Malik blog
If you’ve been a regular reader, you know I’m a little skeptical of government regulators (including the FTC and DOJ) being able to control and rein in Big Tech, and more importantly, bring about change that is timely, impactful and meaningful in the long run. No matter how well-meaning their intentions might be — and …
https://om.co/2024/07/16/why-ftc-needs-to-rethink-tech-regulation/
Realignment 101: Sankey focuses on “16” while ACC legal issues linger, but is Fox targeting unclaimed ground?
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
The SEC and Big Ten and their media partners won’t make a move toward further expansion until there is no threat of getting sued by the ACC.
Liccardo continues to lead Low in fundraising in the race to replace U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
Liccardo raised more than twice as much as Low in the last filing period.
TV Tinsel: NBC set for Olympic coverage, including dash of Snoop Dogg
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
NBC Sports is going all-out programming the 2024 Paris Olympics, which begin July 26.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-07-16, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Trump’s Ugly New Post-Shooting Rant Instantly Wrecks His “Unity” Pivot.
https://newrepublic.com/article/183860/trumps-post-shooting-rant-wrecks-unity-pivot
Tamale Class Is Back
date: 2024-07-16, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Richard Lambert is hosting a pre-Fiesta training session on July 20.
The post Tamale Class Is Back appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/07/16/tamale-class-is-back/
Tech company opens new San Jose office and adds jobs in expansion
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
A tech company has opened a new office in San Jose in a job-creating expansion.
Nesting Shorebirds Are Mobbing Drones on New York City Beaches
date: 2024-07-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The drones, equipped with inflatable life rafts, were intended to help improve public safety for humans this summer—but they’re also upsetting orange-beaked birds called American oystercatchers
‘Happy Ice Cream Makes Happy People’
date: 2024-07-16, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Rori’s Artisanal Creamery scoops up special celebration for National Ice Cream Day on July 21.
The post ‘Happy Ice Cream Makes Happy People’ appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/07/16/happy-ice-cream-makes-happy-people/
Bucking the Rules
date: 2024-07-16, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Following the Biden-Trump debate, a friend and highly respected local medical specialist sent me an email containing a brief, analytical viewpoint of why President Biden, despite his great services since his inauguration, would be an unreliable choice for another term.
The post Bucking the Rules appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/07/16/bucking-the-rules/
California Republicans applaud Trump’s VP pick of JD Vance at national convention
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The LAist
California Republicans cheered as former President Donald Trump announced Republican senator and MAGA favorite JD Vance as his running VP at the Republican National Convention.
Ellwood Marine Terminal to Be Destroyed to Restore Site at UC Santa Barbara for Public Use
date: 2024-07-16, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Demolition and restoration join hands for a project involving a bankrupt oil company’s nearly century-old storage facility.
The post Ellwood Marine Terminal to Be Destroyed to Restore Site at UC Santa Barbara for Public Use appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Santa Maria Airport Boardmember at Center of Forklift Fatality Sues Airport, Insurance Company
date: 2024-07-16, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
David Baskett’s lawsuit alleges civil-rights violations pertaining to the accident investigation and his denied access to airport facilities.
The post Santa Maria Airport Boardmember at Center of Forklift Fatality Sues Airport, Insurance Company appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Parents of Cora Vides, on Trial for Attempted Murder, Testify
date: 2024-07-16, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
They said they “missed the signs” of their daughter’s mental illness.
The post Parents of Cora Vides, on Trial for Attempted Murder, Testify appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/07/16/parents-of-cora-vides-on-trial-for-attempted-murder-testify/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-07-16, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Many Judges Don't Recuse in Cases Involving Their Families’ Interests.
https://www.propublica.org/article/judges-ethics-codes-recusal-conflict-of-interest-families
July 18: The SENSES Games in Old Town Newhall
date: 2024-07-16, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The SENSES Block Party on Thursday, July 18 will feature the theme “The SENSES Games.”
https://scvnews.com/july-18-the-senses-games-in-old-town-newhall/
macOS 15 Sequoia Public Beta
date: 2024-07-16, from: Michael Tsai
Juli Clover: Apple today released the first beta of an upcoming macOS Sequoia update to its public beta testing group, giving the general public a chance to try out the new operating system’s features ahead of its fall launch. The first public beta includes the same content as the third developer beta. […] All of […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/07/16/macos-15-sequoia-public-beta/
An ambitious new food hall is coming to San Francisco’s Presidio
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
The Mess Hall, led by a James Beard award-winning Momofuku veteran, plans to open in the national park in 2025.
An Ode to the Volume Swipe
date: 2024-07-16, from: Michael Tsai
M.G. Siegler: I found myself thinking about the AirPods… Specifically, how truly great the volume swiping mechanism is on the AirPods Pro. This must be my most-used gesture in life beyond perhaps swiping up to unlock my phone. I have AirPods in my ears a good percentage of the day and I’m constantly swiping up […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/07/16/an-ode-to-the-volume-swipe/
NSCopyObject, the Griefer That Keeps on Griefing
date: 2024-07-16, from: Michael Tsai
Wade Tregaskis: Almost nobody intentionally uses NSCopyObject, but your superclass might, and therefore you might.[…]Someguides specify a better method, which is to manually zero out the copied object’s ivars and then repopulate them via formal property setters. That actually works with or without ARC, although it may break – causing memory leaks – if the […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/07/16/nscopyobject-the-griefer-that-keeps-on-griefing/
Chromium Browsers Preferencing *.google.com Domains
date: 2024-07-16, from: Michael Tsai
Simon Willison (Hacker News): It turns out Google Chrome (via Chromium) includes a default extension which makes extra services available to code running on the *.google.com domains - tweeted about today by Luca Casonato, but the code has been there in the public repo since October 2013 as far as I can tell.It looks like […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/07/16/chromium-browsers-preferencing-google-com-domains/
Carolina Ixta’s debut novel delves into the lives of Oakland teens
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
Oakland’s Carolina Ixta addresses sex, racism and religion in debut novel, “Shut Up, This is Serious”
Daily Deals (7-16-2024)
date: 2024-07-16, from: Liliputing
You may have heard that Amazon is having a sale today. But Amazon isn’t the only place to score savings on tech. Walmart is selling a the Nintendo Switch Lite for $159 and a MacBook Air with an M1 processor for $649. Meanwhile Best Buy has deals on a bunch of Chromebooks, Windows laptops, and […]
The post Daily Deals (7-16-2024) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/daily-deals-7-16-2024/
Sols 4246-4247: Next Stop: Fairview Dome
date: 2024-07-16, from: NASA breaking news
Earth planning date: Monday, July 15, 2024 Summer is in full swing in the northern hemisphere here on Earth. Warmer temperatures and fair weather make for prime opportunities for road trips and enjoying the best of the outdoors. Summer is in full swing too for the southern hemisphere of Mars and Gale crater, where Curiosity […]
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/sols-4246-4247-next-stop-fairview-dome/
Nest Healing Art Studio Looks to Expand
date: 2024-07-16, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Nest Healing Art Studio at ARTree in Old Town Newhall is a free community workshop consisting of an an hour of mindful, judgement free, art-making
https://scvnews.com/nest-healing-art-studio-looks-to-expand/
Brian Richards | Where Are the Apologies?
date: 2024-07-16, from: The Signal
For years, right before our eyes, we have seen the gradual decline of Joe Biden. He has tripped, stumbled, mumbled, made up words, butchered the English language, and been led […]
The post Brian Richards | Where Are the Apologies? appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/07/brian-richards-where-are-the-apologies/
Christine Flowers | The Dangers of Political Propaganda
date: 2024-07-16, from: The Signal
It is an old childhood truism that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” In the U.S., where speech is protected with a constitutional […]
The post Christine Flowers | The Dangers of Political Propaganda appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/07/christine-flowers-the-dangers-of-political-propaganda/
Peter Roff | It’s High Time to Punch the Ticket on Ticketmaster
date: 2024-07-16, from: The Signal
The most critical nexus in the free market is the transactions that occur when willing sellers and interested buyers meet. One does not usually look to the federal government to […]
The post Peter Roff | It’s High Time to Punch the Ticket on Ticketmaster appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/07/peter-roff-its-high-time-to-punch-the-ticket-on-ticketmaster/
A Tribute to “The Say Hey Kid”
date: 2024-07-16, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Baseball Legend Willie Mays died on June 18, at the age of 94. Craig Harris shares some remembrances of his hero.
The post A Tribute to “The Say Hey Kid” appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/07/16/a-tribute-to-the-say-hey-kid/
Wind Is More Powerful Than J. D. Vance Seems to Think
date: 2024-07-16, from: Heatmap News
It’s a good thing most of us aren’t accountable for every single silly thing we’ve ever said, but most of us are not vice presidential running mates, either. Back in 2022, when J.D. Vance was still just a “New York Times bestselling author” and not yet a “junior senator from Ohio,” much less “second-in-line to a former president who will turn 80 in office if he’s reelected,” he made a climate oopsie that — now that it’s recirculating — deserves to be addressed.
If Democrats “care so much about climate change,” Vance argued during an Ohio Republican senator candidate forum during that year, “and they think climate change is caused by carbon emissions, then why is their solution to scream about it at the top of their lungs, send a bunch of our jobs to China, and then manufacture these ridiculous ugly windmills all over Ohio farms that don’t produce enough electricity to run a cell phone?”
Vance is hardly the first person to get confused about intermittent energy sources such as wind; his new would-be boss, former President Donald Trump, likes to claim that wind turbines can’t even power a single household’s television. The fallacy stems from the idea that the power will “go out” if the wind isn’t blowing — which, in theory, would be true in any case where power demand outpaces supply. But grids are regulated with levels of redundancy specifically designed to prevent those sorts of outages, Kyri Baker, an assistant professor of engineering at the University of Colorado, previously explained to me. There are also, of course, batteries.
Still, for the sake of argument: If the wind is blowing, could a turbine “produce enough electricity to run a cell phone”? Even running at 42% capacity — typical for turbines circa when Vance was speaking — the average turbine in the U.S. generates roughly 1,170 kilowatt-hours of electricity in 60 minutes, according to the United States Geological Survey. Charging your phone twice daily for 365 days amounts to less than 3.7 kilowatt-hours per year. In other words, about the time it takes to watch an episode of Bridgerton, a single wind turbine can generate enough electricity to charge 244 phones each day twice over. So Vance is way off here.
Are the windmills “ridiculous” and “ugly”? That’s more subjective, but they’re certainly not being built “all over Ohio farms.” Wind makes up less than 2% of the electricity generated in Ohio, and despite the Buckeye State being one of the birthplaces of wind power, it only has about 419 windmills online, placing it 24th out of all the states. Strict laws in Ohio enacted in 2014 have all but halted new wind turbines from being built.
Vance is an oil and gas guy, so maybe his ignorance of wind power can be politely overlooked this one time. But going forward, when campaigning and potentially working at a national level, it’ll be important for him to get his facts straight. Wind is the largest source of renewable electricity in the United States. It’s charging a lot of cell phones.
https://heatmap.news/sparks/jd-vance-fact-check-wind
Cyber-crime super-crew Scattered Spider falls in love with RansomHub and Qilin
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Extortionists left hanging after rivals crawled into the woodwork
The Scattered Spider cybercrime group is now using RansomHub and Qilin ransomware variants in its attacks, illustrating a possible power shift among hacking groups.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/scattered_spider_ransom/
US, Latin American grouping aims to confront economic problems
date: 2024-07-16, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The problems of rising poverty and decreasing productivity in Latin America will be on the agenda when the foreign ministers of 12 regional countries convene in Washington on Wednesday, a U.S. State Department official said.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken aims during the talks to “tackle” those challenges and work toward making the Americas “the world’s most economically competitive region,” said Brian Nichols, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.
The ministers represent members of the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, established two years ago to “achieve concrete results for the middle class, workers, and historically marginalized groups” by deepening economic integration and creating good paying jobs, Nichols said, speaking at a briefing this week.
“Through this partnership, we will work together to build resilient supply chains, reinvigorate our region’s economic institutions, and invest in our workers, our infrastructure, and our strategic industries – whether through semiconductors or clean energy, or medical supplies or the critical minerals needed for our modern economy.”
Nichols pointed out that the United States is Latin America’s largest trading partner and its largest source of foreign direct investment. In 2023, U.S. trade with Latin America and the Caribbean totaled over $1.1 trillion, and Mexico displaced China as America’s top trading partner.
Nevertheless, he said “poverty rates are rising in Latin America, productivity has lagged, and income inequality remains a serious problem. The pandemic demonstrated to us and to our regional partners the importance of developing more diversified and reliable supply chains closer to home.”
Lisa Kubiske, a former U.S. ambassador to Honduras and former deputy assistant secretary of state, said that in the past two years, the member nations have been able to close gaps in their free trade agreements and address structural issues that thwart broad-based economic growth.
At a summit in November, she said, the leaders of the 12 countries directed their ministers to develop three tracks: trade, finance and foreign affairs. On the foreign affairs front, the group has engaged “on clean hydrogen, entrepreneurship, rule of law and transparency, smart agriculture, peaceful uses of space” and other issues, she told journalists at a briefing.
The president of the Inter-American Development Bank and the deputy CEO of the Development Finance Corporation have been invited to a lunch with the ministers. There will also be two side events, one hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and another hosted by the Council of the Americas.
The founding members of the group are Barbados, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, the United States, and Uruguay. Their leaders will meet again next year in Costa Rica.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-latin-american-grouping-aims-to-confront-economic-problems/7700569.html
Google Pixel 9 lineup: Everything we (think we) know about Google’s next-gen phones
date: 2024-07-16, from: Liliputing
Google is holding a hardware event on August 13th to introduce its new Pixel 9 series smartphones. But details about the upcoming Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro XL, and Pixel 9 Pro Fold have been leaking for months. Now several new leaks provide some additional information about Google’s 2024 smartphone lineup. First, […]
The post Google Pixel 9 lineup: Everything we (think we) know about Google’s next-gen phones appeared first on Liliputing.
65 years of NASA’s meatball: Original logo lives on despite detractors
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Next year the ‘worm’ turns 50 – there’s room for both at the US space agency
Logowatch NASA is celebrating 65 years of its iconic “meatball” logo, despite spending the best part of 17 years trying to kill the poor thing.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/65_years_of_nasas_meatball/
Robotic Assembly and Outfitting for NASA Space Missions
date: 2024-07-16, from: NASA breaking news
NASA is turning to the 3D modeling experts in the community for ideas and designs to use or enhance the current state of modular robotic construction techniques. Robotic building of structures in space is an active area of research for NASA and might prove to be a path towards sustainable and scalable space exploration. This […]
https://www.nasa.gov/general/robotic-assembly-and-outfitting-for-nasa-space-missions/
Check Out Ten Never-Before-Seen Paintings by Winston Churchill
date: 2024-07-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The former British prime minister was an avid painter who sometimes gifted his works to other world leaders
US Senator Menendez convicted of all charges, including accepting bribes
date: 2024-07-16, from: VOA News USA
Sols 4243-4245: Exploring Stubblefield Canyon
date: 2024-07-16, from: NASA breaking news
Earth planning date: Friday, July 12, 2024 Curiosity, now heading uphill from the Mammoth Lakes drill site, has focused on a very interesting exposure of conglomerate rocks, consisting of pebbles cemented together by a fine-grained matrix material. On Earth, conglomerate rock is associated with downhill flows of rock and soil mixtures, often in a water-rich […]
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/sols-4243-4245-exploring-stubblefield-canyon/
What The Campaign Is For
date: 2024-07-16, from: Dave Karpf’s blog
Biden is the candidate. The stakes are existential. The whole point of a campaign is that poll numbers in July are not immutable destiny.
https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/what-the-campaign-is-for
Santa Barbara Police Search for Suspect in Hit-and-Run on Eastside
date: 2024-07-16, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
One pedestrian was injured, and police believe that the driver was involved in a prior theft on July 11.
The post Santa Barbara Police Search for Suspect in Hit-and-Run on Eastside appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
AlphaBirds, our favorite office game
date: 2024-07-16, from: John August blog
Back in 2017, friends and I came up with a fun little game called AlphaBirds.1 We’ve been playing it in the office nearly every Friday since then. It’s a word game like Scrabble or Wordle, but faster and more fun. And it’s ridiculously simple to learn. On your turn, draw two cards. Play one card […] The post AlphaBirds, our favorite office game first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2024/alphabirds-our-favorite-office-game
You’re Invited: 404 Media’s First Anniversary Party
date: 2024-07-16, from: 404 Media Group
We’re throwing a party and you’re invited!
https://www.404media.co/404-media-first-anniversary-party/
Huawei lays final bricks of billion-dollar Shanghai R&D complex
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Billed as a city in its own right, center built to advance megacorp’s 5G, cloud, and AI tech
Huawei’s massive R&D complex in Shanghai is finally built - intended to give the US-sanction-hit Chinese tech giant a boost when it comes to competing with international rivals.…
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-07-16, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War. Highly recommended.
https://www.netflix.com/title/81614129
Here’s How AI Is Changing NASA’s Mars Rover Science
date: 2024-07-16, from: NASA breaking news
Artificial intelligence is helping scientists to identify minerals within rocks studied by the Perseverance rover. Some scientists dream of exploring planets with “smart” spacecraft that know exactly what data to look for, where to find it, and how to analyze it. Although making that dream a reality will take time, advances made with NASA’s Perseverance […]
Overwritten
date: 2024-07-16, from: John August blog
John welcomes back Mike Schur (The Good Place, Parks and Recreation) to ask, how do you fix an overwritten script? They discuss ways to rebuild scenes and restore muddy characters that have become burdened by too many notes, all while making sure your script retains its voice. We also look at the new IATSE deal […] The post Overwritten first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2024/overwritten
Gartner nudges down global IT spending growth forecast as ‘change fatigue’ persists
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Meanwhile, software vendors are left paying the GenAI ‘tax’ as users yet to see value
Gartner has nudged down its expected growth in worldwide IT spending for 2024 from 8 percent to 7.5 percent, with the total figure now expected to reach $5.26 trillion.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/gartner_nudges_down_global_it/
NASA Announces Leadership Changes
date: 2024-07-16, from: NASA breaking news
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced Tuesday Dr. Kurt Vogel, associate administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), is retiring from the agency. NASA Langley Research Center Director Clayton Turner will become the acting associate administrator for STMD, and NASA Glenn Research Center Deputy Director Dawn Schaible will become acting Langley center director. The changes […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-announces-leadership-changes/
قبور وراء النافذة / “Graves behind the Window” معذبو الأرض / “The Wretched of the Earth”
date: 2024-07-16, from: Care
<p>A selection of poems by Gazan poet Anees Ghanima, Translator’s Note Leena Aboutaleb, and preface by Abdalhadi Alijla</p>https://logicmag.io/issue-21-medicine-and-the-body/2-poems
AI Maxers Thrilled with Trump’s Vice President Pick JD Vance
date: 2024-07-16, from: 404 Media Group
AI maxers coming out in support of Vance and Trump more than they already have is not surprising given their libertarian bent.
https://www.404media.co/ai-maxers-thrilled-with-trumps-vice-president-pick-jd-vance/
GEEKOM A8 Review: Mini PC with up to Ryzen 9 8945HS
date: 2024-07-16, from: Liliputing
Not long ago I reviewed the GEEKOM A7 mini PC, which is a small stylish mini PC with great performance and plenty of ports. Now GEEKOM has released a new model called the GEEKOM A8. At first glance, it looks like a modest update that trades a Ryzen 7040HS processor for a newer Ryzen 8040HS […]
The post GEEKOM A8 Review: Mini PC with up to Ryzen 9 8945HS appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/geekom-a8-review-mini-pc-with-up-to-ryzen-9-8945hs/
Dunking on J.D. Vance’s ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Is ‘Unusual Behavior,’ Goodreads Says
date: 2024-07-16, from: 404 Media Group
Goodreads attempts to protect Vance’s “poverty porn” memoir from review-bombing, now that he’s the vice presidential candidate.
https://www.404media.co/j-d-vance-hillbilly-elegy-goodreads-reviews/
How The Gun Lobby Ensured The RNC Couldn’t Be Gun Free
date: 2024-07-16, from: The Lever News
Even after Trump’s assassination attempt, Milwaukee can’t ban guns at the Republican convention — thanks to the gun lobby’s use of powerful state preemption laws.
https://www.levernews.com/how-the-gun-lobby-ensured-the-rnc-couldnt-be-gun-free/
Summer reading?
date: 2024-07-16, from: Logic Matters blog
The newspaper culture pages have been full of recommendations for summer reading. Let me add my two-pennyworth on books I’ve recently particularly enjoyed reading or re-reading. I’ve just devoured Rory Stewart’s Politics on the Edge (in the US, How Not to Be a Politician: A Memoir). Though I’m rather glad I left it until after […]
The post Summer reading? appeared first on Logic Matters.
https://www.logicmatters.net/2024/07/16/summer-reading/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-07-16, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Outcast upgrade notes: "Playback begins after the download completes, not after a portion of it is buffered." That was the initial design of podcasting, and its justification, at a time when networks were comparatively much slower.
https://marco.org/2024/07/16/overcast-rewrite
Biden returns to campaign trail with speech to Black voters
date: 2024-07-16, from: VOA News USA
Washington — All eyes will be on Joe Biden as he addresses Black supporters Tuesday in the battleground state of Nevada, his first campaign appearance since the assassination attempt on his Republican rival, former president Donald Trump.
The U.S. president is expected to sharpen the choice voters will face this November, while calling for unity amid concerns of escalating political violence in the country.
In Las Vegas, at a convention of an American civil rights organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, Biden will highlight his administration’s support for Black voters who have been part of the backbone of the Democratic party’s coalition.
He is set to unveil policies to rein in rising housing costs, a critical issue in Nevada. He’ll broadcast his message in an interview with Black Entertainment Television, BET, later the same day.
On Wednesday, he’ll address UnidosUS, the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization, attempting to win Latino voters, another key voting bloc for Democrats.
In both events, Biden is expected to repeat his calls to cool down the country’s political rhetoric, a message he has delivered in three remarks in less than 24 hours following the shooting at Trump’s Pennsylvania campaign event that killed a rallygoer and wounded others, including the former president.
“Disagreement is inevitable in American democracy,” the president said in a rare Oval Office address Sunday. “But politics must never be a literal battlefield, and, God forbid, a killing field.”
Biden faces the challenge of navigating his unity message with his vows to stop Trump at all costs, as his campaign adjusts its strategy to move forward amid the president’s declining poll numbers. The Biden team had just begun to more sharply criticize Trump in an effort to stabilize Biden’s candidacy, following his rocky debate performance last month when the shooting occurred.
Via his social media platform, Trump urged the nation to “stand united.” He said in an interview with the Washington Examiner newspaper that he rewrote his speech for this week’s Republican National Convention to focus more on unity following the attempt on his life.
“I fear that this moment of detente won’t last very long,” said Claire Finkelstein, director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania. But it may bring greater awareness from each candidate to refrain from rhetoric that “can have an impact” especially on followers “who can be easily revved up into engaging in acts of violence,” she told VOA.
Biden continues to reject calls from at least 20 congressional Democrats and others within his party to step aside over concerns about his age and mental acuity, insisting that he is the best-positioned Democrat to beat Trump.
The latest polling data averages from various surveys compiled by FiveThirtyEight shows that Trump is leading by 4.7 percent in Nevada.
VOA’s Kim Lewis contributed to this story.
Biden, Trump call for unity in aftermath of Trump assassination attempt
date: 2024-07-16, from: VOA News USA
The weekend assassination attempt on Donald Trump has silenced much of the chatter over President Joe Biden’s political future. But as Trump charged forward Monday, appearing at the Republican National Convention and naming his vice presidential pick, the Biden administration prepared for a Tuesday campaign stop in this uncertain stage in the presidential race. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.
Republicans Have No New Ideas About Energy
date: 2024-07-16, from: Heatmap News
National political conventions don’t make for the best TV. Prime-time speeches are delivered by a parade of party celebrities and last for only a few minutes — typically just enough time to bash gas prices (nonsensically) and get in a few digs at the opposition. The highlight of the Republican National Convention’s broadcast out of Milwaukee on Monday night was, in fact, entirely wordless: former President Donald Trump’s walk across the floor with a conspicuous white bandage over his ear.
The only words that really mattered on Monday were reviewed and approved behind closed doors. “It’s a different kind of platform,” Tennessee Senator and Chair of the Committee on the Platform Marsha Blackburn said by way of introduction during her speech yesterday evening. Reviewing how the 2024 Republican Party Platform’s energy sections compare to the ones in 2016 (the GOP did not write a new platform for its convention in 2020), it’s clear how true that actually is.
Eight years ago, the Republican platform included “Agriculture, Energy, and the Environment” among its six chapters, describing goals such as “expedited siting processes” for transmission lines; better forest management to prevent wildfires; the “development of all forms of energy that are marketable in a free economy without subsidies, including coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power, and hydropower” and renewable sources like wind and solar by “private capital”; as well as the rejection of “the agendas of both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.” The goals were reasonably detailed, at least enough so that the 2016 platform ran a full 50 pages longer than the 2024 version. (Trump, of course, has little patience for the written word.)
The 2024 Republican platform gets to its point much more quickly by design. “MAKE AMERICA THE DOMINANT ENERGY PRODUCER IN THE WORLD, BY FAR!” is fourth on the priority list. That’s an easy enough goal since the U.S. is already the world’s dominant energy producer, at least in oil and natural gas, the favored fuels of both Trump and Vance. The platform further promises to “DRILL, BABY, DRILL” its way to the U.S. becoming “Energy Independent and even Dominant again” — another easy goal since the country is already energy independent by multiple definitions. Coal, until recently a staple Republican talking point, gets just one blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reference.
The platform offers no specific plan for improving on President Biden’s record oil and gas production numbers. It does, however, state that the party will ensure “Reliable and Abundant Low Cost Energy,” a statement that, by omission, implies the party will do so without the same level of all-caps enthusiasm for electrification. This will be quite a feat as the renewable cost curve continues to trend down.
Also new to the platform in 2024 is hostility toward electric vehicles, a favorite talking point of Trump’s on the campaign trail and a longtime punching bag of Vance’s. The party claims that it can “Save the American Auto Industry” by “reversing harmful Regulations, canceling Biden’s Electric Vehicle and other Mandates, and preventing the importation of Chinese vehicles.” Given that there isn’t actually an EV mandate, that sounds pretty much “exactly like what Democrats want,” the economic columnist Noah Smith wrote in his recent breakdown of the platform.
Finally, alongside other pressingly important issues to the American public like making Washington, D.C., “the most beautiful capital city,” the 2024 Republican platform gestures toward restoring “genuine Conservation efforts.” Such a promise, buried at the end of the document, rings especially hollow given that Trump oversaw the largest reduction of protected land in U.S. history.
Of course, shabby promises are to be expected. Party platforms are non-binding and, as Smith also points out, they reveal far more about who Republicans are appealing to, and how, than what they actually plan to do once they’re in power.
The pared-down energy and climate sections in the 2024 platform don’t necessarily mean Trump will keep Biden-era policies largely intact, then. If anything, they simply leave more room for Trump to do whatever he wants if — or when? — he wins back the White House.
https://heatmap.news/politics/republican-convention-speeches-platform
UK antitrust cops thrust probe into Microsoft, Inflection AI merger
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
AI supremacy is a helluva drug, and Redmond’s old habits die hard
Updated UK antitrust regulators today announced the beginning of a merger inquiry into Microsoft’s cash deal with startup Inflection AI, which included poaching employees. …
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/uk_competition_officials_kick_off/
California needs a million EV charging stations — but that’s ‘unlikely’ and ‘unrealistic’
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
Public chargers must be built at an unprecedented pace to meet the target in less than 7 years, and then doubled to 2 million in 2035. The high cost — $120,000 or more for one fast charger— is just one obstacle.
Sticker Mule in Marketing Email: ‘Donald Trump Was Shot … Btw, get 1 Shirt for $4 (normally $19)’
date: 2024-07-16, from: 404 Media Group
Artists, bands, and small businesses are vowing to never use the company again, and have been posting links to competitors.
Man confesses to lighting fire under Campbell overpass
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
He attempted to set a paper cup ablaze.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/07/16/man-confesses-to-lighting-fire-under-campbell-overpass/
Microsoft to intro checkpoint cumulative updates for Win 11
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The mission? To spend less time in patch purgatory
Microsoft is making yet another attempt to combat update bloat with checkpoint cumulative updates coming to both Windows 11 24H2 and Windows Server 2025.…
From David Sacks to Elon Musk, Silicon Valley’s Trump backers cheer JD Vance as VP pick
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
The tech industry has long been a liberal bastion nestled in California, a Democratic stronghold, with roots in deeply progressive San Francisco. But a Republican contingent within tech has recently become increasingly visible.
Unihertz Jelly Max is a small phone with a big(ger) display (crowdfunding)
date: 2024-07-16, from: Liliputing
At a time when smartphone displays have gotten so big that it can be hard to tell the difference between a big phone and a small tablet, Unihertz continues to sell a line of small-screen phones under its Jelly line of products. Some have screens so small that they’re barely usable. The new Unihertz Jelly Max […]
The post Unihertz Jelly Max is a small phone with a big(ger) display (crowdfunding) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/unihertz-jelly-max-is-a-small-phone-with-a-bigger-display-crowdfunding/
Rebekah Hounsell: Tracking Cosmic Light to Untangle the Universe’s Darkest Mysteries
date: 2024-07-16, from: NASA breaking news
Rebekah Hounsell is an assistant research scientist working on ways to optimize and build infrastructure for future observations made by the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The mission will shed light on many astrophysics topics, like dark energy, which are currently shrouded in mystery. Rebekah also works as a support scientist for the TESS (Transiting […]
J.D. Vance and a “much more populist economic mindset”
date: 2024-07-16, from: Marketplace Morning Report
If the Trump/Vance ticket emerges the winner in November, what might a Vice President J.D. Vance’s perspective on the government’s role in business and trade look like? Hint, Vance sees a big role for government. Then, Fed Chair Jerome Powell has given investors tantalizing hints on when rate cuts may occur. Plus, industrialized countries are getting older. What might immigration mean for economies as populations age?
Weird World
date: 2024-07-16, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Your troubling July 11 cover article on “Weird Cancer” makes no mention of cybersmog as a stressor and possible contributor.
The post Weird World appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/07/16/weird-world/
Barbecue lovers show up for cookoff in Milpitas
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
Fundraiser for 2 local nonprofits pits police against firefighters.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/07/16/barbecue-lovers-show-up-for-cookoff-in-milpitas/
Niles: What’s the hot button issue dividing Disneyland and employees?
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
As the park and its labor unions negotiate a new contract for thousands of resort employees, Disneyland guests find themselves in the middle.
55 Years Ago: Apollo 11’s One Small Step, One Giant Leap
date: 2024-07-16, from: NASA breaking news
“Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed.” “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.” “Magnificent desolation.” Three phrases that recall humanity’s first landing on and exploration of the lunar surface. In July 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin completed humanity’s first […]
https://www.nasa.gov/history/55-years-ago-apollo-11s-one-small-step-one-giant-leap/
‘AI Employees’ Managed Through HR Software Is a Capitalist Fever Dream
date: 2024-07-16, from: 404 Media Group
Lattice’s now-canceled software would have allowed AI bots to be onboarded, trained, and evaluated “just as any person would be.”
https://www.404media.co/ai-employees-managed-through-hr-software-is-a-capitalist-fever-dream/
Saratoga works to revitalize downtown amid budget constraints
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
City strives to maintain ‘standard’ of locally owned small businesses.
Name your price to ride Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
Los Gatos attraction celebrates its namesake July 24.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/07/16/name-your-price-to-ride-billy-jones-wildcat-railroad/
Vandals trash pool at Los Gatos High School
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
Tables and lifeguard stand found in the water.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/07/16/vandals-trash-pool-at-los-gatos-high-school/
Tesla is on a hiring spree after Elon Musk-ordered mass firings
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
Tesla Inc. is looking to hire nearly 800 new employees, three months after Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk hastily ordered the largest round of layoffs in the company’s history.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/07/16/tesla-is-on-a-hiring-spree-after-musk-ordered-mass-firings/
Former Food Network producer dishes on her new ‘Getting Sauced’ memoir
date: 2024-07-16, from: San Jose Mercury News
Karen Katz has led shows featuring chefs Emeril Lagasse and Buddy Valastro. Now she’s taking us behind the scenes.
Rite Aid admits 2.2 million people’s data stolen by criminals
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
RansomHub allegedly strikes again as its star continues to rise in the cybercrime scene
US drugstore chain Rite Aid has admitted that last month’s “data security incident” compromised the data of 2.2 million individuals.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/rite_aid_says_22_million/
What to Know About Vance’s Climate Stance
date: 2024-07-16, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: A year’s worth of rain fell in one day in China’s Henan province • A tornado reportedly touched down outside Chicago’s O’Hare Airport • The heat index could reach 110 degrees Fahrenheit today in Washington, D.C.
THE TOP FIVE
- Trump announces J.D. Vance as VP pick
Donald Trump has tapped Hillbilly Elegy author and Ohio junior senator J.D. Vance as his 2024 running mate. In recent years Vance has become a vocal climate change skeptic, casting doubt on the role of carbon emissions in warming the planet. As Heatmap’s Jeva Lange and Matthew Zeitlin write, he is a champion of the fossil fuel industry, especially in his home state of Ohio, where his 2022 Senate campaign received generous backing from the oil and gas industry. He is also a prominent critic of the use of environmental, governance, and social standards in investing, otherwise known as ESG, which he has called “a racket to destroy what we still have so that a few people on Wall Street can make some money.”
Last year Vance introduced a bill that would repeal federal tax credits for EVs (Electrek noted that “Tesla’s stock erased 2% worth of gains following the VP pick announcement”), and another that would double maximum penalties for climate change protesters. He has called for greater exploitation of the Utica Shale, a geological formation that runs under Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York that contains an estimated 3 billion barrels of oil and natural gas. He has slammed President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act as “dumb” and said it only makes Americans poorer, but The New York Times notes that in the years since the IRA passed, Ohio alone has seen more than $12 billion in clean energy investment.
- Biden administration considers more drilling protections in Alaska
The Biden administration may move to protect more land in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve from oil development, E&E News reported. The 23-million-acre reserve holds millions of barrels of oil and is where the contentious Willow oil project, run by ConocoPhillips, will be located. Other oil and gas companies are also eyeing the region for exploration, but environmentalists say “the region’s outsized vastness and ecological value” should be protected. More than 40 Indigenous communities rely on the resources and wildlife in the reserve. Earlier this year the Biden administration restricted new oil and gas leasing on 13 million acres of the reserve, and will soon invite the public to weigh in on whether more land should be protected. The Trump administration opened most of the reserve to fossil fuel exploration efforts in 2020, but Biden reversed that move in 2022.
- Climate change could eventually be a greater influence than the moon
on Earth’s rotation
For billions of years, the gravitational pull of the moon has tugged at the Earth’s oceans and slowed the planet’s rotation. In this way, our nearest celestial neighbor has been the dominant influence on the length of our days. But new research out of Switzerland concludes that human-caused climate change will “surpass the moon’s influence” in this respect, as huge amounts of water flow from the melting polar glaciers into the oceans toward the equator. The researchers estimate that if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t significantly reduced, the melting ice could lengthen days by 2.62 milliseconds a century by 2100. The melting is also altering the Earth’s axis of rotation, which is changing the dynamics of the Earth’s core. “We humans have a greater impact on our planet than we realize, and this naturally places great responsibility on us for the future of our planet,” said Benedikt Soja, professor of space geodesy at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at ETH Zurich, and an author on the new research.
- CO2 sequestration startup backed by Sam Altman raises $37 million
A carbon sequestration startup backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has raised $37 million in a Series A funding round led by Equinor Ventures. The company, 44.01, promises to trap CO2 underground and turn it into rock. It has already completed pilot and demonstration projects, Bloomberg reported, and will use the funding to commercialize its technology in Oman and the United Arab Emirates and expand internationally. 44.01 is backed in part by Altman’s investment fund Apollo Projects, and won an Earthshot Prize in 2022.
- Study: Indigenous communities help dramatically reduce deforestation
in Amazon
The results of a new study underscore the important role Indigenous groups can play in helping to protect vulnerable environments. The research, published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, used satellite imagery to examine deforestation levels in the Brazilian Amazon and found that areas protected by Indigenous communities had deforestation levels that were 83% lower compared to unprotected regions. The Amazon stores roughly 150 billion metric tons of carbon, so preserving its rainforest is important to protecting the climate. This study’s results “demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting biodiversity to help address climate change,” the authors wrote.
THE KICKER
Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered that wildfire smoke can have “unanticipated beneficial effects” on vulnerable conifer seedlings because it reduces the amount of sunlight that reaches the ground, thus protecting the young trees during extreme heat.
https://heatmap.news/politics/jd-vance-trump-climate-history
NASA Signs US, Saudi Arabia Agreement for Civil Aeronautics, Space Collaboration
date: 2024-07-16, from: NASA breaking news
The United States and Saudi Arabia signed a framework agreement that opens new possibilities for cooperation with NASA in areas such as space science, exploration, aeronautics, space operations, education, and Earth science. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson signed on behalf of the U.S., and CEO of the Saudi Space Agency Mohammed bin Saud Al-Tamimi signed on […]
Intel’s China investments may have spurred fresh US restrictions
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Has America been taking it too easy on local companies so far?
Analysis Intel’s investment arm might be forced to divest interests in China due to incoming US regulations governing American funds going to Chinese tech companies. The chipmaker is one of the biggest such investors, despite receiving billions from Washington to boost semiconductor production efforts at home.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/intels_china_investments_may_have/
Prime Day tech deals (July 16 – 17, 2024)
date: 2024-07-16, from: Liliputing
Amazon’s Prime Day sale runs from July 16th through July 17th this year. While some deals are certainly better than others, you can score some pretty deep discounts on Amazon, Apple, Google, or Samsung tablets, pick up a pair of true wireless, noise-cancelling earbuds for great prices, or save some money on recent laptops, smartphones, […]
The post Prime Day tech deals (July 16 – 17, 2024) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/prime-day-tech-deals-july-16-17-2024/
US Secret Service expresses support for local police after Trump assassination attempt
date: 2024-07-16, from: VOA News USA
Tesla delays ‘Robotaxi’ event as Musk ‘makes’ design ‘tweaks’
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Several models roasted for perceived flaws at this point, so maybe double-checking form’s not a bad idea
Tesla’s Robotaxi reveal event is being postponed after company boss Elon Musk decided the front of the vehicle needs a tweak.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/tesla_robotaxi_event_has_been/
Could union labor mandates on construction projects mean less affordable housing?
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The LAist
If passed, the measure would leave most developers little choice — work with labor unions or miss out on hundreds of millions in funding.
https://laist.com/news/housing-homelessness/labor-costs-homelessness-funding
Announcing Supabase on JSR
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: Deno blog
Supabase’s isomorphic JavaScript client library is now available on JSR.
https://deno.com/blog/supabase-on-jsr
A look at J.D. Vance’s economic views
date: 2024-07-16, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Yesterday, former President Donald Trump announced that Ohio Senator, author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance would be his running mate. But as a populist conservative, Vance’s economic views buck those of the traditional, Republican establishment. We’ll hear more. Also, we’ll hear about the Secret Service’s additional responsibilities besides protecting presidents and unpack how political turmoil and violence might affect the United States’ position in the global business community.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/a-look-at-j-d-vances-economic-views
Privacy warriors gripe to UK watchdog about Meta harvesting user data to train AI
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Move follows Instagram and Facebook giant’s decision to reverse direction in EU after protests
A UK data rights campaign group has launched a complaint with the data law regulator against Meta’s change of privacy policy which allows it to scrape user data to develop AI models.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/campaign_group_complains_to_uk/
Czech billionaire says he can deliver on U.K. mail
date: 2024-07-16, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: The United Kingdom’s 500-year-old postal service is up for sale. The Royal Mail, with its iconic red mailboxes, operates similarly to the United States Postal Service, but is publicly listed. Now, a $6.5 billion offer has been accepted from Daniel Křetínský, who explains why the nationally important company should be entrusted to him. Also: a look at the self-storage boom in Canada and beyond.
Latest MySQL release is underwhelming, say some DB experts
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Oracle’s priorities may lie elsewhere but it is unfair to say all innovation can go in community edition, reckons analyst
The latest release of MySQL has underwhelmed some commentators who fear Oracle — the custodian of the open source database — may have other priorities.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/mysql_9_underwhelms_community/
J.D. Vance selected as Trump’s vice presidential running mate
date: 2024-07-16, from: VOA News USA
After months of speculation, Donald Trump announced his vice presidential running mate. J.D. Vance joins the Republican presidential ticket as one of the youngest vice presidential candidates since Richard Nixon in 1952. The nomination puts his newcomer status and political inexperience to the test. Tina Trinh reports.
https://www.voanews.com/a/jd-vance-selected-as-trump-s-vice-presidential-running-mate-/7699986.html
The Dream of 24/7 Clean Electricity Gets a Funding Boost
date: 2024-07-16, from: Heatmap News
The United Nations calls 24/7 carbon-free energy generation, also known as hourly matching, “the end state of a fully decarbonized electricity system.” It means that every kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed is matched with a zero-emissions electricity source, every hour of every day. It’s something that Google and Microsoft are aiming to implement by 2030, and it represents a much more significant climate commitment than today’s default system of annualized matching
So here’s a positive sign: LevelTen Energy, the leading marketplace for power purchase agreements, just raised $65 million in Series D funding, led by the investment firm B Capital with participation from Microsoft, Google, and Prelude Ventures, among others.
The money will help support LevelTen’s work with the Granular Certificate Trading Alliance, a collaboration it started last December in partnership with the Intercontinental Exchange, a data firm that operates global financial marketplaces. Together they’re building a platform for trading and managing “granular certificates,” hourly-matched energy certificates that will help corporations — and ideally the electricity sector at large — move to 24/7 hourly matching. Other partners to the alliance include Google, Microsoft, and the energy companies AES and Constellation.
To date, LevelTen has facilitated over $15.8 billion in power purchase agreements, asset sales, and other clean energy transactions, totaling over 7 gigawatts of clean energy. Overall, the company has raised more than $125 million, with past investors including the My Climate Journey Collective as well as the investment arms of oil and gas companies such as Equinor and TotalEnergies, which are adding renewables to their portfolios.
Bryce Smith, LevelTen’s founder and CEO, told me the platform will launch its first auctions for hourly-matched clean energy by the end of the year, with initial customers expected to be corporate partners like Google and Microsoft themselves.
“Corporates have been leading the way in a lot of respects and they’re doing it again on the granular certificate front,” Smith said. He sees it as LevelTen’s job to get more industry players onboard by creating the transaction infrastructure to enable hourly matching. “So there’s a bit of a ‘build it and they will come’ aspect to this,” he told me.
Realistically, though, it’s unlikely that the electricity industry will move towards 24/7 clean energy absent some serious incentives to do so. That’s why the Biden administration’s proposed hydrogen tax credit rules could be so powerful. They stipulate that to qualify for the largest IRA subsidies, clean hydrogen must be produced using a relatively new source of carbon-free electricity, generated within the same hour that it’s used and in roughly the same location. If these regulations aren’t deleted or seriously altered by this or another new administration (which they probably will be), power grids would have until 2028 to set up new systems for hourly accounting, thereby laying the groundwork for 24/7 matching across the electricity sector at large.
That potential, tenuous and unlikely though it may be, has LevelTen excited, and the company is leaning hard into hydrogen. LevelTen is a founding member of the Hydrogen Demand Initiative, a coalition formed by the Department of Energy to ensure that the clean hydrogen produced by the seven designated hydrogen hubs is actually sold. The DOE is allocating $1 billion to help catalyze demand, and it’s up to H2DI to figure out how to distribute that. “A component of that is figuring out how to bring buyers and sellers together easily and smoothly,” Smith told me. “And that’s the role that we play in creating a marketplace where buyers and sellers can find each other and execute.”
Smith is aware that a change in administration could very well mean a change in the hydrogen tax credit rules, potentially decreasing incentives for green hydrogen and making hydrogen produced from natural gas with carbon capture and storage (“blue hydrogen”) or hydrogen produced without CCS (“gray hydrogen”) more attractive. He said the LevelTen platform would likely support transactions that involve a “variety of hydrogen colors and technologies.”
“What’s most important for us always is figuring out how to put a vital technology on the fastest track to scaling,” Smith told me. “And if that means accommodating different colors for some period of time, we have the end goal [of green hydrogen] always in mind.”
As LevelTen scales, it’s also working to get more utilities onto its platform. Smith told me that utility customers have, “really only fairly recently realized that their procurement needs around renewables are massive.” As the push to “electrify everything” gains momentum and data centers suck up more and more power, utilities are increasingly investing in renewable energy to meet their electricity needs, diversify their portfolios and respond to customer demand for clean power. “We’re used to seeing really slow, fairly predictable demand and electricity growth from a utility perspective, and that’s changing pretty dramatically,” Smith told me.
LevelTen currently operates in 29 countries across North America and Europe, and hopes to use its recent funding to expand into new regions.
https://heatmap.news/sparks/hourly-matching-google-microsoft
Prepare for Perseids!
date: 2024-07-16, from: NASA breaking news
The annual Perseid meteor shower is scheduled to peak this August 11-12. Cross your fingers for good weather, find a nice dark spot to bring a blanket or lounge chair, and get ready to relax and spot some meteors.
https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/skywatching/night-sky-network/prepare-for-perseids/
Agile Manifesto co-author blasts failure rates report, talks up ‘reimagining’ project
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Jon Kern is looking for Agile exemplars, not the ‘Agile Industrial Complex’
Interview The Agile Manifesto was published almost a quarter of a century ago. Yet as the years have rolled by, its lofty ideals have run headlong into the brick wall of management desire for process and reporting.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/jon_kern/
Court appearance of American journalist Gershkovich moved forward in Russian ‘sham trial’
date: 2024-07-16, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/russian-trial-of-us-journalist-gershkovich-to-resume-thursday/7699959.html
Interview: More Patriots and F-16s for Ukraine, but no deep strikes in Russia
date: 2024-07-16, from: VOA News USA
Private revolutions
date: 2024-07-16, from: Enlightenment Economics
Yuan Yang’s Private Revolutions: Coming of Age in New China is quietly revelatory. One of the new intake of Labour MPs, the author was born in China, moved to the UK at age 4, and returned to China as an … Continue reading
http://www.enlightenmenteconomics.com/blog/index.php/2024/07/private-revolutions/
New RP2040 CMSIS Pack
date: 2024-07-16, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
To better integrate RP2040 into the Arm ecosystem, we’ve released a new Common Microcontroller Software Interface Standard (CMSIS) Device Family Pack (DFP). With this new DFP, you can now use Raspberry Pi Pico and Pico W with all of Arm’s CMSIS tools.
The post New RP2040 CMSIS Pack appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/new-rp2040-cmsis-pack/
Cold comfort to teachers who got paid late, but ERP software rollout had ‘unrealistic’ timeline
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
18 months late, overbudget… report finds council’s SAP ERP rip ‘n’ replace with Unit4 had hidden complexity
A UK public authority responsible for about £1.1 billion ($1.43 billion) in annual spending damaged its ERP project — which saw SAP ditched in favor of Unit4 — by underestimating its complexity and kicking off with an “unrealistic timeline of 15 months,” according to a public report.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/18_months_late_and_68pc/
Qualcomm sues Chinese handset-maker in India to defend African market
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
There’s a lot of territory to cover here
Qualcomm has filed a patent infringement lawsuit in India against Chinese smartphone-maker Transsion.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/qualcomm_sues_transsion_india/
Today in SCV History (July 16)
date: 2024-07-16, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1925 – Actor Harry Carey files patent on the original 160-acre Saugus homestead he’d purchased in 1916 (now Tesoro Del Valle). [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-july-16/
Big Music reprises classic hit ‘ISPs need to stop their customers torrenting or we’ll sue’
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Stop us if you think you’ve heard this one before: Legal supergroup demands billions from Verizon
Big Music has launched a fresh lawsuit aimed at forcing ISPs to take action against users who trade in stolen copyrighted content.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/big_music_vs_verizon_torrenting/
First appearance of Donald Trump after assassination attempt
date: 2024-07-16, from: VOA News USA
Former President Donald Trump made a triumphant return to the public eye at the Republican National Convention late Monday, two days after he was wounded in an attempted assassination. Carolyn Presutti reports from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
https://www.voanews.com/a/first-appearance-of-donald-trump-after-assassination-attempt-/7699898.html
Yandex sells off Russian ops, now Putin itself about as Nebius Group
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Two-year legal saga ends with Netherlands-based entity ready to bring diverse AI interests to the world
Yandex has untangled its Dutch entity from its Russian operations in a $5.4 billion deal, the Saas and search provider announced on Monday – meaning it should be free to pursue customers outside of Vladimir Putin’s domain.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/yandex_divests_russian_assets/
What is a nominating convention?
date: 2024-07-16, from: VOA News USA
Presidential nominating conventions are a relatively recent tradition that progressed from lengthy party debates into a political spectacle televised for the world. Take a closer look at the history, surprises, and stakes behind the quadrennial events that, come November, will set the shape of America’s political landscape. From marathon balloting to pandemic adaptations, VOA explores how conventions have changed and why they still matter in modern elections.
https://www.voanews.com/a/what-is-a-nominating-convention-/7699886.html
Donald Trump enters Republican convention hall with a bandaged ear and gets a hero’s welcome
date: 2024-07-16, from: VOA News USA
Milwaukee — Two days after surviving an attempted assassination, former President Donald Trump appeared triumphantly at the Republican National Convention’s opening night with a bandage over his right ear, the latest compelling scene in a presidential campaign already defined by dramatic turns.
Delegates cheered wildly when Trump appeared onscreen backstage and then emerged in the arena, visibly emotional, as musician Lee Greenwood sang “God Bless the USA.” That was hours after the convention had formally nominated the former president to head the Republican ticket in November against President Joe Biden.
Trump, accompanied by a wall of Secret Service agents, did not address the hall — with his acceptance speech scheduled for Thursday — but smiled silently and occasionally waved as Greenwood sang. He eventually joined his newly announced running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, to listen to the night’s remaining speeches, often with a subdued expression and muted reactions uncharacteristic for the unabashed showman.
The raucous welcome underscored the depth of the crowd’s affection for the man who won the 2016 nomination as an outsider, at odds with the party establishment, but has vanquished all Republican rivals, silenced most conservative critics and now commands loyalty up and down the party ranks.
“We must unite as a party, and we must unite as a nation,” said Republican Party Chairman Michael Whatley, Trump’s handpicked party leader, as he opened Monday’s prime-time national convention session. “We must show the same strength and resilience as President Trump and lead this nation to a greater future.”
But Whatley and other Republican leaders made clear that their calls for harmony did not extend to Biden and Democrats, who find themselves still riven by worries that the 81-year-old question is not up to the job of defeating Trump.
“Their policies are a clear and present danger to America, to our institutions, our values and our people,” said Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, welcoming the party to his battleground state, which Trump won in 2016 but lost to Biden four years ago.
Saturday’s shooting at a Pennsylvania rally, where Trump was injured and one man died, were clearly in mind, but the proceedings were celebratory — a stark contrast to the anger and anxiety that had marked the previous few days. Some delegates chanted “fight, fight, fight” — the same words that Trump was seen shouting to the crowd Saturday as the Secret Service ushered him off the stage, his fist raised and face bloodied.
“We should all be thankful right now that we are able to cast our votes for President Donald J. Trump after what took place on Saturday,” said New Jersey state Sen. Michael Testa as he announced all of his state’s 12 delegates for Trump.
When Trump cleared the necessary number of delegates, video screens in the arena read “OVER THE TOP” while the song “Celebration” played and delegates danced and waved Trump signs. Throughout the voting, delegates flanked by “Make America Great Again” signs applauded as state after state voted their support for a second Trump term.
Multiple speakers invoked religious imagery to discuss Trump and the assassination attempt.
“The devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle,” said Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. “But an American lion got back up on his feet!”
Wyoming delegate Sheryl Foland was among those who adopted the “fight” chant after seeing Trump survive Saturday in what she called “monumental photos and video.”
“We knew then we were going to adopt that as our chant,” added Foland, a child trauma mental health counselor. “Not just because we wanted him to fight, and that God was fighting for him. We thought, isn’t it our job to accept that challenge and fight for our country?”
“It’s bigger than Trump,” Foland said. “It’s a mantra for our country.”
Another well-timed development boosted the mood on the convention floor Monday: The federal judge presiding over Trump’s classified documents case dismissed the prosecution because of concerns over the appointment of the prosecutor who brought the case, handing the former president a major court victory.
The convention is designed to reach people outside the GOP base
Trump’s campaign chiefs designed the convention to feature a softer and more optimistic message, focusing on themes that would help a divisive leader expand his appeal among moderate voters and people of color.
On a night devoted to the economy, delegates and a national TV audience heard from speakers the Trump campaign pitched as “everyday Americans” — a single mother talking about inflation, a union member who identified himself as a lifelong Democrat now backing Trump, a small-business owner, among others.
Featured speakers also included Black Republicans who have been at the forefront of the Trump campaign’s effort to win more votes from a core Democratic constituency.
U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt of Texas said rising grocery and energy prices were hurting Americans’ wallets and quoted Ronald Reagan in calling inflation “the cruelest tax on the poor.” Hunt argued Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t seem to understand the problem.
“We can fix this disaster,” Hunt said, by electing Trump and sending “him right back to where he belongs, the White House.”
Scott, perhaps the party’s most well-known Black lawmaker, declared, “America is not a racist country.”
Republicans hailed Vance’s selection as a key step toward a winning coalition in November.
Trump announced his choice of his running mate as delegates were voting on the former president’s nomination Monday. The young Ohio senator first rose to national attention with his bestselling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which told of his Appalachian upbringing and was hailed as a window into the parts of working-class America that helped propel Trump.
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who had been considered a potential vice presidential pick, said in a post on X that Vance’s “small town roots and service to country make him a powerful voice for the America First Agenda.”
Yet despite calls for harmony, two of the opening speakers at Monday’s evening session — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and North Carolina gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson — are known as some of the party’s most incendiary figures.
Robinson, speaking recently during a church service in North Carolina, discussed “evil” people who he said threatened American Christianity. “Some folks need killing,” he said then, though he steered clear of such rhetoric on the convention stage.
Opening night also did not pass without references to the 2020 election and Trump’s repeated lies that it was stolen from him.
Trump’s nomination came on the same day that Biden sat for another national TV interview as the president sought to demonstrate his capacity to serve another four years despite continued worries within his own party.
Biden told ABC News that he made a mistake recently when he told Democratic donors the party must stop questioning his fitness for office and instead put Trump in a “bull’s-eye.” Republicans have circulated the comment aggressively since Saturday’s assassination attempt, with some openly blaming Biden for inciting the attack on Trump’s life.
The president’s admission was in line with his call Sunday from the Oval Office for all Americans to ratchet down political rhetoric. But Biden maintained Monday that drawing contrasts with Trump, who employs harsh and accusatory language, is a legitimate part of a presidential contest.
Inside the arena in Milwaukee, Republicans did not dial back their attacks on Biden, at one point playing a video that mocked the president’s physical stamina and mental acuity.
They alluded often to the “Biden-Harris administration” and took regular digs at Vice President Kamala Harris — a not-so-subtle allusion to the notion that Biden could step aside in favor of his second-in-command.
Biden, Trump call for unity in aftermath of Trump assassination attempt
date: 2024-07-16, from: VOA News USA
The White House — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on Monday made high-profile appearances, each man acknowledging in his own way how the weekend assassination attempt against Trump has reshaped both of their presidential campaigns.
Trump briefly appeared on stage at the Republican National Convention late Monday, a white bandage taped over his right ear where a bullet clipped him Saturday as he addressed a Pennsylvania rally. On Monday, the Biden administration announced a separate, independent investigation into the shooting, as the Federal Bureau of Investigation leads the main inquiry.
The stark differences between the two main presidential campaigns were further illuminated Monday, with Trump not uttering a word but entering the Milwaukee stadium to rapturous applause and a standing, cheering ovation sustained for the length of a very, very extended version of Trump’s signature campaign song, “God Bless the U.S.A.”
Meanwhile, Biden spoke in cool, measured tones to NBC’s Lester Holt, saying that he still deeply disagrees with Trump, and with the “inflammatory” and “vicious” way Trump and his base communicate their grievances.
And asked whether he thought the shooting would change the trajectory of the presidential race:
“I don’t know,” he replied. “You don’t either.”
But the weekend’s events seem to have resolved the last political cliffhanger – the national debate over whether Biden’s poor, stumbling June debate performance against Trump meant he should step aside.
“I expect that Joe Biden has weathered the storm and this question about whether he should drop out is mostly in the rearview mirror,” said Jim Kessler, executive vice president for think tank Third Way. “But he needs to perform well.”
Biden, in the lengthy interview held at the White House after he canceled a planned Monday trip to Austin, aimed to distinguish himself from his rival in stark terms.
“Look, I’m not the guy that said I want to be a dictator on day one,” he said. “I’m not the guy that refused to accept the outcome of the election. I’m not the guy who said that he wouldn’t accept the outcome of this election.”
Both men have called for unity in the wake of Trump’s shooting.
But analysts say that word may not mean what you think it means.
“They’re both calling for unity,” said John Geer, a distinguished professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. “But I think their differences in the kind of concept are fundamental. And that’s where the, I think the problem is going to break down. And so they’re calling for it, but, in fact, it may well be partisanship in disguise.”
And the political divide between Americans is so bitter that advocacy groups are warning that it’s not just the candidates who need to cool it – voters need to do so as well.
“Stay passionate about the causes you care about and remain engaged,” said Will Fuller, of Pennsylvania-based Common Ground USA, in guidance sent to journalists Monday. “We face significant challenges that require us to fulfill the promise of opportunity for all Americans. But in that work, it’s essential to distinguish between advocating for our beliefs and fighting against each other.”
Microsoft wasn’t CISPE’s only suitor – it seems Google was willing to pay for its views on cloudy licensing to prevail
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Euro trade body tires of being a pawn in the war of the tech giants
From the department of “the lady doth protest too much, methinks” comes news that Microsoft wasn’t the only tech giant willing to offer cash to a European cloud trade body. It seems Google was also keen to get a piece of the action.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/microsoft_google_cispe/
FBI gains access to Trump rally shooter’s phone
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Hasn’t said how it did it, but has form cracking devices
The FBI on Monday revealed it has gained access to a phone it says was used by Thomas Matthew Crooks – the man who shot at and wounded former US president Donald Trump on July 13 in an apparent failed assassination attempt.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/fbi_access_trump_shooting_phone/
J.D. Vance Wants Police To Track People Who Have Abortions
date: 2024-07-16, from: The Lever News
Trump’s vice presidential pick pressured regulators to let police access the records of people who cross state lines for abortions.
https://www.levernews.com/j-d-vance-wants-police-to-track-people-who-have-abortions/
Baltimore officials sue to block ‘baby bonus’ initiative that would give new parents $1,000
date: 2024-07-16, from: VOA News USA
BALTIMORE — Baltimore’s mayor and city council have filed a lawsuit seeking to stop a proposal that would let voters decide whether to give all new parents a one-time $1,000 “baby bonus” meant to help alleviate childhood poverty from birth.
The complaint was filed Thursday, according to online court records. It came not long after organizers secured the necessary 10,000 signatures to bring the question to voters as a ballot initiative in November.
City leaders argue that the proposal is unconstitutional and should be blocked from the ballot because it would give voters too much say over legislative decisions, effectively “usurping those powers” from their elected officials.
An estimated 7,000 children are born in Baltimore each year, so the program would cost about $7 million annually. That amounts to roughly 0.16% of the city’s annual operating budget, according to supporters. It wouldn’t result in higher taxes, but it would be up to the city council to allocate the necessary funds.
The lawsuit claims that the charter amendment process is meant to address changes to the form and structure of government, not specific legislative or budgetary questions.
But supporters of the baby bonus say the lawsuit is a political power grab.
“We are fully confident the courts will reject this attack on democracy,” the Maryland Child Alliance said in a statement posted to social media last week. The group was founded by Baltimore teachers advocating for legislation to alleviate child poverty.
They say more systemic change is needed on a national level to help lift families out of poverty, but giving new parents a modest financial boost could prove an important first step.
The proposal is loosely modeled on a program implemented this year in Flint, Michigan, where women receive $1,500 during mid-pregnancy and $500 per month for the first year after giving birth. Officials said the Flint program was the first of its kind in the U.S. Countries in Europe and Asia have experimented with larger cash payments, but those programs are meant to encourage people to have more kids, not address child poverty.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration, which launched a guaranteed income pilot program targeting young single parents in 2022, said in a statement that he’s “supportive of the proposed amendment’s objectives” even though he wants it off the ballot.
Registration Now Open for Annual River Rally Cleanup
date: 2024-07-16, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Registration for the 29th annual River Rally Cleanup and Environmental Expo is officially open. This is an opportunity for Santa Clarita volunteers of all ages to help clean up a portion of the Santa Clara River, one of the last natural, free-flowing river systems in Southern California.
https://scvnews.com/registration-now-open-for-annual-river-rally-cleanup/
Border arrests plunge 29% in June to the lowest of Biden’s presidency
date: 2024-07-16, from: VOA News USA
SAN DIEGO — Arrests for illegally crossing the border from Mexico plunged 29% in June, the lowest month of Joe Biden’s presidency, according to figures released Monday that provide another window on the impact of a new rule to temporarily suspend asylum.
Arrests totaled 83,536 in June, down from 117,901 in May to mark the lowest tally since January 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said.
A seven-day average of daily arrests fell more than half by the end of June from Biden’s announcement on June 4 that asylum processing would be halted when daily arrests reach 2,500, which they did immediately, said Troy Miller, acting Customs and Border Protection commissioner.
“Recent border security measures have made a meaningful impact on our ability to impose consequences for those crossing unlawfully,” Miller said.
Arrests had already fallen by more than half from a record high of 250,000 in December, largely a result of increased enforcement by Mexican authorities, according to U.S. officials.
Sharp declines registered across nationalities, including Mexicans, who have been most affected by the suspension of asylum, and Chinese people, who generally fly to Ecuador and travel to the U.S. border over land.
San Diego was the busiest of the Border Patrol’s nine sectors bordering Mexico by number of arrests, followed by Tucson, Arizona.
More than 41,000 people entered legally through an online appointment app called CBP One in June. The agency said 680,500 people have successfully scheduled appointments since the app was introduced in January 2023.
Nearly 500,000 people from four countries entered on a policy to allow two-year stays on condition they have financial sponsors and arrive at an airport. They include 104,130 Cubans, 194,027 Haitians, 86,101 Nicaraguans and 110,541 Venezuelans, according to CBP.
China’s Honor debuts laptop with bonkers removable camera that lives in a little slot
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Privacy preserved, with potential to lose the camera in your pocket or beyond
Chinese consumer electronics outfit Honor has thought outside the clamshell by creating a laptop with a stowable magnetic camera.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/honor_laptop_with_removable_camera/
Biden says ‘bull’s-eye’ reference to Trump was a mistake
date: 2024-07-16, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden said on Monday he made a mistake when he told supporters to put rival Donald Trump in a “bull’s-eye” in an effort to focus attention on his rival’s behavior but said Trump regularly employed rhetoric that was inflammatory.
“It was a mistake to use the word,” Biden said in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt. “I meant focus on it, focus on what he’s doing,” Biden said.
On July 8, Biden, 81, spoke to some of his biggest donors and said they needed to shift the election campaign’s focus from him and his poor debate performance to former President Trump, the Republican nominee in the Nov. 5 election.
“I have one job and that’s to beat Donald Trump … We’re done talking about the debate. It’s time to put Trump in the bull’s-eye,” he said.
Some Republicans zeroed in on that comment as they blamed Biden for creating a climate that sparked the assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday. Biden has repeatedly decried political violence.
The president has endured more than two weeks of questions about his political future, so far facing down calls to step aside as the Democratic presidential candidate after his poor performance against Trump in the debate on June 27 sparked a crisis within his party.
He reiterated in the interview that he is not leaving the race, while acknowledging that people’s questions about his age were legitimate.
Biden also weighed in on Trump’s selection of Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate.
Asked by NBC’s Lester Holt what Vance’s selection said about Trump’s values, Biden replied: “He’s going to surround himself with people who agree completely with him.” Biden, chuckling, also noted some of Vance’s previously critical comments about Trump.
The president has sought to turn attention to his opponent, highlighting Trump’s falsehoods, his refusal to accept the 2020 election results and his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
“I’m not the guy that said I want to be a dictator on day one. I’m not the guy that refused to accept the outcome of the election,” Biden said.
He said Trump had engaged in inflammatory rhetoric, citing the former president’s comments about a bloodbath ensuing if he loses the 2024 election and making fun when former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul was attacked by an intruder with a hammer at their home.
“How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like he says? Do you just not say anything because it may incite somebody?” Biden said. “I have not engaged in that rhetoric. Now … my opponent’s engaged in that rhetoric.”
Biden, who is seeking to prove that he is fit to stand for reelection and govern for a second four-year term despite concerns about his age, noted that millions of people had voted for him to be the Democratic Party’s nominee. “I listen to them,” he said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-says-bull-s-eye-reference-to-trump-was-a-mistake/7699811.html
Swap meet plan to recognize area’s history
date: 2024-07-16, from: The Signal
Plans to build homes at the site of the Santa Clarita Valley’s popular twice-weekly swap meet will pay homage to the property’s historical past as the Saugus Speedway, city planners […]
The post Swap meet plan to recognize area’s history appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/07/swap-meet-plan-to-recognize-areas-history/
Mercado-Fortine ends 4-year turn as SCV Sheriff’s Foundation board president
date: 2024-07-16, from: The Signal
Gloria Mercado-Fortine, board president for the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Foundation, a local nonprofit that supports law enforcement with equipment, training and additional resources, announced she will be stepping down […]
The post Mercado-Fortine ends 4-year turn as SCV Sheriff’s Foundation board president appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
City serves inspection warrant on Canyon Country home
date: 2024-07-16, from: The Signal
The city of Santa Clarita sought an L.A. County Superior Court order to search a Canyon Country home back in May because officials say it had so many code violations […]
The post City serves inspection warrant on Canyon Country home appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/07/city-serves-inspection-warrant-on-canyon-country-home/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-07-16, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The Dismissal of the Trump Documents Case Is Yet More Proof: The Institutionalists Have Failed.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-documents-case-dsmissal/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-07-16, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The Ghost Newsstands Haunting NYC Subways.
https://www.thecity.nyc/2024/07/11/mta-newsstands-revenue-vacant/
Trump taps Ohio’s junior senator as his running mate
date: 2024-07-16, from: VOA News USA
Milwaukee — Former U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday selected J.D. Vance, a senator from the Midwestern state of Ohio, as his running mate in November’s presidential election.
Trump made the announcement on his Truth Social media platform, saying he decided the Marine Corps veteran and Yale Law School graduate is “the person best suited” to become vice president of the United States.
Shortly after Trump’s naming of the 39-year-old Vance, the bearded senator took a victory lap on the floor of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee as thousands of delegates cheered.
Trump drew his own cheers late Monday as he made an appearance at the convention sporting a bandage on his right ear from an assassination attempt at his Saturday campaign rally.
Vance is expected to address the gathering on Wednesday, the night before Trump formally accepts the party’s presidential nomination for the third consecutive time.
“I think it was an excellent choice,” an excited Ginger Howard, a party national committeewoman from Georgia, told VOA on the floor of the convention. “I think they’re going to make a great team.”
Just before boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, President Joe Biden, responding to a reporter’s question about Vance’s selection, termed the senator “a clone of Trump on the issues. I don’t see any difference.”
Biden’s reelection campaign was quick to elaborate, characterizing Vance as a willing servant to Trump’s more autocratic and regressive undertakings.
Trump, twice impeached and now a convicted felon for falsifying business records, picked Vance because he “will do what Mike Pence wouldn’t on January 6: bend over backwards to enable Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law and no matter the harm to the American people,” said Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, who chairs the Biden-Harris campaign.
Trump has downplayed the severity of the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, framing it as a legitimate protest against what he claimed without evidence was a “stolen” 2020 presidential election. He has also criticized the subsequent federal investigation and prosecution of those involved, labeling it a witch hunt politically motivated by Biden, his opponent in a second consecutive election.
Biden’s running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, is “fully prepared” to debate Vance under the format proposed by CBS News, according to the Democrats’ campaign.
“Trump’s VP pick is great news for wealthy Americans and terrible for everybody else,” Senator Elizabeth Warren told reporters on a Biden-Harris campaign conference call shortly after the former president’s announcement of his running mate.
“Social Security and Medicare cuts will bear down on seniors like an avalanche” if Trump and Vance are elected, predicted Warren. “Millions will face losing access to health insurance.”
Vance has emerged as a strong advocate of Trump and his hard-line policies, from immigration restrictions to cuts for social programs. But as was true of numerous other prominent Republicans when the New York real estate developer first ran for president eight years ago, Vance had been highly critical of Trump.
“Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us,” Vance said on Twitter in October 2016. He subsequently deleted the tweet.
Vance, a venture capitalist before being elected a senator, first rose to prominence with his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which was made into a Hollywood movie. The book and film chronicle his experiences coming of age in a struggling working-class family in the Appalachian region.
With his name aside Trump’s on the 2024 ticket, Vance immediately becomes the most prominent Republican to be passed the torch of a political party radically reframed by Trumpism.
Trump, if he is elected again and serves a full second term, would be 82 the day he leaves office.
Biden’s cognitive abilities at his current age of 81 have emerged as a major campaign issue and divided his own Democratic Party, with a growing number of prominent Democrats in and out of Congress calling for him to abandon his reelection bid in favor of a younger replacement.
“Trump wanted a younger candidate who can campaign and connect with working-class voters, especially in the Midwest. Vance is also the first millennial to appear as a major party nominee on a presidential ticket, representing a generational change in U.S. politics,” said Cayce Myers, a Virginia Tech professor of public relations.
Vance would become the second-youngest vice president in U.S. history if elected along with Trump. Democrat John C. Breckinridge was 36 when he took the oath of office as vice president on March 4, 1857, under President James Buchanan. Republican Richard Nixon, as President Dwight Eisenhower’s vice president, was 40 when he took on the role in 1953. Breckinridge failed in his subsequent quest for the presidency. Nixon was elected president in 1968 after a losing bid eight years earlier.
A survey of 3,000 U.S. adults conducted Monday by polling firm YouGov indicated a lack of strong opinions on Trump’s choice of Vance, particularly among political independents.
Asked if they had a favorable opinion of Vance, 43% of all respondents said they were not sure, compared to the equal split of 29% who said they had either favorable or unfavorable views.
Among respondents who identified as independents, 53% said they were not sure whether they viewed Vance favorably or unfavorably.
Self-identified Republicans had the highest views of Vance, with 33% selecting very favorable, while 46% of self-identified Democrats chose very unfavorable.
Roman Mamonov of VOA’s Russian Service contributed to this report.
https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-taps-ohio-senator-vance-as-his-running-mate-/7699779.html
Judge finds illegal discrimination blocks some disabled veterans from housing at West LA VA campus
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The LAist
Judge David O. Carter says he’ll rule in the future on what changes will have to be made.
https://laist.com/news/housing-homelessness/homeless-veterans-west-la-campus-ruling-judge-carter
US Secret Service ‘confident in security’ for RNC
date: 2024-07-16, from: VOA News USA
The United States Secret Service says it’s “confident” in its ability to safeguard this week’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This, after the party’s leader, Donald Trump, survived an assassination attempt over the weekend. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-secret-service-confident-in-security-for-rnc-/7699777.html
DarkGate, the Swiss Army knife of malware, sees boom after rival Qbot crushed
date: 2024-07-16, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
The DarkGate malware family has become more prevalent in recent months, after one of its main competitors was taken down by the FBI.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/16/darkgate_malware/
Time To Reflect
date: 2024-07-16, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Saturday, July 13, 2024, was a dark day in American history.
The post Time To Reflect appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/07/15/time-to-reflect/
PGDay UK 2024 - Schedule published
date: 2024-07-16, from: PostgreSQL News
Join us on 11th September 2024 in London, for a day of talks on the World’s Most Advanced Open Source Database coupled with the usual valuable hallway track. This event is aimed at all users and developers of PostgreSQL and is your chance to meet and exchange ideas and knowledge with like-minded database fanatics in London.
Schedule
We are pleased to announce that the schedule for PGDay UK 2024 has now been published. You can see the fantastic selection of talks we have planned at:
https://2024.pgday.uk/schedule/
The team would like to thank all those who submitted talks, as well as the program committee who had a long and difficult job selecting the talks!
Registration
Registration for attendees is now open. For more information and to secure your seat, please visit:
https://2024.pgday.uk/registration/
Sponsors
Sponsor the event and take your chance to present your services or products to the PostgreSQL community - or see it as a give-back opportunity. The benefactor sponsorship level also includes a free entrance ticket. Please head to:
https://2024.pgday.uk/become-sponsor/
for more details.
See you there!
As usual, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us at contact@pgday.uk.
We look forward to seeing you in London in September!
PGDay UK 2024 is a PostgreSQL Europe event run according to the PostgreSQL Community Conference Recognition programme. Local logistics and other services are provided by Slonik Enterprises Ltd. on a not-for-profit basis.
https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/pgday-uk-2024-schedule-published-2895/
Update: Victim in Vandenberg Village Murder Identified as Suspect’s Mother
date: 2024-07-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Brooke Carter, 46, is accused of killing her 71-year-old mother, Denise Ann Carter, on July 13.
The post Update: Victim in Vandenberg Village Murder Identified as Suspect’s Mother appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
XXL Pants on Fire
date: 2024-07-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Between now and November, Democrats should run ads continuously reminding voters about Trump’s ceaseless debate lies on abortion, public and legal sentiment on Roe v. Wade, insulin prices, the Jan. 6 insurrection, and much more.
The post XXL Pants on Fire appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/07/15/xxl-pants-on-fire/
Sept. 28: SCAA Hosting 34th Annual Art Classic
date: 2024-07-15, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Don’t miss the Santa Clarita Artists Association’s annual Art Classic Gala - the largest celebration of fine arts in the Santa Clarita Valley - Sept. 28, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., at The Center.
https://scvnews.com/sept-28-scaa-hosting-34th-annual-art-classic/
Prosecutors: Head slap preceded shooting
date: 2024-07-15, from: The Signal
While Black and Blue Restaurant announced its closure in February, an attempted murder case — one of the 19 alleged criminal incidents that preceded the bar-restaurant-night club’s departure — is […]
The post Prosecutors: Head slap preceded shooting appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/07/prosecutors-head-slap-preceded-shooting/
Lake Fire’s South Zone Close to Contained as Focus Shifts Northward
date: 2024-07-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Update: Several evacuation orders and warnings were canceled Monday evening for the more than 38,000-acre fire, which County Fire expects to be fully contained by July 31.
The post Lake Fire’s South Zone Close to Contained as Focus Shifts Northward appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
CSUN Honors Mother’s Sacrifices with New Scholarship
date: 2024-07-15, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Jhoanna Serrano left the Philippines for the United States at just 18 years old, hoping to give her then-2-year-old daughter, Jean Pauline, a better future.
https://scvnews.com/csun-honors-mothers-sacrifices-with-new-scholarship/
TMU School of Music Sends Chorale on Texas Tour
date: 2024-07-15, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Master’s University Chorale, one of the school’s marquee music performance ensembles, toured through Texas this summer.
https://scvnews.com/tmu-school-of-music-sends-chorale-on-texas-tour/
Hart school board expected to approve MOUs regarding union salaries
date: 2024-07-15, from: The Signal
Memorandums of understanding between the William S. Hart Union High School District and its employee unions regarding salaries are up for approval at Wednesday’s governing board meeting. Both the Hart […]
The post Hart school board expected to approve MOUs regarding union salaries appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/07/hart-school-board-expected-to-approve-mous-regarding-union-salaries/
Congress demands explanation from Secret Service for Trump shooting
date: 2024-07-15, from: VOA News USA
Scriptnotes, Episode 646: Industry Software, Transcript
date: 2024-07-15, from: John August blog
The original post for this episode can be found here. John August: Hey, this is John. Heads up that today’s episode has just a little bit of swearing in it. Hello and welcome. My name is John August. Craig Mazin: My name is Craig Mazin. John: This is Episode 646 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about […] The post Scriptnotes, Episode 646: Industry Software, Transcript first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2024/scriptnotes-episode-646-industry-software-transcript
Titania K9 Fund’s Annual Gala set for Sept. 29
date: 2024-07-15, from: The Signal
Titania K9 Fund is set to host its annual gala in September to benefit the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles dog therapy program. The “WANTED ‘Wild West Gala’” is scheduled 1-4 […]
The post Titania K9 Fund’s Annual Gala set for Sept. 29 appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/07/titania-k9-funds-annual-gala-set-for-sept-29/
3 hikers die in Utah parks as temperatures hit extreme highs
date: 2024-07-15, from: VOA News USA
SALT LAKE CITY — Three hikers died over the weekend in suspected heat-related cases at state and national parks in Utah, including a father and daughter who got lost on a strenuous hike in Canyonlands National Park in extreme temperatures.
The daughter, 23, and her father, 52, sent a 911 text alerting dispatchers that they were lost and had run out of water while hiking the 13-kilometer (8.1-mile) Syncline Loop, described by the National Park Service as the most challenging trail in the Island in the Sky district of the southeast Utah park. The pair set out Friday to navigate steep switchbacks and scramble through boulder fields with limited trail markers as the air temperature surpassed 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit).
Park rangers and a helicopter crew with the Bureau of Land Management began their search for the lost hikers in the early evening Friday but found them already dead. The San Juan County Sheriff’s Office identified them Monday as Albino Herrera Espinoza and his daughter, Beatriz Herrera, of Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Due to the jagged terrain, safety officials used a helicopter to airlift the bodies out of the park and to the state medical examiner Saturday morning, according to the sheriff’s office. Their deaths are being investigated as heat-related by the local sheriff and the National Park Service.
Later Saturday, first responders in southwest Utah responded to a call about two hikers “suffering from a heat-related incident” at Snow Canyon State Park, which is known for its lava tubes, sand dunes and a canyon carved from red and white Navajo Sandstone.
A multi-agency search team found and treated two hikers who were suffering from heat exhaustion. While they were treating those individuals, a passing hiker informed them of an unconscious person nearby. First responders found the 30-year-old woman dead, public safety officials said.
Her death is being investigated by the Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Department. She has not been identified publicly.
Tourists continue to flock to parks in Utah and other southwestern states during the hottest months of the year, even as officials caution that hiking in extreme heat poses serious health risks. Earlier this month, a Texas man died while hiking at Grand Canyon National Park, where summer temperatures on exposed parts of the trail can reach over 49 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit).
https://www.voanews.com/a/hikers-die-in-utah-parks-as-temperatures-hit-extreme-highs/7699409.html
Nature center’s education series to focus on Kenya
date: 2024-07-15, from: The Signal
A journey through Kenya is set to be the focus of the Placerita Canyon Nature Center Associates’ monthly Community Nature Education series at 2 p.m. Sunday. Each month, the group […]
The post Nature center’s education series to focus on Kenya appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/07/nature-centers-education-series-to-focus-on-kenya/
US homeland security chief: Security ‘a failure’ at Trump rally site
date: 2024-07-15, from: VOA News USA
Saugus High Music Club Clothes for Cash Campaign Continues
date: 2024-07-15, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Saugus High School Instrumental Music Booster Club is inviting the community to help those in need with its ongoing Clothes for Cash campaign Saturday, July 20, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m
https://scvnews.com/saugus-high-music-club-clothes-for-cash-campaign-continues/
NASA Johnson to Dedicate Building to Dorothy Vaughan, Women of Apollo
date: 2024-07-15, from: NASA breaking news
NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston will recognize legendary human computer Dorothy Vaughan and the women of Apollo with activities marking their achievements, including a renaming and ribbon-cutting ceremony at the center’s “Building 12,” on Friday, July 19, the eve of the 55th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. At 9 a.m. CDT, NASA […]
@Tomosino’s Mastodon feed (date: 2024-07-15, from: Tomosino’s Mastodon feed)
https://m.dpreview.com/articles/6017416570/in-photos-cincinnati-s-impressive-old-main-public-library
The Cincinnati Main Library before the 1955 demolition was out of this world. Pictures attached and more in the link.
https://tilde.zone/@tomasino/112792824111341146
Princess Cruises’ Pizza Party Sets New Guinness World Record
date: 2024-07-15, from: SCV New (TV Station)
In celebration of a new partnership with Chef Tony Gemignani, the 13-time World Pizza Champion and the undisputed greatest pizza maker in modern history, Princess Cruises, recognized for the Best Pizza at Sea, established a new Guinness World Records Title Monday for “World’s Largest Pizza Party” at multiple venues aboard its fleet of Love Boats with hungry guests devouring more than 60,000 slices of fresh-from-the-oven pizza prepared by the line’s master chefs
https://scvnews.com/princess-cruises-pizza-party-sets-new-guinness-world-record/
Secret Service under scrutiny following shooting at Trump rally
date: 2024-07-15, from: VOA News USA
Lilbits: Ryzen AI 300 mobile chips coming this month, PCSX2 2.0 released, and a PC emulator for iOS
date: 2024-07-15, from: Liliputing
Now you can install Windows 11 on an iPad, if that’s something you want to do, thanks to a new emulator that just hit the App Store. You can also play most PlayStation 2 games on a PC thanks to the first major update to the PCSX2 emulator. A free and open source graphics driver […]
The post Lilbits: Ryzen AI 300 mobile chips coming this month, PCSX2 2.0 released, and a PC emulator for iOS appeared first on Liliputing.
City of Santa Barbara Cultural Arts Grants Now Open
date: 2024-07-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) –As part of its ongoing commitment to a vibrant, sustainable local cultural sector and arts access for all,
The post City of Santa Barbara Cultural Arts Grants Now Open appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/07/15/city-of-santa-barbara-cultural-arts-grants-now-open/
Mattei’s Tavern Chef Rhoda Magbitang Goes Out with A Bang
date: 2024-07-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
A special Kamayan dinner in Los Olivos is a finger-licking feast of magical memories.
The post Mattei’s Tavern Chef Rhoda Magbitang Goes Out with A Bang appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/07/15/matteis-tavern-chef-rhoda-magbitang-goes-out-with-a-bang/
J.D. Vance As Trump’s VP: “A Corporate CEO’s Dream And A Worker’s Nightmare”
date: 2024-07-15, from: The Lever News
For years, The Lever has exposed the Ohio senator’s hypocrisies and what they mean for the American people.
https://www.levernews.com/j-d-vance-as-trumps-vp-a-corporate-ceos-dream-and-a-workers-nightmare/
Kaspersky culls staff, closes doors in US amid Biden’s ban
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
After all we’ve done for you, America, sniffs antivirus lab
Kaspersky has confirmed it will shutter its American operations and cut US-based jobs following President Biden’s ban on the Russian business last month.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/kasperky_us_operations/
J. D. Vance Loves to Hate on ESG
date: 2024-07-15, from: Heatmap News
On Monday afternoon, following a flurry of leaks ruling out North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and Florida Senator Marco Rubio as Donald Trump’s pick for vice president, the former president announced Hillbilly Elegy author and Ohio junior senator J. D. Vance as his 2024 running mate.
A favorite of Trump’s son Don, Jr. who has molded himself into a populist on the intellectual vanguard of conservatism, Vance has taken on aggressive, culturally inflected views on climate change. While just four years ago he was saying that the United States has a “climate problem,” he has since tacked hard to the right and become a champion of the fossil fuel industry, especially in his home state of Ohio, where his 2022 Senate campaign received generous backing from the oil and gas industry.
While skepticism of anthropogenic climate change and support for oil and gas are nothing new for a Republican officeholder, where Vance has carved himself a particular niche is as a prominent critic of the use of environmental, governance, and social standards in investing, otherwise known as ESG. This is the idea that major investors would reward companies based on their adherence to a set of standards that often include climate-related targets and policies.
The supposed evils of ESG make a natural theme for Vance, one that melds traditional conservative support for business (and especially fossil fuels) and criticism of socially liberal — sorry, woke — elites into a more populist message than a typical Chamber of Commerce criticism of regulation. Or, as Vance himself put it to Breitbart in the days leading up to his election to the Senate in 2022, “ESG is basically a racket to destroy what we still have so that a few people on Wall Street can make some money.” (Somewhere along the line, his company also invested in erstwhile Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s anti-woke asset management firm, according to Bloomberg.)
By the time he took office in January 2023, Politico was already calling Vance “the Senate’s new anti-ESG warrior.” That July, he sponsored a bill alongside Wyoming’s Cynthia Lummis and Kansas’ Roger Marshall, Republican senators both, that would have appointed an inspector general inside the Treasury Department to “oversee allegations of regulatory abuse and misconduct by financial regulators and kneecap the ability of regulators to push left-wing policy goals through the federal regulatory system.”
Last year, Vance also wrote an op-ed for the Marietta Times arguing for greater exploitation of the Utica Shale, a geological formation that runs under Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York that contains an estimated 3 billion barrels of oil and natural gas.
Vance claimed in the op-ed that “in an effort to discourage investment in oil and gas companies, President Biden has weaponized the Securities and Exchange Commission to mandate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores on publicly traded companies.” (He also noted that “Utica Shale oil production increased by 65 percent in 2023” compared to the year prior, and that wells in Columbiana County in Southeast Ohio had “set new oil production records at the start of the year.”)
Admittedly, Trump’s decision to pick Vance as a running mate doesn’t seem likely to swing the general election needle too much in any one way or another (though it might mess a little with the cabinet position calculus). So far on Monday, the choice has been generally well-received by Republicans, including by the VP also-rans. But with a direct and easy line to Trump, Vance would become one of the most influential people in America in the case of a Republican win in November.
Even if ESG-bashing is kind of old news, it has the sort of culture-war zest to it that Rubio’s China hawkishness and Burgum’s carbon sequestration enthusiasm lack. It’s the sort of alignment that makes the ticket seem almost obvious in retrospect — the Trump-Vance anti-woke, anti-ESG perfect match.
https://heatmap.news/politics/jd-vance-vp-esg
Johnson calls on all sides to turn rhetoric down
date: 2024-07-15, from: The Signal
By Aldgra Fredly Contributing Writer House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, has called on all sides to “turn the rhetoric down” in the wake of the assassination attempt against former President Donald […]
The post Johnson calls on all sides to turn rhetoric down appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/07/johnson-calls-on-all-sides-to-turn-rhetoric-down/
Who is J.D. Vance? Things to know about Trump’s running mate
date: 2024-07-15, from: VOA News USA
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Former President Donald Trump on Monday chose U.S. Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio to be his running mate as he looks to return to the White House.
Here are some things to know about Vance, a 39-year-old Republican now in his first term in the Senate:
Vance was born and raised in Middletown, Ohio. He joined the Marines and served in Iraq, and later earned degrees from Ohio State University and Yale Law School. He also worked as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley.
Vance made a name for himself with his memoir, the 2016 bestseller “Hillbilly Elegy,” which was published as Trump was first running for president. The book earned Vance a reputation as someone who could help explain the maverick New York businessman’s appeal in middle America, and especially among the working class, rural white voters who helped Trump win the presidency.
“Hillbilly Elegy” also introduced Vance to the Trump family. Donald Trump Jr. loved the book and knew of Vance when he went to launch his political career. The two hit it off and have remained friends.
First elected to public office in 2022
After Donald Trump won the 2016 election, Vance returned to his native Ohio and set up an anti-opioid charity. He also took to the lecture circuit and was a favored guest at Republican Lincoln Day dinners where his personal story — including the hardship Vance endured because of his mother’s drug addiction — resonated.
Vance’s appearances were opportunities to sell his ideas for fixing the country and helped lay the groundwork for entering politics in 2021, when he sought the Senate seat vacated by Republican Rob Portman, who retired.
Trump endorsed Vance. Vance went on to win a crowded Republican primary and the general election.
Vance went from never-Trumper to fierce ally
Vance was a “never Trump” Republican in 2016. He called Trump “dangerous” and “unfit” for office. Vance, whose wife, lawyer Usha Chilukuri Vance, is Indian-American and the mother of their three children, also criticized Trump’s racist rhetoric, saying he could be “America’s Hitler.”
But by the time Vance met Trump in 2021, he had reversed his opinion, citing Trump’s accomplishments as president. Both men downplayed Vance’s past scathing criticism.
Once elected, Vance became a fierce Trump ally on Capitol Hill, unceasingly defending Trump’s policies and behavior.
A leading conservative voice
Kevin Roberts, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, called Vance a leading voice for the conservative movement, on key issues including a shift away from interventionist foreign policy, free market economics and “American culture writ large.”
Democrats call him an extremist, citing provocative positions Vance has taken but sometimes later amended. Vance signaled support for a national 15-week abortion ban during his Senate run, for instance, then softened that stance once Ohio voters overwhelmingly backed a 2023 abortion rights amendment.
On the 2020 election, he said he wouldn’t have certified the results immediately if he had been vice president and that Trump had “a very legitimate grievance.” He has put conditions on honoring the results of the 2024 election that echo Trump’s. A litany of government and outside investigations have not found any election fraud that could have swung the outcome of Trump’s 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden.
In the Senate, Vance sometimes embraces bipartisanship. He and Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown co-sponsored a railway safety bill following a fiery train derailment in the Ohio village of East Palestine. He’s sponsored legislation extending and increasing funding for the Great Lakes restoration and supported bipartisan legislation boosting workers and families.
Vance brings strengths at debating, fundraising
People familiar with the vice-presidential vetting process said Vance would bring to the Republican ticket debating skills, fundraising prowess and the ability to articulate Trump’s vision.
Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative activist group Turning Point USA, said Vance compellingly articulates the America First world view and could help Trump in states he closely lost in 2020, such as Michigan and Wisconsin, that share Ohio’s values, demographics and economy.
https://www.voanews.com/a/who-is-jd-vance-things-to-know-about-trump-s-running-mate/7699330.html
Asus ExpertBook P5 is a 2.9 pound Meteor Lake laptop with a 14 inch, 2.5K 144 Hz display
date: 2024-07-15, from: Liliputing
The Asus ExpertBook P5 is a premium thin and light laptop designed for the business market. It has a 14 inch, 2.5K display with a 144 Hz refresh rate, support for up to 32GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and support for up to 3TB of storage thanks to dual SSD slots. According to Asus, it’s also the […]
The post Asus ExpertBook P5 is a 2.9 pound Meteor Lake laptop with a 14 inch, 2.5K 144 Hz display appeared first on Liliputing.
Biden orders Secret Service to protect RFK Jr. after Trump assassination attempt
date: 2024-07-15, from: VOA News USA
Washington — President Joe Biden has directed the U.S. Secret Service to protect independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the Homeland Security secretary said Monday.
Kennedy is a longshot to win Electoral College votes, much less the presidency. But his campaign events have drawn large crowds of supporters and people interested in his message.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Biden had directed the protection for Kennedy “both prior to and after the events of this past weekend.”
The Secret Service is legally required to protect major party presidential and vice-presidential candidates and their families 120 days out from a general election, but third-party candidates are on an as-needed basis.
The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged in its 2024 budget overview that recent requests for candidate protection were coming in earlier than in the past.
Threats to political candidates are common, but law enforcement officials have said that there has been an uptick in violent rhetoric since the weekend attack at the Trump rally. Mayorkas said both Biden and Trump are “constantly the subject of threats.”
“We are in a heightened and very dynamic threat environment,” he said.
With a famous name and a loyal base, Kennedy has the potential to do better than any third-party presidential candidate since Ross Perot in the 1990s. But he didn’t participate in the first presidential debate on June 27. Both the Biden and Trump campaigns, who fear he could be a spoiler, bypassed the nonpartisan debate commission and agreed to a schedule that essentially left out Kennedy.
Kennedy, who last year challenged Biden for the Democratic nomination before launching an independent bid, has argued that his relatively strong showing in a few national polls gives his candidacy heft. Polls during the 2016 presidential campaign regularly put libertarian Gary Johnson’s support in the high single or low double digits, but he ultimately received only about 3% of the vote nationwide.
Trump became the official Republican presidential nominee Monday after receiving the votes of enough delegates at the Republican National Convention. He was not seriously injured in the shooting over the weekend in Pennsylvania. There is an independent review of the attack underway.
Mayorkas said Trump’s protection has been enhanced based on the “evolving nature of the threats to the former president” and his shift from presumptive nominee to nominee.
Talking Animal Style with ALO’s Lebo
date: 2024-07-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
From Saratoga to Isla Vista and beyond, ALO comes to the Lobero on July 24 with Donavon Frankenreiter as the opener.
The post Talking Animal Style with ALO’s Lebo appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/07/15/talking-animal-style-with-alos-lebo/
Armenian Winemaker Coming to Cuyama Buckhorn
date: 2024-07-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
‘Cup of Salvation’ star Vahe Keishgerian’s wines, including the Molana from Iran, will be paired with six courses by Chef Hugo Vera on Friday, July 19.
The post Armenian Winemaker Coming to Cuyama Buckhorn appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/07/15/armenian-winemaker-coming-to-cuyama-buckhorn/
I told you so: Mozilla working with Facebook to weaken Firefox’ privacy and anti-tracking features
date: 2024-07-15, from: OS News
I’ve long been warning about the dangers of relying on just one browser as the bullwark against the onslaught of Chrome, Chrome skins, and Safari. With Firefox’ user numbers rapidly declining, now stuck at a mere 2% or so – and even less on mobile – and regulatory pressure possibly ending the Google-Mozilla deal with makes up roughly 80% of Mozilla’s income, I’ve been warning that Mozilla will most likely have to start making Firefox worse to gain more temporary revenue. As the situation possibly grows even more dire, Firefox for Linux would be the first on the chopping block. I’ve received quite a bit of backlash over expressing these worries, but over the course of the last year or so we’ve been seeing my fears slowly become reality before our very eyes, culminating in Mozilla recently acquiring an online advertising analytics company. Over the last few days, things have become even worse: with the release of Firefox 128, the enshitification of Firefox has now well and truly begun. Less than a month after acquiring the AdTech company Anonym, Mozilla has added special software co-authored by Meta and built for the advertising industry directly to the latest release of Firefox, in an experimental trial you have to opt out of manually. This “Privacy-Preserving Attribution” (PPA) API adds another tool to the arsenal of tracking features that advertisers can use, which is thwarted by traditional content blocking extensions. ↫ Jonah Aragon If you have already upgraded to Firefox 128, you have automatically been opted into using this new API, and for now, you can still opt-out by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Website Advertising Preferences, and remove the checkmark “Allow websites to perform privacy-preserving ad measurement”. You were opted in without your consent, without any widespread announcement, and if it wasn’t for so many Firefox users being on edge about Mozilla’s recent behaviour, it might not have been snuffed out this quickly. Over on GitHub, there’s a more in-depth description of this new API, and the first few words are something you never want to hear from an organisation that claims to fight tracking and protect your privacy: “Mozilla is working with Meta”. I’m not surprised by this at all – like I, perhaps gleefully, pointed out, I’ve been warning about this eventuality for a long time – but I’ve noted that on the wider internet, a lot of people were very much unpleasently surprised, feeling almost betrayed by this, the latest in a series of dubious moves by Mozilla. It’s not even just the fact they’re “working with Meta”, which is entirely disqualifying in and of itself, but also the fact there’s zero transparency or accountability about this new API towards Firefox’ users. Sure, we’re all technologically inclined and follow technology news closely, but the vast majority of people don’t, and there’s bound to be countless people who perhaps only recently moved to Firefox from Chrome for privacy reasons, only to be stabbed in the back by Mozilla partnering up with Facebook, of all companies, if they even find out about this at all. It’s right out of Facebook’s playbook to secretly experiment on users. This is what I wrote a year ago: I’m genuinely worried about the state of browsers on Linux, and the future of Firefox on Linux in particular. I think it’s highly irresponsible of the various prominent players in the desktop Linux community, from GNOME to KDE, from Ubuntu to Fedora, to seemingly have absolutely zero contingency plans for when Firefox enshittifies or dies, despite everything we know about the current state of the browser market, the state of Mozilla’s finances, and the future prospects of both. Desktop Linux has a Firefox problem, but nobody seems willing to acknowledge it. ↫ Thom Holwerda It seems my warnings are turning into reality one by one, and if, at this point, you’re still not worried about where you’re going to go after Firefox starts integrating even more Facebook technologies or Firefox for Linux gets ever more resources pulled away from it until it eventually gets cancelled, you’re blind.
Art That Keeps Giving
date: 2024-07-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Santa Barbara Museum of Art pays tribute to significant donors with “A Legacy of Giving: The Lady Leslie and Lord Paul Ridley-Tree Collection.”
The post Art That Keeps Giving appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/07/15/art-that-keeps-giving/
From Biles to Sha’Carri, Team USA packed with star power heading into Olympics
date: 2024-07-15, from: VOA News USA
Someone Anonymously Mailed Two Bronze Age Axes to a Museum in Ireland
date: 2024-07-15, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Officials are asking the donor to come forward with more information about where the artifacts were discovered
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-07-15, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Backdoor sneaked into fake AWS package was downloaded hundreds of times.
Telepong
date: 2024-07-15, from: NASA breaking news
Next Generation Science Standards: Engineering Design (MS-PS4-1, MS-ETS1) Grades 5+ In this activity, students will create an “antenna” or “receiver” out of re-used materials. After construction is complete, the students test their design by throwing “data” (in this case, ping pong balls) across the room and comparing the message to test the success of their receivers.
https://www.nasa.gov/general/telepong/
GSAC Ushers In New Era
date: 2024-07-15, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The GSAC has announced several changes that go beyond the new schools that have joined the conference.
https://scvnews.com/gsac-ushers-in-new-era/
The AMD Zen 5 microarchitecture: powering Ryzen AI 300 series for mobile and Ryzen 9000 for desktop
date: 2024-07-15, from: OS News
Built around the new Zen 5 CPU microarchitecture with some fundamental improvements to both graphics and AI performance, the Ryzen AI 300 series, code-named Strix Point, is set to deliver improvements in several areas. The Ryzen AI 300 series looks set to add another footnote in the march towards the AI PC with its mobile SoC featuring a new XDNA 2 NPU, from which AMD promises 50 TOPS of performance. AMD has also upgraded the integrated graphics with the RDNA 3.5, which is designed to replace the last generation of RDNA 3 mobile graphics, for better performance in games than we’ve seen before. Further to this, during AMD’s recent Tech Day last week, AMD disclosed some of the technical details regarding Zen 5, which also covers a number of key elements under the hood on both the Ryzen AI 300 and the Ryzen 9000 series. On paper, the Zen 5 architecture looks quite a big step up compared to Zen 4, with the key component driving Zen 5 forward through higher instructions per cycle than its predecessor, which is something AMD has managed to do consistently from Zen to Zen 2, Zen 3, Zen 4, and now Zen 5. ↫ Gavin Bonshor at AnandTech Not the review and deep analysis quite yet, but a first thorough look at what Zen 5 is going to bring us, straight from AnandTech.
The Philippines’ and Vietnam’s South China Sea Strategies Have Failed
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: RAND blog
There is no silver bullet to resolving China’s rising assertiveness throughout the South China Sea. But what is obvious at this point is that neither transparency as with the Philippines, nor opacity as with Vietnam, is working.
15 Years Ago: STS-127 Delivers Japanese External Platform to Space Station
date: 2024-07-15, from: NASA breaking news
On July 15, 2009, space shuttle Endeavour began its 23rd trip into space, on the 2JA mission to the International Space Station, the 29th shuttle flight to the orbiting lab. During the 16-day mission, the seven-member STS-127 crew, working with Expedition 20, the first six-person crew aboard the station, completed the primary objectives of the […]
How lawsuits, power of public entities and politicians threaten journalists
date: 2024-07-15, from: VOA News USA
Tech Today: NASA’s Moonshot Launched Commercial Fuel Cell Industry
date: 2024-07-15, from: NASA breaking news
Agency’s technology development prepared fuel cells for tomorrow’s renewable energy grids
NASA, Universities Take Learning Out of Classroom
date: 2024-07-15, from: NASA breaking news
There’s no “I” in team, and that holds true for NASA and its partners as the agency ramps up efforts to recruit tenured professors to research science for a semester at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The tenured teachers work for up to a year in an area where the agency needs specific […]
FBI Gains Access to Suspected Trump Shooter’s Password Locked Phone
date: 2024-07-15, from: 404 Media Group
The FBI announced on Monday it had successfully gained access to the phone used by Thomas Matthew Crooks, the suspected shooter in the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
https://www.404media.co/fbi-gains-access-to-suspected-trump-shooters-password-locked-phone/
Apple Explains How to Identify Social Engineering Attacks
date: 2024-07-15, from: TidBITS blog
Apple has updated a support document with helpful advice about how to identify and report social engineering attacks such as phishing messages, phony support calls, and more. Share it widely!
https://tidbits.com/2024/07/15/apple-explains-how-to-identify-social-engineering-attacks/
FTC probes IBM’s $6.4B HashiCorp takeover
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Cloud biz claims it’s full speed ahead – and damn the torpedoes
The FTC is taking a close look at IBM’s acquisition of HashiCorp, according to a filing made to America’s financial watchdog.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/ftc_ibms_hashicorp/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-07-15, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Trump Allies Bully Dems, Media to Shut Up About His Fascist Plans.
California lawmakers’ safety gets new attention after Trump shooting
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The LAist
Assembly Bill 2041 would allow candidates and elected officials to use more campaign funds for personal security for themselves, family members and staff.
https://laist.com/news/politics/california-lawmakers-safety-gets-new-attention-after-trump-shooting
NASA Transmits Hip-Hop Song to Deep Space for First Time
date: 2024-07-15, from: NASA breaking news
The stars above and on Earth aligned as an inspirational message and lyrics from the song “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” by hip-hop artist Missy Elliott were beamed to Venus via NASA’s DSN (Deep Space Network). The agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California sent the transmission at 10:05 a.m. PDT on Friday, July 12. […]
https://www.nasa.gov/general/nasa-transmits-hip-hop-song-to-deep-space-for-first-time/
Filming in Santa Clarita Includes Six Productions
date: 2024-07-15, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The city of Santa Clarita’s Film Office has released the list of six productions currently filming in the Santa Clarita Valley for the week of Monday, July 15 - Sunday, July
https://scvnews.com/filming-in-santa-clarita-includes-six-productions-6/
A Giant Polka-Dotted Pumpkin Takes Root in London’s Kensington Gardens
date: 2024-07-15, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The bronze sculpture was created by famed Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, who often uses pumpkins in her work
You’re Always on That Phone: How Being Online Sustained Sudan’s Youth Revolution
date: 2024-07-15, from: Care
<p>The sit-in became a physical embodiment of the safe spaces weView From the Nuba Mountains: An Interview with Kuna
date: 2024-07-15, from: Care
<p>“Previously, when I was outside of Sudan, I was very much like, “I’m just Sudanese.” But now, I find myself more and more—I don’t want to say less willing—but I will say I feel safer identifying as a Nuba.”</p>On Sudan and the Interminable Catastrophe: A Conversation with Bedour Alagraa
date: 2024-07-15, from: Care
<p>“In terms of genres of the human, I think that Sudan has a lot to tell the world about our assumptions about Man, because it’s a country that doesn’t have very many white people at all.”</p>Genocidal Technologies: The Deprivation of Medicine in Tigray
date: 2024-07-15, from: Care
<p>“The decimation of medicine and healthcare was a genocidal technology used to actualize as many deaths as possible—and one whose future deployment can by no means be ruled out.”</p>https://logicmag.io/issue-21-medicine-and-the-body/the-deprivation-of-medicine-in-tigray
Net neutrality in danger again: US appeals court puts FCC’s resurrected rule on hold
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
‘Likelihood of success is even clearer,’ thanks to those Supremes
The Federal Communications Commission’s attempt to reassert net neutrality rules has been put on hold by the US Sixth Circuit of Appeals pending further review.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/net_neutrality_fcc/
Spacesuit Prototype Turns Pee Into Drinking Water
date: 2024-07-15, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The system is inspired by the stillsuits for collecting moisture in the science fiction epic Dune
In the Field: Exploring the Central Coast Oak Woodlands
date: 2024-07-15, from: California Native Plants Society
California’s central coast oak woodlands create a sprawling lush woodland, home to wildflowers and rare plants.
The post In the Field: Exploring the Central Coast Oak Woodlands appeared first on California Native Plant Society.
https://www.cnps.org/in-the-field/in-the-field-exploring-the-central-coast-oak-woodlands-39032
UTM SE Now in the App Store
date: 2024-07-15, from: Michael Tsai
Wes Davis (Hacker News, MacRumors): Apple has approved UTM SE, an app for emulating a computer to run classic software and games, weeks after the company rejected it and barred it from being notarized for third-party app stores in the European Union. The app is now available for free for iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS.After Apple […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/07/15/utm-se-now-in-the-app-store/
Stack Overflow Changes Data Dump Process
date: 2024-07-15, from: Michael Tsai
Philippe (via Hacker News): I’m going to start with an important statement: this is primarily only a change in location for where the data dump is accessed. Moving forward, we’ll be providing the data dump from a section of the site user profile on a Stack Exchange profile.There are a number of reasons for this: […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/07/15/stack-overflow-changes-data-dump-process/
Midnight HomePod mini
date: 2024-07-15, from: Michael Tsai
Joe Rossignol: Apple today announced that the existing HomePod mini is now available in a Midnight color option, which replaces the nearly-identical Space Gray color previously offered. […] Apple first released the HomePod mini in November 2020, and it has yet to release a second-generation model of the speaker. Caveat emptor: Apple still advertises this […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/07/15/midnight-homepod-mini/
NSCopying in a Swift World
date: 2024-07-15, from: Michael Tsai
Douglas Hill: This crash happens because, behind the scenes, the Swift compiler synthesises overrides of a superclass’s designated initialisers. These overridden initialisers crash to prevent objects from being incorrectly initialised from Objective-C. […] From a quick look on Stack Overflow, it seems [self.class alloc] is often a recommended way to create a copy in Objective-C. […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/07/15/nscopying-in-a-swift-world/
Sequoia Beta 3 VMs Don’t Support Mac App Store
date: 2024-07-15, from: Michael Tsai
Howard Oakley: The third developer beta of macOS 15 Sequoia finally brings support for Apple ID in macOS virtual machines (VM). As this is likely to form the first public beta-release next week, here’s a short guide to how to install a Sequoia VM, and what you can do with it.[…]Apple has previously stated that […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/07/15/sequoia-beta-3-vms-dont-support-mac-app-store/
Sequoia Finally Addresses Notification Center Privacy
date: 2024-07-15, from: Michael Tsai
Arin Waichulis: The privacy implications of Notification Center popups are well-known in the security forensics community. Whether a user likes it or not, macOS temporarily keeps a log of every notification received in a single plaintext database. This can include messages from applications like iMessage, Slack, Teams, and virtually anything else. However, it now appears […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/07/15/sequoia-finally-addresses-notification-center-privacy/
Smartphones sales bounce, Xiaomi biting at Apple’s heels
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Chinese corp gives iPhone a run for its yuan
Global smartphone sales are continuing to rebound, partly thanks to a “buzz” around high-end devices supporting Gen AI, but mostly due to budget conscious consumers seeking out low-end devices.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/smartphones_q2_analysts/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-07-15, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Tech, Crunched: How the go-to site for startup news lost its way.
https://keepgoingpod.com/p/tech-crunched-how-the-go-to-site
James Webb’s Newest Image Shows a Giant Penguin and an Egg
date: 2024-07-15, from: Smithsonian Magazine
NASA released the dazzling portrait to help celebrate the two-year anniversary of the release of Webb’s first images
The Hydrogen Tax Credit Rules Are Effectively Dead
date: 2024-07-15, from: Heatmap News
Few aspects of Biden’s climate law have spurred more controversy than the “three pillars” — a set of rules proposed by the Treasury Department for how to claim a lucrative new tax credit for producing clean hydrogen. Now, it appears, the pillars may be poised to fall.
The Treasury has been under immense pressure from Congress, energy companies, and even leaders at the Department of Energy to relax the rules since before it even published the proposal in December. The pillars, criteria designed to prevent the program from subsidizing projects that increase U.S. greenhouse gas emissions rather than reduce them, are too expensive and complicated to comply with, detractors argue, and would sink the prospects for a domestic clean hydrogen industry.
But lately, the campaign to dismantle the pillars has gotten both more forceful and more threatening. There’s the politically challenging hurdle that leaders of another federally-funded hydrogen program — the regional clean hydrogen hubs — have spoken out against the rules, arguing they threaten investment in hub projects and therefore job creation and economic development around the country. Then there’s the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn the precedent known as Chevron deference, which weakened agencies’ ability to defend their own rules and thereby emboldens any aggrieved parties to sue the Treasury if it keeps the pillars in place. Last week, 13 Democratic Senators, 11 of whom hail from states involved in the hubs, sent a letter calling on Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to dramatically revise the rules or risk having them challenged in court.
The consequences of losing the three pillars can only be guessed at using models, which are built on assumptions and can’t predict the future with certainty. But proponents say the stakes couldn’t be higher. In their view, the pillars don’t just prevent carbon emissions. They mitigate the risks of rising electricity costs for everyday Americans. And without them, one of the most generous energy credits the government offers could become incredibly easy to claim, ballooning the federal budget.
The clean hydrogen tax credit was created by the Inflation Reduction Act, and offers up to $3 per kilogram of hydrogen produced, with the top dollar amount reserved for fuel that is essentially zero-emissions. The hope was that this would be enough to bring down the cost of hydrogen made from electricity to parity with hydrogen made from natural gas. If made cleanly, hydrogen could help decarbonize other carbon-intensive industries, like steelmaking and shipping.
At first, excitement for the tax credit ran high and companies quickly began making plans for new factories. Announcements of new hydrogen production capacity more than tripled from 2 million tons per year in 2021 to 7.7 million by the end of the following year, with another 6 million announced in 2023, according to the energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.
Then, after the Treasury’s proposal dropped last December, everything stopped. Under the three pillars, hydrogen companies that get electricity from the grid, which is still largely powered by fossil fuels, would be required to buy clean energy credits with specific attributes in order to mitigate their emissions and render their hydrogen “clean.” The credits must come from power plants located in the same region as the hydrogen production — the first pillar — that were built no more than 3 years before the hydrogen plant — the second pillar — and be purchased for every hour the plant is operating — the third pillar.
The three provisions work together to ensure that new clean power plants are brought online to meet hydrogen’s energy demand. But finding clean energy credits with these features is not easy — there aren’t many systems in place to do this yet. The Treasury took more than a year to publish its initial proposal, and leading up to it, companies lobbied aggressively for a more lenient version. There was so much money on the line that some businesses flooded the public with ads in newspapers and on streaming and podcast services delivering a cryptic warning that “additionality” — the requirement to buy energy from new power plants — was threatening to “set America back.”
Until businesses have clarity on whether the three pillars will stay or go, the industry is on ice. Several previously announced projects have been delayed. Few companies have reached offtake agreements, even provisional ones, for their hydrogen. Almost none have received a final investment decision or started construction.
“They’re losing advantage over other parts of the world,” Hector Arreola, a principal analyst for hydrogen and emerging technologies at Wood Mackenzie, told me. Momentum to develop hydrogen projects has started to shift back to Europe, which has already finalized its own definition of what constitutes clean hydrogen, he said.
It’s hard to imagine a path forward for the Treasury to keep the three pillars intact. Last week’s letter outlined the current state of play in stark terms. “Without significant changes to the draft guidance,” it said, “one of the most powerful job creation and emission reduction tools in the IRA will likely be hamstrung by future court challenges, congressional opposition, and unfulfilled private sector investment.”
Indeed, at least one company, Constellation Energy, has already suggested it would draw on the loss of Chevron deference to sue the agency if it didn’t remove the second pillar — the requirement to buy clean energy credits from recently-built power plants. (Constellation owns a fleet of nuclear power plants and is developing hydrogen projects powered by them.) In comments to the Treasury, Constellation wrote that the requirements for purchasing clean electricity “have no basis” in the law.
“People can always sue today to challenge regulations,” Keith Martin, a renewable energy tax lawyer at the firm Norton Rose Fulbright, told me. “It’s just that the odds of success have increased.” The Supreme Court’s ruling undermines regulatory agencies’ authority to interpret federal statute.
Another hydrogen company that has been fighting the three pillars, Plug Power, has already claimed victory: It put out a press release last month declaring that it anticipates receiving the tax credit, despite the fact that the rules are still not final and its projects would likely not qualify under Treasury’s proposal. The CEO, Andy Marsh, told a hydrogen trade publication that he’s “certain” the rules will be loosened. (Plug Power didn’t respond to a request for clarification by publish time.)
In their letter, the 13 Democratic senators propose that hydrogen producers should be able to purchase clean energy from existing power plants that are already supplying the grid if they are located in a state that has a clean energy standard, or as long as the power plant doesn’t reallocate more than 10% of its power to hydrogen production. They recommend losing the hourly matching requirement altogether and replacing it with annual or monthly matching, depending on when plants start construction. The senators also suggest allowing projects built in areas with “insufficient clean energy sources,” meaning places with suboptimal sun, wind, water, or geothermal energy, to source their power from farther outside the region.
Beth Deane, the chief legal officer for Electric Hydrogen, a company that has historically supported the three pillars, told me in an interview she thought these proposals represented a good compromise. “Bottom-line, the effectiveness of green hydrogen as a decarbonization tool is being artificially held back,” she said later in an email. “We need to give up perfection on both sides of the three-pillar debate and find the ‘good enough’ solution that lets early mover projects move forward with less stringent requirements.”
But other proponents told me the letter carves out so many loopholes that the pillars would remain in name only. Rachel Fakhry, the policy director for emerging technologies at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told me the letter was “outrageous” and “a giveaway buffet.” Daniel Esposito, a manager in the electricity program at the think tank Energy Innovation, told me he can’t imagine any scenario where these exceptions don’t result in an emissions boost rather than a reduction.
That’s because the electrolyzers used to produce clean hydrogen consume a lot of power and are expected to cause fossil fuel plants — which are more flexible than renewables — to run more often and stay open longer than they otherwise would. Without a requirement to buy power from new clean sources and a prescription to match operations with clean energy throughout the day, there will be no demand signals to bring (often more expensive) clean resources onto the grid that can, for example, produce power at night when solar panels aren’t generating. Power system models from Energy Innovation, Princeton University researchers, the Rhodium Group, and the Electric Power Research Institute have all found that there could be significant emissions consequences if the three pillars were relaxed in ways suggested in the letter.
“This effectively unlocks more than 10 million metric tons of dirty electrolytic hydrogen,” Esposito said, based on some back-of-the-envelope estimates. That would cost something like $30 billion per year. Put another way, he said, every $300 paid out by this program could subsidize one ton of CO2 emissions. Put a third way, he added, it could set the U.S. back two to three percentage points on its commitment under the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions 50% to 52% by 2030 — and we’re already off track.
The authors of the letter say they’re “confident” these fears are overblown. They cite a competing analysis published last year by the consulting firm Energy and Environmental Economics and paid for by the trade group the American Council on Renewable Energy, which found that requiring companies to match their operations with clean energy on an hourly basis, rather than an annual basis, does not ensure lower greenhouse gas emissions. They also cite research by an energy modeling group at Carnegie Mellon and North Carolina State University, which found that the difference in cumulative emissions between scenarios with less stringent requirements and the full three pillars comes out to less than 1% by 2039.
Paulina Jaramillo, a professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon who worked on that research, told me the three pillars add a level of regulatory complexity to hydrogen production that is not worth the cost in terms of the emissions savings. In general, she said, she saw no need for the rules, and that the Treasury should subsidize electrolytic hydrogen regardless of where the electricity comes from. “We need to deploy this infrastructure,” Jaramillo told me. “We need to deploy it now so it’s available later.”
The other camp of researchers disputed Jaramillo’s group’s findings, chalking them up to a series of differences in assumptions and approach. They also call the industry’s bluff on the claim that the three pillars are too hard and expensive to comply with. Esposito pointed out that a small group of hydrogen companies has already told the Treasury that if the rules were finalized as-is, they planned to build enough capacity to produce more than 6 million tons of hydrogen per year.
Fakhry argued that we are already seeing the risks of losing the three pillars play out in real time as power-hungry industries like bitcoin mining and artificial intelligence grow. Bitcoin mines have driven up emissions and energy costs around the country. Utilities in Pennsylvania are sounding the alarm that an Amazon data center seeking to divert power from an existing nuclear power plant could shift up to $140 million in costs to other electricity customers. As I wrote in Heatmap last year, this debate is not just about hydrogen — think of all the other energy-intensive industries that will have to electrify before we can reach net zero.
Plenty of stakeholders still believe that the Treasury can find a middle ground by making the three pillars more flexible. The American Clean Power Association, which represents a wide range of energy companies, has proposed loosening the hourly matching aspect for projects that start construction before 2028. Fakhry acknowledged the need for flexibility, but her recommendations are much more narrow than the senators’. For example, she would allow hydrogen producers to buy power from existing nuclear plants, but only if they are at risk of retirement and the purchase would help keep them open. Esposito said Energy Innovation would support power procurement from existing clean resources that are curtailed, meaning they produce power that currently goes unutilized.
Both Fakry and Esposito also downplayed the threat of lawsuits, arguing that Treasury did exactly what it was instructed to do by the law. The IRA specifically says that hydrogen emissions should be calculated per a section of the Clean Air Act that says any accounting should include “significant indirect emissions.” Treasury has interpreted this to include the induced emissions caused by a hydrogen plant, and received letters of support from the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy backing this interpretation.
However, as Martin, the tax lawyer, told me, by overturning Chevron deference, the Supreme Court has just given “677 federal district court judges greater latitude to substitute their own judgment for subject matter experts at the federal agencies.”
Asked for comment on the Senators’ letter, a Treasury spokesperson told me the agency is still considering the many thousands of comments the agency received on the proposed rules. “The Biden Administration is committed to ensuring that progress continues and that the IRA’s investments continue to create good-paying jobs, lower energy costs, and strengthen energy security.”
Even if Yellen heeds the Senators’ advice, the department may not be able to avoid a lawsuit. “We will use every tool available to us — including the courts — to either defend a strong final rule or challenge an unlawful one that reflects the asks in the letter,” Fakhry told me.
There’s also a realpolitik argument here that the industry might want this all to be over more than it wants to kill the three pillars. “The number one thing people want is business certainty,” Esposito told me. “I don’t think people want this to drag on for another two years.”
https://heatmap.news/economy/hydrogen-tax-credit-rules
Daily Deals (7-15-2024)
date: 2024-07-15, from: Liliputing
Amazon Prime Day may kick off tomorrow, but Lenovo and Best Buy are already running “Black Friday in July” sales, and eBay is offering 20% off thousands of items when you use the coupon SUNNYSAVINGS at checkout. You can also already find savings on a bunch of products available from Amazon – Fire tablets are […]
The post Daily Deals (7-15-2024) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/daily-deals-7-15-2024/
Ken Striplin | 2024 Public Opinion Poll
date: 2024-07-15, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Santa Clarita consistently earns recognition as one of the best places to live in the nation, boasting a high quality of life, strong safety record and a business-friendly atmosphere.
https://scvnews.com/ken-striplin-2024-public-opinion-poll/
Did Plague Cause the Mysterious Collapse of Europe’s Early Farmers 5,000 Years Ago?
date: 2024-07-15, from: Smithsonian Magazine
A new study finds widespread DNA evidence that an ancestor pathogen of the Black Death helped bring about the end of an agricultural society responsible for megalithic tombs and monuments, like Stonehenge
Linux kernel 6.10 arrives with punched-up hardware support
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Plus: Broader Rust abilities, better sandboxing, and more
The latest Linux kernel is here, with relatively few new features but better support for several hardware platforms, including non-Intel kit.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/linux_kernel_610_is_out/
Welcome to Hell, East Coast
date: 2024-07-15, from: Heatmap News
The heat is not going anywhere anytime soon, so keep reading to discover how you might feel it this week.
Thousands are still without power in Texas with relief efforts ongoing
Shawn Schulze, CEO of the American Red Cross Texas Gulf Coast Region, has been driving around Texas to coordinate relief efforts after Hurricane Beryl. On Sunday, he pulled over in his car to talk to me about what the situation is like on the ground.
A week ago, power outages caused by the hurricane pushed over 2 million Texans into the dark during a record-breaking heat wave, seeing heat indexes above 100 degrees Fahrenheit throughout all of last week. As of yesterday, utility CenterPoint Energy — which has drawn criticism from many, including Governor Greg Abbott, over its response to the hurricane — had yet to restore power to over 320,000 clients. Schulze, a life-long Houston resident, got his electricity back on Sunday.
Volunteers are even more in need as hospitals in Texas struggle to meet demand. Dr. Owais Durrani told CNN that hospital crowding in Houston is approaching levels not seen since the COVID-19 pandemic. To ameliorate the conditions in Texas, around 600 Red Cross volunteers from across the nation are stationed in Houston, providing thousands of hot meals, ice, and water, beyond helping maintain 16 emergency shelters.
- Looking Ahead: Later this week, an increased chance of rain and thunderstorms might help keep temperatures near average, alleviating some of the intense heat, AccuWeather Meteorologist Alex DaSilva told me. But the rain might also delay relief and reconstruction efforts in the wake of Beryl. “We’re going to continue to help people until the need stops,” Schulze said.
Cities in California break heat records, while farmers struggle to sustain production
Northern California’s Stockton and Modesto hit 110 and 108 degrees respectively on Friday, surpassing records set in 1999. Sacramento has also now experienced its highest number of days above 110 degrees in a year. Also last week, temperatures in the Death Valley inched closer to 134 degrees — the hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth.
The dry and hot weather has been of particular concern for farmers in the state, which are struggling to meet demand. “The heat is really taking its toll on the people and our crops,” Garrett Patricio, president of Westside Produce in Northern California, told me. Due to the heat, crops are reaching maturity earlier and work days are being cut short to protect the health of workers, driving up the costs of production.
Unprecedented wildfires with more to come
On Thursday, The Guardian reported that wildfires in California have already burned five times the average area for this time of year. Communities in Oregon and New Mexico have also burned this summer. On Friday, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek declared a state of emergency as wildfires continue to scorch through the state.
- Looking Ahead: While monsoon activity will continue in the West, the amount of moisture available in the air will decrease, increasing the risk for thunderstorms that could spark new blazes this week.
Death toll rises
The number of heat-related deaths this summer continues to climb, with most being reported in California and Oregon. In the past week, at least 28 people died, The Washington Post reported. That number has already grown. On Friday, Oregon announced two more deaths, bringing its number up to 16.
More record-breaking heat heading east
Through Wednesday, the mid-Atlantic and Northeast can expect temperatures up to 12 degrees above the historical average for this time of the year. According to DaSilva, areas near Washington, D.C. and Baltimore might experience temperatures higher than 100 degrees. “Other areas in the Northeast can be in the 90s,” he told me. On Sunday, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu declared a heat emergency in the city until July 17.
In the later portion of the week, DaSilva predicts that a cold front will bring temperatures in the Northeast closer to — and in some areas even below — average. But, the change to a “cooler and less humid air mass,” might also bring along severe weather such as thunderstorms and heavy rainfall.
Drought conditions to persist in the South
There’s good news and bad news for communities in the Southwest and across the Southeast, which have faced severe dry conditions. While no drought-busting rains are expected for this week, “pop-up thunderstorms on a daily basis can provide localized benefits through midweek” in the Southeast, DaSilva told me. A potential cold front later this week could increase the chance of rain and further benefit the region’s current conditions.
Arab nations will struggle with heat, poor air quality
Several Arab nations, including Iraq, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, were hit by an intense heat wave in early July, and extreme temperatures are expected to persist through this week. Amarah in Iraq, for example, might hit 127 degrees on Saturday, and most major cities in the country will see temperatures well above 110 multiple times this week. The weather conditions in the region are even more dangerous due to increased dust activity, causing the air quality to hit unhealthy levels.
Some relief heading toward northern Europe
Poland’s top oil refineries have struggled to hit their production targets due to intense heat, Bloomberg reported. Other countries in the region such as Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, were under heat warnings the past few days, but this week will offer slightly lower temperatures. Highs are expected to be around the low 80s, but some days can see temperatures up to 90 degrees.
https://heatmap.news/climate/summer-2024-heat-east-coast
Default Folder X 6.0.8
date: 2024-07-15, from: TidBITS blog
https://tidbits.com/watchlist/default-folder-x-6-0-8/
1Password 8.10.36
date: 2024-07-15, from: TidBITS blog
https://tidbits.com/watchlist/1password-8-10-36/
Firefox 128
date: 2024-07-15, from: TidBITS blog
https://tidbits.com/watchlist/firefox-128/
Southwest latest to aim at electric air taxi dream with Archer partnership
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
You have to plan for the future, but we’re pretty far from a license to fly
Updated Southwest Airlines and Archer Aviation have penned a preliminary deal the pair hope will give them a slice of the electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxi action* in future California skies.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/southwest_airtaxi_dream/
Nitro PDF Pro 14.3
date: 2024-07-15, from: TidBITS blog
https://tidbits.com/watchlist/nitro-pdf-pro-14-3/
Khadas Mind Graphics eGPU module adds NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti graphics to the modular mini PC
date: 2024-07-15, from: Liliputing
The Khadas Mind is a tiny computer that’s small enough to fit in your pocket. But not only is it a full-fledged PC with support for up to an Intel Core i7-1360P processor and 32GB of RAM, but it’s also a modular system designed to work with high-speed accessories. While the Khadas Mind has been available for […]
The post Khadas Mind Graphics eGPU module adds NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti graphics to the modular mini PC appeared first on Liliputing.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-07-15, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Judge Cannon dismisses Trump treason case.
https://www.npr.org/2024/07/15/g-s1-10379/trump-documents-case-dismissed
Cypress Hill Performs With the London Symphony Orchestra—Just as ‘The Simpsons’ Predicted 28 Years Ago
date: 2024-07-15, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Originally a gag on the sitcom, the unexpected collaboration drew a packed house at the Royal Albert Hall in London
Evidence for Moon caves emerges as humans hunt for hospitable hideaway under lunar surface
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Lava tubes promise shelter in future Moon missions
Scientists have uncovered evidence of underground caves on the Moon that humans could potentially use for shelter during a mission to the Earth’s natural satellite.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/evidence_for_moon_caves_emerges/
ZDI shames Microsoft for – yet another – coordinated vulnerability disclosure snafu
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
‘It seems like they really don’t have a full grasp of what’s going on with this patch’
Exclusive A Microsoft zero-day vulnerability that Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative team claims it found and reported to Redmond in May was disclosed and patched by the Windows giant in July’s Patch Tuesday – but without any credit given to ZDI.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/zdi_microsoft_vulnerability/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-07-15, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
NYT – put one of your readers on the op-ed page, so we can talk to your readers about you. It would be the bravest and smartest thing you ever did.
https://x.com/davewiner/status/1812838887900823875
Jill On Money: Summer mail bag
date: 2024-07-15, from: San Jose Mercury News
It’s that time of year, when the inbox is bulging, so time to get cracking on a lightning Q&A! Q: I will be receiving $160,000 from a life insurance policy. I do not want to risk it in the stock market — I want to put it somewhere safe where it’ll be able to earn some interest. […]
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/07/15/jill-on-money-summer-mail-bag/
NASA’s Webb Investigates Eternal Sunrises, Sunsets on Distant World
date: 2024-07-15, from: NASA breaking news
Near-infrared spectral analysis of terminator confirms differences in morning and evening atmosphere Researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have finally confirmed what models have previously predicted: An exoplanet has differences between its eternal morning and eternal evening atmosphere. WASP-39 b, a giant planet with a diameter 1.3 times greater than Jupiter, but similar mass […]
US journalist Masha Gessen is convicted in absentia in Russia for criticizing military
date: 2024-07-15, from: VOA News USA
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-07-15, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
AOC had a simple message for an unnamed senior Democrat who reportedly said the party had “resigned ourselves” to a second Trump presidency: “Retire.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/15/aoc-democrat-trump-election-win-comments
One dead in crash on I-680 in Pacheco
date: 2024-07-15, from: San Jose Mercury News
The crash blocked all four lanes of Interstate 680 in Pacheco, the California Highway Patrol said.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/07/15/one-dead-in-crash-on-i-680-in-pacheco/
How can we civilly talk about politics in the workplace?
date: 2024-07-15, from: Marketplace Morning Report
As people process news of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, some of that processing may occur at work. And the workplace — like the rest of America — is a polarized place. Today, we’re joined by Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management, to hear how managers can guide healthy conversations over differing political viewpoints. Plus: a pulse check on China’s economy.
US Secret Service faces intense scrutiny after Trump shooting
date: 2024-07-15, from: San Jose Mercury News
Eyewitnesses in media interviews described a chaotic scene as shots rang out. Claims by some at the rally that they tried to warn officers are also fueling scrutiny.
Federal judge dismisses Trump classified documents case over concerns with prosecutor’s appointment
date: 2024-07-15, from: VOA News USA
Is Teams connector retirement a tweak to fit EU laws, or a sign of price rises to come?
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Customers debate reasons behind move, say halo of Teams has slipped now Copilot is here
Analysis Arguments over the retirement of Office 365 connectors within Teams shows no sign of abating, with some users pointing to the EU-forced unbundling of the product, while analysts are wondering if this a sign of a new, pricier, era for the application.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/teams_connector_requirement/
Judge Aileen Cannon dismisses classified documents case against Donald Trump
date: 2024-07-15, from: San Jose Mercury News
In a ruling Monday, Cannon said the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith violated the Constitution.
Former California middle school teacher convicted in 2005 murder
date: 2024-07-15, from: San Jose Mercury News
A former Inglewood middle school teacher was convicted by a jury this week in the slaying of a 21-year-old woman in 2005 and the kidnapping and sexual assault of another the following year.
More than 50 guns stolen from California store after burglars use car to ram security gates
date: 2024-07-15, from: San Jose Mercury News
Around 10 men arrived in 3 vehicles and used a silver Kia sedan to ram the front of Fowler’s Gun Room, police said.
‘Sensational’ Proof Delivers New Insights Into Prime Numbers
date: 2024-07-15, from: Quanta Magazine
The proof creates stricter limits on potential exceptions to the famous Riemann hypothesis.The post ‘Sensational’ Proof Delivers New Insights Into Prime Numbers first appeared on Quanta Magazine
https://www.quantamagazine.org/sensational-proof-delivers-new-insights-into-prime-numbers-20240715/
Sky High Sustainability: NASA Johnson’s Pocket Prairie Flourishes Atop Building 12
date: 2024-07-15, from: NASA breaking news
Buzzing with bees, baby birds, and wildflowers, the rooftop garden atop building 12 at Johnson Space Center in Houston reflects NASA’s commitment to environmental stewardship. Originally constructed in 1963, the facility was transformed in 2012, incorporating energy-efficient features that earned it LEED Gold certification. The certification is a globally recognized symbol of sustainability achievement and […]
Dive into the life (and death) of Elkhorn Slough with “Mother-Daughter Murder Night”
date: 2024-07-15, from: San Jose Mercury News
Nina Simon’s debut novel soared up the best-seller lists. Now she’s talking inspiration – from atop a stand-up paddleboard on this Monterey Bay slough.
Infoseccers claim Squarespace migration linked to DNS hijackings at Web3 firms
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Company keeps quiet amid high-profile compromises
Security researchers are claiming a spate of DNS hijackings at web3 businesses is linked to Squarespace’s acquisition of Google Domains last year.…
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-07-15, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Doc Searls: Where Journalism Fails.
https://doc.searls.com/2019/07/23/where-journalism-fails/
Are bothersome Redwood City scrub-jays exacting revenge on homeowners who took down their nest?
date: 2024-07-15, from: San Jose Mercury News
And a reader wonders why birds no longer frolic in his backyard birdbath – a plastic replacement for a heavy cement version that once attracted flocks.
TasteFood: A grainy side dish without the grains
date: 2024-07-15, from: San Jose Mercury News
Throwing a backyard party? Serve this tabbouleh-like Cauliflower Couscous Salad.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/07/15/tastefood-a-grainy-side-dish-without-the-grains/
Wish You Were Here: Exploring the Galapagos
date: 2024-07-15, from: San Jose Mercury News
A Concord reader’s recent adventures in the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador included some amusing encounters, as well as spectacular landscapes and aquatic adventures.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/07/15/wish-you-were-here-exploring-the-galapagos/
“Privacy-Preserving” Attribution: Mozilla Disappoints Us Yet Again
date: 2024-07-15, from: Tilde.news
https://blog.privacyguides.org/2024/07/14/mozilla-disappoints-us-yet-again-2/
Spin: the death metal disco player | #MagPiMonday
date: 2024-07-15, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
Ever wondered what death metal disco sounds like? Sean McManus learns that Spin will not only create it, but let you scratch it, too.
The post Spin: the death metal disco player | #MagPiMonday appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/spin-the-death-metal-disco-player-magpimonday/
The Subtle Energy Themes of the 2024 RNC
date: 2024-07-15, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Russia declared a state of emergency as forest fires rage near the Black Sea • Tornado sirens sounded in downtown Chicago last night • It will be rainy and hot in Milwaukee today for the start of the Republican National Convention.
THE TOP FIVE
- RNC to go ahead in Milwaukee despite Trump assassination
attempt
The Republican National Convention will go ahead as planned in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this week, even after Saturday’s assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump. During the four-day event, the party will formally designate Trump as its presidential candidate and learn who will be running alongside him. While not the sole focus, energy themes will be present throughout, E&E News reported last week, though of course plans may have changed in light of the weekend events. Speakers are expected to weave in references to high energy prices, call out Biden’s “anti-drilling” stance, and attack his climate policies. RNC chairman Michael Whatley, a former oil lobbyist, will likely kick things off Monday. Officials from major energy groups including the American Petroleum Institute, the National Mining Association, and the American Clean Power Association will be in attendance (and may also be at the DNC in August). A handful of conservative climate change groups will host a reception “to promote climate change policies aimed at Republicans.” Some of that will involve pushing clean energy policies, E&E News added. The RNC coordinator for the Secret Service said there would be no changes to the security plans for the event following the weekend violence. Guns aren’t allowed inside the convention center but they’ll be permitted in some areas outside the building.
- Deadly heat wave moves east
The heat wave that scalded the West last week has moved on and is bringing dangerously high temperatures to Central and Eastern states. Roughly 245 million Americans will experience temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the next few days. “Many daily record highs are possible,” according to the National Weather Service. It will be 100 degrees today in St. Louis and 102 degrees tomorrow in Washington, D.C. In July alone, 37 heat-related deaths have been reported in the U.S.
HeatRisk/NWS
While the West Coast is getting some respite from the heat, out-of-control wildfires in Southern California have burned more than 20,000 acres. Officials there say fires have scorched five times the average amount of land for this time of year. Meanwhile in Canada, 9,000 people were evacuated from the paths of wildfires over the weekend. Officials have started warning that heat waves are causing tens of billions of dollars in damage – from crop loss to productivity dips – and much of that isn’t covered by insurance.
- Survey: Americans’ support for solar and wind drops
A new survey released today from nonprofit research institution Resources for the Future has some interesting insights into Americans’ attitudes about climate change. The overall takeaway from the Climate Insights 2024 report is that the public’s views on the issue “have remained remarkably steady” since the group’s first survey in 1997. Most respondents believe, as they did 27 years ago, that the Earth’s temperature is warming (75%) and that human activity is at least partly to blame (83%). But a few things have changed over the years:
- Americans feel they know more about climate change. Today 73% of respondents say they know “at least a moderate amount” about the issue compared to 42% in 1997.
- More people see climate as their top issue. Twenty-one percent of Americans care deeply about climate change, pay attention to the news about the issue, and are likely to vote based on candidates’ climate policies. That’s up from 9% in 1997.
- Confidence in government action has risen recently. Today, 51% of Americans say the federal government is addressing climate change, up from 44% in 2020.
- Attitudes about renewables have shifted since 2013, and not necessarily in a good way. A majority of people still favor wind and solar power but their enthusiasm is wavering: Support for solar is down from 91% to 83%; support for wind is down from 84% to 70%.
- More Americans support nuclear, aren’t sure about coal, and dislike natural gas. Support for nuclear power has risen from 33% to 44%. On the flip side, support for natural gas has declined 10 percentage points to just 38%. Americans’ attitudes about coal haven’t changed much but remain unfavorable – only 18% said they think coal should be used to make electricity.
- U.K. approves 3 new solar farms
The U.K.’s new Labour government over the weekend approved three new solar farms that the previous administration had blocked. Together, the projects will generate enough electricity to power 400,000 homes. The move follows a quick decision to remove a ban on onshore wind farms. The government also put forward plans for a “rooftop revolution” that will boost the number of rooftop solar panels installed across the country.
- Hydrogen-powered ferry launches in San Francisco
In case you missed it: The first hydrogen-powered commercial passenger ferry launched in San Francisco on Friday. The fuel cell-powered vessel, called Sea Change, is undergoing a six-month pilot period during which it will carry passengers between the Ferry Building and Fisherman’s Wharf for free. America has about 620 ferries, and most of them run on diesel, “making them some of the largest emitters among commercial harbor craft,” Canary Media explained. Some operators are shifting to battery-powered ferries, but hydrogen is a better option for long-haul journeys.
THE KICKER
Minnesota is looking to hire an “interconnection ombudsperson” whose job it will be to communicate and mediate between solar developers and grid utilities to resolve conflicts on new solar projects and avoid “weeks of back and forth to get clarity on a simple misunderstanding.”
https://heatmap.news/politics/rnc-trump-energy-2024
Inside the Face Fraud Factory
date: 2024-07-15, from: 404 Media Group
An underground site is selling videos and photos of real people to bypass selfie checks for online services. In essence, these individuals have been turned into stock models for services specifically designed for fraud.
https://www.404media.co/inside-the-face-fraud-factory/
AMD predicts future AI PCs will run 30B parameter models at 100 tokens per second
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
They’re gonna need a heck of a lot of memory bandwidth – not to mention capacity – to do it
Analysis Within a few years, AMD expects to have notebook chips capable of running 30-billion-parameter large-language models locally at a speedy 100 tokens per second.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/amd_ai_pc_goal/
AMD spills the beans on Zen 5’s 16% IPC gains
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Fatter front end and execution engine meets a higher bandwidth backend and a true AVX-512 implementation
With the first Zen 5 CPUs and SoCs set to ship later this month, AMD offered a closer look at the architectural improvements underpinning the platform’s 16 percent uplift in instructions per clock (IPC) during its Tech Day event in LA last week.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/amd_spills_the_beans_on/
SpaceX’s Falcon anomaly could have serious implications for the space industry
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Musk firm to work with the FAA on why the second stage leaked liquid oxygen
Comment SpaceX has confirmed the payload of last week’s Starlink launch is pretty much a total writeoff. However, standing down Falcon 9 as authorities look into the incident could have major implications for the space industry.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/spacex_faa_probe/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-07-15, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Scripting News: Stay sane even though the news is trying to make us crazy.
http://scripting.com/2024/07/15/122832.html
Fusion OS: writing an OS in Nim
date: 2024-07-15, from: OS News
I decided to document my journey of writing an OS in Nim. Why Nim? It’s one of the few languages that allow low-level systems programming with deterministic memory management (garbage collector is optional) with destructors and move semantics. It’s also statically typed, which provides greater type safety. It also supports inline assembly, which is a must for OS development. Other options include C, C++, Rust, and Zig. They’re great languages, but I chose Nim for its simplicity, elegance, and performance. ↫ Fusion OS documentation website I love it when a hobby operating system project not only uses a less common programming language, but the author also details the entire development process in great detail. It’s not a UNIX-like, and the goals are a single 64 bit address space, capability-based security model, and a lot more. It’s targeting UEFI machines, and the code is, of course, open source and available on GitHub.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140239/fusion-os-writing-an-os-in-nim/
Atos secures funding for rescue plan, lives to fight another day
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Demain est un autre jour
The future of French IT heavyweight Atos is on firmer ground after the company secured funding for its rescue plan by signing a Lock-Up Agreement with creditors, although the restructuring remains subject to certain conditions.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/atos_secures_funding_for_rescue/
HP’s OmniBook Ultra 14 inch laptop with Ryzen AI 300 is coming in August
date: 2024-07-15, from: Liliputing
The new HP OmniBook Ultra 14 is a 3.48 pound laptop with an AMD Ryzen AI 300 series processor, support for up to 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage, and premium features including two 40 Gbps USB Type-C ports, a 9MP IR webcam, and support for WiFi 7. It’s expected to go on sale in […]
The post HP’s OmniBook Ultra 14 inch laptop with Ryzen AI 300 is coming in August appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/hps-omnibook-ultra-14-inch-laptop-with-ryzen-ai-300-is-coming-in-august/
8 months after Tustin hangar fire, why some residents are gripped by toxic uncertainty
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The LAist
The debris is known to contain asbestos and other toxins. Now, Navy contractors are dismantling and removing what remains of a torched WW-II era hangar, as a new stage of cleanup begins.
https://laist.com/news/politics/tustin-hangar-fire-toxic-uncertainty
Market movements, political calculus and an assassination attempt
date: 2024-07-15, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Stocks are set to open higher two days after the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. And this week, Republicans begin their convention in Milwaukee to formally nominate Trump as their presidential candidate. We’ll take a closer look at how investors are responding. Then, we’ll hear about reports of toxic metals in tampons and examine how World War I shaped labor participation for women.
Fresh programmer’s editor on Linux lies Zed ahead
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
New project from Atom developer gains a second host OS
Zed – sorry, US readers, that’s its name, not “Zee” – is a new coding tool. Until very recently it was Mac-only, but not any more.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/zed_editor_arrives_on_linux/
China’s economy stutters
date: 2024-07-15, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: China’s leaders meet to talk about its economy as official figures show growth is slowing again, clocking the country’s economic growth rate at 4.7% over the second quarter. How might the government respond? And later in the program, music marketing is changing. We take a look at how music reviewers on TikTok are influencing the industry as a whole.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/chinas-economy-stutters
SHOAH ENVY
date: 2024-07-15, from: Howard Jacobson blog
What with the frenzy of Jew-hatred that has erupted since more than a thousand Israelis were massacred last October - their deaths exciting an obscene blood-lust for more - and The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer’s stark, icy film showing how it was possible for the uber-Nazi Rudolph Höss to enjoy a happy family life in what was virtually Auschwitz’s back garden - the mass-killing of Jews is once again a subject for coffee-table conversation and occasion for campus exhilaration,
https://jacobsonh.substack.com/p/shoah-envy
The graying open source community needs fresh blood
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Deep experience of the older tech crowd is nothing short of vital, yet projects need new devs to move forward
Opinion A “Youth and Open Source” panel was held at the United Nations (UN) Open Source Program Office (OSPO) for Good conference in the UN building in Manhattan. There was only one little problem with it. To quote Ruth Ikegah, a young Nigerian open source project manager, “We need more young people here because I see a lot of old people here.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/opinion_open_source_attract_devs/
Trump rally shooting becomes hot topic on China’s social media
date: 2024-07-15, from: VOA News USA
Taipei, Taiwan — The shooting at a rally for former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday quickly became a trending topic on China’s social media platforms Sunday.
The Chinese foreign ministry released a statement on its website Sunday, indicating that the country is closely following the incident involving Trump.
“President Xi Jinping has expressed sympathies to former President Trump,” the Chinese foreign ministry said in its statement.
The FBI said Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, a resident of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was the suspect in the attempted assassination of Trump.
As of noon, Beijing time Sunday, the Weibo entry “Trump was shot” had garnered more than 300 million views, making it the top trending topic on the platform. Weibo, a Chinese social media platform similar to X, formerly Twitter, mirrors trends seen on international platforms like X, which is banned in China.
Not only did the entry “Trump was shot” dominate Weibo’s trending topics, but at one point, half of the top 20 searches were related to the shooting. Updates such as “Trump’s right ear was shot through by a bullet,” “One person died at the scene,” and “The shooting suspect was killed,” along with U.S. President Joe Biden’s responses, also garnered significant attention.
Fast reaction came also from Chinese businesses: By noon Sunday in Beijing, shopping websites like Taobao and Pinduoduo listed T-shirts featuring images of Trump raising his arms after being injured. Some internet commenters jokingly remarked, “This is the speed of Chinese e-commerce.”
Major state media outlets, including Xinhua News Agency and CCTV, extensively covered the shooting.
Many Chinese experts interviewed said they believed that the assassination attempt was genuine and speculated that it could positively influence Trump’s campaign.
Chinese social media was also rife with speculation that the shooting was “self-directed and self-staged.”
Notably, Jin Hao, former executive editor of Xinhua News Agency’s “World Military,” commented on Weibo, saying that, after looking at the clips from the scene and observing Trump’s “remarkably swift” reaction, “he [knew he] was shot as soon as he touched his ears and immediately crouched down.” Jin remarked, “This isn’t something that ordinary people can react to.”
Some Weibo users also echoed that “it has been practiced hundreds of times.”
However, this conspiracy theory faced criticism from many bloggers, and others who argued that Trump’s ear injury was just a few centimeters away from the brain.
Even Jin Canrong, a professor at the School of International Relations at Renmin University of China, known for his strong anti-American stance, bluntly stated in an interview with the Shanghai-based media Observer Net that this incident was “an assassination.”
Jin noted that in the photos from the scene, the injured Trump raised his hands in a fighting gesture, surrounded by Secret Service agents and the American flag, effectively creating a heroic image for himself.
Currently based in California, Albert Chiu, a political science professor at Taiwan’s Tunghai University, said in an interview with VOA that Trump was shot during a live broadcast, and the shooter was killed on the scene, making it hard for any “conspiracy theory” to take hold. He emphasized that the ongoing culture of political assassination in the United States warrants more attention.
According to He Yue, a member of the National Union of Journalists in the United Kingdom, the enthusiasm of Chinese netizens for discussing the shooting reflects daily restrictions on free speech, where “domestic politics is off-limits.” They can only engage openly when negative topics related to American democracy arise, He Yue said.
Because “Chinese netizens really cannot discuss Chinese politics, when it comes to other countries’ political events, like the shooting, it feels like they’ve found an outlet to vent,” he told VOA. “The most heated discussions revolve around whether this is a ploy and who orchestrated it. Chinese people have lived in a world of falsehoods for too long; everything feels fake, so they use this mindset to judge foreigners.”
Taiwan’s reaction
On Sunday, Chen Shui-bian, former Taiwanese president who was shot while campaigning for reelection two decades ago, pointed out in interviews with several Taiwanese media outlets that the locations of both shootings — his in Tainan, in southern Taiwan, and Trump’s in Butler, Pennsylvania — can be seen as “sacred places of democracy” for both countries. Each attack resulted in minor injuries to presidential candidates, which he characterized as “a striking coincidence.”
One day before the 2004 Taiwan presidential election, the “319 shooting incident” occurred. President Chen was shot while campaigning in a jeep in Tainan. The bullet only caused a minor abdominal injury after penetrating his clothing.
The Presidential Office of Taiwan stated Sunday, “President (Lai Ching-te) extends sincere concerns to former President Trump and prays for his speedy recovery.” Lai strongly condemned any form of political violence and expressed his deepest condolences to all victims.
Eric Chu, chairman of the China-friendly opposition Kuomintang party, also stated in an interview that he promptly expressed condolences to the U.S. side, hoping for former President Trump’s swift recovery, and emphasizing the party’s condemnation of political violence.
Lenovo hit with higher patent payout, both sides claim a win
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Case centers on 3G, 4G, and 5G patents held by US wireless IP holder InterDigital
Lenovo is claiming a victory of sorts in a UK Court of Appeal ruling that bumps up the amount it owes US patentholder InterDigital in a telecoms licensing dispute - the payment is much lower than the total it might have had to cough up.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/lenovo_hit_with_higher_patent/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-07-15, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
MSNBC, FOX And CNN All Saw Massive Drops In Viewership Last Week.
https://crooksandliars.com/2024/07/msnbc-fox-and-cnn-all-saw-massive-drops
Empowering undergraduate computer science students to shape generative AI research
date: 2024-07-15, from: Raspberry Pi (.org)
As use of generative artificial intelligence (or generative AI) tools such as ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, or Gemini becomes more widespread, educators are thinking carefully about the place of these tools in their classrooms. For undergraduate education, there are concerns about the role of generative AI tools in supporting teaching and assessment practices. For undergraduate computer…
The post Empowering undergraduate computer science students to shape generative AI research appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.
A defiant Trump equals a defiant base
date: 2024-07-15, from: VOA News USA
A defiant former President Donald Trump will attend the full Republican National Convention, just days after he survived an assassination attempt. VOA’s Senior Washington Correspondent Carolyn Presutti is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and tells us how his supporters, after Saturday’s shock, are now energized.
https://www.voanews.com/a/a-defiant-trump-equals-a-defiant-base/7698403.html
Hey Microsoft – what ever happened to ‘Developers, developers, developers’?
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Hey, here’s an idea… create a point system for every time Microsoft hurts us
Opinion As Microsoft approaches its 50th birthday next year, it can look back with satisfaction at having created the first era of universal corporate computing, and of having ridden successfully on the coat-tails of the second.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/opinion_development_ms/
GOP convention protests are on despite shooting at Trump rally
date: 2024-07-15, from: VOA News USA
MILWAUKEE — Activists gathering in Milwaukee for the start of the Republican National Convention say the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump won’t affect their long-standing plans to demonstrate outside the convention site this week.
A diverse range of organizations and activists is expected outside the downtown Fiserv Forum. The largest expected demonstration was slated to start Monday morning.
The Coalition to March on the RNC, comprised largely of local groups, planned to protest for access to abortion rights, for immigrant rights, and against the war in Gaza among other issues.
“The shooting has nothing to do with us,” said Omar Flores, a coalition spokesman, speaking about the Saturday evening shots fired at Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “We’re going to continue with the march as we planned.”
The U.S. Secret Service has said security plans — in the works for more than a year — remain the same after the Saturday shooting in which Trump has said his ear was pierced by a bullet and images show blood streaming from a wound. A nearby audience member was fatally shot and two others critically injured in the assault, which has prompted widespread calls to evaluate security measures.
The progressive coalition protesting the RNC has touted their Monday demonstrations as “family friendly.”
Organizers expect an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 attendees. Separately, the Philadelphia-based Poor People’s Army, which organizes for economic justice, plans an afternoon march. Smaller organizations also plan to demonstrate inside parks closer to the convention site where Trump is set to officially accept the party’s presidential nomination later this week.
Milwaukee’s leaders reiterated their confidence in security plans Sunday as delegates, activists and journalists started arriving in town. An estimated 30,000 people are expected.
Trump arrived in Milwaukee on Sunday.
“We take this matter very, very seriously. We take public safety very, very seriously,” Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said Sunday. “And I have been so pleased to work in collaboration not just with the United States Secret Service but also with local law enforcement and public safety on the ground here.”
Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said law enforcement was “working around the clock” to be ready.
Before the shooting in Pennsylvania, the activist coalition had been at odds with the city and law enforcement for months over a march route. Activists lost a lawsuit over restrictions on where they could demonstrate and had raised concerns about their message being stifled.
But on Friday they announced a “handshake agreement” over their route that includes allowing a city representative to accompany their protest to “make sure things go without a hitch.”
City officials and federal authorities have repeatedly said their priority is safety and insist they’ve made free speech accommodations.
The city has allowed protests at two parks near the convention. One, Haymarket Square Park, is visible from the convention site. There is to be a city-provided stage in the vicinity and speakers will get 20 minutes apiece. A city sign-up lists more than 100 people with a wide range of agendas, including anti-abortion rights activists, veterans groups and political candidates. The other park, Zeidler Union Square, is just under a mile away.
Activists say they’ll infuse their messages with moments of levity, including costumes and a television ventriloquist who is bringing a Trump puppet.
Heavy police presence is also assured.
Many activists are using the experience in Milwaukee to prepare for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month. That event is expected to draw even more people, and Chicago police have been undergoing training on constitutional policing and preparing for the possibility of mass arrests.
Milwaukee police have done some exercises related to the convention, though not widespread training.
“With any very large gathering, people must always be on top of their toes,” said Hilario Deleon, chairman of the Milwaukee County Republican Party. “If it’s successful, the city is successful.”
There is no honor among RAM thieves – but sometimes there is karma
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Techie left spitting chips made sure the boss was, too
Who, Me? Welcome to the working week, dear readers, and good luck navigating whatever it brings – a task we hope to illuminate with a fresh instalment of Who, Me?, the reader-contributed column in which you share tales of the times you weren’t at your best but managed to get away with it.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/who_me/
Today in SCV History (July 15)
date: 2024-07-15, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1891 – R.E. Nickel publishes area’s first newspaper, The Acton Rooster. [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-july-15/
Google can totally explain why Chromium browsers quietly tell only its websites about your CPU, GPU usage
date: 2024-07-15, from: OS News
It’s time for Google being Google, this time by using an undocumented APIs to track resource usage when using Chrome. When visiting a *.google.com domain, the Google site can use the API to query the real-time CPU, GPU, and memory usage of your browser, as well as info about the processor you’re using, so that whatever service is being provided – such as video-conferencing with Google Meet – could, for instance, be optimized and tweaked so that it doesn’t overly tax your computer. The functionality is implemented as an API provided by an extension baked into Chromium – the browser brains primarily developed by Google and used in Chrome, Edge, Opera, Brave, and others. ↫ Brandon Vigliarolo at The Register The original goal of the API was to give Google’s various video chat services – I’ve lost count – the ability to optimise themselves based on the available system resources. Crucially, though, this API is only available to Google’s domains, and other, competing services cannot make use of it. This is in clear violation of the European Union’s Digital Markets Act, and with Chrome being by far the most popular browser in the world, and thus a clear gatekeeper, the European Commission really should have something to say about this. For its part, Google told The Register it claims to comply with the DMA, so we might see a change to this API soon. Aside from optimising video chat performance, the API, which is baked into a non-removable extension, also tracks performance issues and crashes and reports these back to Google. This second use, too, is at its core not a bad thing – especially if users are given the option to opt out of such crash analytics. Still, it seems odd to use an undocumented API for something like this, but I’m not a developer so what do I know. Mind you, other Chromium-based browsers also report this data back to Google, which is wild when you think about it. Normally I would suggest people switch to Firefox, but I’ve got some choice words for Firefox and Mozilla, too, later today.
Pretty pictures, bootable floppy disks, and the first Canon Cat demo?
date: 2024-07-15, from: OS News
About a month ago, Cameron Kaiser first introduced us to the Canon Cat, a computer designed by Jeff Raskin, but abandoned within six months by Canon, who had no idea what to do with it. In his second article on the Cat, Kaiser dives much deeper into the software and operating system of the Cat, even going so far as to become the first person to write software for it. One of the most surprising aspects of the Cat is that it’s collaborative; other users can call into your Cat using a landline and edit the same document you’re working on remotely. Selecting text has other functions too. When I say everything goes in the workspace, I do mean everything. The Cat is designed to be collabourative: you can hook up your Cat to a phone line, or at least you could when landlines were more ubiquitous, and someone could call in and literally type into your document remotely. If you dialed up a service, you would type into the document and mark and send text to the remote system, and the remote system’s response would also become part of your document. (That goes for the RS-232 port as well, by the way. In fact, we’ll deliberately exploit this capability for the projects in this article.) ↫ Cameron Kaiser You can also do calculations right into the text, going so far as allowing the user to define variables and reuse those variables throughout the text to perform various equations and other mathematic operations. If you go back and change the value of a variable, all other equations using those variables are updated as well. That’s quite nifty, especially considering the age of the Cat, and since the Cat is fixed width, you can effectively create spreadsheets this way, too. There’s really far too much to cover here, and I strongly suggest you head on over and read the entire thing.
Your next datacenter could be in the middle of nowhere
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Training AI models doesn’t need low latency. It needs cheap energy – wherever it can be found
Feature Port Hedland is a town of just 16,000 people in a hot and dusty corner of northwestern Australia, 1,600 kilometers by road from the nearest substantial city. As such, it’s seemingly an odd place for a datacenter run by Australian operator NEXTDC. Yet such locations are increasingly in demand, thanks to their proximity to energy sources – given the voracious appetite for compute capacity to train artificial intelligence models.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/remote_datacenters_on_the_rise/
China’s internet cleanup campaigns are going so well it needs a new one to protect kids
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Years of crackdowns haven’t stopped some revolting stuff
China’s many attempts to clean up its internet appear not to have prevented the proliferation of revolting material and products that abuse or target children.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/cac_summer_cleanup/
Security in focus as Republicans open nominating convention following Trump shooting
date: 2024-07-15, from: VOA News USA
Google reportedly in talks to buy infosec outfit Wiz for $23 billion
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The security industry has never had a clear leader – could it be the Chocolate Factory?
Ask any techie to name who leads the market for OSes, databases, networks or ERP and the answers are clear: Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, and SAP.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/google_wiz_acquisition/
Plans to Reactivate Exxon’s Operations off Santa Barbara Coast Deemed ‘Inadequate’
date: 2024-07-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The ghost of the 2015 oil pipeline spill at Refugio Beach continues to haunt the coast.
The post Plans to Reactivate Exxon’s Operations off Santa Barbara Coast Deemed ‘Inadequate’ appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Biden, in somber Oval Office address, calls for unity, peace after Trump shooting
date: 2024-07-15, from: VOA News USA
President Joe Biden on Sunday summoned the gravitas of the Oval Office to entreat Americans to unify and shun political violence after a stunning attempt on the life of rival Donald Trump a day earlier. Trump, en route to the political convention where he is expected to clinch the Republican presidential nomination, made similar calls – in a sign both men fear trouble ahead as the November election looms. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.
Aided By Weather, Crews Make Modest Progress on Lake Fire
date: 2024-07-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Containment remains at 19 percent, and no new evacuation warnings were issued.
The post Aided By Weather, Crews Make Modest Progress on Lake Fire appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
I spy another mSpy breach: Millions more stalkerware buyers exposed
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Also: Velops routers love plaintext; everything is a dark pattern; Internet Explorer rises from the grave, and more
Infosec in brief Commercial spyware maker mSpy has been breached – again – and millions of purchasers can be identified from the spilled records.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/infosec_roundup/
American volunteer’s urge to help Ukraine rooted in family’s struggle
date: 2024-07-15, from: VOA News USA
Rima Ziuraitis, an American of Lithuanian descent, has been teaching basic first aid to military personnel and civilians in Ukraine for over a year. Ziuraitis, who first arrived in Ukraine as a volunteer in the fall of 2022, has decided to stay in the country and become a medical instructor. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story.
Deputies receive reports of person with gun
date: 2024-07-15, from: The Signal
Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station deputies responded to reports of a man armed with a gun in Canyon Country on Sunday afternoon and after conducting their investigation didn’t find any […]
The post Deputies receive reports of person with gun appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/07/deputies-receive-reports-of-person-with-gun/
UK cyber-boss slams China’s bug-hoarding laws
date: 2024-07-15, updated: 2024-07-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Plus: Japanese scientists ID ancient supernova; AWS dismisses China trouble rumor; and more
ASIA IN BRIEF The interim CEO of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has criticized China’s approach to bug reporting.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/asia_technology_news_weekly_roundup/
Stop using ease-out in your UIs!
date: 2024-07-15, from: Lean Rada’s blog
For RSS readers: This article contains interactive content available on the original post on leanrada.com.
Before anything, let me present you with a set of controls with no context.
Stop using ease-out, or ease-in-out, or whatever-out, in every UI animation!
There is a lot of propaganda on the internet against ease-in, saying that it’s “unnatural”, “unusual”, or that it’s “of the devil”. Some say that it’s both “sluggish” and “abrupt”. Many pointing to ease-out as the safe, smooth, satisfying messiah of animation (including its safer kin, ease-in-out). There are even published ‘best practices’ which can be summed up to “just use ease-out”. This post is here to set things straight — in a nonlinear fashion.
So, why not ease-out? And what to use instead?
Reason #1. It’s overused
Let’s get the weakest point out of the way. Ease out is boring because
it’s everywhere. Because it’s part of the browser default
ease function (which is a combination of a fast ease-in
with a slow ease-out).
It’s like how corners are getting rounder and rounder on the web simply because it’s easy and built-in.
Source: Figma
Is the public missing out on better web animations (and better corners) because of the ubiquity of these practices? Yes.
Reason #2. It’s unrealistic
How about a study in skeuomorphism?
Imagine a mechanical toggle switch. Something like the following video:
Now here’s an interactive physics simulation of the same spring-based toggle switch:
Interactive content: Visit the website to play with interactive content! Alternative text: interactive simulation of a mechanical switch
Drag your pointer horizontally and vertically across the simulation window to control the appendage that toggles the switch.
This is a physics-based simulation with simulated forces, torques, and constraints. Let’s slow the simulation down and show some force lines for a better look.
Interactive content: Visit the website to play with interactive content! Alternative text: interactive simulation of a mechanical switch
Play around with the simulation!
Here’s what a typical motion looks like:
Typical output graph of the above simulation
Notice the position curve (red). We’ll get to the force curve later. Does the position curve look anything familiar? Compare that with some standard easing functions:
Common easing functions. Source: MDN
The toggle switch’s position curve follows the ease-in curve! A slow start, gradually building up momentum, then finally stopping to a satisfying ‘click’!
Contrary to “best practice”, the natural motion of a toggle switch does not follow an ease-out nor an ease-in-out curve! I’ll go further and say that ease-out is unnatural for any kind of UI control that represents a tactile interaction.
Like buttons. In the real world, buttons (the ones that are nice to press anyway) have some kind of buckling mechanism when pressed. Similar to the toggle switch example above, there’s a buildup, a fall, and a final ‘click’ into place.